"You will spend as much time on something as you have for it." ~paraphrased, Burnie Burns.
My sub 4k chapters are something that I struggle with a lot as a writer. I'm so used to having 6-8k chapters, if not longer, that having something so short just feels wrong to me. If I didn't give myself a timeframe of x amount of weeks, I might agonize over something for an entire month. This chapter is one of those issues. While functionally, I think it works out, when I started looking over things for the last revision before I started posting things (when I told myself 'no more major edits, just minor things') I realized that there was a few areas I could improve on.
It's okay though. I can always get around to them in the future, if/when I continue this story. And if nothing else, its knowledge for future pieces that I can use to draw inspiration from.
It's the peace and quiet of the temple that speaks to her. Lost in a deep trance where sight and sound of the world gave way to the shades of blue that was Aura, the muted shouts of martial arts three courtyards over were as relaxing as any windchime or bamboo pond adornment. Beside her she can feel Caitlyn lost in her own meditation, the flow of her aura focused around her head, a bright beacon of energy she has no problems staring at. It takes an amused mental nudge for her to turn her focus away from admiration, one she sheepishly flares her aura in response to.
For a moment, her second sight dims. In the next, her aura tails are flooded with energy. The entirety of Violet City spreads out beneath her. A mixture of the traditional central Johto architecture of wood frames, clay tile roofing, and the iconic white exterior surrounding modern skyscrapers in the metropolitan area, the sheer amount of life energy was once dizzying. Now, it's nothing more than background noise.
Were somebody to be watching her, they would see her tails twitch in various directions, spreading out like fangs ready to capture their prey. It takes a couple minutes, searching out for the specific frequency that she knows is hers, but eventually she finds what she's looking for.
Standing at the front of a room in front of almost three hundred children is her Trainer, walking back and forth slightly as he gives a speech on various pokémon related fields. She stays like that for what seems like an eternity, watching ripples of interest spread through the children like the scent of morning pastries.
At such a young age, she knows the human children are more focused in battles or other flashy things like coordinator contests, but scattered throughout the crowd are the rare few who are genuinely interested in all the fields her Trainer is talking about.
And if, from time to time, Alex looks up at Umbral's general direction and flexes his aura in a smile as gentle as the one she knows is on his face, who is she to stop herself from prodding him back in return?
/ - /
The sun was almost at its zenith when Alex finally stepped outside. Though his presentation had ended a few hours ago, the ambience of the school was perfect for him to borrow an unused classroom to work on going over his next speech. One part quid pro quo and one part an actual need for supplementary income, Alex had been giving speeches to the Trainer Schools within Johto over the past several months. For the younger ages- those aiming for a provisional license- his topics were geared around pokémon based professions, basics of nutrition, making your own treats, and for a few schools he was told had a plethora of battle oriented students: basics of battle tactics.
The last one was a topic he was to cover again in about an hour and a half. Enough time for him to pick up lunch from a burger chain and make his way to the western training fields closer to the residential towns that he knew weren't as frequented.
He half expected to find Caitlyn and Celèste waiting for him given all the poking and prodding he endured during the speech, but when neither of them were in sight he chalked it up to a personal day for the two. It felt just the littlest bit weird as always, though with them going out more and more frequently he was slowly getting used to the lack of their presence.
It hurt as much as it made him happy.
The minutes ticked by and a little unsurprisingly, it was Felicity who showed up first. In the fall weather, her choice of black clothing- lined with black fur of some type- and decorated with gold rings was rather laudable. Thick enough to conserve warmth yet still 'fashionable' as kids were wont to do.
The girl stopped and stared at him for several moments, hesitantly joining him in the bench overlooking the two standard battlefields. "Still weird knowing we've got an old man as an advisor."
"In what regard?" he gruffed out, clearing his throat when he realized how gravelly his voice was.
"Information about you is hard to come by. A lot of stuff is years old and the most recent official video footage is from four years ago in Kalos." She glanced at him and mimicked his pose, crossing her arms and slouching slightly forward. "You used a delphox and a greninja then. Same ones you battled against in Goldenrod a few weeks back."
