Disclaimer: Pokémon is owned by The Pokémon Company, which in turn is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and probably others I forgot. The following fanfiction is me playing around in their sandbox, using characters they envisioned and created, except for the odd character that wasn't. I own nothing of this.

It was the fourth weekend in June, and all over Hoenn, tournaments and festivities celebrating the start of summer were taking place. Some were Contests, others had no Pokémon element at all, but Max and Danny naturally gravitated towards a battle tournament, prompting them to sign up for the junior division in the Pyreflow Town tournament.

Pyreflow Town was as big as Littleroot Town, where they'd left, now a little over three months ago, but that was where similarities ended. Pyreflow existed in the shadow of Hoenn's most famous and dangerous mountain: Mt. Chimney. The volcano had not spewed forth ash and flame since before the boys had been born, and its proximity meant excellent ground to use for agriculture. Many a field – trees bearing fruit, crops yielding vegetables on them – could be found in and around the town.

The junior division of the tournament was open only to trainers with under a year of experience and less than either six badges or four ribbons. It was a simple single elimination tournament, two Pokémon aside, with about thirty beginning trainers participating. They ranged from the true beginners to those with some actual experience under their belt, and Max and Danny liked to think they belonged in the latter group by now.

After the failed attempt at finding ralts, they had stayed on Izabe for a week and a half more, catching one Pokémon each. Danny had picked up a snorunt, as not quite as playful as Ash's snorunt, and Max had stumbled over an injured baltoy, which had wanted to join Max after they nursed it back to health.

The similarities had been strong enough that Max had nearly rejected the baltoy's offer, but for Danny's insistence that he shouldn't look a gift Pokémon in the mouth.

From Izabe, they went to Mossdeep, and then to Lilycove and the wild routes of the Hoenn mainland, where both of them encountered many more Pokémon, capturing two each before challenging their second gym in Fortree City. Max captured a nincada that had taken a shine to the food they were eating and an electrike, while Danny had made sure that the nightly Pokémon guard was never going to be a problem ever again by catching a duskull that was lurking around the camp they had set up twenty miles from Lilycove. He had also picked up a gulpin.

They were experienced enough to clean their opponents in the first two rounds right up, but Danny's run ended in the quarter-finals, as his mudkip and snorunt fell short of beating the opposing corphish and dustox. Max easily slipped into the final on the back of his treecko that kept Absorbing, with help from nincada and electrike.

Max's last opponent was the same that had beat Danny. Max had seen him at work in the other semi-final, and the dustox was going to be a problem. It had dispatched several Pokémon already, Danny's snorunt included, just by poisoning them and waiting for the poison to work, and Max's standard answer to airborne enemies – electrike – was not as good here. A quirk of nature had rendered dustox less susceptible to electrical currents than was to be expected of a flying Pokémon, though this came at the cost of not being able to fly as high or fast as its fully flying-type cousin beautifly.

Then again, it didn't really need that between the various powders and its limited Psychic arsenal.

Fortunately, Max knew a few tricks to get rid of nasty powders. Who'da thunk Team Rocket would be good for something.

Max and his opponent shook hands and took up position at opposite ends of the field. It was a standard size two arena, forty by twenty-five meters, which was pretty normal for smaller tournaments: small enough that most Pokémon could easily pick up their trainer's commands, yet big enough for evasive manoeuvres. Some rocks were scattered around the field, which were fair game to hide behind. Some geodude and nosepass helped keep the amount of rocks on the field up, renewing them between fights if they were smashed. The field's boundaries were indicated by a standard white line. Landing outside the arena counted as a loss by ring-out.

Both trainers took a pokéball and released their Pokémon. On one side of the field, a small, green Pokémon with yellow markings took the field, immediately darting to and fro to further charge its fur. Under normal circumstances, the fur would be charged fully at the start of battle, but the electrike had been forced to spend most of its electricity in the previous match. On the other side, a stocky blue-grey Pokémon appeared, flexing its muscles before darting behind one of the rocks.

Machop were strong Pokémon, if they could get a hit in, and electrike was light enough to be susceptible to a ring-out.

