Chapter 6 - Growing Pains

Feeding her pidove was harder than Ava thought it would be. After waking up, she went down to try to find Mary. She couldn't find her but met another poke center manager named Gavin who was on the taller side, around her height, with a slightly rounded face sporting a well-maintained mustache.

Apparently, Mary had updated Gavin on her situation, and he had been prepared to help her feed her pidove. All poke center managers had a large amount of expertise in the field of caring for pokemon. Part of Gavin's expertise was in avian's, so he was able to give more detailed instructions.

She let her new pokemon out under the supervision of Gavin. The pidove was wary of her when he first appeared. He also quickly realized his wing was fixed and ruffled the few feathers he had on it.

Ava made sure to keep him at arms length; she knew she could take him if he attacked, though, since he was so much weaker than even the meowth she killed yesterday.

"Hey there, buddy," Ava said awkwardly. "I was able to get you healed, but you are now my pokemon and will have to listen and follow me." He didn't make any response indicating he acknowledged this. All he did was cock his head, looking at her.

She slowly tried to reach for him, causing him to panic and try to snap his beak at her. Pulling her hands back quickly, she put on the heavy gloves Gavin had prepared for her. She grabbed the thick syringe full of a faux-crop milk that a pidove's parents would usually produce.

"I am going to try to feed you, okay? It's been well over a day, and I don't want to lose you too. This might be a little forceful if you fight it." With that warning, Ava snaked her arm out and grabbed a hold of the bird. She made sure to keep her grip soft though to not truly hurt him.

He started straining against her, trying to get free. She slowly brought the syringe to his face, which he kept trying to avoid at first. This caused some of it to spill out. Ava thinks he started to smell the food, because once some had spilled, he got a little calmer, and she was able to get the syringe in front of him to eat.

He relaxed a lot once he was eating. Ava started to relax a little too. As he ate, she talked with Gavin to pass the time while he made sure she didn't feed him too much. It was then he brought up an interesting point. "So what are you going to name him?"

Ava took a moment to think. Remembering everything that led to her being here with this pidove as her pokemon. "I think I'll name him Lucky," she said with a smile on her face.

Time passed quickly. Caring for a baby pokemon felt like a full-time job. She had to make sure that he was fed and was spending most of her free time just being around him, trying to bond as much as she could. She wanted to make sure he would imprint on her if he still could.

Cunningham had been right that he would be easier to tame. After that first feeding, he got less and less skittish as time went on. He even fell asleep in her hands recently. While she wasn't able to train him to attack and use moves yet, she was able to get him used to learning some simple commands like to come to her and got him used to responding to Lucky.

She made sure to send a message to her dad that she had passed her Ordeal, which he was really excited about. Visiting was still out of the question; she learned that she had to pass the D-Rank exam to be able to interact with civilians.

While using her computer, she also scanned Lucky and was able to get some more information about him.

Species: Pidove - The Tiny Pigeon Pokemon

Type: Normal/Flying

Gender: Male

Age: 2-4 weeks

Moves: N/A

There was some more information about the species in general and other information a trainer might find useful. The moves section seemed to be editable, so you could track what moves a pokemon was taught. It also contained moves that the pidove line could naturally learn, and she made sure to take a look at that to see what she could start with once he got a little older.

Over the next couple of days, the person she interacted with the most was surprisingly Theo. Amiyra was still taking the situation hard and mostly remained in the barracks, which had started to fill up with other people now that their ordeals were over. Ava really only talked to her to comfort her whenever she seemed really down.

She had started talking to Theo more when she started bringing Lucky outside.

"How's it going?" Ava asked, walking near him, where he was situated next to a small pond of water that his poliwag was swimming in.

"I think it's going really well, actually!" Theo excitedly said. "The training seems to be effective; I was able to get her to stop attacking me or trying to run away pretty quick. Now I'm working on getting her to follow my orders when she uses her moves. She's pretty playful, so she doesn't always listen."

As if she heard him, the poliwag shot a gentle water gun at Theo, getting him soaked with water. "That's another thing she does. There hasn't been a single day yet that I don't get drenched. I think I'm on the janitors hit list with how much water I've accidentally brought into the poke center. I swore I saw him glaring at me this morning."

