In the coming days, despite being a month into the Indigo League, Gray felt comfortable in giving his team a week of leisurely training to prepare.

  “What the heck was that, Azumarill? You expect to dodge an elite pokemon’s move with a sloppy Bounce?!”

  Azumarill’s answering growl made his compact body quake. Egg-shaped body leaning forward, he infused himself in flying type energy before releasing it quickly to take off into the air. He spun in the air gracefully before shooting back towards the ground with a skillful Aqua Tail for leverage.

  Gaining confidence, he managed to consecutively dodge with his Bounce-Aqua Tail combo, much to the chagrin of his attackers.

  “Gardevoir, Hatterene, you guys need me to set up stationary target boards again? If moving targets are too much for you, we can always just request to fight the gyms’ first-badge pokemon. Maybe I should start calling you both Ralts and Hatenna again too!”

  Both Psychic-Fairy pokemon hissed in response and redoubled their efforts into trying to hit the nimble Azumarill. Never one to miss an opportunity, Azumarill provoked them further. He barely twisted his body to dodge a move, yawning for good measure.

  Pleased by this round of calm, collected, leisurely training, Gray withheld further comment.

  “... Uncle Gray, should you really be training them like this? Aren’t you a bit too…mean?”

  Taking his eyes off the spar, Gray redirected his focused gaze towards Ash and Gary who fidgeted when they drew their Uncle’s attention. Giving them a feral grin for good measure, Gray proceeded to explain.

  “They don’t mind. Over time, we’ve found this to be the most effective way,” Both boys furrowed their brows at that, so Gray elaborated further.

  “You know how fire pokemon tend to be more hot-tempered? How dragons are known to be unnecessarily proud? How would you then describe fairies?”

  He gave them a few moments to maul it over. They enthusiastically suggested answers ranging from ‘pink’ to ‘cute’.

  When they exhausted their responses, Gray went on. “Fairy pokemon are all petty and spiteful to some degree. Fairies have a belief in themselves and their own capabilities. If you challenge their sense of self, they become hyper-focused to prove you wrong.”

  The psychic-fairy duo began mixing in teleports to keep Azumarill guessing. Azumarill got hit by an unexpected move from a blindspot and cried his indignation.

  The trio paused for a moment, waiting for any input from their trainer. Gray considered things for a moment before shrugging. Gardevoir and Hatterene’s smirk had barely finished forming when their trainer continued.

  “Projectiles only, girls. Azumarill, let’s practice your bubble field.”

  Wild grin in place, Azumarill leaped into the air with Bounce. He spun in the air, rapidly releasing harmless bubbles that soon enveloped the area. Before long, there was barely a bubble-free zone on their battlefield.

  Gardevoir and Hatterene resumed their assault. They once again took advantage of a blindspot, but their attacks caused bubbles to pop, providing sufficient warning for Azumarill’s sensitive ears.This time around, Azumarill was able to leap out of the way.

  He took advantage of a gap between attacks to raise his paws in the air. “Azu-marill!” He struck his own belly hard. A red haze immediately formed around him, the change in pressure causing some bubbles to simultaneously pop in an ominous fashion..

  The duo protested at that and cried for Gray to intervene, only to be disappointed when their trainer rationalised, “It’s a good intimidation tactic. Belly Drum makes opponents weary, increases the possibility of a mistake.”

  Azumarill stomped and a crater immediately formed around his tiny foot, becoming ground zero to future devastation.

  Gray left the trio to their own cat-and-mouse chase, shuffling the boys with him.

  They approached Carbink and Clefable, the smaller of the two floating in place whilst the other attacked him by rouletting between elemental punches. Gray could make out the hastily formed Reflect barriers Carbink would form to soften the blows.

  “Can you make your barriers less obvious, Carbink?”

  The jewel pokemon drooped in place, ears falling listlessly against his head. “Hmm so it’s a bit impossible considering psychic isn’t your natural typing, huh? Let me think about it a little more. In the meantime, Clefable, you need to mix in special moves too. But you’ve managed to reduce the transitory period between elements, not bad!”

  Clefable began to introduce Flamethrowers in between Ice Punches. Carbink had to scramble between Reflects and Light Screens to successfully ward off his opponent.

