After Auron finished speaking, he fell silent, sinking into his own thoughts.
He had long felt that this world—whether it was battles or the body of knowledge around Pokémon—behaved suspiciously like a video game.
For example, in the games, Earthquake doesn't affect Flying-type Pokémon. But what if a Flying-type is standing on the ground?
Auron had actually tested this. He made Corviknight stand on the ground and had Munchlax use Earthquake.
When Earthquake hit Corviknight, Corviknight didn't react at all—none of the telltale signs of being struck by a move.
He ran a string of follow-up experiments around that question and eventually arrived at a possibility.
Every Pokémon's body is wrapped in an invisible ring of light—call it a light halo, or a light membrane.
Incoming attack moves pass through this halo or membrane before reaching the Pokémon itself. If that membrane "represents" Flying-type…
Then when a Ground-type attack comes in, it gets nullified as it passes through the membrane—hence why Ground-type moves don't harm Flying-types.
By the same logic, Electric vs. Ground, and Poison vs. Steel could all be explained this way.
Likewise, Fire against Grass is double damage—could it be that when a Fire-type move passes through a Grass-type membrane, it gets "pushed" forward, causing the move's power to increase?
And Grass against Fire deals half damage—could it be that when a Grass-type move passes through a Fire-type membrane, it gets "blocked" a bit, leading to halved damage?
A Fighting-type move hitting a Normal-type membrane versus hitting a Flying-type membrane would follow the same principle—either a push or a block—producing different effective power.
As for dual-typed Pokémon, perhaps they're wrapped in two such attribute halos or membranes.
In that case, a 4× weakness would be "pushed" twice, making the damage quadruple; a 4× resistance would be "blocked" twice, reducing the damage to one quarter.
Auron had also run another game-inspired experiment. In the games' Double Battles, when a move targets all opposing Pokémon, its damage is reduced by about 25%.
The conclusion he reached matched the games: compared to Singles, in Doubles the damage indeed dropped by roughly 25%.
That was why Serena's calculation didn't match Auron's numbers—after all, the move in question targeted the entire opposing side.
"Auron? Auron?"
His eyes slowly refocused. A pale, delicate hand was waving right in front of his face. Auron jolted and jerked his head back.
"Huh? What is it?"
Serena looked a little put out.
"How can you space out in the middle of your explanation? You still haven't told me—why are my calculations wrong?"
Auron thought for a moment, then asked, "Who were you treating as the targets of that move?"
"Steelix and the move power tester," Serena said, perplexed. She didn't see why he'd ask that or what it had to do with whether her math was off.
Auron's expression said, "Just as I thought."
"Then that tracks. I ran an experiment earlier—when a spread move simultaneously targets two foes, its effective power drops by about 25%."
Everyone else frowned in unison, puzzled. Serena voiced the question on all their minds.
"Why?"
Auron spread his hands. "I'm not entirely sure. That's just what the data says. That said, most international tournaments favor Singles; Doubles are mostly for showcase matches, or you see them in Coordinators' contests."
He glanced at them. "So here's a thought: since our country doesn't really favor Doubles, data like this isn't common. But Doubles are more popular on the Indian circuit—maybe they've got developed datasets for it?"
Now they all understood. Still, none of them took it too much to heart.
First off, research data isn't really shared across nations. If it is, it's usually via published reports; occasionally there's some limited exchange of other figures.
Besides, Doubles aren't a big deal domestically. Even if people knew the Indian scene had more concrete Doubles data, they weren't going to obsess over it.
"Sure enough, it's exactly like you said!"
Serena recalculated on her paper. With that extra 25% reduction accounted for, four stages of boost on her move meant it could secure a clean one-hit knockout.
Then, almost immediately, her enthusiasm deflated. Didn't this imply that all the move power values she'd painstakingly tested before had to be tossed out?
Auron saw the slump in her shoulders and patted her on the shoulder in reassurance.
"Don't worry. The officials have been studying move strength lately too. The official move power compendium should be almost ready. This is basically a sanctioned buff to your whole battle style."
Hearing that only made Serena more upset.
She wasn't studying and testing all this just for her own battle style.
She'd heard Auron had been buried in some big research and that he needed a doctoral title to finish the road he wanted to walk—one he would obtain once these research results were published.
So she'd wondered: after he got the doctorate, would he go work at a lab?
If he ended up at a lab, what would she do home alone? Boring!
That was when she'd hit on the idea of "knocking on the researcher's door" with numerical data on move power.
If she could publish this, then at worst she could wrangle an intern researcher post; she might even be taken on as a junior researcher directly.
Then, leaning on the status of "Dr. Auron's wife," she could snag a role at the same institute.
Go to work together in the morning, come home together in the evening—joined at the hip. How perfect would that be?
Thinking along those lines, Serena shot Auron a fierce glare as he kept on with his smooth lecture.
Auron truly hadn't thought that far. In his mind, a bit of comforting would do—what else could he do, put her in a coin-op kiddie ride and rock her to sleep?
So after consoling Serena, he moved on to Leo's battle issues.
"Your problem out there is the same as Tim's—battling needs your own tempo. The moment you took the field, you got dragged into her rhythm. How are you supposed to win like that?"
"And your intentions are way too obvious. Was your whole plan just 'abuse the 2× super effective button' till it all works out?"
"Her plan was obvious too—stack boosts and go for the one-hit kill. Think about it: while she's boosting, what if you hit her with Confuse Ray or Will-O-Wisp? You think she'd still get to bulldoze you like that?"
"Our shared problem right now is being way too doctrinaire. That includes me. We're still just battling according to our own ideas, and honestly, sometimes we forget a move even exists."
"So when your Pokémon are drilling move proficiency and execution speed, we need to be just as clear about the scenarios those moves are for."
"In fact, we have to remember it even better than they do—what move fits what moment. You can't get to the situation where you should use a control move and suddenly go blank—'Uh, what status moves does it know again?' Absolutely not."
Seeing them all nod with thoughtful faces, Auron finally set aside his teacher persona and said:
"I pulled today's match recordings from the online console. I'll send them to you when you get home. Review them—look for spots where you could've made a better play."
"Got it."
"OK."
"All right, let's leave it there for now. The college entrance exams are almost here. Buckle down for the next two days. Once the exams are over, we'll go out together and have some fun."
He thrust out a fist, holding it in the middle of their little circle.
Tim, Jace, and the others bumped their fists in as well.
Six fists met at the center, and they shouted in unison:
"Let's go!"
(End of chapter)