Bitter Work 3.2
October 20th, 2022.
After yesterday and that little crime scene we had seen in the market, I decided it was a good idea to brainstorm with my team. Especially since the local Gym was hosting a battle competition tomorrow, and that was a good source of additional funds. Gyms had a number of income streams, whether it was running trainer schools, or running public infrastructure for a reasonable fee, the money they earned from their streams and audiences paying for tickets.
Some of the smaller or more open gyms like the Goruden Gym often played host to amateur-scene pokémon battle and betting events for a reasonable portion of the proceeds. For the next three days, we’d be able to battle against trainer after trainer, with tiers going from zero-star to three-star so people could watch entertaining matches and bet on them. Now a more experienced trainer could enter a lower tier with a weak pokémon to train them up, but the cost came at the expense of earnings.
A zero-star battle win would earn you maybe 450 pokédollars, a one-star about 900, a two-star about 1500 and a three-star about 2250. Which starts off at pocket change, a ten dollar bill, an hour of minimum wage in California to about twenty two bucks. It wasn’t a huge amount but just eight battles would earn us about twelve thousand pokédollars in a matter of hours.
It was worth it and my team was excited for the challenge.
So with a smile I threw out my pokémon, each one of them materializing, their respective cries distorted by the electronic burst of a pokéball.
“So, the next couple days are going to involve a lot of battling. Mostly for practice, but also for increasing our funds.” I placed my hands on my hips as I imitated Akari’s own commanding voice. “So how are you all feeling?”
Mirko’s eyes glimmered with excitement, Jericho gave a smug grin and Llayda simply vibrated in place.
I started with the newest member of the team. “Llayda… we’ll be working on increasing your physical strength, there’s a few requests out there for moving rubble, moving a few tons of rock and boulders should work out.” Llayda looked curious. “Your speed is another priority as it maximizes the utility of Aqua Jet, with utility moves to support your raw power and potential. Aqua Ring and Work Up are a good start, I’m thinking fusion and combination moves, along with more powerful water-type strength moves. Anything that fits in the Bruiser category, along with a few Primer moves.”
Aqua Tail and Liquidation were both optimal strength moves, and would provide a superior replacement to Bubble Beam in terms of force and STAB. “Beyond that we’ll be working on developing your Thick Fat ability so you can resist both ice and fire, Sap Sipper will come later.”
Llayda lazily smiled, her tail flicking back and forth in reaction. She looked happy.
“Jericho, with Hustle increasing your strength, you work best as a physical attacker… for now,” the poison rabbit nodded with a scowl. “Once Hustle refines itself into Sheer Force, your base special power is going to exceed your physical strength which means preparing to increase your power now is a good idea. From what I’ve learned though, since your species’ form of Sheer Force descends from Hustle, we might be able to train the ability into a toggled skillset, allowing you to increase your strength a small amount that applies to all moves or increasing the force of moves with extra effects by a far greater amount.”
His eyes sparkled and what I left unsaid was how difficult that was in general, most nidoran-line individuals never got that far, as it required specialized training and deep understanding of the well of energy their ability is fueled by.
“Your affinity to psychic energy is also quite interesting, and I want to see if you can learn any unique moves because of it.” I was wondering if it was possible to teach him stronger moves like Psybeam… or if a custom move was possible. Maybe I could make a psychic version of Signal Beam or even Strange Stream, the former would make it stronger than Psychic while the latter would make it equal to moves like Flare Blitz in terms of force. “Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes and your Poison Point can let you support the whole team… but we can push them harder, and increase your speed as high as possible before evolution.” Luckily Jericho did want to evolve, but only when he was good and ready. “Earth Power is a goal, along with Substitute and Taunt. No matter what, you'll be a heavy hitter and play a strategic role in the team. So a mix of Primer, Bruiser, and Archer moves.”
Jericho just looked decidedly smug.
