“Sorry miss, you can’t enter Victory Road if you don’t have eight badges.” The ace trainer said, the Alakazam standing next to him crossed its arms and gave my shadow a rather stern look as if to tell the ghosts in it, “I can see you so don’t try anything funny.”

  It probably wouldn’t be feasible to sneak past them without getting detected and getting into big trouble. Plus, I didn’t have the charisma or stealth stats to try to convince the Ace Trainer to let us pass.

  “are you serious?” I heard Winnie mutter under his breath. Today’s illusion was a Lucario, though he was probably regretting taking on the disguise of a species that was notoriously noble and rule-abiding. It was important to stay in character after all.

  “Ooh, okay. Thanks for letting me know.” I nodded at the ace trainer before turning and heading back to Route 21.

  Sahara’s ultra ball heated up and almost shook itself off my belt, I slapped a hand on it to keep it from falling. Once we were out of earshot, I patted her ultra ball, “Sorry Sahara, we’re gonna have to find another way to get you a Garchompite.”

  Then I tried to reassure the landshark, “Hey, we still wouldn’t be able to use it even if we found it. We’re still missing a keystone.”

  There was no reaction.

  “she’s gonna be extra grumpy for a while.” Winnie commented before tapping on Sahara’s ball, “hey, we still have the battle with chloe and zoe’s teams to look forward to. they’re just below ben’s team in strength level, so you’ll have a blast.”

  “A psychic blast!” Banette jokingly added, poking finger guns out of my shadow.

  We all rolled our eyes at her pun.

  Rotom called us a flying taxi to Couriway, I was originally gonna go to Snowbelle City to get in a gym battle there and to help develop a few anti-ice type strategies, considering three members of my team were weak to ice. But Snowbelle was surprisingly fully booked as well, the gym was pretty popular due to its ice skating gym challenge.

  So I decided to skip that, I was gonna dedicate a week to exploring Frost Cavern anyways, so I’d just work out an anti-ice strategy then. (And possibly get my hands on an Abomasite even though I’d have no use for it.)

  Couriway was a beautiful town built on a series of crystal clear rivers and waterfalls. It kinda reminded me of those pictures I’d seen of Venice in terms of city layout, but with the added factor of the city being tiered due to it being situated on a mountain

  The most interesting part of the place were the Gyarados shelters. The rivers were teeming with water type Pokemon, most of which were Magikarp, who helped keep the river clean by eating basically anything edible.

  The problem is that living next to a dense population of Pokemon known for evolving into giant, raging sea serpents could pose a bit of a problem. There were tons of signs reminding people not to stress out the Magikarp, posted by Couriway’s River Commission and the Magikarp Appreciation Club.

  Magikarps certainly deserved to be appreciated, especially if they kept the town’s water supply clean.

  I had to sternly tell the ghosts not to mess with the fish Pokemon or else they wouldn’t be able to get dessert after dinner. It didn’t work on them all, but I knew that Winnie would take the threat of no sweets seriously enough to keep the others in line.

  Our visit to Couriway City was short, I just needed to check out if the Gyaradosite was there. It was one of those items that I remembered the location of for some random reason, but never used.

  We walked past a lot of boats, and a pretty fancily decorated theater where a Pokemon Showcase had just been held the day before until we got to a spot that looked the most similar to the spot in game that had the Gyaradosite.

  It was a medium sized pool that had three waterfalls supplying water to it. There was an an unusual amount of Magikarp gathered in that one spot.

  Winnie asked a Lombre and a Politoed to help us check for any round and shiny objects in the pool in exchange for some Poke Puffs, and we had some of the less water phobic ghosts phase through the ground to see if the mega stone was buried anywhere, but they had no luck.

  “it probably was here, the magikarp seem to be attracted to the energy it left behind.” Winnie said as he trailed a paw through the water.

  “I guess someone got to it before us. Let’s hope it wasn’t Team Flare.” I sighed, handing the promised Pokepuffs to the two water types. After not being able to go look for the Garchompite, I didn’t have any high expectations for the Gyaradosite, but it sure was a bummer.

