Drake gasped, the Dark aura dropping from him for the third time in the last twenty minutes. I hit the button on the stopwatch: two minutes and thirty-three seconds. Ten seconds better than last time, but I could see him tiring out, and I doubted we’d get better results from trying again.

The past four days had been non-stop. I wasn’t a stranger to going almost straight to work the moment I was awake, but Drake seemed to struggle quite a bit from the abrupt change. I’d guessed sitting in one place for a month had taken its toll on him. Still, he had put himself to the task with a single-minded determination that was almost scary, refusing to back down from any task or exercise Blake had assigned him. He seemed particularly staunch when Jive was watching, and I wondered if my hyena was specifically looking to impress the more experienced Dark-type.

Testing had revealed that Drake had impressive output and above-average speed and ability to strike with type energy for his evolutionary stage, but that was balanced by a lack of sustain. He could muster the Dark type energy for a snarl, and a pretty good one at that, but could only handle perhaps two or three before his reserves were just about depleted. In addition, he had difficulty holding Dark TE in his aura, a technique that, according to Blake, was suggested after rank four and absolutely required to compete in any meaningful way after rank six. From his guesses, Drake was about a rank two, approximately equal in battle capability to two-badge trainers and Gym Pokemon.

His spars with Jive, mostly to let the other Dark-type get a feel for what Drake could do, revealed how vital some of the techniques were in battle. Drake’s attacks were cushioned by a layer of Dark TE, reducing their effectiveness greatly whenever they struck. Where Drake struggled to maintain a constant all-encompassing shroud of TE in his aura, Jive easily maintained a low level at all times. When struck, he moved the type energy to the targeted area just before the strike would land, stripping a blow of type energy and leaving only the reduced physical energy behind it, before cushioning that as well. He’d demonstrated the technique slowly as he could to Drake a few times, but Drake had yet to demonstrate anything beyond pushing type energy into his entire aura all at once. Blake assured us both that that would come, sooner or later, as it just took time to develop the necessary TE output and control to manage the technique.

“Great job.” I said to the hyena, voice low.

Drake huffed, and I could see his eyes flick to Jive, who was even now moving type energy slowly from limb to limb. Looking for his approval near as much as mine, I supposed. I hid a smile behind my hand and resisted teasing him for looking for attention from senpai, at least for the moment. It was something I’d absolutely hang onto for later, however; far too juicy to let go.

Blake’s other Pokemon, a bolthund named Mika and a corvisquire who went by Noble, were obviously less experienced than Jive, though I’d found both of them pleasant. Mika was every inch the hyperactive dog you’d expect an Electric-type canine to be, and Noble was prim and proper, every feather in their place and every attack executed with grace and precision. From what I could gather from their interactions, the two seemed to be close friends, though I’d have expected their natures to clash. Opposites attract, I supposed.

It was Devi, however, that took me by surprise. Across the mostly-empty training area, many of the trainers gone this late in the day, I watched the cinderace meet out a series of blows at an imaginary opponent. The flexible rabbit went nearly flat in a dodge, then sprang up with a fiery blow, radiating enough heat that I could feel it from here. The League Galar starter made everyone but Jive look like chumps, and even then he won about two thirds of their bouts. He’d seemed pleasant enough to Drake, for the most part, though I was getting the sense that my hyena was becoming something of a part of Jive and Devi’s obvious, though amicable, rivalry.

The two Pokemon had, pretty much on first contact, taken a shine to Drake. Almost wordlessly, they appeared to have made some manner of agreement about competing between themselves regarding his training. I didn’t particularly mind, and Drake seemed to enjoy the personal attention he was getting, so I’d not objected. From the outside, it seemed as if the both of them were attempting to teach Drake different techniques, and racing to see who could successfully train him first.

From what I could tell, given that I was mostly guessing from various Pokemon noises and gestures, Jive was attempting to teach Drake to properly infuse his aura with Dark TE. Devi, on the other hand, was attempting to draw out more Normal than a tackle took. The endgoals weren’t hard to guess: Devi had repeatedly demonstrated the quick attack movement technique, while Jive had gone through the process of showing the steps of feint attack.

From what I got from watching the training, it appeared that feint attack was considered something on the level of quick attack. Namely, the technique wasn’t considered an actual offensive move in and of itself, but a way of gaining an advantage or an edge against an opponent. Quick attack used Normal energy to augment the speed and reaction times of the user, allowing them to move much faster than normal depending on the amount of Normal TE they could muster. Feint attack, on the other hand, was less a movement technique and more of a sleight of hand.

The way that Blake had explained it to me, and from what I’d gleaned from the Dex entries, feint attack was a technique that began with the user suffusing their aura with Dark type energy. Once saturated, forcing the energy into a specific pattern made something that was a combination of optical camouflage and a perception filter. Not true invisibility, but something about the Dark energy made one’s eyes slide off the slight ripple in the air. I had difficulty focusing on Jive when he did it, and I guessed that in the chaos of a battle, it would make the user all but invisible.

Either technique would net Drake an extreme advantage in a fight against an opponent unprepared for them. Quick attack as a movement tech was required for the upper levels of Pokemon battling, and feint attack could be a complete game-changer when leveraged by Pokemon skilled in its use. Jive had demonstrated such during a battle against another League trainer, where he’d used the technique constantly. I’d barely been able to track the weasel Pokemon as he darted around the arena, wearing down the opponent’s charmeleon so easily it was closer to a game than an actual fight. Drake had been, to put it simply, awed by the performance, and had thrown himself into learning both techniques.

