Ch. 1 Becoming A Trainer
Richard sat in his car, sighing to himself as he listened to the radio. It was the announcement of yet another Pokemon tournament going on in Williams Arizona. He had been trying to save up enough money to purchase a Pokeball so he could finally have one to train and become a Pokemon trainer, but having four kids and house payments didn't allow him many luxuries. Pokeballs were stupid expensive, PokeCorp held the patents to everything Pokeball related. It was 800 dollars for a Pokeball, but most of his work friends and acquaintances already had at least one. Shaking his head he headed into work. He worked at the local Starbucks, making coffee for the masses of tourists that came through the town on their way to the Grand Canyon or the Tournaments.
Eight hours later he was off, he pulled off his apron and hat, then as he was getting ready to head home he got a chime on his phone. Looking at it he saw a new e-mail from his bank, he saw he had just over 30,000 dollars in his account. He immediately opened his banking app and looked up what has transferred money into his account. It was a strange mixture of symbols that he had no idea what it was from. He wasn't due to receive a paycheck for 2 more days and he never got paid that much, usually just over 500 a week. He chuckled to himself, it was probably some weird accounting error somewhere and would be fixed in a week, so he didn't pay much attention to it.
A week had gone by and nothing changed in his account except for getting paid as normal for work. He had talked with a bank representative and nothing was out of the ordinary to them. If it hadn't been resolved by now and corrected well the money was legally his at this point. So he did what any warm blooded man would do, he spent it. He took his wife and kids shopping for Pokemon. His son Matthew chose Froakie as his first Pokemon, then he bought a Machop for his wife, an Eevee for his second oldest son, a Fletchinder for his oldest daughter and a Cleffa for his baby. As for himself, he used the last of it to buy a Magnemite. He had watched the Pokemon show religiously and played the games, all of them. He knew if he wanted to be a solid trainer he needed to have a well rounded team. It all started with one.
He still had enough left over to purchase himself 5 more Pokeballs as well as 5 for Matthew and 5 for his wife, unlike in the show and games, you could technically have more than 6 Pokemon with you and not have an issue, but until he had more money and the ability to not have to work, he would have to wait. He did however take a month off of work to train his Magnemite, which he aptly named Shocka. "I still can't believe this, how lucky are we? I mean Matthew has been wanting a Pokemon since he turned ten, just before we met and now we bought him his favorite." Richard smiled "I honestly don't know babe. Not gonna lie though, it feels great. Now it's time to train. I have a month before I have to go back to work and make money for us to pay bills, but I want to see if I can get training and make some prize money at that tournament. I know I probably don't stand a chance, but heck let's give it a shot."
They drove out of town, to the mountainous areas near them where wild Pokemon were found, but Richard had another reason in mind. He had been researching a good place to train his Pokemon ever since he had first thought about it years ago. They had just recently moved to Arizona, but he knew quite a few places that would suit his needs. They had to have access to specific types of berries and a lot of boulders and rocks around, along with plenty of wild Pokemon. The wild Pokemon would help him begin to fill out a team he could work on making bigger as time went on, but for the moment he had to work with what he had.
When they got to the beginning of the hilled area they all piled out of the car. Richard called out Shocka while his wife called out hers and the babies' Pokemon. Matthew called out his and headed off to train. Richard grinned "Alright babe, you got the babies or do you need help?" he saw that question was moot with the Pokemon helping to keep the babies distracted. She giggled as she watched them play "Almost as good as a babysitter. You go ahead, Chopper and I are going to train and keep an eye on the babies." Richard nodded and headed off. He found a small grove of berry trees, Sitrus and Or an being predominant among them. He grabbed a few of every berry he could and put them all in the grocery bag he brought with. He continued to head further along until he found the perfect spot. There were boulders all around, which was perfect for his needs.
"Alright Shocka, here's what we are gonna do. First off I want you to target that giant boulder right there. You're going to slam into it with Tackle, then use Thundershock as soon as you hit it, then back up and do it again. I want you to do this over and over again, until I tell you to stop. I am going to make some healing ointment and potions to help you keep your energy levels up and keep you from knocking yourself out. My goal is to do this until you can not only smash that boulder to pieces with a Tackle, but also burn it with Thundershock. I want you to be stronger than anything before we actually fight. Got it?" Shocka hovered up and down. "Awesome, begin."
