Bitter Work 3.11
November 22nd, 2022.
I was drowning in the fluff, help me.
After evolving, Mirko had refused to let me go, and was both strong enough and had sufficient leverage with her newfound height to keep me there.
Her growth spurt was a lot more than I expected, an average lopunny was about four to five feet tall, fifty to ninety pounds maybe. Mirko was measured at about six foot two including the height from her floppy ears, and about five foot ten without em, and 170 pounds at least.
Also… tripling her food costs was going to bite me in the ass, she had gone up to fifteen hundred calories before evolving and was now going to need over four thousand.
I think I’m focusing too much on trivial matters… getting almost murdered sounds more relevant.
Mirko had at least been courteous enough to let me get checked over by the hospital in Ippongi. But afterwards, she refused to loosen her grip outside of bathroom breaks and such. She was very soft though.
Her hugs and cuddles weren’t bad, but they were awkward when it came down to her evolution changing her so drastically. Being so… shapely made me understand why they had a reputation both in my world and in this one. But she was happy, and I wasn’t exactly complaining either, she was my starter after all.
She had skyrocketed when it came to her stats, everything receiving a notable boost from strength to speed to special power. Not quite as strong as Llayda, but A+ was a solid level of strength. Her speed was the greatest shock however, she had demonstrated burst speeds in excess of 200 meters a second without Quick Attack.
A furry arm suddenly wrapped around my waist and I was unceremoniously picked up like a log by Mirko. I let my limbs dangle, having long since given up especially as I knew that Mirko wasn’t planning on doing this to me forever. It was… just her way of coping with her trauma.
After the battle, a horde of Ace Trainers and Rangers had descended upon the members of the Pinchers that had been left behind, arriving in heavily armed air vehicles. The reasoning was obvious from what I had been told, the Pokémon Pinchers were an organization from Oblivia and Cipher was from Orre even if they had become international as a worldwide terrorist organization. Arley’s reference to this… Great Gavel organization was apparently a major red flag, apparently they had caused the domino effect that had started the Unova-Nihoh war.
Something to do with Legendary pokémon and almost destroying the world led to a domino effect that instigated the first mass-scale war since the early 1900s, and caused the collapse of much of the infrastructure of the time.
“Brandy?” I was gently placed back on my feet by Mirko, and tilted my head up to meet Lily’s eyes. She had been my liason between the League and me, as I had been the one closest to the leader of the operation, so I picked up a little more information.
I crossed my arms over my bust, chewing on my lip. “Am I going to be interrogated again, because that was a gigantic political shitstorm that just went down.”
Lily shook her head. “No, we have all the information we need, and we already have the appropriate compensation set up for you and all the trainers hired here. This being a League-protected operation and all.”
“Like what? Money?”
“Usually yes or an item of great value equal to the monetary compensation,” she explained with a lopsided grin. “So several technical machines, an evolution stone, or a held item. Even a pokémon egg.”
“Money is fine, I don’t want to gain another teammate so soon and my mind is a bit out of sorts right now to think of a TM or item I want besides Protect.” I… was probably going to need to see a therapist at some point.
“We can get you that TM.” Lily replied. “Anything else?”
“No.”
Lily pouted. “Would it be alright with you if I came up with something as an apology? I’d like to do everything in my power to help you feel… safe after this whole mess, and you were an attentive student.”
“If you want, sure.” She beamed, though it was fragile and hesitant.
“Great!”
I was tired.
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We had been given a fast ride back to Nakagawa as both a courtesy and an unspoken apology, and I had done my best to filter out the weird looks people were giving me for sitting on Mirko’s lap on the ride back. Not that I much cared at this point, she was warm, soft and a friend, and again I didn’t have a choice until she relaxed.
Lillian had given me her phone number, and offered to introduce us to some foreign trainers she thought were a good fit as people to show us the ropes when we had the time to stop by.
“Your team has been awfully cuddly hasn’t it?” Akari teased me with a toothy grin, as I tolerated Mirko resting her head on top of mine, while Llayda occupied my lap and Jericho nuzzled into my sore sides. Even Fennekin nickname pending was hovering, even if she pretended she wasn’t.
“Yes, I don’t mind. It’s nice.” I… think I was a little touch starved actually. “How is Roselia?”
“Rosetta.” Akari said. “She’s been a great addition to the team, she’s got great abilities in Natural Cure, Poison Point and Technician. I just need to teach her how to manifest them.”
“Mhmm.” I leaned back into Mirko’s stomach, how was she so soft? What was her secret? “Is it weird I still feel exhausted?”
