Hovering in that strange halfwaypoint between awake and asleep, Amelia tries to keep herself firmly on the asleep side of the continuum until something happens that warrants her full conscious attention.

  She’s not awake enough to think about what hour it is, or if this decision is a wise one, and if the Joy has her way it will stay like that.

  So with those marching orders firmly in place, she rolls over in her sleeping bag to get to the cold half of the pillow, bumping into something metallic as she–

  “Gah!” She cries, sitting bolt upright in her sleeping bag as the sting of a mean static shock snaps her fully to wakefulness. “Magnemite!”

  The ‘mon’s singular eye blinks open, squinting in the cold light of dawn before flicking over at her and looking contrite.

  “...Mag.”

  Amelia groans, running a hand though hair that has gotten increasingly frizzy as the days have gone by.

  “I have told you. If you want to share the pillow you have to ground yourself.”

  “Nemite!” The ‘mon exclaims, the words completely unintelligible to the human, but at times like this context clues work almost as well as comprehension.

  “If you did, then why am I awake with my cheek numb right now?” She counters with a glare, a question that has the ‘mon dropping his gaze.

  She sighs, realizing that she’s not getting back to sleep, and unzips her sleeping bag before pulling on her boots where they sit next to her bag.

  They’ve been having a pretty long dry spell, and last night their portable radio didn't say anything about rain for the next two days either, so no tent yet.

  Lacing up her boots, one at a time, she sees that she’s woken up at around the same time as Chansey, who appears to be dismantling one of the fancy ‘cook in bag’ meal things they’d bought to get at the hot bag, which she seems to be planning to use to boil water for her morning coffee.

  Normally she just uses a fire, but they didn't camp at a waystation, so no firewood.

  …Resourceful.

  Amelia smirks.

  “Morning.”

  “Chans.” She grunts back, glancing at her partner. “Ans chan chansey.”

  “Yea. I am.” She grumbles. “But the only reason I’m up is because someone shocked me again.”

  Chaney drops the heating pack into her pre-measured water and looks up at her with an unsympathetic slant, to which Amelia waves it away before stalking over to her bag and rummaging around for breakfast.

  She’d come to the conclusion that one magnemite was too much of a hassle to chase after unless the opportunity literally dropped into her lap.

  The trainer grunts as she rips a granola bar open and takes a crumbly bite.

  So why?

  Why is it that she’s being forced to deal with twenty five of them!?

  Chewing firmly, Amelia looks around at the rocks and the entire flock of wild ‘mon who are nestled into divots in the stone in cells of four or five each all around her. Most are still asleep, only a few lazily floating around as they slowly wake up in time with the sun's equally slow creep into the sky.

  The day after the landslide, Amelia gave everyone a second once-over and proclaimed with confidence a clean bill of health, ending with a short speech thanking them for being so helpful and wishing them well.

  She’d expected them to leave, or stick around nearby until the route reaches the end of their territory and part ways early tomorrow.

  That was two days ago, and now with Mt. chimney looming ever closer on the horizon it’s become increasingly obvious that they’re just going to keep following them until something changes.

  She takes another bite of her breakfast with as much simmering irritation as one can put into eating.

  One magnemite is a hassle, more than three means most businesses give her a side eye, but twenty five?

  An entire flock means the forestry service is mad at her.

  The trainer takes a swig of water.

  She can't tell whether she’s incredibly lucky or incredibly unlucky that none of them actually want to join up.

  With Chansey acting as a translator, Amelia tried to interrogate the ‘mon to determine if there’s something they still want, from her or otherwise, but the largest magnemite –who she’s pretty sure is their flock's leader– seemed confused by the line of inquiry. When asked to explain why they were following her team, the ‘mon seemed similarly confused by the question, and either Chansey couldn't translate it well or Magnemite just didn't have an answer.

  The trainer sighs.

  It can be hard to remember at times, but pokemon are not humans, they don't always think like humans. Which means that sometimes ‘mon will do things that don't make any sense when viewing them from the perspective of a human being.

  Which is both fascinating, and deeply irritating.

