El-Ahrairah 4.5
December 25th, 2022.
Christmas wasn’t really celebrated in this region of the world though I knew western regions had a variant that was closer to Yule since Christianity didn’t exist here. Something to do with delibird, stantler and a magical man who may or may not be some unknown god. Actually with stantler portals maybe Santa does exist in this world.
I was growing way too used to this world’s insane logic.
Akari’s childhood home was large and comfortable looking, it looked like a cross between traditional Japanese and Ainu design, maybe about fifteen by twenty meters. The house itself was partitioned into multiple rooms using fusuma and shoji dividers, but it was arranged around a central hearth which acted like a living room crossed with a kitchen, some old leftovers from their culture I guess?
I hadn’t taken many opportunities to look into the aspects of Tohokun culture that were familiar to my home, but I had done some research. But right now it was morning, and I was borrowing their kitchen to make some food for the team now that I had the chance. Eating leftovers was okay, but something fresh was good when you could manage it.
I grabbed a note I found pinned to my chest that I hadn’t noticed due to my general grogginess in the morning.
Brandy,
Whenever you’re ready, I’m going to need to talk to you on that special stone of yours. Meet us in the garden when you’re free.
-Aterui.
I blinked, and went back to my cooking, lightly bumping hips with Mirko as we got to work. I had gotten the hang of making food, having taken a look at the alternative when it came to canned and packaged meals. It was mostly either an option of kibble, normal canned food and a rich and dense chili of ingredients designed for generic Types and taxon. So something like canned fire-type mammalian polyvore kibble.
As I had mentioned before it was sort of like an empanada, or more accurately it was a turnover, a type of pastry made by placing a filling on a piece of dough, folding the dough over, sealing it and then baking or frying it. Pokémon food pellets were basically a fried knish, a mixture wrapped in delicate dough, egg washed and then fried or baked.
We had already done the first step days ago, because building up a supply of homemade dough was important when it came to making food. The first step in making food for the whole team was to whisk flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl. Make a well in the center, and add beaten egg, vinegar, cooking oil, rendered fat, and warm water, appropriate substitutes for where needed (for different ‘mons).
Mirko and I would mix it by hand until the dough pulled together, and we would turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until it was soft, smooth and elastic. Then we’d wrap the dough in plastic wrap and set it aside to make the filling… or store it away for future use in the cold stasis of the Backpack.
The filling tended to be the more involved steps when it came to cooking meals, and I lamented the loss of my old food processor, it meant doing far more things by hand until I found a better and more durable brand.
I sighed and began by rolling out my dough on a well floured board made out of torterra wood renewably harvested from their branches due to its incredible durability and resistance to damage. I divided the dough in half, as I began to make Jericho’s meal while Mirko made her own. We split the difference in terms of labor, making two meals each. The dough was rolled into a larger rectangle about an eighth of an inch thick, pulling the corners with small fingers. The filling had been more of a chore, involving several ingredients to satisfy Jericho as an omnivore with a slight lean towards flesh.
One pound of ground domestic ekans, salted and peppered and coated in garlic powder, and garnished with a pinch of poison ivy that I handled with gloves and aura, along with lightly sautéed sweet nightshade (potato) and slices of oran, persim and pecha berries, and a mash of oran and sitrus to make use of their combined regenerative properties.
I mixed the filling in a bowl, and placed half of the filling over one long end of the dough, a few inches from the edge, and brushed egg wash on the opposite end and a little on the sides. I gently poured the sauce I made from honey, water, vinegar, soy sauce and garlic which would give it the sweet flavor that Jericho loved most of all. The final bit was a light dash of nutritional additives, vitamins and trace elements that pokémon tend to need for their growth and the cultivation of their power.
Once that was done I stretched the free end of the dough to cover the filling and began to roll it towards the egg-washed side. I stopped short and folded the last few inches over the top, then pressed into the seam to seal it and rolled it over so that it was on the bottom. I trimmed off excess dough off both ends and marked it into sixteen equal pieces. I floured the side of my hand and pressed into the marks, rubbing back and forth against the counter to separate each piece. One by one I positioned them just right so I could squish down the top and tuck everything into the center to form a round knish-thing.
I brushed the bottoms with olive oil and placed it on the prepared frying sheet and brushed egg wash on top. I rubbed my brow with a sigh, swaying slightly as I started from the top for Fleur’s meal.
