“Now lets see your Vine Whip.” Lilith shouted out in excitement.

She and Impidimp sat to the side as Pansage started demonstrating his repertoire of Moves. She described her plan for revenge. They had both been attacked by Croagunk, so it only seemed right that they teamed up to take him down. Impidimp jumped off to the side at their mutual plight. It seemed he would not help.

The first thing the duo did was go through all of Pansage’s Moves. Lilith saw what she was doing as practice, for when she had a team of her own.

Green tendrils emerged from Pansage’s arms. Lilith examined them while asking questions.

“Hmm how long can these extend?” she asked.

Pansage grunted, and the vines grew a little longer before stopping.

“So about 5 meters…” She pondered.

“Do they have to be used from your arms, or could you use your leg in a sweeping motion? Or other parts of your body? Could you use multiple Vines at once?”

Pansage tilted his head.

“You used them for mobility to swing from trees, could you also use your tail? Or head? Swing with one hand, attack with the other?” More questions were churned out at a fast pace.

“Pan!” he started to wave his stubby arms back and forth in front of her.

Lilith understood the general meaning.

“Ahh, sorry I'm going too fast. It's just that this might be your most versatile move and your underusing it!” She loved the thrill of discovering different ways to use the Moves now at her disposal.

‘Is this what being a Pokemon Trainer would feel like?’ She wondered.

Pansage and Lilith went through all the different variations she could think of. Impidimp watched the two off to the side. He would laugh when one of the two did something silly, but otherwise stayed out of their way.

It turned out that Pansage could use any limb to form the Whip, but they couldn’t just spring out of his body. That left the tail, legs, and head virtually unused. The implementation took much longer than expected however. Pansage had trouble manipulating his Grass Energy in other parts of his body.

Once Vine Whip had been used in his tail, the two found the attack to be much weaker. He had trouble with the snapping motion to launch the Whip in the air, and the length was considerably shorter. Lilith considered there was much room for growth.

“Any other moves?” She asked.

She had grasped a rudimentary discovery of how Vine Whip worked. She stopped increasing his skill level to have time to look at other moves. Lilith moved forward.

“Pan!” Pansage affirmed.

Small Seeds sprouted all around his body. They started out small and grasped at anything moving. Small feelers attached to the nearby grass and sucked something from them as their length grew. The grass visibly wilted as the Move took effect. The sprouts grew larger with more Energy.

“Ah is that Leech Seed?” Lilith Smacked her forehead. She had already seen its application.

‘This Move might be even more imperative than the last.’ She thought.

“Oh, how far from the Seeds can you go? Could they be used to plan an ambush? If not, do you have to make contact, or can you fling them at your opponents?” Many ideas formed in her head.

“How good is your manipulation of them?” She asked.

The questions poured out of her mouth non stop. The duo stayed up all night going over a plan to defeat their nemesis.

***

“Use only Vine Whip, lets see you try to use it in our new ways!” Lilith called out.

Shortly after their information gathering, the two went to sleep. Their next step was practical application. She had no clue how to advance, so throwing hours at the problem to increase data seemed like a good idea.

That had led them to the northern mountains area. Rock Pokemon were plentiful, and she hoped with a Type advantage, they would prove to be training wheels for their first venture.

Nosepass dotted the mountain, and they proved to be an ideal target. They did not group up like the Roggenrolla, nor were way out of Pansage’s league like the Onix she had encountered.

Another blank was Pansage’s battle experience. She had seen him battle Croagunk, but he was never the aggressor it seemed. It was a good idea for Pansage to adapt to fighting more.

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“Pan!” Pansage pumped himself up.

Pansage started out easy and created a Whip in his hand. He charged at the wild Nosepass from the side, following the natural incline of the mountain. This led to neither having the high ground. The purpose of the fight wasn’t to dominate his opponent, but learn how to fight head on.

Nosepass proved to be the perfect test dummy. Gray Energy covered Pansage’s exterior. Nosepass condensed himself using Harden. Physical attacks would do much less damage. This played into Pansage’s training even more.

Pansage flicked his wrist forward. Vine Whip connected with Nosepass. He let out a grunt as the attack connected. Despite being Super Effective, Nosepass’s outer appearance did not change. The attack bounced right off his hard stone body. Only lingering green Energy covered his Hardened exterior.

Nosepass turned towards his attacker and charged. He tried to ram his opponent’s body with a Tackle. Vine Whip shot out from his hand. Instead of targeting Nosepass, he targeted the terrain around him. The Vine coiled around a rock to Pansage’s right. He yanked on the connection, sending him out of harm's way.

“Yes! Just like that!” Lilith cheered.

The two had planned to increase Pansage’s mobility with Vine Whip. This was just one of many potential uses they had thought up for the Move.

