- Gym Class -

"Alright everyone, we're going to the Grim Gym today," Shawn said to everyone as they collected themselves, with multiple reactions. Miko had sat down in the large room the moment the Digidestined's group appeared inside of it, the least comfortable of the assembled group with the act of teleportation. Wizardmon was simply staring a bit blankly at the red eyed maybe-human, while Gatomon stuck close to her old friend. Kari was watching over both them and Miko rather closely. Cody and Armadillomon were both looking somewhat eager for the event. Davis and Davey on the other hand looked more thoughtful then simply enthusiastic. T.K. and Patamon both looked faintly annoyed, the only ones reacting outright badly to the planned trip. Finally Yolei and Hawkmon had deliberately neutral expressions, both of them clearly wanting to have the benefits of this endeavor more than having to actually go through with it.

This was a tight fit for the Troubleshooter Lab, and Davey the Veemon ended up a bit close to the still nervous formerly normal cat. Uneasy with being in close proximity to these monsters Miko took a swipe at the tiny lizardmon, and surprised everyone by producing small slashes of energy as she did so. "Yikes! What was that?" Miko asked, and the translation device in the middle of the room dutifully repeated her words for everyone else's benefit. "That thing just talked." The translator dutifully responded again. "And it did it... That's what I'm saying, isn't it?" she asked still clearly not used to being able to speak at all.

"Your attack just now would be the first reason you are all here, you and the mage both need to learn to control your new abilities," A-0 complained, then turned from the console it was working at to look at the group. "The second is apparently we are dealing with your worst case scenario, and you all need to improve your combat ability quickly."

"I have to worry about getting in trouble for shredding stuff again, don't I?" the formerly mundane cat complained. "That was terrible, almost as bad as being chased across the city by monsters." This was directed at Gatomon.

"I don't remember being the one who had you steal Kari's Digivice," Gatomon countered the other cat.

"I think we might not want to get in a cat fight right now," Kari stopped the two of them. "So is this Gym Wizardmon and Miko's best option for learning about being a pokemon?" she asked Shawn with a hint of an edge.

"Yes, they need to learn to use types that I am not an expert on, and Quagsire isn't an expert on them either, so we don't have any trainers we can use to teach them," the red eyed trainer answered firmly. "Wizardmon is Dark/Ghost typed, which means that the Grim Gym is his best option. Miko is a Normal type, which they don't specifically cover, but since that is the most common type anyone could give some help on it. She might be someone we could help, but if you're already taking him to the Gym you might as well take her too."

"The next closest Gym would be over in our home town, and the only one of your group that might have been a Grass type is already on her way there," Serperior added with a bit of an unhappy tone. "Of course the two of us also aren't really ready to see our family right yet."

"I'm still not sure if they are literally brothers or not," Davis mumbled, earning a glare from the snake twins and smothered laughter from the rest of the DSS staff.

"Are you sure we can't go there instead?" T.K. asked uneasily. "I'm not too sure about going to see some 'Dark' teacher."

"Dendro just got a new Gym Leader last year," Janice said shaking her head. "Even if Shawn did know them they are in the time period after their first League. That's generally a rough time when they will be spending a bunch of time going over how they did during it. Grim at least has a full team of teaching trainers on hand and ready to go with helping us, he's been preparing for this since we learned of your issue."

"Yeah, well. I really don't want to see my mom about our issues, so not visiting the Dendro Gym Leader is probably best," Shawn admitted.

"Shawn, are you saying that your mom is the new Grass type Gym leader?" A-0 asked bluntly. Then it blinked and asked a bit more harshly. "Also, since things have gone weird I have to ask, your human mom or Serperior's mom?"

"Serperior's mom was the main pokemon of the previous Gym Leader," Janice sighed. "Shawn's complained about that keeping him from being able to challenge that Gym during his run before. I think she's finally retired now."

The Grass type trainer and starter both looked at each other uneasily, then cringed. "We do not want to find out," they said together. "She's still on the Gym team, so we're kind of worried that she is the one who is actually the new Leader, and just needed someone human to look like they were in charge."

"Shawn, please don't confuse the kids about which one of them is your actual mom," the Team Lead complained. "Once in a while it is funny, but this is a bit too far. We all know how much you two focus on not actually being related."

"We are reasonably sure the two of them are probably separate people," the pair quietly said in a way that sounded as if they didn't want to admit what they were saying.

