We decided to set up the defensive base a little further downhill, not too far from where the fighting was taking place. As we moved I looked over to the eastern side of the battle, where Violet City was located. From this angle I could see more of the buildings within the walls, and I could also see that the top of the wall was patrolled by people wearing the Violet military uniform. The soldiers at the top of the wall watched the fighting carefully, though it wasn’t clear what they’d be able to do if the Pokemon decided to charge at the city.

As I watched, the massive pair of doors that were set into the walls creaked open slightly and two people slipped out. Both were dressed in Violet’s military clothing and both were accompanied by small Pokemon that hovered near their heads. The pair started making their way over to us, but it quickly became clear why the western entrance wasn’t used much anymore, because they had to dodge around several Pokemon battles as they moved forward. Then their progress was entirely blocked when a Nidorina noticed them and broke off from her previous battle, advancing on them with her spines up instead.

“Partner,” Hisa murmured to the ghost floating next to him, “will you assist?”

His Misdreavus bobbed up and down in the air, then zoomed away far more quickly than I would have thought possible. The ghost briefly disappeared into the shadow cast by a particularly tall tree, and when I saw him next he had appeared in the air right in front of the Nidorina. He pulled a ridiculous face at the wild Pokemon and then zoomed away, making the Nidorina trumpet in annoyance and chase after him. That cleared the path for the two Violet trainers.

By the time we reached the place Edwin had chosen for the base the two military trainers had managed to dodge around the remaining battles and join up with our group. The two men were out of breath, but they still bowed formally when they reached us, and their Pokemon sketched their own bows up in the air.

“These are Trainers Donall and Cyril, with partners Pidgey and Ledyba,” Edwin said shortly, nodding at the two trainers. I looked over the two men, trying to fix their names in my mind. Donall was skinny and Cyril was heavyset, but they looked awfully similar otherwise. “Men, you will defend this base so that Trainer Kiah and his partner can focus on healing any injured fighters. Cyril, have your partner set up and maintain protective screens to block any stray attacks that come this way. Donall, you and your partner should use Whirlwind to blow away any majū that get too close.”

“Yes, sir!” the two men said in chorus, saluting as they spoke; then they broke into action right away. Ledyba started generating glimmering Reflect and Light Screen walls at locations that Cyril specified, while Donall and Pidgey paced just behind the other pair, keeping a close eye on the nearby Pokemon.

“Trainer Kiah,” Edwin said as he turned to the trainer from Cherrygrove and pulled a box out of his bag, “I acquired an emergency medical kit from the city this morning. You should familiarize yourself with the contents in case they are needed.”

Kiah hummed quietly as he accepted the box and opened it up. I leaned over to peak at its contents over his arm and saw several varieties of berries sorted into compartments alongside paper pouches that contained who-knew-what.

“The rest of us will begin with a Pinsir formation,” Edwin said, straightening up and starting to pace back and forth in a short cycle. “Trainer Hisa, you will lead Trainers Michael, Jordan, and Florence to winnow down the left flank. I will lead Trainers Monroe and Luca on the right flank. Work the edges, and do not let yourself be drawn into the center of the battlefield. Focus on your incapacitating moves and retreat when you need to.”

I nodded and watched as Isaac distributed small bags of poke balls to each of the trainers on the two teams. We didn’t have an infinite supply, but we had made a lot of balls before we’d been called to Violet, so we’d probably be able to capture a good number of the Pokemon as long as they didn’t break out too often.

Edwin turned to look at Luca, then at me. “Alright, trainers. Let us move out.”

The three of us left the main group and jogged off towards the right side of the field, closer to the city, while the rest of the trainers moved in the opposite direction. I glanced back to see that Misdreavus had swerved up from the ground to rejoin Hisa’s group. All four people looked focused and serious; even Jordan wasn’t grinning for once.

I turned my attention back to my own team. Edwin wore a grim expression as he led us around the edge of the battlefield, far back enough that none of the wild Pokemon paid attention to us. Luca talked to his Piloswine in a quiet voice, but he seemed more subdued than he had before, and he kept twitching whenever a Pokemon released a fire attack on the field near us. I looked over at Pausso to see that, though he walked behind Edwin with me, his attention was on the battle. When he caught me looking at him, he sent a grim sense of determination through our bond.

“Yeah. We can do this,” I replied, trying to make myself believe it by saying the words out loud.

