After getting tired from lugging everyone around, I had everyone practice what they could while only one of them rested. Ian was still working on wide guard and was making more significant progress, there was a particur main formation that was originally a circle that he changed to a triangle with a squiggly Y shaped internal rune at my insistence, triangles are a strong shape.

  Puff worked on dragon rush and was zooming through the skies while calling upon her dragon heritage. She was trying to keep up both agility and tailwind at the same time in a valiant effort, but she made better progress on the move without it. I supported her and encouraged her to keep working on them at the same time. Later on it would be best to have better multi-tasking skills.

  Fly was different, she didn't understand exactly what practice was and each time she would only practice for a short while before running around like crazy with electrically enhanced steps before begging for food. Those energized sprints were so wasteful they took away from learning spark. She was supposed to be working on concentrating and shooting that electric TE out. Because of that, training was slow going.

  When Fly was taking her break in my arms, we still hadn't been attacked yet. It was a normal forest on this side but with more spaced out trees that were shorter. I decided to call my family, feeling like a terrible son for not calling sooner.

  I remembered the phone number, the ending 4321 helped a lot. It rang for a couple seconds before someone answered. "Sawk?"

  "It's me Sawk, Max" I heard him call out and a little while the phone was passed to my mother.

  "Hello dear, are you feeling ok? Are you recovering well?" she seemed concerned and was trying to lightly scout out how I was.

  "I'm doing fine, I actually got out of the hospital already."

  "Why are you out of the hospital! YOU ALMOST DIED!" my grandpa grabbed the phone and shouted into it. Like in the letter, he wanted me to be safe first and foremost(being alive is kind of a prerequisite in my eyes).

  "I'm fine grandpa, I made a full physical recovery with the help of skilled healers and doctors. I am traveling to the Colosseum on route 9 right now" I expined as Ian floated over.

  "I've heard you talk about the Colosseum before but what is it kid?" he asked.

  "Later Ian, yes the letters were luckily alright. They were protected by my nice clothes, sorry mom" my grandmother had heard me I knew, her skill multiplied every physical aspect making her much like a weaker Sawk. She asked for the phone before getting down to what she considered important, my flow. After some more expining to specify, I figured out she meant the flow of energy through my body.

  "It's mostly good, buuuut I can't get any superpowers. Is that a big deal?"

  There was a long silence at the other end. I then heard some whispers like they were discussing something.

  It was my mom that picked up the ndline once more "It will be hard to work around dear. Will you at least be able to get the toughness part through your connection?" I affirmed her question and there was a sigh of relief. "That's great dear, by the way how did your first challenge go?"

  We talked about the challenge for a while. My mom seemed disappointed that my recording of it had been lost with the destruction of my st pokedex. She proudly stored Liam and Aubree's recording chips and an old pokedex in the living room of the house under all the other recording chips from our family. The open space she had shown me before I left would go empty until I could figure out how to get it again or retry the gym next year. My grandmother hopped back on one st time to give some advice and then walked off to go help the neighbors fix their section of the vilge barrier.

  When the call finally ended I wished them a safe month and was told to be safe myself in some rather strong words by grandpa. I then picked up where I left off and giving pointers while jogging with a carefully held Pokemon(the bumpiness of their vehicle was noted and then ignored). We kept going until nightfall on the dirt road but didn't face any Pokémon just yet. I kept looking around warily, there must have been something up for this to have happened. In my focus on the surroundings I noticed that Spritzee smell once more and turned quickly. There was no one there.

  Ian floated near again and repeated his question about our destination.

  "The Colosseum is what it sounds like for the most part, a bunch of Timburr and Gurdurr worked together to build it and it has been a home to fighting and dark types ever since. My grandmother was also born and raised there by the cn" I take out a water bottle and drink from it, free compliments from the hospital. I should have Puff learn rain dance someday, or at least enough to refill water from. I will have to cross a desert.

  "Well then why are we going there, you could have saved time by trading like with Fly" he pointed out.

  I took a moment to consider his words "Honestly, I didn't particurly want anything specific in my Electrike. For your next teammate I do. Adding on some advice I was given, I want to catch this one myself."

