I shifted and bobbed from foot to foot as I waited for the Nurse Joy of Commerce City to heal up my pokemon team. Thankfully, the place was empty at the moment, barring my group.

“Ahahaha! Let’s go! Damn, that was a fun match!” I said, as I bounced from foot to foot. Around me, my entourage snickered at my childish behaviour.

Missy shot me a smirk. “Good fights really get you fired up, eh?” she said, eying my bouncing form.

I shrugged. “Eh, it’s the truth? Being challenged like that? I’m pretty sure they call it a battle high, but damn it feels good to push yourself. I was sweating and working overtime with switching up tactics. If this is what the top ten trainers are like, I am going to have to work for every win!” I could already see it, the fights growing tougher and tougher with each of the top ten being seasoned veterans. It sounded like the perfect conditions to grow stronger.

Missy flicked her eyes over me once again. “That doesn’t seem to be a problem for you.”

I laughed. “Guess I’m a battle junkie? But then again, who isn’t?”

A.J. shrugged. “Eh, it makes more sense for you to react this way than other people.” When the others looked at him, he waved an arm at me. “Most of the time, you have to hold back.”

I waved a hand. “I wouldn’t call what I do holding back. I have to find ways to test people and challenge them, it's—” I rubbed some fingers over my jawline in thought. “—Not really the same thing, it’s still making me push myself, it's just that the stress is different.”

Yolanda giggled. “Wait until you see him after an Elite Challenge when he pulls a win. He’s bouncing off the walls.”

Rachel snickered at the thought. “You are almost as cute as Trixie sometimes,” said the small rainbow-haired girl.

I paused and considered Trixie. Instead of conjuring an image of her in cute poses or outfits, my mind shunted my thought process to that of her doing a salmon ladder. She was slamming the machine with her huge frame, and I could just imagine sweat glistening on her abs and a fierce grin as she worked herself further into rippled perfection.

Even in my imagination…

As a group, we shook our heads and I thought I heard Alexa say something about, “While we daydreamed, Trixie was training.” The others giggled and this disrupted Rachel, causing her to wipe at her mouth to get rid of some drool before coughing. “Anyway, the point is you showed off some serious skills and were able to lock yourself into the tournament next week. Now you can focus on running the gym and getting your pokemon up to par for it.”

I nodded, stretching out my arms. “Yup, gonna be a lot of review for this one, cause there were a ton of mistakes and moves that I think I’m going to have to expect going forward. Arthur has shown me that people are not sitting idly and letting me advance—” I got a number of blank faces at this, so I quickly tacked on a “—and getting results that force me onto the back foot,” I said.

This got a round of murmurs and nods. Before today, there had been a level of… well, power difference was perhaps the kindest way of describing it.

The trainers had the right pokemon and the right moves, but they were too slow in their orders and tactics, and their pokemon were likewise lacking in power or speed to knock back my pokemon.

I chewed my lip. “I also don’t think I’ll get as lucky again with people remaining ignorant of fairy typing and its effects.”

“What about it specifically?” asked Greta.

I rubbed my head. “A lot of people have associated it with being super effective against dragon types, but there’s more to it than that. It’s also strong against dark type pokemon, which shores up Selene’s weakness rather well. However, it’s also super effective against fighting type pokemon.”

Everyone stared at me while I said this and it took a moment for me to realise that Greta had her pokedex out and was in fact recording me.

I coughed. “Really?” I said, giving her a dubious look.

Greta held up her pokedex like a shield, peering through it, so she didn’t need to meet my eyes. “Uhm, it's just that a lot of the research that I’ve been able to read and what I’ve talked about with Professor Oak is its impact on dragon types, along with what moves and pokemons are and are not fairy types.”

Yolanda tilted her head. “Huh, Brock was always very aware of them, I remember him telling lots of stories about Dian—” I coughed harshly to cut her off.

