“You look remarkably well-rested for someone who battled until midnight,” Cee said as I entered his office. It wasn’t long after I first woke up, and I pressed an arm to the side to stretch.

  “Yeah. I’m just good at sleeping, I guess,” I said, walking over to where he sat.

  I could tell that Cee’s office hadn’t originally been intended as an office; overall, it was a little cramped. It was a stuffed room in which he did most of his work, located behind yet another unmarked door within the floor he had acquired for training.

  A row of shelves defined a side wall, with each shelf being filled with cubbies and neatly organized plastic containers. Each one of those containers possessed some kind of sealed, half-assembled device or some mass of materials. In the center, a perfectly clean table served as the space on which Cee did most of his work, but all of his tools seemed to have been put away. Other than that, there wasn’t much else to look at in here—save for one other area.

  The entire back wall of this room was covered by a massive array of monitors.

  ...It hit me then that Cee had been in here all night.

  Although that wall of screens made this room seem primed to be some sort of monitoring station, every single one of those monitors was turned off in favor of a single laptop on that otherwise clean table. Cee himself sat hunched on a stool, leaning over his device, and as I approached, I could see that his barely-visible eyes had slightly turned red from how long he had been awake.

  He didn’t even have a coffee or any sort of energy drink next to him, either. He had worked through the night entirely on his own, relying solely on his own willpower and dedication.

  “I’ve compiled the most important scenes from your climb yesterday to create a small montage,” he said, starting right away as I moved to his side. “I want you to watch those battles and tell me what stands out.”

  He did not look away from the small screen before him.

  “So... Is this about what you said after Golurk’s last battle?” I asked at his side. “That something we did in it made it more impressive than I thought?”

  Cee chose not to give me an answer, instead replying by hitting play on an open video. He turned and shifted his laptop to let me better look at the screen, and I went on to quietly focus on the montage he’d made.

  Like he had said, this video was a compilation of my team’s battles, consisting of a series of scenes with a perspective that switched between the mounted shoulder camera and the top-down view of recorded clips from Black Tower’s livestreams. It was a musicless montage, but it didn’t play the battles in order. Rather, Cee seemed to have carefully selected specific moments to appear as if to build up to a certain point.

  It started with Metang, showing that blue Pokémon win his battles by literally throwing his whole body into his opponents. With his claws, he was a maelstrom of carnage—at least, as much of a maelstrom of carnage as a standard Pokémon battle would allow.

  Valiant sliced through their opponents with skill, carefully placing their practiced Psycho Cuts and Close Combats. They wielded their experience to its full effect, applying everything they knew in a lightning-quick offense.

  Then, for Liepard, our focus on speed was put on full display. For the battles we had on the early floors, he clawed his way through those low-level Pokémon to create an incredible speedrun.

  But they were only three out of the four Pokémon I had used within the tower, and the clips soon changed to rapidly flash between everyone at once. Attack after attack, finishing blow after finishing blow. Cee had truly compiled a series of clips that showed off my team’s raw offense.

  And then Golurk finally appeared.

  Carefully, I watched how my newest Pokémon battled.

  “I think I get it,” I mumbled.

  From the speakers, my own voice was played back at me.

  “Iron Defense!” I shouted in the past. A hard cut. “Tilt forward for a Heavy Slam!”

  “You want me to figure out the pattern, and I think I’m starting to see what it is,” I said, watching as the final scene showed Golurk grabbing and then crushing that Alolan Sandslash into the ground. “Just to make sure—can you play the video back? I want to check if my theory holds up before I say what I think it is.”

  With a single nod, Cee began the video over again from the start, and the countless battles replayed to show my team utilizing their full power to cut through their foes.

  “For almost every battle we fought in, it was like I was using offense almost just for the sake of offense,” I said, trying to carefully consider my words. “All of our victories were achieved through overwhelming our foes—but Golurk was different. With Golurk, I was forced to think about how to fight differently. I had to rely on more than just calling for direct attacks. If you jump to a moment that I think was right here...”

  I gestured to a spot on the video’s tracker, and Cee had the video play at the exact moment I was thinking of. There, it showed a rare scene of me calling for a move that wasn’t an attack—Valiant’s Electric Terrain—but that move was only being called to enhance Valiant’s attacks even further.

