The New Guy's First Training [LVL]

Blaze was nearing the age of adolescence, and he knew that back on Mt. Rush, that would be the time he would be getting tested to stay in the Ring of Fire with his adopted father, Luffy. However, he was on mainland currently under the watch of Ho-oh, who he sometimes called Uncle Flare. He remembered when he was young how Luffy had told him stories of the travels he and his friends, Kidd and Law, had gone on. Apparently Flare, this Ho-oh who they really never got to know, was supposed to be some sort of "lord" over them. Or "guardian", eh. He thought it was pretty cool, getting watched out for by a big, strong pokemon that made the rainbows in the sky. However he still seemed pretty nice and he respected him but always figured he'd be able to respect him more if stuff actually happened. Surely it'd come in time.

Right now, it was a day for training! Blaze was a young torchic who needed to grow strong to appeal to his deceased family and adopted family's wishes. He glanced around, wondering if there was anyone nearby he could train with.

Li let out a small sigh as she dusted sand from her fur for the hundredth time, her eyes dull. She wasn't completely sure what she was doing in the desert; she had grown bored of her home and although she was young, she knew she could handle herself; she had powers she had yet to control and would helpful if she got into a bind. She gently wiggled her folded ears, sighing. While they kept her powers in checked, they did cause the small problem of making it hard for her to hear, however, no matter! She would survive.

Her dull gaze scanned over the desert clearing when she saw a bright orange body that stuck out against the sandy ground. She dusted herself off, and slowly wandered over. While she wasn't the fondest of companionship, she had grown lonely in the last few days of wandering alone. As she reached the fire-type, she let out a soft sigh as she scanned him up and down. "Hello. May I ask what you are doing alone in this desolate place?" she said with almost no emotion, her head only slightly titled.

Blaze perked up, spinning around to face who was talking. He blinked as some sand blew by, getting in his eyes a little. "Huh? I'm training." He answered rather simply, shaking his head to get rid of some sand in his feathers. He studied Li a moment, not having seen someone as odd as her before. Her eyes kinda creeped him out. "Anyways, I could ask you the same thing. Isn't it kinda hot for you? You have so much fur..."

"Training, eh?" She said, a bit happy she had manged to catch what the Torchic had said. She shrugged as she gently ran her paws though her fur. "The heat? Nah, I will survive. I am just exploring however, training..." She paused as she gently tapped her chin with her paw. "May I take part in it?" she finally asked. "I would like to grow stronger, and I have always been told that training with others is the best way to do so."

Blaze tipped his head. A training partner? Sounded fun, though he didn't know this pokemon and for all he knew she could try to kill him or something...Well, she didn't look any stronger than himself, so that probably wasn't an issue. Besides, anyone also pursuing strength and skill was alright with him.
"Okay." He answered after a moment of thought. "Sure! It'll be cool to have a training-partner. What can you do right now?" He asked curiously, glancing at a nearby rock as if signaling that she could show him what she could do on that.

Li paused, turning her head toward the rock. She hadn't gotten all that Blaze had said, but it wasn't hard to guess what he wanted her to do. He wanted to see what she was made of. Which, she noted bitterly, wasn't very much. She strolled over to the rock, before unsheathing the claws that were hidden in her paws. She quickly slashed the rock once with both paws, before glancing sheepishly at the Torchic. "That is about it I am afraid," she said with a soft sigh. "I tend not to fight but I suppose I must grow in power...How about you? What can you do?"

Blaze blinked. "That's fine. Honestly that's all I can do as well." He replied rather bluntly, not really caring that he couldn't do much at the moment; that's why they were training, after all. He ran up to the rock and leaped up, scratching once with each foot just before he landed. Luckily he had fast feet. He looked at Li and shrugged his little feathers. "See?" He huffed, laughing slightly at himself. "We got to get stronger, because I don't think scratching stuff is going to do a lot in a crisis!"

A soft smile appeared on Li's face. "Heh, I suppose so. So, where shall we start..." She paused for a second, before shaking her head. "How silly of me; we haven't even told each other our names. I am Li. You are...?"

The torchic's eyes lit up with surprise. He had completely forgotten as well! Well, that was kinda rude. He wasn't big on manners, but a proper greeting was a key way to make friends; considering he didn't have any other than adopted family, he probably needed some. It got kinda lonely. "I'm Blaze. Nice to meet you." He replied, nodding in polite greeting. He pondered on her previous question. Where would they begin?
"Um...Maybe we should practice speeding up what we already know, so we can use them to the best of our abilities. Then maybe it'll be easier to try something harder once we master our current attacks." Blaze decided, glancing back at the rock. "You can keep using the rock. I'll use...That one!" He turned around and examined a rock about the same size, though a little oddly-shaped. Can't be picky, though.

