"Marty, use water gun!"

At Shawn's command, the Mudkip released a jet of water at the wooden target in the clearing's centre, rattling it slightly.

"Not bad, you're improving. But remember to focus the attack in your belly, and really concentrate it to get that extra punch."

Marty nodded, a determined expression on his face as he readied himself.

"Now, attack again!"

This time, the stream caused the makeshift practice target to shake in place, held down by tent pegs.

"Better still. You are a fast learner Marty."

The Mudkip beamed at the praise, happy to have pleased his trainer. He had grown rapidly under Shawn's tutelage these past couple weeks. The fact that Shawn could teach him by using his own abilities, and the fact that they could communicate directly, meant the water type had grown far stronger in the short time than if he had been trained using normal methods. When Shawn had first revealed his abilities to his pokémon, he had been both surprised and elated.

"Master is just like a pokémon!" he had said.

Shawn had smiled at this, "Well, not exactly, but my powers are similar enough that I can teach you how to use your own."

"Yay! I'm so happy I ended up with such a cool trainer." The enthusiastic pokémon had insisted that they get started right away, and they had been alternating training sessions with slow travel, taking their time. Shawn had been purposely avoiding other trainers, not wanting Marty to battle until he thought he was ready. He was becoming very attached to the little creature, and didn't want him to get hurt.

"I think that's enough for water gun today Marty. Remember though, eventually, that attack will look like this."

Laying a hand on his sword hilt and concentrating his water element, Shawn raised an open palm towards the target. A thin jet stream of water shot out from his palm and blasted a hole clean through the wood, causing splinters to fly everywhere.

"Wow!" said Marty, a bit wide eyed.

"See, even a simple attack like water gun can be devastating if you focus it enough. I used the same volume of water you would for that move, and just put it under a tremendous amount of pressure. You probably won't be able to produce an effect like that until you evolve though. Your body mass is too small right now to maintain that kind of pressure. But, that is your goal."

Marty nodded, enthused about being able to produce an attack like that with so little water.

"Now, how would you like to learn something new?" Shawn asked.

"Of course Master Shawn! You haven't taught me anything new since water gun!"

Shawn sighed slightly, he had despaired on getting the Mudkip to call him simply by his name. The pokémon always insisted on adding either trainer or master, and Shawn had finally accepted that he would have to get used to being addressed with honorifics from his companions.

Sitting down cross legged, he fixed the Mudkip with a serious stare. "I need you to listen closely to me Marty," he said in the wizard speech.

The Mudkip caught the seriousness of his tone and calmed down, sitting in the grass in front of his trainer.

"I've already told you that the mission I am on could be very dangerous. There may come a time when you have to defend yourself against some very nasty people, and I want to make sure you are prepared to do so." He paused briefly to let the statement sink in.

"What I am about to teach you, you must never use unless it is in extreme need. This attack will not be legal to use in battle, as it can easily kill or incapacitate. I refer to the technique simply as, Drown. Are you with me so far?"

The pokémon gave an affirmative nod, to show that he understood.

"Good, now close your eyes, and focus on the centre of your power."

Marty did as he was instructed, reaching inside himself to the water element energy stored within.

"Prepare a small amount of water, about enough to make a decent sized ball. Now, focus that energy, and hold it right on the brink of release."

Marty did so, holding the fluid right on the brink of an attack, his lungs straining slightly as he did his best to hold it back.

"This will be the tricky part. You need to be able to release the water while holding its form. You want it to be a bubble of solid water that is going to move through the air in a sphere, under your control completely."

The Mudkip attempted to do as instructed, but the attack simply burst out in all directions like a popped balloon.

"It's okay, keep trying. You'll get it." Shawn said.

After several more failed attempts, he managed to produce a wobbling sphere of water in front of him.

"Great! Now try to move it." Shawn instructed.

He managed to get the sphere to move a couple of feet before losing his control, bursting the water into a puddle.

"You've already got the basic idea. The important thing with this attack is focus and control, not power. Once you master this, other water attacks will seem easy to learn."

Shawn focussed his own power, producing a sphere of his own about the size of Marty's body. Elongating the sphere into a dextrous tentacle, Shawn whipped it about, small splashes of spray whipping off it from the centrifugal force. Bringing it back into a sphere, he sent it forward to what remained of the target.

"This is the crux of the attack. Using this technique, you can trap your targets head inside a sphere of water, and force it inside their nostrils and lungs."

