Like No One Ever Was

“Maschiff, bite that snake!” Arven called out. There wasn’t any anger however, but more desperation. Dunsparce practically scoffed as the scared dog approached, a little bruised from the previous efforts of our training.

“Barrel roll away, then give him a hard stare and Bite yourself!” Dun, my clever little land snake, rolled around Maschiff’s lunge, kicking up a spray of sand where he moved before using Glare that caused the Dark type to freeze up. That moment of paralysis gave Dunsparce time to Bite into Maschiff, causing the dog to howl out in pain. I rolled my eyes, knowing from experience that it wasn’t that bad, and that the dog would definitely play the drama card if he needed to.

True to the point, he turned around and tried biting back at Dun a moment later. Hmm, doesn’t look like he’s doing nearly as much damage as Dunsparce did. Is it Dunsparce outpowering him that much? No, or at least not to explain all of it. I don’t think Maschiff is actually even using the Dark type energy - not the Move Bite, but just a regular bite. That would explain the lack of power.

These things weren’t perfectly guaranteed, but there were signs, things you could look for in battles to get a good ‘feel’ for how strong a Pokemon was, how good they were with a move, etc. I still counted myself as a bare beginner in that regard, but the lack of dark energy surrounding Maschiff’s teeth before it moved in to bite was an indicator even I could pick up on.

“Throw him off with a Flail!” I shouted out, and Dunsparce followed the command, thrashing about until Maschiff let go. Likely due to a combination of both the Paralysis lingering from Glare and from the pain. The dog whimpered, slumping down a bit. Hmm, probably not too faked this time. Might as well call it.

“That’s enough.” I called out at the same time as Arven shouted it out, rushing over to Maschiff’s side. The dog Pokemon whimpered into him as he held the Dark type protectively. “Why do you gotta beat us up so much?” He cried.

“To give us good training,” I responded easily, pulling some Potions out of my pocket. I gave Dunsparce a few sprays from one before scratching the top of his head, reward for a job well done, which he preened at. Arven still looked worried, even as I walked over and gave him a Potion to use on Maschiff. “He’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

“What if it’s not enough for him to get better? What if he’s hurt permanently? Say something, bud!” Maschiff was not saying anything, however I wasn’t nearly as worried as Arven. Partly because I had a better angle and could see the dog sneaking a few of the treats out from Arven’s back pocket. Yeah, definitely mischievous enough for a Dark type.

His words did remind me of some of my worries for the future, not that he could know any of that. Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to ensure you and Maschiff never get hurt like that. Arven noticed what his sneaky puppy was doing then, and changed his expression from worry to anger. Maschiff just gave him a big grin, mouth full of treats while I laughed out loud.

“I think he’ll be fine. But you gotta be prepared for your partner to get hurt in a battle,” I added more seriously. That’s one of the hardest parts of being a trainer, I think. You love your Pokemon, help raise them as much as they teach you, and then you have to watch them get hurt as they fight others. Sure, there were as many guidelines as possible to keep things safe, and Pokemon, even moreso than the humans of this world, were incredibly durable. It didn’t mean invincible, however, and just the idea of seeing their friends in pain or struggling was probably enough to cause some people to quit the gym challenge.

Arven grumbled a bit “I- yeah I guess. I still don’t think I’ll ever be as good as you though.”

“You totally could!” I shook my head vigorously. “That’s what training is all about, getting better and constantly improving.” Arven admittedly wasn’t as strong as Nemona in the games, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad. Just was focused on other stuff there. “You were right to call the fight there though; Maschiff was pretty much beat by that point.”

“Oh. So we’re done now? Yay!” He exclaimed, the boy and dog happily jumping around.

“Hey! If you’ve got that much energy we could totally go for another round.” They both immediately wilted, and I sighed. “Fine, we’ll call it here. Let’s go inside and get cleaned up.” I recalled Dunsparce to his Pokeball, and Arven did the same with Maschiff.

When I first caught Dunsparce, I’d been worried that he wouldn’t like being ‘stuck’ in a ball, so I had him out pretty much all the time. While fun for me, I actually found he doesn’t seem to mind being in his ball much, generally enjoying the rest state the Pokeball brings. It also has the side benefit of immediately clearing off all the dust and sand that was sticking on to him.

“Why?” Arven asked about the ‘getting cleaned up’, uncaring of the sand that was now covering his clothes, nor of the sweat he had from the exercise we did earlier. Not that he didn’t complain plenty about it at the time, even when doing half of my sets. Like I told him though, it’s important to train our bodies alongside our Pokemon. You never know when you’ll need to rely on your own power in the sudden life-or-death moments that can happen when exploring.

Rotom mentioned that I’d been focusing too much on such possibilities whenever I searched those statistics up, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to be as prepared as possible! I also couldn’t deny the desire to go out and explore everything this world had to offer. It all seemed so incredible!

Rather than answering his question, I gave Arven a hand up and we walked back to the house from the beach where we had been training. Anise had been assigned to watch over us, but was just waiting at the top of the stairs, not too worried about us. I’d like to say that I’d built up a level of trust among the staff in the year since I’d regained my memories, but given how easily they trusted Arven ever since I started inviting him over, I felt there was another factor.

Owning a Pokemon. It was a huge cultural and societal symbol here. In the eyes of many, once you had a Pokemon, you were an adult. Or close enough, even if you were young. The Junior License that we had definitely did not make us legal adults or anything like that, but there was just a higher level of recognition from the adults once you had a Pokeball, I noticed.