With one move, Pansage had created an opportunity he could have used to counter, instead, he took the high ground and reset the encounter. He would now try a different strategy.

Seeing the distance Pansage had created, Nosepass grabbed the ground. Using his immense strength, Nosepass tore a boulder right out of the mountain. He then proceeded to throw it right at his foe.

Pansage lifted his arms as Rock Throw connected. The attack had caught him unprepared; he fell backwards.

‘Ahh.’ She collected more data.

Pansage did his best to shrug off the hit. His recovery was quick, and the damage relatively light. He charged at Nosepass once more. Nosepass saw this and prepared a Tackle in exchange.

Before the two could connect, Pansage jumped to the side as Vines sprouted from his tail. They went no further than a meter, but proved to be useful in his counter attack. Vine Whip met a Tackle. Both stumbled backwards.

‘Hmm that didn’t work as well as I’d thought.’ Lilith continued to watch the fight.

“Let's go with plan two!” She called out.

Pansage understood and crouched down on all fours. Vines coiled together at his feet. Using them like a spring, Pansage jumped up and over Nosepass. The idea of the move was to use his great mobility and attack in his opponent's blind spots.

The execution proved wanting. Pansage’s aim launched him too far over his target. Despite looking clumsy, Nosepass turned rather fast. It launched another rock into the air.

“Oh no…” Lilith whispered.

The falling monkey met with a flying rock. The two connected in mid air, sending him flying off down the mountain. He rolled down quite a ways before Pansage could stabilize himself.

“Back off!” Lilith called out.

Much had been learned in their first encounter. Some things worked while others didn’t. They would have to regroup and adjust their strategies accordingly.

The rest of the day consisted of variations on the fight with different Nosepass. Pansage used different moves for different encounters, sometimes using two at a time to increase interchangeability.

Pansage had 3 Attacking Moves, Scratch, Fury Swipes, and Vine Whip. His supporting moves included Leech Seed, Leer, and Play Nice.

The area surrounding the forest had become increasingly more dangerous, but Lilith still forged ahead. They improved their ambush capabilities by swinging down onto unsuspecting Rufflet from taller trees. The Pokemon were unchallengeable in the air, so they waited for the flock to land and attack them.

Lilith wanted Pansage to match up against fights that were bad matchups for him. Croagunk was definitely going to be a bad matchup, so the two prepared in advance for a tough fight.

Wild Rufflet would almost always flee once challenged. Pansage would miss more than he hit. Impidimp would laugh whenever Pansage missed by a large margin. It was only much later when Pansage finally hit Rufflet with a Vine whip. It appeared to be more annoyed than anything else and launched a single counterattack to send the trio fleeing. They proved to be a waste of time, so the Pansage moved to different prey.

Lilith couldn’t quite figure out how the Status Moves like Leer and Play Nice worked. She could see them visually activate, but their practical use still evaded her. That left Leech Seed. His only other Status Move picked up all of the slack.

Nosepass had been verified to be the best test subject. They had weak attacks but a strong defense, so many different strategies could be tested at once before having to move on.

Dashing up to wild Nosepass and touching them was the only way to activate Leech Seed at first. That slowly morphed into tossing the Seeds from a distance. Pansage’s aim increased with each throw. Pansage’s mastery increased as time went on.

One idea she had was to attach the Seeds to the end of his Vine Whips to activate them on contact, but something blocked the two Moves from interacting.

That line of thought led Lilith and Pansage to traps. Pansage would place many Leech Seeds around an area and then lure Pokemon into his trap. While the potency weakened over time and distance, it proved to be a sound strategy.

That left Pansage’s claw attacks for last. Scratch and Fury Swipes were practically the same move. At first she thought the two Moves were the same, until Pansage kept using them over and over again after she had asked him to move onto the next Move.

The confusion was sorted out quite quickly, leaving her time to ponder over why they were so similar.

Scratch was a single strong Attack, while Fury swipes’s goal was to increase speed but decrease the power and accuracy at which the attacks landed. This led to wild inconsistency that proved tough to unravel.

The only solution Lilith could think of was to practice more until Pansage’s accuracy increased. The idea was a little too dull for her, but sometimes hard work had to beat out smarts.

A new set of opponents had to be divined. Scratch would hardly touch a Rock type like Nosepass.

Lilith and Pansage ambushed Bellsprout by the dozen. Scratch tore through them, leaving her feeling like a bully. That in turn shifted her focus towards stronger opponents.

Her ambush strategy was implemented with more Scratch attacks. Occasionally, Deerling’s were spotted in the underbrush, but they were rare and easily camouflaged. They tested Pansage well, having to change his movements multiple times before their strategy was applicable.

Two days passed as Lilith and Pansage were finally ready for their ambush.