“Krabby.” It seemed my new companion wanted a strong name. Numerous options flashed through my mind, but in the end only one seemed to fit.

“How about Ali, after a famous, champion combatant from my previous world?” At the mention of the word champion, the krabby perks up. A jubilant clack of his pincers later and the newly dubbed Ali was ready to meet Yasashi.

There is no posturing nor any fighting when their eyes finally meet. They do size each other up, but they go no further. With no tension between them, they merely acknowledge each other and look to me as if asking about any other rewards I may have received. Flashing them a quick grin, I grab the second new pokeball from the belt where I temporarily set it during Ali’s introduction.

“Ready to see the other new addition to our group?” My two pokemon both nod, though Ali’s nod is more of a long blink while rocking his body front to back. With a smile, I scratched both their heads before releasing the final pokemon. Once more, I felt a level of malleability in the pokemon the instant I released them. Using that window, I focused on boosting their special defense at the cost of anything else. I quickly used Identify on the hoothoot to see my results.

Hoothoot (♂) (S)

4’ 8” (1.4 m) 140.1 lbs (63.6 kg)

Type: Dark/Grass/Ghost

Nature: Gentle

Royal Nature: Gentle

Ability: Insomnia

Level 1

HP - 245

ATK - 60

DEF - 51

SPATK - 71

SPDEF - 129

SPD - 97

Weak to: Bug (I), Fairy (I), Fire (I), Flying (I), Ice (I)

Resistant to: Electric (I), Grass (I), Ground (I), Water (I)

Immune to: Fighting, Ground, Normal, Psychic

Moves Learned: Astonish (N), Growl (N)

“Hey there. Welcome to the party.” I immediately greeted our new companion, noting how heavily they were skewed toward defense, especially special defense. Looking past that, he had a rather striking appearance. His main body was dark, nearly black and had dark gray undertones on the belly. His wings and leg were ethereal and ghostly, while his mask-like facial markings were a striking evergreen tipped with silver.

“These are your new brothers, Yasashi and Ali. Yasashi means gentle in a language of my old world and Ali was the name of a great fighter from the same world.” I introduced my current pokemon and the meaning behind their names to the hoothoot before asking him a question. “What kind of name do you want?”

“Hoot.” There was no hesitation. Our new companion wanted a stalwart name and I had just the name for him.

“Mamoru. It means protect in the same language I used for Yasashi’s name.” The newly named Mamoru trilled in agreement before hopping up and down and fluttering his wings. “With all that set, let’s get going. We should reach Clearsky Town a bit before sunset, but it never hurts to leave early.” My companions indicated their agreement before we set off.

As we sat down for our lunch, rattata remained the most common opponent for my team to battle. We did run into a couple of spearow that wanted to battle, but they were a minority. Still, it was more variation than the previous two days had brought and I was happy about it. Ali and Mamoru battled a pair of rattata each and leveled up once while Yasashi fought the spearows and the remaining rattata we ran across, leveling up a couple hours after we started the day’s journey. Mamoru was unable to damage his opponents due to only dealing ghost type damage, but his opponents were in the same situation and gave up when they realized it.

All of them leveling up once in a short time frame had ignited their competitiveness, and I had no intentions to kill their drive. “Alright everyone, we’ve got some time. Let’s take an hour to eat and train. Yasashi, your Ember and Twister are nearing Journeyman proficiency, right?” I paused for his confirmation before continuing. “Then focus on those, you should be able to raise them before we get moving again..”

“Ali, you will use Ancient Power to make a rock target before using Leer on it and destroying it with a Water Gun. Mamoru, you will just be focusing on chaining Astonish immediately after using Growl. That should get you all the most efficient improvements at the moment.” With indications of agreement, they turned to practice as I instructed them while I got to training myself through exercise. I couldn’t do more than pushups, situps, and squats at the moment due to a lack of equipment, but those three were good enough for now.

After an hour of pushing my body to its limit without rest, I sat on the ground with a smile on my face. I looked over my pokemon with that smile still on my face. Yasashi had moved on to practicing his Leer and Scratch combo, so I used Identify on him to check his progress and he did not disappoint.

Bagon (♂) (S)

1’ (0.3 m) 30.93 lbs. (14.03 kg)

Type: Fire

Nature: Gentle

Ability: Rock Head

Level 8

HP - 207

ATK - 148

DEF - 109

SPATK - 84

SPDEF - 76

SPD - 103

Weak to: Ground (I), Rock (I), Water (I)

Resistant to: Fighting (I), Bug (I), Steel (I), Fire (I), Grass (I), Ice (I), Fairy (I)

Learned Moves: Ember (J), Leer (J), Scratch (J), Twister(J)

Four moves at Journeyman after two and a half days may not be a record, but all records were set by individuals who had their pokemon battle others more experienced with the moves to improve. For someone training in a semi-relaxed fashion as I was, it was at the level of a trainer with multiple gym badges of experience.

I was about to call all my pokemon over when I heard a sonic boom. Startled, all of my pokemon looked up and pinpointed the source before rushing over to my side. We looked to the south and watched as a pair of figures appeared on the horizon before steadily getting larger.

“Keep your guard up. I don’t know what this is, but it's strong. If it wants a fight, we won’t have it easy.”

Ubduh

If you catch any mistakes I make, please leave a comment and I will fix them asap. I will credit you down here.

Added clarification of Mamoru's battles (advised by @Lynxfury)

The Hoothoot can't be weak to Fighting if it is immune to that type (@CronosLumin)