“Alright guys, let him have some Water Guns!” I called out. From my experimenting earlier with Nereus, I knew that Water Gun was the only offensive move he knew. Nerissa had yet to use any moves, but if my game knowledge was correct, she should know it from birth.

  Nereus fired off a strong Water Gun while Nerissa looked at me, confused. After seeing her big brother perform the attack, she managed a weak imitation.

  Both attacks did little more than wet Lucario’s fur. He didn’t even raise his arms to block the strike, instead letting the water hit him square in the chest.

  “Looks like we need to try harder. Hit him again, Nereus. This time let’s put some more power into it!” I called out as I opened my aura and let Nereus take as much as he needed.

  The ball of water shot out much faster; however, all Lucario had to do was swing his arm, knocking the attack aside.

  “If that’s the best you can do, Lucario won’t be moving anytime soon,” Cynthia teased. I could see a grin growing on Lucario’s face, something I wanted to wash away after the pain he had caused me earlier in the morning.

  We need more power. Water Gun just isn’t a strong enough attack to do anything meaningful to a Pokémon so much stronger than we are right now.

  Suddenly, I was struck with inspiration. Manaphy were hatched in the game knowing only one damaging move, but they had two other moves as part of their base learnset.

  Crouching down, I spoke softly to Nerissa. “Hey there, we’re going to have to try something a little different. I need you to use a move called Tail Glow. Try focusing power into the bulbs at the end of your tail.”

  Nerissa let out a happy chirp before closing her eyes and focusing hard. I thought I could see a small glow coming from the bulbs of her tail, but it faded quickly. Nerissa then slumped down, looking exhausted.

  I tried to direct some of my aura to Nerissa, who was more than happy to drink her fill of the empowering energy. After looking revitalized, I asked her to keep practicing Tail Glow while Nereus worked on packing as much energy into a Water Gun as he could.

  Both of them took regular breaks to feed off my aura while I spent the rest of the session talking with Cynthia. She had decided that I needed a language lesson, cutting off the psychic link, speaking a sentence, then reestablishing the link to get me to say what I thought she had said.

  I was not great at this, although the fact that I was able to pick up on some of the words did surprise me. I had always been bad at languages in school. Cynthia seemed to believe it was a sign of my growing control over my aura.

  After a few hours had passed, Cynthia excused herself, saying that she had other work to attend to and that a league official would stop by with dinner after my final session.

  Feeling emotionally drained after my Pokémon had been drinking my aura constantly over the last few hours, I got up and approached Lucario.

  “Are you ready for your final session of the day?” he asked.

  “Physical conditioning, right? Let me guess, now that my aura is all drained, you’re going to spend the next hour kicking my ass across this dojo?” I responded sarcastically.

  “Next hours,” Lucario corrected, a smile appearing on his face.

  “Wait, you’re being serious? I was hoping you were just going to have me running and doing push-ups,” I said quickly as I slowly backed away from the Fighting-type approaching me.

  “Those are things you can do on your own time. I am a Champion-ranked Pokémon. Personal training from me should not be wasted on such things. Now get ready!” he cried as he dashed forward, sending an open palm into my chest and causing me to fly backward.

  I hit the ground hard. As I tried to breathe, it felt like no air would enter my chest, he had winded me in one hit, I thought as I tried to push myself back to my feet.

  The following hours consisted of Lucario chasing me around the dojo. He would catch me quickly, deliver a handful of blows against my feeble attempt at a guard, then finish with a powerful strike that would break my defense and send me flying.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  This often resulted in me throwing up as I tried to catch my breath. Lucario was at least nice enough to wait for me to finish and get back to my feet before continuing the assault.

  Surprisingly, despite the horrible abuse I was taking, at no point did I think about staying down. Instead, each time I dragged myself to my feet and raised my arms again in a poor attempt to avoid the onslaught coming my way.

  At no point did I manage a counterattack, hell, I didn’t even attempt one.

  After I hit the ground for what I’m pretty sure was the thousandth time, Lucario called an end to the session. “You did better than I was expecting,” he said with a smile.

  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were almost proud of me,” I replied in a hoarse voice.

  This seemed to confuse Lucario. “Why would you think I wasn’t proud of you?”

  “Well, you just spent the last few hours kicking my arse. In that time, I didn’t manage to properly block or dodge a single attack, and I didn’t throw a single punch or kick,” I replied, feeling down about the one-sided beating I’d received.

