[News] New arc! Not that I'm keeping track. The walking off into the sunrise thing just made me have to put ‘The End’ there, but I didn’t want people to actually think the series was over, and the comment fit. There are absolutely no plans for where this will go, though I have a few interesting ideas...

Now, on the chapter! [/news]

In school there had been classes focused on teaching people things that’d be helpful for their journey. Some of it was simple survival stuff, how to act, how to locate resources like food and water in the wild, what to do, or not do, when encountering wild pokémon.

None of that really prepared me for the scene laid before me.

Route one was a mukin’ battlefield.

Sure it’d been pretty enough for the first hour, but on reaching the first waypoint about an hour outside of town, the scenery became rather bleak. The place was covered in scars from the battles that took place there, both past as well as present, as there were ongoing fights as we entered the clearing.

In order not to destroy nature, trainers weren’t supposed to have battles with each other outside of designated areas, and this was the first one. Hence the devastation.

Battles with wild pokémon were not able to be contained like that since they weren’t always aware of the conventions.

Not always.

Some of the ones near the routes’ designated trainer battle areas had learned that they could most easily find battle partners in these locations, making them either seek them out or avoid them, depending on their whims.

Just because wild pokémon were defeated, didn’t mean they’d be captured. Especially here. Many trainers from Pallet followed the tradition of only capturing willing companions, though they mostly used standard pokéballs instead of friend balls like the true believers who used friend balls. Sometimes that was due to costs, other times due to considering it good enough that they were willing in the beginning.

Those who didn’t follow the tradition, and just captured whatever pokémon they wanted, were a known hazard for the pokémon population. A risk they’d deemed acceptable when they got into a fight with a trainer. Unless they didn’t live near the route and had wound up there and picking a fight not realizing it might end with them enslaved.

Regardless, this place was was the closest place to the city where trainers could fight without restraint. Fights in designated arenas in the city were more constrained and had fees for repairing the damage done charged to the fighters.

Since there were trainers of all levels here, one had to be careful the opponent they picked, since there are always bullies or those who just like winning, rather than the intended purpose, training.

To make matching easier, and hopefully avoid the previously stated pitfalls, there was a trainer app where one could log into the local battleground’s page to have it analyze and group up trainers based on their ranking. The rankings were very important to trainers, since those with high rankings tended to gain fame and get bonuses. Right now I was at the bottom, a beginner with no wins or losses.

It didn’t stay that way for long.

We only did four ranked fights, taking on newbies like ourselves, but we won handily.

After that we stuck around and had some more fights, but they were just spars, fights without any effect on the rankings. Not all of them were with trainers, since there were plenty of wild pokémon hanging around the area who wanted to spar as well.

Since I could talk to them… well, most understand them, most of the local pokémon could understand human speech, I was able to arrange fights pretty easily, as well as know when to stop things before it led to injuries, leaving things at the level of bruises and scratches.

Since I’d been traveling with a group of friends, I helped them with their training as well. We’d done a bit of sparring in the city, but they were surprised when my partners pulled out the stops and went (carefully) wild.

My friends refused to fight me in ranking battles.

We wound up spending the whole day at that first station, barely making any progress on our journey, at least not in terms of distance traveled.

The area calmed down as the sun sank towards the horizon. Many people took the route back to Pallet, either to return home, or so as not to have to camp.

I was fine with roughing it, so with the help of my partners we set up our tent. I actually had a few of the things for different situations. But the one I’d be using the most was an army style tent. It was made of heavy canvas, with a metal frame, and without a floor built in.

The reason why there was no floor was because of Celestia. Her hooves could damage the floor of tents, so it was better to have a tent where that wouldn’t happen. I did have tarps I could use as a floor, but so long as it wasn’t too wet, it wouldn’t be a problem.

I also liked the thing because I’d had one in the past, so it was somewhat nostalgic. The thing had been a pain to set up solo, but I’d done it enough to be able to manage it in a reasonable amount of time. Now, I could assemble it alone in a couple minutes, less with my partner’s helping. We’d practiced back at home.

