fic;; This Will Get Better, ch. 9 - Training
Word count: 4841
Chapter Summary: The final trial is right around the corner. It's time to train!
Content warnings: none
(Fic Masterpost)
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Honey's cooking had brought everyone's spirits back up, and the dining room was a cacophony of good cheer and talk about the day's events. As the bowls emptied, so did people's patience to stay in the room. But Mustard had kept everyone seated, asking that they stay just a moment longer. When enough time had passed, and the room buzzed with chatter, he stood up and cleared his throat.
“Now then, let's wrap things up! You all did your best on the second trial, and I'm proud of everyone here! Your hard work in finding those mushrooms did not go unnoticed. And last but not least... Thanks for the soup, Honey!”
“Thanks for the soup, Miss Honey!”
Chairs scraped across the floor as many of the students left. The younger ones were eager to go outside and play in the dying light. Older ones had media they wanted to consume before bedtime. My husband and I looked over the book at the dining room table, not recognizing many of the Pokemon within. I couldn't help but laugh at some of the Pokemon's forms, for they seemed rather ridiculous in drawing. Maybe they were more fearsome in person. Lance pointed out the drawing of a Pokemon called Duraladon.
“The person who is currently running the Dragon Gym here uses one of these.”
“There's no way that's a real Pokemon.”
“It is.”
“It looks like a skyscraper!”
“It is unbelievably tall when it Gigantamaxes. But that can work in one's advantage.”
“I never said being a skyscraper was a benefit for the user.”
An hour later, Mustard found the two of us still sitting where we had eaten. He stood at the doorway, clearing his throat to get our attention.
“Oh, sorry Mustard. How long had you been there?”
“Long enough,” he teased. “When you both have a moment, please meet me in my lounge room. I'd like to talk to the both of you about your next trial.”
“We will be certain to join you, Master Mustard,” Lance said.
Mustard nodded and left. I let out a long, exhausted sigh and slumped against my husband.
“Not a single moment's rest around here, is there?”
Lance laughed. “What did you expect? It's a dojo.”
“I dunno. Not being included, for one.”
Lance frowned a little. An awkward pause, as he tried to figure out how to parse what I meant. I waved my hand in a silly manner, trying to explain how I felt.
“Ah, like I wasn't expecting to be part of training. I figured I was just gonna be a guest, not a participant. Nothing bad, I promise, sweetheart!”
Pika came running in from the other room, jumping onto my shoulder and nuzzling my cheek. She pat the front of my shoulder when she saw the book on the table, curious about the pictures in it.
“Oh, Pika. It's a book about Gigantamaxing.” I began flipping through the book again until I found the page I was looking for. “You remember, right? When Lance's Gyarados went up against that huuuuge Charizard that looked different?” I held up the picture of Pikachu's Gigantamax form. “Do you think you'd wanna look like that sometime?”
Pika laughed at the drawing. She jumped onto the table and tried to mimic the pose, puffing out her body and fur as best as she possibly could in order to mimic the large, round-ish size of a Gigantamax Pikachu. We both laughed as she tried to maintain the round form before losing her balance, tilting forwards, then backwards, before finally falling face first on the table.
I put the book away on the shelf Honey pulled it from when we left the room to speak with Mustard. We knocked on the door to the lounge, which was left ajar. We could hear Mustard's voice beckoning us inside.
“Come in, come in!”
Mustard's room was... Well, at this point, I don't know why I was surprised. There was some workout equipment, but also a couch and coffee table littered with instant ramen, empty soft drinks, manga, video games... And on the wall that faced the couch, a flat screen tv with a Switch connected to it, showing the idling screen of Pokemon Quest. Cubed Pokemon jumped around cutely on the screen. Around the TV were more video games, controllers, even some Pro Controllers, and did I spy a Smash Bros game case? On another wall was a set of trophies, photos that I couldn't quite make out yet. A certificate. Proper achievements, if I had to wager a guess.
I think the old man could grow on me, if he was a fellow gamer.
“Thanks for coming! You two are an extremely talented and strong pair. You're the only ones who successfully finished the second trial. I've decided that you two will take the Master Dojo's final, last, ultimate third trial!”
“The final last ultimate third trial? What, is it some ultra final form boss?” I joked.
Mustard laughed. “No, nothing like that. Not yet, anyways,” he said with a devious grin. “You'll compete in a Dynamax Pokemon battle. The rules are simple. Whoever wins will complete the trial! The winner will be granted the secret armor of the Master Dojo! You'll need to give me some time to prepare the Battle Court behind the Master Dojo. Come talk to me again in two days. In the meantime, use the rest of tonight and tomorrow to rest and train as you'd like!”
