"It's time to rise, little one."

Albert stirred as the voice of Lapras interrupted his dream. His mind started fading back into reality, but it didn't feel right… The rocky wall which propped his back was too sandy. The soil beneath him was too hard, not damp and comfortable as it should have been. The air was too warm. It took him a moment to realize, for the second morning now, he was not home. It was a very uncomfortable feeling.

Blinking, he glanced around at the cramped little chamber they had stayed in for the night: a large boulder which had been split down the center from decades of freezing water within its cracks, with a couple planks of wood spread across the top to keep the Watchers at bay. It was barely big enough to shelter both of them. Albert again wondered why Lapras was taking so many measures to ensure they would not meet or rest too close to the rest of the caravan—the true rest stop was only a quarter mile upstream.

"It's still dark," Albert noticed. "They aren't leaving already, are they? Can't we just go back to sleep?"

"No, the caravan won't be setting off for another few hours," Lapras said, holding himself tall over the little Snover. "But that's why you have to get up. We spend all day traveling, but we need time to train."

"Training…" Albert murmured. "I can't train now… too tired… Can we eat something?"

"A Pokémon must learn to fight whenever it is necessary, even if they are tired or hungry," Lapras said. "Intelligent foes may take those opportunities to strike. Besides, we cannot be shirking our training now just because we are away from home, not if we want to get you evolved sometime."

Evolution. That thought really got Albert's heart moving. Evolving was a very desirable idea for him. As an Abomasnow, he wouldn't let anyone push him around anymore—not Turq, not the Master. If he wanted to live in the Frozen Spring, the Master wouldn't be able to tell him no. He would pulverize anyone who got in his way … he would never have to stiffen up and pretend to be tough anymore, because he would be tough…

"How close am I to evolving, Lapras?" Albert asked of him. "Last time, you said it would be four years or more…"

"That was a year ago, little one," Lapras replied. "To answer your question, I do not know, but I think you might be close. Times have changed. Under current circumstances, you are much closer to evolving than you would have otherwise been. Life has thrown you a good deal of stress, which pushes you closer to your transformation. In fact, I have brought along an evolution stone in case I can prepare you before we arrive to the harbor. It's being kept with the caravan."

An evolution stone. Albert imagined seeing it. He'd heard of these things, which Pokémon needed to evolve, but he'd never seen one before. He wondered how they worked.

"So… we must make you stronger, and this is the only time we have. So… prepare yourself…"

Albert leapt to his feet in surprise. "Wait," he shouted. "You don't… you don't want me to fight you, Lapras? I can't fight you…"

"Do not say that word 'can't' around me, child," Lapras said, repeating a phrase he would always use in class. "There are only two kinds of Pokémon who evolve: those who put their entire strength into something and succeed, and those who put their entire strength into something and fail. Either way, you must put your whole strength into it. Now, prepare yourself…"

Albert grimaced, not believing Lapras was challenging him first thing in the morning, before the sun had even escaped the horizon. His head was still cloudy from weariness, his belly crying out for food. Groaning, he stood his ground, trying to imitate a battle stance.

"Not in here, though," Lapras chuckled. "Not enough room. Come, let's find a good place outside…"

---

The rays of the dawning sun glowed from behind the building wall of clouds to the north-east, the looming snowstorm which Zerferia was sending into Ambera. A soft orange color lit half the sky, the other half still dwelling in darkness, leaving a star still twinkling here and there. A gentle breeze shifted through the air.

The caravan had made good progress since their departure. In only two days, they had traveled almost thirty miles up Cornice River, leaving Frozen Spring far behind. They had arrived to this second rest stop, the Broken Plain, a giant plateau of stones with many fissures in them, some suitable for providing shelter in the night.

Albert emerged from the tiny shelter to find himself on a small stone platform a dozen feet above ground level. Though it was dark, he glanced into the lands beyond and spotted the river many yards away, sparkling in the strange colors cast by the dawn.

"This looks good enough," Lapras said to him, judging the width of the surface. "Now… if I can remember correctly, Albert, last time you trained, you were practicing with your leaves…"

"Yeah," he replied.

"Any good with them?"

"No," Albert confessed. "They aren't very strong…"

"Well, I only helped you learn because you said you wanted an edge against water Pokémon," Lapras said. "I figured it was fair enough, seeing that many water Pokémon lived around the Springs… But, if you would like me to help you gain mastery over something I know well, I will teach you how to use ice."

"Ice…" Albert repeated. "Is it powerful to use ice?"

"Yes," Lapras replied. "There are not many who can defend themselves against ice attacks, especially if you are able to freeze them solid so they cannot move! And, if you become skilled enough, you will even be able to challenge dragons with the power of ice."

