Chapter 4

Hello everyone,

This story won't leave me alone, it just plays on repeat in my mind. So my muse is continuing! You're welcome.

What do you guys think the endgame should be? I'm not talking about his goal of defeating Lance, I'm talking bigger than that. Any suggestions on another plot line I could pursue in the pokemon world. I've already got what I think it will be, and the direction to take it there. But it could be subject to change. Let me know in the reviews!

Authors note at the bottom.

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Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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"Pride."

The way the old man said it made me feel two feet tall, as if he just tore down everything I stood for. To be fair, he was completely correct. The old ferryman didn't look at me and he didn't need to.

I wondered how it was that he got me to tell him my whole life's story, on just the first three hours of the journey. Then again, he had been ferrying all kinds of folk around the waters surrounding Hoenn, so there wasn't much he hadn't seen. Or maybe I wanted to tell him. My decision had been eating at me since I left. I didn't regret leaving, just the way I did it.

I wasn't a shady person by nature. I liked to face my problems head on, but I had not faced my parents head on. No, instead, all I left them was a note and my love.

'What love? Is that how you prove love? Gone in the middle of the night, without the decency to look the people who raised you in the eye.'

Guilt gnawed at my insides. I wanted to conquer the Indigo Plateau, but I couldn't conquer my fear and face my parents.

'Pussy.' I thought.

"You're right. It was ...is pride." I agreed with the old sailor.

"It can be a wonderful tool or your downfall, son. You just need balance." The old man continued.

"You sound like my father." I told him with a chuckle.

The old man turned my direction with a wide grin. "Sounds like a wise man."

I stood in the captain's cabin of a small ferry boat. It was the next day after I had captured my second pokemon, feebas, who I still hadn't taken out of his pokeball and met yet. Although I did get him healed before I left. I had a brand new backpack that I had discovered was built with the same technology that pokeballs were. It held five pairs of clothes for me in one section, a tent in another, basically a kitchen in another, and another pocket for miscellaneous things. It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen.

We fell into silence, and I knew the captain was content with what little wisdom he had shared for the day. Old men seemed to love preaching to kids like me. I shook my head and tried to break myself out of the funk I had been in since my conversation with the ferryman.

My thoughts moved to where I was headed and the path I would take. Currently the ferryman, who apparently was just a ship for hire, a taxi ship if you will, was taking me to the Sevii Islands. More specifically the third island, where we would get more fuel, and food before trekking North to Cinnabar island.

My path wouldn't make much sense to an onlooker, considering I eventually wanted to be in Johto more than Kanto. Blackthorn gym, and it's dragon clans, were in Johto after all. But I know my journey will take a long time, and I wanted to see a lot before the time came to take on the champion.

The unique Indigo Plateau afforded me a unique journey, considering that I could challenge any of the sixteen gyms of Johto and Kanto before trying my hand at the Indigo Plateau. And I could challenge the gyms at any time in my career as a trainer. This means I will get to travel all over the two regions battling and exploring, before chasing my goal of defeating Lance.

So first I would go to Cinnabar Island, and then travel up Route 21 to arguably the most famous starter town in the world, Pallet Town. Route 21 was supposedly full of pokemon trainers that I could battle and it would also allow me to train feebas up considering it's proximity to the ocean.

I wasn't sure if I was going to challenge the Cinnabar Gym or not. I remembered it being a late game gym, at least I thought I did. Would they even allow a trainer with no badges to challenge Blaine. I knew that most gyms adjusted the difficulty level for the trainers they faced, but they also held the right to deny trainers that fell under a certain badge requirement.

'Dad fought anyone, no matter the amount of badges.' I remembered. 'No reason to sweat it, if they don't let us then we'll just move on.'

That made me think about my starter, and that he had been cooped up in his ball since we had woken up this morning. I couldn't risk him tipping off my parents as I snuck out, so I had returned him for a little bit. My hand grabbed his pokeball and I walked out onto the deck of the small boat.

'No reason for putting it off.' I thought as I pressed the release on the ball.

Hashirama materialized on the deck of the boat with a confused look on his face. The boat took that moment to hit some choppy water causing us both to stumble on the deck. Hashi stood up after a moment and looked at me with an angry look on his face.

"Mak." Hashi grumbled at me and then looked around at our surroundings.

