I rolled the clip back again.
On the screen, Zuko dodged under a water afterimage that shot out of a Gyarados' tail, an aqua tail, proceeding to try and copy it with his own thunder tail.
"Alright Zuko, you won the battle here, even without taking any significant damage, but remember, that doesn't mean there's nothing to learn. Far from it, actually."
Zuko's head was lazily drooped over his front legs, doing his best to avoid looking at the screen from where he was lying down.
Circe was laying on his back, playing with his red fins again. She would get slightly shocked every once in a while, but didn't seem to mind.
Right. Circe.
In the following days after watching the Tier V battle, Oak and I had frequented the same Octo Ramen joint. I'd talked about my travels in the forest. He had told me a bit about his escapades chasing the Exiles. We'd discussed Tristan's theories about the attacks, as well as my own, which had prompted Oak to reconsider some of the things he had seen.
One of the days, when I had been talking about capturing Myst, it came up that I was somewhat disappointed when the Eevee I had caught had turned out to be a Zorua. Not that I didn't want it to be a Zorua, just that Eevee is such an interesting pokemon.
Oak had looked at me, and merely asked "do you want an Eevee?", letting me remember that this man had considerable power and influence. No matter how rare of a pokemon Eevee was, he could simply make one phone call.
Which he did.
At the time, I was shitting my pants at how I had maybe convinced Oak on a whim to actually give me another pokemon. Later, the rational part of me realized that I might have been able to ask for something far more powerful than an Eevee, and Oak might still have come through.
When I brought that up with him, he agreed. This prompted me to ask for other pokemon, like Larvitar, Beldum, Honedge, Rookidee, Treeko, Golette, and a bunch of other dope pokemon. Oak simply grinned mischievously, stating that given that Eevee and I were already acquainted, he wouldn't do all the work for me, and he had already given me three damn pokemon.
So if I had asked for any of those before he had asked about Eevee, he probably would have given me one. Which is a little frustrating.
That being said, I have absolutely zero regrets.
Eevee, now known as Circe, is the cutest little pokemon I could have asked for. She works really hard. Given that the only other pokemon with fur is Myst, she constantly compares herself to him. Despite my own arguments against it, given that he is her senior by over seventeen hundred years, she works herself to the bone to try and reach his level.
She has already been able to outpace him in any running drills, or any sort of long distance. That's more because Myst hates cardio with a passion, and usually just lays down instead, but Circe takes her victories.
In those drills, she now takes more after Zuko, despite his aggressive and impulsive demeanor. Speaking of which.
"Imagine if this was actually a capable Gyarados. Or a competent trainer. You realize we're actually going to fight those, right? It's better to prepare for them now, and be ready for it, rather than get blindsided the first time we actually fight anybody that knows how to think."
Zuko grumbled, but spared a glance at the screen.
"Imagine if the Gyrados was capable of utilizing draconic energy, like literally any actually well trained Gyarados. It could've shielded your half assed electric move with ease, and then grabbed you and coiled around you, crushing you to death. If it could focus that draconic energy into the scales wrapped around you, you wouldn't be able to shock your way out of it. Dragons can shake off electricity. You know that. Don't get cocky. Not to mention, this was a landlocked Gyrados. Its fighting style is very similar to what you would expect from a Steelix, which is a giant iron snake that could also crush you with ease. Rather than taking the easy way out with a simple electric move, you could have used the Gyrados as practice for something that might actually make you struggle."
Zuko frowned, but nodded his head.
"Alright bud. Just make sure to get that through your head. I don't actually think we'll run into a Gyarados that strong for a while. Or a Steelix. That's like ACE trainer level stuff. Tier V in the battle tower at least. And by then, we're gonna make sure your lightning is strong enough to paralyze ground types, you hear me?" I grinned, baring my teeth like a dragon.
Zuko mirrored me, roaring in approval.
I looked around the room, meeting the eyes of all my pokemon. Myst watched me with interest, while Azula watched me with admiration.
"We avoid mistakes before we make them. That's why we do this. We think through things. That's why we win. It's why we survive."
Myst nodded his head enthusiastically.
"Alright Azula, let's break down your battle."
Azula's tail flame dimmed, knowing what was going to be shown. I flipped to the next video. It showed Azula, surrounded by flames, holding on to long thin silver lines coated in flames. She whipped them around in a frenzy, attacking an invisible enemy. Then, a figure burst out of the ground below her, grabbing her by the legs. The steel whips winked out of existence, and Azula was promptly knocked out by the following moves.
"Azula. You lost your battle here. But I don't want you moping about it. This right here is an excellent example of defensive fighting. The Kecleon was invisible, so you stalled, setting up a defensive perimeter, making it almost impossible for the Kecleon to get in close without you noticing. More than that, you made your steel whips thinner than normal so you could see around you better. That was brilliant. Less attack power, easier to sustain the steel energy longer, both very smart since your goal is merely to find the enemy. This also really shows your improvement of your control over fire. Being able to utilize the metal whips as a conduit is something we've practiced, but you've never used them while attacking for so many minutes on end. Great job."
Azula beamed up at me. Her tail flame grew a bit to show her happiness.
"You made the right decisions for the entire fight. Sometimes, like with Zuko, you can win even while making some potential blunders."
Zuko grumbled, but kept listening.