The referee signalled the start of the fight, and the opposing machop immediately smashed the rock it had been hiding behind, sending up a screen of dust, partially obscuring the view. Moments later, rocks came pelting from the dust cloud, all striking places the electric-type had occupied moments earlier.

None hit, and as electrike moved closer to the cloud, Max saw arcs of electricity bleed off as the dust particles came close to the charged fur. A Thunder Wave sent into the cloud encountered a thrown rock, and though the rock was not big enough to flat out stop the current, it weakened the electricity enough for the machop to shrug off the attack.

It also distracted machop long enough for electrike to ram itself head-first into the machop's upper torso, and the canine Pokémon was the first to recover, darting away and avoiding the machop's arm coming down on it.

The other trainer, recognising electrike's ranged advantage should it get to build up more electricity, barked an order, sending machop running to one of the other, few, remaining rocks on the field. Electrike ran in front of it, abandoning its position when the machop attempted to lunge. The blue Pokémon missed, leaving it prone on the ground.

"Jump on its back!" Max ordered, and electrike obeyed, whirling on the spot and jumping, aiming to land on the machop's back. The other Pokémon had recovered quickly, however, leading to electrike landing on its shoulders, barely hanging on as one paw slung itself over the machop's collarbone.

Good enough. "Thunder Wave!" Electrike released the attack and leapt off.

The machop shook as electricity ran through its muscles, forcing fists to close, legs giving way as it sought a way to discharge the current running through its body. Its trainer ordered it to swing with its right hand, but the muscles wouldn't obey, allowing electrike to tackle it down to the ground. The green Pokémon jumped on the machop, attempting to bite down on some available limb.

A flailed swing hit electrike hard enough to force it off the machop, which managed to hoist itself into a standing position. The paralytic effect of the electric charge had worn off, but the damage had been dealt. Max grinned. Time to move in. "Tackle!"

The machop tried sweeping the electrike's legs, but the Lightning Pokémon jumped over the attack, ramming itself right into machop's face. Both fell to the ground, and machop was too dazed to remove the electrike from its face before it was shocked once more.

All struggle the machop put up ceased, and the referee ruled a knock-out. Quicker than Max was expecting, but it had been a long day.

There was some scattered applause from the side as electrike ran back towards Max. Up close, Max was able to see a slight discolouration on the electrike's stomach, coinciding with where the machop had managed to hit it. It seemed fine, however, and they waited for the other trainer to release his second Pokémon.

It was, as Max had hoped, the dustox, and he smiled, knowing that his strategy was yet intact. He ordered electrike forward, imitating the cautious advance that had worked against the machop.

The dustox whipped up an unfocused Gust attack, which sent dust from all over the field flying. Like machop, it hid behind the cloud, but this time, the opponent was barely visible. Electrike's electricity was also useless, because it would just bleed off into the cloud. Likewise, the powders dustox were known for were also far less effective in the situation, but unlike electrike, the dustox had a valid alternate way of attacking.

A multi-coloured beam streaked towards electrike, barely missing it, and Max ordered electrike forward in an evasive pattern. It obeyed, nearly disappearing in the dust, which lit up every time a Psybeam narrowly missed the agile Pokémon.

When the dust had nearly settled, electrike jumped up, intent on bridging the few feet that divided it from its airborne foe and bringing it down to the ground. In that, it succeeded, but while the dustox was forced down, electrike was also forced to inhale a whiff of purple spores.

The dustox was quick to push psychic energy outwards, both for pushing the electrike back several meters and for lifting itself back up into the air. More waves of purple spores soon followed.

Electrike, at Max's order, tried to fry the spores with a Thunder Wave, but the lack of electricity from prolonged fighting and the dust meant it could not maintain the attack, and more poison made its way into the Pokémon's system. It collapsed, and the battle was tied once more.

Max returned electrike to its pokéball and sent out his next Pokémon without hesitation. Out came the nearly fully fresh baltoy that had only been used to wipe the floor with an opponent in the first round.

The baltoy's eye slit glowed a vivid blue as it started spinning, sending dust high up into the sky in an imitation of a Sandstorm move. Unlike the earlier dust storms, this affected the whole field, and while baltoy was well suited towards shrugging off the small particles with its hard skin, the enemy dustox was not.

