The Ghost Specialist

A week was spent training. A week was spent practicing moves, testing new strategies, and pushing everyone beyond the norm. Sam had a journal’s worth of observations and notes, allowing him to know exactly what he needed his Pokémon to develop. Redi was all about strength, and she knew how to give their practice that bit of extra oomph to push his Pokémon further. Two sets of eyes were better than one, and together, Sam’s team had the chance to grow more than if he trained them on his own.

When the final day came rolling around, the results were obvious. Primeape’s strikes shattered anything they hit. Quilava moved with an agility she hadn’t had before. As for Haunter, his Night Shade was definitely battle ready, and as for the Poison Type move he learned—

Well, Sam planned to save that one for the tournament.

Sam initially discovered the Violet City Tournament in a rather abrupt manner, all things considering. Other trainers could have learned about it earlier than him, and that would have given them more time to prepare. No victory was guaranteed, but Sam had to say he liked his team's chances. The day before, they didn’t train. Instead, they chose to rest. On the eve of the tournament, Sam and Redi gathered everyone up, and they had a picnic to celebrate.

A picnic wasn’t fancy as eating at an expensive restaurant, and the food wasn’t as good as food made by professional chefs. They bought breads and ingredients from a local grocery store and set up a blanket at the edge of the hill. The area they’d suffered in for the past week-and-a-half sat below them. In the distance, the sun slowly set and cast the sky into shades of reds, oranges, and purples.

This meal might not have been something expensive, but a picnic felt better. It was a way to simply relax among friends. Quilava munched on a salad, Primeape devoured two hoagies—one held in each hand—and Haunter made himself a sandwich only to pick it apart like some kind of dissection. Doing so brought him great joy.

Meanwhile, Ursaring was passed out in a food coma, and Porygon sat inside of its calculator, eating programs Redi had said looked “especially tasty,” whatever that meant.

And the best part of this picnic was that it was a goodbye. Once they were done eating, they could leave this valley of suffering and never come back.

Good riddance.

“You know, I think I'm getting annoyed by the other trainers,” Sam said, sitting back and munching on a sandwich of his own at the edge of the hill.

Redi made a half-hearted attempt to swallow her bite, but there was still food left in her mouth when she spoke.

“Yeah?”

“Like, I don't know. I mean, I've watched you battle literally dozens of people over the past few days, and they're definitely trainers, but it's like they don't know what they're doing? Ugh, no, not as extreme as that. They obviously know how to train Pokémon. It's more like...”

Redi finally managed to swallow the rest of her too-large bite.

“They're missing something?” she offered.

“Yeah! It's like they're training Pokémon and that's it. They're not trying to work on a greater strategy or build the best team. They're just... enjoying themselves. Traveling.”

“Going on a journey,” Redi said, finishing the statement for Sam.

He nodded, holding his sandwich in his hands and staring at the marks left from his last bite.

Most trainers did try to be Pokémon trainers, but once their journey ended, that was it. Usually Pokémon stayed with their ex-trainers, but sometimes team members were handed to the Pokémon League. Doing so allowed those Pokémon to continue living a battle-based lifestyle if that was what they preferred.

But generally speaking, most people moved on to join the workforce or go back to school. They’d get hired. Get a job. Get paid. Battling became a hobby at most.

Of course, a few trainers never retired. They kept pushing and training their teams, and then they’d either become Pokémon Rangers, like Sam's father, or they ended up working under a Gym Leader as a Gym Trainer. The exceptional ones among them received personal training from the League to become Ace Trainers, where they helped keep regions safe. Often, Ace Trainers even repeated Gym Circuit challenges and competed in high-level tournaments, but actually seeing something like that was rare in the grand scheme of things.

People would just explore a region, make some friends, and then go home and effectively retire.

Sam wasn't sure how many trainers had dropped out at this point. It was about halfway through Johto's nine-month-long season. Most would have surely earned a few badges by now, but how many planned to keep going? Something about the relative skill level of Redi’s opponents made Sam feel like there'd be a big drop-off, and soon.