  “Yeah. Golurk’s fights were basically the only times we used moves for more than just dealing damage,” I said. “I mean, I do call for those moves sometimes with Liepard, but even that’s mostly just because we want to open up our opponents to easier attacks.”

  “But for Golurk...” I continued. “I couldn’t resort to offense right away. We had to rely on Mud Slap if we wanted to approach, and when that didn’t work, we changed gears to build up defenses, trap, and then crush.”

  When the ongoing video once again reached Golurk’s battles, the trainer I watched leading that construct actually sounded impressive. Although that trainer was still “me,” he wasn’t the same “me” who had guided my Pokémon through all of their previous fights. He was someone with a dedicated strategy who was winning because of skill. He was not someone who was winning solely because his Pokémon happened to be stronger than the Pokémon he faced.

  “Indeed,” Cee said once the video ended for a third time, and even as tired as he was, I could hear the approval in his voice. “Your fight with your Golurk stood out to me for the exact reason you explained. Watching you battle has made your preferences clear: your focus is on offense, but your team is capable of so much more.”

  “I guess...” I started, looking back at the now-frozen image of Golurk finishing off Adam’s Alolan Sandslash, “I guess that’s just how I picture battling. Strategy is good and all, but if you want to be strong, you need to have the strength. I mean, it’s pretty simple, right? Overlevel, overpower, and then overcome?”

  “Perhaps, but as viable as relying on pure offense may be, it’s not viable for every fight,” Cee said, shifting on his stool so he could properly look at me. “Before Golurk, the only status moves you truly utilized were with your Liepard, and your Electric Terrain was only ever utilized to service further attacks. You occasionally rely on status moves to create openings, but the frequency of that is rare. While direct offense can lead to fast knock-outs, status moves can also do the same and with less effort. You miss easy opportunities to win by simply not having the proper plans in mind.”

  “So you’re saying my team needs more and better moves,” I mused, resting my hand on my chin. “And I need more complex strategies.”

  “Partially,” came Cee’s reply, but he sounded unconvinced. “In truth, you simply need more thought behind your orders, and you need practiced choices that support a wider strategy.”

  He hadn’t looked away from me, but he stood up, and I could tell he was getting ready to lead me out of the room.

  “While your team has the raw power, you need more than just that. Thankfully, now is the time to polish and refine how you battle to make room for greater improvements later.”

  “So we need more training,” I said bluntly.

  It was why we were here, after all.

  “Yes. More training, more testing, and more refinement,” Cee answered. “This will be a learning process—for both you and I. I have my hypotheses to test, and those will benefit your team in exchange. And, if I’m right, you will also benefit personally. After all, for a team to be strong, a trainer must be as skilled as their Pokémon.”

  My Pokémon and I were meant to be a team. That meant one-sided labor was never going to result in any satisfying growth. Cee’s research and life’s work, in a way, were all about drawing out the true potential of Pokémon, and with me here, he apparently believed that a team could only ever approach its peak when its Pokémon and trainer struggled together.

  At least, that’s what I assumed he was doing based on what he put us through. He refused to tell me the specifics of what he was testing, as apparently sharing that kind of knowledge would “pollute” the data.

  Starting that day, every morning began the same way: while Cee was in his office, working on other projects and obligations, I was to head back to the main battlefield room and go through a fairly standard set of warm-ups with my Pokémon. Then, we were to run laps until Cee arrived, and that was when the day’s training got more complicated from there. He would plan for a specific task or activity for us to do each day, and not one was ever planned to be repeated in the days that we trained here.

  On one day, he had us step into another room that contained an obstacle course, and we were to try to get the best time possible. On another day, he had us enter a makeshift tournament where our only battles were one-on-ones against ourselves. We had to run laps until we passed out, or we had to spend hours solving brain teasers. At one point, he even brought in these massive blocks of concrete and told us to make “art” out of them.

  When that happened, Valiant and Liepard failed to cut through the stone, and Rotom’s electricity did absolutely nothing. However, Metang and Golurk were adept at crushing the material, so instead of making individual pieces of “artwork,” we chose to work together, reducing all of the stone to rubble and attempting to make pebble-based snowmen.

  It didn’t work out.

  But when Cee re-entered that room hours later, having finished whatever it was he was doing elsewhere on the floor, he took one look at our ugly-looking creation and nodded in approval.

  Apparently, even that little bit was a success.

  ...I had no idea what he thought we were getting out of it.

