Chapter 14:

"Race you to the cave!" Joasia said before sprinting off down the slope.

"Hey, you got a head start, that's not fair!" Mateusz yelled before running after her.

They ran down the slope at great speed, almost tripping on multiple occasions as they avoided trees and rocks that protruded from the surrounding landscape. Mateusz caught up to Joasia and ran past, but as he did, his foot caught on a stone and he fell. Joasia, who was directly behind him tripped over him as he rolled down, landing on top. Mateusz yelped as Joasia's full weight landed on his already bruised body. The pair stopped rolling after hitting a tree with a dull, 'thud'.

"Ouch!" they both exclaimed.

"Can you please get off me now Joasia?" Mateusz said.

Joasia stood up and stretched, testing to see if anything was sprained.

"Geez, you're heavy Joasia. That really hurt." Mateusz said whilst standing up and doing the same.

Joasia simply laughed at this and continued down the slope, walking this time. Mateusz joined her at the same pace. They came to the part of the forest where the cave was and approached the entrance. As they did so, Mewtwo emerged from the entrance, accompanied by Mew. Mew saw Mateusz and Joasia walking toward the entrance and floated over to Mateusz.

"Hey, can you please, you know, say you're sorry now? You know, to um, Mewtwo?" Mew said to him.

"Okay, I will apologise now, but I expect him to at least say that he won't do that exercise where he randomly attacks me again." Mateusz replied before walking over to Mewtwo. "Mewtwo, I am very sorry for what I did earlier, it wasn't right to do that to you. Can you forgive me?" Mateusz genuinely said, extending his hand.

Mateusz looked into Mewtwo's amethyst coloured eyes as he said this, and he saw that they softened from the glare he was being given earlier on.

"You are forgiven. I have been thinking about how it would be best to train you, and I have decided that there will be no more surprise exercises involving combat. I am sorry if I broke your trust by doing that exercise." Mewtwo responded whilst looking back into Mateusz's green coloured eyes and shaking Mateusz's outstretched limb.

"That's okay, just please don't do any exercises like that again, it really does make me wonder if I'm on the right side. Oh, and I was kind of wondering, once you've finished investigating my abilities, what am I meant to do? I can't go to a human town to live for obvious reasons, and I don't know how to survive in the forest for a long period of time. I'm just asking you what I should do." Mateusz queried.

"I will teach you how to survive as part of your training, along with combat, the different species of pokémon, and locations around the region such as forests, mountains and towns." Mewtwo replied.

Joasia walked up to where they were standing.

"So from what I picked up during that conversation, you are going to be trained as well Mateusz?" Joasia asked.

"Yes, Mewtwo wants to see if I have any more abilities, aside from needing to learn combat for our excursion in a few days' time." Mateusz informed.

"So where are you going?" Joasia asked.

"We are going to a Team Rocket base to gather more data. This base is not a mere outpost like the one we went to the other day, it is a fully functioning base, with many Team Rocket members working there." Mewtwo interrupted the conversation.

"Oh, okay. So will there be training today or not? It's almost midday." Joasia said.

"Yes, we shall do some training now." Mewtwo said as he turned and walked off.

Mateusz and Joasia took this as a sign they were meant to follow and so did. Mewtwo stopped when they came to a small clearing and turned to face them.

"Today I will teach you how to effectively use your barrier defence Joasia, and we'll see if Mateusz can do something similar." Mewtwo informed them.

Mewtwo continued to demonstrate to them, making a stance.

"Try and hit me Joasia." Mewtwo directed.

Joasia took a few steps forward and half-heartedly swung her left fist at Mewtwo. It never reached Mewtwo though, instead, her fist appeared to hit a solid object and as it did, a blue glow filled the air in front of Mewtwo. Joasia stepped back, a little shock showed on her face.

"Now you try Mateusz. A lot harder than Joasia did it though." Mewtwo said.

Mateusz stepped forwards and swung a strong right hook at Mewtwo. His fist collided with Mewtwo's purple underbelly and Mewtwo momentarily winced. Mateusz took a few steps backwards quickly.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't know that would happen, please don't hurt me!" Mateusz apologised in shock and fear.

Joasia laughed uncontrollably at the spectacle.

"No, it was my fault, I forgot for a moment that you seem to be able to bypass my psychic abilities, which includes barriers." Mewtwo waved off the apology.

"I'm still sorry; I probably shouldn't have punched so hard." Mateusz responded in turn.

"I asked you to punch hard, no more, and no less." Mewtwo assured Mateusz before going back to teaching, "Now we shall continue. The key to forming a barrier is to focus your mental energy into a sort of wall in front of you. Try it now Joasia and I will test you."

Joasia copied what Mewtwo had done and waited for Mewtwo to test her. Mewtwo waved his arm through where her barrier was meant to be, but his hand did not hit a solid barrier. Instead it drifted straight through as if there was nothing there.

"You will get it in time, just keep practicing for now and you should be able to get one by the end of our training session." Mewtwo told her.

Mewtwo continued over to Mateusz who took up the same stance as Joasia. Mewtwo repeated the process he had gone through before. His arm waved straight through the air in front of Mateusz with ease.

"It seems that you can't form barriers." Mewtwo said before giving one last wave of his arm.

That final wave appeared to have trouble moving through the air and as it did, a slight yellow glow formed. Mewtwo's eyes widened in reaction to this and he withdrew his arm.

