Hard Enough - Chapter 116 - Training tutorials (Patreon)

I felt my muscles twitch in protest as an ache coursed through my body. I held the stretch and breathed in as controlled a manner as possible.

“Excellent work Brock!” cheered Trixie. “You're so close to getting your whole hand past your foot. Keep going; I know you can do it!”

I exhaled and sank down a little further. “That’s the spirit!” she said, happily shooting me a thumbs up while her Machoke mirrored her.

“How come your Machoke hasn’t evolved yet?” I said through clenched teeth, trying, and failing to focus on something else beyond how my muscles were now burning in protest. Trixie glanced at her pokemon before shrugging.

“She wants to get as many gains as possible. She’s hasn't plateaued in her weights for a while, so she’s still pushing.” Trixie raised her arms and flexed into a pose that Machoke mirrored. “It’s only through truly overcoming something she considers insurmountable that she’ll evolve.”

Greta raised her ever-present pokedex with her shaking arm to capture images of the Machoke, who noticed and started posing for the camera.

“Machoke, the super power pokemon. This pokemon is commonly known to be capable of lifting trucks with one hand. This strength sees this pokemon widely employed in heavy-lifting duties and tasks. They are common in construction, hospitals, and gymnasiums. Machoke are known to have incredible endurance and durability as well. This Machoke knows Scary Face, Dynamic Punch, Bulk Up, Payback and Fling.”

“Oh wow,” said Greta, “Maybe I should look into getting one?”

Trixie strode over and loomed over Greta’s slumped form. “Considering a life of gains?” she said, flexing slightly.

It took Greta a while to answer as she stared at Trixie’s towering form. When she did, she looked down. “I don’t think I’m cut out for that, I got tired just doing the yoga routine you had me doing,” she said morosely.

Stephen and Bianca, both of whom had decided to join in today, raised their heads. “Want to trade for running laps, weights, and battle ropes?” said Steven.

“You can do my burpies next time!” chimed Bianca.

Trixie waggled a playful finger at the pair. “Now now! Don’t forget that I set the intensity of the work outs of people based on the individual, not the group at large!” She smiled gently down at Greta. “As a youth, you shouldn’t do more than light weights, or body weight routines right now. Going too heavy too often will stunt your growth.”

She then curled her arm and flexed her bicep. “And we want you to grow!” she said with a huge smile. Greta smiled hesitantly back.

I felt a surge of envy at the boulder that appeared there before prodding my own toned muscles.

“Brock, are you jealous of Trixie?” said Yolanda from where she was leaning against a wall while Terra dutifully held a waterbottle and towel for Yolanda.

“It’s envious, and… maybe,” I said, flicking my hand at her and spraying some sweat in her direction. “Thinking of attending these more in future?”

Yolanda nodded seriously. “It’ll be good to have as much fitness as I can for when I go on my journey.”

I agreed with a nod and stood to shake myself off. “Alright gang! Hit the showers cause that’s all we have for today beyond the usual tasks of checking over the pokemon! If you’re interested in attending the training lesson that I’m going to be running for the young trainers that we sponsor, then stick around. Rachel…”

I looked around only to frown. “Where is Rachel?” I asked only for a hand to be raised from the other side of where Stephen was lying. Rachel’s much smaller frame made her hard to see.

“Here!” she said like it was a classroom rather than a Gym.

I walked over. “You know you didn’t have to take part in the trainer's workout, yeah?” I asked her. She nodded and flicked her eyes over to Trixie, only for me to raise an eyebrow at her. Trixie had pointedly not hung around Rachel too much. It almost seemed suspicious.

“You and her?” I asked quietly.

“She’s being shy,” Rachel said with a wink “I’ll win her over soon.” she said, then grinned impishly. “Trixie? My legs don’t work!”

“You have more strength in you than you know!” said Trixie, instantly there to cheer Rachel on.

