The sun was just barely peaking through the horizon, and the distant calls of birds echoed through the snowy forest as the expedition team made our way up the hiking trail.
The Base Camp trail was well traveled and well maintained by rangers on patrol due to it being the main trail they used to get back to Base Camp, pretty self explanatory. It would get more and more difficult the further we got from the ranger base.
We were traveling in a single file line, Celia, Abigail, and Ben were in the front with Celia’s Glaceon, Abigail’s Alolan Sandslash, and Ben’s Armarouge and Ceruledge.
Celia, Abigail, and their Pokemon would be using their exploring and mountaineering expertise to guide us on safe route when we came to more difficult areas.
Ben and his team were there to help dissuade any wild Pokemon from attacking from the front. Currently on duty were Armarouge and Ceruledge, a deadly duo, and Ben’s main go-to team for doubles battles.
Tim, Marcus, Justine, Jason, the twins, and I were in the middle. We were the weakest members of the team, besides the twins who were our emergency escape button, and Jason, who was carrying some important equipment.
The twins also had Sigilyph and Xatu out to detect danger from any non-dark and ghost Pokemon or natural disasters. Smart cause Xatu can see the future. I wonder how that ability works.
Kenta was the middle guard, his dragons were too big to be out of their pokeballs and didn’t like the cold, but it was useful to have him here just because most wild Pokemon wise enough to keep away from the scent of multiple fully grown dragons.
Dark types and ghost types were most likely to attack group from behind, because in the wild the weakest members of the group usually fell into the back of the pack. So the rear guard consisted of Collin to counter dark types, Leo to spot dark types and counter ghosts, and Angela who could detect ghosts and also counter them.
Collin had Lucario out, Leo had Absol and Zoroark, and Angela’s Aegislash floated behind them in shield form as the rearguard’s rearguard.
I pushed my hat and goggles back up as Winnie climbed onto my head for a better look at the surroundings. This was pretty exciting, I mean, after all of the time we spent preparing for this trip, I was both excited and a bit wary to see what this whole ‘illusion dome’ had in store for us.
Rotom was even more excited to scan any new Pokemon, though it didn’t stay out for too long because of how cold it was, and Winnie was just taking in the new surroundings. Last night, he and Kaiju had confirmed that snow indeed tasted like water and dirt.
There was a sharp huff from behind and I glanced back, Absol had stopped for a second and was staring at up at the sky behind us above where the ranger base was. Leo whispered something to the dark type something before Absol shook its head and they began moving again.
I wonder what that was about.
Everyone’s breaths literally froze in the air, I was glad I brought extra hand and foot warmers. If I ran out, I guess I’d have to make do with letting Infernape out and using his head fire as a furnace. I chuckled at that thought.
The group was rather tense as we first set out, but after an hour or so, people began to relax and I heard some of them quietly talking to each other. They were keeping their voices down because Celia had warned us not to be too loud, we didn’t want to announce our presence to everything within ten miles and have a wild Pokemon take that as a challenge.
I ended up talking with Kenta and Justine about a few random things, before they started up the Dragapult debate again.
Justine reached behind her and took out a Dreepy out of nowhere, shoving it in Kenta’s face at the tiny ghost dragon made Lillipup eyes, “Come on! Just take a look at that adorable face~ Dreepy is so cute isn’t it? You should totally get one, I know you can afford it, you’ve been talking about getting another dragon.”
Kenta pushed Dreepy away from his face and rolled his eyes, “I can afford getting a Tatsugiri instead if I want something small and cute. Or a Goomy so that I can get a Goodra, or a Hisuan Goodra if I give it the right diet.”
“Really?” Justine asked incredulously, “Hisuan Goodra doesn’t fit your style, you can try a battle with my sister’s Dragapult, and I’m sure Angela won’t mind giving you a Dreepy after everything your family has done for us.”
Shaking his head Kenta refused again, “Nope. It’s a death wish to even try to battle your sister’s ace, and I’m not getting a ghost type.” He ducked under a tree branch.
Justine waved a hand as she let Dreepy fly back into her shadow and she ducked under a tree branch, “Oh silly, I meant you battling another Pokemon using Dragapult. And besides Dragapults are great at countering ice types, they have access to a bunch of fire type moves!”
Hopping forward a few times, on less icey parts of the trail, Justine swung an arm over Kenta’s shoulder and waved a hand dramatically in front of them, “Angela’s Dragapult is so fast that is doesn’t even have to worry about being hit by any super effective moves!”
“I’d be better off with another steel-dragon type, it would be good to have a dedicated tank.” Kenta replied with a slight eyebrow raise.
