Chapter 19 – Getting There
Three weeks.
That's how long it had been since Deino came out of the Pokemon Center. Three weeks of early mornings behind Rowan's lab, cold ground, frozen posts, Piplup getting faster and Ryan getting faster with it. Three weeks of sitting with Deino in the evenings and talking about nothing in particular while Deino listened and sometimes made sounds that meant things Ryan was still learning to read.
Three weeks of small things adding up.
Piplup had BubbleBeam now.
That had happened ten days ago they'd been running combinations, Bubble into Pound into Bubble again, Ryan pushing the pace, calling moves faster than comfortable, and somewhere in the fourth or fifth run Piplup had fired and it hadn't been Bubble. Bigger, faster, a concentrated beam of water that had hit the post so hard it had come clean out of the frozen ground and skidded three meters across the field.
Both of them had stood there looking at it.
"Pip," Piplup had said. Surprised. Actually surprised, which was rare.
"Yeah," Ryan had said. "That was new."
They'd spent the rest of that session on nothing but BubbleBeam learning the difference in energy, the wind-up time, when to use it versus Bubble. Piplup had figured it out faster than Ryan expected. By the end of the session it could call it cleanly on command and Ryan had gone back to the Pokemon Center that evening feeling something he hadn't felt in a while.
Like they were actually getting somewhere.
---
This morning was cold enough that his breath came out in clouds and the ground was hard as stone under his boots. Deino was already out he came out every morning now, had been doing it for two weeks, that particular anxiousness from the first days mostly faded into something quieter.
Mostly.
"Okay," Ryan said. "Deino, Tackle the left post. Easy, don't push it."
"Tackle!"
Deino moved. Hit the post with his shoulder, solid, pulled back. His form was good it had always been good, Deino didn't do things halfway but Ryan watched the way he paused afterward. Just a fraction of a second, head coming up, ears forward. Checking.
Still doing that. Every time after a fast movement, every time something hit something else a pause, a check, making sure everything was still where it was supposed to be.
Ryan had stopped counting how many times it happened. It was just part of how Deino moved now.
"Good. Again Tackle!"
Again. Solid hit, pull back, pause, check.
"Dragon Rage the right post, controlled burst."
Deino turned and the Dragon Rage came smaller than it used to be, tighter, like he was keeping it close to himself. The post scorched. Not knocked over, just scorched.
Ryan looked at it. Before the route Deino's Dragon Rage had sent posts flying. Now he reined it in, kept it contained, like he wasn't sure yet how much he wanted to let out.
That was new. That was the route.
"That's fine," Ryan said. "That's good actually controlled is better than big. Let's do it again, same level."
Deino's ear turned toward him.
"I mean it. Controlled is harder. Big is easy."
Another Dragon Rage, same level. Scorched, not destroyed.
Ryan nodded. "Good. Take a break."
Deino stepped back and Ryan crouched down to his level. "How does that feel? The Dragon Rage?"
Deino's ear moved.
"Different than before?"
A sound. Low, uncertain.
"Yeah," Ryan said. "I think so too. We'll work with where you are, not where you were. Okay?"
Deino didn't respond but his shoulders came down slightly from where they'd been.
Ryan stood. "Piplup your turn. Let's go, BubbleBeam right post!"
---
Piplup moved before the words were fully out.
"BubbleBeam!"
The beam hit the post dead center and Ryan was already calling the next move
"Peck close in, now!"
Piplup closed the distance fast, beak forward, hit the rocking post and sent it flat.
"Growl hold it Pound!"
Growl rolling out low and heavy while Piplup was already moving, Pound connecting with the second post while the sound was still in the air.
Two posts down. Four seconds.
Getting faster. Ryan was getting faster with it too the gap between seeing and calling was closing, not gone but smaller than it had been three weeks ago. He could feel the difference. Piplup could too, he thought there was something in how it reset now, quicker, more ready, like it trusted that the next call was coming instead of waiting to see if it would.
"Reset BubbleBeam, left!"
"Peck don't wait for it, go!"
"Growl, keep moving Pound!"
Piplup was a beat ahead of the last call. Already committed, already there, Pound landing clean.
Ryan stood there for a second.
"That was it," he said. "That was the timing."
"Pip." Certain. Like it had felt it click too.
"Again. Same sequence BubbleBeam!"
They ran it four more times. Ryan called everything every move, every transition and Piplup pushed, and somewhere in the third run Ryan stopped thinking about the calls and just called them, stopped being a beat behind his own eyes and just moved with it.
That was new.
That was actually new.
He called it after the fourth run and stood there breathing harder than he wanted to admit and looked at Piplup who was looking back at him with the expression of something that had been waiting for Ryan to catch up and was glad he finally had.
"Don't say it," Ryan said.
"Pip pip."
"I said don't."
---
Deino came back for the second half.
Ryan kept it simple Tackle, Dragon Breath, some movement work between the posts. Nothing fast, nothing that required Deino to fully commit. Just moving, just working, just being in the field doing Pokemon things.
But halfway through the movement work a Starly landed on the fence at the edge of the field.
Deino stopped.
Not the training stop the other one. Full body, ears forward, the pause that wasn't about checking form.
Ryan kept his voice exactly the same as it had been a second ago. "It's just a Starly, Deino. Same ones from the park. They follow us sometimes."
Deino didn't move.
"Dragon Breath low, at the ground in front of you. Just to feel it."
A long second. Then Deino turned away from the Starly and the Dragon Breath came low, controlled, a line of blue flame along the frozen ground.
"Good. Tackle left post."
Deino moved. Hit the post. Pulled back and checked and the Starly was still on the fence and he looked at it for a second and then looked at Ryan.
"We're training," Ryan said. "Not the Starly. Us. Dragon Breath again."
Deino turned back to the field.
It wasn't fixed. It wasn't close to fixed. But he'd turned back, and that was the thing — every time something happened now Deino turned back. That was what three weeks looked like.
Ryan kept calling moves until the light went and Deino was tired in the good way, the way that came from working, and then he called it and sat down on the frozen ground and Deino came and pressed close to his side without being asked.
Piplup sat on his other side.
The three of them in the cold field, the Starly long gone, Sandgem quiet behind them.
"We're getting there," Ryan said. To both of them. To himself. "Slowly but we're getting there."
Deino made a sound against his arm. Low, warm, almost almost like before.
Ryan stayed exactly where he was and didn't say anything else and let it be enough.