"go on! keep going!" my Dad's voice entered my ears, and with him running a considerable distance ahead of me, it sounded more like an echo. Realizing that I was lagging, I pumped my legs even faster to try and catch up, ignoring the feeling of bile rising up my throat.

Pushing myself to the physical limit has always resulted in that sort of thing and it has led to me puking in the middle of my runs the first few times I did them.

Now though, it was something as simple as me controlling my breathing and doing my best to keep my oxygen levels up. Apparently, asphyxiation was a major reason why I kept puking and after the third time I had to stop running to forcefully empty my stomach, Dad gave me a small break to practice my breathing while running. It hadn't been hard, controlling it became easy after a while and now, I only had to puke by the end of my runs.

Doing all of it was still frustrating of course, but my father had told me that I needed to do this every day and that the exercise regime we were currently doing was considered to be pretty light by the other rangers. Dad was included among them. Even then, the fact that I had to run several kilometers every day was something that I could never grow accustomed to.

I probably will, since Dad doesn't have any problems with doing all this and more but I don't think that time is soon.

And this was just the start of it all too since Dad would tell me to exercise after he thinks I'm well rested.

After everything that had happened back in Union Cave, I honestly wanted to take a longer break but both my parents weren't so keen on the idea and so, day after day, I would practice with everything I had to improve my physical health, trainer capabilities, as well as - something that the two of them considered to be quite important - my psychic power.

They were blunt in telling me that me being able to do what I can do isn't that rare compared to, let's say, the trainers that sit on the highest ladder of the league. People like the Elite Four, for example, could easily do my "calculation bit" without much issue, and even better than I could in some cases.

Hell, Bruno even manages to wrestle Onixes from what I've heard.

So, all in all, both my parents don't exactly consider what I'm capable of as something "unique" because Mom, in her case, works with people like that every day and Dad knows a Ranger with Psychic capabilities. Not to say that my condition wasn't rare of course, but I was essentially in the lower echelons of "special" all things considered.

I had the actual potential to yield my Psychic power as something wonderful sure, but according to everyone else, that's supposed to be very, very far off in the near future and I just want to say, after everything Alakazam has put me through, they all might be right.

Then again, someone like Sabrina exists and she's already a powerful Psychic during her early teens but I'm pretty sure she's an exception instead of a rule.

All in all, I still had a lot of ways to go in that aspect but I'm working on it with Alakazam.

'that probably isn't something I should worry about right now,' were my thoughts as I watched Dad's shrinking figure, I had been slowing down as I thought things through, and with Dad pumping his legs while I was still thinking, he had given himself a nice distance between the two of us. It was far enough that when he turned around to shout something at me, all I could hear was a barely audible babble.

I pumped my legs even faster, doing my best to catch up and ignore the bile rising in my throat.

I'd deal with that problem later but for now, I probably shouldn't get left behind since I didn't have a single pokemon with me.

And that was another problem as well, since I've shown that I can apparently "hold my own" against wild Pokemon, Dad thought that training me into properly fighting them wasn't such a bad idea and my Mom agreed easily enough but the way I've fought against their pokemons was something that bordered on abuse but with this being the pokemon world, I was sure that what I was doing, (fighting against Pokemon,) was "normal" for these people.

Not that I wasn't making progress on that front of course, since now, I've been able to use my power to calculate their attacks before they even moved. The only problem that I really had with it was the fact that there are simply too many possibilities fed to me by my brain and even though my power could probably pick the best one, doing so would take time, time that I couldn't afford to lose since normally, I would be going against a Furret, the only Pokemon that both my parents considered as something "at my level", not to mention, something that is far faster than me by a large margin.

From what I could see, Dad had stopped running and was now doing stretches in the far distance. And that was good because it meant that he already reached the "goal" and I wasn't too far behind. Him getting cooled down first meant that our food would be halfway cooked by the time I reached him and that it would be ready when I was done with my own cool-down stretches. All in all, everything was looking slightly more positive than before and I couldn't be happier.

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When I reached him, something was already stewing in the pot and I stopped for a second to inhale the sweet scent of food before moving on to stretch.

Now that I was done, hot food was waiting for me on a makeshift table made from a nearby log carried and flattened by Kangaskhan, and all I needed to do was simply eat.

"you didn't puke this time around by the way," Dad says as he ate his food, I stopped moving halfway through taking a seat, and realized that he was right, I sat down and he spoke again, "that's honestly a good thing," he said approvingly, "the sooner that you get used to high physical activities the sooner that we get to increase your training,"

I bit down on my food, "fher's mor? heawy?" he nodded,

"don't speak while there's food in your mouth,"

I gulped, "sorry about that,"

...

"don't just let Furret catch you like that! come on Lionel!" amidst Dad's screams of "encouragement ", I grabbed both Furret's hands and tried to twist them loose, hoping that would get his claws off my skin. After kicking him in the stomach, Furret finally became weak enough to get pushed off, and now that he was, tackling him down to the ground and giving him a taste of his own choke-hold based medicine became easy.