After a few minutes, Edwin chose our first target. A cluster of five Pokemon – two Growlithe, a Vulpix, a Nidoran, and a Nidorino – were brawling in a tight cluster, and they had ended up a short distance away from the rest of the battlers. We’d be able to intercept them without gaining the attention of the other Pokemon nearby, hopefully.

We stopped a good distance back from the battle, before the wild Pokemon could notice us. Then Edwin pointed to me and jabbed his hand in the direction of the brawl. I nodded in reply, swallowing down the sick feeling in the back of my throat. Pausso and I were going to take the lead.

I tugged on our mental bond gently to get Pausso’s attention, then gestured at the cluster of Pokemon. “See if you can spread your Hypnosis across all five of them.”

“Zee,” Pausso agreed. Then he took a deep breath and started moving his arms in the practiced pattern. The usual blue light of his Hypnosis blazed forward, and I held my breath as it intercepted the fight.

When Pausso had concentrated on generating his attack, two of the Pokemon – a Growlithe and the Nidoran – had tumbled off to the side, growling as they scratched and bit at each other. That meant the attack only flew through the other three. All three Pokemon stumbled to a halt, swaying back and forth as the intense sleepiness of a good Hypnosis hit them. Then the second Growlithe and the Vulpix both fell over at the same time, falling asleep peacefully on the ground.

Unfortunately, the Nidorino was able to shake off his weariness; doubly unfortunate, he immediately turned around to see who had attacked him and spotted all of us. The Pokemon snorted, put his head down so that his horn was jutting forward, then charged towards our group.

“Scatter!” Edwin yelled, and we all ran in different directions. The Nidorino went after Luca and Piloswine, but they seemed ready for it. By the time I had put enough distance between myself and the rampaging creature that I could safely turn around, Piloswine had frozen the attacking creature’s paws so they were stuck to the ground. The Nidorino bellowed and shot off a few Poison Stings from his horn, but Piloswine was able to blast him with another ice attack that left him fully frozen and unable to move.

By that point the remaining two Pokemon had noticed what we were doing. They broke off their brawling and went running after their allies; the Nidoran went racing towards the frozen Nidorino, shooting Poison Stings from the tiny horn on her head as she ran, while the Growlithe went to check on the other two fire Pokemon. I left Luca to deal with the Nidoran and ran with Pausso towards the Growlithe instead, pulling a pair of poke balls out of my sack as I moved.

The Pokemon ran up to the sleeping Growlithe and pawed at it, whining loudly. I ran up beside them and pressed a ball to the sleeping dog’s fur before it could wake up, tossing the second ball onto the Vulpix at the same time. The Growlithe who was awake yelped and backed away when the two other Pokemon were sucked into their balls; it turned its large eyes on me and barked, somehow sounding both angry and scared at the same time.

Then, before I could move away, it spat a small globe of flame right at my face.

I instinctively blocked the move by putting my arms up, which meant that my sleeves caught on fire instead of my head. A small part of my brain noticed that the flames looked kind of strange, not quite like the campfire I had watched the night before. The vast majority of my brain simply screamed.

“Get it off!” I yelled wildly, waving my arms around. “Get it off get it off GET IT OFF!” My brain was running in mad circles along the lines of I’m on fire! and This hurts this hurts this hurts! and my vision had narrowed so that all I could see were the flames surging on my sleeves.

As I was screaming I heard Pausso’s stressed bray in the background. A second later a large spray of mud came flying through the air from Piloswine’s direction and collided with my arms (as well as a large portion of my chest), dousing the fire right away and knocking me backwards so that I fell to the ground. That was a huge relief overall, though it didn’t stop the pain; my arms still smarted terribly.

I spent a few moments staring at my mud-covered, charred sleeves and gasping out convulsive sobs. Then Edwin rushed over and took charge. He completely ignored my noises of protest and Pausso’s quiet whining as he lifted one of my arms, pulling the burnt and muddy sleeve back to examine the skin underneath.

“Just a simple elemental burn,” he grunted, poking at the angry red skin. I hissed and jerked my arm away from him, which made him huff at me. “Calm down, child. Jeremiah has clearly started you on elemental defense already – this is no worse than a sunburn. You will be fine.”

“It doesn’t feel fine!” I snapped back as Luca and Piloswine arrived next to us. “I was on fire! That is not okay!”

