Making a plan was easier than I expected, but the hard part would be going through with it. Crawdaunt was significantly stronger than my Pokémon, so we had to be extra careful.

I watched from a distance as Marill jumped into the water and swam closer to Crawdaunt. Her oil-filled tail helped to keep her afloat while the rest of her body focused on movement. She wasn’t using Aqua Jet just yet since we needed to trick Crawdaunt into thinking it could keep up with Marill. Our goal was to make it angry so it would be motivated to give chase.

Crawdaunt noticed Marill approaching but didn't spare her more than a glance. It was far stronger than her and it knew that. As it continued to command its shelled troops, Marill hit it in the face with a weak Water Gun.

It waved a massive claw to brush her off, annoyed. However, Marill proceeded to hit it in the face with another Water Gun.

Crawdaunt didn't use any moves but splashed a wave of water her way in frustration. It clearly still didn't think a fight with her was worth it, and was trying to get her to leave.

The second it took its eyes off of her, this time, Marill hit it with a full-powered Bubble Beam. Angry at her impertinence, Crawdaunt's claws glowed a watery blue for a Crabhammer attack and rushed at Marill to try to launch her away using the force of its move.

Now that she caught its ire, Marill skimmed over the surface of the water with Aqua Jet to easily avoid the swing of the claw and hit it with Bubble Beam once more.

Crawdaunt's eye twitched. It charged at Marill, this time its claws glowing with Dark Type energy from Night Slash. Marill dodged again and continued to try to lure it closer to Sea Mauville. I pressed myself further against the ground as it neared. I didn’t want it to notice me.

After a few more rounds of near-misses thanks to Aqua Jet, Crawdaunt had enough of Marill and used its claws to shoot out an insanely powerful Bubble Beam. Marill just barely managed to dodge by grabbing her tail and ducking underwater, the bubbles going above her head.

Crawdaunt looked around to find where Marill would surface before it was hit on its back with a beam of freezing ice.

It turned around and looked up, seeing Vulpix standing at the edge of Sea Mauville, preparing another Ice Beam. It brought up a claw and used Bubble Beam to try to stop her attack, but she just ducked behind the edge to get out of the way.

Vulpix popped back up once the Bubble Beam had ended to let loose the Ice Beam she had been readying. Ice formed around Crawdaunt’s claws, but with a simple “clack” the ice shattered and Crawdaunt glared at her.

Vulpix stuck her tongue out. Crawdaunt’s anger evolved into full-on fury.

It rushed to the edge of Sea Mauville and climbed up after Vulpix. At the same time, now that it was no longer focusing on her, Marill quietly climbed up a distance away to meet up with me once this was over. Her role was done.

Once Crawdaunt made its way up onto Sea Mauville, I stood up and ran back towards Vulpix so I would be able to command her. I was a bit intimidated, but couldn’t back down since our role was crucial to help Thomas. Vulpix and I had to continue to lure Crawdaunt away from the edge so Thomas would have room to cut off its escape, allowing him to catch it. If Thomas revealed any of his Pokémon this early, Crawdaunt would know it was outmatched and would be able to easily escape. We couldn’t run the risk of it coming back later with a bigger swarm.

"Focus on weakening it further, stay at a distance," I called out to Vulpix.

Vulpix already knew to lure it inland, so my command was more of a misdirection for Crawdaunt than an actual order. For this battle, our strategies were limited. Vulpix couldn't create Hail since that would reduce Thomas's vision and hurt his Pokémon, and Icy Wind would slow Crawdaunt and reduce the rate it moved inland. Vulpix could only use Ice Beam and Quick Attack, but I had a trick up my sleeve for emergencies.

Crawdaunt fired another Bubble Beam and Vulpix dashed to the side using Quick Attack. Crawdaunt, already annoyed from fighting a second Pokémon adept at dodging, charged forward and its claws started to glow blue with a Crabhammer.

Vulpix continued to move back and assaulted Crawdaunt with yet another Ice Beam, far outpacing its speed. I realized that it would soon figure out it would never catch up with Vulpix, so we had to take a risk before it got too fed up and tried to leave.

"Ice Beam, but let it catch up to you first."

Vulpix stiffened but knew we had to do this. This strategy ran the risk of a serious injury since Vulpix was weak in melee and Crawdaunt's size increased its already incredible strength even further.

Vulpix slowed down and built up Ice Type energy as Crawdaunt approached. The crab quickly neared and brought up its claw to slam down onto her.

"Now!" I yelled.

