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Pokémon Flowers, Star Dust, and Gentle Brushwork

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Chapter 1
  • Pronouns
    He/Him
    Hi, I'm new here. I'm still figuring out how things work around here, so if I make a faux pas or break some rule, please let me know so I can fix it.

    This is a pokemon fanfiction based off of the Pokemon Anime Jumpchain by Regalus.

    To those of you who are interested, the build, and the source document, will be posted shortly.

    To those of you who are not familiar with Jumpchain, it is a sort of role playing game, where you take these prompts, which each give you a budget to purchase various perks, items, and companions, along with the option of taking drawbacks in exchange for a larger budget.

    The basic premise is that the player is you, a literal self-insert, and that they get to go to a fictional world, and if they survive a full ten years, they get the choice to go back home to Earth, remain in their current world, or proceed to another fictional world where they will receive another chance to purchase more.

    The protagonist of this fic is one such ‘player’, called a Jumper. This is his first time, his first ‘jump’, as such, he lacks any fully out of context powers, beyond what he recieved as he came to this world.

    To quickly summarize his build, he has chosen to be a complete ‘Drop-In’, appearing ex-nihilo as what is essentially an alpha smeargle, with a number of fairly potent perks ensuring him against various forms of pokemon thievery, and providing immense skill and ability with the move Sketch, among other things.

    In addition he has purchased three total companions, a trainer, a cosmog, and a flabebe, all three with their own sets of perks, items and drawbacks.

    Now, as for the direction of this fanfiction, it is a journey fic of sorts. The protagonist will be undertaking the Gym Challenge in Johto, and, after that, continue to explore other regions, battling powerful trainers, among other things.

    As an experimental format, and because the perks can be rather esoteric in function, I will also be inserting notifications when each perk comes into play.

    As a final word, please let me know what you liked about this fic, and especially let me know what you didn’t like. I am always striving to improve as an author, and I am not always the best judge of quality for my own works.

    Violence, Child Abuse, Pokemon Abuse, Profanity, Intended for older audiences.

    This is not torture porn, gore porn, or even a tragedy. This is just a journey fic depicting more mature themes. If you feel that any of the content I have included in this story requires it's own warning, or is otherwise not suited for this forum, please let me know so I can correct it.

    ----

    It’s one thing to see it all through a screen, as words on a document, and as colorful cartoon characters.

    It’s another thing entirely to see the real thing- to be the real thing.

    I’m a pokemon, now. A smeargle. I have three fingered hands, paws for feet, and a thick fur coat.

    It’s less distressing than I was expecting.

    This body was new, completely different both in structure and in substance, but it is still undeniably mine.

    Seeing the other pokemon was a bit of a trip though.

    A pack of rattata scurried around in the grass, freezing as I drew near.

    I squatted down, and extended my three fingered hand.

    (Foreign Yet Fair Activated!)

    One of them, evidently the bravest of the bunch, came closer, wiggling its nose cutely as it sniffed me. Evidently whatever it found, it was non-threatening, because it drew up on it’s back legs so it could grab my own much larger fingers with it’s own much smaller hands.

    They scattered almost instantly, as an ear cracking boom rang out.

    Within that same instant, I instinctively flexed some internal muscle, and a move I instinctively knew activated.

    (Mythical Achievement Activated!)

    ‘Sketch’. The sole natural move of my species. The whole reason I chose to be a smeargle instead of an incineroar, or a tyranitar.

    And now, a second move has been added to my repertoire. ‘Teleport’.

    I pushed aside the influx of knowledge that came with the new move, in favor of inspecting just what happened.

    From the spatial warp a dark mass dropped straight down and splattered against the ground. It reconstituted itself, slowly and painfully dragging itself back into one whole.

    The dark mass then went limp, as a pair of eye searingly bright golden eyes opened, at first wildly, and then tiredly, gasping for breath through it’s small pink mouth.

    I walked over, and sat down next to it. I waited patiently, as it caught its breath.

    “You are my jumper.” It gasped out, in between heaving breaths.

    “I am.” I replied. The silence hung in the air for a few moments. “So, you know about this… whole situation?”

    “I do.” The dark mass replied, “Your benefactor explained it to me: I, and two others, are your eternal companions, and in return you use a portion of her blessing to empower us.”

    I sighed, “Yeah, I guess you could describe it like that.”

    We sat in silence for a time, before it decided to reopen the conversation. “What are you?” It asked bluntly. “I’ve only ever seen humans, and my siblings.”

    “I’m a smeargle.” I replied, “Our thing is that we don’t learn moves naturally. We just have the move Sketch, which copies other moves permanently.”

    “Do you know what I am?” the blob asked next,

    “You don’t know?” I asked, a little surprised.

    “I never had a chance to speak to my siblings,” he said, “And the humans who operated the facility did not speak to me directly.”

    That… is concerning for a number of reasons. “You are a cosmog.” I said, “The first stage of a three-stage evolution line-”

    “What does that mean?” Cosmog asked,

    “It means you’ll become a whole new species twice, changing into a much stronger form each time.” I explained patiently, knowing that Cosmogs had a species wide predilection towards curiosity. “Your second form is just a larger, much more durable version of your current body, but your final form is orders of magnitude more powerful. A god of either the sun or the moon, depending on what time of day you evolve.”

    “What does ‘god’ mean?” It asked,

    “A god is a supreme being of sorts.” I said, “A god has ultimate authority, and power beyond anything else.”

    “And… I will become one?” Cosmog questioned,

    “Yes.” I answered, “You’ll become a god. There is I reason that I chose you as one of my companions.”

    Cosmog sat silent, as I patiently waited for it to collect its thoughts.

    And then a human came from the brush.

    (Righteous Lord’s Roar Activated!)

    Cosmog teleported, hiding behind my back out of sight from the human.

    The human wore impractical clothes: a long skirt, a cardigan over a thick wool sweater, and short ankled slippers more suited to hardwood floor than the thick brush of a forest.

    Beside her floated a small figure, a paper white humanoid the size of a paper clip carrying a flower by its pistil.

    I only half paid attention to them. Instead, I directed my focus to Cosmog, who was trembling in terror as it pressed itself flat against my back, desperately staying out of view from the human.

    “You- you’re the Jumper, right?” she asked,

    “I- I am.” I said, stumbling as I forced my vocal cords to make noises that match human speech.

    “Ah, I’m Anne.” She said, introducing herself, “And this is Aurora.” She gestured to the small figure, who shyly waved a tiny nub towards me.

    I stood up, turned to look over my shoulder, “Cosmog, this human is one of my companions. She isn’t going to hurt you.” I said, suddenly becoming aware of how I wasn’t speaking english.

    “Are- are you sure?” It asked,

    “I am sure.” I replied,

    I felt it as Cosmog physically fortified itself, hardening, as it floated up, peaking over my shoulder.

    “This is Cosmog.” I said, “He- they are also my companion.”

    “Nice to meet you, Cosmog.” She said,

    “Nice to meet you.” Aurora echoed, in pokemon speech.

    “My name is- well, it isn’t important.” I said, “But I usually just go by Cael.”

    Anne just smiled awkwardly.

    “So, what is the plan? Are we going on a journey?” she asked.

    I nodded, “Well, my goal is to get stronger, and I can train practically anywhere, especially since Cosmog and I both know Teleport. So a journey isn’t especially important.”

    “I want to go on a journey!” Aurora spoke up, her small voice straining to be heard,

    “Aurora wants to go on a journey.” I repeated for Anne.

