Disclaimer: Pokémon is still owned by The Pokémon Company, which in turn is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and probably others I forgot. The following fanfiction is me playing around in their sandbox, using characters they envisioned and created, except for the odd character that wasn't. I own nothing of this.

Chapter 32: Expanding The Repertoire

Deerling stayed low to the ground, trying to sneak around the main brawl that was taking place. Swampert and doublade were alternating heavy punches with light slashes on Mega aggron. Diggersby was nearby, shaking his head after a hard slam of a tail had knocked him away into a nearby tree, which had won that battle.

The goal was to get a piece of rope that they'd tied around the main horn, without using doublade's flight and while not using any attacks that worked from range. Max had taken the four Pokémon apart a bit, and had suggested that deerling was probably the one who would be best suited for the act.

So far, it hadn't really worked, but all the same, the Grass-type had been careful to not get hit by aggron's defending.

Swampert and diggersby had gone in hard from the word go. Hammer Arms were a Type nuisance, and few things didn't care about Danny's starter hitting them. Doublade had no real chance of dealing meaningful hurt, but scraping steel over steel was a nuisance.

To everyone, Max had soon realised, and he'd wished he knew where Danny kept his in-ears to at least stop his ears from hurting.

Diggersby rejoined the fight, staying low, aiming a Hammer Arm for aggron's left leg while swampert went for an Ice Punch to the stomach. The Steel-type ignored the Fighting-type move to prioritise swampert, and with a roar and a heave, the Water-type was thrown away several feet, landing upside while doublade zoomed around, going for the neck with one sword and being fast enough to avoid the swipe.

"How's he holding up?" Max asked Danny as deerling made an attempt, but the landing was only halfway up aggron's back, and from there, a swift turn slash tail swipe that made diggersby have to jump to not get swept aside unbalanced the small Pokémon enough that he had to jump off or fall off and risk being tossed away like a doll.

"Holding up okay," Danny said, voice level as it always was when aggron was in his Mega form. It was a bit strange to hear, even now, but it wasn't some kind of emotionless state. "Sceptile would make this harder, but it is good as is."

The goal for aggron was to fend everyone off for as long as he could. Initially, he'd tried to focus on swampert, but diggersby and deerling delivering a one-two punch-and-kick to the same leg had forced him to take everyone into account. It was good defensive practice at figuring out what he could let go with his resilience and what was something he needed to stop. "How long do you think he can keep this up?"

The other teenager closed his eyes, and Max recognised it as him searching the bond and trying to determine how much energy was left. "I can't detect anything specific, but the bond dampens problems until it's too late. Three more minutes should be fine."

A quick check of the watch revealed that would take this session to about fifteen minutes – he hadn't checked exactly when they started. That explained why diggersby had needed a bit to recover: the Ground-types had been going hard for most of that, and his endurance wasn't as good as swampert's. Doublade had avoided being hit, and deerling… Max took a closer look at his newest Pokémon, and he saw some signs of tiredness sneaking in, but nothing too bad. "Good idea, by the way."

"Thought of it last night. Get swampert and diggersby used to attacking in a team, and aggron defending."

"An eye on Double Battles again?" Max asked, grinning.

"Not just them," Danny said before wincing as diggersby was thrown away hard, crying out as he went. "Team Rocket's still active in Kanto. Someone might try to kidnap us again. I don't like it, but better safe than sorry."

That soured the mood a bit, until the training spar was over, and all Pokémon disengaged from fighting. Aggron went down from his Mega Evolution and immediately made his way over to diggersby, probably asking if everything was okay. Swampert took the time to start levelling the soil, and baltoy was sent out to help with that as deerling made his way over. "Getting on aggron's back was good, but you didn't think about the tail, did you?" Max asked as he sat down. The deer tried to climb into his lap, but settled for sitting down beside him. "Did you have fun?"

"Ling!"

Danny and Max both laughed at the enthusiastic-but-tired cry. "You know what could've worked even better?" the older teenager said as he sat down on deerling's other side. "If you'd used Double Kick while on aggron's back. Or even tried to use it before landing. That would've really been a bad thing for aggron."

"Jump Kick..." Max went through the idea, but apart from the normal factors – Fighting-type moves were effective, but deerling was light and Mega aggron had steel hide that came off better against literal ships – he didn't immediately see why it would be a really bad thing. "What made it so bad?"

