[FIN] Give It Some Thought

[Suudonym]

It seemed like ages ago that Luke had challenged Hoenn's first gym - though the challenge itself had been an ongoing affair due to repeated failures. He had only finally succeeded in his efforts after looking at the moves his pokemon were capable of and organizing his team and his plan of action around them. The idea of fighting from a strategy had seemed to him a novel concept, though the fact that it had actually worked had left an impact. He'd continued to strategize carefully as his pokemon grew stronger, choosing their moves carefully and working with them to refine their movements as diligently as he had refined his own movements with a sword. His work had paid off in competitive battles, but it seemed now that that was a bit of a problem: His team's attacks were configured for competition by League rules and standards, and the most dangerous enemy was one that functioned outside of those rules and standards.

It had been a while since Luke had taken time to scrutinize and evaluate every move his team knew and could know, but that was just what the day found him doing. It was a bit warm to utilize a cafe's outdoor tables, but given the continuing absence of his jacket (insert sad face), he could tolerate the early summer temperatures - it also meant that the outdoor seating areas were sparsely populated, giving him enough quiet to think clearly. Mieu lay stretched out at his human's feet in enjoyment of the heat, contributing the occasional sound in reply when asked some question. The trainer himself sat with his pokedex and a notebook before him, browsing the small screen with all concentration, the point of a pen hovering indecisively over paper already filled with notes.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Spending her days off traveling by bus all the way into Camphoreon City was not exactly how she would have liked to spend her time, but a couple of weeks had passed since she returned from Kanto, and it was far beyond time to come back to the city and reclaim her lazy trainer child back into the wild.

Rayan was quite used to the harsh conditions of the sun, tanned by it over the years and used to dealing with the affects. As such, she had a water bottle in her hand from her bad, and she was without her utility jacket today, leaving her in a pare of sturdy pants and a gray loose fitted tank top.
It didn't provide much for a pokemon to grip to, but the Pikachu perked on her shoulder, with his head held high, wide eyes staring around the city in amazement seemed to manage just fine.

"Alright." the tall women let out a breath and put her hands on her hips, looking around the streets as she got a handle for where she was. "Time to find the brat."
She would be looking for a brunette today, but it was a different color hair that seemed to grab her attention instead.
Ray blinked, recognizing the boy, Luke, sitting outside of a Cafe, concentrating on something. I was a good start! He would at least know where to find Seraphine. Though as she drew neared, she took more of an interest in what he was looking over, especially since he had his Dex out.
Not saying anything, the tall women stepped up to his table, and leaned forward to peer at what he was doing.

"... Move sets huh?" she asked eith an arched eyebrow. "Studying pokemon attacks are we?"  

[Suudonym]

Mieu arched to see who was there at the sound of someone's approach - ugh, it was the weird woman - before giving Luke a nudge to let his trainer know someone was there. Green eyes went to the Flareon before finding his company as she spoke, and he started slightly in surprise. "Ah," his attention drifted back to the notebook, "yeah. What we've been using until now is good for battling other trainers who go by the rules, but against serious enemies…"  

[Blood_Goddess]

His surprise was met with a wide smirk, her eyes wide for a second as is pleased with herself, before her heavily shaded eyes half lidded again.
She winked down at Mieu, thought he Pikachu on her shoulder widened his eyes, staring at the other pokemon closely before his earls slicked back slowly, and he turned his attention to the boy instead.

"Ohhhh" Ray cooed slyly "Well now, you're starting to think very practically there young man." The way she said this, made her sound extremely interested and proud. "Looks like you have different goals than one of the trainers who wants to be the master of pokemon training." She wasn't surprised in the least. "studying is good. good. SO." she patted the table. "how have you been huh? been a couple of weeks." She tilted her head "Getting into fights?" she asked, taking note of the bruising.  

[Suudonym]

He nodded in confirmation; mastering training didn't sound very appealing if it couldn't help in the fights that mattered. The sudden shift in topic caught him off guard, and he grappled briefly for a coherent response, "Okay, I guess." Lame. "Ah, yeah… It got a few guys who were probably Rockets arrested, though, so I'm not complaining."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Ray, who seemed much more excited about this idea, along with the Pikachu who perked up on her shoulder and looked surprised and impressed.
"Hey! Did you? freakin' alright kid!" Ray held a hand up to give him a high five. "Talk about getting back at them, you aren't messing around, its only been a couple of weeks."  

