Like No One Ever Was

“Argh, why is this so complicated?” I complained to no one as I slumped over my desk. With all the writing I had been doing in my notebooks my parents (or more likely the staff) had ordered a mahogany desk for me. I’ll probably outgrow it in half a year, tops.

“Perhaps because you decided to look up the construction of an incredibly complicated machine, bzzt?” Rotom answered dryly.

I let out a heavy sigh. “I mean, yeah, I guess. But this is old. The ZERO-One is decades old by now.” This was part of why it was easy to just look up the schematics for it - Professor Oak had freely published them.

“True, bzzt. It looks like Professor Mirror has made a far upgraded version with his own research survey. It can even hover and teleport-”

“Shut upppp,” I groaned. Well, I probably needed this wakeup call. Everyone has been praising my ‘intelligence’ for so long that I started to get a swollen head. Then I look up stuff like this and see how far out of my depth I am.

My studies with Cyan at least were going well so far. While she was technically ahead of me on other topics, we both knew that Pokemon were a field I knew far more than her about. To her credit, she hadn’t complained or been grumpy about me being ‘better’ than her here, and just tried to take in everything I could teach her. I got to learn a few things too. Little details I had missed in my self-guided studies thus far or hadn’t memorized thoroughly enough. No matter how panicky I get, I’m never going to let basic type match-ups get the better of me again.

However, there were still times when my sister was busy, just focusing on reading the material she’d need to apply for her full Trainer’s License or her other studies (she was adamant that this wouldn’t cause her to fall behind in her other subjects). Which left me free to do my own studies. Seeing the construction of the advanced machinery for the Tera Recharge Station inside our own house, I decided to try my hand at some of the mechanics of this world.

Should have remembered just how advanced this world is. Even excluding Pokeballs, the technology of this world is insane. It gave me a newfound respect for the title of ‘Pokemon Professor.’ To achieve it, you basically had to be an omni-disciplinary scientist, existing on the cutting edge of physics, biology, engineering, and even sociology, as a bare minimum.

I suppose there’s a good reason why they’re respected worldwide, in a similar way to Champions, even if in different fields. Kinda crazy to realize that Professor Oak did both. The idea that some people had of me potentially reaching that level seemed crazy. They don’t know that I’m a cheat, coasting on knowledge ahead of my years.

That sprouted a small worry in me, of failing drastically as I got older, but that was only a small part of my worries. I could and would deal with that by applying myself further right now, learning as much as I could about the world. Whether or not I’d reach the level of Professor didn’t matter, not as much as stopping Turo.

He was the real deal. Researching some of the things he’d done, even as a child at Uva Academy… it felt insane, and it highlighted just how dangerous he could be. And I’ll have to stop him. Hopefully, we’ll have the ‘Player Character’ with us too, but I still want to be more prepared. I don’t think trying to counter-hack the Pokeballs will work if Penny can’t manage it, but it won’t hurt to look the basic designs up.

I cleared the ZERO-ONE schematics before bringing up some of the standard Pokeball ones. Pokeballs had been around so long that they weren’t copyright protected or anything like that, though it was technically illegal to make one of your own that wasn’t connected to the League’s systems.

“Are you sure about this, bzzt? Pokeballs may be smaller than that transport relic you were looking at, but they’re still quite complicated. Bzzt, maybe try something easier to start?” Rotom helpfully suggested.

“Oh, I know it’s gonna be tough. This will be a long term project, but I still want to start. If I’m to be a good trainer, I should know a bit more about where I’m putting my Pokemon beyond just, ‘on my belt,’ right?” I paused before adding “Can you bring up some dietary and nutritional guides as well? Thanks Rotom, I should probably know what I’m feeding my Pokemon as well, and it’ll give me something to talk with Arven about.”

I might still have a long way to go, but I’ve got time and a plan. For now, that’ll have to be enough.

***

“Name three Pokemon commonly found in grassy fields.”

“Uhh, Lechonk, Tarountula,... Budew?” She said, and I double-checked my answer card even though I knew Cyan was correct.

“Yes, those are all correct. What should you do if your Pokemon is injured and you don’t have any Potions on hand?”

“Call a Flying Taxi.” That’s not the right answer, but it is a reasonable attempt in the real world.

“That’s a good idea, but the Taxi might not get there in time. What can you do to try and make them better in the meantime?”

“Oh, right! See if I can find a Berry to feed them, like an Oran or a Sitrus Berry.”

“Correct! Alright, here’s a trickier one. When riding a Cyclizar in Glassedo Mountains, what should you always bring with you?”

