"You alright, bud?"

Larvesta had fully calmed down after about 10 minutes of me holding him. He slowly nodded his head as he looked around the cave. Some of the closest rock has started to melt at the height of his tantrum. When Larvesta got a good look at me, and my burned clothes and skin, his eyes widened in shock.

"Lar? Ves larve, larvesta," he quietly mumbled. He seemed to be feeling guilty about hurting me.

"It's alright buddy, you didn't do it on purpose," I consoled him as I rubbed the top of his head. "If anything, this shows how strong you can be. We just need to practice restraint and control, especially if you don't want to hurt the others."

Larvesta's eyes once again widened at the realization he could hurt Tetsu if he lost control again. I doubted he would actually damage her, but if it helped motivate him to train, well. I won't complain. Tetsu and Nautilus arrived and immediately began fussing over my injuries. Kippie and Honedge stood, or floated in Honedge's case, by the side. They witnessed everything and didn't want to get closer just yet.

"Larvesta, you don't want to hurt any of us, especially Tetsu, right?" I asked him directly. He nodded enthusiastically at this. The change in mood and character in some of them was astounding.

"Well, that means you'll have to train and control your strength. Luckily for you, Nautilus and Tetsu already have experience with this, so I want you to train with them," I said, receiving hums of confirmation from the three. "Nautilus and Tetsu, I want you to follow Florges' training for restraint for at least two hours a day when we aren't busy. Another hour should be spent getting him used to fighting in a battle. Nautilus, I want you to observe what he is good and comfortable with and train that up first. Tetsu, make sure his dodging and awareness skills are solid."

'What moves should he focus on?' Nautilus asked. Right, his moves.

"For now, let's get Protect, Sunny Day, and Will-O-Wisp functional. He won't be battling with us for a while, but could provide support," I answered after pondering for a minute. With that, they left to start their training. I then turned to Kippie and Honedge, who were nervous now that my attention was on them.

"Now for the real reason we are here today. I'm gonna train you two myself, and we are gonna focus on increasing our attacking power. Kippie, I want you to find as many pokemon you can find and beat them only using Blizzard, Mud-Slap, and Tackle. Nothing else, got it?"

She nodded at this and hopped off to find opponents in the area, which wasn't hard to do. Now that Larvesta wasn't melting rocks, many Carbink, Rockruff, Diglett, and Zubat were moving around.

"Honedge," I said, which got me his full attention, "you haven't really had the chance to join our training sessions, so it might be new to you. Normally, we all train under Gravity, have a free-for-all battle, do some move training, then meditate.

"We won't be able to continue that because of the research and stuff, so we'll be focusing on move training and battles. I want you to focus on Night Slash, False Swipe, and Flash Cannon, mostly since all of your other moves have already been trained."

"Hone, nedge?" she asked.

"You'll be fighting against me since I also need to keep up with all of you."

Honedge's eye widened before she got a bit fired up. Looks like I got a battle maniac here, hopefully. We sparred all day. Even though my hits did nothing to Honedge, the point system we used for getting a hit helped me win some of the spars. Kippie would randomly show up for a quick healing and snack, showing just how dedicated she had become to getting stronger.

I had provided us lunch by making something like Pidgey parmesan, though the cheese wasn't quite the same. After that, we went back to training. I made sure to give Nautilus and Kippie a bag of my healing cookies so they could heal themselves while they were out. I guess Nautilus and Tetsu would take turns going out to battle wild Pokémon while the other trained Larvesta.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Before we went back to the lab for dinner, I had Kippie and Honedge battle each other. I let them duke it out without commands to see Kippie's improvements and where Honedge herself was at. I told them they could go all out with full use of their moveset.

Kippi immediately set up a Work-Up while Honedge started with Autotomize. Honedge then began to zoom around, using Shadow Sneak to dodge the Mud-Slaps Kippie sent her way. Honedge then blocked a Water Gun with Protect, which hid the Flash Cannon she was preparing. Flash Cannon hit Kippie head on and Honedge got in close.

This seemed to be what Kippie was planning for since she immediately used Counter, though it only passed through Honedge given her Ghost-typing. Honedge used Kippie's surprise to her advantage, immediately delivering several Slashes that Kippie barely managed to Endure as she cried out. The cry turned out to be Supersonic, which landed and sent Honedge swerving into the ground.

Kippie then created a snowstorm using Hail and covered herself with a few Mud-Slaps to serve as armor against the hail. As Honedge shook off the confusion, she was embraced by a fierce Blizzard, courtesy of Kippie. This began to slow Honedge down as she slowly froze over and clattered on the ground with a loud thump.

Kippie was panting hard, having gone all out to get to this point. Before she could feel good about freezing Honedge, the ice around Honedge began to crack open. Honedge smashed the ice apart with a loud groan before zooming forward with Aerial Ace. Kippie used Rock Throw to force Honedge to slow down and move around the rocks.

