Alright, time really got away from me on this one. It feels like I rarely have the energy to write these days, my job is causing me entirely too much stress for what it pays me, and that often means I don't have it in me to do much when I get home besides just pass out.

Of course, I'd be lying if I said all the recent game releases weren't also a factor. Played the heck out of Legends Arceus and Elden Ring, and managed to get 100% in the new Kirby game in a single weekend. And while it isn't an official game or anything, I've also been distracted by playing Pokemon Reborn, a fan game I've been following for about 8 years now. They just released the beta of their final episode, which means dozens of hours lost to that as well, lol.

Anyways, let's get started here.

Current Team:

Ogrim- Golett

Dart- Beedrill

Cleo and Lacy/The Twins- Doduo

Chapter 13: Difficulty Spike

"It would seem you did not prepare as well for this challenge as you thought, trainer."

I grit my teeth as I watch Ogrim crash to the ground once more, his distressed cry cutting like a knife.

"You fought admirably, but the results should be clear to you. This battle is lost."

My mind races, trying to come up with another option, another way forward. But already I can see it's pointless. Just like the match before it, I've been completely countered from the start.

"Go… golett!" Ogrim cries, getting back to his feet with a wobbly looking roll. He raises his fists, trying to keep his spirits up despite the absolutely one sided match he's endured. He's certain we can turn this around somehow, that I'll come up with another trick to save the day.

But I can't do anything to help him against this. I really didn't prepare well enough.

There's only one thing I can do at this point.

"I… concede."

Ogrim looks back to me in shock, and upon seeing that I'm serious, slumps in disappointment. I call him back the moment the referee makes the call.

"Sorry little dude."

It's funny the twists and turns one's life can take them on. The way a man's journey can face such dramatic reversal of fortune. One week you're riding high, you've stomped two gym leaders and you're feeling on top of the world. The next you're sitting in a park, spirit broken, wondering where you went wrong with your life.

I'm exaggerating of course, but there's no denying my circumstances are decidedly less pleasant than they were after the Erika fight.

Because I just tried to battle Sabrina.

And she kicked the shit out of me.

"Losing feels a lot shittier when you don't even put up a good fight beforehand," I grumble, slouching in my seat and staring grumpily into the sky. The weather remains bright and cheerful, despite my feeling like some dramatically miserable rain is called for at the moment. I should catch a Pelipper, summon some good brooding weather whenever I need it. Of course that would require me to get a tier 5 license since weather changing abilities are heavily restricted for obvious reasons. But surely it would be worth it for the ability to call down a dark gloom to reflect my heavy heart.

I burst into a chuckle at the thought, my own utter bullshit having exceeded my resistance to dramatic nonsense. "All right, all right," I shake my head, straightening up in my seat, "Time to face the music."

My team didn't suffer any heavy injuries in that fight thanks to Sabrina's more technical (obnoxious) style, so they're all wide awake when I let them out. And the reactions are… mixed to say the least.

To expand upon that a little, the twins start screeching in fury the moment they're out. Ogrim lets out a sad mumble and waddles over to hug my legs. And Dart… starts shouting excitedly, pumping his stingers in the air, before looking around and realizing we aren't at the gym. Once that's sunk in he starts looking around at everyone in confusion and tilts his head at me, "Bee dree?"

"Sorry Dart, the fight's already over. We… kinda lost," I smile sheepishly, reaching down to pat Ogrim on the head comfortingly, "I was saving you for last, but… we got our butts kicked before your fight could happen."

"BEEDRILL!?" Dart shouts in indignant horror. He looks around at all of us, clearly upset, and starts gesticulating wildly, "Bee dree lee bee ree dee lee bee!? Bee beedrill ree bee?"

"WARK!" The twins snap at him furiously.

"So what happened," I raise my voice to cut in before Dart can piss the girls off any further, "Is Sabrina wanted to fight with three Pokémon against three. In single battles. In order to win we had to win two one v one matches out of three. And instead we… kinda got our butts kicked."

"WARK WARK!" The twins snap at me now.

"I know you did your best girls, really! I'm not blaming you at all. It was just a bad matchup." I wave my free hand placatingly.

