11 A Shock of Static.

Morning light had filled the Pokecenter's windows as its own doors remained open to any trainers that may or may not come to the Pokecenter. Of course Nurse Joy wasn't manning the desk this time, but a friend of hers that occasionally takes shifts for her.

On the desk laid Theodore's room card which he had used for the night. Theo himself was out in the small battlefield, directing his Wimpod to attack the flying Khepri.

"No-no; Napat! Don't do that again. Trying to change your attack's direction mid-air by bouncing back to the ground!" Napat immediately did so and flickered back onto the ground, but closer than he was earlier.

Apat's eyes were furrowed in both confusion and concentration as he followed his trainer's orders. Bouncing off the ground, Napat flashed in the direction of the surprised Khepri who immediately had gotten hit due to the direction change.

"Good job, Gallant! Now we just need to be able to do that mid-air and you'll be scarily strong by a novice's standards, but not mine!" Apam returned back to the ground and gurgled a joyous cry at his success, and Khepri looked a bit miffed at being the target of Apam's improving strategic movements.

"Khepri, don't be like that! Take this as some horrendously botched dodging drills except it's five thousand more times difficult! Like most pokemon battles are! If you want to dodge electrical based attacks, you need the reaction time and speed!"

Khepri's eyes slightly shined at the idea of using Apam's own training as her own. Chittering to herself silently, she accepted her own trainer's reasoning. After her acceptance, she immediately started flying back up into the air.

Apam returned to his original positioning awaiting for his trainer's commands. Theodore just shook his head at Apam's plight at only following his orders.

"Apam! I want you to think of how you want to move this time, but moving just linearly is not going to work! Constant movement is the ideal, remember that!" Napat tilted his head at his trainer's orders and in a flash Napat had moved towards Khepri who shiftly had tilted her body out of Napat's attack.

Chittering a chide, Khepri thunderously flew above Napat.

> "Imbecile! You know that isn't going to work! Try better. " < [ Chiding ].

Theodore sighed at Khepri's own scolding at Napat's own decision to keep on moving linearly after all the training they had to go through this morning. Wimpod who could only sulk at the beratement shook his head furiously and made a cry at the unsuspecting Khepri as he flashed once more.

Khepri had casually rolled away at the oh-so expected attack with a smug grin. That smug grin soon faltered at the sight of the Napat slamming back into the ground with a thud. In another flash, Napat had appeared directly in front of Khepri's face who tilted back just a wee bit to lessen the blow with a frown on her face.

> " Finally! You are getting it. Now dance for me, Gallant! Dance for me! Hohohohoho. . ." < [ Haughty laughter ].

Napat could only narrow his eyes in agitation before throwing himself at Khepri with his own speed-priority based move of Aqua Jet. Leaving the two of them in their small little scuffle/drill training, Theodore had peered at the other person watching his pokemon train.

The young female watching him train looked maybe a few more years older than him with a mareep stretched all over her lap. Theodore waved over to the female and walked over to her with a tight, flat smile crossing his face. This smile was something he usually put up a front for strangers he did not know.

She waved back at him and started up a conversation much to his own internal cry of agony that he, Theo, had to approach someone instead of someone approaching him!

"Hi! I see you just arrived in Goldenrod. You usually don't see this many trainers use this Pokecenter at the start of the league gym circuit." He noticed that she was naturally on the soft side with her voice and his smile just became a wee bit brighter from the staleness that it was.

"I actually came in from Unova. I actually was planning on leaving Goldenrod after those two over there," Theodore pointed at his two pokemon beginning to take their drilling seriously, "Finish up with their early morning training. I don't want to take too long to get over to Falkner's gym."

"Ah. I see." She tilted her curiously, "I don't suppose you would like to have a mock pokemon battle? I usually don't get to battle against flying and water types that much, heh." At Theodore's blank stare, she explained,

"You see, I'm one of those Gym Trainers that study under a gym leader. Not whitney of course- I'm actually supposed to be leaving today, too. Back to Olivine, you see. She generally likes to shoo us back home when the gym circuit has been finished."

Theodore nodded in understanding as he saw many different trainers come and go from Burgh's gym. And from what he understood it happened more than not due to Burgh's own eccentric behavior.

"Sure! I wouldn't mind battling before I go since Nurse Joy will be here any minute now. It should clear us without any issue!" Theodore gave a bright smile to the now more giddy, small spoken lady.

He jogged back to his pokemon and recalled Napat who looked about dead on his feet plus the sweat coming down his face told him that she had enough. Khepri chittered her trainer in curiosity, so Theodore explained what was about to happen,

"You see that other trainer over there? She wants to do a mock battle: I figured that she'll be an electric specialist or is heavily basing her team off that type. Napat is a more physical based fighter and that Mareep of hers most likely will have static. So I figured it would be best to choose you instead of Napat."

The Combee nodded her head at her trainer's slight wisdom and floated back to her trainer's side of the battlefield. Theodore fed her some oran berries in order to let her regain enough energy to do this one battle.

Theodore paused at the realization that he never got her name and yelled, "I never got your name!"

The female trainer curled her mouth into a 'oh' shape before giving a sheepishly polite smile, "I'm Abigail, it's nice to meet you, um."

Theodore just shook his head at the fact that he forgot his own introduction, "I am Theodore! Meet your future Bug-God of Johto! The champion title is for scrubs."