Another Blizzard was released as Honedge slammed into Kippie, both Pokémon being sent flying away. As the dust settled, both Pokémon were standing. Kippie was taking ragged breaths as Honedge was barely able to hover an inch above the floor. As they ran towards each other, both erupted into a dazzling white light.

"No fucking way," I said to myself.

Tetsu, who had been cheering both on, grew quiet as they both evolved. Nautilus finally paid attention to the two, since evolution was something that all Pokémon yearned for and respected on a fundamental level. Larvesta stared at the two, his fuzzy face nothing short of amazed. I hope watching the fight and the resulting evolutions proved to be another motivator for the guy.

As the blinding lights finally died down, the exhausted Pokémon took time to check themselves out. Doublade was, as her name suggested, now two swords with a pink gem on the hilt as eyes. The sash attached to the pummels were now purple and pink instead of blue. A notification from the PokéDex app let me know she learned two new moves: Iron Head and Retaliate.

Kippie was now a Marshtomp. She stood on her two hind legs, each one having a dark blue fin. Her belly now had a large orange belly and orange eyes. Its hands and feet had three fingers and toes. Kippie learned four new moves: Mud Shot, Water Pulse, Amnesia, and Rock Slide.

"Fantastic battle, you two," I exclaimed. They both chose their actions well and reacted nicely to counter each other. Doublade's instincts were very sharp. Though Kippie had that little hiccup when Counter didn't affect Doublade, she was able to recover quite well in the midst of being attacked.

"You both did an amazing job and were even able to push each other enough to evolve. Go ahead and take some time to get used to your new bodies. I'll adjust your training tonight."

We spent an extra half an hour in the cave to allow my two newly evolved Pokémon to gain full control over themselves. When I arrived at the lab, everyone was already eating dinner.

"Ah, there you are Marco," Prof. Kukui said as he got up. "Ana told me you would probably be arriving late. Did you have fun today?"

"Yes, I did, Professor. Thank you for asking," I answered. "I was actually training all day and two of my Pokémon evolved just over half an hour ago."

As I said that last part, I looked at Ana and gave her a smile.

"Oh, wonderful! You don't mind if I take a look at the new moves they learned, do you? I've always been interested in how Pokém-"

"Professor, it is time for dinner. Sit down please," one of the lab researchers interrupted before he could continue. I'm guessing this happened often enough based on Kukui's laughter. As we ate, we talked about many things. Most of the conversation centered around the portals. I showed off Kippie, who seemed to revel in the praise and attention.

I almost decided against showing off Doublade. I knew the League already knew about her and Larvesta, since the League kept track of everyone's team through the PokéDex and Team apps. Every Pokéball that contained a Pokémon would automatically update the Team app when connected to a phone or when checked out by a PokéCenter. And then there was the whole incident outside Augustine's lab.

Along with that, we would, should, be working together, especially Ana and I. I already knew her team and her basic strategies from watching her Elite Four attempts, but no one here really knew what my team was capable of. They also didn't know what other Pokémon I had besides Nautilus, Tetsu, and Kippie. So, I decided to introduce Doublade and Larvesta.

To say they were surprised was an understatement. Getting myself a Honedge was one shock since not many Honedge chose to travel with a Trainer. Having a shiny Larvesta as well was a bit too much for them to accept. Nina accused me of having a secret sponsor or organization that provided me with the two Pokémon, as well as Mudkip.

After some well-enjoyed banter and a few quick reminders about starting our mission tomorrow, we all went to bed. The Professor graciously converted the entire upper section of his lab into a temporary sleeping area. Really, all he did was put a mattress wherever there was space and handed some blankets and pillows to us.

I handed my pillow to Nina, who said she wouldn't get a good night's rest without at least five pillows. I didn't release my Pokémon because of the lack of room, but I did release and mentally communicate with Nautilus. We were starting to consistently have chats right before bed. It was really nice and reminded me of the summers I spent talking to my younger brother on our porch.

'Larvesta is quickly improving with the training. Today alone he was able to master the three moves, as well as teaching both Tetsu and I Sunny Day,' Nautilus commented. That was a huge, but welcome surprise. It also made me wonder how many moves they could teach each other.

'That's great, I hope Larvesta is able to put that learning speed to great use,' I told him. If the Elite Four level is where the team needed to be in order to keep each other safe from most threats, we had a long way to go.

'We'll definitely get stronger, Marco,' Nautilus comforted me. It took a while to get used to, but having someone who understood exactly how I felt was very nice.

'Aww, look at you being so kind and caring. I love ya too, Nautilus' I teased him, which earned me a smack from him. He glared at me for several seconds before looking away.

'Tch, just got to bed, you doofus.'

I smiled as we both got comfortable and slept.