  “well, looks like it’s time to go beat up some trainers for money.” Winnie grinned, rubbing his paws together as we walked away.

  I rolled my eyes, “Don’t say it like that Winnie, you make us sound like thugs. Plus, Route eighteen isn’t super long, there probably won’t be a ton of trainers like on other routes.” Hopefully we can get a bit more training in before we battle Chloe and Zoe. I need to figure out a way to deal with the fairy types on their team other than just using steel type moves.

  Well, as it turned out, Route 18 was closed for the next few days, so there were no trainers to battle. Why? Durant. Tons and tons and TONS of giant metal armored ants were crawling around on the route for some sort of mating ritual. That’s what Ranger posted signs at the start of the route said.

  Apparently there was a colony of Durant that lived in the abandoned mines on Route 18. The Durant numbers had gotten out of hand a while back so the town had to ship in a bunch of Heatmor and Sandaconda to keep the population in check.

  Though neither group of Pokemon could do much about a frenzied Durant swarm like this. The ants were too horny to be scared of the fire breathers, and there were little to no eggs left for Sandaconda to eat, which was why they were like this in the first place.

  Well I wasn’t planning on going into the mines anyways I’d had more than enough of tunnels, but since the route was closed, I had take another flying taxi because the bus routes were closed too, lest they risk being turned into armor for newly hatched Durant.

  I was beginning to regret not getting Sahara a flying saddle while we were in Unova. While the flying taxis weren’t super expensive, it was still a sizeable amount of money that could be spent on other things if I hadn’t neglected the fact that Rufflet weren’t bug Pokemon, and took a while to evolve.

  A high pitched screech let us know of how taxi’s arrival. I raised an eyebrow as I saw an Aerodactyl carrying the taxi. All of the taxi carriers I’d seen so far were bird Pokemon, so it certainly was a new sight to see a fossil Pokemon known for its aggression in battle as a taxi Pokemon.

  Rotom excitedly scanned the new Pokemon, “Aerodactyl, the fossil Pokemon. It is a Pokemon from ancient times, that was revived by scientists from old amber. Aerodactyl has serrated saw-like teeth that it uses to viciously rip into its prey. Its teeth and bite are strong enough to shred the skin of even a steel-type Pokemon.”

  The grizzled driver grinned as he heard Rotom playing the Pokedex entry. He patted Aerodactyl’s neck, “Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite!”

  “Aerooooo!” The dino Pokemon screeched, flapping its wings.

  I smiled back and nodded, “You guys mind if I let my Rufflet out to fly alongside us?”

  The driver’s grin widened as he shook his head, “We don’t mine! Prince loves having flying with other Pokemon!”

  “Aero!” Aerodactyl heartily agreed.

  I let Thorondor out of his luxury ball. The eaglet immediately flew up and tilted his head as he saw the unfamiliar Pokemon, though he wasn’t particularly intimidated. Spending time with Sahara and Kaiju tended to do that.

  It also seemed like he was more excited about being able to stretch his wings for a long period, as the eaglet impatiently chirped at Winnie and I to get into the taxi so we could go.

  Once we were up in the air, I let the twins know that I would be arriving a day earlier than initially expected. They instantly replied and asked if I would like to do a gym battle with them then. They had a few open slots right before closing, so I took the 4:30 slot.

  I texted a thumbs up. Sahara could use some cheering up, and a tough battle would be the perfect remedy to her bad mood. Plus, I was just excited about the concept of a gym battle. It felt so official, kinda like someone participating in a sport at the national level for the first time.

  Winnie and the ghost gang were already theorizing about what sort of tactics Chloe and Zoe might use. We already knew it was gonna be a double battle, but none of us were experienced enough with psychic types to properly predict what they would do. From the few VS recording clips online of the twins, we were able to gather that they liked spamming Future Sight a lot, and they were very accurate with the move.

  It wasn’t that they could see the future, apparently that sort of psychic power was THE rarest, which made sense cause seeing the future is op as fuck. But they were just really good at planning ahead and making sure their opponent was in the right position to be hit by the attack.

