"Hm. This is a very strange path you're taking us, Poppy. I wonder what's on the other side?"
"You'll see!" Poppy skipped along the riverside rocks, and behind her, Linh and the Cyclizar followed. Linh with slow steps, and Cyclizar bumping his head into his back at every hesitation.
The path Poppy showed Linh started traversable, just a game trail in the open forest. A thin canopy shining down on the far more plentiful grasses and shrubs. Starly and Fletchlings and Wattrel tweeting and fluttering above, Rockruff and Yungoos scampering between cover.
Now the path was far less agreeable, not as it thinned the higher they went. When it wasn't rocky it was too narrow. When it wasn't too narrow it was waterlogged. When it wasn't waterlogged it had thick branches at head height.
(Linh's height, not Poppy's.)
"This way, this way." Poppy called back, turning to her side and shimmying between the running water and the tree. It took finesse on the little girl's part. And magic for a full grown adult. If he wasn't willing to soak his feet.
Linh sighed, rolled up the hem of his trousers, and checked his boots were laced up. He braced himself, and stepped into the edge of the river, ready to ford the shallow slope for at least one ste—!
With a yelp, Linh sank halfway up to his knee, the silt underneath giving way alarmingly easy. Water spilled down his boots and seeped around his toes. Cold water. The only reason why he did not sink further, or trip or some other unfortunate thing was Cyclizar. His teeth clamping onto Linh's coat.
Poppy turned, and saw Linh's nail-cracking grip on the bark, his face a panicked grimace. "Linh!"
"I'm okay! I'm okay," he responded. "Just a bit of shock." Linh's breathing slowed, his reaction throttled into forced calm. He looked down at the river, the riverbank obscured by a cloud of sediment, already fading away by the fast currant. His boot didn't slip on the silt, it sank underneath.
An experimental pull, and he found the liquidated sludge refusing to give. "Poppy, can you get Tinkie, I may need her strength."
"Okay." And with a flash of light and the sound of a Pokéball, Tinkie the Tinkaton appeared. She appeared by Poppy, after the narrow ledge. Her hammer balanced precariously on her shoulder, and hanging from that hammer's head was Poppy's bag.
Poppy's supplies bag, not the purse-sized key-shape bag Poppy hung around her neck. That's where she stored her stickers and treats. Tinkie took one look at Linh, half-sunk into the river, and held in place only by Cyclizar, and chuffed a wet laugh.
"Help Linh, Tinkie!" Poppy pointed her finger authoritatively. Tinkie set the bag down, and extended her hammer's haft. The head bracing under her shoulder. Linh shifted his grip and grabbed on, and was unceremoniously lifted out.
Once back on solid ground, Linh rolled his shoulders and looked away. "Thank you Tinkie, and thank you, Poppy." He said sincerely.
Poppy giggled and continued down the path, Tinkie followed, bag back in place. But not before Tinkie gave an extra mocking laugh. Linh glared at her, then at Cyclizar, who was still on the other side of the obstacle, and laughing with his eyes.
"Let's see you do it, then." Cyclizar's weight would certainly sink further down then Linh did.
Cyclizar took a few steps back, and then leapt across the thin river to the other side. He turned, and leapt back over in the same breath.
Linh shut his eyes, consternated. "... Let's just go. Uh, Poppy! Wait up!" He half-jogged, and ignored the sloshing of river water out of his boot.
This far up the slope, the vegetation became sparser, with less soil to grip onto. It turned to dirt. Dry crunchy dirt, from crushed rocks. There were a lot of Pokémon that habitually broke the rocks and stones of this mountainous section. Pygmy-elephant-like Phanpy dug vertical pits to nest, turtle-like Chewtle left the river to chew things with their itchy growing teeth. And the goat like Skiddo pranced about with hoof stomps powerful enough to crush pebbles.
Not that they encountered any Pokémon, mind. Only a river running ever thinner and thinner, only able to bulk up downstream by every passed tributary. Poppy's destination was clearly a remote place.
"Here it is!" Poppy ducked behind a large rocky outcrop, close to a shear cliff. A tiny trickle of water flowing out from behind the rock. At the entrance, Tinkie held up the vines hanging in between. Linh, hand against the smooth stone, leaned over to see in, and then startled when Tinkie smacked his arse.