The target of my command, Swablu, screeched down at Crawdaunt from where he was flying above and used Disarming Voice. The difference in strength meant he didn't deal much damage to Crawdaunt, but the sudden and unexpected super effective damage caused Crawdaunt to delay its attack just long enough to let Vulpix release her full-powered Ice Beam safely.

Ice formed and hardened against Crawdaunt's thick shell and Vulpix jumped back. She had pumped in so much Ice Type energy into the attack that Crawdaunt was already practically frozen. I readied myself to call out a new set of orders if Vulpix was still in danger, but a hand on my shoulder shocked me out of my focus.

"You did a good job. I'll take it from here."

Thomas walked ahead of me while Vulpix ran away with Quick Attack. Murkrow started circling above and Swablu flew up to match Murkrow’s height. Thomas pointed towards Crawdaunt to send the two large Dark Type hounds next to him into battle.

"Mightyena, encircle and shutdown. Houndoom, supporting fire and burn."

Both Pokémon immediately jumped into action.

Mightyena went first and approached Crawdaunt, drawing its attention as it growled in a threatening manner. The sounds echoed around the area strangely and I had to think about what it just did.

That was definitely not just one move. The anger on its face was its ability, Intimidate, but it clearly used another move at the same time to change Crawdaunt’s attack pattern. My best guess would be Torment, to prevent it from using the same move in a row, or Taunt, to make sure Crawdaunt only uses attacks against Mightyena.

Mightyena prowled around Crawdaunt while the Water Type eyed the dog carefully. Both Pokémon took up defensive stances and faced each other. Intimidate had lowered Crawdaunt's willingness to use its full power, and the move it used kept Crawdaunt’s attention on Mightyena.

In the back, where Crawdaunt wasn't paying attention, Houndoom conjured several ghostly balls of fire using Will-O-Wisp. The fiery wisps floated around it, then shot forward when Crawdaunt's back was entirely turned. The wisps seared into its shell, inflicting the burn condition.

Crawdaunt now had spots on its shells that almost looked like brandings. The burned status condition meant that Crawdaunt’s physical power would be reduced due to the pain, and that it would take continuous damage from the ongoing heat.

Fed up with its debilitating conditions from both the burn and Mightyena’s moves, Crawdaunt's claws turned black for a Night Slash and then brought them down towards Mightyena. The Dark Type hound lunged forward with its mouth sparking and caught the incoming attack with a Thunder Fang.

Now that Crawdaunt was held down, Houndoom released a blast of flames with a Flamethrower towards Crawdaunt. The flames moved towards the same burns the Crawdaunt had been inflicted with earlier to deal extra damage.

With that kind of control and the cruelty of its targets, Houndoom definitely used Nasty Plot earlier. It did it subtly enough that I didn’t even notice Nasty Plot was in effect until its attack had already been sent out.

I glanced at Thomas who stood with his arms crossed, watching the battle intensely. I had been asked to assist to heal, but nothing of the like had happened yet.

"Should I do anything?" I asked him.

He shook his head.

"No need. My Pokémon are handling this. Once the battle is finished, please send Floette out to heal."

I acknowledged his request and returned to watching the battle, amazed at the power and control his Pokémon were demonstrating without his input.

Thomas wasn't giving any commands to his Pokémon, but that was because he was an experienced, high-level trainer. Once a Pokémon gained enough experience fighting in battle, they became familiar enough with strategies to act on their own. Low and mid-level battles were just slow enough to let a trainer command their Pokémon for almost every action, but high-level fights were far too fast-paced for that to work. It was best to tell Pokémon what to do with broad strategies, and only step in to correct and adjust based on their opponent’s reactions.

Crawdaunt didn't last much longer under the combined assault of Houndoom and Mightyena. The super effective damage of Thunder Fang and the continued damage from Houndoom’s fire and burns caused Crawdaunt to collapse on the ground, barely conscious. Thomas grabbed an Ultra Ball from his pocket and casually tossed it towards the prone crustacean, sucking it in.

The ball wobbled as Crawdaunt tried to resist, but it was too tired and too injured. The ball clicked, signifying a capture.

"I know we needed to take care of it anyway, but isn't it cruel to rip Crawdaunt away from its environment? Are the Pokémon in its swarm going to be okay?" I asked Thomas.

Thomas strode over to the ball and picked it up. He pet Mightyena and Houndoom and looked them over for injuries. I sent out Floette so she could heal them with Wish.

"No, this was for the best," he replied. "Crawdaunt is a Dark Type and likely bullied the Corphish to be a part of its swarm. If you noticed earlier, the Corphish were unmotivated to climb onto Sea Mauville until the Crawdaunt threatened them by snapping its claws."