Danny reached over, and suddenly, several knuckles raked over Max's spine. "That's one reason, but more importantly, aggron only needed to defend his lower half. And mostly the front at that."

That was dismissing doublade entirely, but the Ghost hadn't really done a lot apart from being annoying. "Which made it easier for him to defend." It was all clear now, making him wonder how he hadn't seen it at first.

"You're used to thinking about one-on-one, where attacks to the back like that are very rare, and I know aggron better," Danny said, answering the unasked question. "You want to set something up with manectric, and only from range?"

"You've thought about that, haven't you?"

Danny grinned guilelessly. "Guilty. Only basics, but… I was thinking dodgeball. Create a circle that she can move in, have other Pokémon throw attacks and have her not get hit too much."

"We're not doing that here." Manectric cutting loose was bad for the local flora. Aggron was too, had he not been forced to stay in mostly one place. Even then, the tree that diggersby had been thrown into was missing a bit of bark, and the ground was very ploughed over. "But once we're in the plains to the east, sure." He turned to Danny, smiling. "This is why I keep you around."

"I thought that was for the cooking and ego deflating?"

"Hey, I haven't needed that last in a while now."

Danny gave him a pat on the head, and it felt patronising as all hell. "See? I've trained you well."

"Or maybe I'm growing up a bit. Mentally," he added quickly, feeling a rush of amusement when he clearly pre-empted his friend with that. "And besides, the loss did that well enough."

"It's happened. Best you can do is move on and learn from it. I hope your opponent did too, but I doubt it."

"More fool her," Max muttered, but he was pretty sure Danny had picked it up anyway. "Anyway, bit of a break now, then Shadow Ball tutoring later?"

"Good idea."

~~§~~§~~

The stars were bright overhead as Max ended the call with the Oak Laboratory. It was now four days since sceptile's knee had been injured, and the assistant said that the recovery was coming along as expected. It was a pretty common kind of injury, so there was lots of data to work with, luckily.

The teenager was pretty glad that there were specialists who knew more about this. Injuries like that weren't something he'd seen all that much, and from being around Serena, he knew how delicate knees and joints could be. They weren't things he wanted to inexpertly try to take care of until there was no chance he'd foul up the healing process. Especially on his starter, who had been off his team of six for maybe two weeks total before this had happened.

And that was probably on the high end of guesses, too. He may have relied on manectric and gardevoir more as of late, but starters held a special place in everyone's heart.

As it was, though. Anabel was going to be too early for sceptile to return to battles. Noland should be fine, even if they headed straight there.

Max wasn't sure he wanted to do that, though. Paying a visit to Pallet sounded like fun, and then there was also the idea he'd been thinking about on-and-off for a bit about just doing a run through the eight Kanto Gyms. Ash hadn't wanted to back then, wanting to focus on the Battle Frontier. May had agreed, saying they needed time to get to all the Contests too.

But the two of them had no such qualms. The only one Max had, and that was just minor, was that he'd have to go up against Brock, which was going to be strange but doable. And it was nine and a bit months to the Indigo Conference after the next, which was plenty of time to get the eight badges if they didn't run into some Team Rocket plot or something.

He'd have to raise it with Danny, though. No time like the present. "Had an idea," Max said, causing the older teenager to look up from whatever he was doing. Probably some kind of thinking. "Just going around Kanto for the Battle Frontier sounds a bit… I don't know."

"Normal? Boring? Empty?" Danny finished, and Max inclined his head in agreement. They knew each other too well. "Y'know, I'd been assuming we were going to do that anyway. For like a week now? Consciously, that is." The scritch-scratch of soothing an itch was loud in the quiet night for a moment. "I was going to ask you about it after the Battle Tower, but I didn't think you were going to say no. Probably ever."

They really knew each other too well, and it caused Max to smile in the darkness. "If we had people with us, maybe, but I like this with just the two of us." He shook his head. "Dunno how anyone could travel alone. It's just so much better this way."

"You remember I was gonna do that, right?" Danny asked, but there was no venom in it. "Things really seemed so simple back then. Leave, go have fun, blunder around like a zubat over water…"

"We were idiots back then, weren't we?" Max wasn't sure what he'd do if he came face to face with his younger self. Berate him for the idiocy, or feel pity for how simple he thought stuff was. "And yes, I was one too. Be glad you never saw me with Ash. Especially when I'd just left with them."

