{ === + === }

Alrighty.

The Team we're visiting this time is known as 'Looking Glass', a subsidiary team to the bigger 'Observer' Team. Observer is a Sub-League Team primarily focused on Psychic types and are dominant in the Kanto and Johto Circuits. From a quick internet search, they're recently looking to expand into Lumiose and have a few high level wins under their belt, and were/are in talks with some minor Kalos teams to absorb them under their brand.

So, in that context, the fact that Observer already has some sub teams under their belt, and teams that are on the verge of failing no less, is surprising. I guess they just have way too much money to spend? One of their sponsors is literally Pokemon!Coke Cola. That one company alone makes up for, like, 60% of their sponsorship funds. It's insane.

You'd think that a team flush with cash would be able to prop up a failing subsidiary, but I guess that's not the case. Looking Glass (hence LoG) is really not in a good position despite Psychic dominance. I have no evidence for this, but I think a big reason is that Psychic types tend to have a smaller move pool early and their rate of development is very spurt-y.

I don't remember if I went into this in detail before, but: Psychic types are hard to train in general due primarily to their emotional attachment to the trainer. Before a psychic type can be trained at all, that emotional attachment needs to be created. Due to that attachment, a Psychic Pokemon experiences wildly fluctuating levels of performance depending on how the trainer is feeling.

For example, a hideously observant trainer will give their Pokemon near constant criticals and pixel-perfect dodges and deflects, while a trainer that gets flustered will cause their Pokemon to also get flustered and whiff moves. A calm trainer gets a calm Pokemon, while a rash and adrenalized trainer will get an Abra that tries to use its claws. Against a Grimer. And then get body-tackled and smothered and use no psychic while panicking because the trainer is panicking. It's a very recent video.

Anyways, High peaks, low valleys.

…

All that aside, I'm at the LoG Team headquarters. It's an office building in Lumiose, with all the amenities needed to train Pokemon spread out through five different floors.

Given how they're not even a C3 Team this kind of expenditure seems…extravagant.

A lot of new teams try this, mind: they get a massive loan, generate hype as the up-and-coming new kid on the block, and then crash and burn miserably. You'd think an older team would know better.

Hmm.

Still, a chance is a chance, so let's take it.

LoG's plan is as ambitious as it is financially disastrous: they're recruiting Psychic Pokemon Trainers, enough for four teams of three, and sending us all into Shalour for their Early Fall C3 Circuits, the earliest of which is in October, so that's a few months away.

Reason they're doing this is because their trainers on staff caught wind of Observer terminating the contract and pretty much all jumped ship. Morale is kinda low on the managing staff, not gonna lie.

That said, judging by how LoG rented a building in the city rather than a ranch out in the countryside suggests they're one of those 'Corporate Teams' that tends to put profit first, so the fact that they can't seem to see past generating the next exciting headline for investors fits them to a T.

Uh oh.
My scam sensors are going off.

…then again, that's probably good, right? LoG and Observer being Psychic specialized means the actual risk of them doing scammy behavior is very low. I mean, deceit and trickery are still aspects of being alive, and the Dark type is a thing. When IPL law is involved, though, that's when Psychic types drop the hammer.

In other words, this is not a scam, just an incredibly poorly-run team.

I hope.

…

I'm among a group of…thirty? Trainees here for the in-person interview. On one hand, that's on the low side for a job posting looking for trainers. On the other, the expectations are comparatively sky-high for the functional equivalent of an entry-level position and the up-front compensation isn't great, so it tracks.

…

My interview goes ok, I think. I'm not Psychic specialized, but nobody in their right minds would think they'd be able to lure twelve C3-tier trainers with this kind of pay.

…

[Next Day]

…

I got a position. Group C. Per the conditions of the contract, the Chingling would be the Anchor, so Patty and Eevee must let her take the spotlight. In other words, in a 3 on 3 situation, Chingling must score either the most kills or the best kills. 'Best' as in, the kind of fight that generates headlines and clicks and stuff.

