Hard Enough

It was nice to be in demand for talks.

I had people demanding I attend talks with universities, trainer academies, and now training camps.

The issue was very much that the training camps that I’d locked in for, were supposed to be just Pewter trainers.

Then I’d gone and opened my damn mouth.

I stared at the list of applicants on the computer and scowled. “How often do you think I could save myself trouble if I just kept my damn mouth shut?” I asked rhetorically.

“Zu?” said Zubat from where she was hanging on the ceiling. One of her ears unfurled and I had to hurriedly wave a hand.

“No, no, ignore me, I was just talking to myself,” I said. Zubat returned to resting and I hummed, watching her.

She’d been flying around a bit helplessly after the game of colour tag. It might have been a case of her biting off more than she could chew, chasing Zephyr like that. Now she was struggling as she was keenly aware of the gulf in strength, speed, and experience that existed.

It didn’t help that with everything that had been going on with the Rocket raids, she hadn’t gotten much time with me. She hadn’t been able to be eased into the team, and training. She’d gone hard after Zephyr and come up short.

Which led her to start attaching herself to me when I was in the Gym or home. With her size, I found that wasn’t really an issue. More than a few people commented that she was rather adorable with how she clung to me. Rachel had even called it ‘little sister’ energy coming in strong.

I was a bit worried that it was a bit more of an abandonment issue presenting itself with how her introduction to my team had been delayed.

She was also easily one of the smallest pokemon I had in a team of giants, so she was also probably quite intimidated. I had no issues letting her cling to me. It would help things along more when she was ready for her final evolution into Crobat if we spent time bonding.

Something that I was making sure to lock in for all my pokemon more often. This morning's game had been a good start. I’d have to break out the training pads a bit more and let the team be goofy more. Maybe even set up another music night? Bertha always loved dancing along to some pop songs.

I’d tried a lot of different training methods during my journey, and while some of them worked well, others failed to achieve tangible results, such as boosting stats permanently with the use of buff moves repeatedly being used. Still, even failed training methods were experiences shared.

They still were experiences that more newly caught pokemon such as Link, Zubat, Teddiursa, Gible or the others wouldn’t get to experience. The training programs I had these days were sleek, well fashioned. They were tested and proven with results to show.

But they needed heart.

I toyed with my hands as I looked up towards Zubat. I would also need to account for Gible, Zubat, Link, and Teddiursa being very different from my usual team with Dragon-ground, flying-poison, fairy, and normal-ground to be accounted for.

I paused, frowning as I felt like I’d forgotten… Ah, Cradily. I needed to keep working on them as well. With Erika showing me a few tricks, I needed to reach out to others like Janine for Zubat. As for the ground typing, well I certainly wasn’t going to be asking Giovanni for any pointers.

I drummed my fingers and typed up a message to Lance asking about what would happen with the training manuals that Giovanni would have to have had for some of his trainers. If they existed. I somehow doubted that Giovanni had given out much with regard to unique insights for ground-type pokemon.

I started toying with my training schedule, dedicating a bit more ‘goof’ time into the equation with a host of different activities being added in simply to increase pokemon experience and team-building opportunities.

What was that other thing we did that had Sabrina—emotionally stunted Sabrina— rolling on the ground laughing?

I snapped my fingers. ‘Talent show’ I typed in. Then, because I could, I raised up my Xtransciever and shot Sabrina a message.

What do you call Banana peel shoes? I sent.

I giggled to myself as I was rewarded with a line of question marks from Sabrina.

Slippers.

I chortled to myself and fired off a few more. Sabrina sent me a number of emojis back and when I was done she snapped a picture of her smiling with a faint blush.

I snapped a picture of myself grinning back at her.

A flash of light heralded Sabrina popping into place. She started to seat herself in my lap only for Zubat, having gotten startled by the sudden appearance of another human.

“Argh! Zubat! We’re fine! Calm down girl!” I said. Zubat fluttered into a corner sheepishly.

“I don’t recall you having a Zubat,” Sabrina said, eying the small green pokemon with some annoyance.

“Yeah, she joined me on Friday night when my family went up to Mt Moon,” I replied. “She’s been a bit worried ‘cause of how busy I’ve been. Didn’t get to give her a proper welcome. She likes hanging out around me. Sorry, I didn’t consider how she’d react to you teleporting in. I’ll have to work on that,” I said.

