Chapter 3

The silver Eevee slowly opened her eyes and notice that her father was still wrapped around her. She figured she must have woken up early because of her excitement. She wondered if it would be a good idea to leave now so that her parents wouldn't see where she was going.

Feeling impatient, she got up and slowly crept out of the bush so to not wake her parents. When she got out she noticed that the sun was barely out. It really was early.

Deciding not to let that stop her she headed in the direction of the human.

Once she got there she notice that she could only see the tent that the human slept in.

'She must still be sleeping,' she thought. The silver Eevee decided to go inside the tent and see for herself. She realised that she was right when she got inside and saw Lisa sleeping.

Figuring that it was best not to wake her up, she curled up next to Lisa and decided to try and get some extra sleep before training.


The Silver Eevee woke up to the feeling of someone stroking her fur. She opened her eyes and saw Lisa looking down at her, smiling.

"Good morning," she said. "So you got up early to see me. Are you that excited to get some training done?"

The silver Eevee nodded with a smile.

"Well then, let's get something to eat first. We can't train on an empty stomach." the human got up, picked up her bag and walked out the tent with the Eevee following close behind.

Once they got out Lisa poured some of that delicious food that the Eevee ate when they first met, into a bowl and placed it down in front of her. She immediately began eating the food as the human pulled something out of her bag and started eating herself.

Once they were done the human took the bowl and they started walking through the forest. The Eevee followed, wondering where she was going. Suddenly she stopped in a random open space in the middle of the forest.

"Here seems like a good spot to do some training," she said pulling out a Pokéball. "Houndoom, I choose you."

She threw the Pokéball and in a flash of light, the Houndoom suddenly appeared.

"Houndoom use Crunch to brake that branch in half," the human commanded pointing at a tree in the distance.

The Houndoom charged right at the tree. He jump up in the air and bit right into the branch, breaking it in half, it landing on the ground. The human picked up the thick piece of wood and stuck it into the ground.

"Alright. The first thing I want you to do is to hit this branch with your tackle attack."

'That's it?' thought the Eevee. She knew how to do tackle easily. She didn't need any help with that.

"Come on," the human said encouragingly. "Show me what you got."

Figuring the human has some idea of how to train Pokémon, she charged at the branch, hitting it full force. The branch didn't budge.

"Again," the human commanded.

Confused, the Eevee backed up and did it again, and again and again. She wasn't exactly sure how many times she did it, all she knew is that she did it until she started to feel exhausted.

"Ok, stop."

The Eevee stopped and looked up at the human.

"Take a rest now." she said as she pulled out the grey and silver bottle and started spraying her with it. "Once you have recovered, we can continue."


After what seemed like a few minutes, the silver Eevee stood up, feeling ready to continue.

The human noticed her getting up and looked at something on her wrist. "It's only been 30 minutes. Are you sure you are ready to continue?" she asked.

The silver Eevee nodded, feeling determined.

"Ok, now we are going to see if we can learn quick attack. When you're ready, try and hit this branch with one."

'Finally,' she thought. Something that she didn't know and wanted to learn. Right away she went charging at the branch, trying to hit it with her head even harder than when she was using tackle. Like before, the branch didn't budge.

"Ok, I want you to try again," said the trainer, looking serious at her.

The silver Eevee back up and hit the branch exactly like she did last time with no change. The silver Eevee felt disappointed.

"Ok, I think I see what you're doing wrong," Lisa said. The silver Eevee looked up at the human, curious as to how she could know what she was doing wrong in such a short amount of time. The human pulled out another Pokéball. "Pikachu, go." in a flash of light, a yellow Pokémon with red cheeks and black tips on its ears, appeared. "Pikachu, use quick attack on that tree."

The Pikachu went charging at the tree, Lisa pointed to. In a flash, he collided into the tree, causing it to shake.

"Thanks Pikachu, return," a red beam shot out of the Pokéball and the Pikachu disappeared. "See when you try to use quick attack you are trying to hit harder. The point is not to try hitting hard but to go faster and by doing that, you will hit harder. Do you understand?" she asked.

The silver Eevee nodded.

"Good," she said smiling. "Then let's try it again."

Feeling more determined than ever, she charged at the branch but unfortunately there was no change.

"Not bad. Keep trying."

The silver Eevee kept charging at the branch like she did before with little to no difference. After another fail, she felt discouraged but decided to give it one more go. She backed up, took a deep breath and started running as fast as she could. She noticed something different this time. She was going a lot faster. She also noticed a white glow started to surround her.

