Bitter Work 3.3

October 23rd, 2022.

I stared at the script, as I let my brain actually focus on the letters. It was essentially a tweaked Latin alphabet, they just well… looked like runes, sharper and more angular in shape, but they otherwise played by the same rules as normal English. Which did explain why people couldn’t read my writing, it was like trying to read Cyrillic script… though why I had no trouble reading it was something that gave me a big headache.

Akari and Laven thought my ability to comprehend multiple languages was aura-based, while the universal tongue was a variant of English, a lot of people still spoke other languages, like a dialect of Japanese in Nihoh, and a dialect of Spanish in Paldea and Mezo. Which I could understand fine, it was the script that was annoying. But I still understood it.

The simple answer was language barriers weren’t a thing for me anymore, even if it more or less just sounded like English most of the time. Too bad it didn’t work on pokémon language.

I received a light gentle smack to the head from Akari, her cheeks puffed up in indignation. “Could you please pay attention, I am trying to teach you now that I’m getting a better hang of my own aura.”

I put my phone away with a blush.

She wasn’t wrong, while I had noticed the anime-physics enforced by passive aura a long time ago… there was that symbiotic bond between human and pokémon that was hundreds of thousands of years old if not millions. My paltry talent with aura had grown in leaps and bounds as my team got stronger, as we earned more badges. Where before my sense was mostly gut instinct, and vague feelings and emotions… I could actually feel/see/sense my own aura.

Akari’s clan had traditions of teaching and mastering aura that were at least fifteen hundred years old. That was a lot of hidden knowledge, gained from understanding of the hidden monsters that live in this vast world.

Akari sat in a meditative position, and grabbed hold of a… stick?

She started drawing in the bare ground of the small forest clearing at the edge of town we had chosen after our third and final day of battles in the city. It was a rough figure of a human being surrounded by a shifting mass of energy, stemming up from the top of their head, in addition she created connections to other familiar shapes. A bipedal fluffy rabbit, a spiky much larger horned rabbit, and a round mouse-like creature with a long thin tail ending in a round ball of fat.

Their aura all had its own shape and texture, and their aura seemed to radiate around the strange lines of connection she had drawn in the dirt. “You already know that the bond between pokémon and a trainer is based on aura and makes both stronger. So I’ll tell you how that works for you.”

I nodded, following along with the lesson.”

“When I first met you… your aura was weak and strange,” she revealed. “It was like the aura of a newborn stretched over an adult’s body. I kept thinking one good push would just umm…” she licked her lips nervously.

I raised an eyebrow. “Kill me?”

“Yeah. But now… your aura is growing in leaps and bounds, as is mine, which means I can put some of the lessons my clan gave me to good use. What I’ve taught you when it comes to… meditation and basic control of aura, it’s kid’s stuff, just so we can get a basic feel for aura. But you’re at the stage where you can start seeing it. And we aren’t allowed to advance past that until we hit sixteen and go on our journey.”

“Yeah?” I avoided asking about the landmine of why she hadn’t gone on her journey three years ago.

She pulled out an odd journal, one that looked a hundred or more pages thick at the very least, with an odd title, simply a circular symbol of platinum coloration with…

Sukshma Sarira

“Try and open that.” I blinked at her request and reached out to the book, and simply tugged on the cover… which didn’t budge even a millimeter.

What?

I pulled the book into my lap, and began to rip into it with all my strength, and it didn’t give at all.

“What the fuck?” I didn’t usually curse aloud, but my inhibitions had dropped a lot without the pressure of being around family.

Akari smirked. “How do you think my clan has been able to keep their secrets into the modern age?”

“Magic, alchemy, I know that’s a thing aura can do.” It was bullshit is what it was, lucario used alchemy to turn their bones into orichalcum, a special alchemical metal better able to conduct aura and fighting spirit. “So does that mean I need to channel aura into this?” She gave a silent thumbs up, and I rolled my eyes at her.

I reached out to that spark of Power that had been steadily growing with every battle and tribulation my team faced, every show of affection and kindness, every new puzzle piece added to my understanding of pokémon. Her exercises reminded me of various tantric and yoga practices or stuff like qigong. Except they uhh… actually did something.

