Tuesday, October 17th, 2017
We arrived at our first destination for the day after a bit more than an hour of hiking out of Aitkin. It had ended up taking Al about a week to find someone willing to loan me a Pokemon to use, so it was my first day working by myself. Now that we could finally divvy up the work, Al was continuing to take his truck or Rapidash to get to some of the lakes that were farther away while I handled the ones that were within hiking distance.
Al and I initially had some disagreements about what constituted 'within walking distance,' but eventually I'd been able to convince him that an hour's walk was nothing compared to what I had been doing up to this point. Spending so much of the day hiking meant that I was wasting a good chunk of the day, but it was still more time-efficient than both of us going to survey the same lake. Besides, the extra exercise actually felt good after a full week without any long hikes.
As soon as the lake was in sight, I made my way down to the shore and pressed the button on the Pokeball that I'd been loaned. When my temporary Toxapex appeared in the water, I took a few seconds to examine him. I wasn't terribly familiar with the species since I'd hadn't played much of my copy of Sun. I'd been waiting for the game's sequels to come out before I really invested time in the newest generation, but as my luck turned out, I was pulled into the Pokemon world before they'd been released.
Plex seemed unphased by my attention and waved one of his front tentacles at me, which I returned with a wave of my own. His owner had said that he was a very friendly Pokemon and the owner's only word of caution was to watch out for the poisonous spines on his tentacles. That seemed like fairly obvious advice until he clarified that Plex sometimes extended his outside spines when he got excited. Normally Toxapex just retract them when they have a rider but in Plex's case, that would actually make things more dangerous since the spines might unexpectedly re-extend.
A few minutes later, I'd safely positioned myself atop Plex and waved to my Pokemon as we Surfed out to the first of the buoys on the lake. The four of them had been fairly patient while I'd been working so far, which I partially chalked up to them just being glad for the opportunity to be outside after being cooped up in their Pokeballs at night. The one exception was Scout, who was still more skittish than she used to be. She hadn't tried to go off to gather berries, instead opting to stay by Peren's side at all times while we were in the woods.
Even though it was my first time working solo, the census only took me and Plex a half-hour to complete since the first lake was so small. When we got back to shore, I returned Plex back into his Greatball and then started hiking to the next lake that I was supposed to handle today.
Despite the fact that we were well into fall, the temperature had risen back to the upper sixties and the forecast for the next week predicted more of the same. I was starting to wonder when it would cool down enough for turnover to actually happen but I wasn't complaining. The nice weather meant that we could still spend plenty of time outside and that there was plenty of time for collecting all of the data that Al wanted.
It only took us another ten minutes to reach the next lake, which was likewise quickly dealt with. When that one was finished, I didn't return Plex right away since it was getting close to noon and now was as good of a time as any to stop for lunch. I poured five piles of food from the new bag of dry Pokemon food that I'd purchased and then sat cross-legged on the ground to eat my own lunch.
On my first day on the job, I'd just eaten a granola bar for lunch as I'd done most days prior, which had earned me a critical look from Al. From that day forward, Al's wife Betty had started making me a sack lunch which I readily admitted was a stark improvement over what I'd been eating.
I'd gone over to their house for dinner a couple of times already and found Betty to be just as nice as her husband. Coincidentally, she worked at the town's library so I ended up getting plenty of reading recommendations over dinner. She had been a little confused about how I hadn't read any classics despite being an avid reader, but I'd been able to explain that away by saying that I'd never been interested in reading until I had started my journey and had plenty of free time.
"You guys just about ready to head out?" I asked after taking the last bite from my apple. All five Pokemon nodded and some of them stood up with a stretch, though Peren and Blitz looked a bit disconcerted. I'd noticed that they seemed oddly twitchy while eating, in that they would take a large bite and then look around while chewing, but I figured that they were just eager to get moving again. There were still three more lakes that I wanted to finish surveying and it would be a two-hour walk back to Aitkin from the last one. The one piece of good news was that daylight savings hadn't ended yet, so there would still be plenty of daylight for the return journey.
After we'd finished lunch, it took us another fifteen minutes to reach the next lake and I immediately went out on Plex to start checking the traps. I took care of the first few buoys before glancing over to see how my Pokemon were doing. I was surprised to see that Blitz was missing and that Peren was standing up, which was odd since they had more or less stayed still during our first two stops.
I watched for a few more seconds while Plex swam to the next trap and saw Blitz fly out of the treeline, only to immediately go back in. Nothing seemed to be wrong though, so I did my best to finish checking the lake quickly rather than going back to check on them. I wasn't as concerned about Blitz since he likely was just burning off extra energy, but Peren's behavior was unusual enough that I couldn't help but be mildly concerned.
