Bonding

Next day,

Axel came over to the lobby and he also called Frank. They had a heavy breakfast. They still had 2 days before the start of the competition but Axel had some work to complete. First, he had to go to register his arrival. Yes. Even though most of the trainer registered their names for the tournament, there were some who didn't bother to show up. 

That was one of the reasons why Axel wanted to come here 2 days before. 

###

"Sir, can you please tell me your name?"

"Axel Blaze."

"Ok, please give me your Pokecard. I need to verify you."

The receptionist took the card and started to verify the data.

"Sir, finally we will have to take your picture. Smile and look at the camera.", said the girl, and his picture was taken.

"Sir, your battle timing will be sent to you by mail. You will receive your timing but you will not be able to know your opponent's name or stats before the start of the battle. 

I believe you know all the rules and how the battle goes?"

"Yes, I do know. You don't need to worry about it.", replied Axel.

"Thanks. Now you have been formally registered. Please arrive 5 minutes before the start of your battle.", said the girl and Axel went to his hotel room.

Frank was still in the hotel. After arriving at the hotel room, all of them had lunch including their Pokemons. Axel turned around to his Pokemons and said, "If some of you want to train at night, then I have already booked the training ground. But if you don't want to train at night, then you will be resting till this tournament is over. You will need some good rest before the tournament."

Some of the older Pokemons wanted to complain as training had been a daily routine for them but Axel stopped them. After talking with Lucario on Aues Island, Axel came to realize that even though he loved his Pokemons, there didn't seem to be any family connection with most of them.

Yes, he trained them, had food together at night, and also talked to most of them at night but it was not enough. It was like a teacher teaching his students, not something family-like.

Axel knew that not training for a week would increase the time of their rank ups and he was not able to properly train them during the Aeus island. Then there was the tide battle and many things. So, he knew that he was running late. But bonding with his Pokemons was important. 

Axel started to search around the place and he was something interesting in the city.

"There is a Pokemon park here?", asked Axel to the hotel receptionist. 

"Yes sir. It is a very popular local place. You could go there and spend time with your Pokemon. The place is like a giant forest with waterfalls, lakes many exciting things."

Axel thought to try it. 

"Frank, I want to spend some time with my Pokemon in the park. Do you want to come?"

"Nah, I have been thinking of getting some resources for my Raichu. So, I will be shopping for the whole day. They say that since the king is coming, the resources found in the shops might be unique."

Axel then went to the park, gave the fee for using the park, and then went inside. It was like a huge grassland and Axel could see the forest far away. 

"Come out, all of you!!!!", shouted Axel and called all of his available Pokemons.

"Guys, it has been a lot of time since we had a vacation. So, let's explore the place and enjoy.", said Axel.

Axel looked at these Pokemons and everyone had a different reaction. The young Pokemons were happy to have spent some time exploring. They thought that they had earned it after training so hard.

Some of the older Pokemons like Shedinja, Beedrill, and Gogoat thought that it was a waste of time. Pokemons like Nidoking, Charizard, and Mamoswine were excited as they had never done this before. 

###

Pokemon POV start

"Bro why don't we explore the place and find myself a beautiful Nidoqueen.", said Nidoking.

"Come on Meg, why do you want to have a girlfriend so bad? We are kids. We are not even 5 years old for Arceus sake.", said Charles the Charizard.

"Oh come on. We are king-rank Pokemons now. We need to have multiple girlfriends to show our status and we don't even have one of them."

"Where did you hear such an absurd thing?"

"I heard it from my brain. Now, let's go."

"Dude, I don't think that there is any Nidoqueen in the wild. Your evolution is complicated. Remember how much time it took for you to evolve?"

"Yeah, you might be right. I will settle for a couple of Nidorina."

Charizard gave a long sigh and said, "Why do you want me to come?"

"You are my wingman. How else am I going to flex my might when you are not there to say it? Besides, didn't you say that you found a couple of female Charizard in that valley? Why don't you talk to them? Some of them might be interested in you.", said Nidoking with an evil smile.

"That place is very far and I don't want to go there again."

"At least help me then."

Pokemon POV end.

###

Nidoking and Charizard asked to roam around the place for themselves. Axel wasn't worried about them as they were king-rank Pokemons. But he told them to be back in an hour. 

Shedinja said that it wanted to spend some alone time by itself near the lake. Alakazam wanted to fly to the top of the highest tree and feel superior. 

