CH23 (84), Leaf City

Mikail was walking along Route 4 when he saw a sign that said 10 km till Leaf City. Yesterday he had walked around 50 km, and since this morning he had covered another 20 km. The most notable event yesterday was that he had seen a troop of wild Mankey. That was the first time he had seen that species, so that was a bit exciting.

He saw them while they were passing through the area, but he had only enough time to check out one of them before they were gone. He didn't pursue them, because he was not sure if he wanted a Mankey, at least for now. So he decided to be satisfied that he had checked out at least one of them.

'Species: Mankey

Gender: Female

Type: Fighting

Potential: Light Yellow

Stage: Iron-stage (mid)

Genetic variation: None

Abilities: Anger Point

Talents: None

Affinities: Fighting/(weap./pers.)Aura'

The Mankey's potential was okay, and he was mildly curious about the potential of the troop leader, but he let it go. Maybe he would come back for a Mankey when he decided that he wanted a team for an Aura User alias.

Since he knew that the fighting type was a sub-branch of aura, it would make sense to specialize in fighting-type Pokemon for that alias. It turned out that in this Universe fighting-type energy was personalized Aura that could be weaponized, Pokemon that did it instinctively and passively were categorized as fighting types.

He also briefly entertained the idea of challenging a Senior-class trainer after he easily won a few more battles against some Juniors, but he ultimately decided against it. He had no interest in participating in a battle that he knew he was going to lose with a 99% probability.

I mean every single Senior-class trainer had at least 3 silver-stage Pokemon, so as long as his opponent was not an idiot, the gap in strength between their Pokemon meant he would lose.

Well, he could, maybe, win if it was against a newly promoted Senior, but how high was the likelihood of encountering someone like that as his opponent, if he did not specifically search for someone like that.

Anyway, that was what happened yesterday. Today, he, or more like Nyx, managed to find something new, a berry he did not have before.

'Name: Rindo Berry

Type: Grass

Class: F

Uses: Contains nutrition and grass-type energy.

Can be eaten as food and used as a supplement, it's especially beneficial for grass-type Pokemon.'

It turned out to be one of those berries, that in the games, could halve the damage of a single elemental move during battle. Here that effect did not exist, but it was a useful source of grass-type energy and beneficial to the training of grass-types.

Personally, he liked this effect more, but that's probably just him. He praised Nyx like always. He practically had to, since she kept looking at him with a look that said praise me, praise me. Actually, he was a hard man that was immune to cute and adorable things, but as a trainer, he liked to avoid making his Pokemon sad, as long as it was unnecessary.

Anyway, knowing that there was only 10 km left to Leaf City, he accelerated his walking pace. It took him about 30 minutes to arrive at the periphery of the city, and his first thought when he saw it was that they probably took the city name too seriously.

The city sign was wrapped in vines, and he could already see way too much green for an urban city. He was proven right, because after he entered the city he saw that there were many, many green regions, like parks and playgrounds, in the city.

The city was in a sense like Honey City, just that instead of honey and bug types, Leaf City focused on flora and grass types. He was starting to see a pattern there and was starting to wonder if all Tier 5 cities followed that example.

That would be weird and kind of interesting at the same time. Mainly, because he was kind of curious how they avoided becoming repetitive if that was the case. Nevertheless, he always enjoyed walking through a city for the first time.

Seeing the citizens walking around with a Pokemon that fit the theme of the city was always a bit amusing for him. Here the most common Pokemon following around people were, Oddish, Bellsprout, Sunkern, and Hoppip, as well as their first evolutions. Their last evolutions were rare, but that was normal.

He saw the occasional Lotad, Seedot, Roselia, and even 1 or 2 Sewaddle as well as Shroomish, but those were much rarer than the first group. While roaming around he learned of a few interesting points.

