Bitter Work 3.6

October 28th, 2022.

I stared at the massive collection of porygon plush dolls, each and every one of them had a name tag with the proclamation of ‘Hello World, my name is’ in the cutest display of advertisement I had seen so far in this world. All I had needed to do was walk into the Hedne-originated store known only as Büildenståk. Mostly because I had been looking to buy some portable Berry Pots, portable planters that let you grow a little berry tree so one can have a constant supply of berries.

I had bought four of them, along with a water can that looks like a squirtle and I could kinda understand why and how they needed such little land to feed their civilization. Hell, one estimate of needing a hundred thousand square kilometers was using an old article, and much of that land encompasses the semi-cultivated regions surrounding the cities and routes.

A mix of plants here being incredibly hyperactive, and pokémon moves like Rototiller, Grassy Terrain, and various lesser grass, ground and water moves let them create agriculture an order of magnitude more productive than on Earth. Plants can flower and fruit in days and weeks instead of months, meaning a small windowsill garden box can supply a reliable supply of food like carrots, potatoes, radishes, and more. Also apparently bike generators are pretty common which connect into general universal power devices.

Which explains why most people here are so physically fit, though obviously centralized power plants exist in major cities.

I picked up the cute ass porygon, and quickly made my way through purchasing what I needed from Büildenståk. Stepping outside into the Pokémon Center district was a real eye opener, in terms of understanding the culture of this world. I had been a tad hyper focused so I had missed some stuff in my haste, and gotten a better picture with some help from Akari.

The Pokémon Center was more than just a single building, which themselves were massive and housed many, many amenities I had yet to use. They had their large rooms along with bunk beds, large locker rooms/bathrooms and an attached laundromat. On top of multiple medical wards for everything from toxicology specialists, recovery therapy, critical care, spiritual/mystic/occult research and balancing chambers and so on. Though the latter was a rather recent thing, since a lot of their experts were killed off during the war.

The Pokémon Centers in larger cities like Suiryuu actually occupied multiple buildings, spanning multiple city blocks, reminding me of a college campus with a walkable micro-road system reserved for walking and staff vehicles, with a transit system of underground levitation rails used for extreme cases.

We’re talking hundreds of acres, the beating heart of a beating heart when it comes to the true district. The Pokémon Center among trainers tended to refer to the medical center as the Center, but to non-trainers the Center was the entire district dedicated most deeply to pokémon, something like a central business district. The Gyms, shops, training fields; temp rental homes for traveling trainers sticking around for job requests. Most of the sparring fields tended to be at the outskirts of the district to avoid noise complaints.

The very nexus of everything fundamental to being a pokémon trainer, firmly earning their name as Pokémon Center. To the point that it’s essentially a city within a city, blending together with the more ‘mundane’ districts as a cohesive unit. Hell literally every road, alley and street has lines and signs pointing to the Center for trainers. Trainers make up their own uhh… subculture, doing things that others won’t or can’t. Someone could literally go on vacation in the Center district with the inhabitants talking jargon, the hourly battles in the sparring fields and pokémon arenas, along with foreign trainers adding to the melting pot that was the Pokémon Center district. Hell missing pop culture wasn’t that uncommon for more dedicated trainers.

The district was also more colorful with all the damage from pokémon battles, and maintenance and construction using everything from Secret Power to geokinesis, to plant manipulation. Which makes it a lot easier to navigate with all the landmarks, and less bland than the rest of the city.

Suiryuu was the destination for the train, the capital of the prefecture, operating as the central heart of the entire sub-region, with many lesser routes, trains and small roads interconnecting it with every city and town for several hundred miles.

We weren’t going to stick around though, our next stop was Nakagawa.

Now where had I left Akari behind again?

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October 30th, 2022.

I stuck out my tongue as I read out the data analysis on Fennekin, waiting for my turn at the Trial.

