The Ghost Specialist

With a late night exploration came a late morning wake-up. It was only about an hour before noon when Sam came to, went downstairs, and found the package containing the piece of Charcoal. To say he was blown away would be an understatement. He understood just how expensive a piece of Charcoal was, and if he was being given one, the charcoal-maker’s family must have been significantly more thankful than he would have thought.

Quilava would best benefit from the Charcoal when she didn't need it to hold it in her paws. Keeping it in hand would interfere with her ability to scurry, so Sam needed to buy her a collar, a bandana, or some kind of ribbon that could keep it tight against her body.

But that was a task for later.

Still a bit groggy from being awake so late in the night, Sam walked over to a small, back room of the Pokémon Center, which was the equivalent of a kitchen. With how Pokémon Centers served as both medical facilities and what were effectively hotels for trainers, part of their budget went into providing free breakfast for anyone staying the night. It was only ever creamy oatmeal at most, but on-duty Chansey tended to break up their precious eggs and mix them in. While it sounded strange, a Chansey’s egg was extremely sweet, almost like sugar, and it carried an extreme amount of nutrients alongside the effect of putting anyone who ate it in a good mood.

So, Sam and his team ate the cold meal, with a hairnet-wearing Chansey ladling them bowls. Sam ate his with a spoon, Quilava sipped at hers slowly and politely, and Mankey furiously shoved his face into his meal, his fur dripping with food when he came up to breathe, looking around in a daze like some kind of overfed kitten.

Haunter only took a few bites, stealing them from Sam and everyone else when they weren’t looking. As a Ghost Type, he didn’t exactly need to eat, but when he did, he much preferred berries. His internal energy was fueled with spiritual... something. Unfortunately, it was hard for researchers to figure out what sustained Ghost Types when they weren't sure themselves.

Redi had already left earlier, but Sam still planned to get some practice in. Training was a good way to wake up and keep his team in shape. He left, handing their bowls back to the Chansey with a thank you, and moving out to meander through Azalea’s streets.

He briefly stopped and considered purchasing a few herbal medicines from one of the shops that sat in town.

“What do you think? Worth getting some?” he asked his team.

Quilava sniffed the air and gagged, but she tried to put on a brave face in a sign of support to Sam. Meanwhile, Mankey outright crossed his arms and made a point of looking away. While herbal medicines tended to be extremely effective, they were also extremely bitter. Both Mankey and Haunter would likely rebel if Sam tried to use those medicines too often.

Seeing their hateful glares, Sam laughed and skipped the shop. Annoyed, Mankey tried to kick him, but Sam hopped over the attack.

The dodge didn’t matter. Haunter made use of Sam’s shadow to trip him by reaching up and grabbing his leg.

The best place to train wasn’t in the town itself. The Ilex Forest contained wild Pokémon that were more than willing to throw themselves into fights. However, Sam wanted to work on new moves rather than skill in battle, so he instead made his way to the nearby, crystal-clear lake, stepping onto a long, gravel shore wide enough to provide plenty of room to practice new attacks.

Arriving, he saw a few different trainers practicing with their own teams in the distance, but he didn’t expect to see Redi already here. Then again, traveling together usually meant people picked up one another’s tendencies and habits.

“Thunder Shock!”

Sam heard her voice before she saw him. Her shout was loud and full of excitement. Redi pumped her hands and cheered at the floating Porygon. Teddiursa did the same next to her.

To Sam’s surprise, Porygon actually performed the called-for attack. Around its body, raw electricity popped and sparked like a short-ranged aura. Technically, the attack could be combined with Tackle to make a rough Spark attack, but Thunder Shock was specifically a special, ranged move that fit Porygon better—although that range was rather short.

“I slept in for, like, three extra hours, and you already figured an Electric Type attack?” Sam called out.

Redi jumped. Her gaze snapped to the approaching Sam as her hand locked onto Porygon’s Pokéball at her waist. When she blinked and realized it was just him, she relaxed and her usual cheerful demeanor returned.