Meanwhile, Mamoswine and Feraligatr wanted to explore the deepest part of the lake. The staff had said that the lake was so deep that they could not say what was the end of it and this got them excited.

Slowemperor also said that it wanted to explore with them. They were also given an hour to finish their mini-quest.

The young Pokemons also wanted to have their own adventure but Axel didn't agree with them. They were still too weak to travel alone. He let Feraligatr go cause Mamoswine and Slowemperor were with them and Pidgeot was pestering Feraligatr to comb its hair which it didn't want to do.

Yes, today Pidgeot had its vacation too and it wanted to just relax. It wanted someone to comb its hair and make it perfect and it saw that the claws of Feraligatr could be used for it. But Feraligatr didn't want to do such a menial job so it volunteered to go to the deepest part of the lake. 

Pidgeot was definitely going to take its revenge on Feraligatr in the future.

"Come here, I will comb your hair. But first, you need to remove all the dust on your body.", said Axel.

Pidgeot realized that to its horror there was some dust on its body. So, it immediately went to the lake and made a big dive to make itself clean. It had been training at night, so it must have gathered some dust on its body.

After cleaning its body it started to fly at very high speed to dry itself and then it came to Axel with a comb and a piece of cloth. Pidgeot loved to have its hair combed. It was a clean freak and would always make itself clean.

Axel took the comb and started to comb its hair. It slowly drifted to sleep. In the meantime, Axel began to talk to young Pokemons about what they liked and what they wanted to do.

Gogoat wanted to spend some time with the young ones and it was sleeping near them. Venusaur also wanted to sleep for some time while Beedrill came to Axel with an interesting proposal.

"Axel, I can sense that there is a tribe of Beedrill nearby. I want to go there and talk with them."

"Of course, you can."

"You don't understand. For some reason, I feel that it would help in my pre-domain move."

"How come?"

"Well, you know that the power of my pre-domain move increases when there are more Beedrills inside the domain, right?"

"Yes, but we cannot carry and catch a lot of Beedrill right now. That is why we are coming up with 'Substitute' and 'Bug knight'. Having a lot of Beedrills is not practical."

"I know that. But I feel that if I talk with them, then I could advance my 'Bug knight' to a higher level. This would further increase my powers. 

I could also have a clan of Beedrill and they can help us during the time of tide battles. This would increase my power by a lot.", said Beedrill.

"You know, you might be on to something here. Sure, why don't you spend some time with them? But you will be back before the end of this day.", said Axel.

Beedrill promised to come back as soon as possible. It went to the forest to search for its own species. 

Axel then began to talk to his Pokemons one by one. This was a comfortable feeling. Getting to know them and what they think about and how their brains work. Axel also sat with Shedinja and they had a conversation.

Meanwhile, Nidoking and Charizard came. Nidoking didn't look too happy. They did found out some Nidorina but none of them were up to Nidoking's taste. After ranking up and evolving, it seemed to be arrogant in picking girls. 

There was one that it find interesting but Nidorina didn't give a fuck about Nidoking which made it very angry. Charizard was laughing on the side. They seemed to have a good time. 

After a few minutes, the water team also came back.

"Axel, I think we found something interesting there. You might want to check it out.", said Mamoswine with an excited face. Looking at them so excited that, Axel wanted to go to but Slowemperor advised against it.

"The water is very deep down there and the pressure is too much. It is also not visible there. I don't think that your body could handle it. You also cannot breathe underwater."

Well, that was a bummer but Axel also knew his limits. He marked this location in his mind and thought to check it out some other time. He was curious about what they found, so he asked them.

"The water pressure started to increase as we went down. When we went even deeper we could not see or feel any Pokemons in that area. The pressure was huge. Feraligatr had to stay in that area cause he could not handle the pressure. I then went down with Mamoswine and after some time, it also could not handle the pressure. 

So I went down alone. The vision was black right now but through my psychic powers, I could feel some movement but since the pressure was so high, I could not concentrate on it. That was when something amazing happened."

"What happened?"

"The water pressure disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"Yes, disappeared. I could also not feel that movement anymore. I can however feel that something was trying to block my psychic senses. Then I went down a little and saw a light. It was yellow bright light but it was a small light."

"Then what did you do?"

"I felt that it was too dangerous. A lot of unusual things were happening. So I came back. But I feel that something is down there and we cannot go there unprepared."

"You did good. We are not going to risk anything for some curiosity. We will go there when we are prepared.", said Axel.

Axel didn't know what it was but he knew why only Slow emperor made the discovery when the lake had been in the city for such a long time.