I did not need Yolanda ‘helping out’ by telling tales about Diancie. It didn’t stop Greta from gaining a look and turning her attention to Yolanda who merely shrugged and whispered. “I’ll tell you about her later,” she said.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can hear you,” I said, before deciding to ignore it. Instead, I exhaled in a long slow manner to get rid of the excess energy that I still had jittering through my body.

“Right, so that match fairly shook things up though,” I said as I checked my watch. “Hmmm, we have another thirty minutes before our transport Teleport is booked in, so if everyone’s alright with it, let’s do a quiet debrief while things are fresh.”

I gestured to a lounge off to the side while reaching into my pouch and drawing out one of the work laptops.

Alexa raised a hand. “You don’t need me for this and I got a later Teleport lined up, as I’ve got a date.”

Crystal wolf-whistled at Alexa. “I knew you were more dolled up than usual!”

Yolanda merely nodded. “Good luck on your date!”

I waved a hand, more than happy to let her clock off now. “Have fun and I will see you… Monday?” I said as I opened up the roster on the laptop to see that she had tomorrow off. I shot her an amused look and resisted the urge to ask her how late her Teleport was booked for.

I had a sneaking suspicion that if her date went well, she might just reschedule it for later. Alexa pointedly looked to the side, not meeting my knowing gaze as she waved and trotted off.

I heard Nurse Joy calling for me and I moved to collect my pokemon from her with the customary. “We hope to see you again!” given with a bow.

I turned back to find the younger girls nudging A.J., Crystal leading them. “Did you even notice that she had dressed up more than usual?”

A.J. opened his mouth and without having to hear what he was about to say I instinctively knew that he was going to put his foot in it. So I spoke over him. “A.J., when a lady asks you that, the safest and most correct answer is that they always look amazing. Never tell a girl they look tired or frumpy,” I said as I quickly typed up some notes.

Missy, Yolanda, Greta, and Crystal’s attentions all turned to me but I, like Alexa had earlier, avoided their gazes with a practised nonchalance. I finished what I was doing and clapped my hands. “Right! So, the match?” I said, nudging things along instead of letting them linger.

I spotted A.J. writing something in a small notepad, only to glance up and mouth a ‘thanks’ to me.

“Right, so one of the biggest and first things I noticed was that due to just the waiting area for this stadium, the meta is different,” I said, getting us underway and further dispelling the girls' critical gazes.

I ran through my observations from earlier, noting how everyone had been prepared for it. “The situation is that of ‘if you know, you know’. I can assure you that no emails or notifications were given to me regarding the shared space, but it could perhaps be implied depending on how many matches one has in the gym circuit,” I said.

“How would that make you aware of it?” asked Greta with a raised hand.

I held in a chuckle at her schoolroom antics and gestured to her like a teacher would. “A lot of matches can be quite spontaneous or seemingly spontaneous when you are in the gym circuit. You don’t hear about it, but there are a lot of trainers that are known as rookie crushers, or people that will ‘snipe battle’ you.” I raised a hand and glanced around for a whiteboard and was rather surprised when there was one.

Huh, the Commerce City Pokecenter had a few nifty features I thought to myself as I pointed to the whiteboard and moved our group over to it. I grabbed a marker and began jotting down my thoughts.

“So! The rookie crushers are just that, bullies that like to come at young or inexperienced trainers. They will look for certain tells with their opponents and are typically way more active during the start of the circuit, as that’s when you have the most young and inexperienced trainers moving about.” I drew a free-hand drawing of a large brutish man laughing at a pair of young trainers, a little boy and a girl who looked like they were barking at the crusher.

“Now, they do this as there is the possibility of earning a decent amount of prize winnings from young trainers if you can get three or four a day.” I made the pokedollar symbol and tripled it. “If they can get more than that? They’re doing very well for themselves.” I added another two pokedollar symbols to the board.

“Now these people are an example of this, as they can generally tell what young trainers will start with depending on the area they are in and what gym badges they have. Something that lots of young trainers are known for is flashing their badges, which can inadvertently signal themselves as weak and or inexperienced.”

“I’ve faced a few around Pewter on the patrols I go on,” said A.J. with crossed arms. “They like to run around with Machop and Growlithe for any rock, bug, or grass types.”