This caused Ava to laugh. "At least it doesn't seem like she's doing it to try to hurt you. What's her name?"

He blushed a little at her question, "You can't judge me, okay?" Ava nodded. "I wanted a name that would strike fear in our enemies, so I named her Savage. I didn't know she would be so playful when I gave her the name."

Ava managed to hold on to her smirk fairly well but couldn't help but ask, "Tell me more about the abundance of enemies you seem to have."

"Shut up, you know what I mean," he whined, punching her on the arm.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Better safe than sorry when fighting against those who have sworn vengeance on you," she said sarcastically. "It is a pretty cool name, though."

"Thanks, and what about you? How's it going with your meowth and pidove?" Theo asked after giving Savage permission to play in the water.

Ava suddenly realized that she hadn't told anyone but Amiyra about having only one pokemon. She had been so focused on raising Lucky right so she wouldn't have to retake the Ordeal.

"My meowth's injuries were too severe, and I took too long to get back, so it ended up dying before making it back to the pokemon center." Ava said, trying to act as nonchalantly as possible.

Theo gasped, "Oh no, I'm so sorry!"

Shrugging, she responded, "It's fine; nothing we can do now. I'm just glad I was able to catch two pokemon. Who knows if I would have made it back my second time."

"Yeah I would not want to go back out there without any protection again. I'm glad Jacob made it back alright."

Dang it. Ava couldn't believe there was another thing she had let slip through the cracks, she hadn't even thought about Jacob since that first night. "What happened with him? I haven't seen him yet."

"He chose to go out of the forest side this time. I'm guessing he didn't want to go out of the grasslands gate after… the situation." Ava nodded grimly, knowing he didn't want to mention their dead friend. "He got back without any injuries and was able to catch a ledyba."

"That's great! I'll have to visit him sometime."

"He actually isn't here anymore. He passed the D-rank exam yesterday."

"Really? He started even later than us; how could he have passed already?"

"No idea, maybe he's just super talented at training pokemon or the ledyba was really chill. But after that, I saw him packing up, and it turns out he has been offered a permanent position somewhere."

Ava was confused. "What do you mean permanent position, can't we not take on any other job? Also, he just passed; how could he have already gotten an offer?"

"He's still a trainer. While it's not common, it turns out sometimes people get offered more permanent roles by businesses and people. As long as you are able to do your required guard missions, the league doesn't care how you spend your extra time, outside of getting a civilian job, of course. Do you remember how Jacob mentioned growing up around a farm?" Ava nodded affirmatively, vaguely remembering that from their group game night. Theo continued, "His dad actually owns that farm and offered him a permanent role to help them out around the farm. It was probably just a way to get him to live with them again."

"Huh, that's a really good idea. Do you think we could ask our families to do that?"

Theo shook his head negatively. "Probably not; for one, most people don't own houses and live in civilian zones, which we can't do. Houses are unique, and the owners can choose to let a person live there. Also, most people couldn't afford to pay the fees. Farmers are one of the groups that get subsidized costs due to their importance and how often there are pokemon trying to steal food."

"There goes that idea. How do you know so much about all this already?" Ava questioned, curious that he knew so much while she seemed to not know anything.

"My aunt is a pokemon trainer. I was raised by her since I was ten, so I picked up some things here and there."

Ava could sense that landmine and decided to steer clear by changing topics. "How's Oliver been?"

Theo took that change in stride. "He actually passed the D-Rank exam this morning. He was pissed he wasn't the first one. I think that motivated him to knock it out today."

Ava could understand that. She was a little bitter Oliver had beaten her to the punch. Remembering her conversation with Cunningham, she asked, "Do you know if he's gonna keep the larvitar?"

It was Theo's turn to look confused. "Why would he get rid of his larvitar?"

Ava hadn't realized that might have been private information but was too deep to turn around, so she explained what Cunningham had told her about certain pokemon restrictions.

"I didn't even know they had rules like that. I know he only passed the exam with his teddiursa so either his larvitar is hard to train or he's planning on getting rid of it. I'm not sure, though he hasn't mentioned anything," Theo said with a shrug.