"You were a few months shy of ten. At that point, you're expected to be sorta stupid." A sigh followed. "Okay, maybe it's a bit too heavy, but… I was thinking about this, kinda. After what happened earlier." Another sigh, and Max waited for his best friend to get to the point. "D'you think most kids leaving are ready to be a Trainer?"

He didn't find an answer to that immediately, but Danny waited patiently. "I'm not sure about this, but… There's probably a good amount who're not really?" he eventually guessed. "But you're allowed to make mistakes and to find out what things are like, right?"

"Sure. And most of them aren't that big either, so it's fine. But that kid..."

The boy they'd met that afternoon had gone to explore a nearby cave before Max and Danny had reached it. He'd also been unprepared for what was inside, and the zubat and golbat inside had taken offence at him. He hadn't been bitten and drained of his blood like horror stories tried to tell children, but judging by his looks and lack of coherency, the bats had done a number with Supersonic or Confuse Ray. The scrapes all over him had also supported that idea.

After consulting with a Nurse Joy, gardevoir had delivered him to a nearby Pokémon Center. "Yeah, not the sharpest one. But was it just him who's stupid, or..."

"Don't know," Danny admitted softly. "And… I don't think we're the right ones to figure that out either."

"Because of who we are and stuff," Max said in response. He was certain that was the reason, and a sound of agreement confirmed that. "Who would we ask, though?"

"Maybe Keith and Alice?"

The other boy had admitted that he'd been pretty stupid, sure. And Alice had also told them something like that. "Not Jane?" he wondered, curious about why Danny felt he'd exclude the doctors' daughter.

"Older brother. She got a couple of tricks from him, she's said before."

"Fair enough." And it was. It fit with how Brock cared for his siblings, too.

"Actually… Do you think Professor Oak might know more? About injuries on starting trainers with or without older siblings?"

Max made to answer, but a yawn overtook him first. Which was a bit early – it wasn't yet nine – but the heat had made sleep the night before pretty terrible. "Let's call tomorrow or something. I'm gonna brush my teeth and try to sleep." He turned towards his pack, finding the toiletries where he expected them. "Who's on guard again?"

"Litwick, then magneton."

~~§~~§~~

The historical status of Rota as an ancient kingdom now loosely incorporated into Kanto meant that no matter the time of year, there were always tourists present. Summer break's impending end in under two weeks meant that it was busier than most other times, excepting the yearly tournament in January.

It was the perfect location to meet up even if their target had been somewhere else in Kanto. As it was, nobody batted an eye at a group of three men heading into the same hotel room, because if you wanted some peace and quiet, such locales were the only ones that were available before all the children were asleep.

Raphael offered the other two a drink, before unfolding an annotated map of the area around the Tree of Beginning on the table. He'd marked it with the observations that he and some scouts had made. "Our target, gentlemen. The Tree of Beginning has several entrances, and an unknown amount of branching paths inside. Our number is not enough that we can enter all and expect to emerge victorious."

"Three groups, and you to coordinate," a gruff man looking in his forties said. He was wearing sunglasses indoors still, and the former intelligence officer knew that those hid one blind eye. "And why aren't there four of us here?"

The answer to that was tied up in the weather, as a squall had caused a landslide south of Rota, forcing travellers from Pewter to move around or risk being buried under rocks. "It matters not," Raphael finished. "Given recent developments, we're postponing the mission a few days to better align with other events."

"Drake's burial," said the third of their group, nasally. He was clearly the youngest present. "Resources lost."

"Precisely. Two of them, and one other Elite Four member will also be absent from the Indigo Plateau for part of next week. The Dark-type Master has a sister – a politician of some stature in Johto – who is to marry on Monday. The Psychic-type Master will attend a symposium in Sinnoh, and will go there straight from Drake's funeral." He looked the two others in the eyes. "Additionally, First Minister Santi, Stephen Stone, and Lance are to meet Tuesday afternoon, keeping him away."

Left unsaid was that this was both set up and a boon to their operation. Rota was within fifteen minutes of average flight for a dragonite, and the Kanto-Johto Grand Champion was nothing average. "Leaves two. Bruno and Koga. We cannot take both."

"Only one will come. It makes no tactical sense for both to come, leaving Indigo Plateau and its importance unguarded."

