Chapter 017

'Axew, the small reptilian dinasaur-like pokemon. A dragon-type. Axew use their tusks to crush berries to eat. They leave gashes in trees with their tusks to mark their territory. If one of Axew's tusks breaks, a new one will grow back quickly. If one of Axew's tucks breaks off it quickly regrows even stronger and sharper than before.'

'This Axew is female and knows the moves: Leer, Scratch, Dragon Claw, Bite and Dual Chop. It has unlocked the egg move, Counter. It has the Rivalry ability, it allows a pokemon to deal more damage to an opponent of the same gender, but deals less to a Pokemon of the opposite gender.'

The... Hell?

Clan blinked.

Then blinked again.

D... dragon... dragon-type? An honest-to-arceus dragon?

Clan stood there stupefied, unable to think properly. He checked the screen of his pokedex and then at Axew. He glanced at the screen again, then at Axew. Solaris eyed his trainer's actions comically, tilting his head to the side in confusion.

On the wide screen, there was the exact pictorial representation of an Axew. It was too hard for Clan to believe. A dragon? Did Nurse Joy made a mistake? Is she pulling my leg right now?

He wanted to verify it with her. But, the fastest way to find out was to ask the pokemon itself. Also, Axew seemed to be female, it was embarassing to think he thought it was a male.

"So... Axew." Axew had agreed after much hesitation to join them on their journey and be a part of the team. Clan and Solaris had been overjoyed about it, but now, the human was looking back and forth between his red thingamajig and her. It made her feel uncomfortable. "Are you... a dragon?"

Axew blinked at the question. She simply nodded a matter of factly. She was a dragon, she knew it because her mother was one as do the rest of her tribe... with the thought of them, she turned downcast but she quickly shook it off though, to not allow the human, now her human trainer, to notice it. She still doesn't trust him that much.

"Really?"

Why was this stupid human asking her again? She already answered didn't she?

This time Clan didn't recieve a response, but got a blank stare from Axew, which made him look stupid.

Clan bitterly smiled at this, he really couldn't completely believe this. Luckily, there was an application in the Pokedex which would allow him to explore the PokeWeb. He told Solaris and Axew to play and have some fun for a while, as he needed to check something out.

Happy to do just that, Solaris and Axew began running around the field they were on, playing tag, with Solaris the one running and evading while Axew was the one trying to catch him. Clan sat down at a bench near the field and after ten minutes of going through his Pokedex, he put it down on his lap absentmindedly.

It's... true.

His gaze followed the still malnourished Axew playing around with his starter enjoyingly. He catched a dragon-type? It took a full minute for him to react before Clan's eyes turned into saucers. 'A fucking dragon type!?'

The Haxorus breed, native to Unova Region. Infamous in the region for it's kind but brutal personalities in the battlefield, the pure dragons were true monsters when properly trained, even fully capable of taking down a psuedo-legendary pokemon. A certain Dragon-type Specialist in the Unova Region, Drayden, also the notoriously difficult to beat Gym Leader of Opelucid City in Unova, had a Haxorus at his disposal. It was the main fighter in his main team, dominating all trainers who challenged him for a battle. Clan had watched an exhibition match recorded video in the wide screen in his pokedex between, Drayden and another Gym Leader who specialized in Flying-types. He watched in awe as Haxorus roared dominantly through the battlefield, quickly taking down three opponent before falling.

Clan couldn't believe Axew would evolve to such a monster of a pokemon. He looked at the now jovial malnourished pokemon and couldn't link itself to the dominantly powerful Haxorus. But Clan knew, that as a dragon, like most of its typing were, regal and dangerous.

The Axew line were also a very rare pokemon. According to the Pokedex and PokeWeb, even in the Unova Region, it would be unlikely for one to encounter the species even if one would spend years of searching. They were not just prized pokemons but they were also very territorial species, so if you mess with one, be prepared to mess with a herd full of it.

He badly wanted to see for himself how capable his Axew was in a fight, but being in the state she was now, he couldn't allow the pokemon to go through a battle. He first had to take care of its diet before he can even as to allow himself letting it battle.

Clan checked the time on his Pokedex. He got up from the bench and walked towards his pokemons. They stopped what they were doing and glanced at him. "Solaris, we'll be starting our training for a bit, we will continue working on your Slash, but I would like for us to also include in training your Ember, I noticed on our battles with the other trainers this morning we can still improve the power and accuracy of the move. You should warm up first."

Solaris nodded and obeyed, he chirped towards Axew and then began warming up by running around the field they were on.

Clan turned towards Axew and Axew looked back at him. "You my new little miss, on the other hand. Could do some light training if you wanted to, I won't force you. But if you decided to, I can think of something you can train on. What do you think?"

