El-Ahrairah 4.3
December 17th, 2022.
After that little incident when it came to jogging my memory, we had decided to try this again in a Pokémon Trainer park, which was essentially a public plaza and natural park in one, allowing pokémon to roam freely with their trainer and mingle without taking up space in crowded streets. We were waiting for the pair to arrive.
I had also gotten a good glimpse of what ‘domestic’ pokémon were like, the sub-sapient variants that tended to make up the bulk of the ecosystem when it comes to biomass, I was watching a spider that resembled a black eight legged ariados catch another microbug using a tiny version of Sticky Web, rapidly weaving a sticky net to trap a caterpillar, rapidly cocooning it in seconds, and poisoning it with fangs.
It also made it much more clear why bug repellant was so important when mosquitos can use shit like Leech Life en masse to drain your damn life away.
The other examples were small rat and mouse sized rattatas, and something that vaguely resembled a very boring dull yellow pikachu… that got eaten by a stray pidgeotto. Which was a bit traumatizing but I got over it real quick.
I looked away from the spider, and instead lay down on the soft grass, watching my team relax in the short and strangely soft and comfy grass. Mirko was sitting criss-cross, leaning back to enjoy the warm breeze, ears flicking back and forth with feverish energy. Jericho had made sport of devouring mammals scurrying in the soil, his mouth opening at a 90 degree angle to reveal his growing tusks and teeth.
He and Fleur were the most predatory of the pokémon on my team, though his species were a bit like bears in consuming the greatest variety of foods of any mammal. Males tended to have a greater percentage of meat in their diet, around forty to sixty percent with females favoring a plant diet of up to eighty five percent, though during pregnancy they switch places due to the burden of being a mother needing a diet rich in meat.
So he often hunted his food and brought it for me to cook up into healthy meals. I got used to it very fast, and fortunately watched enough nature documentaries in both this and my world to get used to it. Domestics were still kinda confusing especially the big ones like tauros who were basically big dumb cows with weak superpowers.
Mirko had some relatives that were basically just bunnies, and in her writing she described them as lesser spirits, pokémon like herself as spirits, and legendaries as Great Spirits. They had limited power and intelligence, taking up the niches that required only limited power and having a reproduction rate high enough to make up for it. They also needed less food pound for pound. A rabbit the size of Mirko would need maybe a third of what she needs, and can reproduce far faster in terms of both egg production and live birth.
“Mir!” I sighed when Mirko placed her head on top of mine with a smug aura, having blinked and been unable to see her coming. She had a very light step, which made it hard to track when she wanted to be affectionate and ambush me. Though I could always sense her with my aura, which she let me know subconsciously so I wouldn’t be startled.
“You’ve been using the remnants of Run Away I presume to improve your ability and movement capabilities?” Run Away gave pokémon with it the ability to dodge attacks and well… run away with far greater ease, a sort of intuitive adaptation for movement. “What about Klutz, have you figured out how to reject the effect of items?” It was a togglable skill that would serve useful for strategies involving throwing items or avoiding the touch of dangerous items pokémon can equip or absorb.
Mirko shook her head at the latter, and I chewed on my lips. I was gonna have to read up on that. “Also why are you being so cuddly right now?”
She just made a hiccuping sound of contentment, along with a gentle purring sound that involved a gentle grind of her teeth. Jericho made a honking sound of teasing laughter, and Mirko hissed.
“She’s probably in heat or something.” Akari’s voice called out, and it took me a second to decipher what she said.
“What?” Mirko twitched, growling her displeasure at the blue haired trainer.
“It’s a thing with a lot of pokémon, didn’t you read up how the buneary-line cycles in and out of heat about once a month?”
“I… kind of skimmed it,” probably not the best idea but whatever I could correct it. “Is that bad?”
“You should keep track of that stuff,” Akari said seriously. “While most pokémon don’t tend to get driven crazy or anything, some do, and some need to be checked in on due to the hormonal shifts. For Mirko, it’s basically just…”
I raised a brow. “A period? Why is it called heat then?”