“A Pokemon battle?”
“Yup.”
“Who are we battling? You? The Dojo students? Someone else entirely?”
“That's for you to find out! Prepare for the unknown!”
“Okay, now you're sounding like my husband.”
Based off the students' apparent lack of experience or confidence, I doubted we would be taking any of them on. However, maybe it would make them happier to compete against us in Pokemon battles. “Is it a tournament-style set of matches?”
A twinkle appeared in Mustard's eyes, and I inched back. I felt like I just gave him an idea.
“Who's to say if it is or isn't?”
“You, at the very least. You're supposed to say if it is or isn't.” I frowned. If it was going to be a battle of quick wits just to get information, then I could do this all night. Maybe Mustard recognized that, because he called an end to the conversation then.
“I'm sure the two of you have plenty of preparations to make. But if you happen to have any spare time, you're more than welcome to join me for a couple of games. Smash Brothers? Mario Kart?”
A glint appeared in my eyes as I got fired up at the chance to show off some skill.
“Hell yes! I'll kick your ass.”
“Sarah, no.” Lance took hold of my arm and gently started to pull me back. “You're only going to wind up irritated. We need to get some rest so we can train tomorrow.”
“Tch. You're no fun.” I pouted at my husband. I looked up at him, preparing to put on the Baby-Doll Eyes. But when my eyes met his, I caved. “Ugh, fine. I suppose I'll go to bed just this time. But next time,” I turned back to face Mustard. “I'll make you cry when I wipe the floor with you!”
“Ohoho! Good to see that you do have some fight in you. Put your all into your battle! I'm looking forward to seeing it on the battlefield!”
A day felt like nowhere near enough time to be ready for a final match. Lance and I trained separately in the morning; Lance took to the skies to find a suitable training area for him and his Pokemon. I found a spot near the Dojo, with the intent to learn the extent of Ellie and Bunbun's movesets, and teach them various TMs. Ellie was getting taught Ice Beam and Dazzling Gleam. Bunbun was learning Dig. I tried looking into the Rotomdex to see if perhaps TMs could be a new feature built-in to the device, but Plasmastar had no data on the moves I was wanting to teach. So I'd have to teach them based off my memory.
“Let's go Bunbun!” I directed my Buneary to bury underground. The digging was the easy part, but building up speed was tough. The ground was dense, so at first all she could get was about a foot deep before needing a break. But she was making great progress. I made sure she went at a steady pace between sets, encouraging her whenever she needed it.
Ellie, on the other hand, was having to learn two different moves. Dazzling Gleam came more naturally to her. This was probably because she was a fairy-type, so we just had to shift the energy from an attack like Moonblast into a more widespread move. The real trouble was Ice Beam. I had taught it plenty of times over the years, and Pika was doing her best using her electricity as an example to encourage Ellie with her attack. I had Ellie alternate between the two attacks for each set.
Once both of them seemed to have the basics down for their new attacks, Pika helped them practice the attacks in a battle. She would shoot non-threatening bolts of electricity at either Pokemon, getting them to practice dodging and hurling their new attacks back at her. I commanded Ellie and Bunbun during these sets; Pika was a pro at helping with training, so she needed no commands beyond being told to pause, increase, decrease, or switch roles, whereby she would then be the one practicing dodging the attacks by the Pokemon, to help encourage everyone's accuracy.
In the afternoon, Lance and I met back up for lunch, and to train together. We began with a battle, then had our Pokemon practice their moves against each other. Training together allowed us to find weaknesses in our strategies, or where our Pokemon needed to improve. It allowed my two new Pokemon to put their new moves to use in real matches. They were starting to get the hang of it when Lance called for a break.
“What do you think?” I plopped down on the ground next to him.
“Your Buneary seems to be taking control of her new move easily, though there's not much power behind them.”
“You noticed that too? Good. Thought I was misjudging things.”
“Her regular moves seem to have more confidence to them.”
“Mmm...” I nodded thoughtfully. “Anything else?”
“I'm sure you noticed it, but Ellie needs more control and practice on both Dazzling Gleam and Ice Beam. Ice Beam's lacking focus, while Dazzling Gleam is too spread out.”
“She's very eager to show off her new moves and prove herself. Hopefully she'll get better over time. I'll have her practice her moves more before we battle your Pokemon again.”