Redi took another big bite of her sandwich and managed to swallow all of it this time around.

“Do you have a plan for after your journey?” she asked idly.

Sam looked up.

“After my journey? I don’t know.”

He was going to be a Ghost Type specialist—no, a Ghost Type master. He planned to build an unbeatable team. That was his goal, his reason for traveling. The idea of his journey eventually ending was... past him. Ghost Types were forever, and in his mind, he’d always pictured himself as being forever, too.

“Being a Pokémon Ranger doesn’t feel right,” he said slowly. “An Ace Trainer, then? Or maybe I can apply to work in Morty’s Gym. But those feel... limiting. I could try to join the Elite Four?”

Both Hoenn and Kanto had Ghost Type specialists in their Elite Four, Phoebe and Agatha being the regions’ respective members. Those two were powerful trainers, with Phoebe being the most recent addition to Hoenn’s leadership and Agatha being the eldest member of Kanto’s Elite Four. They were an inspiration to many, but to Sam, however, those two were...

Well, they didn’t quite match up to how he perceived the Ghost Type?

Agatha seemed too mean. She was too self-assured and almost seemed to disregard the playful nature of Ghosts. Meanwhile, Phoebe was the complete opposite. Her cheerful demeanor didn’t quite match the solemn nature of the Type, either. It wasn’t just their outward appearances that fit those mindsets, everything about how those two battled and interacted with the public aligned with their ideals. Both Agatha and Phoebe might have been peak Ghost Type specialists, but they also both felt too extreme.

Sam didn’t plan to follow the footsteps of either of them. No, he wanted to find his own understanding somewhere in the middle. When he and his team eventually reached those same heights, he would stand with his own mindset instead of one based off of them.

He drifted off into thought, unable to truly answer Redi’s question. She saw that and grinned, bringing up her chin to point at herself with her thumb.

“Need inspiration? Look to me! What I’m going to do is enter a bunch of high-profile tournaments with my peak-level team. I’m gonna be one of those wandering, sponsored trainers, but my sponsorship is my family’s company! I’ll travel the world and advertise it, and then everyone is gonna want to hire us!”

“So then are you going to work construction between tournaments?” Sam asked.

Redi deflated.

“Oh, uh, probably. I’m eventually going to inherit the company,” she said. “It wouldn’t make sense to spend all my time away, you know?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “but you could always moonlight as an Ace Trainer.”

“And then I’d have to answer to a greater authority,” she said with a snort. “No thanks. Redi is her own boss.”

Sam chuckled. That answer was about what he expected.

“But what about you?” Redi asked, putting her sandwich down and sitting up straighter. “You gonna take over your mom’s bookstore?”

“I don't— I don't know,” Sam said.

He might as well have been fifteen at this point, but he felt like he was too young to need to plan something so far in the future.

“Whatever,” Sam said, shaking his head. “I don’t really want to talk about this stuff. I’m just looking forward to the tournament tomorrow.”

“Yeah! Oh man, they really don’t know what they’re in for. I think I’m most excited for the higher rounds. You have a plan for larger teams, right?”

“Duh,” Sam easily replied. “Primeape can sweep. Or Quilava. Haunter’s got a few mean tricks, too.”

My opponents are going to learn to hate Haunter’s Hypnosis.

What was nice about this last training period was that Redi was great at figuring out how to bring out the best in a Pokémon, but her training was more about improving Pokémon at an individual level. Her strength was strength—even for her team right now, there wasn’t much interplay between them outside of being difficult opponents to face on their own.

However, Sam had the New Pokédex behind him, and he had years of looking into the Ghost Type past that. Not to mention that he’d spent the past week observing battles to learn how other trainers fought. He hadn’t just watched Redi’s fights; there were a bunch of people who were almost constantly in battle behind the Pokémon Center. He was able to figure out a bunch of tricks and counters that were now firmly recorded in his notes.