"Quite," Raphael agreed with the succinct analysis. "And one, we can take. We will also have a head start, and even if he finds one our groups, two more can press on, provided we are split far enough. Plus," he added, grinning nastily, "there's a surprise for any Pokémon Teleporting in, should the Psychic Master have left easy transportation behind. A machine that will generate a field of intense mental pain for any Psychic-type Pokémon in the area. It will cripple them to the point of uselessness, and that will cause pause." He looked around. "I'll set that off after we enter. On full burn, it is good for about seventy-five minutes, after which a fail-safe self-destruct will activate."

"Crippling the target as well. Efficient."

"I thought so. However, the Tree has given visible distress signals in emergencies in the past." The details of which were pretty sparse, even with the network that he and Santi had at their disposal. None of the identified participants were also likely to aid them. Kidd Summers was their best bet, and she had been in Orre for the recent past. The others were a Frontier Brain, a Gym Leader, the most recent third place finisher in Kanto, and his sister, a Coordinator in Hoenn. None of their psych reports suggested that they'd help. "Given mew's known powers of shape-shifting and flight, this is considered acceptable."

"It might turn into a joltik and we'd never find it before it made its way out of the Tree. Unfortunate, but an acceptable risk."

"Quite. Now, these are the entrances as identified." A pen tapped one of them on the east side, with a blue cross above it. "This is the 'main' entrance, and likely where any opposition will come from." He moved clockwise. "This one looks nearby, but sheer sharp cliffs separate the two. It is hard to reach. I will take this entrance, and place the disruptor here. This leaves five entrances."

"Logically, we enter here, here, here," their youngest member said, tapping at entrances north, north-west, and south. "Covers most ground. Different heights as well."

Indeed, the southern entrance was far above the others, even above Raphael's own entrance. "I'll take south, then. Can make use of my partner's steelix to climb any cliffs."

"Target is located higher up?" was the question. This was probable, and Raphael nodded. "Take north. Latecomers don't get to choose."

He could live with that, and he handed two clean copies of the map to the others, who took a moment to mark their respective entrances. "Rest up, gentlemen. In five days, we raid the Tree of Beginning."

~~§~~§~~

Danny wasn't sure what time it was. Or why he was awake suddenly. That only lasted for a second, when his left arm started protesting.

He'd turned around and put the arm underneath his torso. That meant not enough blood was coming in, and that meant pins and needles. Which was a stupid way to wake up. And effective.

Sighing, he extracted himself from his light sleeping bag, not really caring he was standing there in just his boxers. Nobody was near anyway, and this being Johto in August… It was warm alright. The sleeping bag was more so he wasn't lying on the ground directly.

Looking up revealed that it was probably not too long after midnight. The moon was still rising in the sky, and just about past full. The light filtered through the sparse tree canopy above them, making the area look pretty calm and nice.

Max hadn't even bothered covering himself up, instead using his sleeping bag as a blanket to lie on. Despite that, his foot was nearly off it anyway, thanks to being splayed out all over the place. He was breathing the calm breaths of the fast asleep, and near him, houndour kept watch, not exactly hidden in the moonlight.

She rose to her feet after seeing her Trainer look at her, but the Dark-type didn't lean into the quick scratch Danny gave too much. Instead, she pushed against his legs, wanting him to turn around, away from Max, and towards…

A barely visible – in the darkness – flash? Of some dark colour? That looked familiar from earlier alright. "Why?" Danny wondered softly, only for his Pokémon to push him forward with her body. "I know who's there."

It wasn't long until he saw the source. Maybe thirty feet, and then gardevoir came into vision, hidden from sight before that by an old and large tree. The Psychic-type sat in the roots of another one, doing something with the Shadow Balls he had started learning that week, when he wasn't being pressed into being a Psychic-type opponent. What it was, Danny still didn't know, but it caused the orb to fall apart and flash out of existence.

"I did not wake you up, did I?"

Max's Pokémon stayed put, and Danny moved closer, sitting down a few feet away. "No," he said softly. "Slept on my arm. What're you doing up?"

The gardevoir looked at him, and Danny looked back. There was no sensation of any mind reading going on, but the feeling that the Pokémon was studying him for some reason remained. "I felt I needed some practice," was gently said in his head.

"There's a thing like too much practice," the teenager retorted, and he was rewarded with a flash of surprise. What that said, he didn't know for sure. Either trust or tiredness: reining in flashes of emotions had been one of the first things that gardevoir had worked on back in December and January. Generally, they only occurred when the Pokémon wanted them to. "You can't not know Max doesn't blame you."

