Shard

I hummed to myself as I prepared the space I was occupying for the four pokemon I was going to evaluate in a few. I was in a good mood today, so I was happy to make this evaluation as positive as possible! Well, aside from the pain, but we can ignore that. I loved this room for testing, since it was such an easy space to work with. Just a large rectangular room with a wooden floor, along with violet-striped wooden walls, topped off with a metallic orange ceiling. The color contrast was a bit unconventional, but the room was what really mattered. The wood was made so it couldn't be burnt down, and was sturdy enough to withstand anything, barring that I didn't go overboard. I floated over to one of the walls and pressed one of my icy hands against the wood. Yup, I could probably break this.

I floated back to the middle of the room and observed how I set the place up. I didn't add much to the empty room, just a few things that I thought would give me some insight to the pokemon I was about to evaluate. On the wooden ground, there were a few pillars that stretched up to the ceiling, made from ice that I produced. There were six of these, three of them on either side of the room. It was a very simple addition, but it was something to spice it up a little bit. I didn't have the ability to set this place up too creatively, otherwise I'd probably knock it down on accident. I remember the last time I knocked down a building of the Nest, and I did not know that Core could use shadow claw. Needless to say, I wasn't making that mistake again!

I was however, grateful that I had such a space to organize my own type of evaluation setting. I was trusted with the skills to determine how capable these Ravens were, so I wasn't going to screw it up! I had a pretty good vision of how much I could push these Ravens thanks to Naru being my protege, so I was confident in my ability to test them. Originally, Kai was going to do this along with their first evaluation, but he backed out of it for some reason. For a little while now, he's been acting… strange. Kai never really talked to anyone, but there was a noticeable difference in his behavior over the past week or so.

What did I do in response to this? Try and talk to him of course! I've always been interested in Kai, wondering why he never really communicated with anyone or spent time somewhere other than his room or with his current student. I've tried so hard to get through to him, try and get some conversation out of him, but I failed every time I tried. He just dismissed me constantly, but never really seemed angry or annoyed, just as if he didn't want to talk. But finally, earlier today, I actually got some speech out of the guy! It was a massive accomplishment, even if I had to act just a bit persistent towards him. Well, not like I wasn't persistent in the first place, but I pushed it much further when it came to him.

I also figured out that Kai was indeed being bothered by something, I just had no idea what. I know there's more to it than what he told me, I could read others enough to figure that much out. He clearly had a lot more going on than some dilemma about his opinion on someone changing. What that was exactly, I had absolutely no idea. I wondered if it was really my place to meddle, but I stopped caring after a while. He needed help with something, that much was clear, so I was going to try and help him with it. Granted, I had no idea whatsoever what I was doing to help him, but I wanted to try regardless.

I decided to stop thinking about what I could do for Kai at the moment, as I had some Ravens to test. I glided towards the entrance of the training space I was in, and pushed the door open, which was actually circular. Don't ask me why, I didn't design the place, but it didn't really change anything. It just meant that whoever made this place started to run out of ideas to make it unique, so added a different door as a weak alternative. (Sorry, I'm not creative at times :p)

As soon as my frozen body left the space, I saw a group of pokemon in the distance, walking towards this room. Two eeveelutions, one blue and white, the other black with yellow rings, both wearing different colored scarves. The other two, being an electric feline and a transformative fox-like pokemon. I smiled in their direction as they came closer, raising a hand to wave at them. None of them looked injured at all, which most likely meant that they were healed after the first part of their test. Kai's recordings said that they were hardly injured in the first place, so one of the medical assistants at the Nest was most likely able to get them back up to full throttle, which was good. Not only would I get a better idea of what they could do, but I would also not have to restrict myself as much, which would further help me determine how capable they were. Just remember Shard, don't break any bones… You don't want to go on probation again…

"Hiya everyone!" I shouted out as the group of four converged next to me. Naru had her usual bright smile on, Kuro looked as if he tried to mimic her enthusiasm, but didn't quite succeed, in fact, he looked rather awkward. Kage and Vero both had a similar positive expression on their faces, not quite as bright as Naru, but not nearly as forced and strange as Kuro looked. I appreciate the effort my friend.

"Hi!" Naru greeted excitedly, always the positive one. She looked energized, as did everyone else in the group. Good, they'll need all of that energy. I took in a breath, and readied myself to be in the proper state of mind. It was time to see what these pokemon were really made of. I already knew what Naru could do for the most part, but I'm sure she had a trick or two saved for this test, she liked to keep me on edge like that. As for the other ones, I knew they were quite capable, but I was curious and excited to figure out what feats they'd be able to accomplish. Alright… Who do I want to take in first..?

I stared at the four pokemon before me, observing each of them. Based on everything I learned from Kai, I knew who he thought was at the top of these four. According to his recordings, they were all very close in skill level, albeit for different reasons. However, he considered one of them to be a step or two ahead of the other ones, which surprised me at first, but also intrigued me. I thought all of them would be equal in his eyes, but that wasn't the case. I wanted to see for myself what Kai saw right off the bat.

"Okay, you all know why you're here, so let's get right into it! I know you just got back from the first part of your evaluation, so I'll make it as quick as possible!" I didn't want to take the rest of the day away from these four, they needed time to rest at least a little bit. "Now, first up is you!" I rose my hand and pointed at Kage. I'm beyond curious.