"Anything wrong?" I asked Peren once I was safely back onshore and had returned Plex for the third time today. "You looked a bit uneasy." My starter didn't reply for a few seconds and then finally shook his head slowly. I wasn't entirely convinced by his response, but I decided to take it at face value given that we still had plenty of ground to cover. I didn't want to accidentally leave Blitz behind, so I called for him to come back and then set out once he was back in sight.
Blitz flew ahead of us as normal while we made our way to the fourth lake, but unlike usual, he stayed far enough ahead that I would barely catch a glimpse of him before he would fly back out of sight. At one point I didn't see him for a few minutes, the longest stretch so far, and then there was a loud squawk ahead of us. I realized with a start that the last time that I'd heard him make such a noise was back when we'd fought the pack in woods that were very similar to the ones we were currently walking through. In fact, we weren't terribly far away from where we had fought them off, barely a day or so's walk west.
"Hey guys, wait up," I quickly told the three Pokemon that were still with me before turning in the direction of the noise and calling, "Blitz come back!" Peren and Nin instantly were as on alert as I was, but Scout didn't react other than giving me an odd look from her perch on Peren's back. We waited ten terse seconds for Blitz to reappear, only for him to calmly land on the branch of a nearby tree.
"What was that about? Anything we need to worry about?" I asked as soon as he'd landed. My fears were assuaged when he shook his head and gave an empathic 'Inder' in response. After breathing a sigh of relief, I added, "Okay, let's keep going then. Want to stick closer by this time?" Blitz took an inordinate amount of time to consider the question before nodding. With that squared away, we resumed our hike and made it to the fourth lake without any further incident.
The fourth lake went about as smoothly as the earlier ones had, up until I checked the trap that was farthest from the shore that my Pokemon were waiting on. As I was jotting down the Pokemon that had been in the trap, in this case a single Goldeen, I heard some rustling behind me. I waited until I'd finished and let the Pokemon return to the lake to check on the noise, only to see a black snout with a red nose poking out through the tall grass at the lake's edge.
I jerked back in surprise at the sight and almost poked myself on one of Plex's spikes in the process. The water type beneath me made a concerned sounding noise, but I ignored him to spin back around to check on my Pokemon. I was relieved to see that nothing looked amiss and that they were all still in the same positions that I'd seen on my last check. There was another rustle behind me but when I turned to look, the offending Pokemon was nowhere to be seen. Perturbed, I finished checking the remaining traps as fast as possible.
This time when I got back to shore, I waited to return Plex and instead announced, "I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty beat. I'm thinking we should maybe call it here for the day." The moment that I'd finished speaking, Peren slowly stretched and yawned. "I'll take that as a yes," I said with a smile, glad that he'd picked up my plan to not alert Scout. It was only as I was returning Plex that I realized that's what he and Blitz had been doing the entire day and that I was the one slow on the uptake.
I had us take the most direct course back to Aitkin and even picked up Nin so that we could move a bit faster on the way back. Whether it was because of our speed or lack of actual danger, we were able to make it back to Aitkin without any incident, leaving Scout none the wiser regarding the uncomfortably close encounter. Al wasn't at the lab when we arrived, so I shot him a text saying that everything was fine, but I was pretty sure that I saw one of the Poochyena.
I was relaxing on the futon a few minutes later when I got his reply, 'I'm afraid that giving them food might have caused this. Why don't you take my Primeape with you going forward? It would make Betty and me feel a lot better knowing you have backup if something happens.'
I sent Al another text saying that sounded good and then loudly exhaled before grabbing the copy of Prince of Persian that I'd gotten from the library. I was thankful to Al for watching out for me, but I had to admit that I was mildly concerned about bringing along one of the only Pokemon species that was more hot-headed than Blitz.
Saturday, October 21st, 2017
"Peck!" I shouted to be heard over the cacophonous noises that filled the gym.
"Keep it up, Echoed Voice!" My opponent yelled from across the battlefield to his Minccino. The chinchilla Pokemon leaned back slightly and screamed up at Blitz, creating waves of sound that visibly distorted the air as they traveled. I watched as Blitz maneuvered around the attack and wondered why anyone would keep something that made this much noise as a pet.
After the first couple of times that I'd trained at the gym, the local kids had started challenging me to battles. None of them were officially trainers though, which meant that the only Pokemon they could use were their housepets. So far none of them had been able to beat me in a full set of matches and Blitz in particular hadn't dropped a single battle.
