Gary left after convincing me to follow his plan.

  I really wanted to say that I put up a fight, but I didn’t. That’s how good a plan it was.

  It wasn't like my plan to rush the gyms and then do structured training until the conference was a bad one, but he actually brought up a good argument against that: if I fought the Gym Leaders as fast as I could, they would only be as challenging as I was then, in that exact moment. But if I waited until the last month–until I was the strongest I could be–these conference-level matches would only push me over my limit. They would make my team a lot stronger. It was that strategy that Gary used in his first year.

  It was risky, of course.

  I could end up not winning these harder matches, which meant not qualifying for the conference at all. But would I be able to win it all if I didn’t follow this plan? Maybe, but that was just another gamble.

  I fight later, don’t win, and don’t go to the conference.

  I fight early, go to the conference, and lose there.

  I fight later, I win, and I win the conference.

  One in three is good odds.

  Of course, we still need to actually win the badges and the conference.

  But that brought another point to our discussion. How can I become as strong as I possibly can until that last month? Thankfully, the answer was literally seated near me. Gary was a veteran trainer who knew how to exploit the region itself for training and had a lifetime of experience on how to leverage his grandfather's name and influence.

  He told me of the things I needed to do to finish his plan in its entirety. They were crazy, really crazy, but if I could do these things, winning the conference wouldn’t be so far away as it is now.

  The only thing I wasn’t thrilled about was that I wouldn’t be able to continue journeying with Project. The professor's name could move some things for me, but it couldn’t move for others without drawing heavy attention or scrutiny.

  I sighed and stood up, catching the attention of the two sleepy pokemon who were dozing off near the foot of the bed. I climbed on the bed and carefully pulled the covers, trying not to disturb them.

  I cleared my throat to pull their attention, and they glanced my way. “So, Clefairy, the trainer who was here before, Gary, commented with me that you might want to come along with us, as part of our team, maybe?”

  Clefairy shook her head awake, but didn’t make any sound. Instead, her body language spoke for her. She tensed up, her eyes dropped to the floor, and her hands fidgeted as if they wanted to grab something to calm herself. Valley frowned in worry.

  “But don’t worry," I amended quickly, "there’s no problem or pressure right now, we can talk about it another time.” That seemed to relax her. “Everything’s fine.”

  The fairy pokemon seemed to relax and took deep breaths to calm herself. After a few minutes, she settled down on the bed and grabbed the Minccino closely as if she was a plush. Valley was a little more than annoyed on her face, but did allow it.

  I followed her and turned to my side after hitting the light switch. The light was out, and I closed my eyes to sleep after a deep breath. I… didn’t like to bring things out to Clefairy like that. It felt like manipulation, but Gary made a good point.

  It was the truth. He’d almost pulled his hair out as he made the simple argument; it was the actual truth. At some point, they would come to see what’s what with the Clefairy that ran away, and the more solidified our position was–with her already being my pokemon in the system–the better.

  So I planted the seed for her to think about it.

  Didn’t make it better, though.

  I just hoped that tomorrow wasn’t as long a day as today.

  ---

  The next day started early with an upset Nurse Joy entering our room and giving me my last check-up.

  Her scowling face turned into a shocked one when Clefairy immediately burst into tears. The fairy pokemon thought that Nurse Joy was upset with her, but after she clarified–with a strong hug and soothing voice–that it wasn’t with her that she was upset, she released us with a smile… and a warning towards me about taking care of the Clefairy.

  Since we were already in the town’s center, we just walked two streets over to visit the Olivine Gym to schedule a match with Gym Leader Jasmine. Luckily, there was a space in two days. I felt my stomach drop knowing that Cape wouldn’t be there, but I shook it off. I had to remember that if we depend on Cape to win every single time, especially this early on, the rest of the team will never advance further.

  Then we wandered through the main street to find a restaurant for us all to eat. We found a place near the end of the road and close to the beach that accepted an entire team. During lunch, I reintroduced the team to Clefairy. They remembered her, but it was good to get some actual introductions without the tense situation from before.

  We eat well after days of eating hospital food.