Akari shrugged. “It’s really more of an estrous cycle, they reabsorb the endometrium instead of menstruating…” I heard her whisper lucky bitches under her breath and pretended not to hear it for her dignity. “Pokémon… cycles tend to be either pretty normal or really, really weird.”
Mirko opened her mouth, placed a paw on it and nodded, pointing to Akari.
“Hmm. What do I have to worry about then?” Mirko was still being cuddly but seemed oddly invested in the conversation.
“Nidoran will usually enter heat around the Spring Tide when the moon is at its fullest or darkest. They only tend to produce clutches once every eight lunar years, as in the orbital period.” So… once every 216 days? “It’ll mostly make him want to fight more often, and a bit more uhh… excitable. Llayda won’t really have heat, it’s more of a menstrual cycle once every seven months?”
That’s kind of weird isn’t it? I vaguely remember reading back home that a human kind of cycle is limited to about ten primate species, four bat species, elephant shrews and a spiny mouse species. Out of over five thousand species of mammals.
“Huh… interesting,” I’d be more embarrassed if I wasn’t fascinated by the general science of it. “So Fleur probably has an estrous cycle too?”
Akari nodded. “Yes, though they have far greater control over it, they can consciously induce it depending on the climate and local resources. They usually aim for late December so they can have kits in spring.”
“Why do you know so much about this?” I had to ask.
She brushed back a bang with a snort. “My home is in the Sternwing mountains, it’s the home of some of the strongest wild pokémon in the region, home to Dragons and Faerie Kings and Lucario Kingdoms. It’s a good territory for it, with mountains reaching five kilometers into the sky. We have to know everything about the pokémon around us so we don’t face any dangers like rutting aggrons and tyranitars or the rage of a mother Dragon.”
“Interesting conversation you two are having huh?” Selene slid into my awareness with a teasing grin, and I could see Lillie shyly waving at us from her left.
“Oh. Right, you exist.” I said dryly as my awareness expanded.
Selene choked on laughter.
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“Come on out!” I heard Selene shout as she casually tossed six pokéballs in the span of a couple of seconds, which leapt back onto her belt like magic.
Six pokémon exploded onto the scene, and all my pokémon felt the pressure of a champion-level team, six distinct auras scraping and weaving around each other like old friends, and I took a deep, deep breath to keep my anxiety from spiking.
The first pokémon to enter the scene was an incineroar whose first action was flexing, his aura exploding like fire and shifting like dark smog. My aura reading had gotten better with time, where it used to be hard to keep it on now it was hard to keep it off. I could feel hundreds of auras flickering with energy and emotion, from instinctual fear to glee to joy and more.
His aura was proud, full of grim delight and mischief, and a frenetic joy to be out and about. I smiled, and moved on to the next pokémon, a large slowbro with an aura of Mind and Water, flowing like a lazy river, glancing over to me with a dull but kind expression on his derpy face. Selene’s third member was a tsareena, a bipedal plant pokémon with a humanoid appearance. There was an uncanny beauty to her, all the facets of the feminine clad within the kingdom of plants, and her aura extended like vines and unfolding flower buds, sparkling with emerald and jade and olive, cocking a hip with an almost sultry stare.
Her aura sparked with curiosity, amusement and content, a level of self confidence I sort of envied.
The fourth pokémon was… a salamence, stretching out wings of crimson, and lifting a muscled neck up into the air with a roar of triumph that made my skin crawl with its subharmonic vibrations. She was clearly a grown individual, far larger than what some older pokédex entries would say.
From what I had read up on, a lot of errors when it came to size and weight came down to fucked up statistical averages, or only accounting for freshly evolved individuals. Most pokémon had a growth factor in the months or sometimes years after evolution, maturing and gaining mass and size in a final hurrah for their physical development. A newly evolved salamence is going to be about five feet tall, ten feet long and over one hundred fifty hundred pounds, and will gain a few feet and hundreds of pounds.
Selene’s salamence was nine feet tall and nearly twenty feet in length and likely weighed around nine hundred pounds, and her aura twisted around her like a contained hurricane, a kaleidoscope of indigo, celeste, azure and dark violet and mauve that clashed with violence and power. She offered a draconic grin at my stare, pride puffing up her chest.
Cool.
