//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10: Pokémon Training 
// Story: Fluttershy’s  Pokémon  Adventure 
// by ShadowFirePon3 
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	Quickly taking care of her animal friends and making sure they were all ready for the night, Fluttershy went straight to bed with the chain around her neck and found herself almost immediately waking up, back in the Viridian forest. Her sleeping bag was designed for it, so the water hadn’t soaked through at all, but her face, having been exposed all night, was now damp with the morning dew. She wiped her face of it while getting used to having hands and fingers again, as well as rubbing the sleep from her eyes. It was a rather strange sensation, having just gone to sleep in Equestria, and feeling fully rested here in Kanto. It wasn’t disorienting though. It really felt as though she had slept all night and was waking up refreshed, because that’s exactly what this body had done.

Yawning, she stretched herself out and did her best to get her mind to register the change. Gaining and loosing body parts still felt so strange. She looked around at the sparkling forest around her. The green grass, bushes, and trees, still had the morning dew upon them as well. She shook the dew from her sleeping bag, which wicked off so effortlessly, and rolled it up. Packing it away and changing her clothes, she had a breakfast of an apple and a granola bar from her pack, and she fed Bulbasaur and Pidgey their Pokémon food. All in all, it was a very peaceful and quiet morning. After a little while, as the dew became the morning fog, Fluttershy stood up with her pack on and stretched.

“We should be off.” She said, peering through the fog to find the path.

It was actually still very early. The sun had yet to peek above the distant mountains, but the sky was bright enough to be considered morning. Bulbasaur and Pidgey looked to be very tired, and Fluttershy realized that they probably should still be getting a couple of hours more of sleep.

“You two can keep resting in your Pokéballs,” She said, withdrawing them and placing the balls back in her pack. “I suppose I’m an even more early bird in this world than in Equestria.”

With that, Fluttershy made her way to and down the path from Viridian to Pewter. Doing her best to recall what she had learned the day prior, she didn’t notice the odd groans coming from ahead until she was close enough that the fog wasn’t in the way. Looking up in a tree, overhanging the path, two figures were tangled in the branches, with some sort of deflated hot air balloon lying atop another tree nearby. Her first instinct was to run up to them and try to help, but once she got close enough, she stopped dead in her tracks, white as a ghost.

“Quiet, James. Someone’s here.” The red haired woman said.

“Oh?” James said, looking down at Fluttershy. “You’re right, Jessie.” Then to Fluttershy, “Would you mind helping us get down?”

Fluttershy let loose a high pitched scream that she had been holding in since the moment she recognized the thieves from the poster, and then bolted down the path so fast, Rainbow would have been proud.

“What’s the deal?” James said, as Fluttershy ran away.

“I’d scream too if it was my first time looking at your ugly mug.” Meowth said, popping out of the leaves. “We don’t need her anyways. I’ll have you two out in a jiffy. Just remember, I’m the top cat.”

“We know.” Jessie and James groaned in unison.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy had already made it way out of sight, but she didn’t stop running until her legs grew heavy and her lungs were on fire. She made her way off of the path and a little ways into the trees, in case the Pokémon thieves tried to follow her, then collapsed down on the grass, panting heavily, though trying to be quiet about it. After a few minutes, Fluttershy heard a noise. An odd noise that, if she was right, sounded like two small Pokémon, battling. She weakly got to her feet and headed towards it.

Before long, she stumbled onto a battle between two different types of worm like bug Pokémon. It appeared as though they were fighting over some food that was lying on the ground nearby. This was a clash that she was all too familiar with, back with her animal friends, and one that she was quick to instinctively resolve. As she approached and they noticed her, they scattered and hid in the bushes. Fluttershy didn’t pay any mind to that as she grabbed two handfuls of Pokémon food from her pack and placed them down in separate little piles for them.

“There’s no need to fight over something when you can share.” Fluttershy said in their direction.

Having done what she meant to, Fluttershy lay back down on the grass, her legs still heavy and weak. At first they did nothing but stare at her. But after a few moments, curiosity got the better of one and it went to go inspect one of the piles. The other followed to the second pile, but proceeded with more caution. Fluttershy closed her eyes and smiled at how easy it was to defuse the fight. But she didn’t let her guard down, listening intently to everything around her for the slightest sign that the Pokémon thieves were following her. The breeze rustled the leaves of the trees ever so slightly, but the sound of birds and bird Pokémon in the distance put her at ease. All these sounds were natural. She concluded that they hadn’t followed her.

Suddenly, an odd feeling started to crawl up both her arms and she was broken from her thoughts. Looking at her outstretched arms on the grass, she found that both of the bug Pokémon had finished their food and had climbed onto her. She didn’t mind at all though. Instead, smiling at the two of them.

