18 Chapter Eighteen- Training and results

As the morning after Mason and Ash's dual wins over Surge came, Mason was up bright and early, wanting to get the day started as he slogged his way to the cafeteria to get things going.

Getting to the cafeteria, Mason began setting out his teams bowls and filling them with the Pokéchow he had made up, checking his supplies to make sure he'd still have enough, before he called each of them out to start eating while he went to fix himself up a plate of food from the breakfast table.

Just as Mason was sitting down to eat, Misty, Brock and Ash came walking into the cafeteria like zombies themselves, making Mason shake his head, none of them were really morning people.

He remained silent as he ate and watched each of them set out and called their own teams to breakfast, before they each followed his lead and filled plates to join him in eating.

It was another couple of minutes before Brock, having finally properly woken up thanks to his coffee, broke the silence.

"So, what's the plan now?" Brock asked as he put his mug down, "Now that you both have gotten the badge from here, are we leaving straight away or staying a while?"

Mason shrugged and looked to Ash, who was looking down at his half eaten breakfast in thought, he remained silent for a minute before he spoke.

"Before, I probably wouldn't have hesitated to say that we should leave and get going to the next gym as soon as possible," Ash said as he kept looking down, "I'd be too excited to go for my next gym challenge, I'm still excited, but if I've learned anything these past two days, is that I need to slow down." he said before looking up.

"I thought about this last night," Ash stated plainly, "the gyms are only going to get harder from here on out, because of the number of badges me and Mason now have, and if I'm honest with myself, I'm not ready, my team isn't ready." he said before looking at his team as they heard him and began to protest, he raised his hand, "That's not any of your faults, it's mine as your trainer, I haven't been putting in the time to train each of you like Mason dose with his team, I thought we could get by but if the other gyms are going to be harder than what we've faced so far, I need to take time to train each of you, and myself, we all need to be stronger" he said before frowning.

"I want to stay here to train, if just for a while," Ash explained, "But if we do that," he added as he looked to Mason, "then we'd be holding you back from moving on, even though you're ready, I don't want to hold you back if you're ready to move on."

Mason shook his head at Ash's worrying, "Nonsense," he said as he took a sip of his coffee again, "If you want to stay here for a while I'm all for it. I could use the time to keep training and plan ahead some more." he said before shrugging, "we still have plenty of time to get our other five badges in order to qualify for the league, as long as I'm training it's not really that much of an inconvenience. Besides, I'm in no hurry to go back to sleeping in a camping bag."

Ash grinned when he heard that, but before he could reply Misty spoke up.

"Now hold on, you guys can't just spend all your time training," Misty complained, "We're in Vermillion City for crying out loud, it's one of the most luxurious and exotic places in all of Kanto, not to mention all the rich culture that passes through here from the port. We can't just come here and then not go out to enjoy it and see the sights," she said passionately and looked like she was going to go off on another rant when Mason held up his hands in surrender.

"Okay, Okay, we get it Misty," Mason said with an amused grin, "how about this, we spend the next three days training and planning, then after that we can take a day to go out sightseeing, once that's done we'll talk again about what we want to do. Today's going to be our third day after all, tomorrow we have to start paying for our rooms and any meals we have here, I may have a regular income now but I don't want to end up blowing too much of it before we have a better time line of what we're going to be doing," he reasoned out, while keeping his real reasons to himself.

He knew exactly what was meant to happen after Ash beat Surge in the timeline, the whole SS Anne mess and everything that followed. Since they hadn't seen hide nor hair of Team Rocket while they were here, Mason didn't want to take any chances and wanted to avoid setting foot on that ship if he could help it, so waiting three more days before they ventured out should hopefully mean that they missed the window when the should hopefully be able to skip the whole shit show.

Brock nodded at Mason's suggestion, "Sounds like a plan to me" he said as he finished his breakfast and started on his second cup of coffee, trying to hide his small smirk.

Mason rolled his eyes as he caught Brock's smirk as he drank from his cup, "Oh please, you just like it cause it means you get to ogle Nurse Joy in your every spare moment while we're here?"

Brock gave a single nod at his comment, "what can I say, I am a man of required tastes" he said as he went to sip his coffee again.

Misty snorted as she crossed her arms, "More like a pervert with a type," she commented, and Mason had to duck right after in order to avoid the spray of coffee from Brock's spit take.

