Pokémon: Master of the Rain Team

”Come on out, everyone!”

When Senta saw so many Pokémon by the lake, he released his own team too: Wartortle, Poliwhirl, Slowpoke, Gyarados, Scyther, Seadra, and Pelipper. The kid was clearly copying him.

Cissy released her Pokémon as well.

”Blastoise, Seadra, Marill, Slowpoke, Staryu, Psyduck.”

Still the same lineup as before, six Water types exactly. If she ever ran into a strong Electric type, she could get swept from start to finish. Luckily, she was a Gym Leader. Gym battles weren’t normal battles, so she would never give a challenger that kind of opening.

”Senta, your Magikarp evolved?” Reiji looked toward the Gyarados in the lake.

The moment it came out, it started roaring like mad. Reiji’s Gyarados couldn’t stand it and smacked it down with its tail, sending it straight to the bottom. It probably wouldn’t come back up until it learned its place.

There were three Gyarados in the lake now.

”Yeah! Rai-nii’s Gyarados was so strong, so I let Magikarp evolve too!” Senta stared excitedly at the two Gyarados thrashing around in the water and shouted encouragement, telling his Gyarados not to give up.

”Great. Another hot-blooded little hero boy. Very on-brand for this world.”

Reiji sighed and ruffled Senta’s hair, then turned to Cissy. ”So why are you two here?”

”I brought you breakfast.”

Cissy lifted the breakfast box. Remembering what her mother had told her, her cheeks turned red. How was a girl supposed to take the lead and ask about that kind of thing? Her mother really was too much.

”Breakfast?”

Reiji almost said he had already eaten, but she had gone out of her way to bring it. Saying that would be rude, so he changed direction with a smile.

”Have you two eaten? Let’s eat together.”

”Okay.”

Cissy lit up like a little girl. She laid a moisture-proof mat on the grass and opened the lunchbox layer by layer. She had prepared this carefully. Hopefully it would be a good start.

Knock, knock, knock.

The sound of hammering near the cabin drew Cissy’s attention. She looked over and asked, ”You’re building another cabin?”

”It’s for the Pokémon. I have a lot of them.”

That was the only explanation Reiji could give. If Cissy didn’t believe him, there was nothing he could do. That was how people got when romance took over their brains.

”Oh, Pokémon huts.”

Cissy looked toward the lake. Her and Senta’s Pokémon had known Reiji’s Pokémon for more than two months now. They were already familiar with each other, so the moment they met, they started playing together.

Reiji took a bite of a meat bun and immediately felt something was wrong.

”This is pretty salty. Who made breakfast? Don’t tell me the kitchen lady’s cooking got worse. That doesn’t sound right.”

He quickly took a drink of water.

To Cissy, that sounded like he was laughing at her cooking. She had gotten up at six in the morning to knead dough and steam buns, and all she got for it was ”too salty.” Her fist nearly clenched on its own.

If her mother hadn’t told her to calm down first whenever she got upset, she might already have started yelling at him. This jerk only knew how to nitpick.

”This was made by my sis—”

Senta picked up a bun too, and his face twisted from the salt. He had just started to say his sister made them when Cissy clapped a hand over his mouth.

”Shut up. Go play with your Pokémon,” Cissy hissed into his ear. ”Say one more word, and I’ll pull your tongue out and make tongue-filled buns.”

”Mmph! Mmph!”

Senta blinked hard and nodded at once. Only then did Cissy let him go.

Reiji stared at them.

It was just a bun. Was that really necessary?

”Haha, it’s fine,” Cissy said awkwardly, forcing a laugh. ”Maybe the kitchen lady used too much salt. I’ll remind her when I get back.”

”Forget it. She works hard too. It’s still edible.”

Reiji took another big bite. If it was salty, he could just drink more water.

”Jerk.”

Cissy kept smiling, but in her head, she had already turned Reiji into a rag doll and thrown him to the ground. Two little versions of herself were beating the doll from both sides while cursing him.

So the kitchen lady worked hard, but she didn’t?

She had gotten up at six to knead dough with that kitchen lady.

”What’s wrong? Do you feel sick?”

Reiji looked at her frozen smile and wondered if her face had locked up.

”No, nothing.”

Cissy grabbed a bun to hide her panic and took a bite.

The salt hit her so hard she almost questioned her whole life.

