In the ground-type sanctuary of Prof. Oak's lab, a yellow-colored mouse Pokémon is lying on the dusty ground, panting heavily as if it has just encountered the most exhausting moments of its life. And indeed, it has, for the mouse, Pikachu is the one owned by Mary, an intern who will face her friend's Miltank, which was known to be the hardest Pokémon to train in their batch, and of course subsequently, the strongest besides Andrew's Bulbasaur and the bug type trainers that decided to final evolve their Pokemon right at this moment.
Mary, of course, knew not to compare Anthony, a rookie with only textbooks as a guide, and Whitney, the horror of the Johto side of Indigo Plateau trainers, in terms of training Miltank. The point is that, Anthony can put up a very efficient and effective training method for a rather hard to train Pokemon (though the hardship is mostly due to the rarity of the accounts and books that described how it should be trained) with only examples, once he understood how this or that should be done to make Miltank's training as productive as possible, the method/food item would be incorporated with little to no error.
One can say that Anthony is the textbook definition of a good student, but the point is that Mary can't do that, she's more of lesson by experience person. One can even say that she has the same 'hit them harder' tactic as Anthony's mother, Hana Dover, though definitely not as strong as her, even at the same age. This is evident in how Pikachu's training all this time is just about strengthening its sole electric-type move: Thunder Wave, which is gained through repeated trial and error.
This method of training is more beneficial to the Pokémon in a way that it would foster independence, allowing it to make independent decisions in key moments in the wild or in official battles, but at the same time, its attacks would be less controlled, and its mysterious energy would be easily depleted, unlike the more targeted and surgical method Anthony has employed.
_What bullshit luck, I was matched to the most strategic person on this batch, someone who's hellbent on being a Pokemon trainer as he's just learning all things with the appropriate level of knowledge to not fail the internship, if he were to be serious, Anthony would be much higher in ranking... Plus, I bet he has a lot of trainining session with his parents..._
_Though he can only have sessions with some Pokemons without their trainers, this is still an advantage. This is not because Miltank is very talented at grasping new moves and mastering them, apparently it already knows Bide, and I bet that Anthony made his Miltank master the iconic Defense Curl-Rollout combo, plus Miltank might also be able to activate Bide while on the Rollout State..._
Mary sighed, finding that her adversary, her first one in the apparently monthly bond evaluation tournament of the interns, was especially difficult. Though, of course, Mary doesn't feel like they would automatically lose, as everything is really just up in the air. Still, she can't help but feel poignant about his opponent, though Mary still feels confident as she's friends with the guy and everything that he does to train his Pokémon is known to her; in short, if anyone can defeat the unofficially most talented Pokémon, Miltank, it would be him or Andrew, though he has a different friend group.
_Pikachu and I have to train hard for this one; this is also the reason I have to make it train with the type that receives the least damage to electric type attacks._
___________
The days went by, and all students with their unique ways of training their Pokemons have used all resources available to them and all knowledge they have acquired or already have during the one month of internship to train their bond with their Pokémon and the strength of their respective Pokemons itself in a way that maximizes the short span given to the trainers. At first, the interns are of course grumbling, after all, to train for a tournament is something that needed to be done months before the main thing, however, they also understand that they should be able to train their Pokemons during the one month given to them and the tournament, beside being a bond testing one also measures that, so they can't do anything but their best.
Some, specifically Bug type trainers opted to final evolve their Pokemon to make them strong, however in the clump of students that has Bug types as their long term project, there is actually a divide: Those that argued its better to evolve Pokemon before a tournament to maximize and train the Pokemon in the changes it would acquire before using it on high intensity battles and some that wants the natural progression of battles to evolve the Pokemon. Research evidence suggests that both are effective, and there's no significant difference in the latter development of Pokemon no matter what one chooses, but during the early days of the evolved Pokémon, there would be inevitable differences.
Anthony, of course doesn't care about this silent debate that is happening to the bug type side of the intern batch of his, instead he made Miltank fight a diverse amount of types as physically possible for him and for the Pokemon for them to master how would they incorporate Bide, Rollout, Defense Curl and Milk Drink as their main combo while the other moves like Stomp would be the ones used during emergencies or times when flexibility is required. In this regard, Anthony is quite regretful that he is naturally incapable of making Miltank learn more diverse moves like Ice Beam and other moves of its kind.
_You have to really be patient when training normal types since their early development is not optimal for them to learn those moves._
Such were Anthony's thoughts as he made Miltank fight with ground types, normal types, bug types, and more. Anthony actually wanted to make Miltank fight a Volcarona that was recently lent by a trainer to the Kanto region Pokemon lab, but because the researchers are conducting some test with it and the fact that it's probably too big a hurdle for a young Miltank to surpass, Anthony have to make do with some stronger ones like Heracross and a Leavanny that serves as the nanny of the whole Bug type habitat.
Anthony and Miltank continued working hard while also making sure to discipline themselves into resting when needed until it was finally the day of the competition.
Friday, the first week of February, is the day of the competition.