-Time skip-

Mason sat down at his desk in the room he had rented in the Pokémon centre, on the morning of the fourth day after their little meeting, he had just finished his morning routine and wanted to take some time before he went out, to go over his team stats. He had called Professor Oak right after breakfast on the first day and asked if there was any way to edit what information the Pokédex showed him about his team.

The professor had taken the time to give him a complete run through of the Pokédex systems and had even taken to writing him a custom script for his Pokédex to show him exactly what information he wanted to know about each of his Pokémon, dividing their moves up to show what moves were learned themselves and what moves were learned via TMs, it also showed an estimated level for each of his Pokémon so he could gauge their individual strength with just a glance.

So over the past three days he had been watching their progress via his Pokédex and he was very pleased with what he saw now.

Species: Dratini

Gender: Male

Ability: Shed skin

Lv: 21

Moves:

Wrap

Leer

Thunderwave

Agility

Slam

Twister

Dragon Rage

(new move) Dragon Breath

TMs:

Fire blast

Thunderbolt

-.-.-.-.-

Species: Poliwhirl

Gender: Male

Ability: Swift Swim

Lv: 38

Moves:

Bubble

Water Gun

Hypnosis

Pound

DoubleSlap

(New Move) Rain Dance

Body Slam

Hydro Pump

TMs:

BubbleBeam

-.-.-.-.-

Species: Spearow

Gender: Female

Ability: Sniper

Lv: 25

Moves:

Peck

Growl

Leer

Pursuit

Fury Attack

(new move) Aerial Ace

Mirror Move

Agility

Unique move:

Double team

-.-.-.-.-

Species: Scyther

Gender: Male

Ability: Swarm

Lv: 40

Moves:

Quick Attack

Leer

Vacuum Wave

False Swipe

Wing Attack

Double Team

Agility

Slash

Razor Wind

Swords Dance

(new move) X-scissor

(new move) Steel wing

-.-.-.-.-

Species: Golbat

Gender: Female

Ability: Infiltrator

Lv: 24

Moves:

Supersonic

Bite

Wing Attack

(New move) Poison Fang

(New move) Air Cutter

(New move) Steel wing

Swift

TMs:

Toxic

Hyper beam

-.-.-.-.-

Species: Marowak

Gender: Male

Ability: Lightning Rod

Lv: 29

Moves:

Bone Club

Swords Dance

Headbutt

(New move) Fire Spin

Bonemerang

(New move) Will-O-Wisp

(New move) Bone Rush

(New move) Flame Wheel

(New move) Shadow Bone

TMs:

Dig

Fire blast

Earthquake

-.-.-.-.-

Species: Growlithe

Gender: Female

Ability: Flash Fire

Lv: 24

Moves:

Bite

Roar

Ember

Agility

(New) Fire Fang

Take Down

Flamethrower

TMs:

Dig

Swift

Fire blast

-.-.-.-.-

Species: Squirtle

Gender: Male

Ability: Rain Dish

Lv: 12

Moves:

Tackle

Tail Whip

Bubble

Water Gun

(New move) Rapid Spin

Withdraw

Bite

Bubble beam

TMs:

Ice beam

-.-.-.-.-

The past few days had been very productive for his team, after he had them routinely practice each of their moves, one after another to build up their speed of use, and their fluidity in swapping between them, each had learned new techniques which he had been extremely happy about.

And through their training of the past few days, his team had unlocked even more of their advanced move pools under his instruction and insight into them. The first and second had come relatively close to one another about half way through their first day of training.

-Flash back-

Mason was watching his team train eagerly as he kept his Pokédex open in one hand checking their progress every few minutes as they trained. They were approaching a point where Mason was ready to tell them to take a break, but before he could do so, the sound of metal striking metal filled the air making all of Mason's Pokémon stop moving, Mason looked in the direction of the sound and couldn't keep the grin off his face.

Both Scyther and Golbat had stopped mid strike, their wings shimmering silver as they held their position, both looking at their wings in shock having been the source of the noise.

Grinning, Mason looked to his Pokédex to see the new unidentified move listed under both their entries and grinned as he put it away and approached them applauding.

"Excellent," Mason said happily as he came over to them, "that was perfect." he praised.