"We've officially started our journey together, Hashi." I told my starter, trying to distract him from the battle from the other day.

Another low rumbling sound emanated from his mouth and he crossed his arms looking away from me. I knew that he was reconsidering his choice in following me as my starter. Our first battle together had shown him that we had a long way to go when it came to battling. Had this happened with a dragon type, then it wouldn't have respected me no matter what happened moving forward, they were unforgiving.

Fighting types were generally a little bit easier to handle. They mostly cared about having great fights, and while they cared about winning, it was ok to suffer a loss every once in a while. I just had to remind him how capable I was.

"You're still mad about the battle with Brendan right?" I asked, knowing the answer already. Hashi nodded his head as he looked out into the ocean.

"It was our first battle together, and new trainers are notorious for getting themselves and their pokemon killed in the beginning. I was scared for you, and that's why I didn't let the battle continue." I explained to him. "Now I know how much punishment you can take. It won't happen again."

Hashirama met my eyes again, and stared at me for a while. I met his gaze with one of my own, not backing down. Then the anger deflated from his form and he walked over to me and held his fist out.

I smiled as I met his fist with my own. "Now let's go over what happened in the last battle, yeah?" I asked him. He nodded and let his curiosity show on his face.

"You were doing great with dodging the water gun, and that can translate to other non-physical/special attacks pretty well. So we'll keep the same movement training we've been doing, and just increase difficulty as you improve." I told him, kind of just thinking out loud about the battle.

"Your punches and kicks are strong now that you're using focus energy pretty much all the time. That'll eventually turn into fighting moves on it's own, but we'll continue that training to speed that process up also." I continued. "Our biggest problem right now, is distance."

Hashi nodded his head in agreement, which I took as a great sign considering he must have thought of this already. I continued to be impressed by the intelligence of pokemon. Was it because he had watched around a hundred battles at the gym already? Or was it because of his natural inclination to fighting?

"Thankfully, you just learned a really useful move the other day that I had forgotten about. So when we land at the Sevii Islands, we're gonna do some training with your control over sand attack." I finished my assessment.

Hashi actually swept his leg out, as if spraying sand all over the place and I could feel him summon his energy to perform the new move. The dust on the deck of the boat rose up, but it was so small that it was useless.

'I guess that tells me that we need an existing source of sand to be able to make it work.' I thought to myself.

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"Wake up, kid."

I opened my eyes to see a bunk directly above me. I was still on the boat heading to Three Island. I still didn't know why the old ferryman had chosen that island. All I knew was that it had the biggest town in the Sevii Islands.

I reached up and shook Hashi who was on the top bunk still asleep. He woke up with a grunt before climbing down and joining me.

"Did we make it?" I asked the captain as I walked out onto the deck. He didn't need to answer me because as soon as I cleared the cabin, I was met with the sounds of wingull and the smell of fish. My eyes locked on to the port quickly.

It was a little bigger than the one in Dewford Town, and there was a much more touristy feel to it. Fishermen sold some of the weaker fish pokemon as food in some stalls. Some sold a tour ride around the island.

The beach to my left that extended all the way down to an obviously new bridge was almost completely full of people and pokemon. There was a sign that declared 'no battles' to prevent injury collateral damage to the other tourists so I didn't get to see any battles going on.

"When do I need to be back?" I asked the captain that had woken me up and was now stepping off of his boat.

"Set sail in the morning. You can sleep on the boat if you'd like, but there is a pokecenter in town for trainers." The captain responded as he walked away.

'Definitely sleeping in the pokecenter.' I thought to myself. I would definitely be taking advantage of the privileges the league granted it's trainers. The best of which allow me to stay at a pokemon center for free three nights a week. Pokemons health care was also free to all registered trainers within that region. The Sevii islands are technically a part of the Indigo League, so it applied to me.

That wasn't to say that pokemon centers weren't just a money pit for the league, in fact, that wasn't even close to the truth. Where they made all of their money, was the item shop that was also located in the same pokemon center. They provided everything a trainer might need for everyday life, plus extra.

Since training was such a lucrative career path, the prices were way overpriced. As in, the companies who made the products were borderline price gouging. There wasn't a lot anyone could do about it since the technology used in creating pokeballs, TM's, HM's, etc. was heavily guarded. And realistically, you can teach all the moves to pokemon if you have the intellect to look it up on the pokenet, so TM's and HM's were considered a short-cut to hard work. Plus, even average trainers made enough money to not care for the costs.