Enveloping the target with the sphere, Shawn began to compress it as he spoke.

"Very quickly, any air breathing opponent will effectively be drowned on dry land." Without a sound, the target gave way under the pressure, the remaining wood being crushed by the surrounding liquid. He allowed the sphere to disintegrate, the pulpy mass of crushed and sopping wood dropping to the wet ground with a splash.

"This is a particularly vicious move, and I hate using it. But it is necessary for you to know this, if you ever have to fight your way out of a life or death situation. This is the most effective way to kill or maim with water. But remember, you must never, never, ever, use this move in a regular battle. Or in any other situation than a last resort defence of your life. I can't stress to you enough that this move is a killer. And you shouldn't use it unless that's what you intend."

"I understand Master Shawn, I wouldn't want to really hurt someone by accident." The pokémon replied, sobered by the knowledge that there might be people out there who would want to hurt his trainer or him badly enough to make him resort to such extreme measures. He was grateful though, that the human obviously cared enough about his well being to want him to be able to protect himself should the need arise.

"Good, now that that's settled, I think you've had a long enough training session today. You have some more things to think about as we move. I want to get some more travelling done today before we have to camp for the night."

Marty let out an affirmative cry, skipping alongside his trainer as they went to break camp.

The pair walked on through the late afternoon light, following the path from Pastoria to Veilstone. Shawn kept Marty out of his ball most of the time, the walking helping to build up his muscle tone. If he started to get tired, he could always return him to his ball. Shawn had been a bit surprised at the size of the city when they had passed through Pastoria a few days before. It had been quite small, despite being in possession of what was apparently one of the tougher gyms of the pokémon league. They had passed through it fairly quickly, stopping only to refresh supplies at the pokémart and then electing to stay overnight at the pokécentre.

It had been nice to have the opportunity to sleep in a real bed and have a shower, and Marty had been ecstatic at his first chance to go inside a human building. He had run all over the place in their room, bouncing on the bed and shuffling his feet around on the unfamiliar surface of the carpet. Until he got a shock from the static buildup when he touched the metal bedpost. He had also loved the shower, standing with his eyes closed and a blissful expression on his face for a good hour until the spray started to run cold.

Shawn had flipped through a brochure on the great marsh on the city's outskirts as he relaxed in bed, but hadn't really seen any reason to go there. Most of the pokémon species that showed up there were not what he was looking for to add to his team. Not to mention the prospect of wading through muck for hours on end hadn't exactly been an appealing one.

"Hey! You there!" came a call, breaking into Shawn's thoughts.

"Eh?" he said, looking for the source of the voice. Just off the path to his left, he saw a guy in a typical trainer's garb waving at him.

"Oh crap, he's probably looking for a battle," he thought, still not really wanting to get involved in one.

"Yeah, you in the black t-shirt, with the Mudkip. Battle me!"

"Look, I'm not interested in a battle right now, okay?" Shawn replied.

"Not interested? Sure, you say that, but your vs. seeker is on. That means that unless you have a good reason not to, you have to battle me."

"Vs. seeker? What the heck is he talking about?" Shawn wondered. Not wanting to expose his ignorance, he replied, "Oh, I must've forgotten to turn it off then. Really I don't want to battle."

"Nope! Not good enough! Your pokémon looks fine to me, I challenge you to a one on one," the trainer replied, drawing a poké ball from his belt.

"This guy…" Shawn thought, starting to get a bit irritated with the persistent trainer.

"Trainer Shawn!" Marty piped up from beside him.

"Yes, what is it Marty?" he asked.

"I can beat this guy! I know it! I wanna battle. It will help my training!"

Shawn gave it some thought. The Mudkip had grown a lot in the past weeks, and was starting to become more focussed in training. This might actually be a good thing, so long as this trainer didn't have anything astronomically tough.

"Alright, fine." he said, both to his pokémon and the other trainer. "One on one only though, this is my only pokémon."

"Great!" Said the other trainer, pulling out his own pokédex and flicking the switch on the side to battle mode.

Shawn pulled out his own dex, now beeping as it received the battle request from the trainer. The trainer ID on his screen said simply "Dan". Shawn confirmed the request, linking the two dexes, then said, "Go get "im Marty."

The Mudkip nodded, stepping forward between the two trainers.

"I choose you, Meditite!" The other trainer shouted, tossing his ball into the air.

