After Mable left, I had the room to myself. I spent a few minutes going over the battle in my head while I shifted and twisted my body in the bed I was laying in. Honestly, considering the fact that the Pokémon Center wanted to keep me overnight for monitoring my health, I was actually feeling pretty darn good. I was feeling a little worn out, sure, but I wasn't feeling like I needed more than a good night's sleep, let alone dedicated medical care. There was a tightness in my core alongside the general feeling of exhaustion, and I could only assume that had something to do with why the Audino had told me that I wasn't allowed to do any transforming for the time being.

A not-so-smart part of me wanted to try it just to see if I really was as bad off as they said, but that sounded a lot like getting told your leg is broken, so you decide to do jumping jacks to test it. Not a very good idea. It just feels weird to be told that I need to restrict how I act but I wasn't hooked up to any sort of machine, or monitor... I wasn't even given any medicine that I was aware of, besides the Audino telling me about using Heal Pulse on me. I think I might just trust the doctor's orders this time and stay on the safe side anyway, though.

Still, the main reason I had such a ridiculous thought at all was because I was already immediately bored. Compared to the way I pictured Pokémon healing of popping the Pokéball in a machine for a few seconds and being good to go, this was very much more the anime-style treatment to have to stay overnight.

I guess it made sense, the instant healing was for convenience sake, and if there was no need for longer-term recovery, why have an entire big structure dedicated to the Pokémon Center? They could just set up little healing machine kiosks around town and call it a day.

On the plus side, there was a television in the room, which I didn't find too surprising. Pokémon are definitely smart enough to need some sort of entertainment when they're laying around in recovery, same as a person would. The downside was that it was currently turned off, and the remote was sitting on a countertop across the room. I said I wasn't going to transform, but that doesn't mean I can't hop across the room, grab the remote, and then hop back into bed to relax.

I tensed my body to get ready to bounce myself like I normally do to get around, and that was a bad idea. That dull ache in my core turned into a sharp spike of pain as I tried to clench my body down in preparation of pushing my body off in a bounce, and I dropped back against the bed with a harsh gasp for air. Yep. Okay. They weren't kidding about that bed rest. I could only liken it to a severe muscle cramp. When you had a cramping muscle, doing nothing and keeping it in a relaxed state wasn't so bad... but as soon as you tried to use that muscle normally, your body informed you that wasn't going to happen.

It had to be the aftereffects of getting hit with Absorb, considering I've had my fair share of physical beatings during my past battles. Whatever the case may be, I was now fully convinced I was down for the time being, properly. Let's just hope they figured out what went wrong earlier, because if any other Pokémon go berserk, I'm not in any condition to jump in. That's definitely the reason I'm annoyed with being unable to move, and not because I wanted to see if I could wander around the Pokémon Center and pick up some forms while I was stuck here tonight or anything.

While I was laying there trying to carefully relax my body and draw steady, hissing gasps of air at the residual pain from my attempt to move, the door opened again. This time as Audino wandered back into the room, she was followed by nurse Joy. The nurse took one look at my pained expression and tutted quietly. "Tried to get out of bed, didn't you? You did tell him that he was on bed rest, right, Audino?"

"Sure did. Guess he's stubborn." 'Diiin. Audino.' The Pokémon nodded its head at nurse Joy's inquiry, and wandered over toward me with a small dish of some sort of powdery substance. "You need to eat this. It's just energy powder. It'll make you feel like your tongue is about to shrivel up first, but then it should help with the pain. Are you going to do it yourself, or do I need to feed it to you?"

I grimaced at the warning about the taste, but reached over and took the dish and dumped it in my mouth all at once. It was hard not to choke, because on top of the powdery sensation dissolving in my mouth, it was also painfully bitter. If I hadn't felt that tension in my core ease slightly in the following moments, I would have been particularly grumpy about having to eat it. It was already one more reason to not wind up getting beat up so much in a fight going forward. "You all have got to work on adding a flavor to that stuff. How do people stand that if they have to take it regularly?"

"That's how you know someone really needs it for the pain. No one's going to be asking for energy powder if they don't really need it, now will they?" That's one way to handle how patients get medication, I guess.

Nurse Joy spoke up now, after seeing me take my medicine. "Thank you for jumping forward today, Ditto. If you and the other Pokémon hadn't kept the Galvantula's attention, I wouldn't have had a chance to get its Pokéball and resolve the issue with as little damage as there was. I know you were supposed to get a check-up as a new member of your trainer's team, but we're going to be putting off any examination until tomorrow. By then, you should have recovered sufficiently to move around and run through some basic testing. For tonight, just focus on feeling better, alright?" She flashed a kindly smile, and I couldn't help but grin back, nodding.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I still couldn't really believe I was talking to- well, being talked to by- nurse Joy. I was almost glad that there was a language barrier separating us, because I'm not sure I would know what to say without making a complete fool of myself acting like an excited fanboy.

"I know that medicine isn't exactly filling and satisfying, so in a while I'll have some food brought in. That is, if you think you're going to be able to eat."

