Chapter 7: Steps from Snowpoint

The leader was offering to tell him how to evolve his starter. There was no question who Berg was referring to. And Daniel realized that there was no way he could turn up the opportunity. He almost sent Drift out immediately, though he held himself back. "I thought you said evolution was the mark of a good trainer," he called out defiantly, hoping to not seem so desperate to comply.

Berg gave a deep, rolling laugh. "So I did, so I did. I'm glad you were listening. Will you take the challenge though?"

Daniel ground his teeth together. Finally he returned his meditite and released his starter onto the field. From his body language, Drift was excited to find himself in the arena and ready to battle. The gym leader's grin stretched across his face as he replaced the darumaka with a large swinub.

The pig immediately shot a glob of mud at Drift, who curled into a ball to allow the mud to splash off his icy shell. "Powder snow! Follow it with a tackle!" The wave of snow did contact the swinub, but it had already dug itself into the ground before Drift could land the tackle. The sandshrew looked around in confusion before he was thrown into the air. He landed in a heap a couple feet away and was immediately hit in the face with a glob of mud.

As Drift tried to clear his eyes, Daniel noticed the swinub bury underground. "On your back!" he called out. His starter obeyed without hesitation, but continued to clean his eyes of mud. The swinub again came up from beneath Drift. This time, the sandshrew landed cleanly on his feet and the swinub was left dazed from hitting the hard, icy shell.

"Tackle! Metal fury!" Drift took advantage of the disoriented swine and tackled it. He then rained a barrage of metal claws down on the ice type. It only lasted for a couple moments before the swinub managed to kick Drift to the ground. The swinub charged forward, hitting the sandshrew in the stomach with a strong headbutt.

"Metal claw!" Daniel ordered, hoping his starter could land the attack before the pig could get away. As the swinub dug underground once more, Drift did catch its back with a glancing metal claw.

Instead of ordering his starter to stay on his back, Daniel tried to switch things up before the swinub took advantage of the prior strategy. "Ice ball, don't let it hit you!" His sandshrew tucked itself into a ball and began to roll forward, slowly gaining speed as snow and ice hardened around him.

After several seconds, the swinub exploded from the ground just behind Drift. Drift quickly changed directions and slammed into the pig pokemon with a spray of ice and snow. "Metal fury!" The sandshrew again slashed at the swinub. Blood flung from Drift's claws with each swipe.

"Magnitude!" It was the first order that Daniel comprehended from the gym leader. All his previous orders went in one ear and out the other as Daniel focused on the battle. He watched as the swinub kicked Drift off of itself, rear up on its hind legs and slam itself onto the arena ground. The earth shook violently. As the shaking stopped, Drift fell unconscious, the super effective attack being too much for his starter. A couple seconds later, the swinub collapsed too, though the battle was already over. They had lost.

Thirty minutes later found Daniel sitting despondently in an antechamber waiting on the gym leader or gym trainer to award him his prize money and badge. The prize money felt like a twist of the knife. He had lost. Regardless of the leader saying he would still receive the badge, he still lost the battle.

"Well done, Trainer Pugh!" Leader Berg exclaimed as he entered the room. "Well done indeed. It has been quite sometime since I enjoyed a tier one match like that."

Daniel couldn't bring himself to respond. His mood seemed to be missed by the older man, however, as the leader continued, "Your prize money is being wired to you now. It is the typical amount of your challenge fee and a half. And here is your Icicle Badge."

He wordlessly accepted the small badge. The badge was a translucent, light blue gem shaped into two mountains. He fiddled with the trinket. He would need to put it into a badge case later, but it would also be registered to his trainer ID.

"That badge is a symbol that you have beaten the Snowpoint City Gym. Once you have all eight badges in Sinnoh, you will be eligible to compete in the Lily of the Valley Tournament and challenge the Elite Four. In addition to the badge, may I present you with this TM. It is a one use TM for the move ice shard. Ice shard is a fast ice type move that most often takes the form of your pokemon throwing a blade of ice at the opponent, though that changes depending on the pokemon."

