Leo Simon
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An Outlier Chapter 6
🕑 Added 2023-11-18 15:41:07 +0000 UTCLeo dropped the final book onto his desk with a heavy thud, a slight of dust spraying into the air as he rubbed his eyes.
"Finally, I'm done with all three books... out of like twenty, goddamn."
Ralts gave a yawn, visibly sharing in her trainer's fatigue; even if she wasn't the one doing the reading.
Leo had underestimated how much he needed to learn about pokemon to be a trainer. Oh sure, he'd played the pokemon games enough times to learn the movesets and types of essentially every pokemon off by heart, but he was painfully ignorant to the ways of his new world.
The brown haired teenager was grateful to the professor. She'd lent him books about laws, history, and his responsibilities as a trainer, and he'd learnt quite a bit.
For instance, the Torren region did have a pokemon Conference much like in the anime. He was reminded of the Olympics because the actual tournament occurred once every three years, with different regions alternating in the times they have to obtain said badges. They could be obtained in any order, unlike in the games, but the Gym Leaders did not go easy on their competition and because of that most new trainers do end up sticking to Gyms in a set order that starts out easier than others.
Leo also learned that you needed to be registered to take part in the Gym challenge, something he needed to do before it started in a month.
Burrowing his eyebrows, Leo asked his Ralts. "Are you alright to do some training? You've been with me for four days, but we still haven't done any actual training. Are you up for it?"
Ralts visibly perked up, her previous drowsiness being forgotten, as she pumped her fist and gave out a hearty grunt.
Leo coughed to hide a laugh, but she was perceptive enough to catch his cover, and she turned away with tints of pink on her cheeks.
Leo had learned a bit about Ralts in the three days since he'd been given a pokeball to catch her, the feelings he felt whenever he touched that thing were pure nostalgia, and one of those things were she was a very innocent and naïve sort. The professor did say she wasn't very old, not even reaching maturity for a regular Ralts, so maybe she'd change as she grew. Then again, Delta pokemon weren't exactly normal.
She also had bundles of energy, especially when they watched pokemon battles on the television. Given her reaction to his suggestion of training, he figured she was a battler. Which worked in his favour.
"No need to be timid, just means your ready and raring to go. Come on, show me what you're made of." Leo held his arm out to her, choosing to put Ralts on his shoulder before exiting his room and leaving to the Professor's battle court.
Vanessa had an impressive lab, though slightly modest, and it was definitely fit for a woman of her station. Leo hadn't had the chance to look up what exactly being a Region's Professor meant, but it certainly sounded like a position of high esteem. She also had a battle court just behind her lab, an ideal place to do an hour or two of training.
Leo walked through the lab, used to the sight of dirty clothes lying everywhere, and exited through the back onto what looked like a regular battle court. It was in pristine condition, and probably didn't see much use.
Ralts hummed, jumping off his shoulder and onto the ground and looked up at him with big pale-blue eyes that radiated determination. It was quite cute.
Leo began. "Alright, I'm gonna be straight with you, I've never trained a pokemon before. This is as new for you as it is for me, but I have a few ideas to make you stronger. For starters, what moves do you know?"
Leo wasn't a liar, or he didn't try to lie anyway. Whilst he had his secrets, he mostly tried to be honest with people, or at least not lie. If Ralts was going to stick with him, then she needed to accept his limits and faults. He needed to be a good trainer though, he just needed to.
Leo pulled out a notepad, clicking a pen to write down anything noteworth about his pokemon.
The blue and yellow pokemon was unfazed by his words, instead she closed her eyes and pointed her blue horn in a direction opposite from Leo's body. Tiny yellow sparks began to spark off chip off her skin, and a moment later a zap of yellow shot from her horn and broke the ground slightly.
Leo raised his eyebrow, not impressed but still intrigued. "Was that Thunder Shock?" An eager nod was his response, so he wrote it down under her moves, Ralts looked at him proudly. "What else do you know, can you show me?"
The tiny humanoid nodded, and she repeated her previous actions as she concentrated. A moment later she held up her hands, as her eyes glowed a luminous blue, and a small blizzard whipped itself up that left the air feeling slightly bitter for an instant, but it was blown away and left nothing but some powdery snow behind.
