“Have a seat,” Sylva invited us after entering a comfortable office, filled with greenery. “Let’s do the evaluations in reverse order, starting with you,” she nodded towards Lucas.

“Let’s start with your partner,” she began, sitting back in her chair and stapling her fingers together, “Good attacks, nicely ferocious but too one-dimensional. You don’t want to have a partner that can only attack, attack, attack or you will get into trouble when meeting a foe you can’t just knock down quickly. Endurance and utility are also important.” she paused, letting out a sigh.

“But most important of all are tactics and that’s where you have shown nothing. That was your biggest failure and what you need to correct if you want to advance as a trainer.” she finished her evaluation of Lucas, giving him a few suggestions on how he could have acted and what sort of abilities his Monferno might be able to learn, with the right training and, maybe at some point, technical support.

“Now, let’s deal with you,” Sylva’s gaze shifted to Cliff, while Lucas looked a little pensive, maybe even taken aback. “You’ve got potential, though you’ll have to work hard to achieve it. I believe your Roselia is quite strong and will become stronger as time goes on. You’ve clearly put in a lot of effort but, let’s be real, you had tough luck with the match-up.” she shrugged, looking a little pensive.

“You’ll have to decide how exactly you want your Roselia to fight. Mine is trained to mostly use spores and powder to weaken a foe, before using powerful special attacks, like the Magic Leaves you already know or even Petal Blizzard to knock them out. That works pretty well and nicely contrasts with Torterra, who is trained to endure attacks and strike back with physical attacks, especially those that cover the normal weaknesses of Grass-types. If you like, we can go over a few tricks and experiences I had with my Rose, maybe they can help you,” she looked over to Claire for a moment, “Same goes for you. I think you and your Grotle are on the right track, or at least on the same track I’m using to train my Tank, but I might be able to give you a few pointers,” she offered, before focusing back on Cliff.

“But for now, I believe you have some thinking to do.” she finished, after pointing out a few minor things that I had missed during the battle.

“And now, you,” she looked over to me, “In all fairness, you’ve been lucky,” she grinned, shaking her head, “Cherry is trained as a swift, special-sweeper, with minimal coverage but highly developed and swift special attacks. I thought that I could let her start slow, as you are all quite young and new trainers, but it seriously muzzled her strength, to the point that she got done in by you. For that, I could only tip my hat, if I were in the habit of wearing one.”

“A lot of it was the near-perfect match-up, but you’ve done quite well. Am I correct in the assumption that you normally train your Charmeleon as a special attacker, with a bit of physical- and utility coverage?” she asked, after briefly checking a few papers on her desk.

“I have, yes,” I nodded in agreement. A part of me was curious about what was written on those papers but there was no polite way to ask, so I had to reign in my curiosity.

“Suitable, though you, too, should consider the future development of your partner. You can either seek to specialise him even further, turning him into a serious threat for everything that he can set on fire, but leaving him vulnerable to things he cannot easily burn, or you can seek to make him more balanced but that would obviously limit the amount of training he can put in towards his pure, fiery strength. Neither path is wrong, they are just different.” she reminded me, before suggesting a few ways that could serve as training on either path. Some of them were ideas I had considered before but shelved until I could get the resources to train that way, others I hadn’t considered before. All in all, the explanations I got from Sylva were of quality reminiscent of the training I had received from Cynthia before, just more suitable to the current state of my Pokémon.

“Now, last but certainly not least,” she looked at Claire, “Not bad, made the best of a bad match-up. It wasn’t quite as bad as the one between his Roselia and Shroomy,” she nodded towards Cliff, “But a hard one, nonetheless. As you likely have seen, Tank is where your Twiggy will be with some more training and experience. I don’t think my opinion on that style and tactic can be expressed more clearly, right?” she grinned, getting a nod from Claire in response. Getting told from one of the best trainers in the region that, ‘Yes, that’s what I did with the same Pokémon species and now he’s one of my powerhouses,” there was pretty much nothing better as confirmation for a trainer.

“And now, regarding the battles themselves,” she continued, after repeating her earlier offer to give Claire and Cliff some direct advice at a later time, “I’m pleased to see that none of you casually choose to employ serious fire-power. As trainers, we always need to keep the effect of our partner’s attacks on the environment in the back of our minds. You might win the battle,” she briefly focused on Lucas and me, “but if you set off a wildfire, burning down acres of forest, you’ve lost and should be ashamed of yourself. Or you might be dead, in which case, no need to be ashamed, only to rot in peace.”

She shrugged at that assessment, before continuing to lecture us a little, trying to remind us of the many dangers that lurked in the world outside and the necessity to always keep our environment in mind.

She specifically went over the dangers on the road to Celestic Town again, carefully telling us about dangerous spots, which landmarks we needed to watch for and how to best handle them. Some areas were apparently prone to rockslides, some small, some large and if you got caught by them, you were essentially doomed. In addition, the weather along the path was apparently incredibly volatile, with sudden storms strong enough to blow you right off the mountain a distinct possibility. Unless you knew what to watch for, you might get caught out in the open and could only pray to whatever higher power you believed in.

Her lecture took quite a while, to the point that she had to get herself something to drink in order to keep speaking without getting hoarse, but I could hear the vast experience in her words. She likely had seen too many people come through Eterna City and venture up into the mountains, only to later learn that they had never reached Celestic Town. But at the same time, people had to make the journey.

When she wound down, she looked at each of us in sequence, a serious expression on her face. “Now, you said you want to travel together, even if that’s not your normal group, That’s a good idea, I was never a fan of trainers travelling alone or in groups of two. It leaves people vulnerable if something happens. Sure, it means each of you can give their Pokémon less training, but you can’t continue training your Pokémon if you are dead.”

“But before you head off towards Celestic Town, I’ve got a task for you. Given that you plan to travel together, would you mind if I combine the two tasks? Gives you a bit of time to get used to travelling in the new group?” she asked, her earlier, sombre expression gone, replaced with a slightly amused one.

The four of us exchanged brief looks, mine lingering on Claire a little longer, to make sure she had no reservations about travelling with Cliff. She gave me an encouraging smile, nodding for emphasis, before focusing back on Sylva and speaking.

“No, that sounds like a good idea. While we’ve gotten to know each other in town, the wilderness is something else entirely.” Claire told her, after making sure neither Lucas nor Cliff had any objections.

“Excellent,” Sylva grinned, “Now, what I need you to do is travel into two nearby valleys and check on the entrances to the Underground there. They should remain openly accessible, just in case someone gets trapped below ground, and each should have a set of guide-stones, pointing the way towards Eterna City. If not, I need you to report to me, so we can replace them. They rarely get used, but if someone gets trapped down there and can’t get out, those exits can save lives. Due to the nature of the Underground, they can’t be too close to town, or we take unreasonable risks. It’s a balance each town has to strike, especially up here in the mountains, where there are more entries to the Underground. Either way, look at the map here, and I’ll show you where you need to go.” she told us, opening a map of the area and putting it on the table between us.

“There you go,” she pointed, and we all leaned forward, to get guided by her.