Move tutoring with his mother had been a cakewalk before, as she’d already taught Larry Scary Face before. It seemed that with Pokemon of the same species all learning the same moves as they progressively grow and level up, the only limiting factor to a Pokemon move set is their own motivation to grow.

Two Tyranitar might not learn every move a Tyranitar can naturally learn, but every Tyranitar has the natural inclination to learn moves normally learned by Pokemon at level-up. The opposite is true of TM moves, Larry had discreetly asked if she had ever learned some more weird moves, Toxic or Rest, and she simply stared at him dumbly. Yet, Larry was sure one or more of his moves was not learned naturally.

Larry wasn’t a Pokemon Super-Fan who could tell you the exact natures that your Pokemon would need to be competitively viable, but he knew his basics from watching the errant Online Video or reading the itinerant Forum Post there. He knew that Tyranitars were basically the Competitive Pokemon Golden Goose, having been in played at the highest level for years and years since the first showed up in the franchise and never really falling off, unlike many other Pokemon. So he’d simply assumed that Tyranitar in the wild also learned some TM-Moves.

It was safe to say for Larry, that Larvitar didn’t learn moves like Payback or Pursuit, but he just wasn’t sure if he was completely correct. Unlike his mother, he’d somehow managed to learn these moves in the heat of the moment, which could only mean one thing. The knowledge of the moves infers to the Pokemon how to use it, not the other way around, if a Pokemon doesn’t know, it won’t be able to use TM Moves, even though it is physically able to.

A Larvitar might pursue a Pokemon that is retreating, but if its naturally learned move set doesn’t include the move Pursuit that action won’t be empowered by Type-Energy and be seen as a move. The opposite is true for naturally learned moves.

His mom instructed him on the first move she’d hoped to teach him, “The first one is easy,” she said leisurely, “You bring energy to your throat,” she took in a large breath before following up in an airy whisper, attempting to keep the air in her lungs, “and scream as loud as possible.”

Before he could register her teaching and properly cover his ears, a painful Screech exploded from his mother's fanged jaw. “EEEEEEEEKK!” He remembered the powerful, deep, and guttural roars his mother had released previously, they had instilled a deep instinctual fear in him after all. This screech on the other hand was high-pitched and several octaves higher in pitch, it didn’t want to make him hide away in the depths of the ground, but hurt his hearing so badly he couldn’t move.

He felt his head vibrate with the noise as it bounced off the walls of the cavern. It felt like a wave of pain every time another echo of the noise bounced back at him and while Larry wasn’t lying on the ground, frothing at the mouth, he also wasn’t in a state to fight with his hands on his head, helplessly trying to nurse a splitting headache.

‘Ugh! At least I now know how defense gets lowered, Screech just disorients you so much that you can’t defend yourself as efficiently.’ Larry was still reeling from the pain when he heard his mom speak up again, “Now you try.”

Larry focused and pulled on the Normal Type-Energy in his core, he thought of the normalcy of wildlife, a wild beast using its physical might to crash into another. Another picture came to mind, the simplicity of an attack without any effects other than the Pokémon's physical ability.

This wasn’t meant to be a fighting move, there was no practiced poise or studied stances to be seen in the picture in his mind, there was a sheer animalistic side to this move. Normal-TE floated up into his throat, he felt the muscles in his throat strengthen. Larry opened his mouth to draw in a breath, but when he tried to yell out, the only thing that was released was a pathetic little wheeze

“HEeeee...” Larry looked up at his mother and she looked down at him with a mask of stone.

“Keep going.” She said resolutely, before continuing to inspect him. If he could still blush, he would be right now. So, Larry did as he was told, one failed Screech after another escaped Larry.

“Fweeh!”

“Eegh!”

“Ech!“

If there was a child around, they might think that a broken squeaky toy was around the area, being mercilessly tortured by a wild Growlithe. But it was in fact Larry, filling the depths of the third level of Mt. Silver with noises one might’ve heard in an asthmatic retirement home.

Sometimes his voice suddenly squawked up into squeaky toy territory before falling back sharply into the ‘choking on a spoonful of yogurt’ territory. Another time he tried to scream as loud as possible, only for nothing but air to escape his throat.

He felt like he was back during puberty and trying to sing along with his favorite punk rock anthems, only for nothing but a raspy whisper to escape during the high parts. His voice which had always worked flawlessly was suddenly not working for him, it freaked him out.

The worst part was that the TE didn’t just disappear when he tried to talk to his mother, who was still awkwardly watching over him. It felt like he was trying to talk first thing after waking up, with his voice still coated in the awful feeling of Type-Energy he couldn’t control. His mom was still watching over him.

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

She seemed to take pity on him, so she suddenly spoke up with some advice, “You should try putting more force behind it like you’re using it in a fight.”

Larry felt humiliated at this point, he looked at his mom with a slight bit of irritation due to her useless advice, but he tried anyway. Once again, the Type-Energies moved up into his throat and Larry sucked in every single piece of air he could hold in his little body.

When he finally released, he pushed the air out of his lungs with every ounce of strength he could find, and finally,

“EEEEEEEHK!”

