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Tristen would find his way out to the academy’s front door and found the group all ready and waiting for him. “Sorry about that.” Tristen said. “I tried to be as fast as I could; oh, uh, Fela, when we get back here, you still got Spewpa’s stuff in my dorm. I don’t know if you want to take it all back or…but I guess we can figure it out when we get back.” Tristen said to her. Soon enough, Tristen and the others managed to get on Squakabilly Taxis, Tristen being grouped with Penny, who apparently wasn’t all that talkative, and Camp, who was about as talkative as the twins…well, at least about manners pertaining to bug type Pokémon anyways. Tristen would end up answering a lot of the questions he had; that no, he never battled Bugsy before, nor has he ever had the opportunity to meet him in person. Though he had to hold back he had the perfect person in tow to introduce him…but it honestly was no interest either. All manner of topics came up from the Bug Pokémon that showed up all over Jhoto to his battle his Bug types were in over the weekend tournament. Bug this and bug that. He was trying to be nice, but man, Camp was a man obsessed.

Cortondo couldn’t have come soon enough. The Squakabilly Taxis landed and the students would be out. And Camp was still having at it. Tristen could only wonder with Camp’s kind of knowledge and fanaticism, he’d also long since made his and Penny’s project evolve as well. Tristen couldn’t help but to sweatdrop a little when Fela called him out for his excessive banter about all things Bug type. Now that he had a moment of peace, Tristen took a look around the town. It was a smaller town it looked, with various villas and stores along the main strip. It also reeked of olives…that was weird. All the same, he was left to wonder Fela’s idea of coming out this way. The Pokémon are allegedly still on the lower end, but what was out here, by chance? Where would they actually go to get Spewpa and Penny’s & Camp’s Scatterbug to some training. Incidentally, another concern was that he was left to wonder if Team Star was going to be an issue out here. Where did they all hang out at and was it close enough to have them be of any bother to this whole group? Sub did seem a little confident that Tristen could enjoy himself right now on this trip, but he wasn’t sure if that was Sub trying to keep Tristen at ease or there was something that Sub knew that Tristen didn’t. He just had to go hoping and trusting in the Snagem leader’s judgment.

“So, where exactly do we go?” Tristen asked no one in particular. It was an honest question, he hadn’t came to this part of Paldea as of yet until now.

So, training out in the olive fields where the Scatterbug and Spewpa could have at it. Then perhaps dinner afterwards. “Fine by me.” Tristen said to Fela. He would follow the bunch through the town, taking in the sights until the main one finally came up, unobscured by any building, signs, and so on. Miles, upon miles, upon miles of olive fields. Well, that would explain why it smelled like olives out here. Though, the size of this place…did one region actually need these many olives? Let alone the entire world? One could probably see these olive fields from orbit without help. Though it left Tristen to wonder…were they sure these Pokémon were able to be battled? A good number of them looked like they were tending to the fields in their own way.

Even if they were, he was starting to scope out what kind of opposition Spewpa and the Scatterbug was going to contend with, let alone Wimpod ultimately. Diglett were probably going to be tough to deal with; though admittedly, probably could have been tougher if they were their Alolan cousins. The Combee were going to probably be a little rough. Tristen personally hoped there wasn’t a Vespiqueen lurking around in these fields somewhere close, otherwise Tristen would have to take measures in his own hands. He wasn’t sure just how prepared the rest of the bunch he was with incase things go pear-shaped. B could probably handle it, and perhaps even Camp, ideally. But what of the rest, he could only wonder. Wimpod isn’t going to care too much about the Mareep that are seemingly roaming around though. Then again, probably none of the bugs would care to, now that he thought about it. Even ignoring the potential electric attacks, those wool coats hold so much electricity that attacking it with a Struggle Bug could let loose an accidental Static discharge and potentially paralyze the bugs-in-training.

On the flipside, at the very least this was going to provide a bit more of a challenge now which could help push the Scatterbug and Spewpa over the edge to their next states. Here’s hoping for the best. As E went up to Tristen and grabbed his arm in excitement, something caught Tristen off guard a little. “Ten Sights of Paldea?” Tristen said, staring back out to the olive fields for a second then back at E. “I think I wasn’t here yet for that lesson. What are the Ten Sights?” he asked E directly, but it was to no one in particular.