For something so strong, Furret's short limbs gave him the shorter end of the stick: something that I only realized two days after the training started. Dad said I should've thought about it whilst in my free time and maybe he was right, but I didn't have that mindset then and I was too focused on everything I had to do in the present to think about the future.

Seeing that he was about to get free from my hold, I pressed my knee on his back and pushed, bending the pokemon in ways that he definitely could, but not willingly. I heard the sound of something snapping and watched as Furret's face got washed with relief, a small opportunity that I immediately took as I wrapped both my legs around his waist and started rolling around. I made sure to hold onto his arms so that he wouldn't be able to balance himself because if that happens, then I'm gonna have to cling to his back as he ran around the forest.

I held back a wince, it was something that I didn't want to go back to if I could help it. The memory of my back being sore for hours after it had been violently slammed into the trunk of a tree wasn't something that I wanted to relive.

The two of us wrestled each other for what felt like an eternity, with Furret pushing me back despite his smaller arms, and me doing my best to fight and continue the hold that I had on him. It continued for a while until the pokemon gave up and dropped down onto the ground, panting.

I stood up and brushed off my clothes, Furret did the same as he righted himself and proceeded to groom his fur. The sound of his tongue scraping against his brown hair made me feel a bit uncomfortable but it was something that I was used to by now.

I felt rough hands pat my shoulders, pushing me down, "good job, if you keep this up, I might even ask Furret to take you seriously," I looked at Dad's grinning face and waved him off,

"yeah, yeah," I grunted, no matter how much he likes to say so, I wouldn't be able to beat a Pokemon on the physical side of things. "can I have my pokemon now?"

he hummed, thinking, "well, I would like to say yes but how about we start going home before you do?" I nodded in agreement as he started walking, I followed after him, "you've been doing good progress this past week you know," he started, "I didn't know what I was expecting when Professor Oak's aid told me that you'd be fine even with the training regime that you have currently but seeing things play out with my own two eyes definitely convinced me."

he nodded seriously after he said that, "Espers like you being slightly tougher than regular humans has some truth to it,"

"so what you're saying is that what I'm currently going through right now isn't normal?" he nodded, "all the exercise, the training, the psychic things that Alakazam does?"

"well, Alakazam probably knows what kind of limits you have and no one needs to consult him regarding that stuff but yeah, you're right," he agreed readily,

"what are you preparing me for anyways?" I asked, -

"THIS!"

- and was quickly answered by someone yelling loud enough to make me flinch. Dad didn't and he already had his Kangaskhan out way before the three Rocket Grunts came out of the nearby bushes. All three of them wore the typical Rocket attire, a black suit with an R at the back.

I groaned when I caught sight of all three of them and became disappointed, well, irritated when I saw that the Pokemon that they threw out weren't even fully evolved.

Right in front of us was a Mankey, a Machop, and, oddly, a Cubone. All three looked like they were eager for a fight and I could understand the two fighting types but why a Cubone?

My thoughts were never answered as the three of them gave their Pokemon commands, sending the trio barreling at Kangaskhan without a hint of worry or regret visible on their face.

The Machop struck first, sending in a low kick that tripped Kangkashan followed by the Mankey's Karate Chop, Cubone used a simple headbutt that I knew didn't even damage the towering Normal Type.

Kangaskhan released a puff of air before retaliating, needing no command from her trainer as she swiftly took out all three pokemon. It wasn't even a battle, and the trio could only watch as she struck them one by one. At the end of it all, both Machop and Mankey tried to get recalled but oddly enough, they couldn't and I turned to my right to see why; a Gengar was glaring at the three downed Pokemon, using Mean Look without much strain as to prevent the pokemon from being recalled.

"good job," Dad scratched the back of his head, then he released Furret once again, asking him to chase down the escaping Grunts. Gengar soon followed, disappearing from where he stood in a twisted parody of Grimer's Shadow Sneak to chase the three grunts. I looked at Dad, and he sighed, "that other one wasn't able to speak when we found him so catching those three would be good for interrogation,"

He hissed as if talking about them already got his tongue bitter. He went over and picked up the thrown pokeballs of the Pokemon he just defeated, "I know that these pokemon are stolen but-" he looked at the Cubone, "this little guy probably got taken from his mother," he sighed as he called the pokemon back,

he met my eyes, apparently interpreting something from them, "don't worry, I'm sure that the daycare would be able to find a nice home for this guy," was all he said before returning the other two,

"and what happens if he doesn't?" I said, catching up to him, he didn't recall Kangaskhan back and it seems that Furret wouldn't be joining us in going back to GoldenRod,

"well, he's gonna have to live inside the daycare," he said, rubbing the Pokeball in melancholance, "don't worry though, there's probably a trainer out there for him," he smiled.