Axel had always thought that his mother taking time off from her research was a good thing, something that meant more time together, more stories, and fewer nights spent waiting for her to come home late.
That illusion shattered the moment she calmly announced his new training schedule.
"You will practice your psychic abilities for one full hour every day," Elara said, her tone gentle but completely unyielding.
Axel stared at her.
At first, he thought he had heard her wrong.
"…One hour?" he repeated slowly, his voice cracking just a little.
His eyes widened, his face paling as the meaning truly sank in, and his mouth fell open in pure disbelief, as if she had just declared that he needed to climb a mountain every morning before breakfast.
"One whole hour… every day?" he said again, horror clearly written across his face. "Mom, that's impossible! Even adults can barely handle twenty minutes! Most psychics collapse if they go any longer!"
Elara crossed her arms and nodded, as if agreeing with him.
"Yes. That's exactly why you're doing it."
Axel's expression completely collapsed.
Before he could protest again, she gestured calmly to the side of the room.
"And they'll be staying with you all the time."
Axel turned his head.
Floating silently nearby were two strange Pokémon—small, feline-like creatures with smooth blue-and-white fur, their bodies hovering just above the floor as if gravity itself had little authority over them. Their large eyes were sharp, intelligent, and unsettlingly calm, and both of them were focused entirely on him.
"…All the time?" Axel asked weakly, already fearing the answer.
The male one floated closer, stopping just inches from his face, staring at him without blinking.
The female tilted her head slightly, her gaze piercing and curious.
Axel felt a chill run down his spine.
"This feels excessive," he muttered under his breath.
Elara smiled faintly. "This is called being careful."
She stepped closer and rested a hand on his head.
"These are my Pokémon. A male and female Meowstic. They specialize in psychic control and stabilization. Until you can fully manage your powers on your own, they will not leave your side."
Axel's shoulders slumped.
"…So I'm being babysat by psychic cats."
The male Meowstic gave a single, slow nod.
Axel sighed deeply. "I knew today was cursed."
The training began that very day.
Axel sat cross-legged on the floor, eyes tightly shut, hands clenched as waves of psychic energy surged chaotically through his mind, crashing into his thoughts with no rhythm or restraint, leaving behind nothing but pressure and pain.
His breathing grew uneven.
"I—I can't focus," he gasped, his head throbbing violently.
"Don't resist it," Elara instructed calmly. "Guide it."
Before Axel could even attempt to respond, the Meowstic reacted.
A cool, firm psychic field wrapped around his consciousness, pushing the wild energy inward, compressing it, forcing it to slow and obey. The sensation was intense, like trying to force a raging river back into a narrow channel.
Axel trembled, sweat forming on his forehead.
It felt unbearable.
Yet somehow, he endured.
As the days passed, something strange became apparent.
Axel was not exhausting himself the way newly awakened psychics normally did.
Most people could only train for ten to twenty minutes before complete mental fatigue set in, often requiring long hours—or even days—of sleep to recover.
Axel trained for a full hour.
Then got up.
Then ate.
Then slept normally.
The reason was terrifyingly simple.
During the resurrection accident, when the half-formed pink Amaura variant had collapsed and died, Axel had unknowingly absorbed the residual psychic energy left behind by the shiny fossil Pokémon—a specimen that had possessed abnormally strong psychic traits even among its kind.
That power had fused with him.
He now carried psychic potential comparable to five trained psychics combined.
A blessing.
And a danger.
During that same week, Axel made a quiet decision.
The memories of another world—another life—were too distracting, too heavy to face all at once.
So he locked them away.
He carefully stored those memories deep within his mind, sealing them behind layers of mental barriers, only allowing them to surface when he slept.
Dreaming became his new form of entertainment.
Every night, fragments of that other world played out before him, and without realizing it, his way of thinking grew sharper, calmer, and far more mature than any child his age had a right to be.
By the seventh day, everything changed.
Axel sat in meditation, eyes closed, posture steady, his breathing slow and controlled.
There was no pain.
No pressure.
No violent surge of power threatening to burst free.
The Meowstic hovered quietly beside him, their psychic output minimal, no longer needing to actively restrain him.
Elara checked the readings, her eyes widening slightly.
"…You're stable," she said softly.
Axel opened his eyes.
The constant feeling of overflow was gone, replaced by a deep, quiet stillness.
"I feel… normal," he said, almost surprised by the truth of it.
Elara exhaled, relief finally showing on her face. "You've stabilized your power. Not perfected it—but stabilized it."
Axel leaned back and collapsed onto the floor, staring at the ceiling.
"…Finally."
The next morning, Axel woke up early.
He padded into the kitchen, pulled out two carefully sealed packets, and poured their contents into bowls placed neatly on the floor.
They were rare-edition Pokéblocks, specially designed for psychic Pokémon, expensive and difficult to obtain.
The Meowstic ate quietly, clearly pleased.
Axel crossed his arms, nodding with satisfaction. "That stuff costs more than my snacks, you know."
The female Meowstic let out a soft purr.
Worth it.
After breakfast, Axel grabbed his school bag.
"I'm heading out," he called.
Elara smiled from the doorway. "Don't overdo it."
The school was only a ten-minute walk from home.
It was small, modest, and run by just three teachers, with fewer than a hundred students in total. Classes were divided into four grades, ranging from toddlers to children on the verge of choosing their future paths—Trainer, Breeder, Adventurer, or Researcher.
Axel belonged to Grade Two.
As he walked down the quiet road leading through town, the afternoon sunlight filtering gently through the trees, he felt lighter than he ever had before.
Without stopping, without drawing attention to himself, Axel released his psychic power.
The response was immediate.
Flowers along the roadside trembled softly before lifting into the air, their petals spinning gently as if caught in an invisible breeze, while fallen leaves rose one by one, floating weightlessly beside him in a slow, graceful dance.
Axel continued walking, hands tucked into his pockets, his expression calm and composed as the world responded silently to his will.
One by one, the flowers and leaves settled back to the ground as he released his focus.
Axel did not smile.
But deep within his eyes, now faintly tinted with pink, there was quiet certainty.
This was only the beginning.