  She’d tried to gently suggest the ‘mon leave, but they didn't get the message.

  Amelia hums and gets started packing up her camp as Chansey pours herself her cup of coffee, takes a sip, then grimaces and looks at the thermal pack.

  A few seconds later the ‘mon takes another sip, grimaces, and the cycle continues all the way until they’re on the road again, trailed by a flock of wild ‘mon.

  Admittedly, it’s not all bad.

  The trainer reaches into her bag and opens her notebook to today’s training regime.

  They’re excellent training aids.

  —--

  “Southeast!”

  Chansey steps to the side the bare amount, turning the attack from a hit to a glancing blow as the swarm of magnemite continue to circle around her.

  Another attack is charging up, this time from the–

  “East!”

  Another single step, allowing yet more electricity to crackle past her.

  Then Amelia’s eyes lock onto a magnemite from the second group circling her partner, a small rock tied to a rope which is itself attached to one of its magnets.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  They figured out a system.

  “Ten!”

  Chansey’s head snaps to her ten-o clock and fires out a pulse of psychic, shattering the rock into pieces as one of the attacking group charges up another thunderbolt to her partner’s–

  “Northwest!”

  They worked on this system together, but it was Chansey who’d first suggested the idea of two separate systems of directional callout for attack and defence.

  It took some more tooling after that suggestion, but they’d come to an idea that satisfied both of them.

  Amelia is quite proud of it in its simplicity; callouts for a direction to attack use directions of a clock face, while warnings for an incoming attack use compass directions.

  Another attack is being charged from behind while simultaneously the trainer sees another rock on a magnemite rising into the air.

  “South three!” She shouts, answered by Chansey once again smoothly moving out of the way while simultaneously firing off another psychic and shattering the rock.

  Amelia cheers, pumping her fist in celebration.

  Now all they need to do is practice this while getting Chansey’s psychic move up to her own satisfaction.

  Two magnemite lift off the gound at the same time

  “Nine two!”

  Two shattered stones.

  It’s perfect!

  They did it–

  Two attacks charge, one from the right and the other behind, but as Amelia opens her mouth to call it out her brain stutters as she realizes saying the two in quick succession will mean warning of neither attack properly. Should she pause? Use another word? Determine which attack takes priority? How? They’re identica–

  In the end all Amelia manages to get out as a choked sound of alarm before both attacks fire and hit Chansey square on, causing her partner to grunt and stagger forward half a step before glancing backward at the trainer with an accusative expression.

  “Da–Daaarn it! Sorry Chansey! I’ll get i– Northeast!”

  —--

  Lowering herself into the water and making sure not to let it get past her neck, Amelia groans in agony as she waits for her partner’s healing to remove the tears and lactic acid buildup in her muscles and ligaments.

  This deep into the lava bed and the water here isn't safe to drink, too many phosphates and metals dissolved from the nearby rock make pretty unhealthy and difficult to purify.

  Thankfully they still have plenty of water in their bags and it's safe enough to swim in because she needed to cool herself down and rinse off the sweat.

  To train everyone on the team equally while also giving the task her full attention, they’ve set up a rotating system, focusing on each member in turn while the other two train basic skills or assist in training the member of the day.

  Yesterday was Chansey’s day.

  Amelia takes shallow breaths to alleviate the burning coldness in her lungs and tries to block out the full body pain she’s feeling.

  Today is hers.

  “Chansey chan ans.” Her partner calls from the shore, prompting the trainer’s eyes to snap open and her to point an accusative finger at the ‘mon

  “Dont start with that! I’m in pain!” She whines plaintively, a complaint that dissolves into blissful groans when her partner lobs a ghostly egg at her head and the healing energies get to work.

  Healing like this makes exercise so much more efficient, less painful too, to get results faster than any method without it.

  Idly, the Joy wonders why she’s never heard of anyone else in the family using such easy access to such a useful tool.

  Because she remembers the first time she picked up her fully loaded backpack for her journey, it took both arms, and she distinctly remembers trying to figure out what to cut from her pack to save weight because she was worried she couldn't hike with it.

