He reached below the wooden counter and handed me a booklet about the route. Banette yoinked the booklet for herself, so the ranger gave me another one. “Even though it’s mid May, Everfrost Mountain is still cold enough to have snow and ice, and gets colder both at the top and especially in Frost Cavern.” He vaguely waved at the door to the Pokemart attached to the ranger station, “I recommend you buy or rent winter clothing from the Pokemart that is adjacent to this station, or somewhere else if you do not have adequate clothing. While it is not blizzard season, unexpected blizzards do happen so watch out for those.”
Shuffling through the papers on his desk, the ranger spread out a map of Route 17 and pointed to the red house symbols that dotted the route. “If there is an emergency–like an unexpected blizzard–please seek out the Ranger Cabins located in these spots, they’re always manned and have supplies.”
Finally, the ranger took out a red marker and crossed out a few side trails listed, “Please avoid these trails and avoid going near ponds, they are closed during this season.”
He flipped the map over to the section about Frost Cavern and crossed out a few more sections, “Please avoid these places too, there will be signs telling you where to go when you’re inside. If you happen to see a Froslass inside the cavern, please avoid it. It should leave you alone as long as you stay away from those areas. That specific one has quite the body count, and there isn’t anyone in the Pokemon League strong enough to deal with it. ”
The ranger eyed Banette the members of the ghost gang hanging out around the room, then he continued, “If you are looking to catch a Froslass, you can find one on the Scenic or Peak Trails. Those ones are a lot less…uh, batshit crazy.”
Batshit crazy? On a scale of one to ten, what number would ‘batshit crazy’ be?
I gave the ranger a thumbs up and thanked him as he handed me the map. Thanks to the Icelands expedition, I already had all the winter gear I would need. I just bought some extra firewood, gas stove fuel cans, and handwarmer packets for the road.
As the ranger had mentioned, there was more than one way to get through Route 17. The most used one was the trail through Frost Cavern, cause it was the shortest and easiest route to get through, Everfrost Mountain. Well, calling Everfrost a mountain was incorrect; Technically, calling it a glacier would be a more accurate description. Anyways, the other two trails were the Scenic Trail which went around the mountain, and the Summit Trail which of course went over the mountain.
Most trainers just hired ride Pokemon or used their own Pokemon to fly over Route 17, due to how much of a pain it was to get through, especially in the winter. That meant as we went deeper in, we saw less and less people out and about, most were trainers with heat sensitive Pokemon. They probably came here to enjoy the cooler air that the mountain gave off.
The snow dusted forest we started out in gave way to a snow coated tundra as we got closer to Everfrost. Other than the occasional wild Pokemon in the distance, the tundra was decorated only by an occasional cluster of hardy shrubs and a few ice boulder clusters, though it seemed that the boulder clusters became more of a boulder forest the closer we got to the mountain. And of course there was Everfrost starkly standing in the middle tundra, the weak sunlight lighting up the glacier blue sections that were not covered by snow.
The temperature also noticeably lowered from a cool air conditioned room to: it’s time to put a warm sweater on, and then to winter jacket and warm glove time.
It was currently the easiest time of the year to travel through Route 17 because the snow was at most just above ankle deep, and it only occasionally snowed.
According to the guide packet, the snow on Route 17 could go up to 10 feet high or more, which was why trainers were assigned Mamoswine guides during Everfrost’s blizzard season. I couldn’t even imagine having to navigate through ten feet of snow.
Not long after we’d gotten to the snow fields, the ghosts decided to start a snowball fight. I ducked to avoid a flurry of snowballs Haunter had aimed at Winnie, who was trying to use me as a shield. The illusion fox’s form shimmered as he shifted from a Lucario into a Thievul, before blasting snow back at Haunter.
“SNOWBALL FIGHT!” One of the ghosts yelled, the others chorused their own war cries, beginning to chuck hunks of vaguely ball-shaped snow at each other.
“OWWWWWW!” One of the ghosts screeched, “SOMEONE PUT ROCKS IN THEIR SNOWBALL!”
The snowball throwing intensified, so I picked up my pace to avoid becoming collateral damage. There was a squeak from Thorondor as he was hit by a stray snowball from where he was flying above everyone.
