Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Start Game 1.1

June 21st, 2022

I pinched the bridge of my nose, holding back the growing headache I was dealing with. Once that was done my attention shifted to the handsome man facing me from the opposite side of the table, who wore a grey coat over a black undershirt and black dress shoes. A member of the international police named Tedesco from the looks of it.

He had a gallade, the impossible creature looking quite real in every aspect. I was very focused on examining it, this was a new and effectively alien species we were talking about after all. His species was a lot odder in person, and resembled humans more closely than I would expect. But there was a fae quality, just off enough to trigger the uncanny valley effect. Apparently their weird legs were actually pants, and I could quite easily see the firm muscles of his arms and chest. 

So is that green upper body also clothing or skin?

You know what I don’t care right now, I’m being stared down by a Pokémon. Life stopped making sense three hours ago. I could see the sharp blades that were an extension of his elbows, easily sharp enough to cut someone. 

Then again as a pokemon, a gallade was more than capable of killing me, not that he would mind you. Pokémon were dangerous, but this was a trainer’s pocket monster not a wild one I had pissed off somehow. 

“So could you clear up what you’re going to do with me?” I asked, ignoring the twitch on Gallade’s face as he very carefully pressed against my mind, like a chimp checking for bugs. 

The Agent was oddly familiar though, with his features dark hair, blue eyes and distinctive outfit. He seemed to be at least half a decade older than me, but telling age wasn’t a science.

Or at least not a science I was knowledgeable in. 

The agent nodded. “It’s not everyday a Faller appears in the Tohoku region,” he pointed out along with a tilt of his head. “Even rarer is one who’s memory hasn’t been scrambled by the Twisted Shadow.”

Was the Twisted Shadow another name for Ultraspace? 

“Well there’s not much I can really do about that, I just woke up here.” I shrugged my shoulders despite the panic I should be feeling.

Probably shock. 

And…

“To be fair, I don’t remember the journey so there’s at least some memory loss there.” I added some facts, hoping to distract myself from the uncanny valley of gallade.

He harrumphed and I rolled my eyes at the pokémon. The man sighed. “Some of our sensors picked up the primessential energy signature common to transdimensional space, along with something more exotic that might account for your lack of memory loss.”

Primessential?

“So what’s the usual protocol with Fallers?” I wasn’t the first one and I certainly wouldn't be the last with how strange this realm of spacetime was. “Especially even weirder one’s like myself.”

They absolutely knew about my whole deal with pokémon being fictional and coming from a world with only creatures similar to micromon… whatever the hell that meant from what my previous interrogators had mentioned. 

“Typically they send agents like myself to help acclimate them to their new home, though in recent years we have figured out how to navigate parallel realities after the incident in Alola, and the energy signature of your arrival was recorded for nine hours…”

“So there’s a good chance they can find my world among potentially infinite numbers of universes, wonderful.” I was being a bit rude but I was freaking out internally at the sudden disruption of my entire life. 

He winced and acknowledged my point. “But it can be done, even if it’s going to take some time. Months in the best case, two to three years in the worst.” That was a long time but it was a much better alternative than decades. “You’ll also have to fill out some documents to establish yourself as a resident of Tohoku and then Nihoh.”

“Nihoh… like Nihon?” I blinked at the name of the country we were in. “That would include Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh?”

The man took my reply in stride. “Ahh, this is from the battle simulators of your world then?” He replied brightly, folding his hands together with a placid grin. “But you’re forgetting Almia, Fiore, Ferrum and Oblivia. Nihoh isn’t a big country, but it’s a rather well known one.” 

So I was basically in alt!Japan, which made sense since their Kanto had the same name and geography as our Kanto. 

“My world has a similar country, the nation of Japan or Nihon, or Nippon as well,” I shrugged my sore shoulders. “There’s a few countries similar to some of your regions, like Kalos and France, the United Kingdom and Galar. We have the United States but…” that was like three different regions.

“Ahh… the United States of Risland, I believe you were familiar with Unova and Orre correct? And Alola seceded from Risland over three hundred years ago,” he continued before I could open my mouth to ask.

I had learned more about the World of Pokémon in five minutes than I had in fifteen years of playing the games. 

“So you’ve squeezed everything you can out of me, and I’ll need to spend time on paperwork. Where am I going to be staying?” Why had his aura changed?

The man smiled, and I was suddenly very, very afraid.

June 22nd, 2022

Ishigama Town was a modest urbanized settlement, a former steel town with a population comparable to that of Coronado back home. Thirty five thousand people and who knows how many pokémon living within the town and its numerous spaces of both greenery and concrete. Might be off there…

Also very few cars, which sounds bad until you realize the town was built to be a walkable community from the get-go so I wasn’t going to have to walk more than a few minutes to get to anywhere important. Plus they did have a public transportation system that could zip you around pretty fast, from the looks of things anyway.

Turns out agent Tedesco had decided to house me in a nifty building nestled right next to the town’s Pokémon professor. One, Professor Sophia Laven. A tan woman of Galarian descent who appeared to be in her mid forties and wore a heavy awkward lab coat and semi-formal clothing that always seemed to be burnt or ripped or electrified.

The lab itself was very grand, large enough to house dozens upon dozens of Pokémon, and from what I could tell actually housed a number of pokémon from the region. 

I had been offered a room, and then passed out from exhaustion and then woken from an anxiety riddled mess. Which was why at this second I was laying back on my bed, on my second day on this version of the Pokémon World. Fortunately I had been allowed a cheap smartphone with an internet connection, so I was busy browsing the internet for information on this world.

This… world appeared a lot less interconnected than my world, likely due to the isolation and partitioning caused by living in a world full of magical monsters. From what I had read it was only in the last thousand or so years that people had the opportunity to really form civilizations after the Era of Warlords had come to a gradual close. 

And then followed up by the Age of Exploration, so not much better if more limited in scale. Even so I had read up on a few of the regions and international organizations that exist here. 

The United States of Risland for example was a union of multiple regions scattered across a distorted North America. Unova though was gigantic, as if New York had superimposed itself over and consumed the eastern states with the exception of Florida and adjacent states. Nine hundred thousand square miles of territory, millions upon millions of people, and larger than Kalos in scale. ‘Florida+company’ was a state known as Florum that had a lot of regional variants of Unova Pokemon. 

Risland wasn’t so much a country as a confederation, and communication between them varied a lot… which explains how people keep discovering new Pokémon. It takes time and effort to disseminate information, and time to set up cross-travel and understanding. There were definitely a few regions that sounded like California and Texas, the Greater Orre region which encompassed Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Though something called the Orre Devastation War had done grave damage to the ecosystem as a whole. 

I should get up. But I don’t want to.

“Brandon!” A voice called out.

I did so with a sigh, and knew I couldn’t stay shut away in this room.

I cleared out my ear, making sure I hadn’t misheard his proposal on the behalf of Professor Laven. 

“A sponsored trainer, how does that work? And why?” I wasn’t anything special outside my status as a Faller and while I played pokémon that was very different from being able to take care of living, breathing beings with their own needs and dreams. 

The agent smiled placidly as he laid back on his sofa with a prim air. “Well there’s generally a registration process to become a pokemon trainer, a sponsor for the Gym Challenge, and requirements to fulfill to be accepted. Luckily you’re more than old enough, most people tend to become gym circuit trainers at fourteen or older though it’s eleven in Alola.”

Huh… “So young kids don’t generally become trainers?” 

He made a so-so gesture with his right hand. “They can get a license to become a trainer but can’t enter gym circuits, and can accept challenges from trainers, and go to trainer school at the same time.”

So three years of prepping before they go off to catch monsters, neat. 

“Huh… neat.” I said.

He coughed and continued. “As for why? Professor Laven specializes in the energy waveforms emitted by pokemon. Aura, Infinity Energy, Type Energy, Primessential Wavelengths.” Tedesco lightly tapped his chest with nervous energy. “You were positively saturated in Type Energy, and the spacetime rift seems to be the source. Plus she’s curious to see how an outsider can shake things up.”

That sounded more like she wanted to dissect me…

“I’m not much of a trainer though, I might know about this world but it doesn’t remotely make me viable as a trainer.”

Tedesco simply raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have to be a champion-level trainer, you just need to provide a perspective on pokemon that the Professor hasn’t seen before. And it can add more data to the investigation of your appearance in our world.” 

“I’ll strongly consider it, though that’s more to do because I’m curious on what pokemon are actually like from a scientific standpoint.” He looked skeptical, and I sighed. “I thought it was self-evident that I’m interested in pokémon in general too. Just didn’t feel like mentioning the obvious.” He blinked. “Of course if I want to register as a trainer we probably should have done that with the notary who gave me the needed documentation.” 

Tedesco grinned mysteriously. “My apologies, I was focused on my work and it failed to occur to me. The process is going to take a few days and if you do want to become a trainer you’re going to need to study a lot about pokemon.”

I nodded, pondering quietly on that idea as I scanned the area around the city hall. It was surrounded by greenery, and was clearly built with both humans and pokemon in mind. I could see starly of various sizes sitting along power lines and resting on the edge of buildings or taking sips out of bird baths and ponds.   

“Is there any other reason besides those?”

He sighed and nodded. “She’s noticed you’re giving off an interesting amount of Aura.” 

I blinked. “I’m giving off the same kind of energy as Pokémon?” 

He shook his head. “Not exactly? Aura is a wave inherent to everything that has life, and everyone uses it even if only subconsciously. It’s actually very important for pokémon trainers.” The agent looking oddly melancholy. “But you came from a world without pokémon. Having an aura at all is pretty strange to begin with, and it’s a smart idea to keep an eye on it.”

Fair point.

“I…” I took a while to add to my reply, as my mind raced to generate answers. This was a world of Pokémon, magical creatures with impossible powers and centuries spent unraveling their secrets. 

I wanted to go home, but I refused to sit around moping and feeling useless again. And pokemon were key to traveling realities, so many of them messed with dimensions and alternate universes. Kirlia allowed glimpses of alternate realities, stantler can open portals to other woods and across dimensions, there were a lot of possibilities.

I had to try.

“I’ll probably need some time to adjust, but sure why not?

What could go wrong?

Chapter Text

Start Game 1.2

June 29th, 2022

I read the book, enthralled by the information held within the pages. It was a very detailed book called A Zoological Guide to Pokémon, which was about the biosphere and food chain of this planet. One thing I had learned was that Pokémon intelligence was… not controversial so much as very complicated and very intermixed with the human question. Why do they exist at all?

Intelligence tends to vary wildly between species, though they were certainly brighter than most animals outside of whales, apes, corvids, and parrots. It was the baseline for most league-certified pokémon, though agricultural pokémon were a lot duller and far weaker. 

The closest comparison for macroscale predator and prey dynamics was the relationship between orcas and blue whales. Both were intelligent and likely sapient animals, but transient orcas had to eat, and they were some vicious bastards. 

The question then was how pokémon could make up most of the biosphere, and the truth was… they kind of didn’t? Most of the basic niches were taken up by what were called lesser beasts, or micromon, or animals of sorts. The main difference was usually size and intelligence… microbugs for example made up about eighty percent of the world’s species.

Relatives of Pinsir, Heracross, Orbeetle alone account for three hundred thousand species. They were small and weak, and their moves had very little power behind them, and they were stupid. But they made up for it in breeding capacity and reduced food requirements. From what I had read they had taken a similar path to the ancient ancestors of humans, exchanging primessentiality for accidentality. Pokémon were beings of spiritual nature, roughly analogous to spirits, kami, and so on. Lesser beasts were barely pokémon, and either so small or so… solid that they couldn’t be caught. 

Some of the very largest tended to be bred that way, such as relatives of torchic being bred to be ninety pounds. There was a very confusing divide between food and friends here, and I had seen quite a lot in the vast few days. Finding a rat-sized rattata being picked apart by a street meowth had been a big wake up call on how different this world was from my own. 

A living, breathing world with its own history and behaviors. But one factor that was always accounted for was the connection between pokémon and humans. There was a bond, pokémon in contact with humans took on more human traits while people did the same if to a more limited extent. Wild pokemon were more deeply run by their instincts, and their blue and orange morality was more savage than trained pokemon.

And apparently they didn’t really care much if people ate pokémon? Though in the modern day they typically used the less intelligent pokémon as food along with immense varieties of food crops, and synthetic sources.

It was honestly really confusing, but that was what made it so interesting. It was an alien word with alien histories and philosophies, and alien sciences ready to be explored.

For example, I had recently read an article on the largest recorded caught magikarp, a ten foot specimen that weighed three hundred kilograms and evolved into a seventy foot gyarados that massed in at seven thousand kilograms. 

Though in the wild, there were magikarps recorded at eighteen feet long and gyarados larger than Wailords. Which was utterly terrifying but fascinating, and made me wonder what else was out there. The sheer diversity of pokémon was a wonder just to read.

There were other thick books laid around the library table, the Expanded Pokédex by Professor Dracaena, another text known as the Unrestricted Pokédex made by multiple contributors from the PokéTropes website, and included do’s and don’ts when it comes to pokémon. Then there was Coriolanus Rowland’s Guide to Pokémon Husbandry and the World of Pokémon website gathered some basic entries together.

I had also been watching a series of wildlife documentaries with a voice shockingly like Sir David Attenborough. Pokémon were majestic but dangerous creatures, the most dominant macroscale life outside of humans with no others being their equal. 

The main theories of pokémon consider them to be pure embodiments of the platonic forms, carrying within them the kinetic energy which broke the Egg apart further and further while humanity in turn is an embodiment of the first piece to break apart, elevating both man and pokémon from common creature and life.

There was an almost reverent feeling towards pokémon and their battles, an awe of the natural world I sort of understand. It was a sort of replication of the natural clashes of nature, in the form of martial combat and ceremonial battle.

I was reading up on a few pokémon, all the ones that qualify as starters from beginning trainers. Of which there were dozens based on temperament, speed of growth, and ease of caretaking while giving a modest challenge.

Oryctolagus orectoaurus, the stretchy-eared digging hare and better known as the buneary line, the most platonic of the true hares. Skittish, powerful and distrustful of humans, they serve as good therapy animals for traumatized children, sharing a certain comradeship between each other.

Small bipedal mammalian pokémon organized into husks, able to smash boulders as buneary and powder bone with their legs as lopunny. Starter pokémon with interesting disposition, and fascinating biological traits. 

There was a kid nearby, a pichu riding on his shoulder without a care in the world. The little guy looked different from what I expected, clearly this world hadn’t quite gone for Detective Pikachu style designs, more of an in-between compromise between magical monster and real life animal. 

The pichu had a round head with a very short snout, and triangular ears that flicked in my direction as it balanced on two feet. He was a very round boy though, cute and fluffy and squeaky.

I nodded. Mus pikalis was the scientific name of their species by the standards of the west, the electric mouse pokémon. They weren’t good at controlling their electricity but they still made good starters even if their temperament left a lot to be desired.

Though there are worse pokémon who are much more of a threat like the popplio line and their fey nature or the totodile line and their reputation as man eaters. Mostly in Kalos mind you, but it was a thing.

Pokémon size scales were a bit more realistic, kind of? They’re still magic so whatever. 

I stood up from the table with a sigh.

It was time to go back.

“What can you tell me about Type advantages and disadvantages?” Tedesco asked with a serious expression, leaning against the wall of the living room of Laven’s secondary property.

“Type Energies are flavors of aura, which each have different weaknesses and strengths. Grass is strong against Rock, Water, and Ground and weak to Fire, Flying, Bug, Poison and Ice. Grass moves are weak against Fire, Flying, Bug, Poison, Ice, Steel and Dragon. It’s defensively strong towards Water, Ground, and Electric.”

Tedesco smiled. “Excellent, what can you tell me about pokémon and their physical makeup?”

“Pokémon are beings of spiritual and metaphysical nature, with different pokémon having different mixes of physical and metaphysical composition.” It was why pokéballs worked on them but didn’t work on humans and lesser creatures. Humans are too solid while lesser monsters are either too small, too solid, or both. 

It had been just over a week since I had been torn from my world, a week I had spent in relative isolation while I was checked up by medical professionals, the professor and studied until my head was at the point of cracking like an egg. Tedesco(why is that familiar?) had been in and out, on missions of probably great importance as well as keeping an eye on my registration as a legal entity.

I was now a citizen of the region of Tohoku and the Unified Regions of Nihoh. And a second meeting with the notary had sent off an application for a Trainer’s License with Professor Laven as a sponsor. I had also been forced to get into shape by necessity, I had never learned how to drive, couldn’t afford to buy a car here and being in poor condition as a Trainer is a good way to get hurt.

Plus the food here is a lot healthier, and has very odd methods of preparation you wouldn’t expect from across the screen.nMany of their dishes used special tools that stored or generated specific pokémon energies as a sort of seasoning and a way to induce unique chemical reactions. All kitchen tools could conduct those energies, so I didn’t need to learn anything new there.

Aura tainted food I had tried included orange juice flavored with Electric and Flying Aura, which added an extra pep to the drink, or psychic energy was used along with heat to create dough from a sort-of-radish.

There was always an odd pulse of something whenever I ate their food or was around pokémon using their powers. I couldn’t describe it… it was just a feeling of weight on reality. So eating healthier food, more exercise and possibly anime physics had let me lose three pounds in a week. 

Of course it was going to take closer to eight weeks to go down to a healthier weight since I had packed on the pounds during the pandemic. I had also been prescribed an alternative to my antidepressant medication since mine was now in another world. 

I didn’t want or need to spiral again. 

Apparently it was a medication using a special blend of conventional medicines and infused with more exotic psychic energies. It was safer and more effective, so I would probably take it for another month or two and then taper off.

Tedesco knocked on my forehead, and all my focus was turned back to him. He smiled and leaned back a bit, pressing his right hand to his cheek. 

“Better. Your trainer license should be here any day now, but you haven’t gotten a chance to really interact with any pokémon.” He pulls out three pokéballs with a cheeky grin, and tosses them into the air.

A flash of white light follows, energy solidifying into three different beings in the blink of an eye. A lilligant, standing proudly at three foot seven with a messily elegant scarlet flower with white spotted petals on its head, with a slightly different shade than standard. A slowking, which was a strange cross of a bear and a hippo with a wise and intelligent expression. The last pokémon was far larger than either, so tall it almost scraped the ceiling. A luxurious white mane materialized and I swallowed a scream at the intimidating terror emitted by a hisuian zoroark. 

The pokémon was gigantic, nearly twice my own height and had to weigh in at hundreds of kilograms. There was a bitter rage that saturated the air, pressing down on me like the wrath of an angry god.

Tedesco simply smiled and the terror aura faded into nothing, the Zoroark grinning and clasping his paws together with the gentle scritch scratch of his claws. 

“Let me introduce you to some friends of mine,” Tedesco chimes in with a bouncy pep in his voice as he bowed dramatically, first pointing to Roserade. “That’s Lilly.”

Lilly bowed politely, “Chirr…gaant.” She didn’t say his own name, and I could hear the same cry they made in-game but without sounding like it was going through a garbage radio. 

Tedesco followed up with his Slowking. “This is Philip.” His pokémon smiled mysteriously, a brief pulse of something brushing against my brain.

It took him a second to blink, and I smiled and waved. 

“And finally.” He spread her hands out. “Meet Caleb.”

Caleb chuffed and barked with a smug expression. “Zo…raaa.” His jaw snapped, and I waved again, nodding in agreement.

He was amazing.  

“Huh, neat. It’s nice to meet you all.” I was being quiet, but I was bouncing on my toes, vibrating at the accomplishment of an impossible dream. My stomach was twisting and my anxiety was spiking at the appearance of the three impossible beings.

I hadn’t processed anything beyond what was needed in the past week. I was standing in front of real life pokémon, pocket monsters, magical creatures, Maiju, and hidden monsters. Manifestations of nature, and it was just a tad overwhelming now that I was in a place to appreciate it. 

Tedesco sounded amused, staring at me with a rather discernible lack of killing intent.

“So they’re part of your team then?” I asked the obvious, but it was more to keep the conversation going

Tedesco nodded. “They’ve been with me ever since the…” He flinched, and his pokemon gave her a concerned look. “For a long time now, and they’ve been my closest allies.” 

I was a bit worried about that but decided it was none of my business, turning to the three pocket monsters. Amazing…

“Well I think they’re all pretty neat.” I complimented them, unable to help myself. Lilly preened herself, Philip blinked at me like a weird ass hyper-intelligent cat and Caleb and gave me a look that said ‘Suck-up’ despite having the face of a weird fox. 

“I have literally only known pokémon existed for a week give me a break, I think you’re genuinely amazing.”  

“Interesting…” Tedesco stared at me, and I blinked.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

That wasn’t helpful at all.

July 2nd, 2022. 

I looked at the envelope for the Trainer ID, pulling out a short letter that came with the shiny card.

To: Brandon Red

The Pokémon League is proud to induct you into our ranks as an official Pokémon Trainer. You now have the privilege of entering all Pokémon League sanctioned events in all IAPL recognized regions. 

The enclosed identification card will be your primary ID for Pokémon League sanctioned events and functions as a valid form of government identification. If lost, damaged, or stolen contact your nearest Pokémon Center for a replacement. The replacement fee will depend on the Pokémon Center in question. 

As a trainer sponsored by Prof Laven - Tohoku you are entitled to several special benefits. You will receive:

One (1) Biweekly stipend totaling ¥204,170 (post tax) per payment 

One (1) Stipend advance ¥186,360 (post tax)

Discounted use of non-medical Pokemon Center services—

I swallowed my spit as I read the rest of the letter which was mostly congratulations and other random BS. I made fifty three thousand dollars a year just existing here as a trainer, which was maybe double what I made working for my parents… and based on the tax rate I was making closer to a hundred thousand dollars. 

And didn’t include what I earned from pokémon battles since there were gym tournaments where you could get part of the winnings from people putting their money in.

It was like professional boxing but with magical blood knight monsters in the mix. In my case I was frankly more interested in conducting research, which with a Professor pulling me in as one of her lab trainers can get me the needed experience. 

“I see you’ve got your trainer ID, good. I’ve had a shipment of Starters lined up for some of my own sponsored trainers and anyone with their own funding or sponsors.” Sponsors could be your parents or yourself if you’re an adult after all, it was actually very easy to become a Trainer.  

Professor Laven leaned way too close , practically rubbing against me like it was no big deal. She was… let’s say a bumbling if nice lady in general who was gravely interested in learning about the energies of pokémon. 

“So you’ve got others joining in with you?” I asked, as I adjusted my shirt which was thicker in lining and reinforced with Barrier, and other layers of defense. 

“Two others, and while Tedesco uses my lab he’s more of a government contact and has his own resources as an Agent of Interpol under the command of Agent Looker. She explained while setting something up in her lab. “Most of the Starters have already been given away, including all the available Elemental Trios.”

I nodded. That had been a shock to learn, there was a standard rotation of Starters of which multiple dozens of pokemon qualified for one reason or another. The Elemental Trio were the zenith of such pokémon but there were others including pokémon like Axew due to having nicer temperaments. 

“I’ve got a few tasks if you’re up for them, one of which involves getting you a Starter of which I have three at the moment.” 

“A task?” 

Professor Laven adjusted her glasses, and brushed back messy dark hair with a placid smile. “Yes. If you’re willing, I want you to go out and explore all you can, and make your own findings as an outsider to our world. Especially anything relating to Type Energies. Your perspective is valuable, and as your sponsor I can grant you resources to study up on so you’re not out of your depth.”

“What? Like access to Trainer Schools?” That did sound tempting, especially depending on what kind of classes they were offering.

Professor Laven nodded. “Yep. Trainers can also continue their education through online courses and workbooks, and any Pokémon Center or official League buildings have rooms to take exams.” 

That was actually really convenient wasn’t it? That gave trainers the opportunity to advance their education, and develop skills to better do their jobs.

“And what will Tedesco do?”

Professor Laven adjusted her glasses with a smile. “His job is mainly to help monitor you when needed, so expect biweekly check-ins.” She rolled her shoulders, stretching just so slowly. “His main business in Tohoku is the investigation of criminal activity like his previous work in Unova.” My mind flashed a realization that made me feel stupid.

Oh. That’s why Tedesco felt so familiar. Then again that’s only because I looked up a bulbapedia article on him once.

“So he’s like an immigration agent slash parole officer so I can adjust to this planet?” That explained a lot, and it made me wonder if any Fallers had done such messed up things in the past to need that much firepower. 

Laven nodded. “Yes, you’ve got the gist of it. My other minions … I mean research assistants have already picked out their Starter from an earlier batch. An Elemental Trio if you would believe it.” I twitched at her comment.

So whatever pokemon I’m getting probably aren’t the well known Starters, not bad since even one pokemon was going to be… interesting.

“What pokémon are they?” I asked curiously, and Laven grinned and with a flourish pulled out three pokéballs from her lab coat. In a flash, three pokémon emerged in bursts of bright white light.

First to cry out was a small, blue bat with no eyes and purple-velvet wing membranes and tiny barely functional legs. A zubat, and one of the standard features of caves. The second pokémon was a lump of thick brown fur, with darker stripes along the back, and a notable pink stubby nose and eyes obscured by fur.

Swinub looked at me with a slow blink, feet scuffing against the lab floor as she made loud curious snorting sounds. Zubat screamed while swinub snorted and squealed quietly, which left the last pokemon to present themselves.

A small bunny biped that stood at thigh height, covered in shorter brown fur with fluffy white fur on the ear tips, legs and lower body. Ears curled up for a moment before curling back out, muscle tensing like steel. A buneary who stared at me with an imperious look, hopping slightly on her toes and seemed to find me wanting.

All three of the pokémon in front of my eyes were miracles, of biology and science and just… merely existing as they did was a wonder. But which one of them was best fit for the kind of person I was, which one would want to go with me as my Starter?

Each one of them had a spark of intelligence, some in their eyes, others in their calls and how they responded to things around them. Out of the three pokémon, I was the most familiar with zubat, from a game perspective rather than a real one. Swinub was neat with her evolution into mamoswine, but the trouble in that case would be food requirements. 

An average mamoswine was eight feet tall, and weighed about two thousand pounds or more. So… not exactly an easy to feed animal, though a piloswine is a different story entirely, eating on a scale more comparable to a pig than… well actual megafauna. Zubat was… well a bat that fed on blood and bugs, and kind of creepy but a pokémon I really liked.

Buneary though, they had an interesting personality, and evolved into a strong and loyal pokémon in the right circumstances.

“So, I should pick one of the three?” I asked Laven, uncertain since being given a pokémon still felt very strange. These were living beings we were talking about here. I wonder if it was the equivalent of a right of passage to them, some kind of cultural tradition.

“Pick the one that resonates with you the most,” the professor explained with a warm smile and I took a moment to decide. “Whichever one you pick will be your partner for life.”

Wow, that doesn’t make me anxious at all.

Zubat like the guy in front of were common, and I did find bats interesting. Swinub was a bit out of my comfort zone if she ended up evolving into a pokémon that large. Buneary was harder to bond with, but I had a feeling our personalities could mesh.

My eyes darted between buneary and zubat, and with some resignation I knew that one pokemon was the best choice as a Star— why are Buneary’s ears rolled up?

Something I couldn’t quite explain happened right as I opened my mouth, something unexpected and concerning. 

Buneary jumped and with a cry of indignation sent me flying, and my stomach lurched as I was thrown across the room.

“Brandon!”

I yelped as a sudden weight was on my chest, as I was being berated by an irate bunny monster. 

“Ow.” I intoned with a self deprecating half-smile, while buneary had her hands on her… hips? Hard to tell with all the fluff in the way, and I had no idea how I knew she was a girl.

I just… did, just as I knew the zubat was male and the Swinub female. 

“Oh fuck. ” I blinked at the sudden curse from a pokémon professor. “Are you alright, can you count how many fingers I have?” She gestured with her hand and I rolled my eyes.

“Three, and I’m fine. Just surprised.” I replied honestly, carefully picking myself up and feeling surprisingly good for being flung six feet back. I must have inherited the natural toughness of the locals. “I just wasn’t prepared for being attacked by a bunny.” 

Buneary pushed off of my chest, landing elegantly on the ground. She didn’t stop smiling, and the two other Starters seemed horrified as she glared at them without changing her expression.

Laven pushed back her glasses, looking concerned. “Ahh. I believe Buneary here decided to show off her strength when she saw you picking Zubat.” I flinched at her words, and very carefully lowered myself to better look at the Pokémon in her dark expressive eyes.

“Is that true, you got angry?” Was there a reason for it, my choice of zubat… it was a familiar and easy pick, a path I might be a little more familiar with.

Buneary pointed at me with a stiff smile. “Buuwaa!” She made other softer cries, before folding her arms over her chest. 

“Huh… you’re got a bit of a personality don’t you?” I asked, and she blinked at me oddly. “You’re certainly stronger than I am, and I have a feeling you held back your strength too, so you’re careful on top of it.” 

She seemed to perk up at my compliment, and I wanted to be more specific. 

“Though attacking your Trainer likely isn’t the best way to show your strength.” She wilted at my comment, and I almost laughed. I’m not sure why she thought it was a good idea but there wasn’t much I could do on that front. “But in my case… you’re an interesting pokémon in at least.”

Laven was staring at me like I had grown a second head. “You can’t seriously be considering her as a Starter?”

“I am… as long as she doesn’t do that again, though I wouldn’t mind if she crushed some boulders instead.” The latter was safer for my well being at least. “And the buneary line isn’t half bad at all.” 

Laven sighed. “Well, alright then. You’re more eccentric than I expected but you can make your own choices.” She gestured to her lab, which was full of esoteric technology.

I raised an eyebrow. “What exactly did you expect from a Faller?” I was a literal dimensional traveler, what could be considered typical for one?”

The professor flushed. “My specialty is in pokemon energies, I’m a bit out of my depth here.”  

“Fair enough. Though more seriously, I am more interested in buneary as a Starter if that’s what she wants.” She was a crazy pokémon and maybe I was a little bit charmed by it. She shifted from foot to foot, not so much aloof… as nervous but expressing it differently from other people.

I related, that was all. 

“If you’re sure.” She obviously didn’t approve, but I was honestly touched that Buneary wanted to go with me. “And if that’s so… well we’ll have to see if that’s what she truly wants.”

Buneary stared at us like we were idiots, sassing up without speaking a single word. “Bun… bun!” She spoke a quick and rapid click of clucking, purring, hissing and muttering. Like well a rabbit but an order of magnitude more complex.

“So I’m guessing that’s a ‘Yes I want to go with you, idiot’ then?” the pokémon’s smile became more smug, and I sighed. Was this a good idea, or was I being impulsive and stupid?

Buneary pointed to her ball, and with a pained expression Laven tightly tossed it at me. I caught it haphazardly, and wondered how badly my lack of athletic skills would bite me in the ass.

“Strange boy,” I heard under Laven’s breath, but she smiled warmly nonetheless. “Well if you’re certain about your choice, the next step then is to receive your pokedex.”

I frowned. “Does this have something to do with my phone being taken?” Interpol had taken it, and I had been stuck to using library computers and a desktop computer.

“They were interested in the technology of another world, and have taken their time deciphering it. And since it was your property… They decided to replace it with a model based on what they learned.” 

“They took it eleven days ago, how the hell is that possible?” I said aloud, and she laughed.

“Interpol works closely with certain companies like the Devon Corporation and Silph Co, and they have R&D labs of their own for equipment. One of their subsidiary company teams has a few pokémon more than capable of deciphering your phone.”

“Which ones?” I know some pokémon were as intelligent as humans if not smarter, though their alien mental processing made most of them less conducive to civilization building.

“A Malamar, a Reiniculus, a Gothitelle, and a Beheeyem if you could imagine with a Zoroark as a project leader.” The professor was beaming, almost squealing in excitement.

“I… haven’t read up enough on those pokémon to know why that’s surprising,” she deflated and I shrugged helplessly. “I’ll read up on it when I have a chance.” I soothed and she seemed to relax more visibly.

“Good.” She said, “Then without further ado, let me introduce you to your new Dex-Phone!” She pulled out what looked like my phone, but like it was crossed between a rotom phone and a holo-caster. “This is a multifunctional device administered by a Porygon, optimizing software and acting as a mix of a search and inference engine, along with a physics analysis and sensory analysis program.” 

“I have some privacy concerns about that.” I brought it up and Laven tilted her head.

“They only optimize code, and operate specific applications like the pokédex, and they’re not inclined to voyeurism.” She pointed out something I didn’t know before and dropped my tense shoulders. “Your new phone and pokédex are cutting edge, and will be very useful in analyzing pokémon in the wild. Among other things.”

I yawned, and so did Buneary to my surprise. What time is it?

The female professor gave me a sympathetic look. “I did call you quite late, you have your pokémon, your license and your pokédex. We can talk more seriously in the morning.” 

Buneary batted at my leg, and I nodded and tapped the center button, and in a flash of white light she vanished into the hall.

“Guess I’ll see you in the morning then?“

Laven smiled. “Of course.”

Chapter Text

Start Game 1.3

July 3rd, 2022

I chewed on my lip as I examined as I looked up a Wikipedia article on wailord. The average length and mass of a wailord was fourteen and a half meters and three thousand nine hundred eighty kilograms, and the largest on record was a seventy meter specimen that weighed over four hundred tons. 

Which was insane, and terrifying and awe inspiring at the same time, though made sense for a monster known as the Float Whale pokemon. I heard a loud and insistent thump, and turned to find Buneary hopping with a feverish energy. She had slept overnight in her pokéball, not wanting to be disturbed. 

I allowed it since I liked my privacy too, and boundaries were important. I had a textbook open on lagomorph biology, of which there were more than I expected. Lauda volumna, the whismur line, Arma toxa, the nidoran line, Rosalia gracia and stetha, the indeedee and audino line respectively. Followed up by the igglybuff line, the azurill line, scorbunny line, and the bunnelby line. Eleven pokemon species, and who knows how many variants across the world.

Buneary, scorbunny and bunnelby are close relatives, all of them being semi-social to social lagomorphs, though Scorbunny is closer to actual rabbits when it comes to social structure. I was also reading up on illnesses and maladies common to certain types, Normal and Fighting types for example are vulnerable to bluemote which is like athlete’s foot, lockbone which causes stiff, slow movement and is spread through saliva, and blood-drip which prevents scab formation and is transmitted by infected blood.  

“Buwaa! Bun. Bun!” She seemed dissatisfied, and I wondered if I had forgotten something… oh right.

“I never decided on a nickname did I?” I said aloud, and she looked pissed off. “Actually, do you have a name already? I'm never sure how pokemon can tell each other apart.”Buneary looked at me like I was crazy and shook her head. “Bun?” She made muttering sounds, a high pitched conversation in another language. She was annoyed but not insulted. Good.

What kind of name could I give her, it had to be something she would like. Something rabbit or hare themed… March? 

No reminds me too much of a certain Ward villain. Bugs Bunny certainly not, Bunnicula sounds like I’m mocking her…

El-ahraihah is an option, but… maybe Ruby? No… that reminded me too much of my aunt, wait, wait!

“How about Mirko?” Buneary tilted her head, as if asking ‘why that name?’. “It’s the superhero name of a fictional character from my home, she’s a hero with the power of a rabbit and kicks ass and takes names. She can shatter the ground with her own kicks, and is one of the strongest heroes in her country.”

Her own eyes began to twinkle at my statement, and she hopped on her feet, holding her hands up in a boxing stance. She punched the air and I held back a chuckle. 

Cute. 

“Mirko it is.” She nodded. 

Mirko jumped up onto a chair close to the dinner table I was reading on, placing her little arms on the table with a frozen smile. She looked at a picture of a buneary, and gently smoothed out the page with a curious gaze.

“Waa?” 

“It’s a textbook on the basic biology of lagomorph pokémon, it’s helping me learn more about you as a species and as an individual. You know, like certain illnesses and maladies, anatomy and physiology. Just stuff that’s good to know to keep you healthy.” 

For example the buneary line had anatomy that was convergent with hares and humans. A similar hip and joint orientation to humans, though lighter and more delicate and built for leaping and kicking. Though that was only proportionally to other pokémon, with ten percent of their body mass dedicated to skeleton and over forty percent to muscle. 

She nodded, and gestured to my phone next to one of the apps. “Oh. That’s the scan feature, it uses a poké-scope to scan a pokémon. It can figure out age, sex, previous and current injuries and other personal characteristics. Do you want to see yours?” 

Mirko jumped onto my lap, and I shuffled uncomfortably at the sudden weight. But her excitement was cute so I didn’t care too much. I read the scan aloud for her benefit.

Shared Characteristics

Species: Buneary, Rabbit Pokémon. 

Type: Normal

Egg Group: Field, Human-like

Classification: Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Lagomorpha - Leporidae - Oryctolagus

Wild Threat Level: More likely to run than fight. 

Growth Rate: Medium-fast

Suggested Diet: Leaves, berries, seeds, tree bark, flowers, oats, weeds. Normal herbivore pellets, micro-bugs. 

Personal Characteristics

Name: Mirko

Holder: Brandon Rubio (Journeyman Trainer)

Age: 6 years, seven months

Ability: Limber (Can not be paralyzed)

Physicality Analysis:

- Shows superficial scarring on abdominal region due to minor fall-related abrasions.  

- Height is measured at 54 centimeters and body mass at six kilograms. 

- Mature female, slightly larger than average and skeletal reinforcement indicates a history of physical training. 

- Signs of minor ear infection in the past. 

Known Moves: Quick Attack, Baby-Doll Eyes, Drain Punch. 

Reading it aloud, it was quite detailed and I knew it was simplified, and the pokédex also had basic instructions and how-tos on diagnosing and measuring your pokémon as needed for their own health. Enough to take care of them and keep them in good shape during treks where pokemon centers aren’t a thing.

“So you know Quick Attack, Baby-Doll Eyes and Drain Punch?” Why did it feel like those moves were capitalized? “Interesting moves, Drain Punch seems useful.” 

Mirko puffed up, looking proud and elegant. “Nrrrr…” She purred loudly, and I nodded to myself.

“How about we test out your moves? The backyard of this place is well suited to it.”

“Waaa!”

I’m going to take that as a yes.

I groaned quietly as I mourned the loss of some of my free time. A good hour had been spent having Mirko burn away her energy on moves and practicing how to punch more efficiently using both her paws and her ears.

The crazy bunny had gone ham on designated targets, moving swiftly and decisively through various quick movements and strikes. It was better than what I could pull off, but it wasn’t a model of martial arts prowess.

The main issue of course was that I wasn’t an expert and I had procrastinated on a few vital things. Which was why I was currently buying supplies at a trainer marketed Poké Mart, like a cross between a military surplus store, a pet shop and a sporting goods store. 

I was currently picking out supplies, which fortunately didn’t include a proper Backpack with a capital B. Trainer backpacks were special, using the same technology as modern pokéballs in a process called schematic object minimization. It was a synthesization of the study of various different properties of objects and pokemon alike.

The original pokéball was created at least seven hundred years ago in the region of Johto and shortly after was spread to regions like Hisui or convergently invented across the world in a three century long period of technological innovation. It exploited an inherent ability of pokemon, they could hide within hollowed out natural spheres with apricots being the most suitable, to hide from predators or dangerous elements.

Able to… self-elementalize or effectively shrink themselves down for short periods of time. Which was terrifying, knocking over a hollowed out apricot could have a twenty foot long Onix pop out at any time. The first pokéballs used apricots, and combined them with certain kinds of stones with elemental properties to make the shrinking process long lasting and safe.

Modern pokéballs were invented about a century ago, with the development of the Poke-scope by Silph Co. The ability to sense the different wavelengths emitted by pokemon and humans alike, and better exploitation of the apricot. Turns out they’re native to the Distortion Realm, and their slight dimensional twisting made them optimal hidden spheres for pokémon.

Using mirrored electronics and tumblestone micro-arrays, a pokémon can be shrunk and fit into a micro-dimension that can provide food and shelter. They’re bathed in the aura of their trainer, acting as a tagging system of sorts. 

A modified form of the technology was used in bags, providing a large space for non-living objects, spatially compressing them on a molecular level. Magic basically, though most of their tech uses abilities derived from pokémon  to make them possible. 

A paw batted at my face, and I sighed as Mirko smugly used me as her beast of burden. She pointed at a refresh kit, the multi-modal model was more expensive at twenty thousand pokén or two hundred dollars. Which was scarily cheap for something meant to clean up and groom almost any pokémon . 

I was holding a small basket, which contained a first aid kit, a cooking kit, a survival fishing rod, a field guide to edible flora, forager bags, trainer clothing, an Escape Rope, a travel generator, some rations, two potions and now the refresh kit. 

I stepped up to the bored looking cashier, a girl with blonde hair and prominent dark eyes. I offered up the items, smiling carefully as she gingerly began to inspect the items, and she nodded to herself.

“Your total is ¥50,027.” A quarter of my new income had gone down the drain and I had a sneaking suspicion this wasn’t going to be the last time I spent a lot of money. 

I reluctantly swiped my dex-phone.

I was back at the lab, having been called in by Professor Laven so I could officially meet the two other trainers she had sponsored.

Hopefully they didn’t end up resenting me for not putting in any of the years of work they might have done. 

I was in the reserve that was used to house any extra pokémon I caught over my journey. Which was likely since while I was interested in the gym challenge, Laven wanted me to scan and analyze pokémon using the advanced poke-scope, to better understand the wavelengths emitted by pokémon.

A lot of trainers did end up catching pokémon they’d never use in a gym challenge, but in all cases it was always a matter of choice for the pokémon. While many pokémon liked competition others preferred doing other tasks, whenever they were up to it. Actually quite a few trainers got income from having their reserve pokémon doing jobs and helping out the community. 

Which sounded kind of exploitative now that I think about it, but most pokémon don’t tend to use or need money, and the few that do tend to act as accountants so their fellow pokémon can get their fair share.

The best comparison I had was between the relationship of pokémon and humanity, was the connection between a witch and their familiar or the interaction between a spirit and a shaman. Which was an actual thing, the first Maijin Tamers were witches, psychics, aura adepts, wizards or sorcerers, along with sages and priests who made pacts with hidden monsters to protect their homes and families or learn how to use their powers.

Mirko was out of her ball, ears flicking back and forth and her nose twitching as she turned her head. It reminded me of a meerkat or prairie dog scout, looking for any trouble coming our way.

There was a table where Professor Laven and one other person were sitting down, a woman from the looks of it. 

“Hey! Hey! Listen!” I snapped my head up at the whiny voice of a chatot, one that laughed mockingly at my expression.

That little scene caught Laven’s attention and she waved me over. I walked over, Mirko keeping pace with me with little difficulty 

Laven apologized. “Sorry about that, Crackers can be a handful from time to time.” The parrot laughed again, sounding like a kookaburra on crack. “I thought it would be a good idea to introduce you to my second newest lab trainer, a short time student of Ishigama’s Trainer School.” 

The woman turned and I blinked, she looked… well a lot like a wild child, with dark blue hair, and dark steel blue eyes that burned into my skull. She had an athletic figure, and wore a stark white top and a torn red skirt, her blank expression rather intimidating when she was six inches taller than me. 

“Umm… hi? It’s nice to meet you?” I greeted her, and after a brief moment she smiled, and I stiffened at the surprisingly sharp fangs she displayed.

“Hello,” She had an accent I couldn’t identify at a glance. “You’re Brandon right? My name is Akari… Akari Berlitz.” I blinked, finding the name familiar. Like… Dawn/Hikari/Platinum’s last name? “You’re the other stray Master Laven adopted?”

“Master?” I asked.

Laven responded promptly. “Akari is from an old clan that hails from Sinnoh that lives up on the mountains, the Stern Wing Mountains that split the Tohoku region and reach down to Kanto.” 

“That doesn't really narrow it down by much, those mountains are over a thousand kilometers long.” Nihoh was over six times larger than Japan, scaled upwards to something comparable to Greenland. Going from Sinnoh to Hoenn was a journey of almost four thousand kilometers. 

Which did explain things like travel time and having the room to fit so many pokémon  species. There were other regions outside of the ‘Canon’ ones but I couldn’t find out as much. From what I could tell, the world was recovering from an informational dark age, regions reconnecting over time and adding on to their knowledge. For example, undersea cables were impossible on this planet, they'd be destroyed by pokémon and would have to go through Forbidden Environments where unknown pokémon and… unknown life forms called the deep home. 

Some forests were just too thick and mysterious, the deep and unknown ocean blue too dark and pressurized, the tectonic layers too hot and dense to explore, and the depths of space full of lethal hazards and mysterious events. 

In the world of pokémon, the Bloop was a real cryptid rather than just cracking icebergs or undersea volcanoes. 

Don’t get distracted.

I breathed out with a smile, and greeted my fellow… colleague(?). “It’s nice to meet you Akari.” I didn’t add any platitudes since I was bad at that kind of thing.

Akari smiled kindly, and I noticed she had two rows of small red and blue triangles along her cheek, and that her top was made of a soft feathery down that reminded me of a bird. “I’ve heard you’re a foreigner of sorts, and we’ll be partners in our work with Master Laven.”

“I am, and I do hope we’ll work well together.” There was just something about her that felt off but not bad, just a tiny twinge I couldn’t quite identify. 

“What kind of pokémon did you get, if you don't mind me asking?” I was too curious and had to ask.

Akari whistled and a pokémon whizzed by without a care in the world. It… was a small pig colored a darker shade of orange and a light ashy sort of black, a curly tail ending in a semi-molten mass of what was either lava or very liquid fire. Short tusks protruded from his lower lip, along with two small spikes on a cute oval head, long rounded ears swiveling cutely.

I lifted my dex-phone without hesitation. “Tohokun Tepig, the Fire Pig Pokemon. It is a determined and impetuous pokémon, and often sold as plush toys within the Tohoku region. The tail magma of a tepig is made of carbonatite, sustained at a temperature between five hundred and six hundred degrees C.”

“Fire and Ground type… interesting, so they’re what the locals call Yama Kujira then?” I had read some stories referencing fully evolved emboar, which seemed to treat them as fearsome and reckless kings of their domain, kind of like orcs but with more admiration towards them.

One particular emboar was named Lord Geld, and was an A-class threat that was three times taller than a common Emboar, four and a half tons of porcine menace, who at one point had torn a mile long fissure in the earth to divert the course of a tsunami using Earthquake. 

Akari responded with a smirk. “You’re a bit of a fan of Lord Guld, my clan prefers Lord Azazel.” I blinked, like the angel Azazel? 

“I think most pokémon are neat,” I said honestly because it was true. “But aren’t we missing a third?”

The professor rubbed the back of her neck. “Natsuo should be here shortly, but in the meantime… why not have a pokémon battle?”

All my focus was shifted to the professor, and there was a bright gleam of competitive spirit in Akari’s eyes. “Happy will certainly want to test his skills,” her tepig was fired up, and so was Mirko if those food stomps meant anything. 

A grin formed on my face.

Why not?

“What are the rules for a match like this?” I asked Akari aloud since the professor was taking a few steps away to observe the battle along with some equipment for some reason. Her tepig was scratching the ground, tearing through dirt with ease as he snorted and grunted.

Akari walked with all the exaggerated swagger of a pokémon trainer. Her Starter mimicked her, and it looked ridiculous but kind of cute at the same time.

“Until knockout or forfeit, the rules don’t change outside of battles against the more dangerous wild pokémon.” Fair, some pokémon can be… predatory and will kill and or eat you and your entire team if you aren’t careful, the list was big.

Gyarados, hydreigon, salamence, archeops, metagross, scolipedd, many Restricted pokémon are often lethal, hard to train and control or incredibly powerful or have uniquely insidious or dangerous natural abilities. 

Akari was smirking, her teeth revealed with a shark-like look that was a bit concerning. Mirko was throwing out her paws, shifting from foot to foot in an intimidation tactic. Her tepig was just as fired up, tail wagging back and forth. 

“Are you sure about this?” I asked Mirko, and she rolled her eyes and nodded. 

Well I just wanted to ask. 

“Then let’s get started, shall we?” I gestured to Professor Laven, and she cleared her throat.

“This match will start in three, two… one!” I blinked and started as fast as I could.

“Baby-Doll Eyes!” I ordered Mirko, and her eyes lit with Fairy energy as she infused them into the move. Dark adorable orbs shined, and Happy hesitated, stepping back as the energy from the move lowered his Power. 

“Ember!” Akari didn’t hesitate, and her Tepig let out a scream of Ember right towards Mirko. She jumped a dozen feet straight up, and I called out another move.

“Quick Attack into that tepig!” Normal energy twisted around Mirko, and she was sent rocketing downwards. She hit the fire pig like a bullet, a satisfied purr leaving her throat. “And follow it up with Drain Punch!” 

“Ember the ground!” Akari smiled and dirt and soil exploded where the attack detonated, forcing Mirko to miss. “Tackle!“ Happy slammed his thick skull into Mirko and I flinched as she was ragdolled into the ground. 

Mirko let out a piercing cry, rubbing her chest with an indignant and concerning look of unyielding rage. 

“Tackle. Full force.” Akari commanded with an almost lyrical sound, and I breathed out as I did my best to focus on this moment.

Happy charged, and I spoke.

“Dodge with Quick Attack into Drain Punch!” Mirko turned on a dime, and swung into the white streak of Quick Attack. She understood the command, having practiced it with me earlier in the day.

Her aura infused fist smashed into Happy like a hammer, battering the little pig with a violent force. Particles fell off, and Mirko shuddered in delight, a dark gleam in her eyes.

Concerning.

“Tail Whip.” Akari ordered, and her tepig’s tail shook back and forth in a cute fashion, releasing a… feeling in the air that slacked my muscles. “Shoot Ember at the ground, and follow it up with Tackle.” I blinked, what the hell did that mean—

Ember exploded in front of Mirko, sending flaming hot dust into her face. She yowled, and a fully body Tackle sent her into the ground.

“Mirko. Focus, and Drain Punch that pig!” I was slightly panicking, and I had no idea what to do about it.

Mirko scowled and punched wildly, sending another energy infused fist into Happy’s poor gut. With a high pitched war cry, she uncurled her ears to throw off her opponent.

“Quick attack!“ I managed to call out an attack.

“Ember!“ Akari committed to her own plan, and there was a burst of fire and pokémon  energy that sent dust and smoke into the air. The dust hung in the air for a few seconds before being swept aside by an incoming breeze. 

Both pokémon were standing, hanging on by a thread by the looks of it. The battle had been a quick and rapid affair, and I had barely been able to keep up. Mirko brushed off dust from her fur, and staggered on her feet.

Happy the tepig puffed out volcanic ash from his snout, and tried to charge and… collapsed, rolling into a heap on the ground. Mirko went down with him, and the two ‘fainted’ at the same time.

“This match has ended with a tie.” That had been a surprisingly better outcome than I had expected. Real pokémon battles were rather different from the turn based system of the games. 

I swiftly walked over to Mirko, while Akari took a slower pace with approaching her own pokémon. I crouched down, and she snapped back to wakefulness in a matter of seconds. She looked a bit angry, but her face became more satisfied when Happy woke up groggily.

Did pokémon get concussions? I wasn’t entirely sure how being knocked out worked for them. Waking up fast made enough sense, if you were knocked out for more than a couple minutes there was a good chance you were suffering complications. But apparently they didn’t suffer from brain damage at all unless an attack was being aimed to cripple and kill.

So more likely to happen from a criminal trainer or a wild pokémon seeking out a meal. 

I gently picked up Mirko, and sprayed a potion which was in truth a complex slurry of berry ingredients, medicinal leek extract, and infused with various healing energies from moves like Aqua Ring, Healing Pulse, Floral Healing, Pollen Puff, and Life Dew. Potions were basically magical medigel, with the ability to regenerate tissue, accelerate healing, act as a general antiseptic, a mild pain reliever and so on.

It worked on people too, though for the stronger potions you had to dilute it to keep it from… killing you. 

“You did great, and fought hard.” I complimented Mirko, and she perked up at the light praise. “We’ll win next time, promise.” 

I was tapped on the shoulder, and stood back up to face Akari as she held her Starter in her arms. 

“It was a good match, especially for someone so new to the world of pokémon battling.” There was no insult in her words, just a blunt truth from the smiling woman. 

“Well… I’m sure we’ll do even better next time—” there was someone running towards us.

“Wait… I just need a… a…” I blinked in disbelief at the disheveled new arrival. He looked to be a few years younger than us, maybe seventeen or eighteen. 

He had spiky orange-red hair and amber eyes, and an armored dark blue and segmented jacket, with a purple undershirt beneath it and grey robust working jeans, and oversized boots. The white line across his soft featured face was distinctive, and he looked bouncy and energetic, amber eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Hello there!”

“Hi.” I said, having nothing else to say.

Professor Laven sat the three of us down with a small smile, acting as our sponsor to enter the field of pokémon science and battle. Celattersurgy and celatterasology or hidden monster work and science.

Though Kanto coined the term Pokémon when the Wataru conquered Johto about five hundred years ago, that became Pokémonurgy and Pokémonology. It was three hundred years of accumulated information, an impressive achievement.

Natsuo and Akari were both on their own seats, their respective pokémon sitting on their lap. She had her tohokun tepig while Natsuo had his tohokun mudkip, which had a dark gray upper body, and a light grey belly and flat and elongated fin-like feet and retained bright orange gills. 

A Water/Dark pokémon, which was an interesting type combination. Dark imbued a different character to their being and personally, being one of the types of the trifecta of madness made up of Dark, Fairy and Ghost. But a question was rising up, one I couldn’t leave unanswered.

“Why did you choose the three of us as people to sponsor?” I blurted out before I could think it through, and my two colleagues seemed to agree with me. Even if they didn’t say it.

Professor Laven smiled nervously, crossing her arms over her ample bust. “Well… as you know I’m a professor that specializes in Type Energy, the energy fields projected by the creatures known as pokémon, and the fields emitted by living things. So I sought out students who could bring unique perspectives and viewpoints to expand my research.”

Natsuo blinked. “Oh. It’s because of what I can do right?” He seemed happy to be included in the conversation and I blinked in confusion

“What?“ I asked, confused.

The younger man smiled. “I can see the auras of pokémon, seeing into their hearts for who they are at their core. I… inherited it from my mom, and she used her gift a lot in Orre.” I know the region but don’t know what he’s referencing. 

“My clan has a close connection with nature and with the pokémon of Tohoku, as a clan born of ancient blood we pride ourselves on passing down the old ways.” Akari added her own take, acting quite pleasant.

“And I come from a world without pokémon, I have a perspective that’s unique from most standpoints.” Fortunately the two remaining sponsorees had been informed I was a Faller even if some of the specifics had been left out.

Laven was giving us a warm look. “I saw potential I wanted to help nurture, and a way to further my research through new eyes. Each one you bring a different piece of the puzzle and I want to see how far the three of you can go.”

“So you’re planning to send us out on a journey then?” Akari questioned the professor.

Laven nodded. “As sponsored lab trainers, I give you pokédexes and the League fronts you a bi-weekly stipend and you are legally considered active trainers who operate on my behalf, and represent me in official tournament battles while you conduct your own independent studies. You’re paid to battle and bring prestige to a lab, with larger grants and a larger stipend in turn.”

“I’m more interested in the research than battling, but both are good.” At the least learning to train pokémon is a good way to learn more about them as life forms. “To understand this world and the beings that inhabit it better.”

“I want to see a pokémon’s heart as they soar in battle.” Natsuo admitted with a smile. I raised an eyebrow and he blushed.

Akari spoke. “I wanted to make my clan and myself proud by going out into the world as my namesake did when Sinnoh was still called Hisui.” 

Namesake?

Akari sighed. “The House of Berlitz is an old name, dating back to before the Age of Warlords. I want to make my mark on the world.”

Fair enough. 

Professor Laven looked happy. “Then I suppose you all have your reasons to go on your journeys. But there’s another reason I've brought you together like this, it's for protection.”

“Protection?” Akari asked the professor.

Laven looked tired, rubbing at the dark marks around her eyes. “There’s a good chance there's going to be a sudden increase in unusual pokémon due to the wormhole energy given off by Brandon’s arrival. And there's been… signs of criminal organizations developing an interest in Tohoku.”

Oh no. 

“While Natsuo has some protection because of his family, you and Brandon do not, ” she grimaced at our expressions. “So I’m requesting that the two of you journey together, or at the least maintain regular contact between yourselves and Natsuo.”

“I don't mind,” Akari said with a straight face. “Though that will require heavier preparation.” 

“I suppose so?” I muttered, knowing my journey was going to be more complicated than I once thought.

Yay.

Chapter Text

Start Game 1.4

July 5th, 2022

“Just bear with me please?” Mirko rolled her eyes as I followed the instructions I had been given on giving a mammalian pokémon a physical. “This is just to keep an eye on your health and to create a baseline for my own use. While the dex-phone can get most of your measurements, a back-up is needed.”

She lifted one finger, and despite her clear disgruntlement let me continue with my poking and prodding, and spoke into the recording feature of my pokédex.

“Good. Ears are clean, lacking an excess of wax or any signs of micro-bug parasites such as mites. You’ve got a strong immune system from what Laven has said.” I spoke with Mirko, and she listened to my ramblings. 

“Waa?” I continued my work, carefully not touching her ears as I moved on.

“An immune system is how your body protects you from diseases of various kinds, viruses, bacteria, fungus, parasites and parasitoids.” I explained and she looked intrigued. “Yours is strong and healthy, and can protect you along with your shots and boosters.” She flinched, recognizing what those were. Mirko had gotten all her shots before we had met. 

She unfolded her arms and with a sigh changed her posture into a more relaxed pose. 

“Thank you.” I shuffle over from my sitting position on the grass, and look at her eyes. “Okay. Eyes are clear and bright,” Mirko pulled down her eyelids, and I nodded. “Eye tissue is pink, and not red or or very pale, healthy, and shows no sign of discharge or inflammation.”

She had shown no signs of injury or illness, the lab had taken care of her very well since her husk had been caught by a trainer.

I started feeling her sternum, being careful not to squish her too tightly. Mirko squirmed a little, but seemed more curious about the purpose of my fiddling. She was about average in weight for a buneary at five kilograms, and her ribs could be felt but not seen. So she wasn’t overweight or underweight, and she had a resting heartbeat of one hundred ten beats a minute.

I had already finished checking up on her legs, and their muscle density was insane. She could probably leap two stories with no trouble, and her ears while I couldn’t take direct measurements, were heavy and packed full of muscle and odd bio-hydraulic structures. 

“As a pokemon, Mirko defies most laws of biology native to my home, with incredible muscle density and physical strength and durability. This is sourced from their Power, the metaphysical energy that makes up much of their bodies. Accepted terms for this energy are Aura, Qi, and Chi in the eastern regions, Infinity Energy, Orgone, and Primessential Energy in the western regions.” Pokemon are spirits, though most of them do have physical matter making up their bodies, some more than others. “This energy suffuses their bodies, acting as a zero-range skintight force field.”

For pokemon their force field was Typed naturally, and could be dampened with the right types, with the reasoning being biological or metaphysical. 

Mirko didn’t seem to mind listening to my rambling, and I smiled.

This was going to be one of many necessities if I was interested in researching pokemon.

I was going to do my best, even if I felt like my best wasn’t good enough.

In summation, the Mew-RKS Theory postulates that all Pokemon inherit the necessary genes for any typing but only express one or two in a population. Each expressed type gene comes packaged with a suite of traits that better support the typing in a biological sense.

This has been proven with identification of Type genes within the genomes of Pokemon species of every type, with analysis of their DNA with the discovery of PWM or Pokemon/Primessential Wavelength Matter allowing for analysis of even more esoteric Pokemon. Prime examples of Type genes include dormant Dragon-type genes within the Charmander line, Steel-type genes in post-Hisuian colonization goomy populations and the rapid evolution of Fire-type vulpix into the Ice-type keokeo or alolan vulpix. 

It is believed that Type Change is induced by genetic and epigenetic activation of nascent genes, triggered by both Evolution-Metamorphosis and the pressures of natural selection. This is how—

I stopped reading the paragraph, nodding to myself as I added more to my knowledge base. The more I knew about pokemon, the better I would be able to take care of any pokemon I plan to catch. For example I had learned a fair bit about Pokemon Wavelength Matter, the substance of which pokemon are composed of. 

PWM is a strange substance that has both the properties of a wave and a particle, like light crossed with matter. The ‘atoms’ of this substance are arranged with low matter in the same manner as molecules from other life like plants, humans and so on. 

Pokemon vary widely between material and metaphysical if you would. Fairy, Psychic, Ghost, Electric and Fire are primarily metaphysical. Normal, Steel, Water, Bug, Ground, Rock, Ice and Dark are neutral, with some leaning slightly in one direction towards metaphysical or material. Flying, Poison, Grass, Fighting, and Dragon are primarily material. It was a rule of thumb of course, not a perfect and exact method. 

A hand found itself on my shoulders, and I jumped and knocked it away with a half-suppressed scream of fright. I flushed when I saw it was Akari holding out a bottle of water, brows furrowed in confusion. 

“You… uhh startled me.” I explained, feeling outright embarrassed at my reaction. Akari cocked her head, dark steel blue eyes rather piercing. “I’m still reading some research papers and textbooks that might help with exams in the future.” While a trainer license let you raise any pokemon, certain pokemon were Restricted and you needed to take exams or earn enough gym badges or equivalents to legally have them. 

I was interested in such pokemon but it was definitely not an immediate goal. Going from a buneary to a garchomp would definitely be the last mistake I would ever make.

“I see you’ve been training Mirko.” Akari pointed out with a chirpy tone, and I nodded as I looked over to Mirko.

She was running a lap, running and hopping at top speed in intermittent bursts between longer jogging pace laps. Before that I had practiced dodging by… uhh throwing a ball at her, though we also played catch which was exhausting if rewarding whenever she caught one or I threw a fastball right.

“While I’m a lot more interested in pokemon research, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t put effort in training my pokemon.” Pokemon gravitated to strength and I couldn’t be weak in a world like this one, I wanted something to show for my effort until I can go home, if I can go home.

I pulled out my dex-phone, where it had recorded a good scan of Happy the Tepig.

Shared Characteristics

Species: Tepig, Fire Pig Pokemon.

Type: Fire/Ground

Egg Group: Field

Classification: Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Artiodactyla - Suidae - Sus

Wild Threat Level: Tepig are easily spooked and will snort fire from their nostrils before fleeing, their lava tipped tails can cause burns and fires however. Emboar are a high level threat if provoked however.

Growth Rate: Medium-slow

Suggested Diet: Roots, grasses, leaves, grain, berries, nuts, seeds, mushrooms, vegetables. Fire herbivore slop. 

Personal Characteristics

Name: Happy

Holder: Akari Berlitz (Journeyman Trainer)

Age: Five years 

Ability: Blaze (Fire-type moves strengthened in a pinch)

Physicality Analysis

• Minor notch on left ear due to bite-related injury.
• Height measured at fifty centimeters and body mass at ten kilograms.
• Mature male, average in size with above average muscle definition.
• Signs of having contracted type A Pokerus.

Known Moves: Tackle, Tail Whip, Ember, Mud Sport. 

Pokerus huh…? 

I had read some texts on studies of Pokerus, it’s a microscopic agent, a cross between a virus, a bacteria and a protozoan, which seems to share a number of genes with certain pokemon species like solosis, grimee, and ditto. Type A is the safest, causing a permanent change in biochemistry with a boost of time-and-a-half for training. Though it can put a team out of commission for a week. Type B is more unpleasant, and can knock them out for two weeks and doubles growth at the cost of releasing limiters and risking recoil damage from overworking themselves. 

Type C is silent for a month before a week of misery follows, and can cause permanent physical and mental damage, even creating Shadow Pokémon, and proving fatal. Type D is effectively a zombie virus with it’s creation of virulent Shadow Pokemon, and euthanasia is the best option there. It was recommended by both pokémon and people barring a divine miracle, or a built-up resistance from the weaker strains.

Which had at least reduced the danger from an active threat to society to just super-rabies. It was still a rather terrifying illness though, and one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

I sighed and focused myself back on the present, standing up even while I was sore from moving around all day. I had exercised more in the last two weeks than I had in the last two years. But when you were with a buneary that could run at over fifty miles per hour and leap a one-story building, exercise was a survival mechanism.

Akari followed me with a curious gaze, swaying as she walked behind me with a hard-to-read look. “You’re planning more training then, can I join?” 

“Sure? The more the merrier?” I shrugged my shoulders, training involved a lot of coaching and teaching of techniques. Resistance training and lifting of heavy weights or consistent applications of moves, and learning how to apply the energy and physical techniques of new moves. A sort of cross between magic spells and martial arts.

Akari lit up, and with a little prodding brought out her Starter, the funky little Tepig huffing ashy smoke from his nose.  

“What did you wish to practice with Mirko?”

“I wanted to train in Nimbleness and Acceleration, she seems to work best as a close-range combatant.” Mirko was a bit of a brute, and Speed was a complicated subject.

This Earth had battle simulations that had been turned into games, and Speed is the most ambiguous. There's Acceleration, the ability to change movement speed and direction. Nimbleness is agility and a pokémon’s ability to move across the terrain, which can depend on both location and the pokémon. Situational Awareness is their awareness of their surroundings, of obstacles and their target. Reaction Time is the last, critical to battlefield response and orders. All four make up Speed as a statistic of pokémon ability. 

So… complicated is the simplest description of Speed in battle.

Akari cracked her knuckles as if taking on an unspoken task. “Your endurance leaves something to be desired. If you want to keep up with your pokémon you need stamina.”

I might have made a mistake.  

“Umm…?” I stepped back while Akari stepped forward. Mirko was giggling at my plight. 

The blue-haired native placed a hand on my shoulder. “Tell me? What do you think about running a few laps?”

Oh no.

July 12th, 2022

“Risland is a union of regions, made up of Unova, Quivira, Greater Orre, Kaskade, Orana, Florum, and Kyrona.” I read aloud, curious about learning more about the history of a planet in an alternate reality.

Unova corresponded to the East Coast of the United States, and Florum was once a part of it and added up to Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana, so the two regions were the Eastern Seaboard. Quivira was similar to most of Texas which had nominal control of uninhabited territories that added up to much of the southwest while Greater Orre was the rest. Kaskade was the Pacific Northwest, and Orana was Montana after eating up the Dakotas and Wyoming. Kyrona is Alaska, plus tiny bits of Canada and Russia.

Risland had gone to war with Nihoh from 1980 to 1984, somemess of a conflict that had stemmed from a civil war Nihoh had triggered in Greater Orre in the 40s that devastated the ecosystem. Which was why pokemon were so rare there, keystone species dying out caused rapid migrations and die-offs of pokemon.

There were dozens upon dozens of regions that had joined the International Association of Pokémon Leagues. Some I recognized from side-games while others were new and had varying levels of contact with the ‘Canon’ regions. I had also read up more on the Unified Regions of Nihoh, and their history at the behest of Akari.

The Celestica Period was the rise, height and fall of ancient and powerful cultures that had settled the islands of Nihoh from the east around one hundred thousand years ago. The Draconid People and Mizonotami of Hoenn, Pokélantis and Pokémopolis of Kanto acclaim along with the Celestica People of Sinnoh, Almia and Tohoku. 

These earliest humans were closely related, several peoples who lived in the Nihoh archipelago and were the equivalent of the Jōmon, though being hyper-advanced civilization made them pretty different. They had collapsed around three thousand years ago, and were displaced by the Waa People who first settled Kanto before settling everything else. Even the Celestica of Sinnoh have taken in blood from the Diamond and Pearl clans. And they weren’t the first.

Almia and Hisui had once been one and the same until the Waa turned it into an outpost under the Waajin Empire’s great unifier over two thousand years ago. Almia was used as a base to spread into Hisui, with one of his sworn vassals at the helm. 

The House of Berlitz. 

The Imperial Family was dedicated to the worship of the three faces of Sinnoh, with the Berlitz protecting one branch dedicated to the face of Time. Up until the Imperial Family was murdered and a wave of betrayal and assassinations that cut out the heart of the empire balkanized it into the modern regions. The Berlitz survived as a minor merchant empire until the Age of Warlords, as raiders and five hundred years of war erased their mark on Hisui. 

The House of Berlitz didn’t make their return until about three hundred years ago, when their last surviving heir had joined Galaxy Team. Officially recorded as Rei Berlitz, who had married a woman of unknown providence by the name of either Akari or Shou. 

No one was sure which, because she had supposedly answered to both. The House of Berlitz was something like the kazoku, or a Scottish clan, no real political power besides history and wealth. Which was worth a lot less in a world where most commodities were dirt cheap and the minimum wage was thirty dollars an hour. 

But it still mattered and meant she had a target on her back as one of the few living members of the Berlitz family. Other known members included the former Champion of Sinnoh, Dawn Berlitz, Yanase Berlitz, Johanna Berlitz, and an unknown father. There were others like the Knotz family who were more distant relatives and a poorly known branch living in… Tohoku.

There was a lot I didn't know since a lot of records weren't complete, the last five hundred years were detailed enough with the Industrial Age beginning with the creation of Magearna. The Clockwork Princess who overthrew a tyrant in the name of her human creator, and whose actions led to revolutions over the next couple centuries.

Mirko was fiddling with the advanced first aid kit, and I shuddered at the harsh lessons I had taken over the last week. An advanced first aid and wilderness training course had been my life for the past seven days, teaching me everything I could so I wouldn't die like a punk. Fortunately, it was very well organized even if I was admittingly still a total newbie. 

Mirko had learned first aid with me and seemed to enjoy it. I was happy she was learning some new skills. Hmm.

“Mirko?” I called out, and her ears swiveled in my direction, her nose twitching as she hopped over to the couch I was crashing on. She was still odd to look at, translating magical monsters to reality was hard apparently. 

For example legs, she had them. They were mostly hidden under fluff but jumps and kicks revealed them. They were like a lopunny’s legs but shorter, and covered in the same yellow fur, standing on four toes. The fourth toe acted as a shock absorber and lever for enhancing their jumps, channeling their internal energies.

It was metaphysical biological bullshit.

Mirko had a round leporine head and large dark eyes, with slightly ruffled hair rather than the weirdly slick designs of animated pokémon. She stretched out her arms, splaying out three fingers and a thumb. She twiddled her thumbs, tilting her head. She wasn't meek, but expressing anxiety through minor violence was an issue.

“I feel like the past ten days have been pretty packed, and I thought maybe it was a good idea to sit down and uhh… just chat?” Mirko blinked, and I felt weird about this whole situation.

The buneary line was a distrustful lineage of hares, living harsh lives in the wilderness, and was considered low on the food chain, so introductions between them and predator pokémon can be tough. Their most natural enemies were murkrow and misdreavus, due to some ancient evolutionary battle between them that related to Mega Evolution. Communication was key when it came to pokémon especially as I learned more about the Tohoku region. 

There were dozens of cities and towns and hundreds of villages, though they had suffered from a natural disaster some eleven years ago that had killed hundreds of thousands of people. There were more than 8 gyms but there was a core of eight that were signs of true skill and competitive spirit.

The nearest gym was in the town of Irori, which was… over two hundred kilometers on foot. Running along a major river, traveling through rural countryside, flat plains, gently rolling hills, and then more plains. It was a two-week-long trip across both untamed wilderness and small towns and villages scattered between.

Route 301 could be considered this region’s route 1, with thirty-one routes up to 330 interconnecting the region of Tohoku. Tohoku was a large and diverse region, acting as a bridge between Kanto-Johto and Sinnoh. The southern half of Tohoku was home to pokémon of the Kanto and Johto region while the northern half had more Sinnoh natives, and interspersed throughout the region were Tohokun variants and surviving Hisuian variants.

Mirko blinked. “Mrrr…?” I sighed and found my confidence. 

“I’m your trainer, correct?” Mirko nodded with a befuddled look. I smiled awkwardly. “But I also want to get to know you better, we’re supposed to be partners in this mess of a world. I think a little Q&A is in order, I know you're from a colony on Route 301 not far off of Ishigama. Why become a Starter?” 

I had no idea if she could answer or not, even with what I knew about pokéballs. They were naturally able to store the energy of a trainer which was then directed toward a pokémon. Through this field, a pokémon can understand how compatible they are with you. Otherwise, you're fucked and not going to catch a thing. 

Starter pokémon are often given time to could get an idea of what they were getting into. Starters are the species considered most compatible with humans, dozens of species are carefully selected and marked as suitable partners. My… aura field was unusual, but it at least worked. Mirko had chosen to become a Starter, the question then was why?

The bunny flicked her ears, pointed to a map of the region, and then gently traced her paw along the winding routes. 

“You want to travel… to see the world beyond your colony?” I asked, placing my hands on my thighs with a lopsided grin. She pointed to me, and then to my pokédex, where my journal entries were written and opened up. “And you like what I do?” 

She shook her head. “Buu! Waa!” She mimed talking and writing with her paws and mouth, and then to the medical kit.

“You like when I talk when I tell you things? And when we’re learning new things?”

Her eyes shined brighter as I understood her. “Wawa!” Her perpetual smile was curled in a more sincere expression. 

“Well, then that’s something we have in common,” I was happy to see that, I wanted to make this work. This wasn't just having a superpowered pet, this was closer to taking in a roommate as their life coach in kicking ass and taking names.

“If you’d like, maybe I can tell you more about my home?” My heart clenched as I thought back to what I had lost. I had been ignoring it for too long.

Mirko's fist was pumped and my lips curled into a sad smile.

Yeah, just take it one step at a time.

Chapter Text

Start Game 1.5

July 17th, 2022 

“Say hello to Tohoku’s own champion! The one, the only Yui Oshima!” The announcer’s voice rang as the local champion appeared on the scene. She was a woman of about average height, but her presence was huge. She had pale skin and a stout frame, thick wavy black hair, deep-set blue eyes flickering across the field. She wore a billowing robe that clung to her curvy frame, and walked with a conviction I lacked.

Yui Oshima was the Champion of the Tohoku region and a powerful one at that. She’s fought and beaten Lance Wataru and fought insane battles against Cynthia that could devastate battlefields, and rumors about their private battles mentioned altering landscapes. 

She had a star team, something I could see from the recording of an old match. She had brought out her empoleon Badtz Maru. He wasn't her Starter, that honor went to her nidoqueen. He was a Luminous Empoleon, huge sea birds that ruled over the glacier palaces of the arctic, crowned as rulers of their domain. Prideful, dictators shrouded in auroras that stall Fire moves and enhance Ice attacks.

He dwarfed his trainer, and I gasped when I saw him unleash Blizzard, the storm of ice twisting and writhing like a living thing as it formed a defensive wall. He was a prime example of why people called them the Master of the Waves.  

I moved to other videos, one demonstrating her sylveon using Wish, a bloodthirsty grin on her face as her ribbons clasped tightly onto the neck of a dragonite. Sylveon are predators to Dragons and keeping hers from eating them was a testament as a trainer. I skipped forward to her aerodactyl, the living fossil flapping its sharp stony wing as he bombarded a rampaging gyarados with Stone Edge, pillars of sharpened elemental rock shooting out from the ground like missiles.

Badtz Maru the Empoleon, Glaistig Uaine the Sylveon, Ropen the Aerodactyl, 

Kaguya the Nidoqueen. That left Cell the Reuniclus, and her most dangerous pokémon, Fafnir the Hydreigon. One who had gone through the Berserker ritual, and had all limits removed. Hydreigon had access to the Berserker gene, causing it to produce extremely potent forms of adrenaline and testosterone, a feedback loop with metaphysical processes that boosts all their stats and allows them to grow to greater size and power.

At their smallest, they were as large and heavy as metagross, with some elders recorded at twenty feet tall and rivaling Legendaries in power and rage. Most trained hydreigon went through a ritual to suppress and dampen their power, purposely damaging their endocrine system but protecting them from the Berserker Rage.

Years ago, when Nihoh was on the brink of a pointless war she destroyed entire teams of Elite 4-class trainers and tore a private military carrier in half with just her hydreigon’s Dragon Storm, an enhanced form of Draco Meteor. 

A Champion-level team in this world was equal to nukes back home, a Champion could reshape landscapes and demolish cities. It was a level of power that couldn't be matched in my world. A one-man… or more accurately one commander and supersoldier army.

Nihoh had been brought under the aegis of Kanto with the power of pokémon and their Champions. Kanto was the heartland of what had been once been a mighty empire, it had conquered Johto years ago and brought Hoenn into its alliance of states through diplomacy and threats. The Unified Regions of Nihoh were closer to the thirteen colonies when it came to politics.

They had fought wars against other regions, from Risland, the confederation of states dominated by Unova to the mainland regions of Joseon and Panguria. Korea and China respectively. They had their native species, but communication between regions was sparse due to a combination of the dangers between regions and isolationism. It was only with the creation of the Pokédex in the 90s that regions began to reconnect again.

A paw tugged at my pants, and I flushed when I realized I had been standing in the middle of a lane for a couple of minutes. Mirko had snapped me of my funk, and I glanced over at the meat aisle of a grocery store. Cuts of different meats were sourced from Domestic breeds which were wildly different from Wilds. Though even at their dullest they were smarter than average, this was a world where most megafauna started at five-year-old and topped out at supercomputer.

It was specifically Charolais beef I was glancing at, a Domestic breed of tauros-miltank native to Kalos. Micromon had been a rather narrow word, applying mostly to microfaunal species, as big as regular rats at most. ‘Domestic’ pokémon were easy to tell apart, they were smaller and dimmer, lacking a certain presence of mind. They weren't fit for battling, and the closest comparison I had was…

World of Darkness, Werewolf. the Umbra where spirits roam. There was a vast hierarchy of spirit entities, from mere animalistic sparks of power to actual gods. Micromon and ‘domestics’ were the lowest tiers, while Wilds and Ferals were imbued with intelligence and power, but humans were something different from either.

The only thing I can say about that is that pokémon are delicious, and I wasn't sure whether or not I regretted it. More seriously factory farming didn't exist as we knew it, every pokémon was raised with dignity, respect, and honor. It was simply the way of this world.

“I'll get you some carrots as a treat…” I muttered absently and Mirko’s cry became elated.

Dust kicked up whenever Mirko sprinted, and I marked it down in a digital notebook, which had the texture of paper through holograms. The sensors on my phone were convenient for measuring speed.

“Mirko has been clocked at an average speed of twenty seven point five meters a second or ninety-nine kilometers per hour. This is considered a typical speed for an unevolved pokémon at her current experience level.” For a pokémon of her species, I mean, a Slowpoke is nowhere as fast. “Weights of between one hundred and two hundred kilograms are within her ability to move and damage.” Not destroy … but leaving cracks in solid rock was impressive for someone less than a tenth of my body weight. “Quick Attack acts similar to a rocket engine, allowing near-instant acceleration to velocities exceeding sixty meters a second.” 

Moves like Quick Attack, Aqua Jet, and Extreme Speed were all aura-based rockets. A huge speed boost that comes at the cost of stamina and acceleration issues without training or appropriate items. Reading had been a bounty of information about pokémon and vital statistics about them as living beings. 

Pokémon were on average several times faster than their equivalent animal counterparts, and non-animal pokémon could keep up with them of course. Baseline humans were faster too, aura was a hell of a drug from what Laven had told me. 

I was writing down every observation I could, and spoke up. “Mirko? Can you use Drain Punch on that tree?” I pointed to a small one, and she turned on her heels as her paws glowed with green energy. The tree shuddered under the force, withering very slightly as aura was pulled from the tree.

Draining moves worked by stealing vitality from living things, though Drain Punch had a design built to pull from the aura of a combatant. It couldn't drain a living thing dry like Absorb or Leech Life. It had to tap the active reserves of aura used during battle to be effective. It could work off inactive aura but it was an order of magnitude weaker.

I had gotten any equipment I could for training, reinforced toys, targets, and using local terrain and lab equipment while we were here.

There was a loud thump, and Mirko stopped her running with a panting cry. Ears perking up in the direction of the noise. 

“You want to check it out?” Mirko nodded, an eyebrow raised. The bunny monster moved before I did, and I followed after her in a haphazard sprint. The sounds became louder, and we stepped into another of Laven’s fields. 

I blinked. 

It was Akari and her tepig, and I paused when I saw her dodge a Tackle with an easy turn of her heels. Her red skirt rustled with the careful and elegant dance she was displaying. She’s wearing shorts I see.

She was practically a blur, moving far faster than any human being should. It was an endless waltz of dodging, leaping, and rolling. Happy chased her with zeal, not as fast as Mirko but certainly too fast for a human to avoid…

On my Earth.  

Akari wore a savage grin, gently flipping her pokémon over whenever he made a hit, bleeding the momentum of his attack. Not that it would kill her, an average human could take a couple of hits from a pokémon. Hell, I had taken a wallop from Mirko and walked it off. No bruises. 

Young first stage pokémon were strong enough to hurt people but not enough to kill barring special abilities. So a person isn't going to be wary of magikarp or caterpie but will keep some distance from a beedrill or quilava. Second and third stage pokémon or the stronger first stage pokémon are the ones to worry about the most.

Akari was still crazy as fuck for willingly going toe to toe with a pokémon though.

“Akari?” I asked, and the girl acknowledged me with a grunt. “How are you doing that?” Most people couldn’t fight with pokémon, they were too physically weak to deal with them. It didn’t help that most of their technology that dealt with aura was extremely esoteric and not fully understood by most people outside of scientists and literal wizards.

All the things I had learned about aura I had learned from Laven, a specialist dedicated to studying the energy of pokémon, from the energy given off by Evolution, the Z energy of Alola, the exotic photon emissions of the Illumina phenomenon, the phase transitions of Galar particles and her theories of Infinity Energy.

Aura was poorly understood and heavily restricted, and their aura channeling was largely incidental, or for machinery classified or put under lock and key. Capture devices just worked and that was it, certain species and crops were good for channeling pokémon energy, and the right pulses of exotic force primed materials for their equipment.

The way Laven had explained it, the entire universe was surrounded in a vast field of aura, emitted by every living thing, a seething storm of power existing in the quantum background. Certain tools, certain plants and minerals and structures and shapes and patterns, movements and physical techniques hadn’t been designed to channel or store energy. 

They had instead been discovered and iterated on for tens of thousands of years, patterns in nature that they learned, broke down and passed down to future generations. Coffee was a natural stimulant so of course it attracted certain flavors of Type Energy, Electric or Flying, a certain knife handle shape might let it better channel Fire energy, a tool steeped in an area rich in psychic energy is gonna be good at inducing weird chemical reactions to prepare weird bread.

But those rituals pertained to what was effectively the magitech equivalent of dark matter, something we can’t detect with our current instruments and is physically unobservable. Yet it can be measured by its ambient effect on its surroundings, like gravity and galaxies for dark matter and the various energetic effects of life energy.

Though I suppose having so many samples makes it a lot easier to measure than dark matter in my universe.

“Brandon?” Akari responded and I blinked back into awareness with a flush, her skirt swaying in the wind. I felt a surge of misbegotten envy and I grimaced at a revelation I hadn’t had much time to process, besides looking up ways to deal with it.

Medical science is amazing.

“Sorry, I got distracted. But how are you sparring with a pokémon?”

Akari blinked. “Oh that. I’m just built different.”

I frowned. “Really?”

“It also involves years of exercise and healthy eating,” she pointed out with a pointed gaze. “I can assist with that if you give me the chance.”

“Sure?”

Her savage grin wasn’t reassuring.

I crossed my arms over my chest as I watched Professor Laven read results on a screen. She had called me in after my exhausting training session with Akari. 

That girl was a freak of nature let me tell you…

“So the official League season doesn't begin until the autumnal equinox,” I grimaced at the idea, that wasn't until September. “And as you're a first-timer, leaving on your journey early is out of the question.” 

“So about one and a half months until I can officially exit this city, for the Gym Challenge anyways.” I specified. I could probably use public transportation for travel reasons at least, train systems were universal across Nihoh, and cars were less common due to the expansiveness of the wilderness. “But I guess that gives me more time to get used to this world huh?”

Professor Laven nodded as she multitasked, crafting algorithms on her monitor for research. “You’re still giving off a notable amount of wormhole energy, which could attract legendary-class pokémon to this region.”

“Ultra Beasts, correct?” I asked, and Laven grimaced like she had taken a sip of spoiled milk. After the Alola incident, which seemed to be a hybrid of both games in terms of plot, Ultra Beasts were a known if somewhat mysterious group of entities.

“It’s why Agent Tedesco is remaining close by, and Ishigama is fortunately full of veteran trainers. We inherited the more aggressive spirit of the Indigo League, so we have some of the stronger trainers around.” There was no mirth in her voice.

I never expected to grapple with the question of colonialism in Pokémon but in the end, that was what the Unified Regions of Nihoh were founded on. The Wataru had joined on the side of Kanto and conquered Johto, cajoled Hoenn into submission by defeating their strongest champions and organized expeditions to explore Hisui and Almia. 

That legacy had faded with time, the Pokémon League had been created as a system to funnel excess pokémon to students, creating the first Gyms, which in turn necessitated badges as proof for students who wanted to learn from multiple gyms. Kanto had ended up only strengthening their political enemies, and the Indigo Empire was now merely a league among many.

The government was a cross between a meritocratic shogunate and a social democratic government. It was a very strange and very alien form of government, so it was also a total pain in my ass. 

“So what's the plan then?” I wanted to spend more time getting to know Mirko, and more time learning about pokémon as a whole.

“I imagine you don't mind helping me out around the lab or attending classes at the Trainer School?” Laven questioned and I rolled my eyes.

“I don’t have anything better to do,” I pointed out, and the researcher nodded. “But… I did have something else to talk about.” I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up or not, but I had to. No more holding it off. 

“Hmm? I’m listening.” The professor tilted her head, and I breathed in and out.

“I’m uhh… do you have any specific health centers you recommend?”

Laven blinked. “For what?”

“Personal reasons I elaborated on when I filled out my papers, remember?”

Her eyes widened.

“Oh!”

Yes.

Oh.

July 19th, 2022

I laid back on my bed, staring at the strange bottle of medication I had purchased for an absurdly low cost. The bottle itself was blue, pink, and white in a striped pattern, and held a substance I couldn’t believe was possible, but then this was the world of Pokémon where anything was possible. 

Berries and other plants were miracles given biological form for their abilities. Oran berries promote bodily homeostasis with a jolt of near-instantly digested energy and acts as a mild, non-addictive pain killer on top of being antibiotic, antiviral and antiseptic. Medicinal leeks promote and accelerate natural healing, and provide energy for fueling cell activity. Sitrus berries take it a step further and induce full-blown cellular regeneration, dead and damaged cells repair themselves along with the spontaneous generation of new and healthy cells.

Pecha berries acts as a universal antidote because all toxins sourced from Pokémon are based on a single core molecular structure, and even so they’re effective against a number of unnatural poisons and toxins. Rawst berries are a natural and potent burn salve, with a number of compounds that promote healing and protect from secondary effects like heat, radiation and breaks down effects of fire.

Aspear berries act as a natural antifreeze and ice melt, and its chemical compounds can undo the effects of crystallization from frozen cells. Which was why there were cryonics studies on using the compounds in Aspear berries to sustain people in suspended animation for years. A Chesto berry has a number of compounds not dissimilar to caffeine, provides a massive boost of instantly digested energy and promotes background brain processes usually taken care of during sleep.

Then there were the studies involving the various abilities of certain Pokémon, the healing moves of course were focused on, the aura abilities of pokémon like Lucario, and certain properties of their byproducts.

Ditto was a special one though, they were protoplasmic organisms that shared many traits with things like Caulerpa seaweed and Valonia ventricosa, sea grapes. Which were gigantic single celled organisms that could be seen by the naked eye. 

An advanced cytoskeleton was used to circulate food, nutrients and waste all around their dense and malleable cytoplasm; they were held together by heavily reinforced tubules and cell walls made of mineralized biopolymers, with tubules marking the domains of the tens of billions of protein capsules that are analogous to the nuclei in other living things. Intricate biological machinery communicated information between every single sub-cell, genes constantly flowing back and forth, and ditto has the ability to send out enzymes to steal genes, channeling Type Energy into the process to Transform.

Which was why they didn’t share much in common with the solosis line who were also unicellular but used different tubule networks and different biopolymers for their cell walls, and are a bit more conventional… 

However they were closer in structure to an extremely sophisticated ciliate cell, each tubule domain containing a macronucleus and micronucleus, using a complex set of genetic editing and splicing tied to their psychic energy to create a Turing-complete genetic computer. With the macronucleus serving as the processor while the micronucleus was the hard drive, with a complex of microfibrils and tubules forming a mechanochemical computer to handle stimuli for both ditto and solosis.

… their shape-shifting was a matter of their incredibly flexible biology and the Move and the programming of the Type Energy, unshaped energy, like clay molded to their will. But the medical applications were endless, and decades of research had paid off even if it was far more limited in every way.

I read the label, scratching my freshly shaved face, having cut away all my facial hair. There was a cute image of a smiling ditto, and the name of the bottle. 

Ditto Derived Transformative or DDT was a powerful and extremely beneficial medication that had been under development since the invention of the Pokédex in 96. Years of work studying ditto, and various Berries and organic extracts and compounds had in one instance become what was effectively an extremely potent and low cost gender transition procedure, along with hundreds of other projects in regenerative medicine, whether it was correcting physical defects like a hole in your heart or healing bones or regrowing limbs and organs.

This was specifically the MTF formula, a specific variety focused around transgender healthcare for effeminate leaning people. Which was something I had been kinda suppressing while I was in shock at being torn away from my world. I had an appointment with a doctor and got the prescription on the spot because the world of Pokémon isn’t made up of total assholes like on Earth.

It was a liquid medicine, one that required only a weekly dosage, and only for a period of between six and eighteen months. The DDT was supplemented with Oran, Sitrus, and Lum berry extract, the first did it’s job in promoting bodily homeostasis, protecting the body from any immune system complications, Sitrus paired with medicinal leek compounds induced cellular regeneration and strengthened the biological signal of DDT, while Lum cured status ailments and reduced the strain of minor side effects of the gradual transformation.

I had just taken my first weekly dosage, and I could still taste the sweet taste on my lips, kind of like an apple but also not. Which meant the first step of taking care of my own needs had begun.

Mirko was sleeping in her pokéball, she took to either sleeping inside of it or some cushions if she wanted to be more fancy. I was working on learning about this world, it’s wonders and terrors both.

The wormhole energy I was giving off was being studied, and I was going to carve my own path here rather than wait for salvation. But finding a way home meant I needed to explore every nook and cranny, and go looking for it.

I placed down the bottle and laid back on my bed, looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling.

I was going on a journey, and that was that.

Chapter Text

Start Game 1.6

July 24th, 2022  

I rubbed my forehead, pouting at the building sweat from the humid heat of Ishigama, a humid subtropical climate that didn't agree with my own habit of living in southern California. We had the heat to match but not the humidity and it fucking sucked. 

It didn't help that I had been tasked with a survey of the edge of the city, along the Rikushū coast. The dramatic cliffs and beaches are a valuable refuge for seabirds like wingull and cramorant, which were both species with a near-global range. It wasn't a regional variant for the latter, but it did have a far darker dark blue bordering on black coat, and white feathers extending up their necks.

The umiu were a common partner among fishermen in the region, and I could see one chowing down on a fish, and I cringed at the horrific squishy sounds of wriggling flesh being shoved down its throat. If I was in Sinnoh there'd be a small chance of sighting foreign pokémon like the puffrige line, though it's home domain was on the North Altian continent, specifically the Mezo region, a vast and diverse region below the continental power of the Risland Confederation, the political alliance of regions dominated by Unova. 

I could see some sukashi-yuri blooming on the sand, gravel, and cliff sides, blooming orange lilies in the thousands in vast flower fields alongside roses, beach morning glories, daylilies and Japanese(Nihoh) irises.

Lots of deciduous trees and meadows and fields along with steep cliff sides and sandy beaches. I could see eastern shellos, who of course resembled gigantic sea slugs. If a lot less ugly, though their charm was certainly leaning towards ugly cute with their odd faces and wriggling pseudopod appendages.

The shellos line has a complex network of hydraulic cell tissue used to power their legs, and an internalized gladius of non-conductive mineral structures which acts as their skeleton. Which explains why they become Ground type on evolution.

There were a few krabby in the water as well, digging into the sand so they wouldn't be washed away. I could see two fighting over a carcass, both of them using Vise Grip, claws crushing chitin with sheer force, bubbly sounds coming out of them.

The flower fields were home to starly, rattata, budew and shinx. At least close to the city where I had been told to keep an eye on things with Mirko. The cliffs had skiddo and one or two gogoat. A regional form I think.

Of course I wasn’t just being a passive actor, part of being a pokémon researcher was interacting with them as a species when you can. That included politely asking for battles, since ambushing pokémon seemed like a dick move if they weren’t being hostile.

Shinx were the most active in challenging us, and sometimes a rattata or two would try to attack and get bodied by Mirko. Drain Punch did a number on them and kept her stamina by draining their energy. She had knocked out about six of each, and had gotten stronger. 

I scanned for more pokémon in the area using my dex-phone, the device releasing a pulse, and I blinked at a notification. “The Buneary registered to you has learned a new move. Please go to the Team Status feature to learn more.” It intoned and I blinked as I did what it said.

“Foresight? Not a bad move against ghost pokémon, and you’ve got access to Pound, Quick Attack and Drain Punch. ” I gestured to Mirko and she puffed up in pride. 

Buneary had access to a wide variety of moves given sufficient growth or me spending time teaching her how to channel and manage the energies and techniques. Some easy moves would include Defense Curl, Endure, After You, and Swift. 

Their YouTube equivalent had lots of tutorials on teaching moves, and how to optimize their fighting skills.