The opponent reacted as Max and Danny had guessed he would, by ordering a Gust to clear away the dust before probably sending some powder at the baltoy.

The powder never made it to the levitating Pokémon, which hovered unwaveringly in the winds, sending out unseen tendrils of psychic energy even as it weathered the attack. The energy connected, and the dustox suddenly found itself forced down onto the ground for the second time in the match. Again, it attempted to lift itself up by using its own Confusion to quickly rise, but the baltoy was quicker. It landed on the ground, a rock erupting from the ground underneath dustox moments later, scoring a solid hit.

There was one valiant last effort by the dustox as its trainer ordered it to release Sleep Powder, intending to use the soporific pollen as the end of the match.

It was not to be, as baltoy was too strong, whipping up another sandstorm, diluting the potency of the powder to the point of uselessness. It moved in for another attack, levitating some rocks before hurtling them at the moth.

The rocks hit the ground as the trainer returned the dustox. Barriers fell, the referee held out a single red flag in Max's direction and the boy let out a happy cry. He had won a tournament!

The first place prize, apart from the obligatory trophy – that was getting sent home via pelipper post - consisted of two sets of gloves, resistant to fire and electricity respectively, as well as a collection of simple Pokémon medicine and a small monetary prize. All of them were welcome, even if the prize for the main tournament would have been better. Then again, Max had no Pokémon that evolved via an evolutionary stone.

~~§~~§~~

The Pokémon Center was overflowing with trainers due to the tournament, meaning that Max and Danny would have an extra person sleeping in their room overnight. They'd known that beforehand, but it still came as a small surprise to see an inflatable bed on the floor when they entered their room after celebrating Max's win with dinner at a restaurant. A bigger surprise was the identity of the trainer they had to share with.

"Oh. Heya Max and... Danny?" Max's opponent from the final match said as he exited the bathroom and saw who he was sharing with. There was a slight accent to his words that Max couldn't really place. "Gee, I wasn't expecting you two."

"Yeah, it's weird," Danny said as he walked over to the lower bunk. "What was your name again? I'm not sure..."

"It's Paul." The older boy hopped on to the side of the solid wooden desk, letting his feet dangle. "Great match Max. That baltoy killed me. Where you got it?"

"Izabe Island. We," Max said, including Danny with a gesture in his general direction, "thought you'd use that dustox again, so we planned for it."

"So you ganged up on me?" Paul asked, causing Max to pause and look at him awkwardly. "Oh, don't do that. Two know more than one, my Da always says. If you're out together, you work together."

"Are you travelling with someone?" Danny asked.

Paul's fingers beat a tune on the wood of the desk. "Sure do. Twin sister's a few rooms over. She's a Coordinator, I'm a trainer. Got five badges." A badge case came out of the rear pocket of his jeans, and opening it showed the Stone, Knuckle, Dynamo and Heat Badges, as well as one Max didn't recognise right away. It was flat on the bottom, but the top side curved away from the bottom, making it look a bit like a hill.

Max tried to remember the badge silhouettes in the Hoenn Trainer's Guide, but before he could identify it that way, he had a brainwave. "Wait, that's the Toxic Badge?" That made the shape a muk silhouette.

"Yep. My aunt lives there, so we paid her a visit and I got a badge. Took a lot of time, but that's cool." The badge case disappeared in the rear pocket again. "What badges you got?" Danny was close to his badge case, and he threw it across the room, Paul catching it effortlessly. "That's... Mind, Feather and Shadow? Where's the rest?"

"We only have three," Max said. "We're on our way to Lavaridge for the fourth."

Paul let loose an appreciative whistle. "Nice going. Next you'll tell me you've only got like four months of experience." Max's face acquired a blush, and Paul spotted it. "Wait, don't tell me..."

"Just over three," Max admitted, causing Paul to send him a look that dripped with disbelief. "No, really. Look," he added, taking his own Pokédex out of his pocket and handing it to Paul, who expertly navigated to the trainer data screen. "We left two days after my birthday. Danny's a month older."