Daniel took the small disk. He could link a pokeball to his dex and insert the TM into the dex to give his pokemon an immediate understanding of the move. He would need to train his pokemon in order to truly master the attack, however. Most known moves had associated TMs, with a few rare outliers. Trainers could also buy infinite use TMs, though they were incredibly expensive.

"You know," the leader said rather sharply, "Most trainers are much more pleasant after winning their badge."

For the first time since Berg entered the room, Daniel met the older trainer's eyes. There was a cold anger in the leader's eyes at being ignored. "What's the point?" Daniel scoffed, "I lost. Why do I deserve any of this when my starter can't even beat a tier one pokemon?!"

He watched as his elder's anger drained away to be replaced with mirth. "Daniel, do you honestly think that I would challenge your starter with a tier one pokemon?" He gave his signature rolling laugh. "Daniel, I use that swinub in tier two battles. When I said I wanted to challenge you, I meant it. Drift would likely have had little trouble rolling through the tier one challenge on his own."

"You mean-"

"Yes. Not only did you earn your badge, you also almost defeated a gym pokemon a tier higher than you should be competing at. Be proud of yourself and be proud of your team."

"Thank you, Leader Berg," he said as he felt his heart lift. He examined the badge in his hand with a touch more awe than before. It now was not a symbol of his failure, but rather a true sign of his success.

"You did lose the extra challenge, though. So I'm afraid you'll have to figure out the key to evolving your starter by yourself," the leader said with a nod. "Your sandshrew did push my swinub to the point of exhaustion though, so I will give you this. Return here next year in November if you haven't evolved him. Your sandshrew should be capable of evolving by then. If you make the trip, then I will give you a hint."

Daniel nodded fervently, "Of course, sir!"

The leader extended his hand, which Daniel eagerly took. Berg's hand was firm but curiously cold. "You have potential, Daniel. Don't let me down. And do be safe traveling south through the winter."

"Thank you, Leader Berg. Truly," Daniel responded before leaving the chamber and the gym.

Several hours later at the pokemon center, Daniel learned the very important lesson of not releasing all of his pokemon at once following a battle.

Drift immediately began sulking. While he wasn't breaking anything or throwing a tantrum, it was clear that he was internally beating himself up from losing his battle. Daniel realized that he was unable to inform his starter of the additional challenge at the gym, so Drift likely felt like he lost them the entire gym battle. Daniel felt his heart go out to his sandshrew, knowing he had been in a similar state of depression hours earlier.

On the other end of the spectrum, Kai was rampaging. The fire type was furious that he didn't win and came out of his pokeball raging. Boxes were burnt and destroyed. Dummies were shredded. Daniel even caught an ember on his leg in the crossfire, though it wasn't a direct hit.

At least Sasha was keeping a level head. Though she was the only one aware that they won the badge, so that made sense.

"Kai! Enough!" Daniel finally yelled after multiple, calmer attempts to calm down the magby. The sharp tone of his voice was enough to halt the fire type's path of destruction and to get his sandshrew's attention. "It is not your fault that you lost. Spheal was the only pokemon that truly had you beat. They have a type advantage and are known to specifically resist fire type attacks due to their blubber. You lost because I guessed wrong."

Daniel turned to his starter before the sandshrew could begin moping again, "And Drift, that was a tier two swinub and a part of a separate challenge the gym leader made to see how you fared in battle. I'm sorry that I didn't get the chance to explain beforehand. You did amazing and almost beat it. In fact, it fainted moments after you did. Be proud of yourself."

"So you were not victorious in the supplemental trial?" Sasha asked.

"No, we weren't," he responded, "Drift was very close to winning, though. If we won, Berg would have told us how to evolve you, bud. He was still impressed enough that in a year from now, he'll give us a hint."

