If Thousand Lakes Gym ever held an internal vote for its most troublesome Pokemon, there was no question who would win. The answer would be the same every time: the Psyduck that could not swim.
It was not just that this Psyduck was weak. Weakness alone could be managed. The real problem was that it was weak and actively made things worse, with a temper stubborn enough to suggest it had been sent specifically to torment the Gym's staff.
In most Gyms, Pokemon raised in public areas were occasionally selected by a Battle Master to participate in official matches against visiting Trainers. A Battle Master's job was to put up a reasonable fight, not roll over, but also not to crush a challenger unfairly. It was a careful balance.
No Battle Master at Thousand Lakes Gym would ever willingly choose a Psyduck that clocked in at roughly 0.05 Rattatas of combat power. The problem was, they did not always get a choice. This Psyduck had a habit of opening its own Poke Ball, wandering onto the field mid-match, and then getting knocked out by whatever move the opponent happened to throw first. Not even the most patient Battle Master could tolerate a Pokemon that seemed genuinely committed to handing challengers a free win.
Word spread, as it always does. A rumor made its way through Trainers across the Norlandia Alliance that Thousand Lakes Gym was going easy on challengers, sending out a duck that flinched at Water Gun just to give away badges. The rumor spread far enough that Alliance officials dispatched an investigation team to determine whether the Gym was guilty of professional negligence.
For a Category 1 Gym specializing in Water-type Pokemon, being investigated for raising a Pokemon afraid of swimming was about as humiliating as it got. It was the kind of thing that got talked about at every other Gym in the Alliance. Thousand Lakes had essentially been put on public display for all the wrong reasons.
And yet, for all the trouble it caused, this Psyduck had quite a pedigree.
Its mother had been one of the signature Pokemon of Thousand Lakes Gym's late former leader, Grandma Lize, a Golduck whose power sat comfortably at the Elite Four level. Its father was reportedly a Psychic-type powerhouse from a certain Secret Realm, the undisputed ruler of a large Slowpoke colony.
By any measure, this Psyduck should have been born exceptional.
Instead, what emerged from that prestigious pairing was something Grandma Lize had never anticipated. Rather than inheriting the Psychic dominance of either parent, the Psyduck had perfectly absorbed something else entirely: the signature dopiness of both species in their base forms. Psyduck and Slowpoke were both known for being endearingly dim-witted before evolution, and while Golduck and Slowking shed that quality entirely, there was no guarantee their offspring would do the same.
This one had not. In fact, it had somehow managed to be several times more scatterbrained than a typical Psyduck. It had even forgotten how to swim, which was not something that happened. Ever.
Breeders across the region used the case as a cautionary tale for years. The lesson: always study the shared traits between parent Pokemon carefully, not just the standout ones. Grandma Lize weathered the criticism and the jokes that followed with the composure of someone who had spent a lifetime in competitive Pokemon. Public opinion did not change how she felt about the little duck. She kept it close, treated it well, and by all accounts it had a genuinely happy upbringing at the Gym.
That chapter ended when Grandma Lize passed away from old age.
Her granddaughter took over as the new Gym Leader. She had no particular attachment to the Psyduck herself, but it had been her grandmother's companion, and it did not cost much to keep it around. For a while, it stayed on as a quiet reminder of the woman who had built the Gym's reputation.
Then the incidents started piling up. The worst of them came when Psyduck, gripped by one of its splitting headaches, unleashed a Psychic burst powerful enough to shatter the tempered glass of the Gym's main aquarium.
That particular moment had done more than flood a hallway. It had thoroughly shattered the new Gym Leader's patience as well.
From that point on, Psyduck became the Gym's most universally disliked resident. It had cost them face, caused constant disruptions, and run up a quiet but consistent bill in repairs and damage control. Nobody wanted it. Everybody wanted it gone.
So when Nova stepped up and said he would take the Psyduck, the staff member handling the transaction felt something close to spiritual relief mixed with intense guilt. Nova had been introduced by "withered earth," and handing a walking disaster off to someone connected to a contact like that felt like setting a trap for an ally. The staff member had no real choice but to sit Nova down and walk him through the full history, incident by incident, holding nothing back.
It did not go the way they expected.
The more Nova heard, the more engaged he became. The swimming phobia. The habit of barging onto the battlefield uninvited. Going down to a single Water Gun. The headaches, and what happened when those headaches hit their peak. Every detail the staff member offered as a warning, Nova received as confirmation.
He had seen this before. Not this Psyduck specifically, but everything about it matched the Psyduck he remembered from the anime. Misty's Psyduck. The one that would wander into battles it had no business being in, get away with it through sheer luck and the occasional explosion of Psychic power so overwhelming it settled matches in an instant.
Nova was not naive enough to think this was literally the same Pokemon. But with roughly eighty percent of the characteristics lining up, walking away from it would have been the real mistake.
And the data from the Cultivation System backed him up. The Purple talent nameplate hovering over this Psyduck quietly outranked both the Poliwag and the Horsea he had looked at earlier. Neither of those had been poor choices. This one was simply better, in ways that did not show on the surface.
At the end of the day, Nova had come here looking for a Pokemon with Damp to keep Aresdra safe from anyone who might try using Self-Destruct or Explosion against her. That was still the primary goal, and this Psyduck cleared that bar without question.
Everything else was a bonus.
Torchic, with its Gold talent, would grow into an unstoppable force for Aresdra in battle. Riolu, steady and determined, would be her most reliable shield. Between the two of them, Aresdra already had more than enough to handle the demands of Pokemon Contests. She was not trying to become a Pokemon Master, and that was fine. She did not need a full combat lineup.
If Psyduck turned out to have something special in it, wonderful. If not, it would still serve perfectly well as a companion, the kind of goofy, endearing presence that audiences tended to love. A beautiful coordinator with a Pokemon that walked into walls occasionally had a certain charm to it. Either way, it would not be a loss.
As for all those troublesome habits the staff member had listed out so carefully? Nova was not particularly worried. This was Aresdra's Pokemon now. When Psyduck inevitably caused some small disaster, Aresdra could take it up with the duck directly. Nova intended to be entirely uninvolved in that conversation.