The final ascent took much longer than expected. Mostly because stairs had become Cinder's mortal enemy. Going up was manageable, but going around the narrow landings was not.

His body had nearly doubled in useful length without consulting him, at the first corner, Cinder turned his front half normally and clipped his hip against the railing. He stopped, looked at the railing then looked at Ravina.

“You hit it.” Cinder narrowed his eyes.

“I didn't move the building.” He tried again.

This time his rear end swung wide and Ravina stepped backward.

“Second fire!” Cinder extinguished it before it could ignite.

“Thank you.” He huffed.

At the next turn, he went too slowly and somehow became tangled in his own feet. Ravina finally lost the battle against laughter and Cinder glared.

She crouched in front of him. “I'm sorry.”

Glare. “No, really.”

Glare. “You've had this body for twenty minutes. You're allowed to be bad at corners.”

His expression softened by approximately one percent and Ravina scratched under his jaw.

That still worked. “It's not a test.”

Cinder leaned slightly into her. “You don't have to already know.” A quiet sound.

Behind them, Owlbert hopped neatly around the corner. Perfectly and Cinder stared at him.

Owlbert stopped.

Hoot.

Ravina whispered, “Don't start a rivalry with the owl over turning.”

Cinder walked after him. “Cinder.”

He walked faster. “Cinder.”

Owlbert flew upstairs. “Oi! you two!”

- - - - -

Voices carried down the final staircase. One was old, patient and measured. The other Ravina recognized immediately.

“I won.”

She stopped and Cinder nearly walked into her leg. Ravina looked down at him apologetically. “Oh, you've got to be kidding me…”

At the top of the stairs stood Silver. Totodile was beside him, breathing hard but upright. Across from them stood an elderly sage in pale robes, his sash marked with the crest of Sprout Tower. He carried himself with the sort of calm that made Ravina suspect nothing Silver could say was going to rattle him.

Silver, naturally, looked irritated by that as the sage's voice remained even. “Your Pokémon followed your commands.”

“And we won.”

“Yes.”

Silver folded his arms. “So what's the problem?”

“Winning was not the lesson.”

Silver's eyes narrowed as the sage continued. “Your Totodile watched you for commands. You rarely watched him.”

Totodile glanced toward Silver, but the redhead didn't notice. Ravina however, did.

“You possess strength,” the elder said. “So does your partner. But strength beside strength is not the same thing as trust.”

Silver's jaw tightened. “I don't need a sermon.”

“No,” the old man said mildly. “You need practice.”

Silver turned, and finally noticed Ravina and his expression immediately became worse.

Ravina smiled. “Hi.”

His eyes flicked to Cinder. then stopped, for perhaps half a second, Silver simply stared and Ravina enjoyed that half-second enormously. Cinder stood beside her, long-backed and newly evolved, trying very hard to look as though he hadn't spent the last hour losing arguments with corners.

Silver recovered. “Took you long enough.”

Ravina looked down at Cinder, then back at him. “Nice to see you too.”

Totodile's eyes moved toward Cinder. There was recognition there, not friendship exactly. But not the same hostility as their first meeting either.

Silver noticed Ravina looking. “He got stronger.”

“So did Cinder.”

“I can see that.”

Ravina's smile widened as Silver immediately looked irritated that he'd given her anything resembling a compliment.

“Did you finish the tower?” Ravina asked.

“I beat everyone who challenged me.”

“That wasn't the question.”

His eyes narrowed as the elder behind him made the faintest sound that might have been amusement.

Silver ignored it. “I've got what I came for.” He started toward the side of the room.

Ravina frowned. “The stairs are behind me.”

“I know.” He pushed aside a narrow wooden panel and behind it was another staircase.

Ravina stared. “What.”

Silver glanced over his shoulder. “Enjoy your sermon.”

Then he disappeared down it. Ravina looked at the elder, then at the hidden stair. “Is there seriously a shortcut?”

“Emergency stair.”

“You let me climb the entire tower.”

“You were here to climb the tower.”

Ravina pointed toward where Silver had vanished. “He found it!”

“He is very observant when attempting to avoid things.”

“That sounded judgmental.”

“It was.”

Ravina took one step toward the stair and the elder spoke again. “You climbed this tower for your own partner, did you not?”

She stopped and Cinder looked up at her, then Ravina sighed. “Fine.”

She turned away from the shortcut. “I wasn't chasing him.”

The elder raised one eyebrow. “I was going to investigate.”