He returned the undamaged Houndoom before continuing his explanation.

"And as for ripping it from its home? Unlike other Types, strong Dark Types are almost never caught willingly. It's better for me to catch it and train it myself while giving it a comfortable life rather than relocating it to a different area just for it to just bully others. It may feel cruel, but it ends up best for everyone."

I understood and believed the words of the Dark Type specialist about his chosen Type, but I still wasn’t a fan of forcibly catching Pokémon. For Fairy Types, most of them wanted to avoid humans so I made extra effort to not take them away from where they wanted to stay. I was unfamiliar with Dark Types, and it seemed that they were far more brutal than what I was used to.

Floette finished healing Mightyena and the dog was returned to its Ultra Ball. Murkrow flew down and landed on Thomas's shoulder as he started to walk back to camp. Swablu ended up perched on my head, like usual.

As he passed me, Thomas clasped me on the shoulder and looked me in the eyes.

"Thank you, Alex. You did far more than you needed to for this job. If you ever need anything, contact me any time. You already have my number."

With Crawdaunt caught, Thomas and I returned to camp to catch up with the others and to deal with the remaining stragglers of the now dissolving crab swarm.

The crab inclusion was all but gone when we returned to where everyone else was. Luring away the Crawdaunt let the Corphish that were brave enough escape, and most of the swarm followed. There were a few unconscious Corphish here and there, but the people who fought them off were slowly moving the unconscious bodies to the edge of Sea Mauville to let them return to the water once they recovered naturally. The Aether Researcher and his Drowzee were already absent.

Winston stood with his arms crossed and nose pointed up while all the trainers around him were occasionally glancing towards him in what looked to be... awe? Respect? Fear? Either way, clearly Winston’s Druddigon did an unexpectedly good job against the Corphish, and that meant he had actually done something to make everyone else impressed.

The dedicated healer, Cherrim, was out and healing all the trainer’s Pokémon with Heal Pulse. It didn’t heal the Corphish since if they awoke they might have instinctually retaliated since they had been knocked out in a battle.

Winston spoke up once he saw me returning.

“Ah, our missing group member returns. Might I ask where you were while the rest of us were bravely protecting the key machinery for this expedition?”

I opened my mouth to reply but Thomas interrupted me before I could speak.

“Alex was crucial in capturing the leader of the swarm. I specifically requested for Alex to assist me. The swarm would not have retreated until the leader was removed. Don’t bother posturing here. It was a team effort, no one person could have replaced another.”

That shut Winston up. The rest of the trainers perked up when Thomas mentioned a team effort, but Winston turned red as if insulted.

“I see I am not welcome here, despite my help,” Winston said. “Yes, downplay my contribution despite Druddigon taking on half the swarm himself. You all would have been helpless without his efforts. Now excuse me, I still have the day off and it seems I would be better off spending that time improving my team instead of selflessly helping others.”

Winston shot me an angry glare before he strode off, each step impacting the decaying tiles of Sea Mauville with more force than necessary. Everyone was silent after Winston’s angry outburst and quietly cleaned up after the battle before we all returned to the camp.

When we returned to the camp, everyone went back to their designated positions to resume their watch. I still had the rest of the day off, so I wasn’t needed with them. I decided to head to my tent to relax and heal my Pokémon.

My Pokémon weren’t seriously injured, but still needed to rest after running from Crawdaunt. Marill had returned after it was caught, and was currently napping in her ball. I was looking forward to resting myself, but when I approached my tent, I found someone else had already arrived before me. The Drowzee was there outside the tent, like usual, but the Aether Researcher from before was waiting for me as well. He wore a masked helmet with a golden glass visor so I couldn’t see his face.

“Why is my Drowzee so interested in you?” he asked me, accusingly.

I tried my best to confidently walk to my tent without revealing my nerves. I was uncomfortable with people after my information, and someone like the Aether Researcher was near the top of my list of people I didn’t want after me.

“I’m not sure. There might be something wrong with it,” I replied.

I tried to enter my tent but the researcher moved to stand in front of the entrance. He looked to his Drowzee, who stared impassively back at him. The researcher turned back to face me after his Drowzee didn’t react, clearly frustrated he was unable to get a reading on the validity of my statement.

“I don’t care about how you’ve protected yourself, I know you’re lying. You know exactly why my Drowzee is interested in you. Tell me.”

“No,” I said directly, “I’m not telling you because it’s none of your business. Now excuse me, I would very much like to rest after I just spent a bunch of time defending YOUR machinery for YOUR research on YOUR expedition.”

