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The New Normal - 2-9
🕑 Added 2023-03-17 13:41:46 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 2-9 – Training to Mauville
I watched as Karen left the Rustboro Gym with a satisfied smile on her face, she approached me, and we started making our way to the Pokécenter to heal up her Pokémon.
“That was a great battle.” I told her, “Did you predict how it was going to go?”
“Thanks, and yeah I did.” Karen replied, “I had a basic idea of what I thought Roy would do, and I tried to manipulate events so that things would go how I wanted them too.” Her voice took on a hint of pride as she proceeded to explain her thinking and her plan to me. I have to admit, it was a good plan and really showed off her tactical thinking and skills as a trainer.
“You planned it out well.” I praised, making her proud smile grow even wider, “And yeah, you’re right that most trainers haven’t really trained their Pokémon to resist mental attacks. It’s something I had to remind myself to practice training because it’s all too easy to focus on developing your Pokémon’s attacks and strength.”
“Mhm, these kinds of tactics are my favourite.” Karen admitted, “Though I have to thank Agatha for teaching me about it; she’s much better than at than I am.”
“Well, now that you have the Boulder Badge, which Gym are you going to head to next?” I asked, “I don’t have any plans, so I don’t mind following you.”
“Hmm, well traditionally the next Gym that we would head to would be the Dewford Gym, but that requires us to take a boat from Petalburg to Dewford unless we choose to fly there.” She thought aloud, “Or, we could make our way to Mauville City…we could probably even just fly there to save time. It’s much closer than Dewford anyways.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” I agreed, “I’m not too keen on wandering through Rusturf Tunnel either. Exploring the many caves of Indigo were the least favourite part of my own journey through Indigo back then.”
“Same. I just hate sleeping or trying to rest on the hard terrain of the caves. And you can never really feel safe enough to sleep comfortably. It’s horrible.” Karen remarked.
Our conversation paused as we had arrived at the Pokécenter. Karen went to the Nurse Joy to get her Pokémon healed up while I checked the Pokénet as I waited for her.
Due to how busy I was over the past few days; I hadn’t checked the Pokénet for a while and missed what kinds of articles were being posted. Browsing through them, I was filled with a mix of happiness and disappointment.
On the one hand, I was happy to see how much coverage I was getting on the Pokénet. Getting more exposure meant that you were relevant and interesting to the public, which was a great thing to prevent myself from being side-lined by the Indigo League. There were also many who praised my performance in the recent battle against Norman, which was nice. On the other hand, there were a few articles criticising my appointment and deeming me unfit to be a member of the Elite 4. Not unexpected, but I still found it a bit frustrating to see.
Perhaps after the news of my participation in working together with Devon Corp might change a few people’s minds? One can hope.
“I’m done...something wrong?” Karen returned and gave me a look of concern as she saw how my brows furrowed as I read through the Pokénet.
“Nothing unexpected, it’s just that I was disappointed to see that there were quite a few people criticising my appointment to the Elite 4.” I told her slightly despondently.
“Aww, well I’m sure you’ll be able to prove them wrong soon enough.” Karen comforted sympathetically while giving me a pat on the shoulder, “Come on, stop looking at the Pokénet and making yourself more depressed. We’ve got to head to Mauville City so I can book a match with Wattson.”
“Fine, fine.” I said and put away my phone before following her out of the Pokécenter. “Have you even prepared for your match against Wattson yet?”
“Not really.” Karen admitted with a shrug, “But I should have time before the match to prepare a simple plan.”
I nodded at that, and we both proceeded to saddle up on our Port and Honchkrow respectively before we flew to Mauville City. It was a very short flight, and we probably could have just walked there, but I was happy to not have to risk spending the night inside Rusturf Tunnel.
Before long, we were both circling around the enormous construction site that was Mauville City. The wonderful complex that could be seen in the ORAS games was still in construction, but the construction of the Mauville Gym had been prioritised and had already been built.