  The next priority after lunch was to find a new place to stay, a Pokemon Center or a hotel, but Valley, who hadn’t entered her pokeball again in order to accompany Clefairy, mimicked that she was sick of lazing around and wanted to train a little.

  That’s what led us to this beach.

  I looked around and took notice of the empty space near the dunes, on the back of the beach. It wasn’t completely secluded since Gary did warn about possible retaliation, and I was paranoid enough to consider kidnapping despite what the prodigy might have said, but we could comfortably train here. I nodded at the duo as I put my heavy backpack down, and Clefairy stopped.

  Valley was seated on her head, hatefully glaring at all the sand around us. Her vendetta against sand was still going strong, I see. Clefairy’s eyes looked up, and Valley put on a serious face and pretended she was analyzing the area. She then nodded, as if her approval was extremely important to find a training place.

  “Okay,” I said, and grabbed the three occupied pokeballs on my belt to release the others.

  The red lights splashed out of the pokeballs and formed three pokemon. The Cryogonal appeared first, hovering above everyone and staring down with its blue eyes. He was as comfortable under the sun as anyone else. The Baltoy appeared with a spin, and to his side, Ivysaur. The grass pokemon stomped the sandy ground and frowned.

  “Mountain, Mesa, Jungle,” I greeted each one with a smile. “I know this was soon, but we’re not in a room, as you guys can see. Valley just really wants to train, so we’ll do a small session, alright?” That got some enthusiastic responses from Mountain and Jungle. “We won’t go far today, just some spars to get back into training. Remember the rules, not using powerful one-shot moves, and not hurting so much that there's a need to go to the Pokemon Center… Let’s start with Valley versus Jungle, and then Mesa versus Mountain, and then change it up as we go.”

  They nodded, and Valley jumped down from Clefairy’s head. Her enthusiasm for fighting made her forget she hated sand, while the others gave the two space to fight near the high dunes.

  Jungle and Valley stared at each other for a second.

  “Begin,” I shouted.

  Valley lowered her center of gravity, and her four feet burst into green energy. She exploded with Trailblaze towards the pokemon five times her size, leaving a high spray of sand behind. Jungle also lowered his body and showed his back; a dozen cutting leaves surged from the budding tree.

  Valley dodged through them by the right side and unleashed an Echoed Voice.

  Jungle dodged the wind tunnel by jumping left and swinging right in the same motion, his two vines followed the movement and snapped forward. They cut through the air to strike the normal type, and would’ve succeeded if she hadn’t disappeared underground.

  Jungle gazed suspiciously down at the sand until ten Swift stars rose to the sky from his right side and curved down towards him. Jungle snorted as he sent a giant barrage of leaves towards them.

  Valley darted from the sand under him and smashed a grey glowing fist under his chin. The head snapped back, but the body didn’t, and Jungle smashed into Valley with a painful-looking Tackle. The two rolled through the loose sand, unconsciously dodging two grey stars that survived the Razor Leaf.

  Jungle spun on his side and stood up, while Valley dashed between his legs.

  He growled and stomped twice. She dodged and made to run away, but suddenly twisted back, and a quick Play Rough fortified her body in pink. The glowing missile punted Jungle up. Pink smashed into green, and the heavy grass type capsized. Jungle, looking confused by the change between sky and earth, blinked in surprise.

  Valley used the time to use her non-mastered Thunder Wave on the confused pokemon, who grunted in pain.

  “Alright, Valley won.” I didn’t stop to hear Jungle’s pleas. “Mesa, Mountain, your turn.”

  The two terrestrial pokemon let the two aerial ones take their place, and the ground and ice types floated forward and across from each other. The Baltoy was a lot closer to the ground than the Cryogonal, who was high up in the sky.

  I looked between the two and shouted, “Begin.”

  Mountain took the initiative. His six main ice plates glowed, and six ice shards shot from them and towards the clay doll.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Mesa lowered his left arm and brandished it up high, and with it, a compacted sand wall rose to protect him. The shards stopped deep inside it. The wall fell back into the floor with them stuck in it. As soon as eye contact happened, he shot out a Psybeam.

  The beam traveled quickly, shaking the air as it went, but Mountain spun to the side like a Frisbee, dodging it, and shot forward.