I visualized my aura as a shining void, filling the space in my belly and heart and with an exhale radiating throughout the rest of my body. I let it cycle ever upwards, the base of my spine, my stomach, solar plexus, heart, throat, forehead and the crown of my head. I let my aura move…

And the book opened.

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October 24th, 2022.

I watched Mirko spar against the empty air, letting her pressure wash over me with a grin. The short book had been rather more helpful than I had expected, with multiple pages of insights and techniques when it came to cultivating aura and one’s relationship with their pokémon. Even Akari had been surprised by how scientific and meticulous it was, various types of stones and gems were amazing foci for aura control, not far off from… well the same purpose in pokémon.

Aura in humans didn’t work exactly the same as in pokémon, it was all the same kind of energy, but what we could do with certain types of energy was a bit different was all. More subtle in some ways, people would use ‘moves’ but it was closer to magic spells than the specific frameworks that pokémon had been crafting since the dawn of Life. I read the passage, Akari and I have been working on it for some time now.

Aura is the metaphysical energy that flows throughout the body, the energy of life itself. It is the very root and beating heart of the beings known as pokémon, of the Empowered like ourselves and beyond. If you are reading this then you are a member of the Shirogane clan or a friend to us, if so you are welcome to our knowledge. We will teach what it means to be a user of the great energy of creation, perhaps not an Aura Guardian, as their time has passed long ago… but to understand the world, that is a worthy goal indeed.

Her clan was rather nice actually, and I wondered if they were interested in spreading their knowledge or keeping it to a select few. I could probably ask them based on how elaborate and well documented this little book was. I skimmed over the passage, and stuck out my tongue as I read with fervor.

As a pokémon wielder grows with their companions, so does their aura and their ability to change it into the flow of elemental power, into what is known as Type Energy. This is the source of the many metaphysical abilities of the Empowered.

Psychics draw on their own psychic energies and their connection to the Dream World, masters of ninjitsu instead focus on the energies of the more subtle and stealthy Types, of poison, ghost, and dark pokémon. Occultists are of course connected to ghosts, watchers, guardians and gardeners of the Spirit World. The truth is however… that all human beings use aura every moment of their lives. Everyone can move aura, everyone can and does so as a matter of course.

This text of ours will teach you of the eighteen Elemental Types, of what they can do when drawn upon, and how they affect the World around us.

The book was utterly and completely fascinating, and my limited aura sense told me that it was absolutely bathed in a complex weave of aura, like a web that gave me a headache just thinking about it. From what I could tell, it was some type of auric… hardware, acting as a security system for the secrets held within. If I had been malicious, I would have… probably suffered for my hubris.

But I wasn’t so I was fine… would have been nice if someone had mentioned that.

Akari whistled innocently at my glare, as I shut the book and focused on Mirko’s training instead. I wasn’t going to be a punch wizard anytime soon, while I had grown in leaps and bounds, my aura was still far too stretched out to do any of the crazier stuff. I could do magic though, since that didn’t draw on my own power alone. I should look into that…

I wasn’t so good at the external use of aura, but it turns out my ability to sense it was far better than Akari’s now that I had a deep enough well. It was an unforeseen force of invisible influence, like a weight, virtually shrouding me in its power. Mirko was throwing out moves, surrounded in a shroud of stately silver with flickers of red. When she struck out with Thunder Punch, I saw how that stately silver became a crashing mass of yellow and gold, projecting out as raw lightning around her paws.

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Pokémon… their aura was clearly radiating their Type Energy at all times, shaped by their biology, soul and flesh both. Human aura was transparent most of the time, like looking at fragile glass, unless they had developed an affinity to a Type like most Specialists did.

Which I hadn’t seen so far because my new sense is… well new. But that was something to do later. At the moment my data is limited, despite unlocking the book there were chapters that were locked up behind thick chains of auric machinery. Probably a safety feature, idiot-proofing books was important.