    “Really?” She said, glancing down at the small pokemon, “I thought-” She cut herself off, “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. Things are different now.”

    ----

    Anne swallowed nervously, as she sat across from the Jumper.

    Anne had seen smeargles before. She went to a smeargle fan convention back when she went on her first journey.

    She even thought about getting one herself, though she ultimately decided against it.

    But Cael was unlike any other smeargle she had ever seen before. He was larger, wider, and wearing broad powerful muscles like a proud knight wears armor.

    He exhaled, a noise that reminded her of a train releasing steam, and stood up.

    He was larger than she thought he’d be, she didn’t even reach half his height. And Anne was actually rather tall.

    “So, you’ll be our trainer, right?” he asked, in that facsimile of a human voice, just a bit too deep and hoarse to sound right, before turning to the small gaseous ball of cosmic space dust resting on his shoulder, and rumbling. He turned back to her and said, “Cosmog, and I, I mean.”

    Anne hesitated, “Well…” She said, “I guess so.”

    It was a bit uncomfortable for her to be the trainer of a pokemon she was fairly certain used to be a human. Plus, she didn’t really have the best track record as a trainer anyway.

    “So, um, are you hungry?” Anne asked, “Or should we get straight to training?”

    “I’m not hungry.” the monstrous smeargle said, “And neither is Cosmog.”

    Alright then, that is one issue put off till later.

    Still, there was another issue. “So, um, I’m not actually sure how to train smeargles, or whatever Cosmog is.” She said, deciding that honesty was for the best, “I was a fairy specialist.”

    “That’s fine.” Cael said, “I have a good idea on how we should train anyway.”

    “So, what should I do?” She asked,

    The smeargle shrugged in an eerily human motion, “You have the perk Nature’s Wonders, right? I guess you should make stuff with it that we could use. Get Aurora to grow you some fruits to make into pokeballs to capture me, or to make into pokemon steroids or something.”

    “That makes sense,” She said, easily agreeing to his statement, “So- wait, what do you mean get Aurora to grow fruits?”

    He just looked over to the flabebe directly, and rumbled, and she chittered back.

    “She will demonstrate.” the smeargle said.

    And then Aurora floated up and over into the center of the forest clearing.

    And then, without warning, life surged into existence.

    The grass lengthened, turning a deep vibrant green. Wild flowers sprouted on the ground, as the bushes nearby became gravid with berries and the trees with fruit.

    More than that, there came a certain warmth that Anne knew had nothing to do with temperature. She could feel that warmth flow through her, healing small bruises from bumping into furniture, removing the mark of nearly two decades of life on her joints, leaving Anne feeling revitalized.

    Anne stared wide eyed at her starter.

    Aurora chirped happily, before flying in towards Anne for a hug.

    Anne embraced the tiny fairy type, mostly on auto pilot as she struggled to reconcile this immensely potent Grassy Terrain with the pokemon who could barely use Razor Leaf.

    “So, for today, I think the smart thing to do is to see what each of us are capable of, right?” He said,

    “Yeah.” Anne agreed,

    “So, Cosmog, you want to go first?” The strange pokemon let out a distressingly deep roar, sounding like a distorted roar of a distant pyroar, “Yeah, Cosmog will go first.”

    The cosmic cloud floated upwards, like Aurora had moments prior, and exerted it’s psychic presence.

    The earth twisted and warped, and the vibrant plant life receded, in favor of a flat pink ground and distant dark purple skies.

    “What- what is this?” Anne asked, alarmed, as Aurora drew closer to her.

    “Psychic Terrain.” Cael calmly answered, “It is the psychic equivalent to Aurora’s Grassy Terrain.”

    Cosmog roared again sounding so much louder. The ground shook, as a massive blast of psychic energy opened a large trench in the ground.

    “That was Psychic.” he casually said, not at all alarmed by the sheer scale of the damage being done not even twenty feet away.

    The ground around the cosmog suddenly cratered, like a massive sinkhole, and that crater terminated just a scant few inches away from her.

    “That was Gravity.”

    Anne realized that she was extremely out of her depth.

    Cosmog then teleported away and then back.

    “That was Teleport.”

    The Psychic Terrain vanished, but the damage to the ground and the surroundings remained.

    “Alright,” Cael said, “Aurora, you want to go, or should I?”

    The flabebe trilled, as she floated forward. Once more plant life surged, even in the crater and trench that Cosmog opened in the earth.

    Aurora knew five moves, Tackle, Fairy Wind, Vine Whip, Razor Leaf, and now Grassy Terrain.

    And one after another, she demonstrated.

    To Anne’s carefully hidden disappointment, her Tackle and Fairy Wind were underwhelming, no stronger than they had been before she received the blessing of the Benefactor.

    No, the changes were with Vine Whip and Razor Leaf.

    Before, her Vine Whip was a single vine the width of a shoelace, and carrying similar amounts of force. But now, a dozen vines of varying widths, ranging from her finger to her arm in size whipped around at the air, whistling and crackling with the sheer speed and force they carried.

    The Razor Leaf, on the other hand, was a dark green cloud of leaves resounding with a deafening shriek as it shredded entire trees into sawdust.

    “Sweet, now, my turn.” the smeargle said.

    A few minutes later, as the smeargle’s own demonstration came to an end, Anne then realized that she struck gold with this group of monsters.

    ----

    The strength of a pokemon is, in large part, up to chance.

    This is simply due to the fact that pokemon trainers keep information on lockdown.

    Even something like what moves can a given pokemon learn is treated as extremely important family secrets.

    And that means that, for an independent trainer, any and all training methods need to be refined through trial and error.

    Take for example, Cosmog.

    Is training psychic power the same as training physical power, in that gaining strength does not enhance endurance? Because in that case, that means that Cosmog needs to prioritize endurance above all else, since it can only fire off three consecutive Psychics before needing a break.

    Does increasing psychic power increase endurance by reducing the percentage of total power necessary for an action? Because if that is true, then Cosmog should be prioritizing raw power above all else.

    Do power and endurance training require the same amount of rest after each workout? How does training then both at the same time affect total systemic load? Does psychic ability even grow through breakdown and recovery like muscle does? Do moves even use the same psychic ‘muscle’?

    The answer to all of those questions is ‘I don’t know, and I can’t change that without months, maybe years, of study’.

    So, the solution Anne and I came up with was to train as close to a real battle as we could manage.

    As we had three pokemon, we settled on a fairly simple system.

    Since I’m by far the most durable and with better endurance than both of them combined, I stay in, while Cosmog and Aurora switch off whenever they get more tired.

    The fact that I have their combined moveset meant that they did a lot of their growth just by copying me.

    When I asked my benefactor for complete mastery right off the bat for any moves I copied using Sketch, she really came through.

    It made fighting me a bitch and a half.

    And since Aurora could copy that mastery with ease, that meant that fighting her was a bitch and a half.

    Cosmog was a bit of an issue, though. Since it had very lacking in endurance and raw power, it couldn’t really copy me like Aurora did.

    Still, between me and Aurora, Anne decided that, after only a week of training, it was time to go and fight our first gym battle.
     
    Chapter 2
  • Pronouns
    He/Him
    Travel was so much easier when two of your pokemon knew Teleport.

    Anne still remembered the first time she made the journey to Violet City. It was a sweaty slog, walking on blistered feet for days on end.

    This time, it was only a journey of a few minutes, most of which she spent free falling as Cael teleported them both along Route 36.