Interestingly, the challenge was surprisingly well-balanced. Intuitively, I’d assumed that Jive would have a leg up just because of Drake’s typing, but…

“Yeah, you’d think that, but consider for a second.” Blake had said, when I’d asked. “Dark might be Drake’s affinity, but feint attack is at least a moderately advanced technique that requires control, skill, familiarity with shaping type energy, and the sustain to keep the user’s aura infused with the correct energy. Quick attack, on the other hand, is a logical progression of tackle: Drake already has the basics, especially using tackle as a move tech.” he’d held up a finger, then. “However. Normal energy isn’t opposed to Drake’s typing, but it’s far from aligned with it. Summoning not just the energy necessary to form the patterns for the technique, but actually shaping the Normal energy correctly and keeping it going is exceedingly difficult. Generating the TE is hard enough, but this adds on the manipulation of a type energy that doesn’t want to play nice with his aura.”

True to his words, Drake had struggled with infusing his legs with Normal. The white energy would flow into his limbs, then flicker out a moment later before he could really do anything with it. With tackle, the energy was burned in the same instant it was generated, used in a quick burst of speed. The quick attack technique, however, required the user to hold Normal energy in their limbs for extended periods of time. I was uncertain if attempting to hold it in various limbs rather than suffusing the entire aura with it was more or less difficult, however. Intuitively, less energy means less difficulty, but dumping Dark energy into the aura at large seemed easier than focusing Normal TE in the legs specifically.

“Hey.” Drake gave me a curious look. “Do you think you can focus Dark in a limb without an attack?”

His brow furrowed and he frowned, sitting up and lifting one of his forelegs, staring at it. His nose scrunched, and wisps of Dark began weaving their way around the leg- before vanishing as Drake let out a gasp and started panting. He took a moment, then shook his head, and I hummed.

“So it’s harder, then.” Another curious look. “Ah, I just had a thought about whether concentrating energy so there’s less overall or dumping energy into the aura at large would be easier.” I folded my fingers in front of me. “Maybe you should practice with Normal, then? If you can get the hang of suffusing your entire aura with a type energy you’re not aligned with, then it should be a lot easier to do the same with your affinity. Here, give me a tackle.”

Drake nodded, then glowed with white, practice with the attack giving him the opportunity to draw it out faster when he was attempting to form it.

“Now, hold it! Don’t let it go!”

He twitched, startled, then focused. The white energy faded slightly, then grew, then faded again. It slowly petered out of his aura, winding down and down as his muscles strained, the little hyena fighting to keep the Normal energy in his aura for as long as possible. Eventually, however, the last of it faded, and he collapsed into a lying position, panting rapidly. I picked him up and set him in my lap, huffing quietly at his surprising weight, and began petting up his back.

“That was a really good attempt, I think.” He let out a soft rumbling noise, eyes drifting closed. My mouth twitched upwards and I poked his nose with a finger, causing him to scrunch his muzzle and give me a perturbed look. “Don’t fall asleep, now. We’ve still got work to do.”

He let out an indignant snort, insulted by the idea that he could fall asleep when there was still training to do. I stroked one of his ears, which made him relax again, though he was purposefully clinging much harder to alertness than before.

“So, here’s my thinking.” One of his ears twitched, and his eye turned towards me. “Normal is much harder for you to form than Dark, yeah?” He nodded. “Well… why start with the easy one? If you can figure out how to form the beginnings of a tackle, then hold the energy in your aura for as long as possible, then you’ll both have the beginnings of quick attack and have a much easier time doing it with Dark.”

Drake sat for a moment, then pushed himself to his paws, eyes open and wide awake now. He turned it over in his head for a few moments, the grinding of gears almost audible, then hopped down from my lap. He walked away a few steps, then took a breath in, the white energy flashing into his aura again. Just as before, instead of forming a tackle, he simply dumped the Normal energy into his aura, where it would normally be used to enhance his speed slightly in a single burst. As I watched, he held it for a full thirty seconds, the energy spiraling and occasionally fading slightly, before he let out a gasp. Instantly, every bit of it flowed out of his aura, leaving him to slump slightly in its absence. I grinned and clapped my hands.

“Nice! If we just keep practicing that, I think it’ll increase your ability to do the same with Dark that much faster.” He sauntered over to me, tired but confident, and I pet his head. “We might not have quick attack ready by the time that our match with Fantina rolls around, but… do you think we could have feint?” He tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he thought. “How about this? Figure it out, and I’ll buy you as much of the spiciest food you can find as you want after our match with Fantina.”

His ears shot up, and I attempted to hide a wince, counting what we had left in terms of money. It’d be expensive, but while we weren’t exactly flush with cash, I could scrape something together. If nothing else, I could buy the ingredients and attempt to make it myself, though we might have to find a source of money other than my League stipend. Maybe there was a job board for League affiliates? That certainly seemed like something that would exist. Drake focused entirely on his efforts, bringing out another wave of white Normal energy, and I pushed myself to my feet and looked around.

It wasn’t hard to locate Blake across the space, with the lack of trainers and Pokemon. A few still hung around, here and there, but the shafts of light coming through the windows had dimmed, signaling the onset of sundown. The end of another day. I felt the nervous twisting deep in my stomach as I thought about the fact that in three days, I’d be having my first gym battle. Would Drake be disappointed in me if I lost? Would I have wasted this training time? Drake had a type advantage, here, and he’d thrown himself into training for the goal with everything he had. I had no doubt that he had the potential to do it, but self-doubt rebounded around inside my head.