“Oh?” said Greta, turning her head along with the other girls apart from Missy who was nodding along. This caused the younger girls to blink and shoot me some looks.

I grinned. “It’s not something that I advertise, but I do have gym trainers that break up fights like this by challenging and running off rookie crushers in my area when out on patrol. This limits them to the lower earnings bracket most of the time, but… well, during the Trainer surge I know numbers were way higher, while also being something we couldn’t deal with as they were actually legitimate trainers.”

“You.. don’t get me to do that?” said Greta with a tilted head.

I grinned. “I hadn’t so far, but I think you’re overdue a ‘promotion’, so to speak,” I said, giving her a nod. “You’ve handled yourself well against some tough fights.”

I dropped the smile to allow myself to grow serious. “That said, you and A.J. are going to be facing some of the crushers that will adapt to you, and indeed to our gym trainers.”

I wrote out the second name I’d mentioned earlier. Snipe Trainers.

“These are the sort that will sit back and examine your team, your favoured tactics, and create teams or tricks that deliberately counter you. These are the people that we see more often for Ace matches. Will was an extreme case of this, as while I can never prove it, I think the number of Ace trainers that happened to have a few psychic pokemon that went against me in the lead-up to Will’s match was… highly irregular,” I said.

The group nodded and I paused as I noticed that a few kids that had wandered in had inched over to listen in. I smiled and showed that I was fine with others listening in.

“So, experience with this is something that if you’re sticking around a specific city for any amount of time will result in trainers getting to learn some of your tricks. For Ace trainers, this happens with us watching each other's matches in the lead-up while also reviewing what pokemon they have publicly listed or displayed.

“Now, where there is some overlap is that people can see what pokeballs you have and extrapolate certain degrees of information. It’s not listed on your public page, but if people watch enough matches they can start accumulating lists of which pokeballs are associated with which pokemon.”

“That would be rather tough to do when we’re out in public though, no?” Crystal asked doubtfully.

I locked my eyes with hers. “Depends on how much the person has to win from beating you, or if they just feel they don’t like you. Sometimes people can be irrational. Rivalries that are on the extreme scale would use this.”

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“Ohhhhh!” said Crystal as she understood. “So if I had my Eevee on display and A.J. wanted to snipe me, he could check my pokebelt or which pokemon I had out with me.”

I nodded and made a circling gesture. “Yes, you can also get people that will deliberately antagonise you in the hopes of making you use that very pokemon,” I said.

This caused the girls to nod while A.J. scoffed. “Sandshrew and I will just crush them right back!” he said.

I nodded in amusement, knowing that he wouldn’t be shying away from any fights and was going to probably run into a lot of walls where he didn’t need to, but if he wanted to do things his way that was on him.

“The other option, which a lot of the local Aces seemed to have adapted, is something I hadn’t thought of: hiding their pokebelts with coverings,” I said.

The group all nodded along at this, only for Yolanda to giggle, drawing people’s attention.

“Something to add?” I said, interested in what had her reacting like that.

“Well, it's just that finding out which pokeballs are on your belt doesn’t actually help,” she said. “You hide some of your pokeballs from view or in the small of your back where people don’t expect them from.” She grinned and I chuckled as she casually revealed a trick of mine that I’d used since I was on my Journey..

I coughed, pleased that she was observant enough to notice, but also not wanting to air the entirety of my trick, nor that I had the expanded limit of ten pokeballs to the public.

I gave the now larger group another look over and was amused to find that a camera crew had snuck in while I’d been writing out the points about hidden pokeball carriers.

I considered calling things to a close before deciding to shrug and run with it. I flicked Rachel a look and directed her to the camera crew to make sure they behaved.

“Right! So hiding some of my pokeballs, while working out for me partially today, is actually an old habit of mine that I adapted in response to rookie crushers,” I said with a smirk. “When I sauntered into a new town or city I would invariably get in some battles to test out my team. Some of the crushers back then would challenge me to four versus four or more matches and fake apologise when they thought I couldn’t match them.”

