Taking into account Mete’s concerns regarding each choice, I found myself agreeing with most of them. His worries about leaving me alone seemed unfounded, however. I said as much to Bert, but the Charmander only shrugged in response.

Communicating my choice to stay was a matter of Mete listing out the options again; I simply said, ‘that one,’ when he offered to ask that Ysabel and Rolfe look after me for the afternoon and possibly evening it’d take the trainer and his charmander to scout around the surrounding forests. Mete frowned, but nodded before walking away to talk with the couple.

The two of course had no issue with the arrangement, though Mete made it clear I wasn’t to go outside without supervision given the possibility that some of the local grass-type pokemon might take a second swing at the little settlement while he was gone.

He needn’t have bothered - without any other easy way of training, I took to attempting to stare a hole in their wall. It probably wasn’t as effective as trying to use Leer on an actual target, but I was determined to get some kind of use out of the time.

It was surprisingly easy to just zone out as I poured contempt into a particular spot in the wallpaper, and an indeterminate amount of time passed before a noise caused me to turn my gaze on an interloper into the couple’s home who I didn’t recognize.

She was a total stranger, but no older than Mete. And my already contemptuous mindset turned its fangs upon her with ease.

Bah, I can take her.

As we locked gazes, she flinched back in surprise before scrabbling for a ball at her belt and releasing a Kakuna between us.

“Moooom? There’s a weird freak’n Nidoran in here!”

Before I even realized what I was doing, I had already turned my imperious disdain upon the Kakuna, and it too seemed to shrink back.

“Easy there,” Ysabel said, as she strode into the room, “no fighting in my house. Rosa, this is Mete’s Nidoran. He left it here while he’s looking into the forest issues. Nidoran, this is my daughter Rosa.”

“Tell him that,” Rosa whined, “I just walked in and he stared Leering at me. Did the same to Dobber here.”

Ysabel looked back at me, and I quickly adopted a more neutral expression, which was likely crumbled under the onset of glee at the news I had actually figured out the move.

“Well, Mete did say they were training,” the matronly woman said, “Maybe Nidoran just doesn’t have good control over Leer yet. Dobber accidentally Poison Stinged you enough times you should know that can happen.”

Rosa pouted and crossed her arms. “Still rude,” she mumbled, before a subtle shift in her attitude.

“Actually,” she said, “If you’re with Mete… What do you say we have a little informal bout? I’ve been dying for a rematch.”

My hackles rose as I stood and thumped the ground once. Rosa’s attitude rubbed me the wrong way, and it’d be my pleasure to try a match against her Kakuna. It couldn’t be higher than level 9 in any case, right?

“Not in my house, young lady,” the woman scolded, then sighed. “Take it outside you two, but don’t go far. And don’t get seriously hurt either.”

Rosa pumped a fist, and I followed her and the hopping Kakuna out the door and around to the side of the house. I hadn’t really examined this area before, and found that a crude pokemon battling arena had been carved into the ground.

“Right then,” Rosa said, her brows furrowing, “Ground rules: Either pokemon gets knocked down, the match is over. Either pokemon can tap out at any time, or just lay down to forfeit. Since we don’t have a ref’, the match will begin when Nidoran makes his first move. Got all that?”

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I nodded my ascent, and the Kakuna did a sort of hop which I supposed filled in for verbal agreement.

With the rules established, I saw no reason not to put into practice what I’d been training the last few hours and began the match with a Leer. It was a little strange, realizing that there was a difference between a leer and a Leer, but it seemed to be a matter of scale or concentration. I couldn’t just look disapprovingly at my opponent; I had to really mean it. I had to know that they were beneath me, and put real energy into that notion.

It didn’t hurt that I’d already done the type advantage math, making it even easier to strum up the requisite disdain.

Get on my level, bug-type.

I felt the move connect, but my opponent didn’t let it show this time. Instead, the Kakuna responded by spraying a string-like substance in my direction. I threw myself to the side, but I could feel that I hadn’t entirely avoided it. My back half felt tacky, and it suddenly took a little more effort to pull my back legs off the ground with each step.

“Good job Dobber! Now follow up with Poison Sting!”

I had seen the Kakuna hop along the ground before, but this time they moved. With a motion like a coil springing back from compression, my opponent launched forward before flipping in mid air to reveal a wicked-looking stinger.

Rather than try to dodge with my hobbled movements, I returned the favor and dashed head-on, doing my best to reenact the Peck I’d practiced so much that morning.

My aim was true, it seemed, as my horn tore a nasty looking gash along the bug-type’s side, while the stinger only managed to scrape painfully down my hide.

I spared a quick glance at my own injury. The line down my side and back looked superficially bad, but I didn’t seem to be bleeding from it. Rather, there was a glistening purple substance messily spread on and down the wound which stung, but I didn’t feel all that hurt by it.

When I glanced up again, I saw how the Kakuna wobbled but straightened out. The wound I’d made with Peck oozed a pale yellow-green liquid which I took to be the bug’s equivalent of blood.

“Crap,” Rosa breathed in dismay, “Dobber, use Harden!”

Oh no you dont, I thought, wasting no time as I sprinted back into range once more to land a Peck with my horn.

The difference between the first Peck and the second was noticeable, as my opponent managed to spring away with a lesser injury this time. I had the tempo, however, and I didn’t intend to lose it.

What followed was a few more rounds of me following the Kakuna doggedly with Peck while the bug tried to avoid my attacks and Harden their carapace further.

And though I could hardly make a scratch in my opponent’s shell after a few repetitions, neither could my opponent remain standing through the ever-lessening wounds I’d inflicted. When the Kakuna finally toppled over, it was obvious that Rosa had seen this coming. Her posture sagged.

“Nidoran is the winner,” she sighed, “Guess we still have some work to do on catching up with Mete then.”

While I’d taken some very superficial damage and done quite a bit of running, I somehow felt more empowered than anything by the match. I felt vindicated. Certainly I’d held some strong advantages from the outset, but the Kakuna hadn’t made it easy.

It may have simply been the adrenaline, but when I spotted the shadow zipping down towards the prone bug-type, I acted before I could even process what I had seen. I sped forward, bodily shoving myself between the downed pokemon and the swooping intruder, and got a pelt-full of wicked claws for my trouble as I was snatched bodily into the air.

I screamed out in pain as talons pierced my flesh and the ground sped away beneath me, Rosa yelling something I failed to catch amid the sound of the wind whipping past.

I fought through the pain, struggling to strike out at the flying pokemon. Up close, it was difficult to determine the species, especially with so many flying pokemon having various shades of brown feathers.

“Arceus, would you stop?” I heard an annoyed voice say, “You’re dinner whether you like it or not, so cease.”

“Fuck. You,” I ground out, eloquently, and that seemed to be the end of our civil discourse as I renewed my flailing attempts to strike at the predator’s legs and underside.

Talons tightened, and my awareness dimmed for a time. Regaining coherent thought was a battle all its own as the land sped past below.

I must have landed some kind of hit, however, as my captor began to lose altitude bit by bit, wings flapping a little more erratically by the minute.

We never landed. Rather, the bird either lost its grip on me or decided I wasn’t worth the trouble, and I found myself hurtling down towards the sparse treetops below.