The battlefield owned by the laboratory is now filled with temporary roofing, all over its benches are different people, such as parents, kids who wanted to see a Pokémon battle up close, the panelists who will judge the students' ability to synchronize with their Pokemons and the interns themselves who would be going to battle it out. Of course, there are also seats for Prof. Oak and the associate field researchers who have guided the students in the past month.
As this is considered an academic activity and the battlefield is not as big as the battlefield of the Pokémon league, the lab didn't make it a free access but rather just a live stream; otherwise, it would make a great distraction to the focus of the interns. The said interns, right now, are silently waiting for the start of the event while stroking their Pokemons that have undergone rigorous training these past few days, they are not equipped with lab gowns or PPEs but rather casual clothing for better movements and airflow on their body as they were bound to be in the middle of the scorching sun and their shouts and adrenaline will surely make them sweat like a river.
Anthony is quite bummed out about such arrangement actually since he wanted to try his visualized attire when he is to become a trainer which incorporates a lab gown, but he realized that it would be too hot to move about when travelling, so he needs to have the ones issued during their official deployment when he's 10 and have to go with a t-shirt and shorts for this tournament, making him look like a random preschooler that would be defeated by a Mudkip after Brendan can get past the second Town.
Anthony looked around while stroking the head of his Miltank, that was given ample time to rest yesterday and today, as it was already reasonably disciplined due to the energy-exhaustive activities it had to do all this while, it wasn't jumping around in anticipation but was just clenching its fists. Zubat is also on top of its head, massaging it using its wings. The interns are currently on the right side of the benches, thus Anthony is able to see the parents' side, which is the right, and subsequently his mom, Hana, with the mother of Glen and Glen himself.
What Anthony didn't expect, however is the person besides his mom, who is not his dad but rather an outstandingly beautiful woman; she has silver hair with tints of blue that is parted in the middle to produce a pair of side forelocks. She's currently wearing a simple yellow crop-top and skin-tight pants, she's currently talking happily with Hana and Glen's mom while Glen is continuously waving at Anthony. If not for the fact that his mom is known as one of the most decorated trainers of her generation, he would have been surprised that she knew future elite 4 Karen.
_I wonder if I can meet Cynthia in this life... if I ever get lucky to be a champion or a top researcher, then maybe I would have a chance to travel around the world and meet up with her, maybe I can fight her in the world coronation series._
While Anthony is fantasizing, Mary and Andrew suddenly slapped his right and left hands respectively, which made him jolt up from his stupor. He then asked: "What?"
Mary and Andrew ignored the slightly annoyed tone of their friend; instead, they gave a bond paper to Anthony. Andrew then said:
"What do you mean by 'what?'? Help us get autographs from your mom and Madam Karen! This is the best time to show your connections!
Andrew's tone was sushed as he doesn't want other interns to know of their plan on cutting out in line, which is not metaphoric since Prof. Oak has promised an autograph session with the most famous visitor of the day after the tournament. This is something that Anthony wanted to point out, but he also quite honestly wanted to get Karen's autograph as early as possible.
Plus, it's not like it's every tournament that the interns see an Elite 4 candidate and a 'I let other people become the champion because I want to' person, so he doesn't want to miss any opportunity. Anthony, in the end, accepted their papers and looked at Glen and waved at him, before pointing at his friend.
"Me?"
Glen muttered that being loud is not socially acceptable and will get him to receive an ass-whooping from his mom. Anthony nodded before muttering, "Comfort Room." Glen stared at him for a second before widening his eyes and nodding. The battlefield of the lab, despite not being as big as the ones by the league, is, of course, complete with facilities of high quality, and one of them is a spacious lavatory.
Anthony readied his phone case too for his autograph from Karen and slowly melded with the shadows... no, not really, but Anthony hopes that no one was able to notice his disappearance.
__________
After some minutes, Anthony and Glen were able to meet up in the bathroom. After Glen raved about how Anthony was able to have his first tournament before him and how lazy he is even to think of himself as an associate field researcher, Glen finally asked him:
"So, what's up?"
Anthony immediately put up the bond papers and the phone case in front of him, saying:
"Give these bond papers an autograph from my mom and Ma'am Karen, while this phone case from the latter, I'll wait here, hurry, we're not allowed to cut in line for the signing session later."
Glen stared at the papers and the phone case for a moment before nodding.
"Sometimes, I feel like you're using your connections in the wrong place."
Such were Glen's remarks before getting out of the comfort room. Anthony then sighed, thinking that what his friend just said was true. However, just when Anthony is about to go to one of the stalls to actually relieve himself, his whole body suddenly froze whilst all of the hair in his body stood to its ends.
_What...?_
Anthony's forehead started to get covered in sweat as he slowly shifted his gaze to his side, to where the feeling of dread suddenly came from. In it are two Pokemons, one is a dark purple one with a round body and spiked back, glaring at him with its red eyes and perpetual smirk, while the other has a small, black body with blood crimson eyes and vertically slit pupils.
Together, they stared at Anthony before slowly phasing away to the ground.
"A Gengar... and a Banette..."