The Ghost Specialist

Primeape could break boulders with his fists, and Sam wasn’t sure how to react to that.

The evolved Fighting Type could throw a punch and shatter the stone, or he could pierce his fist straight through and cause the rock to crumble to dust when he drew his hand back.

Sam and everyone else were camped not too far away from the Ruins of Alph, near where a few boulders were strewn about on the hilly Route 36. Likely, those boulders were the result of a Rock Type Pokémon’s moves, but now they served as the perfect targets for testing out Primeape and Ursaring’s increased strength.

“...Again, please,” Sam said hoarsely, his eyes flicking over all the rubble on the ground.

Primeape huffed, breathing out, and walked over to the next boulder. He brought his naturally gloved fists up into a stance not unlike a boxer’s, and then he threw the strongest right jab he could muster.

Once more, a loud cracking noise rang out. The boulder before him utterly shattered. When the dust cleared, the only thing left was his fist hovering right where the center of the rock used to be.

Sam didn’t know what to say. He knew his team was capable of great things, but this was...

Haunter can dive into shadows. Quilava can launch explosive fireballs. But Primeape?

There was something about the sheer force behind his strikes that made Sam truly understand the heights his Pokémon would reach.

Feeling like he was in a daze, Sam turned to Redi. She had on her face just the largest of smiles as she watched her Pokémon. Nearby, a full-grown tree laid on its side, its trunk completely sliced through thanks to a single swipe from Ursaring’s claws.

Ursaring switched targets to face the boulders as well, mostly to not anger any local Grass Types with more fallen trees. While he didn’t have that same shattering force Primeape had, Ursaring’s claws left clean grooves in each rock. Redi kept shouting for him to continue his attacks, all while occasionally tossing new commands towards Porygon in hopes of it finally figuring out Tri-Attack.

Sam had to manually close his mouth. He truly understood why people thought both Ursaring and Primeape were fully-evolved species; they were displaying a power that seemed top of its class. Yet, Sam also knew both Pokémon had subsequent evolutionary forms. The Indigo League would not be prepared for the power these two would wield.

“Primeape,” Sam said, turning back to face his Pokémon, “we’ll be working on better controlling your anger soon. Alongside that and Rage Fist and Bulk Up, you’ll be a monster. An unbeatable monster.”

Sam was terrified for his future opponents, but Primeape had a much different reaction.

He snorted, almost uninterested. Of course that’d be the case. Primeape didn’t even look that excited. At this point, evolving again was a given fact; he just needed to be patient.

Sam let the newly evolved ape destroy one last boulder before he returned him. Then, Sam walked over to Redi to tell her it was about time to head out. She also gave her Pokémon a final command. With just a single Slash, Ursaring might as well have cleaved his boulder perfectly in two.

She returned Porygon, but not that enormous bear.

“So we’re heading out, now?” Redi asked. Her hair was still a bit of a mess after waking up so recently. “I think Violet City’s not too far away. Maybe... I think we’ll arrive just after lunch? Ugh, I can’t wait that long! After this, I wanna fight Walker a.s.a.p.!”

Ursaring’s height let him loom over Sam. There was a natural snarl to his face, and sharp eyes tracked Sam’s movements. Evolution generally came with personality changes—usually minor. Likely, Ursaring would be a bit more angry but also a bit more protective. Thankfully, despite his outward appearance, Ursaring didn’t have a single aggressive bone in his body right now.

The bear had a thoughtful smile as he brought up a paw to appreciate his own strength. Under his brown fur, muscle rippled and flexed to become hard as stone. The way his claws glinted in the sunlight made the act feel like a threat, if Ursaring wanted to threaten someone, he’d never be that indirect.

That, and Ursaring was too well trained to ever accidentally hurt anyone he wasn’t ordered to.

“...It’ll be a short trip,” Sam replied after breaking his gaze away from Ursaring. “Once we’re there, there should be a few trainers we can battle to test our Pokémon. Wouldn’t hurt to shore up our funds, too.”

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Redi said with a nasty grin. She looked over to Ursaring. “Hm. Actually Sam, gimme a minute.”

Facing Ursaring, Redi held up her arms in the same way Quilava would when she wanted to be picked up. Ursaring saw that and loyally grabbed her, helping her onto his back. He was about the height of a tall, adult man, but given that he was a bear, he had much broader shoulders, one of which now served as Redi’s seat.

She kicked her legs happily.

“Alright. Redi’s ready to go!” she cheered.

A total inversion of who usually carried whom, but Ursaring seemed proud to be able to take on this role.

“Our teams are getting ridiculous,” Sam said under his breath, shaking his head.

Redi affectionately scratched Ursaring’s head, the bear letting out a contented growl as he followed Sam to the nearby road.

