I had taken the pidgeotto up on its offer to ask questions, and barraged it enough that I swear it was starting to hate me. I mean, not all at once, but over the next few months I followed it around like a little growlithe.

At least following around one of the valley’s guardians, there were five at the time, let me get familiar with the various groups in the valley without too much trouble.

I was taught many things, starting with the rules, what was edible, what pokémon to avoid at what times of day (do NOT wake up the nocturnals unless you want a fight), and much much more.

One of the most important things is that although the valley is supposed to be a safe place, there were still plenty of fights every day. They were just generally something mutually agreed to. After all, the only way to get stronger is by doing things.

I was spending much of my day stretching my energy levels by emptying my core and letting it refill, slowly increasing its capacity. Learning to fight and flexing physical muscles was another path to strength. I did that as well, but I really didn’t like it, so exercising was only a small part of my daily routine.

I also started getting involved in the local fight club. This is not one that is kept secret.

One of the big clearings in the valley was where this was located. OK, so its not an actual club, but it was the most popular locations for if someone was wanting to train. There was even a small group of chansey to provide medical aid as part of their own training. I spent time learning with them to better harness my energy for healing. Being able to heal myself and allies is essential.

Once I felt confident enough, I started accepting and issuing challenges, learning to fight as well as defend myself. I tried to participate in at least three fights a day, sometimes solo, sometimes as a group. I also got advice from the older pokémon. Why wouldn’t I? They have experience I don’t.

I may have played a lot of pokémon on Earth, but with the limits there, I was more of a brute force player. I took the time to get my team to overpowered levels, with nearly all their moves being attacks, so I could steamroll my opponents.

Now I was taking the time to learn actual tactics, taking notes on how to not get myself killed. Support and buffing skills are super important!

That being said… I was still kinda OP, so I had to handicap myself to not win every fight in one move. I could drop some high level moves that these guys were totally not ready for. If I wasn’t careful, it would be possible for the same move to kill them, and I didn’t want to do that.

Of course if I did use that kind of move, it drained me nearly dry so if it was dodged, I’d be helpless before their retaliatory strike.

That does not mean I didn’t use those abilities, I just did it without targeting anyone, and far away from others. It was a quick way to drain my core to help it grow.

When I wasn’t fighting, I moved among the various groups, hoping to learn from them. The more I learned, the more options I had. Though I had to be careful not to be too much of a jack-of-all-moves. I was a little worried that spreading myself too thin would leave me unable to make a decision on what to do if something unexpected happened, as it certainly would.

What I was not prepared for were the politics.

Just as there are cliques in the human world, so to are there some in pokémon society. A lot of it tends to revolve around some species thinking they’re better than the others, or by groups sharing the same type.

I was the only one of my species, and there were very few psychic pokémon around. What few there were were not very social, since being around large groups is very uncomfortable for us.

Yeah, being around groups suck. Psychics can read the minds of those around them if they aren’t careful. It took me a while before I got enough control to be around others without wanting to rip by brain out my ear.

As one of the minorities, something I was very much not used to, many ignored me or looked down on me. At least at the beginning. Once I started fighting, sometimes using a pokémon’s own moves against them, it got a little easier. There were still elitists, but it made things less tense.

Over this time, I also figured out the secret to the barrier. If there was any hint of hostility or suspicion it wouldn’t let them through. Or if they were already inside it forced them out. The barrier was also shrinking. At the rate it was going, it might last to my first birthday.

But I’d made an actual home now, so it safer than it had been. The awful looking pile of rocks and earth that had been my first attempt was gone, replaced by a much better looking artificial cave. It was large enough to fit a few small pokémon in. My little bed was in a cubby off to one side. I’d made it with the future in mind.

I just wish…

No, wishing is bad. Unless it is the move Wish, though there are better options available if there’s any time. Effort is what pays off…

It was raining today. Unlike some of the others, I wasn’t fond of spending a day in the rain unless I had to. Also the rain had come with a cold front as fall approached, so it was cold outside.

In order to avoid the cold and wet, I was sitting in the center of my home, trying yet more different things in order to freely access my power. That it was still beyond me irritated me greatly.