I paused, watching Blake guide Mika through a series of movements. I could barely track the electric dog with my eyes, yellow lightning arcing from her as she danced through the maneuvers. The Galarian native might have less than a full team, but every single member was a powerhouse in their own right, and I felt fortunate that somebody with that much knowledge and experience had approached me that first day. Without his tutelage, I doubt either Drake or I would have a clear idea of what we needed to do or where we needed to go. I swallowed my worries as I watched him train his partner. At this point, if I wanted to be enough to prove that his time wasn’t wasted and that I was worthy of being Drake’s partner, I didn’t have a choice. His eyes flicked towards me as I approached under the brim of his hat, but there was no other sign that he noted my presence.

“Three more times, Mika, then we’ll hang it for the day.” The Pokemon gave him a bark, then went right back to dancing through the steps, leaving pawprints in carbon scoring on the stone. Blake crossed his arms as I moved to his side, giving me a sideways glance. “Drake doing alright?”

I shrugged. “He’s doing as well as can be expected, though I want him to slow down after the match. I don’t think that he can maintain this heavy of a training tempo without burning out, and even if he could, I don’t think it’d be good for him.” Blake nodded.

“Yeah, even the most dedicated Pokemon can burn out when pressed hard enough. Have you ever seen a champion get to the height of their career, then suddenly vanish right at the apex? Typically means they pushed too hard, too fast, and either they or their partners couldn’t hack it. There’s a balance you have to strike, between training, fighting, and just being friends.”

“Is that important?”

He nodded gravely. “Mismatched trainers and Pokemon never reach the heights that those who are in sync do. There’s theories that that has to do with aura mismatch between trainers and Pokemon- trained Pokemon are a lot stronger than wild Pokemon, even those that train ridiculously hard. There’s some proposed theories that-” he shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. The point is that you need to spend time with your Pokemon just hanging out, being around each other, or bad things happen. Pokemon need our companionship as much as our guidance.”

“Is that a… common line of thinking?”

He smiled a little. “Among the upper levels? Absolutely. People who don’t pay much mind to their Pokemon don’t typically get very far, they typically end up languishing somewhere around rank five or get out at rank three or four.”

“... Huh.”

I supposed it made sense. Without the real dedication to your team and close bonds with them, it would be hard to really get anywhere with the more advanced techniques. The things that Drake was learning right now would be exceptionally difficult if he wasn’t dedicated to the task, determined to push himself to be more, both for my sake and his own. I felt another flicker of doubt, and pushed it down with a shake of my head.

“Well, anyway. I came over to ask something.”

“Hm?” His eyes followed Mika through another flicker of movement even better than I could. Was he just accustomed, or did he know more or less where she was going?

“I’m running a little low on cash. Not low enough that it’s a real issue, but I promised a reward to Drake, after our Gym battle. I was just wondering…”

“Ahhh. Money problems, the plague of any dedicated trainer.” Something flashed across his face. “Well, I can definitely direct you to the solution for that. Here, follow me.”

He turned from Mike, who barked a goodbye and went back to her training routine. Devi gave him a searching look across the arena, which Blake dismissed with a wave of his hand. The cinderace inclined his head, then went back to a blistering series of kicks that radiated heat. I waved to Drake on the way out, who gave me a nod before trying to summon up Normal energy again.

“Oh? So you’re trying for the harder of the two, now?”

I shrugged. “Seems like, if Drake gets a hang of the much harder type energy first, Dark will come much easier to him.”

“Not a bad strategy. It’s more important to figure out what works for the Pokemon in question than stick without question to a dictated routine that might not work. The downfall of many a trainer school student is that they get taught specific methods by the school, and then think that those methods are the end-all, rather than just a basic guide to developing your own strategies.” He paused and nodded to my backpack. “You might want to grab that, by the way.”

I frowned slightly, but picked up my pack from where I’d left it on the stands and slung it over my shoulder. Blake nodded in satisfaction, then led me out of the training area and into the hallway beyond. Instead of turning left towards the exit or right towards the actual gym equipment, however, he directly crossed the hallway and worked the handle on a door that I’d looked at, but hadn’t really gone through. A plaque to one side read ‘computer room’, which I’d assumed to mean that it was something for the Gym itself- servers, maybe.

On the other side, however, I encountered something that looked significantly more like an Internet cafe than… whatever I’d been expecting. Computers in cubicle booths, with a number of peripherals running wires into them. A few were in use here and there, trainers making video calls or researching something on the web. Towards the back, I saw one asleep as the computer played what looked like a cooking video, which was being watched intently by a blaziken that towered over them.

“I, uh… didn’t know this was here.” I muttered.

“It’s not exactly advertised, no.” Blake stepped into one of the cubicles. “Hand me your League ID and that PokeNav of yours.”

I hesitated, then drew out both objects, handing over the Nav before taking my ID out of its case and setting it down on the desk. Blake took the card and swiped it through a reader attached to the machine, then plugged the Nav into a base to one side. As I watched over his shoulder, the PC recognized the device, processed a moment, then popped up a little window saying ‘device linked’.

“There. The Nav is now registered to your League ID, so anyone with League affiliation or a member of the League themselves can look up your name and contact you, but that’s not what we’re here for.”

He opened up a window, hammering out a URL that opened onto a site that appeared connected to the League. Instead of frontpage elements, however, the page was a simplistic white screen with a small window that requested a League ID. Blake swiped my ID through the reader again, and it swapped to saying ‘one moment’.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“The League site has an entire section that’s dedicated to affiliates, and requires a League ID to get in. It has-” the browser window flashed. “Ah, here we go.”

‘Accepted’ popped up on the screen, and then another page opened. Sections of the site were listed out in a grid- downloads and applications, forums and communication, a database of registered PokeNavs. That was all I saw before Blake selected the first box, quickly navigating pages to-

“The Board?”