  “Rufflet! Ruff rufflet!” Thorondor loudly chirped at us from outside. Using his claws, he gestured at the ground below.

  Winnie and I peeked out the window. Winnie made a face and I shuddered at the sight. Below us, the floor was literally made of shiny, metal ants. It was kinda like finding pieces of dropped candy on the ground at the playground that were covered in ants. But here the ants were as big as a medium sized dog and they were swarmed around the queen in one massive ant orgy. Nature sure was beautiful.

  Rotom took Thorondor’s interruption as its cue, “Durant, the iron ant Pokemon. These bug types cover themselves in steel armor to protect themselves from predators. They dig complicated, maze-like nests and always attack in groups to corner and overwhelm their opponents in numbers and with their powerful mandibles. They use this tactic to drive off Heatmor and protect their eggs from Sandaconda.”

  “Wait, how do they fight off a fire-type like Heatmor if they’ve got a four times weakness to it?” Banette asked as she poked her head out of a shadow and looked at Rotom’s screen “The Pokedex says that they’re bug and steel type.”

  “yeah, you’d think that they’d evolve to get a water or ground typing. or rock.” Winnie added.

  I shrugged, “I dunno. I mean, if they’re in a cramped tunnel, they could probably overwhelm anything with numbers and teamwork considering that Heatmor are pretty solitary Pokemon.”

  Winnie scratched his head as he imagined that horrific scenario, “huh, yeah i wouldn’t want to face down a horde in a tunnel either.”

  “Well at least we can phase through walls to escape.” Banette said, “One of the many reasons why ghosts are the superior type.”

  I glanced at Banette with a raised eyebrow and then at Thorondor, who was still half watching the ant horde below, “Don’t let Thoron hear that, you’ll never hear the end of why flying types are better.”

  Anistar city was honestly one of the coolest cities I had ever laid my uncultured eyes on. Similar to in the anime and games, the sparkling, rich pink crystal and gold accented Sundial was a central feature of the city. I could see it from miles away.

  The city literally sparkled due to all of the pink, purple, and violet crystals interwoven into everything. There were just crystals everywhere that reflected sunlight in a way that added a beautiful sunset rose pink shade to everything.

  It was kind of like how Lumiose made their aesthetic solarpunk, and Santalune’s aesthetic was spider webbings everywhere. Anistar city’s aesthetic was crystals. Though I had to admit, that the place so so sparkly that it kinda hurt my eyes. That would explain why most of the locals wore sunglasses.

  The crystals weren’t an intentional design choice, as I learned from the Pokenet, it was a natural phenomenon due to the strange energy that the Anistar Sundial radiated.

  Crystals just naturally grew on certain building materials, so the city’s inhabitants had used that as a way to beautify the city. The architecture of the buildings took advantage of the phenomenon. The crystals grew very, very slowly, but the buildings were still all built in a way that made crystal removal easy while also using them to help enhance the buildings structure and appearance.

  Aside from the crystallized buildings, there were a ton of psychic type Pokemon and psychic people in Anistar. There were just people casually using telepathy to hold stuff, or to stir the sugar in their tea as they read a book at a cafe, or using it to reach high places.

  Anistar was reported to have the highest population of psychics in the world, and they also had highest rate of psychics born in one place. It definitely had something to do with the Sundial.

  There were also a ton of psychic type Pokemon going about doing normal human stuff, some of them even owned their own businesses. I mean, it made sense cause of how smart psychic types were on average compared to other types.

  I felt a bit awkward walking around normally after noticing how a bunch of psychic type Pokemon crossed the street to avoid me. I also got a ton of strange looks from the human psychics.

  Thorondor thought they were being rather rude and kept giving them stern looks.

  I my opinion, they weren’t exactly trying to be mean, logically they probably knew that I was just a normal trainer, but I’m guessing that the surplus of ghosts I was lugging around in my shadow was freaking them the hell out. Psychic types are weak to ghost types afterall, it would be natural for them to be a bit nervous around someone with a small horde of ghosts.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  We ended up stopping at one of the restaurants that Zoe had recommended, called Crystal Garden. They had some great sandwich options and made some killer Sundial themed pastries.

