Chapter 7

Training Session

It took Felix a while to find a spot he liked. But after a while he found himself standing on top of a small plateau. He had a clear view of the dark silent forest beneath him. The stars in the cloudless night sky gave him enough light. Taking a deep breath of the cool fresh air Felix managed to relax. He even considered letting his tail out, but left it were it was. He did not want to deal with it at the moment. It could wait.

Felix was here for a reason. After enjoying the scenic view for another minute he pulled out his Pokéballs and released his partners. They were both subdued. Byte of course already knew that they had lost and Shroomish gathering it from the expressions of the others. Felix clapped his hands making both Pokémon jump.

"Alright, listen up! We have a few things that we will be doing tonight. First thing is first. We need a nickname for you Shroomish." The Pokémon in question exclaimed happily.

"Hm… let's see, how about Sunshine?" Shroomish face fell and Felix creativity was rewarded with a dirty look.

"Ok, then how about Sara?" This name was apparently acceptable as Sara expressed her happiness and approval by jumping into Felix's chest and cuddled him. Felix was knocked back by the attack, but he had to laugh at the gesture. Lifting the Pokémon off him, he sat up.

"Great, so we are doing some training tonight. I know you a probably getting tired, I know I am, but let's get as much done as possible." The Pokémon agreed. "Alright, let us work on some speed. Rock types are supposed to be slow, but they still managed to catch us."


So the training began. First Felix ran up and down the mountain with his Pokémon. It surprised him how much stamina he had, considering he rarely did any sport. Sara had the most trouble considering how short he legs were. Byte on the other hand, just tried to fly faster. Shortly before midnight, he called for a break. He had seen some improvements, but he doubted that it would be enough. Totally out of breath by now, he instructed his Pokémon to practice their attacks, allowing him to rest. Sara practiced her Tackle, considering how using Absorb against an inanimate rock is kind of pointless. Byte however had fun with his Psybeam. After the first couple of tries, he managed to break the rock he was aiming at. Soon after he was blasting rocks left, right and center. Felix let him get rid of some of the frustration that he must have felt after losing against Steelix. Seeing as how the sleep deficit was catching up to all of them, Felix ended the training session. Gathering his two partners around him, Felix reviewed their first training session.

"The first training session was a success. The problem is still speed, but we won't be able to fix that overnight. We will have to do some running every day. Byte you did quite well with your Psybeams. Was it fun?" Byte nodded, pleased with himself. "Well that leaves one problem. How are we going to win in the Gym? We are just not strong enough." Felix slumped forward as a realization hit him. "What am I even doing here? I am just another rookie trainer, unable to beat the first Gym. Forrest probably has to deal with hundreds of my kind on a daily basis. How am I ever going to make it to the league?"

"I wouldn't say you are just another trainer."

Felix's heart nearly stopped has he heard the voice behind him. Quickly spinning around he found a man standing there. This stranger was wearing a well cut business suit with purple stripes, which reminded Felix of lightning bolts.

"If you were just another trainer, you wouldn't be here training." The experience was surreal. Why was this man, who apparently watched him training, in the middle of the night, on top of a mountain, just standing there and trying to boost his self-confidence?

"Um… excuse me, who are you?" Mister Business, as Felix dubbed him in his head, just chuckled.

"I am just a man who likes rocks. I have already reached my goals and now I am enjoying life. You however are still working towards yours." Felix just nodded.

"I am curious, why did you come here to train? There must be some good training grounds near Pewter City."

Feeling a bit ashamed, Felix mumbled the answer. "I didn't want to be seen and laughed at."

Again Mister Business chuckled. "You really need to work on your self-confidence. Trust me, I know a thing or two about being a Pokémon Trainer. If you do not believe in yourself, neither will they." The man pointed at the Pokémon. Felix felt his checks go red. It had never occurred to him how his outlook on things might affect his Pokémon.

"Tell you what. I have something in base camp that might help you with your battle. We could also have a little midnight snack. "

"Sure, why not?"

