The Ghost Specialist

Redi trudged over the dirt of one of Blackthorn’s training fields, dragging a leg behind her. Her foot left a visible groove as she traced the border, stopping at regular intervals to leave perpendicular marks.

“The way I’m thinking about it, if Porygon needs a specific target for Teleport, then I just need a way to call out locations better,” she said.

Off to the side, Will cocked an eyebrow under his mask, mimicking a lean against some sort of cane. His act was ruined by his Exeggutor, which used its many heads to concentrate on an invisible barrier that he was obviously using to support his stance.

As for Redi’s Pokémon, only Porygon was out right now. They floated over the dead center of the field. This whole process was about training and perfecting their Teleport under Will’s watchful eye, and for this problem in particular, it had taken Redi a while to figure out a solution, but she was confident she had the perfect idea.

“There,” Redi said, breathing out as she finished drawing her marks on the field. “It’s all divided up into a grid, now. We’ll treat the corner to the left of my trainer box as the origin: 'zero, zero.’ Moving away from it, every line will increase the numbers by one, so going down the diagonal means it’s ‘one, one’ to ‘two, two’ and so on and whatever.”

“Interesting,” Will mused. “I didn’t expect such a mathematical approach to this.”

“That a dig?” Redi snapped.

In reply, Will innocently held up a hand.

“Oh, no. ‘Twas just an observation.”

She rolled her eyes at his word choice before moving back to the marked trainer box she’d chosen to be hers. Porygon’s treads were spinning ever-so-slightly faster than usual, a sign she’d come to recognize as the Pokémon thinking.

She waited until the motion had slowed before she called out the first of her commands.

“Psychic Type,” she ordered.

Porygon faced the ground, used Psybeam, and when they next underwent their Conversion, the wave of pixels that crossed their body turned them a Psychic Type pink.

“Great!” she shouted. “Now, let’s see if this works. Porygon, Teleport over to the origin—zero, zero! I believe in you, you can do it!”

The TM she’d been provided meant Porygon now knew Teleport. However, the move required its user to have a clear image of their destination in mind, something Porygon struggled to do. The move only worked if Redi followed up her order with a specific location. Simply calling for a Teleport wasn’t enough; she had to tell Porygon exactly where they needed to go.

As battlefields tended to lack any obvious points of interest, that requirement meant Redi struggled to call for a Teleport across a featureless field. This implied grid was her attempt at finding a way to communicate specific points. She desperately hoped it would allow her to call for the move without needing detailed specifics.

Holding her breath, Redi watched Porygon begin to channel the requisite energy. Teleport was by no means a fast move, especially when used by a “weak,” unevolved Pokémon. It wasn’t exactly something Porygon could learn naturally, either, which meant it came out even slower than average. It didn’t help that when Will had his Pokémon demonstrate it, those elite Psychic Types appeared in a new location almost instantaneously.

Conversion helped somewhat to bridge that gap, as it allowed Porygon to temporarily gain the Psychic Type and more easily control the aligned energy of the move. Right now, as Porygon’s pink-tinted treads spun faster and faster, the Teleport activated after only a short delay.

A white flash.

Porygon disappeared.

They existed in no place at all during the move’s required “travel time” before appearing exactly where Redi had stated: right at ‘zero, zero,’ the bottom left corner of the field.

“Yes! You did it!”

Redi raced over to her Pokémon for a hug, scooping Porygon out of the air and into her arms. As she squeezed, Will chuckled and quietly applauded. He stopped pretending to lean on a cane and began to walk over. He passed right through the spot Redi had thought a psychic barrier had been, revealing there had never been anything there in the first place.

Redi blinked.

Why bother having Exeggutor focus like that? ...I don’t understand.

“Congratulations!” Will said. “Porygon has struggled to picture an exact location in the past, but it seems your grid solution worked. They just needed a more specific goal, hm?”

“Mhm!” Redi nodded happily, doing her best to not think about Will’s eccentricities. “Training Porygon is all about definitions and being really clear about commands. I just need to make sure this idea of a grid is expandable enough for future battles, and then I also need to—”

“Debug your command?” Will offered with a laugh.

Redi breathed out through her nose and moved back to the trainer box, placing Porygon back down in the air above the field. With this first step proving the viability of this strategy, she began to go through the process of testing every possible order she could think of.

