Hey y'all! Hope things are well for you all! Chapter five is here and hopefully y'all will enjoy! Not much new in terms of announcements as I'm rather boring but no news is good news sometimes. But without further ado, let the chapter begin!

(I do not claim to own Pokemon that goes to Nintendo and GameFreak.)


"Kong! Rush in with a Seismic Toss! Don't give them a chance to get away!" Kong blitzed forward and grabbed the Meowth and slammed it into the court with a flying leap. Before I could give another order for King to attack, a beam of red energy engulfed the Meowth signifying a withdrawal.

"With the second bout being won by Cindy and her Mankey, the match goes to Cindy from Saffron!" A couple of claps came from the stands. Not too many people stay around to watch F-Class battles but some do still stick around to show support for new trainers.

I walked forward and thanked my opponent for a great match. It was a random girl from Vermillion who was a Normal Specialist. Her Meowth and Raticate both fell to Kong and his new Fighting moves. She walked out quickly, not taking the clean sweep of her team very well as I too turned to the doors to make my exit.

A buzz in my pocket drew my focus to my phone and the Showdown notification that was now upon it.

"Congratulations on your recent win! 10 points have been awarded a bonus of 4 for your current win streak! That brings your point value to 72! The next rank will be awarded 500 points! The amount of 1,000 dollars has been deposited into your account."

W:8 L:3 D:0

I quickly looked at my bank account and saw a solid 19,500 resting comfortably within. A few good wins were under my belt and I could start moving forward with what I was looking to do. I wasn't able to get too many matches in during the last three days but I took any that I was able to get in that time. Both Kong and Polli got some really good fighting experience out of it so even though our record wasn't perfect we still learned a lot from the matches that we did have.

And one of those things that we learned has me walking directly to the PokeMart nearest to the Battle Center. They had a special going on where any overstock TMs would be knocked down to 10,000 while supplies lasted. I had my eyes on a couple that would help the team out so I decided to go and take a quick look around to see if any of the on-sale ones would meet my needs.

PokeMarts are similar to nice-sized travel convenience stores. They have food and selection galore for what a trainer would regularly need to venture out into the wilderness. They won't have super specific items or very high-priced ones, but more than likely they'll have what you may be looking for. When I walked in I also noticed that they were selling Pokeballs with a deal that said "Buy four and get the fifth free!!". That was another deal that caught my eye since I was planning to add a few members to the team once we made the journey to Pewter.

Walking over the wall of TMs, I noticed that they had a separate rack to the side with the sign of the deal taped on it. Walking over I took a few minutes to peruse all of the selections to see what exactly would meet my needs and what wouldn't. After a few minutes of looking through everything that they had, I had come to two choices. The TMs for both Ice Punch and Protect sat before me with both having the chance of going into my bag. I knew that both would be a great advantage to have for my members. Ice punch would help expand our type coverage as well as give us a Flying, Grass, and Dragon counter that we had been lacking. It would open up Celadon as being a bit more viable to challenge early as well since Erika was a Grass Specialist. The only problem with that was Polli couldn't learn the move currently as we would have to wait until she evolved into a Poliwhirl to teach it to her. Protect, however, was something that we could benefit from now. It wouldn't open up any new doors on coverage but it would help with our current lack of defensive capabilities. And especially going into a Gym battle for the first time, I want something that might give us a little more survivability out on the courts.

In the end, I decided to pick up Protect now while leaving Ice Punch for a later purchase. Protect was something that I could have every Pokemon I caught learn and use. Plus after losing a narrow match to a trainer that had this move in their repertoire, I knew that it could mean the outcome of a battle if used at the right moment. I paid the man at the register and started the trek back home.

I was fortunate enough to have been gifted a TMs case by my parents for a prior birthday so I wouldn't have to go through the trouble of having to buy one of those as well. Fortunately, that's the only other piece needed to use TMs due to the energy emitters that came with it. Basically, the move energy is emitted through these adhesive pads allowing your Pokemon to understand the flow of type energy used to produce a certain move. They'll understand inherently how the move works after its use but it will be a weaker form of it due to the loss of power in the transfer of energy. This means that while I could load my Pokemon up with as many moves as I wanted, they still wouldn't be great at using them without properly training them.

