Stronger

Damian did not want to spend a long time training, so he wanted to find out how strong she was, before training himself and his Pyrodrake to easily be able to dominate the first gym.

He knew for a fact that the Pokemon in the forest he had come from were stronger than those in the city and would be better for levelling up.

The streets were somewhat empty, but he saw a young teenager walking away from the gym, and went over to ask how strong the gym leader was, assuming that he had just lost, "Sorry to bother you, but how strong is the gym leader in this city?"

Slightly surprised at the sudden question, the boy replied, "She was strong, way too strong for me. I think it will take me quite a long time to beat Flora and get the badge."

"Would you say I need to train a lot then?"

"Absolutely, her Pokemon were way too high level."

"Thanks for the information, good luck with your next attempt."

Upon hearing that the gym leader, who he now knew was called Flora, was seemingly very strong, Damian decided to train for quite a while in the forest.

He ran over with his Pyrodrake and entered the forest by slicing through a large group of bushes which were in the way by using his shadow tendrils.

After this layer of bushes, he was back in the forest and he spoke to his Pyrodrake, "I assume you can understand me, so I'm letting you know that for the time being I will be fighting the enemies that stand in our way, just for the sake of speed. When you get a bit stronger I'll let you fight wild Pokemon too, but for now just follow me."

Damian sped off into the forest in search of enemies that would yield a lot of experience, and after a few seconds he came across an Ivysaur which after scanning it with the Pokedex from afar. He found that it was level thirty, and despite being relatively powerful, Damian went for the kill without hesitation.

He shot a shadow tendril forward, piercing through the Ivysaur's skull and destroying its brain immediately, causing it to drop dead, and quickly begin decaying. After checking the level of himself and Pyrodrake, he found that they had both become level sixteen, which was quite a quick increase in level considering they jumped up fourteen levels in less than a minute.

Damian continued onwards through the forest and stumbled upon a group of three level 44 Pidgeot's which he quickly killed, to get to level 24 which although wasn't as huge of a jump as initially, it was just as easy. However, what he found in the nests of the group of Pidgeots was incredibly lucky. He came across two lucky eggs which he kept one in his pocket, and gave one to his Pyrodrake to hold.

This would mean that him and Pyrodrake would get increased experience which would be insanely helpful, and depending on the next Pokemon he defeated, he would be strong enough to challenge the gym leader.

Damian continued to run deeper into the forest, and came across the strongest Pokemon he had seen thus far, a Nidoking.

It was level 73, and Damian knew this would be the Pokemon to level him up enough to become strong enough for the gym.

He approached quietly and stealthily as he was unsure of how strong the enemy would be, and when he tried to pierce through the Nidoking, his tendril bounced off leaving only a small hole.

The enemy turned around and looked straight at Damian, and before he could react, the ground began to shake. It looked as though Nidoking was using a move such as Earthquake or Magnitude, preferably Magnitude as it was weaker.

This knocked Damian off balance, but he managed to catch himself with his tendrils to stabilise himself. While he was doing this, his Pyrodrake, which he had shortened to Pyro for ease of communication, used Fire Spin on the Nidoking to catch it in a prison of fire much like how the Oddish had been. However, due to the much higher level of the Nidoking, it burst through and charged forward at Pyro with its horn.

Damian defended this attack by hardening his tendrils and creating a shield in front of himself. The second the Nidoking's horn penetrated the shield, he transformed the shape to be covered in spikes, which then shot forward into the enemies face to cause major damage.

This completely disorientated the Nidoking, and then Damian proceeded to dissolve the shield before putting all of his power into a single punch and launching it forward into the beast's skull. This caused it to shatter in a way which was able to be felt by Damian despite the impact only being brief.

Damian felt himself growing stronger, and when he checked his and Pyro's levels, they had both grown to the respectable level of thirty. He decided that this was a high enough level to fight against the first gym leader with only a single Pokemon.

He made his way back to the city where he got Pyro healed up to full health before walking over to the greenhouse which was housing the first big hurdle in becoming the strongest in the region.

He walked through the door, and was greeted immediately by a humidity like none other, and the smell of a massive amalgamation of exotic plants bearing fruits that he had never seen before.

There were no gym trainers, and the leader, Flora sat cross legged on the floor atop a bed of leaves. She had long green hair with flowers scattered throughout it, and she seemed to be tall and slender. She was moderately attractive, but not Damian's type, and he was more focused on the battle rather than her appearance.

"Hi, I'm here to challenge the gym. I heard you're pretty strong, so I hope you put up a good fight."

With her eyes closed and still meditating, Flora responded, "Hello, I am Flora, gym leader of Verdant Vale. I hope you will satisfy me with your performance. Go forth my Cottonee, show this challenger your might."

A green Pokeball was thrown from Flora's hand, and a Cottonee emerged from the ball.

"Go Pyro, destroy your enemies."

Pyro shot forward as fast as possible, immediately setting up sunny day while the enemy Cottonee tried to use grass knot to trip Pyro up. He dodged the attack and used fire spin on himself to coat his entire body in flames before landing on top of Cottonee and shooting an ember at its face.

"Come back Cottonee, avenge your friend Gloom."

A relatively large Gloom appeared out of the Pokeball, and Damian was happy to see this, "Pyro, its another grass type, destroy it as quickly as you can. This is good training for fighting against enemies that are weak to your attacks."

The gloom tried to use sleep powder on Pyro, but with a large ember, the powder set alight and exploded back in the Gloom's face. This caused an immediate knock out and Flora retrieved the fallen Pokemon.

"Leafeon, my final Pokemon, I believe in you" Flora looked sure of her victory despite her two crushing defeats.

The Leafeon came out of its ball guns blazing, with a razor leaf being fired directly at Pyro. Dodging all of the attacks was as easy as anything for Pyro, as he made his way forward without stopping at all. The Leafeon tried to dodge out of the way, but Pyro's speed was much too high and he, almost instantly, charged up and shot out a large fire ball using ember. This blasted the Leafeon backwards and won Damian the battle with no issues.

Flora seemed surprised, and so did Damian.

"You were much stronger than I anticipated, I am ashamed to say I could not put up a worthy fight."

"Its fine, I was just stronger. Can I have my badge now?"

"Oh sorry, of course you can. I can't believe you defeated me with a single Pokemon, I dread to think of how badly I would have lost if you had used your others."

"Thanks for the badge and, honestly, I don't have any other Pokemon, and I don't think I'm gonna need any other Pokemon after seeing that performance. Where is the next gym, I plan to challenge it as soon as possible. Would you say I need more training to beat them?"

"The next gym is in Misty Peaks, the gym leader Terra Is more powerful than me, but by your display of skills I would say you should be able to defeat him with ease. Although, with the moves your Pokemon has now it may be an issue against his rock types."

"Thanks for the information, you should look forward to seeing me become the strongest in the region in the near future."

"I'll be sure to look out for you, good luck."

Damian turned his back to Flora and walked out of the gym, thinking of finding a place to stay before making his way to the next gym.