“So let me get this straight,” The man behind the counter said. “You want me to completely remove any and all capabilities for this tablet right here to connect to Wi-fi.”

“That is correct, my good man.” Felis grinned.

“But…but why?”

“Why does anyone do anything Jerry? Can I call you Jer?”

“No.”

“Love that you’re sticking up for yourself Jer. The point is though, I have money, I can pay you for the extra modifications, what more do you need to know?”

The clerk, Jerry, seemed to be chewing his lip in thought. Felis wondered if he was laying it on too thick, but eventually he sighed, and nodded, “Alright. 4000. Cash only.”

Felis scoffed, “The tablet is 1500, I’ll give you 1750.”

“That better be a joke. 250 for the amount of work I’m putting in?”

“Well I’m not paying you an extra 2500, that’s fucking insane.”

“Fine, 3500.”

“2000.”

“3000, final offer.”

“You think you’re the only small tech store around here? You got two other competitors down the block who’d love the extra cash.”

“Fine, make an offer then. But if you say 2500 as your next offer you can walk right out of here.”

Felis was very tempted to say 2501, but decided he needed the tablet, “Fine, 2600. All cash.”

Jerry nodded, “Deal.”

He walked out twenty minutes later with his hopefully defunct tablet in tow. Felis hummed, turning it on and inspecting its applications. Jerry had gone ahead and installed some nice little offline games for him to play, maybe Bezos would appreciate those.

“Can we get to training now?” Aken hissed, impatient as usual.

“In a little bit. I can’t connect to Wi-Fi with this thing but I need to confirm it’s impossible. No chances.”

He even bought a portable charger instead of a regular one, on the off chance Bezos could connect to whatever place he charged too.

“Ugh.”

“This will take 30 minutes at most, Aken, calm down.”

Eterna was a sleepy city, it reminded him of those small American towns he’d visit sometimes in the summer. There were some people out and about, but everything was so relaxed and laid back, most people spent time in their homes rather than walking around in the cold.

It was crazy how much land it took up though.

Seriously, there were so many parks and roads in-between clusters of housing that Felis was surprised it was even called a city. Well, at least it looked nice.

Thankfully he didn’t need to go too far for his next destination, in fact, it was literally just down the block.

“Hello hello.” Felis said, entering the small shop.

“Welcome to Larry’s, how can I help?”

“Yeah my tablet isn’t connecting to any Wi-fi, could you help me out here?”

“Did you try turning it off and on again?”

“First thing I did brother.”

“Oof. Looks like it’s serious.”

20 minutes later Larry came out the back with a puzzled expression on his face. “Sir…the hardware required for Wi-fi…isn’t in the Tablet.”

Felis suppressed a grin. “Damn it. Knew I shouldn’t have trusted him.”

“Where’d you get a tablet like this anyways?”

“From a guy named Harry. But he told me he got it from Mary.”

For the second time that day, Felis wondered if he was laying it on too thick.

“...Hah! I’m gonna go call my wife Carrie!”

Guess not.

“Oh!” Larry stopped, holding up the tablet. “Do you want me to get this fixed for ya?”

“Na, it’s alright,” Felis sighed, taking the tablet. “Maybe it’ll be a blessing in disguise, who knows?”

“If you say so.”

Confident now that Bezos wouldn’t be able to escape, Felis walked his way out to one of the dozens of parks around the city. They’d stop to pick up lunch first, then get to training for real. Felis was honestly happy as Aken finally calmed down about wanting to train, the day was going off without a hitch.

This is exactly how he wanted to spend his time.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For some reason, Arun felt very annoyed at his brother at this very moment. Like his day not going how he imagined it was somehow Pran’s fault.

It probably was, to be honest.

“I asked you a question, boy,” The old man snarled. “Who sent ya?”

“Nobody,” Arun said slowly, trying to appear respectful. “I’m working on my own to earn merits from Galactic.”

