MatsubaEnju’s two-word response sat front and center on the computer screen as Sam blankly stared forward.
“It’s... real,” he whispered.
He had known it probably was back when he checked it against a Pokédex, but it took seeing a completely alien source confirming it for everything to fit together in his mind.
It took several full seconds for his thoughts to settle down before Sam jumped up and rushed to his bedroom’s ladder.
“Cyndaquil!” he shouted. “It’s real! We can use the information!”
He scurried upstairs and practically body-slammed his desk chair. It spun in place, letting him face the table of his desk, where the New Pokédex was laid out in front of him.
“Let’s see... Cyndaquil... On page... Wow, that’s far in.”
He hurriedly flipped through as his Pokémon woke up on the bed next to him. She smacked her lips and waddled over, where she clumsily climbed up onto the desk only to fall into Sam’s lap and resume her slumber.
“Information about your evolutions are on the next few pages, but we don’t need to worry about that right now. Instead, we can look at what you can learn as a Cyndaquil and maybe your abilities, too. I know in the base Pokédex—man, I can’t believe I’m already calling a modern text the ‘base’ version—you have a limited list of learnable moves. There, other than what you already know, you could learn Quick Attack, Flame Wheel, Swift, and Flamethrower. Here, you can learn...”
Sam breathed out when he saw the expansive list before him. More moves than he thought available were listed, and there were many he had never heard of.
“Flame Charge? Lava Plume? Inferno? Heck, you can learn Rollout!”
They all sounded extremely powerful, and he couldn’t wait to get started.
“What about your abilities? The base book just states you get Blaze.”
Blaze was an ability that would let Cyndaquil empower her Fire Type moves when in a state close to unconsciousness. It was still listed as a potential ability in his grandfather’s book, but next to it, it stated she could gain the ability “Flash Fire.”
“...That’s incredible,” Sam breathed. “With a bit of work, you could become utterly immune to other Fire Type moves. Not just that, but when hit by one, you could learn to use that heat to empower yourself!”
Sam couldn’t help but to laugh. This book was incredible. Literally no one else in the world knew this kind of stuff. It was an incredible advantage.
“Everything all right up there?” called his tired mother from below.
“Everything’s great, mom!” Sam shouted. “Everything’s perfect, actually!”
He laughed again and started to scratch Cyndaquil affectionately. She was still half asleep, but she looked up at him and smiled.
“There’s not much in the way of actual training tips in here, but it gives me ideas for how we can move forward. I said three days until our battle with Buck, so we have today and tomorrow to train until then. To start, let’s start with the basics. I want to make sure we can handle proper commands.”
Back at the mansion, Cyndaquil had frozen when she and Sam had encountered Whismur. As simple as it was, Sam needed to make sure they could work together with an instinctual reaction to commands. When Sam shouted a move, Cyndaquil needed to be ready to act. At the same time, he needed to learn how to phrase things to get the best response out of her in battle.
“I need a tool for this. A clicker, I think,” he mumbled.
Clickers let Sam make a loud noise with the press of his finger. Getting Cyndaquil to react to that noise would be a good start, and then they could shift to issuing and following commands once she got a base reaction down.
“Alright Cyndaquil, we’re going to the Pokémart. Wake up!”
Sam placed her on the bed as he started to get dressed and grab his backpack. Cyndaquil groaned as she pushed herself up, but she stumbled and fell back down. Sam had to pause and recognize he was running off of nervous excitement. As it stood, neither of them had eaten breakfast yet.
One hearty meal and a shout of thanks to his mother later, Sam and Cyndaquil were out of the house. Once more, she was riding in his jacket’s hood as Sam practically charged down the street.
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“When practicing commands, we can work double-time, too,” Sam said, so many ideas coming together in his mind. “Knowing what Fire Type moves you’ll eventually learn can shape what we practice. Already, I can see it's worth working on Ember to train your special power and aim.”
He was practically humming as he strode down the street. He wasn’t exactly running, but he was definitely moving much faster than everyone else around him.
The Pokémart was located only a few blocks away, just like every other point of interest in this small town. Its blue roof made it stand out from the surrounding, red-brick buildings, and its clear, glass doors welcomed in all potential customers. Yet, despite all of that, Dewford’s Pokémart was as standard as Pokémarts could come. It served as a Pokémon League-subsidized market that sold goods for trainers of every form. In fact, the building was where Sam and his mom bought food for their Pokémon. Though, this time around, he’d be buying actual training supplies.
A pair of automatic doors slid open as Sam arrived at the store. He gripped the strap of his backpack and felt the weight of the New Pokédex as he took a step in. He immediately stopped where he stood when he saw a familiar man leaning against the Pokémart’s front counter.
“Oh, it’s you! Mark and I were just talking about our battle coming up.”
Sam’s mood immediately soured. He glared at Buck with all of the hatred he could muster.
“Oh yeah?” Sam asked tersely.
“Yup. Told him about how you challenged me to make a purchase in your store.”