Shared Characteristics

Species: Fennekin, Fox Pokémon

Type: Fire

Egg Group: Field

Classification: Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Carnivora - Canidae - Vulpes

Wild Threat Level: Mostly Harmless (Note: As magic users, their spells are unpredictable and explosive.)

Growth Rate: Medium Slow

Suggested Diet: Polyvore. Herbs, Berries, Tubers, Wood, Fire Polyvore Pellets, Rodents, Reptiles, Birds, Eggs.

Personal Characteristics

Name: Fennekin

Wielder: Brandon “Brandy” Red

Age: 15 years

Abilities: Blaze, Magician (Undeveloped)

Physicality Analysis:

* Recently recovered from a period of malnutrition and cold shock. Not at current risk.

* Recovery has been rapid due to the increased recovery rate common in Fennekin-line pokémon through the use of metaphysical abilities.

* Shows evidence of T1 and T2 rib breakage, also recovered.

* Minor color trait, deeper orange fur.

* Minor grass-type affinity.

Potential: Light Blue

Tips: Increase potential by spending resources on improving one’s magical talent, improving understanding of fire and psychic energies, and providing a rich source of elemental energies to meditate on.

Known Moves: Ember, Hypnosis, Stored Power, Calm Mind, Fire Spin, Wish.

Fennekin had… gone through a lot hadn’t she? More than I knew, Tsuyoki had told me what she could about Fennekin’s previous trainer. A real piece of work, abusive, incompetent and generally just a bad person from the sounds of it. He was still being investigated as he had evaded arrest so far, still out there and doing his thing.

If I ever met him I was gonna kick him in his shriveled up balls.

We had spent two days training after arriving at Nakagawa by bus, which was a smooth electric ride. The bus driver had been happy to explain that it had a modern Devon power core, a one hundred kilogram unit storing some three billion joules of energy. Which reminded me that their civilian power storage tech was as energy dense as hydrocarbon fuel.

Which was insane. I could carry an electric car battery in my hand unlike the half ton of battery required back home.

A paw began to poke at my cheeks. “Mir. Bwaa.” Mirko chided me as she rode on my back, and I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t worry Mirko, we’re just here a bit early. The Trial should start in… another thirty minutes?” Akari had taken off, since her own slot was three hours from now. “How’s trying to figure out Run Away and Scrappy coming along?”

She shrugged, her frustration growing when I mentioned Scrappy. In this world, pokémon abilities were reflections of their natural traits when used in battle. Mirko was Limber, her muscles and nervous system adaptable against paralysis.

She could develop Run Away, which actually made her way more maneuverable and from what I had looked up on the grapevine it had been cultivated into a trap escaping ability in Tohoku, letting her easily escape from moves like Whirlpool, Fire Spin and so on. And unlike Hustle into Sheer Force, it was far easier to separate out from Cute Charm in terms of… skill tree?

Klutz was another possible ability, since holding items here worked by being absorbed into their bodies… you could guess why Klutzy paws might be helpful if dangerous artifacts are lying around. As for Cute Charm, it was a defensive ability used to confuse foes and avoid fights, a sort of hypnosis to increase their natural appeal.

Scrappy was the most difficult as it involved pulling at dormant biological traits, activating the ghostly ephemera in their core to twist their normal energies into a chaotic swirl to pierce through ghostly flesh. The primal buneary and lopunny had been ghost hunters back in the day after all. But if we could make it work…

Run Away to make her even more agile and able to avoid traps, Limber enough to be immune to paralysis, Cute Charm to dazzle and confuse, and Scrappy to tear through her natural enemies defenses.

Sometimes pokémon could gain new abilities by emphasizing new natural traits, which is how you can get exceptional pokémon like a pikachu that can electrocute ground types or a swellow that had turned Guts into an immunity to electric type moves. So why not develop Scrappy?

“Hmph. So you’re hoping to train that into a competitive lopunny?” I tensed as a smarmy sounding voice spoke up from nearby, and I could feel Mirko’s emotions spike into anger and indignation.