I took a deep breath, nodding at her before slowly moving on to the fifth member, a magnezone with an aura that was all sharp angles and lines, colored like stainless steel and covered in goldenrod yellow circuits, twisting and shifting to analyze the environment around them. Their aura showed calm, focused interest, floating on invisible fields of electromagnetism.
Selene was holding onto the sixth and smallest member, a little guy with a conical rocky body covered in light blue crystals of various shapes and sizes, and a white fluffy collar surrounding a small head with bright blue eyes, a light blue crystal on their head and flat diamond shaped ears. Carbink?
Their aura was utterly refined, like smooth facets of smoky quartz with hints of rose quartz inclusions sparking fiercely against the dense fury of Salamence’s aura.
Why did these energies remind me of the Void?
Selene smiled at my reaction. “I can tell you’re pretty enraptured by my team, they’re the best huh?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “For you yeah, I think I’m fine with my team though.” I couldn’t help the way my affection warmed my chest, Mirko just purred again, her aura turning soft and bubbly with love, and the aura of my team mirrored her reaction in different ways. Jericho’s aura just rippled quietly with affection, Llayda’s vibrated with compassion and pleasure, while Fleur’s aura just burned a shade brighter with a surprised burst of happiness.
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They really were good people, even to someone as weird as me.
Selene nodded. “Good! Now since this is a Trainer Park, that makes this an excellent place for some training,” she clapped her hands together. “So you’ll get to see the power of an Elite trainer in action, and Lillie and I can teach you some cool ass shit!”
My lips were pulled into an excited grin.
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December 20th, 2022.
I felt sweat drip down my face as I saw Mirko spar with Selene’s tsareena that she had named Queen. The grass-type was a monster on every level, with a potential of Deep Purple and with an accumulated 12-star power, able to outspeed Mirko by over an order of magnitude. Even as she lightly sparred with Mirko, I could tell the amount of energy she was holding back was immense, like a nuclear bomb waiting to go off. In a very literal sense, a single move from Queen could sunder a city.
Mirko was going all out while Queen was merely playing and teaching, showing off various ways to dodge, shift stances and kicking techniques. She blocked a full power Jump Kick with her hand, showing off how even her weakest limbs were stronger than anything my starter could dish out.
I watched Queen fight, noting how she often fought with a heavy focus on offense with a secondary focus on support with the use of moves like Rapid Spin, Knock Off and Aromatherapy. Though she was primarily using her offensive skills since this was a one-on-one spar, using Rapid Spin to deflect and dodge attacks was inspired however.
“Don’t be discouraged if your pokémon aren’t able to do much against my team,” Selene piped up, her aura gently unfurling into a great storm of energies. “I’ve been training with them for five years now, and they’re high-level pokémon.”
“It’s more… awe inspiring than discouraging, nothing from my home comes close if you’re talking about living things.” I replied, watching her aura fill with curiosity and sympathy. “I’m pretty sure an elephant wouldn’t be able to knock down much more than a couple of trees or a house, much less a mountain.” I had heard some reports of what champion-class trainers could pull off, moving literal mountains was within their purview.
I had heard stories of pokémon literally shattering landmasses if allowed to rampage.
“Your world must be mighty boring then.” I shrugged at her response.
“Wars are more common in my world from what I’ve checked,” I rubbed my chin. “You haven’t had a major war since the Risland-Nihoh War, and my world is currently embroiled in 27 of them, along with multiple ongoing genocides, hell my own birth country has been wrecking a region for about as long as I’ve been alive.”
Selene looked disturbed. “That’s kind of…”
“Fucked up? Yes, yes it is.” From what I can tell, their final hurrah in mass scale warfare in the 80s makes up most of their death toll, with most of their wars killing maybe thousands to tens of thousands, with two wars in the 20s and 40s killing in total about as many as the First World War. The War in the 80s had apparently killed over one hundred fifty million people, making up for their smaller wars in a single burst. “What were we talking about again?”
Selene palmed her face. “Right, moving on. I’ve been doing my best to work out your battle style, and what do you know about it?”
I perked up with a tiny grin. “I know the basic definition is just how you train and tell your pokémon how to fight, like being hyper offensive, slow and steady or using stall and so on?”
