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Untapped Potential
Chapter 8: Known Advantages!

Chapter 8: Known Advantages!

“Min use Aqua Tail!” With a grunt of effort, a small whirlpool wraps around his tail. He charges forwards to attack Espurr, she tries to hit him as he zigzags, but only hits the ground with her Confusion. Min finally reaches her, he looks like he’s about to jump which causes Espurr’s gaze to go up. But that was a feint, as he goes low and hits Espurr’s legs with the Aqua Tail. She falls and Min delivers one more hit, this time jumping into the pound.

Espurr goes down and is shortly called back, I also call back Min as I noticed he got clipped by a particularly strong Confusion during his zig zag maneuver. I throw out Budew as Fen tosses out Hatenna, now familiar with Fen’s team and tactics I order Budew instantly “Use Absorb!” She complies, focusing on Hatenna, and starts to drain small orbs of life energy. Hatenna returns this attack with something that starts out as Confusion but soon becomes much more laser-like. ‘Psybeam!’ I try to yell something out but Budew soon gets hit.

“Budew, dodge and use Growth!” She does so, trying her best to dodge while boosting her special attack, she gets clipped a few times by Psybeam, but she still stands. “Absorb!” She pulls out orbs of energy from Hatenna and uses them to heal her wounds. Now almost back up to full health, she attempts to lock on to Hatenna. The move Absorb requires you to lock on and then try to pull the life energy out. Hatenna responds to the attack shooting a small ball of water into the air ‘What the?’ It splashes down to her head, and her wounds start to heal.

‘Crap, what was that move?’ I order Budew to keep it up, but Budew can’t seem to lock on to Hatenna and a Psybeam hits her in the face. She goes down. ‘Dang…Gotta figure out how to evolve Budew, or at the very least get her a TM, she needs some better moves…’ I return Budew, and walk over to Fen I shake her hand and say “Good match.”

She nods back, “Hey, what was that move Hatenna use? The one with the water ball going into the sky.” She stares blankly at me for a few seconds, but soon replies “Life Dew.” I nod my thanks, ‘Life Dew, I don’t quite remember that move in the games…Then again it’s not like I have perfect memory. Maybe I should write down what I know…Maybe use the “Edit” app to make a notebook invisible or only open to me, so I can keep my otherworldy knowledge safe.’ I was so lost in thoughts that I didn’t notice that Fen has left the clearing, ‘Whoops, I didn’t say goodbye.’

I look at my team, who are also waiting for me to finish my thoughts. “Right, what to do today…” I say under my breath ‘Fen fights the gym tomorrow, I believe. Should I go watch her match? Eh, maybe… I’ll decide tomorrow. For now, what should I do today…Maybe make some edits, or look for a third teammate?’ I hum to myself as I ask these questions in my head. Min hops onto my shoulders and Budew hops into my hood, I decide to just walk the streets for a bit and see if anything stands out to me.

I spent the rest of the day checking out some local sights, like the museum of rocks… Surprisingly it was pretty interesting. I went over the basic idea of evolution stones and even had a couple on display. I need a Shiny Stone for both of my pokemon’s final evolutions so this was very informative. They also talked about the volcano that supposedly created much of the region, Mt. Brimstone is located right in the center of the Olamin region. Other than the volcano, the Mt. Brimstone area also has a collection of rocks that ring like bells, despite not being hollow. That was about it.

After the Museum I decided to head back to the hotel and watch some movies or fiddle around with the “Edit” app. Now back in the hotel room, my team jumps down from their perch (Me) and I flop down onto the bed. I grab the remote and flip through some channels on the TV, I decide to just turn on the news since I’m going to be on my phone anyways. I turn on my phone and begin to browse Pory-Goon, looking at random articles or watching some videos on the familiarly named website “YourTube” I stop my constant searching when I see an interesting article.

The article’s title is “Ex Kanto and Ex Unova Champions found traveling together in Olamin!” I click on it and see a blurry photo of two familiar figures and a very peeved Charizard blocking half of the photo ‘Poor cameraman.’ One of the blurry figures is a fairly tall guy, wearing a lot of red you can barely make out his brown hair. The other is wearing a long-sleeved blue jacket and is slightly shorter. He has long hair that spikes out a bit and is a deeper brown color than the other. ‘Red and Hilbert.’