"There were too many qualifiers on that statement," A-0 said quietly. "Right, so let's go back to the topic that doesn't fill me with unease. We are going with the Dark Gym because it is ready for us. Don't worry too much about the type, you are all going to be working on general combat, and that means that they are going to be training in how to use the Dark type against you more than you all learning that type yourselves."

Most of the Digidestined cringed at how the Porygon-2 had put that, with T.K. and Patamon taking that news the worst.


The Dark type Gym was a curious place for the Digidestined to find themselves in, Shawn had mentioned to them on the way to the building that in the off season Gyms focused more on practical training to teach the type to students. Ones that would either go for the next year's League, or were going to be using a new pokemon of the relevant type for their work. This meant that they were neither the only ones that already had their monsters, nor the youngest kids there to learn to train for battle with or against Dark types. There actually ended up being a large enough crowd their group was outnumbered by the locals here, even if the others there hopefully had a bit less serious of a reason to be there. There were only a couple of older kids that had their own monsters out, but since most of the younger ones were quietly discussing what they wanted for a 'Starter' that might have just been all of the people who had their monsters already.

The mood of the group had not changed too much so far from when they arrived in the pokemon world. Kari, Gatomon, Wizardmon, and Miko were the ones with the most reason to be there, and were curiously looking over the place in preparation. The three new Digidestined and their digimon were overall fairly eager to get a chance to learn to fight safely against other people instead of just themselves. Which left T.K. and Patamon to actually look at the place they were at and determine what exactly they were going to be taught here. An activity that was doing little to improve the Digidestined of Hope's already bad mood.

"They're not even hiding that this is the evil 'type' are they?" Patamon quietly complained about the guide books and pamphlets that had been in a small display at one end of the building. These were a mixture of short free to take ones about the most general details, to fairly expensive training guides that T.K. was fairly sure actually just taught the lesson 'be careful what you spend money on'. The advertized refund policy was better than he expected, but given this was actually a place to teach that probably just meant they were a bit more obvious about that particular lesson.

He had read a few of the pamphlets in the time they ended up waiting before passing them to Patamon, an action that actually wasn't unusual for the overall group of Digidestined or the locals. These covered the common behaviors of Dark type pokemon, and the 'moves' that many pokemon could learn that were of the type. The idea that pokemon learned ways of using attacks that weren't directly related to how they were shaped seemed a bit odd to T.K., but he wasn't sure how much of that was it actually being unusual and how much was his experience being a digimon. Dark type moves specifically were quite frankly just fighting dirty or using evil powers. Mostly fighting dirty like what Cody's mom had suggested to Kari when they were training as digimon on their own, but some of them noted the heavy use of dark powers.

The room had some other people besides new students on the far end of it from their group, apparently the trainer experts for the Dark type that worked under the Gym's leader to help with teaching. They were quietly joking about something, and occasionally trading money or other small items for some reason. Behind the group of students on the opposite side of the room Shawn and Serperior were sitting to watch and see how things went, clearly not trusting this Gym Leader. The snake monster was even notably melted into more of a lumpy puddle than a reptile, which the serpent seemed to be doing just to unnerve the other locals.

It was crowded, it was clearly Dark with a capital 'D', and T.K. was only really here because Kari needed help with her newly resurrected and transformed pokemon. So, when the overeager group around him once again got lost in talking about how awesome it would be to crush their enemies with these moves he finally lost it. "This isn't some kind of game!" he shouted at them. "These are cruel and harsh creatures that will use you if you aren't careful with what you let them get away with."

A cheerful laugh interrupted any more ranting. "Now that's a reassuring thing to hear from some new arrivals," a new older man said from the doorway to the large arena. Behind him was a large black dog covered in harsh exposed bones. "Pay attention to that one kids, Dark types are the pokemon who are the most likely to hurt people and pokemon you care about if you don't treat them right."

"Leader Grim," Shawn greeted the new arrival. "These are the Digidestined, they're here for a couple of reasons. I'm sure you've read what we sent about them." The trainer motioned to their group as if T.K. hadn't just yelled against this guy's profession, but didn't lose any of his unhappy mood.

"Of course," the Gym Leader agreed ignoring the clear dislike. "We have a room set aside for going over the basics for the two young pokemon, Lacey will be covering getting them started. For the rest I was just going to have them work with the new kids here for a bit. Mostly for our prospective trainers' benefit, a few experienced combatants that aren't Dark types would help us get across some things." Then Grim looked directly at T.K. and pointed, which did not help his mood with what was happening at all. "Now though I want to handle this kid myself."