The Board, as it was called, appeared to be an application for PokeNavs. Under its features, it listed using location data to give a user access to tasks, jobs, bounties, and requests in an area. Blake hit the download button, and my Nav’s screen switched to showing a loading bar.

“There are a few ways for trainers to make money, mostly job boards and the like, temporary things. For League affiliates, however, there are a lot of different options for getting a little bit of cash, as long as you’re smart about it. The app is basically a client that links back to League servers and pulls down their job board information based on your location, lets you see various postings and even accept them.”

“So… it’s just a virtual job board, then.”

He shrugged. “Somewhat. The difference is that rather than a generalized one, the jobs the League has are filtered, categorized, and come with a promise of reward for completion from the League.”

I hummed in thought. From my research, I’d learned that while base-level law enforcement was left to Officers, in a general sort of sense, serious crime was tackled by the League in general. A Gym leader was closer to a lord, being the strongest person in their area, while the Rangers handled major issues outside of the home territories of the Gym leaders. I wondered if affiliates did a lot of work that didn’t specifically fall under the purview of the Rangers or the Gyms on behalf of the League. I thought about the onix that Jen and I had fought; if they had been close to a larger city, would driving them out have been a League posted job?

“Work that comes with the potential for conflict, with wild Pokemon or with trainers, is typically ranked by its projected difficulty.” He hit a few keys. “Given that Drake is maybe a rank two at best, and you as a trainer are technically rank zero, I’d recommend avoiding anything that requires conflict.” My Nav dinged. “Ah, there we are.”

He extracted the device from its cradle and handed it back to me, then hit the logout button on the PC and pushed the chair back.

“I’d suggest seeing what there is tonight, then actually going out on one tomorrow, to see if it’s to your liking. Teams generally have to experiment a little to find assignment types that fit their proclivities and capabilities.” He shrugged. “This is one of those times where you’re a little handicapped by Drake’s typing. Dark types aren’t useful for specific easy things, like, for example, an Electric or Fire type. Might be a bit harder for you to find work that specifically fits the two of you, right out of the gate.”

“Yeah. Thank you, though.”

He smiled. “Hey, no problem. You didn’t get the usual League affiliate orientation, I take it, so I suppose I felt like I needed to take it upon myself to fill in the gaps.” He glanced towards the door. “Now, sorry to cut and run, but I have to get the team to start winding down or they’ll do an all-nighter.” He grimaced. “Again.”

With that, he gave me a nod, then slipped past me and out the door. I hesitated for a moment, Nav in hand, then settled into the computer chair that he’d just vacated. I inserted my Nav back into the cradle, quickly going through the process of logging back in and making my way to the site that he’d just showed me. My fingers hesitated once I was on the screen, then I quickly rifled through the drawers attached to the PC desk, locating a pad of sticky notes and a pen, which I used to write down the URL for later before stuffing the note in my back. Wouldn’t do to forget such a useful piece of information.

That done, I swiped my League ID and navigated myself back into the section of the site for applications. Forum clients, IM programs, useful little applications that I thought I’d need sooner or later. Interestingly, while the Nav itself came with a Sylph corporation app store, the League’s offerings seemed entirely separate from the usual consumer market. Many of the programs appeared to have been made by affiliates for affiliate use, and optimized with that in mind. I wondered how much of what Internet there was in the Pokemon world was divided between League and not-League.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I made my selections quickly and transferred them to my Nav, the last of which was a program that stated that it would take submitted reports and relay them directly to the Rangers. The idea of directly issuing reports to something that was nominally a federal organization was incredibly weird to me, but, thinking about it, I supposed that being a League affiliate basically made you a low-level pseudo-federal agent, as far as the regional government was concerned. Man, what a weird thought. I ejected my Nav, taking it from its cradle and going through the same logout procedure that Blake had done. Finally, I slipped my ID back into its carrying case and went to put my Nav away, then hesitated.

I tightened my grip around the Nav in my hand, thinking. I didn’t necessarily need money, not right now, but I did want to seriously treat Drake after the Gym battle. Win or lose, I knew he deserved it, and it would either be a fantastic cap to a victory or a way of cheering him up after a loss. Whether Drake could do it or not I had no real doubts about, but what I was nervous about was our lack of experience against other trainers. A few smaller battles against a few other affiliates and that one fight with the crazy woman didn’t amount to the sheer amount of battles that Fantina no doubt saw every day.

Blake had recommended that I avoid the jobs that might include conflict. Now that I was really thinking about it, I didn’t think we could, or should, avoid those sorts of tasks. Drake and I had fought our way through the ghosts, handled the onix with Jen by our side, and had done some manner of law enforcement. I was somewhat confident that we could at least handle some conflict, and, more than that, I was nearly certain that we should. Some jobs that dictated a level of conflict that was, what did Blake say? Around rank one or two, that was what Drake was. Jobs around that level might give us experience, allow Drake to try techniques in actual combat situations.

I flexed my fingers, because there was something else to consider. That woman, what had been her name- Blade? Beck? No, it’d been something with a ‘jay’. Julia? No. Wait, Jade, that was it. Jade had focused on Drake being a Dark type, and I wasn’t so oblivious as to miss how people looked at me and my partner. My mind went back to Alice’s warning, that things would be much harder with a dark type in tow, that I’d be better off in general leaving him behind unless I could handle the pressure.

Right now, we might have a choice in what conflict we faced. Later on, however, I had no illusions about the fact that we might not have the luxury of choice at all. Experience we gained now gave us a leg up on people like Jade, a better chance of being in a good position when the cards were dealt. And I had few illusions about the fact that we’d most likely need those advantages, one day if not soon. And to cultivate that experience, I needed to ignore the well-intentioned advice of someone far more experienced than I.