He clicked his tongue but stepped aside. I entered my tent and zipped the flap closed behind me. Sighing, I sat down on my sleeping bag and sent out my Pokémon. I needed to treat them with Potions before we could properly rest.

“Thomas, I’d like to call in that favor from my help with Crawdaunt.”

The next day, I thought of something I wanted Thomas’s help with. He was an experienced trainer who had vast amounts of knowledge about battling, and I wanted to see what my Pokémon and I could learn from him.

“Oh? What specifically do you want from me?” he asked.

“I want your help to train my team. Vulpix is set on developing her ability, but the rest of my team could use direction. Marill only has Aqua Ring and Rain Dance for supporting moves, but I’d like her to learn something to help her weaken her foes. Swablu needs a way to last longer in battle, so it would be nice if he could learn Roost to let him heal. Finally, Floette is working on Petal Dance, but she also needs practice defending herself from opponents stronger than her. She knows how to dodge and tank equivalent power moves, but I’d like it if she could get even stronger at surviving attacks.”

Thomas closed his eyes and rubbed his chin. He considered my request before finally responding.

“I can help with that. But this is something I would have helped with anyway. Do you want something else or...?”

I tried to put the best determined face on that I could. I needed to get stronger, so I tried to be as convincing as possible.

“I need to learn better strategies. I’m still at the stage where I heavily influence my Pokémon’s actions through my commands. I saw how you commanded your Pokémon. I want to know how I can develop that skill for myself.”

While it was simple enough to ask for Thomas to help train my Pokémon’s moves, asking for direct help in strategy was a big deal. Every trainer had their secrets in how they raised their Pokémon, and had their own methods to formulate strategies for their Pokémon. It was one of the reasons Old Man Harvey’s journal was so valuable. It contained information that was rarely shared between trainers.

Thomas took a moment to look at me. And I mean he seriously looked at me. There were a few moments of utter silence before he finally responded.

“Alright. I’ll teach you how to properly command your Pokémon. And this isn’t something I would do for anyone, I’m doing this because you’re you. Most people avoid Dark Type specialists and their Pokémon, claiming that they’re evil and dangerous. You approached me without fear, and have been friendly ever since that first day onboard the ship. I appreciate your friendship, Alex. I’ll make sure you learn how to be a proper trainer.”

I was touched.

“Thank you. I won’t let you down.”

He laughed. “You haven’t so far. Let’s get started.”

The next few days my Pokémon and I trained with Thomas during our watch. Since he was the leader of our expedition group, he had the authority to change up our designated locations to make sure we were next to each other every day, instead of only occasionally. It probably gave Winston more ammunition for his theory that I had the entire League in my pocket, but honestly, that was basically true at this point.

Our Pokémon paired off while Thomas worked with me on strategy. Mightyena worked with Marill, Houndoom worked with Floette, and Murkrow worked with Swablu. Vulpix continued to practice her Ice Type moves and abilities on her own in preparation for evolution. I asked Thomas where Crawdaunt was, and he told me that he sent it to his mentor since it was too aggressive to start training during the expedition. When I asked him who his mentor was, he just winked at me.

I mean, it’s obviously Sidney, of the Elite Four. He’s also a Dark Type specialist and I’ve already seen him commanding Thomas in Meteor Falls.

Thomas lectured me on strategy and commands while our Pokémon trained.

“When you’re commanding your Pokémon there’s two key points: Be concise and be specific. You can try to cover up your commands with key words to confuse and mislead your opponent, but it’s more important to have your Pokémon understand you than it is for your opponent to misunderstand you.

“Take Mightyena, for example. I ordered him to ‘encircle and shutdown’ against Crawdaunt. From our training he knows that ‘encircle’ means he’s to maneuver around Crawdaunt to make it feel cornered, and that ‘shutdown’ means he is to prevent his opponent’s battle capabilities in the way he thought was best. For Crawdaunt, he used Torment to prevent it from using its strongest attack, Crabhammer, too often.

“If you train your Pokémon properly, they’ll understand their capabilities far better than you ever could. After all, they’re the ones physically battling. I prefer the logic that Pokémon should be able to decide what specific moves to use based on what strategy you chose, but others claim that it’s better to work out extremely specific strategies with set moves and figure everything out ahead of time.

“My advice? Choose whatever works for you. I prefer a more open strategy, others prefer to be specific, and some even use a mix of the two. Again, it’s trainer preference.”

I raised my hand to interrupt him and asked a question.

“How do you train your Pokémon to understand your commands like that? I don’t mean the basics, I mean your specific strategies.”

Thomas paused to think about how to properly answer my question.

