Chương 50: 50-Slalom

Standing in the shade of a large rocky hill, Amelia has never felt more glad that she'd studied ahead with nursing.

"Alright Magnemite, I'm just going to shine this light at you. I want you to follow it with your eye." She says as she clicks on the makeshift penlight, created with a normal flashlight, some tape, and a pinhole.

"... Mag." The 'mon responds, obeying the instruction, and Amelia has to hold back a sigh of relief as the test flows smoothly. Without binocular morphology the test isn't as thorough as she'd like, but pupil dilation and tracking is perfectly normal. It's close to a miracle that so few 'mon were caught in that landslide, and of them only Magnemite here was injured badly enough that Chansey suspected neural scarring.

Such an injury is one of the few things Chansey's healing is completely unable to fix, requiring a combination of surgery and specialty healing moves. The others trapped under the landslide suffered at most minor injuries and –in the case of one very grumpy Lairon– didn't even wake the 'mon from his nap until they started attempting to dig down towards him.

"Alright! Thank you Magnemite." Amelia chirps, releasing the 'mon and allowing it to float upward under its own power.

"I don't see anything wrong right now, but I'd like for you to check in with me tomorrow, and stay nearby as much as possible until then. Some injuries take some time to appear, so I'd like to have some time to make sure there's nothing..." She stops talking once it becomes clear Magnemite is ignoring her, slowly floating back toward its flock where they wait a few metres off the route. With the immediate danger to health winding down, Amelia allows herself to look at the flock, not as a nurse, but as a trainer.

Unfortunately, while Magnemite are well known to be an easy first catch for a trainer, that's only when they're alone. Unlike Taillow, whose line is naturally fledging, magnemite typically instinctively form into flocks, with the 'mon who choose to leave splitting from the flock to change locations or challenging a trainer. Repacking her first aid kit and tearing the tape from her flashlight, Amelia has to admit –if only to herself– that she'd probably think twice about working with a magnemite regardless.

They can be… a handful. She huffs as she throws her bag over her shoulder and starts trudging down the trail where Taillow had already flown ahead and said there was another waystation nearby. Not that a magnemite's personality is normally an issue, naturally flock forming 'mon are some of the easiest to work with due to a general tendency to follow the leader, it's more everything surrounding the 'mon.

Their line is the only one in Hoenn –aside from slugma– that requires a type license for its first evolution, and while it's significantly easier to get than a type license for the oozing fire hazard that is a slugma, everywhere that uses electricity wants assurances that her potential teammate isn't going to flip the breakers or fry someone's phone line.

Hospitals and pokecenters require a class-B type license if she ever wants a magnemite partner to be with her while working, for obvious reasons when considering the potential hazard of losing power to lifesaving equipment. And that's just for the first evolution. Amelia sighs as she sees the flock of 'mon trailing behind her out the corner of her eye. So… while she wouldn't say no if one of the magnemite came up to her and asked to join, she's not going to try very hard to convince them.

Nodding firmly to herself and course of action decided, the trainer pushes herself a little faster to get to where Chansey is waiting up ahead before moving on toward the promised ranger waystation. But as she and Chansey arrive and are setting up camp, Amellia can't help but notice Taillow's… unease at the sight of so many electric type 'mon as they obey her recommendation to stay nearby, settling down into little groups of three or four on nearby rocks all around them to rest.

She'd read that the flying type weakness to electricity causes an instinctive fear that's a pain to train out. She's seen it firsthand with how much Taillow avoids anything related to electricity. It's that fear that was holding him back earlier today. It's clear from her observation of the fight that he is leagues stronger than any of these 'mon, but he'd almost let himself get hit by not flying as smoothly as she knows he can due to that fear. Amelia smiles softly.

But, at least until tomorrow afternoon, she's managed to find a perfect way to help alleviate the fear. For some reason Taillow pauses in his preening and swivels his head around completely until his eyes meet her own. She gives a gentle wave, and makes a mental note to adjust his training schedule to account for this unexpected opportunity. He's going to be busy tomorrow. —-- –_– —-- Taillow feels like his wings are on fire as he pumps them harder to regain lost speed from a bad turn.

