"You should have warned me," Janelle hissed at me.
I eyed her askance from the other side of my bike. We had barely set out that morning before she motioned for me to hang back behind Mac's brisk pace. "Oh yeah? Intimidated now that you know his deal?"
"Are you kidding?" she replied, completely serious, "That makes him even hotter. But if you'd given me some notice, I wouldn't have put my foot in my mouth like that. He probably thinks I'm an idiot."
Janelle looked genuinely forlorn at the prospect, and I rolled my eyes.
"I'm sure it's fine. Besides, I'd be more embarrassed about putting yourself out there like that. You were all but throwing yourself at him."
Janelle winked at me, "Do you think that would work?"
"Ugh," I sighed, "I can't do this. Come on, if we keep chatting like this, we're going to be left behind, and much as I'd like to leave him to you, I can't quite yet."
I didn't explain further, despite Janelle's curious look at my vague statement. Still, she left it at that and matched my speed, and soon we caught up to Mac.
"The forest's starting to thin. We should be out soon," Mac said.
"Oh, thank merciful Mew," I breathed, panting after the exertion of catching up to the muscle-head. "Once we're out of here, we're slowing down. You may be able to keep this monstrous pace up forever, but Janelle and I are human."
"Don't... lump me... in with you," Janelle said from behind me. She was breathing even harder than me as she continued, "Don't you... listen... to her,... Mac. I can… take… whatever you can… dish out."
"Hah! That's the spirit!" Mac laughed, but our pace did slow as we made our way out of Viridian Forest.
"So what's on the docket today, Teach?" Mac asked when we stopped to set up camp.
"I was thinking of something a little different today," I replied, holding a tent pole in place as Spin filled in around it.
Mac sent out his team; apparently he wasn't just curious. We were starting now. I sighed and brought out Dart while I called Vola and Lucky over from where they were playing.
"As I said," I repeated, addressing the assembled Pokemon, "we're doing something a little different today; we're doing a scavenger hunt. See if you can bring back each target before the time runs out. First, three rocks that are all the same size. Go!"
Our various Pokemon went off to find rocks. Janelle gave me a weird look from where she was finishing putting up her tent. Mimsey, echoing her motions perfectly, was of absolutely no help.
"A scavenger hunt, huh?" Mac asked. "Care to walk me through the reasoning on how this is training?" He sounded genuinely curious, but this was definitely a test. Of course there would be tests. But unfortunately for him, he was my student, for now anyway, so I would be the one teaching. I'd given a lot of thought to what the next exercise would be after getting his team used to my unorthodox training methods with our last game; it had helped keep my mind off our surroundings during our trip through the forest. If I was going to do this Coach thing, might as well start now.
"Tell you what," I offered, pulling an old notebook out of my bag, "I'll write down my thoughts in here. You watch how the different Pokemon manage during the next few rounds, and come up with what you think I'm going for."
Mac was quiet for a moment, just watching me quizzically, as though trying to puzzle out just what I was up to. Finally, he nodded slowly.
"Okay," he said, a knowing grin creeping onto his face, "but let's make it a little more interesting. If I can guess your thought process, you go through a Coach certification course regardless of your Badges. If I can't, I'll either loan or help you catch a Pokemon for your next Gym challenge."
I narrowed my eyes, studying him. He had his usual guileless mask up, but I remembered the glimpse I'd gotten behind it when we'd met. I wasn't sure what his game was, and I definitely wasn't about to postpone my journey again for more school.
But wily as he was, he didn't know me well yet. He couldn't know how I thought. Could he?
"I'm not that much of a gambler; I'll accept you taking an extra Badge to make your decision, though."
His grin opened into a full smile, "Deal."
I spent the next hour or so sending the Pokemon out looking for items of various difficulties: a bundle of sticks, a leaf in perfect condition, something they'd like to eat, trash, etc. Mac paid almost as much attention to me as he did to the Pokemon, probably looking for some tell. It didn't matter. I spent most of the time the Pokemon were out putting their items to use. Rocks and sticks became a firepit, trash went in a bag to be dropped off in town, and the like.
Afterward, we gathered around a toasty fire, roasting various interesting bits and bobs the searchers had found for dinner. Janelle made some donations from her supplies as well, and overall it was a filling, festive atmosphere.
"So, I'm pretty sure there's more to it than sharing the work to set up dinner and cleaning up the area," Mac said. We sat off to one side, watching Janelle and the Pokemon enjoy themselves.
"Mm," I replied, noncommittal, "So what else?"
Mac considered for a moment, his usual easygoing attitude dropped for a more thoughtful, calculating look, "Each Pokemon went about it a little differently. Like, Graveler just broke a big rock into roughly equal pieces, Sandshrew dug some up, and Dodrio just picked up a pebble in each mouth and dropped them off. I think you were looking to inspire creative problem solving, as well as understand how each of them think."
"Kind of," I said, pulling out my notebook. "I mean, I'm always happy when my Pokemon come up with creative solutions, and this is certainly a good exercise for it, but that's not all. Anything else?"
Mac scrutinized me, "Maybe some kind of training in manipulating objects, especially for the Pokemon without typical ways to grip things?"
I paused in finding the page I'd scribbled my plans on, "You know, I hadn't thought about it, but it is good for that, isn't it?" I gave him a smirk, "Maybe you should be a Coach, too!"
He fixed me with a flat stare, and I laughed as I opened my notebook up. He glanced down at it, and I continued, "But no, the biggest thing I wanted to work on is awareness." I pointed to the sprawling scrawl of words, arrows, circles, and underlines, all surrounding the word "AWARENESS!" in bold letters. "See, I'm sure I'm not going to be able to teach you and your team how to fight better than your teacher has. However, I have a feeling any training on awareness has been pretty focused on your opponent and, at most, immediate surroundings. I wanted to give your Pokemon a chance to look for things that weren't threats. You know, a couple hours where, even if they were on their guard, their focus was more, y'know, normal. I'm sure focus on your foe is crucial in battle, and I think that noticing something nearby that might be an advantage, either to you or your opponent, is helpful. But isn't it also worth noticing what's out of the way, even if it's not a threat?"
I gestured to the flowers (all with at least one leaf on their stems) now decorating the camp, the little pinecone (all smaller than my fist) house Diglett had made, complete with leaf flags, the clean, litter-free clearing.
"A fun, relaxing time between the harsh training," Mac reflected, looking at me strangely. Then he smiled, and it was neither the cocksure grin or the calculating show of teeth. It was just a genuine, happy smile. "Brilliant."
I smiled back, "I certainly thought so, right Vola?"
She looked over at us, the guileless innocent, and then Hitmonchan made a startled sound. Mac looked over, but I already knew what he'd see. The punching Pokemon's roasted kebab, in between the fire and its mouth, had frozen solid.