Chapter 10: Training

“FUSION! WAKE UP!” Anko cried out, poking the sleeping pokemon frantically.

“Ugh, for the love of...” Fusion pried open his eyes and glared at Anko. “I thought you were gonna stop this?”

“But this is special!” he whined.

“It better be. What?”

“It’s snowing! The first snow of the year!”

Fusion dropped his head back onto his bed. “Go play then.”

“You’ll miss out on the fun,” Anko warned him. When there was no response, he went off on his own. Emerging from their room into the cold morning air, he shivered as snow fell onto him. The leaves of the canopy had fallen a couple weeks ago, only the bare branches of the massive trees to provide any cover from the heavy snowfall. Some snow had already built up on their platform. The bridges were mostly clear, only a little bit built up on it. A gust of wind blew by, the force swinging the bridge a bit and causing a dusting of snow to fall off towards the forest floor. He took a bit to look up at the sky, watching the snow come down from the clouds, morning light starting to break the night. 

Then he moved on, crossing the bridge confidently. The slats were close together, no more than a few inches apart at most. Even if he slipped, he’d be at no risk of falling off. From the intersection, he paused, glancing towards the other room. Deciding against waking them, he moved on towards Santana’s shop. It was still closed, no other pokemon even at the sitting area. Snow piled up against the front of the shop in a mound. All the tables were also covered. In almost awe, Anko looked over the sight of everything he knew covered in white. Once satisfied, he moved to the ramp and headed down to the forest floor.

As he started to walk around and explore the snow-covered landscape, he heard a noise, something crackling and sizzling. He followed the sound to a training field. There, Lee was standing in the middle, breathing out a giant fireball straight up into the air. While Anko watched, she maintained the stream of fire, shrinking the ball to half the size, then returning it to normal, repeating this several times before she stopped to catch her breath. The snow falling into the fireball, melting and then turning to steam was responsible for the noises. There was a big patch of no snow in a circle around her due to the heat her body was letting off. “Hey Lee!” Anko called, bounding through the snow up to her.

“Oh, morning Anko.”

“Doing some early training?”

“Every day. You should join me some time since you wake up early too. You might have double my raw strength, but if you don’t train as much, I’ll eventually pass you up.”

“That’s fine. It’s the first snow of the year, so today is a special occasion.”

“It is? The Shaymin Festival isn’t for a few weeks.” 

“Back home, there was always a celebration for the first snow of the year. Though it happened a lot earlier.”

Now that she had cooled off, snow began landing on and around her. The flakes that did touch her still melted right away, but didn’t turn to steam. 

“Just play with me for a little while,” Anko urged.

“I’m not interested. I wake up early every morning for training, not for fun.”

“C’mon, just today. Please?”

Lee sighed. “One day won’t hurt... So... what do you want to do?”

“Play in the snow of course!” Anko turned and ran towards the trees, diving into a big pile of snow that had built up. It was deep enough that he disappeared for a moment, before bursting out in a cloud of snow from a different spot. “Come on!” 

Lee pouted while she watched him. It didn’t look fun at all. At least other games had some element of skill, but this... She stepped forward to a denser area of snow. It had built up about half a foot now. She tried to scoop up a pawful, but it melted right when she touched it. She took in and let out a deep breath, consciously letting out all her heat, her body temperature lowering to just above pokemon average. Trying again, she managed to scoop up some snow. She held it for a bit, the cold tingling on her paw, before she turned it over, letting it dust back to the ground. 

It was kinda pretty, seeing the sparkling white powder lazily floating down. It still didn’t seem fun though. She looked up at Anko, climbing into and out of snow. The entire time, he was smiling and laughing. With a shrug, she walked towards the drifts and dove in. She was immediately wrapped in cold, enough that she really felt it. Easily, effortlessly, she parted the loose snow and emerged into the light. She shivered as the snow melted into her fur, making her slightly damp. The burst of cold was refreshing to her tired body, giving her a rush of energy. The only time she got cold normally was when she was wet, but already she was warming back up, unlike the persistent annoyance of getting soaked. 

