Training

In the resting area of the Pokémon Center, Raiden ordered some food for him and Pikachu.

There were pancakes, sandwiches with Tepig ham, and Oran Berry juice. These will definitely give them the energy to start their day.

The pancakes with butter and syrup were soft, fluffy, and sweet. The sandwiches with Tepig ham were juicy and had a slight spicy taste, as from a fire-type Pokémon. And the Oran Berry juice was bursting with flavor.

Raiden and Pikachu truly enjoyed their breakfast. Especially with each other's company.

In no time, the abundant food on the table was now in their stomachs.

They were truly living the life.

Burrpp…

"Excuse me." Raiden patted his stomach with satisfaction.

Burrrrppppp… Burp.

"Pika-pi." Excuse me.

Pikachu was lying on the table with a bulging stomach.

He had never tasted food this good in all his life.

After resting for a while to digest the food, Raiden then finally went back to business.

He took out his Pokédex and quickly browsed to the Pokémon tab.

[Pokémon owned: None]

Right there on the corner of the screen, there was a button labeled 'Register Pokemon'.

As Raiden tapped on it, there were instructions to scan the Pokémon's Pokéball.

Pikachu watched with interest as Raiden took its Pokéball and aligned the button to an indention on the Pokédex.

Tiririring!

[Pikachu has been registered!]

[Junior Trainer Raiden Creed has 1 Pokémon. Battle and Trade tabs have been unlocked.]

Raiden was excited. He could now finally have a Pokémon battle!

He didn't even think about trading.

What the hell, why should I trade Pikachu? I'm not crazy.

He tapped on the Battle tab and only one function was available for now.

[1-on-1 Battle]

Raiden knew there were other functions like [2-on-2 Battle] and [Double Battle] but it clearly needed two Pokémon to unlock it.

As he was thinking whether to battle right away or train and practice first with Pikachu, a prompt appeared on his screen.

[Congratulations for acquiring your first Pokemon. The Pokémon League has given you 5,000 Poké dollars to support you in your journey. Do your best!]

This was the Pokémon League immense support. 5,000 Poké dollars were enough to feed a family for two entire weeks and every student would receive this amount after they had their own Pokémon.

The Pokémon League was truly loaded.

But for a Trainer, this amount of money would be quickly used up. Every battle they lost would cost them 150 Poké dollars and Potions go at 300 per bottle. They also had to buy food for their Pokémon every day.

If you don't have any money left, you can't ask for a battle. If you can't battle, you won't earn money.

If you can't afford your Journey anymore, you either have to shamelessly ask for a lot of money from your parents or just quit altogether.

Being a Trainer is truly not an easy task.

So if you want to continue your journey as a Trainer, you should win most of your battles, if not all.

As Raiden looked at Pikachu and its full stomach, he decided not to battle first. They should practice their cooperation first and-

Ah! Raiden suddenly remembered something.

Pikachu had never used electric attacks! It didn't know yet any move aside from Iron Tail and Quick Attack.

Oh boy. They had a lot of things to work on.

Raiden suddenly stood up, surprising the dozing Pikachu.

"Let's go, Pikachu! Time for training!" Raiden had to speed things up because he wanted to win a Junior Gym Badge by the end of the month.

"Pika-chu!" Alright! Let's go!

Pikachu was always up for getting stronger. After all, the stronger it was, the more battles it would face. And on top of it all, it would make Raiden happy.

As Raiden was leaving the Pokémon Center with Pikachu on his shoulder, a group of five Trainers entered the Pokémon Center.

They looked worse for wear and their clothes were very crumpled. No one was talking as they slowly trudged with their tired legs and looked despondent.

Only one trainer looked relatively fine.

It was the girl who talked to him on the bus.

As the group was coming in and Raiden was coming out, they had to cross paths. It was too late to turn around and Raiden had no reason to.

The girl saw him and Pikachu on his shoulder and was shocked.

It had only been a day, yet Ray had caught a Pikachu by himself and was confident enough to let it out without training it? Unbelievable!

He must have lied before that he had no Pokémon. Otherwise it was impossible to be so close with a newly caught Pokémon.

She felt betrayed, but as a social person, she had to greet an acquaintance she made herself.

"Hi Ray!" The girl smiled.

"Hi, ummm… Ella?" Raiden wasn't sure. It was a random encounter on the bus, and he didn't put it much into mind.

"Its actually Emma, but you were close. It seems that you have caught a Pikachu yesterday? You look very close, as if you had been together for a long time!" Emma tried to corner Ray as she wanted him to admit he was lying.

After all, who could do what he looked like he did?

"Ah, that's right, it was Emma. Actually, I just caught Pikachu today. I guess we just clicked." Raiden said as he tapped on Pikachu's cheeks with his finger.

Pikachu also respondent with a playful bite.

"A-ah? Is that so?" Emma was confused. It didn't seem like he was lying, but it really was hard to believe.

Her detective powers had clashed with her logic. She was sure he was a new Trainer. It was either he was a godly Trainer or very good at lying and had a thick face.

She was more inclined to the latter.

"Then, good luck on your journey!" Emma quickly bid him goodbye. She didn't want to talk to someone who would lie in front of her, and twice.

"You too." Raiden didn't know what she was thinking, and even if he did, he didn't care.

After all, who was she to him? They likely wouldn't cross paths in the future… would they?

===================================

As Raiden and Pikachu went into the forest, they looked for an area they can freely practice in.

After searching for a while, they found themselves in a small clearing.

Raiden found it to his satisfaction and did some warm-ups with Pikachu.

They stretched and jogged for a while before Raiden started the training.

