When Spencer said that the lake got colder early, I expected cold water, not this.

Cape crouched and shaped a ball of snow between his claws which then he threw at Valley. The gray pokemon screeched angrily and raced after the bug pokemon, not that she would catch him. He had fled to the air.

I looked away from the both of them to assess our surroundings. The ground and the trees around the lake were covered in snow as if it were already winter. The lake was not frozen but I could see parts of ice forming above the water. It was crazy to think that thirty minutes ago we had walked on a autumn road.

There was probably some mystery around why this lake was like this.

Maybe an ancient ice pokemon sleeping on the bottom? Had Articuno blessed it at some point in history? I shook my head. It was not my job to figure that out. Besides, the Government or the League probably already knew the answer. I can just ask Brian the next time I see him If I saw him at all that is.

A chilly wind reached us from between the trees around the lake. We sat down to put on our winter clothes. I wrapped a big green scarf around Jungle and put on Cape a thermal jacket. Mesa and Valley told me they didn’t need anything. Finally, I slipped into my jacket and changed my shoes for boots.

We were able, thanks to Mesa’s telekinesis, to clear a space to set camp and to light a campfire. The clearing where we set camp was four hundred meters away from the lake’s shore and, if the signs of past campsites told me anything, was where most humans would camp.

Camp set, I went through Cape’s backpack to take out our cooking supplies and began to prepare our lunch together with Mesa.

The sound of a collision made me look up from the pan. Cape and Valley were at it again.

Every time we stopped the first thing the Minccino would do was challenge Cape to a fight. The bug pokemon was incessantly bugged by her, but since he didn’t seem to mind I left it at that.

After lunch, I took Jungle and Mesa on a stroll along the surprisingly big lake while Cape and Valley rested. We saw some pokemon walking around. A Walrein and a Sealeo guarding a group of rolling Spheal. A bunch of Snorunt wandered near the shore, and that was it. These were all the ice pokemon that the Gray Lake had to offer.

It would be frustrating if I didn’t know that ice types were being abducted.

The Snorunt left my sight and disappeared between the trees. If I didn’t already have an ice pokemon to convince I would have stopped them to see if one would like to come with us, I would have liked to train a Glalie or a Froslass. I reached into my belt and took out the pokeball that Brian had given me, Cryogonal’s.

The Cryogonal line was known to be a strong line in terms of pure manipulation of its own type, above even Glaceon.

As Brian had put it, unless Articuno itself appeared to us, this was the “best" ice-type pokemon around, with best meaning the one who could become the best user of ice-type moves and ice manipulation.

I put the pokemon on my belt. There was only one person I knew that had a Cryogonal, Gym Leader Brycen. I remember seeing the news about a young actor who became Gym Leader.

Unlike Indigo, Unova didn’t put much responsibility on the shoulders of their Gym Leaders, viewing them more as teachers and testers than fighters or protectors. That made it so that they were allowed to be weaker than their counterparts here. That said, I watched his eight-badge matches this morning and while his starter wasn’t on the level of an Indigo Gym Leader ace it was still an impressive pokemon.

His Cryogonal released devastating and precise ice attacks while able to escape hits by shifting from ice to steam. It rushed across the air while chilling both the field and its opponent, and created from thin air ice chains that locked and froze its opponent. The ice pokemon was also quite flexible for a pure ice type, moves like Ancient Power, Solar Beam, and Night Slash made the Cryogonal a good option against difficult matchups

I wanted all of that and more.

“We are going back,” I said to Jungle and Mesa.

Soon enough we were back at camp. I gave my team directions for them to practice their known moves. It was easy training since they would be present when I released the Cryogonal. Before that, I just had to update my pokemon journals with the training we had since leaving Oliver’s Town. I also thought about what Brian had said.

It wanted a good trainer but what exactly did it mean by that? And why? It could mean many things. Maybe it wants to become stronger? Learn new moves? For what? Or did it want a good trainer to have a good team, friends, or companions? Many pokemon wanted to make friends, especially those that were born alone like Cryogonal.

I looked at the blank page in front of me. My pen hovered above it but it didn’t move.

I sighed and Mesa, who was nearby doing his new second-level puzzle, turned his head to me in what I recognized as an interrogation. Maybe this could be a new type of puzzle.

“Mesa.” The Baltoy floated towards me. “Remember the pokemon we are going to meet later. It says that it wants a good trainer, so what do you think makes a trainer good?”

Mesa moved up and down in what I recognized as an “I don’t know” motion.

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I smiled. “I guess you never had another trainer to even know if I'm a good one, right?”

Some pokemon would disagree with what I said simply out of affection for their trainer, I knew that Cape would. Mesa, however, just nodded. I enjoyed the honesty and hoped it wouldn’t be lost when he developed his personality.

I smiled at him and patted his rough head. “Well, if you find out what is a good trainer one day, let me know, all right?” Mesa nodded.

Well, better get this over with. I put my laptop away, stood up, and clapped my hands.

Cape who was trying to learn Brick Break by repeatedly hitting a tree far away from us looked up and flew to the side, landing near the previously singing Minccino. Valley jumped on his head and grasped his horn to not fall off. Then Cape flew towards me but slowed down a bit to grab a surprised Jungle who was training Leech Seed.

The aerial unit, as I called it, landed near us and spread out around the camp.

“As you guys know we will be meeting a temporary, maybe permanent member of the team.” I smiled at them. “Let's make a good impression on him.”