“Do you two want to be my friends?” She asked. Both of them made their buggy noises, which seemed to mean ‘yes’. “Well,” She said, pulling out two empty balls, “There’s plenty of room on my team.” 

Enlarging the balls, she placed them down on the ground and smiled. She readied herself to act, in case they tried to do what the Rattata had done yesterday, but to her delight, the two worm Pokémon crawled right into the balls without even hesitating. Neither ball wiggled for even a single moment, for the instant they closed, the metallic ding sounded and they lay still.

Fluttershy picked up the balls, which shrunk in her hands, and giggled to herself. “I guess the early bird really does get the worms.” She joked.

Though she wanted to call them out of their balls and see what the Pokédex had to say about them, she decided to do that later, since she thought that it would be prudent to find a spot to train her Pokémon a little anyway. They were on their way to Pewter to challenge a gym after all, and it was only maybe one or two days away. That doesn’t leave too much time to prepare. So Fluttershy set out. Now that the sun was showing over the mountains in the distance, and she had climbed a tree to look for it, she knew which way was north, and decided to head that way through the woods, rather than take the path. She didn’t know if the thieves were going to head north or south, and she didn’t want to run into them at all if she could help it. Keeping to the direction she had chosen for a few hours, Fluttershy emerged into a small clearing that had some large boulders around it.

“Perfect,” She exclaimed, resting up against one of the boulders and pulling out her four full Pokéballs. “Come on out everyone.” She said, tossing all four into the air, failing to catch a single one of them after they released their Pokémon. “I’ve got to work on that,” She blushed while picking them up off of the ground.

Bulbasaur and Pidgey eyed the two bug Pokémon that they had yet to be introduced to.

Turning his head to the side, Bulbasaur looked at Fluttershy and questioned, “Bulba?”

“These are our new friends. Umm….” Fluttershy was about to introduce them, but then remembered that she didn’t know what they were. Pulling out her Pokédex really quickly, she let it handle the introductions.

The metallic voice sounded from the device. “Caterpie, the bug type Pokémon. Caterpie, as well as Weedle, are known to be the fastest evolving Pokémon. Both share in the traits of being wormlike and evolve into a cocoon, then into a flying insect. Caterpie use the silk that they produce from their mouths, to protect themselves from harm, by stopping or slowing their attackers. Weedle, the bug/ poison type Pokémon. Weedle, as well as Caterpie, are known to be the fastest evolving Pokémon. Both share in the traits of being wormlike and evolve into a cocoon, then into a flying insect. Like Caterpie, Weedle produces silk in its mouth that can be used as a defensive mechanism, but chooses to more heavily rely on its large poison horn, to protect itself from harm.”

Fluttershy put away the Pokédex. “A little repetitive, but oh well. Hello Caterpie, hello Weedle. My name is Fauna. This is Bulbasaur and Pidgey.”

Bulbasaur puffed his chest out and held his head up high, as if to state his dominance in the group. Pidgey eyed Caterpie and Weedle with the eyes of a predator, looking at its next meal. But Pidgey wouldn’t dare attempt anything like that in front of Fluttershy. The message was quite clear though, and the two worm Pokémon moved closer together. Caterpie hid behind Weedle as Weedle bared its horn slightly to show he wasn’t intimidated.

“Now, I hope you all will get along,” Fluttershy said, un-ironically, “because we are going to spend the next few hours training together.” She now had all of their attention. “If we keep this pace, we’ll be at Pewter City in a day or two. Since we are planning on challenging the gym leader, we’re probably going to need to get a bit stronger if we want to stand a chance. Does that sound ok to everyone?”

The four of them all responded favorably, especially Bulbasaur, who had jumped three feet into the air in excitement. Over the course of the next three hours, Fluttershy and her Pokémon ran around the clearing, lifted and pushed large rocks, and did whatever random exercise sort of things that they could think of. Fluttershy even spent about a half hour, practicing throwing and catching a Pokéball, so as to get better used to the human body. Not that she was much of an athlete as a pony, but this was an action that, as a trainer, she’d be doing a lot of and would need to do it well. It was about noon, or so Fluttershy had guessed, when they took a break for lunch.

“After we eat, I want to see about working on your special moves.” Fluttershy said, rationing out Pokéfood. “I’d like to try some mock battles, for practice. But I’d rather have a Pokémon center nearby, just in case, if we were to do that.” She looked at the food in the bag. “There’s about three days of Pokéfood left.” She pulled out her Pokédex and pushed one of the buttons. “Whatever the currency in this world, I have three thousand of it. I hope that’s as much as it sounds.” Fluttershy laughed a little. 

