Anticipation

"Claydol…I swear…" Charlie panted, legs throbbing and arms sore. "Your stupid obstacle course…"

"It took you an hour to complete my task. Unimpressive, to say the least."

"Shut up," Charlie groaned, "So, I finally got out of your obstacle course, now what?"

"The obstacle course you just concluded? You'll have to undergo it daily. I've constructed a training regime for you. Foremost is combat practice, then is psychic practice, and last is Pokemon Training. Furthermore, You will also be given a mission you need to accomplish every week, if you fail to accomplish them…there will be consequences. This training regime will stretch until this League Season you spoke of begins."

"Understood," Charlie said, "So, the first practice is combat practice?"

"Yes. The heir of The Cognitors needs to know how to defend himself without Pokemon."

Several swirls of sand and clay formed together to make a humanoid dummy. The dummy had no special features, the standard shape of a male body.

"You will be practicing against this dummy until you completely exhaust yourself. We will do five sets today."

"...Okay," Charlie said, he had a bad feeling about all of this.

Charlie cautiously approached the training dummy. It was completely still and unmoving. He flinched when a blue aura engulfed the dummy, and it reared its right arm back for a punch.

He shielded his face with his arms, blocking the punch, but the dummy reared back its left arm which slammed right into the left side of Charlie's skull. Charlie stumbled backward, slightly dizzy but it wasn't quite as painful as he had anticipated.

It's attacks are flimsy!

He cursed to himself and attempted to counterstrike with his punch, but the dummy simply sidestepped away.

The combat dummy leaped in for another swift strike to the skull, and Charlie was left dazed.

"Interesting. You are proving to be highly inefficient in combat."

"Oh please…" Charlie grumbled to himself, the combat dummy's attacks were purposefully flimsy and weak, but getting hit in the skull still wasn't a pleasure.

He slowly backed away from the dummy, narrowing his eyes as the dummy did the same. Its movements were weird due to it being telepathically controlled. The training dummy suddenly leaped forward and threw a punch at Charlie, which he blocked with his arm.

Yes!

Charlie launched a strike of his own with his right arm. The attack caused the dummy to backpedal a couple of centimeters from the sudden impact, Charlie stepped forward for another punch.

This time, his attack missed the dummy who sidestepped to the left and swung its leg which impacted against his. Charlie felt a slight stab of pain, but dashed at the training dummy again, firing another punch.

The combat dummies' repeated strikes against him were starting to wear him down. The first hit may not have done much, but when all of the blows he took were added together, the pain showed.

The dummy ducked to dodge the attack and fired a jab at his abdomen. Charlie's vision suddenly blurred in pain. He was already exhausted from the previous obstacle course, and this wasn't helping.

The dummy backpedaled several steps. Charlie chased after them, swinging his leg in an attempt to strike the dummy's torso. The dummy simply blocked the kick with its forearms.

In a mix of confusion and haste, Charlie dropped the kick, this gave an opening for the combat dummy to leap at him and punch Charlie straight in the face.

Charlie fell against the ground from the sudden impact of his already imbalanced body.

"You…have a lot to work on."

Claydol levitated over his collapsed body, the dummy that Charlie had just been fighting scattered into sand and clay on the ground.

"I am not proficient in the art of human combat. I am simply mimicking the movements that I saw from my master and many others. So, I am saddened to say that the best I can teach you is through these mock battles."

Charlie groaned in pain, barely standing up.

"I didn't anticipate your combat skills would be so poor…"

Charlie rested on a random boulder he found. He was sweating all over. He only had thirty-minute breaks between the combat training and the psychic training. During the combat training, he only had ten minutes in between each brawl.

He smiled softly as he saw Veritas practice some moves against random boulders. Well, they weren't random. Claydol erected them for Veritas.

Speaking of Claydol, they were absolutely brutal. Those dummies may not hurt much, but when the damage he took from them is added up, then it becomes rough for him.

He did bring drinking water with him, but not as much as he really should have. In response to his grievances, Claydol used his psychic powers to teleport around and got him a couple of bottles of water.

Actually, where the hell did they find this water? Did they…just rob some random grocery store?

Claydol floated over to him. "Get up. Next is psychic training."

Charlie sighed, sweat still soaking his entire body. He rose from the rock he sat on, and approached Claydol.

