When I left the Pokémon Center to find Lillie the next day, it was clear she was in a much better mood. The excitement in her voice was palpable as she called for Snowy to jump in accordance with her voice as part of an introductory training session. The little Alolan Vulpix leapt through hoop of water after hoop of water, each one conjured by Brionne, who was practicing her energy control as part of this shared exercise.

As I approached, Lillie patted the air to signal her Pokémon to pause. She turned to me, smiling, and I couldn’t help but to let out an appreciative chuckle at the sight.

Ninetales made the right call. Lillie and Snowy are getting along just fine.

"So I just made a few phone calls,” I said, staring off. “Professor Kukui told me Xurkitree will be collected soon.”

Lillie let out a sigh of relief.

"Good. I'm glad. Just imagining being frozen like that forever..." She shivered. "It's good that it'll be freed."

“It is, but I can’t say I’m too happy about who’s actually freeing it. The Aether Foundation are the only people around equipped for the capture and care of Ultra Beasts, so they’re the ones heading over.”

Her smile faltered slightly, and she did her best to force it to stay and hide any uncertain feelings.

“They’ll... they’ll treat it well! Even if my m-mom might not have the best p-plans, there’s so many other people who are a part of the Aether Foundation because they want to help Pokémon!”

“That’s the idea,” I said with a nod. “But, in more light-hearted news, one of those calls I made was to Hope, and it seems like there won’t be any issues pushing back our meeting date.”

A moment’s pause.

“Huh?”

Lillie blinked at me, confused, and I just maintained a big grin. I hadn’t informed her of my plans just yet, and I wanted to properly build up to the big reveal.

“Think about it, Lillie. Why did we stay in Tapu Village’s Pokémon Center instead of moving on?”

As I started to dramatically pace, Lillie’s expression scrunched up in thought. I let out a purposeful hum just to ensure she wouldn’t dwell too long in silence, and she placed a fist into her palm.

“The Xurkitree,” she declared.

“You got it. Mostly. Specifically, we stayed here due to an Ultra Beast. Considering how dangerous they are and how you’re still at risk of more showing up, I think it’s finally time for us to tackle that problem.”

Lillie gave me a strange look as I moved off to the side of this area, bidding her to follow. There weren’t any stands nearby, but there were a few benches set up near the edges of the practice fields for people to sit on and relax.

As I sat down, she moved to sit next to my side, and the two Pokémon that were out with her followed. Snowy was quick to jump up onto the bench and quietly nuzzle against Lillie in her lap, and Brionne moved to lay down across Lillie’s feet.

I took a moment to glance around just in case. We were the only ones here, so I wasn’t concerned about keeping the topic I wanted to bring up quiet.

“Xurkitree attacked us because of Nebby,” I stated outright. Lillie seemed to inflate with indignant anger, but I held up my hand to give her pause. “We know this from Professor Burnett. Ultra Beasts are attracted to latent Ultra Wormhole energies, and Nebby is absolutely overflowing with them. His Beast Ball might help disguise his presence when he’s inside of it, but when he’s outside of his ball, Ultra Beasts will likely start appearing more and more often the stronger he gets.”

As I spoke, Lillie seemed to deflate, and her expression fell once more. I kept going, understanding I hadn’t reached the point I wanted to make.

“We can’t rely on having a Pokémon talk them down every time, like Gardevoir did with Kartana. We can’t always rely on being able to defeat them, as both Hope and I have struggled to face them, even as strong as our teams are. That means with the threat of more Ultra Beasts hanging over our heads, we need to figure out a way to handle them when they approach.”

“Is this another question for me?” Lillie asked.

“No. I already have the solution,” I replied. “Hope is training with Tapu Bulu, and you’re training with me. For that reason, I think it’s time for us to set up our game with a few dedicated training sessions of our own. What I’m trying to say is that for these next few days—over the period added thanks to our delayed meetup—you and I are going to head into the jungle and have a training camp of our own.”

Lillie’s mouth opened and closed.

“...Training camp?” she asked almost as if to test those words.