  Lumps of sand floated up and turned into rocks that stayed behind the Baltoy. Instead of shooting them outright, Mesa raised a limb, and malformed hand-like constructs of sand appeared along Mountain’s way, trying to grab him. The ice disk used Rapid Spin and cut down many as he closed on Mesa.

  The ground type threw the rocks floating behind him, and Mountain’s ice chains shot out from his body and parried them to the sides. He dodged another Psybeam from downside and retaliated with a Night Slash that speared through rock and chains with remarkable dexterity. I almost didn’t see that from the side. The attack struck Mesa and created a small incision on his side, one that I knew could’ve been bigger if Mountain wanted it to.

  “Stop!” I said, and both pokemon spun off each other. “Mountain won, good job, you two.”

  They nodded in acceptance and flew back together to talk with an excited Valley and a pouting Jungle. I was looking between Jungle and Mountain when Clefairy jumped.

  “Clefairy!” the fairy pokemon said from my side as she looked up at me.

  “You want to fight?” I asked, and she nodded back. I nodded stoically, but was internally happy about the situation. “Who do you wanna fight?” She pointed at Mountain, who froze in surprise.

  “Are you up to more, Mountain?”

  The floating ice type’s plates shifted as something I recognized as a nod. They took their position, and Mountain wasn’t floating as high or as far away as before. Clefairy didn’t seem to have any problem with this.

  “Remember, no damaging moves.” I reminded them, more for Clefairy’s sake. “Begin.”

  Electric currents traveled through Clefairy’s body and gathered between her hands. She pushed, and a Charge Beam cut towards Mountain at high velocity. The pokemon spun to the side, the beam almost scratching him, and retaliated with Ice Shard again.

  Clefairy didn’t flinch as the six shards came for her, she just used Psybeam.

  Unlike the newly learned Psybeam from Mesa, this one was powerful. This Psybeam was wide and dense, and almost visible to my eyes. It shattered the six ice shards into dust and struck the Cryogonal dead center. Any other of my pokemon–excluding Cape–would have fainted, but Cryogonal was a highly defensive pokemon by nature, and his ice body only cracked slightly at the edges.

  He was falling for a few seconds, but stabilized himself near the ground.

  “Wait!” The two stopped. “You want to stop, Mountain?” I asked him. The pokemon didn’t respond for a second, still shocked from the attack, but soon answered with a narrowing of his blue glowing eyes. “Alright, continue.”

  Mountain’s chains appeared as the pokemon threw himself forward, and two of his ten chains shot forward, stuck deep into the sand, and pulled his body forward, accelerating himself even faster.

  Clefairy blinked, but also jumped forward. Her wings shone pale, and she sped up as well. Mountains’ body turned grey, and he went all in with a Body Slam. Clefairy’s hand glowed dark, and she wiped it in front of her as if painting–Knock Off. Body Slam’s power diminished, and with her other hand, she used Pound, and the grey punch was also different from Valley’s in the same way her Psybeam differed from Mesa’s; it was simply more powerful.

  The two attacks slammed against each other, and it was clear that even before Knock Off did its job, Body Slam was still weaker than the simpler Pound. And now?

  Mountain’s move broke like a mirror, and Clefairy’s punch struck his center. His body groaned and shot backwards from where he came. Clefairy pouted, but her pout turned into a smile as the Cryogonal’s chains passed her by like confused snakes. With her two hands, she grabbed them and then pulled with all her strength.

  Mountain whipped back towards her with wide eyes, too dazed to do anything about it.

  She did a front flip in the air as the ice-plated body came closer. Her body glowed with gray energy in a similar shape as Mountain had done seconds before–this Body Slam seemed weaker than her Pound at least. The move struck the Cryogonal’s “forehead”, and he flew downwards.

  The ice pokemon ate sand and stayed there.

  I walked forward, already opening my backpack, and retrieved two potions as Mesa used the sand around to flip the ice type over. Before I could get there, however, Clefairy landed to his side.

  She raised her arms and swung them around as if dancing, and glowing and glistering water formed on them, just like a water move, and she splashed it into the fainted pokemon. The small cracks that had formed all over the pokemon easily closed, too easily in fact, as if she had planned to do the exact amount of damage she could cure.

