History lessons

"Double Team, Balto!" Vali commanded as she stood across from Steven on the battlefield.

Vali had finally gotten down to having Pikachu teach her other pokemon Double Team. To help perfect it and smooth out her skills, she had asked Steven for a few battles. Steven had agreed and here they were. Currently, they were facing against Steven's partner, his shiny Metagross, and Balto was doing fairly well against the older pokemon. Balto barked as copies of himself began to form around him and she was glad to see that they were forming within a few seconds of each other rather than every five seconds. With any luck, Balto would have the move down pat before their battle with Koga in a week and a half. Steven called out, "Not bad, he's getting faster. Metagross, let's get rid of the copies with Bullet Punch."

"Keep using Double Team, Balto," Vali commanded as Metagross began destroying the copies.

By continuously using Double Team, Balto was increasing both the speed used to create copies and the amount of copies that could be created during a period of time. It increased the pokemon's ability to to use it's latent psychic-type energy used to create the copies. While the move was considered and marked down as a normal-type move, it wasn't purely a normal-type move as it utilized the pokemon's latent psychic-type abilities in order to fully copy the pokemon as well as form the clones. Every pokemon had the ability to use psychic-type moves, but for some, it was a struggle to learn/use those moves due to lacking the potential. It all came down to how a pokemon utilized the pool of energy within them which is why a pokemon like Magikarp could turn into a Gyarados despite how weak it is during its first evolution. This is where trainers come in, they're supposed to help their pokemon reach their full potential through various methods. Of course, every pokemon had limits especially when it comes to their newest moves.

The copies that Balto was creating were beginning to become see through and fade out of existence after a few seconds. Steven halted the training battle as Balto's latest copy disappeared almost immediately upon appearing, "I think that's enough for Balto."

"Yeah," Vali agreed as Balto flopped onto the ground with a whine, "Got a headache?" She grabbed one of her persim berries earning a groan from Balto, "I know you don't really like these, but it'll help with your headache,"

"A persim berry to help with headaches?" Steven asked as Balto began eating the hard berry.

"Professor Oak's Alakazam told me about it," Vali took out an oran berry which Balto liked a lot better mostly because it wasn't a hard berry, "While they may curse Confusion, they also help relieve headaches in pokemon. It was something Professor Oak learned when observing some Psyduck in the wild. They tend to congregate in large groups in areas with persim bushes. They also do the same with Lum berries come to think of it," She fed the oran berry to Balto and scratched behind his ears, "They don't keep the big blasts of psychic-type energy from happening, but they do help ease the pain their headaches cause,"

"You learn something knew every day," Steven commented with a chuckle, "I'm definitely going to have to remember that,"

Metagross followed after Steven slowly. Despite being resistant to cold, the steel-type was feeling the coming winter a bit keenly while they began adapting. While interesting to witness, it didn't make her feel any less bad for being unable to help Steven's partner. Vali mentally sighed before asking, "By the way Steven, what do you want to do once we're done in Fuchsia? I know that I want to be back in Pallet by Christmas, but what do you want to do?"

Steven blinked at her question before saying, "If you guys will have me, I think that I'll stay with you guys. My father is never home for Christmas and doesn't really expect me to be back."

"I'll need to ask Delia, but I think that she'll probably agree," Vali replied as a plan formed in her mind, "She likes having a full house from what I can tell though there is a chance we'll end up staying with the Oak's since the power can be pretty fickle in Pallet Town during winter especially when it's cold. There is also more room too," She noticed Steven's confused look, "Since the town is pretty small and mostly made of berry farmers outside of Professor Oak's aids, they don't have a big power plant. The power plant is pretty old too since it was built back when the Professor first settled down in Pallet town and no ones really gotten around to renovating it,"

"So sometimes the power cuts out randomly?" Steven asked earning a nod.

"Professor Oak's been meaning to have it renovated, but tends to forget since he's so busy," Vali saw the frown on Steven's face prompting her to say, "Professor Oak is pretty much in charge of Pallet Town since it only really became a town when the professor set up shop. No one really minds since most people have a few electric-types running around to power the houses when it happens," Vali bent down to scratch behind Balto's ears when he finished off both berries, "I mean it can be dangerous sometimes, but Pallet Town still manages to get through the winter,"

"I thought Pallet Town was small, but didn't know it was so new," Steven commented earning a small laugh.

"Most of the residents of Pallet Town would argue that it isn't new since it's technically been around since the first group of Kantoians got access to the ocean from the bay area," Vali grinned at Steven's raised eyebrow, "Delia, Professor Oak, and the other adults from Pallet Town are very proud of how well it's endured through the years despite it's small size," She went back to the plan she was slowly figuring out, "Anyway, I'm trying to figure out how we're going to get to Pallet Town. How good is Claydol at teleporting with multiple beings across a long distance?"

"Not very good since they don't have much experience with it, we could reach Pallet Town within a week of teleporting both to give Claydol some rest and give ourselves some time to recover from being teleported if we left from Fuchsia," Steven said as she took out her pokedex and began trying things down, "While Claydol are good at teleporting themselves, it isn't so easily done with others,"

"With that in mind, we would probably have a month to relax in Pallet town give or take a few days," Vali commented earning a slight nod from Steven, "Which would mean we'd be able to train a bit more extensively while also avoiding some of the worst weather. Of course, I could see if Professor Oak would be willing to lend Alakazam's teleporting services which would mean we'd be there quicker..."

"We could do that," Steven said when she trailed off.

An impish smile spread across her lips, "I have a fun idea."

Steven looked at her curiously as Vali began working out the idea.