“Woooo!!!” Toki hollered in excitement. This was his first time riding bareback on a Pokemon.

Nina laughed — the boy’s enthusiasm was infectious. They were currently on their way to the base of Mount Silver, to a spot that Nitey scouted out previously that would be perfect to use for training.

When the Professor’s son had heard wind about her plans, he begged to come along. So Nina just responded with an ungodly time, thinking that there was no way the kid would be able to wake up so early.

So imagine her surprise this morning when she found a sleepy eyed boy waiting for her at the entrance with an equally sleepy looking Totodile in hand. Apparently, Toki had been too excited about the trip to sleep and ended up staying up all night. Nina chuckled, there was no way she could have denied such an adorable brat. 

“Alright, everyone. Gather up!” Nina called, the moment that she released all of her Pokemon.

The place that Nitey found was a little clearing in the forest bordering the base of Mount Silver. And after a quick Fire Spin from Nitey to clear out some of the snow, they now had a spacious little training ground to use.

Nina’s Pokemon cried out in affirmation and huddled up next to the girl, all except Espy who was frowning and gazing out at the distance for some reason.

“Hey, girl… What’s up? Are you okay?” Nina whispered as she knelt down to embrace her Espeon in a gentle caress. 

Espy was also wearing a little white Pokemon jacket that Nina got for her. It was a prototype from PKQLO, the apparel company that sponsored her, made using a special material that could expand and shrink to a certain degree to fit most Pokemon around Espy’s size.

In lieu of a response, Espy merely beamed an image into Nina’s head, detailing a page from the hardcopy Pokemon encyclopedia that Nina got for her.

Nina frowned and looked towards the distance as well, at the same direction as Espy’s gaze where, apparently, there was a cave leading into Mount Silver hidden behind the trees.

“A Tyranitar eh? Probably the apex predator of this region…” Nina murmured. It was no wonder Espy was on high alert. Fortunately, the wild, rock burrowing Dark Type wasn’t adept enough to conceal its presence from Espy’s senses. 

“Do you think you can take ‘em if it comes down to it?” The girl asked, eliciting a haughty pulse of affirmation in return from her prideful Espeon.

Nina laughed and nuzzled affectionately against Espy. “Of course, you’ve been training hard to beat your dad. As if some wild Dark Type could compare. But don’t be complacent, alright? Tyranitars, wild or not, are extremely powerful Pokemon.” While it wasn’t capable of knocking down mountains as some sources might suggest — the non-Alphas that is — they were still extremely hardy and robust Pokemon that should not be underestimated. 

That said, neither of them were belligerent enough to challenge the Tyranitar unprompted. For all intents and purposes, Nina and her team were the trespassers here. No point upsetting the natural order on a whim. So she merely instructed Espy to stay alert and inform her if something was amiss.

“What happened?” Toki asked, when Nina got back to the group, only for the girl to ruffle his hair and respond with a head shake and a reassuring smile.

“Alright everyone, let’s go over our plans for today.” Nina called once more as she went about addressing her Pokemon, one by one.

“First off, Nitey. Let’s continue what we were doing yesterday — find a tree and start punching. Your goal is to charge up an Ice Punch in one second with an attack that’s potent enough to completely freeze the tree solid. I suggest starting off with the leaves first instead of the bark, should make things a bit easier.”

“Nite!” The Dragonite responded by pulling his partner into a tight hug.

Nina laughed and gave the tubby Dragon a playful smack on his belly. “And I know it's cold, but I don’t want to catch you slacking off with Fire Type Energy okay? If anything, you should try to surround yourself with Icy Wind to build up your resistance. Bonus points if you can maintain a Blizzard while you’re at it.”

Dragonites, once evolved, weren't as susceptible to Ice anymore. And Nitey was especially so, given his background in the Cerulean Gym and the years he spent training for their annual winter shows. That said, one couldn’t completely overcome their biological weaknesses and Nitey could never get to the point where he was entirely resistant, but they could get as close to neutral as possible which was good enough.

“Nite…” Nitey moaned as he leveled a resentful pout at Nina’s addendum.

Nina ignored her whiny Dragon and turned to address Sir Clodington instead, who was looking very at ease in the snow as he dug himself into a cozy little snow burrow. “Alright Clody, great work again during the fight with Forrest. You were undoubtedly the MVP of that match.”

“Clood!” The Clodsire puffed up his chest in pride and let out an energetic cry. Happy to have proven his worth and avenged Nitey’s loss.

And speaking of, Sir Clodington’s zealotry had not abated in the slightest even after all this time. His lethargy during that initial Evolution period was mostly due to the burden of his physique as Nina had surmised back then. 

That said, his more cumbersome build did mean that it was more difficult for him to sneak around and stir up trouble, so that was still a plus. These days, he was mostly like a stalwart sentry — a reliable guard that could stay in one spot for hours on end unless Nina, Espy or Nitey dismissed him.

“So Clody, I want you to continue working on mastering Water Absorb.” At the moment, the Clodsire couldn’t use the ability when he had a layer of Acid Armor on, or when his Swampy Terrain was too thick and potent.

This was a shame, because if Nina could train him to be able to utilize Water Absorb using just his Damp Rock and the ambient moisture surrounding him, Sir Clodington could become the ultimate tank within his established domain.

