Author's note: Sorry for the delay; one of my personal projects took a lot longer to finish than expected and left me more tired than I assumed. But here I am with a new chapter!

Thanks to the following reviewers: JaiJayce; PinkiePieParty122894; Whiteserpent119; jessicachitwood95; Pen-Woman

Warnings: Naruto using loopholes to his advantage; minor timeskip

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Kishimoto owns it. I also don't own Pokémon, that belongs to Satoshi Tajiri and The Pokémon Company.

I hope you'll like it!

Chapter 44

What if one Pokémon happened to prefer to stay out of its Pokéball instead? Nobody would think to ask to show the empty Pokéball belonging to the Pokémon staying out of it.

Could this be a way to challenge the next Gym? If Naruto played his cards right, then neither Vaporeon nor Pidgeot would have to leave the team. It was quite risky, but then again the rules had always stated you could only have a maximum of six filled Pokéballs with you – the rulebook had never stated whether a Pokémon staying outside its Pokéball fulltime was included in those six filled balls. Because technically the Pokémon staying fulltime out of its Pokéball would have its empty ball stored away – still leaving six slots open in theory.

Naruto decided to return to his original camping spot so that he could do some more research with his Pokédex before he would go back on the road. Sitting down with his back against a tree, he retrieved his Pokédex from his bag and opened it again, opening Lucario's page again. He had just been about to check all the moves Lucario could learn when that boulder had nearly hit him. With Snorlax freed and caught, he was no longer at risk of having rocks thrown at him, though, so he could read the page without any distractions now.

What he read had excitement cautiously building up within him. On his own Lucario would be able to learn Bone Rush very soon; if they trained for a bit more, he might even learn that move in just a couple of days! That was the only Ground move he would learn naturally, but when Naruto opened the section with all the possible moves Lucario could learn, he immediately took notice of a couple of other Ground moves. Lucario was also able to learn Bulldoze, Dig – which would work out well in the defensive area, because it could provide cover against the opponent's attacks – and even Earthquake. Especially the last move gained his full attention instantly because it was such a powerful move. Always guaranteed to hit with immense power … If Lucario could learn that, that would be an immense help during the battle!

Naruto checked Snorlax next and was pleasantly surprised to find out that Snorlax would also be able to learn Ground moves. He learnt High Horsepower on his own, which while slightly less accurate and a bit less powerful than Earthquake still would do a lot of damage coming from a Snorlax considering the move involved using one's whole body. He could also be taught Mud-Slap, Bulldoze, Dig, Stomping Tantrum and Earthquake as well! Naruto hadn't even realised Snorlax would be able to learn so many Ground moves!

Growing more excited, he quickly checked his other Pokémon. Ninetales, despite being a Fire Type, could still be taught Scorching Sands, which was interesting. Pidgeot knew Sand Attack, of course, but that would only be able to temporarily distract the opponent, not deal any real damage. Toxtricity couldn't learn any Ground moves, but that made sense given his Type. Vaporeon could learn Mud Slap and Dig, but his Type made him too vulnerable for the next Gym, so even if he knew Dig it was too dangerous to let him battle. Mimikyu didn't learn any Ground moves, but at least he wasn't as vulnerable to Electric attacks like Vaporeon and Pidgeot were.

So he had currently two Pokémon who would learn Ground moves on their own and could be taught others. In order to teach the other moves, however, he would have to find a Move Tutor. He hadn't come across one in the previous places, so perhaps he could find one in the next town? It would be incredibly handy if that was the case, but there wasn't a Move Tutor present, he would just have to make do with the Ground moves Lucario and Snorlax would hopefully know by then. Ninetales could battle in the Gym as well by just using sheer force like she usually tended to do. Mimikyu and Toxtricity could be put in when necessary while Vaporeon and Pidgeot would naturally remain in their balls. They would be too vulnerable against Electric attacks to have them battle in that particular Gym.

Naruto nodded to himself and closed his Pokédex. It was decided then. Lucario and Snorlax would be the main fighters for this Gym once they had done some more training. Ninetales, Mimikyu and Toxtricity could take over when necessary. With that decision out of the way, who should be the one to remain out of their Pokéball? He glanced at his belt where six Pokéballs, one orange coloured, gleamed faintly. Well, there was really only one answer to that, wasn't there?