A glare, a cheeky laugh back, and Linh responded most maturely. He grabbed a Pokéball on his belt and threw it. Releasing Menace, his Bramblin, into Tinkies face.
He ducked into the vines and came out inside a cave. A large and tall cave, with many stalagmites and stalactites. The cave wasn't dark, in fact, it had natural sunlight. From a great hole in the roof, with green leaves and vines growing over. A tiny waterfall fell down from that hole, and splattered noisily against the floor. The sunlight reflecting off those droplets cast flickering shadows, and the floor itself was dipping down at the centre. Erosion.
Perhaps, in a thousand years it would become a lake inside the hollow. It was still a very pretty site, if Linh wasn't focused on the sensation of wet toes.
Poppy called out to him, off to the side. "Over here," she said. "We can put up our tents here." Indeed. The branching off cave would be ideal. It even had a fire pit already set up.
"So, you just wanted to show me a good camping spot?" Linh asked.
Poppy shook her head. "No, this is private, isn't it? We can train here!"
"Well, it's isolated, and it's enclosed. But plenty of places are the same, why here, in particular? Did you just want to show me the waterfall?" Linh asked, "It's certainly pretty."
"No, the shadows silly!" Poppy pointed at the waving shadows. "You're practising Casket's Shadow Sneak, so have some weird shadows to play with!"
Linh looked again at the flickering shadows—this would be a nice challenge for Casket. If she practised peeling up the shadows as they were constantly moving. In previous experimentation, they learned that the possessed shadow can persist in both darkness and light, but with every luminosity change it strained.
And that was growth, essentially. Straining the self in some way, to repair and strengthen the damaged components.
"Yeah, I can see it. But I'll like to square away our tents." He shifted his stance, and grimaced again as his shoe squished. "And change my socks out."
"Okay," Poppy said, she walked by Linh and left the cave, "Tinkie! Where are you! I need my bag!"
She came back into the cave, holding Tinkie's hand. She very seriously led Tinkie over to the branch, and instructed her on how to set up Poppy's tent. Right next to where Linh was sitting, his bag open, shoes placed by its side. He tapped his shadow with his fingers in a five beat rhythm.
A furry snout, grey and whiskered, poked out of Linh's shadow. Casket, the Greavard, crawled upwards, and barked twice in response.
"Heya Casket," Linh said, "Spare socks, please."
Casket's ears perked, she ducked her head underneath, and came back out with a zip-locked baggie, inside, several bundles of socks, rolled and folded into balls. Spares of spares, the ones Linh doesn't mind losing by way of popping out of his shadow, and getting left behind.
Footwear suitably replaced, Linh set to setting up his own tent. From his own bag, for now.
Their accommodations set up, the group reconvened to the main cave to plan out their training.
Linh started, "So, how long do you want to stay here before we move on?"
"Well, until Tinkie comes back, I guess." Poppy put her hand on her chin, puzzled.
Linh and Tinkie shared a glance. She was here, and seemed to have no inclination to change that. A silent communication made of pointing at each other ensued.
Tinkie lost, and she asked Poppy a question, made of wordless noises. Like too much saliva being sucked through teeth with braces.
"Oh right! I forgot to tell you." Poppy moved to speak quietly into Tinkie's ear. Tinkie nodded to her, then to Linh, and marched out of the cave.
Linh watched her leave. "... Am I going to get an explanation for that? Or is it a secret until she comes back."
Poppy laughed, "Yeah!"
It took some work, but they rolled a series of rocks together, larger and larger, with flat tops and bottoms. A staircase of stable ground. Poppy climbed up for one purpose, so she could speak to Linh from above him.
"Listen up!" she commanded, "Broadly speaking, the training of a Pokémon can be thought of through multiple paradigms. All of which are equally wrong! Why are they wrong, Private Linh?" Her stance, parade rest, was as perfect as a drill sergeants.
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"High major Poppy! We are here to train our Pokémon, not discuss philosophy!" Linh stood, arms crossed behind his back.
Poppy nodded, sternly, almost paternal if she resembled anything like that implied. "Correct! The paradigm we will be using is Poppy's three P's! What does the first P stand for, Private First Class Linh?"
