I had a taste of adventuring and exploration previously, but the Petalburg Woods were something else. May and I were making our way across what we hoped was the Eastern trail. We decided to avoid the central areas since the most powerful Pokemon no doubt made their home there. Forget Bug-types and Breloom, we were most worried about Vigoroth tribes. Those Pokemon were absolutely vicious. They gave into their instincts more than most Pokemon did, and those instincts told them to kill any prey they found and feast. They were also territorial as hell. That painted a gruesome picture, but they weren't complete murderhobos. If one showed them enough strength, one could gain their respect.

We already passed the outskirts of the forest and entered the Woods proper, following the natural pathways created by gaps within the treeline. It was eerie, I often had the feeling that we were being led by the spirit of the forest or something. May's PokeNav, a useful device that made me jealous for not owning one, barely had signal here, but luckily, the maps of the region I bought included the basic layout of the forest. May had some maps stored on her Pokedex as well. As long as we kept track of our approximate location, we should be fine.

Still, despite the ominous sensations, I was enjoying this. The Petalburg Woods were so full of natural life, it was a welcome change from the urban jungles I was used to. Since the fauna came in the form of Pokemon, it was hard to overlook.

"Look," May whispered, pointing to a thick tree in the middle of a clearing we had been about to pass.

Turning to to the indicated location, a sense of awe filled me. The tree was absolutely massive and apparently home to a bunch of Pokemon.

Cascoon and Silcoon hung from the branches, Shroomish and Breloom were helping themselves to berries and herbs growing at the base and if I wasn't mistaken, I could see a Treecko snoozing on a particularly thick branch high above the ground. Leaves were everywhere, likely obscuring many more Pokemon from view.

Nyx growled threateningly beside me and I whirled around to see someone filming the scene. He had brown hair, wore glasses and was dressed in a heavy wandering get-up.

"Heartwarming isn't it?" he asked.

"I'm Jamie," he introduced himself before I had a chance to respond, "I'm a scientist sponsored by Devon Corp researching the life of Pokemon in the wild and the impact human industrialization has on that."

I made a sound of interest. "That sounds like a noble pursuit. I'm Vincent."

"I'm May," my travelling partner introduced herself.

"I assume you two are travelling to Rustboro?" Jamie asked.

May and I shared a look.

"Yeah," I said.

"Don't worry, I'm not here to intrude on your adventure," Jamie said, grinning at us, "As it turns out I have too much material to work with. My deadline is coming up soon, but it would be a complete waste to leave now. As such, I wanted to ask if you could help me out by taking my research with you to Rustboro and delivering it to my superior, Tabitha Orlando. He's male by the way, despite the feminine name."

Tabitha? That name was familiar somehow. Wait. Wasn't he a freaking Team Magma Admin?

"Sure, we'd love to help!" May burst out, before looking at me. "Right?"

Well. I hoped I wasn't going to regret this later, though it wasn't like I knew for sure that Tabitha was a Team Magma member. For all I knew he could be an upstanding member of society. Either way, it didn't seem like this research was capable of ruining the world.

In the end, I just shrugged. "Sure."

"Alright!" Jamie exclaimed, "Well then, since I have full faith in your ability, allow me to give you your reward in advance. 2000 PY each should suffice, I think."

May made to intervene as he pulled out his smartphone and began to tap on the screen. "Oh, you don't have to pay us, we're heading that way already aren't we?"

Jamie shook his head. "If I caught a taxi with a friend who was going in the same direction, I would still at least pay half the bill. The Devon Corp headquarters are in the north of the city, so just consider it as a fee for transporting my goods across both Petalburg Words and the city."

May didn't seem to have a response to that, so she just sighed and pulled out her Trainer's License. I did the same.

"Thank you then," she said.

"I'm the grateful one here," Jamie said grinning as he transferred over 2000 PY to each of us, "My research on how Pokemon live is going really well. Who knows, maybe it'll make me famous?"

"Thanks," I said, despite his words, but he just waved me off.

"Well, now that that's out of the way, I'm going to continue recording. Safe travels, you two," he said, before turning away from us.

He pulled a tripod and a notepad out of his backpack, placed his camera on the tripod and began to take notes, completely ignoring our existence.

We left him to it.