Abigail giggled at Theodore's boasting while letting go of her Mareep that she held in her hands. "Very well, Theodore. Are you ready?"

The Mareep landed on the other side of the battlefield with its cute little paws kicking up a small amount of dust. "I am as ready as I can ever be."

A feral grin rose up onto his face as he called out to Khepri,

"You know what to do, Khepri!"

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"You know what to do, Khepri!" She heard her trainer shout before chittering excitedly. Adrenaline was already coursing through her body at this point, so she shot up into the sky with the aid of some [ FLYING ] energy.

She imperiously looked down at the electric sheep in front of her before launching a precise Air Cutter at her foe who baaw'd a surprised mareep at the immediate attack.

The other trainer on the battlefield cried at her Mareep and her trainer, "What!? How does your- Nevermind! Mareep trade the blow with a thunderbolt!"

Her trainer could only chuckle sheepishly as he replied his own command, "Aerial Strategy, Khepri."

Khepri began to spontaneously move in a chaotic way that involved all sorts of tilting, random directions, and similar things while maintaining her concentration on her enemy. While she began to fly in random directions, the Mareep casually took the blow with her thick fluff which only budged and cut a little bit due to the static shock that it provided.

A thunderbolt ripped out from Mareep's tail at Khepri's general direction. Its move's speed was almost comparable to Napat's own movement, but it was only a tad bit slower allowing Khepri to roll tightly around the bolt which slammed into the ground after missing her body.

Heaving a relieved sigh out of her breath, she heard her trainer call out, "Good job, Khepri! Now build up a blow! If that doesn't work, add [ Ghost ]!"

While building up the required flying type energy, Khepri continued to fly in the only trained aerial movement that she knew.

"Thunder Wave! Don't let that Combee build up the required energy for that second move!"

A weak blanket of electricity filled the air towards Khepri as she finished up building up the required energy. With a cry of forceful energy, she released the move gust in an attempt to blast the electrical energy away from her.

The gust of wind had blasted all but some of the energy towards the ground, but ultimately some of the electrical energy had jolted her wings and caused her to be paralzyed. She winced at the occasional sting as her wings began to spasm every so often, making it harder to fly.

"Thunderbolt! She won't be able to dodge it now, Mareep!"

When she looked over at her trainer, she could almost visibly see the taste of defeat on his face. Mollified at her trainer's face, she flew harder than she ever had before. With a cry of anticipation, Khepri weakly dodged the Thunderbolt that came at her.

With successfully dodging the Thunderbolt, her buzzing returned full circle as she stared down at the Mareep in a sharp glare. She began to follow her previous trainer's orders without him saying it again and began to build up the required ghost type energy.

She could imagine him smiling at her struggling success at this very moment and it filled her with pride that she would only get rarely from her previous Swarm Leader. With that in mind, she put all of her effort forward by two hundred percent!

With a hefty cry of a counter attack, she ripped out an Ominous Wind that was more powerful than ever. This ominous wind had battered the Mareep who could only prance around worriedly at the strange howl of wind.

The Mareep finally made a cry of agony as the attack assaulted its mind and collapsed onto the ground. A small, prideful smile made its mark of her face as she narrowed her eyes at the somewhat struggling mareep.

"Dodge its next attack, Khepri!"

"Thunderbolt once more! "

Khepri made a swinging motion of her wing before a particularly powerful static shock had jolted from her wings, preventing her from moving. The thunderbolt struck true onto Khepri's form and sent her down from the sky in a twitching mess as she cried out in agonizing pain.

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Wincing at his partner's cries of pain, Theodore recalled her as quick as he could to sooth her pain. A smile at his own defeat had reached his lips as he looked towards Abigail who looked considerably happy at her own Mareep's success.

"That battle was something. Khepri almost had blown away that Thunder Wave, too! You certainly got lucky with that paralyze acting up when it did. Though I doubt it would've not acted up sometime soon after it."

Abigail nodded at Theodore's own comments, "Well- Um. I'd say train your Combee in some more moves that can directly attack those moves instead of blasting it away with Gust. Something like Bug Buzz might have been better for this battle. It was fun battling you, my own Mareep must be so tired after that mental assault. I didn't expect Combee to know an unseen ghost type move!"

Smiling at Abigail's own smothering of her Mareep, Theodore looked back at the Pokecenter, "Why don't we move back inside? I'm sure Nurse Joy will be happy to heal our pokemon for us after that battle."

"Oh, of course. I'd be happy, too. Poor little Woolly here needs the energy." Theodore snorted at the nickname which she had given her Mareep. Abigail rolled her eyes at Theodore's own tastes of her names,

"It's a nice name, Mr. I need to name my Pokemon after weird things! Like what does Khepri and Apam Napat even mean? Are you trying to be cool or something?"

Sheepishly scratching at head, Theodore began to walk towards the Pokecenter with Abigail following his trail, "I might be trying a little bit too hard I suppose. Khepri is a neutral bug-themed god from a long dead civilization. And Apam Napat can be translated into Child of the Waters. Of course I gave my pokemon titles, too. Like Gallant and Warmaiden."

Abigail huffed exasperatedly at Theodore's explanations, "Of course you would give them ridiculous titles, too. I swear that you name your pokemon like you are trying to be a top-of-the-line trainer with your nicknames alone. You dork."