~~~ Chapter 43 - Pokemana Practice ~~~

With effort, I managed to find a similar pull to the one that led to all the times I'd managed to summon the magical substance—whatever it was called—as when I'd used solar-beam. I was trying to do it without the anger, malice and frustration, but in comparison, it was slow. I didn't really know what to call the energy, so I decided to call the substance-slash-energy pokemana. Look, I'm just not that creative, okay? Still taking suggestions on that one. The lighter, yet barely brightening sky meant charging was dramatically slower than before.

The energy, or pokemana, pulled slightly from my leaves, but the bulk of it came from the core of my abdomen. Strangely, my abdomen did not vibrate as it usually did whenever I pulled. The feedback from the rocks I'd accidentally swallowed in Cebi's nightmare was much diminished. I could not pin a reason why, but instead of vibration, I felt more of a muted hum.

Did they remove the rocks from my abdomen when I was in the pokecenter?

My… Bug? Or was it Grass? Pokemana had slipped quite a bit. I paused, air sacs in my abdomen opening and closing, passively breathing through the pockets in my abdomen under my battle-skirt, no need to breathe through my mouth. I held my mouth shut. What energy I had managed to pull, it was not hot or boiling, and it had not screamed for release. I could pull and inject my own anger into it, but no, this pokemana—fuck it, I decided. I was just going to call it mana—it was wrong. I wasn't spending that shit for spells. It wasn't World of Warcraft. I had no blue bars. These were internal energy reserves I was pulling and… spending for spel—

Oh my fucking god. I'm a three foot-tall leavanny in a fucking leafy armor-dress casting spells.

I just wanted to roll over and die.

At least I'm not a white mage.

Ack. I felt the same layer of intense frustration, my mind practically asking to be cleaved in two, and yet I still stood, a few onlookers by the road staring at me as I was uncharacteristically motionless. I didn't even look back at Lanky, whom I hoped was still sleeping. Annoyed with myself, annoyed with the world around me, I was annoyed with the idea. The concept of exposing myself. No.

I wasn't going to give the fucking detective any more information.

No.

I am happy like this. No.

I want to be like this. No!

That same frustration, that same panic the other day, in front of the detective, of rolling in the dirt, the gouges I'd left in the ground. They hadn't mapped to my actual struggling. Lanky and the detective both had dived away. My arms were clenched to my body. My legs were dug into the ground. I was ready to jump. I was ready to kill. I was ready to run. I was—

The energy in my abdomen had built, my head feeling like I was driving a hammer into it. If dark's early stages came from nasty thoughts, and solar beams from anger and rage, what could I do with this feeling of impotent panic and frustration? The power of the sun, had collected from mostly my leaves and had a feeling of boiling heat to them. I thought back to the little skirmish with virizion, the wind that had picked up before I'd been tripped and drained of my own life. Sapped to heal the wound I'd accidentally carved on their side.

This energy, it was chunky, viscous even. I could shape it, rather than just direct its flow like a thumb directing water coming through the end of a hose. I pulled it into my mouth, holding it in place, not daring to touch the ball of energy with my mouth. All of my muscles were tight. I'd dug the ends of my legs into the ground. Could I hold the energy outside of my body? Could I see the energy I was holding? I didn't dare let this form of the mana go or dissipate, as a lot had been pulled from my internal energy stores by this point. Not knowing what it would do, the only thing I could do was experiment with ways of expelling it from my body.

I held it in my mouth, forcing my jaw open with a slow, controlled motion. Slowly, and deliberately, my own concentration wobbled as more people across the way were jogging, then slowed, deciding to watch. I had no idea what they were seeing in me. I was just a bug, standing here. I didn't mean to get others involved. My trainer was behind me, I'd been responsible—I spaced myself a comfortable fifty feet from Lanky.

But whatever. I had a wall to kill.

It had robbed me and threatened to take from me one of my prized treasures! The energy was about to leave my mouth, and the moment it was a centimeter out, the outer membranes of the mana ball wavered dramatically, my whole body twitching as we lost control. My sense of the ball faded. It didn't require any thought on my part—it was pure instinct, what happened next. The sense of the energy had disappeared when it left my mouth. I knew where it was, but could not touch it… I bit down.

The ball split in two, the outer half releasing a deafening crack! Which then hit the wall, kicking up dust. Some energy was stuck in the flats of my jaw, squealing and hissing. The initial crack echoed back. The other half of the mana-slash-energy-ball, traveled through my body, most dissipating. The end of my abdomen twitched, but otherwise, I was fine.

Good to know, at least. This form of the mana wasn't going to explode inside me if I fucked it up. Because I'd just fucked it up, and I wasn't quite dead. Yet.