I took the Cryogonal’s pokeball off my belt, twisted the button to get rid of the hibernating stage that Brian had put the pokemon in, and then released him.

The red light condensed and then turned blue, glacial blue to be precise. The pokemon looked just like the pictures. A one-meter-long floating hexagonal made of ice plates that had two glowing eyes and a mouth. Its eyes went from one side to the other as it took in the new beings around it.

“Hello, my name is Scott Wood, and this is my team, Cape, Jungle, Mesa, and Valley.” The Cryogonal made a sound of ice breaking. “Brian said that you could be a nice fit on my team and left you with us to see if you like it here.”

The Cryogonal floated closer, apparently sitting near us. I sat back on the stump that Cape had gotten for me, and my pokemon sat down on a fallen tree that Cape dragged near the extinguished campfire.

“So, Brian told me that you wanted a good trainer. Could I ask why you want one?” Flocks of ice shifted along the Cryogonal’s body, trying to communicate something perhaps.

Pokemon would normally communicate with humans using body language. But some, like Cryogonal, have difficulty with more complex ideas or information since they don’t have the normal tells that humans can pick on. The Baltoy line would too, but they had telepathy to make things easier.

I raised a hand to stop him. “Since I can’t understand you. I will throw away some questions and you make some noise if I’m right, okay?” its body shifted a little in what I hoped was an affirmative. “Do you want to be stronger? Do you want to learn new moves? Do you want friends? A family?”

The Cryogonal didn’t move an inch at each of those questions. I looked around for help, my eyes met Valley. “Do you want to be the strongest or the greatest Cryogonal?”

That made it move. But it was not a clear sign of affirmative, it was more like how Mesa completely halted sometimes to consider something. Then the ice slowly shifted dismissively.

“No then.” I hummed. I thought about what it could be but was coming up blank. “One part of being on the team of a trainer is to grow stronger. You denied wanting strength, but maybe strength is a way for you to get what you want?”

The ice pokemon’s “eyes” narrowed and I could tell it was pleased. “Well, I doubt we will figure out exactly what you want today, but if you need strength we can work with that, what do you think about we train for now and leave the talk for the night?”

The Cryogonal’s whole body shifted, the ice plates of its body changing places with each other, and it rose from where it was near the ground. I noted down in my head that big shift as an affirmative shift.

“Let's start with an examination and then you can show me what moves you know”

-

The Cryogonal was a little bigger than one meter, heavier than normal, and also harder, so it must have lived some already.

That was not uncommon for Cryogonal as they were able to easily hide from humans. If they were in a snowy place they would be camouflaged in the area and if they were in a warm place they could choose to turn into mist because of the heat. They were able to move silently even inside cities in their mist form.

The examination also revealed that he mostly hit things. Its body was full of little imperfections that showed that he would usually ram into things, probably pokemon. That was further collaborated when he showed me his moves. The only two ice long-distance moves that he knew were Bind, which he used with his chains, Ice Shard and Icy Wind.

In contrast, he knew Rapid Spin, Slash, Body Slam, Take Down, and even Substitute. The last one was especially telling since it showed that he even learned a move to stop being hit so many times.

I looked up at him from the journal. “Did you live outside of snowy places?” Its whole body shifted, which meant an affirmative. It was rare but not unheard of since Cryogonal were born on snow clouds, it might have been born in the winter of someplace that didn’t have a lot of snow. “So you never had the chance to train too much of your ice moves, you needed to conserve energy to resist the heat.”

Another affirmative.

“Well, we could begin training ice moves here since this place, as you can see we have snow, and is cold.” We turned and looked at the snowscape. “But if we want to move around it would be better for you to know the interaction Rain Dance—Snowscape.”

I put away my journal and rose from the stall. “Snowscape is a move that would make the terrain more cooperative to you. But if you were to produce all of it by yourself it would be too exhausting. So what trainers figured out is that if you use Rain Dance first, which uses one-fifth of the energy that Snowscape needs, you can then utilize the rain to make a Snowscape almost for free. That way you could train anytime you want and in any place.”

The body of the Cryogonal shifted inward. I didn’t know what that meant so I just continued. “So what I propose is that we split our focus on mastering the ice moves you already know but didn’t have the chance to train and in learning Rain Dance, what do you think?”

By the shifting of its whole body, it agreed.

-

It was night and after talking a bit more with Cryogonal I decided to check my e-mails to see if I had anything from Jess.

It had two messages. The first one was from Jess. She just wanted to say that she should be going ahead to the north since Brian said to her that he would teleport me to Goldenrod.

The second one was from an interesting e-mail from Professor Oak.

Hello Scott. I hope you are well!

I heard from Brian that you two met and that you are going to help him with his mission against the ice pokemon poachers. He also told me that you are going to try to catch the Cryogonal that he brought from Unova. Well, I hope that you have a safe time!

While it might be a little too soon for you, meeting and learning from people who are better than you is one of the best ways to grow quickly and immensely. Brian is a good trainer and a good man so I hope you two can foster a good friendship.

Finally, I have a request for you. Brian is a good man, that he is! But even good men have to do bad things sometimes. I sure hope you don’t entangle yourself in Brian’s business. However, at my wise age, I know better than to expect sound decision-making from my sponsored trainers.

So as a warning (also—and I'm going to ask for your forgiveness here—to clear my consciousness), I'm going to say this: Don’t become involved in his affair.

Sincerely, Professor Samuel Oak. PLP.

Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.