"Pokemon, a heart so true. Our courage will pull us through. You teach me and I'll teach you..." Xander continued to sing what he remembered of the original Pokemon theme song as he watched Cynthia battle.

The blonde was currently using her Riolu to fight against another trainer's Zangoose.

"Use [Rock Smash]!" Cynthia commanded

"Lu!" Riolu acknowledged before its right hand began to glow white

The other trainer saw that his pokemon was in danger and wanted to have the Zangoose pull back but it was too late.

With a sudden burst of speed, Riolu appeared in front of the taller pokemon before smashing his fist into its stomach.

Zangoose let out a grunt of pain before collapsing to the ground with its eyes rolled back.

"Do you admit defeat?" Cynthia asked the other trainer

The teen wanted to say something but the words were stuck in his throat. All he could do was tap away on his Pokegear.

Cynthia checked her Poketch and saw that she had received her 500 dollars. With a smile, she nodded at the other trainer before calling Riolu to her side and walking back to Xander.

The other trainer couldn't do anything but store his Zangoose and head back to his group of friends. He thought that Cynthia would be an easy target since she was younger than him but he ended up losing almost all of his savings to her.

"How was the match?" Cynthia asked as she took out a few protein bars for herself and her pokemon.

Xander was feeding Cerberus, trying to keep the heads from biting each other while he fed them their lunch as well. Sneasel was sitting on a tree branch above them, watching the heads fight in amusement.

"Pretty good," Xander quickly spat out when Cerberus almost bit him. "Down! Stop trying to bite each other! I'm feeding you both!"

Cynthia laughed seeing her friend struggle with feeding his pokemon. She was so glad that she had pretty docile pokemon in comparison.

"And you're sure you want to stick to Dark and Fighting-types? Cause these two have made it seem like an easy job?" Cynthia asked before taking a bite out of her lunch.

Xander sent Cerberus to go off and hunt some small animals but made sure to give it a time limit before he expected it to be back. The wild version of this pokemon was already used to doing this to survive so Xander wasn't too worried about him.

"Of course. It is a great balance for the team and I have the least amount of things to worry about with them. Besides Normal-types, these two have the least amount of requirements to raise them. Besides dealing with stubborn assholes and violent pokemon. And as you know from all our time together, I can be the most stubborn person around."

Cynthia nodded and didn't disagree. Xander was truly very stubborn.

During the past two years since they had their pokemon, Xander not only trained his hardest to make sure Cerberus could fight confidently even while blind, but he also made sure to try his best to keep up his physical fitness to train with Riolu and Sneasel.

"You're a madman. Most people either focus on a single type or use a well-balanced team of several different types. But you! You have decided to walk a path in between both."

"Ga, Ga."

"Lu."

"Sneeze."

The pokemon agreed with Cynthia's assessment.

"Traitor," Xander shot Sneasel a dirty look before tossing her a berry. The pokemon easily caught it in her mouth due to her quick reflexes.

"Snee," Sneasel commented before turning her back to the group to take a nap

Xander pulled his Potech towards his face before pressing several buttons on it. A map of the region and his current location was shown on the map.

They left Celestic town 3 days prior. And although the trip in a car was much faster and could get them to the city in 2 hours, they had no car to take. They had to take the trainer path which was much longer, rougher, and more dangerous.

This was the way that the Pokemon League got free work out of trainers by having them clear out pokemon along paths before they were able to reach cities or towns.

"We are about three days away from Veilstone city. We can cut that down to 1 if we wanna go through the woods but that would be unsafe and crazy."

"So we're heading through the woods," Cynthia concluded

"Yep. Cerberus should be back in 20 minutes. We can take another hour to rest before heading out. If we do it like that, we should arrive in Veilstone around noon tomorrow."

Cynthia kicked off her boots and lay on her sleeping bag. Gabby and Riolu curled up next to Cynthia.

"Fine with me. Wake me up when it's time to go."

Xander grunted in confirmation while he was fiddling with his Poketch. Currently, there was a list of over 20 pokemon that he was considering looking for.

'Legendary Pokemon are off the table. Trying to get myself one of those is just asking for trouble. As for Mythical, those guys are weird. Some are just powerful pokemon but it has been proven that there is more than one.

But if I want to be able to compete in the league championship in 6 months, I also can't travel far often. At most, I can take a month off to try and find a couple of members.

I can either head to Alola or Galar. Each of those places has rare Fighting and Dark-types that I can't find on the main continents. I'll get 3 or 4 members of my team before I make that decision. But that also means I need to get at least half of my team by the time I get my 3rd gym badge.

Ugh. Trying to figure this out is so annoying.'

Even when Cerberus came back, Xander was still trying to decide what his final team would be like. While everyone else was resting, the boy would edit and delete parts of his memo constantly. Like he had been doing for the past 2 years.

Cynthia woke up and saw that Xander looked even more exhausted than before they took their break. She reached into her bag and tossed him some chocolate which he happily caught.

"Thanks."

"You know, you're never gonna figure out your team. You just have to let it come naturally," Cynthia tried to advise Xander as she packed up her stuff

She heard him grunt in acknowledgment but she knew that he wouldn't take her words to heart. They were two different breeds.

Within minutes, the pair had packed up all their stuff and were heading into the woods. By this time tomorrow, both were hoping to challenge their first gym.