Tristen listened in to the explanation of the Ten Sights and found it rather intriguing that Paldea have all these special landmarks about the region. He doesn’t recall Jhoto having anything like that short of maybe the Burnt Tower and the Tin Tower, both of them being in Ecruteak City. Maybe the Whirl Islands? Beyond that? Who knows. Though he is kind of hoping that he gets to see it at some point or another before he ends up leaving the region. Short of the Team Star problem, he was actually liking it here.

Tristen perked up, staring at Camp for a second, then looked over towards the Combee, then back at Camp who was already in hot pursuit of aforementioned Combee. Tristen couldn’t help but to have a sweatdrop over that. This guy was absolutely eccentric about bugs, more than he could have imagined. And after the trip here, he’s already given him credit for a lot. With Camp out of earshot, Tristen looked towards Penny. “I take it that’s why your Scatterbug hasn’t really evolved yet.” Tristen said. Well, one of several things, Tristen thought, but that was probably the main reason. There were a great deal of bugs out south of Mezagoza for instance; a literal treasure trove for a fanatic such as Camp. At this rate, Tristen might need to do Penny a favor, let Galvantula out and ensnare the fanatic in his webs. Then again, maybe not. He’d might like that…

Tristen shook his head of the thought then listened to Fela, expecting him to lead the way. This was probably as good of time as any to bring something up. “Before we go, I think I need to show you what we were working on while you were gone so you can have some sort of idea as to how to take care of Spewpa in battle.” He said, walking around. “The whole idea what we were doing was trying to get Spewpa moving using his targets own power against it. And Spewpa’s best weapon to do that is with his String Shot. Usually you would use it just like any other thing to say slow down the target, but Spewpa isn’t exactly mobile. Here, let me show you. Hey, Spewpa?” He said. “Lets do a quick warm up, alright? Use String Shot. Just like you did to me and my other Pokémon in practice. Or like you did to that trainer’s Makuhita yesterday. Take a shot at me. Show Fela what you can do.” He told Spewpa.

“Ideally, no.” Tristen said to her. “Spewpa might every now and then because…well…Spewpa will be in battle and all and things will be a little crazy, but like I said the idea is to use the opponent’s strength against it.” Tristen said, reaching down and snatching at the String Shot thread, having Spewpa to do what the bug was trained to do and allowed Spewpa to latch on however he saw fit to Tristen. Once Spewpa was nice and latched on, Tristen would further explain. “Its kinda funny how Camp went on earlier talking about the gym leader Bugsy’s battling style with Metapod and Kakuna now that I think about it, because what he was talking about is kinda the same thing what I was teaching Spewpa here over the past couple of days. As you can figure, Spewpa doesn’t exactly have the best means of getting around on its own; its own evolution being more of a hurt than a help in some ways. They’re literally set up to just hang around and try to build up energy to evolve. But unfortunately, that’s slow. We’d be waiting until way past Mr. Jacq’s deadline. With that said, training with String Shot at the very least can help get Spewpa moving around in new ways, and when Pokémon like Spewpa evolve, they come out a lot better for it, just like I’d imagine with Bugsy using Metapods and Kakunas.”

Tristen would reach up and give a couple of pats on Spewpa’s head, a job well done deserved to the bug. “People tend to not think too hot about String Shot too much. It tends to be one of those moves generally forgotten about by a lot of trainers simply because its not something super powerful or even looks all that useful. The problem is that Pokémon needs to have moves like these just as much as their strongest attack because of the benefits they provide, even if they’re not obvious. That goes for both hybrids and Pokémon. Like for example, yea, I could have Mienshao use High Jump Kick and Close Combat all the time, but I end up using other attacks like Fake Out and Force Palm, because they are quicker, a lot more accurate, and the moves themselves provide a lot more needed immediate benefit for Mienshao to use in the moment. String Shot in Spewpa’s case can be its best weapon against a lot of Pokémon. From entangling and slowing Pokémon down to pulling itself in and give a surprise Stun Spore or Struggle Bug, because it’s not like it’s going to be able to do that far away. And who knows what Spewpa can be capable of once it evolves again. The whole trick is that other Pokémon or their trainers if they have them are not really going to want Spewpa to do anything to them and will want to try to break away. String Shot is as tough as it is sticky so unless they can just suddenly burn it off or manage to cut it, they’ll have a hard time. Otherwise, if they try to pull away, or even pull Spewpa in to try to beat it up, Spewpa can counter attack, using his string shots to manuver in to get on its opponent. If they come after Spewpa, just as good. That’s more String Shot that they can get tangled up in, leaving Spewpa to Stun Spore or Struggle Bug attack until the opponent can’t fight anymore. It leaves Spewpa’s opponents with a rather painful choice as to what the best way to deal with Spewpa, and no way is good at all for them. Spewpa has been doing really good with using String Shot. Spewpa even managed to latch onto Dragonite’s back directly while he was flying around yesterday during practice. It took a little bit, but Spewpa did amazing.”