She started with the diagonals, and Porygon demonstrated the ability to teleport to points with equal numbers. The same was true for when the numbers were different, and it also worked with “partial” steps. Porygon had no problem processing decimals and fractions.

“Now for the hard part!” Redi called out. “Off the field! Teleport to ‘negative one, negative one!’”

As commanded, Porygon disappeared and reappeared outside the bounds of the field, just past the corner defined to be the origin.

“Huh,” Redi stared at her Pokémon. “I guess that’s good? I didn’t exactly set any limits to the field in the first place.”

Will joined Redi at her side. Her tutor from the past few days had a slight smile on his face. She couldn’t think of a single time he didn’t look amused.

“Now, answer me this,” he said, “what happens if you tell Porygon to teleport to a pair of non-number points? Something like using letters instead of numbers for a location?”

“That’s... Hm.” Redi’s eyes flicked over to Porygon. “I guess we can do that. Porygon, teleport to... ‘A, A?’”

She wasn’t exactly sure where Will was going with this, but Porygon certainly seemed to try to follow her orders. From where the Pokémon floated, Porygon’s treads began to spin at an excessive speed. Right away, it was clear they weren’t able to process that location, or even what Redi meant.

If their confusion wasn’t obvious with how fast their treads spun, it quickly became obvious when Porygon’s eyes began to spin just as much.

“Wait, wait, wait! Stop!” Redi yelled. “Stop!”

She waved her arms and raced toward her Pokémon, but her shout came too late. An audible whir came from Porygon, and less than a second later, all movement came to an abrupt stop.

Porygon fell to the ground in a daze.

“Seems as though they crashed,” Will quipped.

Redi sent him a dirty look as she carefully picked up her Pokémon. She held Porygon in her arms, looking them over to make sure they were alright.

Thankfully, the Teleport never went off. This “crash” was caused by confusion and exhaustion rather than any more serious problem.

“To speak on Porygon’s Teleport, your idea to have Porygon change their Type is inspired, but it won’t be enough to get the speed you seek,” Will said, still in the trainer box. “While not often included in its description, you may consider Teleport as a move akin to Night Shade. In many ways, its effects are intrinsically linked to a Pokémon’s control and power.”

He began to walk over. His shoes had a slight heel to them, and if they weren’t standing on compacted dirt, they would have clicked over the ground. As he approached, Redi retrieved her calculator to order Porygon inside. Consuming the programs found within would allow her tired Pokémon to regain some energy.

“As it stands, Porygon will be unable to travel over long distances until they increase their strength,” Will continued. “You won’t be able to see the move be used faster until their expertise is improved, as well. Porygon needs specific, well-defined locations to use for distant locations. Without a clear, corresponding image, Teleport will fail to bring you anywhere. Thankfully, there’s a reason why most Pokémon Center lobbies are so normalized. That should make the use of Teleport a slight bit easier on Porygon.”

Redi sighed and pressed on her lower back to stretch as she stood. She didn’t have an immediate purpose to limber up, but going through the movement helped her feel a bit better.

Over the past few days, she’d learned a lot about how Teleport functioned, and Will frequently repeated himself to hammer in specific points. Mainly, he wanted her to truly understand Teleport’s requirements. It was an extremely useful, but difficult, move.

Thankfully, Teleport carried almost no risks save for exhaustion. It was safe to be used even by novices—almost weirdly so. For a Teleport, a Pokémon pictured themselves in a new location, and then if the image was clear enough, they would suddenly find themselves there.

Teleport didn’t open a portal or a wormhole or anything special like that. The movement was facilitated by some kind of psychic, extra-dimensional travel, but that weird, sub-dimension users were sent through didn’t actually exist. Since the dimension was only the concept of a dimension, there was no getting “trapped” if the move failed.

The horror movies were wrong; when Teleport failed, the user would simply remain wherever they began. No abominations were ever formed, and no one had ever spent centuries floating in a void.

Gah. It’s all too much. Psychic Types are weird.

Holding Porygon within the advanced calculator, Redi looked up at Will, who was watching the device carefully.

“How far do you think Porygon could bring us right now?” she asked.

