章 57: Chapter 056

"Charmander, now turn around and use Dragon Tail" yelled Alex.

"Chaar" cried the Pokemon as it spun around and hit Machop in the face. Machop fell down, with circles in its eyes.

"Good work Charmander! You're the best" said Alex happily. He then went and sprayed a Potion on the Machop. The Machop leapt to its feet shortly after, waves at him and Charmander, and walked away.

It had been 12 days since Charmander hatched. Alex started training Charmander 5 days ago. At first, he had it get familiar with all its moves. Then he started training it by having it battle the first stage evolution Pokemon in the ranch. He promised the Pokemon some tastier food than usual for participating in the battle.

He had Charmader face Bellsrout, Geodude, Poliwag, Nidoran, and finally this Machop. The Machop was the strongest among all Pokemon, at level 14. Charmander was now level 9, having learnt Smokescreen and Ember already. Its training was 10% done. It had lost to Machop 4 times previously, and today Charmader had finally beat it.

"Let's go have some food now okay buddy?" said Alex to Charmander, as he picked it up and carried it towards the dining area.

On the way to the lab, he saw Beldum floating around aimlessly. After it spotted him, it flew over and started circling his head. Alex was used to it by now, and ignored the Beldum.

"The Indigo league ended yesterday. The Professor should be back today" thought Alex, as he had his food with Charmander beside him and Beldum spinning around his head.

He had thoroughly scoured the internet and archives as requested, and printed out all the relevant information he could find. This included drawings, myths, and some unverified encounters.

He had already planned out how he would 'discover' the method of evolution when the research was at a bottleneck.

His Pokedex vibrated, and when he checked it he found out that it was a message from Professor Oak asking him to meet at his office.

Alex recalled Charmander, and walked towards the Professor's office.

He walked in, to see Gainz Helm, one of the white researchers of the Oak Corall also present.

"Good morning Professor! Welcome back!" said Alex.

"Good morning Alex. And thank you. So how are you? Has your Charmander hatched?" asked Professor Oak.

"Yes sir, it hatched shortly after you left. It is healthy and well now" replied Alex.

"Good. Now, I called you both here to report on the unregistered Pokemon. Gainz, report your observations first" said Professor Oak.

"Yes sir. The Pokemon has been temporarily assigned the name Politoed after its cries. After testing, we have determined it's a pure Water type Pokemon. Based on the first syllable of its cry, we have assumed that it belongs to the Poliwag line. The food tailor made for Poliwag and Poliwhirl both seems very agreeable to it. But it does not like the food tailor made for Poliwrath. Those, we have concluded that it is a branched evolution from the Poliwag line, and the alternative evolution of Poliwhirl. Its height and weight are greater than Poliwhirl, but less than Poliwrath. The possibility of this being an larger or smaller variant of its species is not out of the question" said Gainz.

"I see. And Alex, what did you find?" asked Professor Oak.

"The name Politied does not appear anywhere, but the description of over 40 different sightings of an unverified Water type Pokemon seem to match this Pokemon. Also, the sightings were in the place where Poliwag are known to exist and breed, or extreme close to such a place. There was no additional information in any of the other places, except for one. There is a small village northeast of Vermillion Town, not in the records of the Alliance, called Frog King's Village. This village seem to worship a Pokemon called 'The Frog King.' According to local belief, this Pokemon is the king of the Poliwag tribe living in the outskirts of the village. It is worshipped because it once brought rain to the village in a time of extreme drought. All this was recorded in an adventure journal by someone named John Wikerbush over 60 years ago. It was typed and put online by a library about 20 years ago. Whether the village still exists or not is unclear" said Alex.

"Excellent job Alex! You performed very very well. I will start to research this Pokemon myself. Forward the link of the source to me. I will try and see if this John Wikerbush is still alive in the meantime. If he is, maybe we can get him to lead us to this village" said Professor Oak.

"It is highly unlikely Professor. According to the Journal, he was 40 at the time of publication" said Alex.

"Then there is only one thing to do" said Professor Oak. "You will lead an expedition to search for the Frog King's village."