Challenge dragons? Albert thought about the possibility of fighting a dragon. He'd never seen one for most of his life, and thought they were only myths. In fact, before he had seen the dragon that served the Infernape, he never knew what they looked like…

"Now, try this," Lapras said. "I have taught you how to focus your attention on the sunlight to let it feed power to your leaves. Now, instead of that, try learning something different: you must learn how to command your body to drop the temperature of the air which surrounds you. This technique is central to all ice attacks."

Albert sighed. Learning to tap into the power of his grass was the most difficult and frustrating part of his training. He hoped that summoning the power of ice would be easier.

"Imagine the cold," Lapras instructed. "Imagine the coldest thing you can. Imagine being trapped in the heart of Zerferia as a snowstorm rages around you. Negative eighty degrees! Temperatures that would kill another Pokémon on contact, freeze their beating heart and frosting over their body in minutes. Imagine the ice breaking underneath you, and sinking into a pit of freezing water…

That part's not too hard, Albert told himself with disdain, remembering how he was chucked into Oracle Lake.

So, he did. Letting his mind wander, which was not all that difficult having just been rustled up from his sleep, Albert's eyes glazed over as he placed himself in an intense tundra of snow, a place so cold and dark that the sun did not shine.

A minute passed, and Albert shook his head.

"I don't think it's working, Lapras," he complained. "I don't feel any different."

"You don't think it's working?" Lapras replied, smirking. "Look… closer."

Albert felt something touch his face.

Squinting, he noticed several tiny snowflakes drifting about his head. They were hardly visible, and swirled around like the dust. Albert blinked. He had been so lost in his daydream, he hadn't noticed them; and now, he wondered if he had somehow succeeded in pulling the weather out from inside of his mind and into reality.

"See?" Lapras laughed. "You lowered the temperature of the air around you enough to make snow. That's a good start, but in time, you'll learn that you can even cause a whole snowstorm wherever you go. It can give you an advantage in battle."

Albert reached out a leafy hand, catching one of the snowflakes from the air. It sat for a moment before blowing away in the breeze.

"I always wondered why sometimes it would snow, even if there weren't any clouds," he said. "So it was because of me…"

"Now, when you master that technique, there are many thing you can do with it," Lapras continued. "For example, if you can freeze the air in just the right way…"

Lapras burned his gaze at the little Snover, his eyes concentrating. The air around his head began to sparkle, as if the stars of the night sky had somehow become visible around him. Watching intently, Albert saw how the sparkles grew, soon becoming little crystals of ice levitating with psychic power…

Before he was ready, the crystals expanded into large shards of ice and flew straight at him.

"Aaiiigha!" Albert yelped, diving out of the way.

He wasn't fast enough. Several of the icicles slammed into him, stinging quite a bit, as he tumbled to the side. The rest of them shattered noisily against the rocks.

"I want to learn that!" Albert shouted as he scrambled to his feet. "Teach me!"

"I will," Lapras laughed. "But you aren't quite ready to learn it yet. Your mind and body are not powerful enough. But perhaps someday soon…"

Yes, someday soon, Albert told himself. This is it. I have Lapras all to myself now. No other students to bother him. He's my personal trainer! And he's going to teach me how to fight so fast that I'll evolve in only a week or two. Yes. Someday soon, I'll be able to stand up for myself…

The snow, light and sparse as it was, continued to fall around Albert's body. He prepared to spar with his trainer, and though he knew he would probably end up face-down on the ground at the end just like he would with any confrontation with a bully, he knew he had to do what it required to get stronger.

Before Lapras even finished uttering the challenge, Albert lunged at him with the opening attack.

---

Albert couldn't remember much of what happened. The next thing he knew, he was laying face-up on Lapras' back, staring at the late-morning sky. The hypnotizing sound of flowing water came from every direction… they were already back on their way upstream.

"Good morning, again," Lapras greeted, eyeing the little Snover.

"What happened…?" Albert groaned, rubbing his forehead. "I have a headache…"

"Well, to put it lightly, you tried very hard," Lapras said indifferently. "And I have to congratulate you on your enormous effort. But next time, we must learn to pace ourselves so that we do not pass out from fatigue after eighty seconds of battle."

"I… passed out?" Albert repeated. "Well… what did you expect, Lapras? You woke me up before the sun rose and asked me to fight you. I was still tired…"

"Of course," Lapras said. "Most every Pokémon remains tired after a long rest, especially under such stress as being forced from our homes, where rest does little to replenish your strength. I never expected you to perform well."