Eager for another rush, she leaned forward and dug into the snow again. It was pleasant how easily it parted for her, like how she imagined a ground type could swim through the dirt. As she emerged from the drift again, Anko was looking at her with a beaming smile. “What?”

“You look like you’re having fun.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised too. For something so simple, it’s enjoyable.” 

“The world is like that,” Anko smiled. “Every season brings its own beauty. Each one is important. Winter is the most drastic change, everything covered in sparkling white, nature sleeping... It’s like the whole world is resting from the long year,” Anko said dreamily. “Sometimes the simplest things are the best.”

“Wow... I had no idea you could be so... eloquent.”

“That’s because I really like nature.”

Lee continued to manipulate the snow, digging through it, lifting and tossing piles into the air. Meanwhile, Anko wandered off. After a while, he called to her. She looked up to find him next to an ovoid mound of snow. There was a rock on the front of it. “What is that?”

“Can’t you tell?” When he got no answer, he pointed at it. “A snow swinub. See the nose?” He pointed at the rock.

“Huh. Yeah, I guess I can see it... We should probably be going back. Get ready for the day.”

“Okay. I think it’s about eight by now.”

“Probably. Winter really cuts into my morning training time.” She watched as Anko turned to start walking back towards the ramp up. He was practically soaked, his fur matted from all the melted snow. “Hey, hold up.”

“Huh? What is it?”

She walked up next to him. “Hold still.” She drew in a breath and blew a light heat over him, not enough to harm his tough body. She kept it up for a bit before stopping to see. He was much drier, though not perfectly.

“That’s much better, thank you.”

+++

By ten, both Nina and Fusion were up and about, the whole team gathered for breakfast at the shop. Since they started working missions about a month ago, they had earned enough money to get some basic gear.

Nina had a black stealth scarf, which helped mask her sounds to hide better in illusions. Lee had a red special scarf with a flame print, giving her attacks more power. Anko had a pin made of dried lum berry, a resist charm that made him immune to status effects. They also had better supplies, including throwing weapons. The girls were good with thorns, while the boys were more talented with rocks.

“So, what should we do for today?” Fusion asked.

“More missions,” Nina responded sarcastically. 

“I meant what kind. Delivery, gathering?”

“Why don’t you go check our stats? We’ve gotta have some points by now.” Lee asked, pointing to the blue orb on a stand next to the shop. 

“I guess, be right back.” Fusion got up and went over then pressed his badge to it. It lit up as letters and numbers moved along the surface. According to it, they were normal rank now, up from rookie, but still plenty of points away from bronze. Which meant they could do harder missions. Fusion excitedly ran back to the team. “Hey! We’re normal rank now!”

“Cool!” Anko cheered. “What does that get us?” 
 
“We can do D rank missions now. Something besides errands, hopefully.” Lee got up and started walking. “Let’s get to work.” 

“Hey! I’m still eating!” Nina complained. 

“We’ll come back for you.” Lee said without looking back. Anko hurried to follow her. 

“I’ll wait here. Pick us a good one,” Fusion said. He watched as they walked away, before turning back to Nina. “So, what’s new?”

“Not much. We still hiding from the others?” 
 
“It’s not hiding. Just... not letting them know.”

“Whatever you want. Getting excited for the Shaymin Festival. Since we’re dating, we gotta go all out for gifts. Something really special.”

“Well, what do you want?”

She smiled. “That’s too easy. You gotta figure it out.”

+++

“Let’s see...” Lee said, looking over the job board. There were several boards with mission details pinned into each. They were separated by rank, going up to S. Looking over the selection of D ranks, Lee smiled. No simple errands, no babysitting stupid kids who wandered into the safest dungeons. Now they had much more interesting and varied jobs, even a couple bounties on thieves. 

“Oh, this one, this one!” Anko reached up and plucked one off near the top of the board, having to stand up to reach. 

“Give it here.” He passed it to Lee. The job was an item delivery to a place called Mt. Effort. The delivery was for five elixirs to the mountain summit. The reward included the price of the goods and a healthy bonus. The client was a machamp named Fisto. “Alright, looks good.” 

