Expedition 2.10
October 10th, 2022.
Today was the day scheduled for my Gym Trial at the Kozukata Gym, and I fiddled with the swimsuit I had been told I needed for the trial. So it had something to do with swimming and I felt one fear because Gyms do some weird and terrifying things to test you.
I felt… oddly exposed now, glancing over a mirror where I could see how I had changed in three months. It wasn't a lot but it wasn't nothing either, my hips were a little wider, maybe two inches or so, and I looked a fair bit more feminine both in my face and skin texture, with my curly black hair being long enough to have actual locks.
I looked more like a boyish girl and that made me incredibly happy, even if I knew it was going to take way more time than three months for real progress. It was faster than the stuff we could do on Earth, but it's a progress closer to six to eighteen months. But I was eager, and while wearing a one piece green swimsuit was odd it wasn’t bad either.
The Kozukata Gym was located near the center of the city, surrounded by restaurants and various forms of retail, and was itself a mix of a pool and a noodle shop. Many Gyms had additional services that allowed them to have some independent income, a surviving relic of when the Champion and Gyms was instead the Shogun and their Daimyo. The Gym resembled a massive shell, sort of like a tirtouga, and the interior was clean, with wave designs throughout its rows of chairs and sofas in the reception.
I had already gone past the receptionist and changed, and was walking through a dark hallway until I reached what had to be a pool with multiple floating platforms, along with pokémon swimming in the water.
A robotic voice echoed through the room. “Please enter the pool, and release your pokémon around you.”
I listened to the voice, and all three were sent out since a Gym Trial wasn't just a battle where having one at a time was part of the rules. Besides the usual League-standard six pokémon team thing at least. Mirko huffed at the water, while Llayda looked excited and Jericho looked bored.
“You must swim to each platform while your pokémon guard you from the pokémon tasked with patrolling the waters, if one pokémon tags you, you must battle a Gym Trainer.”
A Gym Trial was considered the best way to weed out trainers, usually being somewhat straight forward. You could earn a badge with a trial, but that was at the discretion of both the Gym or the regional League. But it wasn’t universal with Tohoku being one of the regions that didn’t do that along with Kanto and Johto. So there was a lot of jeering about people who earned it through a trial versus a battle.
I stepped into the water with Llayda and Jericho, both of which were good swimmers, in his case the nidoran line was known for having colonized the Orient by swimming across the ocean. Mirko instead leapt across and landed on the first platform, focused on the pokémon swimming around the platform.
It was mostly a lot of fish pokémon, goldeen, remoraid, luvdisc, and white-striped basculin. They were the taggers, while my team were the anti-taggers keeping me untagged while I swim from platform to platform.
Getting chased by fish sounded like a very fun activity didn’t it?
I immediately started swimming despite that trepidation, and with a squeak I shrunk as a goldeen rushed at me at top speed. Llayda blocked the fish for me and I just kept swimming towards the platform. Mirko sniped them from land with a low power Swift, while Jericho acted as a wall and Llayda directly engaged the fish on their home turf.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…
I threw myself at the platform, regretted everything as my chest exploded with agony, and pulled myself up and onto the platform while the fish pulled back and swam between this first and second platform. I could see there were nine more platforms to reach and I felt despair.
I couldn't give up though.
Mirko tugged on my hand, and with a sigh, I dove back into the pool, Llayda, and Jericho guarding me to the best of their ability. I twisted out of the way of a goldeen who got a tail slam to the face courtesy of Llayda. But to my shock, a remoraid slapped me in the face, having dodged my pokémon’s attacks in the chaos of Mirko releasing her swarms of Swift on the water.
Son of a bitch!
I grumbled as I swam over to the second floating platform, crawling with shame onto it’s wet surface. Mirko looked pissed off and almost… guilty? Maybe she thought she should have gotten into the water?
“You made the right choice, Llayda is much more maneuverable in the water, and Jericho makes a good wall, you're better suited on the high ground.” There had been half a dozen pokémon, and only one had slipped past them. “Now that you're aware they can get us, are you going to let some fish get one over us again?”
Her expression became furious and sadistic, and I smiled. Good.
I blinked as a woman exploded out of the water, stepping out of the pool with a cheeky grin. She wore a two-piece blue bikini that showed she was… well-endowed and she knew it, cocking her hip and placing her arms under her bust, making it just that more obvious.
I chewed on my lips, heat rising to my face. “Have… are all the Gym Trainers hiding in the water?”
Her lips curled into a smile. “Yes they do, it's part of Rei’s charm, she loves creating an interesting challenge for her challengers.” She brushed back her black bangs, large dark eyes twinkling with mischief. “She wants to test how you've connected with your pokémon. Will they do their best to protect you, will they work together to win the challenge?”
That was a fair enough reason. I think.
“Mhmm.” I didn't disagree, balancing precariously on the floating platform. Llayda took up the role of the battler, and the Gym Trainer smirked.
