"Kitten! Slash!"
Virah tuned out Whitney's orders as the pinkette sparred with Grene. Right now she had other things she needed to do, like teaching a listless Teddiursa how to use Slash for example.
"Hulp." Virah called out the ursine's name, and she tilted her head cutely, a paw on her bottom lip, "you need to use Scratch again."
"Teddiursa?" Hulp tilted her head, curiosity coloring her features, she raised one glowing paw, "Teddiursa?"
"Yes, you need to use Scratch," Virah nodded, Whitney had said before that she needed to treat the Pokemon like a kid and she was, but that didn't seem to be all that effective.
"Teddiursa?" Hulp asked.
"No, there won't be food for you," Virah sighed, "I'm here to teach you how to use a move, not feed you Hulp,"
Hulp tilted her head, "Teddiursa?"
"Why do it then?" Virah wanted to let out a cry in disbelief, "well that's because… Whitney would feed you a lot of food and let you sleep for as long as you'd like if you do,"
The poison specialist smiled, using Whitney to make false promises that the Normal Type no doubt would cash in later down the line sounded like a bad idea, but she knew that the pinkette wouldn't be able to resist giving Hulp a bunch of food once she sees that the Teddiursa had learned Slash.
'Or at least a part of it,' Virah let out an internal groan as the Teddiursa executed the move in a half assed manner.
Virah sighed, "Hulp, you need to take this seriously," she told the Normal Type, "how about you go and try and damage that dummy over there?"
Hulp's gaze followed after Virah's finger and she tilted her head once she saw the strawman sitting a few meters from them idly, slowly, Hulp moved, it was slow and lazy, and it took her half a minute before she could get close to the dummy, wherein she used Scratch to slice apart the stomach, spilling cotton outward.
"I…" Virah tilted her head in confusion, how did Hulp even do that much damage? "Hulp, uh," the Teddiursa yawned, and Virah felt the bulb in her head light up, "Guts?"
"Teddiursa?" Hulp looked back at her.
"No, it's nothing," Virah said with a smile, she knew Hulp had guts, what she didn't know was the fact that it can apparently activate even when the Pokemon is only half asleep.
'Or maybe that's just how it is for baby Pokemon?' Virah thought in consideration, they're basically asleep all the time anyway so it's only natural that whatever activates their ability would do the same even when they're awake.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"Hulp, are you tired?" In response to Virah's question, the Teddiursa nodded cutely, "so you want to sleep?"
Another nod, "Teddiursa,"
"Hm…" Virah nodded, "okay, sleep then, but you need to do it while you're using Scratch,"
"Teddiursa?" Hulp tilted her head, she then looked at her claw, then nodded, "Teddiursa,"
With a set of glowing claws, Hulp laid down and closed her eyes, and before long, the baby Pokemon was asleep. Virah neared Hulp and patted the ursine's head, curiosity by now overtook her and she decided she wanted to quench it.
Hulp's soft breaths caressed her palm as she continued to rub the Pokemon's head, "Hulp?" Virah asked and for a brief moment, the ursine started to move, "Hm…"
Teaching Hulp both Sleep Talk and Rest wouldn't take a lot on her natural reserves.
Adding Slash on top of it would make it so that she'd have to wait for another month or so before Hulp could learn new moves but what she was planning on teaching Hulp was basically the standard Teddiursa set anyways so she deemed that it was fine.
Virah leaned back, thinking, "Hulp, Whitney said that if you used Scratch she'd feed you a lot of food,"
Hulp sniffed, and Virah sighed, she took out a sitrus berry from her bag and held it in front of the Teddiursa's nose, once the scent was taken in by the sleeping Pokemon, she quickly swung her arm upward, and when it went down and touched the ground, the impact caused a small fissure to appear on the dirt.
It also caused the ursine to wake up.
Hulp stared at the berry in Virah's hand with a face full of expectation, she reached out with one paw, clawing cutely for the berry and Virah had no choice but to give it to her.
She fed the Teddiursa two sitrus berries and five orans before Hulp once more fell asleep, and once the Teddiursa was deep in dreamland, she grabbed another sitrus from her pouch and prepared to repeat what she just did.
It took around 3 tries before Hulp no longer needed to be baited by scent to use a move and 2 more before the Teddiursa fully learned Sleep Talk.
Virah stopped tutoring the ursine and sighed, she looked at Whitney and Grene, the two were still sparring, and they have moved on from battling their starters and are now making Knuckle and Galeforce fight.
The Pidgey and Tyrogue were fighting one sidedly, with the Flying Type having the clear edge, a natural outcome given how much of a better battler Galeforce actually was.
She watched for a few minutes, all the while Hulp slept on top of her legs.
Once her break ended, she carried the Teddiursa and dropped her off near the dummy, where she then ordered her to use Scratch using Sleep Talk.
A few more attempts of doing that eventually led to Hulp getting used to the power output of Slash and there, Virah started ordering the sleeping ursine to simply "attack" with no other directives.
As she expected, the attack Hulp used was Scratch, and those got more powerful over the course of a few minutes, Virah didn't know what Hulp was dreaming of, but she assumed it was a gym battle from her little growls.
With that idea in mind, Virah led the sleeping Teddiursa to using Slash by saying, "they're close to losing Hulp! All we need is one last attack!"
With a soft mewl, probably the Pokemon's attempt at a roar, the Teddiursa raised her hand upward and attacked the battered and beaten dummy, the resulting move was stronger and had thicker Type Energy within it, and when it landed, both the dummy as well as the ground exploded into debris.
It startled the sleeping Teddiursa who Virah swiftly carried into a hug before she could start crying, "you did it Hulp!"
And she really did, the poison specialist felt proud at the ursine for learning two different moved over the course of an entire morning, she tossed the tiny bear around in glee and Hulp celebrated with her.
Once her adrenaline died down, Virah turned to Whitney, the pinkette smiled and opened her arms, Virah walked over to her and handed her Hulp, who was once again drowsy.
"So Sleep Talk and Slash huh?" Whitney said as she bopped the ursine's nose, "good job,"
"Teddiursa!" Hulp, who was still in the spirit of celebration, cheered, "Ted- Teddiursa!"
"I'm sure you beat the big had Machoke Hulp," Whitney giggled as she took out a small bag of sitrus berries from her bag, she offered them all to the ursine, who started munching on them with glee.
Whitney to Virah, "thank you," she smiled, "it's really hard to train her with how sleepy she is all the time,"
Virah sat down next to the pinkette and sighed, "yeah, I can completely understand that,"
Whitney giggled and rested her head on Virah's shoulder, "yeah, Hulp is lazy like that," the pinkette bopped the ursine's nose, "lil lazy mon,"
Hulp slapped Whitney's hand away when she bopped her nose for the third time, causing the pinkette to giggle.
"She's still a baby so it's understandable," Virah said.
"Mhmm." Whitney grinned, "it is isn't it?"
Virah felt like the pinkette knew a context she didn't with that reply and the poison specialist was honestly lost as for what that context could possibly even be, she thought of a few things as silence came but nothing that came to mind felt like it made sense.
After a while, Virah decided to simply put it at the back of her head.