"Use height for energy! Don't try to power through your own sloppy flying!" Chansey shouts from below. He corrects the mistake, dipping lower to gain speed before twitching a muscle in his wings to enter another turn and powers though the feeling that the flesh is about to rip from his bones. He turns, zipping by a floating magnemite at a distance much too close for comfort as it tries to turn in place and track him, an attack already primed across its body. He cant– Fear. Above!

Taillow yanks his wings so they're pressed up against his sides again, drawing on that strange sensation of splitting himself, then flares them out again and enters a tight climbing spiral as two other illusory copies shoot off in two other directions. It should be a one in three shot, But– A bolt of electricity shoots though the illusory copy Chansey said they would target.

A lesson given thought a careful and painfully detailed explanation on how to take advantage of flaws in snap decision making and other inherent errors in a pattern recognizing brain. He twitches his tail feathers, and his trajectory is adjusted barely enough to stay on his line without losing any more energy than absolutely necessary. He knew. Somehow he knew those two maniacs had something in store for him last night, and he was right.

This morning, just after breakfast, they delayed their traveling until after lunch so they could focus entirely on training and 'making sure the magnemite are alright before moving on.' He splits again, into four illusory copies this time. as his line forces him into a near certain attack vector. Apparently'making sure the magnemite are alright' means Taillow flying around in the air and dodging while over twenty of them fire lightning at him!" Speed!" Did you know this text is from a different site?

Read the official version to support the creator. Instinctively his wings start to beat as hard as possible, adding more speed as he transitions the climb into a banking level turn to get back on his line. But just having them charge at him like an angry thunderstorm was before Chansey started talking. Because she had a few ideas. Of course she did. Taillow powers through pain as he enters a sharp barrel roll to dodge an attack while still moving on his line.

It took Chansey all of ten minutes to set up some 'volunteer' magnemite in a seemingly random arrangement in the air, then she gave a line for Tallow to follow though the swarm. And he'd better follow it. And they're still attacking him. Taillow can feel his feathers crackle with static electricity as another attack misses before he's forced to transition from beating his wings as hard as possible to gain speed to keeping his wing posture perfect so as not to lose it in another right turn.

But as he approaches another magnemite, the 'mon chooses precisely the worst time to flare with power and Taillow instinctively flinches away, disrupting his optimal turn angle. The resulting unpredictable forces tug and threaten to send him tumbling as wind flows over his wings wrong and centripetal forces pull him further–" Stop!" Chansey roars from the ground.

"Enough! Get down here!" … Taillow does not want to go down there, but he feels his agonized wings descending back to the ground regardless, transitioning from high speed maneuver to a steady glide. When he gets most of the way down, the entire world is wrapped in a purple glow as he feels a gentle pressure across his entire body, then he's yanked across the final distance until he's floating in front of an irritated looking Chansey.

But as she opens her mouth and begins to inhale, her eyes flick past Taillow to where he knows Amelia is sitting, looking at the… white things– papers! But then her eyes lock back onto his, and she takes a deep breath.

"Now Taillow." She starts with a calm –almost sweet– tone.

"Do you know why I asked for you to come down here before you finished your route?" The avian holds back a shiver as he floats in her grip. He really wishes she would just scream at him. Like when he's in the air. This is scarier.

"... Because I fell off my li–""Because you fell off your line. Yes." She states.

"We'll take it from the top. Go back to the start marker and enter turn one."

"Oh! Actually!" Amelia interrupts from behind.

"I found what I was looking for! Look at this." Chansey blinks, then squints at a… book as it enters Taillow's field of view, clearly thinking about something.

"Hmm… You're referring to turn nine, correct?" Amelia nods.

"Yea. Either you're seeing something I can't, or he's burning a lot of speed to push for this high half overshoot. But unless Taillow learns some kind of specific attack he can't easily attack at that down angle from his belly. It's just awkward." Chansey tilts her head, for an instant looking surprised by their trainer's words, but Taillow only sees a flash of that before it's gone again and she looks back at him.

"Right. Taillow, on turn nine, disregard the half overshoot maneuver, make it another minimal radius." The avian holds back a groan at the idea of yet another minimal radius turn, but that anguish is interrupted by the uniquely strange sensation of healing energy flowing over him. Even now, after uncountably many times he'd been healed, he can't tell if it feels good or like he's scraping his body across tree bark.