We both landed in an empty spot of land on the outskirts of Mauville City to avoid the hustle and bustle of the many construction workers and Machokes that were running around hauling building material and equipment. Even now, after spending sixteen years in the world of Pokémon, I still marvelled at how efficient the Pokémon was at getting things done.
At this rate, Mauville City should be pretty much finished by this time next year. Which was an insane rate of progress compared to my old world.
“Let’s go get my match booked.” Karen announced as she walked towards one of the entrances to Mauville City with me following behind her.
As we entered Mauville City, I was once again taken aback at just how big Mauville City was. The games really failed to show just how large the city was and how many shops it would eventually contain.
Immediately my mind jumped to the potential investment opportunity here for my family’s Moomoo milk business. Despite the predictably high rent for setting up a shop here, I knew that Mauville City would be a popular location for shoppers around the world when it finally opened, so it might prove to be a fruitful business venture.
I quickly jotted down my thoughts in my notepad just so I wouldn’t forget about it. Karen gave me a curious look, but I just shook my head. I could tell that she wanted to ask, but we had just arrived at the Mauville Gym, and I gestured for her to go inside.
A quick few minutes later, Karen came out again with a smile on her face. She said that she had a match scheduled in two days, and so it was a perfect balance of giving Karen enough time to prepare and create a plan while also not forcing us to wait a long time for her battle.
With her match scheduled, we went to the Pokécenter to reserve rooms for the next two nights and then we bought takeaway for lunch at the partially opened food hall and made our way back outside to the outskirts of Mauville so that we could release our Pokémon to train and feed them.
We then spent the next half hour just making sure that ourselves and our Pokémon were all appropriately fed. I was just packing away the remains of Smough’s Pokéblocks before Karen came up to me with a request.
“Hey, John, since my next battle is against Wattson, who’s an Electric type specialist, I thought that this might be a good time for my Pupitar to brush up on his Ground type attacks.” She said, “Would you mind if he trains up with your Ursaluna?”
“Of course not, it’s no problem.” I immediately stated, “I promised you before that I would help.” I called out to Vordt to get over here to help Pupitar train.
As I did so, I thought to myself that this would be a great opportunity if all our Pokémon trained together. It would do them some good to have go up against a different sparring partner than what they’re used to.
I relayed my thoughts to Karen who nodded back.
“That’s a great idea,” said Karen, “Let’s pair up our Pokémon so that each of them would have a suitable partner.”
After a quick discussion, we decided on the following pairings.
Pupitar would be training with my Ursaluna so that Pupitar could practice using his Ground type attacks while Ursaluna would teach Pupitar how to improve on them. I noticed that, while Pupitar certainly wasn’t bad at using Ground type attacks, I could understand why Karen had asked for additional training because there was a lot to improve on. Its Rock Throws were inaccurate and slower than what you’d want, and its’ Earthquakes lacked power.
Sneasel would be training against my Snorlax so that her Sneasel could train and improve the stopping power of his attacks, while Smough would be practicing trying to hit a very nimble and evasive target with his Rock Slide, as I realized that he was a bit lacking in that aspect as demonstrated by his fight against Norman’s Swellow.
Soaring through the air, Honchkrow was flying around with my Pidgeot and Mantine to practice their aerial manoeuvres. Specifically, they were focusing on trying to land Wing Attacks on each other without being hit themselves. Surprisingly, despite being not as trained for battle as the other two, Port was able to best the other two Pokémon in terms of flight speed. Perhaps that was because it had so much practice as a transport Pokémon that it had become very fast at flying.
Her ace, Houndoom, and my Wyrdeer were running around trying to blast each other with their Special Attacks while avoiding getting hit by the other’s. Sometimes, they would also charge against one another to see who had the greater endurance and strength. Watching them spar, I was surprised at how much Klaus was struggling against her Houndoom; she was really good at pursuing Klaus and timing her attacks so that Klaus wasn’t really able to fight back. It was a really impressive showing and really demonstrated why her Houndoom deserved to be Karen’s ace.
