Sunlight filters through a lace of reeds, glittering on the lake’s surface. Typhon floats in the cool shallows, his heavy bulk submerged entirely, cradled by the water, his red-ridged spines barely breaking the surface. He keeps still, letting the faint current rock him gently. He’s quiet. Hiding, really. Training is supposed to start soon. He drifts just a little farther from shore and tries to look like he belongs here, like a fat blue log breathing softly.

He rolls a slow ripple with his tail, testing how far it carries across the lake, his claws brushing slightly against his softened underside, then relaxing. The "Candies" sit heavy in his mind the way they sit heavy in his body: sweet, crackling energy on his tongue, a bright rush that should mean strength. It doesn’t. Not for him, not without the hard part, the hits and the burns and the bruises he dreads. The energy settles instead, padding him, thickening his middle, slowing him. He wonders if that’s his fault. He wonders if everything is, and the thought makes him sink another inch under, hiding the heat in his cheeks with cool water.

If he were like other Feraligatr, he’d be chomping rocks and shrugging off Thunder Punches by now. He isn’t. He’s the frail runt, hoping range and space will make up for it. "Maybe if I just try harder," he thinks, "maybe next time it’ll work the way it’s supposed to." The idea flickers, fragile as a bubble.

He pictures his friend’s face. How it looks when he does well, how it drops when he fails. That image tugs at him more than fear. He wants to be good, to be worth all those candies and all that faith.

"I… I’ll do better,"

he whispers to himself, the sound muffled by the water.

"I’ll try. I want to be good for you..."

He imagines starting strong; one clean shot, keep them away, don’t let them close and hurt you. The image blurs with the memory of a body that's failed him so many times, of all the hits he's never been tough enough to withstand, the opponents he'd been too afraid to stand up to.

If a call were to drift over the lake, he already knows what he’ll do: tip his head, close his eyes, and float still as driftwood, pretending to sleep until the voice fades. Maybe even go under entirely, he can hold his breath for more than twenty minutes. The thought brings a surge of guilt. It isn’t defiance. Typhon is a good Pokémon; he'll always be good. It’s fear trying to wear the shape of rest. He hates that he has learned it so well.