I try to think this through, Red and Hilbert are, indeed Ex champions, Nate now being the Unova champion and Lance is currently the Kanto champion ‘Though I heard Ethan, the gold protagonist, was also champion for a bit…the Johto and Kanto league are really entangled, basically the same thing really, just depends on what gyms you face.’ But why were they traveling together? ‘Wait what about the world tournament?’ That was a thing in Black and White 2, right?

After some quick searches, I found that this is actually a global thing but was held in Unova around the time of Black and White 2. And it was a bit different from the game, it’s simply put a mass tournament spanning a whole month where all the champions and elite four from various regions fought each other. And in that tournament, Red joined the roster despite not being a champion during that time. It looks like he made it to the semi-finals before being beaten by Nate, ‘Interesting…Then did those two meet here?’ I guess I’ll never really know unless I meet and ask them, they’re not really the types to give interviews…Red especially.

I know from the games that Red traveled to Alola with Blue, so he has a record of traveling around…I put down my phone and stare at the news. I’m not actually watching it, the weather report hits deaf ears, I’m just looking at it while I think. ‘I guess I never really considered the Protagonists much…Aside from when I was looking into who had legendaries.’ I decide to just leave it there, and actually pay attention to the news.

“Reports of missing Pokemon have been increasing over the past weeks, it’s recommended that you keep a close eye on your Pokemon.” I begin to lose interest and consciousness, drifting into sleep.

=====

I go about my daily tasks when I wake up, shower, eat, feed my team, and brush my teeth. Then I head out to the clearing after shooting Fen a text that I’m heading there. I lower my team from my body and then wait for Fen to show up. She, as usual, looks me up and just stares at me for a bit before saying anything. We go about our daily routine, I run with my mons and she just stares at me…I try my best to ignore her. Then when I’m heaving on the ground she starts to train.

Though she’s obviously doing way lighter training than usual, her team only does a few basic reaction tests and that’s about it. “Hey, Fen! Do you still want to spar or just skip it?” I ask with a shout on the other side of the clearing, training my own team. She thinks it over, rubbing her chin as she does so. “I’ll skip it for now.” I nod back in response and turn my attention back to my own team. We soon finish our own training.

I fidget with the small braid in my hair while I consider how to pose this question. ‘I mean, it should be fine right? It’s a simple question, but then again I don’t want to intrude…’ I just grumble inwardly and decide to just ask the question. “So, Fen…Do you mind if I watch your Gym battle?” I say very quickly, so I don’t lose momentum halfway through. She stares at me, and stares a bit more…now it’s been three minutes of awkward silence. ‘This is more silence than usual…did I overstep my boundaries?’

Her unmoving body finally makes a movement, a simple nod. “Ah, sweet…When are you going to fight Alira?” She stares blankly, but only for half a minute “Five in the afternoon.” I nod and take out a notepad to write down the time. “Right, I’ll make sure to make it!” I assure her, and myself that I’ll actually show up. We say some quick goodbyes…well, I say goodbye, and she just nods and walks away. ‘That went better than expected…then again I don’t know what I expected to happen.’

I let my team go to their spots then I head out on the town once more, I head to the Pokecenter to get a good spar in. I forgot how hectic it was, you’d think with the season being three days in there’d be fewer people. Nope, I soon got sucked into the swarm of kids around the battlefield looking for a fight. I yell out my challenge and a replay of what happened last time happens, I hear someone ask for a fight I scream “Yeah, I’ll fight you!” And I am now back inside the chalk box. ‘Man I can’t wait to find a quiet town…’

I brush off some dust and make sure my pokeballs are all on me. ‘All good, they didn’t unclip from my belt in the scuffle.’ I look over at my opponent, a small boy wearing a tank top and cargo shorts. On his shoulder lies a big net that is twice his size. He throws out his pokemon before me, and a Caterpie forms on the field ‘If this was the game I would be extremely cocky right now, but it’s not so let's be careful.’ I recall the Scatterbug from a few days ago, I reach towards my belt and toss out Budew. I stare at the boy as he chops his hand down to start the match. “Budew, play keep away and use Growth!” Budew starts to use the move Growth, and a faint green aura wraps around her, my opponent says “Caterpie, use String Shot!” Budew twirls around the string and retaliates with Absorb.