I’d pulled the thing out of my pack piece by piece, making it seem like my pack was one compression pack. It wasn’t. My family all had them, ones made by me, though my parents and brothers also had lower capacity ones from before, though my brothers’ first ones weren’t great since they’d bought them on their own when they hadn’t been able to afford much.

It was something Sammi had gotten me as a gift, though I’d improved the durability and put a return enchantment on the thing, since I really liked it and didn’t want it breaking or getting lost, or more likely stolen.

After the tent was set up, I prepared food for us. I had dried goods and instant soups, but since I had the time, I spent the effort preparing it from fresh goods. For myself, I prepared some pasta with a salad and garlic bread. Both of my partners were vegetarians, so they both got a salad as well, though Celestia had been browsing just inside the woods where there was some grass during the day. Theirs included some pokéblocks as well to ensure they got all the nutrients they needed.

Since we were camping outside the city, we did have to be more careful of wild pokémon, as well as despicable humans, but we were all psychic, and had passive mental detection, so we didn’t have to keep watch. Watch keeping was one of the reasons there were usually groups traveling together, but my friends already knew I was planning on blazing forward to catch up to my sister, so they planned for their safety without taking me into account.

We got comfortable and had a pleasant rest, without anything untowards occurring, allowing us to wake up refreshed and ready for the day.

We were on our way after breakfast, saying farewell to my friends and their partners as we parted ways. They intended to stick close to the city and get some experience in a location where they could easily get back to civilization and resupply.

Unlike yesterday, today we were planning on getting a good distance, so I pulled a saddle out of my pack and strapped it to Celestia. I could have ridden bareback, but this was more comfortable, for both of us. I could balance easier, since I wasn’t at risk of falling off with stirrups to step into. My weight was better distributed across her back, rather than shifting around uncomfortably.

Sakura was riding in a chest carrier.

After double checking our campsite to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind and there was no trash, I mounted up and we were off.

We didn’t rush, leaving the pace at simply trotting along. This allowed us to enjoy the fresh air and the view. Being among nature was a wonderful experience, and we were taking it in.

Literally in Celestia’s case, since she absorbed power from nature. It was never much at a time, but her nature allowed her to grow a bit faster than Sakura, though it was directed in a different direction.

The power Galarian ponyta absorbed from nature went into their mane, not their core. It wasn’t growing their PP, that required expending and regenerating their core energy, flexing the core like a muscle. However, in emergencies the stored power could be used to power skills, but the rate of absorption was slow, so it was best to try to avoid that.

The reason for stockpiling the nature energy was that the more energy absorbed, the faster the physical strengthening. Their horns have a slight passive healing effect, but it requires energy to work, and cannot be powered by the core, so it draws on the stored power.

How does this strengthen them?

Exercise!

When you use your muscles, they get slightly damaged and need to heal. Each time they do, to a certain point, they heal slightly stronger.

Bring in something that increases healing effect, the horn, and the ponyta can work out longer and get stronger. This can be used on others as well, but is less effective then on themselves. Still works, though.

Getting back on track, we were heading alongside route one towards Xanadu Nursery, the halfway point between Pallet Town and Viridian City. We wouldn’t reach it today, but it was the first town on the trip.

It took a while since we weren’t taking the easy trail, instead moving through the forest. It took longer and was more difficult, but it was more enjoyable. Plus we got to meet wild pokémon that were stronger and fight them.

Being territorial was normal in the pokémon world, and these area bosses typically didn’t venture out of their homes, so we had to go to them for harder fights. This close to humans, most of them weren’t too aggressive, and so my partners got plenty of fight experience.

They didn’t always win, but you can learn from a loss as well. Sometimes more than a win.

It took us ten days to reach the nursery. Had we traveled on the trail, it’d have taken half the time. Did we regret it? Muk no! We had fun, saw exquisite scenery, and grew stronger. What’s there to regret?

It also temporarily threw the ones tracking us off our trail, since we’d backtracked and taken a different path via teleportation, so unless they’d wasted the time and resources to try and find out where we’d gone, they wouldn’t know when we’d pop up… though they did know where.

Telerean

World building! YAY! Awful explanations to make things kinda work! WOOOO!!!