Then I paused as another joke occurred to me. “Although I have something else to teach her first,” I said.

Sabrina twitched, aware enough of the tone of voice that I had used, to know that a joke was coming. “What are you going to teach her?”

“Her alpha-bat,” I said, and I was instantly rewarded by Sabrina dropping her stern expression to smile.

“You know what one bat says to another?” I asked.

Sabrina shook her head.

“Let’s hang around together.” Sabrina started to giggle and I ran through my entire cluster of bat jokes.

Zubat, apparently intrigued by the sound of Sabrina giggling, fluttered down onto my shoulder, her large ears crinkling as she rotated them from me to Sabrina to listen to our back and forth banter.

She then inched down my arm towards Sabrina, apparently liking the sound of Sabrina’s giggles.

When she got close enough for Sabrina to touch, Sabrina reached out and ran a hand over the little Zubat’s head. “Well, she’s certainly pretty,” Sabrina said.

Zubat preened at the compliment, and I knew they’d be good friends. Sabrina then closed the gap with me to give me a kiss.

Just as we were about to break apart, the door rattled. I frowned. “I didn’t have anyone booked in…” I paused and glanced at Sabrina. “Is it important?”

She nodded, and with an audible click, the door was unlocked, revealing Rocko and Alexa, who were carrying the end of the day’s reports.

“Oh, Gym Leader Sabrina! I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Alexa began.

Sabrina waved the comment away. “No, there was nothing happening. We were just hanging out,” she said seriously.

Alexa slowly nodded, her doubt on clear display. Rocko merely walked up and dropped down the reports for me to look over before eying the list I had on my computer. “Heh, still working at that?”

I nodded. “Yeah… I think I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.”

Sabrina took one look at the list and made a thoughtful noise. “Perhaps you should ask other Gyms to run training camps at the end of the circuit. Reply to the trainers that they should consider where they might get the best training for their pokemon, and hint at that being a possibility.”

“But no one else is doing it as far as I know?” I said.

“Create some interest in it, and they might, though. I will certainly be setting something up, and with my recent showing…” Sabrina trailed off, and I nodded.

It was really a stalling tactic, but that wasn’t too much of an issue. It would make some of the people who were harassing me reconsider their options. I could also have a serious think about it instead of just tossing out the suggestion. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it needed some work.

Still, it was an answer. As an old man once said to me during my journey, pursuing perfection every time is the enemy of good enough and getting the job done.

I sighed, nodding to show that I agreed. It would do for now. It didn’t feel like a perfect answer, but it was good enough.

“Alright! Let’s head home!” I said standing up.

Alexa and Rocko shifted guiltily. I paused and frowned as Sabrina made no move towards the door.

I sat back down. “What’s up?” I said, readying myself for whatever was about to be brought up.

Alexa coughed. “The League contacted us…” She chewed her lips nervously for a moment before straightening her spine. “Surge has said that he will comply with most of their demands, but he wants to talk with you.”

I felt my brow twitch. “That’s awfully demanding of a man that’s been caught literally aiding and abetting criminals,” I said pointedly.

Alexa nodded and relaxed, causing me to blink with surprise. Ah, she knew that this was a topic that would be poking at me. It worried me that she thought I’d lash out at her for delivering the message to me.

I let out a long breath. “Thanks for telling me this Alexa, at this point, I’m not interested in listening to whatever Surge has to say.” Sabrina nodded, and I shot her a look. “I imagine they’ve said the same to you."

She nodded again but gestured at me. “Yes, but I’m not worried about what they wanted. You said you would wait and I still think you should.” She smiled a little. “Let Surge and the League wait on you a little. You are, after all, not one of their employees.”

Rocko barked out a laugh at that. “Ha! She’s not wrong! With all the help you’ve been giving them it isn’t like you don’t have other things on your plate!”

“Hmmm, they can call me up if they need me, however,” I said, putting my head on my hand.

“Yes, but if they aren’t going to do it officially you don’t have to give them any response,” Sabrina said. “I don’t think they will do anything for the moment lest they lower their reputation.”

“Face?” I said, thinking of old Xianxia tales that I had rather enjoyed in my past life.

