~~~ Chapter 17 - Mastery ~~~

Professor Colress,

It has come to our attention that your experiments upon pokemon have been violating even the most basic of ethics. You are accused of gross misconduct as a caretaker and keeper of living beings. We understand your desire to understand this world; regardless, the evidence of abuses performed under your supervision produces a list that can no longer be ignored. Attached are the complaints against your experiments. In order to avoid further embarrassment, we require your immediate resignation. If you choose not to do so, Opelucid University will be forced to initiate legal action.

- Stephanie Lewis, University President

~~~

One morning when I woke up, a leavanny was staring at me. They were a bit taller than me, and smelled a lot like the swadly. Right. he’d evolved while I was sleeping. I couldn’t tell, but his antennae were a bit longer than mine too. An inch or two, maybe. His leaf headdress was a bit longer than mine was too. That was easily chalked up to him evolving with a fully-kempt leaf blanket, however—I was sure that I had evolved without a fully-kempt blanket of my own. Or at least a small one, judging by the smaller leaves my own headdress had been when I awoke as a leavanny. He was holding a line of leaves, carved and sewn into a necklace. He’d been crafting while I was asleep.

He made to place it over my head.

I accepted.

It was already getting weird, calling him Swadly. He clicked, satisfied, before turning to craft some more. I looked out of our perch in the tree. The lower branches only had small-or-no leaves remaining. We had been out in the forest, practicing and training more than in the backyard.

The murkrow out front had even started to push me out of the tree in the front yard. They didn’t care for the arts and crafts. Not even my own little leaf-necklace worked for it. Us leavanny would need more places to craft, and five trees clearly weren’t enough. Despite removing most of the leaves from the trees in the back, the few bushes in the front were looking nice and round. The professor didn’t seem to care for flowers, and pulled the ones we tried to plant.

Lanky and I even had a few fights with other trainers. Or rather, we had gone into town and I pushed a patrat out of a ring. I showed off my ability to understand Lanky's commands. Simple stuff like: string shot, razor leaf, slash, and following him around. All while another human observed, occasionally taking notes on a tablet. Lanky had kept me out of the pokeballs for the most part, so I played along. When the pokeball was pulled out and I was forced to recall inside, I still wasn’t happy about it. I clicked in annoyance when he released me. We all have to do some things we don’t like, in order to get what we want. I told myself. It made some sense, that you might need a pokeball to protect others, including your own pokemon. That short-range teleport could mean the difference between life and death. Especially during a trainer battle, where you might not know when you need to stop. Or might not be able to hear your trainer. I thought about Lanky, us running through a cave full of zubat. I had no area of effect attacks. Which would be a problem if we were ever stuck in a mass outbreak. He'd tried and tried to show me various videos, but I just couldn't tell how it would work. The leavanny just seemed to "know" and didn't show any indication of how the move worked.

Leah the Leavanny, and Leaf the Leavanny. Leaf is as good as any other name. Not that Leaf would know either way. The two of us jumped to the ground, I pushed him slightly, testing his strength. Pressing back at me, he took the challenge. I raised my blade, he met mine, and we clashed. He didn’t buckle immediately like he used to. I pressed harder, and he fell to the ground.

I’m still stronger than you.

I clicked, satisfied. Leaf lay on the ground, I reached out my arm. He took mine in his. We locked our little arm-barbs together. I pulled him up. He clicked. Lanky had been watching from the window and came outside, as swadly-now-leavanny and I recovered from our little tussle. We ate breakfast at the table, Leaf making a mess trying to emulate the way I stabbed berries one by one. Eventually, he gave up and tried to scoop with moderately more success. Still made a mess, since he hadn’t modified his blade to scoop.

Lanky came out of the professor’s office, face red, a capsule-like metal cylinder in hand, then went into his room. When he came back out, he was decked out. Helmet, backpack, canteen, sleeping bag rolled up. He recalled Leaf to the pokeball, then looked at me, and sighed.

I poked him, annoyed.

It would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, kid? Do you even know what happened to the swadloon from my nest? Hmm? They’re probably sitting around in a pokeball in Bill’s PC for eternity!

We walked out front. A quick pressure over my mind and I knew the alien was out. Lanky struggled with the metal cylinder. Before he’d figured out how it worked, however, Professor Smiles called us back in. As expected, the alien was there. I tried thought-speaking to it a couple of times over the last few weeks, same as I did with Cebi. It either didn’t care or didn’t understand. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was both.

That would make two of us.