Rachel huffed at her and made to rise only to collapse. Only instead of flopping to the ground, she fell straight into Trixie’s abs with a thwack. Trixie giggled and patted the small girl on the head while Rachel shot me a thumbs up.

I rolled my eyes at their antics, Rachel obviously wasn’t shy about what she wanted, so I left it to them. “Shower and be back here in thirty minutes!” I tossed over my shoulder, jogging off to have a shower myself.

I then collected up my notes and strode out to the reserve. “Jorm, Titan, Clefairy, Izumi, Quirinna, and Sanchez!” I said, pointing towards said pokemon. Clefairy hopped down while my Solrock floated from the top of the rocky plateau.

Sanchez rolled up to me with Izumi, and then Jorm and Titan came over.

“I’m going to be doing some tutoring with the sponsored trainers today,” I said explaining today’s task. “After that, I’ll want to put in some one on one training with all of you to work on some new tricks and keep developing what we have alright?”

I pointed to Jormungandr, “Also, you and I will be going to Sabrina’s Gym later with Shrek, Titan, Don, and Knight.”

Titan perked up at this, while Jorm tilted his large head. I pulled out the gauntlet I’d gotten from Steven Stone. “Steelix, congratulations! You’re the first pokemon on my roster that I’ve found a Mega stone for; specifically, this is called Steelixite and will allow you to temporarily mega-evolve which will boost you considerably.”

“Ty!” barked Titan in surprise. “Ty-ranitar?” he said pointing at himself.

I nodded. “Yup, you’re also capable of it.” I walked up and patted him on the stomach. “Sadly, mega evolution requires a stone specifically keyed to your species which is going to be tough to get, but we’ll do some patrols of the silver ranges and see what we can find, I think if Tyranitarite is anywhere, it will be there.”

Titan nodded slowly at that. I turned back to Jormungandr, “For now, you have the honour of being the first that I will train with. I will let the others observe this, and we will build from there when we find stones that will work for them.”

I clapped my hands to redirect their attention. “For now, though, we have some trainers to work with.” I returned them to their pokeballs except for Izumi and Clefairy. Clefairy hopped up onto my shoulder, and I had to laugh when Izumi kipped up to claim the other. Clefairy looked impressed when I didn’t buckle at the slightest.

When I returned to the main arena, I found the various Gym trainers that were employed sitting in the stands with small desk attachments added to the seats for today’s session.

Rachel was toying with a Magnemite that had a camera attached to it. She stood in front of it with an intense expression, working on the settings before walking around and checking the recording. She gave me a thumbs up and then toggled a few more settings.

Then the large screen lit up, and faces appeared, showing the various trainers that I was currently sponsoring. I nodded to Mia, who I’d only seen recently, and then flicked over the others present. They all looked in good health, or indeed, better health than when they left. They’d shed some of their baby fat and had a certain maturity to them from living almost two months on the road.

Celia waved on her link, and I waved back. “Hey everyone! Today we’re going to run another lesson on developing our pokemon! This is going to be a two-parter with me going through building up moves with your pokemon.”

Greta and Missy’s hands shot up like this was a classroom, and Rachel giggled as she rotated the magnemite to position the feed to show them.

I gestured to Missy first. “Go ahead.”

“Is this how you build up combination moves?”

“It’s part of the building blocks for it, yes,” I said. “I’ve compiled a number of research articles that I read through while on my journey on this, which is part of the Gym’s trainer server if you're interested. I hope you all remember your log-ins for that?”

A few of the younger trainers squirmed, and I hummed. “If not, give the Gym a call and ask Georgina to help reset your account so you can access them. Some of them are dry, but that doesn’t make them any less valuable.”

I released Jormungandr and raised up his pokemon with a disc that I showed the watching crowd. “Now, often Technical machines are great methods that can allow us to quickly teach our pokemon the moves that might be advantageous in certain situations. However, these moves won’t typically be as strong right away as those that are learnt through natural growth or training. Can anyone list off another issue with these machines?”