  But each night, once we’d rested after whatever strange “training” Cee had put us through, we’d head directly to Black Tower. After all, we had floors to climb and a goal to reach.

  The battles weren’t easy—but they weren’t necessarily difficult yet, either. The trainers here had all either earned all eight of their badges or neared the end of their journeys, and my team had already been competing in matches above that level.

  We made steady progress and climbed the floors. Although, I will admit that I wasn’t sure if our ongoing success came from Cee’s forced practice or just because we were getting experience from throwing ourselves into so many different battles.

  Either way, climbing the floors was not as simple as just winning battles and finding the exit. Cee did not want us to “merely” fight our way up, and he would often put limitations on how we tackled the tower, putting our decision-making process to the test.

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  We would be told to “only use special moves,” or “only use physical moves,” or even to “not use any directly attacking moves until three status moves have been used, first.” However, those limitations tended to be minor at best and were more of a way to make us think about battles in different ways. After all, the times in which my team and I climbed the tower were the only times that we could work on testing new strategies and trying to develop new moves.

  There were some successes. Some failures. But we did climb.

  And then, there was my personal training. Whenever my team was at rest before we’d leave, Cee had me visit his office to observe whatever it was that he was working on that day.

  “Do you understand the reasoning behind why I want you to be present for my work?” Cee asked one day, wearing goggles over his mask while soldering some kind of wild Pokémon monitoring device.

  “To get a better understanding of how all of this works?” I answered, standing off to the side and watching the process with my own set of darkened goggles.

  “But do you know why I want you to get that understanding?” he asked.

  When I didn’t answer, Cee sighed and leaned back, temporarily pulling away from that half-assembled device to better look me in the eye.

  My understanding was that while Cee was technically employed, he primarily worked on "commission," needing to fulfill and complete certain projects for some kind of patron.

  It was all surprisingly mundane. His own, daily tasks often involved the creation of electrical devices built through his labor alone.

  “Nicholas,” Cee said, watching me carefully, “I want you to learn. Specifically, I want you to learn both this knowledge and how to apply it. Your team leans toward the artificial and electrical, therefore a sufficient understanding of technology itself will also apply to your Pokémon.”

  Being aware of the limits and capabilities of mechanical devices meant I could be that much more aware of just what Rotom’s possessed machine could do. And, for a Steel-type like Metang, and for a metal-wrought Pokémon like Valiant, being aware of the maximal stress that certain materials could take without damage meant that I could better estimate what moves they could sustain in battle.

  Cee wanted me to know the greatest possible rotation of common robotic joints, and he wanted me to know the electrical resistances of a variety of materials. He wanted me to understand how easily or difficult certain surfaces could be cut through, severed, and crushed, as well as how, exactly, rechargeable batteries functioned.

  He was right that my team carried a shared theming, and even Liepard could benefit from this knowledge, as, after being enhanced by moves, his claws were halfway between Metang’s metal claws and Valiant’s crystal blades. As a trainer, I couldn’t just be knowledgeable about Pokémon. According to Cee, I needed a general baseline, and that baseline would inform my decisions and strategies once my team and I moved on and away from Black City.

  In all honesty, it was like I was being shoved through a college course, one filled with information that specifically related to my team.

  So I learned. And my team trained. And we continued to climb. I could actually see the developments that were beginning on my team. We were training new and old moves that would set up opponents without needing to directly rely on risky attacks. Then, there were new and improved attacks that could be better paired with the strategies that were slowly forming in my mind.

  Also—

  The move Protect.

  Everyone learned it.

  That development only took a single, mass-produced, easily-accessible, reusable TM.

  We needed this training and practice if we were to actually get anywhere close to the Master Rank, and I needed this training just for my own growth, as well.

  Slowly, as my team grew, I also grew to understand. There were patterns to battles. Raw strength could never be everything. This was a necessary step on our way to the top, but that was the thing about it:

  We were still on our way to the top.

  A week and a half passed in what felt like the blink of an eye. Eleven straight days of training—eleven out of the twenty-eight or so that we had with our limited time. Somehow, we made it to floor twenty-one, an impressive floor to get to so quickly, but it was also not a floor that represented us moving fast enough. Still, that achievement did serve as proof that my team was improving, and every day that we went to bed exhausted was another day that marked our increasing growth.