"Jamie seemed really into his research," May noted, ducking underneath a low tree branch.

We were a good distance away from the clearing and the path had become thicker with trees again. Both of us were relatively tall, May must have been five foot eight at least and I stood at a good six foot two or three, which meant that while we had good vision while wading through the tall grass, low tree branches and tall shrubs were our worst enemy. I couldn't count the number of times I had already hit my head, or gotten scratched trying to push past a smaller tree or large shrub.

Every once in a while, a wild Pokemon, or a small group of them would challenge us, but we hadn't yet faced anything that Nyx, Anubis, Vermillion and Azure couldn't handle. We had taken to alternating what Pokemon we used in those battles, so as to give our whole team more experience. Although the wild Pokemon aimed to incapacitate or sometimes even kill, it was bad form to do the same to them. Luckily, Pokemon tended to have a strong sense of survival in the wild and would flee if they got too injured. Still, this meant that battles were usually fairly short.

It made sense that wild Pokemon that had the drive to become stronger were often open to being picked up by Trainers, since battles between Trainers could be longer and sometimes also more intense, despite being only until a Pokemon was recalled or unconscious, not dead. They were also probably more numerous. There was also training to be factored in. All in all, being trained probably seemed like a pretty sweet deal to a lot of Pokemon, if they found a Trainer that they believed was worth their trust.

"Yeah," I agreed, "I suppose research to him is what Pokemon training and battling are to us. Everyone has different passions, and I think that sadly many never find a way to make their passion their job."

May hummed thoughtfully at that.

We walked in silence for a while until it was time to have breakfast.

Checking the time, it was around 10 AM. We had already been walking for several hours without having eaten more than rations and we still had about half a dozen hours to go until we should be reaching the end of the forest.

Breakfast wasn't a big affair. We had found ourselves another clearing to sit in after a while. I was going through cheese sandwiches while May had packed herself a pasta salad that she was furiously picking apart. Our Pokemon had their specially prepared food mixes and we split a large Golden Nanab Berry into four pieces for dessert.

"That hit the spot," May sighed as she packed away her food container.

"It was a good idea to head out as early as possible, but it did make me very hungry," I agreed, doing the same.

I was about to recall Anubis, when he and Nyx began sniffing at the air, before growling loudly.

The source of their agitation became audible before I even had time to ask what was wrong.

The sounds of frenzied growls and cackles drew nearer. Standing opposite me, May went pale.

"Oh crap," she whispered. "Vigoroth."

I swallowed heavily, before attempting to take control of the situation. "It's too late to run now, since they'll be able to smell us. Let's move away some distance away from each other. We can then try to pincer them from two sides. Be ready to use Potions at any moment."

May looked at me unsure and a little lost, before seemingly getting a hold of herself.

"Alright," she nodded, moving several meters back in the clearing.

"Azure, stay high and don't let any of them touch you. You'll be providing aerial support," she told her Wingull as the sounds became even louder.

"Anubis, Howl and keep going until you're forced to attack," I ordered my Pokemon.

Loud sounds emerged from Anubis' throat as he powered himself up in preparation for a grueling battle. Soon after, the tall grass rustled and tree branches snapped as four Vigoroth came charging into the clearing, ignoring all obstacles in their path, howling all the way.

"Nyx, Pursuit, Anubis stay here, cover her with Snarl and Bite anything that comes close!" I commanded.

It was a bit of a lopsided arrangement. Some might argue that it would have been better for Anubis who had a stronger body to go into the fray and they could be right, however, despite his evolution, Anubis was still slower than Nyx, who was already weaving among attacks and delivering her own, wreathed in a blaze of negative energy. His bulk wasn't so great that he could take many attacks from these Pokemon, so he was better off remaining stationary, but out of the way, while Nyx and Vermillion drew their attention.

One of the ape-like creatures barreled towards my position in the southwest corner of the open space, huge claws extended, no doubt with the intention to cut me open. Before it even got close, I already had Repel flask in my hand, spraying it in the Pokemon's direction.

The Vigoroth screeched in pain almost immediately, paws going to its burning eyes, while Anubis stayed downwind of the repulsive fluids and let loose a Snarl that almost bowled the Vigoroth over, before Tackling it so hard it flew back several meters into another of the vicious Pokemon, both of them toppling onto the ground.