"Handle me how exactly?" T.K. asked cautiously, and he felt Patamon shift on his hat at that declaration.

"You clearly have the basics down, which means the main thing you need help with is the tougher stuff I'd need to personally work with you on," the Gym Leader said clearly not leaving room for argument.

T.K. looked back at Shawn, and strangely found the trainer he was familiar with looking thoughtful. "You probably should take advantage of this," the snake eyed older kid said, even though he sounded like he didn't like the idea. "I'm not as experienced with teaching people, and Grim knows his stuff." Serperior shifted, an action that was honestly a lot more frightening while he was more slop than snake. "And given your team has at least one Dark type on it already you probably need some experience working with them."

T.K. was not about to compare Wizardmon to the digimon he was really mad at, but as he thought about that he realized that Shawn probably also meant Kari as well. So far they had already seen that her Nefertimon form was clearly affected by her being a BlackGatomon for a while, and it was likely that she'd be a dark digimon again when they had the option to just change into digimon. She had already mentioned that someone who was Champion by default would help. He looked over his teammates, and found that the new kids were actually looking at him with a bit of worry, although Kari looked sympathetic. "Alright," he reluctantly agreed.


Wizardmon cringed as T.K. left the room with the owner of this battle school. "I really hate how he isn't really wrong," the former digimon said.

"Theatrics aside, that was actually the plan this entire time. At least him going with Grim on his own," Shawn complained more than explained. "T.K. honestly has the most combat experience out of your group, and that means he needs a bit more help than the rest of you. Bad habits and methods are worse to deal with when they've kept you alive before."

"Yeah, but I was hoping that would go better," Kari agreed, sounding like she was in on this plan. "I didn't think he had that big of a problem with dark monsters." She looked particularly unhappy with that, and it took a moment for Wizardmon to remember that she had become a BlackGatomon somehow. The girl seemed far too cheerful for that shape, or at least too cheerful about things that didn't hurt others.

"Yikes," Davis said about the whole event. "Well now I can at least tell he never took me seriously, and I definitely don't want that pointed at me." The younger leader of the group was fairly competent with what he did as far as Wizardmon had seen, which made the way he doubted himself a bit annoying.

"I don't want that pointed at anyone," Yolei said sadly. "I hate to ask, but how bad did it really get for you guys?" The other girl of the team seemed a bit flighty so far, which gave the new Ghost pokemon an odd feeling that he couldn't remember having before. Like he wanted to take advantage of her state to scare her for some reason. Just the thought made his lips tug into a smile, and he quickly smothered the emotion before he actually tried something.

"Unfortunately, that starts with Devimon and only gets worse from there," Gatomon said sadly. "He also got a personal 'play date' with Puppetmon. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he learned to fight without evolving to make up for that."

"Uh, okay, how literal is the talking cat pokemon being?" one of the nearby local kids asked.

"It's an option," Shawn calmly replied, then suddenly the probably-not-a-human had a glowing blade of grass in his hand. "Although, humans can't do it as well as pokemon most of the time, so probably not worth the effort."

"For the record, my trainer is not entirely human anymore. He is not an example of what is normal," Serperior complained, which apparently did not help explain to anyone, even the people from this world.


T.K. followed Mr. Grim out into the arena area quietly, still upset over what had just happened. Mostly with himself, but there were still the people with dreams of teaming up with evil monsters in the room behind him and a man that taught them how in front. He could feel Patamon holding on in a way that meant that his little brother was ready for a fight.

"First things first," the Gym Leader said picking up a pokeball from a tray. Then he held it out and white energy emerged to form a good sized monster. The creature had dark fur that was vaguely blue grey, and a tail of red feathers. One of its ears appeared to have either been replaced by another feather like structure, or just drastically different in color and shape than its other ear. Each of its four limbs ended in a pair of claws, and it stood upright on its legs like a human.

The creature looked at T.K. smugly, and then the Digidestined had to react quickly to catch the thrown sphere. The pokemon now looked shocked, while T.K. simply frowned at the device. "This is Sneasel," Grim continued. "Your new pokemon."

"He already has a partner," Patamon cut in, and the newly named Sneasel glared at the digimon.

"Yeah, he does, but you don't need to be as experienced as I am to tell that he came too close to losing you at least once," Grim replied strongly. "That's part of why one mon acts are frowned upon, no backup in case things go wrong."

