Expedition 2.5

September 22nd, 2022.

We had stayed at the village for about two days since the police needed our testimony and some extra firepower to look for a few grunts who had a getaway vehicle, an expensive armored ATV that could take damage from pokémon attacks.

Which wasn’t a good sign when it came to how many resources they had invested in the Tohoku region. It only took another day to arrive at last at the city of Irori, home to the Fire-type Gym. From where we were standing, the town was utterly gorgeous.

Irori was located in central Suika, in the center of the Milokaross River valley at the confluence of three rivers with the 624 kilometer long Milokaross river. We had walked from the east where the Idaitou ran while the Bai-Koikingu and Gorudakku ran from the west.

From the west, two great rivers and the foothills of the Sternwing Mountains, to the east the city rises to the highest peak in the Milokaross Range, the Kanran-ishi, a major centerpiece of a Wildland area home to many pokémon.

We had finally arrived, the next step would be to register for the first gym battle in my life.

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I chewed on my lip as I walked towards the Gym for the first time ever. Akari was silent, letting me think on my own.

Irori itself was rather large as urban areas went, with a population of about a hundred twenty thousand with many satellite settlements of about one to two thousand people. The settlements here were apparently quite concentrated, with a significant fraction of the land being used as a buffer zone between the city and the greater wilderness between human cities. Lots of walkable community cores, along with robust mass transit systems, and personal vehicles as needed.

The city was… comforting in its familiarity, though it was a lot quieter than the cities back home. Regardless I was standing here now, at the front of the Irori City Gym.

The gym itself was tall and domed, much like a stadium with an open roof where I could hear the distant exciting cheer of open fiery combat. That would be from the big stage that was the home of higher-badge challengers and famous trainers, which attracted large and energetic crowds. I could… feel it in my bones, a silent shockwave through reality.

The gym also doubled as an onsen, and the shape of the dome and the front of the gym paid homage to that important fact.

I sighed. “No use putting it off, it’s time.” I muttered my best prayer and pushed forward. The sliding doors chimed, and a flash of heat escaped in a strange wave of… rippling force. The lobby itself was huge, with wooden floors spanning a hundred feet across. I could see a multitude of couches, and TVs displaying the ongoing battle. The front lobby receptionist, a pretty blonde with plump lips met my eyes.

“Hello! How may I help you?” She was loud as hell, and I almost shrunk in response. I cleared my throat as I crossed the distance between us as fast as I could.

“I’m here for a gym battle, or well to register for one?”

She grinned. “Understood. Can I have your Trainer ID please?” She asked, turning a computer with her hand and waiting expectantly for me. I pulled out my ID, handing it to her. “Ahh easy enough… Do you prefer Brandy Red?”

I nodded. “Yes.

She hummed. “Journeyman, you started this year with no badges. So this challenge will be your first then?”

“Yep,” I rubbed the back of my neck with a light smile.

“You and your friend are in luck, you arrived quite early in the season so there aren’t any low-badge trainers scheduled yet. Getting your Gym Test out of the way can be done right now. If you pass we can schedule both of your challenges.”

“Of course, that’s why we’re here so early.” Akari piped up with a chipper tone of voice, bouncing on her heels.

“Thank you…” I trailed off for a moment, feeling nervous.

“Joann,” the woman replied. Oh no.

“Joann. Where should I go from here?” She pointed me down the hall so I could pretend I had asked for her name rather than the reality of having lost my train of thought like a fucking moron.

“That’ll lead you to one of our smaller arenas where an instructor will explain the Gym Test.” I stepped away from the desk, letting Akari take her turn.

“Good luck.” Was all Akari offered as I walked towards my destination. It didn’t take long to get admitted.

The examination room was warm, with a floor made out of dirt and walls made out of smooth stone and covered in numerous fiery torches… emitted from some type of electric stove devices embedded in the floor? The instructor was a young dark haired woman with a bit of a resting bitch face and tired eyes, who seemed to have finished setting up the test.