"That was Powder Snow." Leo stated, this time as a fact, and proceeded to add the ice-type move to her learnset.
"Is that everything, or is that it?" Leo wasn't disappointed either way, since he expected to be starting out with the basics, but to his surprise the Delta pokemon nodded and proceeded to slam her eyes shut and pulled a face of overwhelming concentration.
Leo wondered what on earth she was doing, even wondering if she had a headache or something, but much to his surprise she began to glow a pinky-purple before disappearing in a flash.
"What the fuck?!" Leo whispered to himself, his heartbeat quickening as he looked around erratically, only to see Ralts behind him. She was panting slightly.
Realising what she just did, he couldn't stop himself from grinning. "You know Teleport?"
A tired nod was his answer and internally Leo felt a thousand possible ways to use the move rush through his head, but noticed how Ralts swayed and asked. "Does that take a lot out of you?"
Ralts nodded again, confirming Leo's thoughts for him. It seemed that Teleport was a move that took lots of energy. Maybe it could have been improved upon, but touching the move at her current power level was likely just a dead end.
Ralts looked worried, probably thinking he'd make her practice the energy intensive move, but he cut those down.
Leo assured her. "Don't worry. Teleport is a useful move, but not at your current level. We'll work on it later, but for now you can just practice your regular moves."
Ralts relaxed, but flushed for a moment before jumping free of Leo's arms. She just nodded, holding her arms out as though she were ready for training.
"We'll just start by practicing Thunder Shock. For example, it takes a second or two for you to charge up, can you release it any sooner than that? I don't care if it's weaker, just show me the move if you can."
Ralts nodded, doing as instructed, and the result was nearly instant. It was weak though, very weak. The ground wasn't even damaged by the attack and it dispersed after a few seconds, no trace of the attack being left behind. It wasn't anything reliable in a battle, even against the weakest of foes.
Leo thought for a moment. "Okay. Now I want you to use Thunder Shock, but this time increase your charge time. Give me the strongest Thunder Shock you can, even if it takes ten whole seconds."
Ralts looked at Leo weirdly, as though he'd suggested something bizarre, but still followed his instructions.
The electric and ice-type closed her eyes, as her horn began to spark in a way that slowly intensified, and Leo watching in interest as her horn shone a low yellow. It took over five seconds, but Ralts did open her eyes, and when she did the attack followed through and cut through the ground with visibly more ease than her earlier attack.
Ralts huffed out, shaking slightly from the blowback caused by the attack, but jumped when Leo exclaimed. "That was fantastic! Okay, so that means you could possibly- oh shit, those idiots won't know what hit em!"
Ralts appeared confused by her trainer's reaction, he saw this and just said. "Nothing, I just had a bit of a realisation that pokemon have to choose different branches of moves to focus on, and I think this might be your preferred type of electric attacks. Types of moves where you charge up and condense your power, then release it in powerful bursts."
Ralts blinked a few times, and Leo face palmed when he saw her head tilt to the side. "Right, you don't know what I'm talking about. I'll explain later, but for now, you just try doing what you just did repeatedly. I want to see if you can do the same thing, a full power Thunder Shock, but with lower charge up time. Get it?"
Ralts took a moment, but dumbly nodded as she turned to her side and repeated her previous actions.
Watching Ralts practice Thunder Shock, Leo already had a plethora of ideas on how he could go about powering her up in the future.
Leo was counting the seconds it took for her to fire off attacks and wrote them down. He needed to get a stop watch. Maybe some other equipment as well, seeing how underequipped he was.
The brown haired teen firmly believed that Ralts would go farther if she focused on just a few things, maybe getting a few diverse moves down to cover her weaknesses, and mastered them down to a high degree than if she tried to master all her attacks. She had certain paths she could take in her electric moves, either choosing attacks that could be fired nearly instantly and at high rates like Thunderbolt, ones that covered a wide area like Discharge, or maybe Zap Cannon for a single powerful attack.
Ralts was obviously a glass-cannon, one good hit and she was down, so she needed to be strong and fast enough that she could overpower or out-manoeuvre her opponents. He'd need to look on improving her mobility for dodging attacks, probably using Teleport.