Cinder made a sound.

“I was!...”

- - - - -

The sage gestured toward a low cushion near the open side of the chamber. “Sit.”

Ravina eyed him. “That sounds ominous.”

“It is a cushion.”

“That's how they get you.”

The old man smiled and Ravina sat anyway. Cinder took considerably longer. He tried folding himself into the posture he had used as a Cyndaquil. When that didn't work, he stood again, turned and nearly clipped the edge of a low table with his hindquarters.

Ravina caught it. “Corners.”

Cinder grumbled. And eventually he stretched out beside her, long body pressed against her leg, head resting partly across her thigh. That worked. 

Owlbert perched on the railing nearby as the sage sat opposite them. “I am Li.”

Ravina straightened slightly. “Elder Li?”

“So people insist.”

“Good. I was beginning to think every floor had its own final boss.”

Li's expression barely changed. “Boss?”

“Never mind.”

His eyes moved to Cinder, the newly evolved Quilava watched him back. “You adapted well.”

Ravina blinked. “We almost lost a fight to a staircase.”

“That is not what I meant.”

“Oh.”

Li folded his hands into his sleeves and looked toward the windows.

“Strength is simple to admire. Growth is more difficult. Growth creates new weaknesses before it creates mastery.”

Cinder lowered his head as Ravina scratched behind one of his ears. “Yeah. We're noticing that.”

Li nodded. “Good.”

He held out one hand. “Your Trainer Card.”

Ravina passed it over and Li set it against a small terminal built into the low table. A soft chime sounded and when he returned the card, a new line had been added to Ravina's record.

SPROUT TOWER — TRAINER FORMATION CLEARANCE

Ravina stared at it. “That was it?”

“You climbed the tower.”

“I expected something more ceremonial.”

“Would you like something ceremonial?”

Ravina thought about it. “No.”

“Then there will not be.”

“Great...”

“Falkner's Gym will now accept your challenge.” Cinder's ears perked immediately.

And Ravina looked down. “No.”

His ears lowered. “Not today.”

Offense. “You can barely turn left.”

More offense as Li watched this exchange in silence.

Ravina then tried to compromise with Cinder.

“Tomorrow, maybe. After we practice not setting our own backside on fire.”

Cinder twisted to inspect his rear vents and nearly lost balance as Ravina caught his shoulder. “Case in point.”

Owlbert hooted and Cinder glared up at him.

Li looked away with admirable professionalism, Then he reached beside the table.

“There is one more thing.”

Ravina looked back as Li withdrew a small, cloth-bound booklet.

It was narrow enough to fit in one hand, with reinforced corners and a neat title stamped across the front.

TECHNICAL MANUAL — FLASH
Controlled Illumination Through Focused Energy
Elder Li, Sprout Tower

Ravina took it and turned it over then back again.

“You wrote this?”

“I did.” There was just enough pride in his voice to make her smile. “My favourite technique”

“Right” Ravina said as she opened the booklet. The first few pages contained careful diagrams. Not of attack patterns, but for training exercises, breathing, focus, energy regulation.

Illustrations of several different Pokémon producing steady light from different parts of their bodies. One page showed how to use reflected light inside a cave. Another explained signaling over distance. Another covered the danger of suddenly producing intense brightness in enclosed spaces.

Ravina's eyebrows rose. “This is a lot more complicated than ‘make light.’”

Li folded his hands. “You say that as though light is unimpressive.”

“I didn't say it was unimpressive.”

“You thought about it.”

“Possibly.”

She turned another page. “Can Cinder learn this?”

Li looked at Cinder, Then at the manual.

“Not by the method described.”

Ravina looked at her Hoothoot. “Owlbert?”

“No.”

She stared at the book, then at Li. “So you've given me homework for a Pokémon I don't own.”

“You intend to continue travelling?”

Ravina hesitated. “Probably.”

Li nodded once. “Then keep it.”

That answer caught her off guard as she looked down at the manual again.

It wasn't magical, It was a guide, a real one. Something written by a trainer who had spent years figuring out how to teach a move safely and consistently.

Ravina flipped to the inside cover. A small League stamp had been printed beneath Li's name.

Reviewed for sanctioned trainer use.

She tapped it. “League-approved?”

“Yes.”

“But you wrote it.”

“Yes.”

She looked down at the booklet again, she recalled seeing some battered books in her moms library with similar markings, but they went over her head at the time.

“What's the difference to the ones made by the League?” 

