บท 65: What is wrong with you Charmeleon?

( Average height of Bagon = 0.6m

The average height of Charmeleon = 1.1 m)

While Aoki was getting the gym badge, a man and a woman were watching his movements.

Beside them was a Meowth dressed in proper clothes making him look like a child from a distance.

They were the infamous team rocket trio known for skills in stealing, acting, scamming, etc.

Unlike the anime counterpart, they had managed to steal a lot of Pokemons from their trainers but were still a failure when they tried to catch Ash's Pikachu.

After getting blasted by a thunderbolt from Ash's Pikachu, they took a break from him and successfully completed a few robberies of money and Pokemon from the weak trainers.

They also stole three tickets to watch the gym battle.

"Shall we target him James ?" asked the pink-haired woman, Jessie.

"I don't think that will be a good idea, Jessie.

You saw the power of his Pokemon right, our pokemon will be defeated easily, " said the blue-haired guy, James.

"Too bad, I liked the golden Pidgeotto meow," said the Meowth.

"If our operation continues in the way it currently is, it will not be long before we have a strong force too"

"We can target some more trainers till then for some extra credits," said Jessie as they began leaving with the crowd.

"I saw a good ice cream parlor nearby, let's go there" James suggested.

"Sure"

****

Unaware of what was going on with the team rocket trio, Aoki and Misty bid farewell and returned to their hotel.

"How was today's match? " asked Aoki

"It was wonderful, I never expected Weepinbell to pull out that move successfully, " she said.

Misty had seen Weepinbell practice that moves but it was never successful and failed midway. The end result was beyond her expectation.

That move was a serious bane to almost every type of Pokemon.

"Yeah, my gamble turned out to be successful"

*******

In the night both of them gathered in the woods outside the city as Misty had a request.

Her Starmie was only a few steps away from reaching master rank so she needed Aoki to help her.

Misty made Starmie absorb another water stone and some water-type energy food made by Aoki and began fighting all of Aoki's Pokemon one by one.

During the fight, Aoki left his Pokemon to fight without his command and began writing the shortcomings of each pokemon he observed in his Pokemon.

He was eagerly waiting for Charmeleon and Bagon to fish digesting the dragon fruit and loot at their changes.

He had read on the web that there were instances where a Pokemon directly went from Junior rank to master rank so he was excited to see how far his Pokemon can go.

For the next four days, Misty trained with Aoki's Pokemon, and finally, her Starmie reached master rank.

Due to Aoki's Pokemons not holding back, Starmie went through a near-death battle stimulating her inner instincts to forcefully make her grow to survive.

Misty also trained her other Pokemons Azumarill, Slowpoke, and Politoed.

Slowpoke was learning to combine his psychic and water powers to increase his power and accuracy, Polited was learning better weather control while Azumarill with her navigation skills was learning to dodge attacks from all angles.

Misty found that Azumarill out of all her Pokemons had the least chance to step into master rank but she refused to give up on him and found a strategy to maximize his potential.

Aoki was very proud of Misty in this aspect.

Although he never helped Misty train and trained separately from her, she picked up some of his strategies from his battles and the talks they made.

During these four days, Jill messages Misty multiple times to battle her but Misty refused as she was busy training.

One thing noteworthy that happened is that Gyarados somewhat started to listen to Aoki.

From what Clefairy said, Gyarados needed more tasty food if Aoki wanted him to follow his commands.

All the hard work Aoki and the other Pokemons did on Gyarados showed an effect.

Clefairy and Slowpoke confirmed that the mental condition of Gyarados was almost healed.

Due to this Aoki began his experiment on water-type and dragon-type food, especially for Gyarados.

This food was liked by all the water Pokemons so much that all of them overate and could not move for a few hours.

A few days later, Aoki felt like it was time for calling out Charmeleon and Bagon.

He went outside the town while Misty when near a lake.

Aoki called out all his Pokemon including Gyarados.

Aoki took out the Pokeball of Bagon and called him out.

A red light was emitted from the Pokemon out of which Bagon materialized.

As soon as Bagon opened his eyes, he ran towards Aoki and gave him a hug with a cute roar.

'Heavy! " Aoki felt like Bagon's weight was almost increased significantly along with his height rising to nearly 1m.

The scales on his body had become harder along with his blue color becoming deeper.

And most importantly, his energy was now in master rank.

He had jumped from the beginning of intermediate rank to master rank in one go breaking the barrier between the two ranks.

Now Bagon needed some hard training to get used to his new body and energy to maximize the effect of dragon fruit.

All the pokemon congratulated Bagon on his new promotion while Clefairy and Nidorino became jealous as they were still in intermediate rank.

Bagon was feeling very good after gaining such energy and couldn't wait to try out his moves but he didn't express it as Charmeleon was still in his Pokeball.

Finally, it was time for Charmeleon, with the same expectations he clicked the Pokeball of Charmeleon.

A nearly giant nearly 1.9 m tall Charmeleon appeared in front of everyone with his eyes closed.

His body was brimming with muscles and hard scales.

Most importantly his energy went from the beginning of master rank to the peak of master rank equal to the red Gyarados.

Aoki felt something was wrong with Charmeleon.

Charmeleon opened his eyes but instead of normal eyes, they were completely red as if overflowing with anger.

He looked toward Aoki and used Dragon Rage without any warning.

Instantly Clefairy used Protect in front of Aoki while Aoki moved back.

[This is bad master, Charmeleon has lost his mind ] it didn't even take one second after the message from Clefairy reached Aoki that Charmeleon reached near Nidorino and kicked him so hard that he became and blur and crashed into the trees breaking 5 of them before stopping.

"Clefairy, Pidgeotto keep him busy

Weepinbell prepare your strongest sleep power and stun spore"

'This is bad, seems like the dragon fruit made him lose his mind from too much power. He has lost control over his emotions….'

Bagon was first to act and fire Dragon breath at Charmeleon but a Dragon breath that was twice as powerful was shot at him completely decimating the move and smashing into Bagon.

~Roaaaar~ Charmeleon gave a terrifying roar as slashed his flame-clad claws at Pidgeotto that had reached near him.

Pidgeotto used Protect and Hyperbream at point-blank range but Charmeleon fired a Fire Blast that surpassed the power of Hyperbeam at Pidgeotto.

Aoki began calling Charmeleon's name multiple times while reminding him of his journey till now but he was still attacking everyone like a crazed beast.

"Gyarados Hydropump " Aoki commanded Gyadaos but got no response.

"Gyarados? " Aoki looked at him to confirm why he didn't get any response but was shocked to see that Gyarados was shaking with fear.

A fear that came to the surface not from seeing Charmeleon rise in power but from a past trauma what activated.