"Max, I can't believe it!" Hannah ran over and gave me a hug, Zac not far behind to do the same. "How are you even here? Are you even well enough to travel?"

  I smiled at them, knowing the relief that they feel from past experience "I'm good, fit as a fiddle." I gnced over Stew and this other girl who were standing to the side. Stew was releasing Monster and Hero, pnning to battle me right away now that I was here. "Can't I take a break from battling you Stew? I've been through a lot recently and almost died in fact."

  "Weird excuse from you" Puff muttered. She was not happy with me for brushing over this like it was nothing. She could still feel the residual pain from that dark pulse.

  Ian was ughing, eyeing Monster with glee "It will be a fine battle indeed."

  Zac was giving me a critical look, unable to tell how recently I was referring to, but his Froakie didn't care, coming over to give me a fist bump. "Nice to see you too Froakie."

  "How'd you even get here so fast? I swear they said you would be out for a while back in Blossom" Hannah backed away and let Fidough waddle up to me. Despite being of the forest, Fidough and Dachsbun were among the more peaceful ones including. Breadwinner and her pack helped us with the grain that we were able to grow with our grass types and botanists.

  "Oh yeah, someone owes me money. Remember the bet we made?" I rubbed my hands together as she guffawed.

  "Come on, not now Max! But seriously, we walked straight here so how did you and your janky side trip make it faster than us?" she looked at Sin, noticing his presence and realizing he was mine. I shrugged and expined what happened over the past two weeks including the mugging which shocked the two standing farther away. Stew had said something about how the police should have handled it and I got introduced to Chloe Starms, the girl who owned the Sneasel who helped me back in Blossom.

  She was less shocked than Stew, having heard about the poorer districts in Blossom city from rumors at her school. She seemed friendly enough but disagreed with me not reporting what I saw to the Jennys after I had escaped. "You saw a crime and you didn't think to let the police know? It may be too te to even find the man, trainer, or her Pokemon now. By w it is required that you report illegal activity that you see."

  Zac sniggers at that "Just like you to say that lil Jenny."

  "Hey I helped you train your Mime Jr. The cutie wasn't even listening to you fully just a few days ago" she shoots back. Zac looks thoughtful at that, but waves the argument off.

  Eventually after Hannah and Stew side with Chloe and double down on me, I kind of don't want to be here anymore. I see Puff is ughing at me as she is resting on the grass, feeling the grass TE within and trying to replicate it to grow her puffy wings. Sin has long since walked off who knows where. Fly has been pying with Fidough, pying a game where Fidough chases her as she tries to evade with her static field. Ian is still dutifully by my side although I notice him working on autonomize, messing with his shape a bit to make himself into different cutouts and then heal by gathering steel energy within the air and resting his ribbon on my shoulder to steal energy from me too.

  I must have been visibly getting nervous or something with all the brow beating because Zac leads the conversation a different way.

  "Have you signed up for your gym badge yet? What are the different options this time?" I give him a thankful look and expin this gym's main challenge of dynamaxing. After that I invite them to lunch and we split up so that they can register. I watch them leave and think about how weird it is that their traveling group got made because of me getting attacked. Them and 4 others apparently traveled all the way here. The others had slipped off once they reached the outer area(kids from Chloe's school) and passed us by without me noticing them even being associated with my friends.

  Since they left, I was now free to get back to training. I look around to find my Pokemon. Fly tried to follow them but I called out to her sharply. Ian is still by my side as well so I expin to each of them what I wanted them to learn, showing them the drawings I made and what they are supposed to do. For Fly its going to be a dense static shield, a longer term project but it will help with what she is currently working on. For Ian, we are just going to make him bigger. He can easily use autonomize to get smaller but his recovery is too slow in a normal battle to build up weight again for bigger hits. By itself, fury cutter is not going to cut it forever, pun intended. Protect will wait for when I'm sleeping, it is going to be great when he figures it out but it is very energy intensive so I'd rather him not spend most of his time recovering while I'm here to help.

  Puff is busy already and the grass around her seems to be glowing energy so it is going well. She sees me watching and proceeds to compliment my hair jokingly, seemingly having forgotten her issue with me for now. I shake my head and try to find my st team member. Listening for solid thumps, I find him next to my drawing from this morning that was covered up with new grass.

  He seems to be getting better at the transition to the fist but still three-fourths of it is still in the chopping motion. He seems focused, watching both his fist and the drawing before making a change and attacking the ground again. He seems to be doing it line by line, not even full structures so the process is slower than it should be. I let him work for a little bit, watching him keep trying as his work is sometimes undone by something akin to muscle memory for moves.

  Before too long though I get annoyed. There has to be a better way to do this as when he makes 3 changes, 2 just change right back. Might as well learn a whole different move at this point. I freeze, thinking I'm onto something. "Sin, hold up. I want you to try something."

  He turns quickly, shock not even approaching his face. "What?"

  "Instead of changing your karate chop, make a barebones structure on your own like this" I start drawing in the dirt again, making the same drawing with less runes. When I'm done there are only 5 structures in the entire thing with the accompanying runes. Compared to the 20 of karate chop it is less powerful and more primal for fighting type energy.

  He looks it over and starts forming the outline, being more meticulous before adding the first curved line and punching. The attack fizzles out almost immediately to his annoyance and my frustration. "Dude, you should make a single rune not just one line of it. It will take too long otherwise."

  "But that's not the single strike way" he argues.

  I look around, putting my hands on my hips before looking at him again. "Can you expin the single strike way to me please."

  He thinks about it for a bit before coming up with a response "The single strike style analyzes for weaknesses and then attacks with one powerful blow." I wait for him to continue but he doesn't.

  "What's wrong with making one rune or even a full structure at a time then? It's still one thing right?" he frowns, not liking my assumption but he does think about it. He does as I wanted, albeit shakily as he isn't used to making whole runes at once. It looks funky but I approve of it and stop him before he punches again. "How about you finish putting it together, surely you are supposed to analyze your own attack as well. Making it as good as you can before you use it" this earns a grunt from him. He clearly doesn't want to do it and for a second I think he will refuse. He looks at me again, standing tall over him as his fist glows orange.

  There is a frustration but also responsibility in his eyes. He mutters something and then looks back at my drawing, copying it in a couple of minutes. In the st two minutes he was starting to buildup a couple more runes at once, inspired by me to make more while everything is still part of a greater whole. He then goes further to correct any mess-ups he made and smoothens everything out before he starts trying to remember the punch. The whole process takes a half-hour but when he uses the punch a decent attack gets thrown. There is a lot of wasted energy and it is weaker than his other moves but it is what we were looking for.

  YES! MY DESIGN WORKED!!!!!!!!