The small blue fighting type burst out in the standard red release beam, immediately seating itself in the lotus position.

The pokédex beeped, a single ball appearing over Dan's name as it started counting down to the battle. A chime sounded as the timer hit zero, causing Shawn to yell out, "Marty, use tackle!" as his opponent responded with, "Calm mind!"

The little fighting type closed its eyes, an expression of concentration on its face. This was quickly disrupted though as Marty's full body tackle slammed into it, knocking it over backwards. Shawn glanced down at the pokédex screen. The health feed coming from Dan's dex showed that the attack hadn't done a lot of damage, but had successfully disrupted the Meditite's focus.

"Don't let him push you around, fight back with a karate chop!" Dan yelled.

The pokémon complied, standing up and running towards Marty on its spindly legs.

"Hold him back with a water gun!" Shawn cried. "Remember what I taught you!"

Marty widened his stance, a determined expression on his face as he focussed on the onrushing pokémon. Just before the Meditite could strike, he unleashed a powerful jet of water, right into his opponent's face. The Meditite stumbled back, blinded, his wild swipe missing Marty completely.

"Great! Now use tail whip!" Shawn said

Marty complied, battering the pokémon with his tail. The fighting type tried to fend off the fluttering attacks, not being hurt but exposing himself to another" "Water gun!"

"Chaz, confusion!" Dan yelled.

The Medite's expression grew more intense, and Marty stumbled back, shaking his head with a cry of pain. Shawn glanced down at his screen seeing Marty's aura cut drastically by the psychic attack.

"Hit him with another tackle!" He yelled as Marty recovered.

"Again Chaz!" the other trainer instructed.

Marty nailed his foe once again, this time the two tangling up and tumbling backwards together. Shawn saw Marty wince as he was buffeted by another psychic assault, albeit a somewhat weaker one, as his tackle had broken the Meditite's concentration. He managed to hang on through the attack, coming up on top of the downed monkey.

"Water gun again! Finish it!" Shawn instructed, seeing the opportunity of the close range combat.

"Get him off you Chaz!" the other trainer yelled.

The Meditite looked a bit confused at the nondescript command, and the delay slowed its reaction enough for Marty to unleash another torrent of water right in its face. With a soft cry, the pokémon slumped exhaustedly underneath the Mudkip, his aura depleted from the powerful water attack. Dan looked a bit stunned, pulling out his pokéball and recalling the spent pokémon.

"Well, you've won…" he said, seeming incredulous at Shawn's victory.

Shawn's pokédex beeped as the standard minimum battle stakes flowed over from Dan. The credit could be used in place of regular money pretty much anywhere, and was the standard method of payment in losing battles.

"That's a well trained mudkip you have there, you wouldn't be interested in a trade would you? For a houndoom?"

"Thanks, but not a chance," Shawn replied. "Marty is my partner, I wouldn't even dream of trading him."

Marty looked up at Shawn, a happy expression on his face at the endorsement.

"Alright then…well'see ya." said the beaten trainer, starting to walk slowly in the direction of Pastoria.

Shawn nodded at him as he passed, then looked down at Marty with a huge grin on his face. "Great job Marty! You just won your first ever battle!"

The Mudkip bounced up and down happily, still having plenty of energy to spare despite the psychic battering he had taken. "Yep! I did good huh?"

"Yep, you did good," Shawn replied, giving him a friendly pat on the head. "Now, let's look for a place to camp, the sun is starting to go down."

The little mudfish pokémon nodded enthusiastically and started skipping down the road ahead of him, bringing a grin to Shawn's face. His expression sobered as he followed his pokémon however. For some reason, all of a sudden, he had felt a strange chill, and now couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere, somehow, something had just gone horribly, horribly wrong"

z88;

A lone Starly fluttered to the ground, pecking at a few berries that had fallen off of a bush onto the grass. Suddenly, the bushes began to shake wildly, causing a shower of berries. The Starly squawked in surprise and jumped back as she was pelted with berries. She watched in shock as right in the middle of the bush, the air seemed to ripple, as if with a powerful heat haze. Then, in the dead centre of the distorted air, a dark rift tore open from top to bottom, revealing a swirling darkness that seemed to ooze and pulse through the hole in the air. A shadowy figure stepped through, squishing berries underfoot. The portal snapped closed behind the cloaked figure, showering it with flecks of darkness. "So," the words dripped from the cowl. "This is where he's gone off to…"