TEAM RECAP - On Hand

Raijin (Elekid)

Male

Ability: Vital Spirit

Moves: Thundershock, Ice Punch, Cross Chop, Charge

Vulpix (Yōko)

Female

Ability: Flash Fire

Moves: Quick Attack, Ember, Disable, Incinerate, Confuse Ray

xXXx

He was excited. After searching his pokedex to view the data on his pokemon's current forms and evolutions, he learned some great info. The moves they could learn at this current moment.

After reading through both their lists, he had all sorts of new ideas sprouting in his head for ideas and strings of attacks. These would open up so many new avenues of combat! The only downside is that it would take time.

He sighed as he glanced up and saw Yōko simultaneously instructing and annoying Raijin. It has been a day since Raijin's first attempt to learn Quick Attack. He had to bite back a laugh when he saw Raijin trip and fall face first in the dirt.

Yōko had no qualms against openly mocking Raijin as she laughed openly. Raijin shot her a glare before zeroing his gaze on his trainer. He quickly averted his eyes back to Yōko's learn list and settled upon a move to try and teach her.

Hex. A perfect move for his current team. Hex deals double damage on foes inflicted with status ailments. They are considered side effects or direct effects of pokemon moves. Named after actual ailments, they aren't even close to their counterparts.

They are the results of different types' energy affecting a pokemon. There are ways to deal with each ailment, but require specific moves or items to do so. Highly unlikely in inexperienced and newer trainers. He could take advantage of this.

Glancing back up, he let out a girly yelp before clapping his hand over his mouth. Unfortunately, it was the same hand holding his Pokedex. Yea. It hurt a lot.

Taking in a breath to control his annoyance at Yōko, he massaged the bruised area of his cheek, while sending a glare at Raijin for openly laughing at him. Jerk.

Shaking his head to get back on track he faced the damned trickster. "Yōko, after looking through your learnset, I think I have a good move for you to learn."

The fox pokemon immediately stopped laughing and sat down still, feigning an innocent look. He felt his eye twitch at that. This was going to be a long day.

Shaking those thoughts out of his head, he continued his train of thought. "I believe hex would be a good move for you to learn. Both you and Raijin have the ability to inflict status effects on your enemy, and Hex would be the perfect move to take advantage of that. It would also expand your type coverage a bit."

Yōko, keeping up her act, nodded and motioned her head towards the pokedex. He smiled before tapping the screen a few times, and turning it to the fox, showing her the move in action.

She nodded and headed up to leave to start practicing before Izuku called her back. "Hey, if it helps try to channel the same energy from Confuse-Ray to make Hex."

The fox pokemon rolled her eyes before nodding and walking towards a tree to begin practicing. He just sighed and shook his head. She was a pain to deal with.

Suddenly he heard a shout of joy. Quickly turning to his left, he watched Raijin jumping up and down, before gesturing to him and starting running. His figure started to rapidly speed up before being enveloped in a cloak of white energy, drastically increasing his speed.

He grinned at the sight of his partner finally getting Quick Attack to a usable level. Maybe learning all those moves wouldn't take as long as he thought.

xXXx

It was a quiet affair at breakfast the next day. Izuku and his team were eating at the pokecenter cafeteria, after spending the previous day training were ready to leave for the gym they would first take down.

Cerulean was his target. He planned to go through and clear the gyms in the city closest to him, but after looking into them more, Sabrina, similarly to Giovani, had a minimum badge requirement of 4 badges.

Erika was also no slouch. While she had no badge requirement, she was greatly skilled. Trainers beginning their journey rarely earn their first 2 or 3 badges from her gym. Her battle strategy was incredibly difficult for newbies to deal with.

Same for Koga, Blaine, Surge . . . wow. Almost every gym leader in Kanto is not beginner friendly. Koga and Erika for their stalling and distance tactics, Giovani and Surge for their overwhelming strength, and Sabrina's and Blaine's fines and skill.

Are gym leaders supposed to be this hard? Were Brock and Misty the only fair leaders? Or were they just inexperienced? Maybe. . . .

AS he was staring into his food, Yōko watched her trainer warily before nudging Raijin. He growled when she jabbed him with her paw, but looked where she was gesturing. He simply sighed before sending a little shock over the table into his trainer.

The mumbling trainer suddenly jolted and snapped back to reality. After realizing what happened, he started apologizing. He thought he was finally getting rid of that habit.

