Journey Ruby Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Pocket Monster parody: Tier 1

Chapter 2 

Chapter 3 Oldale Battle Club

Ruby had set off onto Route 103 to try and catch a Water Pokemon. Ketchum wanted to do some training before reaching Petalburg City and challenging his first gym, so he hit up the Battle Club in Oldale Town.

He met up with Don George. “Well if it isn’t Ash, I was hoping to see you again!”

Ash smiled. “Thanks for your help against Team Magma!”

The man pounded his chest. “No thanks necessary!” He brought Ash over to the desk and got him registered in the Battle Club. “Here you go, here is your Battle Pass and your Battle Pager.”

His Battle Pass would allow him to enter any event held by the Battle Club in Hoenn. The Battle Pager would register him at any Battle Club in the area and alert him if someone wished to battle, it’d also keep record of his wins and losses, and keep track of his battle points. “You can use Battle Points to purchase items, technique machines, and the like.”

The pass also let him use any training facility in the club. “While we offer technique machines that allow Pokemon to learn moves instantly, we also have experienced move tutors who can help pokemon develop moves.” They had training equipment to help boost a pokemon’s stats as well.

Don George even upgraded Ash’s Pokedex, to keep track of his monsters moves, allowing them to be remembered and changed out.

Ash was getting excited. This place was perfect for him to train and prepare for his gym match.

He told Don George what he was currently working on. In kind Don George registered him for both Single and Double battle matches. Ash could send out three requests at a time, a lot of the trainers were newbies and like him looking to do some training with the pokemon they caught.

A lot of the newbies were requesting single battles while the more experienced trainers were looking for doubles. Ash put out two requests for singles and one request for doubles.

Trainer’s Monsters: Zigzagoon, Poochyena, Wingull, Lotad, Wurmple, Seedot, Ralts, and Surskit with some having the starters Treecko, Mudkip, and Torchic.

Ash hadn’t seen some of these pokemon before so used this opportunity to use his Pokedex to learn more about them. For the single matches he had Poochyena battle Zigzagoons, Poochyena, Ralts, and the starters when able. His dark type loved to show off. Don George suggested he learn the element fangs, with their battle point wins Ash got the TM’s for Fire Fang, Thunder Fang, and Ice Fang.

Technique Machines were cool, they were little boxes that created a powder, when exposed to the powder a monster learns the move contained inside. There was a recharge time, but they were very handy devices.

With Fire Fang, Poochyena was able to battle against other Pokemon as well.

Torchic was put up against Lotads, Wurmples, Seedots, Treecko, and Torchics. His efforts helped him learn Flame Charge and as a bonus he learned Detect!

Pikachu took on Wingulls, Lotads, Surskit, and the starters. Don George suggested that Pikachu learn Discharge instead of Thunder, it was a tricky move for Double Battles as it risked hitting your partner but it was a very powerful move.

As for Phanpy, Ash saved them for Double Battles. He made the perfect combo with Pikachu, as a ground type he couldn’t be hurt by Discharge. Phanpy also had a stellar combo of Defense Curl and Roll Out. When partnering with Torchic and Poochyena he focused on using Mud Slap, to deal damage and lower accuracy. It gave time for Torchic to build up speed or Poochyena to show off.

When they were up against flying types, Poochyena used Thunder Fang and Phanpy used Rollout. Don George helped Phanpy learn Mud Shot, another ground damage inflicting move that weakens some stats.

After each battle Ash gave his mons a massage to help them recover, it helped strengthen their bonds, and when he was waiting for a new match to happen he was using the training facilities. For Pikachu and Poochyena he was having them train their Special Atk and Attack respectfully, for Torchic it was about boosting their Speed and Phanpy it was about boosting their Defense. It was a solid routine, and Ash was training right along side them.

Their battles racked up quite a sum of Battle Points, so he used them to grab some new TM’s: Protect, Bulk Up, and Sand Storm.

Ping Ping Ping

His pager went off. “Oh sweet, we got a challenge!” The mons were eager for their next match.

They went out and bumped into Morrison. “Hey Ash!”

“Sup Morrison.” The two shared a fist bump. “Are you my challenger?”

The orangette crossed his arms. “Sure am, I’ve been training like crazy and I’ve even caught a new Pokemon.” He was quick to show him off revealing Wingull. “We’ve been doing a lot of training in the wild, are you ready for another surprise?” Next he called out his Marshtomp.

“Whoa!” Ash pulled out his Pokedex. “So this is Mudkip’s evolution?”

Dexter: Marshtomp, the Mud Fish Pokemon, the evolved form of Mudkip. It is able to swim through mud as quickly as ir swims through water. Their lower body is well developed, so it’s capable of walking on two legs. Because it weakens if its skin dries out, it replenishes fluids by playing in mud. A Water and Ground type.

“My Marshtomp is awesome and with its typing it can crush your Pikachu, Phanpy, and Torchic easily!” He’s been working hard to get his Mudkip stronger, and worked to get him to evolve. “Has your Torchic evolved yet?”

Ash chuckled. “Not yet, but he’ll evolve when it’s time!” They’ve been working on his moves. Ash and Pikachu had a long history about the ways of evolution, he didn’t want to use it as a crutch and if his pokemon didn’t want to evolve that was fine, he’d find strength in other ways.