Mia waved her hand on her feed. “Oh! Oh! They’re expensive!” she said. I nodded, knowing she would have the best idea, having scored herself a Thunder TM for Silly Mouse.

“Indeed, anything else?”

People shifted about. I turned to Yolanda and she sat up. “Technical machines do not allow for the pokemon to widen the pool of moves. Sometimes they overwrite certain parts of a pokemon’s brain and cause them to be limited to only four moves at most.”

Mia gasped, “What about Silly Mouse!?” She said reaching out of view and tugging said Raticate into view.

I waved a hand. “It’s only if you use it too much that such can occur. Stronger pokemon can get away with two in quick succession but you won’t be able to do another for a few months. This is why it is important to not use it a lot. Be selective in what you’re going to give your pokemon and how often. Often it's better to put in the hard yards yourself and train your pokemon towards a move. This can net more benefits by making the move divergent from how they might naturally operate. It also makes it more powerful initially.”

“Now, some of you will need to review what is considered normal for your pokemon to learn naturally and what has been seen from other pokemon, often you can build on natural moves to get more powerful variants.”

I gestured to Jormgandr before releasing Titan to stand next to him. “Now both Jorm and Titan here have the capacity to learn moves that see them throwing their bodies wholeheartedly into an attack. This can start at a simple Tackle, before building into Slam, and Double Edge.”

I smiled at the questioning looks I was getting. “Now Double Edge is not seen favourably by most due to it recoiling and causing your pokemon to take some of the damage as well unless they are particularly Hard Headed or well-trained. What most people don’t understand is that you can use moves like Double Edge to train up to moves such as Giga Impact as your pokemon gets used to throwing their bodies into heavier and heavier hits. They learn to brace themselves better and also hit harder.”

I put a hand on Titan. “I did this with my starter initially when he evolved and it has had the benefit of his Giga Impacts being truly staggering in power and moves that almost always guarantee a K.O.”

On the screen, a montage of Titan roaring and leaping into Giga Impact played out causing Titan to grin happily. Jormungandr watched on hungrily, I could tell he wanted that power, that strength as well.

“Now the other benefit of ‘building up’ your moves instead of leaping to the higher tier movesets is that your pokemon will retain the knowledge of how to use the weaker moves. Moves such as Stone Edge grow from things such as Rock Throw, or Rock Slide.”

“What would be the benefit of using Rock Throw over a move like Stone Edge?”

One of the sponsored trainers chimed in, “It doesn’t take as much energy for your pokemon?”

"Perfect,” I said encouragingly. "The use of less energy can sometimes make or break slug fests." I mimed some jabs and had Jorm shoot out some Rock Slides while Titan shot off a Stone Edge.

“If I want to keep up the pressure with a more widespread attack as well Rock Throw will see smaller rocks blasted out rather than a few heavier rocks,” I said indicating Titan. “Once you have a higher tier move, the lower tier moves can also be shot out faster which some pokemon that are more technically minded will hugely benefit from,” I said.

“Some pokemon also have a natural affinity to lower-tier moves. Learning higher tier moves therefore allow them to use the lower tiers faster while having increased endurance,” I said alluding to pokemon with the Technician ability such as Meowth, Persian, or even Mr Mime.

“It might not seem like it but this Geodude is one of the strongest pokemon around thanks to her access to higher-tier moves. Some of you will know her as Izumi and she can hit hard when we need her to.” I tapped Izumi, and she rolled forward before firing off her own versions of Rock Throw, Rock Slide, and then Stone Edge.

I grinned. “Now let’s talk about positioning, in this lesson, I’m going to send out some of my pokemon and play out some hypotheticals for you all to consider where might be the best for my pokemon to be released.”

I noticed more than a few eyes lose the shine of interest which made me tilt my head. “While it might not be as impressive or as fun as talking about pokemon moves I want you to know that this is one of the fundamentals that will help you win a lot of matches. Good, or bad positioning can often determine the match.”