Akari snorted. “No. Not even a little, I felt you use your aura to help Mirko overcome that… thing. Honestly, I didn't think you had that much power in you, so I guess your bonds have been making you strong.”
“That’s good… probably explains how I was able to bite a chunk out of Arley’s arm… my teeth should have shattered against someone that tough.”
“Probably,” Akari replied. “So, you’ve got two fully evolved pokémon now.”
“Llayda and Mirko yeah, why?” I was curious about her bringing that up, while they had increased their food costs, food was relatively cheap if you aren’t feeding something like a snorlax. She used to eat about three cups of food a day or fifteen hundred calories, and now it was up to six cups in a more caloric dense format. So… four and a half thousand calories?
Or about a six thousand pokédollar increase in terms of food costs.
“It’s just something to think about, a fully evolved pokémon trends towards being more powerful, and being… harder to command? Evolution lends them confidence and that can lead to arrogance, and can cause conflict between teammates and you as a trainer.” Akari folded her arms on her bed, having opened the divider so we could talk.
“I don’t think we’ll have that issue… Llayda is pretty chill and Mirko,” I swallowed nervously at my starter’s glance. “She saw with Arley and Lily’s team how far we still have to go. She’s stronger, but she’s not the top… rabbit, whatever. There’s more we can learn, room to grow.”
Akari nodded. “That’s good, Arceus knows I’ve seen pokémon become wild and uncontrollable with the Evolution high. Luckily for food you’ve been working on the portable berry pots right?”
“Yep. Oran, sitrus, lum, and leppa berries.” Four different kinds of healing berries, oran and sitrus both restore stamina, induce healing or regeneration and repair defensive aura. Lum berries cure status conditions from poison to paralysis to sleep, while leppa berries restore the reserve of energy needed to fuel moves.
They were great to have for extensive trips into the wilderness.
“That’s good, that only leaves dealing with the… stupid reputation lopunny have.”
“Is it them being a minor sex symbol in a lot of circles?” Mirko twitched at my blunt answer, Akari’s face flushing. “Because that was a thing in my world too, and I don’t particularly care much about it. I don’t exactly care about other people that much outside basic empathy.” Like sure I could understand why people were into lopunny, I wasn’t blind, she was very aesthetically pleasing but that didn’t mean she wasn’t an incredible battler or friend.
“Fair enough…” Akari muttered, and I swore she muttered something about ‘Maybe she’s more restrained than I am…’ that I ignored for my sanity.
“Anyways, have you heard from Natsuo? I know he didn’t react well to the Shadow pokémon.”
Akari just gave me a look. “He’s fine but I know it scared him, his parents helped take down the Team Cipher the first time… and they ended up having to go into hiding when they re-emerged a few years ago.”
His parents were Wes and Rui?
…
Actually that made a lot of sense in hindsight, he did share their looks and his mother’s ability to read aura.
“Hide?” My mouth moved faster than my brain.
“Cipher is far more violent than most other teams,” Akari pointed out. “Most teams have hurt or even killed humans and pokémon before, lots of people in the case of Team Plasma and Flare, but most of the time it’s their endgame that actually ups the ante like Team Flare and Team Aqua and Magma.” I nodded, following so far. “But for Team Cipher… inflicting terror is their game, so they often go for outright lethal blows, terrorist attacks, hostage taking, even torture. They’ve killed people’s pokémon before.”
Oh.
“We’re going to have to be extremely careful from now on aren’t we?” I was becoming resigned to the inevitable at this point.
Her face was grim and told me all I needed to know.
So without fanfare I jumped back to my feet, clapping my hands. “So! I’ve been thinking… I’ve been doing my best to be a good trainer,” I took a breath, licking my dry lips. “But I think I’ve been limiting my creativity, so I want to see if there’s a few things we can work on when it comes down to it.”
“What did you have in mind?” Akari sounded curious.
I smirked toothily.
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November 26th, 2022.
The team had spent the next few days training, both to get our minds off of what had happened and in preparation for the rematch. Akari had fought and earned her badge yesterday, and I got a call that my appointment had been pushed forward.
The past four days had been productive, less in terms of learning more moves or mastering new abilities and more in figuring out little nuances and focusing my brain power on things trainers might not think about. Though Fennekin had learned two new moves for the match.
Science mostly.
I had gotten my unlimited-use TM reward in Protect, which could allow a pokémon to nullify the effects of a single move. It took a boatload of energy to maintain, and involved some process of… shunting the energy into the conduit through which the energies of the universe flowed. It was incredibly costly to use and become more unreliable as one overexerted that apparent conduit.