Azure used this opportunity to pepper both Vigoroth with concussive blasts of water in the form of Water Gun.

While that went on, Nyx was distracting the other two Vigoroth, having created an illusion to make herself look like a Breloom, like the one we had seen at the big tree earlier. The appearance of a natural counter sent the Vigoroth into an even greater frenzy, and although Nyx was managing to fool them for now by faking ranged attacks that would 'barely' miss, it wouldn't last if either of the Vigoroth got one good hit on her.

Luckily, Vermillion was there to help out and while Nyx was distracting the Vigoroth, keeping them from engaging with anything else, Vermillion shot burning cinders at both of them whenever the opportunity presented itself. One of them was particularly unaware of its surroundings and had therefore suffered heavy burns to its side and chest.

It may have looked like we had things handled, but that was discounting the thing that gave Vigoroth their name – their incredibly vitality. This battle could easily turn into one of attrition if we didn't beat them quickly enough and in a battle of attrition, the Vigoroth would win.

I was very thankful for the fact that the Slakoth line weren't known to be natural tacticians, otherwise this battle would go south very soon. As it was, we still had a good chance of beating them.

Anubis was proving vital with his Snarl being a somewhat conical area of effect move with two meters of range before it fizzed out. The sound waves were often catching two or even more of the Vigoroth in one go when they unwittingly clumped up. He'd taken a few scratches as a result of increased aggression towards him, but was still in fighting shape thanks to my Potions.

There was a dull thump as one of the Vigoroth finally caught Nyx with a swipe of its claws, slamming her into a tree. She didn't get back up and I paused only to check that her chest was still rising, before I quickly recalled her.

Shit. She was alive, but this wasn't good. It would take more than a Potion or two to get her back into fighting shape.

The Vigoroth howled in unison at finally taking down an opponent, throwing themselves at us with renewed fervour.

Anubis howled right back, slamming into another Vigoroth with Tackle, leaving bruises that were already looking purple under the white fur, but it got up again, only to get a face full of Water Gun, which finally put it down.

Just like that, we were evenly matched again. I wiped sweat off my brow. We still had a chance of winning, but it was looking more and more like it would turn into a battle of attrition.

"Vermillion!" May gasped from across the clearing and I was stunned as soon as I looked over.

White light radiated from his form, which grew from barely half a meter to about a full meter in size, similarly to Anubis' transformation. The height was where the similarities ended however, as Vermillion grew two powerful and limber arms topped with steely grey talons. His legs thickened, muscle mass growing.

Before us stood a Combusken.

May grinned. "Awesome! Sand Attack, then take them down with Double Kick!"

Vermillion kicked at the ground, throwing up so much dirt and grass that it briefly obscured him from the Vigoroth trio's vision, before he was upon them. A solid kick to the temple knocked out one Pokemon.

Anubis, not one to be outdone, Tackled his opponent into Vermillion's range, who jumped to meet the flying Vigoroth in the air, kneeing it in the chest, before somersaulting and drop kicking it into the ground.

The last Vigoroth attempted one final assault, but was peppered by a combined assault of Snarl, Ember and Water Gun and quickly went down.

I exhaled loudly, before looking at May, who grinned at me in happiness and pride. I couldn't help but grin back.

We had just taken on four of the boogeymen of Petalburg Woods and won. If that wasn't a cause for celebration I didn't know what was.

May hummed in thought, before pulling out an empty Pokeball. She tapped it to one of the unconscious Vigoroth and it was quickly sucked in. The ball blinked red three times, before going still.

"You be careful with that one," I warned, having seen how vicious they could be.

"I can handle it," May said confidently, "My dad has multiples of them."

I wasn't sure if that translated to her knowing what she was doing, but I was going to trust her on that one.

"Alright," I said. "Well then, let's heal our friends."

May nodded, reaching for her backpack.

I did the same, pulling my own backpack off my shoulders and opening the medicine compartment. It didn't take me long to find some more Potions.

"Alright come here," I beckoned my duo over, before applying the regenerative spray. Watching their wounds heal in mere seconds was a marvel. Before this fight I hadn't had reason to heal my Pokemon personally, instead relying on Pokemon Centers' healing machines, which didn't make the healing process visible. If we had this kind of science back home, so many things would be better.

