“You lost to a rattata! Ahahahahahaha”

Anna was beside herself with laughter when she had gotten home and I had explained how my trip had gone. “And why didn’t you … ha …. Why didn’t you send out another pokemon? You have 5 remember?” She continued giggling away.

“Well I glad someone finds this amusing” I grumbled feeling more embarrassed now with someone laughing at me. “Look I realised me and my team have no Idea what we are doing and don’t actually now any moves, or how to use energy if that’s a thing? I didn’t want to see any more of them get hurt for no reason.” I had had plenty of time to look Brandy over once we had gotten home and were waiting for Anna to come back from work and her injury wasn’t as bad as I thought. Probably not even a bruise, she was just slightly sore and not used to taking a hit. “Any chance next time you are off work could you give us some help training? Teach us what to do?”

Her giggles finally subsiding Anna calmed down enough to talk to me. “Sure” she said with a smile. “That actually sounds like fun, me and pidgeotto hardly do any training these days. Saturday is actually tomorrow if you didn’t know so we can start tomorrow if that suits?”

“That would be great thanks Anna. Ill make sure to wake you up nice and early”.

That made the smile disappear from Anna’s face.

I’m not sure if people end up picking up habits from their pokemon or vice versa but neither Anna nor her pidgeotto were very happy to be woken up in the morning. It took me leaving coffee at Anna’s open door for her to even get out of bed while I didn’t go near pidgeotto after he screamed at me after waking him up with a good morning. Anna nursed her cup while we slowly walked down the road to a small park nearby which had a marked out pokemon court on the side. That was common place I learnt, as officials had found out long ago that if they didn’t provide a place for people to battle that they would just do it any where they felt like. Thankfully at this time in the morning there was very few people or their pokemon up and about as I didn’t want people watching as I learned the basics of pokemon moves.

“So, Anna how do we do this?” I asked with me team sitting around me paying attention. I had explained to them on the way here (as talking to Anna was a big no no) that they would be learning some new moves. All of them had made questioning sounds at that point, but the best I could explain was that it would give their bite and tackles extra oomph.

“Pidgeotto. Tackle that eevee.”

With a glint in its eye pidgeotto leapt into the air before circling and building up speed.

“Wo wo wo wo Anna! Settle down! Look I’m sorry alright?! I shouldn’t have woken you up this early!”

“Apologise to Pidgeotto too” she grumped.

“Sorry pidgeotto!” I yelled towards the sky.

With a cry pidgeotto dived in at speed before banking sharply and landing gracefully next to Anna. “Pidge – pidgeotto!”

I have no idea what he just said but it sounded grumpy.

“Ok look can me team get some actually training not just randomly divebombed but the biggest meanest bird in the sky?” I figured a bit of flattery might go a long way to help ruffle their feather, literally in pidgeottos case.

“Ok pidgeotto, can you show Josh’s eevee’s how to perform tackle? I think that’s probably the best way to start. Imagine that they are just babies and don;y know how to use type energy yet.”

With a squawk he ducked his head at Anna before hopping away a couple of meters and waved his wing at my team. After giving them a nod my team walked over to them and pidgetooto started teaching them, I assumed, with a series of squawks.

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“So Josh” Anna started getting my attention, “What do you know about battling? Like how did you do it in your world?”

“It wasn’t done in my world” I replied getting a look of shock from her. “Well I mean animals would fight with each other in the wild but people didn’t battle pets against each other. That would have been super illegal. So what I know about battling is names and types of moves but that’s about it.”

Anna looked a bit puzzled. “But didn’t you say you had pokemon in your world? Or at least some form of them?”

“Yeah we did, a game and tv show. The tv show was probably more like here but I don’t remember much of it. The games are more what I played and in them a pokemon was released and then you had turns against your opponent until one fainted.”

“Turns? Like me, then you and then me again?”

“Yeah”

“Arceus, no wonder you lost against that rattata! That sounds so unrealistic!”

“It was a childs game!” Why am I getting defensive? I didn’t make the games.

“So then mighty guru, what am I suppose to do then?”

What proceeded after that was a massive information dump that I wasn’t expecting. I had been more thinking she would explain some moves and what to do in a battle, instead what I got was a long winded speech starting with pokemon nutrition and exercise, the element of surprise and keeping your pokemon hidden from other battlers, what to do at the start of a battle and where to place your pokemon to gain an advantage. Anna had just started on researching your opponents when pidgeotto, who had also been non stop talking to my eevees, finally gave a final cry before hoping back and inviting each of my eevees to try and tackle him.

Anna stopped her speech, thankfully as my brain was starting to fizzle, to watch my eevees attempt to Tackle pidgeotto.

“See Josh, what your looking for here is for eevee to almost have a faint glow over its body before it hits pidgeotto. That means it using normal type energy which will allow her to hit harder and also protects her from the impact of whatever she is hitting.”

“By type energy you mean like ice, water, fire etc?”

“Yes though the different energy types tend to have slightly different colours. It’s the main way you can tell what type a move is if you have not heard of it before” she explained.

Watching Brandi go first she leap in front of pidgeotto before standing still. I could see her concentrating for a moment before leaping head first into pidgeottos wing, which he had folded in front of himself. With a light thud Brandi bounced off of his wing with out budging him. That got her a squawk of derision from pidgeotto before Ale lined up to try. One by one my team attempted to perform Tackle on pidgeotto before Gin lined up and charged him with a slight glow.

“Eeeee veeee!”

With a leap at the final moment Gin leaped into pidgeottos wing and tackled into him, shoving him back nearly a foot.

“Pidge!” Pidgeotto chirped, nodding his head in approval.

“Eevee eevee eevee!” Gin barked out dancing around in a circle in joy, before running over to the rest of the team to explain how she did it.

“That looked like it actually had a bit of force behind it” I murmured. “I wonder what that would do to a person?”

Anna gave me a sharp look. “If you a caught using pokemon moves on a person you will get in a lot of trouble with the law. You need permission from a ranger or police officer unless you are in extreme danger. So don’t do it.”

“Got-cha.”

Over the next hour or so my team all figured out how to use the energy to perform tackle, though after a couple of hits pidgeotto started dodging their attacks, and then started experimenting how to use that energy to perform other moves. They had started working out tail whip and growl (which just looked adorable from where I was standing) with help from pidgeotto before I noticed they were all starting to look tired. Mentioning this Anna agreed.

“Using moves will tire out a pokemon far faster than normal, espically if they are not use to it. This is where the exercise and practice come in. The fitter they are and the more they practice the stronger the move will be.”

“Wait so tackle can get stronger and stronger?” I asked

“Well generally after a certain point it becomes a different move such as Take Down or Slam, but yeah it keeps getting stronger. But the other moves are generally stronger again as they need more energy and hit differently so people just tend to use them in battles when their pokemon can handle it.”

Good to know. “So what about people making new moves? Is that a thing?”

Anna turned to look at me. “If you can make up some new moves that are good in a battle, keep them to yourself as they will give you a great surprise attack. Or tell me and I can set up an interview with one of the TM manufactures and sell the first copy of it. For a fee of course” she said almost sickly sweet.

“Hmmmm Ill keep that in mind.”

Giving a whistle I got my teams attention and called them over to me. “Ok guys that’s enough for today. We will rest up this afternoon and have another try going to the ranch tomorrow. And if we see that dirty rat and its friends we will give them a proper fight this time!”

With a chorus of excited but tired barks I recalled my team and headed back with Anna to get ready for tomorrow.