"As I am sure you already are acknowledged of, you are what is called an 'internal' psychic. I will be personally teaching you how to make the best of your psychic abilities. For internals like you, the highest priority would be the ability to erect a mental shield and a technique that I call 'Psychic Vision'."

Charlie narrowed his eyes, "Psychic Vision?"

He knew what a mental shield was he'd already erected one. But the latter was a term he wasn't familiar with, and that's a big deal considering his profession.

"Oh? I would've assumed you humans would have already figured out psychic vision considering how dominant The Draconids are nowadays."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"'Psychic Vision' is a technique founded by The Cognitors. It's a simple but specific technique that entails the user to hyperfixate all of their psychic energy into the vision. Due to the nature of psychic energy, when so hyper-concentrated on the vision, it directly changes the way the brain thinks. The technique requires fine control over the psychic aura, but when used, it results in the user's perception of the world shifting drastically," Claydol telepathically communicated to Charlie, "What you demonstrated earlier in the screening wasn't true psychic vision. True psychic vision is far more impressive than what you demonstrated."

Charlie nodded. "Well, I think it's fairly obvious why this technique isn't well known. This technique is an internal psychic technique. Throughout the years, internal psychics have slowly widdled down. They've largely been outnumbered by external psychics. Psychic powers are already an incredibly rare phenomenon, being an internal one is even rarer and an internal psychic who is skilled enough to use this technique is just adding on top of that pile," Charlie explained. "Plus, even if someone did figure out how to use this psychic vision technique...I doubt they'll reveal such a wonderful technique willy-nilly."

"To add further to my previous point, society seems to shaft internal psychics much more than external psychics. External psychics tend to get more attention and fame directed towards them because of their flashy telekinesis and other skills, whilst internal psychics tend to be ignored," Charlie mused. "So since I already know how to make a mental shield, should we just jump to psychic vision?"

"Yes, but don't think you'll be able to slack on your mental shield training, human. Your mental shield is deplorable at best. When you first approached The Ruins, I could shatter it with a single flick of my psychic power while holding back as much as I could. Your protection is not strong enough."

"Fine."

"Increasing your mental shield's endurance is simple on paper. You need to strengthen your control over your psychic power, and then manifest that subconsciously. The first part is easy, as conveniently enough, the best way to increase your control is through practicing psychic vision. The second section is the difficult part."

"Uh-huh." Charlie said, "So, let's start with the easy part…"

"Close your eyes."

Charlie did as said and shut his eyes closed tightly.

"Channel psychic energy into your eyes."

He did as told, transmitting as much psychic power as he could.

"There…now…just wait…"

Charlie breathed in and out as his body felt like it was afloat.

"Open them."

He opened his eyes, only to repulse from the sudden whiplash.

He saw them again. The white blobs of aura. The entire world was distorted, all he could see were the outlines and everything was sucked of its color.

"What do you see?"

"I see…a faint outlining of white aura, they sometimes merge into blobs."

"Good. I figured you were in that stage," Claydol said telepathically. "You are in the lower stages. I call the stage you are at the locating stage. At this point, the only thing you're capable of is simple location...a mere variant of the technique which you call psychic location."

The ground doll hovered in the air, staring into the distance. "By the time you undergo my training, I hope you progress through at least one stage. There are five stages to psychic vision before reaching the final, true psychic vision stage."

Claydol spun around rapidly, floating in the air as several pebbles all gathered in the air around them.

"How many pebbles are circling me right now?"

Charlie analyzed the many, faint outlines of the pebbles…

He had a sort of gut feeling like he knew the number just by looking at the crowded group of pebbles.

"Thirty-four?"

"Close. Thirty-nine. Psychic Vision, even in the lower stages, grants you a newfound perception of everything around you. You said thirty-four because you felt like you knew it rather than counting, right?"

"...Yes."

"How many meters in the air am I?"

"...Six?"

"Correct."

Claydol descended from the air. He erected a dummy from the ground and telepathically controlled the dummy to fire a barrage of punches and kicks.

"How many punches and kicks does the dummy just make?"

"Twenty-five?"

"Wrong. Not even close. It seems that's too advanced for you."

Claydol erected several stone pillars.

"How many pillars did I just summon?"

"Fifty-four."

"Forty-nine. Close, but not quite."

Charlie gritted his teeth, sweat trickled from his neck as he rubbed his eyes.

"You're reaching your limit of using psychic vision, aren't you?"

"Yeah…" Charlie replied, panting. "I don't know how long I'll manage."