It's not even a lie, the girls were fighting what may have been one of the worst matchups possible. Not by design either, unless Sabrina can read minds… which I suppose isn't necessarily impossible come to think of it. But honestly the thought of a professional Pokémon battler resorting to that kind of cheating is much more unlikely than the possibility that I just got unlucky.

Anyways. We both sent our Pokémon out in each match at the same time. I sent out the twins, and Sabrina sent out a Mr. Mime. Or barrierd I suppose, this world seems to favor the Japanese name, probably because using a name like Mr. Mime for a species with even gender distribution is fucking stupid. The name's not the point though, the point is that apparently barrierd is a perfect fucking counter for everything the twins can do.

See, this is one of those situations where the capabilities of a move are well beyond what I'm familiar with from the games. Psychic walls are only useful as a defense boost in the games, but in reality they have far more versatility, to the point where the barrierd was swiftly able to set up a veritable invisible labyrinth. Of course if you have the ability to create solid invisible walls that sort of thing is a no brainer, so I wasn't at all surprised by the tactic. But it turns out knowing what strategies the opponent is going to use is not very helpful when said strategies are such a complete counter to all of your capabilities.

The twins couldn't use their preferred rush down strategies because using quick attack in an invisible maze is the sort of dumbass move likely to result in a broken neck. So instead I did the obvious thing and tried to use the maze against them by having the twins use work up, my new replacement for rage so that they can boost their attacking power without having to tank a hit. That proved ineffective when the Barrierd made a sort of tube out of psychic energy and used it to blast the girls with concentrated bursts of freezing air from afar, which both disrupted all attempts to power up and also slowed the girls down.

So with both of my favored strategies completely disabled I thought of maybe hitting back at range, since the girls rely on sound moves and sound moves don't really care about psychic barriers. Then I remembered that barrierd as a species are completely and utterly deaf. Yeah it's not just a random ability, the whole species is immune to sound. The best strategy for dealing with invisible walls and I can't use it because my opponent doesn't have fucking ears.

In the end the only thing that even slightly worked was having the twins use pursuit to help tear through the walls with dark energy. But that still took far too long and the Barrierd just kept blasting with icy wind from afar, and in the end we couldn't even get close. I had to forfeit the battle because there just wasn't a way to approach the damn thing.

And then, knowing Sabrina would likely save the best for last I sent out Ogrim next. He was up against a kadabra. A kadabra which spent the fight teleporting away from all of Ogrim's attacks the whole fucking fight, pelting the little guy with psybeam attacks and grinning smugly. If it wouldn't have gotten my trainer license suspended I would have unleashed Dart on the fucker. Safe trainer practice laws be damned, I nearly did it anyways.

Instead I had to leave the gym without a chance to send Dart out at all.

"We were unlucky," I say simply, running my hand over Ogrim's head, "We were dealing with our worst possible matchups for both of you. I just… ugh, if you two could have traded places we would have managed so much better!"

The twins can't teleport, but they're fast enough that they would still have been able to keep that kadabra on its toes. And Ogrim… still would have struggled with that Barrierd, but he's bulky enough that he can bounce off those invisible walls for days without issue. Hard to break your neck when you don't have any bones to break. Plus in terms of pure physical power he's the strongest on the team so he could have broken through those walls far easier than the twins.

"It's alright guys. We learned a lot from that fight about things we need to improve on. So we'll pick up a few more moves to compensate, come back stronger than ever, and kick Sabrina's butt so hard that Dart still won't have a chance to fight. But for the total opposite reason!"

"Dree bee!" Dart buzzes in protest.

"Sorry bud," I grin insincerely. Dart mopes a bit, but doesn't hold it against me. Like me, he can see that my pep talk had the desired effect on the rest of the team. They're still upset, but the thought of winning the rematch has them looking eager. They hit a wall today, but it's a wall they're ready to climb over.

Not the first time I've lost a battle and it won't be the last. I'm not so fragile that I'm going to treat this like a big deal. It's just part of the process.

"Glad to see you're taking it so well," Janine tells me, "When Sabrina called me and mentioned what happened I was a little concerned."