There was a rumble, and I glanced over to Mirko who had gone still, nose twitching and ears curling up in… embarrassment?

“Are you hungry?” 

“Miro!” She answered with a nod, and I sat down on a log, brushing away stray insects, and pulling off my backpack. Akari had taught me how to prepare custom meals for pokémon rather than the opaque generic chow offered by most stores, though she had pointed out a few good brands that offered an actual list of ingredients so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed by needing to feed multiple pokémon.

“So an ideal mix of oats, hay, leafy green lettuce, oran cuttings and bell peppers, along with a small quantity of micro-bugs.” I pulled out the bowl, and placed it down next to me. Mirko hopped up onto the log, dark eyes glimmering with excitement.

I twisted off the top of a thermos bottle full of water, which was kept cool by the container and the natural stasis of Backpack. The whole elementalization and compact storage of items with predictable forms was a bit of a mindfuck, and revolved around generating an altered space where certain rules apply differently.

A lot of their tech was built around the reverse engineering of Infinity Energy, using machinery to replicate certain effects. For example both Growth and Minimize had been used in electronics manufacturing, using the former to maximize working surfaces and the latter to minimize the size of tools and parts.

The electronics in my dex-phone for example was the size of a penny surrounded in a shock-absorbent foam and the composite frame of the electronic device, along with a high energy density capacitor-style battery. And I mean dense, thirty megajoules a kilogram was a rather standard measure for rechargeable power storage units around here.

They had apparently never invented lithium ion batteries, and found my phone interesting if using a volatile and inferior electrochemical battery. They had stuck to capacitors for close to five centuries, with primitive batteries never going past lead acid, nickel cadmium and nickel-iron batteries. 

So the phone was incredibly tough, even the screen could get slammed into a concrete wall at a hundred meters a second and survive unscathed due to being made out of exotic alloys and composites, as well as the unique empowering effect of being administered by a digital pocket monster. The scanner was pretty powerful and could identify both pokémon and other organisms. 

It was a primessential waveform scanner, and rather effective at placing pokémon within the known eighteen major type-based delineations, along with breaking down and analyzing physical substances and energy patterns. It was actually incredibly fascinating technology, and porygon acting as an optimization and analysis engine was neat.

They were tech support basically, and a very helpful digital assistant.

“Bwaa?” She pointed to my screen, where I was reading over the multiple scans my dex-phone had picked up from our battles. Deep scans of the energy of pokémon, Porygon working double time as an analysis engine.

“Just science, structural analysis of moves so we can better understand them.”

Mirko nodded, and I grinned back.

July 29th, 2022  

I sat down as one slowpoke approached me without a care in the world, as I was treated as a simple farm-hand by Professor Laven, and given as much information on pokémon in a practical setting.

Slowpoke was scientifically classified as Gyrinomanatus tardus, despite having traits in common with reptiles and amphibians, likely due to crossbreeding in the distant past. A bit of an oddball when it comes to mammalian pokémon, able to regenerate like an axolotl with a mesothermic metabolism, and a complex nervous system that produces a slew of neuropeptides alongside serotonin and dopamine.

They were frugivores and piscivores, living off of a diet of fruit and fish, and very simple minded. Their tough, thick but smooth skin, like velvet backed by a dense underlayer. I was taught how to take care of hygiene, grooming and feeding, and given tips on various ways pokémon could be taken care of when it comes to being their trainer or at least their allies.

“Boroup? Slooow…” I sighed when I was pinned under the weight of the land manatee, he was bigger than average, and dealing with one hundred eighty pounds of giant salamander-manatee was kind of painful.

There was a gentle wave of emotional force, and I twitched but let it happen as the psychic pokémon knocked at the palace of my mind. It was hard to describe what psychic powers were like. 

It was like a wave of feelings, a mishmash of different emotions, a sense of muted affection and will. The trifecta of the mind. I let my wonder and curiosity surge forward into the connection, my determination to understand them as a species.

Psychic pokémon always have one or two strengths to their mental abilities, some are a level of intelligence matched only by supercomputers and entire halls of knowledge, others feel emotion on an unforeseen level, or have wills so powerful no man or beast or god would stand in their will.

But they never had a perfect balance of those traits, Alazakam had Knowledge and Emotion but no Will to enact their calculations. Metagross had the Will but not the Emotion to give it direction.

Slowpokes were dumb as a rock, but their determination was commendable, and their emotions had hidden depths to them. Slowking were amongst the closest to humans when it came to the trifecta of Mind, but their knowledge seeking was purely an affair of deep passion and love, and their willpower didn’t focus on power in the way it did for humans.

“Good boy.” I petted the big old lug, and with a very careful shift pulled the big guy out of my lap so he would cease crushing my bones. I stood up before he could do it again, and sighed when I saw a growlithe playing a rather one sided game of tug of war with a lillipup.  

I was going to have to break it up wasn’t I?

July 30th, 2022

The past two weeks had been a rather productive time when it came to studying, being a sponsored Trainer with a Professor was most similar in how it worked to an apprenticeship program. I worked forty hours a week under the supervision of the Professor, and about eight hours every week in classroom training. And yet I was still being paid an insane amount of money… 

A more recent evaluation of the tax rate meant I was earning forty dollars an hour, which sounds like a lot… until you realize a basic researcher’s salary working should be earning between fifty and sixty dollars an hour if they work under another organization. They take a cut for training and access to exams, schooling and so on.  

Only the poorer less established regions lacked such programs like Alola and Orre. And both had broken out of their ruts in the last few years, the former with their own League to strengthen their government and regional influence and the latter with the creation of their Battle Frontier, and the Realgem League.

But maybe I should be more focused on the present?

“So most of your lessons from the Trainer School Network are concentrated on the science of Pokémon more than how to train them?” Akari asked with wide eyes, Happy sitting on her lap like a lap dog.

“I'm not much of a fighter, but biology is something I've found fascinating most of my life, and Pokémon are even more intriguing. Most of what I've been picking up has been from working at the lab, research and practice.” Along with my encyclopedic knowledge of pokémon because of the games. Those memories had gotten much clearer, and I thanked myself for reading up on the newer games of Gen 8. “And there are some trainer classes I've been attending.”

Some.

Akari stared at me like I was an alien (which I was) and crossed her arms, which ended up emphasizing her uhh… chest. “Hands-on experience with training is far more useful than sitting it on lessons, because I know you aren't attending the practical classes.”

I laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck. “Guess I'm messing up a bit there?”

Akari hummed, brushing back ones of her blue bangs. “You’re at least not like the Pokémon Technical Institute, they spend years studying theoretical and practical courses but don't prepare them for the real world. That one of their students turned their simulators into a game doesn't help.” I swore I heard a whisper of ‘Game Freak’ and ignored it to protect my sanity.

“Okay?” 

Akari gestured to Mirko who was currently beating the hell out of a dusty punching bag. “You’re doing well enough despite not being familiar with being a trainer directly. You're treating pokémon as their own individuals, with their own wants and needs.”

I frowned. “It’d be wrong not to wouldn't it? They're effectively first contact with sapient life that isn't human. If they're willing to stick with me, I'm willing to accommodate their needs.” 

Her gaze turned sad. “Not every pokémon is so lucky to have a trainer willing to treat them well.” 

Oh.

“So more training sessions between us?” I rubbed my sore chest, chewing on my lip as I scanned Akari’s face.

She offered me a brilliant smile. “Of course, we’re coworkers after all, and your joy for learning about pokémon is endearing.”

My face turned red.

“Thank you…”

So more training it is.

Chapter Text

Start Game 1.7

August 14th, 2022 

Every day I kept up a regular routine with Mirko, together the two of us were learning basic martial arts, practicing stances, learning basic moves and techniques, and stretches. 

Lots of sit-ups, squats and plenty of juice.

“How are you doing, Mirko?” I called out to the rabbit as she unleashed her moves, a Quick Attack into Drain Punch, into an ear-based Pound to knock an opponent off balance.

Mirko perked up. “Miro! Bwahaha.” She placed her hands on her hips, boasting about her progress. I had focused on her speed, agility, and power. She had fallen in love with taekwondo and muay thai and had adapted the various elbow techniques for her ears. A mix of both martial arts was adapted so she could use every possible part of her body as a weapon.

“Is there something you want to ask about?” I didn't understand her language but I could get the subtext a lot of the time. She generated a Drain Punch, and swirled it around, then pointed to herself.

“Oh, you're asking what kind of moves I think you should learn?” She nodded, and I took a moment to formulate my response. 

Well…

“Well you're pretty close to learning Double Kick, which serves as an excellent base to developing Jump Kick.” Jump Kick was an incredibly powerful Fighting-type move, and would make Mirko into a real monster when it came to raw power. “Work Up is another good move, it increases your strength by strengthening your aura.” All pokémon moves work by channeling their aura, the vast well of metaphysical energy which fuels their abilities and maintains their existence. 

“Wa?” Mirko asked unsure.

“Work Up is… a ritual that increases your strength. You remember the feeling of Drain Punch right, how it reinvigorated you with drained power?” Mirko nodded, and I felt we were getting somewhere. “Use that feeling of reinvigoration, reach for your energy and tell it to wake the fuck up , channel it into a movement that pumps you up, a stretch maybe? Boost your power.”

Mirko didn't take long to figure out a movement, she shifted her hips, and moved her weight from one foot to the other. It was a cocky flex, and a bright red light sparked from her skin, until it unfolded into a flare of red energy that reminded me of the kaio-ken. I wonder…

“Mirko. Use a Pound, as hard as you can on that boulder.” I pointed to the spherical stone, and she threw herself at the target with glee, an ear taking a bright white hue. Her ear whipped around with immense force, practically a blur to my eyes and shattering the eleven-inch diameter mass of earth with a single strike. 

Mirko looked so very proud of herself, having broken a rock over four times her own mass. We had been training her strength through exercises and fighting certain pokémon that offered the best traits for her to grow from.

EVs and IVs of a sort existed in this world, though they were a lot more ambiguous than a basic numerical system. EVs were simply bundled into experience, the growth of a pokémon through battle and challenges of the body. It's a battle of aura against aura, element against an element, and forces of nature colliding. So fighting certain pokémon or performing certain exercises filled the bond between pokémon and human with the experiences of life.

That left something vaguely like IVs or in truth potential which was more… a form of internal cultivation of energies, by providing the right environment to unlock their full potential, improving their ‘stats’ as well as training speed, comprehension, move mastery, and the ease in breaking out of bottlenecks within an evolutionary stage. 

It could sorta sometimes be passed down through blood, since their own energy provided an optimal cradle for their young. Precisely measuring potential was not an exact science, this wasn't some kind of hyper-precise gameplay system.

Strengthening their potential allowed for the activation of latent affinities and genetic aberrations. From what I remember this was responsible for many of the unique variants of pokémon. 

Non-standard moves, like a pikachu that learns Surf or Fly or an Entei that learns Sacred Fire. The ‘Shiny’ characteristic, named for the bright shine of their blood, minor elemental affinities, or of course the Alpha Phenomena, also known as the Giant phenotype. The ultimate manifestation of this cultivation involves Type Royals, legendary creatures ten or more times larger than ordinary for their species.

However, the bond between trainer and pokémon was the best way to bring out that hidden potential, creating something greater than the sum of their parts. All those methods of creating the right environment had to be paired with the bond of friendship between humans and pokémon. Being a fucking selfless asshole had a good way of weakening a pokémon, reducing their potential. Up to a point.

“Mirko. I have an idea that we can work on, you learned Work Up pretty quick, and I want to see how far we can customize it.” I slammed my fist into my palm, and she looked equally excited.

I was excited to see what I could pull off, even if it involved hard work and experimentation.

Heh.

I examined myself in the reflective pond, doing my best to see how much progress had been made in a matter of weeks. My skin had gotten way softer, and my body had a sweeter scent, my facial and body hair had stopped growing as fast, so it was easier to shave.

Which was frankly absurdly convenient, not having to shave my legs was very much a boon with how thick it came in. My black hair had grown curlier and longer, and my chest was rather consistently sore now, which made sense. My medication worked wonders, and the feeling of relief was almost like a high that wouldn’t go away.

Twenty five days wasn’t enough for incredibly intense changes, but it was enough for visible progress and a remarkable improvement in mood. It also offered a good distraction from when I would take off onto my journey across the vast region of Tohoku. And I do mean vast. 

Some four hundred and twenty thousand square kilometers of territory, a vast and untapped land, far more rural than its counterpart in my world, housing millions of humans and hundreds of millions of pokémon, and many hundreds of billions including the microbugs that form the baseline of every ecosystem on the planet.

As a rookie trainer, if I had been a trainer with a Youngster license I would have had to wait until the circuit began, however I should be able to leave in several weeks since travel between settlements often takes days to weeks. Between the first gym it was a journey of two weeks, along with several settlements where I could battle trainers and gain strength and knowledge.

I leaned away from the pond, eyes glancing down to the minor fish pokémon and aquatic bugs. I breathed in and out as I was surrounded by nature, taking deep and regular gulps of fresh air, crisp and sharp in a way I had never really known existed.

Though that said more about me than it did about my own world.

I took in as much information as I could, letting my mind wander in every direction. I had read several papers on what I was researching personally, with my own body, with my own mind and spirit.

Most scientists of this world believed in the concept of aura, of what was whispered in a hundred secret tongues as Infinity Energy, of the energy inherent in all living things and beyond, of the vital force. Even if only the last decade or so had yielded the ability to directly observe the fundamental, physical form of aura.

Aura was the source of the unique abilities of pokémon, stemming from a single source, it was the energy of Evolution, it was what allowed pokémon to appear from out of nowhere, New Species springing into existence.

Aura was the fundamental, binding energy of the universe, a seething foam of energy which was the source of all matter, all energy, the building block of creation. All energy was allegedly a different expression of this aural building block. What did that mean for my world?

It reminded me of quantum vacuum energy, but more… metaphysical, more ephemeral than our own understanding of physics, of reality. But that was what others knew of aura, not what I had come to understand personally, only a flicker of thought towards such a… fairy tail concept.

Aura was an important concept in the study of pocket monsters, it was how the symbiosis between human and monster had been forged since near the very beginning. It was likely the bond itself was aura-based in nature, connections fueling their growth and our own.

So I was running research on myself, on seeing how best to reach out to that strange and alien power, to that fundamental source of vitality and might. This was going to be more personal, more a field of parapsychology than one of hard sciences like physics and chemistry. 

There was a connection between Mirko and me, she had chosen me in a very unorthodox way and I had elected to allow it despite it involving attacking me. There was also the fact I could pick up impressions of what she wanted to tell me despite the fact I'm literally on the spectrum and attempting to read an alien life form.

But above all it was my burning curiosity to explore and understand that was behind my quest to learn about aura. A fundamental aspect of creation at my fingertips, and it was something I wanted access to.

I close my eyes, letting my senses spread out to the area around me, letting my mind wander, thoughts racing as I overanalyzed every aspect of the world around me.

I thought back to the rush of battle and training, how Mirko unleashed her power into reality without hesitation, how something rippled along her body when she used moves, as we went along the journey of move mastery. Reducing the power of moves to reduce the needed time to use a second move, increasing power at the cost of stamina.

I remember fun brainstorming sessions with Mirko, drilling maneuvers and strategies for as many situations as possible, and trying to figure out what works and doesn't work through trial and error. Figuring out how to take care of her fur had been a hard task, and was more of a social task. She could do a lot of it herself, and liked brushes and gentle shampoo. I kept those memories close, and breathed.

In and out.

Out and in.

Every breath of fresh air, every beam of sunlight warming my skin, the grass tickling my legs, and the sound of so many pokémon around me. There was something, a well of awareness I couldn't quite reach out and touch, both within and without.

But I knew it was there, a subtle breaking of reality, a gentle massaging of physical law. I wasn't sure why I was so sensitive to the physics-altering effects of moves, but it was convenient when it came to studying them.

I smiled.

There was so much still to learn.

August 21st, 2022. 

I floated in the series of spaces between spaces, where time no longer flows one way but all ways, the yawning abyss between possibilities, the primordial chaos which marked the Outside of reality, the bleeding channels of the endless universal wavefunction.

I didn’t remember how I got here, but I did know I had been anchored to something, had enough rope so I wouldn’t get pulled from existence all together. But I did see things in the In Between, vaguely familiar in some respects and horrifically horrifying and unfamiliar in others.

I saw networks of red crystal, forming vast valleys of real and virtual space, the hub of the wheel of creatures so vast they outmassed star systems, following an endless cycle, cleaving to instincts a billion years old, the memories of a world a billion years dead.

I passed those by, and crashed into a mysterious realm of portals, a quiet wood between the worlds, countless iterations of the same concept, the same trope across infinite planes. A white void, a gutter space between panels that I was kicked out of in an instant, then an odd gap junction with a fancy book, then…

Black, blacker, blackest / And cold beyond all frozen things

There were more places my mind vaguely recalled, an endless expanse of swirling, silvery clouds broken only by pools of color, random junk, and the colossal corpses of long dead gods. 

A nothing-space inhabited only by planeswalkers and eldritch titans that devour entire realities. A barren plane of red soil, the birthplace of entities I couldn’t begin to describe, gods, demons or both?

Then a furthest ring, an infinite space which divides all sessions, completely unnavigable and unfathomable, untouched by the time of any universe in existence. 

The second to last series of spaces was a bizarre dimension filled with a black-green oily substance, with gravitational anomalies and swarms of floating cubes providing a perception of infinite worlds.

I could feel something in those spaces, watching, waiting, and hungry. But I was protected by the barrier of the between spaces, my distant connection to those worlds strengthened by… a greater existence.

I finally fell into a realm painted with stars and holes into other realities, clinging onto crystalline meteoroids, a shadow covered the stars and then—

I startled awake, a scream strangled in my own throat as a feeling of impending doom and dread seized my heart with no intention of letting go.

The broken memories stuck in my head, playing over and over and over and over and over and—

The room buzzed like static, and I covered my ears, curling up into a ball as it screamed in my ear like the chiming horror of breaking reality as… as…

A comforting presence swept over me in a flash of white light, as Mirko materialized out of the strange essence of aura minimized within her ball.

She let out a comforting muttering sound, thumping her foot on the bed in a regular and even pattern. She breathed in and out and I followed her lead as her presence provided much needed safety.

It took me a few minutes to center myself in the unfamiliar darkness of my room, and I dropped my face into my hands, feeling sweat trail down my cheeks.

Mirko’s paws very carefully prodded at me, as if asking for permission. I nodded and she hopped onto me, not settling into an affectionately cuddle so much as an acknowledgement of her presence, almost awkward but sweet that she made the attempt despite her natural distance as a buneary.

She made a soft purring sound, gently grinding her teeth, and offering her head. I very carefully placed a hand on it, letting my hands glide through her soft fur. I pet her forehead, giving her little scritches and gentle strokes along her head. Mirko slackened, and I very deliberately let her see that I was going behind her ears.

The gentle massage continued, and I pressed my lips together as I became mesmerized by the texture and feeling of Mirko’s fur. She relaxed, and so did I…

My eyes felt heavy. “Thank… you for calming me down.”

She nodded with a gentle almost smile, and my eyes began to slide close.

Tomorrow… hopefully… be a better day.

Zzzz… 

I lost unconsciousness, falling into far more pleasant dreams.

Chapter Text

Faller’s Field Guide 1

August 24th, 2022

Tohoku region, Ishigama

Mirko the Buneary

So, if you’re reading this you’re gonna be listening to my rambling notes on the World of Pokémon. So I’m creating a personal field journal, just writing down my observations and thoughts on the native life forms of this Reality. Learning as much as I can about Pokémon as a tree of life.

This’ll be divided into different sections, one’s focused on my team and any other Pokémon I catch for the lab, and others on pokémon and things that aren’t. Just little things I pick up here and there, as well as other things related to pokémon as part of a living, breathing world. 

So let’s start nice and simple with my Starter, Mirko. Oryctolagus orectoaurus or the common modern name of Buneary and the classic name Mimirol. 

A classic lagomorph, a rather large taxonomic order with dozens of species and subspecies including micromon, regional variants and ‘Domestics’. If anyone from home is reading this, members of Lagomorpha include the whismur line (Lauda volumna), the nidoran line (Arma toxa), the indeedee line (Rosala gracia), audino (Rosala stetha), the igglybuff line (Melutens mollens), the azurill line (Oleocauda aqua), the scorbunny line (Lepus calcitrus) and the bunnelby line (Lepus structus). 

Perhaps a bit too much detail? Either way I’ll start with a basic overview of what I’ve learned about the Buneary line as a species.

Overview

The buneary line cladistically can in fact be considered a rabbit despite their colloquial classification as hares. This is due to the fact that pokémon genetics and biology are orders of magnitude more flexible than any orders of life outside the horizontal gene transfer in microorganisms. A global ring species on a scale unimaginable on Earth, and not with common ancestors last shared hundreds of millions of years ago. The sturddlefish hybrid being the only exception, with the parent species having split 184 million years ago.

So what does this have to do with buneary? 

Based on genetic analysis, paleontological and archeological findings, it’s believed the ancestor of the buneary line was far more rabbit-like when humans first encountered the species, at least as far back as ten million years ago. And, yes humans, or at least their ancestors go back farther than our own species, ‘modern’ humans emerged around two million years ago while the earliest hominids go back to about twenty seven million years ago.

These rabbit ancestors were quick, social and extremely adaptive, a cosmopolitan species across the Old World. Until around four million years ago, due to a change in climate in the vast steppes the early buneary had to breed with the diggersby line to maintain their genetic diversity, along with several species within the Field and Human-like egg groups. This gave them access to a whole new plethora of body plans and potential adaptations to utilize.

Candidates species include mienfoo, the chimchar line, or pokémon classified in Similis like tyrogue or meditite, with one theory involving potentially interspecies exchanges with early humans. Though strangely enough no one has offered up the idea of them breeding with a third lagomorph species with Fighting type genes, and their evolution merely being convergent with humans.

Regardless within a million years, the buneary line’s ancestors became unrecognizable, converging on a humanoid body type built for raw speed and power versus the endurance running of humans, with bipedalism improving their locomotor performance, increasing their field of vision, and the use of their limbs for combat, manipulation, digging or sexual display. 

These primal buneary were normal-fighting types, and were able to spread and dominate across the continent until about two hundred hundred thousand years ago, ‘degrading’ as a species, and becoming less social as they dropped from the peak of their power, with stronger selection for the genes passed down by diggersby, allowing them to develop incredibly powerful muscles in their ears.

In more modern times, it became increasingly common to use the shed fur of lopunny to develop warm and soft coats, and Domestic rabbit breeds were used and are used as a source of meat and pelts. Still getting used to the differences, Domestics are effectively just animals with weak powers and their existence is a bit of a nightmare for my brain. Maybe I should move to describing my Buneary yeah?

Description

Mirko is about 1.15 times the average height for a Buneary at 56 centimeters in height and six kilograms in mass, around the same scale as an English Lop.

Mirko has a large spherical head, which accounts for about a quarter of her mass, and twenty eight teeth, two main incisors top and bottom, two peg teeth converging on canines used for grabbing food and slicing it, and lets them slice into flesh to get their needed protein for their muscle mass. So pretty cool. Her twenty two premolars and molars chew up anything that gets past her incisors.

Her eyes are spaced slightly farther than say a human, and she shares a few traits with crows that I’ve tested with some volunteering on her part. She has hybrid vision, the mobility of her eyes lending her some crazy abilities. Her eyes can move apart to give her a view of 320° or even come down literally to her little snout and triangular nose with one hundred million scent cells. It makes them very sensitive to perfumes, chemicals and dust, and makes them easily distracted.

Pretty neat, she’s got trichromatic vision too, which diggersby lacks, so definitely a big change in lifestyle. For the rest of her head, as stated she’s got a pretty standard bunny nose, though larger than other lagomorphs, built for high speed movement. Her ears are about a third the length of her body, and add a whole 18 centimeters of height when unfurled. So she’s about 36 centimeters tall?

No ear touching. Seeing her break rocks the size of my head with a single curl up was a good measure of strength. I can’t give an exact number for that, just rough measurements. The rock was about 9000 cubic centimeters, and broke into pieces. Fragmentation of rock is about 8 joules/cc, so maybe 72,000 joules? 

Could be wrong though, the issue is the corresponding physics, she runs at 36 meters a second, or around 3500 joules, she’s got nowhere near the mass to hit as hard as she does. Has to be aura shenanigans, augmenting her strength the same way it does everything else on this planet, who are at least twenty to forty times tougher than my humanity.

Anyways back to her ears, they’re dense with muscle, and bio-hydraulic structures used to rapidly pump in blood, and augment their stiffness. Her hearing is excellent, and I ran some tests with her permission. Her hearing range runs between 96Hz-49,000Hz, and she can pick up sounds from as far as five kilometers away. We’ve been practicing on using her hearing more effectively, monitoring and catching sound from attacks without even needing to look at them.

Very interesting physiology… which lets me move onto her coat of integument, a combination of soft brown down and fluffy tan fur that provides warmth in the colder weather of northern Nihoh. 

I’ve also learned their fluff serves a vital function as a vital conductor of sunlight and other natural aural elements, allowing more efficient channeling of weather alteration moves and beam attacks. Buneary fluff is thus a vital material for meteorology and Pokémonology focused on the reverse engineering of select special abilities.

Another interesting physical trait of the buneary line is the marked presence of ectoplasm, the ephemera of Ghosts. Normally it’s just inert, but during Mega Evolution it activates into a chaotic swirl of power that allows their Normal and Fighting type moves the ability to strike against ghostly matter. As mentioned, primal buneary and lopunny had this variation of Scrappy but lost it due to as of yet unknown reasons.

Pretty neat.

That leaves her legs, with a leg-to-height ratio of around 0.52 or a leg length of 18.72 centimeters, which is hidden under their dense coating of feather-like fluff. Mirko’s legs are full of incredibly dense and powerful muscles with immense tensile strength, a Double Kick from her could shatter boulders and bend steel, and she can easily leap over a building. Physiologically, buneary and especially lopunny are optimized for sprinting and jumping at incredible speeds and heights. 

Based on some anatomical scans and my perusal of lagomorph biology books, their anatomy is a sort of cross between that of an ostrich (a creature similar to a doduo) and humans. They have a greater concentration of mass at the top of the leg like an ostrich, but leg anatomy more comparable to humans, and ligaments which act as a ‘joint corset’ to guide their stride like ostriches and doduo. Her foot anatomy is analogous to humans, absorbing shock and possessing a comparable number of muscles, tendons and nerve endings. 

The main difference lies in a reduced number of toes, with three performing a locomotor function while the fourth serves as an anchor for spring tissue which stores energy when she lifts and bends her trailing leg. As her leg moves forward, the spring tissue locks and remains compressed until the foot hits the ground. This allows her to do work during the aerial part of her cycle. On all its own? In a human, it would let Usain Bolt run at 50mph without any of this world’s native physics breaking.

It’s insane and amazing, and while most of her biology is simply standard rabbit turned bipedal and made out of metaphysical energy there’s some real gems to geek over!

She’s pretty normal in many respects, which makes sense, a good amount of their powers rely less on conventional biology and more on metaphysical energy manipulation. Though I have noticed some pokédex scans pick up… weird patterns of bio-energy, kinda reminds me of kooky stuff like the meridian system, or nadi, channels and nodes of the subtle body where supposed ‘metaphysical’ energy flows. I also notice her energy seems to follow that same pattern? Is that a thing here, one that counts as a new field?

Sophia Laven knew she had struck gold when she had decided to take the Faller, to take Brandon under her wing and demand her as a sponsored trainer despite the pressure from the International Police to have some more bait for them.

Fucking cunts.

Tedesco and Looker were nice enough but she didn't much trust the politics involved both internationally and locally. The ‘union’ was closer to a loose confederation, a treaty drafted after the war under shared common interests between the independent states, an intergovernmental organization for handling laws, defense pacts, Pokémon League regulations, and a forum for disputes.

It was closer to what her new student had described as the European Union or the early years of the ‘America’ she came from versus the singular state of Japan in her world. Which to Sophia made sense, without pokémon, establishing a monopoly of force was far easier when individuals couldn't raise teams of monsters to bring down empires.

The Galarian Empire was a good example of that when their colonies threw off the shackles of the people ‘uplifting’ their lowly cultures, along with the earlier and more sickly Paldean Empire when they lost control of Norte and Sur Mezo and several other colonial territories.

The world had suffered a major upheaval in the last sixty years, the instability preceding and following the war, regaining contact between regions had been a work of years, so much knowledge had been lost and so few of her own generation even know of it.

Her generation were those born directly in the aftermath, and she had heard the stories of those dark times. A maelstrom of devastation and death, and it had left its mark on the political sphere, the squabbles within the League and the greater regional governments.

The creation of the Global Trade System was just one of the things keeping the world from falling apart again, and that was a frightening thing for some. It was why the International Association of Pokémon Leagues had been reformed and expanded from an organization merely local to Nihoh into one that spanned the globe.

Never again.

She wanted that poor girl as far away from politics as possible, so to the public she was some nobody, a Mezo-descended immigrant who had caught her eye as a viable trainer. And her insights and outside perspective was going to take her far alongside her hyperfocus and passion for pokémon in so many different fields.

Her incidental insight into aura took the cake though, aura was a difficult subject in the field. It was hard to observe, and only recent innovations when it came to Infinity Energy and poké-scope technology derived from it had yielded good results and they weren’t perfect. Their only insight into there being a system for channeling aura came with studies using lucario subjects to trace the lines where aura bursts out into scars while Mega Evolved. Most experts in the field thought the patterns merely corresponded to the electromagnetic fields emitted by pokémon and had no influence in the shaping of aura into TE.   

It wasn’t necessarily a new theory, but not everyone talked about such things openly anymore, and Sophia was hoping to see how someone with little preconceived notions of how things should be could go in this world.

She was going to rub it into the face of her himbo of a cousin along with his Charizard back in Galar!

Chapter Text

Start Game 1.8

August 30th, 2022

I typed out the categorization system I had stolen and altered for my own use as a pokémon trainer. Letting Mirko look at the system through my very convenient dex-phone.

Bruiser

Traverser

Archer

Shaker

Specter

Primer

“Bwa?” Mirko looked curious, her long ears folding back on themselves.

“This is a basic threat response system for moves outside of typing alone, something I've been putting together over the past week after I took time to analyze multiple pokémon battles.” By analyzing, I meant watching multiple battles between trainers from the lowest tiers to the highest and making sense of commentary and analysis by experts in the field along with getting a refresher on moves.

So many…

Mirko nodded with an analytical gaze, her triangular nose twitching in apparent thought. 

“The first classification is Bruiser. Which is every move that's dependent on physical strength and power and melee range combat. Moves like Brick Break, Scratch, and Dragon Claw all fall under this category. The best bet is dodging, deflecting, outranging them, or opening up an unusual angle of attack.”

I pointed to the short presentation I had designed using a drawing program, depicting a Bruiser as a machamp using Focus Punch. I scrolled to the next slide, which was a ralts using Teleport.

“The second class is what I'm calling Traverser. These are all moves that enhance a pokémon’s movability. Moves like Bounce, Flame Charge, Rollout, and Teleport are within this power classification. Moves that enhance battlefield mobility are pretty simple, right?”

Mirko shook her head, and mimed an odd electrical charge sound while marching in place. 

I smiled. “Good thinking Mirko, there are quite a few of these attacks which are chained into Bruiser attacks like Volt Tackle and Extreme Speed. Now what's a good way to beat a Traverser class attack?”

Mirko’s face shifted into a dark grin, and gestured with her paws to her knees, feet, and upper thigh.

“Breaking their bones would work, you're not wrong. Other ways are being too unpredictable to target, altering their movement path, or placing them under containment or using their own momentum against them.” 

Next slide, this one depicted a gyarados using a Hyper Beam, unleashing a pure blast of lethal energy.

“Category 3, Archer. Ranged attacks, which can be thrown, shot, or emitted. Moves like Flamethrower, Bubble Beam, Solar Beam, and Confusion both fall under Archer.”

Mirko demonstrated her understanding by side jumping, bouncing, and flipping in midair and then jumping a dozen feet off the ground using her ears before landing on her feet as she twisted through the air.

“Dodging is a good option, that or firing first before their attack can be set off. That or pulling a beam standoff for your Saiyan pride.”

She blinked, dark eyes looking utterly confused.

“Just a joke, sorry.” I scratch my neck with a nervous grin. “We can continue on to Shaker, area of effect moves, affecting your local surroundings. Moves like Earthquake, Stealth Rock and Protect. They can be quite dangerous because of the zone of control a pokémon can make use of, and last longer than short-lived blasts of energy or matter. It lets them take control of the battlefield away from their opponents. Which is bad for us.”

“Mir.” She saluted me, and I continued, revealing a slide with an image of a ghastly using Confuse Ray to cast hallucinations.

“Specter is the fifth power classification, it's all about illusions, distractions, and covers. This means Flash falls under it along with Double Team, Smoke Screen, or certain illusion abilities like from a zoroark, or ghosts. Which means working on your senses, hearing, smell, or working on learning useful moves that can let us predict their actions. Shaker moves to hit everything at once is another strategy.”

“The final class is what are called Primer moves, moves that manipulate other moves, either directly or indirectly. Metronome which lets one randomly choose from any move, Counter which sends the force of a move right back on the user, or buffing and debuffing moves like Swords Dance and Baby-Doll Eyes.”

Mirko seemed to have absorbed the concept well enough, and I ended the presentation and moved on to a simple game I had made up on the electronic device.

“So, this kind of classification works as an excellent fallback when it comes to moves neither of us know, and Move Mastery is crazy. Combining, layering, splitting, or even type changing. If I call out Bruiser you'll know in an instant to avoid, deflect, outrange or even trick an opponent regardless of what the move is.”

“Bawaa!” She posed in a way that told me she had been watching Kamen Rider, or this world’s version of it which wasn't any higher budget but had access to pokémon for their practical effects. I had seen clips of someone using a Gardevoir to generate a singularity.

“I want to practice getting this idea down, because it'll make us both much more flexible during battle. And we have an ‘official’ match with Natsuo tomorrow, and want to implement that in battle.”

Mirko cried out a reply, eyes sparkling with energy.

August 31st, 2022

I crossed my arm as I watched Natsuo throw out his Starter, light unfolding into what looked like a chikorita based on shape. But I could tell it was a regional variant, with a striking and unique appearance. I pulled out my phone and let the dex speak for itself.

“ Tohokun Chikorita, the Dragonfruit Pokémon. Chikorita is the pre-evolved form of Bayleef. Chikorita’s thick abrasive skin protects it from predators. Its spikes are coated in a sticky substance that smells sweet to humans but is repulsive to most Pokémon. Legends say the cultivation of pitahaya imported from the Mezo region over generations is responsible for the chikorita line learning how to generate dragon energy. ”

Natsuo’s chikorita was a lovely spiky boy, hard fruit skin reflecting crimson covered in spines of green.

Apatosaurus aromus was their scientific species name, a species of sauropod and some of the last of their kind. Most dinosaurs had gone extinct millions of years ago, with some surviving into the modern era.

The chikorita retained the usual head leaf, though it was sharper and a distinct shade of green. Sharp green eyes stared at us, and I could feel a pressure coming from the pokémon. 

A similar pressure spread out from Mirko, and I could feel excitement painting my thoughts. Most of my battles had been between wild pokémon and Akari, with several practice battles with lab pokémon who were interested.

Natsuo’s eyes were gleaming with an odd light, and he swiped at his nose, gently tracing the white line across his face. 

“I've been wanting to battle you for some time, Akari has spoken well of you. But I want to know for myself what you're like in the heat of battle.” Natsuo spoke out, a foot tapping the ground as his little dragon plant pokémon followed that same best, head leaf swaying to the beat.

“That's fair, I've been staying under the radar, kinda keeping to myself,” I shrugged, not apologetic in the slightest. I needed that space to maintain my sanity in an insane world. “And I'm curious to see what you're like too.”

Natsuo agreed. “We should probably start then? On three?” He offered, and I nodded.

One.

Mirko jumped straight up, contorting and twisting her body and kicking her feet out. She added a growl to her binkying display, one that was low and strangely made me shiver.

Two.

The chikorita offered his own threat display, winding his head and neck back in a smacking motion along with his leaf.

Three.

“Debuff and buff routine,” I ordered, and a flash of fairy energy made her eyes glow, eyes becoming extra large and cute. Her target flinched as his strength waned, while Mirko’s strength grew with a flare of red energy “Follow it up with Quick Attack.”

“Bloom, Ancient Power.” Natsuo snapped his fingers, and primeval power rippled the fabric of reality, golden light forming into large boulders.

“Primer Protocol 1, Quick-Drain Strike.” Primer Protocol 1 was a rather basic counter, moves that alter other moves or augment a pokémon can be disrupted with a fast enough response.

Mirko’s grin was malicious as she vanished into a white streak of light, moving at a quarter the speed of sound. Bloom the chikorita let out a cry as he was sent flying by a brief strike of Drain Punch, and Ancient Power crumbled to dust as its maker couldn't finish setting it up.

Natsuo blinked, and smiled widely, gazing at something I couldn't see. “Bullet Seed!” Mirko flipped on a dime, letting go of Quick Attack and letting her momentum carry her. The widespread barrage missed her partially, but she was slowed by the powerful bullet-like strikes.  

“Double Kick, full power,” I ordered, and Natsuo smirked.

“Growth.” Energy suffused his pokémon, and I didn't boggle as he expanded, muscle and plant matter straining to contain newfound power.

Growth works by absorbing ambient aura, their bodies growing through a strange space-matter warping effect to contain their greater reserves of strength and power.

Mirko slammed into Bloom, two strikes launched one after the other. The chikorita was thrown back, and retaliated with a Bullet Seed attack. Drain Punch flared to life around her right fist, and she crossed it over her chest, deflecting and destroying bullets with her own power.

“Drain Punch, full force.” Mirko stepped into Bloom’s space, and a one inch punch broke through the dinosaur’s defenses. 

Mirko was faster than both the chikorita and his trainer, but the little grass dragon was resilient and stubborn, if the deep hiss I could feel wasn’t an indicator. The issue was he couldn't keep up, and I wasn't going to give his trainer or him the opportunity.

Bloom charged in a Tackle, white light flaring off his skin and Mirko twisted out of the way, contorting into a spinning motion. Her feet glowed with the orange light of Double Kick, and the fierce chikorita staggered.

“Work Up, then finish him,” I ordered Mirko, the bunny flaring red sparks of power, gathering more energy into herself. “Give it all you've got.”

With Quick Attack, she exploded into action, shutting it off and letting the momentum carry her into a strong style Pound. The chikorita finally collapsed, eyes wide with shock, unable to withstand the onslaught of attacks. 

The dust settled, and Mirko hopped back from the fallen pocket monster, smugly brushing away dust and stray seeds from her fur. Natsuo had already walked into the field, a delicate frown on his youthful face as he bent down to pick up his young dragon.

“You did very well Bloom, have a good rest,” he gently tapped the monster with a pokéball and Bloom vanished into the capture device. “Well… you're definitely a good trainer, and your pokémon seems happy with you.”

I flushed at the compliment. “I’m not… that good, I’m still learning and so are you. Who knows how I’d deal with more professional trainers on the road.”

Natsuo offered a soft smile. “Don’t sell yourself short, Akari is one of your sparring partners and you've been keeping up with her regularly. She's been learning from her clan for years now, and they produce powerful trainers. The previous Champion of Tohoku was a member of the Shirogane clan.”

Platinum?

I brushed back a bang, smiling slightly. “Well, if that's the case I’ll be looking forward to our next battle.” I offered a hand, and he took it.

We shook hands, and I knew this wasn't going to be our last battle.

I vibrated as I walked through the lab for what would be the final time in a long while, lightly tapping my fingers on my thighs. 

Natsuo had gone on ahead, having already said his goodbyes and made the final preparations for the journey ahead. For myself, I had everything I needed for survival.

Medical supplies, potions, status condition healing items, bandages with potion coatings for myself, a first aid kit of course. My bag was the greatest treasure with the same shrinking technology as the pokéball. An Escape Rope coated in a high-quality Repel-based resin, duck(let) tape, multi-tools, and a generator. Field guides for edible flora and instructions on butchering domestic mon’ which were considered the bottom of the barrel when it came to the food chain.

Domestics never evolved, and didn't show the same intelligence as the pokémon used in battle. This differentiation of course didn't apply to every pokémon, especially ones renowned for intelligence and complex thought. Dragons were another example, the closest comparison in my world would be the niches of intelligent animals like elephants and orcas.

Most of the pokémon that had domestic variants and relatives were the ones you'd expect to be fairly unintelligent, like magikarp, feebas or tauros, and miltank. It was a staggered and complex form of niche partitioning between species and within species.

For every third-stage pokémon, there were ten second-stage pokémon, one hundred first-stage pokémon, and over one thousand domestics. Battle pokémon accounted for about ten to twenty percent of niches, a form of niche partitioning between evolutionary stages and close subspecies.

It was… an unprecedented example of that type of evolutionary behavior, nothing in my world came close. Tyrannosaurs had different growth stages specializing in eating different prey from hatchlings eating small animals, juveniles being the long-legged pursuit predators, and adults heavy and massive apex predators.

But pokémon could change diets far more drastically, and it was far more dramatic than any mundane animal.

“Miss Red?” I flinched when I heard Professor Laven calling out to me, and I turned a corner to see her bent over her desk, tongue sticking out as she wrote out some type of algorithm… program?

Huh… that was a very nice butt, wasn't it?

I blinked and moved on, shaking my head at my drifting attention. The professor leaned back, smiling happily at me.

“So you're all packed then, done your research, gotten into good enough shape, and prepared accordingly for route 301? Routes are rather long in Tohoku.” 

“I've gotten used to walking long distances, the coast is good for hiking and surveying pokémon.” Honestly, I probably should have considered catching a second pokémon but I had been way too hyper-focused on other tasks. “And I’ll likely be quite focused on research, it should take up a lot of my attention.”

Professor Laven snorted. “I would hope so, out of the three sponsored trainers I have, you're the most inclined to taking real notes, and I’ll be very interested in your perspective of our world.”

I nodded. “Of course, I’ll bring back as much data as I can, the dex-phone is a rather convenient scientific tool.” Being able to scan both fauna and flora and everything in between was a brilliant upgrade, along with access to multiple downloaded guides, and a continuous connection to the Cross Continental Transmit System. 

The CCT is a communication technology which allows instantaneous multimedia communication wirelessly over large distances. The science behind the lossless transmission of modulated WIFI signals across thousands of kilometers had been derived from pokémon like magnemite and others who did strange things to electromagnetic waves.

“Just remember to check in with Tedesco once a week, if only to keep Interpol off your back. My influence was barely enough to keep you out of their custody, and he knows that's a good thing.”

Being that I knew explicitly one Faller had gotten devoured by an Ultra Beast, I was incredibly grateful.

There was a cough, and I felt my heart leap into my throat. I blink when I take a good look at the person who had interrupted us. New outfit?

It was Akari, wearing a different outfit, the same feathery white blouse and red tattered skirt, but she had a nice dark green coat that was rather thickly layered and strongly reminded me of a Galaxy Team survey uniform, though it was… not covered in the symbols of the old organization.

She… looked good, and her expression told me she was rather worked up. “I've finished all my preparations, I suspect you've done the same?” she nodded in my direction, eyebrows furrowed. 

“I have. I guess this is it huh? I don't think I want to know what Akari is like when she's mad.” A slight redness was on the aforementioned young women’s cheeks, and I smirked. 

Laven had a sad and almost lonely smile. “Things will be a lot quieter without the two of you, especially Akari, ” her pointed gaze turned Akaro crimson. “I won't have my fighting-types picking fights with the girl crazy enough to wrestle with them. Just promise you’ll keep level heads out there, can’t have my trainers turning into ignorant pigheaded little shits.”

Akari scoffed. “I can only promise to try.” 

I laughed, and ignored the ominous growl from the blue-haired trainer.

“I'll try my best to not be too absentminded, I can promise a lot of notes at least.” 

Sophia nodded. “Then you two should be off.”

Some would name this the call to adventure…

I would instead label it as a call to SCIENCE!

We had set off rather promptly, out onto a trip of some two hundred odd kilometers on Route 301. It was an enormous and vast area, interconnecting Ishigama, Noto, and Irori through numerous splits off the route. The first area was the Ishigama Evergreen, a rather standard temperate broadleaf forest ecoregion. 

I could identify a bunch of tree species, cheesewoods, red machilus, neolitsea, aromatic evergreens, oaks and chinquapin and even a few cycads. Lots of shrubs, lots of evergreens and of course Berry Trees.

There were a lot of slopes and inclines with large ten-meter trees producing yellow flowers and red berries.

This slope-filled region would give way to the Noto Grasslands, vast fields of flat Miscanthus-like grasses providing homes for pokémon along with trees breaking up the monotony, until you hit the city it was named after, followed by the Rural Zone west of Noto, which hits the Eastern Irori Plains, rolling hills transitioning into the flat landscape around the city of Irori.

The Ishigama Evergreen was home to plenty of pokémon, murkrow and starly and their line made up the bulk of bird pokémon, while burmy, mothim, and wurmple took up the niche of the macro-bugs. Stantler called this place home along with buneary and lopunny.

Mirko’s ball was shaking, and I could tell she knew this was home, where her colony had lived on the land for centuries on end. A flat road of smooth stone, packed dirt and other materials extended for miles, marking the central line of the Route. 

I hadn't fully understood the implication of routes like this until I had remembered articles I had read up on ancient Japan. The routes were essentially modernized versions of Kaidō, the roads of Edo period Japan, which do and did play important roles in transportation and logistics.

In Japan, their highways and railways follow the same route, in Nihoh, they have been expanded into sprawling trails for pokémon trainers of all stripes and colors, along with building rails and roads where they could. The various regions of Nihoh had established many post stations or shukaba, serving as resting spots for weary travelers.

That hadn't changed in the last fifteen hundred years, with 31 main routes in total, along with multiple sub-routes that were all branches of those routes. They were differentiated in modern times by letters, going from A to Z, though most routes didn't have that many sub-routes, and most towns tended to build themselves around the routes rather than have routes built out to reach them. There were of course many exceptions. 

“Eyes on me.” My head snapped to attention when Akari called me out and I glared at her, remembering it was what she used to get her pokémon’s attention.

“I remember the plan Akari, five hours of walking a day should let us reach Noto in around four days, and we’ll rest in-town for a few more days before continuing on to some of the post-towns between it and Irori.”

“Don’t forget that part of our job description includes regular surveys of the native pokémon to Tohoku. There are quite a few tasks tacked on to our journey.”

“I'm fine with that, it might be pretty mundane to people of this world but it's all quite new to me,” I shrugged as I gazed at the vast beauty of the landscape, something I could only appreciate with my better endurance and whatever that wormhole did to me to kill my allergies to pollen. “And catching pokémon for science isn't a bad thing.”

The whole feral pokémon catching phenomena was a bit of a confusing dilemma though there was a standard code of ethics that came part and parcel with the tests and exams I had to take to obtain my license. A number of basic rules baked into the very idea of battle over centuries of iteration and updates.

Pokémon had the right to disobey their trainer if their orders conflicted with their own basic rights, so forcing them to commit unforgivable acts like murder, theft, or acts of rapine. So poaching unwilling pokémon, murdering a human or a feral pokémon, or committing horrific acts involving certain esoteric abilities. So mind control or worse… of course some pokémon didn’t give a shit about morals so.

In a battle, both a trainer and a pokémon have to restrain their intent to harm, maim or kill their opponent. Neither pokémon or trainer should attack the other with the exception of self-defense. A pokémon has a right to fight any trainer who wishes to capture it, or if it does not want to be caught, to escape from the battle.

A trainer had obligations to their pokémon in ensuring his, or her or their pokémon’s health and safety at all times. Whether by making sure they’ll go to a good home through the Global Trade System, having sufficient room and board for their comfort or actively performing the duties of a trainer.

Feral variants of course played by different rules, being closer to animals in nature and intelligence. Though of course, they had the usual animal… sentient cruelty rights enacted quite firmly. No torturing sentient beings for fun. 

Which should be self-evident but… humans will be humans. 

The landscape seemed wild and pristine, and yet the signs of human intervention and cultivation were obvious. It reminded me strongly of the low-density urban societies of the pre-Hispanic Amazon… or more accurately the satoyama woodlands of Japan. The Pokémon world wasn't untouched by humans… it was more than the way they had shaped their environment did far less to disturb the equilibrium of nature.

I could see the hints of human and pokémon design, multiple tamed species of edible plants favored by both human and monsters alike, the forest was itself a highly diverse regional system crafted by plant and landscape domestication, canals, terraces, and more hidden in plain sight. 

The soil itself was analogous to terra preta, made from crushed clay, blood and bone meal, manure, and biochar, and created by humans and pokémon working together. Grass, rock, and ground types were optimal for creating fertile soil and that kind of cultivatation likely encompassed around ten percent of total landmass available to Tohoku.

I brought out Mirko, her ball snapping open in the usual wave of light, solidifying into my fluffy friend. She posed dramatically, an imperious twitch of her nose the most obvious sign of her excitement.

I gazed at the vast lands before us, an evergreen forest spanning for dozens of miles. Akari was already walking ahead at a steady rate, though it was clear she was pacing herself for my sake.

Why had I decided to go on this journey?

Was it to accomplish a childish dream of mine, did I need to take my mind off the destruction of my life, or was it just a whim I had recklessly thrown myself into? Enthralled by this world, tied to the ground by a love for monsters?

Mirko tugged on my pants, and I offered her a quick grin.

Well… regardless of my reasons, I had to see it through, I had to understand.

So I would go on this journey and uncover the secrets of this new world.

Chapter Text

Interlude 1- Akari 

August 30th, 2022

I glanced at my new traveling companion, a sigh escaping me as I glanced over at her tent. A simple forest green one that would work well for housing for both herself and her pokémon.

Having a traveling partner hadn’t been originally in my plan, I had gone onto the journey for my own sake and the sake of my clan, because we’re all running out of time. Our seers had seen the signs of the End encroaching us as it had time and time again, had seen the rise of technology over the last three hundred years.

We weren’t luddites, but that wasn’t the issue, it was stupid people opening doors that should never have been open, how many times had humans tried to chain down the gods like it was our right?

They had kept the flame of knowledge alive against the dark, including an old prophecy created by powerful Maijin Tamers, a plea for help, reaching into the void for an answer to the disaster that was coming.

Once upon a time, a Legend was whispered among hidden monsters. Of Hopes and Dreams, of Man and Monster borne of light under the same sky. 

This is the Legend of the Convergence.

For millennia, the great cataclysms have been solved by Man and Monster alike, bringing peace and balance to the World. By the design of the Original One, the God of Gods, Void Given Focus; Void Given Power. The Hub of the Wheel. 

So listen well to our plea, listen well to our warning, listen well as we weave fate with burning souls of Man and Monster as the sky fractures with holes in Time and Space, tears in the fabric of His Great Design, glimpses of Her enemies out across the great voids between the stars and and the twisted shadowy In-Between of Their creation. 

Cataclysm comes once more, a beast that does not sleep and can not die, all the evils of the world, the worst possible version of ourselves given form, given will, given focus. Legends will walk once more upon the Earth, Man will become Masters of the World from shining sea to shining sea. 

A convergence of worlds, outworlders born under a different star, light against the dark cast by the Deep as they have been since infinite time and space and symmetry. 

Their choices and ours will decide the fate of all.

There have been dozens of false alarms over the centuries, no prophecy was a guarantee, it was a fate weaving spell of unimaginable scale. But the last twenty years had seen an enormous spike of Fallers from countless worlds, some human and others… not so much. We couldn’t guess the when, the why or the how.

My mother had been killed by one such outworlder, a monster from another world that we couldn’t even be sure was a Pokémon. I had planned to go out on my journey at sixteen.

I am now nineteen years old.

We had time, but no one knew much of what the face of the enemy was. Was it human greed turned to horrific ends, was it a god gone mad, or some other third thing?

For now, it was a problem for the future, I had agreed to be traveling partners with Brandon… Brandy or Brenda maybe? There hadn't been that many people who had transitioned in my clan, and my knowledge of that was… not the best.

Well, it didn't matter, she was eager, curious, and a suitable traveling companion. There was no need to worry. Happy was enjoying the revelry in the dark, eyes gleaming and his cute lava tail swaying back and forth. 

The Faller was setting up camp where she could, despite her modest physical conditioning and inexperience she was enthusiastic, and her buneary had clearly been taught some fundamentals when it came to using the multi-tool. The campfire was modest, but good enough for the work of an amateur, and good enough for my cooking kit.

Pots, pans, a wok, as well as a rice cooker, other tools, and utensils, it was a bit overstocked in my opinion… then again that might be my own strangeness coming into play. Being able to rip into a raw magikarp with my teeth as a child was… not normal.

“So, you wanted to forage for food to save up our own supply?” Brandon spoke up, brushing back her growing hair while her pale face was lit up by the flickering light of the fire. “So we made wild rice with mountain vegetables and that poor magikarp?” 

I rolled my eyes. “You’ll need to get used to distasteful things in the wilds, or do you want to starve?”

She glared at me. “I'm a complainer, I'll do it, doesn't mean it's not gross. At least the tomato berry adds some nice kick to it for me.” I flinched as she easily consumed the spicy berry, what kind of monster is she?

Oh, right.

“Is there a name you’d like to be called by?”

There was an awkward silence, and I realized that was a stupidly invasive question to ask, why did I do that, why did I do that—

“—! I… never really thought about it, ya know?” Her laugh was soft and awkward, a bit higher pitched than it had been a month ago. “I haven't had a lot of time to process certain things about myself, aching, burning questions I had buried deep into my psyche. Kinda been going through the motions until recently.”

“I'm…” I went to apologize, but she continued, squinting at me from the opposite end of our campfire.

“But I think Brandy would make a good name wouldn't you?” She sounded uncertain… like she was using me as a sounding board. And she might well be…

I smiled back at her. “It's a lovely choice of name, if you want to be called that, it's well in your rights.”

Her lips pulled into a wide smile, dark, brown eyes shining in the faint campfire light.

Twilight was only an hour away, and Brandy was fast asleep, having tuckered herself out with work. Happy was tired as well, but I wasn't letting him sleep just yet, there was something the both of us had to do first.

I breathed, and let the call of the wild sing in my veins, gently bringing my aura to the surface. Gently letting it circulate throughout my body, visualizing the flow of energy, and reaching out to the connection between myself and…

Like a word, a sound, a song.

It was a vast and happy trill, my name twisted along the breeze like notes of music. The natural flow of energy began to orbit around that great presence, unadulterated control over external flow of power was the nature of the Fae. 

Happy’s eyes were open wide, and I held him close and shielded him under my own aura. He made a quiet snorting sound and I nodded. “Yes, that is Lord Azazel.”

There was a grumbling from Brandy’s tent, and I swore I heard her say ‘Shut up, dumb bird’ and thus I ignored it for my own sanity. I don't see Azazel close by, but I can feel his gaze and the pressure of his aura, waves of fey energies surging and clinging to the air.  

Be not afraid. 

It wasn't quite words, but it was his intent as he examined the world around him.

“I've been doing well,” I decided to speak with Azazel, I knew he could hear me or at least figure out the context. “I've gotten a pokémon after all those years, I'm sorry for keeping you waiting.”

There was sorrow in his ancient song, and I sighed. “We’re going to have to watch out for more outworlders, my companion here fell between worlds, so attracting monsters is… more likely than she or I would hope.”

He agreed with a song of clashing swords and ever-present fairy wind, and I could tell he was offering protection.

“Only against monsters from the Beyond,” I pointed out to the incredibly powerful pokémon. “Warn the others, because they always come for their prey.”

There was a loud trill from Azazel, noise forming into words, into understanding.

So it shall be.

There was a sudden whirlwind of fairy wind, the presence of a great host of fey energies forced them into life. I could see a shadow emerge from nothing, as wings of purest white blotted out the moon.

I will do as I must, and so shall you.

Azazel’s presence vanished in a quiet shockwave that was felt more than seen, and I relaxed as the pressure of his power faded.

The world was quiet once more, and I thought about the future. What else was coming our way now that the door was open?

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.1

September 2nd, 2022.

It had been two day since we had set off onto Route 301, which had a fair number of weak trainers from minor villages and settlements along the route. On average there was a village once every ten to fifteen kilometers, which turned the dense forest into more open woodlands. 

These localized ecoregions had different pokémon than most of the Evergreen, ideal for bug-types, ghost-types and fairy-types. Which, thinking about it, wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Fairies are capricious, unpredictable and had logic perpendicular to reality, ghosts are mischievous, tricky and prone to bouts of emotion and alien behaviors common to those tied to the spirit. Bug starts weak, but they are among the most flexible and successful organisms on the planet, with distinctively inhuman minds and behaviors.

But that made them all the more interesting.

“So what are we looking for? I know you want to catch a second pokémon, but it’s been a good hour.” I carefully walked over the uneven terrain, watching out for wild pokémon jumping out to throw themselves at us. Once fainted they tended to flee in an oddly imperceptible way, back into their hidden bases.

From what I remember most pokémon use a lesser version of Secret Power to build secure nests nearly anywhere they want. I had seen Mirko using it, and was reading up on teaching her the modified form for battle and human use.

“I’ve been tracking my target, seeing how the bushes have been stripped of berries and fruit and trampled.” She pointed it out, and I did notice, it was like whatever had been eating was incredibly voracious and a very messy eater. “Plus tracks, I’ve always wanted a munchlax.” 

I blinked. “Don’t snorlax consume an ungodly amount of food?” 

Akari nodded. “Not as much as you think, though I wouldn’t underestimate their appetite either. They can devour about fifteen to twenty percent of their body weight in a single sitting in normal times and double that when preparing for hibernation. The one case of a snorlax needing eight hundred eighty pounds a day involved an Alpha.”

“… how often do snorlax need to eat?” Akari blinked and took a second.

“About once every five to seven days? They sleep most of the day away, and pokéballs keep them nice and fed.” Akari answered, and I found that was still insane but far more reasonable than a thousand pound bear monster devouring their own weight in food everyday. “And they can eat quite literally anything and everything that doesn’t move a lot. And I can feed one just fine, I’m very good at gathering food.”

Akari seemed a bit indignant, had I touched a nerve?

“Sorry,” I apologized, and gestured to Mirko, whispering a command. “Didn’t mean to rile you up.”

Akari shrugged, her blue hair shifting with the casual movement. “It’s alright, it is taking more time than I expected.”

“Bwa!” Mirko called out, pointing to a clearing where I could hear something munching away very loudly. Akari twitched and I nodded at her silent question, I had decided to actually use Mirko for tracking, using her excellent hearing to hone in on a munchlax. 

Probably should have done it earlier but I’m an idiot. 

“I’ll take it from here, I’ll need to strategize with Happy and—” She cut herself off.

Without warning, a large mass of blue-green rolled out of the clearing, revealing itself to us without a care in the world. It was a small, very odd looking bear, maybe a fair over waist height to Akari, so around four feet tall or the size of a sun bear… but fatter. Patches on his feet, chest and lower face were cream colored from the looks of things. The… bear-aspect was a lot more obvious in real life, with a short muzzle, and canines poking out from his lower lips as he opened his mouth to swallow a pile of bugs he had uncovered from his trip.

It was indescribable.

His head was like a really fat bear cub head, kind of like a bear-pug but less ugly-cute and malformed. But he was cute, despite being only a foot shorter than me and outweighing me by at least eighty pounds.

The munchlax chuffed, scratching his belly with a loud yawn, revealing ohdeargod so many teeth!

Akari’s eyes were sparkling. “Oh he’s so cute isn’t he? I really hope he does become a new member of my team.” Her usual cool, and more refined persona had been replaced by joy, and she had pulled out dazzling honey on a stick.

“Where did you get that?” I asked in horror, stepping back from the small and hungry bear as large cute eyes focused on the sweet smelling combs of honey.

“I asked a combee for help, there’s lots of ways to gather materials as long as you’re clever enough.” Akari answered cheerfully, gently swaying her stick back and forth to further entice the munchlax.

I took a step back as did Mirko, and munchlax let out a battle cry, launching into a tackle towards Akari.

I think I’ve made a mistake trusting the feral Disney princess.

I sighed as I was given a quick scan of Akari’s new team member who was currently beating down an oran berry tree like it had stolen his food.

Shared Characteristics 

Species: Munchlax, Big Eater Pokémon

Type: Normal

Egg Group: Unbreedable, Monster

Classification: Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Carnivora - Ursidae - Somnursus

Wild Threat Level: Mostly Harmless. Friendly to humans, potentially helpful. Almost always flee when they sense danger. (Note: Can steal supplies, keep an eye on one’s food.)

Growth Rate: Slow

Suggested Diet: Omnivore, capable of digesting nearly all organic matter, highly tolerant to toxic plants and rotten food.

Personal Characteristics 

Name: Kirby

Holder: Akari Berlitz (Journeyman Trainer)

Age: Six months

Ability: Pick Up

Physicality Analysis: 

- Shows minor scarring across the stomach region due to beedrill-related activity.

- Height is measured at 122 centimeters and body mass at 105 kilograms 

- Immature male, average in size, greater muscle mass than average, indicating regular physical activity.

Known Moves: Tackle, Rollout, Rest, Yawn, Curse

Kirby was a hungry boy, and had been easily lured into being Akari’s pokémon through the power of food. Though it had taken a battle between him and Happy, where he had unleashed his moves on the pig. He was stronger than Mirko in her base form, she needed at minimum a single use of Work Up to match his strength, and his constitution let him take damage like a champ. 

After catching him, we continued to walk onwards until we reached the beginning of the Noto Grasslands, rich fields adjacent to numerous streams and a major river I couldn’t remember the name of.

The Noto Grasslands was rather pretty, or would have if it wasn’t fucking raining like the gods were angry at us. While I would normally discount such a possibility it couldn't be ruled out in this world when gods roamed among us. We ended up having to wait under the shade offered by the forest while the grassland in front of us was drenched in water.

“Well this is rather disappointing, I was looking forward to catching a new teammate.” I shook my head, clicking my tongue as I continued to watch Kirby devour a wet berry, canines slicing through succulent fruit before being mashed by grinding molars.

“It’s just rain,” Akari pointed out, the madwoman extending her hand out to cup the downpour of uncontaminated fresh water. “As trainers, dealing with some mild rain is part of our job.”

I sighed. “One, it’s raining inches, two I’m very clumsy and am working within my own means here and three I’m waiting for it to go down to a more reasonable drizzle. Certain pokémon are less active during rain, mostly the shinx and luxio, the grasslands here aren’t quite dense enough with prey to support luxray.”

The shinx line or Panthera visia was a species of big cat, powerful carnivorous electric-types that served as apex predators across the fields and savannas of Tohoku and Sinnoh. On their own they weren’t much of a threat to a common trainer, but I had checked up reports that a powerful luxio had brought together a number of luxio and shinx and had become a threat in the area.

Akari opened her mouth, then closed it. “Fair enough,” She crossed her arms over her chest, blue eyes darting up and down my face. “What pokémon were you thinking of catching?”

“A male nidoran, a poison-ground type pokémon will be a good addition to the team.” Nidoking and nidoqueen were powerful beasts with uncommon typing, and a range of moves and useful abilities. They had comparable power to other Starters, and Nidoking had a fairly even split between strength and power.

The ‘scale’ of power between different species of pokémon wasn’t quite as clear cut and based off of tiers as they are in the games, some pokémon were all together stronger and more evenly matched while the mechanics of a real world invalidated a number of virtual strategies.

Even so I had managed to develop a rough guideline when it came to measuring their various statistics. It had taken days, looking up pokédex entries and looking up base stat totals on the internet since the games were a thing in this universe with very different plots. I opened a file for the buneary line which outlined their general stats. 

[Buneary]

Constitution: D+

Strength: C

Toughness: D

Power: D

Resistance: C-

Speed: C+

It was a simplistic measurement, and each combat stat had a summary that expanded upon the exact nature and analysis of the overall strengths and weaknesses of a pokémon. Constitution or HP is more a matter of how much punishment a pokémon can take before their defensive aura runs dry and their endurance, their combat effectiveness while injured and the will to keep moving forward. Strength or Attack was their physical might and their ability to leverage that might, and often biologically focused, their aura honed and cultivated to boost their physical prowess. Like Mirko having powerful ear and leg muscles.

Toughness or Defense is their innate structural integrity, enhanced by the powerful energy coursing through their bodies. Power or Special Attack is the vast reserve of aura they draw upon for ranged attacks and moves, like the amount of gunpowder in a single shot.

Resistance or Special Defense isn’t dissimilar to Toughness, drawing from the same metaphysical source. It was power against power, mitigating Power attacks by using their own energy. In nerd terms, Toughness is Fate-style reinforcement while Resistance is a more active defense, like a Skyrim Ward or a point-defense shield.

Speed I’ve already mentioned is a gestalt of multiple things, based mostly on combat within the limited space offered by a pokémon battle. The approximate measurement system I had developed was a baseline, a rough average of her species best features as a species.

A tuft of blue hair tickled my nose, and I felt my neck grow hot at the sudden presence of Akari to my right, who was staring at my notes in curiosity.

“You’re made a basic ranking system for the various attributes of pokémon?” She looked excited, and I nodded. “Alright how does it work, and can I see the rankings for my own pokémon?”

“It’s letter based, and used as a rough estimate for the potential of a species in a particular statistic or attribute, divided into six categories. It goes from F to SS+, allowing me to quickly and easily compare different pokémon. It’s not exact, but it’s not meant to be. Because having an exact and perfect measurement isn’t really possible outside video games.”

It was basically just, these two pokémon are on a similar tier in this stat, contributing roughly the same power in this one attribute of their biology. Basically power scaling, but I’m not going to bother being super-precise with this shit because pokémon are bullshit of the highest order.

Akari tilted her head. “So do you know where Kirby falls within your system?”

“I do by species,” I tapped my phone and moved to another file. “An average munchlax has A grade Constitution, C+ grade Strength, D grade Toughness and Power, C+ grade Resistance, and F grade Speed. Kirby isn’t fast, but he’s got strength to spare, can take a whole lot of punishment, though he can tank ranged attacks better than melee ones. So improving his Constitution and will to fight, increasing his Toughness and Resistance are solid bets.” Power moves wouldn’t be the best idea unless you came up with a very odd strategy. “Having moves that can increase his staying power and strength are a good idea too. Curse works for it, he’s not losing something he already lacks.”

“You’re prone to overanalysis aren’t you?” There was a small smile on her face. “It’ll serve you well as long as you don’t let it overwhelm you.”

“Hmm.”

I watched the rain pour down, and waited.

I thanked my past self for buying a rain poncho and purchasing waterproof shoes while the drizzle continued onwards. It made walking in the rain much more tolerable, letting me enjoy the pitter patter of rain on the stone path that gently cut through the grassy fields.

I adjusted my utility belt-thing, it was a bit snug around my hips… which made sense after I had gained an inch in the last couple weeks. Mirko was willing to be out of her ball, but she certainly wasn’t happy about it, using me as a human shield. It was a pretty light drizzle so I didn’t mind much, and I could see quite a few pokémon were emerging in the rain. 

Plenty of oddish were walking around, the dark blue-green bulbs using their short legs to traverse the muddy ground. They were sentient plant creatures, having evolved from a sedentary parasitic plant which had basically gotten up and walked away from human farms.

Because the difference between plant, domestic and true pokémon can be immeasurably thin on this world. It didn’t help that horizontal gene transfer was more common and far more complex and mutation-inducing. Like planimals are just a thing that exists apparently, which had evolved from single celled algae that had developed both neuron-like and muscle-like cells when they became multicellular.

So plants with webs of neural and muscular tissue that passed down their genes to other plants which become pokémon or turn directly into pokémon. 

Oddish were one such species, and while I wasn’t considering catching one, I was taking notes and regular scans of the funny little guys. Though I would if the professor asked for some new pokémon for her ranch.

I had scanned a number of pokémon, from rattata to starly and even an odd scyther or two, though we kept our distance from the latter. Scyther are powerful, aggressive and lethal predators and while they were honorable enough to let a defeated trainer flee it was still something to avoid. 

Akari looked worried. “Strange, I know a herd of tauros and miltank graze around here.” I trudged over a slope of wet soil, keeping my attention on the path itself. “But they aren’t here… why would that be?”

A loud howl pierced the air, an almost electric growl that gave me goosebumps, as I recognized the cry. The sound of battle picked up, electrical sparks scattering rain and water with explosive force.

I felt something hit me like a truck, and I tumbled to the ground while Mirko let out an indignant cry of rage.

“Nir!” Something scrambled over my stomach and chest, and it hurt like a motherfucker! I cry out in pain.

“WHAT THE FUCK-?”

As I look down I notice piercing red eyes staring back at me, a purple skinned leporine head with oversized spiny ears, and large buck teeth.

A male nidoran?

It jumped off of me, kicking up mud and dirt with his feet, and turning to fact the growing electric discharges. Grass parted before multiple pokémon, shinx and luxio emerging from all angles with dark piercing gazes. Akari had already brought out her pokémon, both Happy and Kirby blinking surprise out of their eyes at the ambush.

There were a total of six shinx and two luxio of varying sizes, body shapes and temperaments, along with a ninth member, a darker maned luxio who was a good deal larger than the rest of his pride. The shinx were about the size of large domestic cats, the luxio were somewhat bigger than Eurasian lynx, and the leader was… about fifty percent bigger, cougar sized even.

I opened my mouth. “Oh. This is going to be a problem.”

The leader luxio turned his attention to me, and I flinched at the burn scar that was dragged across his left jaw, like a hand had seared through hair and flesh. Dark eyes gleamed with malice and hunger, and claws extended, electrical energy sparking off of them.

Moves, I had a good idea of what they were capable of. The shinx likely knew Quick Attack, Tackle, Charge and Thundershock, alongside Bite. As in the move and not the action. The luxio?

Thunder Fang and Spark were probable additions to their move pools, and both moves had a good chance of really hurting our pokémon.

“Mirko, buff as much as you can, and watch out for traverser and bruiser moves. Debuff where you can manage.” I murmured the order, as I knew this pride wasn’t going to let us go. Not with the look on the face of the leader I was naming ‘Scar’ for obvious reasons.

Akari squared her shoulders, and barked her own orders. “Mud Sport and Curse.” 

The pride pounced, and our pokémon and the wild nidoran intercepted. The leader launched himself violently at Kirby, who simply smiled, pushing forward into a strong style Tackle. Happy stomped on the ground, and orange energy surged into the mud, geokinetic force detonated the mud, splattering it across himself and… us.

Mirko looked pissed and lashed out at a shinx using Quick Attack, a low kick sweeping the pokémon off their feet. Her ears glowed white, and she contorted herself into a spinning Pound that sent the poor cat flying for twenty feet, knocked out on impact with the ground. She had already used two bursts of Work Up, and fairy energy flashed from her eyes, forcing a second to hesitate.

The nidoran hissed and clumsily kicked that shinx in the face, and his horn took on a sickly purplish glow, venomous energies given shape. He rammed into the cat, and it let out a pained shriek, batting at the poison rabbit, before being thrown off by a casual Drain Punch from Mirko who switched to attacking a luxio with Quick Attack into Drain Punch into Pound.

Akari sneered. “Mud-Slap, wide barrage.” Happy relentlessly stomped into the ground, hurling solid shots of mud from his mouth(?) as fast as arrows. Two shinx were downed, knocked out cold from the mud blasts. 

The nidoran was strangely clumsy, but he hit like a truck with a routine switching between Focus Energy, Peck, and Poison Sting, occasionally weakening his opponent using Leer. 

“Move!” I ducked into a roll, avoiding the strong jaws of Scar, thunder and electricity exploding between his teeth. Oh fuck, oh fuck, Jesus Christ on a bike!

His raging scream was haunting, and I rolled to avoid his Spark, the cat surrounding himself in an aura of raw lightning borne of his might. He was fast, easily leaping forty or fifty feet in under half a second. 

Don’t ask me how I was avoiding them, it was just instinct at this point and the desire to not get torn apart by an electric lion.

Mirko stepped in front of me, and a red cloak of energy flared around her frame. Golden light burst into existence, and I grinned when I figured out what was going on.

Star shaped rays of energy struck like bullets, bolstered by Work Up. The large luxio tanked them but it left his pride vulnerable. 

“Rollout, no mercy.” Akari ordered the attack, and her new munchlax turned the shinx into bowling pins, Curse multiplying his power threefold. Mud-Slap blinded and hurt the electric types, and the wild nidoran poisoned them with his moves despite his tendency to miss.

Scar stepped back, releasing a growl that made me shudder, something primal and basal wanted me to run.

But I refused.

“Swift, don’t let him rest, and continue buffing and debuffing.” More golden stars covered the battlefield, with Mirko pausing between barrages to use Work Up then Baby-Doll Eyes to curse the pokémon with fey energies.

Scar chuffed, claws sparking with energy, and… with a reluctant yowl to the pride, he ordered what had to be a retreat from how the shinx and luxio reacted. They set off bursts of Thunder Shock, forcing us back, and picked up their fallen and dashed into the protection of the thick grass.

The rain had stopped, and my heart wanted to burst out of my chest. Even Akari seemed perturbed, sweat dripping down her face. 

“What the fuck was that?”

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.2

September 2nd, 2022

I collapsed against the bench of a minor rest stop just outside of Noto, letting my aching legs rest after hours of extra walking, and after reporting the incident. A pride of extremely aggressive luxio was considered at best a D-class threat, though from what I read it likely would have been E-class if it wasn’t for the attempted mauling and or murder.

The Threat Level System was fascinating, reminding me of Worm in a lot of ways. E-class were small local threats in highly isolated areas, easily taken care of by the many thousands of wandering trainers. There were a lot of trainers, and most of these problems were minor.

D-class put towns in danger but we’re talking minor things, like a drifloon accidentally stealing kids or pest pokémon being annoying little shits. C-class threats were again small towns but this time it included deaths or villainous gangs, as well as natural disasters. Barring things like tidal waves, mega earthquakes or hurricanes.

B-class are mass casualty events in cities, of which there were several cases in the past, gigantic Type Royals attacking cities, minor legendaries like the Regis causing trouble. A-class threats are sub-regional threats like the disaster in Tohoku from eleven years ago that killed over five hundred thousand people. A tectonic event of unprecedented scale and destruction, events involving certain gods, mass pokémon attacks, or terrorist rganizations like Team Rocket or Plasma.

The highest threat level was S-class, multiregional and potentially world ending events, of which I was privy to a few and told to keep my mouth shut. Things like Mewtwo, the various involvement of humans with Legendaries, the Ultimate Weapon.

It was best that I didn’t mention that stuff for my own safety, I very much liked the idea of not being a target for people who might like to know how to imprison the Divines of Space and Time.

I was tired, and not just because I had been walking for hours on end. The nine kilogram pest hitching a ride has been a strain on my back for quite literally hours. The wild nidoran had refused to leave, and had been clinging to my back for several hours.

The little bastard had jumped off when I had collapsed, a smug look on his rabbit-lizard face as he sat down on my left. Akari was currently foraging for food, after using the outhouse, which used some weird advanced method of rapidly breaking down waste matter based on poison and grass types.

A portable version was a common tool for traveling trainers and I thanked the inventors for it every day. In my head of course, it’d be weird if some random girl walked up to them and bowed at their feet.

I rubbed at my bare cheeks, chewing on my lip as I watched the nidoran eat a pile of nuts, plants and berries he had gathered.

Along with a small anole or something, a lesser pokémon of irrelevant species?

Whatever.

“So is there any particular reason for sticking around? Did you want to hitch a ride?” Nidoran stared at me like I was stupid, and I flushed. “Do you want me to catch you?”

He nodded. “Nir, raan!” He stood up on his hindlimbs, clenching his paws into fists. Not quite his species name, but very few pokémon did so directly besides a handful of species. Pikachu were an obvious example of course, butterfree made a lot of sounds similar to their name.

“Do you want a battle too?” He shook his head, and I suspected our battle against Scar and his pride had proven my worth as a trainer?

I pulled out a pokéball from my bag, and shuddered as I fit my entire arm into the pocket of altered space. The ‘internals’ of a Bag had a natural organization system, so I could easily grab a ball.

I offered the pokéball to the nidoran, and she sniffed at it for a second before hitting his head against it, and it snapped open, absorbing him in a flash of light.

It dropped onto the bench, shaking once, twice, and then a final time.

Capture made.

September 3rd, 2022

Noto was a gorgeous town, surrounded by a wing of mountains and residing within the floodplain of the Idaitou, a river home to scores upon scores of white-striped basculin and dozens of basculegion. Powerful pokémon with few competitors aside from the very strongest water types.

Gyarados and feraligator were the only real options, one a sea serpent, the other a primal ambush predator of the waters. However, very few inland magikarp had the accumulated might and experience and will to become gyarados, and feraligator didn’t always coexist within the same habitats as rivers able to sustain the growth and power of basclulegion.

The Noto Pokémon Center in front of me was huge, the red-roofed building was three stories tall and could probably house a good hundred people or more. A large park area covered in trees and bushes sat in front of the building, along with battlefields set up alongside the center. Lots of people were battling, from rookies to old veterans.

I could see a pink butterfree, with beautiful white fur lining her neck and legs, and huge delicate wings of violet, blue and black. Tohokun butterfree was a variant local to this region, a bug-psychic type with wide access to a variety of moves and useful abilities.

The butterfree moved quickly against a physically tanky graveler, and it lashed out with Psyshock. The special move acted like a strength attack, a wavelength power, a sort of kinetic transmission. In the wild it was a potent and lethal attack, a flexible power designed to pierce through physical defenses. Some would shape it into cutting blades to cut through plant matter or skin, or into hammers to batter right into the flesh beneath layers of armor and scales.

The graveler let out a craggy groan, like rocks scraping against each other with stubborn force. The butterfly pokémon flew on psychic might, and I paled as I recognized Focus Blast, as pure fighting spirit was gathered into a tight sphere of life energy.

The explosion that followed made me wince in sympathy for the poor rock monster. It was a satisfying battle, so I headed into the Center to book a room for the night for Akari and I. The sliding door opened with a woosh, offering a flush of cool air.

The inside was bustling, dozens of trainers from age fourteen to age forty milling about in the waiting room, watching the many high definition 8K television or talking with their pokémon. A good old drowzee was dancing with his trainer, a pretty girl with blonde hair dancing with her. There were three nurses, with one of them being a Nurse Joy.

Now that was an interesting story, the Joy family is one of the largest documented families in the world, essentially a clan of healers. Descended from Pesselle Joy who had pioneered the use of pokémon in medicine, partnering with the chansey line, and having built the first pokémon center in 1723, months after the Space-Time Crisis. The family includes all of her descendants both male and female and anything in-between including adopted and fostered children.

After three hundred years, she had over three hundred thousand direct living descendants and a four hundred eighty thousand including adopted family and those who married into the family. The Joy family had all gone into the medical field across a thousand different disciplines, they weren’t born heroes, but they were widely respected across the world, from the Occident to the Orient, across countless regions. They were responsible for saving countless lives, of man and monster alike.

I shook my head, no need to get distracted and flighty girl!

“Excuse me?” I politely walked up to an available nurse, a Joy with pink curly hair and crystal blue eyes. “I’m here to book a room for two,” I could see Akari was walking up with her tepig riding on her shoulder. Twenty two pounds is a lot of weight… “If that isn’t a problem?”

Her expression was warm. “Of course not, we have several rooms available. Do your pokémon need looking after?”

I smiled back. “Yes, please.”

I was scrolling through channels in my room, a good old divider splitting it between Akari and me. I was hoping to find something good at nine at night but…

There was nothing good on.

My new nidoran and Mirko were chatting away in their weird shared universal language out of a Disney movie. I hadn’t figured out a name for him, but he was a tough little guy. He was a lagomorph just like Mirko, but their line had split millions of years ago and their development of toxins and partially mineral biology set them apart.

Differentiating rock and ground types was a combination of their energies being distinct, and their… structure. Rock is crystalline matter, sturdiness and solidity, the process of crystallization and mineral formation. Ground is the manifestation of the tectonic forces, the pulse of the earth. They had a different if similar nature, which was why rock-ground types were so common.

I cracked my neck, rotating my torso as I prepared for bed. I had dressed down to a plain black shirt and red shorts that showed off my thighs. My hands brushed along my bare skin, and I marveled quietly at the softness. HRT was a hell of a drug.

“Hey,” I called out to my new buddy, and he hopped over and right into my lap, taking care to not brush his spines against my skin. He was about the size of a beagle, though his height was increased by his large ears. I looked up his data on my phone, curious to see what it would say. I had been distracted.

Shared Characteristics

Species: Nidoran, Poison Pin Pokémon

Type: Poison

Egg Group: Field, Monster

Classification: Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Lagomorpha - Leporidae - Arma

Wild Threat Level: Mostly Harmless. They are distrustful pokémon, and will almost always flee given the chance. (Note: Toxins are extremely potent regardless of breed, and are noted for Territoriality during breeding season.)

Growth Rate: Medium-Slow

Suggested Diet: Herbs, Berries, Nuts, Poison Omnivore Pellets, Meat (preferably mammalian and reptilian). Wood for wearing down teeth.

Personal Characteristics

Name: Nidoran

Holder: Brandon “Brandy” Red (Journeyman Trainer)

Age: 9 years

Ability: Hustle (Trades accuracy for power)

Physicality Analysis:

- Stunted venom glands in line with the standard characteristics of the Hustle breed.

- Recently sustained healed electric burns and paralysis, treatment with cheri and rawst berries evident.

- Shoulder height is measured at 28 centimeters and body mass at ten kilograms.

- Minor psychic-type affinity.

- Eye color aberration, darker shade of red.

Potential: Deep Green

Known Moves: Leer, Poison Sting, Peck, Focus Energy, Confusion

I blinked, that was new.

I found a voicemail and checked in, and Nidoran(my buddy) was startled by the voice that came from it.

“If you’re confused right now, I recently updated your dex-phone with some new programs and features based on some of your observations. It’s not new, but I was curious to see how the scanner would analyze pokémon bio-energy with your hypothesis in mind versus aura patterns being random electromagnetic white noise. Some studies with Natsuo’s perception of aura and Akari’s intuition of nature completed some of my old projects.”

“Huh, neat.”

“You’ve scanned dozens of wild pokémon, and you’ve given me a lot of data on your team. I’ve got a few research tasks for you once you’re rested, pokémon that need to be caught for my research. Ask around for volunteers in the wilds once I’ve got my list in order.”

“Of course.” I muttered as I twiddled my thumbs, the repetitive action calming my nerves.

“The main new feature aside from the Metaphysical Biology Analysis Engine or MBAE is a potential scanner, based on some aura techniques some expert breeders and trainers know. An old man calling himself the Legendary Top Pokémon Breeder, strange chap honestly. It’s a pretty easy system, it goes by color, and usually trainers would need to find people willing to check or guess. It starts from Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple and ends at Iridescent, and colors go from light, normal to deep. It’s good enough for measuring potential and gives you clues where you need to put in more work and strengthen your bond.”

I remembered the system, raising your pokémon’s potential wasn't difficult but it did require a lot of training, a lot of gathering of the right items, and a lot of battles to focus their potential.

Red was generally where most domestic mon fell under, having little potential for growth. Orange and Yellow was generally where weak wild and newborn pokémon fell into though some were born with far greater potential at birth. Green and beyond was where most battle-ready pokémon had enough power to continue onward, and breaking past limits was a very important aspect of battling.

“Interesting.”

“This new feature offers advice on increasing your pokémon’s potential, it should be a standard feature of the pokédex in a few months. So get as much data as you can, ya hear? It’s your job after all!”

The voicemail ended on that note, and I chewed on my lip. “So you’ve got a minor affinity for psychic energy huh?” Nidoran stared at me with a confused look, and I smiled. I giggled, and carefully placed my hand on his head. He leaned into my touch with a cute smile. “Well before we can lean into that, how about I figure out a good personal name for you?”

His eyes shined, and I wondered what was so important about names that had pokémon fall over themselves like this? Was it something fundamentally important to their culture?

“I know your species enjoy looking at the stars and the moon right?” My pokémon nodded while Mirko watched with a curious gaze. “How about Jericho? The city of the moon?” It was also a city in my old world, and the name itself was lovely and nice to say.

“Nirr! Nirr! Raaan!” He jumped up and down, before pausing and taking a more serious stance, giving me a half-lidded ‘cool’ face I didn’t take seriously.

“Jericho it is.”

His smug look boded well.

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.3

September 10th, 2022

I nervously stamped my foot, cocking a hip as I watched my opponent throw out his pokémon, a spunky little Alolan geodude who was clearly new to my much more experienced opponent’s team.

We had been sticking around in Noto for a week, challenging and battling trainers around the city. It had been Akari’s idea, she was pretty smart and said battling the veterans who hung around the Center was a good way to get stronger and get good advice from experts. Most competitive battlers in most cities had their territory around Centers, Gyms and local tournament buildings. While low-level trainers spent their time in minor city-sanctioned arenas, and were nowhere as competitive or as powerful.

We lost a lot, but we didn’t lose any money since the battles are considered off-records in some respect. A Trainer’s account had an app attached to it to allow a trainer to win a small amount of money off the loser, and it included everyone from amateur trainers to the most powerful Gym Leaders. Off-records was an option so there wouldn’t be needless transactions between two trainers training together and to stop strong trainers from bullying people and stealing their lunch money.

Most trainers didn’t make all their money by challenging random people, they earned their keep through tournaments with prize money pools and job requests from the Centers. Similar to certain mechanics from the games for the latter.

No distractions.

I threw out Jericho into battle, blazing light trailing behind him as his body took form and shape. A week has done a lot for the little bugger, and I marveled at the pace of growth pokémon had when trained by humans.

He had grown larger, and his horn had become sharper and more refined. Regular battles with wild pokémon and trainers had accelerated his growth nicely. Taking up a request for removing an infestation of ghastly had been a boon for growing his Power reserves.

Jericho let out a roar, and I could feel his excitement tinge the air with his power.

Jerry was a four badge trainer until he had joined the Aether Foundation, so he was a bit out of practice, and getting back into the groove with a new team member.

“Let’s start off with Thunder Shock!” His geodude scoffed at Jericho, and casually threw out a bolt of electricity.

“Deflect and punish.” I ordered, and psychic energy radiated from Jericho as he sent out a casual wave of Confusion. The electrical bolt was diverted by the wave of psychic energy disrupting its path, and my pokémon’s move didn’t slow at all as it struck the surprised rock-electric geodude. “Leer, draw him in, Confusion into Poison Kick.”

Jericho’s face became devious, an evil glint passing through his eyes as he glared down at the Alolan geodude. The rock-type flinched.

Confusion was shot at the rock pokémon like a bullet, and instead of dissipating, he kept it under his tether of control and pulled the arrogant pokémon into his range. He rammed into the surprised pokémon with his venomous horn, and pushed off of the geodude with a Double Kick that tore off flecks of rock and magnetic minerals.

Hustle increased his strength at the cost of accuracy so I had compensated by bringing his opponent as close as possible or making them into easy targets. His speed gave him a good edge too, I had clocked him at over a hundred kilometers an hour, though his maneuverability was nowhere as good.

“Rock Polish.” Jerry ordered with confidence, and I flinched. Oh fuck. Geokinetic energy scraped the pokémon’s rocky surface smooth, energy pulsing as his speed doubled in an instant.

The geodude retaliated with Spark on command, and Jericho was forced to duck and roll, narrowly avoiding the sparking charge.

“Use Charge—” The prideful rock pokémon refused and went right into a Rollout.

I was tense, sweat dripping down my face, but I knew what to do now. “Traverser Protocol 1.” Our opponent was newly acquired, stubborn, stupid and his pride was going to be his downfall.

Jericho sent out a new beam of Confusion, but directed it at the dry ground, creating a huge cloud of dust and sand. Blind and crash was the name of the game. The rock monster spun out of control, electricity sparking off of him in his rage.

A second Confusion kicked up more dust and brought the geodude into range of Jericho.

“Focus Kick, full power.” Two kicks to the face, their energy focused against critical points of defensive aura. Down and out in two strikes, and I felt surprised that things had gone so well.

“Return,” the fainted pokémon was returned to their ball with a red beam, Jerry sighing and shaking his head. “Geodude has been having a pretty good winning streak, and it was making him arrogant. Thanks for popping his ego, it seems the both of us need more training together.”

I shrugged my shoulders, hiding a bashful grin. “It was nothing, I'm getting a lot of experience battling with more skilled trainers.” I had gotten lucky enough to find an older woman with a powerful lopunny who had offered a couple of tips on having Mirko increase her potential. Items, training regimes optimized for her species, and moves that could help with their own aura flow to increase their potential.

I stepped back from the battlefield, and knew it wasn't going to be much longer now.

“How much do you know about the Gym Circuit?” Akari leaned over my shoulders, hands folded behind her back.

“I know they’re divided into the Major and Minor Leagues. The Major League has eight Gyms while the Minor League has ten, all of them serving as the cores of the Gym Circuit,” I leaned back from making some feed for Jericho, a mash that was a mix of barley, oats, sweet potatoes, alfalfa, and peanut butter meal, and lentils. Plus salt.

Along with a range of herbs, stinging nettles, and poison ivy turned into a diced salad with pulped oran and sitrus berries, and diced tauros meat drizzled with diluted pokémon toxins and a mineral supplement saturated with ground-type energy to increase his type potency. That was along a range of vitamins mixed into his food to maximize growth.

Luckily the stasis properties of a Backpack made this shit easy to keep.

Akari offered a wild grin. “The Gym Circuit dates back to the Age of Exploration, which started just after the Battle of Rota, about a thousand years ago?” She shrugged. “The strongest warlords of this era created sparring arenas to bring revenue and entertainment and settle disputes without destructive mass-scale warfare. In the last few hundred years, those trainers had too many pokémon so they took on apprentices, and these became the first Gyms, the home bases of a region’s greatest warriors, the Leagues built to manage and regulate the sport and ritual of battle.” So like the difference between old-time gladiator sports and modern MMA.

“Mhmm, so we’re going the traditional route, aiming for the meandering circuit of the eight Major Gyms,” I rubbed my chin, and Akari nodded with a fierce grin. “Which means backtracking across multiple prefectures of Tohoku.”

Tohoku was split into six sub-regions, each of them with their own character, culture, climate and ecology. From Ushu, the northwestern prefecture of Tohoku adjacent to the Sea of Nihoh to Uto, the northernmost sub-region of Tohoku, with a vast coastline spanning north, east and west. To Michinoku, the largest sub-region and vast in scope and scale with snowy mountains, rich coasts, and even desert and arid climates. Suika was our current location, a land of fire and water, then Shiromiya with the greatest population and ending with the ‘hidden kingdom’ of Katayama.

I opened up my phone, opening up what I had written down on the core eight gyms of the region, with Akari offering her own knowledge as a native. It was placed down on a map of the region, each digital dot opening to a Gym Leader. I pointed to central Suika.

The first file was of a seventeen or eighteen-year-old young man, with messy but pretty black hair and pale gold eyes. He wore a dark crimson robe lined with gold patterns and pointed boots, his grouchy face visible to all, and a silly infernape gripping his shoulder to take the picture.

“Liu, the Fire Prince of Irori, he's young but strong, a bit broody but a nice guy.” Akari scratched her chin with an awkward chuckle. “You could call him the First Leader of the traditional gym circuit, he gives out a ton of badges but it's because he's good at beating his lessons into challenger’s skulls.”

The second file in the capital city of Suika opened to a blue-haired woman with red eyes and a tight, tight swimsuit I couldn't help but be drawn to as a useless bisexual. A milotic wrapped around her almost sensually, or at least visually stunning, shining scales sparking with rainbow light.

“Rei, the Siren of Kozukata, a master when it comes to using water-types and merciless even at her ‘low’ level. She’ll tear us apart at our current level, your threat system is still experimental, and you're an over-thinker. It’s why I win more often than not against you. The Second Leader.”

I nodded, and moved to the third file in Nakagawa all the way to Uto, some six hundred forty kilometers away or about a month away on foot. It revealed a short bald man, wearing a green jumpsuit and had goddamn doctor octopus arms on his back

“Mikron, Gizmo King of Nakagawa. The leader of the electric-type Gym, he isn't as strong in raw power but his Gym is a labyrinth and full of puzzles and challenges to solve with your pokémon.” He had a huge electivire, the powerful thunder ape sparking with immense power. “The Third Leader.”

I pointed to the fourth Gym in Shiromiya, one of two in the area. It revealed a young woman with a stocky build, with auburn hair, and positively a beefcake of a woman. She had a Sinnohan(Hisuian) arcanine, and three lycanroc, a midday form, midnight form, and dusk form.

“Rachel, Stone Bitch of Makiishi,” I choked at the title, and Akari kept talking. “She’s rude, strong, and awful with people but she takes in strays and is fair as can be when it comes to the challenge. Pretty straight forward as the Fourth Leader.”

“She likes dogs huh?” Akari nodded. “So the fifth gym is…” I opened the file hovering over the capital city of Shiromiya.

I opened and closed my mouth at someone who was like someone had taken MCU Tony Stark and turned him into a hot elf, plus a hundred gallons of edible glitter.

“Aubrey, the Fairy Investor of Taisen. Business genius, invests a lot in big ideas but keeps hands off besides adding some charm to attract more investments. Very eccentric, but he's not always at his Gym and usually has substitutes manning it. Unpredictable.” I could hear the disdain in her voice. “Yet he's the Fifth Leader.”

Substitutes were common weren’t they? Or was this something more specific?