“Training camp,” I replied, nodding my head.

A few seconds passed as Lillie let the idea fully settle in, then she hopped off the bench to throw a first into the air, keeping Snowy snug in her free arm.

“Training camp!” Lillie exclaimed excitedly.

I could already see her itching to retrieve her journal full of notes from her pack.

“Between your developing team and my newer team members, both of us have a lot we can improve,” I said. “This period will ensure we’re all up to par and should pay out dividends in the long run. I’ve dedicated periods to training many different times over the past few years. This won’t be as long as some of the training periods I’ve had in the past, but, believe me, once this is all done, we’ll see a noticeable difference in strength.”

Lillie was already grinning, more than ready to begin. Though with how she was celebrating with her Pokémon, I wasn’t sure if she even heard the words I said. I just shook my head, both amused and exasperated, and ran my hand over my Pokéballs in thought.

Power was important, but so was defense. Standing at the top, however, was knowing when to flee. Lillie needed the strength to at least stall any Ultra Beasts that came her team’s way so that Nebby could bring everyone out with Teleport.

This was my best idea to keep Lillie safe. She needed to boost that came with dedicated training, and we’d made good time over the island so far to have this period to spare. It helped that this was also a great excuse to train with Eevee and everyone else, too. I imagined everyone had a lot to gain if we practiced together properly.

We found a clearing in the jungle, and we began to train.

Togekiss exchanged weak Moonblasts with Clefable to practice that recently learned attack. Ninetales sat next to her niece, Snowy, and worked with the Vulpix to develop her Ice Type control. As for Mawile and Tinkatuff, Mawile sat back and let Tinkatuff wail against her jaws with her hammer to train defense and offense respectively. Then, for Lillie’s Shiinotic and Ribombee, they practiced their powder moves together, and, nearby, Eevee and Brionne simultaneously unleashed their ranged attacks in a competition for both accuracy and speed.

That only left two Pokémon not training: Nebby and Mimikyu. Nebby was in his Beast Ball, fast asleep after somehow managing to exhaust himself by practicing Teleport over the course of the entire morning. Mimikyu was sitting next to me, his shadowy claw curled up around my leg as part of a continuous, merry hug.

(I did my best to ignore the chill racing up my spine. This was as much training for me as it was for everyone else. I needed to not hesitate when it came to working alongside a Ghost Type Pokémon. For this in particular, I just had to not think about how his extended arm felt like a dead fish rubbing against my leg.)

"So, Lillie,” I said, bringing her over to sit on a nearby log as I started an important conversation. “While your team is getting stronger, I still want to talk to you about developing your team’s overall strategy.”

She cocked her head to the side, slightly confused.

"Overall strategy? What do you mean?"

“Well, you know trainers develop strategies to defeat specific opponents?”

“Yeah. Like how some Water Type specialists flood the field to affect agility, or how you apply weather and terrain.”

I nodded my head.

“It’s similar to that, but I’m talking about developing a general strategy that can be used in any match, not just against a specific foe. Basically, I want to help you create a fallback strategy to give you an easy decision making process when other plans don’t work. We’ve talked about how you want the individual members of your team to fight, but how do you plan to have them synergize together? I’m talking about win conditions, fighting style preference, or any long term objective to maneuver the battle as a whole into your advantage.”

She was already fervently writing in her journal. I’d barely even said anything that important.

“Okay,” Lillie said, humming as she wrote. “How do I create one?”

“Let’s use an example first. What do you think mine is, as a start?"

Lillie paused her writing to tap the back of her pencil to her chin. A little bit of eraser shaving got stuck there without her noticing, and I held back a short laugh.

"Yours?" She let out another hum. "You... You tend to try to counter your foes?"

"Kind of. You’ve already mentioned it, in a way, so I’ll give you a start. You said I tend to rely on both weather and terrain, but why? Why bother with those strategies, and how do they benefit my team?”

This time, her face really scrunched up in thought. Off in the distance, a bolt of lightning struck the jungle’s floor as Togekiss and Clefable shifted to practicing Metronome next, and that flash almost seemed to serve as a lightbulb going off above Lillie’s head.