Luca shuddered, but Edwin just shook his head. “Trainers these days,” he muttered. “If you are going to be a baby you and your partner can go get treatment back at the base. I expect you to rejoin us promptly.”

“Thanks for the sympathy,” I muttered sarcastically, getting up on my feet while I gingerly held my arms in front of me. Then I looked around, sniffing back tears. “Did we at least capture all the majū?”

“I got the two that came after us,” Luca volunteered, holding out two poke balls to illustrate his point. “These things are handy!”

Pausso tugged gently on my mind and thought Ģ̵̫̇o̵̙̕͜ṭ̸̨̓̃ ̷̧̄͝ ơ̵̼ͅư̵̧͖̊ŕ̸̟̖̔ṡ̴͚̩. I looked back over at the ground and nodded; the two poke balls I had dropped on the sleeping Pokemon had indeed succeeded in their captures, though the last Growlithe had fled sometime after burning me. In my opinion, that was for the best. I didn’t want to deal with a Pokemon that would spit fire at my face.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“The devices do work better than I expected,” Edwin said grudgingly as he picked up the two balls I had thrown and slipped them into his bag. “It is certainly easier than summoning a backup unit to our location.” He paused, and his mouth quirked up in a small, grim smile. “Though perhaps in the future you should not run up to a majū that has not yet been incapacitated and put yourself right into its strike zone. We can always try again if a creature is unfrozen or woken up.”

“Duly noted,” I replied sourly as I followed Pausso back in the direction of the base camp.

We reached Kiah and the others after only a few minutes of walking. The Pidgey and its trainer (I’d already forgotten his name) perked up at first as we approached, then slouched back down when it was clear we weren’t enemy Pokemon. In another few moments we had walked through the Reflect and Light Screen walls into safety. I rolled my eyes as I noticed Isaac sitting as close to the walls as possible, busily writing notes as he watched the two teams engage with and capture Pokemon.

“Back already?” Kiah asked quietly as he moved forward to intercept us, cradling his Corsola in one arm while he held the box of medical supplies in the other. His Pokemon chattered happily at Pausso while he spoke. “What happened?”

“A Growlithe burned me,” I said, holding out my arms and hoping Kiah wouldn’t judge me as well. The smarting pain of the burn on my arms had gotten a bit easier to endure as we’d walked back to the base, which made me wonder if Edwin had had a point. But it did still hurt a lot, and what was the point of putting up with pain if there was an easy way to fix it?

Kiah looked over my arms quickly, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked down at the Pokemon in his arms. “Wash the mud off?”

Corsola trilled, then sprayed a weak Water Gun over my arms. I bit my lip at the contact, because it did hurt, even though it was more of a dribble than a real spray of water. I firmly told myself that I was not going to start screaming or crying again.

Kiah examined my inflamed skin briefly, then nodded and sat down, setting Corsola on the ground next to him. She scuttled over to Pausso and talked at him rapidly; he sat there and listened, occasionally trunk-nodding yes or no in reply.

“I think there is a powder in here that will help… yes, here it is,” Kiah said absently. He pulled a paper envelope out of the box, as well as a medium-sized bowl. “Partner, are you ready to try your new move? I think it may help here.”

“Cor!” Corsola replied happily, turning back to look at the bowl. Then she focused on the air above the bowl and started moving her arms in little circles. “Cor – so – la!”

As the Pokemon spoke, a bead of brilliantly blue water appeared in the air above the bowl and started to grow. On the last syllable of her name the water fell down and neatly splashed into the bowl, leaving it half-full of strangely bright, glowing water. Kiah smiled and scratched Corsola’s head lightly in thanks; she made a happy humming sound, then turned back to talk to Pausso again.

“What was that?” I asked, eyeing the blue water dubiously. Water generated by Pokemon attacks generally wasn’t considered drinkable (unless you boiled it first), and this water looked even stranger than the usual product.

“It is called Life Dew,” Kiah explained as he sprinkled a liberal amount of powder from the bag into the bowl. “It can be used to refresh and heal majū, and doctors in my hometown have found that it speeds the healing process for humans as well when used as a component in medicines. You have to use it quickly, though, as the potency wears off after a few hours.” He efficiently mixed the powder in with the water, and it formed a bright blue paste just a shade darker than the water had been. “Here, try rubbing this on your burns.”

