Interlude 1: Talking about EV training
Brendan and the gang the next morning had a bit of a slow start due to the midnight intrusion by a certain girl. This led to everyone including the vigorous Masamune to be sluggish in the morning's rays of light. Brendan decided to check his pokedex and do a little bit of studying on the machine. As he played around on the machine, the group slowly arose and wiped themselves from slumber in order to observe how their master used the pokedex to gather information. Soon all four of the gang were reading over the screen. The pokemon found the information rather interesting,
Moreover, while they could understand the words on the screen, they could not speak the language of the humans. However, knowing the severity of their quest each felt it important to study up and be as knowledgeable as possible, because they each believed that understanding would lead to a higher survival rate for the party.
Brendan then scrolled to the right and noticed a very interesting application talking about "EV training." Brendan continued to read on about the disclaimers; as a benefit to the pokemon he read aloud.
"Effort Value training, or EV for short, is a process of special outside battle/reward for battle training to further specialize your Pokémon's abilities in the six tracked statistical categories. 1) Hit points, 2) attack, 3) defense, 4) special attack, 5) special defense, 6) speed. Naturally, each pokemon breed has a different base setup in these six categories. However, with targeted training a trainer can help develop further their pokemon partner in a specific area. If a trainer simply wishes a pokemon can be left unspecialized and thus will leave its natural stat balance and growth unaltered."
Brendan finished reading the notice and then saw lists of activities that one could do to increase the EV's of each specific stat. Brendan then pet the head of Masamune sitting to his left side. "Guys I think we could benefit from this training. I sounds like it will make you stronger without having to risk you in battle." Brendan however did not want to choose for his pokemon what they specialized in; he could tell they understood everything he read of the sheet and pondered a way to communicate with them.
Then a lightbulb went off in his head. He grabbed a stick a went to a patch of dirt a few feet away. He drew a heart, a circle, a triangle, a diamond, a square, and a star. He pointed to each object and told the gang what each one meant and that pointing at one meant they wanted to focus on that particular stat. "So guys what do you want to focus on?" Mitsuhide waltzed up first and marked that he wanted to focus on special attack and speed. Masamune then came up and stated that he wanted attack and speed to be his focus. Nagamasa was the last of the group and he purely mentioned that the stat he wanted to focus on was defense, solely defense.
"Well that settles it guys let's get cracking!" the rest of the morning was a blur of a montage of training exercises in which Brendan and his pokemon read off the screen of the pokedex how to train a certain stat and the crew then put the training into motion. Many laughs were had by all as the crew found themselves becoming significantly better in their desired stat category by the midday meal. Brendan felt fully confident and ready that the crew was prepared and pumped to continue onward, whatever the challenge may be.