"But you told me to give my full heart," Albert whined. "That's what I did."

"You don't know what it means to give your full heart, then," Lapras spoke. "It doesn't mean to just hastily charge after your opponent and keep getting up when you're knocked down. Because no matter your perseverance, you will not always be able to get up after being knocked down. Giving your whole heart doesn't mean simply standing up to whatever foe challenges you, because there will always be foes who can shatter you under their feet without trying. Winning is not always about trying your hardest, little one, it is also about trying your smartest. Find your own weaknesses, and learn to work around them. In this case, you should have acted carefully and conserved your energy instead of plowing into me. Pace yourself when you are tired. Let this be a lesson to you."

Albert sighed. He could never win. Once again, the prospect of evolution seemed just beyond his reach.

He thought about the words for a moment, wondering if he had been foolish to just stand up to Turq so many times in the past. In doing so, he thought he was becoming stronger each time, more respectable, more feared by him… But in the end, he'd just gotten beat up, having proven nothing as a result.

And, to be honest with himself, he wasn't really getting much better at fighting against the Wartortle. Even his leaf attacks were useless if they were so weak. A thought occurred to him: maybe there was something he wasn't understanding.

"How does evolution work, anyway?" Albert wondered out loud.

"It's very simple," Lapras said. "As a Pokémon grows, they will encounter difficulty in their lives, such as battles which must be fought, or run from. Tunnels to dig, skies to fly, prey to hunt and capture… the lifestyle of every Pokémon is different, but we all have our challenges to face. Our strength grows to adapt to these challenges, to give us power in battle, or endurance to run, or the ability to do whatever else we find we must do in life. But for some Pokémon, there will come a time when they find that the strength of their body isn't enough for them anymore, and so it will undergo a change to allow them to continue growing stronger. That's evolution."

"But you don't have to evolve," Albert said. "I know some Pokémon can keep from changing. Like Opal."

"That's true," Lapras hummed, remembering the little Marill he had trained. "Yes, you can stop the change if you so desire, saving it for later. There are certain special advantages to that. But, it is a painful and unnatural thing to do to yourself. Opal got a bad migraine every time she stopped the change, enough that she dearly regretted the decision every single time she did so. But it goes to show the true nature of evolution: it gets triggered by your body's own perception of itself and its surroundings. Its roots are in your subconscious."

"Then… what about the evolution stones, then?" Albert asked. "Why do we need them if we can evolve just by getting stronger? And how come wild Pokémon don't need them?"

"That's perhaps the most interesting part," Lapras said. "See, there is a big difference between a wild Pokémon and a civilized Pokémon such as you and I. We can communicate intelligently with one another, we can study the world around us, we can plan for our futures. We can even build houses and live in our own cities like the humans do. When we encounter stress in our lives, what do we do? We explain it away logically, or we deal with it effectively, or we shift our perspective in order to tell ourselves it isn't too bad a situation. Or perhaps we call upon our many companions to assist us. Either way, we have suppressed all of our basic instincts in favor of higher thinking. We have also suppressed our need to evolve. Your subconscious is convinced evolution is completely unnecessary and has buried it so far down that you might never reach it no matter what circumstances you find yourself in."

"I had no idea!" Albert exclaimed. "So, being civilized is actually harmful in some way… That's what the stones are for?"

"Exactly," Lapras continued. "The more civilized a Pokémon is, the harder it will be for them to evolve on their own. Now, like Opal, there are some civilized Pokémon that have managed the change on their own, but for the rest of us, the stones produce some kind of radiation that wakes up our basic instincts and helps trigger the change. But you still need to be ready for the change in the first place. If an Eevee wants to become Umbreon, they still need to have a soaring heart amidst the darkness of night. An Onix needs a metal deposit to fuse with their body. And you, little Snover, must reach a very steep threshold of strength before the stone will be of any use to you."

No wonder Turq evolved first in our class, Albert mused. He's practically a feral!

So, Albert realized, evolution would not be easy in any sense. He would need to train, exercise, and push himself until his body would become more powerful than nature intended it to be in the first place. Brute determination wouldn't accomplish this. As Lapras had said, it would take not only discipline, but focus.

Abomasnow are rare, Albert remembered. Not very many reach evolution, even ferals…

After Lapras said nothing more for a few moments, Albert grew tired of the subject. His training was over for the day, and any way he imagined it, it felt daunting to him. Now, it was time to just sit and watch the view, pass the time, and try to take his mind off the still-aching feeling of homesickness as best as possible.

Repositioning himself among the knots on Lapras' shell, Albert ignored the pleasant sight of the countryside and turned his attention back to the stream below, curious to see if anything lived down there.