'Let us begin with your training,' said Celebi. It had been five hours since they entered the fortress isolated in time.

Kuki hadn't heard Celebi speaking. She was busy being distracted by the glyphs that decorated the walls of the courtyards around them. A majority of them were obscured by the mushy untamed moss, and large vines growing from and in the crevices between the structures.

Surrounding them were some rather unsettling realistic looking humanoid stone idols. Some were broken and missing parts, while others were barely intact. Kuki wondered who had the time to make all of them.

'Kuki, are you listening?' Celebi asked, noticing Kuki's absent mindedness.

Kuki twirled her hair. "Huh? Oh, you were saying something about trains?"

Celebi shook her head. 'I can see that you prefer to keep to your human Facade star than your real form. No matter, so long as you can still use your psychic abilities, it'll do.' Celebi motioned Kuki to follow.

"I don't know what the word facade means, but this is my true form, you know? It's how she remembers me." Kuki mumbled under her breath.

'I want observe your psychic capabilities one after the other; I want to know where your strengths and weaknesses lie so that we may improve upon them.'

Kuki's eyes glinted with excitement. "Are you also going to teach me how to breathe fire or maybe…" Kuki threw her arms up and triumphantly, "show me how to shoot lasers and lightning bolts?!"

'I can only teach you how to be a psychic,' Celebi deadpanned. 'And maybe how to be a bug type perhaps. If you want to learn the techniques of other types, you'd have to figure that one out by yourself or find other pokemon to teach you.'

Kuki plopped her arms down and lowered her brows. "I don't wanna be a bug… being one might be fun maybe, but I'd rather be a flying type or something."

'You can be anything you want, but for now…'

Celebi called Kuki's attention to an average sized boulder amongst a pile of rubble. 'Here's what I want you to do. Using nothing but your telekinesis, hover this rock for as long and as high as you can.'

Kuki hummed as she inspected the boulder. She observed that other than it having probably been a worn down part of some statue, it was just a huge rock.

"This thing's half as tall and twice as wide as I am. I've only like raised a ball and a juice box with my powers. I'm not sure if I can…"

'You probably can't, but give it a try nonetheless. I want to see how well you can do during this trial.'

"Alright… I mean, how hard can it be?" Kuki said with a shrug.

The girl drew her arms out as she focused on the rock. A faint blue glow began to spread around it as her psionic abilities manifested. I just have to lift this one rock. Easy, right?

Two minutes had passed and Kuki had yet to manage budge the rock even by an inch. A bead of sweat ran down her cheek as she puckered her lips. Celebi hovered beside her, watching intently; that only made Kuki even more nervous than she already was.

Kuki's eyes flickered when the rock started moving ever, but only ever so slightly. Her heart raced while a smile slowly crept to her face, but things took a sharp turn when the rock suddenly deformed, imploded into a perfect sphere, and then reduced itself into a mound of fine silt.

Kuki's hand trembled, her brain struggling to process what had just transpired. She slowly turned over to Celebi with her eyes begging for an explanation.

'I see, so that's how it is,' Celebi said as she raised a hand to her chin.

"What just happened? Wh—why did… What happened?!"

'What happened was that you reduced a boulder to dust. Why it happened is because your telekinetic abilities are unbalanced and unstable,' Celebi explained, hovering past Kuki.

"Well… How do I make it not be unstable and all that? I don't like the thought of crushing anything I try to carry to bits." Kuki shuddered as she imagined herself doing the same to a large pokemon or a person. "But how come this never happened with the ball back when I was in the lighthouse… before I came here?"

'Lifting a small ball and lifting a boulder five times your mass require different amounts of mental focus.'

Kuki blinked twice. "So, I just need to put more focus into it and I'll be able to make it?"

'It's not as simple as you put it, but it's something like that.'

"That doesn't sound too hard then. I'll try again with that other rock. Just sit back and watch, Celebi!" Kuki said as she trotted over to her second boulder. She exhaled deeply as she cracked her knuckles.

Celebi observed the girl engulf her psychic energy around the boulder. She could tell from the girl's posture and facial expression that she was struggling just as much as before. Yet, Celebi did just as Kuki requested; she stood aside and watched.

Kuki scrunched her face up, her messy hair obscuring her vision partially as she bit on her lower lip. Why isn't this working?! I'm focusing aren't I?

The inevitable finally occurred, and like the previous rock, she crushed her second one to dust as well.

Kuki took a deep breath, wearing a frown as she walked over to yet another chunk of earth, one that looked like a broken off pillar. Her eyes glowed as she tried raising it, but she was met with the same result the previous two attempts.

Kuki groaned as she clasped her hair. NO, I need to calm down. I can do this, I can figure this out. Kuki glanced at Celebi. She's still just floating there staring at me. It's kinda creepy.

An idea came across Kuki's mind, and she sat on the thought a bit for about a minute before nodding to herself. Okay, maybe if I try doing that…

Kuki's body briefly glowed as she morphed her body, reverting to the same half-pokemon form she had the first time she woke up in the lighthouse. A cold shiver ran down her spine as the uncanny sensation of her current form kicked in. It feels so weird being like this again.

