The Ghost Specialist

Redi agreed with Sam that it was probably smart to let everyone rest. Once afternoon hit, the new pair of traveling companions left to reach the edge of town, finding a location hidden within a sparsely wooded area that ensured no one unwanted would listen in.

Cyndaquil was dividing her attention between her own practice and helping others. She now knew Curse. Sam and Redi had stopped at the Pokémon Center before heading out, and all it took was loading up her Pokéball and the Curse TM into a specialized PC for her to learn the move.

To use it, Cyndaquil crouched down and focused. There were no visual components to it. She had to actively maintain the energy inside of her, which meant it took great effort to move with any decent speed. However, that energy actively reinforced her. Brief spars with Mankey made it clear that she could more easily take hits with it active, and her own attacks came out loaded with energy that made them that much more powerful.

Except...

It wasn’t as “ghostly” as Sam wanted. He could see why so many argued over its actual Type. Ghost Type moves usually had some aspect that was spiritual, misty, or connected to darkness. This? It was almost entirely physical. He genuinely had trouble understanding how the move turned into an actual curse when used by a Ghost Type.

At least Cyndaquil was working to better get it under control. TMs implanted the memories of a specific technique into a Pokémon’s head, but it took active practice to actually master the move. Half of her attention was spent working on Curse, and the other half was spent helping Redi’s Teddiursa.

Redi was good at training, so this was a sort of test to both push and assist Teddiursa. Cyndaquil was doing her best to help the bear learn how to utilize Fire Type energy in hopes that he would eventually figure out the otherwise TM-taught Fire Punch.

Then, finally, Mankey was working on utilizing his own rage to turn Scratch into Fury Swipes. That was going a lot better, as Redi gave the surprisingly helpful advice of, “It’s literally just Scratch but you use it faster.”

But, as the three Pokémon trained, neither Sam nor Redi were letting them work on their own. The pair of trainers were hard at work themselves, except their work was in conversation, trying to fill one another in about their gaps as a trainer.

“Back at home, my family was all about building up our Pokémon’s physical power,” Redi said, smiling as she clearly remembered some fond memories. “We have a pair of Machoke brothers that can lift over a ton of concrete just on their own. Then, there’s Mama—er, not my mom, but a Kangaskhan—who’s great at setting up all of the heavy equipment just right. Mama Bear, Teddiursa’s mother, is an Ursaring who—”

“You have both Mama and Mama Bear as part of your family’s Pokémon?” Sam asked incredulously.

“Shut up. I was, like, three. How was I supposed to know those nicknames would stick?”

Her face was bright red.

“But what I was trying to say is that from years of experience, I’m confident the best way to train your Pokémon is to let them do what they want,” she said, clearing her throat to regain the pace she had set from before. “You don’t need any special exercise for them, you just need to take what they already do and make it more.”

Sam had out a journal in his lap—not the New Pokédex, but a blank book he was using to record any notes. Redi was walking back and forth, completely in lecture mode, whereas Sam was resting on a tree stump. When Redi said that he needed to train his Pokémon by letting them do whatever they wanted, he put down his pen and looked up at her in doubt.

“Yeah, I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he said. “If Pokémon get stronger by doing what they want, how do trainers make any difference when compared to wild Pokémon?”

“I mean, free healing,” Redi stated.

Sam had to give her that one.

“But, um, well, it’s more like...” she grumbled and crossed her arms, struggling to find the right words. Sam could tell that she was more of an instinctual type of trainer; she did what she did because it made sense, not because she was meticulously planning her actions. “Okay, so this is a secret, but Teddiursa’s Fury Swipes is better than other Fury Swipes at his level.”

Sam immediately picked up his pen to return to writing.

“See, in the wild, Teddiursa and Ursaring need ways to sharpen their claws. Usually, it’s done by leaving scratches on trees to mark their territory. By the way, if you ever see trees with clawed off sections of bark, you know you’re near a wild Ursaring and you should leave.”

Sam couldn’t resist. “You know that but not that Ghost is immune to Normal?”

Redi blushed. “Shut up,” she said again, crossing her arms. “I focused on Teddiursa, alright? How was I supposed to know there were Pokémon immune to his strength?”

