5 hours.
Daemon looked at the woman sitting beside him as they enjoyed their respective ice cream. He could not believe it took her five hours to choose the flavour she wanted.
'Imagine her in a grocery store.' He looked away from her, towards their Pokémon playing with each other. Thankfully, the day had started to get dark, which meant there were only a few people. Even the ones in the park were somehow not paying any attention to them.
Daemon looked back at the face of a golden-haired woman hidden by a fairy-type Pokémon.
He had done some research on it, and it turned out fairies were notorious for being cruel, and if left alone in the wild for a long time, the whole area where they lived would be moulded to their imagination.
The biggest example of this was Mount Moon.
People thought of Clefairy as cute, but once he read all the ranger reports from that area, it made him feel a chill down his spine.
Trainers were charmed and then led into potholes; some were trapped in illusions for weeks until they were either rescued by a ranger, other trainers or found dead.
The findings taught Daemon an important lesson...do not judge a Pokémon from how cute or terrifying it looked...maybe, except for an Arcanine; those fire dogs were loyal to a fault.
So hiding her face from others was but a small task for a powerful fairy-type Pokémon.
'No wonder fairy-types are among the four types not recommended to new trainers, along with dragon, ghost and dark.'
Ironically, his two Pokémon shared three of these four types.
But then again, he had seen the signs of a fairy-type in his own Kirlia. She loved to fight, but not in a way a fighting-type would. NO.
Kirlia enjoyed fighting because she loved to torment her opponents. He had seen her do that. Her barraging others with attacks, making them overwhelmed; the smile she gave her opponents after beating them to the ground...
Daemon had seen her grow from day one and thus was a good judge of her and her thoughts. She loved him, cared for him. But others, not so much. However, he had read of incidents where a fairy-type went rogue, and a rogue fairy was sometimes even more terrifying than a rogue dragon.
I have you.
Her thoughts appeared in his mind, and it brought a smile to his face.
Yeah, she had him, and he would make sure her fairy-type never overwhelmed her thoughts.
Daemon looked toward where she was...
Kirlia was in a serious conversation with an Altaria while Deino...it was trying to pick a fight with the humming Pokémon by trying to use [Bite]. However, every time it tried something, the Altaria would just smash its head into the ground with its feet, never turning its head away from the conversation it was having with the psychic fairy.
"Altaria is beautiful." Daemon looked at the dragon-type, native of Hoenn. Being a trainer, he could tell how strong the humming Pokémon was just by a look.
Unlike the majority of the dragon-type, Altaria never grew much in size. However, the one in front of him was almost seven feet tall.
The black-haired boy looked back at the woman sitting beside him. "I never knew you had such a strong Pokémon, much less a dragon."
The golden-haired woman who had seven scoops of different flavours in her cup finally looked away from the ice cream. "Look who's talking."
"Touche." Daemon rolled his eyes before turning to the two dragons who had started to fight. Technically, it was just Deino trying to prove something; the dark dragon had gotten annoyed at being ignored and was about to use [Dragon Breath]. "Should we stop them?"
"No." The golden-haired woman shook her hand. "Dragons are very strong, but do you know what they enjoy the most?"
"What?"
"Tearing each other apart." She looked at the two dragons. Her Altaria had just shrugged off the [Dragon Breath] and then swept the Deino with its cloud-like wings. "Dragons are a lot more resilient than other Pokémon; you should know after 'beating' it for a week."
"Hey, I did not abuse it...just enough to make it behave." The boy sighed. "No one likes getting shot by [Dragon Breath] every time they try to train."
"This is not even the extent of troubles a dragon causes."
"How do you know so much about dragons?" Daemon asked. "Altaira are not exactly known for being aggressive."
The golden-haired woman just smiled. "How well does Deino listen to your commands?"
"Honestly?"
"Honestly."
"It hates me. But, it also knows I can make it stronger and thus decided to stick along until I am no longer useful."
"Can you command it in a battle?" she asked.
"I haven't tried it yet." Daemon shook his head. "But, I have come up with a method of controlling it."
"How so?"
"How about coming to my next gym battle?"
The golden-haired woman rolled her eyes and then went back to eating her ice cream.
A comfortable silence surrounded the duo as one enjoyed her ice cream and the other stared into the sky that was turning darker with each passing moment.
Deino was already pummelled to the ground while Kirlia was busy learning a fairy-type move from Altaria.
"How can a dragon know fairy-type moves?" the boy wondered out loud.
Two types were of opposing nature, even more so than ice and fire. A dragon would never agree to learn a fairy-type move, but then again, the one in front of him had clearly proved him wrong.
"There is more to an Altaria than just being a dragon." She smiled before turning to the psychic fairy. "Alice is a fast learner, but it is expected of a shiny."
Daemon raised his eyebrow. "What does it have to do with being a shiny?"
The woman hesitated and took a pause to think it through before speaking. "How much do you know about shiny Pokémon?"
"Different colour, hated by their own species in the wild for being different..." Daemon thought for another moment and then added. "That's about it."
"Hmm..." The woman thought for another moment as her eyes remained focused on the shiny Kirlia. While the information wasn't exactly a secret, it surely was on need to know basis. But since the boy had a shiny, it would be better if he knew what he would be dealing with.
