Chapter 45

Current Pokémon:

Crash-Croconaw

Fúria-Mankey

Pharaoh-Growlithe

Wurmple

Jormun-Ekans

Percy awoke in the middle of the night. Most of his Pokémon were asleep around him except for his Wurmple. Percy watched quietly as the Wurmple looked out of the large window that took up a side of the wall.

It watched intently at something Percy couldn't see. He slowly sat up and quietly walked behind the worm. Looking out the window into the night Percy could barely make out a figure silently punching the air.

His eyes slowly adjusted until he could make the figure out. Fay silently stood in the middle of the training ground and punched and kicked the air. It seemed she was training and has been training for a little bit.

Sweat came off of her punches and glistened in the moonlight. Her face was contorted in anger and frustration as she practiced martial arts moves in the moonlight. She was dressed in tight black shorts and a black sports bra.

Percy watched for a couple of minutes before picking up Wurmple and quietly leaving his room.

Fay was extremely frustrated. Everything was going so well until some random clan member beat her ass in front of her grandpa.

She was about to leave on a great adventure when her departure had been extended by a week. 'Does Grandpa really think I am so useless. To extend my departure by a week over this loss.' After she had been set down by Percy she started crying as her entire ego had been popped.

She never stood a chance. Her grandpa comforted her and told her that losses are important.

"Nobody never looses. There is always a obstacle ahead. Do you think I got to where I am without losing? It wasn't a easy road, and it won't be for you." She remembered the words her grandpa told her vividly.

Her strength came from impressing her grandpa but she had failed him. The Clan Head couldn't care less that she had loss, actually he had expected it from the way Heuning was praising Percy. What she needed was a rival, and Percy fit the standard of an incredible goal to strive for.

Fay wanted to impress her grandpa so bad that she had trained for an hour previously to work on herself and beat Percy. She was finishing a set of punches and was about to switch to kicks when she got the feeling someone was watching her. She looked around her until she saw a figure standing in a shadow.

"Who are you!" She yelled nervously. Percy took a step out of the shadows so she can see his face. Her face turned red, "What the hell do you want." She took a tentative step back. "You are training?" Percy asked. "Yeah."

"Why doesn't your grandfather help you train. And why is your fighting technique so poor?" Fay took insult to the words. It was true though. She always idolized her grandfather so she would disregard the trainers her grandfather would hire to advise her on technique.

"My Grandfather is very busy. What is it to you." Her tone conveyed sadness. Percy tilted his head and walked closer. "Let me show you how you should be attacking. The way you are doing it now isn't good enough. Maybe it's good against people our age but that's not good enough."

He stood in front of Fay and beckoned her. "Come. Swing at me and I'll show you want your doing wrong." Fay bit her lip and she became angry. She lunged at Percy with sloppy form and struck at his face.

Percys face showed pity as he slightly swayed back dodging the strike by inches. The lack of care put in the attack ended up with Fay losing her balance. She swung around and Percy kicked her lightly in the back of the leg knocking her to the ground.

She fell on the ground and lay there motionless. "This is no way to become better. If you're gonna get angry at least put the energy into making your attacks stronger or better. Disappointing." He faked a disgusted face and smiled.

Fay slowly stood up before going into a handstand and propelling herself feet first toward Percy. Percy casually dodged the attack and smirked. Fay landed on her feet and held her hands up ready to throw punches.

It's dark so Percy couldn't see her exact expression but he felt her anger. Percy raised his hands and taunted her. She stepped forward taking another heavy left hook toward Percys face.

This time Percy guided her arm away from him causing her to lose balance once more. She was about to fall on her face but Percy grabbed her by her shoulders.

"Your moves are too intense. You lack grace and there's no follow up to your attacks because of the giant commitment with each attack. Slow down. Feint, throw quick jabs, move your legs more when you fight."

The stuff Percy was pointing out wasn't hard to see from any decent fighters perspective. Even random gangsters and thugs would see her flaws. Percy lifted her up and looked into her face.

He had know idea what she was so stressed and angry about so he just stood her up. "I can help you train or I can leave. Pick one." She shuddered and whispered, "Help me." Percy nodded and went behind her and he put his arms over hers.

