Wade had decided to spend, much to Houndour's expense, to stay in his room all day for the next few days. He now had to read two books about Feebas and Girafarig, and read up on the rules of being a pokemon trainer. Turns out that the diets of both of his new team members were pretty straight forward. Feebas was an omnivore, much like the Houndour line, but had a preference for meat, Girafarig was also an omnivore, but only in rare(dire) situations did they eat meat. So Wade figured that he should find a book on pokemon food recipes.

Perhaps he could get Aurea to lend him a book if she had one lying around.

'The Dos and Don'ts of Being a Pokemon Trainer' was a book that Wade took heavy interest in. Sure, he wasn't a lab trainer, but he was still technically a trainer. One of the first things went into the legality of even having a pokemon. For starters, you have to be 10 years or older to legally have a pokemon; anybody younger is likely being lent their parents' pokemon. "So that's why White couldn't take Girafarig," Wade mused as he glanced over at the giraffe.

Girafarig was doing much, much better than when Wade had first picked him up. For instance, Girafarig could now stomach much more food, Wade thought it'd take an animal a little longer to make as much progress as Girafarig, without throwing up his meals. "Say Girafarig, instead of being my pokemon, how'd you like to be with White? She'd probably love having two pokemon at the start of her journey," Wade asked. Girafarig's ear flicked in acknowledgement. "C'mon, I know you've got telepathy."

"Well, I wouldn't mind having to travel with that girl. I like her. As long as I'm not cooped up in a pen, or in a room for the rest of my life, I'm happy… is there a condition?" Girafarig asked. "Well, White's gotta turn ten. Next, I'm going to still be your trainer for a week after we head off on said journey, just to make sure Juniper 'oks' you being able to move around. Other than that, not really. I just don't think I could care for three pokemon on the road just yet. I'm a bit new to the whole thing, it's nothing against you."

"I get it. Though how would a child be any better than you at taking care of more than one pokemon?" Girafarig asked.

"Eh, probably has to do with how White's been living in this world all her life, and I haven't," Wade said rather casually. He didn't see a problem with letting his pokemon know of his situation; they couldn't tell anybody and they'd probably be willing to keep a secret… until he realized that Girafarig could very easily communicate with people. "You won't tell anybody what I'm about to tell you, right?" Wade asked.

"Well, if it's a sore subject, then I won't fib. It's not my place to anybody anyways. So about White living in this world her whole life," Girafarig said.

"I… I don't know what Houndour told you or Feebas, but basically I'm an alien. If… your definition of alien means from a completely different universe with different rules, no pokemon, and certainly none of this 'travel across the region and find yourself' bullshit. Let's just say if you were alive in my world, you'd be a lot less intelligent, and you'd just be a giraffe. I don't have the slightest clue as to how I can raise you, let alone Feebas and Houndour at the same time. I could read a book on how to do so, but that's different from actually being able to do what the book tells you."

Girafarig shrugged. "Well, despite you being… a foreigner, I don't mind if you fumble with raising me. It's a matter of physically getting us active, maybe a few sparring matches, and feeding us, right?" He asked. "Because I think that's all it's going to take to raise us. Then you just got to encourage us and say you're proud. That's all we really seek from our trainers once we get a trainer. We try to make them proud," Girafarig added.

"That last bit seems a bit unhealthy."

"Well, you feed and care for us. The least we can do is give it our all for you, right?"

Wade nodded and returned to his book. "I'll read this up, and we'll head out and find somewhere to train… except you Girafarig. You can come, but I don't want you doing anything that can stop you from recovering from being starved," he said. Girafarig nodded.

"That's fair. I can easily train my telekinesis and psychic powers," he said.

"Say, if you can use telekinesis, why wouldn't you just hold somebody down and pelt them with attacks?" Wade asked.

"Well… I never thought about doing that. It seems a bit unfair too, like giving your opponent no chance to fight back. That doesn't seem right to me," Girafarig said.

"Well, we likely won't be taking fights that are fought fairly. Since if I'm right, we'll be fighting actual criminals who want to kill us. So if I end up not giving you to White, I want you to get into that habit. Any fights where we're fighting somebody like I just described, then we won't be playing fairly. I've got a Houndour for fuck's sake," Wade chuckled. "We won't be fighting like scumbags in friendly matches though, don't worry," he amended.

Houndour and Feebas just stared at Wade, wondering what he meant by what he just said. "Alright so, essentially we're going to learn how to fight normally, just in case somebody wants to have a friendly match with us. But we'll also be learning a bunch of backhanded tactics like holding an opponent down with telekinesis and beating the shit out of them," Wade explained. Both canine and fish nodded(or bobbed up and down in Feebas's case). "And we'll only be using those backhanded tactics if we're fighting criminals. Those sorts of people don't deserve to have a fair fight."