My current opponent, Tim, had insisted that I use Blitz in today's battle, though I couldn't figure out why as I watched him easily avoid Minccino's attacks. He quickly crossed the battlefield and swooped around other Pokemon, hitting it in the back with his beak. Minccino stumbled forward from the blow, but recovered surprisingly quickly and turned around to yell again. Unfortunately for it, Blitz had already flown back up and hovered there for a moment before diving once again.
I silently watched as Blitz spent the next minute dive-bombing the poor Pokemon until it was finally knocked out. Tim's friends on the sidelines groaned when the Pokemon collapsed to the floor, but the kid himself seemed oddly unconcerned. Without any hesitation, Tim returned his first Pokemon and sent out his second which turned out to be a weirdly round sheep-looking Pokemon.
I stared for several seconds trying to remember what Pokemon this was, but came up completely blank. It didn't even look similar enough to any I could think of that I could write it off as a regional variant that I hadn't seen yet. The perfectly round coat of wool that adorned the Pokemon made it so the only parts of its body that I could see were its face and four stubby legs.
A smug grin appeared on Tim's face when he noticed my confusion and he taunted, "What, you've never seen a Wooloo before? I got it when my family went on vacation to Galar over the summer!" I also had no idea what Galar was but didn't have time to wonder about that since Tim impatiently continued, "Are you ready to start or what?"
Pointedly ignoring the fact that a fifteen-year-old kid was trying to bait me, I looked up towards where Blitz was hoving and said, "Let's get started with another Peck."
"Defense Curl!" Tim called while Blitz dove down and Wooloo pulled its legs into its wool at the same time that more wool appeared and covered its face. Undeterred by the fact that his opponent was now just a perfect ball of wool, Blitz continued his dive. He tried to hit the other Pokemon beak-first but just bounced off back into the air as there was no discernible change in the Wooloo other than some slight jiggling.
Blitz attempted his attack a few more times without any success before turning to look at me and letting out an indignant squawk. I was about to tell him to try Flame Charge, but Tim beat me to the punch and ordered Wooloo to use Rollout. "Don't get hit!" I quickly cautioned Blitz as Wooloo's coat took a brownish sheen and it began rolling around on the floor, slowly building up speed. "Try hitting it from above with Flame Charge."
Flames surrounded Blitz's wings and he took a few more seconds to watch Wooloo's movements before diving down towards his opponent. He dove at a much sharper angle than normal so it looked like he would be able to land a good hit and I prepared myself for the smell of burnt wool. Right before he made contact with the other Pokemon, Wooloo suddenly bounced off of the gym's floor and smacked right into Blitz.
Blitz's flames sputtered out from the hit and he was knocked to the ground with his wings spread out. Before he could recover, Wooloo spun back around and promptly rolled over the stunned bird. I winced at the sight of the nearly flattened Pokemon and quickly returned him before Wooloo could make a third pass.
Cheers erupted from Tim's friends that someone had finally managed to defeat Blitz and the kid's smug grin only grew. I ignored them with a roll of my eyes and turned around to face the rest of my team who'd been watching the battle with varying levels of interest. "Any of you want to give it a shot next?" I asked.
Scout had definitely been the one that was most interested in watching the battle as I'd heard her cheer at several points while Blitz was fighting Minccino, but now that Blitz was out she was completely silent. Nin and Peren didn't visibly share her enthusiasm with Peren quietly sitting on the floor as he watched while Nin simply lay on the floor with his eyes closed. The only reason I knew he wasn't asleep was because his tongue flicked out every few seconds.
"Alright, no volunteers. Umm… how about you Scout?" Though they wouldn't have the same issues with type weakness, I doubted that Peren and Nin would have any better luck getting past Wooloo's thick wool to damage it. Besides, I thought that the squirrel Pokemon could use a small confidence boost, which was reinforced when she jolted at her name and gave me a hesitant look before turning to look at Peren. My starter gave her an encouraging nod at the same time that I assured her, "It'll be fine. You'll do great."
Scout took a moment longer to consider before slowly walking forward to stand on the battlefield in front of me. Tim and his friends were still celebrating their win so it took them a few seconds to see that I was ready to continue. When he finally noticed, he laughed and decisively said, "You're using Scout? I'm definitely going to win now! Wooloo, use Rollout again!"
