We went to training that morning, as usual, and I noticed to my surprise that our starting routine of jogging in place no longer made me feel like I was going to keel over. Apparently exercise really did get easier the more you practiced it.
Unfortunately, Smith noticed this as well. “Good,” he told us, a rare smile flitting across his face. “Now that your stamina has improved, you may begin work on improving your speed.”
I eyed him warily. “How exactly are we going to do that?”
“Actual running, naturally.” He motioned for the three of us to stop jogging, then pointed over to the other side of the field. “Do you see the tree that Venomoth is sitting on? Run from here to there and back again.”
I stared at the tree. It was all the way at the edge of the field, which looked really far off from where we were standing. “We have to run both ways?” I said, looking back to Smith in disbelief.
“Yes,” he told me with a straight face. “Three times.”
Florence nodded and immediately ran off at a faster pace than I could manage. I groaned and followed her, keeping pace with Drowzee. He ran a bit slowly, but I felt better running with someone than trying to keep going all by myself.
By the time I had reached the tree I was breathing heavily. By the time I got back to the starting point I was full-on wheezing, and my calves hurt. Smith had no sympathy; he just gestured for me to turn around and get started with the second lap.
I learned to stare at the ground and focus on breathing in time with the movement of my legs. I found that I could keep going, even when all I wanted to do was collapse on the ground. Drowzee helped with that – he dragged me forward relentlessly the two times I tried to stop and rest, even though he was breathing hard himself.
Florence had finished her run by the time we reached the tree for the third time (it might have been my imagination, but Venomoth appeared to be judging me from up on his branch). When I glared at her from across the field I noticed that she and Smith weren’t alone; they had been joined by Isaac. That was odd, since he didn’t usually watch our training sessions. Had something gone wrong?
I ran a bit faster than before to get back to the group. Drowzee managed to keep up with me, though he grumbled a lot about it, and Venomoth flitted above us. Maybe he wanted to escort us back to the others? I couldn’t tell.
When I reached the group I could at least see that Isaac didn’t look upset, so that was good. I leaned down with my hands on my knees, wheezing, as Isaac launched into a hurried explanation.
“I had an idea for the missing material!” he told us as he pulled a box out of the bag slung over his shoulder. “It is not known to be connected to majū, but it does have mysterious properties which include a strange energy field. It is hypothetically possible that it connects to the energy forms of majū the way you have described, Trainer Monroe, which gives it much stronger potential than the other ideas we discussed.”
Smith looked confused as Venomoth landed on his shoulder, but I was too excited to care. I caught my breath with a few gasps, then grinned up at Isaac. “Really? Great! What is it?”
“A special type of tumbled stone.” He opened the box and showed us a necklace made of five smooth gray stones strung on a silver chain. The stones almost seemed to glow in an odd, muted way. “They are found in caves; I found these years ago in Union Cave, towards the east. Interestingly, many of the stones are already smoothed by the elements and do not need to be worked directly.”
Florence leaned forward to gently touch the necklace. “This is beautiful, Mr. Isaac,” she said quietly. “I did not know you were such a skilled craftsman.”
Something flickered in Isaac’s expression for a moment, but he looked down before I could tell what it was. “I’m not,” he said quietly. “My wife was. This was hers.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, not sure what to say. I had idly wondered what had happened to Charity’s mother, but I’d never asked. Now the ‘was’ in Isaac’s sentence spoke volumes.
Isaac snapped the lid of the box closed and straightened up before I could think of something to say. “In any case, the necklace does not matter; the stones do. I believe we should incorporate one of them onto one of the prototype balls, then run another test to see if it causes the reaction we seek. Trainer Monroe, can you join me now to assist in the work?”
I immediately nodded yes and only afterwards noticed that Smith was frowning. “You have not yet finished your training for the day,” he told me in a serious tone. “You do remember my warning from before? Break the pattern and you will find it difficult to resume.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow, I promise, but this is too important,” I told him. A few moments ago I had been exhausted, but now I was hyped up on adrenaline and could barely keep still. “This could be the missing link that makes it all come together. I have to find out if it is!”
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Smith just looked at me in a judgmental way. Florence was mirroring his look slightly off to the side, but I ignored her; she could stay here and train all day if she wanted to, but I needed to get to the bottom of this mystery right away.
I thought for a moment, then warily offered a compromise. “What if Drowzee and I run all the way back to Isaac’s house, so that we still get some practice in? Would that help?”
Drowzee snorted in surprise next to me, but my offer appeared to work; Smith sighed and nodded. “Do not forget to do your stretches afterwards, and see if you can practice meditation on your own this afternoon,” he instructed us. Then he narrowed his eyes. “And do not miss training tomorrow morning or attempt to leave early again. If you do, I will save my time for more worthy pupils.”
