Red's team:
Pikachu – Zeus
Munchlax – Atlas
Leaf's team:
Alolan Vulpix – Luna
Trapinch – Melody
Chapter 6
"Finally!" Leaf exclaimed the moment they entered Pewter City. "Let's hurry up, I need a hot shower!"
Red couldn't help but agree. He couldn't help but shiver remembering the cold dips into the river water. But without a fire and water type to help them wash up, using the rivers was the only option.
For now.
'The moment I have enough money, I'm buying the best Silph Co. camping set there is.' He decided.
While his current camping set was pretty damn good, it was only so by his old world's standard.
Any successful trainer worth their salt lived mostly on the road, traveling between harsh places to ideally train their Pokemon.
And Silph Co., seeing a business opportunity, spend billions to create the necessary technology to build tents based on the Pokeball's inner working.
They managed to pretty much creating portable apartments.
… Sadly, with a starting price of ~50.000 pokedollar – a Pokedollar had about the same worth as a normal dollar; they were too expensive for rookie trainers.
'At least I can start earning money from battles after I get my first badge.'
Betting money on Pokemon battles was only allowed after having a badge, to prevent unexperienced trainers from naively betting money on a fight they couldn't win.
But after proving their skill by owning a badge, all bets are off.
Coupled with potential price money from both gym battles and a few tournaments should get him enough money for a 'space-camp' within a few months; maybe even weeks, depending how much time and effort he was willing to put into it.
'Let's try to get it before I get my fourth gym badge!'
While he mused about his future portable appartement, they reached Pewter, and Leaf instantly ran into the Pokemon Center.
By the time Red entered, he barely caught a glimpse of her before she disappeared in the trainer-rooms, leaving a chuckling nurse behind.
She turned towards him, giving him a welcoming smile. "Welcome to the Pokemon Center, how may I help you?"
"A room for… three days please." He said, handing the nurse his Pokedex. "And a check-up for my Pokemon."
"Of course!" Nurse-Joy-the-second said easily, quickly checking his information's. Trainers were granted ten free days of housing every month, after that they would have to pay for their lodging themselves.
Luckily, he only spent one night in Viridian so far, so he had plenty of free days remaining.
After giving her his team, he followed Leaf lead and left straight for the bath, determined to use up all of the hot water.
He couldn't wait to have his own portable hot shower…
But even while showering, the coming gym fight was still at the forefront of his mind. More specifically, Atlas current inability to use [Bulldoze].
Considering how he had literally no progress with said attack, the chance that he learned the move before the gym fight was pretty much zero. And, without [Bulldoze], Atlas neither had a ranged attack, nor did he have a move that wasn't resisted by the rock types.
'… With Atlas track record of learning normal type moves, he should be able to learn [Hyper Voice] quick enough to be viable for the gym battle. It would at least give him a ranged attack.'
With [Protect] and potentially [Hyper Voice], Atlas should be able to do some damage. But even then, the victory was mostly depending on Zeus and his [Iron Tail].
"Well, no point in dwelling on that." He said out loud, leaving the shower feeling rejuvenated. "Let's get this over with."
"Welcome to the Boulder Gym!" A gym trainer, a few years older than them, exclaimed loudly. "Do you have a gym battle appointment?"
"No, but we would like to make one." Leaf answered for them. Meanwhile, Red looked around, admiring the life-like statures of Pokemon around them.
"I see, follow me then!" The gym-trainer said, before leading them deeper inside the cave-like building.
"Can I ask who build those statures?" Red said, looking at the increasingly bigger sculptures of different Pokemon; mostly of Rock types though.
"It is the gym leader's hobby! Apparently, he started sculping them while he was still traveling and regularly send them home with his Aerodactyl." He answered, pointing towards the statue of a ginormous and majestic Tyrantrum.
"That, for example, is his newest sculpture of his Tyrantrum. It is one of his stronger Pokemon, which he mainly uses on trainers who challenge him for their eight's badge; all of the sculped Pokemon are based on his Pokemon actually!"