    The Pokemon Center was completely empty, at least on the outside.

    It was closer to the end of the League Season than it was to the beginning, so it made sense that there weren’t that many trainers in the city of the first gym leader.

    It just meant that Anne wasn’t expecting to wait in line.

    So, with her chin held high, and with her pokemon at her side, she walked through the double doors of the Pokemon Center.

    Her blood turned cold, as she stopped dead the instant she entered the facility. Anne recognized her instantly, even from behind.

    That jet black hair pulled tight into a pristine high ponytail, and that thick maroon coat- there was no one else it could have been.

    The woman in question turned back, to see who it was that entered the Pokemon Center, as the bell on the door gave her away.

    A pair of dark eyes framed with long eyelashes and delicate eyebrows widened in recognition.

    She turned around, as her cherry red lips pulled into a smirk.

    Anne just stood there still, frozen, hoping that she could maybe slip past with only a few words.

    “I can’t believe they let you out.” She said, sounding genuinely shocked and mocking at the same time.

    Somehow, without even a single word shared between them for more than four years, she still knew exactly what words would hurt Anne the most.

    “And in those clothes, too.” She mocked, “I thought you people were supposed to be good at fashion.”

    Anne’s eyes began to burn.

    “Oh, are you about to cry?” She asked, faking concern, as she came closer.

    Anne’s guts churned.

    “You are crying!” the woman said,

    “Sh- shut up.” Anne bit out,

    She laughed. “Or what?” She said, “Are you going to battle me?”

    “Yes.” Anne bit out, as she swallowed the ball in her throat.

    “Your whole team couldn’t take down Vira, and she was a chikorita back then. What makes you think you can beat her now as a meganium?”

    “I- Things are different now.” Anne said,

    She laughed again, “Come on,” she said, her laughter died down, “We both know-”

    “Battle me.” Anne interrupted, struggling to hold herself together.

    She scoffed again, before saying, “You know what, sure.” she said, before turning back, “Excuse me Nurse Joy, but I need to battle really quick, it won’t take long.”

    The nurse, who was busy typing away at her computer, just waved a hand instead of actually responding.

    A few moments later, they stood opposite of each other, on a dirt field. There wasn’t even a referee.

    With a casual ease, Anne’s opponent released her starter pokemon, Vira.

    She was magnificent, and Anne hated it.

    A massive green beauty, standing on four legs with a smooth supple hide, and with a gorgeous wreath of pink flower petals around her neck. Vira stood as an exemplary example of a meganium.

    “Ahem.” she said, “I know Vira’s pretty, but could you get a move on? I got better things to do than to stand around while you look at my pokemon.”

    “Right.” Anne said, before reaching down to the three pokeballs she had at her hip.

    For a moment, her hand hovered over the first one, with Aurora in it, but she decided on Cael instead.

    She didn’t just want to win. Anne wanted to crush her.

    And so, with mild trepidation, she released the smeargle.

    He glanced around lazily, completely at ease, as he didn’t even recognize Vira as a threat.

    “Hey Cael.” Anne said, “Break them.” She put as much poison into those two words as she could manage.

    He didn’t say anything, as he looked back. Instead, he just offered a lazy thumbs up.

    (Scent of Strength Activated!)

    A haze settled over them all. A thick visceral terror that darkened the midday sky, that made it hard to breathe.

    But then Anne saw her face, the genuine naked fear in the woman's eyes, and she felt so much better.

    “I- I forfeit.” she said, and Anne sneered.

    “No.” She replied.

    “N-no?” The girl said,

    “No.” Anne repeated,

    The meganium shuffled nervously, pawing the dirt as she looked back at her trainer.

    “Cael, start the fight.”

    The smeargle teleported, landing a devastating kick to Vira’s front legs, and sending her crashing down into the dirt.

    Cael smoothly straddled the opposing pokemon’s long neck, and grabbed her attenae with a fist. That same instant, he used Gravity, not nearly to the extent that he could have, but enough to prevent her from being able to right himself.

    Vira cried out in pain, but he didn’t really care. Instead he just drew back his hand, while using Psychic to generate a storm of psychic energy in his other hand.

    He looked up at the enemy trainer, with no real mercy in his eyes, half-expecting her to recall her pokemon, to save her from taking unnecessary damage.

    When she just watched on horrified, Cael decided to just smack her around a bit.

    He dismounted, and palmed her head with his free hand. With a step, and a twist of the hip, he tossed the meganium into the air.

    He thrust his hand out, and the Psychic he was holding in his hand burst forward into a brutal attack, the energy smashed and grabbed, and pushed and pulled, even cut, in a storm of psychic violence.

    And then, as the attack died out, Cael ramped up the strength of Gravity, spiking Vira crashing down into the dirt.

    She laid limp in the dirt, covered in dark green bruises, and marred with lacerations.

    The enemy trainer covered her mouth with her hand, as tears welled up.

    She recalled her starter, and began to run into the Pokemon Center, as tears poured freely.

    “Cael, grab her.” Anne said, and the pokemon complied, casually snatching her up by her dark red coat, leaving her hanging limply.

    Anne stared her in the eyes, and for a moment, all her darkest thoughts rose to the surface.

    There was nobody around. Nurse Joy wouldn’t hear her if she screamed. There were cameras, but Cael knew Teleport. The police would never catch her.

    They would be halfway to Kalos before the authorities even started looking for them.

    So Anne could do whatever she wanted to her.

    She could pull out her pokemon, and have Cael beat them while making her watch. She could have him beat her directly. Hell, she could straight up kill her.

    But then looking at her hanging like a dead body, crying silent tears of fear, Anne decided against it.

    Still, she wasn’t going to let her go without getting her pound of flesh.

    Anne slapped her across her face as hard as she could, so hard it sent a shock of pain up through her arm and into her bones.

    “Drop her.” Anne said to Cael.

    He did so, and she collapsed onto the ground, curling into a ball without a sound.

    Anne just stared for a moment, watching as the girl shivered like a leaf. She looked pitiful, like that. Small, and pitiful.

    “Hey, Carter,” Anne called out, “You’re pathetic. You shouldn’t even be a trainer. You should just die.”

    Those words tasted like ash on Anne’s tongue.

    Then she turned to Cael, and said, “Let’s go- let’s go back. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

    The smeargle teleported them both away.

    ----

    As a rule, Cael didn’t really give a shit.

    Nothing really mattered if you didn’t let it matter.

    That was how he went from human man to pokemon without even missing a beat.

    To him, the only thing that ever really mattered was his own strength, and as a pokemon he was incomparably stronger.

    Everything else, like the fact that he is legally not a person, or the fact that he is literally held in stasis whenever he isn’t training, fighting, or eating, it all just doesn’t matter.

    He barely participated in society before, only the bare minimum to continue his career as an athlete, and he would spend all his spare time training anyway.

    He didn’t even really give a shit about his companions. To him, they were just a part of becoming ever stronger.

    Cosmog and Aurora were back up, in case he ever ended up in a fight he couldn’t handle, and training partners.

    Anne’s ‘ownership’ is similarly practical. She cooks for them, arranges for regular battles, and allows access to human society whenever necessary.

    He honestly didn’t really care what she had going on with that Carter girl.

    Still, he wasn’t dumb.

    When Anne ran off as soon as they were back home, he knew that there was a problem.

    And since he was also self-aware enough to know that he wasn’t exactly socially capable, he decided to call on the back-up. Aurora had an entire perk for pretty much this precise situation.