“So, what I did is, I took that habit and had him try to sharpen his claws on other things,” Redi said, clearing her throat and continuing. “We started with harder types of wood—you can get pieces of scrap wood for free outside of any carpenter’s place. From there, we moved onto stone, which we literally just picked up off the ground. It didn’t really work well at first, because the hard material was making his claws duller rather than sharper. That is, it didn’t work until we figured out a trick to it.”

Redi stood a little taller. The grin on her face told Sam that she was proud of what she figured out.

“See, all Pokémon moves use Type energy to fuel their moves, so what if Teddiursa did the same when sharpening his claws? Coursing Normal Type energy made them even stronger than before, and it meant that all of these tougher materials now actually worked to sharpen them. Not just that, but it practiced his control, too, so by starting with something Teddiursa already does naturally...”

“You’ve figured out a way to make him stronger just by doing something he already does,” Sam concluded.

Redi grinned and pointed at Sam proudly.

“Exactly!” she exclaimed.

He went ahead and furiously scribbled everything she said into his journal.

“So then, what do Cyndaquil and Mankey already do?” he mumbled under his breath. “Cyndaquil naps a lot, likes being tucked in, and, um...”

“Maybe try to think more about what she does as a member of her species rather than what she does as an individual?” Redi offered.

Sam hummed and tapped his pen against his chin.

“A lot of her power comes from the flames on her back,” he said. “Maybe we should work on making those come out stronger, faster, and hotter?”

It would probably work, especially when considering Cyndaquil’s potential abilities. Blaze and Flash Fire both needed to be developed, but both of them were focused on controlling fire itself. Going further, Sam was pretty sure that using her back’s flames might actually help empower her other moves. Instead of repeatedly using Ember or Flame Wheel to practice her Fire Type control, improving how well she could control her own flames might pass benefits into her moves.

He wrote all of these thoughts down; he wanted to be able to go back to this later and see how he came to certain decisions. Plus, if he thought up something important and unintentionally skipped over it, at least he would have a record to reread later.

“And for Mankey...” Sam started.

“That’s easy. Just have Mankey beat up Teddiursa.”

Teddiursa was in the process of trying to get his paw to ignite against the air, and he stumbled mid-punch to look up at Redi in horror. Mankey, meanwhile, snapped his gaze to her with his eyes wild in frenzied excitement.

“I want to make Teddiursa unbeatable in melee combat! What better way to do so than to have him constantly be under assault from a Fighting Type?”

She grinned confidently, and Teddiursa slowly panned a terrified gaze over to Mankey. The monkey interlaced his fingers and pushed them out, cracking his knuckles. A nervous, choking laugh exited Teddiursa’s mouth as he took a step back. Thankfully, Redi intervened.

“Not now, though. Later. If we want to take on the Gym, we have to get your Fire Punch in order,” she said. “That kind of training will be more effective later on.”

Two sighs came in response to that: Teddiursa from relief, and Mankey from disappointment.

“Speaking of that, here.” Sam reached into his backpack and pulled out a stack of cards. “These are for you. The Pokémon Center had some spares. I figured you don’t want to listen to any of my boring lectures that much.”

One of Redi’s eyes twitched as she looked over what she was given.

“Are these... flashcards?” she said, almost hissing.

“Yup!” Sam said cheerfully. “I can tell you about so many things about Pokémon, but I think we should make sure you have your basics down first. Given that you don’t have the Type chart memorized just yet, that’s absolutely the number one thing we’ll work on. I mean, really, trying to use Fury Swipes against a Gastly?”

“Are you ever going to let that go?” she grumbled.

“Not until you have all of this memorized and can tell me the rarer interactions, like which Types Bug resists.”

Redi opened her mouth then closed it. She mumbled under her breath, “Bug Types have resistances?” She started to flip through the stack, looking at both sides of the cards and reading everything to try to find the answer.

“The Types are Fighting, Ground, and Grass,” Sam said after a minute passed without Redi giving him a proper response. “See, not many people know that kind of stuff. But it’s important! Imagine if I sent Mankey out against a Bug Type and had him use Karate Chop.”

The monkey in question scoffed as if to say he’d win anyway, but one look from Sam made Mankey stomp at the ground, annoyed that Sam had a point. Bug Types might have a bad rap when it came to their general strength, but Mankey hadn’t reached the point of being able to win against all of them.

And then there was a different matter.

The New Pokédex.

Sam debated telling Redi about it, but the second he brought up the idea of giving her assigned reading, she simply scoffed and told him to summarize it for her, instead.