The instructor flicked a button, and the tiny flames grew four times their size. “The test is simple, put out the flames as accurately as possible and without exhausting your pokémon. Something about taking the heat, that’s it.” She practically drawled her words, a creaky tone obvious with her voice.

Mirko wasn’t optimal for taking down fires, mainly I had trained her to use a set of Work Up, Swift, Quick Attack, and Baby-Doll Eyes to strike at a distance while powering up, hit at close range for moments at a time and using Baby-Doll Eyes to reduce their physical toughness.

So… the best option here is…

“It’s your turn, Jericho.” I threw out the ball, and out popped out my nidoran buddy, the poison rabbit rearing up on his hindlimbs in a pose.

“Nirrr!”

“It’s a simple enough task, just put out the flames with the right moves, use the two we’ve been practicing.”

Jericho nodded, and took a deep breath. “Raaa!” A pulsating mass of water formed right above his horn, as he used it as a focus for hydrokinetic power. The ball took the oblong shape of a football, and with a flick of his head, he sent a weak Water Pulse screaming across the room.

Six flames were put out in a single move, and it gave out at the sixth in an anemic splash over the device.

Jericho’s eyes glowed with psychic energy, and his Confusion dragged along the ground, grabbing masses of pebbles and dirt from the ground, and he threw them into the flames, smothering them easily.

He smothered, washed out or stomped out numerous flames on both the walls and the floor, some of the flames moving from projector to projector. That didn’t work out well for them, as he took them out in midair with weak precise shots of Water Pulse.

After about twenty five targets were taken out, the instructor waved her hand. “That’s enough, you passed… it was getting boring anyways…”

I blinked. “Okay?” I gestured for Jericho and he happily ran to me with a cocky expression.

“Do you need a break for your pokémon to rest?” I glanced over at Jericho, examining his condition. “The next stage involves trainer battles.”

He was sitting on his haunches, breathing evenly and without any of the more obvious signs of exhaustion like droopy ears and eyes or yawning or excessive panting. The more subtle signs weren’t there either, like very subtle quivering back spines or laggy sparks of poké-energy from his horn.

“We can continue,” Jericho nodded. “We’ve trained a fair bit for endurance.” With three clicks I returned Jericho, I wanted Mirko to get some battling in first.

The instructor nodded with a neutral expression, and pressed a button near the exit which restarted the flame projectors on the walls and covered the ones on the ground.

“This will be a two-on-two battle with a gym trainer. No switches are allowed and recalling your pokémon will count for them becoming unfit for battle. Do you get that?” Her monotone voice was… almost soothing but I did understand.

“I do.”

The door to the arena opened at my admission, revealing the trainer I was going to battle. A young girl, maybe around fourteen or fifteen years old with a round face, light tanned skin and a round cut stepped into the arena. Her clothing was loose and colored red and tan, warm colors and all.

“Ready to get burned by the dynamic power of fire-types!” She posed dramatically, and I held back a chuckle. One it was rude, and two in the world of pokémon any trainer of any age was dangerous and to be respected as such.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Sure?”

She beamed, and brought out her pokémon at the same time I did. A ponyta materialized into reality, the meter tall equine’s mane blazing with living flame. My only thought was that she was very cute.

Mirko emerged in the same instant, one arm lifting up at an angle and the other held back in a fist. I should never have let her watch Kamen Rider…

“I’m Kiyi, and I’ll be the one kicking your ass today.” She pointed to herself with a jut of her thumb.

The referee rolled her eyes. “Begin!”

“Work Up!” Mirko did as I asked, her body flaring with scarlet light.

“High Horsepower!” Mirko jumped upwards the moment Kiyi called out the devastating move, dodging the charge of the fire horse, flinging a swarm of Swift stars straight into the surprised horse.

“Break it with Flame Wheel!” Ponyta surrounded herself in strange flaring masses of fire, cycling into a vertical vortex of combustion and heat. The stars shattered and burned as the barrier of flame destroyed them.

“Charm into Quick Attack.” Was my order, and in midair, Mirko posed cutely, her energy surging into the move, lowering the guard and weakening the offensive aura of Kiyi’s pokémon.