The eaglet hurriedly flew back to me and landed on my shoulder to avoid being caught in the middle of it as well. He chirped angrily at all of the ghosts currently participating in the snowball fight as he shook the snow off one of his wings.
I dusted off a bit of snow on Thoron’s head before turning to the ghost gang, “Guys! You can have your fun, but keep it civil okay? And keep up, I’m not gonna wait for you guys!”
Someone replied, “Got it!” and someone else said, “Okay!”
One snowball narrowly missed my leg, so I made a bit more distance between myself and the snowball fighters.
Maybe I should let Sahara and Kaiju out to walk with us. Actually scratch that, I’ll let Kaiju out when there isn’t a snowball fight going on.
I took Sahara’s ball off my belt and let her out. “The weather’s nice so I thought you’d like to stretch your legs.”
Letting out an appreciative rumble, Sahara took a deep breath of the cold air and breathed out a small stream of fire. Then a few snowballs hit her back. The landshark blinked and slowly turned around, as the ghosts continued playing, completely unaware of what they’d just done.
“GAAARR!” Sahara stomped the ground, cracking and shaking it in a mini-earthquake. The snowball fight stopped dead in its tracks.
Winnie dropped the snowballs that were in his paws. Haunter quickly hid the ones he had behind himself, and Banette yeeted hers to the side. The others quickly followed suit.
Sahara snorted derisively at them and gave them her signature desert glare before turning and walking up the trail.
“Well that’s one way to stop a war.” I remarked as she passed me. I wish I had that level of intimidation factor.
“Party pooper.” Haunter grumbled just loud enough for everyone to hear, which was shortly followed by Banette smacking him in the back of the head to keep him quiet.
“Garrrrr.” Sahara growled, a single glare from her sent him fleeing back to my shadow for safety.
I gestured for them to stay with us before I followed Sahara, and the rest of the ghosts quietly returned to my shadow. Winnie turned back into a Lucario and trotted back to my side.
Now that we weren’t at risk of being hit by snowballs, Thorondor took to the skies once more and began practicing some of his aerial maneuvers. This time I had Glados go out to keep him company, the AI Pokemon could also do with some flying practice.
And, it was just safer for it to be there since we had stepped foot into Skarmory territory. The Skarmory living around Everfrost were the reason why there was a section in the booklet warning trainers to keep an eye on smaller Pokemon, and why children under the age of thirteen weren’t allowed on the trail without a ranger or other qualified person present.
Glados’s expertise in electric-type moves would be perfect for fending off any Skarmory that thought our group was an easy target. Though Sahara’s presence should deter them from even considering coming near. These birds were too used to humans to be wary, but they knew to stay away from dragons due to the small population of Baxcalibur that lived in the area.
I waited a short while to make sure Sahara wasn’t in a bad mood before I let Kaiju out too.
The teen dragon was immediately enamored with snow, seems like he remembered it from the expedition, and that it was yummy. I just let him do his thing. As long as he doesn’t eat anything weird. Or eat wild Pokemon. Or another trainer’s Pokemon.
It only took a few minutes before Haunter poked his head out of my shadow and decided to ask Kaiju, “What’s so yummy about snow? It’s just semi-frozen water.”
“Zwei zwei. Lous zweilous.”
“Yes it is.” Haunter replied, “That’s why it tastes like water. Same for ice.”
Kaiju’s mouth dropped open in surprise, “Zweilous! Zwei! Zweilous lous zwei! Lous zwei ZWEI lous zweilous! Zweilous, zweilous!”
Haunter raised an eyebrow, “Uhh, sure. Yeah. Glad I could help you realize that.”
“Zwei!” One of Kaiju’s heads chirped as the other one buried itself into some more snow.
I looked at Winnie who translated it. Essentially the conversation went:
Haunter: “What’s so yummy about snow? It’s just semi-frozen water.”
Kaiju: “It taste good. Snow not water.”
Haunter: “Yes it is. That’s why it tastes like water. Same for ice.”
Kaiju: “I not know that! Yes! Snow taste like water! And ice ALSO taste like water! So snow soft crunch water, and ice hard crunch water!”
Haunter: “Uhh, sure. Yeah. Glad I could help you realize that.”