“Let’s start with something easy,” I played out a match with an Onix deployed at the back of the battlefield against a Squirtle. “Good or bad positioning?” I asked.

The group shifted and after a bit I prompted them. Raise your thumb up or down to indicate if you think it’s good, or bad.” I got a number of thumbs down with the others hurriedly copying.

I nodded. “Yes, it was a bad position as the opponent wanted space and Onix typically needs to close in so a closer starting point might have worked out better.” I played out the video and then led a round of questions on how this situation could be tweaked, changed, or turned to my benefit if I wanted that. The kids started to perk up and think, which was always fun to observe.

I played another of an Aron in close proximity to a pidgey and wasn’t surprised when it got a unanimous thumbs up. Again, I talked through the positives and made sure to get as many people as engaged and thinking about it as possible.

I then played a clip from a recent match where I had Titan appearing directly in front of a Poliwrath. I paused it before the replay could play out.

“Who thinks this is a good position for a Tyranitar to be in?” I asked.

Most shot their thumbs up and I chuckled. Celia and Yolanda, most notably, did not raise their hands. I pointed to Celia on the big screen. “Celia? Why was that a bad position for a Tyranitar?”

“For a Tyranitar,” she said, making sure to emphasise what the question actually was, “it is bad as you’ve placed him into close range with a Water fighting type that wants to get in close. This is a trap question though, as the Tyranitar in question is Titan, who you’ve had training against a Poliwrath. You actually lulled the trainer into a false sense of security with your strongest pokemon and what on paper is a perfect matchup.”

I nodded and allowed the match to play out with it going exactly how Celia had said it would. “Exactly so. I’ll apologise for the situation, but this highlights something we’ve discussed earlier by reversing the script. This was a bad position and the challenger recognised this but didn’t know that Titan could handle a Poliwrath in close. It was still a gamble however.”

Titan huffed at my side in a manner that I knew was his way of saying, “Not much of a gamble.”

I chuckled and continued with the lesson with a few more examples. Eventually, I clapped my hands. “Alright! Your homework which I won’t be checking but is more to help the lesson sink in, is to look through your pokemon and what moves they have that you might start building towards in the future or moves you want to incorporate. How long should you wait between TM usage, and finally play around with different positioning for some of our pokemon in some friendly matches where you don’t have anything on the line!”

This got a round of nods, and I was glad to see some very thoughtful faces. It probably helped that they could instantly set about applying the knowledge I was giving them. “Just make sure to be quick with any matches you take. You can be penalised if you take too long picking out the best position or if the delay drastically hampers the other trainer.”

“How long are we allowed?” asked one trainer.

“Sixty seconds, at most with escalating penalties from a free move to having to withdraw a pokemon from the match if the delay is too long,” I said. This got some grumbles, but I wasn’t too worried. No one I knew had ever triggered the second response. The first was rare enough, with referees counting down the limit and giving advanced warnings most of the time.

I waved and thanked them all for attending before having Rachel count me out. I then turned to Missy in the stands. “Want to watch me work on doing some combination training?”

She perked up at that and walked up to watch as I loaded up the Rest TM into Jormungandr’s pokeball. “Alright buddy, we’re going to work on this one today. I want you to go into a Dig and then go straight into Rest.”

He nodded as I loaded the disc into the pokeball before I recalled him. It would take a few minutes, and in that time I turned to Missy and the other Gym trainers that were sticking around, and Yolanda made sure to get closer.

“Alright, so this is a bit more of an advanced lesson, as what you want your pokemon to focus on when trying to combine a move or set up a one-two sequence is having the moves occur in rapid sequence. For Jorm, that is going to be pretty easy with him using Dig into Rest, a pretty straightforward sequence of moves. When I trained Bertha, I had to chain together Horn Drill, Fissure, Bide, and Endure. Admittedly, there was some trade-off with Endrure not lasting quite as long as it should, but the improved power of a combined Horn Drill and Fissure more than makes up for it.”

