章 8: Chapter 8

Brassius finally invited Daniel inside the gym. His pokemon were taken to be healed. Brassius first asked Daniel if he had any plans or tasks to do before his training officially began. Daniel told him he wanted to catch some pokemon and was supposed to reach Kanto for his trip by the new year. He planned to travel back during Christmas since the gym would be closed anyway.

After rowlet and rockruff returned Brassius started his lecture.

"Let's start with today's battle. Why do you think you lost?"

"Because I did not have a way to deal with trailblaze." Daniel answered. He knew it wasn't due to a power level difference since he could see sudowoodo's data. Brassius disagreed on this analysis.

"If that was true then there would be no point to the battle. I would have just needed to give the same command over and over again and you would have lost.

First of all, you don't pay attention to habits and fighting style of the species itself. For example, my sudowoodo takes pride in its defence so I let it stand tall and take attacks head on knowing it would outlast rockruff.

Next, you didn't adapt to change quickly. When I terrastalized, sudowoodo's fighting style changed. Sudowoodo usually takes his stand and fights head on. After turning into a grass type, it becomes more active in terms of dealing damage.

Finally, you didn't think the entire 2v1 through. Leer wasn't a bad call, but you should not have let sudowoodo speed up twice. The pokemon's speed increases only after trailblaze lands and deals damage. It can be interrupted or blocked."

This was a lot for Daniel to unpack. But Brassius wasn't done.

"In terms of training you haven't done bad. You made them repeat their moves regularly and made them have some battle experience. But that's the same way wild pokemon train. As their trainer, you need to give your pokemon proper instruction on what their focus needs to be on or learn different moves or innovate different ways to use the same move. Have a basic strategy that can be applied to all battles so that you don't have to make up a battle plan on the go. You can instead make appropriate changes to your plan in response to the opponent."

This wasn't something Daniel thought about before. Looking at his pokemon's growth he thought he had taken the right path. He had apparently had his pokemon take the same path as any random wild pokemon would take with the only difference being the time spent with them bonding with them, proved by the strong bond he could feel with his pokemon strengthening him. This didn't affect his pokemon in any way.

"Don't worry, you've only started your journey. Changing the way, you train your pokemon is best done early on."

"Thank you for the lesson." Daniel was grateful and glad that he didn't choose to blindly train his pokemon without suggestion.

Considering that the pokemon Daniel wanted weren't rare, he first decided to catch them before starting his training. That way he could train them all together.

His first target way actually a very common pokemon – a pawmi.

Wild pawmis could be found everywhere. Thus, Daniel decided to find a relatively rare one, a pawmi with its hidden ability iron fist.

Since he had a lot of pawmi to choose from he took his time to get one he found best.

During his search he also looked for his other paldean target – a charcadet.

Charcadet was somewhat rare in the areas bordering Artazon. Going too far would take up too much time of his training period.

Once he found one, he didn't hesitate to catch it with rockruff. As soon as he caught charcadet he went to the best pawmi he found so far. He chose rowlet to fight this time as he saw the pawmi having some fighting mastery after a quick battle the caught it.

Excited he went back to the gym and checked their information.