NOVEL WEB Chapter 56 – Training Blues
Chapter 56 – Training Blues
“What am I looking at?”
The diminutive blue figure seemed to be in a state of bliss as it was eating Victini’s very last custap berry with its earlike fingerless arms. I recognized the Pokémon, but I always figured the species could only be found on the elusive mirage island.
“Ahem excuse me there Wynaut. I don’t remember there being any custap trees growing on this mountain. Where did you manage to find such an exotic berry?”
“Vi! Vi!” “We all know where! Let me at ‘em!”
“Wy Wy Naut!”
“Vi!? Vi?” “Really!? You haven’t eaten for days?”
“How come you are living here all the way up on Mt. Pyre instead of with your family Wynaut?”
“Wy Wy!”
“Vi Vi?” “Your makeshift-raft broke down while attempting to leave your home island?”
‘Hmm what to do… there aren’t enough sources of food up here at the summit. I could probably ask Phoebe’s grandpa to take care of him. I know he trains psychic type Pokémon.’
While I was ruminating on a solution, Victini, while not as hangry as before, has still not forgiven Wynaut’s thievery.
“Vi Vi!” “You don’t steal even if you are hungry! All you had to do was ask nicely and we would have shared!”
“Wy Wy!”
“Vi!” “Humans and trainer owned Pokémon are different. We have plenty of food to share!”
It seemed that this Wynaut was under the impression that Pokémon don’t share food with strangers. Certainly, your typical wild Pokémon wouldn’t. Since they had to spend a lot of time gathering edible plants or go hunting. I figured that the other Pokémon on Mt. Pyre weren’t as accommodating to hungry Pokémon with no skills to make it on their own. Not even mentioning the fact that ghosts didn’t even have food since they typically don’t need to consume berries for nourishment.
“Vi…” “My special berry…”
Seeing Victini close to tears I immediately took the appropriate steps to lift up her spirits.
“It’s okay Tini, we can always ask our gracious host to take some extra berries with them when they inevitably have to go grocery shopping to resupply the castle’s pantries. If you are still hungry you can go ahead and take another kind of berry out of my tupperware containers.”
“Vi…” “It’s not the same custap tastes the best…”
Victini wasn’t the kind of Pokémon who got violent when provoked but a small part of me was still fearful of what she might do to Wynaut while blind with anger. So, I opted to berate the little blue furred scoundrel some more in her stead as well as make use of this opportunity to have Wynaut make up for his mistake.
“Wynaut… what you did hurt Victini real bad. What do we say when one unintentionally hurts another?”
“Wy…”
“That’s right. Now to make up for your mistake I want you to teach Raven here how to perform the move counter. We got a big gym battle coming up and if you agree I’ll set aside a bowl of food for you to eat.”
“Wy?!”
Just because you did something bad doesn’t mean you also aren’t hurting yourself. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be stranded and without any food for days.
“Wy! Wy!”
Raven who was watching all of this play out was surprised when Wynaut suddenly used its earlike appendages to drag her back to our chosen training spot. I could tell she was properly miffed about getting dragged along by the strange Pokémon, but I was betting that Wynaut was cute enough to be quickly forgiven once the little tyke got the chance to get under her skin.
“Why…?”
“Wynaut instinctively know all sorts of useful moves. Their physiology makes them completely incapable of directly harming others, so nature has helped them out in other ways. I remembered that Raven is capable of learning counter so I thought Wynaut could make up for the stolen berry by teaching her a new move.”
“Can we go get new custap berries now? I’ll get us to Fortree city in a jiffy!”
“Once the sun starts going down Rena needs as much sunlight as she can get and I don’t feel particularly comfortable leaving the team alone like this.”
“Can I have something to do? Halo knows how to do a flame charge on her own.”
“Hmm… Wynaut can teach you how to use Safeguard. It’s a handy move to prevent yourself from getting poisoned, confused or sedated. But for now, Raven needs all the help if she wants to learn counter before the end of these two weeks. Having to learn fighting type energy and afterwards the move itself will take up most of our allotted training time before facing Winona. Afterall, she’ll be a participant in most of our gym battles from this point on.”