Grabbing the food for herself, Fluttershy found that her own food was much the same, in that, she only had about three days left of it. Things to be worried about later. As she ate, she looked at what information her Pokédex could tell her about her Pokémon and what special moves might be within their level. Once she was content with what she found, she leaned back and looked at her Pokémon as they ate. It really started to sink in, how well Discord had chosen the world to send her was. This was basically her life back in Equestria, but with a few key differences that made it so that she could have the adventure that she had asked for.

Once all of the Pokémon were finished eating they all sat themselves around Fluttershy.

“Ok, let’s start with our newest friends.” Fluttershy said, after trying really hard to think of how to determine who should go first.

Weedle scooted forward and Caterpie came up behind. They looked up at Fluttershy as she walked over and patted a large boulder.

“Pretend that this is one of the rock Pokémon that we’ll be going up against. According to the Pokédex, you should be able to do a string shot, and a poison sting attack Weedle, and Caterpie, you have string shot and tackle. Can you show them to me?” Fluttershy asked.

Weedle got a little closer to the boulder and looked determined. First, it sprayed a bunch of silk over it, draping it in strong, sticky threads. After that, Weedle bunched itself up, then launched itself at the rock, like and arrow. The boulder chipped pretty well where Weedle’s horn made contact, and a little of its poison dripped off of the impact point. Weedle looked a little loopy after having hit something so solid, but he shook it off and looked at Fluttershy.

“That was great Weedle.” She smiled and patted its little head.

It was Caterpie’s turn now. She looked rather nervous, but approached the boulder all the same. After a few moments, Fluttershy was about to say something, but Caterpie began right then. First, spraying more strands of silk over the boulder, Caterpie’s string shot was a bit more impressive than Weedle’s. Though, that was to be expected, as Caterpie relies more on the string shot than Weedle does. Caterpie then backed up a little bit and began a charge, slamming itself against the boulder. The force of the tackle was audible, though, Caterpie didn’t seem to have any issue recovering from having slammed into the large rock. Caterpie then scurried its way behind Fluttershy’s leg really quickly so as to hide itself from the other Pokémon. 

Fluttershy bend down and patted her head too. “Good job Caterpie.” She said, feeling like Caterpie’s shyness was like a reflection of her own. She looked over to Pidgey. “I already know that you can do tackle and sand attack, but do you think that you could try to use gust?”

Pidgey took the question as a challenge and refused to be looked down upon, so he took to the air and glared at the boulder. Quickly descending upon it, Pidgey stopped just shy of it and swung its wings together in one motion, as hard as it could. It was an impressive display. Unfortunately, it yielded nothing.

“That was a good try.” Fluttershy said, trying not to hurt Pidgey’s feelings.

Weedle however wasn’t so considerate, and made a noise that could be comparable to laughing. This enraged Pidgey’s pride, and it took to the sky once more. Rounding on the boulder, Pidgey held nothing back as it tried once more to perform a gust attack. Swooping faster than before, Pidgey slammed its wings together as hard as it could, and this time, all of the silk that was covering the rock went flying off in all directions as an unnatural blast of concussive wind, slammed against the stone with a mighty clap. Were the attack aimed at a person, they would have been sent flying across the clearing. Pidgey perched himself atop Fluttershy’s hat and cooed in triumph.

Fluttershy brushed her finger along the back of Pidgey’s head and said, “That was incredible Pidgey.” Last but not least was Bulbasaur, who took position in front of the boulder and looked excitedly at Fluttershy. “Ok Bulbasaur. Can you do a leach seed or vine whip for me?”

“Bulbasaur!” He replied. Raising his back legs while lowering his front, Bulbasaur aimed the tip of its bulb at the rock, and in one quick shot, send a large seed at it, which stuck to the rock as a bunch of small vines spontaneously grew from it and wrapped the boulder. Now, if it were a Pokémon, the vines would be leaching energy from it and transferring it to Bulbasaur. But, as it was not, that was the end of the trick.

Clapping happily, Fluttershy smiled at Bulbasaur. Leach seed wasn’t the most effective of offensive moves, but it was a grass type, so it had an edge against rock. Undoubtedly, it would be of great use against the Pewter gym.

But Bulbasaur wasn’t done just yet. After dancing around in triumph for a few second, his gaze went back to focus on the rock. Everyone was quiet and still as they watched Bulbasaur for a few moments. It looked as though he was frozen in place with and intense look on his face. It became apparent what he was trying to do when he started to go red in the face. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not yet produce a vine whip.