“Hmm. Well, I usually come up with an idea on my own, have them test it out, then practice, practice, practice. It’s best to get the basics down through training, but if you want your Pokémon to be more flexible, you want to battle as many trainers as you can.”

I involuntarily grimaced. I was a bit behind on battling experience since I didn’t battle other trainers as often as I should. However, my Pokémon were at least ahead of other trainers in terms of their control over their moves.

“So then when it comes to actually training in battles, how do you recommend I get the most out of the experience?” I asked.

“Honestly? Just battling normally is fine. Suddenly switching over to specific strategies immediately after ordering almost every single move is something I don’t recommend. Ease into it, start giving your Pokémon less and less specific strategies before going all-out with higher level commands. It’ll be easier for you and your Pokémon, since you’re both used to your old way. For now just focus on testing out a bunch of different methods to see what works and expand your Pokémon’s repertoire.”

I nodded and wrote down a summary of what he said in my journal. I wanted to make sure I could refer to this information at a later date. What Thomas was saying was invaluable.

“Now then, let’s talk about how to act in response to others' strategies...”

I spent the rest of the expedition learning with Thomas. It ended up only lasting about a week, but I absorbed everything he said like a sponge, or at least I hoped I did. I took extra care to take notes on everything so I can refer back to Thomas’s words of wisdom. Once I returned to Dewford and was in a private space, I would start working out strategies with all my Pokémon.

Outside of my personal developments, Thomas’s Pokémon proved to be adept tutors for my team. Everyone who worked with them managed to master a new move, which was exactly what they needed.

Marill worked on physical combat with Mightyena, and managed to pick up two different moves from him. First, she learned Work Up, which let her use Normal Type energy to boost the power of all of her attacks. She also learned Swagger, which was a risky move that tricked her opponents into acting with less self-restraint, both increasing their physical power but also causing them to act abnormally and become confused. The increased power meant that whenever they hurt themselves in confusion, the damage they sustained would be far more damaging. The confusion would let Marill take advantage of her distracted opponents to unleash her own attacks as well.

Swablu worked with Murkrow to learn Roost, and now he was able to properly land and rest to heal himself in the middle of battle. Thomas also pointed out that the move could be used defensively, since during the move Swablu lost his Flying Type and therefore the vulnerabilities of the type were lost as well. I filed that fact away for potential strategies down the line.

What I didn’t expect from Swablu’s tutoring, was that Murkrow somehow managed to teach Swablu another move, one I never expected him to learn.

Murkrow taught Swablu Thief. He was able to steal items from opponents through an attack that hid subtle thieving motions with Dark Type energy. It was a niche move that wouldn’t be super useful for every opponent, but would at least give him a Type advantage against Psychic and Ghost Type Pokémon. The only issue was that I was training him to be a special attacker so it was unlikely to be used at all since his strategies would have him stay away from his opponents.

As for Floette, she both improved her capability to survive special attacks and was able to learn Petal Dance. With that move mastered, I judged that she was ready to evolve, like Vulpix. Her evolution used a Shiny Stone rather than an Ice Stone, so we could choose whenever she would go through it. Her next step would be to learn Moonblast, which would be easier with the increased power that came from evolving. For now, she wanted to wait until after Vulpix evolved, not wanting to steal the spotlight. Of course, I planned to try to convince her otherwise. She deserved acknowledgement as well.

The only Pokémon without a tutor, Vulpix, managed to make decent progress as well. Snow Warning finally developed enough to be considered Hail rather than just snow in battle, and she even managed to get a start on Snow Cloak. I would evolve her back in Dewford, alongside Floette. It would be a big increase in battle capability since as a Ninetales, all of her Ice Type moves would drastically increase in power.

And just like that, the remaining week of the expedition ended. Nothing else that interesting happened to me, but a few people made discoveries for themselves. Some people found TMs and stones, others found Pokémon to catch, but the biggest discovery was that someone found a room filled with gold nuggets. They were lucky enough to have a Devon backpack with a larger interior, and had obtained so many she could have paid for the entire expedition and then some. Everyone was jealous, but only reacted with congratulations and awe rather than any negative thoughts. The trainer planned to donate most of what she found to the old workers of Sea Mauville as well as a few different funds to support the Pokémon of trainers who passed away.

After all that was over and the research concluded, we spent the penultimate day of the expedition disassembling the machines in preparation to leave tomorrow. The same white Aether ship was due to arrive in the morning, and once boarded, we would return to Dewford by the end of the day.

However, the expedition didn’t end as uneventfully as I wanted. The last night, I awoke to the familiar sound of the zipper to my tent closing back up.