I was planning to start Raven on some advanced fire type moves during these two weeks but just the thought of her being able to perform Counter got me all giddy. Returning an opponent’s physical attack with twice the power was a gamechanger. I figured not many trainers or even gym leaders realized that a houndour could use the move. Turning Counter into Raven’s secret trump card was a no brainer.
At the Castle*
It was around dinner time when my friends and I returned to the castle. Having engaged in some rigorous wrestling with Glove, I seemed to have worked up a major sweat. Seeing my Pokémon put down their best foot forward inspired me to start conditioning my body as well. Glove had witnessed many ancient humans engaging in martial arts and having nothing to do except overseeing my team’s spars and meditating, he offered to give me some basic self-defense training. Naturally I grasped this opportunity with both hands. I didn't know if the ancient human fighting style could stand up to modern martial arts but I figured learning it wouldn’t do any harm. All Mr. Moore had me do was exercising my spatial awareness by dodging projectiles while running. So, learning how to defend myself against other humans would probably be useful down the line. After getting back to the castle I took the liberty to make use of the showers before joining the rest of the family and Flannery at the dining table.
Wynaut had decided to come with us after enjoying a few of the more common berries which I kept inside my backpack. The little guy seemed so helpless that I just caved in hoping Phoebe’s grandparents wouldn’t mind feeding and housing another freeloader.
“So I was wondering if Wynaut could stay here for now? He’s been a really helpful sparring partner and teacher.”
The couple took a moment to exchange glances until Phoebe’s grandpa gave us his response. I didn’t know if the elderly man was psychic but that glance seemed to have been enough for the couple to come to a decision.
“And you say Wynaut has no idea on how to get back to Mirage island?”
“Naut!”
“Vi.” “He says he has no idea.”
“That may be for the better. Mirage Island has long been sought out by many a seafarer looking to make their fortune. The Island is the only place in all of Hoenn or maybe the whole world where one can find naturally growing Liechi berries.”
“Vi!” “You know about the Liechi berries!?”
“Of course! There are many tales of seafaring captains stranding on the mysterious island and being hosted by the overly friendly population of Wynaut. The ones that successfully managed to escape the island have recounted their experience for the wider public. Many an expedition were launched by those same captains but all of them ended in failure. Something hides the island from the perception of outsiders. Hoenn’s premier berry master has even offered a 250.000 pokédollar reward for anyone able to bring him a fresh Liechi berry.”
“Vi!!!” “That’s 5000 oran berries worth of human money! We’ve got to find that Island Egon!”
Even Wynaut was amazed by the importance that mainland people attached to his home island. Pokémon in general didn’t care too much about human money but Victini’s outburst managed to translate the worth of even a single Liechi berry fairly well not even mentioning what a whole island full of them could get you. My own team was getting all excited at the prospect of visiting the mysterious island which was in stark contrast to Flannery’s Pokémon. Her team had all been acclimated to living in the lap of luxury aside from her newest addition. Houndour’s wagging tail was reminiscent of a speedboat’s propeller indicating what the dark type thought about .
“Vi! Vi!” “Wynaut all you have to do to pay me back for stealing my precious berry is leading us to mirage island. We won’t tell anyone else of the island’s whereabouts I promise!”
“Wy Wy…”
Before the situation got out of hand I pulled my overeager rabbit away from the startled Wynaut. I wouldn’t lie to myself by claiming that I wasn’t interested in the berry master’s most lucrative reward. Zinnia’s college fund wasn’t going to be magically delivered to grandpa and grandma’s doorstep but pressuring Wynaut into revealing Mirage Island’s secret location didn’t sit right with me even if Wynaut was faking his amnesia.
“In any case, me and my wife are happy to host little Wynaut here. I myself am quite experienced at raising psychic type Pokémon so if this little one doesn’t mind he can join my old partners who are also living on the summit.”