After half an hour of Kaiju chattering about water, Banette informed me that he had begun referring to snow and ice as, “soft crunch water”, and “hard crunch water.” Also he liked the taste of water?
No idea how water could taste good, but if Kaiju liked drinking (or in this case, eating) water, then good for him. It’s good to stay hydrated.
We made good progress due to the good weather and good trail conditions. According to Glados’s calculations, we’d be at Dendemille the day after tomorrow if there weren’t any unexpected delays.
I noticed Winnie was fiddling with a mini blizzard in his hands. “You still working on your ice illusions?”
Winnie shrugged, “yeah, kind of. it’s still not on the same level as what haname can do, and I don’t know how to make it better.”
“I mean, Haname’s had a lot longer to perfect her illusions than you’ve had, so don’t compare yourself to her. There’s a saying for that, what was it?” I pursed my lips as I tried to remember the phrase, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
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Winnie blinked and scratched his head as he considered the my words.
Banette suddenly appeared on my shoulder and leaned on my head, “She’s right boss, I mean, don’t you remember that insane illusion you pulled off during that battle at Anistar?”
“Yeah! Why don’t you work on other things for a while and then come back to ice stuff later?” I suggested, “You can learn a new move like Brick Break or Ominous Wind. Those are useful. Or you can work on copying another element, or copying the effects of another status condition.”
“hmmm, okay.” Winnie said, “which one do you think will be the most useful?”
I shrugged, “That kind depends, but if we go by your current fighting style, something that does consistent chip damage would help. Or a good special attack move, cause I think you’d already got down keeping your opponents in one place.”
“Ooh!” Banette scrambled over my head, pushing my hat down over my eyes before she flew over to Winnie, “Ominous Wind! Cause status conditions can be countered kinda easily, but a proper Ominous Wind is hard to block with Protect because it hits everywhere.” Banette grinned, and her eyes glowed red as she said ‘everywhere’.
“What if the Pokemon is a normal type?” I asked as I readjusted my hat.
Banette paused for a second, “I dunno, use something else. Ominous Wind will still creep them out anyway.”
“Psychological warfareeeeeeee…” Haunter’s voice whispered from my shadow.
“That too.” Banette nodded in agreement.
I raised an eyebrow and giggled, “Yeah, Ominous Wind works. Maybe you can combine it with Icy Wind. I’ll ask Glados and Rotom to search up some examples of the move tonight so you can take a look.”
Then an idea hit me, “Oh! Wait! What about Curse?! I’m pretty sure abilities like Magic Bounce can’t counter that, it affects normal types, and status removing moves can’t remove it.”
Banette hit the side of her head and pointed at me, “How did I not think of that? Haunter, Mismagius, and I all know that move too.”
“what does curse do again?” Winnie asked.
I pointed at Banette, “You wanna explain? Cause you know the move.”
The puppet ghost straightened herself and nodded, “Yeah. You have to sacrifice your vitality to place a curse on your opponent that deals a decent chunk of damage over time. How much vitality it takes, and how much damage it does is different depending on the skill and method of the user.”
Banette proudly pointed at herself, “And I’m the best at using Curse out of all of the ghosts here.”
“It’s important to note that Curse is harder to apply on dark and normal types, as well as other ghosts.” Mismagius added, having just exited my shadow to join the conversation. “Dark and ghost type Pokemon who are much more powerful than the user have the potential to just not be affected by Curse. Dark type energy naturally dispels ghost type energy, and normal type energy interacts with ghost type energy like water and oil, so curses don’t last as long. And ghosts who are skilled enough at the art can just remove a Curse.”
“Huh, I never knew that,” I said, “especially how normal and ghost type energy interacts, but it kinda makes sense. Is it more effective on fighting and psychic type Pokemon?”
“Only on Psychic type Pokemon.” Mismagius answered, “Their type energy can be corrupted by ghost type energy.”
Winnie frowned as he heard that and grumbled, “That would’ve been really useful against Chloe and Zoe’s team…”
I sighed and nodded, “In hindsight, yeah.”
“Well, you got to flex your illusion skill so it’s no big loss.” Banette said.
The illusion fox grinned, “can’t deny that.” Then he looked at Mismagius, “can non-ghost pokemon use curse?”