Wooloo once again began to roll across the battlefield, but before it started I noticed that it hadn't gotten away from its fight with Blitz completely unharmed as there was a section of its coat that was singed brown. "Slow it down with Thunder Wave," I told Scout and she scrunched herself up for a moment before firing several lines of electricity towards her opponent. Wooloo rolled directly through the attack and only made three more rotations before it froze in place.
"Thunder Shock," I called out while Tim urged his Wooloo to start moving again. The ball of wool started rolling towards Scout again, but the extra electrical shocks that she was giving weren't helping matters and Wooloo was unable to build up any real speed. Scout easily dodged it whenever it got close to her, though her own attacks weren't doing much because of the insulating wool.
As Wooloo continued to miss, Tim grew more and more visibly frustrated before he finally stamped his foot on the ground and returned his Pokemon. The other kids groaned in disappointment at Tim's defeat, but within seconds, several of them started to clamor for me to battle them next.
"Hey, you guys know the rule. One battle a day," I replied as I jogged over to where Scout stood. A few of the kids whined in protest, but I ignored them to kneel down at Scout's side and rub the top of her head while praising her. "You did great! You know, you just beat a Pokemon that Blitz lost to. I think that means that you're stronger than Blitz," I finished conspiratorially.
Scout's eyes went wide at my declaration and she quickly shook her head. Chuckling, I looked into Blitz's Pokeball and saw him staring back at me so I decided that he probably didn't need a trip to the Pokemon Center. As soon as I sent him out, Blitz shook himself to try to realign his ruffled feathers and then faced Scout and gave a single chirp. She immediately tried to cover her face in embarrassment, which was made even more adorable given that her stubby arms barely reached her mouth.
Unconcerned by the reaction that he had just caused, Blitz began preening to get everything back in place, though he was a bit more forceful about it than usual. I was glad that my suspicion was confirmed that his pride was hurt more than anything else, which made sense given that Tim's Wooloo likely wasn't actually trained. That said, Blitz's wounded pride wasn't something I was above exploiting for today's training.
The actual reason I came to the gym almost daily was for the dedicated space to train my Pokemon. Getting challenged by the local kids was an unfortunate side effect that I'd initially tried to ignore, but eventually gave in to their persistence. Our deal was that every day one of them got to challenge me to a battle and then they had to leave me alone after that.
Despite my initial annoyance, the arrangement ultimately worked out fairly well for both parties. My Pokemon got a little extra exercise that went beyond practicing their moves and the kids got to both battle me and stick around to watch me train my Pokemon afterward. They tried to be sly about it as if they didn't want me to notice which ultimately worked in my favor as well since it meant that they didn't bother me. From what I'd read online, many trainers liked to keep their training methods a secret, but I honestly didn't care if they watched given that I was just making it up as I went.
At one point, I'd mentioned the situation to Al, but he had just laughed and said better me than him. The same kids had apparently tried to get him to mentor them when they'd found out that he'd earned seven badges before he'd retired as a full-time trainer. As it turned out, they were so desperate that they would settle for someone who barely had two.
I lightly shook my head to stop thinking about the kids and looked down at Blitz who was still working on tidying his feathers. Speaking with a casualness that I knew would annoy him, I started, "You know, I bet you would have beaten that sheep thing if you knew Ember. If you had been able to stay in the air then I don't think it could have done anything."
Blitz paused mid-movement and stayed perfectly still while he considered. After a few seconds, he turned to look up at me and sharply nodded. I barely held back a smile, glad that he was finally willing to learn a new move instead of just working on his speed. He had been mildly interested in Ember when I'd mentioned it during the Brainerd gym challenge but had lost interest the next day when I'd benched him for the actual gym fight. I'd belatedly realized that telling him that I didn't want to risk him getting hit by a water attack hadn't been the right thing to say since from then on the only thing he wanted to do was get faster.
At any rate, he was willing to learn now so I pressed on, "I'm not sure how you make your fire for Flame Wheel, but can you try putting it in front of your beak instead of around you? And then just... breathe hard?" Despite my lame finish, Blitz nodded sharply again and flew off to the corner of the gym that was treated with fireproof materials.
"You're up next," I said as I turned to Scout who had finally composed herself when Blitz flew off. With a gesture, I led her back to where Peren and Nin were waiting along with her training materials. "You've been making good progress with Bite so let's keep working on that. Work your way up to the thicker branches and while you're doing that, see if you can send electricity through your teeth while you Bite."