“A cute pokémon for a cute girl, a good choice.” I flushed but kept my cool as she released her own pokémon. “Go, Buizel!”
The Gym Trainer releases the orange otter pokémon right into the water, who was right around three feet long, his tail propelling him through the water.
“Buizel, start off with Aqua Jet and follow it up with Iron Tail!”
“Keep up the usual routine, bruise him, and lose him!” Both pokémon rushed forward into Aqua Jet, moving like missiles across the pool, chasing after the other like dog-fighting jet planes.
Buizel was faster, and that was what I was counting on. His tail glowed with the silver glow of Iron Tail, and Llayda barrel rolled into a spinning tail smack that exploded into Slam. The poor otter crumpled under the sheer impact, and was thrown right out of the water.
But he wasn’t down for the count, and his stunned trainer didn’t lose her cool.
“Use Swift, keep them on the run!”
Buizel used Swift, using an array of stars to try and corner us. Llayda simply smiled, and unleashed a precise barrage of Bubble Beam, filling the room with them, letting them drift before detonating in massive hydrokinetic explosions.
That’s new… I have an idea.
“Aqua Slam.” I called out the move we had been working on, combining the sheer speed of Aqua Jet with the physical power of Slam. The Swift stars shattered against her thick coating of pressurized water, and Buizel couldn’t get out of the way with his own burst of Aqua Jet.
He was down and out with two attacks, and the Gym Trainer looked impressed.
“Not bad at all, cute and strong,” she winked and I ignored her flirting, even as heat spread to my ears. “But will you keep up that streak against my second pokémon?”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Llayda used her tail to bounce onto my platform, and I took a few steps back just in case. She let her arms sway back and forth, looking cute and charming as she waited.
“Go, Drednaw!” The massive snapping turtle pokémon let out a loud gaping yawn as she materialized onto the field. I just grinned as Llayda did her magic silently, and with malicious intent.
Heh, heh, heh…
“Use Rock Polish and end it with Smart Strike.” Rock-type energy refined and polished the turtle’s aura, smoothing it out so she could move frictionlessly through the world.
She exploded into reality, charging at ridiculous speed towards a smiling Llayda, steel-type energy spreading across her horn. My marill reached out, and with little fanfare, plucked the pokémon twelve times her own weight right out of the air.
“What?”
“Llayda, be a dear and use Rock Smash?”
I can’t say I didn’t get a shiver of pleasure from the look on their faces as Llayda gave them the trashing of their life.
----------------------------------------
The Trial was a mix of fun and horrifying, and after ten platforms I had only been tagged once more time. That had ended in a battle against a horsea and a wartortle that had been taken care of by Mirko with Thunder Punch and a burst of Quick Attack. Wartortle had almost taken her out by matter of hitting like a train, and a mix of Rapid Spin to move around like a squirrel on crack.
As I slid out of the water, I felt exhausted and cursed this gym for its evil, evil Trial. I returned both Llayda and Jericho who had operated in sync to guard me against the water-types. Mirko had stayed on dry land, sniping the hell out of pokémon in the water, Llayda guiding them into vulnerable positions while Jericho acted like a bristly wall of death, no one wanted the smoke or in this case the Poison Point.
“The creator of this Trial is an evil, evil person.” I declared it openly and the three Gym Trainers shared a grin that made me want to punch something.
“Not bad for a foreigner,” the first trainer I fought complimented and I blinked. “Oh it’s a bit obvious dear, you’ve got a strong accent, I’m guessing the Occident, Mezo perhaps?”
I shrugged. “Something like that.” Was my answer.
The third trainer I hadn’t gotten to face placed his arms on his neck, smirking. “In other regions people can earn badges through Gym Trials, so some foreigners get mighty ticked off when that’s not a thing here. Tohoku is a different region, with different rules.” He didn’t seem to feel disdain for foreigners so much as… annoyance for people not doing their research for an international journey?
Which was fair.
“Since you’ve passed the Trial, that means you’re free to go.” The second trainer added, and I thought that was for the best.
I thanked them for the battle and went on my way. I needed to take my pokémon to the Pokémon Center to rest up for the battle against Rei tomorrow.
----------------------------------------
After the trial, I went back to my room at the Pokémon Center where Akari and I were going to receive a call from Professor Laven. There was some task we had to do once both our gym battles were done that was important to her joint research project on exotic energies.
I crossed one leg over the other, ignoring the presence of Akari as she leaned on me to get her face onto the waiting video call. My dex-phone had projected a large hologram, expanding its glassy screen with the use of advanced technology. The TV was tuned to some late-night channel I wasn't paying much attention to, though I was already drifting towards it.
I rarely watched TV, mainly focused on taking research notes, browsing the world wide web, or spending time training my apparent talent for aura. Not that it was a unique ability, most people had some access to aura, even if only passively or as a matter of course when they did anything.