Sam’s strength was all about strategy—having his team members play into one another while relying on status moves. While only Primeape could likely match Redi’s Ursaring through raw might alone, Sam knew his Pokémon would be able to weaken that Ursaring so much that any of his team members would win in a one-on-one fight.

So, as both of them had taken what they excelled at and used it to train Sam’s team, the effective rate of growth was greater. In Sam’s opinion, it was practically exponential.

“But facing five Pokémon on one team...” Sam said quietly.

Sam only had three Pokémon. A disadvantage in numbers became a bigger issue as Pokémon grew in level. It was why Redi chose to sit out this tournament, as a team of two Pokémon simply did not have the stamina to wear down a team more than double its size.

“You have a plan for a fourth yet?” Redi asked.

Sam sputtered. His encounter with the Misdreavus flashed through his head.

“No!” he shouted. He quickly cleared his throat in an attempt to recover. “No, I, uh, plan to catch whatever comes my way. No specific plans.”

Quilava looked at him funny, glancing up from her meal. Sam hadn't told her or anyone else about Misdreavus yet. Something about that encounter felt private. It wasn't his place to publicly discuss another Pokémon’s problems.

She’d cried.

It’d been days since Misdreavus appeared in that private space, but Sam still found himself frequently thinking about her. Each time he remembered that encounter, all Sam could picture was Misdreavus’s tears.

“...Do you remember that Misdreavus from Ilex Forest?” Sam asked softly.

“The one that attacked us? Yeah, I remember it.”

He paused.

“It was strong,” he said. “I’d catch it if I found it.”

“That’d be a lot of backtracking.”

“Maybe.” Sam stared at the rapidly changing sky. “But something about how it looked at us makes me think she just wanted a friend. Attacking her didn’t feel right.”

Back then, he hadn’t understood why Misdreavus looked so betrayed. He hadn’t understood why she had cried after approaching him in the clothing store. She liked him, for some insane reason, but back then, Sam also had enough knowledge to have been rightfully fearful of a Ghost Type ambush.

Sam was now in a much more peaceful situation. He could now look back on those encounters with proper hindsight.

He messed up.

Misdreavus just wanted a friend.

Given the chance, Sam would take it. He’d apologize and ask her to stay.

Lost in thought, Sam didn’t immediately notice that Redi fell silent, staring at his expression curiously. When he saw her looking at him, he blushed. He needed to get a handle on how much he was drifting off into thought.

“So... the Tournament,” Redi said.

“The Tournament,” Sam repeated.

Something warm brushed up against Sam’s side, and he ran his hand through Quilava’s fur.

His team was stronger than ever, and the Violet City Tournament would be their biggest challenge so far. It would be rounds of back-to-back battles, but he knew that as long as they worked together, they’d win.

All of their training would finally be put to the test. The thought helped to distract Sam, and he smiled, returning to his sandwich. Around him, his team relaxed, Redi ate, and the sounds of Pokémon filled the air. Sam focused on all of the strategies flowing through his mind.

Bright and early, huh? Is it too late to request a delay?

The Violet City arena was large—not as large as the one in Olivine, but what it might have lost in impressiveness, it made up for in horizontal scale. Where other arenas tended to be built with steep slopes, this arena was wider than it was tall. There was no ceiling, only a central opening. It was almost as if the view of the sky was more important than the view of the field.

Sam could see all of that from within the entrance lobby, but not personally. Televisions streamed a view from inside, just barely showing the edge of the arena at the bottom of a live view of the early morning sky. Some people stood around and chatted, but others slowly filed in to head to their seats. Having registered, Sam was supposed to head to the competitors’ waiting room, but his feet felt like lead blocks. He clutched a paper bag full of clothes at his side.