I leaned against my husband. Lance hugged me, his arms wrapping around me as his chin rested on my shoulder. The wind rustled the leaves in the trees. We could hear our Pokemon enjoy a cooling break down by the river. Pika napped by my bag, sunbathing with the light that flickered thru the trees. She would have to continue helping me train Ellie, since, as a Pokemon, she'd know a lot more first hand about maintaining control over a move's energy than I would. I continued to think about what our next steps in training were, when Lance pressed a kiss to my cheek. My face warmed, and I could hear him laugh behind me.
“All these years, and a simple kiss is more than enough to make you blush?”
“If I'm caught off-guard, of course it is!” I exclaimed, turning around enough to look at him. “If I'm not expecting it, then yes I'm going to blush!” I tried to make a mad face at him, but I was too flustered to be angry. “Besides, you'd do the same if it happened to you!”
“Quoting old songs? I thought that was my job!”
“Stooooooppppppit!!” I felt on the verge of tears from trying to hold back laughter and frustration. He thought he was so smooth and had it soooo good because I liked this?
He was right, yes.
Fine! I thought angrily to myself. I'll just have to give him a taste of his own medicine!
I pressed my lips to his, trying to silence his laughter. It... certainly muffled the laughter, but he couldn't take the kiss seriously enough to stop laughing. I pulled back and crossed my arms.
“You're a jerk!”
“As you've stated many, many times over the years.”
“Yeah, well! I like making sure that you know!”
“And nothing's been done with that information yet, has it?”
I pursed my lips. “....No. ...Except--! Oh wait, nevermind, nope. Nothing except accept my fate as taking the kissies and saving them for later.”
“For later?”
I pushed him away. “You don't want to know what later is!”
I let out a shrill screech of laughter as he pulled me back in, wrapping his arms around mine so I couldn't escape.
“Noooooo!” I whined playfully. “How am I supposed to train now?!”
“I suppose we should get back to doing that,” he said, loosening his hold on me but not ready to let me go. I slid out of his lap, gently parting the hands that held me. I gave him a woeful plea with large eyes and very sad, wibbling lips. We didn't have to stop playing. We could continue this silly little farce until the sky went dark, and the moon became our guiding light. But we both knew that there'd be time later to continue this playfulness; right now, we needed to focus on making sure we were up to par with tomorrow's match, whoever it would be against.
I sighed and reached for his hands, slipping my fingers through his. I idly began to move our hands around, gently rocking them back and forth as I thought.
“What do you think tomorrow's match will be like? Do you think we might have to fight each other?”
“I don't know, Sarah. There's a possibility, especially if this armor is something meant to go one person.”
I frowned. I didn't know how to bring up to my husband the idea that any literal armor would likely not fit me, if it was something already in their possession, without making it sound self-deprecating. I didn't want to bother with the fight if the prize was something useless for me. ...Of course, there's a chance it was some sort of metaphorical armor, but I mean, the place is called the Isle of Armor for a reason. It had to be some sort of practical object, right? It's not like it was a sword or a shield that could simply be wielded by anyone; and to loosely call a shield a piece of armor would get me annoyed, Mustard's whimsy be damned.
“Don't worry about it too much,” Lance said to me. “Just try to have fun, remember?”
I groaned. “Yeah, yeah. And I'll do my best against whomever my opponent is.”
My husband would be mad at me if I simply let him win without a genuine attempt, should the battle be between us. Logically, that's what the third trial should be. A match between the remaining students. Or a match against the Master, but if we both won, then it'd make no sense, there'd still be no winner between the two of us, unless it was somehow determined by some arbitrary conditions...
“Oh.” I stopped moving his hands, the idea striking me as a possibility. “It could be something like whoever scores the most points or knocks out the most of something? Mustard did say that he had to set something up, right?”
“He did mention needing to prepare the Battle Court...”
I smiled. “We should probably get back to training then!”
Lance offered to stay and help, but I had a feeling that we might fight each other. In which case, I didn't really want him learning too much about how my new Pokemon fought. He knew Pika's battle style well; the Pikachu had been with me longer than he had. The only way to have a surprise now was to learn Bunbun and Ellie's fighting styles and lean into that with them. I was unfortunately a pretty easy read when it came to battles; so even though I would be leaning into the Pokemons' styles a little more, it would likely have my preference for fighting head-on overall.
I took my Pokemon to a different area in what the Rotomdex's map called the Fields of Honor. I debated taking Ellie and Bunbun back to see their friends, but the wild Pokemon might only want to play. So I kept away from the crooked tree and found another spot, this one near the opening of a cave. I couldn't reach the cave without going into the water first, but that was fine. We only needed the rocks for aerial practice. I grabbed the only other Pokeball I brought with me, and tossed it out.