"Congratulations both of you," he said as they broke apart and turned to him in confusion.

"The move you both used is exactly what I was hoping for, by hardening your wings you have gotten to the point that they will be as hard and as sharp as metal, precisely as I was hoping you would," Mason explained to them, "Let's call this move, Steel wing. It will give you both a new type of coverage for when we battle, great job both of you." he praised.

Both Pokémon seemed to swell with pride under his praise and attention as he grinned at them.

"Now, I want you both to keep practicing this for a while yet," Mason told them, "you've just learned the move, now it's time you properly master it so that you can both use it without fail and do so quickly, speed is everything in a battle, those who strike first often win, and that is precisely what we need."

"Once you have got it down I have your next training planned out," Mason stated, "Golbat, I want you to instruct Scyther on how to gather the same poison type energy that you use in your Toxic attack. And Scyther, I want you to focus on gathering that energy in the edges of your blades"

Both Scyther and Golbat nodded and went off in two directions away from Mason as they began to rush each other, clashing again with their metal wings repeatedly again and again as they kept at it.

Mason watched them go, pleased with this outcome so far. This whole move had been an experiment on his part. Steel wing was a move that, in the games, both Scyther and Golbat would normally only be able to learn via TMs, by learning it on their own like this, this had proven to him that it was possible for Pokémon to learn advanced moves that were regularly only available to them through TMs as long as they were given instruction how to do so. This was very good.

With his team still going strong in training, Mason turned his attention to the only one of them who currently wasn't doing anything, except sitting still with his legs crossed and eyes closed.

Approaching his newly evolved Marowak, Mason stopped a few feet in front of him with a grin.

"How's it coming, you think you understand what you are capable of now?" Mason asked, knowing that for the past hour Marowak had been growing accustomed to his complete typing shift that his evolution had brought him.

Going from one typing to two completely different typings must have been a bit strange, Mason could only imagine, but he was more than happy to wait and allow his latest evolved Pokémon to get a handle on his new abilities first.

But when Mason saw the look in his eyes when Marowak opened then and looked up to his own, he could tell immediately he was ready, especially if the grin he was sporting was anything to go by.

"Alright then," Mason said as he grinned back before pointing at one of the targets that currently none of his other Pokémon were using, "Show me what you can do," he said as he slipped his Pokédex out of his pocket again and began looking between it and Marowak expectantly. He wasn't waiting long.

Marowak jumped to his feet as he opened his mouth and mason watched as a spiral of flames shot from his maw towards the target. Mason recognised the technique and grinned. 'Fire Spin' he thought to himself as he watched the flames flicker as they spin around the targe for a moment more before going out.

Then Marowak raised his club as the blue flames on its end flared and with a hard stroke launched a blue fireball towards the target hitting it's centre before disappearing instantly making Mason's grin grow, 'Will O Wisp' he thought in recognition of the blue flames.

As soon as the flames vanished Marowak took off running towards the target as the blue flames on his club flared, a few steps forward he spun his club and threw himself forward as he began to spin and shot towards the target crashing into it, club first. 'Flame wheel' Mason thought as he watched, his excitement growing.

Bounding back from the attack Marowak landed on his feet only to go forward again, his club glowing a bright blue shade as it seemed to get longer, and began to move in rapid succession with his club striking the target over and over again in fluid movement, each leading into the next. 'Bone rush' Mason thought in recognition before pulling back as the flames on his club flashing and turned a dark purple as he began to spin it, before with a hard swing struck out at the target leaving a large dent where it struck, 'And that would be Shadow Bone' Mason thought before he put his Pokédex away and began to applaud.

"Very nice, very nice," Mason praised as he approached Marowak, "Not to shabby at all, I was not expecting that," and it was true, he expected maybe one or two new skills, but not five, he figured teaching him Fire blast when he was just a cubone gave him a better grasp of his fire attacks.

Marowak grinned at the praise and began to spin his bone and dance as Mason Chuckled at the signature dance.

"We can definitely work with…" Mason began to say before suddenly he was cut off by a loud crunching sound, like something thick and wooden just broke clean through.

Looking in the direction of the noise, Mason had to blink. It was one of the human shaped targets that his team were using, this one, it's left arm had been severed a few inches from its shoulder, and the broken part lay on the ground a couple of feet away, its broken end charred black around the edges… And Growlithe stook a few feet further away, flames flickering from the sides of her maw.