  But not every moment of this training was intense. We had our periods of downtime, and after reaching that floor, I found myself sitting on the very top of the building that Cee’s floor was located within. We’d just gotten back after our most recent climb, so my entire team, save for Valiant, was resting in their Pokéballs.

  Up here, I let my legs dangle—not off the edge of the building, but off the edge of a smaller, slightly higher-up roof that covered a door that connected to the interior of the building.

  So high up, I could not see the ground, but I could see almost the entirety of Black City as well as the dense forest that encircled and stretched out past it. The wind blew around me, and the sun’s rays were turning the sky purple and orange. Although we had just completed floor twenty-one, today was probably one of the earliest days we’d had so far, and I appreciated it.

  This was the first time that I could sit back and properly enjoy the view.

  But as I sat there, just appreciating the sight as well as this moment of rest, the door beneath me opened with a creak. From within it, a dark hood popped out and looked around the landing before laying eyes on where Valiant was standing off to the side and then looking up.

  “Ah. There you are,” Cee said.

  I watched the masked man step around Valiant to climb a short ladder and deposit himself next to me.

  “Drink?” he offered, holding a clear bottle out toward me. “It’s merely a Soda Pop. I prefer not to imbibe drinks that pollute the mind.”

  “Sure,” I said, letting out a slight chuckle as I took the offered bottle. With the cap popped off, the cold liquid entered my throat with a satisfying fizz.

  As I took that sip, I didn’t miss how Cee had brought two drinks and only two drinks. Although he was quiet when he sat down and acted with a level of casualness, I was pretty sure he had come here just to talk with me—likely, to use this moment to acquire another point of data for his research.

  But I didn’t hold that against him. I was more than used to his approach at this point, and I could appreciate the dedication he had for his work.

  “It’s nice out here, isn’t it?” Cee asked. “I don’t get a moment of reprieve like this very often.”

  “Honestly, this is why I like traveling,” I said, leaning back so I could better stare up at the sky. “I like exploring. I like to travel because I get to see and experience views like these.”

  Cee nodded with a hum.

  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye—he was holding a drink, but he was still wearing his mask. It hit me then that if he was going to take a sip, he’d have to take that mask off, and that meant I’d finally get a good look at his face.

  I tried to hide how I stared, but he made no move to take a sip of his drink. Instead, he chose to sit there silently, staring out at the horizon at my side.

  “Since we're out here,” Cee suddenly started, rotating his hand to swish his soda, “might I take this opportunity to ask you a question?”

  When I nodded, letting out a slight chuckle at the expected comment, he went on to ask what was on his mind.

  “I am rather curious to know just why you’ve been willing to go along with this training for so long,” he said. “I’ve tried to test my hypotheses in a similar way before, but no trainer I attempted to tutor was willing to work with me for longer than a few days.

  “Wait, really?” I blurted out, sitting up. “I’m not the first?”

  “No,” he answered. “Or, well, you are in a way. You are the first trainer that I’ve invited outright.”

  “Huh,” came my reply.

  “Before now, I’ve only had... volunteers that wanted to become strong, but they weren’t willing to put in the appropriate effort. Almost all of them seemed to think that just showing up would be enough to turn them into an elite. It was as if they thought I would personally train their teams on their behalf.”

  I was quiet, and Cee continued to stare out, but his gaze was no longer on the horizon.

  “It was a matter of conflicting perspectives,” he mumbled, but he then seemed to focus and snap out of those lingering thoughts. “I will admit, however, that I did see some success, but my effort there was ultimately deemed a waste. What I’m doing with you is more of a... personal project that I’m working on in my downtime. As you have seen, my work can be demanding, so it’s been satisfying to achieve multiple successes at once within the same location.”

  Then, his eyes flicked over to me.

  “But that does bring me back to my question,” Cee said. “Nicholas, I would like to know: why are you so motivated to keep working here with me?”

  Properly sitting up, I once again found myself letting out a slight chuckle at Cee’s question. He really wanted to use this moment to gather more data, but I was willing to answer.

  Even as tired as I was from today, I knew I could get a good night’s rest no matter what, and Cee had been a massive help. Even if he hadn't been an expert, an outside perspective could be everything, and with the improvements I was seeing, the least I could do was provide him with the information he wanted about me.

  “I think... Well, I’m probably in a similar situation as you,” I admitted. “I want to follow my interests without any baggage. I want to be able to explore the world without anything holding me down, and I want the complete freedom to go anywhere, to see everywhere, and to face any challenge that comes our way.”

