479 CH111 (475), Another Perspective (2)

POV: Weiss

Location: Johto, Outskirts Violet City, National Park

Weiss was strolling through the park, taking in the various sounds of people chatting, families having fun, children laughing, as well as the sounds made by the local Pokemon.

She was taking in the happy atmosphere, and each moment she spent strolling through the park helped reduced her weariness by a bit. With each step she felt herself relax a bit more, slowly letting go of the stress as well as fatigue she had accumulated during the last two months.

She had been incredibly busy during the past two months, preparing for her first Gym Challenge, gathering information as well as making strategies to face the Gym Leader's personal team, training her Pokemon for the confrontation, and adjusting their strategies due to developments on her Pokemon's side or due to new information she managed to dig up.

She could have taken the easy road and simply challenged the Gym Leader to a regular Gym Battle, which she would have won effortlessly, but that was not what she wanted. No, she wanted her first Gym Badge to be a memorable one that was actually worth something.

She wanted a Gym Badge that was capable of portraying the great amount of hard work she had put into herself and her Pokemon even before she officially began her journey. That was why she chose the highest official difficulty when she challenged the Gym Leader to a Gym Battle.

Ultimately, her preparation as well as work paid off and she managed to earn her first Gym Badge. It was the first one to enter her Badge Case, and just like she had wanted, it was a 3-Star S-Rank Badge. She had a hard time expressing in words the blend of feelings she had felt when the Gym Leader congratulated her on her hard-earned victory while handing her the Gym Badge.

She had certainly tried to do so when she shared the news in their group chat after the girls began grilling her on how she felt, but Weiss knew that the words she used in her text messages fell short compared to the exhilaration, joy, pride, fulfillment, happiness, and satisfaction combo she felt at that moment. That was just one of the things a person had to experience for oneself.

Anyway, Weiss now had her first Gym Badge, and she had decided to take it slow for the next few weeks before leaving for Marigold City to earn her second Gym Badge. Obtaining that one should be around the same difficulty as the Violet City Gym had been since the Marigold City Gym was a grass-type Gym, which provided her a certain advantage due to the typing of her precious Pokemon.

Nonetheless, she was going to leave all that to her future self. For now, Weiss simply wanted to relax and enjoy the atmosphere here at the national park. She kept walking along one of the many paths of the park with her Bounsweet in her arms.

Taking a peek at the little sweetie, who was taking in the vibrant ambiance, she could not help but think about the wonderful friend who gifted Bounsweet to her. She had certainly been surprised when Mikail presented Bountsweet's Pokeball to her, saying that it contained the gift he prepared to congratulate her on her journey and the start of a new chapter in her life.

When Weiss unlocked the ball and saw Bounsweet, she could not help but gasp since she knew that they were extremely rare here on the northern continent. She had tried to refuse, doubly so when Mikail shared that Bounsweet actually had 5-star potential.

Every Pokemon with 5-star potential was considered valuable, not to mention ones that could typically not be found in the region/continent, so she felt that a 5-star Bounsweet like her little sweety was too valuable to be given away as a "simple" gift. Yet, Mikail managed to talk her into accepting his gift with his glib tongue.

Honestly, she was rather glad that he had convinced her since taking care of as well as observing the cute little Pokemon, along with being able to carry Bounsweet everywhere like this had helped her relieve some of the tension she felt throughout her journey.

There was just something different about being able to carry around a cute Pokemon that was strangely comforting, and she would definitely enjoy the two to three years it was going to take for Bounsweet to evolve. Not that Weiss would go around admitting that.

POV: Rose

Location: Kanto, Iris City

She stepped into the PokeCenter and went up to the registry to report her arrival as well as receive the keys to the room she had reserved while on the road toward Iris City. Afterward, she went to stand in line to hand over her Pokemon for a check-up as usual.

Rose was planning to stay here for a few weeks before moving on to the next major city, which was Turquoise City. She would stay there for another few weeks before moving on to Coral City, where her second Contest would take place. She had already completed the registration for the contest taking place there in two months.

Rose would naturally be aiming to earn her second ribbon, but all she could do was do her best and hope it would be enough. Still, whether she won or not, she would stay at Coral City for a few weeks before moving on to the next major city that lay in the direction of her next Contest, and do the same there as well.

That way Rose would be able to explore the city and its immediate area, which would allow her to actually see much of her home region during her journey while still enjoying the comforts cities provided. Honestly, it was the best of both worlds in her opinion.

While Mikail and others might not mind traveling through the wild for weeks, she felt that a few days in the wild were more than enough before a stop back at civilization was necessary.

