"That's it fluff," Leon encourages as mareep climbs over a bunch of roots.
"Reep," mareep grunts still climbing.
"Gotten better since last week, hasn't he?" Leon asks looking to Zoey.
Zoey slowly nods. "Yeah. He has improved. Could be better."
"Well, he is quadrupedal with a lot of fleece," Leon says.
"Meep!" mareep calls to them a bit insulted.
"Ok, he moves well despite that," Zoey admits.
"Thought so. Let's see…" Leon says to himself as he thinks.
"Meep!" mareep calls triumphantly, finally making it to the top.
"You know, I think I have a good nickname for him now," Leon says smirking.
"Something other than Alpha Fluff?" Zoey asks.
"How about Beacon?" Leon asks.
"How did you get that name?" Zoey asks.
"It just came to me. What do you think? Like the name Beacon?" Leon calls to the mareep.
"Meep!" Beacon calls back.
"I think that is a yes," Leon says as Amber and Breeze came up to them with Zoey's Glameow.
"So…more training?" Zoey asks smiling.
"I think…we are nearly ready for our first battle," Leon says now sounding more confident, making Zoey smile.
"Well, we just need to find one," Zoey says thinking.
"What was the next town again?" Leon says pulling out his pokedex to look up the map and found it was Eterna City. "Eterna city. There is a gym there, right?" Leon asks.
"Yeah. The Eterna City gym," Zoey says as a matter of fact.
"Oh…that one specializes in grass, right?" Leon says before seeing her flip through a book, looking it up.
"Yeah. That's correct," Zoey says stopping on a page and shows it to him.
"So that is the gym leader, huh? Alright. I am convinced and ready to go," Leon says smirking as Breeze and Amber got on his shoulders to look.
"Really? You…ah fuck it. Other trainers got by on their starters," Zoey mutters to herself.
"What? No faith in the one you are teaching?" Leon asks.
"No. It's just that you're a complete newbie," Zoey says smirking.
"Who you have been teaching," Leon says smirking back.
"Still a newbie," Zoey says poking his chest.
"Well, this newbie is going to go for it," Leon says as Beacon cries, make them look to him as he tackles Leon.
"Ow!" Leon cries out as he is sent down.
"I think you have grown on Beacon," Zoey says snickering as Beacon snuggled.
"Yeah. Feels like it," Leon groans getting back up as he holds Beacon.
"Ready to continue training?" Zoey asks as they continued on.
"We are sure this is the right way?" Leon asks looking to Zoey.
"Yeah," Zoey says looking at the map.
"You sure? I think we have passed that tree four times now," Leon says getting annoying at that sound that kept sounding out.
"I know what I'm doing," Zoey says frowning.
"What is that pecking sound?" Leon says, no longer being able to stand it.
"I don't know but it is annoying me too," Zoey says irritably before they started looking for the source and see two bird pokemon pecking at a tree.
"Pokedex, don't fail me now," Leon says trying to identify the pokemon with it.
"Pikipek, the Woodpecker Pokémon. A Normal and Flying type. It can unleash sixteen pecks per second to drill a hole into a tree where it stores food," the pokedex says.
"One for each of us?" Leon asks.
"Looks like," Zoey says before whistling towards them and takes out a pokeball.
"Breeze, come out," Leon calls throwing a pokeball as Glameow gets off Zoey.
Breeze chitters and sees the pikipek and glares at them as the two birds land on the ground and glare at them.
"Round one, fight," Leon jokes as the four pokemon charged. "Breeze, tackle!" Leon calls as Breeze moved quickly and goes for a tackle as the pikipek went for a peck.
"Glameow, use Thunderbolt!" Zoey calls before Glameow was surrounded by an electric aura before sending it to the small bird pokemon, only for it to dodge quickly to their shock.
"How?!" Leon yells only for Breeze's target to dodge as well. "Wow. They're fast…Breeze, string shot like we practiced!" Leon calls and Glameow, hearing this, quickly ran as Breeze started shooting it's string shot everywhere, making a spider web-like cage around all four before any could escape, confining them in a close space to fight. "And you thought it was too advanced for Breeze at this point," Leon says smirking.