Anubis bumping his head against my waist with a quiet growl shook me out of my reverie and I quickly recalled him. He was probably bored already and wanted to chill until the next battle or training session.

That gave me a thought. May had joined me in travelling partly so that she could learn a little of how I trained my Pokemon, but we hadn't really had time to do any sessions yet. I resolved to have one during our next break, barring any unforeseen interruptions.

May walked over, having finished healing and recalling both of her Pokemon. "I'm good to continue."

I nodded, "Me too, let's go."

We marched through the forest trail for another good four hours. I could tell we were nearing the outskirts of the Petalburg Woods because the sun was shining brightly through gaps in the tree line, illuminating the flora and fauna alike. The forest was truly awake now, with Beautifly snooping around berry bushes, Dustox hiding in the shade of the trees and Taillow sailing through the air. Everywhere we went, there was some form of Pokemon life.

"Hey," I called over to my travel partner, who turned around in askance, sapphire eyes trained on mine.

We were currently walking through the biggest clearing I had seen so far, which seemed like the perfect time and place to ask this.

"So, Vermillion evolved earlier and we're nearing the end of the Woods. How about a bit of training before we exit the forest?"

May grinned. "I thought you'd never ask."

I couldn't help but smile back. "Alright then, I'll show you some of our usual routine."

Nyx had been quiet for most of the day, enjoying the forest which was after all her natural habitat. From time to time she would chase a Taillow into the tree line, or observe a crawling Wurmple.

Now however, she looked focused, ready to train. I sent out Anubis and explained what we were doing, causing him to look excited. As lazy as he may appear a lot of the time, he had become something of a fitness nut, and ever since Nyx proved to be better at energy manipulation, training with her brought out his competitive spirit.

May also sent out her Pokemon, Vermillion and Azure eyeing me with some interest.

"One thing that's very important for Pokemon is their physical condition," I told my audience of three. "You probably know that already, but from the research I've done, looking at videos online, a lot of Trainers neglect their Pokemon's bodies in favour of focusing on their attacks. To me, being well trained doesn't only mean knowing a lot of moves."

May nodded, a hint of shame in her expression as she avoided looking at me directly, "I'm guilty of that too."

"Well, there's still plenty of time to add new routines to your sessions if you wish to do so," I said, trying to encourage her. I wasn't here to make her feel bad, just to share some of what I did.

"The easiest way to exercise for Pokemon is the same as for humans, running laps. Even a Combusken like Vermillion will become exhausted if it runs long enough, despite its powerful legs. I usually give my Pokemon twenty minutes to half an hour to just run around the training grounds, it gets them warmed up and feeling the strain a little. That lets me move on to more intense exercises. We don't really have a big enough space to make just running in circles not be tedious, so let's have them do five laps and race each other to see who can complete them first. The winner gets three berries at the end of the training session while everyone else gets one."

May smiled, "This seems like a fun way to train, lets do that. Vermillion, Azure, get ready."

The two avian Pokemon chirped their acknowledgement.

I pointed out a spot to be used as the starting line, before fishing out my Pokedex to record them.

"Oh wow," May exclaimed, her eyes bright with excitement, "You have a Pokedex too? Did you get it from Professor Birch?"

"Ah," I said, pausing briefly before remembering the excuse I had come up with. "No, this Pokedex is from a private researcher that works for the Indigo League. They're a friend of my family, so I was able to get one from them in exchange for helping them out with some projects. Don't spread it around please, I'm not sure if they could get into trouble for it."

"Oh," May blinked, before smiling, "Don't worry your secret is safe with me."

I smiled back hesitantly, feeling rather guilty for lying to what appeared to be my first human friend in this world. Telling the truth however would ironically only see her dismissing me either as a liar, or a mentally ill person, so this was for the best.

I tapped the button to record and gave the signal for the race to start. Right off the bat, Azure seemed to take the lead, not by a large amount, but the powerful beating of his wings propelled him through the air quickly enough to push him ahead of the pack. Vermillion was running closely behind, with Nyx and Anubis nipping at his heels. Funnily enough, Vermillion ran with his arms behind his back, much like a certain anime character.

While the Pokemon carried out their race, May and I conversed.

