Then there was Ninetales.
To be honest, Reiji had originally planned to treat it as support, the kind of Pokémon that helped the others train. But Lokoko said that before leaving, it would train Ninetales properly. Reiji had no idea what the two foxes were working on. Sometimes they whispered together, sometimes they slipped off into the woods, and he had long since given up asking.
If Ninetales could break through to Elite Four tier with Lokoko's help, Reiji would leave a main-team slot open for it. If not, then support it was.
Lokoko was an old fox that had lived for hundreds of years. If it knew a few secrets no one else did, that would only be normal.
Next was Magmar.
Ground, Rock, and Water were all bad matchups for it.
Ground was the worst. Magmar had almost no real answer there. It didn't know Water moves, Grass moves, or Ice moves. Against Ground-types, it was fully on the back foot, with nothing clean to hit back with.
Rock was a little better. Magmar could at least learn Fighting- and Steel-type moves, so it had ways to make the fight messy. The problem was that most Rock-types also knew Ground moves, which dragged the matchup right back into danger.
Water was rough too. Thunder Punch could help keep some pressure on, but that was about it.
In the future, Magmar would need to avoid those fights whenever possible. Besides practicing the few coverage moves it had, its real priority was still Flame Body. With the rock armor protecting it, most opponents would have a hard time taking it down unless they used long-range moves like Earthquake.
Then came Lucario.
Its problem types were Fighting, Ground, and Fire.
Fighting-types could be handled with Flying, Psychic, or Fairy moves. Lucario had options there, especially because its mental strength was strong enough that learning Psychic-type moves shouldn't be difficult.
Ground-types were weak to Water, Grass, and Ice, so Lucario could answer those with the elemental punches.
Fire-types were weak to Ground, Water, and Rock, and Lucario had plenty of possible counters there too. Reiji had also thought about borrowing Scizor's training formula, but Lucario wasn't a metal-bodied Pokémon. It was still flesh and blood. He was not about to feed it stone and metal powder and risk giving it kidney stones.
For Scizor, the biggest boost to Fire resistance had come from Damp Rock powder, not the Berry. It just wasn't as strong as using an actual item. But rocks were still rocks, and Reiji didn't want Lucario eating anything that might cause problems, so he dropped the idea.
Thankfully, Lucario had aura and strong mental power. Those two alone could cover many of its weak points. As for inheriting aura from a senior to strengthen its own, that kind of shortcut was too rare to count on. Most of the work still had to come from its own training.
Then there was Dugtrio, which had just fought earlier.
Its bad matchups were Water, Grass, and Ice.
Water and Grass were hard to solve. Dugtrio had no especially good answer to either. Ice was at least manageable. If Sludge Bomb counted, it could do something to Grass-types too.
The problem was that Sludge Bomb was a special attack, and Dugtrio was built for physical damage. Its physical attack was around one hundred, while its special attack was only fifty. In Dugtrio's hands, Sludge Bomb simply wouldn't hit as hard as it should.
Like Magmar, Dugtrio needed to avoid bad matchups whenever it could. Its counterplay was too limited, and one wrong fight could flip on it fast. The safer plan was to sharpen its Ground-type moves, then make full use of Arena Trap and Sand Force. In a sandstorm, those two traits could be nasty.
Then there was Pidgeot.
That one had come out with Reiji mainly to see the outside world. It had seen plenty by now, so most of that wish had already been fulfilled. The next thing it wanted was to battle, because it had seen the big group photo.
Pidgeot wanted to leave its own figure in a photo like that. Reiji was willing to make that happen.
Pidgeot had three problems too: Rock, Electric, and Ice.
Against Rock, it at least had Steel Wing. That was something.
Against Electric, there wasn't much it could do. It didn't know any Ground-type moves, and Sand Attack wasn't exactly an attack worth relying on.
Ice wasn't much better. In the end, Pidgeot's answer was also avoidance. Most of the time, Reiji would send it out against other Flying-types anyway, mainly to stop opponents from kiting him from the air.
So for now, Pidgeot's training would focus on its own main moves. Combination techniques could wait. These younger Pokémon didn't even have a full grasp of what they already knew. Asking them to build layered combo tactics now would be asking too much.
Pidgeot could start by learning to strengthen itself while flying, then practice using simple move combinations in the air. The others would follow the same path.
