2 Weeks Later - Wednesday
Many things were accomplished as time went by. Lilith had become increasingly nocturnal, as the only time she wasn’t sleeping during the day was when she was attending class. Absol’s training had been going well. The one star had been reached. She could feel the exact moment the energy inside her partner had changed. The shift hadn’t been anything world shattering, but it was definitely there, Absol had become stronger and faster than before. Lilith hadn’t gone to the Pokemon Center since her initial incident, so no opportunity to use a PokeReader presented itself.
Absol became full grown and weighed around 100 pounds. She became increasingly tall, reaching up to about one and a half meters. Absol’s personality grew by the day. She went from knowing to understanding in the short time they were together.
Classes went well despite sleeping though some of them. The amount of knowledge grew, but as the days went by Lilith found herself becoming more restless. She found herself falling back into old habits. Instead of training, she went out at night and explored the forests around Aspertia City. Nothing even remotely interesting happened due to the Pokemon Rangers keeping dangerous Pokemon away from the City. The only wild Pokemon she saw were flocks of Pidove, Patrat, and the occasional Poliwag. It was nice to go out and explore like she used to, even if the Pokemon were harmless.
Alder had given her a call on the Holo Castor to update her on the missing persons report. Apparently no one had claimed to know who she was, not really a surprise. She would have been more concerned if someone did know who she was. The real question was how he got her Castor number.
“Hey Lilith, ready to go?” Sam called out.
Class had just gotten out and everyone was counting down the days left. Instead of their usual battle training, they were free. Tomorrow was the last day of classes, as Friday was the first day of the new League season. The day coincided with Unova’s founding day. It served to inspire the young Trainers to greatness while reminding the older ones why they fought.
Battles continued as usual. Her battle with Axew had been won due to the sheer shock factor. Absol hadn’t won or even gotten close to beating him or Darumaka since. Both had reached the middle stages of the first Star and gave her strong matches. Sam would tease her to no end about the one time she was defeated.
They got together whenever they could and battled by themselves. The increased training had helped everyone grow increasingly strong. It was one of the reasons for Absol’s steady growth.
Lilith had gotten increasingly close to the duo. They went to Bisharps training, battle classes, and regular classes together. They even talked about battle strategy and the best way to train. She wasn’t sure if becoming close to them was a good idea with all of her secrets, but she decided to not worry about it. If a problem arose, she could always cut ties.
Lilith thought Absol was in a good spot. She knew that training was the easiest at lower levels. Absol grew to around the first star, all the while learning new moves. It was about time to add a Pokemon to her team if she could find one that she liked. The Pokedex had no new updates as she checked regularly for any local Dark types.
“I’m coming.” Lilith said.
She shook off her daydream and went to join Levy and Sam. Today was her final day watching over Bisharp. She had grown enough to almost shake off the Evolution burn that plagued her. Occasional fits of rage still happened, but it was nothing compared to two weeks ago.
“You alright?” Levy asked.
She had gotten to know the young woman much better in their time together. She had yet to open up about what held her down, but they talked all the time. She was curious what drove her, but it wasn't that big a deal. It wouldn't change their new and interesting friendship.
“Yeah, let's go.” Lilith said.
***
“Come on! I know you can do it!” Lilith cheered Absol on.
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After so many days with Tyler, he offered her the chance to train independently in their room as Bisharp and the rest of his team did their own thing. The most important part was having her nearby to settle her down if her energy got too violent.
Absol had gained three new moves in the past 2 weeks. Lilith had hoped for more, but she knew it was a reach. She still had to iron out the moves already known. Leer was known as the easiest move to learn and was the first Absol had mastered. The move's main weakness was its activation time. Even when moving, it took about 5 seconds to unleash its full power.
Bite and Quick Attack had the most progress after Leer. 4 more teeth were added to her Bite, letting 8 be manipulated in total. That increased power had also increased her activation time. Quick Attack’s duration increased, allowing her to use the move for longer.
Despite learning Play-Rough two weeks ago, progress had been slow. Moves that were super effective against their own type were the hardest to learn. She could only enact the move for a split second before the Fairy energy inside went berserk.
Madame Shirley had taught them almost everything a trainer needed to know to allow their Pokemon to grow. One example was the phenomena of taking excess energy from fallen foes. Pokemon absorbed the energy from their surroundings, but not all could be processed by themselves, which encouraged the same species to get along, as well as going out to challenge and take energy that the defeated had no use for.