They returned to the others, gathered their things, bought the goods then ventured off.

+++

Teleporting in, the team arrived at a crossroads, no town in sight. According to the road signs, and the imposing snowcapped mountain in the distance, their target was to the north. On the air continent, the first snow had not happened yet, the ground still bare despite the frigid air. After some walking, they arrived at the entrance to the mystery dungeon. Mt. Effort, difficulty D. The front entrance was a cave mouth made of mottled orange and grey stone. Just above the entrance proper were four more signs of different style than the first. 

“Rules: 1. Fight fairly and honorably. 2. No item use during a fight. 3. No items to ease or hasten travel. 4. Fight those you meet.”

“Huh. That’s new,” Fusion said.

“Doesn’t matter, let’s go,” Lee instructed. Over the time, she had emerged as the defacto team leader. Between her assertive personality and studious knowledge, she organized the team as best she could. Fusion and Anko were the brute force, leading and taking care of close quarters fighting. Nina was support, helping Lee with long ranged attacks and using her illusions to help the frontline. They entered into the dungeon, Anko at the front, followed by Fusion, Lee, then Nina at the rear. 

The first room they entered was fairly standard, the usual rectangular hollow of mystery dungeons. What set it apart was the terrain. The stone of the walls and floor were covered with cracks and marks, making it look like countless battles had taken place inside. As Anko stepped inside and looked around, one of the walls caught his attention. It was sticking out from the rest, two giant pillars sitting near the wall. Then it started to move. 

The grey stone pillars moved aside, being dragged by gigantic hands at the top. Once parted, they revealed a large conkeldurr. Anko let out a yelp upon realizing it was such a large and powerful pokemon. “Enemy!” he shouted.

“Relax kids,” he said with a deep rough voice. “I’m just the gatekeeper. You saw the rules?”

“Yeah.” Anko stepped forward, the rest of the team moving more cautiously. “Why are they there?”

“This mountain is dedicated to training. The rules make it fair for everyone. Both the other pokemon and the mountain itself will test you on the path to the top. If you don’t want to follow the rules, you can leave.”

“We’re an exploration team, someone requested some elixirs at the peak.”

“Doesn’t matter. Follow the rules. This is a sanctuary for those who want to better themselves, so respect that. If you understand, you can go on ahead.”

“Alright, we’ll do it,” Anko agreed.

“Not like we have much choice,” Lee muttered. “Fusion, we’re likely to meet more fighting types. You take the front, switch with Anko if you see any rock types.”

“Yeah,” Fusion stepped forward, walking into the hall past the conkeldurr. They walked for a bit, then turned left before entering another room. In the middle of the room were a scraggy and a tyrogue. 

“En garde!” the scraggy shouted, raising his fists.

Fusion charged into the room, allowing his team to enter behind him. Both the tyrogue and scraggy charged as well. Fusion, with Anko just to his side, met them midway while Nina and Lee entered and stayed back. Scraggy started the combat with a running leap, aimed right for Fusion. He took the headbutt face on and responded with a burst of embers at point blank. Tyrogue was closing in on Anko, leaping into the air and coming down for a chopping attack. Anko had more of a gap, using the time to make a wall of stone to guard himself. The brick break hit with enough force to shatter the dome.

From the back line, Lee flamed up and unleashed a wave of fire towards Fusion. He took most of it, but some made it past him to burn Scraggy. The attack did no damage to Fusion, only fueling his own fire. Tyrogue, having broken Anko’s defense easily, followed up with a spinning kick. His foot, aimed right for Anko’s legs, seemingly hit, only to go right through the rockruff. The air grew hazy, then the illusion broke, revealing the real Anko a few feet back. Using the rubble from his wall, he launched a barrage of rocks at his attacker. 

Scraggy, having taken two hits back to back, stumbled a bit, before responding with a wild haymaker. Empowered by anger, the payback hit hard enough to knock Fusion to his side, thumping onto the hard ground. This was Scraggy’s undoing however. Now with a clear shot, Lee unleashed a spiraling beam of psychic energy. It hit him dead on, overloading his mind and causing him to fall backwards and faint. 

