It’s been two days since we’ve left Violet City and things were going good so far.

  We'd trained, traveled, rested without problems, and even fought some trainers we found in this poorly used route. Fortunately, all of them were veterans with powerful teams since this route connects Violet and Ecruteak with Mt. Mortar, a famous destination for trainers who were preparing for the Conference.

  Needless to say, we lost. Though it was a good thing for many of our pokemon to see the level we’ll need to reach if we want to have a chance to even get there. Cape also has lost a lot of the arrogance he’d gained in the finals to a Tauros and then to a Vileplume. The former overwhelmed him with pure strength and the later the Heracross couldn’t even touch, even with Aerial Ace.

  Today we've woken up early to start training to deal with ghosts since we’ll be fighting Morty. Before that, however, I’m giving a quick lesson to the others on ghost pokemon, seeing as they–especially Dendra and Jess–have some misconceptions about them.

  “Alright, ready to learn something new about ghosts?” I asked and the three young trainers nodded. They were sitting on stumps with each of their teams around them, even Gyarados was laying near Aiden. Dendra and Jess had notepads and pencils in hand. “Ghosts are mostly tricky pokemon. They have deceitful moves, tactics and strategies. They like to disable and debilitate as much as they can or need before going for a last hit that you can’t defend, which means that a prolonged battle against them isn’t a good idea. The best you can do is go into a battle with a plan to end it as quickly as you can. That’s the basics of course, but what you don’t understand are ghosts' natural abilities, right? Levitation, phasing through matter, invisibility and immunity to normal and fighting type moves.”

  They nodded, Dendra especially looked like a scared Pikachu, seeing as her team is entirely composed of one of those types.

  “Well… it's a little bit more complicated than that,” I said. They looked at each other, confused. “As I said before, ghosts are tricky, but just as tricky are their trainers. Elite Four Agatha and other ghost type trainers and masters would like everyone to believe that all ghost pokemon have all of those abilities, which is not true. I’ll give you an example, do you guys remember the fight between Mountain and Lampent?”

  “Yes,” Aiden said, “you’re going to explain how the Lampent got hit by the Body Slam.”

  “That’s right,” I nodded. “The secret is that ghosts' bodies are made of two parts, one spectral and one physical. The spectral body of a Lampent is only the flame inside the glass, but the glass and the metallic parts of its body are physical entities. So, Lampent has a half spectral body and half physical body. If he wants to pass through matter or be invulnerable to normal and fighting types, he’ll need to dismiss his physical body which he can do, but leaves him extremely vulnerable to other types of energy that are not fighting or normal types.”

  Their eyes bugged out at the explanation. I had the same reaction when I learned that a Gardevoir’s black hole is just a modified Moonblast. Dendra raised her hand.

  “Dendra.”

  “But I’ve seen one of Agatha's exhibition matches and her Gengar did all of that.”

  I nodded, “There’s another kind of an open secret amongst ghost trainers–you’ll have to really dig in if you want to find it. Not every ghost pokemon can be a starter or a powerful pure ghost type. For example, Cofagrigus is eighty percent physical body and twenty percent spectral body. He can’t levitate, phase through walls, become invisible and doesn’t have immunity–unless he uses moves like Phantom Force–he still has a powerful defense and can have other types of moves to compliment his kit, but he wouldn’t be considered by ghost trainers to lead a pure ghost team. For that reason, there are four lines that are popular ghost type starters for being able to use many of those pure abilities in the middle of a battle. These are the Gengar line, the Mismagius line, the Banette line and the Dusclops line. Each of them can use those abilities in different ways, but they can do most of them. Everyone else has at least some kind of body that makes them unable to use those abilities willy-nilly and so can be targeted by normal and fighting types.” I ended the speech with a pointed look at Dendra and her team.

  "So Misdreavus doesn't have any physical body?" Aiden asked.

  "Ah you're probably thinking about the pearls that strayed behind right?" I said and he nodded. "If you tried to grab them your hand would pass through it. What she has is two spectral bodies, one that forms her 'body' and the other that forms her pearls. Interesting enough, when she evolves into Mismagius they fuse together."

  “That’s really interesting,” Aiden said with a frown. “I’ve never heard any of this before. ”

  “Me too,” Jess said. “How did you learn all of that Scott?”

  “Do you guys read books?”

  The three sheepishly looked elsewhere.