“I don’t know if this plan is a good idea,” Sam said to Redi, his gaze lingering on the crowd heading in. “They’re gonna laugh. I’m gonna look dumb. They’re going to see my outfit and think, ‘Who’s this poser?’ and then I’m going to lose all my battles.”

Redi tried to lightly push Sam forward. He resisted. She started to press an arm harder into his back, and red eyes opened up in Sam’s shadow to watch the ongoing struggle.

“Come on—Ugh—Sam!” Redi said, still pushing. “You agreed with me that this’d work! And I might have chosen the clothes, but you know I wouldn’t have finalized that outfit without your permission!”

Redi was strong. Sam had to lean back with his full weight to not be moved. With her words, however, he let out a breath and stepped to the side. The sudden relief of pressure caused her to stumble, but she caught herself before she could fall.

“I know,” Sam said, sighing as Redi looked up at him and glared. “It just feels like a lot.”

“Does it? The outfit is pretty generic.”

“It’s different,” Sam corrected. “I’m gonna get sweaty.”

Redi just rolled her eyes and stood back up.

“You won’t notice once you’re caught up in battle.”

“But the sun’s out.”

“The sun’s always out during the day.”

“Am I really supposed to put on a heavy jacket when it's not raining?”

“Yes!”

Sam pressed his lips together in reluctant acceptance. Redi smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder.

“There ya go! Come on, Sam, you know pretending is fun! You just gotta take a single step forward, and the rest will come easy!”

Grumbling to himself, Sam did as she said, placing a single foot in front of the other. Redi beamed at him, and she nodded her head once, utterly satisfied.

“Alright, I’ll be cheering for you in the audience,” she continued. “I’ll be right in the front—the section reserved for Pokémon so that Ursaring can watch. Look for us! We’ll be holding up a sign!”

“...See you later,” Sam mumbled.

“Later!” Redi said much more cheerfully.

She jogged away, waving goodbye as she disappeared into the crowd. Her face merged into a sea of countless others as she fought to reach a good seat.

Sam might have taken a single step, but his legs still refused to move. The overall feeling of the Violet City Tournament was definitely more casual than the Beginner’s Tournament, but this was the first time he actually had a proper strategy to show off. And he’d basically be selling himself as a worthwhile trainer to keep track of, too. He had a reason to be stressed!

But he couldn’t stay there forever. After several long seconds, he rubbed his cheeks to break out of his trance and marched over to a closed side door. There, he showed a laminated badge to a Machoke wearing sunglasses, and the Pokémon opened the door to a long hallway before returning to guard.

Another big difference between this tournament and the Beginner’s Tournament was that trainers were required to be mid-level rather than complete novices. That meant a more limited pool to pull from when it came to potential registrants. In the days approaching, when sign-ups had closed off, advertisements changed to mention five rounds—there’d be thirty-two trainers at most.

Competing trainers had to have their teams be rated at a minimum of four stars, and Sam’s team was just barely considered five. No one with too many Gym Badges or a six-star rating or higher was allowed in. After all, if someone that strong won, the prize of the right to battle Walker would go to waste.

The hallways Sam walked through criss-crossed the entire structure of the place, leading to various rooms for storage and practice. An arena this large was often used for more than just base Pokémon battles, so it needed more than just rooms for trainers.

These lower halls almost felt labyrinthine, but signs on the walls directed Sam where to go. Group A would be on one side of the arena with Group B being on the other. That divided competitors into two distinct halves, assisting organizers when it came to laying out matches.

As a member of Group B, Sam’s destination was a sort of locker-room-slash-waiting-room with benches across the floors and places to store possessions off to the sides. A large television hung on the wall, streaming the version of the tournament shown on cable, but there was also a staircase in the back that provided balcony access if competitors wanted to watch with their own eyes.

Sam deposited his backpack in a locker and kept himself small as he inched to the side. A few doors blocked off changing rooms, and Sam stepped into one that was unclaimed. There, he sighed one last time before looking at the clothes contained within the sack. He returned Haunter from his shadow, giving himself privacy as he forced himself to get dressed.