Tristen couldn’t help but to think just now that what he was effectively telling them was his battle experiences over time with Team Snagem and it would perhaps further show just how he managed to stand up to Nemona as much as he did. Even something as weak as Spewpa could be an outright menace with such an innocuous move such as String Shot.

Tristen couldn’t help but to laugh a bit in a bit of slight embarrassment. Not that it was too much of a bad thing. He didn’t imagine getting this kind of praise by his fellow classmates. Penny however didn’t seem to say that much, mostly paying attention to her phone. While technically it didn’t involve her anywhere near as much as Fela right at the moment, he almost figured that Penny would of wanted to listen in to the conversation anyways because it was going to be relevant eventually for her and Camp. Well…provided Camp could not get distracted on a bug hunt. A realization occurred to him as he looked back towards the fields. Where…did Camp go? Tristen and Wimpod might need to do double duty here soon if Camp wasn’t going to be that much of a help…

Tristen would start looking around and trying to see if there was anything that could be gone after as a warm up to battle. It started off with something relatively easy. Taking on Digletts was more annoying than it was hard because of its constant burrowing underground making for an odd game of whack-a-diglett. Wimpod had a hard time landing his Aqua Jets and Diglett, small as they were, were too strong to try to tether down with one of Spewpa’s String Shots. With it constantly moving earth around to move around, they are deceptively strong. If nothing else, stronger than a tiny Spewpa trying to hold on tight with its String Shot and trying to prevent it from burrowing it back under. It was one of the few ‘hard to deal with’ scenerios that Spewpa had to contend with, but it was the perfect opportunity to try new things for both Fela and Spewpa. One such thing was Fela ended up realizing Spewpa had another skill under its proverbial sleeve. A dense red-orange powder that didn’t do anything but other than agitate and antagonize the ground type. Rage powder. To Tristen’s admission, he almost had forgotten about the attack, but then realized that it in itself had issues. Namely in that Spewpa was drawing Digletts full attention and it was a rather risky endeavor. Fortunately, between Spewpa following up with String Shots and Diglett staying long enough above ground for Wimpod to damage such Digletts allowed a couple of victories for the training party.

Tristen would try to help out Penny in between hand with Camp off in la-la olive land somewhere. Just as with Fela, he’d try to guide Penny every step of the way, but Tristen started to notice that in spite of her showing no interest in battling really in general, she was oddly proficient at it. Penny tried to excuse it by her actually listening to Tristen’s explanation earlier when he was demonstrating Spewpa’s String Shot, but he for some reason didn’t think so. Now that he thought about it, she did off-hand mention she did have a Leafeon one day when he inquired about her Scatterbug one afternoon last week, an evolved Pokémon. Probably she does have a fair bit of experience under her belt; or at the very least more than whatever Fela got. The battles that he had Wimpod take part in partnered with her Scatterbug went fairly handedly. Wimpod ended up having to pull more of the weight though, at least for a little while, in a similar fashion to when Spewpa was a Scatterbug itself until closer to the end. In one particular case, he’d let Wimpod hang bag a little to allow Penny’s Scatterbug take the brunt of the fight, namely against a Maschiff. Tristen would have Wimpod try to distract it in its own way while Penny commanded her Scatterbug to perform various Stun Spore and String Shot attacks, following up with the Struggle Bug attack she taught her own bug.

B and E in the meantime watching the training session unfold for each of the bugs. While there was a massive amount of enthusiasm between the two watching the bugs train and get stronger little by little, that spunk gradually started to turn to boredom. Tristen wasn’t sure if the twins expected to be more involved in the training session or there was going to be more to it. Maybe it was more of the matter of they wanted to hang out with their new friend and catch up lost time with Fela at the same time, but it was a little hard to pay that much attention to the twins when the older kids were out here to work on their science projects. Well…apparently except Camp that is, apparently.

