The Tropius' dark silhouette shrank away in the distance. As the tingling warmth from the Ursaring's Play Nice slowly faded, a pit of worry opened up in my gut. "Do you think he'll actually report me?"

"He will," said Sugar.

"Probably," Landon muttered.

I smacked my forehead with a heavy sigh. Using pokémon to attack humans was against League rules, except in cases of self-defense and such. Though Panic had gone after Sean on her own, as her trainer I was responsible for her behavior.

"Don't worry," Landon said, awkwardly patting my shoulder. "He wasn't even hurt. You might get a warning, that's it."

"They should warn him to watch his big mouth." My arm stung where Panic's teeth had grazed me, a thin trickle of blood dribbling down my wrist. I frowned as I pulled my sleeve down over it. "But I should've returned her faster, I wasn't expecting her to flip out."

"Baby bat's thoughts are rather intense," Sugar remarked.

"You said you got her today?" Landon asked. "New catches can be tricky. I had to spend a month telling Gen not to eat the pavement for breakfast." He patted his Geodude, who grumbled like she still wasn't happy to pass up good food. "I didn't know you were just starting out. Sorry."

"For what?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I asked you to bet cash and gave you a tough matchup. I don't... I'm not the type to pick on newbies."

"It's fine. Battling you was the best part of my day, actually," I said, shrugging. "Can you tell me about that club?"

He blinked, pushing up his glasses. "It's Noelle's latest idea. Her and I go way back, we used to travel together. Before her cousin Michel arrived, because he acts like he's got an Onix stuck up his..." His Wobbuffet whacked him in the stomach suddenly, and he rolled his eyes. "I got Bob from my mom, she brainwashed him into not letting me curse. Anyway, Noelle's been bugging me to go to this club meet, so I hope I manage to."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"I... well... might be too broke," he said, laughing awkwardly. "They bet a lot on every match, and they kinda look at me weird if I don't. Not that I think I'd lose. But there's some good trainers there, and I need spare cash to buy potions and stuff before I hit the route."

"Ah." It hit me then how lucky I was, that my family was helping me out. "You know, I got way more potions than I need."

But he shook his head, a frown coming over his face. "It's fine. I don't need charity."

"You can pay me back. I really need to practice for Roark, so I'm going to be training in the mines and you can help me out, you know? Your Geodude would be really great practice." His Wobbuffet made an affronted noise. "I'm sure Bob can help too, he's... tanky like a rock."

"WOBBA!" said Bob, saluting.

Landon gave a tiny smile. "Well, all right."

So we made plans to meet in front of the mines next afternoon, and then he went off to challenge some guy with a Staravia on a nearby practice field. I sat down on the roots of a Pecha berry tree and squinted at their battle from afar. Under the darkening sky, I could barely make out a blur diving at Bob. Sighing, I glanced down at Panic's pokéball in my hand, wondering how I should address her behavior. Her attacking so rashly, even someone as stupid as Sean, wasn't acceptable. Worse, she hadn't listened to me when I'd asked her to calm down, which was troubling. A starter was supposed to be my most reliable pokémon.

...but I'd had her for less than a day, I tried to remind myself. All the pokémon I'd grown up around were well-behaved and would never ignore their trainers like that, but my grandparents and sister had gone through years of hard work to train them properly.

"I'll have you know your grandmother was the feral one who'd start brawling at the drop of a hat," Sugar grumbled, ruffling my hair with his tail. "And I was the sensible one who taught her manners."

I snickered. "You got any tips for me then?"

Sugar chimed thoughtfully. "Be firm and consistent about boundaries. Remember, defensiveness comes from insecurity. Time and safety can bring healing." Then he poked me between the eyes. "Now talk to her. I'll back you up."

As I tapped her pokéball, Panic burst out of it with a harsh squeak. She flapped her wings stiffly, her head snapping in all directions, ears twitching on high alert.

"Hey," I said in my most serious tone. "You lost your temper there."

She hovered for a moment, her head tilted sideways. Then, as if sensing the disapproval in my voice, she huffed and flew up to land on one of the berry tree's branches above, facing pointedly away from me.

"You can't attack people like that," I tried again, and she hissed. "It's bad."

"She does not know why you are taking that boy's side," Sugar translated. "He called her weak."

I blinked. "I'm not. Trust me, I hate that guy. He's horrible and he insulted us both."

Her head turning slowly to face me, Panic let out a questioning squeak.

"I'm saying this because there are rules," I went on. "You can't attack outside of a battle and you can't attack humans. If you do it again, I could be in big trouble. I could even lose my training license, and then I wouldn't be able to keep you anymore. It's serious."

Panic gave an annoyed hiss. "She asks why do you have these rules."

"They're not my rules. The League makes the rules, and they're for everyone."

I didn't think it was possible for a creature with no eyes to shoot someone a dirty look, but Panic made an excellent attempt. She chittered grumpily at me.

"Her old trainer didn't have these rules," Sugar translated. "He told her to attack humans all the time."

"I... what?" I blinked, my jaw dropping open. What kind of trainer was that? "Are you for real?"

"She appears to be sincere," Sugar informed me. "But I would have to dig into her memories to verify."

I shook my head. Although it was easy for Sugar to skim the surface of someone's current thoughts, going deeper into their mind to access long-term memories could give the target a terrible headache. Which I knew from experience, since he'd done it to me a few times. "...I believe her. But, Panic, what your trainer did was wrong. Really wrong."

My Zubat made a low, uncaring noise, as if it were simply normal to her.