What I had learned was very interesting, a pokémon’s aura created a sort of… Space around them, a type of pressure on reality whenever they entered battle. This area of influence… was the source of the power of moves, it was how they could hit like artillery without the corresponding mass or velocity. Whoever had a higher level of Space was going to hit harder when it came to strength or power, and the longer they fought the less Space (aura) they had to spare.

Jericho’s aura was a sickly dark purple with hints of brown, yellowish loam etching deep into his energies, along with sparkles of sharp pinks. Llayda was a deep ocean blue with great streams of fairy pink tracing around her with intent, and a spark of red every now and then. Which meant she had an affinity for fighting aura, and could learn them faster than and use them with greater power than other off-type moves.

The Terastal phenomenon seemed to draw on those affinities and made them even stronger or on pokémon that lean towards one of their types more in terms of… affinity, the energy given to that type? A pokémon could radiate far more energy of one element more than the average, which could become their Tera Type.

A lot of the early pages focused on trying to generate the same energies as your own pokémon, and figure out what you can do from there. Which tends to relate to the aspects of Reality that the Types have dominion over. The book had a lot of interesting things to say on that matter, regardless of how short it was. From what I had read, the reason was because learning how to manipulate metaphysical energy was really personal so the most they could offer was more advanced exercises, better tools for practicing and so on, at least near the start, and asking for help was also part of the journey or whatever.

I circulated my aura, aligning to the same nature that Mirko followed, hers wasn’t inert so much as… perfectly balanced, it was the absence of alignment to any of the other elemental types. It could be easily shifted to other forms of aura, which explained why normal-types had had such large movepools. One could say normal energy is the minimum baseline when it comes to alignming aura into something useful. Which did explain pokémon like ditto, and… Arceus being normal-type.

Normal energy was… familiar, soothing almost, it flowed in calm and simple patterns, and seemed easier to move. Moving it outside my body was a bit tiring, so I tended to just keep most of the flow inside.

Pressure!

Mirko flinched, Akari let out a yelp as a massive field of pressure pressed down on us like the fist of god. I turned and found someone walking around with a lucario and holyshitoww!

It was like staring at the sun.

The Space around the lucario had to span the width of several football fields, his aura shining like a beacon, an impossibly thick cloak of blood red aura with scaffolds of steel gray scraping against the fabric of reality like a force of nature. His trainer’s aura was no less impressive, it was like a figure of glass, glory and garnet surrounded her, not quite as vast as her companion but easily a hundred times denser than anything we had to offer in terms of aura.

“Maybe turn it down a notch Lulu? I think you’re going to give those kids a heart attack.” The woman revealed a boisterous voice, and I flinched as she jumped a dozen feet in a single bound, her pokémon following her with a gentle growl. The massive cowl of light receded, folding in on itself a hundred times over until it was reduced to a barely visible shimmer along her fur.

Akari’s mouth dropped. “What the hell is an Elite Four member doing here?”

I paled. What?

I recognized the woman from magazines and new articles, she was tall and built, wearing a white-collared button-up blouse and form-fitting gray pants. She had fair skin, sharp dark eyes and lengthy black hair tamed into a ponytail.

Izumi of the Elite Four, the strongest fighting-type trainer in the region of Tohoku. Alongside the ace of her team, Lulu the Lucario. She stood at shoulder height for me… so around four and a half feet tall. Her eyes burned a lovely shade of rusty red, her expression somewhat serious as she scanned us.

So this was the power of a 12-star pokémon then?

It was terrifyingly beautiful.

She crossed her arms over her chest with a light smirk. “So. What are a bunch of kids doing out in these little woods when the city is literally five minutes away?”

“Practice.” Akari sounded nervous, sweat dripping down her forehead at the sharp gaze of Izumi.

“Do you mean practicing as in training or in practicing making the beast with two backs?”

I turned scarlet. “My pokémon is literally punching stuff right over there!” Was my counter and she snorted.

“Kid, I’ve been around a while… that doesn’t do much to people that determined to shag.”

What?

Akari sighed. “Motherfucker…” I… really should have seen that coming, I had literally read up on the relationships between humans and pokémon just so I wouldn’t be caught off guard.