”Mmph. Yeah... I should’ve used less salt.”

”Good?” Reiji asked on purpose.

”It’s fine,” Cissy muttered, pretending nothing was wrong. Then she asked where the bathroom was.

”Inside.”

Reiji pointed to the cabin. Cissy abandoned the bun and ran inside.

Only then did Reiji finally laugh. He had held it in the whole time just to make sure Cissy took a bite too.

The morning passed in that kind of noise and teasing.

At lunch, Cissy volunteered to cook. The food was bad enough that even the construction workers looked pale and quickly said they had brought their own rations.

Senta warned Reiji in time, so Reiji didn’t touch the food either. He cooked something edible himself, set it in front of Cissy, and asked, ”How do you usually cook?”

”Instant noodles.”

Cissy’s face turned red, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. It was so embarrassing. She had never cooked at home. Whenever the kitchen lady took leave, she just ate instant noodles.

Pfft.

Reiji couldn’t hold back. That one wasn’t his fault. He almost sprayed his food.

”Try this. I made it.”

He brought over bowls, chopsticks, and rice. Cissy hadn’t known how much water to use for the rice either, so it hadn’t cooked properly. Reiji had added more water and turned it into plain rice porridge.

”You made this?”

Cissy took one bite of the stir-fried pork with peppers, and the flavor immediately filled her mouth. This was exactly the kind of taste the kitchen lady made.

”Of course. It’s just home cooking. Is it good?”

Reiji had lived alone in his previous life, so stir-frying was a basic skill. He had been doing it for more than ten years. The only real difference was that the ingredients in this world were different.

”It’s good.”

The little version of Cissy inside her head started cheering. She hadn’t expected this jerk to be good at cooking too. He trained Pokémon well, won the Indigo Plateau Conference, and could even cook. If his personality weren’t so awful, he would almost be perfect.

”Then eat more.”

Reiji picked up his bowl and started lunch too.

He still had evolutions to prepare that afternoon. Barboach and Tentacool both evolved at level thirty.

He had been away for more than two months, and both had already reached the point where they should evolve. He needed to handle that soon. Poliwhirl still had to wait two more days until it was in better condition, but that was close too.

After lunch, the construction workers were still building the Pokémon huts. Reiji brought Eevee to the lakeside. Cissy and Senta were curious and followed him. Their driver had already left and would come back in the evening to pick them up.

When they heard Reiji was about to evolve his Pokémon, both of them grew interested. Evolution wasn’t something people got to see every day, especially since it was irreversible.

Before evolving Barboach and Tentacool, Reiji opened Tentacool’s panel first.

[Tentacool]

[Type: Water + Poison]

[Gender: Female]

[Potential: 52%]

[Level: 32.11%]

[Ability: Clear Body / 16.13%] [Hidden Ability: Rain Dish / 20.33%]

Tentacool’s panel looked pretty good.

After this evolution, it should step into Elite Four potential. Unfortunately, a Tentacruel that barely crossed that line still wasn’t enough. Not even close.

To become an experienced Elite Four-level Pokémon, the kind Reiji usually called an old-guard Elite Four Pokémon, it needed at least 70 potential. Ideally, 75 or higher. The higher, the better.

Not many of his Pokémon could meet that standard.

Out of everything he owned, only six had potential above 70: Kingler at 72, Rhydon at 75, Gyarados at 79, Forretress at 72, Weezing at 88, Gengar, which had already broken past the normal limit, and Darkrai at 79.

For Pokémon above 75, he only had four. Two under his public identity, two under his hidden one.

That showed how hard it was to reach 70 potential. He had more than forty Pokémon, yet only a handful could become experienced Elite Four-level Pokémon.

For Champion potential, he only had Gengar and Weezing. Gyarados was still a little short. Darkrai didn’t count for now, since Reiji didn’t even know if it would come back.

At this point, reaching Elite Four tier was no longer difficult for him. If he picked six Pokémon from his teams at random, several would have Elite Four potential. But a Pokémon that had only just entered Elite Four tier was mostly good for guarding the house.

It could still fight, of course. The problem was that future battles would most likely be between Elite Four-level Trainers. Against ordinary Elite Four-tier opponents, it might manage. Against veterans, Tentacruel and the others would be outclassed.

One option was to have two Elite Four-tier Pokémon produce an Egg. The young Pokémon would be born with Elite Four potential, and after two stages of evolution, it could reliably reach higher potential than the parents.

