The Ghost Specialist

Everyone in the arena room was preoccupied with something. The audience was slowly filing out. Xavier had already left. The reporters were stuck between trying to chase after him or approach Whitney, but the present Gym Trainers were holding them back. Whitney, meanwhile, stood there with a pleasant smile on her face, occasionally waving to the crowd as they exited. Her eyes were red and her movements came out slow. Sam felt like the only reason she was still here was so the audience wouldn’t see her run away.

Gaze lingering towards the exit of the arena, he almost missed Redi getting up and pushing closer to the arena. He stood up to give chase, apologizing as he bumped into a handful of people trying to leave.

“Wait, hold on!” he hissed under his breath. “Are you really going to head down on your own?”

Redi turned to face him, a defiant look in her eyes.

“If you could approach Morty, I can approach Whitney,” she said. “I refuse to pass up this chance.”

Sam glanced behind her. A few Gym Trainers were still glancing around to make sure the crowd was leaving properly.

“You’re not doing that,” he said.

She looked like she wanted to argue, but he stopped her.

“Running down there is absolutely going to get you caught. Let me be your look-out, and then when you move up to Whitney, walk. It’s less suspicious than sneaking in.”

He used that strategy to enter Granite Cave without alerting anyone nearby.

Redi grinned, and they casually approached the railing that divided the stands from the field below. Just to their left, a chain blocked a thin staircase down. Sam made sure to act as if he had just finished chatting with Redi and was waiting for the crowd to thin out. In reality, he was keeping an eye on where all of the nearby Gym Trainers were looking.

“Now,” he whispered, detecting an opportunity. One of the reporters tried to shout a question at Whitney, earning a glare from all of the Gym Trainers here.

Redi slipped under the chain as Sam followed, casually walking down the stairs as if it were normal business. They blended into their surroundings, going as far as to have a mock conversation about the weather. Keeping to the wall at the base of the stands, they traced the edge of the arena until they lined up with Whitney. Then, turning sharply, they headed directly towards her.

Redi breathed in to yell, but Sam elbowed her to interrupt the potential attention-gathering noise, which caused her to let loose an “Ouch!”

Whitney didn’t seem like she expected anyone to be there, and she turned her head out of both bewilderment and shock.

“I... I need your help!” Redi exclaimed.

She bowed at a full ninety degrees angle. Sam nervously took a step back as a few of the Gym Trainers turned their way.

“I’m—” Whitney choked on a breath. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I’m his friend!” Redi said, pointing at Sam without leaning back up. “Morty personally helped him! I’m asking if you’re willing to do the same with me! If you’re willing to give me any advice at all!”

Sam waved awkwardly as Whitney blinked, uncomfortable. The Gym Trainers who had noticed them started to rapidly approach. Sam kept a nervous eye on them as they reached to their Pokéballs at their waist.

“...And you want my help?” Whitney repeated.

There was an almost hopeful tinge to her voice.

“Of course!” Redi easily replied. “I want to train a team of all Normal Types! And you’re the best person to ask for advice with that!”

The two approaching Gym Trainers sent out their Pokémon—a mean-looking Meowth and a Furret that was trying to look mean but was failing to look anything but cute. Trainers were not supposed to approach a Gym Leader so blatantly. Sam had been an exception thanks to his interactions with ‘MatsubaEnju.’ But Redi? She mimicked him, but she lacked that prior connection.

However, Whitney didn’t seem annoyed. Instead, her expression softened. The Gym Leader held up a hand to get her Gym Trainers to stop.

“What do you need help with?”

Whitney wiped her eyes and stood up a little straighter, and Redi righted herself, stopping her deep bow.

“I have a Teddiursa, and only a Teddiursa. I wanted to build my team around pure power, but...” Redi winced. “It’s not working out.”

Whitney hummed, rubbing her chin in thought.

“Your Pokémon’s moves?” she asked.

“Scratch, Fury Swipes, and Fire Punch,” Redi answered.

Whitney mouthed “Fire Punch” to repeat it as she furrowed her brow.

“Well, I am a Gym Leader, so of course I can help you!” she said, taking a stance akin to a teacher with a finger pointed up. “If pure power doesn’t work, do what I do! Build your team to sweep.”

“To sweep?”

Whitney nodded as if she had just said the most sage thing in the world.

