A/N: Written for the Advent Calender Challenge on the RLt, and for the Indigo League Challenge on the PMF, Viridian Forest Task (repeat).
Milestones
XIV – The Fourteenth
Max fought Winona soonafter for his fourth badge, and Leaf the Grass-type Gym leader for his fifth. Winona was a challenging fight because he only had one flyer: his Skarmory. But he was admirable, and while Clefairy's Ice Punch and Rollout were difficult to utilise on the field and Wooper's Mud Shot useless, Torkoal's Smokescreen and Grovyle's jumping abilities were stretched to their limits as well. In fact, Max had taken a leaf out of Ash's book and used Grovyle, but he had a few new tactics to avoid the flying type attacks.
Last it was Kirlia, whom he had managed to teach Thunderbolt – after a video-call to Ash and Pikachu. And Winona had been quite surprised when her Swellow took a heavy hit. But Winona was strong, and her Swellow wouldn't be taken down by one hit.
But Kirlia had, over the months from Mossdeep, learnt speed. She had also learnt Teleport, something that had occurred to Max was useful after Skarmory mastered Agility. That meant he was unable to teach her Signal Beam as the twins had suggested, but Dark Types didn't have the greatest defence in any case.
And not every trainer covered every single move amongst six Pokemon; Max thought he had a pretty good team as it was – particularly when, after he'd climbed down from Fortree City and challenged the Grass-type Gym, his Kirlia evolved into her final evolution: Gardevoir.