"And you, who has said we deserve each other, think that argument works?" the Psychic-type said, infusing the message with amusement.

"You think I care?" Danny shot back, before shaking his head and forcing himself to sober up. "Look. We've done the intellectual argument, and it's too late for that. But being frustrated only hurts you.."

"Frustrated?"

"You don't practice in secret without a reason," Danny said quickly, but softly. "But there's also a reason why we don't just train all day if we're not travelling."

"Such as?"

"Overtraining, like I said earlier. Tiring, too. And when you're tired, you make mistakes."

"Not everyone is tired by the end of training," gardevoir said neutrally.

Danny thought about it for a second, before shrugging. "Sure. You're not, sceptile's not, dusclops is not. It's also the middle of the night, and I know you put in a lot earlier as well. Before dinner, when Max was getting wood for the fire." He locked eyes on purpose. "And I bet you've been at this since both of us fell asleep. Houndour help you?"

He saw that his guess was correct. "Yes. As did your litwick two nights before now." That was a surprise, and the Psychic-type's lips edged up in a satisfied smirk. One that mirrored Max's. "Granted, it was only tonight that I had any success with my extra training."

"Show me?"

In response, a bit of energy formed above gardevoir's left hand, but it was unformed and raw. He brought the hand above himself, where it met the right hand, and the energy leapt over in part.

Then he brought both of them down, carefully, close to himself so that the Ghost-type energy wouldn't come near Danny, and manipulated them into small orbs with seeming ease.

The Trainer reached out towards one of them, holding a finger near enough that he could feel the energy flicker and try to creep into the digit. It wasn't strong, but in the darkness, it looked solid enough at least. "That's a start, but… I think you've created bigger?"

"Correct, though I used more raw energy to create these two," gardevoir replied as he psionically nudged Danny's hand away, and the attacks went skywards a moment later, fizzling out as they went. "Unfortunately, I have yet to succeed in splitting one larger already formed Shadow Ball into two smaller. That is what you saw."

"That can come later." Danny held up a hand to stop any replies. "Same thing as with Echoed Voice. Start with the foundation, then expand and improve." The arm went down again. "You think you can teach dusclops and froslass to do that dividing trick? Might be useful."

"Of course. Tomorrow?"

"After Anabel. No sense in starting something new now."A yawn bubbled up, and he made no effort to suppress it. "Let's go back to bed. Talk in the morning, use Max's brain too."

~~§~~§~~

"So Max," Danny asked after they'd polished off a light lunch in the shadow of the largest tree nearby. They were planning to reach the Pokémon Center near the Battle Tower that night, but had paused to let the worst of the day's heat pass. "You and Ash said there were no Full Battles in the Battle Frontier, but… What are all the formats anyway?"

Max stretched his arms lazily before answering. "Half the fun is finding out, right?"

"That would've held more water if you hadn't told me what Anabel did. Or alluded to the rest back in Silver Town," Danny countered, but his friend took it in stride. "I think you said Ash's predecessor did three on threes..."

"Ash'll probably stick with that. He likes them." Max shrugged, stretching again afterwards. "You want me to tell you general stuff about the othe… Okay, fine," he amended when Danny gave him a meaningful look. "First one's the Battle Factory, not too far from Cerulean and Mt. Moon. That's the one with the articuno."

Now he remembered. "That Ash chose to fight willingly with his charizard," Danny stated. He'd heard that before, but even two years after that, it was still confusing. "Count me out for that."

"Yeah, your team's not good against it. But you choose your opponents there, so… Pick something that you think will give you a good fight. Noland has a ton of Pokémon. And a cool biplane." Which Max had flown in, he'd said so before. "Greta's next, between Cerulean and Saffron. She's got the random wheel, and uses a lot of physical Pokémon, and a small arena. That's more your thing."

Aggron, swampert, drapion, even dusclops… "Yup. And not so much yours."

"I'm planning to not play by Greta's rules on that one, no," the blue-haired teenager said deadpan. "Though she's probably got a tyranitar hidden somewhere too, so… That might be a problem."

"You'll find a way."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. The next one is Tucker, not far from Lavender. This one's really one for you. Double Battle. In front of a huge audience, but, y'know, don't think that's a factor for us." Both of them let loose a short chuckle. "Ash had trouble with him for a bit. The teamwork is great, and Ash…"

"You two prefer the one on one."

