Journey II

So far Ash's training had been going well, after spending roughly about a month in the rock tunnel, he was well on his way to Diglett Cave. Hopefully Volt would be able to rack up some experience battling the ground types. Perhaps they may run into some trainers.

Information Corner

Diglett Cave was a cave that was pretty much similar to a tunnel that was built by wild Diglett. It was pretty much a tunnel that connected Routes 2 and 11. The cave passes under Celadon, Route 7 and Route 6. The cave was famous for Diglett and Dugtrio obviously, but it extended to include other rock and ground types. The occasional Onix and Geodude have made this their home. Graveler and Rhyhorn were not hard to miss too. It was one of the few places that held Kanto natives.

Ash released his pokemon as he walked a considerable distance into the cave. He had Glaceon, Night, Primeape, Butterfree and Emerald with him, alongside Blaze.

Seeing as it was a cave, he had to be careful with the way they trained to avoid not pulling things down on them.

-Break-

Ash currently had his pokemon going through some dodging drills. He had them paired three against three. Glaceon, Butterfree and Blaze were the attackers, and Night, Primeape and Emerald were dodging.

Blaze shot a flamethrower at Night but she dodged the jet of flames by moving to the left. At the same time, Primeape and Zorua were trying to avoid the onslaught that was being dealt to them by Glaceon and Butterfree who were launching a barrage of ice shards and psybeams at them.

Sensing the lack of preparedness, Blaze took advantage of it and shot a dragon pulse in their midst. The attack caught them off guard and sent Primeape flying.

The dodging exercise continued for some time before Ash broke it up.

"Rest up. We have thirty minutes before we switch."

They stopped their attacks as they collapsed on the ground.

-Break-

Couple more weeks went by during which one particular event had stuck out to Ash. They had fought a lot of pokemon during their stay there but there was one pokemon that proved itself a formidable opponent. It was a Rhydon that fought against Riolu, Porygon and Beedrill all at the same time. Granted they weren't Ash's strongest of pokemon, but they were near soundly defeated by the rock behemoth. Ash didn't want Blaze to fight just yet because he wanted the others to grow and as a result, he sent in Aerodactyl who proved his might in the battle against the rock and ground type. It took a while but the King of the Skies won the battle.

Information Corner:

Vermillion Forest is a forest outside of Vermillion City. It is the Vermillion City equivalent of Viridian Forest.

Ash's next stop was Vermillion Forest and his focus was going to be on his smaller pokemon like Riolu and Night majorly and their practice aside from sparring with the wild pokemon was basically developing strength and stamina.

The journey wasn't as eventful as others, majorly because the bug pokemon weren't all that strong… at least that was until Ash came across a powerful looking Pinsir. Night had challenged the Pinsir to a fight, a ferocious fight that pushed Night to the edge and forced the dark type to dig deep. She did good despite the fact that she was at a disadvantage and proved her worth even though the fight ended in a tie.

Training continued a couple more days until it was time for Ash to make his move again. His next destination was the Power Plant. This particular training would be especially beneficial to a majority of his team as they all need to build up resistance to the menacing electric type, all with the exception of Volt, Emerald, Tyrunt and Venusaur.

Information Corner:

The Power Plant was one of two Power Plant created for the sole purpose of providing electricity to the Kanto region. While the other serves people this one serves wild pokemon. It produces a fixed amount of electricity for the purpose of feeding the wild electric types. It has become notorious for attracting hordes of Magneton and Magnemite and even the occasional Voltorb and Electrode. It was located off the Pokemon center on Route 10.

The first thing Ash noticed in the abandoned Power Plant was the miniature horde of Magnemite and Magneton. It was a surprise he didn't see a single Magnezone. Right off the bat all twelve of his pokemon were out because from what he had heard about the power plant, the Magnemite-line tended to be hostile.

Every day was a battle against Magnemite and Magneton. Things got worse when they wandered into Voltorb and Electrode territory and Ash was very careful with not upsetting them, with their tendency to explode and all. There was a case with a gang of Electrodes that forced Ash to use his elites so that they wouldn't be able to self-destruct at the risk of Ash and his team.