Tyrogue held strong as numerous stones dug into him. When it ended, he jumped forward, landing with a stomp. The bulldoze attack let out a wave of energy, crashing into Anko with super effective ground type damage. He grunted in pain, legs shaking in exertion as he forced himself to respond. He leapt forward, charging with great force and using his hardened body to deliver a powerful rock climb attack. He led with his shoulder, hitting Tyrogue and following through to force the fighting type to the ground, Anko pinning his limbs.

“We surrender,” Tyrogue said. Anko nodded and let him go. “You guys are tough. Is this your first time here?”

“Yeah. But we’re from the ARE, on a mission.”

“Really? That’s so cool! My friend and I are here training so we can get into school next year.”

“Yeah, keep at it,” Anko encouraged. “We gotta get moving though.” 

“Good luck!” Tyrogue responded as they passed through the room. 

From there, they moved onward, passing a few empty rooms, besides the odd pile of poke. Entering another room, a meditate was entering from another passage. Fusion immediately lit up and leapt forward into a roll. As he burned his way towards the opponent, she just stood there. At the last moment, when Fusion was sure he’d hit her, she effortlessly moved aside. Fusion went right past her and crashed into the cave wall.

“Ugh,” he grunted and fell over after the high-speed impact. Before he could even recover his senses, he got a force palm to his gut, causing him to cry out and roll up. His entire body seized from the aimed strike.

“Fusion!” Anko called, charging to aid his friend. As he ran, he formed a dome of rock around his head, aiming to use it as a battering ram. Meditite again remained still until the last moment, then jumped into the air, allowing Anko to charge past her. While his rocks prevented him from crashing into the wall, he still wasn’t fast enough to avoid the force palm, the impact of it sending him rolling away. 

Lee sighed. “Nina?”

“Yeah, I got it.” She shot off a shadow ball at the meditite. Like clockwork, she waited before easily dodging it at the last second. What she didn’t avoid was Lee’s psybeam right after. The spiral blast knocked her flat and out cold. 

“Hey dummies, get up.” Lee walked over to the recovering boys.

“Ugh,” Fusion groaned. “What happened? She dodged me so easily.” He rolled over and stood up, legs still shaking and the numbness fading.

“She was using detect,” Lee explained. “You at least have an excuse. Anko?”

He excitedly bounced to his feet. “Yeah boss?”

She let out an exasperated sigh. “You got beat because you charged without thinking.”

“But you both saved us. So it’s all fine!” 

Lee was silent for a moment. “Heal if you need to, then let’s move out.”

They continued on, going through several more halls. Then, as they moved through one, a strong gust of cold wind blew from ahead of them.

“Ooo,” Nina shivered. “Where did that come from?”

“I dunno, but it has been getting colder,” Anko responded from the front. Ahead, light was flooding into the dark cave. Soon they reached it and emerged back outside. Once their eyes adjusted back to daylight, the team found themselves on the mountainside. From there, a path was carved leading up to another entrance higher on the mountain. Along with that, there was a decent sized flat area, marked as checkpoint one by a sign. A couple other pokemon, mostly fighting types, were there, resting before taking on the next area. 

“A resting place. Anyone need a break?” Lee asked. 

“No way! Let’s go!” Anko called, running up a curved path that led higher. The rest of the team followed at a slower rate. It was brutally cold now that they were out in the open, the frosty wind chilling to the bone. Anko stopped to wait at the next cave entrance.

“H-how are you not c-cold?” Nina asked him through chattering teeth. 

“It’s not that bad.” Anko responded. He then turned and walked back into the cave. As they walked back into the cave, it got a bit warmer, the rocky walls holding in what little heat there was and blocking out the biting wind. Through a series of halls, they passed through two rooms before entering a third.

Inside was a trio of mankey, sitting around a fire. They all stood upon seeing their guests. “Get ‘em!” one cried out. The trio spread out and assumed fighting stances. Team Union did the same, Fusion at the front. 

“This place is full of fighting types,” Nina muttered.

“Obviously,” Lee responded sarcastically. “Fits the theme.”