“A Hidden Manual is produced by the League, Standardized methods. Navigation, emergency work, terrain management, older military doctrine adapted for civilian use.”

Ravina's expression shifted.

“Military?”

“Some of the oldest remain descendants of wartime field manuals.”

That made her look at the little book in her hands differently. “And Technical Manuals?”

“Anyone sufficiently skilled may write one.”

“Anyone?”

“Writing one is easy.” Li's gaze settled on the League seal. “Having others trust it is harder.”

Ravina laughed softly. “Fair.”

“Researchers. Dojo masters. veteran trainers. Gym staff. specialists.”

“People like you?”

“Sometimes.”

“And they don't all have to be League sanctioned?”

“No, some are excellent, Some are terrible and Some are dangerous.”

Ravina slowly closed the booklet. “That feels important.” She slipped the manual carefully into her bag. The weight was negligible. The idea behind it wasn't.

She had her first Technical Manual, for a move nobody on her team could currently learn. Perfect.

Ravina stood, Cinder stood too, then had to take a second to rearrange the rest of himself.

Li watched him. “Do not rush him.”

“I won't.”

“Do not rush yourself either.”

Ravina looked back to see Li's expression was calm. “Trainers change more slowly than Pokémon.”

Ravina considered that, then smiled. “I'll work on it.”

- - - - -

By the time Ravina reached the ground floor, she had Tower clearance, a newly evolved Quilava, a Technical Manual she couldn't use, and an increasing suspicion that Violet City's idea of a straightforward Gym Challenge was very different from hers.

The attendant at the entrance took one look at Cinder and stopped mid-sentence and Ravina held up both hands. “It happened upstairs.”

“So I see.”

“He was smaller when I arrived.”

“I assumed.”

“Good. Because explaining that seemed difficult.”

He came around the desk and bowed toward Cinder. “Congratulations.”

Cinder gave his new, deeper chirp, then the attendant looked at Ravina. “And congratulations to you.”

Ravina blinked. “Me?”

“Evolution belongs to the Pokémon.” He smiled. “But trainers are allowed to be proud.”

Ravina looked down to see Cinder was looking up at her.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I am.”

- - - - -

They did not go to the Gym, Ravina did not even let Cinder persuade her to walk past it.

Instead, she found an open training yard attached to the Pokémon Center, where they practiced being a Quilava. Stop. Start. Turn. Short stride. Long stride. Back up…That last one was apparently an insult to nature.

Cinder stared over his shoulder at his hind legs as though they had been installed by somebody without consulting him.

Ravina tried to demonstrate and he stared. “Yes, I know I have two legs.”

He kept staring. “Different problem.”

Owlbert watched from the fence.

Hoot.

“No commentary.”

They marked circles in the dirt and Cinder followed them. At first, his rear feet kept drifting outside the line. His long body wanted to swing wider than his instincts expected. Then once. Then not at all.

“Good!” Cinder brightened immediately.

“There. Again.” He ran the circle faster.

“Not that fast!” Too late, for one brief moment, Ravina saw what his new body was actually built to do. He moved low and smooth, the length of him flowing through the turn rather than fighting it. His powerful rear legs drove him forward while his front paws barely seemed to touch the dirt.

Then he got excited. The rear vents flared and Cinder startled at his own fire, straightened. Lost the curve and vanished into the grass at the edge of the yard.

Ravina stared as Two red-orange eyes slowly appeared above the weeds.

Owlbert hooted once as Ravina covered her face. “I didn't laugh.”

Cinder emerged. “I didn't!”

He narrowed his eyes. “I made a noise!”

Hoot.

“Owlbert made a noise.”

Hoot.

“Stop helping!”

Cinder shook grass from his coat, then tried the turn again. 

This time he held it, no flare, no skid. He came out of the curve and stopped almost exactly where Ravina had drawn the chalk mark.

“Yes!” Ravina threw both hands up.

Cinder bounded toward her. “Wait?!...”

He stopped himself just in time. The old Cinder would have launched himself straight into her arms. This Cinder would have knocked her flat, and they both realized it at the same moment.

Cinder froze. Ravina stared at him and then smiled.

“Yeah.” She opened her arms anyway.

“Come here my Fireball.” He approached more carefully and Ravina wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders. Cinder lowered his head against her chest.

That worked. Different. But it worked.

Later, when they rested in the grass, he no longer fit curled against her stomach like before. Instead, Cinder lay stretched out beside her, his long body pressed along her side, his head resting heavily across her lap.