Aura was the energy of life itself after all.
I narrowed my eyes at the commercial that was playing, the sensual music, and the building with what was clearly an outline of a lopunny logo told me something very specific.
“—if you ever want to have a very special encounter and satisfy your—” Akari flipped the channel with a twitch of her eyebrows.
“Thank you.” She had flipped to a nature documentary, which seemed to be about a rather distant region.
“In the Mena Region, there are several apex predators, at the very top of the food chain. Menaian pyroar are powerful ground-fire types, pack hunters, competing with mightyena and dominating in the ecosystem.”
The regional variant of pyroar had sandy coats closer to real lions, but their manes were black and and red in coloration, and their fur was covered in a layer of packed sand, like shifting silica armor. I could see them hunting zebstrika, using Sand Tomb to trap them, using the trap to redirect attacks and Sand Attack to blind them, and a mix of Scorching Sand and Fire Fang to batter, kill, and cook their prey. It was quite morbid but also fascinating.
It went on to the next species, feraligator.
“Feraligators are the apex predators of the watering holes and rivers and streams of the Mena region, growing to enormous size and scale in a region free from their normal competitors. Here's one female individual, some six meters tall and nine meters long, and two metric tons. She's not the largest on record, of course, that would go to Big Mara, a trainer-held female who topped out at nine and a half meters tall and fourteen meters in length.”
By the gods above and below… What the fuck?
Also, it's a good thing there aren't any mind readers because what kind of swearing even is that? Even though gods above and below do exist in this world…
The sheer amount of calories needed to feed something that enormous… then again larger animals need less food pound for pound than smaller ones. We’re still talking like an entire domestic tauros to feed them for two weeks. Twelve hundred pounds of meat.
The call on my phone went off, and my head snapped to the screen instead. I blinked as I saw the rather disheveled professor rubbing her eyes, revealing the dark marks caused by lack of sleep. I had them after all with the year I was under the malaise of depression and apathy and couldn't sleep well during the pandemic.
Ahem…
“Professor?” Laven smiled tiredly at us.
“I see the two of you are already working on your second badges, good I’m glad to see things are going well on your journeys.” The professor worked on something off screen. “I wanted to call you about a request we’ve gotten from the League and Interpol,” I flinched. “Nothing big, they want us to meet one of the research groups working with my lab on a joint research project. Our side deals with Type Energy and exotic fields while theirs is focused on transdimensional physics and mathematics.”
I leaned forward. “So we’re working on anything related to technology that channels, generates or controls exotic energy while they’re working on the tech that affects or alters the fabric of spacetime?”
“Correct. This stuff is still quite experimental, the Alola Incident only happened about three years ago after all, and the effects of what happened in Galar are still being researched.”
Oof.
I had used the internet to map up how the timeline matched to what I knew, which was effectively a collection of Trainer Blank defeating various teams, and numerous semi-classified incidents over the past fifteen years. Team Rocket was defeated fifteen years ago along with Team Magma and Aqua in Kanto and Johto, three years later they re-emerge and are defeated by an upcoming trainer and the former champion of Sinnoh who’s also Akari’s cousin defeats Team Galactic who’s goals are classified to the highest degree.
Three years after that, Team Plasma almost destroys the Pokémon League in Unova, are defeated by another trainer and retreat into the shadows. Not coming back for two years, their use of Kyurem in Opelucid City kills thousands and they’re once again defeated with the help of an unknown trainer.
At the same time Team Flare attempts their genocide plan, which would likely have devastated the entirety of the Occident and are defeated once again with an unknown trainer at the helm. Though there’s a pattern that each generation has more and more people and organizations doing their job as time goes on. It’s likely the first major incidents showed they were flawed and needed to change before the whole world died.
Very little goes on for about a year or two until you get to wormholes opening across the entirety of Alola and multiple legendary-class monsters emerging from them, and the emergence of Necrozma doesn’t make it any better. What went on in Galar only took place about two year ago from my arrival.
And there were rumors of something going on in the Paldea region too. Which I suspected was… the ninth region, just a gut feeling.
“So when are we going to meet this research group?” Akari asked a good question.
“It’s not been completely settled on other than being using a Teleport pokémon to bring you to the lab. But it should be after both of your Gym Battle’s.” I nodded. “So prepare for that trip as best as you can.”
“Will do!” We both saluted the professor and she chuckled, rubbing her eyes.
“Good luck on both your battles, it should help with your sponsorship if I have three promising trainers.” She hung up with a quick “Bye.”
So…
“Is there anything you want to watch?” Akari pointed it out, and I answered.
“There’s this animated series I’m curious about…”
The Legend of Zelda series having a good animated series was a pleasant delight of this world, and had to be seen for myself
“I know the channel.”
We sat down and relaxed in preparation for the battles of tomorrow.