So it had kind of worked out, in a way. Sam definitely planned to give her some “unique” information later on, but Redi wasn’t actually interested in sitting down and reading in the slightest. His secret weapon would remain secret for now.

But, with everything I found out about Teddiursa’s evolutions...

“So now that we have our flashcards, that just leaves our plan to take on the Gym,” Sam said, deciding that explaining anything too advanced would be a waste of time for now. “How exactly are we going to do this? Should we both just head in and challenge the Gym Leader to a fight?”

Redi snorted as if what Sam said was funny. He glared at her until she stopped looking at the flashcards and started to explain.

“Okay, okay. So there’s a process to it. We’ll need to sign up to reserve a slot, which might take a while given how busy the city is.”

“That’s fine. Gives us more time to train,” Sam said. Redi nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, but the important part to remember is that taking on a Gym requires an upfront fee, a fee that you don’t get back if you lose.”

Sam went silent. Redi pushed on.

“I want to say that Teddiursa would crush the Gym, but you’ve kind of made it obvious that that won’t be the case. Sure, he’s strong, but I don’t think I have a good handle on how physically defensive Steel Types are, right?”

“You didn’t even know they resisted Normal Type moves before yesterday.”

“Shut up,” Redi said yet again. “At least Teddiursa can actually win a fight.”

Both of them snickered before moving on.

“Basically, I think you should go first, and I think you should earn the prize money from beating both the Trial and the Gym Leader,” Redi said.

Sam tilted his head at her.

“The Trial and the Gym Leader? What?”

Redi sighed, almost disappointed.

“You telling me you really don’t know?”

He did his best to look away. Really, he had a one-track mind growing up. And that track had been solely about the Ghost Type.

“Okay, fine. My family has helped Lt. Surge with his Gym before, so I know all about it,” Redi said, honestly sounding like she was bragging more than she was explaining something. “Trials are only available to trainers with five Gym Badges or lower, acting as an alternative way for those trainers to earn Gym Badges without needing to challenge Gym Leaders.”

“Why?” Sam immediately asked. The concept seemed so... dumb. Gym Badges were meant to represent a trainer utterly conquering a Gym. Having an easier, alternative method to earn them felt like it lessened their value.

“Far as I heard, it’s more about freeing up the Gym Leaders’ time,” Redi explained. “Like, so many people are taking on the Pokémon League, and that number is constantly growing. With how common Pokédexes are getting—”

Sam scowled. Electronic Pokédexes were far more common in Indigo than they had been back home in Hoenn.

“—trainers have been flooding the circuit, so it doesn’t make sense for Gym Leaders to take on everyone who challenges them. Instead, Gym Trials are a way to lessen that flood, because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t make sense to fight all those trainers who otherwise won’t earn more than a handful of Gym Badges,” she said, tapping her cheek. “They set up some kind of challenge run by their Gym Trainers—the Gym Trial—and then that’s a big chunk of trainers they never need to schedule a slot for!”

“But you said I should take on both,” Sam said.

Redi rested her chin on a fist before nodding as if she had given out sage advice.

“Of course,” she easily replied. “You get a reward for winning both of them. Given you’ve said both Cyndaquil and Mankey have an advantage...”

“I should maximize our earnings before you go in, giving us a safety net of cash to fall back on if you lose,” Sam concluded.

Redi grinned.

“Of course, since I’ll go second, I won’t lose, since I’ll have all that extra time to train. But, um, just in case...”

Sam nodded.

“I guess it makes sense,” he said.

“And it’s a way to maximize earned experience, too!”

She actually seemed pretty excited about this plan. Redi looked downright proud about how she had come up with something so clever. Sam agreed with it, too. After all, after his challenges, he would be able to come back and give her tips or warnings based on how his own battles went.

“But, before then, we should continue to work on our teams,” Sam said.

“Yeah. I need to learn more about Pokémon...”

“And I need to get my Pokémon stronger...”

Curse for Cyndaquil. Fury Swipes for Mankey. Fire Punch for Teddiursa. Plus, all of the general training to make sure everyone was in good shape.

Sam was already enjoying traveling with Redi, even though they hadn’t left for anywhere just yet. He knew for a fact they would both end up stronger for it. Barely any time had passed, and he was seeing a difference in his Pokémon. When the time came for them to take on their first Gym, both of their teams would be in a much better state than if they had trained them on their own.