Sybil balanced on her feet in unease as she voiced her opinion, “We are making a lot of assumptions. Does the Gym know that we know?”

  “Well, I think they are all corrupt, the entire Gym is probably connected to Team Rocket,” Larry crossed his arms for effect.

  “Then, what about the humans outside of the Gym?” Sybil argued, “What is there to say that the people of this city aren’t corrupt either?”

  Larry couldn’t discount the fact, ‘In the games, a single ten-year-old was forced to take down the entire criminal group…Worst case, the entire city is in on it, but couldn’t do anything about it in the game because there was a fully evolved starter and team of five other Pokemon between them and the kid…’

  ‘I can’t guarantee Valerie’s safety if she actually tries to take the Gym Challenge…’ Larry thought seriously, ‘Worst case, they lock the doors of the Gym behind us and simply do whatever they want with us. We can’t enter the Gym now that we were targeted by Team Rocket…’

  He shook his head to Sybil's question, “We can’t take the Gym Challenge here, it's just far too dangerous. Let’s take the one in Pewter City as our first one.”

  “What are you guys discussing? Is it still about the Gym?” Valerie spoke from her seat worriedly, “It sounds serious.”

  Larry thought back to what Patrat had done, and quickly mimed himself tapping away on a phone. Valerie understood the hint, “Oh? You want to try writing it to me? Are your lessons going that well? It's only been a few days.”

  She handed him her smartphone, text-to-speech app already opened, and Larry squinted in confusion at the unknown keyboard layout for a second before recognition of some of the letters dawned on him again.

  ‘T…his…’ Larry took his time, sounding out the correct letter in his head, ‘J…im…No, wait, G or J? In English, it would be G, but how is it written here?’

  After five or so minutes, when Larry had finally written out his sentence, his four words of greatness, he pressed the text-to-speech button and let Valerie listen to what he wanted to say.

  “Thees Jim ees kowwupt!” The feminine robotic voice cried out in distress, much to Larry's embarrassment, ‘Damn it, I got some letters wrong!’

  The voice sounded more like a cheap parody of Jar-Jar Binks mixed with a dated impression of a Jamaican accent, destroying any tense atmosphere that might’ve built up around them.

  Valerie suppressed a smile, keeping up her serious tone of voice, “So you think the entire Gym is in on it?”

  Larry nodded, “Ok…Then you think we shouldn’t show up to the Gym Challenge?”

  Nodding again, Valerie considered his request seriously, “Hmm, you think Giovanni is in on it?”

  Again, he nodded back fervently, ‘He’s the boss!’

  Valerie hummed, unsure, “Gym challenges and fights are recorded and fought in front of a live audience, but that doesn’t mean that nothing shady is going on in the Gym.”

  “As much as I finally want to try a Gym Challenge, we can’t really know what they will do to us, and that's the scary part…” She considered her own words before nodding with her arms crossed, “Alright, we won’t do this Gym Challenge,” Valerie announced to tense nods from both her Pokemon.

  She raised a single brow, as she looked down at her Pokemon, a sly grin appearing on her face, “Unless~…we do it differently!”

  Both Sybil and Larry looked at her with quirked heads, ‘Where is she going with this?’

  She tapped on her phone and quickly pulled up a page. When she turned around the page, it showed an incomprehensible chat window. She looked at the unchanging expressions on her Pokemon’s faces before realization dawned on her, “Oh, right! This is Professor Oaks' chat with me! After that interview I gave him, he added me. He’s the one I asked if Larvitar could learn Dragon Dance!”

  Now Larry realized where Valerie was going with her theories, “Ah! I get it!”

  “What is the conclusion you’ve come to?” Sybil asked.

  Valerie revealed the answer before Larry could, “We’ll simply ask the Professor for help! The foremost Professor on Pokemon of the Kanto region will definitely help us out! He knows we aren’t lying!”

  Larry tapped his arms together in applause, “Wow! Great idea!” He’d completely forgotten about the Professor since their video chat, assuming the man was too busy doing whatever Professors did to busy himself with Valerie’s issues. ‘If she managed to get him to respond to something inconsequential like a move for one of her Pokemon, then he’ll definitely respond if she warns him about something Team Rocket related!’