    So, he followed calmly, plucked Aurora’s ball off of her belt, and released the small fairy.

    (Heart Warming Fluff Activated!)

    She whistled with concern, as she flittered towards her trainer.

    A familiar warmth pulsed through the ground, as vines sprouted from the ground rose up and enveloped Anne. Those vines then sprouted with flowers, forming a thick soft blanket resting over her shoulders, as the flabebe tried her best to comfort her trainer.

    With that matter more or less settled, Cael brought out Cosmog, to get to training.

    “What happened?” Cosmog asked immediately.

    Cael shrugged, “Anne decided that we’ll fight Falkner tomorrow, instead.”

    “Why?” It asked,

    “Some bitch decided to try and talk shit and got hit.” Cael said, “And for some reason, Anne’s real broken up about it.”

    “Shouldn’t we go comfort her?” Cosmog asked,

    “Nah, ‘Rora got it.” Cael said, “Let’s get to it, now.”

    He teleported to his usual starting position over on the other side of the fight. Cosmog followed suit.

    Cosmog started the spar with a forceful Psychic Terrain.

    The already mostly flattened area into a perfectly smooth plane of pink matter.

    Cael was already in motion, covering the distance incredibly fast, so fast that Cosmog barely managed to teleport out of the way.

    With a flex of psychic energy, the ground was torn open, throwing massive amounts of pink and black dirt into the air, obscuring the cloud pokemon from view.

    A simple misdirection, as Cosmog had actually teleported straight up, taking advantage of the dark purple sky to use camouflage.

    So, as Cael used his own version of Gravity to pull the cloud out of the air, all he did was open a clear line of sight for Cosmog’s own attack.

    A potent Psychic came at the smeargle from behind, in the form of a concussive ball of psychic energy. It missed though, going wide, since Cael was much to fast to be struck by a Psychic at that distance.

    Still, for a moment, Cael didn’t know where Cosmog was, and so he began to dart up and down the battlefield semi-randomly.

    Cosmog took that moment to charge an especially wide ranged Psychic, taking the form of a storm of swirling concussive blasts nearly thirty feet wide.

    Cael was fast enough to escape without any real damage, but it still gave Cosmog an opening. See, while Psychic can be fired remotely, as in the blast starting from places other than the user’s body, it is slower the further away from the user it gets. The reverse is true, as well.

    A Psychic originating from the user’s body is practically instant.

    Cosmog abused that fact to teleport behind Cael, and unleash a full power Psychic right to the back of his head.

    The psychic hit nothing but air, and all Cosmog got in return was getting smashed against the ground like a basketball by a reverse kick.

    Cosmog teleported out of the way of the following hit, but it was the same place as before. This time, Cael followed, always just a step slower than him.

    The spar devolved, like it always did, into a game of tag. Cosmog had no real ability in melee, so engaging in melee was a losing condition for these spars.

    Cosmog’s move set was just too limited for anything else. He more or less had to specialize in hit and run tactics.

    It did mean that he was able to get very good at this specific style of combat, though. He was able to maintain this sprinting pace of short range teleports for nearly two hours consecutively, at a pace of some thirty or forty teleports a minute.

    That is a huge increase from what he started with, which was barely being able to reach that pace to begin with, and running out of stamina after only a few minutes.

    His ability with Psychic, Gravity, and Psychic Terrain have all also seen similar massive improvement.

    The final move, Mirror Coat, hasn’t seen anywhere near the same level of growth, though. Namely because there wasn’t much to do with it. It reflected a level of damage scaled on the damage taken immediately prior. The fact was that Cosmog just wasn’t durable enough to make good use of it.

    Maybe when the pokemon evolved into a Cosmoem, which was actually fairly durable. In the games, it had base one hundred and thirty one defense and special defense, and the ability Sturdy. Translated to the real world, Cosmoem will probably be extremely durable, especially since Cosmog already has a perk making it larger and more durable than a normal member of its species.

    Still, that was all for the future, and if all goes well, Cosmog won’t have to fight for real until it gets to its final stage.

    Part of me wondered about-

    “Hey, boys!” Anne called out from the edge of the Psychic Terrain, “Lunch time!”

    I teleported, abandoning my momentum and moving to Anne’s side at the same time. Cosmog followed suit, after taking a moment to dispell the Psychic Terrain.

    Not long after, we were sitting at the table, with out meals already set out for us.

    It was all vegan, but with the kind of magic Anne could work with her cooking, it wasn’t an issue.

    Lunch for today was a large plate of indistinct chunks in a thick hot pink sauce, laid on a bed of cherry red rice, with flatbread biscuits, a green dipping sauce, and two tall glasses each filled with some concoction, both were blue, but only one was glowing.

    I have no idea what she put in this stuff, but whatever it was, it tasted amazing, and had some crazy effects.

    And when I say crazy, I mean crazy. As in, when I ate the bread with the dipping sauce, I could feel my muscles writhing underneath my skin as they worked their magic. When I drank the first drink, the non-glowing blue one, I felt my body heat up, to what had to be feverish levels, though I doubt a fever is as dangerous for a pokemon as it is for a human.

    With that in mind, I dug right in to my generous meal.

    “Am I a boy?” Cosmog asked out of the blue,

    I paused as I was taking a big bite of bread. I looked over, a little confused. “What?” I asked, after swallowing,

    “Anne called us both boys.” Cosmog said, “I know that you are, but am I?”

    “I don’t know.” I answered casually, Cosmog is literally a sentient ball of floating dust. There is no more gender to that than there is to a rock.

    “How can we find out?” Cosmog asked,

    I shrugged, “With people, usually you can just check what they have in their pants. I don’t really know how pokemon work though. I do know that your species is genderless, though.”

    “What is gender?” Cosmog asked,

    “Male and female, I think.” I answered, “The whole category. I’m pretty sure it’s more complicated than that, though. Back home people used to get entire college degrees from studying gender.”

    “Will I suffer for lack of gender?” Cosmog asked, sounding a little concerned,

    "Maybe.” I said, “I don’t know.”

    “This concerns me.” Cosmog said, “How can we resolve this issue?”

    “Well, I guess you could just try it out.” I offered, “Pick one for a while and see how you like it, and if you don’t like it, you could just change your mind later.”

    Cosmog didn’t say anything after that, instead going introspective.

    I just went back to eating.

    After a little while, Cosmog spoke up again, “I will be male, first. How do I do that?”

    I shrugged again, “I don’t know.”

    “How can you not know?” Cosmog asked, with a little more heat in it’s usually even tone, “You are a male.”

    “I was just born like that.” I said, “I don’t know what to tell you.”

    Cosmog fell silent.

    “The queers back home liked to dress up. Maybe you could try that.” I offered,

    “What do you mean by ‘dress up’?” Cosmog asked, having returned to his usual even tone.

    “Wearing clothes of a specific gender.” I said, “I’m pretty sure you would use men’s clothing. I’m not really sure what the fashion is like around here, though. You should probably ask Anne about that.”

    “Cael, I cannot speak the human language.”

    “Oh, right.” I said, and then I turned to Anne, who had been scribbling in a book in the corner of the room. Easily switching to human speech, I called out, “Hey Anne, Cosmog wants to wear men’s clothes.”

    She glanced up, a little confused, “What?” She said, as she snapped her book shut and walked over to the table, “What do you mean?”