“Of course. I’ve trained my team around my Miltank and my Tauros. Clefable—or Clefairy—are great Pokémon to stall and wear down everyone they face with status moves. Then, a Baton Pass can bring any enhancements over to my ace, which is usually a Miltank with Rollout. It’s hard to stop a wholly defensive Miltank beefed up with a Cosmic Power, isn't it?” Whitney said with a grin.

Redi bobbed her head along with Whitney’s words, obviously trying to commit them to memory.

“Then, for my Teddiursa?”

“I’m pretty sure Teddiursa can learn Swords Dance, which would make any attack that much stronger.” Whitney said slowly, obviously thinking hard for solutions. “And for future members of your team—”

“I’m going to catch more Pokémon!”

Redi shouted her declaration, forcing it out.

“Alright,” Whitney replied. “You have three options: a special attacker, some kind of defensive wall, or a Pokémon with full support. I’d give you specific species, but there’s a huge amount of Normal Types out there. You’d get more out of it if you looked into it on your own.”

Redi sent a side-eye to Sam. Sam gave her a short nod back, communicating that he’d help her. Then, she looked at Whitney and bowed once more.

“Thank you!” she said.

Whitney put her hands on her waist before gaining a bright grin.

“Of course! What are Gym Leaders for, if not to help!”

In a vast difference to how she had acted before, Whitney all but skipped away to exit the room. One of the two nearby Gym Trainers sighed.

“I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

“I mean, thanks for helping cheer Whitney up,” the other one said, “but do you realize how many copycats you’re going to inspire?”

Sam glanced around. A few members of the crowd had stopped to watch Redi’s exchange. A handful of reporters had paused as well. Some of them were yelling Redi’s name—apparently, they had recognized her from her Top-Eight placement in the beginner’s tournament.

But not me?

He had been a part of that tournament, too.

Even though Sam and Redi had technically helped, they had still violated the Gym’s rules by stepping onto the field. To be made examples, they were marched out.

The two of them emerged from a side entrance onto a different street than the one they had entered from. Redi leaned back, smiling, and stared up at the sky.

“A set-up strategy, built around making Teddiursa stronger than he is now...” she said dreamily.

Sam briefly thought back to everything he had read on Teddiursa’s species including the little bear’s evolution and the lesser-known evolution after that.

Imagining a Pokémon that strong becoming even stronger...

He couldn’t help it. He shivered.

“So, add a new requirement to my list!” Redi said, speaking as if Sam’s sole role was to write stuff down. “Whatever I catch has to be able to make Teddiursa stronger!”

He reached into his pack and quickly added it to the rest.

“That narrows down a lot of options, surprisingly,” he said.

Redi turned to Sam with a grin.

“Great! Now, let’s go to the Pokémon Center! I want to figure out what species to catch as soon as possible!”

She turned to dash away, and Sam had to run just to keep up with her.

Even in a city as large as Goldenrod, there were still rooms to spare within the Pokémon Center. Goldenrod City was the place to start out a journey—even more so than Olivine. Just about two months into the season? Most trainers had already spread throughout Johto. While Goldenrod constantly received new trainers, many more set out than came in. All it took was a quick chat with the local nurse to get a room key for each of them. Thanks to their ongoing Gym Challenge, Sam and Redi had free rooms of their own in this dense city.

Sam joined Redi in her room to quickly get to work. He spread out his journal and the New Pokédex on her desk to give him space to take notes. To his left, a window overlooked a Goldenrod City street from several stories up. The uppermost section of this skyscraper was reserved for office space, but Sam was fine enough as it stood being this far off the ground.

“I’ll write down all the Normal Types available in Johto so we can touch on and discuss all your options,” Sam said.

“Got it,” Redi replied.

She clutched Teddiursa close. Mankey snored on her pillows. Cyndaquil and Gastly played a game where they turned before snapping around dramatically, using either Leer or the in-progress Mean Look to make funny faces to cause the other one to laugh.

While the New Pokédex contained over a thousand species, Sam limited himself to only Pokémon that could be found in Indigo. There was an innate division to the ordering of the Pokédex that made doing so easy. Each section of the book grouped species by region of first discovery. A region’s Starter Pokémon served as the first entry before it moved on to include the rest.

So, Sam was looking at the sections between Bulbasaur and Dragonite, and then the section that came immediately after—the entries between Chikorita and Tyranitar. Pokémon found in other regions wouldn’t be helpful, as they weren’t easily obtainable as it stood.