With a newfound curiosity, they looked at the statues of the gym leaders' team. Most of them depicted smaller Pokemon like Geodude and Aron, but looking closer, you could nearly see the growth of some the Pokemon. Geodude, for example, got bulkier over multiple sculptures, before a Graveler and finally, a Golem took his place.
But it was the biggest sculpture that finally caught their eyes. It was the only statue with more than one specific Pokemon depicted.
It was absolutely massive sculpture of an entire team of extremely powerful looking Pokemon; compromising of a Golem, a Steelix, a Tyrantrum, a Sudowoodo, a Aerodactyl and a Magcargo; all surrounding an impressively muscular trainer with a stoic face and sharp eyes.
… Even just looking at the sculpture was oppressing, with each of the Pokemon not only looking like they could wreak a city on their own, but also looking like they would come to life at any moment.
"This is his main team." He explained after seeing their curious looks. "He created that sculpture shortly after getting third place in the Indigo Plateau six years ago. It was the last time he participated actually, he stopped traveling and became the Boulder gym's new gym leader instead."
"They look strong…" Zeus said from his place on Red's shoulder, looking at the sculptures intently. "I can't help but think that Atlas is rubbing off on me; I actually really want to fight beasts like those!"
"Same." Red whispered back, not even trying to containing a massive grin. Just the though of having an entire team of behemoth like those was nearly making him vibrate in anticipation.
"How many Badges do you two have?" He asked, jumped behind the registration desk.
"It's our first gym fight." Red replied, taking a deep breath to calm his excitement.
"Alright then, you will have to beat one of the gym trainers to challenge Brock then." While he went to get two gym trainers, Red turned to Leaf.
"We have to beat gym trainers to even challenge the gym leader?" Red asked in confusion; he hadn't known that.
"Yes, but that only applies to the first two gyms." She explained while fiddling with Melody's and Luna's Pokeballs. "It to prevent new trainers from foolishly challenge gyms before they are ready. Otherwise, the gym leaders would be completely overrun by challenges."
"Makes sense."
A few minutes later, the gym trainer returned with two others in tow, who instantly led them even deeper into the gym.
"This fight will be a one-on-one." Red opponent, a scruffy looking teen, said before releasing his Pokemon; a Sandshrew. "The fight is over when either one of our Pokemon is unable to continue fighting, or I deem you competent enough to challenge our gym leader. Any question?"
"No." Red replied, before motioning Zeus to enter the arena.
"You can begin then." The Sandshrew's trainer said, sneering slightly at his choice of Pokemon.
Which was understandable, a Pikachu wasn't exactly a good choice against a ground type…
"[Quick Attack]." Red ordered calmly, barely loud enough for Zeus to hear him. It wouldn't do to warn his opponent beforehand after all.
Zeus closed the distance between him and the Sandshrew within moments, and hit the Pokemon before it had the chance to react.
Without Red needing to give him the command, Pikachu used [Iron Tail], which the Sandshrew defended against with a hasty [Defense Curl].
"[Dig]!" His opponent shouted, panic clear in his voice. He probably hadn't expected Zeus to hit so hard and so quickly.
"Stay in motion!" Zeus didn't have to be told twice; he knew how dangerous and difficult it was to dodge an attack from beneath, Melody had made sure of that.
But even while running around the area, Zeus kept [Iron Tail] active, waiting for the Sandshrew to reappear.
And indeed, it was not as patient as Melody. Without its trainer giving it the command, the Sandshrew emerged from the ground and instantly switching into [Rollout].
… Only for Zeus to completely ignore the attack and hit it with [Iron Tail] head on, breaking him both out of the [Rollout] and also knocking him unconscious.
"… That was easier than expected." Zeus complained, and Red had to agree with him. It barely took, what. Three hits to knock it out, without Zeus taking any damage?
"You passed." The scruffy trainer grumbled before returning his Sandshrew. "Go back to Michael; the gym trainer who brought you here."
He left without another words, so he and Zeus just shrugged and walked back, meeting Leaf on the way.
"How was it?" Red asked, curious if he was just 'lucky' to have a weaker trainer, or if this was normal.
"Pretty good, his Dwebble managed to hit Luna with a [Smack Down], but she beat him pretty easily after that." She answered with a relieved smile on her face. "And yours?"