Missy nodded. “It’s certainly impressive, and I’m surprised you’re able to get it off as much as you do.”

“I have strategies about setting up the circumstances to allow it to happen usually, or force a trade-off at the very least, thus the Endure being added in.” I rubbed my chin in thought. “When I originally started training it up for Bertha I was actually doing it for outside regulated pokemon battles and a wide area of effect attack in case I got in over my head.”

Missy blinked at that. “Oh? Were you targeted by pokemon thieves?”

I shook my head. “Initially, no, but I was approached a few times by some people; Sabrina and I were too tough for them for things to get too heated, but I still considered it a possibility. This wider attack, however, does have some great utility in a pokemon match.”

Yolanda shot me a worried look. “They really targeted you?”

I nodded. “I don’t think they knew who we were, but yeah, there are some people that will try things like that.” I shot her a grimace. “As my sister... and especially with how you carry Terra around, people are going to know you have some strong, rare pokemon. Sadly, pokemon like Larvitar and Pupitar are more popular now due to my match with Lance.”

“And if I threw out a Tyranitar, most people would back off wouldn’t they?” she said after a moment’s thought.

I raised a finger. “Most would, but there are some that have just as powerful a group. Before you leave your journey, I want to show you how to escalate if you need to along with identifying bad situations and how to get out of them.”

Yolanda nodded seriously, only to gesture back at me. “Is that all you need to do for combination moves? Line them up one after the other?”

“Remember how I suggested getting your pokemon to channel pokemon moves?” I said referring to an earlier lesson. Missy and Yolanda both nodded. I nodded back. “Have them do that while working out where the energy is building up, moving to, or being released. Building up this body awareness takes a while but leads to you being able to combine moves as you build up energy in the required areas.”

I raised a hand and started ticking off my fingers. “Horn Drill requires a horn or a point for Bertha such as her fingers that act like drill bits for Horn Drill. Fissure is a sudden buildup of energy that can be released from her tail, feet, hands, or head. For the purposes of combining them, I had her practise using the move in her hand. For Bide and Endure it was a bit tougher as they both required total body coverage.”

Yolanda nodded slowly. “It must have taken a while to get to that stage…” she said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, when I was in Hoenn Bertha was only a Rhydon but she could do the combined moves for each separately, I decided to take them a step further after a while as I could get more. It was very harebrained and it took Bertha years, but she got there in the end.”

I rubbed my chin. “A lot of the inspiration I got for looking into combining moves was actually from Hoenn pokemon Contests; they are ripe with different examples of moves being altered, adjusted, or combined all the time. I’d give them a look over, as they’re very skilled at it.”

I gestured to Missy, “Had any thoughts on what sort of moves you’d use in combination?”

“My Growlithe could use more power set up options. I was considering having him be able to perform a Flame Wheel into a Sunny Day.”

I nodded. “That could work, I think,” I said, having her call out her pokemon so we could start working on it. Yolanda watched on with interest as we went through the steps of having Growlithe become aware of how certain energies built up and were then released with each move.

“One good thing about having your pokemon as a Growlithe would be that he’ll learn this move faster than he might if he were an Arcanine,” I said as Growlithe tore around the battlefield with a Flame Wheel.

Yolanda perked up, while Missy merely nodded. “I’d heard that before; you’ve researched it?”

“Only for a few studies did it seemed fairly self-evident to me,” I said. In honesty, I’d stumbled on the research articles and added them to the server that my trainers could access but it was soemthing I’d known from my previous life and seen play out during my journey. I hadn’t thought I needed the articles.

When Jormungandr’s pokeball dinged, I started working with him to slip into the sequence of moves with a set command for a restful sleep at the lower arc of his Dig. It would slow him down immensely, but that wasn’t the major concern I had.