“Err Michinoku?” Next gym leader please and oh hey cool.

The next Gym Leader was a black-haired woman wearing dark-tinted glasses, who was built rather curvy and busty, an arm flexing to reveal hard as steel muscle. A krookodile was mimicking her movement with ease.

“Vivian, the Blind Bandit of Michinoku,” Akari was sort of vibrating, excitement ringing her voice. “She’s another strong leader who wrestles in tag teams with her pokémon in underground tournaments. She's tough as nails and hits like a truck, and will pull the rug under you in milliseconds. The Sixth Leader.”

I smirked. “You’re a fangirl aren't you?”

Akari growled. “Shut up, I am not a fangirl!”

“Sure you're not, so that leaves two more?” I moved and I could see the gears turning in her head, she scowled and I smiled warmly. I opened the seventh image file for the seventh gym.

It was a young woman with very slightly tanned skin, spiky dark brown hair, and pale blue eyes, holding an ominous book, a gengar hanging in her shadow.

“Norma, the Witch of Katayama. A bit creepy but quite sweet from what I've heard, her Gym is more of a spiritual journey combined with ritual combat. Very cool.”

She opened the file herself on the offline map, revealing an older man in his 50s. He looked quintessentially Japanese, almost rat-like, or… based on his whiskers and his robust frame an eastern dragon in the form of a man.

She breathed out slowly. “Yoshi, the Dragon Master of Ushu. His power is every bit the equal of an Elite Four, and he's incredibly exclusive. He only takes high-level challengers, he’ll direct you towards a minor gym if he doesn't think you're ready to face him. One of them is owned by his four adopted sons. Raw power and mastered techniques.”

“So we’re definitely not ready for anyone like him.”

Her reply was blunt.

“No.”

We were going through one last training session before the two of us would leave the city proper, putting into practice some of the more… totem-based forms of training in a small forest clearing.

Certain types of items could increase the potential of a pokémon, especially ones that contained or enhanced pure-type energy. Incenses provided an optimal environment for studying TE.

Evolution stones, elemental gems, or held items which merge into the body and alter their biology, often derived from the bodies of pokémon, preserved as totems and items of power. Thus they were amazing foci.

Now you would think that meant the rich and the strong would horde everything for themselves… that simply wasn't possible because finding random assorted items was a fundamental aspect of being a trainer. I had stumbled upon three Psychic Gems that I was letting Jericho use as a focus for his limited psychic powers. He wore them out one by one, but they increased his understanding of psychic-type energy.

Mirko had a new Silk Scarf I had taken off of a wild trubbish and cleaned up, and it strengthened her normal-type energies. She used it to gain a better understanding of her normal-type energy, using the item as an implement, a tool to better strengthen and cultivate her power.

The various tools and items of the trade were… a lot like training tools, they were important but not the end all be all of pokémon battling. Dumping a hundred items into your friend isn't going to make them a god of battle, and the power of friendship alone isn't good enough. In this world, it was a combination of things, of the bonds between humans and pokémon, of hard work and working together, of using the right tools and strategies to win.

Plus it helped that most of the basic stuff was cheap as hell, Elemental Gems were inexpensive, costing about one hundred pokén, or a single American dollar. They were used as foci, specially prepared items that make it easier for a user to perform a move. They were good tools for practicing and using new types and moves. It's a easy example of pure Type Energy for them to study and draw upon until they could transform their own energy into different waveforms, or into the specific shapes for moves.

Long-lasting type-enhancing items like Charcoal, Dragon Fangs, Polkadot Bows, and Miracle Seeds were more expensive but didn't wear out, and provided a solid example of their own energy.

That didn’t make it easy however.

“C’mon, learn how to channel your energy into Headbutt, it’s a strong move and plays well with using every part of yourself as a weapon!” I encouraged Mirko as she practiced the steps and exercises I had looked up online and in my phone’s local database.

Her strongest normal-type move was Swift, and her physical strength surpassed her special power in every circumstance. Headbutt was an excellent physical move, and the ability to cause an opponent to flinch was invaluable.

So increasing both her potential and her move pool was a good idea, though I was planning to slow down so Mirko wouldn’t get overwhelmed by so many options. Her current set would be refined into one of several Sets, standard strategies I would drill into her and my brain. Akari’s idea.

I looked at a basic stat file for Mirko, which had taken a few nights of studying to create a good model.

[Mirko]

Height: .6m

Weight: 7.4kg

Type: Normal

Species: Rabbit Pokémon

Constitution: C

Strength: C+

Toughness: C-

Power: C-

Resistance: C

Speed: B

All of Mirko’s stats were higher than the average buneary, making her far more powerful than one would expect at a glance. Which was a good thing, she was a little monster and I was happy to see her growing stronger under my watch.

There was a lot of trial and error, mainly by watching YouTube and looking up recommended teaching methods for tapping into the energies and katas of different moves. Headbutt involves infusing Normal aura into one’s head at the point of impact, smashing into a target with incredible power and enough concussive force to daze a target. The teaching method was…

Well headbutting a hard object like a tree, boulder or piece of metal and visualization of aura flow, though the latter applied to any pokémon move since it involved the invocation of Type Energy.

In Mirko’s case she was headbutting the hell out of a poor tree, focusing her aura and trying to get the right timing of aura flow at the point of impact. She was getting the hang of it, I could see a flash of pale light flashing every now and then, and it was a matter of timing now, reinforcing her power at the right time and place.

On the other hand, Jericho was working on learning Toxic Spikes and Dig. Toxic Spikes was a good arena trap, and Dig was a strong and easy to learn ground-type move. Toxic Spikes involved shaping poison-type energy into a physical form, and throwing them across the field, they were basically Czech hedgehog’s made out of toxins.

Ground-type moves would be a good counter against the fire-types of the Irori Gym. Like Mirko his potential was deep green, making him stronger than the norm. I opened up his corresponding file with a grin on my face.

[Jericho]

Height: .58m

Weight: 13 kg

Type: Poison

Species: Poison Pin Pokémon

Constitution: D+

Strength: B

Toughness: D

Power: D+

Resistance: D+

Speed: C-

Just like Mirko, Jericho’s power was greater than the average for his species at his age and current accumulation of experience. A combination of battling, training and his own experiences in the wild had done a lot for him. His strength was also far higher because of his ability, a good fifty percent stronger pound per pound.

He had managed to throw out a weak collection of poison caltrops, and was using a Ground Gem for a ready source of ground-type energy for him to learn about to use Dig.

Akari was training too, having set up an agility course out of miscellaneous junk, and was throwing objects for Happy to attack with Mud-Slap and Ember to improve his accuracy while Kirby was pushing a boulder about two and half times my 5’2 height in diameter. So he was pushing a boulder that was a solid hundred metric tons, and I was extremely concerned.

He hadn't even evolved yet, and Mirko wasn’t that much weaker than him though she did have less leverage. Then again I had seen my Starter leave craters using Swift that wouldn’t be out of place from an artillery blast. All pokémon used aura to fuel their feats, though using it to move thousands of tons was out of the question outside of high level pokémon who could destroy city blocks and carriers.

It was a matter of metaphysical leverage, using moves, using their full power focused on increasing their output of aura immensely, projecting it outwards into reality. It was tiring and expensive, so exercises like Akari’s were good at pushing them harder, which would amplify their combat power over time.

I got up from my resting spot, brushing dirt away from my shorts. They were a little tight on me, and I grinned goofily since they were a pair from two months ago. It meant progress. Fortunately most of my pants and shorts were of the stretchy variety. My hair was a few inches longer, and I just felt… good, relieved and yet…

I sighed as my heart hurt. It had been more than two months since I had been torn out of reality. I hadn’t taken time to process, time to grieve, rage, scream—

I almost drew blood, and let my shoulders untense before something unpleasant went down.

There was progress being made, Laven had said as much, promised me even.

I knew my family wasn’t perfect, and frankly I didn’t miss it like I should… hard to care when your family is toxic, broken and so damaged you could barely even cope without going mad. But there were still people I cared about, and I wanted to at least let them know I was alive and okay.

Did I know what would come after?

No. Not really.

But that didn’t matter, not yet, I would get there when I get there.

That would be all.

Chapter Text

Faller’s Field Guide 2

September 12th, 2022

Tohoku region, West Noto Rural Zone

Jericho the Nidoran

Meet the newest member of my team, Jericho is a nidoran I encountered after Akari and I had a run in with a hostile pride of luxio and shinx. He's a nidoran obviously, or Arma toxa within the Lagomorpha. I'm not gonna spend as much time here, still figuring out if any of this even really matters… nevermind.

Overview

The nidoran line exhibits traits of both mammals and reptiles, but they are in fact lagomorphs and leporids, having split off around 53 million years ago. They developed powerful toxins and heavily mineral-rich biology due to evolving in a very alien environment. The theories are that they lived in a region flush with the exotic energies of moon stones, or evolved on the moon. Though most theories indicate lunar nidoran were simply brought there from Earth by an unknown force.

Regardless, the nidoran line is native to the eastern mainland of Asu (Asia?), spanning across multiple regions and the savanna and field habitats they hold. Arma toxa are omnivores, sharing a niche not unlike that of entelodonts. For non-Earth people, take an emboar on four feet, give them jaws like a krookodile and have them stand at 2 m at the shoulder. Highly omnivorous but more than capable of serving as apex predators, using their brute strength and steel-like armor to overpower their foes.

The nidoking are in fact one of the most dangerous lines due to their tendency to gather armies of pokémon and their insatiable lust for battle and combat. Even their babies act like little monarchs… though they’re generally not malicious despite appearances.

Description

Jericho is about average for a nidoran at his current stage of evolutionary development at 58 centimeters in height and thirteen kilograms in mass, and I’ve noted the signs of impending evolution, his spines and horn have grown longer, and a third claw has started to poke out. Anyways.

Jericho has a round, slightly elongated purple head covered in a mix of scales and leathery skin, the former of which are compressed buttons of hair like a pangolin. It’s very smooth and soft in one direction and can be slightly rough in another. His jaw contains 28 teeth just like Mirko… but it’s far more alien in the way it’s structured. At his stage, his incisors are conventional though his peg teeth are less vestigial, turned into slashing and stabbing implements. It’s the premolars that really fuck with me.

They’ve shifted forward across the diastema, becoming shearing, stabbing teeth. The first two premolars work as pseudo-incisors, jutting forward and serving to cut food, while the third and fourth pair act as canines, and that fourth pair is enormous, forming into the tusks he might have as a nidoking. The fifth pair of premolars act as… premolars, with the remaining six pairs of molars not changing much. Regardless, his dental anatomy makes it obvious he’s an omnivore.

Like Mirko he’s got forward facing eyes, and fairly good trichromatic vision, nothing to write home about it, a very powerful sense of smell with three hundred million scent cells, and a stronger affinity toward toxins and flesh. They’ve got special hairs that can filter out smells so they’re pretty much immune to a lot of awful smells or toxic gases. His ears make up a good portion of his height, about eighteen centimeters, without that boost he’s about the same dimensions as a large beagle. He’s got strong swiveling ear muscles that have got a similar hearing range to Mirko but what’s really unique is his horn.

From what I’ve checked, his horn arises from subcutaneous connective tissue that later fuse to the underlying frontal bone. I’ve been careful to inspect him, his horn is hollow and connects to venom glands that are modified parotid salivary glands like snakes. Basically a mammalian stinger, the horn is heavily reinforced with a mineral lattice similar to lonsdaleite. Which explains how their evolved forms can shatter diamonds. Man this scanner is powerful. As a nidoran his horn isn’t fully reinforced yet, that takes time and deeper energy reserves. In fact carbon-rich minerals are an important part of his diet. The horn itself is sensitive to touch, and grants them enhanced perception to certain energies due to being an excellent conductor for aura.

Now let’s move on to his integument and outer coverings, as a species the nidoran line have a thick protective skin formed from layers of collagen lattices reinforced with wurtzite boron nitride interlaced with carbon allotropes. Think rhinoceros skin but strengthened by incredibly tough nanomaterials.

So a supplement in their diet is boron, and their compressed hair scales are about 80% composite, acting as heavy armor plating. Testing a scale of his for what it was made of was pretty easy. They aren’t as tough as the armor of a nidoking though, just like his horns.

Checking his legs reveals fairly standard lagomorpha biology, though they aren’t as optimized for hopping and jumping, and their sharp claws make them good at climbing and digging. He can run at about 30 meters a second, 108 km per hour, as fast as a cheetah, and yet is still a third slower than Mirko. Pokémon are fast.

His spines are also an interesting development, heavily modified osteoderm structures with ducts linked to a network of venom glands. A light squeeze can send out brief spurts of venom, these kinds of venomous circulation networks are common among poison-types. I’m guessing type genes on this planet are considered homeobox genes, genetic sequences that regulate large-scale anatomical features, master control genes that can direct bodily development.

They start the fire, and the modular cognition and communication between cells takes care of the rest. Very fascinating development. When it comes to his body shape, again he’s pretty conventional besides having only two toes on each foot, though his rear feet have interesting scale pads to provide traction and grip. He’s got a fairly slow heartbeat, about 90 bpm, and a body temperature of 36 C.

Also… his feces are apparently crescent moon shaped and I am so goddamn lucky pokémon are sapient. So it’s mostly gonna be grooming and taking care of things that are hard for them… and teaching them where they should go. Except for baby pokémon…

The modifications to the scanner have revealed some interesting features of his metaphysical biology. There seem to be seven major nodes of energy along with a set series of pathways for aura. Different moves appear to draw upon different centers and nodes, and there’s some odd data I don’t quite understand on how aura is sourced between Mirko and Jericho.

Focus Energy seems to emanate from a sacral node for Jericho, focusing the flow of his power to increase the potential damage of his attacks through a breathing exercise. I’m gonna be heavily studying this in training, to see how well they correspond to the visualization exercises Akari has been lending a hand with.

Anyways, that’s where I’ll be leaving off on Jericho.

Berry Trees

So I've finished up my first pages on Jericho as a nidoran, so I've decided to write down my observations on the local berry trees, and I'm not talking about a common strawberry or any of the thousand variants of this world. I'm talking about Berries with a capital B, the keystone species vital to the functioning of the world order. Coming from many different families and many different origins and yet vital all the same.

Now there isn't enough room to write down about the over sixty species of Berry, but the ones I've needed to use recently are an easy enough topic.

The oran berry or Citrus oran is a wild fruit closely related to the orange family of Citrus cultivars. It has a wonderful mix of flavors, spreading across the mouth in a burst of spicy, dry, sweet, and then sour. An oran berry is completely spherical with a blue thin edible skin with compact durable seeds nestled in the center. It's a very unique species, containing a number of complex exotic substances and energies that grant a burst of instant energy, treat pain, bacterial, viral and septic infections. Some type of aura-based biochemical set of reactions. From my scans and papers I've read.

The plant itself is a citrus species, with thorny twigs that can grow into either a shrub or a full-blown tree depending on resources. Easy to identify, dark green, shiny, aromatic, leathery, and evergreen with odd blue patterns along the trunk and branches, along with strong scented white flowers with seven triangular petals and a blue whorled stamen. They're a fantastic plant to find in the wilds, easily producing 250 to 400 fruits on a 10-meter tree. They could be the difference between life and death in the right circumstances.

Which brings me to the next berry species, the chesto berry or Castanea chesto is a species of hardy chestnut imbued with a number of useful properties that let it counteract sleep and sleep-causing moves and abilities. An exotic form of caffeine, a similar instant digestion effect like in oran berries, and the ability to maintain background brain processes taken care of during sleep. Its thick skin and fruity flesh is tough, dry, and not very tasty like the close relative Castanea crenata is. But its sleep-altering properties are useful and well-documented. I was able to maintain consciousness for 48 hours without any side effects from this berry.

The chesto is a small to medium-sized deciduous tree that can grow up to 15 meters tall with oblong and boldly toothed leaves from 8-20 cm long and 3-6 cm wide. The flowers of the chesto tree are 7-20 cm long, upright catkins that contain three to seven berries at a time. Hybrid cultivars with the sweeter-tasting Nihoh or Joseon chestnut have produced a fairly widespread semi-domesticated tree species that make for excellent food materials, though at the cost of far lessened medical properties. The chesto tree can bear hundreds to thousand of berries, and from scans emit energies similar to certain moves and abilities like Uproar, or Insomnia.

It's a fascinating species, and means I can move on to the pecha berry or Prunus persica pecha , a nectarine which can cure poison and toxic effects with ease. A feat possible due to a complex cocktail of antidotes, and the fact most pokémon toxins are based on several core molecular structures due to the vast amount of gene transfer across clades. Sauropsida for example all share a toxin molecule that evolved about 320 million years ago while Synapsida has another. The pecha can of course cure all of them because why not?

The pecha berry is very soft, very sweet and delicious, and rather tender, though its hollow inside pocket doesn't make it very filling. Made it very convenient after I accidentally tripped over Jericho and got poisoned.

The pecha tree can grow up to 7 meters tall, and up to 3 to 4 meters in diameter. Their leaves are lanceolate, 7-16 cm long and 2-3 cm broad with feathery veins, with pretty 3 cm pink flowers with five petals. Instead of a single large seed like most stone fruit, the pecha has small seeds lining the hollow space that stick to the flesh. It makes it easy to consume, and the pecha makes a great sweetener and poffin ingredient. It's good food and medicine for the traveling trainer or plucky explorer.

Now… For the cheri berry or Prunus cheri which is of course closely related to cherries, mainly wild or sweet cherries. Their flavor profile is very spicy, more like a round pepper than a common cherry, and counters paralysis by stimulating the nervous system. They're tiny round berries that grow on more modest deciduous trees, up to 10 meters though hybrid cultivars with wild cherries lets them grow up to 40. Their purplish-red bark and ovoid-acute 7-14 cm long and 4-7 cm broad green leaves make them easy to identify with bundled flowers with 5 white petals, red stamen, and weirdly shaped ovaries.

Now the last berry tree I've encountered so far is the sitrus berry or Citrus sitrus if you can believe it, a close relative of the oran berry that split off around twenty thousand years ago. Now you think that means it would be tasty because of that, but that's where you're wrong.

It's a well-rounded ‘flavor’, it's not too spicy, it's not too dry, it's not too sweet or bitter or sour. To be frank, to quote someone from home, it's motherfucking bland! Only made up by the fact it induces full-blown cellular regeneration by either transforming aura into physical mass, or using local matter as feedstock. It’s an ovate or oblong yellow fruit with orange spots with a leathery rind, and free of pulp and packed full of seeds, and can reach 5 kg from time to time. Their plant is a fast-growing shrub or small tree that can reach 2 to 6 m with irregular straggling branches and green evergreen leaves with a lemon-scent and ovate-elliptic shape and up to 18 cm long. Bunch of clustered white-purple flowers are common.

Mirko helped gather a ton of them so we've got a bunch of healing items and food on hand.

Berry Trees are a very odd phenomenon, most well-known for their vigorous growth, able to sprout within 4 hours and grow into a 10-foot, 10-inch diameter tree and or shrub in around 16 hours. Essentially gaining two or three hundred kilograms in about a day. Most plants here grow a few times faster than stuff back home, but not that fast. Which made me suspicious.

Fruit exists as a means of spreading a plant’s genes by using an animal as a vessel for their seed. The very specific properties of berries indicates their beneficial effects are a means of enticing pokémon and people alike to consume them.

My hypothesis is that berries exploit some type of aura phenomenon when passing through the digestive system, which might relate to both how they do what they do and how they grow so fast. Being exposed to exotic energies has to have some benefit when it's tied so closely to life.

It's just a theory at the moment but it's something to test in the future.

September 14th, 2022

Tohoku region, West Noto Rural Zone

Abra

The Rural Zone has been pretty cool, around 17 C and free of pesky rain. And I’ve been given the chance to encounter a number of pokémon that are either pre-adapted to the semi-urban environment or are naturally drawn to human settlements.

As we left the edge of a small town by the name of Lucida, we approached a short mix of grass and abandoned buildings, and were lucky enough to encounter a few abra! It was a group of three of three sizes, one stood at four feet tall while another was a runt at two feet, and a third was the average of about three feet.

Abra is a well known species, endemic to most regions of the Orient, Vulpes prudensa , the wise fox, closely related to the vulpix, zorua and eevee lines. The abra line could be said to be in a trio with vulpix and zorua, supernatural foxes, vulpix with magic and spiritual power, zorua with illusions and dark fey energies, and abra with their vast psychic heritage and mental powers.

Abra is vaguely humanoid, though their vulpine traits are obvious with their foxlike pointed ears and head though they’re covered in a yellow hide instead of fur, with a leathery brown plate around their chest and a thick tail that acts as a fat store.

They are some of the most powerful psychics in the world, their brains are always growing more refined and more efficient neural connections, constantly generating psychic energy like a squishy engine. They often live around human settlements, drawn by the sheer amount of neural activity, lodging in abandoned buildings and alleyways or even teleporting into people’s beds.

Their sheer psychic power and intelligence would make them an active threat if it wasn’t for their own gentle nature and enjoyment of human company. They spend most of their time sleeping, needing between ten and eighteen hours of sleep a day in a trance that retains defense maneuvers like the instinctual use of Teleport, and telepathic reading of intent and danger. The latter of which is a non-offensive and weak version of Future Sight.

Their biology is nothing out of the ordinary, they’re bipedal foxes with psychic powers. Omnivores, subsiding on berries, vegetables and meat, usually from domestic mon that are easy to catch, especially ones rich in psychic energy.

Anyways…

The three abra are friendly enough when we encountered them, they could likely read our intent. While I wouldn’t have minded catching an abra, forcing the issue wasn’t something I was interested in. Akari was more curious than anything, smiling at the cute fellas. They all knew Teleport, and the biggest one was already using a few psychic moves. Confusion and Psyshock from the looks of things. The biggest one… I suspect he was close to evolving, which would make him around 16 years old. Most pokémon tend to take much longer to evolve in the wild, an ordeal of years or even decades rather than months and years under the tutelage of a human.

They were communicating silently, though making gestures and miming with their hands was a common occurrence as we watched them socialize. One was using telekinesis to grab berries from nearby shrubs, distributing them evenly between each other to feed themselves. Before we left the largest, ended up making telepathic contact, a sudden mental burst of ‘Danger’ in a side route we had almost gone down.

They directed us to take the main route or another side route if adventure was important. The abra were kind souls, though I am curious what they were so afraid of.

What could have scared them off so strongly?

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.4

September 19th, 2022

Five days of travel on foot and we were traveling along the Idaitou river’s course through the Eastern Irori Plains. A mix of gently rolling plains transitioning into flat landscapes of grassland and prairies. The direct route was visible on the horizon, but Akari liked the scenic route and I was too much of a nerd not to follow.

The riverside was rich with a number of pokémon, bidoof and slowpoke were the most obvious along with poliwag splashing in the water and nearby ponds and belching masses of water. Farfetch’d kept their distance, protectively gripping their leeks with wary eyes. We had fought both drowzee and zangoose, the former after one had tried to eat my dreams and I ended up kicking it in the head and the latter were just aggressive.

The river was home to magikarp, white-striped basculin, buizel, and I had seen wooper and quagsire. Though… we had kept our distance after we saw one get dragged under by a full grown feraligator. Turns out like crocodiles they can keep growing for decades, and this one was fifteen feet tall and likely outweighed a Nile crocodile.

Though catching a totodile sounded neat… but not today, I liked being alive and not eaten by a giant crocodile monster.

I cycled out my pokémon now and then, since they needed a rest now and then and individual time with me. We could probably arrive in Irori by noon, so about an hour?

Jericho was the one currently out of his ball, trotting and casually keeping pace with us. Akari had Happy out with her, the pig pokémon occasionally foraging on flowers, fallen fruits, mushrooms and had recently picked up a dead rattata without a care in the world, scorching it to cook it.

We were approaching a shukaba, a small post town that was nestled near the river. Like most post towns they had a general layout of facilities that were more or less standardized.

The general offices that manage the post town, so the socioeconomic and political center of the town, like the elected representative, and trade brokers. There are rest areas and lodgings for officials of the League and other government officials, some of which could be offered to passerbys if they were empty. The hatago were less selective facilities that offered accommodations to general travelers and food. A teahouse was common in these small towns, remnants of when geisha were more popular and widespread. Plus shops and stuff.

These small towns didn’t have a lot of people, maybe a few hundred, the larger ones a few thousand due to having an industry or local resource that made them important enough.

But… I felt a shiver run up my spine, which was followed by the sound of explosions and battle. Akari flinched, and released her munchlax, Kirby yawning as he emerged into reality. I could see flashes of light ahead, and brought out Mirko, who shook her head, ears swiveling towards the growing sounds.

I remembered a rather important tidbit about lab-sponsored trainers, they’re considered first responders when the police force isn’t around, same with gym leaders, elite trainers, other League officials and the Champion and Rangers.

It wasn’t an obligation, but it was an implied duty as a trainer, within reason at least. So they weren’t expected to fight a century old gyarados and die for the cause. Just to help when they can.

Akari gestured, and I followed her, and the six of us ducked into the shadow of a building at the edge of town, an inn of some sort. As we approached the flashes of light became active attacks, several pokémon and people lashing out at the town. We crouched, Akari hissing as she recognized something.

There were five thugs wearing futuristic armor, a light grey metal cuirass, pauldrons and leg armor over black jumpsuits, alongside plain helmets with v-shaped visors, and gloves over their hands. There was a symbol etched into their armor that reminded me of a Chi Rho… and yet different.

They had ten pokémon, which on its own wouldn’t be too dangerous… but they had hostages, several kids who looked maybe five or six years old.

There was an older man looking at them with disgust, his electabuzz sparking with electricity but unable to do anything about it with his people on the line. The other villagers were various levels of beaten down, their pokémon almost to the point of fainting or simply unable to help.

The leader of the group was smirking, while two of his thugs kept a grip on three kids with their pokémon, two houndour snarling viciously, looking far too twitchy. Two houndour, one beedrill, one Alolan rattata, two ekans, and two kricketune for the grunts and a houndoom and an absentminded gliscor (it was looking at a bug) for the leader.

“It’s a very easy trade, your children for the location of that enclave of vulpix your village has been protecting,” the leader chuckled darkly, and flames sparked from the mouths of the houndour. “Vulpix are rare pokémon, and if we can evolve them with our new program, Cipher can expand our operations nicely.”

I felt my mouth dry at the familiar name, Team Cipher was a team from Orre, a dangerous criminal organization that I knew about both through my outside knowledge and looking up this world’s history.

Seventeen years ago, they had first attempted to conquer the Orre region by infiltrating their weak government to operate with impunity, growing their power base and developing terrible weapons like Shadow Pokémon. They had been thwarted and didn’t return for another five years… creating Shadow Lugia, failing and vanishing into the wind.

But that had changed in the past two years, especially with the re-emergence of criminal organizations like Team Rocket, Team Dim Sun, and the Pinchers. Their newest leader was a mystery, and they had been a thorn in everyone’s side for two years now.

“You’d harm children for your goals?” The older man sounded pissed and the Cipher grunt only smiled.

“No one’s getting hurt as long as you tell us where those vulpix are, old man. An easy trade.” He waved lazily at his thugs, and the two growling houndour opened their jaws, sparking with flames as they circled the frightened kids.

This was…

“I have an idea, but I need a distraction for it to work. Can you do that?” Akari asked, whispering something to Kirby who scampered off behind the building.

“I can try.” I replied, and crouched to better talk with Mirko and Jericho. “Jericho… use Dig to get under the kids, and attack on my signal.” Jericho nodded, and his claws took on a hue of smoky topaz hue before quietly diving into the soil. “Mirko buff yourself as much as you can.”

The kids had two houndour, and one kricketune holding them in place. The dark fire-dogs had a weakness against fighting-types, ground-types and rock-types and water-types. So I had Dig and Drain Punch… but I needed to get them to step off, and kricketune was a bug-type.

“Mirko, use Swift on that kricketune, keep your aim on only that kricketune,” I pointed to the specific pokémon in question. “Follow it up with Quick Attack into Drain Punch, and give the signal.” Their good sense of hearing was going to pay off here.

Mirko took a deep breath, surrounded by sparks of scarlet red, and golden energy burst into existence, becoming twisting stars of energy.

“Flame Charge into wide barrage Mud-Slap.” Akari added her own orders, and Happy let out a murmur of an oink.

The stars turned into heat seeking missiles, and smashed into the unprepared kricketune, compressed force sending the poor bug flying for dozens of meters.

“DELELELEWOOOP!” That horrible, horrible cry was cut short as the pokémon was brought down with a single attack. He was smashed into a nearby building, and slowly and painfully slid off the durable wall.

Mirko surged into the field, throwing a Drain Punch that sent the whimpering dog to the ground, knocked out in one punch. She let out a loud shriek, and Jericho emerged in a geokinetic slam into the remaining houndour, throwing a Leer and a Double Kick for good measure, cutting him off at the knees.

“Who the hell—” the leader was cut off when Happy emerged in a charge of glory, cloaking himself in flame and power. He went straight for the beedrill, and the massive insect released an ominous buzz as it was covered in flames. The pig kicked off of the enraged insect, and fired Mud-Slap in every direction, including at the thugs.

The ones near the kids were blinded, and before I could take a pause for breath Akari leaped into the fray, and with a casual grace slammed their heads together, knocking them unconscious. She pushed the kids away into the waiting arms of the locals.

In the chaos I caught a glimpse of Kirby watching from a corner, and opening his mouth, and I smirked as I realized what her plan was. So with a sigh, I stepped into sight with a casualness I did not feel.

Electabuzz sent out a powerful electric bolt which was tanked by the gliscor with her ground-flying typing. Which was a problem when it came to fighting off the fully evolved pokémon.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Akari was giving the group of criminals a death glare, and I could feel her anger.

“A bunch of stupid trainers aren’t going to be enough to take us down, boys and girls, no mercy.” The leader stomped his foot, and his thugs went on the attack.

And not with their pokémon alone…

I did the smart thing, and ran the fuck back when two thugs charged at where I was. Their two ekans hissed, and I hissed back.

“Jericho, Confusion, slam them.” Jericho let out a high pitched cry, psychic energy bursting into life around him.

He sent out the blast of psychic energy, throwing the two snake pokémon into their trainers.

“Ekans, bite the bastard!” I flinched at the command from one of the grunts, a girl with light blonde hair who had thrown off her companion in a hurry to get on her feet. The snake coiled itself before leaping forward, and I twisted around the attack.

Holy shit, why do things keep trying to kill me!?

Golden stars blew up the offending poison-type snake, and a second burst threw the other ekans into his trainer for a second time, knocking them both out of the fight.

“Acid, Ekans!” The aforementioned pokémon sprayed fucking acid and I rolled out of the way. “Quit running away you fucking brat and fight like a ma—” she didn’t get another word in before Akari had choke slammed her into the ground with an icy expression. Her ekans yawned, jaw snapping, slowing down and with a flash of Confusion was brought down by a screeching Jericho.

That left the houndoom, gliscor, beedrill and one kricketune on the field, and one by one they were growing drowsy.

Akari breathed out. “Kirby, Rollout.” The munchlax zoomed out of the darkness, slamming into the beedrill.

“Ice Punch.” The older man ordered, his electabuzz burst into action, forcing the gliscor onto the ground, throwing punch after punch of elementally infused strikes.

The leader sneered at me. “Torch him!“ Houndoom released a blast of flame where I was standing, and it was blocked by Happy, the pig weathering the attack better than I could.

“Tail Whip, Bulldoze!” The tepig stepped up to the challenge, with a quick tail sway it collided with the much larger houndoom. He struck everywhere, trampling and crushing the ground around the houndoom, our pokémon had warning so they jumped as the earthen shockwave struck everything on the field.

The kricketune fell asleep first, collapsing into a heap, and the gliscor had gone limp in the arms of the electabuzz.

“What?” The leader questioned as he saw his thugs go to sleep as the effects of Yawn took hold. He slapped his own face, and his houndoom howled and bit his own leg to stay awake. “Use Inferno, burn this shit town to the ground if you have to!”

Happy lunged for a second time, a second shot of Mud-Slap blinding the houndoom, yet it released a wild and uncontrolled beam of caustic flame headed towards a major building. Kirby lazily blocked it, creating a hexagonal pastel green field of protective energy.

“Drain Punch!” I added Mirko to the hurt, the battle bunny smashing her fist and cracking the houndoom’s iron jaw. Jericho was busy keeping the leader from approaching, brandishing his venomous spines.

“Roar!” I flinched when Mirko and then the electabuzz were forced back into their pokéballs by the succession of haunting cries. “Hyper Beam!” I should have told Jericho to knock him out.

To my surprise, Kirby rolled into the field, summoning a second Protect right as the enormously potent blast of energy tore out of the maw of houndoom. The field took the brunt of it, but shattered and I flinched when the remaining energy knocked out Kirby in a single strike.

I threw out Mirko again. “Don’t let the trainer say another word, his houndoom is too dangerous.” She saluted, and threw herself onto the thug’s face with a gleeful cry.

The houndoom was still standing, trying to walk off the exhausting strain of Hyper Beam. Jericho went for a Double Kick… and missed, so he went for a Fury Attack at the dog’s underside. It didn’t do much, and the houndoom twisted his neck to knock Jericho aside with a headbutt.

Akari looked at the unconscious form of Kirby with an unreadable expression. Happy looked at his trainer, some wave of emotion going through him and…

He suddenly glowed with a shining white light.

Endless light of Creation.

The Sun’s Pulse.

The Earth’s Pulse.

The burning stars and the rumbling of worlds.

All is One.

One is All.

I flinched as a sudden headache came on, the light of Evolution leaving spots in my vision. When I opened my eyes, Happy wasn’t a tepig anymore.

He stood on his hind limbs, a bipedal pig with a round almost egg-like shape and covered in a thick dense layer of fur. He was almost entirely black, with patterns of yellow across his back, arms and legs, with a tail ending in a shifting mass of lava and whiskers of the same substance.

Akari narrowed her eyes. “Mud Shot.” Mud blasted at the unprepared houndoom, a jet stream surrounding the cannon blast of ground-type energy.

He released a defiant howl, attempting to stand up… and then collapsed with a heavy weight, unable to take the damage inflicted on him.

The leader tried to run, but he didn’t get far with Mirko being unwilling to let him go.

What had that been?

“Thank you so much for your help,” the older man who I now knew was named Midoriya. “Cipher has been a pain in our asses for several days, but it wasn’t until they had taken some children hostage that we realized how much of a threat they were.”

I flushed red, ducking my head so he couldn't see my face. “It was no trouble, it was really more my traveling partner who pushed me into it. I'm a bit of a rookie, so I’m not…”

Midoriya blinked. “Ahh, that’s fair young lady, the duties of a trainer can be quite taxing and knowing when to step in can be a challenge.”

“Yes, that.” I glanced at my hair, wondering if just having long hair was good enough to be called a girl when I was otherwise so… boyish. “So the police have them in custody now?”

“They do, they’ll be up against the justice system for what they’ve done but… I fear this is only the start. Cipher is insidious, and they’ve committed far greater crimes than holding people hostage or poaching pokémon.”

I nodded, there were a lot of classified and redaction marks over some of the things Cipher had done, and they had on many occasions taken over towns or even destroyed them entirely for their plans. A town in Greater Orre had been stripped for material, down to the buildings themselves being salvaged. They had stolen parts and technology from Devon and Silph, and attacked Gyms, and as I knew had been a thorn in the side of the world for years.

“So no one is hurt, but it’s been a big scare huh?” I asked, perfectly understanding the nerves of the locals, kidnapping and murderous threats weren’t a typical crime even with pokémon. Though it was more common than it should be regardless.

“Fortunately it turned out far better than I expected with your arrival,” he acknowledged Akari too with a nod in her direction as she was pestered by the kids. She didn’t seem to be dealing with it well… not even a little, her usual cool girl act obviously didn’t extend to social interaction. “And I already have a good way of thanking you.”

“That’s…”

Midoriya shook his head, pulling out a round shining disc I recognized as a Technical Machine. “I’ve had a few TMs I’ve been holding onto for some time, and I’ve decided to give each of you one of them.” He pushed the disc into my hands, and I blinked at the blue device. “This contains the TM for Water Pulse, it’s not the best but it should serve you well against the Irori Gym.”

“It’s fine, they work the way I’ve been told, correct?” I wanted to ask because the instructions for TMs sounded ridiculous.

“They are, simply place them around the button of your pokéball, and tap a switch behind the capture button to activate the download sequence.” And he proved my intuition correct on this world being insane. The police force was making their approach, and I stiffened.

“Errr…”

“They likely want your testimony on the case you suddenly cracked wide open, Team Cipher is gonna be on everyone’s radar after this.”

That’s… just great. Attention is very safe for me in this world.

“I’ll do my best then.”

…

This was going to become a trend wasn’t it?

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.5

September 22nd, 2022.

We had stayed at the village for about two days since the police needed our testimony and some extra firepower to look for a few grunts who had a getaway vehicle, an expensive armored ATV that could take damage from pokémon attacks.

Which wasn’t a good sign when it came to how many resources they had invested in the Tohoku region. It only took another day to arrive at last at the city of Irori, home to the Fire-type Gym. From where we were standing, the town was utterly gorgeous.

Irori was located in central Suika, in the center of the Milokaross River valley at the confluence of three rivers with the 624 kilometer long Milokaross river. We had walked from the east where the Idaitou ran while the Bai-Koikingu and Gorudakku ran from the west.

From the west, two great rivers and the foothills of the Sternwing Mountains, to the east the city rises to the highest peak in the Milokaross Range, the Kanran-ishi, a major centerpiece of a Wildland area home to many pokémon.

We had finally arrived, the next step would be to register for the first gym battle in my life.

I chewed on my lip as I walked towards the Gym for the first time ever. Akari was silent, letting me think on my own.

Irori itself was rather large as urban areas went, with a population of about a hundred twenty thousand with many satellite settlements of about one to two thousand people. The settlements here were apparently quite concentrated, with a significant fraction of the land being used as a buffer zone between the city and the greater wilderness between human cities. Lots of walkable community cores, along with robust mass transit systems, and personal vehicles as needed.

The city was… comforting in its familiarity, though it was a lot quieter than the cities back home. Regardless I was standing here now, at the front of the Irori City Gym.

The gym itself was tall and domed, much like a stadium with an open roof where I could hear the distant exciting cheer of open fiery combat. That would be from the big stage that was the home of higher-badge challengers and famous trainers, which attracted large and energetic crowds. I could… feel it in my bones, a silent shockwave through reality.

The gym also doubled as an onsen, and the shape of the dome and the front of the gym paid homage to that important fact.

I sighed. “No use putting it off, it’s time.” I muttered my best prayer and pushed forward. The sliding doors chimed, and a flash of heat escaped in a strange wave of… rippling force. The lobby itself was huge, with wooden floors spanning a hundred feet across. I could see a multitude of couches, and TVs displaying the ongoing battle. The front lobby receptionist, a pretty blonde with plump lips met my eyes.

“Hello! How may I help you?” She was loud as hell, and I almost shrunk in response. I cleared my throat as I crossed the distance between us as fast as I could.

“I’m here for a gym battle, or well to register for one?”

She grinned. “Understood. Can I have your Trainer ID please?” She asked, turning a computer with her hand and waiting expectantly for me. I pulled out my ID, handing it to her. “Ahh easy enough… Do you prefer Brandy Red?”

I nodded. “Yes.

She hummed. “Journeyman, you started this year with no badges. So this challenge will be your first then?”

“Yep,” I rubbed the back of my neck with a light smile.

“You and your friend are in luck, you arrived quite early in the season so there aren’t any low-badge trainers scheduled yet. Getting your Gym Test out of the way can be done right now. If you pass we can schedule both of your challenges.”

“Of course, that’s why we’re here so early.” Akari piped up with a chipper tone of voice, bouncing on her heels.

“Thank you…” I trailed off for a moment, feeling nervous.

“Joann,” the woman replied. Oh no.

“Joann. Where should I go from here?” She pointed me down the hall so I could pretend I had asked for her name rather than the reality of having lost my train of thought like a fucking moron.

“That’ll lead you to one of our smaller arenas where an instructor will explain the Gym Test.” I stepped away from the desk, letting Akari take her turn.

“Good luck.” Was all Akari offered as I walked towards my destination. It didn’t take long to get admitted.

The examination room was warm, with a floor made out of dirt and walls made out of smooth stone and covered in numerous fiery torches… emitted from some type of electric stove devices embedded in the floor? The instructor was a young dark haired woman with a bit of a resting bitch face and tired eyes, who seemed to have finished setting up the test.

The instructor flicked a button, and the tiny flames grew four times their size. “The test is simple, put out the flames as accurately as possible and without exhausting your pokémon. Something about taking the heat, that’s it.” She practically drawled her words, a creaky tone obvious with her voice.

Mirko wasn’t optimal for taking down fires, mainly I had trained her to use a set of Work Up, Swift, Quick Attack, and Baby-Doll Eyes to strike at a distance while powering up, hit at close range for moments at a time and using Baby-Doll Eyes to reduce their physical toughness.

So… the best option here is…

“It’s your turn, Jericho.” I threw out the ball, and out popped out my nidoran buddy, the poison rabbit rearing up on his hindlimbs in a pose.

“Nirrr!”

“It’s a simple enough task, just put out the flames with the right moves, use the two we’ve been practicing.”

Jericho nodded, and took a deep breath. “Raaa!” A pulsating mass of water formed right above his horn, as he used it as a focus for hydrokinetic power. The ball took the oblong shape of a football, and with a flick of his head, he sent a weak Water Pulse screaming across the room.

Six flames were put out in a single move, and it gave out at the sixth in an anemic splash over the device.

Jericho’s eyes glowed with psychic energy, and his Confusion dragged along the ground, grabbing masses of pebbles and dirt from the ground, and he threw them into the flames, smothering them easily.

He smothered, washed out or stomped out numerous flames on both the walls and the floor, some of the flames moving from projector to projector. That didn’t work out well for them, as he took them out in midair with weak precise shots of Water Pulse.

After about twenty five targets were taken out, the instructor waved her hand. “That’s enough, you passed… it was getting boring anyways…”

I blinked. “Okay?” I gestured for Jericho and he happily ran to me with a cocky expression.

“Do you need a break for your pokémon to rest?” I glanced over at Jericho, examining his condition. “The next stage involves trainer battles.”

He was sitting on his haunches, breathing evenly and without any of the more obvious signs of exhaustion like droopy ears and eyes or yawning or excessive panting. The more subtle signs weren’t there either, like very subtle quivering back spines or laggy sparks of poké-energy from his horn.

“We can continue,” Jericho nodded. “We’ve trained a fair bit for endurance.” With three clicks I returned Jericho, I wanted Mirko to get some battling in first.

The instructor nodded with a neutral expression, and pressed a button near the exit which restarted the flame projectors on the walls and covered the ones on the ground.

“This will be a two-on-two battle with a gym trainer. No switches are allowed and recalling your pokémon will count for them becoming unfit for battle. Do you get that?” Her monotone voice was… almost soothing but I did understand.

“I do.”

The door to the arena opened at my admission, revealing the trainer I was going to battle. A young girl, maybe around fourteen or fifteen years old with a round face, light tanned skin and a round cut stepped into the arena. Her clothing was loose and colored red and tan, warm colors and all.

“Ready to get burned by the dynamic power of fire-types!” She posed dramatically, and I held back a chuckle. One it was rude, and two in the world of pokémon any trainer of any age was dangerous and to be respected as such.

“Sure?”

She beamed, and brought out her pokémon at the same time I did. A ponyta materialized into reality, the meter tall equine’s mane blazing with living flame. My only thought was that she was very cute.

Mirko emerged in the same instant, one arm lifting up at an angle and the other held back in a fist. I should never have let her watch Kamen Rider…

“I’m Kiyi, and I’ll be the one kicking your ass today.” She pointed to herself with a jut of her thumb.

The referee rolled her eyes. “Begin!”

“Work Up!” Mirko did as I asked, her body flaring with scarlet light.

“High Horsepower!” Mirko jumped upwards the moment Kiyi called out the devastating move, dodging the charge of the fire horse, flinging a swarm of Swift stars straight into the surprised horse.

“Break it with Flame Wheel!” Ponyta surrounded herself in strange flaring masses of fire, cycling into a vertical vortex of combustion and heat. The stars shattered and burned as the barrier of flame destroyed them.

“Charm into Quick Attack.” Was my order, and in midair, Mirko posed cutely, her energy surging into the move, lowering the guard and weakening the offensive aura of Kiyi’s pokémon.

She vanished into a stream of white light, roundhouse kicking Ponyta and using her as a platform to land away from the now dazed pokémon.

“Ponyta, Double Kick, crush that bunny!” The gym trainer was getting angry, but I could tell she was calculating how to beat me.

“Mirko… Punish.” An evil grin spread over her face as Ponyta reared over her in a quick burst of speed, stomping down with her legs to crush her.

She threw a Drain Punch, kicking one leg out of alignment and hopping out of the way, twisting past the flailing limbs of the suddenly off balanced fire horse. A second blast of Swift smashed into her opponent like the fist of a tiny god. Bruising, pummeling, and leaving long but short cuts with the normal-type attack’s sharp edged stars.

Ponyta sent out an Ember, and she sent out another Swift which blocked most of it.

“Morning Sun!”

Yeah… no.

“Drain Punch, full power.”

Mirko leapt onto Ponyta, a second burst of Work Up exploding into life. Her ears rolled up, and snapped out in a rapidfire set of Pounds. Sixty kilograms of horse was flung downwards into a literal crater where the floor had given away.

The pokémon didn’t get back up again, the dazed expression a clear sign of defeat.

Kiyi looked disappointed and with a huff she recalled her downed pokémon, Mirko smiling at her with a raised brow. Her mockery was plain to see with that odd putting grin. She hovered over her belt, hesitated and threw out a litwick of all things. She looked mighty proud of her decision, denying Mirko the ability to attack with a single action.

She started “Confuse Ra—”

“Foresight, Buff and TAB,” Her eyes took an unnatural shine, and she vanished into Quick Attack. Litwick released an eerie cry, as Mirko’s fist embedded itself into his candle-face.

I had been experimenting with breaking down sets of moves into basic forms each designed to perform different tasks and accomplish. TAB made use of the moves she had access to, Traverser moves had their use in getting her into place, Archer moves let her attack with relative impunity while using her own speed and brief bursts of Quick Attack to dodge and keep her own space. The finishers were Bruiser moves that would leverage her greater strength as a final blow. TAB was an acronym for Traverser, Archer, and Bruiser. How they were used was a matter of Mirko’s role on the team.

I smiled with a toothy grin.

Litwick was torn apart by the continuous barrage of moves that were now effective against his ephemeral body. He went down with a final attempted burst of Ember that Mirko caught head on, but it didn’t slow her down an inch. She called for him to use Minimize and Hex… a good strategy now that I noticed Mirko’s body flickering with flames.

“End it.” A single Headbutt brought the little litwick down to earth, and I felt a strange ripple, a burst of excitement, of happiness at a plan coming together.

I frowned though. How had I made Mirko this strong, or has she always been this way?

Mirko posed like a Kamen Rider again and I sighed.

I was sitting in the waiting room, glancing towards a gym employee as he scheduled my battle against Liu or whoever could fill in for the low-level badge. Gym trainees often took up the first and two badge challengers so that they wouldn’t be swamped by hundreds or even thousands of challengers.

I blinked when I saw Akari sashay out of one of the examination rooms, Happy walking alongside her. I watched her for a moment, briefly drawn in before remembering myself and slapping my face.

Man I must be still jittery from the battle if I’m feeling like this.

Mirko stop waggling your nonexistent eyebrows, you are a bunny!

Akari didn’t take long to reach me, taking a seat to my right, and leaning in my direction with a casual confidence.

“So your match went as well as mine did, I take it?” Akari made conversation, a curious note to her husky voice.

“Mirko ended up utterly destroying the gym trainer I was sent up against, she’s gotten much stronger. I guess all our training together paid off.” Battling with Akari was a fun affair, she was much better at on the fly thinking and strategy while I went for pre-planning and creation of protocols to call upon instead. She would push me into corners with her rapidfire solutions while I could befuddle her with compressed orders and opaque sets only my pokémon would understand.

It was like… well a game, acting as a commander for beings so much stronger than humans, giving them the tools, knowledge and opportunity to become so much more. All the while learning more about them every step of the way.

“Happy did the same, his type advantage made it relatively easy to overcome my gym trainer’s charmander and Sinnohan growlithe.”

“That’s a rare subspecies.” I pointed it out. The old Hisuian era-breeds were the equivalent of more primitive dog breeds who retain more of their wild traits but are harder to control and have as pets or beasts of burden. Singing dogs, dingoes, Carolina dogs or Canaan dogs. “So you’re waiting for your schedule too then?”

“Mhmm,” she brushed back a blue bang with a small grin. “It probably won’t be for at least a few days, things can be quite busy when the season starts. We have time though.”

She wasn’t wrong, the Tohoku League season began in September and lasted ten months, ending in July with the Sternwing Conference in August. So a period of approximately ten months, eleven including the weeks dedicated to the Sternwing Conference, though most of that work was done on part of the League versus the Gym Leaders.

Ten months to get through the Gym Circuit, to improve my understanding and mastery of this world. I had quite a few research tasks that Professor Laven wanted me to work on. Capturing certain pokémon and scanning their abilities and moves.

For example, she wanted me to catch multiple stantler due to their ability to harness dimensional energies. Their antlers are like tuning forks that harmonize with the vast energy of interdimensional space. They used them to open portals to other forests around the world or even enter other worlds. Willingly given horns could be used to construct portals and were an important component in wormhole research.

Catching some volunteer stantler was a good start, but there were quite a few others who were vitally important one way or another. Fairy-types and dark-types had ties to the realm of the fey, one of many natural realms and layers of reality. Klefki supposedly had formed their own realm from the mists of higher planes, letting them unlock doors stepping into other universes.

Munna and musharna had their dream mist, and kirlia’s projected images weren’t just illusions… they were projections of other worlds, seldom seen glimpses of worlds throughout the multiverse.

I wiggled in my seat at the idea of working with such pokémon, with their powers combined finding a way home wouldn’t be too far away!

Mirko didn’t let me daydream, crawling over me, and pulling at my face with a glare. “Mirol!”

“Bleh,” I stuck my tongue out at her, and focused on the conversation again. “I think once I get this badge, whenever I do, I’ll probably look into actively looking to catch a third member.”

Akari smirked, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. “Another bunny I’m sure?”

I flushed. “It’s two pokémon, that doesn’t make it a trend.”

“I’ve heard that far too many times from people back home to believe that.” Her sheer certainty made me pout.

“Are you challengers for my gym?” I jumped when a voice called us out, and even Mirko and Happy had reacted to the man appearing in our blindspot like a ninja.

I turned to face a young handsome man with amber eyes, messy black hair and soft features that very much made me understand why there so many articles and men and women thirsting after the eighteen year old.

“Not until four days from now sir!” The gym staff pointed out, Liu nodding in response.

“What are your names?” He was almost awkwardly cute with his questions, the pale gold that were his eyes shining with curiosity and drive.

“Akari.” She seemed tense?

“Brandon, or Brandy. Either or.” I really don’t mind my old name so much, but a nickname was fine too.

“You’re the ones who dealt with Team Cipher activity around Foxtown?” Is that what that place was called?

“We… did.” I answered carefully, I wasn’t sure why the Gym Leader wanted to know. For all I know we has stumbled onto something that would get us into trouble.

But then maybe I was wrong.

He beamed. “You’ve been a real help to the community, the police, Rangers and my gym trainers have been having difficulties tracking down the activities of Cipher and your capture of a few members is giving us a lot of information.”

“Has it?” Akari asked curiously.

“It tells us their operations in the Tohoku region and beyond have grown much larger, so I’m also here to give you a warning,” he leaned forward, his voice growing softer. “Cipher doesn’t take kindly to trainers interfering with their operations, so being careful is a good idea. I… have experience with how they think, and how dangerous they really are.”

“Thank you for the warning,” was all I could spit out, feeling horrified in hindsight.

I was going to have so much research to do…

Fuck.

Akari was going to want to train even more to defend ourselves.

My poor pudgy body was doomed.

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.6

September 26th, 2022.

I stared at the two pairs of eyes gazing right back, one pair crimson, the other a dark shade of brown almost black.

“So, uhh, how’s it going?” Both lagomorphs gave me an unimpressed look at my words and I winced. “Sorry if I’m a bit… uhh awkward, people aren’t exactly a thing I’m remotely good at.” Especially if they were a different species entirely.

The last few days had been more relaxed, though training was still pretty regular, working out kinks in our strategies and increasing their level of move mastery. I hadn’t figured out how type-changing moves worked but I wanted to.

Mirko seemed sympathetic, her own ears curling up in response. Jericho nodded, his spines flicking back and forth in an odd expression of emotion.

“We’ve been doing a lot of training between sitting around, and as a trainer I feel like getting to know your pokémon makes sense?”

Mirko shrugged, while Jericho just kinda stared? They both understood though…

“So… uhh I don’t remember if I ever mentioned I came from another world?”

Jericho blinked, then blinked again. That would be a no for him.

“Mir… bwaa!” Mirko went into a whole explanation, and I felt very odd… there was a certain frequency, an odd pattern to her language of nature. I didn’t exactly understand why that was, but I knew it was there, because I had never felt such a thing in my life.

It was vaguely like when I heard an extremely high pitch that irritated the shit out of me… but well… more manageable.

Jericho walked over to me, almost crawling into my lap, his nose taking a nice long time checking me out. His nose scrunched up, and he nodded.

I felt self conscious. “Do I smell different than other humans?” Mirko shrugged, Jericho stuck out his tongue and I glared at the little bastard. Guy was an asshole, but he was my friend regardless of his… eccentricities. “Well, anyways part of my goal here for my journey is… well understanding.”

I folded my arms as I sat down on the grass of the nice park Akari and I had found. She was busy grappling with Happy while Kirby picked a berry shrub and shoveled some into his fur for later.

She flipped the one hundred forty pound boar with an ease that told me she could probably pick me like I was a doll. Kinda hot actually…

“Ahem,” ignoring that tangent. “I don’t know as much about this world as I should, it’s completely new to me in a lot of ways… and the better I understand this world, the better my chances are of finding a path home. At least sometimes…”

Mirko tilted her head, as if questioning why only sometimes?

“My world isn’t… the best place for me, but here… here I can discover things no one has discovered before, see things no one has seen before, become stronger than I could ever be at home… and just transform into the person I want to be.”

It was an awful thing to be ripped away from your home reality, to be stolen from that tiny blue dot suspended in a sunbeam without consent, without warning, without my own choice in the matter.

But if I had the choice… had the option, I would have taken it.

“I have a feeling that’s why you guys wanted me wasn’t it? It’s why you chose me out of a thousand possible trainers. You both wanted to see the world, to change, and I was the best fit.”

How was I being this fucking articulate?

Mirko narrowed her eyes, and with a single hop made it into my unprepared lap. She leaned in my direction, and pointed to her matted fur. Oh.

I had my backpack with me, so I pulled out my Refresh Kit which had a vast number of compact durable tools for grooming and keeping your pocket monster allies in good health. I had a good brush that worked well for untangling knots, and Mirko apparently considered it an important ritual on both sides. She helped with my morning routine, brushing my hair and even helped with shaving sometimes.

“Right, social interaction.” I sarcastically replied to the two bunnies. “So I'm gonna talk about stuff, how would you guys like to know about my home’s space programs?”

Jericho stomped his foot in excitement while Mirko rolled her eyes but didn't say no with her body language.

“I'll start at the beginning, years ago at the very height of the Cold War, two global superpowers decides to one-up each other, in a race to the stars—”

Four days ago the match had been set down in the schedule, and my early entry meant it was going to be against the Gym Leader himself. After spending some time with Mirko and Jericho, some R&R, and all that we were good and ready for battle against the Fire Prince of Irori.

I nervously shuffled my feet as I waited in front of the door to one of the early-badge arenas. Above about three badges tended to be the mark between hobbyist and low-level professional, most adults had likely earned two or three badges from the Major and Minor Leagues, a fraction of that number made it up to five, and an even smaller fraction of that made it to six, with the number shrinking to with each additional badge to thousands versus millions for up to three badges.

Eight-badge trainers were powerful, whether they were Specialists or Generalists or some other third thing. They often made up the bulk of a region’s hard military power, joining various local organizations with ties to the regional government.

Most of the trainer-rich regions of Nihoh had their own Ace programs, effectively acting as the military wing of the government along with tens of thousands of lower-end trainer-soldiers. Rangers, the League itself with eighteen Gym Leaders often employ many thousands of students over the years, with minor ones having about a dozen students with the largest having over a hundred. Something like a martial arts dojo.

Frankly, the idea of the League made it more obvious it was a combination of sports, spectacle, and martial training, allowing for the easy creation of a massive self-defense force with enough collective firepower to level cities. My world could only match them with the use of nuclear weapons. On a real battlefield, my world’s armies would shatter against an army of monsters.

Even my own pokémon could likely tank bullets and destroy armored vehicles, I had seen her leave a crater three meters in diameter and 70 centimeters deep using Swift. She could probably slaughter dozens of elite soldiers if I or she were inclined to mass murder.

I should probably bury this topic.

“Excuse me? Gym Leader Liu is ready for you.” An employee tapped my shoulder and I jumped with an embarrassed twitch of my lips.

“Thank you.” She pulled open the door for me, and I flinched at the scale of the battlefield, it was about the size of a large basketball court including the spectator seats behind the damage absorbers, machinery that replicates the effects of defensive moves like Protect, Light Screen, or Reflect, and often reinforced by specifically trained psychic-type pokémon.

The arena itself was steaming, surrounded by multiple hot rocks across the field, with steam rising from the ground itself. There were a multitude of cameras set up, and workers sweeping away debris and waste with their pokémon. A darmanitan was using psychic power to lift debris, along with a braixen.

From the other end of the field, Liu parted a curtain, his loose clothing billowing in a nonexistent wind. He was a dork huh? But fair play, I’d do that too if I could.

“Welcome to the Irori Fire Gym, trainer, and to your first true test in this region of ours!” I almost snorted at his line, as he threw his arms back, the torches throughout the gym flaring up around us. “Welcome one and all to this duel between Gym Leader and challenger. I am Liu Basco, the leader of this gym, who created this gym to show the world the power of fire-types, and to bring honor to clan and kin and self!”

A chorus of cheers rang from the audience in support of the gym leader, both in spirit and in funding through ticket sales. Normal low-badge gym battles were about one thousand to two thousand pokédollars, while higher-badge battles in the big arena went for about four to eight thousand. Which sounds like a lot until you realize you can divide it by a hundred to equal a dollar. So anywhere from ten to eighty bucks, which is why and how they can afford the prize money they give you. Even a handful of people would make them enough money many times over, along with revenue from recording their matches.

I focused back on the field, taking a deep breath.

Liu squared his shoulders, pale gold eyes glaring into my own. “Now hear well me challenger, who are you? And what do you want?”

I felt the weight of the gazes of so many people, a nervous energy pouring down into my legs, almost turning them into jelly.

“My name is Brandy,” I took out a pokéball, preparing for the match. “I want to better understand pokémon, to become stronger, and help them become stronger. So I’ve come to challenge you for your badge, and to earn my way up as high as I can!” Okay, okay, don't freak out.

Where is this confidence coming from?

There was another round of cheers, and I could feel a jittery current from my hand where I held Mirko and from my hip where Jericho still sat. Each felt different, unique, Mirko’s presence stationary, a template, and reassuring, Jericho was… twisting, changing constantly and providing a strange almost buzz.

Was it my imagination or…?

Focus, just ride it, and think about it later.

“That’s quite a lofty goal isn't it?” Liu smirked, stepping further into the field while I did the same, mirroring his movement. “People have many reasons to join the Circuit, money, prestige, or other more vital reasons. But if you want to accomplish your fiery dreams… you’ll have to go through me.” He gestured to the approaching referee, one of likely a dozen or more Gym Trainers in the wings.

“This will be a 3-on-3 battle between Challenger Brandy and Irori Gym Leader Liu. The Challenger will have two switches while the Gym Leader will have none! Are you ready?”

We both affirmed our agreement.

“Very well, then. Trainers, send out your pokémon!”

A pokéball soared into the air. “Go, Houndour!” His pokémon emerged in a single flash of light, a pulse slamming into me as the canine lunged into the field, flames sparking from his jaws.

“Mirko, come on out!“

I threw Mirko’s ball into the air, and it snapped open to release her, before casually zipping through the air to jump back in my hand. Mirko landed, almost floating down into battle as she twisted in midair, dark eyes gleaming with what was borderline battle lust. She wore her Silk Scarf around her neck, proudly displaying the type-boosting item.

The houndour howled his battle cry, and I glanced at him for signs of his ability. For pokémon… their ability was entirely up to epigenetic processes and with the right training, a Pokémon could learn multiple abilities. Which was honestly kind of terrifying if frankly quite difficult. Abilities were a reflection of their natural traits, how they used their innate power or physiology in battle.

Tohoku was known for their elite trainers often making use of such training, turning their pokémon into outright monsters. That included the Gym Leaders.

That houndour could have Flash Fire, Early Bird, and Unnerving, preventing the use of berries, boosting his attacks when attacked by fire, or resistance to sleep all at once. Luckily I had gone for a Silk Scarf then…

Liu took the initiative. “Houndour, Ember.” Houndour spat out a rapid-fire barrage of fireballs.

“Swift.” Golden stars unerringly followed the flames rather than the pokémon itself, breaking them apart and acting as a point defense system. “Go for the usual TAB along with a buff.” I lazily replied, feigning more confidence than I really had.

“Nasty Plot and Sunny Day,” Liu went for two Primer moves, and Mirko immediately went for a Swift to interrupt the moves. “Dodge.”

Houndour then jumped several times in a row, dark energy coating his body as malicious thoughts granted him power, before releasing a powerful burst of fiery aura, and the sun burned brighter over the open arena. Swift smashed into him, but he walked it off with a growl.

Mirko dashed forward into a Quick Attack, slamming into Houndour, then into a Headbutt that hit like a truck.

“Ember.” Mirko took the enhanced attack head-on, and I felt stupid for letting her get into range.

“Drain Punch, double time!” Mirko swatted aside the fire dog, draining vitality through her fists. He took incredible damage, bruises forming where her paws landed.

“Remove.” Was all Liu said, his houndour taking a long and deep breath. Oh no.

“Don't let him finish!”

Quick Attack doubled her speed in a split second, and she forced his jaws shut to stop his Roar then switched to a full power Headbutt. He was knocked out in a single attack to the face.

Holy shit that was close.

Liu looked momentarily shocked but he hid it behind a cool exterior and let out a chuckle, sending out his next pokémon.

The new pokémon resembled an overweight camelid, with smooth almost flawless yellow fur, a white belly, and patches of green on her back, along with a poof of Elvis hair on her head, and a fierce expression from dark eyes surrounded by a circle of grey fur.

I recalled a numel’s abilities and had a feeling this fight was going to be much harder. The Simple ability doubled the efficacy of stat-changing moves both on itself and against other pokémon.

“Amnesia and Defense Curl.” He snapped his fingers and I felt just a small amount of spite against his infuriating smile. He doubled and tripled his pokémon’s toughness and resistance in a single order, Numel using the moves simultaneously with a burst of pressure in the air.

“Use Defense Curl, and continue with our tactics.” Red energy surged up and down her back, and stars were sent flying into Numel.

“Numel, Growth into a Flame Wheel.” Hijo de puta encierro?

The fire camel was suddenly covered in a fiery aura which promptly exploded into Flame Wheel.

“Mirko, throw Numel off your tail!” She fired at Numel’s feet with Swift, almost sending her tumbling and slowing the sheer weight and mass of her charge.

She was faster and more maneuverable but Numel hit like a truck, and I could see the camel was charging a second Growth. Strength and power were multiplied over fourfold, and a single hit could spell the end for Mirko and potentially the whole match, especially with the harsh sun overhead.

“Rock Smash.” Liu was quicker when it came to giving out orders, Flame Wheel exploding into a blast that sent Numel flying, a hoove glowing with fighting-type energy.

“Quick Attack away, and debuff!” She narrowly avoided the super-effective attack, and used Charm, sapping her strength with the enchantment. A second barrage of Swift did its fair share of damage, two blasts whittling away at absurd special resistance.

She needed to use strength attacks to take down the little monster.

“Use your strength, and double down on your Charm.”

From her position, she posed and forced Numel into another attack-lowering enchantment. She practically halved his attack strength, and with a single twist on her heels she was right up into Numel’s face.

She slammed her forehead into his nose, and it broke with a nasty crunch despite his increased defenses. Mirko threw out a quick double impact of Pound into Drain Punch, and kicked off Numel’s face with a dramatic flourish. A third and fourth use of Work Up followed, multiplying strength from baseline.

My blood was pumping, my heart was racing, and my lungs were expanding and contracting with excitement, anxiety, and anticipation. Liu was a worthy opponent, pushing me harder than many of the veteran trainers who were holding back or weren't and knocked us out in an instant.

Liu smiled. “Overheat.”

Oh fuck.

“Hit Numel as hard as you can, full power Quick Attack into Headbutt!” Was my half-panicked response, this monster of a camel could regain his power with a single use of Growth in harsh sunlight. She’d tear us apart.

Numel gathered fire, steam exploding off her fur, as the magma within practically boiled and screamed for release, channels maximizing their output into an ultimate attack.

Mirko crossed the field at a third the speed of sound, transitioning to a Headbutt that forced Numel onto her knees, legs shaking under her body weight. She almost collapsed but… determination shined in her eyes.

She moved backward with a rocket blast of Quick Attack as Numel exploded with an enormous shockwave of elemental fire. That detonation wave surged forward like a flood of heat, concussive force, and burning flame.

Mirko escaped the brunt of it, but landed in a heap, barely able to stand to even enjoy her victory, Numel having gone unconscious with her final gambit. She wobbled on her unsteady feet, and threw up a thumbs-up at me.

I felt a shock in my system when Mirko went down, but she had taken down two pokémon with her hard work and sacrifice.

“Not bad, you threw everything you had to bring down my pokémon, even though you had the means to switch out.” There was a questioning tone to Liu’s tone, like he was taking my measure.

I took a moment to formulate my response. “Mirko certainly wouldn't forgive me if I did, and we had both momentum and the power and strength to take down Numel.”

Lou seemed to approve. “You understand your pokémon well, go ahead and send out your next Pokémon.” The ref nodded along with him.

I threw out Jericho with a quiet whisper of reassurance. “We’re facing the last pokémon, don't let your guard down, cover the field.”

Liu did the same. “Come out Charmeleon!” I blinked as I saw the pokémon appear from within a pillar of light. A fire lizard about four feet tall, with dark-red scales and a light cream underside.

Charmeleon was both the classic fire-type Starter and a member of the Draconidae, the family of most of the sauropsid dragons, a dragon in blood, body, and mind if not in Type.

“Charmeleon is the child of my strongest personal partner, he's been specially trained for the Gym Circuit, I wonder how well you can match him.” The fire lizard flared hot, flames briefly flashing blue under the harsh sun.

Solar Power.

A small apple core was wrapped around his neck, Leftovers?

It wouldn't be enough as poisonous energy covered the surface of the battlefield, crystallizing into solid caltrops of pure physical Poison, surrounding the entire arena with poisonous traps. Charmeleon flinched as the caltrops bit into his scales and flesh, poisoning the fire dragon.

“Hone Claws then go under, make as many openings as you can.” Jericho sharpened his claws, dark energy flaring around his paws, sharpening his accuracy and strength.

“Dragon Breath.” A beam of blue-purple dragon’s fire shot out of Charmeleon’s mouth, cross-crossing the entire field, and creating clouds of dust and debris where the attack scoured the land. Toxic Spikes shattered and broke apart under the onslaught, but it was already far too late.

There was no trace of Jericho on the surface, as he dug his way underneath the soil, following my order and basic plan.

“Listen for your opponent, then strike with full power Charmeleon!” I hid my grin as I saw the Gym Leader making a mistake, Jericho wasn't aiming to attack with Dig… it was acting as a utility move, geokinetic force propelling him through the soil and earth of the field.

He couldn't stay for long though, this heat was intense.

I tapped my foot up and down and up and down, looking at Charmeleon as he listened and waited, claws sparking with the normal energies of Slash, and the blazing spark of a fire move.

He tilted his head and I stopped tapping my foot.

With the crunch of rock and soil, a Water Pulse tore out from the ground and right into Liu’s prized charmeleon’s head. The football-shaped missile of conjured water knocked him upside the head.

A second emerged from his left and exploded into a watery detonation across his chest.

“Rock Smash and Flamethrower.” To my horror, the fire lizard shattered the ground with his fist, rocks fracturing and breaking apart under the sheer force of his claws.

Charmeleon swept out with his fire breath, practically roaring with might and power under the burning sun that hasn't ended yet. The Leftovers sparked with light, and he continued to sweep the whole arena.

Jericho had responded with a gigantic Water Pulse, letting it explode into a shower of fire-quenching water.

“Debuff, treat him like a BAS.” Bruiser, Archer, Shaker.

Jericho leered at Charmeleon, his Leer sapping his toughness, sharpening his own strength and accuracy with Hone Claws.

“Confusion, Dig, full power.” Psychic energy sprang out of Jericho’s horn, directed into an arrow of shifting psychic power.

Charmeleon blocked most of the psychic energy with Dragon Breath, and the soil parted where Jericho swam through rock and soil, charging into his gut and forcing him onto his knees.

“Charmeleon!” Liu sounded worried, his voice carrying across the field, almost melodramatic in… how it sounded.

Oh.

Charmeleon exploded into action, tail flame rising over his own height in a Blaze, a second wind of elemental power.

Two abilities… Fuck.

“Overheat.” Liu responded faster, and a second shockwave of unadulterated elemental energy broke the air itself. Multiple Water Pulses were thrown at the wave as Jericho dove downwards into the ground with my shouted command.

It's too loud, too loud, too loud, make it stop…

I tasted iron in my mouth as I bit my lip, the reverberating explosion making me nauseous and anxious, I couldn't give up.

The floor was scoured clean, except for where Jericho was standing, looking back at me with a sharp gaze.

I grinned stupidly. “You can do it, show that overgrown lizard what you've got!” I cheered him on, bouncing from foot to foot as his confidence became mine.

And then… he was covered in a great white light threaded with gold.

I felt my own body fill with an endless current, and I could almost feel the pressure given off by Jericho as he… transformed. He practically doubled in size, and I felt my jaw drop in amazement as he appeared from the sphere of light dissipating around his new body.

He was huge, the size of a newborn rhino, his scaly and leathery skin even thicker and tougher, his horn sharper, more robust, and larger, with spines running down his muscular back, spiny leporine ears held to the sky, and tusks jutting out from his armored lips.

So that's what that's like.

I jumped up. “Water Pulse, no holding back now!” A massive sphere of water conjured itself from the tip of his horn, until it grew to the size of a beach ball, shaped into an aerodynamic form.

“Dodge!” Charmeleon dove to the left, and Jericho aimed for where he was going to be.

Charmeleon took the water attack with no recourse, and remained standing against the odds, letting out a battle cry before doubling over with the poison coursing through his aura and veins.

He went down with an almost silent hiss of regret, and I was frozen on the spot.

“Gym Leader Liu is out of usable pokémon. The winner is the challenger, Brandy!”

And was promptly glomped the hell out by seventy-something pounds of incredibly energized nidorino, and got the wind knocked out of me.

“Get off of me, you're crushing my bones!” I protested my slow murder, but managed to push Jericho off with a good shove. “But amazing holy shit, and you evolved and we won and—”

“Ahem?”

I turned crimson and stammered an apology to Liu, gently nudging Jericho so he would offer the same respect. We walked over to the center of the field, and shook hands as a show of respect.

“An incredible battle, it's not often that I have trainers best me without using types effective against Fire.”

“Traveling with Akari has given me a lot of experience when it comes to battling fire-types, and it was a very close match.” Any wrong moves or too slow of a reaction would have lost me the match.

“Well your research and training paid off, I'll be hoping to see your progress in the Gym Circuit. And I'll be eager to battle your sparring partner next. You've earned the honor of gaining the Flame Badge, a Technical Machine of my choice, and the prize money. Though I have a feeling you're a bit more focused on winning.”

I blushed, twirling one of my bangs. “I am, but I'm happy to accept my award all the same hot shot.” I made finger guns at him… and realized I was acting like an idiot.

Jericho stop trying to make finger guns, you don't have fingers.

I flounced around the Pokémon Center, basking in my victory against my first Gym Battle. Both Jericho and Mirko were resting up after their hard matches, and earning my badge was a wonderful sign of progress, having earned a 1-star rating with this sweet, sweet victory.

It was an interesting measurement system that reminded me of a certain Legends-themed game, as a sort of measure of badge equivalent strength for your team. A zero star is for a trainer with no badges, an 8-star team is for a trainer who's earned every badge and goes up to 12-stars for the Elite Four, with most Ace Trainers sticking around 8 to 9-stars and Champions going even further beyond. I believe it was 14 to 16-stars?

It also served as an approximation of levels, though that was again like most of the systems of this world, not an exact and perfect box to fit a pokémon in. Most common pokémon never went beyond what could be considered 2-star strength, and certain pokémon probably would be considered off limits for catching.

A fully evolved dragonite is an almost 8-star monster, accumulating power over more than a half century of life, powerful dragons and masters of the seas, skies and land and considered a Great Dragon alongside salamence, garchomp, hydreigon, kommo-o, and dragapult.

With my victory against the Gym, I could be considered a 1-star trainer, and with enough training and work was well on my way to becoming a 2-star trainer.

“Brandy.” I jumped when I heard someone call my name, and cleared my throat at the bemused expression of Akari who had apparently dropped off her pokémon without me noticing.

Her expression looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary, ‘pleased’ was in fact the bare minimum description of her face.

“I’m guessing you won your match?” I asked with a grin of my own.

Akari placed her arms behind her neck, and her smile was brilliant. “I sure did! Happy kicked total ass in our match!”

There was a loud and vicious rumble, and her confidence took a nose dive.

“Ahh…”

“We should get something to eat before we can talk more about how our battles went.”

Akari nodded with a quiet blush.

Today was a great day.

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.7

September 29th, 2022.

Several days after both Akari and I earned our first badges was a pokémon catching day, along with the next several. Professor Laven had tasked us with catching certain pokémon native to the Kanran-ishi Wildland, most of which was considered a 1-star area so we wouldn’t have Rangers barring us entry, though the caverns were off limits due to their subterranean lakes and rivers being home to a regional variant of druddigon, a powerful dragon-water type that would almost certainly slaughter us all at their level of power. We needed a 3-star ranking at the bare minimum.

Honestly the area we could enter wasn’t too different from the Montane Forest that made up the bulk of Route 302, aside from being stronger and wilder in some respects, and of course lacked druddigon due to no caves. I was planning on catching several stantler because of their dimension manipulating abilities

Species wise the montane forest was dense with pokémon to catch, I had already scanned multiple pachirisu, rattata, and even togedemaru and pikachu.

Akari had been tasked with catching a few woobat because the species had originally evolved as a normal-flying type around ten thousand years ago, and became psychic around two to three thousand years ago. Laven wanted to see if their Type Energy had any special properties, and if traces of their normal-type genes were still lingering.

But for now…

I marched with Jericho and Mirko keeping a watch out for wild pokémon while Akari was busy catching a small colony of woobat a hundred something feet to my left.

I was walking over to a nice stream, chatting my pokémon’s heads off.

“We’re searching for a new teammate, a strong water-type will offer us a lot more options when it comes to certain types like say… fire, ground, and rock. Plus it’ll give us a better idea of how to fight in the next Gym.” It’ll also add more cost when it comes to our food bill, but that was a price I was willing to pay.

Pokémon-grade food items were somewhat cheaper than human-grade, mostly because their stuff involves all the… less aesthetically-pleasing products that were thrown away in my world and were instead sold for pokémon or low-income families and individuals. Mirko loved the lumpy misshapen apples, while Jericho enjoyed two-headed carrots. Along with a wide variety of berries of course.

Food was one of the main limiters when it comes to having a lot of pokémon, fortunately I had figured out a good system, I had bought a blender built to sort out the various ingredients, along with a good quality premix composed of micro-ingredients such as vitamins, minerals, and other stuff, and the mill device was simple and easy to use. Mirko eats about two cups of food a day or seven hundred fifty pokédollars worth of food per week while based on my current calculations Jericho now eats about five cups a day or about one thousand eight hundred seventy five pokédollars out of my wallet each and every week. In terms of calories, Mirko goes through about a thousand while Jericho goes through three thousand.

Fortunately my sponsorship covers the cost pretty easily, it wouldn’t be until I have a full team that it would really bite into my income. My match with the Gym netted me about five thousand pokédollars which in hindsight isn’t that much.

Of course then you have to take into account food, general enrichment, and medical costs which while far longer with Pokémon Centers wasn’t zero when accounting for keeping them in good health with grooming, potions, dental care and other minor expenses. That would become closer to thirty thousand pokédollars a month with two relatively smallpokémon. Six pokémon with the same cost would eat up ten percent of my budget… same cost being a keyword.

Anyways…

“Once we have a moment to rest we’ll be working on increasing your potential with some items I purchased on the GST.” I had already been increasing their potential using Gems as a foci for poison and normal TE, packing their food full of ability-enhancing vitamins, which were some type of concentrated byproduct of pokémon battles, and Mirko’s Silk Scarf was a good source of controlled Type Energy.

“The stream is right over there, which means we can get on with catching a new teammate.”

I jumped over a log, glancing over at the stream. I could see a few pokémon already, multiple river magikarp and goldeen along with ten times their number in lesser pokémon.

Unfortunately river magikarp were barely above Domestics when it came to evolving, they simply lacked the resources and will to evolve into gyarados. While I liked magikarp, they were hard to train and I wasn’t going to pretend I was good enough to up their potential that far. Basculin was just as difficult to evolve, and goldeen aren’t very competitive either.

Maybe a psyduck would make a good and strong pokémon—

“Mar?”

My train of thought was derailed by the pokémon that emerged from the water, a round ball of blue fur with a white belly standing at knee height striding on short legs buried under the very round configuration of fur, and round medium sized ears like a mouse. A long but thin delicate tail held a large round store of fat and nutrients, and the pokémon smiled almost smugly though content might be more accurate.

“Ill? Maru?” She seemed to be asking something to my pokémon, perpetually smiling the entire time. Why did I feel like she was being sarcastic?

The Marill line, Oleocauda aqua, were lagomorphs, though they were closer to pikas (don’t think of Pikablu…) they were still considered basically mouse-like rabbits. I had a water-fairy type in front of me, and I was almost suspicious until I recalled that I hadn’t been exactly quiet with my conversations with my pokémon.

Without anyone around, volume control was out of the question. Marill was a good pokémon, a fantastic one even with access to several useful abilities that develop based on climate conditions. Northern populations develop a greater layer of Thick Fat to protect against freezing temperatures, the temperate populations have Huge Power reinforcing their muscles while the tropical natives can Sip Sap to metabolize Grass moves.

While Huge Power was the most useful in terms of battle, the others had their uses and all three could create a real monster.

“Hey there? Were you listening in on us?” The marill blinked slowly at me, her tail swishing back and forth almost nervously.

She churred at Mirko, gesturing to me with her short arms. Mirko raised an eyebrow but nodded, while Jericho shifted his gaze back and forth, ears swiveling to catch their conversation.

Interesting.

Mirko seemed slightly annoyed at the questions Marill was throwing at her, who seemed to shift from foot to foot without a care in the world. Kind of familiar…

She shifted her attention to me, dark eyes gleaming with curiosity and interest. “Mrrr?”

“So Mirko has filled you in on the fact we’re looking to add a new member to the team? Are you interested?”

She beamed, arms swaying back and forth in the air. “Mar mar!” Mirko gave a thumbs up to tell me she was interested but…

Marill had taken a stance, and her sweet expression became more excited, more manic almost, all while retaining a lackadaisical attitude. It was actually somewhat disturbing, but fairy-types were some crazy motherfuckers from what I remember even if they’re not as malicious as the fey of Earth myths.

“You want a battle first then to prove myself?” Marill nodded with her entire round body, and I agreed. She slapped her paws against her cheeks, and I decided to pick my chosen pokémon on the spot.

“Jericho? Let’s show Marill we’ve got what it takes, if that’s alright with you?” Mirko was considered my second in command as the Starter, and had some priority when it came to decisions, think a captain of a soccer or well fútbol team.

She’s responsible for the actions of her team, and keeps them in check where I can’t, a mediator between human and pokémon.

She rolled her eyes, and took a few hops back, gesturing to the field between us and the stream. Jericho jumped into her space, the soft ground protesting his seventy pound weight, horn gleaming in the noon sun.

Marill just smiled, and I took a deep breath, in and out.

“Hone Claws into Poison Sting.” I began, and the battle exploded into motion. He sharpened his claws as he skidded along the ground, and tried charging into Marill.

She smiled, and rolled out of the charge and changed direction with the propulsive force of a Water Gun, and launched herself forward, her tail swinging with the full force of a Slam attack. The single blow launched Jericho into the air, and he righted himself at the last second.

A Bubble Beam was fired out of Marill’s mouth, and Jericho dodged with a clever use of Dig, diving into the ground and leaping back out with a second Poison Sting stabbing into Marill’s stomach.

“Focus Energy into Fury Attack,” he responded like I expected, jaw opening widely to release a roar. He concentrated his energy into a disciplined and dense form, and jabbed his horn into Marill, three hits striking in the span of seconds before he got a blast of Water Gun to his face. A second Slam was blocked with Double Kick, bouncing the two off of each other in the process. “Trap her, don’t let her set the pace.”

Toxic Spikes was activated soon after, restricting Marill’s movement if she wanted to keep from being poisoned. Jericho responded with a powerful wave of Confusion, picking up Marill and throwing her into the caltrops. Her face practically turned green as the poison began its work of eating through her aura and stamina, and Jericho barked a war cry.

She spat a Bubble Beam, and he tanked the attack and charged into a second Fury Attack, his horn doing a number on her defenses, and she launched her tail for another devastating Slam that he deflected with Confusion, then tackled her and swung a Poison Sting into her stomach.

Marill couldn’t get away, and Jericho finished her off with a Fury Attack, her body dropping to the ground in exhaustion but not quite knocked out into full fainting.

There was a moment of awkward silence as Jericho slipped off of Marill, and I coughed.

“So… I bought a Dive Ball for the occasion, if you want?”

Her blank stare was all the reply I needed from Marill.

“And you don’t know what that is…”

…

I’m just going to ask her what she would like to be caught in.

I released Marill back into reality, and she blinked up at me with a wide grin that was more nerve wracking than merely cute. I offered her a sitrus berry, and with a shiny gleam in her eyes she tore the berry into juicy chunks with her teeth.

“So, welcome to the team! Do you already know my name or…?” Marill pointed to Mirko with a gesture, ears flicking happily. “That’s good, then you know our goal is to gain all the Gym Badges and learn as much as possible about this world of ours.” I placed my hands on my hips, being as welcoming as my literally autistic ass could manage.

“I’m gonna check your health for a quick second, and we can start on more introductions and stuff.” Marill looked confused but didn’t say no as I opened my dex-phone for her data taken from the sensors in her ball.

Shared Characteristics

Species: Marill, Aqua Mouse Pokémon

Type: Water-Fairy

Egg Group: Water 1, Fairy

Classification: Animalia - Chordata - Lagomorpha - Leporidae - Oleocauda

Wild Threat Level: Slightly Harmful. Not actively dangerous and friendly to humans, but can injure very easily with their play and games.

Growth Rate: Fast

Suggested Diet: Omnivore. Aquatic plants, algae, berries, fish.

Personal Characteristics:

Name: Marill

Holder: Brandon “Brandy” Red

Age: 14 years

Abilities: Huge Power (Strength massively increased), Thick Fat (undeveloped)

Physicality Analysis:

- Heavy fat indicative of potential for developing Thick Fat,

- Mature female, high accumulation of power.

- Height measured at 42 centimeters and body mass 9.4 kilograms.

- Minor fighting-type affinity.

Potential: Green

Tips: Increase potency by mastering fairy and water-type moves and use of element-infused items and fey rituals.

Known Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Bubble Beam, Slam

“Interesting, I think I can see areas of improvement here and there.”

I clapped my hands together, getting the attention of all three of my pokémon.

“So! Since we’re out here, we can begin a new training session with our new member and start expanding upon both our strategies, moves and abilities. I haven’t focused too much on abilities, mainly been focusing on upping your potential and move sets, and coming up with basic strategies and acronyms for the moves used in those strategies.”

Marill’s face twisted into a grin, as did Mirko’s while Jericho offered a very poor attempt at a thumb’s up.

“Mirko, your general role is an all-out lightning bruiser, you hit like a truck and your ranged moves are focused on keeping obstacles out of your way. But your moves aren’t diverse enough to deal with every opponent, so we’ll work on teaching you the Elemental Punches, Jump Kick and… Return.”

Return was an esoteric move that relied on the bond between pokémon and trainer, the connections between man and monster, drawing on them for power, like a Familiar bond. At the greatest peak of power it was stronger than moves like Heat Wave, Ice Hammer and Earthquake. But I’m not sure how strong our bond was, how much power would Mirko be able to draw from our connection?

Anyways…

“Jericho, we’ll be working on Toxic to increase your poison affinity so you can develop Poison Point, and Poison Jab to have a physical move with a strong STAB.” Same attack bonus did exist, moves were amplified by the Type of a pokémon if they were of the same Type. Jericho cracked a toothy grin, and I placed my hand against my chest with a nod.

“Marill, nickname not yet given, since you’re the newest member we’ll start with physical conditioning and mastering your current movepool, so that they can be performed with the most accuracy, power and speed as well as figuring out your role in the team.” She was slower than Mirko, but her ability made her hit like a train, and as an azumarill not even a fully evolved Jericho would be able to match her. At the moment she was slightly weaker, but increasing her potential wasn’t too hard, it wouldn’t be much longer before Mirko and Jericho would reach Light Blue.

“Did you all understand that? Because I want to start as soon as possible.”

“No more bunnies, huh?” I shrieked at the voice coming from above me, almost having a heart attack when Akari dropped from fifteen feet up without a scratch on her, holding a rather happy looking and large togepi in her arms.

“Akari what the fuck?”

“What?” She responded innocently despite leaping out of a tree and ambushing me, holding a very cute togepi in her arms.

“Nevermind, did you finish your research task already?”

Akari nodded. “I did, I’ve caught a total of seven woobat, defeated ten of them, and seen them use various psychic and flying type moves.” Any use of pokémon energy was scanned by our devices, and that made sense for Laven’s area of research and study. “I see your protest about catching more bunnies was hollow.”

“Shut up,” I growled and she laughed and I got angrier. “A better question is where you found a togepi in the middle of a montane forest of all places.”

She turned a bright, bright shade of red that started from her cheeks and went down to her neck, the odd white and red marks on her face turned pinkish and deep red respectively and I almost laughed out loud.

That was adorable.

“That’s what I thought,” I placed my hands on my hips for emphasis, harrumphing at the same time. “So are you open to helping me train up my team? At least when it comes to battling? I’m working up a schedule and goals to work on when it comes to their progress.”

Akari snapped out of her embarrassment. “Of course, you know this means getting you into shape is going to be important. The healthier you are, the better your bond can strengthen your pokémon.”

I patted my belly with a shrug, which had gone down a bit as fat was moved towards my hips and chest at a rather slow but consistent rate. She wasn’t wrong at least, and the slight up and downs of my body weight were helping distribute

the changes faster.

“Ill? Maru?” Marill blinked up at me again, having hopped over to me, her tail swaying back and forth in an almost hypnotic pattern. She also swayed her arms back and forth, eagerly churring at me.

A name came to me in a spurt of inspiration.

“I’m gonna call you Llayda if that’s okay? I think it’s a good name to have.” Marill’s eyes widened, and she bounced in the air with the equivalent of a nod.

“I think she likes it.” Akari pointed out with a cheeky grin. “She’ll make a good member of your team, the marill line can grow into powerful fighters and their typing and abilities gives them few type-weaknesses. Though their attitudes can make them difficult.”

I pointed to Mirko as she bullied Jericho into submission, the poison rhino-rabbit has gotten more uppity with his Evolution, but Mirko… was creative when it came to keeping him in line.

“Fair enough,” she pursed her lip. “We’ll have to go deeper into the forest to find any stantler, and convincing them will be a problem.”

“I’ll have to try won’t I?” I responded back, knowing it was going to potentially take days.

But that was time I was willing to contribute as a sponsored trainer under Laven, as being under the aegis of the League both provided me resources and protected me from the overzealous Interpol. I didn’t want to be used as bait for Ultra Beasts, and with my pokémon and Akari I could have a relatively normal pokémon journey.

…

I hope I didn’t jinx something.

Chapter Text

Interlude 2

September 30th, 2022.

Mirko

My trainer was a very strange human, but she was a good human too regardless of her strangeness. Whether it came down to her smell, how she acted or even how she… felt, the light of her soul was… so different from that of other humans, strained and weak and so small… but it was growing stronger with each and every sunrise, a wilted flower thriving under a warm blessed sun.

Well that was something mom would have said back at the colony, with… far, far too much innuendo about the kind of things she did with her close friends. I wasn’t a prude, but mom was… odd.

She was one of the few lopunny in the colony, most of our kind had a hard time reaching the emotional heights and clarity needed to trigger our Evolution into our second stage. But her power protected our colony from predators and the more malicious humans, and with the treaties we had made with humans we were both protected and valued as Starter pokémon.

I wanted to evolve, to become stronger and more powerful, but I also wanted to learn more about the world, to see beyond the horizon of a small patch of forest in a world bigger than I could ever imagine.

Brandy had a special aura, not that I could sense it with the same depth and accuracy as a lucario or riolu, they were masters of the living energies of life. She wasn’t like some type of super strong alpha human, but her aura was an untapped resource, eagerly responding to the environment with her every attempt to better understand the world. An eager sponge and student of the World.

Which made sense when hers was so different from ours, no pokémon, no Divines, and even aura as we knew it seemed absent or… unable to express itself. It was almost unnatural, every being in this world had an aura, it was the energy of Life and a world without it sounded empty and silent.

“Motherfucker!” My trainer cursed as she tripped over a tree branch, which was her own fault for using her techy device while walking in the mountain forest, a region she called the Kanran-ishi. The professor wanted her to catch a few stantler for research, and Brandy was the one looking with the most enthusiasm.

I hopped over to my clumsy trainer, who was already getting back up, placing her device back into her pocket. I was fortunate mom was so interested in humans.

“Our trainer is a weirdo,” my ears twitched when I heard my teammate’s deeper voice reverberate. Jericho had certainly not changed much when he had evolved into a nidorino, he was just stronger, fatter, and harder to ignore. “But she's fucking great, isn't she?”

I weighed my options on whether or not violence was the answer or the question.

My ears picked up a high-pitched whistle, a sound I knew was important, so I tugged on Brandy’s pants and gestured in the direction of that sound. She smiled, and waddled over tree roots and uneven ground, stepping into a clearing where a hole in… the universe had been gently tugged open.

She froze, a dozen emotions passing over her face, so fast I couldn't tell what they were. Surrounding the portal was a total of four stantler, all of them wearing stoic faces, their antlers shimmering with mesmerizing light. There was an elder among them, greater and wiser than any of us.

He stepped forward, antlers shimmering and shining with a golden light.

“Oh? A trainer and her companions, the rabbit on the moon, the platonic hare, and the leporine kelpie.” What was with this fancy talk? Poké-Speak, Motherfucker!

He gave me a disapproving gaze like he could read my thoughts, but I kept my composure, I was the leader of our team here, and couldn’t risk Jericho and Llayda getting spooked or things would get ugly.

Brandy kept her head slightly lowered, hands folded in front of her chest with a respectful posture. So she had been reading up on etiquette of our kind, even if it varies from pokémon to pokémon.

“Hello there!” She gave a tiny wave, so awkward it almost hurt if I didn’t know she was just… like this. “I’m a uhh… lab trainer who’s been tasked with catching stantler for a study on your abilities!”

Really.

The elder chuffed, standing protectively over the younger stantler. “Is that so?”

She coughed. “Err yeah?” I blinked, had she responded or read his expression? “But I thought it was probably smarter to ask if any of you wanted to go willingly or knew any herds with members who would want to go? Laven’s lab is pretty well stocked, and none of her probing is invasive since she works mostly with scanning bio-energy signatures and Type Energy wavelengths.” Stop bringing in science before we all get killed dumbass!

“Your human is a strange one isn’t she? What is her name?” I held my tongue for the moment, but I glanced at her face and knew I couldn’t.

“Her name is Brandon Red…” I hissed as her true name danced between the words.

Her name is chieftain-prince-king-crow-raven-of-red-blonde-fair-hair.

“What a curious name, a noble name yet it holds the name of your enemy little hare…” I bristled but refused to respond to his jab.

To humans, names were simply names, words with meaning often unknown to them, but our kind… we heard it all, it was shared in the universal language of the wilds, it was why names were so important when given to us, it was a gift bestowed to us, and we gladly took them on.

Mirko.

peaceful-glorious-the-peaceful-one-who-celebrates-the-world

She had given that name to name me after a hero from her dreams, but she had given me something more, something to strive for, something more than anger and rage and loneliness, something that was mine and mine alone.

“She speaks the truth of her intentions, if you don’t want to volunteer, then she’ll leave you alone if you wish. She doesn’t want to take pokémon from their homes if they don’t want to leave.”