“Grah!” the center mankey shouted. He leaped forward, furiously swinging his arms and clawing at Fusion. Fusion took one hit from the fury swipes, but his flames kicked on in response. The second and third hit burned the mankey’s paws. Fusion barely had time to respond before another leapt in and delivered a karate chop to Fusion. Then the third charged forward and clawed at Fusion again. 

“Leave him alone!” Anko shouted, ripping up a chunk of rock to throw. He launched it, but the mankey scattered, causing Fusion to get hit by the rocks and let out a yelp. “Ah, sorry!” Anko looked over just in time to see one of the mankey closing in on him. He leapt a step back to make some distance, but the mankey kept coming. Unbeknownst to him, that move gave Nina a clear shot with a shadow ball. The break gave Anko enough time to charge energy, before the other two closed in. He stomped the ground, causing an eruption of spikes all around him. They forced back the first and kept the other two at bay. Before they could attack again, Lee unleashed a powerful flamethrower, wide angle. It swept over much of the field, both Fusion and all the mankey. Only Anko was spared, as the flames simply washed over top of the circle of stone spikes he’d made. When it passed, the mankey were all down and scorched. Fusion was fine, his flash fire allowing him to absorb the flames.

“Clear,” Lee announced. 

“Fusion!” Anko rushed over to his fallen teammate. 

“Berry...” Fusion groaned. Anko opened his bag and gave him an oran berry, Fusion eating it immediately. After a moment, he stood up again. “Much better.”

“Fusion, up your defense,” Lee told him. “You’re our frontline, if you fall, the rest of the team is in danger.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, show us you’re sorry by fixing it,” Lee ordered.

“Go easy on him,” Nina said, “he has been getting stronger.”

“It’s okay, she’s only tough on me so I’ll work harder,” Fusion told her.

“That’s right, now let’s move,” she responded.

They made it through the second level with only a couple easy fights. They soon approached an exit, easily felt by the wind and drop in temperature. Even though the cave was cold, the outside air was much colder. They emerged out onto the side of the mountain, even higher up. Nearby, there was a clearing in the rock, with another firepit, a huge bonfire burning. 

“Oh yes!” Nina shouted, sprinting off towards it. The pit was dug into the ground and had more lowered area around it to block out the heavy winds, making it look like a crater. The rest of the team was shortly behind, climbing into the pit. There were several other pokemon there, resting by the fire. Nina got as close as she could and curled up next to the fire, wrapping her tail around herself. Anko was shortly behind, sitting and warming his front paws. 

Even Fusion and Lee were starting to feel the cold, the combination of the biting wind and below freezing temperature overwhelming their natural heat. “Anybody hungry?” Fusion asked as they sat down. 

“Oh, yes, here!” Anko raised a paw. Fusion reached into his pack, took out an apple and split it with his claws, then gave half to Anko. “Thank you!”

“Girls?” Fusion asked.

“Not while I'm freezing to death,” Nina complained. She was visibly shivering. 

Lee shook her head and sighed. “We’re taking a break then.” She took a leppa berry out of her own bag and bit into it.

As they sat, one of the other pokemon stood and walked over. “Greetings,” he said politely, bowing. Fusion looked up to see a tall sawk looking down at him. He sat alongside the growlithe to be more at eye level. “I see you are a rescue team. Making a delivery?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“I train on this mountain often. It’s not uncommon for those who live here to order goods so they can continue training.”

“The wild pokemon hire rescue teams?” Fusion asked in confusion. 

“Not quite. This place is special. There are no wild pokemon that call this place home. That is why many fighting types use it to hone their bodies and minds.”

“Oh, so that’s why we’re delivering a bunch of elixirs to the summit.”

“I wish you best of luck. It is fortunate that we met here instead of the caves.” Sawk stood and walked off, towards the second level opening. 

“Alright, that’s enough. Nina? You ready?” Lee asked her.

“Ugh, I guess. Let’s finish up and get home.” 

“Hey, I got an aspear berry,” Anko offered, pulling it out of his pack. 