As I'm now a registered trainer with LoG, all my expenses are paid for by the LoG budget. I also get a cut of the winnings if I were to actually somehow win money in a Circuit. On the other hand, I have to move and stay in the Team Dorms, which is down the road from this building. It's shabby for this part of town, but is a step up from my apartment, so no issues there.

For context, there are different standings a person can be in terms of how they're related to a Team. Back with the Ironwreckers, I was in the Contractor bracket, which is the lowest form of relevancy to a Team. Currently, I'm considered a Member, which is the highest relevancy that isn't like a managerial position.

'Relevancy', incidentally, is how the IPL categorizes employment for legal purposes. The higher it is, the more the employer is fiscally responsible for what happens. Back at the Iron Wreckers, if the Ponytas got hurt or sick, I would bear some of the financial cost of making them better. Here, if Patty got sick, the bill would be footed exclusively by the LoG.

I'll have to get deep into the legal weeds if I keep going and I'm not that well-read, so I'll stop. The point is that, all things considered, the optics behind the LoG move puts it squarely into the all-or-nothing territory, and it's wild how much they're putting in financially.

Anyways.

I don't have much in terms of personal effects, so moving in was very straightforward. I share the floor with my other teammates, but I haven't seen them yet because I'm the first one hired due to that recommendation from the Ironwreckers. I keep forgetting their name is just one word.

The room isn't as high up, though, so Patty can't stare into the world while potted. She's sulking as a result.

It's such a massive sulk that not even hard candy will cheer her up. She's even got the entire bag to prove how bad the candy will be at cheering her up. I should probably take that away from her before she hurts herself.

Patty is unable to unwrap the hard candy. It was not designed to be handled by her little nubbie hands. She is devastated.

Not that it matters since the wrapper is designed to be safe to consume for Pokemon. She doesn't like the taste though.

She pauses her pouting while a candy is being unwrapped for her and resumes said pouting (poorly) while eating. She's not very good at pouting.

That aside, we get settled in. Chingling is the primary focus here, especially since she'll need to adapt to this new environment. The fact that it is a bell the size of Eevee's head is a little concerning.

I bought a new bed just for it…her, one designed specifically for Chingling to help reduce their noise effects on the rest of the house. She likes it well enough. The main concern for the time being is figuring out where she is in terms of being a combat unit. Going by her current state, she's very Rash, of a different kind than Eevee, so even after training she might be hard to control or command.

Hmm.

Well, let's see.

…

[1st Week of Training]

…

Chingling is a rainbow mage. Super super rainbow mage.

She's absolutely trash at doing anything beyond slinging attacks towards the target in a very slapdash kind of way.

…Backing up. For context. All attacks use that special "Pokemon Energy" to give them their elemental strength, with ranged attacks using more of it. All attacks also use a portion of the body as the focus, and ranged attacks are no exception.

For example, Patty's razor leaves fire from the little sprout on her head, and her magic leaves come from the little nubbie arms. She's still, y'know, only a foot tall no matter how much she tries to tip-toe to be taller than Eevee, so the leaves are small.

Eevee primarily uses his dander and loose fur for his Sand-Attack and Thunder Wave. Quick Attack is a full body tackle, and the Energy is concentrated in his legs.

Chingling rolls around. As she rolls, her energy builds and she unleashes it for attacks.

She also hates to roll over her feet and arms, which means that she's usually rolling on her back, and it's really difficult to see a target when your eyes are pasted to the sky.

In many ways, I'm amazed she's able to get her shots near the target at all.

Currently, her kit is: Confusion, Ember, Supersonic, Thundershock. She's very clever and learns quickly, but currently lacks the concentration for bigger, harder hitting moves. I don't know if I want to address it right now, though.

Hm.