  I stood there, slack-faced as I looked down at Mountain with a potion in each hand. “That looks like Life Dew.” I turned to Mesa. “Tell me that’s not Life Dew.”

  The clay doll stared up at me. Clefairy cleared her throat, and I looked at her. She sheepishly nodded.

  I stared down at the plated pokemon taking a nap. “Did you plan the exact amount of damage you needed to inflict to cure him afterwards?”

  She nodded again, even more sheepishly than before, with an arm scratching behind her head. There was such an endearing mixture of pride and shame in that act that it took a minute for me to recover. When I did, I put away the potions and retrieved the ice type, then I sat down in the sand with Clefairy, Mesa, and Valley, and took out my laptop. I opened an app that showed a pokemon possible move set and allowed the trainer using it to put the moves they knew under a personal profile with their own pokemon.

  I created a new sheet for Clefairy and asked her out loud which moves she knew. It took some time, seeing as the Clefable line was one that most learn moves.

  After twenty minutes of questioning, we knew Clefairy’s exact move set.

  Copycat, Defense Curl, Disarming Voice, Growl, Pound, Sing, Sweet Kiss, Stored Power, Encore, After You, Life Dew, Metronome, Moonlight, Draining Kiss, Charge Beam, Chilling Water, Icy Wind, Magical Leaf, Swift, Water Pulse, Knock Off, Psybeam, Endure, Reflect, and Light Screen.

  I stared at the laptop screen. She didn’t even know Body Slam, she'd actually used Copycat. “Can you use all these moves in a battle?”

  She winced and waved her right hand in a movement that I could only interpret as more or less. I looked away from her and stared once again at the screen, where all her moves were written just like that.

  She wasn’t a normal Clefairy.

  I wasn’t as shocked as I should've been. I must’ve subconsciously understood that she wasn’t normal when Gary explained about the Joy attack. It made perfect sense; five locations were attacked by Team Rocket, and only one had all of their pokemon retrieved… the one that had this Clefairy. But now this made everything seem more urgent than before. I had been too lazy about this situation. I stared at the ocean.

  I couldn’t walk around with a Clefairy who had been trained to this point.

  I looked down at the screen once again. She’s been taught Life Dew! And Metronome, Copycat, and those other type moves. Clefairy normally aren’t taught these moves unless they are going to participate in the circuit.

  “Clefairy, did you know what the Joy had in mind for you?” I said with a smile. “Like what would be your profession?”

  Clefairy stood up and imitated a boxer's stance. She then showed off some fast jab combos in the air before finishing it up with an uppercut. She turned to me with a grin. She really was supposed to be a pokemon for a fighting team.

  “Do you know the trainer you were supposed to be paired with?”

  She shook her head.

  That wasn’t important anymore, I think. Well, unless it actually was an important person, but it didn’t matter right now. What mattered was that all of this complicated things. It meant that the Joy possible wouldn’t let her go if she stayed unattached to a pokeball. I couldn’t continue walking around the city as I did this morning, with an uncaptured Clefairy.

  Oh, Arceus, I've been stupid all this morning.

  I blame the drugs.

  What should I do then? She didn’t want something definitive, I guess. Didn’t want to attach herself to anything…

  I facepalmed, to the curious look of my pokemon and Clefairy.

  I had already dealt with a situation like this not even a week ago.

  The fight from before and the trip to the hospital made me forget the episode with Dendra and Mawile. Dendra had been unsure if she wanted to catch a fairy and steel type pokemon, while being a fighting-type trainer. In the end, we'd figured out a solution; they would try to make it work, but nothing was definitive yet. A trial run, if you will.

  “Alright, guys,” I said to the three pokemon sitting on my left. “I need to solve our sleeping situation soon, so I’ll be returning you here. The next time we talk, we’ll be in a proper room, alright?”

  They nodded, even Valley didn’t object, and were retrieved one by one.

  I looked to my right, where Clefairy was looking at the space the team left with a slight sadness. “I’m sorry about bringing it back so soon, but now that I've seen all the moves you know, we need to talk about making this arrangement between you and my team more official."

  Her head snapped to me, and her eyes widened.