"It's why I want to try and get a Porygon 2 or even a Cottonee. If my limited experience in cheesy strats tells me anything, then a Cottonee can be devastatingly broken… I want an Aron," Wade chuckled. "God I'm terrible. I'm thinking of so many backhanded strategies for when we get into trouble."

Wade continued to read the 'Dos and Don'ts of Being a Pokemon Trainer' and skimmed past the first page. It was just general stuff about how to catch pokemon, how you can't catch another trainer's pokemon, and the stuff he had picked up from just playing Pokemon Sun back in 2017. Needless to say, the first page wasn't that helpful. What was surprising was how much more useful the second page was. It talked a bit about specializing in a single type, as it's much easier to do than training a variety of pokemon. Apparently more skilled or talented trainers have zero issues with training pokemon of different types.

The book also suggested working with pokemon of similar body types, such as quadrupeds, Bipeds, canine-like, fish-like, bird-like, or whatever. Apparently it was easier to train pokemon that share body types than one biped and one quadruped. Wade figured that made some sense. For starters, you don't have to worry about what moves a pokemon can learn if they're all fire type. And you don't need to worry about how to physically train a pokemon if you've got experience with their specific body type. It was relatively useful as it dived into how to work with said body types, the subgroups, how to work with each body type and whatnot.

It also gave a general description for how pokemon behave. As it turned out, just having Girafarig running in a field, wrestling with Houndour, or even letting Feebas swim in an ocean was good for them. Especially if you joined in on their fun, like racing Girafarig or swimming with Feebas. Eitherway it gave wade a few ideas for when he begin to train his pokemon tomorrow.

Wade, while knowing he likely wouldn't be keeping Girafarig as his pokemon, wanted to make sure the giraffe was powerful. After all, Girafarig was more tjan likely going to go to White after she chose her starter. If he kept Girafarig, then he'll end up with a strong pokemon. If he doesn't, then White and her friends gets a bodyguard. So it was a win-win situation in his eyes. Now came the difficult part, which would actually be training them.

Before Wade knew it, the day was over, and he was fast asleep. After(sleeplessly) thinking things over, he figured that he should hold off on evolving Feebas once Cheren gets the third gym badge. He wanted to see if Professor Juniper can help out with evolving Feebas into a Milotic and surprise everyone when he does. Plus it'll draw less attention if he were to have a Feebas than a Milotic. Wade knew he was probably going to be a nobody in this world, and he was fine with that.

"Beats having assist a vet in castration," Wade cringed at the image before holding Houndour closer to his face. Next thing he knew it, he was fast asleep. His subconscious quickly figured out that a nice, somewhat small, warm canine was good for sleeping with. If was like constantly sleeping with a heated bed, but that heated bed tended to shift a bit in your sleep.

The next day, Houndour was excited to get out of the room, and finally run around in a field like he wanted to. Feebas floated at head height with her trainer, while Girafarig followed behind Wade. Much to Wade's protests(he knew Girafarig was as smart as him. Which made Girafarig much like Houndour or Feebas: equals). Wade took note of where he was standing around and patted Houndour on the head.

"Can you shoot a Flamethrower in the sky and see how long you can hold it?" Wade asked. Houndour tilted his head in confusion, which Wade didn't waste a heartbeat in calling Houndour cute, much to his pokemon's wounded pride. "Well, I that boo I read said that a way to gauge Fire Type pokemon's strength is by seeing how long they can hold their fire. I don't know how far a Flamethrower can go, but I don't wanna risk burning a tree down. Because then somebody will get mad and put us in jail."

Houndour nodded before doing what was asked. Wade quickly began to count how long Houndour was holding his fire until a minute passed. Much to his surprise, Houndour made it through the full minute despite being winded from it. "Alright…" Wade pulled out a book and ran his finger along each page until he found the one he was looking for.

"One minute for a pre-evolve Fire Type… hey Houndour, you're apparently average in terms of 'Fire Output' apparently," Wade went up and picked up the tired canine and held him for a bit. Despite how tired Houndour was, it looked like he took some pride in being able to hold a Flamethrower for as long as he did. "Well bud, take a breather while I try to gauge Feebas…" he set Houndour down beside him and turned to the fish.

Feebas then began to look a bit sheepish. "Can you at least try to hold a Water Gun for as long as you can?" Wade asked. Feebas shook her head and Wade scratched his head. "Oh right! I can scan you using the Pokedex," Wade promptly did so and shrugged. "Most of the moves you can learn on only with a TM and you've got splash, tackle, and Flail. That's not too big of a deal, since I think any training you'll have now will be null and void."