I sighed gently, looked around the computer lab, then opened Board and began sorting through the work listings in the app.

----------------------------------------

“Tackle left and sound!”

Drake followed my command, Normal energy flicking him to his left before he let out a snarl. The wave of Dark drove the haunter back, the Ghost hissing as the energy ate at it, dissolving what energy it had in purple trails through the air. I noted that the Normal TE had been brighter and more solid than before, and that the tackle had taken Drake farther than it had previously. It appeared that Drake was closer than before, right on the brink of what I’d seen with Devi and Jive, maybe even close enough that he could tip over the edge before our match with Fantina.

The haunter threw out a number of dark orbs, the ghostly balls of energy impacting in the wake of my partner as he wove between them, white energy driving him out of the way as some of them turned to strike. He darted close, the orbs breaking up as the Ghost type lost concentration, realizing what Drake was aiming for. Too late to react, as Drake jumped into the air, Dark energy flowing around his jaws as he sunk his teeth into the haunter’s purple body. It shrieked, attempting to shake him off, before finally flying straight for one of the walls. Drake slammed his paws into the stained drywall just as they met it, grunting with the effort as he used his Dark-infused jaws and leverage against the wall to yank the ghost away, throwing them towards the center of the dilapidated room.

The haunter slammed into the ground as Drake flooded his aura with Dark, dissolving its Ghost energy and leaving it unable to phase through solid surfaces. It struggled underneath my hyena as Drake visibly concentrated on breathing and keeping up the saturation of energy in his aura. I walked up, crouching down next to the haunter, who eyed me with something approaching hatred.

“Here’s the deal. Fantina gives Ghost-types plenty of semi-abandoned buildings to inhabit, you know it and I know it, there’s absolutely no reason for you to be here. You go there and stop causing trouble, and we’ll let you go. If you start causing trouble again, we both know that you won’t have somebody like me pursuing you.”

The haunter shook, a somewhat unsettling motion that looked like its entire body blurred. After a moment, it settled down, a look of defeat coming over its face, and nodded. I waved Drake off, and he released the Ghost type, Dark type energy fading from his aura as he did. The ghost hissed at me as it drifted up and through the ceiling, and I waited a few moments before I let out a sigh of relief. The tension went out of Drake’s body with a sigh of his own, and I patted his head.

“How about going out to eat after I turn this one in, huh? I think we’ve both earned it.”

That made him perk up, ears high, and I couldn’t help but smile. We’d been at this for a couple days, and now we were down to the last day before our Gym battle. A job or two, followed by a long day of training had defined the last couple of days, a hard routine that had produced rapid results. Drake’s grasp of both Dark and Normal energy had increased in leaps and bounds, leaving him with enough of a grasp on both that he could keep his aura infused with either for a period of time approaching seven minutes. We were so close to learning either of the techniques we were reaching for that I could practically taste it, and from the way Drake had doubled his efforts, I could tell that he felt the same.

We stepped out of the apartment we’d just been in. The building had been abandoned for a bit of time, something about a dispute of ownership, before it had finally been bought by a local company. When they moved in contractors and their Pokemon to begin cleaning the interior and checking the building for structural damage, however, they came under attack by this haunter. It was more of an annoyance than anything else, especially in a town so used to the presence of Ghost types, but it still warranted a posting with the League. The job had been low rated, the haunter weak, so I’d taken it before anybody else could. Still…

I confirmed the job as complete, then swapped over to my account manager and refreshed a couple times before a transfer of five thousand Poke came through. I smiled and accepted it, watching it trickle into my League account, which had actually nearly recovered to the point that it had been when I started. I could absolutely afford both of us eating out tonight.

“What do you think?” I asked Drake. “There’s that place over on Miyazaki that we haven’t tried yet.”

He nodded, somewhat excitedly. With some amount of money coming in and us eating out the past couple of days, Drake appeared to have taken it on himself to order spicy dishes from various restaurants and compare them. He’d offered me some every time, but I wasn’t that brave, and didn’t particularly enjoy spicy food regardless. I suspected that he’d made his peace with that at this point, and now welcomed the idea that his food was absolutely safe from me.

I closed the front entrance of the apartment building behind me as we left, out onto the streets of Hearthome. A glance up at the sky revealed the light of a late day, the sun encroaching on the horizon and casting a warmer, more orange light over everything, giving the city a sepia tone. The apartment building that I’d just left was surrounded by others like it, townhouses and apartments whose lights were beginning to come on this late in the day. People were walking or biking down the streets, one or two trainers on Pokemon here and there. Little engine noise and no visible cars was still throwing me for a loop, but the people of the Pokemon world appeared to consider personal motor vehicles excessive, for the most part. Something of a culture shock for me, really, as I kept expecting crosswalks and asphalt roads with vehicles on them. Hearthome was wildly different from the cities I’d been in before.

One or two of the people eyed me as I came out, but between my hoodie being tied around my waist instead of being worn and the small wave I gave them, they appeared to be mollified. Drake looked over the thin crowds of people coming home, appearing to be experiencing much the same moment of peace that I just had. I leaned down and patted his head with a small smile, and the both of us came down the front steps and onto the sidewalk as I pulled my Nav from my pocket.

Transportation in Hearthome happened one of a handful of ways: feet, bike, Pokemon, or tram system. I’d thought about tracking down the local equivalent of garage sales to try and get my hands on a pre-owned bike, but the thought of hauling its useless deadweight over a mountain trail or through a cave filled with zubat made me edge away from the idea. I might get one in the future, probably once I got into Oreburgh if I had the cash, but right now I’d go without. Right now, however, I directed us to the nearest tram stop and settled down onto the bench, Drake leaping up and sitting next to me.

