Training (2)

Just as he expected it, Diana blushed slightly from his sentence. Dom sent Cinder a nasty look of jest, but Cinder didn't gave out any reaction except a casual smile, apparently, he was used to this.

"Cinder, I didn't think you'd get here until tonight at most." Dom said as he pulled his best friend into a one armed hug.

"Well, we didn't stop on our way through Viridian Forest towards here." Cinder trailed off for a second, as his expression became conflicted. "There was an incident that halted us for much longer than we are comfortable though... Anyways, we arrived here yesterday in the evening. I was too tired to contact you at the time, and I figured you guys must have already gone to sleep, so I didn't disturbed both of you."

Cinder revealed a smile that contradicts with his true feelings. What transpired yesterday wasn't necessary to be shared towards his friends, he would only make them worry needlessly if he do so, besides he was all fine from the encounter.

"Have you guys defeated Brock and received the Boulder Badge yet?"

"Nope! It was way tougher than we thought it was gonna be. We've been trying for the past two days or so and have both lost to him twice. What me and my sister learned from the battle though, was that Brock likes to use the battlefield to his advantage. A good kick in the butt for rookies who've only been taught on battle stimulation machines, like us, before." Dom moaned a grumble. That was slightly expected, although Brock was a young gym leader, he was still a gym leader. Not to mention, he adjusted his pokemon to the standards given by the league when he faced rookies, or depending on how many badges they had acquired throughout their journey within the season.

"Not to mention, he has an Onix with him that he used against my Venus." As Diana recounted her own experience, she couldn't help but shiver at the battle against the humongous serpent-like pokemon that was made entirely of rock.

"Brock uses an Onix against rookies?" Cinder questioned, not sure if he heard correctly.

"Yeah! I was spectating from the stands cheering for Diana. I had to admit, I got muted by a remote control the moment that monster appeared... I nearly pissed myself!!" Dom dramatically put his arms together infront of his body and began squirming like a bitch.

Cinder and Diana laughed at him. Cinder missed this, hanging out with his friends like how they used to back in Pallet Town.

"So, this are all your pokemon, Cinder?" Diana asked, curiously looking towards the pokemon who continued training behind the background. She was familiar with Cinder's Storm, but it was a first for her to see Hercule. Her eyes landed on the land shark pokemon who was on Cinder's legs.

"Yeah." Cinder grinned. "You already met Storm, obviously. The Poliwag over there is Hercule, and this..." He crouched down beside his infant pokemon, patting it's jet-like ears tenderly. "This is Gible, I nicknamed him as, Fafnir. Pretty neat names, huh?"

Gible didn't act nervous at the strangers that were interacting with his trainer, but he did eyed them cautiously, especially Diana, as the teenage girl was creepily moving closer towards him with a weird gaze.

"A... Gible? What's that, Cinder? Never heard of such a pokemon before."

"Yeah, me too."

Both Dom and Diana asked in confusion. Evidently, like how Cinder first met Fafnir, both of them didn't know or had any recollection of the pokemon before.

"It would have been weird if you do, Fafnir is not native in Kanto. He's a native pokemon from Sinnoh, my father gave him to me as an egg..." He filled his friends on the detail. On how he got Gible, making their eyes slowly widened as he continued talking. He grinned enthusiastically at he last part. "Not only that, he is a dragon-type. A dragon/ground-type to be exact."

"Gib!" The newborn waved his hand at the two seeing as his trainer was introducting him. He puffed his chest with pride along with the last of Cinder's words, as if to put emphasis on how amazing he was.

It took a few for the siblings to react, they blinked furiously. Then, they yelled, much louder than what Cinder would have expected.

"What!?!"

"A dragon-type?!?"

No matter how hurt his ears was from the close proximity of their yelling, he didn't show it as he showed a cheeky smile at them. "Yup!"

"H-h-how d-did you get yourself a dragon-type!?" Dom was finding it difficult to utter the words he was planning to question. "Aren't they, like rare, RARE!?"

"Didn't I just mentioned that my dad gave it to me?" Cinder picked his ears with a finger. You can't blame him, his ears began to hurt, and he was feeling itchy. "What's the big deal about it anyway?"

"You sounded like Blue saying that." Diana also got a scare, but she fared much better than her brother. She couldn't help, but say though.

"What?" Cinder was surprised. "No I don't!"

"Uh-huh, you do." Diana kept insisting. She got tired of being teased all the time by Cinder, she found this as a great opportunity for her to have a payback time.

"I don't!"

"You do!"

"Yeah, Cinder. You do kinda sounded like that dude."

"N-not you too, Dom! I don't guys! Blue is a cocky, egoistic, brat! I don't sound like that!"

...

Their banter goes on for a while, before they eventually changed the topic and began discussing what they plan for Brock were, with Cinder's pokemon training behind their background.