Selene nodded. “Pretty much, I learned that in my trainer school back in Kanto before I moved to Alola with my mom.”
“I suppose I tend to focus on helping each member of the team fit into an optimal role or roles, with moves to help them either set up or defend themselves. They all know utility moves, and I’ve been thinking of terrain moves and weather moves to help them further. Mirko I’ve had her fit into an attacking role, what I like to call a physical sweeper, though she can lean into a mixed sweeper with the right moves like Swift, and Shadow Ball. Mirko uses Work Up and now Agility to support her attacks, and I’ve been thinking of adding Double Team so she can max out her ability to avoid hits.”
Selene gestured for me to continue.
“Jericho, we’ve worked out that he’s going to be a lead both out of preference and suitability. He uses field effects like Stealth Rock and Toxic Spikes to weaken the opposing team, and has a good movepool to act as a sweeper too, and has Roar to force the opposing team to deal with entry hazards.” A trainer I had battled yesterday got three of his pokémon poisoned with Jericho’s Roar before he used Whirlwind to blow him back into his ball… and then got torn to shreds by Llayda.
I paused to take a breath.
“Llayda is almost pure offense aside from her love for using Tail Whip and Charm to weaken her opponents, along with Aqua Ring and Work Up, that I’m hoping to replace with Belly Drum to max out her offensive strength in one burst. She also knows Ice Spinner and Steel Roller to counter opposing terrains. Fleur seems to prefer a role as an offensive pokémon using Calm Mind and Stored Power but doesn’t mind a secondary role in boosting her teammates with Wish, and using her Magician to steal items, and we’ve been working on mastering Psychic Terrain.”
Selene narrowed her eyes. “Seems like you’re pretty focused on setting up, using moves to strengthen your pokémon both individually and as a team. As well as training each of your pokémon to be able to act independently, getting them to observe, orient, decide and then act to perform optimally in battle.”
“I can be pretty bad at reacting, and I want to get better at it,” I blustered a bit at Selene’s curious gaze. “I want to better control the battle, so I give my pokémon the tools to do so, whether it’s learning more moves or experimenting with old ones.”
“Sounds about right, Akari is more of a maneuvering tactic trainer, she uses overwhelming and focused force to break through an opposing team’s defenses, unbalancing them in the process and defeats them in a single short final battle. You seem to be more a control and attrition trainer, you’re aiming to control the field so you can do what you want and wear down the opposite side with utility moves or moves that gradually weaken them.”
“That’s accurate?” Hmm… were some Trainer Schools basically teaching their students military tactics? “Is that why I tend to lose more often than not to Akari?”
Selene made a so-so gesture with her right hand. “Ehh. It’s more that you just have opposing battle styles, and she can react more effectively since she’s more used to this kind of stuff. We actually have pretty similar styles, I love wearing down my opponents, it’s very… cathartic.”
“Teach me!” I made my eyes as wide as possible, clasping my hands together and making my lip quiver for maximum emotional manipulation (thank you Llayda).
Selene just laughed.
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December 23rd, 2022.
Over the next few days, I absorbed as much advice from Selene as possible in terms of battle and learned about better ways to take care of pokémon from Lillie as a pokémon ecologist.
Selene taught me about practicing battle drills, a way to learn movement patterns, defenses, and more established scenarios instead of just basic targets and mental exercises. As well as various ways to provide them exercise and physical conditioning such as taking on construction jobs, cleaning jobs involving heavy debris or going out into the wilds and pushing boulders, knocking down trees or attacking the sides of stony hills. Llayda was absurdly strong of course, able to lift and throw multiple tons without breaking a sweat. Mirko practiced her kicks by shattering boulders, and slicing trees in half, and Fleur learned breathing exercises to better convert more of her inner energy into fire.
Lillie was a pretty interesting source on cultivating the strength of one’s pokémon, in terms of both health and power from being around her partner. Well girlfriend obviously, seriously those two were adorable, and I wasn’t that oblivious. I had seen them kiss one time when I got distracted by a butterfree and walked into a clearing.
