"In just two days, I'll finally be ready to start." The boy finished tying his tennis shoes and jumped up and down. He flexed in front of his mirror in a few different positions, grinning at his rippling muscles.
His ritual was interrupted by the sound of loud giggles coming from his sister. "Mom! Orthrus is being silly again!"
Grappling her, Orthrus started violently rubbing her head. "Ugh, Lada, is it really that hard to just call me Ollie, or Ortie, or anything other than 'Orthrus'?" She rolled out of his grasp, sticking her tongue out and sprinting off, right past her mother, who had just climbed the stairs, and her father, who was leaving the bathroom.
The older man turned to his wife, shaking his head. "Selene, why can't any of our children just be normal?"
Ors, as he preferred to be called, finally stopped the act of vanity. "Morning mom, dad. What's for breakfast?"
"Always thinking about food. Not even curious why your dear old dad is in a suit, nonetheless awake at 7 in the morning?" Typhon cried faux tears.
It was indeed a bit strange for Typhon to be awake at that early hour. Usually it was after Ors' two hour run that his father was finally starting to get ready for work.
"I'll bite. What's got you up this early?" Ors asked, beginning to make his way downstairs while throwing on a shirt.
The dapper father triumphantly smiled. "Well, I was planning on bringing you to meet Grandpa before driving you to Pokemon school."
Ors stopped midstep, foot hovering slightly over the next stair, and slowly turned back to his father. "That… Is it a mandatory meeting?"
"Oh come on now! He pays for your school, the least you can do is meet him once a year!" Typhon retorted, a frown adorning his face.
"Tch, barely, counting the scholarships I've gotten." Ors bit his lip as he weighed the pros and cons of just running to school. He could probably move faster than the 25 mile per hour speed limit, but for how long?
With a slight growl in his voice, Typhon stared his son down. "I know you're smart, but without his support, you wouldn't have been able to afford Fennel High no matter how many scholarships they gave you."
"Fine. I'll get ready now then." Ors returned to his room, where his mother had already placed a nice button-down and jeans on his bed. He sighed at the jeans that would lower his mobility, but nonetheless smiled. "Thanks, mom."
She nodded, returning downstairs. The smell of eggs emanated through the house as Ors brushed his teeth. 'Ugh, peppermint eggs. Perfect.'
One nasty breakfast later, orange juice included, the men finally got in the car, Selene smiling and waving as Lada jumped all over the place, calling loudly.
Seeing his son grimacing and pouting, Typhon got an idea. With one final wave to his family, he slammed his foot into the gas pedal at full power. On one hand, the smell of burning rubber was all that filled his nose. On the other hand, at least his passenger's face wouldn't scare a Ghastly.
Soon enough, contrary to the sign that read 'Speed Limit: 25, the speedometer on the car read a frightening 75. The road to the highway was not made of concrete, but caliche and dirt. Only the driveway was true pavement.
"Dad! Maybe chill out a bit on the speed?" Ors was genuinely scared out of his mind. 'I didn't work all sixteen years since I woke up as an infant just to die by crashing into a tree!' Indeed, Ors was a reincarnator. A reincarnator who wanted to be the strongest.
"Hm? Oops, I forgot." Typhon finally slowed down to 25. "Ok, now I'm serious. You remember how to act in front of grandpa, right? He appreciates decorum more than anything, so don't use things like contractions, or laugh, or show emotion, or-"
"I get it dad! Ahem, I am aware of the proper manner in which to assuage sir grandfather." A staccato voice in use, Ors turned to his father calmly.
Typhon's eyes twitched, and he slammed into the gas pedal again.
Before too long and without any more comical antics, the two arrived at an old cottage. Rather, a mansion that looked kind of like a cottage if you squinted just right. Grandpa called it his cottage.
An old man with a handlebar mustache sat on the front porch in a rocking chair, biting into ice cream with his teeth. Ors turned away to hide his cringe.
The car came to a stop as the father-son duo walked calmly up to the old man. "Hercule, we have arrived." Typhon nodded to his father.
Standing up while finishing his ice cream in an oddly dainty manner, Hercule looked over the two who were standing in front of him.
Completely ignored, Typhon watched as his father and son looked into each other's eyes. He was growing more and more nervous with every second. "Good."
Hercule turned around and walked into his backyard. "Well?" He asked as neither followed him.
In complete silence, the group walked into the forest for five minutes. "How much contact have you had with wild pokemon, boy?"
