CHAPTER 247

"I think you've got to penetrate the ground and, uh, absorb the nutrients. You can try to use Solar Blade to make it quicker. It's a lot more efficient at stabbing than Power Whip."

Angel nodded, and a bright light slowly overtook his vines. Our Solar Blade was still clumsy and slow to charge, especially on a cloudy day like this one, but even with the sun, the move wasn't really usable in battle yet. The principle behind Solar Blade and Solar Beam was the same: draw upon the sun for energy to charge your attack. That was where the similarities ended, however. As it turned out, Solar Blade required far more control over that energy than Solar Beam because while the beam was just letting the attack loose once he'd gathered enough of the sun's energy, Solar Blade needed fine control to work. Coating a vine with the power without it exploding all over the place had proved a challenge in the weeks Angel had started to learn the move.

Now, though, he had a grasp on it good enough to avoid any accidental explosions, but even with the sun, he wouldn't be able to use Solar Blade that quickly out of fear of the attack blowing up and hurting him.

Tangrowth stabbed eight vines coated with Solar Blade deep into route 213's soft soil. It was hard to tell if he was regenerating or not because, well, he hadn't actually been hurt, but he did say he was feeling something, and his vines were growing slightly longer, kind of like someone with overgrown hair.

I did need a haircut, come to think of it. I ran my hands through my puffy hair and hummed. We'd gone to train right after Barry had challenged us, and Princess had flown me to an isolated spot that was still on the route. It was a small clearing in the middle of a well-maintained forest a few miles inland away from the beach. I did avoid route 212, because that was where the poachers were located. I'd heard online that the route was practically a ghost town nowadays. It had already been somewhat empty before this whole situation because the swampy part of the route was one of the most dangerous spots in Sinnoh, but even the stretch going up to Hearthome was empty.

While Angel was experimenting on Ingrain and practicing Solar Blade at the same time, Princess practiced her aim while flying as fast as she could, hitting boulders she had set up with Ancient Power with Air Slash and Charge Beam from a distance, and practicing with flying TE in general. She had a lot of catching up to do to stand up to flying types of our level, but she was chugging along. Eventually, though, I would like for her to delve into Tri Attack. It wasn't the attack as a whole that interested me, but the individual blasts of electricity, fire and ice themselves. They would serve as an excellent base for Princess' future foray into elemental attacks. Togekiss could learn things like Flamethrower through TMs, and knowing how to handle weaker versions of those moves would speed up the learning process. I thought that for now, however, it would be best to bring her up to speed with the techniques that every flying type of a high level needed to compete in the air.

Buddy's Will-O-Wisp and Sludge Bomb were coming along alright. The water type had never been this challenged when learning a move. Sludge Bomb was easy. It was just a natural progression to Acid, except that it was larger and was supposed to explode when it landed, which meant that he'd need a better grasp at manipulating poison TE. But Will-O-Wisp? Jellicent's eyes shone bright red as he summoned another wave of the cold, purple flames in the distance. They screamed— some in joy, others in sorrow or agony— but summoning the flames wasn't the problem. In fact, he could do it quite easily at this point.

It was getting them to listen that was.

There was a reason he was so far and isolated from us. Two of the Will-O-Wisps entered his own body and burned him while the rest scattered in every direction. Luckily, he'd gotten good at at least sending them back to wherever it was they came from before they could run off. The wisps usually died off after two minutes or so, being unable to sustain themselves in our world for long.

Where did Will-O-Wisp come from, actually? The Dusk? Bellatrix had told us that ghosts drew power from another plane of existence, so the logical conclusion was that Will-O-Wisps also came from there.

But what the hell even were they? Half-formed ghosts? They had voices but I wasn't sure if they were real, conscious beings or just pretending to be.

Well, maybe that'd be another question for Mathilda. I doubted Bella would answer me for free.

Sweetheart was working on Stone Edge. The move's concept was simple— sharpening rocks and having them burst out of the ground— but it actually had a lot of applications that Rock Slide just couldn't fill. Precision and speed were two, but most of all, a Pokemon that knew Stone Edge well enough could basically do whatever they wanted with rocks, sort of like what Princess did with Ancient Power except they wouldn't be able to shape them like she did.

