Carmine had always been the best. The most talented psychic the city had seen in decades, he had achieved top scores in every metric imaginable. On track to earn his trainers licence three years early, there was nowhere for him to go but up. But success was boring when it’s the only expected result, so he had always wanted something to spice up his inevitable journey to the top. Sera had always wanted to be strong, but as a young Magikoi, the weakest species of soulbeast, such a thing was an impossible dream. Born in the wild and granted sentience by an average ranch worker, the path towards her ambitions was dark and murky. No matter how hard she tried, she never seemed to get any stronger. Unwilling to acknowledge the futility of her struggles, Sera sank into a self-centered cycle of doubt and hate. The further she sank, the harder she struggled to break free. Will Sera become the carp that soars over the dragon’s gate? Or will Carmine finally face a challenge he can’t overcome? *** An original fiction inspired by the pokemon fanfic ‘The Game of Champions.’ I couldn’t decide whether I wanted a super op mc or a weak underdog mc, so I decided to cheat and try to have my cake and eat it too. Carmine is the super op mc, a young genius destined for greatness. Nearly all challenges he faces will be self imposed ones, and his tale has a pre set conclusion at the top of the world, with only the question being how he’ll get there. Sera is the weakling underdog, little better than salmon. Since this world doesn't have evolutions, she’ll have to bleed and struggle for every scrap of power she gets. I don’t actually know how her story will end up. Will she actually become the best? Will she hit a wall and struggle there for the rest of her life? Will she die in her pursuit of power, punished for reaching beyond her station? Nothing is set in stone for her, and hopefully that’ll make her story more interesting. Ideally the two will pay off of each other in some really entertaining ways, but who knows, perhaps I’ll suck at writing and this entire thing will be a flop.