“Yes, but the effect is different.” Mismagius answered, “Instead of inflicting a status condition, they just sacrifice speed for increased attack and defense.
“i see.” Winnie nodded, “well, it looks like i’ve got some new things to work on. can you guys teach me curse?”
“Of course!” Banette grinned, leaning closer to Winnie and saying in a lower voice, “I’ll make you the best Curse user ever, ol’ Trevenant told me when he was teaching me the move that I’m talented in the art of Curses.”
“There’s a difference between being gifted at using a move and gifted at teaching.” Mismagius countered. “And it’s not like you’ve been practicing it.”
Banette crossed her arms and growled, “Yeah, well it’s not like there’s a ton of things I can use it on without makin’ trouble.” She pointed at the witch ghost, “and I’ve never seen you teaching anyone Curse before anyways, so maybe I’m better at that than you are.”
Mismagius smiled,“I doubt that.”
“Whatever.” Banette sighed and patted Winnie on the shoulder, “We can at least agree that the boss shouldn't learn it from Haunter.”
“Why?” Winnie and I both asked at the same time. We glanced at each other and Winnie pointed at me, “jin-” “No.” I cut him off, clamping a hand over his snout.
“You shouldn’t ask Haunter cause he SUCKS at using curse.” Banette said, making a big, over the top gesture at my shadow.
“Fuck you Banette.” Haunter retorted from my shadow, I could faintly see the outline of his glaring eyes in my shadow.
“He’s not that bad.” Mismagius tried to defend him, “Didn’t Dusknoir personally teach him?”
“Yeah he did, but Haunter faints every time he tries to use the move.” Banette replied before pretending to faint.
“Last I checked, I was still the best with Shadow Claw and Shadow Punch.” Haunter huffed, his hands floated out of my shadow and gave Banette the good ol’ double middle finger. “Try doing this with those itty bitty stub fingers, rag doll.”
“Come out and say that to my face you gasbag, or are you too afraid of Sahara eating you?” Banette growled as she flexed her little cloth triangle fingers. “We’ll see how well I can claw you.”
“Imagine having hands.” Mismagius sighed, giving the two a loathful look as she wiggled the ends of her dress. Her colleagues both looked a bit guilty and tucked their hands behind their backs.
“Hey, at least that’s made you really good with Poltergeist.” Banette offered, Haunter quickly agreed, “She’s right, that’s gotta count for–”
There was an outburst of muted giggling and whispering from some of the younger ghosts behind us. The ghosts paused their banter, and we all looked back.
Kaiju was standing to the side of the trail with two Drifloon and four Litwick, he was sniffing something at the base of a tree while one of the Drifloon whispered something to him.
“Ugh, it’s them again.” Mismagius groaned as she began floating over. She put on her stern face and shouted, “What are you kids doing!”
The gaggle of ghosts immediately shut up, and they all avoided eye contact with Mismagius. I walked over to Kaiju and pulled him one of his wings to make him take a step back from the tree that I now could see had a bright yellow patch of snow at its base.
Were they trying to get Kaiju to eat pee snow? That’s gross.
I looked between the young ghosts and the yellow patch before Winnie asked, “what were you guys trying to do?”
It took a moment for one of them, a Drifloon, to say, “Nooooothing.” It failed its deception check.
I put a hand on my hip and stared hard at the Drifloon, “Really?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t doing anything.” The balloon Pokemon replied in a defensive tone. Lol, this one lies as well as a two year old.
“Let’s ask Kaiju.” Mismagius stated before turning to the teen dragon, “What did they tell you?”
The panicked look that Drifloon got told me all I needed to know.
“Zwei zweilous lous zweilous.” One of Kaiju’s heads chirped, the other one went to try to lick the snow, but I gave him a slight shove to stop him.
“no, it’s not lemonade snow kaiju.” Winnie sighed, “it’s pee snow, it even smells like pee.” He vaguely waved at the yellow snow.
“Zweilous?” Kaiju asked.
“no you’re not allowed to taste test it.” Winnie replied with a stern frown.
Kaiju looked at me and I raised an eyebrow, “What? I’m not letting you eat it either.”