“Why don’t they live here with you inside the castle?”
“This place is filled with ghost types. It makes for a poor meditation environment to those who are repelled by their naturally emitted energies.”
“Miasma dear.”
“Only specialists call it that.”
“Vi?” “Aren’t they lonely up there without you?”
“Not at all. When you’ve been partners for as long as we have distance becomes obsolete. Our minds are always linked in and I am only one teleport’s distance away.”
The awe of meeting and housing a mythical Pokémon seemed to have already waned some. The elderly man especially seemed almost relieved to see Victini behaving just the same way any curious psychic type would. The couple seemed all too eager to educate her in the ways of the world.
Phoebe sensing a lull in the conversation brought up another topic of interest.
“I am up for another rating battle. We’re this close to breaking into the top ten. If I win this battle we will be taking the ninth spot on the ladder.”
Impressed I didn’t hold back my praise for her team’s hard work.
“That’s amazing Phoebes. You are this close to getting your dream job.”
Flannery obviously confused as to what we are talking about pried further,
“Ninth spot on the ace circuit? Is that good?”
Before Phoebe had a chance to blow a gasket I hastily explained how the ace circuit worked.
“One can only enter the ace circuit by breaching the top 16 at the Ever Grande conference. Getting the ninth spot means Phoebe could be considered to be in the top fifteen most skilled trainers in all the region. After the Champion his elite four and the 8 trainers ranked higher than Phoebe if she wins her next battle. She would be taking her opponents current ranking were she to win.”
“Whaaat? Really? So if I get into the top sixteen and challenge the current trainer at the top of the ace circuit I’d get that spot?”
“Yes and no, Trainers that are participating in the ace circuit have to accept at least one challenge every two weeks. Those that are ranked higher get their challenges prioritized. You can challenge the number one but I doubt he has the inclination to waste his time with a trainer ranked dead last. Usually the right to have a battle with the number one is reserved for trainers who made it into the top ten. And before you ask if one is incapable of accepting a challenge, before those two weeks are over, he automatically loses his spot to his highest ranked challenger.”
“Hmmm seems like a hassle, you can’t go on vacation for longer than two weeks?”
“Yes but making it to the top is worth it. At the end of the ace circuit the trainers who are ranked in the top four get the right to challenge one of the elite four. If they manage a win they get to replace that member.”
“Wait?! Grandpa has been a member of the elite four since forever.”
“It is rare for an elite four member to get replaced or even challenged. The top thirty ace trainers are no joke. They have numerous gym leaders amongst their number. Frontier brains, hidden masters who want to keep up their skill but have no interest in replacing our current elites. I am fairly sure our current number one could replace one of the elites if he chose to do so.”
“Who is the number one!?”
“Brandon, He is always eager to test challengers but his true passion is going from region to region excavating old ruins. He does make the effort to hold onto his ranking inside Hoenn though.”
I couldn’t stop the admiration I felt from leaving my voice. Me and Brandon shared the same interests. If I was a little bit older and wealthier I’d probably be doing the same thing he’s doing. Excavating old ruins, making friends with the legendary Pokémon living within them and donating all the odds and ends I dig up to noteworthy museums. At this point Brandon was the only one that I knew of to have managed to catch one of the regi trio. He was known to have caught a regirock. Where he managed to find one was still a mystery but I was eager to find out. There have been some amateur attempts at stealing the rock titan but the big time criminals like (hunter J) have not made any attempts to do so yet. Brandon was a trainer respected for his skill in battle even before he first showed off his vaunted companion.
“Glacia’s already managed to take the third spot so that leaves number two and four for the taking.”
“You are not going to challenge her?”
“She may be my rival but we both promised to make it in this year. Besides, she’s aiming for a different target. The only thing that matters is that I’ll be ranked the strongest among the elites.”
“Mr. Moore’s still your target right? Well it would make sense for an ice type specialist like her to avoid challenging him.”
