-- (move)
- Cooltrainer (move) redirects here. For the Trainer class, see Cool Trainer. For the glitch type, see CoolTrainer♀ (type).
- For other uses of -, see -.
- (random internal name) is a glitch move in Pokémon Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow of the CoolTrainer♀-type in English versions. It is learned by a handful of glitch Pokémon, and, unusually for a glitch move, can be learned by a regular Pokémon easily. Initially, it has 0/13 PP, and can't recover said PP by healing at a Pokémon Center. Rather, one must supply the Pokémon with a PP Up and an Ether/Elixir in order to be able to use the move.
Real form
The Cooltrainer move, as can be seen from battle, is actually meant to represent the empty spaces in the movelist of a Pokémon that has three or fewer moves, and so is clearly not meant to be used, selected or learned. Its index number is 0, putting it roughly in-league with 'M (00), which takes this spot in Pokémon data.
This move can only be accessed when a player forces the game into thinking that the Pokémon has a blank move as its first move. To be able to use the move, a player must either perform the Transform glitch, or have a Pokémon with a full moveset which learns the Cooltrainer move and replace its first move. The Transform glitch can be performed with any Pokémon with only Transform. This move must be used to become any opponent Pokémon. At this point, the player now has access to the opponent's movelist. By switching around the first and last moves in this movelist using the Select button, the glitch is activated, and all that must be done now is to end the battle, either by defeating the opponent or running away.
When learned by a glitch Pokémon, the move will have a Super Glitch name, instead of its placeholder name "-"; and so, it may crash the game just by trying to learn it. The method of circumventing the problem is the same as it is for Super Glitch moves.
Effects
Generation I
After a PP Up or a PP-restoring item is used, the move is usable in-battle, which can cause a vastly random and destructive array of effects. Its usual effect is a damaging move with Fissure's animation, which freezes the game if it does not defeat the target.
The move has no real name, so after selecting it in battle or learning it, it behaves exactly like Super Glitch, and takes an unpredictably chosen portion of RAM as its name. It often occurs that the name of a Pokémon in the player's current box will be used for this move, such as "DITTO used MACHOP!". If the current box is empty, it can even produce names from previously erased save files. It also inherits all the effects of Super Glitch, including the TMTRAINER effect, and these effects occur even if the move has no PP remaining.
If the Pokémon with this move reaches a level at which it can learn a new move, and has four moves already, the game will automatically delete this move and replace it with the new one, as it thinks that the Pokémon only has three moves.
In Pokémon Yellow, the ability to learn this move through the Transform move-swapping glitch was removed; however, it is still possible to learn this move through learnsets of certain glitch Pokémon.
Generation II
This move has an appearance of Rapid Spin and badly poisons the opponent. It may harm the game if used in a cave.
Later generations
This move cannot be learned by any Pokémon in subsequent games, but varying numbers of dashes are still used by the games to denote an empty move slot.
In Generation V and later, it is possible to use this move via the charge move replacement glitch, if that glitch is performed at the start of a battle when there has been no prior move. When it's used, instead of a text box reading "<Pokémon> used <Move>!", the text box will say only "!", and no animation will play for the move even if battle animations are enabled. Using this glitch will result in the move always targeting the player's own left-side slot, and will fail if the user itself is on the left side in any battle (in which case it would be targeting itself) or on the right side in a Triple Battle (in which case its target is out of reach).
In Generations V-VII, this move is a status move whose listed effect is to deal damage and nothing else, but it has 0 power and 0% accuracy. Even if the user is in position to use it on a valid target (i.e. the right side in a Double Battle or the center in a Triple Battle), it's normally guaranteed to miss. If either the user or the target has No Guard, or the target is affected by Lock-On or Mind Reader, it can hit, in which case it acts in accordance with a 0-power move under the standard damage formula. As anything multiplied by 0 is still 0, Attack and Defense stats are irrelevant to the calculation, and the result will typically be only 1-2 damage. Normal-types do receive STAB, and Ghost-type Pokémon are immune, but this move will ignore Wonder Guard and Telepathy when determining whether it can hit. As a nominal status move, this move cannot trigger Kee Berry or Maranga Berry; and Counter, Mirror Coat, and Metal Burst will all fail when used against it, even if the move successfully results in damage. In Generation V only, if the other factor is less than 1, this move can result in 0 damage.
In Generation VIII, the move's data was changed to the be the same as Pound, a 40-power Normal-type physical attack with 100% accuracy.
In Pokémon Stadium
In Pokémon Stadium, this move will be read as the Pokémon having no moves, thus making the Pokémon use Struggle.
Semi-Super Glitch effect
If "-" is highlighted as a move from the Fight menu from within a Pokémon battle, a corruption effect may or may not occur. The player can attempt to get the corruption effect again by scrolling through the moves list or opening and closing the Fight menu.
The mechanics of the corruption work almost in the same way as Super Glitch. Data from a move name buffer (at $CD6D) capped to be 20 bytes long is copied into another buffer until a 0x50 character from the original buffer is found.