  “Any ideas, boys? We need to make Carbink’s barriers less obvious to his opponents.”

  “But Light Screen and Reflect have always been obvious. You can’t hide that!” Gary was quick to respond.

  Ash, however, seemed to maul the problem for a bit. Clefable’s incessant elemental attacks continued to pound into Carbink’s barriers, sparks of electricity, flame wisps and shards of ice continuing to form with each impact.

  Ash brightened before blurting out, “Can’t you hide the barriers behind the flames or something? Make them harder to see?”

  Gray considered the suggestion for a bit before instructing his rock pokemon. “Carbink, can you make your barriers concave?”

  Carbink concentrated for a few moments before he formed a tiny light screen in front of him. The straight plane began to bend around the edges to curve inward.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Gray instructed Clefable to attack the barrier with Thunderbolt. When the bolt struck, the excess energy flowed along the concave to explode outwards, obscuring the formed Light Screen.

  Pleased, Gray directed Carbink to keep practicing. He praised Ash for providing the seed of inspiration. Gary was rather disgruntled at being proven wrong, though he calmed down when Ash asked what move Carbink was using. He began to explain the intricacies of Light Screen and Reflect to his enraptured audience.

  Gray periodically attended to all his pokemon, providing instructions and points of improvement. Once done, he sat himself and the boys underneath a tree overlooking the clearing. He fiddled with his phone before he placed it on the ground. Immediately, a hologram sprang out from his phone, showing a video of Lance Blackthorn midbattle.

  Gray whips out a notebook, straps in and watches intently. He carefully analyses the dragon master’s battles. He observes and learns, noting down points of interest as he sees them.

  The boys beside him were first taken with the battle videos as their uncle was, before being distracted by the intensity of the training happening in front of them. For how interesting could a recorded battle be when pokemon were training in front of their very eyes? They squirm in place, but remember their uncle’s warnings for proper behaviour around training pokemon.

  Ash had trouble remaining where he was, but his awe and respect for the power being honed in front of them stayed his impulse to get underfoot. Gary, on the other hand, emulated his uncle, jotting down notes in his own notebook on the pokemon training in front of them.

  With no outlet for his restless energy, Ash turns his attention to the Uncle-Nephew duo.

  “Why are you both studying? School’s gross!”

  Gray looks up from his notetaking to address the black-haired boy. “I’m doing research to prepare for my eventual fight with Lance. As a trainer, we can’t expect our pokemon to do all the battling, right?”

  Pallour turning pale at the thought, Ash whispers. “Trainers need to study too?”

  Gray chuckles at that. “Of course, we’re trainers. We have to know how to train our pokemon if we want them to win battles.”

  He directs Ash’s attention to the video in front of him. Lance’s Dragonite hovers menacingly in the air, mouth slowly brightening. He roars and releases an orb filled with draconic, purple energy into the air. It shoots up high before combusting with a deafening explosion, releasing a shower of meteors that devastates the entire battlefield. The dust clears to reveal a ravaged battleground, the opposing pokemon fainted. Dragonite roars in victory amidst the smoking remnants of his Draco Meteor.

  “What can you tell me about Dragonite’s Draco Meteor?”

  “It’s so strong! He fainted his opponent in one move!”

  “Alright, that’s fair. But what if you were about to battle Lance, how would you train your pokemon to beat him?”

  Ash freezes at that, unable to fathom the concept of even beating Champion Lance for a moment. Even Gary, who had begun to pay attention to the conversation, was lost.

  They shake their heads, uncertain. Gray smiles and educates his nephews. “The move is powerful, for sure. But if you notice, Dragonite took quite a bit of time to charge up his attack.”

  He rewinds the video and counts out loud the seven seconds it had taken for Dragonite to build up enough energy to release the move from his mouth. He counts again from the top once the draconic ball rises in the air, stopping only when the meteors are about to lay waste to the battlefield.

  “... five. It takes seven seconds for Dragonite to charge up his attack, and five seconds for the move to travel up in air and back down,” he concludes. He teases the boys in front of him a bit, “How many seconds in total is that?”

  “Ten!”

  “Shut up, idiot! It’s twelve seconds!”

