The hot sun stares down at the combatants. Booth can bear the heat, but his current situation is becoming a little too thrilling. His Magnemite is matched up against two pokemon, a Yanma and a Cubone. While a wild Spinda watches from the side. Still, Booth can't help but laugh.
'I can only blame my inexperience for this one. It's possible I could have done something differently ahead of time, but all I can do now is try to turn things around.'
Thinking about the situation, Booth discovers a couple different options.
'The Spinda currently has no idea what's going on. If I act quickly I can knock out the Spinda or one of the others. Taking out the Yanma and the Cubone is tricky because they're on a team, but there's a third option.'
Booth continues to wait. The Cubone and Yanma grow impatient and make a move first. Cubone raises it's bone club, while Yanma gets ready to support Cubone.
He prepares a weak Thundershock to confront the two. He skilfully fires a jolt of electricity forward, which the Cubone withstands. It swings its bone club, and smacks Magnemite to the side where the Yanma is waiting.
Booth bears the pain and shifts Magnemites body to receive a second impact.
"Pansear, use Incinerate!" Pansear responds with two fireballs from its mouth. The fire travels even faster under the burning sun. Neither the Cubone or the Yanma are able to completely dodge the attack.
Booth regains his balance with Magnemite and follows up with a Magnet Bomb. Four silver orbs shine brilliantly and swarm his opponents. Yanma dives out of the way in a desperate attempt to flee, but the Magnet Bomb pursues it diligentely. Cubone swings at the first orb, but is left with a shocking surprise.
"Kssshhh!" The Magnet Bombs rupture one after the other. Booth watches the scene unfold and thanks the Spinda in his head. Both Yanma and Cubone are unable to withstand any more damage and faint soon after.
'The Spinda was initially a source of worry for me, but when I realized that Cubone and Yanma were in the same situation, things became a lot better. Their team was so worried over gaining another enemy that they rushed into things, and lost track of Pansear.'
Booth looks over at the Spinda and sees it running back over the hill. Booth is quite satisfied seeing the result of the fight. He returns his Magnemite to give it some rest first.
Booth could have given up the lure for an easy out, but it wasn't something that even crossed his mind. He has always been stubborn when it comes to competition. Whether it's a wild pokemon or a battle with a trainer, it hurts his pride to make unnecessary concessions.
Booth whistles a light tune as he reaches into his bag. He pulls out a pokeball and walks towards the Cubone.
'Cubone had an excellent performance in the battle. It's bone club seems like a super useful tool in battle. I've seen a couple pokemon wield tools like sticks, but Cubone is the first I've seen to actually put power into one. It's defense is impressive too. Cubone resisted attacks on par with gifted pokemon in Redwater. I can't help but want to take it with me after seeing that.'
The bright red pokeball presses softly against the Cubone's head. Cubone is sucked into the pokeball silently. The pokeball vibrates for a second then clicks. Booth slides the pokeball into his pocket.
After learning something new about Rebound, Booth was already able to call the trip successful. Catching a Cubone and defeating all of his opponents motivates him to keep going, but he's starting to feel tired and hungry. He decides to take a break for lunch and practice Rebound in town.
"Let's go back Pansear, we're done hunting today."
---
At the tiered trainer center, Booth feels like his head is going to burst. Finally he has moved onto the next step of Rebound.
In just a few hours after getting back, Booth manages to recreate the same effects from his battles before. Additionally he makes significant progress with Rebound's primary effect.
Booth squeezes his fist tight and punches the target with Rebound. The strike makes a loud crunch as it sends cracks through the target. Suddenly, power surges in Pansear's fist as an invisible force seems to help pull his fists back. As this happens the cracks where Pansear's fists were, nearly double in size.
Booth looks at the target and ponders for a second. 'The final effect of Rebound deals additional damage by pulling the attack back at the right time. Performing this correctly restores some power and 'bounces' your attack back further. I can see why the creator chose the name Rebound.'
'The rebound effect allows the trainer to recall their fists and physical attacks at a faster speed. This puts the user in the position to perform a second strike or even third strike in rapid succession. The strain on the pokemon is great this way, but the power is more than I could have hoped for.
The initial problem still remains though. The Art being weak to power makes it tricky to use. All the opponent has to do is put some power into defense, and wait it out. The Art's effects limit some of this, but as long as they know the trick behind Rebound my power will bottom out in no time.'
Booth wants to test the Art some more, but his pokemon are either exhausted or already resting. He checks out of the room and thinks of a solution on his way out..
As he's leaving the Tiered Trainer Center Booth meets up with Ben. Ben had returned from practicing his own Art. Both trainers share information about their respective Arts and offer advice.
"I started an Art called Stone Splitter yesterday." Ben begins to explain.
"What's it like?" Booth asks.
"The Art does more damage the faster the attack is. It activates quickly, but its main focus is to beef up other moves."
Booth knows Ben's preference for fast moves already, so he thinks his choice makes a lot of sense.
Ben continues, "Stone Splitter is a great Art to accompany moves like Quick Attack and Aqua Jet. Giving those moves the power that they are lacking."
"That's awesome. It sounds like it goes great with your current moveset." Booth's eyes widen, while he considers the Art for himself.
"Of course that's not all. The Art reduces your speed slightly in the proportion to the strength it gives, and using the Art repeatedly increases the amount of speed that is reduced."
"Oh." Booth frowns slightly.
'It takes some time, but I can modify moves individually to do the same thing. The Art is good for learning in the short term though. The Art's flaw is that it gets slower with each use. That's not much of a weakness as both pokemon in a battle are likely to lose stamina and speed over the course of the battle anyway.'
Booth gives his honest thoughts on the Art to Ben. He even suggests a different way to look at the Art
"I think of Stone Splitter like shouldering a rock. Taking a large stone gives you a lot more potential attack power, but lowers your lower speed. On the other hand, carrying a small stone is easier to move with, but isn't as strong."
Ben chuckles, "It's like increasing your burden in return for strength. That's not a bad way of putting it."
Booth explains his Art and its weaknesses next. Ben listens and makes some suggestions.
"Rebound follows very strict rules and gives a lot of rewards in return for following them. The theory is roughly to attack the opponent where their defenses are weak, quickly and repeatedly. The Art trades long lasting ability for power.
Although, I don't think that's the only way to look at it. The Art forces the opponent to sacrifice their own power to defend as well. You don't need to attack so rapidly and waste power."
Booth realizes what Ben is getting to. "Something like drawing out the time I'm using the Art so the opponent spends their power on keeping up their defenses."
"Exactly, if your attacks are as strong as you say then it should be a common situation. If you're still worried about it, then you can just get another art to use with Rebound later."
Ben says something simple at the end that Booth forgets to consider.
'I'm not quite ready to learn another Art, but he brings an interesting point. Like in traditional pokemon, it's helpful to bring multiple different moves to deal with different types of pokemon. In the future I could learn Arts that are specific to each of my pokemon. It would let me experience some different battlestyles as well.'
Booth likes the idea. However Booth believes that techniques and Arts are not the solution to a battle's problems. To Booth, Arts and techniques are just tools. With that in mind, Booth shifts the conversation to the practical applications of Arts.
"...Arts exist to assist a trainer, like how moves support their pokemon." Booth says confidently.
"Strong arts are needed for strong trainers though. And weak pokemon can be made strong with the right moves." Ben retorts strongly.
"That's ridiculous! If pokemon can't use their moves properly then they're no better than an egg!"
Booth and Ben argue all the way to their apartment. Only to go back and settle the argument with a battle later.