All of this went through my head as I walked down the main road and into town. There were much more buildings than one would expect from the pokemon world, but I chalked it up to this being real life and not a video game anymore. Residential neighborhoods stuck close to the center of town, but were also far enough away to provide privacy to the locals. People didn't really use vehicles that much unless it was for commercial use because it was inefficient. There were cheap pokemon who could fill that role, far cheaper than a locomotive.

'And it's better for the environment.' My mind supplied as I walked past the pokemon center in the town.

Since I only had the rest of the day to myself before we set sail for Cinnabar Island, I wanted to visit Berry Forest, a smaller island covered in a sprawling forest. It connected to Three Island via the big bridge I had noticed from earlier. That bridge just so happened to be where trainers would go to battle on the island.

It didn't take me long to reach the bridge, and I figured out just why it was such a great spot for battling.

It was huge. The bridge had to be at least a hundred yards across and about a mile long. I could see at least four different battles going on in my line of sight alone.

As soon as I stepped onto the bridge, I was challenged to a battle. "Hey kid!"

I turned to see a girl that looked maybe a year older than I was with blonde hair covered by a baseball cap. She had been leaning on the railing when I had arrived and I didn't think she had noticed me.

"What's up?" I asked nonchalantly, while trying not to check the girl out. 'Trainers stay in fantastic shape.'

"Looking for a battle?"

'Dude, people in this world only care about one thing.' I thought to myself.

"Sure. Do you have any badges yet?" I asked her, making sure I wasn't biting off more than I could chew.

"None. You?" She asked while grabbing one of the two pokeballs on her belt and enlarging it.

That made me a little more relieved. Badges weren't a great way of determining how strong one's pokemon were, but it was a general marker for trainers. One badge trainer typically indicated someone who had been doing it for a few months, and had some talent in it, the league granted you six months to complete this before they would strip you of your license. Seventy percent of trainers lost their license during this time.

When a trainer acquired two badges, you typically knew that the trainer was serious and could hold his own. The league gave you a year after your first badge to acquire this one. Three badges guaranteed your position as a trainer to the league, as you reached the requirement to make a career out of the profession. This is where most trainers realized that the 'one year journey' was a sham.

Four badges and up started opening a lot of doors for people. There were only about five hundred trainers a year out of every region to make it to this level. Typically, this is where it started taking a long time for pokemon to get stronger, and a lot of trainers decided to call it quits at this point. There were only a couple hundred trainers a year that would challenge for their sixth badge. And most would be in year two or three as a trainer at this point. This was impressive considering that about ten thousand new trainers started their journey every year.

The difficulty level of the seventh and eighth badges was astronomical compared to the beginning six, and most took years between the battles to train up their pokemon. That was when the league started calling, offering positions for ace trainers, gym apprenticeships, and other lucrative positions. Most trainers could only dream of achieving this level.

After defeating your eighth badge in a region, you're considered on a different level of pokemon trainers. This is when people started making changes to their pokemon rosters to take on the elite four. Defeating even one elite four in a region guarantees you qualifications for a gym leader position.

"None, but Hashi here…" I said as I pointed at the little guy beside me. "...is up for the challenge."

I mentally slapped myself for getting distracted thinking about gym badges, that stuff was a long way away from being important.

"If you say so!" She responded with a maniacal grin. "Ready?"

I nodded to her and jogged a couple of feet away from where Hashi and the houndour were facing off. Hashi had already dropped into his stance.

"Let's do it." I said as I got into position.

Then we stared at each other, mimicking our pokemon. Both of us waited on the other to begin. Then it was like an unspoken signal, the battle began.

"Ember."

Hashi reacted to her command faster than her own Houndour did and jumped off to the side. While doing this, his left foot drug the ground a little bit and summoned the sand that had been accumulating on the bridge, just as we had planned the day before on the boat ride over.

A flame appeared in the houndour's mouth just as a wall of sand headed his direction. He was forced to cancel the move and turn away to avoid it getting in his eyes. That was a mistake, because Hashi was running his direction, following the sand. When the Houndour looked back at Hashi, he was met with a focus energy enhanced fist that sent his head and neck looking the other direction.