"Meh, Zeus destroyed him." Red shrugged, suddenly worried about the strength of the average trainer; if there were actually people who lost to this level of skill even after training for more than a week, would there even be enough people to compete against?
'Then again, there are trainers like Ray, so it can't be that bad.'
After arriving back at 'Michael', they got their gym battle appointment, which was for the next day at noon.
Which left them with an entire day before their battle.
"… Any ideas on what to do?" Red finally asked after they aimlessly walked around for a while. "I don't really want to train too much today; mainly Atlas actually."
"Mmh…" Leaf mused, agreeing with him. They had trained nearly non-stop for the last week, and a rest day before a big fight seems pretty logical. "How about visiting the museum?"
Red's first instinct was to decline instantly; he never was one to enjoy visiting museums. He was more of a book and sport type of guy.
But… Pokemon fossils could be pretty interesting…
"Sure, why not." He decided. In the worst case, he could just leave early and teach Atlas [Hyper Voice] instead.
"Wow!" Zeus exclaimed, looking at the skeleton of a massive Charizard. "That looks even cooler than the sculptures from the gym!"
Which was true; but that was mostly because it was a Charizard skeleton. Furthermore, he was pretty sure that Charizard normally didn't grow to an impressive height of 2,6 meters, which made him wonder what absolute beast that Charizard must have been while it was alive.
Curious, he infused aura into his eyes.
…Nothing.
Well, that was to be expected. But Red had kind of hoped that fossils still had some kind of aura remaining-
He swiftly turned to the left, where one of the fossils was glowed slightly.
He quickly walked over, observed the Kabutops fossil's aura from closer up.
It had an aura similar to a human actually. Not in the type-less aura type of way, but the 'contained within an invisible bubble' sort of way.
The rock type aura, with barely any water type aura in it, was just… sitting there, completely unmoving but still undoubtedly alive.
"I wonder…" Hovering his hand over the glass, he concentrated and extended a tendril of aura towards the fossil.
But, disappointingly, even after nudging the membrane with his aura, nothing happened. The fossil was completely unresponsive to his aura.
Looking around a little more, he quickly realized that most fossils were similar; at least the rock type fossils.
'So, a unique quality of rock type Pokemon?' He deduced. 'I wonder how that works with the Galar fossil Pokemon then; maybe its because they are wrongly put together…?'
"What are you doing?" Zeus finally asked after watching him stare at a Shieldon fossil for nearly ten minutes.
"The fossils have aura." He replied absentmindedly, before moving towards the second thing that caught his interest within the museum; a collection of every evolution stone.
Completely ignoring the suddenly anxious Zeus, who muttered something about 'undead' Pokemon, he focused on the closest thing to an 'aura bomb' that he knew of.
In all of the evolution stones was an extremely high concentration of their respective typing. The Thunderstone, for example, easily had multiple times the amount of aura that Zeus had!
'So, stone evolutions require an oversaturation aura?' Which created the question; was it theoretically possible that Ray, if he could use his aura, to act as an evolution stone for a theoretical Bugstone evolution?
And would type-less aura, if given at a high enough quantity, also force Pokemon like Zeus to evolve?
'In the worst case, I can give him a Everstone if Zeus doesn't want to evolve.' Red mused, before stopping at his line of thought. 'How does an Everstone work anyways? Does it absorb aura? Or does evolution require something that it blocks?'
Annoyingly, there wasn't an Everstone in the museum, so he had to curb his curiosity for now.
But his inability to infuse his aura into the fossils had him think about something else; could he infuse his aura into a random wild Pokemon?
After informing Leaf that he would leave early, Red quickly left the museum and walked towards the edge of the town in search of a wild Pokemon.
It kind of surprised him that he hadn't tried it until now. But until this point, he always used the literal connection he had to his Pokemon to infuse them with his aura.
Which begets the question, how did the connection even form? Was it a mental thing? A subconscious aura manipulation he didn't know about?
"Hey!" Red greeted a Rattata who was relaxing in the shades of a tree. "Do you have a moment?"