“We’ve been training like crazy so let’s have a battle!” Ash nodded. “Let’s make it a double battle!” Morrison believed he had the edge being a Hoenn boy born and raised.

“Alright but first.” Ash got his TM’s, he used one to teach Poochyena Ice Fang, and one more to teach him another move. “It’ll be Pikachu and Poochyena!” He had Phanpy and Torchic out to observe the battle.

Morrison was using Marshtomp and Wingull. “Let’s start things off with a bang Water Gun both of you!” The two mons unleashed the attacks, one looking more powerful than the other.

“Pikachu use Quick Attack, Poochyena dodge and use Mud Slap.” Pikachu zipped and avoided the blast, he launched and hit Wingull.

Poochyena’s paws glowed with ground energy, he jumped and slapped mud at Marshtomp. It wasn’t very effective. “Ha ha, you should know Marshtomp is a Water and Ground type, that move won’t do much damage!” He missed the drop in accuracy.

“Keep it up Poochyena, Pikachu one more time!”

“I’ll fight Quick Attack with Quick Attack, do it Wingull. Marshtomp use Water Gun!” The Water/Flying type glowed with energy and zipped at great speed.

In a clash of Quick Attacks it came down to speed, and Pikachu was just too fast. Pikachu was able to land a hit, Wingull hit back.

Mashtomp hit Poochyena with Water Gun but the Dark type managed to hit him with Mud Slap, dropping more of his accuracy.

Poochyena shook the water off and Pikachu got back up.

“Pikachu use Thunderbolt on Wingull, Poochyena use Bite!” Ash called for the moves.

Morrison smirked. “Marshtomp block it!” The large water type got in the way of the electric attack and it did no damage. Wingull took to the air, dodging the Bite.

The orangette was patting himself on the back for the double battle play. “Let’s mix things up, Marshtomp show them your Ground move, hit em with Mud Shot. Wingull use Supersonic!” Their target was the dark type.

“Pikachu use Discharge, Poochyena use that!” They had a plan. Pikachu unleashed the powerful electric move, it struck Marshtomp but it had no effect.

“Sorry Ash but Ground types aren’t effected by Electric moves.” Marshtomp unleashed his attack, but the Mud Shot struck a barrier.

Poochyena was using Protect, a protective aura surrounding him blocking not only Discharge but the Mud Shot. “Oh man I forgot Discharge is a sweeping move!” Wingull got hit taking four times the damage.

He unleashed Supersonic but it was blocked by the Protect. “Nice!” Ash praised. This was a fantastic combo. Morrison was too over confident in the Ground typing.

Wingull was down but not out.

“Poochyena use Ice Fang on Wingull, Pikachu use Quick Attack on Marshtomp.” The mons charged at his command.

Morrison panicked. “Marshtomp use Rock Throw, Wingull use Wing Attack.” His Water/Ground type conjured rocks and threw them, but the stones missed.

Poochyena bit Wingull, the ice energy washing over him and knocking him out. Now it was two on one.

Pikachu hit Marshtomp and knocked him back. Morrison called for all sorts of moves, Water Gun, Mud Shot, Rock Throw, but thanks to his double drop in Accuracy Ash’s mons were able to dodge and counter attack.

Poochyena landed Bite, Ice Fang, and another Mud Slap for good measure. Pikachu didn’t have many effective moves so he just hit with Quick Attack.

Marshtomp was quite tanky, but since he couldn’t hit and was being pelted by attacks he eventually fell. “Aww man!” He lost.

Ash rushed over. “Morrison your pokemon are really tough, you are a great trainer!” He praised.

Morrison blushed. “Oh thanks!” Ketchum had received pointers on double battles from Don George, and had experimented in double battles at the club. “You sure have picked up on double battles.”

“I still got more to learn, but they are a lot of fun!” Ash was beaming like a Thunderbolt flash, and it made Morrison’s heart race.

“I uh, I gotta go...later Ash!” He made the excuse he was taking his mons to the pokemon center.

Ash gave his Pokemon a massage as a reward for their battle. Don George approached him. “You are quite the battler Ash, if you keep this up you’ll rise through the ranks in no time.”

“What ranks?”

At the battle club they had a Rank System, the normal entrants were in the Basic class, which let them use all the standard things at the club. “If you enter enough battles in clubs all over the region you can make it to Silver Class, then Gold Class, then Crystal Class, then Sapphire Class, until you reach the top at Ruby Class!” The battle club offered tournaments and events that anyone could enter, but offered special stuff for the higher ranks. These events were more challenging and against seasoned battlers. The higher the ranked event the higher quality of the prizes.

“That sounds awesome, I can’t wait to class up!” If it meant more battling he was all for it, more battles meant more training and experience after all.

Don George gave Ash some supplies, some monster balls, potions, and some monster food. Ketchum went to the Center to get healed up and felt it was time to head to Petalburg City for his first badge. Morrison had already finished recovering and left, but Ash did bump into Ruby.

He was feeling miffed as he didn’t find any pokemon he wanted. “What Pokemon are you looking for?”

Ruby chuckled. “I want this!” He showed Ash a picture of Milotic. “Have you ever seen a pokemon so beautiful and elegant before?”

He was off but Ruby decided to tag along, hoping to find better luck in route 102. Ash was looking forward to Route 102 as well, a lot of trainers told him where they got their pokemon.

To be continued