"While I can't give away all of my training secrets, I do believe in a holistic approach to Pokemon training. Rather than focusing on one aspect, try to figure out which aspects of a Pokemon's overall fighting ability matter most to your battling style and train all of those up. It'll make your journey longer, progressing through towns and cities at a slower pace due to the effort required, but I believe that it's worth it. It's not rocket science, so I'm sure I'm not the only person that trains this way, but it does require more effort and thought than a lot of Trainers seem willing to put in."

May nodded, listening with interest. What I didn't tell her was that I intended to train up every aspect of my Pokemon that I could think of. I was probably going to quadruple my journeying time that way, but I believed the results would be worth it. I would still lean towards some sort of battling style in the end, most likely one backed up by Status Moves, but on the whole I was trying to get my team to excel at everything. Only time would tell if this endeavour would work out, as there was the risk of them ending up jacks of all trades, masters of none, but I believed in the potential of my Pokemon.

Our Pokemon had finished the race, surprising us somewhat as Vermillion ended up in the lead, followed by Nyx as runner-up. Vermillion's stamina and speed were both top-notch, Nyx was also very quick as her body shape compensated for her shorter legs, though she still lacked somewhat in stamina. Azura was fast, but beating his wings constantly as well as the sharper than normal turns took a toll on his already not so great endurance, putting him in third place. Sadly, despite Anubis arguably being the strongest of the bunch physically and therefore having the most endurance, Mightyena just weren't built for absolute speed in the way Zorua and Combusken or most Flying-types were.

We moved on to a few other basic exercises focused on training different aspects of our Pokemon, from physical attributes to certain types of moves, letting May and her Pokemon get a feel for what could become their style of fighting, before ending the session.

"From what I can tell…" I began, "Your team is mostly built to strike hard and fast, but from a distance, peppering your opponent with ranged attacks and playing keep away until they're forced to resort to physical attacks."

May nodded. "That has more or less been our strategy so far."

"Now that Vermillion has evolved," she continued, "he'll be just as good at melee range as he is at a distance, so some training to take advantage of that would do him well."

"True," I agreed, "Chances are, you can get inexperienced Trainers to tunnel vision in on their Pokemon reaching him before getting into a Melee battle. If you can reduce the energy expenditure of his ranged attacks like Ember and maybe teach him some more like maybe Vacuum Wave and Swift, while also bulking up his stamina further, he'll be a real pain in the ass to deal with at a range and with Double Kick, Peck, Scratch and Flame Charge, he's also likely to be a monster in close quarters."

May checked her Pokedex eagerly, reading through the entries for those attacks. I was an incredible Pokemon nerd so I knew most of Combusken's low level move list, but I had also checked through the list of moves that the Torchic evolutionary line could learn before this session.

Her eyes were shining with anticipation. "You're right."

"How'd you get so good at being analytical?" she then asked.

I shrugged, debating on what to say for a few moments. I couldn't very well tell her that I had almost two decades of experience with Pokemon, even though they were just game characters to me previously. Or couldn't I...

"I've always been obsessed with Pokemon Training from a young age. I'd watch people battle on TV, watch battles online, and all that stuff. I'd read stories about Trainers and even tried to write fiction ones myself."

May grinned. "Wow, I mean, everyone watches battles, but I don't think I was ever motivated to that extent. So you're just a battle fanatic?"

"Yeah, pretty much," I chuckled. That was one way to put it. 'Geek' or 'Nerd' would've been more appropriate in the past.

We ended up resting for a short while after that, before continuing our trek through the last stretch of the woods.

The trees thinned out more and more, revealing the afternoon sun in the blue sky. We had been walking for a full ten hours now and had finally left Petalburg Woods. The expanse of trees had given way to a vast plain. There was a large lake in the north, already visible from a distance and a manor to the northwest of our location, accompanied by a glass building that could only be the greenhouse from the games. According to May, the land around the manor, as well as the greenhouse, belonged to the Clemens family.

It still felt a little strange to see people in a region modelled after a location in Japan with Western names and surnames, but a bit of reading up on the culture and geography of Hoenn had made me realise that it was a hodgepodge of the nationalities that I had been used to. The West of the region was largely European in style, the central locations were a mix, more in line with traditionally East Asian architecture as well as the more modern Japanese cities where places like Mauville and Slateport were concerned and then the East of the region loosely matched tropical and coastal locations from all over Earth with a bit of a Southeast Asian twist.