The current elite four was made up out of trainers who were getting close to retirement age. Sidney being the only exception having gained his position two years prior. Glacia aiming to challenge Spenser would make sense. The man was known to favor grass type Pokémon but he did tend to throw his challengers for a loop by substituting his regular team with other types. However, challenging a grass type trainer would put a mark on her elite four career, making people question whether or not she earned her right to be counted amongst the elites. Based on what Phoebe’s told me about her I was quite sure Glacia would end up challenging the other elderly elite Kate. Kate was an islander who specialized in Psychic types hailing from Mossdeep City. She ran the Mossdeep city gym with her husband. The both of them are famed for being of near equal skill. When she’s busy attending to her duties as an elite her husband took over her share of the gym leader’s duties. Glacia winning against an opponent who had no advantages or disadvantages against her team would set her up for a stable reign as one of the elites.
“Glacia has ways of beating a fire type specialist like Mr. Moore. Her Walrein’s thick fat isolates the big lug from any fire type moves.”
“Hmpff my grandpa has ways of dealing with cocky water types. On dry land his fire types can’t be beat!”
The rest of the dinner ended peacefully. Flannery might not show it outwardly but during my travels she often complained about her grandfather’s busy schedule. Him having his elite four position taken wouldn’t upset her as long as Phoebe kept from making speculations about Mr. Moore’s skills.
Two weeks later*
It’s been two weeks since we first arrived, both Flannery and myself have grown a lot. Houndour managed to learn Counter under Wynaut’s guidance. The rest of my team had managed similar feats, each of them nailing down a new move. Numsy being barred from using ground type moves set out to improve on his own. The solution being right in front of us, it only took me a while to realize, curse when used by Pokémon who aren’t ghost types hardened their musculature improving their physical defense and attacking power while hampering down on their nimbleness.
Rena also managed to learn a new move. Chingling’s parents were always busy guarding the travelers‘ shrine and with having little to do during the day made it a hobby to watch us train. Seeing us working hard to reach our goal moved the little guy enough to ask his mother to teach us a new move. Chimecho was an expert at using obscure psychic type moves. I immediately asked her to teach Rena Imprison. During my double battle with Phoebe the move caused a lot of mayhem and she didn’t hesitate to use it against VIctini in our subsequent battles. As luck would have it Chimecho is a proficient user of the move and she happily taught my little fox how to do so as well.
We quickly discovered that Victini was incapable of making use of the move much to her chagrin. She already knew that there would be a few psychic type moves that would be difficult or impossible for her to learn but finding out this early put a dampener on her mood. After some consoling with me she got out of her funk fairly quickly. The only Pokémon truly capable of using every single move out there was one of her contemporaries Mew. Nonetheless she still made good use of our time here by picking up how to perform Shadow Ball by spying on Litwick’s training sessions with Phoebe. The rest of her time was spent coaching Glove and Halo in fire and psychic type moves respectively.
Glove managed to finally reach a level of mastery with Confusion that Victini judged to be only “adequate”. Which freed up a good chunk of his time. Psychic was still a ways off so he spent most of his time on meditation while keeping himself close to Halo when he wasn’t busy demonstrating basic ancient human self defense for me to learn. He got so into meditation that I was fairly sure he was on the cusp of learning Calm Mind. That’s why I asked one of the medicham living on the mountain for his expert opinion. One look by the meditation Pokémon confirmed my initial conjecture. Medicham, who later turned out to be one of Phoebe’s grandpa’s Pokémon, was impressed enough to give Glove a few tips on how to “fortify the mind against stray thoughts” as Victini put it. Seeing fit to act as Glove’s Guru or spiritual teacher.
Little Halo’s growth was the most impressive. After quickly mastering flame charge I quickly put her through targeting practice and a crash course on how to control the intensity and temperature of her flames. She quickly grew bored of my standard fare training and set out on developing her own move. She took her inspiration from Rena who she had often seen using the move Sunny Day. Just like my fox companion she sought to harness the power of the sun and by the end of our two weeks training she showed the first signs of learning how to use the move Morning Sun. I was blown away by her intuitiveness and after explaining to her which move she stumbled upon, the little bug type worked twice as hard at mastering the technique.