I twitched as my Nav rang, interrupting my thoughts about transportation, public and otherwise. Drake flicked his ears back, giving me a glance, and I shrugged in turn as I glanced at my Pokewatch. The little smartwatch revealed that it was Kevan calling me, oddly enough. If it weren’t for the fact that I was pretty sure he didn’t have any Psychic types following me around, I’d wonder at the fact that he perfectly picked the moment I started thinking about Coronet. I leaned to my side, awkwardly fishing my Nav out of my pocket and tapping ‘answer call’.

“Hey, Ranger. How’s it?”

“Hey, Cam, good to hear your voice. Hearthome still treating you well?”

I scratched my head. “Well, you know, not any worse than it did before. Better, honestly, since we started doing affiliate work. I think the locals are starting to get used to me.”

“That so! Well, careful you don’t want to stay there, eh? Rowan would be absolutely peeved if he heard that that Dex had only made it a quarter of the way back to him before stopping there.”

“I think his relief at not having to host a Dark type and his partner would outweigh it.”

“I’ll have you know that Rowan’s already anticipating your arrival. I think he’s more eager to see the two of you than that Dex, I think he’s got theories and he wants to see if they pan out.”

“Oh, dear.” I muttered. “Save me from the science types who look at me and see a new paper on something.”

In general, from what I’d found from my research, Pokemon researchers and professors were honestly some of the best people you could hope to meet. It made sense that people that worked constantly with Pokemon and were deeply accepted by them had a real streak of camaraderie with the creatures that they continually rubbed elbows with for work. However, that decency aside, they had something of a reputation for being about as determined to ferret out the answer to a question they’d had as a high-level trainer was to face a challenging opponent. There was something of the same sentiment there, overcoming a challenge to find out more about something, even if the specific something differed.

“Ah, Rowan’s not that bad. I’ve met the man before- he’s a bit gruff and is absolutely the ‘man of few words’ type, but he’s a decent guy overall. More likely to start feeding and petting Drake than sticking him in some scanner or something.”

“Mm. I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.” Drake nudged my shoulder, and I poked my tongue out at him, only for him to do the same back. “Alright, alright… any news about the Rangers?”

There was a pause on the other side of the line, and I heard the shuffling of papers I’d become accustomed to in calls with the Ranger. After a few moments, he sighed.

“None, I’m afraid. Rangers say they’ve got their hands full with panicked flights of pidgey clashing with the Pokemon of the Safari Zone to your south. Looks like any patrols over the back of Coronet have been put off for another few weeks while they get a variety of situations under control- it’s certainly far better than it was a week ago, but it’s nowhere near calm enough that we can return to our usual duties.”

I frowned in concern. “Are you doing alright? Sounds like a lot’s been stacked on your plate.”

“The Rangers serve, no matter the conditions.”

“That’s not really an answer, Kevan.” There was silence on the other end of the line. “You know, your lieutenant texted me her number exactly for-”

“Alright, alright, fine! I swear, you’re nearly as bad a mother hen as she is.” He grumbled. “I’ll be eating a good dinner and going to bed in the next hour or so. Is that fine by you, mom?”

My mouth twitched into a small grin. “Just make sure to eat your veggies, and wear your coat, it’s getting chilly out and I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

“Yeah, well, I’m an adult and you can’t tell me what to do.” I opened my mouth again. “YES, I am aware that you can easily get Lena to badger me anyway. You’re evil.”

“And yet you’re the one who gave me what authority I have! You’re clearly a terrible judge of character.”

“Yeah, well, if we ever share the same neck of woods again, call me up so I can commiserate with Drake. If I get this much parenting from you, he must be way worse off.”

“Actually, Drake gets to eat as much ice cream as he wants and stay up all night playing games, while I expend all my parental feelings on you.” Drake gave me a puppy-eyed gaze, and I covered the microphone of the Nav. “No, I don’t mean that.” He pouted. “Come on. If I ruined your diet with that much sugar, I’m pretty sure that Devi would piledriver me through a table and Blake would give you a look of severe disappointment.” Drake’s head jerked back, looking horrified at the thought. “Yeah, see? Blame it on them, not on me.”

“Anyway, if you want me to actually get to bed on time, then I have to go.”

I took my hand away from the receiver. “Alright. Good luck, okay? And stay safe out there.”

“Hey, you too. Call me after your Gym battle, I want to know how it went. They usually don’t broadcast or record anything beneath rank four.”

I smiled again. “Will do. See you then.”

I tapped the button to hang up the call, and pushed myself to my feet as the tram slid to a stop in front of us. Drake hopped down from the bench and followed me up as I mounted the steps, stepping into the car and settling in the first free bench, Drake hopping up and curling himself up against my leg. This late in the day, all the passengers that had been riding in the tram were filing out onto the street, leaving the car mostly empty save for a group of three in the back with Pokeballs on their person. I’d guessed that they were headed back to the Pokemon center after a long day so they could head back up to their rooms, rest and sleep. In a passing moment of thought, I wondered how many of them had also challenged Fantina, and if any of them had won.

Drake nudged my leg, and I looked down to meet his curious expression. I looked back towards the front of the tram, putting my hand on his back and gently stroking it.

“Sorry. I guess I’m just a bit worried about tomorrow, you know? It’s not going to be easy. We have a type advantage and all this training, but I can’t help being anxious about it. I feel like we’re not prepared, yet.” I hunched forwards a little. “Devi and Blake trained for a month, remember? Lost their first Gym match hard, didn’t stand a chance from the way they told it. And we’ve been together, what, a week? I’m just worried that, even with what you already have, it’s just not going to be enough, you know?”

