Pokemon: Mega Tactics - Chapter 1.2

You surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly made it to Santalune City quick quickly, making amazing time. It might have had something to do with your excitement getting the better of you and having fun racing Charmander for a bit, but really, it could have been anything! Honest!

You only stopped once for a quick lunch with your pokemon and to introduce Pidgeotto to Gible. Charmander was already well acquainted with your first pokemon, honestly every pokemon back at your uncle's lab was. After all, it was a common sight for your little buddy to challenge his mother, your uncle's powerful Garchomp to battles. You'd learned throughout it all, that dragon pokemon and those with dragon type characteristics grew faster under tough training and tough battles.

Still, when you found yourself reaching Santalune City, it was just a bit passed five pm and the sun was only beginning to dip down below the horizon.

You could have went to the gym for your gym battle, or even went straight to Santalune Forest, but you decided the most logical thing to do, would be to head to the Pokemon Centre first and rent a room for the night and get some training in with your pokemon, to see the full capabilities of Pidgeotto and Charmander.

They didn't disappoint at all. They had a good control over their attacks and even in battle they were pretty damn good. They lasted way longer in their spar against Gible than you thought they would, even if it was two on one.

Gible may have still been a bottom tier evolution pokemon, but he was strong. You'd had him for five years at this point, and even Alain's Charmeleon had lost a few times when they battled, even if it won more than most. And it was only a few months ago that Gible dominated the junior trainer tournament held in Lumiose City, you technically shouldn't have been allowed to participate since you weren't a licensed trainer at the time, but your uncle pulled some strings and got you in. And you ended up winning a TM, having not used it yet, you were saving it for when you started your journey, and an extra ten thousand pokedollars to add to your starting trainer funds.

For non trainers, it was actually quite a lot of money. The average everyday person working a mundane middle class nine to five job made at most around two thousand a month after all. There were vast amounts of money to be made as a trainer, but at the same time, it also cost quite a lot to train pokemon to reach the top as well.

So the fact they put up a good fight against Gible and held their own impressed you. And when they were going through their attacks together, Charmander actually even managed to learn how to use Dig from Gible. Honestly, with how well he took to battles and how quickly he learned, you were beginning to think that Charmander might be a little battle savant.

After that, you and your pokemon returned to the pokemon centre to rest. It was already just passed seven pm when you did, but when you walked in, you were in for quite the shock with all the residents within the pokemon centre lobby were crowded around a large television, of a live news bulletin.

Showing live as the famous Ash Ketchum, alongside his equally famous partner Pikachu, and a very familiar Froakie did battle with your uncle's Garchomp as she ran around crazily, blasting hyper beams everywhere...atop the near cloud piercing Lumiose Tower.

..You were just lucky you had already returned your pokemon before you entered, or Gible would have went absolutely mental at seeing the state his mother was in.

Thankfully while your heart was practically in your throat through it all, Ash Ketchum managed to save the day. His Pikachu was something else, so fast and powerful that even the Garchomp who stomped your Gible daily couldn't react and destroyed whatever was on her neck and causing her to go crazy.

Still, the thin footing they had atop the tower broke apart and Pikachu fell hundreds of feet, Ash leaping after it. But things worked out okay when Ash grabbed Pikachu and the little electric type merely used Iron Tail to stab its tail into the side of the building and slow their descent, grinding through the building all the way down. It would be costly to repair, but there was nobody hurt.

Once the news footage finished, after a close up of Ash and naming him for all to hear and praising him, you slumped into your seat, a hand placed above your chest to calm your racing heart.

'that was crazy!' you groaned.

You gave it a little bit, before you used the Pokemon Centre video phone to call back to the lab. Your uncle was quick to assure you that everywhere was fine, and the cause behind Garchomp going crazy was apparently some criminal organization called Team Rocket trying to steal her.

You'd need to keep your eye out for people like that from now on. Your hands had clenched at the mention of their team name. How dare these fools try and steal your uncle's pokemon and the precious mother of your precious friend!

Your uncle continued on by telling you that Ash Ketchum was apparently staying at the lab for the night, and no less, he was sleeping in your room!

It was probably a good thing you hadn't brought your poster of him from a few years back with you to your uncles. You'd been following his career for years now. He was a boy who started his journey a few years younger than you, Kanto were more lax on the age rule for starting journeys, and even his first year, as a ten year old managed to make it to the Indigo League! And make it to the top sixteen no less!

He hadn't won a league yet sadly, but each time he competed, Ash Ketchum got closer and closer to becoming a league champion. First the top sixteen in Kanto, then the top eight in Johto, he just narrowly lost to the one who went on to easily win the semifinals and finals of the Hoenn League, reaching the top eight again, he reached the top four in the Sinnoh League and his pokemon defeated two legendary pokemon used by the mysterious Tobias, and just recently a few months back, he narrowly lost again in the finals of the Unova League, using a team of pokemon he'd only started raising for that journey.