The team was very hard at work, as always. Not just because of the fight with Barry, but because of Wake too. He tended to be underestimated by trainers later in their Circuit because he wasn't the best Gym Leader in terms of skill or power, but even then, people often forgot that still meant he was far better than the vast majority of trainers and certainly he would be an incredible mountain to climb.

Today, though, was about my research on Barry Lane. I sat back on the ground a few feet away from Angel with my laptop on my lap and hummed a little song as I looked up some of his battles. There were actually a lot more than I expected to find, mostly because he did actually battle people in cities whenever he stayed there— mostly second and third years these days, because he'd crush any first year at this point. People weren't going to refuse a challenge from Palmer Lane's kid. Of course, there was nowhere near the amount of video footage that other trainers usually had. I'd say he had a similar number of appearances as I did, except I battled my friends and he battled strangers.

So I looked up and studied the first battle… then another, and another. I tried to keep the battles recent so I'd learn his Pokemon's moves as well as his style, but the problem was that Barry was a different person in every single fight. Sometimes, the differences were stark, like going from having a slow, stalling strategy against Maylene where he controlled the field to an all-out blitz against Volkner, but most of the time, they were subtle changes that only a good eye would catch.

At first I thought he'd be like Candice. That there'd be patterns or categories I could slot him in, and to an extent there were, but this was like Candice on steroids. Sometimes he would completely switch up a strategy mid-battle too, even if it wasn't failing completely. Other times, he'd create a brand new move, use it once and then never use it again. The sheer amount of creativity and techniques Barry had was mind-bogglingly large, and whenever he battled, he seemed to do so on pure instinct.

But I did not despair, nor did I think victory was impossible. First, I had a lot more firepower than he had with Honey and Sunshine, and I had come far from the days where I'd been almost incapable of thinking on my feet or dealing with new elements in battle.

"Let's look at that Empoleon…" I muttered.

Empoleon, Staraptor, Roserade, Rapidash, Heracross— Barry's team was quite simple in theory, although that newly-evolved Snorlax was going to be a big problem. Granted, the normal type was also getting used to his new body just like Honey and Princess were, so that equalized the playing field a little bit. He had only been seen in a single fight three days ago, and he moved very clumsily.

Empoleon— a master of steel and ice moves (he could actually shape ice however he wanted), and excellent with water too. Surprisingly one of Barry's fastest Pokemon due to how quick he moved on ice, I mused as I watched the water type battle against Volkner. He also knew a bunch of coverage moves, but that was honestly all of Barry's team. I assumed that his sponsorship with Professor Rowan meant that he had gotten a lot of TMs to use on his Pokemon. As it stood, Empoleon wasn't that big of a problem compared to the rest of what was on Barry's team, but he did know Roost, which meant that combined with ice type moves to slow his opponent, Empoleon could excel in long, drawn-out slogs.

Granted, he could also crash into you with Liquidation or Drill Peck and destroy your Pokemon quickly too.

Staraptor was a scrapper. Not a massive hitter like Cecilia's Talonflame, but someone who could be a lot more consistent while she fought. She focused on maneuvering instead of speed, which meant that Barry could do a lot of strange stuff with her. Strangely enough, she was also Barry's main way of setting up the weather, with Rain Dance, Sunny Day and a bootleg version of Sandstorm that was still relatively weak.

In a battle he'd fought and lost against a third year in Sunyshore, Barry's Staraptor had spent half of it grounded and fought with Close Combat, Acrobatics and Steel Wing. Against Maylene, Staraptor had used Sunny Day and Heat Wave to completely neutralize the same Lucario I'd fought and had forced her to switch. As it stood, she would dominate Princess in the air, so I'd have to come up with something else to deal with her.

"To be honest, Staraptor fights more like a Togekiss than an actual Staraptor," I muttered.

Angel twitched next to me.

"Stay focused," I said. "I'll talk to everyone about Barry later."

Togekiss were known for the sheer versatility of their moves and fighting styles, and that was where Barry had taken his Staraptor, it seemed.

Staraptor even knows Ominous Wind, I thought, feeling slightly impressed. Using ghost type techniques for a non-ghost was extremely difficult, even with TMs. There was a reason Princess didn't use Shadow Ball very much. It was much too slow to charge, too weak, and too difficult to control. I did plan on working on it eventually, but it wasn't anywhere near what we prioritized at the moment.

