The next morning, I decided that Drowzee and I were going to work on communication.

Drowzee had woken up feeling much better, it seemed; he went through his morning stretches with enough enthusiasm that I half-heartedly copied him and tried stretching to touch my toes too. Whatever side effects he had felt from using Confusion for the first time were gone, and he even showed off the move to Venomoth and Smith when we arrived in the training field later in the day. Venomoth did a mid-air flip of appreciation, and Smith nodded with a smile.

“Well done, Drowzee,” he said in his quiet way. “You may be pleased to learn that your first elemental attack is usually the hardest to learn. Future psychic approaches should develop more easily.” Drowzee snorted in approval at that. “Now that you have learned another move, we should focus on developing and improving your existing moveset. For Confusion, that will involve extended meditation to build your mental power and fortitude.”

I nodded eagerly (I was very ready to work on Drowzee’s moves after seeing what Jordan and Sudowoodo could do), and Smith turned to look at me. “As for you, Trainer Monroe, it is now doubly important that you focus on your own meditative training. You will face much exposure to your partner’s psychic attacks, especially as he learns how to use his new powers. You will need to shield your mind to avoid mental damage.”

I scratched at my ear, thinking. “Umm… couldn’t we use that to form the mental-bond-thing you mentioned before? It seems like Drowzee might be ready for it, now that he can use Confusion.”

For a moment Smith just blinked at me. Then he rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful. “That may work. You should experiment with it to see what exactly is possible.” That was followed by a slight frown. “Though, of course, you should also be careful. Go too far and you risk permanent damage.”

That made me shiver and wonder whether figuring out mental communication was really that important. All the other trainers I’d met seemed to communicate well enough without relying on tele-whatever.

Then again, all the other trainers I’d met had formed bonds with Pokemon without relying on poke balls, and who knew how long it had taken for them to really understand each other? I couldn’t afford to spend years learning Drowzee’s quirks and signals. I wanted to know what he was thinking now, so that we could make plans together about how to get back home.

Still, I didn’t protest when Smith told me that mental bonds would have to wait until training was finished for the day. And training started off with all the usual things, like running and falling and dodging, which had gotten a bit easier even though my whole body ached from the beating it had taken in Union Cave. It all seemed fairly normal – at least, until Smith and Venomoth decided to show off.

“As your pool of techniques expands, you will need continued practice to retain muscle memory for how moves are performed,” Smith lectured. Venomoth hovered over him while Florence, Drowzee, and I rested on the ground. “In my experience, most majū who do not engage in continued training only retain familiarity with around four techniques. You see this with some of the village’s Slowbro; once they have grown comfortable generating pulses of water, they have difficulty returning to a simple Water Gun.”

Florence frowned from her position next to me and sat up straighter. “Is that such a bad thing?” she asked. “Back in my home village, Trainer Richard told me that his partner’s Water Pulse was much more powerful than the majū’s earlier water-based moves. Should a majū not use the most powerful attack available to them?”

“It depends on the situation,” Smith replied. “In a full-out battle against a worthy opponent, yes, you may wish to use the strongest attack available to you, though even then there are several factors that may come into play. But what if you need to focus a hit on a small target? Water Gun provides a more concentrated beam of water than Water Pulse. Alternatively, what if you need to douse a fire but wish to do as little damage as possible? In this circumstance, you would wish to use the weakest water attack you could.”

Florence nodded thoughtfully. I was starting to rethink things as well. Sure, it would be amazing if Drowzee could use an all-powerful Psychic attack or demolish enemies with a Hyper Beam like elite teams did in tournaments, but there was a lot more to life than battling. Hypnosis and Disable had been really useful so far, so it made sense to hold onto them and keep practicing them. Even a move like Pound might still come in handy at the right moment.

Smith signaled to Venomoth with a wave of his hand, and the bug zoomed off to the side, flying in circles to gain altitude. “To build muscle memory, it helps to build a training pattern that incorporates all the techniques your partner has learned,” the man said calmly, watching his Pokemon rise up in the air. “When your partner learns a new move, you can work together to add it to the pattern. If he practices the pattern every day, he will be able to call on each move as needed; they will not fade away.”