"I'm up first?" Kage asked while tilting his head. I nodded to him with a huge smile. It should be noted, I didn't really like hurting others per se, but I did like to push pokemon to their limits, so I was eager to see what this luxray could do. "Okay, I'm ready!" He sounded like he was trying to psych himself up. Good, the better mood you're in, the better you'll do!

"Good luck!" Vero said from behind him as he walked towards myself and the large structure that acted as the evaluation room. He turned back and nodded his head, acknowledging his appreciation. I gave another smile to the rest of the group and then floated to the still opened circular door, before entering. Kage followed after, closing the door behind him, and walking towards me. I decided to float in between the two icy pillars farthest from the door, and he stood in between the ones closest. He looked at me, not really knowing what he should be doing right now, which almost made me laugh.

"Alright!" I shouted energetically. "Now, you know why you're here, right?" I asked him for confirmation, just to make sure I wasn't taking anyone off-guard. That would ruin the fun of an evaluation, and I wanted to have some fun.

"I think so, I'm being evaluated, right?" I nodded my head. Don't know why I thought they wouldn't know, but better safe than sorry!

"Indeed you are! Now, I'll explain how exactly this is going to work." I took in a deep breath and released it, accidentally blurring the air in front of me with white mist. "It's pretty simple, I'm going to attack you in a variety of ways, and you're going to fight back. Based on how you react and your actions, you will be graded on a scale of one to fifteen on a number of attributes, and this will determine where we feel comfortable sending you when it comes to going out for missions."

Kage nodded in understanding. "So this is basically a mach-battle?"

"Pretty much! Except, you're up against someone you wouldn't usually be, myself! So, I'll see how you react to the battle." I further explained, floating a bit higher off of the ground.

"But, aren't you Naru's mentor? How will she be evaluated?" He asked curiously. It was a pretty common misconception that trianing someone as a mentor and battling them were the same thing, but they couldn't be more different. I'm not teaching anything here, I'm attacking and judging a reaction.

"Don't forget, I train her, not battle her. There's a distinct difference." I thought for a second, remembering who Kage's mentor was. "Actually, in your case, it probably feels more like a fight to the death, Xen is just kind of like that." I said with a shrug. I respected Xen a lot, and we were part of the same 'group' of sorts at the Nest, so I considered us friends, but I didn't entirely agree with the way he trained his pupils. Did it work? Yes. Did it have awful side-effects because of his schedule? Oh yes it did.

"Yeah… I'm used to it." He said with a sigh. At least I knew Kage was strong, so he could handle it. Xen has two pupils, doesn't he? I wonder how the second one is doing.

"I guess this won't be too different from your normal training then." I lowered my gaze towards Kage and smirked. "So give me a good show!" He smiled back and nodded.

"I'll try my best!" I love the enthusiasm these guys have!

Without any more words, I decided that it was time to start, and the first thing I wanted to test was if he was rusty on a certain skill he used all the way back in the applicants' tournament. Well, two to be exact. The first thing I did in the room was lower the temperature, using the ice pillars I made as well as my own body. I didn't make it too cold, but enough for it to be noticeable, and enough for me to start testing a certain luxray. I relaxed my body, and as I slowly floated to the ground, I became harder and harder to see. My body looked more like a camouflaged blur than a froslass now, which confused Kage and made him dart his eyes around the room without moving. He looked calm though, he didn't panic, despite having no idea what I was doing, despite this exact thing happening to him before, but from Naru.

I was using my ability, which I just happened to share with Naru. Except, I've used it a lot more with her, and I understand how it works, and how I can activate it much more smoothly than she does. Because of this previous experience, I didn't necessarily need snowy weather or hail to use it, just needed a bit of cold, which I could produce. Because of this, I'm able to basically become near invisible whenever I want, so long as nothing is heating up the area. However, Kage didn't know this, because Naru needed hail to do the same thing, he may assume that I'm the same way. Because of that, how will he react?

I started to slowly float around the room, going all over the place, even around each of the the six pillars, wanting to test if Kage knew where I was, or at least had an idea. Judging by the way his eyes were still searching the room, it didn't look like he did. This meant it was time to give him a hint. I approached Kage at a slow pace, until I was close enough to touch him. I then took one of my hands, and smacked him across the face, before moving very quickly to another spot of the room. He reacted quickly by shooting off a small ball of electricity in the direction I just was, but it didn't connect with anything. I then swiftly flew back at him and brought my hand into his stomach with a lot of pressure. He grunted and jumped back, but didn't fire off another panic shot like last time. I started to approach him again, but he quickly charged up a thunderbolt and shot it exactly where my near-invisible body was floating. I crossed my icy arms and blocked it, not taking too much damage. I smirked behind my arms though.

I made myself completely visible again, and looked at Kage. "I see you haven't forgotten how to counter that, even if the air around you is cold too." I said with a smirk.