  It was also situated close enough to the Sundial that we could see it from the outdoor tables, and it had accommodations for large Pokemon. Basically it was perfect.

  The restaurant was pretty busy when I stepped in, it didn’t look like there’d be any seats open without a prior reservation, but as I walked up to the host stand, one of the hostesses seemed to recognize me, “Azalea?”

  I raised an eyebrow, “Yes?”

  “Your table is this way.” She gestured at one of the nicer spots in the patio that had space set aside for the larger members of my team.

  “Did you make a reservation beforehand?” Winnie whispered, looking at the hostess with bit of suspicion.

  Do the people here just randomly have precognition? How rare is the ability to see the future anyways? Whatever.

  I shook my head and shrugged before following her to our seats, where she handed us a few menus to look at.

  Winnie was currently in the process of learning how to read, so I left him to try to read his menu with a bit of help from Banette while I let out Sahara and got her order in. Kaiju would be let out when it was time to eat. If the ghosts were enough to freak out the psychics here, I didn’t want to disturb them even more with the chaotic mass of dark type energy that was Kaiju.

  Hopefully he’d have his chance to wreak havoc in the gym battle. I knew that the twins had fairy type Pokemon on their team though, so I’d have to be careful when dealing with those guys.

  The words “Incident in the Lumiose Catacombs” caught my attention and I glanced inside the restaurant at the TVs. The news was on, and most of the restaurant patrons had paused their conversations to watch the news as well.

  Diantha was currently holding her own press conference on the incident after the first one by the Mayor of Lumiose City to try to further reassure the public and to give everybody more details now that the incident had fully concluded.

  I frowned as I saw Lysandre among the small group of people standing behind Diantha. What’s he doing there? Go get a new haircut bro.

  In summary, the Kalos champion gave the press a PR screened speech about how sorry they were for the loss of life, and their condolences to the families of the victims etc, etc, etc. Basic stuff to try to further soothe the citizens of Lumiose City and to make them less wary of the catacombs and their inhabitants.

  The thing that rubbed me the wrong way was the story that they told; it wasn’t exactly telling a lie, but the way they worded things seemed to play down the incident and paint it as a tragic accident due to the foolishness of some young boys. Not that there were a homicidal, tyrannical ghost living in Lumiose’s basement that the rescue team had to exorcize. I mean, ghosts were mentioned, and she very clearly stated that it was a ghost Pokemon who killed the boys, but again, she framed it as an accident.

  Though I could kind see why they’d phrase it like that. That way people would be less likely to put blame on the ghosts and try to drive them out, because nothing good comes from feuding with your neighbors. Especially when they were Pokemon.

  Hiding information about Coraline was also most likely Lysandre’s doing. He probably didn’t want people to find out about Xerosic’s escaped lab rat. Diantha was just playing right into Lysandre’s hands.

  Diantha then smoothly moved onto how they would make sure to prevent another ‘accident’ and stepped away from the mic to give the mic to one of the people in the panel behind her.

  A well dressed lady in all black clothes and makeup stepped forward, she introduced herself as Grimalda, a ghost type expert. Then she began explaining that the ghost Pokemon living in the catacombs were just like any other Pokemon type and should not be disturbed in their natural habitat. Most people weren’t going to knowingly step into a dragon’s den, or disturb a Beedrill nest unless they were looking for trouble.

  The city had noticed that in the last few years, more and more young people had begun sneaking into the catacombs and disturbing these ghosts. They apparently were already working on a plan to deal with this and the Catacombs incident just sped their plans up.

  Grimalda then introduced something called “Project Gravekeeper”. Basically, it was an improved version of Justine’s plan to reclassify the catacombs into a Pokemon Conservation area, which meant that they’d be able to post Rangers there to patrol the place, and that trespassing would yield harsher punishments than it would before to further deter kids from sneaking in.

  Last time I checked, laws don’t exactly deter the type of kids who’d sneak into a place like that.

