“Let’s begin the team meeting.”
Petal the Oddish, Oran Juice the Dunsparce and I, Selene the Human, huddled together around my backpack, onto which I had placed a flat piece of dried wood that would work as a table. Drinks and snacks had been served for all; mostly the crushed remains of the oran berries I had brought for the Trial. My Pokegear had been set to record our conversation - though I would probably have to voice out my Pokemon’s sign motions.
After this morning’s tribulations we had all elected to have a relaxing day; no battles, no training, just a day to take in the sights of Melemele Meadow and get to know our new teammate. The day had passed in a blur with the events of the Trial weighing heavy in my mind and night had come to usher us to make camp.
So we had found a nice tree with a large canopy to make camp under, and bartered with the Metapod nest there for permission to stay.
“The day is August the 16th, the time is 8:02 PM. We are currently in camp with fellow Trial-goers Hau Halakaua and Lilliane Athier– Hau is cooking and waving at us; yes Hau, I see you. We are a quarter to a half mile into Melemele Meadow and we can still see the exit of Verdant Cavern from here. This morning at dawn we passed the first Trial and earned our first Trial bead,” I applauded a few times for good measure. “Congratulations, us.”
Petal gave a proud nasally yawp, stomped a few times, and OJ followed with happy bounces and slaps of his tail against the ground.
“Your feelings on this Trial?” I gestured toward my team-mates to give them the chance to speak.
Petal took that opportunity with a “Dish!” and drew a circle with a leaf ending up.
“Good for Petal, I take it.” And my Oddish nodded. “What about you, OJ?”
My Dunsparce took a little longer to formulate his response - and not a short response either. “...Spar-dun, ce dun.” And so Petal attempted to translate, concept by concept - an X drawn with crossed leaves, then tapping their chest with one, a half circle counter clockwise, then a circle ending up once more - until I reached an understanding.
“Scary, but good?” Oran Juice nodded. “I can certainly relate. It wasn’t a relaxing journey by any means.” My Pokemon fell silent at that, turning to take my feelings in. I rubbed my chin and closed my eyes in thought.
“I have… complicated feelings about my performance,” and already I heard an indignant cry from Petal, but I raised my hand to stop them in their tracks. “We passed the Trial and that’s wonderful. But I’m not satisfied with the way things went. We decided to force ourselves through an occupied battlefield when we could have just looked for another way. It made the situation worsen, forced us to escalate, and one of the combatants evolved mid-battle. We managed to make it through unscathed from sheer luck,” and I pointed at Oran Juice with that, “because a certain someone has a move that can put Pokemon to sleep under certain circumstances.”
OJ shrunk a little under the attention - maybe my negativity and self-criticism was rubbing off on the poor boy a little too hard. Nonetheless, I shook my head to let out the distracting thoughts and pressed on.
“I want to take this as a lesson and offer a plan of action moving forward.” And here I grabbed my phone and switched to my notes app, careful not to pause the ongoing recording. “I want to learn new ways to avoid or diffuse tense situations with little to no harm. However, sometimes, pacifism is just not possible - if it comes to that, I’d like you guys to be able to defend yourselves adequately. In conclusion,” I sighed loudly, “we need to become stronger.”
My Dunsparce cocked his head confusedly while Petal turned away and pumped a clenched leaf in contained triumph. They turned to me with stars in their eyes, and I knew in their heart they thought that finally we were about to lean into battling wholly–
“Ah-ah-ah!” I wagged a finger at them. “Tomorrow. Today and tonight we rest. Obviously I know you want to move forward with that plan, but just so that everyone is on the same page…” I turned to face Oran Juice. “Are you okay with that, OJ?”
The Dunsparce in question cocked his head the other way and sort of shrugged - I kept an eye on Petal to make sure they weren’t pressuring OJ in any way but they seemed lost in their own mind for a moment.
“Okay. That’s approval from all team members, then.” Scrolling through my notes, I began to lay out the plan.
