Chapter 17

"I'll let you go if you really want." You spoke up, sitting down next to your newest and most unruly pokemon.

Squirtle sat with his arms crossed, eyes narrowed into a glare behind his sunglasses, staring out at your pokemon as they trained. Your own eyes lingered on Eevee, you could hardly believe he was the same little guy digging through trash just a couple of days ago.

The little fox pokemon had thrown himself into his training like a beast, and had been tirelessly working for over an hour now. Even you stopped just a few minutes ago.

"Squirt." the little water type turned his attention to you, raising a non existent eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'll let you go if you want," you nodded, "I'll be bummed as hell mind you giving you up, I mean, look at you, you look awesome with your green shell!"

"..Squirt.." the little water type muttered, looking away from you.

Bending down around his head a bit, you smiled at him, "But I'd love if you stayed and became my pokemon," you admitted, and then held up the Macho Brace you had just been using, dangling it in front of the turtle pokemon, "Wanna join my team and train to get strong like the others?"

The oddly coloured water didn't respond for a few seconds. But just when you were about to sigh in defeat, and get ready to release him, Squirtle surged up, jumping into the air and grabbing the Macho Brace, dashing off towards where the other pokemon were training.

"Was that tears in his eyes?" you muttered to yourself. It could have just been a trick of the light, but you could have swore there were tears streaming down his face, and that the little water type was wearing a wide beaming smile.

___________

Squirtle ended up throwing himself into training like a mad lad himself. Harder even than any of the others, including Eevee to make up for the time he sat out, and ended up exhausting himself by time you were ready to move on.

Electabuzz took to the team incredibly well. You'd had an idea in mind for using thunder wave to create an ion charge on a pokemon hit with it, so that you could make a homing thunderbolt attack, and later possibly thunder. Sadly, the electric type was a bit too overeager to meet you all, and train, so he didn't get much done on that front at all.

Still, you were quite happy with all your teams results regardless. Scyther even managed to learn Sword's Dance! And you had some sweet ideas to go with that, with how fast Scyther rotated.

Still, with training done, you wanted to get to Vermillion City. It was one of the largest cities in Kanto, its main attractions being its gym, the shipping port where many high tier cruise ships made port and even a massive battle area for trainers where everywhere was the battlefield. That could be super fun to compete at.

So, with Eevee who somehow managed to keep upright after his training hanging from your shoulder, you made made the few hour trek towards the city, and you could tell how close you were as time went by, because of the salty taste of the ocean in the air.

On your way to the Vermillion Pokemon Centre, you stopped by at the Pokemart when you passed by its iconic blue roof. Just before you stepped inside, you found pair of small yellow legs dangling off the side of the roof.

"An Abra," you couldn't help but blink and state.

"Vee?" Eevee, riding on the back of your head perked up, bounding up into the and and landing nimbly on the roof. The normal type waled over and nudged the Abra.

"Zzzz." but it didn't reply at all, just dozed away on the ledge of the Pokemart roof.

"Veevee.." Eevee shook his head and looked down at you with a shrug.

"I kinda wanna catch it," you told the little fox pokemon, "Think it'll be fine?"

Eevee titled his head and pat one padded foot against his chin before smiling brightly, "Vee!" he nodded.

Good enough for you.

Pulling out an empty pokeball, you lifted it up and tapped the sphere to its leg. In seconds, the psychic type pokemon was slurped inside the ball like a wet noodle, and captured.

Seconds later, the pokeball disappeared in a blur of white. "Professor Oak's gonna be mad." you chuckled to yourself. Eevee jumped off of the roof, landing on your shoulder, snickering along with you.

Your good mood promptly turned sour, when you came across a good bunch of items you needed in the mart. Expensive items. You left $24000 pokedollars less rich, but at least you have what you need to evolve Nidorina, Scyther and Eevee when the time comes.

Mew damnit, money came and went so fast. You'll need to hit up the battle area and win some more cash!

__________

After dropping the most amount of money you've ever spent, you continued on your way to the Pokemon Centre. Only, once again, you were stopped.

Interestingly enough, by a pokemon.

"Ruff! Ruff!" a deep series of bark split the air behind you, and felt something tug on your pants leg.

"Vee!" you heard Eevee hiss as he turned around on your head.

"Ruff!" You felt Eevee relax at the pokemon's reply as you turned around, and looked down to find a large Growlithe pulling at your pants leg with its move. And it was very big. Like, almost up to your waist big.

When it saw it had your attention, it tuened around, raising one leg in the air and pointed with its nose. Eevee tugged at your hair, directing you forward a bit, and understanding what they were getting at, "Lead on." you said to the large fire type canine, following behind it when it bounded forward at a really fast speed.