We had made a lot of preparations when it came to our rematch with Mikron and I was going to make the most of it. I vibrated slightly as I waited in the lobby for my match, my fingers tapping vigorously against my thigh to a random beat.
“The Gym Leader is ready for you, ma’am.” The receptionist, a brown haired woman with striking violet eyes called out to me, and I threw myself onto my feet.
“Thank you!”
The battlefield was the same one I had battled in from last time, with some minor renovations and two Alolan raichu were watching us with lazy smiles. Mikron stood opposite to me, still hanging by his robotic limbs, adjusting his goggles with an electric pose.
“I see you’ve made your triumphant return! Do you think you’ve got what it takes to match wits with the Gizmo King?”
I mirrored his smug smirk, pulling back my lips with a sharp grin. “I do.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Based on my analysis, you’re still a three-star trainer, though one with some gigantic cajones. Who’d have thought of biting someone like a damn sharpedo?”
I almost flinched, but then my memory of making that bastard hurt brought forth a sense of… satisfaction, the fucker deserved it.
“Well, it was either that or go after his balls so…” Mikron flinched, and I almost laughed at his face.
I was a very small person, which also made me vulnerable in my world, I had no physical prowess, no intimidation factor, no speed or athleticism to keep me safe. So the option was to either do nothing or fight with no mercy or honor, if that meant kicking someone in the balls, tearing at their eyes or straight up gnawing on their arm, I’d fucking do it.
I wasn’t an immoral psycho (in the colloquial sense) but I also liked being alive.
“So are we going to battle or not?” I crossed my arms, and his smile was oddly fragile. Maybe I was giving off bad vibes?
Mikron grinned again. “Oh I’m ready! Let’s see how you manage it dork!” A different referee made her entrance, red hair trailing behind her.
“This is… will be a three-on-three pokémon battle!” She shouted, “The Challenger will have three minutes to prepare their strategy before they must send out their pokémon, and two switches while Gym Leader Mikron has none. The timer starts now!” Not as immediate as the first battle was, huh?
I took my time with my strategy, lightly spinning Fennekin’s ball to calm my nerves. I had been building a strategy against the kind of opponent that Mikron was. He loved the use of field effects whether through moves and technology in the form of held items or his special fields.
I stopped spinning the capture device and thanked whoever invented the pokéball, because they couldn’t get dizzy from inside their ball.
The referee told me to send out my pokémon, and Fennekin took the field.
“First-stage fire-type then? Good start.” He sent out his pokémon, and his galvantula took to the field. I narrowed my eyes then and there, I had sent Fennekin out first, so he had the option of sending out a pokémon that wasn’t weak to fire.
Oh… he either wasn’t taking me seriously, had a strategy for Galvantula to use or was holding back.
Well… then, let’s see how this plays out.
Electric Terrain began with a dramatic burst of electric aura flooding out from the walls and floor, until it looked like we were standing in a sea of lightning.
“Fennekin, how about you show off your new move?”
The fire fox let out a pleased yip and breathed.
An omnidirectional shockwave spread out from her Space as it expanded like a writhing living thing, fire flaring to life, consuming the field of electric energy, collapsing it under the sheer heat and power of Fiery Terrain.
Galvantula let out a pained chitter, unable to avoid the rising flames as they burned and damaged the male electric spider, his iron boots doing nothing to protect him. In this terrain, all grounded pokémon were burned by the flames unless they had some way to defend themselves from the burning field of fire.
Mikron narrowed his eyes. “Well then… let’s see how you deal with Thunder!” He commanded his pokémon, and I witnessed the mechanism behind the move with my own eyes. The energy in the air was split apart into negative and positive energies, fueled by his aura, and it came crashing together.
“Fire Spin, flame paths.” I ordered quietly, just moments before the energy released. Instead of a spinning vortex of flames, she created multiple tongues of violet-blue fire.
I had always been fascinated by facts, by science and engineering, the learning of how reality worked, both at the highest scale and at the lowest, and I had been neglecting that part of me, the part that liked learning fun facts just because it was nice and interesting no matter how mundane, gross or inane it was.
Fire had many interesting properties, it was a chemical reaction, the visible effect of the process of combustion, but one of the most useful was the ionized gasses that made it up. Fire Type Energy was special in being so much more complex, so much easier to manipulate and shape and alter into new forms than normal fire.
A massive bolt of Thunder rained down from the sky, following the course set by Galvantula… and then followed the winding path of flames that Fennekin had created just for this moment, grounded directly into the ionized terrain, massive sparks of partial plasma flaring to life before dying as they destabilized.
“Huh, what the heck was that?” Mikron looked shocked as hell, and even the referee was staring and I just laughed.