“Excuse me?” I turned to face the one who was definitely insulting my starter and my friend with his words, and very much should know better. Insulting someone’s starter in this world was fighting words, and very liable to getting you into a pokémon battle or just straight up getting punched.

He looked… very much like someone who had come from money and reveled in it. He had slick black hair, a white collared dress shirt and black slacks, the expensive kind that would cost a small car’s worth of money.

He shrugged with a sleazy smile, looking up and down and I hid a shiver with a sharp toothless simper. “Surely you can’t think you can train such a neurotic pokémon into a true battler do you? Only the strongest pokémon rise to the top, and lopunny isn’t one of them. And that’s only if you manage to evolve them.”

Mirko’s hold on me tightened, and I muttered a quiet ‘no’ to her breath even as my own bloodlust apparently spiked.

“Is that so?” I replied with complete sarcasm, still wanting to deck him in the face.

“Of course, a pokémon like her has far better roles to be playing outside the battling field. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. Someone like you who makes such poor choices should just give up their slot now for more worthy trainers.”

I wonder if I can say it was an accident that he fell into a deep dark hole certainly not dug by my nidorino.

I stood up, walked over to the receptionist, the ‘gentleman’ following me clearly thought he was getting my spot.

“Hello there, my Trial is pretty soon. Would it be alright to wait inside?” The receptionist glanced over at the shocked pikachu faced asshole and smiled.

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November 3rd, 2022

The third Gym Trial had been a piece of cake, as it involved a less physically demanding event. It involved a series of questions on electric-type biology trivia, and then participants had to fight Gym Trainers based on the number of questions we got wrong.

I had answered thirty questions and gotten a 90% so I ended up having to fight three Gym Trainers, and had officially ranked up to being a three-star trainer, which means I was the equivalent of someone who had earned three badges.

And thus I was going to face a four-star team so that I’d be appropriately challenged and tested. The Trial itself was pretty interesting since it gave out a lot of information on training pokémon in terms of learning electric-type moves.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

I took a deep breath as the automatic glass door slid open, walking into the beautiful building I hadn’t focused on during my Trial. It was a square blue building with golden window panes and surrounded by tesla coils, an electric aura surrounding the entire building like a barely visible haze of power.

Unlike the other day, it was a lot emptier with the number of people winnowed. It was a matter of luck on my part, Akari was going to be stuck waiting for another three weeks, so booking at the Center had been a good decision. I checked in with the Gym Trainer receptionist and was swiftly brought into the arena, which was a large compacted dirt field but surrounded in technology, machinery and lights hanging off the walls and ceiling. Off to the side was a camera with recording equipment along with bleachers and seats on both ends.

“Hahahaha! So you’ve come to face the one and only Gizmo King!” I stared as a teenager jumped down from the shadows, a backpack sprouting mechanical spider legs as he landed. He was small, short and bald, tech goggles over his eyes as he cackled at my confusion, adjusting his loose green and yellow armored jumpsuit.

“Uhh, hi?”

“Are you ready to face my genius in battle, all while being recorded for research!”

“Research is good.” Was the first thing out of my mouth, and the bald Gym Leader beamed.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Hehehe. Well if you say so you zygote! I’ve got my minions as referees and tech support, so we can start right away.” One of the Gym Trainers, a tall dark skinned man who looked more like a football player than anything else rolled his eyes as he stepped into the role of ref.

“So, my minions say you’re a three-star ranked player, not bad for a newbie. But it also means I get to be as unfair as I want!” Gym Leader Mikron’s expression was sadistic, electricity sparking from his tech as he took his end of the field.

The ref clapped his hands with a gruff tone of voice. “This will be a 3-on-3 battle between Challenger Brandy and Nakagawa Gym Leader Mikron. The Challenger will have two switches while the Gym Leader will have none. Are you ready?”

“You could at least call me Gizmo, crud for brains.” The Leader complained.

