Things were quiet for the next few weeks, mother took me to practice hunting and helped me with my moves and type energy. Occasionally she’d go out to hunt without me or bring back food for me. Unable to hunt the prey she normally would with me tailing her. So far she’d taught me the basics: roar, tackle, bite, and the beginnings of dragon tail. She had said it’s important to be able to use every part of my body. If something latched onto my side or was fast enough to get out of the way of my jaws I’d need to use my tail for example.

  I knew most of this already in theory, as a trainer it was important to make use of everything you could. But it was different when it was your body. Your reality. Things that seemed as if they were obvious needed hours of practice at least, even with the explosive growth normal to Pokemon. It had been a long time since I’d raised a baby Pokemon, and this was my first time being one.

  After I had started using dragon tail well enough to pass she had started teaching me curse. Tyrantrum are strong, unbelievably so, being dragons. However they are ambush predators. Any advantage I could use I would, and setting up before I pounce apparently wasn’t against whatever fragments of ‘dragons honor’ a fossil Pokemon could have.

  So as night fell, I practiced running that ghost type energy through my body. Cursing at myself internally to be harder and stronger while mother was out hunting. I almost missed the faint sound of claws against rock.

  Opening my one eye that was exposed in my hidden, curled up form. I looked out at the rest of the nest from against the hanging wall of cliff face I was huddled against. I barely spotted something new in our nest, unwelcome to say the least.

  A Sneasle, running it’s claws against each boulder in the nest, not enough to wake up anything it touches. Just enough that it could feel whether it was touching hard rock or rocky leathery skin. It slowly made its way around the edges of the nest, ready to dart away at a moments notice as it checked each rock. Its eyes darting around at any ambient noise from the forest. Its fur blended perfectly with the approaching darkness, hard to follow when it moved.

  I shifted slightly every time its bright yellow eyes weren’t focused on me, getting ready to move at a moments notice. Until it turned its back fully to check another boulder up against the cliff face. Immediately my instincts screamed at me, feeling ghost type energy flood my body before I pounced. Teeth latching around its spindly body, it yelped, screeching as I shook it around like a rag doll. Teeth crunching into it as hard as I could while I tried to do as much damage as I could before it got free.

  The claw it had been using to swipe at the boulders still free, sunk straight into the flesh on my snout. Pain seared from the steel type energy wrapped around it as its super effective metal claw ripped into me, forcing me to throw it against the cliff face in a familiar fashion. Unfortunately, unlike other prey the Sneasle was mostly unfazed even after the surprise bite and throw, and I already wasn’t doing so hot.

  Super effective moves hurt, more than I had expected, even if this Sneasle was clearly older than me. It felt like every ounce of my body knew I should run from this. But that deep instinctual dragons pride and anger stopped me, I had other options. Why give up a fight, especially one with a strong opponent? No. Strong prey. Prey that was fast, even if I ran it'd easily catch up, running was hardly an option here.

  I let out the loudest roar I could, feeding in more type energy than I ever had for this move as the sound bounced off the walls and reverberated around us into the forest. It sounded more high pitched than I’d like, definitely still a hatchling. But the Sneasle still flinched, clearly not expecting a hatchling to fight back so much. Hopefully mother would hear my cry, call for help, challenge and attack all in one.

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  Taking advantage of its second of hesitancy I let more ghost energy flow through my body. Getting off another curse as quickly as possible. In this moment I learned why Pokemon grow so fast in battle, pure unbridled adrenaline. The need to win, to survive, outpaced any prior thoughts. Weirdly familiar instinct took over and measly thoughts were pushed to the side. Unfortunately the Sneasle noticed my set up immediately snarling at me as its words came out thick with venom and dark type energy, clearly a taunt.

  “You scared little dragon?”

  The words were simple, childish even, I actually kind of expected better trash talk from a dark type. But it clearly worked. Dark type energy seeping into my mind, latching onto anything it could, in this case my pride. Working itself in to make me inexplicably angry, locking off any thought of using curse or roar again. I had to fight the urge to launch myself at the infuriating creature without even using type energy.

  I stalked around it slowly, making sure its back was against the wall so I wouldn’t be cornered. I thought it'd avoid being cornered itself but the disgusting thing was clearly not scared enough of me to care. The Sneasle scraped its claws together slowly, making a noise like nails on a chalkboard as dark aura coursed through them. Hone claws? I used two curses… Even if it doesn’t know that it might set up more, I need to move fast.

  I launched myself at the Sneasle in a tackle before it finished the move, letting me crash into the otherwise agile Pokemon in its distraction. Not quite enough to interrupt the move, but definitely throwing it off balance. Being much lighter than me the Sneasle crashed into the wall, sprawling a bit as it lashed out with another metal claw grazing my side.

  This clearly wasn’t enough, the tackle did more than bite at least. But I was on the edge of collapsing even as it stood back up, shaking itself off. I ran through my thoughts as fast as possible even while bracing myself. Watching the Sneasle bound towards me, fast, barely visible in the darkness. Another steel claw barely blocked with a dragon tail as I whipped around, trying my best to make space.

  ‘What’s super effective against a dark ice type? Rock? No. Fighting? Quad effective, I don’t know any fighting moves. What’s a fighting move I can learn? What does fighting type energy feel like? How do I get into that mindset like I do with bite and curse?’

  Thoughts flashed around my head like lightning. My body starting to flag, I needed to do something right now or I was done for good. Sneasle steadied itself after its last pounce, getting ready to jump at me again. I imagined anything I could fighting type adjacent, and as the Sneasle’s claw was just about to lash out my eyes widened. Something clicked. The unbridled urge to become strong, to fight as hard and as often as I could flaring throughout my body.

  The energy around its claws practically shattered against my head as I headbutted the Sneasle with all the energy I had left. Sneasle are fast but frail, all I need is one good hit. The brick break sent the other Pokemon flying, I heard one of its bones crunch against the wall this time. Fighting TE clearly still ravaging the things body. Adrenaline still pumping I ran right over to it, stomping as hard as I could on its skull with brick break after brick break until its body finally went still.

  It was over…

  Or it wasn’t. On the brink of collapse I looked back at the nest, seeing another Sneasle right on the edge of the treeline. Climbing into the nest. My legs gave out, I wasn’t winning another bout, that’s for damn sure. Luckily for me, right as the new Sneasle started to run over, screeching something about its brother, jaws were set around it. Then it was gone, there one moment, gone the next.

  I looked up from where I was sprawled out on the nest floor to see mother looking back. She was next to me in an instant checking me over, making sure I wasn’t about to die.

  “Are you okay sweetie? What happened?!” Her deep raspy voice drawled a bit, clearly worried as worried could be.

  “Mfh… Fine. I’ll live.” I grated out. While it did hurt to move or talk, I was clearly living through this particular fight. Pokemon heal fast, I didn’t lose much blood and was somehow able to minimize the damage I took as well. The Sneasle was probably playing with its food until it was hit with that first brick break, otherwise it could have killed me in an instant with its speed and a metal claw or two more. Mother glanced over at the corpse, skull still crushed into the nest floor.

  “Good, good… I’m sorry I didn’t get back fast enough sweetie…”

  “It’s okay.” was all I managed to get out. Letting my body curl up to rest.

  Mother curled up around me protectively, pampering me and whispering sweet nothings to make sure I was okay. I kind of wondered if I had just earned myself a helicopter parent, but I wasn’t against being spoiled, something in my instincts actually wanted that. So I drifted off slowly, falling asleep while being comforted. Relative bliss after fighting for my life…