This close to the city, the path was more well-traveled, giving the group a distinct route to follow to reach the city. Wild Pokémon wouldn’t be as common, but what kind of insane wild Pokémon would attack a group with an Ursaring traveling with them?

The earth seemed to shake with each of Ursaring’s steps.

“Hmm.” Redi hummed as she looked over Ursaring’s hulking form. “Food’s gonna be a bit more annoying after this, but it should be fine. We’ll be able to fight tougher trainers and make larger bets. That’ll make up the difference.”

“But that means we could lose more money on those bets, too,” Sam pointed out.

“Psh. So what? We just have to win more than we lose!”

Sam’s thoughts went back to the future of their teams’ development. As he thought of how their two bruisers would get even stronger...

“And Ursaring can evolve again,” Sam said. “Not sure how anyone’s gonna be able to fight against that.”

A squeak left Redi’s throat. Sam looked over as she quickly coughed into her fist.

“Oh. Yeah. Duh, I definitely remembered that!” she said quickly. “I just— Ursaluna.”

She gained a dreamy look in her eyes as she stared off into the distance.

“What an amazing Pokémon,” Redi breathed. “If I had to choose only one thing to learn from your Pokédex—Well, I’d probably still choose Porygon. They’re pretty great.”

Ursaring let out an annoyed growl. Redi laughed, trying to wave him off.

“Oh, come on. Come on! You know we’d figure it out! You really think I’d be satisfied with just this?”

Ursaring replied by grumbling his name under his breath. Sam half-understood his point—Redi would've needed to learn about Ursaluna through reading historical accounts. Reading books was something she still didn’t really do.

“According to the New Pokédex, evolving into Ursaluna doesn’t actually grant a drastic increase to strength, but it makes it so you’re better at tanking physical moves,” Sam said. “Your special attacks would be a bit weaker, but the trade off is worth it, I feel.”

“Yup! That’s half the reason I wanted Porygon! They’ll be able to handle anyone Ursaring can’t fight!”

He growled happily, and Redi scratched his head once more.

“But you brought up money earlier, and I want to touch on that,” Sam said. “If you’re evolving Ursaring, we’ll need a peat block from Sinnoh. That’s going to have to require some sort of custom order to have someone fetch it for us. That means cross-region communication and transport, which means Olivine, which means a lot of money is gonna need to be spent. Add even more on top of that since no one’s ever really gone out of their way to buy something like that.”

For once, Sam saw Redi not even blink at the prospect of spending money. Instead, she just leaned over and affectionately wrapped an arm around the back of Ursaring’s head, not bothering to respond to Sam.

“Oh, you’re gonna be so cool!”

Ursaring made another pleased noise and stopped walking to flex. Redi gushed about how excited she was and all the brute force strategies she wanted them to rely on, and she did that for the rest of the way down the road.

Reaching Violet City took less time than they’d thought. Redi was wrong when she said they’d reach there after lunch; it was barely even noon when they arrived. The city was close enough that they could have likely arrived on the same day they reached the Ruins of Alph. Although, if they hadn’t taken a night’s rest, Sam wouldn’t have been able to learn just how strong Primeape was, and he wouldn’t have been able to get all of his thoughts about Professor Oak and his grandfather out of his mind.

Shoot.

He chose to think about his upcoming challenge in Violet City’s Gym instead.

From where the path crested over a hill, Sam could see Violet City from a distance. The city lacked the dense skyline of Goldenrod, and it didn’t have a big downtown district like Olivine. A few tall buildings stood in its center, but none of them reached the same heights. However, there was one tower that scaled higher than the rest. Its upper floors looked under construction, with only bare supports visible.

Actually...

He blocked out the sun with his hand and squinted, looking closer. Around that tower, Sam could just barely make out tiny, black dots circling its top. They reminded him of how flies buzzed around rotting food. They either glided around the tower’s many floors, or they moved in to land on its upper open-air structure.

“Flying Types,” Sam realized. “Those are Flying Types! That’s the Gym!”

It looked to be specifically designed to allow flying Pokémon to move in and out freely. There was nothing holding them down other than their own whims. Although, Sam was a little curious to see how such an open building dealt with rain.

Eyes still lingering on that tower, Sam started to follow the road down with Redi and Ursaring following behind. Beneath his feet, dirt turned to stone, and to his sides, buildings became more and more common until they were properly in the town. This place might have been a dense city, but its streets were wide. Trees lined the sidewalks, and Sam could see flocks of Pidgey nesting in those trees.

“I wonder if there’s so many Pidgey here because of the Gym,” Sam mumbled. “Or maybe the Gym is here because there’s so many Pidgey nearby?”

Redi remained sitting on Ursaring’s shoulder as they followed the signs directing them to the Pokémon Center. Though he wasn’t doing anything but walking, Ursaring was a pretty intimidating species. People eyed them from across the street, and it wasn’t uncommon for someone to immediately cross the road rather than walk nearby.