The ref scoffed. “Not in your life, squirt.” After that exchange we both went on to agree with his question. “Now start the battle! Send out your pokémon!”

“Electrify this newbie into shape, Galvantula!”

“Jericho, do what you do best!”

The first sign of things going wrong after the damage absorbers were put up by two Alolan raichu was the strange tech on the walls emitting visible waves of electromagnetic force. They turned solid, a fog of electrical energy coating the entire arena in golden light, feeding more and more power into the air.

I could feel the sheer amount of electric aura being pumped into the environment as Electric Terrain. I could tell Jericho was nervous even as he set up Toxic Spikes and Stealth Rock, ears swiveling back and forth.

Mikron’s smile became sharp, eyes filling with glee. “Ahh. Are you surprised? I’m called Gizmo King for a good reason around these parts, I cheat as much as I can within the confines of the rules.” Galvantula’s mandibles flexed almost hungrily as it skittered on eight furry legs spreading out for seven feet.

Oh Jesus Christ on a bike that is a fucking nightmare to look at.

I glanced at the iron ends of his legs, which crushed layers of Toxic Spikes under foot. Heavy-Duty Boots huh? The two pokémon glared at each other as we waited for the ref to start off the match.

“Begin!” And there he went.

Jericho started the battle with a quick Hone Claws, and his new ground-type move. His whole body stiffened with frustration, and he drives himself forward, surrounding by earthy orange energy that hardened into what looked like compacted tectonic plates.

Stomping Tantrum was a good new move to crush Galvantula under foot as fast as possible.

“Electroweb.” The spider began to gather energy, and Jericho set up a massive wave of Confusion to tear it apart. “Sticky Web.”

And the web instead formed under his feet from the cloudy floor of Electric Terrain, and Galvantula lunged forward, practically teleporting with his sheer speed, and with a twist, began to generate multiple feet of spider silk thread, weaving and letting it explode outwards until it covered the field, and Jericho let out a pissed off cry.

“Follow it up with Rising Voltage.” My eyes widened and I spat out an order.

“Cut that web apart and get underground!” To my horror, electricity began to rise from the ground, forming a shifting network of electrical currents and loops, and then—

It collapsed in on itself with Jericho at the epicenter, and I didn’t get a chance to shout another desperate order.

“Jericho is unable to battle. Challenger, send out your next pokémon.”

I shakedly recalled Jericho with dread, and whispered that he had done his best.

“You set up amazingly, we were just… a bit unprepared is all.” I counted backwards from ten to hold back my anxiety.

“A bit of a quick shot ehh? I assumed better than this from what my fellow Gym Leaders said. Guess they were wrong.” He pulled his eyelid down in an insult, and I quietly seethed. He was definitely trying to get a rise out of me.

“Mirko, you’re up next.” I warned Mirko as the battle resumed once more, and she landed in the field, rolling her shoulders and shifting her weight from foot to foot.

“We’re dealing with a pretty clever opponent, watch out for Shaker, Archer and Traverser moves.”

Red sparks flew off of her as she cycled through Work Up twice in a row, and vanished into a Quick Attack right as Galvantula lunged for her like the arthropod predator he was.

“Screech, keep it up continuously while blasting Electroweb! Keep that bunny down in the dirt!” Mikron cackled as he kicked out his feet, and to my horror, the entire field was surrounded in the haunting screech that came out of Galvantula’s mandibles.

Mirko was thrown back, and retaliated with a massive missile barrage of Swift, disrupting the Screech. She flashed forward with Quick Attack, and her fists were covered in flames as she beat down the massive spider with Fire Punch.

She twisted and ducked around his shots of Electroweb, using her newly developed Run Away to avoid the strikes, before ducked under his body, and I grinned.

“Jump Kick!” Mikron’s eyes widened as his pokémon was thrown into the roof of the closed arena, flames lighting up his dense yellow fur. He came back down with a loud thud, smashing into the ground, and Mirko just smiled, ears unfolding and folding back.