  There was something about sealing all but a few entrances with concrete and creating a memorial for the boys who died. They had more plans but were still working on that in conjunction with Lysandre Tech.

  Lysandre briefly waved at the cameras as he took his turn to talk. It wasn’t anything interesting to so I tuned him out.

  On the subject of Team Flare, I really needed to talk to Cofagrigus soon. I didn’t have a chance to tell him about Xerosic, but I really needed him to go tell his contact in Interpol to go investigate Xerosic asap. Considering Coraline’s mental state, whoever they sent would probably find enough proof for a search warrant within the first few minutes in that place.

  Our server, a cheerful looking Meowstic, came over and took our orders.

  Then there was a slight uproar from the TV at the reporters began asking questions, most of which related to why the city didn’t do something earlier, before people could get hurt, and wanting more information on the ghost that killed the boys.

  An elderly woman sitting with her friends at a nearby table loudly exclaimed, “Hmph! Of course the city only takes action when someone gets killed and not before!”

  “You mean when someone who had people to care about them enough and had the resources to raise a fuss about it. I heard from Greg that a bunch of homeless people went missing near a few catacombs entrances, and no one said anything about those poor souls.” One of her friends added.

  The third lady at the table sighed, “This never would’ve happened when we were younger.

  Back in our day, the champion and government actually cared about what happened to the city. Can you believe that they used to have rangers patrol the catacombs?”

  “I knew something was up when those rumors of a death cult popped up.” The first lady said as she shook her head, “The Lord of the Catacombs would’ve never allowed something like that to happen in his halls.”

  “Yes, I heard that he hated the death god quite so.” Lady three agreed.

  Lady two loudly sighed, “That’s why I keep telling my grandaughter to stop wearing those evil clothes, but she’s so stubborn,”

  “Oh she’s just going through a rebellious phase.” Lady one reassured, “My daughter went through one too when she was a teenager and she turned out fine.”

  Sounds like these grandmas know a bit of Kalos lore. I felt a bit bad for eavesdropping on them like this. I was about to turn my attention to something else when I heard a Dachsbun yelp and Kaiju growl.

  My head snapped around to see what that rascal had gotten up to. In a rare show of teamwork, one of Kaiju’s heads had grabbed a Dachsbun that had wandered too close to our table. The other head then licked the dog Pokemon a few times, which probably scared the stuffing out of the bread doggo.

  “Kaiju!” I shouted, almost tripping over my seat as I hurried to grab him.

  The Dachsbun released a small flash of fairy type energy that crackled harshly against Kaiju’s noses, making him yelp and release the fairy type.

  The new very soggy Dachsbun quickly ran to the table of old ladies and hid under its owner’s seat, whining pitifully.

  “Sorry!” I said to the Dachsbun and its owner as I quickly grabbed Kaiju by one of his necks and leaned all the way back, barely preventing him from diving after the dog Pokemon. I felt the front of my shirt get warm and damp from dragon drool.

  The Dachsbun’s owner, an elderly lady in a floral green dress nodded and waved at us, mouthing “sorry”, before she calmly took a napkin began wiping the dragon drool off of her dog’s back.

  “Bagel! I told you not to taunt other Pokemon with that!” The lady scolded the bread doggo, who whined again. The Skitty lounging in the lap of one of the other ladies snidely meowed at the dog Pokemon. Dachsbun growled back at the pink cat.

  It was then that I caught an almost irresistible sweet aroma emanating from the bread dog. Ahh, that’s why.

  Thorondor flew over with a Pokedoll that Glados had grabbed from my bag and shoved it into one of Kaiju’s mouths to distract him so that I could drag him back to our table.

  “that dachsbun’s got a problem.” Winnie chuckled as we came back. Then he patted his belly, “he’s lucky i’m saving room for dessert, or else i might’ve tried to take a bite.”

  “And I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t taste anywhere near as good as an actual cake.” I added.

  Winnie shrugged, “of course he wouldn’t taste like cake. he probably tastes like vanilla bread.”

  Haunter hummed thoughtfully, “No, he’d probably taste like a hotdog.”