"Physical, Ma'am!"
Poppy nodded, "Yes! The body of the Pokémon, across all metrics. Speed, power, endurance, durability, every way to split it!" Poppy paused, then lowered her voice. "The body is the temple and the engine, weapon and armour both. As Trainers, we must take our Pokémon's chassis and strengthen it, quicken it. And if we do not know how, we must find out. Look at Menace." She pointed.
Over by the trickling waterfall, Menace trained. He sat his
roots into the shallows of the divot, and let the soaked up water hydrate and soften the brittle branches. Then he rolled. Soft roughage scraping against the smooth stone, bits of matter lost with the rolling.
Except, the dirt and the stalk-shreds, the root-hairs and the powders. They do not linger on the stone. Instead, Menace rolls over them again, and with the same power by which he rolls, they stick back on his body.
"I know how to make a Pawniard tougher," Poppy continued. "Magnemites and Cufants as well. You heat the metal, beat it against harder and harder things until only the toughest bits remain. Then quench, and repeat once the muscles are rebuilt. I do not know how to strengthen a Ghost, not one made of grassy stuff. Instead of alloyed flesh.
"Damage neither little nor big, rest for it to grow back better, do it again, but against tougher things."
Linh remarked, "Except, ghosts are dead. There are no mechanisms to repair, not within the bodies. After damage, it has to be put back together by the same will that the Ghost exists, piece by piece."
Poppy tilted her head, "Okay."
"Once Menace's bush is suitably shredded. He'll rest, and feed. And he will seal back together, stronger then before." As Poppy said, she does not know how to condition Ghosts, so Linh put together his thoughts and observations. This was the result.
A clap of tiny hands, "Okay! So next 'P'. Powers! You tell me what that means," she said, her tone turning authoritarian again. "Corporal Linh!"
Linh smiled, then snapped his heels together. "O Captain my Captain! Powers stand for a Pokémon's Moves! Patterns Pokémon act through to empower their actions. A Tackle is more then a tackle. A Growl is more then a growl."
"Correct—they are the prototypes every attack and action in Pokémon battles derives from. Every new Move learned increases a Pokémon's options. What moves were you hoping to teach Casket?" Poppy pointed in a different direction.
Over there, by the edge of the cave, where the stalagmites were thickest, was Casket. She was standing before each stone spike, and rumbling her throat until a Roar spilled out. Yet as the sound came out, she clamped her jaws shut and rammed her head against the stone.
Sometimes, she bounced off harmlessly, unleashing an unintentional Roar. Other times, she absorbed the force, her head glowing white as she struck—shattering the stalagmite cleanly.
More and more, the stone broke instead of Casket crying out.
"Ideally, the Moves I want Casket to learn are Body Press, and Play Rough." Either would allow Casket to hurt Dark Types super effectively.
"And why am I requiring Casket to learn Headbutt before I show how she can learn those, and why did I require Casket to develop Roar before I allowed Headbutt itself!"
"Grand Admiral Poppy, I don't know," he said, matter of fact.
"I will explain! So—" She turned, and paced the small foot-space atop that boulder. Her chin up, eyes close—
"Look where you step," Linh interrupted.
"Un!" Poppy interrupted herself. "—So every Move has a certain 'Oomph' to them! The amount of energy they have. A Tackle uses less power then a Bite. This is important, because trying to teach a Pokémon a move that uses more energy then they can handle, that they have, can hurt them. Casket's strongest was Bite, which isn't enough to jump to Body Press, only the three Fang Moves." She thrust a finger forwards, "But then she learnt Roar."
"How is Roar strong?" Linh asked.
"It is a cry loud enough to force a Pokémon back into their Pokéball, or far far away! How can it not be strong?" Poppy countered.
"Fair point. That Casket developed Roar through experience means she can learn Moves at about an equal power. Yes?"
Poppy grinned, "Correct!"
"So why not jump straight to Body Press, why learn Headbutt first?"
They looked to Casket again, she was managing Headbutts instead of Roars about eight times out of ten by now. Poppy spoke, "Because making different Typed energy is hard, learning a Move not learned naturally is hard, one step at a time."
