When Cassius woke up in the morning, he didn't think it would be to the thunderous rapping of raindrops against his tent.

Quickly getting changed into his usual attire, he chanced a peek from inside his tent only to confirm what he assumed—it was pouring outside. Puddles were forming near where he and his companions had sat last night. Thunder rolled in the distance, and flashes of lightning illuminated the sky for brief seconds. What might have once been grass surrounding their camp was now a thick slosh of mud.

'Awesome.' Professor Magnolia had mentioned that the weather in the Wild Area fluctuated wildly, but Cassius didn't think it would do so to this extent. It had been pretty sunny yesterday, and relatively warm to boot. He hadn't even heard it so much as drizzle when he'd gone to bed last night. Now he was tempted to return to bed and wait out the downpour, even if he did have plans to train today.

Tentative plans, he amended. He was only supposed to train during the day. Maybe he could put off actual training until the evening when it had cleared up some. He had Hop's number now—he could text him and ask if they could switch the routine so that he studied during the day, and trained at night. He'd been in a relatively good groove last night, and he could probably name most type matchups now.

Or, a lazier part of him deduced, he could chance not telling Hop anything at all and just go back to sleep. Maybe Hop would be lenient and let him skip today's training altogether. What a blessing that would be.

No sooner did that thought clear his mind did the flap of his tent suddenly whip itself open, and a smiling face enter his tent. "Mornin', Cash! Good to see you're already up."

"Up" was a relative term. Though he was fully clothed, he wanted nothing more than to dive back into his sleeping bag and return to his slumber. "You're a psychopath for actually going out into that rain willingly."

Hop laughed good-naturedly. "Well, you wouldn't be the first to call me that." The young man entered Cassius' tent, pulling down the hood of his poncho while making sure not to drip everywhere. Reaching into his bag, he pulled something out and tossed it in Cassius' direction. "Catch." Cassius, still not at peak performance, felt the cloth hit him in the face and muffled something unintelligible. Hop grimaced a little. "Oh. Sorry."

Cassius unfurled the cloth from his face to reveal a poncho similar to the one Hop was wearing. "Is this for me?"

"Sure is. Didn't know if you had one or not, so I figured I'd play it safe and bring a spare." He grinned. "I know, I know, I'm an awesome friend. You don't have to say it."

Not that he would have. Cassius was more off-put by the implication that Hop knew he hadn't brought a poncho to begin with. "Thanks, I guess."

"No problem. Now, put it on. We've a full day of training ahead!"

He wasn't serious. "Are we really going to train in... that?" Cassius gestured outside with an incredulous look.

"I promised yesterday that we would train, so that's what we're gonna do." Hop returned his bag to his back, shrugging the straps onto his shoulders and preparing to exit. "I did mention that we don't have the benefit of time on our side, didn't I? Barring a world-ending catastrophe, we're gonna get you up to snuff so that you can be the trainer Lee knows you can be."

Maybe psychopath was too tame a word for Hop. "Hop, are you sure? Can't we just... switch the agenda and train at night? When it isn't flooding outside?"

Hop actually seemed to consider the idea. "Not an awful idea, actually. Would be easier to conceal ourselves while we're training at night. Nobody would be able to see two trainers sponsored by the champion going through the basics."

Cassius got his hopes up a bit, before Hop quickly shot them down. "But, then again, training in the rain might be a good thing. It'll force you to project your voice, for starters. People still won't be able to see us, what with the rain and ponchos and all." He idly toed the mud outside the tent. "Yucky terrains are part of the gig, too. Best to get used to 'em now."

So he was just throwing him to the fire, it seemed. Or mud, in this case. Some awesome friend he had.

"You know we're only doing this for your benefit," Hop reminded him, seeming to read his mind. "I want you to mess up here, in front of Gloria and I, so that you don't mess up in front of millions of people and a gym leader. That's what training's for, yeah?"

Cassius rolled his eyes. "Is Gloria even here?"

