"First, before you even consider any attacks, you both must improve your base skills."

I rubbed my knuckles again, squinting my eyes at the old man. "Huh?" Not the most encouraging of responses, perhaps, but it was all I could come up with. Drowzee looked just as clueless as I felt, and Florence had gone off to sit at the side without piping up, so at least it seemed that I wasn't alone in my confusion.

The man sighed, briefly touching a hand to his forehead, then made a strange gesture at his Venomoth. The bug started flying in circles above his head, gaining height slowly as it went around. "Your base skills, the strengths and weaknesses that come together to compose you as a fighting individual. For example: stamina." And then he abruptly started jogging in place at a pace much more rapid than what I ever ran at, his expression not changing at all. When he spoke again, his smooth voice was only slightly breathy. "You both must build up your stamina so you do not simply collapse when pushed too far. Power and speed will give you nothing if you cannot keep standing through a fight."

I blinked twice, almost mesmerized by the rhythmic intensity of his words. He sounded like a motivational speaker, someone on the television who you'd look up to, not a random old guy that Florence had found in a field nearby. "Who are you, again?"

He glared fiercely in our direction. "You will never build up your strength by just standing there, though."

Drowzee snorted at me, then started doing his own little jog-in-place thing. I sighed and decided to comply, reluctantly setting my arms and legs moving.

"To answer your question, you may call me Smith. As for the question you are about to ask –" I closed my mouth guiltily and concentrated on keeping my feet moving in a reasonable pattern – "I have gone through this process many, many times before with people almost as young as you, youths who ended up changing their minds about officially becoming trainers. We cannot afford to let every child with a Slowpoke run amok in the wild. Keep your arms in."

Thus lectured and chastised, I decided to keep my head down and focus on my pace. Of course, his challenging statement ended up making Florence decide that she had to prepare herself too, so she got up and joined us all in our exercise.

I was ready to stop after five minutes, but Smith didn't give us a break until long after that. He did have us alternate through different paces, though we never got up to anything fast, exactly. Florence was easily in better shape than either Drowzee or me, and that was embarrassing and a fact I was determined to fix. Someday. Trainers ended up being physically fit somehow, right?

We then moved to working on defense, since Smith said that pure power never got anyone anywhere. That was slightly more exciting, since the things he had us doing were slightly closer to abilities I actually wanted to have, so I paid more attention to his words and the things he had us do.

"You will eventually need to strengthen your physical defenses, as an attack will occasionally be able to hit no matter what precautions you take, but avoiding a direct hit is the best defense in almost any case," the man lectured as his Venomoth hovered in the air behind him. "Increasing your speed will help in this case, but we shall concentrate first on the senses, your ability to react. Sight, sound, the texture of the surrounding air – even scent will help in certain situations." He paused, then turned to face Drowzee directly. I shifted uneasily; my starter was mumbling his name incoherently under his breath, which was probably not a good sign. "You two have not formed a mental bond yet?"

"Huh? N-no," I muttered, looking down and wondering why we hadn't, anyway. What if I was doing something wrong? How would I know if I was? I needed a manual for this whole training business. Maybe I'd be able to get one once I got back home – I conveniently shoved away the notion that what I was currently doing wasn't going to help much in that department and tried to concentrate on Smith again.

"Yes, it shows," he muttered wryly, still peering down at my Pokemon. "I cannot help you there, as I am not bonded to a psychic. You must learn how to form a link, however; others, both in teams and alone in the wild, will expect it and attack as such. Preparation is key."

I glared mildly at the man, wishing he had come up with another magical solution instead. He had other solutions, though, in the form of dozens of little exercises. Florence and I were quickly pushed back to learning how to dodge and how to take a fall – my hands started to smart after I had slammed them into the grass a few times – but Drowzee, who seemed to react innately, was put through exercises where he had to sense the Venomoth approaching using only his eyes or ears or, occasionally, his mind.

I would've watched more closely if I wasn't being introduced to the ground so often.

Eventually Smith decreed that we were done for the day and left without a single other word. I took the opportunity to fall over and wheeze on the dirt while Florence, breathing heavily, stared after the man.

"Do you believe he is honestly leaving?" she asked, frowning probably. I couldn't quite see her face from the position I was in.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Dunno," I mumbled, taking my glasses off so I could wipe them on my shirt. "Does it matter?"

"Well, yes. We must keep growing stronger! Trainer Michael said that we were staying for another day, did he not? It is the perfect opportunity for me to gain these skills and for you to become useful."

Drowzee brayed tiredly as he waddled over to me, probably voicing his own opinion, while I sat up and glared. Way too many people had called me useless ever since the whole time-traveling incident; it was starting to get on my nerves. "That’s not the point, Florence. How is this going to help me, really?"