And seeing as I wanted to set out in two days, the earlier I had Kong and Polli using Protect, the quicker we could get it up to par and ready to use for our battle against Brock.

I paused for a second to take in the orange sunset painting itself across the skyscrapers of Saffron. That would be the start of uncertainty for me. Gym Leaders had a wide variety of Pokemon they could use for their gym battles. It wasn't a guaranteed Geodude and an Onix like the games. This would be a good starting position to observe what the depth of the Gym Leaders' roster would be. You can challenge a gym in one of two ways. You can either challenge the standard way of a face-off with the leader. Or you could challenge a Gym's gauntlet.

A gauntlet was a mixture of a maze and fighting the Gym Trainers that were employed with the gym. You had to fight through to achieve the right to fight Brock. It was the best route to take in our case honestly. Not only were the rewards better in terms of a higher monetary reward and more points for the Battle Club. You could also get one of the gym's TMs from their collection. I had also decided I wanted to see what depth of coverage a Kanto gym would carry. Would Brock have Pokemon from any of the recent regions? I wouldn't be surprised if there were Pokemon from Hoenn or Sinnoh on his roster. But I wanted to know how far Indigo's gyms would stretch in terms of gaining Pokemon from other Leagues. That way I could better prepare for what I could see in my future matches. It would be a challenge to complete but not completely out of my reach with two type advantages on my team.

I took another second to watch the glows of the sunset slowly fade away. The oranges slowly darkened and the pinks began to shift into a darker purple. Clouds dotted the sky, adding shadows and different shades to art that only nature can create. While I may have spent a bit too much time enjoying the view, I loved sunsets in my previous life and I guess that trait carried over into this one.

With the thought of all the sunsets we could see on our journey in mind, I finally made my way back home to rest up for tomorrow. Training could wait. It wasn't every day that you get to see a sunset like that after all.


With a good night's rest, I started the morning off by trying to get Protect onto our roster and see if I could get Kong to teach Polli Encore. It will help expand Polli's options for being a Saboteur. Seeing as that was something that she had shown an interest in, I wanted to add a few moves that followed those lines in her move set.

After releasing my team I pulled out the emitters and placed them onto Polli. Once they were placed properly, I plopped the case for Protect in and started to warm up the machine.

"Alright, guys so I managed to pick up a move for us that should be a big help to our team as we move forward. Protect is something that I want both of you to be proficient in and be able to use at the drop of a hat. Polli I'm going to use the on you as I want King to teach you how to use Encore. So while Kong works on learning Protect from scratch and with your help, I want you to focus on getting Protect to a serviceable level before Kong begins to teach you Encore." The case dinged letting me know that it was ready to use. I pressed a few buttons confirming that I wanted to use the loaded disc and that it would be useless after a single use. The disc began to hum and I could see Polli tense as she could feel the type of energy swirl inside of her. After a few minutes of familiarizing herself with it, Polli met my gaze and nodded. I removed the emitters from her body and placed them back into the case before placing them back into my bag. After I had cleaned up, Kong and I both brought our attention to Polli for her demonstration. She turned away from us and focused on a singular point. After a few seconds, I could begin to see a shimmering barrier of energy beginning to form in front of her. After a few seconds of concentration, the shield finally formed into a sphere protecting Polli from any incoming attack from her front. I nodded and clapped my hands to regain my Pokemons' attention upon me.

"Alright now that we know that you can use the move decently, I want you to coach Kong on how to shape and use the move. Once he gets it down then I want you to begin focusing on summoning it quicker. I don't want us to be sitting ducks because we weren't able to get a shield up in time. Once you can use Protect in under three seconds, come back and see me so we can get started on King teaching Encore." They both nodded at me and moved off to a different part of the training yard near some sparring dummies. I could see Polli trying to explain the flow of energy to Kong as they relocated and I knew they would be fine being unsupervised for a while.

While they would be working on learning Protect, I was going to work on getting our flight to Pewter in order. I wanted to get started on prepping for our Gym Challenge going forward. Once we got training down today I knew I would have to get the two Item Pouches sized and fitted for both Kong and Polli. While it wouldn't be hard to do, it would take some time so I wanted to get it done once we break for lunch.