"She's off exploring somewhere," Hop answered. "So I guess you'll just be messing up in front of me. Hope that doesn't upset you."

"I'm not a masochist, so no," Cassius sighed. He could use a few hours without Gloria's constant badgering. "So there's no way out of this?"

"Not a one."

Out of options and excuses, Cassius started draping the poncho upon his person. "This is gonna suck."

"True, but we're gonna suck together." Hop immediately winced. "Er, that came out wrong. We're not gonna, like, do that, what I meant was for you to mess up and..." he wisely shut his mouth. "I'm gonna stop talking now. I'll see you outside." He promptly closed his tent and reentered the rain.

Cassius almost felt a little bad for him. They were off to a great start already.

"Alright!" Hop had his arms crossed. "What's one of Water-type's weaknesses?"

"Uh, Gra—"

"Louder! Can't hear you!" Hop projected over the rain. "You're gonna have to speak up!"

"G-Grass-type!" Cassius semi-yelled. He wasn't used to raising his voice at people.

"Good! Fighting-type?"

"Psychic!"

"Dragon-type—and don't say Dragon-type!"

"Er..." Cassius paused. "Pois—no, no wait, Ice-type!"

"Almost flubbed it, but right on all counts!" Hop might have been wearing a pleased expression beneath his hood. Cassius couldn't get a very clear look with the rain in his way. "Seems you've been studying proper! Now, let's move on!"

Hop walked more toward the edge of camp. Right to about where he had put a repel last night, Hop used his boot to draw a line in the mud. "Cassius, could you walk a few steps the other way until I tell you to stop?" Cassius did as he was told, walking the opposite direction until Hop gave a verbal signal. "Yeah, good enough. Could you draw a line in the mud with your foot like I did?" Cassius complied, attempting to make the two brief lines as parallel as possible.

"Awesome, thanks. Would you mind bringing Hyla out?" Cassius lamented the deep clean he was going to have to give her fur later, but he did as he was asked, and with a flash of light, the Dragon-type was brought into the wet world. Upon being met with the rain, she shook her fur in surprise. "Ein..."

Hop returned to near Cassius. "Alright, lemme explain. Before we get to trainin', I wanna get a feel for Hyla's general capabilities. Speed, power, all that jazz. We're just gonna get a few drills in to start. Sound good?"

"I thought we were gonna work on our... processing?" Cassius questioned, thinking back to last night. "And the environment too, right?"

"That's what I thought at first, but I realized I was gettin' ahead of myself," Hop admitted, a tad sheepish. "Before we can do anything like that, we should know what exactly we're working with. If Hyla's instincts are already well above where they should be, then we'd be kinda wasting our time with environment training. We could focus our efforts elsewhere, for something Hyla might be less skilled with."

Hop took a breath. "Basically, the point of today will be to get a solid understanding of what Hyla can and can't do. Make sense?"

Establishing a baseline made sense. They did a pretty similar thing with athletes. Hop knew his stuff, to no one's surprise. "Yeah, let's do it."

"Cool. Worry not, we'll get to everything we talked about in due time." He motioned to the line he drew. "First up, a simple forty-metre dash. Pretty self-explanatory, we're just gonna have Hyla run from your end to my end as fast as she can, to see how fast she is."

"Won't the rain get in the way a bit?" Cassius asked. Hop didn't seem particularly worried. "Nah, don't think so. It's a bit sloshy, but unless she outright slips, her grip on the ground should be fine. We're not really looking for an exact metric here. She's either really fast, really slow, or somewhere in the middle."

As long as he was sure. "Alright. Do we need a timer, or...?"

"Got one on my phone. I'll start it once Hyla takes off. Ready to get to it?"

As ready as he'd ever be, he supposed. "Sure." Hop returned to his line, and Cassius guided Hyla to the starting point. "Alright girl. I need you to run over there as fast as you can when I tell you to, okay? Think you can do it?"