"Yeah," Max said as deerling trotted up and laid down next to him. One hand went out to stroke the deer's back. "Lucy's near Fuchsia, and almost normal. Just likes serpentine Pokémon a lot, but it's probably the one of the first six that's most like the regular League. Except she did a two on two."

"Isn't Anabel the same?" Danny asked. "We usually can't hear what the other Trainer's saying anyway, so her trick doesn't change too much."

"True, but she understands Pokémon better than anyone I'd ever seen. Including wild Pokémon. She calmed down an angry gyarados. With words and her empathy."

That caused Danny to sit up. "Is she crazy?" he blurted out, before he could think about it. "That's..."

"Crazy," Max said deadpan. "Gotta agree. But she did it without even flinching, Ash said. And that only makes her better at battling." A grin appeared on his face. "It's going to be great."

Ever eager for a good battle. Not that Danny didn't like the challenges, but not to this level. "And that she's a Psychic-type specialist doesn't hurt either, I suppose," he told Max as he thought of something. "I bet you could learn how to do that too. At least with your own Pokémon."

"Oh? That's an interesting claim," said a new voice, and both teenagers scrambled to look at the source. It was someone leaning against a nearby tree, arms folded. Danny thought it was a woman, but he wasn't going to bet money on that with the androgynous look. She had hair basically framing her face, lilac or light purple or something, and she was wearing comfortable clothing in white and grey. "I'd say it's been a while since I saw you, but that'd be a lie, Max. Good showing in Silver Town."

"Anabel!" Max exclaimed, getting up. Danny followed suit, surprised. This was their opponent? "I didn't lead us to your house by accident, right?"

The Frontier Brain laughed at that. "No. I'm just out for a walk on this nice Sunday. The Tower's about three miles that way," she said, pointing vaguely south-east. "You're not the first one to say that I'm crazy, by the way, Danny."

His face burned like he'd been too close to houndour's Flamethrower. "I.. Err..."

Anabel laughed, which only made the blush worse. "It's okay. Communicating like I do is a rare thing, and I'd expect someone with your family to know very well how dangerous gyarados can be." She started walking towards them, revealing that she was actually shorter than he was, though taller than Max. The slight slope had hidden that. "So why do you say that about Max?"

"Some weird stuff happened and now I'm able to sense a few kinds of Pokémon when they're nearby." It was the most blasé summary Danny had ever heard, but he couldn't deny the accuracy. "It's kinda strange, but my life hasn't been normal for years."

"So I've heard." That seemed to surprise Max. "Ash stopped by on the way to Silver Town, and we got to talking about why he was heading up that early. Helped him catch an abra, too, while he was here." She studied them for a moment, lips tilting upwards. "I can probably help you find one too, if you're interested. Every Psychic-type specialist should have one."

"How long were you there listening to us?" Danny wondered, and a bit of annoyance at himself crept into his heart. They'd had people attack them two months ago.

"First thing I heard after talking with your deerling was you discussing Greta. And yes, she does have a tyranitar. Recent addition to her team, I'm told." It didn't seem like Anabel cared too much for that. Which fit, in Danny's opinion. "I'll leave you to your day now, but I have one last question. Shall we have lunch in the Tower tomorrow, before you challenge me?"

"Sure, but why?" Max agreed, asking the question that was on Danny's lips as well. "You're not trying to butter us up, right?"

A gentle smile. "I have my reasons. If you're smart, you could figure it out."

That was, Danny knew for sure, a challenge that would keep his friend busy for most of the day. And judging by the look on her face, Anabel knew as well. Which was impressive for all sorts of reasons. However, the challenge probably paled in comparison to the one they'd have in about twenty-four hours.

They were about to start the Battle Frontier. And it was going to be a test of their skills like nothing they'd ever faced before.

It was going to be fun.

~~§~~§~~§~~§~~

Pokédex entry: zubat

Characteristics: bat-like, ultrasonic, Poison-Flying-type. Avg. height: 2'07'',Wingspan: 3ft, Avg. weight: 17 lbs.

Detailed information: One of the most common and somewhat overlooked Pokémon, one zubat is rarely a problem for even a beginning Trainer. However, zubat are rarely alone, living together in groups that can also include golbat. Caution should be exercised when entering caves with known hostile groups of these Pokémon, as the walls of the cave will augment the strength of any Supersonic attack they use until Trainers won't know which way is up and which way is out. Has a bad reputation amongst both travellers and those working inside such enclosed spaces for that reason.