She smirked. “Just teasing, I wouldn’t have shown up here if that was happening,” I rolled my eyes, and the Elite Four member shrugged her shoulders as she watched us closely. “I was actually looking for a ghost that’s been lingering around these parts. Lulu and Martin picked up the scent around here.”

“What kind of ghost?” I asked carefully, fully remembering that odd dream. So that had been a haunting then? Maybe?

“A fairly harmless one, in terms of threat rather than power, a Tohokun audino.” Well… that was unsettling.

I flinched as the air suddenly turned cold, as the pressure pressed down on my shoulders. Nowhere as strong as the lucario but stronger than anything I had felt from my own pokémon. It was like a shadow was spreading out across reality, and I blinked as it coalesced into a physical form, like a planet forming from cosmic dust.

The pokémon looked a lot like an audino… but I knew it wasn’t just an audino.

The pokémon was semi-transparent and the pinks and whites of her fur had faded to almost gray, with white shining orbs for eyes. A witch’s hat sat on her head, with a pair of wings flapping ominously with every shift of the ghost pokémon’s gentle hovering.

Ghostly fire orbited around the ghost-normal type, eyes growing far too wide for her face. I could… feel something from the ghost, a burst of curiosity, joy, and mild annoyance.

Izumi snorted, and the ghost looked indignant. “Your kith and kin have been worried sick you know, they haven’t figured out why you wandered off, and the League doesn’t need a cohort of ghosts getting angry.”

I flinched at the idea, ghosts were powerful and dangerous. I had heard news reports of people getting attacked or haunted by ghost-type pokémon, and that was when they were being playful. I didn’t want to think about what they could do if they were in a bad mood.

I had to ask. “So she’s been haunting the city?”

Izumi shook her head. “She’s been haunting you, girl. I’m not sure what you did to get her attention, but she slipped out of Hatanoda village and crossed five hundred kilometers just to meet a trainer with two badges.”

Oh.

“That’s uhh… concerning.” Why did I have to get haunted by a ghost, why?

“It is, you’re lucky I was in the area, who knows what this bugaboo would have done to get your attention.” The ghostly audino just smiled, the shadows cutting deeper, growing longer and more distorted around her form. I shuddered. “It does mean she’s not going to bother you now. Am I clear?” Izumi projected her voice, and I could feel pressure coming off of her in waves.

Audino nodded and yet… there was a look in her eyes, and she let out a loud wailing cry that surprised Izumi. I could feel her aura change and warp and dance, forming into living witch lights, scattering light like fractal prisms.

Izumi was staring at me with curiosity now. “Interesting… kid, I’ll be telling this for her if that’s okay?” She jutted her thumb in the pokémon’s direction, and I nodded. “Seems like you caught her interest, if she was a lone ghost she’d be haunting you until you decided to catch her. But she’s not… so I’ll be giving you a little tip. Once you earn five badges… come on down to Hatanoda, if you’re willing to put in the work… who knows what could happen?”

I shared an awkward stare with Akari…

And nodded.

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I chewed on my lip as I looked over the various supplies being sold by the Pokémart. After that encounter with an Elite Four member and a ghost, Akari and I were thrown off our game.

Super Potion, ₽700.

Super potions were more powerful than regular health potions, a basic potion was made out of a synthetic slurry of oran berry and medicinal leek juice, while a super potion was made even stronger using a pep-up plant, while hyper potions used morning-dew buds. Or at least that was how they could be made in the wild, the modern synthetic variants weren’t that much better, though they didn’t work as well on people.

Though it made me wonder how often Akari got hurt badly enough to need magical health potions.

“Bun!” Mirko picked out something from a shelf, and I raised a brow at what I recognized as a toy knife.

“Why would you want that?”

Mirko placed her hands on her little hips. “Bun!” Isn’t it obvious what…? That seemed like what she was saying.

“You want to practice a new way to slay all your enemies?” She nodded, and I rolled my eyes. “Fine. We’ll buy it, don’t try Baby-Doll Eyes on me… don’t need the distraction.”

Some fun was nice every once in a while, we had our first research mission marked on the map on Laven’s request. Just a few miles into Route 307 marked our destination, a small town was close by our goal.

The Fireside Woods.