In full gear, Lanky held my arm and held onto the professor’s as well. Smiles spoke, and we teleported once more.

Immediately, I was assaulted by the taste-smell of pokemon. The residual smell of that volcarona, followed by sadness and despair. Flash of white faded, and vision returned. We were in a large room with lots of skylights. Trees grew in various spots, a ring sat in the center, a good distance away from the trees. Burn marks scorched the dirt from fights in the past. We were in a gym. I looked at the man before me, tan, and red hair. Alder held himself high, but he couldn’t hide the smell that rolled off.

Another taste wafted through the air, though. The smells of concrete, grease, and humans. We were in the city.

~~~

Alder didn’t care much for living in the city. He’d preferred to be out and about, exploring the world looking for legendaries and mythics, testing the mettle of his pokemon and trainers. He never saw a point in the fanfare and sport that was made out of fighting. The rush, the camaraderie, the trust he’d built. That was enough. They’d grown strong, and helped him to go strong as well.

The gym was supposed to be closed, so he could have some sparring matches with some of the rangers out east, but he’d made a promise to the professor, and then to this trainer. Eight swadloon sat in a tree behind him, as he stood across from his challenger, a girl in a yellow sundress and brown hair stood across. The camera was already rolling. He didn’t like the show of it all, never allowing his fights to be broadcast live, asking not to be recorded in general. Kate wanted the records though, and he would oblige.

Shaking, she held open her case of badges at him. Two already.

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Driftveil and Nimbasa. Not a bad start, he thought.

"Alder. I, Kate Dean, f-formally challenge y-you for the Castelia City badge!"

Alder smiled. Clay does have a soft spot for the kids.

"Mastery, or Dominance?" He asked. Classically, Dominance fights were challenges for the right to run the gym, though the culture for those was shifting too. Dominance fights were brutal, and not many trainers could bear seeing their pokemon going through such pain. It wasn’t unheard of for a pokemon to give all it had in those fights and die from injuries before getting to the pokecenter. Alder didn’t like Dominance fights. In the wild, pokemon would fight naturally. For food, for dominance, and for territory. You can scare a wild pokemon away, or you can run away. It was on the predator to catch. Dominance fights were a different story.

Kate had five pokeballs on her waist. "Mastery!" she said. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"I accept!" He responded, continuing the formalities. It was just the two of them and some swadloon, but the rules and regulations of the league provided trainers comfort and protection. Mastery fights were a challenge, seeing how well you knew, trusted, and trained your pokemon to do the right thing.

Only those who thought they were elite took Dominance. Any gym leader’s full team was on par with any others, including members of the Elite Four. Any of them could make a bid for the title of Region Champion. However, everyone with the power to take the title would have to go through the Elite Four with Dominance fights. The strong ones who did declined the title, happy to know that they could. The weak trainers? Cast from the League when their pokemon died.

Regardless of what the tabloids said about the League being weak, gym leaders and the Elite Four liked it better this way. To Alder, not having champions at all times gave him and Unova a greater sense of freedom. No other region’s leaders would have allowed the pokemon rights movements to restrict trainers with the concessions they willingly gave to protect the pokemon. He was proud of the League’s restraint. They all knew enough of what happened in other regions when trainers let the power get to their heads.

"The rules of the mastery challenge for Castelia Gym!" he began. "Our ethos is power and self-control! I will use two Pokemon, you may use up to the League limit of six. Victory is determined by either pushing pokemon out of the ring, or on who recalls theirs first. Go! Accelgor!"

"Go! Krokorok!" Kate shouted. Alder raised his brow. The girl was a bit young to have a krokorok. They must have been training pretty hard if it’s already evolved, too. The krokorok looked back at the girl, then to accelgor. Accelgor’s tassels waved in the open air.

"Accelgor! Bug Buzz!" A sphere of air pushed as Accelgor’s tassels vibrated, pushing the krokorok towards the edge of the ring. Accelgor was strong, but it often misjudged its own power, putting many opponents’ pokemon in the hospital in dire straits. The challenge of the gym was as much a problem for him as his opponents; what good was power if you couldn’t control it?

"Krokorok, dig!" The krokorok dug into the ground. Accelgor knew the trick, and began moving, looking to avoid the krokorok’s hit.

The opponent broke out of the ground where the accelgor had been, dashing towards it.