One pound of ground chicken (torchicken?) with an onion, salt and pepper and two whole eggs with slices of sitrus, cheri, and watmel berry with the same oran-sitrus mash. Something about the mash isolated it from having an effect with their natural elemental alignment, along with condensed oak wood pellets for her to burn.
Folded, washed with egg and olive oil which left baking or frying as the final step.
“Mi… mil!” Hah, finished this shit! “Lapor!” Mirko looked smug and happy, and I felt a spike of jealousy at how clean she was with the use of her weaker variant of Tidy Up. Pokémon are bullshit!
I clapped my hands, well I guess it was time to cook!
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I walked to the back of Akari’s home, which opened up into a massive garden full of wildflowers, with native trees, and herbaceous plants and bamboo serving as undergrowth. I could see a few things crawling around the undergrowth, domestic rattata with their brown-purple fur, insects and other microbugs fluttering and skittering about, and larger pokémon like a handful of bidoofs doing their thing.
My four pokémon were all out, exploring the garden carefully. Fleur was sniffing an oak tree with an appreciative look, Mirko was stretching, and I noted her flexibility for a moment before my attention was caught by Jericho eating a butterfly with a nasty look, he spat it back out with a cough, and I raised an eyebrow. His ears flushed a deeper shade of purple and I smirked.
For Llayda I was noting her growth spurt, she was over 43 inches tall and had gained a dozen pounds since evolving. Current expectations were that she’d gain another 16 inches and weigh somewhere between one hundred and one hundred thirty pounds.
I noted Jericho had another growth spurt too, with a head height of about four feet and a body weight of a hundred pounds. Seems his growth factor had run its course… and it also meant when he evolved his height would increase to about six feet tall, and weight to about three hundred pounds. His growth factor would swiftly add up another three feet in height and an additional three hundred pounds in weight.
He’s going to need at least 5000 to 8000 calories a day… fuck me.
I wonder if I should look into luna-luna trees, they are an interesting and rare species native to certain parts of the nidoran-range, forming a unique ecology incompatible with conventional life. They use a mixture of water and ethyl alcohol as its solvents with polysaccharides serving as the primary structural molecule, with simple sugars mobilized by an increase in water concentration and crystallized when the concentration shifts to alcohol.
Their outer tissues are structural starches, insoluble in water and ethanol. With a crystal core of sugars bound by alkyds and proteins, surrounded by a sheathe of photosynthetic cells, and a vacuum-resistant exoskeleton. They had a number of adaptations to extreme cold, their solvent wouldn’t freeze until reaching -25 degrees Fahrenheit and was suffused in strange exotic proteins that let it survive a range from -200 degrees Fahrenheit up to 300 degrees in the same scale. They carefully hold and recycle carbon dioxide, oxygen and water, shuffling them as needed, storing their liquids and carbon rich and nitrogen rich chemicals in their core in times of scarcity.
They had a range of adaptations to vacuum, low and high temperatures, and just seemed to be… both alien and biologically incompatible, with toxic alcoholic and hypersaline secretions and starches easily broken down by the amylase in mammalian saliva. Nothing in their habitats could eat them…
With the exception of the nidoran line who could easily lick away at their skin like they were candy, and loved devouring the crystal core for their rich source of nutrients and caloric dense mass of alcohol, sugar and protein and other nutrients. They would leave nothing but clean non-toxic secretions, letting them remediate and recondition soil from one biome to use in another.
It definitely fueled a lot of the early theories that the nidoran line had adapted to inhabit the moon, since luna-luna trees are native to the sparse vacuum desert of the moon, and nidoran have adaptations to survive extreme lunar conditions… Though the ‘Shiny’ subspecies documented on the moon seem to prefer the oxygenated underground that spans the mares of the moons, lava tubes expanded into small continents worth of living space by countless rock, ground, steel and ice types, some variants of known species… others not so much.
I was given a gentle push by a bemused Mirko and I blushed. Oops.
I continued walking into the garden, which seemed to span about a football field, easily facilitated by the natural and chaotic yet organized layout of the town. The trees and plants became taller, larger and more wild as I walked deeper into the garden, berry trees gently waving in the mountain air.
I walked for about a hundred feet, and stepped into a clearing of flat grass and dirt, where I could see Akari and her grandfather. He was holding his unsheathed sword, and I paused for a moment.