  We continued talking, Ian wasn't too knowledgeable about the wider world but I knew what my family told me at least. Puff joined in on the conversation through Ian, she was bugging me to spill what species I was going to catch. She wanted a sleeker companion like a hisuian Lilligant or a Bziken. Both were good options, fitting with the rest of my team nicely but they weren't it. Fly started yapping at Ian to transte for her too but he ignored her.

  Puff flew over to nd on Fly's head to comfort her from the rejection of her choices. She began guessing secondary types but I only answered that there wouldn't be any overp on my team except for dragon if I ever got an opportunity to catch a Tyrunt. She huffed but then went back to training when I tossed her a snack.

  I had Fly try to hit Puff with spark. The move was able to come out in a straight line from her head but she had problems when aiming elsewhere. In the end I had both Ian and Fly try and corner Puff to give her any sort of challenge when we stopped for the night. Fly ended up getting her by changing the focus point of the move from her head to her mouth, gaining better control over the direction it was aimed and bsting the flyer. That's where I ended it as Puff seemed to get hurt pretty badly from that hit. One potion squeeze was thankfully enough to heal her injury and I oiled Ian for the night before going to sleep.

  Puff was roped into being a pillow just this once, since I 'almost died' Ian transted. I had a nice night except being woken up once when Fly shifted too close to me and shocked both human and pillow with her static ability. This disadvantage would go away when I made a connection with her and built up a resistance for her typing but until then the little snuggle puppy needed to stay on the other side of the fire.

  Or at least until the morning apparently as she had wormed her way to within a foot of me by the time I woke up. Ian was proud to show me his completed wide guard, it was a full 6 feet tall triangle shape and would cover me in case I needed it. He tried to get another 'lube job' but I only let him siphon some energy from me. I am not going to encourage being a creep on my team.

  We kept walking, mixing in some jogging as much as I could until we ran into our first Pokémon. It was a Misdreavus, and it was dead.

  Fly walked up and sniffed it before trying to lick it, thank god I snapped at her before she got cursed or something worse. Ian pced his ribbon on it before dragging it off the path. Puff looked on with sadness and I reminded everyone to be on the lookout. The bite marks leaking dark energy suggested a Houndour or Poochyena and signaling that we had left the area that fairy types hung around. I didn't know why it was killed, but something around here didn't care for intruders or wanted the small pearls that hung around its neck as many were missing.

  Good advice because about 20 minutes ter we ran into a pack of Houndour. Led by a big Houndour that I almost mistook for a Houndoom, there were 5 of them and they looked pretty well fed. One of them even had a bit of a belly to it.

  "Wide guard, setup moves, Fly use spark and hide behind the wide guard when recharging. Ian stay safe from their fire attacks." My first time against a group was starting well. I felt uneasy, probably because of their unnerve ability but it wasn't too bad.

  They spread out and the leader started coming from our right, I set my bag behind the wide guard and pulled out my new knife. Upgraded from before for a cost of 160 pokedolrs I now had a cleaver, this particur one was more pointed but had some weight to it. We were outnumbered and I needed a weapon other than Ian to make the most of the fighters we had.

  Ian had already set up three wide guards in a row with gaps in between and setting up a swords dance. Puff was shooting out hyper voices with Fly. The Houndours were breathing out embers at us that did mostly nothing to the wide guard, the bigger one was hindered by its greater weight and slower than the others so it wasn't a beta else I'd be running immediately. Those monsters were supposed to be a minimum fourth badges from what Henry told me.

  I definitely don't think we could handle that yet. When they reached us I brought my knife down on a smaller one, digging into its back. Ian covered behind me and got the bigger one. It wined and its momentum carried the knife to slice its full back up. It ran away to lick its wounds.

  I gnced to Fly who was rolling around with another. The others were taking care of Puff, missing with embers and distracted. Moving towards them I attracted attention and they blew the fmes at me. I sidestepped the telegraphed attack but got burned by the follow-up. My right leg got hit and it hurt as I hid behind one of the wide guards.

