Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!

"Okay... that mountain, looks like it might be THIS mountain... so while we aren't lost, we got a little off the path."

They should have been in town by now.

Well, they weren't travelling at the moment. They were sitting in a cave during a heavy rain storm, with a fire roaring in front of them. They didn't have much choice in the matter but to take shelter from the rain, made even more apparent by the fact they were soaking wet. Naruto was perfectly fine in just his boxers and a shirt, while Bea had switched to just the one piece that she wore under her clothes. Their clothes were drying in front of the fire, and Bea was drying her hair off with a towel.

"When did we get side tracked?"

"When we to go get water at the river, we must have just gotten back on the wrong path is. We're a little further away from-" Naruto was forced to pause when the cave they were in rumbled. "-Ecruteak, so once the storm quits we leave the cave and go this way." Naruto drew a path with his finger.

"If it stops soon." Bea complained slightly.

Rain was great, but not when you were traveling by foot. What was worse was that it had been raining for at least 13 hours at this point, and it showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. Every once and awhile a wild pokemon would rush into the cave to hide out from the rain, but those pokemon would go much deeper into the cave than they were. A small group of Oddish huddled together near a wall as they moved passed them and went deeper, following behind a Vileplume and a few Glooms.

"Well, on the bright side... I see a boulder, and boulders mean training... and THIS boulder is a big one." Naruto grinned as he walked away from the fire. Bea watched with interested eyes to see what kind of training Naruto was going to do.

"Pffffft."

Bea lost herself when he started to unleash a barrage of half-power punches against the boulder, not full power, but half power. He was chipping pieces off of the boulder, and moving around it to shape it how he wanted to. He was sculping the boulder with his fists, and she covered her mouth with both hands to force down a giggle when she realized what her was using the boulder to carve. The cave rumbled again, and Naruto stopped training with a more worried look when he realized the rumbles were getting worse and worse.

They weren't stopping this time.

"Everyone out of the cave!" Naruto called out to all of the pokemon that had escaped deeper, out of sight but not out of hid mind. Naruto waved his arms into the darkness, and surprisingly the Oddish group with Vileplume and Glooms were the first ones to actually obey and leave the cave back into the rain.

The wall of the cave burst open as an Onix dug it's way through the walls, stopping another group of small pokemon from getting out of the cave. The rumbling had come from the digging of an Onix, and that Onix getting closer and closer to their location. The Onix didn't know it was raining, and Naruto saw rocks and mud started to fall over the edge of the cave entrance.

"Oh crap, that is going to be a rock slide... everyone out, out!" Bea joined Naruto in calling for the evacuation of the cave. She grabbed her clothes and put them in her bag, before she put it on. Naruto lifted his bag over his shoulder, and Petilil jumped onto his shoulder. The Onix filled up a good portion of the cave though, and it had stopped digging in response to their shouting.

It was visibly enraged, and it thrashed it's body around wildly, scaring the smaller pokemon from going around it.

"Go Heracross." Bea was ready to battle.

Heracross just looked at her for a second, before sitting down and relaxing without listening to her. It ignored Onix, and have Petilil an interested look, but that was about all it did. It's face had a sour look on it, so Bea returned him to his pokeball. She was going to get Machoke next, but Petilil jumped off of Naruto.

"LIL!"

Onix just roared and kept thrashing around, but Petilil attacked. She jumped at him and slashed her leafs against his chin, cutting into him and knocking his head into the side of the wall. Petilil called out to the small pokemon behind Onix while the giant was still dazed. She jumped over a boulder that Onix launched at her, and attacked his chin again.

"Okay everyone, this way." Naruto ran to Onix's side and gestured to the path that was freed up for them to take. A larger group of small mon ran passed him in order to escape the collapsing cave in favor of the rain.

Onix swung it's tail at Naruto.

Petilil jumped behind Naruto and took the blow, stopping the tail with her body. Naruto looked at Petilil and made eye contact with his partner, and nodded his head.

'... They aren't fighting together... he's not giving her orders, but why do they feel so in sync with each other?' Bea had to wonder with a small sparkle to her eye. Petilil didn't even need an order to take the attack, and Naruto had known Petilil would help him. He had his back turned to Onix, while he provided the small pokemon with the chance to escape, and the confidence.

Petilil sprayed dust at Onix and the pokemon started to move slower as a result, it gave a powerful twitch and Petilil created a green energy call on top of her body. She launched it at Onix and the attack hit dead center, putting the pokemon down for a moment.

Big rocks were starting to fall to the front of the cave.

Onix was knocked out, but it had not been alone. A Steelix came out of the same tunnel created by the rock snake, and it had seen Onix get taken down. There were only a few pokemon that needed to escape the cave now, but they were frozen in fear at the sight of an even bigger, even more enraged Steelix. Petilil jumped in between Steelix and Naruto thought, ready to continue battling, when Steelix unleashed an ungodly loud screeching sound. Naruto grabbed a sheep pokemon, a Mareep, and was shocked by the pokemon in surprise, before he lifted the pokemon over his shoulders.

Bea joined him.

She had her ears covered with her hands, and she let Machoke out of his pokeball. He picked up 2 Mareep, while she herself picked a Flaaffy up into her arms. The pokemon were all frightened much too much to be able to escape on their own, and they were the last of the pokemon that needed to escape. Over half of the exit was blocked off with more and more of the exit getting blocked each passing second. So they ran towards it and got out of the cave.

Petilil was hit by an Iron Tail and smashed into the cave wall, much more injured from that attack than when she took a hit from Onix.

"Bea, catch!"

Bea caught Mareep when Naruto threw it, and he jumped at Petilil and grabbed her, rolling as Steelix slammed his face into where Petilil had been. He let go of her mid-roll and allowed her to stand on her own, while he landed in a crouched position. He sent a thumbs up to his pokemon, who rushed back into battle with Steelix. He didn't take nearly as much damage from her Leafage though as Onix had taken, and her Energy Ball didn't have as muc effect either.

