Chapter 4- The sand bender

It had been a day since we arrived in Lilycove and we've decided to go to the shore for a ittle practice and a bit of fun

The sand felt ticklish under my feet but I didn't care and wiggled my bare toes at it

Using my hands, I grabbed a handful of sand and stared at Ralts. He was training diligently, lifting up a shell into the air and spun three others around him

His face is full of concentration and if I looked closely, there were little bits of rocks and tiny shells as well

Behind him were dozen other objects and the reason why they were there was because me

"Catch this!" I shouted

I threw the sand within my hands and Ralts reacted quickly

He snapped his head towards me and raised a hand to levitate what I had thrown at him but his face widened as he saw the clump of sand heading his way

Ralts swiped the air but nothing other than a few grains of sand flew away and his focus broke. The shell that was just floating above him fell and landed near his feet and the rest of the sand crashed into his face

Anger filled within me and Ralts screamed while rubbing his eyes furiously

"Oof sorry! Thought you'd catch it" I winced a bit

Ralts stopped his furious scratching and stared at me, emotions flaring up

"Sorry" I said a second time

He huffed and started to lift the shell back into the air again and started to lift more things up into the air as well

Rocks, twigs and some washed up seaweed fell into his grasp and floated into the sky

His floating units numbered 9, not counting the little bits of rocks and shells I couldn't see clearly before he started to become strained and all of them fell

"Ralts!" He said, pointing at the falling objects then kicking the sand

What does that mean... Oh "So you're saying you can't control all the sand I threw because they're too many?"

He nodded

"That's disappointing"

I got a spike of annoyance in return of my statement

It was honestly a bit of a problem though, what if some of our enemies used sand to fight us? It would be a bit troubling if Ralts couldn't just control them and use it for themselves

How to solve this

I hummed and laid my back across the sand, water soaking me as I did as the waves crawled onto shore and receded right after

Thankfully, I brought some extra clothes in case I got wet so I didn't care if even a single drop of water touch- huh

Drop... Water... drop...

I stood back up and rushed into the sea, scooping up some water and I shouted yet again at Ralts

"Try catching this then!"

Ralts was back to rubbing his eye when I threw water at him

He stopped what he was doing and stared at me with one eye open, he then furrowed his eyes, raised his arms and the water stopped in mid air

I smiled and went to congratulate him "You did it Ralt- WHY DID YOU DO THAT"

Pain surged in my eyes, burning so painfully I had to reveal my manly roar to the world

A satisfied emotion appeared inside my head, conflicting all other emotions within me while I screa-I mean roared

My eyes teared up and the pain lessened and I saw Ralts standing proudly

"Haha" I glared at him "funny"

"Anyway, did you see what you just did!?"

Ralts titled his head and the water moved

"Yes the water! You've caught it"

He tilted his head further

"You see, what I'm trying to show here is that why could you levitate stuff" I walked forward to the water still floating in the air

"You said you couldn't levitate the sand because it's made up of tiny little grains and you couldn't control more than 9 or whatever right?"

"But this ball of water here is made up of tiny droplets of water but you can still control it? Why?"

Ralts focused his eyes on the water and split in half, forming two balls of water then regrouped them, forming back into one ball

"Yes! Because your brain thinks of it as one single thing, how about trying to think of the sand as water"

He blinked, dropping all his levitated things and he grabbed some sand below

He stood still, thinking and then he acted. One grain flew into the air and then another one joined it

He made them circle around each other and make them move in different directions, he then made the two touch each other and he moved them again

They didn't move independently this time, they moved together as if one and Ralts grinned

He brought more grains of sand into the mix and combined them all into one until there was no more sand in his hands

It worked! I smiled and went to scoop up another clump of sand and threw it at Ralts

He noticed it. Raised a hand and it too floated mid air

"How about this!"

I grabbed a rock and flung it at him

He grabbed it and tried to stick it on the sand but it fell

"What? Try again"

Ralts did it a second time but it didn't stick to the sand

I frowned. Is this a mental thing? He can't visualize the rock and the sand as one singular thing?

"Try doing it again and again"

Ralts didn't respond, he levitated the rock and slammed it onto the sand but it just kept on falling

"Come you can do it! Rock is just bigger sand! Uh I think" I cheered him on

He tried and tried again, using not just one rock but multiple. He even tried combining other rocks into one and he was successfull but he can't seem to make two vastly different things stick together

And so we stayed there for a couple of hours, filled with the sounds of waves crashing into the sand and the sounds of rocks slapping into sand

I'd have to force Ralts to rest after a couple more minutes but this was nice

I searched for something inside the bag I brought along with us and took out the camera I had just bought yesterday

I tried not to think much of yesterday or I'd start to frown so I just focused on the camera

It's a digital one and its contents were completly empty, I checked. It also has a sling on it which I put my head through

Directing the focus of the camera to Ralts, I pushed a button and took a pic

If I didn't get a notebook filled with documentation about some trainer's pokemon. I'll start my own! Maybe turn it into a blog of sorts even

I snorted at the quality of the photo I took but it's fine. I stared at Ralts practicing and shouted at him to rest

Guess it's time to sign up for some contest