The stream of orbs holds on, Budew now keeping her total focus on the worm. Soon the bug type goes down, and Budew is completely unharmed. ‘Woah, what’s her stats looking like?’ I mumble out a “Status” and check out her stats.

Budew

- Attack: E-/B+

- Defense: E+/C+

- Special Attack: B-/S-

- Special Defense: C+/A+

- Speed: C+/B+

- Luck: B+/B+

- Reactions: B-/A-

- Intelligence: A/S

‘Wow, her speed has gone up twice! And Special Attack has increased by one as well…B- minus…The Flaffy I helped Cora with back at the pokecenter had a B+ if I remember correctly. So two levels lower, I’ll need more points of reference to figure out how these stats scale.’ I snap out of my trance-like thoughts as the trainer throws out his next pokemon, “Go, Venomoth!” the pokemon soon forms on the field. Immediately I notice that his Venomoth is…different. First off its carapace is littered with scratches and old scars, one of its wings has a small hole in them. But most importantly, the moth pokemon looks absolutely done with this shit, even though it's only just shown up.

“The hell?” I mutter under my breath, too low for anyone to hear, I then add on to the mutter with a “Status” I didn’t want to use the system when doing these spar-like fights but this seems weird.

Venomoth

- Attack: B+/B+

- Defense: B-/B

- Special Attack: A-/A-

- Special Defense: B/A-

- Speed: A/A+

- Luck: C-/C-

- Reactions: A+/A+

- Intelligence: A+/S-

- Overall: This pokemon has lived through his glory days, and just wants to retire. He seems to be a chaperone for Bug Catcher Atlas, he’s a special attacker with good reactions and high intelligence. It is recommended that the user forfeits this battle, as to avoid unnecessary damage.

‘The fuck!’ I almost scream out loud but stop myself. “Hey, is that your only other pokemon?” I yell over to the, trying my hardest to hide the rage slowly building up in my gut. The boy cockily nods back. I nod back to him and recall Budew “Alright, cool…yeah, I’m out. See ya.” I say quietly, probably too low for the trainer to hear me.

“Hey, wait where are you going? You can't just run away!” He yells towards me, too bad for him this isn’t the game world, but real life. So yes I, indeed, can just run away from a trainer battle. I contemplate flipping him off, but figure that’s too far. ‘Gotta relax, granted I am a bit peeved. Seems a bit unfair to have a veteran pokemon on your low-level and probably no badge team. But then again this is the real world, so there’s not going to be level scaling or anything like that.’ I breathe in and out, and I decide to just go to the hotel until five.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I walk down the streets, they’re still very much covered in various festival decorations. In fact, I think there’s even more, now there’s silver tinsel and stands lined next to each other. I peruse some of the stalls, my team is still inside their pokeballs, as I forget to take them out. There are mostly only games in the stalls, ring toss, darts, etc. But a few stalls sell a few things, mostly statues or paintings made by street artists. ‘When does this festival start to die out…or is it just like this 24/7?’ I finally make my way back to the hotel, give a small wave to the receptionist, and finally make my way back to my room. I release my team and I flop down on the bed. ‘Now that I think about it, that was my first time being angry since I came to this world. I wasn’t exactly angry at Arceus or the other two…Ugh, I hate being angry, it always clouds my head at the moment then I just feel awful later.’

I let out a long sigh, Budew shoots me a glare “What’s wrong?” I ask her, she merely lets out a huff and turns away from me. ‘What was that about…’ I shrug it off and decide to check out some TV. To be exact the Battle Network. Which broadcasts high-leveled trainers fighting each other. ‘This will be a good way to burn some hours…but just in case.’ I take out my Hostile Detecting Alarm Clock, alarm clock for short, and set it up to right at 4:45 PM.

I turn my attention toward the tv screen and let myself relax for a bit. Two ace trainers fight each other, one with a Simisage and the other with a Haunter. Min hops onto the bed with me, curling up on my chest. ‘Welp, let’s just get comfy for now…’

=====

Jenny takes a look at the conference room’s door. She straightens her tie and takes a deep breath. She turns the doorknob and enters the room, it’s a standard conference room. One big table in the center, a few chairs here and there, and a projector just waiting to be turned on for the start of the presentation. Though there is one thing that Jenny didn’t expect to see in the room, and that would be Kieran. The dark-type specialist is leaning back in his chair, it teeters just enough not to fall over.