After retrieving Snorlax' Pokéball, he released all of them and stood up. Snorlax yawned upon his release while the others regarded him curiously. Mimikyu shuffled towards Naruto, wrapping one shadowy limb around Naruto's ankle. Vaporeon's tail was slowly flicking back and forth as he studied the hulking form of Snorlax. Pidgeot flew to the lowest branch of the tree Naruto stood in front of, ruffling his feathers slightly. Ninetales and Lucario, who had met Snorlax just a couple of minutes earlier, regarded him calmly while Toxtricity was a bit more on guard; his shoulders slightly hunched.

"Everybody, meet Snorlax; he's our newest member," Naruto introduced him. "Snorlax, you've already met Ninetales and Lucario, meet Mimikyu, Vaporeon, Pidgeot and Toxtricity as well."

Snorlax bobbed his head up and down, regarding them just as curiously.

"Now I've been thinking about the next Gym," Naruto began, pulling everyone's attention immediately. "I think I have found a way to keep the team together."

"Pidgeot?" You have?

Vaporeon perked up; the swishing of his tail becoming a bit more pronounced. "Vaporeon?" he asked hopefully. Really?

Naruto nodded. "It's going to be a bit tricky, but we're going to use the official rulebook against the Gym," he announced, growing both excited and somewhat nervous.

Toxtricity came a bit closer; his eyes sharp when he hissed his question. Rulebook against it how?

"Well, the rulebook says you can only have six filled Pokéballs with you at all times," Naruto began. Ninetales tilted her head to the left; her tails swishing back and forth, barely missing Snorlax' leg. "So that's what I'll have: six filled Pokéballs – because the seventh will of course remain empty."

Lucario was the first one to understand what he meant. 'One of us will join Master outside ball?' he guessed correctly.

Naruto grinned and nodded. "That's exactly what will happen. They never check the Pokéballs, so far all they know one of those six Pokéballs is just empty. In the best case scenario only five of you will have to battle in the next Gym, so that will work out."

"Mimi, Kyu, Mimi?" Mimikyu questioned; his fake head flopping back slightly when he peered up at Naruto. Who out of ball?

Naruto's grin widened and he bent down to pick up Mimikyu, cradling him against him. "You! If that's okay with you, of course," he amended quickly just in case Mimikyu didn't want to stay out of his ball for a while.

"Kyu?" Really? Mimikyu appeared shocked by Naruto's answer.

"Really," Naruto confirmed. "What do you think?"

"Mimi!" Want to!

Naruto snickered at Mimikyu's enthusiastic reply. "All right, that's settled then. Mimikyu will stay out of his Pokéball until we're finished with the Gym."

"Ninetales?" Rest of us?

Naruto looked from one Pokémon to the next before taking Mimikyu's Pokéball from his belt, putting that one in his bag and replacing it with Snorlax' bag. "Now, we're going to train," he announced.

The cheers – even if in Snorlax' case, it was a cautious one – made him feel even more encouraged for the next Gym.

The plan was far from conventional – but their team was far from conventional either. Besides, he couldn't be blamed for using the rulebook against the Gym; it wasn't his fault they hadn't thought of every loophole!

Training went surprisingly smooth, even with the newest addition. Unlike Zweilous, Snorlax was quickly accepted in the group; probably because unlike Zweilous Snorlax wasn't aggressive towards the others. In fact he was quite a mellow Pokémon and while he loved to laze around when he was out of his Pokéball, he always listened to Naruto's orders without ignoring him even once.

As it turned out Snorlax did know High Horsepower already, which made Naruto quite relieved because that was at least one Ground move they could use against the Gym. After having Snorlax show off all the moves he knew, Naruto let him mainly train with Toxtricity so that Snorlax could learn to withstand most Electric attacks or even better, learn how to avoid them. With his big bulk, Snorlax wasn't nearly as limber as Ninetales or Vaporeon were, but his speed was nothing to sneer at either and after a couple of training sessions he managed to avoid most of Toxtricity's Electric attacks. He truly was a good example of how one shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Lucario meanwhile trained with Ninetales and Vaporeon until he learnt Bone Rush. That was another Ground move down, but Naruto still felt like knowing Dig or Earthquake would be their best possibility to win at the Gym. That would all depend of course on whether or not a Move Tutor was available in the next town. There was only one way to find out.

After a couple of days spent in the woods Naruto emerged onto the road again, this time accompanied by Mimikyu. To make it easier on Mimikyu, he had decided to carry the small Pokémon so that he wouldn't have to shuffle along. As if the weather had realised they were back onto the open road, it started drizzling soon. With the temperature being around zero – or so it felt like at least – the drizzle soon turned into little snowflakes.