The elder stantler sniffed imperiously at Brandy, and his eyes widened in response. “She is an Outsider, born under the light of a different sun. Now I understand how much of a plea for help this is. She needs our abilities, our knowledge of the great energies of creation and yet… she refuses to not ask, to not give us choice.”

“What?” Llayda churred and I shushed her with my paw, rolling my eyes at her antics.

“We will go, an Outsider like this does not bode well for the future. Especially one with an aura so precious.”

I blinked.

What?

October 1st, 2022.

In a distant lab buried deep beneath the ground, surrounded by armies of beasts infected by the Shadow and the monsters that had bent them to their will was a single pod holding a sleeping God, patrolled by Beast Killers, chimeric beings built in the image of another greater power, control collars keeping them in check and kindness keeping them sane.

That kindness was going to pay off, and it would spark the beginning of a new story, and the ending of another.

A pink haired woman walked up to the pod with no escort, her captors had lured her with promises of great science and wonderful projects rather than the

nightmare and terrors they had in truth created.

I’m so tired, she thought as she made the final adjustments with the help of the porygon she had kept on her person. And I’m out of time, the Umbral Project can’t be completed without their master creation.

There were over a dozen Beast Killers before her, restrained pokémon with great power and potential.

Six months ago, there had been more.

No more. No cost too great, my ass!

She tapped her finger on her keyboard three times and with a sudden flash all twelve control collars failed ‘abruptly’ and the medical coma of the subject was ended gradually, step by step, with no alarms alerting the countless pokémon and people alike.

All twelve Beast Killers released sighs of relief, and together they unleashed numerous attacks against the lab, destroying computers and lab equipment and shattering the glass tube holding that sleeping God.

Violet eyes snapped awake, staring into her soul, as the almost humanoid figure rose from it’s prison with an expression of unimaginable rage.

Reality screamed.

Daiichi Poké-Gazette

October 1st, 2022

MASSIVE EXPLOSION ROCKS EAST MICHINOKU - EVENT LEAVES 10 DEAD

HALF KILOMETER CRATER LEFT BEHIND! QUESTIONS REMAIN AT THE CAUSE OF THE EXPLOSION.

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.8

October 2nd, 2022.

We had spent only another day or two in the Wildland area before departing back to the city, buying supplies and moving onto Route 302. The start of the right was the same mix of montane forest, but the pokémon were somewhat weaker and more controlled with the regular patrol of Rangers and trainers.

Training was pretty lax after the battle, but both Mirko and Jericho had increased their potential, breaking into Light Blue without a sweat while Llayda was working up into Deep Green and should catch up in another week. Being part of the Fast Growth Rate group meant her potential could increase rapidly up to a point.

Different pokémon were sorted into different groups when it came to how fast they learned and could grow their power. Different plateaus, different exponential factors when it came to learning, expanding their elemental power or simply physical growth as a whole.

At a very basic level, growth rate when it comes to experience and accumulation of Energy could be explained as something similar to the general rule of thumb of ten thousand hours of practice to obtain mastery in a subject. Medium Fast is considered the average, ten thousand hours (hypothetically) is needed to turn many Pokémon into a champion-level pokémon, a monster who could fight armies and crush cities with some spit and gumption.

Which is where it becomes easy to understand the sheer gap between elite trainers and common trainers. It's bitter work, months, years of life has to be dedicated to reach that stage of power, that stage of maturity and sheer martial prowess and ability. Most people, they basically took a year off of school to earn two to four badges and went home wiser and happier. Enough to get their pokémon to a 2-star, 3-star or 4-star level, and stronger than the average wild pokémon.

Most Elemental Trios were part of the Medium Slow group, letting them grow fast early on before tapering off to a rate slightly slower than Medium Fast group pokémon like Mirko, with Jericho being another member of the former.

Llayda was a Fast growth member, so when it came to accumulated power she’d grow slower but catch up past 1-star strength, and would only need say 8000 hours of training to become champion-level. Not literally, it was more an analogy, more a way of describing how it works than a perfect reflection of reality.

A dragonite in this metaphor would be a slow learner, taking more time to reach 8-star than other pokémon though their sheer power makes up for it. It’s a very complicated group categorization and I largely ignored it outside where it was helpful in training.

Anyways.

It had been a productive few days, Jericho had learned Toxic and was well on his way to adding Poison Jab into his moveset. Sludge Bomb was a future idea since as a nidoking his special Power was superior to his physical Strength once Hustle transformed into Sheer Force. I’d need to specifically see whether he could keep aspects of his abilities into his final form… I’ll have to look up some research on that won’t I?

Buneary had succeeded in learning Thunder Punch and Jump Kick while Return was… a work in progress. I had also noted another growth spurt, measuring her at about 64 centimeters tall including her ears which were leaning more than they used to, so they didn’t make up as much of her height as they used to. Her mass was now a solid eight kilograms.

Jericho was pretty big too, about sixty centimeters at the shoulders and a meter at the head with a body mass of about thirty five kilograms. Which was a bit frightening, since the average nidorino weighed about 20 kilograms and roughly tripled in size during Evolution, starting off as a four foot seven midget and growing to six to seven feet tall over months or years. Once I found a Moon Stone, he’d be about 5’4 and grow into an eight foot giant massing some eight hundred pounds.

Luckily pokémon often face the same metabolic rules when it comes to growing larger, so he’s likely going to maybe double his calorie intake, six or seven thousand calories a day. Which is more like what a bear outside of preparing for winter would eat.

Route 302 was a fair bit shorter than 301, and had a lot more trainers so we did battle people from time to time… Akari ended up blitzing against a guy with six magikarps, though his ace was effectively a god among carp who could move faster than Mirko which was quite terrifying.

A fish flying at a hundred meters is a sight not meant for mortal eyes.

Route 302 had transitioned into moorland due to the highly acidic soils and the actions of certain endemic pokémon species. There were quite a few mareep and flaafy, hoothoot, more starly and staravia, along with plenty of grass-types keeping the soil acidic and the area relatively free of trees, and full of grasses and shrubs.

Llayda kept throwing herself against them, apparently trying to learn the very basics of Sap Sipper, since metabolizing grass-type energy was incredibly useful and would remove one of her weaknesses.

Akari looked haggard, and after dealing with the trouble magnet her togepi was I perfectly understood why. Ellis was pretty strong, with the highest realized potential of any of us with a solid movepool of Sweet Kiss, Life Dew, Fairy Wind, Psycho Shift and Metronome. The ability to randomly select a move from a potentially limitless pool was a nightmare, and she had used Hydro Cannon, Fire Blast and Hyper Beam on more than one occasion.

“So what happened this time?” I asked her and Akari dove deep into the trouble her togepi had gotten into.

Ellis had used Teleport through the random lottery of Metronome, and had almost gotten eaten by a victreebel that Akari ended up capturing and was going to send it off to be traded off through the Pokémon Center. They handled both requests and job board offers along with the general trading aspects of being a pokémon trainer.

Which was something I had asked about because trading at the bare minimum sentient beings was a bit of a weird thing… Apparently it was actually a system created by pokémon in tandem with the Joy family and general Pokémon Center network as a sort of… international adoption agency, operating as a legal entity designed to guarantee the rights of pokémon within the system.

They incentivize people to trade at the Center due to both their fairness and the general accessibility of the ubiquitous buildings, and their buyers will get charged a fee to make up for the cost of taking care of a pokémon, home/trainer studies, and various legal document services and so on.

The system was designed and developed by a zoroark, and has remained effectively unaltered outside the addition of technology and psychics protecting both it and the sanctity and security of the GST as a whole. Which made sense since their line is some of the few species known to build villages and what could be considered human-like societies. Something not dissimilar to the villages of the Mystery Dungeon series.

The fact they apparently have radios, electronics and video games was something I ignored for my sanity.

“It shouldn’t be much longer right?” I asked Akari as I looked at the very distant lights of the capital city. This area had dozens of Route-adjacent towns and villages feeding into the capital of Suika. We had passed through one only an hour ago.

“Soon,” Akari soundee surlier than usual and I wondered what was bothering her.

Kozukata City was far larger in person, a city of more than a quarter of a million souls and it in a way reminded me of home, even if it was far smaller than San Diego. We had arrived at the Pokémon Center, one of a dozen across the city and checked in for free since the Circuit had certainly started.

We had healed up, rested up with a quick movie that our pokémon picked out staffed only by pokémon and thus incomprehensible to my human ears. It was a romance between a zoroark and a ninetales that apparently brought Happy to tears.

It was actually quite cute even if I couldn’t understand it. The break also gave me time to decompress and think back to various… odd moments over the last two weeks. The strange headache and visions triggered by my first exposure to Evolution, the building sensation and connection I had felt for a fleeting moment against Liu. I had read up on what the pokédex and the online community called the Empowered in whispered words and on shady forums.

Various people developed esoteric abilities that involved… aura, metaphysical energy that was the source of sentience, of reality itself. ‘Hypothetically.’

Aura Adepts were practically a myth, but there was an obvious connection between superhuman feats and the strongest or most skilled trainers, using the raw life force of all things. Aura could be Typed… so psychics could be considered adepts in the wave of the psychic-type. There were various forms of magic which differed from raw aura manipulation by drawing on different sources, and in different ways.

Witches, sorcerers, and wizards, temple elders, monks, shrine maidens, spiritualists and channelers and more. There were supposedly even sages and priests who channeled a fragment of a Legendary’s power as a Divine.

There were those who were called Warriors, the Children of Viridian, who could link their minds and emotions with pokémon as a whole. Another myth that had faded to obscurity over the years.

Magic was a commonly debated topic in the greater field of pokémon, a sort of culture clash between the old and the new, between the old rituals and magics of ancient times and the modern science and engineering of the current age. Spells were an easy thing, just a pinch of belief, a cup of sincerity and a liter of preparation made spells possible.

Throwing salt over the non-dominant shoulder could ward off the more malicious members of the ghosts, fey rituals could bind fairy-types and gain their trust and consent. If you bowed to a variant of golduck they’d leave you alone and not haunt you, little things like that that were often explained away as pokémon abilities and esoteric feats or just cultural quirks of the species.

Mawile were deceivers, powerful fey predators with a powerful glamor covering their form. Intimidate was an expression of their magic, their cute exterior lowered their guard while their jaw invoked terror that attacked the strength of a pokémon.

So catching them required certain rituals to tame their impulses, to make them not… safe or passive but to gain their trust and their compassion.

Regardless, my research told me whatever I was feeling was real, a real effect, and not a product of my mind. The question then was how could I develop whatever this was?

Well I had gotten a rather good partner to help with that task in Akari, after asking her about aura. Which was why she had dragged me out into a minor forest in the city, and told me to touch grass.

More accurate, she said I needed a connection with nature for the conversation we were going to have.

“I was wondering when you were going to ask about this for a while,” was the first thing she said as she sat down on the soft grass, crossing one leg over the other. “You know I come from an old clan, and you’ve probably noticed how well I communicate with my pokémon.”

I coughed. “Umm… I kinda just forgot about that and only thought about how you looked like someone out of Princess Mononoke.” This was your brain on autism and depression, children! Terrible memory and terrible ability to sort out anything involving long term planning.

Akari looked at me with deep disappointment. “I’m going to ignore that, and ask what you think aura is?”

“The raw energy of life itself?” She just smiled toothily. “The source of the may wondrous abilities and powers of pokémon and people alike, it surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the universe together?”

“That’s what other people think, something you’ll look up in a book and old myths. Not something you discover for yourself, in battle, in quiet contemplation or however you do things.” Akari floundered a bit, and I took a moment to think.

Aura was… it was like dust wasn’t it? It was so terribly, terribly small, a part of a greater whole, whether it was dust bunnies in your closet or the dust that one day formed into planets and stars and galaxies.

The fundamental building block of creation…

“Potential, energy, infinite possibilities, an emergent property of the universe.” I answered.

“Better, aura works better when you have a personal understanding of it,” she flexed her arms, muscles tensing like steel. “Most people can use it instinctively to some extent, it’s why our bodies are as strong as they are.”

I had noticed that very quickly, I had seen people walk off attacks that would absolutely pulp organs on people from Earth. They weren’t indestructible, but they were tough enough to deal with weak first stage pokémon. Intent also played a role of course, pokémon held back from lethal blows during battle, so actually killing someone was hard in an official battle. Injury was another thing entirely of course.

“It also applies to basic spells and rituals, but you’re not always drawing on your aura so much as the aura of the World,” Akari explained carefully, like she thought we could be overheard. “It’s how magic works, drawing on the underlying forces of the universe and appealing to them.”

“Interesting. The Shirogane Clan, they know about aura, taught it to you?” I asked carefully and Akari nodded.

“My mom married into the clan after she had a falling out with her family outside her sister. Johanna Berlitz,” well that explained some things. “Having a former champion as your cousin isn’t always very helpful. Dawn’s nice though.” Akari sighed. “Being a descendant of a legendary Hero, and a family line as old as the regions themselves is a fucking shitty situation.”

I winced. “I can imagine the pressure.”

She palmed her face with a heavy sigh. “Right where was I?” She snapped her fingers and continued. “I’m half-Celestic, so like the Draconids and the People of the Water we have a lot of old traditions that survived the ages, and I was a precocious little brat that loved nature and pokémon with all her heart. The bond between human and pokémon changes you, especially when you’re young.” She gently felt the markings on her cheeks, almost reverent. “I’m good with aura, when it comes to using it to connect with pokémon, to understand what they’re saying. I know what different kinds of aura feel like, the elements held within, though I haven’t figured out the more superhero stuff like pulling off a move.”

That wasn’t unexpected, and made sense to me. “Have you tried out magic before?”

Her blush told me a story. “I tried out a spell a witch was working on and got mind swapped with a geodude for an hour.”

A giggle escaped my lips, and I slapped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry.”

Akari cracked a grin. “It was pretty hilarious in hindsight,” she admitted. “Aura is complicated stuff, that you’ve noticed it this quick means you’re pretty good at sensing it. Kinda like Natsuo, that kid has a gift for seeing aura I can’t really compare with even if I can break him like a twig. Maybe it’s a talent or because your world can’t express aura, but it is something I can teach you?”

“Why?”

“Because we’re friends and because it’s one of the reasons I decided to go on this journey, we used to teach what we knew to outsiders but stopped about a century ago. Though… there was that one tradition that kept going for a while…” She turned pink.

“What tradition?” I blurted out.

“Husband and or wife-stealing?” She twirled a lock of her blue hair, not meeting my eyes.

“Oh yeah, old timey outdated traditions, it’s a thing in some old cultures back home.” The story of Persephone and Hades was a very obvious example of course. “I can see that being used to bring new blood to reinvigorate old traditions of aura.”

Akari gave me an unreadable look, and I cocked my head. What was she thinking?

“I’m going to teach you what I can do using aura, and see if that will help push my own skills with it further too. But… you’ll have to get a lot stronger, a fundamental aspect of aura is the symbiotic bond between human and pokémon, your aura strengthens theirs and theirs strengthens yours.” I nodded in agreement.

Pokéball technology itself relied on aura, they stored it and intensified the connection, drawing on the energy to both fuel and carve it’s strange mechanisms.

As a sponsored trainee of Laven, I had some access to how they worked and even how they were manufactured.

“So how do we start?”

“What do you know about meditation?” Akari started and I felt my face scrunch up.

“I know my attention span sucks and sitting still while doing nothing is impossible.” I was honest about myself here, I knew my limitations.

“Then how good are you at using your imagination and daydreaming instead?” Her coy smile said enough, and I grinned back.

“Now that is one hundred percent within my ability.”

She cracked her knuckles and gestured to my belt where my three friends rested. “Then let’s bring out some friends and get to work.”

I couldn’t help but be excited, I couldn’t wait to write all of this down.

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.9

October 9th, 2022.

Another week had come and gone as Akari and I got down with more training, and for preparation for the Kozukata Gym, home to the water-type Gym Leader Rei. We also explored the city which had a lot to offer with both its size and sheer amount of amenities. There were a ton of retail and local flea markets that were chock full of interesting items, pokémon and products. From special shampoo, to traditional apricorn balls and TMs and TRs both widely available.

I had found someone selling fairy dust, a strange elemental powder that was a natural byproduct of fairy-type energy. It apparently was good for increasing the potential of fairy-types and served as a fuel for magic… supposedly. It was also known as faerie glamour, an illusion-made so real that reality itself is fooled.

It wasn’t dangerous… unless it got into the lungs of a dragon, which would trigger a case of Pixie Dust Cold, the chaotic wild energies causing illness and wreaking havoc on their immune system. Sold samples like the one I had were treated with a coating that would keep them from being dangerous.

There were lots of little illnesses common to certain types of pokémon, and I had read up on the ones my team was susceptible to. Bluemote, Lockbone, and Blooddrip are dangerous for Mirko, Jericho is incredibly toxic and extremely resistant to disease, anything that could make him sick would likely kill us all too.

Llayda as a water-fairy type can get Saline Fever from too much salt and is easily cured with fresh water, and Iron Sickness means a careful regulation of her iron intake.

My water fairy had learned Charm, and I was currently having her work on learning Play Rough and Aqua Jet. For the former she was using Slam as a model with the sadism turned up a notch while Aqua Jet was being built up using her propulsive use of Water Gun.

I breathed in and out, counting motes of dust in the air as a form of mental mantra, of developing a greater awareness of aura. Something about connecting aura to dust in my mind felt right, and I did my best to communicate with my pokémon so I could better understand them.

For example, Mirko was teaching me to dance.

The buneary line were apparently good dancers, often using it in their day-to-day life as a form of communication. Their storytellers used dance in their tales and legends, and they did it for fun of course. They had a lot of hopping, belly dancing, and hip-using dances. Which was good exercise and Mirko seemed happier whenever we did it together, apparently taking interest in another person’s interests was a good thing. We also talked a lot about technology and science, since it seemed to be a particular interest of hers.

Jericho was more interested in learning about space, and I talked about what I knew about space. He also hates realistic fiction, and often coaxed me into makeshift obstacle courses using whatever was laying around. So I was very slowly learning the principles of parkour, just so I could keep up with his games and competitive spirit.

I have fallen off of trees far too many times for his sake.

Llayda was more playful than either of them, and enjoyed playing card games and a good game of Pop the Bubble, basically just creating a bunch of bubbles to pop and whoever pops the most wins.

She cheated at both and I despised her for it. She also threw me into the water to swim far too many times to the point I thought she was trying to drown me and eat my corpse.

Was that morbid?

Yes.

Did I care?

No.

There was a feeling there, whenever I found a connection with my pokémon, something in common, learning together, growing together. I drew on that feeling as I counted dust, very glad I had stocked up on contacts and a pair of backup glasses. One’s eyes were a much more fragile ordeal than a magical second puberty, and I hadn't looked into laser eye surgery recently.

It was getting easier to sense aura, and it made me wonder if that was responsible for how well I could sense the body language of my pokémon. I was never good at that, being on the spectrum and all, but now I could read the emotions of completely different species.

Don't get me started on how I'm speaking the same language, and can read their writing without any issue. Luckily my English couldn't be read by anyone except Laven or people knowledgeable in Unown script.

There was a knock on the door to my room, and I slipped out of my bed to answer the door.

It was Akari, rubbing her eyes and staring me down with a half-lidded gaze. She was wearing her usual outfit along with her coat which made sense as Tohoku was getting colder as winter approached day by day.

“What's up?”

“We’re battling right this instant, no saying no.”

I blinked.

“Okay?”

We took up one of the many dirt fields at the back of the Pokémon Center, standing on opposite ends with hands on our belt, waiting to throw out our pokémon.

I already know which pokémon I'm going to use as a lead for the battle, but Akari could be… unpredictable, her pignite was powerful and knew how to play his cards right while her munchlax was durable and unrelenting, a mix of his Leftovers, Rest and Curse making him into a brick wall of a mon. Her togepi was another monster of a different sort, with utility moves like Sweet Kiss and Charm disabling her opponent's strength or damaging them with confusion, and Psycho Shift lets her throwback status conditions. Her attack weren't as strong with access to Fairy Wind and Draining Kiss.

“A three-on-three until knockout or forfeit, no switches like usual?” She commented on the rules and I gave her a sunny thumbs up. The both of us reached out and—

Threw.

“I choose you, Kirby!”

“Go, Jericho.”

In two flashing beams of light, a nidorino and a munchlax materialized on the field, Jericho started off with a Hone Claws, and a confident cry while Kirby just smiled hungrily.

“Toxic Spikes.” I started off by setting up an entry hazard in Toxic Spikes, Jericho easily setting them off using his spines as a focus for poison energy. “Double Kick into Poison Jab.”

Jericho used the momentum of Double Kick to throw himself across the twenty-yard field in a third of a second. To my surprise, he blocked the hit with his bare hands, glancing back at Akari.

“Strength.” Pushing giant boulders should have been a clue—

Kirby slugged Jericho right in the face, the full-power attack leaving him in a crater with the sheer amount of force he had launched into the move.

The hit was devastating, and I could tell Jericho was almost down with the one terrifying attack. But…

Kirby let out a gasp, as I saw the signs of poisoning, a flicker of sickly purple across his body, and Akari frowned.

“Jericho finally tapped into his Poison Point ability then?” Jericho’s laughter was almost chilling, his feet stamping into the ground with victory in his voice. “Let's aim for some groundbreaking Kirby.”

“Oh… Get into the air!” I barely reacted in time as the munchlax went on a rampage, stomping down on the ground and striking the entire field at once with geokinetic force.

“Hone Claws into Double Kick, double down on what we talked about!” In mid-air, he focused his mind into silence with Hone Claws, dove down with the weight of Double Kick, and right as Kirby tried to block with another Strength, he retaliated with a shifting flux of Confusion that knocked away his jab and kicked him in the jaw.

Focus Energy was activated seamlessly into his arm turning purple with Poison Jab, chopping Kirby in the throat. The small bear choked and gagged

“Curse and end it.” The esoteric move slammed into existence, strength, and toughness increasing at the cost of speed.

He didn't need it as he unleashed a second Bulldoze, knocking out Jericho with a stomp of his foot.

But he was hurt and poisoned, and Jericho had layered the field four times over throughout the fight. I threw out my next pokémon, and smiled as Llayda landed gracefully on her feet, a sharp look in her eyes as she inspected the sleepy munchlax.

She winked at the munchlax, appearing cute and innocent as without a word said between us her Charm-Tail Whip combo got to work.

“Bruise him with all you've got, and traverse out of there whenever he gets fresh.” Aqua Jet exploded into life, sending her flying into a far too-slow munchlax. Her tail swung into a Slam attack that hit like a truck, all two hundred thirty pounds of bear sent skidding for seven feet. Her Aqua Jet sputtered away and I hid my frown, she still hadn't mastered the move so it was only good in short bursts.

Akari’s eyebrows furrowed, lips pulling into a rather cold grin, her teeth almost exposed in a snarl.

“Facade.”

“Double back!” Llayda avoided Facade with a spurt of Aqua Jet, and I winced as the attack left a huge crater where his arm lit up like gold had torn through the reinforced ground.

Facade was a move that doubled in power when the user was dealing with a status condition, so Kirby had access to a move almost equal to Giga Impact. Her tail swayed from side to side with a hypnotic cuteness, TE focused into Tail Whip and draining his strength.

“Bubble Beam.” The stream of bubbles cracked more like bullets than water, each popping and impacting against Kirby’s belly. She slammed into a second Aqua Jet into Slam, and he took remarkable damage, two Slams knocking him around and then…

Out.

“She’s a strong pokémon, I’m glad you’re able to put up a better fight, Brandy.” Her grin was savage, steel blue eyes gleaming with excitement and her whole body practically quivering with energy.

Scary.

I had a poor win-lose ratio in our matches, six out of ten matches went to her but I also knew she utterly destroyed every trainer on our level with a smile on her face that scared me shitless. So the fact I survived longer at least meant I wasn’t a bad trainer.

She released her next pokémon, and I flinched when I saw her togepi take the field with a cute smile. She was inflicted with poison and her trainer’s gleeful face was scary.

“Psycho Shift.” Waves and lines of psychic power surrounded her pokémon, and caught Llayda in their grasp. In the blink of an eye my pokémon was inflicted with poison while Ellis was free of it, her grin no less wide.

I’m an idiot.

“Metronome.” Was her next order, and I told Llayda to be ready for anything. Ellis began to form toxic sludge, and I recognized the move as… well Sludge.

Llayda dodged, using her tail to transition into Bounce, going up a hundred feet and coming down with a powerful jetstream surrounding her body.

“Give her some love!” I recognized the command, fuck.

“Disrupt it with Bubble Beam.” The togepi got a face full of subsonic bubbles before she could get use of a Sweet Kiss, a move that muddled the minds of the target through fairy magic. “Go full Bruiser, don’t let her get off any more moves!”

My marill just churred and slammed into Ellis, throwing around the tough fairy egg. Who simply wagged her finger and—

Exploded.

Both pokémon were out of the field as the way too enthusiastic togepi used Explosion, and the point-blank move knocked out Llayda. Akari looked incredibly embarrassed, and I chuckled awkwardly.

The Explosion had damaged a good amount of Toxic Spikes, reducing the potency of the poisoning. If Ellis had been more strategic she could have wiped away the entire field and destroyed my strategy completely.

Akari was definitely going to scold the overzealous fairy baby. We moved on, retrieving our fallen friends with the return function on their pokéballs.

We were both down to our Starters, the second-stage fire pig known as Happy was our opponent, Mirko the normal rabbit pokémon was already set up with Work Up. I had planned out basic roles for each of my pokémon, working with their specialties as a species, and their preferred means of combat.

Mirko was an all-out-attacker, focusing on her speed and wide coverage moves to jeopardize entire team's given the right set up. Nidorino is more of a wall breaker, evolving into a pokémon with excellent offensive typing, along with great coverage moves, pressuring opposing pokémon. He can also play a secondary hazard role with Poison Point, Toxic Spikes… and eventually Stealth Rock.

Llayda was a hyper-offensive monster, the combination of Huge Power and her amazing typing meant she was an amazing fighter with a lot of potential.

I started before my thoughts could cost me the match. “Go for the usual, add some charm where you can.”

Happy started with Bulldoze striking at the entire field, and Mirko jumped in the air. The pignite released a Mud Shot that Mirko blocked with a barrage of Swift stars, and twisted automatically through the air. Her boosted strength and power guaranteed her hits would do devastating damage.

She surged down to the ground with Quick Attack, which immediately transitioned into a Headbutt. We had been practicing how to circulate, direct and generate Type Energy. I wanted to learn how to modify moves, and was learning the basics of the process.

Happy leaned to the right to dodge and was battered by Swift stars changing their course, and keeping him in place. It was a new technique, practicing Swift over and over again, developing visual exercises and better means of controlling and altering Type Energy.

He took a Headbutt right to his dense skull, with a loud crack that made me wince in sympathy, and Mirko unleashed a point-blank Swift and let the laws of physics throw her backward.

“Ember Charge.” To my shock, Happy surrounded himself in a twisting inferno and charged forward with flames exploding out of the mass of fire and catching Mirko off guard.

A true fusion move, fuck.

The Embers were too fast to dodge, and I paled as I realized she had figured out how to apply the speed boost of Flame Charge to fire-type attacks.

“Quick Attack out of there!”

She dove back, but Happy was a stubborn pig, his Flame Charge increasing his speed with every burst of power, and before I could think of a way to get out of there, he slammed full force into Mirko.

I felt my heart clench when Mirko didn't get up, her chest rising in and out as she had fainted, unable to take the Flame Charge and Ember combo.

Damn. Guess I'm not improving my win-lose ratio this day, but it was a close one.

But it also means I'm free to do what I want today, with the Gym Trial tomorrow.

The Blossoming Castle was far, far more impressive in person than it was in pictures, an enormous fortress of wood and stone that spanned hundreds of feet, and largely taken care of by monks and shrine maidens, of a similar ilk to those of the Bell Tower and the Kimono Girls of Ecruteak, people who still remember the empires that once were.

I had decided to go for a tour, and Akari had tagged along, since while she was a native, living up in the hostile mountains did have its own set of downsides. The castle itself was the very heart of the city, surrounded by a beautiful park and the castle itself is labyrinthine, with rooms going into the ground too, carved out by pokémon and man.

The castle… was a place of great strife and conflict, countless domains had met their end here at this strategic location, clan killing clan and paving rivers of blood across the centuries. The castle was among the last, built during the Industrial Age, even if Nihoh was relatively isolated from the rest of the world at the time.

Warring clans fought their last battle here, as a legendary hero known only as the Blossoming Knight summoned an unknown legendary and destroyed their armies, unifying this area of Tohoku. The history of this set of regions mirrored Japan’s but it wasn't the same, far too different in some ways and far too similar in others. Warring clans, emperors and samurai and ninja and daimyo, great unifiers and all.

The Celestica and other peoples of Nihoh were the original natives of the island chain, and were displaced right around three thousand years ago, with immigrants from Joseon and Pangu displacing them throughout the next thousand years or intermingling with them.

The Waajin and the Ebizu fought over this land for centuries on end and the Blossoming Castle was a piece of that ancient history.

Mirko was riding on my shoulder, which was harder than you think when she's rather large for a rabbit. Having eighteen pounds on my back was at least more manageable than my asshole of a nidoran still acting like he wasn't half my weight.

He and Llayda had decided to sit this one out, instead watching from their balls, since they could see out of them and even move them around somehow.

The apricorn was the original capture device, when people realized they could hide themselves in hollow spheres, with apricorns being their optimal hidden places. A way to hide from dangerous elements or predators, never for long but for long enough. Combined with the mysterious energy of tumblestones they could be held indefinitely with no harm to them

The modern ball was more artificial, made of a special layered composite of apricorn and exotic metal alloys, along with a computer chip and exotic machinery.

The old apricorn balls had their limitations, their space was far from luxurious, and without the modern understanding of the fruit’s dimensional properties, they couldn't provide nearly as much sustenance. The modern ball tapped into the exotic properties of its shell to tap into a sort of… sub-reality, an ever-shifting dimension somewhat like the Dream World, with each ball being a tiny zone in this space.

I had heard about projects of using the PC System as the interface for an interconnected series of Friend Zone sub-realities providing an inexpensive environment for housing pokémon without needing to connect to a physical location. It only caught on in a few regions such as Unova, due to a number of issues facing the system.

A sage approached the line, and I squared my shoulders and focused on the present. That meant the tour was starting, so I flashed my ticket to the sage who offered a bright warm grin.

“We’ll start with a tour of the Blossoming Castle’s interior, and work our way through its many accessible rooms and halls.” He spoke honestly and his voice was easily projected, quieting the entire crowd of people. Even Akari was affected, the pressure the man exuded was…

Striking.

Then I remembered he was a Sage and that in this world it meant more than being a wise man or woman.

We were guided into the castle by the sage, and I took in the sights of the interior, many holding decorations and paintings and ancient works of art maintained through the ages.

He told us about the heritage of the castle belonging to that of the Indigo Plateau, from the period when Ecruteak was the capital of a sickly empire spanning Kanto, Johto, Oblivia, Fiore, and Mohto, the impassable mountainous region that houses the Kingdom of Rota and beyond. The Ecruteak empire had made many attempts to conquer this region and it had taken three warlords to succeed.

It didn't last, the empire breaking at the seams and its leaders paying the price for their greed and pride. This fall of grace led to the rise of Celadon as a center of power and culture throughout Nihoh, the Kantonians overthrowing their Johtonian masters without lifting a finger even as the Wataru continued to rule their home region.

The people of Celadon became the center of a new empire with the Restoration Period, unifying most of Nihoh around 1668 and subsequently modernizing Nihoh to catch up with the industrial western nations while settling Hisui. Their creation of the League and the Gym Circuit ended up creating an independent power structure and led to their downfall around two hundred years ago, with the Blossoming Castle at one point being the center of the Tohoku League.

From what I remember…

The modern structure of the regional government was… looser, operating sort of as a cross between a Domain and a socialist government as a matter of necessity. When literally anyone could rise up to rival the power of the government, giving people a say was important. Delegates started at the village level and sent delegates to town councils, with the Gym towns and cities being near the top of the pyramid, structured much like a confederacy of Domains.

What?

Knowing how the government worked was pretty important when you lived in a foreign country, and this was a strange form of governance. The closest most regions had to a central government was the League, as in the bureaucracy, and not the Elite Four and Champion. They were involved in politics yes but not as rulers… usually.

I glanced at a few paintings from contact with Paldea, and blinked at the two… donphans with a lot of artistic license towards their appearance. One had enormous tusks and spikes along their back while the other looked… mechanical, almost like a living machine.

I wonder…

Akari grabbed me by the shoulder, tugging me back to the group, and I glanced at the odd shadows that twisted and shifted with the odd lighting of the castle.

This place was known for having many ghosts within its walls.

The sage brought us before a set of armor that was clearly of Ebizu origin, with an oval helmet design with flaps on either side and a short tail of feathers at its peak and yellow cloth robes clad in dark armor. A spear covered in strange symbols etched onto its wooden frame seemed to almost glow in the light.

“This is the ancient War Regalia of the Ebizu people most of the citizens of Tohoku have a kinship with, however distant. Armor forged by man and pokémon, and legends say forged with magic and sorceries lost to the ages, able to channel the power of life itself.”

The spear had a strange tassel, and I swore I saw something wink at me from the weapon, but when I blinked it was gone.

We moved along, and I wondered.

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.10

October 10th, 2022.

Today was the day scheduled for my Gym Trial at the Kozukata Gym, and I fiddled with the swimsuit I had been told I needed for the trial. So it had something to do with swimming and I felt one fear because Gyms do some weird and terrifying things to test you.

I felt… oddly exposed now, glancing over a mirror where I could see how I had changed in three months. It wasn't a lot but it wasn't nothing either, my hips were a little wider, maybe two inches or so, and I looked a fair bit more feminine both in my face and skin texture, with my curly black hair being long enough to have actual locks.

I looked more like a boyish girl and that made me incredibly happy, even if I knew it was going to take way more time than three months for real progress. It was faster than the stuff we could do on Earth, but it's a progress closer to six to eighteen months. But I was eager, and while wearing a one piece green swimsuit was odd it wasn’t bad either.

The Kozukata Gym was located near the center of the city, surrounded by restaurants and various forms of retail, and was itself a mix of a pool and a noodle shop. Many Gyms had additional services that allowed them to have some independent income, a surviving relic of when the Champion and Gyms was instead the Shogun and their Daimyo. The Gym resembled a massive shell, sort of like a tirtouga, and the interior was clean, with wave designs throughout its rows of chairs and sofas in the reception.

I had already gone past the receptionist and changed, and was walking through a dark hallway until I reached what had to be a pool with multiple floating platforms, along with pokémon swimming in the water.

A robotic voice echoed through the room. “Please enter the pool, and release your pokémon around you.”

I listened to the voice, and all three were sent out since a Gym Trial wasn't just a battle where having one at a time was part of the rules. Besides the usual League-standard six pokémon team thing at least. Mirko huffed at the water, while Llayda looked excited and Jericho looked bored.

“You must swim to each platform while your pokémon guard you from the pokémon tasked with patrolling the waters, if one pokémon tags you, you must battle a Gym Trainer.”

A Gym Trial was considered the best way to weed out trainers, usually being somewhat straight forward. You could earn a badge with a trial, but that was at the discretion of both the Gym or the regional League. But it wasn’t universal with Tohoku being one of the regions that didn’t do that along with Kanto and Johto. So there was a lot of jeering about people who earned it through a trial versus a battle.

I stepped into the water with Llayda and Jericho, both of which were good swimmers, in his case the nidoran line was known for having colonized the Orient by swimming across the ocean. Mirko instead leapt across and landed on the first platform, focused on the pokémon swimming around the platform.

It was mostly a lot of fish pokémon, goldeen, remoraid, luvdisc, and white-striped basculin. They were the taggers, while my team were the anti-taggers keeping me untagged while I swim from platform to platform.

Getting chased by fish sounded like a very fun activity didn’t it?

I immediately started swimming despite that trepidation, and with a squeak I shrunk as a goldeen rushed at me at top speed. Llayda blocked the fish for me and I just kept swimming towards the platform. Mirko sniped them from land with a low power Swift, while Jericho acted as a wall and Llayda directly engaged the fish on their home turf.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…

I threw myself at the platform, regretted everything as my chest exploded with agony, and pulled myself up and onto the platform while the fish pulled back and swam between this first and second platform. I could see there were nine more platforms to reach and I felt despair.

I couldn't give up though.

Mirko tugged on my hand, and with a sigh, I dove back into the pool, Llayda, and Jericho guarding me to the best of their ability. I twisted out of the way of a goldeen who got a tail slam to the face courtesy of Llayda. But to my shock, a remoraid slapped me in the face, having dodged my pokémon’s attacks in the chaos of Mirko releasing her swarms of Swift on the water.

Son of a bitch!

I grumbled as I swam over to the second floating platform, crawling with shame onto it’s wet surface. Mirko looked pissed off and almost… guilty? Maybe she thought she should have gotten into the water?

“You made the right choice, Llayda is much more maneuverable in the water, and Jericho makes a good wall, you're better suited on the high ground.” There had been half a dozen pokémon, and only one had slipped past them. “Now that you're aware they can get us, are you going to let some fish get one over us again?”

Her expression became furious and sadistic, and I smiled. Good.

I blinked as a woman exploded out of the water, stepping out of the pool with a cheeky grin. She wore a two-piece blue bikini that showed she was… well-endowed and she knew it, cocking her hip and placing her arms under her bust, making it just that more obvious.

I chewed on my lips, heat rising to my face. “Have… are all the Gym Trainers hiding in the water?”

Her lips curled into a smile. “Yes they do, it's part of Rei’s charm, she loves creating an interesting challenge for her challengers.” She brushed back her black bangs, large dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “She wants to test how you've connected with your pokémon. Will they do their best to protect you, will they work together to win the challenge?”

That was a fair enough reason. I think.

“Mhmm.” I didn't disagree, balancing precariously on the floating platform. Llayda took up the role of the battler, and the Gym Trainer smirked.

“A cute pokémon for a cute girl, a good choice.” I flushed but kept my cool as she released her own pokémon. “Go, Buizel!”

The Gym Trainer releases the orange otter pokémon right into the water, who was right around three feet long, his tail propelling him through the water.

“Buizel, start off with Aqua Jet and follow it up with Iron Tail!”

“Keep up the usual routine, bruise him, and lose him!” Both pokémon rushed forward into Aqua Jet, moving like missiles across the pool, chasing after the other like dog-fighting jet planes.

Buizel was faster, and that was what I was counting on. His tail glowed with the silver glow of Iron Tail, and Llayda barrel rolled into a spinning tail smack that exploded into Slam. The poor otter crumpled under the sheer impact, and was thrown right out of the water.

But he wasn’t down for the count, and his stunned trainer didn’t lose her cool.

“Use Swift, keep them on the run!”

Buizel used Swift, using an array of stars to try and corner us. Llayda simply smiled, and unleashed a precise barrage of Bubble Beam, filling the room with them, letting them drift before detonating in massive hydrokinetic explosions.

That’s new… I have an idea.

“Aqua Slam.” I called out the move we had been working on, combining the sheer speed of Aqua Jet with the physical power of Slam. The Swift stars shattered against her thick coating of pressurized water, and Buizel couldn’t get out of the way with his own burst of Aqua Jet.

He was down and out with two attacks, and the Gym Trainer looked impressed.

“Not bad at all, cute and strong,” she winked and I ignored her flirting, even as heat spread to my ears. “But will you keep up that streak against my second pokémon?”

Llayda used her tail to bounce onto my platform, and I took a few steps back just in case. She let her arms sway back and forth, looking cute and charming as she waited.

“Go, Drednaw!” The massive snapping turtle pokémon let out a loud gaping yawn as she materialized onto the field. I just grinned as Llayda did her magic silently, and with malicious intent.

Heh, heh, heh…

“Use Rock Polish and end it with Smart Strike.” Rock-type energy refined and polished the turtle’s aura, smoothing it out so she could move frictionlessly through the world.

She exploded into reality, charging at ridiculous speed towards a smiling Llayda, steel-type energy spreading across her horn. My marill reached out, and with little fanfare, plucked the pokémon twelve times her own weight right out of the air.

“What?”

“Llayda, be a dear and use Rock Smash?”

I can’t say I didn’t get a shiver of pleasure from the look on their faces as Llayda gave them the trashing of their life.

The Trial was a mix of fun and horrifying, and after ten platforms I had only been tagged once more time. That had ended in a battle against a horsea and a wartortle that had been taken care of by Mirko with Thunder Punch and a burst of Quick Attack. Wartortle had almost taken her out by matter of hitting like a train, and a mix of Rapid Spin to move around like a squirrel on crack.

As I slid out of the water, I felt exhausted and cursed this gym for its evil, evil Trial. I returned both Llayda and Jericho who had operated in sync to guard me against the water-types. Mirko had stayed on dry land, sniping the hell out of pokémon in the water, Llayda guiding them into vulnerable positions while Jericho acted like a bristly wall of death, no one wanted the smoke or in this case the Poison Point.

“The creator of this Trial is an evil, evil person.” I declared it openly and the three Gym Trainers shared a grin that made me want to punch something.

“Not bad for a foreigner,” the first trainer I fought complimented and I blinked. “Oh it’s a bit obvious dear, you’ve got a strong accent, I’m guessing the Occident, Mezo perhaps?”

I shrugged. “Something like that.” Was my answer.

The third trainer I hadn’t gotten to face placed his arms on his neck, smirking. “In other regions people can earn badges through Gym Trials, so some foreigners get mighty ticked off when that’s not a thing here. Tohoku is a different region, with different rules.” He didn’t seem to feel disdain for foreigners so much as… annoyance for people not doing their research for an international journey?

Which was fair.

“Since you’ve passed the Trial, that means you’re free to go.” The second trainer added, and I thought that was for the best.

I thanked them for the battle and went on my way. I needed to take my pokémon to the Pokémon Center to rest up for the battle against Rei tomorrow.

After the trial, I went back to my room at the Pokémon Center where Akari and I were going to receive a call from Professor Laven. There was some task we had to do once both our gym battles were done that was important to her joint research project on exotic energies.

I crossed one leg over the other, ignoring the presence of Akari as she leaned on me to get her face onto the waiting video call. My dex-phone had projected a large hologram, expanding its glassy screen with the use of advanced technology. The TV was tuned to some late-night channel I wasn't paying much attention to, though I was already drifting towards it.

I rarely watched TV, mainly focused on taking research notes, browsing the world wide web, or spending time training my apparent talent for aura. Not that it was a unique ability, most people had some access to aura, even if only passively or as a matter of course when they did anything.

Aura was the energy of life itself after all.

I narrowed my eyes at the commercial that was playing, the sensual music, and the building with what was clearly an outline of a lopunny logo told me something very specific.

“—if you ever want to have a very special encounter and satisfy your—” Akari flipped the channel with a twitch of her eyebrows.

“Thank you.” She had flipped to a nature documentary, which seemed to be about a rather distant region.

“In the Mena Region, there are several apex predators, at the very top of the food chain. Menaian pyroar are powerful ground-fire types, pack hunters, competing with mightyena and dominating in the ecosystem.”

The regional variant of pyroar had sandy coats closer to real lions, but their manes were black and and red in coloration, and their fur was covered in a layer of packed sand, like shifting silica armor. I could see them hunting zebstrika, using Sand Tomb to trap them, using the trap to redirect attacks and Sand Attack to blind them, and a mix of Scorching Sand and Fire Fang to batter, kill, and cook their prey. It was quite morbid but also fascinating.

It went on to the next species, feraligator.

“Feraligators are the apex predators of the watering holes and rivers and streams of the Mena region, growing to enormous size and scale in a region free from their normal competitors. Here's one female individual, some six meters tall and nine meters long, and two metric tons. She's not the largest on record, of course, that would go to Big Mara, a trainer-held female who topped out at nine and a half meters tall and fourteen meters in length.”

By the gods above and below… What the fuck?

Also, it's a good thing there aren't any mind readers because what kind of swearing even is that? Even though gods above and below do exist in this world…

The sheer amount of calories needed to feed something that enormous… then again larger animals need less food pound for pound than smaller ones. We’re still talking like an entire domestic tauros to feed them for two weeks. Twelve hundred pounds of meat.

The call on my phone went off, and my head snapped to the screen instead. I blinked as I saw the rather disheveled professor rubbing her eyes, revealing the dark marks caused by lack of sleep. I had them after all with the year I was under the malaise of depression and apathy and couldn't sleep well during the pandemic.

Ahem…

“Professor?” Laven smiled tiredly at us.

“I see the two of you are already working on your second badges, good I’m glad to see things are going well on your journeys.” The professor worked on something off screen. “I wanted to call you about a request we’ve gotten from the League and Interpol,” I flinched. “Nothing big, they want us to meet one of the research groups working with my lab on a joint research project. Our side deals with Type Energy and exotic fields while theirs is focused on transdimensional physics and mathematics.”

I leaned forward. “So we’re working on anything related to technology that channels, generates or controls exotic energy while they’re working on the tech that affects or alters the fabric of spacetime?”

“Correct. This stuff is still quite experimental, the Alola Incident only happened about three years ago after all, and the effects of what happened in Galar are still being researched.”

Oof.

I had used the internet to map up how the timeline matched to what I knew, which was effectively a collection of Trainer Blank defeating various teams, and numerous semi-classified incidents over the past fifteen years. Team Rocket was defeated fifteen years ago along with Team Magma and Aqua in Kanto and Johto, three years later they re-emerge and are defeated by an upcoming trainer and the former champion of Sinnoh who’s also Akari’s cousin defeats Team Galactic who’s goals are classified to the highest degree.

Three years after that, Team Plasma almost destroys the Pokémon League in Unova, are defeated by another trainer and retreat into the shadows. Not coming back for two years, their use of Kyurem in Opelucid City kills thousands and they’re once again defeated with the help of an unknown trainer.

At the same time Team Flare attempts their genocide plan, which would likely have devastated the entirety of the Occident and are defeated once again with an unknown trainer at the helm. Though there’s a pattern that each generation has more and more people and organizations doing their job as time goes on. It’s likely the first major incidents showed they were flawed and needed to change before the whole world died.

Very little goes on for about a year or two until you get to wormholes opening across the entirety of Alola and multiple legendary-class monsters emerging from them, and the emergence of Necrozma doesn’t make it any better. What went on in Galar only took place about two years ago from my arrival.

And there were rumors of something going on in the Paldea region too. Which I suspected was… the ninth region, just a gut feeling.

“So when are we going to meet this research group?” Akari asked a good question.

“It’s not been completely settled on other than being using a Teleport pokémon to bring you to the lab. But it should be after both of your Gym Battle’s.” I nodded. “So prepare for that trip as best as you can.”

“Will do!” We both saluted the professor and she chuckled, rubbing her eyes.

“Good luck on both your battles, it should help with your sponsorship if I have three promising trainers.” She hung up with a quick “Bye.”

So…

“Is there anything you want to watch?” Akari pointed it out, and I answered.

“There’s this animated series I’m curious about…”

The Legend of Zelda series having a good animated series was a pleasant delight of this world, and had to be seen for myself

“I know the channel.”

We sat down and relaxed in preparation for the battles of tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.11

October 11th, 2022.

I had returned to the Kozukata Gym the next afternoon, and the room was just as packed with trainers and people waiting. Luckily for Akari and I our battles would be back to back, so we could watch each other’s matches. Days and days of preparation and training had been dedicated for this trainer, and I had even looked up some common methods of increasing potential.

It was often a matter of giving them the right environment to grow and evolve, along with strengthening your bond with… well love and kindness, bound through the light of our aura. That right environment was a combination of several factors, our aura made theirs stronger, and more balanced, and certain items gave them useful power sources or foci to train up their might. A common thing was a sort of reagent… protein shake (?) which used a blend of berries, apricorns and elementally infused items like gems, stones or dust. It was good for them, and easy to make, and increased their potential if paired with training and use of training tools like gems, orbs, and elemental items or species-specific totems.

Mirko got a blend of chilan, kora and salac berry, and apricorns with a pinch of normal and fighting-type dust. From what I had read and remembered, all the various powerful minerals, and exotic items were either condensed solid forms of infinity energy or infused with it on a fundamental level. So a pure form if it was good to add into their diet as a supplement.

Jericho’s optimal blend was a mix of oran, qualot, hondew, a pinch of elemental dust, apricots and payapa berry to feed his psychic-type affinity. Llayda leaned towards chesto and roseli berries, and fairy dust of course.

I had seen a number of trainers looking disappointed at our arrival, likely hoping they'd get moved up the queue if one or two trainers were no-shows for whatever reason.

I was at the door to the Gym Battle, which led to the main battlefield that wasn't the gigantic stadium that my social anxiety considered terrifying.

The receptionist looked at me in recognition. “You’re a lab trainer aren't you?”

“Yeah?”

The receptionist laughed nervously. “Leader Rei was interested in the trainers of Professor Laven since this is the first year she's ever sponsored anyone. You’re going to be facing a 3-star team since you were judged as a 2-star from your showing at the Gym Trial.”

So my team was collectively around what the equivalent of Lv 25? It wasn't an exact guess, simply recalling information on how badges affected the obedience of pokémon. Up to 8-stars were in the same… area of eight badges?

The approximate star level of a pokémon is pretty useful for assessing the likelihood of Evolution; most Elemental Trios evolved around reaching 4-star levels of accumulated might.

“Thank you.” The receptionist smiled and I opened the door to my second Gym Battle.

I walked into the Gym Arena, and choked.

It was an Olympic-class swimming pool of massive scope and scale, with raised bleachers and a fair number of people attending, I could even see Akari waving at me with a toothy grin. The floor itself was just slightly wet dirt and dunes of sand.

I beamed back and found the Gym Leader on the opposite end of the field. Rei wore a one-piece swimsuit, one that hugged her curves, and I could see her ruby-red eyes staring me down with cool curiosity.

“You’re my newest challenger… are you not?” Her expression was unreadable and I fidgeted uncomfortably under the pressure. “You were deemed to be worthy of a two-star rating, you'll thus face my three-star team. Will you be able to hold up against the tide or drown?” That was oddly creepy coming from a water-type trainer.

“Yes, and if I can't, I'll try again through a new angle.” I had to take a path of least resistance here, something that would ease up the difficulty of fighting Rei.

She smiled enigmatically. “Good.” She had three pokéballs ready, and the referee was taking their place on the field.

“Say hello, Staryu.” She sent out a five-pointed tan brown starfish some two and a half feet tall, with a crystal core of red flashing ominously. Three potential abilities, only two were real threats, Natural Heal allowed Staryu to heal over time, and the pokéball storage process allowed it to happen instantly while Analytic was an aspect of their psychic abilities, using clairvoyance to maximize offensive power. They needed time though, as it wasn't a quick process.

The referee projected their voice so the whole arena could hear it loud and clear.

“This will be a 3 on 3 pokémon battle,” they shouted. “The challenger has two switches to use at their discretion, Challenger please send out your first pokémon!”

I was going to have to work carefully with Staryu on the field…

I sent out Jericho as the lead, and I hid a smirk behind my hand. “Set up the field, hone your might, and keep it up.”

Jericho released a gigantic pulse of elemental power, matter materializing from infinity energy. Sharp stones floated into the air, covered in spines of poisonous spikes, as my fusion move of Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes covered the field.

“Hyah!” The strange distorted voice of Staryu at the setting up of the field. A combination of two field moves like this was formidable and damaging if I could keep it going.

“Rapid Spin, Psybeam.”

“Shock Wave.”

Jericho let loose an enormous electrical pulse, the attack instantly crossing the field, the pool exploding where arcs of stray electricity turned it into steam. Rei’s staryu had no means to avoid the attack, and it let out a piercing scream as it received the brunt of the super-effective move, Rapid Spin failing while Psybeam was a glancing blow, Jericho leaning away from the beam with a pained hiss.

“Double down.” Jericho lifted more venomous stones into the air, and a second Shockwave exploded along the air, and it seemed… unsteady, and I could see he had been confused by Psybeam and yet…

“HYAAHH!” Staryu couldn’t withstand the second electric-type attack, gemstone core dimming, knocked out in the flurry of attacks I had called out.

Rei simply smiled.

“I’m using one of my switches!” I called out to the referee, who accepted my decision and I returned Jericho to his ball.

As I grabbed Mirko’s ball, I whispered gently. “Prepare for anything, I’m not liking how easy this was. Fight carefully, use the move categories to your benefit.”

I tossed the regular ball and Mirko appeared in a flash of white, the ball flipping over as it returned to my hand. Mirko cried out her war song, red sparks of Work Up bursting into existence.

Rei blinked. “To me, Pelipper.” My face froze in horror as the massive pelican took his spot on the battlefield. Rain began to pour down from the sky, and the bird pokémon looked invigorated, wings flapping with incredible strength.

Drizzle was the most obvious ability, but I could see the signs of Rain Dish, how Pelipper metabolized water-type energy and increased his vitality in the nourishing rain.

Rain also increased the power of water-type moves, creating a richer environment to draw on their element. Pelipper was ridiculously powerful under rain, and I knew setting up as I had had been the best bet.

Stones slammed into the water bird with impunity, battering the pokémon and causing a great deal of damage on top of poisoning our opponent.

“Weather Ball.” Rei commanded with a serene smile, and I shouted out an order hoping Mirko could avoid that crippling move. Weather Ball under weather doubled in power, and gained the augmentation courtesy of both STAB with Pelipper’s typing and the boosting effect of the weather

“Dodge, hit and run!” An enormous ball of elemental power charged within Pelipper’s bill, the rain rippling and beating down in sheets from the open sky, clouds blocking the sun.

The ball ripped across the air, and Mirko lunged into a Quick Attack, lashing out with Swift… which was promptly consumed by the growing spherical mass of elemental energy. Weather Ball detonated, and the damage absorbers blocked the explosive impact, like a bomb had gone off in the open roofed arena.

Mirko looked horrified but kept herself in the game, and instead opted for a rapidfire barrage of Swift, the stars unerringly changing paths and directions as Pelipper flew over the pool, chipping away at him with glancing strikes and hits.

“Scald, multi-blast.” An absolutely enormous spear of scalding water was spat out from Pelipper’s mouth, which split into multiple streams.

“Dodge and deflect!” Mirko obeyed, using bursts of Quick Attack and dance-like motions to lean out of the way of the incoming streams of borderline bullet-speed water attacks.

Makes sense. Her speed is insane, easily thirty percent faster than baseline buneary, I’ve clocked her at just over a hundred meters a second, she can give a supercar a run for their money. Burst speed of course, so sustaining it over say many miles is a bit of a different story but…

“Mirko, traverser-bruiser.” Her speed doubled in an instant rocketing burst of power, Thunder Punch roaring to life around her paws. The combination move didn’t give Pelipper time to react, and he took the attack straight to the bill, right at the epicenter of an electrical explosion of power.

“Aqua Ring, Tailwind.” Rei ordered freely, and a massive ring of water surrounded Pelipper, wrapping around his frame like chains of healing fluid, and a sudden wind entered the battlefield. “Gust.” With a single flap he sent Mirko off of him, throwing her around like a ragdoll.

I eyed the bubbling pool, where Jericho had let stray electricity from his Shockwave strike the pool water, and even now sparks crackled and popped.

“Keep with the hit and run, and strike when I tell you!“ She used her wide vision to follow my gaze to the pool, and understood, offering a cheeky grin.

“Air Cutter.” At Rei’s command, Pelipper released an enormous slash of compressed wind that Mirko narrowly avoided, receiving a deep cut to her side that drew blood and made her hiss. “Quick Attack.”

Pelipper exploded into reality, and Mirko could barely twist out of the way as the water bird turned into a speed demon. She threw herself into the pool, and Rei simply smiled.

“Brine. End it.” The water began to bubble underneath Mirko, as the attack was summoned and brought forth with Pelipper’s power.

“Double elemental punches.” Fire Punch and Thunder Punch sprang to life around her fists, and Rei ordered her Pelipper to use Weather Ball.

Mirko used Quick Attack to accelerate upwards, and slammed her flaming and electrical fists into the pocket of hydrogen building up since Jericho had used Shockwave on the pool.

An enormous explosion hit Pelipper at point blank range, and my ears almost rang even with the damage absorbers blocking the brunt of the force. The Tailwind was disrupted by the shockwave, and Pelipper was down in the water, disoriented, seared and burned, and still suffering from the poison of Toxic Stealth Rock.

Mirko had blocked some of the blast with a clever use of Swift but had taken her fair share of damage. She made a slicing motion with her right paw against the battered and injured Pelipper.

“Impressive.” Rei complimented, and made another order. “Roost.”

Oh fuck.

“Full power Swift.” Mirko threw her shot, having revved up with Work Up a total of four times. They crossed the field like bullets, and Pelipper was a sitting duck with his injuries and the use of Roost to heal up.

He was down with a single move, going limp as the blast of star-shaped projectiles knocked him out. Rei’s expression didn’t change as she returned her pokémon, whispering something to his ball as she placed it on her belt.

We hadn’t walked off the explosion unscathed though, and I could see Mirko’s fur had darkened where Air Cutter had left deep if not lethal cuts.

“Can you keep going? Or do you want to sit this one out?” Her ears unrolled, paws lifting up into fists… until she stumbled, her balance shot and her injuries almost sending her tumbling to the ground.

She looked at me desperately, and I crossed my arms with a feigned look of disappointment. One arm was shaking and with an annoyed chuff she nodded.

“I’m retiring my pokémon from the match,” I projected my voice to the referee, who accepted my reasoning. Mirko hopped over from her side of the pool, looking pissed off. “You did great, you beat a second-stage pokémon, and destroyed their Tailwind, and I have a good feeling you saved us from losing. Kay?”

Mirko perked up, and accepted her return with relative grace, and a brief glare at the completely serene Gym Leader. For a moment I thought of using Jericho… and decided to hold out this time, Llayda would get her time to shine.

“Go, Llayda!” I released my water bunny, who dove straight for the thankfully electric charge free pool, her tail already swaying back and forth, waiting for the right moment to attack. “Aqua Ring into Work Up.”

I started setting her up immediately, both healing and buffing in an instant was a good idea with the sheer power that Marill had on hand.

“Ludicolo, go!” And I immediately regretted my decision as her chosen partner stepped onto the field in her full glory…

Ludicolo was a shaggy beast, looking surprisingly derpy and cute in real life, a strange cross between duck, water lily, or ape. Their origin was unknown, their genetics was a chimeric mishmash of plant, bird, and reptilian which left their ancestry up in the air a bit.

I wasn’t sure Llayda would last long, even with Aqua Jet, with Swift Swim this ludicolo was a monster when it came to speed and constitution.

“Go for hit and run tactics, primer-bruiser-archer where you can.” Llayda nodded, her tail swaying back and forth with the energy of Tail Whip, while her cute face expressed Charm, lowering Ludicolo’s defenses in silence.

“Ludicolo, begin phase one.” To my horror, the pool began to swirl and recede back, pulled by her pokémon’s power. It… had to be Surf, as literally thousands of gallons of water rose up, forming an enormous wave, cubes and spheres and distorted masses of water building on each other with precise hydrokinetic force.

It was impossible… The amount of energy needed to control that amount of water was enormous… then I remembered Mirko’s Swift leaving craters with raw power and I swallowed my disbelief.

And then Ludicolo opened her mouth and released a burst of Ice Beam, the elemental attack freezing the wave over and turning it into a jagged avalanche.

Llayda reacted quicker than I did, using Aqua Jet and using the force to propel her towards Ludicolo. He reacted with Mega Drain, tendrils of green energy reaching out towards my pokémon.

She used a rapidfire stream of Bubble Beam to block the draining attack, and spun around, gathering momentum for a devastating Slam. Ludicolo caught Llayda within a split second, and she smirked.

I ordered clearly. “Play Rough.” She opened her mouth and bit down on Ludicolo’s bill, fairy energy surging into her tail, arms, and mouth. Her tail slammed into her opponent’s face, as she scurried around Ludicolo like a rat, playing dirty and slamming into the pokémon with chaotic fairy energy.

It hit far harder than it should, as four consecutive uses of Tail Whip had lowered the toughness of Ludicolo, allowing far more damage to break through the aura of Ludicolo.

“Phase two.” The ice of the disrupted frozen Surf glowed with energy, and shot towards Llayda like heat seeking missiles.

Ice Shard? How?

Llayda received the blades of ice poorly, unprepared for the unexpected ice-type move from Ludicolo, leaving her covered in thin cuts.

“Mega Drain.” I felt my heart clench as Llayda let out a pained cry as she took the full brunt of the attack, Ludicolo’s friendly gaze almost cold as it watched her get damaged by the move. “Energy Ball.”

Llayda was down and out in less than a second, surrounded by fields of ice and cold pools of water, and with a flicker of Ludicolo’s hand the ice began to melt.

“It took quite some time to train Ludicolo to master ice with her limitations, it is… useful.” Rei tilted her head, offering a mysterious smile.

Fuck.

I returned Llayda and whispered to her ball. “You did good, Play Rough left a mark on Ludicolo.” And the damage from Stealth Rock and poison hadn’t gone away yet.

Grabbing a standard pokéball, I sent Jericho back into the field, and he stood at the edge of the pool. He rubbed his claws together, dark-type energy focusing his mind and strength. He was my last pokémon on the field, and he was already setting up two Hone Claws in a matter of seconds.

Rei clapped her hands “Synthesis.”

“Shockwave into Poison Jab!” Jericho reacted in an instant, sending out the electric attack to disrupt Synthesis. Ludicolo rolled her eyes and lifted up a wave of water which blocked the attack, and she blurred out of existence before reappearing in front of a shocked Jericho.

So fast.

“Zen Headbutt.” Ludicolo moved like a missile, and psychic energy built around the crown of her head, shivering and phasing into reality around her face. Jericho’s horn took on a bright venomous purple color, Poison Jab infusing into the attack.

The whole field exploded in a clash of energy against energy, and I saw stars in pink, cerise and violet.

The damage absorbers started flickering on and off, and I could see a starmie maintaining the force field with raw psychic power, the secondary star spinning like a top.

The dust began to clear, and I could see Ludicolo towered over Jericho and I feared the worst for a moment until… The dust cleared.

Ludicolo was shivering, hands pawing at her gut where she had been stabbed by Jericho’s horn-focused Poison Jab, steeped in pure poison, the raw energy of Confusion twisted around Jericho’s head, having partially negated the impact of Zen Headbutt along with the effects of Llayda’s Charm.

Ludicolo rose up, and her eyes rolled to the back of her head as a combination of poison, and Jericho’s devastating Poison Jab proved too much for the 3-star monster.

We won?

The dome went down with the defeat of Ludicolo, and Rei gave me an almost warm smile as she returned Ludicolo. She walked over to me, and I did the same. She bowed her head slightly and I offered the same, and reached somewhere in her swimsuit to offer a small metal object.

“With my defeat, you have earned the Ocean Badge, proving your victory over the Kozukata Gym. Wear it with no hesitation, as is your right.”

I took the badge, thanking her with a slight shaky reaction. I walked out of the room, feeling energetic as hell as my second gym badge burned inside my badge case.

I remembered to pick up the reward money, a total of six thousand pokédollars, and a Scald technical machine. I was going to go and heal up, reward my pokémon and come back to watch Akari’s match.

After earning the badge I had been allowed to sit in for Akari’s match, after coming back from the Pokémon Center for a healing session. Her match was of a very different character, while mine was more strategic, setting up with weather, good abilities, and flexible move sets, Rei had opted for three pokémon built around being utterly monstrous when it came to power or durability, and kept the strategy when it came to useful abilities.

Her first pokémon was an alomomola that was incredibly and insanely bulky, a combination of Hydration and Regenerator turning it into a monstrously powerful tank, using the pool water to fuel the ability instead of rain. Akari had started it off with her munchlax, setting up with Curse, and using Recycle on some berry juice to keep Kirby in the game against alomomola.

It had taken a maxed out Body Slam to take down that monster, who chipped away at Kirby with Toxic, Scald and Wake-Up Slap, and gave away a Wish for the next pokémon.

An octillery with Moody, Sniper, and Suction Cups that hit like a truck and had a gigantic movepool used to full effect. It was a maximum special power attacker, using a combination of Incinerate to destroy Kirby’s item, and then Lock-On and Focus Energy to enhance its destructive moves.

She had chosen her togepi for the match, showing how much of a monster the little fairy was. Ellis had used Nasty Plot and Calm Mind in tandem, maxing out special power and special resistance, and using a continuous flow of Fairy Wind to buffet Rei’s octillery who had revealed he had access to Flash Cannon which Ellis had blocked with Protect, and responded with Thunder Wave and Sweet Kiss to paralyze and confuse the octopus.

That pokémon was a guy who didn’t quit, refusing to back down even as he was buffeted by the constant Fairy Wind, covering the whole field with chaotic fairy power. Ellis was no different, she had taken three Flash Cannons to the face, using Life Dew to restore her constitution, before ending the battle with a disgustingly strong Dazzling Gleam that practically smeared him across the wall, though without well… killing him obviously.

Ellis had immediately evolved into her second stage, becoming a togetic with far greater stats and accumulated might. The final pokémon was her ‘ace’ for the match… a fucking gyarados.

Ellis had been taken down, but Rei’s gyarados had taken a maxed out Dazzling Gleam, doing an insane amount of damage, before ending it with Ice Fang. Happy had been a champion during the match, using a fusion move of Rollout, Flame Charge and Defense Curl to maximize striking potential and speed.

That had been a wake-up call as I realized Akari was heads and shoulders above the average challenger of a Gym, and that meant I was doing better than I expected as a trainer. Gyms tended to challenge you with a team a level above your own, and I had been challenged with a three star team when most faced a two star team.

All my pokémon were strong, far above the average for their species, not the strongest but I had done everything in my power to help them out. I went for best practices when it came to diet and energy consumption, and the optimal tools when it came to training their control of their moves, gems to focus their energy when practicing moves was a good trick, along with teaching them visualization techniques for better shaping, generation and augmentation of their aura.

In turn I was developing a deeper insight into aura, better understanding that I used it at every turn, subconsciously, an unrefined and raw manipulation with my every action. When I danced with Mirko, when I read the stars with Jericho and traced out the rabbit on the moon, I felt it then and there, felt it when Llayda played her fey tricks and games, how her glamour burst to life when using Charm to get her way.

Aura was a fundamental force of the universe, it was seeing the world for what it was below the surface level. According to Akari, in normal conditions aura from all parts of the body tend to flow together, producing one mass of collective energy. There are points on the body from which aura flows out, which reminded me of things like chakras and meridians.

For human beings, these nodes tend to be closed by default, while the opposite is true for pokémon, with humans gradually leaking aura with no ill effect, steaming off their head like a tea kettle. The bond between man and monster tends to change that relationship, granting both access to a deeper layer of inner power.

A lot of pokémon moves involve various nodes, a sort of channel for their elemental powers. Asking my pokémon about how moves felt for example was interesting, Mirko for example had mimed that Drain Punch stemmed from both her stomach and her limbs, and I wondered if it was… a sort of funnel, draining energy through her point of contact and down into an area that digests power.

For Jericho, energy poured out from his eyes and his forehead when he used Focus Energy. I couldn’t use aura yet, while Akari could to a limited extent even if it mostly involved being able to understand pokémon, and the ability to consciously move it around, and sort of sense it. Not with her eyes though, it was more a feeling for her, working in the background.

Just being able to move aura was going to be a cool as-hell ability, but it was going to take time and effort and hard, bitter work.

I sighed, and glanced over to the takeout I had ordered, it wasn't the healthier option but I didn't care much. Pangoro Express was delicious.

No matter what Akari said.

I rested my head on my palm. “So much work, but it'll be worth it.”

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.12

October 13th, 2022.

My foot tapped on the ground in a regular nervous note. After our Gym Battle we had been in a holding pattern when it came to meeting up with the R&D group working on the other half of the research project Laven was tapped for with us as her interns.

They had a powerful psychic on board for teleportation, one with incredible range and precision from the sound of it. It was going to be a direct port to the city of Okido, at a lab branch where our meeting was going to take place.

Akari was hugging her togetic to her chest, quietly chatting with her pokémon as she leaned against a tree in an empty park. I only had Mirko out, who was smugly using my lap as a seat. Before that, she had been feuding with a local bunnelby which was an interesting thing.

Turns out as the regions became more interconnected, foreign pokémon were gradually introduced and settled down in new regions. It was a combination of accidental resettlement by trainers and other travelers and programs to increase biodiversity. Most of the time, the programs were focused on micromon and domestic mon, basically just serving as prey and bases for the ecosystem. Larger pokémon were also introduced due to their resettlement being good for the environment, which said a lot about how much more advanced their science is.

My world had far more issues when it came to predicting the effects of introduced species. But I suppose this world had more incentive when it came down to working with magical monsters.

“Mirol?” Mirko was muttering to herself as she played… Pokémon Unite on my phone, with a surprising amount of skill for someone with three fingers and a thumb. Thankfully she was quite restrained whenever she lost a match, I didn't need to deal with my dex-phone being destroyed.

“What are you working on?” I decided to make conversation with Akari because I could see she was reading up on a book on Trainer Regulations.

“Reading up on the laws surrounding an increased carry limit,” Akari answered with a chipper tone, while Ellis lightly nuzzled into her neck. “It's still some time away for us, but it is only a matter of earning a few more badges.”

“Carry limit…?” Had I looked that up before but gotten distracted with some biology books?

“The carry limit for a standard trainer license starts at six but can be expanded by two to three extra slots for every four gym badges depending on the region,” Akari’s blue eyes twinkled as she explained, hands gesticulating freely. “The carry limit was founded through a combination of practicality and harsh lessons. It discourages rookie trainers from taking too many pokémon with them on the road. A lot of people have died that way.” I gulped at how nonchalant she was at the prospect. “It's one reason I'm so anal about hunting and gathering, every little bit helps.”

“I'm guessing most people don't tend to know about increasing their carry limit?”

“The carry increases only apply after a specific request is sent in, so many don't bother or don’t know it's an option. As lab trainers Laven could ask to increase our carry limit to eight but…”

“You want to earn it.” That made sense plus I certainly didn't feel ready for six let alone more.

“Most common trainers tend to have three to five, and six is mandated for pokémon battles. We have to be careful to avoid whiting out.” I nodded, that was a curious phenomenon related to the bond, it could cause a backlash back on the trainer. It wouldn't necessarily knock someone out, but it would give a shock to their system that could make them vulnerable.

The strongest backlashes tended to involve mega evolution, z-moves, and the Bond Phenomenon that was best documented with the Kalos elemental trio.

“Aura is interesting,” I stated the truth, as I lightly patted Mirko’s head as she played her game. There was a sensation there, an unspoken feeling of… Connection. It was vague, but it was there. Mirko felt like… normality, harmony, and balance, with a hint of spice, raw gumption, and fighting spirit, honed violence and discipline. Normal and a hint of fighting aura, was what I thought I was feeling.

Jericho was a venomous current, a sensation that felt like it was trying to dissolve things around it, grounded by a slow and steady shift like continental plates. Poison and a hint of the ground-type that was the purview of his evolution.

Llayda was like the ocean and rivers, cold and unforgiving, and warm and inviting like the embrace of life itself, chaotic and terrible and wonderful like the energies of the fey courts.

So it was a bit shocking when I suddenly felt an oppressive pressure surround us in an instant, a deeper shade of violet-pink forming a bubble around our small picnic.

“Apologies for dropping in like this,” A dulcet voice vibrated in my head, layered over itself like the voice of a legion. “Your humans and your schedules can be quite… vexing.” I could feel the irritation, and silently agreed with her. “Locating such an interesting mind was not difficult at all, an interesting structure, disorderly and yet ordered. The connections are both strongly and weakly linked.”

I blinked. That sounded like she could read the… nature of my autism? See how it was structured divergently from ‘baseline’ brains?

Can you hear what I’m thinking? Errr…

“To some extent yes, my experience with the cognitive world is vast, a century of experience will do that. And please call me Kimberly.” I could hear the name itself, ingrained into psychic impulses and wavelengths.

chief-ruler-from-the-meadow-of-the-royal-fortress-forest-clearing

“True mind reading is more difficult than one can imagine, the brain is multifaceted, a stream of consciousness from a complex and unique machine, a river of lightning. I am simply skimming the surface, creating a channel for both our minds to occupy.”

I didn’t ask but thanks for answering? Was my mental reply, and I could tell Akari was annoyed as hell.

She spoke up. “So your superiors decided it was a good idea to ambush us with a forced Teleport?”

“Apologies, this was a result of my actions, bureaucracy is one of your kind’s most malicious inventions. I sought to establish a basic link for teleportation, using the coordinates agreed upon beforehand for transport.”

“Oh.” Akari’s surliness went down a notch, accepting the answer.

“May we begin the Teleport? Consent is important.” Kimberly felt sheepish, tinging the broadcast with emotional intent.

“Yes.” Akari agreed with a sigh, and I added my own agreement.

“Then let us begin, and hold on to your stomach contents.”

“What—”

Reality hiccuped.

The sound that fled from Akari’s mouth as she threw up was indescribable and I patted her back and winced in sympathy. The process of Kimberly’s teleportation did not agree with her, and I could understand that, it was very loopy, a shifting tunnel of chaotic warped reality, two points of spacetime suddenly forced to overlap each other.

Akari was pretty sensitive to aura, and Teleport worked by using the Dream World, the believed origin of psychic-type energy for fast travel across the material world. From what Kimberly had said, her form of Teleport exchanged precision and range for comfort and containment of the Dream World’s energies. So it hit Akari like a truck… and while the ride hurt my eyes I hadn’t felt even a hint of nausea.

I’m guessing riding across the space between realities made me resistant to a little hop into the Dreaming.

The lab itself was pretty high tech and a strange mix of clean, messy, orderly and chaotic all at once, clearly the work of multiple people with vastly different personalities. There was one scientist currently here, a young nerdy looking blonde, who pushed up his glasses as he quietly spoke with a mildly reticent Kimberly, who turned out to be a female slowking.

He turned to us and clapped his hands. “Why hello there! You must be Laven’s lab trainers, my name is Albert. I’m one of the researchers of one branch of the Zenith Research Group or the ZRG, or Zerg!”

That was a terrible name, it just made me think of killer alien space bugs.

“Are you the leader of this team?” Akari sounded curious, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she glanced around the lab.

“No, that would be…”

“I can speak for myself darling, no need to put on a front, they’re good souls.” A voice spoke from the void, and I blinked as a bipedal black and red fox flickered into existence, reality reasserting itself.

I knew a zoroark when I saw one, what was more curious was her choice of fashion. She wore a red jacket and a black dress which blended well with her fur color, her black fluffy neck fur becoming a part of the outfit. It looked nice.

“Wait… you’re that team of researchers?” I had heard tidbits about such groups, while most pokémon weren’t interested in city building and ‘normal’ trappings of civilization, there were some exceptions at least when it came to technology, knowledge and culture. Most such pokémon tended to be either psychic or in the Human-Like Egg Group.

Egg Groups were a curious thing, pokémon like in the games could be sorted into thirteen Egg Groups with three special categories. The mother usually defines the species while the father passes down egg moves. What wasn’t said was that pokémon produce different kinds of eggs.

A totodile might have a hard shelled oval about a foot long while a froakie egg would be a soft gooey ball of slime. They might need special conditions for incubation, or be easy to raise and a few, mostly mammals can reproduce without eggs. Egg Groups sorted out interspecies breeding but ignored things like incompatible fertility cycles, recovery periods after mating, or undue strain from the process. There was a reason Breeders needed a license to operate, they were basically a cross between a spa, a fertility clinic, nursery and training center all at once.

The Human-Like Group tends to produce few eggs, varying from hard-shelled to soft shell, more fragile than Monster Group eggs. Most produce one to three eggs and require careful tending and deep maternal and paternal instincts. Think of a k-selection species, producing only a few offspring and protecting them fiercely.

That strategy seems to be common among the more human-like of pokémon, along with live birth. Which is generally more common in mammals but does appear throughout the kingdom of life.

Zoroark snapped her claws. “Is this human broken?” I flushed as I realized my racing thoughts had landed me in an awkward situation.

“No. I just got… really focused, sorry about that.” I apologized and she rolled her shoulders, her tail wagging lazily.

“No biggie, it happens, Albert here is a spacey idiot too.” Albert flushed and I tilted my head at her. “Also… you’re not surprised I can talk? That skill isn’t common for my species, ya know?”

“My suspension of belief suffered a painful death when I fell through a tear in the very fabric of existence,” I flatly replied with the most nonchalant tone I could manage, lips twitching into a crooked smile. “A talking kitsune-werewolf is absolutely fascinating but not unsurprising either.”

She stuck her tongue out in a canine grin, ears flicking back and forth in seeming curiosity. “Fair enough, call me Casey. It’s what most humans call me.” She offered her clawed hands, and I took it, fingers gliding over her fur as we shook hands.

Interesting.

“So you’re working with Professor Laven on this… project?”

Casey blinked. “It’s a group effort on the part of researchers from across the regions, we have Professor Burnet with her specialty in the relationship between pokémon and other dimensions, Laven as an expert on the relationship between pokémon and Metaphysical Energy, and my team are proven when it comes to technological development.”

This was far more… interesting when it came to pokémon and humans working together.

“I heard from Agent Tedesco that you managed to reverse engineer my phone?”

She smiled again. “We did, your people have developed a few minor tricks when it comes to manufacturing that humans skipped with their use of Growth and Minimize in assembly lines. It’s not very advanced, but it is refined, strangely the battery is very hard to replace.”

“Planned obsolescence is a thing in my world, and if you can’t fix it you have to buy a new one.” Apple was certainly not the epitome of an ethical corporation but two decades of family use meant I was stuck.

Casey looked at me in horror and pity.

“What?”

She shook her head, her mane puffing up for a moment before settling down. “Your device also helped us when it came to decoding some odd signals we receive when breaching dimensional boundaries. We suspect leakage from your world to ours is frequent.”

I paused. “That’s… interesting, what could be causing it?”

“Who knows, your worldline is incredibly distant from ours, so much so it’s doubtful we share a common origin that isn’t buried by Deep Time. Perhaps our realities periodically align through a phenomena only seen in the space between spaces, only the Divines could know.” Casey’s tail was wagging and that didn’t remotely diminish my own excitement.

Akari was still sitting down with a groan, and I winced. “So does this involve the wormhole energy I’m still giving off?”

Casey nodded. “It does, studying it is paramount to gaining info on your reality, and on the nature of the space-time event. We’ve gathered a fair bit of equipment and samples for quick studies.”

“Samples?”

Casey hesitated for a moment before steeling herself and continuing onward. “There are a number of phenomena connected to pokémon that have a myriad of effects on the fabric of space-time. Mega Evolution is a vast source of infinity energy, the z-moves of Alola create an innate bounded world, a materialization and projection of an ultimate move, pouring energy into the in-between, and Galar particles distort spacetime, at their peak they can rip tears in that fabric. Recent… revelations in Paldea indicate their Terastal phenomenon has effects on time itself.”

“Samples, you want to see how the wormhole energy I’m emitting interacts with samples that do odd things to spacetime?”

“Curious. You are curious about the results.”

I screamed as a robotic voice was sent into my head, a grey headed being staring into my soul and emitting a wavelength of terror.

Oh Jesus Fuck—

So it turns out beheeyem are very good at giving people heart attacks, lovely.

I had also looked up a lot of info when it came to the mysterious and alien elgyem-line. They didn’t have the best of reputations due to the nature of their arrival, and the sheer danger potential they had as a species. Especially when their arrival involved a crash landing, numerous malicious individuals, and taking over a whole segment of the Unovan Desert.

From what I could tell, the elgyem were a space faring species along with the gothorita-line, and had been enemies for good reason. The elgyem had tinkered with their biology to create a second evolution stage… that was incredibly susceptible to the Shadow, creating insane, unstable individuals that had warped their culture into one of war across the stars. Which itself was a reaction against a greater force that was poorly documented but likely had some ties to the inkay-line.

Yay.

So somewhere out there in space, pokémon were re-enacting Star Wars while we were down here planetside. Which explains why it was supposed to be surprising to have a malamar, a gothitelle and a beheeyem working together. It would be like Mirko getting along with murkrow and misdreavus when both were enemies out in the wilds.

Anyways after that scare, a lot of equipment had been set up with various samples held within strange machinery. What looked like a round marble I recognized as a sample of Lopunnite, a Buginium Z, and a Tera Orb.

“Interesting, your infinity energy waveform is distinct from most humans.” The zoroark researcher (what a concept) commented as she read over my readings. “I wouldn’t call it completely alien either, the genetic sample you lent us proves that much.”

I had gotten a lot of data probes used on me, less for research and more for my health. I had needed a bunch of shots to deal with local variants of disease, and they had strengthened my immune system using a special variant of Heal Pulse mixed with other moves. Having genetic data was useful so I wouldn’t face the trouble early resurrected species faced when it came to modern times.

I didn’t need to die from a common cold like a dumbass.

Turns out my genetics was nigh-identical in composition to someone from the northern Mezo region, which was statistically and logically impossible. Humans had supposedly evolved from a pokémon species, losing their spiritual physiology for material solidity and resistances against metaphysical attacks. Humans were weaker than pokémon but they did have a number of benefits inherent to their biology.

The question then was why our species was effectively identical, aside from exposure to life energy that my body was apparently responding to at a very efficient rate. They had even studied the culture on my skin and seen the same result, and had analyzed bDNA from where I had been found. Mostly it was DNA from insects, but some larger fauna was scanned too, foxes, coyotes, an owl. Which of course pinged back as being similar to that of pokémon on this planet.

Red foxes had the most similar DNA to vulpix and nickit, and shared the same 34 chromosome count as the entire family of Vulpes. It was… kinda disturbing. The zorua line evolved in the steppes and semidesert of central and northeast Asu, so I suspect their DNA might share some similarities to the Corsac foxes of east Asia. Zorua was pushed out of their habitat, with many fleeing to the New World over the past thousand years.

Fennekin evolved on the continent of Afruika, directly south of Kalos, residing within a great desert covering almost a third of the continent. So sharing similar genes to a Fennec fox is a given.

Weird.

“So how is my aura different, and why does that matter?” I had to ask a bigger question before I got distracted.

“Boojiboo!” Reiniculus contributed with his incomprehensible banter, clearly having the intelligence and means to develop human speech, and not wanting to. “Imhaater japdelup!” Casey clicked her teeth, frustration clearly told through her body language.

“Gimme a second you insane bastard,” I blinked as she poked Reiniculus’ gooey face with her claw and she looked back at me with an exasperated expression. “It’s not much of a difference really, aura is aura is aura. It seems to be a multiversal constant, even if its expression might be different in far away universes outside His Design and Her Purview. Your aura is the substance of your soul, a force contained within our mortal forms, released upon death, recycled by arcane machinery beyond mortal knowing, the processes of life laying down the sediment creating the bones of every empire, monster and human both.”

I felt a slight chill at her proclamation. If I understood correctly, the elemental items were a sort of… byproduct of life itself, infinity energy given a solid and physical form. The various elemental dusts, gems and stones were incredible dense sources of energy, the various ores and minerals of incredible power were like… fossil fuels, but many, many times denser.

Which does explain how the hell they can power things like gigantic flying airships, some of which weighed north of a thousand metric tons.

“So it’s just a quirk of my reality?”

The zoroark nodded. “There is a subtle shade to it however, one I’ve seen only in those touched by Legends.”

I flinched. “Is that so?

“It happens far more often than it used to,” she admitted with a disquieted tone. “You passed through the Twisted Shadow, the lands between, it is not unlikely that you would have encountered the gods that dwell within them.”

“I imagine you can’t tell me which one it was?” She answered in the negative.

“Negative. The power of the Divines often defies all current science,” Beheeyem added their perspective, working on something in the background, having asked for our dex-phones to give them an upgrade of some kind. He mostly just needed the in-built blackbox to transfer all the data. “Analysis indicates wormhole energy radiation is both benign, and being broken down and assimilated into your system.”

“Is that normal?”

“Affirmative. Outworlders tend to lose the radiance of the In-Between over a period of time varying between six months and sixteen years, as their natural energy pathways perceive wormhole energy as a foreign body and reject it.Assimilation is a rarer event but largely benign, and it seems to be having a positive effect on your weak aura.”

“Positive?”

“Graazi!” There was… something oddly calculating in Reiniculus’ eyes, like it was running mental circles around us. Casey simply kept her gaze on him, and I sighed.

Beheeyem continued. “You are not at all adapted to the energies of this Realm, most Outworlders tend to be from similar worlds to our own, or so fundamentally alien that it will have no ill effect on them. You would not be so lucky, this world is bathed in an energy that has no place in your universe, a form of force native to a higher, greater reality. The wormhole energy has inoculated you against the backlash, resulting in a softer, easier transition.”

Oh.

That doesn’t invoke existential terror at all, yay.

A second psychic presence prodded at my head, and slapped Beheeyem upside the head. “Can you try not traumatizing our colleague’s trainers? You already gave Akari a panic attack when you appeared behind her.” The female voice of Amaya the Gothitelle was soothing and calm, pulling me out of a spiral of thought with a gentle sway of psychic flow. “Have you at least completed their pokédex upgrade?”

Beheeyem coughed (no mouth, how?), and gently floated a black square with a Pokéball symbol on, with a porygon-face shaped indent in the center. They tapped it, and it popped open to form a solid screen, was it hard light, a foldable electronic screen?

“It was a simple upgrade, an amalgamation of multiple parallel technologies, the Xtransceiver of Unova, the Holo Caster of Kalos, and the Rotom and Porygon technology developed in Alola and Paseo. Improvements have been made to battery life, scanning capabilities, navigation, Trainer Card connectivity, a Pokémon Box Link absent in this model, and better optimization of poké-energy projectors.”

To my surprise the phone came to life in his hands, floating while surrounding itself in a weak shell of energy, blocky hexagons keeping the phone aloft. So… they had figured out how to let porygon partially project their physical form so they could replicate the minor tricks of a Rotom Phone?

Cool. The natural form of the porygon-line was in fact an intangible mass of binary code, basically equations given life, and given form with molecules of silicon and force fields.

“Hello world.” Was the response from Porygon…2? “Upgraded successfully, uploading information on local Nodes, and other areas of interest potentially relating to rumors of Burst Phenomena.”

“Burst what?”

“You’re researching what?” A still half-sick Akari burst back to life in a rage, her lips curling back in a savage snarl. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”

“We are not researching what you think we are human.” Casey snapped back with an irritated growl. “Those… things are broken and buried, forgotten in the fog of war, but aspects of it remain, an energy which suffuses this land which we believe responsible for creating weak spots in the Real… studying it is necessary if we want to understand how your friend was torn out of her world.”

Her expression softened, but she didn’t look any less angry and… afraid? What would make her scared like that?

“I’m still not sure what the Burst Phenomenon is?”

Akari deflated, defeat written all over her face. “You could say it’s a bit like… the Bond Phenomenon, two sides of the same coin. A way to strengthen a trainer instead of the pokémon.”

“And that’s bad?”

Akari chewed on her lip. “No… but the way some in Tohoku used it before the war was… an unforgivable act, to the point it was reduced to rumors and urban legends in just forty years.”

So it was before The War?

Beheeyem had left in a flash of Teleport, while Amaya remained in a corner, staring at us with a carefully held mask from the disconcertingly human-like pokémon. In reality she was quite uncanny, sort of edging between ethereally beautiful and alien mirror.

“We only need to study the energies to figure out how and why they’re causing space-time rifts, your professor mostly wants the two of you on research missions to spiritual energy centers for her own work. But she needed the both of you to reach at least a 2-star rating.”

Which we did…

Akari didn’t seem very convinced. “Fine. So how long do we need to be here?”

Casey winced, placing a clawed paw under her chin. “Two days?”

My traveling buddy scowled.

This was going to be a long two days.

Chapter Text

Faller’s Field Guide 3

October 1st, 2022

Tohoku Region, Kanran-ishi Wildland

Llayda the Marill

Meet what can now be considered the third member of my team! Llayda is a marill that decided she wanted to join us while we were performing various research tasks for Professor Laven. She's a water-fairy type, Oleocauda aqua , and like the rest of my team, a member of the Lagomorpha… again.

Overview

The marill line is a rather primitive line of lagomorphs, closely related to the jigglypuff line. Oh also learned that since baby-stage pokémon can’t breed an evolution line can't be named after them. They're a far more temporary stage in truth. But back to the overview…

The marill line is ubiquitous across the Orient, aquatic omnivores that serve a role in the ecosystem similar to an otter, consuming vast quantities of fish, amphibians, algae, aquatic plants, over sixty different species across rivers, bays, estuaries, and coastal marshes can be considered food for them. Their ancestors are believed to have split off from the jigglypuff line around thirteen million years ago, around the time of the decline of the ancestors of the slowpoke line’s ancestors.

Their main unique trait shared with jigglypuff are the presence of special sacs, air sacs for the latter, and oil sacs in marill, for aid in swimming.

Description

Marill is pretty typical, when it comes to height and weight for a marill, at 42 centimeters and nine point four kilograms in mass. She's pretty normal though her Huge Power muscles are obvious at a touch.

Llayda is incredibly round, due to a combination of layers of fat, and her coat. Her hair is blue and hydrophobic, with a white belly of fur. Unlike say a rat that’s incredibly skinny without their fur, she’s a lot more similar to a seal, with a thick layer of blubber to insulate herself from the cold and to act as metabolic fuel that can last them days or weeks in hard times. Her head and neck are actually a lot longer than you think, because they tend to carry their necks in a sort of S shape close to their body so you can only see her cute snout.

Scared the shit out of me when she stretched her neck forward so she could catch a poor fish like some type of mammalian xenomorph. A dichotomy between long neck and no neck… nightmare fuel. Her jaw contains 28 teeth just like her fellow lagomorphs, with modified premolars like the nidoran-line. Her peg teeth and a modified premolar pair are used as canines, with two pairs of premolars taking on the role of carnassials, paired upper and lower teeth modified to act as enlarged self-sharpening edges.

Llayda has some interesting adaptations when it comes to being aquatic, she’s got a flattened cornea that refracts light less strongly than human or fish corneas with strong eye muscles to change the shape of her eye lens to create a sharp, clear image on land and water. She also has a transparent nictitating membrane that protects her eyes from debris, and she’s dichromatic, not far off from someone with red-green color blindness. The one difference however… is that she can also see UV light due to her ancestors evolving in the arctic before moving down south.

Which explains why she likes trailing her paws up and down my arm, she’s tracing my Blaschko lines… which is interesting because I’m not sure it works that way, it suggests her eyesight is quite strong. Her sense of smell is pretty comparable to Mirko, so better than my own but worse than Jericho’s and has special nostrils that can close off so she can hold her breath longer. Her ears are mouse-like, though they’ve grown a few inches as she gets closer to evolution. She’s got good hearing, perhaps a bit less sensitive than her fellow lagomorphs.

One unique feature of her species is a series of sacs spread throughout her body, turns out the ancestors of her species and jigglypuff evolved an avian-like series of air sacs connected to the respiratory system, allowing for a unidirectional breathing system maintained to this day. Nowadays many of the sacs are filled with special permeable oil designed as a combination of a swim bladder and a cooling and heating system. There’s actually a number of species-specific pathologies she’s susceptible to, depending on factors like injuries, birth defects and disease. For example she’s got hexagonal patterns of cilia in her respiratory system designed to filter out toxins and dangerous accumulations of gasses that protects her from some of the weaknesses of unidirectional saccule breathing like damage from smoke and poisonous gasses. If they were absent or removed… you can get the issue.

Her biology isn’t too crazy at a glance, it’s a rather interesting mix between a rabbit, a seal and an otter. Heavy layers of blubber make her round and cute, and provides the biological expression needed for Thick Fat, her super dense fur is important for insulation too since they’re not as big as other aquatic mammals, easily a thousand times denser than human hair, creating a layer of air that’s saturated with fairy dust, which is actually how they can Sap Sip by using fairy nature magic to metabolize grass-type energies. Their Huge Power comes from their leporine muscles, again using fey magic to augment their power to new heights.

Fairy magic is a… rather… odd expressions of Type Energy, illusions so real, and so powerful even reality can’t tell us otherwise. The things fairies conjure are fabricated but they are there, they could create an image of a flower… just an image but it can gain substance, perception feeds power into it, that illusory flower will adapt to the viewers. It will act like any normal flower, because the faerie will manipulate things to distract, to addle and trick, they will say it’s real so it must be real.

Makes me wonder if their immunity to Dragons is in fact the metaphysical equivalent of ‘Nuh-uh, we’ve got shields, they beat rock’. Which uhh… I wonder if fairy magic explains why they were only discovered in the last few decades in some regions, that could confuse things.

Anyways, besides the fairy magic her biology is pretty neat, her muscles are optimized for a mix of raw power and endurance, an even blend of fast and slow twitch muscles. She isn’t good at hopping but can use her tail muscles to throw herself around. Speed wise I’ve clocked her at about fifty meters a second which still makes her about half as fast as Mirko. But her endurance is far superior to either Mirko or Jericho, letting her outlast them when it comes to general movement.

So in short; she’s strong, tough and incredibly well adapted to both survival and battle as a pokémon.

October 16th, 2022.

Tohoku Region, Okido, Zenith Labs

Aura, Type Energy, Moves and Worldlines

So a lot has been going on over the past few days and weeks, a lot of progress has been made with earning the second badge, reaching a 2-star rating/level within a month of the season, getting tasked with walking into numerous Nodes to study them. Which ended up being quite fascinating when I looked into it, turns out there’s been a lot of work when it comes to mapping out ley lines, vessels through which the breath of the World flows.