"Shut up," Zoey yells annoyed as she tries to concentrate on the fight. "Thunderbolt again!"
Glameow, hearing this, shot it at the center of the cage, electrocuting it, sending waves of electricity everywhere in crescent moon like waves. Hitting both pikipeks and sending them to the ground in a heap as they were unable to dodge. "Did you plan that?" Leon asks surprised.
"Kinda," Zoey says frowning at how the moves turned but she attributed it to the string shot cage.
"You didn't know that was going to happen, did you?" Leon asks as Breeze celebrated by jumping up and down, not having been hit at all.
"…no…" Zoey admitted.
"Going to use that in a contest?" Leon asks.
"Was. Going to have to work on it," Zoey says getting out a pokeball.
"Well…what is Breeze doing?" Leon asks seeing Breeze shooting string up into the air, letting it land on herself.
"That's…evolving," Zoey says as Breeze starts to glow.
"Wait? So soon?" Leon asks.
"Bug pokemon usually evolve quickly," Zoey informs as Breeze kept cocooning itself.
"Good to know…I'm not becoming one of those trainers who just have metapods," Leon says as he gets out his own empty pokeball.
"Metapod," Breeze says.
"Oh. She's done," Leon says looking over at the cocoon pokemon and rips the cage open before picking her up and tosses a pokeball to a pikipek as he kept looking Breeze over. "How the heck do I train you?"
"Metapod," Breeze says happily.
"She can't move as well like that. So why not use string shot to do so?" Zoey asks catching the other pikipek and gives him his pokeball with his new pokemon in it.
"At least she would look cute doing it," Leon says and Breeze chittered happily.
"Oh, look at you and your metapod," Zoey teases a bit excited getting a pokemon she had never heard of before.
Breeze seems to smirk with her eyes before firing a string shot at her and gets it into her hair and makes her cry out as she falls to the ground. "I think that's her way of saying thank you. Good thing string shot is biodegradable," Leon says smirking.
"Yeah. Your welcome," Zoey says as Glameow snickers at her.
"Ok. Finally out of the forest," Leon says in relief.
"Told you I knew the way," Zoey says smirking.
"About a week later," Leon reminds smirking back.
"Shut it!" Zoey pipes back annoyed.
"Well, there is the pokemon center. We are going to go there now for food and to get our pokemon checked up?" Leon asks pointing it out.
"Yeah. It's been awhile since I had a hot shower anyway," Zoey says stretching.
"Same," Leon says sighing, seeing her looking a bit happier. "You doing ok?"
"Yeah. Why? I still got string shot in my hair?" Zoey asks rolling her eyes amused.
"No. You seem more relieved than that," Leon says.
"I just want to be back under some AC. Come on. Let's rent a room and get our troublemakers checked out," Zoey says walking off.
"Alright," Leon says following her into the pokemon center and soon found himself lying on a bed in the cool AC and listens to the shower running in the other room.
"You upset that we have to share a room?" Leon calls.
"Kinda!" Zoey calls back.
"Well, it can't be helped. After all, this was the only available room," Leon calls.
"You're going to be sleeping on the floor if you keep mentioning it," Zoey falls.
"There are two beds," Leon reminds as he turned on the TV and finds a rerun of the last contest Zoey was in. "Hey Zoey, they are showing your last contest on the TV."
"Anything good?" Zoey asks.
"You winning," Leon calls smirking.
"Good," Zoey says coming out in a towel and watches the show for a bit before going to get her clothes.
"Let me know when I can open my eyes, alright?" Leon asks having closed his eyes the moment he heard the door open.
"Yeah. Sure," Zoey mumbles putting her clothes on now. After a bit, she looked at him and was about to say something when she noticed he had fallen asleep. "At least he doesn't have to worry now," she says to herself as she turns off the TV and falls onto her bed before falling asleep as well.
"Alright you four, are you hyped?" Leon asks before getting four loud calls of confirmation from his pokemon.
"Someone's excited," Zoey says walking to him smiling.
"Oh, Zoey. Did we wake you?" Leon asks.
"Yeah. Can hear you cheering from a mile away," Zoey jokes.