It was a beautiful slightly curved sword, with a black cherry bark (I looked it up) hilt covered in colorful geometric patterns of fuschia, pink, and blue, the sword itself was well polished and had a swooping pattern inlaid with silver.
Aterui simply smiled, took a stance, and I felt the world shift with his body. His blade blazed with pressure and power, and I could tell my pokémon were shocked as he chained his strikes, stances and counters into a dance that everything followed along with.
The air sang with winter breezes and gales, with hurricanes and wind rushing along the plains under the eternal blue sky, the grass and plants shifted back and forth with the slow and steady stream of their lives, with leaves catching sunlight and trees and fungus talking across the great sea of life in soil, in roots and mycelium and living matter. The ground thundered with vibrations and earthquakes and quiet contemplation, and rock pulsed and chipped and cracked.
It was like he was at the center of everything, reaching out to the world, and the world reached back with joy and curiosity.
He ended the dance with a single smooth action, placing it back into the colorful sash that was its sheathe. He smiled and looked in my direction with a look that screamed mischief.
“I see you read the note I left you, please come a little closer would you? My old eyes are a bit nearsighted these days.”
I rolled my eyes. “So are mine, I’ve been as blind as a bat for half my life and have a pair of backup glasses just in case my contacts go missing.”
Aterui’s lips were pulled into a smirk. “Not gonna ask what I did?”
I scoffed. “I read a lot of books and stories you know, and this world holds forces I don’t think mine has ever seen before,” I replied honestly, leaning on a hip. “I’m at least passably familiar with the world being aware and alive in ways I’m rather interested in. It’s… fascinating.”
The old man laughed with a croaking voice. “Lots of you science types tend to dismiss this kind of stuff, why not you?” I could tell he had a guess, he knew I wasn’t from around here at least but…
“Besides the obvious, because even things as magical and mystical as this world still have science behind it. It’s strange, unpredictable, it may run on something closer to philosophy and spirituality, but it has rules and structure even if they’re not fully understood or may never be fully understood. Science is a method, not a dogma.” I took a deep breath as I almost went on an autism-fueled rant.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Quite literally I mean.
Aterui looked at me curiously. “Mhmm. Interesting viewpoint, you’re very passionate about science aren’t you?”
I nodded. “I like to learn.”
He laughed again, shaking his head. “Good. That makes this easier, you have much control over your aura, and you cultivate it by the day, while Akari has less control and far greater power. And those who use the energies of life without proper guidance… can affect those around us without their own knowing.”
He straightened his back, and I was intimidated by his stature, his aura a steel trap to his emotions.
“You must both be taught.”
I nodded meekly. “Umm…”
“You would like to know what it is called, do you not?” He tilted to point to Akari and I looked over expectantly.
Akari sighed. “It’s… a rama rimse, a soul dance, it’s how we learn how to channel aura outside the body.”
“Do the dances to invoke z-moves have a similar… function? I’m guessing these soul dances are one way to channel aura into moves?”
Akari’s grandfather shrugged. “Technically speaking all of those are soul dances, it is also a dance of our energies, not just of our bodies.” Mirko stepped forward, and I picked up my team lingering around me with a wary look at the man.
His aura must have freaked them out a bit. Mirko walked over to Akari and patted her on the head with a chiding click of her tongue?
“Oh. Did Akari have some other secret like whatever she knows about the gem I keep on a collar necklace?” Akari stiffened, looking scared of my reaction. “Because I kind of guessed she was keeping something close to her chest.”
Her reaction was one of fear and concern, holding her arms in a defensive position. Aterui’s face became blank, and I could feel anger boiling, pointing at someone else. “Why aren’t you mad?”
“Akari, you were waking me up with nightmares and crying for multiple nights after the Pinchers, I kicked someone in the balls for brushing against my shoulder, and have had several anxiety attacks that kept me in bed.” I should look into a therapist shouldn’t I? “And it all clearly stems from whatever is special about this gemstone.”
I was either way better at figuring people out than I thought, or I just knew Akari really well.
“I…” Akari trailed off, and Aterui placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Granddaughter, I can take care of this. So let us start from the beginning.”
“Yes.” I agreed with the old man.
“Let me tell you a story, of when Tohoku was young, and the Waajin had only just crossed the great western sea…”
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I sat down where Akari’s grandpa had gestured for me to sit, crowded around by my team while Akari was firmly being crushed by her gigantic fire pig monster. Mirko glanced at Akari sympathetically and I sighed.