It encouraged them to leave their opponents alive, being able to be ‘harvested’ multiple times, rather than just once.
The last three moves she had learned were Magic Coat, Pursuit and Double Team. Double Team was learned relatively recently and allowed the user to make intangible copies of themselves. The more familiar with the move, the more copies they could make. Pursuit was learned along with her promotion to one star. It allowed even more damage to Pokemon who ran away from her, but wasn’t as good as Bite. The move became situational, and was rarely used.
Magic Coat was an Egg Move that she had learned in the days preceding the victory over Axew, she had gotten a feel for how Egg moves worked and Magic Coat, despite Psychic types being immune, had just clicked. It took a while longer before they even realized what move it was. It didn’t cure Status Conditions, only stopped them from occurring. It was a passive move that would drain her energy constantly once in effect, but Pokemon at their level generally didn’t have any Status inflicting moves yet, so they didn’t find out until about a week later when a Petilil from another class tried using Stun Spore on her.
Absol was pretty sure there was one more Egg move passed down, but hadn’t been able to find it. They prioritized their foundational moves rather than trying to branch out too early and get overwhelmed by everything that had to get done.
‘Sometimes it's best to wait.’ Lilith repeated Sandy’s words in her head.
So far, Absol could use Double Team to create 1 copy, but it couldn’t go very far from her body. It was easy to spot and would only serve as a brief distraction.
“Bang!”
Lilith and Absol turned towards the commotion. Levy and Sam stepped back as they knew what was happening. Bisharp slammed the ground and shook the arena. The floor was incredibly sturdy and stayed intact despite the force.
“Lopunny!” Denis called out.
He had stayed with Tyler as a failsafe. He would step in and stop Bisharp’s rampages whenever they occurred. Lilith couldn’t even fathom the money he had burned just to keep the senior Helper around.
Lopunny jumped up into the air while performing a flip. His momentum brought him down onto Bisharp’s location. Seeing the move so many times, she finally knew when and how High-Jump-Kick would come at her. She danced instinctively around the attack as he crashed into the ground and the move backfired. Instead, Lopunny took the massive amount of damage.
“Recover!” Denis shouted
Lopunny was back on his feet and moving towards Bisharp before she could even react. Close Combat came raining down onto her body before she could slip away. Bisharp was no match for him as he pummeled the Pokemon into the ground.
Lilith came running over soon after. With Bisharp unconscious, she could feel the Dark energy welling up inside her. She had become accustomed to her new senses, but it was the only type she could feel and connect to. It was her Touched status that allowed her to interact with Pokemon the way she had. She explored more what exactly it allowed her to do along with any drawbacks. The only one discovered was her inability to connect with anything other than Dark types.
She tried an experiment in the wild, trying to convince random Pokemon to join her, but once they felt her, all of them refused. Little else had been learned regarding her condition.
The incident marked the end of their training session. Levy and Sam left promptly as Denis and Tyler did a debrief on their training. Lilith followed her friends soon after.
***
Last Day of School
Lilith was finally glad to be done, Madam Shirley had crammed so much information into her head it was staggering. The experience was necessary, but not one to be repeated twice. From now on she would take her learning in step by step chunks.
The bell rang and their final lesson began.
“I know it’s a sad day for everyone, I know. So please, try your hardest to pay attention!” She said
Some students laughed at her jokes while others were entirely done with them.
“Our last day will be about the Carrying Capacity and any outside tools to help increase a Pokemon’s prowess. The number of Pokemon a Trainer can carry at any time is not something one can ignore. 6 is the number! If you go over that, you risk damaging all other connections you have formed with other Pokemon. Each bond increases the stress on the body, and when that stress is too much, the body shuts down. I could go into all the symptoms, but they are all rather gruesome. Just know that the League bans carrying more than 6 Pokemon at a time for a reason.”
“Now let's move onto artificial strengthening. Our Unova Region is known for the Type Crystals. They are a gemstone that only grows in the region of Unova, and allows a Pokemon to draw from their strength like a battery. It increases the lethality of their moves for a short duration. Other regions have other means of increasing their Power. Alola, our neighbor, has something similar. Z moves function in the same way, but instead they focus on one large attack with a long cooldown. Our Crystals can be used multiple times with a relatively short cooldown period.”
“One Region has stones that temporarily ‘Evolve’ or change a Pokemon’s form for a short period. The power is devastating but the cooldown can sometimes be days and the transformation is very short. Other places have special energy without a type, which allows them to grow in size exponentially and double their defensive membrane.”