"Kadabra, use Kinesis, then follow with Confusion."
"Don't rush. You can take it slowly. All you need to do is get used to the feeling."
With past battle experience, Gu Yuan wasn't worried about Charmeleon and Eevee.
It was Kadabra's first real battle, so Gu Yuan wanted to do everything he could to help it get used to the fight.
To Gu Yuan's surprise, even though Kadabra had only just learned the move after evolving, it used it with impressive skill.
Under its psychic power, the spoon in Kadabra's hand bent, catching Geodude's attention.
Then Kadabra took the chance to release Confusion.
A beam of multicolored light burst out and hit Geodude directly, though it didn't leave the Pokémon confused.
"Keep going, Kadabra! Use Confusion to throw Geodude into the air. Aim for where it'll land, then use Confusion again to finish the battle!"
Even though he was impressed by Kadabra's performance, Gu Yuan reminded himself that this was still a battle. Everything else could wait until it was over.
Kadabra reacted quickly to the command.
Confusion wrapped around Geodude, holding it in place before throwing it high into the air.
Once off the ground, Geodude panicked, but there was nothing it could do.
As Geodude fell, Kadabra fired another Confusion, blasting it away.
Geodude hit the ground hard and fainted instantly.
When Kadabra finished its fight, the other two Geodude had already been defeated by Charmeleon and Eevee.
"You did great, Kadabra. Looks like you are very talented."
Gu Yuan patted Kadabra's shoulder as he gave his thoughts.
With so many kinds of Pokémon, it was natural that some stood out. A few might have special powers, but more often, it was about having a stronger ability to learn.
From Kadabra's performance, Gu Yuan guessed it had an especially strong ability to use Psychic moves.
Kadabra nodded in confusion. It didn't really understand what was happening, but it trusted in Gu Yuan's judgement.
"Alright, let's keep going. We need to help you master all your moves and build more battle experience."
After a short rest, Gu Yuan led Kadabra and the others onward.
From then on, Gu Yuan focused on battling Rookie Rank Pokémon so Kadabra could gain experience faster.
Maybe it was because Alakazam was said to have incredible intelligence, but Kadabra's mind seemed to grow sharper with each step, and its battle performance improved quickly.
More than that, Kadabra had developed telepathy, letting it communicate directly with humans and Pokémon through the mind.
That made Gu Yuan's commands faster to deliver and harder for opponents to predict.
With moves like Teleport and Ally Switch, Kadabra was already showing how tricky Psychic-types could be.
Once Kadabra grew stronger and mastered more powerful moves, it would no doubt become a nightmare for many opponents.
Most importantly, Gu Yuan believed Kadabra could be the core of his team, someone who could raise the strength of the whole group to the limit, maybe even beyond what was normally possible.
With that decision made, Gu Yuan began training Kadabra with this objective in mind.
Since Kadabra no longer needed long hours of sleep, Gu Yuan kept it outside the Poké Ball, letting it watch Charmeleon and Eevee battle, so it could learn their styles and strategies.
One day, Gu Yuan thought, Kadabra might even share the task of giving commands alongside him.
***
While Gu Yuan steadily strengthened his team, a different group slipped past the Rangers' watch and entered the depths of Mt. Moon.
As mentioned before, to make Mt. Moon a safe place for trainers, the League had cleared the area. The Pokémon outside were mostly Rookie or Junior Rank.
But that was only part of the mountain.
Intermediate Rank and Senior Rank Pokémon lived deeper in the caves.
Digging Pokémon had carved out huge caverns inside, providing homes for countless wild Pokémon.
And most importantly, some of those places might even hide a Moon Stone.
Evolution stones came in four grades: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert.
For Pokémon that needed a stone to evolve, the quality of the stone made a real difference.
If possible, every trainer would give their Pokémon an Expert-grade stone. But such stones were far too expensive for most people.
Even with Gu Yuan's rank, he couldn't find stones of that quality available in the League's exchange system.
So most people used Intermediate-grade stones. A few lucky and wealthy trainers could get Advanced ones. The rest had to settle for Beginner-grade stones.
Mt. Moon, however, was rich in Moon Stones. To keep the supply steady without harming the ecosystem, the League had deliberately left many stones behind.
Most were Beginner-grade, but there were still many Intermediate and Advanced ones scattered throughout.
To stop people from over-harvesting, the League stationed many Rangers. But today, those Rangers were about to face a nightmare.
"This is the place. Take it out. Time to give those hounds a surprise."
"No problem."
Opening his pack, Torre pulled out a set of bombs and, with Cass, began setting them up.
After placing the charges, both released their Pokémon.
"Let's go."
With the traps ready, the two grew serious and followed the route they had scouted earlier.
Soon, a sleeping Graveler came into sight.
"Strong enough. It should know Self-Destruct."
Cass took one look and judged its strength right away. He was clearly experienced.
"Persian, use Swift!"
Torre gave the order.
"Roar!"
The Graveler bellowed in fury, roused from its sleep, and charged at them.
The two lured Graveler away and kept moving.
By the time they circled back to where the bombs were set, several more Graveler were chasing close behind.
"You've been chasing us long enough. Time for a surprise!"
Dashing through a narrow tunnel, Torre pressed the trigger as the Graveler tried to squeeze through.
The next second, Persian and Scyther grabbed their trainers and rushed to escape.
"Boom!"
The deafening blast echoed through the cave. A full-scale riot was about to begin.