Raven’s progress was hard won; it took her ten days to learn how to channel fighting type energy. At the end of our two weeks’ training she finally began showing signs of properly using the move. My Pokémon helped her out by using the move Tackle against her. At first she couldn’t get the timing right using the move prematurely or not at all. The first time she executed the move successfully was when Halo flame charged her out of nowhere. Raven’s fight or flight instincts subconsciously registered the little bug type as a threat helping her get the timing right just as Halo crashed into her. That was also the first time Halo ever got struck by an offensive move. Not having built up her toughness through battling like the others had resulted with her dazzled out on the ground fainting from the backlash of her own move.
Since today marked our return to the outside world our daily training bouts were cancelled. Rena still had to venture to the mountain’s summit since we couldn’t afford to have our efforts wasted. So all of us came up with an amenable solution.
“You want me to escort and watch over Rena while she trains on the summit!?”
“Just for today! It’s a win win for the both of us when you think about it. Rena gets to show off in front of her little brother and teach him some of the tricks she’s picked up from circuit battling.”
Naturally Rena was responsible enough to get to the summit on her own. But I still felt a sense of duty regarding her safety. It was one thing when she was spending time at her mother’s but another to be all alone with no one to look out for her aside from an overly enthusiastic Chingling. Training accidents are a rare occurrence but they still happen from time to time.
“Hmm I guess? We were actually planning on going down the mountain to go window shopping. But you owe me for this, one favor no questions asked.”
“Fine! Whatever, as long as I am not breaking any laws.”
We already ate our morning breakfast with Flannery’s group before seeing them off with my little fox trailing behind them. She didn’t seem to mind overly much to have to sit out my next gym match.
Flannery had really come into her own while free from her grandfather’s supervision. She even managed to convince Ninetales to give her a shot with one of her two kits. The older one was a male Vulpix who strongly inherited their line’s haughtiness. Ninetales must have figured that Flannery would be a good influence on him. Her energetic personality and natural klutziness coaxing him to come out of his shell. While his orderliness would temper the girl’s rambunctiousness. This did not come without a few conditions though. Having been informed that we would be staying on the mountain for a while, she reserved the right to change her mind during this short trial period while we stayed with Phoebe’s family. So far Flannery hadn’t done anything egregious enough to change Ninetales’ opinion on her fitness as a trainer.
The first night she had been given the go ahead by Ninetales Flannery was awash with happiness immediately calling her grandfather to let him know of her success. Mr. Moore was happy for his granddaughter but let her know that it was about time she came home. He needed the extra hands to take care of the gym’s increased workload. The houndour pack were now being looked after by a volunteer and it would take more time that he didn’t have to hire and train new personnel. Having nearly fulfilled my part of the deal by letting Flannery catch Pokémon and experiencing what it was like to travel the routes he saw fit … to let me continue participating in this circuit with the gym’s support and pending on how well I did during my next gym match he might even ask me to wear the gym’s colors allowing me to fully represent the Lavaridge gym.
“Vi?” “Are we ready to go?”
“Yep what’s the closest place you can teleport us to?”
“Vi!” “Kecleon’s place!”
“That run down building?”
“Vi Vi!” “They had a bunch of interesting stuff!”
“Stolen stuff. I don’t want those rogues setting a bad example for Halo.”
Still, I couldn’t complain overly much. It was already impressive that Victini could teleport us inside the city’s limits from this distance after having only been there for less than a full day. I returned the rest of my team who were busy goofing off inside the castle’s training grounds to their poké balls. Once I recalled my last partner Pokémon Raven who picked up a penchant for chasing down stray ghosts who visited the castle, I was ready to get teleported. Victini wasted no time clamping down on me and initiating the process. She’d gotten so good at the move it took her less than a full second even when traveling long distances. One moment I was inside the castle’s training grounds and now I was in a run down shack populated by Chameleon Pokémon. Who weren’t mentally prepared to have a human just drop by out of nowhere.
