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My Little Riolu Can't Be This Violent - 6 With my battle over, Trainer Send-Off officially concluded. Students streamed out of the parking lot--on their feet, on their bikes, and on their Pokémon. For now it was still bright and sunny, but knowing Florida weather we’d get hit by a rainstorm...

My Little Riolu Can't Be This Violent - 5 Obviously, I had prepared extensively for this battle. HAHAHA as if. In reality I had no plan and no clue. Honestly, I’d sort of forgotten about it. Maybe I should have expected to be valedictorian. I’d known, sort of nebulously, that I had a good...

My Little Riolu Can't Be This Violent - 4 The middle school graduation ceremony had been on Friday. My parents had attended, of course. Because that’s who middle school graduation ceremonies were for-- the parents. No middle schooler truly cared about their diploma. Saturday, our little family...

My Little Riolu Can't Be This Violent - 3 “Do you have a training regimen already?” “Yes!” said Vader. “Then, you should go and… do it,” said Raphael. “I’ll watch.” “Yes!” said Vader, with just as much enthusiasm. A straightforward test. Vader resolved to give it his all. Though-- one look...

My Little Riolu Can't Be This Violent - 2 Imagine living a short, but full life. Imagine learning, working, dying. Imagine being brought back to yourself, to your body, when you were three years old. Imagine all of that plus, inexplicably, Pokémon. Let’s talk about the mundane stuff first...

My Little Riolu Can't Be This Violent - 1 Two years ago, to the day, the human boy had clapped Riolu on the back and told him to “keep it one hundred.” Clenched fists. Tense arms. A deep breath, and a square stance. Riolu screamed at the top of his lungs, and launched his first punch of the...

The Conquest [Oneshot] I am Hope Conquers Fate. I fight for honor. I am a professional Lucario. I sniffle. No! None of that. I slap myself across the muzzle and repeat my mantra. “I am Hope Conquers Fate. I fight for honor. I am a professional Lucario.” The face in the mirror has no hope and...

Don Lucario [Oneshot] Lucario eyed his erstwhile travelling companion somewhat dubiously. Tales of valor often had secondary characters to accompany the hero, true. And, after all, dramatic monologues were always better when given to an audience that could “ooh” and “aah” appreciatively at the...

An Age of Steel and Clay - 2 “Espeon, of house Kosa.” “Growlithe, of house Solnechnaya.” Uncle and I bowed. I did so in perhaps a more perfunctory method than was polite. “We live to serve. We die at your behest.” I stumbled on this part of the greeting. Partially because I didn’t really...

An Age of Steel and Clay - 1 Blood freely mixed with tears and mucus as it dripped from Arcanine’s face. Still, the warrior rose for one last time. Only a few, cracked plates of ceramic still covered his body. The rest of his armor was strewn around the forest. The armored spikes that had...

The Change - 4 “Just FYI, your illusion fell off as soon as you fell asleep,” says Richie. “Huh.” Richie’s driving today, which leaves me free to experiment with my new abilities. So far, I’ve only been able to spin up convincing illusions on 2D surfaces. I have several pictures arrayed in...

The Change - 3 It’s not exactly a secret that the Pokemon regions map to real world locations. Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh each correspond to regions of Japan. Unova and Alola map to New York and Hawaii respectively, and Kalos resembles France. There were other regions as well, introduced...

The Change - 2 Fast forward a few days. The panic has ebbed, but in its place dread rises. The question on everyone’s minds is, “how are we going to deal with this?” The question on my mind is, “how does Dad fit in that car seat?” Turned into an Incineroar, he’s both taller and broader than...

The Change - 1 Civilization is saved, and nobody notices. Amidst the sirens and alarms, the blinking lights and blaring klaxons, Nuclear armageddon is averted by the barest happenstance. One ICBM operator turns his key. The other, turned into a Meowstic, a feline barely two feet tall, cannot...

Tokomak Trouble [Oneshot] The image focuses on a young man. He sits on his bed, an ordinary four-poster affair. The wall behind him is blank, although the remnants of tape and sticky tack show where posters had once been hung up. He begins to speak. “I have a special ability. I can talk to...

If your pokemon talk to you from inside your video game console. If the espeon that killed your father adopts you to his clan. If you-- and everyone else on planet earth-- have turned, inexplicably, into pastel-colored monsters. You may have entered-- The Wide, Wide Worlds of Pokemon. These...