Tanya is beginning to suspect that her partner’s conversation partners actually don't know that she’s a Joy.
“So wait, you’re the reason there was a trail advisory through the valley of steel?” One of the humans asks incredulously as he scrapes the bottom of his bowl of soup.
Amelia gives a nervous laugh at the question, rubbing the back of her neck and taking care to keep her floppy sun hat completely covering her hair.
“Well… I didn't do anything. I just helped out some magnemite, and they decided they wanted to follow me around until a ranger showed up to shoo them away.” She deflects.
“Yea but like… what did you do? You said your partner healed a few of them, but that can't be everything.”
The conversation continues but Tanya tunes it out, closing her eyes as she sits nearby in the clearing, feeling oddly tired.
Though the soup didn't do much to fill her up, the following supplement with her pokechow and the warm feeling in her stomach, accompanied by the sun dappled shade of the first trees she’s seen since entering the lava plain created an unusually enticing incentive for a nap.
With her eyes closed, she allows herself to drift, time becoming elastic as she hovers in a relaxed doze, only fluttering open to glance at Taillow as he swoops through the trees above as he returns from his flight.
But shortly after Taillow’s return, her relaxation is interrupted by an arrogant sniff from somewhere toward the ground in front of her.
The mudkip?
She doesn't open her eyes to check, a decision that results in a dismissive scoff.
“Lazy. No wonder you’re not a nurse.”
The insult has Tanya crack a single eye, looking down at the ‘mon with an unimpressed air.
“...Hm.”
She’s about to close her eye again when Mudkip taps her foreleg against Tanya’s egg sharply.
“Well listen here.” She hisses. “I don't care how long you’ve known each other, Marshtomp is my rival. You better remember that.”
Considering how to respond the to aggressive proclamation, Tanya sighs as she pulls herself back into her proper shape. But before she’s forced to say anything Amelia’s voice cuts though the atmosphere from the other side of the clearing.
“Hey Chansey! You up for a battle in a minute?” She asks, waving at one of the humans.
Marshtomp is standing next to the human, presumably his trainer, and looks very excited. It's his expression that has Tanya sigh and nod.
Amelia’s face breaks into a matching smile.
“Great!” She says, turning back to the other human. “Two little one on one battles? I’ve stayed here for longer than I planned anyway.”
The three trainers glance at each other, followed by Marstomp’s trainer and the other girl half raising their hand and stepping forward.
“Sure? Wurmple is out forging anyways and Skitty’s been a lazy bones all morning.” Says the girl.
Watching the trainers slowly get into position, Tanya rouses herself to full vigor as Amelia sends out Taillow against a small skitty and the first battle is joined.
It's not even close. Taillow uses his inherently superior mobility in conjunction with his training and ranged attack to completely negate his opponent’s every move. It took a few minutes longer than it should have, but that’s only by the fact that Skitty was quite good at dodging and Taillow hasn't trained as much on mobile ground based targets.
Because Tanya never had to deal with mobile ground based targets.
Without even realizing it, Tanya finds herself dissecting the fight with careful attention, paying careful attention to how the modified attack vectors the avian is using fall short.
The battle ends when Taillow draws his opponent into leaping into the air to chase after him, tail beginning to glow with power, only for the bird to burn most of his speed in a zero radius turn and fire a final air slash at the unprotected ‘mon, sending the feline to the floor with a cry of pain and doesn't get up.
Seeing the incapacitated ‘mon Tanya immediately rises from where she’d been sitting and marches over, underhand tossing a transparent pink egg at her as Marshtomp practically shoves his way past his trainer to get to his position opposite her.
“Your pok– Gh… Er. Thank you Chansey” Amelia stammers as Tanya presses a mild heal pulse into Taillow for the minor exhaustion. “You ready Sam?”
The trainer, Sam apparently, grins in a mirror to his partner and holds out a thumbs up.
“You bet! Show ‘em what we got Marshtomp!” He calls as his partner steps forward.
“It’s time to show you what I’ve learned!” The 'mon shouts his batchmate as he gets into a ready stance, and the instant Tanya does the same she’s immediately stepping to the side to avoid a firehose of water.