Hope this works.

When Sam stepped back out to the waiting area, he was no longer the nervous-looking boy that had entered. Instead, a confident, practically arrogant, teen stood in his place.

Or at least, there was someone trying to be one.

The smirk Redi told him to maintain came out more like a scowl. Sam’s lips contorted as he did his best to maintain some semblance of confidence. He strode to take a seat in the center of the room, keeping his hands in his pockets and fiddling with his team’s Pokéballs as he did. Knowing they were there helped him better control his nerves, but it still felt like everyone was staring right at him.

Overall, these clothes were generic, just like Redi had said, but they were also something clearly picked out to fit a Ghost Type specialist. For this tournament, Sam wore a dark, open jacket with similarly dark jeans. The colors of his outfit primarily came from a purple shirt under that jacket and a scarf loose on his neck. The jacket hung open, and it was somewhat oversized. Like how his jeans bunched around his ankles, its sleeves bunched on his arms.

His hood was up, which helped him pretend that his expression was hidden. Redi had been adamant he needed to stay hooded at all times, as that apparently helped “emphasize” certain expressions on his face.

The one piece of this outfit that Sam liked the most was the scarf. He may or may not have picked it out when he recognized it as one styled after Morty’s own. It was thinner, and instead of wrapping it around his neck, he let it hang loose, draping his chest. The scarf might not have fit too well, but he liked it. It helped him feel more like a real Ghost specialist when he had it on.

He could remember Redi’s words and her reasoning behind these clothes. When he thought about it, her explanation came back to him. It was a pretty basic idea overall.

“You train Ghost Types. People are always going to expect tricks. What I want to do is make them expect less than you’ll actually use,” Redi had said. “Play up your age! Act like a teenager! Make your opponents think that you’re overly arrogant, and make them think you’ll be relying on mostly direct attacks!”

Redi called Sam’s strategy vampire-like. He trained his team to wear down their opponents before finishing them off. This outfit was supposed to influence an opponent’s first impression of him, but Sam just thought it made him look like some sort of stereotypical thief.

Other than Sam, there were about ten other people in this room. About half had dressed up. Most kept to themselves, but a few glanced his way as he looked around. Reflexively, Sam slouched under their gazes, trying to minimize his presence. Not wanting to see their reactions, he turned his head to stare only at the T.V.

The tournament hadn’t started yet. The screen was still displaying the sky. Likely, that was the default angle of the arena’s cameras, probably due to the influence of Walker’s Flying Types. There was no telling how many battles and how many Pokémon had been fought in this arena. Sam’s upcoming matches would be added to that history. He hoped he’d do well.

He went on trying to distract himself by going over all of his strategies in his head. As he did, his shirt felt itchy. His shoes didn’t fit right. Time felt like it stretched on forever, but eventually, after hours—about twenty minutes or so—the display on the television started to change.

A fanfare played, and a cartoon version of a Pokéball rolled in from the side. Once it reached the center of the screen, it opened up, and a flash transitioned the scene.

Three people sat behind a desk: a pink-haired nurse, an older man with a white mustache and a bowler hat, and a guy with blue hair covering one of his eyes. All three were smiling, but the expression of the one with blue hair looked more strained.

“Hello, hello! Welcome to the Violet City Tournament! I’m Mr. Pokémon, the primary sponsor and the person who organized all of this in the first place!” the man with the mustache said. He followed it up with a jovial laugh.

“I’m Nurse Joy. Hello! Thank you for having me.” The woman with the pink hair brought her head down in a bow.

“...And I’m Falkner.” Falkner briefly brushed his blue hair away from his eye. “I work for the Violet City Gym. I’ll be sitting in on the behalf of Walker. He apologizes for not being able to be here today.”

From Falkner’s terse tone, Sam had a feeling that might not have been true.