This world was so similar and yet so different to mine, even ignoring the whole Pokemon thing. It was fascinating, learning more about it.

Walking up the dirt road to Rustboro, we passed a couple of Trainers, whom we mostly handed their asses to. There weren't too many experienced Trainers walking through Route 104, as most veterans used Flying or Psychic-types to get around.

The day passed quickly, and we made it to Rustboro by the evening. The trek through Petalburg had taken us ten hours and then we had spent another couple of hours on the road. Hoenn was a large region, but the main landmass wasn't as big as it seemed, being a little smaller than France. There was a metric fuckton of water in between many places, which made the region seem bigger than it was, especially in the Eastern parts. If one somehow shuffled all the islands in the East and stuffed them into the Southern waters, or connected them to the main landmass, the Hoenn region would only be somewhat larger than France. As it was, the ocean trail gave the entirety of Hoenn an area of just over 1.3 million square kilometers, slightly larger than Ontario in Canada. To the geographically challenged that might not seem like a lot, but as a reminder, Ontario was home to 50 odd cities. Meanwhile Hoenn had around 20, but made up for it with a lot of nature in between them. I used to travel a lot back on Earth, so I was familiar enough with the geography of a bunch of places that I could use them as reference.

May was looking rather exhausted when we finally strolled up to the main Pokemon Center. We quickly arranged a pair of rooms for ourselves.

I turned to her, smiling. "Well, I guess this is almost it. Let me know when you're planning to challenge Roxanne, I'll try to be around to watch and cheer you on."

May grinned back, a touch of redness to her cheeks. "I'm gonna do some more training first, I don't want to get destroyed and disappoint you and my father, you know?"

My smile grew a little at seeing her embarrassed. "Good plan, I'm going to do pretty much the same. I'll probably be in Rustboro for a decent while, so we can meet up for breakfast or something from time to time if you like."

Was I asking her out on several dates at this point? Probably. She was honestly nice to be around and while I didn't know her that well yet, spending two days with her, travelling around, chatting, battling and training, had been fun. I'd like to get to know her better before we parted ways, if possible.

May blushed prettily as she gave my offer a few moments of thought before nodding. "That sounds good."

"Awesome," I said, giving her a small smile, "Well then, have a good night, sleep well."

"You too," she nodded.

We went up to our respective rooms. I took off the belt that held my Pokeballs, placing it on a cupboard at the side of the bed. Although I was dead tired, I decided a shower was in order first, to get rid of all that accumulated grime and dirt. I did just that, then changed into something clean and comfortable, before collapsing into the bed.

End of Chapter 2.

AN: First of all, thank you, everyone who read the story so far and is reading this AN right now and apologies for this chapter being only half the size of Chapter 1. I'm still experimenting with what size of chapter is best for me to establish a good schedule. So, I was pretty hasty in getting Chapter 1 out almost a year ago and didn't leave any Author's Notes. After that, life became rather complicated for a long while, so I struggled to even reply to reviews, considering that I wasn't really working on the story. As a result I'm going to try my best to address comments on the most overarching aspects. Before that though, one important note, or shout out rather, goes to Professor Wormwood, aka Mutitus on DeviantArt, whose incredibly expansive library of scientific-style articles on the Pokemon World are being incorporated into my world building. I really wanted to explore the Pokemon world on a deeper level and his articles are a great source of inspiration/ideas.

Now onto comments.

The bulk of them seemed to be about Pokemon choice (I'm glad most of you like the current roster) and possible ideas for new additions to the team, as well as questions for where they'd come from. Since the number of Dark-types in Hoenn is rather low, as some of you have pointed out, I will indeed have to be a little more creative about acquisition of more. I don't want to spoil too much, but you can look forward to seeing Pokemon from other regions being represented on Vincent's team.

One piece of advice that someone gave me, unrelated to the reviews, was separating the text more to make it easier to read and not get lost. As a result, I've put in the lines at the end of a scene. Please let me know if these improve your reading experience or if they're annoying.

That's pretty much it for this AN really, I want to once more thank everyone reading, following, favourite-ing and reviewing so far. I'm not sure if I'll do many more ANs or any of this size, we'll just have to see.