First, master the move. Then use it while moving at high speed. After that, raise the difficulty and start combining moves in motion. That was the foundation.
Once a Pokémon could use its moves as naturally as breathing, creativity would follow. Any move could become part of a battle rhythm. Any move could link into another. That was when a Pokémon truly started to look polished.
Next was Umbreon.
Reiji hadn't planned to use the little thing for battle much, but it had evolved, which made it part of the main roster whether he liked it or not. More importantly, it was his only Dark-type Pokémon that could appear in public. At a critical moment, that might matter.
Umbreon had three weaknesses: Fighting, Bug, and Fairy. Fairy was not a concern yet, since that type hadn't appeared.
Fighting-types were weak to Psychic and Fairy. Psychic was Umbreon's strong point, so it had a real answer there even without Fairy moves.
Bug was the problem. Umbreon didn't have many ways to fight back. It couldn't learn Flying, Fire, or Rock moves. It didn't have Ice either, and Fairy counters were off the table. So Umbreon also needed to avoid bad matchups where possible.
Once Reiji finished sorting out the Pokémon he could show openly, it was time for the cover Pokémon.
He brought them into the woods. From now on, their training would happen there, hidden from anything watching from above.
Any public Pokémon that needed to spar with them would be brought into the woods too. A lot of their training overlapped, and keeping everything in one hidden place was easier.
Besides, now that he and Cissy had made things official, she would probably drop by the lakeside cabin without warning from time to time. Better to keep the cover Pokémon in the forest. If she asked, he could wave it off with any excuse.
And why would that work?
Because people in love had negative brain cells. Simple as that.
He took Swampert, Magnezone, Golurk, Weezing, and Zapdos into the woods. Sharpedo stayed by the lake.
Sharpedo had too many weaknesses: Fighting, Bug, Grass, Electric, and Fairy all threatened it.
Against Fighting-types, the best counter would be Psychic moves, but those depended on talent. Reiji's Sharpedo did not know any Psychic attacks. It only had support moves like Agility.
Against Bug, it could make do with Ice Fang. Against Grass, Poison Fang helped. Against Electric, Earthquake would help too, assuming it could learn it. Against Fairy, Poison Fang was still the best option.
Sharpedo's role was mostly transportation anyway. Reiji would not rely on it for battle unless he had to, but that didn't mean it could ignore move practice.
The rest of the cover Pokémon mattered much more. He had real hopes for them, unlike Sharpedo, which was allowed to be a bit lazy.
Swampert was simple. Grass was the only matchup it truly had to fear. Its Water/Ground typing made Grass hit brutally hard, but Ice moves gave it a clean answer.
Once Poliwrath and the others came back, Swampert could learn from them. If it ever got cleared for public use, Reiji would be able to bring it out openly.
Magnezone had three main concerns: Fighting hit it hard, Fire hit it hard, and Ground was the real nightmare.
Ground was only a problem if Magnezone touched the ground or got knocked down. As long as it kept itself floating through magnetic control, Ground moves could be ignored.
Fire wasn't too scary either. The custom magnetic armor gave Magnezone Fire resistance and better defenses. At the same level, ordinary Fire attacks would have a hard time hurting it.
Fighting was trickier, but most Fighting-types had to get close. Gravity could pin them down, and once they were slowed, Magnezone only needed to electrocute them.
Golurk was even more ridiculous.
It had absorbed too much energy, and between its steel-hardening process and its stone body, it now carried three traits at once: the Ground and Steel that made up its body, and the Ghost energy that powered it.
If Reiji had to name a weakness, it was still Ghost. Not because Ghost attacks were especially devastating, but because Golurk's own Ghost side was not strong enough yet. Only a Ghost-type stronger than Golurk could truly suppress it.
If he added the Ghost Plate fragment and gave Golurk shadow power, maybe even anti-gravity, Reiji honestly did not know what ordinary Pokémon could still hold it down. At that point, only Gengar or a legendary Pokémon might be able to stop it.
But after thinking it over, he decided against it for now. Golurk's mind was not mature enough, and its will was not firm enough. Besides, it already had more than enough potential to digest. There was no need to pile on more.
Weezing had only one real problem: Psychic-types.
That was easy enough to answer. Weezing could learn plenty of Dark-type moves, and it didn't need to charge in first anyway. Its job was to fill gaps for the others.
