Mike approaches Lazarus, who is sitting with Aurora on his lap, watching the match taking place inside the dome.
"I'm relived to see you aren't moping around because of the loss." Mike says as he takes a seat besides him, "Can't tell you how annoying it is to deal with talented trainers who think wins and losses matter here. Those who let a single loss get to them don't deserve to be trainers and should just go home."
"I have failed more times than I can count. I'm used to it by now. It doesn't affect me in the slightest. And honestly I'm glad we lost the match yesterday. All the constant wins were getting to Kamish's head, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm just glad that it happened here rather than in the wild."
Mike nods in appreciation, "True. What did you think about the match? Any avenues of improvement that you noticed? A new training strategy perhaps?"
"After the match I felt like I should have been able to figure out what Alicia was trying to do earlier, we might have won if I had, but the past doesn't matter now. I asked Alicia for a rematch and she agreed. Same pokemon, same arena. If Kamish and I can beat the two of them in the same environments than that will be proof of our growth.
I also want to minimize his weakness to dark types as much as possible. For that I have ruled out ghost type offensive moves for now, they won't help at all, and I don't exactly know how to train him in that. And I don't think he can learn a new dragon type move in the two days. So, I'll just focus on making him faster and more precise in his movements."
Mike nods, "That's not a bad strategy, but if you really want him to use his biology to its fullest potential then teach him how to phase through objects. It won't help against darks but it'll open a lot of strategic options to you in battle."
Lazarus thinks about it before asking, "That would actually be really helpful. But do you think he can learn to do that in two days."
Mike chuckles, "Of course. Kamish is a ghost pokemon, it's second natural to him. And seeing how fast he seemed to have mastered everything else, yeah I think you'll be fine. But how is Kamish's condition right now. What did he feel about his loss? I can't imagine him taking the loss well."
"He didn't take it well at all. He thought I would be disappointed in him because of the loss. It took some convincing but he's over it now. I'm sure he'll be more careful from now on. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does in the future."
"Good. You just dealt with your first important obstacle as a pokemon trainer. Pokemon with broken spirits will only get you killed. You need to either fix them or as harsh as this sounds… get them out of your team."
"I won't abandon him no matter what. No matter how much of a liability a pokemon becomes I'll find a way to fix them."
Mike shrugs, "Let's hope it never comes to that. So, where is he? I don't see Kamish around?"
Lazarus smiles, "I told Kamish about the rematch I scheduled with Alicia yesterday, that seemed to have lit a fire under him. We were planning to do a few matches today after our morning training session, but Kamish didn't want to stop. He doesn't want to fight anyone else before the rematch. He's been training alone all day. So, it's only going to be Aurora and I for the day."
"That's not surprising. All dragons are like that. Just make sure he doesn't burn himself out while training."
"Yeah. I'm keeping an eye on that."
—
Lazarus looks at the arena, half of the floor is land while the other half is water, it looks like an archipelago, with patches of land scattered around small running rivers.
Vulpix stand atop land while her opponent, a blue bat pokemon with long ears and no eyes flies in the sky.
"The arena can be beneficial to us. We might be able to do something interesting with it. Your opponent is a poison and flying type." Lazarus speaks to his pokemon through the arena speakers, "We have a type advantage against flying types, so we only need to really worry about the poison typing. Zubat's can vomit out solid poison bullets, you need to dodge them at all cost. You can also create a shield from ice or counter with ice projectiles of your own to deal with the poison."
After Lazarus is done talking strategy with his pokemon, the match begins.
And the moment it does, Zubat starts flying around within the dome, too high for Aurora to reach, so she just waits on the ground for the Zubat to make the first move.
Zubat flies above Aurora and fires a few poison missiles at her, Aurora jumps out of the way to dodge them and almost fall into the river but manages to barely land on solid land.
Zubat dashes towards her with its teeth bared, but she creates a few ice missiles with the energy she has been gathering since the match started and fires them at it.