  “So you believe that you need strength to achieve that,” Cee said.

  “No,” I said, answering quietly. “It’s more that... It’s more that I need strength to prove that I can achieve that. Overall, it’s complicated.”

  Letting out a soft sigh, I briefly wished that this bottle contained more than just soda.

  “Anyway,” I said, looking over. “Since we’re doing questions, do you mind if I ask why you first challenged me?”

  As I watched him, I could see no sign of Cee’s expression changing behind his mask, but he did go quiet for a short while. Without saying anything for a little bit, he stared at the ground of this building’s roof, and I could tell that he had once again found himself in deep thought after so carefully listening in.

  “You were one of many,” he eventually admitted. “I keep a list of interesting trainers. Although not publicly advertised, with enough research, it’s easy to learn that you are a trainer sponsored by a region’s Champion. I desired to face you and understand what allowed you to achieve that sponsorship. Thus, I hunted you down.”

  “...So that’s another thing I only have because of her,” I said with a sigh. “But I can give myself some credit for this, at least. I was the one to negotiate with her, after all. But... Ah, I shouldn’t complain. Some people would kill to be in my position—”

  “It takes a lot more than that to drive a man to murder,” Cee interjected.

  “But I—” I had to take a moment to ignore what he’d just said, “I don’t know. I’m definitely a bit selfish. Like, I basically accepted a deal that’d give me whatever I wanted, and now, because the person I made a deal with wants something in return, I’m unhappy? I mean, this is basically a job, at least in that she scratches my back, and I scratch hers, but it’s the way that she’s been treating this. She keeps it subtle, but sometimes, it’s like she thinks I’m going to be the second coming of Red or something like that.”

  Cee looked at me, still clearly deep in thought.

  I took another sip of my soda.

  “I think,” I continued, “it really is just that expectation that’s been motivating me. Not because I want to live up to it, but because I want to prove her wrong. I’ve made a promise to myself—I will be the strong trainer that she thinks I’ll be, but I refuse to be some kind of ‘pocket hero’ for her when I’m really just a random guy.”

  “You were given a task?” Cee suddenly asked.

  I’d already forgotten that I’d brought that up.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. Recruitment, mostly,” I said. “Basically, Geeta wants strong trainers to fill some empty roles over in Paldea.”

  But I had time to fulfill that. It wasn’t something I had to do right away—with the World Coronation Series occupying people, she only wanted suggestions and recommendations to bring trainers in after the season.

  And when it came to being a hero, I’d already done more than enough for that, too. I’d warned Kyurem, which massively limited how much trouble could happen in Unova, and I was on deck to return the Lunar Feather to Cresselia.

  ...Which was probably something I’d need to do research into once I headed out from Black City.

  “Anyway, just to give you a more specific answer to your question, I guess I’m being fueled by spite, even as awful as that sounds,” I said merrily. “I’m motivated because there’s a future I want to reach that’s my own future, and I’m working to achieve that future for myself instead of whatever future my boss thinks she has planned for me.”

  As I said that, I felt my smile turn genuine. Honestly, I tried not to focus on the tasks hanging over my head because I didn’t want those obligations keeping me down. But as I spoke that idea outloud, something about it was lightening.

  Verbalizing the thought somehow made it feel that much more achievable.

  And much to my surprise, after a few seconds of silence, Cee laughed—he genuinely laughed. Not at any naivety behind my thoughts, but out of what had to be clear amusement.

  “Incredible, Nicholas,” he said, adjusting how his mask sat on his face. “To my surprise, I find that I completely understand your feelings. We are much more aligned than I had first thought.”

  “Cheers, then?” I asked, holding out the bottle. “Cheers to our best future?”

  “I’ll take you up on that,” Cee said, clinking his bottle against mine. “Cheers, Nicholas.”

  “Just call me Nick.”

  I smiled at Cee as we drew our bottles back, and I took another sip of my drink. However, my heart started to race when I noticed something:

  Moving around, Cee brought up a hand to his chin as if he was about to remove his mask.

  I purposefully acted as if I wasn’t interested, but I was unable to look away from Cee out of the corner of my eye. Even below, Valiant was paying attention. Their display showed their eyes directly pointed forward, but they had tilted their head back so that Cee remained perfectly in view.

  Slowly, a hand twisted, and, slowly, Cee’s mask shifted.

  But nothing happened more than that.