I dipped a finger into the mixture and carefully touched it to the red skin on my arm. To my surprise, the contact didn’t sting; it felt cool and refreshing instead. I rubbed the paste into my skin and raised my eyebrows as the stinging pain on that part of my arm disappeared almost immediately. “That’s good!”

“The powder is supposed to be concentrated rawst berries, and you are applying it directly. It ought to work.” Kiah sat back and watched as I rubbed more of the salve into my skin, then hesitantly spoke up again. “How are things out on the field?”

I shrugged as I switched to my other arm. “We just got started, but the plan is working well so far. We took on a group of five and captured four of them before I got burned.” I hesitated, then shrugged guiltily. “It only happened because I was being dumb. I’ll make sure to stay further back next time.”

Kiah nodded but didn’t reply. We sat in an awkward silence, listening to the background chatter of Corsola, until I had finished slathering my arms with the mixture. There was still a good amount of blue paste in the bowl, but Kiah stored it away carefully in the medical box instead of dumping it out. I supposed that made sense, since we were likely to get burned again with the number of fire Pokemon on the field.

I said goodbye to the others while Pausso did his best to pull himself away from Corsola, and the two of us headed back out towards the battlefield. As we walked, Pausso thumped my side lightly. B̸͓́̓ë̷͓́͝ ̵̨͍̀ m̵̞̚͠ó̴̮r̸̺̰͛̋e̶̬̽̉ ̷̧͕͂ ć̸͖͜a̵̢̲̽̋ȓ̸͕̗͑ĕ̶͚ͅf̶̟͋̃ǘ̶̯̆ļ̸͔̀

“I will, I will,” I grumbled in reply, swinging my arms experimentally. They were still red underneath my ruined sleeves (though less glaringly red than they had been before), but they hardly hurt at all anymore. How long would that last? “You should be careful too, you’re more likely to get in the line of fire. Literally.”

Pausso snorted. W̴̗̻͊͝é̵͙ ̶̢͉͗ P̷͍͝o̸̘̰̅k̵̯̈́ë̶̺́͠ḿ̷̡̗ò̷̟̳̚ň̸͎̱͑ ̸̦̀͘ ä̸̯̜́͝r̴̭̂ͅę̷̫́́ ̷̙̠͒̔ t̸̖̣͝ò̷̻͒u̴̺͠g̷̠͎͝h̵̼̱̃̾.̷͎̀͘ ̶̧͖̄̉ C̷͙̏̚ȧ̴̗̣̆ń̵̜̠͝ ̶̳͂ ḧ̷͓̆ȁ̴̝̲n̵̯̂d̷̖̓̚l̷̖͑e̸̜͊ ̸̖̳̿ f̴̫̂͆ī̸̢̡r̶̨͎̊͌ę̵̜̃.̵͈͖̅̈́

“Well, sorry I’m such a wimpy human,” I replied snottily. He thumped my side again as his ears wiggled.

We were able to meet up with Edwin, Luca, and their Pokemon again fairly quickly, and it turned out we hadn’t missed much. Piloswine’s ice attacks weren’t very effective against the fire Pokemon; the one time she had managed to freeze a Vulpix to the ground it had just snorted a ball of fire at its feet to melt the ice away. So they had stuck to the far outskirts of the fight, and they only took down individual Nidoran and their evolutions when they got close enough.

With Pausso and I back in the group, we were able to make more progress. We stopped two more clusters of battlers by using our Pokemon’s attacks from afar and only moving in to make the captures when all the enemy Pokemon were down. It took longer, but it was definitely safer as well.

Sometimes the Pokemon would catch on to what we were doing and try to run. The first time that happened I threw a poke ball after the fleeing Growlithe, crossing my fingers in hope that it would hit at the right angle. But it never got a chance. The Growlithe glanced over its shoulder, saw the incoming ball, and coughed an Ember attack back at it. The fire completely consumed the ball and left a red-hot tumblestone band to fall to the ground, completely useless without the encasing apricorn. I gaped at the circle of stone, then made a mental note to investigate fireproofing once all of this war stuff was done.

After that we let Fearow handle the runaways instead. The bird turned out to be quite good at cutting off the wild Pokemon and sending them stumbling backwards with a few giant sweeps of his wings. Edwin mostly stayed far back from the fighting, shouting out suggestions and warnings, while Luca and I gave our Pokemon more direct advice on who to target and handled most of the catching.