“Petal, while we sleep, you scope out the area. See if you can make friends. There are a ton of Grass-types around, find an evolved ‘mon to be a mentor or teacher figure. I was looking over the some of the things you can learn, and you already have good chemical control over Poison Powder, so other ‘powder’ moves that induce different effects are an idea - Stun Spore and Sleep Powder are obvious applications, but I wonder if you could learn something like Cotton Spore? We’ll be taking our time crossing the Meadow, so don’t feel like you’re on a time limit.”
Petal pumped their leaves and looked beyond the glow of our camp impatiently. I wasn’t afraid for their safety, they’d always been careful during their nightly excursions - and they could defend themselves well with Poison.
“OJ, tomorrow, we need to figure out your new Move. Or rather– your old Move that you knew but never mentioned– you get the idea.” My Dunsparce straightened and nodded at my serious tone. “How it works, what it does, what it’s conventionally called, and what you can learn from it. See if we can branch out or use it as a springboard to other Types - you already understand Rollout, so could it help to improve on it or learn other Rock-type moves? See if you could learn Rock Slide? I don’t know if you can learn Rock Slide... Let’s move on.
“Finally, as another topic to talk about, I would like to address incentives.”
Both Oddish and Dunsparce perked up significantly at that.
Motivation comes at a steep cost and setting up a potential reward would ensure that they stuck to the deal. Petal didn’t need motivation per say, but I would trust them to go the extra mile.
In exchange, I could use my unique position as a human being to navigate human society and provide them with whatever they wished. Such as;
“The... second… food? Did I get it right?”
This I expected. Getting into this topic meant they had to actually explain to me what they wanted, and so a game of charades and miming began to try to get the concept across. Eventually;
“Okay! Sure! I can treat you to malasadas when we’re back in the city, OJ. That is entirely possible.”
The little snake hooted and hollered; he only had one bite of the pastry a week or so ago and he was already addicted. I couldn’t blame him, malasadas are delicious and I had never heard of a Pokemon-monned and built bakery in the wild.
Oran Juice had an incentive. Now for Petal.
This was a bit more difficult.
“If I get this right,” I wet my lips; I had been trying to get the meaning of Petal’s signs for the past twenty minutes. “Back at the Tapu festival, the girl with the Spinda who wanted to meet up to… to uh, to listen to music or dance or whatever, you want me to… take her up on her offer?”
And the Oddish who at this point I was hoping, desperately hoping I had understood their message wrong, nodded.
A cold wave of anxiety blew over my back and I couldn’t stop the grimace on my face. Petal’s eyes narrowed further and they maintained the intense stare.
“Petal, anything, anything else, right–”
“O-ddish!” Their response came fast and snappy. I gulped.
“You, you know I don’t know her well. Or at all.” I shrunk onto myself and hugged my knees to my chest. “The most time we spent was when we played Mareanie Kart at Big Wave Beach– and she probably offered to invite us as like, a joke.”
And their frown deepened, they stomped and maintained the glare and I knew they were 100% serious about this.
“Okay,” I eeped out. “Okay. I’ll– I’ll talk to Tuula next time I see her. I–” I wiped my face down with my hand, stretching the skin. “Eugh. No promises that she still remembers about it or takes me seriously, though.”
That seemed enough to satisfy Petal. They nodded once more and huffed, patted me on the knee with a leaf, and moved to waddle away– no! No way! I couldn’t let them get away with it!
“And you,” and I stopped them in their tracks, “You are going to work double– triple time. You’re going to master all those powder moves and more. I– I am going to turn you into a little monster that Pokemon will have nightmares about. I want to make you face the Tapus and have them tremble. You got that?”
A silence fell upon our small camp.
Not far from us, Hau stopped his shuffling and went still. Oran Juice snapped to attention, looking at me with wide eyes.
My cheeks flushed.
Petal the Oddish looked at me in surprise, and the most devious smile I had ever seen grew on their face.
----------------------------------------
The following morning, we were treated to an unexpected sight.
“Don’t– do not think this will be a regular occurrence.”