"Roserade next," I said. It didn't take long to find a video with her, seeing as she carried Barry for most of the fight against Volkner.

What if Denzel's Roserade had focused on grass instead of poison? That was basically what Barry's Roserade was. A master at using grass in a multitude of unique ways. She didn't use many moves save for Leaf Storm, spores, Seed Bomb and Petal Blizzard. The rest was all Barry telling her to do some wild thing, and her somehow following up on that. She could extend thick, thorny vines from her flowers that served as extended arms and whips. Luckily, she seemed nowhere as sturdy as Denzel's Roserade. She traded that weakness for mobility, though. The poison type liked to use Grassy Terrain and Grassy Glide to move around.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Rapidash was where things really got wild. The fire type wasn't exactly Barry's ace from the videos I could see, but he might as well have been.

First of all, he could fly.

Fly might have been a strange way of putting it. Rapidash could jump in the air with Bounce as many times as he wanted. Thankfully, he wasn't fast when he did it, but he could land back on the ground to gain momentum before quickly jumping back into the sky with a surprising amount of speed.

"Arceus, it looks so wrong," I chuckled. Rapidash casually hopped in the air, raining down flames into Maylene's arena.

There was a drawback to Rapidash having focused on the technique for what I assumed was months. He was Barry's only Pokemon that was somewhat predictable and didn't have much else under his sleeve. Hypnosis was kind of scary, but he needed a long time to get it off. There was also Solar Beam and Charge Beam to deal with water types, but other than that, Rapidash was focused on what he did best. Fire and flight.

Heracross was another one of his fliers. The species were normally only capable of crude flight unless they were mega evolved, but he had mastered it in his own right. He was also adept at using sound-based attacks through his wings, which meant that my orders might be obscured while he was out. The problem with Heracross wasn't as much the variety of his moves, but the fact that if he ever got close to your Pokemon, you were in trouble, especially with Swords Dance.

Sunshine and Honey would be a great counter for him.

Last but not least, Snorlax, who I'd seen in exactly one battle. There wasn't much to go off of with him, but I could at least learn his moves. What I knew from Craig's own Snorlax was that they were incredibly resistant to all attacks. Fire, frost, electricity, any elemental attack wouldn't go past their layer of fat. Snorlax was the only one of Barry's Pokemon who I thought Sunshine couldn't take on through his passive heat. Lava would hurt, but it wouldn't be game-changing. Stabbing him with elongated spears would just have them bounce back before they did any real damage or they'd get stuck in his fat.

I knew there was a solution to all of these issues. I would just have to come in with an outlined plan and keep up with Barry's pace and switch-ups. I didn't want to just react, however, and there were plenty of things I could do to assert my presence on the field.

I opened an empty page of notes and began planning.

—

"Gah! This is so fucking hard!" I groaned, clenching at my hair. "I've never experienced this before!"

Angel, who was taking a break from his Ingrain training, caressed my hair and unruffled it. Every single time I felt like I was planning something correctly, I realized that it wouldn't work. The main issue was that Sunshine and Honey were pivotal in this fight, but they were only two and Barry had six Pokemon. That wasn't to say that the others would be useless, but Electivire and Turtonator needed to be my lynchpins, while all of Barry's Pokemon could serve as one.

"Relax," I sighed. "Look at the big picture."

What if I used them as a battering ram to turn the tide of the battle? They were no doubt my two most powerful Pokemon at the moment, and should there be a stalemate or Barry gained the advantage, they'd help me kick the door down, so to speak. I was going into this half-blind, but one thing was for sure, Sunshine and Honey would force Barry to react.

"Well, I might as well take a break too," I said with a stretch. "Angel, you hungry?"

The grass type shook his head, but said he'd be willing to eat anything I made. All of those Ingrain had given him the nutrients he needed.

"Okay, gather up the others," I said. "I'll have Princess fly me back to the Center and I'll make something for you guys… wait, my phone is ringing."

Melody again, I thought. Already? She'd told me it would take a few days.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"Regarding your political aspirations, a decision was taken. You will be allowed to join the United Pokemon Advocacy Network."

I raised an eyebrow. "That was fast."

