12 Self Study (3/3)

Izan looked up from his drawing, noticing that Sandshrew was excited but also looking at him as if he had three heads.

He lightly smacked his forehead. "Right, sorry. Let's start over then. You know what the terms I used before are, right? Frontline, backline, that sorta thing?"

Sandshrew nodded her head.

"Okay, good. I don't think you fit anywhere except frontline… unless you disagree?" He asked, raising his eyebrow.

She shook her head, opting to tap the symbols he drew again to indicate why she was confused.

"Gotcha. Alright, listen closely because I'm gonna let you decide what you wanna do."

She straightened up, intensely staring at the three symbols while she listened.

"Each role has multiple archetypes you can fill. It'll be what your fighting style will focus on and the moves and types of energy you need to learn."

He pointed at the sword. "The first archetype is the 'Warrior'. These types focus on a good balance of defense and attack, letting them take hits and quickly counter back. They're the kings of close range, but they can't do much if they can't close the range."

Sandshrew nodded, her interest growing as he continued explaining.

Moving on, he pointed to the skull. "And on one side of the spectrum is the 'Assassin'. They specialize in deceiving their opponent and defeating them most efficiently and mercilessly possible. Instead of having a good battle like the Warrior, they are solely focused on the moment to go in for the kill. However, they do tend to be frail in comparison."

To that, Sandshrew's interest grew even further, causing her to look at the shield symbol with anticipation.

Sliding the stick he was holding over, he pointed to the shield. "And finally, on the complete opposite of the spectrum is the 'Tank'. They specialize in absorbing any damage sent their way, preventing others from being attacked. They aren't required to do damage, but it is appreciated if they have some way to whittle down the enemy."

Her fixation died like a match underwater. She shuddered as she heard more about the role, outright kicking dirt over the shield symbol.

Izan's lips thinned but he didn't say anything about it. 'I sorta expected that. After Fearow, I'm more surprised she didn't have a worse reaction, honestly.'

Sandshrew sat down in front of the skull and the sword, crossing her arms as she closed her eyes in thought.

When she opened her eyes, she pointed to the skull.

"Really? Assassin?" She nodded firmly. "Alrighty then. I honestly didn't expect that, but it's not impossible."

He put his finger on his chin as he thought. 'Gonna need to look into how abilities work. Both Sand Veil and Sand Rush could work for an assassin build, honestly. Though I'd prefer Sand Veil in this scenario, considering the low special defense and fairly high attack. Plus, having a fighting style that relies on boosted speed wouldn't be helpful when there's no Sandstorm up. And if she learns-'

His musing was interrupted by Sandshrew tugging on his pants leg with a confused look on her face.

"Oh, sorry Sandshrew. I forgot to tell you what we're doing today." He reached into his pocket before pulling out a brown gem.

"This is a Rock Gem. To put it simply, it's an object full of rock-type energy." Giving it to her, she held it in her palms carefully as if it was delicate. "Ah, don't worry. It's pretty much indestructible unless you use a move on it."

"You need to learn how to use Rock-type energy, and the best way I found out was to just have you get acclimated to it through one of those. Once you absorb it and make it your own, we can move on to actual training." He explained casually.

She looked down at the gem with a frown before looking back up at him with a disappointed face. He innocently smiled down at her, gesturing for her to try it.

Rolling her eyes, she sat down again and looked at the gem with mild concentration. A second later and-

"Shrew!" She yelped and her body momentarily locked up. With wide eyes, she looked up at Izan with a face that screamed 'explain'.

Izan chuckled at her expense and put his hands up. "Sorry, sorry. Just a small prank. The gem will sort of 'reject' you until you have control over it, so it might sting for a bit. Don't give up!"

Of course, that's not exactly how the gem worked.

In essence, the gem was pure rock-type energy from another Pokemon stored into a blank gem. A Pokemon would then use a rock-type move, and all the energy inside would get attracted to the same type of energy, making that single move stronger.

However, if the Pokemon didn't use any moves and simply tried to absorb the energy into their body, it would attempt to 'attack'.

But due to the immense muscle density Pokemon have, it doesn't go any further than the muscular system. And since it's such a weak 'attack', it only functions as a full-body workout.

'Though it sucks that it only works up until level 10. Otherwise, I'd just have Sandshrew absorb every gem I could find for easy training.'

Sandshrew gave him narrowed eyes but shook off his prank, sitting down and continuing. Every so often she would wince at the mild pain that went through her entire body.

"While you work on that, I'm gonna be doing some research for later. Good luck~!" He sing-songed to Sandshrew, who blew a raspberry back at him.

Sitting down with a book under the shade, he got to reading.

[}-{]

There were a few ways Green expected her journey to go. Battling gym leaders, catching powerful Pokemon, making groundbreaking discoveries.

The reality was… disappointing.

Even after beating Brock and becoming a C-Class trainer in record fucking time, a feat others wouldn't accomplish in their entire trainer career, she was still in his shadow.

Blue Oak, the bane of her existence.

No matter what she did, whether it was in school or not, all of her efforts were overshadowed by that brown-haired prick.

Sure, she understood where people were coming from. She wasn't an idiot, she graduated at the top of her class, after all.

While she had Squirtle under her belt to help her decimate Brock, Blue managed to beat him even faster with just a Charmander. To others, he was obviously the more impressive one, being at a type disadvantage.

She couldn't deny that he was a prodigy Pokemon trainer.

But c'mon, no one even batted an eye when she told them the news! All they talked about was Blue, blue, blue.

Fuck that guy! She might not be a prodigy, but she worked just as hard.

So as she was walking out of Viridian forest after a training session, she got an idea.

It was probably a stupid one, but she was tired of living in his shadow. Plus, Squirtle could protect her. She had Repels, too.

Glancing at a hole in the cliffside, she squinted her eyes at a sign from far away.

'Beware! Diglett Cave ahead.'

To her knowledge, that cave led directly to a spot outside of Vermillion City. There most likely wouldn't be any guards around since it was just diglett cave, but it didn't matter anyway, she was a trainer.

She'd just say she got curious and wandered in.

It was a place she was planning to go anyway to train up her new Bellsprout and some more training for Squirtle.

And if her knowledge was correct, she could go straight to Lieutenant Surge.

Then no one could say she wasn't on the same level as Blue. Surge was widely known as stronger than Misty, whom Blue already lost to once.

He was rapidly growing though, and she had no doubt in her mind he'd win the rematch.

So if she managed to beat Surge, who was both stronger and would put her at a type disadvantage, surely she would get some recognition for once.

…Right?

---

->Do remember that Izan is 14. Anyone who graduated the normal way *cough* Green *cough* is AT LEAST 2 years older than him.

I don't think it's an important detail, I just want people to remember that.

Also, I read through most if not all of your comments. Thank you for indulging me, it helped me clear up some ideas I had.