Drift, while still obviously upset about his loss, seemed to perk up some. Kai, however, turned away with a snort of fire. "Kai, cut it out," the fire type just glared back in response. "If it makes you feel better, we'll work more on your thunder punch so you don't have to worry as much about water types." That seemed to appease the magby for the time being.

"Okay. So it's September ninth now," he said to his team, "The plan is to leave within a week. Days are about to start getting shorter and storms are already becoming more frequent. I want to leave and start heading south as soon as possible. But I want everyone rested before we go because it'll be a long trip. We will have light training sessions but our goal is to rest and prepare for a hard journey."

Daniel turned to his meditite and said, "Sasha, I want you to work on teleporting with me. We'll start tomorrow and see how far you can teleport with me and then work on increasing that distance. I want to be prepared in case something goes really wrong. Sound good?" His team consented and they spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at the center.

The next day he began testing Sasha's teleporting capabilities. They did this by walking out of the city and having her attempt to teleport back to his house. The farthest she was capable of by herself was about a mile and a half, though she was able to do four consecutive jumps if she shortened the distance to a mile.

Kai and Drift both took turns being teleported by Sasha as well, when they weren't working on developing thunder punch and ice shard respectively. She was able to teleport Kai farther than his starter due to the magby being significantly smaller. When it was time for Sasha to test with him, they found she was only able to teleport a quarter of a mile away, though she could keep that distance up for three jumps before exhausting herself.

In the following days leading up to their departure, Sasha was unable to increase the distance of her jumps, though her stamina did get better. Daniel considered it a win and made a note to continue working on that when they stopped traveling. He didn't want to exhaust his meditite by continually training the skill only to need it whilst moving south.

During that time, Daniel did receive a text from Cal. It read, 'Saw your match against Berg. What gives?! He just forfeited? That darumaka could still fight. Either way, congrats Danny! Looks like you're doing good with Kai so far too.'

Daniel responded with a long explanation of the extra challenge Berg issued, which apparently didn't make it onto the official league replay. He related the stakes for the battle and his eventual loss as well as the opportunity to return for a hint. He also made sure to ask his friend how he was and what his plans were.

Cal returned quickly with, 'That makes a lot more sense than Berg forfeiting. Sucks you couldn't pull out a win, but going toe to toe with a tier two is great! I'm hoping to finish up with PT for my knee in a month or so then follow a couple leads about Magneto's evolution. Thinking I might make it to Eterna in 3-4 months. Maybe we'll meet up there if you're heading there next!'

The possibility of reconnecting with his friend cemented his decision to go to Eterna first over Veilstone or Hearthome.

The only other thing of note that occurred before they left was an argument with Daniel's parents. They were not pleased that he was planning to travel during the harsh Snowpoint winter. Daniel was equally stubborn in his refusal to spend the winter in Snowpoint or to take the easy way and hire a psychic to teleport him to another city.

Their concern was well-founded. The weather was brutally cold with frequent blizzards that could bring in several feet of snow and blow trees over with ease. On top of that, pokemon that typically lived in the mountains or further north would migrate south as the temperatures dropped. Groups of sneasel and weavile would be more common in the forests surrounding the route. Abomasnow would likely be roaming the open plains. So trainers had to decide which of the threatening pokemon they would rather deal with by choosing to either travel in the plains or in the forest. While there were no enforced restrictions on traveling Route 217 during winter, it was highly discouraged by the Ranger Corp. and the League for anyone.

Daniel and his parents didn't actually resolve the difference of opinion. His father stormed off one night, muttering that Daniel was being stupid. He shrugged to his mom before heading to his room. The two days that followed before he left were spent in an uncomfortable tension.

The day before he left, he dropped his pokemon off at the center for a last minute check up before going to the trainer outpost. He stocked up on food for himself and his team, as well as generic pokemon kibble in case he caught something. Daniel made sure he grabbed multiple potions and status healers as well as some more pokeballs. He sunk the last of his available cash into storage balls. He figured that several months traveling south and hunting would result in a lot of parts he could sell in Eterna. He hoped that would recoup the losses of preparing for his journey.