    “Cosmog wants to be a man, and we figured clothes would be a good place to start.” I said,

    “How would that even work?” Anne asked, “Cosmog is is literally a cloud. Any clothes would just fall right through.”

    “He could use Psychic.” I offered, “With enough practice, it would be possible to hold an outfit in their proper shape. I’m pretty sure I can do it right now.”

    Anne nodded thoughtfully, “Well, I think I could put something together, then. I am actually really good at sewing.”

    I nodded, as I took another bite of my food. The matter was basically settled, and that means I can go back to eating, and then back to training once I’m done.
     
    Last edited:
    Chapter 3
  • Pronouns
    He/Him
    No one said anything to her, but the stares were enough.

    A whole stadium, filled to the brim with spectators, called by the promise of a battle between a Gym Leader’s full team, and a trainer who thought herself strong enough to match and even win.

    Completely and utter silence reigned as Anne walked out.

    The announcer was talking, but down here in the actual battleground, you could only hear just barely catch the indistinct hum of conversation.

    Instead, it was just Anne and her opponent.

    He was silent, squatted down like bird, perched onto the small section lifted out from the deep black pit that formed the rest of the Arena.

    Anne took her own place opposite of Falkner, and rested her hand on the first pokeball on her belt.

    Her game plan here is simple. Send out Aurora, and have her use Vine Whip to catch the birds, and then use Energy Ball to break them down to weakness.

    A few moments after Anne took her place, the ref walked out, and began to shout, “Alright, league standard rules, six on six, no items, three, two, one!” The ref blew the whistle signalling the start of the battle, and they both released their first pokemon.

    Falkner released his first pokemon with a casual flick of the wrist.

    Anne only caught a brief glimpse of what she thought was a Pidgeot, before it vanished in a burst of speed, leaving behind a trail of glowing blue feathers that seemed to dance in a mesmerizing pattern.

    Aurora, on the other hand, floated over the pit, looking like a dandelion seed floating over an ocean.

    And then she used Grassy Terrain.

    A wall of green mass roared into existing, pouring out of the pit like a tsunami.

    The sbeer noise was deafening, and the wind that came from so much displaced air would have knocked her off her feet, if she hadn’t preemptively braced herself.

    The pit that Falkner used to force his opponents to use flying pokemon only was replaced by a green field of tall green pillars, and vibrant grass, with radiant, glowing flowers scattered about.

    Anne watched silently, still awed by the raw potency of her starter’s favorite move, even after seeing and feeling it every day for nearly three weeks now.

    Aurora did not rest on her laurels, however. Instead she continued to battle.

    Loud cracks and booms resounded, loud enough to shake Anne’s chest through the vibrations alone, as those green pillars whipped across the sky at hypersonic speeds, chasing down Falkner’s pokemon.

    Moments dragged on, turning into minutes.

    Anne shook her head, and decided to switch plans. “Magical Leaf!” She shouted, as loud as she could.

    Aurora didn’t miss a beat, dissolving the green pillars into leaves, which in turn swarmed the enemy pokemon like rain drops in a thunderstorm.

    Moments later, Aurora ceased her attack, letting the pokemon fall down into the bed of greenery that had filled the pit.

    She still couldn’t recognize what kind of pokemon it was, but this time, it was because the attack had left it an indistinct bird shaped mass of shredded feathers stained red by its own blood.

    “P-Pidgeot is unable to battle!” shouted the referee, breaking the shocked silence of the crowd.

    Falkner withdrew the pidgeot silently.

    The battle restarted, and, before Falkner even released his next pokemon, the storm of leaves resumed, forming a glowing green wall from the sheer volume of offensive leaves.

    The was a flash of light, and a caw from Falkner’s second pokemon.

    And then the storm of leaves came to an end, leaving another bird laying limply.

    “Noctowl is unable to battle!”

    “I surrender.” Falkner said, as he withdrew his pokemon.

    The crowd watched silently, as the Gym Leader turned and walked away, back through the tunnel.

    Anne watched him leave with grim satisfaction.

    “Anne has defeated Gym Leader Falkner of Violet City!” shouted the announcer, but nobody clapped.

    One down, fifteen more to go.

    ----

    In Kalos, Gym Leaders were more celebrities than anything else.

    They sold their matches, made appearances in TV shows, acted in movies, and nobody really takes them all that seriously.

    Sometimes, Anne forgets that here in Johto things aren’t like that.

    Instead, Gym Leaders were more like the Noble Houses of Kalos. They were the protectors of their city, their first and last line of defense to the monsters that lived in the wilds.

    The people watching her battle against Falkner weren't there because they loved watching battles, or because they had the free time.

    No, they did it because it was just what you did when the Gym Leader is fighting a real battle.

    It was a patriotic duty, and the entire city wanted him to win because he was the man who carried Violet City on his shoulders.

    And Falkner then lost badly.

    The city reacted predictably.

    The people in the Pokemon Center stared and whispered, as Anne waited for her badge to be delivered.

    Anne thought she knew what it felt like to be ostracised, to be treated like garbage, but this taught her otherwise.

    These people didn’t resent her. They outright hated her.

    It was as if the city itself was telling her to leave.

    And not a single one of them said a thing to her face, because they were more afraid than they were angry.

    ----

    Cael knew Anne had a goal: Sixteen gym leaders, the League Championships, the Elite Four, and then the Champion.

    That suited him just fine.

    That was a guaranteed twenty one powerful trainers to battle, plus whatever trainers they encountered along the way.

    Anne wanted to take the rest of the day off, after beating Falkner. She said that they had been working hard, and deserved the break.

    Cael did agree, to some extent. They have been working hard. After such a dominant showing, they absolutely deserved the break.

    It’s why he didn’t say anything when Anne, Cosmog, and Aurora all went to rest and relax.

    But that shit was for other people.

    Cael instead decided to do some solo training.

    Moves were extremely variable in their expression, and that variability was something Cael took massive advantage of.

    Teleport, for example, had the core function of instant transport, but everything around that is subject to change.

    Things like whether momentum is preserved, whether the whole body has to be delivered in the same orientation, or if there is a brief period of intangibility preceding or proceeding the transportation.

    And since Cael had full control over all of those things, he could use Teleportation as a massive mobility amplifier.

    The same applies to the many other moves he’s copied from the various wild pokemon he’s seen battling in the wild.

    Moves like Tackle, Quick Attack, Scratch, and Bite all had their own auxiliary functions related to its core use, and those Cael tended to take full advantage of those auxiliary functions.

    Gravity in particular, is rather useful, both in combat and outside, as a consequence of its esoteric nature.

    In the context of training, Gravity provided opportunities that simply weren’t practical without.

    Take for example, Cael’s current exercise: a simple footwork drill. A simple sprint-complex lifted straight from his days on a highschool football team.

    For a pokemon this sort of exercise is every bit as useful as it is for an ordinary human, despite the fact that they were massively more physically capable in just about every sense of the word, for the simple reason that the ‘resistance’ in that exercise is effectively just your body’s own limits, and pokemon have their own limits just the same as a human.

    Gravity’s application to this exercise is that it allows for it to be made more specific to pokemon battle.

    It was too useful in combat, Cael would never willingly go without it in a fight, so it just makes sense to use it the same way he would if he was fighting.

    And that meant, reducing his inertia during acceleration and deceleration, and increasing it during strikes, along the many other more subtle uses, like changing the direction of gravity, or separating gravity and mass as factors, to allow for what are essentially real life physics exploits.