While Shocka got to work on the boulder, clanging loudly against it, Richard began to make the potions. He had brought some ground up oats with him to thicken up the potion he was going to make and hopefully to make it stretch long enough for a full day of training. It took almost 20 minutes before he was done, Shocka had hovered over to him just a few minutes before, full of dents. "Alright buddy, let's see if this pays off." Richard fed a little of the potion to Shocka, then applied a little to his entire body, it began to make the dents pop out noticeably, which had Richard smiling. Shocka hovered excitedly, then went back to smacking and shocking the boulder.
This went on for about 2 hours, Richard also taking the time to work out as well. He found that when he massaged the potion into his own muscles, it made them ache a lot less and he laughed, he had never been big on working out, especially after his kids were born because he didn't want to be in too much pain to play with them. The excuse was lame and he knew it, but now he wanted to train with his Pokemon, it was a strange urge within him, so he did.
At the end of the two hours, half of the boulder had been broken off piece by piece, so they were going to need to find another. As they wandered further, Richard heard the sounds of fighting. He and Shocka moved faster until they came to a bend in the hill and saw 3 Geodude's ganging up on a Cubone, but it wasn't a normal looking Cubone, it was dark with a purple flame on the end of it's bone. Richard grinned, he had seen online people had spotted and caught the 'Alolan' version of Cubone and Marowak here, but he hadn't expected it so soon. "Alright Shocka, I want you to take out those Geodudes with Tackle, I'm gonna see if I can get close enough to help out the Cubone." Shocka hovered up and down, then flew off. It slammed into the first Geodude, sending it flying into the hill side. The other two turned to face Shocka as Richard snuck around them, then slowly moved up to the Cubone while Shocka kept smacking the Geodudes around.
The Cubone noticed him when he was only a few feet away, but before it could do anything Richard put a finger to his lips and shook his head "I'm here to help you. I can heal you, but you need to be quiet. Come here and don't say a word, my Magnemite can only hold them off for so long." Cubone nodded and slowly approached as Richard dug the lotion jar out of the bag, then opened it and dolloped a little bit out, then rubbed it on the bruises he could see. It worked quickly, turning the Cubone's skin back to the shade of dark brown it was originally. "Now, I need you to help my Magnemite, can you do that?" Cubone nodded and the purple fire on it's bone lit up brighter. "Good, give it everything you've got." he said finally standing up.
It took less than a minute for all three Geodude's to be knocked out once Cubone joined in. It used a combination of Bonemerang and Fire Spin to take out the Geodudes. Once all three Geodudes were knocked out, Cubone walked up to Richard and bowed to him. He smiled "Why don't you join us? Shocka needs a friend and I think you have a great fighting spirit. With the right kind of training you will be unstoppable, if you'll let me train you." Cubone looked to be thinking it over, then nodded. Richard threw a Pokeball at it and it was caught instantly. He brought the Cubone back out and talked as they walked over to a spot with a few big boulders. "Shocka same thing, that boulder is your target. I'm gonna name you Ronin" he said to the Cubone, who nodded "Your target is that boulder, we're gonna work on your moves as well. I want you to use your Fire Spin and Bonemerang to smash that boulder over there. What I want is for you to be able to combine them, like Shocka is doing with his Tackle and Thundershock. Once you have mastered the ability to combine them, we are going to call it Firemerang. Shocka same with you, once you master yours we are going to call it Tackleshock. Then we will work on your other moves. Come to me when you feel drained or need healing." They both nodded and got to work. Another 2 hours went by and even though they were healed constantly, they were all exhausted. So they headed back.
They got back to his wife and kids all having fun playing with their Pokemon, Matthew had caught an Onix while he was training with Froakie. He was happy as could be. "So did you guys have fun?" his wife, Phyllis asked. "Yep, caught a Cubone too. Shocka and Ronin are going to be training a lot, but I have a few ideas for a few more Pokemon as well. What about you guys?" Phyllis giggled "The kids are having a blast, plus Chopper has been training too. He can easily Karate Chop through any of the boulders nearby. Your training method seems pretty effective." Richard shrugged "Well I've studied Pokemon and played every game about them I could, plus watched all the shows. It's a simple training method without a gym." He hugged her, then turned to Matthew "So an Onix huh?" Matthew nodded "Yeah, he was tough, but Froakie got him in the end." Richard nodded. "Let's go get something to eat, then we can go home and rest, too much training at once is too much for them right away."
"Will we be coming back here again?" Matthew asked, Richard nodded "Yeah, there are a few other spots I wanna hit first, so we can get a few more Pokemon each before we continue training hardcore, but I want to come back here for at least 4 hours a day until we have all the Pokemon we have balls for. Then when we have caught all the Pokemon we can, we will be coming back here every day to train and spend most of our time here."