At one point, Tristen and Fela would find themselves in a Pokémon battle with a cook that took a stroll from town. It was effectively the end of the shift for her and she was taking a late-afternoon walk. Seeing the students, Tristen and Fela took her up, figuring that it’d be good for Spewpa and Wimpod as well. She herself had a Combee and a Smoliv that was actually a bit of a headache. While the Smoliv wasn’t too much of an issue to any of Tristen’s and Fela’s Pokémon, there wasn’t too much save Struggle Bug to it. The bigger issue was the Combee that she had, and Gust attacks in tow which forced both of the bugs back; so much in fact that Tristen had yet another accident with Wimpod in that of his Wimping Out. Much to Tristen’s chagrin, Wimpod forced out Xatu to finish the fight for him. Oddly, Wimpod’s antics got the attention of B and E and they were extremely fascinated by the odd bird that appeared in battle, and more stunned just how one sided the trainer battle got once the Xatu appeared. With the battle over, Tristen ended up having to send out Wimpod again, this time to make the bug face down Xatu, Fela, and Spewpa for bailing out as it did. Fela was still rather understanding of the bug, and while Tristen was as well, he found it a bit of a failing on his part that he has not worked whatever is rubbing Wimpod the wrong way in such a fashion. It looked like training over the past week was doing Wimpod a lot of justice still only for him to suddenly regress immediately when things get their roughest. Little Tristen realized that there was another intrinsic, underlying reason for it all.

Going between Fela with Spewpa and Penny with her Scatterbug, time went on by rather quickly for the bunch and now it was time to eat. The bakeries awaited…

It was a peaceful walk back to the town, Penny went on ahead, the twins soon afterwards, with Fela in pursuit to make sure the twins weren’t getting into trouble. Camp…distracted by another bug. Tristen couldn’t help but to laugh a little. It was coming more and more into context for him just exactly what he had missed all his life. He felt a little envious; he didn’t have any idea about this sort of world. The most he dealt with was Leslie, who in comparative terms was that antagonistic sisters in the family, Tails who ended up leaving all of a sudden for who knows why, and Rhyme who has been in and out for long periods of time. It left him wondering a little in a spat of introspection if that is why he was able to associate better with adults than those his age. He wasn’t sure…

His thought train was suddenly derailed when he noticed it getting brighter, and warmer all of a sudden. He looked up, the artificial light of Sunny Day beaming down. “…oh no…” he silently said to himself. He quickly perked up, looked over, and took sight of the massive plume of flame rushing for him. He quickly braced himself, covering his face as best as he could as the fire rushed, trying to sear anything that it could get to. The damage was fortunately minimal…relatively speaking, thanks to Tristen’s precaution of switching out of his uniform and into his usual wear before leaving Mezagoza. He did get singed a little however, his hands and what he couldn’t cover of his face being still exposed to the fiery onslaught. He quickly patted his head down, trying to make sure there was nothing of his fur on fire then quickly pulled out a Pokeball looking forward once more, hearing the brief introduction and subsequent ultimatum to Tristen.

Mela, was it? Sub briefly mentioned her…she was the supposed the Schedar Squad leader. She was supposedly helping Sub and the others deal with the other squads, but apparently her intentions weren’t exactly on the straight and narrow as Sub was initially led to believe. Tristen started to quickly assess the situation, eyes narrowing, his mind racing quickly, a habit only nurtured being in Snagem as long as he had. Three trainers. All fire types. Sunny Day above. A way out behind him. Does he go for it? Not on their life, let alone their best day. Tristen was suddenly starting to believe that no one knew that he was a Snagem yet. If they had, they should have brought bigger numbers or, at the very least, tougher Pokémon because these three were going to be sorely dependent on their Pokémon to put Tristen under foot and Tristen had no qualms going fisticuffs with the trainers themselves, especially after being attacked out of the blue. Two Houndour and a Torkal? And presumably the Torkal was the thing making the artificial sun. Yea, they didn’t really think too much into this. Or did they? Tristen started to worry for Penny, Camp, Fela, and the Twins. If they were trying to single him out, who is to say that they didn’t get a hold of them either to make sure they didn’t interfere. Or worse. Either way, he had Sub’s orders now. They came looking for a fight…he knew what to do.

“How about not.” Tristen said. The fight was on. Quickly, Tristen’s fur sparked and lit right up; unleashing a powerful Flash that lit up the evening even more so than the Sunny Day to blind his assailants. Then, when he felt confident the trainers and their Pokémon were good and blinded, Tristen rushed for one of the Houndour trainers, full speed sprint and went to utterly clock the Star grunt. Tristen wasn’t sure if this guy ever has been struck by a hybrid before, but even this guy, if he stayed conscious for it, would probably question just the utter strength of Tristen for someone his age.