"It was a poor showing, but a lot of that really was just bad luck on my part," I shrug. Realizing that sounds like an excuse, I hastily continue, "Of course, I'll be doing some thinking on how to make sure that sort of bad luck doesn't screw me over in the future. And I'll admit I was a little shocked by just how huge the jump in difficulty was, even if I was dealing with some really bad matchups."

"Eh…" Janine frowns at that, "Yeah that's a bit of an issue that's pretty well known around here. Here being Kanto," She clarifies seeing my confused expression, "Have you heard of the Erika effect?"

"The what?" I stare blankly at her.

"I… okay, before I continue, I'm going to need you to promise me this doesn't leave the call. If my dad finds out I've been talking about this he's going to kick my butt," Janine says, staring at me intently.

"He's a ninja isn't he? How do you know he's not listening from the shadows right now?" I joke.

"Because he's in Vermillion helping Surge with his big event," Janine answers confidently, though her eyes dart around nervously all the same, "I'm serious Ben, not a word."

"My lips are sealed. Now, reveal to me your secrets!" I reply in a dramatic voice.

Janine smirks a bit at my performance, then grows more serious, "Okay, so right now Kanto's having a weird problem where most of its primary gym leaders are too powerful."

"This is a problem?" I blink in surprise.

"It is, because it means we have the highest average dropout rate of any of the big Leagues besides Unova. As gym Leaders we're required to have a large selection of weaker Pokémon for use in lower badge fights, but that only goes so far. Tactics tend to bleed through even when a gym leader is actively trying to hold back. Not to mention training techniques. A lot of Kanto's leaders need to replace their low level team members regularly."

"You guys just can't restrain your overwhelming power, huh?" I grin.

"Actually I'm… not really included in this," Janine says with a wince, "I'm one of the newer gym leaders in Kanto, so I'm generally considered one of the easier ones."

"You've spent most of your life trained by a member of the Elite Four and you're considered one of the easier gym leaders?" I stare in shock.

"Dad doesn't play favorites for anyone," Janine shrugs, "Not even me. I had to climb my way up to this position on my own, the same as anyone. As for the others…"

She raises her fingers and starts counting off one by one, "First of all, you have Blaine, Sabrina, and Surge. Those three have been notoriously hard to deal with for years, even before Kanto became one of the toughest leagues to compete in. Then there's Brock, who used to be one of the weaker gym leaders, until he took a couple of years off to travel with a trainer from Pallet Town and came back as some sort of inhuman monster who somehow is managing to be one of Kanto's stronger gym leaders while also earning a medical degree on the side and raising like, fifty siblings!" Janine takes a moment to shudder at that before continuing, "The youngest of Cerulean's Waterflower siblings also travelled with him for a while, and came back to take over her family's gym and suddenly that one became way harder to deal with too. And over in Viridian we have Blue Oak, who is infamous for being the briefest reigning Champion in the history of the League. But considering the one who replaced him is Red, and he's one of a short list of trainers who can still keep up with that monster, his time in the position says basically nothing about how skilled he really is.

"Which leaves us with Erika…" I muse.

"Yup, Erika. Erika who is, in the grand scheme of the Pokémon League, below average as a battler. And has been for the entirety of her time in her position. To the point where there's a long history of trainers beating her gym and then feeling a little too unprepared for their next challenge. Hence, the Erika effect." Janine shrugs.

"If she's got that kind of reputation then why is she a leader at all?" I ask, "Seems like the sort of thing the League might have a problem with."

"Not as much as you might think. First of all, being on the weaker side as a Gym Leader isn't that important to the League. The League has plenty of skilled battlers, but only the Elite Four and the Champion really need to be in the top tier. The only qualifications you really need to be a Leader are licensing. If you have your tier 4 license plus a tier 5 in at least one of the local dangerous species, then you're good enough to be a leader, and they don't care whether you earned your tier 4 by beating all eight gym leaders or by taking the exam."

"Which means that the tier 5 is the real barrier for entry…" I muse, "Even if a trainer has eight badges, that won't help them with the license since the tier 5 can only be earned through written exam. Which is the point!" I blink at the realization, "They're trying to weed out trainers who only rely on strength to get by so they can grant Leader status to trainers who actually use their heads."