“And now I need to teach him Sleep Talk,” I said loading up another Technical Machine. I was pushing it and I wasn’t going to be able to do this for a good while but having the setup was more important than just teaching him Dark Pulse. That I could do while he was awake with Titan.

I spent an hour working with Jormungandr. I had Titan and Quirrina test him out before calling it a success when he launched out of the ground and started firing off Stone Edges, Crunch, and other moves against my other pokemon.

I returned him and sent my other pokemon off before tapping my transceiver as it buzzed. I then walked out and collected the pokemon that I had listed off earlier to Jormungandr. Then I messaged Sabrina. She appeared behind me straight away.

“I’m sorry I only have five minutes, as the next trainer will make it through the Gauntlet and I will need to face them.”

“Ah,” I leant in and kissed her on the cheek, “Have fun!” I said to her as she dropped me off in the training room. I glanced around and found Alakazam waiting with even more whiteboards set up and an eager expression on his face.

“We should get you a lab coat,” I said. He rubbed a length of his moustache in thought, only to wink away in a Teleport.

“Uhm, hello?” I said to the empty room in surprise. Alakazam appeared a few moments later with a lab coat and a pleased look on his face. I huffed out a laugh before setting up Jormungandr with the Steelixite into his pokeball. Then I donned the gauntlet.

It was a gaudy thing with. It made me think more of a Hoplite bracer from my past life, only it was lined with gold rather than hard metals.

“Urgh, I think I’m going to redesign this to just a necklace. Having it as a gauntlet is gaudy as hell,” I said, adjusting the strap and feeling the cool touch of the Keystone on my forearm.

Alakazam watched as I released the rest of my team. Don shrieked when he saw Alakazam only for Shrek to snatch him out of the air with a huge hand and have him settle down.

“Okay gang!” I said clapping my hands together to refocus them from Don’s tantrum. “Today, we’re going to be doing some observation training. Jormungandr and I are going to be working on something special that I potentially might be able to work on with all of you one day.”

Don perked up at that from where he was under Shrek, who likewise looked intrigued. Knight shifted in surprise at this, while Titan nodded.

“It will be something I am going to have to investigate for all of us but it would offer a serious power-up. I think it would be good for you all to sit in on a few of these sessions to get an idea of what it will entail if I do end up finding the stones we’d need.” I pointed to the small Gem that was resting on the second thorax of his body.

I’d be very hard-pressed to actually find any of these stones… but perhaps… Flint could be tapped. I shoved that idea aside for now. He’d probably do it if I asked but I wasn’t sure I wanted to even ask. Things were fine as they were right now. My team was strong, and growing stronger. The diversity of my pokemon was also growing with Clefairy and the other Ancient pokemon I had access to.

“Kazam,” said Alakazam, nudging me with one of his spoons. He indicated the first whiteboard which had notes on the first stage he wanted me to achieve with Jormungandr. As I watched, the pen hovered, wrote out more instructions, and created a graph he could fill in as he observed my session.

I huffed and adopted a meditative pose. “Get comfy everyone, this isn’t going to be a quick process. Try to feel Jormungandr’s and my energy”

Jormungandr looked worried, and he shot the others furtive looks. Or at least as furtive as a giant metal snake can when his eyes are the size of beachballs. I raised a hand and patted him on the snout. “Hey buddy, relax. It’s going to be you and me you’ll be the first on this.”

I then shut my eyes, leaving my hand on his snout as I felt his energies. I called up my Rock energy and started feeding it into the Keystone. I felt the energy I put in expand as the Keystone reacted.

“Zam! Ala!” barked Alakazam, making me glance up and recall that he wanted me to keep my energy as neutral as possible.

“Sorry!” I said, rubbing the back of my head sheepishly. He huffed, and I returned to filling the stone with just my energy. I didn’t try to reach for either Rock or Dark type this time.

This time I got to feel as the energy built and expanded, becoming amplified with how I was feeding it into the keystone. It built higher than I’d ever felt from myself before, and I could almost feel the area around me physically with the way it radiated out and then back in.