    Now, dual casting is impossible. A pokemon can only use a single move. And that means Cael can’t just layer up a bunch of priority moves for god-speed.

    But there are many moves that have lasting effects, even after the move itself ends, and Gravity is no different.

    So, if Cael used Gravity to reduce his inertia, and then used Quick Attack- or Extreme Speed whenever he gets his hands on it- he can reach some insane speeds. The sort of speeds where the air resistance is an active threat to his health.

    And this, really, is what Cael is training using that exercise: the ability to resist and overcome air pressure.

    The earth was hyper compressed in the shape of a perfect circle. The walls of the pit were tall, tightly compressed tree trunks, long since stripped of bark.

    Light flashed in the pit, psychic purple, normal white, and fire red, the first two from moves, and the last from ignited air.

    The wind crashed and shook, a deep staccato, from almost rapid and rhythmic sonic booms.

    And then the world flashed purple for an instant, as a Psychic Terrain is created and then removed.

    Cael came to a stop, and glanced up to the top of the pit, where Cosmog floated. After a brief moment, the pokemon teleported over.

    “Anne says you should come inside.” Cosmog said, “She made a cake, and she wants you to be there before she cuts into it.”

    Cael took a moment to catch his breath, and said, “Alright then.” He figured he could see what was going on, and then go right back to training.

    The two pokemon teleported into their home.

    Cosmog wordlessly floated over to Anne, who was standing behind their dinner table, where a large rectangular cake sat, adorned with blue and yellow frosting, matching Aurora’s flower and Anne’s hair.

    There were words on the cake, written in an elaborate and sophisticated script. For a moment, Cael thought it was just so fancy that it was illegible, but then he remembered that he didn’t know how to read whatever language they used to speak.

    Anne’s face lit up with a small but still bright smile when she saw him.

    “What’s going on?” Cael asked,

    “We’re having a celebration.” Anne said, “It’s something we used to do after every time we got a badge. And Aurora and I figured we should do it one last time, just for old time’s sakes.”

    Cael just nodded, “So, is it just a sing a song and eat some cake kind of deal?” He asked, “Because I was kinda in the middle of something.”

    Anne eyed the sweat steaming off of Cael’s fur, and the bloody wounds opened up on his knucles, elbows, knees and feet from air-friction, and just shook her head. “Yeah, I guess it is.” She said, “We’ll cut the cake, and then you can go back to training. I’ll save you some to eat when you get back.”

    “Hurry up!” Aurora chimed in, “I want cake!”

    Anne just giggled, and gestured for Cael to get closer. “Come on, everybody’s hand should be on the knife when I cut it, since it’s everybody’s cake.”

    Cael wordlessly shuffled over, and put his hand on the knife, easily reaching over top of his trainer with his vastly superior height, and enveloping her hand with his own.

    Cosmog floated closer, resting the sparkling baby blue pad he used as a hand on top of Cael’s.

    Aurora did the same, resting her own nub on Cael’s hand.

    Anne pressed down on the knife and cut into the cake.

    They erupted into cheers, Cosmog’s unnatural roar easily drowned out Aurora’s excited chirping and Anne’s ‘woo’.

    Cael didn’t stick around though. Instead, he teleported right back to the pit.
     
    Chapter 4
  • Pronouns
    He/Him
    Bugsy didn't have an answer for Aurora. His bugs put up even less of a fight than Falkner's birds.

    He knew he'd lose, too. He had his badge ready for Anne, and everything. As such, there was no need to stick around afterwards like there was in Violet City.

    Whitney didn't though.

    She genuinely thought that she would win their battle.

    And to her credit, if Aurora were any less of a monster, or if Anne didn't have two more pokemon either on her level or even stronger, maybe she could have managed to win.

    Whitney was one of the best trainers in the entire Indigo Region, having earned the position of Gym Leader entirely on merits alone, at the age of only sixteen.

    There was a certain fire in her eyes that said that she was going to fight hard, that even if she was outgunned, she wasn't outclassed, and that she wasn't going to roll over and let Anne win.

    Anne almost pitied her.

    Aurora, on the other hand, was merciless.

    She crushed the enemy pokemon's attempts to replace her Grassy Terrain with Rain Dance just as much as she crushed their bodies with Energy Balls.

    One after another, Whitney's pokemon were defeated by Aurora, without even the barest hope of even fighting back.

    Such was the flabebe's dominance that neither of the trainers had to give an actual in-match order.

    Anne saw the precise moment where Whitney realized that not a single one of her pokemon belonged on the same battlefield as Aurora.

    It was the same moment where she recalled her monster of a miltank.

    Whitney forfeited, just like Falkner did, for the same reason.

    It was different this time, though.

    Anne had gotten the first two badges before. It was against different trainers, Bugsy and Falkner both only took their positions in the last two years, and it was against badge restricted teams not their full teams.

    But Whitney…

    Anne started her first journey here in Johto the same year Whitney started as the Gym Leader of Goldenrod City. And Whitney was the one who stopped her journey in its tracks.

    Four times Anne challenged her gym, and four times Anne was defeated.

    She was self-aware enough to know that it was nothing personal, and that Whitney was just doing her job. From the looks of it, Whitney didn't even remember her.

    But that didn't mean that Anne couldn't enjoy this victory more than was appropriate.

    So, with that in mind, she lingered after her victory just a little longer than she had to, just basking in the stadium lights and her own victory.

    And then she left.

    ----

    Later that night, Anne sat on the front porch of their home, staring out towards the bright purple box generated by Psychic Terrain, just watching, as the ground shook and the earth trembled.

    She glanced down at the business card in her hand, and it had the same words it had the first time it the first time. 'Callum Farms', it read in big bold font, 'Where we breed pokemon, quality, and trust.'

    One of their recruiters wanted a sponsorship deal with her, and gave it to her on the way out of the arena. Any other trainer would kill for a full sponsorship from a big international company like Callum Farms.

    Still, Anne just sat in silence.

    The Psychic Terrain dissipated, and Cael and Cosmog both appeared out in front of the porch, and therefore in front of her.

    Cael walked right past her with nothing but a pat on the shoulder, but Cosmog lingered. "Is something wrong?" He asked, "You are usually in bed at this hour."

    Anne sighed, "I don't know what to do." she said, after a few moments.

    The living cloud of stardust floated a little lower down, expressing concern in it's eye searing solid yellow eyes, "What do you mean?"

    "There are these people," Anne said, "They are offering a sponsorship deal, and I don't know if I should take it."

    "What do you get if you take the deal?" Cosmog asked,

    "Well, they are offering to be my official sponsor." Anne said, "Which means they will pay for my expenses, they will house my surplus pokemon, and they will provide whatever other support I may need."

    "And what do they want in return?" Cosmog asked,

    "They want me to take on the Owner's daughter as an apprentice."

    "What is the problem with that?" Cosmog asked.

    "I don't think I'd be good at it." Anne said, "I'm doing really good now, but that is just because you guys are naturally like that, not because of anything I did. I don't even really train you guys. It's mostly Cael who trains you and Aurora."

    "I think you are a good trainer." Cosmog said, after a few moments. "Nobody else can make food like you can. And your food is a big part of why we are so strong."

    Anne sighed, "Cosmog, I'm not just going to feed her pokemon too. That isn't teaching, that is- I don't even know what. And I don't think I can even teach someone else how to make the things I do. I barely understand it myself."

    "Maybe you should ask Cael for help." Cosmog said, "He knows a lot about training pokemon."