As he read about and wrote down all the Normal Types he could find, Redi scooted a bit closer on the bed behind him.

Then she scooted forward again, and again. Slowly, over the course of several minutes, she reached the edge and leaned off of it towards Sam—perhaps a little too far.

The ensuing thud of her body on the ground and the flailing of limbs as Teddiursa whined was the warning that told Sam he absolutely had to speak. Pulling his chair back to better let him face Redi, he turned around as she picked herself off the floor, apologizing to Teddiursa with a laugh as she did.

“So you know how I have an old Pokédex, right?” Sam asked.

“Yup,” Redi said.

“It’s a bit old, but the information contained within is some of the best in the world,” he continued, keeping things non-specific. “I have a huge list of Pokémon to go through, so let’s start by marking off the easy ones. No Snorlax or Tauros—”

Redi snorted.

“Or Kangaskhan,” she said. “Back home Mama has to feed Baby—Baby is her son—and together, they eat the equivalent of five. Yeah, all of those are out.”

Even though they were strong species, none of them made sense for Redi to train now. They were far too expensive to train as part of a beginner’s team.

“Let’s also cross out the Pokémon that are primarily physical attackers, too. No Raticate, Furret, Persian—”

“No Lickitung. No Stantler,” Redi added.

Sam paused. Stantler had an unknown evolution that was part Psychic Type. It technically had the capability of serving as a support for Teddiursa, but before it reached that evolution, it only really had Confuse Ray, so still he crossed it out for now.

He also proceeded to cross out Aipom, Miltank, and Dunsparce, with Redi’s approval. Those Pokémon were far too physical to not overlap with Teddiursa.

“Chansey is a good option, since the Pokémon is so predisposed against attacking. It’s basically the perfect wall to withstand any too-strong attacks thanks to its immense stamina and incredible self-healing.”

Redi wobbled her head side-to-side as she considered it.

“Nah. I still want a Pokémon that can unleash powerful attacks.”

Sam crossed out Chansey as well as its evolution. Then, he went ahead and crossed out Smeargle as well. That Pokémon could imitate any move thanks to Sketch, but the actual innate power of the species wasn’t very high.

“How about Ditto?”

“I think a Ditto would require too much time researching other Pokémon.”

“Eevee?”

Redi snorted.

“Yeah, like I could afford an Eevee. Besides, none of its evolutions maintain the Normal Type.”

Sam went to a more basic option, one that lacked a lot of supporting moves but held potential.

“You could use a Flying Type like Pidgey, Spearow, or Hoothoot to wear down an opponent from range and tire them out for Teddiursa. Doduo and Farfetch’d are too ground based to do the same. What are your thoughts on that?”

“Not any of those. Flying Types don’t have much in the way of support, I think. I want to buff up Teddiursa, not wear down enemies for him to faint.”

Sam frowned and crossed out every Flying Type still there. He was about to bring up Girafarig, but then Redi said something that gave him pause.

“To add to that, I don’t want any Fairy Types, too,” Redi said.

It took all of Sam’s effort to not drop the journal right then.

“Excuse me?”

“Ugh.” Redi rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t get it. People always expect girls to train ‘cutesy’ Pokémon like that—Fairy Types. Jigglypuff. Clefairy. Clefable... Yeah, I don’t want to be typecast like that.”

She then snorted at her own unintentional pun.

“But you know what a Fairy Type is,” Sam said flatly.

“Yeah? I mean, I guess some people in Kanto refuse to recognize it, but it’s not like it's not a Type.”

“But you didn’t know Ghost was immune to Normal?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Redi said with a huff.

Sam stared at her.

“I didn’t have it in my flashcards.”

“I thought that was on purpose.”

They stared at one another until Redi seemed to put the pieces together. A smirk crept onto her face as Sam quickly turned away.

“Oh? Don’t tell me I knew something that our resident Pokémon Master didn’t.”

“...Shut up,” he mumbled.

“And I didn’t even know all of the type matchups before now! Heck, those flashcards were useful!”

“I lived on an isolated island!” Sam yelled.

“Not an excuse. Can’t believe you don’t know an entire Type.”

Oh, why did I say anything? She’s never going to let me live this down.

A few minutes of teasing went by until Redi went ahead and explained the Fairy Type’s background. It wasn’t actually that unreasonable for Sam to not know of the Type.

