Helping Hand

"Why are we starting so early?" I asked. The Field Gym looked darker this early in the morning, and only partly because I couldn't get my eyes open. The sun wasn't even up yet—pretty much the definition of "too early to be awake."

Garfield didn't look the least bit sleepy. The man seemed to emanate anger and feed on unhappiness. "I told you yesterday, the type of training you requested requires you to be here from dawn to dusk."

I nodded slowly, fairly certain I heard him correctly. "And why wasn't I allowed to change?" He tilted his head and made a face at the two-sizes-too-small t-shirt I wore, exposing my underdeveloped abdomen and advertising the Mighty Morpheon Rangers—a children's show about eevee pokémon that fight intergalactic monsters. I had to borrow it from one of the other kids because I took advantage of the laundry machines to clean my clothes, which were, frankly, starting to smell like spring water mud, and I didn't have a lot of backup outfits.

"You were late," he answered. "Remember this and never be late again."

"Great." At least I borrowed shorts that fit.

The grass in this indoor field was getting pretty high, like wedgie high. If I'd worn tube socks, my ankles might not be itching so much. But all things considered, the field was really nice and paradoxical, especially considering what happened yesterday. You want to talk about an elephant in the room? After all the trainers finished for the day and headed to dinner, Garfield made me stay back and cut the grass. And if that's what I'd done, there probably would have been no problem, but I thought Reggie could help me do it quickly. I didn't realize that the term "spreading like wildfire" had such a logical origin.

"Where'd the grass come from?" I asked Garfield. "And how'd it get so high?"

"You're worried about your little screw-up?" he asked me.

"A little."

"Make it a lot," he snapped. His expression was as stern as the Elder ever gave me. Worse, probably, because I already knew what the Elder's limits were. "You could have burned the whole building down and killed one of your pokémon. Or worse, you could have killed one of my pokémon."

Wow. Talk about laying it on thick.

"Those are real consequences. Never convince yourself otherwise."

"But they're—"

"Do not finish that sentence if you plan to suggest that killing pokémon, even by accident, is in any way less bad than killing a person."

"That's not what I was going to say," I replied defensively. "They're fire types and water types here. Can't they contain the fire and put it out before it gets that bad? Like they did yesterday. And how is the grass here so lush again? It's like a blanket of golden fleece. I could lie down and sleep in it, if I don't drown in it first."

Now Garfield's expression turned to one of bewilderment, like he couldn't understand how I could worry about the fire I started while simultaneously being obsessed with the billowy grass. He inhaled a really deep breath and released it in a really slow, excruciating sigh. Was he getting ready to call me dog's names again?

"Look over there," he told me, pointing to the far end. Three monkeys with enormous ears were clowning around on the far end of the field. The red one kept picking weeds and berries from the field and scorching them, the blue one kept turning sideways and shaking its furry head to water the field, and the green one kept picking at itself and slapping the field. I checked my pokédex—the sack was the only thing I managed to grab on the way from the dorm—and discovered they were a trio that evolved homologously from a single ancestor. Living in varied environments caused the same species to evolve into three closely related species of the fire-, water-, and grass-type, and apparently they have similar reactions to radiation.

"The pansear, panpour, and pansage over there maintain the field. Together, they can work natural miracles with the soil in here. You think I would trust a newbie with my gym? I just needed a baseline to see how much work I'd need with you and your pokémon."

My mood lightened a bit. That almost sounded inspiring. "So what'd you conclude?"

"You need a lot of work," he declared harshly. "Laps. Five. Right now." I groaned loudly. I hated running, especially by myself and with an angry guy glaring at me the whole time while I wore someone else's clothes that didn't fit me. It didn't go well last time that happened.

This time, I got maybe ten meters when Garfield yelled, "Not you! The pokémon!"

"Oh, them!" Right. Pokémon gym, so I should be training my pokémon. Made sense in hindsight. I opened both pokéballs at the same time, and Reggie and Siggy both popped out to join the party. Reggie definitely looked excited, but I couldn't tell with Siggy. His eyes were just two black spots to me, and he never blinked. Was there actually any way to read his emotions? "You guys ready to do some laps?" They didn't really seem to know what that meant.