I could feel my pokemon shifting in interest at the power I was radiating.

It felt good. I tried reaching out to Jormungandr, but nothing happened. It felt like the energy was washing over him like a small stream rather than connecting.

I frowned and recalled what Alakazam had set out as the second step he and Sabrina had determined. It matched what I’d read about the process from the Guardians, so I followed it.

The first step was being able to call up your aura and feed it into the Keystone. It was naturally assumed that a pokemon could feed their own energy into their Megastone so the first step required the trainer to have aura training.

The second step was to start developing a reservoir of energy. Oddly, the reservoir itself needed to be built of aura, and it needed to be something that was like adding a metaphysical organ to your body.

I drew my energy back into myself and started to build the pool of energy within myself that I would be calling upon. I already had reserves that I associated with my Rock and Dark type energy pools. Creating a neutral pool of energy felt very odd like I was filtering my energy.

“Zam!” “tar!” barked Alakazam and Titan as they felt my energy starting to tinge into Dark.

I nodded and tried to keep my focus on keeping my energy free of any—"Zam!” Alakzam poked me with a spoon, and I sighed.

This, might be a bit harder than I thought it would be.

When Sabrina returned to me twenty minutes later, she hummed. “Ah, you’re struggling with keeping your aura neutral?”

I nodded. “I’m making progress, but it is something that is counter to what I’ve been working on.”

Sabrina nodded and dropped onto a cushion as she regarded Alakazam’s notes. “Continue,” she said neutrally. I sighed and returned to building my reserve of energy. Damn, this would have been so much easier with Titan…

After an hour, I was feeling stretched and tired in ways that I could only associate with aura usage. I lay back and returned all of my pokemon bar Titan.

“Urgh,” I said while rubbing my chest. “This is so weird.” A slight application of force saw me leaning back to laymy head into Sarina’s lap. She threaded her fingers into my hair.

“You did very well; you made some progress, no?”

I sighed. “Yeah, but I can feel it trickling away. It’s going to take a while to get through this stage. I don’t think I kept my Rock or Dark energy out of the mix very well.” I licked my lips. “I need to get this right if I ever want to use it with my pokemon like Shrek.”

Sabrina continued to brush her fingers through my hair. “You’ll get there.”

I shot her a thankful smile before glancing at Titan, who looked a little whimsical. “Sorry bud, I think I would have had a way easier time if it had been your stone I’d gotten from Steven.”

He smirked and nodded.

Alakazam raised a hand. “Ala, Ka, Zam, Alakazam, zam, Ala!” he said with a thoughtful gesture before indicating to me. He then tapped a few points on his graph in thought. Titan tilted his head before agreeing with a huff.

I shot Sabrina a look, asking silently for a translation.

She continued to run her hands through my hair while a small smile played out over her lips. “He said that it is perhaps a good thing that you have something to challenge you instead of something easier. If you had gotten Tyranitarite first, you might have crippled, or at the vey least, impaired yourself by having it too easy.”

I snorted. “So I need to do something I suck at for character development?”

She smiled. “Of a sort, but he’s right.” She rubbed at my head. “Instead of deepening your dark and rock energies, it is a good thing to build up a properly neutral reserve.”

I shot her a look. “Have you been doing that?”

She nodded with a sad sigh. “Indeed, even though there might not be much benefit for me.”

I shot her an amused look. “You could have a Mega evolution for Gardevoir, Gallade, Slowbro, Latias, or Latios.”

“You think I could gain one of the Eon duo in my team? They are considered extremely careful with the trainers they let witness them, let alone join with.” She looked into my eyes.

“If they saw what I saw, I think they’d love to join your team,” I said smiling up at her. She leaned down and kissed me. It was another good day.

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A.N. Thanks to all my Patreons.

This is currently unbeta’d. Sorry for any errors that seem obvious!