"Arf!" Hyla barked affirmatively. At least she seemed a bit enthusiastic, despite the conditions. Cassius raised a thumbs-up toward Hop to let him know they were ready. A few seconds later, Hop sent them a thumbs-up of his own, allowing the cue to fall on Cassius. He leaned in close to Hyla, and then—"Go!"

She took off, stubby legs carrying her as fast as they could. True to Hop's word, she didn't look to be having a ton of trouble with the terrain, maintaining a straight trajectory as she crossed the line in a matter of seconds.

It was a strange sight. Cassius was so used to seeing his partner lounging about, napping somewhere and relaxing in sun spots around what was now their old house. The most exercise she ever got was when he took her for walks around Lacunosa, or when he had her chase her toys around the backyard.

She was Pokémon at the end of the day, he supposed. All of them had inherent talent when it came to battling. Even more so for a Dragon-type like her.

Hop walked back over to Cassius, Hyla in tow. "4.77 seconds. Not blazing fast, but not a Slowpoke either. I'll tweak it a bit later to account for the rain, but I think that's a good mark to leave it at for now. Shall we move on?"

Hop, as it turned out, was more than a little prepared to evaluate a Pokémon. The tools he had brought with him were almost as extensive as they were specialized. An inflatable training dummy used to determine attack power. A wearable vest that revealed responses to hits and measured defense. Even smaller, more common instruments like force gauges, scales, and other gadgets were employed throughout the testing. It was like he was watching Hyla get a physical.

Cassius' involvement was fairly minimal, so he found refuge beneath the cover of a nearby tree until Hop and Hyla returned with what Cassius assumed were concrete measurements. Hop had a neutral expression—that must have indicated a mixed bag of results. "Well, good and bad news. Good news, Hyla certainly won't be dead weight in a fight."

Hop took a seat near Cassius, unveiling a note document in his phone littered with numbers and measurements. Cassius gave his Pokémon an affectionate stroke beneath the chin, taking a brief look at the wall of text. "I realize this is a lot, but I'll break it down as simply as I can." Cassius nodded, and decided to get comfortable.

"So, basically, the closest analogy I can give Hyla is that she's a glass cannon." Hop combed over the numbers once more, pointing out specific figures on the document as he spoke. "As I figured, her attack power is pretty good, even considering her lack of training. The sky might be the limit with her on that front. Once we get to the stage where we can diversify her offensive moveset, she'll be as close to lethal as a Pokémon can get, I'd wager."

Okay. So Hyla could apparently hit really, really hard. That was news to him. "And where does the glass part come in?"

"Well, pretty much every other aspect of battling, honestly." Hop didn't bother mincing words. "From what I was able to gather, she won't be able to take a ton of hits. Her defense is much lower compared to other Dragon-types, and slightly below average compared to other Pokémon as a whole."

That was... worrying. "How do we work around that?"

"Normally, speed and elusiveness would help to circumvent that. But as I mentioned before, Hyla isn't exactly speedy. Her lack of battling instinct won't help her much in that regard either—she's not familiar enough with battling to instinctively know which way to dodge, or how far to space herself from an opponent. She'll get better at that with time and experience, but as of now, that's something we'll need to prioritize."

Okay, a lot to take in. "So, what do we do?"

"That's up to you. I think we should focus our efforts on getting Hyla accustomed to in-battle speed and in battling shape. Endurance is an underrated aspect of battling, and one a lot of newer trainers look over when they first start out."

Cassius shot a look at his Pokémon. Sure enough, Hyla was panting, apparently exerted far beyond what she was used to. That wasn't a surprise, all things considered.

"We're not gonna try and make Hyla some untouchable speed deity, but teaching basic evasive maneuvers and building stamina will make her less likely to get taken out in two to three hits," Hop continued. "But that's just my take. I'm curious as to what you might be thinking."

What he was thinking? What else was there to think? "Like what? Do we have more options?"