When Alexa and Rocko stared blankly at me I coughed and corrected what I’d said. Sabrina might have understood, but they wouldn’t, having not heard me talk about such things. “Your argument is that they will want to preserve their reputation?” I explained.

“Quite so,” Sabrina said.

“Hmmm, well, I’m going to hold off and let things calm down a bit. I will go in eventually, but I think I will do it on my own time,” I said.

The others nodded at this, and there was an undercurrent of worry in their gaze that I decided to ignore. Sabrina wasn’t looking at me with worry which made her easy to focus on. She smiled and squeezed my hand with her telekinesis before glancing at my computer.

“Are you going to have any more Ace battles before your tournament next week?” she asked. I narrowed my eyes in thought. Was she diverting the conversation? Ah, she must have been asked to assist officially. She didn’t want me to get mad at the League on her behalf.

Rocko and Alexa both stopped being so worried and showed interest in the new topic. They hadn’t noticed.

I shot Sabrina a knowing look. That had been a smooth conversation change; she certainly had picked up a lot from spending time with Erika.

I grasped the new topic and moved with it. “It’s the darndest thing, a lot of the people that had previously been rejecting or ignoring my challenges have suddenly started messaging me.”

“I imagine having Will drop off the Ace rankings due to being a convicted criminal certainly helped things along,” muttered Alexa.

I nodded. “It also caused a shift, with everyone that was eighteenth and lower in the rankings moving up one.” I opened up a pokenet webpage that Missy had directed me to earlier. “His vanishing from the list along with the lack of response from the League has made people come up with some amusing theories around him.”

Alexa stepped up and looked at the screen, her eyes squinting as she read. “They think he was a ghost pokemon?” she said incredulously.

Rocko snorted. “This one thinks that he was a psychic hired to hype up the Gym leaders with the fights he did but he went rogue and was gunning for the champion position? Wow, the pokenet is a dangerous place,” he said.

I snorted, knowing that this was one of the tamer pokenet pages out there. Also, this was early in the life of the worldwide pokenet. “The League will eventually need to have someone send out an announcement on this I imagine. A lot of people have noticed the shift and more specifically who it was that dropped off.”

Alexa shook her head. “Some people think you had a hand in vanishing him,” she said, reading more of the thread titles. “They’re wrong about the reasons but otherwise are… rather scarily accurate,” she said.

“Yeah, that can happen when you’re just throwing things out there,” I said. “But anyway, I wanted to show you the responses that I’ve had from other Ace trainers. They’ve stopped dragging their feet on a few things and have claimed a host of different reasons but some of them are actually valid.”

“Such as?” Sabrina said pointedly.

I waved a hand about, to signal the Gym at large. “I have a huge home-field advantage here with my set-up, the crowd and more. People coming to fight me are already on the back foot mentally. They’re not wrong about that, and a few people have stated that they only want to face me if it is an even playing field, or in some cases, a field that they're familiar with.”

“So they want the home-field advantage?” Rocko said, noticing the reversal right away.

I nodded. “Yeah pretty much. But I think it’s an experience I need.” I bounced in my seat a little. “I think it would be nice to get out of Pewter a bit, ‘cause I’m not always going to have things my way.”

Alexa and Rocko tilted their heads in a strangely synchronised manner. “Hmmmmm,” they both said, only to glance at each other and realise what they’d been doing. They shifted and chuckled before glancing back at me.

“If you’re sure,” Alexa said. “Will I need to block out set times?”

I reached out and typed out a quick reply to two emails. “Two times this week,” I said, pointing out the time slots I wanted. I was leaving things for Thursday and Friday. Two matches, then with rest on Saturday and Sunday leading into the tournament on Monday next week would be for the best.”

Rocko hummed. “Think that’s enough time to scout them?”

“We’ll spend some time going over the two people I’m challenging, the locations, and whatnot tomorrow during the break. I think it would be good to even make it a bit of an excursion for some of the Gym trainers.”

“Where are they asking you to fight?” asked Alexa as she started typing away at her transceiver, adjusting people’s schedules as we talked about it.

“Make it optional seeing as it is rather short notice,” I said, realising I was asking a bit to have a sizeable chunk of people drop their plans for lunch tomorrow.

Alexa shot me an amused look but nodded. “The location?” she asked.

