Time might have flown by, but Beldum had only just left its infancy behind.
Around the nineteenth day, roughly three days after graduation, Beldum finally made it through its infant stage.
Ash could pinpoint the nineteenth day because he measured Beldum's length every day and took photos on his phone as keepsakes. On the eighteenth day, Beldum had more or less reached the average length for its species, so presumably it would leave infancy behind on the nineteenth.
There was no helping it. With other Pokémon, he could judge by when they naturally learned a new move, but Beldum had known Take Down since birth, and Take Down was all it knew. Unless someone taught it, it wouldn't gain any other moves until it evolved into Metang.
Today was the day Beldum left infancy behind. In other words, it could start training. But Ash had never intended to rush its development and immediately order it to start training or anything. That would be too cruel.
Well... no rush, no rush.
There really was no rush.
Because he couldn't find Beldum.
"Fuck." Ash fell into a manly silence.
"...Where did it go? Where could it even go?" Ash sighed deeply.
The training ground was probably the only possibility.
Ash headed toward the training ground. Perhaps because he had been away and none of his Pokémon had been training nearby, the surrounding Pokémon started showing themselves. Ash's Pokémon were so intimidating that the weaker wild Pokémon hid whenever they could and rarely poked their heads out.
Yes, Ash had gone home. The siblings had simply hugged as usual, without any words of farewell.
It wasn't the first time Ash had been apart from Ash. He would miss him, of course, but he wasn't all that upset.
He was used to it by