Inhibit mobility, close the gap.
Carefully, a thread of power is funneled through the simplified equations for gravity, constrained with her at the origin point and just large enough to encompass the two of them as she breaks into a rumbling sprint toward her opponent.
He charges to meet her, and his throat bulges with another attack, clearly intended to make her dodge and break her charge.
She almost does it, but then she remembers what she'd promised.
The water stings as it hits her, at the speed it’s going it feels more like being pelted by thousands of rocks. But it doesn't break her charge, and it doesn't slow her down.
Marshtomp's eyes widen as he realizes his attack was ineffective, leaping to the side to get out of the way of her charge faster than Tanya can manage the inertia of her bulk.
Then her eyes flare purple and a blast of psychic energy his him square between the eyes.
He staggers, off balance, and only made less stable under the magnified gravity.
“Bubble beam!” His trainer calls, and for an instant Tanya hesitates, considering how to counter another ranged attack.
But Marshtomp appears to ignore the instructions, instead linking his arms together and swinging the limbs like a baseball bat at her side.
Her instinct is to dodg–
She steps in, wincing as she realizes the attack used fighting type energy that bores into her and tries to destabilize the aura protecting her from harm.
She reaches for a grapple but Marshtomp has fought her many times before, so he ducks her stubby reaching limbs almost without looking at them.
Then her eyes flare purple and another blast of psychic his him in the same spot,
He’s disoriented, his trainer begins to shout another command, but whatever the human had been trying to say becomes panicked, stammering nonsense.
Tanya pulls an egg out of her pouch and infuses it with an appropriate level of power in under half a second. Before it too flares purple and shoots off toward Marshtomp with a crack of displaced air.
But that single fraction of a second is enough for her opponent to find his bearings again, and the instant before the ‘mon is obscured by the smoke of the explosion she can see the blue hexagons of a protect flicker to life.
“No! Marshtomp! You can't just ignore me!” The opposing trainer shouts from behind the smoke.
With her opponent obscured, Tanya takes a second to breathe and take stock of herself.
“Heal?” Amelia suggests with hushed focus, which her partner answers by holding her arm to her stomach and pressing healing energy into herself without a word.
“Marshtomp! Mud slap!” Comes the trainer again, and this time a large wave of mud shoots out of the smoke in a wide ark in the vague direction Tanya is in.
Attempted battlefield control.
Her instinct is to dodge, and this time she follows that impulse.
Stepping to the side, the ‘mon compresses her bulk down and to the side to avoid the majority of the mud followed by another psychic blast at Marshtomp the instant he steps into view once more.
She marches through the muddy ground toward her enemy once more, tanking another blast of water without flinching. He attempts to get out of her way again, but his predictable movements have two clumps of muddy earth floating into the air and sending the ‘mon to the ground.
She gets to him firing another blast of psychic as he attempts to rise, then her limbs punch straight through the weakened hexagons of protect and grip him by the arm.
Then she freezes on reflex, breathing slightly elevated as she stares down at her batchmate as he stares back up at her, gasping for breath.
“...You’ve improved.” She says simply, the fight reminding her of who Marshtomp is better than any conversation. “Your ability to think on the spot and continue fighting through distractions in particular.”
“Thanks…” Marstomp pauses to breathe as Tanya helps him to his feet and presses a pink egg into him. “That pink blast thing is unfair.” He says with a laugh. “You want me to wash the mud off?”
Tanya considers the idea, but she’s interrupted by Marshtomp’s partner shouting in wordless confusion.
“Wait. Why did… Are we still fighting? What happened?” He asks, looking at Amelia, who looks similarly confused.
“I… I guess not?” She asks.
Marshtomp rubs an arm across the side of his mouth sheepishly.
“Oh. Sorry. Back at the nursery Chansey always… you know.”
The boy’s face makes it clear he very much doesn't know, but as Marshomp is forced to explain himself further and as Tanya gives a much more abbreviated explanation to Amelia, she absentmindedly catches sight of Mudkip from where her eyes are poking out from behind a log near the fire pit.
