It had been a few weeks since the big car chase that got me our first achievement, and to say we had some progress would be understating it, Cinder’s growth had exploded and my progress had followed suit. I still hadn’t gotten a level yet but I had made great progress with the exp needed for it, we have spread out much further than we used to, the increase in level for Cinder and experience with my abilities have helped develop my body to be able to function at a much higher level than before.

STATUS

NAME: SAMUEL FARTHING

AGE: 21

LEVEL: 0/??

EXP: 24/50

JOB: N/A

BOND: CHARMANDER (80%)

DRAW CHANCES: 5

POKEMON: 1/∞

POKEMON STORAGE: 0/∞

ABILITIES/ PERKS: Mental Fortitude(MAX), Genetic Anomaly, Inventory, Inspect (MAX), Aura (Beginner), Psychic (Beginner)

Being half way to the next level was very pleasing to see I had been worried at the start when the experience was accumulating so slowly. But now that I had been getting involved in the encounters I had noticed that not only had I been improving my efficiency in taking criminals down but the martial arts training coupled with my aura training had seen an exponential growth in my proficiency with both.

There was some form of synergy between the both of them and I could feel when I practiced and used it in combat that the energy I associated with aura was circulating in my body much more smoothly. I still had trouble getting a hold of the energy and using it willingly, it felt like there was a barrier stopping me from taking that extra step. Though I knew that when I got past that point I would see an explosion in growth with my aura ability and be able to use it at will.

Psychic still had nothing, I knew it was doing something as any information I took in when training and organising programs and schedules was efficient to a level that border lined superhuman. My memory retention was improved and I found I was able to read the minute movements people were making during combat. I don’t know if it was a kind of foresight or an observation type skill that assisted me in countering any movement made against me, but I wasn’t going to complain or think too much on it, it was that useful.

Having a look at Cinder’s status showed a lot of growth in his abilities.

CHARMANDER (Cinder)

LVL 7 (23/35)

GENDER: MALE

ABILITY: BLAZE

BOND: 80%

HEALTH: 100%

STAMINA: 100%

MOVES: Scratch(Intermediate), Growl (Intermediate), Ember (Intermediate)

NOTE: A bond of less than 40% will cause Pokémon to ignore some commands

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With the previous increase to level 6 and the subsequent one to level seven it saw Cinder being able to manipulate the fire energy much better and get a handle on the temperature of flames. It found him taking it all the way down to a dark red flame and all the way up to a solid yellow, I was so proud of the little guy and we had started on working with his other moves.

I had found that ‘scratch’ was the easiest to work on at the moment, I theorised that if he was able to manipulate the normal energy enough he could make a sort of coating of the energy over his claws. If other Pokémon were able to have moves like shadow claw, ice fang and other elemental moves that were solid enough to leave the body and make enough of an impact to damage the opponent, then what was to stop us from trying to use normal energy to make a kind of coating over Cinder’s claws.

We had been working on the adjustment for awhile and started to see some progress with his claw’s kind of glowing at times. Pleased we were on the right track we continued the training with seeing some progress over the last few weeks. At this time we were able to see a solid glow on his claws when he pumped them as full of energy as was doable at the point, but I had the feeling that he needed to progress further in his level to increase the affinity with normal energy.

I figured I had until he evolved to a Charizard to keep working on it, as the addition on another typing might interfere with the usage of normal energy. What was a nice surprise was the fact that as he was getting more control of his normal and fire energy when he used ember, small amounts of dark smoke were starting to be released.

I’m wondering if there was a possibility of learning smokescreen before level 8, and if this is the case then there might be the chance we could work on other moves before the level recorded down in the games.

This has some further connotations as I’ve found the increase in level helps Cinder improve his affinity with the energy for his moves. Not to say the constant training hasn’t helped at all, it has and he is probably a bit further along then he would normally be if we just stuck with leveling.

Just that maybe the ability to use a move was linked to a level in the game, as this was an easy way to quantify the level their energy manipulation had to be. This was an easy way to describe it instead of going into detail about energy affinity and efficient usage of said energy. This also meant that in reality if we worked on increasing the affinity to differing energies, we would be able to speed up the rate of learning new moves.

Needing to test this even more as it would be a complete game changer learning more advanced moves, especially seeing as some of the later moves like hyper beam we would have to learn as I don’t think I’ll get any access to any TM’s, I may be wrong and the draws might give me some. If we can learn then ourselves then it will be massive and extremely useful.

Over the last few weeks, we didn’t stop going out and this meant that the exposure and interest after our first little foray didn’t die down, if anything it got even bigger, after all when’s the last time you saw a fire breathing lizard. The big plus was that the encounters were significantly easier, if you’re planning to mug or assault someone then you’re going to be pretty scared if all of a sudden your surprised by a near metre tall bipedal fire lizard.

Though there has been a bit of a negative, we have seen a gradual increase in police presence in the area. It hasn’t bothered us too much but it means a lot of the encounters we would normally use to get exp have been drying up due to this. We are having to travel further away from home to find anything, though the benefit to this is that my area is now extremely safe because of it. Kind of a silver lining right there.

It hasn’t been too hard staying out of their way and avoiding interest, the poke ball is a life saver as it means I can keep Cinder in my pocket and this fact in of itself lets me avoid a lot of the interest. What has been nice is the signs around the place from people who are enjoying the lack of crime in the area, most of the time it is written with a flame, lizard, man’s silhouette or a combination of any of the above.

It has been nice seeing our efforts recognised and the improvement around the area has been noticeable, more smiles on faces, an increase of people on the streets later at night which in turn have helped the local businesses out. Making my way into the kitchen I can see the TV on already, somehow Cinder has learnt how to turn it on, I’m thinking after watching me so many times he picked it up. It is a local news broadcast reporting some of our latest escapades and describing the effect we are having, which put a smile on my face.

Feeling that it’s going to be a good day I move to the window over looking the river and taking a sip of my coffee I welcome the new day.

I am rudely interrupted but a tremendous ‘BOOM!!’, keeping my feet through the vibrations I can hear screams coming from outside and moving right up to the window I can see further down the street towards the Brooklyn bridge at one of the warehouses a tall pillar of flames rising into the sky. I turn to Cinder who has a grim look on his face, we both nod at each other and I run to get my disguise on. Recalling Cinder back into the poke ball I race out of the apartment during which I am jostled and bumped as others are trying to get out of the building and move away to safety.

Some idiots are running towards the flames wanting to see what is going on and shaking my head I move into the alley, picking up the pace and racing towards the warehouse on fire. I can hear the sirens of the fire engines, police cars and ambulances speeding towards the explosion and I speed up wanting, no needing to get there as soon as possible.

Coming to the last block I exit into the street and I pause in my tracks, it is utter chaos surrounding the warehouse, emergency vehicles are set up, the police cars are creating a perimeter as the fire engines set up to get the fire under control, the ambulances start setting up areas to take in casualties while civilians are trying to get a closer look.