“One is going to be on a meadow, so we’ll do a quick ride up to the picnic areas to the south to set up for that, while the other is going to be on a beach… which might be a taller ask, now that I think about it. Let’s set that as a scout out for tomorrow afternoon.”

Rocko scratched his chin. “There will be some differences between sand and a battle arena, that’s for sure.”

“And the meadow as well,” I said. I tapped the table a few times and considered what else I needed to do.

“Hmmm, maybe send out some messages to the sponsored trainers as well.” I had checked in with Forrest, Ash, Misty, Humphrey, Gary and Mia during the aftermath of Sabrina’s victory and the Silph Co situation—as the media were calling it.

I should probably do another follow-up just to be sure. “Anything else I need to do?” I asked Rocko and Alexa while shooting Sabrina a look. As I looked her over, and actually looked at her, I noticed how tired she looked. How her hair was slightly frazzled and she had a slight pallor to her.

All of them shook their heads.

I clapped my hands. “Alright, you two should head off!” I said. I scooped up the day’s reports “Alright I’m going to work through things from most important to least then!” I said before linking arms with Sabrina.

I moved quickly to make sure she didn’t vanish on me. “Have you eaten? I’ll either cook your favourite or order it, I think you need a good bath to relax in.”

“Ah?” Sabrina said, blinking in surprise.

I smiled sheepishly. “I was thinking about asking you out to dinner but then I realised how hard you must have been working the last few days. You don’t need me sweeping you off your feet. You need me laying you down and pampering you.”

Sabrina stared at me for a long moment before grabbing me by the shirt and dragging me in for a passionate kiss.

When we broke apart she had a pleased look on her face. “I’m going to get Ralts, my bathrobe and some supplies. I will have that Hoenn dish we had in Mauville City.”

“The one from that high-end restaurant we tried…” I licked my lips in trepidation. “Or the back alley—” I started to say, only for Sabrina to level a look at me.

“You know which one,” she said before vanishing into a Teleport.

Rocko chuckled and clapped his hands together. “She’s such a lucky girl! I want to be pampered by you!” he said with a fake swoon.

Alexa giggled and swatted him before waving us both goodbye. Rocko trotted off himself, his transceiver echoing a conversation he started to have with his step-siblings as he departed.

I darted into my house and found all the ingredients for the meal; potato chips, beef tortillas, and dipping cheese. I grinned to myself as I got out Munchlax’s stool and used it to reach to the very back of the top shelf of the pantry, where I had some hidden spices.

“Munchlax no!” said Tilly, having apparently been drawn by the sound of the stool only to pause as she caught me instead of Munchlax in the kitchen. Her eyes tracked me as I pulled out my secret spices.

She stared at me. “Sus!” she declared, levelling her finger at me.

Billy, having been drawn by his twin, gave the scene a look before nodding along and pointing at me. “Sus!” he said.

I huffed. “There’s nothing suspicious about this!” I said indignantly.

Munchlax chose that moment to wander into the kitchen. He took one look at me and snapped his hand at me and my position. “Mun!” he said firmly. I just knew he was saying ‘sus’ in his own way.

I huffed and stepped back with my prize. A very well-preserved can of chilli flakes.

“This is not for kids,” I said firmly.

This was very obviously the wrong thing to say, as all three of them crossed their arms and grinned at me.

I huffed and laid out Sabrina’s meal. The trick, as the old granny who’d run the back alley stall had said, was to cut the chips with a thick peeler and really use your wrist to make it a scoop for the later cream and chilli sauce.

I got to work quickly, chopping and mixing before realising that with the hour it was, it would make more sense for me to make up dinner for everyone.

Tilly, Billy, and Munchlax all claimed seats at the kitchen bench and I had to endure a wave of questions ranging from what I was doing, how I was going to make it extra tasty, and other comments that I endeavoured to try and translate. Sometimes I felt that the babbling of children required a minor degree in linguistics.

When I had everything cooked to a degree that I could be happy with, and could step away from the kitchen, I tapped Nanny Grav to give my ensuite bathroom a quick once over before putting some candles up and running a hot bath.

I quickly tossed the mess I’d made into green wastebins or garbage. Some of the scraps Munchlax made gimme gestures for, and so the green waste scraps were turned over to him. I fondly watched him gobble them up with gusto.