Daniel, bundled in a thick, swanna-down winter jacket, eyed the snowy path in front of him. Drift stood confidently beside him though Sasha and Kai were in their pokeballs. The southern expanse of Route 217 was daunting. It would take him months to traverse it south to Eterna. He glanced east, towards Lake Acuity. It was where his whole journey began; it was where he caught Drift.

He took a step south, but found himself being drawn back to the east. He originally went to the lake to catch a piplup, though a spheal would have made a decent back up. The small penguins would grow up into fearsome empoleon. Even after catching Drift, he had planned to befriend one for his second pokemon, though that was derailed by meeting Cal. It would be his last opportunity to catch one in the wild until he came back next winter.

"We have one more thing to do here, Drift," he said to his starter as he made up his mind and turned east.

Catching a piplup would give him four pokemon, which was the legal limit for a trainer with less than two badges. That would restrict him from using any pokemon he caught on his journey until after he won his gym challenge in Eterna. He would have to designate any pokemon he caught for storage, which would lock the ball unless the status was changed at a pokemon center. But the appeal of having an empoleon was too great.

The Sinnoh League had team size rules in place to protect both pokemon and trainers. The limit of four pokemon for trainers with less than two badges was to allow for rookie trainers to acclimate to caring for pokemon on a smaller scale. Once they had two badges, they could keep a full battle party of six. The next milestone was at four badges where trainers were seen as proficient enough to have pokemon out in public spaces without endangering civilians.

Once a trainer had six badges under his belt, he could keep up to eight pokemon on him. After earning all eight badges, they could have ten pokemon. While a trainer could only use six pokemon in a battle, this increase allowed for higher level trainers to keep a full battle party in the event of a death.

It took half an hour for him to reach the ranger outpost at the lake, where he asked an on duty ranger for Ranger Smith, the one who witnessed Daniel catching his starter. After a couple minutes, the familiar official exited the outpost.

"Trainer Pugh. Nice ta see ya," the ranger said in his familiar draw, "Johnson said yeh wanted to see me."

"Yes sir," Daniel said, gulping down his nerves, "I want to catch a piplup."

The ranger stared at him questioningly for a moment before saying, "Yeh know the rules. Take yer time and befriend one and we won't have any problems."

He almost snorted. Lake Acuity was holy ground which meant that trainers were not allowed to battle around the lake. It also meant that catching wild pokemon was frowned upon, though not specifically illegal. Trainers who caught pokemon around the lake were only disciplined if civilians were hurt or the rangers had to be called in to stop a rampage.

Rather than make a disrespectful comment, Daniel shook his head and said, "No sir. I don't intend on waiting a couple weeks to convince one to join me. I'm planning on catching one today. I'm telling you ahead of time so you're aware and ready just in case."

"Let me get this straight, Pugh. You are telling me, a ranger, that you are intentionally going to battle on sacred ground, which is against the law. Did I get that right?" The ranger replaced his accent with a severity that surprised Daniel.

Daniel steeled his resolve, "I am not planning on battling on sacred ground. If everything goes according to plan, I'll catch my piplup far from the shoreline without ever causing a problem."

The normally friendly ranger glared at him hard for a minute. Finally he poked Daniel hard in the chest saying, "If I see an empoleon within a mile of this outpost, I'm arresting you."

Daniel nodded in response. When the ranger went back inside, he let out a massive sigh before making his way to the lake, a plan already forming in his head. It didn't take long to find the mixed group of seals and penguins, though it was another half an hour walk around the lake. He settled himself about fifty yards away and pulled out his pokedex to look up the small water type.

Piplup, the Penguin Pokemon.

Piplup are a pure water type pokemon. These penguins live exclusively around arctic seas and saltwater lakes. Piplup are mostly light blue with a darker head and back with two white spots on their chest. This coloration allows for them to blend into the deep waters when viewed from above and blend into the clearer skies when viewed from below. This camouflage not only allows them to hunt more effectively, but also helps in evading predators such as sharpedo and saltwater feraligatr. The diet of these pokemon, along with their evolved forms, consists exclusively of fish. Piplup will band together with others to hunt large groups of fish.