    Anne sighed again, "I'm not even sure I want the sponsorship. I don't need help feeding you guys, and I'm not going to need help when I get more pokemon in the future, since Aurora can grow all the food we'll ever need. We don't really need money, either."

    Cosmog floated silently for a moment, the golden glow of his eyes dimming slightly as he considered her words. Then, with a quiet hum, he spoke, "I don't think you should take the deal. We would gain very little from taking the deal. There is no reason to waste your time and effort on an apprentice without equal compensation."

    "It isn't that simple, Cosmog." Anne said, "Saying no burns bridges. A company as powerful as Callum Farms could cause us a lot of problems in the future. And getting their sponsorship would open a lot of doors later on, once we are finished with the Indigo League."

    Aurora appeared from the brush, signalling her approach with the blooming of luminescent wildflowers around them.

    She chittered questioningly, and Cosmog answered, with his alien voice.

    Cosmog picked up the human language fairly quickly, but Aurora still struggled with it heavily. Her beak just wasn't really suited to making the right noises. So Cosmog usually translated for her.

    Aurora erupted into chirps and whistles, only interrupted by Cosmog asking her to stop so he could have a chance to translate.

    "Aurora says that you should take the deal, so you can use the money to buy back the rest of your old team." Cosmog said, "And some other things, like various clothes and accessories."

    Anne sighed, "Yeah, I guess you are right." She went silent for a little bit. "I don't even know where most of them ended up. I'll need the help tracking them down."

    Aurora was uncharacteristically quiet, matching Anne's mood.

    "You had other pokemon?" Cosmog asked, a bit surprised.

    "Yeah." Anne replied, "I had four other pokemon. I had a pancham, a miltank, a wooper, and an espeon."

    "What happened to them?"

    "After I failed the gym challenge, I didn't get to keep them." Anne said, "My parents decided that since I can't be a trainer, I don't need my pokemon. I only got to keep Aurora because it's tradition in my family to keep a flabebe."

    "That is horrible." Cosmog said.

    "It sure is." Anne replied, "There's a reason I want nothing to do with them."

    It went quiet. Cosmog wanted to ask more about her old team, but he could tell that this was something that was hard to talk about. So, with that in mind, he decided to drop the conversation and go inside.

    Aurora floated in after him, with Anne closing the door behind them.
     
    Chapter 5
  • Pronouns
    He/Him
    The next three gym leaders fared no better than the first three. Gym Leaders Morty, Chuck, and Jasmine were all defeated without taking even a single one of Anne’s pokemon.

    Pryce thought it was shameful. Humiliating even. Six Gym Leaders all lost to the same pokemon, they make Johto look weak. Especially since both the pokemon and the trainer are foreign.

    Kalos…

    They are a weak hearted people. Soft, hedonistic, honorless, their trainers were hobbyists and showmen, rather than warriors. Half their gym leaders were practically children in body, and the other half in spirit. It’s a wonder that the region has not been destroyed by a wild Alpha.

    Pryce had been there, once, during the forming of the World Pokemon League. Back then he was head of the Expedition Team, and he had already been the one to make first official contact with Sinnoh, Hoen, and Unova.

    He came to Lumiose City, and instead of the Gym Leader coming to answer the call of foreigners at his doorstep, he and his team were allowed to roam freely.

    They had come in peace, and Pryce was merely an escort for diplomatic force, but had he come in the name of war, the city would have been buried under ten feet of snow before that foolish man even thought to look outside his needlessly opulent tower.

    He fared no better in battle, openly weeping when Pryce crushed his pathetic pokemon, and fleeing the Gym entirely to hide his shame, leaving his gym unattend and unguarded to the extent that his boy, an actual child, was forced to take his position. To this day, Pryce had never seen such cowardice.

    Part of him hoped that Anne didn’t share the same weak heart, if only so that the gym leaders she had already defeated could maintain some semblance of honor.

    As she walked through the tunnel, she at least maintained some level of decorum. She wore a long and thick dark blue dress, with her long brown hair tied into a low ponytail covering her ears.

    Smart. Many of his challengers underestimated how cold it could get in a battle against an Ice Specialist.

    She didn’t bow, before their battle began.

    Pryce knew that it was no longer the common custom, but it still rankled him that she did not acknowledge him as her elder.

    Then she said nothing before the battle began. Not even a simple greeting.

    That crossed the line, she has outright insulted him.

    “You lack manners, girl.” Pryce said, “You will learn.”

    Still, the girl refused to answer him, instead looking as serene as the gentle snowfall around them.

    The league approved referee signalled the start of the match, but Pryce paid him no mind.

    On his best days he barely gave a shit about the League, and he wasn't exactly in a good mood.

    Instead he waited for her to send out her pokemon.

    Predictably, she chose to lead with the exact same pokemon she always lead with. That flower pokemon.

    Flabebe, it was called. The first stage of a three stage line. The final form, Florges, was powerful.

    Pryce had encountered one twice before, during the expedition to Lumiose City.

    The party stumbled into it’s domain by accident, and, even now after nearly thirty years and the death of ten of his party members and two of his pokemon at it’s hands, he couldn’t help but admit that it’s garden was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen in his life.

    This flabebe rivalled that florges in raw power. The sheer power to generate so much greenery using a single move, it defied logic. Especially for a first stage pokemon.

    And yet, it fell short of what that florges did.

    It was powerful yes, but that was all it was. It was brutish, sloppy even. A raw heave of power and nothing else.

    In contrast, the florges seemed to be almost divine in her might, twisting and shaping the world into a domain of flowers that shifted and writhed at her command, forming into eidolons that chased them endlessly for the crime of plucking a single flower.

    With a smooth gesture formed from nearly a century of experience, Pryce sent out his own starter.

    The field exploded with white. The gentle snowfall turned to a fierce blinding blizzard. Most alarmingly, it was completely and utterly silent. No crunch of snow, no wind, nothing.

    “Clear.” Pryce said, and the blinding sheets of white vanished, being replaced with the same gentle snow from before, allowing for sight.

    A mercy, all things considered.

    His abomasnow was experienced enough to not require his guidance. Abomasnow has fought hundreds and hundreds of battles- real battles to the death, not these petty duels. He knew to stay in the snow, hidden, striking and disappearing over and over again, bleeding his opponent to death.

    With the blinding gone, the clash of Abomasnow’s snow and the Flabebe’s Grassy Terrain was clear for all to see.

    A small circle around a smaller form, colored a verdant green, pulsing irregularly, losing inches and inches to the encroaching snow. Abomasnow stood still, hidden in the snow.

    Pryce could see the distress on her face. She must have realized that her pokemon was fighting a losing battle. Abomasnows brought snow wherever they went naturally, it was a property of their existence, and it was constantly active. The Flabebe needed to use a move to do the same. And that meant that Abomasnow could attack freely.

    Or maybe she didn’t know about his pokemon’s natural ability, and instead was worried about how her previously unstoppable pokemon was now losing a terrain clash.

    She shouted, or at least tried to.

    The snow was a very effective sound dampener, and after so many years of training, Abomasnow could silence clashing Hyper Beams if he wanted to.

    “Teach.” Pryce said, and Abomasnow moved.

    It was practically imperceivable to anyone else, since the massive pokemon was completely submerged in the snow. A small divot formed, a couple inches of depression forming the only visible trail of his pokemon’s movement. Only decades of shared experiences let Pryce track his own pokemon’s movement.