She vanished into a stream of white light, roundhouse kicking Ponyta and using her as a platform to land away from the now dazed pokémon.

“Ponyta, Double Kick, crush that bunny!” The gym trainer was getting angry, but I could tell she was calculating how to beat me.

“Mirko… Punish.” An evil grin spread over her face as Ponyta reared over her in a quick burst of speed, stomping down with her legs to crush her.

She threw a Drain Punch, kicking one leg out of alignment and hopping out of the way, twisting past the flailing limbs of the suddenly off balanced fire horse. A second blast of Swift smashed into her opponent like the fist of a tiny god. Bruising, pummeling, and leaving long but short cuts with the normal-type attack’s sharp edged stars.

Ponyta sent out an Ember, and she sent out another Swift which blocked most of it.

“Morning Sun!”

Yeah… no.

“Drain Punch, full power.”

Mirko leapt onto Ponyta, a second burst of Work Up exploding into life. Her ears rolled up, and snapped out in a rapidfire set of Pounds. Sixty kilograms of horse was flung downwards into a literal crater where the floor had given away.

The pokémon didn’t get back up again, the dazed expression a clear sign of defeat.

Kiyi looked disappointed and with a huff she recalled her downed pokémon, Mirko smiling at her with a raised brow. Her mockery was plain to see with that odd putting grin. She hovered over her belt, hesitated and threw out a litwick of all things. She looked mighty proud of her decision, denying Mirko the ability to attack with a single action.

She started “Confuse Ra—”

“Foresight, Buff and TAB,” Her eyes took an unnatural shine, and she vanished into Quick Attack. Litwick released an eerie cry, as Mirko’s fist embedded itself into his candle-face.

I had been experimenting with breaking down sets of moves into basic forms each designed to perform different tasks and accomplish. TAB made use of the moves she had access to, Traverser moves had their use in getting her into place, Archer moves let her attack with relative impunity while using her own speed and brief bursts of Quick Attack to dodge and keep her own space. The finishers were Bruiser moves that would leverage her greater strength as a final blow. TAB was an acronym for Traverser, Archer, and Bruiser. How they were used was a matter of Mirko’s role on the team.

I smiled with a toothy grin.

Litwick was torn apart by the continuous barrage of moves that were now effective against his ephemeral body. He went down with a final attempted burst of Ember that Mirko caught head on, but it didn’t slow her down an inch. She called for him to use Minimize and Hex… a good strategy now that I noticed Mirko’s body flickering with flames.

“End it.” A single Headbutt brought the little litwick down to earth, and I felt a strange ripple, a burst of excitement, of happiness at a plan coming together.

I frowned though. How had I made Mirko this strong, or has she always been this way?

Mirko posed like a Kamen Rider again and I sighed.

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I was sitting in the waiting room, glancing towards a gym employee as he scheduled my battle against Liu or whoever could fill in for the low-level badge. Gym trainees often took up the first and two badge challengers so that they wouldn’t be swamped by hundreds or even thousands of challengers.

I blinked when I saw Akari sashay out of one of the examination rooms, Happy walking alongside her. I watched her for a moment, briefly drawn in before remembering myself and slapping my face.

Man I must be still jittery from the battle if I’m feeling like this.

Mirko stop waggling your nonexistent eyebrows, you are a bunny!

Akari didn’t take long to reach me, taking a seat to my right, and leaning in my direction with a casual confidence.

“So your match went as well as mine did, I take it?” Akari made conversation, a curious note to her husky voice.

“Mirko ended up utterly destroying the gym trainer I was sent up against, she’s gotten much stronger. I guess all our training together paid off.” Battling with Akari was a fun affair, she was much better at on the fly thinking and strategy while I went for pre-planning and creation of protocols to call upon instead. She would push me into corners with her rapidfire solutions while I could befuddle her with compressed orders and opaque sets only my pokémon would understand.

It was like… well a game, acting as a commander for beings so much stronger than humans, giving them the tools, knowledge and opportunity to become so much more. All the while learning more about them every step of the way.