"I mentioned Hyla's offensive prowess. Instead of evasion and endurance, we could work to sharpen her strength as opposed to minimizing her weaknesses. Developing a solid attack strategy and keeping your opponent on their back foot could take the microscope away from her defensive shortcomings."

Cassius saw what he was getting at. "So we'd try and knock them out before they knock us out."

Hop nodded. "Precisely. We'd have to buckle down and grind, but we could make it work. Hyla can probably learn Bite soon regardless of what we do in terms of training. If we got to working on it now, we could get her to learn a ranged special attack to help space opponents. Dragon Breath, or something to that effect."

Dragon Breath—Cassius was familiar with that one. He hadn't had a lot of time to peruse the mainstays of the Deino evolutionary line, but that move in particular was consistent no matter which strategy he stumbled upon online. Deino apparently didn't learn any Dragon-type moves outside of Dragon Breath until well into their training. For early training, the move was practically indispensable.

"Could we not do both?" Cassius asked. "I mean, we'll probably have some time to train after the ceremony, right? Is it that much of a time crunch?"

Hop appreciated the initiative, but that was a tough ask. "That depends. Learning a move takes a lot of practice, especially in your specific case, in which you and Hyla are completely new to battling. It'd help if we had a TM or TR, but we don't have that luxury. I worry we'd be stretching ourselves too thin in jumping between different kinds of training."

A valid point, Cassius assumed. If they were gassed, mentally or physically, before their first gym battle, they'd have lost before they even started. "So I guess we pick a regimen and stick with it?"

"For now," Hop made to clarify. "That's not to say we'll switch up training later on. For now, I want to take the time we have out here to drill the most basic and essential things into Hyla. To me, that's stamina training. But she's your Pokémon at the end of the day, and we'll go in the direction you want to go in."

"It's a lot to think about," Cassius admitted. He figured training was a comprehensive process, but that still didn't prepare him fully.

"I know," Hop put away his phone, sympathizing with Cassius. "I also wanna remind you that you have another Pokémon. I haven't gotten a baseline for it yet, but seeing as it's a Flying-type, high aptitude for speed, evasion and endurance will come rather naturally to it. That offsets Hyla's deficiencies on that front. So if we kept the Rookidee, and focused on Hyla's offense, that would help to balance your team and approach."

Hop saw Cassius' expression fall before continuing. "But I know that might not make you entirely comfortable. Again, the decision's yours."

Cassius could see the benefit in focusing on offense. Hyla's true strength seemed to lie there, and if he planned on getting far at all in the Challenge, he couldn't afford relying on average output. The basics, including stamina, would come eventually, even if it was a bit of risk in the short-term—prodigious offensive capabilities would take them as far as they wanted to go, and developing that early on could make a huge difference.

But he'd be placing his faith in a Pokémon that had tried to seriously harm Hyla and him. That was too much of a risk to take, with everything on the line. In addition to not sitting right with him on a personal level.

"I think we go with your suggestion," Cassius finally decided on after a moment of thought. "I can't rely on the Rookidee, and advanced offensive training can come after we get some more free time. For now, getting the basics down pat sounds smart."

Hop smiled. "Then that's what we'll do. Thanks for hearing me out. I'll do my best to help you both."

"I'm counting on it," Cassius sighed. He'd be counting on Hop for a lot from here on. For better or worse.

Hop returned to his feet, seemingly reinvigorated. "Alright, I'm pumped! Been a while since I really committed to the basics—this'll be a good refresher for me too!"

It was good to see Hop so enthused, Cassius guessed. At least the vibes wouldn't be lacking, with Hop and Hyla's energy. "So, stamina training. What's that like?"

"Pretty simple," Hop shrugged. "Not a ton different from what human athletes do. Lots and lots of running and pacing. Bit of dieting too, but I'll help you on that end. Have you done it before?"