Paul studied the data for a moment longer, before handing the Pokédex back to Max. "You're the Petalburg Gym Leader's son, aren't ya?"

"Uhuh."

Paul shrugged. "That explains why I lost, then. You're loads more experienced," he said, slightly resigned.

Max opened his mouth to correct Paul, but closed it after a second, remembering that he did have a ton of experience, just not from where Paul said it came from.

"At least you beat me," Danny interjected as he searched for something in his pack, pulling out a towel moments later. "Professor Birch is my uncle, and I spent loads of time at his lab when I was a kid. Experience can beat knowledge. Max just got lucky you sent out dustox. Baltoy is a really good counter for it."

Paul smiled. "True. I was expecting treecko or nincada. They would've been easy to beat." Something occurred to him, making him frown. "So all you have is baltoy, treecko, nincada and electrike?" Max gave a nod. "That's not a good team for Flannery."

Max sat down on the bottom bed as Danny took towel and clothing into the adjacent bathroom, locking the door moments later. "Yeah. Gonna be hard, but we can do it. Nincada's pretty close to evolving I think. That'll be a big help."

"How do you know that?"

"Well..." Max enlarged one pokéball and released nincada onto his lap, immediately starting to scratch its head. "See the wings?" Paul nodded. "They're a lot bigger than when I caught him, and there's a bit of red in them. That's a sign it's getting close to ninjask. They've got a pretty short evolution cycle, but you'll have to ask Danny about that."

"Nah, no need. My sister is gonna be happy to know this. She caught one last week. She's been thinking up weird contest moves with ninjask and her slowpoke all week."

"I feel ya."

Paul smirked. "I bet. Every time she was home?"

"More than that," Max replied truthfully. Every other day.

Paul stretched while Max returned nincada. "Any Pokémon you really wanna catch, Max?"

"Not really. Just wait and see what I find, as long as my sister doesn't have it."

Paul nodded in understanding. "And Danny?"

"Wants a masquerain." Paul gave him a weird look. "I don't know either. Ask Danny why he likes them."

"Will do."

~~§~~§~~

It was close to dinnertime the next day, up on the lower slopes of Mt. Chimney, when Danny suddenly found one part of his foot higher than the other. The sudden imbalance caused his ankle to turn awkwardly, sending him falling. "Ooowww."

Max hurried to Danny's side and helped him up, but before he could do more than that, an annoyed sound came from just behind the two boys. "Aaaarrrrrr."

The aron that Danny had tripped over launched itself at the two boys, but Max was quick enough to push Danny and himself out of the path of the steel-type's attack, though Danny let out a hiss as he did so. "Can you walk?"

"Probably," Danny said. "Better idea," he added, and Max saw him fling a pokéball. "Snorunt, Icy Wind!"

The attack caught the aron's attention, charging at the snorunt instead of the humans it had been aiming for, giving Max and Danny enough time to move away to avoid being hit by something outweighing them.

Danny's snorunt nimbly hopped onto a nearby rock, and while inertia carried the aron a few feet more, it blasted more chilly air and snow at its opponent. It wasn't enough to freeze the soil, warm as it was from day-round exposure to the summer sun, but the aron did have to shake off some snow. "Slow it down more, snorunt!"

"You want to capture it?" Max asked, and Danny nodded, keeping his eye on the aron, which had just taken another blast of ice and snow to the face. "Need electrike?"

"Good id—snorunt, jump!" Danny cried as the aron ran through a next wave of Icy Wind, one claw starting to glow. It hit the snorunt in the foot after the ice-type jumped too late, and the subsequent tumble left Danny's Pokémon at the mercy of the aron that immediately charged.

"Thunder Wave!" Max called out, and electrike released its stored static electricity, causing aron's muscles to lock up. It skid to a halt close to snorunt, who blasted it in the face with another Icy Wind, even as another wave of electricity ran through the aron again.

Danny threw a pokéball at the disabled aron, which immediately started struggling, limited by the paralysis, as the container converted it into white energy before sucking it in. The ball fell to the ground, shaking and gyrating on the ground, but it soon stopped, and a faint poof was heard. "Gotcha."

"Getting him to accept you is going to be fun," Max remarked drily as he returned electrike. "You have Cheri Berries?"