Most of her problems come from her body type. If she evolves into a Chimecho all of her current issues would be solved, but a Chingling evolves through a strong bond with a trainer, and, uh…friendship evolutions are tough. A fair amount of young trainers tend to think that friendship is just getting along, and it, y'know, is deeper than that.

For now, she's just a very violent spinning top.

In other news, Patty and Eevee are picking up some Psychic affinity as a result of their training sessions together. I don't think their cap is high enough to let them learn Psychic moves at all, so I'll direct their efforts towards predictive targeting and defense when the time comes to capitalize on their growth.

Still, it's more or less going well.

That said, now that I have a sense of what I want them to do, the training will actually begin. The past week's training was more or less just socializing, getting them adjusted to their new diet, so on, so forth.

For the next week, let's see…Patty and Eevee will play a supporting role, but I don't want to overtrain them into supporting roles, so we'll stick with what works. Patty will work on being a good shot, and Eevee will focus on zoning and making the most out of his QAs.

Chingling…uh…

…actually, if she has a psychic connection to my head then that means she has a connection to my bullshit special powers, no? Let's practice that for the week, see what happens. Her goal is still to be a good shooter, so let's focus on being a good shot.

…

Speaking of training, the facilities that we're using are kinda neat.

For Patty and Chingling, as their focus is special attack and range, they have access to what is basically a shooting range. One room has four lanes, each lane is a good five meters long, which is about the maximum shooting range for most Circuit gyms.

Each lane also provides one 'Power' Gem, which is the hold item that boosts an attack of an element once. In this case, they're used to supplement the energy costs of a Pokemon as they practice, so they can go for longer. Gems recharge naturally, just takes them a while.

We sign up for a lane in one-hour sections. I usually do Patty first, Chingling second. If we take in all of the shooting ranges in the building, there are more ranges than there are people, so we don't have to sign in, but it's a part of logging our efforts so we get paid.

Speaking of other people, I got to meet my teammates!

Per the, uh, "Corporate" Nature of this Team, our structure is similarly…clickbait-y, I guess.

There's Me. I am the Uninteresting One. From what I can see of our promotional material and preliminary advertisement, I get little to no mention.

There's Andrew, the Chef. Ex-chef. He used to be an owner-operator of his own family restaurant, but, the food industry being cutthroat, is now a trainer with his family's Meowstic to try and provide for his young family.

In reality…he's still doing this for his family, but his wife was and is the primary breadwinner of the house. His restaurant did indeed fail, but, y'know, things are fine for him from a financial standpoint.

Lastly, there's Tana. She is the Ace of the team and a Rising Star. She's also good looking and cute so that, y'know, tracks. Also, per the wishes of her family, she is using a screen name, so Tana is not her real name.

For context, I'm the oldest on the team at 30, Andrew is 24, and Tana is 17.

Anyways, Tana is basically an Ace Trainer. She wears the signature Ace Purple coat of Kalo's school system. Her parents are themselves C1 veterans with no small amounts of prestige, and are…well, they'd rather that she wait a year before getting into Circuits as a career path, but here she is.

Thus, she gets first billing when our team gets advertised, the daughter of Lumiose's Finest coming into the spotlight, and so forth. It makes her rather uncomfortable, because between us she has the least amount of time to actually prepare, given the interviews and photoshoots she has to do.

I don't envy her, nor the amount of incredibly uncomfortable sexual comments made on videos of her interviews.

At the very least the buildings are no-reporter zones, so nobody can invade her privacy outside of the little walk between the buildings. Incidentally, her gap, the difference between her 'at work' and 'casual' persona, is wide as a gulf, and it's very cute.

Like, when she's in front of cameras, she's cold to the point of being near domineering, which is impressive considering how she looks like she could be sent airborne by a stiff breeze. I think it's just a Kalos Ace Trainer thing.

When she's wandering around her dorm, she could not look more like a nerd if she tried. Big hoodie, massive glasses, book…she reads a lot.

Which also cuts into her training time.

I'm a little worried.

