I rested on a boulder in the outskirts of pewter city, out of breath. Again. It had been a week since the Beedrill attacked me, and my recovery had been frustratingly slow. Apparently the alpha Beedrill had been at a fairly high level, meaning that its venom had been especially virulent. This meant that it had ravaged my body particularly hard.

Still, we had a training regimen to keep to, and I was currently training my three newest members. Caterpie and Weedle were stereotypical young bugs, weak, few moves, but they were growing rapidly every day. In the short time I'd had them, they had both eaten voraciously, growing several inches. I knew it wouldn't be very long before they both spun their cocoons.

Pichu was a determined fighter. In the time we had been training, she had thrown herself into it with gusto, driven almost obsessively to improve herself. I could sense that she blamed herself for what happened to me, and I tried to reassure her, but it seemed the only words she chose to hear were about battle and training.

To that end, pichu had been utterly fascinated by the physics behind electricity. Once I explained about electron movement and positive and negative charges, she had almost immediately applied that knowledge to her own physiology. She was rapidly becoming more skilled at storing, discharging and channeling her bioelectricity.

Speaking of blame, vulpix now rarely let me leave her line of sight. Every movement or step was accompanied by the obsessive little fox shadowing my every move. I knew vulpix could be possessive to a fault, but this was starting to get ridiculous. Still, I was determined to let her work it out on her own.

Ralts also was being overprotective. She had thrown her entire being into her psionic attacks, learning psybeam and teleport very quickly. She had also started to learn draining kiss, but it was still a ways from being battle ready.

Pidgeotto seemed almost subdued after the events of the forest. The normally aggressive bird hung back more often now, reluctant to leave my side, quick to return once he did. I knew this couldn't continue.

When I had had a chance to catch my breath, I decided to call a team meeting. I threw my six pokeballs high, catching them two at a time as my team materialized in front of me. I watched with a smile as they stretched various limbs, loosing cries and chirps as they limbered up. Once everyone had settled, I cleared my throat.

"Alright guys, I took us out here because I figured we needed to talk." Stony looks all around. Great. I sighed. "Look, we all did our best in the forest with the bugs. Me getting hurt was no one's fault. I don't blame anyone except for myself. Jumping on that giant bee was stupid and reckless, but you know what? I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Guys, we saved an entire family of Pokémon that would have been very badly hurt in that swarm. Isn't that worth risking our own lives over?"

Vulpix and Ralts shared a look, before vulpix nodded at Ralts. Ralts walked closer to me, a determined look on her cute little face.

Saving others good. You hurt, bad. It took me a minute to decipher the transmitted sensations and emotions into something I could interpret, but the meaning was clear. We are team. We worry.

"Sigh. I know you do, Ralts. And I appreciate that, I really do. But give me some credit here, I'm tougher than I look. I'm not that fragile hehehe."

Vulpix 'spoke' up this time. Not funny. Not to joke. She huffed. But you right.

"So are we all ok? Pidgeotto?" The big raptor looked at me, the fire back in his eyes, and he nodded. "Pichu?" The little mouse ran over to me and hugged my leg, her cheeks sparking determinedly.

"Pi-pichu!"

"Caterpie, Weedle?" The two bugs nodded. "Vulpix?" She rolled her eyes at me. Like watching a kit. Then she came over and licked my hand.

"Ralts, are we ok now?" She crossed her arms, giving me a hard stare for a few seconds, then sighed and gave me a halfhearted salute. If you say so.

"That'a girl. Alright then. So as you may or may not now, we are challenging Brock of pewter gym soon. He's a rock type specialist, known for his Geodude and a particularly large Onix. I know the Nidorans have expressed an interest in taking him on, how about everyone else?"

No one volunteered, which was expected. With the exception of Ralts, everyone I had was at a type disadvantage. Most Kanto rock types were also ground type, so pichu would me mostly ineffective, Pidgeotto, as a flying type, would be in imminent danger from rock type moves, vulpix had no moves powerful enough to do much damage, which just left ralts and her psychic attacks, both of which were slightly underpowered at the moment.

My current strategy was to use the Nidorans' double kick attacks for super effective damage, but we'd see how that worked out once they had finished resting at Oaks Ranch.

"What about you two?" I asked the bugs. "I know I didn't really get a chance to ask before I caught you, but where do you want to end up? Are either of you interested in being professional battlers?" I received two negative head shakes. "Evolution then?" They both jumped excitedly, which wasn't too surprising. That's what Fearow had wanted too. "Fair enough. I can help you with that. Well, let's get started then!"

And with that, we jumped into training. Just because none of this current team would be taking on Brock, didn't mean we could slack off after all.

Far away on the Oak Ranch, a worried discussion was taking place.

"HE DID WHAT?!"

"He jumped on the alpha Beedrill."

"You mean he jumped at it right?"

"No. No, he actually, physically, full body tackled it while it was in the air."

"That- that- stupid- grah!" Raticate screamed in frustration. The two poisonous rabbits shared a glance, as the large rat ranted and raved. "When you go back, you tell that thick skulled idiot that if he ever, and I mean EVER, pulls a stunt like that again, I'll tail whip him so hard his great grandchildren will feel the whiplash! I'll bite his feet off so he can't leave the house! I'll- ill- ugh. You two need to watch out for him! He's obviously too simple to take care of himself!"

"Yeah, me and Thorne were actually talking about that. We're both really close to evolving. Once we do, we can protect him better. We're supposed to go up against some kind of rock leader guy soon. The Boss was pretty worked up about it. He seems to think it's important or something, been working our double kick attacks pretty hard, that's why we're here resting. I think we'll evolve soon after." Said the Nidoran, glancing at his girlf- his girl friend.

"Yeah, Spyke's right. Once I'm a Nidorina, we'll be strong enough to keep him out of trouble."

"If I'd known he'd get himself into this much trouble, I'd have never let him send me to the ranch.

"Heavens, we've got work to do. Main battler team or no, we've both got to keep up with the rest. If he ever gets into this kind of crap again, I'm going to personally destroy whatever hurts him."

"Whatever you say, Fangs." Said the long suffering Fearow. This was not going to be as restful as she had initially thought.