“Uh huh.” Justine said as she fell back behind her friend, “When have you ever not jumped for a strong offensive dragon? There’s a reason why you chose Kommo-o as your starter.”
The ghost specialist’s turned back to me, “Tell me, how much would you like a Dragapult on your team?”
I shrugged, “It would be cool.”
Then before Justine could pull me into the debate, I changed the subject, “Speaking of dragons, Kenta, how do you counter ice and fairy types?”
“Kommo-o is my go-to icebreaker, but I use Tyrantrum and Duraludon too.” The dragon specialist replied, “How I take them down depends on the Pokemon species. It’s the non-ice types who still have powerful ice type moves that can get kind of annoying.”
“What about fairy types?” I asked.
Kenta took a moment to think before replying, “I mostly rely on Duraludon’s steel typing or Haxorus’s Guillotine. Don’t have a very solid strategy yet. I’m just lucky that I haven’t encountered a fairy type specialist yet, they’re kind of rare in competitive battling.”
Justine leaned back over to Kenta and surreptitiously put a hand on the side of her face, whispering, “Which is why you should get a Dragapult.”
Kenta just rolled his eyes.
“Or evolve Duraludon into Archaludon if you don’t want to go through the effort of getting a Hisuan Goodra.” I added.
“I guess,” Kenta sighed, “Metal alloys are a pain to get. It’ll take a while to find one that’s not a knock-off.”
Don’t I have a few in my bag?
“Really? Why–oof!” I walked into Justine’s back, “Shit, sorry.” I spotted her holding her portable energy detector-a-tron up in the air.
Winnie scrambled to not fall off of my shoulder from the unexpected impact, “watch it!”
“What’s up?” I asked as she slowly began to edge forward a bit more. The others at the front stopped and waited for Justine to close the gap. I looked back and saw Marcus and Tim doing a similar thing with their own energy detector-a-tron’s.
Putting up a finger, Justine said in a softened voice, “Wait a second.” She kept edging forward as if she was afraid of missing something with her device.
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The machine’s lights began to flash and the small wavy lines on its screen began to go haywire.
Justine then put her device down and jogged forward a few paces. She turned back to us and made a grand gesture with both her hands, “We’ve passed into the illusion zone!”
“Really? I didn’t feel anything.” I spoke too soon. Suddenly I felt a strange chill and everything flipped sideways. The world seemed to turn blue tinted, then a dark purple, red and black. The I saw our group from a bird’s eye view and an eye opened up in the sky.
Then suddenly everything was normal again. Disoriented, I put a hand on a nearby tree and steadied myself.
Winnie sneezed a few times as if he was allergic to something. Justine looked at me with concern when she saw me leaning on a tree and holding my head. “Are you okay Az?”
I rubbed my eyes and blanked a few times before nodding. “Yeah. Did you any of you guys see that?” I pointed to the sky, “That uh, I dunno it felt like I was tripping balls for a second there. There was an eye in the sky and everything was different shades of colors.”
Justine tilted her head, “No? That’s weird. Winnie, are you feeling anything?”
Looking up at the sky, Winnie sneezed again, “it feels like we’re being watched, and there’s a layer of ghost type energy on everything. i don’t like it.”
I repeated what Winnie said to the others. Kenta nodded and looked back at the others who were still being held up by Marcus and frowned, “Angela looks a bit pale.”
Justine, Winnie, and I whipped around to stare at the ghost type master. She still had her usual unfazed attitude, but her eyebrows were slightly furrowed in concern and she was speaking to a shadow behind her.
We looked away as she glanced at us and I turned to Justine, “Should we be concerned?”
Justine took another look at her sister and shook her head, “I think we’re okay. Angela will tell us if there’s anything dangerous, she won’t hide that sort of stuff.”
If you say so.
Once the group reorganized itself, we continued through the trail and quickly found ourselves walking down a steep and icy slope, emerging onto an immense flat area known as Icelands Lake.
It was frozen over for most of the year and currently the ice was thick enough for even an Avalugg to safely stomp around on, so no concerns there on falling through the ice. There were a few inches of snow covering the ice layer, so we should be fine on the slipping part too.
The ground beneath us began to sound slightly hollow, as one by one, we stepped onto the lake surface.
There was a huge section of open water to our left where we could see a few herds of Hisuan and Kalosian Avalugg and Walrein lounging about with their prevolutions. They regularly broke the ice apart in that section so that they could get in and out of the water with no problem.