Getting to his feet, Felix gestured his Pokémon to follow him. Although he had no idea who this man was, he was knowledgeable and Felix was ready to learn.


The base camp of this guy was actually quite disappointing. All that Felix could make out where large stacked boxes. Chuckling at the Felix facial expression Mister Business explained. "I am leaving tonight, that is why everything is packed." The man walked to a box opened it and pulled out a cooler. In it was the promised midnight snack consisting of bottles of water and chips.

"I believe we haven't introduced each other properly. I am Steven Stone, rock enthusiast."

"Felix Ferell, rookie trainer." The name Stone rang a bell, but Felix could not place it. It was moments like this he wished that he paid more attention to the news.

"So tell me Felix, how did you get a Porygon?"

"It was my starter." Steven raised his eyebrows in surprised. "Let me explain."

So for the next 20 minutes Felix recounted the story of how he got Byte and an abbreviated version of his journey so far. Felix conveniently left out any parts concerning his own body During the story, they ate, drank and found a place to sit on top of one of the boxes.

"...I was about to wrap up the training session, when you scared the living daylights out of me."

"Sorry about that." Leaning back Steven considered Felix. "I like you, kind of remind me of myself at that age." Steven contemplated something further before saying "Ah, what the hell. It is not like they could fire me. Come on, you have to get up so I can give you a gift."

Felix jumped down from the crate and watched as Steven started rummaging around in it. He soon pulled out an antenna, laptop and some hard drive looking device. Sitting on the floor Steven booted the laptop and attached the antenna. The screen radiated a blue light. From my position, I could see a log in screen with some kind of corporate logo in the background. Steven started entering his username when he stopped. He looked apologetic at Felix.

"Felix, do not take this the wrong way, but I will have to ask you to recall Byte."

"What? Why that?"

"I am about to log onto a secure server and I would be in very much trouble should a Porygon somehow gain access to it. It is protocol. Nothing really I can do…"

It took a moment before Felix understood what Steven meant. The robotic voice of his Pokédex came into his mind Porygon is capable of reverting itself entirely back to program data and entering cyberspace. Nodding, he turned to Byte.

"I am sorry Byte, but I really want to see what Steven has for us. I'll let you out as soon as he is done." Byte gave a short nod. He was clearly not happy with the situation. Pulling out his Pokéball, Byte disappeared in a flash of red.

"Thank you, let's see now…"

Steven started typing. Soon different windows and loading bars appeared on the screen. This was way beyond Felix's area of understanding, but Steven clearly understood what he was doing because he kept typing away. Felix relaxed and stopped trying to read everything that was on the screen. All of the flashing suddenly stopped when one loading bar reached 100% everything on the screen disappeared and another log in screen appeared. This time the corporate logo in the background was from Silph Co. What the… why does he have access to Sliph Co.? The login screen was soon passed and was replaced by the opening and closing of windows and loading bars. Soon the screen flashed with one message Plug-in external hard drive in order to continue! One quick hand motion from Steven later it was replaced by a single loading bar. Once it reached 100% Steven clicked a couple of keys and the screen turned black.

"That's all, you can let your Porygon out again. You may as well do it now, because the stuff on this hard drive is for him."

Felix was about to release Byte, but stopped when he heard a deep rhythmic whooping sound. Steven cocked an ear as well.

"Ah… they are finally here." Quickly stowing all the gear he had pulled out of the boxes, he grabbed a long cylindrical object. "You probably should close your eyes."

Curious as to what would happen next Felix did not comply. Steven pulled at the top of the object and a bright red light erupted from it, blinding Felix. Cursing he turned away and spotting Sara, picked her up to shield her . The whooping sound drew nearer and soon was replaced by the whine of a jet engine. The helicopter landed just as the flare died out. As soon as the chopper touched down, men jumpd out and started to load the boxes. A smartly dressed woman suddenly appeared at Steven's side.