Her dad sent messages to me behind her back, they more or less read "hey you're the oldest of the group so please take care of my baby girl" and I'm heavily sympathetic. Not my problem, because I have my own problems, but sympathetic nonetheless.

Her privacy aside, the other concern, and I hope I'm deeply wrong about this, is the fact that she's contractually obligated to use a Psychic type. Now, again, Psychic types are highly reactive to their Trainer's emotional connection. She effectively has three different personalities–how she is on the field, how she is at the dorm, and how she is with her parents. That disconnect isn't something that can be remedied at the snap of a finger, despite all of Corporate's demands to the contrary.

…

[Next Week]

…

Alright.

So, although we're a team, we're just a team in name. There's no expectation of coordination around here.

Patty and Chingling have both done…well, in their shooting drills. Patty's feeling some competition from having another shooter on the team, so she's working extra hard for her hard candy.

Chingling still can't hit beyond the use of sheer dumb luck, but she's getting the hang of aiming while spinning around. For now, I just want her to focus on getting her energy up, so she'll have more to shoot with or more ways of shooting, so her lack of aim is not a concern.

Eevee…is using an agility room. It's basically an obstacle course. His goal is to improve his acceleration and evasiveness. It's going ok, but he's a little motion sick if he goes too fast, so that's a hard limitation we won't be able to get around through just training.

Andrew's coming in with his Meowstic, so he's a heavy favorite, but his training doesn't seem to be very offense-based. If I had to guess, I'd say he's building a moveset around Stored Power.

Tana has two psychics in Solosis and Espurr. Both seem to be getting trained as shooters, so…we'll see how that goes? My only real memories of the Solosis line is watching their face getting punched in constantly in Black and White due to their god awful defenses.

Speaking of defenses, that's our goal this upcoming week. Patty's defenses are surprisingly solid for her type, but it boils down to just hunkering down, and all that does is to delay the inevitable.

So the goal is for her to learn proper counterfire, like she improvised against the Poliwhirl, and how to force glancing blows. It's not as if she's never done this before, but we've never had a full week dedicated to doing this.

…

[Next Week]

…

Eh…so-so.

Patty has a bad habit of dodging backwards when being told to evade, so that immediately limits her options. Like, she backpedals and counters with Magic Leaf, but the attack lines are so clear that Eevee has no issues evading them and pressing in.

Apart from throwing up Stun Spore or Sleep Powder as a last stand defense, she really has no options once she gets closed in on. That will require some work.

Eevee, for his part, has almost the opposite problem. He's very eager to close in and very brave (Brave?) in his approach, but it causes him to take more damage than he otherwise should. This was never a problem against Patty when they practiced, because he knows her very well, but against Chingling he gets zoned out so often that it actually surprised him.

Chingling, incidentally, has reached the point where her aim is pretty good. With Andrew's help, we were able to determine that one of the factors affecting her aim was just because she was Psychic, so she was predictively targeting Eevee based on where he wanted to go, rather than where he was trying to go.

Similarly, her poor performance early was because she felt that I was impatient and was prematurely shooting.

She's still not looking at the target and her aim suffers for it, but it's nice to know we're making progress, even if I was the reason why we were not.

In other news.

Andrew has picked out his second and third from the LoG lineup: they are: Bronzor, Gothita. Bronzor is a Steel-Psychic plate of levitating bronze plate, and Gothita is a tiny…humanoid goth-lolita/baby thing.

He wants to use the Bronzor to kitbash some Fighting moves to counter Dark types, and Gothita will hopefully learn Fairy moves to, again, counter Dark. No words on what he's gonna do against Bug, but eh.

As for Tana…

She actually does not have her own Pokemon, with the two mentioned earlier being borrows. Per LoG requirements, she needs at least one which is registered with her and not her team, Psychic type preferred but not required. Her family does have Pokemon, but she's steadfastly refusing to use one. Instead, she and the other members of the twelve who do not have their own went out and procured their own.

