It took quite some time to try and catch Mable up to speed on the goings on of the day before. The lady was nothing if not thorough now that it wasn't the middle of the night and I wasn't about to keel over from exhaustion. At first, the questions were easy enough to answer, just repeating what happened and clarifying questions. That wasn't enough to satisfy her curiosity, though, and she began to dig into the whys of why we did what we were doing more than the details of what happened. I even got a look of exasperation from Mable when I explained that Pidgey and I had been feeling adventurous and that was why we had decided to go out to the nearby woods as a 'test run'.

"Thank goodness you decided to go have your adventure someplace an hour away, instead of just heading off for the horizon willy-nilly. I swear. What put that idea in your head? Was it one of the kids? I know that they're all excited to go on their Pokémon journeys after they finish up their time at the trainer school. More importantly, they're going to be travelling in groups more likely than not, and they're likely going to have someone with them to watch over them. You can't just suddenly get it in your head that you want an adventure and then just walk off into the sunset!" Mable's tone was scolding, yet still gentle. I could tell she was just trying to explain things to me rather than being upset. She just couldn't keep the exasperation from leaking into her tone of voice.

She had paraphrased the same remark at least three separate times now. I get it, stop scolding me! I was overconfident and had my head in the clouds of ideals, thinking the knowledge I had applied universally to this new world. I just rolled my eyes and let her lecture me, as any attempt to stop it was only likely to make her redouble her efforts.

Once Mable stopped emphasizing the risks involved in 'reckless wandering about', she redirected her attention toward the conversation. "Now, I've noticed this from a few incidents in the past, but you're a fairly clever little fella. But where did you learn to pick up writing? The way you scribble words down on the page makes it seem like you've just started figuring it out, but not a single time have you seemed like you were struggling with your vocabulary during our discussion." Mable's hand tapped off the table in a rhythm, each finger tapping down after the last in a rhythmic wave as she stared at me.

This was the part I hadn't really been able to come up with an excuse for, even with all my stalling. I can't say that I had a trainer teach me in the past. While Mable might not be aware I was a fresh hatchling when I wandered up to her doorstep, she had been able to tell I was a young Pokémon at least. Who would believe that someone decided the first thing they were going to do was teach a Pokémon how to write? I just let Mable's curious stare bounce off me like I was utterly unaffected, tilting my head aside slightly to try and pantomime confusion at the question.

It didn't work, unsurprisingly. "Don't give me that look. You can't suddenly decide to play dumb when it suits you after I already know how clever you are. I know darn well you know what I'm asking. It's not like I'm upset at you, it's just surprising, that's all. What, do you think I'm going to punish you for learning how to write?" Mable laughed quietly, but her tone was fairly clear in that she wanted some sort of answer from me on the matter. I needed to come up with something, otherwise my reluctance to talk about it might stand out as even more odd.

I reached for the notepad and scribbled out the first excuse that came to mind in my hurried panic, "Learned from watching kids." It was hardly an ironclad excuse, but the kids had brought their notebooks with them on their visits. Aside from taking notes during Mister Patel's assorted lectures on the first visit I had been present for, they had been writing down observations on the Pokémon of the pasture in the free time they spent playing around on the pasture. I assumed it was some sort of homework, in order to justify letting them run around and interact with Pokémon, to make them show they were actually learning and not just playing the whole time.

Mable's expression was skeptic at my remark, and she read the paper aloud. "You learned it from watching the kids writing? I suppose you could have, but to just pick something up like that from casually seeing it... it's a little strange. Impressive, don't get me wrong, but..." Mable trailed off as she slipped into contemplation about something.

I was struggling not to sweat bullets during the pause. What was I supposed to say? I had an entire previous lifetime of vocabulary to pick from and I hadn't had the forethought to simplify it? Not a chance! So let's just agree that I'm a very talented Ditto and not ask any more questions, alright!? The Skitty was out of the bag, but as long as I stuck to my guns on the issue, it would be hard to prove that I hadn't just picked it up from watching, right?

Shaking her head, Mable seemed willing to let the issue drop for the time being. "Well, I had better call back to the Pokémon Ranger station and ask if they sent anyone out looking at the woods yet. It's been half a day already, and even if they waited to send someone out this morning rather than in the middle of the night, a quick flier could have had a brisk look around by now. I'll tell them about the 'strange uniform trainers' that you mentioned while I'm at it. You never know, it might be something simple and straightforward, rather than anything nefarious. It could be that there's some conservationist group relocating the Pokémon and the Rangers might already know about it."