He then twisted his wrist in a sharp motion and Venomoth suddenly danced into action – literally. The bug began flitting through the air with little flips, bows, and turns that made it look like he was dancing. It was oddly mesmerizing. “Quiver Dance,” Smith narrated, “followed by the powder moves.” Venomoth broke out of the dance and fluttered his wings rapidly; a purple dust started falling gently from his scales to the ground, followed rapidly by a yellow dust, then blue. The colors gleamed in the light as they slowly descended, which was actually really pretty. “Poison, Stun, and Sleep,” Smith elaborated, smiling up into the light. “My partner is especially skilled in generating powders.”

Venomoth abruptly switched from fluttering to powerful sweeps of his wings that blew the colored powders away from where we sat, out to the center of the field. “Gust,” Smith said; then Venomoth leaned back and swept his wings forward in a particularly strong thrust that sent a bolt of air flying through the sky. It seemed to physically cut through the powders that still danced in the sky, leaving a gash of clean air behind it. “And Air Slash. Next, Tackle.” Venomoth abruptly drew in his wings and plummeted to the ground, just barely stopping his descent to hover right before he hit the grass.

I was already impressed at this point, but the two weren’t done yet. “Now the psychic moves,” Smith continued. “Disable.” Venomoth opened his eyes wide and shot off a pair of blue rings that faded as they rose into the sky. “Confusion.” The bug’s eyes glowed a bright white, and he was surrounded by a purple haze; it was just like Drowzee’s attack. “Psybeam.” Now the purple light coalesced into a single shining ball in front of Venomoth’s head, which he shot off in a beam up into the sky.

Venomoth paused for a moment, then let out an eerie high-pitched wail that seemed to shake the air in front of him. I slapped my hands over my ears instinctively and noticed that Drowzee did the same next to me. “Supersonic, transitioning into Bug Buzz,” Smith said calmly. As he spoke, the wail modulated down to a lower thrum that was supported by a scratching noise Venomoth made with his lower legs. “Finish with Leech Life,” Smith concluded, and Venomoth sucked in air through his mandibles, air that I noticed was lightly tinted green.

For a few moments, we were all quiet. Then I started clapping. Florence followed my cue a few seconds later.

Smith chuckled and waved at us to stop. “We run through this routine every morning and every evening, and as a result my partner can still Tackle just as well as he did when he was a Venonat. Not that we have needed that particular approach in many years,” he admitted. “Trainer Monroe, you and Drowzee should work to create a similar pattern for the four moves you have learned so far. I recommend that you identify connections between moves that are similar; that will help you remember them as your moveset grows larger over time.”

Drowzee looked contemplative and I nodded. Smith turned to look at Florence. “As for you, Florence, you have made admirable progress in your personal training so far.” Florence blushed slightly as she grinned at the praise. “While Monroe and Drowzee work on their pattern, I will show you a few defensive moves that may prove useful for a youth who is trying to befriend a majū.”

Smith and Florence moved off to the side near Venomoth, and for a moment I watched as he talked in a low voice and made some kind of motion with his arms. Then I turned back to Drowzee. “It seems to me that Hypnosis and Disable are the most similar. Maybe they should go back-to-back?”

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Drowzee wagged his trunk up and down, then scratched the side of his head. After a moment he stood up straight and waved to catch my attention. “Dru, zee drow,” he said; he waved his hands once again, this time in the pattern he used for a Hypnosis attack (though no energy was generated) and followed it with a light punch into the ground.

“Hypnosis, then Pound?” He trunk-nodded and I frowned, rubbing the back of my head. “They’re pretty different, but I guess they do both use your hands. Okay. Confusion, Disable, Hypnosis, then Pound!”

We practiced running through the set of moves a few times and found that transitioning from one move to another was harder than Venomoth had made it look. Drowzee especially had trouble switching from Disable to Hypnosis, which surprised me. But practice helped, and by the fifth run-through the moveset was looking pretty good, in my opinion at least.

Smith interrupted us at that point. “Be sure not to overdo it,” he advised in a dry tone. “Some moves wear on a majū more than you might expect. Venomoth and I learned that the hard way with Leech Life,” he added, smiling wryly.