  Seeing both of her Pokemon agree with her, Valerie quickly shook the bad thoughts away. She patted herself on the cheeks, reminding herself of the goal for today, “I’ll call him when we’re back home. For now, I think Larry said the right thing. We’ll simply need to get stronger. Strong enough, they wouldn’t dare attack us, and there’s only one way to do that.”

  “We lost some daylight getting you guys healed up and due to that interview, but let’s do a quick training session anyway! We’re going to need to be strong after all! After that, we’ll go home and tell Mom about this and call Professor Oak.”

  …

  “Now, Sybil. Like you yourself said before, you need to get that Future Sight of yours under control. I want you to focus on getting a better grip on your Psychic-Powers.”

  Sybil bowed, “I will endeavor to do so.” Before hopping off onto the court, ready to begin.

  “And you, Larry. You’ll still be working on Dragon Dance. I think it will be useful in the future when we’re fighting opponents above our strength level.” Valerie explained, “If you think you can’t get it down, we’ll pivot to Stealth Rock, since your environmental powers also give you a lot of strength.”

  Larry nodded back, before also making his way onto the court, ready to start training, ‘But, what do I even try? Last time around, no matter what I did, the energy wouldn’t want to move…’

  With all the other energies so far, he’d been able to morph them effortlessly. What was the big difference then? Larry’s first guess was how closely related the energy was to him. No matter how powerful Larry was going to become, it wasn’t because he was going to become a Dragon-Type.

  In actuality, Tyranitar is surprisingly far removed from the Dragon-Type, yet they’re still a Pseudo-Legendary Pokemon. After all, every other Pseudo-Legendary Evolutionary Line, except for Metagross and Tyranitar, possesses the Dragon-Typing.

  Larry thought back to the video Valerie showed him, the Dragonite flipping and spinning in the air gracefully, ‘Hmm, it’s called Dragon Dance, maybe the Dance part is more important than I thought?’

  Once again, Larry summoned up Dragon-TE inside his core, finding the action just as exhausting as it had been previously, ‘This definitely won’t be a go-to move with how hard it is to get going…’

  Instead of coaxing the Dragon-TE in any direction or moving it away from his core, Larry continued focusing on keeping it contained, on keeping the Type-Energy brewing inside his core as he began to move. He started simple, by turning his body to the side, looking behind himself at Valerie. He opened up one of his eyes, which had been closed in focus, to see her excitedly balling both of her hands into fists, before giving him a thumbs-up and cheeky grin.

  ‘Good, it's still there.’ Larry watched as the minuscule amount of Dragon-TE inside him moved with his body, staying affixed to his core and following his movement, ‘Gotta keep focused…’

  His plan was quite simple, actually. If he couldn’t move the TE around inside his body, then he’d simply move his body around instead, it was a dance after all. There was only one problem with his plan, ‘How…am I supposed to dance?’

  Overweight shut-in he’d been in his last life, Larry's experiences in moving his body rhythmically and with purpose could be counted on a hand or two. It wasn’t that Larry was embarrassed to dance, but much more that he didn’t even know what dance he was even supposed to imitate, ‘I doubt they want me to do the Macarena, but…I don’t even know any other dance choreography…’

  ‘Guess I’ll just have to wing it…’ Slowly, Larry took a step to the side, then another. He swung his arms for effect. Then he stepped back the other way, doing the same thing in reverse, to end up back where he started.

  ‘That was a dance…Or was that more a rhythmic step?’ His own musings were stopped when Valerie stepped up, forcing him to crack another eye open at her, “Um…You’re trying to learn a Dance, right? That was what those steps were for, right?”

  Nodding back, Larry focused more on the Dragon-TE inside him, trying to keep the energy from vanishing into nothing in the air, “Well, you seem to be having an issue with the dancing part of Dragon Dance, so I thought, why don’t we try to dance together?”

  “Huh?” Larry's concentration slipped, and the TE was lost, “Ah…”

  “C’mon, let's try it.” Valerie encouraged him, “You just follow my moves, ok?”

  He wanted to complain, but couldn’t, as Valerie was already off to the races, or dances in this case. She snaked her hands around in front of her torso until they flew down and grabbed at his arms, pulling him along into a spin.

  “C’mon, move your feet!” Valeire laughed, watching Larry fight to keep upright, “Here, I’ll give the rhythm, 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4…”

  Slowly but surely, Larry got the hang, managing to step along to the rhythm. Valerie stopped spinning, tapping her feet in a skip as she pulled him in closer before pushing him back out to the rhythm. Finally, on the last pull, she released one of her hands and twirled Larry into a spin with the other.