"Tell them to follow along," Garfield said. The grass by his feet rustled loudly and two pokémon became visible once they started moving. One was a teddiursa—a growing bear cub that I learned from a young age is not against climbing trees to steal berries and a really cool baseball cap from a frightened child.

But I didn't recognize the other pokémon. It was a canine creature with yellowish fur, somewhat dragging in overall appearance like it didn't want to be bothered moving. Maybe that was because its skin was heavy and gray. Pokédex time!

034-Pauldog

Blaze Pokémon

[Fire] [Steel]

Average Height: 3'10"

Average Weight: 86.4 lb.

The armor worn by this pokémon is actually skin that hardened through development. Folds in the skin hide tiny wings growing near its midsection.

"A pauldog? And a teddiursa. Where'd you get those?"

"I caught them last night. They've already been taught the basics. They will demonstrate how to run laps. Have your pokémon follow." He whistled loudly and issued the single command, "Go!" His two pokémon took to the border of the field, staying just outside the grass while they began running. The teddiursa had small legs and didn't move very quickly, but the pauldog wasn't fast either. Maybe the weight of that armored skin made moving difficult. Reggie could run twice as many laps in the same amount of time as these pokémon.

Siggy, on the other hand…

"Um… Siggy doesn't exactly move quickly."

"Everyone runs laps until the foamert reaches five laps."

I shrugged. "Alright, guys. Let's run circles around this place." It only took me a few steps to leave Siggy behind, but Reggie immediately bolted out in front of me while I started on Lap 1. I really hated running.

"What are you doing?" Garfield called after me.

I waved at him. "I can't expect my pokémon to do something I'm unwilling to do, right?" He simply stood there and folded his arms across his chest. I couldn't believe I was actually able to render him speechless. But was that a good thing, or did it mean he'd make me pay later? Both times in my life I rendered Brooke speechless, I spent the night with ice on my cheeks.

By the time Siggy made it to five laps around the field, Reggie and I ran nine—he actually ran farther in terms of ground space because he kept running out ahead of me and then turning around to come back—the teddiursa ran seven, and the pauldog ran four. Siggy, a gastropod, actually outran a quadruped! What he lacked in ground speed he made up by bucking through the air. I had no idea a foamert was capable of jumping so far.

"Warm-up time is over," Garfield told me. "Your two assignments for this morning are to train the simbder to a repeat performance of yesterday's Flame Charge, and to win at least one battle using that foamert. While you work on Flame Charge, have the foamert run relays, through the grass this time. When that's done, begin training the foamert to use basic attacks. Spend the morning scrimmaging with these two. When other trainers arrive, begin scrimmaging against their pokémon. Now I realize I offered a lot of words in those instructions, many of which contained more than one syllable, so tell me, Growlassie, do you need further details on any of that?"

Another dog's name. Great. I wondered if he even remembered my real name.

But Reggie versus Siggy was an interesting idea. After ten minutes of trying to act out the motions of a Flame Charge with the hope that Reggie would repeat it, I figured he might not know it by that name. I was okay with his Ember attack, though, considering he burned down this entire field just yesterday with it. But I didn't really know what Siggy was capable of except that he was almost as fast moving through the thick grass as I was. I knew he could adapt to the environment in different ways, but I wasn't sure exactly how. We didn't exactly have any natural springs inside here.

"Siggy, use… Body Slam, or something." I just threw out a random attack, but Siggy actually knew that command, and he completed it in a way I'd never seen. Remember when I said he was a good jumper? He actually bounced into the air and spun around like a foaming discus targeting Reggie. Reggie braced himself and backed away, but Siggy actually moved with such speed and accuracy that he collided with Reggie dead-center. Both of my pokémon fell to the ground, wrapped around each other.

"Oh! That had to hurt."

I took a moment to retrieve a potion from the medicine cabinet and spread it between the two. Once we got set up again, I decided to give the dual battle another try. "Siggy, use Tackle! Reggie, use Ember!"