“How have you been, Munchlax?” I asked. He nodded vigorously and shot me a thumbs-up as he continued to gobble down the snack.

I merely hummed. “You aren’t bothered about how things went during the trip up Mt Moon?” I asked carefully.

Munchlax paused and gave this question some more thought before sinking into himself.

“Munch…” he said despondently.

“You’re sad you weren’t strong enough?” I asked, to which he nodded.

“Hmmm,” “ I said. “You know, that’s perfectly fine and if you wanted to do something about it that’s fine too, but it’s not the end of the world to just be yourself you know?”

Munchlax tilted his head at this and I smiled. From either side of him, twin gazes watched on, taking in everything that was being said and done in front of them. Billy and Tilly remained quiet otherwise.

“Well, you don’t have to train like the other pokemon, if you don’t want to. You… you’re already doing something important here you know?” I gestured around with my hand. “Sometimes being a friend and companion can be the thing people need most, you know?”

I chuckled. “If I asked Cranidos to play, you know what he’d do?”

“Munch?” Munchlax said, jutting his head forward.

“Yes,” I said, surprised that Munchlax had an idea what I meant. “He’d just fight people. He’s not an easy pokemon to be friends with. Not like you, you’re good at playing and being nice.” I propped my head on my hand and smiled at him. “I’ve seen how you share your snacks, you know?”

Munchlax stiffened and looked away as though he’d done something that he should be guilty about. ”Munch, mun, lax, Munch!” he said quickly.

“Yeah, I know, but I also know how much food means to you. Making your friends and family happy though? That means more doesn’t it?” I said.

Munchlax nodded.

“Good, don’t let the fact that you’re not a good fighter get you down. You don’t need to be. If you want to, we can work something out, but for now, know that you’re really good, great even, as a playmate.”

Munchlax wiggled in his seat and waved a hand in an ‘oh you’ gesture.

Billy leaned in and gave Munchlax a hug, surprising me. “You’re my friend!” said Billy. Tilly copied him and I chuckled along, as they all giggled and laughed.

By the time dinner was ready, I had everyone in the family hovering for a bite but I turned that responsibility over to Flint. I instead made up a meal for Sabrina and plated it up.

Before I could depart Tilly planted herself in the doorway with her hands spread wide. “Want!” She said pointing at the plate.

“No sorry, Tilly, this is for Sabrina, I made yours over there,” I said.

“No! Sprinkles! I want those!” she said. I blinked, having not expected her to notice the difference.

This announcement of something being ‘special’ about this meal compared to the rest of the kids resulted in their interest swivelling onto me. Yolanda gave me a sheepish look as she shrugged. She knew better than to try and dissuade my family when they were united on something like this.

I sighed. “It’s chilli flakes from Hoenn,” I said to Flint when he raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think the little ones should try it,” I said.

Flint gestured for me to hand him the container and I did so. He inspected it seriously, and I watched as his offhand dipped beneath the counter to grab up another container. He then performed a quick swap while shooting me a wink.

“I think this will be fine, no?” he said, displaying a basic sweet chilli container. I nodded and held in a chuckle as the kids gobbled up the deception.

It was a good thing Tilly and Billy couldn’t read, or they’d have spotted the deception. As it was, I think only Yolanda cottoned on to the switch with how Salvadore had been reading a book he had hidden on his lap.

“Spicy!” they shouted as they devoured it.

Tilly turned to Munchlax and grinned. “Flame breath!” she said pretending that she was a fire type as she exhaled on him.

Munchlax pretended to pat out flames on his fur while wailing in pain.

“No fire breath at the dining table!’ Flint said sternly. Tilly stiffened only for Flint to grin. “Not unless you want to deal with my… Fire Blast!” he said jokingly.

I left my family giggling and roaring like a flight of Charizard as I went to my suite of rooms.

When I entered the bathroom, the sight awaiting me gave me pause.

On another day, I might have stripped myself off and shimmied in for a romantic encounter.

And with how Sabrina lay back, water droplets trickling down creamy white skin, I found myself licking my lips. I was tempted. Oh, how I was tempted.

As it was, I knew Sabrina just wanted to relax, so I suppressed the part of my mind that was hooting and hollering for all intents and purposes before laying out the meal where Sabrina could see it.