Those reactions didn’t seem to bother Redi. If anything, she seemed to appreciate people’s reactions as a recognition of Ursaring’s strength.

“I have a worry about our upcoming battles,” Sam said as they continued down the road.

“Hit me,” Redi replied.

Sam briefly considered literally hitting her as a joke—lightly, of course—but one look at her position on top of Ursaring, and he knew that wouldn’t be a good idea.

“Walker uses a team of flying, Flying Types,” Sam said. “How are we supposed to handle that?”

She frowned, tapping her hand on Ursaring’s shoulder. He stopped to let her hop down. Rubbing her chin, Redi moved next to Sam before they resumed walking forward.

“Porygon can definitely do it, but Walker’s team probably has some kind of defense prepared for Electric Type attacks. Not sure if Ursaring can hit a Pokémon in the air, too.”

“He can jump?” Sam offered.

“Maybe. Or... We could try to learn some kind of Rock Type move to chuck stones at things in the air?”

Sam almost missed his next step. Picturing Ursaring hurling boulders at opponents was intimidating, to say the least.

“I’ll check the New Pokédex for Rock Type moves later,” he whispered.

“Thanks, Sam. I’ll make sure to help with Primeape’s training, too.”

They didn’t need to ask any locals for directions, as there were enough signs around to direct them to the Pokémon Center without trouble. Sam did notice a teal-haired policewoman staring at Redi suspiciously, but Redi wasn’t doing anything illegal. She was just walking with Ursaring. Although, if the bear was any larger, there’d likely be restrictions on where he was allowed out. Interfering with foot traffic was a minor yet punishable crime.

The Pokémon Center was directly across the street from the Gym, in a shorter building that went only a few floors up. It went deep into its block, however, with many rooms within to support treatment and boarding for a city of this size.

Primeape, Ursaring, and the rest of their teams were passed over to the nurse to be healed. The two newly-evolved Pokémon needed to be checked-over to ensure nothing went wrong with their evolutions, and then everyone else needed a base check-up after spending so long on a route.

While waiting for their Pokémon to be returned, Sam lingered off to the side as Redi explored the front room. The lobby was the same basic Pokémon Center lobby—video phones in the back, seating areas in the front, with a few trainers loitering around—but Redi always liked chatting with visiting trainers. Sam preferred to keep to himself. Redi preferred talking to others. Doing so let her get a run-down of new places in exchange for information about the routes she’d just traveled.

Sam watched her spend a while bouncing around all the different people in the room, chatting and talking about miscellaneous things. She cheerfully went from group to group, eventually reaching a woman who likely wouldn’t be out of place on an Ace Trainer team. A short conversation later, and Redi’s smile faltered as she forced back a frown. Thanking the woman and waving goodbye, Redi then jogged over to meet back with Sam.

“Bad news. I just learned something about the Gym.”

“Is it closed?” Sam asked.

“No. Worse.” Redi sighed. “For anyone with less than six Gym Badges, Walker only accepts challenges from trainers who beat his Gym Trial.”

“...But we were going to do that anyway?” he said.

“Yeah, but the problem is we need to place first in his trial,” Redi said, rubbing her neck. “His Gym Trainers hold Pokémon races around the city three times a day. Only one person can earn ‘the right of challenge’ each time.”

The strength of the other trainers in the Trial wouldn’t be an issue—both Sam and Redi’s teams could face five-star teams well enough. The true issue was that no Pokémon on their teams was that fast. Or at least, fast enough to outpace the rest and finish first in a race.

“What are the rules? Do you have to ride Pokémon? Run alongside them? Or is it Pokémon running without any commands?” Sam asked.

“Trainer and Pokémon work together. Moves are allowed to a certain point, according to what she said,” Redi explained, pointing to the woman she had talked to. “I can ride Ursaring, and you can run alongside your Pokémon, but even if just a basic Ponyta joins the race...”

Sam groaned under his breath. He shouldn’t have been surprised that the Flying Type Gym Leader heavily encouraged speed in his Trial.

Considering it, he could see two obvious solutions. They could either figure out a strategy to help them win—obviously—or they had to repeatedly take on the trial until they won, effectively brute-forcing it. The trainers with fast Pokémon would win for sure, which meant they’d be a threat only once. If the influx of new competitors was low, eventually, Sam and Redi would be part of a Gym Trial with only slow opponents remaining.

But they’d have to get lucky enough for that twice—once for both of them.

Not to mention that with only three trials taking place each day, this city was likely a bottleneck for lower-tiered trainers. It would be possible to head elsewhere and come back after earning more badges—effectively skipping this Gym Trial—but that was a big reroute for a Gym they were literally right next to.

As he considered his options, Sam glanced at Redi. She was trying to hide it, but the smallest of smirks twitched onto her face as she watched him think.