  There was still had about an hour and a half before 4:30, so we went to take a closer look at the Sundial. It was the main attraction of the city afterall.

  The Anistar Sundial was set behind a waist high golden fence in the center of a massive, well manicured garden at the edge of Lake Astralis. A few gym trainers and their Pokemon were standing just behind the golden fence, probably to discourage anyone from the large crowd of tourists from trying to touch the massive crystal formation, or from trying to take a piece if they ignored the big DO NOT TOUCH signs placed outside the fence.

  “Rufflet!” Thorondor chirped at the sight of the five story tall gem. “Rufflet ruff!”

  “Yeah, it sure is big.” Banette agreed, “I’m glad we haven’t recruited any Sableye yet. It would be impossible to keep ‘em away from this place.”

  “Yeah, Sableye are actually not even allowed into the garden.” I said as I pointed to a sign with a giant red X over the silhouette of a Sableye. Underneath was a rather passive aggressive message telling trainers to not bring Sableye into the garden.

  Winnie chuckled, “you know they’ve had a few incidents with sableye if they had to put a big sign up banning them.”

  Rotom had a good time taking photos of the Sundial, being able to fly above the crowd was pretty useful in getting a good shot.

  We went around to a few of the signs with information about the Sundial’s history. In summary, the Sundial was created during the war three thousand years ago by a Pokemon who shone like diamonds, though the reason for its creation is still a mystery. Most people seem to think that it was the god of life who created the Sundial, as her antlers have often been compared to crystals.

  Obviously it was a Diancie who made the crystal. A diamond Pokemon who creates pink gems? Who else is there? I wonder if the Sundial actually makes people more likely to be psychics or if there are a lot of psychics here because their ancestors were psychics and they just inherited the genes.

  Winnie tried reading a few of the information boards out loud to practice his reading skills more. He was improving at an insanely fast rate, he didn’t even know the alphabet just a few days ago, but could already read and spell somewhat complex words.

  Thorondor, Glados, the ghosts, and I would occasionally throw out a word for him to spell or write out to help him practice too. Winnie was pretty proud of his improvement, and he was more than ready to rub his newly obtained literacy in Cofagrigus’s face when they next met.

  A few of the ghosts also began trying to compete in the spelling bee. Interestingly, all of the ghosts who were from Trevenant’s coven were literate. I only really noticed once the newer members of the ghost gang (mostly the ever increasing amount of roaming form Ghimmighoul) joined in, they were either illiterate, or around the same level as Winnie.

  I guess Trevenant or another member of that coven taught them how to read or write. Or if they used to be humans, maybe they knew how to do so before they turned into a ghost?

  Once we had our fill of the Sundial’s history, our spelling bee quickly turned into talking about battle strategy as we began making our way to the Anistar City Gym.

  Thorondor took his usual spot on my shoulder and Banette and Mismagius decided to join us for the discussion. The sight of two ghost Pokemon floating alongside me seemed to make for a strange sight among the locals though, because quite a few of them stared at us for an uncomfortably long time. Either because ghost Pokemon weren’t common here or just because they didn’t like the ghost energy.

  Thorondor kept staring back at them while the ghosts didn’t seem to care.

  I was a bit too nervous to care at the moment, the anticipation of our first ‘official’ battle was making me a bit jittery.

  We had never participated in any formal battles, and the twins were a league above anyone I had battled before besides the members of the expedition party, but those were pretty casual. This was gonna be a REAL gym battle.

  I probably should’ve thought of making a strategy earlier, but foresight isn’t exactly my forte…ugh.

  Rotom zipped out of my pocket, it had already searched up Chloe and Zoe and showed us the results. The Pokemon League Forums had trainer profiles for any trainer that had participated in a gym, contest, or league sanctioned tournament, so that was a great start.

  The twins had been able to beat all the Kalos gyms, but at the time they were so young that they were only allowed to participate in the Junior League Conference, which they both won by tying each other in the finals.