"Sorry about that. I just want all of them ready for battle," Leon says before Beacon walks forward and pushes Zoey down before laying on her.
"Well, I got a pillow for that," Zoey says smirking.
"Reep," Beacon says approvingly.
"At least there's good news of that since I might be allowed only three pokemon," Leon says thinking now.
"You find which one is going to be cheering for the rest?" Zoey asks making Leon laugh. "What's so funny?"
"I pictured Beacon as a cheerleader with pompoms when you said that," Leon informs trying to restrain his laughter.
Zoey snarks and Beacon angrily chatters at them.
"There is male cheerleaders Beacon," Leon informs.
Beacon huffs and looks away frowning.
"But he would still be dressed in a skirt," Leon says to Zoey.
"I'll make sure of that," Zoey says grinning evilly towards Beacon.
"Next time," Leon says sparing Beacon.
Beacon sighs in relief.
"Alright. Come on Beacon. Let me up," Zoey says.
Beacon meeps and jumps off of her.
"Alright. You three, time to go battle," Leon says.
The rest of them cheer happily and gives little attacks near them to show their readiness.
Leon smiled as he returned them to their pokeballs as Beacon followed with Zoey to the gym.
"You sure you're ready?" Zoey asks.
"I am very confident in it. Especially the moves you help teach Amber, Breeze, and Rhythm," Leon says.
"You're welcome. That's a thousand pokedollars," Zoey says with a straight face as she holds out her hand.
"Beacon will pay that off with snuggles," Leon says smirking making Beacon snicker.
Zoey shoves his shoulder chuckling. "Shut up!"
"Beacon is the snuggle master," Leon jokes.
Beacon sparks his fluff at that.
"You wouldn't do that to me, right?" Zoey asks smiling at him.
Beacon sparks his fluff again.
"Do it and I'll have Glameow freeze you," Zoey promises smirking.
"Meep," Beacon says meekly stopping.
"I swear, you are a mother," Leon says smiling.
"What was that?" Zoey asks turning back to him.
"Nothing," Leon says looking away.
"That is what I thought," Zoey says before they all walk in silence till they reach the gym. Soon they were lead further inside by the referee where they met the gym leader.
"Ok guys, you ready for this?" Leon asks looking at Beacon as he was the only one out right now.
Beacon cheers at that and gives some air punches as best he could.
"Hi, welcome to my gym," the gym leader greets.
"Hey…so it is the usual rules given to everyone?" Leon asks, picking up Beacon and pets his head.
"Three on three," Gardenia informs.
"Fine by me," Leon accepts as he puts Beacon down and lets him go onto the nearby battlefield. "And you?"
"An electric type, huh? Alright, I am interested," Gardenia says before throwing out a pokeball and a Cherubi comes out.
'Cherubi, huh? If memory serves, you also have a Turtwig and a Roserade. Let's test the waters, shall we?' Leon thinks. "Beacon, let's start off with charge, shall we?" Leon asks and Beacon nods before his wool starts to spark.
"You are working on building strength. Better be careful. You only get one shot on the next move," Gardenia warns. "Alright cherubi, let's start out turn off with tackle," Gardenia calls and Cherubi rushes forward towards Beacon with surprising speed.
'That has to be Chlorophyll,' Leon thinks watching it as Zoey watches from the stand. "Beacon, thunder wave," Leon says, smirking making Gardenia go wide-eyed.
"Dodge it!" Gardenia calls, but too late as cherubi was having a hard time stopping when hit with light blue electricity from Beacon.
"I can't believe that worked," Leon mutters to himself as he watches the poor pokemon try to step back, but freezing up as electricity dances all over it.
"Try and shake it off," Gardenia calls a little panicked.
"Beacon, time to try that new move we have been working on," Leon says smirking, hearing the panic in Gardenia's voice. Beacon, hearing him, starts moving side to side before starting to dance.
"A rain dance?" Gardenia questions a little now, watching the sheep pokemon bust a move.
"Bingo," Leon says as storm clouds start to form as Beacon seemed to be having fun dancing.
"He's really going at it," Zoey notes in the stands as she watches the fluffy pokemon still move around, the area starting to get wet.
"Beacon, thunder shock," Leon says smirking, before the move hit cherubi, obviously doing more damage than it should.
