Reincarnated in a Pokémon world

38. Dratini

It was a serpentine Pokémon with a blue body and a white underside. It had white, three-pronged fins on the sides of its head and a white bump on its forehead, which was its horn growing. Above its round and white snout were oval, purple eyes. Lyon immediately recognized which Pokémon it was. He was surprised why he didn't notice its existence. He looked around and didn't see any other Pokémon from its species. Okay. Now he understood why he had overlooked. Dratini was alone in the middle of a large crowd so it was hardly recognizable.

Lyon remembered he had heard a voice calling from behind so he asked:

-Did you just call me?

Dratini responded by nodding its head. "So I didn't hear it wrong." He then suddenly had a thought which made him thrilled. "Wait! I'm looking for new companions. Did Dratini see me asking around and..." His head went boom as such exhilaration rushed through his body.

-Hey, did you ask to join us?

Lyon was looking at Dratini with great expectation. Although among dragon-type pseudo-legendary Pokémon, he preferred Salamence and Garchomp as they had Mega Evolution; there's no means that Dragonite was bad. The only downside was it didn't have Mega Evolution and that's it. Its stats were awesome so he had no complaint if Dratini wanted to join.

But to his disappointment, Dratini shook its head. Lyon felt like he was dropped from heaven to hell. He had to deeply breathe in and out to control his emotion. Then he realized Dratini said something after that. Lyon glanced at Riolu, signaling it to translate.

-Milord, Dratini said he only had the intention to join if you showed your worth.

-A battle, isn't it? – Lyon inquired.

-Not just by winning, milord. He said he wants to know what you could do for him to grow. – Riolu paused to hear Dratini's speaking and continued. – Because your strength is weaker than the standard, normally no dragon-type Pokémon will consider your invitation unless you have some special abilities which are helpful to their growth. Although you have some kind of energy in your body, it's close to nil so...

-I need to show him how I will make him grow. Is that it?

-Yes, milord. Because you are his benefactor, he decided to give you a chance. As long as he's convinced that he will have a much brighter future with you, he accepts your invitation.

Lyon kept quiet and pondered. "So it's true that I'm not strong enough. Others didn't even consider my invitation." Although he understood, he still felt a bit irritated. "I'm not good enough. Okay. But I did help them, shouldn't they give me some respect, not attitude?" Lyon then looked at Dratini and felt pleased. Not because there's finally a dragon-type Pokémon that wanted to join. It's because Dratini's personality was to his taste. Yes, he liked dragon-type Pokémon very much. But if a Pokémon that didn't give him some respect, it would be hard to train them. He rather had a weaker Pokémon but was willing to cooperate. The job of a Pokémon Trainer was to train their companions, not to catch already powerful Pokémon. They had to figure out how to grow, which path their Pokémon should take, and guide them.

He believed it was his job to strengthen their advantages and minimize their flaws. So when he took a Pokémon, his decision wasn't based on their potential. And Dratini had the dignity of a gentleman. He liked that.

Now the only problem that remained was how he could make Dratini approve of him. As Lyon was pondering, he looked back at his Pokémon and analyzed the situation in his brain. Finally, he made a decision and shouted:

-Beautifly!

Hearing Lyon called its name, Beautifly excitedly used Psychic to levitate from above Deerling's head and glide forwards. Although Beautifly was famous for being pretty, that didn't mean it was docile. On the contrary, Beautifly was very aggressive. Especially the one he got, it was very combative. Losing its wings was very hard for it to take. Still, it continuously used Giga Drain to maintain its life and trained using Psychic, hoping for a day when it could fight again. There's no way he would ignore its efforts. So today Lyon chose Beautifly to show Dratini how important perseverance was, which also was his principle.

As a result of its experience, Beautifly specialized in using Psychic and Giga Drain which made it better at using psychic-type and grass-type moves. Unfortunately, aside from Psychic and Rest, Lyon didn't remember if it could learn any other psychic-type moves so he could only let it trained using Psychic in various ways, and he thought that was more than enough for Beautifly to play it as a trump card. As for grass-type moves, though Beautifly could perform powerful moves like Solar Beam or Energy Ball, and by no means it's weak, still he found Giga Drain was the most efficient as it had been the only rope Beautifly could hold on to amidst despair while struggling between the line of life and death.

Beautifly was a bug/flying-type Pokémon so it did have some talents in using bug-type and flying-type moves. But without its wings, the only flying-type move it could use was Roost. And after considering its opponent was Dratini, grass-type moves were no good. Moves that inflicted status ailments were also out of the question because Dratini's ability was Shed Skin or Marvel Scale. It would be better to use Psychic and some bug-type moves.

Here Lyon had already mapped out his plan for the battle, Dratini was still frozen after seeing its opponent. Its eyes widened and it was fuming with anger. Lyon noticed and was confuzzled at its reaction. Through Riolu's translation, Lyon realized that Dratini had misunderstood that he was humiliating it by sending a cripple to battle. Furthermore, Beautifly was the same as other common bug/flying-type Pokémon, known for being weak and only considered as some kind of a potent threat when in a large group. Dratini wasn't to blame for thinking that way.

Lyon had to explain why he decide to send Beautifly out to battle. He wanted Dratini to see that he could help a Pokémon grow past their limits. So Beautifly, which lost its wings and usually was seen as a weak Pokémon, was a great example. Having heard his explanation, Dratini understood but also didn't understand what the h€ll this trainer was thinking. Not to mention it was crippled. The statement that a Beautifly could become strong was inconceivable. Although Dratini believed this man was spouting nonsense, it now felt more intrigued than before and was looking forward to the upcoming battle. It had thought this would be a waste of time and only gave Lyon a chance because of his aid. But if what he said was true then maybe it was Dratini who got lucky.

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