On the screen, a faint applause could be heard, but it was much more audible from the nearby opening with the stairs. Mr. Pokémon—and that was a wild name to Sam—smiled and tipped back his hat before resuming his opening speech.

“Thank you, thank you! We will serve as your announcers for this tournament, and what a wonderful tournament it’ll be!”

They went on to chat about their expectations, talking about the upcoming battles with a few comments from Falkner about Walker’s plans for Violet City, brought on by mention of the Gym Battle grand prize. Just based on the discussed topics alone, it was abundantly clear that the Violet City Tournament was more of a local tournament than a region-wide one. Mr. Pokémon himself provided the prizes. While he might not have been a true local, he lived nearby and ran many events in both Violet City and Cherrygrove City to the south.

“In total, we have thirty-one registered competitors, for a total of five rounds,” Mr. Pokémon said after a few minutes of talking. “The rules for this tournament are a bit different than those of the usual League-approved tournament, so why don’t we turn to our head referee below?”

The scene transitioned with that same rolling Pokéball graphic to now show a man wearing a sky blue turtleneck. He stood in the middle of the arena’s battlefield with an expression on his face that showed he had no room for jokes. He wasn’t too old, but he was bald, and a few lines on his face hinted at his age. Around him, the field wasn’t as smooth as the usual compacted dirt. It had a few small stones scattered around, but they weren’t anything large enough to hide behind or be useful for Sam’s strategies in general, unfortunately.

“Hello,” the man said. “I will be serving as the head referee for this tournament, assisted by two others. I will briefly go over the rules. Please, listen carefully. For these first rounds, I’ll only be explaining them once.

“Battles will start with small teams, with team allowances increasing over time. At first, trainers will be permitted three Pokémon and zero switches per battle, but both numbers will go up as the rounds progress.”

He went on to explain in more detail.

The first round would see trainers using three Pokémon with no switches allowed. The second round would also see three Pokémon, but each trainer would gain access to a single switch. In the third round, the number of Pokémon would increase to four, and the fourth round would also involve four Pokémon per trainer, but a second switch would be allowed in the match.

It wouldn’t be until the finals that both numbers would increase at once. There, trainers would be allowed five Pokémon on their teams with three switches each to use at their discretion.

Knowing that there wouldn’t be a full, six-on-six match did make Sam feel better, as that meant his team would never need to faint an average of two Pokémon each. Still, he had to suppress a grimace. The minimal amount of switching restricted his team more than he’d like.

His team was all about interplay, with team members generally setting up for one another. Usually that worked out fine, as League standard rules saw a number of available switches equal to one less than the maximum number of Pokémon on a team. Here? They clearly wanted faster battles, as switching usually made matches take longer.

Sam would need to adjust, but he could at least fight somewhat normally once he made it to the later rounds.

Though, that means getting to the semifinals if I want a second switch. After this past week, we can definitely do that.

The head referee continued on to go over a few more rules, mostly just explaining the League’s expectations. Pokémon could hold only one held item at a time, battles were generally fought to the knock-out with exceptions determined by the referees, and trainers could be carded for extreme unsportsmanlike behavior. Explaining all of this right now was mostly for the audience’s benefit, making sure they didn’t have to hear the same thing repeated before every match, especially since there’d be a lot of battles in the first few rounds.

As the head referee finished his explanation, he bowed his head and wished the competitors luck. The scene then changed once more to show an aerial shot of the field, and the first two trainers were asked to come out.

Two people stepped onto the field. At the same time, a member of the arena’s staff opened the waiting room door and named a person to come along to wait on standby. On the screen itself, once the two trainers were in position, they each sent out a Pokémon.

The Violet City Tournament started with a shout for the battle to begin. Sam leaned forward in his seat, eyes and ears utterly locked onto the television screen. He needed to gather as much information as he could about all of his future opponents. This tournament was as much of a test of endurance as it was a test of strength.

Five battles with a team of three.

If Sam wanted to make it to the top, he needed to approach each and every match with a plan.