"I've just been catching everything I've seen once and keeping the ones that seem attached to me," Dawn says. "So, I've never really thought about type combinations and team compositions and stuff."

Roark hums at that. He reaches into the wall, knocking out some sand to break a Fire Stone out of the crack.

"That's pretty normal for a trainer starting out," Roark says. "I started off like that, too. But it's important to build a balanced team, if only so you can efficiently handle everything that eventually comes your way. It's why the Gym Challenge, which involves conquering as many Pokemon types as possible, is a staple of a new trainer's pilgrimage."

Dawn mulls on that.

She isn't taking the Gym Challenge, but she understood the comparison. Even without that framework, having a variety of Pokemon in its fixed six-per-party format helped trainers to most efficiently learn the strengths of their team, and being able to pick which Pokemon were necessary in a survival trip was step one in becoming a good Pokemon Trainer.

Dawn follows along as Roark leads her around.

"So now, I have a grass type, a psychic type, an electric type, and a normal type," Dawn counts.

"So, how many weaknesses do you have no counter for?" Roark tests.

Dawn needed a moment. "Fire... ice... bug... and ghost?" she asks.

"There's a few more, but I think just going by that, you should think of what Pokemon you could use to overcome at least half of those glaring weaknesses in your team," Roark says. "That's basically how building a balanced team goes. You try to fill as many holes as you can."

Dawn's eyes shine at that. "I see!"

They continue chatting that way, occasionally stopping to dig for things in the wall. Roark's Cranidos and Dawn's Luxio follows along. Cleffa sleeps in Dawn's bag, laying atop the incubator.

"...first I'll need a Water type, and then... a Fighting type? For bug and steel types, maybe I'll need a fire type, too..." she grimaces, "I don't have enough team slots to cover all my weaknesses!"

Roark chuckles at her plight.

Dusting off a part of the wall, he takes up a pickaxe again.

"You know, Dawn, I'll give you a hint," he says. "There's actually one type that can deal with your fire, ice and bug weaknesses, all at once."

Dawn takes a moment. But when she realizes what he was talking about, she lights up immediately, filled with inspiration.

Slowly, Roark unearths a fossil.

He cleans it preciously, holding it out so Dawn could see it.

"You're trying to convert me to the wonders of the mines, aren't you?" Dawn asks, trying to sound appalled but her voice only comes out enthused, especially when Roark puts the fossil in her hand.

Roark barks out a laugh. "I am a Rock-type specialist, after all. Gotta spread that propaganda somehow."

-

Dawn grows addicted to finding type combinations that counter type weaknesses.

"I'll be going, then," Roark says, after they've set up a secret base with tenable conditions that Dawn can safely stay in for the night. "Take care of yourself, and come back up frequently to keep us informed, aye?"

"Aye!" Dawn grins, saluting.

Roark leaves her with a single Machamp Guard, one who will properly make sure she's not over exerting herself, and would even carry her around.

She spends the rest of the day exploring the many Hideaways in Sinnoh's Grand Underground. She keeps an eye out for Doozy, of course, but there was only so much she could do when there weren't any hints.

"Strange," she looks through her Pokedex. She's found a lot of new Pokemon here... but for some odd reason, she hasn't found a single Psyduck anywhere. And that was strange, no matter how you looked at it.

The Fountainspring Caves were the best conditions for Psyducks to be. There were Golducks, too, and definitely plenty of prints and traces of Psyducks having been here recently. And yet, Dawn found zero.

It was as if someone had organized an effort to spirit away every Psyduck in the region.

"But why Psyducks?"

The Pokedex entry mentions their headaches and latent psychic powers. This phenomenon seems to ease once they evolve... so whatever's the plan, it was clearly aiming to utilise those powers somehow.

Rumour has it that Psyducks, at their full potential, could rival Alakazam in scale of their psychic abilities alone. Testing it was considered Pokemon abuse and experimentation a few years back, so extensive utilisation should've been outlawed, though.

But what if?

Turtwig and Luxio distract her from her thoughts, nudging at her arm curiously, wondering what she was thinking about with such prominent displeasure on her face.

-

She sets down the Manaphy Egg on the shelf of her Secret Base.

Roark had helped her, furnishing the large cavern with a big tent, a bed and couch, a closet and a table, and a radio, and of course, the statues and pedestals that they'd found over the day.