One look at Hyla's frame could have answered that question. She was by no means bloated, but she was far from peak condition. Some of that fault fell with him—walks helped a little, but those weren't really done with increasing stamina in mind. "Not really."

"No worries," Hop was quick to reassure. "Give it a month or so, and we'll get you to right about average stamina for Pokémon battling. The key's consistency—I want us to get out and run three to four times a week. We'll rest in between days for recovery, and go for longer distances as we get more used to 'em."

It sounded like a lot, but he was beyond questioning Hop at this point. "Okay, I'll trust Hyla to you then. What'll I be doing?"

Hop gave him a strange look. "What're you talking about? You're running with us, man."

Cassius paled.

"Huh?"

It took him a while, but Cassius finally found a dry patch of land he'd feel comfortable dying on.

His heart felt like it was about to force itself out of his chest. His lungs seemed intent on exploding first. As he heaved on the ground, staring into the sky, what vaguely resembled a head fell onto his stomach, almost forcing what little life was left in his body out.

Hyla didn't look a lot better. Though she couldn't vocalize her own suffering, she was panting harder than he'd ever heard her before. Cassius could faintly feel her heartbeat as she pressed against his body—hers was beating just as fast as his was.

Hop, changed into his own athletic attire, came to a leisurely stop beside the two. He offered Cassius' own canteen back to him. "Alright, I think that's enough running for today. You two look pooped."

"What gave it away?" Cassius was barely able to wheeze, greedily draining half of the bottle. He was able to stop himself and angle the bottle into Hyla's mouth, the Pokémon seemingly more than thankful for the gesture.

He still didn't know why he was doing this. Sure, it made sense for Hyla to build up her endurance, but why did he have to? Pokémon trainers just stood around and called the shots. Did they do a half-marathon pacing back and forth throughout the course of a battle?

Hop took a seat, downing his own water. "That was a good two kilometres. We'll go progressively longer each time out. Sound good?"

"You're a psychopath," Cassius gurgled.

"Glad to hear it! Didn't actually think we'd get it done so fast." Seeing Cassius still heaving, he gave him a friendly pat on the back. "Chin up! You actually managed to make the target distance. I was thinking we'd have to stop short. That basketball you mentioned must be paying off!"

Yeah, and here he was dying in the middle of the forest. Some good that did him. "How'd you even find a trail to jog on?"

"Saw it while we were walkin' around yesterday. My eyes are always open." Hop seemed proud of himself. That made one of them, at least.

"Why am I running again?" Cassius finally asked, forcing himself to sit up, much to Hyla's displeasure. Hop gave him a look like the answer was obvious. "Pokémon work harder when they see their trainer working hard. Symbiotic relationship, remember? You think she would have gone for as long as she did if she didn't see you pushing yourself alongside her?"

Cassius shot a look at his Pokémon. He guessed that made some kind of sense. But did that mean he'd be doing everything with Hyla? "So what, am I gonna be teaching myself Dragon Breath when we start working on her offense?"

Hop had the audacity to laugh. "Maybe. Should I run you through some measurement drills while we have the chance?"

Cassius' body screamed in protest. "Please don't."

"Then I won't." Hop took another swig before continuing. "Honestly, you could say this is for solidarity and synergy. And yourself. When you're of a trained body, the mind will follow. My brother told me that, once." He grinned. "And honestly, who's ever heard of an out-of-shape trainer?"

"Out-of-shape frauds are pretty in-season," Cassius corrected. Now Hop frowned. "Hey, no calling yourself a fraud. I told you we'd turn you into a great trainer, and I keep my promises."

The sentiment was nice, but the "great trainer" he was trying to help was currently a heap of defeated flesh on the ground after one long-distance run. "We'll see."

"We won't just see, we'll do." Hop promised. And just like that, he was fired up all over again. "I know I mentioned that we'd wait on processing training later, but I think we can get cracking on that now. Wanna get some of that in while we have the time?"

Cassius groaned. He'd be dead by the ceremony.