Despite being very prideful pokemon, piplup seem to manage living in large herds. These herds are typically headed by a small council of empoleon which make decisions for the colony and provide protection.

Piplup seem to evolve into prinplup when they hit a certain level of strength and personal pride. This level varies for each penguin and also depends on the strength of the group they are in. As piplup get closer to evolution, they start to move to the outskirts of their group, believing that they don't need the safety of the group. When they evolve, the new prinplup will often venture away from the colony alone. Prinplup follow this same evolution pattern, though it is hypothesized that they will only evolve when they have the maturity to lead a colony.

Daniel skimmed through the rest of the entry before deciding there was nothing else helpful for determining which piplup to choose. He released Sasha from her ball and told her, "Sasha, we're going to catch one of these piplup, but we need to do it without stirring up the rest of the group. So here's the plan. We're going to walk towards the woods, where we'll be out of sight of the herd. Once we find a good place to battle, I want you to teleport back here, grab one of the piplup on the edge of the group, and then teleport back to us. Can you do it?"

"Of course," she replied sassily.

They set off walking away from the group as Daniel thought about his decision. A piplup on the edge of the group would be stronger than its peers. Daniel guessed that it would also be less likely to create a panic in the herd as it was closer to evolution and going off on its own anyways. The downside was that he would likely have a rough time training and bonding with the conceited penguin.

Once they were at a good spot, Daniel released his magby and informed the fire type of what was about to happen. When Kai agreed to fight, Daniel sent Sasha off to get a piplup. Twenty seconds later, she reappeared with a piplup in tow. She immediately teleported to Daniel's side to avoid a point blank water gun that sailed harmlessly to the side.

"Headbutt, then fire punch," Daniel ordered his magby. The fire type lunged forward, ramming his bulbous head into the water type. Before the penguin could react, Kai followed it up with a fiery fist to the side of its head. This pushed the piplup far enough away that it could launch another water gun. Unable to dodge quickly in the snow, Kai was forced to weather the attack.

"Try a thunder punch!" Daniel wasn't sure that Kai could pull it off, but decided to try anyways, believing in his pokemon. He didn't know what caused it, but his magby seemed to stand taller at the order. Kai stepped forward, throwing his weight behind his fist. Right before the punch connected with the penguin, a crackle of electricity surged around the magby's fist. The piplup spazzed for a few seconds as the electricity ran its course before collapsing. Daniel quickly threw a pokeball at the fainted water type and secured his fourth pokemon.

"Awesome job, Kai!" he cheered on his pokemon. The magby puffed his chest out in pride at his accomplishment. Drift seemed excited for his teammate as well, jumping and grunting happily.

Daniel took some time to spray a potion over his magby to help expedite the healing process, before registering the piplup as part of his team. In doing so, he found out the penguin was a male and around four months old. He released the piplup and administered a potion to him as well. While waiting for the piplup to regain consciousness, Daniel took the time to observe the pokemon. It was darker than the typical piplup, with its body being more of a teal color than baby blue and its head almost navy. The typical white around its eyes and on its belly were gray instead. Daniel guessed that it was a little over a foot tall, though it was hard to judge when it was lying down.

When the water type woke up, Daniel said, "You're part of our team now, bud. I'm your trainer and these are your teammates: Drift, Sasha, and Kai. I'm going to call you Slater." The water type clearly didn't understand Daniel's words, but seemed to comprehend his hand gestures to himself and the rest of his team. The penguin stuck its little beak in the air and turned away from Daniel. He just shrugged and returned the penguin.

Once Sasha checked to make sure there were no problems with the main penguin colony, Daniel made his way back to the route. He stopped at the ranger outpost only to tell Ranger Smith that he did not incite a penguin riot before he took his first steps south.