Drake mulled that over a bit, then pushed himself to his paws and flopped himself into my lap, staring up at me with determination written all over his face. I huffed a small laugh.

“Yeah, I know, you feel plenty confident. I’m just…” I tested the words on the tip of my tongue. “I just think that, if I could just help you figure out feint or quick attack, I’d be a lot less worried. But we’re up against the wall, now, and you can’t rush these things. We’ll have to deal with what we have.”

Drake looked away, and I wondered what he was thinking. Did he think- no, I knew he thought we could make it, or at least make Fantina really work for it. Drake was the more confident of the two of us in our prowess, but even knowing the fact that we’d be fighting a rank one team of one, maybe two, I wasn’t so sure. I was just worried that between my lack of experience and the short amount of time we’d spent together, we’d fall short of the mark.

And that was the worst part, I supposed. What were the consequences of losing? I don’t get a badge, when I had the opportunity to. Gyms didn’t take prize money, so what would we lose for trying and failing? I guess that the only real loss that I could think of was that I’d have what confidence I had shaken. Losing our first Gym match… most people did. From the numbers that I’d seen, maybe a third of the ones that lose their first Gym match received a badge despite their loss, for impressing the leader.

Taking the numbers at face value, a fifty-fifty chance to get a badge, but only a twenty-five percent chance of actually winning the fight- at least, where first time challengers were concerned. Maybe that didn’t mean anything for us, given that we were most likely beyond were most first timers would be, but that didn’t dispel my worry about it. About falling short in our debut, about not delivering.

Drake licked my hand and I snapped out of my deep thinking, glancing around. The trainers were still talking between themselves in the back, each of them staring out the windows and taking in the city around them. I figured that they didn’t see cities all that often, most likely with weeks of travel time between them. Checking my Nav, I realized that this was the stop closest to the restaurant I’d suggested.

“Sorry, lost in thought.” I said to Drake, who shook his head.

He jumped down from the bench and into the center aisle, then hopped down from the tram and onto the paved street. I followed him after ensuring that I had everything, nodding to the tram operator and stepping down onto the bricks. The tram hadn’t taken us directly there, but at the end of a street leading to it, which was filled with storefronts that were lit up brightly. Even despite how late in the day it was, customers roamed the streets between the shops, and the restaurants here and there among the actual stores were somewhat full with a range of people. Soft chatter, the sound of many people in varying sizes of groups talking between themselves, mixed with the sounds of the city and the cries of Pokemon going about their end of day business.

A crowd of trainers was moving down the road, and as I watched, they walked into a building with neon kanji above the door. Some kind of sake bar, I wagered, though I was surprised that the drink existed here in more or less the exact same form that it did back home. Kind of weird to see a group of people in their early twenties doing such a normal thing as going to a bar of sorts with Pokeballs at their waists and trainer paraphernalia all over them. Maybe you wouldn’t be directly made fun of for it back home, not in the modern day, but you’d definitely be getting some really weird looks.

Drake tugged my pant leg, and I sighed dramatically as I followed after him. The restaurant we were going to was several spots down, a large carved wooden pelipper with a pipe in its beak and a captain’s hat on its head. I pushed the door open, revealing an inside that was composed of wooden paneling, with a vaguely nautical theme. Rope and various pieces of roughly ship-related things were scattered throughout the decoration, and after a moment of taking it in, I decided that it came out tastefully rather than tacky. Not that I knew all that much about interior design, of course.

We found a booth along one of the outer walls, the table having the image of a ship’s wheel burned into the wood. When the waiter came around to see what we wanted, I picked fish and chips, and just pointed to the hottest thing they had on the menu on Drake’s behalf. The little hyena had yet to turn down any kind of food I’d put in front of him, so I figured that as long as it had heat and was cooked well, he’d eat it.

“I guess…” Drake looked up at me from his side of the booth. I trailed off, mulling the thought over in my head. “I guess I’m just worried about coming up short, is all. About all this effort you put in going for nothing because I freeze up or hesitate at the wrong time. Maybe if we had feint attack under our belts…” I trailed off, thinking about it.

With the edge of an advanced technique behind us, something just a bit beyond what we had now, I figured that we’d have just that more of a shot. Something advanced would let us roll through a rank one Gym battle far easier than just our default abilities.

My train of thought was derailed with the delivery of our food. Drake’s was… something, in a broth of something, with what appeared to be noodles. I think. In comparison, my own simple breaded fish and normal fried chips were something of a relief, and I began working through them as I thought about the problem.

With just another week of training, I was sure that we’d have one of the techniques down. Hell, with how close I guessed we were, I think we’d have both down before the week was up. Another week wasn’t a luxury we had, however, and I hardly think attempting to move my Gym battle back would endear me to Fantina or her Gym staff. Nervously, I wondered if leaders could leave permanent notes on your affiliate record, or if losing to a Gym made you less likely to be considered for becoming a full affiliate at rank four.

I stared down at my food and realized that I’d been picking at it more than eating it, while Drake was working through his own food at a machine-like pace. It was good food, but the problem was that my stomach was roiling with my doubts and worries. I did my best to press them down, taking another chip and chewing it, appreciating the taste at least.

I winced when the bill came around, but a single glance at Drake’s happy face prevented me from experiencing too much pain over the price of the meal. From what I’d gathered from my limited experience with prices, it actually wasn’t all that bad, but I was still growing used to all the extra zeroes denoted by a Yen-like system. I paid with my League card, and we stepped back out into the street.