“Maybe it’s lemonade flavored pee.” Drifloon suggested, “You never know.” If it had a mouth, it would be grinning like a little shit.
I flicked the balloon Pokemon’s head and firmly stated, “No. Don’t try this again, it’s not nice to try to trick others into eating something they shouldn’t.”
“Oookay.” Drifloon gave me a sassy sigh and began to float away, but Mismagius stopped it from leaving with Poltergeist.
“What do you say?” The witch ghost chided.
“Sorryyy.” Drifloon said with even more sass and rolled its eyes. The other Drifloon and Litwick giggled.
I exchanged glances with Winnie and Banette, the former looked annoyed and latter just shrugged.
“Hm, you guys don’t sound very sorry.” I said to Drifloon and the others, “Perhaps boot camp with Sahara can change that.” I pointed at the landshark, who was impatiently waiting for us up head.
Noticing our gazes turning to her, she bared her teeth at them in a dragon equivalent of a grin. The ghosts’ eyes widened at her menacing look. They quickly apologized with no sass and scrambled over each other to get back into my shadow.
After a second, I turned to the others, “I think we’re well overdue for a week of boot camp.”
Banette and Winnie exchanged a look, then the puppet ghost gave me a sadistic grin and replied, “Yeah, I think so too.”
Seeing the look those two had, Mismagius let out a defeated sigh and rubbed the side of her face with the bottom of her dress, “I guess. It seems that we can’t make a nail stick until we hammer it in first.”
We began heading back up the trail, “Feel free to borrow Sahara or Kaiju for any extra scare factor if Winnie isn’t available.” I told Banette and Mismagius.
Mismagius nodded, Banette rubbed her hands together as she cheerily replied, “Will do! Haunter and I are gonna have some fun with this.”
“Zwei zweilous?” Kaiju asked no one in particular.
Banette immediately answered, “It’s definitely not lemonade flavored, but maybe it’s magical Xerneas piss that’ll give you everlasting life!”
That earned Banette a solid smack with a chunk of ice that Mismagius had chucked at the puppet ghost, “Ouch!”
“Don’t mind her.” Mismagius said.
“You didn’t have to hit me that hard.” Banette whined, rubbing the back of her head.
“Maybe you should keep your mouth shut,” Haunter teasingly suggested, “with a role model like you, there’s no wonder those kids act like this.”
“Like you’re any better.” Banette retorted, she picked up a small chunk of ice with Poltergeist and chucked it at my shadow. It bounced off the ground.
Winnie and I glanced at each other as they kept bickering. He chuckled, and I rolled my eyes. There’s never a dull moment with these guys.
Not long after the lemonade snow incident, we spotted a trainer battling a Piloswine with their day form Lycanroc in the middle of a road. From the looks of it, they’d been wearing it down for a while. It was evident that he was trying to catch the mammoth Pokemon due to the broken halves of a Pokeball from a failed capture attempt laying on the ground nearby.
Piloswine snorted and nervously glanced at Sahara before its attention was taken up again by Lycanroc using Accelerock to slam into it.
“Ooo, wait this is exciting!” I stopped Winnie and Sahara and pulled them to the side so we could watch without distracting anyone from the fight. We’d have to wait until they finished the battle before we could pass anyways, and there was the chance that if Sahara got any closer that Piloswine would be scared away.
I waved up at Glados and Thorondor to let them know we were stopping for a short while so they wouldn’t fly on ahead.
“exciting?” Winnie questioned.
“Well I’ve never caught a Pokemon like this before.”
“doesn’t sahara count?” Winnie glanced at the landshark.
I shook my head, “Nah, we just yoinked her while we were trying to not get killed by Kaiju’s mom. This,” I gestured at the trainer and his Lycanroc, “is the classic way of catching a Pokemon, defeat them in a battle and then catch them.”
“won’t that cause resentment if the Pokemon didn’t want to be captured?” Winnie asked.
I nodded, “Yeah that would cause resentment. There definitely are many different approaches to catching a wild Pokemon. Most people would want to befriend a psychic type before trying to capture them. I’d imagine both fighting and dragon types would demand a battle for the trainer to prove their strength. Pokemon like Swalot and Magikarp probably couldn’t give less of a damn where they are as long as they’re being properly taken care of.”