"I would say I've seen them around fifty times in a controlled environment in school, and around ten times while training in the mornings. I've seen caught pokemon often, however." Ors replied quickly, ready to do anything his grandfather asked at a high speed.
"Good. Jynx?" Ors' father and grandfather suddenly waved out of existence.
A Growlithe walked out of the bushes, sniffing the ground. It quickly growled and bristled its fur as it stared at the intruder. "Oh you've gotta be shitting me…"
He closed his left eye and stared it down. 'Identify.'
Species: Growlithe
Type: Fire
Potential: Red
Ability: Flash Fire
Level: 6
You are reading story Pokemon: Regulus at novel35.com
Moves: Bite, Leer
"Oh goody, you have ass for potential." Potential moved from black to red to orange to yellow to green to blue to violet to white, while moves ranged from Basic to Medium to Advanced mastery.
Although it didn't have a limiting effect, as even black potential pokemon could reach the level of champions, it did affect moves. The black potential pokemon would take far more work to reach move mastery in a given attack than a blue pokemon would. It also affected abilities, as some blue pokemon could have an ability usually belonging to other pokemon or a new ability altogether.
Ors grinned as he got in a crouching position. The Growlithe made the first move, but once it was within ten feet, Ors dug both feet into the ground, and charged forward nearly parallel to the ground.
Suddenly, he was on the fire type, before a second had even passed. The boy reached into the ground, forcing himself to a stop, and kicked up, throwing all of his energy into it. After flying for six feet, Growlithe rolled to a stop, head rocked by the whiplash.
By the time it stood up, its opponent was already running back. "Ha! That should've given me some nice XP! If only humans had high base stats."
Although people in the Pokemon world were certainly stronger at base than those of Earth, Ors was only at the level of a world record holder from his past life.
Species: Human III (Orthrus Regulus)
Type: Normal
Potential: Yellow
Ability: Reincarnator
Level: 28
Moves: Running (A), Front Kick—Instep (I), Corkscrew Cross, (I), Assorted Martial Arts (B)
In fact, Ors had already reached level 30 twice. However, instead of evolving as most humans do at level 30, he chose to improve his potential by one grade. The benefit of this is that it didn't actually negatively impact his growth speed, as would a normal evolution. This reset his level to 0.
He started at Black Potential, each "evolution" raising that by two grades. Mere physical training and the passage of time led him to the first evolution, but to cross the bottleneck from level 29 to thirty a second time, he had to defeat a pokemon, which happened to be a level 3 Oddish near his house.
His Identify skill that he had since birth could also show his stats, though he usually didn't check them. At the moment they showed:
HP: 59
Attack: 88
Defense: 28
Sp. Attack: 5
Sp. Defense: 47
Speed: 106
Speed in this world was far more important than in the games, as having a speed stat far above other pokemon and people could mean landing multiple attacks. This was even more so when considering that enough damage could stagger opponents. Basically, any attack had a chance of causing the flinch effect from the games if it did enough damage or caught an enemy by surprise.
Humans' base stats were actually:
HP: 50
Attack: 30
Defense: 25
Sp. Attack: 0
Sp Defense: 40
Speed: 40
This total barely even beat Sunkern and Blipbug, the weakest known pokemon.
Each level raised a stat of Ors' choice by one, and additional training could also raise his stats. Usually for humans, stats at level up were placed according to what the human did to earn the majority of XP for that level. Evolution for humans worked the same way.
For example, boxing could increase attack, and if enough XP was gathered by doing activities for boxing, the human would likely evolve to a Punch Human. A teacher could become a Mind Human. Basically, evolution in humans granted humans the ability to grow faster in things pertaining to their new species.
Most people in this world, perhaps even all people, were unaware of the concept of levels, but were aware of potential and evolution. Machines could scan pokemon potentials, and the average trainer could generally identify what rank a pokemon was, from Baby, to Basic, to Intermediate, to Advanced, to Elite, to Ace, to King, to Peak, to Master, to Champion.
Each rank is composed of ten levels, according to Ors' judgment. Only Ors, in this whole world, could choose exactly where his stats meant, meaning he could gain XP by running, but put the points from leveling up in Special Attack.
While considering how lucky he was to have a system, even if it didn't give him missions or items, he tripped over a tree stump and ate a bit of dirt. By the time he stood up and contemplated his skinned knee, the Growlithe was upon him.
This was the second time he actually had to fight a pokemon, as he usually could hide from them. Growlithe, however, had a very good sense of smell as a species. Ors sighed. Time for battle number two in his second life.