  I sighed, “If you guys want to become true pokemon trainers you’re going to need to crack open a physical book at some point. It will take years for the Pokenet to catch up to the knowledge according to someone I know who works in a library.” Having sufficiently imparted wisdom unto them for now, I continued. “Does anyone have any other questions about ghosts?”

  Dedra raised a hand and I gestured to her, “Do you have a report on Morty?”

  “Yes,” I sighed. “I’ll transfer copies to you guys if you don’t have any other questions? I think you know about the dark and ghost type moves your pokemon can learn, right?”

  They nodded and Jess said, “I think that’s everything that we can think of right now.”

  “I will need some time to digest what I just heard,” Aiden said.

  “Alright, then we can divide and start working with our pokemon.”

  The teams and their trainer separated themselves into four groups around the center of where we left our bags. I looked at my pokemon; Cape, Mesa, Jungle, Valley and Mountain. I crouched in front of them and began to lay down our plan for the next few days.

  “Cape and Mountain, you two already have dark type moves, you just need to master them, for that you two will be practising against… that big tree over there. She looks like she can take a few scratches. It’ll take at least two days so after that we’ll work on something else.” The two pokemon confirmed and walked or floated over to the massive tree on the edge of the camp.

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  “Mesa, you’ll be learning Shadow Ball, for that you’ll need to access ghost type. I’ll be guiding you soon enough so stay nearby.” Mesa nodded and floated a few steps away to wait.

  “Jungle and Valley you two won’t have an easy time getting any dark or ghost type moves in a few days time, so we’ll be doing something different. Jungle you’ll teach Valley Seed Bomb and after that I’ll help you two get Trailblaze. This move will boost the mobility of your two, which in your case is your weakness and in Valley’s her strength. After that you two will practise both moves together. When not doing that you will be mastering Vine Whip and Sunny Day,” I hoped that he would train something more useful immediately but it's something he likes and that will pay out in the future. “And Valley…” I reached into my pocket and took out an object that looked like a battery, but was made to perpetually release the energy inside. I had bought it in the Pokemart when I was replenishing our supplies, in the section for electric types. “We’ll try to get Thunder Wave down.” Valley eyes literally shone with happiness and she cutely extended her paws up to the battery. “After you learn Seed Bomb and Trailblaze.”

  She scowled at the ground, twisted in place to face Jungle and grabbed the sides of his face as she mercilessly questioned the poor grass type about Seed Bomb.

  Alright, time to work.

  That’s the part that is not glamourized anywhere. The hours and hours of seeing your pokemon try and fail, try and fail, try and fail, until you feel like your brain is going to goop out of your ears. Correcting what you can see is wrong sometimes, but mostly just observing and encouraging them to continue with words or treats, reading a passage, watching together a video, or giving an explanation again and again.

  Some hours had passed and now I was watching Valley grow at a battery as she tried to grab a hold of the small supply of electricity inside her. I was thinking about calling for a break, seeing as she was going to pop something off while glaring at the battery when a scream cut through the otherwise relatively peaceful clearing.

  “Scott!” Jess' shout came. I looked at her direction and saw her pointing at a tree to the side.

  An orange body was leaving the green and brown of the forest. Wings unfurling and a reptilian face glared at us.

  “Again?” I whispered, and then shouted, “Charizard!”

  Everyone reacted. Mountain sped off towards me while Cape was already by my side, looking at the fire type. Valley, Mesa and Jungle meanwhile formed a wall in front of me. The others did the same, their pokemon were a little exhausted but they all stood up. The more aggressive were Aiden’s dragons, who were ready to attack. That is until the others appeared.

  There were Charizard all around us, some came from the sky and others just stepped past the foliage and the trees. They didn’t look more mad than a usual Charizard but they weren’t friendly looking either. Also, they weren’t like the Charizard that we fought after leaving Goldenrod, they also weren’t as intimidating or big as Akashi’s, they were somewhere between the two.

  The Charizard stopped emerging, and I counted eight. They had us surrounded.

  “Howdy."

  We turned to the voice. It was a young woman jumping out of the back of one of the Charizard. She was wearing a white shirt, pink shorts, a wide safari hat, and black combat boots. An attire that wouldn’t look too unfamiliar in a trainer, one made to travel through difficult terrains. Her face was soft but there was steel in her eyes, as if at any moment she could sic the Charizard unto us with no regrets. Her long and well-groomed dark hair clashed with her slightly dirt outdoor dress.