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?! I’m freezing my tail off here!” She took the berry and bit into it, muzzle clenching from the sour juices. Warmth shortly filled her body, fighting back the cold air. In a hurry, she bolted towards the slope up, Anko following shortly behind. “Come on! Move it, before this berry wears off!” she shouted back down to Lee and Fusion.

The third floor was empty and quiet, even the wind dying down after they got away from the entrance. It was utterly silent and only got colder as they went deeper. The berry wore off after a couple minutes and Nina was back to shivering and Anko’s teeth started chattering. Even the fire types were feeling it. After a couple bare rooms, they entered one to find a monferno digging into one of the walls. Upon them entering, he turned and raised his fists.

“You won’t steal my treasure!” He swung his tail out, flicking flames towards to group. The embers fell short, fizzling out on the ground, but preventing the team from approaching right away. They took up positions at a decent distance instead. 

Lee started, firing off a psybeam at long range. Nina was right behind her with a shadow ball. Monferno jumped out of the way of the psybeam, causing it to hit the wall behind him and explode in a shower of stone. He then spun and slapped the shadow ball with his tail, detonating it away from his body. The twin explosions kicked up a thick cloud of dust, blocking their view for a moment. Out of the smoke, Monferno dashed forward and landed a fast punch on Anko, sending him rolling back. Fusion responded by charging forward, aiming for a take down. 

He hit squarely, the shock of the heavy impact hurting his shoulder. Monferno stumbled back a few steps, then leapt into the air and acrobatically landed with both feet on Fusion’s back. Fusion cried out and was knocked down by the attack. Monferno stepped off, focusing on the other two.

“Nina, he’s tough,” Lee said. “Step it up.”

“Already on it.” The monferno took a step forward, only for the ground to explode, the hidden dark energy bursting on contact. But being dark type, it didn’t do as much as she hoped, only surprising him. “Damn type advantage,” she growled. 

Lee prepared her flame whip, then lashed out with it. The psychic type energy coating the flame did help, but again, his type blocked the majority of the damage from the fire. Monferno charged, fire lighting up all over his body. He was aiming right for Nina and moving fast. She didn’t have time to evade the larger pokemon, bracing for the hit. Just before contact, a stone slab rose from the ground, blocking the initial hit. Monferno still broke through and crashed into Nina, but she avoided the brunt of the attack. Nina was sent rolling and ended up next to Anko. “Thanks,” she said quickly. 

Nina and Anko were side by side, in the southwest corner of the room. Lee was in the southeast side. Fusion was roughly in the middle of the room, getting back on his feet. Monferno simply sat down and stretched, giving a big yawn. 

Lee braced and began to form psybeams, but instead of them shooting out, the spiraling shaft of energy sat in the air. She then started making a second one. Monferno didn’t notice as he rose again, focused on Anko. He charged forward again, trying for another mach punch, but Nina formed a protect barrier first. Before he could follow up once the barrier faded, Lee called out.

“Heads up!” She shouted, firing off three psybeams, each held in her psychic grasp. Monferno turned and did a cartwheel to dodge. The psybeams were usually a straight line attack and would therefore miss. Instead, Lee controlled them, changing their direction to home in on Monferno. Even as he swung his tail to try and destroy one, it moved around the attack, sweeping below then back up to hit him in the chest. The other two followed in short order, delivering three super effective hits. Still, he did not fall, though he was visibly breathing heavy. He clasped his hands together, forming an orange sphere. Suddenly, he threw it at Lee, hitting her directly and sending her flying from the powerful focus blast. He then started moving towards Anko again, but was stopped when something grabbed his tail. 

Fusion had bit down on his tail, holding and pulling him back. “I’ll hold him back! Take him down!” Monferno turned around and simply picked up Fusion. 

“All you kids had to do was leave! I’m not letting you have this!” He punched Fusion in the gut, hard, a few times. Fusion cried out and when he was dropped to the ground, he didn’t move. 