~~~

At the flash accompanying a chittering thundercrack, Art bolted up in shock, nearly throwing off the silcoon that had simultaneously evolved in his arms and decided sleeping on his chest was a good idea. Looking for Leah at the source of the sound, his leavanny was standing a decent distance away from him, facing the towering walls of the gym. He knew pokemon liked fighting, but… actively training? Of their own accord? The only opponent was a wall. He'd seen and even wrestled with the swadloon, so he knew that they enjoyed playing somewhat rough.

A couple people in jogging and exercise outfits were standing on the street, about a thousand feet away. Had Leah chosen the outer walls that fenced the gym's back courtyard in an effort to avoid casualties? He smirked. He was proud she hadn't chosen to attack into the forest or the direct gym building. Though, the courtyard was still quite a bit closer than the main building.

She was smart as a whip, he already could tell. There were pokemon who were smart enough to read, and understand simplified language and grammar, and he hoped to test it out a bit while using Lenora's gym's facilities. The extended entries on the pokedex had said that many bugs communicated mostly through scents and pheromones, even if they can be trained to verbal words. Aurea had promised him basic teaching materials for pokemon that broke the mold. When the gym opened, however, he'd give her a shot with chalk and board first. Assuming the detective wouldn't interrupt him before he really got to talk to Lenora. He had a growing taste in his mouth from meeting the detective after seeing Leah struggle on the other day, but knew Looker and Lyra had both done good work in other regions.

Arty checked his watch. The sun was almost up, but it wasn't even seven in the morning yet. He waved to the joggers, who noticed him, before waving back, and continuing their jog. The gym wasn't open yet, but he didn't exactly look forward to getting a noise complaint from the gym's neighbors. Even with his own doubts about Looker from Leah's reaction, it was hard to feel too guilty asking her a few questions, when she had a knack for… getting into a specific brand of trouble. It wasn't every day your pokemon teleports back home in the arms of a black-and-pink latias. He had to stifle his own dry chuckle, trying to keep from distracting his concentrating pokemon and see what she was going to do next.

Leah was feeling better, at least, and he was glad for that. Though as she had seemingly been glowing, her arms drooped, her body losing light, as if her internal dimmer switch had been turned all the way down. Art waved at new on-lookers, hopefully encouraging them to move on. Not about to discourage her attempts to train her aces, even with the onlookers, no way.

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Giving the silcoon a little pat, a smile surfaced. There was a lot of work that was about to be in front of him, Leah, and Fidget. In fact, seeing the energy leave her, he remembered— there were still a few days' doses of elixir he needed to administer, per nurse Kyson's instructions, anyway.

Art was about to punch himself for forgetting to apply the medicine to Leah that last night and that morning, but instead, he clenched his gut again, as he set the silcoon down in the grass gently, pulling his pack up. Images of what could only be described as a slaughter playing themselves in his head. He'd never seen anything like it—Anville and Castelia simply didn't have this many bugs.

Nuvema town was too small and well, he hadn't been to see how their donut shop handled the overwhelming scent. Anville had a proliferation of muk and grimer making the nearby forests hostile by either killing the bugs, or eating most of what the bugs could eat. Or just killing their habitat with the herbicides that they'd ingested from the old factories.

Had a muk or grimer poisoned their food source?

The stray thoughts occasionally surfaced during the few moments they had while ruminating. Why on earth would a bug like Leah leave her home nest? Artemus shook his head, his little Leavanny beginning to glow again, turning back to face the gym's towering walls. She ignored the additional joggers that had briefly stopped to look, as Art's bug was clearly practicing of her own accord.

The elixir was held in his hand, while trying to avoid getting the slaughter of bugs stuck in his head again, grateful they could save the three wurmple they had. The threatening dry heaves passed. He could wait until Leah was done to give her a spray. Watching his little mystery helped him keep his mind off what he'd seen an hour or so before. Bugs drawn to a trap and getting indiscriminately roasted or murdered by blasts of water.

~~~

I was fighting just to stay awake. Losing control of the ball of energy, it had taken a moment to really hit, but I felt—and was trying to fight—a dire need to get sleep. What had sunk back into my mouth, I couldn't shape or hold, instead it fractured, dissipating inside my mouth. The remnant energy had bounced around leaving only a quiver at the very end-tip of my abdomen.

As if my body had passive functions that could break the lost and dissipating mana apart. Which… was probably true, when I thought about it. If I could shape the mana, imbue it with my feelings and emotions and thoughts, spin it, turn it, all from my own frustration and cleaving mind, could I form it into putty? The mana in that first energy ball had some slight aspects of the sun, but was not volatile in the same way.

Trying to break the call for sleep, I turned, briefly to the side, watching yet another pair of joggers lose interest. The pokemon world really emphasized personal fitness. I guess if the real earth had the ability to regrow limbs or had berries which could restore health, I would have been healthier back then, too. My leaves were doing their best to resupply me in the now-quickly brightening morning sky. Then, my vision just… went black as I stood still, trying to pull as much energy as I could from the sun as it moved higher, the lawn and field of grass that I stood showing lovely little bits of dew collecting on my body and leaves as I stood, stock-still, trying to keep my mind from fully falling into the black.

Vision returned, and the sun was strong on my leaves, and restored much of the lost sugar. With my body's desire to rest and enter torpor abated, I was back, and ready to return to practice. Steeling myself, I pulled for the mana again. The last one had an element from some of my leaves but mostly my body. Instead, this time, I tried to exclusively pull from the energy stores in my underbody, rather than the leaves.

It wasn't much energy, and it wasn't a boiling rage, either. If my insides were immune or could at least distribute the force, I could try a different, though similar strategy for practice. I held out my arms, widening my stance, pushing the mana up as I faced the great walls of the gym. I didn't look down, but the wind behind me had begun to pick up.

Holding the stance, as if I was about to scissor my way through the walls, I was pressing the mana into the far reaches of each arm, each blade facing the wall. Then, my complete control over it disappeared. I lost all muscle control and fell forward to the ground, the world mute as I tasted grass. I overdid the practice session without enough rest.

Good to know some limits, at least. The energy that had dissipated wasn't being reclaimed, spent. My silk stores had somehow emptied themselves, despite nonuse. My leaves were still operating, gathering sunlight. I felt the sun's warmth all around me, leaves providing the rejuvenating sugars that were immediately being spent just to keep me conscious. It was as if I'd not had any water or sugars for days.

When vision returned, the sun hadn't moved at all, and I was lying backwards into the sky. Lanky had rolled me over, a bag of dried breakfast fruits already half-digested was in my mouth that I hadn't even been tasting already partially mush from my salival digestives. If I had been a human, sleeping with food in my mouth would have been one way to die. Instead, it was apparently safe to feed a sleeping bug? I had recovered, at least, and the stores had recovered surprisingly fast for how exhausted I was.

Once again, I was reminded why living with humans was better than being in the wild. My arms were covered, glistening from the dew. Lanky stood over me, holding the potion that he'd been spraying me with for the last few days. He gave me a few squirts, making sure to hit my actual carapace instead of just my leaves. Swallowing the last of the heaping of food and the spray, it was moments before I was standing up again.

In fact, I felt even better than when I woke up from the dream with Cresselia that morning. The sun was shooting its way over the buildings now—I hadn't passed out for that long, but the movement of the sun suggested otherwise. We were entering late morning territory. While laid on the grass, a voice called out, getting our attention. Lanky gave them a wave. It was the detective. The one that didn't smell like tobacco. If we felt comfortable enough to sleep outside, or stay at the detective and meganium trainer's townhome, I doubted we were in too much trouble.

Walking back into place facing the walls of the gym, planting my feet in the ground, I did a quick check of my surroundings. Lenora, the gym leader, was pretty clearly walking down the road. I recalled my anger, my rage at being betrayed. I let it boil, replaying the moment, trying to observe in myself, the mental cues which would lead to using these abilities. Hopefully, one day I will be able to do solar beam without replaying the past trauma over and over.

Even the early-morning sun's rays grew brighter, shining on me, the world beginning to slow dramatically down. This was no pull, there was no shaping energy. This was holding a simmering pot of tea within the mind. Lanky and the detective had stopped talking, and Lenora stopped walking, stopping a few thousand feet away.

I was mad. I was angry at being used. I was angry at not being told everything up front. I was mad at the police officer in train town, taunting me with their pokeball. This time, the boiling energy from the leaves all collected directly in my thorax, my internal mental muscles, trying to spin it as it collected. A slight breeze picked up from behind me, pushing forward into the gym's reinforced outer walls.

The boiling mass once again started screaming like an angry teakettle, threatening to explode. I would have to experiment later, but the pool was too large, I couldn't shape it like I could earlier. It was too hot, if I held it in, this time, it would boil me alive. I could maybe forward it to my blades, but that was for another time. I stuck my feet in. The ball had been spinning quite rapidly inside.

It was too large to all fit through, but through an invisible limb, I opened my mouth, and the beam of white-hot solar energy shattered the silence in the air. The first time I'd used this, it had blasted me back. The second time, when I'd actually used it in a fight, I'd passed out from being heavily injured by a pokemon many times my size.

This time, I released the beam, I was stuck well into the ground, and the beam ripped through the air, impacting the blast with a massive BANG, and then it had disappeared into the rock of the wall I'd aimed. A few lucky onlookers clapped, including Lenora, as she walked up, but the only thing I could think of was: I didn't pass out. Nor was I flung back.

Lenora gave Lanky, the detective and I a wave, unlocking the front door of the gym, calling us to her. As I stepped into the gym, and the detective drew close, what I wasn't expecting was the faintest hint of tobacco-slash-cigar smell lingering on the detective.

Had he been trying to mask his scent?

He and Lanky spoke in short, curt sentences. Lanky had apparently already had a tour of the gym? At least, he seemed to know where to go. As we entered a large atrium-like room, Lanky and the detective and Lenora, all three talked, before the meganium stepped through the door, followed by their trainer. This gym room was somewhat smaller than the one in Castelia, but I couldn't tell if it was smaller or just had room for a set of bleachers for a small set of onlookers. A camera stuck from the wall. The meganium's trainer gave the detective a hug.

My world froze. Were they dating? Can she not smell the tobacco?

The other guy smelled totally differently! At least, when I got close… My blades were rubbing together. The detective glanced at me before excusing themselves. How would I? How could I tell the girl? She had to know. No way. Maybe they were polyamorous? Open relationship? But the guy looked just like the other detective from the day before. I opened my mouth to take a brea—

The fake-detective had already returned, and with him was a girl, wearing a jacket, with an alakazam wearing a beanie on its head and a shiny stone around its neck.

I took a breath. Then, with a crack, I shut my jaw.