As I sat in the spectator seating at the Canalave City Gym, I continued to be impressed at just how good of a Trainer Lucas was.

  He was facing off against Byron, his back straight and his head held high as his Pokémon dodged, ducked, and used fire to blast their way to victory.

  Even though Lucas was several years younger than I was, he had a lot more experience at training and battling Pokémon, and it showed. Almost every call he made was the right one; his Pokémon managed to slip out of the way of most of the blows from Byron’s Pokémon while managing to hit with their own moves.

  If one of Lucas’ Pokémon was hit by an attack, it was almost certainly on purpose to allow the enemy to overreach and show an opening.

  That wasn’t to say that Lucas was a perfect battler, he wasn’t, and Byron punished every mistake he made, but the difference between him and I was stark.

  I didn’t know how to feel about that.

  After a few more blows, Maggy the Magby let out a ferocious breath of flame and Byron’s last Pokémon was knocked out.

  One of the things that always seemed to surprise me was just how short most Pokémon battles were.

  Most sporting events back home would last for at least an hour, if not several depending on the sport. The majority of Pokémon battles lasted less than fifteen minutes, especially during the first couple of Gyms. That was when most Pokémon weren’t very strong, and each side only had two or three.

  I’d seen some of the high-end battles on TV go for longer, with each participant having a full team of six Pokémon, but even then, they only lasted thirty minutes, forty-five tops.

  The Pokémon involved could only go for so long before being exhausted by the battles, after all.

  There was something nagging at the back of my head over all of this, but I shook it away as Lucas bowed to Byron and stepped back from the box.

  Byron apparently didn’t like shaking hands so most people simply bowed at the end of their fights.

  “That was a good match.” Ted said as we both stood up from our seats.

  “Mhm.”

  “Something on your mind?”

  “No. Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  I actually had to shake my head slightly to bring myself back to the present.

  “No, it’s nothing. Let's go congratulate Lucas.”

  Most of the crowd remained sitting, waiting through the break between contestants, but there were enough people leaving to get snacks or visit the bathroom that it took Ted and I longer than expected to find the younger man.

  We found him getting stonewalled by the receptionist at the main desk of the Gym, and instead of helping him out, we decided to watch him struggle.

  It was a few minutes before he managed to accomplish whatever it was he was trying to do, and our sides were aching with barely restrained laughter by the end of it.

  “You guys suck.” He said, as he stomped over.

  “We can’t let your head get too big with your victory.” Ted said.

  “It’s good to stay humble.” I wiped away a tear. “But seriously, good job on the win.”

  “Thanks.” He grumbled.

  “Let’s go get some food, you deserve it.”

  “Sure, let me stop by the Pokémon Center first. Are we feeling Paldean? Galarian?”

  “Paldean sounds good.”

  “Cool.”

  “Of course, since you won it’s on you.”

  Lucas scowled, but I could see the smile underneath it.

  /^\

  “This!” I said, holding the object in the air. “Is a hose!”

  Kōjin panted as his head cocked in confusion.

  We were in one of the back lots of the Pokémon Center, where I had requested a specific area to help train Kōjin in.

  I made sure to keep the hose pointed away from my fire-dog, then turned on the water.

  It started pumping away, streaming out onto the ground.

  Kōjin yelped in surprise and betrayal, scrambling away from the hated liquid. Regular water, uninfused with Type Energy, wouldn’t actually hurt him all that much - not like some of the other Fire-type Pokémon like Magcargo. That didn’t mean he liked getting wet.

  “Easy there! It’s a demonstration. See, this is what your fire is like right now.”

  I wobbled the hose around, the water streaming steadily.

  “See, try to breathe some fire.”

  Kōjin looked at me dubiously, but got in his stance and opened his mouth wide, breathing out. A large gout of flame burst out.

  “Good! See, we’ve worked on consistency and how long you can keep your fire going. But now we’re going to work on strength. The way you’re currently doing it, your mouth is like this hose nozzle. See, it’s all big and round.”