I wasn't a part of that conversation so I don't know whether if they went out of Lumiose to catch one or had an arrangement with a breeder, so 'procure' it is.

So her loadout is now: Solosis, Espurr, and…Hoppip.

Solosis is a little ragdoll stuffed inside a ball of goo and it looks like a permanently surprised cell, and seems to be her Ace. Espurr does whatever it wants because it's a bipedal feline of the Scottish fold variety, I guess, and Hoppip is a giant dandelion seed and…seems to be her favorite by a rather surprising mile.

Now, in some circles that include Pokemon in the lexicon of flower languages, Hoppips represent freedom, spontaneity, and a release from worries. I'm not going to make any guesses buuuuuuut

Either way, she seems attached to it.

…

[Next Week]

…

Tana ran away.

Again, don't know what caused it, but she fled the building.

Her parents had their family Pigeots homed in on her position in fifteen minutes, and they watched from a very far distance until she got it out of her system and returned to the building, some six hours later.

I mean, I get it, to some extent.

Her team seems frustrated, and that feeds back to her. She's frustrated, and that feeds back to them. If she's here to get freedom, this little stunt just told everyone that…well, as well-meaning and respectful as her parents may be, she has an incredibly long way to go before she can be 'free', whatever that means to her.

Not my problem. I'm not a psychologist.

That said, there is a pretty high stress level to perform, because, as the LoG staff has told us repeatedly, we are their only hope.

Man they're screwed.

Not much else of note happened this week.

…

[T-Minus 4 Weeks]

…

The start of the season is right around the corner.

Our trio, Me-Andrew-Tana, have a C3 that is six gyms long. We are contractually obligated to participate in all six gyms regardless of our placing.

The rotation is as thus: Poison, Fighting, Dark, Psychic, Fire, Dark.

So, for the record, this is an ad-hoc C3, and is essentially two halves of two different Circuits. LoG received permission from the IPL to do it this way, and it's colloquially referred to as a 'Corporate Circuit'.

As in, the entire reason why the latter half of the circuit is so anti-Psychic is entirely for advertising purposes. Winning or losing the first Dark Gym dictates the narrative that our group gets going forward. For example, if Tana loses the first Dark Gym, the second one will be billed as 'Tana gets her revenge'. If she wins, the subsequent Psychic Gym is 'can Tana overcome herself'.

All about the advertising.

Also for the record: the aces for all four…I need a new term for our band-of-three. Troop?

Sure, troop. A Troop is a group that performs under a Team. Why not.

The aces of all four Troops are in that 17~19 age range, all girls, all pretty. For advertising purposes. As such, the four of them have their own managers to help them prepare for what they're expected to do, and to help guide them through what is definitely a highly stressful job.

I'm getting some advertising as the 'self-made man' on the team and…it's not going over well, I guess. Since I'm, y'know, isekaied into this world, I don't have a proper history or documents, so, as a technicality, my history up to the recent few years was destroyed by Arceus.

Incidentally, 'Destroyed By Arceus' is basically Pokemon speak for "we have no idea where it is and it's not important enough to look for." A side effect of Psychic types being a big part of the community is that if the Pokemon are ok with you, the law is ok with you, so I'm grateful for that.

Anyways, I'm getting some advertising to help redirect the narrative for our team in the event that both Andrew and Tana crash and burn. Likewise, Andrew has been getting more advertising in the event that both Tana and I crash and burn.

It pays to cover all the bases, I suppose.

Our original task of making sure the psychic Ace shines has not changed, but it has been loosened some. Talk among the staff is that money from Observer is drying up earlier than expected and LoG needs the C3 winnings.

It's tough for everybody, huh?

My focus has not really changed.

Patty mostly stands and shoots, with the occasional high speed evade to reposition. Her kit will be Energy Ball, Leaf Blade, Magic Leaf, Stun Spore. Her B-moves are Synthesis and Barrier.