It occurred to me then how confusing it could be for the pokémon to hear two different commands coming from the same voice, even if they weren't intended to. Instead of starting a Tackle, Siggy held his ground for a moment while Reggie built up an Ember attack. It looked like Siggy heard the Ember call and wasn't able to do it, so he just stayed back confused while Reggie blew a pillow of fire at him. I wondered: If Siggy was a normal-type, did the foam bubbles around his skin still dilute the flames?

And then something happened I hadn't expected to see. A second pillow of flames blew into the field—from the other direction. Siggy—somehow—copied Reggie's move exactly, right down to the intensity of the flame, completing the Ember attack he didn't know how to do. Reggie was surprised, too, bracing himself for the flames that did little effective damage to him.

"How in the— I mean, Siggy! What was that?"

"It looked like a Copycat move."

That was the voice of Kelly, another trainer here at the Kalium Field Gym. I met her yesterday after I battled Cesar. She's pretty quiet and nondescript, but certainly nice enough. Brown hair and eyes, shorter than I by half a head, very quiet, but not the avoidant type like Fey was, and with a much darker complexion. She said the least of everyone yesterday, but Cesar didn't mind telling me that Kelly had only come to Kalium Town recently and decided to spend a little time at the Field Gym. She had no desire to earn a Potassium Badge, but she claimed Garfield was one of the best teachers in all of Perioble.

She may have been a little crazy.

"Copycat?" I repeated.

"Yes," Kelly answered. "Just like it sounds, the pokémon mimics the move used immediately before. Your foamert is very adaptable."

"Apparently it is," I agreed as I eyed the enigmatic pokémon. "Nice to see you again."

"You, too. I especially like the t-shirt." I had almost forgotten about the children's show advertised on my shirt. "Am I right to bet you were the one dragged out of the dorm quite noisily this morning?"

"How was I supposed to know Garfield was so stubborn? I tried going boneless in the hallway, but he just hoisted me over his shoulder and carried me outside. He's built like a tauros." Realizing that didn't really make up for it, I added, "Sorry about the noise. I hope you were able to get back to sleep."

The dorm, which I have opted not to describe to this point, was a type of boarding house Garfield owned and offered only to nomadic trainers who enrolled in the gym. A basic, two-story building, it had six rooms available. Besides Kelly and me, there were three other trainers currently enrolled in the gym and staying at the dorm. Garfield had no problem piling up charges on me, including the gym membership and rent, but I took the second option of not paying any of those fees and performing odd jobs around the gym instead. Based on Garfield's grin at the time, I fully expected to regret the decision. Maybe I should have just paid him cash right then.

"It was a good time to get up, anyway," she said, accepting my apology. "I took a shower, fed Kira, and went for a run before heading over here."

Kira is a more noticeable character, and only partly because she has nine tails. She's a giant, three-and-a-half-foot-tall fox pokémon that weighs almost nothing. If she spread her tails wide on a windy day, you'd have to tie a string around her to avoid losing her. If you think to describe her as "light" or "nimble," I might suggest using the word "spooky" instead. Her fur was some kind of silver-purple color, and her eyes burned fiery red. I got the willies just looking at her.

And Siggy was absolutely in love with her. Every time that ninetales sat down, Siggy would wander over to her and start nuzzling her side. I had no clue what the attraction was between my little slug and Kelly's big fox, but I tried to picture what their offspring might look like. The most likely result seemed to be a slimy, fur-less fox with a flowering head, but I suppose they could produce a giant slug with nine, bubbly tails and the ability to walk through walls. Imagine that bringing you the paper in the morning.

"Hey, Kira," I said, trying not to ignore the ninetales and act like it was anything other than a purely sentient being capable of hearing my thoughts and eating my dreams. "Any chance you and Kelly might be interested in helping Reggie train a little?"

"Why Reggie?" Kelly asked. "I'm not declining, but Siggy's obviously in love with Kira."

"That's not really what I look for in a sparring partner," I replied.

She nodded right away. "Are you afraid Siggy won't do anything that might possibly harm Kira?" She narrowed her eyes at me like she was trying to divine some deeper meaning. "Or maybe, you're afraid that forcing him to battle her will cause some emotional scars."

I hadn't considered that possibility because it sounded like psychobabble to me. Guys don't worry about that stuff. "No. Mostly the 'don't hurt the ones you love' thing. Anyway, Kira seems like a good role model for Reggie."