As she was about to hit the branch she closed her eyes and heard something snap. She immediately stopped and opened her eyes. She turned around and notice that the branch had broken in half.

"You did it!" The human said, coming over and started rubbing the Eevee's head, affectionately. "That was good. The only thing you did wrong was you closed your eyes before hitting your target. This time I want you to run around and see if you can do it and don't close your eyes, ok?"

She nodded and began charging back and forth, practicing what she had just done. Like before she kept running back and forth until Lisa told her to stop. She had done the move successfully at least 15 times so she felt really proud of herself. The human brought out something for her to eat and told her to rest. When she was recovered, they would work on her swift attack.


"Ok, I think that's enough rest. Are you ready to practice your swift attack?"

The silver Eevee nodded excitedly.

"Alright, fire your swift attack at that tree." she said, gesturing at a tree.

The silver Eevee quickly fired a swift attack at the tree. It didn't last very long as the stars eventually fizzled out.

"Again."

She fired again and only a few stars fired from her mouth and eventually they fizzled out as well.

"I see your problem." Lisa said. "You're trying to fire the attack right away but the problem is that since you're so inexperienced in gathering energy, you don't produce enough power to make many stars or even powerful enough stars, for them to last long."

The silver Eevee nodded. It made a lot of sense the way she explained it. No wonder she could never beat her friend when she battled him. His father probably taught him quite a bit about gathering energy.

"Alright, I want you to focus on gathering energy. Don't fire until you're sure you have enough, ok?"

The Eevee nodded and began gathering energy. After a while she fired a swift attack that was twice as powerful then the other swift attacks she had fired previously. Encouraged by her success she continued to gather energy and fire until Lisa told her to stop.

"Ok, you're doing well," she said, sounding pleased with their success. "But you can't take that much time gathering energy in a real battle because they will probably have more experience gathering energy and will hit you first, right?"

The Eevee gave her a nod.

"So I want you to continue to do what you're doing. Don't fire until you think you have enough energy but see if you can gather energy faster."

She began doing just that. At first it took her a lot of time to gather energy but after a long time of doing it, she eventually started to get faster at it. Not as fast as she would have liked but fast enough so she would be able to keep up a bit with her friend.

"Ok, that's enough." Lisa said after a long time of practicing. "You have trained enough for today. It is going to get dark soon. Get some sleep tonight and we will see how good you are after a good night's rest."

Feeling like she needed to get some rest, the Eevee nodded to both Lisa and the Houndoom and started to slowly walk home, not having the energy to run.


Once she got back, her mother noticed her and immediately got concerned at how tired the Eevee looked.

"What happened to you?" she asked.

"Nothing," she said. "I was just playing with the human. I am tired. I think I will head to bed now."

"Well your dad should be home soon. Just wait a moment and he will bring food."

"I'm not really hungry. I really think I need to get some sleep."

Her mother was still concerned but eventually she nodded. "Well, goodnight."

"Goodnight." the silver Eevee chirped. She then got into the bush, laid down and passed out almost immediately.


When she woke up the next day she let out a big yawn and slowly opened her eyes only to see both her mother and her father staring at her. She guess that she must have woken up early again. She stood up and had a big stretch.

"Morning dad," she said with a smile.

"Morning?" he questioned. "It practically midday."

The silver Eevee's eyes widen. "Really? I've got to go!" she began running out of the bush.

"Hold it!"

She immediately turned around to see both her father and mother staring at her.

"When I got home you were passed out before even eating." her father said, obviously concerned. "What did you do yesterday that got you so exhausted?"

"I told mother when I got home yesterday, I was playing with Lisa." she said trying to sound as convincing as possible. Her father gave her a look that told her he wasn't buying it. The silver Eevee knew that she had to get out of this conversation quick.

"Look, I'll talk about it later but right now I have to go and see Lisa. She has two more days here and then she is going. I want to spend as much time as I can with her."

"Wait!" her father called but it was already too late. The Eevee had started heading in Lisa's direction.


"There you are. I was wondering when you were going to show up," Lisa said with a smile when the Eevee suddenly appeared. She reached into her bag to get some food for the Eevee. "I guess you're not use to training so hard. Come on, eat up and we will use the rest of the day we have left to train."