“Yeah! Great, isn’t it? So you found my note.”

“Your note?” Sam asked.

“Tch. Probably should have given it to the nurse instead of leaving it in my room,” she grumbled.

Sam barely resisted covering his face with a palm.

“Whatever,” Redi continued. “Check this out! Porygon, use Thunder Shock!”

Once again, the artificial Pokémon sparked with electricity. The move covered a slightly smaller area this time around.

“So I woke up early to visit Azalea’s power plant,” Redi explained, grinning at her Pokémon as Sam moved to her side. “Turns out, it’s not really a power plant, but they have a bunch of windmills behind a nearby hill and a bunch of transformers or something that manage all their power. There was a guy there who protects it in exchange for letting his Pokémon leech off the power grid to feed themselves.”

“Yeah?” Sam said, trying to see if Porygon was any more responsive—it wasn’t—as Redi kept talking. “He helped you?”

“He did!” Redi said excitedly. “I didn’t really need much advice, just a good description. I figured that since Porygon is so much like a computer program, I just needed to define any new potential Types like some kind of variable. So, I asked the guy if he could describe electricity, he told me something about charged particles and currents, which I already forgot—”

This time, Sam couldn’t resist the temptation of covering his face with a palm.

“—But Porygon didn’t! And thanks to that, they actually know what electricity is! They can do this now, too! Use Thunder Shock!”

Once more, Porygon sparked, but it looked more like an inch of static over their surface rather than any large burst like before.

“...We’re still working on it,” Redi mumbled, slumping a bit. “I think there’s a charge to it. Porygon’s Electric Type moves become weaker the more we attack and stronger the more we let it build. I’m trying to find the best balance of building and release, and then with some tweaks we should figure out— Wait, what were those moves called?”

“Discharge and Charge Beam?” Sam offered.

Redi smiled again.

“Yeah. Those.”

Teddiursa made a noise next to Redi, and the little bear Pokémon smirked at where Mankey stood next to Sam. Teddiursa held up a claw, clenching it into a fist. While no obvious Thunder Punch was used, the message was clear; Teddiursa planned to master that attack before Mankey ever had a chance to learn it.

An eye twitched, and Mankey snorted at Teddiursa. His hand cloaked with the Dark Type energy of Assurance, and he smacked at Sam’s shadow. Haunter yelped and was knocked out, angrily holding up a fist to scold Mankey for ruining his hiding spot. Unfortunately for him, Mankey completely ignored him and used that same Dark Type energy to grab onto Haunter’s spikes and drag him away, all but demanding that the Ghost Type train him in a different move.

A little bit of competition doesn’t hurt, but this is backwards, isn’t it? Teddiursa is the one with claws, and Mankey’s the one that punches. Yet, Teddiursa is working on Thunder Punch and Mankey is working on Shadow Claw.

...Well, as long as they’re motivated.

He snickered at the thought while Redi started to walk around Porygon, carefully looking over her Pokémon for any changes.

“I’ll be helping Quilava to learn a new move in the meantime,” Sam said. “Tell me if you want advice or need to glance at the New Pokédex.”

“Thanks. I should be fine, though. Just gotta figure out how to make this work before shifting to all those other moves. Tri-Attack and Conversion-2, too.”

She smiled again, her gaze a little unfocused. Sam could tell she was already dreaming about all the nonsense she could get up to with a wider moveset. Sam went ahead and split off to train with his Starter. He helped her down from around his neck and stared at her.

They had a move to learn today.

Mankey’s attempts to learn Shadow Claw alongside Haunter also helped Haunter train his personal control of Ghost Type energy. Sometimes, the best way to better understand something was to explain it to someone else. Haunter needed to learn new moves, which included Shadow Ball. Weirdly, it was more difficult to figure out than Hex, but both he and Sam wanted him to learn the attack. It especially grated on Haunter that a wild Misdreavus could use it but not him.

(Sam also briefly checked to see if that Misdreavus was nearby. He didn’t see anything, but he couldn’t help but to be paranoid that the Ghost Type was following.)