He continued to venture in to the power plant, eager to explore and come across various pokemon. There was this powerful looking Pikachu Ash came across. It was leading a pair of its clones, namely a Plusle and a Minun. The encounter was a friendly one and there was no need to battle, though they did end up following Ash and his team, watching their battles against other pokemon and the Pikachu was explaining to them. Ash didn't laugh, he found it interesting.

The rest of the stay was Magnemite and Magneton until almost at the center when the Magnemite started to diminish in number. The pokemon were also getting noticeably stronger and Ash was forced to have Blaze out at all times. Well Blaze and Volt were the key defenses for their stay here.

One particular night, they were ambushed by two Electabuzz. They seemed like a couple, and while Ash had plans for them, someone else in his group had other plans too. Volt wanted to fight both of them and his reason was actually quite simple. He was supposed to be twice as strong as a normal Electabuzz, so battling two would have to suffice.

Ash directed the battle while Blaze gave light to the field. Before it even began, hisses and sparks and growls escaped all three pokemon. It was clear that despite not having the shiny gene the power plant had blessed them with almost as much electric power as Volt. Adding their electric abilities together, they would eclipse his but they didn't really have complete synergy down, plus Volt had techniques he had been developing which gave him an advantage.

That wasn't to say that the battle was easy. Far from it. Volt wasn't clear for battle for the next two days. He was pretty much out of commission and so were the other Electabuzz.

He was soon done with his training at the Power Plant and made his way for Mt. Hideaway in Pallet town. Before that, he stopped to visit Melanie and check up on her. He didn't offer a battle because he would have plenty for the road so he just let Venusaur see his old pals and soon he was off.

Information Corner:

Mt. Hideaway was a mountain located near Pallet Town. The mountain has a labyrinth of tunnels that run underneath it. These tunnels are large enough for humans to walk through because they have been built by unusually large Onix. Most of these Onix have been known to possess the King's Species gene in them allowing them to grow beyond the boundaries of normal pokemon and beyond them in strength. It is typically the area where Bruno of the Kanto Elite Four comes to train because it is a rather secluded area.

Ash was in Mt. Hideaway for one thing, the possibility of finding a giant pokemon or more than one. He didn't really mind because he just wanted the chance to battle one and see how he'd fare.

Ash had spent two weeks in Mt. Hideaway before he came across something remotely worth being called giant. He ended up coming across an Onix. On average Onix, grew to about eight point eight meters and typically mature Onix grew to about thirteen meters. This one was sixteen meters and it was huge. Ash wasted no time sending his entire team out for the battle. He had doubts that it would take every single one of them to bring down Onix, especially with the type advantages he had in Blastoise, Golduck, Venusaur, and Glaceon, but he wanted to be safe.

The battle raged on and in the end Ash ended up losing about seventy percent of his team but it was worth it to take down the Onix. After healing it, it was time for Ash to leave the Mountain and make his way to his final stop.

Information Corner:

Cerulean Cave was a cave thought to be "mysterious", it was located off the coast of Cerulean Cove and was managed by the Pokemon League itself. It was a cave notorious for housing surprisingly strong wild pokemon. The cave is essentially a complex of maze-like tunnels. The League took it upon themselves to manage the distribution of the pokemon, since their high strength may lead to territorial disputes that may ultimately prove disastrous.

Ash had decided that he would be spending his final days training until two weeks before the League. Cerulean Cave was his destination and after passing the necessary league clearances, Ash was allowed to enter.

The first thing Ash noticed was that the pokemon in this area could easily pass for some of the strongest in all of Kanto. The pokemon here seemed to be built different and had some wild ranges. Machoke and Rhyhorn seemed to flourish alongside Geodude and Graveler. Then there was the occasional Rhydon and Snorlax and even some Gyarados. Zubat and Golbat were unsurprisingly common. There were a host of other pokemon too that made the experience a lot more difficult for Ash.

Every day was a hardened battle for Ash and his team. This was the final push they needed to get to the top.

The training proved sufficient and the growth of his pokemon was impressive. He was happy with the result.

