A Saga of Tanya the Chansey: 32

Amelia furrows her brow and lips as she struggles to make the knot in her hands cooperate.

This will be the third time the target weight flies comes loose and she swears there will not be a fourth.

Finishing her knot, she gives it a few firm tugs and concludes it’s–

“Chans ch an.” Chansey says offhandedly, barely glancing up from the egg in her grip.

“Oh really?” Amelia asks, vaguely insulted. “And what makes you a knot expert?”

Chansey looks up and half gestures at one of the loops.

“Chan ch chansey chan chan. Ch ch ansey ans.” She says, pointing out the ‘obvious’ flaw in the knots tensioning. 

“Chansey, chan ch.” She adds offhandedly.

Amelia squints at the last few words, trying to translate the vague impressions of what her partner’s saying into comprehensible japanese.

The first bit makes total sense, but the last bit…

‘Before now, myself observing relevant information, you are wrong, pattern... bad?’

Or something like that.

She squints harder.

“It’s… not a good kind of knot for this?”

Chansey nods.

Amelia sighs and considers arguing the point, but it’s pretty clear her method isn't working so it would be silly to try to argue otherwise.

“Alright, you want a go?” She asks, offering the rope. “I’m not getting anywhere, and I don't want to keep throwing this stupid makeshift counterweight into the woods.”

Every time the knot has come loose they’ve spent fifteen minutes searching for the thing, which is both extremely annoying and slowing them down.

Chansey’s eyes flare purple and the rope lifts into the air. Unraveling in less than a second, the counterweight floats freely for a moment before it’s retied in a way completely foreign to the trainer.

“Chan.” She says, tossing it back.

Catching the rope, she gives it a few more test tugs, feeling no appreciable difference but noticing how the knot doesn't shift or pull under the strain.

“...Huh. Thanks.” She says, before glancing at the massive backpack on Chansey’s back. “Why do you have this much rope anyways?”

Sure, Amelia’s got a little rope, but it’s mostly a utility item for camping. But when she’d asked Chansey if she had any, she’d pulled out three large spools of various thicknesses.

The ‘mon waves off the question.

“Chansey.” She says, gesturing as if to describe her absent sibling with the motion of her flipper.

The trainer nods, then reaches for her newly occupied pokeball.

The thought –even hours later– sends a thrill of excitement through her.

Popping open the ball once again feels just like how she’d imagined it, sending out a burst of light that resolves into the form of her new partner.

Her newest ‘mon is… surprisingly comfortable with being inside his ball, she’d known intellectually that some ‘mon prefer it, but she’d grown up with Jigglypuff and can count on one hand the number of times she’d gone into a ball, Chansey just continued the trend.

But it seems like the second the trainer takes her eyes off the avian he’s bopping his beak against the aperture of his ball and hiding away.

The trainer grins.

“Ok Taillow!” She says with a clap. “I think we got the lure tied on right, so let's try this again.” 

Taillow hesitates for a moment, but then turns his head slightly, jolts, then nods quickly and takes to the air, flapping higher as Amelia begins spinning the weight at the end of the rope, trying to form a long semicircle like the training manual she’d read suggested.

“Ta Tail!”  The ‘mon cries out unintelligibly, presumably saying he’s ready.

The trainer nods and speeds up her rope spinning.

“Alright! Try and grab it!”

At her words, Taillow tucks his wings in and begins a steep dive, disappearing into a blur of speed as he approaches the ground, falling past the treeline the ‘mon pops his wings and all that vertical speed transforms into horizontal, zipping toward the lure with talons outstretched.

Then Amelia pulls on the cord just in time, yanking the lure away with an enraged cry from the ‘mon.

“I know you can dive! I wanna see how tight you can turn!” She shouts, letting out the rope.

Taillow screeches in protest, landing at speed and hopping to bleed off the rest.

“Taillow! Ta Tail low!”

There isn't much guesswork needed to understand the thrust of the message.

“Told you we’re training your turning!” The trainer tells back. “You said you wanted to get better at flying and this is how we do it!”