"You got it!" Janine grins, "Being a gym leader isn't about being a good battler, it's more about being a community leader. Gym Leaders are meant to be the number one authority in all things Pokémon in their area. And most gyms have other duties on top of that. In my case it's the pecha farms and protecting the safari zone. In Celadon's case it's maintaining the cultural district, which comes with a ton of extra work because of all the ceremonial stuff you have to know and perform in as part of the job. That's why Erika is so impossible to replace, by the way. She's not much of a battler but she's pretty much unequalled at all the spiritual and cultural aspects of the job."

"Those cultural aspects are that important, huh?" I ask.

"Oh yeah. The modern gym system the League uses is based off of two ideas combined together, you see. The first is the old Wardens of Sinnoh, way back when it was still called Hisui, since they were historically the first people to really serve as local authorities on Pokémon and maintaining the relation between them and people. And the other part comes from here in Kanto. Right here, actually. Fuchsia's gym is the first facility ever to be dedicated to teaching the masses in training Pokémon. And Celadon was the second, formed when Kanto's courtesans… well to put it simply they unionized."

"No shit?" I lean forward in my seat, completely enthralled.

"I'm really not an expert in this part of Kanto's history, but yeah that's the best way to put it. It was… almost a total revolution but it didn't quite cross that line. It started when one of Kanto's high ranking oiran learned to train grass types, then passed the knowledge on to her fellow workers. The nobility didn't think anything of it because, you know, it's just girls playing with flowers. Not a big deal, right?

"Until suddenly the courtesans all gathered together in Celadon and suddenly everyone realized that these women had secretly amassed more military power than most armies at the time. At that point all anyone could do was just give them whatever the heck they wanted. They probably could have taken over most of Kanto if they wanted, but instead they just declared they wanted freedom to practice the arts and to become the authority on all things cultural in the region. And also that they would no longer spend their time on… um, their other duties…" Janine goes very pink as she finishes this last part.

Of course I, being a spectacular asshole, can't help but poke a little bit more at the topic upon seeing Janine squirm, "Just dropped that part of the job completely, huh? I imagine that would cut back on demand quite a bit."

"Well once they became Pokémon trainers they became prized as bodyguards for hire instead," Janine says, recovering a bit as she explains, "They served in the retinue of nobles all across Kanto and even Johto, and for a while competed with the Koga clan as information gatherers. That rivalry ended when Pokémon trainers began to organize more, and the two groups joined forces to create the first Pokémon gyms, which became the system by which Pokémon trainers were trained and managed across most of the world! That history is why Erika's so important to the League, she's pretty much the leading expert in the cultural practices of early Kanto."

"Huh," I nod thoughtfully, "Well, that's an absolutely fascinating story, thank you Janine."

"No problem!" She replies cheerfully, "My da-er, Master Koga taught me all about this stuff when I started training to take over the family business."

I nod thoughtfully, and the two of us fall quiet for a moment. Then a thought occurs to me, "I feel like we got very off track here."

"Right!" Janine gasps, "I was supposed to be talking to you about your gym challenge, sorry!"

"Don't apologize," I shake my head, "I really did enjoy the history lesson. That said I would appreciate a bit of advice after getting absolutely wrecked this morning."

"Well for starters, do you know where you went wrong?" Janine asks.

"Beyond being countered way too perfectly by barrierd?" I reply sarcastically, before stopping to think on the question properly, "Frankly… no. I don't feel like I made any serious mistake today, Sabrina's team just had strengths that perfectly opposed my own."

Janine nods, "Okay then, I'll trust your judgement on that. Sabrina didn't tell me much, but she did give me the matchups. Your doduo fought a barrierd and your golett fought a kadabra… well luckily I know how both of them like to battle so I can more or less guess how the match played out. Barrierd can be real tricky opponents if you don't have the right abilities for fighting them."

"Which I apparently don't," I grimace, "Those invisible walls completely ruined most of my plans, and the rest were screwed from the beginning because barrierd can't be affected by sound attacks."