"Alright, Blaze," Li said with a small nod of her head. "Sounds good to me." She turned her gaze back to the rock. Her eyes narrowed slightly, titling her head. While scratch was a physical attack, as an Espurr she knew that she would learn to use her Psychic powers. So, not only was she going to focus on sharping her claws, she was going to work on sharping her mind. She let her claws slide out again, and she stuck the rock hard and fast. She was going to learn what she was good at; wither it was speed or power, and use that to learn which moves she would be better at as she grew powerful. She wasn't going to let anything go unnoticed.

Blaze nodded and ran over to his rock, pausing and skidding on the hot sand as a wind blew. He huffed in annoyance as some sand stung against the skin beneath his feathers as it blew by. Stupid sandstorms and sand...breezes. He shook his head and rushed at the rock, leaping up and clawing the rock a good three times before landing this time.

Ooc: Level Count (I don't normally do this in the topics but hey why not x3)

Li
Lvl 1

Blaze
Lvl 1

Stupid. Rock. The rock caused Li's claws to hurt as she slashed at it, but she knew that it was all part of training. What did they say...No pain, no game? Yes, that was it. She paused as she checked out her claws, sighing a bit. Slashing at a solid rock was a good way to dull them, but she went back to scratching at the rock anyways. She was going to learn how to better defend herself, even it if meant having to sharping her claws back later.

Blaze just barely kept himself from squeaking in pain as his claws scraped at a brittle spot on the rock, causing his claw to chip slightly. He narrowed his eyes in annoyance and leaped at it again, slicing at a different spot. He was only able to hit three times again, but at least he was paying more attention to what he was doing. Didn't want to hit that brittle spot again, or he might cut his toe or something.

Level Count

Li
Lvl 2

Blaze
Lvl 2

After a few more scratches, Li got fed up. She dropped her paws to her side and sheathed her claws. Alright, so maybe just using scratch until she was able to learn new moves were stupid but what could she do...? She glanced at the rock, before sighing and she gently hopped onto it. She paused, hopped off again, before repeating. The Espurr smiled softly, chuckling under her breath as she hopped from the rock for the forth time. This had to be building up leg muscles or something like that, so that counted as training, right? Besides, this hopping around was fun.

Blaze grumbled in annoyance as he almost hit the brittle spot again. Turing to look and see how Li was doing, he was surprised to see her happily hopping on and off her practice-rock. Huh. It definitely looked more fun than what he was doing, and though it was hard to look closely at anything due to all the sand blowing constantly in the air, it almost looked as if with every few jumps, she got a little higher. So it was a form of training! He wanted to try something like that. Then again, looking at his feet, he wasn't sure if he'd get very far at the moment by training them. On the other hand, he had a beak...
He looked at his rock and gently pecked it. It really didn't hurt. He decided he'd work on his beak. He pecked at it again, not really using any sort of "move" but more just pecking senselessly at the rock. Hey, this had to be doing something for him. When he felt safe about it, he'd carefully peck a little harder.

Level Count

Li
Lvl 3

Blaze
Lvl 3

Li let out a small cough as she landed, glaring at the rushing storm of sand around them. It wasn't exactly enough of the sandstorm to hurt, but it was starting to bother her. She dusted herself off, and glanced over to what Blaze was doing. She smiled softly when she saw that he was just pecking at the rock now. She gently raised her arms over her head and stretched, her legs growing a bit sore after all of the jumping. After stretching her legs also, she turned back to her rock and started to hop again, this time adding a small spin when she was hopping down to add a bit of excitement and fun into the strain of hopping back and forth.

Blaze sat down a moment, scratching under some of his feathers with his peak. The sand was getting under them and making his skin itch. He shrugged it off though, because this would probably help with some kind of stamina or maybe thicken his skin or something. Probably not, but he would put up with it.
It was slightly difficult to move quickly in the sand, but that was part of the practicing! He began pecking at the rock again, this time a little harder and faster, though he had to close his eyes to keep the sand out.