"You... buff up your Pokémon? You... set them up? Wait! That’s exactly it! You don’t just use field moves after all. You use what status moves you can to ensure your Pokémon are the strongest Pokémon on the field!” She blinked. “Hold on, is that even a strategy? Doesn’t everyone try to do that?”

“I mean, yeah, it’s basic but it does give me an easy guideline to make decisions in battle,” I said, awkwardly scratching the back of my head. “Whether it’s Ninetales’s... weather, Mawile’s Iron Defense-boosted jaws, or just the benefits of Grassy Terrain, I try to find an advantage my Pokémon can push and lean on that hard.”

“So that’s your general strategy, and it helps you with your specific-to-a-battle strategies,” Lillie said, already back to scribbling in her notebook.

“That’s what I’m trying to hammer in and help you develop here,” I said. “You have solid ideas of how each individual Pokémon fights, but how can those work together? Given that this can help you if you’re ever stuck fighting an extra-strong Pokémon,” Like an Ultra Beast, “let’s start brainstorming ideas. Anything you can think of, say it out loud. The purpose of this training camp is to ensure you have a proper way to get stronger.”

Lillie flipped open her notebook to a new page and let loose a thoughtful hum.

“I think I should go over the basics first and see what falls in place, then,” she offered.

"Go ahead," I said.

She took a few seconds to gather herself before she actually began.

“To start, I have Nebby, who’s great at Teleporting and wearing down his opponents by dodging all their attacks. Brionne is a great special attacker, but she also can trap foes with Sing and Encore. Clefable has similar moves, but she can tank hits pretty well, too. As for Shiinotic... You know my ‘drain tank’ idea, right?”

I nodded.

“He’s great at slowly draining them to heal himself, but he can also utilize spore moves to trap his opponents thanks to our training with Hope,” Lillie continued. “That just leaves Snowy, who... Well, we haven't had much time to train together, but I think I’m likely going to rely on her slowing down her foes. Oh! Brionne knows Icy Wind, too, if that helps at all.”

“Does it?” I asked.

She paused.

“I think?” she offered.

I let her stew on that thought for a few more moments.

“Does saying all of this out loud help you put the pieces together?” I asked.

It certainly helped me, because I had already noticed a pattern in the details she provided.

Lillie frowned as she seemed to silently go over her team’s capabilities in her head once more. I let her drift off into silence to give her time to put something together. Around us, our Pokémon continued to train as the clearing continued to be filled with the noise of their efforts.

The grip on my leg tightened, and I stiffened reflexively. Mimikyu made a happy noise, not aware of my passive fear.

"Can I have a hint?” Lillie eventually asked.

I let out a laugh.

“Sorry. Sorry!” I said. “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at what you’re missing.”

Lillie’s face turned red with a blush as she indignantly puffed up her cheeks. I had no doubts Hope had helped her master this expression and promptly taught her how to weaponize it, too.

“Tell me what you mean by that,” Lillie ordered. She was trying her best to sound intimidating, but it had little effect on me.

“Think about it, Lillie,” I said, bringing up a hand to cover my mouth and hide my smile. “You’ve already mostly figured out your team member’s basic strategies, but from the looks of things, you already have a solid idea of how to defeat your opponents, too. It’s no stall strategy, but I’d say it’s almost the same. Think about what your Pokémon can do specifically and how you’ve described their end effects.”

Another pause.

“You mean like with their slowing moves? Should I focus on slowing down my opponents? No, no, my Pokémon use trapping moves.” She began to write once more. “Nebby exhausts his foes, and everyone else uses moves like Encore, Icy Wind, and Sleep Powder...”

Her pencil went stock still as her gaze suddenly snapped up to me.

"Debilitating effects!” Lillie shouted.

A few Pokémon turned her way—mostly the members of Lillie’s team—but when they saw she was just saying that in exclamation rather than alarm, they went back to their practice.

“I’m already ordering my Pokémon to weaken our opponents or make it harder for them to act,” Lillie explained excitedly. “It's the opposite strategy of yours. Instead of making my team stronger, we make our enemies weaker!”

