Day eighteen belonged mostly to training
Ravina had worked enough hours, she had enough money for lodging, enough for food, enough to stop pretending every free hour had to become another paid one.
So after breakfast, she took all three boys to the Center's outdoor training yard.
Cinder went first. Ravina marked a wide course with chalk.
Turns, Stops, Short bursts, A narrow passage between padded barriers.
Three days ago, Cinder had looked at tight turns like personal insults.
Now… “Ready, my Fireball?”
Cinder lowered himself and Ravina smiled. “Go!”
He launched. Fast, low and smooth. His new body made sense in motion now. Front paws hit and Rear legs drove as the long line of his back bent naturally through the curve.
One turn, second and Stop. He skidded half a foot before he corrected.
Ravina grinned. “Yes!”
Cinder's flames burst from his head, then his rear vents with pride.
Ravina laughed. “Again!”
He ran it faster as Victor watched from the fence. “He is beautiful.”
Cinder nearly tripped and Ravina looked at Victor. “He is, but don't distract him.”
“I complimented him.”
“He heard you.”
Victor drifted closer. “Then my work here is complete.”
Cinder gave him a look and Victor smiled. “Blazing guardian.”
Cinder's flames rose slightly with pride.
She smiled. “Oh, you're going to be unbearable too.”
Cinder looked innocent and Ravina chuckled and beckoned
“My Fireball.”
He immediately came over for scratches.
- - - - -
Owlbert's training looked completely different.
Ravina set three targets. One high, one hidden, one moving.
Then she gave him sequences. “Left target.” Wait. “Hold.” Wait. “Middle.”
Owlbert moved, with exact timing.
Ravina changed the timing, not the commands and never meaning. If “hold” meant stay, it always meant stay. If “return” meant her arm, it always meant her arm.
Owlbert responded faster every session and Victor watched for several minutes.
Quietly until Ravina eventually noticed. “What?”
Victor looked at Owlbert. “You do not command him often.”
“I command him plenty.”
“No.”
Victor's gaze remained on the Hoothoot. “You inform him.”
Ravina thought about that. “Maybe.”
Owlbert landed on her forearm.
Hoot.
Ravina smiled. “Good boy.”
Victor's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You trust him to choose.”
“Sometimes, his reaction time is faster than mine.”
“And he trusts you not to punish the choice.” Ravina looked at Victor, that was sharper than she expected. “Yeah.”
Victor smiled, then ruined it. “Touching.”
Ravina sighed. “There it is.”
- - - - -
Victor's training was worse.
“Attack the target.” Victor vanished, but the target remained untouched.
Ravina waited for a few moments, but nothing happened. “Victor?”
A dramatic voice came from behind the dummy. “I stalk my prey.”
“It's canvas.”
“All prey is symbolic.”
“Hit it.”
Victor emerged and struck with a Lick and the target swung.
“Good.” Victor bowed. “Again.”
Victor disappeared and Ravina waited. “Victor?”
A whisper beside her ear: “Boo.”
Ravina jumped and Cinder's flames erupted as Victor fled upward. “Worth it!”
“Victor!”
Owlbert:
Hoot.
Ravina looked at him.
“No, no. He's right this time.” Victor reappeared near the roof. “The owl understands art.”
“The owl understands consequences.”
Hoot.
Victor paused. “…Concerning.”
The drills continued and Ravina eventually learned something important.
Victor did not respond well to repetitive commands, not because he couldn't but because he got bored.
So she changed the problem. “Get behind the target without being seen.”
Victor's eyes lit up.
Done.
“Force it toward Owlbert.”
Done.
“Block the left exit.”
Done.
“Make Cinder think you're attacking him.”
Victor's grin widened and Cinder lowered himself.
Ravina pointed. “Without actually attacking him.”
Victor's grin weakened. “Restrictions.”
“Go.”
Victor moved, gas across the ground, a false appearance right. Cinder turned, as victor emerged left. And Cinder corrected. Then they repeated, getting faster.
Ravina smiled.
Again.
Again.
Again.
By the fifth attempt, Cinder no longer chased Victor's first movement. He waited, watched. Victor appeared, Cinder pivoted cleanly and stopped within striking distance.
Victor stared at him. Cinder stared back. Then Victor smiled. “Very good.”
Cinder's chest lifted.
Ravina and Victor noticed, but neither commented.
Then they felt the wind pick up harshly, the first gust hit him sideways and Victor's entire body distorted.
Ravina stopped. “Victor?”
He reassembled himself with immense dignity. “I hate the weather.”
Another gust pulled a streamer of purple gas off his side as Victor stared after it.
“…I especially hate that weather.”
Ravina glanced after the smoke and recalled what april had told her about weather effects on his gaseous form.
“Ball?”
Victor looked at the sky and then at Ravina. “Temporarily.”
No argument, that worried her more than an argument would have.
- - - - -
On day nineteen, the Mist Pavilion felt normal.
That was strange. Ravina knew where everything was, the uniform no longer required thought, the fox ears sat correctly without adjustment and aside from the occasional distraction, the tail was comfortable and Chinatsu's replacement shoes had stopped feeling new.
Her feet didn't hurt, and Ravina resented this deeply and she carried a tray across the room.
Victor emerged from beneath a tablecloth. “Good afternoon.”
The patron laughed and Ravina didn't even flinch anymore.