There was a carpet laid out for her Turtwig, Luxio, Cleffa and Abra to rest upon. Luxio and Turtwig were the nicest to lean on, so Cleffa and Abra curled between them, enjoying each others' company in their little cuddle pile. Dawn almost wanted to join them.

Machamp closes the door of the secret base, deeming the surroundings safe before coming by to rest as well. It was warm with the energy from the heater.

"Luce and Barry'll probably like this place," she says. She'll have to decorate more. With enough furbishing they could even install plumbing and make this base liveable.

She drops onto the bed that felt too big for her, sighing in exhaustion.

She probably won't be able to sleep, but she can at least rest.

"There's no hints of Doozy down here, so we're going to forget that for a bit," Dawn declares, to the midl surprise of her Pokemon. "Don't worry!" she grins. "My boys have it handled. We should take care of ourselves, instead."

She may not be a fighter like them, at least not in the same way.

But that didn't mean she had to fall behind.

Turtwig was the only one of the three that hadn't evolved yet, and she only had her own complacency as the reasoning for that.

In two week's time, they'll meet again in Lake Valor. Until then...

"Something bad is going to happen soon," she can feel it. "So let's take this opportunity to get as strong as we can."

There's no sense in worrying about something they can't immediately fix. For now, Dawn has to do what she does best, in order to support them.

"I have access to a lot of Pokemon down here," she says. "I'll need to catch more. Luce and Barry need type coverage too, and it's much harder to find as good a variety on the surface."

She's gone through a lot of Hideaways thus far, listing down the Pokemon she could find there and slowly figuring out what types countered which, and how different Pokemon could cover different type weaknesses.

One thing she noticed most was how ice types were difficult to find up on the surface, since they usually congregated far north. So if she took advantage of the many accessible Hideaways in the underground, she'll definitely find something perfect to give Luce and Barry from the Grand Underground.

It's the least she can do as a fellow Pokedex Holder. She's the catching master, after all.

-

-

-

Contrary to his usual nature, Barry had no time to stop and contemplate on how he was going to complete his team. Route 212 was long, arduous, and way too daunting a journey for someone not paying full attention.

"No it's there— wait, what?" he looks through the map again, when Prinplup tugs at his trousers to direct him toward a sign. "Huh. Either that sign's hit off course or the map's wrong, and I don't know which to doubt."

Ponyta and Munchlax were in their Poke ball, refusing to come out after they arrived at the swamplands. Well, it made sense. Prinplup was also scowling, and Staravia would too if Barry didn't plead for it to be their guide.

"No chance of Psyducks around, huh..." Barry frowns.

Even in the sunny areas, there weren't any Psyducks, which was odd in itself. They're supposed to be much more common in Eastern Sinnoh, and yet, they haven't seen a single one in these parts.

He takes a break when the sky darkens into a drizzle. He shelters under a tree, sighing. It'll most likely be like this for a few days until he gets to Pastoria.

"Doozy shouldn't have gone far," Barry says. "Something must've drawn her away. If it's that stupid U-haired commander that took her, then he would've been running Luce's way East.... But even then, I don't know why he would've."

Ideally, he'd have suggested going toward Veilstone, but some of the grunts that nearly escaped ran in this direction, and some that slipped away actually disappeared somewhere this way. Were they just a distraction, or did they have another motive in the swamplands? Barry couldn't be sure.

The lack of Psyduck in the general vicinity unnerved him.

"There's something bigger to this problem," and he's very sure the Galactic goons are responsible for this. But what would they use Psyducks for?

Valley Windworks for electricity, Galactic Eterna building for the nearby history, space-related Pokemon... and a big blank cheque for funding, from Mister Backlot.

And then, Psychic powers from mass amounts of Psyducks? If it's power they want, don't they already have all that electricity from the Windworks? What are they using the Psyduck for?

"Whatever they're planning, it's not alright," Barry says, sighing.

Prinplup nods solemnly. He hasn't been in a good mood since Psyduck disappeared, and Barry can very well guess why.

"Don't worry, buddy," Barry says. "We'll find her soon."

-

All things considered, the marshlands were a unique experience.

Barry sets up a hammock in a shady part of the rainforests, because tents and camps just wouldn't work out. There weren't any other adventurers around, and even if there were, they didn't gather like people usually would in mountains, because the land wasn't broad enough for that kind of congregation.

Prinplup claws open a can of curry while Ponyta and Staravia survey their surroundings.

