Reiji found a small river and set up camp beside it. There were plenty of Trainers camping in the area, and since he disliked crowded places, he deliberately picked a remote patch of forest where no one else was around.
After pitching the tent and making dinner, he ate with his Pokémon, then recalled Toxicroak, Marshtomp, and the others into their Poké Balls.
They were getting close to Indigo Stadium, and the roads were packed with Trainers heading for the tournament, along with people going to watch. For the next while, Toxicroak and the others would have to stay inside their Poké Balls. It was rough on them, but there was no helping it.
Darkrai was not here either, so they could not even train or play inside dreams. That option was gone too.
The tournament would be over in ten days. Once they returned to the Orange Archipelago, Toxicroak and the others would be able to move around again. Until then, he would have to handle their dinners indoors.
As the sunset slowly sank behind the trees, Reiji took out the held items he had gotten from Riku. Thankfully, that batch had been in his backpack. Gengar still showed no sign of waking up, and a lot of his other things were stuck with it for now. He could only deal with those once Gengar was awake.
First came the Mystic Water. He only had one quasi–Elite Four-tier Mystic Water, so that naturally went to Poliwhirl.
He removed the Mystic Water he had bought at the Kinnow Island black market from Poliwhirl's arm and gave it to Kingler instead. Kingler's old Mystic Water had come from a Pokémon hunter, and it wasn't good. He could get rid of it later when he had time.
After that, he gave Pelipper and Gyarados, his other two Water-type Pokémon, Advanced-tier Mystic Water pieces. Both were over level fifty.
Pelipper hung the Mystic Water around its neck and tucked it into its thick feathers. From the outside, it was almost impossible to tell it was holding anything.
Gyarados, on the other hand, wanted its Mystic Water placed in its mouth. Reiji tossed it in, and Gyarados hid it under its tongue. He still warned Gyarados not to lose it. If it accidentally swallowed the thing, then it had better pass it out and swallow it again.
Once all four Water-types had their items, Reiji pulled out a quasi–Elite Four-tier Hard Stone and tossed it to Hanhan. He reminded Hanhan that this one was not food and absolutely could not be eaten, but Hanhan still could not resist sticking out its tongue for a lick.
Reiji was left speechless. In the end, Hanhan still held it in its mouth. Who knew how long it could resist eating it? Even if it did, that was fine too. The stone would still become part of Hanhan's strength.
Scyther received an Advanced-tier batch of Silver Powder, also above level fifty. After all the black market raids Reiji had pulled off, he had kept several portions of Silver Powder, and now they finally had a use.
Silver Powder was different from most held items. It had to be applied to Scyther's scythes before it worked, which meant it wore down faster than other items. After enough use, it would be gone. It was an item with a very high consumption rate.
That left Forretress and Accelgor.
Because of Accelgor's Ability, Reiji did not plan to give it a normal held item. Even if he did, Accelgor would throw it away the moment it needed speed, so there was no point. A Berry was enough.
When it wanted speed, it could eat the Berry, restore its condition, and activate its setup. When it did not need speed, it could simply keep holding the Berry.
Forretress was harder to equip. Its same-type items, Silver Powder and Metal Coat, were not worth using. Both had to be spread over the body, and Forretress would wear them off after spinning around a few times in battle. The waste would be even worse than with Scyther.
Reiji decided to give Forretress a Float Stone instead, pushing its speed even further. Forretress's base weight was roughly two hundred and eighty kilograms. With a Float Stone, that would be cut to one hundred and forty. After using Autotomize and shedding another hundred kilograms, it would be left at only forty.
Forty kilograms, with speed stacking higher and higher. That was more than enough.
Forretress had three main battle routes.
The first was Iron Defense, Defense Curl, and Rollout, or possibly Gyro Ball.
The second was Iron Defense plus Counter. The idea was simple. Against opponents at the same level, Forretress could usually reflect physical damage. The only pity was that Forretress could not learn Mirror Coat. If it could, it would have an answer for special attacks too.
The third was hazard support and hazard clearing. Forretress already knew Spikes and Toxic Spikes. Once it learned Stealth Rock, it would have all three major hazards.
Reiji had Forretress swallow the Float Stone and hide it inside its body. With that, all of his main Pokémon had held items.
He did not bother with Butterfree and the other support Pokémon. During the group stage, most opponents would be around Elite-tier anyway, and held item bonuses would not decide much. The real contest would be tactics, command, and information gathering.
If he ran into an Advanced-tier Pokémon and the support team could not handle it, he could switch in someone else. His main team all had items now.
Accelgor was the special case. The Berry he prepared for it would be one that removed a status condition, but it could only carry one at a time, so he would choose before each match. His first preference was a Rawst Berry to cure burns.
After all, Accelgor was a Bug-type. Any Trainer who understood type matchups would consider Fire-type attacks against it. If the opponent was Darkrai, then he would switch to a Chesto Berry for sleep instead.
The Berry choice was not fixed. If the opponent had a lot of Electric-types, Accelgor would carry a Cheri Berry to cure paralysis. Everything depended on the opposing lineup.
Besides the Berry, Accelgor also needed to learn Rain Dance so it could pair the rain with Hydration and clear status conditions.
There were also Yawn and Substitute. One could put an opponent to sleep, while the other could let Accelgor escape when it had no clean way out. Both were excellent moves.
But with so little time left, Accelgor could only focus on Rain Dance. There was only enough time to learn one move.
Fortunately, Accelgor had spent a lot of time messing around with Scyther, Spinarak, and the others. It had already picked up Double Team and Toxic, which gave it more ways to evade and harass opponents in battle.
Accelgor was fast, but Reiji was not naive enough to think speed alone meant no one could hit it.
There were plenty of ways to deal with speed. Rock Tomb, which he used often himself, was one example. Wide-area moves that covered the whole battlefield could also limit it, and Speed Swap was another direct counter.
More ways to stay alive meant Accelgor could keep moving longer, and the longer it kept moving, the better its chances of wearing the opponent down from a distance.
With the time they had, Double Team would have to be enough for now. Substitute could wait. For the next stretch, Accelgor would focus on Rain Dance. Most of Reiji's Pokémon already knew the move, so it had plenty of examples to learn from.
That reminded him of Hanhan. It had eaten Float Stones for so long that Reiji wanted to know whether they had actually done anything, so he had Hanhan step onto a scale.
The moment Hanhan climbed on, Reiji saw that it still weighed ninety kilograms. It had eaten six Float Stones already, and yet it was still a fat little guy. Two Float Stones only seemed to shave off ten kilograms.
Eating Float Stones and holding one clearly had very different effects. If he wanted Hanhan to reach the same halving effect—down to sixty kilograms—it would need to eat at least twelve Float Stones in total.
That would have to come slowly. For battle, it was already enough.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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