Morning graced Kanto with a golden shine of the sun and a slight rustling of the trees. The wind picked up the sand from the rocky terrain and spread it over the tall grasses and border fences. The small bugs and pidgeys convened onto the grassy knolls for breakfast as the country began to wake up. The Academy, however, ran on a tighter schedule.
At exactly 6:15, three dodrio raced out of their pens, their high pitched shrieking piercing the hillside academy and shook every trainer awake. Even some pokemon jumped out of their balls in alarm. Soon afterward Professor Oak flipped a switch and a more normal revile reassured the rest of them that it was no emergency.
But not everyone was sleeping. Red had not been able to sleep once the light fell on his face, 30 minutes earlier. So he sat in the main lobby of the dorm, the same one he entered a few days ago and pondered what he was going to do next. He had learned the basic type advantage systems, but his own pokemon, a normal type, barely had any effective strategic advantage. He then tried every possible way to get Snorlax to do any moves, let alone even move when it wasn't hungry.
He called his mom yesterday and asked how things were. She had squeezed out every aspect she could about how he liked the place, who his roommate was, if he was nice, what pokemon he had now.
She gave some advice that went in one ear and out the other. Normally he would cling to every word she said, but after so much disappointment in one day, his eyes glazed over and his hair fell in depressed clumps down his face. His mother, somehow always alert even at night, had caught on his feelings.
"Satoshi my sweet, what's wrong? You don't sound so excited to be there."
He slumped over the monitor, letting his face switch from sadness to confusion to frustration...
"I know, I know. It's just that, well, my Pokemon isn't helping me like others' do."
She moved in closer to the monitor, her hand folded across the table, the other holding the receiver tightly.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, my Snorlax doesn't listen to my calls during training. All of the other trainers have pokemon that listen to them, and they're winning matches and stuff!"
"Well, that sounds tough."
"I know. And do you know how long they have had their pokemon?"
"How long have they had their pokemon, Red?"
"Only a few months! I have no chance if this keeps up."
"Why so?"
"Well, because who knows if it will just keep ignoring me over the next few months. Then I'll have to fight someone and lose and it will be so humiliating because... well because I suck at training!"
He turned to his Mother with moistened eyes. His mother returned with a stern look unlike anything he'd ever seen before.
"Satoshi Tajiri! I will not have you act out in this way! Sit up!"
He immediately sat up.
"Now, stop thinking like that. Think about what you're going to do next! What will that be?"
"Try...Try to find a weak pokemon with a bad trainer."
She shook her head slowly.
"No, no. That is not how a trainer gets any better. You must find a better way to train your Snorlax. I don't care about how much it sleeps or eats, there must be a way to train it."
His eyes widened as she finished that sentence.
"Say that last phrase again."
"I said, I don't care how much that pokemon eats, it can be trained."
"Mom... when it ran as fast as me, it had been towards food. Maybe..."
His Mom caught onto his logic.
"If you use food as a reward, it will listen!"
"MOM! THAT'S IT! THANKS!"
He even kissed the receiver before hanging up the phone.
It was that morning that he had planned the whole operation out. The moment the guard unlocked the gates, Red was first out the door to the nearest fruit tree and up the trunk before the first match began. Using his knapsack, he gathered as many apple-like fruits as his sack could carry.
Snorlax awoke to a stubborn trainer holding its favorite fruits in his tiny hands.
"Snorlax, this will be how it goes. I reward you for every action I command you."
The confidence filled his lungs as he juggled the apple in his hand, before finding his hand empty and a massive monster towering over him licking its chops.
"Okay...Let's try that again. Arm up." He motioned with his arm what to do. Snorlax stood there with its head tilted in misunderstanding.
"Arm up." He hoped that Snorlax copied him sooner or later.
Snorlax tilted its head the other way before lifting its own arm like Red was. Soon afterwards an apple was tossed towards its mouth, disappearing in a crunch. The monster looked down with a smile, as if it solved a difficult puzzle.
"Arms up." Now it listened immediately, as it followed Red's commands and lifted both arms up high, only to catch another apple.
Red couldn't believe this was working. So he tried one other approach.
"Arms up." This time he didn't motion himself.
The monster didn't move. Only after Red moved himself did Snorlax lift its hands and greet another apple to its mouth.
Red's pokemon became his mirror, copying his every move. By the time lunch came around, they had shaken the ground with jumping jacks, been told to stop doing those, shared a laugh after that, stretched their arms and legs and swung their hands like vines, all while Snorlax ate a constant barrage of apples rewarded to him.
Professor Oak found his office shake every so often that morning and afternoon, after asking the lady at the lobby what the commotion was about. She answered that it was an unusually large pokemon being trained near the apple orchard.
"Ah, it's a nice day outside, so I guess I'll go see what the commotion is about."
He traveled across the grassy plains and sandy piles to find a massive pokemon taking orders from a tiny trainer. Now it was jumping on one foot, a hand on its nose and another in the air while its trainer did the same. For a second, he nodded his head in approval, surprised that a trainer could do such a feat. Then he noticed that it wasn't just any trainer; it was RED. The boy who stopped a Gyarados just by his wits and a pokeball. Now he could make a Snorlax do jumping jacks on the condition of having an apple waiting for him.
"Red Tajiri, I am very impressed young man."
The young trainer turned towards him, his hair soaked with sweat and his shirt plastered to his body. He hadn't even eaten lunch yet and he had been training since early that morning non-stop.
"The only problem is how jumping jacks will help your Snorlax."
Red smirked at his mentor, "Easy. Like this!"
He swiped his hands wildly. "Double Edge!"
Snorlax whipped its hands faster than the naked eye.
"Headbutt!"
It took the pose of a battering ram and lunged towards his trainer.
"Body Slam!"
The massive hulk of pokemon turned and lunged two feet horizontally before crashing down on the ground unharmed.
"Good. Now, use Rest. You deserve it."
The Snorlax gladly collapsed on its back to resume its usual behavior.
Professor Oak never saw a trainer teach a pokemon a move set like that without using TMs. Body slam isn't able to be learned by Snorlax until level 35...
Within 1 day, Red had gotten a Snorlax under control and taught it 3 vital moves. But that only sparked another boy's curiosity even further.
No one bothered the training duo, as Snorlax looked too menacing to be challenged, yet one trainer decided to cool down the waters.
"Red, I challenge you to a one-on-one match right now!"
A boy decked out in a blue vest and brand new sneakers rushed towards his Grandpa and the protege, ready to show him what a real trainer looked like.