"Think so," Danny said as he took the pokéball from snorunt. "Thanks snorunt. You're great," Danny added, to excited chattering of the ice-type. He took a step, but stumbled as his right leg gave way partially. "Man, that hurts."

Max helped Danny over to the cliff face, where Danny opened his pack and started looking for the first aid kit, which he carried with him. It wasn't just Danny's ankle, but the scrapes on his left arm looked shallow.

Injuries were likely for trainers, which was why every region recommended travelling in groups for beginning trainers, who were most at risk of injuries and could use the least help from their Pokémon. A blaziken might be able to help support, or even carry, an injured trainer, but a torchic could not. Max's baltoy was able to move one of the boys around for about five to ten minutes with their cooperation, but after that, it tired, and the other Pokémon lacked the strength to do more than pushing.

Danny quickly and efficiently cleaned the wound, using cloth and some water, while snorunt chilled a gel pack to put on its trainer's ankle. "You're going to have to do the bandaging on my arm, Max. You know I'm rubbish with my right hand."

"Sure." Max didn't spend two years on the road with Brock for nothing. He could apply a bandage. "Iodine, too?"

Danny hemmed. "Probably better. They're not deep, but we have iodine. Better use it."

"Better you than me." Max really, really didn't like getting iodine on his own wounds, but the antiseptic was great at doing what it was supposed to do. "There we go. One bandaged arm."

"Feels good enough," Danny said, bending his arm to test its mobility. His snorunt sidled up to him, and Danny rewarded it with a gentle rub on its back before taking his hand back. "Ideas for stopping aron? Don't want a second round."

"It's paralysed. Just give it a Cheri Berry and talk to it?"

Capturing Pokémon wasn't hard, but if you intended to train them, you needed to work with them. This, admittedly, was easier than it had been before the invention of mechanical pokéballs, since Pokémon captured in those were subjected to an 'obedience imprint', according to the official guides. It wasn't perfect, Max knew, but it helped bridge part of the gap between wild and trained Pokémon. The rest of the gap was usually closed by showing that you cared for the Pokémon, giving it food or healing it or something.

Of course, some Pokémon were just happy to join up. Max's baltoy and nincada were examples of that, and Danny's duskull hadn't been much of a problem either. Aron was the first outright hostile Pokémon they'd caught.

Max put a Cheri Berry down about five meters away from where they were and walked back, Danny releasing the newly caught aron as soon as Max was next to him.

The aron was still hindered by the paralysis, if the faint crackles were anything to go by, but it ignored the berry in front of it in favour of glaring at the duo. "It's okay, aron. The berry will heal you," Danny spoke, softly, trying to soothe his new Pokémon. "We won't harm you."

The aron stared for a bit longer before gobbling up the berry in one bite. The paralysis, which had been diminishing already, suddenly left the aron, and when next it looked at the duo, it was markedly less hostile, though the approach was slow.

"That's it. I've got some more food if you want it," Danny said, holding out some food in his right hand, lowering the left hand, which was holding the pokéball, slowly and deliberately. "Did you like the berry? This is spicy too."

It took a minute or so, but the aron slowly crept up to the pair, amidst soft encouragement by Danny. Then, when it was close enough to eat the food, the aron took a careful and deliberate bite, swiping the food from Danny's hand. Happy grumblings followed, and when all the food had been swallowed, it looked at Danny and then gently nuzzled its nose into Danny's empty hand.

It tensed slightly when Danny used his other hand to touch the small spike on its back, but other than that, it was as happy a Pokémon as they had ever seen. There'd be no problem here.

~~§~~§~~§~~§~~

Starting trainers should be able to treat small to medium injuries typically sustained during a trainer's journey. These include:
Light burns
Small to medium-sized gashes.
Sprained ankles, wrists.
Non-venomous Pokémon bites.

Trainers should also know the symptoms and immediate treatment of:
Sunstroke
Frostbite
Concussions

From: First Aid Requirements: Starting Trainers.

Author's Note: The Shadow Badge Paul - no relation to Ash's rival, by the by - mentions is from the Hoenn Dark-type Gym.