Game Chapter 14: Cynthia and Iono's Adventure (Patreon)

With that thought, Cynthia recalled Treecko to its Poké Ball and started thinking through her options.

Clearly, judging from both the rival right in front of her and the Rock-type Gym Leader waiting ahead, the developer had one goal:

—to make players start building a well-rounded, balanced team that can handle all sorts of situations and foes from the very beginning.

After all, this is a game. Raising Pokémon here costs next to nothing—just time to level them up—unlike the real world, where every Pokémon demands a lot of money and effort to grow stronger.

Under those real-world constraints, building a mature team is thousands—tens of thousands—of times harder than in a game.

At the same time, the developer added a cap: you can catch at most 15 Pokémon total.

Which means every capture has to be a careful choice—every slot precious.

Cynthia’s mind raced.

Against Fire types, Water and Rock are the ideal counters.

But as far as she remembered, none of the wild Pokémon she’d seen so far matched those types.

Rock types don’t usually live in roadside grass or flat terrain anyway; you find them in caves and mountains. What she’d been encountering were Pidgey, Rattata, Spearow, Poochyena—things you commonly see around city outskirts.

Even that showed how tightly the game followed reality in placement and habitats.

Back to the flow: if she couldn’t beat the rival, she couldn’t reach the next area. So getting a Water or Rock Pokémon this early wouldn’t be easy.

As she mulled it over, a figure flashed through her mind.

Right—if she remembered right, the very first wild she’d run into after getting Treecko actually fit the bill!

She ran her character back to the grass just above town and started pacing to trigger encounters.

—In this game, walking in grass, caves, or other spawn zones gives a chance for wilds to appear. It’s fully random: you might hit a common, or a rare—that unpredictability is part of the original games’ charm.

She began hitting encounters.

She fled from the Poochyena and Spearow lookalikes, refreshing. On the seventh encounter, a green silhouette appeared—a small, cute Pokémon with a pale blue body and a lotus leaf on its head.

Her target: Lotad!

Lotad is dual Grass/Water, and that Water sub-type perfectly patches its Fire weakness—letting it counter Fire in return.

For handling Torchic this early, it was ideal.

She had Treecko use Pound twice to chip it low, then threw a Poké Ball.

Three shakes—ding. Caught.

Her first capture in Emerald.

When the battle screen closed, she explained to chat:

“I thought it through—yes, it overlaps Treecko’s Grass typing, but given the situation, Lotad looks like the best choice.

“One, it helps Treecko cover the Fire weakness. Two, as a Grass/Water, its dual typing cancels out the usual issues into Ice, Electric, and Fire—great resistances overall.”

Then she remembered something.

Right, this game lets you view abilities directly.

And… Lotad’s ability hasn’t been identified yet in the real world!

So—what would the dev give it?

She opened the party screen to check, then paused.

A never-before-seen ability: “Swift Swim.”

Description: In rain, the Pokémon’s Speed is doubled.

Chat lit up:

[Swift Swim? Huh? I’ve never heard of Lotad having that.]

[I have heard Lotad’s ability hasn’t been conclusively identified yet…]

[That may be, but doubling Speed? That’s busted. Feels like a custom ability the dev made up…]

[Nah. Even if it’s custom, it’s not that busted—you need rain. How many rainy days do you get in a year? In arid regions it’s basically dead.]

While chat debated, Cynthia stared at the line on screen.

As a Champion, her knowledge is deep. Unidentified abilities aren’t uncommon in research—trigger conditions and effects can be bizarre, and you don’t think to test them.

So is “Swift Swim” a made-up invention, or the real deal?

Her gut said… it might be real.

But she also hesitated. If it is real, that’s no small matter.

In real battles, doubling Speed is huge—even a modest Speed boost can be a qualitative power jump.

If confirmed, the upper ranks would explode over it.

Why only the upper ranks?

—Because for ordinary Trainers, rain and sun are “natural” weather—out of your control. But among Elites and Champions, a quiet boom has started around developing weather moves.

They’ve found that move-induced “weather” gives direct buffs. If your Pokémon is strong enough to set weather, it can massively boost allies of the right type.

If weather becomes controllable and this ability is real…

Expect a lot of Water- and Grass-specialists to rush to raise Lotad.

Otherwise, in mirror matches, the other side will bring a rain-boosted Ludicolo and you’ll get flattened…

Even in research, this would be a big deal.

It would imply that many Water Pokémon with “unknown” abilities might also have Swift Swim.

The more she thought about it, the more she felt it was real.