First of all, Leaf City had a Minor Gym. The gym specialized in grass types, and he could definitely remember that Flower City, one of the cities that were on the way to Rose's home, had a Minor Gym that specialized in grass types as well. So, he asked around what that was about, and the answer made sense.

Actually, he had thought of it as well, he just wanted to make sure he was right. Anyway, since there were 66 Minor Gyms in Kanto, there were bound to be repetitions. The alliance tried to make sure that those repetitions were distributed evenly across Kanto.

Currently, there were 3 minor grass-type gyms, and they were located in the left-, center-, and right parts of Kanto respectively. This allowed people to challenge different types of gyms without having to travel to all of Kanto.

Surprisingly, there was no Hall, which meant that the Gym was mostly unchallenged. The second point was that he found a Grass Club. It was the grass-type counterpart of the Bug Club in Honey City. He had no way to join it since he currently had no grass-type Pokemon, but he did visit it to watch a few battles.

He paid some money to watch Pokemon beat the shit out of each other, and he had to say the 80 Poke were worth it. He watched the fight between two Foresters, which was the equivalent of Senior-class trainers, and it was awesome to watch. It was a 3 vs 3 battle and one of the participants even had a Venusaur.

Well, the guy with the Venusaur still lost to the lady with the Exeggutor, but both are great Pokemon, so he had fun watching them bash each other anyway. After the fight, while leaving the stands of the court, he felt someone with a respectable amount of aura enter his sensing range.

Whoever that was, was at least a Tier 1 Aura User, or at least someone that did not bother suppressing his aura below that grade, so he got curious about the person and tried to find him or her. Well, it turned out to be a guy.

The youth looked like someone that is about 16/17 years old, which actually put him into that age range, +-1 or 2 years. He seemed around 175 cm tall and looked slim but not thin. The first thing that stood out to Mikail was the dark blue, spiky hair. The fellow had an ivory skin tone, and he saw blue eyes when the guy turned in his direction for a moment.

Since this was the first time that he met someone besides himself that had aura, Mikail decided to follow him. The youth left the grass club and Mikail followed him. The two walked, one ahead and the other following behind, in the direction of the PokeCenter.

When they arrived at the PokeCenter, the guy did not enter but walked towards the public battlefield behind the center instead. Mikail obviously followed along. There were quite a few people around the place, and he walked towards the stands to discreetly observe the guy from there.

No matter how stalkerish he sounded, he was simply observing someone from a distance due to curiosity, there was nothing stalkerish about that.

Anyway, he sat there for the next hour watching the guy battle against others.

By this point, Mikail was pretty sure that the guy had started his official journey just recently, even if he had some, or more like one Pokemon, longer than that. The reason for this conclusion was that the guy only used 3 Pokemon, and he had no other PokeBalls on his belt.

While this did not necessarily mean he had no other Pokemon, it did give that impression. Additionally, the strength of his 3 Pokemon were another indicator, along with his age. The youth had a Lucario, that seemed to be somewhere around the bronze stage, most likely low or mid.

Mikail did not believe that he could check its potential from a distance without being noticed, so he didn't. Which was why he had to guess their strength instead of being sure. Anyway, besides Lucario, he also had an iron-stage Chimchar, and an iron-stage Ralts, which was quite an impressive line-up.

He had a super-rare aura Pokemon, a royal Pokemon, and another quite rare Pokemon. If he did not have some kind of connection, of any kind, Mikail was willing to eat his hat. From the line-up, it looked as if the fellow wanted to specialize in fighting types, and he already had the makings of a strong team.

Lucario, Infernape, and Gallade were strong Pokemon that could become the ace of any team they were a part of so that he already had all three was impressive. Especially, if their potential was good. After an hour of observing him, Mikail came to the preliminary conclusion that the guy was an approachable, friendly, and helpful person.

He would encourage the loser if he won, congratulate the winner with a smile if he lost, and spoke nicely to those that approached him for whatever reason. Furthermore, he had some kind of confident air, that made him popular among the young ladies, if Mikail interpreted their giggling correctly.

