Edit(ed) by: Andrizzi
"What? You are saying you're connected to him, as well?"
I nodded.
"I checked a few times. He is 'him', but still a part of me. This is confusing."
"Emergence?"
"What?"
"You don't know what it is? It's when a system becomes more than the sum of its parts. For example, how many tiny brain cells can produce intelligence."
"Then yes. You see, I can feel at times what he does, and I can hear him when he talks to me in his mind. There is no telepathy or psychic power involved, though. If that is true, though, I should be able to feel what he feels whenever I choose," I responded, testing this by concentrating on him.
To my surprise, it worked, and I could feel the fluffy carpet against 'my' fur. Weird.
"Maybe it's because I'm using part of my psychic energy to do this?"
Lino just shrugged.
"Could be. Though that also means were you to continue this, you would have ears and eyes everywhere, and that quite literally."
"Yeah," I agreed, then realized something.
"Wait. This isn't emergence. This system gains more parts, and the newer parts stay part of the old and are made from the old. Is there a name for that?"
"No idea, probably not. Which of your pokémon will you bring when you come to the arena, anyways?"
"All of them. I will fight with Kyo and Fujita and Skylar with each other, they are about the same strength."
Since Fujita wasn't here at the moment, she did not speak up. I wanted her to stay with Kyoyhoa this day, as the two were training today together with the others.
{What are you doing?} Skylar asked me, seeing me pushing around a berry with my psychic powers.
{I'm trying to make them smaller without bursting them, but it seems like it isn't working. I found out that when I press them out though, their juice has nearly the same effect as the whole berry, for example, the healing effect of the sitrus berry.}
The riolu blinked, then shook her head.
{Of what use would that be?}
{To use them in battle.}
Her hand came crashing down on an ice block Hoseki conjured up earlier, then she ducked, evading Fujita.
I noticed that Kitsune was watching us when she spoke up.
[Fight?]
I groaned.
{Please talk. Only I can hear you like that.}
{…so?}
I nodded.
[Ok.]
I facepalmed, hard.
By now, I was used to visiting Imai regularly. After school ended, I made my way over to the electric gym, finding him on his way to the park.
"Hey, Imai."
{Adam. Do you need me for something?}
"Not really, but how do you get a pokémon that can communicate psychically to use its voice?"
He blinked in surprise.
{What warrants this question is something I can guess. But how did he even get such an ability? I thought vulpix is exclusively fire-type.}
"Kyo's a dark-type and can still learn many psycho-moves, so that argument doesn't really hold any weight."
{True. I'd try giving him something to look for when he does as you ask.}
Idea…
{I'm beat.}
{That's the idea behind that,} I commented, bringing a few bowls filled with water over.
{Kyo?}
I turned to the amaura.
{What is it?}
{Lino said you'd fight me, is that true?}
{Depends,} I said, setting aside the bowl I already drank half out.
{He wants to take you to a new arena nearby and asked me to come. If you want to fight me is up to you,} I explained, picking up the berries from a nearby shelf and eating a few of them.
[Berry!]
{Which one do you want?}
[Red!]
{How about this: I'll give it to you when Hoseki can tell me which one you mean, okay?}
[Ok! Hoseki?]
Of course, he didn't hear him.
[Hoseki!]
Still, nothing.
[Hoseki! Blue dino!]
{[Hoseki!]}
Now, he turned to him and looked at him, wondering what he could want.
{Yes, little one?}
{Red berry!}
He turned to me.
{I take it he wants a cheri berry.}
I nodded, that was the only red berry I had given him yet.
As such, I pulled over the berries and gave him one of them, having split it in half beforehand so he could drink the juice in it.
{Good idea.}
{Thanks. By the way, will you two come with me to the next gym? It's against a ghost trainer,} I said, turning to Skylar and Fujita.
{Wouldn't we be useless there? She could at least do some damage,} Skylar said, gesturing to Fujita.
I smirked.
{And what if I told you one can attack ghost pokémon with fight attacks?}
Her eyes grew wide.
{Really? How?}
{Pokémon have a unique energy in them. It is what we use for our attacks, or how you can speed up when you use quick attack. That energy is the same in all pokémon, and as such, when you focus on this energy instead of the ghost pokémon, you can harm them.}
Then, I got serious.
{However! That does also mean we can't say if you managed to do that until we fight against the gym leader! So, you should concentrate on other attacks as well, those that will always affect ghosts.}
{Which attacks would that be?}
{Let me look,} I responded, going in my room and picking up the tablet.
After a few minutes, I put it down.
{Okay, the attacks you can learn easily are of the types normal and fighting, so they are not really useful in our case. However, you can, for example, learn 'iron tail' or 'dark claw' – and since the latter one is of the type ghost, while it's hard to learn, it is strong attack.}
{I'll do my best to learn it, then!}
Scrolling down to the instructions, I started to read.
{Learning dark claw – fight- and normal-type pokémon. If you want to learn dark claw, the first thing you have to do is to let go of your ideas on how you fight with physical attacks. Yes, you attack directly while using dark claw, but only to deliver the actual attack. You use your energy when you attack, and that energy can be used to create many attacks, but in this special case, you want to change it while attacking, keeping it in a so-to-speech 'boiling' state. To archive this, you have to do the following…}