Expedition 2.13
October 16th, 2022.
Two days had ended up morphing into three days, especially as I had been asked to transfer in my stantler for comparisons to the energy they gave off when creating portals.
So between research, occasional probing and lessons on how infinity energy altered space and time, it had been quite busy. Luckily we did have time to… not train so much as have team bonding exercises. Mainly it was working on experimenting with clever uses of their moves, and creating basic sets.
Basically four to five moves used in tandem for a single cohesive strategic framework in a battle. In Mirko’s case it was Work Up to increase her physical strength and special power, Quick Attack to augment her speed and movability, a coverage move and Headbutt since Return isn’t strong enough yet.
The coverage move tended to be Drain Punch due to hitting pokémon resistant to normal-type moves and passive constitution recovery or Fire Punch which is viable against ghost types like pumpkaboo. I was attempting to deconstruct the framework of moves, to see what could be split apart and brought together with other moves.
Akari’s Ember Charge, for example, was a fusion of Flame Charge and Ember. Since moves were in part physical technique, tweaking them could be difficult. Ember for example involved channeling fire-type energy using their lungs or equivalent organs, and in fact was the same move as Flamethrower. The main difference was in technique, a proper stream of fire used their breath through the diaphragm to create a smooth focused fire beam.
Both were basic standard flame manipulation and generation, but the basics were often a great fallback. Fire Blast was far more advanced, less an overcharged Flamethrower, and more an incredibly complex manipulation of fire. So Ember as a move can be broken up into a very basic framework
Their breath becomes energy in their body, extends past their own flesh and becomes fire. Ember took that energy, and with a motion not dissimilar to yelling expelled it as a weak blast of fire. Flamethrower was closer to projection, less damaging to the throat and thus had far less loss and far more power.
Flame Charge was instead channeled from the navel, and into the limbs, shaping fire into the essence of life, enhancing their fundamental purpose of movement. Ember Charge worked by taking the initial breath of Ember, and instead of expelling it through the throat… it was expelled through the limbs, becoming a whorl of flames within the twisting mass of Flame Charge.
It lost some power in exchange for velocity and accuracy, acting as a point defense system around a mildly enhanced Flame Charge. Maybe about twenty percent stronger, around the same force as Fire Fang with less drain of their reserves.
Type Energy was complicated…
Normal-type moves were the easiest to understand, they were the closest to true neutral Type Energy, stationary, steady, balanced energy flow, an inert pattern easily wrestled into the more specialized shapes of other Types. It was why ghost types couldn’t touch them, their energy adversely struck at the flow, but normal energy was too inert. It was also why fighting aura hurt them, it absorbs the blunt of the attack, unable to defend against the refined chisel of fighting spirit.
The best comparison I could make is the difference between elemental bending and basic chi manipulation in Avatar, bending uses chi to manipulate an element, but other people could manipulate chi and it wasn’t… typed, simply raw flow of metaphysical energy.
Fortunately that made normal-type moves relatively simple, as their patterns were less complex, and easier to break up into parts. Especially when it came to building Mirko’s style, she was brute force, brutality and violence in steady motion. But certain moves just didn’t suit her, Headbutt was strong yes but it wasn’t optimal, her preference was using her limbs, all six of them from ears to legs to arms.
Her Return for example wasn't a charge, it was inert power focused into her most fitting limbs. No Return was the same from mon to mon, changing with the user and their trainer. It was why I was teaching her Dizzy Punch using Pound as a base, and it wasn’t hard. Dizzy Punch involves enhancing a strike with normal-type energy, and charging it with rhythmic high-frequency vibration patterns.
This increases striking power, and gives the target a violent dose of vibrations that triggers a status effect, confusing a pokémon by messing with their spatial awareness. She had also practiced on her own, and came up with a modified version of Cut, which involved extending normal energy from her limbs into cutting implements.
I expected some of her moves were going to get left behind as we focused on new ones, mainly Pound and Double Kick once she masters Dizzy Punch and Jump Kick. Quick Attack, I think we could develop it into Extreme Speed with a lot of work, once she was at a higher level. She was going places I was sure, and along with Jericho would both work great as leads if with tweaked roles. He was being trained for setting up environmental hazards, use of utility moves, and coverage to break through pokémon. Stealth Rock, Toxic Spikes were optimal hazards and the right moves could let him cripple entire teams.
Llayda was a bit simpler, raw offensive might, with a number of tricks up her sleeve so she wouldn’t be a one trick pony, playing to her strengths as a fairy.
I leaned against a wall, as my thoughts drifted away and let me focus on what was happening in front of me. Llayda and Mirko were playing a rather intense game of tag, Mirko using Quick Attack to augment her body while Llayda used the pressurized explosion of Aqua Jet to keep up.
I felt calm and collective as I gathered myself, feeling warm under the light of the sun, a sensation of energy at rest as I observed my pokémon having fun even if it involved a rather scary game of tag.
I saw a door open from the Zenith Lab, and perked up when I saw Akari step out of the building with a spring in her step.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“We’re finally done, now we’re leaving.” I felt a wave of relief, while I loved science it was kind of exhausting when I was the test subject.
“So does that mean we’re getting started on exploring the Node for Professor Laven?”
Akari nodded hesitantly. “She’s marked out a ton of viable locations and potential locations for when we’re stronger. Our navigation will point it out.”
Understandable.
Sending us towards areas that could get us killed was not something Laven was remotely capable of. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body. It was likely we would be heading to areas that existed as one and two star locations, at least that was my suspicion.
