A sound like shattering glass echoed through the forest and a grin formed on my face. For the last month, I had been training my team in the snowy forests around Snowpoint City. Half the nights were spent out there, and most of my days, the only exception being those on which I met Cynthia. The brutally cold winter made for a challenging climate to train in, pushing both my partners and myself to our respective limits. But with each day, we were getting stronger and with each night, I shed some of the weakness that made me need companions while travelling. My partners were far more reliable than any companion, I trusted even Su more than almost all humans. But I doubted Cynthia would want to travel with me, she had far too much on her plate already.

This particular sound had come from the breaking of one of Vio’s shields, demonstrating that Aura had completed the latest exercise I had come up with. Both of them had been working together, or rather against each other, in order to improve. Aura had been given a route to move through, with quite a few obstacles and restrictions, for example areas where he was forbidden to touch the ground, with targets that he was to destroy. Only a few of those targets were actually on the route, most had been hanging some distance away from it, so he had to manifest his aura to strike those. It was a high-speed application of his vacuum wave and he had become quite good at it.

This led to the inclusion of Vio, whose job was to shield the targets from his attacks, while also completing her own course. Her route was similar in length, and she even had a few targets of her own, but it was less acrobatic. At the end of the day, Aura had a lot more physical prowess, even if Vio had made great strides.

Now, both of them had to cover the last bit of distance and meet me in the middle of the clearing around which the course was set up, causing both of them to madly dash towards me. It wasn’t really a competition between them, but there was a reward for breaking their previous record, so both gave it their all and treated it like one.

At the end of the day, it was Aura who managed to eke out the victory, simply by virtue of moves. Instead of dashing the last stretch, he shrouded himself in the tell-tale white glow of one of his moves and accelerated far beyond anything Vio could do. Her only chance would have been to use her rudimentary teleportation to cover the last stretch but so far, her skill with that move was a little lacking. She had been trying to perfect it, but it was slow-going, given that it supposedly was one of the hardest moves to learn for any Pokémon but Abra, that was to be expected. Even for Abra, it was less a learning of the move and more an instinct to teleport away when needed, without really knowing where they went.

Regardless, she’d be able to master it at some point, of that I was certain. Once she did, we’d have to visit the various Pokécentres again, so she could perfectly memorize their teleport rooms, allowing her to teleport there. Teleporting was one of those moves that were relatively useless in battle, but incredibly useful outside of it, once a Pokémon had the necessary power to teleport long distances and the control required to perfectly aim those teleports and take people along.

“Well done, both of you,” I complimented them, after checking the time. They had both managed to beat their previous records, though the improvement on Aura’s side was a little more significant. He had been working on using his Quick Attack not just for the last dash, but to move between locations to shorten his time. It was a test of his endurance and from the looks of it, he was doing quite well.

“Now, control exercises,” I told them, getting happy noises from Vio, while Aura didn’t look too enthused with that. The exercise I had come up with to improve the control of all four of my partners was quite simple. For each of them, I tied two stones together with some string, leaving some distance between both, before hanging them from a branch. Their goal was to drop the lower rock, without damaging the upper rock, which they did by hitting the string in the middle. It was an exercise Vio excelled at, to the point that her stones were less than a finger’s width apart, while it was a lot harder for Aura and Charm. Su had his own problems with the exercise, though those were mostly along the lines of hitting the string in the first place.

But given that his training had been more focused on the physical aspects of his strength, I had been trying to come up with something suitable, even if he was giving me trouble. Throwing sticks for him to catch was one thing we had been trying, or having him complete certain challenges at the fastest possible speed, but neither of those really pushed the elemental aspect of his physical prowess. That there was a remaining tension between us didn’t help matters. He cooperated, but compared to the enthusiastic efforts my other three put in, his surly attempts were lacking. And I had no idea what to do about it.

Cynthia had given me some ideas but even those hadn’t quite worked out. A tool that measured a combination of bite strength and voltage was a nice idea, but I had noticed that Su only half-heartedly used it, more concerned with napping somewhere in the sun than training.

It was a good thing that the forest was completely inundated with snow, making it so that any embers or sparks that either Charm or Su scattered around immediately got snuffed out, otherwise, we might have caused a wildfire.

Charm had been working incredibly hard and had succeeded in turning the stream of embers he could exhale into a stream of fire. It was a move he’d have to train over many, many months, in order to master it. After discussing things with Cynthia, I had set him to train it in varying ways, rotating through different methods every day in order to keep him from overspecialising. Watching as he tried to narrow the stream into a thin line, in order to have it just scorch the string between the two rocks was quite amusing, almost as much as his attempts to widen the cone the day before. There, I had set up two sticks about a metre apart and had him try to set both on fire at the same time - Without changing the angle of his flames. He had eventually managed, but by that point, he had been quite exhausted, the poor dear. But he had done it, and I had done my best to reward him with a pleasant massage and some of the charcoal he had come to love.

When Vio tugged on my pants to get my attention, I stopped trying to push Su once more and focused on her. The urgent, chirping sounds she made were normally reserved for telling me a Pokémon was approaching, but for once, she wasn’t gesturing towards the forest but up. At first, I thought a flying Pokémon might be about to swoop in on us but after a few moments, I realised what she wanted to tell me.

The sky was completely covered in dark, foreboding clouds and the wind had been picking up. It would soon snow and, judging by the clouds, heavily so.

“We need shelter,” I told them, calling my partners to gather around me. Looking at them, I decided to have Charm rest in his Pokéball, just in case we needed to fight, while the other three would run with me, continuing their training. It wasn’t the first snowstorm we’d have to weather and by now, I had figured out a few tricks and good spots.

Given that we had been in the northern part of the forest, we’d have to either run south, and make the climb up to Snowpoint City, or continue further north and east. There, dug into the mountains shielding Snowpoint City from the brutal storms coming from the northern sea, were some caverns which would shelter us. We had used them before, and unless I was completely off my mark when it came to directions, we’d be able to get there before the snow would start falling and hampering us.

Running through the snow was exhausting and I quickly began to envy my partners. Vio was light enough that she didn’t really sink into the snow, or maybe she had some fairy tricks that allowed her to almost glide across it, while Aura was light and strong enough to leap from tree to tree, without breaking the branches he landed on.

With laboured breathing, I finally spotted one of the many cave openings and wasted little time entering it. It didn’t look like there were any Pokémon currently claiming it, making it suitable to keep out of the snow.

“Well done, everyone. Su, Vio, come back,” I called the two back into their Pokéballs, before focusing on Aura. “And you, my dear, have earned a massage,” I told him, as I made myself somewhat comfortable on the cold stone. The discomfort was just another challenge to be endured and I would be stronger for it. Eventually.