Leo noticed something watching trainers battle, they didn't seem to think properly when it came to the pokemon who composed their teams. He watched a trainer field a Snorlax, an Aggron, and a Golem when he'd watched television. They weren't necessarily bad pokemon, but they weren't diverse enough.
In RPG games they always used class systems to identify a characters roles. Attacker, mage, tank, healer etc. Pokemon was similar enough, and he had a good idea on all pokemon stats, so keeping a balance on his team was probably a good idea. What did he choose though?
"Hard at work are we, Shouldn't you be in bed by now?" Leo had to resist jumping when Vanessa snuck up behind him with a playful grin on her face, and he tried to look professional. She was technically his boss afterall.
"Nothing important Professor, just getting some training in to see where Ralts is starting at."
Vanessa looked intrigued. "And what exactly have you found out? She's a new Delta species afterall, anything you find out is valuable."
Leo looked at his notes. "Well, her moves are the following: Thunder Shock, Powder Snow and Teleport."
"Teleport, really? How interesting, maybe it's because she still has some dormant psychic genes in her, even if she is a... what type do you think she is?"
"Electric-ice." Leo responded without doubt, knowing he was correct.
Vanessa accepted the answer, already suspecting that was the case. "I thought so. That's a unique typing, and do you have any ideas on how to train her? As your sponsor, I want to hear your thoughts on the matter."
Leo looked to the side, unsure if he wanted to share his thoughts, but shrugged it off and met her eyes. "Well, just a few. For a starter, she's an electric and ice-type which means she has four weaknesses. Fire, ground, fighting, and rock. We'll need to learn to deal with those, so maybe I can try to teach her Energy Ball and Psychic. Regular Gardevoir can learn those naturally, so it's not a huge leap to assume she can too and go from there. I'm not sure what to do about her fire weakness, but maybe she'll surprise me and be able to learn Water Pulse, since that's pretty similar to Energy Ball just using water, and her being an ice-type will help with that. I've got her electric-type attacks planned out, with her favouring focused and precise attacks instead of wild and unpredictable moves like Discharge. I'm not sure what to do about her ice-type attacks, but since she'd focusing on-"
Vanessa cut him off, ending his word dump before it got out of control. "Alright, I think I've heard enough. Obviously you've put a lot of thought into how you want to raise her, and that's enough for me. At least for now." Her eyes were wide with surprise, but was replaced moments later by curiosity. "That part about favouring certain attacks though, what do you mean by that?"
Leo was embarrassed for a moment, since his mouth was running out of control, but tried to move past it and answer her question. "Well, it just makes sense to have her master certain ways moves are executed, doesn't it? I mean, what's the real difference between Charge Beam and Ice Beam asides from their types? If you can do one, why can't you do the other? I'm hoping that she can get maximum efficiency out of her training if she follows a certain branch of moves instead of trying to do everything. I'm obviously not gonna cut off all her versatility, but limiting it will make things a bit easier for her."
Vanessa gained a contemplative look, before her expression cracked into a grin. "You're really something special, Leo. How did you come up with an idea like that?"
Leo looked at her weirdly. "Well, it's just logic isn't it? I don't wanna overload her with random stuff to learn, so I'll just pick a few things and master them. Doesn't everyone know that?"
Vanessa gained an incredulous look on her face, as though he'd said something wholly bizarre. "Leo, make sure to record the results of this training regime you've come up with. As a researcher I'd love to see what a pokemon that completes it could do, and please send me any notes you come up with. I'll even buy you some equipment to help with your endeavours."
Leo wasn't expecting such a strong reaction, but nodded regardless. "That would be a big help. Also, there are a few questions I have about pokemon in general, you wouldn't mind answering them would you?"
Vanessa tucked a strand of obsidian hair behind her ear. "Of course not, ask away?"
Leo internally cheered, grateful he could ask an expert on pokemon something so important. "How do you manage a pokemon's nutrition? They'll be training a lot, and it would be helpful if they were eating the right food."
Vanessa easily answered. "Well, for starters, you'll want to get a pokechow maker. When you're out in the wilderness you don't exactly have access to a kitchen, and all you need to make a good amount is..."
The two of them began talking back and forth, only stopping when Ralts grew tired from training, and the darkness of night told them to head to bed. They bid each other goodnight, and Leo went to sleep knowing far more than when he woke up.