So, after making that conclusion he decided to talk to the fellow since it would be great to get acquainted with another aura user. "Excuse me," he said once he stood in front of him. "Yeah?" The guy focused on him and asked.

"Sorry if this sounds kind of weird, but I have watched a few of your battles, and I have to say I am impressed by your Pokemon." Mikail said while thinking that a little bit of flattery always helps. "That's alright. It's a public place, so anyone can watch whatever they want. Still, thank you, I am quite proud of them as well." The guy answered before he could start the next sentence, but Mikail used that last sentence to continue.

"And you do have something to be proud of. Lucario, Chimchar, and Ralts are really rare Pokemon, some more than the others but still rare. Would it be okay with you, if I ask where you found them? I would be really interested in finding some as well, so that information would be extremely useful." Mikail asked, hoping that the guy did not think his request was too much.

The youth chuckled a bit before he answered. "I don't mind. You're not the first person to ask me that question, and I doubt you're going to be the last. I understand that they are popular Pokemon, especially Lucario since it's the signature Pokemon of the Aura Guardians, so I'm already used to it." He said and Mikail had to nod.

He seemed to notice that Mikail was still waiting for the answer, so he continued without making him wait. "As for where I got them, unfortunately, I can't help you with that. Not because I don't want to or to hide it, but because I didn't catch them in the wild," he answered.

Mikail was a bit disappointed at that, but he had actually expected something along those lines. The whole point of Mikail approaching the fellow was to get acquainted with him, after all. The information would have simply been a sweet bonus.

He seemed to sense some of Mikail's disappointment, thanks to some emotion-sensing no doubt because he apparently decided to elaborate. "I received Riolu from my family before I started my journey, and Chimchar is my official starter. I received her as my official starter after gaining my qualifications in Sinnoh," he explained, and Mikail was a little bit surprised.

"You're from Sinnoh? I could have sworn you were from Kanto." Mikail asked him because Mikail had assumed the guy was from Rota, since he had aura, a Lucario, and he was starting in Kanto. He smiled at the question.

"Yes, I'm from Kanto. I just spent a year in Sinnoh for an exchange." He said before he continued. "My name is Aaron Varon, by the way." Mikail had to smile when Aaron introduced himself.

"Like Sir Aaron, from the stories, and it even seems to fit as well with you having a Lucario." Mikail chuckled a bit, and Aaron joined him before Mikail continued. "Nice to meet you, Aaron. I am Mikail." He finished without mentioning his surname.

The reason he even used his real name was that he was not sure if Aaron would notice him lying in case Mikail used an alias. Since he wanted to get acquainted with Aaron, Mikail decided to use his real name.

"Nice to meet you as well, Mikail," Aaron replied. Mikail wanted to keep the conversation going, so decided to ask Aaron a question. "Seeing your current Pokemon it looks to me like you plan to focus on fighting types, am I right?"

Aaron nodded at that. "You're right. I plan to become a fighting-type specialist. That's actually why I am here." He began but stopped, and did not continue. "How about we walk to the bench and continue our talk there? It would be better than to keep standing here, at least I think so. What do you say?" He suggested, and I agreed with him, so we momentarily stopped our conversation to walk towards one of the benches beside the battlefield.

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I want to thank Crepusculum, one of my patrons, for providing the basic template of the OC, Aaron Varon. Crepusculum's OC, Aaron Varon, which got introduced in this chapter, won the OC event I previously held on my patre*on. Aaron is going to appear sporadically in the story, so this is not the last time he is going to appear. Thank you, once more Crepusculum.

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***A Big Thank You to greenDUECES for becoming a Patron***

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I uploaded 3 lists on patre*on. 1 for some materials (purchase &selling price), 1 some Pokemon (purchasing price), and 1 with the trainer ranks for the Battle Club as well as some of the other clubs.

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