After one particularly bad failure that left me with a ringing in my ear and a nasty headache, I gave up and slammed my tail into the floor. Nothing should have happened, but to my surprise it did. My current trials were an attempt to interact with the earth and mold it to my wishes.

Sure, I’d made this place by using moves to get the rocks I needed in roughly the right shape, but it had taken so much time and effort to do so. It had improved the place, but could only take it so far.

As my tail had struck, a ripple of power spread through the dirt floor hardening it. It was what I’d been trying for, but on a much larger scale. I’d wanted to turn a handful of soil into rock, not the whole floor. Not that I had problems with what had just happened, since it would keep the place from getting muddy.

How the heck did that work?

I looked at my tail as if it were foreign to me, though I’d come to love the thing. Could it be I needed to direct the power through my tail?

I tried it again, but no go, so something else had affected it.

Pondering on it, I thought back through all my past experiments. They were all laid out as logically as I could… logically? Could that be the problem? I was using my mind, not my feelings to do things. That works for some things, but what if I needed to ‘feel’ it in order to make my desires occur. Like how using telekinesis was second nature to me. I wasn’t really thinking about it. I willed it, knowing it would work, and so it did.

Is that the secret? Don’t think, feel?

Reaching out to the floor with my hands imbued with power, I scooped up the rock like it was sand, molding it to become something else, a bowl.

All this time I was overlooking the obvious, and now that I knew it was as if I’d never had a problem.

Running my power along the floor, I flattened it, making it smooth, but not enough to make someone slip. My power continued running up the walls, and into the ceiling, smoothing, strengthening, making the rocks and earth flow together to become one whole piece, and thereby plugging the holes that I’d stuffed with clay to keep most of the water pouring down from above.

HAHAHA! NOW I CAN DO An...yth...ing...

---

I woke up an unknown amount of time later, head pounding like I’d been hit with a sledgehammer.

I tried to remember what happened, but my head hurt so much! At least I was in my bed. I don’t know who helped me, but someone had.

Attempting to sit up was a bad move, since it made my headache even worse, so I dropped back down. With how I felt I wanted to go back to sleep, but my mind was awake enough to make that impossible. I also had nothing else to do. I couldn’t even use my power, since it also made things worse as well.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

There was no answer. My cries echoed in the cave, but very faintly. My throat was dry, leading me to think I’d been unconscious for longer than I thought. I tried to take my mind off the pain, but doing so was difficult. Eventually I was able to clear my mind and just float in a sea of empty thoughts.

Ages later, a sound reached my ears as feet trod through my home, headed towards me.

“He..llo?”

A chansey came into view.

“Good morning,” she said with a bright smile. Pokémon smiles are different from human ones, but after spending enough time around the various species, I’d been able to pick up a good amount of the body language. “How are you today?”

“Thirsty. Headache. What happened?”

“You almost died is what happened.” Her smile turned into a frown. “I don’t know what you were doing, but whatever it was eating away at your life. You should know better than to drain yourself so far.”

“I can’t remember what happened. Any time I try the headache gets worse.”

“Of course it does. That’s the price you pay for nearly killing yourself. I’m sure you tried using your energy too? Well don’t. With how drained you are its going to be another seven days before it’s safe for you to access it without hurting yourself.”

“Seven days!?” I shouted, only to worsen my pain. After the wave receded I tried to continue. “I’ve been asleep for a week?”

“No. Only two, maybe three. As we don’t know when you hurt yourself, we’re not sure. We’re aware of how you feel about getting rained on and it rained for two days.”

I relaxed. It could have been worse.

“Am I stuck here? Or can I at least get out and do stuff?”

“As soon as your headache will let you, you can do whatever. You’re not physically injured, just don’t even try to access your energy. You won’t like the consequences.”

“Thank you. And can you please thank whoever else helped as well?”

“Sure. Now get some rest. You’ll feel better after some more sleep.”

She sang a lullaby which I did not resist, sending me off to the land of dreams.

Telerean

Yeah, had trouble with this chapter. Definitely not to the quality of the previous ones. Sorry.