Handing in my reports, now with Aura holding my hand in support, had an interesting side effect. One look at the reports was enough to get me an advisement that I should see the therapist once again. Maybe that Vio deemed it necessary to force her way out of her Pokéball to go help me played a part, I wasn’t sure. And while it wasn’t an order, there were processes in place that had to be followed for such an order to be made, the look I was given made me think that the process would be started if I didn’t comply with the advice.

And maybe it was good advice, I certainly didn’t want to simply fold over out in the wild, my partners deserved better. Maybe staying in town and getting my head screwed on straight was a good idea, even if my partners couldn’t train as much as they could outside. Though, given the recent evolution of Vio and Charm, staying in town and letting them get used to their new shapes and powers would be the wise thing to do.

In addition, I wanted to bond with Rex, maybe even figure out where I had gone wrong while bonding Su and if there was a way to fix the relationship between the two of us. Compared to the way my other Pokémon had been growing, Su was lagging behind, it wasn’t just that the effort he put into the exercises I gave him was lacking, the results those exercises got were just as bad. I wasn’t sure if the lack of progress was due to lacking potential on his part, but I didn’t think so, the scans I had taken with my ‘Dex certainly hadn’t indicated that Su lacked that potential.

Which left a lack of compatibility between the two of us as a potential problem. Maybe what I had considered Su’s surliness, a characteristic I had pushed past with a rather tough, no-nonsense attitude, forcing him to acquiesce to my actions wasn’t that. Maybe he wasn’t surly but the lack of attachment came from something else, something that my attitude had made worse.

But how to fix this? I had no idea but maybe either the therapist had an idea, though I doubted it, or somebody at the Gym. Going there sounded like a good idea anyway, simply because there might be people there against whom I could get my partners some additional training. Working against wild Pokémon, or in the wild in general, was better to grow the pure, innate power of a Pokémon, and to help their evolution, but training against other trained Pokémon in controlled conditions was useful to specifically develop a Pokémon’s skills.

Unwilling to head back up to my room and linger, I decided to go around town, maybe I’d find something useful to do. Aura remained unwilling to return to his Pokéball, instead preferring to hold my hand and walk next to me and given that we were in town, meaning there was no desperate need to have him conserve energy, I didn’t mind. Snowpoint was quite welcoming to Pokémon after all, unlike other towns, and Pokémon were welcome to walk the roads.

Though, that might be due to the sheer utility Pokémon provided when it came to clearing the snow off the roads. Even back when we all arrived at the end of summer, I had noticed the strangely deliberate layout of the town, with almost uniform buildings and obviously planned roads. Now, with the town covered in snow, I could see the reason for that layout. The positioning of the doors was planned to prevent them from being blocked, the roofs were designed to provide shelter and allow for a path to be maintained, even while the roads were covered in snow, the houses were positioned in such a way that those paths could be linked together, allowing access to the entire town. It was quite fascinating and while the snow wasn’t piled high enough to necessitate these measures, it was fairly helpful, sparing me the exhausting task of trudging through knee-high snow. Sure, it was possible but I was still rather exhausted from the day I had, even if I wasn’t willing to head to bed just yet.

But walking around town, just getting another look at things and experiencing how winter was changing the atmosphere, that was something I could do.

Maybe it was because the storm I had sat out in my cave had been the first of its kind this year, but the people were somewhat resigned to the conditions. There was a certain atmosphere of lethargy in the air, an unwillingness to do anything but the most pressing tasks or maybe simply the idea that life in town was now shutting down, or moving entirely indoors, avoiding the excesses of the weather.

It was incredibly obvious that the locals had no desire to be out in the snow, the few people that were moving around town were dressed in thick, sturdy clothes, easily able to ward off the chill in the air. It made me wonder, why I was fairly okay wearing regular clothes plus Cynthia’s coat, I barely even needed gloves to be okay in the weather. Maybe it was an outgrowth of my connection to Charm, that his inner fire gave me the heat to withstand even this cold but I wasn’t sure. There had been times when I had felt seriously cold, so it might not be that or I might see connections where there were none. Either way, it was amusing to walk around town dressed as if it was still autumn, without the thick, furry layers the locals were clad in and feel the cold wind blast through my cloak.

It was amusing how a sensation that, out in the wild, would be one that I’d seek to avoid if possible was one I relished in town, knowing that shelter and safety were at hand. That I could allow myself to feel the cold, to test my body against the elements without having to fear serious consequences was strangely liberating. For a moment, a weird impulse struck me, the idea to strip off all my clothes and simply withstand the freezing wind and snow with just by bare body but I immediately pushed it away. While I wasn’t ashamed of my looks, the months of wandering between towns, alongside the often brutally exhausting life of a trainer had given me a tough and fit body but I wasn’t about to show it to just anyone.

Maybe I should head back out into the wilderness, or at least get some distance from town, so I could see how tough my body was.

A gentle pull on my hand dragged me away from that train of thought. Aura was demanding my attention, or maybe he had noticed where my mind was headed and decided to intervene. Either way, he was insistent that I move along, making me, once again, wonder just how smart and intelligent Pokémon actually were.

Because he wasn’t just dragging me along, he was deliberately pulling me towards the Gym and its fairly complex design. Or so I thought.

Instead of heading towards the Gym, Aura pulled me past the gym and into the snow. Ahead, Snowpoint Temple was looming above me, built into the very mountain that shielded the town from the worst of the storms.

Curiously, the temple wasn’t set into the planned design of the town, making me wonder why the original settlers had made that choice. Some of the legends I had read claimed that the temple had always been here, even before humans ever set foot in the region but I doubted that claim. Somebody had to have built the temple, it clearly wasn’t some naturally occurring phenomenon. It was far too angular and deliberate for that, too much a planned building.

Standing before the open entrance, I hesitated for a moment, only for Aura to give me a gentle push, making me step forward. The moment I took that step, I immediately felt the air around me change, growing far colder than it had been outside. And yet, despite the air feeling incredibly cold on my skin, the sensation was only skin deep.

Within myself, I could still feel a burning fire blazing, keeping the cold at bay. Behind me, Aura let out a soft, almost whimper-like noise, making me turn around.

The little guy didn’t look good, his arms were wrapped around his body in a position that told me more than a hundred words could and after a moment of consideration, I held up his Pokéball, offering him to get some rest. When he didn’t react, I made the choice and called him back before turning to look deeper into the freezingly-cold temple.

Somehow, it felt as if something was calling to me from deep within.