A quick trip across the street brings us back to the Battle Park, which is currently in use by a pair of trainers. One is making use of a squid-like pokémon with a leering mask I’ve never seen before, and the other has a Charmeleon. I’m not sure how the fight’s going, but the masked pokémon is fairly agile.

I find a separate field for the three of us and I call out my pokémon. “So the purpose of this is to just theorize strategies and try them out. The Pokémon Center looked a bit busy, so I’m gonna say practicing on each other’s pokémon will have to wait.”

With nods, Rarity and Twilight change back to ponies and send out their own pokémon. “Alright, now let’s come up with some tactics. I have some notes on my éTech about Winston’s fighting style we can go over, along with whatever Anthony has to offer from his experience.”

“Well, my tactics usually don’t rely on an opponent doing something, usually it’s a combination of moves that, when used together or sequentially, can give a more interesting result. Move combos like this are legal for use in League battles, but the strategy was coined by coordinators. Not sure what it’s really called, but I call it move-mixing.” I walk up to Geodude. “I actually came up with it when Geodude spun around and splattered the Toxic goop around, but I didn’t want to change tactics in the middle of a fight without practicing it. You ready Geodude?” He nods and gives an affirmative grunt.

“Alright, let’s see you try using Defense Curl and Rock Polish at once.”

He thinks it over for a moment, then grabs the dirt with both hands and gives himself an almighty heave to get spinning, as usual for his Rock Polish. This time though, he tucks his arms in, and puts a substantial divot on the grass and dirt, still spinning in place after a moment of mud-flinging. The smooth, rounded rock-type now had little enough friction to maintain his spin with relative ease.

“Now charge forward like you would with Rollout!” Like a shot, Geodude flies off, as if fired from a cannon. He actually goes much farther than expected, and impacts the concrete side of the moat’s retaining wall. Oops. Between Twilight, Rarity, all of our pokémon, and myself, we manage to extract Geodude before he falls into the water.

I recall him before he starts sinking, then toss him back out on dry land. “That is gonna be brutal! I think I’ll call that... the Spin Dash.” Granted, the real Spin Dash move is faster and less forceful, but it’s relatively the same idea. Geodude, slightly dizzy from the move, takes a moment to reorient himself before being battle ready again. Hmm, takes a lead-up charge time and a recharge afterwards... still, it could be devastating, especially if the stat boosts from the Defense Curl and the Rock Polish take effect.

“So, I have a living cannon ball.” I turn to the ponies next to me. “So what can you guys come up with? Remember, it’s not a bad idea unless your pokémon gets hurt trying.” I think about the recoil-based moves. “And sometimes, not even then. Just remember that these moves can tire out your pokémon quickly if used too frequently.”

Twilight takes some time experimenting with combinations of Powder Snow and Water Gun, while also taking the time to play with her Tyrunt. She seems perfectly at home keeping the rambunctious pokémon from getting out of hand. Maybe she should try for being a Dragon Tamer specifically. It’d be hilarious to explain to Spike, at least.

And while Twilight and I are working with our pokémon, Rarity is actually convincing her two to tussle and ‘fight’ each other, to learn toughness or something. I’m not actually paying much attention, as I’m more focused on making sure Geodude doesn’t clear the Park entirely and hit a house or something; either his aim is terrible, or the Spin Dash technique is ridiculously low-accuracy. I’m really hoping for the first. I can fix that with enough time.

I take a break from Geodude, because he’s starting to look really dizzy now. I move on to my other Pokémon, tossing Carvanha into a nearby pool. I don’t have much to work with on this one, but I can try. I just hope the crazed fish can pay attention long enough to learn something.

Carvanha seems plenty lively, and snaps its jaws at me in what I assume is a greeting at this point. What I should probably work on isn’t actually making it more effective in battle, but rather teaching the damned psychopath not to go for lethal attacks unless situationally required.

“So, we need to teach you a bit of self-control.” it gives me the stink-eye, “Don’t worry, you can still hunt all you want, this is only for battles against pokémon who have owners that would likely call the cops on me. Wild battles are free game. Can we agree on that? No swallowing or extended chewing on other pokémon who have trainers.”

Carvanha rolls its eyes and huffs, blowing a few bubbles as a result. I’m pretty sure if it had arms, they’d be crossed right now.

“Or, you know, you could just get me in trouble and you’d be sent back to the ocean where you had to compete for lunch every day...” This actually gets it to look less pleased. Heh, free lunches have to be worked for around here.

“Yeah well, I doubt you’d have gotten this far on your own. Besides, there are probably some stupid trainers out there who’d try to make you a vegan.” Carvanha makes a disgusted look, and sticks out its tongue to show its thoughts on that subject. Finally, it gives a grudging nod to me.

“Great, we have an agreement. Trainer battles you have to show restraint, but wild battles, you can just go nuts. They’re called free range for a reason, right?” I get a huge, toothy grin from the pokémon, and feel sincerely glad most pokémon don’t seem to instantly think of humans as being on the menu. It usually takes a second or two.