  I sighed. “Based on what I learned these last few minutes, your move set and the fact that you were supposed to be a fighting pokemon of someone, it’s safe to assume that the Joy clan will come here looking for you soon, isn’t that right?”

  Clefairy’s gaze softened and went to the waves in front of us; her body slumped slightly.

  “The problem is that after your pokeball”–she flinched at the word, but I pushed forward–“malfunctioned, you’re a free pokemon now. They could just come, and if they’re strong enough, just take you away, and I wouldn’t be able to appeal to the authorities for help because you’re not really my pokemon in the eyes of the law.”

  She made a small noise of understanding.

  “I don’t know exactly what you want to do, or how you want to do it… Arceus, I don’t even know why you came looking for us, but we need to figure this out, and the only solution I can come up with, with the time we have, is for me to capture you.” She frowned. “ But that doesn’t mean that you need to enter the team, fight in our battles, or anything like that. It would just mean that the Joy couldn’t just catch you back.”

  She turned her head to me and analyzed my face, probably looking for something.

  I thought that she wouldn’t accept, until she gave out a thin nod.

  “Are you sure?” I knew I shouldn’t hesitate, but I couldn’t help but feel the need to ask this.

  She nodded more firmly this time.

  I took out an empty pokeball, clicked on it, and held it out for her.

  She stared for a moment until she finally extended her arm and tapped the object. It split open in the middle and swallowed her, turning the pink pokemon into red light. The pokeball didn’t shake, and the capture was successful a second later.

  Another second later, and the pokeball shook. I recognized it as the shaking my pokemon made when they wanted out, so I released Clefairy, and she seemed pleased with the fact that she was outside again.

  “Not a fan of pokeball then?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, you don’t need to stay there if you don’t want to,” I said as I released my Minccino. “Valley also doesn’t like pokeballs very much.” The small pokemon shook the sand away and jumped into Clefairy’s head once more, and the two of them looked at me as I grabbed my backpack.

  “Alright, let's go find a place to lie down.”

  ---

  After an hour of walking around, we found a hotel where the rooms were bigger at an affordable enough price, considering the money we made in the tournament. It was also near the Pokemon Center where Cape was staying, so we would be able to visit him every day.

  The room was the biggest we’d ever stayed in, with two double-sized beds, and a lot of smaller beds for small pokemon. There was one TV in the middle of the wall, and two desks. The five of us settle in. Valley wanted to watch a movie, so they filled up one of the double beds while I compiled recordings of Jasmine’s matches on one of the desks.

  I sat down and opened my laptop. I started my search through the websites where the matches were uploaded by the Pokemon League, and I already started to notice repeated trends in her four badge matches.

  There were the normal ones for steel-type trainers, focusing on defense and counterattack rather than initiating or letting an excited opponent exhaust themselves against defensive layers. She also uses the same sequence of pokemon that most gym leaders use, weak pokemon first, and then gradually turn up the heat, until she unleashes the strongest for last.

  In the case of a four-badge match, it could be a Scizor, Magneton, Skarmory, Beldum, or Lucario. They weren’t particularly strong compared to Cape, more so on the level of Mesa.

  That reminded me… it will be interesting fighting a four-on-four without Cape.

  I sneaked a glance at the team as I considered the order we’d go with. There was already a frame I’d come up with at the hospital. The first would have to be Mountain. Since he’s weak to steel type, he should be the one to fight the weakest of their team. The last one should be Mesa, the only one who could defeat the strongest of Jasmine’s team right now. And between Valley and Jungle, I’ll choose them depending on how the match goes from there.

  For a split second, I entertained the possibility of talking to Clefairy to see if she wanted to fight, but it wouldn’t be right. She’s not even officially on the team; she’s just a… traveling companion? Friend? Besides, it would be the first time the team would fight on a four-on-four, and it would be incredibly unfair to ask someone to give their spot to her in this situation.

  I continued to check out some more of the steel trainer’s matches, even making some notes of the few calls she used, when a ping sound chimed from the laptop. It was from the pokenet app I used to communicate with Project.

  It was a private chat, and it was from Dendra. She was inviting us to have dinner at the Pokemon Center.