  Wait, I’m old enough to participate in a conference right? I think I checked it before but I don’t remember. I quickly checked the age requirement to participate in a Pokemon League Conference, it differed depending on the region but generally a trainer had to be at least fifteen to participate. Some regions had it set at sixteen instead.

  I quickly checked my Trainer ID. Well at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the age thing, I was gonna be sixteen before the next gym season, and I wasn’t planning on competing in Kalos.

  Bruh I keep forgetting how old I am in this world. Why couldn’t I have just not aged backwards.

  Rotom scrolled down on its screen to show me what Chloe and Zoe’s teams consisted of. I’d had a sneak peek during the expedition but I didn’t really pay enough attention to remember much besides the Pokemon they had out most often, being the two Meowstics, a Sigilyph, and a Mr Mime.

  Chloe’s recorded team consisted of a Gallade, Alakazam, a female Meowstic, a Gothitelle, a Sigilyph, and a Mr Mime.

  Zoe’s team had a Gardevoir, Medicham, a male Meowstic, Delphox, Hatterene, and a Xatu.

  “Yeah, Gardevoir and Hatterene are gonna cause us some trouble. I’ll guarantee that they’ll be using at least one of them.” I noted. There’s also whether we’ve got a 2vs2 or 4vs4 battle. I’ll just ask that we do a 2vs2, especially considering that this’ll be my first time battling in a gym.

  Out of the four battle ready Pokemon I had–Winnie, Sahara, Kaiju, and Glados–two were weak to fairy types, and I might not be able to even use Kaiju.

  Winnie seemed to read my thoughts and nodded, “yeah, kaiju probably won’t be viable in a battle against a Gardevoir or Hatterene, they’re super effective, right? and immune to dragon type moves.”

  Banette flew in front of Winnie and held two fingers in front of his face, “Super effective times two, dragon and dark are both weak to fairy. Not to mention fairy types being immune to dragon type attacks.”

  I thoughtfully scratched my chin, “Yep, most of Kaiju’s strongest moves are dragon type ones. Sahara has access to Iron Head and Metal Claw, so I think she’ll be okay, but your illusions might have to do a bit of carrying Winnie.”

  Winnie grinned and proudly patted his chest, “they won’t stand a chance against my illusions. i’ve improved a ton since we last met, they won’t know what’s coming.”

  My mind instantly flashed to Gardevoir’s Pokedex entry about it being able to create black holes. Well that might be a bit overkill for a normal battle.

  “Hmmm. They’ve probably improved a ton since then too,” Then I mirrored Winnie’s grin, “but I bet they won’t be expecting the type of stuff you can pull off right now.”

  Juuust to be safe, I tapped my watch, “Glados, can you give me a summary on any battle strategies they like to use?”

  My watch beeped as Glados scanned the Pokenet before reporting its findings. The AI had taken a liking to the Pokedex voice and had recently begun using that to speak, “They tend to begin with their Meowstic team, or a combination of a special attacker and a Pokemon who can keep physical attackers occupied. For example: Gallade, Medicham, or Mr Mime, in order to let the special attacker set up.

  “i’ll be able to handle that with my taunt special.” Winnie said, he was probably already cooking up some insults to hurl at our opponents.

  “They never start with Xatu or Sigilyph unless their opponents have a fighting type, or when they are facing a ground type specialist.”

  “The main strategies used are simply teamwork, Chloe and Zoe’s seem to react to what their opponents do. Other strategies include: setting up Psychic Terrain and Trick Room to counter fast opponents, spamming Future Sight to catch their opponents off guard, and using Expanding Force when Psychic Terrain is active. Their Pokemon also seem to have access to healing moves like Life Dew and Recover.”

  “what’s our counter strategy gonna be?” Winnie excitedly hopped a few steps, “are we gonna use the scary hydreigon strategy?”

  “Ruff rufflet?” Thoronder added.

  Mismagius smiled at the eaglet and nodded, “Yes, status conditions are a good way to wear down opponents stronger than you.”

  I thought about it for a moment and shrugged, “No to the Hydreigon strat, and I’m hesitant on the status condition one.”

