A few more days went by, and then a surge of presence rose among the Pokémon at their training. Vance looked up. It was the Zweilous.
"Roar—"
The aura swelled, and he passed smoothly into level 54.
Past the Slaking, and hard on the heels of the Gyarados.
"Another breakthrough."
The Pokémon did not need to look; they all knew that familiar presence for the Zweilous.
"That's the Zweilous for you. I'll have to put my back into it as well, and make Gym-class soon."
The Aerodactyl drew his eyes away and set his mind on it.
He had reached level 50 himself now and was working towards Gym-class. It would not be long; he could feel a breakthrough in him too.
The team as it now stood ran: the Gyarados at level 56, the Zweilous at 54, the Slaking at 53, the Blaziken at 47, the Ralts at 18.
All of them climbing steadily.
Vance sat cross-legged to one side in a meditative state, working on his own abilities.
"Hoo—"
He opened his eyes and let out a long, stale breath. Still no breakthrough. One more and he would be a Master Psychic.
A Master Psychic, in the first days after the breakthrough, had fighting strength to rival Elite-Four-class.
To everybody else Vance was a prodigy of psychic power, enormously gifted, at Advanced level while still so young.
Only he knew that most of the credit for getting this far belonged to the system rather than to his own effort — though there had been some of that as well. The rewards poured it straight into him and filled the bar at once, without the step-by-step training an ordinary Psychic had to go through.
"Work at it, then. And if that doesn't do it, there are always the achievement rewards and the defeat rewards."
Vance closed off the exercise, rose from his cushion and stretched.
Beside him the Ralts did the same, breaking off her own practice, standing and stretching her back.
Her movements were almost in step with his, and her small face was all seriousness.
Vance laughed to see it.
Perhaps it was because he was a Psychic, and further along in the art than she was: whenever he practised, the Ralts liked to settle in beside him and meditate along with him to build up her own psychic power.
As though close up she could feel the rhythm of the energy around him, and deepen her own understanding of it.
"Ralts—"
"Pop—"
It sounded like a bottleneck giving way. The Ralts's presence lifted all at once, and she stood at level 19.
Vance was not surprised. He was about to praise her when he saw that something about her was changing.
Fine threads of white light were rising off her skin. That was evolution.
Evolution at level 19. To Vance that was no surprise either.
"Ralts—"
The strangeness in her body put the Ralts on her guard. She hurried to hold the evolution down and turned her eyes to Vance, asking him what she should do next.
He was the one she trusted most now.
Feeling the run of her thoughts, Vance smiled and soothed her, saying gently, "Relax a little, Ralts. You're about to evolve. It's a good thing. There's nothing to be frightened of. Just relax."
"Ralts—"
Only then was she sure of herself, and she stopped resisting the evolution.
If he said it was a good thing, then there was nothing wrong with it.
The dazzle of evolution wrapped the Ralts up, and inside the light her shape began to change.
The Gyarados and the others broke off their training and gathered round to watch her evolve.
A Pokémon's evolution is always a mysterious thing, and always an interesting one.
And it was the baby of the team evolving, so naturally they all came to look.
"Kirlia—"
The evolution went off without a hitch. The light drew back, and the Ralts's evolved form, a Kirlia, stood on the floor.
The Kirlia's body was white and she looked like a girl in the first innocence of youth, with very slender green legs. Her hair no longer covered her eyes entirely but fell in a fringe to her shoulders, and her two red horns had shifted position to sit on either side of her head.
She was taller than she had been as a Ralts as well — something near a metre.
"Kirlia—"
The Kirlia blinked her red eyes and looked over her evolved body, seeming not quite used to it.
"I'll have to call you Kirlia now. Congratulations on evolving, Kirlia."
Vance said it with a smile.
"Kirlia—"
Without thinking the Kirlia put out both hands, the way she used to as a Ralts, for Vance to pick her up and hold her in that warm place again.
Vance only stepped forward, gave her a hug and let go. It was not what it had been.
Only then did the Kirlia realise that her size had changed too: she could not be carried in her Trainer's arms as before, and could not even sit on his broad shoulder any more.
The thought of it left her low. She had not enjoyed the safe feeling those two places gave her for nearly long enough.
"What's this, Kirlia? You've evolved, you've grown up — you ought to be happy about it. The Gyarados and the rest are all happy for you."
Vance talked her round, pointing at the Gyarados and the other Pokémon.
"Kirlia—"
*I'd sooner not have done this growing up*, the Kirlia thought.
But there was nothing else for it.
Growing up. When you gain some things, you lose others.
Just as humans never get to have their youth and the sense of their youth at the same time.
Feeling the gladness coming off the Aerodactyl and the rest of them, the Kirlia's spirits lifted a little.
While there was a lull, Vance opened the system and scanned the Kirlia, and her details came up on the panel.
> **Name:** Kirlia (female)
> **Type:** Psychic / Fairy
> **Ability:** Synchronize
> **Aptitude:** Near-Champion
> **Level:** 19
> **Moves:** Growl, Disarming Voice, Confusion, Double Team, Misty Terrain, Ally Switch, Destiny Bond, Hypnosis, Teleport, Psybeam, Life Dew, Psychic
Near-Champion aptitude, and more moves in hand now as well. It was no more than such a high aptitude deserved; she was not a whit behind the Zweilous.
It also showed that the way Vance had raised her suited her, and that he had not gone wrong anywhere.
"Kirlia—"
The Kirlia came and stood in front of him and put on a display of the moves she had just learned.
He knew about them already, but Vance watched patiently to the end of the performance and praised her, which kept the Kirlia happy for a long while.
Vance laughed a little and looked over at the Gyarados and the others, still gathered round and laughing along.
"No training to be done? What are you all grinning at? Go and train. Go on, go on."
Vance shooed them away.
"Roar, roar. Let us watch a moment. I don't know how it is, but there's a sort of pride in it."
said the Gyarados.
"That's it, that's it. I've got it too."
The Aerodactyl was nodding. To see the small, soft baby of the team grown up like this — he felt honoured by it.
"Then I have a great deal more of it than either of you."
Vance said it with a laugh. Every one of them had been raised by his own hand, and every one had gone from weak to strong.
"Roar, roar. Training, training."
The Gyarados and the rest went off to train, and Vance took the Kirlia through some new things.
After an evolution, some of the training had to be adjusted; it was not quite what it had been when she was a Ralts.