  “HAHA! Roland, as I said, I am a Champion ranked Pokémon as well as a Fighting-type master. From what I saw, you’ve had no formal martial arts training, correct?”

  I nodded weakly.

  “So if you had put up any meaningful resistance, it would’ve been a mark against my skill, not yours. You did well, and most importantly, you did not give up. An attitude like that will take you far.”

  I was taken aback by his praise. “I figured even if I stayed down, you would have just started kicking me again,” I said honestly.

  “Indeed I would have. We all grow from struggle. If I didn’t provide a suitable challenge, you would never grow. Now go and rest, the remainder of the day is yours. I suggest you sleep at some point, as we’ll be doing all of this again tomorrow,” Lucario said before leaving the dojo.

  Walking over to my Pokémon, I collapsed against the side of their pool, truly exhausted from the day’s training.

  “So, what do you guys think about Lucario and this place?”

  “Hor, horsey.”

  “Mana, phy.”

  “Yeah, he’s kind of a dick, but from what little I know about Pokémon training, constantly fighting stronger opponents should make us stronger in turn. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. Unless this world has some serious anime bullshit going on, I’m not going to be able to move tomorrow.”

  “Horsey hor horsey horse.”

  “I get that not being able to hurt Lucario sucks, but I do actually have a plan that might help with that.”

  “Horsey?” the little seahorse asked, tilting his head.

  “You see, Nerissa should actually know three moves: Water Gun, Tail Glow, and a move called Heart Swap.”

  Both of my Pokémon were looking at me with rapt attention.

  “Heart Swap is the signature move of Manaphy, meaning no other Pokémon can learn it.” I paused. “Actually, I don’t think that’s entirely true, there should be one more Pokémon that can naturally learn it, but Magearna should be just as rare as Manaphy, so it’s not something we need to worry about.”

  “What Tail Glow does is raise the user’s Special Attack. That energy you’re building up inside you will make your attacks stronger,” I explained.

  “Heart Swap switches Nerissa’s buffs with the target’s. Usually, that means letting an enemy set up and then stealing their boosts, but what if Nerissa boosts herself and then passes that power to you, Nereus? Then you use that power to blow Lucario away when he’s not expecting it!”

  “Horsey!”

  “Phy!”

  Both of my Pokémon were excited about the plan, excited that they finally had a chance to show Lucario they weren’t as weak as he thought.

  “We’ll only get one shot at this. I doubt they know about Heart Swap, so the boosted power should come as a surprise. They’ll be on guard against Nerissa, not Nereus, we’ll need to use that as a distraction.”

  With a plan in place, and me resting on the floor, Nereus went back to working on Water Gun while Nerissa tried to get Heart Swap to work.

  After ten minutes of trying and failing, Nerissa waddled over to me.

  “Phy, Manaphy.”

  “You’re having trouble using the move?” I asked.

  “Phy.”

  “Hmm… Heart Swap is a move only Manaphy learn, which suggests there’s something about Manaphy as a species that enables it. Manaphy are known for forming bonds with any Pokémon and living in harmony—maybe it’s connected to that.”

  “Mana,” Nerissa said, tilting her head, still confused.

  “You’re connected to me through aura. Try using it on me, feel that connection and send some of the stored power into me.”

  Nerissa closed her eyes as her tail glowed faintly. After a moment, I felt a pull in my chest. A small ball of light emerged from me, while a much brighter one left Nerissa’s chest.

  The two orbs circled once before swapping places.

  Intense pressure hit me as Nerissa’s boosted power entered my body. I fell forward, gasping for air, afraid my chest would explode if I didn’t do something with it. The human body wasn’t designed to hold Pokémon-level power, but I had no attacks to release it.

  Then it hit me. Aura.

  Dropping into a meditative pose, I forced the energy to move, slowly converting it into aura. My control was awful, small cuts appeared across my skin as excess power bled out. None were deep, thankfully.

  It felt like hours as I gritted my teeth and slowly drained the power. Too much at once would injure me; leaving it too long would probably destroy my organs.

  When I opened my eyes, both Nerissa and Nereus were staring at me wide-eyed.

  “What is it?” I asked, then looked down. I was covered in a thin sheen of blood, all superficial.

  Wiping it away, I realized the bruises from Lucario’s beating were gone. Not only that, but my depleted aura had been fully restored.

  I stood, flexing each limb. I felt incredible, better than I had since waking up in this world.

  “Well,” I said, grinning, “I think we just discovered what people from my world would call an exploit.”