“Finally, my best bunny Mirko,” I couldn’t help the affection in my voice, a consequence of her being just as much of an asocial weirdo. She just smirked. “You’re already strong, fast, and smart, it mostly comes down to practice, practice, practice. An excellent mix of Bruiser, Primer and Traverser. Dizzy Punch is a good addition… and you’ve been working on combining it with Cut?”
Mirko demonstrated. Her normal-type energy took a solid form that reminded me of a karambit of all things, and I remembered we had been watching a documentary on the cultural practices of eastern lopunny, a dance-like form of martial arts that due to human influence often used weapons or tools. Whether created using moves or modified under their own power.
A brutal full-body fighting form that incorporated strikes using everything from the fists, open palms, shins, feet, elbows, knees, shoulders or the fingers and blocking with the forearms, hands, shoulders or shins. Though her… form strongly incorporated evasions and deflection since she was pretty frail.
“Bwaa!” She slashed out with her blade across the grass, and I blinked as nothing happened.
“Errr…” She ‘sheathed’ her blades, and in an instant the grass in front of her fell apart into evenly cut sections, laying neatly on the ground.
Did… did she just pull anime swordsmen bullshit?
My lips pulled into a sharp grin. “Interesting… let’s see how far we can take this idea shall we?”
Mirko smiled right back.
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October 22nd, 2022.
Today was a good day, as the Goruden Gym echoed with the sounds of battle and chatter. Pokémon and their trainers bunched together in the many rooms set up for the battle and betting event. The main open arena had been rearranged into a dozen separate battle areas, each overseen by a commentator and home to multiple rows of spectator benches. With many taking place in-doors as well.
Which applied to both Akari and I luckily.
Today I was going through my eighth battle, and my seventeenth battle overall including yesterday.
“Misdreavus, use Confusion!” A young Hex Maniac called out, a fist clenched as her dark hair waved in a nonexistent breeze. Turns out some of the various trainer classes are basically entire subcultures like Goth or Punk.
I raised a brow. “Retreat, Swift Block.” Mirko fired a burst of golden energy stars, traveling in straight lines when she wasn’t taking direct control of them. Swift was an interesting move, from experiments with them… they weren’t exactly heat seeking missiles by design, yet didn’t miss anyways. I had thought maybe they were subtly warping space, but it seemed to work on a form of inertial navigation, calculating the position, orientation, and the velocity of a moving object… a sort of post-cognitive navigation.
By subtracting where it is from where it isn’t, or where it isn't from where it is, whichever is greater…
My eyebrow twitched and I ignored my own rampant insane tangents. The stars shot down the purple-pink wave of Confusion, Mirko taking that allotted time to pump herself up with her fourth use of Work Up.
“Dizzy Punch.” The Hex Maniac’s eyes widened with panic, having already grown used to Mirko silently using Foresight against her ghosts.
My Starter shot through the air at three quarters the speed of sound, and I kept myself from wincing when the vengeful bunny sent the ghost-type flying, knocked out with a single decisive strike.
“And with a brutal display of both tactics and power, Brandy’s buneary has brought down Trainer Amaya’s misdreavus! Ending the match with a photo finish!”
I could hear the announcer yelling something or other about my victory as I stepped towards a hard breathing Mirko, eyes gleaming with joy as she folded her arms over her chest, staring at the barely physical ghost after the beating they had taken.
“Good job!” I congratulated Mirko, and she barely gave an acknowledgement as she basked in her victory. I stepped into the field as the damage absorbers went down, and the Hex Maniac did the same.
“My team needs more training, and you need more spiritual awareness.” My smile shrunk at her comment, looking past me with a raised brow.
“What?” She just smiled as we shook hands.
“You’ll learn…” She whispered as she walked off, and I deflated. Was she saying I was being haunted?
I gave the announcer a nod, he’d be letting whoever handled the prize money know about my eighth victory. I walked over to the Gym’s local omni-trauma unit, a Joy manning the station with a smile, and ended up sitting on a nice warm bench nearby to watch Akari’s match.
