Lazarus and Mike stand next to each other inside one of the training rooms of the building.
The room is divided unequally into two parts by a one-way mirror, making the 1/3rd of the room into a viewing deck for trainers to observe their pokémon in action.
On the other side of the one-way mirror are Lazarus's pokémon, playing with each other.
"Can the Dreepy tap into dragon force already?" Mike asks.
"Yes, it wasn't very hard. I just gave Kamish some basic instructions, and he managed to pick it up in less than two days."
"Two days. Huh." Mike thinks for a moment before saying, "It's not unheard of, but still very rare. What do you know of his parentage?"
"He's born to two Calamity pokémon. Sunfyre is the mother."
Mike shoots a surprised look at Lazarus, "His father is a Calamity Dragapult? It can't be Vect—"
"I am not hundred percent sure, but I can't think of another Calamity Dragapult. The timeline matches as well. Before coming to Sinnoh, Sunfyre attacked a Galarian city."
"Huh… so Vector and Sunfyre. Those are two of the strongest dragons in existence. I don't think I have ever seen a combination of parents this strong. You really did hit the genetic lottery with this one."
"Believe me, I know. Can't tell you how surprised I was when I found out."
Mike becomes curious about this second pokémon as well, "What about the Vulpix, is she special as well?"
"Born to two Alolan Ninetales one of them is a Calamity."
Mike sighs. "I hope you know what this means for you as a trainer. Powerful pokémon are notoriously hard to control, especially Dragon types. Sometimes even the young ones don't listen to their trainers. And let me tell you, nothing pretty happens when a pokémon refuses to listen to its trainer."
Lazarus sighs, "Logically I know I should worry about my pokémon turning on me, but I just don't. My mother taught me a thing or two about bonding with pokémon, and besides I have faith in Kamish. I think I'll be fine."
"I just hope for your sake that it's true." Mike nods, "Try talking to them."
Lazarus brings the microphone he's holding closer to his mouth and speaks, "Kamish, Aurora, can you hear me?"
On the other side of the mirror, the Dreepy and the Vulpix perk up, they excitedly look around in hopes of finding their trainer.
"You won't find me there, I am behind the mirror. We are trying out a little something over here, so just sit tight, I'll ask you to do something and then we can go have dinner. What do you guys think?"
Kamish and Aurora look at each other and nod. They like food.
Lazarus turns to Mike and asks, "Alright, now what?"
Mike says, "So we use this room to administer a test where we check to see how well a trainer and their pokémon can coordinate. I want to see how well your pokémon listen to you, and how well you can convey information to them."
Lazarus nods, "Okay, sounds good to me."
Mike feeds some data into his wristcomm, and the light in the the pokémon section of the room goes out.
Kamish and Aurora are surprised at this, Kamish gets down on the ground and stands in front of Aurora to protect her.
"Calm down, don't panic, I am still there. I can see you clearly." Lazarus says to calm them, "There is nothing to worry about."
Both pokémon go back to doing what they were doing.
"Not sure how helpful cutting off the lights is going to be. I am pretty sure Dragon types can see in the dark." Lazarus says.
"It doesn't matter. I won't make your Dreepy dodge any obstacles. Instead, he will be racing to get hit by a beam of light. Look at the mirror."
The one-way mirror becomes a digital screen that shows everything on the other side of the room in night vision.
Lazarus looks at the screen in front of him that is now displaying a 3D render of the entire room, where 1 meter of the room is equal to 1 centimeter on the render.
"Your objective as a trainer is simple. The render on the screen will also let you know where the light is going to hit a couple of seconds before it actually does. Tell your Dreepy to go to that place. If he manages to get there at the same time the beam of light does six out of ten times, then you will have passed the test. We'll do something different for your Vulpix."
Lazarus nods, "Alright, sounds easy enough."
Mike smiles at him. "You'd be surprised how many trainers fail at this. I will give you a couple of minutes to prepare before we begin the test."
Lazarus closes his eyes, and his mind starts solving the problem.
'Since the beam of light is going to project downwards from the ceiling, Kamish doesn't need to be in a specific location on the z-axis. I only need to think about where he needs to be on the x-axis and y-axis. He is facing towards me, and I am standing to his east.
All language training modules include cardinal directions, so I can use them to angle Kamish in the right direction. That leaves him the problem of him traveling to the exact spot where the light is going to hit.