“If you were between cities, Porygon could bring you back to the one you left, but I doubt they currently have the power to bring you any further than that.”

She sighed, aware that, while useful, Teleport wouldn’t speed up their journey. Porygon wouldn’t be able to bring them anywhere that they hadn't already been, either. With how Porygon’s mind worked, Teleport could only bring them to locations they visited after Porygon learned the move.

Still, after the success with the grid, Redi did feel like they were making good progress. Will wasn’t speaking, so she let herself collapse onto the ground and stare at the sky. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do; they needed to wait for Porygon to recover to continue practice.

Resting, her thoughts drifted back to everything that’d been going on.

It’d been almost a week since Sam had left.

The next Dragon Type Trial was still a while away.

And the final version of the contract with Mr. Pokémon had been sent through. She really hoped he would accept it.

Given the Pokémon Redi was already training and would be training, the amount of cash she’d receive from the contract’s base offer was simply not enough. Her parents had been a great help when it came to figuring out how much was appropriate to ask for, but when she’d hinted at wanting to send some of it their way, she’d been immediately rebuffed.

Well, whatever. We’re still going to have an excess. Guess I’ll have to buy them gifts instead and mail stuff over. Just can’t send liquid cash.

She snickered. Her parents couldn’t exactly tell her to not send them gifts, especially if those gifts were genuinely heartfelt.

Still waiting for Porygon to recover, she watched the few clouds pass over the blue of the sky. Even though Dragonair wasn’t here, she still felt the Pokémon’s absence.

Will patiently stood above her, and pretty soon, he glanced over to the side.

Briefly, Redi hoped that Clair had brought Dragonair over, but it was neither the Gym Leader nor the Dragon Type. Instead, a boy in a red jacket glanced at them on the field before moving on. He looked as if he was trying to find an empty place to train.

“Wait. I know him,” Redi said to herself.

Will watched silently as she stood up.

“Gimme a moment,” she said.

She ran over to the boy.

“Hey! Aren’t you that guy from the Dragon Type Trial? Y’know, the one who spent the entire time glaring at the elder then ranted and stormed off at the end?”

Immediately, to her comments, angry eyes snapped her way.

“Excuse me?”

Redi skidded to a halt when the boy replied with a snarl.

“Ah, shoot. That was rude. Sorry! I’m working on it, promise!” She bowed her head. “I just wanted to talk! Again, sorry for being rude!”

She peeked up from her lowered position, expecting the boy to still be glaring at her. However, that expression had vanished. The sullen look on his face didn’t match the bright red and numerous spikes that covered his outfit.

“Ugh. It’s fine, I guess,” he said, looking away. “Shouldn’t have snapped at you, either.”

He pinched his brow, closing his eyes. Redi brought herself up and tilted her head to the side.

“I just wanted to ask how you learned about the Dragon Type Trial and what you wanted to get from it,” Redi said. “For me, I talked to Clair to learn about it, so—”

“You don’t know?” he asked. The question came out almost like a bark, interrupting her explanation. “I was never invited. I have to show up on my own. My Pokémon and I stake out the location every night so we know when we need to head over next.”

He grinned, almost proud, but there were bags under his eyes that hurt his attempt at a predatory expression. The moment was also ruined by a sudden yawn.

He forced himself to scowl to stop it, but Redi could tell it was just an attempt to keep up the intimidating appearance he was going for.

“You okay?” Redi asked.

He stared at her for an uncomfortably long time.

“So you really want to know why I take on that Trial?”

“...Yes?”

“It’s because I train Fighting Types. Mostly,” he continued. “My team and I had a pretty good run in our first attempt—got six badges over in Sinnoh. I’d say we’re pretty well above average. Even got complimented by a Gym Leader, the dude in charge of Veilstone Gym.”

He grinned at the end of the statement, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“Didn’t get all eight badges, though,” he said with a sigh. “We spent too long trying to find new team members—the right kind of team members. Pokémon that’d fit on the team, y’know? The problem is, none of us expected my uncle to send me a Pokémon, and now I’m...”

He grumbled under his breath.

“I guess I’m just worried.”

The boy looked away from Redi to stare off into the distance. His scowl returned.

“What Pokémon did your uncle send?” Redi asked carefully.