“Galvantula is unable to battle!” The ref gave his usual spiel, and I told Mirko to take a step back when I saw Mikron’s gleeful expression.

He grabbed a Great Ball and a new pokémon appeared on the field, and I flinched at the sight of an Amped Form toxtricity. Toxic Spikes died when she landed on the field, poison energy absorbed into her body, but she did take damage from Stealth Rock.

“Shift Gears into Spark, Toxtricity.” Was all he said.

Mirko used Quick Attack, the air rippling and whip cracking where she had shot off at what felt like the speed of sound. She caught up with a second use of Shift Gears, surrounded in a deep and dense aura of Spark, and I felt shock hit me as Mirko was ragdolled, thrown out of the acceleration of Quick Attack.

“Mirko!”

She wasn’t down for the count, but the injuries were clear to see from my perspective behind the clear barrier. Her fur sparked violently with waves of electricity which grounded itself into the floor, and patches of her fur had been burnt off. Her left eye was bruised over, and one of her ears was a tad crooked.

I knew pokémon could recover from and handle injuries far better than any human, their recovery time was an order of magnitude faster. Even something like a cracked rib or a broken limb could be healed within a matter of days. Seeing how much they could take in reality wasn’t something I had fully experienced yet.

Until now.

“Mirko…”

She hissed at me, rage filling her eyes when my hand drifted to her ball. I sighed, and let her continue. “Go for the usual Traverser-Archer-Bruiser combo.” Swift rapidly covered the field in stars, Mirko twisting their trajectories with a mental twitch of a neuron.

Toxtricity simply accelerated, Mikron ordering him to use another Spark. Mirko stepped into his bubble, and ducked under him, her paws swinging into a Drain Punch. She knocked the electric type off balance, and twisted into a Jump Kick into Cut, the blade of normal energy slicing through scales and skin.

Mikron just chuckled. “Shock Wave.” The pokémon exploded in an electromagnetic pulse, the air popping and detonating around the omnidirectional electric attack.

“Mirko is unable to battle, please select your next pokémon!” I felt my throat bob, and my hands started becoming sweaty as the battle was less and less under my control.

“Guess you really won’t cut it at my Gym newbie! Hahaha!” His gremlin laugh pissed me off, and I barely stopped myself from retorting at the little bastard. I grabbed my third pokémon, and with a sigh I hoped for the best.

“Knock ‘em dead, this one is a toughie Llayda.” I sent out my azumarill out into the field, who was holding a sitrus berry for additional healing. She set up Aqua Ring, slapping her belly in a dramatic threat display, her tail swaying back and force with the subtle glow of Tail Whip, while her pretty face rippled with fairy energy, the mental compulsion set in place with Charm.

“An azumarill huh? A bit out of her element isn’t she?”

I didn’t take the bait. “Soak her with Scald.” I gave the order and Llayda fired a massive cannon blast of boiling water, carrying with it a secret weapon. Mikron’s pokémon tried to dodge, but she hadn’t fired at the electric type directly, instead aiming at where she was going.

Toxtricity let out a scream as the boiling blast slammed into like a water cutter, scales taking on a blue hue as the second move was doing its thing.

“Trailblaze.” Llayda attacked suddenly, nimble footwork guiding her towards her target, grass energy costing her whole body with twisting vines of power. The surprised and confused toxtricity couldn’t avoid her devastating tackle.

Mikron gaped before shaking his head. “You hid a Soak inside that Scald! Then slammed into Toxtricity with Trailblaze for super effective damage!”

“Play Rough, and Aqua Tail.” I doubled down, and was rewarded when she used two moves at once, her tail covered in a veil of water and her arms exploding with fairy energy.

The conclusion was obvious from there.

Azumarill beat Toxtricity into unconsciousness, and Mikron returned her with a frown on his face… and then it widened into a sadistic glee.