She raised her eyebrows, not speaking, so I waved my arms around to emphasize the thoughts which were swirling around in my head, forming a point. Honestly, we'd danced around the situation in so many conversations already, and I really just wanted a yes or no answer. "It's like... I dunno, I thought this morning that training might help us get more ideas, but it hasn't! I should be doing this stuff in my own time. Right, Drowzee?" I got a snort for that as he sat down on my right, which I decided was his way of agreeing. "Right. So, honestly, I'd appreciate it if you'd stop dragging me around into crazy events so we can figure this stuff out."

Florence stared blankly in my direction for such a long time that I started to feel awkward, but then she sighed and settled down, sitting to my left. "I have been thinking about your situation," she admitted as she rested her chin on her knees, "but I cannot find a way out of it."

"Can't you just find that fairy-thing –"

"Celebi. And no, you saw what happened when we tried that before. Besides, even if we could make her stay, what makes you think she would take you back?"

I did my best to push away that unhappy thought, concentrating on the positive parts. "No reason for her not to."

"But she told you that you had to help her, correct?" I nodded slowly, unwilling to acknowledge the point. "Well then, we must first find out what that means."

"But you'll help?" I asked quietly, looking down. Florence was probably a year or two older than me, after all, and infinitely more familiar with the past. She already knew about my real situation. Besides, I really needed someone to talk to honestly, someone who could talk back in words that didn't end with 'zee'.

"Yes," she replied firmly, patting my shoulder in an awkward way. "You are helping me find my partner in return, though."

I nodded in agreement. It seemed like a fair deal to me.

Unfortunately, Florence's concept of helping turned out to include dragging us all out into the fields again the next day. And by all, I mean all – Michael and Isaac were there, too. Florence had told Michael about the older trainer who knew so much, and he'd been fascinated enough at the idea of someone training trainers to come along. Isaac, it seemed, was just joining in for fun.

We worked on stamina (at Florence's insistence) for ten minutes or so, and I got into it enough to not notice when Smith arrived. He did show up, though, and he chuckled a bit at seeing all of us at work. Even Michael and Hoothoot had joined in, though they moved at a lazier pace.

"I must admit, I did not expect to see you return," Smith told me, smiling slightly. "Most children like you turn and crawl away at the first opportunity."

That was pretty insulting, but I swallowed my (practically non-existent) pride and just watched as the adults introduced themselves. Smith already knew Isaac from the town, but he spent a minute or two learning about Michael's past experiences before he turned back to us kids.

"Well, Trainer Monroe, given the addition of Trainer Michael's Hoothoot, I believe that a new exercise is in order. We shall work on battling while outnumbered today."

“What?” I said as I blinked, taking a step backwards. That didn't sound fun.

Michael frowned and looked like he was going to disagree. But then he took a look at Drowzee and a look at me, and after a moment he shrugged and nodded his agreement. Before I could protest further, the bird and bug shot through the air, both angling down at me and Drowzee.

I yelped and jumped out of the way, remembering to break my fall with my hands just in time. The two flying Pokemon were focused mostly on Drowzee, though, who looked like he was severely out of his league, running in zig-zags as he was. I made myself as small a target as I could while I crept backwards, trying to think up a possible counter-attack. I couldn't listen to what the other two trainers were saying, could only watch the chaos in front of me; maybe that was why Smith had mentioned multi-tasking the previous day?

Pound wouldn't work; both opponents were flying too fast, he'd never be able to hit them.

Disable could only take down one of them; we'd practiced it the previous afternoon on the few wild Pokemon who ventured near our training, and we'd figured out that Drowzee could only block one move at a time, no matter how many Pokemon there were in range.

"Hypnosis!" I ordered loudly, rolling out of the way as a whirlwind of dirt shot out towards me. I could see Drowzee's eyes turn blue as he tried to focus on the bug and the bird, but he couldn't get either of them in range for long enough; the blue waves of sleep-inducing thoughts moved too slowly.

And then Drowzee was pinned in place by Hoothoot's talons, and strange, semi-transparent balls of green light were flying from his body to the Venomoth. My starter was looking weaker by the second and I was scared, honestly scared, because it looked like he was getting hurt by that attack. How was I supposed to help him if he fainted?

"Confusion!" I screamed, scrambling to my feet. It wouldn't do any good, I knew; we'd tried and tried the afternoon before to no success, and Drowzee was looking weaker by the second. Smith said something but I couldn’t hear him through the rush of blood in my ears. I forgot where I was, when I was, as the situation narrowed down to the fact that my starter was being badly hurt and there wasn't anything I could do about it, except –

Relieved at the sudden thought, I dug into my jacket's pocket and tore Drowzee’s poke ball out, pointing it towards the mess of Pokemon and squeezing the metallic line around the middle. "Return!"

A jet of red light shot out and enveloped Drowzee, who willingly disappeared as he was sucked back into the ball. I sagged in relief, holding the poke ball tightly in both hands as I took a moment to breathe.

Then I realized exactly what I had just done. I froze up, suddenly aware of the fact that four people were probably staring at me in pure disbelief.

It seemed like I had some explaining to do.

END OF PART ONE