My head was nodding almost before I thought about it. I had more of a midday snack than a proper lunch, and it was well past dinner time by now. I felt like I could eat a Tauros whole. Not that I would! Maybe a Tauros-sized pile of berries, that was a much more pleasant thought. I hurriedly pushed the previous thought out of my mind before it could spoil my appetite.

"Alright then. I'll have Audino bring you in something in a bit. Come on, let's go. Oh?" Nurse Joy paused as I made a waving motion, then pointed at the counter across the room, toward the television remote. "Oh! Of course, here you go, Ditto." She plucked the remote up and clicked on the power, before setting the remote on the bed next to me. "Since you're the only one in the room right now, I guess you can just have the remote. Mind the volume, still, please." With that gentle reminder, she opened the door and left, with Audino trailing along after her.

I lay back against the bed and watched a commercial for the Acro-series bicycle, releasing a 'retro, original-style new release!'. So they remade an older bike and are trying to resell it as a new product? Nice to see that marketing is still totally ridiculous in this Pokémon world, too. Some things must truly be universal.

Flipping through the channels, it seemed like the sort of thing I would expect from public-access TV. There was a shopping channel I skipped through, a weather channel that I stopped on only long enough to hear that it was supposed to rain for the next several days, and a music channel showing snippets about Virbank City's Roxie and her rock band. Supposedly some people were criticizing her for not having enough available slots for challengers because she was spending too much time on her hobby. It was interesting enough that I watched until it went to a commercial, then I kept flipping through.

The news channel came up, but I paused rather than skip through like I always did with news channels in the past. I wanted to know more about what was going on locally, whether that meant the events of today, or if there had been any news about the Santalune Forest and what was going on over there. I wasn't expecting to see much about the incident today if it was mentioned, other than that something happened. I doubted that they could figure out what happened in just a few hours, but it might surprise me.

Sadly, there wasn't anything groundbreaking being discussed. It was the same advisory warning that those in rural areas should be prepared for abnormal numbers of Beedrill with a strong probability of increased aggression, alongside some discussion about bug-type Pokémon swarming habits being analyzed. It annoyed me, knowing that it was wrong, but not being able to shove the proof in front of anyone and let them know. I sighed, and tried to stop thinking about it, knowing that dwelling on it wasn't going to do me any good.

I guess I should have skipped the news, and I went back to flipping channels to find something that caught my attention. I ended up settling in to the middle of what looked like a b-list slasher movie featuring a Smeargle with the tagline 'Time to paint the campgrounds red.' It reminded me of the old Jason movies, except with an all-Pokémon cast. Honestly, it was even more engaging than a movie with human actors. Instead of the horror stereotypes of a nerd, a jock, a cheerleader, and all that sort of thing it was filled by various species of Pokémon that still predictably wound up in unfortunate situations due to their traits.

Watching a Slakoth trying to 'run' away from a pursuing Smeargle was almost enough to make me struggle to breathe from laughing. Then there was an Abra who was totally oblivious that they were being stalked because they just kept happening to teleport to new positions just in the nick of time by sheer happenstance. The whole thing wound up coming to a close when the 'police' arrived, which was just a Wobbuffet in a policeman's cap, and when the Smeargle attacked them the attack rebounded hard enough to fling the Smeargle into the lake, where they sank out of view. Of course, predictably, there was a last minute shot of the Smeargle climbing out of the far side of the lake and slinking into the forest away from the campgrounds, in a blatant opportunity for some sort of sequel bait.

Honestly, I hadn't ever thought about seeing media made by Pokémon before. It was surprisingly engaging. Maybe I could get a job as some sort of Pokémon actor if the whole battling thing doesn't work out? Interrupting my idle daydreaming, Audino entered the room again with a bowl of some kind, and it seemed to have some sort of... mushy mixture in it? It didn't look particularly appealing. It looked a lot like applesauce, if applesauce was a light blue color. My thoughts must have shown on my face, as Audino huffed and frowned at me. "Don't complain until you try it! It's healthy!"

Not exactly selling me on the meal, here, I'm more concerned on how it's going to taste. Without waiting for a response, Audino scooped up a heaping spoonful and all but forcibly jabbed it at my face. I squeaked out and wound up with a mouthful of not-applesauce, and hummed thoughtfully. Alright, it's fine. It does have a berry taste, so it's probably like... applesauce made from berries, but it still felt a lot like I was being forced to eat baby food. Just... mushy and unappealing in texture. "I can feed myself!" I argued, reaching for the bowl and the spoon, but she leaned back and kept them out of reach.

"Nope! I'm going to feed you. Do you want it or not?" The mischievous grin on Audino's face seemed to be taking enjoyment from my increasing annoyance, and I couldn't exactly get out of bed and chase her down to force the issue. "Fine! If you really insist on feeding me. Oh, hey, they're playing the sequel to the last movie..." I murmured, before I was interrupted by another spoonful of food.

"Oh this one's good, wait until the Machoke shows up to play hero!"

"Hey! I haven't seen this before, spoilers!"

"Psh, it's just one little thing. You'll manage."

"Still- mph!"

"Shut up and eat!" She forced another spoonful of berry mush into my mouth to stop my arguing. Fine. I allowed myself to be fed, annoying as it was, and just settled in to watch another cheesy horror movie. There were worse ways to spend an evening.