"We're used to fighting with teammates," T.K. countered, not liking the man's tone.

"True, but nobody reacts like you did unless they've seen just how dangerous the Dark can be," the older man allowed a bit too easily. "Which is the biggest problem I see here." The dog monster was still next to Grim, and sat down now. "You're the kind of person who s found enough light to push back the darkness, to fight the terrible things that don't particularly want other creatures to survive. A beacon of hope for others." The Gym Leader didn't sound like he knew about T.K.'s Crest, but apparently Shawn's team had mentioned something of what had happened to the Digidestined to the guy. "Unfortunately, having that bright of a light in you can wash out your own shadows."

"That sounds nice an all but what does it have to do with him having another monster?" Patamon questioned as he flapped down to glare at Sneasel from eye level.

"If you saw a monster of the same species as the ones that hurt you before, what would be your first reaction?" Grim asked a bit more bluntly than he had spoken so far.

The first thought that came to the Digidestined of Hope's mind wasn't any of the major enemies he'd faced, but DemiDevimon, who had looked a little like them but seemed nice enough to start. "I wouldn't trust them," he admitted, aware enough that the small ball of evil had ruined that innocence.

Grim watched him for a moment, then nodded. "A bit better than I was expecting, but you're not looking at Sneasel," the man said, and T.K. reluctantly looked up to inspect the pokemon. Sneasel didn't really look all that evil, and he'd seen worse glares before. A thought that unfortunately led him to looking at the way Patamon was the one glaring back, and the earlier reminder of the ball of evil came back harshly. "Yeah, that right there is the danger of too much light. You can end up disliking the darkness so much that you hurt others for having some. Everyone has darkness kid, your problem is that it is a part of what you use to fuel your battle for the light. So, here is a bit of darkness for you to work with instead of just next to, someone that depends on you accepting and managing their smaller evils."

T.K. blinked at that last sentence. Then really considered how many evil digimon they had even attempted to leave alive before. The new kids hadn't had to kill any normal digimon yet, and they sort of hoped they never would have to do that, but he hadn't really thought about what having done so had done to him directly. He looked over Sneasel again, and tried to think of Ogremon instead of DemiDevimon, which was not helped by the pokemon now giving a sneer that matched the smaller evil digimon's worst.

He hadn't been the one to try and save Ogremon, or even with Mimi's group when they did it. It had been a thing that happened, and suddenly he wasn't sure that he actually could try and reform an enemy instead of just dealing with them finally. Dark Tyranomon, their newest normal digimon foe had roared at them about how they had killed her brother. Gatomon said they didn't, but again it had been Mimi to try and save that digimon, not anyone else on the team.

The best he could say about how he dealt with evil digimon that weren't trying to kill them was that he didn't fight a pair of digimon that honestly hadn't even seemed very evil at all at the time. "Alright, so you want me to work with this pokemon in order to learn how to have someone who uses darkness around me all the time?" he asked, getting a familiar glare from Patamon, and a smug look from Sneasel. It was another bad reminder of DemiDevimon that he didn't like.

"That's the plan," Grim agreed, far too happy with having put T.K. through that thought process. "I understand that you aren't exactly in a position to take a fresh pokemon out into proper combat right now, but this is mostly so you can work out the difference between darkness used for evil, and darkness that is someone's nature." The Gym Leader shook his head. "It also gets Sneasel here a trainer. I usually give out his species as one of my Starter picks, but this one is a bit too headstrong for a typical new trainer. You know that you need to watch what he does, and that means you'll be a better fit."

"So, what now, we fight each other?" T.K. asked as what was apparently his new pokemon walked closer confidently.

"With a pokemon you just got that you don't trust at all? No way," Grim criticized. "Now we go over a number of things he will try and do, and you get a test on how you should react to them."


Kari looked over the room her little team of monsters had been taken to with some trepidation. The walls were quite a bit thicker than the rest of the building, not to mention they seemed to have gone underground at one point during their trip. "This room was made for any particularly powerful pokemon a trainer gets to have some space to try out what they can do before attempting it in battle," Lacey told them seriously. "That's extra important for strong Dark types because they tend to push boundaries when they get that dangerous, or worse strong wild captures can be less trained in holding back. Most Gyms would have somewhere to do this, but given how our moves also tend to be tricky the extra sensor systems embedded in the walls help get accurate readings even if the pokemon fudges their effectiveness." The older teen then looked a bit embarrassed as she caught sight of some exposed wires in one wall where something had cut it deeply. "We kind of have to spend a good amount on replacements for those already, so don't worry too much if you accidentally take them out."