A fluffy, almost bird-like creature of incredible pinkness came forth. The only thing not pink on this Pokemon was the white, plague mask-like marking on the creature's face.
“Aphrodite! Meet Ellie and Bunbun! I'm gonna need your help with training them.”
The Aromatisse made a bow as greeting towards the new Pokemon. “Tisse!”
“Byun!”
“Puff!”
“Good. So here's what we're going to do now. Aphrodite, use Psychic on those rocks over there! Keep them afloat in the sky above us!” A purple hue tinted the Pokemon's eyes, and it raised its hands as though it was physically lifting the rocks. All sorts of rocks of different sizes began to fly in the air, lifting up slowly until they were all around the same distance from the ground. Aphrodite began to spin the rocks like a carousel, one finger moving in a circle.
“Now Ellie, I want you to practice Ice Beam on these rocks. Make sure you can hit them!”
“Jigglypuff!” With a sharp inhale, Ellie began to use Ice Beam. She tried to hit different rocks, but every time she did, Aphrodite moved a claw, and the rocks dodged out of the way. Ellie stomped her feet, getting angry and yelling something at the Aromatisse. But Aphrodite was not bothered in the slightest, instead miming with her free hand that she was pretending to look in a mirror. Which only made the Jigglypuff even more angry.
“Hey, hey! Let's not do mockery or calling each other names or what have you. I really need you to focus on your Ice Beam right now, El. If you're that frustrated, work towards turning that anger into power and shoot the rocks with your Ice Beam! And Aphrodite, I need you to go a little easier on her. She's only had one battle so far, and it was a physical fight, nothing that utilized special attacks.”
“Aro....” With a shrug and renewed focus, Aphrodite began to swirl the rocks again. Ellie bust out several Ice Beams, which hit the edges of different rocks.
“That's good Ellie. Keep practicing that.”
I turned my attention towards Bunbun and Pika.
“Alright, Bunbun. You're gonna practice digging at fast speeds. You're gonna try to catch up to Pika again. Now, Pika already knows what speeds to run at, so she'll gradually go faster the more you catch up to her. You just gotta use Dig to pop up and tag her. Don't try to attack for now. We just wanna work on building up speed, not power. You're doing great with it, and it'll make me happy to know that your speed can keep up with a fast Pokemon like a Pikachu.”
“Buuun....?”
“Sorry, was that a lot?”
Pika turned towards the Buneary, and tried to explain what I was wanting through pantomime and Pokemon speech. When she was done, Bunbun let out a “Buneary!” and had a competitive grin on her face.
I watched as my Pokemon trained well into the late afternoon. It was around then when my husband came flying overhead to greet us once more. I clapped twice for everyone to take a break. When Pika skidded to a halt, she looked over at me, then in the direction where winds were coming from. She looked up at the sky, and recognized the Dragonite and its trainer. Happy to see him join us for the second time today, she ran over and jumped on him, nuzzling him on the cheek.
Lance laughed, scritching the Pikachu behind her ear. “How's it going?” he asked.
“Good, I think. I decided to have Aphrodite help out, so she's been helping El, and Bunbun and Pikachu were racing. How about you? Are you done with training?”
He nodded. “For today. Zweilous was enjoying its time training with the other Pokemon.”
I smiled, thinking about the rambunctious – and nowadays rebellious – Zweilous getting to butt heads with the rest of Lance's Pokemon. Or maybe getting to use Dragon Rush into oncoming stones, charging through them with ease.
The rest of my Pokemon came over, greeting Lance cheerfully. He looked down, smiling at the Pokemon, then looked back at me with a more serious expression.
“Are you sure you want to use them in battle tomorrow?”
I stopped to think about it. Winning would be nice, but it was likely that we might face each other tomorrow. I realized earlier that training with each other might not have been the best idea for that, but the rest of the dojo was far too starstruck to be of any help to us. Aphrodite wasn't in fighting form. She was more of a contest and therapy Pokemon, as it were. But Bunbun and Ellie were eager to fight and prove themselves, and were putting their all into learning new moves from old TMs that I had memorized from teaching multiple times over the years.
I nodded. “The PC system went down last night. I tried to withdraw some Pokemon for training this morning, and it didn't work. It's weird since I could get my Rotom earlier. I let Honey know, and she had to call for someone to come look at it. I suppose that even genius children like Hyde can’t fix things like Pokemon Transfer PCs.” I laughed, a little bitterly. “But I think it’d be more fair this way-- well, mm. Like, if I brought in my aces, and if Mustard made it a tournament, it’d just wind up you and me battling against each other, and wouldn’t be very fair for anyone else that’s gonna battle? If there's anyone else. I’d wanna at least give them a chance.”