‘Ugh, what’s he doing here?’ Jenny remembers Kieran from a few days ago. While he’d been a good enough help on the scene, she can’t help but have a loathing feeling towards his smug face. “Ah, Officer Jenny! Are you the same one from that distorted pokémon case?” He says very bluntly, moving his chair back to a straight-up position. His smirk grows as he does so.

Jenny holds back a sigh and replies “Yes, I am the same one. I’m officer Penelope Jenny.” She holds back a few swears in that sentence. “Ah, sorry, sorry about that. It’s just that all of your family looks so damn alike. A whole bunch of cookies made from the same cutter.”

She sighs and accepts that after all this isn’t the first time she’s been confused for one of her sisters or cousins. “Whatever, why pray tell, are you here.” She says with some venom in her voice. Anger rises in her gut the more she takes in the Purrloin-faced man.

Kieran leans back in his chair, eyes never turning away from Jenny’s “Because the Champ has declared this important, and I, being a psychic and dark type master, am basically an impervious vault.” He says while tapping his forehead, his cocky grin growing a bit wider at that declaration. “Well that, and I’m a trustworthy Gym Leader, you know your superior.” Jenny flinches a bit but does her best to keep an impassive glare. Doubt and worry fill her mind as she looks over her smug superior.

Kieran stares at her, trying to keep a straight face until he starts to burst out laughing, “Relax, I’m not like that Giovanni or Rose fella. I’m actually trustworthy, despite popular opinion it seems.” Shooting the officer a smug and knowing glance. Jenny has a few dozen or hundred swears fill her brain, but composes herself and prepares to begin the presentation on the new phenomenon.

“Ahem, are you the only one that’s going to be here?” Jenny asks and receives a nod in reply. “Right, then let’s get this over with.” She walks over to the projector and turns it on, showing an already-prepared slideshow. Jenny coughs into her fist and prepares to talk for a while.

“So, Distorted Pokémon are seemingly normal Pokémon. But they’re a bit different, limbs being a bit too long for certain species and most of all their eyes are covered by smooth skin. Making it look as though it never had eyes, to begin with.” The slide shows a Machamp, one of his four arms is slightly small, and his stature makes it look like it has an extra vertebra. The photo on the slide is blurry and only shows the back of the fighting type.

“As told from first-person reports and from our own team’s encounters, we have learned that once these Distorted Pokémon take enough damage they transform into black slime and disappear into the ground. The slime itself is very corrosive, learned firsthand by an ace trainer who stumbled upon a distorted Froslass.” The next slide shows a mound of black goo on the ground, right next to it is a middle-aged man with intense scars similar to those made from acid along his arm. Kieran winces a bit upon seeing the photo, but more so in an over-exaggerated and mocking way.

Jenny holds back a stinging remark and continues her presentation. “We've recently learned that these distorted Pokémon have been popping out of small tears in the earth. We believe that these are portals, to where we don’t know.” She was about to finish up the presentation when Kieran raised his hand like he was back in school.

“Miss Penny Jenny, have we contacted Alola yet? Cause this feels like an Ultra-Space issue.” He says in mock seriousness, his face looking only half serious at best. Jenny looks at Kieran’s shit-eating grin, then recalls that he just called her Penny Jenny. She lets out a deep sigh and rubs the bridge of her nose.

“Yes, we’ve gotten in contact with the Kahunas of Alola, as well as their champion.” She says, not even hiding her annoyance this time. That seems to only make the trenchcoat-wearing man even smugger if that was even possible. He nods then mimes picking up papers and evening them out on the desk. “Well then, if that’s all I’ll be along my merry way, call me up when you need me. Luckily my policy of only fighting using my main team means that I won’t have many challengers until a few months into the season. So I’m free pretty much anytime until then.” He waits to see if Jenny had anything else to add, when she didn’t he waved her goodbye and went along his merry way.

=====

I find my way toward the gym, the line has noticeably shrunk. But there is still a line that leads out of the gym. ‘Ugh, I should be okay to cut if I’m not scheduling a fight. Right?’ I pause before deciding to risk it and walk into the gym. I walk past the crowd and look around to where I’m supposed to go to watch the challenges.

I walk up to the two receptionists working the counter. One is frantically trying to book gym challenges, while the other is painting her nails. “Um, excuse me? Where do I go to watch the challenges?” The second receptionist doesn’t look away from her nails as she moves her head to the left.