"Right," Janine nods, "The big thing about barrierd that makes them so hard to deal with is that their techniques don't really work by the same principles as other psychic types. They're what's known by veteran trainers as technicians, Pokémon who have special techniques they can use to make moves that normally only have middling power hit much harder than usual."

"I'm familiar with the concept," I reply, "It's like scyther, aipom, or meowth."

"They also count, yes!" Janine smiles, "Now the big thing with technicians is that they all use precision to make up for a move's lack of power. For physical attackers that usually comes from a natural sense of dexterity. But for special attackers there's often a trick they use with their powers. Toxtricity literally amplify their moves through their mastery of sound attacks, roserade use flowery scents to mess with their opponent's brain, and in the case of barrierd…"

"They use their walls," I conclude, "I remember the barrierd was able to blast the girls with icy wind by funneling it through an invisible tube."

"You got it!" Janine nods, "Now that can be dangerous, but the important thing to remember is that while a barrierd can put up a wall as easily as thinking about it, more complicated structures take time to make. They also require body language to properly channel, so you can usually tell what sort of construct they're going to create just by watching them."

I think on that for a moment before responding, "That should help me with defending, but the real problem I had was that none of my attacks worked on that asshole. Those walls were too tough to break through, and the time it took to make a pipe to attack us wasn't enough for the girls to use work up."

Janine frowns thoughtfully on that, "The first bit of advice I can think of is that work up can be used quicker if you can train your Pokémon to adopt a certain mindset beforehand. But in your case that isn't reliable."

"Because I'm trying to train two heads at once and both have different personalities," I nod in understanding.

"Exactly. Mental training with doduo isn't impossible, but it is extremely difficult. Both heads require their own approach, and those approaches need to be perfectly applied in such a way that they can be used simultaneously to affect a single body without clashing or disrupting things. Work up requires both heads to share a mental state, apply it to the body, and use it effectively in combat without colliding. I'm honestly shocked you could teach it to them at all."

"It was a bit of a pain, but I managed it by using the one thing both heads have in common: their pride. Once I had them apply the move by focusing on that it actually proved pretty easy," I explain.

"Ah, that seems pretty obvious now that you say it! Still, I imagine the mental dissonance still applies enough to be a problem."

"As we found out today, yes." I reply drily.

"Right, well I'd still keep working on that, since work up is the only move doduo can learn which boosts more than just their physical attacks. But I'd also start working on swords dance, since that move works by directly affecting the muscles rather than being channelled through mental state."

"That could… take a while," I note. Swords dance is a notoriously difficult move to learn, since it requires a very precise set of movements combined with channelling energy through the body in a very specific way. It's one of those moves that looks rather simple but has way more going on beneath the surface.

"Yes, but it's your best bet for reliably setting your girls up to win a battle," Janine points out, "Your other methods all require balancing mental states, and doduo are just not built for that. They're meant to clash, it's how they learn to channel the psychic energy they need to move and survive the way they do."

"What do you mean by that? Doduo are telepathic?" I blink in surprise.

"Minor telepaths, yes. They can't communicate with other Pokémon, but their brains do communicate between each other with telepathy. And as they amplify that ability they use it to boost their reflexes in such a way that they can turn on a dime even when moving at top speeds."

"Agility," I realize, "You're talking about agility."

"Agility taken to its ultimate form. Most Pokémon can only use agility in short bursts, but Pokémon with natural psychic abilities? They can keep it going indefinitely, as long as they can hold their focus," Janine says, grinning at me, "Sounds like a useful trick, huh?"

"Yes," I grin back at her, my mind suddenly racing with possibilities, "Yes, it really does."

Alright, so thanks to my discussion with Janine I now know that I am facing a real life difficulty spike. By beating Janine and Erika early I've set myself on the path to dealing with the Kanto League in the most difficult order possible. Every remaining Gym Leader is going to be a proper challenge to deal with.

Making a proper decision on which of these challenges to take on is proving… difficult. Sabrina is clearly beyond my team right now, and now that I know what my Pokémon need to do to beat her, I feel like I'm going to need a lot more time to prepare. According to Janine though, my other options are either highly experienced trainers on the same level as Sabrina is, or anime protagonists. And this world seems to have enough anime logic baked in that the latter option is genuinely terrifying to me.