They probably teach people acceptable ways of catching a Pokemon in like, Pokemon school or something like that, right?
“There’s a Mamoswine herd not too far away.” Mismagius added, tilting her head to the left where there was a large herd of brown Pokemon in the distance, “I’m sure if Piloswine really wanted to escape, it could call for help from them.”
“hmm, i see.” Winnie said.
The battle only lasted another two minutes before Lycanroc was able to use its superior agility to knock Piloswine off its feet. The swine Pokemon struggled to right itself for a moment before giving up, giving the trainer and the wolf Pokemon a snort of defeat.
The trainer threw a Pokeball at Piloswine. The Pokeball bounced off of Piloswine and popped open, absorbing the mammoth Pokemon in a red light before plopping onto the ground. It only shook once before the Pokeball clicked to indicate a successful capture.
Lycanroc howled victoriously and excitedly retrieved the Pokeball for its trainer, its tail was wagging super fast.
“Awwww, that’s cute.” I commented to Winnie as we began head back the path again.
“don’t expect me to ever do anything like that.” Winnie commented to me, giving Lycanroc a side eye as we passed the trainer and his Lycanroc. The trainer and I gave each other a friendly wave and Lycanroc gave Winnie a friendly bark.
I chuckled and patted Winnie’s head, “Yeah, I don’t think you’re capable of retrieving a ball as well as a Lycanroc.”
Winnie scoffed, “of course i can retrieve a ball better than–wait!” The illusion fox scrambled, “no, i didn’t mean it like that! urgh!” He facepalmed.
“Woof woof.” Banette teased.
Winnie shooed her away, “shut up!”
“Salaaa mance!” There was a roar from a Salamence with a trainer on its back as it and a Talonflame flew overhead. Sahara and Kaiju both roared back. It sounded like they were casually saying hi to each other, and Winnie confirmed it was something like that.
I would’ve loved to fly in this weather. The sky was so freaking blue that you’d think someone had turned the saturation all the way up, and there were only a few wispy clouds floating around. Perhaps it was a bit too sunny, the sunlight reflecting off of the snow was a bit too bright. It wasn’t super noticeable in the morning, but now that the sun was at its peak, it was a bit too bright, so I put on my tinted snow goggles cause I didn’t have sunglasses.
I need to get some nice sunglasses, maybe Leo will know a place, he had some nice shades. And I need a saddle for Sahara. And some actual flying gear. Don’t want to be feeling like the michelin doughboy because I have to wear my thick winter gear whenever I fly.
I had forgotten to look for a place to get a saddle for Sahara in Anistar because of the whole Team Flare incident, and then there were the creepy Xatu talking to me. Hopefully there’d be one in Dendemille.
Not long after that, Thorondor and Glados finally came down from their sky training. There was a sky battle going on above us, and they didn’t want to get caught up in it.
It was pretty hard not to notice the giant Waillord just floating there in the sky like a blimp and the Charizard that was flying around it and spraying gouts of flame at it.
It was a bit hard to see anything not very flashy due to how high up they were, but what really caught my attention where the two trainers flying around the battling Pokemon using wingsuits. I winced as I saw one of them barely dodge a Water Pulse that Waillord threw at Charizard.
Definitely a sport for adrenaline junkies.
Aside from that, we saw a few nature photographers out and about with their expensive camera gear. They were mostly photographing the winter Sawsbuck herds, and taking advantage of the beautiful contrasting blues of the sky and glacier ice as a nice backdrop.
We were only about an hour and a half away from the entrance of Frost Cavern by the time night fell. Sahara dragged Kaiju off for a sparring session while I set up camp and prepped dinner. Invigorated by the lack of sunlight, and Sahara being occupied, the ghosts came back out again to have a snow sculpture building competition.
The six ghosts who got in trouble earlier today were dragged away by Haunter and Banette for some extra training because, “We find their skills lacking.”
Meanwhile, Mismagius began teaching Winnie the basics of Curse. She and Rotom both helped him with trying to learn Ominous Wind. The witch ghost didn’t know the move, but she’d known ghosts from the haunted forest who knew the move, and Rotom did a bit of research on ghost type forums about the move. It was also a pretty good opportunity for Winnie to practice his reading skills again.