Ava didn't understand that. Even without fully evolving, she's sure larvitar could grow extremely strong; why would he waste that? Knowing Theo wouldn't have an answer, she moved on, asking more about his poliwag's training. They spent the rest of their time together going over that and plans for the D-Rank exam.

As the week progressed, Lucky slowly transitioned from a purely liquid diet to increasing solid food. His feathers were mostly all grown now, which has allowed him to start flying. The first time Ava had taken him out, he was pretty uncoordinated, but the more time he spent trying it, the more coordinated he became, and the time he could spend flying extended.

It also seems like the imprint has taken effect because he has been really affectionate towards her. He nuzzles up against her whenever there is downtime and has been resting on her shoulder and head when he is tired. He also has been responding well to any actions she calls for him to. It was eight days after her Ordeal that she was given the go ahead by Gavin to start actual training. It came at the right time too because the food and care required for a baby bird pokemon had been sapping her savings faster than she anticipated. The free meals at the pokemon center were a big reason she wasn't completely broke yet.

Ava set up in a training area where there weren't many people around. She made sure she had access to a pokemon dummy that could be used for basic training before releasing Lucky.

Materializing in a bright flash, Lucky appeared on the ground. Seeing Ava, he fluttered over to her out raised arm and landed on it, chirping happily.

"Hey there, buddy," Ava crooned, rubbing against his neck in a way that she learned he liked. He leaned into it, obviously enjoying the light scratches.

"Today we're going to be actually training. You gotta get stronger to be able to protect me and yourselves. Okay?" Ava knew he wouldn't be able to fully understand what she meant, but speaking out loud made it easier to collect her thoughts.

She had learned from Theo once he passed his exam two days ago that to pass the D-Rank exam, you would have to have at least one attacking move to damage any wild pokemon. She tried asking more about the exam, but Theo was unusually tight-lipped about the whole thing.

Usually when catching a pokemon they know how to do some moves, and the goal is to get them to use it on certain commands. The issue with Lucky is that since he was a baby, he never had the chance to learn any moves from his parents. So she would have to figure out how to teach him moves she had no experience in.

The moves she wanted to try today were Peck and Gust. They were the only damage dealing moves pidove could learn this early; she hoped he was old enough to try to learn at least one.

"Okay, Lucky, I first want to start by trying to peck this dummy."

Lucky's head cocked in confusion, clearly not understanding what she asked.

Walking up to the dummy, she repeated, "Peck" and imitated pecking the dummy with her nose. She repeated that action with the command as pidove hopped to the dummy and looked her in the eyes before giving it a quick peck.

"Yes! Peck," Ava exclaimed, knocking her nose against the dummy again, while the pidove followed suit. She spent a little longer getting Lucky to peck the dummy when she called out the command Peck.

"Come back, Lucky." He flew back to her arm when she fed him some small pieces of a cut up strawberry she had prepared as a treat for today. "Good boy, you're doing so well!" She said, as he ate the food, looking proud.

"Right now you are just pecking the target, which is a great start, but for it to be an actual move you will need to use some energy. From what I've read, there is this internal energy that pokemon use for certain types, like flying moves. I want you to close your eyes and try to bring out that energy."

This was a more complicated command, but Ava tried to talk slowly and used her free hand to gesture. She had heard pokemon were smarter than people thought, and was proved right when Lucky gave a chirp of affirmation before closing his eyes.

He stayed that way for a while, searching for something within. Ava had sat down, trying not to jostle him on her arm. She really should have moved him before starting this process, as her arm was starting to ache.

After 40 minutes, he opened his eyes, and excited, Ava said, "Lucky Peck." While pointing to the dummy. He flew and pecked at the dummy. It didn't look any different. Ava had seen videos of pokemon using Peck, and you could definitely see some energy when done correctly. It also would have been stronger than the previous pecks, which did not seem to be the case.

Lucky fluttered over to her, looking dejected. "Ah, so you weren't able to find it, huh. That's okay, you've been doing really good so far!" She said, trying to cheer him up. She had been worried about this. From her research, she had learned that it was sometimes difficult for a baby pokemon raised by humans to be able to figure out how to use moves.

She tried practicing with Gust, not really expecting to see any results but wanting to get him used to the command just like he had with Peck. It was after this that she noticed his efforts were really starting to flag as he became more and more tired. She called him over and fed him some more apple treats before returning him to get some rest in his poke ball.