Someone who understands a Legendary’s image, perfectly reproduces an ancient fossil Pokémon, and shows such breadth in Pokémon knowledge and Trainer insight—would he slap in a random fake ability?

And today’s patch explicitly mentioned weather and its direct impact on battles…

She took a breath and shook her head.

Verification was simple: tell Professor Oak and have him test Lotad in rain with instruments.

But she’d just bothered him about the fossil Pokémon. He should finish his conference; there was time to test later. Gathering a sample set of Lotad and recording data would take time anyway.

She shelved it for now.

Then a new idea struck—

Right!

If the game has weather, and she just caught a Swift Swim Lotad…

Why not build a rain team?

Her real-world team is already fully settled; raising a fresh lineup from scratch isn’t realistic. That’s why she often plays Battle Road.

But the weather-move trend only recently took off among top Trainers. With Dream Factory’s update pace, waiting for full weather features might take a year or two.

Emerald, though, gave her the chance to try it now.

With team ideas brewing, she took Lotad into the nearby grass to grind.

…

Twenty minutes later, Lotad hit 12 and learned the counter-move Water Gun. Cynthia challenged “Black-Haired Boy” again.

His Torchic had Ember and Peck; Peck hits Lotad super-effectively, but it’s not STAB and isn’t that strong. Trading blows between two Pokémon, Torchic fell and Cynthia won.

Afterward, she released both partners and petted Lotad.

“Nice work, Lotad.”

“Leaf~”

Lotad squinted, delighted.

Treecko, leaning on a tree with a stem in its mouth, looked aloof. “Tree–cko.”

“And you too, Treecko. You were great.”

She stepped up and petted Treecko as well.

“Treee—”

Treecko shot her a scornful look… but its rapidly wagging tail betrayed it.

Chat couldn’t resist:

[That’s so wholesome I feel warm and fuzzy.]

[Even in a game she focuses on bonds. That’s our Nana!]

[How else do you become Champion? It’s all love for Pokémon!]

…

Then the story moved along: back to the lab for the Pokédex, off to Petalburg, meet Dad and Wally, into Petalburg Woods, then onward to Rustboro.

Cynthia was deeply absorbed. She only looked up now and then to chat; otherwise, eyes glued to the screen.

Viewers sighed.

[A focused streamer is so attractive… marry me.]

[That’s Champion aura—charisma even while gaming.]

[Even in Battle Road she wasn’t this locked in. This game really has her number…]

Now deep in Petalburg Woods, she didn’t rush out. She remembered what she’d seen in Iono’s stream:

The iron-wall Lileep with huge bulk, recovery, and control.

If she wanted the Gym badge, Lileep was the gate she had to pass.

Treecko and Lotad were both at the cap—15.

Treecko, besides Pound and Mega Drain, had learned Detect and Quick Guard. Detect is like Protect: negates one damaging move, but not spammable. Quick Guard is similar but only stops multi-target moves, and also can’t be chained.

Long-term, those defensive tools are valuable.

For beating Lileep… not so much.

Lotad’s moves were Absorb, Water Gun, Mist, and Growl—two modest attacks, plus clearing enemy buffs and dropping their Attack. Also not ideal for cracking that fortress.

So she knew she likely needed a third Pokémon to get past the Gym.

She still wanted a weather team later, but she understood that kind of synergy comes mid/late game. Early on, with maps locked, you can’t be picky; you build a functional team first.

So the next addition didn’t have to fit rain.

—You get 15 total catches, and you can only field six at a time anyway.

Question was: what should she catch to deal with Lileep?

Cynthia sank into thought.

Meanwhile, in Iono’s stream—

“Paralyze paralyze paralyze paralyze!!”

Iono’s cheeks were blazing; she clasped her hands and shook them furiously in prayer.

An electric flicker surged over Lileep—paralysis procced!

Its HP finally dropped to the last third.

“NICE!!!”

She nearly sprang out of her chair.

This was it.

One more paralysis, and two Bug Bites from Joltik would finish it.

Chat flooded:

[Attempt #15—are we finally seeing the second Pokémon?]

[After this many tries I should be sleepy, but her prison-tilt heat makes up for it.]

[Let’s go, Iono!!!]

…

“Paralyze! Just one last time!”

Heart pounding, Iono hit Bug Bite again.

And then—

Something unprecedented happened.

Lileep flashed into light… and vanished.

[Leader Roxanne withdrew Lileep!]

Light flared; a new Pokémon took the field.

[Leader Roxanne sent out Archeops!]

Iono: ??????

Bro… who are you?