"Mimi," Mimikyu muttered, snuggling deeper within the blanket Naruto had wrapped around him before pressing him against his chest. Snow, hm.

"Hm, it's winter after all," Naruto confirmed and sighed softly; his breath escaping him in a puff of white air. "It'll be a while still before spring arrives, but we can't spend all that time in the woods."

"Mimikyu, Kyu, Mimi?" Mimikyu questioned; one of his shadowy limbs poking out of the blanket cocoon to clamp down around one of the folds. Walking straight through to town?

Naruto shook his head. "I checked the map before we left. The town is still a couple of days walking from here, so we'll have to set up camp at least two more times before we'll reach the town."

That was, of course, if a snowstorm wouldn't happen because then their journey would be even more delayed. The weather forecast so far, though, didn't show any signs of a potential snowstorm forming so Naruto was cautiously optimistic about their chance to arrive at the next town in three days at most.

It allowed them to have a couple of hours of training each day anyways, which was good because the more training they had under their belt before challenging the next Gym, the better. He thought his team was at least strong enough level-wise but levels didn't always mean anything. This Electric Gym might be one of the most difficult ones yet they had to face, which made sense of course given that it was the second to last Gym.

The reminder that this was the second to last Gym they had to tackle had him speeding up slightly. It was almost unbelievable that they had already got this far. Just two more Gyms and then they could already challenge the Elite Four, how crazy was that? In just a couple of months he had changed from a stay at home nobody to an actual Trainer getting ready to challenge the most powerful Trainers in the country.

Unconsciously he tightened his arms around Mimikyu a bit, who merely hummed and slipped one shadow underneath Naruto's sleeve, wrapping it around his wrist. For years he had thought he would never get the chance to have a team of his own and look at him now! On his way to challenge the seventh Gym and having a relatively good shot at winning even!

Even the icy wind against his cheek couldn't diminish his excited grin.

Three days later in the late afternoon they finally arrived at the new city. It was quite large with buildings towering over Naruto and the streets were bustling. Students returned from school to their homes; businesspeople were hurrying along, briefcase clenched in one hand, a phone in their other; Trainers chatted with each other or held friendly battles in the many open spaces the city had. Because even though it was clearly a large city, it also had a lot of open space and trees lining up on each side of the road.

On his way to the Pokécentre, following the road signs, Naruto saw a couple of Electabuzz and Electivire helping their Trainers with a couple of electrical cabinets and some Machoke were helping rebuilt a busted through wall. Perhaps a Pokémon had crashed into it? The professor's office had been rebuilt several times because some of the bigger Pokémon had been too rambunctious during their play and had crashed into the wall or one of the windows. That all just came with the territory of living with Pokémon after all.

The Pokécentre was conveniently in the middle of the city, built in some sort of plaza. Wooden benches had been placed in a circle around the centre and several of them were occupied either by couples or by friends laughing and chattering in spite of the cold. Some Pokémon like Zigzagoon and Fledging were scurrying around in the bushes planted between the benches, picking up stray crumbs from the ground.

Naruto had to wait a bit in the Pokécentre as a short queue had built up, but the centre was pleasantly warm, especially after days spent in the cold, so he didn't mind. Mimikyu didn't seem to mind it either, relaxing on his lap and idly looking around. One little boy who might be accompanying his older sister considering how similar they looked, spotted Mimikyu and raised his little hand in the air, giving an enthusiastic wave. Naruto felt Mimikyu twitch in surprise, but after a short bout of hesitation Mimikyu meekly raised a shadowy limb in the air and waved back, making the little boy grin and jump up and down before his older sister was finished at the counter and led him outside while holding his hand.

Naruto could practically feel the wonder blasting off of Mimikyu and while a part of him was amused by that, another part felt saddened because Mimikyu shouldn't be this surprised that a stranger had been nice to him. Mimikyu was just as cute as any other Pokémon and deserved an enthusiastic greeting from a stranger just like all the other Pokémon.

"Sorry for the wait," Nurse Joy apologised, stroking a lock of her pink hair behind her ear. "This time of the year it's always busy with the weather and such."

"It's fine," Naruto assured her and placed Mimikyu on the counter together with five of his Pokéballs. He had kept Pidgeot out of the more strenuous training sessions for the most part so that he wouldn't have to heal him at the Pokécentre and reveal their plan.