I rubbed my face. "Mesprit help me," I muttered. "Panic, it's just a bad idea. Think for a moment. Sean has pokémon too. He has that Monferno you saw, which was about to spit fire at you, then he has an Absol and a Gible and maybe more. Then his friends... you saw the size of that Ursaring and that Tropius. If you hurt him for real, they'd all come at you. You can't fight them all at the same time."

Lowering her head, Panic grunted. "She acknowledges your point."

"Yeah. No more attacking trainers, okay? It's dangerous. We need to go for proper battles, one on ones like you and Geodude did. And we need to train really hard because we're still weak." She let out an indignant squeak, but I kept going. "We are, because we just started today, and they've all been training for longer. But we can catch up."

Panic's head lifted slightly and she chittered at me. "She asks if she can get as strong as that Geodude."

"Yes. Of course you can," I said encouragingly. "It'll just take some time. Come on, let's start right now, show me all your moves. Go on." I took out a small training dummy from my backpack. "Here's your target. Well, Absorb probably won't work on it since it has no life force, but do the rest."

At my urging, Panic flew off the tree branch. She shrieked at the dummy from afar, then from up close, vanished and re-appeared behind it, struck it with her wings, and bit it hard.

I watched her demonstrations carefully. We'd only have a week to practice before challenging Roark, and after some thought, I picked the best moves to focus on. Supersonic, because it was her only long-range attack, plus it caused confusion. Feint Attack, as it was a gap-closer and it had the element of surprise, since most Zubat did not learn it. Absorb, her only attack super-effective against rock-types. And Bite, which was her strongest close range attack.

"Good. Your Supersonic is your best skill, you're very accurate with it. But you need to work on using it while dodging attacks at the same time."

Taking out tennis balls from my bag, I asked Sugar to fling them at Panic using his Confusion, while I moved around holding up the small training dummy. I instructed Panic to attempt a Supersonic at the dummy every time she dodged. It was clearly difficult for her, and her accuracy dropped. Sometimes she missed the dummy entirely, and one time she accidentally hit me, which made my ears ring horribly. I made a mental note to get some noise-cancelling headphones.

Then we switched to practicing Feint Attack. "It's an egg move, right?" I pulled up my Pokédex to check Zubat breeding lines. "So your father was a... Murkrow? Did he teach you?"

Panic's ears flattened against her head.

"Ah, baby bat's got daddy issues galore," Sugar noted.

"Oh. Well, nevermind, let's just practice."

Her Feint Attack really needed a lot of work. She had extremely short range and could only do it in a straight line directly in front of her. To improve it, I asked her to attempt it in different directions, sideways and more importantly, upwards. So that if she got knocked to the ground in battle, she could feint upwards to get herself airbone quickly again. But our progress on this front was slow going, and she'd tumble to ground after trying it more often than not.

Then, once she started getting tired, we moved on to Absorb instead. Panic's range with this move was also very limited, she took too long to start it up, and she couldn't keep up the energy drain while moving at the same time at all, let alone quickly enough to dodge attacks.

So I switched tracks: instead of practicing Absorb as a mid-range attack, I decided to combo it with Bite. I asked Sugar if she could practice on him, but he strongly objected to being bitten and floated off to help himself to some berries nearby. So instead I had Panic use Bite on a tree branch and then Absorb while chomping down on it repeatedly. After she'd rested her wings a little, we did some more dodge training, this time with me hurling the tennis balls at her.

"HEY," yelled a voice behind me. "LEAVE THAT ZUBAT ALONE."

Blinking in surprise, I turned to see a girl around my height on the nearest training field. Next to her stood a small bipedal Pokémon with large floppy ears. As I squinted at it, I thought it might be a Riolu. "Huh?"

"Get away from it," ordered the girl. "Or we'll make you!"

Panic squeaked in alarm, then dove bravely in front of me, unleashing a Supersonic cry at the Riolu.

"What!" The girl shouted indignantly as her Riolu flinched. "We're trying to help you!"

"No, you're not!" I shouted back. "What do you want with my Zubat?"

The girl faltered. "Your Zubat? Then... why are you throwing things at it? Why is it running from you?"

"Because she's practicing dodging. Come here, Panic." Hissing at the strange girl, she landed on my shoulder.

"Oh," said the girl, walking closer. I tensed up at her approach, but she suddenly dropped into a low bow. Her Riolu bowed along with her. "I'm so sorry. I thought you were harassing it... I'm sorry."

Then Sugar came flying back, his tail curled around a berry. "Who is this? What is going on?"

"A misunderstanding, I think," I said, staring at the girl. She looked around the same age as me, barefoot, her hair spiking wildly around her face, and her arms full of bandaids and scrapes. "Who are you?"

"Um, I'm Maylene. This is Hercules," said the girl, pointing at herself and then at her Riolu. "I'm really sorry. Listen, um, can I ask you something? Have you seen a Machop with a scar like an X on his left hand anywhere?"

That was oddly specific. "Not really. Why?"

Maylene looked down. "Perseus, my Machop, he's... he got taken from the Center... him and many others." Her voice wobbled a little. "The police found some of them are getting sold, so... I'm asking around if anyone's seen him and putting up fliers."

"Ah," I said slowly. "No, I haven't seen him anywhere. Sorry."

But a rush of doubt bubbled up in my chest. Should I tell her everything nurse Roger said, even though I'd promised him not to?

Author's Note: MAYLENE IS HERE! Her appearance marks the end of the "Claudia's Introduction to Training" Arc. Next chapter, we're going to get more plot action.

And Flyg0n, thank you so much for the reviews! You're the real MVP.