He guided her arms with his cheek almost touching hers. For an hour Percy guided the girl on her skills and showed her how to enrich her fighting style. "Alright then. Attack me one more time and I will leave you to yourself." Percy asked.

He enjoyed coaching the beautiful girl but he didn't want to intrude on her development. She fought with Percy a lot better than she did before and Percy actually sweated by the end. One of her strikes almost caught Percy but he narrowly avoided.

She kicked him in the back of his leg causing him to fall to the ground. Fay jumped on top of Percy and both of them breathed heavily together. Fay felt Percys heaving chest beneath her and leaned toward his face.

She put her hands on Percys cheeks. She pecked him on the lips and stood up leaving. Percy lay shocked on the ground very tired. His brain remembered that he asked her to kiss him if he won.

That was all a bad attempt at distracting her but he never thought it would be taken seriously. All of the sudden a stabbing pain appeared in his leg. "Ow!" He looked down to see one of Wurmple stingers in his leg. "You little shit." Percy recalled the Wurmple back to his ball and stood up.

He limped back to his room and fell asleep on Crash who snored loudly.

Earlier, Aurora had called Percy many more times after she had been rejected but he didn't pick up. At first she thought it was weird and maybe he had just put his phone down for awhile.

But when he didn't pick up even later in the day she became concerned. So she called Grace and asked her some questions.

"Hey Grace." 'Hey what's up.' "Um, Percy hasn't picked up any of my calls all day and I'm worried." Grace went silent for a moment. 'He's been responding to my texts so I don't know why he hasn't answered his Pokédex. He should be fine so don't worry.'

Grace still vividly remembered Aurora kissing Percy in the Pokémon Center. She didn't exactly know the feelings that Aurora had for Percy but she had a pretty good idea.

'You should ask Jason to call him. I think he's at Oakdale City with Jasper, Kai and Zoe. I'm sure he will pick up for Jason. Ask Marcus to teleport you. He spent a lot of money getting teleported around so his Exeggcute can remember the locations it traveled to.' Grace advised.

Aurora nodded and made a mental note. "Okay thanks. I wonder what made him want to leave the hospital so bad." Grace stiffened up, 'I have no idea, see you later.' She hung up quickly. Aurora had Marcus teleport her to Oakdale city right before it turned night.

Percy awoke at the break of dawn with Crash on top of his chest. Crash weighed about 80 pounds so Percy had a tough time breathing. He pushed Crash off of him and sat up.

A loud groan escaped his mouth as he stretched his tense muscles. The Wurmple had injected weak poison that stiffened Percys muscles. "Dammit, that little shit." He rolled his shoulders and stood up.

He got ready and quickly gathered his belongings. When he opened the door to leave, he found boxes. All of the potential increasing items Percy had asked of Xavier had been delivered to Percy over the night.

He quickly stored them and set on his way to the Honey Gym. Percy had to meet up with the trainer that Heuning had going to the town. Percy didn't run into anyone on the way out of the Honey Clan town so his trip to the Gym was uneventful.

It took him about an hour to reach the Honey Gym and Percy looked at his Pokédex for a message from Heuning. A message had a picture of the trainer Percy was supposed to meet and where to meet her.

The girl looked relatively normal to Percy except for the fact that she was blinking in the picture that was taken of her. She was supposedly right at the entrance of the Gym but it took Percy a couple of minutes to find her.

When he found her she was arguing with some random trainer about something. "Don't you dare say anything about Heuning. She's better than you will ever be." She said.

The boy trainer scoffed and took a threatening step forward. "Bug type Pokémon are the worse and you know it." Her face turned red in anger and she clenched her fist. "Excuse me."

Percy interjected. It was not his wish to watch the girl argue while he could be using the time more effectively. Both trainers turned to Percy. Her previous expression turned softer, "Are you Percy? I'm sorry but this guy was talking bad on the gym and I couldn't let him."

She reasoned. "Can't you see we are having a conversation buddy." The boy trainer scowled. Percy ignored the boy and turned to the girl. "I do not have a lot of time so you can leave with me or you can leave by yourself." His blunt tone annoyed the boy and the trainer got in Percys face.