  I shut off the water, and once the last remnants of it drizzled out onto the ground Kōjin came over to sniff at it.

  “Back up now.” Once he was clear, I started the water flowing again. “I was never any good at physics, but this is one of the things I did manage to learn in class. Let's say you have a constant stream of something - in this case it’s water. It will always keep flowing at the same rate, through the tube and out the opening. But if you make the opening smaller, the water actually goes faster. See, it has to keep flowing, no matter what, so it speeds up to get out of the way of all the water behind it.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Or something like that.

  “Now, watch this;”

  I showed Kōjin the hose, then pressed my thumb over most of the opening. Sure enough, the water turned from a steady stream into a pressurized jet.

  Kōjin yelped again, and I turned the water off.

  “Right now your mouth is like the end of this hose. It’s big and open. That’s not a bad thing, but if we want to get your fire into something that’s stronger, I think this is a good way to do it.”

  He looked up at me, his dark eyes serious.

  “I haven’t forgotten how we met.” I said solemnly. “That other Growlithe, it wasn’t very kind to you, was it?”

  A growl built up in his throat.

  I didn’t know exactly what had happened to Kōjin before we met, when Kane was trying to capture them, but I doubt it was anything good. Kōjin had barely been able to move during the battle, and I couldn’t forget the look of disdain that the other Hisuian Growlithe had given him.

  “I know you want to be stronger. And you’ve been doing a good job of it. Strength isn’t everything though, control is just as important.”

  Honestly, I didn’t even really know what Kōjin wanted. Not for the first time I wished that my Pokémon could speak, but alas, I didn’t have any Psychic-types on my team to help translate. But I was sure we would be able to figure it out together.

  “This will teach you control, at least a little bit, okay? Do you think you can try it?”

  Kōjin eyed the hose before opening his mouth, then closing it slightly. He repeated the process several more times before I realized he was doing a dry run, so to speak.

  I smiled and rubbed his head, causing the dog-like Pokémon to lose concentration and bark in surprise.

  He looked up at me in betrayal, then jumped up onto my chest, knocking me back to the ground and licking my face.

  “Augh! Dog cooties!” I yelled, and eventually managed to push him off me. “Alright, you had your fun, let’s get to work, shall we?”

  It wasn’t until he started breathing fire that I realized he had purposefully knocked me into the puddle of water from the hose.

  /^\

  “So today, we’re not going to be working on an attack.”

  Zetian drooped a little, her mandibles clacking in disappointment.

  She was a good listener, and she really cared for her bees. I could see it every time she interacted with her hive. In fact, she seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time taking care of each and every one of them, going so far as to pet each one at least once a day.

  Zetian also seemed to be a mite over-protective of them when it came to water, and as soon as it started raining or a thunderstorm came through, she made sure to shepard all of them into her hive as soon as possible.

  But Zetian was also a little… overzealous when it came to her attacks. If I was feeling uncharitable I might have called her vicious, or say that she was far too eager to sting something.

  “Listen, you’re doing really well so far, okay? Your control with your bees is improving every day, don’t think I can’t see it. But just because we’re not working on an attack doesn’t mean we’re not going to be working on something just as important.”

  That caught her attention.

  “One thing you, as a Vespiquen, are really good at is being bulky. I don’t mean that in a physical way, you have a very nice snatched waist and all, but you’re resistant to a lot of different kinds of damage.”

  Vespiquen did have a pretty high defense stat, at least as far as I could remember from the games. It was times like this that I desperately wished I had access to Bulbapedia or Serebii again, with every Pokémon’s stats and move pool.

  “But what we’re working on right now is how to heal yourself when you get injured. It’s a move called Roost.”

  Zetian leaned forwards, her red eyes gleaming.