Things were going pretty well for a while. But then we encountered a trio of Nidoran that had regrouped uncomfortably close to the city entrance. Edwin directed us to capture them right away, before they could get any closer, and we took down two of them with one of Piloswine’s ice attacks and the third with a Hypnosis quickly. I was entirely focused on capturing them safely (there was always a chance that a Pokemon could break out of the ice or wake up at exactly the wrong moment, so you had to be on your guard). That meant that I didn’t notice the growling coming from behind me until Edwin spoke up.

“Get back here, Trainer Monroe,” he said, his voice deceptively calm. I looked back at him, confused, and he nodded at a point behind me. When I turned back to see what he was looking at, a chill ran over my body. An angry pair of Nidoran’s evolutions, Nidorino and Nidorina, were slowly advancing on me. They looked very unhappy about how I had just captured three of their species.

I took a few cautious steps backwards so that I was side-by-side with Pausso, who had also gone still after seeing the angry creatures. Then a moment of understanding flashed between the two of us, and we both turned tail and ran for the city wall.

“Back here, back here,” Edwin yelled, abandoning all sense of calm as he gestured wildly at us. As we raced for the boulders he was standing next to, the man turned halfway around and cupped his hands around his mouth, one eye still on the charging Pokemon as he yelled up at the soldiers on the wall. “On my mark! Ready – and – now!”

I skidded to a halt next to Edwin, Pausso panting beside me, and heard a twang from up on the wall. Then, to my complete and utter shock, a scattering of arrows came flying down to punch into the ground a few feet ahead of us, just barely missing the two charging Pokemon. The Nidorino reared up and brayed in surprise while the Nidorina skidded to a halt, tossing her head from side to side.

Edwin grunted and called up to the men on the wall again. “Just a bit further! Fire at –“

“Stop!” I hollered, finally getting over the horror that had rendered me speechless at first. Edwin stopped mid-sentence and looked at me, confused, while Luca, Piloswine, and Fearow peered out from behind the boulder to see what was going on. “What are you doing?!”

“Defending the city, obviously,” Edwin said, as if I was the one who was weird for not wanting to shoot arrows at Pokemon. “I doubt you have a better plan.”

For a moment I just stared at him with my mouth open. Was fighting Pokemon this way somehow normal in this era? There might be occasional violent crimes committed against Pokemon in my time, but that was illegal, obviously. Fighting a Pokemon with human weapons was just wrong in a way that felt inherently obvious to me.

… then again, it also felt inherently wrong for a Pokemon to attack a human mid-battle, like how that Growlithe had attacked me.

I had to get back to my own time, and soon.

I found my tongue again and glared at Edwin. “I have a plan,” I told him angrily. Then I looked over at Pausso. He had also been staring at the arrows with his ears laid all the way back, clearly alarmed. Now I sent my feeling of burning determination to do this the right way to him, and he flicked his trunk up and down hard in agreement.

“You’ve got this,” I told him with confidence as the two of us turned to face the Nidorino and Nidorina. The two Pokemon had stepped carefully around the arrows sticking up from the dirt and were now pawing at the ground, ready to chase us down again, though the Nidorino kept shooting uncertain glances up at the wall. “Confusion on both of them!”

“Drowzee!” my partner yelled in reply, spreading his arms out wide as his eyes shone a brilliant white. I held my breath as the purple light of his attack formed around the Nidorino, making him cry out in pain and huddle downwards; then I let the breath out in a relieved whoosh as the light expanded out to cover the Nidorina too, making her screech and paw at the air.

I let the attack drag out for a few seconds, waiting for the telltale flicker that showed it was about to wear off. As soon as I saw it, I tugged on my mental connection with Pausso. “Switch now!”

Pausso cut off the Confusion attack abruptly and waved his hands fast, sending a Hypnosis flying towards the two Pokemon. They were too disoriented to dodge, and it hit both Pokemon head-on. First the Nidorina fell to the ground, snoring lightly; then the Nidorino followed her, fast asleep.

I jogged up to the two of them, poke balls in hand, and tapped them both on their backs (avoiding their poisonous spines) in a pair of neat captures. Neither Pokemon resisted, and in a few moments I had two new balls to add to the collection in my sack.

“Nicely done,” Edwin said, sounding impressed. “The two of you have more fight in you than I expected.”

I frowned and shook my head, not replying. Yes, we had fought well. What choice did we have now that we knew what the alternative was?