The Aftermath (Bonus Chapter) (Edited)

Axel was rooted in the ground for a few moments. This was his first gym battle and he had won with a landslide. He didn't even have to properly use Shedinja. After months of hard work and preparation and finally, he had done it. He had now received the validation of his work. He was a bit emotional right now.

But he woke up and called up Gogoat. Though the paramedic may be here at any second but Nidorino was badly hurt. So, he let Gogoat heal Nidorino for some quick first aid. After that, he also summoned Beedrill for first aid treatment.

The paramedics came and took his Pokemon for a full health check-up. Only then he was relaxed.

###

"Axel, I am impressed. It had been a long time since I had a satisfying battle. And you two, did you learn something from the fight?", asked Flint to Miliot and Dexos.

They were silent when they heard the question. They knew what Flint mean by it.

"A Pokemon do not have to be a dragon type to be powerful. The reason Axel won was due to Beedrill's 'String shot' and Shedinja's 'Hypnosis'. Don't ever think that they are weak.", said Flint.

"Thanks for the battle. It was an eye-opener for me. This was the first time I felt so nervous about a battle.", said Axel.

"Yes, that is true. I could see your nervousness. The only advice that I can give you is to trust your Pokemon. You have trained them well with good dedication. They deserve your trust."

Axel thought about this issue. He was never nervous but this time he was. Maybe it was due to his first gym battle or another opponent's Pokemon. But he now must learn to trust his Pokemons.

They had some small talks. Miliot and Dexos had many questions about how was his Beedrill so big. But he just said them to train hard. He was not going to give them lessons when he could hear them underestimating his Pokemon before.

Flint invited Axel to dinner and he happily accepted it. Nidorino and Beedrill would just need a night's rest to be completely okay.

"I would give you the rock badge and transfer you 1,000,000 Poke Dollars tomorrow. The money is the winning prize for your first gym badge. It would double every time you win the next gym badge until the 8 gym badge where you would be awarded 1 billion Poke Dollars.", said Flint while eating roasted Pidgey.

So, he would be earning 1,127,000,000 Poke Dollars from the gym alone. That was a nice surprise. Right now, Axel had 5 billion and 3 million Poke Dollars after 1 million from Flint. He didn't have any money shortage but it was nice to know that he would be earning more than a Billion Poke Dollars from gym battles.

"Also, I want you to have a gift."

"A gift?", asked Axel.

"Yes, as per the league, a gym leader gives you a gift if he/she is impressed with your work. We could only do this once a year.", said Flint putting a wooden box on the eating table.

He continued, "This is Hard Stone. It has the best quality. Use this when a rock-type Pokemon is going to evolve and you would be surprised by the result."

Axel held the wooden box tightly like a precious gem. Any item of the best quality may cost billions of Poke Dollars. So, Axel was not going to refuse such a kind gesture. He didn't know why Flint was favoring him so much but he was glad that he did.

Right now, Axel had 3 items:

1. Scope lens: already In use-

Beedrill

2. Luck Egg: already in use-

Bulbasaur

3. Hard Stone: Not used

Elemental gems of ghost and poison types were already used in Shedinja and Nidorino. Axel didn't have a Pokemon to use Hard Stone but he was confident that he would in the future.

"So, what are your plans for now?", asked Flint.

"For now, I plan to visit Prof. Oak. He had invited me" said Axel. One of the reasons he challenged Flint was cause Prof. Oak lived in Pallet Town and it was near Pewter City.

"Oh, so Koga is giving his all. It is good for you. If Prof. Oak accepts you as his disciple, you are in luck. Until now, he had only accepted 2 disciples and both were former Kanto Champions. You must have heard their names, Red Ketchum and Blue Oak."

"Yes, I have"

Who had not heard about their names? Red and Blue were one of the most powerful champions of their generation. But sadly, they never wanted to hold the title for so long. So, they had voluntarily left.

As you may have noticed.

Red Ketchum was the dad of Ash Ketchum, the protagonist of the anime, and Blue Oak was the father of Gary Oak, Ash's rival.

However, Ash and Gary had not been born yet. At least that was what Axel knew up to now. But Axel felt that they would be born soon. It would be exciting to watch Ash grow up.

"May I ask you a question? Why did you not give your best in the first battle?", asked Axel.

"It is not the duty of the gym leader to win every battle. We are put in charge to judge how the trainer uses his/her tactics and how he had trained his Pokemon. If a gym leader was to battle with full experience, non of the trainers would win their first gym badge.", said Flint confidently.

And it seems that Flint was right. Compared to the vast experience of a gym leader, new trainers would be like slaughtered chickens.

"As a gym leader, I would normally give trainers advice on how to raise a Pokemon to an elemental rank. But I don't think that I would need to tell you that.", said Flint

"Why would you think that?", asked Axel. He knew how to raise Pokemon's rank to elemental. But it would be nice to hear some advice from a gym leader

"The main reason that a Pokemon could not upgrade to elemental rank is cause trainers do not build a good base for their Pokemon in the early stages. They just want their Pokemons to have flashy attacks without building good base stats first.

But from what I see, all of your Pokemons have been trained extremely well.", replied Flint.

And he continued after drinking some water, "The other thing would be, to increase the core mastery to the maximum as much as you possibly can and then allow the Pokemon to slowly master the core energy. After that, a normal Pokemon develops an exceptional move. The move may be a new or modified or evolved version of the same move. After the Pokemon succeed to do that, there would be a glow surrounding the Pokemon like evolution and it would be advanced to elemental rank."