For the first time today, she raised her head enough to look directly into the black-haired boy's eyes. Her golden orbs looked at him with seriousness he had not seen in her before.
"What I am about to tell you, keep it a secret, will you?"
"I give you my word."
The seriousness disappeared the same moment, and she once again smiled. "You do know what my profession is, right?"
"Archeologist? Unless you lied to me about it as well, along with your name."
"Tsk, get over it." She rolled her eyes. "Shiny Pokémon are blessed by fate itself. You have played one of those simulation games, right?" She asked, and when the boy nodded, she continued. "In those games, the Pokémon had stats in numbers, correct? Now imagine a Pokémon but with at least 50% more stats than their counterparts."
Daemon's eyes widened in surprise.
In simulation games he played at home, or trainer school, a Gardevoir had a base total of 518...a 50% more in each stat would bring the total to around 777. The difference was HUGE!
"Not only are shiny Pokémon a lot stronger than those of their species, but they are also smarter as well as more talented."
The black-haired boy leaned back against the wooden bench. "So I was not crazy for thinking she is growing faster than other Ralts I have seen on pokenet?"
"Partially." The woman nodded. "You asked for my advice on your battle earlier today, right?"
Daemon nodded.
"Alice is strong; when she was a Ralts, I don't think there would be many who could stand toe to toe with her." She paused and then looked the boy in his eyes. "Unfortunately, you guys used TMs."
"What do you mean?" he asked with a frown. Since the golden-haired woman knew much of shiny Pokémon and was a strong trainer herself, Daemon could not just take her words lightly.
"TMs help a Pokémon learn a move easily while also giving them a power boost. But are you sure it's helpful?" She asked the boy.
"Is it not? [Shadow Ball] is a move which is not learnt naturally by Ralts line; so, isn't it better to use a TM for it, saving your time while also gaining a little power boost?"
"And that's what separates a good trainer from the best." The woman shook her head and then asked another question. "Alice knows [Confusion] and [Shadow Ball], right?"
"Yes. That was the first move we worked on once she was old enough to train. And she knows [Shadow Ball] from a TM we got."
"How does [Confusion] work?"
"Well." Daemon thought for a moment and then spoke. "She uses her psychic energy to attack her opponents, but what she is actually doing is targeting their minds instead of their physical bodies. The telekinetic force she releases meddles with the nervous system of a Pokémon...though the effects are quite weak compared to a [Psybeam]."
"I see," the golden-haired woman nodded before asking a different question. "What about [Shadow Ball]?"
"Uhh..." Daemon thought for a moment and answered. "She gathers ghost-type energy, condenses it and then fires it off?"
"And where does this ghost-type energy come from in a psychic/fairy-type Pokémon? And are you sure a [Shadow Ball] is just gathering ghost-type energy?"
Yeah, he immediately understood the problem. Unlike [Confusion], which he and his starter knew the intricacies of, they knew nothing about the [Shadow Ball], same could be said about the other TM moves they had learned.
"But it still does not answer the time cost since 'TM moves' are almost impossible for a Pokémon to learn on their own."
The woman sighed and then pointed at Deino using the three elemental fangs at her Altaria back to back. The answer was right in front of him...
"Did you try? Or did you rob yourself and your Pokémon of an opportunity to train? An opportunity to learn about the nature of energies they are manipulating? An opportunity for natural progress instead of learning high-level moves when she is only a weak Pokémon? Can she even use these moves to their full potential? Have you ever wondered?"
~Bang~
Altaira finally had enough of the small dragon and downed it in just a single [Peck], making Kirlia shoot her new friend a glare before she started healing Deino.
Daemon, however, was not paying much attention to them; instead, his mind was reeling from the sudden revelation...of how stupid he was...of how he had almost ruined his Pokémon's future development...of how he was just a mediocre trainer like the majority of his peers.
He beat the first gym in a single try? So what? Many others had done that...in the broad scheme of things, it was nothing special. Doing it did not make him a champion...but taking a shortcut had definitely made his goal harder to achieve.
The golden-haired woman stood up and recalled her Altaria.
"We will not meet for a long time; however, I hope when and if we do, you are a better trainer than you are now." She removed the cap she was wearing and gently placed it on the boy's head. "Prove me wrong, Daemon...that you are not mediocre like the rest of them."
The black-haired boy watched her leave and then suddenly disappear; his palms were clenched into a fist so tightly that his hands had turned white...until he relaxed and let out a deep sigh.
To someone like Daemon, who thought a lot about everything, his battles, his Pokémon, his goals, and everything in between, life was a puzzle that was missing a lot of its pieces.
He had found a missing piece while watching the battle between Cross and Flint.
Tonight, he had found another piece...but instead of leading to completion as a whole, this piece broadened the horizons for him and brought with it a lesson that shook the very nature of training his Pokémon would now go through.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he pulled the cap down, tighter on his head.
'Back to the drawing board it is.'
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[Author's Note]:
[1]: Another chapter to make it up to you guys; also, this is kinda the end of the first mini arc.
[2]: Do share your thoughts on it with me.
[3]: I am doing something different for the next chapter; I will post it once it's done.
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