“Fusion!” Anko shouted, running forward. Monferno kicked Fusion across the floor then turned back to Anko, arms bracing for an all-out assault. “Leave him alone!” Anko screamed, the ground all around Monferno cracking. Rocks lifted into the air by the dozens then flung at Monferno. He swatted away a couple, but the sheer volume quickly overwhelmed him, stones hitting all over his body. They pelted away at him, chunks getting bigger and bigger and piling on. Very quickly, he was covered in rock as it formed a rough sphere. Still more stone was packed on, crushing inwards with the force of Anko’s will. Only when there was a sizable crater from all the moved stone did Anko calm down.

“Wow Anko...” Nina muttered. “That was a lot more than a rock tomb...”

He didn’t say anything, running over to Fusion to check on him. “Fusion?” Anko poked at him, panting from exertion. “Fusion, wake up!” Behind him, the rock sphere crumbled as his energy left it. Monferno toppled out from inside, out cold and with an arm bent the wrong way.

Lee relaxed upon seeing the enemy out cold, likely with some broken bones. She walked over to the boys. “Anko, stop. He’s unconscious.” She sat down then took out a reviver seed. Carefully, she opened Fusion’s mouth and pushed the seed inside. “That guy was tough. If you hadn’t taken him down, he would have wiped us out. Keep an eye on Fusion, I’m going looking for that treasure he mentioned.”

A bit after Lee walked away, Fusion began to stir. He groaned in pain as his eyes opened. 

“Fusion!” Anko shouted, inches away from his face. “He’s awake!”

Before speaking, he chewed up the seed in his mouth, feeling energy course through him. He still remained on the ground, feeling dizzy. “Go check on the others, I’m okay.” He shifted and rolled onto his belly. The ground was covered in jagged stones that had been poking him. “I’ll be ready to leave in a minute.”

Anko nodded and ran over to Nina.

Fusion started taking deep breaths and remained still until the pain in his head started to fade. Still, he was sitting on something hard so he scooted over to get off it. He looked down to see what it was and his eyes widened. It was no ordinary rock, instead some kind of sparkling gem. Multiple colors shined through its semi-transparent surface, changing as he turned his head. As if mesmerized, he reached out slowly and picked it up.

“Nothing here, let’s go,” Lee announced. 

Fusion jolted and quickly stuffed the gem in his bag. “Coming!”

“Fusion? You alright?” Nina asked as he took up the lead.

“Yeah. I did what I could, but he was too strong.” He looked at Lee, expecting some kind of response from his trainer. 

“You did fine. He had us all outclassed,” she told him. “Now get moving, we have to be close by now.”

After only a few more minutes, they reached the exit. Once they emerged out into the open again, they were only a short slope away from the summit. It was even colder, but the wind was nearly absent. 

“It’s hard to breathe...” Fusion said, his breath labored. 

“The air is thin... this high up,” Lee told him.

The ground was covered in powdery snow, undisturbed. As they crested the top, stepping onto the flattened peak, a figure came into view. It was hard to see at first, snow lying on top of it, but it was a pokemon. The machamp had both pairs of hands clasped in front of him and his eyes closed. He just sat there, not having brushed the snow off from when it last came down. 

Lee made the approach. “Fisto?” She asked.

His eyes opened. The snow fell from his shoulders and head as he shifted and stood. “Are you the delivery team?” he asked in a deep booming voice. He was tall and extremely muscular, his bare skin not even bumpy in the below freezing air. 

“Yes.” Lee sat down and took out the elixirs. “Five in total.”

“Ah, thank you. I’ve been up here for six months now. These will help my training.”

“Six months?” Lee asked.

“Yes. I haven’t left this mountain top for six months. Every once in a while, I have to send for supplies.”

“Oh...”

“Thank you again,” he said, sitting back down. 

 Lee walked back to her team. “Mission complete. Let’s go.” She reached into her bag and took out an escape orb. She held it and it glowed before they all flashed back to the nearest warp point. Before they used their badges to go home, Lee spoke. “That guy...”

“Yeah, that’s some dedication,” Fusion said. 

“We all have to work even harder. Our training has been nothing compared to that.”

“We’re already working hard...” Nina said.

“We don’t have a choice,” Lee told her. “If we run into another pokemon like that monferno, we’ll be in trouble. If we want to be the best, we have to put our all into it.”