"It appears you can form barriers then. But for now, they aren't entirely solid." Mewtwo said, taking a step backwards. "Keep practising for a while and I'll come back and test you again in an hour."

Mewtwo left them alone in the clearing as he walked off in the direction of the cave.

"Do you reckon we should practise or just muck about?" Mateusz said with a cheeky smile on his face.

"We should do both, we don't want Mewtwo suspecting that we didn't do what he said." Joasia replied, smiling back.

"So which should we do first, the practise or the mucking around?" Mateusz asked.

"The mucking around, that way it'll look like we've been practising the whole time if it's what we're doing when he gets back." Joasia told Mateusz.

"Oh yeah, I see. Where do you want to go?" Mateusz asked.

"I think we'll just stay here." Joasia said.

The pair sat down on the grass and relaxed, having various discussions about different topics to do with life, the universe, everything. After about fifteen minutes of friendly chatter a small pink creature floated through the trees on the edge of the clearing. It was Mew.

"Hey, I thought Mewtwo said you were both practising, that doesn't look like practise to me." Mew said with a smirk on his face.

"Oh, uh, Mew, we didn't see you there." Mateusz stuttered before begging, "Please don't tell Mewtwo, we'll get in trouble."

Mew simply laughed before saying, "You two together are mischief incarnate. Don't worry, I won't tell Mewtwo, in fact, I'll go one further and bring you guys lunch, you must be starving."

"Us? Mischief incarnate? I hardly think so; you're the one who pulls all the pranks and stuff." Joasia responded, pulling a face.

"Well, you do have a point there. I'd better go get your lunch now. I'm starving as well so… yeah." Mew said as he floated off.

Mateusz stood up and stretched.

"I'm going to go, uh, do something, just excuse me a minute." Mateusz told Joasia.

"Okay." Joasia responded without getting off the ground.

Mateusz walked into the forest and looked around for a stick that would be the correct length and width for fashioning a hiking stick from, it would help if he had one for the long trek he was going to partake in within a few more days. He found a long, reasonably thick stick that fit the description of what he was looking for. He grabbed it from the ground and continued back to the clearing where Joasia sat. As he reached the clearing he could see that Mew had returned with lunch. It was, wait for it, more berries! Mateusz audibly groaned as he saw the pile of the fruit which he was extremely bored of by this stage. Mew looked up, munching on berries.

"You want some?" Mew mumbled.

"Well I suppose if there's nothing else to eat…" Mateusz responded as he sat down.

Mateusz grabbed a handful of berries and began to eat. He soon noticed that these berries were different from the rest of the pile as his mouth and throat began feel as if they were on fire.

"Ah, ah! Water, I need water! Where is the water?!" Mateusz jumped up and yelled.

Mew and Joasia laughed loudly as they watched Mateusz running about like a crazed chicken with tears streaking down his now tomato coloured face whilst clutching his neck. Mateusz ran to a spring on the edge of the clearing and plunged his face in. Mateusz drew his face from the water and sighed. He looked behind him and saw Mew and Joasia sitting there, laughing.

"You guys did it, didn't you?!" Mateusz half yelled with rage.

"Yeah, we did. I promised not to prank Mewtwo for a few days but I never said anything about you." Mew said as he continued to laugh.

"Yeah sorry, it was too good to resist the opportunity." Joasia said.

"Well don't damn well do it again." Mateusz grumbled as he joined them on the grass once again.

"Those berries there aren't spicy if you still want some." Mew pointed to a separate pile of berries.

Mateusz grabbed a handful of the berries Mew was talking about and finally got to eat his lunch without any complications. When they were all done eating, Mew floated off to do some undescribed activity. Mateusz and Joasia decided that it was time to actually do some of the practising Mewtwo had told them to do as half an hour had already passed. They each practised their technique whilst testing each other's barriers. Mateusz's barrier was quite solid within a few minutes of practising and Joasia remarked on his speed in learning. Joasia managed to get hers to be solid after about 15 minutes of practise.

"I think I've got it now Mateusz, punch my barrier." Joasia told Mateusz.

Mateusz swung his right arm and struck Joasia's solid barrier, but as he did, it seemed to break and Joasia fell backwards.

"Are you okay?" Mateusz asked with a laugh as he extended his hand.

"I'm fine, I think I need to work on the strength of my barriers though, it's going to be useless if all it can do is block one blow." Joasia said, grabbing Mateusz's outstretched hand and getting up.

"Yeah, it's kind of pointless to only be able to block once before being knocked backwards." Mateusz responded.

A rustle was heard from the bushes to one side of the clearing.

"What was that?" Joasia asked as her head twitched to the direction of the noise.

"No idea, let's go see." Mateusz said.

They both walked in the direction of where the noise was coming from and investigated. As they got closer, two creatures jumped out of the bush, one was about two foot tall, sand coloured and seemed to look a bit like a mouse with weird rectangular skin texture whilst the other was almost a metre long with a blue top half and tan coloured bottom half with flames coming out its back and head. The two creatures charged at Joasia and Mateusz…


Author's Note:

Sorry for not uploading for a while, I've been a little busy. The two creatures that jump out of the bush at the end are a sandshrew and a quilava. Anyway, here is the 14th instalment in this story so please enjoy!