"It took me a second, but I remember." He replied, smiling back. "Even if the air is cold, your body itself is more so, therefor you can still be tracked, even if it was a bit harder." Maybe Kai is onto something with this one…

I decided that I needed to test him on one more thing other than standard attributes, and I knew how to do it. Time to take it up a notch or two. I rose myself higher in the air, and loosened myself up. I dove downwards, and launched myself at Kage much faster than I was moving previously. As I passed him, I reached out one of my arms and jabbed the side of his body, which made him flinch. Before I flew into one of the walls, I smoothly changed my position to turn back and head towards him again. While I was flying like this, it sort of looked as if I was swimming in the air. As I quickly approached Kage again, I jabbed the other side of his body this time, making him wince again. He jumped back and discharged electricity from his body in all directions, covering the air in voltage. That probably would have worked on any other aerial opponent, but I wasn't like them. I dodged around each string of electricity smooth as silk, dancing in the air while approaching Kage. Once I got close enough to him, I swung the lower part of my body ahead of me, kicking Kage in the side of the chin, and sending him into one of the ice pillars I crafted. You're missing something here.

Kage shook his head to recover from the impact and stood back up strongly. He faced me and got down into his battle stance. Think about it, you know why I'm attacking you like this… I floated back a few feet, before flinging myself at Kage again. He stared me down, looking as if he was charging an attack. His fur flared up, and began to spark furiously. I readied myself to dodge another blast of electricity at point-blank, but it never came. Instead, I ran into Kage, and then the surge of voltage transferred from his body to mine. The sensation brought painful heat through the inside of my body, which was intensified when Kage knocked me away with his tail. I caught myself before I hit the ground and became steady in the air. I took a single breath and smiled at Kage. That's what I was looking for!

"Excellent work there! I see you really haven't forgotten the roots that planted you in this place!" I excitedly shouted at him. Not to mention, from that attack, I got a pretty good idea of what he could do damage-wise. It really wasn't bad, not at all. It didn't hurt as much as others' have, but more than average I'd say. I pretty much got everything I wanted from Kage now, just needed to test one more thing. He smiled at my acknowledgment of his recollection of what put him here in the first place, but didn't say anything, just crouched back down. I readied myself to show him the hardest part of this test. Sorry about this, but I think it's going to hurt a little. I hope it's a little. I'll try my best. I took a deep breath.

I floated to the floor and lightly placed my hands on it, looking up towards Kage. "Now, try and withstand my attacks and see if you can counter." I told him, to which he nodded, not moving. Here's where things get serious.

I bolted at Kage, which took him off-guard, but he still had his fur cloaked in electricity, so I couldn't make contact with him. Instead, I got as close as possible, and then point blanked him with an ice shard. He slid backward and closed his eyes from the impact, and I followed up by forming a shadow ball in my hand. Kage balanced himself and swiped at me with his claws, but I managed to slide in between his swipes, and then push the shadow ball right into his stomach. He grunted and was tossed up into the air, where I then shot off another ice shard at him. He managed to shift his body to dodge it and then encased his maw with deadly heat. Before he could touch me, I flew out from the ground, put myself over him, and slammed him to the ground with an ice shard. He took in a few heavy breaths, recovering from the assault that I just put forward. He turned his head up to me with a focused expression. He took that pretty well…

"See if you can land a hit on me like this!" I shouted down at Kage, mainly to motivate him. I drew a breath from deep within my chest, forming two shadow balls, one in each of my hands. I pressed the two attacks together, forming one larger sphere in my hands, swelling as seconds passed. I pointed it down at Kage, and released a large beam from the sphere in between my hands. The beam held a similar opaque dark look to that of a normal shadow ball, just in the form of a beam as opposed to a sphere. As the attack approached Kage, he put on a quick panicked expression, and then rolled out of the way, barely avoiding the attack. It crashed against the ground, quaking the room we were in. Good thing he avoided that, I might have broken something…

Kage jumped back after rolling away from the attack, landing in between two of the icy pillars that I formed around the room. He focused back on me, and his eyes lit up for a split second, before returning to normal right after. Oh? Have an epiphany? Kage took in a breath and bent his body downward, his head nearly touching the wooden floor. The sparks flowing through his fur flared up more than usual, spreading shocks all around the wooden interior of the room. I was suddenly very glad that the wood was fireproof. Honestly, I could have stopped Kage from whatever he was in the middle of doing, as he was setting up just a bit slow. However, I was curious as to what he was doing, so I'd give him a chance, just this once. After about five seconds of focusing, all of that huge electric charge that Kage had was finally released, although, not at me. The electricity spread through the room, avoiding me, but lighting up four of the six ice pillars surrounding the room. The light got pretty intense, and I actually had to shield my eyes from it. However, as soon as I went to do so, I felt something hard slam into my midsection, hurting quite a bit. I actually winced at the strike that seemed to come from Kage's shining tail.

I actually flew backwards a bit, before stopping myself in mid air. Holy crap, I wasn't expecting that out of him! I recovered my eyesight and then saw Kage sprinting at me, shooting another thunderbolt in the process. It was a good effort, I had to admit, but I think he forgot who he's up against. I twisted my body in the air, smoothly sliding passed the attack, and swooping downwards. I think I know what you can do now. I swiftly flew along the floor, nearly scathing it with my stomach. Kage looked rather surprised at my approach, as I was going closer and closer to max speed as this fight went on. He couldn't react fast enough, and I hit him with a solid uppercut to the stomach. I heard him gasp, as I may have also stepped up my strength a few notches. His body flew into the air, nearly hitting the ceiling. Before he quite got there, I quickly swam through the air once more, putting myself above Kage, and slamming him back to the floor. As he connected with the ground, Kage put on a pained expression and groaned.