[Suudonym]

The enthusiasm humbled him, and while he ducked his head downward it was not without traces of a smile. He promptly raised his attention again, reciprocating the offered gesture modestly. "I can't say it was all that intentional… I mean, it's not like I raided a hideout or something." Or hey, maybe he did and just never knew it. "I'm glad, though. It's kind of nice to know I'm not completely powerless."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Ray let out a hardy laugh, that caused the Pikachu to look over at her, She gave him the high five, then place her hands on the table, pausing the mark-less pikachu to hop down onto it next to her, the long pokemon hat he was wearing flipping behind him.
"Typical boy huh? Never quite feel like themselves unless you get the s**t beaten out of you a couple of times, and always come back with the 'you should see the other guy'. Thats awesome though, I'm sure you'll be needing more of that before too long."
She leaned forward a little more "So what have you got so far for your team?"  

[Suudonym]

He would have liked to deny that, but the hard evidence indicated that he felt much better with the bruises on his face and the stitches on his arm than he did before he had them, so he shyly left it without comment. "Not a whole lot… The only one I'm really satisfied with is my Umbreon," he indicated the only finalized list on the page: Screech, Confuse Ray, Faint Attack, and Foul Play. "I'm trying to keep stronger enemies in mind specifically, but also stuff that would be useful against a human attacker or in real, fast-paced combat kind of situations." It was an entirely different monster to tackle from the usual fare.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Letting her eyes fall on his notes and dex as he spoke, explaining his Umbreon's move set and why he chose them she nodded. "I'm impressed, you've done your research. that's always a tricky part, knowing what to teach your team, especially when you don't have the league practice to follow, when you're facing real life. you've seem to got it under control though."
She glanced down at the Flareon under the table "How about you Mieu? Got any new tricks to show us yet?"  

[Suudonym]

"I don't know about under control," he said. "It's all just theory until we can try it and see if it actually works." The ideal, of course, was to never be in a situation where they had to try it, but Luke had well-founded doubts that that ideal was attainable.

Mieu stretched and moved into a sitting posture with a motion resembling a shrug. "We're still trying to figure out what would be most effective for Mieu," his human elaborated in lieu of the Flareon's evident indifference. "I bought a TM for Return, but I feel like we should know what the other moves will be before we get into learning and practicing." There were notes on the page for both Toxic - strong poison/whittle down stronger enemies - and Bite - close range/effective against people. "Mieu likes Flamethrower, but I was thinking that if we're just going for a heavy-hitting fire-type attack, something like Lava Plume might be better…"  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Thats all it will be till you try it, doesn't mean you don't have things under control." she paused a moment to let him talk, also looking over his notes. Don't have it under control, every trainer had to go through something like this. she grinned, nodding her head. "A lot of it will be just seeing what works best for you pokemon, and the team you form, thats pretty much all there is to it. keep in mind how they might work together with these attacks too. League might say one at a time, but life might have you bringing out everyone to play."
She offered.  

[Suudonym]

"Yeah," he said, idly drawing a question mark beside a crossed out Sunny Day. "I was working with something before with Sunny Day before to make Mieu's fire stronger and also give Tenebrae's Moonlight a boost, and I was thinking of adding to that by getting SolarBeam for my Aggron… but at the same time, we've never really had the chance to set up a Sunny Day when fighting against people for real, so it kind of felt like a wasted move…" It was challenging trying to think a step ahead not only on his end but also on his opponents'. What kind of pokemon would he encounter, what kind of moves would they use, what would be the best way to engage enemy pokemon while preventing movements by the enemy trainer? His thoughts shifted to another of his recent challenges, "What's your opinion on Eevee evolutions?"  

[Blood_Goddess]

She could see the gears working in his head, and it delighted her, people taking this kind of thing seriously, and actually putting time an effort into the more challenging and mundane studying.
At the question about Eevee's the women's eyes seemed to light up and she gave him a sly grin, watching him close. "My opinions, well that just depends, you thinking about adding another Eon to the group? Or is this about your Umbreon and Mieu?"  

[Suudonym]

"Half and half," he said, considering the situation. "I've had an Eevee for a while. I decided a while ago to evolve her to a Vaporeon since I keep running into trouble in places with a lot of water, but I was putting it off because she was hatched from an egg and I wanted her to get some experience with training and battling before sort of dumping her into stuff. But Flareon and Aggron are both weak to water, so I was starting to think Jolteon might be better to cover them."