Pokemon Regression

Chapter 40: Stealth Training

Day 69:

"Damnit Cyan!! Where the HELL are you!?" I heard Blue's voice screaming out, muffled and distorted by the rippling water flowing over my body.

I suppressed the urge to chuckle and continued to bob in the under the surface of the river, breathing methodically through the reed I held firmly between my teeth.

After camping the night before, it hadn't taken us too long to make our way from Route 9 into Route 10. Unlike Route 9 which had been mostly tall rock walls alongside the grass path, Route 10 stretched along a wide slow-running river on one side, with patches of grass across rocky terrain on the other. As we'd ventured deeper, I'd seen the River as a good opportunity to toy-Pardon, 'train' with Blue.

It only took me a few minutes to retrieve Yeller into his poke ball and get the materials I needed for my simple breathing pipe. Then I'd told Blue to close his eyes and count to 30, before trying to find me.

By this point, he'd been searching for almost thirty minutes.

"I'm serious! You promised you wouldn't go far!!" Blue exclaimed. "If I find out you ran away I'll be really mad!"

I'd already had a feeling before, but I was now certain. Blue was undeniably great at analysing and applying pre-made tactics, but he was absolutely terrible at lateral thinking. Unconventional tactics, or anything he hadn't encountered before, they were enough to throw him off his game.

He had been checking the rocks and plant patches looking for me, focussed on the places a kid my age could hide-The places he would be able to hide. So focussed on his own conceptions that the idea I could be floating in the water nearby wasn't even passing through his mind. I was hardly obscured, any close look in the water would reveal me-The river was fairly clean after all.

By contrast...

...Are you okay? The silver eyes of my young black-haired friend looked at me with some concern as she sat crouched by the riverbank, a finger pushing into the water to test the temperature. You've been in there for a while.

Even though she'd decided to join in the training, Chee had found me before even a few minutes had passed. Once she'd caught sight of me, she sat down by the riverbed and waited, quietly watching both me and the fish Pokemon.

I raised a hand and gestured with my right hand to indicate that I was doing fine. Don't worry about me, I'm doing fine.

You look awfully wrinkly now though... Like Professor Oak...

Well, that happens when you stay submerged in water for too long. Fortunately the sunlight was strong enough to keep the water from being freezing cold-I had the self discipline to endure even if it weren't, but my body was still young and relatively weak.

"What are you even looking at, Green?" Blue spat, stomping over to the riverbank. "Are you even trying to find Cyan? You've just been sitting there since a while..." His voice trailed off as his piercing silver eyes met my gaze.

Ah. Busted. I thought to myself.

...

"...You look like a soggy prune." Blue huffed as I tried in vain to dry my hair. I had been squeezing it to get the moisture out, but I was thoroughly drenched. "I guess that's what you get for waiting in a river." He grumbled. "What reasonable person would do something like that?"

"Well, that's rather the point." I answered, placing my relatively dry cap over my still damp head. "You never thought to check the river because I wouldn't be able to hide there without drowning-Those sorts of thoughts are one of the first things soldiers are taught to use against you."