As Li landed on the sand once again, she glanced at the rock with a slightly interested look. Her ears shifted slightly, but never moved out of being folded. What was she doing? She was a psychic type, but so far everything she had done was physical. She had to work on growing her mind more; to gain control over what was not normally touchable. She turned her whole body toward the rock and plopped onto the sand. Now sitting, she turned her dull gaze to the rock and just let the sand hit her. She blocked out everything, the pain of the sand striking her fur, the sound of the sand whirling around her (which wasn't hard as she could barely hear it anyways) and focused solely on the rock. She tried to let her mind expand toward the rock, trying to let her powers be used without unpleasing it all at once like it would if she unfolded her ears. She needed to sharpen and take control of her mind. Yes, this was the perfect training for a psychic type.

The torchic huffed as he paused a moment to catch his breath. He glanced once more at Li and blinked in confusion(and also because there was sand in his eyes still). Now she was just sitting there, staring oddly at the rock. He was curious as to what form of training she could be doing, but figured it probably had something to do with her species or type or something. Shrugging and fluffing out his feathers, he turned to the rock and decided to try something elemental of his own...Maybe. He recalled how Luffy could make little embers come out of his mouth when he wanted a weak fire move(though for Luffy, being Level 50, it was still pretty strong for an Ember) to light something with. Blaze got into an offensive position of some sort, leaning forward slightly and one foot further back than the other for pressure against the sand and to put more strength into his push as he tried to focus, and opened his mouth. He attempted to heat up his mouth using his inner-heat, and thought for a moment he was, which caused him to get too excited and instead of any kind of fire, he let out a growl. Yeah, he used Growl. Blaze shut his mouth in embarrassment. He wasn't trying to do that, especially since he couldn't really "lower the rock's attack". It's not like the rock was gonna jump up and hit him suddenly...Unless it was one of those bug-crab things who wore rocks on their backs in disguise. He shoved against it to make sure. Yeah, it wasn't that strongly held on the ground, and there was sand beneath it. Good.

Li's gaze was unwavering until she heard something from the direction of Blaze. She was unable to make out what it was, and although she was tempted to look, she remained true to her goal. She pushed Blaze to the back of her mind and grew completely focused on the rock. Nothing yet, but she would be getting there soon...Right? She knew the sand was striking against her, trying to break her gaze but she wouldn't do it. Of course, as she attempted to use a psychic move, she noted she wouldn't be half surprise if she was just using Leer against the rock instead. It was hard to tell with her gaze; it was as if she was always using that move.

Blaze puffed his cheeks in irritation, then glanced back again to make sure Li hadn't noticed. Nope, she still seemed to be focusing on the rock. Relieved, he turned back to the rock and stepped back, trying again. This time, he made sure to keep his vocals from suddenly ringing out and growling again.
Yes, he could feel his mouth getting warmer...Warmer...Annndddd--
Nope. It fizzled out and he coughed slightly as he tasted a bit of smoke. Rolling his eyes, he stood back to try again.

Li sighed as she stared at the rock, her ears shifting a bit more. She wanted to go all out, to finally use her psychic powers that were building inside her, but she knew how dangerous it was. She had been told many times by the elder Meowstic that she had lived with to never uncover her ears unless she had to. So, she settled back and went back to her focusing. She couldn't help but wonder how Blaze was doing thought, had he learned any good moves yet?

Blaze fizzled out once more. Maybe if he tried focusing more; ignore the sand, it was no big deal. He only had to ignore it completely for a moment anyways while he tried this. Getting into position again, he began to heat his mouth, his beak opening up carefully. He felt his whole body start to heat up a little as he blocked out the rest of the sand as it hit his body, eyes locked onto the rock. Tasting a bit of smoke, he quickly stopped, and sputtered a little when he realized some sand had flown in his mouth.

Li finally stopped paying attention to the rock for a few seconds to see what Blaze was doing. She turned her head in time to see him sputtering. She raised an eyebrow, a bit interested as she wondered what exactly he was doing, but turned her attention back to the rock. She was going to do this...She was going to use her Psychic powers, even if it wore her out.

Blaze growled lowly in annoyance, eyes narrowing as he glared at the rock. He shut his eyes, focusing as much as he could; but before he could try to open his mouth and attempt Ember again, he already felt his body heat up and become tense, adrenaline out of nowhere rushing to his head. His eyes flicked open, his energy getting a boost as he jumped up and clawed at the rock again, using Scratch. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized he had left a mark. The adrenaline was still there, but when he tried again, he didn't leave a mark. Must have been what they call a...
...Critical Hit   

Anyways, he thought of what just happened, and it only took him a moment to realize...He had used Focus Energy! Feeling rather proud of himself(especially because it was still in effect), he decided to try Ember again...It fizzled. Oh, and there went his Focus Energy since his sudden irritation from failing again made him lose his focus.