Whelp, long chapter. Didn't expect it to get that long. (And I even held back on battle details.) For continuity reasons, I'll be using the Japanese names for Pokemon, but because I know not everyone is familiar with them, whenever a Pokemon whose Japanese name is different from its English name appears, I'll put down what Pokemon it is in the beginning author note. So...

Bippa= Bidoof

Gokurin= Gulpin

Mukkubird= Staravia

3) Battles

Honestly, Shinji couldn't think of a better way to spend his day.

Technically, he wasn't old enough to own a Pokemon, for the legal age was ten, but it didn't stop Reiji from handing him two Pokeballs.

They were the same three he always had, and while he had grown fairly attached to them, he couldn't help but want to change teams. If he was going to become a Pokemon trainer, then he would have to get used to a variety of different types and such. And while Reiji didn't have that many Pokemon on hand, there was enough for Shinji to get a different team once in a while.

"Hey Reiji?" Shinji asked, eyeing the Pokeballs slowly. He didn't want to make it sound like he was ungrateful for being able to have a couple of practice battles here and there. And he also didn't want to insult either Reiji or his Pokemon. "Is it possible for me to try out your other friends?"

"Well," Reiji scratched his head a bit before answering the question. "You need to develop bonds with Pokemon you already have, and to do that you need to spend time with them. But on the other hand…"

Shinji looked at his brother. Reiji had trailed off a bit, musing to himself without allowing Shinji to hear or at least get a clue as to what he was thinking.

"Well how about this. If you can beat me this time around, then I'll change your team up next time."

Shinji nodded. He threw the Pokeball that contained Reiji's Bippa, which hasn't evolved yet despite partaking in many battles.

Reiji released his Gokurin, who wandered around the field a bit before finally realizing its opponent was the Bippa in front of it.

"Bite!"

"Sludge!"

The outcome was rather simple. Bippa had bitten onto the only place it could safely bite onto Gokurin, which caused it to spit its Sludge attack into the air. Shinji had called for Bippa to let go of Gokurin and move away, but by the time it did, the sludge had already managed to get to it. And while Bippa wasn't out for the count, it was badly poisoned.

"Bippa, return!" Shinji called, returning said Pokemon into its respective Pokeball. He could just make out Reiji giving him a small nod.

"I'll treat it later."

"Thanks. Mukkubird!" he called out, releasing one of the Pokemon he had a very good bond with.

"Sludge Bomb!"

"Arial Ace!"

Unlike the last time where Bippa got poisoned badly by Gokurin's poison move, Mukkubird didn't take much damage from it. It did get hit on its wing, which didn't affect the effectiveness of its Arial Ace.

"Mukkubird, you can still fight, right?" Shinji asked. He knew that asking it to fly would hurt it a lot, but fighting was another story. Not all of its moves required flight.

It lifted up its good wing, letting Shinji know that it could indeed still fight.

"Sludge Bomb once more!"

"Take Down!"

It was a double knock out, or at least what was considered a knock out in their practice battles. If it was clear that a Pokemon only had a bit of health left, then they were to switch out.

While Gokurin seemed to have been able to last at least one more spar, both of the brothers could tell that it was at around the same strength as Mukkubird, which was low on health itself.

"That was fun," Shinji stated as they both recalled their Pokemon. He knew that he would be unable to switch teams, but he didn't really mind. While he had wanted to try out a new team, he had to admit he had fun with this one. At lot more than what he could do by figuring out how Reiji's other Pokemon worked.

Reiji walked over to him, rubbing Shinji's head when he was close enough. "I think I raised an excellent trainer."