"And it's not because you're a Feebas, Feebas. It's because when you evolve, you'll go from a fish, to a 20ft snake? Serpent? Well, essentially you'll be an entirely different beast when you evolve, which means any physical training you might get now, might screw you over when you become a Milotic," Wade patted Feebas on the head. "Hey, don't start looking sad on me. It's not that big of a deal if we can't gauge how strong you are right now."

Feebas nodded and cringed when Wade brought her into a hug. "Houndour, how do you enjoy… this?" The fish asked.

"Well, it feels nice. Why do you hate being hugged?"

"I… it actually does feel kind of nice. Though I don't know why he decided to hug me right now. I am so weak that I can't even be gauged in terms of strength."

"Well, you did look a bit upset by this realization… wait, if you actually like being hugged now, then that means I get less of those!" Houndour yelped in realization and immediately tried to get Wade's attention, due to the yelp, it worked pretty quickly.

"What's up bud? Did you manage to hurt yourself while laying flat on the ground?" Wade patted Houndour. "Or are ya jealous?" Houndour began to pout after being so easily called out. Well, Houndour would've kept pouting if the canine wasn't also pulled into his trainer's embrace. "Yo Girafarig! What the actual hell?"

Girafarig was currently floating for no discernible reason. It was like the giraffe just decided to think 'I want to be a bird today' and decided to fly. "I'm just using telekinesis. You're not a psychic, so you can't see the light blue aura that's surrounding me. It's a simple exercise I've seen other Psychic types doing…you gotta be able to mentally hold your own weight for extended periods of time."

"You seem to know a bit about how to train yourself," Feebas remarked.

"Well, when nobody wants you, you've gotta make it so you're self sufficient. So that's what I did. Then when one day, I do get a trainer, like I did with Wade or potentially White, you can impress them with how surprisingly strong they are, and they won't toss you to the side for weakness," Girafarig said.

"That sounds like you've been through that sort of thing before," Houbdour said.

"I have. Three times so far. While I do like Wade and White, I won't make any bets on being able to stick with them for very long before they deem me as 'useless.' I'm just keeping my hopes in the dirt. You can't be disappointed if you heavily lower your expectations," Girafarig said. He had unknowingly used telepathy with Wade, who heard every single word being said.

"So much for thinking you were just some innocent giraffe that was just mistreated. Hey Girafarig, what's up with the whole being abandoned thrice thing? Because if you expect to be left behind by me, bringing that tally to four, then I don't know what to tell you. As far as my unqualified dumbass can tell, you're not weak, and you're not going anywhere. You aren't going to be tossed in the trash as soon as I find a more useful pokemon. We're on this damn ship together, and we're gonna stick to it."

Wade pinched his temples as sighed. "Yes, I might hand you off to White, but it's purely because I think she can raise you better than I can. I know what it's like to feel useless and unwanted, Girafarig. I know, it fuckin' sucks. There isn't much you can do other than keeping that head of yours high, and marching forward. If… you're feeling down, or think you'll end up abandoned again then c'mere," Wade extended his hand out to Girafarig and the giraffe walked forward. Wade patted Girafarig on the neck a couple times.

"Say, I think that's gonna be one strong neck. Giraffes usually use their necks to fight each other, so do you guys do the sane?" Wade asked.

"Kinda… though only so we don't accidentally shred each other with telekinesis, poison and potentially kill each other," Girafarig answered.

"Y'know, that's pretty neat. When you're fully recovered, we'll get ya running. How does trying to outrun me sound?" Wade asked.

"Incredibly easy. You humans are slow."

"Figured, but it could be fun, right?" Wade asked.

"I suppose that could be fun. I want to see your face when I lap you," Girafarig said.

"Hey, I'm looking forward to it. Now lay down, I wanna see if the massages I usually give Houndour work on you. Just lay down, relax, and I'll try and work some magic on ya," Wade patted the Giraffe's back one he laid down. Houndour and Feebas had backed off and opted to play tag. With the former screaming, likely about Feebas being 30ft in the air.

"How do I know this won't hurt?" Girafarig asked.

"Worked in a pet store before I ended up here. Used to give animals massages all the time, so I'd say Imm competent at this." Then Wade began without warning. Much to the giraffe's surprise, it was very relaxing even if it started out a little rough…

His tail nipped Wade by accident.

0-0-0-0

A/N:

so I got asked about another story that I was 'supposed' to write. Essentially what I do is find a story idea i fall in love with, and begin writing. The story I was asked about is sitting on the back burner while I finish the two current stories I'm working on. Right now I'm loving this story, so I'm going to focus on this one.

anyways, tell me how you're feeling about this story now that 10 chapters are out. With chapter 11, things should start picking up speed, but no promises. I haven't spent much time with Cheren, White, or Bianca(or even Juniper/Aurea) and wanna flesh them out more.