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“Are you serious, Ollie?”
“Of course! When have I ever not been, my sweet, fully evolved pupil?”
“You’re insane if you think I can do that right away!”
The milotic named Oleander held his pose, before chuckling as a pained groan came from the younger of the two snakes. Laurel, a serperior, flicked his tongue in agitation.
“Oh, come now, you’ll get it eventually!” Oleander teased, uncoiling from the position he held himself in, a complex twist of his tail supporting the rest of his body nearly vertically while the middle part of his body twisted in a spiral formation. Not very practical for battle, one might say, but Oleander felt it showed off his beauty perfectly. After a few more seconds, he rested on the ground in front of the pouting serperior, drawing his eye. “Although perhaps we start with more of the basics. Apologies, I do get ahead of myself sometimes!”
He giggled at that, while Laurel gave him a curious look. This was one of the guild’s strongest assets?
With a snap like a twig crushed under foot, Oleander’s expression jumped from light-hearted to focused, and his eyes bored into Laurel’s.
“Now, show me how you move, little snake,” he commanded, all of his focus on the Grass-type before him. Despite having the type advantage, Laurel felt a shiver pass through him.
Laurel let his instincts take over. Sliding across the field, he pushed himself this way and that; dodging maneuvers, quick adjustments, and full speed ahead. Every conceivable movement he could think of unleashed on the abandoned training field. Alone but for the casual breeze of wind across their scales and the sun beaming down, nary a cloud obstructing its rays which reflected off the both of them brilliantly. A bittersweet contrast. Laurel felt like a snivy learning how to walk again.
The serperior, breathing heavily, finally stopped after a few minutes, looking up to meet Oleander’s eyes, which never veered from his position. It felt like a predator watching their prey, waiting for the perfect chance to strike.
“Not bad,” Oleander said, breaking the relative silence but not his own stare. “Clearly, your instincts mean just moving around isn’t an issue, but you’re missing a lot of nuances. That’s expected for a newly evolved pokemon.”
With a nod, Oleander closed his eyes, thinking. Laurel let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The weather hadn’t changed. The milotic seemed motivated and committed to teaching him. Why did the air seem so heavy?
“Why don’t we try something a little more interactive?”
Caught amid his thoughts, Laurel shook his head and met Oleander’s look. There was a twinkle in his eye. Uh oh.
“What would that be, Olli-sir?”
“Oh, forget the formalities, Larry! I told you already they don’t matter to me, but especially my partner. Oh, to catch that fox on a bad day…” Oleander chuckled, while Laurel immediately paled at the realization. Without missing a beat, Oleander continued.
“But to the point! Why don’t you try putting as much distance between the two of us as you can? Go on, try the clear path over near the signpost. I’ll give you a 10 second head start, even!”
There was something about the way he was saying it. Perhaps a little too much glee. Laurel was nervous. Theoretically, he had the speed to outpace even the fastest milotic. In theory. This was the farthest thing from theory. A practical test.
“Alright, Ollie. Count me down?” he asked, getting into position, coiling up instinctually to start with a large burst of speed. His tail whipped through the air at the challenge, his body a spring ready to release its stores of potential energy.
“I’ll count you down!” Oleander said enthusiastically. “Three…Two…One…GO!”
Uncoiling with a burst of strength, Laurel rapidly slithered down the path, leaving Oleander behind as a speck on the horizon after only 5 seconds. Somehow, though, he felt like he wasn’t moving as quickly as he did before. Something about the terrain? His movement? A nuance that Ollie mentioned? His tail whipped in the air in agitation as he attempted to increase his speed–now was not the time to let his mind take over!
Oleander’s lips curled into a smile as he watched Larry shoot down the path, eyes glinting with a mix of mischief and pride. The serperior had natural talent, but that wasn’t always enough. He needed to see more than just pure speed.
“Okay, here I come!” came the shout behind him; as he glanced back, he saw Ollie EXPLODE down the path toward him, moving in a way he had never even conceived before. It was as if the very ground itself provided the milotic a tailwind, carrying him along at blinding speed. Each of Oleander’s scales seemed to reflect individually with each twist and turn, dazzling in his efficiency. He sputtered an exclamation of surprise before focusing on the path itself. Pushing himself harder to keep moving, get faster, get used to this damn new body.
Laurel’s muscles tensed, his movements faster and more erratic as he tried to outpace the challenge behind him. He felt his pulse in his throat; the tightness spreading to his shoulders. Why? Why was he not speeding up?
Oleander, behind Laurel, noticed the slight narrowing of the serperior’s eyes, the tension through the length of his body. The weight of the lesson was finally sinking in; this was about control, after all, not speed.
Only about 10 seconds later did Laurel hear the rustling closing in. A second later, and the opposing water snake had somehow curled himself around the other in a tackle, bringing them both to a rapid halt.
“Not bad! Not bad at all,” Oleander said, pride coloring his words as he uncurled from around Laurel and moved off to the side to give his pupil a moment to collect himself. “You have natural talent and speed, even for a serperior. It’s seriously impressive!”