I look there and see a sign labeled “Viewing” I say my thanks and head over. The stadium here is much smaller, being more so the size of a school gym. I sit down on the sixth row of the metal bleachers, waiting for the fight to start. I double check my phone to make sure that I arrived at the right time. After confirming that it is, indeed, 5 PM I wait for Fen and Alira to enter the stadium.

A few minutes pass and they soon show up, Alira looks mostly the same as the last time I saw her. She’s still slightly covered in sand as well. Fen is also much the same, but has one black fingerless glove on ‘Huh, neat fashion choice.’ Fen turns to the audience and sees me, she gives me a nod and I nod back. Alira soon does the same after seeing Fen look away from her when she spots me she gives a huge wave with both arms ‘Thank god there are only like 4 other people here, or else I would feel extremely embarrassed rather than just slightly.’ I give her a small wave back. She turns to face Fen, a big toothy grin forming on her face.

“Welcome challenger Fen!” She bellows out in her cheery voice, even without a microphone her voice carries easily through the empty stadium. “This will be a standard two-on-two fight, you get one switch while I get zero! Sound all goodie to you?” Fen nods back to the cheerful girl. Alira nods back, but really quickly. Almost like she’s just finished drinking a bunch of coffee. They both palm a pokeball and with a wave of a flag from a referee, that frankly, I didn’t see before, they toss their pokemon onto the field.

Espurr forms on the field with her best war cry, which is a very quiet “Espurr…” on Alira’s side of the field a Sandile forms. Letting out a cry much fiercer and louder than Espurr. Espurr starts to shoot out rapid-fire Confusion as soon as Sandile is in her sights. The ground and dark type nimbly dodges Espurr’s attack.

Sandile starts to charge toward Espurr, his jaws radiating dark energy. Espurr tries to dodge Sandile's Bite, but that was just a feint as Sandile stops mid-charge and shoots something out of his mouth. A ball of purple ooze shoots out of his mouth ‘Is that Sludge Bomb? How does he know Sludge Bomb?’ I rack my brain as Espurr shoots down the sludge with Confusion, only to make it explode and drench the poor cat in poison. Espurr makes no noise, but Fen soon returns her, making her first and last switch.

‘Ah! TMs or was it a TR? That’s how he knows Sludge Bomb! Still, that seems a bit overboard for a no-badge fight…’ Then I look over to Fen who has just tossed out her Hatenna. Fen, who can telepathically speak to pokemon, who’s using her own gifts to get an advantage over her opponent. Then I look at Alira’s Sandile, who’s dodging a Psybeam. Alira, who is using her own advantages, uses her wealth as a gym leader to amp up her team’s abilities. I feel like I have an epiphany as Sandile soon falls down and is taken out of the fight.

‘They’re both using their advantages, using it in such a way that they gain an upper hand on their opponent.’ I think back to the spar earlier today, that kid was also using his own advantage of having a high leveled chaperone. Alira moves her hand to her belt, which has six pokeballs, but only two may be used in this fight. She hesitates as she’s reaching for a heal ball but instead goes for a regular pokeball and tosses it onto the field. A small shrew squeals onto the field, Sandshrew surveys his opponent.

‘Odds are that this Sandshrew will have a few tricks up his sleeves.’ My thoughts recollecting back into the epiphany. I’m so hesitant to use the system for sparring, but what is that other than an advantage? “Edit” has, quite literally, endless uses yet I barely use it. The Ask app is a well of knowledge that is seemingly sentient or at the very least a highly intelligent AI and yet I still barely use it. The fight rages on. Sandshrew tosses a Sand Attack at Hatenna, not lowering her accuracy since her eyes are already covered by what looks like hair. But rather uses it as a smokescreen as he burrows into the ground. Fen’s eyes glow a familiar pink, the same color as her fights with when she used her advantages against me. Advantages that let her beat me twice during our spars.

Her eyes move towards the ground, and where she looks Sandshrew, pops out to attack Hatenna from behind. But the psychic pokemon was expecting that, as she was charging up a powerful Psybeam, that hits the shrew at point-blank range. Causing the ‘mon to stagger backward, and soon fall over in defeat meanwhile, I am having an enlightenment moment. ‘People use their advantages to get an upper hand on others and yet…what have I been doing?’ I try to recall the last time I used status in a fight, the Venomoth is the most recent one. But that wasn’t really a fight as I soon forfeited. I go through my memories until I hit one that sticks, the last time I used the system in a fight was against Cora’s Chansey.