"On the other hand, you can lose, even though you did everything right. With all the options laid out in front of you, what you did was still the smartest choice. There was no way that you could have known that Kecleon could use dig. It has no sort of seismic sense. Being able to pinpoint you from underground, or hell maybe it just remembered where you were, and was able to keep track of its starting position and you from underground. Either way, it would take months of training to be able to to that for a pokemon without special attunement to the ground."
"The Kecleon dug in a spot where it was out of both of our lines of sight. It was invisible, so there was no reason for either of us to believe anything was astray. It's not something you could have expected. Keep your chin up. If anything, it's on me. I knew that the first pokemon our opponent used was a Rhydon, I really should have considered the possibility that they were a ground specialist."
"Final thoughts. Azula, setting up one point to defend was good, but it's also exploitable. While you normally wouldn't expect a Kecleon of all things to take advantage of that, plenty of other pokemon can. Ghosts can come up through the ground. Others can simply make the ground below you move. In any case, movement is vital. You're eventually going to be able to control the air to help you fly, but I want to see if we can get a headstart."
Azula nodded fiercely, excited for the training. I hadn't heard of a Charmeleon being able to utilize the same energy flying types do. That was reserved for their evolved forms. But it wouldn't hurt to try. Being able to use air currents to help aid each of her movements would do wonders for her speed.
I looked back to Azula as she mimed digging down, and then shrugged her shoulders.
"What should you do against an enemy that can dig below you?"
Azula nodded her head.
"Well, that depends on your environment. If you can find any sort of high ground, that's always a good start. If you know what the ground is made of, going to where the material is hardest to dig through is also a solid move. If you don't have anything, being light on your feet and constantly moving would make it very hard to catch you. Again, that can change if it's something like an Excadrill, that can move faster underground than you can over it. That's where you would have to rely on your reflexes, being poised to jump up or to the side while having an attack prepared. It would also be smart to break things. Having other rocks and debris falling to the ground would really throw off any sort of seismic sense built on vibrations. That reminds me, a pokemon that relies on vibrations for its seismic sense is also one that would be good to remain stationary, rather than constantly moving, although the break things strategy is still probably your best bet."
Azula blinked furiously as she tried to keep up with the flood of information.
"Hey. It'll be okay. You don't have to worry about memorizing all that. In the heat of battle, you'll still have me. Besides, if you really want to cement some of this stuff into your muscle memory, I can add some specific stuff into the training for the week."
Azula grinned, letting out a low growl in thanks.
"And last one. Myst. Let's see yours." I stated, noticing the Zorua sitting up straighter as his time for evaluation began.
The video I was about to play would show Myst absolutely decimating his opponent, shooting out a barrage of a dozen dark pulses within the first second of the match. The Rhydon didn't stand a chance.
"Actually, let's not. Myst I'll just skip to the point. You're strong. Crazy strong. You haven't met anything that could prove to be actual competition in probably centuries. And even if you did, your bag of tricks is so deep that any opponent that survives initial attacks would quickly be driven mad by your mind games."
Myst grinned savagely, as if those are the words he had always wanted to hear. The words he always knew, but needed somebody else to tell him.
"It means you're arrogant. Cocky. You assume you're the only one with a trump card. You needlessly showboat your own power. You've disregarded critical thinking for creative thinking. You fail to grasp the severity of situations, and only look for a quick laugh."
The smile dipped a small bit.
"I could go on. All of that is true. But it also doesn't matter. As far as I can tell, you're in a class of your own. You've earned the right to be arrogant and cocky. You can actually back your shit up. Other trump cards pale in comparison to yours. Your reaction speed is fast enough to deal with surprises. Your instincts are honed so that anytime something does surprise you, you hide away using esoteric powers, making yourself essentially invulnerable, and can use solid illusions and other void abilities to attack from afar."
The smile returned, with an even stronger ferocity.
"All of that falls though, with simulink battles. You won't have access to your strongest tricks. You might not even be able to use the majority of your favorite tools. I know that you can think critically. It's still there. But you've buried it, simply because thinking creatively is more fun. Up until now, you've still been able to win without it. In fact this world is so weak to you, that you excel while sporting your bare minimum effort. You're a fucking monster Myst. But you could be a God. What do you say?" I outstretched my hand.
The little Zorua giggled, grinning like a fox, and jumped onto my hand, climbing up to my shoulder.
I turned to face the rest of my team. Zuko raised his head, red eyes sharp and calculating. Azula stood up, tail flame blazing. Circe climbed up to Zuko's head, watching me with curiosity.
"We've made it a long way. But we're not even close to where we could be. This world has so much to offer, and we've barely skimmed the surface. I don't know why I was put here. Not yet. But I've been given another chance at this. I'm going to give it everything I have. Everything that can be done, I'm going to. There's no point in living if I don't give a shit. There's no point in trying if I'm not going to give it my all. We could be the best there is. That is an indisputable fact. But it means that we have to try, we have to think, we have to fight, every single step of the way."
"I can't do it without any of you. None of this works unless you all are with me. None of it means anything unless you're there by my side. There are clearly other hands in play in the background. There's more to this world than what we can see on the surface. Someday, shits going to hit the fan. If I know anything about anything, shit always hits the fan. I plan on being strong enough to do something about it when it does. Do you?"
Two dragons roaring to high heavens was my response. Circe barked a couple times, and then howled, trying to copy the two roars.
Myst, who was still on my shoulder, yipped over and over again. He then attempted to howl with Circe.
I couldn't help but laugh.
If this was the afterlife, I really couldn't have asked for anything better.