She stirred and peeled a cucumber off her eyes without using her hands. She eyed the meal and licked her lips. “You even have the flakes that she used?” she said, her eyes locked on the flakes that seemed to radiate heat.

“Yup,” I said.

Sabrina dragged me towards her and gave me another passionate kiss. She then waved me away. “Leave me with my food,” she said, acting more like a wild pokemon than my girlfriend.

“Ralts!” said Ralts from the side.

I shot Ralts a look and found the adorable sight of Ralts, with a small ring allowing her to float on the water with her own facemask just visible under her hair. She waved a hand imperiously towards a bowl of half-eaten candies and opened her mouth.

I popped a candy into her mouth and she cooed in delight before waving me away.

Sabrina levitated her meal up and began to nibble at it. Another perk of being telekinetic? You never dropped anything.

I stepped back and left her to it while I set to eating my own meal in my room.

I glanced at the container.

Was it… I chewed my lip and decided to try it again. A single flake shouldn’t be that bad… right?

I took a bite of my meal only to lunge for the milk I had prepared for myself. I chugged it down and found it just barely acted to give my poor tongue relief. I took another long pull of milk, letting the milk sit in my tongue to cool the sore point.

I shook my head. Sabrina hadn’t been wrong; I would never forget her favourite meal.

She’d gobbled it down while I’d sworn that I had exhaled at least a Smokescreen when I’d tried the same meal.

I finished up my food, without the spices, and settled in to get the day's work done. When Sabrina was done she walked out of the bathroom, gave me a kiss and tucked herself into bed.

I was just in time to finish up my work and cuddle up behind her.

The next day saw most of the Pewter Gym trainers riding various pokemon down the road towards the Viridian forest. Our convoy caused a small dust cloud to billow up and a number of people to get out of the way with perplexed expressions.

Apparently, none of the trainers wanted to miss out on a training session, so I had most of the trainers, along with Rachel, Bianca, Stephen, and Alexa, who rode behind me on Jormungandr.

Greta, Yolanda and Crystal were all riding scooters while everyone else rode pokemon.

When we came upon the picnic grounds, there weren’t many people there beyond a young family. The mother of the family looked a little unsure of our sudden arrival but soon calmed down when I waved, and set out an area that was approximately the size of a standard field.

I clapped my hands and smiled. “Alright, so today—”

“Sorry! Just give me another few moments!” said Rachel as she raised up a camera. “Alright! We’re live in, three, two… oh! Wait! My bad! We’re live now for the trainers of Pewter!” she announced.

I coughed and restarted. “Alright! Hello gang. Today we’re in the field instead of at the gym, as you might have noticed. This was a topic I wanted to cover as I will be fighting an Ace battle tomorrow in such a field.

“These sorts of meadow fights are typical of most battles, honestly, with trainers at every stage engaging in them. Pewter Gym, with its League standard battle field, is very much an outlier. Now, today’s session won’t allow for trainers who are watching via video to ask questions, but feel free to post them on the chat board and I will get to them later!” I said.

I then reached down and grabbed a handful of soil. “Now, I’m going to dig right in. One of the main differences is that the soil is much looser than a standard Gym, this can mean that your pokemon might get knocked around or find themselves lacking the traction they would have back home.”

I went through the ways that just the soil changed how a fight could occur, with the greater nutrients being better for grass-type pokemon, along with there being quicker travel for moves such as Dig.

When I shifted focus I swept a hand out to the Gym trainers. “Now, what’s another difference? I’ll ask the people with me today for any suggestions?” I said leadingly.

“There might be different terrain? Hills, or gullies?” said one man. I nodded approvingly and led the team to show how that would impact visibility or how even a slight rise or fall of the land could allow for an advantage depending on what you were going for. I then showed them the same area from a different angle.

“Sometimes it will seem like having the high ground is better but it is all about context. Can you force them off it? Or do they have to come to you? If they come to you and they use the high ground to increase the speed or power of their attacks, can you counter them?” I said, positing a few hypothetical situations.

I nodded and once again waved for group engagement. “What else can be different?”

“Vegetation?” said a woman this time.