Kelly smirked. "She's older and got more experience. What else?"

"They're both quadrupeds, for one thing," I pointed out. I thought that fact was obvious. What was Reggie going to learn from the biped pansear who spends all day eating bananas and fertilizing the soil? "That's really the big one. She can teach him a few tactics that bipeds don't or can't use."

"Reggie seems like a brawler to me. Kira's a finesse fighter. I got her from my brother, and his favorite approach was to inflict status ailments on the opponent. That way the opponent gets weakened and there's less risk to Kira in the battle."

"That's perfect! Show me something!"

She shrugged. "Okay. Let's have a little battle. Is that okay with you, Siggy?" My little foamert was reluctant to move away from his idol, but he allowed Kira to head into the battlefield with Reggie. I never thought I'd see such a lovesick pokémon, and so far-reaching across species. I don't even think they were in the same phylum.

"Are you ready?" Kelly asked me.

"Reggie sure is," I told her, watching Reggie's furry little butt rise into the air as he readied a pounce.

"Confuse Ray." Nothing happened as far as I could see. Kira poked her nose out and gave a voiceless howl that gave me the willies, but it was hardly an attack.

"Looks like it didn't work. Reggie, use Flame Charge." It was worth a shot. Reggie rushed forward and immediately tumbled over himself. Clearly, one of his legs didn't move when he wanted it to and he tripped over it. "Not this time, either, huh? How about a good, old-fashioned Ember attack?" Reggie inhaled deeply and hiccupped, ultimately causing him to spew a small stream of smoke and a hairball after a moment of hacking. "Eww. Now that was disgusting."

Kelly laughed at me. "You see? The fight's over and Kira hardly even has to participate."

"Man, Reggie. I can't believe you fell for that." Then it occurred to me: What did happen? "How did that happen from a voiceless howl?"

"It's a ghost-type move," she explained. "Some pokémon can't do it imperceptibly like that, but Kira is as subtle as a pokémon can get." No kidding. I didn't see anything. Talk about a trump card!

"I like it. Show me more."

Kelly showed me a bunch of different status ailments to use in battle, most of which Reggie might never be capable of, but I did like the Will-o-wisp idea, burning the opponent so that the skin becomes extra sensitive and each successive attack deals even more damage. We spent all morning with Kira beating the crap out of Reggie as he learned a few new moves the hard way. Afterward, we headed out to get some lunch, with a little side trip to find a more appropriate shirt for my size, and happened upon Cesar at the diner next to the Pokémon Center. We grabbed a couple of sandwiches and plopped down on the porch table.

"This is a good place to go because the Pokémon Center is right there," Cesar told me. "Your pokémon gets tired of letting Kira kick its butt, you just pop over and let them heal your pokémon while you grab the best sandwich this side of the Cobalt Desert."

"I don't understand that as a compliment," I replied jokingly. "That suggests there is a better sandwich on the other side of the desert. Why take up residence in this town that only boasts the second best sandwich?"

He just grinned at me. "What can I say? I love bananas."

"Fair enough. Hoping the next story is more exciting… How'd you end up here, Kelly?"

She was much more bashful. "Chance, really. I'm just a wanderer right now."

"Tell him about your brother," Cesar chimed in. As if telling the story for her, he turned to me and said, "Her brother went out to become this big shot trainer. He was really good, too, but he decided he couldn't stand spending so much time in small towns like this one when he could spend it in the hustle and bustle of Ferrum City. Luckily he had so much trouble letting go of Kira that he decided to let his baby sister take her instead."

"Not baby sister," Kelly argued, red-faced as she did so. "He loved Kira a lot and didn't want to let her go, but he also couldn't take care of her anymore. He was way too busy." The look in her eye suggested major nostalgia.

"That's what convinced you to start training, wasn't it?"

She nodded. Obviously receiving that ninetales from her brother was as big an event for her life as it was for her brother's. Suddenly she leaned over the table and shouted in a whisper, "Kira!" Across the street from our table, Kira was busy digging in the dirt by the base of a tree that I was pretty sure was a giant banana during the festival. This time, it was just a regular ash.