“A Gible. A Dragon Type. But even after training him since last year, he still hasn’t...” The boy clenched his hands. “He still hasn’t evolved.”

There was a bench at the side of the field, the same one Redi had sat on when she told Sam about Dragonair. Getting the sense this conversation was going to be more than just a simple question and answer, Redi gestured to it. The boy blinked and looked toward where she pointed her arm.

“Wanna sit?” she asked.

A second passed.

“I’m Redi, by the way.”

“Terry,” the boy said. “Short for Terrance. And, yeah, I guess I can sit down.”

He followed her to the bench, where he plopped down and leaned against its back. As Redi sat next to him, she glanced over to Will. The Ace Trainer still hadn’t moved away from where he stood at the center of the field.

He’s seriously just going to stand there and silently watch us?

Ugh. He’s worse than a Xatu.

“So your Gible hasn’t evolved?” Redi asked, turning away and forcing herself to ignore Will. “That’s why you’re taking on that Trial? To try to get help with your Dragon Type?”

“Yeah!” Terry responded, raising his voice as a frown crossed his face. “And I know what you’re going to say. ‘That makes sense! Dragon Types take a while to train!’ But that’s not how it works.

“It’s been months,” he said. “With all of our training, with all of our practice, Gible should have evolved by now. I’ve talked to him—he wants to evolve. Bringing him from a Gabite into a Garchomp should be the stage that takes the most time. But he’s not there yet. Should be there yet. I just wanted help from the Blackthorn Clan to understand what I’m doing wrong, but they took one look at me...”

He grit his teeth.

“They took one look at me...”

His hands shook.

“They took one look at us and turned us down! Us! A worried trainer and a struggling Dragon Type! They saw us and sent us away!”

Redi had seen drawings of Gible in Sam’s New Pokédex. The way Terry gnashed his teeth alongside his shout made her think of the species’s toothy maw.

Next to her, Terry started to rage in a way not unlike Primeape. He hopped up from the bench and stomped around, pacing, working off the energy he’d built up while telling his story to Redi.

You know what, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him talking to anyone else in the city. And if he’s from Sinnoh, he probably doesn’t have any friends here.

She paused.

Whew. Yeah. No wonder he’s venting to a stranger like this. When’s the last time he talked to someone about his problems?

“So... How many times have you taken on their Trials?” Redi asked.

“Seven.” He barked out a laugh. “And I’ve only made it past the first round once. Got right up to the start of the third, where they turned me away right at the door.”

He shook his head, and Redi looked at him. She took him in.

Truth be told, his story was dumb. If he got through the first round, he knew how to do the same again in the future. Plus, if Sam’s experience was common, this guy had probably been offered something, but it was probably something that didn’t help him out in the way he needed.

Honestly, Redi couldn’t call herself a Pokémon Master or was even that familiar with the Dragon Type, but she still felt the solution to Terry’s problem was obvious:

Just spend more time training.

Gible would evolve eventually. If not, it probably ate an Everstone and needed to get rid of that blockage somehow.

Yet, even with those thoughts, she completely understood why Terry was raging. If her Pokémon were struggling and the foremost experts in the world refused to give any advice, then, yeah, she’d get annoyed.

There was also a pretty obvious parallel between Terry’s story and her own. Mainly, Terry wanted help with a Dragon Type, and he just wanted advice. However, if he hadn’t been able to get the help he needed, what was the Blackthorn Clan going to do when she tells them she wants to train Dragonair?

“Y’know, my friend had an idea a while back,” Redi said, leaning back and trying to speak casually. “He had this big plan to gather a bunch of trainers up and blackmail the Blackthorn Clan into giving us what we want.”

Terry snapped his gaze to her. His eyes shined with greed. However, from across the battlefield, Will very deliberately cleared his throat.

Ugh.

“But I don’t mean we do that, I just mean we do something like that!” Redi said, quickly correcting herself. “What if we... What if we copy Lance? Yeah. Did you know he took on the Trial, like, five times before being given what he wanted?”

Terry stopped walking around to take a moment to digest Redi's comment.

“Lance,” he repeated. “Indigo’s Champion?”