“Ummm, a camera to take pictures of all the gorgeous sights?” I facepalmed at her last answer. So close, but not quite there.

“No, you should take Freeze Heal and heat packs. Cyclizars are commonly ridden for their speed, but they get cold very easily. With how icy it is on those mountains and how many Ice types there are, you need to make sure your Pokemon doesn’t freeze while carrying you. Dressing warmly is probably a good idea too.”

“Ah, right. So, how did I do?” Cyan asked as she saw I was out of cue cards.

I stretched out in the chair I was sitting in. “Not bad. You got 16 out of 25.” She let out a whimper that made me wonder for half a second if Maschiff was here. “Hey, that’s not bad! We’ve got a month to get that up.”

“Yeah, but I need to get twenty two correct to pass.” She was still biting her lip, a bit worried.

“And you’ll do great. Look how much you’ve already improved from a month of practice.” Admittedly, there’s only ‘up’ to go from getting three questions right, but saying that won’t help. “Hey, what Pokemon do you want to get once you get your license?” Hopefully, this will distract her a bit. Understanding your weaknesses is one thing, but she’s just beating herself up here.

That did seem to distract her, Cyan’s mood flipping around as she considered the question. “Oh that’s a tough one. There’s a lot of cute Pokemon out there, like Skitty or Amaura or Swablu…”

Stifling a chuckle I said “True, they are very cute, but you should also think of how they’ll get along with you. Every Pokemon is their own person, but certain lines have different tendencies.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. Are there any Pokemon known for being beautiful, artistic, and very intelligent?”

“I- uhhh,” scrambling to try and pick a Pokemon that embodied all of those traits. “Well, Smeargle’s are known to be great artists.” When she made a face at the idea, I added “They can learn almost any Move too by sketching it out, so even though they aren’t the toughest they can be tricky battlers-”

“No offense Nims, but I’ll leave the battling to you.” I had to resist sighing and acting like an old Grognard and pointing out that ‘not enough young people are taking the gym challenge these days!’ In truth, plenty of people still at least attempted it and in an era of peace it was hardly a requirement for everyone to go through those challenges to secure their future. After a moment she added “I’ll think on it, but maybe not my starter. They seem kinda weird.”

They do have a kinda odd appearance, I get it. As much as I believed in the potential inherent in any Pokemon, that anyone could do great and every Pokemon was probably someone’s favorite, I had my own preferences too. There were some Pokemon I probably wouldn’t seek out to join my team because I thought they looked dumb and were generally weak.

“Fine, as for intelligent, most Psychic Types are pretty smart. Gardevoirs are known for their beauty as well. Florges are rather pretty and have been friends of royalty in the past, helping them make beautiful gardens.” I had always wondered why king/war criminal AZ had a Floette, but looking it up, it was apparently quite a common thing for royalty in Kalos, back in the day. “Oh, and there’s Milotic. It’s not particularly noted for intelligence or artistry (though it definitely could be great at both), but it is said to be the most beautiful Pokemon.”

With Rotom’s help, I pulled up a few images of the Pokemon in question, which Cyan was instantly awed by. “Whoa, that Gardevoir looks so elegant. Oh man, Florges are so beautiful, I know a model who has one just like that! And that Milotic is gorgeous! How hard do you think it would be to get a Milotic Egg?”

“It would be a Feebas Egg first, it needs to evolve to become a Milotic. And I don’t know. They aren’t native to Paldea though.” She thought about my words, looking over the Pokemon a few more times before nodding her head.

“Alright, I’ll think on this, but for now I’m going to go over the book a bit more. Do you have anything else to do or are you going to drool over Leon some more?” She said, referencing a battle video I’d tried showing her earlier that day.

“Wha- I was admiring Cynthia’s battles, not Leon’s, he just happened to be her opponent in one of the videos you saw.” She snickered anyway, but I maturely ignored it. “But no, I’m gonna do some more training!”

“Alright, just make sure you tell-”

“I’ll tell Leah, don’t worry.” I learned my lesson very well, thank you. It had been a month since the ‘Wugtrio incident’, so things were calming down around the house, but people could still get a bit antsy about me heading outside.

After leaving her room, I did indeed tell Leah about what I was doing and she made sure to accompany me outside. The house was kept in quite fine order as usual, so she didn’t have anything else she needed to be doing there. They can get super obsessed with dusting and keeping it spotless at times. Like, I know that’s a lot of their job, but still.