As always, if it ever reached the point where Weezing had to take the field, Reiji should already be preparing to leave. And if Gengar was forced out, that meant he was in a near-death situation. A coward as cautious as him would never let things reach that point unless someone truly pushed him past his limit.
Last was Zapdos.
Rock and Ice threatened it, but Zapdos could not be judged like an ordinary Pokémon.
Watching the anime in his previous life had taught Reiji one thing very clearly: legendary Pokémon did not care much about type matchups unless they were fighting another legendary.
Take Tobias's Darkrai, for example. Everyone knew Darkrai should fear Fighting and Bug. It didn't matter. Darkrai swept through the League with Dark Void from start to finish. If Ash had met Tobias in the finals, Ash would have been the runner-up.
In that entire tournament, Ash was the only one who forced Tobias to reveal a second Pokémon. Everyone else got put down by Dark Void and never had a chance to make it look good.
Sure, part of that was the production team. But a legendary was still a legendary. Ordinary Pokémon couldn't really compare. Dark Void was already hard enough to deal with, and that was before factoring in the sheer gap between a legendary and a normal team.
Unless a Pokémon had Vital Spirit, Insomnia, Comatose, or Purifying Salt, it would fall asleep.
Reiji's Electivire had one of those answers. If things ever got that bad, Electivire might have to go in just to avoid Dark Void.
Still, Sinnoh was far away. No point thinking that far ahead. Right now, the Orange League mattered more, and every Pokémon needed special training before the tournament. His schedule was already tight.
The first-string team could keep training as usual. He had already arranged their work before. The Pokémon building toward Elite Four tier had all been trained too, and they could help the others spar while continuing their own climb.
Among the first-string team, the slower ones were Accelgor and Forretress.
Forretress was a field-control support Pokémon. Its Fire resistance had already been stacked as high as Reiji could manage, so it only needed to keep refining its disruption moves.
Accelgor's speed gave it a lot of possibilities. Power Swap, Guard Swap, Baton Pass—there might be something unexpected there.
"Still…"
Reiji couldn't help feeling a little regretful. Accelgor could harass, kite, and launch surprise attacks, but it was too fragile to decide a major fight on its own.
After laying out everyone's training, Reiji still had to get familiar with them one by one. Maybe today he would spend two hours coordinating with Slowking, two hours with Magmar, and two hours with Lucario. After that, he could either keep going overtime or finally rest.
Either way, the twelve hours of daylight would be swallowed by training and meals.
The next day, he might switch to Dugtrio, Ludicolo, and Blastoise for two hours each. Everyone would get a turn. Time was tight, so this was the only way to make it work. Any bad-matchup sparring, he would be there in person.
That was his Orange League prep plan.
When Reiji returned to the lakeside cabin, Gengar told him Cissy had arrived.
She had only left that morning. Why was she back by noon?
Since Cissy was here, this was the perfect chance to stage Blastoise's capture battle. The act only needed to involve Blastoise. Ninetales did not matter. Nobody cared that much when a non-starter Pokémon was caught.
Reiji told Slowking the plan: act out a capture battle for Blastoise. Slowking would take Blastoise into the forest and have it wait there until their one and only audience arrived.
"Yaa."
Slowking understood at once. This was no different from the staged capture battle with the cloned Pikachu and the others. The only difference was that this time, Reiji was the one doing the catching.
Slowking teleported to the lakeside, then teleported again with Blastoise from the lake to the forest. Once there, it explained the plan and told Blastoise to attack the lake when the time came.
Then Slowking teleported back and warned Tentacruel and Whiscash in the water. When Blastoise attacked, they needed to look terrified and flee as if their lives depended on it.
Once the extras and the lead actor were in place, Director Reiji watched Slowking bring Cissy down from the sky. He gave Slowking a look, and Slowking immediately teleported back into the woods to notify Blastoise.
"Rai, you haven't eaten lunch yet, right? I brought groceries." Cissy landed with a smile and lifted the plastic bag in her hand.
She had just started walking toward Reiji, and Reiji was smiling as he went to meet her, when the lake suddenly exploded.
Boom!
Water shot several meters into the air and crashed back down in sheets.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Their smiles vanished at the same time.
Reiji turned and saw Blastoise swaggering out of the trees. The two thick cannons on its shoulders aimed straight at the center of the lake.
Then Blastoise fired again.
Two shells tore across the water and blew the lake open.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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