“Precisely!” I said. “Sometimes there might be long grass, short grass, scrubs, or even trees that will fall within the borders of a field such as this. Make sure you are clear on if those are out of bounds. Now with the match I have tomorrow, there will actually be a sizeable amount of time where we discuss just where the match will take place within a field of around five or so acres. This can mean that it will vary and you can also have home-field advantages if you know the area very, very well.” I said.

“Anything else different?” I asked.

“The sky!” shouted a tiny voice from near my waist.

“That’s right Cind—” I broke off, as I realised that the small child near me was not in fact my sister, but a wayward child that had wandered over from the picnic area.

I blinked down at her. “Oh, hello,” I said as she grinned up at me. I was amused to see that she was missing her front teeth.

“Hello!” she said, only for her mother to suddenly appear and reach for her daughter.

“I am so sorry Gym Leader Brock!” said the woman but I waved her apologies off.

“Oh not a problem! She wasn’t doing anything wrong, she actually answered a question perfectly,” I said amused by how this had become a community activity now. I hadn’t really ever specified for it to not be but I could use this for another point later on.

“She was right about the sky. In the Gym there is a roof that caps the flight height that pokemon can reach, with a cap up to one hundred metres.” I pointed up and people glanced up at the blue sky above. “There are no such restrictions here and that can mean a much greater aerial battle can take place.”

“And if the trainer you’re facing is trying to take advantage of better nutrients it plays to your strength to use Flying-type pokemon,” said Crystal thoughtfully.

“Bingo!” I said, happy she was taking part and thinking about this in the context of what I’d said previously.

“Now there’s one other thing that we should take into consideration when fighting in fields like this. Can anyone think of them?” I asked.

“Stray pokemon?”

I coughed. “That’s a good answer and correct, but I’m looking for something else, in a similar vein,” I said leadingly.

Yolanda stiffened and glanced at the girl and her mother. “Members of the public?” she said.

“Yes, in such fields there won’t be any shields like the gym has, which is why most battles take place in speciality arenas. If you are fighting in a field make sure you are aware of the impact your battle might have if someone wanders in for example.

“Now in all cases, if someone’s life is in danger it is considered a null battle and all trainers and their pokemon are to cease until the danger has passed. If the danger does not pass or the event needs to, it will be called off.”

“Is that something that happens much for Ace battles?” asked Yolanda.

“It shouldn’t and I expect it won’t. The place I’m fighting is not actually a meadow in the wild for example, but rather a specially curated field. It has various camera drones and driveable machines people set up for Ace battles to take place in a remote location where things can be a bit more ‘in the elements’ so to speak.”

“No one should be wandering around there, and if they do, there are staff that will escort them off straight away,” I said.

I’d actually had to look that up this morning when I’d done my research on my battle tomorrow. I had enough paranoia to still be mindful of it, but I wasn’t going to let it stop me from trying out the Plains and Meadows Co. battlefields of Route eight.

There was still a lot that I didn’t know about this specific style of Ace battles.

“Now one of the most important things I will be doing is taking some people with me to test the field beforehand to get an understanding of how my team might move about in the ground—” I resumed my lecture.

By the time I had to wrap things up and return to the Gym, the family had joined us. They thanked me for the memorable picnic and tolerating their daughter’s questions which I had no issue with. Honestly, with only one of her, there wasn’t much hassle, considering I regularly put up with eight younger siblings now that Forrest had set out on his Journey.

The afternoon’s challenges were nonexistent, so I let everyone enjoy their lunch as I set to work on some documents in my office.

I was just starting when Lance called.

“Brock, I need a favour,” he said to get things underway.

I snorted. “Ah, is this about Surge?” I said.

Lance nodded.

I leaned back and considered how I felt. It had been a few days now, and I’d calmed down. I’d been able to give myself some distance from the event. I no longer wanted to bash his head in, nor did my heart ache with the thought of seeing him. I could wait longer, but now felt right for me.

I’d processed my initial reaction, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have a flare-up when I came face to face with him.

“No promises that I won’t deck him when I see him,” I said.

“You’d be right to,” Lance said, rubbing at his temples. “He’s caused me a lot of headaches. Can you please just come talk to him so we can find out what he knows and doesn't know?"

“Alright, send me a pick-up and I’ll block out the rest of my afternoon,” I said standing and readying myself to talk with Surge.