When I woke up the next morning, I was feeling unreasonably annoyed. Sure, Clarie getting smashed was irresponsible, but in town, what she did was her business and it wasn’t as if I had to clean up after her. And yet, I was feeling personally affronted by her actions, though a part of it might be due to the weird dreams I had during the night. Why did she have to rub against my hand like that?!

“Gah,” I let out a sound of annoyance, before quickly dressing and heading down into the hostel’s dining room, intent to get some food before doing something, anything, to keep me physically and mentally occupied. A part of me wanted to leave town, to just wander somewhere into the nearby wilderness and get some direct training with my partners done, but going alone would be foolish. Just the sort of behaviour that made me so annoyed at Claire.

Cliff joined me for breakfast soon after I sat down and we exchanged a few words. It turned out, Lucas and Cliff were considering heading out together again, in order to get their tasks done. Given that Claire and I had to keep waiting for our task, it made some sense and afterwards, we’d always be able to either wait for the other half of the group or split back up again, just as we had been travelling before crossing the Coronal Mountains. In fact, if we didn’t head up north to Snowpoint, splitting up was almost a given or we would impede the other's training. Always the weighing between risk and reward.

Given that it was only the two of us, with Lucas and Claire likely still fast asleep, there was little we could actually decide, but we did agree to meet up for dinner, so we would be able to discuss it amongst the four of us.

After breakfast, I headed out and went to the Gym, intent to see if there was anyone around to do some training or maybe find something good to read. While Cynthia and Professor Carolina had given me a lot of useful information regarding the Egg I was now carrying around like some strange bird, there could be more in the Gym’s library. While the two Champions had a vast amount of knowledge, there was likely no disadvantage to consulting additional sources.

When I got to the Gym, the attendant waved in greeting, while one of the locals I had seen before looked up from the book he had been reading, giving me a nod.

“Hello,” he spoke up as I moved to the bookshelves, rising to greet me, “your name was Dani, right?” he asked, holding out his hand to shake.

“Yes, hi,” I replied, shaking his hand, “I’m afraid I don’t know your name?” I gave him an apologetic smile, completely unable to remember.

“Eh, no worries, I’m Leif,” he introduced himself, “Say, are you looking to read or are you looking for someone to train with?” he asked, clearly hoping for the latter.

“Well, I was going to read but I’m sure my partners could use some training. Otherwise, we’ll get fat and lazy from resting in town,” I grinned, changing my focus from the bookshelves to the backdoor, to the training field.

He fell in next to me and we started discussing what we were interested in. Given how useless simple training brawls were, we tried to find a combination where both of us would gain a large amount of benefit, before agreeing on a good mode of training. In this case, while I was somewhat interested in working more with Vio and Charm on their new attacks, there was still work to do, we agreed that Su, my Luxio, would work with Chubby, his Cubone. He was trying to get his partner to perfect his inherent resistance to Electric attacks, to the point that he’d be unharmed no matter what was thrown around. He had read that there were Cubone that were even able to attract Electric attacks directed at other targets and ground them out, without ever taking damage in the process. It was a quite niche trick but I could see tremendous potential for it in the right circumstances.

Similarly, it would likely help Su, as electric attacks were a major part of his abilities, even if he mostly used them to augment his physical strikes.

It was quite the sight to see, Su repeatedly jumping on the biped with the bony mask, only to be foiled by the bone the Cubone carried around and used to parry Su’s attacks deftly, making him unable to find real purchase. But what was even worse was that it became quite obvious just how skilled Chubby already was, Su’s electricity grounding out without doing any harm. Sure, I was quite confident that Chubby had a higher level than Su, but I had a feeling what I was seeing had less to do with level and more with typing and, quite frankly, skill. Chubby was better trained than Su, a realisation that secretly annoyed me to no end. But it also motivated me, I wanted to get Su, and my other partners, at least to that level with their own abilities, maybe even to a higher level.

After both of our Pokémon were exhausted, it was time to change things around and this time, Vio was the focus, while Quagman, his Quagsire, was working on his attacks. While the difference wasn’t as one-sided this time, it was easy to see that Vio was mostly managing to escape his attacks by dodging, not by using her psychic abilities to shield herself. She was trying, and her shields bought her enough time to avoid the attacks, but frankly, it was more about her speed in comparison to his speed.

Still, compared to just a few days ago, I could see a clear difference in her shields and made sure to compliment her, trying to make sure she was feeling accomplished, even if the Quagsire managed to break through her protections time and time again. She still had a long way to go before she’d be able to simply block an opponent’s attacks. Or maybe, given the difference in strength, being able to avoid the attacks was already an adequate outcome.

We were still discussing different ways to train Pokémon and our individual insights into them, when the Gym-attendant poked his head out, calling out to us.

“Dani, could you come over here, please?” he asked, likely having heard my name earlier.

Giving Leif a shrug, I trotted over, curious what was going on.

“Yes, what do you need?” I asked once I reached him.

“Leader Kodra decided on a task for you. Do you have a bit of time to discuss it with him now, or would you prefer to pick another time?” the attendant asked and I felt my eyes sparkle with joy. Finally, the job was here.

“Sure, I’ve got time,” I assured him, before turning to Leif in the distance, “Thanks for the session, I’m busy now,” I shouted over.

“Let’s go, I don’t want to let the leader wait,” I prodded, intent to get my task and get things done as soon as possible. Sure, Celestic Town was a wonderful place, but I wanted to get back out into the wilds.

The attendant had to grin at my enthusiasm and quickly directed me to Kodra’s office, where I was bid entry after knocking on the door.

Kodra himself was quite the figure, a burly bear of a man, with a thick, brown mane of hair and more muscles than Lucas, Cliff, Claire and I put together. It made me wonder if he could arm-wrestle a Machamp, all four arms at the same time, or maybe break through walls with a single punch.

“Dani, right?” he asked, his voice deep enough to cause subsonic vibrations to shake my bones.

“Hello, Gym-leader Kodra,” I greeted him, having to look quite far up to look into his face, to the point that I had to worry about getting a cramp in my neck.

“Have a seat and we’ll discuss what I’ve got in mind for you,” he told me, gesturing to one of the seats before his desk while sitting in his own, oversized chair.

“Now, I believe you marked down that your partners are unable to do much road maintenance, right?” he asked, to which I nodded with a bit of a frown. It was something I had to address at some point, but I had yet to find a good way to do so.

“Would you be willing to work with one of our locals for a week or so, we’ve got a trainer who is excellent when it comes to that kind of work, but frankly, she isn’t the greatest battler.” he let out a sigh, part frustration part resignation.

“One of the Routes deeper into the Coronal Mountains is blocked, maybe two days from here. Quite a serious rockslide, blocking off a narrow valley completely. It’s a mess and needs to be fixed. Wera can easily do the work but I don’t feel confident sending her on her own and her usual partner is not available. How about it?” he asked, putting me on the spot.

“I’ll have to discuss it with my usual companions, I’m sure you understand, right? In principle, I don’t have a problem working with that Wera, I’m sure we can hack things together for a few days, but I can’t just leave my companions hanging,” I told him, getting a nod of understanding.

“Sure, I know how it is. Talk to them and give me a reply tomorrow,” he told me before he gave me some more on the particulars of the job. Curiously, he didn’t give me anything more on Wera, making me wonder what was going on there.