“You’re smiling. Why are you smiling?” Sam accused.

Redi merely hummed, rocking back and forth on her feet.

“Am I?” she said in a sing-song voice. “Oh, if only I already had some kind of solution in mind.”

He stared at her until she laughed, enjoying Sam’s bemused reaction.

“Alright, alright. No one directly told me this, but I overheard a few people talking about it. I think there’s an advertisement for it on the job board, so let’s make sure it’s happening before making any plans.”

The board attached to the Pokémon Center wall wasn’t as picked clean as it was back in Olivine. There were a lot of trainers here, but now that the season had been going on for a while, most active trainers had earned the funds they needed to support their teams. Sam and Redi had all but stopped taking on jobs, themselves. Gym earnings, the occasional trainer battle earnings, and Redi’s mind for budgeting was enough to let them feed their teams. It helped that they finished purchasing needed supplies back in Goldenrod, and outside of ongoing costs, the only future items they needed to buy were maybe TMs.

And probably a crowbar.

Unfortunately, evolution probably meant they’d need to take jobs again, as larger Pokémon needed to eat more food. Sam was already scanning the job board as they approached, seeing the usual suspects for jobs as well as a few more difficult ones now that he had a tougher team.

There were jobs like scaring Pokémon away, helping people move heavy things around, and the occasional request to burn some spare wood. Sam also saw one job that mentioned helping someone break apart boulders to clear out a field—something he knew Primeape could absolutely do.

However, in addition to everything else on the job board, there was one flier that stood out to him, an advertisement for an event coming up rather soon.

“The Violet City Tournament,” Sam read. “Second of this season. And the prizes—”

He stopped.

“Winner gets the right to challenge Walker in his Gym?” he said.

“Yup!” Redi said. “Top three get to skip the Gym Trial, which is perfect for us since this round of the Tournament is aimed at trainers around our level. If it were the end of the season, we’d stand no chance, but right now—”

“Not just that. Look at the other rewards,” Sam interrupted.

Redi glanced to the bottom of the flier and froze.

The flier was misleading in that it listed an incredible sum to brag about its “cash prizes.” However, it was talking about the total value of all prizes, not the prize money the first place trainer would receive. Still, mentioning money was normally enough to get Redi excited, but she wasn’t looking at the numbers. She was looking at the additional prize mentioned below.

The flier advertised a choice between four TMs as a prize alongside the money, with the first place trainer being able to choose one from four, second place one from three, third place one from two, and fourth would receive whatever was left. Normally, TM moves were a tacked-on bonus, but this flier listed attacks known to be the top of their class—Fire Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, and the incredibly powerful Hyper Beam.

“Sam,” Redi whispered. “Sam. Sam. Sam.”

She turned to place her hands on his shoulders. She stared directly into his eyes.

“I want that Hyper Beam TM. No, I need it.”

“Place in first,” Sam replied.

She scoffed.

“I’m not stupid. I won’t be able to. Ursaring might be strong, but I only have two Pokémon with me and that’s not enough to get through an entire tournament,” she said in a quiet voice. “We’d be able to win the first few fights, but the damage and exhaustion would build up until we wouldn’t be able to fight back. Given that the final rounds are where the toughest Pokémon end up...”

She let out a rather self-defeating chuckle.

“No. I can’t do it. But you? Yes. Yes. Sam, you can do it,” Redi said, a terrifying smile creeping onto her face. “Think about it. My Pokémon would get worn down, but you’re all about making it so your opponents can’t hurt you back.”

“I only have three Pokémon. That’s only one more than you,” Sam pointed out. “And their moves expend a lot of energy.”

“But they can rest between the battles. Recovering spent energy is a lot easier to do than healing from injuries.”

Sam turned away from her piercing gaze to stare at the advertisement. While he’d have liked the Fire Blast TM for himself, it was Redi’s turn to get a TM next. She’d gone and put in the effort to get him that Curse TM back in Olivine. She’d also allowed him to take all the prize money from Whitney and purchase two more TMs for his team.

For her to obtain Hyper Beam here...

Walker’s Pokémon were likely too fast for it to matter in the Gym Battle, but just thinking about it being used in any other fight, Sam shivered. He was very thankful the Ghost Types on his team would be immune to that attack.

“Alright. I’ll do it,” he said. He owed it to his friend, anyway.

“Great!” Redi pulled away. “We have about a week and a half to get ready for the tournament, but don’t worry, I’ll help! Believe me, when we’re done with your team, there’s no chance you’ll get anything but first!”

She dropped her hands to her side and turned back to the flier as well. As she did, she chuckled. The sound sent chills down Sam’s spine. A week and a half was a long time to prepare his team and master new moves, but there was something about Redi’s look that made Sam nervous.

For some reason, he had a feeling this upcoming week would be more difficult than the tournament itself.