"It's kind of weird though, don't you think? I've never seen a Pokemon so used to eating human food."

When we arrived home, Mom was over the moon to see Tyrogue, gushing about how cute he was. It seemed to embarrass him a little, but he didn't seem to mind the praise. Apparently she'd gone for a shopping trip after work, and topped it off with a takeout dinner from my favorite place a few blocks over. Their main feature was food from the Johto region. Mom's little shopping trip hadn't been entirely selfish though. She'd purchased a bevy of supplies for me including a new backpack and boots, as well as Trainer supplies. There were a handful of Pokeballs, Potions, and Antidotes, as well as a high-protein blend of Pokemon food for Tyrogue. He'd turned his nose up at it at first until I told him it was important for getting stronger. That changed his attitude towards it pretty quickly, eating his whole portion without complaint.

Once he saw what Mom and I were eating, Tyrogue practically begged to have some too. It was another thing I was putting together about where he'd come from. He evidently knew the food from sight, in addition to having a previous Trainer that didn't like to keep him in his ball. I was certain that his habit of bowing to others had also come from his old Trainer.

Tyrogue and I sat with Mom at the coffee table which was now loaded with takeout containers. I gave my starter a small bowl of miso soup, a bit of steamed rice and some pickled vegetables, which he happily accepted.

"I mean, he seems to be happy. It just means he and I share a love of the same food, right Tyrogue?"

"Tyro!"

Since this was supposed to be a celebration, Mom had also picked up dessert. Ice cream for us and a small box of Poffins for Tyrogue. We weren't sure which ones he would like, so she got a variety. When he'd finished his food, I handed him a bright pink Pecha Poffin from the pastry box.

"Here Tyrogue, try this!"

He took it from my hands, inspecting it and feeling it with his own before biting into it.

"So what's the plan then? Will you head to Oreburgh first?" Mom asked as she snapped the container to her leftovers shut. I was actually surprised that I hadn't been thinking of it too much myself.

"I guess I could go to Oreburgh first. Although, I could head to Canalave and challenge Byron." I mused.

"Got a whole team planned out? I remember how long you spent crafting your perfect team."

"Nope. Tyrogue wasn't planned, so why plan the rest of my team?"

I knew that was a lackadaisical way of team building, but it was true. Adhering to some perfect plan that looked great on paper wasn't going to work. I knew that I wanted a variety of Types as the Gym Circuit encouraged, but I would feel it out. I hadn't planned to get Tyrogue after all, so why bother making a plan for something I can't change?

"Speaking of, where is the little guy?"

"Huh?"

Tyrogue had vanished while we were talking but the front door hadn't opened so he couldn't have left. He wasn't in the kitchen or the closet, but I found my bedroom door cracked and looked inside.

The Fighting Type was sitting on the floor alone in the dark, hugging his knees with his eyes closed. He looked so small, smaller than he normally appeared just curled up like that.

"Tyrogue? Are you okay?" I asked.

The smallest shake of his head was his reply. I knelt down next to him, pulling a fleece throw blanket from my bed. He let me wrap it around him.

"It's your old Trainer, isn't it?"

A nod from Tyrogue, and this time there were tears. He was clearly hurting and talking about his old Trainer was making it worse. Was it the food? Did his old Trainer like the same food? Did he miss them? Did they miss Tyrogue? A thousand questions came to mind and as much as I wanted the answers, asking now would be cruel. He needed time. I could give him that. I had to be okay with never learning more about where he came from or who his former Trainer was, because there was a great chance that might happen. I'd had him for just one day but I could see it on his face that those wounds were still fresh.

I placed a hand on his shoulder, letting him know I was there.

"You don't ever have to tell me. But I'm here for you, and so is my Mom. You're okay now."

I sat there for a while next to him, at least half an hour had passed before I noticed that he'd drifted off to sleep. I scooped him into my arms and gently laid him down on my bed. The couch was usually comfy enough anyway.

As I walked into the kitchen, Mom was putting the leftovers away.

"I found him, he's sleeping now." I informed her.

"It must've been a long day for Tyrogue. Going from one Trainer to a completely new one, the poor thing. Nathan didn't know anything about him?"

"Nothing. He wasn't registered to anyone before me, but he was clearly raised by humans. Have you ever seen a Pokemon bow or demand human food like he did?"

"No, I haven't. But it was really sweet that he wanted to be a part of our meal. I wonder if he had a family?" she mused before wiping down the kitchen counters with a rag.

Mom raised a good point. Maybe Tyrogue didn't have a Trainer, but a family that loved him and missed him? It would make sense that he wasn't registered to any particular Trainer if that was the case.

Mom slapped something down onto the counter in front of me.