I could tell him the exact distance he needs to travel by calculating the dimensions of the room, but Kamish doesn't have accurate spatial intelligence yet. But I know his top speed, so I'll just calculate the exact moment he needs to sprint at his top speed to reach our target at the same time as the beam.'
Lazarus opens his eyes and nods to Mike.
—
On the other side of the mirror, Kamish floats in the air, and Aurora is sitting on the ground, licking her snowy white fur, trying to make it as pristine as possible.
"Alright, Kamish we are going to play a game. Would you like to." Kamish hears the voice of his trainer again.
A game? Kamish is intrigued. He nods. He likes playing games, he has never lost one.
"Alright, here is what you need to do. Face your west side, and dash forward at your top speed when I tell you to."
Kamish feels confused, what kind of game is this? but still nods, and does what he is told.
After four seconds, he hears Lazarus say, "Go."
Kamish dashes through the air, taking 1.2 seconds to reach his top speed of 20 km per hour, which is quite impressive for a newborn pokémon.
Kamish flies through the air for 4.56 seconds before a beam of light is projected down from the ceiling, which Kamish misses by barely 3.6 inches.
—
"Tsk, missed it by a fraction of a second," Lazarus says as he looks at the stopwatch timer on his wristcomm.
"No, that was pretty impressive, you caught on pretty fast," Mike says to Lazarus, somewhat impressed. "Virtually no one passes this test without at least a week of training from us."
Lazarus nods, "Let's do it again."
The location the light is going to hit updates with a 10-second countdown.
It takes Kamish 1.2 seconds to reach his top speed of 20km. The target is 30 meters to his north. Minus the time it takes for him to reach his top speed, it will take him 6 seconds to reach the target.
"Face your south and keep moving in that direction slowly. I'll tell you when to stop."
Kamish slowly floats southwards.
"Stop. Now face your north." Then Lazarus waits 4 seconds before commanding Kamish, "Now go."
Lazarus and Mike see Kamish sprint through the air. He takes 6 seconds to reach 30 meters, and 0.3 seconds later the beam of light falls on him.
Lazarus smiles at their victory, "Good job, Kamish, you did it. Now you just need to do this seven more times and you win."
Kamish is pleased. He can do this seven more times, no problem.
—
Mike and Lazarus do the test seven more times, and Kamish nails it every time.
"So you said you had a different test for Aurora?" Lazarus asks.
"Yeah, but I am pretty sure you will pass that one as well," Mike says before tinkering with his wristcomm. "She just has to dodge some balls we are going to shoot at her. They are made of sponge so she won't get hurt. Oh and she has to jump, she can't sidestep it."
Lazarus sees the display change. Instead of the 3D map, it now shows multiple holes on the walls where the sponge balls will be fired from.
"It will fire four balls from each direction straight at your pokémon. The display will tell you the speed at which the balls will travel."
'Huh, this one is quite simply, I just have to determine how fast Aurora has to jump depending on the speed of the balls.'
"The display will let you know of the speed of the balls six seconds before they shoot out."
"Alright, give me a second," Lazarus says as he sees Aurora praising Kamish for a job well done by patting him on his head with her little paws.
"Aurora, it's your turn now, get ready. You just need to stand where you are and jump when I tell you to. Don't go anywhere else just jump. Okay?"
Aurora cheerily yips towards the mirror and gets up on all fours, ready to do some work.
"And Kamish, go back in the air, stay away from Lazarus says to Mike, who nods.
Lazarus looks at the screen, which shows the trajectory of all 4 balls and their speed. All 4 will shoot out at a speed of 16km per hour.
Lazarus calculates the time the sponge ball will take to reach Aurora as 3.5 seconds.
Soon, 4 balls shoot out from the walls at Aurora, one from each cardinal direction, so she can't just jump out of the way.
Lazarus waits 2.5 seconds before commanding Aurora to jump.
Aurora wastes no time jumping as high as she can. Below her, all 4 balls of sponge collide with each other.
Mike shurgs, "And there is that. Tomorrow I will show you the Battle Arena."
"Can we have a battle tomorrow." Lazarus asks.
"You can. But the pokémon you'll be fighting against has been training here for some time now. Are you sure you don't want to train them first."
"If we lose, we lose. I don't care about winning, I only care about maintaining a fast growth speed. Mistakes are a great learning opportunity."
Mike laughs, "If only every newbie thought like you."