“Galactic? Galactic!?” Stoutland growled harder at his master’s anger, revealing sharpened fangs that almost reflected the light. Interestingly enough though, Arun could feel the heat of anger radiating off the Pokémon itself as well. He wondered what they could have been through to hate Galactic like this.

“If I’ve offended you, or your people in any way, I’m sorry.” Arun said slowly, trying not to look at the fangs inches away from his face.

“Ya darn right you’re sorry,” The old man was pacing now, his fists clenched into balls, “Bad enough these thugs keep coming to my doorstep, but now I have to deal with Galactic too?”

“If uh…if it’s any consolation sir, I am acting on my own…?”

“Shut it! Not another word unless I give you permission, got it?”

Arun nodded slowly.

The old man scoffed. “At least you’ve got bigger brains than the last idiots that came through here. What’s your name, boy?”

“Sirius. I’d give you my trainer card, but it’s in my back pocket.”

“Where’re ya from?”

“Not from Sinnoh.”

“I didn’t ask you that, boy. I asked where are you from?”

“Unova.”

“Lies!” He hissed, stomping closer to Arun. “Fucking. Lies.”

“Grandpa, don't hurt him!” a feminine voice called from upstairs.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Abby you stay upstairs and you watch your brother!” The old man snapped, before turning back to him. “You’re a liar, you know what I do to liars?”

Stoutland’s paws flexed, digging just a little into Arun’s skin.

“I’m not lying.” He hissed. This was oddly familiar, the last time he was in this position though the Pokémon holding its claws to his chest wanted to see him wriggle in pain. The Stoutland instead looked tired, as if it was hesitant to strike.

The claws definitely still hurt though.

A wave of anger from Valor. He’s hurting you! Let me fight!

Caution from Arun. No! Wait until I move!

“You’re not Unovan!” The old man snarled, spittle flying from his mouth. “I’m from Unova, and I’ve never heard an accent like yours!”

Shit. Shit, shit. He didn’t want things to turn violent. While he was certain he could definitely fight his way out, what damage would he cause? Would Galactic see? Would the children upstairs accidentally be hurt in the crossfire?

“Of course you haven’t!” Arun half-shouted back. “Have you been to every corner of Unova? Would you be able to tell what neighborhood, street, or area I grew up in?”

“I was a fucking trainer, boy. I’ve been everywhere. I’ve heard everything.”

“Yeah? Since when? 40 years ago?”

The old man glowered but said nothing.

“I hate to sound disrespectful sir, but you’re out of touch. Time’s change, people change, accents fucking change.”

His argument made sense, logically. Arun knew it did. But something wasn’t right with the old man, he wasn’t thinking logically, he was thinking emotionally. He noticed how the old trainer’s eyes flicked from him, to Stoutland, to the ceiling where the two children supposedly were.

"I don't know who's coming after you sir, but it's not me. Please don't do anything rash."

For a moment, Arun thought the old man would back off. That he'd see reason and pull Stoutland off of him. But as the old man glanced back to the stairs of the office, and saw two sets of fearful eyes looking down on him, something broke within him.

“I can’t…” The old man groaned. “I can’t take any chances.” There was steel in his eyes now. Determination? Or perhaps resignation.

Arun decided he didn't want to find out, and moved first.

He smashed his elbow into Stoutland’s nose, the Pokémon yelping and flinching backwards. At the same time Valor send a wave of Razor leaves scattering into the larger Pokémon's flank, peppering it with shallow cuts. Arun rolled back, readying himself to fight, before he stopped.

The old man…the old man looked scared.

Maybe it was the danger of the situation, Arun realized the trainer wasn't as strong as he was putting himself up to be. He looked haggard. His eyes were baggy and bloodshot, likely from lack of sleep. His clothes were dishevelled too, a blue button-up that had half the buttons in the wrong places.

Stoutland too, the once fierce looking hound now showed its true self. It was old. Very old. What should have been a beautiful navy coat was dull and greyed, its eyes holding an almost milky look that reminded him of an old dog. To top it all off, it was injured, one leg limping behind the others as it backed away slowly, blood slowly dripping down its coat.