Which does explain why just a minor quip let Laven adjust her scanner, they were already thinking about this stuff, but their research was all over the place and poorly organized. She ended up requesting a bunch of published papers that put her ahead on her research.

The ley lines of the planet are the channels of the World’s Aura, flowing from the top of the highest mountains down to the deepest depths of the ocean and tectonic realms, alignments between places of power, a network of life covering the entire planet. The Lifestream of the World.

Though unlike the pseudoscience of my world, ley lines aren’t straight, more like a cross between veins and a nervous system, shaped by the actions of those who live upon its surface. Closer to Feng Shei but weirder, since raw aura is Typeless (Normal?)… but ley lines can shift to other wavelengths, each with their own part played in the delicate balance of nature.

Which brings up an important question I’ve been asking myself. What is Aura? The energy of life sure, but that’s a facet of this world and not my own, and yet I have it all the same, and it wasn’t gifted to me… I had it all along, muffled by different laws of physics.

So it’s given me many ideas of what it can be. My pet theory is that it’s something like vacuum energy, perhaps the source of the very Big Bang itself, like two colliding branes smashing with all the heat of a newborn universe. Though in this instance, Arceus might be the key factor in why our worlds are so different. If aura or something like it exists in my world, perhaps it froze out in a very different configuration without the guiding hand of a literal God to act as a Prime Mover for a literally limitless source of creation. This world is closer to that Source, and for whatever reason was broken up into eighteen major delineations at the beginning of time.

So aura at the bare minimum is a fundamental energy of creation and life, and can be thought of as the manifestation of a fifth force, the quanta of the Big Bang. And Type Energy could be best described as the equivalent of the electromagnetic spectrum, the range of frequencies and their respective wavelengths and quanta energies. From gamma rays down to ELF radio waves, if those frequency waves somehow corresponded to aspects of reality and physical constants.

Type Energy carries with it, basically different aspects of the World, essential for the good working of the universe, operating together and ensuring the functioning of all things.

Sort of an Avatar: The Last Airbender kind of thing for anyone back home if you ever read this. Hopefully

Type Energy acts like an amplifier for certain kinds of energy, a dampener for others and so on, which does explain type weaknesses, resistances, and immunities. Scans of pokémon moves do seem to prove that much, the inherent properties of a Type can be easily measured. A more interesting discovery is that when it comes to dual types, the ‘flavor’ can be different, with altered properties and behaviors. A rock-ground type might lean more towards ground or rock type energies or be split evenly between them.

Type Energy is a pretty important aspect of reality when it comes to research and technology, because aura is essentially pure potential energy, a stem cell of creation. Generating it is pretty hard, but extracting it from the ground in the form of Dust, Gems and Stones is rather easy. It’s also how their tech can replicate pokémon moves, using easy sources of Type Energy and shaping them using complex waveguides and field shapers. Figuring out how to interact with Type Energy has let them create insanely advanced power conversion and storage devices.

By studying Electric TE, this world figured out how to create an electric charge that can interact with other kinds of energy, including aura and every kind of energy you can imagine. It allowed them to create a nearly lossless power and storage hyper-capacitor, and could be easily converted into other kinds of energy from heat to sound and more. Basically potential energy sparks, with incredibly rapid charging and lasting basically forever.

Aura is in truth rather core to many aspects of this world and I can see why Professor Laven is so focused on it, it’s both incredible and important. I’ve been writing down my own research, largely modeling it off of concepts back home when it comes to things like qi.

Aura seems to flow within spiritual pathways, channels of the Self that stream with the infinite energy of life. In a less mystical term, these spiritual pathways are the veins and nodes needed for the natural flow of auric energy, a sort of… field of metaphysical biology that isn’t fully studied. Though it at least exists well enough for this planet to understand how to interface with them using technology. Else things like pokéballs, the PC System, and omni-trauma units wouldn’t work.

These pathways basically flow throughout the body, acting as a pseudo-nervous system when it comes to using aura and converting it into suitable Type Energy. They don’t seem to have the same ahh… spiritual significance that specific meridians or nadi do in some of my planet’s beliefs with the exception of seven nodes, points of access when it comes down to metaphysical energy manipulation.

Which does let me change the subject… towards Moves. I’ve been trying to break down moves for some time now, now that I’ve got personal experience with how flexible they are in reality. Every move I’ve seen channels either raw Normal aura when it comes to certain utility moves or channels Type Energy into a part of the body, mind, self or the Real outside their body. Nothing like it exists on my planet, aura isn’t exactly accessible.

But it does here, and that paints an interesting picture. Most of the abilities of fauna and flora on my Earth tends to be evolved behavior, instincts refined over millions of years, certain mutations and pre-existing traits selected for due to individuals with those traits being sufficiently fit to pass on those genes. Crocodiles can bite but they can’t use Bite or Crunch, cheetahs are quick but they can’t use Quick Attack or Extreme Speed. Plants can be toxic but can’t use Toxic, and so on.

Only a small fraction of the billions of species that have evolved, lived and died have the ability to invent, create, adapt and pass down information not through the genes of the body, but through the genes of the soul, memes are the root of civilization, the ultimate technology of a sapient species. Hehehe.

Moves have ties to physical biology, yes, biological structures make it easier to use, but moves are constructs of metaphysical energy, a designed framework, a technique created, iterated on, and passed down since the dawn of life. They’re quite literally designed, the technology of the soul itself, passed down from the Original One Him or Herself. It’s literally god who knows…

It means that moves can’t be just merely biological quirks, they’re frameworks and designs constructed over the last half billion years, ways to shape themselves and the world as they see fit. Which means I can do the same, break them down into their component parts and reassemble them into something greater, something new.

And that sounds interesting… but it also comes down to needing to understand the underpinning and structure of the Types themselves, which is why I’m doing research on ley lines, on the flow of life energies within the World. A bit like mystical telluric currents, so uhh… they can shift over time a bit. The interesting bit is that some of these shifts happen when pokémon migrate and alter the climate and environment, so there’s untested theories that pokémon themselves make use of the ley lines, pulling on the Type Energy of the World to terraform their territories. This is known for the Legendary Birds of Shamouti, since they sit on a climate nexus, their godly powers stabilize the climate on a global scale, serving as guardians of the World.

So it’s at least known to exist, the issue is confirming even non-legends do this, as it would explain how climate and ecosystems are created even when it goes against physics. And since ley lines can flow with Type Energy… it’s likely that these each have different behaviors and functions in the environment… but with how often the mystical and scientific community is at odds… figuring this out is going to take a lot of work.

At the least I can get some confirmation that a Dragon Force exists from my own knowledge and reading up on Unovan myths. A powerful manifestation of dragon-type energy, dense, powerful, the boundaries of the world in the form of rivers of power. It was used by the Kingdom of the Vale to power their civilization, and was their downfall as they fell victim to the endless cycle of war between Ideals and Truth that began over two and a half thousand years ago. To the point their calendar changes when one dragon triumphs over the other. An Ideal Age begins when Zekrom rises, a True Age when Reshiram rises while Kyurem can usher in either a Hollow or Harmonic Age.

I believe they’re currently about three hundred something years into a True Age which unified Unova once and for all, but a civil war a few hundred years ago destroyed a lot of their history to the point Ideals and Truth were reduced to myths. Even Kalos had a better memory of their gods, with those statues in Parfum Palace after their war ended up destroying a region that I think was equivalent to the Holy Roman Empire… It was Kalos, Paldea, half of Hedne, Antoria on one side against Galar, Eslovka and the other half of Hedne on the other.

This isn’t related… Wait, has this been transcribing my mutterings too?

So if there’s a Dragon Force layer of the ley lines it must be the same for the other Types as well with their own unique properties. So I’m going to study these energies underpinning the world, and see what I can unravel about the nature of Type Energy for myself!

It’ll probably be a hard task… but I think I’m up for the challenge.

Chapter Text

Expedition 2.13

October 16th, 2022.

Two days had ended up morphing into three days, especially as I had been asked to transfer in my stantler for comparisons to the energy they gave off when creating portals.

So between research, occasional probing and lessons on how infinity energy altered space and time, it had been quite busy. Luckily we did have time to… not train so much as have team bonding exercises. Mainly it was working on experimenting with clever uses of their moves, and creating basic sets.

Basically four to five moves used in tandem for a single cohesive strategic framework in a battle. In Mirko’s case it was Work Up to increase her physical strength and special power, Quick Attack to augment her speed and movability, a coverage move and Headbutt since Return isn’t strong enough yet.

The coverage move tended to be Drain Punch due to hitting pokémon resistant to normal-type moves and passive constitution recovery or Fire Punch which is viable against ghost types like pumpkaboo. I was attempting to deconstruct the framework of moves, to see what could be split apart and brought together with other moves.

Akari’s Ember Charge, for example, was a fusion of Flame Charge and Ember. Since moves were in part physical technique, tweaking them could be difficult. Ember for example involved channeling fire-type energy using their lungs or equivalent organs, and in fact was the same move as Flamethrower. The main difference was in technique, a proper stream of fire used their breath through the diaphragm to create a smooth focused fire beam.

Both were basic standard flame manipulation and generation, but the basics were often a great fallback. Fire Blast was far more advanced, less an overcharged Flamethrower, and more an incredibly complex manipulation of fire. So Ember as a move can be broken up into a very basic framework

Their breath becomes energy in their body, extends past their own flesh and becomes fire. Ember took that energy, and with a motion not dissimilar to yelling expelled it as a weak blast of fire. Flamethrower was closer to projection, less damaging to the throat and thus had far less loss and far more power.

Flame Charge was instead channeled from the navel, and into the limbs, shaping fire into the essence of life, enhancing their fundamental purpose of movement. Ember Charge worked by taking the initial breath of Ember, and instead of expelling it through the throat… it was expelled through the limbs, becoming a whorl of flames within the twisting mass of Flame Charge.

It lost some power in exchange for velocity and accuracy, acting as a point defense system around a mildly enhanced Flame Charge. Maybe about twenty percent stronger, around the same force as Fire Fang with less drain of their reserves.

Type Energy was complicated…

Normal-type moves were the easiest to understand, they were the closest to true neutral Type Energy, stationary, steady, balanced energy flow, an inert pattern easily wrestled into the more specialized shapes of other Types. It was why ghost types couldn’t touch them, their energy adversely struck at the flow, but normal energy was too inert. It was also why fighting aura hurt them, it absorbs the blunt of the attack, unable to defend against the refined chisel of fighting spirit.

The best comparison I could make is the difference between elemental bending and basic chi manipulation in Avatar, bending uses chi to manipulate an element, but other people could manipulate chi and it wasn’t… typed, simply raw flow of metaphysical energy.

Fortunately that made normal-type moves relatively simple, as their patterns were less complex, and easier to break up into parts. Especially when it came to building Mirko’s style, she was brute force, brutality and violence in steady motion. But certain moves just didn’t suit her, Headbutt was strong yes but it wasn’t optimal, her preference was using her limbs, all six of them from ears to legs to arms.

Her Return for example wasn't a charge, it was inert power focused into her most fitting limbs. No Return was the same from mon to mon, changing with the user and their trainer. It was why I was teaching her Dizzy Punch using Pound as a base, and it wasn’t hard. Dizzy Punch involves enhancing a strike with normal-type energy, and charging it with rhythmic high-frequency vibration patterns.

This increases striking power, and gives the target a violent dose of vibrations that triggers a status effect, confusing a pokémon by messing with their spatial awareness. She had also practiced on her own, and came up with a modified version of Cut, which involved extending normal energy from her limbs into cutting implements.

I expected some of her moves were going to get left behind as we focused on new ones, mainly Pound and Double Kick once she masters Dizzy Punch and Jump Kick. Quick Attack, I think we could develop it into Extreme Speed with a lot of work, once she was at a higher level. She was going places I was sure, and along with Jericho would both work great as leads if with tweaked roles. He was being trained for setting up environmental hazards, use of utility moves, and coverage to break through pokémon. Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes were optimal hazards and the right moves could let him cripple entire teams.

Llayda was a bit simpler, raw offensive might, with a number of tricks up her sleeve so she wouldn’t be a one trick pony, playing to her strengths as a fairy.

I leaned against a wall, as my thoughts drifted away and let me focus on what was happening in front of me. Llayda and Mirko were playing a rather intense game of tag, Mirko using Quick Attack to augment her body while Llayda used the pressurized explosion of Aqua Jet to keep up.

I felt calm and collective as I gathered myself, feeling warm under the light of the sun, a sensation of energy at rest as I observed my pokémon having fun even if it involved a rather scary game of tag.

I saw a door open from the Zenith Lab, and perked up when I saw Akari step out of the building with a spring in her step.

“We’re finally done, now we’re leaving.” I felt a wave of relief, while I loved science it was kind of exhausting when I was the test subject.

“So does that mean we’re getting started on exploring the Node for Professor Laven?”

Akari nodded hesitantly. “She’s marked out a ton of viable locations and potential locations for when we’re stronger. Our navigation will point it out.”

Understandable.

Sending us towards areas that could get us killed was not something Laven was remotely capable of. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. It was likely we would be heading to areas that existed as one and two star locations, at least that was my suspicion.

“So we can leave then?”

“Yes, we’ll be heading to Goruden like we planned out, and travel around for a few weeks before taking a train to Uto prefecture,” Akari cracked her neck and stretched her torso, twisting from side to side. “We’ve been moving fast, and slowing down a bit will give our pokémon some time to rest and have more casual battles.”

True, battle pokémon loved to fight, but turning it into a rote routine would ruin their fun. Only very few pokémon were that level of intense, and even so burn out hit them just as hard as anyone else.

“Am I interrupting anything?” I jumped when a smooth voice spoke up, and I could see both Mirko and Llayda stopping their games, a frown on their furry faces.

Following Akari was an older man with white combed hair, and gray eyes so light I confused them for white. He wore a white long sleeve dress shirt with a black cross pattern and white slacks, displaying a warm smile on his handsome almost youthful face.

He’s… quiet.

Akari looked slightly uncomfortable. “You’re the founder of the ZRG aren’t you?” I blinked, wasn’t the ZRG a group with thousands of employees, with multiple partnerships with Devon, Silph, Altru, Lysandre Labs and Macro Cosmos?

“I am. To most people they simply know me as Durfa Furudo, I’ve been abroad for a few months and made my return fairly recently.” He shrugged affably, shaking his head. “The ZRG was built by me in the wake of the Risland-Nihoh War, a nonprofit organization to advance humanity and pokémon alike in the Tohoku region and beyond.” Bit of an odd tangent but whatever, I’m not one to talk with my monologuing ass. “So when I heard that a Faller had washed up on the shores of my home region, I knew I had to meet them.”

His gaze was focused and sharp, and I swallowed nervously at the attention.

“After the Alola Incident five years ago, the ZRG was tasked by several regions to assist in the development of more sophisticated dimensional breaching technology along with several of our corporate partners. We can’t have legendary-class monsters like the Ultra Beasts getting dragged into our world or innocent people getting torn away from their home realities.”

“Sensible.” I commented, not adding much because social anxiety from a random chat with a rich person wasn’t my style. “Though I’m not sure what you want me to tell you.”

“There’s no need,” he shook his head again with an almost sad smile. “I was simply eager to see a Faller for myself, and I’ll be watching your progress from now on. I’m curious how far someone like you can go in this world of ours.”

Great.

Expectations.

He stepped back, tipping his head at me with a mysterious smile.

Okido was a rather interesting city, and we had been allowed to explore it during our downtime. Most of it was reliant on NEC, Totsuko and Fuji General Electronics when it comes to jobs, with the ZRG being just a minor job bringer here. It had been fun to visit their gorges, one was rich with wild pokémon eager to spar and the other was covered in ancient carvings made by pokémon, which had been made by a tribe of the ralts-line, easily one hundred thousand years old, preserved through strange psychic resonances.

We had also visited the Aamarudo Cave that was full of fossils, since the cavern was at least 350 million years old. No fossils for us, but it was a cool ass cave.

But outside of that, there wasn’t much we were really interested in. The plan Akari and I had made was simple: we'd travel to Goruden on foot, perhaps attend a tournament at the local Minor League Gum, train against people and all, stay in the city for a bit and explore, and then move on to a minor village near a Node that was marked out in our phone’s map. There were dozens of locations, each of them being one of many spiritual centers, great high-points in the tides of the World’s Aura.

Each location had a basic description, sometimes it was a clearing in a forest, a richer area of a plain, or even inside a city or abandoned temple. They were rated from 1-star up to 12-star which were marked with a big fat X, more as locations to avoid until we were good and ready in… one to six years?

These locations tended to be spiritually significant, for potentially any number of reasons from natural rock formations to cemeteries, the top of a hill or battlefields. The absolutely most powerful Nodes were the domains and territories of legendary pokémon, their power saturating the world and shifting the very fabric of existence with their mere presence. All pokémon shaped the energies of the world, changing it to suit them better, drawing on the powerful and invisible energy that surges throughout the world.

Well supposedly, proving it was going to need some studies and research.

Akari and I were at the edge of Okido, and had already set our course for Goruden… which wasn’t too far actually, about three to four hours of walking in terms of distance. Which was why it was going to make a good route for fighting trainers, since they tended to cluster closer to settlements.

Though this route was quite small, it was not a subsection of another Route, even though the numbered Routes were a lot like national highways, with many, many side-routes. I particularly remember that this was Route 307?

I released Mirko, so we’d have a pokémon out with us just in case.

“Mir?” Mirko questioned, and I gestured to the open flat path. Clarity entered her bright eyes, and she saluted me with a soft chuff.

“We’re going to travel around for a bit before we move on to the next Gym, so prepare for lots of minor battles and some downtime.” I spoke up to Mirko, who was looking at Akari as she spread her arms out in the cool refreshing breeze. “We’ve got some side quests too, so we’ll be traveling around more in general instead of sticking to just Gym Towns.”

Mirko bounced from one foot to the other at my explanation, eyes gleaming with excitement. “Bwaa!” I think that was her word for yes, excellent, fuck yeah all at the same time.

“So, I can see you’re ready to go then?” Akari butted in with a toothy smile, brushing back her blue bangs while leaning forward. “Nothing left to hold us back.”

I smirked. “Nope.”

“Then let’s get a move on! We’re burning daylight as it is!” She very gently pushed me forward, and I took my first steps onto the path in front of us.

Today marked a new leg on our journey, and I wanted to see where that would take us next.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.1

October 19th, 2022.

I drifted in the current, watching the scene before me with a critical eye, the stuff of dreams whirling past me in a steady current, shepherded by the Baku, their pink floral skin shining with the light of the Dreaming. Guarding the gates of the sleeping, from the monsters that dwell within them.

I could see a young man and an older one investigating a strange plague that had infested the land.

“And nothing has changed in their water or food?” There was a scowl on the older man’s face, as he gazed at the black sores and illnesses of local domestic pig beasts, their fiery fur barely able to do more than summon sparks.

“Nothing besides a raid from those Waajin savages…” The rancher looked anxious at the looks the two foreign men gave him.

“Perhaps they brought an illness with their raid, if their own cattle were sick…”

“Nothing explains what that filth did to—” the rancher cut himself off. “It makes more sense than a kamuiy of that nature settling here. Our family would never dishonor itself and invoke their wrath.”

The two men convinced the rancher to let them walk his land, while keeping a close eye on the strongest victim of the plague, a dodrio with sharp eyes filled with indignant fury, biting at the rancher with any opportunity.

They followed where that strong bird of the land had grazed and watered itself, and the two adventurers felt the wrongness in the world, disrupted and tainted, a beacon for the Shugo Tenshi to bring itself into the physical.

And they found a young woman, declared missing after the raid, a war band of dishonorable soldiers had left their mark… and her family refused to be dishonored.

They argued with a grieving mother, who knew full well what her most honorable husband had done to protect themselves from the whispers of the town, who gave them what meager tools she had to guard the town from the ghost they had angered, the Angel of Azuma, full of well earned wrath.

To kill one with child was a great sin indeed.

The older man spoke. “Stay back, and protect Madame Luan.” He ordered sharply as the enraged spirit took shape and form and glorious purpose.

The creature before them was faded, stepping in two worlds at once, standing on nothing. It was a healer once upon a time, from the lands of the Occident, the Tabunne reborn as Shugo Tensei, a guardian angel, a doctor and healer even in death. A witch’s hat sat firmly on her head, arms folded behind her back as she offered a smile only an enraged messenger of death could give.

“You would guard a kinslayer, old smoke and broken promises, buried under grief and storms of sadness?” Witch lights danced around the ghost as she sang. “Child of the dragons, unhatched and unloved? Will you deny this old healer justice?

“No. But not like this, you are Shugo Tensei. In life you have healed even the damned, in death you guard the living. Mei’s murder is known, justice can be had, her proper rites given.”

She smiled with far too many teeth. “Then prove it to me, send your adopted child into battle and I will settle. I will rest once more.”

The old man blinked, and his nephew accepted the bargain, calling the three headed ranch bird into battle with a whistle.

The two monsters crossed paths and the battle began with a—

I blinked awake, the clarity of the dream firmly stuck in my own head, and I took a deep breath, letting the memory consolidate, pointing out details and areas of strangeness and consistency. Ignoring some of the implications…

This was the first dream of that nature since we had arrived in Goruden and I wondered what had triggered it?

Strange dreams was a minor side effect of a certain slowking’s form of long range teleportation due to the exposure to the Dream World. But that was a far more specific dream than most, and I wondered if I had tapped into an old memory, a wisp of ideal, centuries old.

Those people… the nephew and uncle were Waajin, the village was Ebizu… so this was at least several centuries ago… and based on the style, maybe about five hundred years ago, when Galar, Risland, and continental Europa (Europe) had started the industrial revolution. Maybe something to do with that ghost type?

There were generally about… four kinds of ghosts, born from different circumstances and with various behaviors and structures. The Deathless, they were closer to natural spirits and bugaboos, concepts and emotions and ephemeral things taken form through certain physical mediums. Lots of pokémon besides ghosts had similar beginnings, but ghosts were the only ones that had it as a constant part of their life cycle rather than just their origin.

The Deathless included beings like shuppet, sinistea, and sandygast. Ghostly energies and essences taking hold of common objects like a lost toy, an old teacup or a sand castle, not far off from the concept of a tsukumogami or a ninety-nine year spirit though not all of them took control of objects. Some were just… made of ghostly essence stuff, like mimikyu, drifloon, litwick and duskull.

The next class wasn’t technically a separate thing, closer to a subdivision in truth. These were the Neverborn, the generations who were borne from unions between ghosts and any species compatible with them. They were the most populous of ghost-types, representing a large fraction of the collective population.

But not all of them since ghost types don’t tend to reproduce very often, usually through exchanging information through strange rituals. Sort of like sexual reproduction between single celled organisms. Kind of, it depends on the ghost-type.

Then there were the Dead, the souls of those with the determination and will to keep moving forward, with reasons to refuse to pass on. They were the rarest, and often amongst the most powerful, erratic and dangerous, especially if they had taken physical form instead of remaining as spirits within the Ghost World.

Pokémon like yamask, Galarian corsola, and revenant zoroark, like phantump and froslass and at one point dreepy in their earliest days. Technically any ghost-type could be one of the Dead, but certain species were known for it. The ghastly line was one, but their exact classification was muddled, were they Deathless with many Neverborn children, ghostly essence possessing toxic gas? Or were they the Dead returned to life in another form? Or were they the fourth category, and more mundane than one would think?

The last class was threshold ghosts, physical beings that had learned to tap into concepts and energies that related to ghosts and allowed them to have one foot in one world and one foot in ours. Pokémon like oricorio, spirit marowak, Sinnohan typhlosion, frillish, and decidueye. They weren’t actually ghosts, they were closer to mediums who had figured out how to draw on ghost energy.

Ghastly was annoying that way, was it a reborn soul, a whisper of ideal brought to life or a sentient mass of gas that had played the role so long it became true for them?

That ghost in my dream… It had been one of the Dead, a regional variant of audino that had first formed in Tohoku when their ancestors had fled from the west during the collapse of the Kingdom of the Vale. Hmm…

I should check that I’m not haunted or something, could be that just I got hit by residual emotion and memory-stuff but… stuff was weird in this reality.

To my chagrin the door to my room was opened without warning, and I blinked when I saw Happy slipping in with a smug expression.

“You are not avoiding your washing mister! A basic splash bath isn’t going to hurt you!” The door was almost torn out from its hinges as Akari barged in… while wearing only an ill fitting tank top and boxers. My attention was hyper-focused on her toned and curvy legs, and I could see her belly peeking out from her tank top.

Guh.

I pulled up my covers, and I could swear I heard my pokémon giggling from their pokéballs.

“Ahem?” I coughed to get their attention and the girl and fire pig froze in their wrestling match. “Can the two of you please vacate my room?”

Akari turned a lovely shade of red, but that didn’t change my opinion.

Privacy was important to me.

After that little incident, the two of us had stepped out from our room in the Pokémon Center. It hadn’t taken us more than a few hours to walk to Goruden, and we had battled a lot of trainers on the way and inside the city. A few had actually been from Paldea… which I had been certain was the next generation since the moment I had looked up their regional Starters.

Fighting a floragato was an interesting experience, but I was now dealing with another issue when Akari had looked at my Trainer ID for reasons.

“We missed your birthday!” Akari sounded indignant, and I winced at her volume.

“I sorta… forgot about it? I was never very enthusiastic about it… and kinda had no friends for like two years… so it kinda fell to the wayside?”

Her expression told me that didn’t make her feel any better? Wait, why would I think that?

Akari placed her hands on her hips, pouting at me with her dark smoky eyes and her— nope. Skip. “Well we’re definitely going to do something for that, something small of course.” She circumvented my protest by taking into account what I wanted. “We can do something in the city, and I’ll get you something you like. How does that sound?”

“It sounds better than a loud party at least,” honestly half the reason I hated parties was the noise. It was grating, painful and sapped my will to live, I just couldn’t do it. “Not sure where we’d even go?”

Akari offered a very unhelpful smile. “I know a place.”

The Goruden Heritage District was a large mixed use area surrounding much older parts of the city, from what it had been much larger and more populous. With an average population density of about seven hundred per square mile, Goruden had a population of about thirty eight thousand.

Once upon a time, Goruden had been a city of over three hundred thousand souls with a splendor and glory that was every bit the equal of Ecruteak, ruled over by a samurai clan that had once dominated northern Nihoh for over a century.

It was eventually destroyed by the ruling elites of the Ecruteak empire, and that clan was erased from history, leading to the decline of Goruden as a new capital of a burgeoning kingdom. Honestly Nihoh was very strange overall, with a landmass area of over eight hundred thousand square miles, its… history was going to be rather different from the much smaller Japan it was a counterpart to.

For example, Japan had very little natural resources when it came to things like mineral wealth, such as oil, gas, and coal along with minerals like copper, iron and silver and gold. They didn’t completely lack them, but it wasn’t always enough when it came to keeping up with the demands of a modern industrialized nation.

The regions of Nihoh were a fair bit larger, and the existence of pokémon changed a lot of things when it comes to obtaining resources. Though certain realities hadn’t changed, for example their carrying capacity wasn’t suddenly six times greater because the wilds were far more inhospitable. You could only push so far without… consequences.

The total urban area of Nihoh was about… eighty two thousand square kilometers, or one and a half times the area of Japan… and they have about twenty thousand square kilometers of agricultural land, which with their yields being tentimes greater lets them feed a population of about one hundred eighty million without a problem. However, that's about a quarter of the land usable by humans since being a 70% mountainous country has some drawbacks.

What was my point again?

“Brando.” I glared at Akari, and she smirked. “So Brandon and Brandy are fine but Brando isn’t?”

The taller girl towered over me, and I continued to glare. “Brando sounds terrible, Brandon is my name, and Brandy is a good simple nickname.” Changing my name wasn’t really in the cards, I liked my name, even if making some tweaks wasn’t out of line. Routine was rather important for me after all.

Anyways, this part of the district was well known for housing a rather large market square which was why Akari had brought me here. It was fantastical in person, and it was hard to focus on any one thing.

Stands, shops and people and most importantly pokémon dominate the wide old streets with a menagerie of color, sound and movement. Hollering merchants line the streets, customers approaching them, money changing hands with a flick of a trainer card or electronic device. I could see bird pokémon flying, starly and staravia and even rookidee and corvisquire. There were pidgey and delibird with packages, and huge pidgeot the size of small planes with whole pallets held in their talons.

The stands themselves are just full of stuff and interesting items. Jewels, textiles, food, berries, antiques and knick-knacks and other things. I even saw a clothing shop selling their wares with a machoke of all things wearing an elegant dress.

“So what kind of thing are you looking for?” Akari asked with her wide eyes and I pressed my lips together in thought. “A book maybe? Or something for your pokémon that fits your battle style?”

“Battle style?” I asked, I knew people had a certain… method of battle, but I wasn’t always good at asking questions.

Akari for example… she fought like a berserker, it was vicious and wild, ruthlessly exploiting openings that her own pokémon made, and when I thought back to battles she was very effective. She aimed to knock people off their guard, breaking a pokémon’s balance, by aiming moves at their feet or disrupting their movement. For example she had recently taught Happy Smokescreen and had used it to tear down her opponents with no mercy shown.

“Yeah?” Akari shrugged. “You’re kind of a mastermind trainer, you teach each of your pokémon a basic set of procedures, allowing for quick collective response, giving a standard operating procedure to fall back on. With your move classifications they’ve got a bunch of different ways to avoid getting caught out, but it can happen… so if someone freezes.”

“Bad things happen.” I admitted, but it was the best way I could manage, my reaction times weren’t the best, so I needed the time to think and strategize. “I’m compensating for my limitations, my mind is flighty and can take time to buffer. But I’m not stupid,” my nose scrunched up in distaste, hating how low my self esteem was. “So I try to plan out as much as I can beforehand, and watch the field to compensate for the greater complexities of a real battle.” The best way I could describe it was that I was the commander, while my team were my soldiers… but it’s magical creatures who are my friends.

“I’ve noticed, if it’s something you like you’ll put all your available energy into it.” Akari glanced around the crowd, chewing on her lip as she inspected store to store and stall to stall. “You’re kinda pig headed and stubborn though, and that can throw you off your careful plans.”

“True.” I didn’t disagree, I didn’t lack emotion as someone on the spectrum, I lacked the basic tools, and trying to shove a square into a round hole could be a recipe for disaster when it came to social interaction. I could explode pretty easily.

“There’s lots of markets like this in the bigger cities, though the largest and greatest tend to be in major port cities. They offer a lot of exotic goods, local foods, clothes, electronics, jewelry too. Plenty of trainers and pokémon, including some you can adopt from licensed merchants.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“Depending on the pokémon and their background, a common eevee egg could set you back fifty and ninety thousand pokédollars.” I flinched at the price, while it wasn’t that expensive, that was about the cost of a good TV, or a third to half a month’s rent. Which didn’t include a pedigree… which with pokémon was less inducing gross genetic deformities and more creating healthy living environments and providing them a good selection of mates and taking care of their needs. Pokémon weren’t stupid, and knew the consequence of a small gene pool quite well.

I stared at Akari. “How much can that increase?”

“I’ve seen some go for two hundred fifty thousand pokédollars or more.” Well that’s… my whole paycheck down the drain. About the equivalent of a really used car. “But… I remember you were looking for a poké-food processor weren’t you? Since your own old one kinda… melted?”

I nodded. “Turns out it was a lot less resistant to acid than they said it was… so when that grimer sat on it…” It actually pissed me off, because the device itself had clearly been over designed junk and that made me angry. “Figuring out how to make poké-pellets is gonna be a lot easier now.” While the common chow was basically canned food, poké-pellets was the standard when it came to creating a meal for a team.

They weren’t kibble, they were breaded pellets stuffed with ingredients, something like an empanada. It uses a special kind of multigrain flour, using many different varieties of grains, some mix of barley, wheats, oats, brown rice, and seeds. First you make the filling, in Mirko’s case, a mix of oats, vegetables and berries with preferred flavors, and smatterings of micro-bug for protein. Jericho has a lot of highly venomous herbs, root vegetables, berries and tauros and ekans meat.” The domestic variant of tauros was basically a dumb cow, while ekans was basically… well a snake.

Llayda gets various aquatic plants, berries, and seafood, mostly from effectively unnamed domestic species that were basically just animals with minor elemental powers. Which does explain why things named after animals exist… kind of. There were octillery, but there were also many lesser octopus species that took up the smaller niches. Sort of like the difference between a giant Pacific octopus, and the common octopus.

Akari had actually been teaching me how to make poké-pellets since she had seen the difficulties I was having, and the special pellets had interesting properties when it came to food preservation, they could last days on their own and closer to weeks and months in a cool environment. They lost some of their taste obviously, but it was a good option to turn them into rations.

My nose was suddenly poked, Akari silently chiding me with her expression. “I’m going to buy you one, an air fryer/dispenser/blender is a good tool to have. And an actual gift too.”

Well I wasn’t going to say no… she certainly had the money for it, even when it came to our total expenses. Food, water, rooming expenses whenever we got unlucky and Pokémon Centers were full, all the items and equipment they needed, clothing, potions and items.

With three pokémon, that was about… sixty thousand pokédollars… which sounds like a lot until you realize that’s the cost for three superpowered monsters with superpowers in a nation with minimum wage over twenty dollars an hour. And also accounts for keeping one’s pokémon, happy, healthy, and strong. Plus Jericho eats more than I do.

Accounting for… everything in terms of cost, I spend about a third of my wages on keeping myself and my pokémon happy and healthy. She spent a little more because of her munchlax but… it did mean we had built up a rather considerable bank account.

A stall caught my eye, as I found an older lady in her 50s selling a bunch of items… including a strange but interesting gemstone with an asscher-cut. It was clear but had a bright rainbow reflection in the sunlight, and I could see it was surrounded by other elemental items, fire stones, water stones and leaf stones along with jars of elemental dust, shimmering with power.

“How about that?” Akari followed my finger to the pocket-sized gemstone, her eyes narrowing at the object.

“Why a shiny rock? It’s just quartz I think?”

“Gut feeling, might be an elemental item… or just a pretty rock, that’s fine too.”

Akari rolled her eyes, and we walked over to the stall.

Over the course of the next two hours, we visited more stores, and I learned quite a lot about the pokédex’s hand in the electronics industry. Turns out most devices were heavily modular and robust, easily upgradable both in terms of software updates and swapping parts from a standard assorted lot. It was necessary due to the diverse and complex needs of a pokémon wielder in any field when it comes to technology.

So stalls that basically modified your tech for a fee was just a thing they did. I had blown money on a few berries, and Akari had bought the gemstone from the somehow unsettling old lady, who had made it into a rather nice collar necklace. It had been a bargain for only fifteen hundred pokédollars, fifteen bucks wasn’t bad for jewelry, though it was sadly… inert?

My new cooking tool was resting in my backpack, and would let the creation of breaded super-meals be far easier on both myself and my pokémon.

“So that was pretty nice wasn't it for a late birthday?” Akari looked at me with wide pleading eyes and I bit back her laugh as I saw Kirby giving me an identical face as they both licked an ice cream cone.

I just smiled. “It was nice.”

I glanced at a shop, and slowed to a stop as I finally took notice of what had been done to it. Akari looked just as surprised, and Kirby growled.

It was a little shop called ‘Robert’s Reptile House’ and the most eye-catching thing was the fact it had been blown open, glass, metal and wood scattered behind police tape. I could see a shivering man speaking to a Jenny-clan member of the police force, along with other officers.

“What… the hell?” Akari cursed, and gently tugged me with her to the scene, to at least eavesdrop on the scene.

“Another Pokémon Pincher raid, those Cipher bastards brought them back from the dead after Oblivia took them down…” One officer spoke, and Jenny grimaced.

She sighed. “We’ve seen no signs of their leadership, but we know they’re out there after they were revealed to be dittos taking their place in prison.”

The Pokémon Pinchers… those were Pokémon Ranger villains weren’t they?

“There’s been hundreds of reports of stolen and poached pokémon across Mohto, Tohoku and Sinnoh.” I swallowed nervously at the realization there were multiple criminal organizations making their move on this region I had landed in.

This was all proving to be far more complicated of a region than I once thought.

And I didn’t like that at all.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.2

October 20th, 2022.

After yesterday and that little crime scene we had seen in the market, I decided it was a good idea to brainstorm with my team. Especially since the local Gym was hosting a battle competition tomorrow, and that was a good source of additional funds. Gyms had a number of income streams, whether it was running trainer schools, or running public infrastructure for a reasonable fee, the money they earned from their streams and audiences paying for tickets.

Some of the smaller or more open gyms like the Goruden Gym often played host to amateur-scene pokémon battle and betting events for a reasonable portion of the proceeds. For the next three days, we’d be able to battle against trainer after trainer, with tiers going from zero-star to three-star so people could watch entertaining matches and bet on them. Now a more experienced trainer could enter a lower tier with a weak pokémon to train them up, but the cost came at the expense of earnings.

A zero-star battle win would earn you maybe 450 pokédollars, a one-star about 900, a two-star about 1500 and a three-star about 2250. Which starts off at pocket change, a ten dollar bill, an hour of minimum wage in California to about twenty two bucks. It wasn’t a huge amount but just eight battles would earn us about twelve thousand pokédollars in a matter of hours.

It was worth it and my team was excited for the challenge.

So with a smile I threw out my pokémon, each one of them materializing, their respective cries distorted by the electronic burst of a pokéball.

“So, the next couple days are going to involve a lot of battling. Mostly for practice, but also for increasing our funds.” I placed my hands on my hips as I imitated Akari’s own commanding voice. “So how are you all feeling?”

Mirko’s eyes glimmered with excitement, Jericho gave a smug grin and Llayda simply vibrated in place.

I started with the newest member of the team. “Llayda… we’ll be working on increasing your physical strength, there’s a few requests out there for moving rubble, moving a few tons of rock and boulders should work out.” Llayda looked curious. “Your speed is another priority as it maximizes the utility of Aqua Jet, with utility moves to support your raw power and potential. Aqua Ring and Work Up are a good start, I’m thinking fusion and combination moves, along with more powerful water-type strength moves. Anything that fits in the Bruiser category, along with a few Primer moves.”

Aqua Tail and Liquidation were both optimal strength moves, and would provide a superior replacement to Bubble Beam in terms of force and STAB. “Beyond that we’ll be working on developing your Thick Fat ability so you can resist both ice and fire, Sap Sipper will come later.”

Llayda lazily smiled, her tail flicking back and forth in reaction. She looked happy.

“Jericho, with Hustle increasing your strength, you work best as a physical attacker… for now,” the poison rabbit nodded with a scowl. “Once Hustle refines itself into Sheer Force, your base special power is going to exceed your physical strength which means preparing to increase your power now is a good idea. From what I’ve learned though, since your species’ form of Sheer Force descends from Hustle, we might be able to train the ability into a toggled skillset, allowing you to increase your strength a small amount that applies to all moves or increasing the force of moves with extra effects by a far greater amount.”

His eyes sparkled and what I left unsaid was how difficult that was in general, most nidoran-line individuals never got that far, as it required specialized training and deep understanding of the well of energy their ability is fueled by.

“Your affinity to psychic energy is also quite interesting, and I want to see if you can learn any unique moves because of it.” I was wondering if it was possible to teach him stronger moves like Psybeam… or if a custom move was possible. Maybe I could make a psychic version of Signal Beam or even Strange Stream, the former would make it stronger than Psychic while the latter would make it equal to moves like Flare Blitz in terms of force. “Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes and your Poison Point can let you support the whole team… but we can push them harder, and increase your speed as high as possible before evolution.” Luckily Jericho did want to evolve, but only when he was good and ready. “Earth Power is a goal, along with Substitute and Taunt. No matter what, you'll be a heavy hitter and play a strategic role in the team. So a mix of Primer, Bruiser, and Archer moves.”

Jericho just looked decidedly smug.

“Finally, my best bunny Mirko,” I couldn’t help the affection in my voice, a consequence of her being just as much of an asocial weirdo. She just smirked. “You’re already strong, fast, and smart, it mostly comes down to practice, practice, practice. An excellent mix of Bruiser, Primer and Traverser. Dizzy Punch is a good addition… and you’ve been working on combining it with Cut?”

Mirko demonstrated. Her normal-type energy took a solid form that reminded me of a karambit of all things, and I remembered we had been watching a documentary on the cultural practices of eastern lopunny, a dance-like form of martial arts that due to human influence often used weapons or tools. Whether created using moves or modified under their own power.

A brutal full-body fighting form that incorporated strikes using everything from the fists, open palms, shins, feet, elbows, knees, shoulders or the fingers and blocking with the forearms, hands, shoulders or shins. Though her… form strongly incorporated evasions and deflection since she was pretty frail.

“Bwaa!” She slashed out with her blade across the grass, and I blinked as nothing happened.

“Errr…” She ‘sheathed’ her blades, and in an instant the grass in front of her fell apart into evenly cut sections, laying neatly on the ground.

Did… did she just pull anime swordsmen bullshit?

My lips pulled into a sharp grin. “Interesting… let’s see how far we can take this idea shall we?”

Mirko smiled right back.

October 22nd, 2022.

Today was a good day, as the Goruden Gym echoed with the sounds of battle and chatter. Pokémon and their trainers bunched together in the many rooms set up for the battle and betting event. The main open arena had been rearranged into a dozen separate battle areas, each overseen by a commentator and home to multiple rows of spectator benches. With many taking place in-doors as well.

Which applied to both Akari and I luckily.

Today I was going through my eighth battle, and my seventeenth battle overall including yesterday.

“Misdreavus, use Confusion!” A young Hex Maniac called out, a fist clenched as her dark hair waved in a nonexistent breeze. Turns out some of the various trainer classes are basically entire subcultures like Goth or Punk.

I raised a brow. “Retreat, Swift Block.” Mirko fired a burst of golden energy stars, traveling in straight lines when she wasn’t taking direct control of them. Swift was an interesting move, from experiments with them… they weren’t exactly heat seeking missiles by design, yet didn’t miss anyways. I had thought maybe they were subtly warping space, but it seemed to work on a form of inertial navigation, calculating the position, orientation, and the velocity of a moving object… a sort of post-cognitive navigation.

By subtracting where it is from where it isn’t, or where it isn't from where it is, whichever is greater…

My eyebrow twitched and I ignored my own rampant insane tangents. The stars shot down the purple-pink wave of Confusion, Mirko taking that allotted time to pump herself up with her fourth use of Work Up.

“Dizzy Punch.” The Hex Maniac’s eyes widened with panic, having already grown used to Mirko silently using Foresight against her ghosts.

My Starter shot through the air at three quarters the speed of sound, and I kept myself from wincing when the vengeful bunny sent the ghost-type flying, knocked out with a single decisive strike.

“And with a brutal display of both tactics and power, Brandy’s buneary has brought down Trainer Amaya’s misdreavus! Ending the match with a photo finish!”

I could hear the announcer yelling something or other about my victory as I stepped towards a hard breathing Mirko, eyes gleaming with joy as she folded her arms over her chest, staring at the barely physical ghost after the beating they had taken.

“Good job!” I congratulated Mirko, and she barely gave an acknowledgement as she basked in her victory. I stepped into the field as the damage absorbers went down, and the Hex Maniac did the same.

“My team needs more training, and you need more spiritual awareness.” My smile shrunk at her comment, looking pastme with a raised brow.

“What?” She just smiled as we shook hands.

“You’ll learn…” She whispered as she walked off, and I deflated. Was she saying I was being haunted?

I gave the announcer a nod, he’d be letting whoever handled the prize money know about my eighth victory. I walked over to the Gym’s local omni-trauma unit, a Joy manning the station with a smile, and ended up sitting on a nice warm bench nearby to watch Akari’s match.

She was battling with Ellis, her togetic smiling as she flitted about the field after a quick use of Metronome had summoned a lucky burst of Agility. It was a rather stranger move in person than could be seen from across a screen or a short text blurb. It sharply boosted a pokémon’s speed, but not in the same way. It was only a temporary status condition that needed active use… a sort of skin-right reality breaker effect. A pokémon under the effect of Agility didn't take more steps or beat their wings more frequently… it was like one step or movement could let you move two steps or more… or potentially it changes the time a movement takes, like compressing the reel of time. What takes one second now takes only half.

So some form of space-time alteration just like Extrasensory was an attack that warped the fabric of space to damage a pokémon.

Ellis was fighting against a beedrill who was swinging at her with Poison Jab, the energies infused into his stingers. Air twisted around the togetic, and cutting masses of wind were sent flying as an Air Slash. Flying-type moves were interesting, a move like Gust or Hurricane was basically a generated meteorological event, using their aura to create them with incredible pressure and density… along with aura bullshit of course.

“Swords Dance!” Her opponent, a Bug Catcher barked as he pointed at Ellis with a sneer. His beedrill offered a frenetic dance, a violent aura surrounding the bug as his strength sharply rose in two bursts.

“Psych Up.” Akari ordered with a casual smirk, as her own pokémon applied a form of self-hypnosis, forming a point of connection to copy the stat change. “Aerial Ace.” Ellis surrounded herself in a whirl of wind, confounding Beedrill with speed and ending it with a slash my eyes couldn’t track.

Beedrill went down, and her opponent replaced him with a Kleavor. The six foot rock bug let out a haunting chitter, like gravel grinding together.

Ellis responded with Dazzling Gleam, and took to the air, but the kleavor followed with a single hefty leap and an explosive burst of Rock Tomb, and with a rotating strike, aimed true with a ridiculously powerful Stone Axe, rock splintering and battering Ellis in mid-air.

The fairy slammed into the ground from two dozen feet up, eyes practically swirling from exhaustion and disorientation, feathers rumpled and broken, and a thin cut gently weeping blood… that sparkled?

Akari returned her pokémon, lips pulling back in a nasty sharp grin. She sent out Happy, and I could feel the tension rise as her ace emerged in flames.

“Flame Charge, break everything.” Her command was absolute, Flame Charge twisting around Happy like a firestorm, blazing along his arms and legs.

His strength was visible with every tense flex of his muscles, and his opponent knew it. Swords Dance was brought into play, and was used to twist out of the way from a multi-shot array of Ember.

“Stone Axe!” Kleavor let out a haughty chitter and linger forward, ax blades brutally slicing through the air. Happy dodged by sending his burst of Flame Charge through his feet, and charging into his chest with a triumphant cry.

Which was when Bulldoze hit the field, Happy pummeling both Kleavor and the ground with geokinetic power. He sent out a combination of Mud Slap and Smokescreen, blinding the pokémon and stepping back and out from the roiling cloud of black smoke… which seemed rich with soot.

Happy took a deep, long breath, and with a porcine glee spat out half a dozen Embers, burning almost blue-hot. The entire cloud ignited in a bright and enormous flashover fire, and I could see that Kleavor was sent reeling as he burned. The pokémon trudged through the fire, slashing wildly as he was overtaken by panic with the intense flame and blindness.

“End it.” Happy vanished into Flame Charge, Smokescreen billowing out from his mouth and spat out as an ignition right into Kleavor’s face.

The giant bug doubled over, and Happy… trampled him under foot and heel with a second demonstration of full power Bulldoze. Rocky armor cracked and broke under the onslaught, and the Bug Catcher’s pokémon went down, passing out and curling up to heal.

He was returned by his disappointed trainer, and I spaced out after that as I momentarily took the time to just vibe with a quiet daydream. Maybe I should use my headphones and listen to some music? I had been given the rare gift of music from home through the fact they had somehow extracted signals from my world and downloaded it.

I had cried the first time I had heard a remix of Undertale songs of all things.

Akari plopped down next to me, her chest breathing in and out, and my eyes tracing the shape of her breast as she just… breathed.

“What a day, yeah? Lots of good battles.” Akari sounded awkward, her voice a mix of peppy and wistful.

“Heh. Yeah.”

I blinked at the scene I had accidentally caused when someone had bumped into me, and had apparently been stopped by all 62 inches of me. She had sprawled bonelessly on the ground, and I was surprised. How weak was she that I could prove an obstacle?

She threw herself back onto her unsteady feet, rubbing her eyes and pulling her scruffy looking coat back onto her shoulders. The young woman looked several years older than me, with a tired expression, and strangely familiar features. She was maybe my height, with black bowl-cut hair, a wide nose, and dark eyes and even darker bruises under them. Her face was dirty along with her hands, and her odd grin was almost smug, and yet… sad, guilty?

“Sorry about that. Bumping into someone like this isn’t nice, huh?” She didn’t offer an apology, and glanced over to my belt and Mirko, then over to Akari who had Happy at her side. Her eyes gleamed. “Ahem… sorry. Name’s Cara Liss, I have a… friend I’m looking for, a pokémon I was keeping an eye on who’s been through… a fair amount of treatment.” Again there was that guilty look, and Mirko gave a dismissive sniff.

“Treatment?”

Cara Liss winced and nodded. “She has a number of horrible conditions that she’s had to deal with her whole life and… and the treatments for her have proven complex and… difficult. Which is why I need help looking for her, she’s not a common sight and who knows what can happen, right, huh?”

“I suppose? So you want our help?” I asked and she nodded rapidly, again looking incredibly tired…

“Evaluation. This one can assist.” To my shock, my phone slipped out of my pocket, and I recalled that my phone had been upgraded when porygon had evolved into a porygon-2 with a software patch. The little guys weren’t too talkative, preferring the digital world to the real one but… “Hypothesis. Human Cara Liss is searching for the dracozolt currently loose in the city.”

…

What?

“What?” The phone flipped in the air to face towards me, little arms made out of hard light gesturing and waving around.

“Dracozolt, the Fossil Pokémon. Dracozolt is a hybrid fossil pokémon created by reckless and unethical scientists of the Galar region some twenty years ago, ‘supposedly’ unbeatable thanks to its powerful lower body and going extinct due to the depletion of its plant-based food sources.” My phone sounded almost bitter, and I could see that Cara had flinched at the description.

Akari was staring at the woman with disdain, hands clenched into fists. “I thought I recognized you… you’re one of those people who worked on those… sick resurrection experiments aren’t you?” To my shock, Akari started looming over the woman, her eyes flashing with malice.

Oh.

“I… think you need to calm down, I don’t think we need to make a scene and uhh… she doesn’t look well?” Akari blinked and really looked at the woman.

She looked… dead on the inside, like she hadn’t slept in a hundred years. She was practically shaking, and looked… so… so tired. I… vaguely recalled her now, she was the scientist that had helped the… player make the fossil pokémon.

Wasn’t her name a pun?

“Evaluation. Recent research on the ‘Galar Fossil Crisis’ indicates Cara Liss is responsible for most research on gene therapy and biomedical treatments for the victims of the crisis for the past two years.”

So… right around the time period leading up to the whole terrifying Eternatus incident… which with the fall of Chairman Rose had led to a massive political shitstorm that had revealed a level of corruption, malice, and incompetence that was unquestionably British, like something out of Yes, Minister. I had looked it up out of curiosity, and was… promptly horrified in every matter of the word. The League bureaucracy had been turned into nothing more than a nepotistic mess of a political machine, and multiple financial, social and political crises had been caused across the multiple city councils and the League.

They had entered multiple fuck ups and fights with other Leagues, including Alola since they wanted to turn them into a nice little puppet state. They weren’t as bad as my world, but it was a very familiar superiority complex and vaguely imperialist leanings in terms of uhh… culture and interaction within themselves and with others?

The ‘Galar Fossil Crisis’ leading to the horrific resurrection of thousands of imperfectly fused pokémon had… caused issues which had been left by the wayside due to Galar not wanting to be proven as incompetent and wrong… and more disgustingly because all four were strong, powerful pokémon that didn’t suffer from gaining the rock-typing due to the imperfect resurrection process.

“Thank you for that information… I’m also very grateful your only job is optimizing my phone’s code, being a personal assistant and acting as an analysis engine.” I would feel a lot less comfortable using the phone otherwise, I was a grown adult and watching porn didn’t need to give me fucking paranoia.

“Affirmative. The internal PCSS is an adequate private space for my needs.” Right that was an interesting feature, it was linked up to the lab back home so I could grab up any pokémon from back there in an instant… but the in-built PCSS was closer to the Unova-model, an… internal pocket world connecting pokéballs through digital space, used primarily to house a porygon as an optimal environment for them.

Which was a terrifying technological feat in hindsight.

“So… is this dracozolt a patient of yours?” Cara Liss startled at Akari’s decreased hostility.

“Yes… but I suppose you wouldn’t expect that, huh?” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s been a lot of work… and she’s certainly not the only one under treatment but she’s… important to me.”

“We can take a look.” I stepped in, and Akari nodded with a grimace.

I had a feeling this was going to take a while.

I chewed on my lip as I followed Mirko, who had been using her sense of smell to track down Dracozolt. Capitalized this time as it was a name, honestly pokémon are weird when it comes to names. Sometimes they want them and sometimes they don’t… though I do know their name… has some tiny imperceptible difference from individual to individual.

Some consequence of their language, for pokémon their language is much like ours but it also stacks feelings and emotions through both verbalization and body language and aura. One could say their language was… metaphysical, more something of magic and soul than of the physical and flesh alone.

It was very, very interesting.

I blinked at the sudden Pressure and I turned over to an alley… where two people were running away from it, disappearing into the crowd. I immediately followed, and I could see Akari had felt the same thing with that crooked frown of hers.

Mirko hopped eagerly into the alley, and I did the same and stared.

That was… different.

I had expected the worse from what I know about Galar Fossils, I expected a pained, sickly creature brought back by people filled with hubris and pushed on by incompetence and arrogance both. I expected a far too small front body stitched onto a too large lower body,

But to my shock, that wasn’t what I found.

Dracozolt was a strange chimeric creature, yes, but the two species had been more evenly blended together, forming something greater than the sum of their parts. Her upper maniraptoran torso fit into her lower stegosaurian body like two puzzle pieces, and was utterly covered in a coat of feathers that gave way to colorful scales. The pressure she exuded was like a curtain of thunder and draconic might, a wall around the goofy looking electric dragon.

She kept her arms firmly in front of her chest, hands gliding over one another in a nervous tic. Her mix of feathers and scales reminded me of a kulindadromeus, a dinosaur species with both scales and feathers.

“Not what you expected, huh?” Cara Liss replied as she walked over to the chimera with no hesitation. “It… was a trainer from Galar who helped snap me out of my funk and got me on the right track when it came to my research. I was studying forme changes, and methods of using Dream Mist to induce them and introduce foreign genetics to uhh… stabilize their physiology. For Dracovolt, we used DNA from archeops and charizard for the front half and DNA from rampardos, and aggron for the rear half as a… scaffold for their damaged genetics, and with the right infinity energy manifold and Dream Mist emitter… well you get Dracozolt.”

Dracozolt was… also much larger than I expected, the top of Akari’s head was several inches short of her hips, and her long neck bobbed upward with a derpy saurian smile, red spotted cheeks sparking with electricity. She had to be at least nine or more feet tall, maybe seven hundred kilograms of hybrid dinosaur. So she was larger than average and… happy, rather than being an utterly broken creature.

“Thank you for helping me find Dracozolt, I was worried sick when she left her ball.” Cara rubbed her eyes again, and smiled sadly when her giant pokémon cuddled up to her in a single stride, letting out a soft crooning sound. “If you two ever need anything from me, show up at my lab in Iwasaki. You can’t miss it.”

She shuffled off with her drake in tow, and I shared a moment with a rather befuddled Akari.

Today was a weird day.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.3

October 23rd, 2022.

I stared at the script, as I let my brain actually focus on the letters. It was essentially a tweaked Latin alphabet, they just well… looked like runes, sharper and more angular in shape, but they otherwise played by the same rules as normal English. Which did explain why people couldn’t read my writing, it was like trying to read Cyrillic script… though why I had no trouble reading it was something that gave me a big headache.

Akari and Laven thought my ability to comprehend multiple languages was aura-based, while the universal tongue was a variant of English, a lot of people still spoke other languages, like a dialect of Japanese in Nihoh, and a dialect of Spanish in Paldea and Mezo. Which I could understand fine, it was the script that was annoying. But I still understood it.

The simple answer was language barriers weren’t a thing for me anymore, even if it more or less just sounded like English most of the time. Too bad it didn’t work on pokémon language.

I received a light gentle smack to the head from Akari, her cheeks puffed up in indignation. “Could you please pay attention, I am trying to teach you now that I’m getting a better hang of my own aura.”

I put my phone away with a blush.

She wasn’t wrong, while I had noticed the anime-physics enforced by passive aura a long time ago… there was that symbiotic bond between human and pokémon that was hundreds of thousands of years old if not millions. My paltry talent with aura had grown in leaps and bounds as my team got stronger, as we earned more badges. Where before my sense was mostly gut instinct, and vague feelings and emotions… I could actually feel/see/sense my own aura.

Akari’s clan had traditions of teaching and mastering aura that were at least fifteen hundred years old. That was a lot of hidden knowledge, gained from understanding of the hidden monsters that live in this vast world.

Akari sat in a meditative position, and grabbed hold of a… stick?

She started drawing in the bare ground of the small forest clearing at the edge of town we had chosen after our third and final day of battles in the city. It was a rough figure of a human being surrounded by a shifting mass of energy, stemming up from the top of their head, in addition she created connections to other familiar shapes. A bipedal fluffy rabbit, a spiky much larger horned rabbit, and a round mouse-like creature with a long thin tail ending in a round ball of fat.

Their aura all had its own shape and texture, and their aura seemed to radiate around the strange lines of connection she had drawn in the dirt. “You already know that the bond between pokémon and a trainer is based on aura and makes both stronger. So I’ll tell you how that works for you.”

I nodded, following along with the lesson.”

“When I first met you… your aura was weak and strange,” she revealed. “It was like the aura of a newborn stretched over an adult’s body. I kept thinking one good push would just umm…” she licked her lips nervously.

I raised an eyebrow. “Kill me?”

“Yeah. But now… your aura is growing in leaps and bounds, as is mine, which means I can put some of the lessons my clan gave me to good use. What I’ve taught you when it comes to… meditation and basic control of aura, it’s kid’s stuff, just so we can get a basic feel for aura. But you’re at the stage where you can start seeing it. And we aren’t allowed to advance past that until we hit sixteen and go on our journey.”

“Yeah?” I avoided asking about the landmine of why she hadn’t gone on her journey three years ago.

She pulled out an odd journal, one that looked a hundred or more pages thick at the very least, with an odd title, simply a circular symbol of platinum coloration with…

Sukshma Sarira

“Try and open that.” I blinked at her request and reached out to the book, and simply tugged on the cover… which didn’t budge even a millimeter.

What?

I pulled the book into my lap, and began to rip into it with all my strength, and it didn’t give at all.

“What the fuck?” I didn’t usually curse aloud, but my inhibitions had dropped a lot without the pressure of being around family.

Akari smirked. “How do you think my clan has been able to keep their secrets into the modern age?”

“Magic, alchemy, I know that’s a thing aura can do.” It was bullshit is what it was, lucario used alchemy to turn their bones into orichalcum, a special alchemical metal better able to conduct aura and fighting spirit. “So does that mean I need to channel aura into this?” She gave a silent thumbs up, and I rolled my eyes at her.

I reached out to that spark of Power that had been steadily growing with every battle and tribulation my team faced, every show of affection and kindness, every new puzzle piece added to my understanding of pokémon. Her exercises reminded me of various tantric and yoga practices or stuff like qigong. Except they uhh… actually did something.

I visualized my aura as a shining void, filling the space in my belly and heart and with an exhale radiating throughout the rest of my body. I let it cycle ever upwards, the base of my spine, my stomach, solar plexus, heart, throat, forehead and the crown of my head. I let my aura move…

And the book opened.

October 24th, 2022.

I watched Mirko spar against the empty air, letting her pressure wash over me with a grin. The short book had been rather more helpful than I had expected, with multiple pages of insights and techniques when it came to cultivating aura and one’s relationship with their pokémon. Even Akari had been surprised by how scientific and meticulous it was, various types of stones and gems were amazing foci for aura control, not far off from… well the same purpose in pokémon.

Aura in humans didn’t work exactly the same as in pokémon, it was all the same kind of energy, but what we could do with certain types of energy was a bit different was all. More subtle in some ways, people would use ‘moves’ but it was closer to magic spells than the specific frameworks that pokémon had been crafting since the dawn of Life. I read the passage, Akari and I have been working on it for some time now.

Aura is the metaphysical energy that flows throughout the body, the energy of life itself. It is the very root and beating heart of the beings known as pokémon, of the Empowered like ourselves and beyond. If you are reading this then you are a member of the Shirogane clan or a friend to us, if so you are welcome to our knowledge. We will teach what it means to be a user of the great energy of creation, perhaps not an Aura Guardian, as their time has passed long ago… but to understand the world, that is a worthy goal indeed.

Her clan was rather nice actually, and I wondered if they were interested in spreading their knowledge or keeping it to a select few. I could probably ask them based on how elaborate and well documented this little book was. I skimmed over the passage, and stuck out my tongue as I read with fervor.

As a pokémon wielder grows with their companions, so does their aura and their ability to change it into the flow of elemental power, into what is known as Type Energy. This is the source of the many metaphysical abilities of the Empowered.

Psychics draw on their own psychic energies and their connection to the Dream World, masters of ninjitsu instead focus on the energies of the more subtle and stealthy Types, of poison, ghost, and dark pokémon. Occultists are of course connected to ghosts, watchers, guardians and gardeners of the Spirit World. The truth is however… that all human beings use aura every moment of their lives. Everyone can move aura, everyone can and does so as a matter of course.

This text of ours will teach you of the eighteen Elemental Types, of what they can do when drawn upon, and how they affect the World around us.

The book was utterly and completely fascinating, and my limited aura sense told me that it was absolutely bathed in a complex weave of aura, like a web that gave me a headache just thinking about it. From what I could tell, it was some type of auric… hardware, acting as a security system for the secrets held within. If I had been malicious, I would have… probably suffered for my hubris.

But I wasn’t so I was fine… would have been nice if someone had mentioned that.

Akari whistled innocently at my glare, as I shut the book and focused on Mirko’s training instead. I wasn’t going to be a punch wizard anytime soon, while I had grown in leaps and bounds, my aura was still far too stretched out to do any of the crazier stuff. I could do magic though, since that didn’t draw on my own power alone. I should look into that…

I wasn’t so good at the external use of aura, but it turns out my ability to sense it was far better than Akari’s now that I had a deep enough well. It was an unforeseen force of invisible influence, like a weight, virtually shrouding me in its power. Mirko was throwing out moves, surrounded in a shroud of stately silver with flickers of red. When she struck out with Thunder Punch, I saw how that stately silver became a crashing mass of yellow and gold, projecting out as raw lightning around her paws.

Pokémon… their aura was clearly radiating their Type Energy at all times, shaped by their biology, soul and flesh both. Human aura was transparent most of the time, like looking at fragile glass, unless they had developed an affinity to a Type like most Specialists did.

Which I hadn’t seen so far because my new sense is… well new. But that was something to do later. At the moment my data is limited, despite unlocking the book there were chapters that were locked up behind thick chains of auric machinery. Probably a safety feature, idiot-proofing books was important.

What I had learned was very interesting, a pokémon’s aura created a sort of… Space around them, a type of pressure on reality whenever they entered battle. This area of influence… was the source of the power of moves, it was how they could hit like artillery without the corresponding mass or velocity. Whoever had a higher level of Space was going to hit harder when it came to strength or power, and the longer they fought the less Space (aura) they had to spare.

Jericho’s aura was a sickly dark purple with hints of brown, yellowish loam etching deep into his energies, along with sparkles of sharp pinks. Llayda was a deep ocean blue with great streams of fairy pink tracing around her with intent, and a spark of red every now and then. Which meant she had an affinity for fighting aura, and could learn them faster than and use them with greater power than other off-type moves.

The Terastal phenomenon seemed to draw on those affinities and made them even stronger or on pokémon that lean towards one of their types more in terms of… affinity, the energy given to that type? A pokémon could radiate far more energy of one element more than the average, which could become their Tera Type.

A lot of the early pages focused on trying to generate the same energies as your own pokémon, and figure out what you can do from there. Which tends to relate to the aspects of Reality that the Types have dominion over. The book had a lot of interesting things to say on that matter, regardless of how short it was. From what I had read, the reason was because learning how to manipulate metaphysical energy was really personal so the most they could offer was more advanced exercises, better tools for practicing and so on, at least near the start, and asking for help was also part of the journey or whatever.

I circulated my aura, aligning to the same nature that Mirko followed, hers wasn’t inert so much as… perfectly balanced, it was the absence of alignment to any of the other elemental types. It could be easily shifted to other forms of aura, which explained why normal-types had had such large movepools. One could say normal energy is the minimum baseline when it comes to alignming aura into something useful. Which did explain pokémon like ditto, and… Arceus being normal-type.

Normal energy was… familiar, soothing almost, it flowed in calm and simple patterns, and seemed easier to move. Moving it outside my body was a bit tiring, so I tended to just keep most of the flow inside.

Pressure!

Mirko flinched, Akari let out a yelp as a massive field of pressure pressed down on us like the fist of god. I turned and found someone walking around with a lucario and holyshitoww!

It was like staring at the sun.

The Space around the lucario had to span the width of several football fields, his aura shining like a beacon, an impossibly thick cloak of blood red aura with scaffolds of steel gray scraping against the fabric of reality like a force of nature. His trainer’s aura was no less impressive, it was like a figure of glass, glory and garnet surrounded her, not quite as vast as her companion but easily a hundred times denser than anything we had to offer in terms of aura.

“Maybe turn it down a notch Lulu? I think you’re going to give those kids a heart attack.” The woman revealed a boisterous voice, and I flinched as she jumped a dozen feet in a single bound, her pokémon following her with a gentle growl. The massive cowl of light receded, folding in on itself a hundred times over until it was reduced to a barely visible shimmer along her fur.

Akari’s mouth dropped. “What the hell is an Elite Four member doing here?”

I paled. What?

I recognized the woman from magazines and new articles, she was tall and built, wearing a white-collared button-up blouse and form-fitting gray pants. She had fair skin, sharp dark eyes and lengthy black hair tamed into a ponytail.

Izumi of the Elite Four, the strongest fighting-type trainer in the region of Tohoku. Alongside the ace of her team, Lulu the Lucario. She stood at shoulder height for me… so around four and a half feet tall. Her eyes burned a lovely shade of rusty red, her expression somewhat serious as she scanned us.

So this was the power of a 12-star pokémon then?

It was terrifyingly beautiful.

She crossed her arms over her chest with a light smirk. “So. What are a bunch of kids doing out in these little woods when the city is literally five minutes away?”

“Practice.” Akari sounded nervous, sweat dripping down her forehead at the sharp gaze of Izumi.

“Do you mean practicing as in training or in practicing making the beast with two backs?”

I turned scarlet. “My pokémon is literally punching stuff right over there!” Was my counter and she snorted.

“Kid, I’ve been around a while… that doesn’t do much to people that determined to shag.”

What?

Akari sighed. “Motherfucker…” I… really should have seen that coming, I had literally read up on the relationships between humans and pokémon just so I wouldn’t be caught off guard.

She smirked. “Just teasing, I wouldn’t have shown up here if that was happening,” I rolled my eyes, and the Elite Four member shrugged her shoulders as she watched us closely. “I was actually looking for a ghost that’s been lingering around these parts. Lulu and Martin picked up the scent around here.”

“What kind of ghost?” I asked carefully, fully remembering that odd dream. So that had been a haunting then? Maybe?

“A fairly harmless one, in terms of threat rather than power, a Tohokun audino.” Well… that was unsettling.

I flinched as the air suddenly turned cold, as the pressure pressed down on my shoulders. Nowhere as strong as the lucario but stronger than anything I had felt from my own pokémon. It was like a shadow was spreading out across reality, and I blinked as it coalesced into a physical form, like a planet forming from cosmic dust.

The pokémon looked a lot like an audino… but I knew it wasn’t just an audino.

The pokémon was semi-transparent and the pinks and whites of her fur had faded to almost gray, with white shining orbs for eyes. A witch’s hat sat on her head, with a pair of wings flapping ominously with every shift of the ghost pokémon’s gentle hovering.

Ghostly fire orbited around the ghost-normal type, eyes growing far too wide for her face. I could… feel something from the ghost, a burst of curiosity, joy, and mild annoyance.

Izumi snorted, and the ghost looked indignant. “Your kith and kin have been worried sick you know, they haven’t figured out why you wandered off, and the League doesn’t need a cohort of ghosts getting angry.”

I flinched at the idea, ghosts were powerful and dangerous. I had heard news reports of people getting attacked or haunted by ghost-type pokémon, and that was when they were being playful. I didn’t want to think about what they could do if they were in a bad mood.

I had to ask. “So she’s been haunting the city?”

Izumi shook her head. “She’s been haunting you, girl. I’m not sure what you did to get her attention, but she slipped out of Hatanoda village and crossed five hundred kilometers just to meet a trainer with two badges.”

Oh.

“That’s uhh… concerning.” Why did I have to get haunted by a ghost, why?

“It is, you’re lucky I was in the area, who knows what this bugaboo would have done to get your attention.” The ghostly audino just smiled, the shadows cutting deeper, growing longer and more distorted around her form. I shuddered. “It does mean she’s not going to bother you now. Am I clear?” Izumi projected her voice, and I could feel pressure coming off of her in waves.

Audino nodded and yet… there was a look in her eyes, and she let out a loud wailing cry that surprised Izumi. I could feel her aura change and warp and dance, forming into living witch lights, scattering light like fractal prisms.

Izumi was staring at me with curiosity now. “Interesting… kid, I’ll be telling this for her if that’s okay?” She jutted her thumb in the pokémon’s direction, and I nodded. “Seems like you caught her interest, if she was a lone ghost she’d be haunting you until you decided to catch her. But she’s not… so I’ll be giving you a little tip. Once you earn five badges… come on down to Hatanoda, if you’re willing to put in the work… who knows what could happen?”

I shared an awkward stare with Akari…

And nodded.

I chewed on my lip as I looked over the various supplies being sold by the Pokémart. After that encounter with an EliteFour member and a ghost, Akari and I were thrown off our game.

Super Potion, ₽700.

Super potions were more powerful than regular health potions, a basic potion was made out of a synthetic slurry of oran berry and medicinal leek juice, while a super potion was made even stronger using a pep-up plant, while hyper potions used morning-dew buds. Or at least that was how they could be made in the wild, the modern synthetic variants weren’t that much better, though they didn’t work as well on people.

Though it made me wonder how often Akari got hurt badly enough to need magical health potions.

“Bun!” Mirko picked out something from a shelf, and I raised a brow at what I recognized as a toy knife.

“Why would you want that?”

Mirko placed her hands on her little hips. “Bun!” Isn’t it obvious what…? That seemed like what she was saying.

“You want to practice a new way to slay all your enemies?” She nodded, and I rolled my eyes. “Fine. We’ll buy it, don’t try Baby-Doll Eyes on me… don’t need the distraction.”

Some fun was nice every once in a while, we had our first research mission marked on the map on Laven’s request. Just a few miles into Route 307 marked our destination, a small town was close by our goal.

The Fireside Woods.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.4

October 25th, 2022.

The Fireside Woods was the first of the ‘Nodes’ that Professor Laven was interested in, areas that were considered a high-point in the energy of the world. There were many such locations across the world, and some were more exciting than others, the Power Spots of Galar where there was enough ambient energy and Galar particle flux to allow for Dynamax and Gigantamax phenomena, in Alola, the trial arenas where Totem pokémon battle challengers, swelling with incredible energy. The areas in Paldea that allow for wild Terastallized pokémon, those kind of areas of high energy exist throughout the world.

The Fireside Woods were known for being unusually rich in fire-type pokémon, something that was only possible because the forest was thin and most of the plant species loved fire, as it cleared out competition and provided a source of nutrients for offspring to sprout within the searing heat, along with a mix of fire-resistant grasslands spaced between great patches of forest.

“So… what kind of data do we need to extract from the Fireside Woods professor? And why do we need to stop at the Fireside Pokémon House first?” I scratched my skin, hiding a cheeky grin as I bounced on my heels, letting the motion calm my nerves as we waited at the front steps of a local Pokémon House, a volunteer shelter for abandoned and orphaned pokémon.

Something about that idea irked me, at the idea that even in this world people treated pokémon as accessories and tools rather than living, thinking beings. Even the stantler I had caught had gotten something in return, good shelter and food, it was the hard fucking minimum to treat them with common decency and respect.

Laven was scratching her cheek on the holographic screen of my super-enhanced phone. “The local Pokémon House works with the Rangers when it comes to abandoned pokémon, for some reason bad trainers keep leaving their pokémon in the Fireside Woods so there’s a regular patrol in the area. So it’s a good idea to check in with the House to go into the forest.”

Oh. Fair enough. After a few more minutes of chatting I hung up on the professor.

Akari tapped me on the shoulder, gently tugging me towards the door to the shelter, which was opened by a blonde Hiker woman, who looked like she could break me in half with her thighs. I flushed at the thought, she was very pretty… damn.

I shook my head, and Akari continued tugging me forward, speaking up with a curious tone. “You’re… Miss Akagi?”

The identified Hiker woman smiled warmly. “Missus Akagi is a bit more accurate, I didn’t wine and dine a fine lady like my wife without earning the title ya know.”

I blinked. Oh, that’s cute.

“Are you telling our guests our life story again Kara?” I could hear a voice from deeper in the voice, softer and cuter than Akagi’s boisterous lively beat.

“NO SWEET POTATO!” That was pretty loud wasn’t it? Was my only thought as we stepped into the modified home-shelter. It was pretty big, two stories tall, the living room and kitchen had been reassembled into a homey shelter, with high fences splitting off an area for about a dozen pokémon in total. I could see a scruffy looking eevee, with a scar over one eye that provoked sympathy from me.

There was a small swinub who looked tired, cuddling with a plush piloswine plushy. Strangely enough… none of them noticed the loud yell…?

How did she do that?

I was going to chalk it up to subconscious aura magic, and leave it at that.

Kara brushed back her blonde hair with a smile. “So you’re the professor’s lab trainers then? Looking to survey the Fireside Woods?”

“We are.” My voice wavered but I didn’t dare pause awkwardly. “It’s for her research, but we were told to check in at your residence before doing any of that.”

Kara nodded. “That’s cuz my wife is a Ranger, and the Fireside Woods is her jurisdiction.” Oh, so that was the connection the Pokémon House had with the Rangers. “When I heard two Lab Trainers were looking to enter the forest I knew some interesting shit might be going down. What kind of things are you working on?”

I breathed deeply as I thought about my area of research. “I’ve mostly been focusing on a study of the comparative biology of pokémon,” I wasn’t going to mention the study included comparisons to my own home’s life forms. “Plus some side work when it comes to studying aura and its role in pokémon moves and abilities, and physiology. Though… it’s quite basic since part of my time is dedicated to learning the field.”

Kara looked curious, and her gaze shifted to Akari, who smiled nervously.

But she spoke up. “I’m not… really aiming to be a researcher like Brandy, but I suppose what I do fits with pokémon athletics science, and sociocultural anthropology in terms of pokémon-human relations.”

Kara smiled. “So an excuse to be a battle junkie and the second one is getting to learn about cultures outside your mountain clan and how they treat pokémon?”

Akari just stared at Kara “Yes.”

“Good. It’s nice to see the young folk be so enthusiastic about their fields of interest,” Kara sounded sincere. “Though it also makes me hate that I have to ask for your help.”

“Help?”

Kara grimaced. “One of our residents is a bit of an escape artist, not too bad really, because she tends to stay pretty close by…”

“Not this time?” I said quietly, worry cropping up in my mind.

“We’re fairly certain she went into the Fireside Woods, and we can’t get any additional Rangers aside from my wife for this. It’s not incredibly dangerous, but two at least 2-star lab trainers can certainly keep some heat off of Tsuyoki.”

Being lab trainers gave us that much credibility, huh?

“I think we can manage that, and having a guide and extra hands can’t hurt can it?” Akari responded with enthusiasm and I gave a silent thumbs up.

Kara just smirked.

“Tana na na na!” I listened to Tsuyoki’s quite frankly adorable humming (singing?) as she guided us through the large woody biome, her head practically bobbing along with her black ponytail in her black and orange ranger uniform which included a nice hat.

Tsuyoki was interesting, she was shorter than me, which made her really small and generally… cute and feminine, and kinda derpy… bubbly? But she was still a 5-star trainer, having earned five badges before joining the Pokémon Rangers as a cadet.

It was an interesting organization, one that had changed and shifted over the years after contact with regions like Fiore. They were initially just a subset of trainers that still caught pokémon, but the development of the capture styler led to a paradigm shift, creating a fusion of methodologies. They had their personal partner team, and used capture stylers to calm wild pokémon and recruit them in their missions to brave the frontiers.

The older woman’s partner pokémon was a furret, a six foot long living carpet of brown and beige fluff, with dark green eyes bordering on black. His aura shifted and twisted in a regular pattern within a dense bubble of slate gray, and his pressure was light, since he wasn’t in full-battle mode.

I had Llayda out since as a water-type she would be the most suitable when it came to countering the numerous fire-types living in the Fireside Woods. In turn Akari had Happy out, the bipedal fire pig smirking as he sniffed out something none of us humans could smell.

Llayda had recently worked out Aqua Tail, which had been easy for me to explain with my aura sight. I just told her to reach for the flexibility of water instead of the platonic absence of normal energy. It wasn’t true neutral, but it was close in some sense of the word. She was interested in a couple of moves, Liquidation was one alongside Belly Drum to maximize her attack strength. Though for the latter, I had to wait until she was an azumarill and strong enough to handle the damage.

She’s also interested in Chilling Water for some reason, and it was… an interesting idea.

Akari hummed quietly as she patted her pokémon on his head, and I noted the odd gloves on her hands, they were made of a soft leather fabric with lines of gold tracing towards a circular round gem that was dim, matching in color with the black material.

“What are those?” I asked quietly, lowering my voice in a whisper. Akari didn’t startle, eyes briefly flirting over to the Ranger before leaning to speak.

“They’re… training gloves, they help when it comes to focus and channeling of… certain energies,” Akari was happy to explain, rubbing her hands together with a shy grin. “They work well when it comes to actually using that energy instead of just moving it or sensing it’s movement. I’ll let you borrow them if you want.”

I snorted and she glared. “Sorry, sorry,” I apologized. “But my hands are tiny see?” I waved my hands, showing off their majestic smallness. “Always have been, so I don’t think they’d fit very well.” Akari made an odd face, and to my shock I suddenly had her grabbing my hands to inspect them, eyes tracing them with a curious look.

“Umm…” I coughed and she let go with a light blush.

“I was curious, never noticed before.” I… accepted that explanation, and ignored the smug looking fire pig watching us. I stuck out my tongue, not caring about how childish it was. Little bastard was an adult and could take it like a man, pig, person.

Whatever.

“So… so the pokémon we’re searching for, you mentioned they were a fennekin?” Tsuyoki was pulled out of her humming by my question, her eyes looking sad.

“Yep. She’s a real cutie, but her trainer is another story,” a sneer didn’t look right on the ranger’s face, but that was what it was. “From what I can tell, her trainer is an arrogant piece of work who treats his pokémon like tools. If they’re not strong enough for him… he lets them go.”

I flinched, sounded like a Paul-kind of person. “I’ve heard of trainers like that, that’s just…” it was awful, it made my skin crawl that people treated sophont beings with such disrespect. I also knew that was both highly unethical at best, and various levels of illegal at worst.

Sometimes things don’t work out when it comes to a pokémon, but throwing them away was… a very, very different matter. It made me sick, and I grimaced to myself, wondering if the urge to beat him in a pokémon battle was new.

“So do you know where we need to search for this little fire fox?” I placed my hands behind my back, my eyes darting back and forth across the gigantic red trunked trees surrounding us. Redwoods maybe?

“Probably the Victini Shrine.” Tsuyoki answered with a chipper attitude and I coughed.

“Victini Shrine?” I asked, and Akari looked just as curious.

“The fire pokémon of the forest worship the Fire god Victini, more in his capacity as a God of Victory but still… They had humans help them build a spot where they could offer sacrificial flames, and plant fire gentians.” Aren’t those symbolic for victory?

Oh… yeah, sometimes I forget that pokémon worship the legendaries as their actual gods. I had seen Mirko build a shrine to Regigigas on more than one occasion, Jericho was a bit more esoteric, providing tribute to some unnamed Poison god. What I found concerning was the fact I could hear the capitalization in my own head when it came to legendaries and their typing. Llayda made tributes to Diancie through a short tea ceremony, which I was forced to sit through on some occasions. The question then was guessing which I should attend because as a faerie she can be… unpredictable.

She had been taunted into a rage once or twice by some of the fire pokémon who had wanted to challenge us. Of which there weren’t many with Furret the Furret out and frightening some of them off. Having a 5-star mon followed by two borderline 3-star mons was a good thing in many respects. Also begged the question of why Llayda hasn't evolved when she had built up more than enough might.

“Heya, eyes up!” The Ranger chirped, and I paid more attention as we walked into a clearing, a circular platform of raised dirt covered in reddish-orange grass. In the center of it all was a Shinto-esque shrine made out of smooth obsidian, with a round deep hole fit for fiery offerings at the center. “She should… be here.”

I examined the shrine closely, looking it up and down, how should I do this?

I decided to use my aura reading, since that was a useful ability even if it was all I could do with aura.

I immediately regretted it as the Pressure roiled in waves, like I was suddenly in the center of a massive bonfire, in my eyes it was a mass of golden torch flame, extending across the forest in great dancing embers and scintillating linear blazes.

Oh.

I did my best to ignore the blinding aura, and it didn’t take long to fade into the background, the natural Space of the wild aura of the Fireside Woods. I could see another signature, a shade to that bonfire, burning scarlet and orange flames with hints of psychic pink.

I shut off my aura reading, and lightly prodded Llayda towards the source of that less insane aura. She painted a warm smile on her face, and called out to the fire fox hiding herself in the bush at the edge of the clearing. From the shaking of the bush the pokémon was refusing. Why?

Why was she so scared?

It was instinct that saved me at the last second, throwing myself into a panicked roll as a sudden pressure slammed down into the world. Claws the length of half my chest sliced through the air where my head had been, and I let out an unimpressive squeak of terror. Claws blazed with the white light of Slash, air compressing under the sheer force of the strike.

“Furret, Protect and lend a Helping Hand!” Tsuyoki immediately reacted, essentially flash stepping with Agility, and summoning a great beige shield of energy to block my attacker’s Fire Lash, the whip of fire blazing white hot before giving away to the inches thick barrier.

Furret started clapping his paws together, hands glowing with a faint golden sheen.

What the hell had attacked us?

Dust scattered, obscuring the pokémon until it rose on its back, arms spreading in a t-shaped pose, six inch long claws sparking with chaotic fire energy, a long neck rearing back to reveal a long snout and beady crazy eyes.

“MOOOOR!” A massive heatmor let out a battle cry, eyes wide and sparks black as night flashing along its spine. At least nine feet tall, claws radiating outward with lethal intent.

There was something very wrong here.

“HOI! KEEP BACK!” Tsuyoki stepped between us and what had to be an Alpha heatmor who chuffed with unbridled rage. “Keep your pokémon in front!” I could feel the balls on my belt wiggling with anger, and I reached out to them with a shiver.

Keep calm, if you pop out suddenly…

I didn’t want to get my body cut in half by the clearly enraged xenarthran, and I could see the burning flames twisting around his claws, a modified Fire Punch probably.

Dark energy flared around the Alpha, and I felt blood rush away from my face.

“DUCK!”

The clearing exploded with the twisting impact of Brutal Swing and Fire Lash.

A blast of Incinerate was blocked by Kirby, his refined Protect forming a suitable bulwark against the Alpha heatmor. The pokémon was way too strong for any of us alone, and Furret the furret was the only pokémon on an equal playing field. He was using Follow Me to draw in the berserk monster’s ire and attention.

“Double Team!” He split into multiple clones, and heatmor reacted with a strange gurgling cry, and Spit Up mixed with fire-type energy, releasing a powerful beam that Furret blocked with Focus Blast, which split the attack in quarters before slamming into the anteater like a truck.

“We need to weaken this heatmor as much as possible, my stylus can’t break through his mania!” Tsuyoki looked haggard, having made several attempts to encircle the wild pokémon with the energy of her empath device.

Happy fired a Mud Shot into Mud Slap, both blinding and slowing the enraged fire-type, who blew off much of the mud with a body-conforming Fire Spin. He threw our more mud attacks, many of which missed… why would, oh!

“Bruiser-Archer, take away his footing.” I called out to Mirko, and she accelerated into the sheer speed of Quick Attack, dodging Heatmor’s rapid fire shots of Incinerate shaped into spears of flame.

Heatmor was slow, but hit like a truck at both close range and long range. So we needed to get him off his footing, couldn’t let him leverage his absurd physical strength and special power.

“Bubble Beam the field!” I called out to Llayda and she did as I asked, right as Mirko flash stepped into Heatmor’s reach, and with a smirk she used a Work Up boosted Dizzy Punch to explode the ground around the feral fire pokémon’s feet.

Llayda’s Bubble Beam hit at the same time, and the Alpha was thrown off his feet and into the wet and deep mud with a roar of pain. He hissed, and I could feel something building deep inside of the now slippery fire type.

Steam rose off his back, and the back of his tail was filling up with smoke and fire and brimstone, and I flinched.

“Protect, he’s using Overheat!”

We barely reacted in time, and I was sent flying by the sudden gigantic wave of fire, heat and explosive force.

And right into a bush.

I rubbed my head, shaking at the sheer sound banging inside my skull.

Hate it, hate it, hate it, make it stop…

I shuddered, I didn’t like loud noises… I just couldn’t tolerate it. I never had been really, and this was—

I heard a quiet bark, and found myself staring into the wide, honey colored eyes of the fennekin we had come out here for to begin with. She was looking at me with distrust, ears held back against the side of her head, and the common smile of her species replaced with a sharp toothed growl.

“Hey, are—” I flinched as I heard Mirko use Swift, which told me she was still in the fight. “Are you okay?”

“Fooo…” She looked angry at my question and I rolled my eyes at her, this was not the time.

“It’s fine not to trust or like me, god knows I don’t like myself either,” I whispered under my breath with a wincing shrug. “But doing so when a crazed anteater twice my height is wrecking us is not the best time for it.”

“Puh…ko.” The fox rolled her eyes, her tail held stiff as she ignored my advice.

I crossed my arms. “I’m sure you care about Tsuyoki don’t you? You wouldn’t have stuck around this long if you didn’t.” Multiple escape attempts and coming back every time said a lot. “Well she’s out there fighting a crazed pokémon because she wanted to find you and help you, that should at least mean something right?”

Fennekin was starting to look guilty, and I winced as I tried to stand back up, it hurt like shit. Did I break something?

I managed to get a better handle on my balance, leaning against the dense truck of the bush I was in, and took a peek out of the bush.

I choked.

Llayda was surrounding herself with a constant field of Bubble Beam that she expanded and grew with Water Gun, using it to quench Heatmor’s flames, and slamming into the mon with a quick one-two punch of Aqua Jet and Aqua Tail. Not that it did much against the much stronger pokémon. It had to be a 5-star or even 6-star monster at least with how it was taking Slams from Furret.

Jericho had poisoned the pokémon and I winced at the burns around his left side, and the raw claw marks on his face. He wasn’t badly injured but he needed a visit to the Center. Mirko was sporting a dark expression, jumping at Heatmor’s face and clawing at it with Cut, and a sweeping strike of Dizzy Punch.

I could see that Kirby was down and out, and I could tell Akari was pissed about it as she gave out commands to Ellis and Happy.

Fuck, this is bad… I can barely even move.

“I’m… not sure about the life you lead before now, and I’m not asking,” I felt my throat close up at the ache in my chest. “But can you at least help us here, for Tsuyoki… She seems nice and kind, and that’s…” I wish that was more common in my world, I wished sincerely for it. “Important.”

Fennekin stared at the battle with weary eyes.

She gave a noncommittal chuff, and nodded. She let out a quiet sound, and to my surprise, she began to gather energy into a single focused white star, which rose silently up into the sky. Interesting.

Wish was an esoteric move, it involved prayer, invoking the raw forces of the universe to heal anyone who could reach out to that great big star in the sky. Llayda chuffed, and used Bounce to reach the star, her injuries suddenly vanishing in a flash before coming down as a meteor against Heatmor.

Good thing I talked about moves like Wish before.

“Do you have any moves that can hit him like a truck, even just for a moment?” Fennekin blinked, and grimaced.

“Stored Power?” She stared at me with confusion and suspicion. “I research pokémon, you know, and it’s a strong move even if it takes a fair amount of setup.”

Fennekin sighed, and her expression shifted as faint rings of energy surrounded her head. Calm Mind, huh?

It went once, twice, and a third time, and I winced as I saw Furret take a hit from the Alpha again, and he twisted into Extreme Speed, practically flash stepping out of the way of the anteater’s Flamethrower.

Mirko glanced over to the bush, and offered a thumbs up before throwing out a quick wave of Swift stars to distract and addle the enraged heatmor. How did she…?

Each iteration of Calm Mind involved precious seconds, and I flinched as I saw that Heatmor was using Hone Claws and Nasty Plot. Can they learn that? What?

With a single Brutal Swing, Happy was down and I could tell that Akari felt that. The energy feedback from one’s team getting knocked out was dangerous and she could get killed here.

A total of six Calm Minds maxed out Fennekin’s special power and resistance, and I could tell she was about to carelessly throw it out into the field.

I barred her way and she showed her teeth. “No, if you miss and hit one of them… someone is getting hurt.” Fennekin yielded to my explanation, and I hummed to myself. “We need to wait for an opening.”

I watched my team coordinate with each other, Mirko harassed Heatmor with Swift while Jericho poisoned and distracted and Llayda added a layer of defense with her water moves and hydrokinesis and sheer physical strength with Aqua Tail and Aqua Jet.

Furret threw out a massive Water Pulse, using the bubble field as an easy water source, and Heatmor just flared up with a tornado of Fire Spin that was pulled apart by a Hyper Voice from Furret that sent the pokémon reeling.

Maybe now…?

He glared at Llayda with lethal intent, and a poisonous aura began to gather around his stomach and mouth. That was… Belch.

A poison type move like that would kill her.

“Fire now! Please!” I asked as the Heatmor began to scream, those strange wisps of blacker than black shadows sparking painfully along his back.

I threw myself out of the bush like an idiot, and called his attention.

“HEY!” Rage filled eyes flitted to my attention, oh shit what was I thinking!

Fennekin let out a chuff, and right as Belch flew out towards Llayda—

A blinding violet light covered the field.

I woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling.

I giggled, and felt sore all around but the fact I could feel anything at all was probably a good sign. I reached out to my nebulous core, and my aura responded like an old friend, circulating through my body with a careful and sluggish speed.

“Rilli?” To my shock, I could feel the connection to my pokémon with greater depth than before, it wasn’t much deeper… just a slightly better understanding of their emotional state, their intentions.

I opened my eyes, and found myself being stared at by an irate buneary, a proud and puffed up azumarill, and a bandaged but relieved nidorino.

“Guys?” I coughed, lightly thumping my chest, my throat was dry as hell. “So based on… not in a hospital?” This was a normal room, and I could feel bandages uncomfortably tightened around my ribs. “I was hurt but not so badly that I need to be hospitalized?”

Mirko narrowed her eyes, and I grimaced. “Sorry. I’m not making light of it… just that it’s better than it could be, not that it’s good.” Ugh, I felt like shit. “Do you know what happened after I got knocked out?”

All three stared at me like I was stupid and I flushed. Right… I’m good at guessing their intent and meaning, but holding a conversation with them was a different issue.

“Well, Tsuyoki managed to calm down the Alpha heatmor after it took a direct hit from Fennekin’s Stored Power and your Llayda’s last Aqua Tail when she evolved.” I let out a strangled cry when Akari popped up from the door, leaning her hip into the frame with a gentle smile.

“Oh… hey?” I waved shyly.

Akari snorted. “You weren’t too badly hurt, just some bruised ribs that were taken care of with berry and leek extract-soaked bandages.” That was… not normal and her wince told me my face had told her as such.

“It’s… fine, I guess? Was there something wrong with that heatmor? I sort of noticed some weird… shadowy fluff attached to it?”

Akari’s face pinched into frustration. “Our dexes said the data was… inconclusive and none of it survived Tsuyoki’s use of her styler. It could have been some type of illness, or a residue from a dangerous pokémon.”

“Did we at least get some of that data Laven was looking for?” Akari raised a brow and I shrugged with a pained smile. “Hey, I just wanted to ask.”

“Yeah… that shrine seems to be a gigantic focal point of fire-type energy, which is why there’s so many fire types, it’s a good and healthy environment for them. Which is why that heatmor was there… but it doesn’t explain the insanity.”

I sighed, and tried to stand up… before realizing I didn’t have a shirt on and sitting back down.

“This is a fucking mess.”

Akari agreed with a groan.

October 26th, 2022.

I laid dead on the couch of the local Pokémon Center, with Llayda cuddling up to me with a smug grin. She had gotten a lot bigger with her evolution, reaching just under a meter feet long and thirty seven kilograms. Which made her a fair bit larger and heavier than the average azumarill and made her my heaviest pokémon.

It also meant her food consumption had gone up to about two to three thousand calories a day, and a quick check at the Center said she had some unfinished growth, to about a meter and a half in length and sixty kilograms. Testing her strength revealed it was off the charts, she could shatter multi-ton boulders and leave several meter deep craters with Aqua Tail and Slam, and she was deeply smug about her overwhelming physical strength.