Mason blinked once, then again, 'Fire fang?' Mason guessed before his confusion broke into a grin as he burst out laughing and he quickly walked over to Growlithe and began to pet her.

"That was great Growlithe," Mason praised, "I hadn't even thought to get you started on that yet, I knew you were clever, learning that all on your own." he said as he pet her.

Growlithe absolutely melted under the praise and affection leaning into Mason's hand, her tail wagging, as she soaked in his praise, before finally throwing herself onto him and began licking at his face.

"Growli…" Mason began to protest only to get another lick and then give up on protesting and trying to push her off only to start laughing, happy that she was coming around to him so well.

-Flash back end-

The past few days had been very productive for his team in terms of training and new moves as far as he was concerned and he had been more than happy to give Bill a call to send his Alakazam over to collect the data on the new moves for future TM sales.

Eleven new moves in all, bringing his total to fourteen. Needless to say Bill had been ecstatic with such a huge number of new moves, and Mason had been even happier when he got the large bonus payment into his account. Ten thousand for each new move. His account was sitting pretty at just under one hundred and forty thousand, so he was feeling pretty smug about that.

Though the money was second on his mind right now as he looked over his teams levels, various things going through his mind. There was an obvious level gap with Scyther being his top at level forty, and all of his other Pokémon at various levels under that.

One thing that was concerning him the most was Spearow. He knew off the top of his head that Spearow was meant to evolve at level twenty, and yet the Pokédex listed her at being at level twenty five. He had been watching her closely during training, expecting her to evolve at any moment, but yet it never happened and it was bugging him as to why she wasn't evolving.

Spearow was clearly strong enough to evolve, she was the second fastest of all of his Pokémon, only being beaten by Scyther, but that was to be expected given the level difference.

That was when it hit him, level difference, experience, battles. Mason groaned as he smacked his forehead for overlooking the simplest of explanations. Levels meant nothing without battle experience to back them up. He could have his team train and grow stronger all he wanted but battling was an important part of training his team.

They could learn all the moves he could teach them, becoming as proficient in them as they could, but without using them in battle they would never get any experience using them as they were meant to.

And he hadn't been using Spearow in battle a lot, sure he had used her back during the battles on Nugget bridge but that had only been once or twice. Scyther and Poliwhirl, then a Poliwag, along with Dratini had been the ones doing most of the battling.

Mason sighed as he closed his Pokédex, 'Looks like I'm going to have to rethink my training methods, at least with Ash now taking things seriously I'll have someone I can battle regularly, maybe Misty and Brock would be interested in getting in some battles as well' he thought to himself as he got up and pushed the chair back into the desk before he began to walk towards the door out of his room.

Opening it as he went to walk out, Mason quickly back stepped when he almost walked right into Misty who was standing right outside his door waiting for him with a grin on her face.

"Oh good, you're up~" she said with a tone that was just a bit too sweet, "I hope you weren't thinking of sneaking off to train before the rest of us were up? Because if you remember we all agreed that we'd be going sightseeing today~"

Mason didn't know why but her sweet tone of voice sent a shiver down his spine, he realised why when he glanced behind her to see Brock standing shaking his head as he held Pikachu while Ash… was hogtied and gagged on the ground at his feet.

It didn't take a genius to work out what had happened and Mason just took a second to clear his throat, replanning his training could wait, he'd rather keep his dignity and not piss off the petite redhead.

"Actually I just finished getting ready to come and meet you guys" Mason said with a smile, bullshitting as he went, "you guys ready to go?"

"Perfect~" Misty chirped before grabbing him by his sleeve to pull him out of the room, "come on, we've got lots to see~" she said as she pulled him.

Brock shook his head as he watched Misty drag him off, before he collected Mason's bag and carried it with him before pulling Ash along as he followed.

Mason for his part didn't fight Misty as she dragged him, he honestly didn't mind the small break that a day of sightseeing would bring, it wouldn't harm them in the long run as far as he was concerned.

Everything was going exactly as he planned, Team Rocket hadn't shown their faces the entire time they had been in Vermillion, and they'd been here a good week now, so as far as Mason was concerned, they'd completely avoided the whole SS Anne catastrophe and everything that came with it.