She was still thinking about how she could teach him how to find the energy to use his moves as she entered the poke center. Seeing Mary sitting at the front desk, a light went off. Remembering her help in getting information for pidove care, Ava figured it couldn't hurt to ask her if she had any tips.

"Hey Mary, how's it going?" Ava said smoothly.

"I'm doing good. What do you want?" Mary said, barely looking up from the computer she was typing on.

"What makes you think I want something? Maybe I just want to talk to you."

Mary fixed her with an unimpressed look.

"You got me. I was wondering if you had any tips on how I can get my pidove to feel the energy to use for his flying moves. He struggled to learn it today, and I'm not sure what to do next. I'm worried since he doesn't have his parents to teach him that I won't be able to figure out how to do it."

"If his parents didn't teach him, just get another pokemon too," Mary casually responded.

"They can do that?"

"Of course they can."

"Thank you so much!" Ava turned to leave before quickly stopping and turning back. "You don't happen to know anyone who has a bird pokemon who would be willing to teach me, would you?" Ava put a smile on her face, hoping it would convince her.

"We both know someone who could help you. Gavin has a staravia, and he's nice enough that he would probably help you without even asking for money."

"Is he here right now?" Ava asked.

"No but he will be here tomorrow morning if you want to ask him."

"Thank you so much!"

"It's been my absolute pleasure," Mary responded in a straight tone, still typing on her computer.

Ava went back to the barracks. Her and Amiyra had decided to share a bunk bed so they wouldn't have to bunk with a stranger as more people came. Ava had taken the top bunk, while Amiyra had the bottom. Amiyra was still lying in her bed, in the same spot Ava saw her in before leaving in the morning.

Amiyra had not been doing well in training. She had actually been doing better in the week before the Ordeal. But for some reason, the past week she has barely even left her bed, let alone try to train her pokemon. Ava thinks it might be because there is no looming threat. For the Ordeals if she wasn't focused, she might not have come back. Now, though, there was no time limit or real push to make progress, so she just didn't.

Ava sat down on the edge of her bed and spoke gently, "Hey, how are you doing?"

"Fine," came Amiyra's short response.

"I thought you were going to try to tame your pokemon more today." Ava prodded about the conversation they had earlier.

"I decided not to. I'll feed him after dinner."

This was the response Ava had been getting for the last week. She thought that over time Amiyra would get better, but it's already been a week and nothing seems to be changing. In fact, she would say it's even gotten worse.

Ava thought for a moment before deciding to take decisive action. "Alright, it's time for some tough love."

This got Amiyra's attention, who finally looked up. "What do you mean by th-AH!" She got interrupted by Ava picking her up and throwing her over her shoulder. Ava was always an athletic kid, which made it easier to carry the light frame of her shorter friend.

"What are you doing?" Amiyra shouted, trying to shake out of Ava's grasp to no avail. Her grip was like iron.

"Helping," Ava replied, grabbing Amiyra's poke ball from her bag before walking out of the room with everyone watching her.

"No, you're not. Let me down now!" Amiyra screeched.

Ava's response was to ignore her and keep moving. When they got downstairs closer to the entrance, Amiyra saw Mary. "Help me, Mary!" Mary lifted her head, looking at the scene in front of her before continuing with her work, not saying a word.

"Traitor!"

It was only when Ava reached a training ground that she dumped Amiyra off of her shoulder. Scrambling off the ground, she shouted, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"You've been moping for an entire week. It's time to start putting in some work," Ava said.

"This is stupid; I'm going back to bed." She made a move to walk back but was blocked by Ava. "Get out of my way."

"No. I'm not gonna let you go back until you start putting in an effort, and I'm stronger than you. You won't be able to get past me. I know you had a dream and a passion that you won't be able to achieve, and I'm truly sorry about that. But you told me you felt like your life was a waste. If you keep doing what you're doing, then it will be. While it might not be ideal, you have to accept that you will never be able to go back to your old life. You have to make the best of what you've been dealt."

Amiyra exploded, "Why do you even care? You're just a stranger who I don't even know. You don't get a say in how I live my life."