That could and probably would change once she got used to traveling around and staying in the wild, especially once her Pokemon were truly strong enough to give her a greater sense of security, but for now she was going to stick to her current method.

When it was finally her turn, Rose handed over her five Pokeballs, and even though it had been a few months at this point she still could not help but remember how she had gotten her fifth Pokemon. It was probably because she had the other four for years now that she would occasionally marvel at her new family member.

Two days before her official journey, Mikail as well as Kinji escorted her pretty deep into the Viridian Forest and brought her to the meadow that Kinji promised to bring her to on her birthday so that she could play with and hopefully capture a Joltik.

Mikail even called out his Togetic to accompany her. He said it was for luck, but she knew that he wanted to give her an additional layer of protection, and even she knew that Togetic were universally well-liked. Kinji let out his Galvantula to keep an eye on things and since Galvantula was originally from their swarm everyone was cool with it even though it was super strong.

Anyway, Rose and Togetic ended up playing with the cute little Joltik for a few hours, and during that time, she ended up taking a liking to her little cutie, who thankfully also took a liking to her. When she shared that, Mikail gave her a special Pokeball for her cutie just like he gave her one for all of her other Pokemon, and once she got permission from the guardian watching over the Joltik, Rose let Jolta say her farewells before she captured her.

Afterward, they made their way back to her home, and before the two left, Mikail also ended up giving her a Flame Crystal for her Princess/Vulpix and a Meadow's Essence for her Ivy/Eevee since those two were not too far off from being ready to evolve. Still, he told her to keep it a secret from her Mom and Dad for now.

Rose knew that he was worried they would decline in her stead, so she decided to keep it to herself until Princess and Ivy had evolved. She already owed him a lot so a bit more did not hurt. No matter how precious those two items were, they could not be as precious as the 5-star Zubat he had previously gifted her, right?

After all, her Batsey was already a Golbat and at the bronze stage. While he was no longer as cute as he used to be as a Zubat, she knew that Batsey would be just as cute as he used to be once he evolved into Crobat. Still, speaking of precious, she had later on, after she began her journey, done a potential test for Jolta, and it turned out that she had been pretty lucky since her Jolta had 5-star potential as well.

Not that Jolta's potential was all that important to her, but it certainly helped Jolta become stronger faster, so she was still quite happy when she learned about it.

POV: Erza

Location: Rota, Quince City

It was just two weeks ago that Erza had left Loquat City only two days after she had gotten her first Gym Badge. She then began heading here, toward Quince City, and it took her a better part of those two weeks to arrive because she decided to travel on foot instead of simply teleporting or flying to her destination.

After all, she liked the saying that the journey was just as important as the destination. Moreover, Erza made use of the time she spent on the road to explore her home region and to battle the wild Pokemon as well as trainers she came across during the trip.

Regardless, the reason she came to Quince City was that she had heard of the good reputation that the Grass Hall here enjoyed. The hall master as well as his students were supposedly experts as far as the Oddish line was concerned and she wanted to learn a bit from them for her Bella/Oddish.

Bella was the most recent addition to her team, and she had been a gift from Mikail. He had gifted her Bella/Oddish along with a Sun Crystal saying that a strong Bellosom would be able to safeguard her wherever she went since the species was so petite.

Erza naturally tried to refuse at first, especially after hearing that Bella had 5-star potential which was quite rare even if Oddish were not uncommon. However, Mikail managed to sweet-talk her into accepting his gift with his silver tongue and that damnable smile of his.

In the end, he even went so far as to mention that he had given the others similar gifts and that he couldn't just leave her out since she was a precious friend of his as well. He even reminded her of his encounter with the super Bellossom that swept his whole team. That one had certainly caused quite a stir when he mentioned it in their chat group at the time.

Ultimately, she ended up caving just because she saw the wisdom in his reasoning, and she was pretty happy that she did. Not only did Bella fill in the grass-type slot in her team, but she was pretty cute, as was her future final form, and she was quite talented on top of that.

Erza had headed directly to the Grass Hall after arriving in Quince City two days ago to register for the available Oddish classes and Bella had proven herself to be quite the quick learner during the lessons that directly involved her.

Ezra was learning quite a bit as well during those lessons, and she felt that once she was done with a majority of the Oddish-related courses she registered for, she would be ready for Bella's upcoming evolution to Gloom in a year or two.

Still, she obviously did not plan to neglect her other partners during this time, so Erza was planning to make use of the challenge function of the hall to train them. Aside from that, she was going to explore the area around Quince City, so she would have enough opportunities for them to train and fight.

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