To an extent, the traveling routine had become something I was accustomed to: in the morning Hau and I would awake, chat, make breakfast for us and our ‘Mons and get ourselves ready to jog and train. Exercise was still something that I truly struggled with, but Hau was patient, and we would eventually be ready to begin training proper.
Today, Lilliane was joining in.
Yesterday’s practical outfit had been donned once more and she pulled back at her hair as she walked over to us. There was her new friend, Toku the Ledyba, fluttering around the teen while Stella the Cleffa skipped and hopped after the Flying-type.
“Uh- sure!” Hau gave her a warm grin and welcomed her in with us with open arms. “We try to do a run with everybody before our drills. You’re okay with jogging?”
“I would hope so.” She pulled back at her arms and stretched her limbs. “I did have a personal trainer, and she was very demanding.”
It became obvious very quickly that Lilliane was so much more in shape than I am.
Five minutes in and I was already desperately out of breath. Petal had returned from their nightly excursion frustrated, intent on staying up a few hours more, jogging at my side and occasionally giving me encouraging leaf pats and head bumps in the shins.
I heard my two teammates talking ahead running shoulder to shoulder, and so I tried to catch up because I want to be included. The topic had drifted around though it was hard to focus when I was already struggling to keep up - I gave it one more push and I heard Liliane talking about:
“...Mostly football, I suppose. Not the Unovan practice of football, for the record– Kalosian football came first, then the Galarians came and stole it from us and gave it a silly name–”
“I don’t know, sis, a sport where Pokemon aren’t involved doesn’t really sound like a sport to me!”
Lilliane’s head turned to face Hau, and from the corner of her face I could see one eyebrow raised. “It is a sport. Just because only humans practice it doesn’t make it any less.”
“That’s weird!”
“What?”
“That’s weird!” Hau looked right back at her, cocky grin on his face. What was he doing?
Lilliane sputtered, face turning red– “Football is a time-honored practice, dating back to the 5th century–”
“It’s weird~!” Hau’s voice took on a nonchalant, sing-song-ey tone. “Say what you want about its history, a sport where Pokemon aren’t allowed to compete isn’t a sport to me~!”
Light on his feet, Hau practically skipped as Lilliane fumed. Her jogging steps kicked out grass from the path.
“Hm hm hm,” he hummed, “You know, no wonder the Galarians added Pokemon back in and changed the name to soccer. Didn’t want to be associated with speciesist-”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“You take that back.”
All three of us stopped in our tracks.
Lilliane’s eyes narrowed and she glared at Hau with intense annoyance.
“I know exactly what game you're playing, Hau. It won’t– well. It is working, but you will not like the result.”
Hau’s eyes fluttered innocently.
“Who, me? I’m playing no game, sis, That’s just my opinion.” Smile plastered on his face, he lazily kicked a foot back and forth. “And, well, I suppose I could be convinced otherwise if one were to beat me in, say…” His eyes locked with Lilliane’s. “A fight.”
Silence fell over our group.
Wind blew over the flower fields.
Her voice now a lot more muted, Lilliane trailed off. “It wouldn’t be very fair, wouldn’t it, to have an evolved Fire-type fight against a Pokemon I just acquired…”
The true shit-eating grin that Hau had been sporting the whole time softened, and his tone returned to something more gentle. “No, it would not. But I’m sure Petal or OJ would gladly be your opponent in Loa’s stead if you asked.”
The Oddish in question huffed and made themself known. Though they were at the end of their waking hours, they waddled closer to Hau and made themselves look big.
The challenge didn’t go unanswered. Toku the Ledyba buzzed loudly and interposed himself in front of his new trainer.
Lilliane looked my way and all animosity was gone. Only apprehension remained. She looked for approval, and I returned it with an eager nod.
“It’s a duel, then.”
----------------------------------------
Finding a suitable arena wasn’t too difficult.
The Meadow is all rolling plains of idyllic landscape. Patches of grass mark the land like islands on a sea of yellow flowers. To the south, the jungle canopy marks the threshold to Melemele’s heart, while the Meadow itself seems to continue endlessly eastward.