“Happy did the same, his type advantage made it relatively easy to overcome my gym trainer’s charmander and Sinnohan growlithe.”

“That’s a rare subspecies.” I pointed it out. The old Hisuian era-breeds were the equivalent of more primitive dog breeds who retain more of their wild traits but are harder to control and have as pets or beasts of burden. Singing dogs, dingoes, Carolina dogs or Canaan dogs. “So you’re waiting for your schedule too then?”

“Mhmm,” she brushed back a blue bang with a small grin. “It probably won’t be for at least a few days, things can be quite busy when the season starts. We have time though.”

She wasn’t wrong, the Tohoku League season began in September and lasted ten months, ending in July with the Sternwing Conference in August. So a period of approximately ten months, eleven including the weeks dedicated to the Sternwing Conference, though most of that work was done on part of the League versus the Gym Leaders.

Ten months to get through the Gym Circuit, to improve my understanding and mastery of this world. I had quite a few research tasks that Professor Laven wanted me to work on. Capturing certain pokémon and scanning their abilities and moves.

For example, she wanted me to catch multiple stantler due to their ability to harness dimensional energies. Their antlers are like tuning forks that harmonize with the vast energy of interdimensional space. They used them to open portals to other forests around the world or even enter other worlds. Willingly given horns could be used to construct portals and were an important component in wormhole research.

Catching some volunteer stantler was a good start, but there were quite a few others who were vitally important one way or another. Fairy-types and dark-types had ties to the realm of the fey, one of many natural realms and layers of reality. Klefki supposedly had formed their own realm from the mists of higher planes, letting them unlock doors stepping into other universes.

Munna and musharna had their dream mist, and kirlia’s projected images weren’t just illusions… they were projections of other worlds, seldom seen glimpses of worlds throughout the multiverse.

I wiggled in my seat at the idea of working with such pokémon, with their powers combined finding a way home wouldn’t be too far away!

Mirko didn’t let me daydream, crawling over me, and pulling at my face with a glare. “Mirol!”

“Bleh,” I stuck my tongue out at her, and focused on the conversation again. “I think once I get this badge, whenever I do, I’ll probably look into actively looking to catch a third member.”

Akari smirked, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. “Another bunny I’m sure?”

I flushed. “It’s two pokémon, that doesn’t make it a trend.”

“I’ve heard that far too many times from people back home to believe that.” Her sheer certainty made me pout.

“Are you challengers for my gym?” I jumped when a voice called us out, and even Mirko and Happy had reacted to the man appearing in our blindspot like a ninja.

I turned to face a young handsome man with amber eyes, messy black hair and soft features that very much made me understand why there so many articles and men and women thirsting after the eighteen year old.

“Not until four days from now sir!” The gym staff pointed out, Liu nodding in response.

“What are your names?” He was almost awkwardly cute with his questions, the pale gold that were his eyes shining with curiosity and drive.

“Akari.” She seemed tense?

“Brandon, or Brandy. Either or.” I really don’t mind my old name so much, but a nickname was fine too.

“You’re the ones who dealt with Team Cipher activity around Foxtown?” Is that what that place was called?

“We… did.” I answered carefully, I wasn’t sure why the Gym Leader wanted to know. For all I know we has stumbled onto something that would get us into trouble.

But then maybe I was wrong.

He beamed. “You’ve been a real help to the community, the police, Rangers and my gym trainers have been having difficulties tracking down the activities of Cipher and your capture of a few members is giving us a lot of information.”

“Has it?” Akari asked curiously.

“It tells us their operations in the Tohoku region and beyond have grown much larger, so I’m also here to give you a warning,” he leaned forward, his voice growing softer. “Cipher doesn’t take kindly to trainers interfering with their operations, so being careful is a good idea. I… have experience with how they think, and how dangerous they really are.”

“Thank you for the warning,” was all I could spit out, feeling horrified in hindsight.

I was going to have so much research to do…

Fuck.

Akari was going to want to train even more to defend ourselves.

My poor pudgy body was doomed.