“Yes sir! Thank you!” I said, relieved. Smith shooed us away (including Florence – I could tell she wasn’t happy about that), so I immediately went running off towards the house. Florence and Drowzee ran up to join me right away; Isaac let out a startled yelp and then started jogging to catch up.
“You are slacking,” Florence told me severely as she pulled even with me.
“I’m focusing on what’s most important,” I fired back, then looked forward to concentrate on the path ahead.
~
Once we got back to the workshop, Isaac and I took a few minutes to discuss several approaches for integrating the tumbled stone into the prototype ball’s design. We eventually decided to use two stones, one on either side of the entry button, to encourage the energy to go from the outside to the inside.
The stones on the necklace were all too large, so we had to go digging through stacks of boxes in the back of the workshop to find a box of samples from the trip Isaac had mentioned before. Then we had to sort through the small collection of stones in the box to find two that were relatively flat and the right size and shape. Only one really matched, so we had to wait even longer for Isaac to take the slightly-too-large stone and use a foot-powered lathe to grind it into the right shape. I had never done stonework myself, but apparently he had picked up some basic skills.
Eventually we had both stones ready, so I carefully glued the stones onto the front and back of the button and clamped them in place. Once that was done, I sat back and looked at Isaac and Florence.
“I know we should be good and wait a full day for this to dry,” I told them with a half-smile, “but I think I’ll explode if we have to wait again to see if this new version works. Besides, there’s less stress on the button, I’m not worried about it falling apart.”
Isaac shook his head, but he was smiling too. “Best practice would say that we should do this properly, with a full wait period and multiple prototypes, but I find myself in agreement with you. And to be fair, we have few materials to work with currently, and certainly not enough to make ten duplicates.”
“And if it works we should notice right away,” Florence added, leaning forward in her chair. “When a majū switches to their energy form, it is not exactly subtle.”
“Drow,” Drowzee commented from his position next to my stool, appearing to agree.
So we only waited two hours, just long enough to make sure the glue had set a bit. Then we packed up the prototype ball and the lanterns and headed back to Slowpoke Well.
This time, since it was the middle of the day, we found the well in a slightly more lively state. A few Slowpoke were gathered around the edge of the pool by the entrance with their tails dipped into the water. Once again, they didn’t appear to care that we were there.
“We should try that one,” Florence said, pointing to the Slowpoke closest to the ladder. “If this attempt fails or goes poorly, we will have a quick escape route.”
I nodded my agreement as I nervously turned the prototype ball over in my hands. I had tried to tell Isaac that he should be the one to test this new prototype, since he had the idea for the stone, but he had insisted that I make the attempt again to ‘ensure consistency in the scientific process’.
Drowzee patted my arm, I think in an attempt to encourage me. I took a deep breath, then crept up to the Slowpoke Florence had pointed out. This one was awake, but it didn’t really matter; the Pokemon just stared at me placidly as I slowly walked up to it.
Well, there wasn’t much for me to do other than make an attempt. I crossed my fingers on my free hand, then leaned forward and tapped the prototype ball on the Slowpoke.
The Slowpoke briefly glowed a bright white, then was sucked into the button of the ball.
Behind me, I heard Florence gasp and Isaac laugh. I just lifted the ball up and stared at it, not really believing what I had seen. Sure, I knew the theory, but it was one thing to know it abstractly and another to see it in real life. All you had to do was fuse together a fruit shell and a bit of odd stone, then, bam! Suddenly you could capture a Pokemon.
The ball jerked around in my hand briefly, then a beam of white light shot out of the front and barreled straight into my face, knocking my glasses onto the ground. I fell flat on my back and my vision was completely blocked by the figure laying on my head.
“Slooooow,” a deep voice complained from right above me.
“Ow,” I replied. Or, well, I tried to; it was rather muffled by the Slowpoke sitting on my face.
Drowzee came to my rescue. He used a few well-placed Pounds to push the Slowpoke off of me, and when it looked like the pink Pokemon might retaliate he spontaneously used a Hypnosis to make it (and the other nearby Slowpoke) fall asleep. Once I had rescued my glasses and gotten them back on my face, I smiled at him and patted his shoulder in thanks.
It was a good thing that Drowzee had been willing to take that initiative, because the humans in our group were basically useless. “Incredible!” Isaac said as he furiously wrote in the small notebook he’d brought along. “We will need to try a great many adjustments, of course, but this is already much more effective than I would have expected!”
Next to him, Florence had leaned down to pick up the prototype ball from where it had fallen to the ground. She didn’t say anything; she just turned it over in her hands, her eyes huge.
My grin grew even wider as I got to my feet and brushed myself off. It looked like our plans for designing a working poke ball were back on track.