Instead of rushing after him for another attack, I floated down to the ground, stopping an inch or two before I touched down. I looked at Kage with a smile on my face. "I think that's all we should do, I don't want to accidentally break something." I said with an embarrassed chuckle, lamenting on one of my attacks earlier. "You did great though! I actually wasn't expecting you to be able to hit me like you did, so good job!" Kage was worthy of a bit of praise, especially since his attacks actually hurt me.

He looked at me with a bashful smile. "I really did that good? It felt like I was getting tossed around and nothing else." He said, shakily standing on his four paws. I hope I didn't hurt him too badly…

"Remember Kage, the point of this wasn't to beat me in a battle, I was testing you on a few different fronts. On all of these, you performed fantastically!" I meant what I said. Kai had a pretty good analysis, Kage was all around great in combat. He had the instincts to land hits on his opponent, even when he's at a disadvantage, the hits themselves hurt quite a bit, I would say more than average. Not to mention, despite the fact that he really couldn't really keep up with my speed, he wasn't slow by any means. I'd still say above average. And finally, he took my attacks fairly well. I knew that he looked completely drained right now, despite the short fight, but I had hit him a lot, and considering that he could stand, he didn't have much to worry about.

"Thank you for testing me." Kage bowed his head down while looking at me. I appreciate your respect, but you just thanked me for beating you up.

"No problem! It is my job after all!" Well, partially. "Now, can you send one of the others in please? It doesn't matter who."

"Of course!" Kage walked out of the circular door the room with positivity and closed it behind him. I took a breath and thought to myself for a second. Right… I need to rate them with numbers… This was the hardest part of evaluating others, figuring the numbers out. I always second guessed myself when it came to these, especially with someone like Kage. I mean, his stats couldn't be much lower than that of a leader's if I'm being perfectly honest. He's most definitely higher than most normal members, and to think that he's technically still a recruit… Well, at least for another month or so. I remember having similar thoughts about Naru when I always trained with her, but Kai wasn't lying when he said that Kage may be a cut above the rest of them. But he also said they were close together… I'm excited!

While mentally hyping myself up for the rest of the Ravens I was about to evaluate, I heard the door to the room open again, and then turned to look at it. A rather small umbreon walked in, one that I knew quite a bit about, despite never really talking with him at all. I've heard a lot from his partner after all, especially in the past two or so weeks. I looked at him and smiled.

"Welcome to your evaluation!" I greeted happily. Kuro just nodded at me with a small smile evident on his face. I guess he is the quiet one. "Seeing as you're not too talkative, do you just want to get right into it?"

"How exactly does this work?" Kuro asked curiously. Right, I need to explain this a bunch of times… I told Kuro about everything he'd be tested on, using pretty much the same exact wording as I gave to Kage. Luckily it didn't take too long to get all of that fluff out of the way.

"Get the gist of it?" Kuro nodded. All right, on to Raven number two. Kuro looked like he took in a breath and calmed himself down. He looked ready. I floated higher into the air than I was previously, preparing to test this umbreon for his combative abilities. According to Kai, this one had promise, the same kind of promise that I saw in Naru. If that's the case, then let's go!

I decided to catch Kuro off-guard by launching myself at him immediately. He didn't flinch or anything though, just stared at me and reacted to the situation. Before I made contact with him, Kuro rolled out of the way, barely avoiding me. I cleanly turned myself around and sped back at Kuro, who had already recovered. He was facing me, looking as if he was ready to dodge. As I got close enough to uppercut him though, he approached me instead, and headbutted me, directly in the center of my forehead. Ow! What is his skull made of!? While I was harping on why this umbreon had a skull made out of iron or something, Kuro shot a shadow ball at me, striking the center of my body. I shook the attack off and looked back at him. Just like Kai said.

I formed an ice shard in both of my hands, shooting one at Kuro immediately, but I didn't aim directly at him, more like at his paws. Kuro managed to dodge it, but lost his balance right after, due to the way I shot the attack at him. Right before he tripped, I threw the other ice shard I had at him, slamming into the side of his body. He rolled on the wooden floor, but before he could recover, I swooped down and punched Kuro's stomach, and I continued to follow up and hit him four more times after that. As I went in for the next hit, Kuro slammed hit tail on the floor in order to change his positioning. Now that he was facing me, he shot off a dark pulse right at me, which I swiftly swam around, before I countered with an ice beam. Kuro ducked under it, and then locked his gaze on me, waiting for another move. He can still move normally.

I let my body merge with the air around me, cloaking me in the cold particles. I was now hardly visible, and I began to slowly glide through the air. Kuro just stared at one spot, not attempting to find me at all, probably because he had a vague idea of what I was doing. If anything, Naru told him about it. That begs the question though, does he have a way to counter this? For some reason, I felt like he did, and I wanted to know what. Because of this, I quickly went after him, ready to observe. Once I got close enough, I slapped Kuro across the face, just as I did with Kage. He took the hit, but then stood still again, seemingly not trying to track me. Although I was a bit confused, I went in for another attack, this time hitting him harder. He slid across the floor, and it looked like he winced, but he still didn't do anything to track me. What are you up to my umbreon friend? I was intrigued at this point.