  Gray is admittedly shocked at Ash’s confident mistake. He was eight years old. Surely he should know basic arithmetic at this point? He focuses back on the topic, shelving the thought for later.

  “Twelve seconds. If I was fighting Lance and his Dragonite used Draco Meteor, I could attack him within the first seven seconds to try and stop the move. If I can’t, I would have five seconds to try and get my pokemon to protect themself.”

  The boys light up, excited to learn about a way they could beat the Indigo Champion. Gray smirks and boasts further.

  “Of course, none of my pokemon would care about that Draco Meteor. They could get hit by that and shrug it off without a sweat. They’d probably even yawn out loud to annoy Dragonite more.”

  Shocked, Ash’s eyes darted around the field at the training pokemon. “They’re all that strong?”

  “Haha, they are! But it’s more because they’re all Fairy types, Ash. Fairy type pokemon are immune against Dragon type attacks. They’d be annoyed at the ground quaking from the force, sure. But the move itself would have no effect on my pokemon.”

  Gary injects his own scoldings at his friend, lecturing him again on the pokemon types and immunities.

  Ash furrows his brows in annoyance before nodding his head vigorously. His agreement is too hurried in Gray’s eyes, as if he only ever did it to placate his friend and save face.

  Gray is immediately concerned. In the series, Ash Ketchum lacking knowledge about the pokemon world was a running gag. It had been a tool for entertainment that also served as a reason for Ash’s companions to expound information about pokemon training, thereby educating viewers as well.

  But here, where they lived and breathed in the same world, it was not merely concerning for Ash to remain unaware, but also downright dangerous. Gray could not imagine peacefully going about his days in Pallet Town whilst Ash was traversing around Kanto, not knowing pokemon basics.

  Would he and his pokemon be able to forage for food if need be, or even know to pack basic supplies before hiking through Viridian forest?

  Gray shuddered at the thought of Ash becoming an unfortunate statistic. While not common, cases of over-enthusiastic trainers perishing due to poor preparation for the harshness of the wilderness was not zero.

  The Pokemon League did its best, forming ranger parties that patrolled the roads between cities. Even without ride pokemon, it was easy to travel between cities as long as one followed the roads. However, the constant bustle of roads was not appealing to pokemon, and most would choose to make homes in areas with less traffic. Trainers would then be forced to go deeper into pokemon territories in order to either fight them to get stronger or catch them to add to their teams. Knowing Ash and Gary, they would loathe to travel via official channels and would choose roads less travelled in a heartbeat.

  Therein lies the most common cause of trainer mortality. The Pokemon League did what they could to make it as safe as possible for trainers to collect their badges, but trainers choosing to delve into unmanned areas was of their volition.

  In a world where parental guidance was not exactly emphasised, was it then a surprise that the general sentiment for young trainers dying in the wilds was ‘they had it coming’?

  Schools existed to educate the youth as much as possible, but it was largely the trainer’s own survival instincts that strayed them from poor decision making. Growing up in the pokemon world, they knew that pokemon are a potential danger, so why would most people make an active decision to disturb them in their own turf?

  It was the overzealous children that would do so, and Ash and Gary were practically poster children of them.

  Gray, in his worry, proceeded to question Ash a little bit more to gauge his knowledge.

  “Do you know what Fire types are weak against, Ash?”

  “Er… Water!”

  “That’s right. What else?”

  Ash shakes his head in shame, unable to say more. Gray sighs and pats his head in comfort.

  “It’s alright. You still have two more years until your own journey starts. We’ll get you ready by then.”

  Gray, right there and then, makes an active decision to take Ash under his wings. Getting permission to look for Red in Mt. Silver could only happen at the end of the current conference season, just a bit shy of a year from now. Combined with the time it would take to even locate Ash’s wayward father in the formidable terrain, it might be too late to appropriately train Ash.

  Furthermore, Ash’s lack of knowledge was telling in itself. Where exactly was Delia Ketchum in all this?

  Too distracted in his thoughts, Gray failed to notice the glint of jealousy in his blood nephew’s eyes. Gary kept his gaze fixed on the hands patting his best friend’s head, his own hands clenched and turning bone white around the pen in his grasp.