She nodded, then turned back to Linh, "So—" her voice cracked.
Linh frowned, then, "Water, Poppy?" He shook her water bottle, metal and thermos-like.
"Thank you!" She stuck her hands out, waving in the air.
Moments later, with Linh leaning against the big rock, and Poppy sitting on the edge, Linh said, "We've covered Casket and Menace, what are you doing with Riolu, then?"
"That's the final P! P-Technique!" Poppy stood up and ran down the makeshift boulder steps. She raced away and Linh chased. Away to Riolu, in a corner of the cave opposite Casket. "The body and Moves are tools, both Pokémon and trainer must use them, as best they can! This P refers to every strategy or trick or skill the Pokémon practises. By body, Move, or both. Look at Riolu, he's practising tumbling. Aiming his falls, aiming while falling, reducing the hurt from falling!"
Riolu was climbing up the stalagmites and leaping to the stalactites, and then letting go. In the air he twisted and turned, releasing braces of Swifts, shifting his profile in the air, and rolling and tucking at the last moment. So the hard ground doesn't knock his breath out.
"Riolu! Good work!" Poppy then muttered to Linh, "Remember to praise your Pokémons hard work, they need encouragement to stay on track." Back to Riolu, "Now come here, we're working on the next step. Dodging."
Linh let himself fall out of the conversation Poppy was having with Riolu. He thought to himself, about the tricks he's practising with Casket, and the tricks he's not practising with Menace.
The two styles of Shadow Sneak—Limbs and Walk—are examples of 'P-Techniques'. He's pushing Casket with walking in shadows. But not with limbs. And now that he sees the dexterity Riolu demonstrates with his paws—gripping and twisting on the pillars to re-orientate—Linh's thinking on the length of Casket's shadowy paws. Could he have them grab and pull, restrain things? Or can he have them push and lift, platforms of giant hands.
An image filed into Linh's mind, like a sleazy salesman sauntering into the bosses office. That of Casket's candle light at the dark end of a light-lit corridor. Paws reaching out to shatter the lights, and drag the hapless viewer towards her.
Linh grinned. Then he thought about Menace. Recalling back to their first meeting—the battle. Menace preferred to weaken his foe, instead of attacking. Spite and Strength Sap before Bullet Seed. He could lean into that, and help Menace dodge and avoid things. Training the battlefield awareness to always be in an awkward spot to hit.
Or he could poke and see how flexible Bulltet Seed is. Can the seeds be shot faster? Slower? At different angles and timings, to make dodging harder? Could they be given spin, create some curve balls?
Decisions, decisions.
And then his stomach rumbled, and Linh thought about the passage of time, he glanced at his phone, afternoon. And he interrupted Poppy's speech. About the right way to twist and contort, to adjust the profile without introducing too much spin.
"It is getting late, actually." Linh looked up, to the hole in the roof the cave waterfall flows from. The sky above was turning orange. "Poppy? Wanna call it here."
Poppy frowned, and, following his trainer, Riolu stared up with big soulful eyes. "I don't wanna go to bed yet."
"Eh? No. We still need to eat, and you." Linh crouched down and poked Poppy on the nose. "Haven't done your lessons today—nor called Mom and Dad yet, have you?"
Poppy looked away, guiltily.
It was after dinner, the living group member's share made and eaten, and the dishes rinsed and left to dry. Poppy had recalled Riolu to sleep off his food coma, and was sitting in front of her laptop. She was quietly watching the lesson—her teacher on the screen guiding through math exercises. Equivalent fractions.
Every so often Linh looked over to make sure she was still paying attention. But his focus was on the smoking incense in his hands, the smoke drifting sideways and curling around him. Sucked into the Ghost Pokémon clinging to him like they were fume extractors.
The stick burnt low, to the fingertips, and he let it extinguish. Menace, on his lap, rasped displeasure as he discarded it. Linh patted his barbs and then let Casket nibble at the hand. An exhale, as Linh looked up.
Tomorrow, they'd continue training, or perhaps leave early. Maybe Poppy's missing Pokémon, Tinkie, will return with her secret surprise, maybe she won't. But for now, he was tired, the Pokémon were full, and the night was quiet.