  This morning she picked up her pack one-handed and barely thought about it.

  Opening one eye a crack after luxuriating in the sudden removal of pain, the trainer snaps her arm up and points at Magnemite as it approaches the water.

  “Heyheyhey! What did I just say about getting close to the water while I'm in it!?” She shouts, the ‘mon quickly buzzing away from the shoreline and pretending to not notice her.

  Amelia huffs at the antics before shooting a suspicious glare at the rest of the flock.

  Who are still following her!

  In fact, while they’re not following her as closely as they did before so she cant get an exact headcount, she’s almost positive that there are more of them than when they started following her.

  Slowly backstroking back to the shore, having drifted away slightly, the trainer pulls herself out of the water and wrings out her hair.

  She can't decide if getting in without changing clothes was a mistake or not, weighting the added weight against the cooling effect all the water will have on her when she gets back to exercise.

  “Chans?” Her partner asks from where she’s sitting a few steps away.

  Amelia nods.

  “Again.”

  Without another word the trainer tenses her legs to keep steady as gravity multiplies around her to perhaps just twice that as normal, a configuration Chansey seems to think is the optimal balance of weight and endurance training.

  “Chan!” Her partner calls and Amelia snaps into motion at the command, sprinting sideways into a crouch then back the other way as fast as possible in enhanced gravity.

  At ten she starts breathing heavily.

  At fifteen, things start to hurt.

  But as she loses count somewhere close to thirty, she can feel her legs start to shake with the exertion and–

  “Chan!” The ‘mon calls again, accompanied by increasing gravity.

  Amelia immediately transitions from slowing into another crouch into a dead sprint toward a marked rock fifty metres away.

  Everything hurts.

  She pushes through the pain, reaches her goal, and barely slows just enough slap a hand on top of the rock before dropping into a crouch and springing back the way she came–

  “Chan!”

  Amelia leaps to the side, rolling across the ground and rising back to her feet as a slightly off white blur speeds past where she just was then erupts with a faint thud and puff of smoke behind her, a barely charged egg bomb representing a stray attack she would have to dodge in a real battle.

  The roll, combined with the heavy exertion, has her feeling dizzy but she pushes through it and gets back up to speed.

  Another egg bomb is thrown her way but it’s not targeted at her so she ignores it, continuing her sprint as it detonates harmlessly, it’s the same story for the next attack, clearly projected to pass by to her left–

  Wait no it’s curvin–

  …

  Amelia wipes soot from her eyes and coughs, pushing herself off the ground just a few metres away from the return line.

  She’d failed.

  The trainer flops back onto the ground.

  Fffudge.

  She’ll need to start from the beginning.

  But before she can get up off the ground and get back to the start line, her attention is redirected to Taillow as he speeds in towards them, chattering too quickly for her to understand about…

  Amelia squints, trying to piece it together.

  Something about… something that is both foreign and well known… which is…

  There’s the grinding and metallic sounding call as a silver and white bird descends, flaring their wings at the last possible moment and landing on the ground with a thud.

  Amelia jumps at the sudden appearance, though she’s significantly less alarmed than Chansey, who looks like she’d just managed to stop herself from chucking an egg bomb at it.

  It’s a skarmory. A very big skarmory who seems to be wearing some kind of harness.

  The trainer blinks at the sound of a human voice coming from somewhere behind the ‘mon. But as a few seconds pass with no signs of the person making themselves known so she catches her breath and hesitantly opens her mouth.

  “...Umm. Hello–?”

  “Alright you electric nuisances! Break it up!” A man in a ranger’s outfit shouts, removing his wind visor and pulling his capture styler out of a hip mounted holster, holding it loosely in his hand. “You all know you’re not supposed to get into groups this big! You’re making the rhydon nervous and I do not want to close the route like last ye– Nurse Joy!?” He cuts himself off, almost dropping his stylus in shock as Amelia stands up to her full height and brushes herself off. “What are you doing here!?”

  Ah.

  This again.

  Amelia clasps her hands at her waist and sighs.