Now I wanted to know what Kuro was up to, which had to be something. It didn't look like he was looking for me, and it didn't look like he was trying to counter, yet, he was calm. I wanted to know why. For this reason, I kept hitting Kuro, with nothing more than punches and slaps, however, I put more and more into my hits as I went on. Three hits after my initial attacks, Kuro started to tense up with each one, and was showing pretty obvious signs of feeling pain. Whether he winced or grunted, he was obviously feeling each and every hit I delivered, but he just kept taking them. I was actually starting to attack pretty hard, like, hard enough to break the walls of this building, so I was beginning to worry for Kuro's safety, and honestly considered stopping. One more hit… after that, I'll stop. I launched myself at Kuro again, ready to strike, but I didn't quite get the chance.

Before I arrived close enough to Kuro in order to attack, he shot two large tendrils out of his back, one of which right towards me. The extension of his body wrapped around me, holding me in place. Kuro then turned to look at me, and out came a dark pulse from his maw, connecting with my upper body. I took the attack, and then tried to freeze the tendril constricting me. The ice only made it about a quarter of the way up his tendril, before he released me, and then slammed the icy part of his tendril on the wood beneath him, shattering the ice. I backed off a bit, but kept myself nearly invisible. He got me there… but can he do it again?

I flew through the cold air once more, heading straight for Kuro. Before I got close to him, He swung one of his tendrils in my direction, which didn't quite hit me, but did redirect me away from him. I thought this was just a missed strike, but I felt an attack collide with my back, forcing me forward. I turned my body around, only to see Kuro rushing me, swinging his tail towards my body. I managed to barely get under him, since he had to jump up to hit me. I then punched him directly in the stomach, sending him higher up, before conjuring a clump of ice in my hand. I flew above Kuro, and slammed him to the ground with it, just as I did with Kage. Unlike Kage however, Kuro slammed one of his tendrils on the ground, launching him back up at me, as he slammed his head into my stomach, which I swear hurt more than any of his super effective attacks.

I grabbed Kuro before he could fall back down, and instead of knocking him to the ground, I flew downwards and chucked him at the floor for good measure. He tossed and turned along the wooden floor, but ultimately landed on his paws, digging his claws into the wood to steady himself. That wasn't bad at all! I made myself fully visible in the air and looked down at Kuro, who was staring right where my position was. I smiled at him.

"Great job there, Kuro!" I told him, still not entirely sure how he knew where I was. "Just curious, how did you track me?" He released his claws from the wood below him.

"You moved the same way every time you attacked me. After I took a few hits, I just predicted where you would be." Kuro responded, not really sounding tired at all, which sort of baffled me. I hit him a lot… Disregarding how he sounded, I was still impressed by his deduction, even if it did require taking a dozen or so strikes.

"Not bad at all, great job!" I praised, which made Kuro look a bit uncomfortable. Not used to it, eh? "Well, we're not quite done here, I just want to test one more thing about you, so get ready!" Kuro nodded towards me and his tendrils lowered next to his body. Those things can be your weapon and your downfall. Instead of rushing at Kuro like I did before, I stared at him, and he stared back.

We locked eyes for about thirty seconds, neither of us moving. I saw Kuro begin to look uneasy, and I knew the reason why. He retracted the tendrils that he had out, and then just kept staring, holding a stoic expression, but it was forced. I kept waiting, looking for a signal of some kind, which I was ready for. I counted as each second passed, not looking away from Kuro. While bathing in the silence, I noticed Kuro's leg unnaturally twitch.

As soon as this happened, I bolted at Kuro as fast as I could, and punched straight into his chest, which earned a yelp out of him. His body flew back into one of the icy pillars around the room, and he fell back to the wood. Kuro shook his head and looked back at me, huffing a few times. However, I was finished here.

"There's what you need to work on." I simply said, crossing my arms and lowering as close to the floor as possible without touching it. "That's it for this evaluation, you did a great job!" I smiled brightly at Kuro, and he resumed a normal standing position.

"When you say I need to work on something, do you mean the recoil?" Kuro asked, almost timidly, which was odd. It was like he knew it was an issue, and was embarrassed about it.

"Yeeeeep. You got it. As you can see, if your opponent figures out that you have that issue, they'll take advantage of it, just as I did." It was true after all, an opening like that could lead to life or death.

"I see." He responded quietly, looking down. Is he actually bothered by it? "This has been the same since I first learned how to tap into whatever this energy inside of me is. It hasn't gotten any better or worse, so I've been trying to teach myself to ignore it, but apparently I'm not doing well enough when it comes to that." He let out a sigh.

"Really? Kai hasn't suggested a way to fix it?" If anyone could help him with this, then look no further than the guy who taught him how to do it.

"According to him, my recoil should have calmed down by now, at least a little bit." Kuro shook his head. "However, this isn't really the case." Wait, Kai doesn't know a way to help him? That's interesting.

"That must be a pain." I told him, trying to sympathize. "Well, just work at your own pace, and try your best! I'm sure you'll figure something out eventually!" He looked up at me and smiled.

"Thank you. I appreciate it." Kuro bowed his head and began to walk to the door, after I told him to send in one of the two ladies I was to test. I noticed something about him as he walked out though. He didn't look tired at all, even with that last attack hitting him at his weakest moment. Interesting… Kai wasn't wrong.