“So we can leave then?”
“Yes, we’ll be heading to Goruden like we planned out, and travel around for a few weeks before taking a train to Uto prefecture,” Akari cracked her neck and stretched her torso, twisting from side to side. “We’ve been moving fast, and slowing down a bit will give our pokémon some time to rest and have more casual battles.”
True, battle pokémon loved to fight, but turning it into a rote routine would ruin their fun. Only very few pokémon were that level of intense, and even so burn out hit them just as hard as anyone else.
“Am I interrupting anything?” I jumped when a smooth voice spoke up, and I could see both Mirko and Llayda stopping their games, a frown on their furry faces.
Following Akari was an older man with white combed hair, and gray eyes so light I confused them for white. He wore a white long sleeve dress shirt with a black cross pattern and white slacks, displaying a warm smile on his handsome almost youthful face.
He’s… quiet.
Akari looked slightly uncomfortable. “You’re the founder of the ZRG aren’t you?” I blinked, wasn’t the ZRG a group with thousands of employees, with multiple partnerships with Devon, Silph, Altru, Lysandre Labs and Macro Cosmos?
“I am. To most people they simply know me as Durfa Furudo, I’ve been abroad for a few months and made my return fairly recently.” He shrugged affably, shaking his head. “The ZRG was built by me in the wake of the Risland-Nihoh War, a nonprofit organization to advance humanity and pokémon alike in the Tohoku region and beyond.” Bit of an odd tangent but whatever, I’m not one to talk with my monologuing ass. “So when I heard that a Faller had washed up on the shores of my home region, I knew I had to meet them.”
His gaze was focused and sharp, and I swallowed nervously at the attention.
“After the Alola Incident five years ago, the ZRG was tasked by several regions to assist in the development of more sophisticated dimensional breaching technology along with several of our corporate partners. We can’t have legendary-class monsters like the Ultra Beasts getting dragged into our world or innocent people getting torn away from their home realities.”
“Sensible.” I commented, not adding much because social anxiety from a random chat with a rich person wasn’t my style. “Though I’m not sure what you want me to tell you.”
“There’s no need,” he shook his head again with an almost sad smile. “I was simply eager to see a Faller for myself, and I’ll be watching your progress from now on. I’m curious how far someone like you can go in this world of ours.”
Great.
Expectations.
He stepped back, tipping his head at me with a mysterious smile.
----------------------------------------
Okido was a rather interesting city, and we had been allowed to explore it during our downtime. Most of it was reliant on NEC, Totsuko and Fuji General Electronics when it comes to jobs, with the ZRG being just a minor job bringer here. It had been fun to visit their gorges, one was rich with wild pokémon eager to spar and the other was covered in ancient carvings made by pokémon, which had been made by a tribe of the ralts-line, easily one hundred thousand years old, preserved through strange psychic resonances.
We had also visited the Aamarudo Cave that was full of fossils, since the cavern was at least 350 million years old. No fossils for us, but it was a cool ass cave.
But outside of that, there wasn’t much we were really interested in. The plan Akari and I had made was simple: we'd travel to Goruden on foot, perhaps attend a tournament at the local Minor League Gum, train against people and all, stay in the city for a bit and explore, and then move on to a minor village near a Node that was marked out in our phone’s map. There were dozens of locations, each of them being one of many spiritual centers, great high-points in the tides of the World’s Aura.
Each location had a basic description, sometimes it was a clearing in a forest, a richer area of a plain, or even inside a city or abandoned temple. They were rated from 1-star up to 12-star which were marked with a big fat X, more as locations to avoid until we were good and ready in… one to six years?
These locations tended to be spiritually significant, for potentially any number of reasons from natural rock formations to cemeteries, the top of a hill or battlefields. The absolutely most powerful Nodes were the domains and territories of legendary pokémon, their power saturating the world and shifting the very fabric of existence with their mere presence. All pokémon shaped the energies of the world, changing it to suit them better, drawing on the powerful and invisible energy that surges throughout the world.
Well supposedly, proving it was going to need some studies and research.
Akari and I were at the edge of Okido, and had already set our course for Goruden… which wasn’t too far actually, about three to four hours of walking in terms of distance. Which was why it was going to make a good route for fighting trainers, since they tended to cluster closer to settlements.
Though this route was quite small, it was not a subsection of another Route, even though the numbered Routes were a lot like national highways, with many, many side-routes. I particularly remember that this was Route 307?
I released Mirko, so we’d have a pokémon out with us just in case.
“Mir?” Mirko questioned, and I gestured to the open flat path. Clarity entered her bright eyes, and she saluted me with a soft chuff.
“We’re going to travel around for a bit before we move on to the next Gym, so prepare for lots of minor battles and some downtime.” I spoke up to Mirko, who was looking at Akari as she spread her arms out in the cool refreshing breeze. “We’ve got some side quests too, so we’ll be traveling around more in general instead of sticking to just Gym Towns.”
Mirko bounced from one foot to the other at my explanation, eyes gleaming with excitement. “Bwaa!” I think that was her word for yes, excellent, fuck yeah all at the same time.
“So, I can see you’re ready to go then?” Akari butted in with a toothy smile, brushing back her blue bangs while leaning forward. “Nothing left to hold us back.”
I smirked. “Nope.”
“Then let’s get a move on! We’re burning daylight as it is!” She very gently pushed me forward, and I took my first steps onto the path in front of us.
Today marked a new leg on our journey, and I wanted to see where that would take us next.