“Kec!”
“Leon!”
“Vi Vi!” “Calm down, it's me. This is my human. You know the one I sometimes talk about? He came by here that one time.”
That seemed to have calmed down the two Kecleon who had been standing guard over the place while the others were probably out hoodwinking tourists.
Somehow I wasn’t that surprised that Victini had been having secret playdates without me knowing about them. If I had the power to travel everywhere within a moment’s notice I’d be checking up on old friends from time to time as well.
‘Wait… what other friends have you been hanging out with while the rest of us were sleeping?’
“Just here! And sometimes I sneak up on Tranquill. She has been doing really well over here. Winona was so impressed by her grit that she’s promised to let her on the team as soon as she’s become strong enough to take on eighth badge trainers.”
As I took in my surroundings I couldn’t help but notice the Kecleon’s change in inventory. There used to be the occasional item of value strewn in between all the junk and loose Pokémon food but it seemed that they’ve been learning to snatch the type of items humans would find actually valuable. Pokémon sized furniture, Leppa Pomeg Hondew and Sitrus berries, leaf stones, a pile of gold nuggets crowned by a single pearl. And strangely enough a single Light Orb.
“Have you been teaching them how to become better thieves…?”
“Vi! Vi Vi!” “No! Thieving is bad but they still needed a way to make a living. So I went through some of you older memories to come up with a solution and now they’ve been gathering the good stuff so they can start their own shop! For both wild Pokémon and traveling trainers! The Kecleon shop is about two weeks away from officially opening!”
To say I wasn’t impressed would be a total obfuscation of the truth. It always seemed strange to me that there weren’t any places of commerce run completely by Pokémon. There are shops that are managed by trainer owned Pokémon but to see wild Pokémon like these Kecleon showing such initiative with only a little encouragement from Victini completely changed my initial opinion about these rascals.
“Tini if these guys need an initial investor then count me in! This place just needs a few licks of paint and a signboard. We could get all that done within the day. Probably some display cases to show off their merchandise, maybe a store logo.”
“Vi! Vi!” “Wait! Wait! The Kecleon are the ones that decide. If humans suddenly start interfering it will defeat the shop’s original purpose.”
“Then how will they purchase products to sell?”
“The wild Pokémon living on routes 119 to 121 will bring in items of interest. In exchange for berries, food and human made healing items. Visiting trainers who purchase their wares are encouraged to barter with goods but if they wish to use human currency they will be buying at a premium.”
‘I could see many a Pikachu trainer willingly fork over the big bucks for that light orb. And since none of these kecleon are trainer owned they wouldn’t have to pay taxes. If this place does turn over a substantial profit I could see the local city council authorize an emergency ruling.’
Battles that allowed for the use of items were few and far between in the main circuits. Technical battling like that was usually reserved for places like the battle frontier or the trainer tower. The league didn’t expect many of the younger trainers to learn how some of the more esoteric items worked so to keep things fair they banned their use from all league sanctioned battles.
“We are wasting time! Let’s go!”
“Fine! Just wait a second.”
I ruffled through my bag until I finally found the item I was looking for. Before placing it in the claws of the nearest Kecleon.
“Here you go, another item passing trainers might be interested in.”
“Kec?”
“It’s a single use technical machine for the move Silver Wind. These babies have been discontinued for a while so a passing bug type trainer is sure to scoop it up when seeing it displayed in your store.”
“Kec Leon!”
“I am proud that you guys are changing for the better and I want to help out in my own small way.”
The Kecleon started tearing up before quickly turning around and placing the technical machine on top of the collection of gold nuggets.
“I told you these kecleon are the sweetest!”
“You are right from now on I’ll defer to you in all Pokémon related matters. Now… It’s time we finally won our third Hoenn gym badge!”