  Larry let her, spinning outwards and throwing his other hand outward for effect until he turned the other way and spun back inside. Valerie giggled, “Hehe, you’re really getting into it!”

  She let go of his hands, “Now, show me some dancing, I can’t be on the court with you for Dragon Dance after all.”

  Looking back at her confusedly, Larry squinted, “But how am I supposed to dance?”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “You don’t know what dance to do?” Valerie guessed correctly as she tapped her foot, “Why not just let the Dragon Dance take the lead? Online, it said something about it being a mystical dance. I don’t think the Pokemon themselves come up with it, considering they’re all meatheaded dragons.”

  ‘So it's an instinctual thing?’ Larry guessed, “I guess I’ll just have to find it?”

  She shrugged, “Just do what you think is right!”

  Nodding back, he went back to it. He focused on moving his arms, taking rhythmic steps, and twirling his body as he once again drew on the Dragon-TE inside his core, which had been lost before. It was harder than he expected to keep rhythm in his dance and keep focus on summoning and keeping the energy inside his body.

  Anytime he twirled, his focus wavered on the Dragon-TE, and he felt himself about to lose control until he suddenly stopped dead and forced his focus back to the energy in his body.

  ‘Ugh…this is hard…’ He waved his arm around into another twirl, and something finally sparked, ‘Oh!’ It was an unusual feeling when the energy inside his body suddenly began to move on its own, like there was suddenly a worm twirling through his insides, or as if he had actual butterflies in his stomach.

  Just as quickly as the feeling manifested, Larry's focus wavered due to it, and he lost it. He felt as the Dragon-TE simply whisped away and out of his body, ‘Damn it!’

  “There was definitely some there just now…I know I’m close…”

  “Close one?” Larry jumped at Valerie's sudden comment, he hadn’t even registered that she was still nearby. “Oh! Sorry…You made some progress, though, right?” She smiled when he nodded back, “That's good to hear, why not take a break then? Show me your Crunch instead, you did finally get it down, didn’t you?”

  Nodding back, Larry needed to once again find out how he did it. He put himself back in the alleyway. ‘I was mad, very mad, extremely mad, absolutely fuming about that woman and about how she wanted to catch me. Where Bite could make do with generally evil thoughts and other Dark-Type concepts, I guess Crunch just needs more…More hate, more anger, more violence…Let’s try it…’

  Focusing, Larry let himself go, at least slightly, he thought about what he could do to that woman's Pokemon, to Team Rocket. If they tried again and attacked Valerie and him fully, intending to steal him and Sybil away right in front of his trainer, ‘Those scum, stealing Pokemon from their friends…From their family…’

  “Grrrr…” Larry involuntarily found himself growling at the thought, which made Valerie take a precautionary step back.

  Larry's mind wandered back to his mother, to what she’d said back at the Center, ‘She had a child before me, was it also stolen away by Team Rocket?’ Larry felt the Dark-TE gush out of his core like an open faucet, ‘Those worthless, horrible…’

  Large amounts of Dark-TE shot towards his head, bleeding out of his skin as an inky black liquid and growing into the same, vicious set of jaws from before. Long, gnarly teeth, more akin to sharp shards of glass, arranged in two skillful rows, materialized.

  He opened the jaw wide, hinging it open to a terrifying 170 degrees or so before clamping it shut around nothing like a bear trap.

  CLAMP!

  “Whoa! Wild!” Valerie hollered in front of him as she clapped in amazement. Larry wanted to nod back, but he felt his strength wane as the jaws dematerialized. Wavering on his feet, Larry caught his balance quickly enough, before finally nodding back, ‘Whew….It’s still a bit much…’

  “Wow, that really took a lot out of you.” His trainer looked slightly worried, “You think that you’ll be able to use that during a fight?”

  He made a wavy motion with his hand in return, “Eh, I’ll need to use it a bit more.”

  GRRROOWWL

  Just then, his stomach made itself known, ‘Oh wow, I guess this stuff takes more energy than I expected…’

  “Wow, that was loud. You’re hungry, aren’t you?” Valerie smiled. She gave her phone a quick look, “It's about time for us to get going anyway, Gustav probably has some food ready at home.”

  She turned to her other Pokemon, “Sybil! What about you? Found a way to keep your Psychic-Powers in check yet?”

