I'm smiling very broadly as I walk along the city streets. There are a lot of things I don't know what they are, doors are opening by themselves, and people keep talking about how something called Wi-Fi sucks.

  "We won! Good job out there you two" to the happy twittering of Puff. She starts humming a tune and pulling at my hair again. I should get a mirror or at least something to reflect what I look like because without any way to guide her I'm just going to look silly all the time. I am not the cleanest looking kid I see on the streets but my mom wouldn't like me looking feral.

  I ask where I can buy a mirror and I'm told that I can get it from the General Pokemart on 6th street. After asking where that is and following the directions I'm looking at a monstrosity. I walk up to the doors that open by themselves and enter a building that is huge. Puff hums more happily and leaps off my head to get a better look "NO FLYING IN THE STORE!" a person who looks like a manager shouts, giving me a mean look. Puff takes the hint but looks unhappy, tugging more violently at my hair and is making an obnoxious clicking sound.

  "Sorry" I say before going to wander the store. I see a bunch of things that I might need but I end up only purchasing the mirror, 3 more pokeballs, a potion, and a rger jug of oil for Ian. 50+600+300+80=1030 and I grit my teeth. Fricking Ralts that broke my other pokeball. At checkout Puff even begs for a brush for her wings and I get a promise of one more move out of her.+30 for 1060 pokedolrs. I should go battle more trainers before I run out of money. Who needs a 5 pokedolr comfy center room when there's a free outdoor camping area.

  After seeing and getting destroyed by dragon rush I'm sure I can convince her to learn it, so I have her practice agility. From what I know the Pokemon uses psychic energy to carry their body for them and lighten the load on their muscles. It's one of the easiest psychic moves because a light coating is all that's needed. Using a couple different types of TE allows for more sources to draw from and stack on top of each other but it takes more practice, or at least it's supposed to.

  I want to sign up for a timeslot at the gym first since the wait will be absolutely stupid the first couple weeks as trainers get their first badge. After that, more will be weeded out as inept at teaching and commanding their team because literally ANY Pokemon can be monstrously strong. From what I heard though from Liam in one of his calls home, the average trainer will get 3 badges their first year which my grandma cims is pathetic. If they do the circuit a couple years an average trainer can get up to the 5th badge but many don’t break past this level as it is more beneficial to go get a job and settle down.

  Everyone is required to at least sign up to become a trainer when they turn 14 for some military draft thingy. While thinking about this, I walk past many trinket stalls and boutiques that glimmer in the sun.

  I brush my hand over a gss case with a fancy revolver. As a mid-sized region we are constantly on the prowl to expand our territories and gain new resources. To keep up with the demand for fresh meat, as my grandmother would say, they heavily recruit. This year, the magazine they sent us in the mail stated that Sinnoh conquered a city-state next to one of our territories in Hoenn. Even centuries after the tropical region was redrawn by Groudon and Kyogre our terra crystal mines are still pumping out new crystals. They pay well, so a lot of the 18 year olds from my vilge end up joining the war effort.

  After moving past a Boldore, I get to the gym which looks to be open even though the circuit officially starts tomorrow. I enter and see a rge waiting room awaiting me with a pair of people moving about and a counter. I walk up and talk with the desk clerk who is a 20 something dy. "Hello, I would like to register for a time slot for my first badge please."

  "Um, registration takes pce online. I can answer questions on what battlefield to go to. Is that what you meant?"

  "Well, no. Can you register me here?" I ask.

  "If you have a phone I can show you how, this dinosaur here only works for internal gym records."

  "I don't have a phone. Is there at least a pce to go register for free?"

  "Any pce with a computer works like a Pokémon center or library. I have a flyer here that will lead you through the registration page" she offers the flyer to me.

  I take it and thank her. I further follow her advice and head to the closest center. The inside has a desk and a lounge area like the doctors office back home but the chairs look comfy here. Off to the side there are some screens but I don't see any mice or keyboards to use.

  After asking, the Joy tells me everything is touch screen. Showing me how to operate it I eventually sign up for a battle at 11 PM in 4 days since that was the earliest time. I needed to start traveling soon because the pce I wanted to reach this season was far away and I would not pay for a ride! Even if I had money that would be a waste of route traveling time.

  "I have never seen someone so bad at using a computer before. Are you perhaps from a wild area?" Wild area, that's what dangerous areas are called with aggressive Pokemon.

  "Yes, I'm from Forestree" she doesn't seem to have heard of it but just nods.

  "Bless your heart dear" she smiles somewhat sadly and walks away back to her desk to get back to whatever paperwork she was doing.