On her face was a bright smile, and I could see her eyes flicking around to look at her team members with a new understanding. No doubt, she was already thinking about ways she could apply that idea to reach greater heights.

“There’s a lot you can build off of that, if you want to focus on weakening your foes,” I said. “Status conditions and debuffing moves are the great equalizers of the world. Even the strongest of opponents can get stuck in place by a properly applied paralysis. Not to mention how almost every Pokémon is vulnerable to sleep.”

And briefly, my mind flicked back to how Hope and I handled Tapu Bulu. If Lillie figured out a few high-level tricks to shut down her foes, I could see her winning against that Legendary Pokémon with a weaker team than mine.

“I like it,” Lillie said, rolling her shoulders before getting back to writing. “I know I should spend more time on brainstorming, but I already really want to expand this idea further. I’m going to spend a bit more time on it for now.”

“Go ahead,” I said with a chuckle.

She leaned forward to focus on recording her thoughts, writing out everything we had talked about and every single new idea that came to mind. At this point, I stood up and froze briefly when Mimikyu’s claw tightened around my leg, but he released me when I bent over and picked him up.

He stiffened out of surprise, and I did my best to give him a comforting smile. That caused the Ghost Type to lean against me, and, doing my best to react positively to Mimikyu in an arm, I began to pace as Lillie continued to write.

“Now that I think about it,” I started, the change in position letting an idea come to mind, “you should keep in mind that status moves don’t always work. Some Pokémon are immune, after all.”

Lillie paused her writing to look up at me, blinking.

"So I shouldn’t bother after all?”

"No, no!" I shook my free hand for emphasis. "There's no such thing as a perfect strategy—everything has a counter. I just mean you should be aware nothing works every time, too. Grass Types are immune to powder moves. Electric Types can’t be paralyzed...” I hummed. “Actually, you already have the perfect example with you here. How far along are Clefable’s abilities?”

“She figured out Cute Charm when she was still a Cleffa, and she got a good handle on Magic Guard recently. As for Unaware...” Lillie grimaced. “It’s hard to train a Pokémon’s hidden ability.”

I absentmindedly nodded my head, lost in thought as I slowly came up with a way to show off the pros and cons of Lillie’s proposed general idea.

“That’s fine. I think if you want to follow through with this, you might want to watch a spar between Clefable and Shiinotic.”

“Between those two Pokémon?” Her eyes nervously flicked between them, but I knew that hesitance was there only because she didn’t want her friends to get hurt. “...Okay. I trust you, Alex. Clefable! Shiinotic! Can you two come here?”

The pair of Lillie’s Pokémon paused their training to jog over to Lillie. Neither Pokémon was that fast, so their movements ended up appearing more like a series of lumbering hops.

(Without partners, Ribombee and Togekiss met up to train together, entering the sky to practice their flight.)

“Alex thinks you two should battle,” Lillie said.

“A spar,” I interjected. “You two have uniquely opposite capabilities that I think would help Lillie learn something.”

Clefable and Shiinotic exchanged a look, with Shiinotic giving Clefable a casual shrug. Neither of them seemed opposed to it, so they moved off to the space in the center of this space to have an area for a match.

“Alright,” I started, “Don’t give them any orders when they fight, Lillie.”

“Huh? What?! But isn’t that the point of battling?”

I gained a slight smirk as I watched her two Pokémon stretch to prepare.

“Usually, but it’s good to have Pokémon develop a sense of independence. Besides, if you were giving orders to both of them, it'd be easy to accidentally fall into the trap of favoring one of them over the other."

She nodded along, though she started to chew on her thumb out of nerves.

With both Clefable and Shiinotic having finished their preparatory stretches, they stood off, locking eyes with a smile. Clefable seemed perfectly affable on the surface, whereas Shiinotic looked a bit creepier with his dark holes that served as his eyes and a mouth. He stood opposite Clefable, uncanniness versus cuteness competing in this match. Between just the two of them, we actually had a great example of just how much Fairy Types could differ.