What a mess.
“If this was not something of expedient nature, I would tell you the full song tales of my people. But that is for another day,” The older man shook his head and began. “This is a story almost three thousand years old, in the aftermath of the great fall that befell all the human peoples of the world, from Kalos to Unova, for their sins and greed they paid a terrible price indeed. A blackened sky, the fall of ash and walking dead from all directions, those who had breathed in ash and drowned on dry land, the world ringing like a gong as the Light That Burns The Sky tears apart the world, destroying the Balance of What Is, when the freshly dead outnumbered the living three to one.”
I swallowed, Fleur let out a high pitched yip, and I could tell they knew such stories. What had their ancestors passed down to them for over thirty lifetimes?
Mirko leaned against me, offering comfort as I felt the atmosphere grow heavy and strangely melancholic.
“In that era, in that Generation of Death was born a child, alone and afraid as their village had been drowned in ash and then frozen by cold. They held within them a soul stronger than their frail body, so strong the least and greatest of kamuy… of pokémon noticed.” He took a breath and I listened intently. “Their people were gone, but it did not mean they could not save the clans of the plains and forests, of hills and waves from the death that hunted them, a Shadow borne of evil. The chosen child fought with aura and soul and the bonds that tied man and monster, choosing to stand against the tide, when that evil would reach from their places of darkness to corrupt humanity and kamuy, together they would reach down with their fists to destroy it.”
“A… Shadow?”
“You must know of the archeological records do you not? The terrible things done to humans and pokémon alike, and you have seen that shadow before.” I remembered the Shadow pokémon, how souls had been burnt out, until there was nothing but shadow and heartless hate fueling their power. “It is so, they were those not just drowned by ash but by shadow and hate. They walked day and night as mindless beasts, destroying Nihoh. Some say there were hundreds of such beings, merely striking fear into a vulnerable populace, others know that the great temples and cemeteries were built to appease and quiet the layers of bones underneath our very feet, even so some could be cured by the power of shiri-aphash-kamuy, the time walker in her guise as the Voice of the Forest.”
“What happened?”
He scowled. “The Shadow had reached into the land, dredging up endless armies, holding the drowned dead in its power and our people were few and far between… and the Shadow, building itself up from the corpses and damned souls of countless victims… They were legion. But there was always hope, even as bolts of anger rained down. The remaining power of the event that caused the Generation of Death was poured into stone and buried deep, and was in turn shaped into a new form by the desperate Hero with their unique understanding of the energies of life and the bonds of friendship. They crafted great jewels from that power, allowing the kamuy to share their power equally with humans, to this region it is known as the power of Burst.”
“Burst?” I asked, I had heard it and Bond Phenomena were two sides of the same coin. While the term supposedly corresponded to the form change alone, it was more accurately the understanding of the bond in general, how a pokémon’s power skyrocketed to new heights through the bond. This region?
Aterui nodded seriously to my question. “Mega evolution, bond-forms, zenith moves, they are all expressions of aura girl,” his eyes crinkled slightly in amusement. “The bond strengthens us both, human and pokémon, allowing us to better channel the energies of life. Mega evolution and bond-forms channel a human’s aura to strengthen a pokémon’s own might and power, and zenith moves use our powers combined to create a move of incredible power. So if we can do that for them, why can they not do that for us at the same time?”
“This hero made those jewels do that?” He nodded, and I could see Akari was keeping quiet, arms folded behind her back.
“The Hero did, and called them tools to share power and life with one another, a way to defend and understand. These Burst Hearts, the Stones of Synchronization shared the power of monsters with man, giving them strength, durability and vitality that was beyond human, an evolutionary form all of their own. And for those who could not withstand the direct rigor of Burst, they instead used it to strengthen their pokémon, to unlock new levels of power, to connect all powers.”
Damn.
“They armed their new people, friends and allies from all the clans of Tohoku, and beat back the darkness, in turn the hero was noticed by the great kamuy, their Ideals appealed to the great god Zekrom, their desire to protect summoned the Swords of Justice, their path to seek Truth brought Reshiram, they saw the evils wrought by man and fought alongside them to vanquish that evil, sharing their power to create something uniquely powerful, the ability to Burst without limit, to become a being of incredible power. This was used to end the darkness so strong even gods struggle against it.” There was a sad look to him.
