I make it back to the outskirts at around 5, taking over an hour to walk through the massive city only to see Puff zing about in the sky, humming a beat to herself. Ian is looking fairly slim and about half the width he was before. Good progress was made on his autonomize it seems. He currently appears to be working on swords dance which is unexpectantly faster in this form. He's still a slow guy though, even in this faster form. I smell a sweet scent and see a Spritzee dancing around through the air, running from other trainers. It scares me a little, being so close to so many Pokemon usually trying to off me.

  "Gd to see at least one of you is working hard" I call out, cupping my hands around my mouth.

  Puff continues to ze around in the sky, on her back and floating like a leaf. I shake my head "Well have you come up with any fshy ideas? I might let you out of learning tomorrow if you have something good."

  She perks up but keeps using tailwind to float over to me while releasing mist in the trail. She trills softly and shoots some mist in the air when she reaches me in an arch. "Not bad, I was thinking about using mist as well."

  Ian floats over speedily "And you can keep practicing your swords dance, try to make fewer but bigger swords in a wider circle if you can and let the swords leak energy." He spins and heads back to where he was at a jogging pace. It's a lot, but by stretching the definition of the move it'll be that much more fun in a couple months. I estimate that it will take him a week or two to even get everything to work in sync.

  "I'll focus on you for the rest of today, I think Ian cks the skillset for this" she groans and turns to fly away.

  "Well, we could wait until strike week ends" I threaten. She needs to learn a bit more discipline for my tastes, but I caught her so I'll train her until I let her go or she runs away. I can work with her until I can truly understand what she's like.

  I work one-on-one with her, running around trying to catch her while she runs off. She purposely slows so I can catch up, like a game. She stays low to the ground and I guide her as I run around. Even though it looks like she's rexing and I'm working hard, it's her that wears out before me and I'm smiling when I finally catch her. Tag was one of my favorite games as a kid.

  ----

  Later that day, after making progress with Puff, I'm quite proud of our efforts. My friends on the other hand are split between awe and underwhelmed as they get a demonstration of the result.

  "That's stupid, it just shines a bit" Hannah criticizes.

  "Come on I worked hard on that---Puff worked hard on that too" I argue, trying to pull a little more praise toward the little bird who is listening in.

  "I think it's great buddy. Hannah's expectations are too high, she's watched too many Grand Festival matches on the TV over there" Zac gives me a high five in acknowledgement.

  "Other people have made multi-yer rotating water disco balls made of high-pressure discs using caustics in contests and you have what, a glittering fog?" Fairy TE+mist=glittering mist apparently, Puff visibly defted at that statement.

  "If I was you I'd at least make shapes with the mist, maybe a couple swords so Ian can hide more" she offers. "My cuties are working on water and fire balls for a game of fetch. Fidough looks so cute running with his stubby legs" she goes and picks up said Pokemon and gives him a squeeze.

  "I'll see what I can do" I say, she is better at this than me. I don't think the catch idea sounds that exciting either though. Just that I wouldn't have thought of something like that.

  We talk about the other trainers and I hear that they have gone back into the forest for more berries. My stocks have been running low so I am thinking about copying them. I hand feed Puff a pecha berry and oil Ian before I head to bed. This time I specify to Ian to make his swords look like him with his swords dance. Honestly, the only reason I gave him so much was to see how much he can get done in a single night.

  Puff settles on Hannah's tent and immediately sets to falling asleep. So far things have been perfect, I can't help feeling anxious about it. Like I'm doing something wrong. Pushing past that feeling I close my eyes, making a short prayer of thanks to Fortuna the Absol of chance. It had been a long time since I had thanked that particur Pokemon.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------

  Over the next couple days I decide to still do periodic battles and bet less. By the day before the challenge Puff has been able to make mist Ians by making the mist denser and even make them do swords dances in a super slow fashion. Our learning speed is on point but everyone else has been working hard too. I lose another 300 pokedolrs to the trainers waiting for after strike week and am getting out-paced on the purely battle front as I focus on visual effects. After pondering some faster ways to teach my partners, I ended up changing the runic makeup of their moves. It was a challenging task, I usually didn't get many practice questions about visual effects from my grandmother but my familiarity with the basic ruins paid off.