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I rolled my eyes and shook my head at that. No way. I had told Mable about the phone call I overheard, and how they said they were the 'Santalune Forest team', but the content still hadn't been anything strictly incriminating. My gut feeling and persuasiveness meant little in the face of stone cold bureaucracy, so I doubted that anything serious was going to come from the encounter. I hated to say it, but as long as they scared that group of trainers away, I didn't particularly care that they had amassed a small armada of Beedrill. Take them, as long as you're taking them far away! It wasn't a problem I was qualified to be picky about how it was solved, I just didn't want that issue sitting on the pasture's doorstep.

Mable waved her hand at me in a shooing gesture, "Alright, go on and head out for a bit, I'm sure you're tired of me sitting here asking you questions. I'll make a quick call, and it'll be out of our hands. The Rangers can handle things." She sounded confident in that belief, so at least that makes one of us.

I obliged and hopped down from the kitchen table with an air of relief. It hadn't been the smoothest process, and some of the discussion had been awkward, but at least I was over the worst of the hurdle with my communication issues going forward. At least I could openly write now, and Mable seemed satisfied enough with my hastily-constructed excuse, for the time being. I really hope that she wouldn't go so far as to test me with how quickly I could learn other skills or something along those lines, but I think that was just my natural inner pessimist talking.

Pushing thoughts about getting caught lying out of my head, I went out the back door and took a deep breath of the gentle breeze in the air. Just closing my eyes and trying to destress after everything that happened over the last day. Consider my appetite for adventure fully sated for the time being. The fear of multiple emergency situations will do that to you, after all. Wandering the pasture, I enjoyed the sun on my body. I didn't have to rush off to do anything. The problems I knew of were being looked into and hopefully addressed. I can let that knot of tension out of my gut now, right? Well, mostly. As much as I tried to relax, I still had my worries tugging at the back of my mind.

I decided that it was time to check in with Pidgey. Making my way over to where the birds preferred to flock and peck at the ground, it didn't take long to spot her, perched on the grass and just sitting there, watching the goings on. "Hey." I called out simply, then paused as I was not sure how to start the conversation beyond that point. "Are you okay?" That was a safe enough question. What I really wanted to know was if she was angry at me for how things had wound up the night before, but I didn't want to say it directly.

"Oh, Ditto! What are you talking about? Of course I'm okay. Sheesh, I barely got a few ruffled feathers! What about you? That Noctowl managed to get you pretty good when the battling began. Did Mable have to patch you up? Is that why you were stuck in the house all day?" A sense of mingling relief and warmth coursed through me. The casual demeanor she was displaying made it clear she wasn't blaming me for what had happened in the woods. Maybe she had even expected a fight like that to happen, to some degree. After all, I knew Pidgeotto had taught her some things about the forest.

The fact that one of the first things she did was ask about how I was doing made me feel oddly guilty. If I had poked my head out and said hello to her after I woke up, she wouldn't have had to worry about my well-being for as long. "No, no. Mable didn't have to do anything! Honestly, after I transformed the other day, the scratches went away during my transformation. I didn't have the back injury when I turned into a Scyther, and it didn't come back when I went into my normal state again either. It still hurt, though, but after a good night's sleep I'm feeling like I'm pretty much back to normal."

Honestly, if I ever did want to make it on an adventure, the ability to patch up injuries by transforming was a delightful ability to know about. While it wasn't exactly regeneration, since the various parts of my body were still damaged, the aftereffects of an injury could be negated and dealt with. The scratches had left areas of pain and sensitivity on my back, even after I transformed, but the physical mark of the injury vanished and there was no bleeding or other detrimental effects. Heck, I could probably transform away something like a broken limb into a functional state in a new form, considering my normal body barely had limbs to begin with. I wasn't about to volunteer for that sort of pain just to test the hypothesis, though.

"Thanks for worrying about me, though. I didn't know you cared so much." I remarked in a more lighthearted tone of voice, grinning smugly in Pidgey's direction.

She lifted her beak upward with a haughty-sounding chirp, "Humph, as if. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to have to train up a new sparring partner from scratch again! That would be way too much work, after I've just managed to get you to an acceptable, barely-challenging level."

"Oh? Barely challenging? You're so tough! After all, I've made you eat dirt in more than one crash-landing, so I shudder to think what I'd have to do to be considered properly challenging."

"That was one time. You've been smug about that stupid wanna-be throw maneuver, but you've never managed to get it to work after that first time when you caught me by surprise!"

"But it still worked the one time, right?"

"You're so annoying! It was a dirty trick! Anyone can get caught off-guard by a cheater."

"Oh, so it's cheating now, is it?"

We kept our sparring strictly verbal for the time being, though. Neither one of us felt like getting into a physical battle today. The familiar sound of friendly bickering drifted between us, and I genuinely felt my mood lighten in the process. It was nice that some things never changed, even after a stressful event.