  “Good morning,” I said, seeing as the others weren’t saying anything.

  She raised her chin, scratched it and hummed, “I know I might not be looking like a very lawful person right now, but I assure you I am indeed of the law.”

  “You can be whatever you want, you’re the one with the… eight Charizard.” Jess counted.

  She joked but it was clear that she was nervous. It was also clear that the woman didn't like to scare a child because she followed that with a frown and a sigh. She then looked around more closely. There wasn’t any emotion when she looked at Dendra, Jess, or me. As soon as she set her eyes on Aiden, however, who looked defiant without even having to say anything, her eyes widened slightly.

  “Alright I’ll ask you fine folk to introduce yourselves very slowly; full name, region, age, number of badges, where you’re coming from, and why you’re on this route. Go.”

  One by one we went, everyone speaking separately. The only thing we all had in common was where we’re coming from and why we’re on the route.

  After that, the presumably trainer scratched the back of her neck, “Alright, I believe you,” no one actually relaxed after she said that. “Arceus, look.”

  She walked forward while reaching into her pocket. She took out a plastic card and gave it to Aiden, who was closest to her. Aiden looked over the card, turned it around, gave it back, and nodded, “She’s with the League, something about a reserve.”

  I relaxed a bit, and that was enough for the other two girls to relax as well. The Charizard woman nodded, “Yeah, that was the good news. The bad news is that unfortunately for you and for me, I’ll have to take you guys to the reserve to register the fact that you passed through here.”

  "Reserve?” I asked, eyeing her Charizard.

  She grinned and puffed her chest in pride, “The Charicific Valley Natural Reserve, made by Charizard for Charizard.”

  –

  Every kid dreams of flying on the back of a Charizard.

  I glanced down at the forest below, at the spiked ends of the trees and the far away distance of the hard ground.

  After we had put all our things away and spoke some more with Isla–the woman with the Charizard–she offered to let us ride the fire pokemon there. I was the only one who didn’t immediately accept her offer, and it wasn’t because I didn’t trust her, even though I still didn’t.

  Alas, the peer pressure and judgment of not wanting to ride a Charizard was too much. For my own inability to say no to something, I was now barreling through the sky in the back of a giant flying lizard.

  The one I was riding was one of the biggest of the eight, and a smart one. He immediately saw that I had a fear of heights and proceeded to do his best to make it worse by using all the stunts he knew of. As the others glided along the air peacefully, he would rotate around, suddenly change directions, rise way up above the others and then dive down.

  He soon lost interest when I adapted after the first ten minutes. After another ten minutes, the forest gave way to rock, and in the distance we could see a giant ravine cutting from one side to another as far our eyes could see, and as we got closer we began to hear a river.

  The formation of eight Charizard suddenly slowed down and broke up as one Charizard after the other entered the giant cut in the ground. They flew one after the other following the river below. Like the river, we were flowing through the winding paths. Going fast, we twisted and turned around jutting rocks and surprising natural obstacles. I had no doubt that if the pokemon below us didn’t know the way very intimately, we would have turned into paste dozens of times. Suddenly after a turn, the arid walls around us opened up to a vast and beautiful lake surrounded by walls of rock. The only difference–a big one–was the giant wall on the other side of the lake that rose above the others, our very obvious destination.

  A titanic Charizard carved into the rock mountain above where another river began greeted us with a stone roar. Around him, dozens of other smaller Charizard were immortalized in many poses, many looking like they were using moves. Even in the lake itself, pillars of stone rose from the water’s surface to show images of battles between Charizard, of a group of Charizard battling something invisible, or of a Charizard looking down at a bunch of snapping Charmander.

  It was obviously an entrance because behind and above the massive Charizard dozens of Charizard could be seen flying from here to there, and also the fact that on its belly was a giant double door made of faintly rusted metal. The others were stunned as they took everything in, jaws on the floor, wide eyes, all of that, and I knew I wasn't any better.

  So this was the Charicific Valley.

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  Announcements

  Ah, the Charicific Valley… I usually only use things from the games and from my own imagination, but there are some things in the anime that are just too good to not put on here.

  Also, sorry for the week without chapters, the next chapter on P was bigger than normal and ended up taking the entire week to finish.

  And speaking of P, I also added more chapters for the same price, so if you didn’t like paying five for three early chapters (especially with this inflation), now it's five early chapters for five.

  Thanks for the patience and I’ll see you all Wednesday.