Eevee mostly QAs and in-fights. His kit will be Quick Attack, Bite, Thunder Wave, Agility. His B-moves are Take Down, Swift, and Leech Seed.

He doesn't have Leech Seed, mind. Patty is able to plant the seeds, and Eevee now has the Grass Affinity to make those seeds work, but he's not able to use the move by himself. I think it'll be a good surprise move we can do to win a match here or there.

Chingling also stands and shoots. She recently learned/obtained enough psychic enough to float, but her evasion may as well be zero while she's floating. Her kit will be: Confusion, Thundershock, Ember, Swift, Water Gun, Magic Leaf. She has no B-moves.

Honestly, it would be better for her to not have so many moves, but her concentration plummets if she feels like she's not contributing enough, so this will have to do.

The goal is now to just shore up the teamwork. Transitions during matches are important in terms of maintaining tempo, and I've seen enough of recorded C3 fights to know that a bad transition, especially with a team as frail as ours, is going to end poorly.

…

[T-Minus Two Weeks]

…

Unexpected curveball.

LoG has other projects in the works, one of which is a non-Circuit competition. Apparently they completely forgot about it and drafted one of their current Members (me) to go and do the thing, because they didn't want a no-show.

It's a fair distance from Lumiose and is in…six hours.

WELL THEN

…

[One hurried ride later]

…

At least we get a company car to use.

It's on the outskirts of Anistar City, way west of Lumiose, in one of its national parks. It's called the 'Little Wings' Aerial Race.

So.

Format.

It's a race featuring small birds.

Uh…

Reading the information page while our attendance is getting processed.

…ok.

It's a race featuring small birds. The birds follow checkpoints towards their goal, pick up an item, and follow checkpoints back to the center, where we trainers are. The fastest bird to get the five items wins.

This looks like a for-charity event, so I can see why LoG did not want a no-show right before their C3.

Anyways, most competitors are entering with some variation of Pidgey, Spearow, Fletchling, Starly…like, y'know, a conventional, standard-issue bird.

I got a Natu. It's like a tennis ball with wings and a beak. King of agility it ain't.

Either way, it's a loaner, so there is no emotional connection. I have a map of checkpoints for each of the five zones, and it has to hit three of the twelve possible checkpoints per zone going there and coming back. If at any time the birds forget or fail to understand their position, they abandon their run and return back to the starting point to try again.

This is very different from the Rally-esque aerial races with Talonflames and the like. Those are fun to watch, this is just suffering.

…

And they're off!

…

The little birds flutter off in five different directions, with Natu and some Hoothoots trailing behind, wings going full tilt. After about a minute, some of the birds come back to study the map again, because it's not very accurate.

Natu has an exceptional memory and great instincts, but is a terrible flier and not built to read maps. It has to come back multiple times to get its target positions correctly.

For context, we humans are standing in the center of a clearing and the 'tracks' are all at most maaaybe fifty meters away, if you discount obstacles like trees and such. It's not a large field at all.

There's not much I can do here beyond just be a body and let Natu handle his own problems.

The people here are nice, though, so that's a thing. There are also reporters, and I had lines prepared for delivery some five minutes after the event started. I probably should not have read them very obviously from my phone, but eh.

Ultimately, the race went for three rounds, and Natu ended up placing seventeenth out of thirty participants, which is neat.

There were no illusions about our chances to win or place well in this thing, so I'm not surprised. Nor do I care, really.

I give Natu a reward for its performance, because our corporate shenanigans aren't its problem.

…

[T-Minus One Day]

…

It's Happening!

Tomorrow!

*soft gasp* ToMORrow!

So today is a day of rest, and for me to finalize my notes on how to coordinate during the first match.

The first gym is…Poison.

…Huh.

In all that time spent preparing I forgot to worry about type matchups.

Welp.

.

.

.

{ === + === }

Author Notes:

Do you think having a Psychic type on staff would be a requirement before getting a loan to start your own business?