“Are you looking down on their training here?”
“No, not at all! But… A lot of them seem pretty easily awed. Which makes me wonder if they’ve not had that many battle experiences, or seen many challenges outside the TV.”
“That’s not always a bad thing.”
“I guess not… But I’d rather give them a fighting chance than sweep them without breaking a sweat. That seems more damaging to one’s morale than doing what Gym Leaders do, and having a lower set team for less experienced trainers.”
He laughed. “Okay, fair point.”
“So what about you?”
“I suppose I’ll have to see what the competition’s like. Who knows, it might involve another battle against Master Mustard.”
I made a face. “That would… probably be boring.”
“What are you talking about? I think it’d be exciting!”
“Yeah, but… Unless he was going all-out, the match would just feel like when someone lets you win for the sake of letting you pass a class.”
“Now why does that rhetoric sound familiar….”
“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes at him. “C'mon, let's go back. It's probably dinner time.”
The students greeted us warmly as we entered the Dojo. I briefly wondered if this was what it was like, to have a fanclub. Starry-eyed faces, questions galore as soon as you entered a place.
“Do you think you guys are ready for tomorrow's trial?”
“What did you guys do for training today?”
“Everything go okay? Is there anything we can help with?”
And so on.
“We aren't aware of what tomorrow's trial might be,” said my husband, who was an expert at fielding questions by now. “But we are as prepared for the unknown as one can be.”
As my husband answered the questions, I got distracted with watching other students who interacted with Honey or Mustard. It brought a twinge of pain to my chest, seeing the two in charge of the Dojo interact with their students of all ages and backgrounds. Greeting them, asking them the same sort of things the students did just now, it felt like what... what a family was supposed to be, I think? Not that I'd know for sure; the normal for me was avoiding each other, avoid talking to each other, trying not to upset the people that considered themselves the be-all end-all of the household, with no respect to those they saw underneath them. Yet here was Honey, making sure to get on level with even the youngest in the household, even if that meant crouching down to the ground so they could see her at eye-level better. It meant boisterious laughing at some joke that Mustard told, and not a half-hearted one just to avoid disrupting the calm before a storm. Even though the students showed obedience to these two with titles, none of them seemed to feel threatened or scared, like they were trying to avoid landmines. The Dojo's house, so to speak, was incredibly warm and happy.
I felt my eyes welling up.
“Sarah?”
I cleared my throat, and shook my head.
“I'm fine, Lance. Thanks for taking care of the welcoming committee,” I half-joked. There was a crease in his face as he watched me, and I shook my head once again. “Let's go greet them before dinner. Seems to be the norm anyhow.”
“If you're sure.”
I walked up to Honey, who was just dismissing a kid to go wash up before dinner.
“Hi, Miss Honey.”
“Oh, there you two are!”
My Pikachu waved and jumped onto the Matron's shoulder, nuzzling her.
“Hello to you too, Pika! My, aren't you just the sweetest little thing!” She smiled, eyes closed, then turned to address me. “And I told you, it's okay to drop the 'Miss' part.”
“I would, but all the other students seem to refer to you as Miss, so I'd feel weird if we were the only ones not.”
I wonder if this is sorta how Lance and Clair feel when I call their grandfather 'gramps' instead of 'grandfather', I mused.
Honey gave a wistful sigh, putting a hand on her cheek. “Oh, I suppose there's no stopping that,” she said, then gave me a playful wink. “How was training?”
I looked at my husband. “It went well, I think. Still dunno what we're doing tomorrow.”
She had a mischievous smile on her face. “Well, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what my dear darling husband has in store for the two of you!”
I blinked. “I. Uh. Ok? Where's Mustard gone off to?” I looked around. I could have sworn I had just seen him out here, but now I couldn't hear his loud laughter or see his teal-black jacket among the sea of yellow and black gi.
“Who knows,” she said, raising her arms up in a defeated gesture; but I had a strong feeling she did. “He'll be back in time for dinner.”
With nothing else to do except make smalltalk with the other students I took my seat at the table. I could see several students making up large bowls of food for the Pokemon and begin to take them out to the main room. I let out my Pokemon, and told Pika to make sure everyone found a spot for dinner. With a salute, she guided everyone out of the kitchen area as students started to file in and take their places. Lance slid into the chair next to me and smiled; I smiled back.
Sure enough, Mustard was back in time for dinner. He had a sly grin on his face.
“I bet the two of you are dying to know what tomorrow's battle will be!”