"Accelgor, Me First!"

"Krokorok, sand blast!"

The two pokemon sprayed each other with sand and clay. Accelgor was on the edge of the ring. Krokorok was approaching the accelgor again.

"Krokorok, Tackle!" Kate shouted.

Tackle? Alder mused. Clever, going for a ring-out.

"Accelgor, Body Slam!" By the time he’d shouted, however, the krokorok was already on top of his pokemon, who was pushed out of the ring.

Quicker than I expected.

Accelgor hadn’t gotten used to its latest evolution yet. He looked back at his little audience, the swadloon with their permanent frowns sitting in the Gym’s backyard tree behind them. It probably wasn’t the best idea to show his volcarona to a bunch of wild swadloons he’d only had for a day, but the girl’s whole team still remained. He wanted to knock at least one or two out of the ring before giving the girl her badge.

"Accelgor, return," he called. That red flash of light, and the accelgor was on his belt. He clapped. "Well done, Kate," he said. Krokorok returned to its trainer’s side.

"Next up, I’m going to send out my volcarona," he told the girl. "The rules are still the same, but you’ll want to take a minute and give your pokemon a drink of water. There’s a faucet with a bucket behind you that I leave out for trainers. Give them all a good drink."

"Yes, Leader," she said, her krokorok following her to the faucet.

He clicked the pokeball and released his oldest friend, who floated next to him, hints of gold glinting in the sun. One of the swadloon fell off their branch from the unexpected heatwave.

"Cool," he said, the body heat of the moth immediately pulling in. He examined his friend’s fuzz, rolling his hand over its with soft brushing motions. Kate did as she was told, filling the bucket with water and letting her krokorok drink, then filling it some more and having each of her pokemon take a drink.

To Alder, having power didn’t mean hurting and punishing or even controlling. It was freedom. He folded his legs and sat on the ground, letting his friend rest its wings as it laid across his lap. He pet its abdominal fuzz as it lay, face down, glints of gold shimmering. He inspected its head. Volcarona was shivering. The fur on its face between the eyes was falling off in small flakes of gold. The moth was warm to the touch, rather than hot.

"Alder, why is there gold on its wings?" The girl asked as she returned with a bucket full of water. He turned to its wings, and sure enough, on his right side, the wings had slashes of gold. A single touch and they flaked off. More concerned, he turned his pokemon over. It was faint, but the fuzz on the front was turning gold as well. He clicked Volcarona’s pokeball.

"I’m sorry, Kate, but I must go, Volcarona’s sick. By the withdrawal rule, you have earned your mastery badge," he said, throwing out another pokeball.

"Braviary! Go!" He said, jumping upon the bird’s back, dropping the Castelia gym badge to the ground.

"Fly! To the Pokemon Center!" he shouted. Braviary lifted off, flapping its huge wings, cawing in acknowledgment, taking them across the city.

Plowing through the loitering trainers, he let his volcarona out in the pokecenter lobby. "Something’s wrong, she’s deathly sick," he said to the startled nurse, the volcarona trying to pick up and fly, but rolling on the ground instead, a gash appearing on the moth's sizable thorax, lined with gold flakes which floated off, more gashes of his moth's fuzz turning turning of gold flakes falling off its wings as well.

"Of course, Alder," the Nurse said, calling the chansey forward and pulling out a gurney. He put his hand on his best friend. "Shhh, stay still," he said, the bug alternating between heaves and shivers, flakes of gold puffing into his face and on the floor, half its wings covered in a golden crust. That night, Alder closed the gym, only returning to feed the swadloons and move them inside, seemingly content to sit under a sunroof on an indoor tree and wrestle amongst themselves.

The nurse would call him, and tell him that his best friend was healed, only to find the flakes return, dissolving at the slightest touch or movement. They called everyone they could. Professor Juniper, doctors from Sinnoh, Kanto, and even Hoenn. No one could help. The flakes would disappear, but eventually, they would return.

That week, he practically lived at the pokecenter, the inevitable drawing nearer, each new nurse and doctor saying, "I’m not sure, we’ve done what we could."

Another week later, the nurse walked in and the bad news finally came. "I’m sorry, Alder," she said. "Take her home, give her some good food, but there’s nothing more we can do."

Tears in his eyes, he hugged his bug, called it into his pokeball, and went home. In his little cottage, he fed the bug the best berries he could.

Twenty-four hours later, she was buried in the ground. Planting flowers over the grave, he returned to the gym and sent a message to the professor.

"Send the boy. They can stay at the gym while I’m gone, but I must go."

In moments, the professor responded.

"Of course, Alder. We will be there right away."