Ravina scratched beneath his jaw and his eyes immediately softened. “There you are.”

A low, contented trill as She smiled down at him. “Still my clingy little guy.”

Cinder opened one eye and Ravina looked at the amount of Quilava currently occupying most of the grass beside her. “…relative term.”

Owlbert flew down and landed on Ravina's raised knee. 

Hoot.

Ravina looked toward the Center clock. “Five twelve?”

Owlbert stared. “Five thirteen?”

Hoot.

“I was close.”

He continued staring. “Sorry. Five twelve.”

Satisfied, Owlbert fluffed his feathers and Ravina looked at Cinder. “You know the worst part?”

His ear moved. “Now I have to buy more food.”

Cinder lifted his head. “Much more food.”

He looked deeply concerned. “For you.”

Concern disappeared. “Thought so.”

- - - - -

The Pokémon Center nurse confirmed what everyone else had already told her. Healthy Quilava. No signs of distress. No abnormal temperature for species.

A little muscle fatigue from the morning's battles and the sudden change in body proportions, but nothing requiring more than rest, food and sensible training.

“Evolution doesn't rebuild them from nothing,” the nurse explained while Cinder ate a post-exam meal with extraordinary dedication. “But rapid changes redistribute strain. Different muscles are doing different jobs now.”

Ravina watched him inhale another mouthful. “He's been eating like this for days.”

“Common before and after evolution.”

“So I wasn't imagining it.”

“No.”

“Fantastic. I was beginning to think he'd learned Saturn's eating habits.”

The nurse paused. “Saturn?”

“My mother's Slaking.”

“Ah.”

“Never mind.”

Owlbert's own check was uneventful.

He tolerated weighing, he tolerated the light examination but he did not tolerate the nurse setting him down on the wrong side of Ravina's bag afterward as he hopped around it with stiff dignity and returned to his usual spot.

The nurse watched. “Routine-oriented?”

“Extremely.”

Hoot.

“See?”

- - - - -

Outside, evening had begun settling over Violet, the city changed as the sun lowered as lanterns appeared beneath shop awnings, warm light filled restaurant windows and the wooden roofs around Sprout Tower became dark silhouettes against the orange sky.

Ravina stood on the Center steps as Cinder stood beside her. He looked different in shadow.

Older, There was no avoiding that word. Not old, But older. This morning she'd woken beside a Cyndaquil and tonight a Quilava walked at her heel.

Something about that felt much larger than a species name. “You changed fast,” she murmured.

Cinder looked up. “Not just today.”

He watched her. “I think I missed some of it.”

The stronger Ember, the appetite, the extra warmth. the confidence he'd gained on the road, the way he no longer immediately looked to her after every unfamiliar sound.

Maybe evolution hadn't begun in that battle. Maybe the light was simply the part Ravina could see.

Cinder leaned against her leg, his shoulder now reached higher that Ravina could now rest her hand on his head. “Tomorrow is movement practice.”

He made a protesting sound. “And Ember control.”

Better. “And no Gym until I'm convinced you won't set your own ass on fire.”

Cinder twisted to inspect the lower flame vents and nearly lost his balance again. “Case in point.”

Owlbert hooted so Cinder glared upward.

Ravina smiled, then looked toward Sprout Tower. Most of its windows were dark now but not all. A few points of lantern light remained high above. As they had been leaving, one of the younger monks had mentioned that the tower stayed open later for experienced students.

Night training, Quieter sessions, Different Pokémon. Then he'd added, almost as an afterthought, that Ghost-types sometimes drifted into the upper levels after dark.

Ravina had assumed he was trying to scare her but the man's expression had suggested otherwise.

She looked at the topmost roof as something moved between two lit windows. A shadow.

Probably a monk, Probably. 

Ravina narrowed her eyes and Cinder followed her gaze as Owlbert rotated his head toward the tower.

Hoot.

“Not tonight.” Owlbert blinked. “Tomorrow night, maybe.”

Cinder's new ears lifted as Ravina started down the street.

“First, dinner.” Cinder immediately moved faster.

“There he is.” He tried to turn around a pedestrian and His back end swung too wide and he collided with a flower stand.

“Corners!” Cinder groaned.

“You're going to hear that word a lot.”

Owlbert hooted from above and Ravina laughed.

One Gym was still the agreement.

But as Cinder trotted beside her in a body neither of them quite understood yet, Ravina found herself wondering, just briefly, what they might look like by the time one Gym was no longer enough.