The energy aggressively punching into him and violently attacking the soreness in his muscles until it disappears. The longer he is around Chansey, the less surprised Taillow is that she figured out how to beat up pain. Then the purple tint to reality disappears and Taillow is forced to flare his wings to slow his descent to the ground while Amelia looks up at the magnemite still waiting in the air.

"You're doing very good everyone!" She calls.

"Now! I know you're all getting tired! But if any of you hit Taillow this time everyone gets extra firestarter magnesium, and the 'mon who hits him gets one of my spare lantern batteries!" Taillow feels a pit in his stomach only widen as he can see every 'mon in the sky stares at him with hunger. Oh. Oh no. —-- –_– —-- Watching Taillow enter turn one, only to immediately be forced off his line slightly to avoid the attack from a newly energized magnemite, Tanya is forced to a… begrudging…

realization that Taillow has managed to get his skills at maneuver and energy conservation to a bare minimum of competency. He's not good at flying quite yet, but he's no longer absolutely abysmal at every aspect of staying in the air. Tanya watches the 'mon smoothly transition from a turn into a steep climb, double team duplicates flying off of him like chaff in an almost eerie mirror to how she used illusionary duplicates in a dogfight.

Now that he can –mostly– fly, it's just a matter of moving on from the basics of flight to actual combat maneuver. Unfortunately, that is where her memorized knowledge from the Aerial Mage corps stops being useful, even now the seams are showing, because turn nine would have been a perfect maneuver for a mage who can shoot their rifle down at an enemy after forcing an overshoot. But Taillow doesn't have a rifle.

"You got this Taillow! Remember to really commit to the rotation on this next one!" Amelia shouts, the encouragement apparently working because he manages to hit the turn more cleanly than any time before. Though the increased speed on the exit makes him inadvertently overshoot slightly on the next turn, so it balances out. But Tanya finds her attention staying on her partner as she stares at Taillow in the sky, a wide smile on her face.

Amelia, despite not knowing it, is working at a massive disadvantage in knowledge of aerobatics, and yet she hasn't let that stop her from working to contribute. She has managed to contribute, in minor ways, touching up on her partner's blindspots and keeping a careful eye on teaching the biomechanics to achieve the maneuvers Tanya demands. It's… unexpected. But, in the back of her mind, Tanya's thoughts keep looping on a few parts of that conversation from a few nights ago.

With time she'd recognized parts of the emotion on display. The 'mon turns slightly to look at her partner.

"Excellent catch with the turn nine overshoot by the way. I completely missed that." She says simply. Her words make Amelia pause for a second, then look up at her with her smile twisting in a way that's hard to describe.

"Thanks." She says a little quietly, then her smile strengthens again and she continues at a normal volume.

"Honestly, the only reason I took so long to bring it up was because I was sure I was missing something." She laughs.

"... How in the world do you know so much about flying anyways? I never really thought about it because, you know, you know a bunch of unusual stuff. But this is a lot." How does she know? Tanya freezes, the world almost appearing to slow as her partner's questioning gaze is leveled up at her. To tell the truth would be idiotic, too outlandish to be accepted as anything other than a fanciful story. If their roles were reversed Tanya would feel insulted if told something that's such an obvious lie.

But her first reaction was to tell her anyway. What if Amelia did believe her? Even a partial truth. She'll ask questions on a life that is dead and buried. A literal universe away and so alien to anything the human had known to be completely unintelligible. But her first reaction is still to tell her. And when it's over, when the questions are answered, assuming she believes what she hears. What would be different? What would change when Amelia learns everything she'd done– No. It's over.

"Ah… I'd… I'd always had a fascination with flight." Tanya answers calmly.

"So I've spent a great deal of time studying and thinking about aerial battles since as long as I can remember." She says with a shrug before looking back up at Taillow as he ducks and weaves above them. She can see Amelia's brow furrow a little out the corner of her eye, a mildly confused expression on her face. But as she opens her mouth to respond, one of the magnemite manages to land a hit on Taillow, the shock sending him tumbling down toward the ground for a second before he recovers.

The excitement directs the trainer's attention back to the action.

"Good going Magnemite!" She shouts, turning and breaking into a jog toward her bag behind her.

"Alright everyone! Break for lunch! Magnemite get down here quick for your battery so you don't have it stolen!"