“What happened?”
“The power of transformation through Burst is a dangerous power, draining stamina just as mega evolution and zenith moves do. But the power created that day had a price, their very life.” Oh, oh shit. “The hero saved the region from devastation, but could not save their own life. They were named Arcades, and they brought that power down upon the land of Tohoku.”
“People misused it somehow, corrupted it or weaponized it, since their creator was long gone.” I surmised easily.
He straightened his posture. “Not at first, not for a thousand years even. It was simply a power shared by all, a light against the darkness as mankind recovered. But with time the power of Burst was indeed perverted, weaponized, becoming something parasitic and evil. To the point our clans sealed away most of the mountains, and hid away what untainted Burst Hearts we could. That power was destroyed in the war between the regions, but scars and remnants both still run deep, and it has not stayed buried.”
I clenched the gemstone I held around my neck, feeling the energies held within and paled in realization.
“This stone, I know it shares some similarities to keystones or mega stone but… is this one of them?”
“It is.”
I leaned back at his weariness, and felt the pressure.
“Oh boy… is this why you’re offering both of us training?”
“It is one of them,” Aterui replied honestly. “That stone is your right through rightful acquisition and not being a reckless fool,” went unsaid, was that he would have taken it from me if I was a fool. “And she has her own gift through birthright and also not being a reckless fool. Another reason is that this old power has been rediscovered, first on an island to the north of this region, discovering the aspect built to strengthen pokémon, and then here for its power to strengthen humans.”
What island?
I slapped my palm into my face with a whine. “This is going to be a mess, I just know it.”
“There’s a reason ‘I wish you live in interesting times’ is considered a curse in the east.” Was his flat and dry response.
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We didn’t train that very second but I was given a time and place in the garden for the weeks we would stay here.
Instead I returned my team to their balls except for Mirko, and walked over to Akari as she sat down on the ground, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees.
“Akari?” Mirko echoed my question in her own voice, and she sniffled, rubbing at her shiny eyes. “The power of Burst… it’s not evil, but it’s dangerous if you’re reckless about it. It’s what killed my mom, it’s what drove my dad crazy, even if it wasn’t Burst that did it.”
Oh.
I glanced at Mirko who shared an equal look of concern, and I gestured towards Akari. She rolled her eyes, hopped right over into Akari’s space, and gently pulled her into a hug.
“Mirko! Brandy?” She exclaimed, cheeks taking a red cue as she failed to wiggle out of Mirko’s growth.
“She gives good hugs,” I explained and Mirko loosened her grip, widening her eyes. “If you don’t want a hug that's fine, I kinda wasn’t thinking.” I could barely tolerate being touched so I wasn’t sure what I was thinking. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why can’t I quit fucking up?
“It’s fine.” She waved away the concern with a sigh, resting her chin on Mirko’s shoulder. “I must look pathetic…”
“Not really, sad maybe. But not pathetic. Losing a parent like that, losing both of them has to hurt a lot.” I was quiet as I talked, doing my best to be comforting. “I had an uncle who… passed away, and it wasn’t peaceful.” No, doing what he did on the streets of Tijuana was bound to get him killed one day. “It’s not the same, but I think I understand.”
Mirko nodded, and it made me think she had lost people out in the Wilds, illness, predators, injuries too much even for miracle berries.
She rubbed her eyes and I approached her, uncertain of what to do with my hands or on how close was appropriate. Feelings were confusing and frightening for me.
“Could you come a little closer, please?” Akari said with a deeper red shade to her cheeks, and I did as she said, sitting down on the ground with her.
Her aura pulsed and twisted, coiling like snakes before unfolding out to reach out to me. I understand, I think…?
Akari pulled me into a hug of her own, Mirko having pulled out a few seconds earlier. I didn’t tense or push her away or get defensive since I knew it was coming, so I wrapped my arms around to seal the hug.
Being so close, it was like I could feel waves of grief, resentment, and sadness twisting around each other like a triple headed dragon, which slowly waned as she leaned into the gesture of comfort.
She sighed, ended the hug, stilled her face, taking twelve long breaths in a pattern of three and looked exhausted. “You’re probably going to learn things about me and my family, not all of them good or bad. It just is. Just… I can trust you with that right?”
I cocked my head. “I would hope so, we’re friends aren’t we?” Who would I even tell, or why?
The smile she responded with was utterly earnest with its affection and relief.