So while I take my time deciding what kind of asskicking I want to book an appointment for, I decide to just do what I do best and take some time to schedule some more training in.

"So the good news," I say to my team, "Is that we are apparently doing just fine according to national averages. Sabrina may have destroyed us, but I can say with… relative confidence that our being destroyed was less about being not good enough and more about being in some really rough matchups."

The twins grumble at that, Ogrim nods, and Dart scoffs as if to say that none of this applies to him. He's not wrong in that assessment, but I should probably make a mental note to address that cockiness in the near future before it becomes a problem.

"The bad news," I continue, my tone growing more serious, "is that we now know that in the wrong circumstances our weaknesses are still enough to be crippling in a battle. Ogrim, it's clear that despite our work on fixing your mobility problems you can still be taken down by any Pokémon that has a ranged attack and enough of an advantage in speed and maneuvering. I'm still not sure why we can't make your own ranged attacks work besides the ground typed ones, but you can rest assured I won't stop until I've figured this out. In the meantime, I have some ideas we can possibly use to help close that mobility gap even further."

"Golett!" Ogrim nods eagerly, hands clenched in determination.

"Dart, you have the opposite problem Ogrim does right now," I continue, "Your mobility is excellent, but your moves don't have enough of a punch to them. Your strongest attack is still bug bite, and trying to use bug bite properly is practically suicidal unless we've spent a completely impractical amount of time wearing the enemy down with poison and immobilizing them with your string shot. What we need is more moves that let you make proper use of these," I pat the side of his stinger for emphasis.

Dart cackles sinisterly at that, thrusting a stinger in the air eagerly. The bloodlust is strong with this one, as usual.

"Last but not least…" I turn to the twins, who immediately look away dismissively, "Girls, lose the attitude. You lost. Deal with it like adults and move on. We won't be able to just dismiss our losses as a bad matchup forever. The time will come when we have to just pull it together and win a fight regardless of how much things are stacked against us."

"…Kweh," Cleo concedes reluctantly. Lacy says nothing, as always determined to be the less reasonable of the two, but she does fix her attention on me more firmly.

"Alright, so I think rather than working on fixing your shortcomings we're going to go all in on maximizing your strengths. I talked to Janine today and she gave me some ideas on how we can improve things with you two. We're going to be training you in mobility."

The first reaction the girls have is to look at me like I'm stupid. Then after that they seem to decide that I'm making some sort of joke. That attitude persists for a while, until I set up their training course for them. They rather quickly decide that I'm a terrible human being after that.

"WARK WARK!" The girls screech in frustration as they get tangled up in one of Dart's webs yet again.

"Damn, almost made it halfway through that time," I note, watching them pull free and tear the offending rope apart, "Oh well, back to the start."

"WARK!" Lacy cries out in frustration, glaring at me. Cleo just stares resentfully at me.

"Less yelling, more running," I say, waving their protests away, "You guys don't like it but this is going to be good for you. Cleo already knows this, that's why she's being quiet about it." Cleo glares at me even more intensely at that, as Lacy gives her a look of utter betrayal. "Sulking is also something that should be ranking below running on your priority list Cleo! We're trying this again until you can run this course without getting caught. I want to see you dodging every one of these webs. Speaking of which, Dart! I need a fresh rope over here!"

Dart flies over from where he's been trying to use poison jab to set up another rope, buzzing with a smug sort of enthusiasm that the girls plainly do not appreciate. Unfortunately for them I won't be letting them get in any sparring today, mostly because I don't trust them not to be vindictive right now.

"Alright, once again, and please, try not to tear the obstacles apart again. I know this is frustrating for you two but it's only going to make things take longer if we keep having to stop to reset the course." My suggestion is met with a bitter look from both of the girls, but they move into position without acting up.

After my conversation with Janine I've learned a lot about how doduo function. That little tip she gave me about their telepathic abilities is what led me to this idea. The twins use telepathy to communicate while moving and fighting. Agility is a move that relies on telepathically boosting your reflexes so that you can properly move at top speed. Therefore to learn agility, the constant agility that Janine told me about, I should have them develop their telepathy. And the best way I can think of to get them started on that is by forcing them to think as much as possible while they're moving.