She was battling with Ellis, her togetic smiling as she flitted about the field after a quick use of Metronome had summoned a lucky burst of Agility. It was a rather stranger move in person than could be seen from across a screen or a short text blurb. It sharply boosted a pokémon’s speed, but not in the same way. It was only a temporary status condition that needed active use… a sort of skin-right reality breaker effect. A pokémon under the effect of Agility didn't take more steps or beat their wings more frequently… it was like one step or movement could let you move two steps or more… or potentially it changes the time a movement takes, like compressing the reel of time. What takes one second now takes only half.
So some form of space-time alteration just like Extrasensory was an attack that warped the fabric of space to damage a pokémon.
Ellis was fighting against a beedrill who was swinging at her with Poison Jab, the energies infused into his stingers. Air twisted around the togetic, and cutting masses of wind were sent flying as an Air Slash. Flying-type moves were interesting, a move like Gust or Hurricane was basically a generated meteorological event, using their aura to create them with incredible pressure and density… along with aura bullshit of course.
“Swords Dance!” Her opponent, a Bug Catcher barked as he pointed at Ellis with a sneer. His beedrill offered a frenetic dance, a violent aura surrounding the bug as his strength sharply rose in two bursts.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Psych Up.” Akari ordered with a casual smirk, as her own pokémon applied a form of self-hypnosis, forming a point of connection to copy the stat change. “Aerial Ace.” Ellis surrounded herself in a whirl of wind, confounding Beedrill with speed and ending it with a slash my eyes couldn’t track.
Beedrill went down, and her opponent replaced him with a Kleavor. The six foot rock bug let out a haunting chitter, like gravel grinding together.
Ellis responded with Dazzling Gleam, and took to the air, but the kleavor followed with a single hefty leap and an explosive burst of Rock Tomb, and with a rotating strike, aimed true with a ridiculously powerful Stone Axe, rock splintering and battering Ellis in mid-air.
The fairy slammed into the ground from two dozen feet up, eyes practically swirling from exhaustion and disorientation, feathers rumpled and broken, and a thin cut gently weeping blood… that sparkled?
Akari returned her pokémon, lips pulling back in a nasty sharp grin. She sent out Happy, and I could feel the tension rise as her ace emerged in flames.
“Flame Charge, break everything.” Her command was absolute, Flame Charge twisting around Happy like a firestorm, blazing along his arms and legs.
His strength was visible with every tense flex of his muscles, and his opponent knew it. Swords Dance was brought into play, and was used to twist out of the way from a multi-shot array of Ember.
“Stone Axe!” Kleavor let out a haughty chitter and linger forward, ax blades brutally slicing through the air. Happy dodged by sending his burst of Flame Charge through his feet, and charging into his chest with a triumphant cry.
Which was when Bulldoze hit the field, Happy pummeling both Kleavor and the ground with geokinetic power. He sent out a combination of Mud Slap and Smokescreen, blinding the pokémon and stepping back and out from the roiling cloud of black smoke… which seemed rich with soot.
Happy took a deep, long breath, and with a porcine glee spat out half a dozen Embers, burning almost blue-hot. The entire cloud ignited in a bright and enormous flashover fire, and I could see that Kleavor was sent reeling as he burned. The pokémon trudged through the fire, slashing wildly as he was overtaken by panic with the intense flame and blindness.
“End it.” Happy vanished into Flame Charge, Smokescreen billowing out from his mouth and spat out as an ignition right into Kleavor’s face.
The giant bug doubled over, and Happy… trampled him under foot and heel with a second demonstration of full power Bulldoze. Rocky armor cracked and broke under the onslaught, and the Bug Catcher’s pokémon went down, passing out and curling up to heal.
He was returned by his disappointed trainer, and I spaced out after that as I momentarily took the time to just vibe with a quiet daydream. Maybe I should use my headphones and listen to some music? I had been given the rare gift of music from home through the fact they had somehow extracted signals from my world and downloaded it.
I had cried the first time I had heard a remix of Undertale songs of all things.
Akari plopped down next to me, her chest breathing in and out, and my eyes tracing the shape of her breast as she just… breathed.
“What a day, yeah? Lots of good battles.” Akari sounded awkward, her voice a mix of peppy and wistful.
