A New Dream

Humans are Complicated: Paul's POV

 "Again," I commanded, folding my arms and watching Litten intently. 

Taking a deep breath, Litten growled and flames leaked out from his mouth, forming the semblance of fiery teeth. Unfortunately, as the flames chomped down on the stump of a tree he was targeting they disintegrated without causing any damage. Litten hung his head in frustration. 

We had been working on Fire Fang for several days as we traveled through the forests, battling every pokemon that we encountered. During a particularly difficult battle against a wild Mankey, Litten learned Double Kick, which would be useful for the trial at Verdant Cave. However, he still had yet to master Fire Fang and my patience was beginning to run thin.

"Ember isn't going to cut it, Litten," I stated bluntly and Litten turned sad yellow eyes on me as he meowed pitifully. I narrowed my eyes at the show of weakness and he immediately held his head higher and nodded swiftly, turning back towards the tree stump and preparing himself to try again.

After another hour of similar results, I told him to stop. Grumbling with annoyance I pulled some pokemon food and a sandwich out of my food supplies. Litten attacked his food with gusto and I shook my head. The little pokemon was adapting well to my training, hardly ever complaining even when I had him run with me for nearly an hour every day. I felt confident that he would become a strong pokemon and he had excellent stats for an unevolved pokemon, but I worried about his inability to produce a powerful Fire Fang. 

What am I missing? I wondered, glancing over at the large, untouched bowl of pokemon food that I had left out for Torterra.

"Hey, Torterra! We're eating lunch," I called out towards the area of the forest he had wandered into as Litten and I trained. 

I heard a faint response to my yell and turned back to my own lunch, pulling out my digital map of Melemele Island. After I got my z-stone bracelet from Hala I left immediately without looking back. But ever since then Torterra had seemed moody and I wondered irritably if he had wanted to say goodbye to Dawn before we left.

Why on earth did Torterra get so attached to her? I wondered, catching myself grinding my teeth angrily. 

Shaking my head I turned back to my study of the map, measuring the distance and figuring that we would reach Verdant Cave tomorrow if we spent the day traveling instead of training, which I was loathe to do. 

Something wriggling stretched past my shoulder and I jerked back instinctively before realizing that it was one of Torterra's vines. I watched as the vines reached past me, picked up the bowl of pokemon food, and began retracting. Leaning back I watched with narrowed eyes as Torterra brought the bowl to where he was standing on the edge of the trees several feet away from me and began eating without a glance in my direction.

"Torterra, what are you doing?" I asked angrily but Torterra ignored me, reaching down and taking a bite of his food. 

Frustration blazed through me and I stood up, stuffing my navigation tool into my pocket and walking over to my stubborn pokemon.

"What is wrong with you? Since when do you ignore me?" I asked harshly, coming to stand within inches of his nose. 

Torterra looked up at me and narrowed his large black eyes, a low rumble emanating from his chest.

"Please tell me you are not mad because we left without saying goodbye to that coordinator," I said through clenched teeth.

"Tor," Torterra responded in his deep voice before turning back to his food.

"We're not in Alola to make friends, Torterra. We're here to train and get stronger," I growled at him, clenching my hands into fists. 

Torterra raised his huge head so he could look at me and I thought I saw sadness in his expression, which made me frown.