Training!

I had just finished my breakfast and was going over my potential team members once more when a rather silent, but no less real, wave of excitement seemed to wash over the crowd occupying the cafeteria of the Pokémon Centre, causing me to turn my head into the direction I felt the commotion's origin to be located.

It seemed two trainers had decided to get in a battle early in the morning. And as their place of choosing for the fight they chose the arena behind the Pokémon Centre. I practically vibrated in excitement and swiftly stood up to follow the other trainers out into the backyard.

The arena was the typical ground type setting, meaning it was pretty much flat and even, with only a couple small rocks strewn about here and there.

The two trainers, both youngsters by the looks of it, seemed to be equally as excited as the rest of us, which meant they were both rather new to battling as well or simply couldn't get enough of the thrill of doing so. Either one was a possibility.

"Go, Nidorino! Show him what we can do!" The kid on the left yelled, while throwing his Pokéball out onto the field, where it burst open in a flash of red light, before returning to its trainer.

Now standing proud and looking quite intimidating with its sharp horn, rough skin and strong muscles, was a pink Nidorino, growling deep and lowly at his obvious opponent.

Not wasting any time himself, the other kid also threw out his Pokéball while yelling: "Come on out Poliwhirl! Let's crush them!"

In another flash of red light the just summoned Poliwhirl appeared, blubbering happily while excitement almost visibly exuded from his blue body that seemed as slick as if smeared in oil.

An exited wave of murmurs ran through the crowd of onlookers, many discussing who would win, and why that was practically a fact that one or the other would defeat their opponent for this or that particular reason.

All the while the kids almost glared at each other, as if they wanted to do nothing else but storm over to the other and start strangling them.

Then, as if on an invisible cue, both yelled out their respective commands. The battle was on!

"Go Nidorino, show them your horn attack!" The kid on the left yelled, urging his Pokémon on to move forwards and pierce the Poliwhirl right into its centre.

Immediately the Nidorino burst forwards, intend on doing exactly that.

"Give them your water gun, Poliwhirl!" The other kid yelled however, having none of that, which prompted the Poliwhirl to gurgle for a second before shooting a rather fast travelling blast of water at the approaching foe, who was too slow to abort his own attack, and thus took it right into the face.

Stumbling backwards, the Nidorino grunted once in discomfort, while his trainer seemed unsure on how to continue for a second, before deciding on a course of action.

"Nidorino, give them one burst of your poison sting and then start focusing your energy!" Transitioning quickly from his waiting position into action, the Nidorino immediately fired of a burst of poisonous needles at his foe, before beginning to grunt in concentration.

The Poliwhirl however had not been idle all the while. Standing in place for a second with a concentrated expression plastered on its face/body, it began to glow for a second in a dark blue light before beginning to dance some kind of dance as if in a trance.

Obviously, he was in no state to dodge the poisonous needles flying his way, and took them right to the face with a grunt but nonetheless powered through.

The kid on the left though seemed confused for a second, unsure of what his opponents Poliwhirl was up to, and obviously not recognizing the move by the looks of it, something that may come back to bite the kid in the ass later on.

'Raindance isn't a bad choice, considering the possibility that Poliwhirl may either possess swift swim or water absorb as an ability. Both could be turned into an uphill battle for the Nidorino, who has no chance to dissolve the Raindance of its own. Smart, kid.' I thought while my eyes were stuck to the happening battle as if glued practically on.

"Now, give them another horn attack!" The kid on the left yelled, once the Nidorino was done focusing his energy, and it was immediately apparent that his focusing had done something to the pink Pokémon, as it seemed to be faster and quicker on the uptake, judging by the keen gleam shimmering inside its dark eyes.

Unfortunately for the kid however, I had the feeling that his efforts would be in vain. And I was soon proven right.

While the Nidorino had finally reached his opponent, who had just finished dancing, and was about to rush straight into the Poliwhirl, the same one did one smooth twirl in place with a tempo that baffled all onlookers, letting the Nidorino rush past him before blasting it continuously into its side with water guns that had gained in power considerably.

Thus, it came as no surprise when the Nidorino soon afterwards fainted with a grunt of its own, collapsing onto its stomach under the light pitter pattering of the still small drizzle that fell from feint dark clouds hovering just above the arena like a second level.

Once the rain clouds dispersed however, and it became apparent that the Nidorino would not be standing up again, cheers erupted from the spectators while both trainers recalled their Pokémon in twin flashes of red light. The battle was over and I couldn't wait to do that myself. But before I could, I really needed to do some training with Joker. And there was no time like the present after all.

/////

Clicking the release button on my one filled Ultraball, I watched as Joker materialised next to me, in a small training area made for one person only.

It surprised me that even Pokémon Centres seemed to respect the trainer's wishes to remain private and undisturbed while training with their Pokémon, as all the training areas on the Pokémon Center's grounds were build for one person and their Pokémon only. And I truly welcomed the privacy.

"Alright buddy, we're finally going to start your training. I hope your ready for it!" And how fired up my Gastly was! His grin seemed to be so big it almost was to big to fit onto its constantly changing and always hovering body made of purple gas and its black face.

"Good! We'll start of with a small demonstration of your current move set, to see where we need to put work into and see what we can do to get you some new moves into your arsenal. After that I was thinking about doing some experiments on how to improve your mobility and phasing. I gotta see what I'm working with before I can start on exercises for you to perform so that you can grow in power. Sound good?" He nodded, and so we began.

"We'll start of with your ominous wind. Go ahead and give that dummy over there a face full!" I told Joker and he did so immediately.

His eyes began to glow red while his surroundings started to grow cold and windy, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine, both of excitement and awe and what I was seeing. It was otherworldly to put it into simple terms.