“What do you mean?” Florence asked as she followed him back to our little circle. She was smiling; she must have been happy about whatever she’d learned.

Smith sighed. “I was enraptured by the attack when my partner first demonstrated it. A move that can rejuvenate the health of your partner? Why not use it in every battle?” He shook his head. “I tried to do exactly that when a Golduck emerged from the shore and started harassing workers in the rice fields. It worked at first, but then at a crucial moment Venomoth could no longer call on the power he needed to leech the majū’s energies. We were able to recover and put our opponent to sleep, but the battle was closer than I was comfortable with.”

He looked pointedly first at me, then at Florence. “Never rely on a single strategy alone; all plans are prone to fail at an unexpected moment. Always have another plan in mind.” Then he smoothly settled down to sit cross-legged in the grass, with Venomoth perched on the ground next to him. “Time to begin meditation.”

My immediate reaction was annoyance, but I stomped it down. We needed meditation if I was going to learn how to talk to Drowzee properly. And that meant I had to get over my instinctive dislike of the activity and get used to it. So I sat properly in the grass, closed my eyes, and focused on my breathing.

Breathe in, breathe out. Focus on clearing your mind. Breathe in, breathe out. Feel the sun above you and the air as it moves through your lungs.

Don’t think about poke ball designs. Don’t think about strange green fairies and giant snakes made of rock. Just shut off your mind and breathe.

Eventually the meditation was done, and Smith rushed off after eyeing the angle of the sun in a concerned way. Florence got up to follow him, but stopped when she noticed I was still sitting.

“Drowzee,” I said, ignoring her, “I want to try to create a mental bond. Are you up for that?”

Drowzee stared back at me for a moment, then flipped his trunk up and down. Florence raised her eyebrows in the background, but she settled down on the grass and didn’t interrupt.

I scratched at my ear, trying to decide how best to communicate what I was thinking. “So earlier, Smith said I needed to learn how to shield my mind from your psychic moves. I figure if we’re going to talk mind-to-mind like the Slowbro do, we want the opposite of that. So I guess you should, uhh, reach out psychically to my mind?” I frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it.”

Drowzee waved his trunk in a noncommittal way, but then he closed his eyes and settled into his meditation pose, so I decided to follow his cue. I worked harder than ever to clear my mind and leave it open. I envisioned Drowzee sitting across from me in the grass and mentally added purple waves of thought coming out of his head. I mentally reached out to that purple energy and touched it, drawing it back to where I sat.

Nothing happened.

I peeked an eye open and saw that Drowzee at least was doing something; a purple aura glowed around his body, and his eyes shone behind his eyelids. But no matter how hard I tried to keep my mind clear and welcoming, I didn’t sense anything different happening.

I sighed and leaned back, opening my eyes to stare up at the sky. “This isn’t going to work,” I complained, idly picking bits of grass out of the ground.

“Zee,” Drowzee echoed, letting his attack fade away into the bright light of midday.

From her position off to the side Florence rocked back and forth, considering the two of us. “You are likely moving too fast,” she told me. “And you are both still inexperienced. Drowzee only just learned Confusion, after all. Give yourself time to learn more.”

I chewed my lower lip, considering. I didn’t want to wait to learn more. But something Florence had said rang a bell.

“Confusion,” I repeated, an idea coming to life in my head. “Confusion is a psychic attack, and we need to communicate with a psychic bond.” I nodded as the idea crystallized and decided to go for it before I could overthink things. “Drowzee, I want you to use Confusion on me.”

Drowzee brayed in surprise as Florence sat up straight, her eyebrows flying up as well. “Are you out of your mind?” she yelled as Drowzee shook his trunk rapidly left and right.

I waved my hands, trying to calm them both down. “Guys, I think this will work,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over their protests. “We need to form a mental bond, right? What better way than through a direct mental connection?”

“By being patient, obviously,” Florence spat out, rising to her feet and glaring down at me. “There is no reason to believe that this will work, and every reason to believe you will get yourself horribly injured!” She gestured to the bandage wrapped around her upper arm where she had been cut during the Onix attack the previous day.