I took a breath and watched Kuro fully exit the room, closing the door behind him. I wonder who's next..? Naru or Vero? I was excited to see what these two were capable of. Granted, I've been training Naru for a while, but I could tell she was holding out on me ever since I brought the evaluation up. She definitely had a surprise in store. As for Vero, no idea. Because of this, I was excited to see what she could do. Out of Kuro and Kage, I'd say that Kage was ahead of Kuro in terms of combat, even if it wasn't by too much. Kuro didn't do enough damage to be in the kind of position Kage was in. That's not to say he was in a bad one, not by any means, but I'd still put him behind Kage. I wonder how the other two will compare…

Right as I was forming predictions in my head, I heard the circular door open, signaling the third entrance of the group I was evaluating. I brought my eyes to the entrance, watching as Naru walked to the center of the room, close to me. She smiled at me, and I returned it.

"Hello there." I greeted. I was eager to figure out what she had in store for this evaluation, and it looked like she was eager to show me.

"Hello, mentor." Naru's body looked fidgety, like she couldn't sit still. She was clearly excited for this. That's the spirit! Now calm down before you shriek.

"Alright, I've already explained to you how this works, and since I know all of your basic attributes already, we can skip that part of the test." I began to fly higher into the air. "All I need to do is test how you react to different situations, so how about we get started?" Naru gave a giddy nod.

"Let's do it!" She shouted excitedly. I took a deep breath, lowering the temperature of the room just as I did twice before. I enveloped myself in this feeling, making my body nearly transparent. Naru knew I could do this, I've shown her as well as explained how it works, so she must have thought up some sort of way to counter it. Because of this, I just waited for her to make a move, but she instead closed her eyes. What are you up to? This intrigued me. After a few seconds of observation, I nearly squealed. Naru blended in with the air, leaving what my eyes could see. I felt a rush of excitement and pride flow through my body. You did it! I can't believe you actually did that! It took me an extremely long time to learn how to activate my ability without weather assistance, but here Naru was, getting the hang of it in a little over a month after I told her about it. Part of me wanted to find her just to give her the largest embrace I could, but now wasn't the time. After the evaluation. That's when I'm delivering hugs.

I decided to slowly glide through the air, keeping an eye out for any kind of discrepancy in the room that gave Naru away. I had a feeling that she was doing the same thing, only on the floor as opposed to the air. I've never had to go up against snow cloak before, so this was new to me. I've dealt with sand veil a few times in the past, but one blizzard typically wiped out whatever sandstorm they were using to activate the ability. Obviously, that wouldn't work against a glaceon. If anything, it would make it even easier for her to cloak herself. I wonder how this is going to play out…

I kept gliding around the room, searching for Naru, but to no avail. She was doing a flawless job with this considering it was her first time without weather assistance. However, because of this, the two of us were in quite a stalemate. I assumed she was just wandering like I was, so she was bound to at least make a noise that I could hear or something. I stopped moving in the air and focused on the room around me, listening for anything. The silence in this room was actually a little unnerving, and I had no idea when something would happen, when Naru would finally slip up. Any time now my glaceon friend… Out of nowhere, I heard one of the ice pillars around the room get scraped, so I instinctively turned in that direction and shot off a shadow ball, just missing the pillar and connecting with where the noise came from. Right after I shot it, I felt a harsh pressure push against my back, sending me forward. I recognized this type of attack though, and I nearly squealed a second time, but I held myself back and let out a small squeak instead.

Before I could say anything about what just connected with me, I felt a gust of wind, and then a dark sphere seemingly formed out of nowhere right above me, shooting at me and connecting, slamming me to the ground. Owwwww…. I pushed myself off of the ground, and floated back into the air, not bothering to try and cloak myself. After all, I didn't really have anything else to test Naru on. She was my protege, I already knew how she'd react to everything, and how she battled, along with what her individual statistics would be. The only reason I still thought it necessary to evaluate her in the first place had to do with my curiosity over what Naru was hiding, and boy am I glad I went through with it. I got to see Naru effectively use two new things I taught her, which excited me just as much as Naru looked earlier. Speaking of her, Naru resumed her normal level of visibility somewhat close to me, crouched down and ready for more.

"What's nex-" Instead of waiting for Naru to finish, I soared at her as fast as I could and wrapped my arms around her neck. I then brought her into the air with me, spinning in a circle as I did so.

"I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!" I kept spinning Naru in a circle, unable to contain myself. I didn't help her at all with either of the attacks she used, other than the initial explanation of them. All other progress was made by her, and her alone. I couldn't help the excitement flowing through my body over and over, almost to the point where I didn't hear Naru gasp for air because I had a death grip on her. Oops…

I went to the ground and released Naru, where she immediately gasped and started to breath quickly and heavily. I just chuckled awkwardly. "Sorry about that Naru, I just got so happy! I mean, you used those skills amazingly! I didn't even need to help you!" I praised, resisting the urge to tackle Naru again. She looked at me and smiled confidently.

"T-Thank you." She said a bit bashfully, which wasn't really like her. "After you told me about how you could use those skills, I focused on everything I could do so I could use them just like you did. I got the cloaking pretty easily, but the shockwaves took a bit more time." That's to be expected.