I raised a hand. “That is a bait tactic that plays on young trainers' pride in their pokemon, as the typical response for a young trainer is?”

I pointed at A.J. for an answer and he scoffed. “My pokemon are worth a hundred of some nobody!” he said, giving the perfect example with his response.

Yolanda giggled again and I nodded. “That is what they expect, and some of them will exploit it. Remember, these people make a lot of money off this, so they can field a very highly experienced team of pokemon,” I said.

A.J. frowned, growing if anything more reluctant to admit he was playing into the trope.

I just moved on. “If you can field a full team though, you can switch things up and put them on the back foot,” I said.

“So, that was prematch differences, what about during the match?” I said, opening the floor to my entourage.

“Sanchez starting for you was baited,” Missy said and I nodded.

“Arthur has a lot of flying types and pokemon that in another situation can be powerful. I was playing the odds, or betting on possible arrogance as he does typically start with them. Instead, Arthur understood what he was doing and potentially risking and instead opened with his Starter, Machamp.”

I wrote up Sanchez and listed out his typing and moves. “Now, Sanchez is a great pokemon to open with as if he can get an opening he can set up the field. That field set-up also relies on pokemon that can typically use flying type moves or wide-scale attacks to clear away before other pokemon can safely enter,” I said, highlighting Stealth Rock.

I sighed. “Sadly, Arthur had prepared well and was able to negate a lot of Sanchez’s strengths. He went on the attack straight away and kept us on the backfoot. Machamp… was a very strong pokemon, and the outcome didn’t surprise me,” I said with a sigh.

I considered that for a moment. Was I becoming predictable with Sanchez? He was one of the better opening move pokemon and I did enjoy getting him out for the chance to set off either a Stealth Rock or an Explosion. Hmmm, maybe that was the issue? He was safe. I’d need to consider that more.

A smile came over me as I considered what came next in the fight.

Selene came out and Arthur revealed his second ‘trump card’ regarding Cacturne. A perfect pokemon that I sadly had the answer to with Selene’s moveset. I didn’t go into depth explaining fairy typing again and its strengths, and I could see more than a few people in the crowd that were listening in looking confused. My desire to teach them warred with my desire to keep Selene’s ace in the hole up my sleeve for a moment before the latter won out. I moved on.

I continued sketching out the fight play-by-play and when I reached the point where Mismagius had taken the field A.J. raised his hand. “Did you really read the throw to work out what was about to happen?”

I blinked and recalled that moment.

I grinned, remembering the spike of certainty I’d had come over me when I’d seen his wrist twitch.

“Yup!” I said smugly.

A.J. blinked at me and for some reason Yolanda reached over to punch him. “See! I told you!” she said.

I shot her a nod. She really was coming along as a trainer with a lot of skills and insights. “Do you know what gave it away?” I asked her.

Yolanda licked her lips and made a face as she considered what she’d seen. “... something in his throwing action, or was it where he looked?” she said uncertainty. The crowd stirred at this and a round of murmurs took over the room. Yolanda blinked and glanced behind her only to twitch in surprise. Oh? She hadn’t noticed the room filling up? When A.J., Missy and Yolanda likewise reacted I flicked my eyes at the whiteboard. The talk hadn’t been that engrossing, had it?

I pushed those thoughts to the side. “Yes to the first, and while you can track where people are going to throw through their eyes, that’s not as doable with the pokemon stadium's fields. On smaller fields and sporting games it is possible but not what I used.”

I took a pokeball in hand and mimed throwing it directly. I then repeated the action, only changing the throw at the end. I then made a different throw, showing how position could be changed. “You can also read the body language that people give off, a good point of reference is to look where their hips or shoulders are lining up to get the best idea. This can change depending on sports or situations. Arthur hid a lot of his body language until after Mismagius went down,” I said.

“After that, you can tell he doesn’t rate his chances of winning,” I tapped the board. “He didn’t stop fighting though, why?”