It led you down the street, then turned into an alleyway and ran down it. Following behind you, you skidded to a stop when Growlithe turned in at the side of a dumpster, and crouched down worriedly, over a much smaller Growlithe that looked pretty beaten up.

Ah, it needed help for its friend.

"Alright, let me see." you gently nudged the larger fire type out of the way and bent down to pick up the smaller one. Its fur was matted red at bits, and you could feel its skin was slick with blood, feel it staining your fingers.

You shook your head, "I can't help much here," you said, drawing a whine from the larger Growlithe. You crouched down again and gently sat the one in your hands down beside it, before showing it a pokeball, "If I catch your friend, it'll be sent to where my other pokemon are, and the man who takes care of them knows more about pokemon than anyone else in the world, he'll be able to heal him up fine."

Growlithe didn't even hesitate. It put a thick paw on your arm and nudged your hand towards the downed fire type with a nod and a bark. "Alright then." You nodded, prssing the mepty ball to the downed Growlithe and capturing it within moments.

"Ruff!" Growlithe barked in shock when its friends pokeball disappeared.

You put a hand on its head and petted it, "Don't worry, that was just the pokeball being transferred to where the others are, Professor Oak will be notified right away and help your friend out." you explained gently.

"Rooo." Growlithe let out a small whine of relief, slumping onto its backside.

"You wanna join me as well?" you asked, now that you had the chance, holding out another pokeball. Honestly, this guy would be a beast of an Arcanine when he evolved, "You look strong, and I could use a tough guy like you on my team."

Growlithe looked at you weirdly for a second, before shaking his head. Then, before you could ask what the look was for, it touched its paw to the ball, and was sucked inside like its friend before it.

"Oh!" you shook your head, realizing what you missed. Of course it would want to join its friend!

"Vee!" Eevee purred and rubbed up against the side of your face happily for your actions in helping the Growlithe pair.

You managed to get to the Pokemon Centre without any further inconveniences. Only one of your pokemon was good to go without getting fixed up by Nurse Joy, even Eevee as determined as the little guy was, had picked up a hefty amount of fatigue from training earlier no matter how hard he tried to play it off.

While your pokemon were off getting healed, you made your way out back of the Pokemon Centre, to where the battlefield was it, noting to be completely empty. You sat down on one of the benches and enjoyed a deep breath of fresh air.

"This place is nice." You hummed, eyes lingering on the ocean that was just so close. The Pokemon Centre of Vermillion City, or at least the one you came to, was built literally right on the edge of the ocean. It made for quite the view, and was a nice close proximity for trainers to allow their water pokemon to get room to stretch out.

You basked in the comfortable, serene sounds of the water crashing gently against the shore for a few minutes before getting down to buisness, and just why you came out here.

You put your hand into your back pocket and pulled out one of the items you bought earlier. The most expensive thing you'd ever bought. Worth a whole fourteen grand. The price on this little thing was ridiculous, worth more than a lot of people made in a year at their jobs.

A Metal Coat.

Its hard to believe this small thing, barely the size of your hand is worth so much money. But, if what you heard is right, it will be worth all that you spent on it and more.

Grabbing the only pokeball left on your belt currently, you released the pokemon inside.

"Scy!" Scyther appeared with a cry, stretching out his bladed arms and shaking out his wings. He opened his eyes, looking at you, before those dark blue orbs widened and zeroed in on the Metal Coat in your hand.

"..Scy?" you saw Scyther gulped audibly as it stared.

"You know what this is then?" you asked, holding it up for him to inspect.

The bug and flying type nodded slowly, "Scytheerrr."

"You think you're ready to evolve?" you ask.

Scyther bit his lips, eyes unsure, before he shook his head and sliced his bladed arms out to the side, "Scyther!" he declared loudly and proudly, hyping himself up.

Well, if he's up for it.

Standing up, you pressed the Metal Coat gently into Scyther's chest, and to your astonishment, it phased through his chest. "What the?" you muttered, stepping back.

"Scy-?" Scyther's own confusion was cut off as he let loose a hiss, and from his chest, you saw green, bleed into red, before his entire body exploded into white light.

When the light receded a few moments later, a new pokemon stood in his place.

"Scizor!" he punched out a thick, crimson red metal pincer and shouted in celebration, voice much deeper and rougher than it ever was as a Scyther.

"Well look at you," you whistled, gaining the newly evolved bug and steel type pokemon's attention, "Sleek and powerful. You look great buddy!" you flashed him a grin and a thumbs up.

"Zor!" Scizor agreed with a grin, and before you could react literally swept you up into a tight hug that lifted you off the ground.

You wheezed in his embrace. He really was so much stronger now!