I pulled up AirKanto's page on the Net and filtered the results with my desired destination of Pewter. A couple of options came up and after a bit of deliberation, I decided to go with Flier Johnathan. Other options would require me to take some detours to pick up some other passengers along the way and I wanted a straight flight to Pewter. While it would be a hefty price of 4,000 I was only paying slightly extra for the direct flight and it would also be the closest departure two days from now in the morning. I put in all the necessary information to request passage and received a message showing the confirmation of my flight and a time and place to be for the pickup. Satisfied, I branched off a bit in my surf of the Net. I had wanted to take a bit and look through the forums for Brock and his gym.

When I pulled up a few pages I could see the standard usage of Geodude, Onix, and Rhyhorn being pretty common for his standard challenges. The only problem that I encountered on the main forums is that they focused mostly on standard matches and what Pokemon were used there. While all matches against a Gym Leader can be streamed and watched by the public, gauntlet runs don't televise the matches with gym trainers. And while looking through the forums I only found a few mentions of other Pokemon being used. As I suspected there were a few mentions of Aron's and even a Sudowoodo being used in main battles. So for the gauntlet run portion, I was going in blind until I made it to fight Brock at the top.

I knew there could be Pokemon from both the Johto and Hoenn regions appearing from watching clips of challengers facing off for their badges. That I could deal with and if there were any surprises down the road, that was a problem for me in the future.

I took a moment from researching Brock to check on the progress that my team was making with Protect. Polli had moved off a few feet to start working on lowering the time it took to summon the barrier itself. I could see Kong struggling with trying to summon the barrier itself. While it took a while, I could see the shimmer of energy trying to coalesce in front of him in the shape that he wanted. While a finished product was still a ways off, I could see that he was still able to grasp the basics of utilizing his Normal energy in this way. It was hard trying to learn something from scratch and I was thankful that he at least had a decent grasp of his Normal-type energy. While it may not be usable at the moment, Kong had made great strides in being able to use his energies fluidly. I definitely wanted to rescan my team before leaving to see exactly where we stood.

Returning to familiarizing myself with the tools available to me, I decided that I wanted to check out the store of Pokemon and Eggs that my Uncle's gym had for sale. A placed the filter for Fighting types on and saw the search bar dwindle by a bit. Being a Fighting gym, most of the Pokemon that are raised and kept there do fall under the same typing. Looking through, I didn't see much that would interest me at this point in my journey. I could acquire my own Tyrogue or Machop for about 10,000 a piece but neither of them seemed worth the price knowing that I could travel to find them in my region. I didn't want to spend resources on something that I knew I could find in my journey. Once I swiped through a few mons that were way out of my price range I stumbled across something that caught my eye.

It was a listing for a few Meditites for 15,000 each. While it was a bit steep for me at the current moment, I knew that I wanted a Meditite for my team. The added coverage of being a Psychic type would help the team greatly. Plus we could have a teammate that could go toe to toe with Sabrina and not have the type of disadvantage. And that wasn't even the real ringer of why I wanted it. I knew that Medicham could Mega Evolve.

Mega Evolution was for better or for worse not a thing in the public view. It was something that was kept close to the governments of each region. Most people didn't recognize that the fancy stones that each Gym Leader wears as a necklace aren't just a necklace passed from gym leader to gym leader. I knew that those were a set of keystones used as a catalyst to trigger Mega Evolution.

If there were problems in this world that required Mega Evolution to solve, then I would need to be able to meet those needs. And to start that required me to find Pokemon for my team that could undergo such a process. It was one of the reasons why I wanted to find a Heracross in the Viridian Forest. While it would add a bunch of coverage to the team, it would also add a potential cornerstone for Mega Evolution.

While I knew the possibilities of me even finding a Mega Stone were small and finding one that worked for my team was even smaller. But if I was going to achieve the level of a Pokémon Master I would need the boost. To this date, Indigo only has 8 legally recognized Pokemon Masters. These include the current Champion Lance, Elite Four Members Bruno, and Koga, and Gym Leaders Pryce and Blaine. The only other masters are Professor Oak who was the Champion of the region 30 years ago and his grandson Blue Oak who cleared the challenge to become champion but refused to pursue his ambitions. Trying to achieve the strength level to join the ranks of these titans would require a lot of my pool of meta-knowledge.