One particularly large Hisuan Avalugg spotted us and turned around to keep its eye on the strange group traveling across the ice, rumbling a warning to the other adult members of the herd.
Rotom poked it’s eyes out of my pocket to look at the new Pokemon but buzzed in displeasure as soon as the cold winds hit it and dived back into the warmth of my pocket.
The Icelands was the only place in the world that still had Hisuan Avalugg in the wild. Part of the reason the ranger base was nearby was to protect them and a few other rare species from poachers.
I wonder if it’s possible for an Avalugg to grow to the size of an actual mountain like that one Noble Avalugg in Legends Arceus. That would both be terrifying and amazing.
I mean, the red-eyed Hisuan Avalugg that was currently giving us a continuous dirty look was more than five times bigger than any of the others. It was big enough to eat Sahara in two bites. Curiously, non of the Kalosian Avalugg came anywhere near the size of the alpha Hisuan Avalugg.
Everyone stopped and looked up as Sigilyph screeched, “Si-gi-lyph!”
“uh-oh.” Winnie said.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
The image of a Walrein bursting through the ice underneath us appeared in my mind. I frowned, “Oh, that’s what’s going to happen.”
I took a few steps back as the ice beneath us rumbled and something very, very large glided past us in the water.
My walkie-talkie crackled to life and I heard Celia say through it, “Keep moving everyone. Angela, send a ghost to deal with Walrein.”
There was another KSSH! As Angela replied, “Already on it.”
Something threw itself against the ice beneath us and we all heard a deep cracking noise as the thick ice beneath us began to break apart.
The attacker retreated, rumbling loud enough to reverberate through the water and layer of ice above it and through me. I heard a commotion to our left as the herd of Walrein turned their attention to us and a few more Walrein slid into the water.
Everyone noticeably increased their pace to a jog, we would’ve gone faster but everyone was careful not to slip on any exposed patches of ice.
“That’s not good.” I muttered under my breath.
“Yeah no shit.” Jason said behind me as he took out a quick ball and let out a Kilowattrel who squawked and flew up into the air above us.
There was another loud cracking sound and roar behind us as a a massive Walrein with glowing red eyes burst through the ice and landed with a loud fleshy THUNK!
“WALREEIIIIN!”
A few other Walrein shaped silhouettes flitted around us underneath the ice. Alpha Walrein was about to roar again when a large crowd’s worth of pitch black hands shot out of the water and wrapped around Walrein like it was wrapping a mummy and dragged the ice-walrus back into the water.
A Cofagrigus in the water? Oh wait, I guess ghosts don’t need oxygen. Then I thought about ghosts like Trevenant, scratch that, some ghosts don’t need oxygen.
Kilowattrel flew back over to the ice hole and shrieked its name as it crackled with electricity. A javelin of Thunder formed and crashed down into the water below, sending shocks of electricity into the area around the water hole.
There was an outburst of splashing and bubbles that erupted from the ice hole as the Pokemon in the water there were electrocuted. I looked away as the entire group hurried to get off the ice, we still had a few hundred feet to go.
An Empoleon slid past us and towards the hole in the ice as Kilowattrel dodged a few Ice Beams aimed at it and zapped away a few more Walrein who poked their heads out of the water. Another Walrein roared and rose out of the water on a surge of water and began gunning straight for us.
The sight of that got everyone moving, I helped Justine steady herself as she almost slipped on some exposed ice. Winnie tapped on my neck, urging for me to go faster.
The people behind us began to shout to the front about the incoming water as Empoleon Ice Beamed a U-shaped ice wall to block Walrein’s Surf. Sigilyph and Xatu flew back over and created a double barrier Light Screen in front of the ice wall.
There was another crash of lightning as Kilowattrel struck Walrein head on with Thunder, knocking the blue walrus off of its Surf and evaporating some of the water. Surf hit both Light Screens, and with it’s power diminished it didn’t break through Empoleon’s ice wall and sploshed a few feet towards us before receding.
A Discharge from Kilowattrel was able to hold back the other Walreins enough for Empoleon to freeze the ice hole back over, sealing it back up as a bunch of ghost type energy erupted from the water, sending the Walrein fleeing (probably for their lives).
Now that the threats had been dealt with, Empoleon slid back up to the front where Abigail returned it.
Kilowattrel flew back over to Jason and landed on his shoulder, preening itself as the electric type specialist praised the electric bird and returned it.
Thankfully our hike was pretty uneventful after that, we got off the lake and quickly re-entered the forest, spending the rest of the day trying not to slip and fall on a steep section of the trail.