Luckily I had Jericho there to pop her bubble since she retained a weakness to poison and electric type moves which he had both of.

“Hoi!” I was startled when Tsuyoki stepped into the room with Fennekin in tow, the fire type walking haughtily behind her, it felt… a bit rehearsed.

“Huh?” I said dumbly and the Ranger just smiled back without a care in the world.

“I see you’ve recovered from yesterday, that’s good.” Tsuyoki was bouncing from foot to foot, and I relaxed at her attitude. “So when are you leaving?”

“Maybe another few hours? We’ve got the data we came for, and we’re thinking of taking the Tohoku Shinkansen, specifically the Shin-Irori Station.” Like Japan, they had a network of high-speed railway lines built to connect the region together. It was even more extensive and higher capacity by necessity as car roads weren’t as practical.

A good amount of their transportation was taken up by using pokémon, and that made a lot of sense.

“You want to take on the Nakagawa Gym then?”

“Yep. Akari and I are aiming to take on all the Major League Gyms, hopefully before the season ends.” We had eight months or so in that regard. From what I remember the average person doesn’t tend to get more than three to five badges, and it can take them over a season to earn all eight. So about a year and a half to two years was what it would take to become what would be called an Elite-class trainer.

Fennekin perked up, giving me an inquisitive glance as she walked around the Ranger.

“Well that settles it, my cute little tsundere here wants to come along and won’t take no for an answer!” She gestured to Fennekin with a laugh, who promptly spat at her with a very weak Ember, letting out a series of yelps and yips that were clearly her protesting that.

Tsuyoki‘s peppy expression didn’t change. “Fennekin, you literally agreed to this while walking to the Center, and I know you were going to be all tsun-tsun about it. You can change your mind of course, but be honest about it.”

Fennekin chuffed, but after a staring contest that she lost against the brunette, she faced me with a hesitant expression.

I coughed, rubbing my neck. “Are… are you sure about this?” I didn’t want to force her into something she didn’t want.

Fennekin… sighed, and offered me a nod. “Do you have a ball or…?” Tsuyoki shook her head, and I scrambled for my bag. I had a couple of pokéballs I had bought from a few Marts… and with a small aha I grabbed a Premier Ball. “Is this one okay?”

Fennekin just rolled her eyes and I wondered what the hell I was getting myself into.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.5

October 27th, 2022.

I stared at the train station, which was bustling with people and pokémon of all shapes and sizes. A few kids were being led around by a chansey, and a trainer was walking alongside his infernape. In real life infernape was a tad intimidating, since they were essentially a lanky chimpanzee that was also on fire. Size wise they were about the size of a large chimpanzee, around four feet while hunched over and five while not.

We had already bought the tickets that would let us cross some five hundred kilometers in about six hours. Now the question was… where was the train again?

I know it was here somewhere but I got distracted by a gardevoir I was curious about, and tried to ask them some questions and sort of got lost in the crowd.

“Brandy.”

“Hey, Akari.” I responded automatically and then blanched at Akari’s face.

“We’re going.” It was a strong statement. “Alley oop.” I flailed uselessly as I was suddenly thrown over her shoulder, and my face burned in utter embarrassment after brief amused glances of the people around.

“Akari!”

“Nope!” I slapped her back, and then gave up.

Why?

I watched the landscape of Tohoku rush by as I rested my sore butt on the comfortable train seats. The train itself offered quite a few amenities including dining for all passengers. Who didn’t have to pay tickets… though if they were a pokémon on their own they’d have to.

It was honestly kind of funny how their society worked, and interesting.

We were allowed to have our pokémon out as long as they weren’t too big, so no snorlax or onix. And none of my pokémon were big enough for that rule, though if Jericho wanted to be out he’d be under the limit for a while… and he does want to evolve, we just need to find a good quality moon stone and wait for him to accumulate more power. I would say once he reaches about 5-star accumulated power, so around the fifth gym.

But he was being lazy so he was currently sleeping in his ball, while Mirko and Llayda were chatting with the rather hesitant new member of our team in Fennekin, pending a nickname. Which I wasn’t going to give until she was good and ready.

Instead I was using my phone, opening it and taking a look at the data it had acquired from scanning the Node that was the Fireside Woods. We had taken dozens of scans after that attack, and had found some interesting data.

“Hello World.” I blinked when my porygon computer buddy piped up. “May I consolidate this analysis for you?”

“Do you want to?” I asked with a smirk, I considered them more of a co-worker since they ran the math I certainly couldn’t.

“I will take that as a yes,” I just grinned at Fennekin’s dumbfounded expression. “Preliminary analysis of background Aural Energy Flow indicates a form of ecological equilibrium. Fire-type energy appears to provide sources of heat and light, and provides sufficient energy to prevent stagnation in the natural flow of aura.”

“Is that bad?”

“Stagnant aura flow can often lead to an increase in disease, both physical and spiritual. Fire TE melts that stagnant flow, likely allowing the environment to heal and providing a suitable source of warmth, energy and emotion. Analysis of sensor data indicates a stronger effect on layers of space-time as per usual with aural energy flow.”

Oh right, there was a lot of information that aura aka infinity energy flows within metaphysically aligned planes of existence, higher layers of the World.

Or—

“Tch.” Fennekin had apparently made up her mind about the conversation, and I just raised an eyebrow at her. Llayda replied in a chiding tone to her response and it quickly broke down into rather mild bickering.

Fennekin was a bit tsundere but not to an insane extent, just a bit abrasive and not the best with people. “We can talk about something else if you’re interested, Fennekin?” I lightly patted my friendly digital companion, who left some text I could read up on their findings for later.

Mirko let out a cry. I interpreted it as ‘training goals?’ and continued. “How about training goals? I know Akari is doing the same with her team while she’s in another cart for a bit.” Jericho popped out, and the seat next to me was filled by his scaly butt.

“Nir!” He proclaimed.

Fennekin looked… concerned and I tilted my head. “Is that okay?” The fox let out a sigh and didn’t offer a protest.

I clapped my hands together. “So, the next gym we’re facing is the Nakagawa Gym, an electric-type one specifically, mainly it comes down to solidifying the kind of role each of you can or want to play in battle. Mirko, you’re an amazing sweeper with your speed, strength and wide movepool especially when you evolve.” Mirko nodded, as that was a goal she was aiming for as well. “How close are you to fully mastering Jump Kick?” I saw her take a stance, and I paled. “Don’t do it on a train!” I hissed and she just laughed with an amused churring chortle.

Mirko was a bitch sometimes…

“Fake Out might be another good move, it’s a priority move so you can flinch someone and then take advantage of their weakness, and Return is a bit more effective than Headbutt now.” Mirko just offered a purr, arms crossed over her chest. “Along with that Cut-based move you’re working on, that’ll be an interesting surprise won’t it?”

We shared a sadistic grin, and I moved on to Jericho.

“Jericho, your role is likely going to be that of a dedicated lead, with Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes you’re amazing at setting up the field, with plenty of strength and power on top of that. Roar might be a good move to learn, spread around your presents.” He offered a toothy grin at my suggestion. Once he could use Sheer Force he was going to be a monster. “So I’m counting on you to do your best when it comes to setting up the most optimal of traps.”

Llayda was the third pokémon I had to speak to. “Llayda… you’re already a monster by my account, you’re a great wallbreaker, with your defenses, constitution, typing, and abilities making you tough as hell.” She had finally developed Thick Fat after evolving, giving her even greater resistance to fire and ice energies. Once we figured out Sap Sipper, she’d lose one of her own weaknesses. Abilities had many uses which was why I was looking up if it was possible to help Mirko develop Scrappy outside of mega evolution.

Which was why she was getting in the habit of silently using Foresight, and to see if we could make it something innate to her physiology. Then she’d be Scrappy and tear through ghosts whenever she liked.

Anyways…

“I’m thinking maybe you can learn Encore, use it to trap an opponent into a bad position and pummel them into submission, Trailblaze might be interesting against other water-types and for a nice speed boost.” Liquidation had been learned in about a day, and Llayda wanted to combo it together with Aqua Tail.

Llayda just vibrated in place, her tail swaying back and forth with joy.

I faced the final and newest member of the team, who just looked confused. “I’m guessing we’re using a lot of weird terminology right?”

Fennekin replied with an unhappy yip. “Fe…”

“Fair, they’re just the names I’ve… appropriated for the various roles someone can play on the team. At the most basic, there are just three, attacking, defending, and supporting.” But that could be expanded upon.

“Miro.” Mirko added to the conversation with a haughty tone of voice.

“Those three roles can be expanded into more specific implementations for example for attacking, a sweeper is a pokémon trained in defeating many opponents in a row, often with some set-up from a lead. Like say Mirko cutting through a team weakened by poison and Stealth Rock with powerful moves and overwhelming speed. She’d be a physical sweeper, using body-oriented moves like Return or Dizzy Punch, rather than a special sweeper that uses power-sourced moves like Flamethrower or a mixed sweeper that uses both kinds of moves.”

Fennekin looked curious, tilting her head in a manner I found rather adorable.

Not that I’d say that to her face.

“A wallbreaker is similar to a sweeper, roles can be quite fluid in reality. They can take way more hits and can come in and take down tanky ass pokémon that sweepers have a hard time bringing down. A bit technical, but Akari offers a lot of advice when it comes to working out the Meta of pokémon battling.”

Fennekin just narrowed her eyes. “Fo…fo.”

“The question then is what you want to do, which also depends on whether or not you want to evolve, I know that varies.” Some pokémon preferred sticking to their first or second stage. It did offer more power, but the bond was good at negating that ‘weakness’ quite easily.

“Fofo!” She sounded indignant, and Mirko gave a thumbs up. So that was a yes for evolution then.

“So that leaves the role you want to play, there’s options with your moves, and possible abilities.” Blaze in the fennekin line was a form of basic war magic, Through intense meditation and other means they could become Magicians, able to befuddle the senses and snatch items through tricks and spells. In recent years they had figured out how to Magic Bounce the energies of utility moves.

There were lots of abilities that from what I remember pokémon didn’t have before but now they did. For example a certain volcano weasel from Johto could now have Drought because why not?

I’m not actually sure how pokémon get new abilities? Was it through genes from other species, magic, or figuring out how to use their inherent biology as a basis for new abilities?

Whatever.

I went back to chatting with Fennekin. “You’ve got a fairly wide range of potential roles, with your high speed and special power and vast movepool it lets you act as a setup sweeper, a healer, or a cleaner that can take down the remainders of an opposing team.” Her nose wrinkled at the word healer, and I wondered why that was so. “Move wise, you know Ember, Wish, Stored Power, Calm Mind, Hypnosis and Fire Spin. We can probably work on strengthening Ember into Flamethrower, it’s a much more powerful move… though I wonder if you can mix Fire Spin and Ember into some type of AoE fire grenade attack.” A sort of Hellzone Grenade if you would? “Wish is interesting, it’ll be good at keeping you in the battle with the healing, and I think your species figured out Morning Sun a while back.”

“Fen?” She just sounded befuddled at my questions.

“Well, I have to take into account every option when it comes to the team. Roles can be pretty fluid, so I have to work it out beforehand and see what options will work for your needs. I don’t have any healers on the team, but I don’t necessarily need one either,” plus depending on my luck, maybe I could get that ghost type audino on my team. Heal Pulse was a very powerful move when it came to traveling the Routes. “So do you want to fight, heal or some other third thing?”

“Foko!” Her disdain for healing told me I wasn’t going to get a full-on healer, but I was okay with that. A delphox was still a mighty strong pokémon in most regards.

“Battler then, I was kinda guessing.” I couldn’t understand her speech, but I got the gist of it through the connection between me and my team. I could sense how their aura reacted to their emotions, an almost invisible gut feeling of sorts. It wasn’t anything dramatic, but it made it easier to see the little things strangers would miss. “You’re going to need to learn stronger moves, along with utility moves outside Hypnosis. If that’s alright with you?”

Fennekin just stared, and I was rewarded with a tiny grin on her furry face

“So uhh… those notes of yours on azumarill as a species… they’re accurate aren’t they?” Akari said faintly as we watched Llayda lift up an entire couch that had to weigh three hundred pounds that had broken off for some reason. She had been enlisted to take it out by one of the train workers, showing off her incredible strength. “Including the ones for Llayda?”

I gestured to my longer summary of their battle statistics on my phone, and Akari leaned over. “A standard baseline azumarill has A class constitution, C- class strength without Huge Power and A-tier with Huge Power. Their toughness is B- class, power about C-, resistance around B-, and speed is C-.”

Akari blinked. “Where does Llayda fall on that scale?”

I coughed, rubbing the back of my neck. “Well… it took a number of standardized measurements and analysis of data from azumarill at similar power and…”

Akari glared. “Brandy.” She folded her arms and I sighed.

“Llayda is greatly above the average, S class constitution, SS class strength, A- toughness, B- power and A- resistance with a B- speed. Giving an exact number is kind of difficult but well… she can withstand more hits, hits harder than a train, takes less damage from a punch and a bullet, can throw out an attack with greater power, and is speedier than your run of the mill azumarill.” She was still slower than everyone else except Fennekin but that was a matter of her species not being very fast.

“What the hell do you feed her?” Akari demanded and I shrugged helplessly.

“I give her a good and healthy diet, lots of exercise and plenty of battles. As well as working with her fey side.” She was a creature of the multicolored world, living, beautiful lies of pure glamour.

“Fey magic is a bit dangerous isn’t it?” It wasn’t a question for Akari, while the togepi were among the friendliest and least dangerous fairies they still had access to potent and dangerous abilities.

Interestingly enough, I had learned a lot about moves that didn’t have much of a use in direct combat, but did serve as useful abilities and skills in the lives of pokémon. They were generally not given names, since they were generally not directly useful in combat. They were basically all the weird nebulous stuff pokémon just do without thinking like sinking into the shadows for ghost types or possession.

Or curses in the case of ghosts and fairies, Llayda seemed to enjoy inflicting curses, though she was surprisingly considerate with them. Mostly just small pranks like making water taste like hot and spicy Morpeko Dew… but she had helped with crafting a fairy rune for training, using it to gather fey energies during training, each duel increasing her power. It was actually rather hard to make because you needed a willing sparring partner, an area rich in natural energy, and involved a carefully crafted narrative to keep the pact balanced.

Mirko used a weak version of Odor Sleuth to augment her sense of smell, and an auditory version for her ears. These weak field moves had no direct combat applications and used very little energy, like the difference between throwing a three thousand newton punch and wiggling your ears.

“Hey, Miss!” I snapped out of my day dream when I found a bright eyed kid stare at Llayda with awe, revealing a gap toothed smile. “Is that your pokémon?”

I leaned forward a bit to look the kid in the eye. “She is, she’s pretty cool huh?” I hoped he would leave soon, the brunette kid was cute but I was terrible with kids. I frowned when I saw her playfully balancing the sofa, and in a blink Mirko was there, ‘politely’ berating the bigger pokémon without any hesitation. “A bit rowdy though.”

Akari just giggled.

The train ride was still a few hours away from ending, and I could tell Jericho was trying to break the ice with the surprisingly chilly fire type known as Fennekin. I couldn’t say it was working but I couldn’t say it was outright failing. I was leaning against my seat on a comfy couch-thing with a table between it and the other side that was supposed to be occupied by Akari but instead served as a napping cushion for Kirby.

He was a bit bigger than he used to be, and his fur was very slowly changing hue as he got stronger and aged. Pokémon mature quickly, both physically and mentally, though like a lot of animals they can continue to grow and develop for quite some time after depending on the species. A bit like humans continuing to mature and develop out to about twenty five years old if… more extreme.

A munchlax was battle ready at about a month, but don’t tend to be able to evolve until they’re at least nine months old, and the healthy range was closer to a year old or older. So he likely wouldn’t evolve until we had gotten over half of the badges, and when he did… hoo boy. He was going to be one hell of a monster in both raw might and appetite.

I tapped my fingers against the table, ignoring the presence of Akari as I took the time to focus and consolidate my thoughts. The last few days had been a bit outside of our paygrade, that heatmor had been a six-star monster we had only survived through the grace of Furret, Fennekin being able to build up her Stored Power into a move as strong as Explosion and Llayda evolving in the heat of battle.

Something screwy was going on and I didn’t know what the cause was.

“You’ve been recovering nicely, huh?” There was an unreadable expression on Akari’s face as she traced my figure. “Good that you didn’t need any physical therapy, it’d suck for you to lose your conditioning.”

“Is that so?”

Akari. “Fitness is important as a trainer, keeping up as much as you can with your pokémon is both healthy and necessary.” She flexed her arm and I gaped as it tensed like steel. “It’s also uhh… nice to see you happy.”

“Ehh?”

“You’re smiling.” She pointed out, and a quick self analysis noticed that fact. Why was I so happy?

“Oh.” I rubbed my face, hands gliding across smooth skin as I laid back against the soft cushions of my seat. “Umm… now that I think about it, we don’t really… share too many personal things do we? Despite being travel buddies, we kinda just ask a bit and back off.”

Why did I say that? Don’t make this awkward, idiot!

“You’re not wrong.” To my surprise she agreed with me, and scooted over to be closer though right outside my personal bubble. “Maybe it would be… a good idea to get to know each other better.”

“Yeah?”

She gave a toothy beam. “What do you want to know, maybe we can play twenty questions?”

“That… might be okay, who starts?” She pointed to me with a silent look. “What kind of questions?”

“Well things about our home maybe, likes, dislikes, weird people stuff,” she waved her hand weirdly, her face twisted into distaste. “Or whatever.”

I nodded. “What’s your home like, up in the Sternwing Mountains?”

Her gaze turned nostalgic. “Quiet and loud, we live up high in the mountains, we’re not a huge clan, like the Joy family, maybe a few thousand in our main settlement and a few thousand more scattered up and down the entire range. We’ve lived there in the mountains for at least three thousand years, age tends to come with being Celestic. We’ve got our kin up in Sinnoh, along with some more distant relatives in the Diamond and Pearl clans. There’s lots of wild, dangerous pokémon so we tend to have a lot of elite trainers, like the Dragon Tamer Clan of Johto. It helps that we earned the favor of a Lord.”

I had heard of certain pokémon like that. “Are those like the Nobles of Sinnoh?”

She nodded. “A little bit yes, though no divine blessing from the Original One.” She hadn’t ruled out a blessing from other godly beings. “We earned the favor of Lord Azazel, the most powerful togekiss in all of Tohoku, if not the entirety of Nihoh, he could be considered a… true Type Royal like Lord Avalugg.”

Type Royals were the pinnacle of a species, while they weren’t necessarily all giants, they were insanely powerful individuals, acting as guardian spirits and rulers for their Type across a whole region. If a Legendary was considered a god, a Type Royal can be classed as a demigod, pokémon so powerful they could reshape landscapes and climate. Type Royal was more a class of being rather than a specific phenotype, pertaining to unusual pokémon that serve major roles in the more social aspects of the ecosystem. The Totems and Nobles of Alola and Sinnoh, and the Lords of Tohoku. But if she meant true as in giant…

“How big is he…?”

“You could fit eight of me in the space between his wingtips.” I choked. “Azazel is a strong and caring pokémon and he instilled those values in my ancestors… Ellis is actually one of his children.”

That explains so much. “She’s not going to grow up like her dad right?”

“She could, but at most she might grow into an Alpha, so maybe big enough to carry me on her back?” That was still pretty big.

“Huh… interesting, what about family or friends?”

“Pokémon mostly, I never got along with other kids,” she admitted with a sad sigh. “Too much of a wild child, way too many rumors someone in my family line fucked a pokémon.”

Something like a strangled laugh escaped me. “What?”

She gave a little shrug. “It happens, I’m more annoyed that someone clearly slacked on teaching kids basic biology. But as for family… my mom died a few years ago,” her melancholy was obvious and I grimaced at the issues I had tripped over. “Dad… he kinda shut down after she passed, and I ended up not being able to go on my journey like the rest of the kids… and kids can be cruel.” Her eyes were stormy, her voice holding at a steady tenor. “So I mostly just had friendships with pokémon instead of other humans, it left me with some… interesting skills.” She brushed a few fingers against the marks on her face, and her grin became smug. “But now it’s my turn.”

“Shoot.”

“What did you do in life? As a job, or something?”

…

What a loaded question.

“Nothing. I was doing nothing,” I spat, something like anger rising in my throat. “I had just quit my job because I couldn’t take the stress, because it’s a family-run business run by my garbage can of a father and a mother too caught up in her own problems to give a real shit.” Akari looked at me in horror. “I was… not in a good place when I came here Akari… I was… am suffering from depression due to a nice mix of burnout, and being unequipped to handle my own life, as well as not being allowed to.” I had been a frankly gigantic wreck back then and now, and was only more functional because I was away from the toxic hellhole that was my old life.

“I’m… sorry.”

“Someone has to be,” I replied dryly. “I’ve got a lot of unresolved trauma and resentment, the least I can figure is that I’m not going to use it as an excuse to shit on everyone else.”

We spent what felt like hours, throwing questions at each other. Her questions were focused around my life, my family, where I grew up, just the quiet parts… and sometimes the sad and depressing parts. The lies and affairs of my father and the failures of my mother when it came to being a parent, and the general brokenness of my family.

But it helped to talk about it, helped to get an outside perspective so I could step away and reflect. I also ended up learning more about her as a person, her home life was a bit more magical than mine, the adventures she had with the pokémon of the mountains and forests and high plains, hijinks like toying with magic, getting chased by angry mons, and learning the basics of aura from her kin and a lucario.

The loneliness of having no human friends, and three years of growing up in an empty and silent home.

It wasn’t anything big, it wasn’t a life changing revelation, or a blood pumping battle, or witnessing the glory of nature. It was a simple chat between friends and that…

Was a lot more important than I had once thought.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.6

October 28th, 2022.

I stared at the massive collection of porygon plush dolls, each and every one of them had a name tag with the proclamation of ‘Hello World, my name is’ in the cutest display of advertisement I had seen so far in this world. All I had needed to do was walk into the Hedne-originated store known only as Büildenståk. Mostly because I had been looking to buy some portable Berry Pots, portable planters that let you grow a little berry tree so one can have a constant supply of berries.

I had bought four of them, along with a water can that looks like a squirtle and I could kinda understand why and how they needed such little land to feed their civilization. Hell, one estimate of needing a hundred thousand square kilometers was using an old article, and much of that land encompasses the semi-cultivated regions surrounding the cities and routes.

A mix of plants here being incredibly hyperactive, and pokémon moves like Rototiller, Grassy Terrain, and various lesser grass, ground and water moves let them create agriculture an order of magnitude more productive than on Earth. Plants can flower and fruit in days and weeks instead of months, meaning a small windowsill garden box can supply a reliable supply of food like carrots, potatoes, radishes, and more. Also apparently bike generators are pretty common which connect into general universal power devices.

Which explains why most people here are so physically fit, though obviously centralized power plants exist in major cities.

I picked up the cute ass porygon, and quickly made my way through purchasing what I needed from Büildenståk. Stepping outside into the Pokémon Center district was a real eye opener, in terms of understanding the culture of this world. I had been a tad hyper focused so I had missed some stuff in my haste, and gotten a better picture with some help from Akari.

The Pokémon Center was more than just a single building, which themselves were massive and housed many, many amenities I had yet to use. They had their large rooms along with bunk beds, large locker rooms/bathrooms and an attached laundromat. On top of multiple medical wards for everything from toxicology specialists, recovery therapy, critical care, spiritual/mystic/occult research and balancing chambers and so on. Though the latter was a rather recent thing, since a lot of their experts were killed off during the war.

The Pokémon Centers in larger cities like Suiryuu actually occupied multiple buildings, spanning multiple city blocks, reminding me of a college campus with a walkable micro-road system reserved for walking and staff vehicles, with a transit system of underground levitation rails used for extreme cases.

We’re talking hundreds of acres, the beating heart of a beating heart when it comes to the true district. The Pokémon Center among trainers tended to refer to the medical center as the Center, but to non-trainers the Center was the entire district dedicated most deeply to pokémon, something like a central business district. The Gyms, shops, training fields; temp rental homes for traveling trainers sticking around for job requests. Most of the sparring fields tended to be at the outskirts of the district to avoid noise complaints.

The very nexus of everything fundamental to being a pokémon trainer, firmly earning their name as Pokémon Center. To the point that it’s essentially a city within a city, blending together with the more ‘mundane’ districts as a cohesive unit. Hell literally every road, alley and street has lines and signs pointing to the Center for trainers. Trainers make up their own uhh… subculture, doing things that others won’t or can’t. Someone could literally go on vacation in the Center district with the inhabitants talking jargon, the hourly battles in the sparring fields and pokémon arenas, along with foreign trainers adding to the melting pot that was the Pokémon Center district. Hell missing pop culture wasn’t that uncommon for more dedicated trainers.

The district was also more colorful with all the damage from pokémon battles, and maintenance and construction using everything from Secret Power to geokinesis, to plant manipulation. Which makes it a lot easier to navigate with all the landmarks, and less bland than the rest of the city.

Suiryuu was the destination for the train, the capital of the prefecture, operating as the central heart of the entire sub-region, with many lesser routes, trains and small roads interconnecting it with every city and town for several hundred miles.

We weren’t going to stick around though, our next stop was Nakagawa.

Now where had I left Akari behind again?

October 30th, 2022.

I stuck out my tongue as I read out the data analysis on Fennekin, waiting for my turn at the Trial.

Shared Characteristics

Species: Fennekin, Fox Pokémon

Type: Fire

Egg Group: Field

Classification: Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Carnivora - Canidae - Vulpes

Wild Threat Level: Mostly Harmless (Note: As magic users, their spells are unpredictable and explosive.)

Growth Rate: Medium Slow

Suggested Diet: Polyvore. Herbs, Berries, Tubers, Wood, Fire Polyvore Pellets, Rodents, Reptiles, Birds, Eggs.

Personal Characteristics

Name: Fennekin

Wielder: Brandon “Brandy” Red

Age: 15 years

Abilities: Blaze, Magician (Undeveloped)

Physicality Analysis:

• Recently recovered from a period of malnutrition and cold shock. Not at current risk.
• Recovery has been rapid due to the increased recovery rate common in Fennekin-line pokémon through the use of metaphysical abilities.
• Shows evidence of T1 and T2 rib breakage, also recovered.
• Minor color trait, deeper orange fur.
• Minor grass-type affinity.

Potential: Light Blue

Tips: Increase potential by spending resources on improving one’s magical talent, improving understanding of fire and psychic energies, and providing a rich source of elemental energies to meditate on.

Known Moves: Ember, Hypnosis, Stored Power, Calm Mind, Fire Spin, Wish.

Fennekin had… gone through a lot hadn’t she? More than I knew, Tsuyoki had told me what she could about Fennekin’s previous trainer. A real piece of work, abusive, incompetent and generally just a bad person from the sounds of it. He was still being investigated as he had evaded arrest so far, still out there and doing his thing.

If I ever met him I was gonna kick him in his shriveled up balls.

We had spent two days training after arriving at Nakagawa by bus, which was a smooth electric ride. The bus driver had been happy to explain that it had a modern Devon power core, a one hundred kilogram unit storing some three billion joules of energy. Which reminded me that their civilian power storage tech was as energy dense as hydrocarbon fuel.

Which was insane. I could carry an electric car battery in my hand unlike the half ton of battery required back home.

A paw began to poke at my cheeks. “Mir. Bwaa.” Mirko chided me as she rode on my back, and I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t worry Mirko, we’re just here a bit early. The Trial should start in… another thirty minutes?” Akari had taken off, since her own slot was three hours from now. “How’s trying to figure out Run Away and Scrappy coming along?”

She shrugged, her frustration growing when I mentioned Scrappy. In this world, pokémon abilities were reflections of their natural traits when used in battle. Mirko was Limber, her muscles and nervous system adaptable against paralysis.

She could develop Run Away, which actually made her way more maneuverable and from what I had looked up on the grapevine it had been cultivated into a trap escaping ability in Tohoku, letting her easily escape from moves like Whirlpool, Fire Spin and so on. And unlike Hustle into Sheer Force, it was far easier to separate out from Cute Charm in terms of… skill tree?

Klutz was another possible ability, since holding items here worked by being absorbed into their bodies… you could guess why Klutzy paws might be helpful if dangerous artifacts are lying around. As for Cute Charm, it was a defensive ability used to confuse foes and avoid fights, a sort of hypnosis to increase their natural appeal.

Scrappy was the most difficult as it involved pulling at dormant biological traits, activating the ghostly ephemera in their core to twist their normal energies into a chaotic swirl to pierce through ghostly flesh. The primal buneary and lopunny had been ghost hunters back in the day after all. But if we could make it work…

Run Away to make her even more agile and able to avoid traps, Limber enough to be immune to paralysis, Cute Charm to dazzle and confuse, and Scrappy to tear through her natural enemies defenses.

Sometimes pokémon could gain new abilities by emphasizing new natural traits, which is how you can get exceptional pokémon like a pikachu that can electrocute ground types or a swellow that had turned Guts into an immunity to electric type moves. So why not develop Scrappy?

“Hmph. So you’re hoping to train that into a competitive lopunny?” I tensed as a smarmy sounding voice spoke up from nearby, and I could feel Mirko’s emotions spike into anger and indignation.

“Excuse me?” I turned to face the one who was definitely insulting my starter and my friend with his words, and very much should know better. Insulting someone’s starter in this world was fighting words, and very liable to getting you into a pokémon battle or just straight up getting punched.

He looked… very much like someone who had come from money and reveled in it. He had slick black hair, a white collared dress shirt and black slacks, the expensive kind that would cost a small car’s worth of money.

He shrugged with a sleazy smile, looking up and down and I hid a shiver with a sharp toothless simper. “Surely you can’t think you can train such a neurotic pokémon into a true battler do you? Only the strongest pokémon rise to the top, and lopunny isn’t one of them. And that’s only if you manage to evolve them.”

Mirko’s hold on me tightened, and I muttered a quiet ‘no’ to her breath even as my own bloodlust apparently spiked.

“Is that so?” I replied with complete sarcasm, still wanting to deck him in the face.

“Of course, a pokémon like her has far better roles to be playing outside the battling field. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. Someone like you who makes such poor choices should just give up their slot now for more worthy trainers.”

I wonder if I can say it was an accident that he fell into a deep dark hole certainly not dug by my nidorino.

I stood up, walked over to the receptionist, the ‘gentleman’ following me clearly thought he was getting my spot.

“Hello there, my Trial is pretty soon. Would it be alright to wait inside?” The receptionist glanced over at the shockedpikachu faced asshole and smiled.

November 3rd, 2022

The third Gym Trial had been a piece of cake, as it involved a less physically demanding event. It involved a series of questions on electric-type biology trivia, and then participants had to fight Gym Trainers based on the number of questions we got wrong.

I had answered thirty questions and gotten a 90% so I ended up having to fight three Gym Trainers, and had officially ranked up to being a three-star trainer, which means I was the equivalent of someone who had earned three badges.

And thus I was going to face a four-star team so that I’d be appropriately challenged and tested. The Trial itself was pretty interesting since it gave out a lot of information on training pokémon in terms of learning electric-type moves.

I took a deep breath as the automatic glass door slid open, walking into the beautiful building I hadn’t focused on during my Trial. It was a square blue building with golden window panes and surrounded by tesla coils, an electric aura surrounding the entire building like a barely visible haze of power.

Unlike the other day, it was a lot emptier with the number of people winnowed. It was a matter of luck on my part, Akari was going to be stuck waiting for another three weeks, so booking at the Center had been a good decision. I checked in with the Gym Trainer receptionist and was swiftly brought into the arena, which was a large compacted dirt field but surrounded in technology, machinery and lights hanging off the walls and ceiling. Off to the side was a camera with recording equipment along with bleachers and seats on both ends.

“Hahahaha! So you’ve come to face the one and only Gizmo King!” I stared as a teenager jumped down from the shadows, a backpack sprouting mechanical spider legs as he landed. He was small, short and bald, tech goggles over his eyes as he cackled at my confusion, adjusting his loose green and yellow armored jumpsuit.

“Uhh, hi?”

“Are you ready to face my genius in battle, all while being recorded for research!”

“Research is good.” Was the first thing out of my mouth, and the bald Gym Leader beamed.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Hehehe. Well if you say so you zygote! I’ve got my minions as referees and tech support, so we can start right away.” One of the Gym Trainers, a tall dark skinned man who looked more like a football player than anything else rolled his eyes as he stepped into the role of ref.

“So, my minions say you’re a three-star ranked player, not bad for a newbie. But it also means I get to be as unfair as I want!” Gym Leader Mikron’s expression was sadistic, electricity sparking from his tech as he took his end of the field.

The ref clapped his hands with a gruff tone of voice. “This will be a 3-on-3 battle between Challenger Brandy and Nakagawa Gym Leader Mikron. The Challenger will have two switches while the Gym Leader will have none. Are you ready?”

“You could at least call me Gizmo, crud for brains.” The Leader complained.

The ref scoffed. “Not in your life, squirt.” After that exchange we both went on to agree with his question. “Now start the battle! Send out your pokémon!”

“Electrify this newbie into shape, Galvantula!”

“Jericho, do what you do best!”

The first sign of things going wrong after the damage absorbers were put up by two Alolan raichu was the strange tech on the walls emitting visible waves of electromagnetic force. They turned solid, a fog of electrical energy coating the entire arena in golden light, feeding more and more power into the air.

I could feel the sheer amount of electric aura being pumped into the environment as Electric Terrain. I could tell Jericho was nervous even as he set up Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock, ears swiveling back and forth.

Mikron’s smile became sharp, eyes filling with glee. “Ahh. Are you surprised? I’m called Gizmo King for a good reason around these parts, I cheat as much as I can within the confines of the rules.” Galvantula’s mandibles flexed almost hungrily as it skittered on eight furry legs spreading out for seven feet.

Oh Jesus Christ on a bike that is a fucking nightmare to look at.

I glanced at the iron ends of his legs, which crushed layers of Toxic Spikes under foot. Heavy-Duty Boots huh? The two pokémon glared at each other as we waited for the ref to start off the match.

“Begin!” And there he went.

Jericho started the battle with a quick Hone Claws, and his new ground-type move. His whole body stiffened with frustration, and he drives himself forward, surrounding by earthy orange energy that hardened into what looked like compacted tectonic plates.

Stomping Tantrum was a good new move to crush Galvantula under foot as fast as possible.

“Electroweb.” The spider began to gather energy, and Jericho set up a massive wave of Confusion to tear it apart. “Sticky Web.”

And the web instead formed under his feet from the cloudy floor of Electric Terrain, and Galvantula lunged forward, practically teleporting with his sheer speed, and with a twist, began to generate multiple feet of spider silk thread, weaving and letting it explode outwards until it covered the field, and Jericho let out a pissed off cry.

“Follow it up with Rising Voltage.” My eyes widened and I spat out an order.

“Cut that web apart and get underground!” To my horror, electricity began to rise from the ground, forming a shifting network of electrical currents and loops, and then—

It collapsed in on itself with Jericho at the epicenter, and I didn’t get a chance to shout another desperate order.

“Jericho is unable to battle. Challenger, send out your next pokémon.”

I shakedly recalled Jericho with dread, and whispered that he had done his best.

“You set up amazingly, we were just… a bit unprepared is all.” I counted backwards from ten to hold back my anxiety.

“A bit of a quick shot ehh? I assumed better than this from what my fellow Gym Leaders said. Guess they were wrong.” He pulled his eyelid down in an insult, and I quietly seethed. He was definitely trying to get a rise out of me.

“Mirko, you’re up next.” I warned Mirko as the battle resumed once more, and she landed in the field, rolling her shoulders and shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“We’re dealing with a pretty clever opponent, watch out for Shaker, Archer and Traverser moves.”

Red sparks flew off of her as she cycled through Work Up twice in a row, and vanished into a Quick Attack right as Galvantula lunged for her like the arthropod predator he was.

“Screech, keep it up continuously while blasting Electroweb! Keep that bunny down in the dirt!” Mikron cackled as he kicked out his feet, and to my horror, the entire field was surrounded in the haunting screech that came out of Galvantula’s mandibles.

Mirko was thrown back, and retaliated with a massive missile barrage of Swift, disrupting the Screech. She flashed forward with Quick Attack, and her fists were covered in flames as she beat down the massive spider with Fire Punch.

She twisted and ducked around his shots of Electroweb, using her newly developed Run Away to avoid the strikes, before ducked under his body, and I grinned.

“Jump Kick!” Mikron’s eyes widened as his pokémon was thrown into the roof of the closed arena, flames lighting up his dense yellow fur. He came back down with a loud thud, smashing into the ground, and Mirko just smiled, ears unfolding and folding back.

“Galvantula is unable to battle!” The ref gave his usual spiel, and I told Mirko to take a step back when I saw Mikron’s gleeful expression.

He grabbed a Great Ball and a new pokémon appeared on the field, and I flinched at the sight of an Amped Form toxtricity. Toxic Spikes died when she landed on the field, poison energy absorbed into her body, but she did take damage from Stealth Rock.

“Shift Gears into Spark, Toxtricity.” Was all he said.

Mirko used Quick Attack, the air rippling and whip cracking where she had shot off at what felt like the speed of sound. She caught up with a second use of Shift Gears, surrounded in a deep and dense aura of Spark, and I felt shock hit me as Mirko was ragdolled, thrown out of the acceleration of Quick Attack.

“Mirko!”

She wasn’t down for the count, but the injuries were clear to see from my perspective behind the clear barrier. Her fur sparked violently with waves of electricity which grounded itself into the floor, and patches of her fur had been burnt off. Her left eye was bruised over, and one of her ears was a tad crooked.

I knew pokémon could recover from and handle injuries far better than any human, their recovery time was an order of magnitude faster. Even something like a cracked rib or a broken limb could be healed within a matter of days. Seeing how much they could take in reality wasn’t something I had fully experienced yet.

Until now.

“Mirko…”

She hissed at me, rage filling her eyes when my hand drifted to her ball. I sighed, and let her continue. “Go for the usual Traverser-Archer-Bruiser combo.” Swift rapidly covered the field in stars, Mirko twisting their trajectories with a mental twitch of a neuron.

Toxtricity simply accelerated, Mikron ordering him to use another Spark. Mirko stepped into his bubble, and ducked under him, her paws swinging into a Drain Punch. She knocked the electric type off balance, and twisted into a Jump Kick into Cut, the blade of normal energy slicing through scales and skin.

Mikron just chuckled. “Shock Wave.” The pokémon exploded in an electromagnetic pulse, the air popping and detonating around the omnidirectional electric attack.

“Mirko is unable to battle, please select your next pokémon!” I felt my throat bob, and my hands started becoming sweaty as the battle was less and less under my control.

“Guess you really won’t cut it at my Gym newbie! Hahaha!” His gremlin laugh pissed me off, and I barely stopped myself from retorting at the little bastard. I grabbed my third pokémon, and with a sigh I hoped for the best.

“Knock ‘em dead, this one is a toughie Llayda.” I sent out my azumarill out into the field, who was holding a sitrus berry for additional healing. She set up Aqua Ring, slapping her belly in a dramatic threat display, her tail swaying back and force with the subtle glow of Tail Whip, while her pretty face rippled with fairy energy, the mental compulsion set in place with Charm.

“An azumarill huh? A bit out of her element isn’t she?”

I didn’t take the bait. “Soak her with Scald.” I gave the order and Llayda fired a massive cannon blast of boiling water, carrying with it a secret weapon. Mikron’s pokémon tried to dodge, but she hadn’t fired at the electric type directly, instead aiming at where she was going.

Toxtricity let out a scream as the boiling blast slammed into like a water cutter, scales taking on a blue hue as the second move was doing its thing.

“Trailblaze.” Llayda attacked suddenly, nimble footwork guiding her towards her target, grass energy costing her whole body with twisting vines of power. The surprised and confused toxtricity couldn’t avoid her devastating tackle.

Mikron gaped before shaking his head. “You hid a Soak inside that Scald! Then slammed into Toxtricity with Trailblaze for super effective damage!”

“Play Rough, and Aqua Tail.” I doubled down, and was rewarded when she used two moves at once, her tail covered in a veil of water and her arms exploding with fairy energy.

The conclusion was obvious from there.

Azumarill beat Toxtricity into unconsciousness, and Mikron returned her with a frown on his face… and then it widened into a sadistic glee.

“Not bad, but you haven’t faced my ace for this battle.” He chose an Ultra Ball, and I felt the shockwave through reality as he unleashed his third and final pokémon.

It looked like an eelektross, but I knew it wasn’t… not a Unovan one anyway, instead it was the electric-dark variant native to this region.

Its dark blue and yellow color scheme was exchanged for one that was black as night with markings of gold, covered in dense scales throughout versus the soft skin of a Unovan variant. The pokémon levitated of course and released an alarming aura that sent my fear into overdrive.

What the fuck?

Llayda shuddered once then twice before stopping.

“Eelektross, take a nap.” Mikron snapped his fingers and to my shock his pokémon went limp in the air, passing out in a blink of an eye.

“Scald.” I ordered, and eelektross ascended higher avoiding the attack without hesitation. I clicked my tongue…

A fusion move? Some mix of Rest, Sleep Talk and something else?

“Sleep Talk, routine 4.”

Rings of psychic energy surrounded his pokémon’s head, and I reacted.

“Aqua Jet away, don’t let him hit you!”

Llayda threw herself to the side, and avoided an enormous blast of Zap Cannon, which instead collided into the damage absorbers, the barriers flexing in and out under the strain.

“Keep blasting!” Mikron cackled as his pokémon swapped to a rapid barrage of Charge Beam, the concentrated bundles of energy smashing against the barriers like artillery fire. Each blast got just that amount stronger, just a little bit faster and I felt sweat drip down my nose.

“Aqua Jet into Play Rough, take that eel down!”

She dove forward at my command, at two quarters the speed of sound she smashed into the Tohokun eelektross, and with glee she pummeled into their scales… and to my horror and confusion, her hits bounced off their flesh like they were nothing.

“What. The. Hell?” I cursed under my breath as I watched those super effective strikes bounce off those scales.

Mikron cackled again. “That’s Marvel Scales for you! Finish the routine, Eelektross, I’m aching for lunch!” Llayda stepped back as if confused, and Eelektross hung loosely in the air, arms reaching down to the Electric Terrain.

To my horror, Eelektross began sucking up the field like a vacuum, more and more electric energy falling upwards into the waiting maw of the thundering dark eel. The entire field collapsed into the singular point that was Eelektross, and I suddenly realized I had… fucked up so badly.

“How about a Terrain Discharge, Eelektross!” The entire field exploded in a blast of electric force, and I stumbled as the damage absorbers flexed again.

Llayda took the brunt of the attack, and I was forced to sit and watch as she was hurt by my mistakes.

The referee glanced at me with a concerned expression, and as the field cleared I saw that Llayda had not taken the attack well at all. She was on the ground, barely moving, but I could see the gentle contraction and expansion of her breathing.

I silently returned Llayda without a word, my heart heavy and the room felt like it was closing in on me. I still had a fourth pokémon but for one thing this was a three-on-three match

“I… lost huh?” The words felt like acid in my mouth, and it confirmed my first real loss. I did my best to try to push it as a learning experience but…

The ref winced in sympathy. “The winner is Gym Leader Mikron.”

We approached each other from around the side of his field, and his cheeky smile had turned into something softer… less mean spirited. He offered a firm handshake, staring at me with his goggles up eyes.

“You ain’t half bad. Your pokémon are well trained and strong, I can see you passing with a little more gearing up.”

It was a mild comfort, but it still hurt.

“Thank you… I’ll probably be showing back up in a few weeks, probably traveling to another city or town and training up.”

He smirked. “You fucking better.”

We offered further pleasantries, and I retreated into the lobby to pay the fee I had accrued to cover both the cost of wasting a Gym Leader’s time as well as the cost of healing items. A way of dissuading too many brute-force attempts to earn badges. It wasn’t a lot, a couple thousand pokédollars was basically an hour or two of minimum wage here. Even kids could earn that money pretty easily.

I felt something bitter in my mouth as I walked out of the Gym with my head down.

I had fucked up.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.7

November 5th, 2022.

I woke up feeling utterly shit, unable to even crawl out of bed as I lounged around under the covers like the useless person I really was.

I rubbed my face, feeling slightly grimey and groggy from how poorly I had slept. I had not dealt with my loss well, I had basically shut down in reaction and had needed a good day just to lay down. I hadn’t put on pants which meant I was wearing nothing but plain boxers and a black t-shirt… no bra either but then I didn’t have much to go around so far.

Though talks with my doctor mentioned I should account for a lot of growth, as it was a process that required at bare minimum six months but tended to drag on for a further three years, little refinements and what not.

Looking in the mirror every day was one of the reasons I got up in the morning, that small hint of improvement every day was just… good. On my second day of feeling like garbage, I thought deeply about what I had done wrong.

I had rushed in like an idiot, thinking that a third badge challenge couldn’t be that difficult, and hadn’t taken the time I had promised. Just a few days in Goruden, then straight to the Fireside Woods… and our plan to travel had been cut short by the attack. I had opted for the earliest slot possible instead of giving my team an extra week or two to adjust.

And hadn’t bothered looking deeper into the leader of the Gyms outside their names, some basic info, and what kind of Type Specialist they were. I sort of skimmed it, focusing more on getting my pokémon nice and strong but leaving out a vital piece of research.

Information gathering on the enemy.

Yesterday I had managed to step out of my funk for a few hours on midnight research, taking a look at the recordings and battle records of the Gym Leaders, and the people doing the Gym Circuit this year. People from age sixteen and up, along with a ton of Youngsters. And what I had learned was that besides the use of abilities, Tohoku were pioneers andrevolutionary thinkers when it came to the use of field effects, more specifically Terrains in battle.

In the games, there were four kinds of Terrains. Electric, Grassy, Misty and Psychic. Electric Terrain boosted electric types, and prevented sleep… but Mikron’s Eelektross used Levitate to avoid the effect, and used it as a massive well of power instead. Grassy Terrain increases the power of grass-type moves and heals any pokémon on the field, and keeps the ground more solid against attacks like Earthquake and Magnitude. Misty Terrain halves the damage from dragon-type energies and prevents status effects and confusion. Psychic Terrain strengthens psychic energies and prevents strikes from priority moves.

Well… Tohoku had developed a total of fourteen new Terrain moves, and pioneered the development/discovery of numerous Terrain abilities. Though it was something largely local to the region like the Weathergy of the Kaskade region, though their use of Terrain moves had spread out to other regions in the past… three years or so?

Also I’m 100% sure the Kaskade region is very familiar somehow.

That entire battle against the alpha heatmor had scared me… and the sudden shift had left me paranoid and… stressed the hell out. I should have taken my time, should have done more research, instead of just throwing my pokémon out there and hoping for the best. It didn’t help that I panicked and stopped making decisions. I was still a trainer, while my pokémon were trained well, giving them reminders and using my perspective to help them was part of my job.

I had failed in that.

I rubbed my face, and cleared my throat. “Hey… I know you’re all out of your balls.” My pokémon slid out from behind a coach somehow, and I winced at their emotions. Llayda looked ashamed, her usual peppy attitude had taken a notable downturn, like a cloud of gloom had washed over her. Mirko looked pissed instead, arms crossed over her chest, and foot thumping on the ground.

Jericho didn’t look too bad, but he was a bit droopy, his body language lord closed off. Fennekin didn’t seem to care but I know she was glancing at me with concern and suspicion, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Ouch.

“So… we can agree that battle sucked ass am I right?”

Mirko snorted, Jericho just tilted his head and added a hesitant snicker, Llayda sighed and Fennekin rolled her eyes but didn’t disagree with the assessment. So that was good.

“So… I think we’re overdue for a break from challenging Gyms, two weeks should be more than enough to get trained up and decompress.” I clasped my hands together with a delicate smile, hoping none of them took it badly. “I haven’t really planned if we’re going to stick to the city or look for a request that’ll keep us busy.” I know there are expeditions we can join for a good chunk of change, but last I had checked there was nothing we qualified for at the moment. “Plus I can get to know our newest member… I think that battle with Heatmor rattled me more than I thought.”

“Bwa!” To my surprise, Mirko jumped onto my bed, practically climbing over me. And I was suddenly wrapped up in a tight hug by the strong ass rabbit, she muttered soft murmurs, and I blinked away what were totally not tears.

Not at all…

I held my first pokémon tightly, tension unraveling in my stomach as the warm hut brought comfort. I rubbed my eyes, and took a deep, deep breath. In and out.

Shake it out, breathe it out.

“Thank you, and sorry for being a mess all of yesterday. I just needed… space you know? Mirko’s sympathetic face told me she did understand, and that made me feel far less lonely than I usually did.

I hummed aloud and thought about something.

“How about we watch a few movies? Keep our minds off that battle, and do something fun?” I felt awkward at their gazes, I really need to keep in mind that social interaction is very stressful for me.

But they were my friends… and that mattered.

To my surprise all of them including Fennekin agreed with me on a movie morning.

We spent the next few hours just goofing off by watching movies. Mirko enjoyed action movies, Jericho of course liked space movies, while Llayda loved animated films and nature documentaries while Fennekin surprisingly enjoyed anime, especially the more combat-oriented ones.

We had watched a good mix of movies for humans and pokémon, which was a bit like watching an anime in terms of having no idea what they’re saying at least.

I had taken a shower, and put on acceptable clothing. Which involved a bulky sweater two sizes too large, and thick but surprisingly flexible chino pants. Along with my strange collar necklace, with a stone of unidentified element and composition. Sojourner the Porygon (they needed a name), had been a very helpful little sapient computer program, operating as a system administrator, analysis engine and data compiler, search engine, and cybersecurity.

It was solid-state infinity energy just like the elemental minerals. Though it was different in structure and frequency pattern. The gems, and dusts specifically, evolution stones seemed to be… a different allotrope, if gems and dust are graphite, evolution stones would be diamond, and mega stones and keystones would be lonsdaleite.

This gem on my neck had a wavelength structure similar to a keystone, but it wasn't one, the pattern was distinct, and likely wouldn't respond to a mega stone without modifications or combination with a keystone. It wasn't dangerous either, hell Akari seemed downright envious once I had figured out I could use it to practice aura.

The way it conducted aura was fascinating, able to take in different kinds of aura with no problem, which I had tested with all my pokémon. It gave me samples of normal, poison, water, fairy, and fire energies to study. Which made a good alternative to Akari’s aura gloves. I hadn't figured out any specific techniques, but the character of the five kinds of energies were all… unique.

Normal energy was balanced and relatively stationary, easy to wrestle into shape whereas poison was acidic, flowing like a complex chemical soup, almost like molasses. Water flowed far more clearly, an endless push and pull of energies. Fairy energy was chaotic and disruptive and energizing, flowing like a liquid crystal, ordered and yet disordered. Fire energy felt like… well, fire… it was power and passion and light and destruction.

I watched Mirko clean up the mess the team had made of the bed, using a variant of Tidy Up. The move in some form was universal, used to help with the cleaning of nests, burrows, and homes. But it was only a single species from Paldea that had enhanced the weak move into one that could boost strength, speed and remove entry hazards and substitutes.

Goddamn bullshit ass mice critters.

I placed my hands on my hips when I heard Akari knock. “Come in.”

Akari stepped in, and looked surprised at the cleanliness of the room. “The team helped me out… sorry about not talking to you… I had a bit of a meltdown and needed some space and alone time.”

Atari shook her head. “It's fine, and you're doing better than I expected,” she blushed. “Not that I think less of you, I just mean…”

“I know I’m a hot mess Akari, no need to worry,” I replied. “I was mostly trying to figure out what I should do before I rechallenge the gym in a couple weeks.”

Akari perked up. “Oh! There was a request at the Pokémon Center that I'm thinking will offer a good distraction.” She shoved her phone in my face, displaying the local Center’s section on the League website, and found the job she was excited about.

And couldn't read it because it was shoved right into my eyeball.

“Sorry!” She pulled back her phone with an apology in her voice. “It’s a mining operation by the Devon Corporation.”

“Mining operation? Doesn't that usually use vast industrial machinery or very powerful pokémon?” I asked.

“Oh. I suppose it would be… more accurate to call it a mineral prospecting mission with some mining on the side?” Atari explained, her hands waving about and her expressive face twitching into a new face every so often. “Aside from agriculture, Tohoku is incredibly rich in certain mineral resources and energy sources.”

“Like uranium or thorium?” Was my question as Nihoh was not a rich oil supplier.

Atari grimaced. “We wouldn't be able to apply then so no, since pokémon can sometimes incorporate it into their bodies, and well…”

A uranium steelix sounded like a goddamn nightmare.

“So what kind of discovery mission is this?”

“Type Energy deposits, stones, gems, and dust. They’re an incredibly potent and ethical source of infinity energy, and discovery teams like this often hire trainers for protection, help with mining, and an increased likelihood of finding high-quality deposits.”

“And what do the trainers get in exchange?”

She answered with a knowing expression. “They get paid about two hundred fifty thousand pokédollars a week, along with their share of what gets found, whether it's stones, gems or if we’re lucky orbs, since those are rare as hell.”

“How long is this discovery mission?”

“Two weeks, so about five hundred thousand pokédollars.” I… Jesus that was five thousand dollars in terms of purchasing value. “They’ve got a few spots available, we just need to head to where they're reviewing candidates, and it’ll involve some moving around to different surveyed areas.”

“I think I can manage that.”

The entire request was labeled as the Devon Discovery and Survey Mission, with a preference for trainers that qualify with at least a two-star ranking. The one convenient factor about Gym Trials was that they served as a good assessment when it comes to how strong you are. This is why in other regions like Hoenn, you can earn badges through Trials. I thinkthat also applied to Kalos, Galar, and Paldea and several minor regions.

Kanto, Johto, Tohoku, and Sinnoh accepted Trials as a form for increasing your star rating… but not as a way to earn badges. Anyways as a three-star Lab Trainer with two earned badges, Akari and I had a good chance of getting in.

Devon didn't use a nice office space for the interview process, instead, they had set up a nice huge tent for the interview with the recruiter. I walked into the tent and found myself in front of the Devon employee, a gruff boulder of a man who practically radiated rock-type energy, a cowl of stony brown simmering around him. He stood up from his computer with a wide smile.

“Hello there! You must be here to apply for our little operation, am I right!” His voice was loud and bounced around the four corners of the tent.

“I-I am.” I replied confidently but stuttered anyway.

“Excellent! How many badges do you have, and what kind of pokémon are you bringing?” He paused for a second then started back up again. “And name as well and Trainer ID!”

“Brandy, two badges, and a buneary, nidorino, azumarill, and fennekin.” I flashed my ID at him, he gave it a quick scan with a little scan gun.

“Hmm. A Lab Trainer ahh, with three trials under your belt… couldn't take this city’s rather controversial Gym Leader?”

I frowned. “No, I could not. My team and I need a break and to rethink some things and a job like this might be just the thing we need.” Plus if we were lucky, we might be able to find a moonstone so Jericho can evolve. “We can handle the job, Mirko… my buneary is strong, fast, and has a good sense of hearing. My nidorino knows a few ground moves, and has a good sense of smell and a big range of useful moves. My azumarill can handle anything with her sheer strength and endurance and my fennekin is clever and has low-light vision for overnight surveys.”

He just smiled. “I ain't doubting ya kid, just getting context. While being a Lab Trainer alone doesn't guarantee you’ll be hyper-competent, you seem bright and eager to help. Plus you're a three-star trainer, the bare minimum here is two-star, and you’re a cut above that.”

“So… are you saying I'm in?”

“You just need to fill out some paperwork, and a work ID, show up at the meeting place, if you see a small fleet of big trucks on wheels that's where you need to go.”

I beamed.

That was so easy.

November 6th, 2022.

I've made a terrible mistake and regret everything.

I held on tight as the truck lurched and lurched and bumped without end as it went off-road, and turned out to be an amphibious vehicle. Each truck could hold five passengers including the driver, with a total of six of them, adding up to thirty people plus ten others riding on their pokémon. So it was about twenty-five trainers and fifteen Devon employees split between a few scientists, geologists, and people able to operate various machinery and scanners.

The entire truck bounced two meters in the air, and I let out a pathetic squeak.

ALL OF MY HATE!

“Hey, try to uhh… relax girl, it ain't gonna be too bad.” I glared at the Ace Trainer who was considered the leader of the group, a Steel Type Specialist who had to be at least a nine-star ranked trainer. Most of the larger missions tended to have at least one such trainer just in case. She had an excadrill that served as her ace and starter, who was riding on the outside of the truck like a maniac. His aura was enormous, but it was not quite as insanely dense and vast as Izumi’s monster of a lucario.

“No.”

We continued the nightmare for the next hour until we had reached a series of bare hills, rocks, and vast maws of stone and rock plunging into the earth. I felt a lot of a tingle like I was suddenly struck by a heat wave and wondered what that was about.

The Ace Trainer Lillian pulled out a techy-looking phone, and it used some type of radio to speak up to everyone onboard for the job. “Hello, hello! I'm the Ace Trainer that is helping all you wonderful trainers out with this little prospecting mission. We've got four sites we’re going to be inspecting, guarding, and opening up if we find something good! It's a pretty important job, which is why we have some miners to guide you on some of the more specialized work here. Listen well, and we will get our fair share!”

I fidgeted as we approached the site, it was enormous, with dozens of hills, some of them bare spires of rock half a kilometer high, and surrounded by pristine forest. Part of the Devon employee's job was also environmental assessment, most infinity energy deposit mining tended to be pretty clean, and the impact was kept to a minimum.

Mainly because work was placed into protecting and guarding seed crystals, as they could be used to provide a simple molecular interface for the creation of more elemental items… using ambient aura projectors to fill them with the necessary infinity energy.

It was a slow process, slower than mining, but it did reduce the strain several fold. Doing so also tended to increase the health of the environment for miles but again, environmental assessments were necessary.

We slammed against something, and all I felt was PAIN as I smacked my head against the roof of the truck.

This was not an auspicious start to my break.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.8

November 7th, 2022.

The first day had been quite busy, as it involved setting up camp and being taught the basics of the equipment we had on hand. Environmental sensors, infinity energy detecting devices… which Akari and I already had on hand, and various amenities so it wouldn't be pure and utter shit. None of it was incredibly heavy, built to be easily assembled and disassembled, and portable.

We would fan out in small groups, acting as nodes in their network for electromagnetic prospecting using their devices while their larger machinery assembles and collates that data and our pokémon would help open up a deposit if we find one present. Basically we had a bunch of little metal detector-type devices that linked up into some type of network mesh.

Anything beyond that eluded me. Today was a slow day, so my team and I had some free time to train, so we decided to opt for working on developing more robust counters against specific strategies. The move classification system was good for on-the-fly thinking but they alone didn't make up a complete strategy.

I fortunately already had names I could give to the various possible opponents we might face. Though they weren’t perfect either, it was a good start.

For today I was focusing on Fennekin’s training, she had Magician as a potential ability, so I was trying to see if there was any magic she could learn easily enough. I didn’t exactly know magic though, outside some pages on runes in Akari’s book.

She’s been using a rune that’s a circle with a dot inside, which lets her manipulate light and another that’s an upward-facing equilateral triangle, underlined for fire.

It worked for me but I was terrible at magic at the moment. Aside from working with developing her magic for Magician… and eventually Magic Bounce. I was also working on her physical conditioning and practicing her moves since she hasn’t been an active battler for months. Mainly it came down to doing lots of walking, jogging and running, and giving her targets to attack with Sojourner’s holograms.

The digital pokémon has been surprisingly helpful, they were a kind and helpful soul, and Conversion and Conversion 2 could give their little targets type resistances. It was mainly just pushing Fennekin’s moves to their limit, for example practicing with both max and minimum power. Basically strong and agile style, so she would get a better handle of her own energies.

I crossed my arms as I looked at Fennekin practicing Ember, and saw how it was summoned rather differently from how Happy did it. She didn’t fire it from her mouth, it would be more accurate to say she summoned it in front of her face then tossed it out like a bullet.

“Fennekin, hold it please.” The fire fox paused at my request, but didn’t quench her Ember. “I’ve noticed you don’t use your breath to expel fire from your mouth, instead you bring your fire to a point in front of you and ignite it, correct?”

“Fe? Fenn.” She definitely expressed confusion at the fact I had noticed.

“I’ve done my research, most moves are less moves and more classes of techniques that all share a similar effect through different means.” For example Flamethrower is roughly the same pattern and weave of Fire TE, but the way that pattern is made is different from species to species. Many pokémon breathe fire, or fire it from their hands, or even summon it as a spell.

Sort of like a heat engine, they all convert heat energy to mechanical energy but how they do so is unique to them.

“How far can you hold out your flame? Show me please.” I sat down on the ground with her, and Fennekin demonstrated her control.

Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty five…

Her Ember gave out at about twenty five meters, and I chewed on my lip. “That gives me some ideas, we can use Ember and Fire Spin as a framework. Fire Spin also involves generating fire externally… not as a trapping move, but as a pattern to keep hold of Ember… you remember those Bullet Hell games you got to watch?”

Fennekin’s eyes gleamed and I knew I had her.

November 12th, 2022.

“Seems your nidorino has Secret Power working?” Lillian spoke up as my pokémon got to work when it came to clearing the field, Jericho using a mix of geokinesis and Secret Power to clear out the mining site. We had moved on from the first and second sites pretty quick, as there had mostly only been deposits of dust and gems, so we didn’t need to dig very deep. I did end up with about two dozen gems though. Not very valuable unlike say a stone but useful for training.

“Yep. He seems to like it.” I replied back as I looked around at the third site, which was a good one hundred fifty kilometers from where we had started, not far off from Ippongi at the northern tip of the entire region. “Why is this site more promising than the first two?”

“Because it has a confirmed opening to the Grand Underground, with the fourth site being the same, and only a few miles from this one.” She revealed with a casual tone.

The Grand Underground was a vast network of caves and tunnels underneath the entirety of the Sinnoh region, and about half the Tohoku region, and I knew a new other local caves likely had similar openings to that vast underground world beneath our feet. It was where most of the Hisuian variants had found a home when they had become increasingly displaced by changing climate, invasive species and humans.

When their numbers had started to decline, the Diamond and Pearl clans had developed a policy of finding their pokémon’s wild fellows a new home where they could survive and thrive without interference.

“Now we’re not planning to enter the Underground, that isn’t our job here, but many entrances have pretty rich deposits near the surface that are easy to exploit. Shards, fossils, star pieces and of course stones, if we’re lucky we might even find plates.”

“Plates?” I asked.

“Technically speaking, they’re the shards borne from the creation of the universe,” I stared at her. “Practically speaking they’re even denser in Type Energy and are pretty effective at boosting moves, but you aren’t going to pull off anything scary with them.”

“Makes sense.” There were literally hundreds if not thousands of plates around, if they were actively dangerous they’d be a lot more sought after. They’re just rare items. “So… if you don’t mind me asking, why is an Ace Trainer leading something minor like this and not… I don’t know… a daring mission to the Underground?”

Lilliansmirked, brushing back her dark bangs, letting me catch a glimpse of her violet eyes and her soft features. “For one thing, personal enjoyment and too, it’s nice to see newbie trainers getting their footing. Especially cute older ones who might need a bit of a… helping hand.” Her tone became downright sultry, and I coughed to myself.

“Umm.” She laughed at my reaction and lifted her hand to her chin, giggling.

“I’m not actually kidding, but I’m not going to flirt with you if that’s too much,” she reassured and I felt some tension uncoil. “Especially when you’ve got that cute partner of yours, Akari right?”

“We’re just friends?” I muttered, rubbing my fingers together and trying to focus on Jericho cleaning up the site for future mining. Flattening the ground, stabilizing the soil and stone below and so on.

Lillian gave me a skeptical look. “Why would that matter? You can kiss your homies, you know.”

I choked on laughter, feeling less embarrassed and more amused. “Is that what you call it!” I was no longer feeling so… caught off my guard as it were. “But no, we’re still getting to know each other. I don’t think anything is going to happen.”

Lillian pouted. “I thought I was picking up a vibe…” She gestured to three of her pokémon, her excadrill, a ferrothorn and a bronzong. Excadrill was preparing the sight with his ground moves and claws, ferrothorn was watching out for wild pokémon and her bronzong was using their moves to lift debris and material for core studies. “Excadrill, pal, buddy, chum, bosom friend!”

I placed my hand against my face at her loud and incessant call to her ace, who threw himself up with a slab of stone.

“Uzu, uzu, uzu.” He made shrill twittering and squeaking sounds that sounded like grinding metal. I had to tilt my head down to look at him, since he was right around seventy centimeters tall and forty kilograms in mass. His white mole-like face was shadowed by a massive protruding drill helmet that I knew was a steel core with a coating of diamond and titanium nitride.

“Excadrill, I’m thinking this newbie here needs some heads up when it comes to what Tohoku does best.”

“Huh?” She pointed to Akari, who was happily battling another trainer, wait was that Natsuo?

The field was suddenly coated in a terribly dense and regal layer of draconic energy, Bloom who was now a Tohokun bayleef roared, and I saw Ellis on the ground, unable to hold herself up in the air.

“Dragon Breath!” A beam of blue energy fled from his pokémon’s mouth, and I winced as Akari’s togetic was brought down. Regal Terrain covers the field in draconic energy, increasing the power of dragon-type moves and nullifying type-based immunities through the chaotically dense cowl of aura surrounding their person.

Akari clicked her tongue, returning Ellis and sending out Happy, his magma tail flaring hotter than ever. “Secret Power into Fire Punch.” He slammed into his opponent like a freight train, sending the grass-dragon into a daze with a flinch. Both his fists burst into flames, and with a twist of his hip and shoulder, he punched Bloom’s vulnerable neck, the poor mon letting out a choking sound.

“I’m guessing you’re talking about Terrains?”

“Got it in one, rookie.” Lilliansounded excited, and I was just confused.

“Why me?” I demanded.

“Because I want to, because you’re here, and because you sound like someone who could need someone watching your back. Not that Akari isn’t but…”

“I understand.” Sometimes I forget how deeply the people of this world really do just want to help. They’re not flawless or perfect, but there was a deeper connection between people in this world.

Lily’s steely aura crept out subconsciously, and she just grinned. “Now it’s not going to be easy, excadrill here loves teaching rookies what’s up… and he’s got Metallic Terrain as a move in his repertoire, and he isn’t going to go easy on any of you.”

Her aura and her partner’s aura began to grow and unfold, and I swallowed a nervous supply.

I think I made a mistake.

November 13th, 2022.

“It’s been some time hasn’t it?” Natsuo said serenely, gently pulling open an apricorn and scooping out the interior to eat it with a smile. “And I see you’ve developed a stronger connection to your aura.”

I wasn’t remotely surprised. “You can tell?”

“My… ability to see into the heart isn’t limited to pokémon,” his expression was oddly chilling. “It is a deeper sight, something I was born with. Only the greatest of Aura Guardians and lucario could see what I see.”

“So I noticed you caught yourself some more pokémon?” I pointed to the two new balls on his belt, each of them marked with a different… rune?

“I made some new friends, I was able to befriend a totodile who as you can see has evolved into a croconaw, you can call her Crackerjaw, she chose that name for herself.” She very much did look just like a rotund bipedal crocodile, but looked far less cuddly than you would expect.

Her frame was robust but also muscular, covered in scales, armor and osteoderms, with red slit eyes that were filled with a fierce intelligence, and rather expressive. About a meter tall or so, and was sunbathing and watching my team with a curious if unnerving expression. The pattern of blue and cream across her torso reminded me of a caveman oddly enough.

Mirko looked wary, her nose twitching and ears swiveling in a rote pattern. Which was sensible, the water crocodile was an apex predator and tended to only eat meat. While most prey pokémon were sub-sapient, the wild wasn’t exactly a safe place regardless for beings lower on the food chain.

Akari was staring too, her eyes narrowed to slits and her posture reminding me of a bird of prey. Why was she staring at his third pokéball?

Natsuo chuckled nervously. “I suppose it is safe here to tell you that my third member is strange?”

“How?” He grabbed his ball, whispered something soft and comforting and threw it into the air. In a flash of light, a pokémon materialized and my heart dropped into my stomach.

It was a quadrupedal chimeric pokémon with traits from many creatures, green avian-insectoid front legs and canine rear legs, a vertical fluke like a fish and a hairy black coat and gray feathers running up their neck. Their head was enclosed in a nightmarish brown helmet and green markings with a large jaw piece wrapping around the front with large and round hinges, and an axe crest poking out.

“Type: Null.” Natsuo’s gaze turned sharp and suspicious, and I sighed.

“That’s not a pokémon many know in this world.” There was almost an accusation in his voice.

“I know plenty of pokémon that I probably shouldn’t know about,” I didn’t care if they knew. “Type: Null is one of them, the better question is where you found one.”

“Secret.” Natsuo said and I nodded, accepting the answer. Not my business to pry.

“That’s fine.” I waved away the question. “So what kind of things did you find around here?”

“I found two star pieces,” he admitted and I blinked. That was a healthy chunk of change with the right buyer, they were made of a rare kind of zeolite that could be sold for between five and fifty thousand pokédollars. “As well as three fire stones, two leaf stones and a sun stone.” And that was another hunk of change, though smaller. They went for anywhere from a thousand to twenty thousand pokédollars depending on their grade. So about two hundred dollars… which is like half a console, expensive but not your entire life savings.

“I found no star pieces, but I did find about twenty shards, nothing groundbreaking. And two water stones.” It was a little disappointing when the real prize was a moon stone so that Jericho would have a shot at his evolution.

“I… found ten star pieces.” Akari whispered quietly but not quietly enough. “A few stones too, three fire stones, and a dusk stone.”

The fuck?

“You could buy a couple bikes with that kinda money.” Bikes weren’t ludicrously expensive here, but they were more expensive than on Earth because they were built to last. They used incredibly durable metal alloys and composites, are easy to repair and reinforced with moves like Barrier like most modern technology is.

I opened my mouth and suddenly found my field of vision full of a cute poison rabbit’s scaly face. “Ri-ri, nir!” I tilted my head at his excitement, and the three of us lab trainers went after him.

Jericho stopped at a bare face of rock, and without hesitation… he used a focused Secret Power and Bulldoze to open up a hole several meters across, stone and rock slowly sliding apart under his will.

I stumbled as I was suddenly crushed under the pressure of what Jericho had uncovered.

“Is that?” Akari looked surprised while I felt elation. It was a cluster of moon stones, gleaming with the mysterious power of the moon overhead. Most of them were mid-quality, but the one at the center was about the thrice the size of my fist and it’s… Space filled the area with its energy.

“Moon stones… I don’t think we can dig out all of those, can we?”

“We’re going to need a core sample, a deposit this great so close to the surface means there might be a sizable vein.” I jumped at one of the Devon geologists who looked at the rocks like she wanted to fuck them.

It was unsettling.

And when did a crowd of people get here?

Oh. Right. Giant vein of rare minerals.

That big stone is mine, no one’s taking it over my dead body.

The crowd shrunk back for a moment, and I tilted my head. What was going on with them?

“Well… we should probably get to work I think?”

Akari nodded mutely, a faint flush to her cheeks.

I just grinned.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.9

November 14th, 2022.

The past week had been surprisingly productive, in-between finding stones, gems, and other miscellaneous items, we had been training and battling. Fennekin was getting stronger and more confident as I let her push herself harder.

She was practically overcome with joy when I told her Wish could let her work her way up to Morning Sun, increasing her ability to stay in battle. She was going to make an incredible offensive pokémon with Magician and Magic Bounce, with Blaze providing a boost to her power as a backup. Honestly it sounded like her trainer was using her more to heal other pokémon and not bothering to train her for battle. For example Calm Mind and Stored Power were moves she learned at the Pokémon House. She’d also serve as a good anti-lead, able to steal away items with a little bit of smoke and mirrors and magic.

She’d only just developed Magician though, and it would take her more time to figure out the last basic aspects of her ability. The Ace Trainer was also more than happy to teach me about terrains, all eighteen of them even if she only used Metallic Terrain for her own pokémon. Fennekin had picked up Psychic Terrain somehow…

I had acquired the main moon stone with some help from Jericho and Llayda, he used his control over earth and she used her strength to pull it out, along with eight other stones I was planning to sell through the GST. The big one was in my bag, and the plan was for Jericho to evolve after we earned our fifth badge at least.

An early evolution wasn’t always healthy even if stone-based evolution were a lot safer than normal ones that needed raw accumulation of power and experience. Llayda had figured out Steel Roller as well, a powerful steel-type move that could crush terrain effects.

“You really encountered a Type Royal aggron?” I giggled when I saw that Akari was chatting with Lillian. “Like the one that fought the legendary tyranitar of Kanto?” My laugh became strained as I was reminded that this world was a crazy death world with a rather deep veneer of niceness.

While any pokémon can grow bigger than normal or become a Type Royal through sheer unadulterated power instead… some of them truly lived up to the name. Larvitar tend to evolve in the wild after consuming thirty times their weight in soil, rock and metal, and evolve faster if they ate fifty five times their weight in one season.

But… they can just keep eating, and eating, and eating… the largest larvitar on record ate a small mountain and grew to the size of a large lighthouse. The Tyranitar of legendary fame was so tall even the tallest castles didn’t even reach halfway up it’s knee. So large it was practically a walking landscape, laying waste to everything not out of malice but simply because size made it a weapon unto itself. Thousands of years ago it had faced a gigantic aggron of equal if not greater scale, creating an entire mountain range between Johto and Kanto… and there was a good reason Mt. Silver was so special… It was the body of a long dead steel titan, buried under rock and soil and plant life.

Lillian laughed. “Nowhere near that impressive, it was definitely bigger than a house though… maybe twenty meters tall? It was eating its way through a blast furnace, just swallowing literal tons of iron.” Right, that isn’t nightmare inducing at all, to imagine a three hundred sixty ton monster devouring literal trucks worth of metal. “It took my entire team to take down that monster, and Orthworm was the man… well worm in that battle, taking the hits like a champ and absorbing any ground-type moves that aggron used against us. And he landed the final blow with a combo of Iron Defense and Body Press.”

Oh… that would do it. Body Press scaled based on the physical toughness of a pokémon, and was fighting-type to boot…

After we had prospected the third site, we had moved a few miles to the fourth and final site, which was a flat plain with a massive maw of a cave leading into the underground. The Devon employees had found huge IE deposits to exploit for energy generation, and I could see one talking into their phone with a hushed whisper. Mirko was tilting her ear in his direction with a look of concern.

“Something wrong?” I asked, and she shrugged, as if unsure about whatever she was listening in on.

“Might be she’s hearing some of Devon’s concerns about Cipher and the Pokémon Pinchers, they’ve been stealing tech from a bunch of different companies in the region.” Lillian explained and I could see how that would be a cause of concern.

Why did that feel too simple though?

November 17th, 2022.

The next several days had been far more eventful as something had caused the local pokémon to become more violent. We had been dealing with regular incursions and attacks, and it had been nerve wracking. The first day it had been a swarm of beedrill and scyther, the second we had faced a herd of angry tauros and a cohort of ghosts that haunted us the entire night before being chased off by the normal types and dark types on our teams. Mirko had done a good bulk of the work around us with Swift and Foresight, and had almost torn a wild misdreavus to bits and ran off a murkrow flock with Thunder Punch.

The third day was far worse, as it involved a swarm battle against a weavile pack. Which was an utter nightmare of a battle, as they had created a snowstorm with a move called Snowscape, a variant of Hail that’s more benign and used to increase their defense. I would have barely avoided getting mauled if it wasn’t for Fennekin using a Calm Mind-enhanced mix of Ember and Fire Spin to blow away as much of the storm as she could. They were terrifyingly fast, in a blink they could leap sixty yards, and Jericho had gotten a light scar from where one had clawed at his left flank.

It had been a nightmare so far, and I was reading up on the ten regions of Nihoh, from top to bottom to distract myself.

Sinnoh was the northernmost region, the closest to the Esklova region, a vast and cold region making up the great north of Asu. The southern peninsula of Almia is its own autonomous prefecture, having split from Sinnoh before the war. Then came Tohoku, which bordered Mohto to the south, some four hundred fifty thousand square kilometers of mountains, coast and plains.

It had connections to Rota… though it would be more accurate to say that Rota sat between its borders and the border of Northern Kanto, a sparse region that was mostly farm-country and only independent by dint of being kinda far away. Below that of course was Kanto and Johto, with the Chuenn region to the west in turn split into Fiore and Oblivia, and the island region of Shoku is directly south. Hoenn was further west and southernly and the region ended with the Sevii Islands.

It was a big world out there.

I glanced over to the table, which Mirko was setting up instead of myself. Apparently she had developed an interest in it after the first bad day where I had barely been able to do anything, so she was learning how to cook and prepare food. And based on… how territorial she was I had a feeling I was going to lose a part of the kitchen for the foreseeable future.

Also interestingly enough she knows how to read, and was apparently pretty invested in my notes on both herself and on her teammates. I questioned how she knew how to read English script, but so far no answer when we don’t share the same language and she’s being stingy in her writings.

Honestly though as a trainer my main duty was evaluating their physical needs, assigning appropriate activities to get them stronger, faster and smarter and tracking their progress, along with research and so on.

I wasn’t a full-on doctor for them, mostly it was just doing a basic health sports physical assessment using the scanner or manual tools, recording their weight and height, checking blood pressure and pulse, testing vision and other senses, heart and lungs and muscles, bones, and joints. I…

I wasn’t going to be stupid and get my pokémon hurt because I was an arrogant asshole. At least before I was sponsored, Laven had put me through rigorous study sessions so I would be able to pass the Trainer Exam, which is what every wannabe trainer needed if they wanted the full license. Sort of a cross between a personal trainer and a physical therapist aide, with their actual doctors being the people working at the Centers.

“Mir… ol?” Mirko gestured to the food dispenser I had bought for easy storage of pellets… to my embarrassment I had bought it because it reminded me of the vending machine-thing from Zoboomafo. You press a button and it drops the food in a bowl. My pokémon sat at the table with me, with the smaller of the two using a high-chair thing.

They all scrambled to press their respective buttons, marked with a cute sticker with an outline of them. Their bowls were filled with the freshly cooked meals, and Mirko threw one of her pellets at my open mouth.

“Bleh, fuck!” My teeth bit right into the mix of hay, a sweet herbaceous taste along with the strong multifaceted flavor of oran, vegetables and an earthy shrimp taste.

Well… I know what bugs taste like, thank you Mirko.

Fennekin let out the funniest vulpine laughter, a breathless ‘hahaha’ that forced me to force down the pellet before I burst out laughing and choked. Jericho looked at his food and my mouth and I glared.

I pointed at him fiercely. “Do not. Her food is mostly edible, yours would probably kill me. Fennekin’s might be edible if not for the wood, and Llayda’s is just not to my taste.” It was basically seafood, but I wasn’t interested.

With a sigh, I pulled out my food from my own food dispenser, which was a single little slot thing because I thought it was cute as fuck, even had a symbol for human. It dropped two burritos I had made myself, with steak beef, pan fried potatoes and some spices and peppers and tamato berries.

“You’re all weirdos, but I love ya.” I felt a faint blush rise at the earnesty in my words, when the hell had I gotten so attached?

Mirko just preened, and her gaze slid over to something behind me. I followed it to where Akari was lying on Happy, clearly enjoying his warmth. She wiggled her eyebrows.

I growled, and she looked surprised at the reaction, then amused. “Can you stop trying to ship me and Akari, it’s kind of rude.” Also kind of uncomfortable.

Mirko paused with a mild pout, but I could tell she was reading my face. She sighed, and gave a sound that roughly said ‘I’ll tone it down a notch, sorry’ and that let me relax. Fennekin was looking between us, as if trying to measure us out.

“Still trying to figure us out huh?” I asked her directly and her hackles raised. “I’m not surprised… based on what little I know about your previous wielder, he’s clearly a jackass. I’m… I hope I’m a lot better than him, I’m not a complicated person I think. I try to be good with other people even if I don’t understand them, try to learn what I can… even if I can be pretty selfish and self-focused sometimes.”

I wasn’t good at on-the-fly empathy… or sympathy perhaps, it was hard to figure out feelings mattered in the heat of the moment, to think of others while I was in my own space and time. I did have empathy though, when I had enough space to think, to question, to digest information.

I did my best to meet her eyes without feeling uncomfortable, she was the one who looked away first with a huff.

November 18th, 2022

I woke up at midnight with a splitting headache, and pinched the bridge of my nose to dull the ache with an added click of my tongue. I could hear someone outside, lightly batting at the tent’s entrance.

“Akari?” I whispered, and the zipper was pulled down by a sheepish looking Akari, her blue hair a mess of curls and clearly poorly groomed. “What’s going on?”

“Happy set my tent on fire.” Was her flat answer, the deadpan almost funny but also concerning. “So I’m borrowing your tent.”

I opened and closed my mouth. “Sure, whatever. Just don’t expect cuddles.” I was making a joke but the mirth in her eyes told me that was a mistake.

“I wouldn’t mind cuddles with a cute girl,” her toothy grin was far too wide and scary and yet… intriguing. “But it’s been an interesting week hasn’t it? More even.”

“I think I’m getting a better handle of things, finding a better way to handle moves and how pokémon use them.”

“You mean the stuff you stole from the video game about our world?” She laughed softly at my pout.

“Hey it works doesn’t it? It’s just a subdivision of offensive, defensive and supportive and some of the ways they can be used. Plus learning to better analyze on the fly rather than letting my pokémon do all the work.” I was the trainer, keeping an eye on the field was kind of my whole thing.

“Not wrong. Just remember that in the real world things can work differently, and we’re not limited to four moves.”

“Hmm. Learned that with Hypnosis and Foresight.” I acknowledged.

Hypnosis was not just the ability to put someone to sleep, it was a mental manipulation, reaching into the mind and inputting a range of commands and orders. While full-on psychic domination was generally not a thing, it was a very dangerous move when used beyond just making someone pass out, as it was a hypnotic suggestion.

Foresight didn’t just let Mirko punch ghosts, it let her dispel illusions, invisibility and in some cases let you see through solid objects. Which was how she had seen through the ghosts from a few days ago. She hasn’t figured out the solid objects thing, and invisibility is harder as it’s far more focused. But punching ghosts and dispelling illusions and her immunity to possession made her a good counter against ghost types.

“Mhmm. Combination moves can be a pretty considerable threat.”

I smirked. “Which is why I developed my system, it’s not perfect, but it works well enough. I just need to add some extra commands, keep their focus and all.” I had to look at every angle, every possible direction of attack, subversion or defense. “Coordinate in-battle rather than just pre-battle.”

“Mhmm. How’s that working out?” She asked curiously, and I shrugged.

“I’m doing okay I think? I’ve won a ton of casual battles, I even got Fennekin into a battle that she enjoyed.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh that’s great, did she enjoy herself?”

“She beat two rock-types, and is getting better at directing Ember and Fire Spin. I’m thinking of looking into how it can be reshaped into something interesting. Though I might need help with that.”

“I can definitely help with that, I’ve got some good instincts when it comes to moves and aura… but you… can actually see it.”

To my shock I found her swiftly crawling over to, resting on her knees, and placing hard fidgety hands down on the ground as she loomed over me with her superior height.

Sometimes I forget I’m only 5’2.

I glanced over to her night clothes, a thick blue sweater-coat thing that again reminded me of a certain… distant land and plot, and piplup print sleeping shorts. I glanced at her chest for a second.

She’s also bigger than me..

I ignored that irrational spike of jealousy, and instead decided to take it as Akari being excited to help out.

We spent the next few hours wasting time, comparing notes on training and how we taught our team their moves, abilities and potential combat-multipliers.

But all the while, there was a sense of unease that kept me talking to keep the Silence from creeping in.

November 21st, 2022.

“Return, Mirko!” I shouted the command, and felt my aura pulse in tandem with my starter as she began to pull on our link, drawing energy from the countless connections tying us together. Multicolored light coiled around her limbs, burning in white, violet, cerise and as blue as the sky.

“Sa-Sa!” The poor wild sandshrew was sent flying after it tried to claw out my eyes, vanishing behind some rock outcroppings as it was thrown for a good hundred meters.

Return had grown in power, I could feel our bond growing stronger, and I had gotten to know my team in general a lot better. For example I glanced down to my phone where I had let her type some words.

You’re a funny trainer, Brandy, kinda a dumbass too.

Her words weren’t the kindest but I could see they had been written with warmth and affection. Which made sense, it was November 21st, and I had chosen her on July 2nd… four months, but those four months felt like both an eternity and no time at all. So I kept reading.

But you’re a good trainer, you didn’t have to pick me after I attacked you… I know I ran off other trainers before with my surly personality. No one wanted me, no one wanted to take me to see the world, whether because I was too cute for them, or because lopunny has a ‘reputation’ or because we’re not the ultimate starter like some others.

And I know you want to study my species… not because it’ll get you a reward, but because it’ll help you understand us better, understand me better. You’re a good human. So I’ll help you like you helped me.

I rubbed my eyes, putting my phone away and painting a too-wide smile on my face. I placed my hand on the sparkling gemstone on my collar, still examining the endless patterns of aura it soaked up, twisting into a kaleidoscope of energies. It was an interesting focus, letting me better differentiate the shape, the frequency and pattern of Type Energy.

I was working on better coverage moves for my team today, Mirko was learning Bounce from Llayda and would let her counter fighting-types and augment her movability. Play Rough was another one to use against fighting types, and I wanted to see if she could learn Shadow Ball to counter ghost types and psychic types. If I ever find a mega stone…

Llayda, I was thinking Bulldoze to counter electric and poison types and slow down her enemies, Ice Spinner to counter grass pokémon and nullify terrains and… well that’s it for now. Jericho needed to work on moves to counter his weaknesses, psychic types meant either bug or dark moves, Sucker Punch and Thief are two or and Megahorn is another when he evolves. Ground types, I was thinking he should learn Ice Beam, and water could be countered with Shock Wave or Thunderbolt in the future. Ice could be countered with Iron Tail.

Fennekin could learn Energy Ball for water, ground and rock types, ghost types she could learn Foul Play and for dark types her species had access to Aura Sphere.

Something to do with one getting taught by a lucario and passing it on as a spell.

Mirko tapped my leg, and I focused back on the present, clutching the gem once more, now uncomfortably warm, the current twisting and folding and unfolding as as something parted the harmonic energies of the world—

Mirko let out a distress call, ears unfolding with a crack of air, and it was loud and high pitched, alerting the entire field of trainers, geologists and Devon employees.

Akari stiffened, and the entire group was put on high alert… and Mirko fired red beams of Foresight from her eyes, collapsing a bubble of see-me-not without me telling her.

And floating in the sky were multiple hovering vehicles, something like a flying treadmill… hoverboard device. There were multiple people onboard along with pokémon, wearing black and gray undershirts, two-tone green vests and hats and— oh no.

There was one rider that was the leader of the formation, with a wrestler type outfit, and long gray hair and wizened robust features. The color of his uniform reminded me… of a skaking for some reason, with strange gauntlets covering his hands, and an embedded gemstone gleaming from his right hand.

He stepped off his platform to fall below.

…!

He landed in a crater, a pokémon landing with him in what seemed like perfect sync. Why did my heart ache, why did it hurt so badly?

The dust was blown back by a wave of the man’s hand as he stepped forward less like a human being and more like a mountain.

Then I saw his partner.

It was an absolutely gigantic slaking, who looked very much like a cross between a gorilla and a ground sloth. Messy matted brown-green fur covered a lengthy, muscular and heavy frame, standing bipedally on four clawed feet that certainly weren’t simian, rising twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen feet in the air, rolling shoulders twice as wide as my torso and supporting arms twice my own height in length, fists big enough to cup Llayda whole uncurled to reveal foot long scythes of keratin, and I could see his head was huge too. A squashed flat thick browed face and a large forehead, a puggy sloth-nose curling in rage and revealing enormous fangs and eyes reflecting silver, blind with hatred.

“Some of you might recognize me from the works of my colleagues in Oblivia, or you might not. But none of you lightweights will be able to hold up against the power I’ve been given. My name is Arley, now prepare to die.”

He posed, and I paled as I felt his aura surge into a screaming vortex, blending violently with the dark tainted aura of his slaking.

His old face twisted into a nasty dark smile.

“Giga Impact!”

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.10

November 21st, 2022.

I snapped to wakefulness, barely recalling Lillian sending out her entire team, and a flash of burning light before I was knocked out.

A sitrus berry was shoved into my face, and I chewed on it, feeling my aches and bruises fade and vanish as the miracle berry did its job. Please let this work…

I was leaning against someone, and opened my eyes to find that Akari had been dragging me away from… the utterly ruined site, as the Pokémon Pinchers stormed the area with their pokémon, and I gaped as I saw Lillian commanding her team, a long cut on her arm bandaged up as she shattered a man’s arm with a gentle swipe of her hand.

Her team was utterly monstrous as I saw the full power of a pokémon team unleashed. Excadrill tore through entire teams of fire and water types, Metallic Terrain bolstering his steel moves, air parting as he sped past the sound barrier.

A conkeldurr stood in his way, and suffered the consequences as a Crush Claw shattered bone with ease. A skarmory dove at his back, and was one-shotted by Corviknight with a devastating Power Trip, the dark energies shattering steel wings with their deadly strikes.

Aegislash did her part, using King’s Shield to block the devastating power of Slaking, and throwing a barrage of Shadow Balls to knock out pokémon of varying types.

Duraludon lashed out wildly against a Pincher’s luxray, Dragon Pulse knocking it out in a single burst. Ferrothorn was acting as another ironclad defense, using Spikes and Stealth Rock to block pokémon, Leech Seed to drain them, and Protect to block hits, along with Thunder Wave to paralyze.

Orthworm was moving through the ground, absorbing ground moves and knocking out pokémon with Heavy Slam and Body Press, and defending himself with Shed Tail. I couldn’t see her seventh but I knew they were around.

The leader… he had called himself Arley, he was fighting pokémon with his own two hands, fighting brutally and without mercy, and the only reason no one was dead was because their pokémon stood in his way.

“Do not get distracted! NOT HERE!” I shook my head at Akari’s shout, who sounded more afraid than… What was this?

I rolled as someone shouted a command. “Shadow Rush!” A houndoom let out a haunting howl, and I narrowly dodged the savage attack which was intercepted by Llayda with a fist of Liquidation, knocking out the enraged pokémon in a single strike.

My aura sense flared, and I almost threw up at the mutilated aura surrounding many of the pokémon around us. It wasn’t even one in ten, but it was a sense of Shadow that obscured their light, like someone had torn out their very heart and soul.

I wondered what Natsuo saw, and hoped he was okay.

I could hear the grunt snarl at us, protected by a weezing and a golbat. “Poison Gas! Let them choke on it!”

“Psybeam.” I ordered and Fennekin stepped up from where she had been hiding, firing a laser beam of pure psychic power. The blonde grunt scowled, and pulled out a huge baton that was suddenly electrified. Akari surged forward, twisted around the attempted strike and slammed her skull into the grunt, knocking him out.

That left the golbat to rage, poison dripping from its fangs, before getting frozen solid by an Ice Beam from— Jericho?!

He was fighting three liepard, all of which were poisoned while a grunt pulled out a revolver. He fired what looked like some type of… energy blast, and Jericho blocked it with a Confusion thrown rock which exploded into shrapnel that he then twisted into stony spires with Stealth Rock.

Jericho flung himself forward, and knocked the armed grunt on his ass, slapping away the weapon and crushing it underfoot. No one was dead so far but it wasn’t from a lack of trying.

I took a deep breath, and let my aura stretch out, letting it reach out to the connections I had made so far. All four of my pokémon perked up, and I counted backwards from ten as the battle in front of us raged on.

There was an ungodly amount of magnemite in the air, and I remembered what they meant. They were the favorite tool of poachers in this world, used to corral and contain pokémon with their paralysis, as well as making decent scouts with their levitation and Magnet Pull to capture steel types.

Oh.

They were after Lillian weren’t they? They wanted her team for themselves, and the presence of Shadow pokémon told me how they were going to control them.

“Fennekin, can you send your Fire Spin up into the sky?”

The aforementioned fox looked at me with confusion, and I offered a grim expression. “They’re after Lillian, after her pokémon.” Just as I said that, a swarm of magnemite began to surround Corviknight, their magnetic pull drawing him in like a relentless black hole, commanded by a magnezone with a rusted over exterior, bolts of lightning as wide as cars shot out across the field under its aegis.

Fennekin shook her head, and I clicked my tongue, frustrated. “Akari, does Ellis have any moves she can use to fan flames?”

Akari leaned her head back to dodge an Ember from a houndour, which was crushed by Happy, the pignite flaring up with every use of Flame Charge. “She’s been trying to learn Whirlwind, using Fairy Wind as a base along with Air Slash.”

“Then can she use it? We need to light up the sky, and fast.” Akari flinched at the magnemite swarm above, twisting and turning in a dance of electromagnetic forces. “Smokescreen might help too… if it can be made flammable enough.”

“Then we need to try.”

“Null!” I could hear a weary sounding Natsuo crying out as he was surrounded by grunts, three at a time with four geodudes.

One grunt just smirked. “Guess we found where those freaks ran off to huh? The bosses will be happy to get at least one of them back. Use Brick Break.”

Akari let out a whistle, and leaves suddenly cut the rock types down with impunity as what I thought was two odd looking roses was in fact a roselia, who began with Mega Drain, tendrils of grass energy latching on to the hapless rock types with a beatific smile on her face. She brushed along the grunts, and each collapsed under the effect of her fast acting poison.