That wasn’t to say that they trusted us completely. They still made sure to watch over us when Arven came over, especially when our Pokemon ‘battled’. We’d sparred a few times, but I couldn’t really consider it a real ‘battle’, not compared to what I’d seen from the videos. A lot of them watched our first battle, the majordomo even recording it for mom and dad. Now, the staff would only leave one person watching over us when we battled now, possibly after seeing that I wouldn’t use any of the more advanced moves against Maschiff.

“Why do we have to battle every time I come over? We musta’ fought a hundred times and I’m still no closer to beating you.” I winced a little at Arven’s words as we started trudging up the stairs.

“We haven’t battled that many times; you’ve only been over like a dozen times.” Arven immediately screwed his face up in concentration, holding his fingers out to start ‘counting’ that out, trying to see if ‘a dozen’ came close to ‘a hundred’. I reached a hand back to grab him as he started to overbalance, pulling him back before he could fall down the stairs.

Oww. He’s not that heavy, but that twinged my wrist a bit. Hope that I don’t have those issues with my wrists in this life. “Ahh! Thanks Nims!” Arven cried out, all grumpiness from before forgotten.

“No problem.” Not sure how I feel about him picking up my sister’s new nickname for me though, or about the nickname in general. I elected not to say anything about that though as we walked back to the house, instead focusing on the battle. “Look, I won’t make you battle any more if you don’t want to, but I think it’s good. You’ve improved a bunch already.”

“Really?” He sounded skeptical, but I could hear a hint of hope poorly hidden in his tone well.

“Definitely. Remember the first time we fought? You and Maschiff just cringed so much Dun was pretty much able to just flop on top of him.” His face grew a bit red as he remembered that. “But you did so much better this time! You gave proper commands and fought for about as long as your partner could. That’s a lot of improvement. It’s just…” I paused for a moment as we reached the door to my house, searching for the right way to convey my message. “I’m constantly working on improving too, you know?”

“Do… do you think dad’ll be proud of how much better I’ve gotten?” Arven asked nervously as we got inside and I resisted the urge to sigh. He’d get the wrong idea if I did, that I was sighing at him rather than his father.

“I think he’s plenty proud of you anyways. But you shouldn’t train to try and get praise from him, or even to surpass me or whatever.” Turning to look back at him I said. “Whatever you want to do, do so for yourself. Put your all into it, and don’t worry so much about comparing yourself to anyone else. So long as you try your best, that’s all that matters.”

An easier thing to say than to do. I know I find myself looking at professional matches and wondering if I’ll match up, how I could possibly reach those heights, etc. But the lesson is a good one. Even if I never manage to make it as far as the original Nemona… I want to try. To become strong and see everything this world has to offer. If I’ve got a second life, might as well make the most of it, right?

Arven was looking a little dazed. I wonder if I pushed him too hard today? Nah, he’s a kid, he’ll spring back just fine. “Alright, I’ll take the upstairs shower, you can use the guest one.” I said, and Anise moved to direct him there. Arven had some spare clothes since he said he might be sleeping over anyways. The boy claimed it was just because ‘[we] had such good food,’ but I felt it had far more to do with how lonely he got.

There was still no word yet on the Tera Orb, but I felt it could only be a matter of weeks at this point, assuming we were anywhere close to the canon timeline of when they’d be invented. Hopefully, Turo will be finished soon and can spend some more time with his son. At least before he tries to make his time machine. I was surprised that he let Arven come over so often. Thought it might have just been neglect, not caring about where Arven went, but apparently he encouraged Arven to come over. I guess the Professor isn’t as upset about what I said at the party as I thought he might be?

I washed quickly; I had always preferred fast showers and being in a different body just increased my desire to get done with that fast. I wonder when I’ll feel comfortable with that? I’ve started calling my family ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ even internally more often. I guess you can get used to anything with enough time.

After getting clean and getting dressed I went down to the dinner table to wait for Arven but he didn’t show up. After a few minutes I started looking around to see if he’d gotten lost (the house was fairly big after all) and found him in the kitchen, intently eyeing all the work the cooks were doing.

I couldn’t help but let out a laugh after that. Looks like Arven is still gonna be a sandwich obsessed kid, despite any changes I make. Arven whirled around, panicking a bit.

“Ah, I was just-”

“It’s fine.” I waved him off, but the head chef was looking a little disapproving at the ruckus I made. Ouch, guess Arven is more trustworthy than me. Or at least less of a disturbance to their work. Not wanting to make a scene, I said “C’mon, let's go. I’ve got a few videos to show you before dinner.”

As we left, I called Rotom up. “Hey Rotom, do you remember the videos I mentioned?” The Rotom phone floated up dutifully.

“Of course, Young Miss.” I bit back a frown. Hmm, Rotom’s felt a bit odd recently, but I don’t know why. I’ve asked a few times, and they’ve said ‘it’s nothing’ or things to that effect, but still. Maybe they’re feeling overworked or underappreciated? I’ll try to give them a break in the future.

“Ok, so in this video we get a comparison of two 1st badge level trainers fighting. I think you’ll get to see some huge benefits from- hey wait, don’t groan! Just one battle video to sum up today’s training! Then we can watch some meme videos and that cooking show you like.” He gave a cheer, echoed by Maschiff, who popped out of his ball to do the same. I sighed, but wasn’t actually upset.

I’m glad I can reach out to Arven. Even if I can’t change much, I’d like to be able to give that kid a better childhood.