A New Beginning

Qishui City.

As he leafed through Essential Analysis of Sound-Based Moves, Terrance stretched. After Swablu joined the team, Master Katsumune had brought him to Qishui City and arranged a temporary room for him at an inn. He had then hurried off, saying he had some things to take care of, and told Terrance to wait for news about his admission to Coronet Academy.

Terrance was in no hurry. As the location of the Breeder Association's headquarters, Qishui City had the largest library in Hoenn, with a countless wealth of knowledge about Pokémon. As a junior breeder, Terrance was qualified to borrow some of its materials.

Now that the breeder examination was settled and he had two Pokémon, Beautifly and Swablu, his future journey had also been provisionally set to take him to Coronet Academy. Terrance began preparing for his future development.

Raising Beautifly and Swablu well was Terrance's most important task now, and it would also lay the foundation for Pokémon Contests.

Beautifly.

Main moves: Silver Wind, Absorb, Electroweb, Air Cutter.

Support moves: Gust, Tailwind, String Shot, Morning Sun, Stun Spore.

Moves already abandoned: Tackle, Bug Bite, Poison Sting.

Tackle, Poison Sting, and Bug Bite had been Beautifly's main moves before evolving. Leaving Tackle aside, Poison Sting released toxins from the body through some medium to harm an opponent. Beautifly's toxins were weak and not lethal to begin with, and the move was also difficult to execute successfully. So once Beautifly had reached a certain level with it, Terrance had her stop practicing it and did not intend to use it as a regular move.

As for Bug Bite, when Beautifly was a Wurmple, it had been her main way of eating, used in conjunction with Absorb. Whether she was eating Berries or plants, Bug Bite allowed Beautifly to draw out their nutrients effectively. As an attack, however, Bug Bite's form made it difficult to achieve much, and it had too many limitations, so Terrance chose to exclude it as well.

Gust used the wings to whip up a gale and send it at an opponent. Because of Beautifly's innate species limitations, the move could not unleash much power. Terrance treated Gust as a support move, using it together with Tailwind's air currents to improve Beautifly's flying agility and speed.

Silver Wind could be considered an enhanced version of Gust. The addition of Shield Dust effectively gave the wind a cutting property, making the gale sharper. Terrance, however, preferred having Beautifly mix Stun Spore into Silver Wind, giving her more tactical options.

String Shot was the first move Beautifly had from the very beginning, and the only basic move Terrance had not abandoned. Many of Beautifly's techniques were built upon it, and its role could not be overlooked. Whether she used silk to bind an opponent and absorb their energy, or changed Stun Spore's properties to create an Electroweb, String Shot was needed as a carrier.

Air Cutter represented Beautifly's further mastery over wind. Rather than pursuing range, it concentrated the wind's power more tightly and attacked in the form of a blade. In actual combat, it was probably Beautifly's most powerful move at present.

The training task Terrance had currently assigned Beautifly benefited from the move Morning Sun. Morning Sun was also an extremely difficult move for Beautifly to master. It might not require work day and night, but a Pokémon needed at least a basic affinity with sunlight to use it successfully. Trainers rarely spent months having their Pokémon persist in sensing the sun's energy, but Beautifly had now mastered it proficiently. Even on cloudy days, she could sense solar energy to some extent and restore her stamina.

Terrance had an idea: he hoped Beautifly could use Absorb for more than simply drawing stamina or nutrients from other Pokémon and food. Instead, she would use the move to seize nutrients from sunlight. That was easy to say but extremely difficult to accomplish. It was one application of a combination move, and without years of training, it would be hard to pull off. It was not as simple as mixing Stun Spore and Shield Dust into the wind.

Whether it was Absorb, Mega Drain, or Giga Drain, Beautifly's species used them through silk or Bug Bite. Absorbing solar energy from the air and using Morning Sun to restore stamina at high intensity would be an unconventional version of Synthesis, a stamina-restoring method exclusive to Grass-type Pokémon.

