Ch. 9. A New Routine

"Hey, it's not my fault I can't understand you! I have no functional experience with Pokémon. Besides, how am I supposed to memorize all of this in a week?" I cried out. After the pleasant evening of junk food, gambling, and movies with Inkay last night, I just was NOT ready for Nurse Joy's prepared lectures and notes on everything I needed to know as a Trainer. To top it all off, the person she sent to teach me was a little…

"Stop making excuses. And stop spacing out! This is only going to be more difficult if you don't get your head out of your-."

"Yeah, yeah. I understand all of that. But you can't force someone into focus, ya dunce," I cut him off. Mitchel, a Trainer fresh on his journey and sponsored by Professor Sycamore, was going to tutor me for the next week. Apparently, I was too much of a knucklehead to be trusted out in the wild. Nurse Joy told me I had to choose between a week of tutoring and finding someone else to give me a recommendation. I thought it would be easier to do the week of tutoring, but Mitc-.

"Oh my Arceus, stop going off to Cresselia land! We have a lot of things to cover before you can call yourself a Trainer," Mitchel practically shouted.

"Listen, I understand that you've gone to Trainer School and have been on your journey for a month, but there is no need for the attitude. You talk in a very condescending way despite you knowing nothing about me," I said. Here I, a 25-year-old man, was being lectured at by a fifteen-year-old.

"All I need to know is that you don't know anything about how to care for Pokémon or how to take care of yourself," he said. "I've studied everything about being a trainer for six years now. And here you are trying to learn it in a week."

"Except you're going off the notion that I know jack shit about Trainers. I know more than you think," I answered, growing increasingly annoyed.

"Oh, yeah? Like what?" he snarked.

"I know my berries and what status conditions they can be used to help with. I know basic first aid and survival techniques. I know how to cook and store food to create rations for long trips. I can identify emotions and intent from people and Pokémon, even if I don't know exactly what they're saying," I began listing off. Mitchel started to grin smugly, as if all of that was nothing. "And I know how to shove my foot so far up your ass you'll be tasting the shit from the bottom of my shoes with the tip of your tongue."

I growled that last bit out, making him step back in fear.

*sigh*

"Sorry about that. I know I've got a lot to cover, but you are not making this any easier by being so snotty and egotistical. How about you ask me some basic questions and see how much I know yourself?" I said. It wouldn't do to have Nurse Joy's recommended tutor be afraid of me. Not that I would ever hurt him. "I don't think starting with how to create a bond between myself and a wild Pokémon is the best place to begin."

Mitchel stared at me for a bit, giving me a hard glare for all of three seconds before his shoulders drooped down. "Sorry, I was so excited to teach someone for Nurse Joy that I completely judged you when I saw you weren't a little kid."

"It's fine. I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to make me feel stupid. I might not have the extensive knowledge of Pokémon you have, but that doesn't make me dumb," I said. "What's the first question?"

"Alright. Umm, what's the berry cure for poison?" he asked.

"Easy, Pecha berries," I answered.

"How can you turn Pecha berries into an antidote if a Pokémon can't eat it?" he continued.

"Huh, I'm not too sure," I said, not expecting the question. I had never heard of turning berries into any type of medicine, but I guess it made sense since Antidotes were a thing. I wasn't sure if they were made to be drunk, sprayed, or spread onto a wound. "Though my guess is it would depend on what you were trying to turn it into. You could mash up the Pecha berry with water to make it into something drinkable. I guess you could also turn it into some sort of salve by turning it into mush, though that would most likely need something else to help the curing properties seep into the wound."

Mitchel stared at me, his expression showing something like disbelief. "It took us a few lectures on berries in order to figure out that berries could be used to create medicines, and here you are thinking it's a natural thing to do."

"Well, yeah. I'm sure they got the idea for antidotes from using Pecha berries as a base for medicines. I'm sure the same thing happened with other healing items too," I said, earning myself a dumb-founded look.

"Maybe you will be able to learn all of this in a week. I wasn't expecting you to be so natural with this."

"Are you saying it's not common sense?" I asked. I mean, did it not make sense that a berry with healing capabilities would be used for medicines?