“Begin!” I called out.

Clefable was the first to move.

Two arms wigged back and forth. A Metronome that started the fight.

“Interesting,” I mused.

In the air around Clefable, shining leaves seemed to peel off from nothing and slice through the air towards Shiinotic. The Magical Leaf homed in, and Shiinotic let the attack hit him because he resisted the Type.

Easily taking the move, Shiinotic then charged right through the assault. His gait was slow, but as he ran, his mushroom head puffed out a pale powder into a cloud around him.

“Sleep Powder? Is he trying to end the fight quickly?” I said quietly under my breath.

At my side, Lillie was biting her fingernail even more nervously than before.

Clefable obviously recognized Shiinotic’s gambit, as getting touched by that Sleep Powder would knock her unconscious and make her unable to defend against the Grass Type’s draining touch. She was forced to hop backwards, with the tiny wings on her back flapping in an unhelpful attempt to stabilize her in the air. In exchange, however, she was able to conjure the newest move she had learned—Moonblast—and sent that forward. The deep pink of the glowing orb told me the move lacked the power I was familiar with, but at her level, it was still enough to catch Shiinotic in the side.

At the first sign of damage, Lillie yelped. The two Pokémon on the field paused and inspected where Shiinotic was hit.

Honestly, the injury Shiinotic took was laughable, only appearing at the slightest of scuffs on his side. The two Pokémon glanced at Lillie as if to ask permission, and, after a second, she gave them a tense go-ahead.

With that, Shiinotic’s smirk told me he had a new trick up its sleeves, and he flicked his spindly hands up to send dark, purple spores floating in a wreath ahead of him. Immediately after, the hole that was his mouth widened and a trio of Leech Seeds flew straight out.

This combination was nothing like what Whimsicott could do with Prankster, but it was obviously inspired by it. Each of the three Leech Seeds were covered in the Poison Powder, which caused them to leave a sparkling, dusty trail as they flew.

In terms of debilitating strategies, this had the potential to be an incredibly useful technique. However, Clefable did something that was a surprise—she began to run forward, right into the attack coming her way.

“This is exactly what I was talking about,” I said with a grin.

Vines wrapped around Clefable, hindering her movements, and the poison from the Poison Powder soaked into her skin. The results were immediately obvious: not taking any defensive actions meant the Leech Seed tied her up even more than usual, and she was now suffering from poison. However, past an initial wince, Clefable neither suffered from the drain of the vines or the poison coursing through her veins. Her ability, Magic Guard, showed off just why a debilitating strategy like this was worthless against her: thanks to Clefable’s innate, mystical protection, she could only take damage from direct attacks.

“Clefable!” Lillie spoke loudly. “Are you okay?”

Through the vines wrapping around her, Clefable tried to smile to show Lillie she was just fine, but Shiinotic didn’t give her that chance to wait. He used Leech Seed again to not deal damage but to have even more seeds extend out and wrap around Clefable.

With Clefable not being the fastest Pokémon in the world, she had no way to stop the extra tangles. The tight vines wrapping around her meant she now struggled to even lift up her leg, and that gave Shiinotic all the time in the world to approach, lumbering forward.

But, only a second later, the approaching Pokémon was forced to leap to the side. After all, while Clefable couldn’t move, she could still conjure Moonblasts and send them forward.

“Actually, let’s end the battle here,” I called out. “You two were great. You showed off exactly what I wanted you to show.”

Right away, Lillie slumped with relief and ran forward, waving her arms.

“Stop the match!” she shouted.

Her two Pokémon paused.

Wasting no time at all, Lillie fed a Pecha Berry to Clefable, curing the Pokémon of its poison, and she then moved to spray a Potion on Shiinotic’s Moonblast-inflicted wounds.

I let her baby her Pokémon as needed as I headed over. It wasn’t often Lillie had her Pokémon directly fight. She was a bigger fan of having them train through fun activities or deliberate practice more often than not.

(Though, the strange part about this was that she was fine with having them compete in real battles. There was something about seeing two of her team members fight one another that sparked something unhappy inside of Lillie.)