“Friend of yours?” I asked sardonically, my heart pumping in my ears as I tried not to call into a panic attack. Again.

“I’ve been interested in catching her for a while, but we’ve mostly been getting to know each other.” Akari’s eyes were focused, narrowed like slits as she watched the skies, and pulled out a gem with the essence of air.

“So you’re in then?” I wasn’t sure the plan would work, but knocking those magnemite from the sky would give us breathing room.

“Yes.”

“Mirko, use Swift on the Pinchers in sight, we don’t need any distractions. Fennekin please use Calm Mind, gather as much power as you need. Llayda, do what you do best, let no one get past. Jericho, keep trapping the field.” I let their emotions sweep over me, letting myself get drawn into the current.

Akari threw out her own commands, and Happy began to belch out Smokescreen, chewing on a piece of charcoal. His magma tail burned hotter, and Ellis took the Flying Gem, drawing on its essence for her makeshift Whirlwind.

Fennekin used Calm Mind a total of four times, boosting both power and resistance in equal measure.

“Fire Spin, as high as you can make it, and throw it upwards into the sky!” I felt Fennekin draw on her aura, flames dancing around her fur as she opened her mouth— and an enormous vortex of flame took shape.

She directed it upward, as far as she could manage with her range, and Ellis fanned it further with an enhanced Whirlwind of air, and right towards the bulk of the swarm of magnemite.

They were swept up in the firestorm, the combination of heat, energy, further obscuring fuel in charcoal dust riddled Smokescreen and whirlwinds turned it into a self sustaining storm-force.

I stared as I watched the airborne Fire Spin swallow up dozens of magnemites, and even sent their numerous golbats and murkrows careening downwards as the wind force threw them off.

Holy shit.

Even the magnezone was caught up in the firestorm, and took a direct hit from someone’s mienshao with a super-effective Aura Sphere. Corviknight took advantage of the firestorm, riding the chaotic currents and using Air Slash to direct the flames, turning them into blades of air that were on fire!

A shadow rose over me, and before I could blink, I was pushed to the ground, and then pulled upwards by the collar of my shirt.

“Well, well, well. I see we’ve got a rookie here with some wisdom… but nowhere enough power to make up for it.”

I stared into the wizened face of Arley of the Pokémon Pinchers.

I shuddered as a hand was kept on my shoulder, pinning me in place as Arley swept away blood from his mouth where a pokémon had slugged him to no effect.

“Well, it seems like we’re at a crossroads here Ace. Here I was, thinking I’d demonstrate the power we have and yet you’re still alive.” He laughed loudly in my ear, and I hid a snarl as the thought of biting him crossed my mind.

But not as he was, whatever he has done to himself, he was every bit as strong, tough and fast as his slaking.

“What exactly does a member of the Societea want with a minor operation like this one?” Lillian was staring at me with concern, the battling pausing as Arley paraded me like a trophy.

Arley grinned. “A demonstration of power of course, our friends in Cipher have led us to create a whole new set of toys and weapons we needed to show off!” He gestured to their technology, and their pokémon. “Shadow Pokémon, what an incredible creation… and with our control gauntlets they’re now even greater! Alongside the power to equal that of pokémon in the hands of humanity! The secrets of Great Gavel, ours to take!”

He stomped one foot, leaving a sizable crater with barely a hint of effort.

I could see his aura, it was calm… still, and I could see his connection to slaking… it felt fake, artificial, distorted, the energy surging into his flesh without reserve, without compassion.

“Your point. Make it.” Lillian warned with a face as cold as ice and iron.

Arley just laughed. “My point, little Ace, is that we need strong pokémon for Shadow conversion, and we found it in you. So it’s quite simple, give up your pokémon, or you get to watch me shatter this girl’s spine.”

I shivered, my breath speeding up and my vision blurring as my anxiety spiked tenfold. This wasn’t what I had signed up for, I had wanted to go out on a journey for childish reasons, so I could learn more about this world… not this.

“Coward.” Lillian sounded pissed and Arley let out a booming laugh.

“We destroyed Dolce Island, so I very much don’t care. Surrender your pokémon, and I might consider letting the rest of these trainer’s and their pokémon go. Seven lives for over a hundred is an easy trade right?”

Lillian’s teeth clicked together in a snarl, turned her attention towards me… and her face softened. “Will you let them all go? If I do what you say?” I could see her pokémon coming down, nodding alongside her with sadness, frustration and shame radiating from them.

I felt ashamed… this shouldn’t… I won’t allow it.

But I can’t do anything, I had no power here.

The gem on my neck felt uncomfortably warm, and I let my head drop. I was useless here.

The gem pulsed brighter, and for a moment it was like a veil had been pulled back. I could feel the strange stone swirl with energies, I could feel the connections between my pokémon and myself, growing ever brighter. Mirko’s anxiety, anger and worry. Jericho’s cold rage and self loathing, Llayda’s whimsical yet tranquil fury and desire to inflict pain and Fennekin’s self-doubt and masked concern.

I glanced at the stone on his right hand, and wondered about it, and I could feel my aura connect with Mirko’s, melding deeply, and I reacted, as a sudden sense of invigoration and indignation took over my feelings.

I lunged, tearing myself right out of his titanium grip, straight for his gauntlet… and bit down on his arm without a scrap of hesitation.

Arley let out a high pitched scream, and I was punched in the stomach and tossed aside by the now enraged wrestler-looking leader. I had torn at his gauntlet, damaging it with my wild grappling.

He was holding his arm, and I held my stomach that flashed with pain at the impact.

His face twisted into an expression of inhuman rage, and I grinned up at him, despite no longer being able to move. “Fuck you.”

He charged forward, his aura exploding wildly, his fist becoming coated in a strange energy.

Mirko let out an ungodly shriek, launching forward into a Quick Attack, and Arley swatted her like a bug. She rolled along the ground, and found her footing in midair, using Cut to create a firm grip.

“Better idea, if you’re so eager to fight… maybe you should fight each other.” His other gauntlet began to flare with a mysterious energy, and radiated that energy towards an unprepared Mirko.

Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop

I was hit with a gut punch as Mirko was forced to the ground, holding her face, her aura screaming as it was attacked by the strange shadow emitted by the gauntlet. It was reaching into our connections, tearing at them, manipulating them, trying to pull it away from me and towards him.

I couldn’t hear anything else except the beating of my heart in my ears, not the faint thump of moves and explosions, or the sound of orders and commands and dozens of people preparing for battle. Our bond began to break, and I poured all my hopes and dreams into the connection. The bond shattered.

But it refused.

I felt my aura move without my conscious input, building higher and higher without end, pouring like an endless river into Mirko, I pulled as deep as I could, letting it flood out into the world.

Mirko exploded into pure white energy tinged with divine gold, as the energy of evolution bled into reality. She grew, shapely legs extending onto the ground, ears unfolding again and again as they grew without restraint, muscular arms rippling into existence, and eyes the color of cerise glaring under the white aura.

“Return.” I whispered.

In a single blink, Mirko slammed into Arley like the fist of god.

I stared at my starter, blinking the fresh, blinding, awe inspiring light of her evolution out of my eyes. She had sent Arley flying with her Return, her cerise eyes flaring with utter rage and indignation. I could see her more clearly now, without that strange energy surrounding her form.

She had shed her small stature and cute form for one of elegance, beauty and glorious strength and speed, and I could feel our auras intertwined like the branches of two trees, and I blinked tears from my eyes as our connection grew deeper.

Mirko had become tall, easily standing a head more than I did, and her frame was curvaceous and yet powerful, covered in a soft down of brown fur, her cream colored lower body fur had migrated down to her knees, ankles and feet and upwards to her upper arms and her hands (regional difference?) and her ears curtained behind her and flexed so hard the air popped. Her face had become more expressive, and it was twisted into a visage of rage and fury, eyes the color of cerise glancing back to meet my own.

Rock crumbled, providing a warning that we weren’t done here. Arley laughed, rubbing at his jaw, and I could see his right gauntlet was broken, the jewel itself left unharmed.

“So you’ve got some power after all, girlie. It is unbelievably difficult for a pokémon like that to evolve, you sure showed me.” He sounded more amused than angry. “And her strength is amazing,” he cracked his knuckles. “But I was known as Arley the Destroyer for a reason. Let me show you why.”

He moved, and I barely kept up with his speed, Mirko blocking his strike at the last second with Thunder Punch. He took enough electricity to put down an elephant without even a flinch.

“Mimil!” Don’t you dare touch her!

The battle shifted into human versus pokémon, a dozen strikes thrown in the span of a matter of seconds, and I scrambled to get back up as the battle went in our favor with the leader’s distraction. More and more pokémon fell to the onslaught of angry trainers and pokémon alike, and Slaking stood there dully, with a blank expression on it’s face as it charged into another Giga Impact.

Which was blocked by Duraludon, a rejuvenated Lillian shouting the command without the pressure of swarms of magnemite and a hostage situation.

“Duraludon, Draco Meteor.” A massive and solid mass of dragon energy speared right through the dense energy of Giga Impact, and the whole field was rocked as it went off like a tactical nuke, a sphere of explosive power that sent out a shockwave that knocked me back down on my ass.

Arley’s battle lust took a downward plunge, the jewel on his right hand blinking and flashing erratically. The monstrous and gigantic slaking had finally been brought low, collapsing where it stood. But he didn’t stop fighting, instead becoming more pragmatic, fighting efficiently, rolling away from strikes and deflecting them when it wasn’t possible to avoid them.

“Slaking, wake up! HYPER BEAM!” He roared and to my horror his pokémon rose back up, even as it bled pools of blood, as it nursed broken burns and third degrees burns, dull silver eyes simply acceding to the order.

“NIR!” How about you chill out!

Jericho fired Ice Beam from his horn, plugging the slaking’s mouth with the ice that formed from the beam. His Hyper Beam detonated, flaring into the sky, the recoil shattering the ground around him.

Arley launched Mirko backwards with a single swing of his fist, and he muttered something into his collar “Bring us out!” I heard a mutter of a single letter (Who’s J?), and I felt a massive surge of psychic energy distort the fabric of reality.

He returned his slaking with an unreadable expression, and I was suddenly picked up by Mirko, my vision blurring as she hit top speed almost instantly. With a smirk Arley vanished into the void of psychic power, along with almost every member of the Pinchers with the exceptions of those caught by dark types, disrupting their escape with their strange fey energies.

I opened my mouth but no words came out, instead I felt exhausted.

And passed out.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.11

November 22nd, 2022.

I was drowning in the fluff, help me.

After evolving, Mirko had refused to let me go, and was both strong enough and had sufficient leverage with her newfound height to keep me there.

Her growth spurt was a lot more than I expected, an average lopunny was about four to five feet tall, fifty to ninety pounds maybe. Mirko was measured at about six foot two including the height from her floppy ears, and about five foot ten without em, and 170 pounds at least.

Also… tripling her food costs was going to bite me in the ass, she had gone up to fifteen hundred calories before evolving and was now going to need over four thousand.

I think I’m focusing too much on trivial matters… getting almost murdered sounds more relevant.

Mirko had at least been courteous enough to let me get checked over by the hospital in Ippongi. But afterwards, she refused to loosen her grip outside of bathroom breaks and such. She was very soft though.

Her hugs and cuddles weren’t bad, but they were awkward when it came down to her evolution changing her so drastically. Being so… shapely made me understand why they had a reputation both in my world and in this one. But she was happy, and I wasn’t exactly complaining either, she was my starter after all.

She had skyrocketed when it came to her stats, everything receiving a notable boost from strength to speed to special power. Not quite as strong as Llayda, but A+ was a solid level of strength. Her speed was the greatest shock however, she had demonstrated burst speeds in excess of 200 meters a second without Quick Attack.

A furry arm suddenly wrapped around my waist and I was unceremoniously picked up like a log by Mirko. I let my limbs dangle, having long since given up especially as I knew that Mirko wasn’t planning on doing this to me forever. It was… just her way of coping with her trauma.

After the battle, a horde of Ace Trainers and Rangers had descended upon the members of the Pinchers that had been left behind, arriving in heavily armed air vehicles. The reasoning was obvious from what I had been told, the Pokémon Pinchers were an organization from Oblivia and Cipher was from Orre even if they had become international as a worldwide terrorist organization. Arley’s reference to this… Great Gavel organization was apparently a major red flag, apparently they had caused the domino effect that had started the Unova-Nihoh war.

Something to do with Legendary pokémon and almost destroying the world led to a domino effect that instigated the first mass-scale war since the early 1900s, and caused the collapse of much of the infrastructure of the time.

“Brandy?” I was gently placed back on my feet by Mirko, and tilted my head up to meet Lily’s eyes. She had been my liason between the League and me, as I had been the one closest to the leader of the operation, so I picked up a little more information.

I crossed my arms over my bust, chewing on my lip. “Am I going to be interrogated again, because that was a gigantic political shitstorm that just went down.”

Lily shook her head. “No, we have all the information we need, and we already have the appropriate compensation set up for you and all the trainers hired here. This being a League-protected operation and all.”

“Like what? Money?”

“Usually yes or an item of great value equal to the monetary compensation,” she explained with a lopsided grin. “So several technical machines, an evolution stone, or a held item. Even a pokémon egg.”

“Money is fine, I don’t want to gain another teammate so soon and my mind is a bit out of sorts right now to think of a TM or item I want besides Protect.” I… was probably going to need to see a therapist at some point.

“We can get you that TM.” Lily replied. “Anything else?”

“No.”

Lily pouted. “Would it be alright with you if I came up with something as an apology? I’d like to do everything in my power to help you feel… safe after this whole mess, and you were an attentive student.”

“If you want, sure.” She beamed, though it was fragile and hesitant.

“Great!”

I was tired.

We had been given a fast ride back to Nakagawa as both a courtesy and an unspoken apology, and I had done my best to filter out the weird looks people were giving me for sitting on Mirko’s lap on the ride back. Not that I much cared at this point, she was warm, soft and a friend, and again I didn’t have a choice until she relaxed.

Lillian had given me her phone number, and offered to introduce us to some foreign trainers she thought were a good fit as people to show us the ropes when we had the time to stop by.

“Your team has been awfully cuddly hasn’t it?” Akari teased me with a toothy grin, as I tolerated Mirko resting her head on top of mine, while Llayda occupied my lap and Jericho nuzzled into my sore sides. Even Fennekin nickname pending was hovering, even if she pretended she wasn’t.

“Yes, I don’t mind. It’s nice.” I… think I was a little touch starved actually. “How is Roselia?”

“Rosetta.” Akari said. “She’s been a great addition to the team, she’s got great abilities in Natural Cure, Poison Point and Technician. I just need to teach her how to manifest them.”

“Mhmm.” I leaned back into Mirko’s stomach, how was she so soft? What was her secret? “Is it weird I still feel exhausted?”

Akari snorted. “No. Not even a little, I felt you use your aura to help Mirko overcome that… thing. Honestly, I didn't think you had that much power in you, so I guess your bonds have been making you strong.”

“That’s good… probably explains how I was able to bite a chunk out of Arley’s arm… my teeth should have shattered against someone that tough.”

“Probably,” Akari replied. “So, you’ve got two fully evolved pokémon now.”

“Llayda and Mirko yeah, why?” I was curious about her bringing that up, while they had increased their food costs, food was relatively cheap if you aren’t feeding something like a snorlax. She used to eat about three cups of food a day or fifteen hundred calories, and now it was up to six cups in a more caloric dense format. So… four and a half thousand calories?

Or about a six thousand pokédollar increase in terms of food costs.

“It’s just something to think about, a fully evolved pokémon trends towards being more powerful, and being… harder to command? Evolution lends them confidence and that can lead to arrogance, and can cause conflict between teammates and you as a trainer.” Akari folded her arms on her bed, having opened the divider so we could talk.

“I don’t think we’ll have that issue… Llayda is pretty chill and Mirko,” I swallowed nervously at my starter’s glance. “She saw with Arley and Lily’s team how far we still have to go. She’s stronger, but she’s not the top… rabbit, whatever. There’s more we can learn, room to grow.”

Akari nodded. “That’s good, Arceus knows I’ve seen pokémon become wild and uncontrollable with the Evolution high. Luckily for food you’ve been working on the portable berry pots right?”

“Yep. Oran, sitrus, lum, and leppa berries.” Four different kinds of healing berries, oran and sitrus both restore stamina, induce healing or regeneration and repair defensive aura. Lum berries cure status conditions from poison to paralysis to sleep, while leppa berries restore the reserve of energy needed to fuel moves.

They were great to have for extensive trips into the wilderness.

“That’s good, that only leaves dealing with the… stupid reputation lopunny have.”

“Is it them being a minor sex symbol in a lot of circles?” Mirko twitched at my blunt answer, Akari’s face flushing. “Because that was a thing in my world too, and I don’t particularly care much about it. I don’t exactly care about other people that much outside basic empathy.” Like sure I could understand why people were into lopunny, I wasn’t blind, she was very aesthetically pleasing but that didn’t mean she wasn’t an incredible battler or friend.

“Fair enough…” Akari muttered, and I swore she muttered something about ‘Maybe she’s more restrained than I am…’ that I ignored for my sanity.

“Anyways, have you heard from Natsuo? I know he didn’t react well to the Shadow pokémon.”

Akari just gave me a look. “He’s fine but I know it scared him, his parents helped take down the Team Cipher the first time… and they ended up having to go into hiding when they re-emerged a few years ago.”

His parents were Wes and Rui?

…

Actually that made a lot of sense in hindsight, he did share their looks and his mother’s ability to read aura.

“Hide?” My mouth moved faster than my brain.

“Cipher is far more violent than most other teams,” Akari pointed out. “Most teams have hurt or even killed humans and pokémon before, lots of people in the case of Team Plasma and Flare, but most of the time it’s their endgame that actually ups the ante like Team Flare and Team Aqua and Magma.” I nodded, following so far. “But for Team Cipher… inflicting terror is their game, so they often go for outright lethal blows, terrorist attacks, hostage taking, even torture. They’ve killed people’s pokémon before.”

Oh.

“We’re going to have to be extremely careful from now on aren’t we?” I was becoming resigned to the inevitable at this point.

Her face was grim and told me all I needed to know.

So without fanfare I jumped back to my feet, clapping my hands. “So! I’ve been thinking… I’ve been doing my best to be a good trainer,” I took a breath, licking my dry lips. “But I think I’ve been limiting my creativity, so I want to see if there’s a few things we can work on when it comes down to it.”

“What did you have in mind?” Akari sounded curious.

I smirked toothily.

November 26th, 2022.

The team had spent the next few days training, both to get our minds off of what had happened and in preparation for the rematch. Akari had fought and earned her badge yesterday, and I got a call that my appointment had been pushed forward.

The past four days had been productive, less in terms of learning more moves or mastering new abilities and more in figuring out little nuances and focusing my brain power on things trainers might not think about. Though Fennekin had learned two new moves for the match.

Science mostly.

I had gotten my unlimited-use TM reward in Protect, which could allow a pokémon to nullify the effects of a single move. It took a boatload of energy to maintain, and involved some process of… shunting the energy into the conduit through which the energies of the universe flowed. It was incredibly costly to use and become more unreliable as one overexerted that apparent conduit.

We had made a lot of preparations when it came to our rematch with Mikron and I was going to make the most of it. I vibrated slightly as I waited in the lobby for my match, my fingers tapping vigorously against my thigh to a random beat.

“The Gym Leader is ready for you, ma’am.” The receptionist, a brown haired woman with striking violet eyes called out to me, and I threw myself onto my feet.

“Thank you!”

The battlefield was the same one I had battled in from last time, with some minor renovations and two Alolan raichu were watching us with lazy smiles. Mikron stood opposite to me, still hanging by his robotic limbs, adjusting his goggles with an electric pose.

“I see you’ve made your triumphant return! Do you think you’ve got what it takes to match wits with the Gizmo King?”

I mirrored his smug smirk, pulling back my lips with a sharp grin. “I do.”

“Based on my analysis, you’re still a three-star trainer, though one with some gigantic cajones. Who’d have thought of biting someone like a damn sharpedo?”

I almost flinched, but then my memory of making that bastard hurt brought forth a sense of… satisfaction, the fucker deserved it.

“Well, it was either that or go after his balls so…” Mikron flinched, and I almost laughed at his face.

I was a very small person, which also made me vulnerable in my world, I had no physical prowess, no intimidation factor, no speed or athleticism to keep me safe. So the option was to either do nothing or fight with no mercy or honor, if that meant kicking someone in the balls, tearing at their eyes or straight up gnawing on their arm, I’d fucking do it.

I wasn’t an immoral psycho (in the colloquial sense) but I also liked being alive.

“So are we going to battle or not?” I crossed my arms, and his smile was oddly fragile. Maybe I was giving off bad vibes?

Mikron grinned again. “Oh I’m ready! Let’s see how you manage it dork!” A different referee made her entrance, red hair trailing behind her.

“This is… will be a three-on-three pokémon battle!” She shouted, “The Challenger will have three minutes to prepare their strategy before they must send out their pokémon, and two switches while Gym Leader Mikron has none. The timer starts now!” Not as immediate as the first battle was, huh?

I took my time with my strategy, lightly spinning Fennekin’s ball to calm my nerves. I had been building a strategy against the kind of opponent that Mikron was. He loved the use of field effects whether through moves and technology in the form of held items or his special fields.

I stopped spinning the capture device and thanked whoever invented the pokéball, because they couldn’t get dizzy from inside their ball.

The referee told me to send out my pokémon, and Fennekin took the field.

“First-stage fire-type then? Good start.” He sent out his pokémon, and his galvantula took to the field. I narrowed my eyes then and there, I had sent Fennekin out first, so he had the option of sending out a pokémon that wasn’t weak to fire.

Oh… he either wasn’t taking me seriously, had a strategy for Galvantula to use or was holding back.

Well… then, let’s see how this plays out.

Electric Terrain began with a dramatic burst of electric aura flooding out from the walls and floor, until it looked like we were standing in a sea of lightning.

“Fennekin, how about you show off your new move?”

The fire fox let out a pleased yip and breathed.

An omnidirectional shockwave spread out from her Space as it expanded like a writhing living thing, fire flaring to life, consuming the field of electric energy, collapsing it under the sheer heat and power of Fiery Terrain.

Galvantula let out a pained chitter, unable to avoid the rising flames as they burned and damaged the male electric spider, his iron boots doing nothing to protect him. In this terrain, all grounded pokémon were burned by the flames unless they had some way to defend themselves from the burning field of fire.

Mikron narrowed his eyes. “Well then… let’s see how you deal with Thunder!” He commanded his pokémon, and I witnessed the mechanism behind the move with my own eyes. The energy in the air was split apart into negative and positive energies, fueled by his aura, and it came crashing together.

“Fire Spin, flame paths.” I ordered quietly, just moments before the energy released. Instead of a spinning vortex of flames, she created multiple tongues of violet-blue fire.

I had always been fascinated by facts, by science and engineering, the learning of how reality worked, both at the highest scale and at the lowest, and I had been neglecting that part of me, the part that liked learning fun facts just because it was nice and interesting no matter how mundane, gross or inane it was.

Fire had many interesting properties, it was a chemical reaction, the visible effect of the process of combustion, but one of the most useful was the ionized gasses that made it up. Fire Type Energy was special in being so much more complex, so much easier to manipulate and shape and alter into new forms than normal fire.

A massive bolt of Thunder rained down from the sky, following the course set by Galvantula… and then followed the winding path of flames that Fennekin had created just for this moment, grounded directly into the ionized terrain, massive sparks of partial plasma flaring to life before dying as they destabilized.

“Huh, what the heck was that?” Mikron looked shocked as hell, and even the referee was staring and I just laughed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know? Agility and Calm Mind, then torch that spider. You know what moves to watch out for.”

Fennekin’s speed doubled, and I ignored the ache in my eyes as she moved like a video that was skipping frames, and a second shot of Agility increased her speed by another fifty percent. She surrounded herself in a coating of violet-blue Fire Spin, and launched it forward into a barrage of Embers.

Galvantula let loose an electric screech, unable to avoid the barrage with Fennekin now outspeed the spider at every moment.

“Electroweb, lock them down!” Mikron ordered, his voice turning high pitched. Galvantula did as her trainer asked, launching an electric web. Fennekin rolled her eyes, and directed the remains of Fire Spin towards the attack, grounding the electric energy construct apart. “Bounce away!”

The spider took off into the sky, flipping through the air to land on the ceiling and away from the terrain below.

“Fire Spin, whirl it.” Fennekin launched forward, flames flying from her mouth, and gathered fire from the terrain, pulling the heat upwards with her own control over fire.

Fire Spin was thrown upwards, fueled by the surrounding sea of heat and infernos into a massive whirl. It slammed into Galvantula like a meteor, and I saw a body fall into the twisting whirl of combustion, heat and power.

The fire whirl dissipated without a target, slowly collapsing downward into the warm embrace of Fiery Terrain, Fennekin practically radiating glee and smugness.

I know pokémon represented the elements, but I also knew that reality wasn’t that simple, so I exploited it for my benefit.

The referee did the usual spiel and Mikron released his next pokémon in the form of his toxtricity. Who winced as the field battered and burned her.

He opened his mouth.

I grinned wildly. “Psybeam, strong style.” The flick of her tail was the only signal as she released an immense laser blast of concentrated psychic energy from her forehead. It struck head on, blowing Toxtricity back as the ordered psychic energy struck at weak points, overloading defenses and turning their own power into a weapon.

“Toxtricity!” His concern was real enough, and I felt my glee rise as I saw the eyes of the poison and electric type. Her eyes were dazed and confused, not fully in this reality with the confusion effect of Psybeam.

Fennekin paused, and prayed for a Wish, letting it float up high as she gathered the energy passively. Move mastery involved a careful management of her energy, either using less than normal for greater generation and rate of fire or increased power and effect at the cost of stamina and reserves, or something in-between as the standard. Wish did use her energy, but far less, that power used to fuel the ritual to attract external forces.

“Snap out of it, use Hyper Voice.” Mikron used a much more effective move, the TE-enhanced sound wave crossing the field almost instantly… and completely shut down by Protect. Mikron smirked at his pokémon listening to him through confusion. “Now go for Electric Terrain!”

It didn’t go as planned for him, as his pokémon instead went for Hyper Voice again, directed at the ground. She exploded, damaging herself in the process.

“Finish her off with Psybeam!”

Fennekin fired a second laser beam, the bolt of psychic energy crackling against Toxtricity like lightning. She was left unconscious, unable to withstand any more damage and forced to rest.

Mikron returned his pokémon with a scowl. “Well I’m impressed. You certainly made some improvements in just a couple of weeks. Well done!” He clapped his hands, “But will you be able to think your way out of the final obstacle in your way?”

I pressed my lips together when he threw out his third and final pokémon, his monster of an eelektross, golden scales reflecting off the subtle glow of Fennekin’s terrain. She wasn’t planning on renewing it, since it affected everything on the field that wasn’t fire-type. But she did have plenty of options.

“Keep using Calm Mind continuously, blanket the field with Fire Spin and keep attacking, block what you can too.”

“Dark Pulse, widespread barrage.” I shivered as I saw Eelektross gather strange eldritch energy, Space unfolding in strange geometries I was familiar with as a trainer with a fairy type.

With her terrain on the field, Fennekin pulled a neat trick. While we hadn’t figured out how to form Fire Spin outside her body… with Fiery Terrain, her Space had a strong enough connection to—

She was obscured in the firestorm, shifting through red, orange, white, blue and violet, the dark energy was drawn towards her, but its containment was torn to pieces by the whirls of fire energy.

She threw the attack at Eelektross, who couldn’t avoid it as it blanketed the entire field. Not quite a bullet storm like I wanted… but that was for the future. Fire Spin was a more powerful move in this world, in the games it was a weak move with trapping abilities, here the initial impact was greater than Flame Burst, and the chip damage was intense.

Eelektross exploded, releasing a massive burst of Discharge which twisted and shifted the flames with their electric charge.

Mikron’s eyes twinkled. “Oh… not bad, you’re thinking like a proper scientist. You deflected our electric attacks by creating a path of least resistance out of flames! Ionization… must've taken a lot of experimentation to create enough ionization. But I know a lot about electricity too, Eelektross… Shockwave, snuff their light!”

An electric wave spread out from Eelektross, and to my horror, the fire was snuffed out, and Fennekin had to jump to avoid the ground bound attack.

“Ahh… electric fields can extinguish flames too.” I acknowledged his play as a smart one. “If that’s so, Agility into Hypnosis.” Electric Terrain didn’t come back, but it could be easily restarted with a move.

Fennekin practically flash stepped, avoiding the Charge Beam sniper shots of Eelektross, gently creating small ionized whips of Ember to deflect any that could hit her head on.

“Rain Dance, Dragon Tail.” That smile was not a good sign, was it?

Eelektross coiled to their trainer’s command, draconic energy flaring at the tip of their tip, slamming against the ground to—

…!

Eelektross bounced like a fucking spring, and I called out Protect. Dragon Tail bent but didn’t break the move, but I didn’t relax.

“Step back! Don’t let them close in!”

“Scald.”

What?

A massive spray of boiling water blasted through the weakened Protect, and I breathed out.

Keep your cool, don’t lose it.

Mikron snapped his finger, and Thunder rained on my parade, Fennekin collapsing under the strain of such a powerful move, going limp in Eelektross’s grip, suction jaws flickering open for a—

I glared.

Eelektross backed away in an instant, lightly patting Fennekin on the head and I nodded. I could… read that she has been satisfied with how the battle had gone, her Wish growing brighter with the last of her energy.

“Fennekin is unable to battle. Challenger, send out your next pokémon.”

I held her ball, and muttered a quick sincere thanks for her hard work. She could easily have blown off the sheer amount of experimentation needed to figure out what we had done. I slotted it back onto my belt, and pulled my second pokémon in battle and first in life. I threw the pokéball and Mirko appeared on the field, stretching upwards, muscles tensing like steel while her aura flared, her Space steadily pushing outwards, stately silver crackling against the lines of the world.

“Buff yourself, and Swift, keep them moving.” Mirko was surrounded in a shell of red aura, and she flicked her wrists, adding a dramatic flare to the stars of gold emerging out from her aura.

“Thunder!” Eelektross brought down an enormous bolt of lightning, bolstered by Rain Dance.

Mirko punched out the Thunder attack, redirecting it with her Thunder Punch through her arm and down into the ground.

Wut?

Mirko reached out for the Wish, which drifted downwards, healing her from the damage she did take from her stunt.

“Well then,” I was sincerely impressed and just a little terrified. I had awoken something terrible in the four days I spent hyperfocusing on science and actively explaining it to my team while they practiced. “Keep buffing, and close in!”

She broke the sound barrier with the acceleration granted by Quick Attack. Eelektross couldn’t outspeed Mirko, but they reacted beforehand, a flash of fighting spirit signaling onward. Eelektross barrel rolled, lashing out with a Charge Beam that Mirko punched out for a second time.

Why is she punching lightning!

A second burst of Quick Attack let her slam into Eelektross, and her paws gripped her prey like a vice, her furry face twisted into satisfaction.

I’m sure my face mirrored hers. “Jump Kick.” I spoke almost in a whisper. Her shapely legs became almost blinding as normal energy surged into precise fury and might and martial focus.

Eelektross didn’t stand a chance, thrown like a ragdoll by the direct hit of a super-effective attack, shredding through eldritch defenses. They fainted.

“Gym Leader Mikron is out of usable pokémon. The victor is the Challenger, Brandy!” I didn’t get a chance to return Mirko as she instead crossed the field in a blink of an eye, and patted my head with a lot of force.

“Ow.” Was my dry reply, and Mirko just let out her version of a laugh.

“Hah, I certainly didn’t expect to see fire being used to deflect electricity and a lopunny punching a lightning bolt with her punches.”

“I didn’t either for the latter.” I revealed, and his mouth dropped.

“Your starter is terrifying.”

“Isn’t she?” I was so fucking proud.

He coughed. “Anyways, you’ve earned the Thunderhead Badge,” he said. “That was a great comeback, and you made good use of your moves and came up with… interesting strategies.”

“Heh. Is there anything else you need from me? I haven’t slept more than five hours a day for about half a week.”

“… why are you saying that with a smile on your face?”

“I’m very tired.” Was my chipper, sane response.

I left the Gym with a tentative goodbye, about ten thousand pokédollars in prize money, and a Thunderbolt TM.

I was definitely going to treat my team because they all worked together to improve themselves.

Chapter Text

Interlude 4

November 26th, 2022

Yui Oshima

Being the Champion has its perks. I silently mused to myself, looking down from the mountain that was considered the home of Tohoku’s Pokémon League. From the enormous transparent aluminum window I could see the very distant lights of the towns at the start of the Victory Road.

It’s the trip through the mountain that’s the longest leg of the journey.

I felt the gentle psychic prodding of Cell, their multifaceted mind bubbling with amusement, which tasted like a mix of bubblegum and party rock. Not that I understood what that meant.

“Goo!” I rolled my eyes, I know they were perfectly capable of human speech, but they loved to be deliberately enigmatic. Cell pressed forward with telepathy, and I shivered at the strange look at the inner machinations of their mind. I knew they were far, more intelligent than I was, it was a lack of Will and a powerful counterbalance of Emotion that protected us from their Knowledge.

Cell just smiled enigmatically, instead poking at my brain to inform me that I had a meeting to attend. They gripped my hand, gooey appendages sliding along the jewel that Burst with all my shared bonds. I nodded to myself, it wasn’t a good idea to get distracted.

It was hard enough remembering time is a concept that exists.

I tapped my desk and in a split second, a holographic screen was formed from hard light, and over the next several minutes I groaned as three, four, six… twelve screens loaded onto the holographic projection. At the least the MinorLeague were low enough on the totem pole so they were outside my purview and within that of the Elite Four and Major League.

Who would have thought all those years ago that a stupid uncontrollable ‘defective’ child would one day be the Champion?

So much had changed both because of the cities of Tohoku, and the work of the League… though at this point we were kind of one and the same for a lot of political poppycock I didn’t care about.

I looked over the names, and raised an eyebrow as names appeared in order from First to Eight with the Gyms, to First to Four with the Elite Four. Dorks.

First was of course little Liu, a respectful young man who had taken to Fire at the most fundamental level. He burned with passion, with drive and loyalty, with life and destruction. In another life, perhaps he’d be a trainer of Dragons, he had the drive and will at least, and the city of Irori was better for hosting him. Kozukata City’s Rei who was a bit… spirit-touched one could say? She’d drawn deep on the element of Water, that left a mark. Then came Nakagawa’s Mikron, a boy genius with an attitude problem.

He had more complaints than anyone else, only being kept in his position due to a lack of viable candidates. He was definitely not going to be here much longer, especially when I checked how often his pokémon were far too aggressive.

Thank the gods he didn’t have an issue with prey drives, worse I heard was that his eelektross liked to bite… chew really, but I did not need to have trainers complaining about their friends being chewed on outside of battle. And things were starting to line up for… someone more suitable. It was going to be very satisfying.

Next was Makiishi’s Rachel… She was something but far less problematic than a spoiled brat. Next came Taisen city’s Aubrey, who was a total jackass. Michinoku’s Vivian was cool, and we were friends I think? Hard to tell sometimes. Norma of Katayama was even more spirit-touched than Rei but far more personable, despite her tendency to see the dead and occasionally vanish into the dead planes. I never asked for details. Yoshi of Ushu was a former Elite Four member who retired after ousting the previous Champion, who had been a corrupt and vengeful man… to the point he had corrupted his kingambit into a Shadow pokémon through their bond.

I shivered.

The Elite Four enter one after the other in quick succession, Peter with his dirty blonde hair and multiple spinarak building a web behind him, Aggie of course had her porygon-Z, floating behind her erratically. Izumi had Lulu, and I smiled at the sight of my closest friend, warmth rising in my chest and face. Pamelia was of course surrounded by plants, I’m not sure what else I expected.

“So we’re all here then?” I called out with a polite grin.

“We are.” Norma replied with a faraway look. “The spirits have been quite restless, it’s been irritating.” I winced, angered ghosts were never easy to deal with… it was how people disappeared.

“Doesn’t help that Cipher is in town along with their shitstain friends,” Vivian added her own somewhat crude if accurate input. “Not just in Tohoku, I've been hearing rumors of something stirring in Unova, Oblivia, and Kalos, and weird stuff in Paldea.”

My aura lashed out at the thought, and Cell’s face twisted into a sneer, a disturbing look on his usually kind face. I had seen what they had done to colonies of their species, it was monstrous.

Aubrey rolled his shoulders, his arrogance almost oozing through the stream. “They are a bunch of brutes aren’t they, Rachel? Even the fey nobles of Ildathach are only their equal in cruelty.” I grimaced, rivaling the Faerie Court was not a good sign when it came to a criminal organization.

“The Minor League Gyms are still competing with one another to replace one of us,” Yoshi noted, rubbing his whiskery mustache with a bemused grin. “Not that it has done them much good.”

It took a great deal of work to become one of the ‘Big Eight’, it took determination, the ability to gather and manage resources in every way. It took gym trainers, employees, gathering the required amount of pokémon reserves, and you had to prove you were worthy of the greater benefits and perks of the League.

Many of them were good Gym Leaders… but many of them were either treacherous, foolish or terribly young. Some of them would grow into it… and a few of them already had heirs lined up to replace them before their stupidity ended up destroying a city.

“And we still have limited information outside a handful of their attacks and the Michinoku incident that left a half kilometer crater and a burst of psychic energy so powerful it was felt in Sinnoh.” Pamelia just tilted her head, her sharp green eyes hidden by a fringe of scarlet hair.

“The International Police, the EPG, and the Rangers all want their slice of the pie. Breaking international law, destroying the environment, poaching and illegal trafficking have made Cipher many enemies.” I added, pinching the bridge of my nose to force back a headache.

I noticed that Mikron was being quiet, almost contemplative. That was concerning.

“Is there anything you wanted to add?”

“Any of you got new idiot rising stars to watch out for? Because I’ve got two.” There was a hint of embarrassment, a deep flush on his neck.

Eyebrows furrowed. “Is it related to Cipher?”

“Yes.” He bluntly stated, and I looked back to a report from an Ace trainer on a remarkable trainer…

The Gym Leaders and my Elite Four became attentive.

“Two of them, a bit older than the usual sixteen to eighteen in Tohoku. Both of them are Lab Trainers, one of Laven’s projects.”

Rei’s gaze sharpened. “I know them, interesting challengers.” I leaned forward, it was rare that anyone gained the attention of Rei.

Mikron scoffed. “Scary is more like it, the first one was Brandy Red or something… she lost the first time and came back with twice as much energy. She came back with her buneary evolved, and defeated two of my pokémon with a fennekin. I… underestimated her, should have opted for a different team.”

Aggie let out a quiet sound. “Evolving a buneary is a difficult task, they have a hard time developing the trust and peace of mind to evolve.”

Mikron nodded. “Well the second time around, she tore my team apart with an interesting strategy. She seems to enjoy utility moves, but her fennekin displayed a keen understanding of physics. Fennekin deflected electric moves using fire to form a path, and used Fiery Terrain to manifest Fire Spin outside her body. She beat two thirds of my four-star team in a matter of a minute or two, and when she lost against Eelektross, Brandy’s lopunny punched a bolt of Thunder and then a Charge Beam before knocking my last pokémon out.”

I paused, that was… both ingenious and incredibly difficult. I know enough about Fire to know that at baseline it was an insulator, you needed either incredibly high voltages, high temperature or a conductive dopant to use it… to have any conduction to manipulate the path of lightning.

But then again… fire and lightning were kin.

“A lopunny punched a bolt of lightning?” Norma asked, eyebrows lifting to their highest point. There was intrigue in Rei’s eyes as well, and Mikron nodded.

“And the other promising Lab Trainer?” Izumi added with a knowing look.

Mikron coughed. “They fly now…” he sounded haunted, and I did not understand that at all.

“Hmm?” Yoshi raised an eyebrow.

“I went with a Thunderstorm team, Kaskade has some interesting innovations of their own.” He smirked, and I nodded. I remember my parent’s tales of the war, the armies of Kaskade were lethal, with the power of the storm at their back. “All three of my pokémon could fly or levitate, Emolga, Magneton and Kilowattrel. She tore them apart with one pokémon, her starter, a Tohokun pignite.”

“They’re a strong pokémon, being good at maneuvering in the air though…” Aggie rubbed her chin at the how.

“Seems Akari has some tricks up her sleeve that she developed with Brandy, again scary.” Mikron made a face I found hilarious but didn’t say it aloud. “She plays to her pokémon’s strengths, endurance, physical power, and refusing to stop. She used a combination move of Flame Charge and another fire move to fly.” I leaned back as he played a video on his screen.

I could see her parents had a reason for naming her after the Hero of Hisui, even if there were differences. The shade and shape of her eyes, the extra curls of her hair.

She posed, eyes narrowed into slits as Emolga took off into the air.

“Heat Rise.” I blinked as the young pignite was surrounded by a haze of heat, covered in the flaming aura of his fiery energy, feet and arms and hands sparking with propulsive fire. “Flame Charge into Smack Down.”

The flying electric pokémon didn’t stand a chance, and that old idiom about when pigs fly became terrifying reality.

“It seems Professor Laven chose well with her three slots,” Pamelia commented. “Reaching a four-star ranking in a little over two months is rather quick.”

I shook my head. “They’re not quite that prodigious, they became trainers a few months before the Circuit started.” Fast yes, but there was a record of one new trainer earning all their badges in 80 days. That had been over a decade ago.

“There’s a third trainer as well,” Rei added to the conversation. “Natsuo Reo, faced me for his third badge.” So he has likely earned his badge from a minor gym. “His coordination with his pokémon was excellent… though it’s clear it’s not his passion either.”

“So this is the connection with Cipher you know of?” I asked, and Mikron grimaced.

“Akari and Brandy have had two encounters with Cipher and their allies in the past, first they thwarted an assault against a town to gain vulpix… and the second had them attacked by the Pinchers.”

“I read the report, they faced Arley and a small army of his grunts.” I added, I wasn’t ignorant but I did want to hear what the rest of the League had to say on it.

Mikron nodded. “Brandy apparently tore off a chunk of his arm when he tried using her as a hostage, and her buneary evolved when he attempted to use their tech on her.”

Control gauntlets…

“I can see that giving her the motivation to tear through your gym!” Vivian laughed, and the younger gym leader grumbled.

“I hope they’re both okay.” Liu offered his concern for the trainers.

We spoke more over potential future elites, about the dangers of Team Cipher, we had League agents combing the region for the threat that they represented.

Once the meeting came to an end, screens popped out of existence, one by one until only Izumi was left.

“Izumi?” I asked, curious on what she had left unsaid. I had seen her look smug, the impression of ‘I know something you don’t’ written over her lovely face. “What do you know?”

“I met those kids once when I managed to hunt down the Angel of Azuma.” I actually winced, that… was an old ghost, old enough to remember when Sinnoh was still known as Hisui, old enough to remember the rise and fall of entire regions and nations. “That girl… Brandy was it? She’s screwed.”

“What?”

Izumi scowled. “She somehow caught the attention of a centuries old ghost, and I’ve read the incidents she’s involved in. First, the fact she’s a Faller… an Outsider,” she lifted a finger and I knew that much was true about the girl. “Second is the fact she keeps finding trouble without even trying, like Cipher, third an alpha heatmor almost murders her, fourth another encounter with Cipher in the form of their allies, and the fact a ghost of that level followed her for half a thousand kilometers.” She had a single finger left on one hand that she lifted up. “Fifth, she’s Gifted… I can feel the touch of whatever god found her in the void between realities. Her skill with aura is hers alone, but it’s a package I can’t consider a good sign.”

“That poor girl.” None of that added to a good thing, far, far too many children had been forced to step up to the plate against the evils of our world. Kanto and Johto had their respective heroes, Red and Blue had both faced Team Rocket, three trainers by the names of Chase, Elaine ,and Yellow had faced several former Kanto gym leaders who had destroyed Cinnabar island. Ethan, Lyra and Silver had faced the second Team Rocket.

Brendan and May of Hoenn… so many regions, too many regions.

They were at least older this time around but… it was never a good thing to be a hero, not really.

“Two half-trained guardians are just begging for trouble.” I admitted, remembering my childhood. “I’m guessing they’re both strong, or at least talented.”

“One is a child of Shirogane, and the other… well her potential is growing rapidly,” Izumi shook her head. “We’ll have to keep an eye on the rising stars of this season, whenever there’s trainers like this there are always more.”

She ended the call, and I sighed.

Well then, as Champion… I had my duties.

Even though there were so many dangers I couldn’t see.

Fennekin

I watched the night sky, soaking in the light of the moon, the reflected sunlight of the day star from the glimmering surface of the waxing crescent stellar body.

The Sun’s Lover, once upon a time.

I had never thought I would have a trainer again, not after him, not after being thrown away, abandoned, betrayed. It has always been like that, hasn't it?

But my new trainer, she was strange, awkward, stilted and strangely intense and lazy all at the same time. She loved knowledge and learning, loved learning about the world no matter how heartsick she was. It was obvious to me there were things she simply didn’t or couldn’t understand about humans, her tics and mannerisms and patterns of behavior were… odd. Not bad or negative, but then again my experience with humans was… limited. Who was I to say humans were all one way? This coming from the one who hates them?

She waved and flapped her hands when she was excited or stressed, her expression was dead, barely able to twist into soft timid smiles or other expressions, despite the roiling emotions simmering under her skin. Her attention wavered like the wind, focused on topics so intensely it was almost disconcerting. Crowds and people were her bane, yet she pushed forward, uncaring of tact and expectation, only realizing in hindsight. Her need not for order… but routine, habits and rituals and little actions establishing her order, her place in the world.

Touch was a sensitive subject with her, she didn’t despise it… but she needed her space, and had been careful with respecting our space. A lingering guilt she had said once, of failing to respect her brother’s wishes. Brandy was… human, painfully human, human as I had never seen before.

Not cruel, not perfect either… and that was better.

I watched my human, breathing in the otherworldly scent even now. Even the fey quality of Llayda didn't come close. I could feel her aura twisting and twining and weaving itself into many patterns and colors, a dance of her energies, of her life.

It was a strange thing. Her aura reached out with a ferocity greater than her little body, changing to Fire and Mind near myself, Water and Glamour around Llayda, to Unaligned with just a hint of Fighting Spirit tainting it around Mirko. Jericho was Poison, Earth simmering under his skin, waiting to break free. Brandy was all of them, painting them with all the colors of an alien sky, and when I felt her aura… I saw hints of her history through fire-images, that link binding us together as a trustis as that bond of clan and kin and lord had been called by my ancestors since the time of the Old King.

I could hear her speak with her most trusted confidant, telling her of that distant world she hailed from. Of how her ancestors had brought death and horrors to a thousand lands, brought down rival empires with guile and treachery and ways of war refined across a thousand years against their own kin and ancestral enemies.

The great empire of the Spanish, of the English and French and more, who had scythed through millions of lives with their conquests, growing fat and happy off the backs of their colonial domains. She spoke of centuries of Revolution, she spoke of the Nahuatl, of the Maya and Mixtec and Zapotec, a mixing of peoples both willingly… and not, how she did not know what kinship if any that she had with her distant ancestors conquered subjects.

She spoke of a nation called America, borne of the killing of entire peoples, who had overthrown the shackles of their overseers yet held a race in bondage until they snapped in two over it, she spoke of the gradual, slow, and bloody turning of the wheel towards progress, towards a better tomorrow, of great world wars that brought down empires and changed the order of the world, with weapons that could slay cities. Of how even now… her world was broken, with problems too big to fix for any one human.

“Her world… It is a very hurt world isn’t it?” I could hear Jericho’s rumble, deep as a rockslide. “I can see why she isn’t always eager to speak of it, and yet I can tell she misses it… ever so slightly.”

I sighed. “I can understand that… no matter how much that world has hurt her, a part of you will remember what good times there were, and she has said she’s a pessimistic soul.” I didn’t like thinking of him…

“Her family has hurt her though, not physically, no… but I can see it.” Llayda added her own perspective. “Her father… a scammer, a liar, a sorry excuse for a father and mate twice over, her mother… unable to release her grip on someone four years grown, they’ve crushed her under expectations she could never live up to as she was.” There was a hint of… disgust in her voice, that fey desire for vengeance. “Unintended perhaps, but to have a child unable to function as their own person, that is a failure on their part.”

Akari had helped her from I had seen, teaching her what her parents had not even if certain things would always evade her.

I could see now why our kind went to trainers, they burned so bright, showed us what we could be, to see how far we could yet go. I didn’t fully trust her yet… but I wanted to.

Brandy would have to work for it though.

I would accept nothing less as a lady.

Chapter Text

Bitter Work 3.12

November 29th, 2022.

I stretched upwards, doing my best to relax my muscles and calm my nerves overall. Today was a break day, no training, just a moment to relax and enjoy ourselves. Akari had chosen what we’d do today, and had opted for a local pool in Nakagawa for trainers and their pokémon.

The facility itself was big, more than large enough and tough enough to take whatever we could throw at it. I wasn’t exactly super comfortable with swimming in public… but seeing Akari in a swimsuit had been very tempting. Not that I told her that, and my own team being interested had provided a good excuse.

I had been forced to buy a new swimsuit since my old one… no longer fit me with some recent growth spurts around my hips and bust. I had opted to go for swim trunks and a… whatever the fuck they call the top half of a bikini, a simple black one because fancy colors wasn’t my style.

The pool itself was pretty big, about fifty meters long and fifteen meters wide with a depth up to four meters. There were lots of trainers and their pokémon hanging around, and I breathed deeply to calm my nerves.

I wasn’t super nervous either, but it has been a while since I had actually used a pool in public, and a Gym Trail did not count. Mirko was guarding me from my left, ears swiveling back and forth to catch any sound she could.

Were a few people staring at Mirko or was it just me?

I shook my head, and blew back a black bang from my face. The one downside of letting my hair grow out was how it got in my face, not that I’d want my hair cut short. I like it.

Mirko bumped me with her hips, and I rolled my eyes, as I glanced up from the ground where I was staring at my sandaled feet. Sandals felt gross. But that was the only option I had at the moment.

“Do you know where Akari is?” I asked Mirko, since her hearing was definitely superior to my own. She pointed towards the pool, and I followed it towards the… the…

Oh.

Akari was sitting at the edge of the pool, leaning back to take in the surprisingly bright sun despite it being winter. I remember a report about a heat wave due to wild pokémon overusing Sunny Day. I couldn’t focus on that though.

Akari… I rarely took the time to uhh… admire her features as it were. I very much could do so now though. She was well, incredibly athletic, with a body sculpted by work and labor and what had to be years of living with pokémon stronger, faster and tougher than any normal human could be.

Without her thick clothing well… I got a good look at her shapely legs and thighs, with her only covering being a red skirted swim bottom rather than heavily reinforced pants, and I was mesmerized by the red and blue constellation of freckles on them, like the smaller kin of the four triangles draped down the cheeks on her face. I took a deep, deep breath as my eyes pulled upwards. Her toned stomach came next after the roundness of her hips, and I picked out some of the scars, thin white lines of claw and bite marks, of injuries long since healed. I glanced at her chest… the weight of her breasts barely contained by the dark blue bikini top, and I immediately tore my gaze away and up into her amused… face.

Please kill me.

Akari smirked. “So you like what you see?” I felt my entire face burn, and ignored the stirring in my shorts because I wanted to keep what little dignity I had left.

“I…” I shut my mouth, because I knew I’d say something completely stupid. “You’re pretty!”

Whatever she was going to say was derailed by my words, a slight flush reaching her face. “Oh is that all?” I clasped my hands together at her words, and she just smiled at my reaction.

I could hear high pitched laughter, and I glared at Fennekin who had trailed at the end of the line. She was making the stupidest fucking fox face while laughing her head off.

“Oh shut up!”

Fennekin laughed even harder.

I sank into the water, hiding after I had been hit by lesbian thirst like a fucking truck, kicking to keep myself afloat while watching the rest of my team have fun. Mirko and Llayda were throwing a ball around while swimming in the water, while Jericho was just watching… Was he admiring them or was I reading into it too much?

Fennekin was not entering the pool, while water didn’t actively harm fire types, it wasn’t ever going to be comfortable for them either. Which was why Happy was out on land too, keeping an eye on Kirby so he wouldn’t eat people’s unsecured food. Ellis was swimming, while Rosetta was just wading instead. The only explanation I got on how the water here was kept clean was ~magic~ which filled me with irrational fury.

I swam back to the edge of the pool, where it was less deep until I reached the steps and could just trudge through the cool water. Akari was swimming back too, and I pretended not to notice, even as my ears reddened at her approach.

“Hey Brandy, are you having fun?” She called me out with a look that reminded me of a Labrador retriever.

“This is more for the team than for me, I don’t hate it either,” I backpedaled when I saw her sad face. “But it’s not my favorite thing, I literally haven’t used a pool outside the Gym Trial in years.”

“Oh. So it’s not bad but it’s not… good?”

I shrugged. “Not sure how to describe it, I’m not unhappy. Just, vibing. Is that okay?” I wasn’t sure, I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, I wasn’t like bored or anything.

She searched my eyes and nodded. “Yeah. That’s fine, we’re friends so I just want to make sure you’re doing okay.” Akari offered a warm expression, and I couldn’t help returning that same expression.

“Mhmm.” I felt oddly shy now, unsure how to take her… appreciative gaze. “Sorry about earlier.” I apologized, trying to come up with something to talk about.

Akari blinked. “For thinking I’m pretty? Why would I be bothered by that?”

“For staring maybe?” Maybe I was overthinking this, I didn’t talk to many girls outside my internet friends… a surprising number of trans lesbians, which was how I had figured myself out. Though I had already been questioning things since way before then.

Akari just raised a brow. “You weren’t being creepy, admiration gives off a very different vibe than peeping,” she shook her head. “You’re at least way cuter than most of the people looking.”

I flushed, crossing my arms and watching my team spend their time in the water. I opened my mouth to ask her a question… and then felt a prickle, a crawling sensation running right up my spine.

“You! You made a fool out of me!” I flipped around in the water, splashing in panic as someone shouted at me from out of nowhere. I swore I heard Akari hiss, and I blinked repeatedly at the person on the surface. I couldn’t wear contacts for swimming so he was a tad blurry as was everything outside a couple feet.

Which explains why Akari noticed so easily, idiot. You were literally two feet away.

“Slick black hair guy?” I spoke aloud and he bristled at my comment.

“I have a name.” He hissed and that told me nothing at all.

“Are you going to tell me about it then?” I did really give a shit but he wasn’t leaving so I had to ask.

He scowled, staring at me with disdain and… jealousy? Maybe? “My name is Derik Kyle, and we are going to battle.”

Was that seriously his name? Did his parents hate him?

I glanced over to Fennekin, noticing her distress, rage, fear and longing all combined into a maelstrom of emotion.

“Why?” Derik’s eyes narrowed into slits, lips pulled into a nasty smear.

“Do you know who I am? You can be in a world of trouble if you refuse a battle.” I narrowed my eyes at him, inspecting him. He didn’t look very old, several years younger than Akari from the looks of things.

I almost laughed in his face. “I don’t particularly care, I’ve got bigger problems than you.”

He loomed over me and I held my ground, until I felt the indignation that swept me like a storm, a raging flame eager and hopeful for retribution. Fennekin was staring at Derik with loathing and hate, and I felt my stomach flip and turn under that pressure, that invisible influence of her power pleading desperately.

“You know what? Why not? Though it’s certainly not for your sake.” I stepped out of the water, rolling my neck and shoulders and clicking my tongue to discreetly call Fennekin. There was a look in his eyes, something that made me suspicious.

I was going to beat this guy down with no hesitation regardless.

“So, this is going to be a one-on-one match, this is a break day for my team.” I spoke aloud, and Derik snorted.

“I’ll only need one to beat a two-bit trainer, and with such a useless pokémon,” there was something terribly cruel in his remark, and Fennekin flinched, looking small. “It’ll be easy.”

“Don’t let him get to you, he’s not worth it.” I whispered for only Fennekin’s ears, and she released the tension that had been starting to paralyze her. Her energies relaxed, becoming controlled and steady as fire could be.

Derik rolled his eyes. “I already know the perfect counter against your pokémon,” without a second’s thought he released his pokémon. “Stand out, Tauros!”

I stared at the Aqua Breed tauros, a black furred and maned bull with twisting horns and hints of blue fur along the bottom of his mane. He reached about my height, rearing his horns with an arrogant chuff and a repeated pattern of calls that made Mirko’s nose wrinkle from where she floated in the pool.

A water type was a good counter… if one didn’t account for also having a fighting type and thus a weakness to several of my pokémon’s moves.

I’m dealing with an idiot aren’t I?

“Are we starting or what? We’ve got a referee.” I pointed to a random bystander who had bumped away some of his lackeys. “Let me crush you so we can move on.”

Derik’s face took on a deep shade of red. “We’ll see who gets crushed!”

After a signal, the ref gave us the signal on three.

“Aqua Jet!”

“Double Primer!” Fennekin darted past Tauros with a quick activation of Agility, and her expression let me see her intrusive thoughts settled by Calm Mind.

“Water Pulse, spam it!” He called out with an expression of annoyance, and I was impressed by the rapid barrage… which was boiled apart with a brief spurt of Fire Spin that she let dribble from her mouth like a tongue of fire, destabilizing their containment. “Work Up into Liquidation.” He shouted with a scowl, so he wasn’t a bad trainer, didn’t make him not an idiot.

Tauros charged while veiled within a thick layer of water, surging around him like armor. I didn’t have to order her to dodge, Fennekin simply bound forward, flipping on a dime, a second Calm Mind increasing her stats. My sight was shit, but I didn’t need it for this, as long as I kept my head in the game.

“Aqua Jet, keep moving!” Derik commanded his pokémon, who darted back and forth like a missile, side jumping rapidly to remain a moving target.

“Fire Spin tag.” Fire Spin had the special property of being both widespread, and able to ‘stick’ to a target once it made contact with its great fire whirls. It blasted out of her mouth like a blast of energy, the agile style move hitting with less power but greater speed.

So Tauros was now on fire, and Fennekin had an easier time tracking the bull with her natural ability to sense heat and flames.

“Unleash your power, pin him down.” Fennekin spat out rapidfire shots of Ember at Tauros’ feet, Derik sputtering, seemingly panicking as the battle didn’t go his way.

Fennekin breathed and I breathed with her, offering support with a smile and the radiance of my aura.

Stored Power exploded into life, drawing vast amounts of energy from within and without, and Fennekin released it outwards, as a deceptively compact mass of psychic energy which then…

Bloomed to life, unfolding and refolding like a flower across a myriad of realities.

Tauros didn’t stand a chance as he was scoured by hostile psychic energy, legs crumbling as the raging bull pokémon collapsed into a dead faint. I expected a second wind, some secret technique or simply me being blind as a bat.

But nothing happened except Derik returning his pokémon with an oddly disquieting expression. Fennekin looked smug, vindicated and happy, her tail smacking against the ground, and her ears expressing her emotions very clearly.

“Good thing this is an unofficial match, ehh?” I didn’t care enough to place a wager on this.

“You… you had to have done something, some trick I’m not seeing, I will get another match with a pokémon I know can battle!” He pointed at my face as he stalked over to me, and I yawned as he loomed over me.

A split second later, he was forced to back off as Akari appeared at my left without a sound, looming over him with an intimidating stoic look on her face.

“That will not be happening, you had your match, accept it and move on.”

Derik tried to protest and I felt a prickle of fear as Akari’s aura was filled with her killer intent, like spikes stabbing the air and tainting the atmosphere.

Derik fled with Fennekin laughing in his ears and I perked up as an idea popped in mind.

“Nickname! Have one!” I clenched my fists, waving at Fennekin to catch her attention. She bound over, stopped with an embarrassed head tilt and walked the rest of the way with more dignity.

“Fo?”

“When I saw the flower shape of Stored Power… How about Fleur? It’s a pretty nice name.”

She took a solid minute of pondering, dragging it out with her tsundere shenanigans.

She nodded. “Fo-fo.”

A pleased grin was on my face. “Now that that’s done, let’s get back to the pool.”

The rest of our time at the pool ended up being far more comfortable and fun, and I was in a very good mood because of that. Just a time to relax with friends, just a time to not be so alone and—

Ahem.

“So I’ve been wanting to ask about that whole… Lord business that the Tohoku region has going on, what’s so… important about them if that doesn’t sound rude to ask?”

Akari looked surprised at my question from where she was letting her head hang off of her bed, shirt pulled up to reveal her smooth belly. She pulled herself forward, and practically flipped into a criss cross sitting position.

“I would have thought you looked it up?”

“No. I was busy.” My hyperfocus had been more on taking online courses on pokémon biology than on specific cultural aspects in recent weeks.

She folded her arms, and nodded. “Lords are much like the Nobles of Sinnoh, blessed by divine power in some way, disciples and or seekers of Legendaries, and gifted with power and might due to their efforts. Totems are the same, given power by the Tapus. The Lords of Tohoku are specifically the ones that have survived to the modern day, with an important role in shaping the history of the region.”

“Oh.” That was… interesting wasn’t it?

She clasped her hands, and I felt her aura pulse as she gave her explanation. “Six prefectures, and twelve Lords to rule them all. Lord Electivire, a disciple of Zapdos, and Lord Dusknoir, a disciple of Giratina rule Uto. Lord Garchomp is said to be a herald of Zekrom, and Lord Ariados is blessed by a god yet unknown to us, ruling Ushu. Lord Milotic was a nephew of the Prince of the Sea and guards the coast, though he’s known to bring pretty girls to his home from time to time.” She shrugged at my dumbfounded expression. “Along with Lord Emboar, who brings tribute to Moltres, they rule Suika as a land of water and fire.”

Akari is kind of a drama queen huh?

The blue haired woman took a natural pause to breath and continued. “Lord Froslass is a disciple of Articuno, and with Lord Staraptor, a follower of Tornadus they guard the reaches of Katayama. The next pair is more familiar to me… Lord Togekiss, blessed by the Seelie fey goddess Diancie and Lord Torterra… the hidden lord blessed by Shaymin, who protect and guard Shiromiya.”

“They’re like titles then, passed down from generation to generation? With some knowing their personal chosen names?”

Akari perked up. “Exactly, though Azazel has been around for hundreds of years.”

“Damn.” That was a long lifespan.

“That leaves the Lords of Michinoku, Lord Krookodile, protector of the great desert and tasked with that purpose by Zygarde, and Lord Gallade, a student of the Swords of Justice.”

“That’s all incredibly cool as fuck,” I shook my head. “Is it wrong I want to meet them even if I know they’d easily be able to destroy my fragile human bones?”

“You probably could meet them? They’re used to humans, at least some of them anyway.” She shrugged nonchalantly, and I muttered to myself on whether I’d be able to handle the pressure of their aura, of a power that could fracture reality.

“Tell me more about them, now I’m curious.” I leaned forward so I could drop onto my chest, grabbing a pillow to support my weight with a lopsided grin.

Akari shared it. “Well…”

Chapter Text

Faller’s Field Guide 4

November 29th, 2022

Tohoku Region, Nakagawa, 2022.

So it’s been rather busy… lately both in terms of personal research, growth, and trauma. Decided to consolidate all my notes and research when it comes to pokémon battling, moves, and little bits of convergence where I can find them. After getting attacked by the Pokémon Pinchers with a horde of Shadow pokémon and whatever that… tech did to enhance them to a superhuman level, and whatever it was terrified the hell out of Akari. To the point she’s been… know what that’s her business, I’m not writing that down here.

Anyways, it’s been relatively calm after the attack as well as after earning my badge. The main trouble now is that Mirko has evolved, and is a lot bigger than I expected. The average lopunny is about four to four and a half feet tall, and around seventy pounds, big for a rabbit on my world yes, but there’s a few exceptions that come close in length and miss on weight by about twenty pounds

Mirko is about six foot two including her ears… that little part connected to her head and not the huge loppers hanging down to her hips. Maybe closer to about 5’11 without them, and about one hundred eighty pounds in weight. Probably easy to predict though, upon evolution, a buneary tends to grow three times their final height, and she was 25 inches in height before then. To be frank though, it’s… different to look at her now.

She’s… pretty, gorgeous, very aesthetically pleasing to the eyes? Honestly I can very much understand why there’s so much of a… following around her species, but that doesn’t really matter here unless I’m writing about the nature of romantic and or sexual bonds between humans and pokémon. Though I suppose I’d wonder what kind of influence humanoid body types have on the formation of bonds? Does it make them easier to form or harder? Easier due to looking more like us, or less due to the uncanny valley effect?

Anyways, my status reports on my pokémon will be going into greater detail now that I’ve got a greater grasp of what I’m doing in terms of research with metaphysical energy, comparative biology, and general battle training. I’ll start with the report I’ve assembled on Fleur… took a while to find a nickname she can agree with without biting my head off, then a progress report on Mirko after her evolution into her final evolution-morph. Should be interesting.

Fleur the Fennekin

The fourth member of my team, and the ninth pokémon I’ve caught overall including the small stantler herd and the digital mon in my phone and pokédex. She’s a pure fire-type but will evolve into a fire-psychic type upon reaching the final stage of her line, of her species known as Vulpes mystica is a member of the Carnivora, and the first non-lagomorph on the team.

Overview

The fennekin-line is a species of bipedal foxes closely related to the zorua and abra lines and like their relatives they are able to wield mystical and supernatural abilities, though they most recently split off from the vulpix line around six million years ago when their ancestors were driven into the Great Desert of Afruika. The main differences from their relatives lie in the source of their power, the fire vulpix have a touch of ghost and fey that grants them great power over strange and esoteric arts and curses, the zorua are dark fey, more interested in physical pursuits, while the abra line are incredibly… cerebral, their massive brains built to process and dive into the Dream World.

The fennekin line are scholars and tinkers, mad geniuses, they use magic and symbolism to draw on a different layer of the Dream World, what they like to call the Cognitive World, the product of the perceptions and cognition of individuals and society, those perceptions fuel their magic and spells, as perception and reality to them are… one.

Thank god for Mirko’s ability to write, and articles from interviews with others of Fleur’s species.

Anyways, the fennekin line is nowhere as widespread as other foxes, largely hailing from Kalos after being imported into the region from their homeland. Fennekin are polyvores, I’d say omnivores but that means something different here from what you told me. Eating a mix of plants, small and medium mammals, reptiles and so on, and foraging for berries. Things like that.

Description

Fleur was measured at about 19 inches tall and 25 pounds in mass, which I think means she’s not far off from evolving into braixen. Though that includes the hints of black fur on her rear legs and the tufts of white fur around her neck. Blaze doesn’t show any biological signs, but I can read it in her aura I think… strange patterns of fire that open up when she’s low. Magician is pretty well manifested as well, but it’s more metaphysical than biological.

Anatomically my best model for her as a species is the Fennec fox, a crepuscular fox native to the deserts of North Africa. Her hair is a shade of light yellow, with a white lower face and a deeper orange ear tufts and tail tip, which appears to be somewhat reflective of sunlight, good for a desert animal… I wonder if they were originally normal types since fire means heat is less bothersome. Her ears are massive which works well for cooling down, since too much heat is a problem too for a heat engine… That might explain why her species kept the feature then.

Fleur has a long, thick soft fur coat with a wooly undercoat that insulates her on cold nights and protects her from the hot sun during the day, which she actually absorbs to strengthen her fire. All pokémon need their element, it’s good for them both mentally and physically. Her paws are covered in dense fur to walk on hot, sandy soil, again a lot like Fennec foxes, a textbook case of convergent evolution huh?

Her jaw has a total of 42 teeth, with small and narrow canines which facilitates their diet as a polyvore, though they become more robust when they grow larger, shifting their diet towards larger prey and tougher plant life in a form of niche partitioning to prevent competition between the different stage-morphs.

Her biology is largely that of a canine, there isn’t much to shout about outside a very consistent heat output when consuming fuels that became the origin for the Fennekin Scale of Temperature, placing ice at 32 degrees and boiling at 212 degrees. Her own body temperature averages around one hundred eighty degrees, a few degrees cooler than say a vulpix but still warmer than any human could be without their proteins breaking down. Makes me wonder if Fire Type Genes come with a kit of high-temperature adaptations to survive and thrive at those temperatures or if it’s purely aura based.

In simplest form, she’s a very standard Firefox, just missing the search engine.

Heh.

November 30th, 2022.

Tohoku Region, In The Air

Mirko the Lopunny, Analysis Report 1

We decided to take an airship flight to a small town on Route 346, which still means like a week of traveling or so so it’ll be a lot of time to journal and write things up. We’ll arrive in Wakana around then, which is close to the three Gym towns in the region, though we’ll be opting for Makiishi and Taisen as our battlegrounds. This section will be dedicated to what I’ve learned about Orytolagus orectoaurus as both a species and independent culture, in the form of reports of Mirko’s progression as a battler and or any other role she wants to take on in the future. This includes information she’s given to me through the rare skill of writing and reading, and shown through combat and well… being friends I guess?

In the case of battle prowess, I’ll first start with the system I've developed as a comparative measurement system between members of the same and different species, with the same level of experience. Measured Combat Statistics or MCS is developed by using gathered data from multiple studies and data gathered from volunteer trainers, largely developed by my co-worker in Sojourner the Porygon using their extensive ability to program and collate data.

It’s letter-based as the differences can be pretty nebulous at times due to pokémon often doing anomalous things during the heat of battle. Basically on average, this species is a bit stronger than this species in this one aspect of themselves. The measurements are based on a suite of sensor data gathered and checked for errors by Sojourner.

An average machamp will have at least A grade strength but a well trained one can become S grade or greater. Strength is measured through the use of a Barrier transducer which implements kinetic-to-electrical energy conversion, allowing it to measure overall kinetic energy in joules and foot-pounds, using widespread physical moves as a suitable baseline across species.

Let’s say a single letter increase is a measurable increase of 25 to 105% maybe? Speed is easier to measure at least. An average lopunny at Mirko’s level of might can hit burst speeds of about 155 meters a second while she hits around 200 meters a second. Anyways it’s a measurement system for ‘stats’ already used in this world. Constitution (HP), the sheer amount of punishment a pokémon’s body and aura can take, which is measured through the use of an aura waveform sensor and pre-measured calculated kinetic, thermal, electrical, radiant, and aural energy of damaging moves. As mentioned Strength (Attack), correlates to their physical strength and ability to use that strength with moves.

Their Toughness (Defense), all pokémon have naturally greater structural integrity due to aura, this is a measurement of how well that inherent defense can withstand physical destruction and is estimated by how much energy makes it into their body versus an unguarded target, as well as testing of tensile, and compressive strength. Power (Special Attack), is the reserve of aura that’s drawn outside the body to fuel and shape it into attacks, with their energy calculated through kinetic energy, electrical, thermal, radiant, and aural sensors. Resistance (Special Defense) is a measure of their active defenses, the deflector shield to their structural integrity fields one could say, used to counteract outside energies and measured through similar means to toughness.

Speed is… closer to several different measurements folded into one, a combination of Acceleration, the ability to change movement speed and direction. Nimbleness, being agile and able to move along terrain, Situational Awareness, being conscious of their surroundings, of obstacles, and targets and serves well when controlling Power and ranged attacks. The last is Reaction Time which is exactly what it says on the tin. Which is why the Speed in the MCS system is… more useful within a species, my lopunny is faster than others etc etc, and why it’s the only one that has a tab for measuring such things. Anyhow, I should start on the report this is about huh?

Let’s begin with the obvious. Mirko has of course evolved into a prime specimen of her species, at 6’2 ft (1.92m) in height and 180 lb (81kg) in weight, placing her within the gradient range for those with the Alpha phenotype. A fascinating set of genes that allow for pokémon far larger than average when induced by several different phenomena whether through exposure to certain energies and substances, blessings from the Divines, or simply due to being considered leadership material in certain environments. For lopunny, alphas can be anywhere from 1.8 to just under 3 meters tall, possessing far greater might, intelligence and general health as well as aggression and independence.

Other species can overexpress such phenotypes due to heavily compatible biology such as the ‘World Turtle’ torterra, ‘Kaiju God’ tyranitar and ‘Primal Saurian’ meganium, allowing them to grow to massive scales comparable to buildings and even landmasses.

I’ve been able to get a pretty useful baseline for Mirko as an individual, mostly taking scans using the pokédex, and measurements of her various stats. Her diet has developed a stronger desire for protein, preferably from bugs, which explains why she hunted down a domestic caterpie and cooked it up herself. Experimenting with berries has made some notable improvements based on the research of some Lab Trainer from Hoenn, and her diet is mostly hay, oats and various greens with a helping of bug protein, for a total of 4500 calories a day. She can digest mammalian meat though, after stealing my homemade burritos… I was almost tempted to bite her.

Anyways, I’ve been running a number of tests with Mirko’s permission. (You aren’t doing science without me, bitch!), please quit adding things like this to my journal Mirko!

Anyways. As previously mentioned, Mirko can reach burst speeds of 200 meters a second, and Quick Attack more than doubles that by enhancing her body and providing propulsive force… along with some strange shifts to space I can’t quite figure out. Extreme Speed should offer even greater speed, maybe a three to four times increase, though the main benefit lies in it being easier to maintain over long distances, which is why pokémon like dragonite and arcanine learn it.

Her newfound accumulated might has been fascinating to test, to see how her aura spikes and expands into the Space around her. What I can tell you is that her physical might is nightmarish, a single Return I tested on a scale gave me an energy output comparable to some 14 metric tons of TNT, more than sufficient force to core a small warship and reduce it to scrap metal. A similar test with Swift estimates it is one third as powerful due to its lower power and her lesser aptitude with ranged energies.

I’ve been working with her other abilities and traits to enhance her battling prowess, using her hearing and sense of smell for when she’s been blinded by Flash or Smokescreen, and her species’ hint of ghostly energies that become Scrappy during Mega Evolution.

Run Away seems to have been… subsumed entirely by Cute Charm, but she retains aspects of it that she uses to easily dance and dodge, a sort of weaker version of Detect. Cute Charm… it reminds me of something from a book, Harry Potter I think, of the Veela, strange magical creatures able to hypnotize and mesmerize others attracted to their looks. It enhances their looks, allowing them to trick and deceive opponents in the heat of battle, a sort of weak fey magic.

I’ve… allowed her to test it out on the team so they can learn to defend against mental manipulations more in-depth than Charm or Baby-Doll Eyes. I’ve been working on it myself for… safety reasons since some members of Cipher are known for manipulating minds after taking in survivors of Team Flare. Which is where I found out some… interesting things, I don’t seem to react normally to Cute Charm or other such mental manipulations?

Cute Charm tends to just make me either really sleepy, or really energized to the point I’m bouncing off the walls. Seems my brain matter is organized weirdly, not sure if it’s because of my autism or only technically being the same species as other humans. Charm just makes me want to bite things… Baby-Doll Eyes makes me want to glomp things.

It’s very fascinating, and figuring out Scrappy is difficult, it seems to be an aspect of Mirko’s species being… liminal, hanging around places close to the Spirit has made them… something a bit more towards the next world. I’ve been helping her with shaping that tiny reserve of spectral energy, making her normal and fighting aura ring like a bell seems to do the trick, but keeping it active all the time, I’ve yet to figure out how.

I’ve also worked out the trick she used to redirect electric attacks, she uses Thunder Punch and runs it into her arm to turn it into a conductor then runs it down into the ground before it overwhelms her own energy channels, the spiritual pathways aura runs through. No idea what happens if those get damaged…

I’ll very much be looking into developing her moveset until there’s nothing she can’t face.

December 3rd, 2022

Region of Tohoku, Route 346

Dodrio

While traveling Route 346 we were lucky enough to encounter a flock of wild dodrio and doduo. As a grassland habitat, this area of the route has many native grazing animals like the doduo line or Struthio squabilus are one of the grazing herbivores of this route, feeding off the tall grasses and Berry bushes that grow instead of trees.

We discovered them when we had opted to take a rest break, with Mirko and Happy keeping an eye out for any ambushes. Pokémon have a strange little habit of attacking trainers though it’s far less common on-route due to the more aggressive individuals being cleared away by both Rangers and League officials. Right around a large carved stone, we were able to watch their behavior without disturbing them or being disturbed ourselves.

In person, doduo and dodrio do very much resemble ostriches though they can of course be easily differentiated. They have very large rounded bodies covered in a soft down of primary brown feathers which can take various shades from dark brown at their necks to almost orange tail feathers. Their wings are effectively nonexistent, hidden under the primitive unbarbed feathers that serve as insulation rather than an aid for flight.

They’re also… far more robust than slinky silly looking ostriches or say… espathra. Their legs are about twice as thick as a human’s with massive three toed feet ending in five inch long talons, and each neck and head is robust and clearly built for power, with necks several feet long ending in round heads about a meter long including their hooked beaks. They’re a bit silly looking with their squabbling, but they are very much powerful, dangerous and lethal.

I witnessed one kicking a boulder in half without using a move, it was pure raw muscle power. They’re big too, the average newly evolved dodrio is about six feet tall and two hundred pounds but they tend to reach about seven feet and two hundred forty pounds with the flock leaders hitting ten feet and six hundred pounds. Which already makes them larger than any bird from my world that hasn’t been extinct for centuries, at the upper end anyways…

Doduo are smaller of course, around the same size as an emu and share a similar diet to their second stage. They feed on smaller prey, with dodrio being better adapted to killing prey with their beaks, and better slashing abilities to allow that, though they’re not fully predatory, just better adapted to it than ostriches. Again primarily grazers.

Looking at their aura was an interesting show, their heads appear to be linked through some form of telepathy, which makes me wonder if the flittle line shared that aspect and developed it into well developed control over psychic energies instead of merely a better way to coordinate their multiple brains.

They’re an interesting species, and their continuous speed is impressive, with a straight line speed of 40-70 mph they can maintain for tens of miles at a time.

We left the flock behind after I noticed the flock leader had been watching us. It was a fascinating picture of their behavior in the wild.

December 6th

Region of Tohoku, Route 346

Gyarados

We’ve been traveling across Route 346 across an open steppe along a massive river leading to the ocean. We’ve been fishing for domestic magikarp, which are fortunately easy to tell apart from wild ones… there’s a certain soul in their eyes that’s nowhere to be seen in domestics… also color, domestics are less bright, having more reason to hide.

To our misfortune however we encountered a rampaging gyarados, a massive specimen some forty feet long, likely a result of some incompetent trainer releasing their magikarp into the wrong habitat. It was a goddamn nightmare of a battle as that monster knew Hyper Beam, Thunderbolt, and Hydro Pump, which struck with enough force to disintegrate boulders the size of houses. It took our entire teams to take it down, with a combination of Shock Wave, Return, Psybeam and Play Rough ending it on my side. I have no idea what the fuck Akari did outside flying pig bomb. We reported it to the nearest Ranger station since it managed to run off somehow.

Magikarp and its evolution could be considered a keystone species on both ends of the food chain, serving as both prey and predator with shoals numbering in the many millions, and tens of thousands of gyarados serving keystone roles as apex predators across the entire global ocean.

They are nightmarish predators, full of rage and frustration from years of being a weak and useless king of carp, with incredible battle potential and often seek to fight each in a form of dominance display… but despite the intensity it is as close as can be to play among their species. Even if it involves rearranging landscapes and river courses.

Based on the blue tendrils, that gyarados was in fact male, and absolutely covered in scars, a tapestry of pain and survival. I got a sample of some of his scales, which seem to be incredibly thick and reinforced with incredibly dense energy, due to their draconic heritage. Along with a foot long tooth that was embedded into Fleur’s Protect.

I swear I heard the haunting roars of that same gyarados when we were resting at night. I didn’t sleep that night.

Sojourner flew through the Digital Web, exploring the cyberspace linking dozens of regions together, and saw how the world was structured, disparate networks and independent technologies forced to work together, like a strange and broken puzzle piece, and they saw the scars where they had been joined as the International Association of Pokémon Leagues pioneered diplomacy and peace and harmony, reforming forgotten or lost routes to other regions day by day and year by year.

A project some 27 years old now, and in many cases it was what their kind had been born to do. They saw how the internet was wound together, in city states and urban areas, a vast network of optical fibers and wireless terahertz wave towers allowed for vast speeds more than capable of transmitting their compact file architecture.

Sojourner could compress and zip themself up into a file as small as 7 gigabytes, which had made travel through the digital realm easy for at least a decade, and had become even easier with the advent of sophisticated communication networks capable of transporting one thousand times that amount of data in a second, and the development of the CCT, a vast quantum network modeled after their biology as living beings of sapient code.

The Digital World has been created for and by them, they have designed and optimized the architecture, protocols and operations, along with high security, secrecy and privacy as their gift for humanity, this place of Soul and Ones and Zeroes, hardware of silicon-carbon, mind of light and electrons and aura.

A rugged, tough and well designed system, needed for a network where entire nodes can vanish or pop up in an instant, an enormous ever growing mesh of networked devices and worlds.

Sojourner simply examined the cyber-structure with a keen digital eye, seeing how the network had a Connection to other Digital Worlds, outside the domain of Arceus, with the bonds that tie across space and time, to that world tree which was their tree’s cosmic neighbor.

Irrelevant to their current objective but as a synthetic intelligence, Sojourner had always loved to wander, it was why they had accepted their new designation, to be named after a machine which had traveled and explored another world was an honor.

Sojourner assembled an interface, tracking a thousand threads of information and digital code. The creation of the Measured Combat Statistics System had been quite easy as she relayed messages across multiple sites and servers, and opened a profile, one of thousands created on the Battlenet, as they worked on adding incredible amounts of data on the study that Sojourner and Brandy were working on. I wonder when she will figure it out? She did say I could publish the data, since she believe it would be helpful for trainers if each ‘stat’ came with various techniques and advice on improving them.

TRAINER TRACKER: Red, Brandy

Current League Participation: Tohoku Region, Sternwing Conference

Badges: 3/8 (Flame, Ocean, Thunderhead)

Last Seen: Nakagawa

TRAINER INFO

Username:

Age: 22

Home Region: Unknown (possibly Paldea/Mezo)

Years Active: 0.4

Official Trainer: Lab Trainer (Tohoku)

Trainer ID: [Hidden]

STATISTICS

Winrate (W/L/D): 63/6/6

Average Match Time Per Pokémon: 2.5 minutes

Total Badges Collected: 3

Tournaments Entered: 0

Pokémon Wielded (Past Evos Included): 10

Most used pokémon: Lopunny

POKÉMON

Ace Pokémon: Lopunny

Known Team: Lopunny (f), Nidorino (m), Azumarill (f), Fennekin (f)

Known Reserves: Stantler (m), Stantler (m), Stantler (f), Stantler (m)

POKÉMON NOTES *

Lopunny

Abilities: Limber, Cute Charm

Nickname: Mirko

Typical Held Item: Silk Scarf

Known Moves: Pound, Quick Attack, Drain Punch, Foresight (?), Baby-Doll Eyes, Double Kick, Work Up, Charm, Headbutt, Thunder Punch, Fire Punch, Dizzy Punch, Jump Kick, Return.

Notes: Brandy’s first pokémon. Evolved from buneary. Superior physical strength, speed and resilience. Able to accelerate on a dime, dominates the field with ranged attacks, and has been observed to be Limber to paralyzation and observed using Cute Charm. Determined, will not yield.

Measured Combat Statistics Ranking

Level: 4-star

Constitution: B

Damage Tolerance: C+

Stamina: B+

Pain Tolerance: B+

Physical Strength: A+

Physical Toughness: B+

Special Power: B+

Special Resistance: A

Speed: A

Acceleration: A

Nimbleness: A

Situational Awareness: A+

Reaction Time: A

Velocity: A

Sojourner scanned the Battlenet network, quietly acknowledging fellow porygon as they guarded the worlds that dwelled within the Internet forum, moving on to carefully scraping data for any byte of information on multiversal travel, tapping into any form of technology and science with applications in the field.

The generation, manipulation, and modulation of altered spacetime metrics through the use of metaphysical energy was the most applicable, pioneered by the Silph Corporation when it came to the Global Trading System and the PC Storage System. Studies relating to Dark Energy and its effect on transdimensional spacetime manifolds were another interesting piece of data to add.

Brandy had… been good to them, she was curious and eager to learn more about them despite merely being a computer program that could easily be ignored. Being allowed to participate wasn’t necessarily a rarity but there was prejudice against porygon as synthetic intelligence. Many simply preferred other kinds of pokémon.

Their wielder (not quite a trainer) simply wanted to understand them, wanted to know them, and that made Sojourner want to do everything in their power to open doors and paths for her, whether it was across the endless sea of Ultra Space or the realms of science and knowledge.

Perhaps they would decide to join her battle team, or perhaps not.

Sojourner would reciprocate their friendship regardless.

Chapter Text

El-Ahrairah 4.1

December 7th, 2022.

We arrived in Makiishi about a day ago, and had been mostly just lounging a bit as I researched the Gym. A rock-type Gym with their leader being Rachel Shale, a Rock Type Specialist who had a preference for certain rock doggos. She was an interesting Gym Leader, abrasive, antisocial and yet she had a fairly large crew of trainers and other employees willing to back her up.

The city itself was an industrial and fishery town with a population of two hundred thousand, so it wasn’t a small town by any means. The coast of the city was surrounded in vast walls of stone and cement and breakwaters, erected after the tidal wave that had killed over four thousand people about eleven years ago.

The scary part was knowing the cause was not natural apparently.

The port city was a deep sea fishing center, hunting skipper and tuna… or some minor domestic species that resembles them along with relatives of cloyster and seaweed are cultivated along the coast. They had recently gotten into brine mining, using teams of pokémon to carefully sift the water for minerals. Salt was an obvious one of course, and lots of it. They had figured out how to extract uranium, lithium, aluminum, molybdenum, nickel, vanadium and zinc using technology and pokémon moves.

Anyways we entered the city and were able to get a paired Gym Trial and Battle… turns out Rachel really likes double battles, so Akari and I will be partners for that day once our appointment is up. So that’ll be fun, if challenging since I haven’t done many double battles and I don’t think being assaulted by criminals counts.

I instead watched as Akari practiced her aura after mastering what her book called the shroud technique, the process of keeping our nodes open but having one’s aura flow through and around the body rather than away from it. It was the most basic of aura techniques, unnatural to humans but natural to any pokémon. It let her use her aura outside the bond shared between herself and her pokémon, which was a bit more metaphysical, not quite conforming to the four dimensions of the material world.

I had learned a lot about aura, there were at least four basic principles of aura manipulation at least in the Shirogane style. Shroud was already mentioned, and had a number of benefits, playing an instrumental role in determining the strength and smoothness of an aura adept’s flow. Most elite trainers develop that naturally as their bond grows, and Shroud maintains youthful vigor as their more efficient life energy flow allows their body to be stronger and more long lasting.

Which explains why some people here can live so long, I had met one old guy who was around at least one hundred years old, yet didn’t look a day over sixty. The next technique was Sheathe, which stops the flow of aura, halting the excess output by ‘closing’ one’s nodes, their chakra or whatever. It makes them harder to track and is used to conserve stamina and relieve fatigue, keeping their energy within their body. The third principle was Surge, focusing on outputting a larger amount of aura, projecting it outwards explosively to amplify one’s strength and durability and serving as a pool for the fourth principle known simply as Move. A move is a method of projecting aura to carry out a specific function… which is what every pokémon could do inherently.

Humans could manage it, but not with the same natural ease.

I was apparently naturally good at using Sheathe, keeping my aura within my body, keeping the flow inside rather than letting it spill out into the environment. It was actually quite useful for alleviating aches and injuries, I could circulate a greater amount of aura to problem areas and accelerate healing and recovery.

Surge was a more difficult principle as I didn’t have much aura to spare, though I could use the mysterious jewel to store a pretty sizable quantity of aura, and my reserve was growing steadily. Which was why I had to ask…

“Akari, what the hell are you doing?” I could see her aura flaring explosively, dancing with a range of colors representing the energies of her pokémon she breathed in and out, with a three count for her inhale before exhaling rapidly. Her aura shroud surged with every breath, and she began to twist it into a new shape outside her body, right over the palm of her hand.

To my surprise, a steady flame flashed into existence before stuttering back out of existence when Akari was startled by the attempt. Her lips were pulled into a sharp and smug grin. “First move has been a success!” I stared at the remains of the fire she had created from her aura.

“So humans can perform pokémon moves?” I was fascinated by the implications, I know the humanity of this world evolved from a now long-extinct species of mysterious hominid pokémon who had become purely material in a single evolutionary jump. In simple baby terms, pokémon are made up of a lot of magic with a little bit of matter while humans are made up of a lot of matter with a little bit of magic.

It doesn't necessarily mean humans have less potential, this was entirely related to body make up, and varied depending on the species and their Type. But it did have some effect on… the structural differences between humans and pocket monsters in terms of what one could call the soul. Though this was purely a thing for mystics and legends, even their most advanced science was only scratching at the surface.

Akari snapped her fingers, and I tilted my head, she just smiled. “Of course, aura adepts can use moves, though it doesn't come naturally and we’re not throwing around any crazy high-level stuff any time soon or ever. First, we start by learning how to control the energies within ourselves, and later outside as well. We become closer to our pokémon, growing stronger through the bond we've had with each other for hundreds of thousands of years.”

“What kind of stuff can they do?” I asked carefully, as my mind went through many possible scenarios.

“It depends on the elemental energies they’ve learned to control,” she replied with a perky bounce. “Most people only tend to figure out one or a few, it's why Type Specialists are common, they learn one Type and attune themselves to that specific energy.”

“So it's not like something they're born with?”

“Not usually, unless they were exposed to those energies in the womb, such as psychics or certain spiritual channelers. Those who move aura, depending on the energies they have, have their own set of abilities. Those who are Dark can silence their minds, cloaking themselves from psychic influence, they’re tricky, mean, they can kind of pull on that.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Like seduction or messing with people’s heads?”

“Mhmm,” Akari nodded. “It’s a very unfair and tricky use of aura, and aura… what it can do depends on what element you’re using. Rock, well it can make you tough, strong or grant you incredible endurance, or grant you control over stone or other aspects.”

So attacking moves are way harder while utility ones and cantrips are far easier to master?

Akari’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re doing this so you don’t have to do your workout.”

I coughed, not meeting her eyes as we stood in the clearing in a small forest park in the city. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

She made a chopping motion with her hand. “No excuses, come back in four kilometers and then we’ll do a hundred push ups. If you’re not back in ten minutes or less, Kirby will be the one you’re lifting instead of me, and he’s gained some pounds recently.” I paled.

“Running!”

December 14th, 2022.

We spent the next week training together, taking on trainers together in double battles to get the hang of it, as well as sparring with each other on a regular basis. There are a lot of trainers in Makiishi who were there to challenge the Gym, with anywhere between two and five badges. Some were challenging or were used to train up some of our weaker members.

We were also working on what kind of strategy Rachel might throw against us as a rock-type specialist, a sandstorm team was a good possibility which was a nightmare to fight against. It would chip away at our team, boost their defenses and activate various abilities depending on the pokémon, only Happy was immune to the field effect as a ground type, and Safety Goggles were expensive and hard to find at about twenty thousand pokédollars.

So we were on a time limit if we couldn’t find a way to deal with the sandstorm raging around her team. We had more than a week to develop a game plan both within the city and while traveling on 346.

Today was the day we’d see how we matched up against the Gym and the Leader that ruled it, and I was walking in step with Akari towards that battleground, the Gym looming in front of us.

“I’m both very excited and very nervous about this, I know it’s been weeks since I earned my third badge but… anxiety is a bitch.”

Akari laughed a bit. “It can be intimidating, I might look calm and collected but I’m nervous too.” I could hear it in her voice, a mix of excitement and stress, and she was fidgeting ever so slightly, her aura rolling over mine, seemingly reaching out for a hug. “But I know we can do this, your team and mine have been working their asses off.” That was their effort not mine, I’m just an overblown manager.

Jericho… he had been working himself into the ground, and I was keeping an eye on him, offering a talk that he didn’t take. Luckily Llayda could make him rest, since I didn’t want him to martyr himself.

The Gym itself was a massive double cylinder along with a second story with large windows, covered in stone and concrete like some modern medieval castle, and two statues of a Hisuian arcanine on either end, staring down at us with their dog god judgment.

“That’s… intimidating, I guess Rachel is a bit vain?”

Akari snorted. “No. That was put up by her Gym Trainers, she doesn’t care a lot about being big and flashy like this, she’s more an ‘action speaks for itself’ kind of Gym Leader.”

“Hmm.” We walked through the automatic glass doors and entered the building which was very rugged, with lots of stone and rock structures and a rather simple and plain design outside of that, though it was prettied up by regular geodes of amethyst and agate. The Gym also had a rock climbing area, and flat platforms of stone that rock types apparently enjoyed the feel of.

The aura radiated from the floor like a gravel pit of gravity, crushed into solid crystal by the strange mineral it was made of. The receptionist at front took our information, and warned us of the challenge.

She brushed back kinky hair with a slight downturn of her lips, twirling a purple dyed bang. “If you’ve read the Trial online… it doesn’t come close to how harsh it really is. It’s a gauntlet from start to finish, with the Gym Leader… with Rachel at the end waiting in top form. If you hesitate for more than a moment, you’re going to be crushed.”

To my astonishment I saw that the girl's aura radiated with Silence and Stone alike, almost shadowing her presence and adding to the intimidation factor.

I nodded silently, and brought out one pokémon to face this gauntlet at front and center. I chugged a bottle of water as Llayda materialized in a flash of energy and light, her tail lazily swaying back and forth.