After everyone was fed, Thorondor wanted to show me the new move that Glados had taught him, Protect. He could only create a small barrier that became even smaller when he wanted to fly and use the move at the same time because it was hard to concentrate on both at the same time. It never occurred to me that flying type Pokemon might have a more difficult time with Protect, but it made sense because I knew it was harder for Pokemon to use the move while on the go.
I assured him that he’d be able to create a full barrier once he got used to using the move, it was like training muscle memory.
Glados had also taught itself Thunder, I wasn’t surprised due to how well it had mastered electricity over other elements. The AI’s accuracy with the new move was still worse than its accuracy with a non Lock-In boosted Zap Cannon, but I didn’t mind. It would probably be good to pair up Glados and Sahara for training again due to Sahara’s electric-type immunity.
Once Glados fully got a hang of Thunder, opponents would have less time to prep a defense again the move than against Zap Cannon, which required a bit of charge up. It wasn’t a long charge up time, but even a few seconds could decide a win or loss, and I already had a few ideas on how to use the move. Though I’d had to wait a while before being able to test how practical they were.
Hisuan Zoroark – Winnie:
Normal-Ghost | Male
Nature: Jolly (+Speed/-Sp. Attack)
Abilities: Illusion
Moves:
- (Utility) Detect, Agility, Torment, Will-O-Wisp, Confuse Ray, Taunt, Leer, Fake Tears, Hone Claws, Substitute, Protect, Calm Mind
- (Atk) Slash, Phantom Force, Foul Play, Dig, Shadow Claw, Low Kick, Low Sweep, Crunch
- (Sp. Atk) Bitter Malice, Psychic, Hex, Shadow Ball, Night Shade, Dark Pulse, Snarl, Icy Wind, Hyper Beam
Garchomp – Sahara:
Dragon-Ground | Female | Ultra Ball
Nature: Lonely (+Attack/-Defense)
Abilities: Sand Veil, Rough Skin
Moves:
- (Utility) Scary Face, Sandstorm, Swords Dance, Protect, Spikes
- (Atk) Metal Claw, Dragon Rush, Bite, Slash, Dragon Claw, Dragon Tail, Dig, Rock Tomb, Outrage, Brick Break, Fire Fang, Thunder Fang, Earthquake, Stone Edge, Iron Head, Crunch
- (Sp. Atk) Twister, Dragon Pulse, Sand Tomb, Hyper Beam, Flamethrower, Mud Shot
Zweilous – Kaiju:
Dark-Dragon | Male | Dusk Ball
Nature: Rash (+Sp. Attack/-Sp. Def)
Abilities: Hustle
Moves:
- (Utility) Work Up, Scary Face, Screech, Taunt, Nasty Plot, Roar, Protect, Thunder Wave, Endure
- (Atk) Crunch, Fire Fang, Thunder Fang, Ice Fang, Head Smash, Astonish, Body Slam, Dragon Rush, Outrage
- (Sp. Atk) Hyper Voice, Dragon Breath, Dragon Pulse, Dragon Rage, Draco Meteor, Dark Pulse, Snarl
Porygon-Z – Glados:
Normal
Nature: Mild (+Sp. Attack/-Def)
Abilities: Adaptability, Download, Analytic
Moves:
- (Utility) Conversion, Conversion 2, Defense Curl, Magnet Rise, Nasty Plot, Recycle, Agility, Recover, Lock-on, Charge, Protect, Gravity, Magic Coat, Thunder Wave
- (Atk) Giga Impact, Zen Headbutt
- (Sp. Atk) Discharge, Zap Cannon, Psybeam, Tri-Attack, Hyper Beam, Swift, Psychic, Ice Beam, Blizzard, Dark Pulse, Shadow Ball, Electro Web, Thunder
Rufflet – Thorondor:
Normal-Flying | Male
Nature: Brave (+Atk/-Speed)
Abilities: Keen Eye, Sheer Force, Hustle
Moves:
- (Utility) Agility, Leer, Roost, Tailwind, Protect
- (Atk) Zen Headbutt, Peck, Wing Attack, Crush Claw
- (Sp. Atk) Air Slash, Air Cutter
Rotom