“Yup! Apparently, he had this Dratini he befriended, and it took him a bunch of times to wear the Blackthorn Clan down before they let that partnership happen,” Redi said. “But he didn’t give up. And he annoyed them until they let them leave together. Of course, he did have the advantage of actually being a part of the Blackthorn Clan, but we—”

“Aren’t members,” Terry said, hanging his head.

Redi frowned at the interruption, forcing a worse reaction away. She knew she could be rude sometimes, but this was important! She was going to try to recruit him, not scare him away.

“No, but we’re better than that,” Redi said carefully. “We might not be Lance, but we’re more than one person. All we have to do is get a few others, show up at the Trial, and then we work together to pool our skills!

“Instead of taking on the Trial five times individually, we take it on five times at once! Faced with an entire group working together, we’ll either win as a team or annoy the Blackthorn Clan into helping us!”

The Blackthorn Clan’s Trials were all about testing trainers on an individual level, but Redi’s plan threw that concept on its head. Instead of trainers occasionally working together, she’d assemble a group and have everyone fill in for one another’s strengths and weaknesses. The idea was that such an upset would be a unique situation. They’d definitely be annoyed, but they’d also be paying closer attention.

She’d have to use that to really prove herself. Stand out among the group. If she could demonstrate all the traits a Dragon Type trainer needed—power, leadership, and whatever else—then she’d have a much higher chance of being allowed to leave with Dragonair than if she took on the Trials on her own.

But I can’t just use whoever I recruit for my own means. No, the point of taking on the Trials as a group is to succeed as a group. Whoever I get, I have to make sure they succeed, too. What’s the point in getting permission to train Dragonair if I have to be a jerk to do that?

No. This is the way forward. This is the best way we can do this.

Redi smiled to herself, already picturing the outcome to this plan in her mind. Sure, it was a little off-the-cuff and needed to be fleshed out more, but there was a kernel of something there. She just needed to develop the plan, and then she’d be able to bring Dragonair with her, for sure!

Sitting back, Redi watched Terry chew on her idea, and she mentally patted herself on the back. However, as she relaxed on the bench, a shadow passed over her.

Redi looked up.

Will looked right back at her.

“Ah, to team up and take on a challenge as a group! To find like-minded individuals and to gather strength into a greater whole! Our society is built on the foundations of working together and forming teams! It’s the core of who we are! It’s the definition of what makes a Pokémon Trainer a trainer!”

“And your point?” Redi interrupted.

Will smiled, his hidden eyes somehow gleaming.

“I certainly believe this plan is much more admirable than your first.”

Redi wasn’t sure what to think of that.

“So, then, what? We find more people?” Terry asked, close to coming to a decision.

“Yeah,” Redi answered. “Anyone and everyone interested in taking on the Trial.”

He stood without moving. His knuckles turned white. Eventually, all of the tension left his body.

A single nod told Redi he’d be joining her in this plan.

“So who do we invite?” Terry asked. “That girl was there last time. You know, the one who talked to that creepy guy?”

The mention of Eliza caused Redi’s eye to twitch, but she still accepted it.

“Her? Sure. And hopefully a few others. But before then...”

Even with this skeleton of a plan, Redi knew she still needed to train. Even if she tried to create a group to go through the Trials, she still also needed to prove to the Blackthorn Clan that she could “handle” Dragonair.

That meant more training. More practice with Teleport. Taking on an awaiting challenge that’d definitely push both her and her team.

Sam might have been away, but Redi still had her Pokémon. She didn’t have his knowledge to guide her, but she still had her own ideas on how she wanted her team to grow.

So, she hashed out a few more details with Terry and agreed to meet him at the Pokémon Center later. They’d talk about the specific details of their plan—gathering allies was only a start. They also needed to figure out what they’d actually do as a team.

Soon after, Terry left to resume his search for an open practice field, promising to see Redi later. The moment he was gone, Redi didn’t hesitate to look over to Will. She smirked, already knowing what she wanted to do next.

“So...” she started.

“Yes?”

“Part of this tutoring deal was a free trip to Violet City and back,” she said. “I told Sam I was going to get my next Gym Badge while he was gone, and I don’t plan to lie about that. However...”

Redi smiled, a plan coming together in her head.

“If you’re already going to take me to that other Gym, what if we make an extra stop?” she asked. “How opposed would you be to stopping off-route and picking up a certain Pokémon along the way?”