Start of a Journey: The Final Step

"Suc! It's time to go! We're done here for the day. Say good bye and meet me up front!" I yelled as I headed back inside the daycare to speak to the couple that runs the daycare.

"Hey, it's the end of my shift. I just wanted to remind you that I'll be heading towards Rustboro tomorrow. Sucellus was cleared to battle by Nurse Joy yesterday. Thanks for all the help you've given the both of us!"

Mr. Alpin, the husband of the couple in charge of the daycare walked up to me, put a hand on my should and said, "Isaac, it's been great to have you this past month. Both you and Sucellus are more than welcome to come back whenever you want. Are you heading to Rustboro through Rusturf Tunnel?"

"Yes Mr. Alpin. I was thinking Route 116 would be a good place to train Sucellus and complete our first trainer battle."

Mr. Alpin smiled at me, let go of my shoulder and said as he walked back to his wife, "Isaac, since you're going to pass by here tomorrow, why don't you stop by. My wife and I were hoping to give you a gift, but it hasn't been delivered yet. It should be here no later than lunch tomorrow. Why don't you spend the morning battling trainer on Route 117, in between each battle you can come heal Sucellus here."

I quickly replied, "Mr. Alpin you guys have been so good to me for the past month. Please I don't need a gift or anything. Both Sucellus and I have learned so much from you both!"

"See, Seedot!"

"Even Sucellus agrees!"

Mr. Alpin just laughed at us and said cheerfully, "Isaac, it's not a gift because we feel obligated to give it to you. It's a gift because we WANT to give it to you. Just stop by tomorrow and accept it. Otherwise I'll have to send it with Fearow to chase you down."

I paled considerably at his promise, his Fearow is scary, and said, "Alright, alright, Mr. Alpin no need to get Fearow involved. We'll be sure to stop by tomorrow around lunch."

Mr. Alpin just nodded and said, "Good."

I picked up Sucellus to put him on my shoulder, waved goodbye to the Alpins and headed back to the Pokemon Center for the night.

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The next morning Sucellus and I ate breakfast at record speed, both of us excited to take part in our first trainer battle.

"Suc, since we have to meet the Alpins around lunch time how about we go see if Lydia is up for some battles? She has 6 pokemon, so if she is up for it we could potentially do 6 1-on-1 battles with us healing up at the daycare in between. You up for it Suc?

"Seedot!"

I laughed at his enthusiasm and said, "Alright buddy. Let's go talk to Lydia. She should be up and about by now."

With that I picked up Sucellus and put him on my shoulder as we headed over to Route 117 near the daycare where Lydia tends to hang out most days. It wasn't too much longer before we spotted Lydia talking to her Azurill.

I shouted and waved as we got closer, "Hey Lydia!"

She looked up when she heard me and waved back. As I got closer Lydia said, "Hey Isaac! I heard from Mrs. Alpin that you were leaving today. You're heading to Rustboro to try for your first badge?"

I nodded and replied, "Yup! Mr. Alpin wanted to give me something though and asked me to stop by at lunch today because he was waiting for it to be delivered. In the meantime, I was wondering if you wanted to do a series of 1-on-1 battles. Mr. Alpin gave me permission to use his healing equipment for the day, so if you're up for it we can battle heal wait a bit then keep going. That way there is no risk of injury for Sucellus who is my only pokemon at the moment."

Lydia looked thoughtful for a moment before she smiled and said, "Sure, that sounds great! However, since you're going to try and fight Roxanne with only Sucellus how about we do 2-on1 battles instead. Roxanne uses 2 pokemon for trainers without any badges, so Sucellus should get used to fighting more than once in a row."

"Ah, I didn't know that. Thanks for the info." I then turned to look at Suc and asked, "How about it Suc, you up for it?" I could see Sucellus' eyes narrow in determination as he nodded towards me. I then turned back to Lydia, "Seems like Sucellus, is all for it. Ready to get started?"

Lydia said, "Sure, I'll start it off with Azurill here."