"Now, I don't know how this ended up in the trash," she pulled her hand away to reveal my old notebook. "But I also know how important it was to you. There are still blank pages in here Titus. Not all of your planning needs to go to waste, and I'd say it might even help you to get ready and prepare now while you have the time."

"I didn't think I'd need it." I pulled the notebook towards me, flipping the frayed cover and began skimming through the pages. I couldn't help but smile just a little. I'd been so enthralled at the idea of battling, raising Pokemon and traveling. It was all I had ever wanted, I practically counted the days until I turned 15 and the next Circuit rolled around. Then Mom's accident happened. Life happened, and I had to lay my ambitions to rest.

"Well I think you do. And I think you owe it to yourself and to Tyrogue to take the best shot at this that you can."

"Thanks, Mom."

I sat on the floor of the living room with my phone and notebook. I drew a crude version of the Sinnoh region, beginning with Jubilife and the surrounding areas working my way outwards. Most Trainers, especially ones from western Sinnoh, challenged Roark first. He was considered an easier Gym Leader for the first badge, owing to his tendency to be hyper aggressive.

My other options were making the long journey to Eterna, or taking a ferry ride to Canalave. I ruled out Eterna and fighting Gardenia for my first immediately. The journey was long, arduous and I still only had Tyrogue to get through Eterna Forest. I'd read the stories about Trainers who got seriously injured or ended up dying in those woods. That really did leave just Canalave or Oreburgh.

And honestly, if it was a journey, why not take the ferry ride? With some hard work, I'm sure Tyrogue could take on Byron's Steel Types alone and that's if I didn't end up catching something between here and Canalave. To be extra thorough, I did a bit of research to find which Pokemon were around. There were the usual suspects: Bidoof, Wingull, Starly, Ducklett and Magikarp. A few I hadn't expected like Barboach and Slowpoke. A lot of it pointed towards Water Types, and given that most of the area near Canalave was either water or the off-route and unmarked wilderness it was kind of a given. It gave me some piece of mind to know what was out there.

I flipped to a new page, and began planning the hardest part: Getting Tyrogue ready for our first Gym Battle. I knew he'd do well against Byron, but being old didn't mean anything to the Steel Type specialist. I didn't want to rely on the type matchup to carry us. The old man was tricky and clever, and from what I'd read he was tough to break through without a plan or serious offensive power.

We had to start improving the moves he had at his disposal. Tyrogue could close the gap between himself and an opponent with Fake Out, but the battle with Anthony and Machop had pointed out a few glaring weaknesses we needed to iron out: My starter lacked the bulk to stay in a close-range extended exchange, he didn't have any way to attack from range, and he had no way to protect himself or stay mobile.

I pulled out my Pokedex and began thumbing through the list of moves he could learn. While appealing, some of them would definitely be later endeavors like Vacuum Wave. I wouldn't even know where to begin to help him with a move like that. Mach Punch could solve the issue of his mobility while Swift would let him attack an airborne or distant enemy if he couldn't close the distance. Detect was also one I knew he'd need but it took a long time to learn and it was incredibly taxing to use more than once or twice. There was also Mimic, a really tricky move that certain Pokemon could pull off but I wasn't sure if the results would be worth it. The move copied by Mimic would never be as powerful as the Pokemon it was taken from, so it was actually more of a gimmick than a way of crafting a coherent strategy. I also added Pursuit, Bullet Punch and Work Up to the list but I wasn't as worried about those yet.

The last thing I did was lookup battle footage that featured newer Trainers, around the one to two badge range. This was tedious, as I had to flick through a lot of clips and videos to find pieces of footage that used the moves I was looking for. I saved portions of them to my phone to show Tyrogue later. In the end, I only ended up finding Mach Punch and Swift, and though there was footage of an Eevee clearly using Detect, I was on the fence about it since it was a few years old at this point and simply watching the Normal Type blur out of the way didn't seem all that helpful. Still, I saved the clip for later.

I put my phone and pen down and I realized I was the only one in the room. Mom had been watching some crime drama about an hour ago but she'd gone to bed. I settled in on the couch with an old blanket wrapped around me and clicked off the lamp to go to bed.

"Here, watch it with me. The Glameow is about to come out and use it."

Tyrogue and I were in another of the training arenas around Jubilife. We'd picked a spot off in the corner so we could be left alone. Before we got there, I'd stopped at a store for a few pieces of what I was calling "training gear". Really, it was just sports and athletic equipment. I purchased a bag of fluorescent green tennis balls, two frisbees, a jump rope and a stopwatch. Right now we were watching one of the clips I'd shown him to teach him Swift. Between it and Mach Punch it would definitely be more difficult, but we wouldn't know until we tried. The Glameow on screen was dodging nimbly around the arena, a constant halo of stars that orbited around her would wink into existence before firing themselves off and seeking out her opponent.

"Do you want to give it a try now that you've seen it?"