"Oh. Get out of there! Now!" Gardenia tries to plead.
"Too late," Leon says as Beacon's thundershock kept hammering him, knocking it out.
"Well…this is unexpected," Gardenia notes as she returns cherubi.
'The rain, huh? Clever you two,' Zoey thinks watching as Gardenia brought out Turtwig.
Leon hums as he tries to figure this out now. 'What to do here?'
"Turtwig, let's go with leech seed," Gardenia calls.
"Double team, now!" Leon yells immediately as turtwig looks to launch a seed from the top of its head. Beacon quickly did so, barely avoiding taking a hit from the seed and turtwig was surrounded by dancing mareeps.
"They're dancing," Zoey says dryly. "The double team is dancing."
"Beacon, you can stop the rain dance now," Leon says sweatdropping.
Beacon blinks. "Meep?" he mumbled out before standing on his four legs again.
'Beacon likes to dance, huh?' Zoey thinks smirking as Leon tried to decide what to do next.
"Turtwig, leaf storm," Gardenia calls and turtwig starts launching the attack at the mareeps in front of him, making them disappear one by one.
"Beacon, flash!" Leon calls, covering his eyes and making Zoey do so as well out of instinct from all the training.
Gardenia cries out as well as turtwig when Beacon cries out and makes a large flash of light, blinding the both of them.
"Thundershock!" Leon calls opening his eyes after hearing Gardenia cry out.
Gardenia groans as she tries to rub her eyes before hearing turtwig scream in pain for a bit and then nothing happening. "What just happened?" she groans.
"Turtwig is unable to battle to battle. The winner is mareep," the referee calls.
Gardenia groans as she still rubs her eyes. "Give me a moment."
"Take your time," Leon calls as Beacon walks over to him. "How are you doing buddy?" Leon asks and Beacon gave him a tired reply. "Gotcha, you can rest for now," Leon says patting Beacon's head.
Beacon meeps and walks up to his side, still being petted.
After a bit Gardenia, finally was ready to continue the battle, already returning turtwig back to its pokeball. "Not bad. You have done better than the last seven challengers to the gym. So how many badges you got so far?" Gardenia compliments while sneaking in the question thinking he had to have quite a few.
"None so far," Leon answers honestly.
"Is that so…?" Gardenia question, looking him over and tries to see how new he is to this.
"Breeze, you're up," Leon calls throwing his pokeball and out came his metapod.
Breeze groans and stares at Gardenia, waiting for whatever she might send out next.
"A metapod, huh?" Gardenia asks before sending out Roserade.
"Breeze, brace yourself. This won't be easy," Leon says to the excited bug pokemon.
Breeze only groans happily, glaring down at the roserade.
"Oh, your metapod is raring to go, huh?" Gardenia asks smirking.
'That is right. Underestimate Breeze like you did with Beacon here,' Leon says bending down on a knee as he scratches Beacon's head.
'What are you doing? I know Breeze is resistant to grass type moves but as a metapod…their speed is greatly reduced,' Zoey thinks.
"Begin!" the referee calls.
"Breeze, string shot!" Leon calls almost immediately.
"Roserade, keep dodging and use flash!" Gardenia calls as Roserade dodges.
"Breeze, spin the web," Leon says.
Gardenia watches surprised as the string shot starts to wrap around Breeze, making a makeshift cocoon dome now.
'You are not going to try that,' Zoey thinks as she spies Breeze sneak out the back of it into the bushes.
Leon smirks all the while. "Well? Aren't you going to attack the shield?"
"Oh, squirtleing up, are you?" Gardenia asks before roserade start to use magic leaf on the dome.
'Squiretleing up…is that the pokemon equivalent of turtling up?' Leon thinks.
He is broken out of his musings as the leaves start to hit the cocoon and break apart the string shot into pieces before it opens a hole in it the cocoon and finds nothing in it.
"What?" Gardenia asks confused.
Leon smirks as he hums knowingly.
"Where is your pokémon?" Gardenia questions, trying to keep an eye out.
"Could be on your back," Leon jokes.
Gardenia raises an eyebrow before curiously looking over her shoulder on her back and feels around it before sighing in relief.