Zubat creates a gust of wind with its wings to change the trajectory of the shards of ice flying towards it. The force from the gust manages to shatter the ice missiles, but Aurora generates and fires even more ice missiles at it, forcing it to flee away from her position.
"Good job. Don't let it come near you. Keep it in the sky." Lazarus says, "I want you to start freezing the rivers around you."
He sees Aurora nod, and starts thinking of ways to reach Zubat in the sky. Aurora can't jump that high, and the Zubat is pretty fast in the air so ice missiles aren't the way to victory either.
"Okay, I know how we are going to win this. You just start freezing the river for now. And use it to slide around the arena."
Zubat fires a few more poison missiles at Aurora, who creates a ice shield in front of her to block them. After which the Vulpix fires Ice Beam at the rivers, the rivers are shallow, barely a few inch deep, so it doesn't take long before the surface of the water starts to become crystal.
Zubat furiously beats its wings and tries to use the wind pressure to break the ice shield. It manages to make some cracks on it.
Aurora jumps away from her position before the ice shield breaks. Zubat sees this and fires a few more poison missiles at her. Aurora jumps on top of the frozen river surface and uses the ice beam to freeze more of it in front of her as she slides atop it.
Aurora easily manages to dodge the incoming poison projectile with the speed provided by the slippery surface of the ice.
Zubat tries going near her again, its trying to bite her, as the fastest way for a Zubat to secrete its poison is to bite someone with its teeth and use them as the delivery agent.
"Don't worry It's not going to come close to you. If it does, you just need to ice beam it, but only do so when it's close enough to not be able to dodge. Otherwise keep using ice missiles and keep it in the sky."
Just like Lazarus predicted, Zubat doesn't get close to Aurora and keeps droning in the sky. From time to time it fires a barrage of poison missiles at Aurora which she easily manages to dodge.
Soon, almost the entire river system of the arena is frozen solid.
"Now, keep moving around the arena and start firing ice missiles at it."
Aurora moves through the ice with the grace of an ice skater, and fires sharp shards of ice at Zubat, who manages to either dodge or destroy them.
"Aurora get ready to use ice beam on my command."
Lazarus waits for the Zubat and Aurora to get into a specific position, where Zubat is slightly above Aurora.
"Okay now start using ice beam in front of you and create a ramp that will hurl you towards Zubat." Lazarus says when the condition is satisfied.
As she slides through the ice, a ramp is created, which she uses to fling herself in the air.
"Point the ice beam at Zubat now."
Before Zubat can react to this new development, Aurora turns her head towards Zubat and freezes it into a popsicle.
The frozen Zubat and Aurora fall towards the ground, Aurora breaks her fall by creating another ramp with ice and slides safely to the ground.
Zubat can't do anything in its situation, so the recall laser from above comes to its rescue, and with that Aurora wins another match at the arena.
—
Lazarus and Aurora enter the training room and find Kamish hard at training. There is a hologram running nearby showing Vector doing acrobatics in the sky, which Kamish is trying to copy and learn.
They just stand there and watch Kamish do aerial spins and backflips in air, he doesn't nail it perfectly everytime but he keeps trying again and again.
Lazarus and Aurora stand there and watch him, impressed.
"Have you been doing this all day? Aren't you tired?" Lazarus breaks the silence.
Kamish stops, and finally notices them and floats towards them excitedly.
"Aurora won her match."
Kamish isn't surprised, he expected it. He uses his tail to pat her on the head, which surprises and pleases Aurora.
"Those moves of yours were amazing. You have been working really hard at this haven't you? But this is enough training for now. You need to get some rest."
Kamish shakes his head, and looks at him with big eyes, he wants to train more.
"No, we are going to go and have some lunch, and then after you have taken a few hours of rest, I'll teach you something new. How about it?"
Kamish couldn't be more delighted and nods, he loves food and he loves learning new things.