"Ty!"

Tyrogue leapt to his feet and I stepped several feet away from him with one of the frisbees. The pink creature closed his eyes and tightened his fists, clearly deep in concentration. As sweat began to bead up on his head, tiny lights flickered in and out of existence near him and just as it seemed he couldn't grasp it, half a dozen stars winked into being, hovering near him. I was honestly shocked.

"Tyrogue, that was incredible! You picked it up so quickly!" I beamed.

Even Tyrogue was impressed with himself. He smiled, amazed at the stars floating around him.

I held up the frisbee, shaking it. "Let's check your aim and see how you do."

I threw the disc upwards, creating a target for him that was falling in place. The method was two-fold: One, it would get him used to hitting moving targets and two, if a mid-air opponent attempted to dodge they'd likely do so by falling quickly, so it got him used to leading his shots and compensating for the distance between him and the target.

The Swift definitely hit its mark, and as I went to retrieve the disc it basically fell apart in my hands, which was unfortunate. I'd wanted to get more than one training session out of it, but maybe I just needed better equipment than cheap plastic frisbees. I found a trash can nearby and tossed the broken frisbee before returning to my Pokemon.

"Well, you did a number on that frisbee, which is really good but it also means we can't do that exercise again." I said, chuckling.

This got a laugh from Tyrogue, the first I'd seen from him.

"Think you could do it again? The more we train at it now, the better equipped you are for taking on Jangmo-o."

That seemed to light a fire in him. Tyrogue's first attempt had taken a full fifteen seconds of hard concentration, but now…

"Ty-ro!"

…there were eight stars that flashed into existence, orbiting him. His eyes were intense, like he was ready to fight right now.

"Easy there, we've got plenty more training to do Tyrogue. We still need a rematch with Anthony and Machop, remember? And we have another move for you to learn too, not just Swift, although this one may come even easier to you."

I scrolled through my phone until I found the clip I'd been looking for. Recently, Maylene from the Veilstone Gym had gathered more of an online presence. A few years back she'd had a nasty reputation for being merciless to anyone who didn't battle in a way she approved of, but that had worn away as time went on. I sympathized with her, she was only a few years older than me and she was a generational talent in charge of her city's Gym, that had to be incredibly tough for her. Nowadays in addition to her Gym duties, she streamed her workout routines, taught self-defense and martial arts classes with people and Pokemon alike and encouraged people to be active with each other and their Pokemon. I set Tyrogue up with an older video of hers from a few weeks back. It was a basic form, but the main focus of it was maintaining your stance and throwing a solid punch with your dominant hand. I figured that was as good a place as any to get him started on Mach Punch.

I sat down a few feet away, setting the stopwatch for 20 minutes before flicking through the notes I'd taken this morning. I'd researched Byron's first-badge level fights and come up with very little. Most people just weren't interested in taking him on early in the Circuit. One of the standout clips was an unhinged girl with a Magby that blew right through his defenses, but as I didn't own a Magby there wasn't much to be gleaned from it. Still, I'd identified at least a few of the Pokemon I'd see: Magnemite, Aron, Shieldon, Bronzor, Ferroseed and Pawniard. The ones that would give us the most trouble right now would be Bronzor, Magnemite and Ferroseed. Both Bronzor and Magnemite could float and attack from a distance but Bronzor was also a Psychic type, which would be bad news for Tyrogue. Ferroseed tended to remain still but it would be the most frustrating for Tyrogue. Even if Ferroseed would let him engage at close range, its Iron Barbs ability would hurt him if he ever made contact with it, which ruled out every move he had except for Swift, which would do very little to a Steel/Grass Type. It was becoming apparent why Trainers opted to ignore Byron during their first run through the circuit: Most first years didn't start with a Pokemon that matched up well with Steel Types. I closed the notebook a minute shy of the stopwatch going off. I noticed that Tyrogue had begun to follow along with Maylene's video, mimicking the form and the motions of her punch. He would watch a minute of the video, then pause and recreate the motions himself. I stopped to just watch him train for awhile, he was so engrossed in it that it was really endearing. This went on for another ten minutes or so before something incredible happened.

"Now, take a firm stance and punch with everything you've got! Hy-ah!", Maylene's voice played out from my phone.

"Ty-rogue!", my starter yelled defiantly.

As he bent his knees and tightened his stance, Tyrogue pulled his fist back and it began to glow. He punched the air in front of him with all of the force his body could generate, but what neither of us was expecting was for him to shoot forward a little over ten feet as he did so. The momentum of the Mach Punch put him off balance, and he fell forward, but he actually did it! I ran forward to congratulate him, helping him up and checking on him.

"That was amazing, you actually did it! I'm so proud of you!" I exclaimed, pulling Tyrogue into a hug as I did so.