Grass-types and Bug-types roam the land in abundance. Petilil and Flabébé dance in large groups under the Summer sun, lone Butterfree and swarms of Cutiefly, flitter over the flowers, Caterpie and Grubbin and occasionally Sewaddle scurry off at our feet.
The local Pokemon did not pay us any mind. Toku the Ledyba fluttered around Lilliane while Stella the Cleffa skipped and hopped after the Flying-type. Here was a rustle from a nearby bush, and here was Toku ready to intercept in a wingbeat; a confused Spewpa waddled in and was promptly shooed away. Queue Toku returning to his watch slash playtime with a satisfied huff.
We settled onto an island of short green grass. A few moss-covered boulders dotted the terrain, while a low hanging tree marked its center. We checked the tree to make sure there weren’t any onlookers that could be hit by stray projectiles; nothing; we looked around the boulders and asked any locals for a little bit of space; pretty please.
Hau and Lilliane set up on opposite sides conferring with their fighter of choice. Hau made wide arm motions as he explained his strategy to my Oddish with OJ listening in closely, while Lilliane on the other end seemed to confer her ideas to her Ledyba and Cleffa in hushed tones.
A flat boulder made for a good bench as I sat as spectator slash referee on one edge. Loa the Torracat laid on the same rock, facing away from the battle field, though her ears were alert and listening still.
I couldn’t help but let my eyes roam over Loa’s new form. Curled up like she was, I recalled that she could easily fit on my lap back when she was a Litten - but as a Torracat she was practically double the size and her morphology had changed significantly.
Her legs had grown longer, front legs gaining significant muscle mass and front paws sporting wicked looking claws. Then, of course, there was the ‘throat sac’, the glowing organ in front of her neck that seemed to hum and glow with her breathing. So much of her mass had shifted around to her front, and I wondered how uncomfortable of an experience that could be– then my thoughts stopped when I noticed one eye glaring in my direction.
“Oh! Uh. Sorry. Congratulations on the evolution again, Loa.”
She maintained eye contact for a few seconds, an ear flicked, then her head returned to its resting spot on her front paws, looking away from the battlefield.
“Yo, Selene! You good to send us off?”
“Um, yes!” I sat up.
This wasn’t a real, serious battle. This was just a training bout. Nothing but a silly argument at stake here– just remember the referee’s protocol. “Ahem. This will be a one on one battle between Hau Halakaua and Lilliane Athier. The battle will last until a combatant has fainted or surrendered, or five minutes have been reached.”
I raised a hand. Hau and Lilliane tensed. “On three. One, two…” I swept my arm down and they threw their pokeballs in unison. “Three!”
The balls flew in a low arc over the terrain then erupted in red light as Petal the Oddish and Toku the Ledyba materialized. Petal rolled on the grass as they appeared and righted themselves as Toku took to the skies almost immediately.
Hau thrust his arm forward. “Alright! Like we planned! Growth!”
While I had worked with Petal to focus on the environmental aspect of Growth, Hau had clearly instructed them to focus on the initial intent of the move - so their eyes closed in concentration and they focused and grass around started to wilt as they siphoned its energy–
A brilliant white star crashed into my starter with a blast of energy and with a sudden lunge to the side three other stars crashed where my Oddish was just standing. A few feet in the air, a glow around Toku receded as his application of Swift died down - though already he focused once more and four more stars coalesced and spun around the flying Bug-type.
“...Good work. Harass and maintain your distance.” Lilliane’s voice rang out in a low and quiet tone. Toku nodded without turning back to face her.
“Yo Petal! You think you can pull off the Growth still?” Petal’s leaves crossed out above their head for a second as they ducked behind a boulder and another set of Swifts crashed into the rock. “Okay! Plan B! Sweet Scent, spread out!”
And Petal practically exploded in pink gas– the cloud covered their position entirely and obscured vision, but their silhouette was faintly visible still as they waddled closer and covered more of the terrain. This wasn’t just a single burst– this was a continuous stream as the acidic cloud grew bigger and bigger.