  Instead, Cee simply brought out a red-striped straw from his pocket to sip at his drink from under his mask. He did so so casually that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.

  It took him several moments before he noticed me staring.

  “What is it, Nick?”

  And with his confused look, I could no longer help it. The way he was drinking was ridiculous. I let out an easy laugh.

  We lingered out there for a short while, but I soon retired. The sun had set, but we were still pushing.

  After all, we were only eleven days in. I still had seventeen days left until the deadline of our training.

  A few more days passed after that. My team and I continued to push ourselves. Black Tower itself also continued to be climbed, and we achieved the greatest success that we’d had in a while:

  My team and I cleared the twenty-fifth floor within only two weeks.

  In a literal sense, we were on track for our goal, but the final floors were going to be ten times harder than the rest. Still, getting through half the tower in half the allotted time was a victory, and I felt that my team deserved some time to celebrate.

  Apparently, Cee thought the same.

  “Greetings, Nick!” Cee all but shouted, waiting for me outside his office when I woke up the next day. “We will be taking a break for today’s training! I have decided that we will be going on a team-building exercise!”

  “Aren’t you... employed?” I asked, walking up to him. “Don’t you work to do for your... patron?”

  “Please,” Cee said dismissively. “As long as I achieve the expected results, he is fine with me disappearing for a day or two. I have already made great strides toward success, so I can afford to allow my assistants to work on our projects without me!”

  I didn't know he had assistants.

  Still, this sudden cheeriness was much different than usual, and I found myself easily going along with him.

  “What’s the plan, then?” I asked.

  “Today, we will be undergoing a different kind of practice—I have found us a task to do,” Cee said. “I’ve already accepted it via the Pokémon Center’s website, as I have located us a job that requires entry into the other half of this settlement!”

  Before I could ask what he meant, Cee cast his gaze to the room’s window, and I followed his eyes. There, Black Tower sat prominently on the skyline, but Cee wasn’t looking at that.

  Instead, his gaze went far past it, staring out at where I knew enormous trees surrounded Black City.

  “There’s a location that needs our help, so today, we’ll be helping it,” he said. “This is practice, just the same. To ensure that you have the widest possible variety of experience, we will be leaving this concrete jungle to dive into the depths of White Forest!”

  "Nick," he continued, "I do hope you'll be prepared."

  I watched the trailer for the new Pokémon game, and I am probably one of the only people in the world who got really excited when Lumineon appeared.

  Pokémon mentioned in this chapter:

  Sandslash (Alolan)

  Nick’s Team:

  Current Placement: Great Rank

  (Note: Low-level moves have been omitted.)

  Iron Valiant (Valiant) (Fairy / Fighting type, Genderless, Serious Nature, +-n/a)

  Abilities: Quark Drive

  Moves: Fury Cutter, Feint, Dazzling Gleam, Psycho Cut, Night Slash, Close Combat, Shadow Claw, Electric Terrain, Protect

  Rotom (Electric / Variable type, Genderless (Male), Quirky Nature, +-n/a)

  Available Forms*: Default (Ghost type), Fan (Flying type), Wash (Water type), Mow (Grass type)

  Abilities: Levitate

  Moves: Charge, Thunder Wave, Discharge, Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Electric Terrain, Protect, Variable*

  Variable Form Moves*: Air Slash (Fan), Hydro Pump (Wash), Leaf Storm (Mow)

  Liepard (Dark type, Male, Naughty Nature, +Atk/-SpD)

  Abilities: Limber, Prankster

  Moves: Assist, Snarl, Fake Out, Bite, Torment, Hone Claws, Slash, Taunt, Night Slash, Shadow Claw, Psycho Cut, Encore, Foul Play, Protect

  (Steel / Psychic type, Genderless (Male), Adamant Nature, +Atk/-SpA)

  Pokéball: Ultra Ball

  Abilities: Clear Body

  Moves: Take Down, Metal Claw, Confusion, Zen Headbutt, Magnet Rise, Iron Head, Protect

  (Ground / Ghost type, Genderless, Brave Nature, +Atk/-Spe)

  Pokéball: Ultra Ball

  Abilities: Klutz

  Moves: Pound, Astonish, Defense Curl, Mud-Slap, Shadow Punch, Iron Defense, Magnitude, Heavy Slam, Protect

  enormous thank you to everyone reading! Your support keeps this story going.