'Ash Ketchum huh?' you mused with a grin not long later after you went to your room for the night after bidding your uncle goodbye. 'I'd love to battle him!'

____________

The next morning you were once again up bright and early, already having gotten dressed, eaten breakfast and fed your pokemon by seven in the morning.

You quickly left the Pokemon Centre behind after thanking Nurse Joy and made your way towards Santalune Forest.

It wasn't very far away. And you could see it from the Santalune City gates since the city was uphill from it. So it didn't take you very long at all, maybe twenty minutes at a rather fast stride.

When you reached the outsides of the forest, you took a seat on a large rock and grabbed Pidgeotto's pokeball from your belt and released the flying and normal type.

"Pidgeo!" Pidgeotto raised a wing to greeted you.

"Hey buddy," you greeted him back, "Can you do me a favor?"

"Pidg." Pidgeotto nodded

"Great," you smiled, before pointing to the forest, "I need you to fly above the forest and scout it out. I'm looking for a Beedrill, Heracross, Scyther, Scizor or Pinsir, even better if you can find any in a large group or swarm."

How mega stones came into existence was still a mystery, but through the ones that had been found, your uncle had concluded that they tended to appear in areas inhabited by large groups of pokemon capable of mega evolving. The Charizardite you had currently, was apparently found within the Charicific Valley in the Johto Region.

"Pidgeotto!" Pidgeotto gave you a firm nod, before he lifted his wing and saluted you, then hopped into the air and with a few powerful beats of his long wings, ascended into the air above the Santalune Forest  and flew off into the distance, scouring it from above.

You put your hands out behind you on the rock to lean on and looked up into the sky, taking in the bright sun filled and cloudless blue expanse, 'I should probably check that Beedrill Hive in the forest on Route 4 as well.' you mused. You'd completely forgotten about it until you'd already reached Santalune City. You and Gible had come across the hive a few months ago when exploring and training outside Lumiose City. You had stumbled across them by accident and the whole hive had attacked. It was just lucky Gible knew Flamethrower by then and was much stronger than the majority of them, though the leader of the Beedrill Hive had put up quite the fight.

It was nearly a half an hour later later that Pidgeotto returned, flapping his wings at you and beckoning you to follow him.

So you did. Bouncing up off of the rock your were using as a seat, you followed behind your bird pokemon as he flew into the forest, keeping down low enough for you to see him.

The forest was filled to the brim with pokemon. You startled a Pikachu munching on an oran berry as you jumped over the bush it was eating from. Pidgeotto had to swing back and take care of a Venomoth that didn't take too kindly to you rushing passed it and giving it a fright. It grabbed you up into the air with Confusion, only for Pidgeotto to Use Mirror Move to grab it with Confusion, slam it into a tree then finish it off with a Wing Attack.

Deeper and deeper Pidgeotto led you into the forest, far away from the safety of the travelling roads built into the forest for travelers. You passed by a Weedle and a Kakuna at one point that you were tempted to catch, but decided not to in the end since there was a much bigger selection of Beedrill you knew about that you could pick from when you travelled back through Route 4 if you wanted one.

You must have been running for a good ten minutes and went easily a mile deep into the forest before you reached your destination.

You skidded to a stop, hands clasping your knees as you breathed deeply, trying to get your breath back when Pidgeotto landed just at the end of a tree line.

"Pidgeo!" Pidgeotto gestured out with one of his wings and hunched over on your knees, you looked up and followed to where he was pointing.

It was large clearing with no trees or bushes, except the one. An absolutely massive tree, easily over a hundred feet tall and what had to be fifty feet wide stared back at you.

And dotted all across its surface, was dozens of Heracross. 'Heracross love tree sap.' you remembered from your studies.

Perfect!

You grinned and took a few more seconds to get your breathe back before making your way into the clearing and towards the massive tree filled with Heracross'. Pidgeotto quickly walking beside you on his talons.

Just as you were half way towards the tree though, Pidgeotto's eyes widened and the bird hopped in front of you throwing a wing up to block you from going any further.

Just as you were about to ask why he stopped you, a massive shadow descended from above and the earth shook as a huge Heracross slammed into the ground a few feet in front of you.

'Whoa!' your own eyes widened in a bit of awe. Heracross as a species were roughly just below five feet in height, and generally could grow a few more inches. This one would practically tower above most Heracross, it was easily a foot taller, hell it was taller than you!

The Heracross eyed both you and Pidgeotto before crossing its arms together in front of its chest, "Hera!?" it..demanded you think.

It might be demanding why you were approaching the tree.