This is a long-term plan, of course. The girls can't even tackle this obstacle course moving at half their top speed. Dart and I put our heads together and came up with the most devious tangle of web ropes imaginable, perfect for tripping up long necks and limbs whenever they move out of place. For the twins, who are used to racing in open plains and battling in open spaces, this is nothing short of torture. But I'm confident that this will be good for them in the end. The look of concentration in their eyes as they approach the course again tells me all I need to know.

"Put those heads of yours to work girls, I'm sure you can figure this out!" I encourage as they start weaving around the ropes again, "In the meantime, I'm going to check on Ogrim."

I leave Cleo and Lacy to their struggles, looking to the others. Dart is doing fine, as I expected. Poison jab is a relatively simple move in concept, it just takes a lot of energy for an inexperienced Pokémon to pull off. So obviously Dart isn't having any trouble at all, already pushing his poisons to creep across his stingers.

And as for Ogrim, he's working on some new tricks with rollout. Big idea at the moment is to see if we can teach him to use his arms while rolling. If I can get him to do that it'll help us manipulate the move in different ways that could help deal with Pokémon trying to outmaneuver him. I figure it'll be a good trick for him to learn while I figure out just why the hell our training with rock moves and shadow ball aren't going anywhere.

Seriously though, that hurdle has become a proper wall in Ogrim's development, and I'm quickly running out of ideas for how to clear it. Ogrim can move earth easily, but as soon as he tries to make the shift from ground energy to rock energy something just fizzles out and the move stops. Everything I've read up on has stated that this kind of problem shouldn't exist. Ground and rock are so closely linked as types that most Pokémon tend to learn how to use them simultaneously. But the only rock attack that Ogrim can use is still rollout, and whatever process he's using to pull that move off doesn't seem to be transferring over to other things.

As for shadow ball… I don't have a damn clue either, honestly. I feel like maybe the energy just isn't being focused enough? Every time Ogrim throws a shadow ball it fizzles out in seconds.

There's something fundamental that I'm missing here, I'm certain of it. It's some key aspect that I'm lacking in when it comes to trainer knowledge, and not having it is screwing over Ogrim big time. Ogrim is the type to benefit most from instruction. He's not suited to figuring things out on his own, which means that unlike the others he can't seem to push through that missing spot in my knowledge. Dart is a battle savant, he picks up new moves as easily as breathing, and the twins are more than smart enough to figure things out for themselves.

"A shame none of them have a talent for teaching," I muse aloud as I approach Ogrim, "Dart uses pure instinct to fight so he can't explain things well. Lacy is too impatient. And Cleo… well she could possibly manage teaching if she were on her own, but that's not really possible, is it?"

"Golett?" Ogrim asks, pausing in his training to look up at me curiously.

"Oh, it's nothing little buddy, just thinking out loud," I reply, smiling down at Ogrim, "So, you've been working hard! How about you show me-" I cut myself off as I realize my Pokégear is buzzing, "Huh. Somebody's calling me. Hang on a sec here Ogrim."

"Golett!" Ogrim nods.

I pull out my Pokégear and check it curiously, "Huh. It's Sara…" I frown in confusion. I swap texts with Keith and Axel from time to time, but since leaving Fuchsia Sara and I have barely interacted save for our brief meeting in Celadon. Well, no point in keeping myself in suspense. Better answer.

"Hey Sara," I greet, "What's up?"

"It's a tournament!" Sara exclaims excitedly, her voice coming through a little too loudly.

"…Why yes Sara, it's lovely to hear from you too. My day is going fine, thanks for asking," I say teasingly, prompting a bit of embarrassed stammering from the other side of the phone, "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're referring to this mysterious 'thing' Surge has been planning."

"Uh, yeah, sorry. Got a bit excited there," Sara replies sheepishly.