The wooden dummy began to darken, before a small sheen of frost seemed to settle over its surface, all the while the metallic dummy next to it remained completely untouched.

After a while the softly howling, otherworldly wind subsided and Joker turned around to me, expectantly.

"Nicely done buddy! We'll need to improve on the speed with which you can call forth that attack and its might, but the later should happen naturally through repetition. Now, onto the next one!" I told him, and he seemed to agree with me according to his nodding head.

"Now, this move I'm pretty sure isn't something Gastlys can learn naturally, so you may have inherited it instead. Mind showing me your reflect type?" I asked, to which he nodded in agreement.

Shortly after, his eyes glowed ominously once more, before he seemed to go completely still for a second with nothing happening.

I sighed. I had feared something like that happening. After all, Ghost type Pokémon are one of those types that can show many moves only to living beings and, in this particular case, only to other Pokémon. Which meant we wouldn't be able to test out spite, mean look and hypnosis either. Well, the last one we could but I was not very keen on being put to sleep so early in the day just to test out its strength.

"Alright, stop. We'll have to test out those attacks instead in a battle then in a training room. Nothing we can do about that but that's alright. We'll just have to jump into the cold water in this case." I told him and shrugged my shoulders, while Joker grinned at my words. His mind probably already on his incoming confrontation.

"Anyway, since we can't train this one, we'll get the most important out of the way instead then, after which you'll be drilling your ominous wind until you can't do it anymore. Alright?" He nodded, causing me to nod as well. We both were way too motivated to have it any other way.

"Good. Then let's start on your phasing and speed of movement. Can you phase through the ground?" Promptly he did so, answering that question for me. However, it seems as if a majority of his gas stayed above ground.

Once he resurfaced, I told him exactly that, and it seems my observation was rather important, as Joker didn't look all that well. Like he was weakened or something.

"I'm guessing that your weakened state has to do with your evolutionary state. After all, Haunter and Gengar are much more composed so to speak. Their form is able to become completely solid, while yours isn't. Obviously, leaving a part of your body behind in order to phase would hurt you, if you think about it. But that's alright. We'll just use the phasing for now to only duck below attacks to dodge, so when you surface you can assimilate the gas you left behind once more. Go ahead, give it a try." I told him and he did so promptly.

It seems my suggestion was on point as he didn't look any different then before. With a nod I went over to the equipment rack at the side of the training area and picked up a bag of balls, after which I returned to Joker.

"Alright. Now I will begin throwing these balls right at you. Slowly at first but I will increase their speed as we progress. Your task will be to dodge them as cleanly as possible by phasing below the ground, until the ball is behind you. Think you can do that?" He nodded and I took up position opposite my Pokémon.

Thus, I began throwing those balls at him. Slowly at first, but after some time increasing in tempo.

Obviously, that heightened the difficulty of the exercise for him, as he had problems judging when the ball passed him by so that he could resurface, as my throwing speed was not always the same.

Thus, it came as no surprise to me when I hit him square in the face with one of the balls. Obviously, it went right through, but still. The point had been made.

"You are doing alright so far, Joker. What you need to do however is to always keep your opponent in your vision. You don't have to look straight at him but at the very least watch him from the corner of your eyes. Otherwise you'll get hit, like just now.

In the next few days I'll be carrying a ball around with me, and when we are travelling. Occasionally I'll be throwing the ball at you, without telling you when, obviously. Your task will be to dodge. That will do wonders for your situational awareness, believe me. I've been through that exercise myself. Think you can do that?" Gastly grinned with vigour clearly written all over its hovering face, after which we resumed the exercise.

This time, he didn't only dodge by phasing but also by gliding through the room, always staying in motion, as I told him a stationary target is a dead target. He agreed after getting another ball into his face.

And so we continued, increasing the speed slowly but surely, until his dodging had become pretty good for a day of first exercises, but we'd have to keep up the practise.

Once I was somewhat satisfied, and yes I do have quite the lofty standards admittedly, I told him to stop, so that we could start another exercise, which I hoped to link to the former in due time.

"This one, I hope we can connect with the first one in time, so try not to separate the two in your mind." He replied with an agreeing hiss, before I continued.

"I'm still going to throw this ball at you, but this time your task will not be to dodge clearly but instead to observe my body language and react accordingly." He nodded, and so I pulled my arm back as if to throw the ball, waiting for a bit while Ghastly watched me with eyes like a hawk.

Then I moved and Gastly moved to the side on reflex. Only, I hadn't thrown the ball yet but simply twitched my shoulder in a feint, only pretending to throw said ball.

Thus, I hit him straight into his face once again, causing him to look disgruntled at his failure.

"Don't worry buddy. I would have been surprised if you had known what I wanted to show you. You see, this exercise will have a couple purposes. One: To identify feints and bluffs. Two: To learn to stay relaxed and quieten your mind so you do not react out of fear of being hit, or over eagerness to counter attack. After all, a twitch of the muscles can be both the beginning of an attack and a feint. We'll work on that, don't worry. Now, let's continue." I told him and he seemed to grasp what I wanted him to understand immediately it seemed, as he tried to not be as tense this time around.

In that fashion we continued our training, until I deemed it good enough for the day for the speed training. What was left was only the strength training for Gastly's moves, so he began to spam his ominous wind attack over and over again at the poor dummy, while I began to take notes on the move and ideas on how to teach him some new ones for offensive purposes.

All the while the sun began to slowly sink behind the horizon until its faint light no longer shown inside through the high windows of the training room, causing the both of us to realise that we had stayed inside the training room for the whole day.

Thus, both of us with a sheepish grin, decided to turn in for the night. After returning Joker to his Ultraball, I left the training area and went up to my booked room and promptly went to sleep.