“Pride?” called someone from the back of the room.

I nodded and wrote it down. “What else?” I said prompting more involvement, amused with how my debrief had turned into a teaching session.

I got a wide range of answers and I happily jotted them down. I didn’t stop when people got the answer I’d been looking for regarding the competition and the chances of us facing off again.

The other answers, such as fighting on, or looking for a mistake to flip the battle around were certainly acceptable. I laughed when someone proposed that he’d done it to impress a girl.

I had still written it up.

“Good reasons,” I said with a smirk and a laugh before progressing things along with what I’d need to consider for the next match and how I needed to improve.

We came up with a few points such as not being as predictable, to catching more pokemon, which earned a nod from me. It was a solution.

“This one is one that a lot of people may fall back on, but you have to remember that for the majority of trainers there is going to be a limit, so you should be careful with the pokemon you bring onto your teams. Compatibility with you and your team, capabilities to raise said pokemon and comradeship are all important to consider,” I said, writing down the points.

I was about to expand on those when my Xtranssicver buzzed. I glanced at it. “Ah, and that is sadly all the time I have today! We have a Teleport to catch gang!” I said, hustling my entourage to pack up.

Rachel jogged over with a smile on her lips and nodded when I glanced her way. “They were playing it straight. They’re a news crew that heard you were here. Came to talk but they seemed very pleased to catch your lecture instead,” she said, offering up what looked like a local news anchor’s business card.

“Huh, neat,” I said, turning the card over and inspecting it.

Yolanda jogged up to me with a wide smile and I eyed her. “What’s up?”

“Nothing! You’re just smiling,” she said, pointing at herself and I realised I was and that she was merely mirroring me.

“Eh,” I shrugged, enjoying how loose my shoulders felt. “I feel pretty good about today. It was a good day,” I said with a grin. “Tomorrow is looking good, what’s not to like?”

“I think it’s because you had a pretty good match and you got to lecture,” she said as we jogged into the Teleporter hall where we were met with a receptionist. She quickly guided us to a trio of Hypno who nodded politely before we vanished in a flash of Teleport.

We appeared in front of the Pewter Gym and I thanked the Hypnos before they vanished in another Teleport. I played with what Yolanda had said as I bid the others goodbye for the afternoon.

I was feeling pretty good after the match with Arthur, more so than usual, and while getting the chance to educate a lot of trainers had been nice, I was already feeling good.

“I think,” I said slowly, sounding the words out and drawing Yolanda’s attention back to me as we walked towards the front entrance to our house. “That the fight was good, both in that we won, but also in that there was a… trainer difference, today.”

“What do you mean by that?” Yolanda said, pausing to turn and watch me with interest.

I waved a hand, slowing to stand in the entryway of the garden. I could see Nanny Grav watering our garden of Lileep and Cradily “Arthur has pokemon that are on par with mine.”

I rubbed my chin and considered what I’d seen. “Or at least close enough that it is debatable. I’d faced this before with a few matches and I’ve spoken about the top ten or even top twenty trainers being better, but it was really on display and that excites me, but mostly I think I’m happy…because the difference was me as a trainer. I could have played things better, especially at the beginning, but we countered and rose to the occasion. I had the answers, I’d done the research with my entourage, I was able to pick up on his plays and counter plays and just negate them. Today, I felt like I was syncing up with my team.”

Yolanda nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think you’re right, you had the options and plans going in, and while things didn’t start off as you might have liked, you did make the difference in a lot of notable ways.” She reached up, stretching onto her tiptoes to pat my head. “Good job,” she said with a grin and I huffed at her.

“You’re messing up my hair!” I fake whined at her, earning myself a giggle and a swat.

“Well it’ll help keep boys away from you!” she said in a fake gruff-sounding voice.

“I never said that,” I said with a raised eyebrow, knowing that it was one of the points of advice that I’d read in the parenting books that I’d implemented.

Yolanda adopted a stern expression. “I never said that,” she mimed back at me and I snorted, recalling fake meme images of Morgan Freeman quoting him as saying just that. With his iconic voice you could turn heads. I tried adopting it and rumbled. “I didn’t say that,” I said with as much smooth velvetiness as I could.