"So, how strong was that one there?" Gatomon asked about the damage.

"David's Hydreigon was trying to stay in shape," Lacey noted a bit dryly. "Which for her means retraining on how to hold back. For reference when that Gazimon of Shawn's pissed her off she dug trenches as wide as the hallway outside and deeper than you are tall trying to take him out," the trainer explained to the digimon. Kari cringed at the thought of that much power being directed at such a vulnerable digimon.

"'Trying'? She did that at a Gazimon and it was only 'trying' to take him out?" Wizardmon asked a bit faintly.

"Yeah? The talking rabbit beat her after all," their guide noted as if that could possibly be a normal thing to say. "He's a tricky one, so probably not a good option for you to start training against."

"If that's the kind of power that being a pokemon gets you then I might actually consider it," Gatomon said, but Kari could tell her partner was more worried than serious. "So, is Miko starting out first just in case Wizardmon breaks this stuff?"

"Well, she's the one without any previous combat experience right?" Lacey asked, getting four nods from the group. "Then we should start with him instead. Working out the very basics is a lot harder, and honestly someone who knows what they could do before is a lot more dangerous after this kind of change. Evolution can be like that, where a pokemon suddenly finds their old abilities hitting far harder."

"Ah, well, my previous method of combat was mostly to, well, alter the universe's fundamental properties to cause a given effect," Wizardmon admitted nervously, and Kari noted that Gatomon looked both surprised and intimidated by this admission. "It is an extremely rare skill in the world Gatomon and I came from."

"Uh," Lacey said as she clearly spent a moment translating the explanation. "Isn't that how most moves work?" She shook her head. "No wait, you look like a magic user, so you must mean the tricky stuff. Yeah, that sounds like the exact reason we're going with your stuff first. Start with the smaller stuff, and work your way up. Goal is to figure out if it still works the same for you. Worst case we might need to find a mage to help teach you."


Davis surged to the side, but was still clipped heavily by the glowing green blade. Shawn's hit sent him tumbling as his armor just barely took it, and he groaned from the floor where he landed. "Shawn, how much stronger is Serperior than you?" he asked unhappily. "Because if it is a lot, then I'm starting to wonder why you need us around in the digimon world."

"Mostly we're backup to get you kids out if Upload tries to take you down with an overwhelming number of enemies, while also checking out their infrastructure," the red eyed probably-not-human replied. "Serp is also a bit better at hitting a lot of targets at once than big one on one fights, and from just what I've personally seen digimon can get stronger than my team can handle."

Around them were the collection of discussions and other small sparring groups that the larger group had split into. Yolei had ended up as a Flybeemon again, and was in a discussion with a fox monster with a massive mane of red hair that had been disguised as a human. Cody and the other natural monsters of their group were all in the largest collection of people sparring, with Hawkmon being the most notable as he kept glancing at his sister with worry and getting hit from that distraction.

"So, is Upload normal for what you go up against or are they something special?" the Flamedramon asked as he moved to a sitting position to watch the rest of the room as he caught his breath.

"They are far safer than what we are used to," Shawn said in a deadly serious tone. "What they've been doing to the digimon world is the best case for what my usual enemies do to digital worlds and digimon. The converted stuff turns back to normal with Upload." The trainer looked at him a bit sadly. "Serperior has had to cut limbs off of pokemon infected by corruption in order to save their lives before. We've evacuated entire Boxes of pokemon and send them to Delta 2 for emergency treatment."

"Oh," Davis said a bit faintly. It actually did sort of explain why the snake monster seemed to prefer avoiding fights, and sort of even why he was so good at taking out the Dark Rings of an entire group of digimon at once. "So, they are bad guys, but not all that evil of bad guys."

"Corruption aren't evil," the snake eyed trainer corrected him. "That needs them to be able to know that what they do is wrong. Most of the time the things I fight can't even know what they are doing, and are hurting themselves just as much as the pokemon I protect." He looked sad. "Evil is when something could be doing something else instead, and chooses to do something that hurts others. This Gym is all about that difference, because the thing about being a Dark type trainer is walking that line. Where you use power that can hurt others in a way that doesn't cause real harm."

