I woke up the next day to a disturbance in the camp. Igneel was growling while being held in the air by some psychic force. I did a double take at that and jumped out of my bedroll in shock. I had almost released Broly from his pokeball before I realized what pokemon was holding Igneel up. It was an Alakazam. A very familiar Alakazam. Wherever this one went, his trainer wasn't far away. I looked around and finally spotted Oak sitting on a beach chair (where the fuck did he get a beach chair) watching me in something resembling amusement.
I took a deep breath to calm down, so I didn't blow up at him for this invasion. "Alakazam, can you please let my pokemon down" I began by addressing the pokemon holding my dragon up in the air. He took a second that I assume he spent asking Oak for permission before he released my pokemon from his hold.
My brave dragon fell to the floor and was about to get up to continue his attempt at an attack before I spoke, "Igneel, calm down. These opponents are beyond us" My dragon, for he was nothing less, was unhappy to hear that but he did retreat to stand beside me.
"Your bond with your pokemon is truly amazing. I do wonder where you found such an amazing specimen though. But I fear you will be less than forthcoming." He sighed before continuing. "You've truly been busy in the past few weeks. A milotic, a Charmaleon, a larvitar and now you've done something to your Scyther." He paused at that. Probably to give me time to reply.
When I kept silent, he sighed and spoke again. "I know I have not been the best of parents, but I have always had your best interests at heart. Trust me when I say this. Eyes are on you. I didn't retire on the best of terms as you well know and some are beginning to suspect that I intend to use you to win back the championship."
"That's ridiculous" I spoke out finally. Oak was undisputed as the strongest trainer in Kanto. If he wanted the championship, he'd just challenge Lance and get the position back.
"You know that. I know that. They don't. People find it difficult to let go of power and so they assume that I must also have that difficulty. You have built a strong team for yourself. A team much stronger than I'd expected when you set off from the Ranch that beautiful Monday four months ago." He took another breath before continuing. Oak hated talking as much as I did so a monologue like this was unusual for him. "I wish you had been average. It would make things so much easier. I wish you weren't so secretive, but you are indeed your father's son. I'll make another bargain with you. Show me your Scyther and I'll give you the pokemon in this ball" He took out a pokeball from his lab coat.
"It's a Kirlia. You have a psychic type shaped hole in your team so I decided to fix it for you. Do we have a deal?" I'd be a fool to reject this one so I released Broly instantly.
Oak seemed to experience a seizure at the sight. He ran towards Broly and began poking and prodding him while asking tons of questions too quickly to be intelligible. I kept a careful presence on Broly's aura to keep him calm. He wasn't used to this at all. After 20 minutes of poking and prodding at my first pokemon, Oak finally started to speak audibly.
"A rock type, isn't he? Lost the flying type. Wings atrophied badly. Bacame vestigial traits. Possibly an ancient form?" He stepped back from Broly and turned to address me. "You have no idea what kind of discovery this is. Will you tell me how you evolved him?"
My enigmatic smile gave him all the answers he needed. He threw the pokeball at me before asking for Broly's species name. "Kleavor. He's a Kleavor" I spoke with pride. He tossed the pokeball at me. He nodded and turned around to Alakazam who had already telepathically gathered the beach chair and teleported back to his lab.
I now had a Kirlia. I realized that I now had two new pokemon I was going to have to start training. The Kirlia would be more trained, but I'd still have to work on it quite a bit to get it up to snuff. The pokedex said she was female so I'd have a Gardevoir eventually which would be a massive advantage.
I started thinking up a plan for Kirlia and Larvitar when I was interrupted again. Oak teleported in and started speaking again. "You had so many new pokemon that I forgot one of my reasons for coming here. You caught a dusknoir. A ghost type from one of the secluded regions."
"May I study it?" I was going to have to refuse at this point.
"The pokemon is wild. I captured it when it was already weakened so I suspect it won't respect or listen to me until I manage to defeat it in fair combat" I admitted.
Oak was stumped for a bit before he lit up "Well, there's no time like the present. Have it do battle with your Kleavor. I'm sure with the new evolution, he must be strong enough. I'll remain here to watch just in case my help is needed."
I saw through his offer instantly. He just wanted the opportunity to observe both pokemon in battle. I said nothing though, because this was a good idea. I gestured at Oak to follow me, and we walked a bit to the clearing I used for training. Broly was already out of his ball and knew what was coming so I released the Dusknoir.
He looked at me and flew right at me in fury. Broly matched his advance though. He got in the dusknoir's way and blocked his approach with one of his axe hands. The Dusknoir looked at Broly with recognition before focusing all his energy on attacking him. He flew back before firing a shadow ball at my rock type. Broly cleaved it in half with one of his axes and advanced at the Ghost. He dodged on of it's grasping hands and struck with his axe on the pokemon's elbow. It hit but did no damage.
The Dusknoir flew up into the sky where Broly couldn't reach and started firing ethereal fists at him. Broly tried to dodge best he could, but his instincts were all wrong. I grit my teeth as the challenge became all the more difficult and tried to come up with a plan.
SAMUEL OAK- Regional Professor
I enjoyed the battle as it progressed. One entirely new pokemon and an incredibly rare one. My son's team worried me. He didn't realize what I kept trying to tell him. He had too many rare pokemon. Over half his team was incredibly rare; a Charmaleon, one of the regional starters, a Dusknoir, a powerful ghost type no one knew the origins of, a Milotic, a pokemon so rare he had the only one in Kanto, a Larvitar, a pseudo-legendary- The kind of pokemon people dedicated their lives to being able to capture, and there's the new evolution of Scyther he'd discovered.