That might have been worse. “Table seven wants tea.”
“I am a spirit of the dead.”
“Table seven wants tea.”
Victor sighed. “I shall inform someone.”
“Thank you.”
He vanished as Chinatsu watched from the bar
Ravina caught her eye. “Yes?”
“I said nothing.”
“You're thinking.”
“That is generally permitted.”
Ravina put the tray down as Chinatsu looked toward Victor. “He suits you.”
Ravina glanced at the Gastly, who was currently explaining a tragedy to a delighted elderly couple. “He's a lot.”
“Mm.”
“You say that like it's a compliment.”
“It often is.”
Ravina smiled,then looked toward the windows. Sprout Tower stood above Violet's rooftops, beyond it, the Gym.
Chinatsu noticed. Of course she did. “Tomorrow?”
Ravina looked back. “Probably.”
“Probably?”
Ravina leaned against the bar. “Cinder's moving properly again.”
“Mm.”
“Owlbert's doing really well.”
“Mm.”
“Victor is…” A crash came from behind a screen.
Victor: “I deny responsibility!”
Ravina closed her eyes. “…Victor.”
Chinatsu smiled. “He'll learn.”
“I hope.”
“You?”
Ravina looked at her. “What about me?”
“Are you ready?”
Ravina opened her mouth and stopped. That was harder, she had clearance, she had trained, she had studied. She had spent four days making sure Cinder's new body wasn't going to surprise him mid-battle. Owlbert had become more precise.
Victor… well, Victor was Victor.
Ravina looked down at her hands. “I think so.”
Chinatsu took a slow draw from her pipe. “Then perhaps you are.”
“That easy?”
“No.” Smoke curled upward. “But readiness rarely announces itself more clearly than that.”
- - - - -
That evening, Ravina spread the VS Recorder across the small table in her room.
Cinder lay beside her, not curled. He couldn't curl the same way anymore, instead his long body ran along her side, his head heavy across her lap.
Ravina scratched beneath his jaw while the screen replayed training footage. Owlbert stood on the chair opposite as Victor floated upside-down over the bed.
The Recorder showed Cinder running the course. As ravina paused, rewound and played again.
“Getting much better, my Fireball.” She scratched his chest.
Victor rotated. “He is ready.”
Ravina glanced at him. “You think?”
“I would think so.” Victor smiled. “He wants to prove it.”
Cinder's ears lifted as Ravina looked down. “Do you?”
Cinder raised his head and the answer was obvious and Ravina smiled. “Okay.”
She switched recordings. This time to Owlbert’s footage.
Hoot.
Ravina looked at him. “Yeah.”
Hoot.
“I'm not skipping you.”
Owlbert settled as Ravina watched his footage.
Patient, precise, almost annoyingly so.
“You're ready too.” Owlbert blinked.
Victor floated closer. “And I?”
Ravina stared at him as Victor widened his eyes and Ravina considered. “You are legally present.”
“Cruel.”
“You're improving.”
Victor brightened. “Say more.”
“No.”
“Cruel again.”
Ravina laughed and leaned back, Cinder resettled his head across her lap, as Victor slowly rotated above them and the room became quiet.
For a little while.
Ravina looked at the Trainer Card beside the Recorder, the Sprout Tower clearance and the unfinished line where Violet's badge would go.
One Gym.
That was still the deal.
One Gym.
She had said it so many times that the words had started to feel less like a promise and more like a joke she was waiting for someone else to notice.
Ravina looked down at Cinder, He wasn't the little Cyndaquil she'd carried out of Elm's lab anymore.
Not physically, his body had changed, his stride had changed, even his voice was deeper.
But when Ravina scratched exactly the right place beneath his jaw, his eyes closed in exactly the same way. It was different, but still Cinder.
She looked at Owlbert, he was different from Cinder, different needs and different language that was still hers to learn.
Then she moved her gaze to Victor.
Victor noticed. “What?”
Ravina smiled. “Nothing.”
“Suspicious.”
“Very.”
Victor drifted lower and Ravina reached up and paused as Victor looked at her hand.
“May I?”
The question surprised him, but only briefly, then his gas curled beneath her fingers.
Cold, not wet and not quite solid, it felt very strange.
Ravina smiled. “Three.”
Victor's eyes softened. “Three?”
Owlbert hooted.
Ravina looked at him. “Yeah.”
Cinder lifted his head as Ravina scratched behind his ear. “Tomorrow?”
Cinder stood immediately and Ravina laughed. “Okay.”
His flames ignited, controlled and bright. Victor rose and Owlbert spread his wings.
Ravina looked at all three, then toward the dark window. Violet Gym waited somewhere beyond it, for the first time, the thought didn't make her wonder whether she should go.
Only how they were going to do it and Ravina smiled. “Tomorrow we will go see Falkner.”
Cinder chirped, Owlbert hooted and Victor threw himself backward dramatically. “At last!”
Ravina pointed at him. “We are not doing a death scene if we lose.”
Victor stared. “You wound me.”
“Goodnight, Victor.”
“The eve of battle deserves ceremony!, drink!, a raging orgy!.”
“Bed.”
“I do not need sleep.”
“Then haunt quietly.”
Victor sighed. “Oppression.”
Ravina smiled as Cinder lowered himself beside her again.
Tomorrow, the Gym, One Gym… Probably.