"I mean, now that I know everything I do, it does make sense. But growing up, I never thought about it," he explained. "I knew berries were in the wild and could be used for healing, but that was in the wild. We mostly just used berries for cooking and adding extra flavor to our food."

"Oh," I said. "I guess that makes sense. So the berries you used for cooking are the same as the ones in the wild?"

Mitchel thought about it for a bit before saying, "Yeah, they are. I always thought there was some difference between wild and farmed berries, but I don't think there is.

"Nice, I guess it won't matter if I buy them from a store or go looking for them in the wild."

"Just be careful, there are lots of people that will try to rip you off by giving you some bundle of berries at a 'great price,'" Mitchel warned me.

"Sounds good, thanks," I said. And with that we continued with the questions. I knew a lot more than Mitchel was expecting. I really had to thank my memories of the games I played. From Type match-ups to Pokémon species and their types, I was able to recollect a large chunk of the information Mitchel was supposed to teach me as the week passed. I had a lot more trouble with regional politics, the workings of the League and society as a whole, and how battling worked, though I more than made up for that with what I knew about the region's history, traveling, and surprisingly, general Pokémon care.

In between the tutoring sessions, Nurse Joy began her medical studies. It started off simple enough, just a physical for the first day. Before I was fully healed, Nurse Joy took as many baseline readings as possible for just about everything she could think of. All the while, Chansey would run her own tests on me. Nurse Joy intently watched those interactions with a researcher from Professor Augustine's lab and his Metang. He had a device that measured the energy exchange, or something like that. All he told me was that it would be used to see if my body was legitimately adapting to the energy it was exposed to.

Once I was healthy, Nurse Joy began to have me do some exercises. She wanted to see what my current limitations were and if those limits were affected by anything they'd been doing, so she planned to have me do some physical and mental exercises without any interactions with Chansey. She also had me try some tests to gauge my affinity with Aura and Psychic energies.

About a week into everything, I was in a good spot. Nurse Joy had more than enough data to begin some analyses. I understood all of the information Mitchel taught me. Whether I would remember it when I needed it was another question altogether, but it was memorized for now. Though he was done with the task Nurse Joy gave him, he decided he would stick around for another two or three days to help with some practical skills.

For someone who had no real responsibilities, I was actually pretty busy. Every time I was finished for the day, I'd spend some time trying to figure out the best way to train Inkay and look for ways to make money. The easiest things I could do were simple chores like cleaning messes left by Pokémon and running errands for some older residents.

As for training, there was a PokéDB forum on Pokémon training with a thread on best practices for just about every species. The Inkay line had some rather interesting information. Since they were Psychics, they needed to meditate for at least an hour a day. However, they were not suited for energy-based attacks, which I automatically assumed meant special attacks.

Instead, the meditation session was meant to circulate Psychic energy throughout their bodies. This would help with their control over Infinity Energy, which meant their moves would be stronger overall. It also helped to strengthen their bodies since physical attacks were more apt. The main advantage, however, was that it led to an increase in ability when it came to learning moves like Psycho Cut and Night Slash.

Unlike the games, most moves couldn't just be learned by getting stronger. There were a few exceptions, though most of those were decided by the Pokémon's lineage and inherent talents. For example, Mitchel told me his own starter, a Pansear, started with some standard moves her line knew. Leer, Scratch, Incinerate, Fury Swipes, and Yawn were moves expected of the species. However, Pansear also knew Low Kick, which they started training as a way to gain distance in the middle of combat.

Since then, Mitchel's Pansear was able to learn Rock Smash as well, which meant she had a talent for Fighting-type moves and a more aggressive combat style in general. He explained that all Pokémon had similar talents, even if they weren't obvious or battle-oriented like Pansear's.

It made me wonder if the Malamar species had the two slashing moves as innate talents since meditation was a general training recommendation for all Inkay and Malamar. It might also explain why Inkay knew Rain Dance. I guess that would be something for me to find out.

