Hard Enough

“Oh my gosh! He’s so adorable!” squealed Suzie as she tried to climb her way up Kaede to reach her starter.

I caught her around the midriff and swung her like a pendulum side to side to bleed off momentum and her frantic little girl energy.

“Woah up there kiddo, Samurai Furret is all tuckered out from his fight,” I said.

Suzie gasped. “Oh yeah! He had to fight both Titan and Empress! That was so scary! And so cool!” she gushed.

Kaede smiled beatifically down at the little girl in my arms. “Thank you, Furret and I worked very hard on that strategy to counter Brock’s pokemon.”

“You still lost,” said Cindy pridefully. I felt the parent part of me war with the trainer that had just battled. Desire for her to be more polite and my own pride coiled and gnawed at each other.

Thankfully, Flint was up to the task these days and he coughed gently. “Cindy, that was rather rude,” he said lightly. “You were just as impressed as the others that a small pokemon like Furret could stand his ground against a pokemon like Titan, remember?” Flint asked, nudging her verbally.

Cindy coughed. “Yeah, it was… pretty cool, but Brock was better!” she said.

I smirked and puffed my chest out. The effect was rather ruined by Zubat trying to nuzzle into me.

“Sooooo whatcha doing here, miss?” said Suzie, still hanging from my grip like a limpet.

“I decided to assist your brother in his preparations for his fight against Bruce!” Kaede declared.

Suzie clapped her hands. “Oh! This is just like the Magical Girl cartoons when the bad guy becomes part of the forces of good!” she declared.

Kaede blinked rapidly as she processed this. “That is twice now that you have mentioned Magical Girls, little girl whose name I have yet to learn,” she said calmly while shooting me a pointed look.

I coughed and raised Suzie up. “This is Suzie, and that’s Salvadore, Yolanda, Tommy, Cindy, Timmy, Billy, and Tilly. Bertha is in the back, along with Flint,” I said. I then tilted my head to bump Zubat. “This is Zubat. I haven’t worked out a fitting name for her yet,” I said.

Zubat crooned in delight at this and Kaede nodded slowly. “I see. Mr. Flint, you… and your wife have a lovely family,” said Kaede.

“We’re not even sure we actually have a Mummy!” said Timmy with a sad expression. Flint twitched.

“Oh… yes… I had…” Kaede coughed. “I had learned that during my own research into Brock. My condolences,” she said.

Flint coughed. “She’s going to come back,” he said doggedly.

The younger kids didn’t seem to know what to make of this, while the older ones all smiled and nodded along.

“I see,” said Kaede carefully, with the air of one who realised they’d stepped on a potential ticking Voltorb. She carefully looked away from Flint and back to Suzie and me.

Sabrina decided to fill in the awkward silence. “Suzie and Bertha are avid Magical Girl fans. They rather enjoy the fact that my Mega Evolution involves a transformation phase. When they saw me do it they dubbed me a Magical Girl,” Sabrina explained.

Bertha and Zubat both nodded their heads.

I shot Zubat a confused look. Hmmm, that was new.

Sabrina waved a hand. “They were curious if you might be a recruit for that,” she said with a soft smile. “You’ll need to learn how to Mega Evolve first, I’m afraid,” she said, looking intently at Kaede. “You would be my third recruit,” she said thoughtfully.

Suzie nodded rapidly at this idea. “It would certainly be useful to have that as an option!”

I tilted my head in thought.

The first recruit was obviously Erika, with how close Sabrina and her were, but the second? Was she referencing Janine? They also got along rather well from what Sabrina said these days. Hadn’t they played a game with Sabrina’s dolls in Janine’s model houses a few weeks ago?

Hmmm, not important.

Kaede blinked. “I hadn’t thought I’d be able to with Furret.”

“There’s currently no known method of Mega-Evolving Furret,” I said thoughtfully. “But your Gardevoir and Mawile, if you’re close enough with them, they could be stand-ins,” I said with a smile.

Kaede blinked. “Just like that?”

“It won’t be easy, but you seem like a pretty upstanding woman who can work it out given time. Your pokemon certainly seems to respect you enough that I think it’s possible,” I said with a smile.

I tilted my head as I considered something. All these talks about Mega Evolving made me remember a very important point.

Kaede had said that Bruce’s starter was a Charizard.

A pokemon that very pointedly had been on Steven Stone’s list of pokemon that he had a stone for.