"I'm still not seeing what the problem is."
"Kenny's vouching for you; keeps saying something about how 'Any high ranking Valor trainer is somebody to be respected', and that on his company's forums there's a well known Valor trainer that drops battle information and tactics from time to time, including video footage that looks exactly like your vaporeon. Mr. Compton says you're an amazing instructor too, but I'm not buying it. As far as I see it, you don't have the right to be teaching us- them."
"Nope." Alex let out an amused breath. "A bunch of brats out on their first adventures looking to specialize in eeveelution typing? Couldn't be bothered to deal with that. Luckily!" He said quickly, speaking over the beginnings of a vindicated spiel, "I'm not the one dealing with type specializations and why or why not it's a bad idea. I'm just the one that's helping them learn move theory."
"What, like Professor Kukui?"
"Pretty much." He straightened up, tilting his back minutely to crack it in several places before leaning forward again. "Not that I particularly care what one person thinks of me or not, but what'll it take for you to have some faith in me?"
"Battle me."
"We did that already. I won."
"Not in front of the cameras. Battle me, 6 on 6."
"You'll lose."
"And you're just deflecting because you're too afraid of a quarter finalist."
Alex chuckled. She was goading him. He couldn't sense them, and none of his team was out patrolling to confirm it, but he just knew that other members of the eevee kids were somewhere around. "Maybe another time. This old head of mine isn't as fast as it used to be, so I need to make sure I can teach you kids properly when it's time." He rose, a sly smile on his face as he walked around the bench and towards the tree line. "Enjoy your youth while you can, Felicia."
"My name is Felicity!"
/ - /
In just under an hour's time, the sun would start to set, slowly turning the light blues of the day to the darks of night. They'd have to be gone by then, though undoubtedly he'd have to stay just a little longer. Felicity seemed rather intent on battling him, if the glances she'd sent the first dozen minutes of their training session was anything to go by, and he'd rather nip that in the bud instead of keeping the charade up for too long.
With a quick flick of his wrist, he finished the last detail to the diagram: a path of travel for particles kicked up by Sand-Attack. Incidentally, between the eight eevee they managed to collectively learn the three main types of spray. High, short ranged; thin, long ranged; and wide, medium ranged. They could be adjusted of course, but those were generally the specific qualities found in a beginner's attack. There was also the interesting development of all of the eevee learning a specialty fourth move to compliment their Tackle, Growl/Tail Whip, and Sand-Attack move pool, and after consulting his notes he realized that the moves must have been the result of specific breeding (or tutoring in the case of the to-be jolteon, espeon, and leafeon).
"Mr. Collens, the kids are just about ready for you."
Alex stood up, Morgan immediately crawling up his body and lounging across his shoulders. Because of the secretive nature of battle strategy, his lesson today wouldn't be filmed, and the kids were all in the process of getting their lavalier mics collected. He was grateful that they mainly focused on physical drills; running around the fields, tackling padded dummies, and 'playing' with their elder eeveelutions. If the Mentors had gone and did battle strategy he'd have to work on attack combinations; after starting the day with the former though, he felt much more confident on continuing with the mindset from earlier.
"You all excited for your gym battles?" The eight kids looked up from their conversations, confusion splattered across their faces. Not an unsurprising development, considering they hadn't so much as looked his way since their arrival.
"With our teachings, they'll ace it."
Garren Mercier. According to the files, he was one of the premier battlers of the Kalos generation, alongside Felicity. His last event was a Junior's Doubles Tournament over in Orsay City, Kalos, and he boasted the unusual strategy of using Ice and Dragon types. "Glad to hear it." Alex smiled and turned his attention back to the younger youths. "My lesson today won't be as fun as your instruction with your Mentors, but hopefully you'll find some use of it, whether it be immediate or in the future. Now, who can tell me the properties of Sand-Attack?"