  Sybil turned back, the Prism it had been using dematerializing as it shook its body, “I have not found much of an answer to my questions yet, unfortunately.”

  “No luck, huh?” Valerie put her hands on her hips, “I’ve heard before that some Psychic-Types only really gain control over their powers with evolution, you think that might be the case?”

  It sounded logical, since for a lot of Pokemon, evolution wasn’t an if, but a when. In the games, Pokemon only managed to evolve through fighting experience, but in this world, Pokemon could also simply evolve through maturity.

  Of course, combat and experience aided in the evolution process, speeding it along. However, it was also obvious that simply aging would eventually be enough to evolve. Otherwise, Gustavs Dachsbun might still be in its first evolutionary form of Fidough right now. It hadn’t seen any combat after all.

  Natu hopped closer as Valerie put a hand on her chin, “I wouldn’t know when or how Natu evolves, but considering we’ll have a call with a Pokemon Professor tonight, we should be able to find out soon enough.”

  “For now, let’s get back home, get a bite to eat and, ugh…” Valerie cringed at the sheer mention, “...tell Mom about what happened.”

  …

  Michelle sat with her arms crossed, massaging the bridge of her nose with her brows firmly creased, “I swear to creation…”

  “So let me get this straight…You left your Pokemon alone unattended for a few hours, and they decided to explore the city.”

  “Correct.”

  “They almost get abducted by an UNDERGROUND. CRIME. SYNDICATE.”

  All three of them cower down at her intensity, “Ugh…”

  “They somehow manage to save themselves and a RANDOM. PERSON. passing by saves them and brings them back to you.” She was now tapping her feet aggressively, but Valerie had enough will to fight back against her.

  “It wasn’t a random person, I know Matthew…”

  “Matthias.” Michelle corrected, arms still crossed, “How are you still getting it wrong? You’re friends now?”

  “Sure, best friends!” Valerie feigned, “He saved my Pokemon after all.”

  “Team Rocket.” Gustav spoke up behind Michelle, a phone in hand, “They are a serious group of criminals, are they not? Are you sure you do not want to report them?”

  Her mother clicked her tongue, “Tsk. How does this keep happening? It's only been four days since you came to Viridian City! You’re not doing this on purpose?”

  “Why would I?” Valerie questioned.

  “Sigh. At this point, I’m not sure anymore…” Head in her hands, her mother was now massaging her temple, “It's just amazing how you keep attracting all this trouble.”

  “I have a plan, though!” Valerie attempted to ease their worries.

  “And does this plan involve running headfirst into their headquarters and challenging their boss?” Michelle joked, “Maybe fighting a few Fire-Types on the way for good measure?”

  ‘Guess these aren’t games anymore…’ Larry thought to himself, ‘No teenagers taking down criminals…’

  “No.” She shook her head, “I’ll call Professor Oak for help.”

  “The Pokemon Professor Samuel Oak?” Michelle questioned with an impatient tap of her foot, “I’ve heard about him before, he still has that Radio Show he’s on, right? How do you know him?”

  “He called me up for an interview back after Mt. Silver.” His trainer explained, “I think he’ll be a bigger help than the police.”

  Michelle looked unsure, “You think an old researcher is going to be a bigger help in fighting Pokemon thieves than the literal law enforcement?”

  Gustav nodded in agreement, “I am going to have to agree with your Mother, Valerie. Your plan does sound dangerous.”

  “Well…” Valerie argued, “I doubt he won’t get more people involved. I just need someone with actual Power to hear me out.”

  “What is the issue with going to the police right now?” Gustav questioned.

  “I have no evidence that something happened other than the injuries my Pokemon had.” Valerie confessed, “Using those injuries, I would basically be accusing a group of people connected to a Gym Leader of being criminals, right?”

  “If I just went to the police with it right now, they would investigate it, but would they take it seriously? Obviously not, I’m just a teenager about to go on their journey.” Valerie paused, “But if a Professor who is well-connected asks people to look into it? Law enforcement would be forced to take it seriously, and more would be done.”

  Both her guardians looked at her more seriously now. They shared a look. Gustav was the first one to speak, “I think that plan could work. Please just make sure that the authorities actually are notified of what happened, ok?”

  “I still think calling or going to the local police station right now would be the smarter move, but…” Her mother couldn’t deny it, “I think this is an ok plan if you want to go through with it.”