Arun raised his hands slowly, before saying out loud, “Valor. Back down.”

Valor’s head snapped towards Arun in disbelief.

“Please.”

Disapproval. I don’t like this.

But he did as asked.

“Sir,” Arun said slowly, his hands still up. “I don’t know what you’ve been through with Galactic, but I swear to Arceus I don’t have any intention of harming you or your family. I came here for personal support, reporter backing for myself and my brother, which would in turn help Galactic’s own reputation.”

“I won’t help you.”

“I can see that. You have your hands tied. So let’s make a deal.”

Arun paused for the old man to outright deny the offer, but to his surprise, he didn’t. “You have a problem. My brother and I are what I would call professional problem solvers. Let us handle whatever has you worked up, and in return, you partner with us for a little while.”

“I won’t.” Though from the look on his face it seemed as if he was trying to convince himself, “I won’t.”

Arun decided to switch tactics, “You haven’t been sleeping, have you?”

When his eyes widened Arun continued, “Don’t look so surprised. Whoever they are they’ve been keeping you up, haven’t they? Not giving you time to rest? It’s considered torture where I’m from, you know that?”

“You need us sir. You don’t have a choice.”

A poor choice of words, the old man bristled instantly. Arun cursed himself internally, wishing Pranav was here.

“Is that a threat?” At his words, Stoutland crouched low, as if ready to pounce.

“Need I remind you sir. You would have killed me if I hadn’t escaped myself. You would have murdered an innocent man. No, worse, you would have had your Pokémon murder an innocent man. Could you live with that? Could you live with the consciousness of being a murderer? Could you live with your grandkids knowing that?”

Arun nearly let out a sigh of relief when the man’s eyes widened. “Oh…oh gods, oh Arceus what is wrong with me?” The old trainer groaned, collapsing to his knees. Stoutland gave a whuf! Of surprise, moving to stand protectively over its kneeling trainer.

When Arun approached, he kept a respectable distance away, lowering himself to meet the man eye-to-eye. “It’s not your fault sir, believe me. I don’t know how long you’ve been holding out on your own but you’re being pushed to the edge. Let me help.”

“...how?”

“Well for one, how about I let you catch a few hours of sleep?”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Stop,” Pranav sighed, staring at a tree riddled with black marks. “This isn’t working.”

“I can keep going.” Aken protested, glaring at said tree as if it were the cause of all his problems.

“No no. The fault lies with the method. This method isn’t working.”

They’d spent the last couple of hours trying to force Aken to change the properties of Shadow Sneak, either by multiplying the shadows or transforming it into different shapes entirely. Nothing worked. The most they’d achieved was creating a blunt shadow which while cool, was objectively useless.

“We’re not going about this the right way.” Pranav said, taking a seat on a rock nearby.

It was easy to say they were doing it wrong, but how did someone do it right? He knew it would be hard to simply invent or change a move, but he expected to at least be on the path by now. But where did he even start? How did he know what to do, what to create or what to change? Aken could manipulate shadows, but what did that even do?

There was probably a reason new moves weren’t invented everyday.

“Have you figured something out yet?”

“Nope. But hey, we’re main characters so we’re gonna get it. Trust me.”

Aken rolled his eyes, but Pranav was being semi-serious. He was, as far as he was concerned, an important piece in this world. He was literally fucking isekai’d through space time magic that somehow his best friend was involved in, and now he was here.

So yeah. He was motherfucking important, but he needed something to show for it.

“Okay, let’s take a step back,” Pranav decided. “Analyse it from the top again. What do we want to achieve here?”

“I need a method of defense, or close combat,” Aken said, using Knock Off to demonstrate. “I’m unable to fight close.”

“Exactly. Obviously we don’t want to change your whole kit. You’re a medium distance fighter until you evolve, you just need to be able to get distance. Or at least, force your opponent to back the fuck up.”