“No, I meant…” Kaede trailed off with a pinched expression. She turned to Sabrina. “Is he always like this?”

Sabrina nodded and I decided to ignore them. Before I could open my mouth a roar filled the room. Everyone paused, looking to Bertha, only for her to wave her hands back and forth to indicate it wasn’t her. When the roar occurred again, eyes turned towards a mortified Kaede.

“It’s been a while since lunch!” she said.

I nodded. “Well family, looks like we’re having dinner now!” I said.

Suzie dropped to the ground and pumped her fists. “Yes! Come on Kaede, while we wait we can braid each other’s hair and get to know each other!” she said, grabbing Kaede’s hand.

Sabrina trailed after her and I moved to the phone. “Everyone good with fish and chips?” I called.

I received a round of affirmatives and when the phone line connected, I immediately began talking. “Can I have three family feasts please? For the penthouse suites of the Wave Link Hotel?” I asked.

With that done I did a quick check in with A.J., only to get back a singular. “Busy, but healthy. All is going well” from him.

A message to Forrest got nothing, but when I messaged Mia I got back a tidal wave of pictures that looked like snapshots of her fighting various trainers.

Huh, she was throwing herself into fights, apparently. I checked her recent match statistics and whistled at how she’d been doing for the last week. She’d fought thirty battles in seven days, with victories in twelve of them.

A forty percent win rate on an island that probably had a lot of Ace Trainers floating around was pretty amazing.

A knock on the window had me looking up to find Zubat hovering in front of it on my side with her fangs bared. On the other side a delivery man waved merrily with a giant stack of food in his arms.

“Settle down girl, he’s meant to be here,” I said, drawing her back to me. I took the food and gave a tip before marching into the penthouse.

“Food’s here!” I called, causing a stampede of people to return to the loungeroom where we could all eat together.

Suzie, Cindy, and Tilly presented Kaede to the rest of the family. “Look! We gave her a braid!” they said proudly.

Sabrina bit her lips and I smirked, knowing she probably had a hand in helping make Kaede’s hair look much neater than it otherwise should have.

Furret also had several ribbons tied into his fur.

I distributed the food and from there the gaggle of people broke up to eat. Kaede ate mechanically, only to slowly wind down, like a clockwork toy that had run out of energy. “This is not how I thought today would go,” she said.

Suzie giggled. “Every day is an adventure!” she said with exuberance only a child could muster.

Kaede nodded at this and fingered her braids in a thoughtful manner. “Indeed,” she said. Furret I noted didn’t wake up, but that somehow didn’t stop him from eating. I watched fascinated as Furret opened his mouth and chewed, only to snore after each swallow. The kids made a game of placing chips within biting range, while Furret unerringly devoured them.

“That Sleep Talk at play?” I asked.

Kaede shook her head. “That’s just Furrret,” she said with a fond smile.

I tilted my head. What was this little guy, a mini Luffy?

When we were done, the kids looked excitedly at the television, only for me to shake my head.

I sighed, the need to race to the computers now quite urgent. “Alright gang, I think I need to do some work now, tomorrow’s going to be another big day for me,”

“Can we come with you? Just for a little bit?” pleaded Suzie, her eyes darting to Furret who was still curled up and asleep despite all the commotion.

Kaede caught sight of this. “Ah, I suppose I can allow someone who can be careful to look after my pokemon,” said Kaede.

I smirked as an idea formed. I grabbed a pillow and turned to point to who should hold the little Furret.

Sabrina giggled as various people’s faces fell.

I rather thought it was a good idea.

“I’m disgusted that this has been working for you,” sniffed Kaede as she witnessed the boardroom that we’d claimed for the purposes or pre-match prep.

I coughed, feeling a little defensive. “It’s not that bad! We have everything we need, screens for watching previous pokemon matches, computers for checking their known pokemon roster. and even a whiteboard for jotting down shared thoughts on what pokemon they are most likely to use.”

“Alright, that is acceptable, but where are the trackers for the regions that they’ve been moving through? What about the analysis on who they’ve been spending time with? Do you even know what Bruce is like as a trainer and a person?” Kaede said.

“No?” I said. “How much does that matter?” I asked, feeling like I’d failed in some way.

Next to me Sabrina patted my hand in consolation, while Missy looked like she was thoroughly amused.