She looks…
Tanya looks away to not be rude and tries to parse the emotion she sees in those eyes.
Whatever it is, it’s not pleasant.
A second later, Amelia walks across the field and shakes the opponent trainer’s hand before pocketing her winnings.
“Well. Good battle, but I’ve got to get going!”
The boy smiles back as she stuffs his wallet back into his pants.
“Yea! Great battle! You’re like fifteen minutes from Lavaridge. See ya later!”
With that, Amelia throws her bag over her shoulders and waves for Taillow to follow behind as they get back on the trail.
As they walk, Tanya notes that the path they’re walking on abruptly merges with a train track and suddenly they’re walking alongside, a thin wire fence the only thing separating the packed dirt and gravel of the trail from the hazard.
Continuing down the trail in silence, Amelia jotting down notes of the past two battles into her notebook. But about halfway through a process Tanya’s long become familiar with, the trainer lets out a slightly consternated sigh.
“I just don't get it…” She mutters, but her expression abruptly shifts to one of apology at the sight of Tanya’s inquisitive stare. “Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to say that out loud.”
The ‘mon glances at the notebook.
“Something about the battles?”
Amelia hesitates, then wobbles her head uncertainly.
“Kinda…” She hedges. “I’m just confused about why you have so much trouble with doing a complete minimize, I mean you’re already doing it with parts of your body. I just didn't realize extending the effect all over was so difficult.”
There’s a few seconds of confused silence, Tanya attempting to parse what her partner just said.
Because that doesn't make any sense, every attempt at minimize has been a complete failure, the emotional component just isn't there.
“...Elaborate?”
“Oh. Uh.” Amelia mutters, flipping back through her notes. “In training you can't seem to replicate the effect, but in battle you sometimes perform a partial minimize to dodge an attack. You did it to dodge the mud slap just now.” She comes to a stop at a page and taps it twice. “Here, in your after action reports you call it ‘compressing your bulk’ which you use to… dodge…”
She trails off at the sight of Tanya’s expression.
Because that… that can't be what she’s doing.
The mass isnt being reduced, it’s just being… moved?
No it’s not being moved, her center of gravity doesn't shift, so she’s not sure where it’s going. But she’s not using the emotional component.
Focusing slightly, Tanya compresses her bulk downward, then to the side, then in a kind of swirling motion like a wave on a rolling sea.
And as she focuses, she notices she is drawing on an emotion, the ghost of one at least, barely pushing through the barrier memories like this one have been put behind. The memory of laying splayed out on the cold ground like a corpse, suppressing her mana signature as much as possible to hide from an enemy patrol as it flies above.
A soul deep need to remain hidden.
…Oh.
Tanya stops in the middle of the trail, closes her eyes, and firmly rubs the space between her eyes with an embarrassed groan.
“Damn it.” She sighs.
—--
–_–
—--
Walking down the trail in silence, Amelia is increasingly worried she somehow managed to break her partner.
She suspects this because every time she looks at the ‘mon from where she’s trailed a few steps behind, Chansey is staring out into nothing with an irritated expression on her face.
Then, every few seconds, she begins to violently giggle and morph like a ditto full of pop candy, an action that ends with the ‘mon’s frown getting more severe as the motion settles with her looking no different.
Amelia had tried exactly once to suggest that she stop. It took less than a second of Chansey’s expression being turned on her for the trainer to choose that shutting up with her suggestions is a good idea for now.
That resolve to not bother her partner is tested when the trail opens up to a concrete paved walkway leading out of the wooden train platform and further into a valley, where she can see the tourist-y hillside buildings of Lavaridge.
Glancing back, she’s pretty sure Chansey didn't notice even as she’s looking right at the town.
After half a minute of walking on the paved road, the trainer works up the nerve to clear her throat.
“Hey Chansey? Just wanted to tell you we’re h–”
“Chans.” The ‘mon grunts out without blinking.
“Right. Got it. Later.”
---
A/N: SORRY FOR THE DELAY. IT'S HERE NOW!