“Pika pi!”

Pikachu excitedly jumped down from Red’s shoulder, hopping and bounding as it climbed up a tree, casually picking a berry and joyfully stuffing it into its mouth.

As a Pikachu born in Viridian Forest, Pikachu could easily distinguish which berries were edible and sweet and crisp.

If not for wanting to taste sweet foods, Pikachu wouldn’t have gone to Pewter City to steal food.

The people of Pewter City simply couldn’t do anything about Pikachu, which encouraged Pikachu’s reckless behavior, subconsciously making theft a daily routine. This really made those robbed merchants laugh in anger.

Fortunately, Red compensated them double, making those merchants who hadn’t been robbed gradually regret why their delicacies couldn’t attract the sweet-loving Pikachu.

Of course, Pikachu didn’t forget about Red. After enjoying the sweet and refreshing berry, it immediately wrapped its tail around another berry and threw it toward Red’s direction.

Seeing this, Red smiled helplessly and extended his right hand to catch the thrown berry, carefully tasting it.

Seeing Red taste the berry, Pikachu also showed a happy smile, gradually understanding the joy of sharing and what companionship meant.

Only now did Pikachu understand why some Pokémon liked to stay with trainers.

Perhaps companionship is the best medicine for healing the soul…

Before Pikachu could briefly enjoy a moment of tranquility, a sudden shout shattered Pikachu’s beautiful fantasy.

“Hey, you there, young man! Do you dare have a Pokémon battle with me?!”

A boy carrying a bug cage and holding a bug net, wearing a straw hat, emerged from the grass, excitedly running up to Red and taking out the Poké Ball in his hand, wanting to have a Pokémon battle with Red.

Red noticed the excited look in the bug catcher boy’s eyes and guessed that the boy’s Pokémon had just evolved, so he wanted to immediately battle with trainers passing through this area.

“I’m counting on you, Pikachu!” Red said.

“Crunch!”

Pikachu swallowed the berry in one gulp, patted its chest, and then immediately jumped in front of Red, electricity coursing around its body, ready for battle.

“Ugh, it’s actually an Electric-type Pokémon.”

The bug catcher boy said frantically, angrily throwing the Poké Ball in his hand.

“I’m counting on you, Butterfree!”

“…”

Red and Pikachu both looked speechlessly at the obviously malnourished Butterfree before them.

“Hahaha, how’s that? Were you scared by my Butterfree?” the bug catcher boy said smugly, mistakenly thinking Red and Pikachu were amazed by his excellently trained Butterfree.

Red casually waved his hand, and Pikachu, understanding the meaning, lightly released the current within its body, hitting Butterfree’s body with one Thunder Shock.

“Bzzt bzzt bzzt…”

Butterfree fell to the ground completely charred, with electrical current occasionally ‘reminding’ Butterfree to twitch.

The bug-catcher boy was completely dumbfounded. He hadn’t even given Butterfree any commands, yet Butterfree had already been defeated.

“Your Butterfree is obviously malnourished. Rather than blindly pursuing battles, try to nurse Butterfree’s body back to health first,” Red criticized, looking displeasedly at the irresponsible bug catcher boy before him.

After a moment, after bidding farewell to the bug catcher boy’s farce, Red prepared to formulate a training plan for his Pikachu.

Because Pikachu liked aggressive tactics, Red wanted to have Pikachu strengthen the power of its moves.

First was strengthening Iron Tail’s power to better utilize the battle environment.

Second was mastering the use of Electroweb through derivative use of the Electro Ball move.

Electro Ball gathered one’s own electrical current into a sphere, continuously building up friction while attacking opponents, thus increasing damage.

Electroweb had more of a supportive effect, allowing Pikachu to use this move to restrict agile opponents, saving Pikachu’s stamina while indirectly limiting the opponent’s movement speed. A very good move.

As for which Pokémon would have the honor of becoming the training partner, that would naturally be Scizor, who was extremely familiar with Viridian Forest.

The white light faded, revealing the black and red Scizor with two sharp pincers.

Just the faintly emanating aura was enough to make Pikachu clearly understand that this Scizor was an expert, not an opponent that the previous Dratini and Marowak could match.

“Pika!”

When Red announced the start of battle training, Pikachu immediately launched an offensive.

Pikachu’s tail, glowing with silver light, swung forcefully toward Scizor.

“BANG!”

The ground was smashed into a deep crater by Pikachu, but it found that Scizor had already disappeared from its original position, instantly transforming into a black lightning bolt to avoid the attack.

After sensing Scizor’s killing intent, Pikachu desperately fled from its original position, only to find Scizor’s figure had already appeared in its line of sight, with a silver-glowing Bullet Punch about to hit Pikachu’s body.

Seeing this scene, Pikachu instinctively used Iron Tail to contend with Scizor’s Bullet Punch.

In moments, Scizor’s bullet-fast and hard punch sent Pikachu flying to a large tree several meters away, without even a moment’s hesitation.

‘This guy, why does its aura feel so similar to that electric mouse from before?’

Scizor looked at Red with some understanding, seeming to guess something but not being certain yet.

The reason for sending out Scizor was because Red happened to want Scizor to settle things with the Scyther colony in this area.

After all, Scizor had once belonged to that collective and couldn’t just leave as if it had never seen them.

After understanding Red’s intention, Scizor reluctantly went to its former territory to settle things with its former tribe.

The strong members of the Scyther colony were unilaterally slaughtered by the suddenly appearing Scizor, not even having a chance to injure Scizor’s body, all being defeated by its deadly Bullet Punch.

Because of Scizor’s evolution, many Scyther didn’t recognize the former clan leader’s son, mistakenly thinking some reckless member of the clan had provoked Scizor.

When Scizor returned after resolving matters, Red clearly saw the satisfaction in Scizor’s eyes, obviously having comfortably fulfilled its wish.

Red didn’t ask too many questions, mistakenly thinking Scizor had really gone to visit former companions.

‘If your talent is only this much, then I’m truly disappointed, Electric Mouse!’

Scizor rapidly flapped its wings, releasing countless sharp wind blades to attack Pikachu.

Seeing this, Pikachu immediately released its electrical current, using Thunderbolt to destroy the approaching wind blades, then used Agility to approach Scizor, constantly circling around Scizor, wanting to find an opportunity to target Scizor’s vital points.

‘Petty tricks!’

Scizor said disdainfully.

Scizor’s figure suddenly blurred, then countless duplicates split from Scizor’s main body.

In moments, countless Scizor duplicates surrounded Pikachu instead, then used Air Slash, continuously releasing wind blades approaching Pikachu’s direction.

Pikachu also immediately used Double Team to avoid the Air Slash damage, then leaped into the air, using Discharge toward the Scizor below, with countless electrical currents branching out, successfully hitting Scizor’s main body.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep