Without a dedicated pokemon center, the next best option was for Mete to apply a spray-potion to Bert and myself… mostly me… and wait for our injuries to heal overnight. The human prepared a meal that was a combination of dried meat – spiced with freshly shaved bits of some root-like vegetable – and something that looked like kibble for Bert and myself, with him apologizing for not having the proper food for a lapine or poison-type pokemon, before making a quick meal of a cheese sandwich for himself.

It didn’t escape my notice that it took him longer to prepare our meals than to prepare his own. Regardless of his apologies, the food wasn’t half bad if I was honest, though a bit dry.

One of the villagers happily let Mete take a spare room for the night, and Bert seemed comfortable enough sleeping on a plush-looking rug on the floor, his tail carefully curled such that the tip sat on his own side and clear of anything flammable. Like the floor. Or the rug he slept on.

I remained exceedingly uncomfortable and lethargic from the energy the Cottonee had drained and still tingly from the paralysis, so when Mete offered to return me to the pokeball – which Bert explained would be way more comfortable since time would pass more quickly from my perception – I accepted.

Being let out of the ball in the morning was decidedly odd. It felt a bit like I’d stayed up all night and gotten a second wind, but without any memory of the ‘staying up’ part, and without the constant feeling the second wind might run out any time. I felt almost detached from the passage of time.

“You get used to it, though it’s still probably better not to have to,” the Charmander explained in the morning.

After a light breakfast of some berries for Bert and myself, and a granola bar for Mete, he asked if I wanted to get right to training, and I nodded.

“Right, well, let’s start with the basics and work our way up,” he said as he pulled a familiar red device from his bag. Like pokeballs, the pokedex was hard to miss regardless of the exact form it took. This one was close enough to what I remembered of the original pokedex from the anime, though it didn’t hinge open; it was simply a cell-phone like vertical slab with angular corners.

“Bert, do you mind acting as a test target? Rosewood told me that Pokemon sometimes have an easier time learning moves against real targets rather than artificial targets.”

The Charmander shrugged and walked up with confidence. I supposed he didn’t have much to fear from any attacks I might be able to put out given his apparent experience.

“Your first natural moves are Leer and Peck,” Mete said, “Leer is just an intimidating stare that lowers the opponent’s defense, while Peck involves spearing a target with a beak or horn.”

I facepalmed at that. I had entirely forgotten about the horn.

I am an idiot.

“Let’s try Leer first,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to my self-reproach.

I gave Bert my best stare. He stared back. He yawned.

“O…kay. Let’s try Peck instead,” Mete said.

Letting out a huff but agreeing with him, I charged forward at Bert, trying my best to spear him with the tip of the horn on my head.

The Charmander dodged out of the way, and I felt like Charlie Brown having the football snatched out from in front of me.

Mete sounded happy, though.

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“Alright, that’s a success, so we’ve got one at least.”

Bert shrugged at my expression of betrayal.

“Probably best not to take unnecessary injuries,” the Charmander assuaged, “That was a decent Peck, and you can get more practice on something that isn’t me.”

Mete stared at his pokedex, his thumb swiping back and forth. He had me try Focus Energy and Double Kick, but both he and Bert seemed confident I wasn’t successfully performing the moves regardless of how much I did my best DBZ yelling impression or kicked at a target twice.

“Neither Bert nor Salem knows Leer, so learning by example is out for now,” Mete said, his words trailing off into a mumble as he frowned, “Maybe we can find a pokemon willing to show it, but we’ll have to make do for now. You can still keep trying to use it, of course.”

He stared at the pokedex in the silence that followed before putting away the device once more and refocusing on Bert and myself with a calculating look.

“Bert, focus on your breathing exercises for now. I’ll come over and find a good spot for Smokescreen practice in a minute.”

The Charmander nodded, settling down and beginning to breathe deeply in and out.

“Nidoran, you’re going to be practicing with Peck. Specifically, with accuracy. Pick something to hit with your horn and practice doing so. If you start to get tired, take a break and see if you can sort out Leer.”

The trainer looked around and began to walk back into the settlement, leaving the two of us to follow his training plan.

With his somewhat vague instructions in mind, I focused on my horn, putting conscious thought to where it existed relative to my head. If accuracy was the prime concern, that meant power or speed weren’t.

I picked out a particular spot on a nearby tree trunk and walked towards it slowly, keeping my horn in mind and trying to keep it angled directly at the spot as I approached until the tip of the horn touched that spot. Then I walked away and repeated it.

I was just starting to get into a rhythm when Mete returned with a sheet of sturdy-looking brown cardboard with some white circles drawn on it. He set it down and used some rocks to keep it in place.

“Here we go,” he said, gesturing down to the board, “You can practice on this. We’re still focusing on control over power, so try not to do any more than poke a hole in it.”

I considered for a moment how much oomph I’d need to put into the attack to do as he’d asked, but he must have taken my consideration as hesitation as he was quick to explain.

“Right now you’re weaker than just about anything we’ll run across, that’s true. No need to mince words there. But for raw power, you’re not going to be able to outdo Bert anytime soon, and the good habits we set up here will shape how you grow later. You will be strong before you know it either way; but the day will come when you need to be able to pull your punches or risk seriously hurting your opponent when you only need to subdue them.”

His impromptu speech had the feel of something he’d said or maybe heard before, and I noticed Bert looking our way with an unreadable expression before his eyes closed and he returned to his deep breathing practice.

Mete stood back and watched as I made my first charge at the target board. It was my first time doing it with any decent speed, and the change in my gait threw off my balance. I hit the board, but nowhere near any of the circles.

That said, I didn’t totally ruin the target at least, managing to control my speed well enough to stop as I hit the cardboard.

I paced back to my self-assigned starting point to try again, and saw out of my peripheral that Mete was walking over towards Bert.

Over the course of the new hour I made attempt after attempt, and the holes littering the board told a story as they zeroed in on one of the circles. After a few bullseyes, the circle itself was no longer visible and I was forced to switch to a different one.

As I worked on my accuracy, Bert under Mete’s direction switched to creating long plumes of smoke carefully streamed in circles around him. They had moved over and around the little hill we were on, and as the wind pulled the smoke away from both us and the settlement, I could see why Mete had picked the spot.

Bert’s smoke wasn’t enough to obscure my view of him, but when I looked over between attempts, I could see how the smoke was getting gradually thicker while remaining in tightly placed trails.

By lunch I had switched over to attempting to stare a hundred-and-first hole into the cardboard, pouring my annoyance with my slow progress into the action. So far as I could tell, it wasn’t working.

Which was unfortunate. Suddenly developing Psychic moves would have been a serious advantage I was certain.