  Gustv agreed, “Yes, so long as the police get alerted about the situation. Although I do have to say, I never expected criminals like that to find themselves in Viridian City…”

  “Me neither…” Michelle shook her head emphatically.

  “Considering Larry and Sybil both say that the woman who attacked them was the receptionist at the gym, we all kind of assumed that the Gym is connected to them somehow,” Valerie explained.

  “The Gym?” Michelle repeated, “I understand people who think Giovanni has a shifty attitude, but the man has been nothing but forthcoming to the city. I don’t see a reason for him to want to steal Pokemon.”

  “He even came to the bakery once, so I had the pleasure of shaking hands with the man.” Gustav admitted, “He didn’t seem like a bad person to me, he even had a lovely Persian with him back then. Are you sure the woman wasn’t just employed there?”

  Valerie rolled her eyes, “Someone like Giovanni would obviously be able to hide their real intentions. I did look into Team Rocket and Giovanni beforehand, the public barely sees him outside of official showings. It makes me wonder what he is actually doing all that time.”

  “Probably running a Gym? Living his life?” Michelle answered to a nod from Gustav, “It doesn’t matter what the man does in his free time anyway, don’t accuse people of being criminals without any clear evidence. Just because he employs someone who supposedly works for Team Rocket doesn’t mean he is suddenly connected.” Her mother ripped Valerie's argument to pieces, “For all we know, the man is just as much of a victim as you are.”

  Before she could counter, her mother continued, pulling Valerie up from her seat and into a hug, “I know this whole fiasco has you panicking and seeing Ghost-Types, you’re paranoid, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not-” But her mother cut her off again before she could explain herself,

  “Look, make sure you report the entire thing to Professor Oak and make sure he starts some kind of investigation into it. If you can do that, then I’ll allow it. You’re about to go on your journey, so I want to let you handle this yourself. Your responsibilities will get bigger as you age, after all. We’re with you, no matter what you want to do, ok, Valerie?”

  Rolling her eyes in her mother's embrace, Valerie barely suppressed a teenage sigh, “Sure, Mom…”

  …

  “Miss Riston, it is good to hear from you again.” Professor Oak smiled back at Valerie from the video feed on Valerie's phone, both Sybil and Larry were sitting on Valerie's desk, flanking Valerie on both sides on her video feed. “I see your Pokemon are in good health as well?”

  His Laboratory looked still as incomprehensible as the first time Larry had seen it, wires and pipes hung around in the background, with even a large, glowing tube able to be spotted in the distance.

  “Fortunately, they are, thank you for replying to my messages so quickly, Professor Oak!” Valerie bowed respectfully.

  “It doesn't matter,” Waving off her apology, the Professor continued, “Now, what have you called me for. I assume you have something you wanted to discuss, considering you’ve contacted me regarding moves before?”

  “Well, it's actually something connected to my Pokemon.” Their trainer started explaining, “I’ve been training for the start of my journey in Viridian City-”

  “So you are going on your journey this year?” Oak repeated with a fond, grandfatherly smile, “So that is what those questions regarding moves were for. You hadn’t mentioned the fact before. Congratulations!

  “Thanks, but something bad happened during those preparations.” She explained, “While I wasn’t near Sybil and Larry here, they went out to explore the city.” Both Pokemon shrank in on themselves at the accusation.

  “My! Runaway Pokemon are a common issue in new trainers, it's nothing to fuss about,” Oak explained with a hearty laugh.

  “Them running away for a bit did scare me a bit, but I was more worried about what happened while they were gone.” Valerie explained, “They were almost kidnapped by a group called Team Rocket.”

  The Professor's tone and demeanor changed almost instantly, swapping the grandfatherly, relaxed tone of voice for a far more serious one, “Team Rocket? Are you sure?”

  “The girl who tried to steal my Pokemon called herself part of that, apparently.” She looked unsure, “A friend of mine has a Pokemon that can write, it was used as an interpreter between me and my Pokemon so they could explain what happened.”

  “For Team Rocket to be spotted in Viridian City of all places…” The Professor had turned introspective, “That certainly isn’t good…”

  Valerie confessed her plans, “I was hoping you could get in contact with the police to get the person who attacked my Pokemon arrested. I know who the Team Rocket member is!”

  After a short deliberation, the Professor nodded, “I’d be happy to help. Tell me everything you know.”