“Heh. Yeah.”
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I blinked at the scene I had accidentally caused when someone had bumped into me, and had apparently been stopped by all 62 inches of me. She had sprawled bonelessly on the ground, and I was surprised. How weak was she that I could prove an obstacle?
She threw herself back onto her unsteady feet, rubbing her eyes and pulling her scruffy looking coat back onto her shoulders. The young woman looked several years older than me, with a tired expression, and strangely familiar features. She was maybe my height, with black bowl-cut hair, a wide nose, and dark eyes and even darker bruises under them. Her face was dirty along with her hands, and her odd grin was almost smug, and yet… sad, guilty?
“Sorry about that. Bumping into someone like this isn’t nice, huh?” She didn’t offer an apology, and glanced over to my belt and Mirko, then over to Akari who had Happy at her side. Her eyes gleamed. “Ahem… sorry. Name’s Cara Liss, I have a… friend I’m looking for, a pokémon I was keeping an eye on who’s been through… a fair amount of treatment.” Again there was that guilty look, and Mirko gave a dismissive sniff.
“Treatment?”
Cara Liss winced and nodded. “She has a number of horrible conditions that she’s had to deal with her whole life and… and the treatments for her have proven complex and… difficult. Which is why I need help looking for her, she’s not a common sight and who knows what can happen, right, huh?”
“I suppose? So you want our help?” I asked and she nodded rapidly, again looking incredibly tired…
“Evaluation. This one can assist.” To my shock, my phone slipped out of my pocket, and I recalled that my phone had been upgraded when porygon had evolved into a porygon-2 with a software patch. The little guys weren’t too talkative, preferring the digital world to the real one but… “Hypothesis. Human Cara Liss is searching for the dracozolt currently loose in the city.”
…
What?
“What?” The phone flipped in the air to face towards me, little arms made out of hard light gesturing and waving around.
“Dracozolt, the Fossil Pokémon. Dracozolt is a hybrid fossil pokémon created by reckless and unethical scientists of the Galar region some twenty years ago, ‘supposedly’ unbeatable thanks to its powerful lower body and going extinct due to the depletion of its plant-based food sources.” My phone sounded almost bitter, and I could see that Cara had flinched at the description.
Akari was staring at the woman with disdain, hands clenched into fists. “I thought I recognized you… you’re one of those people who worked on those… sick resurrection experiments aren’t you?” To my shock, Akari started looming over the woman, her eyes flashing with malice.
Oh.
“I… think you need to calm down, I don’t think we need to make a scene and uhh… she doesn’t look well?” Akari blinked and really looked at the woman.
She looked… dead on the inside, like she hadn’t slept in a hundred years. She was practically shaking, and looked… so… so tired. I… vaguely recalled her now, she was the scientist that had helped the… player make the fossil pokémon.
Wasn’t her name a pun?
“Evaluation. Recent research on the ‘Galar Fossil Crisis’ indicates Cara Liss is responsible for most research on gene therapy and biomedical treatments for the victims of the crisis for the past two years.”
So… right around the time period leading up to the whole terrifying Eternatus incident… which with the fall of Chairman Rose had led to a massive political shitstorm that had revealed a level of corruption, malice, and incompetence that was unquestionably British, like something out of Yes, Minister. I had looked it up out of curiosity, and was… promptly horrified in every matter of the word. The League bureaucracy had been turned into nothing more than a nepotistic mess of a political machine, and multiple financial, social and political crises had been caused across the multiple city councils and the League.
They had entered multiple fuck ups and fights with other Leagues, including Alola since they wanted to turn them into a nice little puppet state. They weren’t as bad as my world, but it was a very familiar superiority complex and vaguely imperialist leanings in terms of uhh… culture and interaction within themselves and with others?
The ‘Galar Fossil Crisis’ leading to the horrific resurrection of thousands of imperfectly fused pokémon had… caused issues which had been left by the wayside due to Galar not wanting to be proven as incompetent and wrong… and more disgustingly because all four were strong, powerful pokémon that didn’t suffer from gaining the rock-typing due to the imperfect resurrection process.