This didn’t stop the Ledyba just yet. He flew around to get a better vantage point, tracking the Oddish from their silhouette and firing another Swift still– but he suddenly buckled and practically fell out the sky as the Sweet Scent wafted closer.
“Ah-ha! Watch out, little guy~! Pretty sensitive to scents, aren’t ya?”
He was. This didn’t stop Toku from firing but it meant that the arena had been cut off by a third, and it made targeting his opponent a bit harder, giving Petal enough time to–
The Oddish suddenly shot out of the acidic cloud. Their body had grown in size a few inches, their leaves longer and more vibrant as they flowed in the sudden movement and they stopped and fired a purple glob of Acid at the Ledyba–
“Screen it!”
A shimmering hexagon appeared in the nick of time in front of the Ledyba’s outstretched hands as the Light Screen weakened the attack. The compact shot became a light spray as it passed through the field and fizzed on Toku’s carapace.
“Goddamn! You’re good!” Hau whooped and jumped, clearly at his happiest on the battlefield. “I should annoy you more often!”
“I am going to make you regret those words, you, you…” Unable to keep her cool, she stomped the ground with her foot. “...You miscreant!”
The battle resumed in earnest.
Two things occurred to me as my eyes stayed locked on the action.
One; there was definitely something to learn from Hau’s way of directing Petal. I had always been a very passive battler with my Oddish, preferring to bunk down and exhaust an opponent, while Hau clearly demonstrated how to press the offensive and push, push, push through the opponent’s defense. There, he corralled the Ledyba toward between the tree and the wall of Sweet Scent and forced him to take an Acid head on.
Two; the Ledyba didn’t quite fight like I thought a Bug would. I had grown accustomed to Bug-types striking in jarring, unexpected movements, laying out traps and buzzing out droning, debilitating sound attacks– nothing like the Ledyba was doing. He wiped the Acid off of his form and glided around in a graceful arc. With an order from his trainer to multitask, he shakingly maintained a Light Screen on his side like a shield, and focused on his right limbs as pink energy coalesced there.
Then a thin pink line formed between Toku and Petal and a split second beam of pink energy and concentric circles manifested. Psybeam! Toku’s Psybeam tore through a projected Acid as it forced order through the Poison attack and smashed into my Oddish. Petal cried out loudly at that and retreated once more into the dissipating cloud of Sweet Scent.
I winced. Petal would be fine, of course, but I couldn’t get used to seeing them hurt.
My attention was caught elsewhere. Glancing to my left side, I saw that Loa’s head had raised once more and she kept her eyes locked on the battlefield. Though her eyes betrayed no apparent emotion, her ears were splayed out away from her skull and her tail flicked to and fro.
…What is up with her? Was it that Hau had Petal as a partner currently and not her? Had she heard something she didn’t like recently? I couldn’t imagine how, considering that we’d complimented her on her evolution and her new move so much the day prior. What was it, then?
“Say, Loa, uh. Who do you think is gonna win this one?” I asked.
One eye turned my way, then back to the ongoing fight. Her tail flicked twice. “...Rrra-cat.” One meaty paw rose and pointed at Lilliane’s side– right before Hau sprung his trap.
With a sudden order from Hau of “There! Seed him!”, a vine suddenly shot out of the central tree and the Ledyba was reeled against the trunk with force.
He crashed against the wood and fell to the grass below– and Petal rushed over and Tackled him with their enhanced bulk, a Move that I honestly had completely forgotten about, Toku’s Light Screen useless against a sudden physical assault–
I looked once more at Loa. She’d returned to her curled up position and had tightened into an even smaller ball than before. I couldn’t see her face and her fur was practically raised up on her spine.
What was going on?
I couldn’t help but grow concerned. We had just won the Trial and she had practically secured the ‘killing’ blow – what was she so upset about?
Was it my place to help her, even? Should I ask for Hau’s permission? I hadn’t asked Lilliane back when her Cleffa wanted to go out at night, so maybe…
“Loa, are– are you okay?”