"Alright. Pikachu, let's see how fast you are. How about this? You need to run 5 laps around this place before I can run 2 laps, without using Quick Attack. Are you up to it?" Raiden challenged Pikachu.

"Pi-ka-pi!" Bring it on!

Raiden and Pikachu readied themselves in the starting line.

"Ready…Get set… Go!"

They started at the same time, but not even a few seconds passed, and Pikachu was already way ahead of Raiden.

But they weren't running the same number of laps and Raiden knew this.

He didn't give up and continued running. He had barely reached halfway when Pikachu finished a lap.

It looked like Pikachu was winning, but a quick calculation later, Raiden found out he could win this.

Before he completed his first lap, Pikachu had passed by him again.

It was smiling as if it knew it was going to win.

Raiden laughed and shouted at Pikachu.

"Hey! You're losing!" And he continued to run, not with all his strength, but steadily.

Running with all his might now will only slow him down later.

As Pikachu heard this, it stopped dilly-dallying and ran even faster.

A minute more passed by and Raiden was a third away from the end, Pikachu had just entered the final lap and was now running at full speed.

They were already breathing heavily, but they did not let up. Instead they pushed themselves even more.

At the final juncture, when Raiden was already upon the finish line, a yellow blur passed by his side.

Whoosh!

He didn't know who won, but it was fine. Raiden had a solution for this.

It had already ended, but they were still running at full speed.

They slowed down for a couple of meters until they came to a complete stop.

It was to avoid injuries and strain caused by abruptly stopping.

As the both of them tried to catch their breath, Raiden walked over to the Pokédex he set up for recording.

Pikachu walked over as they watched the replay of the final lap in stop motion

And the result was… a tie!

Nope.

The winner was Pikachu.

It was a funny win, because Raiden was ahead.

But Pikachu tumbled in mid-run and his tail had cross the finish line before Raiden did.

"Pika-pi!" I did it!

Raiden laughed while Pikachu was dancing from the win.

=====================================================

Raiden and Pikachu were looking at videos and records of a few electric-type moves namely, Thundershock, Thunderbolt, and Thunder.

Thundershocks are small bolts of electricity that are disconnected. They could be used many times and consecutively as they only use a small amount of electricity. They were weak, but they could be released fast.

Thunderbolt was a long stream of electricity that dealt quite considerable damage. The longer the time it struck, the greater the current and the more damage it deals.

Thunder is a very strong move, but it is a delayed attack. A Pokemon had to use a considerable amount electricity to the sky, and it would return several times stronger a few seconds later. Its accuracy is quite low and is quite hard to use, but it is extremely powerful.

As they were about to start on the electricity training for these moves, a group of Trainers had intruded.

"Oh? This place looks good. Send him the location. We can battle here while we wait for- huh?" A young student leading the group exclaimed after he saw that Raiden was already there.

He carefully looked at Raiden, then at Pikachu.

"Are you a new Trainer?" He asked somewhat reflexively.

"I am." Raiden answered him.

The boy visibly relaxed.

"Oh. We're gonna use this area, so get lost." He then said arrogantly.

The others together with him just furrowed their brows but remained silent.

Raiden was astounded.

He never expected such a cliché character in this time and era. Weren't people supposed to be civilized?

Are you a mob? Do you even have a name?

"I was here first, so you guys get lost." Raiden didn't want to leave even more now. Not like he wanted to anyways.

He was also a hot-blooded young man and he didn't want to move away just by being told to.

"Huh? Know your place and get out of my way, newbie." The mob said.

"Aren't you a newbie too?" Raiden knew at first glance that the mob was a new Trainer just like him.

It was because he looked too stupid and inexperienced.

"Shut up! I'm sure I'm stronger than you, so you're a newbie to me."

Raiden was having trouble following this stupid mob's logic.

"If you don't leave, I'll make you leave!" The mob said while taking out a Pokéball from his belt.

"Go, Pignite!"

What came out was the evolved form of Tepig, Pignite. It stood around a meter tall and its chubby body is orange with brown and yellow bands. With its size, it was probably very heavy.

It looked strong, but that was that.

And at this point, a battle was imminent.

"Pikachu. Let's get some more practice." Raiden called out to Pikachu who immediately went forward into a battle stance.

Pignite was pawing the ground while snorting out some embers of fire, readying its charge.

Pikachu stopped and sniffed the air for a while before tilting his head.

"Pika-pi?" Isn't that breakfast?

Pikachu turned to look at Raiden.

Raiden just shrugged. It really was what they had for breakfast, just bigger.

He looked at Pignite and then said to the mob.

"Your parents probably bought it as a Tepig and kept it for years until it evolved, right?"

"W-w-what's wrong with that!? I was the one who asked for it!" The mob defended.

"Did you know that those Tepig are specially bred for their tender meat and taste? More that 20 generations of them are raised in a pen. Do you think it still knows how to battle?" Raiden shared what he knew.

Tepig were quite rare in the wild and most of them were raised in a pen.

Their ancestor literally just had to eat and do nothing, without being given plenty of space to exercise. So now, they weren't really suited for battle. Same goes for Torchic.

Raided had read all this in a book somewhere in the library. After all, the top student also needs to study.

"What!? H-ha! But this is enough to beat you all the same!"

Nevertheless, Pignite were indeed stronger that their pre-evolved forms.

They took out their Pokédex and applied for a 1-on-1 battle.

[Scanning for opponents…]

[Match found.]

[Do you want to battle?]

They pressed yes at the same time.

[The battle will begin in 3… 2… 1…]

[Battle, Start!]