The girl found another sizable chunk of earth and walked to it, panting slightly from exhaustion. All this work is making me tired.

I really hope this works, she thought as she ran her palm across her forehead.

Kuki's pupils retracted to slits as she focused her mind on the boulder. She visualized it as a large rubber ball like the one she lifted that day in hopes that it'd be easier for her to levitate.

Kuki used her arms to channel her psychic power onto the boulder. A few seconds passed, and she gasped when the rock began to hover over the ground.

"I can't believe it. I'm actually doing it!" Kuki exclaimed as her hands trembled. She struggled to keep the boulder afloat, causing it to fluctuate back and forth. Even though she wasn't physically holding it, she could still feel the heaviness of the rock.

"ACHOO!"

That one sneeze was all it took to break her focus and bring the boulder hurtling downwards. "Darn it…" Kuki groaned as she rubbed her nose. "I was so sure I had it this time. I wonder why though… that—"

'You suddenly had better control when you shifted forms?' Celebi said, startling Kuki by appearing right beside her.

Kuki tilted her head as she reverted fully back to her human state. "Wait… the form I take has something to do with how well I do?"

'You saw it yourself just now, didn't you? You had far more struggle in your human state than when you took that… transition form of yours.'

"Huh, but why is that?"

'Because of the way humans have evolved, it's very difficult for them to attain psychic abilities like pokemon. That's why few psychics actually do exist among them.'

Kuki scratched her head. "Humans can evolve?"

Celebi glanced at her, then shook her head. 'Right, that word means something much more different in these branches of reality.' She turned around to face Kuki more properly. 'What I meant was that you shouldn't even be able to use your psychic abilities in your human form to begin with, and the only reason you're able to do so now is because you're Mew.'

"Aw, darn it… I'll just be transforming whenever I want to use my powers then."

'No, I think you should continue to train your psychic abilities while in your human form.'

Kuki threw Celebi a confused look. "Huh, but you just said it'll be hard for me to get good that way!" she complained.

'Indeed, and that is exactly why you need to overcome that hurdle the most. Once you've become proficient in your human form, your abilities in your real form will be far more powerful.'

Kuki scratched her cheek. "I guess you do have a point."

'Let me give you a tip. When lifting an object, try to think of it as being a lump of jelly.'

"Jelly? How's that gonna help?"

'It's because your biggest problem is that you're applying too much force onto the rocks. You're not factoring the mass and weight they possess against your sheer power output.' Celebi pulled a block of Earth from the ground in demonstration, causing Kuki to fall agape by how easy she managed it.

'A normal psychic type pokemon would never go through what you're experiencing right now. Most if not all are born with weak psychic power and gradually grow more powerful over time.' Celebi then pointed at Kuki. 'Mew however passed on all of her power into you, meaning you have far more raw psychic power than you normally should with your experience.'

Kuki's eyes followed the chunk of earth as Celebi settled it next to the hole she'd pulled it from. "So, that's why I need to pretend I'm holding jelly?"

Celebi nodded.

"I see…"

Kuki took five steps back, then attempted to levitate the chunk of earth. She momentarily closed her eyes, visualizing a large mound of oran berry jelly. When she opened her eyes again, she furrowed her brows.

The boulder budged a bit, a sharp crack forming across its radius. Kuki's heart rate spiked, but she swallowed her panic and continued to ever so carefully attempt to lift it off the ground.

Smaller cracks spread across it, however, Kuki was thrilled when all of it finally left the ground surface. Bits and pieces of ifell as she raised it higher until it was about five inches off the ground.

'That's enough Kuki,' Celebi said, waving her hand.

Kuki bit her lip as she frowned. "I can still do it. I c—" The boulder then suddenly collapsed to dust like all her previous attempts.

Kuki's face went red. "That's not fair! You distracted me!"

'I did, but you were already at your limit,' Celebi replied, giving the fuming girl a head pat. 'We'll come back to this later. For now, let's go elsewhere and do some meditation.'

"Whaaaat? But that sounds really boring!" Kuki complained.

'Another thing you lack a lot of right now is the ability to concentrate your mind for extended periods of time. Your predecessor had the same problem, but even she could manage to meditate.'

"Mew?"

'If she could stand it, so could you. Now come, let's go,' Celebi said as she hovered down a patheay.

Kuki yawned as she began to walk. "I just hope I don't fall asleep while we're doing it. I always ended up sleeping off whenever Mew tried to make me meditate."

Kuki glanced at one of the humanoid sculptures from earlier. It was just a head, but the face has a strange expression, like it was horrified about something. Kuki shrugged it off, trotting down the pathway to catch up to her mentor.

Sorry about the super duper late update. I'd been swamped with school work these past few months and I spent most of my free time on art, as writing is a low priority for me now. Anyway, I've decided to reduce the word count per chapter moving onward to enable me to continue with the story and eventually finish it.