Laurel, again, flicked his tongue in agitation. Even if a part of him felt warm inside at the praise.
“You still caught me, though! A slower water snake, in fact! Not surprising given the gap in training, but that movement you were doing…what was that?”
“Oh, so you caught on, then?” Oleander asked, a smile in his words. “Yes, there was something different. Could you tell me what you saw?”
Of course, a teacher at heart. Probing his students for answers he could just readily give, Laurel thought with a sigh.
“It was…less of a back-and-forth motion, and your head pointed perpendicular from the path. Like you were moving…sideways?”
“Excellent!” Oleander exclaimed, his tail slapping the ground in excitement. “Now, this is just a theory of mine, but while you evolved from a bipedal land pokemon, I evolved from a fish, where I moved best in water.”
Laurel nodded along, not sure where this was going, but rapt with attention.
“When I was a feebas, I pierced through the waters with the use of my tail fin; much, much stronger than it looked, and I caught many a pokemon off-guard with my speed. Similar to my current form, it was the contraction of muscles along my sides that helped me consistently hold that speed. This made learning and mastering movement as a snake easier for me, as opposed to creatures that had limbs.”
A slight frown grew on Laurel’s face at the mention of his missing limbs, his vestigial leaves forming a collar along the upper part of his neck. A small pang for what he lost, nothing more. That did not escape Oleander’s notice.
“Oh, but don’t be down! Being limbless is super fun, and you have so many surprises for those that look down on us,” Oleander said, smirk on full display. “I digress, however. When you were moving around more in the fields, there were rocks, grasses, plants; things to ground yourself and use as anchors, of a sort. That’s the instinctual movement. The slither. Most land snakes, especially the grass-oriented ones, default to that.”
Oleander moved as he spoke, displaying the motion through the adjacent field off the path. A side-to-side undulation, using the muscles connecting to his many ribs, catching the unsteady ground with ease, propelling himself forward where others with limbs may stumble.
To Laurel’s view, the milotic moved with a grace that appeared ethereal, as if he had ghost-type blood in him. As if the entire world was bent to his will, bending and shaping the land around him as he moved this way and that. A natural, beautiful–effortless, even.
A blush crossed Laurel’s face as he shook his head at the thoughts, concentrating again on the words coming out of Oleander’s mouth. Oleander then jumped, pushing himself off the ground and several feet into the air before landing behind Laurel on the path. Twisting dramatically, like the show-off he is.
“Now, the path. And the weird movement I was doing? Well, on sand or empty surfaces, those with less friction in play, that slither is less effective,” Oleander said, moving to the side of the path and looking down it, away from Laurel for the moment. A second later, he burst down, angling his head and tail sideways, while the rest of his body flowed down the path, gliding with what appeared to be no resistance. That same ethereal movement from before, as if the wind carried him along at his beck and call. He stopped after a few seconds, dozens of feet away.
“This cares not for the lack of friction, or the lack of propulsion points! You don’t rely on the contact with the ground; instead, you focus on just two points, lifting the rest of your body up. Similar to the slither, there is undulation involved, just on a different plane.”
Laurel stared, gobsmacked. It looked so unnatural, but the milotic handled it with a grace befitting his species. And, just to show it off again, Oleander quickly closed the distance between them with that same motion. Flying over the ground, sprouting wings to glide into place beside him.
“I call it sidewinding, because…we’re facing sideways!” Oleander laughed, loudly. Laurel groaned, but a smile found itself on his face.
“We have time to learn. I have time to teach you, Larry,” Oleander said, tone growing a little more serious as he again caught the younger snake’s eyes. Laurel hunched up, meeting his gaze and his height, tails resting along the path in opposite directions.
“Other species move however they move. To move is to live, for when you stop moving, that is the end. But remember, as a snake, we move with grace. There’s a beauty to it. We make waves with the land, with the sea, with any surface. These waves we make…they are essential to mastering our motion.”
Oleander paused here for a moment, emphasizing his point. In the back of the water snake’s mind, a reflection of a small yet proud feebas appeared. A hopeful look on the fish’s face that fell again and again under the judgmental gazes of hundreds of pokemon. Being told over and over to truly excel, he needed to overcome the “barriers” of his species and let his beauty shine. Like that stopped him from beating them in any form of competition, he thought with a scoff. Then quickly, shook his head, re-focusing on his protégé.
“Those are but only two ways we traverse the world. There are many others, which will come to you in time. For now, we focus on the slither and the sidewind. You ready to begin, Laurel?”
Laurel nodded, motivated not only by the words, but by what he saw. As silly as it seemed to him, there was conviction to the milotic’s words. As if he truly believed that grace and beauty were key to his skills. And, truthfully, there wasn’t a better teacher on Gaia than Oleander the milotic. So he would focus. And train. Embracing the elegance of his master. Embracing his new form, leaving those bitter feelings of loss at the rear. To move was to live, and life was full of change, after all.