Scout squeaked and then scampered over to the pile of branches that I'd gathered for her to practice on for lack of any better options. She was still struggling with quickly Biting through some of the thicker branches, but had otherwise made good progress. I wanted to start moving her onto Thunder Fang next since that seemed like it would be an easy pickup, no pun intended. I eventually wanted her to learn Follow Me since it was easily the most iconic move for Pachirisu, but I wanted to get her offensive options set up first.
Turning towards my least problematic Pokemon, I said, "Peren, you know what to work on. Just keep up the good work." He nodded before standing up with a stretch and walking over to some targets that were set up near Blitz's corner. I had decided that it was still a bit early for him to jump into learning Seed Bomb, so he was still working on perfecting Bullet Seed. I also had him get started on Stomp since it seemed like it would be a good continuation from Double Kick.
Finally, I looked at Nin and asked, "What do you feel like working on today?" Since I wasn't familiar with the regional form of Ekans, I wasn't entirely what moves a pure normal typed snake could or should learn, so I'd decided to leave some of the decisions up to him. His potential movepool had shrunk even more considering that he didn't have any limbs, so I'd created a list of potential moves depending on a body part. Nin considered my question for less than a second before moving the end of his tail to point at his eyes.
"So you want to stick with Mean Look?" I asked and Nin nodded, prompting me to hold back a sigh. When I'd presented him with around ten different moves that I thought that he could learn, I didn't expect him to pick a third move that impaired his targets. Nonetheless, I'd told him that he could pick so we continued working on it despite my reservations.
Since the move needed to be tested on a target, Nin and I followed Scout to where she was working on Biting through a stick. There was a crack as the branch split in half and Scout bounced excitedly to herself before noticing us. "Great job! Nin wants to practice Mean Look some more so you can keep working in the meantime." Scout squeaked and moved onto the next largest stick while Nin slithered past me so that he was about a foot away from her.
I positioned myself so that I could see Nin's eyes but wouldn't be in his line of sight enough to be affected by the moves that he used. Like the last time that he'd tried to use Mean Look, his first attempts made his eyes glow yellow, which I'd discovered meant that he was using Glare instead. I'd initially had Nin practice the move on Peren, but accidental paralysis had quickly become an issue, so we'd switched to Scout since she was immune to the condition.
I finally spoke up after watching Nin's eyes flash yellow a few more times, "Maybe it's about mindset? What do you think about when you use Glare?" Nin halted his attempts to turn and give me a blank stare that was broken only when his tongue flicked out for a moment. I immediately felt stupid for asking a question that wasn't yes or no, especially to the least vocal of my Pokemon. Before I could clarify, Nin coiled his body around one of Scout's sticks and looked back at me expectantly.
"You… think about Wrapping them?" I slowly asked and Nin nodded. I considered for a few seconds before continuing, "Well, Wrap and Glare are all about immobilizing your target so I guess that makes sense. Mean Look is more like… isolating them from their trainer since it makes it so they can't be returned." Even as I said it, I knew that my description wasn't completely accurate since Mean Look also worked on wild Pokemon, but I didn't want to sabotage my own point. I could always try to think of a different comparison if this wasn't any better.
While I had been considering my words, Nin did the same and nodded after a few seconds. He turned back to stare at Scout only for his eyes to flash yellow again. A moment later he tried again and this time his eyes turned a deep purple before slowly fading back to their normal color. I jumped slightly at the change and quickly pressed the button on Scout's Pokeball. The normal red beam of light shot out from the ball, but the light fizzled out a few inches away from her instead of engulfing her as normal.
"Awesome job!" I said before experimentally pressing the button again, only for Scout to be returned back into her ball this time. I immediately sent her back out, prompting her to give me a confused look until I'd explained that Nin had almost gotten it.
"You guys are doing great, just keep practi-" I started to say, but cut myself off when I heard a loud squawk from across the gym. I sighed and added, "I'd better go make sure Blitz isn't burning anything down. Keep up the good work." With that, I started to jog over towards where Blitz was practicing, hoping that I wouldn't have to pay any fines for damaged equipment. The pay that I was getting for working with Al was good, but not that good.
Thankfully, it turned out that Blitz's cry had just been frustration at not being able to use Ember immediately. I stayed with him and Peren for a few minutes, offering suggestions as I thought of them, then made my way to a section of the wall that I could lean against while keeping an eye on all four of my Pokemon. None of them looked like they needed any more assistance so I was finally able to pull out my Poryphone and spend some time investigating what in the world Galar was.
A/N: It turns out that Wooloo can't learn Rollout in SwSh which is absolutely ridiculous.
Thanks to both krazykz and Star for their help with the chapter. Next up is Chapter 15: Tricks and Treats.