For Quilava, making use of what she already knew would be best, and she needed an attack that would work on Pokémon that resisted her Fire Type moves. The new move Sam had planned for her would help against Pokémon with impeccable dodging skills, though it would be useless against Ghost Types. It served as a decent stopgap for now.

Swift was a Normal Type attack—specifically, one that would be Quilava's first ranged Normal Type move. It conjured a swarm of glowing, homing stars that chased down her foes. It wasn’t the strongest move in the world, but it was good for a Pokémon of her level.

Like all moves, Swift required some form of Type energy to fuel it, and Normal Type energy tended to be the “easiest” to work with. Normal Type energy was significantly less “flavored” than all other Types , and it could be easily manipulated as a result.

Personally, Sam theorized that was why Teddiursa was so adept at training his elemental punches. As he was a Normal Type, he could easily “convert” that energy into different Types to fuel his moves.

Sam understood Fire and Ghost Type energy the best, thanks to all of Quilava’s training. Through gestures, she described Fire Type energy like the feeling of a forest fire at her fingertips (or toes)—high-powered, energetic, a desire to spread, and explosive potential. Meanwhile, Ghost Type energy was almost insidious. It was persistent, and once used, there was a subtle obsession that allowed such moves to almost always carry through their effects. Strangely enough, the Ghost Type itself didn't have the same level of maliciousness as, say, the Dark Type, but there was still a cold need to it, even if that cold need tended to just be the desire to play pranks.

Low level moves didn't necessarily require energy, as attacks like Tackle could be used as a solely physical body slam. Even something like Growl didn’t require much extra effort—it could be as easy as an intimidating shout. However, mastery over Type energy itself was needed to allow moves to actually carry an effect in anything more than the lowest level of play. For Quilava’s work on Swift, she needed to take Normal Type energy, condense it into stars, unleash those stars at her opponent, and then cause them to home.

But she already had everything she needed to succeed with this practice.

With her evolution into Quilava came the quick transformation of Tackle into Quick Attack. The same energy that was used for strikes was instead used to push off the ground for quick bursts of speed. With that improvement came an increased understanding of Normal Type energy, and she was also already familiar with rapid-fire attacks and moves that chased their targets thanks to both Ember and Will-O-Wisp. Not to mention, all her practice with Blaze and Curse meant she had the proper internal control to combine everything together.

Her practice started with Quilava standing still, utterly motionless as she underwent complete focus. Normal Type energy tended to appear as a pure white glow, like the glow that chased some species’ use of Quick Attack. Around her, Quilava caused motes of Normal Type energy to appear outside of her body, which reminded Sam of Will-O-Wisp. Unfortunately, each one quickly fell apart and fizzled out.

“What if you try to build it inside your mouth like with Ember?” Sam suggested after carefully observing her continued efforts.

Quilava’s next attempt caused her to cough up smoke, but Sam shouted more advice based on everything he’d seen. If Misdreavus formed a Shadow Ball in front of its mouth, what if Quilava did the same for this move? Trying that, she was eventually able to conjure a single, glowing star that she bit down on and tossed with a flick of her head.

Surprisingly stable. That’s good.

“Close!” Sam called out excitedly. “That’s the exact shape we need. Now you just need to make it come out faster and in a group. Think you can do that?”

She squeaked, already somewhat tired but absolutely determined to figure this out.

Practice built upon practice, and techniques built upon techniques. While Mankey kept kicking the gravel out of frustration at his failure to figure out Shadow Claw, it took only half an hour for Quilava to turn Swift into a decent attack, and it only took another half an hour after that for her to increase the amount conjured and turn that into a full-fledged attack.

Her Swift still needed work, but it was battle-ready. Unfortunately, until she practiced it more, Ember would be more powerful. Still, when Quilava finally got it down, bits of stone were launched into the air from the force of the stars that slammed into the gravel beach.