  I slipped through the gap again once they stopped and went to help out Ian who was in a melee that I could help in. He was dancing around the slower pokemon like with the Scream Tail and keeping it away from the rolling dog fight. His ability was helping him nd more hits but the ones the Houndour nded rang worryingly loudly. I punched it in the snout and sliced sideways. It hit the bone pte cap and screeched as I dragged it along, Ian started furry cutting it and was successful in knocking it out with my help shortly thereafter. I was too close for ember and Ian jumped in for any close up moves.

  Successful we split up, Fly was in trouble and getting her paw chewed up while pinned even though her attacker was freezing every now and again in paralysis. I picked it up off her and smmed it on the ground. That was enough to make it run away. I balled Fly and looked over to see the final two running. I grabbed my bag and went to help everyone.

  Fly was whimpering when she was released and I picked her up after healing her, using my bnket as I had been to dampen the static. Soon enough she was back to normal and hanging her tongue out to the side.

  "You're fast Fly, next time don't rely on your ability that much" she looked at me and shook her head. I furrowed my eyes "What do you mean no? You are fast." Once more she shook her head, she closed her eyes and I got shocked. She looked at me and then closed her eyes again, shocking me once more.

  "She says she likes using it" Ian transted. She bared her teeth in what could be called a smile and her tail wagging picked up.

  "How about thunder wave then? You know that move" she shook her head again.

  "It's not the same."

  I was at a loss, static wasn't supposed to travel very far and getting close would negate what I pnned for her. "I'll try to think of something, just keep practicing spark for now, you missed quite a lot."

  I turned to look at the knocked out Pokemon including the huge one. A huge variant like the Houndour would have been a good addition but I didn't want it long term. It was too slow, and I would get Pokémon I liked more that were slow.

  Trading it was possible but there was a high likelihood it would escape before we reached somewhere I could. Like with Ponyta, wilds didn't like being traded to someone who hadn't caught them themselves most of the time. Electrike were one of the exceptions to the rule as they were highly loyal to humans in general rather than particur people and were good family pets. The girl I traded with had mentioned Manectric parents walking around with their litters in the streets, looking for trainers they deemed pure or nice enough to take care of their children.

  When we stopped to rest again we had fought 4 solos and no other packs. A variety of types this time too so it was a good experience and fun to sing along after my little songbird while teaching her some older songs. I cleaned Ian after careful consideration, he was always really quiet during the cleanings so it wasn't too creepy weird to do. After which, I hid behind grandpa's letter and the cards wishing me to get better soon that I forgot to read st night.

  I particurly focused on two lines with his air enhanced with energy idea.

  That could work. I mentioned it to Fly and she seemed to like the thought behind it. My original idea for her would shift but I think I could still do both.

  I then burned the letter, its purpose served and knowledge retained. I looked at the card then, the ones from Zac and Hannah were simple pieces of paper but had notes in each. Hannah dropped the bet and told me that I better get back up again, joking about how she couldn't handle Zac alone. Zac's was more focused on actually telling me to get better and that he'd show me around Darkuf when I woke up.

  Henry's was next and it barely had anything in it but it sounded like pleading for me to get back up even though it was formally worded. I had gotten a new pokedex with the phone addition for 1000 pokedolrs. It wasn't cheap but now that I knew about the function it would save me money in the long run if it didn't break again. Some of the money went towards a case so it would be protected a bit more. The rest of the repcements cost 1380 pokedolrs so I was well into spending my insurance money, mostly for repcement pokeballs and potions.

  The final two cards were Stew and that Chloe person. Stew's had some thickness to it as a full pop-out revealed itself with cheery music and a cheesy quote in addition to his signature. Chloe Starms expined that she owned the Sneasel that helped me. Hers was very pin, made out of notebook paper and markers with a good hand drawing of a Growlithe and Arcanine snuggling. I'd have to thank her for having her Pokemon step in when I saw her, if I can recognize her.

  I turned in for the night after jotting down some ideas and recording a drawing of furry cutter's structures. I directed Ian to work on feeling the difference between ghost and dark energy in shadows as well during his watch. I gazed up at the stars and saw a clear view. I imagined the stars connecting, making shapes that fed and powered a powerful move and wondered if that was how consteltions were first thought up. I fell asleep to the breathing of the puppy sleeping on me with an extra pair of clothes in between us.

  My dreams were of a floating Manectric. One that dashed across the sky on dark but puffy clouds.