Axew looked around herself, she noticed that a lot of pokemon including her teammate Solaris, who was agilely sprinting and nimbly hopping around the field, are training actively with full of life. She was interested in it, so she responded to Clan with a growl of agreement towards training. "Great! I knew you had it in you, Axew. Oh, by the way, do you like yourself to have a nickname like Solaris?"

Axew thought about that for a moment before lifting one of her small, clawed hands and made a snarling sound. Clan took that as a confirmation and began running through all the female nicknames he had come up with.

"What do you think about Drana?"

Axew cooed happily at the name.

"You liked that one?"

Axew nodded.

"Is that it, or do you want to hear some more just to be certain?"

Axew blinked a few times rapidly before she snarled at him to continue.

"You wanna hear some more?"

"Axew." She again cooed in response. She seemed to be taking this very seriously.

"Okay, what about Hilda?"

She shook her head.

"Fontina?"

She shook again.

"Anguisa?"

Axew paused, her eyes alight.

"Do you prefered Drana or Anguisa? One nod for Drana. Two for Anguisa." Axew fell silent for a few seconds, she nodded once but then shook her head, she nodded twice, but again she shook her head. After a moment of this, she finally made her decision.

"...axew." Axew nodded twice in finality.

"You wanted to be called, Anguisa?"

"Ax! Axew!"

"Okay! Anguisa it is! I liked that over the other one too." Clan chuckled as he shares his own comment. Axew... Anguisa lightly smiled at him, which Clan was happy see. He then began to think what she could lightly work on. "Let's see... according to the pokedex, you have the moves: Leer, Scratch, Dragon Claw, Bite and Dual Chop, which are very great moves, sadly we can't train any of those right now. However, since the moves you had right now are very inclined towards close combat, we should focus on working with your physical foundation. Haxorus, which you would eventually evolve into with enough experience and training, are known for their destructive attack power. Although you are still underweight, Nurse Joy had already took care of you, so you should be able to do some light joggs around the field and some exercise which I would show you."

Anguisa nodded in understanding.

"All right! Solaris and Anguisa, let's get ready for training!"

...

Clan trained both his pokemons for something like two hours before calling it quits when he noticed the sun was beginning to set. During that time, Clan noticed Anguisa would take rest between the hour because of her weak body then continued on, he tried to persuade in stopping her, but she seemed to be too prideful to see Solaris lasting longer than her, so like a dragon she was, she persisted through it. Clan was impressed by this, then noticing that he was slacking, decided to join both his pokemon in training. He didn't have the opportunity to check Solaris's Dark Slash, it had slipped his mind. He reminded himself to gauge the move on the next training.

Even though Solaris was extremely talented with producing a very powerful Ember for such a young pokemon, he had long ways to go before his accuracy was up to par. They had improved on his technique and usage towards his Slash, however, Solaris lacked in leg strength, which would only be enchanced through physical hardwork, although this aspect would eventually be enchanced significantly by his evolution when he'll become a Combusken, they decided to work on it now than later. With that, he began kicking Solaris into shape physically.

One thing was most certainly made clear by their training session. Solaris had a massive amount of latent potential. Unfortunately, they weren't Arceus, they can't create a miracle and allow Solaris to evolve right this instant. So, they were going to rely on hard work to overcome the natural bonuses that came with experience.

In their training, Clan had Solaris not just focus on his accuracy, but also his shooting distance. He wanted maximum control out of his starter. So, it was important that Solaris understood how much power he needed behind his Ember to reach different targets at various distances.

About an hour in their training session, Solaris was beginning to get tired. His accuracy was dissipating because of fatigue, causing his Ember to dangerously veer all over the place. For the most part, he was doing pretty good. There were definately times when his Ember would miss the target, but the majority of his attempts were landing in the right spot.

Clan was careful to not have Solaris aim towards anything that could possibly be flammable. Fortunately, the training field facility was mostly mud and dirt, the trees and grassy terrain were quite a distance away.

They weren't using any type of target. At this stage, a target would most likely frustrate the little fire-type due to accuracy issues. It was more beneficial to just point at a general area and have Solaris shoot.

The rest of Solaris's training of the last hour consisted of him, training his nimbleness and working on the physical strength of his legs. Using Slash and Peck on boulders multiple times repeatedly, and between attack he would sprint and hop around the field a couple of times before performing an attack at a near boulder as a target.

Anguisa, Clan really was deeply impressed by her. She managed to last in training at the same length of time as Solaris, although her training was only light training as to compared to Solaris's session, it was admirable for her to last for two hours. Clan thought she would stop after at most an hour in, but she proved him wrong with her perseverance. He was worried though, he knew pokemons were not as weak as humans because of their power and different constitution, training with malnutrition was, without a doubt, not adviced to do, but when he saw she was having an enjoyable time and seeing the fire in her eyes made him think otherwise.

Currently, however, everyone was exhausted and hungry.