Off to the side, Bertha sat with Furret curled up on a pillow. Around her, my siblings shifted back and forth as they waited for Furret to twitch or move.

When he did nothing but keep still and sleep despite their earlier clamouring they’d been rather disappointed, only for that to quickly oscillate into the desire to care for the tired out little pokemon.

Bertha had beaten them to it, however.

“So much,” Kaede said as she rubbed at her temples, only to shoot her starter a fond look as he loosened a loud snort in his sleep.

“With some of the higher ranked Ace Trainers there is a predisposition to trade your pokemon around for the best teams. They will keep a core of pokemon, but they will otherwise have a dedicated number of highly trained pokemon that are there to be traded around.”

I narrowed my eyes. “There’s no way they’re benefiting from that though, the bonds they’d have with those pokemon would be nonexistent.”

“They’re more relying on the pokemon obeying them, as they are all skilled trainers. As for battles, they rely on the pokemon having a wide array of skills. So it becomes important to know that Bruce is good friends with Arthur, Joshua, and Carr.”

I nodded along at this before tilting my head. “What does that mean in practice?” I asked.

“It means that they have an agreement to trade pokemon when they need to. They like to think of it as their little… ‘gentleman’s agreement’, Kaede said with a snort.

“It is frankly annoying to deal with, as you don’t have to consider just what Bruce has, but what the others have that could be troubling to deal with.”

“Won’t Bruce as a Blackthorn always try to stick with a dragon pokemon?” I asked.

“He will for perhaps a single pokemon, but he’s not an experienced Ace Trainer for nothing. He knows the value of a flexible pokemon team,” Kaede replied as she walked through our little workspace.

She lifted a few pages and hummed thoughtfully when she saw her own pokemon team’s notes with written commentary.

I considered taking the notes from her but decided against it. I wouldn’t be having to face her again for a while, and she was skilled enough to improve on her own. Plus, I’d missed the chance to discuss her methods after the match, so this was a neat trade off.

“You… knew all about my reserve team,” she said with shock, staring at the circles I’d put around Froslass, Shiftry, Mawile, Whiscash, and Walrein.

I coughed. “Oh? Was that a secret?” I said cluelessly.

Missy flicked her eyes from me to Kaede. “Were we not supposed to?” she asked. “Brock had them on his computer and we noted that you hadn’t used them before so we didn’t have a move pool to work with, but Brock generated a likely list. We didn’t think you’d have Sheer Cold due to the mechanics of how Brock said it worked.”

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“That doesn’t sound right. I don’t have access to such information as an Ace Trainer against others...” she muttered, only to stiffen.

Kaede glanced from me to Missy, “You have an idea of what makes Sheer Cold work and fail? Why did you allow me to get off so many Rain Dances, then?” she asked.

“Oh, that might have helped your chances slightly,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. I’d applied the game logic for strength, but in the real world it made sense that something like Rain Dance or Surf might boost the odds some.

Missy nodded her head cluelessly, “I thought it was just like the other One-hit KO moves, you know? They all have a one in three chance of hitting is what most people think! But Brock talked me through how they actually work.”

Kaede twitched. “You know how all of the One-hit KO moves work?” she said. She eyed Missy for a long moment. “You are receiving some very valuable lessons as his trainer, aren’t you?”

Missy grinned.

I coughed. “Alright, alright, I think we’re getting off track. We need to take a look over Bruce’s team and compare notes. I know this might not be ideal—”

“It’s downright vexing seeing so much information while lacking other key steps,” Kaede muttered as she looked at the whiteboard which had the team we’d guessed was most likely for her to use.

She tilted her head. “You seriously thought I was going to use Exeggutor, Heracross, or Dugtrio?” she asked.

“Those are some solid pokemon that have good counters to a number of my pokemon,” I said as I sat in front of the computer, typing in my credentials to get Bruce’s pokemon team up.

“Exeggutor is a pokemon that has been used against my pokemon team pretty well before,” I said casually.

“Please, everyone that has seen your battle against Will knows to not use that pokemon against you anymore. You have counters and plans in place these days,” she said.

I paused and considered that. She wasn’t wrong, but it was annoying to learn your opponents weren’t so simple.

“I also thought Shiftry might feature as a hit and run specialist,” I said.

“Hmmmm, you clearly don’t know me that well,” she said, chewing her lip. She turned her head when one of the projectors came to life to project Bruce’s team as I knew them.