Barry approaches a little family of Shellos, and crouches down to watch them slowly squirm their way across the marsh. He stares, in mild interest, as they notice him, ignore him, and move on.

For some reason, they were blue and much more swirly in body shape, compared to what he's used to seeing.

He rubs his eyes, blinks very hard, and looks again.

Last he'd heard, his colour blindness didn't extend to hallucinations.

Finally, he takes out his Pokedex, but it doesn't say anything— ah, there it is. For some reason, the Pokedex glitched, and it took a few more presses to get far enough. East and West Sea, adaptational changes due to environmental influences. There's a shiny indicator as well, but Barry spends a long moment squinting and quickly gives up any hope of ever discovering which one it would be.

"General," he calls his Ponyta, "you have any idea which of these blue thingies would be shiny? They all look the same to me."

Ponyta looks confused as well.

"Hey c'mon now, General."

Ponyta persistently shakes his head in denial.

"Okay, if you don't know either, then I definitely don't," he sighs, leaning into his hand, watching as the family of slugs meanders slowly from one end of the marsh to the other.

It's about three full minutes later that Barry stands up, steps toward the Shellos, and casually picks one up, to the spinning horror of his own Pokemon.

Barry stares at the struggling Shellos, that's now trying to squirm its way out of Barry's hands whilst biting him, and nods sagely.

"I don't need a water type, but you're blue," he murmurs, turning to his Pokemon, who are all still flabbergasted that he'd just grabbed a wild Pokemon out of nowhere. "Do you guys think Dawn would want a blue slug?"

-

The Shellos is screeching and struggling, along with the rest of its family, until Barry serves them a meal of at least ten different cans of curry and stew.

After being sated, they seemingly very blissfully bid their little sister goodbye on her new journey with this strange new trainer, and somehow, Barry now has a Shellos.

"I have a feeling that getting a Pokemon to like you isn't supposed to be this easy," Barry says, a little miffed. He breaks a dry poffin and feeds it to Shellos by hand, watching as it continues to engorge on food, super pleased.

With this thing and Munchlax on the same team, Barry is in for a very rough ride of food expenses.

"I'm sending you to Dawn as soon as I get to a Pokemon Center," he says. When it sulks, he insists, "she's got food too, geez!"

And Shellos brightens immediately.

"Wow, your loyalty to me is incredibly weak!"

-

It's a restless sleep later that Barry wakes up, realizing that if any of them had been just a little less fortunate at any point of their journey, they'd be sporting worse injuries than sprains and concussions.

A Croagunk in the distance, a sun barely risen.

If Togepi hadn't hatched for Luce, he'd have most likely died. If Dawn hadn't conveniently shown up, Barry wouldn't be here, either.

He signs, covering his eyes with his hands, leaning back down, ignoring the cold sweat that's soaking up the back of his neck. He doesn't take off his scarf, he doesn't respond when Prinplup, who had roused, came by to ascertain his distress.

He just takes a moment, in the early hours of the morning, to be in silence.

"...we don't always have to fight like Luce has to," he says.

Luce's battle style mostly consisted of capitalising the Pokemon's own ability to improvise, after all.

"Let's try fighting like a normal, verbal trainer for once."

This isn't to say that Luce's methods are less strategically viable, not at all.

But Barry, unlike Luce, is open to other options that also have potential to grow. And until he breakes those self-imposed barriers, he'll never be strong enough for anything.

It's not like he doesn't want to be a reckless daredevil like Luce. He's just well aware of his limits, and he's learned the consequences of crossing those borders the hard way.

(Memories of a Crobat and two cornered children come to mind.)

Luce hadn't learned from that incident, though. Luce was stronger like that. Or maybe he was just so much stupider.

Maybe Barry's just a coward, in the end. He's just so much louder to pretend he's got more than he's ever able to bring to the table.

He sighs deeply when Ponyta pokes him in the shoulder with a fiery snout. Munchlax's trying to climb into his hammock to no avail, and Prinplup was having a hard time trying to offset that weight, doing all he can to ensure the hammock doesn't flip over with Barry still on it. Staravia lands on his stomach, and Barry mildly wonders if they were trying to console him.

Prinplup finally has enough and lets go.

Munchlax drags Barry down in a startled weight imbalance. The hammock swings, springs over and flips— Barry has a moment to see his life flash before his eyes until he's thrown off, plunging facefirst into thick, swampy mud, Munchlax on top of his back.

He bolts upright. "BRATS!"