Umbreon and her Spiritomb would be practicing their regeneration and status based moves with my Clefable and Blissey. They would also be firing and blocking the occasional Special Attack moves from each other as they all mostly relied on Special Attacks as their main source of offense.
I was really surprised when I saw Karen sending out her Spiritomb. I didn’t realize that people had even discovered that Pokémon yet. I managed to conceal my shock from appearing on my face though, and when I asked Karen where she got it, she told me that it was a gift from Agatha.
“She never told me where she got it from.” Karen admitted to me, “She just said that it was some Lavender Town secret and that all Ghost Pokémon fell under her domain, whatever that means.”
“It has no weaknesses though!” Karen continued as she boasted, “It’s Ghost/Dark typing means that nothing can hit it for supereffective damage. It’s still relatively untrained as the Pokémon was one of the newer ones to join my team, but once I start training it to reach the level of my other Pokémon then I’m sure it’ll be a powerhouse.”
I didn’t correct her statement about Spiritomb having no weaknesses because I didn’t want to reveal my knowledge of the Fairy type just yet. I’m saving that ‘discovery’ for much later when I can justify ‘finding out’ about it. So instead, I kept my silence as I patiently listened to her describing how strong her Spiritomb was going to be in the future.
And lastly, our newest captures, Corphish and Porygon were paired together. Unsurprisingly, the fact that they trained and battled together in Petalburg Woods did wonders for their friendship and bond. Thus, they had no problem practicing their basic moves against each other; each of them trying to dodge the other’s attacks while landing their own. I could see that Corphish had the upper hand in most engagements, but Pixel was catching up and didn’t let itself fall behind.
After a while, I had Tyrant join in to help out as a pseudo-punching bag for the newer Pokémon to practice their attacks against, since he didn’t have a suitable partner to spar against. Sometimes, I had Tyrant attack with slow and highly telegraphed sweeping strikes that the two had to dodge.
In the meanwhile, Karen and I were tasked with just making sure everyone was training properly. After a while and seeing that none of our Pokémon really needed our assistance, Karen went on her phone to watch Wattson’s previous battles so that she could begin formulating a strategy against him. In the meanwhile, I sat down and made sure that the egg was still healthy and remained undamaged.
Our Pokémon continued training together for a few hours, until eventually most of them got tired and demanded to be fed. Considering that it was already late in the evening, we decided that we would wrap up the training shortly after a quick round of intense Gravity training to finish off the training session for all the Pokémon that would actually benefit from it.
This was Karen’s Pokémon’s first-time undergoing Gravity training, and I noticed that her Pokémon really struggled to adjust and power through the sudden weight of the shift in Gravity. However, none of her Pokémon complained or tapped out and they all managed to endure through it, to the cheers of myself and Karen as we watched them power through with their grit and determination.
After our Pokémon had finished undergoing their Gravity training, we wrapped up the training and began setting up for dinner. Karen had decided to treat her Pokémon for their efforts in going through their first Gravity training, and I joined in since I didn’t want my Pokémon to feel left out.
Thus, we had placed all the food on a large picnic blanket that Karen had brought in her rucksack and allowed our Pokémon to chow down on it. Except for Smough, he was quickly banned from the feast because he would have just hogged all the food and eaten it all before anyone else could. So, as punishment, he had to eat his own meal separately. He gave me a lazy shrug when I told him that he had to eat by himself, he didn’t really care so long as he could still eat.
I relaxed and sat back with the egg cradled in my arms as I watched dinner progress, basking in the warm atmosphere of the evening rays as all of our Pokémon were chatting to each other and developing friendly rivalries from our earlier training session. This was the idyllic Pokémon life that I wanted, and I watched it all with a content smile on my face.