Huh, there it was, a Shiny Charizard as his starter in pride of place.

I rubbed my chin in thought before diverting my attention to the other pokemon he was known to have.

Kaede gaped. “That’s more than…” she frowned as she took note of Bruce’s team.

From there, there was, Gyarados, Kingdra, Dragonite, Vibrava, Shelgon, another Gyarados, Altaria, Pidgeot, Crobat, Noctowl, Xatu, Honchkrow, Skarmory, Swellow, Pelipper, Tropius, Machamp, Primeape, Exeggutor, Medicham, Blaziken, Breloom, Snorlax, Kangaskhan, Tauros, Jolteon, Ursaring, Smeargle, Exploud, and Roselia.

I hummed in thought.

“So, according to the register, Bruce no longer has Xatu, Pidgeot, Noctowl, or Honchkrow, having traded them for Snorlax, Exploud, Roselia, and Ursaring,” I said.

“How do you have access to his trade list?” said Kaede.

Sabrina floated a small pad of papers and a pen over to herself.

Without her physically touching the items, they began noting down various combinations that were possible. “Gym Leaders like Brock and I have greater access to trainer profiles. That extends to Ace Trainers as well as people on their Journey,” she said.

“Gym Leaders get this level of information?” said Kaede in shock. She glanced between Sabrina and I. “You’ve always had this level of information?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Perks of having to deal with so many trainers each season,” I said. I then tapped on Bruce’s profile and brought up the notes that had been created when he’d done his circuit run against the Johto Gym Leaders.

“Overly reliant on firepower, and proud of his starter, but with a Charmander like that it makes sense,” I read aloud, noting that Bruce had challenged the Azalea Gym first.

I flicked through the other gyms, noting the Gym Leader descriptions before pausing when I came to the Cianwood Gym. Chuck’s notes were much more detailed and I quickly found out why.

“Hehe, he ran into trouble on the fourth badge challenge after trying to power through it with his flying type pokemon, “ I said.

“You have access to their notes from their Journey as well?” Kaede said slowly, watching as the reports were laid bare before her.

“Well… yeah? In case these people challenge us later on in a prolonged Journey, you know? It’s important for us to have a quick glance over some of the more experienced trainers and make sure they're not going to throw out a pokemon that has experienced an entire region of challenges before coming into a new region. You just need to give them a… glance over,” I said slowly.

Kaede’s look of annoyance mixed with one of understanding. Oh… she wouldn’t have access to this. I… hadn’t considered what someone else would or wouldn’t have access to before based on my role as a Gym Leader. I understood that their hidden pokemon were going to be harder to find, but I’d still have access to them.

Missy’s head tilted to the side. “You know, I hadn’t considered it until now, but I won’t have access to this level of information when I go pro.”

“Huh, neither will A.J.” I rubbed my jaw. “I’ll need to mention this to him when he comes back.”

I waved a hand at the information that was laid bare to me. “I hadn’t considered how my habits as a Gym Leader impacted my fights as an Ace Trainer.”

I coughed to hold back a small laugh. “Well beyond giving some people pointers after their matches with me,” I said. “Heh! So many people this last year have been weirded out ‘cause I did that!”

Kaede took a long moment to take a slow inhale, before exhaling. “It is gratifying to see that it is not arrogance but a predisposition that makes your behaviour towards Ace battles so lax,” Kaede said.

“With the level of information you have access to you can be that way, but you also have adopted methods that worked as a Gym Leader when facing large numbers of trainers back to back,” she said.

“Yeah, this year has been something of a stress test for my methods and systems in the gym,” I said.

Kaede nodded in a slow manner that told me she only somewhat grasped what I was talking about. Sabrina gave me a much more commiserating look. She understood.

I tapped on the screen as an interesting bit of knowledge jumped out at me. “So according to the records, Bruce had to challenge Chuck at the Cianwood Gym three times before getting his badge.”

Missy nodded. “So that means that… he’d be used to fighting against people that are trying to draw him in close, right?”

“Yeah, most of the fighting type pokemon need to draw you in to land attacks like Thunder Punch after all, but there are also several that can launch some pretty strong rock type attacks. I suspect that’s what Chuck is referring to in the rematch commentary when he says that Bruce is still too rigid in his thinking.”

“Hmmmm, it seems he ended up getting all of the main eight badges from Johto, along with two of the minor badges,” I said.