The Torracat rose, back arched high. Her head turned to face me and her glowing eyes stared into mine with something so intense I couldn’t help but flinch back. Her throat sac glowed in a faster rhythm, licks of flames at its edges, the light drawing out a shine from the tears at the corner of her eyes, and for a second I thought she was going to hurt me.
Then she jumped off the stone bench and wandered away.
Th-thump th-thump th-thump th-thump. My heart returned to a slower rhythm as I watched her sit away among the flowers, a blot of black and red in a sea of yellow.
“STOP! Time out!”
Hau’s voice brought me back to reality.
Looking at the fight once more, both combatants looked significantly worn down and had paused the fight on their tracks. Petal looked completely mortified as their Growth wore off, while a worried Lilliane fussed over Toku the Ledyba - covered in Acid but still standing.
I rushed over, opening up my medical kit. “Wuh– what happened?? We’re stopping?”
Hau approached and scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “I think we are, yeah. Everything good, sis’?” He turned to face Lilliane who only responded with a nod and a frown. “What Toku just did– that was truly badass. That’s a win in my book. I’m retracting whatever I said about Kalosian football or whatever.”
And realizing I hadn’t seen it, he spelled it out. “Uh, yeah– I think I pushed Petal a little too much, there. They shot a stray Acid at Lilliane by accident, and whoosh.”
He snapped his fingers.
“Toku Mach Punched the Acid in mid air and took the hit in her stead.”
----------------------------------------
I was starting to see everyone in a different light.
Once the fight had died down and we had administered healing to everyone involved, we took time to cool down and returned to our camp once more. We could afford to take it slow for our journey through the Meadow.
I couldn’t help but glance at Hau and think of the way he’d directed Petal to fight – it stuck to my mind like a record on repeat, and my brain dissected what worked and what didn’t. I needed to sit down and see how I could incorporate Hau’s strategy into my own – worse, I needed to actually ask him for advice. That’d be a conversation for another day.
I looked at Lilliane and watched as she ran a damp cloth over Toku’s carapace, removing the last few traces of Acid for his exoskeleton, then handed off the cloth to Stella. I could practically see the gears moving in her head as she looked at the Bug-type in a different light herself.
Then there was Loa the Torracat. I had missed her by inches as she skulked into the camp and asked Hau to be returned to her ball. Something was wrong with her, and she didn’t want to talk about it. What to do…
But for now, I had another mystery to crack.
Our camp was at the foot of a slight incline of dirt onto which the low hanging tree was rooted. Guided by Oran Juice the Dunsparce himself, he’d started to work on tunneling out a large space beneath the tree itself in the hill using the Move that he’d used during the Trial.
I looked down on the notes of the past half hour.
The Move allowed him to displace matter, making it ‘stick’ to his tail for up to a minute, or until he released it. Release could be gentle or explosive at will.
The matter being targeted seemed theme-specific– he wasn’t able to scoop up a chunk of grass ground as a whole, he had to separately remove the dirt, then the uprooted plants, then pebbles and gravel left behind.
Releasing the move as an attack seemed to focus on the inherent elemental properties of each material as well: accumulated dirt resulted in a wide spray of earth; rocks and pebbles made a loud crack that had me flinch back; grass and roots stimulated plant life and released a large cloud of spores and pollen.
Finally, there was the non-combat use of the Move that he’d demonstrated during the Trial: being able to move around ground matter and dig out a warren.
I looked away from my notes to the sound of OJ calling out my attention with a cry. There, standing at the entrance, my Dunsparce beckoned me inside of the little den that he’d just dug.
“...Are you sure this is structurally sound?”
He huffed, and guided my hand to touch the edge of the entrance– and I felt it. The wall of dirt felt smooth and compact, like it had been polished and I couldn’t dig into it with my hand even if I tried.
Peering into the den, I found myself looking at a sizable tunnel leading down into a misshapen room. Roots of the tree above snaked out the ceiling and into the side walls; ceiling tall enough that I could almost stand, enough space for my tent and more.
No doubts about it.
This was Secret Power.