  Puff, who was tearing at my hair for picking the regur battle instead of the contest one, ughs at me when she leaves. "As if you could do any better." She then proceeds to use her beak to fill out a couple lines of another form before I grab her and leave the center. Stupid smart Pokemon and touch screens.

  For the rest of the day I battle against other trainers. I face Chimchar, Sentret, Pidove, Chespin, and too many fairy types that Ian wrecks. My day almost ended early when a spiteful Sadit spat a particurly powerful acid on one of Puff's wings and melted most of it. I balled her quickly and rushed her to an Audino, leaving the battlefield without even paying. The trainer understood why I did what I did and was understanding when I came back.

  I won 435 pokedolrs by alternating between training for 30 minutes and then battling again. I lost several fights with Ian because of his slow speed and Puff's too long hyper voice windup so I started working on autonomize and speeding up the collection of normal TE for them with some designs I made up on the fly, drawing them in the dirt. Things went better after that but still not awesome like I hoped.

  "Here you go, 50 pokedolrs" a mournful trainer then walked to an Indeedee. Most trainers started heading back into the city as it gets dark but a few others including Zac and Hannah are out here still. I join them and see that Zac caught a Mime Jr and Hannah is sitting with a Azurill and a Fidough. It was weird to me that they’d even want a fairy type after having friends die in the attacks but I accepted the choice at face value. It was their decision, my thoughts didn’t matter.

  "Hey Max, come join us over here!" Hannah waves as her Pokemon all shoot pyful moves at each other and roll around. Ian doesn't seem to want to join in and Puff looks on and huffs as if pying is below her. She does fly over to talk with Chimchar, the fire monkey is the most calm and least rambunctious of those Puff wanted to get to know better. A tailwind ter she is lightly falling from the sky above the awed Chimchar and practicing to feel out the psychic energy that is plentiful in this area. It may be mainly fairy types around here, but a lot of psychic types make this their home too.

  "Nice to see you Hannah. Last I saw you, you were feeding the Drowsee" I quipped while greeting Zac and his two shoulder buddies with a fist bump each. His Mime Jr giggled and danced away once I hesitantly gave the baby clown his. Froakie stayed with us as we talk about our most recent experiences.

  "Don’t you start on about that again, I heard that you weren’t up at the crack of dawn either. I got freaking chased really far into the woods. THEN I met a less than friendly Ribbombee who ran me in a different direction where I found Fidough in a pack of Dachsbun who was able to help me get out of there" Hannah expined.

  "While he may have slept in, you got up at 10 AM Hannah, and we would have been there longer if I hadn't woken you up" Zac butted in.

  "I was tired from a long night-"

  "Don't give me that, you stayed up te back in the vilge too with that computer game" I pointed out.

  "And I was the best in the vilge at Eevee's Adventure, so what" she casually brushed my point aside.

  We bickered back and forth but enjoyed the conversation before going to sleep. I forgot to oil Ian to his displeasure, but I made up for my mistake that morning. Puff had woken up even before me to preen herself and had flown into the sky to sing and chat with the other flying types, some of which were also Swablu. One of them must have had the cloud nine ability because the white puffy clouds I saw in the sky ended a few dozen feet from us. It would have been cool to have such a rare ability and would work well with any weather strategies I might want to try out.

  Ian had also been up and had been hovering near me like a protective parent. "Do you ever sleep?" I asked, more to myself than him. Two sheathes rang out in a surprising answer. "Why is that?" he didn't do anything as if unsure how to describe it through gestures.

  It seems I overlooked something pretty key about the Honedge line but experiencing him was different than I expected. My research wasn’t for nothing though, I could unload some of the ideas that had been collecting dust in my brain due to time constraints.

  He had already gotten used to leaving his sheathe behind while I was sleeping. Like a dedicated warrior who practiced day and night.

  Autonomize was supposed to be his typing (and therefore easy to learn) but our progress was slow and only by the end of the day was I satisfied.

  There were fewer trainers out today and the ones who were, were strong. I actually lost a 100 pokedolrs as some of them had Pokemon who evolved via stones or items. I tried to avoid them where I could but pickins were slim and I wanted to at least battle someone for practice rather than wild Pokemon and my friends were only wanting to practice their moves except one time with Zac. That was a fun battle, his Froakie had surprised me plenty with how fast it could leap around.

  I realized why there were few trainers out when I heard that the gym started something called strike week.

  "Excuse me but what is strike week?" I asked the person who said it.

  "You don't know? Each gym can pick one week where all challenges are their specialty."

  "It’s super unfair that Leader Cire chose the first week!” another voice responded as my brain paused.

  A joyful trill rang out from on top of my head.

  I…would need some help.

  Dear lord, let it be known that I hate that old fart.