There was something wrong somewhere. His behaviour had also changed. I didn't notice it at first till Alakazam pointed it out. He'd always been interested in gaining my approval. If the old Donnell had discovered any of this pokemon, he'd have been on the phone to talk to me instantly. This one dared to bargain information with me of all people.
If I didn't fear what that kind of intrusion would do with him, I would have Alakazam tear his secrets out of him. He had a lot of them, and I simply had to know them all. I am the Professor, after all.
The battle started ramping up. The Kleavor weaving and ducking out of the way of ethereal fists while trying to distract the dusknoir with signal beams. There were countless better moves for this situation, so my son wasn't the skilled battler I would have taken him for. His gym battles told me that too. He was more interested in overpowering his opponent.
I'm sure if he didn't think it would turn the pokemon away from him forever, he'd have released his massive pidgeot to regain the aerial superiority. The battle took a turn when the Kleavor simply used protect to block the fists and started charging a move. What a move it was. He was concentrating the energy it took for a signal beam into multiple points. Like trying to fire a barrage of beams all at once.
The concentration it was taking was massive as I could tell from the look on it's face. Donnell was also sweating and seemed unusually focused on his Kleavor. He ought to be focusing more on his opponent but who was I to judge?
The shield was finally worn out and the Kleavor released the beams. They made a glorious arc of green in the sky. His aim was unnatural. He had all the beams hit the dusknoir at the same time. The ghost type went down, and I had to applaud. Simply fantastic. Donnell's tendency to resort to overpowering his opponent was still apparent but he'd grow out of that eventually.
I watched him approach the fallen ghost type and speak to it before it sunk into a portal below it. He then turned around in disappointment before breaking its pokeball.
"What happened?" I asked as I approached.
"The Dusknoir had no interest in being on my team. I thought it just wanted a rematch with Broly but he was adamant with his refusal. I gave him the freedom to leave. A pokemon is not a slave"
He said that last part with unnatural emphasis. I understood his reasoning, at least. Forcing a pokemon to work with you was one of the most despicable parts of pokemon training in my opinion. Pokemon were friends, partners, companions, not soldiers, tools or like Donnell said it, slaves.
I was proud of him for releasing it. I'm not so self-deceptive to believe that I'd have done the same. I resented his release of the pokemon though. He should have simply given it to me for my studies. I'd tolerate the defiance though; he was in his teen years. Daken was much the same when he was younger.
Now, with children of his own he had to understand that all I did was to toughen him up for the real world.
I was done here. I asked to examine the Larvitar next. The boy had the audacity to attempt another bargain. I was done entertaining this. From what I saw, his funds were so badly dwindled as to be noon-existent. "30,000 pokedollars and I will examine this Larvitar and any other interesting pokemon you catch for the next six months" I offer next.
His freeze told me he understood that I would not be haggled with on this. I would be examining the pokemon. Thankfully for him, he released the pokemon and I got the opportunity to look at the first evolutionary stage of the massive Tyranitar. The rock tyrant.
I looked around it but kept my distance. This one was clearly not as well trained as the Kleavor. It was an impessive specimen, if a bit malnourished but that was par for the course with young pokemon found in the wild, particularly in areas like this with little iron deposits for the young steel type to feed on. A diet of high quality pokefood would fix that sooner rather than later.
"Avoid training this one for a bit. Feed it and spend time bonding with it. It's healthy but barely. Get it up to a reasonable standard before you start training. You'll know it's ready when the charcoal sheen of its skin begins to darken." I advised. He nodded his understanding and I telepathically instructed Alakazam to take me back to the lab.
It wasn't till I'd spent a few hours going through my findings on the Kleavor before I remembered that I'd forgotten to interrogate him on his means of telepathic conversation with his pokemon. Others simply assumed it was a sign of a well trained pokemon or that he had an unregistered psychic type helping him, but I knew better.
He was able to direct his pokemon both within and outside of battle without any body language or auditory cues. I had watched his gym battles countless times. There was something unnatural about it.
A/N; A/N; Special thanks to the pa-atreon family for making this possible. You guys rock. The next ten chapters are already available on my pa-atreon. Feel free to take a look if you want to read the chapters early and are interested in supporting my writing. Thank you.
How did you find that dive into Oak's psyche?
Name; Donnell Oak
Age; 15
Hometown; Pallet
Next of Kin; Samuel Oak
Account balance; 31,050 Pokedollars
Pokemon;
· Kleavor (Nickname; Broly)- Male. Bug/Rock type
Moves; Signal beam, agility, fury cutter, quick attack, slash, swords dance, protect, stone axe, and rock throw.
· Pidgeot (Nickname; Quicksilver)- Male. Flying/Normal type
Moves; Brave bird, aerial ace, steel wing, agility, roost, hypervoice, gust, whirlwind, U-turn, protect and thunderbolt
· Milotic (Nickname; Kisame)- Male. Water type.
Moves; Brine, ice beam, hydro pump, dragon breath, dragon pulse, water gun, protect, recover, and bubble beam.
· Charmaleon (Nickname; Igneel)- Male. Fire type.
Moves; Ember, dragon breath, scratch, bite, growl, metal claw, flame thrower, protect, and dragon rush.