Just in case there's a psychic reading my mind right now, I should mentally explain what Naru used other than the cloaking during that battle. She had a huge problem when it came to attacks that didn't involve ice or water, those being her strong suits. Her only other option was shadow ball, which was effective, but not something she could use constantly, mainly because the attack felt really strange within her body, as I'd imagine most non-ghost or dark types would feel when forming a ball of death within yourself. As an alternative to Naru's main attacks, I decided to show her what I use as a substitute at times, especially because I prefered to attack with martial arts rather than my standard moves. Basically, I showed her that it was possible to launch a shockwave through the air by applying a very large amount of pressure within a closed hand, or in her case, under her paw, and releasing it without adding any elemental fluff. It was basically using a standard move without a typing, but it took a ton of practice to get right, mainly because from birth you're used to using a move with your typing, or at least, some kind of typing. This was different though, not using a type of any kind. Even so, I only showed it to Naru once, and then she came back with the ability to use it but a month after I only demonstrated. You're quite something girl.

I felt my muscles get really jittery, and I was having a hard time resisting them. "Alright Naru, that'll be all for you. You did a fantastic job, and you made your mentor proud!" She very brightly smiled at me.

"Thank you! I'll see you later!" Naru bowed her head and walked out of the room with a spring in her step. I kept looking at the door until it closed, smiling to myself. You did great, Naru. I floated close to the ground, waiting for the last of the four pokemon to come in for her evaluation. I didn't think I actually hit Naru a single time during that test, but I didn't really need to. I've trained with her plenty of times to know what her pain threshold is, and what her stamina is like. Basically, like I said before, all I wanted to do was see what she was hiding, and I was not disappointed. Without much time to recover from my excitement, I watched as the circular door that led into this room opened for the forth time, revealing a zoroark that I didn't know too much about. Vero entered the room and walked to the middle.

I sort off… got off on a bad impression with this one. After all, I kind of used her in a demonstration for something, and I don't think I've actually spoken a word to her since. With that in mind, I felt a little bit awkward while looking into the eyes of this zoroark, but the past was the past. I hope. I rose one of my arms and scratched the back of my head.

"Um, hi Vero! It's good to see you again!" I said enthusiastically. I didn't need to force it, as even if we didn't have the best first meeting, I still wanted to be friendly towards her. Even so, I should probably apologize again… "So, um, about when we first met," I started to bring the subject up, but Vero rose one of her claws.

"It's not a problem, I said so back then, didn't I?" Vero spoke, sounding a little confused, as if she didn't expect me to still be hung up on that.

"I know, but I wanted to make sure. I didn't mean any harm, just needed someone to demonstrate, and you happened to be there." I said with an awkward chuckle. Vero smiled at me, not looking annoyed like I was expecting.

"I understand why I was used as an example, no need to make a big deal out of it, all that happened was me being in the wrong place at the wrong time." Vero lowered her gaze to the ground for a split second before locking eyes with me again. "But I'm here to be evaluated, aren't I? Why don't we get that over with?" She put one of her arms horizontally in front of her head, and the other one hung beside her body. It was an interesting stance to take for battle, not one I think I've ever seen before. This excited me.

"Alright! Thanks for your understanding!" I cheerily responded, getting a nod from Vero. I rose to the air for the fourth time in this room, and began to focus on merging with the air again. Man, this is getting really repetitive… My body became nearly invisible again, and I began to float around the room like I had previously. I wish I had the freedom to design my own evaluation for each of them, but rules say otherwise. Like with the others, I didn't really know what to expect, but I knew that Vero would react to this somehow. The rest of them had their way of figuring me out, what will I see from you, Ve-

The zoroark launched herself at me right seconds after I cloaked myself, and jumped up to kick me in the stomach, sending me backward in the air. I recovered from the blow and backed up more, thinking that my change in position would keep Vero from finding me. How did she know!? That scared me! I looked down at Vero, who I was now behind. She was scanning the room quickly, until her eyes made it to where I was. As soon as they did, she shot off a dark pulse in my direction, looking pinpoint accurate. I swam around it in the air, and Vero jumped at me again, nearly slashing me with one of her claws. After dodging her attack, I flew to the other end of the room, and stopped bothering to cloak myself in the cold air. I looked at Vero, beyond intrigued.

"Okay, okay, I need to know, how are you tracking me?" I asked her, halting the evaluation for just a second. I couldn't know how she was reacting if I had no idea what she was doing in the first place.

"What do you mean? I can see you." She simply responded, dumbfounding me. She can just kind of… see me!? What!? Vero gave me a small smile. "I have really good eyesight, let's leave it at that." She faced me back in her battle stance. That's not good eyesight, that's supernatural eyesight…

"G-Good to know." I said, trying to get over the shock factor. Geez, so the zoroark can just see me and the luxray can't? Genetics are weird…

Well, all I needed to do now was test her one on one for combat, seeing as I didn't have anything else that could give her any sort of surprise. I'll just have to do everything I can to challenge her physically. With that thought in mind, I flew towards her as fast as I could, swinging my left arm at her. She caught it though, and swung back with her right claw. I ducked under it and gave her an uppercut right under her chin. She flew off the ground and did a backflip to land on her feet, before rushing at me again. This time, she had small tendrils eroding from the sides of her arms, but I didn't see how that could help her in this battle. I shot off an ice shard at her before she could reach me, but she just effortlessly kicked it out of the way and kept running towards me.