I breathed in the fresh air easily, sprinting down to the beach, Leah trailing behind me. We did plenty of training on the trails or in the grass too, though never too far from home. The beach was just my favorite spot for it due to the wide open space it provided. The sand was annoying, but I almost always had a shower from how sweaty I’d get after training regardless.

“Hey Dun, ready for another session?” I said.

“Dun.” He responded. Hmm, a bit less enthusiastic than he usually is about this, but still agreeing. I was getting better at reading Dunsparce’s mood and what he meant now, but it still wasn’t perfect; one time I had mistaken a stomach ache for being depressed, much to my chagrin (and Dunsparce’s amusement, after the fact).

I thought I had an idea about why he was feeling the way he was now, but decided to hold off on questioning him until after our training. “Ok Dunsparce, I want you to give me the biggest yawn you can. Try to imbue it with as great a feeling of ‘sleepiness’ or tiredness as you can.”

To his credit, the Dunsparce really tried, the winged snake giving his best open-mouth yawn. Without any wild Pokemon around, I was the test subject for that Move to see how well it could work. Which was not fairly well, to be honest. I wasn’t ‘letting’ any potential Move work on me, but I wasn’t an active combatant either and I was not feeling at all tired. This will need some work before it’s viable in battle. I wonder what’s the big issue, I remember Yawn being a Move that Dunsparce can learn naturally.

After a couple dozen more attempts that only got a slight yawn of my own in return, I decided to table the Yawn training. He’s fully awake now and the frustration he’s feeling will only be counterproductive to attempting the technique. “Alright, let’s work on your flight technique.”

Dunsparce perked up a bit at that, wiggling in anticipation. The ‘flight’ training was difficult in its own way, but I could see why my adorable winged snake liked it more than Yawn training; at least with this, the more effort he put in, the more apparent results he got.

“Go for longer wing flaps over shorter, rapid motion,” I suggested. He still had to flap his wings fairly fast, but I thought I saw a bit more air time between his jumps.

He was still a ways away from ‘true’ flight, but his control and maneuverability had improved by leaps and bounds. By shifting his tail he could change his direction easier in the air while his wings worked to keep him aloft. Maneuverability is key in Pokemon battles. Dunsparce isn’t very fast, so this will just have to be one of the tricks he has to keep up with faster Pokemon.

“Good job, that was better than last time we did this drill.” Dunsparce made a disagreeing sound. “No, it was definitely better. Rotom, he lasted longer than before, right?”

“That’s correct, bzzt. Dunsparce remained aloft for 1.3 seconds longer than he did in the longest stretch last week.” For some reason, Rotom’s affirmation just had Dunsparce arguing with the plasma Pokemon. Though there always seemed to be a bit of tension between them. I wonder why?

Crouching down I said to Dunsparce, “I know it might not feel like much, but you’re improving every day.” He opened an eye skeptically before flopping down a little. I continued, deciding to share my hypothesis. “You improved tons early on, but now you’re wondering why it’s suddenly slowed down so much, right? I think it’s cause you haven’t been battling much.”

He raised his head, looking at me confused. “So, we can improve your base fighting ideas, your mobility, your Moves, and even your technique,” I said, the last category being my sort of ‘catch-all’ for fighting concepts that didn’t fall into the other categories or things like Ability or Type. We’d been working on a few such concepts, like teaching him to block with his tail if an attack came close and he couldn’t get out of the way. “And those have gone well, but there’s a theory that Pokemon grow best when pushed in battle. Whether it's fighting for your life in the wilds or for glory against other trainers. You get to learn and experience more from those challenges than any self-imposed conditions can give. So that’s why we’re going to do that.”

Dunsparce suddenly seemed to shrink in on himself, before doing his best to give me a resolute nod, but he was still shaking. Huh? Why’s he so scared- I thought for half a second before realizing what I had said. “We aren’t going to go out in the wilderness and risk our lives!! I was just talking about finding some other trainers, maybe a low level tournament.”

He let out a huge sigh of relief. Silly guy. Jeez, we’ll go exploring eventually, and there will be some risks, but I want most of our training to be controlled and safe. Man, I can barely keep my eyes open right now… I nearly drifted off for a moment before snapping out of it. “Dun! Right there, that sigh! It was almost like Yawn! It must be more than just a feeling of tiredness - you need to project a sense of safety into the move, so the other Pokemon feels that and would be naturally inclined to rest.”

Dunsparce perked up, doing a jump, flipping in the air with joy at the breakthrough. That didn’t help his subsequent attempts at the move however, his exuberance hindered his attempts. Still, I think we’re on the right path and things are gonna go well.