"Breeze, time to wrap roserade up," Leon says after a bit of time where both Gardenia and roserade tried to find Breeze.
Out of a tree came a new string shot and it latched one of roserade's arm before Breeze launched herself out of the tree and starts riding the line around roserade.
"Magical leaf!" Gardenia yells desperately as she tries to see how the string shot is working.
"Too late," Leon says smirking as roserade got its arms tied down by the string shot as Breeze kept swinging around roserade on momentum alone.
"Okay. This is not bad. But can he really knock that one out with a metapod?" Zoey questions.
"Breeze, tackle!" Leon calls.
Breeze, hearing this, cuts her line to roserade and shoots it at one of the trees using the momentum she still had to slingshot her around the tree and straight at roserade's head, knocking her out from the impact.
"Okay…that works," Zoey concludes as she gets up and starts to head down to him.
"The battle is over. The winner is the challenger," the referee informs as Breeze celebrated.
'That was one unorthodox gym battle,' Gardenia thinks as Leon goes to pick up Breeze.
"Nice job girl," Leon says proudly.
"Metapod!" Breeze cries out happily as Beacon walks up.
Beacon walks up smiling before meeping up at them.
"You did great too Beacon," Leon says petting his head.
"Meep," Beacon chirps happily.
Gardenia smiles to roserade as she helped her pokemon up and got her untied. "You did great."
"Rose…" Roserade groans rubbing its head.
"We will get you some headache medicine soon," Gardenia says.
"Rose," Roserade chirps and just smiles as it is sucked back into a pokeball.
Leon hums as he thinks on that before looking to his two pokemon. "Maybe…"
"Here you are," Gardenia says presenting him with the badge proudly.
"Thanks," Leon says smiling before Beacon advanced on Gardenia.
Gardenia hums as she looks down at Beacon smiling up at her before yelling as Beacon pounced on her and nuzzles her. "Cute," Leon says chuckling.
Gardenia chuckles and tries to push Beacon away before he starts sparking. "Oh no," she mutters as Leon and Zoey stay back before hearing Gardenia yell out as she is electrified.
"Beacon," Leon says scoldingly.
Beacon snickers as he jumps off of Gardenia and struts toward them, Gardenia left a sooted mess with her hair standing on end.
"Sorry. Beacon is a troublemaker," Leon apologizes.
"I can feel that," Gardenia mutters, huffing out black clouds of soot. "Ow."
"He does it to us as well," Zoey says before Beacon hugs her and doesn't shock her.
"But he is mischievous," Leon warns and points to Beacon's snickering face.
"And loves to dance apparently," Gardenia asks.
Beacon cheers and starts to dance around again, mistakenly using rain dance and causes it to rain and clean off the soot on Gardenia.
"Yeah…we are still working on that," Leon informs.
Gardenia sighs as she cleans herself off a little. "It's fine. But you beat me fair and square," she adds as she watches the little sheep dance.
"So what is next for you?" Zoey asks as Beacon seems to be falling asleep from the sound of the rain.
"Maybe do all the gyms," Leon says to himself, wondering what to do next.
"Well, we have to head back south," Zoey informs.
"Why south?" Leon asks curiously.
"The next official contest for me is back in Jubilife City," Zoey informs.
"Oh. Then let's get going. Better hit the road and get there early," Leon insisted.
"Hope to see you again soon," Zoey says waving to Gardenia.
Gardenia waves back as she still tries to clean herself off. "That is one angry mareep."
"Beacon, come on you," Leon says patting Beacon's head as he kept dancing.
Beacon meeps and dances after them.
"I think we found Beacon's calling," Leon says sweat dropping as he talks to Gardenia who watches Beacon dancing after Zoey.
Gardenia chuckles as she wrings the water out of her hair and gets the soot out. "If battling doesn't work out, you can have him do contests."
"I am considering it," Leon says looking at her.
Gardenia hums as she notices the look. "Reason you are staring at me?"
"I find you kinda cute is all," Leon says before quickly making a beeline to Zoey who hadn't heard that.
Gardenia blinks confused for a moment while keeping a grip on her hair before grinning. "Now that's adorable."