Excerpt 1 for the Pioneers of Jasmines

Battered and bruised, Zheng resolutely pushes himself back up. He was running before he was fully upright, but yet again, he didn't make ten steps before being hurled bodily backwards by a shockwave that ripples visibly upon the area of barren loam miles in diameter within the Viridian Forest.

"You should've just let me at him. You're as insane as he is, agreeing to this," said a voice in Zheng's head. "No, I'm not, and neither is he. You saw it as surely as I did - he performed both Rock Polish and Swords Dance only thrice, meaning he still innately understands the law of the Original One. There's nothing you can do anyway. You'll have to land in order to attack, and he only need one Earthquake in this state to defeat you."

As if on cue, the Rhyperior bellowed his challenge. Through his telepathic connection, Zheng understood the message within the roar - "Hiding behind your treacherous trainer, Metang? Come face me, you who learned nothing but cowardice from humans! Let us pit bright starsteel against solid granite, and see who is the stronger!"

Zheng smiled wryly as he mentally pictured Corrin flexing his claws, itching to rake the Rhyperior's eyes as he (Corrin likes to be referred as 'him') continue to telekinese himself higher than the effective range of the Rhyperior's attacks. "Remind me again why you want to do this, Zheng."

"Because I can understand the hurt in his eyes."

Corrin mentally kicked himself. That was Zheng all right. So willing to emphatise with other Pokemon's pains and griefs, Corrin wondered if it would bring about their downfall. No, he won't. Not on my watch.

A sudden movement that was never there before drew Corrin's attention. That idiot. While the wild - no, abandoned - Rhyperior was venting his lungs at him, Zheng actually used that momentary respite to get within striking distance of the rock behemoth. Instinctually, the Rhyperior swiped a massive foreclaw at the puny human.

"No!" In that instant, Corrin reversed his telekinese, simultaneously imbuing his claws with his mind as his grey-blue body plummets under the combined forces of psychics and physics. Knowing he was too late, Corrin's only thought was to take the humungous monstrosity down with him, laying in final rest with the one human he trust and the opponent he tributed to him.

"... You won."

Those two words, with their bass tones, literally stopped Corrin in his tracks. Zheng smiled, briefly, his hand on Rhyperior's horn as his body dangled within the potentially bone-crushing grasp, before hugging the said horn.