The instant he made a connection, Tristen stared in confusion for a quick second. That impact. Clean shot, but for some reason it didn’t feel quite right. He looked back towards the trainer he floored, originally having expected him to be completely concussed only to reveal himself to be a hybrid himself. And an evolved hybrid at that. Out corner of his eye, he took notice the other trainer revealing himself also to be a Zoroark hybrid, albeit one of a different color. In that moment, Tristen was caught up in the billowing smoke from the Torkal, Tristen backing off and coughing a bit, his eyes watering and nose burning from the thick smoke. The Taunt started to take hold of Tristen; feeling agitated severely, his judgment started to cloud a bit. What was crystal clear to the Manetric hybrid, he was probably had. They did go in more prepared than what they originally let on. Banking on Tristen’s confidence in the matter.

Tristen wasn’t sure if the Taunt was still affecting him as he was thinking that he could still salvage his way out of this. That being said, any reservations on thinking that they didn’t know who he truly was is out the window. He went in wanting to essentially humiliate these guys similar to Matteo, but they showed they weren’t going to give him the time of day. He needed to go all out, no more reservations. His objective was still the same. He needed to make sure Fela and the others were okay. Mela was the ringleader of all of this. She at the very least needed to be neutralized, but doing so was going to be difficult now that he was in the smoke and two hybrids that were trying to compound their ways to cripple Tristen into submission. Through the smoke, he started to notice the sun starting to go out over him. More of the Zoroark hybrids’ illusions. Their Night Shade starting to bear down on Tristen.

Tristen quickly would toss the Pokeball he had out in tow, up towards the sky. In a flash, the ball pops open and out came Tristen’s mighty Dragonite with a loud roar to boot. “Dragonite!” Tristen hacked and coughed away in his sentence. “Hurricane!” he then shouted. The Dragonite unleashed a mighty gale in the area. Tristen would be caught up in it as well as he started to hunker down, the winds scouring him as they were. But he could take it, partly so because of his typing. He needed the Zoroark duo off his case as much as he needed the Smokescreen dealt with. Anything else was gravy.

Time practically froze to the Manetric hybrid, that distinct moment of clarity. If there were any other doubts, they were finally cast aside. They knew just exactly who he was; who he was with. And they still wanted to pick a fight right here. This was a revenge scheme by proxy and they were probably going after what they presumed to be the weakest link in the entire Snagem group. What did the Starfall raid group do that infuriated these kids so badly was well beyond Tristen. For that matter, Tristen knew that by no means he was the strongest member of Team Snagem, rather it be in hybrid prowess or Pokémon battling. Not by a long shot. He was working on it though, all the same. Even so, as Mela was going to find out, that didn’t make him any less of a threat.

As goaded as he was by the likes of their Taunts, Tristen couldn’t bring himself to try to let loose another Flash or even a Thunder Wave for that matter. He only had Spark and Thunderbolt to work with, let alone his other Pokémon. It was enough. Tristen watched carefully as the battle unfolded about him. Mela was making her two hybrid henchmen do all the heavy lifting and they all wanted to focus down Dragonite. Fair enough, with the kind of show he and Dragonite put on over the weekend, they knew just what kind of chaos this ‘goofy dragon’ could put on. The Will-o-wisp seared into Dragonite, with a follow up attack with a Foul Play, the hybrid trying to hang on tight to his loyal Pokémon to make sure it wasn’t going to fight back easily. It just left one more that apparently wanted to square off with Tristen. Despite the juke to catch Tristen off guard to leave him open, Tristen was ready. With the Night Slash coming down on him, Tristen reached up, grabbing the assailing Zoroark by the wrist, Tristen’s free arm lighting up and sparking furiously by means of his Spark attack and drove it fiercely into the Zoroark’s torso. Tristen was not done there, however. Just so he wouldn’t give these guys to breathe, he swung the hybrid around, now his whole body lighting up with the furious Spark attack and went for his partner that was distracted with Dragonite, planning on taking both of them down.

“Dragonite! Thunderbolt!” Tristen shouted out towards his Dragonite. As soon as Tristen would plow through the other Zoroark hybrid, Dragonite would unleash the severe lightning attack towards the assailing Houndour.