"Alright, Suc. Let's do this." At this Sucellus hopped off my should onto the ground where he glared at the Azurill, apparently scaring her enough to make her flinch. "Lydia, do you want to start or should I?"

Lydia thought about it for a moment before she said, "Since it's your first battle how about you go first, but we'll switch it up every battle so you and Sucellus can get used to both starting the battle or reacting."

I nodded and said, "Sounds good. Ready?" At this Lydia just nodded before she focused on our pokemon.

"Alright Suc, we discussed our opening move. You know what to do!"

At this Sucellus channeled grass energy for a moment before all of the grass in the area suddenly grew so large I could no longer see Sucellus in it, or Lydia's Azurill.

Lydia said in shock, "Holy Arceus, Isaac Sucellus knows Grassy Terrain? Quick, Azurill use water gun to flatten the grass and keep your eyes open to find Sucellus."

I shouted, "Sucellus, be careful of the water gun! In the mean time build up power with growth!"

Lydia yelled out, "Azurill, we can't let him build up power! Use splash to spread the water around the terrain and try to find him fast."

I estimated that Sucellus should have successfully used growth twice now possibly three times as we have been working at his speed in using it. I decided that was enough and thus said, "Alright Suc, that should be enough. Use bullet seed!"

From behind Azurill I could see a bunch of seeds that were glowing green with grass energy shooting at the unaware Azurill.

Lydia yelled, "Azurill behind you!"

However, unfortunately for Azurill it was too late for her to dodge. She was hit 4 times by Sucellus' bullet seed.

Lydia called out, "Azurill has fainted and is unable to battle. Return Azurill, you did your best. Isaac, Sucellus that was a good strategy. With that strategy you could probably beat Roxanne no problem since both her pokemon take extra damage from grass type attacks. However, this battle isn't over yet. Go, Wingull! Wingull fly up in the air and use wing attack on Sucellus when you find him."

"Thanks for the compliment Lydia. Suc, use growth and watch Wingull. When he attacks use bullet seed, and just keep it up. Make him dodge!"

"Wingull!" cried out Wingull as his wings started glowing and he dived out of the air towards Sucellus.

As he got closer however Sucellus used bullet seed and there were so many being shot out at such a fast pace Wingull couldn't do anything to dodge them. He was bombarded even more than Azurill. He quickly fainted while still in the air, falling towards the ground. Having noticed him fainting I quickly stepped up and caught him so he wouldn't be even more injured from his fast paced collision with the ground.

Lydia shouted, "Wingull!" She then ran over to me where saw Wingull fainted. After returning Wingull she said to me, "Thanks for catching him Isaac. You trained Sucellus so well!"

I rubbed the back of my head in embarrassment and just said, "Thanks, but there wasn't much else we could do for the past month so I had Sucellus focus on his ability to use his moves. He still takes a bit too long to activate grassy terrain, but he's improved greatly from the first time he tried to use it." It then hit me that Sucellus and I had just won our first battle. I jogged over to Sucellus where I picked him and said, "You did so well Sucellus! You've come a long way with using bullet seed since you first tried to use, not to mention you are even faster at fully activating growth since you managed to use it three times in that short period of time. We will still need to work on using grassy terrain faster though, we don't want to be limited to only using it at the start of a battle."

"See, Seedot!"

"Haha, yes buddy I'll help you with it. Besides, I don't know if you noticed, but your legs are a little thicker looking and your cupule seems to be shrinking. I wouldn't be surprised if you evolved any day now."

I then turned to Lydia, "Should we go heal up, then we can battle again?"

Lydia just shook her head at me before saying, "Sorry Isaac, but the rest of my pokemon are too young to take the powerful hits Sucellus will give them. He's much stronger than I originally thought, and I don't want to risk a permanent injury."

I blinked at that before I said, "Ah, okay then. Let's at least heal up Azurill and Wingull."