"Sure." He yawned, looking at them calmly. "Just make it quick, I have a date with this really cute Ekans in an hour."
Both Zeus and Red blanked, that was not the response they expected.
"City Pokemon with their non-existent survival instincts…" Zeus grumbled, torn between amusement and bewilderment.
"… It won't take long, don't worry." Red assured him, deciding to ignore the Rattata's declaration. "I can use aura and wanted to test something; I'm pretty much certain it will only have positive effects. May I test that with you?"
"Oh, good. I though you wanted to fight or something." Shrugging, the Rattata got up and looked at him with sudden interest. "Is it true that this aura stuff makes you energetic? A cute Lucario told me that once and I could really use it, if you know what I mean."
Red smile became forced after the Rattata winked at him.
Looking around for any other Pokemon he could ask for help, but was disappointed with an otherwise vacant forest.
Red exhaled, before turning to the perverted rat.
"… Yes, from what I saw from my team, infusing aura gives you a short energy boost, but I haven't tried it on a wild Pokemon yet."
"Then, what are we waiting for?" He asked, rolling his eyes. "Gimme some!"
Not in the mood to continue this conversation, Red did exactly that.
Similar to the fossil earlier, he extended a thin tendril into the Rattata's body. With its aura not contained in a membrane, he barely had to 'pierce' its skin before their aura touched, but something unexpected happened.
It started with a slight pull on Red's aura, directly drawing aura from the tendril. But, just as Red tried to curb the draining, the pull intensified, completely overwhelming his ability to control it!
"Is this supposed to happen?" The Rattata, who starting to feel bloated (in a positive way), asked while Red started to sweat excessively. "Not that I complain about that refreshed feeling, but I don't want to look fat while on my date!"
Red didn't answer, desperately trying to stop his aura from leaving his body.
Looking inwardly, he nearly cursed, watching his aura reserve depleting faster than ever before. Worse still, the pulling didn't seem to weaken at all; in fact, it was still getting stronger.
Not wanting to reach the point of complete aura depletion, Red tried something different; instead of competing in the contest of strength he obviously wasn't prepared for, he cut off the aura connecting him to the Rattata.
It worked.
Dizzy and covered in sweat, Red took a few steps back.
"Are you alright?" Zeus asked, looking at the Rattata in suspicion. "Do you want me to knock him out?"
"Hey!" The Rattata protested.
"No, its fine." Red answered, taking a deep breath. 'Alright, no infusing Pokemon without an already formed aura connection.'
Still, he infused some of his remaining aura into his eyes to see the result of this disaster. The Rattata was filled with over 80 percent in type-less aura, easily dwarfing its own normal type aura.
But otherwise, besides being filled to the brink with aura and being overly energetic; if his fidgeting was any indication, he looked pretty normal.
"How do you feel?" Red asked.
"I feel like I went a few rounds with that Meowth from a few months ago!" He answered, giving them a lecherous grin. "Exhausted, but absolutely amazing!"
"…Okay." Increasingly unconformable; a combination of having less aura than usual and the perverted nature of the Rattata, Red decided to leave and focus on training Atlas for today. "Ah…, thank you for your help, and have fun at your date?"
"I will, don't you worry!" Rattata answered, giving them a wink. "Also, I will keep your 'stamina boost' business a secret, don't worry!"
With those parting words, he run into the woods.
"… Please, never catch a Pokemon with a similar personality." Zeus requested, to which Red gave him a silent nod.
A… Casanova? Rattata was the last thing he expected to see today.
At least he got something out of this.
The question if he could infuse wild Pokemon with aura was pretty much answered after all… even if he was kinda interested in what that much type less aura would do to it.
'Which brings the next questions; what happens if I infuse a trainer's Pokemon with aura? Or another human?'
For now, he decided to stop that line of thought; he would come back to that after he beat Brock.
A short chapter today; I had a pretty exhausting week and only started earlier today with writing this chapter (normally I write over the entire week, a few hours at a time).
Anyways, next week is going to be the first gym battle; wish me luck in writing a good and realistic fight!
Thanks for reading and have fun playing Brilliant Diamond and Shining Perl!