I tapped the Glacier Badge. “He took a long break before challenging Lorelei, however.” On a hunch I clicked onto his Jolteon and looked towards the date he’d acquired it. “Got his Jolteon as an Eevee around that time and basically evolved it straight away.”

“Lorelei was a Gym Leader?” said Kaede. “I thought she worked as a teacher before becoming one of the Elite Four under her grandfather?”

I shook my head. “She did both, only ran the gym for half the day, but would spend most of her time teaching kids,” I said. I’d looked her up after the deal I’d made with her and Pryce. And I had to say, I was rather impressed. She had her passion and she kept up what her family had maintained for years with the gym. If I hadn’t already liked her, I might have reached out just for that knowledge.

As it was, it was nice to know that someone else perhaps had an inkling of the chaos that was managing a family, Gym Leader duties, and passion projects. Sure mine was only baseball, but still.

“How long did he spend training to fight Lorelei?” Kaede prompted.

“Oh, he spent two months during the circuit preparing for it,” I said.

Kaede made a thoughtful noise and I glanced over and found her jotting everything I was saying down along with making a note of his team.

“You know,” I said slowly as an idea began to form in my mind. “Gym Leaders get an automatic right to challenge the Elite Four each year, if they desire,” I said carefully.

Kaede stiffened and her eyes dilated. “...how many openings are there within Indigo right now?” she asked.

“Six? No, wait… probably around four these days,” I said thoughtfully. “I’m pretty sure the Goldenrod and Olivine Gyms are spoken for these days, which just leaves the Neon City Gym—”

“Neon City is unlikely to keep its gym,” Sabrina supplied. “The local council was found working with Team Rocket on some of the projects and were expelled. Neon City is losing its status as a gym site, and other centres around Kanto are being reviewed.”

I blinked. “Huh, alright then. I had not known that. So for now the only ones that we know that are left are Florando Town, Cinnabar, and Viridian.”

“Hmmm, Goldenrod would have worked very well with my commitments as a writer and producer of Samurai Furret,” Kaede said.

Sabrina gave Kaede a look. “You don’t do any acting?” she asked.

Kaede shook her head. “No, all of the appeal for Samurai Furret is that the pokemon run the show. It’s a world devoid of humanity. It makes it more… romantic,” said Kaede with a fond smile.

“Oh, so you don’t don’t handle that side?” Sabrina said.

I flicked my eyes over to her. In the Black and White games, hadn’t Sabrina had an interest in being an actress?

“No I do, it’s just that the actors and actresses are pokemon only for the cartoons and the live shoots that we do,” she said. “Most of the time I just have to get them working as voice actors, as there are a lot of scenes we can’t do with the pokemon while they’re live,” said Kaede.

“The Farfetch’d cooking scenes?” Sabrina supplied.

“Yes, people were worried we were actually hurting Farfetch’d. The truth is that he’s a marvellous actor,” Kaede replied.

Sabrina nodded, letting things rest at that. I decided to butt in. “How does one start out as an actor or actress?” I asked.

Kaede blinked. “Oh? Are you interested?” she asked, sending me a knowing look.

“Oh… checking for a friend,” I said casually. “I’m way too busy these days to be adding more to my schedule.”

Kaede’s knowing look increased. “Suuure,” she replied. “Well, you’d have to see an agent, or as an unknown you’d have to do some readings for various parts. If we were talking about a simple layman off the street? They’d have to establish that they can follow procedure, but a more well known name like yourself? You’d be starting off with cameos, as otherwise people would be too distracted by you being in the background.”

“Huh, cameos,” I said thoughtfully. A quick glance at Sabrina showed me that she wasn’t opposed to this idea.

“Do you get many sponsor requests? I heard you need to break into the top one hundred before you get anything that makes it really viable,” asked Missy from where she was sitting in front of a computer.

On the screen I could see a Pidgeot swooping in low only to then kick the ground with its talons as it juked to the side, avoiding an attack before claiming a superior position against another Pidgeot.

Missy made a note of this and kept watching, even as she waited for Kaede’s response.

“Oh, that’s something I get almost all the time.” Missy perked up and Kaede coughed. “It’s a perk of being in the top ten. The most relentless are the shampoo and conditioner companies,” she said. “Furret’s glossy coat is something they all want to claim as the work of their various products, but the truth is I make it myself.”