“Y’know, if you had mastered Water Absorb then maybe Forrest’s Rhyperior wouldn’t have been able to K.O you so easily last time.” Nina remarked, in a casual off handed manner, eliciting an indignant cry from the Clodsire, his beady little eyes burning with more motivation than ever before.

Nina chuckled in amusement and grabbed hold of the energetic little Popplio who was making snow angels in the icy powder. “And as for how we’re going to be training your Water Absorb…” The girl thrusted Poppy forwards to face the stoic Clodsire. “It just so happens, Poppy needs to work on her Type Energy capacity, so we’ll have you endure Poppy’s Water Gun while you concentrate on trying to absorb it.”

“To! Totodile!”

Nina giggled at the tap dancing Totodile who was eager to join in. “Even better, now Clody has two little helpers. So remember you two,” Nina continued, now addressing the pair of juvenile Water Pokemon. “I want steady streams of Water Gun and not just one big burst, okay? Try to maintain it for as long as possible.” She even proposed that the two juniors make a game out of it by seeing who could outlast the other.

“Po-po!” Poppy clapped his little fins together, excited to begin playing.

Nina smiled and gave her little seal a kiss on the nose. “And if you run out of Water, just munch on the surrounding snow. But make sure not to eat any yellow snow you see, okay?”

The girl then rummaged around in her backpack to produce a series of colourful squeezy bottles, causing Nitey to start floundering in a panic. “And if eating snow becomes too tiresome, I’ve got bottles of Nitey’s sugary syrup here you can use — just squeeze some on the snow and you’ll get fresh and tasty kakegori.”

“Nite! Nite!” Nitey cried out in indignation, appalled that Nina had discovered the secret stash of sweets he sneakily snuck into the girl’s backpack, eliciting an amused smirk from his partner.

“Your biggest mistake was in pestering Espy for help, buddy…”

And lastly, Nina addressed Brucey. Since Gastly wouldn’t be at ease with all the glaring sunlight reflecting off the driven snow, she would have to train with the Ghost Type separately later on, to verify the effectiveness of their dream training. 

“Alright Brucey, you, me and Espy will be playing our usual games. After that, I want you to practice Kage Bunshin — you’re getting real close to being able to maintain two dozen clones, buddy. So keep at it.”

It was a shame, but it was really looking like Brucey was approaching his limit in regards to the Koga clan’s secret technique. Itachi, Purple Shadow’s Crobat maxed out at around a hundred clones. While Aventurine, Lilian’s Noibat could also do around two dozen.

More was possible of course. For example, Koga’s Golbat could split into several hundred clones, according to Purple Shadow. However, judging by the man’s tone at the time, it seemed the process was quite arduous for the Pokemon involved. So it probably wasn’t a pinnacle that any of them was interested in pursuing.

The games that Nina referred to were in relation to Brucey’s emotional development. More specifically, the girl and her Espeon were trying to resolve the Golbat’s face blindness using emojis.

It wasn’t the perfect solution of course, so Nina often went people watching with the Golbat as well in community spaces. She tried to use movies and TV shows at one point, but Brucey was simply too hyperactive for such a lengthy and passive activity.

However, emojis were called that for a reason and it was doubtless that they were extremely effective in conveying emotional expressions. Nina figured that they could start basic and slowly dive deeper into more nuanced cartoon expressions. And this way, Brucey also had the company of Nina and Espy to engage with, keeping his attention in check for at least a few minutes at a time.

Throughout the process, Espy was helping to convey images of corresponding real-life facial expressions to Brucey’s mind as Nina flashed a series of emojis to him on her Pokedex screen. That way, he could also have a point of comparison, even if he couldn’t fully grasp the image.

“What about me?!” Toki exclaimed, eager to join in on the Pokemon training session as well.

Nina smiled and pulled out her laptop from her backpack, a newer, sleeker model with an Oran Berry logo at the front that she bought to replace the old one Nitey broke in one of his bouts of clumsiness.

“Here, I have a collection of battle recordings that I saved throughout the years. Every single one of these videos are interesting in their own way and each has something you can learn from. There’s even some exclusive training footage from the Cerulean Gym that you won’t find in the League’s database.”

Nina pointed at her computer screen and guided the boy on how to access her video folder. “And if you click here, you’ll be able to pull up captioned notes that I wrote for each part of the video, talking about some of the interesting points that I observed. So if you have any questions at all during your watchalong, then just come over and ask about it. I’d be happy to discuss it with you.”

“Thanks!” Toki exclaimed before settling down on one of Nina’s camping chairs to go through the material.

In truth, Nina wanted to just give the kid a book and tell him to work on his reading. But she doubted his attention would hold, and she did learn a lot from those videos during her own childhood. So hopefully Toki would retain the same benefits.

“The most important thing for a trainer was knowledge after all.” Knowledge was undoubtedly power. Why else would ancient clans so jealously guard their libraries and hold such a massive lead over the general populace.

***

Author's note:

Any fellow mechanical keyboard afficianados out there? Mind explaining to me why MOA profile keycaps all have those weird fonts and cartoony designs?

MOAs are my favourite profile, and I've been thinking about getting a new set recently. But it's almost impossible to find any decent designs that I actually like. All of them are too busy and makes my eyes all swirly. I'm more of a minimalist, but I would like something more unique than just solid colours and simple prints.

Additionally, has anyone used ceramic keycaps before? Care to share your thoughts on them?  I'm curious to give them a try but I don't exactly want to waste my money either.