I recall my pokémon and head over to see how Rarity expects to get Feebas to fight. Aside from being nigh incapable of it as a species, this one seems... a little less competitive than most trainers would like.

I get over to where Rarity is applauding something in the moat, and giggling delightedly. And in the water I see... no way.

In the arena’s moat is Feebas, a huge smile on her face as she waggles back and forth on her fins... her tailfin being the only one in the water, with Ledyba balancing on the Feebas’ fish-nose. Both look insanely -and justifiably- proud, and Rarity practically has stars dripping from her eyes.

“Well dang, that’s impressive. Not a whole lot of people can get Feebas to do much more than swim in circles... more like ovals, actually. You might actually get me to believe you will end up a breeder.”

“Well... I kept seeing Feebas move up whenever she would use that ‘splashing’ move, so I tried to see if she could just keep it going, and... this! Isn’t it fabulous?” Rarity grins at me, her entire face brighter.

“It’s great, keep it up and Feebas will show it’s true potential soon enough. And how’s Ledyba doing? I know there’s not much you can do with just Supersonic and Tackle but, who knows, maybe you can come up with something.”

“Well, I took the time to do some research on them, and it seems that they can learn a move called ‘Silver Wind’, both naturally and by tutors or something called a TM, though the information page didn’t say what that was. I was thinking about asking around about finding one.”

“Well, a TM is... hold on a sec.” I decide that if I’m going to explain it to Rarity, I should do it for Twilight at the same time. I don’t like repeating myself much. Once all three of us are rounded up, I begin my explanation. “Technical Machines, or Tee-Ems for short, are these little disks with stored information. Similar to how you can download an application on your éTech, you can use these disks to ‘download’ a move into a Pokémon, teaching them a new move. Each species of Pokémon can learn different moves this way, but a TM will only teach that one move, which has led to trainers collecting them so that if they need to teach their pokémon a move, they can. TMs can also be used to teach Pokémon a move that they would normally learn by leveling up. For example...” I pick up Spheal to demonstrate. “You could train Spheal until he was high enough level to learn Ice Beam on his own, but with a TM for Ice Beam, you could teach it to him instantaneously. And of course, these moves become part of the pokémon’s movepool and can be used whenever you want from that point on.”

Both girls seem impressed. Twilight, of course, has a question first. “How does the disk teach the pokémon the move?” This actually makes me pause, because the only TM I’ve actually seen work is the giant, vacuum-tubes and terrifying projections one in the first pokémon series.

I shrug and give her my answer. “I have no idea. Technology?” This doesn’t satisfy her, and she looks a bit upset, but it’s the only answer I have. “Think of technology to us, as what magic is to you. Anyone can use it, but learning how it works and what it can do takes a lot of studying and expertise on the subject.”

This at least quells Twilight, and I realize I don’t actually know how Tutors teach pokémon moves, either. Do they maybe just have a wide variety of personally-programmed TMs? Or do they physically show the pokémon how to do it? I have no idea.

“So, I’ve only got two pokémon, but I think they’ll just need a bit more experience, then I can give Winston the runaround. I already had a match with Twilight, how about you take your turn now, Rarity?”

“Well, alright. Though I’d honestly prefer to do more work with the wild pokémon. Yours are rather more... ‘rowdy’, I suppose is the right word. And much too strong.”

“Yeah, that’s the difference between wild Pokémon and owned ones. However, after a while, trainers can’t find good competition in the grass, so the only way they can improve is to challenge others.Those people usually sign up for tourneys and such. Get as many trainer battles in as possible, and maybe walk out with a cash prize.”

Twilight seems interested, though Rarity doesn’t. Rarity also looks a bit fidgety. “Tourneys are also different from Gym Battles, despite also being held under League Jurisdiction. Tell me, what would you rather try? Battling a couple trainers and one strong one with a good team each, or a whole slew of trainers one right after the other with pokémon of about equal strength as your own? The main issue is getting a pokémon who can last that long.”

Twilight nods. “Like one of the old Cloudsdale Colosseum matches; two hundred pegasi would go in, and only one would fly out under their own power. The matches were made using whatever that pony could do, short of lethal attacks, which makes it an even more apt comparison. Though, pokémon battles seem more violent; some of the Colosseum matches ended with, ah, inappropriate methods of tiring out opponents.” Twilight says the last part as she looks off in another direction, having completely lost track of the point she was originally trying to make.

“Anyway, if you really don’t want to battle me, I suppose we could look around and see what we can scare up in the grass.”

The two girls nod, collect up their pokémon, and the three of us begin to head out to the fields of grass outside the town, and spread out. It’s a lovely day to battle some pokémon. The only blip was Twirunt staying out of his ball and simply following Twilight, much to her consternation and my amusement. At least I’ll get to actually see some pokémon without an irritable dragon at my side.