Lydia agreed and the two of use headed over to the daycare to heal up. However, as we entered Mr. Alpin greeted us and said, "That was some battle. Lydia it seems like both Azurill and Wingull are coming along well. You'll be able to give Isaac a good fight the next time he comes around. And Isaac, Sucellus is doing even better than I thought! The gift I wanted to give you came in earlier this morning. Inconsiderate bastard woke me up. Anyways why don't you two heal up while I go grab Isaac's gifts."

At that I said, "Wait gifts?"

Mr. Alpin just laughed and walked outside to his yard.

Shaking my head at his antics I lead Lydia over to the healing center at the daycare. I returned Sucellus to his pokeball and put his pokeball, Azurill's, and Wingull's balls into the machine. It only took about 5 minutes before the machine beeped letting us know that our pokemon were healed. We then walked back into the lobby of the daycare where we saw Mrs. Alpin dealing with a returning customer. Lydia said goodbye and left, while I took a seat in the corner of the room while I waited for Mr. Alpin to return.

It wasn't much later when Mr. and Mrs. Alpin walked over to me. In Mr. Alpin's hands was a pokeball, and in Mrs. Alpin's hands were 2 boxes with the Silph company logo on them.

Mrs. Alpin started by saying, "Isaac, these two items are what we were waiting on this morning." She then handed the green box to Isaac while she said, "In this box is a leaf stone, that way when you deem Sucellus ready to evolve into a Shiftry you can without having to trouble yourself looking for one." Then she handed over the second box which was orange, "In this box is the Technical Machine for Sunny Day. I figured it would help Sucellus out since he can use the harsh sunlight to become faster thanks to Chlorophyll."

I smiled at her and gave Mrs. Alpin a hug in gratitude. Then I said, "Thanks so much! I had already been thinking about getting an everstone to stop Sucellus from evolving until he naturally learned Sunny Day. Now I don't have to! It'll probably be a while before I'll feel ready to let Sucellus evolve into Shiftry, but now I don't even need to wait until Lilycove if he seems ready before then! Again, thank you!"

Mrs. Alpin hugged me back and said softly, "It was no problem Isaac. Just make sure you stop by when you are nearby alright?"

After hugging her for a couple minutes I finally let go and said, "I definitely will!"

Mr. Alpin coughed to get my attention and when he saw I was looking at him he held out the pokeball he was holding and said, "This is the firstborn of Delilah. I spoke to her about letting you be her trainer and she practically shoved her in the pokeball herself. Make sure you take good care of her, she has a lot of potential."

I stared at the pokeball knowing Delilah was Mr. Alpin's most powerful pokemon, a Rhydon. I asked him, "Are you sure? Wouldn't she be better off with a more experienced trainer?"

Mr. Alpin just nodded as he said, "Yup. Neither Delilah or I could think of a better trainer for her. I couldn't figure out how to help Delilah evolve into rhyperior, but we both believe that you'll figure it just. Just let us know when you do, Delilah's been depressed for a while and that'll help cheer her up."

I found myself hugging him while repeatedly thanking him for placing his trust in me. After I let go I excitedly said, "Don't worry Mr. Alpin, I'll make sure to take great care of her."

It was about 30 minutes later I found myself heading towards Verdanturf Town. Mr. Alpin made sure to give me one last lecture on how to care for the Rhyhorn I now found in my possession. I had yet to let her out of her pokeball, however we had met before and she is already friends with Sucellus, so I knew she wouldn't have any issues joining us.

Along the way to Verdanturf I had Sucellus fight every wild pokemon that was willing to fight. By the time we arrived in Verdanturf for the night, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how much he'd grown in just one afternoon. He learned rather quickly not to stay still during a battle, after he took a couple devastating tackles. He even figured out how to vary the timings of each seed he shoots out with bullet seed. This lets him move during the attack, and makes it harder to predict when he is going to attack. After such a long day Sucellus and I ate a quick dinner before heading straight to bed in the room we rented for the night at the pokemon center. We both resolved to properly introduce ourselves as teammate and trainer to Rhyhorn in the morning.