Dazed, the houndour could do nothing as Hashi used his superior weight to flip the dog on the ground and mount it. Three punches later, and Hashi climbed off of the obviously unconscious houndour.

Everything happened in less than thirty seconds, and without a single command from me. The blonde girl in front of me stood in shock at the outcome of the battle. She hadn't even had time to give any more commands to her pokemon besides the initial ember.

"Good battle." I told her as I approached my starter. I leaned down to him and held out my fist. "Good fucking job dude. You executed the plan perfectly!"

"What the hell was that!?" The blonde girl asked as she rushed over to her pokemon.

'You just got wrecked girl.' I wanted to tell her.

Hashi and I looked at her like she was crazy. "I won." I said simply, as if she didn't already know that.

She was too busy checking the pulse on her pokemon to come up with a retort. When she was satisfied he wasn't dead she returned him before standing back up and looking at me.

"Why did it do that?" She asked, pointing at Hashi.

"Because that is how I've trained Hashi to battle." I said, confused about her reaction. "You do realize he's a fighting type pokemon right?"

She got offended by that. "Of course I fucking know that! That means he can use fighting type moves, not whatever that was!"

'She's obviously never watched a high level pokemon battle.' I thought. 'Those monsters use everything they can to do damage.'

"Look, 'moves' are just a means to an end in a pokemon battle. That end is to win." I told her, explaining it in simple terms.

She sputtered in astonishment at me then before reaching into her pocket and pulling out two-hundred dollars and shoving them in my hand. Then she ran in the direction of the pokemon center.

I pocketed my money with a smile, and turned to make my way down the bridge. My starter summed up our thoughts pretty well with his confused grunt.

"Mak?" Hashi asked and I translated it to 'what's her problem?' I shrugged my shoulders in response.

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"Wing attack!"

I watched the pidgey swing low in the air and charge Hashi. The wings glowed slightly as it approached. Just as the pidgey got within ten feet, a wall of sand rose up in front of it. It stumbled in the air a bit but it didn't do much to halt the movement.

It swung a wing at Hashi's head. Hashi ducked the wing and exploded upwards in an uppercut that connected with the pidgey's breast. I tried to ignore the cracking sound that rang out in the clearing because of the impact. The pidgey fell out of the sky like a puppet with its strings cut and bounced on the ground for a second before it was returned to stasis in its ball.

"What the fuck?!"

I rolled my eyes at the generic response I had been getting for the past few hours. I waited for what came next.

"What's your pokemons problem, man?" The guy across from me asked, angry at his defeat. "That move has to be banned."

That one actually made me laugh at it's stupidity. Can no one take a loss with dignity.

"It was a simple uppercut. It's been a staple of fighting type pokemon for forever." I retorted like I was speaking to a four year old.

"Take the fucking money." The guy said and shoved two hundred dollars into my hands.

I pocketed it and turned to Hashi. We bumped fists, as we had become accustomed to over the past few hours. Eight battles, and eight wins. We had to deny some, because of them having two or three badges already but we took every fight we could.

Even facing type disadvantages a few times hadn't stopped our progress across the bridge, and Hashirama was loving every minute of it. My wallet shared his excitement also. In two hours I had made enough money to keep us fed and happy for another two months, including my newly acquired feebas, who I still hadn't met yet.

'I really need to do that actually.' I thought as I ran my thumb across the other pokeball on my belt. 'I'll do it tonight.'

"But first…" I said as Hashi and I kept walking. Soon we reached the end of the bridge, and it was barren. I had left behind the other trainers on the bridge as I approached the end of what I learned was called Bond Bridge.

There was a closed gate, and a security building off to the side. There wasn't anyone inside of it, but there was a very big sign on the bridge.

'Berry Forest.

Trainers only!

Continue at your own discretion.'

'Well that is ominous.' I thought as I read the sign.

"What do you think?" I asked my starter. He looked up to me and I got the impression that he couldn't read, so I read the sign to him.

He didn't even hesitate to walk forward. "Mak!" Hashi said with a confident gleam in his eye.

"Well that settles it."

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A/N: Chapter four in the bag!

Hashi has proven to be a little beast! What does this say about the level of pokemon Brendan already has?

Can anyone guess what's about to happen with the Berry Forest and why I'm taking Brawly there?

Let's talk in the reviews!