It was a day of aimless wandering and training, and while I didn’t have a set schedule planned for my next few days in Hoenn, I didn’t mind. Sure, I could be doing other, more productive things, like the hunting of Megastones, but I didn’t have a clue where to find said Megastones as I didn’t remember where they were found in game. Plus, I didn’t even know if the Megastones would be in the same place as they were in the games.
So, I just treated this as a nice relaxing break that I hadn’t really had time to enjoy ever since I won the Indigo Conference became a member of the Elite Four.
“You look happy.” Karen commented with a smile of her own.
“Yes, I am.” I replied relaxedly, and we both sat there in comfortable silence as we watched our Pokémon polish off their dinners and playfully fight for the scraps. Amusingly, we saw that Sneasel had the bright idea of trying to steal from Smough and take one of his large Pokéblocks but was forced to quickly retreat as Smough gave him a glare that threatened death if Sneasel dared touch his food.
Suddenly, my happy spectating of my Pokémon was interrupted by an unfamiliar soft cry of a Pokémon.
“…Whismur?” I could barely make out over the din of noise from our Pokémon. It was so quiet that I thought that I was just imagining things. But the sound was getting louder.
“…Whis? Mur? Whismur?” No, at this point I knew that I wasn’t imagining things and that I could clearly hear the Whismur. Apparently, Karen heard it too as we both got up and started looking around for it.
There! I could see a small Whismur shyly hiding behind a tree that was just outside of our designated training area. I thought that it got attracted to the food that we had laid out but was too shy to approach.
I calmly called out to my Pokémon to quiet down with the noise and Karen did the same. We didn’t want to frighten the Whismur unnecessarily. Our Pokémon quickly obeyed, and I could see that immediately the Whismur was now no longer cowering completely behind the tree as it started to poke its head out more often, but it still seemed too shy to approach.
I passed the egg over to Karen as I picked up one of the medium-sized Pokéblocks and then slowly and carefully made my approach to Whismur with the Pokéblock outstretched in my hand.
“It’s ok, you don’t have to be scared.” I said comfortingly, “Do you want some food?” I asked and motioned to the Pokéblock that I had in my hand.
The Whismur still seemed very uncertain, and I could see that a part of it wanted to back away as I slowly approached it. However, it seemed to get over its timidity and slowly waddled up to me.
As it got close enough to me to eat the Pokéblock, it curiously sniffed at the Pokéblock before taking a small nibble. I could see that it enjoyed it as it continued to nibble on it even further until it eventually finished the entire Pokéblock. It gave me such a cute look of sadness when it saw that it had finished the Pokéblock that I couldn’t resist not feeding it another, so I took a step backwards and extended an empty hand towards Karen for her to pass me a Pokéblock to continue feeding the Whismur.
This time, as it was eating the second Pokéblock, I used my free hand to pat it gently and slowly on the head. The Whismur jolted at my touch, but eventually eased into it and allowed me to slowly rub its head as it ate the Pokéblock. I waited for it to finish before speaking.
“Hey, do you want to hang out with the rest of our Pokémon?” I asked softly before gesturing to our two teams that were all standing still and trying to not make any noise that would scare off the Whismur.
Unfortunately, Whismur took one look at them and immediately wrapped its ears around itself as if to hug itself out of fear. I sighed but continued patting it on the head.
“It’s okay, they’re not going to hurt you.” I comforted, “They might look scary, but I promise they won’t do anything to you.”
“Whismur…Whis, Whismur…” It said, and I couldn’t really figure out what it was trying to say. Whismur saw my confusion before it gestured to Pixel and Corphish with its stubby arms. I gave both of my Pokémon a considering look before guessing what it was trying to convey.
“You’re not afraid of the smaller Pokémon?” I asked, and it nodded. I motioned for Pixel to come to me, and I asked it to introduce itself to Whismur.
“Pory, porygon. Porygon!”
“Whismur, whis….”
“Pory? Porygon…..Porygon!”
I watched the two communicate with each other as I tried to figure out what they were talking about. Luckily, I could mostly understand what Pixel was saying and, from that, figure out the gist of the conversation.