While we’d been eating, the last of the sunset had disappeared over Coronet, leaving the street lit only by neon and streetlamps. The trainers from earlier sauntered out of the bar that they’d been in, decidedly less coherent than they had been before and a touch more rowdy, with an aggrieved-looking swampert following behind them. The Pokemon made eye contact with me across the street and nodded a greeting, before lumbering forwards and grabbing one of the wandering trainers and gently pushing them back to the group. A Pokemon chaperone. I shook my head, then turned towards the end of the street and the tram stop.

Trams, as dictated by their almighty schedule, happened by every fifteen minutes and would run until midnight, before picking back up again at six in the morning. It was obvious that much of the city relied on the tram network to get around to places across the city, when they didn’t have a bike or a car to carry them. Reminded me somewhat of the light rail lines that I’d ridden, though the tram was a fair bit smaller.

There were a few more passengers on the tram when it arrived, all of them trainers that I guessed were headed back to the Center. There wasn’t a lot of conversation or noise, and a lot of them appeared exhausted. I noted that a few of the particularly tired looking ones still had something of the grime of the road clinging to them, and I realized that the bus from Emeragrove would have come in not so long ago. I imagined that they’d hoofed it all the way to the bus stop and ridden the bus straight here without stopping for a break in between, meaning that they must be pretty wiped. I wondered if this was a pretty common appearance.

The thoughts distracted me long enough for the tram to reach its destination. The train car slid to a stop a bit down the street from the glowing lights of the Center, night having truly fallen over us as we’d ridden here. As I stepped out onto the brick roadway and looked up, I realized that the night sky was pitch black above our heads, dotted with a number of different stars. Looking around, I realized that there were quite a few less lights in this city than what I was accustomed to, which must lead to a lower amount of light pollution. Drake nudged my leg, huffing gently.

“Ugh, I’m really getting lost in my thoughts tonight. Sorry, buddy.”

The other trainers had already made their way down to the Center and were passing through the doors and into the inside. I lingered on the street for a few more moments, Drake walking out ahead of me, then made to follow him. To my surprise and consternation, however, the little Hyena didn’t keep going straight to the sliding glass doors that formed the front of the Center, instead turning left. He gave me a look that I couldn’t quite decipher, not from this distance, then walked into an alleyway that led along the side of the Center.

“Ah, come on, Drake, what are you doing?”

I stepped around the corner, examining the alleyway nervously. To my surprise, it was a lot cleaner than I thought it would be, though I wasn’t sure why I was surprised by things like that anymore. Plants grew down the walls in leafy vines, but the stone underneath my feet was clean, probably from a combination of scouring and Pokemon and humans picking up any trash that just happened to make its way down here.

Drake was most of the way down the alley, all the way at the end, where it met a ninety degree turn to the right. He gave me another look, then disappeared around the corner again. I jogged after him, nervously checking the sides of the alleyway, though I wasn’t sure precisely what I was looking for. Serial stabber, maybe? Some kind of spooky monster to jump out at me? I balked. Ah, that last one probably wasn’t something I should think of, there were plenty of Pokemon that would totally hide in a dark alley and scare the hell out of anybody that passed by entirely for kicks. I grimaced and focused on making my way to the end of the alley, the goggles slung around my neck bouncing as I ran. I slowed as I came around the corner. A few steps, and I came to a stop.

Instead of further alley, the corridor had opened up into a large space. The Center was to my right, a back door leading from the lobby and back into this area. Buildings made the edges of the large space, and I noted that they didn’t have any windows close to the ground, only on the higher floors. The ground itself had patterns that I recognized from the arenas at the Gym, Pokemon arenas. With a start, I realized that this must be the more public Pokemon training area provided by the Center, which I hadn’t really put effort into finding before. The affiliate’s facilities at the Gym had been more than enough for my purposes.

A handful of trainers and Pokemon were still going, even after sunset. Mostly, I recognized them as pokemon that were of a more nocturnal nature rather than diurnal, and I imagined their trainers were out here to get the most out of the time that their Pokemon were most awake. Drake had taken one of the arenas for himself, and as I watched, he breathed, then surrounded himself with an aura of white energy. I walked up to him, uncertain, and he glanced back at me before launching himself forwards. The white Normal energy pushed him through the air, faster than tackle, farther- then unraveled, leaving him to skid against the stonework of the arena. He let out a frustrated growl, and I blinked in surprise as I realized what he was up to.

“You want to… train? Now?” He gave me a look like I was an idiot. That was obviously what he was doing, and he didn’t know why I would think otherwise. “This- you’re exhausted. We should rest for tomorrow, so we can be at our best…”

He gave me a look, something determined and stalwart, dedicated. It took me a moment…

“... You want to figure them out.” he frowned at me. “You want to figure out the techniques tonight and use them tomorrow?” my mind raced as I pieced together his intention, my eyes widening. “You don’t care about winning or losing. You want… to use it as a training opportunity. Something to hone these techniques, so that you can have them ready in the future. A serious battle to push you into learning them, with stakes…”

I wavered. All this time I’d been thinking that I wasn’t blind or oblivious to what could happen to us in the future, and I’d forgotten that those same things applied to my partner as well. He must have seen the same things that I did, worried about the fact that he wasn’t quite ready to face them, not yet. And he wanted to be ready, whatever it cost. If losing our first Gym battle was the price of being that much more ready, then he was determined to pay it.

“Well…” I licked my lips, then smiled. “I guess we’re cramming tonight, aren’t we?”

Drake bared his teeth, equal parts determined and pleased, and summoned a wave of Normal TE to try again.