“Wouldn’t you like to know? Agility and Calm Mind, then torch that spider. You know what moves to watch out for.”
Fennekin’s agility doubled, and I ignored the ache in my eyes as she moved like a video that was skipping frames, and a second shot of Agility increased her speed by another two stages. She surrounded herself in a coating of violet-blue Fire Spin, and launched it forward into a barrage of Embers.
Galvantula let loose an electric screech, unable to avoid the barrage with Fennekin now outspeed the spider at every moment.
“Electroweb, lock them down!” Mikron ordered, his voice turning high pitched. Galvantula did as her trainer asked, launching an electric web. Fennekin rolled her eyes, and directed the remains of Fire Spin towards the attack, grounding the electric energy construct apart. “Bounce away!”
The spider took off into the sky, flipping through the air to land on the ceiling and away from the terrain below.
“Fire Spin, whirl it.” Fennekin launched forward, flames flying from her mouth, and gathered fire from the terrain, pulling the heat upwards with her own control over fire.
Fire Spin was thrown upwards, fueled by the surrounding sea of heat and infernos into a massive whirl. It slammed into Galvantula like a meteor, and I saw a body fall into the twisting whirl of combustion, heat and power.
The fire whirl dissipated without a target, slowly collapsing downward into the warm embrace of Fiery Terrain, Fennekin practically radiating glee and smugness.
I know pokémon represented the elements, but I also knew that reality wasn’t that simple, so I exploited it for my benefit.
The referee did the usual spiel and Mikron released his next pokémon in the form of his toxtricity. Who winced as the field battered and burned her.
He opened his mouth.
I grinned wildly. “Psybeam, strong style.” The flick of her tail was the only signal as she released an immense laser blast of concentrated psychic energy from her forehead. It struck head on, blowing Toxtricity back as the ordered psychic energy struck at weak points, overloading defenses and turning their own power into a weapon.
“Toxtricity!” His concern was real enough, and I felt my glee rise as I saw the eyes of the poison and electric type. Her eyes were dazed and confused, not fully in this reality with the confusion effect of Psybeam.
Fennekin paused, and prayed for a Wish, letting it float up high as she gathered the energy passively. Move mastery involved a careful management of her energy, either using less than normal for greater generation and rate of fire or increased power and effect at the cost of stamina and reserves, or something in-between as the standard. Wish did use her energy, but far less, that power used to fuel the ritual to attract external forces.
“Snap out of it, use Hyper Voice.” Mikron used a much more effective move, the TE-enhanced sound wave crossing the field almost instantly… and completely shut down by Protect. Mikron smirked at his pokémon listening to him through confusion. “Now go for Electric Terrain!”
It didn’t go as planned for him, as his pokémon instead went for Hyper Voice again, directed at the ground. She exploded, damaging herself in the process.
“Finish her off with Psybeam!”
Fennekin fired a second laser beam, the bolt of psychic energy crackling against Toxtricity like lightning. She was left unconscious, unable to withstand any more damage and forced to rest.
Mikron returned his pokémon with a scowl. “Well I’m impressed. You certainly made some improvements in just a couple of weeks. Well done!” He clapped his hands, “But will you be able to think your way out of the final obstacle in your way?”
I pressed my lips together when he threw out his third and final pokémon, his monster of an eelektross, golden scales reflecting off the subtle glow of Fennekin’s terrain. She wasn’t planning on renewing it, since it affected everything on the field that wasn’t fire-type. But she did have plenty of options.
“Keep using Calm Mind continuously, blanket the field with Fire Spin and keep attacking, block what you can too.”
“Dark Pulse, widespread barrage.” I shivered as I saw Eelektross gather strange eldritch energy, Space unfolding in strange geometries I was familiar with as a trainer with a fairy type.
With her terrain on the field, Fennekin pulled a neat trick. While we hadn’t figured out how to form Fire Spin outside her body… with Fiery Terrain, her Space had a strong enough connection to—
She was obscured in the firestorm, shifting through red, orange, white, blue and violet, the dark energy was drawn towards her, but its containment was torn to pieces by the whirls of fire energy.
She threw the attack at Eelektross, who couldn’t avoid it as it blanketed the entire field. Not quite a bullet storm like I wanted… but that was for the future. Fire Spin was a more powerful move in this world, in the games it was a weak move with trapping abilities, here the initial impact was greater than Flame Burst, and the chip damage was intense.
Eelektross exploded, releasing a massive burst of Discharge which twisted and shifted the flames with their electric charge.