"All good. A tournament, huh? And you're just telling me this? Here I thought you were going to let me find out on my own," I say teasingly. As soon as the word tournament leaves my mouth I start waving my hands placatingly as my team perks up, and Dart's humming starts to get louder. It makes it suddenly much more difficult to hear Sara's response.

"Obviously I was joking!" Sara says defensively.

"I know. Just fucking with you," I grin. "So, what kind of tournament are we talking about here? Must be a big deal if you're this excited. Some big, week long extravaganza or something like that?"

"The main tournament is only one day long. But there's going to be a bunch of elimination rounds before that to determine who competes! But that's not what's exciting!"

"…Alright I'll bite. What's the really exciting part then?"

"The competitors. This isn't just a tournament Surge is holding. It's a rookie tournament. He's holding a tournament specifically for trainers with three badges or less!"

"Wait, what? Are you sure? Why would he do that?" I ask, standing up straighter as I gaze at my pokégear in disbelief.

"I don't know, I found out about this after my gym battle so I haven't had a chance to ask him! But it's definitely real, I just ran into Master Koga and he told me to call everyone and tell them to head this way! I think he wants us to compete!"

"Holy shit. Well yeah, of course we're going to compete if we're allowed!" I exclaim, prompting an excited cheer from Ogrim and Dart that's loud enough I have to turn away to focus on the conversation, "How long until this thing starts?"

"Three weeks! Registration starts in two days."

"Two days… Pretty sure I'll need at least three to get down there." I muse, "I don't have the money to rent a bike right now…" Especially not after today. Losing to Sabrina ate up a lot of my spare funds.

"Well they're announcing it tomorrow evening, so if you leave bright and early you'll still have a head start on most people."

"Right… right! Okay, I've still got time in the day to restock on supplies. I'm gonna go. See you soon!"

"Safe travels Ben! I look forward to kicking your butt in the near future!" Sara says cheerily.

"You wish!" I shoot back as I end the call. I look back towards my team and see Ogrim and Dart bouncing with excitement. The twins aren't as openly eager as the others are, but there's no denying the gleam of interest in their eyes.

This tournament still strikes me as a strange idea for a gym leader to put so much effort into. But if Lt. Surge is going to go to all the trouble of giving me the chance to see how I stack up against the other trainers in my weight class, so to speak, then I won't say no.

"Alright everyone," I announce, looking to each of my teammates, "Looks like we're taking a detour! Let's go fight in our first tournament!"

I can't help but feel like this chapter isn't my best. Probably would have been much more effective if I'd actually written out the full losing battle with Sabrina, but I just... really didn't want to do that. Could I have made it interesting? Probably, I like to think I'm skilled enough as an author to manage such a thing. But it felt like a lot of effort to go to for a battle that ultimately wouldn't really progress Ben's story. It's not the first time he's lost a battle, and not even the first time he's been in a one-sided match (his training with Hilda and Bianca forced him to get over those rather quickly), so unlike how most tropes would have a fight like the one against Sabrina play out, this just isn't a groundbreaking moment for our protagonist. Of course since I can't help but overthink everything I definitely lost a good chunk of time the past four months arguing with myself over the topic on top of all the other delays.

I got the idea of calling Mr. Mime Barrierd from reading The Origin of Species, which you've definitely seen if you've looked through the most popular Pokemon fics on this site. I've thought Mr. Mime was a stupid name ever since they had the potential to be female, so when I saw that fic calling Mr. Mime by its Japanese name I immediately decided I should borrow the idea.

And now, it's Pokemon move theory time! Today we're going to be talking about speed. Agility is a move that always struck me as odd, mostly because of its typing. Why is it considered psychic type? What about moving super fast with this move is inherently mental? Move summaries never really go into it, simply saying some variation on 'Pokemon relaxes and goes super fast' over the years. So I chose to reason it as a sort of additional step to a normal speedy attack. The mental part doesn't grant any super speed on its own, but it does give the user a boost to their processing power. This takes moves like quick attack from a simple rushing attack to a move with much more versatility in mobility. And since doduo are noted to be telepathic in their pokedex entries they're a natural fit for it!

Next time, we'll catch up with a bunch of old friends, make some new ones, and, oh yeah, I suppose I owe you guys a proper gym battle, don't I?

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