  "Good work you two, tomorrow will be hard but we have plenty of time to finish up preparations," I've been having fun. I pyed with them and trained beside them, running and doing some training myself with some push ups or squats when I don't need to direct them. I even figured out a way to get a third pnned team member. In the Pokémon center the touch screens have a trade function and I've been talking with another trainer who is in the right area. She says that she'll catch one for me if I can catch a garian Ponyta for her.

  That's what I'll do tomorrow and we will make the trade the day after my gym challenge. All in all, my time here has worked out splendidly. I feel ready and satisfied with my results until some loud mouth wakes me up the next morning. I slept in about 10 more minutes due to some particurly soft grass and I get startled as "I'm back Max, wake up because this time I'm going to crush you like a side character."

  I get up and give the scrawny dark haired kid an evil gre. "Not now Stew, I have things to do today."

  "No you don't, I asked those two over there and they say you have a gym challenge at 11 tonight and are going to catch a garian Ponyta. In my calcutions including a 3 hour nap you still have two hours of free time if everything takes as long as it possibly could" he says puffing out his chest.

  "Well I'd prefer not to battle you again in my free time today. Try again tomorrow and DO NOT wake me up" I shove him away from our little campsite at his protests.

  10 minutes more of convincing are needed before he agrees "I will be back tomorrow then for a battle at 8 sharp. Don't run away like a coward before then Max Bo or I'll keep chasing you."

  I nod and he walks away, did I just pick up a stalker? Was battling him a bad move on my part? Not like it interferes with my general pn but it was annoying to not wake up naturally.

  In a bad mood from being startled I chase after Puff more aggressively and even pull Ian into it as I try to slice at her in her mist as she makes denser clouds and forms shadows around me. I hear a raspberry blow from behind me and ssh a cloud once more before giving up. "You win, I can't find you. Let's go catch that Pokemon I was telling you about and we can take a break."

  This mist lingers but starts fading as talons grab onto my hair again. The mirror has come in handy and I now have a mohawk which looks cool. I've always wanted to try one but my mom always did my hair the same way. Puff wants to change it already but I extracted a promise from her, keeping my hair to one change every week from now on. I never imagined I would have a mohawk for my first gym challenge but what the heck, I'll chalk it up to bonding if anyone asks.

  I focus back up, and instantly find a Ponyta but he runs away when he senses my intent. As if challenging me to chase him. Puff seems eager to be on the other end of the chase, helping me and slim Ian trap him. He slipped through our net a couple times and ran through at least 4 different battles. A mildly chubby girl with light brown hair and a Milcery gave me the middle finger because I messed up her Pokemon's sor beam but I kept chasing the horse Pokemon. At st, I tapped him with a ball and caught him. After all that effort I know he's going to be a nice addition to my trading partner's team.

  I release him and expin the situation which he doesn't like. When I mention that the girl can take care of him better than I can, he taps his ball and is still unsatisfied with my attempt to expin. Sadly for him, I really want this Pokemon that I'm trading for and I'm sure it will all work out. Worst comes to worst he can run away and find a herd in the wild to join.

  I force Puff into her pokeball so that she goes into a semi-stasis mode and rest while I take a nap for 3 hours like Stew estimated while Ian watches over me. When I wake up it is already 8 pm and my friends wish me luck, saying that they'll go watch when it gets closer to the time for my battle.

  I travel through the city to the gym and sit in a packed waiting room that thins out the ter it gets. The gym runs all night but not everyone is willing to battle te like I am. When I am called, I stop tapping my foot to Sweet Home Abama as it cycled through my head, and walk nervously to the Challenger's Door. "It's just the first one" I tell myself but it doesn't really work at calming me down.

  Can I just get rid of my nerves? Who really needs them anyways?

  My attempts to offload my jittery nerves goes unrewarded.