Some of us sighted a few small groups of of Cryogonal, but the group of snowflake Pokemon ignored us as they floated past us, staying high up in the clouds. Cryogonal weren’t dangerous in small groups, but they were deadly in large swarms. It was how Celia lost a few of her fingers during the previous expedition.
Once it got dark, Celia and Abigail found a good place for us to camp and everyone set up our tents as Armarouge and Ceruledge set up a few campfires. Jason set up some weird looking metal poles around the camp and his electric types helped charge any electronic device that needed to be charged.
Justine went around with him and attached talismans to the poles.
During dinner prep, we saw flashes of Weavile and Sneasel lurking in the forest just outside of the reach of our campfire’s lights, but they never came close, probably because they were wary of Collin's fighting types.
Glados hung out with Empoleon and Kaiju during dinner. I dunno what Glados was doing with the penguin but Kaju was there for the popsicles that Empoleon kept making for him.
After being banished from tasting the food before it was served, Winnie joined them with a few members of the ghost gang.
After a quick dinner around the campfire, Celia assigned night guard shifts. We would have one person and a few of their Pokemon keep watch for two hours before switching to the next night guard team starting from nine PM until seven AM. We had twelve people, so there would be nights were we could get a full nights rest.
Leo was assigned the first shift, but I ended up staying up a bit later cause Shuppet was being picky with her food again.
Meowscarada and Houndoom stood guard and Leo and I talked while I tried for the eleventh time to get Shuppet’s food right for her. (No she is not spoiled, she simply has unique food tastes I swear.) Thankfully she liked this try and was quickly happily munching away at her bowl of food.
It was pretty exciting to hear from Leo about his experience with his first conference. Of course I could just read about people’s first conference on the Pokenet, but hearing it in person as a lot more fun.
Conferences in this world had three main stages, elimination, preliminaries, and the finals. A trainer could skip elimination if they had proven themselves strong enough to be a seeded participant. Most of those trainers included people sponsored by a regional lab, which I guess was why Ash was never in the elimination rounds in the anime.
Despite being a lab sponsored trainer, Leo wasn’t deemed strong enough to be a seeded trainer and had to fight his way through the elimination rounds before using Absol and Meowscarada to painstakingly get his way through the preliminary doubles matches.
Their most challenging opponent was an Incineroar and Vaporeon duo where Vaporeon focused on support and Incineroar want HAM on Meowscarada before trying to take out Absol. Thankfully, Leo had painstakingly trained Absol’s Super Luck ability to its max and the dark type was able to win through constant dodging and critical hits.
They probably used up all their luck in that battle cause his team was swept by a Hydreigon during the top 32 matches.
I was a bit skeptical about an Absol being able to single handedly win against an Incineroar and Vaporeon duo, but this was the same world that had Ash’s monster of a Pikachu and their ‘power of friendship.’
There was also that one trainer who swept the Indigo league with a single Shuckle. Yeah, there was an entire Pokenet forum dedicated to that called One-Punch-Shuckle. The trainer kept their identity a secret and disappeared after making their way through the Elite Four and losing to Lance.
Soooooo I guess Absol’s victory wasn’t super implausible. This all just made me question how to properly power rank basically anything. Cause by that logic Sahara could be taken down by a Dedenne due to the ‘power of friendship’ or ‘protagonist plot armor.’
I dunno. I guess I’ll find out when I participate in a tournament or something.
Anyways, back to what Leo was talking about. As a dark type specialist, he was pretty interested in getting a Deino after losing to that Hydreigon, but he ended up catching a Larvitar by chance and ended up not getting the Deino cause Tyranitar wouldn’t do well with another pseudo-legendary as aggressive as a Hydreigon.
I wasn’t surprised there. Back on the ranch Leo’s Tyranitar would always be by itself or with Leo’s Mandibuzz, other pseudo-legendaries and especially dragons avoided it.
I looked at the time and yawned, “It’s getting late. I’m gonna head to bed.” Sahara was already in her ball and sleeping, and it was a way past Kaiju’s bedtime.
Leo nodded, “Yeah you probably should. Have a good night.”
“G’night. Kaiju, Winnie, come on it’s bedtime.” I called to the little dragon and fox, who were over with Houndoom. They got up and came over to me. I picked Kaiju up and wiped the snow off of his feet while Winnie shook off the snow from his paws before we went in and got settled.
Man, I’m gonna miss when Kaiju gets too big for me to pick up. The Deino line was pretty infamous for how long they took to evolve–level 50 into Zweilous and level 64 into Hydreigon–so at least I’d have a bit of time.
I’ll have to get Rotom to take extra pictures.