“So I can tell you’re putting a lot of work into increasing their potential,” Lillie commented as Llayda walked over to her with shining eyes, then offering a light scratch to her furry head. “Do you know the general basic methods of increasing the potential of a pokémon?”
“I think there’s a few methods? One involves training the body and their moves, increasing their own reserve of natural energy?” Which was basically just plain old exercise, in this case it involves stretching metaphysical muscles on top of physical muscle. “Or using power sources to feed their own growth?”
Lillie nodded. “It’s why most trainers buy elemental dust, it’s both a supplement and good for their health. Pokémon can also draw energy from ley lines and areas and objects rich in elemental energies, like flowing water or enchanted forests for Llayda. It’s why going on a journey is really important for a lot of trainers, it exposes them to new energies and experiences over time.”
Interesting. “So do pokémon draw on outside energy naturally, or can they be taught to do so?”
Lillie offered a half smirk reminiscent of her partner’s own smiles. “That’s an excellent question, part of training a pokémon for battle involves increasing their potential, in mind, body and soul. Mostly metaphorically.” I understood that much, the more physically fit they were, the more they pushed their moves and abilities, it grew their capacity to handle and generate aura.
“Mind, body and soul…” I tapped my fingers together, pondering on the correlation. Aura is life energy, the stronger the body, the more life energy they can generate and withstand. But the mind was an important factor too wasn’t it? “Pokémon don’t get stronger just by improving their bodies, their physical energy, they can increase their mental and spiritual energy too!”
The 21 year old blonde offered a rather adorable thumbs up. “You got it in one, Aura itself seems to be the union of physical, cognitive and spiritual energies… at least that’s what I’ve been told by Nebby and Hapu since she’s an aura master. Most trainers tend to only focus on physical energies, physical conditioning and battling, and cultivate the other energies more by accident? It’s the high level trainers that tend to go all out and train all three aspects.”
“Is it a matter of people not being told, or it being very difficult?” I asked, finding myself interested.
“Kind of both from what Selene’s told me? Getting their pokémon in shape is a lot easier and more intuitive, and training moves does train spiritual energies since aura is what powers moves.” Lillie sat down, leaning against a tree while Llayda placed herself on her lap.
I followed them to the ground, crossing my legs. “So exercising mental energies has a different method I’m guessing?”
Lillie nodded, scritching Llayda under her chin. “It’s easier and harder than you think, it’s strengthened by things like meditation, studying and experiences. Drawing on the connections to things they find important, all of them make pokémon and people stronger and more grounded, a stronger mental state, a greater well of mental energy makes their power skyrocket to new levels.”
So it’s some type of psychoactive power source then? “How does exercising spiritual power work then? Practicing moves and abilities is an obvious one, and you mentioned drawing on other energy sources?”
She nodded. “You could say it’s a lot like stretching a muscle and like expanding the output of a generator. Practicing moves until their well runs dry, pushing for both maximum and minimum energy so they can practice and expand their output over time. They can also feed on external sources of energy, which is something they do when they win a battle or from the bond between humans and pokémon.”
“Elemental items too?” She nodded and I tilted my head at the idea. “I’m guessing that learning how to control their own energy is a big part of it?” I had noted that my breathing exercises and pushing my aura to move and shift and exist seemed to be making it stronger. “And foci like type-boosting items are some of the more effective means, alongside exploring the world?”
“I don’t know everything, most of this I picked up from others, but you seem interested and I like to help.” I smiled at her, feeling hopeful at that declaration.
I wondered… then and there, what else was there to learn?
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Akari looked nervous and twitchy, holding a letter in her hand with an unreadable expression and an aura coiling and twisting with a mix of emotions so intense I couldn’t tell what was going on without getting a headache.
I had gotten to know Lillie a little better after her teaching me what she knew about aura and interesting tidbits to improve my training. She liked playing the flute for one thing, and she loved Alola, the place that had taught her so much in her youth, the region that had saved her from despair.
Not that I ever said as much to her face. Not my place.
“I’m going back home.”
I blinked, once, then twice.
“Huh.” She was leaving?
She let out a panicked cough. “Just for a few days, you can come along if you want. The clan did express some interest in meeting you.”
“Oh.”
Oh boy… why did I have a bad feeling about this?