Champion tier was the real wall.

Right now, Reiji only had two ways to get there.

The first was time. The slowest, dumbest method. Dragon types, Psychic types like Slowpoke, and Ghost types all got better with age.

Another possible route was to push a Poison-type Pokémon toward Champion tier through a ”poison jar” method, feeding it stronger and stronger toxins until it transformed. But that path was far too expensive, and the risk was just as high. If the Pokémon’s body couldn’t stabilize all that Poison-type energy, it could end up killing itself.

The other path was combination evolution. Some Pokémon could gain extra potential by merging, linking, or evolving as a group, which gave Reiji a way to squeeze out more growth than a normal evolution would allow. A regular evolution could only push a Pokémon so far, and he didn’t have decades to wait. If he wanted Champion-tier potential, he had to take advantage of every extra evolution opportunity he could find.

Slowpoke, Diglett, Magneton, plus Gengar, Weezing, and Gyarados.

Six Champion-tier Pokémon would already be his limit.

A normal Champion-level Trainer might only have two or three Champion-tier Pokémon, not counting Legendary Pokémon. Only Pokémon they raised themselves counted. Some might have just one or two, like Agatha’s Gengar, Professor Oak’s Dragonite, or Cissy’s grandfather’s Slowking.

That was how rare Champion-tier Pokémon were.

These were the kind of Pokémon that could pin down the so-called three Legendary birds and beat them senseless. Raising even one was hard. No wonder so many villains could think of nothing but Legendary Pokémon.

Legendary Pokémon were born strong. Most were already close to Champion tier. With a little training and one final breakthrough, Champion tier was within reach. Some were already there from the start.

Normal Pokémon were different. No matter how well they were raised, the time cost was real. Humans simply didn’t live that long.

If Reiji could raise six Champion-tier Pokémon, he would be satisfied. Those six, backed by a group of Elite Four-tier Pokémon, would be enough for most of what he wanted to do.

Three for his public identity, three for his hidden identity. That would give both sides enough weight.

Reiji stopped thinking about it and waved Tentacool over.

At level thirty-two, it should have evolved already. He didn’t know what it had been waiting for.

”Cool.”

Tentacool came to the shore. Many Pokémon playing in the lake stopped and looked over curiously.

Reiji took out the materials for its evolution: one Water Gem, one Poison Gem, and one low-grade Water Stone.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to give more. He just wasn’t sure Tentacool could absorb all the energy from even these three.

”Tentacool, hold these two Gems with your tentacles. Put the Water Stone in your mouth and try drawing out its energy.”

Reiji had checked Tentacool’s evolution. It did not need an Evolution Stone.

But he had still prepared one. Not needing a Stone didn’t mean evolution required no energy. Back when Poliwhirl evolved, he had been too poor and could only give it one Water Gem. Now that he had money, he wasn’t going to shortchange his Pokémon.

”Coool!!.”

The moment Tentacool held the two Gems and drew energy from the Water Stone in its mouth, white light spread across its body.

”Good. Absorb the energy from the Gems and the Water Stone. Take in as much as you can.”

”Teee!”

Tentacool cried out.

When the light faded, its body had grown larger. It had more tentacles now, and two huge red gems sat on its head.

”Tentacruel, congratulations. Now spit out the Water Stone.”

Reiji congratulated it, then had it return the Stone.

”Cruel.”

Tentacruel spat it out, and the Water Stone landed in front of Reiji.

He bent down and picked it up from the grass. Only one or two percent purity remained. For a Water Stone, that was basically dead rock. As expected, Tentacool had not absorbed it all. Its buildup had been enough to evolve, but only just.

”Rhydon, you can have this.”

Reiji rinsed the Water Stone clean and tossed it to Hanhan. Even depleted Stones still held more nutrition than ordinary ore.

”Rhy! Crunch, crunch...”

Tentacruel saw Rhydon bite straight through the Water Stone without hesitation, then tossed the two drained Gems over as well.

”Tentacruel, you’ve evolved. Everyone is waiting. Go celebrate with them.”

Reiji took out some Water-type Pokéblocks and gave them to Tentacruel so it could share them with the others.

Once Tentacruel returned to the lake, Reiji opened its new panel from the shore.

[End of chapter]

[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]

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