"Gastly, dodge to the right then finish it with Clear smog!"
In the outskirts of Redwood Forest, A lone Gastly could be seen moving nimbly between 2 Rattata, its form flickering like a living shadow.
A skinny boy stood a short distance away, wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans. His sharp brown eyes were locked into the fight, focussed.
The Rattata lunged together, but Gastly passed through them, and released a dense wave of smog.
Both Rattata has already taken a lot of damage and passed out after getting hit by this smog.
"Good job Gastly. Your clear smog has gotten much faster and stronger than before."
"Keke"
Gastly laughed proudly hearing Eric's words.
The duo had been training in the forest for almost half a day like madmen. And the results spoke for themselves.
Gastly had reached level 8!
His move mastery also improved significantly. Clear smog now took only 1.4 Seconds to form, and spread rapidly, making it difficult to dodge.
Most pokemon near Gastly's level could not take many hits from him. His Deep Blue potential showed its use, as Gastly clearly surpassed everyone at his level.
Eric was satisfied with Gastly's progress. But that wasn't the only thing he gained today. He also gained a deeper understanding about how types worked in thus world.
Types were a form of energy systems. And all 18 types of energy were present in the environment at the same time. Only a Pokemon could sense them, and some forms of energy were more dominant based on location. This Eric theorised after communicating with Gastly. As the day got darker, Gastly could feel more Ghost type energy in the environment.
This also further increased his understanding on how certain moves worked.
Moves like Tail Whip, for example, were not just a Pokémon wagging its tail and acting cute. The Pokémon instead used Normal type energy in a special way, that influenced and disrupted the opponent's focus.
It still wasn't anything impressive, however. After fighting a few Rattata's for example, Gastly learned to resist and ignore this influence, making it ineffective.
Now we come to Eric's main discovery.
Gastly absorbs ghost and poison type energy instinctively from the environment, and this energy strengthens him overtime.
Eric wanted to do an experiment, and asked Gastly to focus and consciously absorb the energy to his limit, till it starts getting painful. He then asked him to hold it for as long as he can, and then slowly release the excess. After repeating this process again, Eric found out that Gastly's capacity to hold Ghost type energy increased.
After a few more tests, Eric understood how he should go about training Gastly.
In essence, energy training can be divided into 3 parts.
Capacity, Density/Weight, and Control.
Capacity is how much energy a Pokemon can hold.
Density is how dense or heavy each unit of that energy is. The denser it is, the higher the quality and purity of that energy, which would impact how strong it is.
Control is how well a Pokemon can control this energy inside him. If the energy is of a higher quality than the Pokemon can handle, they'll have trouble using it properly.
Gastly's current training schedule is as follows:
He needs to absorb Ghost and Poison type energy to his limit, hold it for a few seconds, and then compress and refine himself with that energy, making his own energy denser and of higher quality than before. Next, he needs to learn to control this denser energy till he can do it as naturally as breathing.
They did this training for a few hours. In those, Eric noticed that Gastly is far more talented with Ghost type energy than Poison type.
This training coupled with many battles raised Gastly to Lvl 8, which brings us back to the present.
Eric plans to go and collect a few Oran berries before he heads back. While there, he encounters a Group of Spearow! Most Spearow's weren't much, but one caught his attention.
Pokemon: Spearow
Gender: Female
Level: 8
Potential: Deep Yellow
Moves: peck, growl, leer, pursuit, feint attack
This was the first Yellow potential pokemon Eric saw till now. While it was still ordinary and below the standards Eric set for himself, Eric still decided to catch it.
He desperately needed a second Pokémon. Because whenever Gastly is fighting, Eric is completely defenseless. This was very dangerous. Atleast this Spearow has a Deep Yellow potential, much better than the grey/orange potential pokemon he's found till now.
Having made up his mind, Eric observed this group. There were 7 Spearow in total, most of them ranging between Lvl 5 and 6.
"Gastly, we have the first mover advantage. I want you to concentrate and use the strongest clear smog you can."
Gastly took extra time to prepare this clear smog and then unleashed it on the spearows. It got the leader, alongside 4 others near her.
The power of this attack was no joke as it took down 2 Spearow, and left the others severely wounded. Only the leader managed to come out a little better.
Without wasting a beat, Gastly immediately went after the 2 wounded Spearow
"Gastly, use Clear smog on the right one, and then dodge the attack from the left one."
Gastly knocked down the one on the right in one hit, and just as Eric predicted, the one on the left took the chance to attack Gastly with peck. Flying type energy appeared on its beak as it dove towards Gastly.
Unfortunately for him, Gastly was much faster and easily dodged the attack.
"Clear smog. Take him out."
By the time the spearow stopped its momentum to change directions, it was hit by Gastly at close range, Ko'ing it instantly.
All this happened in a few seconds, not giving the other Spearow any time to counter attack.
4 down, 3 to go.
The three remaining Spearow flew and surrounded Gastly from 3 different directions, looking angrily at him.
"Kekeke" Gastly just laughed and stared back at them wickedly.