Chapter 21 - TMs
After the game of handball, we had a good night's rest. The following day, after eating breakfast, we were relaxing in our room.
“Professor X, I was thinking of having our Blood Bond Ceremony after shopping for some TMs because it will exhaust me a bit. What do you think?” I ask.
“Abra.” He nods.
“Great.” I say, “So are there any moves in particular any of you want to learn?”
“Charizard! Zard! Zard!” Drako says while spreading his wings, wanting to learn more flying type moves.
“Ivy. Ivysaur.” Hellen says a little shyly, wanting to learn more poison type moves.
“Abra.” Prof says, wanting to learn shadow ball so he can try manipulating ghost type energy.
“Alright, I’ll buy those along with some others I think will be useful.” I say as I recall the team and head to the TM store.
In this world, pokemon can learn through practice the moves they could only learn by TM in the game. As well as some moves that they couldn’t learn at all in the games. TMs only serve to quicken the process of learning a new move at a cost. As well, you can’t just load up a pokemon with TMs right away, you have to wait around a week between each TM use. The process of learning from the TM takes around six hours, so it’s usually done overnight.
Also, there are no TMs of boosting moves as they are too complicated to form into TMs. This results in boosting moves being rare as they are extremely hard to learn. Another limit of TMs, is that they don’t grant power just the knowledge on how to perform the move. A blast burn from a charmander won’t be that powerful.
Even though a pokemon can learn more than four moves, that doesn’t mean that every pokemon has a humongous amount of moves because it's better to be proficient with a smaller set of moves than to have dozens. Most trainers focus on training around eight to ten moves.
I plan to get reusable TMs of moves that I’ll teach to the whole team like Protect and Sleep Talk. While picking up one time use TMs of moves for individual members.
Once I got to the store, I couldn’t really control myself as I bought a plethora of TMs for my team. This put a significant dent in my remaining funds but I think it’ll be worth it. I also picked up the toys that my team wanted.
When back at our room I let everyone out of their pokeballs.
“Professor X, I think that it’s time that we form our Blood Bond. If you’re ready?”
“Abra!” He says immediately. Projecting feelings of acceptance and confidence to me using his psychic powers.
I grin as I get everything ready for the Blood Bond. Carefully, I prepare the elixirs for us both using our blood. Once everything is ready I kneel down in front of Professor X and look him in the eye.
“Professor X, with this bond you will be forever a part of this team. Where we all have each other's backs and we care for each other like a family.”
“Char! Char!” “Ivysaur!” Drako and Hellen reaffirm this.
“So, are you ready?”
“Abra.” He nods, and we both ingest our elixirs.
Slowly, the bond forms and I am becoming exhausted. I can feel my mind adapting to the new bond and my first impression of Prof’s mind is that it is vast. I am able to stay kneeling this time, but I have to close my eyes to handle the mild headache that encompasses my mind as it adjusts.
I open my eyes to see Prof still in front of me, though now I can sense the contentment radiating off of him. Drako is peering over Prof’s shoulder with Hellen on the other side. Seizing the opportunity, I lean in for a group hug.
Soon enough, Drako grumbles and makes it clear that being bent over like this is uncomfortable for him. So we end the hug and I collapse on the bed.
“Professor X, since it’s the day of your blood bond, what would you like to do today?” I ask, while lying down.
“Bra!” He says and I get the impression of singing balls of pink.
“The rapping jigglypuff?”
“Abra!” Apparently he heard about them from Hellen and wanted to hear them live.
“Okay, give me ten minutes to rest and then we’ll go.”
“CHAR!” “IVY!” Drako and Hellen roared their approval.
It’s a good thing that they have 24/7 shows at that club. I’m a little sad that I don’t get the full experience, being unable to understand the jigglypuff and wigglytuff. Hmmm…maybe if I bond with one…