Once outside, Armaina released all of her pokémon from their pokéballs, to greet the newcomers, as well as decide on names. The caterpie 'looked' around, it's odd feeler twitching, trying to get a sense of where she was. The charmander looked around as well curious and refreshed to be out side.. until she noticed Armaina. The look on the charmander's face suddenly darkened, getting a sort of 'not again…' look, and with a bit of a huff, turned away and curled up on the ground. Armaina looked at the charmander rather inquisitively, but realized, she should have expected such a reaction. So instead of trying to make the charmander feel like it was being forced into anything, she allowed her to brood, and turned her attention to the caterpie.
"Hey there, guess you'd like to know what's going on?" Armaina held out her arm, nudging the little bug so that she would crawl up her arm.
"Well anyway, I'm Armaina… and you'll need a name… hmm…" Armaina thought a moment, as the caterpie inched up and made itself comfortable on Armaina's shoulder.
"Hey, how about Monarch? Like the butterfly?" The caterpie thought a moment then gave its approval of the name. "Alright then, Monarch it is!"
Armaina turned back to the charmander, of which Blaze seemed to be having a lively 'conversation with. Since the charmander seemed more relaxed, Armaina figured now was a good time for introductions, and naming. Maybe this charmander wouldn't be so hard to raise after all?
"So how about a name for you?"
Armaina smiled, kneeling next to the charmander, who rather than greet Armaina with a friendly 'Char!', didn't even acknowledge Armaina's question, and instead, turned her back to her.
A look of disappointment crossed Armaina's face. "Hey, I'm just trying to make conversation here… and am trying to give you a name. Wait a second… how about Empress? You certainly seem like a royal, or ruler of some sort by the way you've been treating me."
The charmander just shrugged, not really paying attention. Blaze seemed as though he was trying to coax the charmander into opening up to Armaina with a few yaps, but to no help. Blaze turned to Armaina with a sort of 'I tired' look on his face.
"Well then, be that way. I'll still call you Empress though, because you need a name." To Armaina, calling a pokémon by their name was like calling a person 'Human', sort of ridiculous.
"You know, I'm not trying to make your life miserable, that's not what I want to do. I don't know what happened with the other trainers you had, but I'll bet that I'll never do whatever it was they did that made you so temperamental." Armaina stopped and pondered the awkwardness of her sentence.
Empress glanced over to give a sort of 'yeah right' look, before curling up again.
"Looks like I'm going to have my work cut out for me…" Armaina sighed as she looked over at Empress, then turned to Blaze, who made his way to her side.
"Wish I could figure out what happened to her to make her act like this, then maybe I could figure out how to help her…" Armaina stated this mostly to herself.. but for now, there was nothing she could do.
"Well, anyway, how about we start training, hmm?" Armaina turned to Monarch, who was still on her shoulder.
"And I'll need to figure out some type of system, so that I can let you know what's going on in a battle. Hmm… let me think…"
Armaina picked up Monarch off of her shoulder and set her on the ground.
"Now, I could probably just tell you from which direction something is coming from, and after a time, I'm sure you'll be able to sense things better, and probably be able to dodge attacks and such on your own."
"Riee!" Monarch acknowledged Armaina's statement, looking up in the direction of her voice.
"Now, I don't want you to go into any 'real' battles just yet, so I'm going to have you do a few practice drills with Blaze, to start building yourself up."
Armaina thought to herself, to think of some drills that Monarch could do that would benefit her, and help her with learning to battle even though she was blind.
"Ok, now… first Blaze will try to make a few tackle attacks at you, and I want you to try and dodge them. This will help you know what to hear, or feel for during battles, so that you know when to move, and where to move to."
Monarch nodded in affirmation though seemed slightly nervous, as Blaze padded up of Monarch.
"Now don't go too fast at first, Blaze, let Monarch get the hang of it, then speed it up."
Blaze nodded in confirmation taking a few steps back, and waited until Monarch was ready.
Armaina stepped back and watched as Monarch prepared herself for Blaze's attacks. Blaze went into a bit of a trot with a somewhat slow tackle attack. Still uncertain how to react, or what to be aware of, Monarch was hit by the attack, and fell back a few inches.
"Are you alright?"
Armaina started to go over to Monarch, but she got back up to try it again. The attack wasn't that hard, so it only knocked her down, no real injury caused. Armaina smiled at Monarch's enthusiasm.
"Alright then, let's see if you can get it this time."
Again Blaze 'charged' at Monarch, though, it became an encore of the last attempt. A third time Blaze 'attacked' Monarch… though, only to be stopped by Monarch's string shot. The thread caught around Blaze's legs and he tripped before reaching Monarch. Armaina laughed a little, not really expecting that to happen.
"Well, that wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but I guess it worked."
Blaze wasn't has thrilled as Armaina was, as he started to burn off the sticky 'webbing' off of his paws. Monarch wasn't sure all that had happened, but since she wasn't tackled, she was pretty proud of her 'innovative' idea.
"Well, even though that was an effective was of stopping a physical attack, it don't help you with an attack like water gun, or flame thrower. You'll have to be able to move to avoid those kind of attacks."
Though Monarch has slightly disappointed, she understood.
"So, let's start trying again."
By now, Blaze finally managed to get the last of Monarch's string shot off of his legs, and brought himself to his feet.
"You ready?" Armaina called out to Monarch, who nodded, as Blaze readied to attack again.
Just before Blaze was about to tackle Monarch again, there was a sound heard from above. Armaina looked up, just as a pidgey stooped down in an attempt to swipe Monarch for its meal. But before Armaina, or Blaze could intervene, Monarch had already heard wings of the attacking pidgey, dodging out of it's way, as well as firing a sting shot at it, just barely hitting the pidgey's tail feathers, causing it to fall to the ground. Armaina took the opportunity to put a new addition on her team.
She tossed the ball at the fallen pidgey, and with a few shakes, a fourth member was added to her team. Armaina walked over and picked up the pokéball.
"Well, looks like you learned how to time and dodge attacks, and we have a new member on our team. Like hitting two birds with one stone."
Armaina then paused a moment, realizing what she had just said.
"Uh... heh, no pun intended…" She gave a weird smile, as Blaze gave her a rather 'flat' look.
"Well, anyway, let's go get this new guy checked out, then we'll get back to training." Armaina looked over to where Empress was, but she had fallen asleep some time ago. Armaina gave a sigh as she returned Empress to her pokéball, then went over and picked up Monarch.
"Common, let's head back to the center." Armaina motioned for Blaze to follow her to the center.