His team wasn't fazed and just waved the apology off. After all, it wasn't hurting anyone or really that annoying at all. What was there to apologize about?

xXXx

Once breakfast was done, they handed the room key to the receptionist at the desk, and left. They had a couple days of travel if they went at a normal pace. If he used his quirk, it was about a day give or take.

But then he would have to account for the people on the trail. He had been lucky enough to avoid most of the people on his way to saffron due to staying near the tree line and the league not being started yet.

The league registrations start every year in early spring. That's when a lot of the trails begin to be heavily populated by trainers and the like. The league started a day after he arrived at Saffron.

Now with more people roughing it out and traveling he would have to be more frugal with his quirk usage. He would need a ground type skilled in sensing vibrations, a pokemon with good senses, a flying type, or psychic type for him to safely train his quirk.

They would have to observe a space around him to prevent anyone from witnessing his power. Yōko had a good sense of smell, but it wasn't as good as some other pokemon's. Anyway, he would feel more comfortable if he had at least 3 members capable of keeping watch.

Yōko would have to suffice for now. He glanced at his right shoulder and scratched Yōko behind her ears before facing forward. Now that the season had begun, he could start acquiring badges needed to grant him traveling freedom.

Wait. . . he never registered for the pokemon league while at Saffron, did he? Deciding to double check, he asked his team.

"Hey guys?" He paused for a second, to gather their attention before continuing. "Did I ever sign up for the pokemon league at Saffron?"

Raijin and Yōko shared a glance before snickering at their trainer. He pouted at their obvious teasing, but couldn't help the small smile that formed on his face.

"Ele, ele?" Raijin called for Izuku's attention.

"Yes Raijin?" Izuku responded before seeing his start gesture at his backpack.

Quirking his eyebrow in confusion, he complied and handed his backpack to his starter. Raijin snatched the bag before scrummaging inside for a moment, bringing out the badge case.

Gesturing to the case he shrugged his shoulder and gestured to the case again. Izuku trying to correctly gauge his question- wait it was a question right? He took a moment before slowly responding.

"You're asking . . ." He paused before continuing when Raijin sent him a nod of confirmation. "Why do we need the badges?" Raijin raised his hand and tilted it side to side.

He quickly held his hand up to stop Izuku from speaking before acting like he was writing on paper. Izuku stared for a moment as Raijin stared back. What needs to write and badges? He can't think of any . . . thing. Oh. He was talking about signing up with the league right?

This time, he was confident he knew what his starter was asking. "You want to know why I want to sign up for the pokemon league?" Raijin shot him a grin and nodded.

Izuku shot him a grin of his own while mentally patting himself on the back. Who knew he was good at charades? He snorted at the thought before explaining the situation to Raijin.

"Ok, so, to travel to other regions, I'm going to need a certain number of badges. And we can get these badges anytime during or after the pokemon league, but if you sign up, it grants you certain benefits, like free stays at pokecenters, check-ups, and a couple other things. That's why most people only tend to collect badges when the pokemon league is active."

Raijin nodded along to his explanation. He had collected the answer to his question, but was confused by the rest. Before he could stop Izuku from elaborating, he continued forward, seemingly ignoring Raijin's protests.

"Surge told me they do this to prevent trainers from traveling to other regions haphazardly. Each region has its own dangers that differ from others'. The leagues don't want any trainers dying, so they set up certain badge counts for foreign trainers to travel to other regions depending on their danger level. There's a lot more political stuff and other important bits that IDidn'tGetToLook . .. ."

As Izuku went off on his own little rant, both his team members shared a glance and nodded. Seemingly communicating through their eyes, they started to walk away as Izuku was explaining the rule behind badges.

"Hey! Wait! I didn't finish explaining your question!" Both pokemon began to run.

Izuku quickly picked up his bag and began to run after them.

They didn't plan on letting him catch up.

xXXx

Sooooo, sorry? I kinda got lazy and school kinda screwed me over big time. Got like 2 projects and a research paper to turn in during a span of like 2 weeks. Shit was stressful.

So once again please leave any reviews on how to improve my writing or anything you enjoyed about the story. I enjoy reading your reviews and already have some plans on which pokemon Izuku is going to have in the future.

Also, for future reference, when I'm super busy for more than a week, would you like one big chapter once I'm free, or smaller chapters more periodically.

Thanks and enjoy.