“News of it spread a few years back,” she said. “Apparently, there was some drama of a reporter finding out that a few old clans were suppressing knowledge of the Fairy Type. The biggest perpetrators were the Blackthorn Clan, which Champion Lance is a part of. As a family of Dragon Tamers, they didn’t want a Type with that immunity getting out. Lance himself took a different stance, however. He went ahead and boldly told the world that he’d welcome any Fairy Type challengers!”

She gained a dreamy look to her eyes, recalling the scene as a fond memory.

“One day, I’m going to make that kind of announcement.”

“Sure, buddy,” Sam said, a little annoyed.

“But, like, I think half of Indigo just flat out doesn’t want to recognize it?” Redi continued. “So it’s not talked about a lot, and most still consider Fairy Types to be Normal Types.”

That explains why Whitney uses Clefairy and Clefable, at least.

So Jigglypuff wasn’t an option, and Sam crossed it out.

“Hm.” He looked over the remaining entries. “Redi, you’ve narrowed down your options to only two species.”

“I have?” She sat up a little straighter. “Alright, hit me.”

Sam leaned over and tried to smack her on the knee, but she pulled back and stuck her tongue out before snickering.

“It’s just Girafarig and Porygon left,” Sam stated.

Redi rested her chin on her hand.

“I’ve heard of Girafarig, but what’s a Porygon?”

“Porygon is either man-made or a computer-generated Pokémon that’s a special attacker like you want, and it learns a lot of supporting moves while also being great at adapting to its foes.”

Redi hummed, and Sam briefly flipped the New Pokédex around. He let her look at the included drawing of Porygon before returning it to the desk, where she wouldn’t be able to see the incredible amount of in-depth knowledge the book contained.

“...Can you give me more specifics on it?” Redi asked.

Sam proceeded to skim through the entry so he could summarize everything for her.

“It looks like Porygon can learn a lot of Electric Type moves. And Tri-Attack, which is fun and could tie into Teddiursa’s elemental punches. It has lots of beam moves too, and then it has a pair of exclusive moves—Conversion and Conversion 2.” He briefly checked those moves’ descriptions. “Apparently those moves let Porygon temporarily change its Type?”

“Huh,” Redi said.

“And then its abilities are weird, too. Useful, though,” Sam continued. “Trace to copy its foe’s abilities. Download to boost its offense based on its opponent’s weakest form of defense. Analytic to enhance the power of any attacks if it lets its opponent move first.”

Redi chewed on her lip, clearly deep in thought.

“I’m surprised it can get three abilities.”

Sam blinked.

Oops. I forgot that having three abilities wasn’t common knowledge.

“Does it evolve?” Redi asked.

Sam glanced down again.

“Yeah. Twice,” he replied. “Once to Porygon2 when given an Upgrade disk. Another time to Porygon-Z when it's given a... Dubious Disk?”

That was a really weird name for an item.

“And for set-up moves?” Redi asked with a hum.

Sam had to look through its learnset one more time.

“Best I see is Agility, which can increase its speed. Recover can help it stall since that’s one of the best self-healing moves out there. The biggest move to help Teddiursa is Trick Room, which... makes slow Pokémon fast and fast Pokémon slow.”

“What,” Redi said flatly.

Sam flipped to the back of the book to double-check.

“Um, yeah. Apparently, it’s a field effect that lasts five turns, whatever that means.”

Redi immediately stood up from her bed and put her hands on her hips.

“Alright Teddiursa. Hear that? We’re going to add a Porygon to our team!”

The little bear cheered, but he had been too busy watching Cyndaquil’s and Gastly’s game to have been paying attention. He didn’t look like he knew what a Porygon was; he simply cheered because Redi wanted him to cheer.

“Hold on. Hold on!” Sam frantically waved his hands. “We haven’t even talked about where we can find one, or even if capturing that species is feasible?”

Redi crossed her arms in thought.

“Oh yeah. You said it was a computer Pokémon. So where can we find one?”

“...Book just says ‘The Game Corner.’”

“The Game Corner? I think there’s one in Goldenrod.”

A grin overtook her face. Sam let loose a sigh.

“Are we visiting the Game Corner?” he asked tiredly.

“The Game Corner!” Redi cheered, stomping one leg onto her bed like some sort of a victorious conqueror. “And at the Game Corner, we’ll figure out exactly how to get a Porygon!”

She scooped up Teddiursa and ran outside. Sam took one look at his Pokémon before returning them so he could chase after her.

Again.