"Mister Stone, you have a meeting in the morning at 7 AM, also Professor Birch called again. You wanted his input on our new product."

"Yes, yes. I know, stop nagging me." Sighing he looked at Felix. "I wish you luck on your journey. If you need some help or advice call me. Wait a sec." Quickly running towards the helicopter, he grabbed something and returned. "My card is the bag. The other items are a gift, seeing how you smashed your supplies."

"Thank you, Steven." The lady huffed in indignation at Felix's use of her boss's first name.

"Sir, we are ready to lift off."

"Very well then. Felix, how about it? We could give you a lift back to Pewter City."

"No, no, no, no…. I am fine, I like hiking, really!" Felix answered quickly, shaking his head vigorously.

Steven gave him an odd look. "It's your choice, until we meet again." Steven boarded right after his secretary and as soon as the door closed behind them, the copper flew off. All was said and done in less than 90 seconds.

The depature of the helicopter returned the mountain top to it's quite state. Felix first examined the contents of the bag and chocked in surprised as he found Full Heals, Full Restores and Ultra Balls. A small business card lay on top and Felix had to hold it close to his eyes in order to read it.

"CEO and President of Devon Corp.?" He exclaimed loudly. Talk about a random encounter.


"Shroomish?"

"No Sara, if we break it open, everything in it will be destroyed."

The group of two Pokémon and one human was sitting on the ground, contemplating the device that Steven had given Them. It was clearly a portable hard drive. They had however no clue as to how Byte could profit from it.

"Shroomish, Shroom Shroom-ish."

"No, Sara, I do not believe that Byte should eat it."

"Shroomish, ish-oom"

"No, I cannot plug it into Byte, he doesn't have any…." Hit by a sudden realization. Byte was technically a computer program and as such he could enter Cyber Space. He tried so hard to see Byte as a Pokémon, he had actually begun to overlook one of his abilities.

"Byte, could you enter this hard drive. You know, by turning back into data?"

Byte gave him a long look before slowly moving forward and touching the hard drive with his beak. As soon as Byte touched it, a flash blinded them all. Rubbing his eyes in order to see again, Felix was unable to make out Byte. What he could see however was hard drive in front of him glowing eerily. Another flash blinded Felix for the third time that night. When his night sight finally returned, Byte was standing in front of him. He was no longer a Porygon, however.

"Wow, you're smaller." Was the first thing that came to his mind.

His new Porygon2 made computer noise and gave him a small peck with his beak. Petting the top of Byte's head, Felix added.

"It is great that you evolved. Now we can surely beat Forrest." Sara started exclaiming loudly.

"Of course we could not do it without you, Sara." Felix stood up and grabbed one of the Ultra Balls, enlarging it.

"So let it be known to the world, that after a good sleep and another day of training, we will return to Pewter Gym and stomp Forrest into the ground." The Pokémon called out in agreement.

"Alright then let's do it!" Felix shouted and threw the Ultra Ball. There was a stunned second of silence.

"Ah crap, I did not just do that."

The whole group rushed after the ball. They could hear it bouncing on the rocks up ahead.

"Please do not roll of the cliff. Please do not roll of the cliff. Please do not roll of the cliff."

As if cursing it the sound of the ball bouncing grew fainter and fainter, shortly after the group reached a cliff. They could still hear the faint noise of the moving ball.

"Damn it. Why do I keep losing my supplies? This sucks so much. I swear that…" Felix was interrupted by a flash of red light that appeared somewhere at the bottom of the mountain.

"What? It can't be..."

The group waited, but no second flash came.

"No way…"


Yet another chapter done! Not a lot happening in this chapter, but it was a good place to stop. The next chapter will be much better in that regard and longer.

Also, thanks for the kind reviews!

NanoCarp: Thanks for pointing out the broken sentence. Another thanks for the constructive criticism. That is what I am looking for. I will try and do better in future chapters.

That is all for now, see you guys soon.

benthefirst, signing out

Boom Boom Pow Away!