The random internal name of "-" may not have a 0x50 in its first twenty characters; and, if so, data is copied from beyond the initial buffer and overflows the other buffer, causing the corruption of unrelated memory addresses. The difference between "-" corruption and Super Glitch corruption is that the initial data is only copied to one buffer ($CF4B) while other glitch moves can corrupt both $CF4B and $D0E1, which is why it can be considered as a 'semi-Super Glitch effect'. Regular Super Glitch corruption typically corrupts data for things such as the player's name and the player's Pokémon, while in the same circumstances "-" does not; but it can still corrupt data such as the enemy Pokémon in battle, meaning that is more practical to abuse.
Beyond the 20 byte move name buffer is a copy of screen data that is updated every time the player performs actions such as opening the Pokémon menu or items menu. This means that cached screen data can directly influence the effect of "-".
The "-" corruption effect can be caused outside of battle, too. When performing an action such as trying to apply a PP Up, the game will display "-"'s random internal name and if it is too long, the same mechanics above apply, but different effects can be observed (depending on where the player triggered the effect) due to the player not being within battle, such as the moves in the moves list becoming corrupted and not being able to continue playing the game after a white screen, or a forced walking effect when the menu is closed.
Freezes
If -'s corruption effect is activated when the last cached screen data does not have a 0x50 character in it, too much data will be copied to $CF4B and the game will most likely freeze.
Changing the foe into MissingNo. or Horsea
If during a battle, the Pokémon or items menu is opened before viewing the "-" move, then the player views the "-" move via Fight and corruption is successful, the music will fade out and the enemy Pokémon will be corrupted into a level 127 MissingNo. (hex:32) with 6946 current HP which can be captured and used to duplicate the player's sixth item by 128 upon capture.
If the same steps are performed when the inverted sprite effect is active, then the player will obtain a level 127 Horsea with 6932 current HP instead. This is due to the inverted sprites effect affecting the battle tiles (because cached screen data will directly influence the effects of -).
In Pokémon Red and Blue, the glitch must be performed in Diglett's Cave (and possibly other places) to avoid a freeze, and then the start menu must be opened to avoid another freeze from exiting the cave. In Pokémon Yellow, the glitch can be performed anywhere without a freeze. However, since the Transform glitch was fixed in Pokémon Yellow it is more difficult to get "-" as the first move.
Advanced uses of "-"
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This section is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this section to add missing information and complete it. Reason: Elaborate on specifics regarding the coordinates of tiles on the screen for desired corruptions |
In Pokémon Red and Blue, but not in Pokémon Yellow, since it is possible to bring over cached screen data into a battle that is updated when the player opens the items menu or the Pokémon menu, the player can manipulate the enemy Pokémon into multiple other unique Pokémon.
Using a Glitch City or a combination of a "tile-writing glitch item" and the glitch item "9F" (hex:5E) in Pokémon Red and Blue, or the glitch item "-gm" (hex:6A) in Pokémon Yellow, almost any Pokémon, glitch Pokémon or not, can be obtained. The glitch items 9F and -gm update the game's cached screen data manually, meaning that the tiles written by a tile-writing glitch item can be saved into the screen cache and affect the enemy Pokémon if a tile is written in the right coordinates.
Some advanced uses of "-" will cause the freeze described in the section above. The freeze after finishing a battle is caused when "-" sets the CFC4 address to an odd value (CFC4 can also be corrupted this way in an unrelated glitch called "wild appeared" that has the same freeze). As the 8×8 pixel tile at game coordinates y=6, x=1 affects CFC4; opening the Pokémon or items menu in certain places will allow for enemy Pokémon corruptions that do not cause freezes outside of Diglett's Cave.
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Learnset
By leveling up
| # | Pokémon | Types | Level | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | ||||||
| 000 | 
|
▶ A |
Normal | Normal | -- 248 | |
| 000 |
|
PokéWTrainer |
Normal | Ground | 11 40 55 80 | |
| 000 |
|
PC4SH |
Normal | Ground | 28 62 | |
| 006 | 
|
'M (FF) |
Fire | Flying | 28 62 | |
| 033 | 
|
Glitch (FA) |
Poison | 22 | ||
| 000 |
|
ゥ .4 |
Pokémaniac | 97 | ||
| 000 |
|
Q◣ |
Water | Psychic | 234 | |
| 000 |
|
X ゥ- xゥ, |
Normal | 11 40 55 80 | ||
| 000 |
|
.PkMn |
Normal | Normal | -- | |
| 000 |
|
X C |
Glitch | -- | ||
| 000 |
|
$ |
Glitch | -- | ||
| Bold indicates a Pokémon gains STAB from this move. Italics indicates a Pokémon whose evolution or alternate form receives STAB from this move. A dash (−) indicates a Pokémon cannot learn the move by the designated method. An empty cell indicates a Pokémon that is unavailable in that game/generation. | ||||||
Through the Transform glitch
All Pokémon capable of learning TMs can learn this move through Mimicking Transform.
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This article is part of both Project GlitchDex and Project Moves and Abilities, Bulbapedia projects that, together, aim to write comprehensive articles on glitch moves. | 
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