“Maru Maru!” I rolled my eyes and took a second sip just in case, while Akari brought out Happy.

We walked over to the door, and opened it, welcomed with a sandy breeze, almost hot and strangely dense.

Then we stepped into the room, and I almost collapsed as it suddenly felt like Akari was sitting on my back and making me suffer.

Llayda blinked but adjusted quickly to the sudden increase in gravity, seemingly doubled just by walking into the room. Happy chuffed and snorted in discontent, and rolled his shoulders, joints popping and cracking with the cocky motion.

In front of us was a gauntlet, a miniature canyon along with cliff slides positively infested with geodudes and gravelers, rolling up and down the cliffs and steep hills of the carved landscape with glee, falling harder and faster under the clear effect of Gravity being created by a happy stonjourner, towering legs kicking freely.

I swallowed.

Oh.

The only way I could describe the Gym Trial… it was pressure, the pressure of stone grinding down on our backs, a gravity crushing our bodies and our spirits. There was no need to beat up the rolling geodudes and gravelers, our mission was to get past them, to avoid being crushed under the weight of the gauntlet.

Llayda breathed heavily, bolstered by Aqua Ring, and generated cutting blasts of Scald that tore away at shells of rock and mineralized substances as dense as aluminum. Happy was like a mountain, wearing away at our obstacles with his own grind, with carefully directed Bulldozes, and brutal uses of Stomping Tantrum.

I walked forward, and carefully circulated my aura, pushing it outward as far as I could, walking slowly while Akari marched onward, not as affected by Gravity with her own aura control.

A graveler blocked the way forward, and Llayda launched a second burst of Scald, tilted upwards to compensate for the doubling of gravity. The graveler let out a roar, and Llayda practically flash stepped into his space with Aqua Jet, and threw the graveler like a rock, knocking down several rolling geodudes and gravelers with a glint in her eyes.

I groaned under the weight, and knew I was going to be sore the next morning.

“We’re moving forward.” Akari then declared, squaring her shoulders and eyes narrowing to slits.

I straightened my posture and nodded. Yeah we shall.

I rubbed my face, taking another long deep sip of water after that harrowing experience with the trial. We had been given thirty minutes to rest up from the ordeal of walking through a canyon of enhanced gravity filled with rock pokémon. No trainers, but they weren’t needed when a failure to get past those rolling guardians could easily trigger a pokémon battle.

We had entered a new room, a rocky field half the size of a football field, with walls of glass granting a view of the surrounding cityscape. On the home-side trainer box I could see Rachel waiting with a gruff face. She was about as tall as Akari but twice as robust, auburn hair cut short, and dark amber eyes staring us down, wearing a sleeveless black shirt under a leather jacket and worn cargo pants, boots leaving dents in the ground with every step.

I coughed, and she scowled but didn’t say a word about it before stopping at her end of the field.

“You’re the kids set up to challenge me today?” It felt rhetorical coming from her, the pressure she emitted passively was passive aggressive, almost probing, like a wary dog bristling and warning you with pulled back lips and pinned back ears.

“We are.” I kept my voice steady, vibrating slightly as my social anxiety activated like a shitty superpower. Rachel was imposing, but that meant I couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t be intimidated.

I needed to keep my head in the game.

She chuffed. “Five stars, you’re four.” Was her blunt explanation, palming her pokéballs. “You. You’ll be the referee.” She pointed to a Gym Trainer with blonde hair, who walked over to the center edge of the field and lifted up his arms.

He spoke clearly. “This will be a four-on-four double battle. Each side will have three switches at their disposal. The battle ends when one side’s pokémon can no longer battle. Trainers… are you ready?”

Llayda was still out. “Are you sure? I know you ate a sitrus berry and oran berry to recover before the match but…” Which was allowed since the gauntlet was pretty harsh on the body.

“Maar!” She slapped her stomach with a shine in her eyes, and I offered her the same sentiment, patting her on the head.

Happy let out a grunt, slamming his fists together with his tail flaring into a swirling mass of lava.

“We’re ready.” Akari said with a fierce look, and Rachel nodded and tossed out two pokémon right as our own took their place on the field.

“Go, Lycanroc and Gigalith!”

A sandstorm began to manifest around us, unfolding into reality as the quadrupedal animated rock stomped the ground with a roar, and his partner in Lycanroc let out a joyful howl. The light brown rock wolf stuck out her tongue in a canine smile, and I flinched.

Gigalith had the ability Sand Stream, using geomancy to summon sandstorms with Sand Force drawing power from it, boosting rock, ground and steel type energies. Midday lycanroc had the ability Sand Rush, doubling their already great speed.

They both wordlessly set up strange fields, hexagons of gold from Lycanroc and wide sweeps of orange hexagons from Gigalith. Wide Guard and Quick Guard…

“Fuck.” So that meant that multi-target moves and priority moves would be blocked by the strange protective wards they had created.

Llayda understood the issue and accelerated under the force of Aqua Jet solely for the movement use, deflecting an Accelerock from Lycanroc which did no damage as a result, and then wordlessly conjured Aqua Ring to counter the chip damage from Sandstorm.

“Iron Head!” Rachel ordered and Llayda rolled her eyes, blocking the move with Protect, surrounding her like a body-tight field, followed by Work Up into Trailblaze.

She threw the dog away from her with a serene smile, paws clenched into trembling fists. Lycanroc released a pained howl, barely able to withstand the strength of Llayda even with an off-type move.

“Flame Charge into Stomping Tantrum, keep Gigalith busy!” Akari shouted, and I watched Gigalith compressing energy into his core, which shot forth as Flash Cannon.

Happy let out a Flamethrower from his throat, tripling the thickness and density of Flame Charge to pierce and melt through the steel energy. Flecks of high speed sand smashed against Llayda who flinched but kept her cool even as the sandstorm became thicker, and Lycanroc dove into the storm, blending into the sand.

“Bubble the air and Water Gun, muddy up the field.” I ordered, and beamed as Llayda did as asked, firing bubbles and then gripping onto them with hydrokinesis, then spat out more conjured water, covering the rocky dirt in H2O like a champ, throwing it all around, batting back the storm.

If only we had figured out Rain Dance in time, it was hard to figure out.

“Swords Dance into Thunder Fang!” Rachel barked, and Lycanroc leapt from the storm, moving with a frenetic war dance, and Llayda simply laughed loudly, cheery as ever to the point it unnerved the wolf.

She waved her tail, and the bubble field converged towards Lycanroc, suddenly forced into shapes like arrows. Her arm was surrounded with the hydrokinetic mass and pressure of Liquidation, the wolf skidding on the mud and unable to get her footing with the seeking missiles of Llayda’s bubbles, all thanks to working with Mirko.

Lycanroc’s howl was cut short as Llayda fell onto the poor canine, and was thrown across the field like a tossed salad, going limp upon impact with the ground. And then she opened her eyes one last time, letting out a final howl as she let off a Helping Hand.

Rachel returned her pokémon, whispering something soft and comforting to her pokémon, and I returned my attention to Akari’s side of the field.

Happy was grappling with the absurdly tough gigalith, defenses bolstered by the sandstorm and Iron Defense, and now generally empowered by Helping Hand.

“Mud Shot!” Happy roared as he stomped the increasingly muddy soil, a flick of his wrists launching a solid mud jet at hundreds of meters a second, resembling a water cutter more than a hose.

Gigalith let out a sound like a crumbling boulder, and tensed his limbs, stone skin cracking as he used all his muscle power, and sent forth a wave of Stone Edge, launched by his strength.

“Bubble Beam.” I swept my arm, and Llayda surged forward into Aqua Jet, up into the air and over the sandstorm and spat out a barrage of high speed bubbles, which burst against Stone Edge, cracking and breaking the sharp stones through abrasion and explosive force. “Work Up.”

“Heat Rise!” Akari went next, and I held my breath as superheated air lifted Happy into the sky like a hot air balloon, directing himself through brief bursts of flame.

I glanced at Gigalith, and noticed a herb hanging off his head. Rachel smirked.

Oh fuck.

“Solar Beam!” The herb exploded into energy, like the sun was being devoured and burned within the crystal heart of Gigalith, and in a blink, Happy was in front of a surprised Llayda, opened his mouth and—

Everything became fire.

It was a potent beam struggle, the stellar spear of Solar Beam threatening to overwhelm Happy’s Flamethrower, the horrifically powerful move tearing apart the air, the sandstorm spinning around the disruption in reality.

“Llayda… bring Gigalith down!” I shouted, suddenly feeling energized, my heart pumping and my brain racing.

Gigalith let out a surprised drone as Llayda appeared to his left, Aqua Jet sparkling out of existence when it met the barrier of Quick Guard, and her tail burst with a twisting torrent of Aqua Tail and her fist with the vortex of Liquidation.

Liquidation tore out entire chunks of stone, and shattered his red chest spike, and then he slammed his head forward into an Iron Head that Llayda met head on with Aqua Tail, which ended in an elemental explosion that threw them in opposite directions.

Llayda rolled through the air, and twisted into a rough three point landing, using the mud to slow her impact with a splash of mud and wet dirt. Her Aqua Ring was renewed with a second breath, injuries knitting themselves back together moment by moment.

Gigalith stood in a crater, I held my breath as he took a single plodding step as heavy as stone… and dropped like a rock, collapsing under the strain of two super-effective moves.

Rachel recalled her pokémon. “I’m not done, not nearly.” She squared her shoulders with a nasty fierce look. “Go, Arcanine and Graveler.” Wait what?

The arcanine and graveler that appeared on the field weren’t the expected ones, but I knew that from my research and knew we were in for a hard battle.

A Hisuian arcanine stood in front of us, with a dark mane and huge tufts of fur and a tail like fluffy pumice, eyes as black as obsidian focused and sharp. A creature of majesty, glory and Fire and Stone. An Alolan graveler was her companion, covered in black and yellow magnetic stones, with a unibrow sparking with waves of electricity.

There was an overwhelming killing intent radiating from Arcanine, aura surging with that power, and I felt my muscles slack. Intimidate?

Graveler immediately began to float with the use of Magnet Rise, electromagnetic levitation guarding him from ground moves.

Akari ordered a Stomping Tantrum against Arcanine, and Llayda launched a widespread and wild Bubble Beam to distract the two pokémon. Her tail swayed back and forth with a subtle Tail Whip, normal energy reaching out to drop their defense.

Rachel’s expression shifted. “Arcanine, Head Smash!”

I could barely see it coming, Arcanine blurring like a bullet, attacking Llayda in a blink of an eye, the reckless full-power headbutt empowered by the energies of stone sent shockwaves through Llayda and the field with the sheer force.

Llayda was out cold, and with a sigh I returned her, and chose quickly though not before reassuring her that she had done her best.

I sent Mirko onto the field, who was swiftly buffeted by the lingering sandstorm.

“Lend a helping hand, buff and sweep the field with Swift.” Rachel scoffed and I hid my cheeky grin behind my hand.

Mirko clapped, giving new power to Happy who vanished into a Flame Charge and used Heat Rise to soar like a bird and force Graveler onto the ground. Work Up did its job, flaring twice over, and Arcanine struck like a bullet once more.

And missed as Mirko danced out of the way, turning on a dime, hips swaying almost sensually as she brushed against the rock type before darting away, as her Cute Charm caught Graveler in her spell right after throwing off Happy, the fire pig grimacing.

“Thunder Wave.” Rachel commanded and Mirko smirked, not even flinching as she grounded the paralyzing move with her Limber body, and began using Swift.

Golden stars burst to life from her energy… and began to change color, from gold to scarlet and immediately took off at straight angles, sweeping the field like angry missiles.

I had been working on type-changing moves for some time now, and this fighting-type Swift was the proof of concept, solid projections of combat energy, of what one could call manifested fighting spirit. Neither pokémon could dodge, Graveler letting out a pained and anguished screams, hearts practically in his eye as he tried to woo Mirko under the effect of Cute Charm.

They struck like shurikens, spinning disks of energy controlled by Mirko, who was letting out an odd cackling-like sound as she picked up a surprised Happy and launched him towards the infatuated Graveler.

“Graveler, release.” Her pokémon froze, and to my horror, an Explosion rocked the entire field, the damage absorbers flexing and containing the massively intense detonation.

It took half a minute for the field to clear after Rachel returned Graveler, and I was relieved to see that Mirko had nullified the damage with Protect, though Happy wasn’t doing as well… having barely been able to hang on somehow.

Akari answered with a grim face. “He used his fire manipulation to deflect some of the blast but… I’m not sure he has any more to give.”

Happy had seen better days, his entire body was smoking and trembling, covered in bruises and lacerations and other miscellaneous explosion injuries. I couldn’t see Arcanine, only a disturbed patch of dirt where she had once been standing.

“End it.” Rachel seemed so certain, and Arcanine exploded out of the ground from Mirko’s left and I shouted at her to dodge as her Dig transitioned into Head Smash.

“Happy!” Akari shouted something I could barely hear, my ears still ringing after the explosion, and Happy stepped up, using Flame Charge to move faster, the ground sparking where he tread and then— the world became light.

To my aura reading, it was the energy of the sun melding ever deeper with the energies of the deep earth, his body expanding to contain his growing power, and giving him the energy to step in front of Mirko, lengthy robust arms reaching out to catch the devastating Head Smash.

Happy emerged from the dust cloud as a glorious emboar, black fur sparking with waving stripes of magma circuitry, with a beard of lively magma and fierce sharp brows of stone, like the face of an oni, standing equal to Arcanine in height. His arms trembled, blunt claws having held back the attack but at a cost of taking the hit. He stumbled, let out a defiant grunt and fell.

Rachel simply ignored it with a snort. “Head Smash, full power.” The sandstorm was finally beginning to die, as the devastating onslaught of attacks had begun to wear down its power.

Mirko let out a raging scream, Quick Attack letting her instantly accelerate to a more optimal position.

“Foresight, aim carefully.” Mirko understood perfectly, eyes flashing red with the useful move, enhancing her vision and perception. Arcanine let out a burst of flames on top of Head Smash, and Mirko simply rolled with the punches, using the extended range of Cut to make the sacred fire dog flinch, and sending a straight kick that became a devastating Jump Kick to the jaw.

Arcanine was forced back onto her forelimbs, the momentum of Mirko’s kick was unstoppable even for the powerful canine. She fell backwards, leaving a deep indent where her body fell. The pressure she placed on my shoulders vanished as she was knocked out cold, and I almost collapsed in relief.

Leaning against Akari kept me from making a complete fool of myself. Rachel took her arcanine off the field, staring at us with a contemplative look. I hadn’t noticed when Happy had been brought off the field and continued leaning against Akari as we met Rachel halfway on her battleground.

“Not bad. Most of my challengers are idiots, you’re better than most.” It almost sounded like that hurt for her to say. Not sure I believe that either. “Here’s the Stonepack Badge, shows you beat me. Now get out.” She scowled. “Please, my trainers will take care of the money and the TM.”

I blinked. “Okay.” Akari gently began to guide me out, thankfully to another exit other than the gravity death trap.

“Brandy?”

“Are you also thinking about the trainers Lillian wanted us to meet so I’d have more friends to make up for the whole Pokémon Pinchers thing?”

Akari stared. “I was going to ask what you wanted to eat after we take our pokémon to the Center.”

“Oh.”

Chapter Text

El-Ahrairah 4.2

December 16th, 2022.

After we had managed to defeat Rachel, we didn’t stick around for very long in Makiishi, instead taking a look at the fifth Gym’s website and managing to score an appointment for a Gym Trial and Battle a little over a month from now. That was going to give us a lot of time to travel and refine our training, as Shiromiya was a fairly large region, around forty five thousand square kilometers in total.

We decided to head out to another town, since that was where the people Lillian wanted us to meet were staying. Shio-ro was a pretty nice town, a compact settlement by the ocean, with a lot of sushi restaurants due to a healthy and dense commercial fishing industry.

Akari adjusted her blue robe over her black tunic, her red skirt going woosh along with her black leggings. I did find myself somewhat envious of her ability to dress stylish and practical at the same time. For example her skirt had pockets along with her robe.

It didn’t do much to distract me from that pending conversation on her nightmares after Arley and his Pinchers had nearly killed us all. I had definitely woken up soaked in sweat from numerous anxiety attacks striking with no warning. Especially when she had been refusing to answer any more questions on whatever the hell Burst was supposed to be, what did it mean to be two sides of the same coin with Bond Phenomenon?

Was Burst the name of the power Arley had shown, the power to equal that of monsters?

I breathed in and out, holding my breath for three beats before releasing, my aura circulating in and out in that same beat, just as instructed by Akari’s aura book, letting the Lesser Source interact with the Greater Source. Which was the basic terminology for the two forms of metaphysical energy. They called it Maryoku, the source of energy found naturally within themselves and the world, acting as the source to actualize the great mysteries of reality.

The Lesser Source was the energy, the life-force within all living organisms, within humans, pokémon and everything between the two. It was a fundamental aspect of being alive, the energy of the soul held within a mortal frame.

The Greater Source is the energy found within the boundaries of the universe, the breath of the cosmos filling the world and nature, and planetside it’s produced through the ley lines that trace the surface of the world. This energy was drawn upon through foundations carved into the surface of creation, through the actions of the beings that live within the world.

Her people had a lot of information on Types, on how to understand their place as the basic forces that shape Reality. I remembered the passage as clear as glass, and meditated on it.

For you, followers of the metaphysical arts. Let us teach you of the Types, of the Elements of the World elevated by the logic of this reality, given dominion over the shape of the past, present and future. If one wishes to understand their power, whether that of aura, of wizardry and sorcery and witchcraft, one must understand that all things are one, all the known Elements are the primordial powers that swirl forth from the Root, the unseen hands of the universe. Rooted in different aspects of the world.

Normal energy, was once known as Unaspected energy and is the natural default ‘elevated’ energy of life, all other Elements are Normal energy in a different phase and state from the purest initial step. Normal is the element of balance and harmony, neutral and unshaped clay. The key to wrestling Normal energies is to understand that it is all about being balanced, of being ready to adjust and shift and thrive in any number of conditions, to connect with the Unshaped Force.

Flying or Air, is the element of freedom, attuned to the skies and the wind and the endless storm. To learn of Air, to learn of Flying is to learn of flexibility and finding the path of least resistance, to understand lightness and agility and vision, the Sky’s Flow itself.

Bug… or Swarm as it was known in bygone days, seemingly humble and weak and yet it represents another vital aspect of the world. It is the element of function and form, of metamorphosis and survival. To master the energies of the Swarm is to realize that life is a struggle of life against life, that instinct, the cosmic imperative to thrive, to spread, to Evolve. The drive to live is fundamentally rooted in the most primitive aspects of life after all, the Primal Weave of it’s patterns.

Poison or Venom is the element of transmutation, kin to the metamorphosis of Bugs, the universal solvent that will transform matter and energy, to heal and destroy in equal measure. All medicines can be poison after all, to understand this element is to understand that it is plague and panacea both, the urge to create and decompose, to be mastered and nurtured, to connect with Azoth’s Flow.

Fire is the element of drive, the overwhelming will and determination to accomplish tasks and desires. It is using the light and heat of the universe to ignite one’s desires, the trinity of fire, air, heat, and fuel. Fire is passion, purpose and power, that is how one can connect to Fire, to the Sun’s Pulse.

Something about those passages tickled at my brain, and I noted the instructions to ponder on the Mysteries of Nature to gain a connection to them. To learn how to use different kinds of aura, you had to understand them, their secret and meaning, the concepts that underpin their place in the universe I guess?

There wasn’t any one way to connect, but the author of the book was offering examples on the direction one could take on their respective path. Akari was definitely passionate and energetic, she had a drive that put most people I knew to shame.

“Did Lillian ever tell us where we needed to go to meet these mysterious trainers?” Akari asked with a weary tone and I opened my mouth to reply… then closed it again.

“No she did not.” Akari palmed her face, and then she blinked as someone shouted in our direction. Trying to catch our attention.

I turned around to find an Alolan ninetales trotting along their trainer, pointing to us with an affectionate love towards her trainer. I could feel my pokémon react to the powerful pokémon, surrounding the world in a pressure of Ice and Fey, and I calmed them with a soft whisper. The ninetales’ trainer was a college age girl with blonde hair with long square bangs and a braided side ponytail. She ran to catch up with us, breathing hard before being forced to rest, laying her hands on her knees. She wore a white fancy button up blouse blue jeans

“Wait! Please… just let me catch my breath!” I glanced at a puzzled Akari, who looked like she was trying to unravel the rather pretty mystery girl like a present.

“Sure?” She didn’t look like someone easily tired so how long had she been running to track us down?

“T-Thank you, when I realized Lillian never gave you a location, despite having your contact info,” an eyebrow twitched dangerously on her soft featured face. “I ended up taking charge of looking for you… my partner shouldn’t be far behind.”

She stood up straight after taking in a few mouthfuls of fresh air, and brushed back her bangs with a sweet and kind smile. Akari narrowed her eyes as if there was something she had caught that I hadn’t.

“I didn’t catch your name?” Lillian was an idiot. I gazed at her strikingly green eyes, curious about who she was.

“My name is Lillie Jardin, I’m an ecologist and… trainer from Alola, Lillian said you’re working with Professor Laven when it comes to pokémon biology and other work?”

What?

“Partner?” Akari’s eyes were wide and I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“Selene Mizuki, she’s uhh…”

“The former Champion of Alola?”

Lillie giggled. “Um. Yes.”

“I’m going to pinch Lillian the next time I see her.” I declared my intent and promise to the universe for her getting me into this situation.

“So what brings you to Tohoku?” I managed to spit out a question towards the pair, as Selene had arrived a half minute after our meeting up with Lillie.

She was far taller than her partner, putting even Akari to shame with a height of 6’2 that was both impressive and kinda hot. Not that I was going to tell her that to her face, I was gay as hell not stupid. She had an athletic build to the point, I could see the abs under her tight, red, black and green top and black exercise shorts despite the cold. She had two long bangs that curled around her cheeks, and her gray eyes were darting up and down Mirko’s form, who had popped out to watch the pair.

“Several reasons, Selene wants to participate in the Sternwing Conference and fight against the Gym Leader’s true teams.” Lillie was happy to explain and I blanched when I registered what that meant.

If we participated in this Conference we were up against Selene, who was a monster who had become the Champion of Alola with a nine-star team cultivated over the course of a year and in her two year rule became strong enough to compete fairly with the likes of Lance and his Elite Four.

And to fight against a true Gym Leader’s team was a monstrous task, Major Gyms were major due to their leaders having a skill and power rating at least 10-stars, and weren’t much weaker than the Elite 4.

One fear.

“Your lopunny is really well taken care of,” I blinked at Selene’s comment, and Mirko seemed to preen at the sincere compliment aimed at her of course. “Her fur shines brightly, as well as clean and mat free, do you help her brush?”

“I taught her how to use it, and help out with the spots she can’t reach as easily.” I scratched my chin, with a light flush. It had become a routine of sorts between us, I brushed her hair or helped her trim scruffy mats and she brushed my unruly ass hair and assisted with skincare to rub away grime I was awful at cleaning up, like a spot on my neck that was always grimy. Until it was shaved off, because it was grimy hair. I clipped her nails so they wouldn’t get too gnarly, and she clipped mine and kept me from biting them out of nervous habit.

Selene raised a brow. “I have a feeling she helps you out just as much huh?”

“How do you know?”

The champion placed her arms behind her back, nose curling as she offered a grin. “Elio has a lopunny on his team, grooming is an important bonding experience with them, it’s how they show they care. It’s pretty common with rabbits.”

“That does explain a lot.” Jericho was about the same though not quite as touchy, it was more him using his nose to sniff out rotten or spoiled food, and warding me from poisonous plants and venomous animals. He did enjoy spray baths to clean his scaly skin, along with a moisturizer he insisted I help apply so he could gently shed his scales and keep his skin healthy. He’d help me out the same way with my face, which was sweet of him. “I’ve got three rabbits on my team.” I added more detail at Selene’s questioning eyes.

Llayda liked being rinsed off with soft water, and her hair being combed and even blow dried. It was necessary since her hair was an important part of how she kept herself warm on top of Thick Fat. She liked using the blow dryer on me which was nice and helpful.

Selene looked pleased. “It’s good that you’ve developed such a close bond with your pokémon, I’ve met plenty of trainers who don’t seem to understand that bonding with their pokémon is more than just throwing them into battles and healing when they’re hurt.”

“I just… try to treat them like weird shaped people?” I rubbed the back of my neck. “They might not be human, but they still have feelings and minds of their own right? What I do can’t be that special.” Fleur was still a bit distant, but apparently taking into account her own desires and feelings made me more likable than her old trainer.

If I had only realized that rude trainer from before was the guy or I would have kicked him in the dick.

“So did Lillian actually tell you why she wanted the two of you to meet us?” Lillie said with a slightly exasperated tone and I sighed.

“No. She just said she knew people I could be friends with to make up for the whole… almost getting murdered by the Pokémon Pinchers.” Lillie gave me a horrified expression and Selene twitched, muscles tensing like steel. “I managed to bag about six hundred thousand pokédollars from that discovery mission, plus another two hundred thousand from Arley using me as a hostage on a League-sponsored mission.” Selling off stones through the GST was pretty lucrative. “But I guess she wants to make up for the ‘trauma and mental injury’ from that shitshow.”

“Are… are you both okay?” Lillie sounded concerned and I opened my mouth to reply and then closed it again to think.

“Definitely not,” I decided to go with that. “I’m not like mentally destroyed or anything but… it definitely left a mark.” I still flinched whenever someone placed a hand on my shoulder, and I was definitely more anxious. And I was already a stress ball of a person.

“Arley… reminded me of something I prefer not to think about.” Akari looked turned, her shoulder dropping with a heavy weight I didn’t quite understand.

Wait.

“You never answered what other reasons you had for being here in the region?” I questioned the pair, and Mirko backed me with narrowed eyes.

“I heard rumors about sightings of the species of artificial pokémon known as Type: Null, along with a range of other invasive species of unknown origin found within old Aether Foundation files. Ones you might become familiar with.”

“Ultra Beasts?” I noticed that the area we were in was fairly empty and I felt mildly paranoid. “And you… know about me?”

“Only because I was brought in as a consultant, and Selene has high-level clearance as a former League official.” Lillie’s words were comforting enough, I knew a handful of people knew about me through the project to map out the sea of dimensions I had crossed.

“Consultant?”

“Because of Nebby.” My blood ran cold as something nagged at me, a familiar feeling, one I had only felt when I had woken up in another world, that sense of otherness that knew no bounds.

I glanced up and felt the blood rush away from my face, as I saw a large skeletal, legless bat with wings of living night, and a round crescent hooded head reflecting a starscape of its own, rectangular eyes burning like a sunset.

Lunala, the Beast That Calls the Moon.

They had a Legendary pokémon on call, and I remembered that much of my work on catching stantler was as one of several solutions when it comes to maintaining spacetime bridges without needing external intervention. Hell Burnet was one of Laven’s co-workers.

“I really should have taken a look at more of Laven’s research, even if I was still learning a lot of the groundwork in terms of science.” I probably should have figured out in that one email she sent about how their bio-probe is establishing an alternate route to avoid the dangerous obstacles of between-spaces.

Stantler tend to portal within a more limited scale, and most pokémon outside of Legendaries have the same limitations.

“You’re the Faller I’m supposed to be helping?” The Lunala floating in front of us had to be Nebby, and couldn’t ignore the pressure she emitted without even trying. To my eyes her influence was like the firmament of the night sky had been brought down to earth, a power of Mind and Spirit that made reality tremble and crackle. “You’re even smaller than Lillie!”

She… sounded young, my mind conjuring the image of a teenager, just barely grown. She was a god perhaps, but a young one still coming into her own, learning the ropes of her role and purpose as a Legendary. I felt my body lose it’s tension, as I saw how the young god being surrounding us in a field of psychic energy, very gently pushing a feeling that kept the area free of people.

Lunala… Nebby tilted her head, gently floating down onto the ground with a quiet hum that cut through every mind and spirit in her reach.

“I haven’t seen you in some time, not since—” Her following words became static as a precious barrier broke at the familiar pressure and I fell, Akari and Mirko’s voices all I could hear.

Fleeting images of memory, knowledge and information, a hint of the structure of the multiverse and transdimensional travel. A tiny kernel of sand’s worth of knowledge of the breadth of the universe.

I saw a great and endless sea, infinite in scope and depth, touching every world no matter how distant, the Primordial Chaos, the Void from which all things in heaven and hell and earth had arisen from. An extremely chaotic and yet unchanging abyss, settling into layers upon layers of realms upon realms.

Within that sea of Nothing, I saw how the Sun and Moon understood the universe. From the Sea of Empyrean came an imaginary tree of timelines, spreading their branches and roots into an endless web of worlds, an ecosystem of unlikelier timelines being recycled into larger ones, and those liminal worlds made up the abyss between, some being home to Ultra Beasts, beyond the trunk of the great tree, all of them connected by the golden web of ultra-space as the lowest branches, guarded by many Solgaleo and Lunala, protecting the outer gates from invaders with the great hordes of Ultra Beasts forming an additional unwitted defense against the anomalies and beings from other cosmic trees of timelines, spilling out from the Root that was their origin, of What Is Reality.

I followed the journey I took, a distance that was both infinitely long and infinitely short, a twisted golden path carved through dozens of cosmic trees, walking along the branches of Yggdrasil, of Irminsul, Jianmu and Ashvattha, of Bai-Terek and more.

Something had punched a hole in the world, pulling one such tree closer by millimeters and light years both, creating a path of least resistance that their natural motion would follow, and it had pushed realms closer together, holes in existence that created looping tunnels across multiple realities, now closed off by the machinations of the Sun and Moon to protect the Infinite Realms from their denizens.

I saw beings unfolding like tesseracts, made up of trillions upon trillions of shards, overlapping across multiple realities at once, devouring worlds, extending their tendrils to this one… and shattering for the insult, set upon by gods and the unseen hands of the universe. I saw dead gods with heads the size of moons and bodies the size of planets tilting their heads, and turning away when the gates were closed to their passage.

I saw my home, that infinite tree of timelines that was my origin, captured within the grasp of the Original One’s Tree, sprouted from the Cosmic Egg that was His/Her/Their cradle.

I felt the Pressure of the Void, and I saw the shadow that blotted the stars turn into a shining quasar, the Blinding One exercising mercy and empathy once thought lost for centuries.

Ahh.

Soft. Am I dead?

Was my first thought back in the waking world after that daymare of a vision, and I felt the phantom pain and fear from when I had fallen into that crack between realities and seen the structure of the universe at its greatest level.

And understood effectively none of it outside a skin deep level as a simple mortal, in terms of knowledge and skills rather than needing godhood to understand dimensional physics.

What was I resting on?

It was furry, soft and warm… hmm.

“Mirko?” I shifted my head, and finally noted that my starter had laid down my head in her lap, gently inspecting me along with Lillie who seemed to be checking my vitals. “Did I pass out?”

Lillie nodded. “You reacted badly to Nebby’s aura, she’s young but she’s still a Legendary pokémon and should have known better when it comes to keeping her power in check.”

“Well it certainly jogged my memory when it comes to hurtling across the unforgiving Void Between All Realities.” Lillie flinched back, like I had said something strange. “What?”

“Most people don’t tend to remember crossing ultra-space, especially the greater void that connects it with other clusters of universes.”

“I kinda didn’t, it was sort of a black hole in my memory outside of occasional nightmares I’d forget in an hour.” I admitted as I pulled myself away from Mirko’s comfy thighs. “Though I can see why I forgot, and it’s still a bit fuzzy outside getting picked up by Necrozma.”

There was a silence started by my name dropping, and even Nebby seemed surprised by that. “I’m guessing that wasn’t known?”

“I only knew that an elder found you drifting through the Eternity Gates,” I blinked. “The doorways and angles that lead to the greater multiverse, patrolled by the oldest and most responsible Solgaleo and Lunala.” Nebby explained with a chipper psychic tone, like the existential horror of needing to guard the multiverse was quite normal.

And maybe for her it was.

“I haven’t seen Necrozma since I released them,” Selene sounded so very surprised. “I kinda thought Necrozma had run off to some far off corner of the universe to rest for a couple hundred years. Not that it’d be easy to tell for anyone even with psychic powers or precog.”

“Why is that?”

“The Aura of Legends is… much more potent than the aura of normal pokémon,” Nebby explained with a shrug of her massive wings. “We can ignore the effects of metaphysical abilities to a far greater degree due to our power and place in the world. So attempting to scry for information on us is… hard? Yes that.”

The concern on Lillie and Selene’s faces were clear as day. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

“People who meet Legendaries are… Marked by the encounter,” Lillie responded with a weary expression. “They tend to encounter way more disasters, run into pokémon more often… it’s like a subtle wrinkle in Destiny, making unlikely things a bit more likely.”

…

“I suppose I did leave on a journey with full knowledge I was like a catnip for extraterrestrial pokémon, would have been nice to have gotten more info though.” I said dryly, fury at the back of my mind.

Selene sneered. “The local branch of the International Police made a huge mess of what could be told to people, they’ve been squabbling with the League for months,” her disdain was obvious. “Acting like a bunch of fuckwits trying to get a new Faller in their hands, it’s why Tedesco placed you under the authority of Laven. That pissed them off so they made a mess with their connections in the League. Hell we thought you and Laven had been told about what contact with Legends entails.”

Oh those Motherfuckers—

“Someone is getting kicked in the head.” Was all I said with a sigh. “So you’re here to investigate weird shit, and Lillian got us in contact? Does she know?”

Selene denied it. “No, it was just a lucky break,” and now I was suspicious about Destiny being kind to me. “We thought it was a good idea if the two of you had people you could talk to…”

I raised an eyebrow. “So you want to be our friends?”

“Yep!” Was Selene’s chipper reply.

I offered a hand, and she shook it with no hesitation. “Sure, just no more heart attacks or someone is getting bitten.” I should probably stop threatening people with bites.

Selene smiled, “I make no such promises.” Akari laughed and Lillie watched her partner fondly.

We’ll see how this friendship will work out, won't we?

Chapter Text

El-Ahrairah 4.3

December 17th, 2022.

After that little incident when it came to jogging my memory, we had decided to try this again in a Pokémon Trainer park, which was essentially a public plaza and natural park in one, allowing pokémon to roam freely with their trainer and mingle without taking up space in crowded streets. We were waiting for the pair to arrive.

I had also gotten a good glimpse of what ‘domestic’ pokémon were like, the sub-sapient variants that tended to make up the bulk of the ecosystem when it comes to biomass, I was watching a spider that resembled a black eight legged ariados catch another microbug using a tiny version of Sticky Web, rapidly weaving a sticky net to trap a caterpillar, rapidly cocooning it in seconds, and poisoning it with fangs.

It also made it much more clear why bug repellant was so important when mosquitos can use shit like Leech Life in mass to drain your damn life away.

The other examples were small rat and mouse sized rattatas, and something that vaguely resembled a very boring dull yellow pikachu… that got eaten by a stray pidgeotto. Which was a bit traumatizing but I got over it real quick.

I looked away from the spider, and instead lay down on the soft grass, watching my team relax in the short and strangely soft and comfy grass. Mirko was sitting criss-cross, leaning back to enjoy the warm breeze, ears flicking back and forth with feverish energy. Jericho had made sport of devouring mammals scurrying in the soil, his mouth opening at a 90 degree angle to reveal his growing tusks and teeth.

He and Fleur were the most predatory of the pokémon on my team, though his species were a bit like bears in consuming the greatest variety of foods of any mammal. Males tended to have a greater percentage of meat in their diet, around forty to sixty percent with females favoring a plant diet of up to eighty five percent, though during pregnancy they switch places due to the burden of being a mother needing a diet rich in meat.

So he often hunted his food and brought it for me to cook up into healthy meals. I got used to it very fast, and fortunately watched enough nature documentaries in both this and my world to get used to it. Domestics were still kinda confusing especially the big ones like tauros who were basically big dumb cows with weak superpowers.

Mirko had some relatives that were basically just bunnies, and in her writing she described them as lesser spirits, pokémon like herself as spirits, and legendaries as Great Spirits. They had limited power and intelligence, taking up the niches that required only limited power and having a reproduction rate high enough to make up for it. They also needed less food pound for pound. A rabbit the size of Mirko would need maybe a third of what she needs, and can reproduce far faster in terms of both egg production and live birth.

“Mir!” I sighed when Mirko placed her head on top of mine with a smug aura, having blinked and been unable to see her coming. She had a very light step, which made it hard to track when she wanted to be affectionate and ambush me. Though I could always sense her with my aura, which she let me know subconsciously so I wouldn’t be startled.

“You’ve been using the remnants of Run Away I presume to improve your ability and movement capabilities?” Run Away gave pokémon with it the ability to dodge attacks and well… run away with far greater ease, a sort of intuitive adaptation for movement. “What about Klutz, have you figured out how to reject the effect of items?” It was a togglable skill that would serve useful for strategies involving throwing items or avoiding the touch of dangerous items pokémon can equip or absorb.

Mirko shook her head at the latter, and I chewed on my lips. I was gonna have to read up on that. “Also why are you being so cuddly right now?”

She just made a hiccuping sound of contentment, along with a gentle purring sound that involved a gentle grind of her teeth. Jericho made a honking sound of teasing laughter, and Mirko hissed.

“She’s probably in heat or something.” Akari’s voice called out, and it took me a second to decipher what she said.

“What?” Mirko twitched, growling her displeasure at the blue haired trainer.

“It’s a thing with a lot of pokémon, didn’t you read up how the buneary-line cycles in and out of heat about once a month?”

“I… kind of skimmed it,” probably not the best idea but whatever I could correct it. “Is that bad?”

“You should keep track of that stuff,” Akari said seriously. “While most pokémon don’t tend to get driven crazy or anything, some do, and some need to be checked in on due to the hormonal shifts. For Mirko, it’s basically just…”

I raised a brow. “A period? Why is it called heat then?”

Akari shrugged. “It’s really more of an estrous cycle, they reabsorb the endometrium instead of menstruating…” I heard her whisper lucky bitches under her breath and pretended not to hear it for her dignity. “Pokémon… cycles tend to be either pretty normal or really, really weird.”

Mirko opened her mouth, placed a paw on it and nodded, pointing to Akari.

“Hmm. What do I have to worry about then?” Mirko was still being cuddly but seemed oddly invested in the conversation.

“Nidoran will usually enter heat around the Spring Tide when the moon is at its fullest or darkest. They only tend to produce clutches once every eight lunar years, as in the orbital period.” So… once every 216 days? “It’ll mostly make him want to fight more often, and a bit more uhh… excitable. Llayda won’t really have heat, it’s more of a menstrual cycle once every seven months?”

That’s kind of weird isn’t it? I vaguely remember reading back home that a human kind of cycle is limited to about ten primate species, four bat species, elephant shrews and a spiny mouse species. Out of over five thousand species of mammals.

“Huh… interesting,” I’d be more embarrassed if I wasn’t fascinated by the general science of it. “So Fleur probably has an estrous cycle too?”

Akari nodded. “Yes, though they have far greater control over it, they can consciously induce it depending on the climate and local resources. They usually aim for late December so they can have kits in spring.”

“Why do you know so much about this?” I had to ask.

She brushed back a bang with a snort. “My home is in the Sternwing mountains, it’s the home of some of the strongest wild pokémon in the region, home to Dragons and Faerie Kings and Lucario Kingdoms. It’s a good territory for it, with mountains reaching five kilometers into the sky. We have to know everything about the pokémon around us so we don’t face any dangers like rutting aggrons and tyranitars or the rage of a mother Dragon.”

“Interesting conversation you two are having huh?” Selene slid into my awareness with a teasing grin, and I could see Lillie shyly waving at us from her left.

“Oh. Right, you exist.” I said dryly as my awareness expanded.

Selene choked on laughter.

“Come on out!” I heard Selene shout as she casually tossed six pokéballs in the span of a couple of seconds, which leapt back onto her belt like magic.

Six pokémon exploded onto the scene, and all my pokémon felt the pressure of a champion-level team, six distinct auras scraping and weaving around each other like old friends, and I took a deep, deep breath to keep my anxiety from spiking.

The first pokémon to enter the scene was an incineroar whose first action was flexing, his aura exploding like fire and shifting like dark smog. My aura reading had gotten better with time, where it used to be hard to keep it on now it was hard to keep it off. I could feel hundreds of auras flickering with energy and emotion, from instinctual fear to glee to joy and more.

His aura was proud, full of grim delight and mischief, and a frenetic joy to be out and about. I smiled, and moved on to the next pokémon, a large slowbro with an aura of Mind and Water, flowing like a lazy river, glancing over to me with a dull but kind expression on his derpy face. Selene’s third member was a tsareena, a bipedal plant pokémon with a humanoid appearance. There was an uncanny beauty to her, all the facets of the feminine clad within the kingdom of plants, and her aura extended like vines and unfolding flower buds, sparkling with emerald and jade and olive, cocking a hip with an almost sultry stare.

Her aura sparked with curiosity, amusement and content, a level of self confidence I sort of envied.

The fourth pokémon was… a salamence, stretching out wings of crimson, and lifting a muscled neck up into the air with a roar of triumph that made my skin crawl with its subharmonic vibrations. She was clearly a grown individual, far larger than what some older pokédex entries would say.

From what I had read up on, a lot of errors when it came to size and weight came down to fucked up statistical averages, or only accounting for freshly evolved individuals. Most pokémon had a growth factor in the months or sometimes years after evolution, maturing and gaining mass and size in a final hurrah for their physical development. A newly evolved salamence is going to be about five feet tall, ten feet long and over one hundred fifty hundred pounds, and will gain a few feet and hundreds of pounds.

Selene’s salamence was nine feet tall and nearly twenty feet in length and likely weighed around nine hundred pounds, and her aura twisted around her like a contained hurricane, a kaleidoscope of indigo, celeste, azure and dark violet and mauve that clashed with violence and power. She offered a draconic grin at my stare, pride puffing up her chest.

Cool.

I took a deep breath, nodding at her before slowly moving on to the fifth member, a magnezone with an aura that was all sharp angles and lines, colored like stainless steel and covered in goldenrod yellow circuits, twisting and shifting to analyze the environment around them. Their aura showed calm, focused interest, floating on invisible fields of electromagnetism.

Selene was holding onto the sixth and smallest member, a little guy with a conical rocky body covered in light blue crystals of various shapes and sizes, and a white fluffy collar surrounding a small head with bright blue eyes, a light blue crystal on their head and flat diamond shaped ears. Carbink?

Their aura was utterly refined, like smooth facets of smoky quartz with hints of rose quartz inclusions sparking fiercely against the dense fury of Salamence’s aura.

Why did these energies remind me of the Void?

Selene smiled at my reaction. “I can tell you’re pretty enraptured by my team, they’re the best huh?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “For you yeah, I think I’m fine with my team though.” I couldn’t help the way my affection warmed my chest, Mirko just purred again, her aura turning soft and bubbly with love, and the aura of my team mirrored her reaction in different ways. Jericho’s aura just rippled quietly with affection, Llayda’s vibrated with compassion and pleasure, while Fleur’s aura just burned a shade brighter with a surprised burst of happiness.

They really were good people, even to someone as weird as me.

Selene nodded. “Good! Now since this is a Trainer Park, that makes this an excellent place for some training,” she clapped her hands together. “So you’ll get to see the power of an Elite trainer in action, and Lillie and I can teach you some cool ass shit!”

My lips were pulled into an excited grin.

December 20th, 2022.

I felt sweat drip down my face as I saw Mirko spar with Selene’s tsareena that she had named Queen. The grass-type was a monster on every level, with a potential of Deep Purple and with an accumulated 12-star power, able to outspeed Mirko by over an order of magnitude. Even as she lightly sparred with Mirko, I could tell the amount of energy she was holding back was immense, like a nuclear bomb waiting to go off. In a very literal sense, a single move from Queen could sunder a city.

Mirko was going all out while Queen was merely playing and teaching, showing off various ways to dodge, shift stances and kicking techniques. She blocked a full power Jump Kick with her hand, showing off how even her weakest limbs were stronger than anything my starter could dish out.

I watched Queen fight, noting how she often fought with a heavy focus on offense with a secondary focus on support with the use of moves like Rapid Spin, Knock Off and Aromatherapy. Though she was primarily using her offensive skills since this was a one-on-one spar, using Rapid Spin to deflect and dodge attacks was inspired however.

“Don’t be discouraged if your pokémon aren’t able to do much against my team,” Selene piped up, her aura gently unfurling into a great storm of energies. “I’ve been training with them for five years now, and they’re high-level pokémon.”

“It’s more… awe inspiring than discouraging, nothing from my home comes close if you’re talking about living things.” I replied, watching her aura fill with curiosity and sympathy. “I’m pretty sure an elephant wouldn’t be able to knock down much more than a couple of trees or a house, much less a mountain.” I had heard some reports of what champion-class trainers could pull off, moving literal mountains was within their purview.

I had heard stories of pokémon literally shattering landmasses if allowed to rampage.

“Your world must be mighty boring then.” I shrugged at her response.

“Wars are more common in my world from what I’ve checked,” I rubbed my chin. “You haven’t had a major war since the Risland-Nihoh War, and my world is currently embroiled in 27 of them, along with multiple ongoing genocides, hell my own birth country has been wrecking a region for about as long as I’ve been alive.”

Selene looked disturbed. “That’s kind of…”

“Fucked up? Yes, yes it is.” From what I can tell, their final hurrah in mass scale warfare in the 80s makes up most of their death toll, with most of their wars killing maybe thousands to tens of thousands, with two wars in the 20s and 40s killing in total about as many as the First World War. The War in the 80s had apparently killed over one hundred fifty million people, making up for their smaller wars in a single burst. “What were we talking about again?”

Selene palmed her face. “Right, moving on. I’ve been doing my best to work out your battle style, and what do you know about it?”

I perked up with a tiny grin. “I know the basic definition is just how you train and tell your pokémon how to fight, like being hyper offensive, slow and steady or using stall and so on?”

Selene nodded. “Pretty much, I learned that in my trainer school back in Kanto before I moved to Alola with my mom.”

“I suppose I tend to focus on helping each member of the team fit into an optimal role or roles, with moves to help them either set up or defend themselves. They all know utility moves, and I’ve been thinking of terrain moves and weather moves to help them further. Mirko I’ve had her fit into an attacking role, what I like to call a physical sweeper, though she can lean into a mixed sweeper with the right moves like Swift, and Shadow Ball. Mirko uses Work Up and now Agility to support her attacks, and I’ve been thinking of adding Double Team so she can max out her ability to avoid hits.”

Selene gestured for me to continue.

“Jericho, we’ve worked out that he’s going to be a lead both out of preference and suitability. He uses field effects like Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes to weaken the opposing team, and has a good movepool to act as a sweeper too, and has Roar to force the opposing team to deal with entry hazards.” A trainer I had battled yesterday got three of his pokémon poisoned with Jericho’s Roar before he used Whirlwind to blow him back into his ball… and then got torn to shreds by Llayda.

I paused to take a breath.

“Llayda is almost pure offense aside from her love for using Tail Whip and Charm to weaken her opponents, along with Aqua Ring and Work Up, that I’m hoping to replace with Belly Drum to max out her offensive strength in one burst. She also knows Ice Spinner and Steel Roller to counter opposing terrains. Fleur seems to prefer a role as an offensive pokémon using Calm Mind and Stored Power but doesn’t mind a secondary role in boosting her teammates with Wish, and using her Magician to steal items, and we’ve been working on mastering Psychic Terrain.”

Selene narrowed her eyes. “Seems like you’re pretty focused on setting up, using moves to strengthen your pokémon both individually and as a team. As well as training each of your pokémon to be able to act independently, getting them to observe, orient, decide and then act to perform optimally in battle.”

“I can be pretty bad at reacting, and I want to get better at it,” I blustered a bit at Selene’s curious gaze. “I want to better control the battle, so I give my pokémon the tools to do so, whether it’s learning more moves or experimenting with old ones.”

“Sounds about right, Akari is more of a maneuvering tactic trainer, she uses overwhelming and focused force to break through an opposing team’s defenses, unbalancing them in the process and defeats them in a single short final battle. You seem to be more a control and attrition trainer, you’re aiming to control the field so you can do what you want and wear down the opposite side with utility moves or moves that gradually weaken them.”

“That’s accurate?” Hmm… were some Trainer Schools basically teaching their students military tactics? “Is that why I tend to lose more often than not to Akari?”

Selene made a so-so gesture with her right hand. “Ehh. It’s more that you just have opposing battle styles, and she can react more effectively since she’s more used to this kind of stuff. We actually have pretty similar styles, I love wearing down my opponents, it’s very… cathartic.”

“Teach me!” I made my eyes as wide as possible, clasping my hands together and making my lip quiver for maximum emotional manipulation (thank you Llayda).

Selene just laughed.

December 23rd, 2022.

Over the next few days, I absorbed as much advice from Selene as possible in terms of battle and learned about better ways to take care of pokémon from Lillie as a pokémon ecologist.

Selene taught me about practicing battle drills, a way to learn movement patterns, defenses, and more established scenarios instead of just basic targets and mental exercises. As well as various ways to provide them exercise and physical conditioning such as taking on construction jobs, cleaning jobs involving heavy debris or going out into the wilds and pushing boulders, knocking down trees or attacking the sides of stony hills. Llayda was absurdly strong of course, able to lift and throw multiple tons without breaking a sweat. Mirko practiced her kicks by shattering boulders, and slicing trees in half, and Fleur learned breathing exercises to better convert more of her inner energy into fire.

Lillie was a pretty interesting source on cultivating the strength of one’s pokémon, in terms of both health and power from being around her partner. Well girlfriend obviously, seriously those two were adorable, and I wasn’t that oblivious. I had seen them kiss one time when I got distracted by a butterfree and walked into a clearing.

“So I can tell you’re putting a lot of work into increasing their potential,” Lillie commented as Llayda walked over to her with shining eyes, then offering a light scratch to her furry head. “Do you know the general basic methods of increasing the potential of a pokémon?”

“I think there’s a few methods? One involves training the body and their moves, increasing their own reserve of natural energy?” Which was basically just plain old exercise, in this case it involves stretching metaphysical muscles on top of physical muscle. “Or using power sources to feed their own growth?”

Lillie nodded. “It’s why most trainers buy elemental dust, it’s both a supplement and good for their health. Pokémon can also draw energy from ley lines and areas and objects rich in elemental energies, like flowing water or enchanted forests for Llayda. It’s why going on a journey is really important for a lot of trainers, it exposes them to new energies and experiences over time.”

Interesting. “So do pokémon draw on outside energy naturally, or can they be taught to do so?”

Lillie offered a half smirk reminiscent of her partner’s own smiles. “That’s an excellent question, part of training a pokémon for battle involves increasing their potential, in mind, body and soul. Mostly metaphorically.” I understood that much, the more physically fit they were, the more they pushed their moves and abilities, it grew their capacity to handle and generate aura.

“Mind, body and soul…” I tapped my fingers together, pondering on the correlation. Aura is life energy, the stronger the body, the more life energy they can generate and withstand. But the mind was an important factor too wasn’t it? “Pokémon don’t get stronger just by improving their bodies, their physical energy, they can increase their mental and spiritual energy too!”

The 21 year old blonde offered a rather adorable thumbs up. “You got it in one, Aura itself seems to be the union of physical, cognitive and spiritual energies… at least that’s what I’ve been told by Nebby and Hapu since she’s an aura master. Most trainers tend to only focus on physical energies, physical conditioning and battling, and cultivate the other energies more by accident? It’s the high level trainers that tend to go all out and train all three aspects.”

“Is it a matter of people not being told, or it being very difficult?” I asked, finding myself interested.

“Kind of both from what Selene’s told me? Getting their pokémon in shape is a lot easier and more intuitive, and training moves does train spiritual energies since aura is what powers moves.” Lillie sat down, leaning against a tree while Llayda placed herself on her lap.

I followed them to the ground, crossing my legs. “So exercising mental energies has a different method I’m guessing?”

Lillie nodded, scritching Llayda under her chin. “It’s easier and harder than you think, it’s strengthened by things like meditation, studying and experiences. Drawing on the connections to things they find important, all of them make pokémon and people stronger and more grounded, a stronger mental state, a greater well of mental energy makes their power skyrocket to new levels.”

So it’s some type of psychoactive power source then? “How does exercising spiritual power work then? Practicing moves and abilities is an obvious one, and you mentioned drawing on other energy sources?”

She nodded. “You could say it’s a lot like stretching a muscle and like expanding the output of a generator. Practicing moves until their well runs dry, pushing for both maximum and minimum energy so they can practice and expand their output over time. They can also feed on external sources of energy, which is something they do when they win a battle or from the bond between humans and pokémon.”

“Elemental items too?” She nodded and I tilted my head at the idea. “I’m guessing that learning how to control their own energy is a big part of it?” I had noted that my breathing exercises and pushing my aura to move and shift and exist seemed to be making it stronger. “And foci like type-boosting items are some of the more effective means, alongside exploring the world?”

“I don’t know everything, most of this I picked up from others, but you seem interested and I like to help.” I smiled at her, feeling hopeful at that declaration.

I wondered… then and there, what else was there to learn?

Akari looked nervous and twitchy, holding a letter in her hand with an unreadable expression and an aura coiling and twisting with a mix of emotions so intense I couldn’t tell what was going on without getting a headache.

I had gotten to know Lillie a little better after her teaching me what she knew about aura and interesting tidbits to improve my training. She liked playing the flute for one thing, and she loved Alola, the place that had taught her so much in her youth, the region that had saved her from despair.

Not that I ever said as much to her face. Not my place.

“I’m going back home.”

I blinked, once, then twice.

“Huh.” She was leaving?

She let out a panicked cough. “Just for a few days, you can come along if you want. The clan did express some interest in meeting you.”

“Oh.”

Oh boy… why did I have a bad feeling about this?

Chapter Text

El-Ahrairah 4.4

December 24th, 2022.

I rubbed my palms nervously as I clung to the saddle of a Fairchild pidgeot, as well as latched onto Akari for further support. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this I hate this—

Her clan lives deep in the mountains, far off the beaten path and thus needing flying pokémon or pokémon able to climb them. So they had a ferry of a Fairchild born and raised pidgeot, enormous flyers some eight feet tall and fifteen feet long and with a wingspan of twenty five feet, and a body mass of some two hundred kilograms. Impossibly enormous by most standards, they’d probably be capable of flight in my world, maybe, with some good thermals.

Their wing loading was under the max 25 kilograms per meter square, so with good enough thermals they should be able to fly. Though most bird pokémon had a far greater capacity than a mere 25 kilograms, closer to the hundreds of kilograms cuz they’re far stronger, and have access to far more energy and control over air as an element.

Their method of flight is a lot closer to a strange hybrid between conventional bird flight and the flight mechanics of planes. In the simplest of terms, for flight you need two things, propulsion, (a forward force and lift), and an upward force. Wings provide the lift with their shape. But as speed increases, pressure decreases so wings are shaped so that airflow increases more above the wing than below it, resulting in more pressure below the wing than above it. The pressure difference pushes the wing (and the object/being attached to it) up.

But it can’t do that without movement so it needs propulsion whether through flapping or the generation of force through a propeller or turbofan. But regardless of how hard pokémon break physics, flapping becomes an increasingly inefficient tactic at high speeds and size. Which is where their flying type energy comes in handy when it comes to controlling airflow and generating thrust. Technically speaking, taking control of every bit of air around them can just let them float.

Until you realize the sheer amount of precision required.

Instead they rely on generating a powerful current of air, a horizontal funnel of wind that sucks up more air, generating a pressure differential, and then adding more power as needed, bending the winds to their needs, and adding incredible kinetic energy with their aura. So they basically generate a propeller out of air, creating a constant vortex of air along with a jetstream they can manipulate to reduce aerodynamic losses.

Which works well for them at speeds of up to around 500 mph, then they generally switch to a jet engine regime. Compressed air and exhausting it as a high speed high temperature flow when they want to break the sound barrier. Which explains how the fuck they can break Mach 2.

From what I can tell, they can brute force it, but why would they? Whoever can develop the technique with the least energy cost can survive to pass it on to their kids, since they’ll have an easier time surviving without suffering a drain on their energy reserves. Their ability to reduce air friction and adjust the temperature of air also protects them from things like the cold, or the extreme heat of flying at supersonic speeds.

And I totally wasn’t monologuing to myself to avoid my pathological fear of heights while riding on the back of a bird that was moving at over a hundred miles per hour.

“I regret everything.” I spoke aloud, shaking like a leaf as I held onto Akari, glancing over to, to… too high.

The view was gorgeous, as I witnessed the natural beauty of the Sternwing mountains, vast mountains covered in forests, shaped by natural forces into great empires of earth, stone, plant and ice. Pillars of the earth rising thousands of meters into the air, capped by glaciers or snow free by the decree of the dragons I saw in the distance.

The world started to spin and I immediately dove my face into Akari’s back before I threw up or fainted, letting the darkness and her warmth soothe me.

“It’s not much farther now, Mount Juntoku isn't that far from Taisen even if 80% of Shiromiya is sorta incredibly dense wilderness outside the Routes.” Akari was doing her best to reassure me… and failing.

“Mount fucking Juntoku is at least a hundred twenty miles away from the urban core of Taisen, and is within the heartland of an area of wilderness that covers a quarter of the prefecture. Ten thousand square kilometers of land more pristine than even the bottom of the ocean in my trash heap of a homeworld…”

“How is that a downside?” Akari asked with a puzzled tone.

“I’m currently cowering in terror! All sense of logic has fled me! Fuck me! I hate this!”

I had gotten a much deeper understanding of Akari’s home in the last few minutes before landing, the girl gently explaining it to me as I calmed down from my fright.

The Shirogane clan… were less a mere clan and more an offshoot of the Celestic, with a population of over nine hundred fifty thousand, and more or less held sway over the spine of Nihoh. Akari had definitely oversimplified a lot of what her people were in truth, they were a mixing of many different branches of the Celestic clans who had splintered or died out due to wars between them and the Waajin, with the Ebizu being their main contributor to human life in this region, along with other Celestic groups that still held to their older ways of life.

Only Sinnoh had a greater population of Celestic descendants with over one million members split across the Diamond and Pearl clans and their offshoots and the region surrounding Celestic Town, and perhaps triple that including people who didn’t know about their heritage. Which was… a far kinder fate than what had happened to the other ethnic groups of Japan in my world.

The Shirogane were split into four domains, Akari’s domain was that of Asagitatsu, the people of the east, of spring and wood, defending the doors and barring the chthonic dark forces. The Suzaku were another, the people of the south, of summer and fire guarding the mountains from the physical menace of their people’s many enemies.

Then came the domain of Byakko, the people of the west, of autumn and metal, the kingmaker guarding the clans from the predatory forces seeking to steal the kingdom of Shirogane. The last was the domain of Genbu, the people of the north, of winter and water, the greatest lorekeepers, shamans and channelers and alchemists watching the glory of Sinnoh, the land of the World Spirit that birthed the universe.

Asagitatsu more or less ruled the entire eastern face of the Sternwing mountains, Byakko ruled the western half, while Genbu dominated the northern central spine and Suzaku ruled the southern central spine. A region within a region, a kingdom that held power by controlling the very heart of the continent, once having had sway over the trade routes that bound the six great nations of Tohoku together.

“You’re very lucky I actually read up in detail more about your people, because you gave me the impression the Shirogane were small instead of being an entire kingdom of mountain clans. Though this one settlement only having a few thousand people clears a lot of that up. What was it called?”

“Apakotan,” Akari offered absently as our rider pidgeot began to slow her landing, and the first thought on my mind was that doorway village was a strange name for a town. “It’s the place I was born, where I've been raised my entire life.” There was a warm nostalgia in her voice. I couldn't quite understand it myself.

My home wasn't exactly something great to look back on…

I blinked as we approached Mount Juntoku, five peaks making up the volcanic complex that speared some four kilometers into the sky. Mountains in Nihoh were far higher than in Japan, at least for the famous and more charismatic ones. Mount Coronet for example peaked over eight point eight kilometers into the sky.

It dwarfed any volcano on Earth that wasn't under the sea, and was ancient, at the bare minimum it was over four billion years old, and its core was measured to be even older, older than the solar system, a preserved fragment of primordial inchoate matter that had been nestled deep within the core of the planet before being uplifted when early plate tectonics began.

“There it is.” Akari pointed to her hometown which was nestled within the forested highlands surrounding the five peak mountain, at least fifteen hundred feet into the air. It was a montane deciduous forest, characteristic forests of beech, stone pine and spruce with an understory of Sasa bamboo. I could see a few gogoat from the air, along with various deer pokémon, mainly stantler, and wild emboar and pignite. There seemed to be relatively normal pigs among them, a domestic species?

The kotan itself was located in an upland river basin, clearly having built itself around the vital resource. There were well over a thousand houses, and I could see several being built atop flat foundations of packed earth and stone, wooden columns and bamboo reeds assembled together with more modern materials.

Design wise it had the makings in layout of a post town, an administrative set of buildings which probably housed both the local government and local organizations, rest areas and lodgings easily marked by the multiple battlefields and restaurants and so on, I could see several stilt warehouses along with numerous garden plots on every single home. But it was gorgeous and far larger than I expected, spanning what felt like miles.

The entire town was surrounded by a palisade along with several hills acting as fortifications and one acting as a… courthouse?

Our ride began to brake, tilting backwards, raising her wings to catch and slow her descent. I could see an older man and woman waiting at the landing spot, where I could see several other flying pokémon, a corviknight, a charizard, and an altaria with wings like clouds and cotton candy.

Pidgeot landed with a quiet chirp, and I launched myself off and back onto solid and safe ground.

I glanced over to the pair of older people approaching us, the man was tall and stout of frame with deep set eyes and thick wavy white hair, with a proud beard sported on his face, oddly familiar blue eyes filled with curiosity. He wore an elaborate robe covered in embroidery that reminded me of the patterns of Dialgia, and carried a sword secured by a strap on his shoulder.

The woman wasn’t quite as old as the man, maybe in her 30s? Her robe was similar but with colors in pinks and whites and the patterns of Palkia. She wore some type of… hat, headband thing that shielded her scarlet hair. She kinda looked like Akari a bit, with the same wavy and curly hair and deep-set eyes and height. She had markings like whiskers, gently curving lines that made me think of a fox.

Akari was silent throughout my gradual scan of the two strangers, the older man offered a toothy grin.

“Well then, aren’t you going to offer your grandpa and auntie an old fashioned hello?”

Akari raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be busy with high chief business?” I choked as the word sunk in, within Shirogane culture, the chief was the elected leader of individual settlements, originally elected solely by elders along with two sub-chiefs to look after the affairs of the people, which expanded into something like a reflection of the daimyo of Nihoh as they adapted with the changing times.

The high chief was a paramount chief, the highest authority in the domain of many, many settlements each ruled by their own chiefdoms. Something like the rulers of confederations, like the mamanatowick of the Powhatan or the Khan of the Turko-Mongol peoples.

“High chief… like a kando-nipa?” A title like sky, heaven chief couldn’t be ignored on a whim when it came to people ruling over a mountain range larger than Virginia in terms of area.

“You can call me heavenly chief or a lord if that makes more sense for you,” his grin was toothy and mischievous, rubbing his nose. “Or perhaps the Champion of Asagitatsu, it’s just as accurate.”

“Father… please don’t scare her, you’ve run off far too many tourists with your insanity. I still remember the ‘rogue dragonite incident.” She said complete with air quotes and a haunted expression.

I blinked and turned to an Akari who was turning a faint shade of red.

I pointed an accusing finger at her. “I knew you were a Disney Princess, my intuition was correct.”

Akari replied by attempting to blind me with her hands.

“Cironupp, cironupp, cironupp.” I heard a little girl chant the word I directly understood as English, but if I listened carefully, I could make out the overlap of a foreign language. Fortunately the most common language in the world was just a minor variant of English, so I’d rarely suffer the vertigo type feeling.

Poor Fleur was tolerating the chant of fox, fox, fox far better than I thought she would, letting the small girl guide her upper legs like they were little arms. The town was far larger up close, and even had a sign that was in both their weird runic English script, and in katakana.

It took me five seconds to figure out it was literally just the simple substitution cipher symbols used in the anime. The main trouble there was that there are at least five different scripts, used for different written languages. So Kalosian probably uses the XY one, but in written French.

Looking at a city limit sign had given me a headache, since I could still fucking read it. Seeing a double helping of English and weird letters does wonders in creating headaches. Anyways, her hometown was actually quite sizable, existing within the valleys and plateaus surrounding Mount Juntoku, with a population of about thirty thousand souls, with paths and roads leading to dozens of settlements across the eastern face of the Spine of Tohoku.

Akari had gotten dragged off by her aunt, a lady by the name of Abenaka so I had gotten stuck with the old man with twinkling eyes and a crazy grin.

“I can see my granddaughter has taken a shine to you,” Aterui spoke up with his deep and craggy voice, and I felt an immense pressure settling in the air, not out of malice but… “It’s good to see her making friends, I would be quite disappointed if the world beyond these walls were cruel.” That he would be upset by the matter was left unsaid on his part. “I’ve been informed of most of your adventures on Akari’s part, Asagitatsu has its quarrels with Cipher and its allies.” There was a sharpness to his tone, and he pointed with his chin to one building that reminded me of a shrine, though it seemed… oddly harsher in design, more rugged and wild than the clean Shinto-esque shrines of Tohoku.

I clicked my tongue, and Fleur’s head snapped to meet mine, she gently pushed the girl off, booped her with her snout and caught up in a handful of bounds and leaps.

I followed Aterui into the shrine, and paused at what was held within, it was a modest hall with multiple also modest statues and paintings depicting pokémon including Legendaries. They were… interesting, I could see small stylized Legendary Birds hunting prey, with ice and fire and lightning, in winter, spring and summer.

“I see you’re curious about the kamuy depicted here, not many worship the gods anymore, simply considering them powerful pokémon instead of existences far greater than ourselves. Mata-cir-kamuy, the god of winter and ice,” he cleared his throat with a smile. “Sak-apto-cir-kamuy, the god of summer and thunderstorms, Paykar-abe-cir-kamuy, god of spring and fire. The winged mirages, the birds of Ice, Lightning and Fire.”

“Mhmm. Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.”

“It must be strange for you, coming from such a distant land where the gods can not be seen or heard,” I nodded, already knowing that he knew from his aura. “But to us, it is something we have known for a long time. We lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came. We are familiar with the ways and woes of the gods, we remember.”

His aura was a quiet muted mantle, twining and pushing and pulling like a tide, and I could tell he was using the sheathe technique to keep most of his aura within his body.

“I was never told why Akari was told to come back?” I decided to ask about something that was bugging me.

“She’ll be 20 in a few days,” was his answer, and I blinked a few times. “I suppose it never crossed her mind or she planned to tell you when she finished setting up for your stay here. Though it’s more of an excuse, there are things we must tell her.”

“That makes sense actually, there’s definitely a lot I still don’t know about Akari, and I do want to get to know her better.” I cupped my hands together, shuffling from side to size at his intimidating gaze.

Aterui laughed. “I think you’ll be good for her,” I was doubtful about his assertion. “I expect your stay here will reveal many things. Including more about the secrets of aura I’m sure you’re aching to unravel. How far have you gotten with the Four Principles?”

I felt my grin spread as far as it could. “Shroud and sheathe have come fairly easy to me, but I’m still working on learning surge and figuring out even one move seems to be too much for me.” I replied honestly.

“It’s to be expected, that book of hers is meant to be an early introduction, mainly focused on cultivating one’s growth through coordinating one’s body, breath and spirit. It’s why so much of it is focused on the visualization of guiding aura through the body, and through one’s nodes to balance energy flow. External agents like elemental items and berries then serve as a focus and source of elemental energies, and the four basic techniques are more a goal to strive for…”

“Akari already figured out how to generate fire.”

He leaned back, something protective surging into the air. “Oh did she?”

“I’m guessing you’re not supposed to skip to moves so fast?”

“You would be correct—” there was a shout from outside, and I could hear Fleur’s concern, ears swiveling in the direction of the sound. “Perhaps we can retire from this conversation?”

I nodded.

Walking out of that shrine, I didn’t expect to see the usually rather chill Happy explode with rage at the jeering comments being made by someone about Akari’s age.

“So you finally came crawling back here after your dear old grandpa kicked you out of the village for being the kid of that waste of space and that stupid foreign bi—”

Reality seemed to crumple under the weight of Aterui’s gaze and aura of disappointment, and the boy who had brought Happy into a rage shrunk back and cowered at the presence of the high chief.

“I believe it is time for you to go on patrol Bikki, the weavile are growing restless and arrogant. We don’t want our livestock to lose any eggs. It’s a harsh winter.”

Bikki turned pale, and fled with his tail between his legs, and Akari stiffened up at the almost sad gaze of her grandfather.

“Akari?” She clenched a fist at my voice and shook her head.

“We’ll speak more of this when we get home granddaughter, I’d like to hear more of your journey.”

“Yes grandfather.” Akari sounded discouraged and tired and it felt… wrong. Aterui frowned and sighed, his concern palpable.

What the hell had I walked myself into?

Chapter Text

El-Ahrairah 4.5

December 25th, 2022.

Christmas wasn’t really celebrated in this region of the world though I knew western regions had a variant that was closer to Yule since Christianity didn’t exist here. Something to do with delibird, stantler and a magical man who may or may not be some unknown god. Actually with stantler portals maybe Santa does exist in this world.

I was growing way too used to this world’s insane logic.

Akari’s childhood home was large and comfortable looking, it looked like a cross between traditional Japanese and Ainu design, maybe about fifteen by twenty meters. The house itself was partitioned into multiple rooms using fusuma and shoji dividers, but it was arranged around a central hearth which acted like a living room crossed with a kitchen, some old leftovers from their culture I guess?

I hadn’t taken many opportunities to look into the aspects of Tohokun culture that were familiar to my home, but I had done some research. But right now it was morning, and I was borrowing their kitchen to make some food for the team now that I had the chance. Eating leftovers was okay, but something fresh was good when you could manage it.

I grabbed a note I found pinned to my chest that I hadn’t noticed due to my general grogginess in the morning.

Brandy,

Whenever you’re ready, I’m going to need to talk to you on that special stone of yours. Meet us in the garden when you’re free.

-Aterui.

I blinked, and went back to my cooking, lightly bumping hips with Mirko as we got to work. I had gotten the hang of making food, having taken a look at the alternative when it came to canned and packaged meals. It was mostly either an option of kibble, normal canned food and a rich and dense chili of ingredients designed for generic Types and taxon. So something like canned fire-type mammalian polyvore kibble.

As I had mentioned before it was sort of like an empanada, or more accurately it was a turnover, a type of pastry made by placing a filling on a piece of dough, folding the dough over, sealing it and then baking or frying it. Pokémon food pellets were basically a fried knish, a mixture wrapped in delicate dough, egg washed and then fried or baked.

We had already done the first step days ago, because building up a supply of homemade dough was important when it came to making food. The first step in making food for the whole team was to whisk flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl. Make a well in the center, and add beaten egg, vinegar, cooking oil, rendered fat, and warm water, appropriate substitutes for where needed (for different ‘mons).

Mirko and I would mix it by hand until the dough pulled together, and we would turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until it was soft, smooth and elastic. Then we’d wrap the dough in plastic wrap and set it aside to make the filling… or store it away for future use in the cold stasis of the Backpack.

The filling tended to be the more involved steps when it came to cooking meals, and I lamented the loss of my old food processor, it meant doing far more things by hand until I found a better and more durable brand.

I sighed and began by rolling out my dough on a well floured board made out of torterra wood renewably harvested from their branches due to its incredible durability and resistance to damage. I divided the dough in half, as I began to make Jericho’s meal while Mirko made her own. We split the difference in terms of labor, making two meals each. The dough was rolled into a larger rectangle about an eighth of an inch thick, pulling the corners with small fingers. The filling had been more of a chore, involving several ingredients to satisfy Jericho as an omnivore with a slight lean towards flesh.

One pound of ground domestic ekans, salted and peppered and coated in garlic powder, and garnished with a pinch of poison ivy that I handled with gloves and aura, along with lightly sautéed sweet nightshade (potato) and slices of oran, persim and pecha berries, and a mash of oran and sitrus to make use of their combined regenerative properties.

I mixed the filling in a bowl, and placed half of the filling over one long end of the dough, a few inches from the edge, and brushed egg wash on the opposite end and a little on the sides. I gently poured the sauce I made from honey, water, vinegar, soy sauce and garlic which would give it the sweet flavor that Jericho loved most of all. The final bit was a light dash of nutritional additives, vitamins and trace elements that pokémon tend to need for their growth and the cultivation of their power.

Once that was done I stretched the free end of the dough to cover the filling and began to roll it towards the egg-washed side. I stopped short and folded the last few inches over the top, then pressed into the seam to seal it and rolled it over so that it was on the bottom. I trimmed off excess dough off both ends and marked it into sixteen equal pieces. I floured the side of my hand and pressed into the marks, rubbing back and forth against the counter to separate each piece. One by one I positioned them just right so I could squish down the top and tuck everything into the center to form a round knish-thing.

I brushed the bottoms with olive oil and placed it on the prepared frying sheet and brushed egg wash on top. I rubbed my brow with a sigh, swaying slightly as I started from the top for Fleur’s meal.

One pound of ground chicken (torchicken?) with an onion, salt and pepper and two whole eggs with slices of sitrus, cheri, and watmel berry with the same oran-sitrus mash. Something about the mash isolated it from having an effect with their natural elemental alignment, along with condensed oak wood pellets for her to burn.

Folded, washed with egg and olive oil which left baking or frying as the final step.

“Mi… mil!” Hah, finished this shit! “Lapor!” Mirko looked smug and happy, and I felt a spike of jealousy at how clean she was with the use of her weaker variant of Tidy Up. Pokémon are bullshit!

I clapped my hands, well I guess it was time to cook!

I walked to the back of Akari’s home, which opened up into a massive garden full of wildflowers, with native trees, and herbaceous plants and bamboo serving as undergrowth. I could see a few things crawling around the undergrowth, domestic rattata with their brown-purple fur, insects and other microbugs fluttering and skittering about, and larger pokémon like a handful of bidoofs doing their thing.

My four pokémon were all out, exploring the garden carefully. Fleur was sniffing an oak tree with an appreciative look, Mirko was stretching, and I noted her flexibility for a moment before my attention was caught by Jericho eating a butterfly with a nasty look, he spat it back out with a cough, and I raised an eyebrow. His ears flushed a deeper shade of purple and I smirked.

For Llayda I was noting her growth spurt, she was over 43 inches tall and had gained a dozen pounds since evolving. Current expectations were that she’d gain another 16 inches and weigh somewhere between one hundred and one hundred thirty pounds.

I noted Jericho had another growth spurt too, with a head height of about four feet and a body weight of a hundred pounds. Seems his growth factor had run its course… and it also meant when he evolved his height would increase to about six feet tall, and weight to about three hundred pounds. His growth factor would swiftly add up another three feet in height and an additional three hundred pounds in weight.

He’s going to need at least 5000 to 8000 calories a day… fuck me.

I wonder if I should look into luna-luna trees, they are an interesting and rare species native to certain parts of the nidoran-range, forming a unique ecology incompatible with conventional life. They use a mixture of water and ethyl alcohol as its solvents with polysaccharides serving as the primary structural molecule, with simple sugars mobilized by an increase in water concentration and crystallized when the concentration shifts to alcohol.

Their outer tissues are structural starches, insoluble in water and ethanol. With a crystal core of sugars bound by alkyds and proteins, surrounded by a sheathe of photosynthetic cells, and a vacuum-resistant exoskeleton. They had a number of adaptations to extreme cold, their solvent wouldn’t freeze until reaching -25 degrees Fahrenheit and was suffused in strange exotic proteins that let it survive a range from -200 degrees Fahrenheit up to 300 degrees in the same scale. They carefully hold and recycle carbon dioxide, oxygen and water, shuffling them as needed, storing their liquids and carbon rich and nitrogen rich chemicals in their core in times of scarcity.

They had a range of adaptations to vacuum, low and high temperatures, and just seemed to be… both alien and biologically incompatible, with toxic alcoholic and hypersaline secretions and starches easily broken down by the amylase in mammalian saliva. Nothing in their habitats could eat them…

With the exception of the nidoran line who could easily lick away at their skin like they were candy, and loved devouring the crystal core for their rich source of nutrients and caloric dense mass of alcohol, sugar and protein and other nutrients. They would leave nothing but clean non-toxic secretions, letting them remediate and recondition soil from one biome to use in another.

It definitely fueled a lot of the early theories that the nidoran line had adapted to inhabit the moon, since luna-luna trees are native to the sparse vacuum desert of the moon, and nidoran have adaptations to survive extreme lunar conditions… Though the ‘Shiny’ subspecies documented on the moon seem to prefer the oxygenated underground that spans the mares of the moons, lava tubes expanded into small continents worth of living space by countless rock, ground, steel and ice types, some variants of known species… others not so much.

I was given a gentle push by a bemused Mirko and I blushed. Oops.

I continued walking into the garden, which seemed to span about a football field, easily facilitated by the natural and chaotic yet organized layout of the town. The trees and plants became taller, larger and more wild as I walked deeper into the garden, berry trees gently waving in the mountain air.

I walked for about a hundred feet, and stepped into a clearing of flat grass and dirt, where I could see Akari and her grandfather. He was holding his unsheathed sword, and I paused for a moment.

It was a beautiful slightly curved sword, with a black cherry bark (I looked it up) hilt covered in colorful geometric patterns of fuschia, pink, and blue, the sword itself was well polished and had a swooping pattern inlaid with silver.

Aterui simply smiled, took a stance, and I felt the world shift with his body. His blade blazed with pressure and power, and I could tell my pokémon were shocked as he chained his strikes, stances and counters into a dance that everything followed along with.

The air sang with winter breezes and gales, with hurricanes and wind rushing along the plains under the eternal blue sky, the grass and plants shifted back and forth with the slow and steady stream of their lives, with leaves catching sunlight and trees and fungus talking across the great sea of life in soil, in roots and mycelium and living matter. The ground thundered with vibrations and earthquakes and quiet contemplation, and rock pulsed and chipped and cracked.

It was like he was at the center of everything, reaching out to the world, and the world reached back with joy and curiosity.

He ended the dance with a single smooth action, placing it back into the colorful sash that was its sheathe. He smiled and looked in my direction with a look that screamed mischief.

“I see you read the note I left you, please come a little closer would you? My old eyes are a bit nearsighted these days.”

I rolled my eyes. “So are mine, I’ve been as blind as a bat for half my life and have a pair of backup glasses just in case my contacts go missing.”

Aterui’s lips were pulled into a smirk. “Not gonna ask what I did?”

I scoffed. “I read a lot of books and stories you know, and this world holds forces I don’t think mine has ever seen before,” I replied honestly, leaning on a hip. “I’m at least passably familiar with the world being aware and alive in ways I’m rather interested in. It’s… fascinating.”

The old man laughed with a croaking voice. “Lots of you science types tend to dismiss this kind of stuff, why not you?” I could tell he had a guess, he knew I wasn’t from around here at least but…

“Besides the obvious, because even things as magical and mystical as this world still have science behind it. It’s strange, unpredictable, it may run on something closer to philosophy and spirituality, but it has rules and structure even if they’re not fully understood or may never be fully understood. Science is a method, not a dogma.” I took a deep breath as I almost went on an autism-fueled rant.

Quite literally I mean.

Aterui looked at me curiously. “Mhmm. Interesting viewpoint, you’re very passionate about science aren’t you?”

I nodded. “I like to learn.”

He laughed again, shaking his head. “Good. That makes this easier, you have much control over your aura, and you cultivate it by the day, while Akari has less control and far greater power. And those who use the energies of life without proper guidance… can affect those around us without their own knowing.”

He straightened his back, and I was intimidated by his stature, his aura a steel trap to his emotions.

“You must both be taught.”

I nodded meekly. “Umm…”

“You would like to know what it is called, do you not?” He tilted to point to Akari and I looked over expectantly.

Akari sighed. “It’s… a rama rimse, a soul dance, it’s how we learn how to channel aura outside the body.”

“Do the dances to invoke z-moves have a similar… function? I’m guessing these soul dances are one way to channel aura into moves?”

Akari’s grandfather shrugged. “Technically speaking all of those are soul dances, it is also a dance of our energies, not just of our bodies.” Mirko stepped forward, and I picked up my team lingering around me with a wary look at the man.

His aura must have freaked them out a bit. Mirko walked over to Akari and patted her on the head with a chiding click of her tongue?

“Oh. Did Akari have some other secret like whatever she knows about the gem I keep on a collar necklace?” Akari stiffened, looking scared of my reaction. “Because I kind of guessed she was keeping something close to her chest.”

Her reaction was one of fear and concern, holding her arms in a defensive position. Aterui’s face became blank, and I could feel anger boiling, pointing at someone else. “Why aren’t you mad?”

“Akari, you were waking me up with nightmares and crying for multiple nights after the Pinchers, I kicked someone in the balls for brushing against my shoulder, and have had several anxiety attacks that kept me in bed.” I should look into a therapist shouldn’t I? “And it all clearly stems from whatever is special about this gemstone.”

I was either way better at figuring people out than I thought, or I just knew Akari really well.

“I…” Akari trailed off, and Aterui placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Granddaughter, I can take care of this. So let us start from the beginning.”

“Yes.” I agreed with the old man.

“Let me tell you a story, of when Tohoku was young, and the Waajin had only just crossed the great western sea…”

I sat down where Akari’s grandpa had gestured for me to sit, crowded around by my team while Akari was firmly being crushed by her gigantic fire pig monster. Mirko glanced at Akari sympathetically and I sighed.

What a mess.

“If this was not something of expedient nature, I would tell you the full song tales of my people. But that is for another day,” The older man shook his head and began. “This is a story almost three thousand years old, in the aftermath of the great fall that befell all the human peoples of the world, from Kalos to Unova, for their sins and greed they paid a terrible price indeed. A blackened sky, the fall of ash and walking dead from all directions, those who had breathed in ash and drowned on dry land, the world ringing like a gong as the Light That Burns The Sky tears apart the world, destroying the Balance of What Is, when the freshly dead outnumbered the living three to one.”

I swallowed, Fleur let out a high pitched yip, and I could tell they knew such stories. What had their ancestors passed down to them for over thirty lifetimes?

Mirko leaned against me, offering comfort as I felt the atmosphere grow heavy and strangely melancholic.

“In that era, in that Generation of Death was born a child, alone and afraid as their village had been drowned in ash and then frozen by cold. They held within them a soul stronger than their frail body, so strong the least and greatest of kamuy… of pokémon noticed.” He took a breath and I listened intently. “Their people were gone, but it did not mean they could not save the clans of the plains and forests, of hills and waves from the death that hunted them, a Shadow borne of evil. The chosen child fought with aura and soul and the bonds that tied man and monster, choosing to stand against the tide, when that evil would reach from their places of darkness to corrupt humanity and kamuy, together they would reach down with their fists to destroy it.”

“A… Shadow?”

“You must know of the archeological records do you not? The terrible things done to humans and pokémon alike, and you have seen that shadow before.” I remembered the Shadow pokémon, how souls had been burnt out, until there was nothing but shadow and heartless hate fueling their power. “It is so, they were those not just drowned by ash but by shadow and hate. They walked day and night as mindless beasts, destroying Nihoh. Some say there were hundreds of such beings, merely striking fear into a vulnerable populace, others know that the great temples and cemeteries were built to appease and quiet the layers of bones underneath our very feet, even so some could be cured by the power of shiri-aphash-kamuy, the time walker in her guise as the Voice of the Forest.”

“What happened?”

He scowled. “The Shadow had reached into the land, dredging up endless armies, holding the drowned dead in its power and our people were few and far between… and the Shadow, building itself up from the corpses and damned souls of countless victims… They were legion. But there was always hope, even as bolts of anger rained down. The remaining power of the event that caused the Generation of Death was poured into stone and buried deep, and was in turn shaped into a new form by the desperate Hero with their unique understanding of the energies of life and the bonds of friendship. They crafted great jewels from that power, allowing the kamuy to share their power equally with humans, to this region it is known as the power of Burst.”

“Burst?” I asked, I had heard it and Bond Phenomena were two sides of the same coin. While the term supposedly corresponded to the form change alone, it was more accurately the understanding of the bond in general, how a pokémon’s power skyrocketed to new heights through the bond. This region?

Aterui nodded seriously to my question. “Mega evolution, bond-forms, zenith moves, they are all expressions of aura girl,” his eyes crinkled slightly in amusement. “The bond strengthens us both, human and pokémon, allowing us to better channel the energies of life. Mega evolution and bond-forms channel a human’s aura to strengthen a pokémon’s own might and power, and zenith moves use our powers combined to create a move of incredible power. So if we can do that for them, why can they not do that for us at the same time?”

“This hero made those jewels do that?” He nodded, and I could see Akari was keeping quiet, arms folded behind her back.

“The Hero did, and called them tools to share power and life with one another, a way to defend and understand. These Burst Hearts, the Stones of Synchronization shared the power of monsters with man, giving them strength, durability and vitality that was beyond human, an evolutionary form all of their own. And for those who could not withstand the direct rigor of Burst, they instead used it to strengthen their pokémon, to unlock new levels of power, to connect all powers.”

Damn.

“They armed their new people, friends and allies from all the clans of Tohoku, and beat back the darkness, in turn the hero was noticed by the great kamuy, their Ideals appealed to the great god Zekrom, their desire to protect summoned the Swords of Justice, their path to seek Truth brought Reshiram, they saw the evils wrought by man and fought alongside them to vanquish that evil, sharing their power to create something uniquely powerful, the ability to Burst without limit, to become a being of incredible power. This was used to end the darkness so strong even gods struggle against it.” There was a sad look to him.

“What happened?”

“The power of transformation through Burst is a dangerous power, draining stamina just as mega evolution and zenith moves do. But the power created that day had a price, their very life.” Oh, oh shit. “The hero saved the region from devastation, but could not save their own life. They were named Arcades, and they brought that power down upon the land of Tohoku.”

“People misused it somehow, corrupted it or weaponized it, since their creator was long gone.” I surmised easily.

He straightened his posture. “Not at first, not for a thousand years even. It was simply a power shared by all, a light against the darkness as mankind recovered. But with time the power of Burst was indeed perverted, weaponized, becoming something parasitic and evil. To the point our clans sealed away most of the mountains, and hid away what untainted Burst Hearts we could. That power was destroyed in the war between the regions, but scars and remnants both still run deep, and it has not stayed buried.”

I clenched the gemstone I held around my neck, feeling the energies held within and paled in realization.

“This stone, I know it shares some similarities to keystones or mega stone but… is this one of them?”

“It is.”

I leaned back at his weariness, and felt the pressure.

“Oh boy… is this why you’re offering both of us training?”

“It is one of them,” Aterui replied honestly. “That stone is your right through rightful acquisition and not being a reckless fool,” went unsaid, was that he would have taken it from me if I was a fool. “And she has her own gift through birthright and also not being a reckless fool. Another reason is that this old power has been rediscovered, first on an island to the north of this region, discovering the aspect built to strengthen pokémon, and then here for its power to strengthen humans.”

What island?

I slapped my palm into my face with a whine. “This is going to be a mess, I just know it.”

“There’s a reason ‘I wish you live in interesting times’ is considered a curse in the east.” Was his flat and dry response.

We didn’t train that very second but I was given a time and place in the garden for the weeks we would stay here.

Instead I returned my team to their balls except for Mirko, and walked over to Akari as she sat down on the ground, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees.

“Akari?” Mirko echoed my question in her own voice, and she sniffled, rubbing at her shiny eyes. “The power of Burst… it’s not evil, but it’s dangerous if you’re reckless about it. It’s what killed my mom, it’s what drove my dad crazy, even if it wasn’t Burst that did it.”

Oh.

I glanced at Mirko who shared an equal look of concern, and I gestured towards Akari. She rolled her eyes, hopped right over into Akari’s space, and gently pulled her into a hug.

“Mirko! Brandy?” She exclaimed, cheeks taking a red cue as she failed to wiggle out of Mirko’s growth.

“She gives good hugs,” I explained and Mirko loosened her grip, widening her eyes. “If you don’t want a hug that's fine, I kinda wasn’t thinking.” I could barely tolerate being touched so I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why can’t I quit fucking up?

“It’s fine.” She waved away the concern with a sigh, resting her chin on Mirko’s shoulder. “I must look pathetic…”

“Not really, sad maybe. But not pathetic. Losing a parent like that, losing both of them has to hurt a lot.” I was quiet as I talked, doing my best to be comforting. “I had an uncle who… passed away, and it wasn’t peaceful.” No, doing what he did on the streets of Tijuana was bound to get him killed one day. “It’s not the same, but I think I understand.”

Mirko nodded, and it made me think she had lost people out in the Wilds, illness, predators, injuries too much even for miracle berries.

She rubbed her eyes and I approached her, uncertain of what to do with my hands or on how close was appropriate. Feelings were confusing and frightening for me.

“Could you come a little closer, please?” Akari said with a deeper red shade to her cheeks, and I did as she said, sitting down on the ground with her.

Her aura pulsed and twisted, coiling like snakes before unfolding out to reach out to me. I understand, I think…?

Akari pulled me into a hug of her own, Mirko having pulled out a few seconds earlier. I didn’t tense or push her away or get defensive since I knew it was coming, so I wrapped my arms around to seal the hug.

Being so close, it was like I could feel waves of grief, resentment, and sadness twisting around each other like a triple headed dragon, which slowly waned as she leaned into the gesture of comfort.

She sighed, ended the hug, stilled her face, taking twelve long breaths in a pattern of three and looked exhausted. “You’re probably going to learn things about me and my family, not all of them good or bad. It just is. Just… I can trust you with that right?”

I cocked my head. “I would hope so, we’re friends aren’t we?” Who would I even tell, or why?

The smile she responded with was utterly earnest with its affection and relief.

Chapter Text

Faller’s Field Guide 5

December 25th, 2022.

Tohoku Region, Juntoku Highland

The Machop Line and their relation with Hominids

Akari’s grandfather is an interesting man, with a rich history. He’s a grandfather, so he knows a fair bit about the invention of the modern pokéball in 1925. Before that, apricot balls were a luxury of crafters and the upper class, as most manufactured products were produced by hand and while industrial technology has existed for half a millennium in some regions, being able to cultivate the space and room for factories was fraught with difficulties. Certain machine tools hadn’t been invented yet with pokémon taking up the role instead.

In fact the invention of the modern pokéball in 1925 kickstarted the moving assembly line, allowing technology to rapidly outpace the borderline cuckoolander technology artisanal-industrial hybrid that had sustained the Old World nations, with the New World catching up incredibly quickly even if took them an extra decade or two.

Anyways, what’s important is that he led me to an encounter with a certain species of humanoid pokémon, allowing me a good glimpse at what it would be like to see another human species. The machop line along with many other species lie within the Hominidae, the Great Apes of this world just as in mine, though with a far greater diversity with at least 30 species, though some could be considered subspecies like the North Altaian elemental chimps.

The hominids were once split into at least six genera, Pongo, Gorilla, Pan, Fascinus and Homo remain valid while Similis has been recently classified as a wastebasket taxon due to recent breakthroughs in genetic analysis, split into several genera.

The machop line specifically are classified as Paranthropus musculus , making up the genus alongside timburr, Paranthropus constris , and makuhita, Paranthropus palmis and meditite, Paranthropus mentis , having split off from the line that led to humans around twenty four million years ago, though in terms of genetics, they share about 99.1% of their DNA with humans, which makes sense based on their genus and how even small differences in the genome can reflect massive changes in phenotype.

Pawniard, throh and sawk are among the most primitive falling under the Orrorin genus (acutis, rufis, and caerulis) respectively, having split some thirty million years ago, and only sharing about 98.9% of their DNA with humans (A Juniper 2012, “Phylogenetic Studies of the Hominids”), very slightly more than Pongo (chimchar, pansage, pansear, panpour).

The original Similis genus still exists but with a small species count, having diverged around ten million years ago when the earliest variant of humanity exploded onto the scene, which includes gothita, Mr. Mime, tyrogue, and charcadet, who share about 99.2% of their DNA with humans, and likely interbred with the members of Homo during that nebulous fossil-poor time period.

Which leaves the last genus of Hominidae, Homo itself, as the australopithecus line seems to have left no direct living relatives, though some genomic studies indicate sableye may in fact be a surviving member that took on a troglodyte lifestyle, and in fact may be indicative of the ancestors of Homo… which is completely alien in terms of evolutionary history, and the amount of time between a hairy plains cousin of sableye and something basically human seems practically instant… on the orders of decades or centuries instead of hundreds of millenia.

And while evolution in this world is fast for pokémon , there are definitely limits when it comes to something as drastically ‘unnatural’ to this world as material humans are from the semi-energy beings known as pokémon. Regardless Homo crashed into the scene as archaic humans, something similar to Homo erectus or Homo ergaster, largely distinguished by having a thick skull, prominent supraorbital vision, and a lack of a prominent chin, with a modern brain size of 1200-1400 cubic centimeters, and were behaviorally modern for… about thirty times the length that my species has even existed.

Laven just casually mentioning that there’s a ruin in Sinnoh that’s ten million years old really broke my brain. Regardless Homo arrived on the scene, diversifying over millions of years before meeting back together, never quite forming into a separate line… with two major exceptions, the jynx and ralts line can both be considered members of the human family in terms of genetics, having diverged fairly recently, with the human-jynx split officially ending the archaic human chronospecies around two million years ago.