"A move that throws sand in the opponent's face." Meahgan Kobayashi. A girl from Kanto and the Umbreon Trainee. Apparently, she hoped to go beyond the Silver Conference and make an attempt at the Indigo Plateau.
"Standard definition," Alex responded approvingly. "Have any of you used it in battle yet?" Three of the kids, Adam (the vaporeon trainee), Micheal (flareon), and Meahgan herself raised their hands. "For those that haven't, any particular reason why?"
'Never saw the need', 'Growl or Tail-Whip seemed like the better choice', or 'Forgot' was the consensus.
Alex simply nodded. "As I'm sure you all know, Falkner is Johto's Flying type Gym Leader. As this will be your first gym battle, it won't be as difficult as later battles, though because of him utilizing flying types you'll be facing the difficulties of a non-grounded opponent. Has anybody had any experience fighting against flying types yet?"
Jasmine Nakamura, just the slightest bit concerningly familiar and the jolteon trainer-to-be, raised her hand. At his prodding, "The pidgey kept using Quick Attack, and it was fast enough that Jupiter couldn't land hits without using his own Quick Attack."
Alex hummed in acknowledgement, tapping at his X-gear to pull up the items he needed. "On average, pidgey are just slightly faster than eevee. The discrepancy gets a bit larger once they start working gravity into their attacks, and believe me, Falkner will most definitely do so." With a few more presses and relevant gestures, a simple white board materialized, a handful of markers appearing in his hand afterward. "Now then."
Morgan leapt off his outstretched arm, taking a stance to the right of the board. A moment later, Umbral materialized away from him several feet away, her ball arching back into his hand with a loud clap. "Though it doesn't see much use in high level battles because of various reasons- mostly related to sportsmanship- Sand-Attack is still a highly useful move and it would be remiss to not keep it in mind, even if you don't keep it as one of your Listed." At his gesture, the ghost type shot towards Morgan, the water type spinning on his forelegs and kicking a violent plume of dirt into the air with his back feet. Umbral still followed through however, phasing through Morgan and quietly conversing with him with a sing-song giggle.
"Were Umbral not prepared for it, flying through a cloud of dirt would result in dirt in her eyes- even as a Ghost. The duration and severity of such actions are dependent on numerous factors, but in most cases assume it will last the remainder of the battle. Before I move on, can anybody tell me any other uses off the top of their head?"
/ - /
It was well into the dead of night when Falkner met him in a 24 hour diner in the heart of the city. Normally only a metropolis specialty, the late night crowd mostly consisted of insomniacs or people just looking to be away from home for a bit. Nestled in the far back corner, up against the window, there was even a writer of some kind, both a laptop and a spiral notebook complete with mechanical pencil in front of her.
Falkner spoke in a hushed tone, not bothering to remove his sunglasses, letting dyed brown hair reflect back at him. The man's outfit- a predominately black outfit with a white shirt underneath a black button up- would forever ironically draw more attention, especially late at night, but at least combined with the beanie it kept the Gym Leader's identity concealed. "Thank you for joining me so late. I apologize for the short notice, but the Association didn't notify me until a few hours ago."
"It's not a problem. I know how these sort of things go." Alex pulled the manilla envelope closer with a finger, taking note of the dull black 'CONFIDENTIAL' stamped on it. "All the information's inside?" A moment later the package was secured inside one of his spatially lined inner jacket pockets, the article of clothing already laying down beside him on the bench. For all intents and purposes, it looked as if he had merely wrapped it up rather than sequestered it away to dataspace.
Falkner nodded. "You'll have three days to take care of it." He leaned a little closer, his voice just barely audible over the soft music being played. "The League's willing to look the other direction if they need to, but both they and myself would like it if you could prevent unnecessary terraforming or wildfires. We had a good rainy season, but if what's going on down there is true…"
"We'll do what we can."
Package delivered, Falkner stood and left as calmly as he arrived. It was understandably unfortunate, but the quality of service he received from the waiter was notably less after the affair.