Porygon had improved greatly, the speed of its attacks a far cry better than they were before. In addition, it had learnt conversion, recycle and agility to go with its moveset. Ash was confident enough about using him in battle against other trainers. He had gotten into some spars with some of Ash's pokemon. His timing was better and so was his combat sense.

Golduck had gotten faster, especially in water. He had mastered shadow pulse, the ease of casting faster and the recovery better. Additionally, Golduck was able to learn psych up. He had gotten better on fighting without using moves and his reaction time had improved drastically from what it was.

Emerald was close to evolving. She had been getting more riled up and had gone through a couple more skin sheds recently. Her attacks seemed to gather a lot more fierceness to them. She had improved her techniques in terms of efficiency. Her movements were a lot more fluid and so were her attacks. She had learned dragon tail, slam and iron tail.

Tyrunt was a funny case. He could evolve but chose not to. Ash had the feeling he wanted to evolve with a bang. Tyrunt with Aerodactyl's help had been able to learn stealth rock and ancient power and was close to perfecting dragon tail. As a bonus, Ash had taught the rock and dragon type stomping tantrum which he was very pleased to learn.

Primeape hadn't learned any new moves but had perfected all the moves he knew. Training with Blaze and Butterfree had helped him build up a resistance to flying type attacks. He and Ash had worked on maximizing his anger and directing it into more focused attacks, so basically, it was not giving in to his rage.

Beedrill modified her arsenal with a variety of moves. Venoshock, assurance, toxic spikes and electroweb were the moves they had worked on. Beedrill proved ever diligent.

Butterfree's overall combat sense had been sharpened and heightened. He had learned supersonic, safeguard and whirlwind. He had also been of good help teaching Beedrill electroweb.

Night was one of the pokemon whose improvement had appealed the best to Ash. For starters, she was faster and was far more comfortable using her illusions, furthermore, they were complete illusions. With much stress and training, she had learnt snatch, a rather difficult dark type move to learn. Ash however couldn't tell if she was nearing her evolution because he knew nothing about the Zorua-line.

Rio… better to call him by his new form. Lucario had evolved and Ash was joyous at the event. He had learnt reversal, aura sphere and detect. His combat ability and perception had drastically improved and so had his explosive power. He had tested his evolutionary energy on Primeape, nearly matching the older fighting type in strength.

Clefable hadn't learnt a new move and rather practiced her ability to outmaneuver attacks and over the course of the training, she had been improved greatly over the course of everything.

Aerodactyl, Ash's newest addition, had spent his own sweet time practicing his moves and trying to get them to the level of a predator. His abilities had improved especially since he was training with Blaze as a target.

Volt had perfected electro ball and light screen and had come up with a way to boost the speed of electro ball even more. It was a combination of thunder speed, thunder punch and electro ball, thunder ball was what Ash had named it and it involved Volt enveloping himself with thunder speed as he charged up electro ball before sending the ball flying with a thunder punch powered thunder speed. The whole attack process was fast and left no room for error because it seemed to drain energy.

Glaceon had focused on learning barrier. She had perfected the attack. Speed and defense had been her focus. Attack speed and movement speed alongside her overall defense was the general emphasis Ash had forced her to handle.

Ash decided it was time Scizor handled a new combo move. After having learned fury cutter, it was a matter of combining the move with bullet punch. The goal was to use the energy of attraction that bullet punch came with to increase the likelihood of fury cutter landing and landing fast. The move basically took a long time to get down but when Scizor got it down, he got it down. His weakness to fire was getting a lot more tolerable, so much so that the heat didn't affect him much.

Venusaur had perfected Erika's rooting as that was his entire focus throughout the training journey and it was very much accomplished.

Blastoise had improved his land mobility and had learnt dragon pulse. In addition to that and had worked on rapid fire variants of aura sphere and water pulse and enough that he can mix both of them in attack.

Blaze, being Ash's pride and joy had learnt shadow claw because Ash wanted him to learn a move combo. He had combined dragon claw and shadow claw together to create a new claw attack, dragon's shadow. It involved wrapping otherworldly energy around the familiar draconic energy. The resulting combo was devastating to ghosts as well as dragons.

The growth his pokemon had presented so far made Ash happy and soon his time training had come to an end. It was time to go back to Pallet Town.