Now that I wasn't busy with Nurse Joy's tests, I had more time to do what I wanted. I decided it would be best to start a routine for myself. Mitchel explained that most successful Trainers followed a routine that best fit their lifestyle. His example was ex-Champion Cynthia from Sinnoh. Apparently, she'd train her team for a few hours every morning before tending to whatever issues needed her attention the most. She also set aside two hours at the end of the day to focus on her research.

It was a simple routine from what I understood, but that was what helped her get stronger, as per Mitchel. I wasn't too sure about that, since I was sure it was difficult to get to that level of power just with simple training. However, the point was that a routine would help, and that I agreed with.

The problem was that there was not as much time in a day as I was expecting. An 18-hour day just felt wrong, but I couldn't manipulate time and space to make it longer. So I had to work with it.

The average person needed six hours of sleep, a fact Nurse Joy told me. She also told me some people could make do with an hour less just fine, but very few could consistently function well with less than four hours of sleep a day. Those who could needed to acclimate their bodies and adjusted the rest of their habits to cope with the lack of sleep.

All of that to say, I would probably need the six hours of sleep. That left me with twelve hours in a day. Most Trainers based their days on the natural timing of the sun's light. Which meant they traveled and battled by day and rested by night. For those that weren't Trainers, the average work day was 4am to 3pm, or 4 to 12, as a clock would show.

I think starting the day around three in the morning would be good, which meant I would need to be asleep around six at night. That felt weird to think about, but I continued with the planning.

I could meal prep giant batches of food to make eating an easier process, though I would need Nurse Joy's help with that. I don't really want to over or under feed Inkay, or not give him enough of the nutrients he needs.

Really, all I needed to do was decide when to train and for how long. I think a minimum of an hour would be good. I would also prefer the morning. Nurse Joy's tests were the first thing I did every day for the last week, and I always felt good and productive after. Starting the day feeling like that would probably be good for me. I'll have to ask Inkay what he thinks.

Currently, I was walking around town with the little floating squid. He was either floating about or slumped on my head, and today he was excitedly zooming around as he looked at everything. This was his first time out in a town. While I had walked through town already, this was my first time actually seeing it and enjoying the atmosphere.

Santalune City had two Pokémon Centers, one at the entrance connected to Route 3 and the other at the entrance connected to Route 4. We were currently walking from the Center at the Route 3 entrance. Directly across the street was a large grassy area that had a playground and several tables. I could see some families having a picnic, with several curious Pokémon scurrying around the tables and playground. A few even joined the children for some games, including a Scatterbug that used String Shot to create a jump rope.

My attention soon fell on the architecture. At the end of the park was the city gate, which was basically just a stone wall surrounding the entire city. The entrance, which was at one end of the park, had a wooden outpost with a canvas showing a brightly painted Vivillon.

The road from Route 3 split just past the park. One side led to the police station, the other led deeper into the city. Following this road, I soon got into the residential section. Simple wooden houses with green, mossy roofs seemed to be the norm here. There were two or three larger buildings with many windows throughout, likely apartment complexes. What was nice was the faint, pleasant aroma of flowers and grass. It was relaxing on a spiritual level.

As I continued to walk along, I soon came across a stone water fountain shaped like a Roselia, with the water coming out of both of its flowers-for-hands. The stone was beautifully carved, almost life-like despite the obvious material. Several Pokémon were playing in the water that collected at the base of the fountain. It stood in what I presumed to be the center of the city, though that was really only a guess because of what I remembered of the game's map.

To the right of the fountain, across the path it was on, was a café with a strong aroma of coffee and baked bread flowing out. As I walked past the fountain, I noticed some smaller cafés and diners, as well as a food booth, between shops. The further I walked, the more professionals the buildings and professions became. Soon, I found myself on a street with a bank, a credit union, a League Association building, some corporate companies, and, closer to the Route 22 gate, a humongous building. I walked down the block to get a closer look at what was definitely the biggest building in the city.

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A/N: Alright, time to talk about changes. Obviously, some abilities, moves, and items will have to change because they don't make a lot of sense in a real-world version of Pokémon (I'm looking at you, Telepathy and Choice items)

What changes make the most sense to yall? I know there's a lot of opinions on some. For example, Palossand's Water Compaction should negate damage from Water moves, imo. Nature mints will be a tough one, but I know they can still work.