Whatever was under there, Kira really didn't want to stop. "Haha," I mocked in a friendly way. "Your pokémon is making a mess."

Red-faced, she shifted the spotlight to me when she asked, "What's that pile of orange fur over there?"

Come to think of it, I had been able to go five minutes in a row without Reggie begging for a piece of my sandwich. He was right next to Kira, also just digging away. "Reggie!" On my word, he immediately stopped and bounded toward me like he thought maybe, this time, just once, I'd drop my sandwich for him. Kelly had to get up and walk over to Kira physically to make her stop digging. (There wasn't anything down there, anyway.) Kira wasn't so easily swayed by hopes of people food.

"That's the only problem she sometimes has," Cesar told me. "Her brother was a trainer a lot longer than her, so sometimes Kira doesn't listen because she's just got a lot more experience battling. But most of the time they get along fine."

"Why wouldn't she listen all the time?"

Cesar looked at me like I'd asked him what two plus two was. "If the pokémon knows more than you, it doesn't want to listen. Think of it this way: Would Garfield take orders from you?"

"Maybe if I peppered it with a few nicknames like Your Highness or Lord Temporal of Lore."

"Hey, guys?" Kelly called. She had withdrawn Kira into a pokéball and had her feet pointed toward the Pokémon Center. "I think Kira's feeling a bit ill, so I'm going to head over to the Center."

Images of Reggie flying through the air on fire crossed my mind. He did have a rough morning. "Good call," I decided and followed behind. But first, I took the remainder of my sandwich and stuffed it in my mouth. Cesar was right about one thing: It was a good sandwich.

The Pokémon Center was probably going to be a frequent spot for me as a trainer. I'd already visited three times since yesterday, and that was all before training directly with Garfield began. In fact, I was starting to memorize the nurse schedules. Katie, whom I'd met on my first trip to the building, worked a second-half shift—an eight-hour shift starting around lunch time.

"Hey, Gus!" she said and offered me and my cohort a big, pretty smile. Lunch was probably going to be my favorite time to visit. "I've got great news for you." She fished around on the desk for a moment before whipping a file folder at me. "Your application for sponsorship was accepted!"

"Sponsorship?" I repeated, somewhat confused at first. "Oh, right. The money thing. But who would…?" My voice trailed off as I read the acceptance letter, basically stating that my essay caught their attention and they wished to see what I could do as a trainer. It looked like a form letter for an organization, but I didn't recognize the name. "What's Team Omega?"

"Team Omega is sponsoring you?" Kelly asked, checking the paper.

"Congratulations, dude," Cesar told me and clapped me on the back. "That's awesome. Team Omega is like a scouting organization for trainers."

"You're close," Katie said. "Team Omega does recruit a lot of trainers, but their real claim to fame is technology. They're known for being an organized group of archaeologists, often finding and restoring technology from ancient civilizations. They're the ones who patented the technical machine system that a lot of people use to teach their pokémon new moves. Trainers help them advertise their product and test their new equipment, but they also get called on to help with excavation of new sites."

"Really?" I asked. "How can pokémon trainers be helpful to archaeologists?"

"Pokémon can be a lot more controlled and gentle in their movements than people generally are. They can dig up an entire collection of fossils, for example, in only a few weeks without damaging the bones when completing the same task might take people months or even years. Something about your application really caught their eye." She winked at me. "I think you're going to be a pretty special trainer one day."

I smiled back at her and accepted my good fortune on the surface, but it just seemed odd to me. After getting kicked out of my home for being cursed, and then the old man threw me out and the gym leader here decided to treat me like a dog, suddenly someone who never even met me had faith in my future?

Team Omega. I'd love to meet the man who made that decision.

Thanks to RavenSong314 for contributing Kelly Rhodes to help Gus's early development. He'll spend two weeks in the gym learning how to battle like a real trainer. We'll skip the narrative of all that time because I don't want to bore you with the daily minutia when I could do it with a story on a grander scale. I can't skip every detail, though (wink).

Trivia: pauldog = pauldron (a component of plate armor) + dog (a quadruped with a long tongue and an overactive salivary gland)
Foamert is a little bit like a ditto in design, but foamier and without the shape-changing ability.