"Are you sure you're a Grass type trainer?" Grim asked walking in with a still upset looking T.K. "Because that was a very good way of putting one of my key lessons."

"I am so much of a Grass type I can grow plants," Shawn said a touch jokingly, and the Gym Leader stumbled from a vine that seemed to have wrapped around his leg. "But the nature of my job gives me an appreciation to the bluntness of your own type."


There was now another hole in the wall, albeit a much cleaner one, along with many scorch marks and one place where the material had simply melted. "Huh, that wasn't too bad," Lacey said as if punching holes in reinforced walls was normal for this world. "I was sure we'd have to replace more of it. That's why we didn't bother fixing that last one before you got here after all."

"So, do you replace this place's walls a lot?" Wizardmon asked uneasily. His abilities were all drastically changed, although not in a way that prevented him from recognizing just how he needed to alter his methods. Unfortunately that left his control in an abysmal state, and he'd caused what he thought was far too much collateral damage.

"When a pokemon like you needs to use it? Every time," the Dark type trainer confirmed. "After we get your teammate checked out I'm going to get started on that. If you've got time I'd appreciate some help with that, but it sounds like you're fairly busy overall."

"What exactly am I going to be doing?" Miko asked looking at the damage nervously, and Wizardmon passed along that message.

"Probably a lot less damage than he did, and it is really nice having a translator on hand for this one," Lacey replied with a bit of relief. "In your case our first goal is just getting it so you can recognize what using energy feels like, and how to not use it when you don't want to." The trainer then began working Miko through how exactly to do that, which gave Wizardmon time to process what they'd discovered about his new capabilities.

The major change was frighteningly enough that it was now far easier to manipulate reality. Notably a spell that before had made just an intricate illusion of water now was responsible for a puddle of still quite real water at one edge of the room. His ability to create and change matter and energy was now far more potent.

Which made the difficulty in doing it accurately all the more unnerving. To the extent that he was actually paying a good bit of attention to Miko's instruction to see if there were any details he'd not known about how the locals did things that Lacey had thought he already knew. Which was rather worrying as the advice being given to the cat seemed far more in line with what he needed to learn than he expected a relatively mundane creature to learn. The powers he had been familiar with as a digimon were either more common among pokemon, or Miko was a stronger creature than he expected.

"You should get these things down before you move on to attempting any elemental manipulation," Lacey explained simply, as if that was something they would obviously try. "Although you want to pay attention to what you do to make sure that you don't have a minor affinity with that kind of thing, because if you do you might end up using some without much effort."

Kari and Gatomon were just as confused looking as Miko about this statement. "Are you saying that I should avoid breathing fire?" the formerly normal cat asked a bit sarcastically, and Wizarmon translated that for his own curiosity about the answer.

"Maybe, but like I said probably not worth trying," Lacey confirmed. "If you can figure it out Pay Day is a fairly nice move to learn. Precious metal coins are valuable everywhere after all, always something someone will be able to do with them so you can make a bit of money practicing."

The explanation that one kind of otherwise entirely normal cat pokemon could just make money out of thin air was a bit telling about how worried they needed to be. It rather clearly answered Wizardmon's question on if remaking reality was a common skill.


"Talking is odd," Sneasel said once they got home. "But it should be useful, master."

"Please don't call me that," T.K. complained, and tried to reassure his mother about this with a look.

"Boss?" the pokemon suggested with some enthusiasm, then wilted as his new trainer did not react very well to that either. "Sir?"

"Is it really that bad to just call him 'T.K.'?" Patamon asked a touch harshly of his new teammate, eying the pokemon critically.

"I just want to show my loyalty," the Dark/Ice monster huffed and turned away from the digimon. "That's what I meant about talking, most pokemon don't have to worry about what they call their trainer like this."

"So, this is a new friend?" Nancy Takaishi asked with a bit of confusion.

"I think I'd prefer 'minion'?" Sneasel suggested, although in a slightly cruel joking tone rather than seriously.

"He's supposed to help me learn to handle being around monsters that aren't as nice," T.K. sighed. "Also he apparently needs someone to tell him what is and isn't appropriate to do."

The pokemon looked a little disappointed at this fairly cold sentiment, but the look on the Digidestined's mother's face seemed to reassure the monster a little. "Alright, so what is the plan for where he's staying?" she asked curiously.

"In my pokeball?" the pokemon asked with considerable confusion. "I mean, that's where pokemon usually sleep, right?"