“So what did you think about that match?” I said, waiting at Lillie’s side.

It looked like she wanted to make a sort of acerbic comment, but she wisely bit her tongue.

“I think... I think both Pokémon fought well,” she replied.

“Well I think both Pokémon fought incredibly well. I’m very impressed.”

I took a breath.

“Clefable,” I started. “Your use of Magic Guard was great. Purposefully taking poisoned Leech Seeds to catch your opponent off guard was pretty smart.”

The Fairy Type bowed her head.

“Next time, though, it might be better to fake being under their effects to lower your opponent’s guard. Also, Leech Seed doesn’t normally slow who it hits. That was a consequence of you not bothering to defend against the attack. Good use of Moonblast, though. I don’t think Shiinotic saw that coming at the end..”

Clefable winced slightly at the criticism, but she still seemed to appreciate the feedback.

“As for you, Shiinotic.” The mushroom stiffened with worry. “It was very clever of you to combine Leech Seed with your powder moves. It wasn’t as hidden as when Whimsicott does it with Prankster, but I can see the combination being a great way to apply statuses at range.”

He smiled.

“However, you don’t have many other long-ranged options, do you? If you only have Leech Seed to attack from a distance, that means you’d always have to get in close to affect your foes, which isn’t viable with your speed. If you can figure out Energy Ball, that might be one solution. Also! You can’t forget you have a decent special defense. You took both the Magical Leaf and Moonblast with ease. It might be worth leaning into that strength when you fight, too.”

He nodded along, doing his best to take in every note I shared despite the sour look on his face.

I turned to Lillie.

“So,” I said.

“So,” she repeated.

“Do you want to know what I think?”

“I want to know what you had them demonstrate,” she replied.

I smiled.

“This battle showed off exactly what I wanted: the strengths and weaknesses of debilitating moves. They can completely inhibit a foe—like with Clefable’s speed—but immune opponents can take advantage of you suddenly losing your main strategy. Not only that, but you can’t let your offensive power fall back in favor of status moves. Those are used in addition to normal attacks, not replacing them. Waiting for your opponents to be worn down from, say, a combination of a Leech Seed and poison is closer to a stall strategy than an offensive strategy, which I don’t think your team could support too well.”

“So what should we do, then?” Lillie asked.

“We continue along with the point of this training camp,” I replied. “We train.”

Having a basic strategy was a good falling back point, and Lillie and I continued to discuss ways she could apply this idea to enhance her team. As time progressed, it was clear that the idea of weakening her foes sang to her, and through our discussion, we were able to slowly codify her ideas into actual, written strategy.

I could only hope that it would work to ensure Lillie had a way to run from Ultra Beasts. I never planned to let her be caught alone, but there was no way to ensure I’d always be around.

"As for how the next few days will go, we'll be using this time to get everyone up to par and your team functioning better than ever,” I said to Lillie. “For now, we'll focus on brainstorming on a more specific level before branching out into testing what's viable. From there, we’ll practice those techniques, and on the last day, we’ll have a battle between you and—"

My words cut out when I saw Lillie freeze and stare at something just over my shoulder. The usual sounds of Pokémon practicing went quiet, as well. Togekiss and Ribombee lowered themselves from the skies, Tinkatuff paused her attacks against Mawile, and Ninetales moved to stand in front of Snowy as if to protect the smaller fox.

If whatever they were staring at was something dangerous, I knew that Ninetales would have leaped into battle, but everyone just seemed to be on edge instead. Slowly, I turned around to see what they were looking at, and then I paused as well.

There, watching us at the edge of the clearing was a woman with a deep purple, tied-back ponytail. She wore a gloved suit that she adjusted as if to pretend nothing was wrong.

“Ah, it’s been a while, Alex,” the woman said.

My eyes narrowed as I took her in.

“Anabel,” I replied. “I haven’t seen you since the Trainer School.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important by being here,” the member of the Intentional Police said with a casual smile, “but I’ve learned some new information recently. I think it would be for the best if the two of us talked.”