Basically, Whismur really wanted to find a trainer that would help it get stronger and overcome its shyness. But it was still too terrified of my larger Pokémon and really didn’t want to be in the same team as my Elite level Pokémon as they unconsciously radiated an aura of danger that Whismur couldn’t really handle.
I was disappointed to hear about this, as that meant that I really couldn’t have Whismur joining my team. I was about to let Whismur go before I remembered about Whitney and how she wanted a Normal type Pokémon from Hoenn.
“Whismur, I have a suggestion for you.” I told it, and I could see its ears perking up in interest. It really was a cute little thing. “I have a sister, Whitney, who’s looking to become a Pokémon trainer in a few months’ time. I promised her that I would send her a Normal type Pokémon for her to train up. She doesn’t have any large Pokémon like I do, just her Miltank, so I don’t think you’d get scared.” I began to explain.
Seeing that Whismur was listening attentively, I pushed on, “If I catch you and give you to her after my time in Hoenn, would you want to be part of her team? I promise that she’s a good trainer and that she’ll help you become the best that you can be.”
I watched as Whimur tilted its big head to the side as it thought about my proposal. Pixel buzzed and beeped as it tried to encourage it to do so; Pixel was trying to sell Whitney to Whismur by listing how good of a trainer she will be and how she’d love to have it as part of her team and that she was a really kind person.
Eventually, Whismur nodded and wrapped its small hands around my hand as it accepted my proposal. I personally thought that it was Pixel’s encouragement that led it to accepting rather than my speech, but I was happy with the outcome regardless.
I quickly fetched a Premier Ball that I was given from Devon Corp and, double checking that Whismur actually wanted to be caught, threw it towards Whismur as it voluntarily allowed itself to be captured. Without any resistance, the Premier Ball clicked shut and I caught the Whismur.
I gave out a wide smile at my newest capture and I hugged Pixel tightly in thanks. Suddenly, the bubble of silence that engulfed the rest of our Pokémon was blown as all of our Pokémon that had watched our conversation cheered and howled as they celebrated.
I felt Karen’s hand tapping me on the shoulder.
“Good job with that Whismur, John. You handled that really well.” She commended with a smile that suddenly turned curious as she saw my Premier Ball, “What kind of Pokéball is that, John? It looks cool and unique.”
“Oh, damn, I knew I forgot to tell you about something.” I replied while glancing at my Premier Ball, “This is a new design created by Devon Corp that they’ve asked me to market for them. They’ve given me ten Premier Balls extra to gift away.”
“They look really good; I can already see people lining up to buy it. How are they going to market it?” Karen asked and I proceeded to explain Devon Corp’s marketing strategy. I also gave her four Premier Balls as a gift, saving the rest for Whitney, which she thanked me for.
I left her to inspect her new Premier Balls while I almost instinctively released Whismur into the midst of my Pokémon so that it could be introduced to my team before remembering that it was scared and that I promised it that it would go to Whitney. Thus, I kept it safe in its Premier Ball for the time being.
With that bit of excitement over and dinner also finished, we decided to pack up and make our way to the Mauville Pokécenter to rest for the night. In my room once again, Karen and I did another round of Dark energy infusion on the egg before she returned to her room, and I got ready for bed.
Before sleeping though, I texted Whitney that I had caught her Pokémon for her but wouldn’t tell her what it was as I wanted it to be a surprise. She immediately responded demanding to know what it was, but I left her in suspense. I did ask once more to confirm that she didn’t want me to catch anything else and she said that one Pokémon was enough and that she really wanted to catch her own Pokémon.
I was more than happy to encourage her independence, so I didn’t ask her again and put my phone away for the night as I went to bed, happy that I managed to catch a Whismur for her.
I dreamed of a day where Whitney would evolve the Whismur into an Exploud that would sweep all before her with powerful Boombursts. That’d be incredible.