  Winnie cocked his head, “Why’s that?”

  I swiped Rotom’s screen to switch back to the description of Chloe and Zoe’s teams, “Alakazam and Gardevoir have the ability Synchronize, and Hatterene has Magic Bounce. Alakazam also has Magic Guard.”

  “Rufflet?” Thoron asked inquisitively.

  “They’re all abilities that counter status effect causing moves in some way.” I answered, “Synchronize gives your opponent the same status condition that you have, Magic Bounce reflects them, and Magic Guard makes it so that the user doesn’t take damage from effects like burns or poison.”

  I think that’s basically what they do, and that’s assuming that they’ll be using Alakazam or Hatterene. Status effect stuff should be viable against their Gallade.

  “I’m mainly curious about whether they’re passive or have to be activated like Golurk’s No Guard ability.” I said as I tapped my watch again to ask Glados for an answer.

  “Magic Guard has to be activated at the start of a battle, but is otherwise passive. Magic Bounce and Synchronize are both active abilities.” Glados reported, “Magic Bounce reflects all status conditions, Magic Guard only affects damaging conditions like Burn and Poison, and Synchronize only works on the five major status conditions: Burn, Paralysis, Poison, Freeze, and Sleep.”

  “looks like we won’t be able to rely on hex to do any heavy damage like usual if we’re fighting alakazam.” Winnie noted with a slightly disappointed tone.

  “Ruff rufflet ruff.” Thorondor chirped.

  Five major status conditions? I didn’t know that was a thing.

  “It’s fine.” I said, “We can work with this. Confuse Ray is still an option.”

  “Have you considered the possibility that they’ll use their psychic abilities to track Winnie through his illusions?” Mismagius asked.

  I nodded, “Kinda, yeah. During the expedition I heard the twins complaining about the ghost type energy in the area messing with their telepathy.”

  We looked at Winnie who nodded, “I can do something similar with Night Shade.”

  “Great.” I rubbed my hands, “They already know what Pokemon are on our team, so there won’t be any use in disguising yourself like you usually do Winnie.”

  Winnie frowned at the idea.

  “We’ll go with the usual hiding behind illusions strategy. That should make it harder for them to accurately use future sight.” I explained.

  “That said, Winnie, you and Sahara will be sent out first. Glados will be next on the bench, and hopefully we either won’t need Kaiju, or we’ll have taken out their fairy types by then.” And hopefully the rest of their team aren’t loaded up with fairy type moves cause I know some of them can learn moves like Dazzling Gleam.

  “Our strategy will be using our tricks to create openings for our team to take them out before they take us out.”

  It’ll also be down to whether my team and I are experienced enough to pull off any strats we come up with mid-fight, especially since this is a doubles battle.

  “Bzzt! Bzzt!” Rotom buzzed and flashed 4:15 PM on its screen, urging us to pick up the pace.

  “all this battle talk has me hyped up.” Winnie grinned as we sped up.

  “We should’ve gotten popcorn.” Haunter commented from my shadow, there was a murmur of agreement among the ghosts.

  Banette groaned slapped the side of her head, “Why didn’t I think of that!”

  There was a sigh from Mismagius, “We all just ate less than two hours ago! Surely you can hold out until dinner without dying of hunger.”

  “you don’t get it madam mismagius! i’ll die of hunger if i don’t get a pokepuff right now!” Winnie said in a falsetto voice as he feined fainting which got a round of giggles from the ghosts.

  Thorondor rolled his eyes and chirped, “Ruff rufflet rufflet let rufflet.”

  Banette chuckled and poked the eaglet’s belly, “Then maybe you should’ve thought twice about eating my french fries earlier.”

  Looking indignant, Thorondor huffed, “Ruff! Rufflet!”

  “yeah, maybe you’ll grow into a snorlax!” Winnie replied with a devious grin. There was a round of laughter from the others.

  “You know,” I said as an idea popped into my mind, “I think I know how we can defeat them.”

  “yeah?” Winnie tilted his head, “go on.”

  I rubbed my hands together and grinned deviously, “Here’s the plan…”