Sam’s eye twitched.
“Ah, it’s a pretty simple deal all together,” Buck continued. “I buy a buncha books if he wins. I get it all half off when I win.”
The tanned Gym Trainer laughed heartily. At his side, the apron-wearing Pokémart employee had on his best customer-service smile.
“Will you need help finding what you need?” the employee asked Sam.
“I’ll be fine,” Sam replied, tense.
Buck just grinned as Sam marched into an aisle. He did his best to focus on finding what he wanted to purchase instead of that awful man.
“You know, I’m kind of surprised you’re actually taking this seriously. I was just training at Granite Cave and I didn’t see you there,” Buck said. “That’s where all the real Pokémon trainers in these parts go to practice. Novices usually stick to public fields outside of Pokémon Centers. Or absolute beginners practice around their home.”
Sam bit his tongue rather than responding.
I was planning on working with Cyndaquil in the alley out back.
He stared at the rows and rows of tools related to Pokémon training, but he was unable to pick any of them out. Buck’s taunting tone echoed in his ears, and Sam couldn’t stop himself from clenching his fists.
“Well, whatever,” the man said, pushing off of the counter. “New Gym Leader means new workout routines, too. He’s still getting everything set up.”
Buck walked over to the door of the Pokémart and pointed a set of finger-guns at the worker, a brilliant smile on his face.
“Be seeing you, Mark! I’ll send someone to pick up our purchase later!”
The sound of the automatic door opening and closing signaled the man leaving. Yet, even with Buck’s absence, Sam could only stare blankly forward. From behind the front counter, the Pokémart employee sighed.
“I’m... sorry about that. He’s been letting his new position get to his head. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”
Yeah, punch him for me.
But Sam didn’t say that. Instead, he continued to stare.
No one else was inside of this Pokémart. It was only Sam, Cyndaquil, and the Pokémart employee. Slowly, he bent down, pretending to look at the items on the lowest shelf. Instead, he pulled his backpack to be in front of his arm. Then, he began to retrieve a certain, impossible book.
“Do you trust me, Cyndaquil?”
She leaned forward from his hood, letting him see her, and then she nodded her head.
“Good. Because I want to crush that man. And two days of training isn’t enough. Instead...”
Sam flipped through the pages, bringing the full brunt of his secret weapon to bear. Cyndaquil silently watched from over his shoulder as Sam determinedly searched for a species he could use.
Shuppet was out—the Hoenn-native species couldn’t be found on this island.
Duskull wasn’t available either—this book might have been oddly specific about where Pokémon lived, but as far as Sam could tell, there weren’t any other Ghost Types available on Dewford.
Then, however, Sam went for a long-shot and looked for one last Hoenn-native species he was aware of: Sableye. Normally, Pokédexes only listed it as appearing in the non-specific location of “caves.”
Here in this book? When Sam flipped to the entry on Sableye, its location could not be clearer.
“It’s in the place Buck just mentioned. Granite Cave.”
As Buck was a Dewford Gym Trainer, he shared a speciality with the Gym’s favored Type. He didn’t just have a few Fighting Type Pokémon, but likely, they were all he trained. For this upcoming match, Sam knew the man would be using the Fighting Type Makuhita. He was also unlikely to field any alternatively-Typed surprise.
With that information in mind, Sam thought back to the Ghost Type. When it came to its effectiveness in battle, one of the many reasons he liked it so much was that most ghosts were great at phasing through basic physical attacks. Not just that, but the Ghost Type was specifically immune to both Normal and Fighting Type moves—the two Types of moves Buck would likely rely on in their fight.
There was more to it as well, as Sableye was even better than that. Not only was it a Ghost Type, but Sableye also was part Dark Type, which let it resist Types it would otherwise be weak to. It had no weaknesses, which meant that it was the perfect counter to anything Buck sent out. In other words, catching one would let Sam destroy that man.
He was already planning out viable strategies in his mind.
Quickly, with the book confirming this choice for him, Sam rushed to gather up a different set of supplies.
An Escape Rope.
A Potion.
A can of powdered quartz.
And as for the most important item, Sam already had one. Still in his pocket was the unused Pokéball intended for the Ghost Type in the mansion that never came.
Though, even without the Pokéball, the sum of the purchase drained Sam of all of his savings. He had already spent over two-hundred dollars, and this took everything else he had. In a way, choosing to suddenly shift gears towards catching a Sableye might have been an abrupt move to make. Yet, Sam knew and lived the Ghost Type. There was no doubt in his mind that catching one would absolutely guarantee the win he sought.
“...You okay there?” the Pokémart employee asked.
Sam looked up.
“Oh, huh? Yeah, I’m fine.”
The man looked unconvinced, but he still scanned the items and took Sam’s cash. Once the transaction was completed, Sam scooped it all up and moved to march out the door.
“Hey!”
Sam paused when the Pokémart employee called out to him.
“You... Don’t do anything stupid, alright?”
Sam grinned.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t think anything I do can be considered stupid, anymore.”