[FIN] Unpleasant Requirements

[BlackFireKitsune]

Seeing two of him was almost as surprising as seeing none of them, and once more Sync eagerly circled the agent - though this time he circled his visible doppelganger - to examine the illusion. "That seems really useful," he noted as he walked around, studying the look-alike. "Is there a time or range limit that they'll disappear after?" If it could make a human invisible or take on the appearance of a human, then clearly doing the same with pokemon should be no problem. "Water effects seem like they'd be difficult since they can be so complex, or at least if there's light involved," the trainee commented when he came to a halt again, considering all the possibilities. Oh yes, he'd have to get one for himself. "Fire seems like it would be difficult too, though not as difficult as water."  

[TawnyAngel]

"The Zoroark has to remain in a certain range for the illusion to work but what that range is depends on their skill," Aulus replied with a shrug. "Stretching Fox's range is another priority for us at the moment. For things like having them make you invisible though if you're moving it'll start to go wrong pretty quickly if they can't see you as they can't adapt it to your changing surroundings and you can end up as a bit of scenery moving in a disjointed fashion rather than actually invisible. Things like water and fire are both difficult, yeah, Fox here is just more experienced with fire effects because I've got two fire types with permanent flames that she sees a lot of."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Makes sense," Sync said again with another nod. It was too much to hope for that they had unlimited range, of course. Still, that ability seemed incredibly useful, if not essential, and again he found himself wondering just how to acquire one for himself. Well, what better way to find out? "How would I get one of these?"  

[TawnyAngel]

"Well if you want one custom made you can request one from the labs," Aulus replied with a small nod, "there's a form to fill out on the intranet where you can specify gender, coat pattern, any egg moves you want, and all of that. Customizing your own comes at a cost though, and the more changes from standard you want made the more expensive it gets. You could also request one from storage, they might have one in and as you've only got three pokemon so far - and no dark types - that'd probably be free but it depends on who handles the request really, there might be a small charge. Alternatively you could try to hunt one down in the wild, I think there's a small population in Kodo now but I'd have to look into it more to be sure and to work out where they'd be found."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

He nodded once more; he knew about the second of those, given two of his had been assigned to him straight from storage, though he wasn't sure if he'd like that option or getting one specially made for him more. The third option left him a little confused, and all he could picture were Rockets sneaking up on Zorua and trying to catch them via a variety of methods -- none of which involved pokeballs. "You can... catch them?" He queried in skeptical tones, one eyebrow raised questioningly.  

[TawnyAngel]

Oh boy, more concepts to explain apparently. "Yes, with pokeballs," Aulus confirmed. "It's the most common way to get pokemon, outside of Team Rocket that is. Basically you find a wild pokemon you want, battle against it to weaken it, and then you throw a pokeball at it and hope it contains it. Sometimes the pokemon will break free and you'll have to try again, but giving the pokemon a status condition like paralysis will make it easier to catch. You can get different kinds of pokeballs that have different rates of effectiveness. Normal pokeballs are cheap but not that strong so easy for tough wild pokemon to break out of, wheras ultra balls will set you back some but have a higher chance of containing your quarry. There are specialised kinds of ball too, I'll send you a chart after the session to have a look at."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Sync's skepticism only grew with Aulus's explanation. "Sooo I would have to go to some random part of the island where they live and hunt around for some nebulous length of time and hope I find one, then once I do find one - if I find one - I have to hope it doesn't knock out my pokemon before I get to throw a ball at it, and then hope it works and that I won't have to spend hours finding another one to try again?" He paused a moment to think about it a second time to see if it made more sense then. It didn't. He frowned. "That sounds really stupid."  

[TawnyAngel]

It was kind of stupid really if you thought about it. Aulus shrugged expressively. "It's how trainers who don't have access to our systems do things most of the time. A lot of them seem to derive some kind of enjoyment from it but I'm damned if I know why, it's not a hobby I ever got into myself. A couple of my pokemon are wild caught but they're ones I happened to run into and decided I wanted rather than ones I went searching for, most of mine are either stolen or from the labs in one way or another. It's much more reliable and less time consuming than going hunting for what you're after, but that is still an option."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Well, if someone didn't have access to the resources they did, that sucked for them. Hunting around and only hoping you could catch the thing you wanted seemed inefficient and just a monumental waste of time, in his opinion. His already low opinion of the general population at large diminished further. Regardless, Aulus's words earned a nod. "Getting one from the labs or from storage sounds like a much better option," he pointed out, "so I'll look into those."

After a bit more time and discussion about various pokemon-related things, the training session was deemed 'complete' and the two parted ways. Sync recalled his pokemon and threw his bag over one shoulder before departing, feeling much more informed walking out than he had walking in.