He didn't think Nurse Joy would rat him out if he placed six filled Pokéballs and Mimikyu on the counter – she probably would assume that he was healing one of them before sending them to the Professor – but there was no point in taking the risk either.

"This shouldn't take long," she promised and Blissey showed up to take his Pokémon to the back. "Unless you recently came back from a battle?"

"No, just some training sessions," he told her. "We've just arrived at this city."

"Here to challenge the Gym then?" she guessed and started typing something on her computer.

"Yeah, tomorrow probably," he confirmed. With how excited his Pokémon were to tackle the Gym, he doubted they would let him dawdle for too long anymore. "Actually, I was wondering – do you happen to know if there's a Move Tutor here?"

"A Move Tutor?" She looked up, pausing her typing momentarily. "Oh yes, there is one! If you leave the centre, you have to leave the plaza next to the waffle stand and from there you have to take a right twice. After the second right turn you just have to keep going straight. You can't miss it: it's a house with a training ground."

"A training ground," he echoed surprised.

"Yes, he has a lot of Pokémon so that he can teach the majority of the moves," she explained, smiling. "There are only a couple of moves none of his Pokémon can teach, but that's only because they happen to be very specific to one Pokémon or so. Most general moves he can teach your Pokémon without any issue."

"That's great to hear," he sighed relieved.

Snorlax had practiced his High Horsepower and Lucario had trained his Bone Rush, but if they could learn a couple of other Ground moves, they would be as prepared as they could be for the next Gym.

"Don't let yourself get scared off by the Move Tutor himself, though," Nurse Joy advised him, offering a slightly chagrined smile. "He can be rather rude at times, but he's very good at his job."

"I'm sure I can handle him," he reassured her.

How bad could the Move Tutor be, really?

She nodded and five minutes later he was back outside, his team fully healed.

"Mimi?" Going where? Mimikyu looked around curiously when Naruto walked straight past the waffle stand as instructed.

"Nurse Joy told me there's a Move Tutor here," Naruto answered. "If Lucario and Snorlax can learn at least one more Ground move, we'll have a bigger chance at beating the next Gym."

Mimikyu nodded; his fake head bobbing along with the motion.

As instructed by Nurse Joy, Naruto took two right turns, leaving the hustle and bustle of the inner city behind for a quieter neighbourhood. It wasn't so busy here, which was probably the reason why the Move Tutor had moved his business here. Most Pokémon disliked a too hectic environment after all and if they needed to teach other Pokémon moves, it wouldn't do if they became too agitated by noise.

He kept following the road until a large barren field announced the end of the road. The field was fenced off and several Pokémon roamed around inside it. There was a Charizard seemingly listening to a Cinderace; a Combee fluttering around with a Ribombee; a Grimmsnarl snickering with a Gengar and a Thievul … All kinds of Pokémon were walking around or resting in the area; the field itself seemed to extend beyond a small building placed rather closely to the road. Unless this field belonged to a very successful Trainer, Naruto thought it was safe to assume that this must belong to the Move Tutor.

A bit on guard – it wouldn't do to set off so many Pokémon by making a hasty move – Naruto made his way to the small pebbled pathway leading up to the door. Mimikyu's shadowy limbs came from underneath his costume and wrapped themselves around Naruto's wrists; his tiny body tense as he warily watched the other Pokémon. Several of them had naturally taken notice of their presence and were drawing closer; for now just merely curious still.

Before Naruto could raise his hand and knock, the door suddenly flew open and a red haired man with auburn coloured eyes and half long hair stared down at him; one hand braced against the doorjamb.

Those auburn eyes narrowed when they took notice of Mimikyu first and then the Pokéballs attached to Naruto's belt.

"What's a damn pipsqueak like you doing here?" the man demanded rudely.

Naruto's right eye twitched a bit and he tightened his grip on Mimikyu. He supposed Nurse Joy hadn't exactly exaggerated when warning him about the man.

Well, that didn't matter. They were so close to their goal of defeating all the Gyms; one rude man wasn't going to stop them!

So he jutted out his chin and answered, "What do you think I'm doing here? I'm here because I need you to teach some of my Pokémon new moves!"

AN2: Can anyone guess who the Move Tutor is? It's a canon character :)

Just for fun, for the ones who play Scarlet/Violet, which starter to you like the most? Sprigatito is my favourite; not only is it a cat like Pokémon but Flower Trick is simply amazing.

Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.

I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!

Cuddles

Melissa

P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.