Symbiosis

Chapter 8

Several cracks echoed through the woods as three separate thick but short tree branches broke off their respective trunks. Rather than fall to the ground, however, they were surrounded by the faintest of blue glows, which almost couldn't be seen in the daylight, and slowly and gently floated towards a tiny pink airborne figure, floating stationary in the center of the woods.

Alex didn't dare move an inch, even to blink, lest he lose his concentration and drop the tree branches he had mentally pried from the trees. He brought the tree branches within a foot's distance from his body and forced them to orbit his body a single time. Alex grimaced as he then brought them all in front of his body, and mentally prepared to launch just one of the branches as a high speed projectile. Unfortunately for him, it didn't quite work the way he wanted it to. He succeeded in launching the center branch. In fact, it reached speeds high enough that it shattered into splinters on impact of a thick tree trunk. But in doing so, he momentarily lost his concentration and dropped the other two branches. "Shit," he cursed under his breath. He managed to catch them both before they could hit the ground and he took a breath to calm himself. Still mentally holding the branches, he spotted another loose branch and used his psychic powers to pry that one loose as well, bringing it to him like he did the other ones. He brought them in front of his body again, and with another breath and a grunt of exertion, he tried launching one of the branches again. It wasn't as hard as the last one, seeing as the branch shattered in half as opposed to in multiple pieces, but Alex was able to do it without his concentration faltering this time. Alex let a smirk loose and he quickly launched the other two branches in succession, both of which exploded on impact.

It had been over a week since he arrived back at his apartment. Mercifully, the power had come back on the morning after Alex managed to get back to his home. But unfortunately for him, everyone being stuck at home meant there was no way he could train at home without his roommate finding out what he was. Thankfully though, Alex was able to solve that problem very quickly when it came to mind. There were still several parks and wooded areas in the suburbs, some of which never got any substantial traffic even under normal circumstances, let alone the situation that the world was presently dealing with. Alex had ample time to simply travel to one of these locations and train in peace. Still, it did mean he was out in the open, so he had to be incredibly careful not to be seen and to be observant of his surroundings.

Alex's ears perked as he heard multiple footsteps out in the distance to his left. "...telling you, I heard something. This way." Alex's heart did a jump. 'Oh fuck. Alright, time to bail.' He quickly floated upwards at canopy level height and rapidly flew away from where he heard the voices and the footsteps. Alex eyed the trees, looking for a specific location. As soon as he was sure he was close enough to his destination, he floated downward into and below the trees again, spotting a nearby creek which he then followed downstream. He continued along until he found a small cranny in the rocks making up the creek. He quickly looked around, and after deciding it was safe, he ducked inside and willed himself back to his human form. He took a breath and slowly and carefully climbed out of the creek.

It had been getting much easier to use his psychic powers the more he practiced. Back when he first started training, there was no way he'd be able to pick up more than one object with his mind, let alone three at once, and then go on to launch them all separately with great power. He figured it taking little more than a week may just be because he's a mew, and therefore gifted with a natural talent by his very nature. Even so, he didn't have as much success attempting other techniques. Alex had attempted to figure out how to transform into other pokemon and use other types of attacks- mostly trying fire, electric, fighting, and normal- but found it was much more difficult to manage than his psychic abilities. Alex somewhat expected it, seeing as mews were pure psychic type and psychic moves would therefore come a lot more naturally to him. He was able to get better at using physical moves- he assumed he was using Mega Punch and Mega Kick. Or perhaps it was just Pound. It was a lot tougher to determine exactly what he was using than he thought- but as for other types, he wasn't able to conjure up more than a small static charge and a weak ember. Not even the move Ember. Just a brief weak glowing heat. So for the bulk of his training, Alex largely decided to focus on the basics before training other elemental attacks. But at least Alex knew it was possible. But then there was Transform. He did not know how to do that in the slightest. That in particular was frustrating to Alex, because he dedicated at least an hour of practice time towards trying to figure out that move each day, and he managed to make zero headway. At times, Alex was having such difficulty practicing anything that he wondered if it was this tough for him, even in spite of getting as proficient with his psychic powers as he had, how tough would it be for other pokemon by comparison. Especially for only a third of a month's worth of training.