On my first day of having a pokemon, it was my first and last time using the system in a fight. Why? Why did I not use it in any of my fights? I used it on that Scraggy, but that wasn’t during the fight and I never even thought about his stats while I was fighting him. I didn’t think of exploiting his lower stats, or the small snippet of his personality the System let me know of. The two trainers meet each other in the center of the field to shake hands. I’m happy for Fen, as she finally got her first gym badge. But my inner thoughts are too loud to fully appreciate the moment. Did I not use it because it felt like cheating? I look at my sparring buddy as she takes a hold of a small badge, too small to make out from the stands. ‘But, it’s not cheating. I mean she uses telepathy to give commands, and they have no qualms with her.’

She looks up towards me, her Hatenna held in her arms. Her small psychic-type pokemon is absolutely beaming with joy, a smile across her face at their victory. I give Fen a small grin and a thumbs up, and that seems to be enough for her, as she turns away and walks out of the field. I push my thoughts into the back of my head, out of the way for now, but not forgotten. I will hold onto this info, to these feelings, and unpack them when I’m alone. Min must’ve let himself out of the ball as he is now resting on my shoulder ‘Didn’t even notice him…’ I ruffle his fur affectionately and head out of the stands. Ignoring Alira’s gaze on the back of my head as I do so.

I look around the receptionist’s desk and the room it’s held in until I finally spot a head of short blue hair. I walk over to Fen as she looks at something in her hand, the usual impassive expression on her face as she does so. “Hey, Fen.” I greet her as I walk towards her, she nods a greeting and takes out a small blue case. She open’s up the case and slots the badge into the perfectly formed indent in it. ‘Ah, a badge case. I don’t actually have one of those, I’ll get one after my own gym fight. When I have more money.’ I sigh inside my head at my recollection of lacking funds.

“So, you’re off to Bonescrap soon, right?” I ask, and get another nod in response. “I’m going there via taxi.” She says, nonchalantly. In my old world, a taxi would imply a car, but here it implies more of a cart, which is carried by big flying-type pokemon. I feel a bit sad to see my sparring partner leave, but I decide not to voice such a thing. “Well, I hope that you can prove your strength to the gym leader there,” I say vaguely recalling that she wants to show the leader how strong she’s gotten. She nods once more, but also does something that surprises me. Her mouth curls slightly upwards, a small smile forming on her face. I smile back and soon say my goodbyes and walk down the streets of Shaleshallows.

The various stalls start to tempt me which various knickknacks that I know will just take up space in my bag. ‘Besides it’s not like I even have the money to-’ My thoughts get interrupted by the previous ones I pushed into the back of my head. Strings connect inside my head, as an obvious thought enters my mind. ‘But, I do have a way to get money.’ I look towards my Arc-Phone.

I open the ask app and prepare to ask “How to get a lot of money in Shaleshallow?”

Ding

[Method one: Steal Sandyghasts from the sanctuary you’ve been to before, as they are rare in Olamin poachers and various connoisseurs of pokemon would pay a hefty sum of 500,000 PD per Sandyghast.]

‘Poaching?’ I look away from the app, the idea tempting me if only slightly. ‘Yeah, no way. That’s too far, they’re a protected pokemon species.’ Not in the mood to break any laws I go back to the app to ask for another method. But am interrupted by a Ding.

[Method two: Along the shorelines of Shaleshallows lies various pearls, these pearls can be sold for more depending on size]

‘Okay, that’s more agreeable. I can try using the ask App to figure out where the biggest pearl at the beach is at.’ I look down at my phone as I get another Ding.

[Method three: Pokemon jobs, by answering various requests posted by other people you can get a decent reward. These jobs can be found at any Pokecenter PC.]

‘Oh, that’s that thing in pokemon Sword and Shield, right? That could also work once I run out of pearls to sell.’ I close the app and start to map out my plan. I plan on challenging the gym once the line dissipates a bit more, then I plan to leave in about five or so days. I walk down the street, no longer focusing on the stalls, but rather on my plans. ‘Ah, could I use the ask app for training tips?’ The thought now only hits me. As I stroll through the streets I start to realize a little bit more of my own advantages.