Ava stayed silent for a moment. "It's fine if you don't think I'm your friend, but you're my friend, and I don't want you to die." After not getting a response, Ava continued. "If you can't tame your pokemon you will have to retake your Ordeal. Flynn already died from that; there's a chance that you won't make it back at all. At least if you pass the D-Rank exam, if anything happens to your pokemon, someone can help escort you to catch another one. Please, do this for me."

Ava could see that her little speech affected Amiyra slightly. She no longer looked as angry and, after a sigh, gave in. "Fine. I'll start training my pokemon. I'm still mad at you, though."

"Thank you. Have you done anything so far?"

"Every time I try to release him, he just starts running away. The only times he doesn't run away is when he gets too hungry and has to eat the food I put out. As soon as he's done, though, he tries running again."

"I know Theo did this, but what if you try returning him every time he tries to run and just repeat the process until he realizes he can't run away?"

Amiyra agreed, and that's what they spend the next hour trying to do. Every time the Mudbray was released, it quickly tried to run away, but Amiyra was always ready and kept returning him to the poke ball. Eventually he stopped running right off the bat, but wherever they seemed to let their guards down, he bolted away. The progress seemed good, but after another hour he still seemed agitated, and besides that one attempt he had taken to sling some mud at them, nothing changed. That was not fun to be on the receiving end of.

"Okay, so let's take a quick break." Ava said, rubbing her temple. "What do you know about mudbrays?"

"Well he eats the food from the pokemon, but he should be able to eat grasses as well. I've also read that they really like mud."

"What if we let him out in the mud? Maybe he will like it."

"Worth a try," Amirya said.

They didn't really know how to get enough water to an area to make mud, and it hadn't rained recently, so the ground was pretty dry. Ava remembered that Theo had a water pokemon that liked spraying water, so they went to see if they could find him. He was in the boys barracks, having just gotten back from his first guard session, which he said went well. After hearing their plan, he agreed to help them out and joined them outside.

Letting out his poliwag he ordered it to spray water around a small area of one of the dusty training grounds. They had used sticks they found on the ground to mix up the water and ground, and kept adding water until there was a good amount of mud around the area.

Amiyra released her mudbray, and he was about to run away before noticing the mud on the ground. The change was almost instantaneous. He fell in the mud, rolling around, getting it all over himself. Ava could hear happy neighs coming from him. She and Theo backed off a little, letting Amiyra take the forefront. He allowed her to get closer while he continued to roll in the mud, even eating some of it.

Ava whispered to Theo, "Is it healthy for him to eat mud?"

"No clue," Theo whispered back. "But he seems to like it, so I'm sure it's not that big of a deal."

While that didn't seem to solve all of Amiyra's problems with taming her mudbray it seemed to be the breakthrough she needed. Ava and Theo left her be while she worked to get her pokemon to listen to her commands more.

Ava was getting ready to go to bed when Amiyra came back to the barracks. She was covered in mud, but had a stronger fire in her eyes than she had the previous week. She walked right up to Ava. "I want to thank you for what you did today. While I still don't think it was okay to basically kidnap me, I needed a push, and you gave that to me. I can't guarantee I will always do it, but I'm going to try my best to take your advice and make the best of this situation." She rubbed her hands against each other, losing a bit of her confidence. "I also wanted to say I'm sorry. I said some mean things earlier, and I do consider you my friend. I hope my actions didn't ruin that."

Ava smiled. "It's no problem! I'm glad I was able to help a little. Of course, you didn't ruin our friendship. You're stuck with me whether you like it or not," she joked, secretly relieved that Amiyra still considered them friends.

"Well, I would give you a hug, but as you can see," she gestured to herself, "I'm a little messy right now, so I'm going to hop in the shower." Amirya left for the showers after gingerly grabbing her towel and clothes.

Ava thought that everything was turning out better than expected today. She was able to get Amiyra out of her slump and got a lead on how to teach her pidove. She and her near empty bank account were ready to pass the D-Rank exam and make some money again. With that hope, she drifted off into peaceful rest.

Author's Notes: I will use some flexibility when looking at move sets of pokemon. There are some moves like peck and wing attack that in a more real world setting all bird pokemon should be able to learn. Those common sense basic ones are the main things I'm planning on changing.