Mikron’s eyes twinkled. “Oh… not bad, you’re thinking like a proper scientist. You deflected our electric attacks by creating a path of least resistance out of flames! Ionization… must've taken a lot of experimentation to create enough ionization. But I know a lot about electricity too, Eelektross… Shockwave, snuff their light!”
An electric wave spread out from Eelektross, and to my horror, the fire was snuffed out, and Fennekin had to jump to avoid the ground bound attack.
“Ahh… electric fields can extinguish flames too.” I acknowledged his play as a smart one. “If that’s so, Agility into Hypnosis.” Electric Terrain didn’t come back, but it could be easily restarted with a move.
Fennekin practically flash stepped, avoiding the Charge Beam sniper shots of Eelektross, gently creating small ionized whips of Ember to deflect any that could hit her head on.
“Rain Dance, Dragon Tail.” That smile was not a good sign, was it?
Eelektross coiled to their trainer’s command, draconic energy flaring at the tip of their tip, slamming against the ground to—
…!
Eelektross bounced like a fucking spring, and I called out Protect. Dragon Tail bent but didn’t break the move, but I didn’t relax.
“Step back! Don’t let them close in!”
“Scald.”
What?
A massive spray of boiling water blasted through the weakened Protect, and I breathed out.
Keep your cool, don’t lose it.
Mikron snapped his finger, and Thunder rained on my parade, Fennekin collapsing under the strain of such a powerful move, going limp in Eelektross’s grip, suction jaws flickering open for a—
I glared.
Eelektross backed away in an instant, lightly patting Fennekin on the head and I nodded. I could… read that she has been satisfied with how the battle had gone, her Wish growing brighter with the last of her energy.
“Fennekin is unable to battle. Challenger, send out your next pokémon.”
I held her ball, and muttered a quick sincere thanks for her hard work. She could easily have blown off the sheer amount of experimentation needed to figure out what we had done. I slotted it back onto my belt, and pulled my second pokémon in battle and first in life. I threw the pokéball and Mirko appeared on the field, stretching upwards, muscles tensing like steel while her aura flared, her Space steadily pushing outwards, stately silver crackling against the lines of the world.
“Buff yourself, and Swift, keep them moving.” Mirko was surrounded in a shell of red aura, and she flicked her wrists, adding a dramatic flare to the stars of gold emerging out from her aura.
“Thunder!” Eelektross brought down an enormous bolt of lightning, bolstered by Rain Dance.
Mirko punched out the Thunder attack, redirecting it with her Thunder Punch through her arm and down into the ground.
Wut?
Mirko reached out for the Wish, which drifted downwards, healing her from the damage she did take from her stunt.
“Well then,” I was sincerely impressed and just a little terrified. I had awoken something terrible in the four days I spent hyperfocusing on science and actively explaining it to my team while they practiced. “Keep buffing, and close in!”
She broke the sound barrier with the acceleration granted by Quick Attack. Eelektross couldn’t outspeed Mirko, but they reacted beforehand, a flash of fighting spirit signaling onward. Eelektross barrel rolled, lashing out with a Charge Beam that Mirko punched out for a second time.
Why is she punching lightning!
A second burst of Quick Attack let her slam into Eelektross, and her paws gripped her prey like a vice, her furry face twisted into satisfaction.
I’m sure my face mirrored hers. “Jump Kick.” I spoke almost in a whisper. Her shapely legs became almost blinding as normal energy surged into precise fury and might and martial focus.
Eelektross didn’t stand a chance, thrown like a ragdoll by the direct hit of a super-effective attack, shredding through eldritch defenses. They fainted.
“Gym Leader Mikron is out of usable pokémon. The victor is the Challenger, Brandy!” I didn’t get a chance to return Mirko as she instead crossed the field in a blink of an eye, and patted my head with a lot of force.
“Ow.” Was my dry reply, and Mirko just let out her version of a laugh.
“Hah, I certainly didn’t expect to see fire being used to deflect electricity and a lopunny punching a lightning bolt with her punches.”
“I didn’t either for the latter.” I revealed, and his mouth dropped.
“Your starter is terrifying.”
“Isn’t she?” I was so fucking proud.
He coughed. “Anyways, you’ve earned the Thunderhead Badge,” he said. “That was a great comeback, and you made good use of your moves and came up with… interesting strategies.”
“Heh. Is there anything else you need from me? I haven’t slept more than five hours a day for about half a week.”
“… why are you saying that with a smile on your face?”
“I’m very tired.” Was my chipper, sane response.
I left the Gym with a tentative goodbye, about ten thousand pokédollars in prize money, and a Thunderbolt TM.
I was definitely going to treat my team because they all worked together to improve themselves.