“Thank you for that information… I’m also very grateful your only job is optimizing my phone’s code, being a personal assistant and acting as an analysis engine.” I would feel a lot less comfortable using the phone otherwise, I was a grown adult and watching porn didn’t need to give me fucking paranoia.
“Affirmative. The internal PCSS is an adequate private space for my needs.” Right that was an interesting feature, it was linked up to the lab back home so I could grab up any pokémon from back there in an instant… but the in-built PCSS was closer to the Unova-model, an… internal pocket world connecting pokéballs through digital space, used primarily to house a porygon as an optimal environment for them.
Which was a terrifying technological feat in hindsight.
“So… is this dracozolt a patient of yours?” Cara Liss startled at Akari’s decreased hostility.
“Yes… but I suppose you wouldn’t expect that, huh?” She rubbed her eyes. “It’s been a lot of work… and she’s certainly not the only one under treatment but she’s… important to me.”
“We can take a look.” I stepped in, and Akari nodded with a grimace.
I had a feeling this was going to take a while.
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I chewed on my lip as I followed Mirko, who had been using her sense of smell to track down Dracozolt. Capitalized this time as it was a name, honestly pokémon are weird when it comes to names. Sometimes they want them and sometimes they don’t… though I do know their name… has some tiny imperceptible difference from individual to individual.
Some consequence of their language, for pokémon their language is much like ours but it also stacks feelings and emotions through both verbalization and body language and aura. One could say their language was… metaphysical, more something of magic and soul than of the physical and flesh alone.
It was very, very interesting.
I blinked at the sudden Pressure and I turned over to an alley… where two people were running away from it, disappearing into the crowd. I immediately followed, and I could see Akari had felt the same thing with that crooked frown of hers.
Mirko hopped eagerly into the alley, and I did the same and stared.
That was… different.
I had expected the worse from what I know about Galar Fossils, I expected a pained, sickly creature brought back by people filled with hubris and pushed on by incompetence and arrogance both. I expected a far too small front body stitched onto a too large lower body,
But to my shock, that wasn’t what I found.
Dracozolt was a strange chimeric creature, yes, but the two species had been more evenly blended together, forming something greater than the sum of their parts. Her upper maniraptoran torso fit into her lower stegosaurian body like two puzzle pieces, and was utterly covered in a coat of feathers that gave way to colorful scales. The pressure she exuded was like a curtain of thunder and draconic might, a wall around the goofy looking electric dragon.
She kept her arms firmly in front of her chest, hands gliding over one another in a nervous tic. Her mix of feathers and scales reminded me of a kulindadromeus, a dinosaur species with both scales and feathers.
“Not what you expected, huh?” Cara Liss replied as she walked over to the chimera with no hesitation. “It… was a trainer from Galar who helped snap me out of my funk and got me on the right track when it came to my research. I was studying forme changes, and methods of using Dream Mist to induce them and introduce foreign genetics to uhh… stabilize their physiology. For Dracovolt, we used DNA from archeops and charizard for the front half and DNA from rampardos, and aggron for the rear half as a… scaffold for their damaged genetics, and with the right infinity energy manifold and Dream Mist emitter… well you get Dracozolt.”
Dracozolt was… also much larger than I expected, the top of Akari’s head was several inches short of her hips, and her long neck bobbed upward with a derpy saurian smile, red spotted cheeks sparking with electricity. She had to be at least nine or more feet tall, maybe seven hundred kilograms of hybrid dinosaur. So she was larger than average and… happy, rather than being an utterly broken creature.
“Thank you for helping me find Dracozolt, I was worried sick when she left her ball.” Cara rubbed her eyes again, and smiled sadly when her giant pokémon cuddled up to her in a single stride, letting out a soft crooning sound. “If you two ever need anything from me, show up at my lab in Iwasaki. You can’t miss it.”
She shuffled off with her drake in tow, and I shared a moment with a rather befuddled Akari.
Today was a weird day.