His voice was amplified and his entire head vibrated with the sheer volume of noise emanating from his mouth. His mother in front of him winched and crumpled inwards, shielding her ears with her arms uselessly as his Screech rang out.

The noise rang out and Larry stood there with an open mouth, helplessly trying to breathe back in like a fish out of water. He heaved and wheezed as he heard his mother groan in front of him, “Ugh, next time we’ll put our hands on our ears before we use the move, ok?”

Larry didn’t speak, he simply nodded while looking up at his mother before finally speaking up, “Huff… You did the same, you know? Huff…” When his mom heard him she sheepishly looked away before clearing her throat and letting out a quiet “Sorry.” She shook her head clear before speaking down to Larry once again, “Alright, let’s try another one.” Out of the corners of his view, he saw her already raise her hands to her ears.

He continued his training and got Screech down pat before long, luckily it seemed he wasn’t hurt by the noise exploding out of his mouth, so Larry didn’t have to shield his ears while screaming. The move still felt weird to use though, because it rattled his entire head like a jackhammer.

‘I don’t like the move, but it seemed to be one of the few things that even affected Mom, better to at least have it in my repertoire.’ Larry thought to himself. Larvitar already hit harder than most base-form Pokemon, so having a move that weakens an enemy's defenses was going to be very useful.

His mother slammed down her tail to garner Larry's attention and said, “Next move I’ll teach you is important to the Tyranitar line, I think you’ve seen it before.” Before Larry could begin to dumbly ask what move she meant, the dust and sand from the ground began to rise from the ground and flow around his mother.

“I can do this naturally,” she said as she casually ran a hand through the sandstorm, “but you’ll have to use it as a move. It won’t be much worse though.” She inspected the sandstorm that flowed around her, when Larry had seen her before during her rampage, it was far stronger and more violent.

It was beautiful, there was no wind moving around the sand and dust in the air, it was all Rock-TE in the air carrying the sand around his mother. She didn’t even think about the movement, yet at the same time, it was all calculated, like an extension of her body.

His mom began her instruction, “You’ll work your energies in the air around yourself,” she said and the sandstorm around her sped up, “I never used this much before my evolution, so I can’t instruct you perfectly. The move is supposed to slowly wear down your enemies which aren’t Rock, Ground, or Steel-Type.”

The storm slowly dissipated and his mother urged him on to give it a try. Larry already knew everything he needed to about Sandstorm from the games, so he tried his luck. Rock-TE diffused out of his body, it felt like he was sweating Type-Energy straight out of his skin and it was being diffused into the air. The air became heavy with Rock-TE and Larry was beginning to feel the TE in the air when he breathed in.

Shaking her head, his mother butted in, shaking her head, “Not like that.” Larry stopped and let his mother explain, “You’re just putting energy into the air, not controlling it.” She said while crossing her arms confrontationally.

“Um, and how exactly am I supposed to control it?” Larry asked in a quiet voice. His mother scoffed like it was supposed to be the most obvious thing in the world and spoke up once more, “You can grasp the TE outside of your body, can you not? How else are you supposed to control moves outside of it?”

She bore down onto him with excitement and Larry quirked his eyes to the left and right trying to get the concept of moving something without his hands into his head. His mom groaned and then stepped away a few steps in frustration, “This is important, let me ask you, how are you making the energized set of teeth that appear around your jaw when you Bite?”

“Well, I just…” Larry realized he had no idea as he began to formulate his answer, “I, uhh. Now that you say that, how DO I make those?” In his head, the only thing that came to mind was that he thought dark thoughts about his target and planned out to bite them, he never actually moved any TE and molded it with his mind like his mom might imagine.

“I see, I see…” Larry had come up with what the issue might be, “I think the way you and I use moves is pretty different, Mom.” He explained his process again to his mom and she seemed befuddled by how he made the moves work.

He returned to his training, once again dissipating Rock-TE in the air. Finally, he realized it, the suffocating feeling he was feeling wasn’t him actually getting suffocated. It was akin to sitting on your arm, his new appendage, the mass of TE in the air was pressing down on his actual body and giving him the feeling of suffocation.

‘Maybe I can…” Like trying to stand up from the toilet set when your entire lower half has fallen asleep, Larry felt around inside his mind for the new appendage he’d created. His mother had tried to butt in again but before long, the TE in the air around him lifted and began to shift around according to his will.

‘Alright! Now coil it around myself, like a snake…’ He thought about the movement, there was no real physical connection to his new appendage, so if he wasn’t careful the TE around him could float off and away from him. The advantage to having the TE able to be used like that was that there wasn’t a connection to his actual body, so he could simply coil it around himself endlessly, unlike a tail for example. The TE sped up and began to kick up pebbles and dust off of the cavern floor, slowly but surely a Sandstorm was forming around Larry.

“Yes! Yes, you’ve got it!” His mother looked ecstatic, she stomped around excitedly while watching her son conjure his first Sandstorm. Larry was roused up in his mother's excitement and sped up his Sandstorm as he laughed with his mother excitedly.

His mother danced into his Sandstorm as it was roused outwards and scooped him straight off of the ground into a big hug. “That was amazing for your first time!” Larry cuddled into his mom as she murmured into his ear, “I’m proud of you…”