We then proceeded to trade a few blows back and forth, until Vero managed to kick the side of my body, twisting me to the side. She attempted to follow up with her right claw, but I caught it, and then slammed an ice shard into her midsection. Vero flew back towards one of the icy pillars, and I assumed she would slam into it, but she used the small masses of darkness coming from her arms to wrap around the pillar of ice, and she spun around it in a full circle, sending herself right back at me and kicking me in the face with both of her feet. I flew back into one of the other ice pillars, slamming into it hard. Owww… I flew higher into the air and formed two spheres of matter in my hands. I pressed them together and shot off a beam of shadowy color, which Vero barely avoided. Because she had to jump away from the attack, she gave me an opening, which I took advantage of. I flew after Vero and hit her in the abdomen with my elbow, which she grimaced at. Before retreating though, she grabbed both of my arms and flipped me to the side, slamming me on the ground. That was good.

I extended an icy feeling through my body and froze the arm that Vero still had connected with me, and then repeated the same thing she just did with me, but in reverse. The ice shattered on impact, and Vero was slammed to the ground. I rose back up, wanting my height advantage back, but Vero recovered quickly and jumped at me again. Sadly for her, I was on guard now, so I hit her with an ice shard out of the air, sending her back into another one of the icy pillars. After slamming into it, she slid down and stood up a bit wobbly. I just hit her with something pretty hard, and combined with the other attacks she's taken, I think that this was enough for now. I lowered myself to the ground, hopefully not needing to raise up anymore for the day, I was starting to get pretty tired. That didn't last too long, but I can see her talent.

"Okay! I think that's enough for now!" I cheerily said with a smile. "You did great! I really felt some of those attacks more than I thought I would!" My back is sore now…

"Thank you." She said politely with a small bow. Although I had enough to give her a grade now, there was something that she avoided using which confused me a bit.

"Just wondering though, why didn't you use any illusions? Surely that would have helped you out a bit, would it not?" Zoroarks typically used illusions whenever they could, as it was a pretty useful ability to have, if a bit taxing on the body. Vero's expression changed a little bit, but I couldn't really tell how she was feeling.

"I… don't like to use illusions unless I absolutely have to." She said bluntly. Sounds like there's a story behind that… Part of me wanted to press her, but I don't think this was my place to meddle. The only two pokemon I thought I had the right to meddle in the affairs of were Kai and Naru. Kai because he clearly needed help with something, although I'm not sure what, and Naru because she was my protege, and my friend.

"I see. Well, I won't force you. Just a curious question." I followed, not wanting to seem insensitive. "But that's about it when it comes to your evaluation. Good job! Hopefully I'll see you around in the future!" Vero looked up at me with a smile and nodded. She then walked to the circular door and, with a wave, left the room to join up with the other four. I released a stress-filled breath and sat on the wooden flooring, relaxing myself. I was really worried about not being able to accurately score the pokemon I just evaluated, but I thought I had a pretty good idea now. I should get on that as soon as I can.

I sat myself up and aimed one of my hands at each of the icy pillars at one end of the room. I took a second to focus, and I sent a shockwave ripping through the air, cracking the base of both of them. They then fell over towards the other ones, and like dominos, all crashed down on each other, falling down and shattering loudly. I wonder if a fire type would like to come in here and melt these for me…

I lifted myself into the air and floated to the entrance to this room, all evaluations finished. I opened the door and left the room, closing it behind me. I was now back in the large space of the Nest, greeted by the deep violet coloring that this place loved. I breathed in the fresh air, looking at the orange sky. Now, where should I go to write these results down..? I glanced around many of the Nest's twisting paths and laid eyes upon a figure walking down one of them. Hold on, what's Kai doing here? I recalled my earlier conversation with Kai, where he gave me some insight as to why he was acting different as of late, when I was honestly expecting silence like every other time I'd spoken to him. I took it as a sign of him opening up, which was a positive. He still intrigued me in a lot of ways, and I wanted to learn more about him, despite the fact that he clearly didn't like to talk. Plus, there's only one real reason why he would be here… exactly where the evaluations just took place.

I smiled to myself and began to approach Kai, ready to bother him some more.

Hello Readers!

So how did you like reading the same scene four times with four different characters? Heh… heh… sorry if that was kind of bland. I wanted to have these four get evaluated by themselves, and I wanted to show their interactions with Shard, so I didn't want to skip over them. In the end, this chapter may be a bit boring to some, but it was a necessary one nonetheless. I tried my best. :p

Anywho, things are going to start to pick up again next chapter, now that our main characters got a little bit of a break from life constantly shoving them into the dirt. Soon, one of the last new characters for quite some time is going to be introduced, and after that's all said and done with, we're going back into the deep end.

Also, with this chapter, this story has reached 200,000 words! It's strange to think that I started this in June of this year, and I've already spent more hours typing it than… well… anything else I've ever done. :p I want to thank everyone who has followed or favorited this story, as getting feedback and messages from all of you is what keeps me going! I love you all!

I want to thank everyone who has sent me a review, PM, the usual. It means a lot, and I love every bit of it! I will indeed respond to any that I receive, so keep them coming! As a note though, I will almost always respond using the site, not the app, unless I know that the individual I'm responding to uses the app over the site. That being said, if you want me to respond through the app instead, just let me know and I'll be more than happy to! I want to give a thank you to my beta reader, who is stockpiling more and more typos to use against me as these chapters go on, but it makes them better, so that's all that matters! (8-BitUmbreon)

[Guys, go ahead and send me a PM if you want me to use the typos against Glacey. In a friendly manner of course :p]

See You Next Chapter!