    A flash of white dived into the small circle of plant life, snatching the small form in the center, and disappearing back into the snow. The plant matter vanished, replaced entirely with snow.

    “Is this what you wanted?” Pryce asked, “To face my full might?”

    Anne tried to respond, but still the oppressive silence strangled her words in the crib.

    And then she glanced off to the side, where a flash of golden light burst a whole in the snow. A green tendril erupted into existence, and was shattered like ice the next instant, and then Abomasnow disappeared back into the snow with the other pokemon trapped in his arms.

    “You are arrogant.” Pryce began, “Arrogant and lazy. Your pokemon has power, that much is undeniable, but it has nothing more. No strength, no skill, and no inexperience. That is your failing.”

    The sky shattered, as the enemy pokemon rose out of the snow lifted on pillars of wood.

    Blizzard was a powerful move, and Abomasnow’s answer to flying types.

    There was no dodging the wall of snow that came from the sky.

    A few moments passed as the move ran its course, and they could see what came of it.

    The flabebe coalesced the pillars of wood into a cocoon, to shield itself from the blow.

    That is quite the feat, using a grass type barrier to shield from an ice type blow, and actually succeeding,

    Abomasnow showed his appreciation for the maneuver by shattering it with an Ice Punch, and then dragging the flabebe back down into the snow.

    “This is your fault.” Pryce said, and scowled, as he looked at Anne.

    She was shivering, her hands tucked under her arms, and her eyes were glassy. Pryce knew the signs, the cold was getting to her. She had maybe ten minutes till she died.

    “Finish.” Pryce said, and Abomasnow obeyed.

    Moments later, he appeared from the snow, dropping the brutalized pokemon at the trainer’s feet.

    Anne fell to her knees, stumbling through the snow, towards her pokemon, leaving the Trainer’s Square, and thus forfeiting the protection it provided.

    “Hold.” Pryce said. Abomasnow had a taste for human flesh. If it wasn’t for Pryce’s command, the pokemon would have dragged the trainer under snow like he had the Flabebe, and she would have never resurface.

    Still, she would die if she failed to leave immediately.

    The law was clear in this situation. He was under no obligation to aid his opponent in withstanding terrain effects, and Anne left the Trainer’s Square regardless.

    He would be well within his rights to leave Anne to freeze to death. And, to be frank, he’s killed for less.

    He grabbed Abomasnow’s pokeball and-

    (Rule of the Strong Activated!)

    Anne’s eyes regained clarity. With an alacrity that she shouldn’t have in the cold, she withdrew her first pokemon, and sent out another.

    (Scent of Strength Activated!)

    An aura of power settled over the battleground, heavier than the tons and tons of snow that defined it.

    There, next to Anne, surrounded by a small circle of vibrant green grass, was an alpha smeargle. Massive, burly, covered in scars, it looked old and powerful.

    “Feast.” Pryce commanded. A pokemon like that needed to face Abomasnow’s full power.

    The snow became a blinding flood of white once more.

    It was out of his hands, now. Either Abomasnow would succeed in bringing this foe to heel, or he would fail, and the task would fall upon his comrades.

    The blizzard cleared, and Pryce instinctively weaved to the side. Standing just outside his own box was that monster of a smeargle. And slung over his shoulder was a mass of white and red.

    The smeargle dropped Abomasnow into his box, and leaned forward, leering, as ice crystals forming over it’s bloodstained maw.

    For a moment, Pryce was still. Long honed instincts told him to run, that his only hope of survival is to drop his entire team, and retreat.

    Acting on muscle memory alone, he withdrew Abomasnow, and sent out his next pokemon in the same motion.

    Mamoswine crashed into the snow, bringing back the fall of snow with his presence.

    It crashed down with unnatural force, Mamoswine’s Blizzard was oppressive. And unlike with Abomasnow it was a deafening roar.

    There was a wave of cold, colder than the snow, cold enough that Pryce had to brace himself in it’s wake. With a trepidation borne from experience, he tensed his muscles and closed his eyes.

    Avalanche was a brutal move, and just being in it’s vicinity was dangerous.

    The shockwave pulsed through the ground, and up into him through his feet.

    Pryce opened his eyes as he felt it pass, and flinched, as he realized the smeargle was standing just a few feet away from him, with Mamoswine slung over its shoulder like Abomasnow before him.

    Mamoswine hit the ground with a ground shaking crash, the bull’s great bulk would have crushed him if Pryce hadn’t moved out the way.

    He realized with dull horror that his ace had been defeated. No, not defeated. Brutalized. Both of his tusks had been broken, and stabbed into it’s side. One of it’s legs was a bloody stump, while another was broken, twisted the wrong direction.

    Pryce bit down his fear, and replaced Mamoswine with his next pokemon, Froslass.

    “Berry!” Pryce shouted, but it was a waste of breathe. It was a command to use Attract instead of standard tactics. It served no use, because the Smeargle snatched the small ghost type out of the air almost instantly, using Bite.

    She now limply hung in its jaw, completely and utterly helpless.

    The trainer seamlessly withdrew the ghost type, and sent out his next pokemon, Glalie.

    “Ki-” Pryce began, but was cut off by the crash of fist against stone. Glalie cratered into the snow. The building shook as the smeargle mercilessly stomped on the pokemon.

    Walrein fared no better, being outright savaged without a single opportunity to fight back.

    Pryce withdrew that pokemon early.

    In the end, it came down to his starter. No more pokemon to fall back on. Just like so many times before.

    Dewgong entered the battlefield, and used Aqua Jet instantly, taking off straight up, to build distance.

    At the apex, far in the sky, Dewgong began to use a move they usually reserved for battles to the death.

    The sheer concentration of ice type energy made the hairs on the back of Pryce’s neck stand up. Almost like the build up to a lightning strike, there was a certain sensation, not cold, not really, but something similar. Like a gnawing at your heart, like frozen hands caressing the inside of your skin with a featherlight touch, like the feeling of moonlight on your bare shoulders in a cold winter night.

    And then, the move activated, and the world stood still.

    Sheer Cold froze not just the atmospheric moisture, but the air itself, motion became impossible for the brief moment. Where the smeargle once stood, there was an glacier formed from frozen air.

    Perhaps Pryce was a little twisted, and perhaps it was simply a result of his nature as an ice type specialist, but he couldn’t help but see it is a work of art. The perfect expression of the Ice Type, the manifestation of cold, to the highest possible extreme.

    Even as he began to lose feeling in his hands, and in his face, an honest smile settled onto his weathered features.

    As the move dissipated, the natural order began to reassert itself.

    The already massively far below freezing temperatures began to lower rapidly. The ground began to shake, as the cold spread. Cracks stretched out, as jagged chunks of earth began to jut out, torn up by being flash frozen.

    He would have to leave soon, not even he can withstand this level of cold, but for now, he just wanted to bask in it.

    And then, his eyes snapped open, as he realized that the smeargle’s oppressive aura was still present.

    Dewgong crashed into the ground just in front of him, still fully conscious and largely intact, thankfully.

    And up in the sky, just like Dewgong was moments before, was a glowing blue frame.

    With a sense of dread, Pryce realized what it was.

    The smeargle’s version of Sheer Cold wasn’t gentle, like Dewgong’s. Instead it was harsh. Brutish, even.

    The aura that preceded it felt like nails on a chalkboard, like pins and needles, like adrenaline fueled heartbeats forcing ice crystals through veins.

    And then it became so very cold.
     
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