“Not bad, but you haven’t faced my ace for this battle.” He chose an Ultra Ball, and I felt the shockwave through reality as he unleashed his third and final pokémon.

It looked like an eelektross, but I knew it wasn’t… not a Unovan one anyway, instead it was the electric-dark variant native to this region.

Its dark blue and yellow color scheme was exchanged for one that was black as night with markings of gold, covered in dense scales throughout versus the soft skin of a Unovan variant. The pokémon levitated of course and released an alarming aura that sent my fear into overdrive.

What the fuck?

Llayda shuddered once then twice before stopping.

“Eelektross, take a nap.” Mikron snapped his fingers and to my shock his pokémon went limp in the air, passing out in a blink of an eye.

“Scald.” I ordered, and eelektross ascended higher avoiding the attack without hesitation. I clicked my tongue…

A fusion move? Some mix of Rest, Sleep Talk and something else?

“Sleep Talk, routine 4.”

Rings of psychic energy surrounded his pokémon’s head, and I reacted.

“Aqua Jet away, don’t let him hit you!”

Llayda threw herself to the side, and avoided an enormous blast of Zap Cannon, which instead collided into the damage absorbers, the barriers flexing in and out under the strain.

“Keep blasting!” Mikron cackled as his pokémon swapped to a rapid barrage of Charge Beam, the concentrated bundles of energy smashing against the barriers like artillery fire. Each blast got just that amount stronger, just a little bit faster and I felt sweat drip down my nose.

“Aqua Jet into Play Rough, take that eel down!”

She dove forward at my command, at two quarters the speed of sound she smashed into the Tohokun eelektross, and with glee she pummeled into their scales… and to my horror and confusion, her hits bounced off their flesh like they were nothing.

“What. The. Hell?” I cursed under my breath as I watched those super effective strikes bounce off those scales.

Mikron cackled again. “That’s Marvel Scales for you! Finish the routine, Eelektross, I’m aching for lunch!” Llayda stepped back as if confused, and Eelektross hung loosely in the air, arms reaching down to the Electric Terrain.

To my horror, Eelektross began sucking up the field like a vacuum, more and more electric energy falling upwards into the waiting maw of the thundering dark eel. The entire field collapsed into the singular point that was Eelektross, and I suddenly realized I had… fucked up so badly.

“How about a Terrain Discharge, Eelektross!” The entire field exploded in a blast of electric force, and I stumbled as the damage absorbers flexed again.

Llayda took the brunt of the attack, and I was forced to sit and watch as she was hurt by my mistakes.

The referee glanced at me with a concerned expression, and as the field cleared I saw that Llayda had not taken the attack well at all. She was on the ground, barely moving, but I could see the gentle contraction and expansion of her breathing.

I silently returned Llayda without a word, my heart heavy and the room felt like it was closing in on me. I still had a fourth pokémon but for one thing this was a three-on-three match

“I… lost huh?” The words felt like acid in my mouth, and it confirmed my first real loss. I did my best to try to push it as a learning experience but…

The ref winced in sympathy. “The winner is Gym Leader Mikron.”

We approached each other from around the side of his field, and his cheeky smile had turned into something softer… less mean spirited. He offered a firm handshake, staring at me with his goggles up eyes.

“You ain’t half bad. Your pokémon are well trained and strong, I can see you passing with a little more gearing up.”

It was a mild comfort, but it still hurt.

“Thank you… I’ll probably be showing back up in a few weeks, probably traveling to another city or town and training up.”

He smirked. “You fucking better.”

We offered further pleasantries, and I retreated into the lobby to pay the fee I had accrued to cover both the cost of wasting a Gym Leader’s time as well as the cost of healing items. A way of dissuading too many brute-force attempts to earn badges. It wasn’t a lot, a couple thousand pokédollars was basically an hour or two of minimum wage here. Even kids could earn that money pretty easily.

I felt something bitter in my mouth as I walked out of the Gym with my head down.

I had fucked up.