“Oh?” Missy said.

Kaede smirked. “Old family secret,” she said with a wink.

She then shot me another look. “Any other perks of being a Gym Leader?” she asked, and now it was my turn to smirk. Interested, was she?

“Increased carrying capacity,” said Sabrina. “Minor Gym Leaders earn eight immediately, while Major Gym Leaders have the right to handle ten pokeballs at once for ease of handling challenges each day. This results in a greater strain on your energy levels initially, but it is something that you become used to.”

Kaede blinked slowly. “That’s why you weren’t as affected by the duration of our match as I was, were you?” she asked.

I wobbled my hand in a so-so gesture. “A little of column A and a little of column B,” I said.

“I didn’t give you two options…” Kaede said with narrowed eyes.

I just smiled enigmatically and shrugged. “Eh, anyway, never mind that. What do you think is Bruce’s best shot against me?” I asked.

Kaede looked at the team before reaching into her pouch and pulling out her own notes.

“Alright, so I already have some pointers regarding Charizard, Dragonite, Seadra, Gyarados, Pidgeot, Crobat, Pelipper, Swellow, Machamp, Snorlax, and Jolteon. Those are his most used pokemon and five of them have specially trained skills!”

“Hmmm, right-o, then lay it on me,” I said, turning so that my chair faced her.

Sabrina manipulated three whiteboards so that they were off to the side, ready to record the notes.

Kaede drew herself up. “Charizard is a powerful pokemon that Bruce likes to bring out early to shake his opponents. It knows Focus Punch, Aerial Ace, Hurricane, Dragon Claw, Crunch, Overheat, Flamethrower, and Fire Spin. It is a very skilled flyer and will make use of its flight if you don’t have a pokemon that can close with it very well. It has on several occasions turned the battlefield into a magma pit, so don’t think that ducking and covering with a Dig is going to be enough,” Kaede said sternly.

I nodded and she relaxed slightly. “It has two trained abilities, with it knowing a Fire Storm ability, where it will perform a Hurricane into a Fire Spin that makes a flaming current of air that will hurl small particles of fire about the field.”

“Are those controlled, or are they random?” I asked.

“Random, as far as I can tell. Now, the second skill is the one that is more threatening to you. He will have his pokemon assume a high position before dropping into a steep dive, then he will have his pokemon reposition with Aerial Ace in close, but instead of attacking he will appear near his foe and launch a Focus Punch. I suspect that it is something he has been working on since your defeat of Lance.”

I raised an eyebrow at this. “Any proof?” I asked.

“He previously wasn’t able to do it, and has only recently achieved this skill.”

“How recent?” I asked.

“Three weeks,” replied Kaede and I nodded. That did sound like a possible timetable of training before putting into action.

“Has he indicated any chance of pulling off Lance’s Rest while in the air?” I asked.

“No, only Lance has worked that out so far, or at least demonstrated it.”

“That’s a relief. I don’t like the idea of enduring another marathon of healing,” I said.

Kaede made a face and I groaned. “Which one?” I asked.

“Snorlax, it has Rest and Sleep Talk. It will honestly spend most of the match asleep if previous showings are any indication. It will repeatedly fall asleep before unleashing powerful counter attacks,” she said.

I hummed. “So I need someone with some fighting type moves…” I said slowly.

“Using a fighting type would be the height of idiocy with how many flying types he has,” Kaede replied quickly.

“Damn flying type specialists,” I said, earning a small ‘heh’ from Sabrina and a smirk from Kaede.

“You know he and Lance hate when people call them that,” Kaede said.

I snorted. “Well it’s true,” I said. “What else does Bruce have?”

“His Dragonite has a tendency to performing a bomb attack where it will drop from the sky—”

“I’m noticing a pattern here,” I said, my eyes flicking towards Missy’s notes regarding the Pidgeot. “If I see one of his pokemon plummet I should assume something is about to occur, I take it?”

Kaede snapped her hand towards me. “Don’t be so casual about this!” she said, gnashing her teeth.

I raised my eyebrow at her. “I understand this is a hot topic for you. but… am I wrong?”

Kaede sighed. “No… no you’re not. Charizard, Dragonite, and Pidgeot all have similar movements before they initiate one of their tricks. Crobat is the only pokemon that is able to simply throw itself into status effects from off angles with Toxic, Venom Shock, Steel Wing, Snore, Sunny Day, Double Team, and Giga Drain.”