She’d been giving food as a reward for good performance, which kept the grumbling at a minimum. But she’d run out of dried berries an hour ago and he’s becoming increasingly agitated as time goes on.

Amelia pauses, trying to figure out how to get Taillow to get back in the air again.

It didn't take long for her to realize she’d been spoiled by Chansey, her work ethic and similar ways of thinking, combined with human scale intelligence means training with her is almost like training with another human. 

Taillow’s shorter attention span and reduced capacity to understand delayed gratification means figuring out how to keep him going is already becoming  an issue. 

The ‘mon proves her point by flaring out his wings in an irritated dominance display

“Tail low!” He cries, launching off the ground in a single powerful beat and flying toward the training aid again. 

But this time, instead of chasing the lure, Amelia notices him turning to attack the rope instead.

She tries to pull away, but finds herself too slow and suddenly tugging against the ‘mon’s grip.

Firming her hold, the trainer is about to try and yank the rope away, but both pause as Chansey speaks.

“Chans ey sey.” She says, and Amelia is forced to agree.

The trainer sighs, as Taillow quickly drops the rope and flies a short distance away.

“You’re right. But he does still need to improve turn performance…” She hums, eyes flicking from the new arrival to her partner as she carefully holds an egg. “How’s it going with you?”

Chansey releases the smallest of sighs, then abruptly throws the egg she’s holding into the air with a little telekinetic assistance. 

A moment later, another egg appears in her pouch and Amelia gasps.

“You did it!? That’s incredi–”

“Chans.” She interrupts with another sigh, holding up a flipper to ask for a moment.

Then Amelia flinches as the egg explodes above them, twice as powerful as any egg bomb she’s ever seen an exeggutor create

Chansey looks down at the new egg with a frustrated focus.

“Well… at least they’re getting stronger.” She consoles, then notes how Taillow startled at the noise, darting into the treeline from the explosion.

In the back of her mind, this reaction is added to the ever-growing list of things she needs to consider when trying to decide what skills and moves are optimal for their growing team, mentally creating configurations for each avenue of training.

Natural high speed typically means a predisposition that makes them unsuited for dealing damage or taking hits, so tail wind to support the other’s weakness? But that’s yet more setup in an already setup heavy team, no matter the configuration.

But that's not the only consideration, if they end up going west to Rustboro steel wing looks optimal. But that puts them through route 117 and 116, which forestry reports don't say have anything that could help solve the gridlock.

Two normal types also means a weakness to fighting, covering for that weakness is a must, thus mental maps of probable locations for a few different mon tell her…

She trails off in the middle of the thought as the infinite options begin giving her a headache.

There’s a momentary flash of regret for throwing that pokeball, but it disappears almost instantly as the memory of holding it in her hands for the first time rises again.

One step at a time.

She’s known Taillow for less than a day. A little more training to assess what he can do and what they can improve will give a more complete picture of what happens next.

She’s reasonably sure she can beat Wattson regardless of Taillow, just as long as she can get to him.

He’s well known for turning his gym into an electric maze, but she’s never heard of someone failing the gym challenge because they couldn't get there.

Then she almost trips on a root, and her attention returns to the outside world.

“Chans chan chan chansey. Chan se se cha?” Chansey lectures, having somehow convinced Taillow to let her grab him and, now holding the frozen avian in her psychic grip, uses a fin to point at sections of his wing. “Chansey chans chansey. Chan chan ansey.”

Amelia blinks, focusing as she tries to understand what her partner is saying. Though this time the confusion is not due to a fluctuation in their bond, rather the fact that the concepts being communicated are complicated.

The best she can figure out is that she’s talking about… something related to physics?

She’s pretty sure there were some shapes mentioned, so geometry too?

After a moment, she starts getting the most vague gist of it, and it seems to be Chansey’s attempt at helping improve Taillow’s flight. Using a lot of complicated ideas about how much air the wing can… not lift… displace? Or…

But as the trainer stares at the wing, held still in her partner’s psychic grip and using a flipper to indicate a key section after the elbow, a thought occurs.

