Pewter City

After waking up, Grayson decides to check the stats of his partners from the training they managed in the forest and assess if they are ready for the battle against Brock.

'System do your thing'

[Status]: Piplup

[Level]: 11

[HP]: 34

[Attack]: 16

[Defense]: 17

[Sp.Attack]: 22

[Sp.Defense]: 19

[Speed]: 19

[Moves]: Pound, Growl, Mud-Slap, Agility, Supersonic, Bubble, (NEW) Bubblebeam

'Piplup has grown quite a lot, even with the fact that the majority of the time we focused on speed training so his level could have been way higher but we wanted the others to catch up, specifically Nidoran'

[Status]: Nidoran ♂

[Level]: 10

[HP]: 31

[Attack]: 17

[Defense]: 14

[Sp.Attack]: 15

[Sp.Defense]: 15

[Speed]: 16

[Moves]: Leer, Poison Sting, (Locked) Sucker Punch, (Locked) Counter, Peck, Focus Energy, Double Kick

'Nidoran's stats are still not too impressive but his move-set has has broadened with a Flying Type move, a move to focus and give higher chance of critical hits and a Fighting Type move. He seems to me to be a late bloomer, he will be a monster when he becomes a Nidoking'

[Status]: Exeggcute

[Level]: 14

[HP]: 45

[Attack]: 20

[Defense]: 34

[Sp.Attack]: 26

[Sp.Defense]: 21

[Speed]: 18

[Moves]: Absorb, Hypnosis, Leech Seed, Sleep Powder, Poison Powder, Confusion

'Exeggcute is a proper tank isn't he, he has a great move-set for chipping down the enemy with either hypnosis, both powders, leach seed and absorb. And added to that he has confusion which shows that he will have strong potential for physic moves in the future and with his evolution being such a powerhouse in the Special Attack category it bodes well for then. He is relaxed most of the time but he really locks in when it comes to battling, could be the food intensives I proposed but I will go with the opinion that he is just motivated and leave it at that.'

Being pleased at the progress of his team, he strolls and looks around Pewter City which for the most part is just rocks. He sees a dodgy looking man selling some rocks too in the distance but he doesn't want to affect a small turning point in the story where Ash realizes typing is a thing and also what leads to Brock joining the party.

As he heads towards the Gym to challenge Brock he thinks to himself 'Thinking about it, Ash and Misty should still be trudging through Virdian Forest for a few more days after today so I have plenty of time to train a bit more to make it a sure fire win'

Deciding to train for today then challenge Brock tomorrow he heads to an open clearing where there is a few large rocks that are perfect to test out and improve his teams moves on. He set his goals to his team where he wants Piplup to further condense the Bubblebeam as much as he can to be able to slice through these rocks like butter. Piplup agrees with this and heads off to complete his objective. For Nidoran he wants him to train in speed for the whole duration, this is due to the fact that all of his stats are at the low end of what they could be for his species and level for the most part, so he plans to instead of look for immediate strength, wants to sow the seed of a good foundation so when he becomes a Nidoking in the future, he will be very strong and added to that will be faster than normal as well. Nidoran is slighty disappointed to begin with as he desires strength to kill Itac-*Cough* to not get looked down on, but when Grayson explained his plan he was very satisfied as he heard stories in his tribe about how strong Nidoking's were but at the time when he was there the tribe lacked any as any previous ones passed before his birth. Exeggcute is to work on move proficiency as he has the stats to take on strong opponents his level or even somewhat higher, but he wants Exeggcute to be a last resort as for the most part he isn't bothered about strength or fighting, he does it to help his trainer who he has come to like over the day or two of getting to know him. And the good quality food is a bonus of course.

And just like that they spend all day, morning to night training with intermittent food breaks and tactical briefing.

This cycle happened 2 more days and reached the day before Ash, Pikachu and Misty are supposed to arrive. He decides that his team are ready now to challenge Brock.

Arriving at the venue he enters into a pitch black arena. When he was about to question if anyone was here the lights flashed and shone onto the battle ground. At one end shows a boy maybe between 15-17 years old, tanned skin and the memorable horizontal lines for eyes.

"Welcome to the Pewter City Gym, I am Brock the Leader of this here Gym. Are you here to challenge me?" Brock questions in a sort of arrogant tone that makes Grayson can't help but remember all the times Brock proposed to the numerous Officer Jenny's and Nurse Joy's.

"Yes, I am Grayson Aqua from Twinleaf Town, we are here to collect our first Gym badge" Grayson replies with the same arrogance as Brock. After hearing this Brock examines the trainer in front of him and sees the blue Penguin Pokemon that he recalls is one of the starter Pokemon from Sinnoh as he spends a lot of time researching about different Pokemon even though he is stuck being the Gym Leader of Pewter City currently, his dream has and will be to be the best Pokemon breeder.

"Well okay, let me go over the rules on this League sanctioned match, the rules are simple, we will each use 2 Pokemon to battle, as the challenger you are able to switch Pokemon in battle. Once one person has both Pokemon unable to battle, the opponent is the winner, understood?"

"Understood, now let's get this over with" Grayson gives a knowing smirk, trying to get under Brock's skin even a little, but fails as Brock is used to keeping his emotions in check after helping raising his many siblings.

Seeing that his attempt fell flat, Grayson readied himself at the other end of the arena.

"I'll start with Geodude, Go!"

"As expected, Exeggcute come on out!"

Both Pokemon size each other up.

"Geodude Defense Curl"

"Setting up a strong defense eh, that won't matter, Exeggcute as he's static bind him with a Leech Seed then continuously use Absorb until he faints" Exeggcute does just this and manages to constrict the Geodude with the Leech Seed and this sets the stage perfectly for a quick knockout as the previous defense boost seems useless considering that it boosts physical defense yet changes nothing of special defense. And this is where Exeggcute thrives.

After witnessing the quick knockout of his Geodude Brock is momentarily stunned, he thought that since it was the opponents first Gym Battle then he would hesitate but he severely underestimated the opponent here. Realizing his mishap he shapes up quickly, as expected of a Gym Leader returns Geodude to his Poke Ball.

"Sorry Geodude, I underestimated our opponent, it won't happen again." he says as he reaches for his second Poke Ball. What caught him by surprise was that his opponent also returned his Pokemon.

"It's time to battle, go Onix!" After being released a large screech bellows from the huge Rock snake.

Seeing the expected opponent did not lose the intimidating factor that this Rock giant is giving off. Shaking that off he nods to Piplup who is ready as they discussed this before hand that Piplup was going to take on the challenge of Onix against Brock.

"You ready Piplup?" "Pip-Pipplupp" He confidently patted his chest and assured victory to his trainer who he holds close to his heart even after the short time of interaction between the two.

"Alright, let's win this..."