"Well, the UPAN is widely known across eastern Sinnoh. I was expecting you to send me more choices akin to the Pokemon Freedom Alliance and more obscure organizations that would take a while to vet, but you went with a moderate, popular choice. I'm very proud of you."

"Thanks?" I hesitated. "So the PFA's a no-go? They have pretty decent ideas."

"Obviously it's a no-go. It's not just about their policies, but the way they conduct themselves— or at least that's what my colleague said. I've been too busy to look into it."

"What's new?" I asked, gesturing to my team. Angel had gotten distracted and tried to get Princess to blow him with the most powerful gust of wind she could muster. When my Pokemon noticed, they started to make their way toward me. "I mean, obviously you're taking care of me, but what's got you so busy?"

"Oh, meetings that could be emails about the plan of actions to counter the sanctions," she said. I easily visualized her rolling her eyes. "Don't worry about it. Nothing will change regarding your salary."

"Got it," I nodded.

"By the way, nice music stunt," she said. "Someone recorded it and posted it online. You're trending on Chatter, and you were wearing your Poketch Watch."

"Someone recorded that?" I shrunk. "I was playing like garbage! This sucks."

"You were playing okay," she said. "And it's a striking image that'll stick in people's minds."

"As long as the board is happy," I muttered. "Um, are you going to be flying to Pastoria? It's been a while since I've seen you."

"Aw."

"Don't aw me," I quickly said.

"Sorry, that wasn't a conscious aw," she laughed. "I'm afraid I won't be able to see you, though. I'll be stuck in Jubilife for the next few months. Do you think you'll have time to pass by the city during your off-the-grid flight that you warned me about?"

"Uh, maybe when I'm done with the entire thing and I'm on my way to Canalave. Why?"

"The board would like to meet you. Both with and without Craig."

I froze, not knowing how to answer.

"It isn't that intimidating. I'll help you before the meeting."

"You're telling me that meeting my bosses isn't intimidating?" I scoffed.

"Look at the bright side, you'll see me there."

"Great," I sarcastically said. "What will it be about?"

"Transition procedures, mostly. That really is what it is. Procedure," she said, emphasizing the word. "You'll be fine."

"Okay. I got it," I said.

"The board would like a tentative date for the meeting. Craig has already agreed upon the 25th of April, but early May should work as well."

"Early May works a lot better," I said. "Plus, it'll only be one afternoon, right? If I get to Canalave early, I'd be able to fly back to Jubilife if needed."

And by then, I'd be able to walk, I willfully thought. "Okay, Mel, I'll leave you to work— wait! Actually, I'm going to be battling Barry Lane in public in two days. Is that fine?"

"What?"

"I'm battling Barry Lane."

"Palmer's son? The only trainer on the Circuit sponsored by Professor Rowan?!"

"Yeah! Why are we screaming?!"

"Legendaries…"

"It was spontaneous! He asked me out of the blue today."

"Okay. Okay," she breathed. "Can you stream this?"

"Stream? I don't even know how any of that works," I said. "I guess I could ask Denzel for help."

"Excellent! And don't worry about your showing! Even if you lose, this'll bring us so many views that it'd make up for any result!"

"I'm going to win," I declared.

"I never said otherwise. Good luck out there! And enjoy your time at the UPAN."

"Will do."

Yep, she'd definitely freak out when she realized Honey had evolved.

I hung up, and after recalling my team, I was on my way back to Pastoria on Princess' back.

—

After feeding my team some kibble mixed in with their vitamins, I had Angel carry me to the UPAN's building, which was situated in Pastoria's city center close to the port. It was about time for me to start specializing with my team's vitamins too. Sunshine was already doing so since he'd been with Kamaile before, but the rest of my team had been eating every vitamin to give them a good base to build off of, as I'd seen online and Cecilia had told me all the way back when we had traveled in Eterna Forest.

With Angel, for example, I would prioritize Magnesium and Zinc. His defenses were already high, and special attacks were mostly what we had to worry about. With Princess, Carbos and Calcium to focus on speed and special attack. Sweetheart would get Protein and Iron, Buddy Magnesium and Calcium, Honey Carbos and Calcium. Sunshine was already taking Calcium and Magnesium, so there would be no changes there.