It was growing progressively more and more difficult for Charlie to maintain the state of mind he was currently in. The faint lines of aura became more and more blurry.

Claydol erected just one dummy this time.

"Let's test how proficient you are in fighting with psychic vision."

"You've…got to be fucking with me," Charlie grumbled to himself but got into a fighting stance.

The dummy dashed at him, Charlie concentrated more on psychic vision. The entire world grew linear, and the blur he saw in the faint outlines vanished.

He could see it.

The attack the dummy was going to make.

The dummy reared its fist back, ready to slam its fist into Charlie. He sidestepped the punch, and then, he saw it again.

The next move the dummy was going to make.

He ducked and dodged the attack, before kicking the dummy right in the torso.

The training dummy stumbled from the impact of the attack but got right back into the heat of the battle and was ready to slam his fist into Charlie.

Charlie twisted his body to the left dodging the right jab thrown at him and quickly attempted to strike a counterattack–

His vision blurred, and an overwhelming sense of nausea ran through him as his fist was blocked and he was struck by the combat dummy.

He nearly collapsed on the ground from the pain and dizziness but was kept afloat by Claydol's psychic control.

"I'll let you rest for twenty minutes. We'll be doing two more sets of this."

The rest of the psychic training entailed him doing strenuous exercises whilst using psychic training to increase his control over the technique.

After he finished two sets of hell, he was completely deflated. His body was completely numb. Claydol, seeing just how absolutely beat he was, gave him an hour of rest.

The third and final training exercise of the day was Pokemon Training.

"For this, you and I will spend two hours training Veritas. You can train Veritas in your own time too. I am here as an instructor."

The training session with Veritas was simple.

Veritas already had a good grasp over Metal Claw. Metal Claw was the only move they knew, but it was mastered to a very efficient degree. If used correctly, it could shatter boulders with ease.

Charlie would have to do some studying on moves and battling later, because his knowledge of battling and the likes was far less than he would have preferred.

Claydol mainly served as a demonstrator. While Charlie thought of ideas, they kept Veritas busy by helping it increase its reflexes and agility by running several training drills on The Beldum.

These exercises ranged from making Veritas dodge several pebbles thrown at it, stone pillars popping from marked spots beneath the ground, etc.

Veritas had far too much energy. Despite the physically intensive regime, Claydol was putting on them, they were completely unphased. In fact, the Beldum was actually having fun while training.

Eventually, Claydol moved on from reflex testing to focusing on control. While metal claws were very efficient, Claydol made Veritas focus on the precision where they struck.

Claydol ended up creating dummies with targets for Veritas to practice with Teaching them how to identify the most common and obvious weak spots of an opponent. Due to Beldum's intelligence as a species, Veritas was able to understand and utilize the knowledge to an extent.

After a while of letting the training play out, Charlie decided to focus on Veritas's psychic control. Starting with the most basic psychic move, "Confusion".

Claydol gave some demonstrations of the move when prompted to, but otherwise left Charlie for the teaching of the move.

It was exponentially difficult to explain the move to a Beldum who didn't have a solid grasp over psychic energy as a whole, but due to their natural talent as a psychic type, Veritas was able to utilize psychic energy quite easily.

Then, it just became a matter of Veritas honing their control over psychic energy until they could mimic Claydol's demonstration of confusion.

Due to confusion being a very simple move, they got the hang of it quite easily. It wasn't super efficient as it took quite a considerable amount of charge time. Claydol had calculated that Veritas had a charge-up time of 6.27 seconds before the attack actually took effect. According to the older Pokemon, it was recommended that Veritas practice until they can pull it off in 3.21 seconds or below.

The two hours flew past very quickly. Veritas made good progress on confusion, much faster than Charlie had anticipated. It may be because of their enthusiasm, but he had expected this process to take up at least two sessions. It seems he underestimated the talent of Pokemon.

"The session is over for now. You'll be coming here with Veritas every weekday. Weekends will be your rest days."

"Understood," Charlie affirmed, preparing to leave with Veritas's Pokeball.

"Wait. I need to give you your weekly goal, this week's goal is quite simple."

Charlie perked up, he was quite interested in what it was.

"Find a second team member. I don't care how you do it or what it is. I will give you until next monday"

He narrowed his eyes, "Hm…That shouldn't be too hard. I heard that there has been a massive wave of Ralts being released and transported to Petalburg Forest right now."