She quickly ate her food. She didn't realise how hungry she was, until she started eating. Once she had finished, they then headed to that part of the forest they were yesterday and she began training. She brought out the Houndoom like yesterday to watch and she began working on her quick attack. She found her being a bit more successful then she was the other day. Now that she had someone to give her some guidance, she was able to succeed where she had failed before.

After she was tired from the quick attack training, Lisa told her to rest before she practices her swift attack. While she was resting she noticed that Houndoom was laying down and she decided to go over and talk to him. Maybe he can tell her if she was doing alright with her training.

"Hey."

Houndoom looked down at her with a blank expression on his face. "Hello."

"So…. How do you think I am doing?" she asked.

The Houndoom stared at her for a while, not changing his expression. "How do you think you're doing?"

"Well I don't know," she said calmly but she was feeling a little irritated on the inside. She hated it when people were not direct.

"If you don't know then you can't be doing that well, can you?"

"Hey," she said annoyed. "I think I am doing well for someone who hasn't had much experience or training."

The Houndoom gave her a smile. "Then there is your answer."

The silver Eevee's annoyance disappeared when she realised what the Houndoom was doing and gave him a smile. They sat next to each other for a while until the silver Eevee remembered a question that she had always wanted to have answered.

"So how did you meet Lisa?"

The Houndoom stared at her for a bit. The silver Eevee hoped that she hadn't asked something too personal.

"You remember that story that she told you when you met her? About when she was young and went into the forest on her own. She got attacked by a wild Pokémon?"

The silver Eevee nodded, wondering where he was going with this.

"Well I was the Pokémon that attacked her."

Her eyes widened. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"When I was younger I was told that all humans were bad so when I saw this human walking around in the forest I didn't trust her."

'Sounds like how my dad taught me about trainers.' she thought.

"I attacked her but before I could do anything bad, the human's dad came along. He battled me with one of his Pokémon. I lost and he caught me."

The Eevee was surprised to hear that Lisa didn't catch the Houndoom herself. The way that he respected her, she thought that that's how they would have met.

"The whole time I was with that man, I didn't listen to a word he said. I still didn't trust humans. I even tried to leave a couple of times but I felt a strange pull stopping me," he said with a bit of amusement in his voice. The silver Eevee wondered what he found funny about this story. "So he was going to release me back into the forest but apparently, Lisa asked if I could be her first Pokémon when she was old enough to be a trainer."

This caught the silver Eevee's attention. She leaned in closer, wanting to know where the story was going.

"So when she was old enough, her father gave me to her. At first I didn't listen to her either. All I wanted to do was leave and go back into the wild. Then one day a trainer challenged her to a battle. She used me but I didn't listen to her and thought I could win the battle on my own. I ended up getting beaten pretty badly. I woke up in a place where they recover Pokémon. I saw Lisa waiting right by my side. She stayed up until I had recovered. I realised that she actually cared about Pokémon and since then we have been friends."

"Wow," said the Eevee. "She really does care about Pokémon, doesn't she?"

The Houndoom smiled. "She does. As we travelled together I saw how she connected with Pokémon and made friends with everyone she caught. Though one thing surprises me."

"What?" she asked curiously.

"How much she likes you." the silver Eevee's eyes widened. What was so special about her?

"She really seems to think that you are a good Pokémon," said the Houndoom, as if sensing what she was thinking about. "She sometimes asks me how I think you are doing when we are on journeys together. She makes sure to come and visit you and even now she is training you. Maybe she relates to you because of how you're both adventurous or maybe she sees that you could be a strong Pokémon. Whatever the reason, she makes sure to see you after every journey."

This made the silver Eevee smile. Lisa did think about her when she wasn't here. She hoped that if she was ever caught by a trainer, it would be someone like Lisa.

"Thanks for telling me that," said the silver Eevee.

"No problem." replied the Houndoom.

"Hey," Lisa called. "If you have enough energy to talk, then you must be ok to train. Come on, let's work on your swift attack."

"Yes," called the Eevee. She got up, feeling a lot of motivation to work hard, for all the effort that Lisa was putting into her. They worked hard on her swift attack. Like with her quick attack, she found that she was having more success today. She did this until she got tired and Lisa told her that she better go home and how they will train differently tomorrow.

The silver Eevee walked home like she did yesterday but this time she stayed up till her dad got home with food so they wouldn't be suspicious, like they were earlier today. After she finished eating she went right to the bush and slept, waiting for the training she would be doing tomorrow.