“And we’ve decided to use Shadow Sneak as it is the fastest of my abilities.”

…and now they were back to square 1.

Pranav sighed, scratching at his hair in an attempt to think. What would be the best way to go about this?

“You need to look at both a Pokémon's natural abilities and your own.”

His head shot up. Who had said that? No, no, that didn't matter. Not right now.

“Aken! You used Curse on me before, but you didn’t take any damage, how?”

“The Curse requires intention to harm. Intent to hurt, intent to kill. You held that intent, I trusted you, so I used you.”

“So explain Shadow Sneak to me then, break it down, everything.”

“It is intent to hurt,” Aken explained, firing another Shadow sneak at the tree.”I want to hurt my opponent, I want to hurt the tree.”

“And if there’s no intent to hurt?”

The Shadow Sneak turned from a spike to a liquid-like shadow, “I get the ability to manipulate shadows.”

Okay. Okay he could work with this. He could see it coming together.

They worked with ‘intent’ the next hour. If Aken wanted to defend himself, a shadow spike would harden in front of him. If Aken wanted to obscure vision, Aken could make the shadows darker. Finally, finally there was some progress.

There were issues though.

Pranav could punch through the shadow walls with ease. And if a mere human could do it, he was sure as shit a Pokémon could too. Then came the shadows, it was only really useful if Aken had shadows already present to work with, even then it required heavy concentration and expenditure of energy.

But what if they changed the target of intent?

“Aken, [Shadow Sneak], target yourself and miss.”

Aken furrowed his brows, before hissing as a Spike of shadow clipped the side of his head and jutted outwards. He tried again, and again, and a hundred times after that, eating berries and dunking himself in potion-juice everytime he got too low.

Until finally, he was able to do it.

“[Shadow Stake!]”

Aken’s form flickered and darkened, as all of a sudden a stake of pure darkness erupted from the horn on his head. Both trainer and Pokémon stood there, dumbfounded as their work finally paid off.

“This is more progress than we’ve made in weeks.” Pranav breathed.

“I suppose it is…” Aken nodded.

A heavy silence hung in the air, before they turned to each other and grinned.

“This is nowhere near what we want though.”

“Nay! It is but the base of a mountain!”

They could do more. They would do more. The first step was taken, why not take another?

Shadow sneak for all intents and purposes, could be broken down into two core components. The speed at which the attack reached, and the attack itself.

The wall didn’t work because the intent was defense.

Shadows were tricky because the intent was to hide.

But what if the intent was to trap a person? That could require speed, but the attack function just wasn’t there.

But if speed were the key, and Aken could focus Shadow Sneak on himself now…

“Can you move with Shadow Stake?”

Aken had already learned to coat himself in Ghost energy to form the attack. But what if he were to move with it?

The first try went as well as he’d expected it to.

Namely, Aken nearly flatlining himself as the spike moved too far. But over the next hour they planned, experimented, failed, and tried again and again. Before finally, something clicked.

“Pranav,” Aken said, his eyes wide. “I believe you are stupid.”

Pranav blinked. “...thanks?”

“Do not worry, for I am also a fool.”

“I don’t see how us being stupid is helping.”

Aken looked at Pran, before turning semi translucent.

“...Wait but, Elys said Pokémon moves would still hurt you.”

“But look, Pranav! I can combine the two!”

Shadow spike and translucency were joined, until it looked like Aken was a haunted plastic bag floating in the wind.

“Now I just…WAH!” Aken screeched as he was jerked to the side in a quick burst of speed. The distance was probably less than a dozen meters, the speed, although impressive, was akin to a runner’s sprint.

But they’d done it.

Two techniques and an understanding of how moves could be changed.

"You did it!"

“I am a god!” Aken screeched to the air. “Fear me! For I will one day conquer the world!”

Pranav whooped along, deciding to not bring up the childish scream during his breakthrough.

His friend deserved it.