Chapter 11

I finally reached celadon after exactly 2 months of leaving. The city itself was magnificent but he didn't have time to appreciate it as he was mentally exhausted. The toll of being constantly on alert, even while sleeping, for 2 whole months was a lot more than he anticipated. That and his clothes looked like they were thrown into a blender.

He reached the Pokecenter, where he handed over his Pokemon and went to sleep in his free room. He fell asleep before hitting the mattress.

Oak Pov.

It had been 2 months since Oak had heard from Alex, he had gotten the mandatory report which said, not doing much, just training my Charmander, in a long fancy manner. The second report he just received was much more interesting, Daisy has brought it to him as she was delegated to read the reports from the three young trainers and he had personally only read the first month's report.

Alex had chased down an Abra for 2 weeks, which was interesting to hear since the difficulty of hunting a Pokemon famous for its skittish nature and its ability to teleport at the drop of a hat was quite high. However Oak had a curious question when it came to Alex, where was he? He wasn't on the official route, he had zero sightings, zero trainer battles, zero toll crossings, and zero gym badges, not even a minor one.

His Pokedex Gps, Auto-scanner, Camera, Mic, and calling function had been turned off. He was completely off the grid. Alex wasn't in pallet so there was only one option left, he was in the wild woods. Dangerous, very dangerous. A double-edged sword but Alex seemed to be the living embodiment of that concept. Always riding at the very edge for the best opportunities. He reminded him of a lot of people, traits from the great trainers were sprinkled everywhere on him but he was still unique.

It was still too early to tell, he had seen many talented trainers fall, some retire, most die. But one thing that Alex lacked was that all the great trainers had, Purpose. He wanted to be the strongest but for the sake of strength. His purpose was hollow and until he found a reason to progress beyond just 'I have to', he wouldn't make it to Elite, his Pokemon might, but he won't.

His thoughts were interrupted as he heard a small beep from one of the numerous machines in his lab. It seems young Alex had finally used one of the league services, a Pokecenter in Celadon. His eyebrows went up as he understood what Alex was in celadon for, the 2-star badge for which he had to defeat only 1 advancing Pokemon.

Did Alex think he could defeat an advancing Pokemon? Well, it looks like he thinks he can. Also, the Abra he caught seems to be average physically but Alex wouldn't catch an average Pokemon, and he certainly wouldn't hunt an average Pokemon for 2 weeks. Alex's journey was piquing his interest. He set an alert for when Alex would challenge Charlene for the badge.

Normal Pov

After resting for a few days, Alex was back to training. This time he couldn't train Charmander's dragon breath, but he could make up for it by training until his Pokemon until they're too sore to move. One of the downsides of training in the wild is that you can never train to the point of exhaustion, cause then you'll be easy pickings.

Charmander was physically much stronger and his move mastery is much better to the point he can effortlessly chain multiple moves from any position. Now that he was in celadon, he planned to challenge as many trainers as he could to make enough money for a few TM's he wanted, the TMs were Protect and Dragon dance.

Protect was one of the most common moves, it could block any move of the same tier as the user so Charmander could block any attack below Advanced rank. The downside is it could be used only once per 10 minutes. You could lower the time between protects as the move mastery increased. There were rumors that an elite four member of Kalos could use protect 5 times in under a minute.

Dragon dance was once of the best moves out there, known by few Pokemon but still extremely useful. It could boost your attack as well as the speed by a lot. As the move mastery increased, the boost received as well as the time taken could increase and decrease respectively. There was a rumor that at the highest levels of trainers, one could use dragon dance simultaneously with another move.

These 2 moves would be integral to Charmander's future and as for Abra, he still hadn't mastered his psychic energy let alone all his moves so no TMs for a while.

Alex was thinking of this as he was approached by an 11-year-old boy.

"Hello, my name is James, I see that you are a Pokemon trainer, would you be up for a battle, 2-on-2?"

The now identified boy pushed forward his Pokedex that already had the challenge specification set. The boy looked to be experienced with approaching trainers for battles.

"Sure."

Alex replied as he accepted the battle. They were already in the training ground so they tossed out their Pokemon.

On the field, a Charmander and a Scyther appeared. The Scyther didn't look all that impressive, possibly a bit above average.

"Blade, use bite"

The Scyther zipped across the ground and appeared in front of Charmander as its jaws were covered in a black miasma. Just before the attack could hit Charmander grabbed the top of Sycther's head and slammed it into the ground. A ball of fire appeared in Charmander's mouth but Charmander didn't make another move as if waiting.

The boy's eyes widened as he saw his ace get slammed down as if it was a fly. He was shocked for a full 5 seconds in which Charmander started to get impatient. But James called back his Pokemon only to send out a Pinsir.

The fight went the same as before as the Pinsir was grabbed by the horns and slammed down, this time James took only 1 second to call back his Pokemon as he proceeded to walk away, the money being transferred from his account to Alex's automatically.

For the rest of the day, Alex was approached by a lot of trainers who had seen his fight against James. He turned a few of them away as they had to advance Pokemon, something he couldn't takedown without revealing a few trump cards. Alex rotated between Charmander and Abra to fight the trainers.

He got close to losing on multiple occasions but managed to pull out a win every time. The reason he was facing stronger than average trainers is that he was fighting trainers who had started last season or even before that. This season's Pokemon trainers were still in pewter or cerulean with their less experienced and weaker Pokemon.

He also talked with a few veteran trainers about their experiences. Some of them had been at it for 4 or 5 years and they were happy to see a younger trainer take interest in the experiences. He kept on accepting challenges, he also fought a few double battles as well as a few 2 vs 3 matches to keep him and his team on their toes.

Abra had been benefited a lot from the training and could control up to 90% of its energy and could stay awake for 19 hours a day, only requiring 5 hours of meditation. It had also started training move mastery alongside Charmander who had just learned Dragon dance.

But the biggest benefit wasn't to his Pokemon, it was too Alex. Learning how others commanded their Pokemon, some people tried setting up some status inflictions, others tried to barrel through with raw power, others tried mind games. a lot of trainers had some sort of code, instead of shouting out moves to the opponent, they had code words for moves or even combos.

But the most important thing Alex learned wasn't setting up plans but how to react at the moment of impact, how to act on the fly. To improvise with every move. to understand the other trainer's mind and predict their moves, to change plans every moment. He adapted like a fish in water, soaking up the battle experience as his battling style improved.