“If it doesn’t work, it might hurt me, sure, but I can deal with it,” I replied, trying to keep my voice from getting too heated. “I managed okay against the Quagsire, didn’t I?” I turned back to Drowzee before she could reply. “Besides, I don’t really get what Confusion does right now. If you use the move on me, maybe I’ll understand it better and I can help you with it more.”

Drowzee curled his trunk into a little circle. It felt like progress, like he was actually considering what I had said. I decided to keep going before Florence could interrupt. “Smith said we ought to have a mental bond to protect ourselves out in the wild. And I really want to be able to talk to you properly, Drowzee. We need this.”

Drowzee hesitated, then uncurled his trunk and wagged it up and down slowly.

“Not you too,” Florence said with a groan. Then she huffed and sat back down. “Fine. I will stay here so that I can go fetch help when this goes terribly wrong. And so I can tell you that I told you this was a bad idea.”

I stuck out my tongue at her, then turned back towards Drowzee. “Whenever you’re ready,” I said, grinning with a bravado that I didn’t really feel.

To be honest, a good portion of my mind was panicking. What was I doing, inviting my own Pokemon to attack me? What if Florence was right and taking a psychic attack did some kind of permanent damage to my brain? I needed my brain!

The manic part of my mind that currently had control firmly pushed the panic aside. We weren’t going to make progress unless we took risks. This was necessary.

I closed my eyes and tried breathing slowly in the meditation pattern. Push all the thoughts and panic aside, focus on just existing in the moment. For a moment I breathed evenly and my mind was truly blank, at peace.

Then a riot of color and sound assaulted my head. I gasped as the whole world around me throbbed, as I suddenly realized that I didn’t know which way was down. The sensations buffeted my mind from every direction in a way that felt unrelenting, and I wanted it to stop, I wanted it to stop –

The mental assault cut off as quickly as it had begun and I fell over onto the grass with my hands clasped tight over my eyes. My head still throbbed sharply and my stomach was churning. I felt a paw on my arm, but couldn’t react to it. Instead, I rolled onto my stomach and threw up right there in the grass.

I spent a minute or two after that just lying in the grass and panting, ignoring everything else that was happening around me. Eventually my stomach settled and the throbbing in my head dulled to something manageable. Eventually I was able to open my eyes without the daylight blinding me.

Florence knelt to my left, Drowzee to my right. Drowzee’s ears were fully flattened and his trunk was tightly wound, his mouth frowning. Florence was frowning too, though she kept patting my back mechanically.

I took a deep breath, then another, ignoring the sour taste in my mouth. Then I giggled weakly. “Ow.”

Florence’s frown turned into a scowl, and she drew her hand away briskly. “I told you so,” she said primly.

Drowzee whined and pawed at my arm. “Drow,” he said lamely, ears still flat.

“Not your fault,” I managed to rasp out, patting my starter’s shoulder. “I made you do that.”

He didn’t look very convinced. I shook my head and winced when it briefly made the throbbing worse.

“Well,” Florence said after a few more moments passed, “that was pretty clearly a failure. Are you going to insist on trying again, or have you learned your lesson?”

I opened my mouth to reply, then closed it. Something felt different in my mind. Sure, there was the aching and throbbing of a horrible headache, but it was more than that. There was a new sensation in the back of my mind, a light buzzing that didn’t hurt at all, though it was noticeable. I frowned and closed my eyes to focus on the sensation. It felt stronger when I turned… that way.

I opened my eyes and found that I was looking straight at Drowzee.

For a moment more I paused; then a smile started to grow on my face. “Drowzee,” I asked, “can you feel that too?”

Drowzee paused, considering. I focused on the buzzing in my mind and gave it a gentle push, and Drowzee sat up straight and looked at me. “Zee!” he said, his ears finally perking back up again and his trunk loosening from its tight coil. And there was more than just that – I could feel that he was happier, somehow, in the buzzing in my brain.

I laughed out loud, then, and turned back to Florence. “Oh, I learned my lesson alright,” I told her, my smile expanding into a huge grin.