The sight of it caused Quilava to freeze, as if she wasn’t expecting that level of impact. Slowly, she turned her head in surprise only for Sam to smile at her. Right away, she ran over and jumped into his arms, wiggling with proud excitement.

“You did it!” he said, laughing and rubbing her back. “Mankey, you’re next!”

The Fighting Type huffed, annoyed. Haunter actually looked a bit sheepish for once. It seemed that both he and Sam had thought he’d be able to assist Mankey with the move, but he hadn’t.

Intending to change his focus and assist, Sam began to walk over, continuing to carry Quilava in his arms. She was larger now. It took a lot more effort to hold her than when she was a Cyndaquil.

“Have you ever thought about how far we’ve come?” Sam whispered to her as he approached. “Think about it. It used to be just us, and we sucked. Mom’s training made that obvious. But now? Now, you’ve evolved. And we have Mankey with us. We have Haunter with us. And we have Redi, a friend, who has Teddiursa and has Porygon and has no problem helping us make sure everything we do to get stronger comes out well.”

He chuckled.

“We’ve built a pretty cool, little group, haven’t we?”

Quilava said her name and leaned into him. He scratched her neck before setting her down. Having arrived, he looked over at both Mankey and Haunter. He cleared his throat to gather everyone’s attention.

“I’ve been thinking about the next Gym,” he announced as everyone gathered around. “They use Bug Types there, which means we have a pretty significant advantage. Mankey, you have a Fire Type attack in the form of Fire Punch. Quilava, you literally are a Fire Type. And then Haunter, you resist Bug Type moves twice over, and you’re immune to their Normal Type attacks, too.”

His team stood tall and proud. Everything Sam said led to the conclusion that this upcoming Gym battle would be an easy victory.

“But I don’t want that,” he said, and his entire team looked at him, confused. “We could rely on our advantages for an easy match, or we can actually make use of our team’s strategy.”

Sam let himself fall onto the ground, sitting back with the gravel shifting to support his weight. Lowering himself, he could better look his Pokémon in the eye as he glanced over all of them.

“Quilava, your Will-O-Wisp burns, which has an incredible amount of synergy. Burn pairs well with both Mankey’s Assurance and Haunter’s Hex. Then, it also weakens physical attackers, perfect for safe triggers of Anger Point or lessening how much damage you all take.”

Mankey snorted to say that he wasn’t as fragile as Sam was implying. Yet, Sam also knew that he and Haunter had about the same level of physical endurance—not much.

He pushed on.

“That’s just the benefit of Will-O-Wisp. I haven’t even talked about how moves like Hypnosis, and Confuse Ray could apply. Heck, even Ice Punch is incredible. It can freeze someone if you place your attacks just right!”

Mankey raised his brow.

“But what I’m trying to say is...” Sam took a deep breath. “I want us to win based on skill rather than any inherent advantage. I don’t want us to only rely on strength. In a Gym battle like this, we have the perfect chance to start building the habits that will carry us to a win in the Silver Conference. We’re a team! Let’s fight like one, too!”

Gyms were meant to push trainers, to test them to see if they had the strength to continue to the next tier of play. Gym Leaders fought battles to win, of course, but their teams were always built to be possible to defeat.

Here, the Gym would let Sam see how his Pokémon performed against a team of a similar level. Sure, they could rely on Fire Type moves and solely focus on Type advantage, but what would they learn from that? How would they become stronger if they fought like any other trainer?

“When we take on Azalea Gym, we’ll be at a numbers disadvantage. Whoever fights us will be using four Pokémon to our three. However, we also have to remember that none of you fainted against Whitney. And I genuinely think we can do that again.” Sam smiled at his Pokémon. His thoughts of the future were already making his heart thrum in his chest. “So this is where things are going to get exciting. Let’s show the world just how much potential we have!”

His team cheered alongside him. Redi briefly glanced over before throwing herself back into training with an even greater ferocity than before. Sam planned to make it to the big leagues, and now was the perfect moment to bring together everything they had learned and develop an undefeatable strategy.