Over the next few days, Squirtle underwent the harshest training of his turtle life.
This included, but was not limited to, practicing his Ice Punch technique, improving Hydro Pump's accuracy, and toughening his defenses through repeated battering.
In a sense, under this training regimen, Squirtle might have been more likely to learn "Shell Smash" than "Zen Headbutt."
"Meow. (Shell Smash lowers your defenses. Although both defensive stats drop, both offensive stats and your speed rise dramatically.)"
Meownei had fetched a twig from the Backyard and was now teaching Squirtle in front of the computer screen.
"Meow. (That state is only temporary. Aren't you good at that Exploding Turtle Shell thing? Suppose you used Shell Smash alongside Exploding Turtle Shell when an enemy attacked. Could you achieve the same effect as Substitute?
You could avoid the enemy's attack and boost your stats at the same time.)"
There was a fundamental difference between turn-based games and open-ended games. Turn-based games did not let you stack buffs beforehand, and arena matches followed a format much closer to turn-based games.
In a real wild fight, nobody cared about that. Hiding somewhere to use Dragon Dance three times, stacking a few more boosts, and only then joining the fight was commonplace.
As a master of Wild Fighting, it was perfectly normal for her to research new tactics within the rules.
Meownei had also studied other Gyms and found that some competitions imposed a four-move limit, explicitly restricting how many moves a Pokémon could use.
Without a doubt, that was her least favorite competition format.
In matches like those, a Trainer's command skills could offset the gap in Pokémon levels to some extent, while also restricting certain Abilities.
The clearest example was Meownei's own Protean.
"Squirtle. (Has it occurred to you that I don't know Shell