After out journey into the submarine, we headed back to road and moved on. Oliver was going through the data he collected on his phone, trying to find out what team Flare was doing and what the green ball is. Pokemon wandered about the forest which no longer had the large expanses of flowers. The canopy was also much large and thicker here, covering the sides of the 4-meter road. I was walking ahead of the pair again I saw quite a few more pokemon as the more skittish ones would dart into the forest when they saw the trainers. The largest one that darted off was one from the Galar region. Sizzelpede I believe. I never got into the newest game’s pokedex.

But I guess pokemon can be found in any region regardless of the games. That’s probably due to people though rather than native migration. I look into the sky and see the edge of a dark cloud over the treetops so it might start raining soon. I’m fine with that but the twins might not be. Eh, when has a little water killed anyo…, actually, never mind.

In the forest, I can hear two pokemon fighting but they sound like caterpie so I just ignore it. I just let my mind wander before I come back the memory of the asshole in Santanlue city. He survived a point-blank dark pulse. When I’ve practised with the move, I have cut groves into the ground. True they were fairly shallow, but I hit the ground at a distance. How on earth is that guy still alive? He should have a hole right through his chest. I guess even in the anime, people commonly shrugged off normally lethal strikes. So maybe people are just far more resilient than what I’m use to.

Something suddenly slams into the side of my head breaking me from my thoughts. I look to see a fletchling flying around with another two around it. In a bit of irrational anger, I charged Dark Pulse and to my surprise, the second orb I had summoned showed almost instantly and at the same size of the first and a third started to form but as it launched, it faded quickly. The other two struck true knocking two of the birds into a spiral. Scarred, the birds quickly dart off, but I was distracted now. Trying the multi Shadow Ball again, I struggled to summon the second one.

Do I need to be angered to get it to work? I try to get myself angry but I just can’t. Maybe it would work again in combat? I wasn’t about to start going on the equivalent of a murder spree, but I would have to test it when I get a chance to fight. Although that is fairly risky. Maybe I could do it in training as long as a I miss?

I suddenly started the get the urge to do more experimentation, so I started with Swift. I only launched one star and tried to make it change direction. My goal was to get it to follow me along while walking along in a small ring around me. This backfired.

I was able to get the star to turn in mid-air but when it does, it gets harder to control the more I alter it. I lost control and it slammed into my right side and it hurt quite a bit. It even pushed me to the ground as I wasn’t prepared for it. At least I got it to go in a circle.

Looking back, the trainers were still following looking worried at my injury and amazed and what I did. They must have watched my Swift experiment. I stand up and that seems to make them feel better. But I decided to try practise Puppeteer some more. The copy of me appeared beside me and while walking, I got the puppet to walk at an alternate pace. I was also able to get it to move its head at the same time. This was by far my most promising experiment before I decided to try a new one.

I charged Iron Tail and felt the sensation of energy coating my tail in it. Grabbing onto that sensation, I tried to direct the energy with success in the wrong direction. Rather than being able to move the energy, I was able to shape and alter it. So rather than it just coating my tail, I could make it longer, curved, thicker, flexible and/or denser. I wasn’t able to make it smaller than my tail but at least I know it could be altered. It was disappointing that I couldn’t just learn iron claw, but I might one day.

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Going back to my move set, I wondered if there would be anymore interesting ones to experiment before I landed on sand attack. It occurred to me that there had to be something unique about this move as pokemon flick sand rather than dirt at people as long as they hit the ground despite the condition or terrain. Using it, I instinctually slam my paw into the ground and flick it launching sand outward while still maintaining some control. I walk off the path onto the grass and use it. I get the same outcome. I try it on a tree, but nothing happens there which I expected.

Going back to the path, I activated Sand Attack and I use two paws to flick sand which I can do so. I then can curve the dust cloud to cross over in front of me easily. Trying again, I tested how long I am able to manipulate the ability before it fails. I can have the sand spin around me in a ring for about ten seconds before it falls to the ground. I turn around to see Oliver with his phone out sideways, probably recording me, with an excited grin. Jennifer was beside him also with a smile. Wait, how long have they been recording?

“Don’t mind us Shade, keep going with your practise!” Jennifer calls out. “Just pretend we aren’t here!”

How am I meant to do that with you recording?! They don’t respond so I decided to keep walking. I am not going to be filled practising.

I don’t see the pairs faces, but I hear them walking along after me.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/618692866566389772/795564484147544065/Alternate_Eyes-time_gap.png]

We found a suitable clearing by the time dusk started and the pair released their pokemon and set camp up. I played with the four pokemon. Well, played for me, battled for them. Apparently, they quite like the game where they have to tag me. So alternating between the four of them, we saw who could hit me the fastest. That went to Froakie as Ice Beam is quite a pain to dodge when I can’t use detect and extreme speed or even fight back. Hoot probably would have won if not for the fact he didn’t use Echoed Voice as unless I was using detect, there is no way I could dodge that.

We headed back for food before Jennifer sat next to me with a notebook and a pen with a broad tip.

“So Shade, I figured I could teach you how to spell.” She said while writing out symbols. “It seems you can read and know punctuation, but you don’t know the alphabet.” She said as she finished. In total, there was 26, so one for every letter in the alphabet. Was there no capital or lowercase lettering? Anyway, I cleared some grass and wrote in the dirt the capital letters in the english alphabet. I then point to each letter to their symbol and Jennifer copies them on top of each symbol, in the end, we had this.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/803371012804182047/803371076016668692/unknown.png]

“So back when you wrote the question, you just didn’t write in the correct letters?!” She said in joy.

I looked back to the book and trying my best to copy the letters and in the language, wrote out *HELLO*. This made Jennifer absolutely baffled that I could just write before she asked me to write something more complex.

*My name is Shade, I am an umbreon, how are you?*

“Oliver, look at this.” She said stunned getting her brothers attention. He came over and looked at the writing and just stopped. He looked at me and back down at the writing before looking at the notebook.

Oliver looked just dead before he spoke up. “I don’t even know where to begin. I mean, its not uncommon for a pokemon to be able to write, but everything about you just comes to odds that are so unbelievably ridiculous that I’m just lost.”

Jennifer just hugged me and asked in tears of joy, “Where on earth did you come from?!”