“Chansey.” She says, eyes flicking across the avian's body with professional detachment. “Do you mind bringing him up a little?”

The ‘mon complies, and the abnormally quiet Taillow rises into Amelia’s focused gaze.

As he rises, he looks at her and opens his beak. But for some reason, when he sees her face, his beak snaps shut.

Ignoring it, the nurse in training mentally peels back the feathers, skin, and viscera to get a better look at his bones and muscles, imagining how each part must move to perform those impressive aerobatic feats. 

Under her dissecting eye, she makes note of the pectoralis and supracoracoideus muscles that take the bulk of the strain under flight, already plenty strong to pull out of a dive like she'd seen. 

But…

“The pronator brevis,” Amelia says finally, tapping where the muscle would be underneath the skin and glancing down at her partner. “I think you said something just now about needing more control over… something about how the air moves over his wings past the elbow?”

Chansey nods, then pulls the dead silent Taillow back down and squints at the wing, moving it with her psychic energy.

“Chan… Chan cha chansey.”

Amelia grins at the confirmation.

“I thought so too!” She cheers, clapping her hands together. “So we need to exercise that before we can do anything else.”

With an avenue of thought to work through, the trainer’s mind gets to work once more.

If she remembers correctly, an injured pronator brevis means issues with takeoff and landing. After a bit of thought, she confirms it’s because the muscle does the most work in takeoff and landing.

It's also used in low-speed maneuvers, presumably for tight corners. 

Following that logic, they need to create a difficult environment with repeated takeoffs and landings, preferably while also habituating Taillow to loud noises.

It only takes a moment longer for a plan to form.

And she smiles.

—--

–_–

—--

Amelia wheezes as she drags an impossibly heavy body up a shallow incline, as their in-hike training entering the fourth hour.

“Chan!” Her partner calls from behind with far too much energy.

The trainer of this partnership ducks with a yelp as an egg flies over her head on its parabola toward Taillow, a few steps ahead.

The bird doesn't have enough breath to scream as he uses shaking wings to fling himself to the side, barely dodging the explosive projectile in a move that could barely be called a takeoff.

He slams back down to the ground, limply trying to cushion the fall with his wings, and Amelia feels a tiny bit of vindictive satisfaction as she hears Chansey panting for breath from behind, gravity wavering for a moment.

“You need a break yet!?” She calls over her shoulder, pressing the button she’d learned in the first week they’d known each other.

As expected, there’s no response, and gravity stabilizes.

Idly, she wonders what other trainers do to improve their reflexes and stamina, and feels a twinge of jealousy for those whose partners do not have the seemingly bottomless well of mental energy needed to keep gravity magnified for hours at a time.

Exhausted legs almost slip on dust and faceplant, but she holds firm.

With healing, she can literally feel herself getting stronger with every cycle she can only wonder what it will do for a ‘mon.

The efficiency is worth it. 

Slowly, the gentle five-degree slope that feels like walking up a sheer cliff begins to taper off, and Amelia can barely muster up the sense of relief as she stares at the ground and plants one foot in front of the other.

Only to almost lose her balance and fall over again as the gravity abruptly cuts out.

Confused, she glances at Taillow, where he’s looking equally surprised next to her, then turns and looks back at her partner.

“...We done?” She says, taking a few breaths. “I think we’re still good to continue?”

Tailow gives a panicked yell at the idea, but Chansey merely shakes her head, pointing ahead of them down the trail.

“Chan.”

Amelia turns, and looks out from atop the overlook to the world below.

She sees, silhouetted in the oranges, purples, and reds of the setting sun over the ocean’s horizon, the unmistakable greys of Mauville City.

They made it!

“We made it!” She cheers, looking back to the others as she speeds over the top of the hill and down the other side. “Cmon!”

---

A/N: THEY'RE HERE!

EXCITING NEWS!
WELL AT LEAST I'M EXCITED!
MY SCHEDULE IS ALSO CLOSING IN ON BEING NORMAL AGAIN!!
WOOT WOOT
I FORGOT YESTERDAY WAS WEDNESDAY!!!!!

AAAAAAA

AT-AT ALL!