The UPAN Pastoria building looked quite large and wealthy. It looked like one of those old buildings you sometimes found in Canalave. It was old. Pastoria, like Canalave and Sandgem, was among the oldest in Sinnoh. The history book I read most nights with Buddy did state that the earliest settlers had come from Johto south of us, so them having created towns south of the region on the coast at first made sense. Of course, the majority of these towns had been lost to time. War, disease, Pokemon attacks, the world was unforgiving back then.

The facade was made of beige bricks whose colors had chipped away with time, and the roof was made of old, gently sloped rusty clay tiles. Many small, decorated windows littered the front of the building, and small pockets of vegetation were growing through the cracks in the building. There was no banner or sign advertising that this place belonged to the UPAN, and I had to double-check to make sure I'd come to the correct address.

"I guess this really is the place," I muttered, looking up from my phone. "You can let me down, Angel."

Tangrowth gently placed me on the floor and handed me my crutches and my backpack. I'd dropped off my piano at the Center, since I knew I'd be going inside of a building and didn't want to walk with that extra weight. After recalling Angel, I stepped inside of UPAN headquarters. It wasn't full of activity as I had expected. There were only a few people inside, and most looked bored out of their minds. The interior had been hollowed out and renovated to look a lot more modern, even if the ground was still made of plywood and the walls still had this old feel to them. The furniture looked completely out of place, as did the lights on the ceiling.

Seeing as there was no reception for any questions I might have, I decided to ask one of the faces there. I approached an older-looking teenager— although I could tell he was still a trainer thanks to the two Pokeballs he carried. He had a buzz cut, dark hair and he was so engrossed in his phone that he didn't even notice I was in front of him.

"Uh, hi? I need help?" I tried.

He lifted his eyes up at me, and I saw something shift in his eyes. He recognized me, I realized.

"Sure, what's up?" He asked. "You're Grace Pastel, right?"

"Yup. I'd like to— well, join might be too fast, but I'd like to look into the UPAN. It's pretty empty… uh, is anything going on?"

"Not at the moment, no," he said, straightening up. "My name is Alex Gilliam," he extended his hand, and I shook it. "I'm a member, but I don't have the authority to let you join. That'd be Harley Webb. She's at the head of the UPAN's Pastoria division. She's a little busy at the moment, but I could go knock on the door of her office."

"I mean, if she's busy I can always come back later," I shrugged.

"No! No, stay here, okay. Grab a seat, I'll be right back," Alex blurted out.

"Okay."

He ran off into a hallway, and I heard him jump up some stairs. Parts of me almost wished I could spy on whatever he'd say with Buddy, but I didn't want to be rude or get kicked out of this office before I even talked to the leader here. Alex seemed way more excited than I thought he'd be. I was a famous trainer, but I hadn't really been involved in the Pokemon Rights scene before. Maybe he thought that my experiences with wild Pokemon would be able to help them advance their cause, and that was certainly what I believed, at least. With my ability to actually speak to Pokemon without a psychic, I could make things a lot easier for the UPAN. I sat down and ignored the stares of the other four people in the room.

Alex came back five minutes later with an older-looking woman— in her early thirties, so around Melody's age, if I had to guess. She had shoulder-length, frizzy brown hair and wore really thick glasses. She had no Pokemon of her own, or at least none that I could see with her.

I shot up from my seat to greet her.

"Grace Pastel," she said, looking at me from head to toe. "Good afternoon. I hope Alex wasn't rude to you or anything—" the dark-skinned teen besides her shrunk. "My name is Harley Webb, but you can call me Ms. Webb."

Right, I thought. I wasn't exactly used to calling adults like that anymore.

"Nice to meet you, Ms. Webb. And Alex, again," I said. "I'd like to look into the UPAN?"

Ms. Webb exhaled. "You're not coming at a great time. We've been largely inactive since… the crackdowns in the Directorate. Any societal pressure is shut down. We cannot do much at the moment, but…"

Ms. Webb tapped her chin and smirked, narrowing her eyes.

"We'll take you in. Have Alex show you around," she gestured at him. "I was busy coordinating with the rest of the UPAN leadership on how to go forward, so I'll get back to it."

I turned to Alex, who stared blankly in my direction, as if he hadn't expected Ms. Webb to leave him alone with me.

"Well, I guess I will show you around," he shrugged.

I looked down at my leg and crutches. "Do you think I could fit a Tangrowth in here?"