"Good. Also, I'll teleport you to your destination when you exit The Ruins."

Charlie scowled, "Can't you just teleport me right now?"

"No. It is important that you quickly adjust to it, the cardio will build your stamina."

He frowned, I have to go up that massive flight of stairs again…

"Fine."

He finally finished slogging through the massive flight of stairs, right as the sun began to set.

The bookshelf magically lifted into the air and was plopped right next to the entrance to the Ruins. Charlie exited the undergrounds, watching the bookshelf be telepathically raised in the air and placed atop of the conspicuous hole.

Claydol suddenly teleported behind him, causing him to jolt in surprise.

"Wait–wouldn't there be a risk of you getting spotted teleporting me?"

"Worry not, I'll teleport you to a place where nobody is paying attention."

"That 'place' better not be somewhere in the middle of a forest," Charlie grumbled.

He felt himself shiver as the disorientating feeling of spatial displacement engulfed him.

Charlie found himself covered in thick leaves and shrouded by trees all around him. He could make out a large sign plastered which gave directions.

He could see Rustboro right behind the sign and quickly realized he was on route 116.

Charlie emerged from the thick forest, The start of routes tend to be barely guarded, due to the fact that most of the time they are scot free of wild Pokemon.

He entered Rustboro city. Conveniently enough, Route 116 was very close to Carmello's house. It was only a twenty minute walk, which compared to the hell he just endured, felt like nothing.

He rang the doorbell to Carmello's house and heard several indignant cries from young children and a more elderly woman.

Eventually, the door was unlocked and a gruff, dark-skinned man met him. The man seemed to be in his mid forties.

"Sorry for the intrusion, Mr. Jones–"

He yelped as he was locked into an iron-tight grip by the man, "Quit the formalities, just call me Eric! Melo told me you would be coming today to live here for three months, so we prepared a little special thing for you."

"Oh, that's unnecessary sir, I'm just–"

"Nonsense, boy!" Eric boomed, "Come in, come in. Melo won't be here, he's out on a shift for the Rangers. He told me to say hi to you for him."

"I appreciate your generosity, erm, Eric," Charlie said politely as Eric dragged him into the house, and left him alone afterward.

He took off his shoes and entered the house. It was quite spacious and was very clearly recently built and had just gone through repairs.

Charlie saw two figures approach him. He recognized them as Carmello's younger sister in middle school, Isabel, and Carmello's younger brother in college, Nicolas.

Nicolas was a tall, thin man. He had black hair just like Eric and Carmello wore casual clothing. He was holding a book about the theories of Fire Combustion.

Isabel, on the other hand, had a more brown-ish hair color and was much shorter than everyone else in the house.

"Wow. You are…dirty." Isabel commented, and Charlie simply chuckled to himself.

Nicolas slid on his glasses, "I was wondering if you could help me with some work for my college–"

"He's about to flunk his test for biology, which he majors in," Isabel stated blankly, much to the annoyance of Nicolas.

"I am not about to 'flunk' it, I would just like help from an expert!" Nicolas corrected, twitching in anger.

"Hah, uhm, I wouldn't call myself an expert per say–"

"You literally are though?" Isabel commented, and Charlie laughed nervously.

"Anyways, Is this about Pokemon Biology…?" Charlie asked, and Nicolas nodded.

"Sure, I'll help you later…but right now, I need to go take a shower and get myself cleaned up," Charlie explained and walked by them.

He heard an explosion of "whispered" bickering between Nicolas and Isabel, which he found amusing. He took a turn through a hallway and was met with a woman who also looked to be in her mid-forties.

"Lord Arceus you're roughed up." She commented, "I guess this is what people working in research have to deal with…"

"Ha-ha, yeah, studying Pokemon is not easy…" Charlie lied smoothly, "Thank you for allowing me to stay here, Mrs. Jones–"

"Please call me Santana."

"Will do." Charlie replied politely, "Your son's a pleasure to be with."

"Oh, I am sure he can be quite a hassle sometimes." Mrs. Jones said, "He's a good kid, and I'm proud of him as my eldest child, but he can be weird at times."

"Huh?" Charlie asked, "I don't think anything is particularly weird about him."

"Huh, I guess I'm growing senile."

From there, Mrs. Jones scurried off to work, and the conversation ended there.

He felt himself deflate once he realized he didn't need to talk with any more people.

He really, really needed some well-deserved rest.

End Of Chapter