(RPJ)Chapter 162: understanding (Patreon)

"Slateport? Then you mean!?" she asked in horror and I nodded seriously. "Yes , Hades is the product of all the resentment and hatred from the recent disaster given physical form. Ironic isn't it? That out of everyone to come across it first it was the one person who failed to stop Maxie from awakening Groudon to begin with. The least I felt I could do was make sure that Hades was well taken care of no?" I asked with a small amount of self loathing. I failed to stop Maxie and the result was a great loss of life.-

I don't blame myself for the disaster since I know that Groudon would have been awoken with or without my intervention from Maxie's actions. However that didn't mean I didn't acknowledge that I could have probably prevented it by being more careful. Maxie was an arrogant and confident person by nature so if I hadn't shown my willingness to ignore pokemon clashes and target the trainer themselves he may not have fled from the machine in self confidence that his team could win. In a way my own ruthlessness had come to bite me in the ass by scaring him into fleeing and in the end awakening Groudon forcefully.-

"You couldn't have known that Maxie was going to awaken Groudon so you shouldn't beat yourself up over it. It's not your fault." flannery said seriously. I shook my head "Do you know why Maxie fled to begin with? It was because I killed one of his admins while ignoring their pokemon. He fled because there was no hope of him turning the situation around if he couldn't just battle me to get me to back off. It was why he was so desperate when we finally reached him in the Magma base. He knew he wouldn't survive and with his death so too would his goal follow him to the grave." I said honestly.-

Flannery went quiet as she couldn't argue with me as I was right. "Despite what happened I don't regret my ruthlessness at all. From now on though I will try and hone it into a scalpel rather than a hammer as it currently is. For now however I think I will heal up my team and deal with the wolves waiting to rip into me." I said with a smirk before walking away. Flannery was too lost in her thoughts to try and stop me as I left the gym.-

Out of all of my pokemon to battle only Vulcan and Hades were seriously hurt and even then Hades would be fine after a while since the vast majority of it's form was smoke. Vulcan only had some burns and a couple broken ribs from the Camerupt exploding right next to it and needed some time healing under my ability. The crowds outside the gym waiting for me were like you would expect quite eager to surround me.-

I wasn't having any of it though and simply leaped over them all by reinforcing my legs with aura and then sprinting away. Once I got back to my hotel I released Vulcan from it's ball and went to work healing it's injuries. Vulcan was quite unhappy with how it's battle went not that I could blame it as it was doing very good before Flannery went for mutual destruction. "Cheer up Vulcan we won in the end." I said and the legendary snorted but stopped sulking which was better than nothing I suppose.-

Hades was less accepting of the lose it took when I let it out of it's ball. Obviously it wasn't a hundred percent alright since the cloud was uneven and rather small but Hades was at least recovering quickly. There was a lot of wailing and roaring and hissing before Hades felt satisfied that it had vented out all of it's grievances. To be honest though I just nodded along like I understood any of what it was trying to convey in it's strings of incomplete thoughts and words. "Now then if you are done complaining we can go over your fights to find where you can improve." I said calmly and the ghost hissed at me but was at least paying attention.-

"First your moves need work , don't give me that look it's true and you know it. As I was saying you have trouble moving your energy smoothly and your moves themselves lack any creative flair that would give them any more usability. The good news is that you have plenty of power however so we only need to work on the way you use the moves in training." I said despite Hades not liking my criticism. The ghost didn't like having it's flaws pointed out like this but it was necessary for it to improve.-

"The second thing we need to work on is your mobility. The entire time you just stayed in place and as you experienced it left you very vulnerable to an opponent faster than you that isn't limited where they can attack you from. Thankfully there are a few ways you can patch this hole in your defense. First of which is simply limiting the direction you can get attacked in by altering the terrain or creating barriers around yourself. Your species can learn rock tomb via tm or serious training so it should be possible for you to at some point be able to modify your surrounds to protect you as well."-

"The second method is simply for you to directly increase your mobility. I know that instinctually your kind don't like to move your keystones but if you simply pick it up and move around with it you will be a lot harder to get overwhelmed like you were." I explained all of this seriously and while Hades hissed and howled angrily I knew it was listening to what I said. The ghost was just a stubborn ass when it came to admitting it's own faults was all.-

I didn't really have any advice for Vulcan on how to act as for the most part it had always been nearly perfect in battle. It followed my instructions, tried it's best and didn't go for the kill unless it was supposed to. Due to it's personality Vulcan also never really lost it's temper in battle unlike Gaia. Not to say it didn't get mad as Vulcan very much did , just that it never let it cloud it's mind. Gaia also usually didn't have this problem but as I discovered getting in the way of her food was a fast way to earn her rage.-

Speaking of my big girl she was sulking in her ball at the moment and I didn't feel like aggravating her with criticism until she was done. In terms of injuries she was basically fine minus the fact one of her front fangs had been knocked out. I waited a few hours for Hades to finish healing before putting it's keystone in my pocket and told it that we were going to jump scare some people. After that I left the hotel openly and made my way to the exit of the city before heading out.