—-Two days later—-
Lazarus enters his bedroom and finds both his pokémon sleeping next to each other on top of his pillows.
He pokéballs them both, takes a shower, and then heads straight to his garage.
Getting inside his car, he unclips his pokéballs and releases both his pokémon on the back seat.
Both pokémon are surprised, the last thing they remember was falling asleep inside Lazarus's bedroom.
"Sit tight you two, enjoy the view. We are going somewhere fun." Lazarus says to both of them as he looks at a map of the entire city on the H.U.D. of the car.
"Jubilife City's Battle Arena," Lazarus says and the car's autonomous driving system charts the best route to their destination.
The car starts moving as Kamish and Aurora look outside the window, and marvel at the night skyline of the city.
After a few of hours of driving, giant gates come into view, and the car stops at a checkpoint guarded by league-employed pokémon trainers.
Lazarus pushes a button to roll down the window as he sees a security officer with a Lucario, a bipedal canine pokémon with blue and black fur, approaching.
The security officer arrives near the car window. "State your business and ID?"
Lazarus just gives the man his ID.
After the security officer confirms his identity, he nods at Lazarus before waving to the other security officers.
The gate opens and after 10 more minutes of driving, the car reaches the main building.
A circular 30-floor building, which serves as the city's local league HQ where new pokémon trainers undergo their basic training.
And to help with this, the league employs many retired pokémon trainers to serve as instructors to the trainers at the start of their journey.
Lazarus recalls his pokémon back to their pokéballs, gets out of the car and approaches the front door which slides open to reveal a huge hallway with newly minted trainers like him mingling about.
He makes his way to one of the receptionists, a middle-aged woman wearing the standard uniform league issues for their non-trainer staff, who asks him with a smile. "Hello, how may I help you."
Lazarus smiles, "Hi, my name is Lazarus, I am supposed to meet my instructor today, his name is Mike."
"Ohh yes, Mr Mike told me to direct you to room seven on the twentieth floor, He will be waiting there for you."
Lazarus thanks the women before making his way over to the elevators and then quickly finds the room where the meeting is supposed to take place and knocks on the door.
The door unlocks, Lazarus enters the room, and the sight of a man in his late 40's sitting behind a desk greets him.
"Ahh, the prince of Jubilife. Welcome," Mike says, "Hope you had a nice rest these past few days, because you are not going to get any here."
"That's exactly what I want. The only reason I am not out there in the wild right now is because I was waiting for my Dreepy to hatch," Lazarus says as he takes a seat. "I have had enough rest to last a lifetime."
The instructor nods, "Good. You are in the right mindset, just make sure it lasts. Before we proceed, there are a few things you should know about this is going to work. The league provides two months of basic training to every new pokémon trainer, and each of them is assigned an instructor who acts as both a teacher and a judge. The instructor's job, besides teaching them, is to see if the trainee is actually fit to become a pokémon trainer or not.
The first month of this training is spent on educating the trainer on the basics of pretty much everything they need to know to start out as a trainer. So ethics, first aid, you get the gist. By the second month we let them battle among each other so they can get a real sense of how pokemon battles work. The first month is mandatory for everyone, but you asked to opt out of it. We can do that, but are you sure you want to?
Newbies always come here with useless, generic, mass-produced advice from trainers who have no idea what they are talking about. We have to spend a lot of time making them unlearn all of it. They don't understand that every single pokémon is unique and requires dedicated attention.
You need to tailor your training techniques and strategy according to their biology, personality, habits, and a dozen other variables. Theories about how to raise a pokémon very rarely work in the real world. So?"
"Positive. My mother raised me, I know pokemon as well as I know people." Lazarus says.
Mike nods, "As you wish. Henceforth I will be operating under the assumption that you have mastered the basics. Next tell me about your history with training pokemon and then your goals here at this facility. You had three pokémon before this. Start with telling me about them."
Lazarus nods, "I grew up surrounded by my mom's pokémon, even took care of them from time to time. I never really felt a need to get my own pokémon when I had my mother's to keep my company. And since I was home schooled my parents and these pokémon were my entire world, but that changed six years ago when my mom died.
I had never seen my father cry before that day, I was devastated when he told me what happened. And suddenly there was only my dad left. That was the first time in my life I felt lonely. I had never felt that way before and it destroyed me. Dad did his best to make me feel better but nothing worked.
I still faintly remember what it was like, I didn't eat anything for days, I couldn't go to sleep. And when I did sleep I would have nightmares of Articuno, I would wake up screaming every night. To cheer me up dad got me my own pokémon, three of mom's pokémon had laid eggs a few months before they died. He told me they were left behind by mom to protect me.
I still remember what it was like waiting for them to hatch. I would sleep with the eggs, I would talk to them every night. I knew they couldn't hear me but talking to them helped ease the pain a little bit, and when they did hatch it was like I had always known them, suddenly I had something to look forward to. I never put them inside pokéballs, they would always be by my side.
I was too protective of them, so I never let them fight, though in hindsight I wish I had. My biggest regret in life is not training them how to fight."
Mike sighs, "Is that why you want to become a pokémon trainer? To get revenge against Articuno?"
Lazarus shakes his head, "No… that's not it. I mean I still hate Articuno, almost as much as I hate a Salamence, but getting revenge is not my goal, that won't bring the people I lost back. During my depressive period, the thing that helped me the most besides my new pokemon was watching videos of the people mom saved and helped.
Thousands of people told their life story to thank her. It made me realize what she died for. She gave her life so countless more could live. So, the only way I see of honoring her and the people I lost is to become a beacon of hope and safety like my mother was."
"I see." Mike lightly nods, and falls into a contemplate mood. "You have noble goals… and I don't doubt given enough time you will grow to become someone we can all rely upon. But I hope that you won't let that burden you right now. What you need to do right now is train your pokemon as best as you can and win the tournament next year. Don't miss the tree for the forest. There are only twelve months left."
"I understand. I am not an impatient person. I know how to prioritize things." Lazarus leans back on his chair, "In hindsight, I should have used the last five months to train some new pokémon instead of waiting for the egg to hatch. But there is no use crying over lost time. So, please tell me about the training facilities here. I'd like to know my options."
"This place has everything you could possibly need to train a pokémon…"