"Can you hear me you fucking idiot." Percy doesn't take kindly to insults but his gut told him to not punch the guy in public. So he kept on ignoring the man. "I am leaving now." He stated and left. The girl chased after Percy but the trainer remained motionless. 'What the hell was that guys problem.'

Percy speedily walked along a barely beaten path with most of his Pokémon out. His Wurmple sat on his head while his other Pokémon surrounded him except for Pharaoh.

The short girl struggled to keep up with his speed walk and tried to get Percys attention. "Hello Percy. It's nice to meet you, I've heard a lot about you from some of the other gym trainers. My name is Sasha."

Percy maintained his fast walk and replied with minimal interest. "It's nice to meet you too Sasha." It takes about 2 days to get to the town and Percy didn't have a lot of time to waste. "Are you the trainer that discovered the Ariados nest?" "I was one of them."

"Oh. The older trainers said that you were almost dead when they found you." A frown appeared on Percys face. "Did they tell you anything else." "Yeah! They said that you had attracted Heunings interest." Percy nodded and maintained his fast walk.

Sasha asked Percy questions for pretty much the whole time they walked. From questions on what his favorite color was to what his favorite Pokémon is. By the time it was getting dark Percys head throbbed and he had long grown tired of Sasha's voice.

After a long while of walking they had made it halfway to the town. Percy was frustrated with their pace since they had to take breaks frequently to let Sasha rest. Surprisingly enough they had not run into any aggressive Pokémon that disrupted them.

The path they walked on was barely beaten as it had not been traveled enough to be made into a road. It led straight to the town so Percy didn't have to find his way there. Percy had set up his tent in a concealed clearing and ate cold dried meat for dinner.

After him and his Pokémon were done eating he went into the tent and fell asleep. Percy was willing to ignore the watching duties for one night. Since there were only two of them Percy would have to watch for at least 4 hours.

He wasn't even sure that Sasha had the ability to watch that long without falling asleep so he decided to take the risk. He didn't even say goodnight to Sasha as he thought that if he heard her voice one more time his brain would explode.

Fortunately nothing happened during the night and Percy slept peacefully. He woke up early and woke up Sasha who strongly protested to waking up but eventually woke up with prodding.

Packing up the camp quickly he gave a speech to his Pokémon. "Alright guys. From now on, we will be in extremely hostile territory and things will be tough. I've decided to do some intense training and cultivate you guys into something incredible. This training will be on another level so remain vigilant and get strong."

Crash, Fúria and Jormun nodded seriously and their attitudes became serious. When Sasha was finally ready to leave they left. Since they were halfway through Percy believed they could get to the town by nightfall.

But the more they got closer to the town the more Pokémon tried to attack them. At first it started as one Rattata running at them but the closer they got the bigger the groups.

When a group of 5 Ekans attacked them Percy started to get serious. Sasha also released her Pokémon for the first time. She had a Swabloon that was level 23 and had red potential.

The Pokémon didn't know a lot of offensive moves but it was very good at String Shot which helped Percy and his Pokémon a lot. Most of the Ekans were levels 13-17 with one being 19.

All of their potential was white so Percy had no interest in them. So the encounter wasn't challenging but it did signify that Percy was getting into dangerous territory. Sasha seemed to be pretty good at commanding her Swabloon even if the only thing it did was use String Shot.

The Ekans were quickly handled and Percy just left there unconscious bodies on the ground. Only Jormun had been hurt and Percy used a potion to heal her. He didn't bother telling his Pokémon what to do when it was a battle like this so his Pokémon learned from their own mistakes.

They kept on getting stopped by Pokémon which caused them to be slowed down but they finally reached town as it turned dark. It could barely even be called a town. Men and women with Pokémon stood a little away from each other watching the outside of the town.

They seemed ragged and worn. Their eyes dropped in exhaustion and their Pokémon seemed tired. One of them noticed Percy and Sasha and began approaching them. "What do you come for?" He called out.

Sasha took a step forward and spoke to the man. "We are trainers sent by the Honey Gym." The man looked surprised at the response, "Is it just you two." Sasha nodded her stance confident. "Shit. We request for trainers and we get two teens who come stumbling in. We're not a fucking daycare." The man said sourly.

His gaze barely lingered on Percy and Sasha before he turned around. "You can do some chores or something. There's plenty of labor to be done." He walked into the town leaving Percy and Sasha standing there awkwardly. "Huh."

Percy grunted. He pulled out his Pokédex and called Ishigami. Heuning had told Percy that Ishigami had gone to the town and was trying to help. 'Hopefully he was treated better than us.' Percy thought to himself.

After a couple of rings Ishigami picked up the Pokédex. 'Hello?' "Hey." 'Oh Percy what's up.' "I heard you were in this town helping out. I need a place to stay with a friend for the night if you don't mind." Percy explained his situation to Ishigami. 'Oh I didn't realize you were coming here. But I do have a place for you to sleep. Where are you right now.' Ishigami asked.

Percy looked around him, "Uh we are on the path from Honey City." 'Alright, I'll be right there. It's not far from where I am.' Ishigami hung up and Percy put his Pokédex in his pocket. Sasha looked curiously at Percy. "Who was that." "A friend." A few minutes later Percy saw Ishigami running toward him from the town.

Percy walked toward him with Sasha and shook hands. "I didn't realize you wanted to come here. It's dangerous and you just went through some stuff." Ishigami commented. Percy shrugged and said "There's nothing else I had to do."

They started walking to wherever Ishigami was taking them but chatted along the way. "I don't know if you heard but Kushida, Marcus and Ash have talked about that Clan thing and are starting to put it in motion.

Everybody agreed to the idea after a discussion so they went along with it. They said they'll finish their planning in about a month and we'll meet up again to talk." Ishigami filled Percy in on some of the things he missed.

"Nice. Is there any big details they said that I should know?" "Yeah. They said that the form of the Clan will take a different form than most. There will be no main clan 'family' but instead it will be a bunch of branches that are managed by one of us. Kushida told us to find reliable people to become the beginnings of the clan.

I'm not sure about much else since Ash, Marcus and Kushida have been keeping a lot of it to themselves." Percy nodded and absorbed the information. "So where are you taking me?" He asked Ishigami. Ishigami looked at Percy through his long black hair with a sad face.

"I found a place to help people here. The building started as a daycare for people to leave their children while they mined for megastones or defended the town but it soon turned into an orphanage when the parents died.

At the moment 10 children are parentless and are staying at the daycare. When I arrived here there wasn't even 5. Only one person is taking care of them and they've been swamped in work. And since the parents are no longer paying her to keep their children she's lost most of her money buying food. Food is scarce here since it's difficult to find a Pokémon alone to hunt it and crops are being constantly ate by the wild Pokémon.

So shipping it in is the only option but a lot of people don't have enough money to ship it. Only miners who have megastones and the people who are associated with them have money. And even then most shipping companies don't want to come here."

Ishigami paused for a second and took a deep breath. "So I've been helping the daycare owner take care of the kids but I haven't had the time to hunt for food on my own.

I sent my Pokémon to bring back Pokémon for food but they could only bring back a couple at a time which isn't enough and it's high risk for them to go on their own. It's gotten so bad that I've had to ration the food to the children."

Ishigamis voice got thick with emotion at the last sentence. "I'll help you. How much food do you need, I will supply it." Percy said. His eyes held a determination that was dangerous. Ishigami glanced at Percy.

"It's incredibly difficult to hunt for Pokémon here. And most of the berry trees are locked down by the Pokémon so it's not possible to get berries. Even stepping out of the town is dangerous. Don't be suicidal. We'll make do."

Percys resolve wasn't hurt one bit but his heart started racing. Ishigami saw his words hadn't dampened Percys determination and sighed, "At least let me go with you. It's way too dangerous, I went out once and came back almost fifteen minutes later with 20 Pokémon chasing me."

Percy didn't even show any signs that he had heard Ishigami. Sasha walked behind the boys silently not wanting to disturb them. The town was covered in eerie silence as the sun set and the sky grew dark. Ishigami looked up at the sky, "Oh shit. It's almost time for Zubat and Golbat to attack. Let's go!" Ishigami set off running.