  I’d done some research into the move on the public computers available in the Pokémon Center, checking the forums to make sure my memory was correct. It had been annoying enough to the point where I was considering buying a laptop, but all of the ones available were large, hefty, and even with my large bank account I didn’t want to spend that much money on one.

  “Basically what you do is you stop flying for a moment, then use that Flying-type energy to heal yourself. Think about it like you’re redirecting that energy, channeling it into your body in a different way. Did your mother or… what was his name? The Vespiquen that the Honey Man had ever do something like that?”

  She thought for a minute, then shook her head.

  “Well, that’s fine. It might make things a bit more complicated, I don’t exactly know how to do this myself, but that just means that we can work on this together. Alright, first steps, can you stop flying?”

  Zetian eyed me for a second, then gracefully moved her abdomen out of the way so she could lounge on the ground.

  “Great! And now can you rest?”

  Without eyelids she couldn’t actually close her eyes, but she relaxed. I think it was called torpor, the state of sleep that bees went into.

  “Good job! Can you focus the energy that went into flying into trying to heal yourself?”

  Zetian didn’t answer, continuing to laze on the ground.

  I stayed quiet for at least five minutes, staring eagerly as she concentrated.

  “Well?”

  Zetian startled, her gaze darting all around the training field as she started to hover into the air again.

  I eyed her suspiciously. “Did you just fall asleep? Like, just straight up took a nap?”

  There was the distinct impression that if Zetian could blush, she would be right now.

  I sighed. “Okay, so this is going to take some time. That’s okay, let’s try it again from the top.”

  /^\

  “Okay Venus, you’ve had the biggest change out of all of us so far.” I said, sitting across from my first Pokémon.

  “When Zetian evolved, she got bigger and looked a lot different, but fundamentally her types haven’t changed. When Kōjin evolves, he’ll remain a Fire-/Rock-type. But you went from being a Normal Pokémon, to being a Dark-type. That means a lot of things will change for you.

  First of all, before you couldn’t hurt Ghost-types, and they couldn’t hurt you. Now they can hurt you, but you’ll do a lot more damage to them. Also any Psychic-types you run across will be the same way.”

  I frowned. “Not that we’ll probably be running into a lot of Psychic-types. I think the biggest Trainer who specializes in Psychic-types is Lucian in the Elite Four, and I doubt we’ll ever get to the point where we’ll be challenging him. Still, something to think about.

  “On the other hand, you’re now weaker to Bug-types, Fairy-types, and still vulnerable to Fighting-types like before. That means that Zetian’s going to have an edge in your spars now, as well as Ted’s whole team.”

  Venus huffed, scratching at her ear with one of her paws. Over the past day or so she’d finally started to get accustomed to her new form, and like Zetian I’d been leaving her out of her Poké Ball as much as possible to help the process along.

  “Something else to keep in mind is that you're now stronger in literally every other way than you were before. You’re faster, you hit harder, and you can take more hits as well.”

  Like Zetian, the best way to get to Venus’ heart was through plenty of compliments, and my Umbreon preened under the praise.

  “You’re going to be great, but first we gotta make sure that you’re comfortable in your new body. It was amazing how you managed to get Bite out in the battle against Roark, but now that you’re a Dark-type, it’ll do even more damage. So we’re going to practice until you get it down pat, okay? Next up on the list is another move, Snarl.”

  Venus cocked her head, and showed her teeth. They were much bigger and sharper than they had been when she was just a little Eevee.

  “Yes, you’re very threatening.” I rubbed behind her ear, and her back leg began thumping against the ground.

  “But the move I’m thinking of is a lot more like a roar. When you evolved, your vocal cords changed with you, and you should be able to harness that Dark-type energy to hurt your opponent. Does that make sense?”

  Her red eyes were contemplative, and she tried to snarl or roar a couple different times. They all came out squeaky and high-pitched, and I smiled down at her.

  “It’s okay, we’ll get there. Now, let’s try this again.”