"You got this." Naruto calmly spoke to Petilil.

Any doubt Petilil had was erased.

"LIL!" Petilil jumped onto Steelix, who started to thrash around to shake her off.

Naruto ran to Onix.

"... Ah!" Naruto realized what was wrong, he had wondered why the pokemon was so enraged. He grabbed onto a shining piece of metal that was jammed into Onix's joint, and he started to pull on it. Steelix went for him, and he looked behind him for a second with a startled look. Petilil hit Steelix with an Energy Ball to stop it's charge against Naruto, getting it's attention back to herself.

The cave entrance got blocked.

Steelix was knocked out, and Naruto gripped as hard as he could and pulled the metal shard out of Onix, cutting his hands in the process. He grinned when Onix woke up and looked around, the sharp pain that enraged it gone. The pokemon looked at Naruto bleeding, and saw Steelix was knocked out. It gave a soft roar to Naruto, slowly getting up and more gently going into it's own tunnels.

-Outside of the Cave-

"Come on everyone!"

Bea was using her hands to pull any rock or boulder that she was physically capable of lifting off of the pile that was block the cave entrance. She had Machoke helping her, and he was lifting larger stuff, but some of the stuff was just too larger for either of them to easily lift. Shattering the boulders could just cause even more to fall down, so they had to be careful about what they could and couldn't move.

The scared pokemon seemed satisfied though.

The scary pokemon in the cave were now trapped inside of the cave, so they started to disperse deeper into the nearby forest to hide from the falling rain. Bea's eyes became shocked when she saw the pokemon they saved were all starting to abandon Naruto.

"He saved you!" Bea shouted at the group of grass types led by the Vileplume.

It ignored her.

It did NOT ignore as an Oddish stepped in front of it and glared at it, the Oddish green instead of blue like the other Oddish. It was giving a challenging glare to the fully evolved pokemon, who glared at the strangely colored form. Vileplume kept walking away though, and the Gloom followed after, the Oddish, or most of them, followed the Gloom. Finally, Oddish was left alone as it walked towards Bea and started to launch sharp leafs at the boulders blocking the cave. It started to chip pieces of them off.

Blue seaweed like tentacles, a group of them, pushed up against the boulders to stop anymore of them from falling.

"Tang!"

"A Tangela... were one of those in the cave?" Bea whispered in confusion, she had not seen all of the pokemon in the cave. She got back to work though, and she noticed the rocks were being pushed from the inside of the cave. She opened up the cave with Machoke enough that she could see Naruto again, and he crawled out of the opening with Petilil on his shoulder.

"Thanks Bea."

"No problem." Bea grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the tight space she had created, and Naruto got to his feet on the grass.

Oddish started to walk away once Naruto was visibly safe.

Tangela on the other hand walked towards Naruto, approaching him. The tentacle pokemon smiled with it's eyes at Naruto, who looked down at the pokemon with confusion only for a moment. Naruto just extended his fist down to Tangela, who extended a vine and bumped it with him.

"Hey Oddish!"

Oddish looked back at Naruto.

"Thanks." Naruto stated with a nod to the weed pokemon, Oddish turned around at the thanks though and looked at Naruto more seriously. Naruto recognized the pokemon as the one it had helped before. "... You didn't owe me anything by the way, I helped you because I wanted to... but I guess this makes us even huh?" Naruto stated to Oddish.

Oddish nodded.

Tangela was already walking away after being thanked, while Oddish started to walk towards Naruto with curious eyes. It looked at Petilil on Naruto's shoulder, who was injured but in good enough condition to not need treatment right away either. Oddish also looked at Naruto's bleeding hands. Naruto got down to his knees and took out a pokeball, and offered it to Oddish.

"You don't owe me anything, so want to join?" Naruto enlarged the pokeball and made the offer.

Oddish had been following them to pay back the debt that it felt that it owed no doubt, and now that debt was paid back. Naruto was giving Oddish the choice in the matter now that it had no feelings of debt to him, so the pokemon was not going to be guilted into doing anything.

Oddish smirked.

It walked away, and Naruto stood up with a nod, accepting that Oddish wasn't going to join them. Bea looked between Naruto and Oddish, silent the entire exchange. She gave Naruto's hands a worried look.

Oddish turned around and knocked Petilil off of Naruto's shoulder with a Razor Leaf.

Oddish was ready to battle, and it was smirking. Naruto was stunned for a moment, and Petilil jumped between him and Oddish, ready to battle.

"No Petilil... not you."

Petilil looked at Naruto, who stepped in front of her and raised his fists up, and Oddish seemed more excited. Bea seemed more excited as well when she understood what was happening.

Oddish didn't want to just join the team.

It wanted to fight Naruto to decide if it would join the team or not, but not Naruto as a pokemon trainer. It wanted to fight Naruto as if he were a fellow pokemon, to see if Naruto was worthy of commanding it at all. It didn't want to team up with a trainer that was inferior to him or equal to him, Oddish only wanted to follow a trainer who was better than him. Naruto could be a great trainer, but that didn't matter to Oddish.

Oddish sent Razor Leafs at Naruto.

Oddish got punched in an instant and sent flying into a tree, hitting the tree with a loud thud that was drowned out by the rain. Oddish landed on his feet, and walked weakly for a few moments, while Naruto raised his fists back up. Oddish just sent Naruto a look, before nodding and sitting down, accepting it.

With that attack, Oddish knew where it stood.

Oddish didn't put up any struggle at all when Naruto threw his pokemon, and caught him.

Oddish (Shiny) joined the team.

Chapter End!
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