She trills and headbutts Umbreon.

"She is pretty well worth watching."

"I am."

Umbreon laughs. 

"It'd be good to have another perspective on our performance, as well."

Enthusiastic nodding!

She smiles a bit shyly. "Okay."

Smile.

"Think we had best get ready for bed now, then."

Nod.

(She still goes to curl up in her nest, of course. Nest good.)

Still Ellie and Intrepid together, then.

She's not quite ready to share nighttime cuddles yet, anyways.

And so the next morning, it's a party of three to visit the gym.

Umbreon is very skittish on their walk to the gym, but it does help a lot that she's now willing to press as closely to Ellie as possible without tripping the girl.

She helps keep Umbreon calm.

What're they doing today?

More obstacle courses in the morning, in the afternoon there's a couple slots open for practice battles.

Ooo, battles!

Should be fun.

Yeah!

Obstacle courses first, of course - Intrepid has a lot of fun with these still.

They can start doing the ones with randomly-falling rocks that Ellie has to call out for Intrepid too.

Oh, this one's exciting, and differently challenging than the others... Helps Intrepid not get so much in her own head, too, so she's listening to Ellie more...

And Ellie's getting snappier at callouts too.

Then, after a nice lunch in the park (giving Umbreon some time away from people): battling!

Battling! Mostly what they get here is a broader survey of the various rock-types they'll encounter progressing forward in the gym challenge.

It's fun all the same.

Umbreon steps forward after the second practice bout, making a curious noise and glancing at Ellie.