As they talked, Cinder began to know what pokemon they had captured along the way. Dom's currently had a team of Nidoran (Samael), Bellsprout, and Butterfree, while Diana had a team of Bulbasaur (Venus), Growlithe, and Eevee. Cinder also got his fair share of being shocked at their teams, especially Diana's he wondered how he got herself an Eevee, they were rare, nearly as rare as their region's psuedo-legendary, it's first stage, Dratini. It took a while for him to get over it, then he found out their fight against Brock in greater detail. He wasn't too surprised to find out that Brock hadn't been using the exact same team of pokemon against every trainer: he had used Geodude against Dom and Diana, but had also used the pokemon Rhyhorn against Dom and the Onix against Diana as their last pokemon, since they issued a two on two challenge this was what they had to fight against from Brock.

On their first attempt, each of them had gotten easily defeated by just Brock's first pokemon alone. On their second, most recent attempt, they fared better, taking out Brock's pokemon after losing one of their own. However, at that point, their second Pokemon was already injured and exhausted, and their respective opponent of Rhyhorn and Onix easily finished off the battle.

"When are you going to challenge Brock, Cinder?" Dom asked curiously. According to what they knew of Cinder, he would most likely prepare himself first before even attempting the challenge he had to face ahead.

"Not now. Especially not yet, when I got those information out of both of you." Cinder was contemplating.

"Alright. We are also not yet challenging Brock for a while. It wasn't at all fun being trashed." Dom said. Diana nodded at her brother's words in agreement.

"I'm gonna attend to my pokemon training now guys."

"Yeah, sure. We are gonna also train here, this training ground is huge, it's enough for us."

"Me too!"

With that, with a bunch of bright flashes of lights, half a dozen pokemon appeared. Fafnir watched as those flashes materialized into pokemons.

...

Training went smoothly today. After Cinder, and Fafnir made their way back towards their companions that were training. Cinder had ordered for Storm and Hercule to change gears, having Storm stop training his Reflect and Agility to training - Iron Tail and Double Team. While also asking Hercule to try and encompass the ground with ice by using Ice Beam like they had talked about, while having the tadpole pokemon skate through the ice, which made the already disproportionately balanced Hercule to constantly trip. Storm hadn't needed much coaching for this since he already had the basics of Iron Tail and Double Team down, so Cinder and Fafnir stayed with Hercule, leaving his starter to smack rocks with his metallic tails while also running around the field at the same time whilst using Double Team.

Hercule was now getting good at his aiming from the constant use of the move he just learned, Scald. Now that he was training Ice Beam at the same time he was attempting the 'Icy Domain' that Cinder was going to prepare as one of their trump cards. It was much more difficult to pull it off as planned, as it required careful manipulation of the Ice that Hercule was creating. It would probably take them at least two days, to get it down completely, especially since it wasn't the only thing that Cinder had Hercule work on. Thankfully, Scald was coming along pretty well, as Hercule gave a demonstration that the move was already mastered, likely from the tadpole's foundation of prior experience with Water Gun and Bubble Beam. So, Cinder had him work on his balance while glinding on ice, at the same time doing some shooting practice as he skates through the icy training ground, courtesy of his Ice Beam.

Storm still had ways to go when it came to transversing through the rocky terrain, but Cinder wasn't expecting him to be a master for the few days they trained of it along. Thankfully, the sheep had made a habit of catching himself with Iron Tail whenever he trip or fell. Cinder eventually came to a realization that this doubled as a trainer for Iron Tail, a move that Storm had almost completely mastered by now. Cinder chuckled at the notion that Storm was conveniently multitasking without even realizing it.

However, Cinder often found himself applying potion to Storm periodically due to some falls he missed a landing. Once, however, he made a quick trip to the Pokemon Center to heal Storm up. He was beginning to think that he should have invested just a little bit more money into healing items after all, but the training grounds was still located at a pretty convenient spot due to the Center being nearby. Not to mention, when training finally ended, they would have less of a walk ahead of them, which would be great, given how tired, they inevitable be.

Dom and Diana's pokemon also trained under their respective trainer's guidance. The siblings couldn't help but spare a glance at Cinder's part of the training grounds though, their training was unique, and they were sure thet they haven't seen a video from the training guides for trainers on what they were doing. This could only mean that Cinder made this up for his team. With questions in their heads, they decided to not interrup Cinder from training his pokemon, he was so focused that they felt like they should leave him by at the moment. Besides, they could always ask later. Fafnir was also having the time of it's life, he was having fun playing with Dom's Butterfree and Diana's Eevee and Growlithe after their training was done. The baby pokemon enjoyed it very much.

**A short chapter of training, decided to drop it since it doesn't contain anything worth to notice. However, this would be a chapter on how Cinder trained his pokemon. Within the next three chapters, I suppose, the first Gym Battle would start.**