Yolanda squinted at me and tried to make her voice gruffer, even going so far as to hunch in on herself. “I didn’t say that,” she almost grunted out.

I chuckled and dragged her into a hug before making my way towards the house to enjoy some family time. I released my pokemon in the garden.

They all appeared with a snort and shake of their heads. Sanchez perked up and glanced around, when he locked eyes with me I nodded. This got him to relax and a grin to break over his face.

“Go? Go lem?” he cried when he spied Nanny Grav in her apron. He snatched up a bunch of Lileep and held them out to her like he was wooing her, earning himself some giggles. Nanny Grav pretended to sniff them only to fall on her back and faint.

Sanchez sniffed the Lileep and copied her a moment later, only for both of them to shoot to their feet and laugh.

I chuckled and turned my attention to Titan, whose gaze I’d been able to feel as soon as he’d come out. I paid a little more attention to our bond and found it had changed from the fight.

I sent Titan an impression of growth and he replied in kind before looking in another direction. I felt the bond shift as he fed me his point of view.

My mind swam with the extra senses available to me. To Titan the world was sharper, with smells and some colours that stood out to him while others were muted.

I sat down and shook my head. Then I looked in the other direction and sent my own view of the garden.

Titan crooned in surprise, and I felt his body stiffen up through the bond.

Huh, so we could share the other’s senses if we wanted to? Interesting. I sent Titan a more complex idea, how he could move and shift. I’d done something vaguely the same with a bit of training against Pryce, but that had been nothing compared to this.

Now I felt like we were practically of one mind.

This… had some serious implications. Would I even need to give Titan verbal orders any more?

Wait, there had been something like this in the anime, hadn't there?

Between Ash and his Greninja.

Shock ran through me and Titan stiffened, turning to check on me, only to get a feel of the excitement coursing through me. This was going to be so much more than just sharing senses and having a tactical improvement.

This… this was a Bond Phenomenon.

The implications were huge and I shared a huge grin with Titan.

Damn if finding him a mega stone hadn’t just grown even more important for us.

I toyed with the Bond for a little while longer, enjoying the closeness it brought to my closest friend.

“Hey bro! Come play Hide and Seek with us! Titan and you can pair up!” shouted Salvadore.

Titan and I shared a smirk.

Titan and I used the bond to hunt for my family and the other pokemon. With our combined senses and awareness it became all too easy to track everyone down.

Titan and I took a moment to relax after the game, enjoying the knowledge that we had grown closer.

We watched another round of games between my siblings and pokemon. The noise drew in the younger pokemon to my Elite team with Zubat leading the charge into my face. When she slammed a hug into my face I was amused to find Titan reeling back as I forgot to stop feeding him my point of view.

I dimmed the bond a little and allowed myself to return to normal. Titan nodded at me and then nodded his head to Bertha, causing me to sigh in relief. If he was going to get intimate I didn’t want to feel that.

Not that they were going to do anything in front of the kids. Dinner that evening was a shared event, with us setting up in the garden. Bertha happily took the head of the table with Cindy sitting next to her.

When Sabrina came around, she congratulated me on my win with a kiss and levitating me a burger and drink while sitting next to me. I chuckled, amused at how she’d gotten me some food without having to lift a finger. Having a psychic girlfriend certainly had some perks.

Later that night we relaxed with a movie and I went to bed with Sabrina.

Plans for tomorrow swirled about in my mind, only to be rudely ripped from my slumbering mind as an alarm went off, causing Sabrina and I to stir at what must have been midnight.

I dragged open my bedside drawers to find the Guardians’ holopad raising a racket. I tapped it and Koga’s visage appeared on the scene.

“Brock, we have a situation. Team Aqua just made landfall on New Island, we need to get there now!” he said and I felt my stomach drop out.

A military group landing on an island with a possible volatile pokemon like Mewtwo?

This… was the very definition of not good.