I raised a hand. “It’s interesting that he has Crobat as part of his team, it might even be a little telling,” I commented idly.

“...” Kaede didn’t say anything, but she did direct a look at me to explain my comment.

“Bruce,” I said slowly as I brought up Crobat’s information.

He’d traded for Golbat earlier this year. I cross-referenced my calendar and found that he’d traded for it two days after my match with Lance at the Ranger’s Lodge. “Has kept his ear to the ground regarding anything with Lance, it would seem. Lance wasn’t as aware of dragon types’ weakness to fairy types before I laid his Salamence out with Selene using Moonblast.”

Out of interest I tried bringing up Lance’s profile, only to get the League’s sanitised version that was public knowledge. It had nothing of Salamence, Altaria, and what I expected would be Flygon, if not now, then soon in the future.

“So even Gym Leaders can’t view his team,” said Kaede thoughtfully.

I chuckled and clicked back to Bruce’s profile. “So, Charizard, Pidgeot, Crobat, Dragonite, and Snorlax are the main threats?” I summarised.

“They are pokemon to be aware of, but there are certainly others,” Kaede said. “What is your plan?”

Hmmm. So, Charizard was pretty much guaranteed, as was Snorlax. Dragonite sounded like another threat so he went up on the board, with Crobat also being a strong chance.

I responded by throwing Knight, Tide, Hypnotoad, Shrek, Bertha, Gawain, Selene, Link, and even Empress up as potential pokemon to use.

Kaede tilted her head. “Your other pokemon took too much… Oh,” she said, realising why I wasn’t listing others like Sanchez, Don, or even Titan.

“Don’t sweat it, this is part of the difficulties of fighting tournament style competitions,” I said.

I moved Selene to the guaranteed position along with Gawain, Link, Bertha… and here I paused. I had options… much like I had against Kaede.

I tapped the images of Shrek, Knight and Tide in thought.

Tide would offer more benefits against a dragon specialist… but chances were he’d bring Jolteon out to play…. I nodded and added Shrek and Knight to my team.

“These are the pokemon I’m going to work with,” I said.

Kaede chewed her lips. “This will open you up to threats from fighting types.”

“I know that,” I said. “Selene will be my saviour there, I’m more worried about having a few options to stop Crobat getting off Toxic Spikes, for that I need Knight.”

“How will you make sure you score a hit against Crobat?” she said, clicking at the computer to showcase some highlights of that pokemon.

I turned to Sabrina. “Can I ask for a Teleport to Celadon department store? They still have late night shopping this week, don’t they?”

“For the next twenty minutes,” she said.

I grinned, cracking my neck. “Alright, time for a reshuffle of moves. Let’s see how Bruce likes it when I bring some Rain Dance, some Swift, and some Thunder TM's,” I said. That would negate the magma field, the dodging, and also give any flying types that Bruce brought against me a world of hurt.

Gawain allowed me some options for field set up, while Bertha acted as my big cannon to end the match then and there.

Kaede’s smile stretched into a grin. “That should work wonderfully,” she said, only to tap Link’s image. “Why him?”

“Back up in case of the worst scenario,” I said, glancing at Bruce’s Charizard once again.

“What do you mean by that?” Kaede said sharply, catching sight of what I was looking at.

I considered her. “Steven Stone has had an offer for deals to be made for quite a while now,” I said. I tapped Charizard. Kaede hissed, realising the implications.

I nodded, Bruce as the number one on the Ace rankings would have some considerable favours he could offer Steven Stone.

If Charizard was his starter… well, it would be like a Mega Stone falling into my lap for Titan.

I stood, clapping my hands and waving at Missy. “Alright! Time to go shopping!” I said, only for the cheers of my siblings to make me instantly regret it.

I whirled about on them. “No! Bedtime for all of you!” I said, enacting my big brother mode which Flint backed up.

Yolanda simply raised an eyebrow while stepping forward with a smirk, and I sighed. “Alright, you can come,” I said, waving her to join us.

I took Sabrina’s hand. I had to admit, it was a damn good idea to bring in Kaede. I might not have had the chance to do this if I’d left it for tomorrow, but it was time to do some reshuffling of my pokemon moves.

Bruce could guess who I was going to use all he wanted, but he wouldn’t be able to guess what their movepools would entail.