6 Days of Drilling(3)

Marking the calendar date of 23rd of March, it was the fifth morning of the sea-fairing journey. As on any good morning before dawn, Theo's alarm began to scream and wail loud enough to shake him awake.

Grumbling in his common early-morning mood, Theo roughly slammed his alarm off. Sliding off the bed, Theo slightly shook his still sleeping starter awake. Theo didn't have the slightest clue on why his starter remained asleep even through the alarm blaring and wailing.

> " Yaaaaaawn! A few more minutes Royal Steward Theo. . Beauty sleep is needed." < [ Laziness ]

Sneakily pulling out a bottle of water out of his backpack, he held it over his starter and started to trickle it out slowly. Drop after agonizing drop was splattered all over Khepri's beautiful shell and face. Theo had this small mischievous grin as he watched his partner splutter awake

> "Aaaaiieee! It's cold- It's wet! It-it's water! Y-y-you! How dare you make me wet!? This isn't the treatment I was expecting from my own Royal Steward." < [ Outrage! ] [ Indignation! ] [ Anger! ]

Snorting at his starter's outraged screaming or loud buzzing and clicking, Theo had picked her up from the back preventing her from any physical retaliation. While in that same motion, he had hidden the bottle of water back into his backpack.

> " Let me go- Let me go!!! I don't wanna get up this early in the morning anymore. UwaWaaaah!" < [ Complaining ] [ Crying ] Large amounts of tears started to explode from Khepri's eyes.

Rolling his eyes at his starter's unruly behavior, he continued to make his way to the top deck. Wiping down Khepri's carapace with his current t-shirt, Theo removed one of the many problems which were currently bugging Combee.

Theo had reached the deck with a more polite Combee in arm. Clearing his throat, he made his plans today known for his rapidly improving starter,

"Since you have been pushing yourself in drilling, I feel like today we are going to be doing something new." He paused to let that fact sink in and to catch his starter's attention then continued, "Your stamina has remarkably improved past acceptable levels for the last few mornings. Whether it be due to a drilling regiment on my part or just a better biology on yours, I can say that we are at a crossroad. I expected you to get to this level at the end of the ride: Johto- Or at the very most until Hoenn."

He paused and smiled proudly at Khepri who preened at both the attention and praise she was currently receiving, "But- That means I just need to ramp up the drilling tremendously when we make landfall." Her preening stopped immediately that sentence as sweat drops of nervousness started to form over her foreheads as Theodore grinned maliciously, "With your remarkable progress, I get to decide the direction of our training goes."

Suddenly dropping Khepri out of his hands caused her to quickly flutter her wings upwards in order to fly. Her lips were biting nervously as she peered down at her trainer acting odd. Making her [ CONCERNS ] known, Theo just absentmindedly waved her concerns away. Theo continued,

"This morning and the next you will be attempting to learn and use the move Wing Attack, and to learn and use the more condensed version of Gust: Air Cutter. You will be on your own for the first half of the day; I don't expect great things Khepri. I don't expect the wondrous to happen." He sucked in a breath and made a pointed look towards her,

"I expect you to perform and practice excellently. I expect you to make those pokemon with great talent look like chumps in their practicing. I expect you to hold YOURSELF to the highest imaginable point possible. You hear me?" He paused at her quiet, closed buzzing with a small frown and repeated, "You. Hear. Me?"

Khepri loudly buzzed her answer to her trainer this time,

> "Yes! I hear you! I hear you loud and clear, Theo!" < [ Agreement ]

Replacing his frown, a large, warm smile left its mark on his lips, "Good. Now get to practicing. Those moves won't learn themselves! And try not to damage anything on the ship, please." Content to leave his starter to start developing the moves Air Cutter and Wing Attack on her own, he watched her go through what he assumed was what a 'baseline Gust' behaved like.

A tight smile uncurled his warm smile as he watched her like a Fearow. 'Good. She is learning how to properly base herself. The drilling has helped her understand some thought processes.' He mused to himself as he continued to watch his starter train.

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Khepri puckered her lips as if she was in deep thought. Her trainer was counting on her to practice and perform excellently: whatever that means. She buzzed her wings with greater power than before with a bright smile crossing her lips.

If anything, her trainer knew what he was doing with running her through those quote on quote basics skills, so this time she'll trust him with what he is attempting to figure out this time. In fact adding to arsenal would be the perfect thing after improving her wing strength and such.

After all that thinking that hard, she could only heave out a heavy sigh. Practice makes perfection after all; She could agree that perfection is definitely not the aim of the game this time. What did her trainer say about baseline something-ma-jig? Baseline . . . Tests? Yeah that makes sense. So time to do a really average gust this time and . . Not aim at the ship like her trainer said!

Flying up just a smidge higher just in case, she built up the required [ FLYING ] energy in an instant. With a slight push of her wings, the [ FLYING ] energy was released with a mediocre howling sound released, and the Gust definitely seemed stronger than she last remembered.

With her smugness level increasing, she peered over to her trainer . . Brooding? No definitely not brooding this time- Just deep in thought. Yes, just deep in thought.

Now back to figuring out how to do Air Cutter because Wing Attack sounded more simplistic than she liked. Even with her increased wing strength; she heavily doubted that it could do enough damage with only [ FLYING ] energy alone.

There was something about what her trainer said about Air Cutter, too. More something . . Uwaa~ What was it again? Started with a C. Catastrophic? No . . Catatonic? Yeesh definitely not that. Ah ha! It was condensed.

Now how does someone make the wing more condensed? Like stronger? More compact? With a major heave of her thin wings, she released the same blast of gust that was more compact. A frowned creased her lips as she felt that what she just did made Gust more localized or is it centralized?

She's confusing this with drone work again, isn't she? She mused. Shaking her head in frustration, she continued to think heavily like her trainer does with that all-consuming serious look of his! Uwaa~

If that's not condensed, what is? It's not the wind or gust, certainly. What was the thing that she was missing? After a good few more minutes of thinking, she had found her answer! It was [ FLYING ] energy that was more condensed! Mentally patting herself on the back, she directed her [ FLYING ] energy into being more condensed.

Releasing the built up [ CONDENSED ] energy, a powerful burst of wind ripped through her wings and into the atmosphere. A pure bullet of wind blasted up and she was sent back by the force of the blast.

Flapping her wings to catch herself, she huffed in breathlessness. She could hear her trainer clapping, too. That means she did it correctly, right? Her face fell as she heard her trainer's words.

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Theodore was clapping at the formation of an Air Bullet. A powerful, basic brute force technique that usually left one exhausted of their reserves; A finisher move that was very flashy if one didn't miss of course.

"You have finished the first step of Air Cutter from what I've previously researched on the move. The description that many other trainers have described it as; 'The User, referring to the pokemon, releases a razor-like wind towards their fore.' This of course means that one has to condense small slips of air to shoot at their enemies to 'cut' them."

Taking a breath he continued, "What 'razor-like' could mean is up to you, Warmaiden Khepri. I personally would add in something along the lines of [ SHARP ]. What [ SHARP ] depends on the pokemon and what it personally means to them." He paused letting that stink in before continuing, "I personally will be directing you in the next step of training. Just understand what I'm saying will suffice; you do not have to follow my direct instructions. First I will be going over your first few mistakes . ."

Theodore spent the rest of the time explaining some differences between Gust and Air Cutter on what he had researched on the moves plus the inherent understanding of [ CONCEPTS ] aided even further.

Khepri had learned a lot on the fifth day, and had gained some more respect for her trainer in the fact that he really did know what he was talking about.