As a Bug-type and Flying-type Pokémon, Beautifly had no way to learn Synthesis at all.

Moreover, even in the same weather, differences in Grass-type Pokémon's ability to sense solar energy affected how much stamina they could recover. Grass-type Pokémon had an innate advantage in using sunlight. Even if Morning Sun theoretically had the same effect as Synthesis, Beautifly's use of it would certainly restore stamina neither as quickly nor as much as a Grass-type Pokémon's Synthesis.

Therefore, Beautifly's main task at present was to continue improving her ability to sense air currents, striving to adapt to them under any circumstances and use them to create a favorable battle situation for herself.

Next was training the combination of Absorb and Morning Sun. Although Beautifly could not learn Synthesis, she could learn Solar Beam. If she converted the solar energy she gathered into stamina instead of firing it as a move, it seemed that she could achieve much the same result as Synthesis. She also needed to strive for the greatest possible mastery of Absorb, further developing the move Terrance had not paid much attention to into Mega Drain, and working toward making it Giga Drain.

The key to this idea was that Beautifly's Morning Sun did not have Synthesis's exceptionally high affinity for, utilization of, and attraction to solar energy. Therefore, incorporating Absorb to seize the sun's nutrients in the shortest possible time was the most important step.

All her other moves would follow the usual routine and be placed in the third tier of training.

As long as she continued training according to this plan, if it succeeded, Beautifly would surely be able to develop her own fighting style through hard work and display outstanding strength despite belonging to an unremarkable species.

Compared with Beautifly, Swablu's training tasks were much simpler.

Since Swablu had only just entered the growth stage, there were not many moves she needed to train. Terrance mainly planned her training around three areas.

Honing her voice: with Growl, Astonish, and Sing at the core, she would temper her voice until it could eventually serve, to some extent, as a carrier for sonic attacks. This required a great deal of training experience and equipment, as well as suitably nutritious food. It was also a long-term task, which Terrance would spread throughout Swablu's growth.

For Agility, Terrance wanted Swablu to gain perfect control. This only required steady, methodical training and was relatively easy.

Feather Dance and Cotton Guard would naturally improve as Swablu grew. Terrance only needed to make sure she did not neglect practicing them. The most important issue was still the suitably nutritious food, which gave Terrance a great headache.

Once moves like Peck and Fury Attack reached a certain level, Terrance would have Swablu abandon them and stop training them as main moves.

Of the two moves Dragon Rage and Dragon Rush, the former was Swablu's strongest attack at present, while the latter was still too difficult to use as a regular move. This put Terrance in a difficult position. Aside from normal growth, he could not think of a way to help Swablu quickly master Dragon Rush. After some consideration, he decided to visit a library and consult some materials first.

Having made up his mind, Terrance got dressed, took his identification, and prepared to leave. He hung Swablu's and Beautifly's Poké Balls at his waist and left the inn.

Which library should I go to? How should I put it? As expected of a city with the Breeder Association, Qishui City alone has several libraries, and most of their first floors are free to browse as long as you're a registered resident of the city. Terrance sighed inwardly. Qishui City residency was not easy to obtain. Families living there were generally quite wealthy, and at the very least, they had the means to support a Trainer. It was unlike Fallarbor Town, which might not produce a single outstanding Trainer in several years.

I'd better go to the Breeding House library!

After thinking it over, Terrance headed in a particular direction. The Breeding House could be considered Qishui City's largest library. It belonged to the Breeder Association, was highly authoritative and accurate, and held the widest variety of materials. Considering the limited number of places where his breeder certification could be used, Terrance ultimately chose it.

Plans for Beautifly's and Swablu's growth kept flashing through his mind as Terrance walked along, completely failing to notice a dark figure rushing toward him from ahead.

"Watch out-"

A hurried voice rang out, and immediately afterward, Terrance felt something slam into him, nearly knocking him to the ground.