And let's not forget that I wanted to trounce Sabrina for my eighth badge. I wanted to show her and the league that even though she might be considered the main gym of Saffron, our dojo was still able to provide the strength of one of the major eight. Once you challenge for the eighth badge, a gym leader will face you with a member of their main team. While you aren't expected to defeat them, you are expected to at least be able to combat them and show strength against overwhelming firepower. I wanted to win though. I wanted to show Sabrina that even her main team will find that we aren't to be dismissed even though we have a disadvantage.

And to achieve that, I would need to play very smartly with my choices for my main team in the future. I didn't want my cornerstones for one of my biggest challenges to be a new addition to my team. I wanted them to be a seasoned battler that could gain as much of an advantage as possible. So for right now, I decided to save my funding for Meditite while looking to add to our team through traveling. If I couldn't find a Heracross in Viridian Forest, I could always purchase one later down the line. It wouldn't be the preferred option but it is one we could do. I just wasn't able to drop 30,000 dollars for a Pokemon right now.

After double-checking that I had everything in line for my trip to Pewter, I noticed that Ashley had sent me a message. It was a picture of her holding a Plain Badge with a wide grin on her face. Curled up around her neck was a Furret that smiled happily at the camera.

"Won my first Gym Battle against Whitney today! Even though her Miltank was an absolute monster, Furret here evolved and scraped us the win when we were down! About to head to Azalea and do some sightseeing in the forest before my next Gym Battle! Hope everything is going well with you! I'll have to send some pictures of Ilex Forest! There are some neat shrines that I want to visit with my team! How's everything on your end?? Have you left Saffron yet? I don't want to pass you up too quickly after your win against me!"

I took a second to squash any jealousy that surfaced at seeing Ashley holding her first badge. While I may not have the accomplishments of any badges yet, I knew that the training we were doing wouldn't be going to waste. I quickly took a picture of Kong forming a Protect slowly. He had managed to start figuring out how to weave the energy together to form the shield and had been slowly making the size of the barrier bigger. After a couple of seconds of checking that the photo was good I typed out a quick response.

"Wow Sentret evolved?? Congratulations! And during such a monumental moment too! I can't imagine the feeling that you must have had with that one! But seriously congrats on your accomplishments! One step closer to the Prelims! We're doing pretty well ourselves! We're spending a bit more time training before I catch a flier out to Pewter! I managed to get a good amount of wins too so I hope you're ready to take me on once I hit D-class! Haven't found any new team members yet but I've got my eyes peeled and a couple of leads so it shouldn't be too long! Hope your trek through Ilex Forest proves fruitful! Definitely send me any cool pictures that you end up taking!"

I hit send and looked up at my team. Kong had just managed to figure out how to fully form the Protect shield around him. While it looked a bit flimsy and I knew it wouldn't hold for very long, it was progress and I couldn't be upset with it. Noticing that my team was starting to run low on fuel a bit I called for a break for the day. We would spend some time recharging and talking about strategies for taking in Brock's Gauntlet. Afterward, we could finish up with a game of tag while utilizing Protect in our move pools. It would help Kong learn to produce the move and help Polli in learning to use it faster.

As we rested I thought about how surreal the feeling was that I would be going on my own Pokemon journey. I had always played the games in my past life and I could safely say that they were a large part of my life. Now I would be living that life for real. I looked over at my team eating after some good training and felt a feeling of pride arise within me. I may not have a regional starter or a monster of a pseudo-legendary but I do have a team. My team. And we would always have each other throughout our journey. And I wouldn't trade that feeling for anything in this world or the last.


And that wraps up Chapter 5! Hopefully y'all enjoyed! We're close to the start of the journey, but there's still a few things I want to wrap up for Cindy before she heads out! We also get to glimpse at what Cindy has planned for her team composition as she moves forward. I've got a couple more planned and thought out to get her to a full party but after that it's anyone's guess!

As always, feel free to leave a review! And I'm going to hit y'all with a question this time! What's Fighting Type Pokemon do you want to see Cindy have for her roster? While I may have her core six party figured out there's still room for two more on her carry limit and some potential swaps she would keep in the stables! You might just see Cindy rocking your favorite Fighting Type for some of her battles!

Take care y'all and remember to hydrate!