Carlos huddled next to the fire, even here in the forest it was still cold, working on cutting strips of meat. The adrenaline and coming face to face with a lethal Arbok and his minions, kept him awake. Frustrated, angry and tired. He chopped into the carcass he was working on, all semblance of fine technique gone.
“yea stick to the forest Duuuude, you’ll be ok Duuude. Totally won’t meet megalomaniac, sadistic sacks of shit duude.”
Carlos sighed. Besides the freak meeting with the arbok and his posse, he had in fact not seen a single Pokemon above lvl 7, which was high, all things considered. It didn’t matter, the adrenaline and anger, raged through his system, making him skittish, shaky unable to sleep.
He muttered angrily at the fire, the trees and himself, not having anyone else to talk to. The Arbok posse had actually left him with a primeape and one smaller mightyena corpse. Not knowing what else to do, he began a ragtag operation of cutting strips of meat for drying and smoking in the middle of the night.
angrily muttering at the primeape corpse, which, surprise surprise, turned out to be tough as dried cow leather.
”and why in god’s name do I remember the toughness of dry cow leather!? And not the recipe for gunpowder!! FUCK!!”
”MUR hey ashole! I’m sleepin here! KROW!”
”sorry!” Carlos yelled. “Totally not sorry, you stupid new Yorker bird” he mumbled.
”Mur! I heard that! Shit for brain hewmon! Everyone CROW around here MUR knows the poison MUR king has first dibs on mightyena prey! KROW!!”
The Murkrow flew down from it’s branch. it was lvl 8 and way too strong for Carlos to fight but something told him this was a nice Pokemon. For one, it was only agitated and drowsy by the looks of it, Not murderous. Still a powerhouse compared to him.
”and what the HELL is a new yorker bird!? murkrow!” It yelled, while perching next to the fire, bristling his feathers. Carlos couldn’t help but notice how his wings had an almost metallic sheen to it,
“definitely capable of cutting by the looks of it” he thought darkly.
Everything here was a potential threat, whether they decided to eat him or not.
Carlos sighed and put the knife down. The shaggy rack and rock he was using to make jerky with, was full anyway.
“It’s your accent. It sounds like the people living in a famous city where I’m from, called New York. back on earth.” The murkrow puffed its feathery chest at the word ‘famous’.
Carlos didn’t catch that though and plopped down exhausted of all the back to back life-or-death situations, thoroughly drained mentally.
”I didn’t even know the Poison king existed less then a couple of hours ago, him just sneaking up on me like that with his whole, ‘you are more amusing alive then dead’, stick, really pisses me off.”
Carlos did the: ‘what can you do’ pose, geodude did. It felt oddly fitting for his situation.
murkrow coughed in his hand… feathers, wings?
”I see you met sleepy rock. Yea don’t beat yourself up, just bad luck for you to meet the snake on his monthly descend of getting tasty snacks, rumor has it he’s secretly riling up the primeape and mightyena’s on purpose, but neither group is listening to reason at this point, too much bad blood.”
Murkrow hopped closer to the fire, inspecting the meat getting smoked and dried.
”whadaya Mur doing aniway?”
”now he’s doing the accent just on purpose”. Carlos thought.
”smoking and drying the meat to preserve it so I can eat it later. It’l taste like shit but it will allow me to stay alive if I can’t catch something or find that TE fruit.” He sliced a meat of the Mightyena corpse the Murkrow was eying and he threw it, the Murkrow’s beak snapped it up faster than Carlos could blink.
”thanks, always wondered what it tasted like, and huh, that’s actually smart. For a kid your age.”
Carlos chuckled, ”I know I look good for my age but I’m like 35 years old. Im far past a kid”
“Murkrow? What? No you look right around the age i saw dem mur hewmon kids all go on that journey you mur hewmons mur do as a crow coming of age rite. Wait right here I got something that ow can show you. Krooow,” The Murkrow flew off and within no time came back with a decently sized mirror.
“Huh he likes shiny stuff”. Carlos thought.
He grabbed the mirror and looked at his own visage. Or at least a face that was staring back at him. It took him a while to place but it reminded him how he looked in the past but at the same time there was something alien about him.
He looked way more, savage, not something that could have happened in the few days he had been here. he didn’t have a beard but the onset of it was showing. But the thing that was really weird, is how his hair was so long and all sort off styled back like it was in anime, while still looking normal, if you could call it that.
Back on earth this would have required half a bottle of mousse. Another thing that bothered him a lot was that there were subtle changes in his face, more angular with how he had looked at 18. as if he had in fact lived his whole 18…? Years in this world.
He was also definitely built like a brick as if he’d been juicing on expensive products. The ones that gave that “natural look”.
He had noticed it before ofcourse but looking himself over in a mirror was, something else.
It was weird, he wasn’t vain but it felt very grounding to know he was physically doing ok. But the bags under his eyes were showing.
”Well Arceus, praised be his name. Decided I needed to be younger, rejuvinized when falling through the celestial cracks.”
He gave the Mirror back to the Murkrow who tucked it in the folds of his feathers where it simply stuck.
”Mur, oow you the star child everyone is on about, no wonder snaky didn’t eat you. Krow.”
“What do you mean? I thought it was bad to eat hewmon for pokemon.”
“Mur, ow sure if you are a star child. The legends of their toxic makeup is well… legendary. The native hewmons who belong to the scum of the earth, are fair game though. Krow”.
Carlos couldn’t hold his morbid fascination on pokemon food preferences out of his head.
“So do you eat the scum humans because they treated you bad?”
The murkrow got an almost manic glint, a frightening glint that had Carlos flinch. And what the Murkrow said next made him shiver. “Mur Nah star child, krow, their feat tastes good… like muuuuurkrow. reaaalll good, like you wouldn’t believe. Kro The more evil.. mu the better. Murkrow Especially to the dark, ghost and poison types.”
Carlos shivered, the sick creepy smile on the Murkrow was not something he wanted to have in his mind when he would fall asleep. His questions about how evil a human had to be, to be tasty, was suppressed in favor of a change in topic.
”So there must be quite a few star children running around for there to be such knowledge of them being bad to eat?”
murkrow snapped out of, what carlos feared to be similar to a shark feeding frenzy, and he shook his head a sad glint in his eyes.
“There used to be, that collision you speak of it’s well documented by you hewmons and celestial shenanigans take years if not decades apparently. My old Honchkrow used to be on a team with one those star children. They were initially embraced by the other hewmons, He often speaks fondly of her and her upbeat personality. But they were all front and center during the worst of the war. Most of em died as casualties or had accidents afterwards . At least thats how honcho told it”
Carlos interrupted him by throwing another piece of meat.
”What war? I don’t know much of the Pokemon world prior to coming here but I thought this world runs on friendship and Camaraderie.”
Murkrow looked for the right words.
”it’s supposed to yea. Well the war is called the kanto- johto war. but many of the hewmon nations were involved. My honcho and the snake king were part of a team of whom the trainer died, quite a few mon’s here are in fact. Many of the star children had knowledge of this world, they practically wrote the book on war. They understood how to implement violence and a destruction that was unheard of for this world’s hewmons.”
Carlos didn’t like where this was going.
Murkrow kept going ”This mountain range is north of kanto and the silvery and chimney mountain. It is designated a reserve, a refuge if you will, for all the Pokemon who fought in that war to find some measure of peace. The young ones such as myself were born after, but most of our parents make sure we know the history.”
Murkrow spread his wings and flew up.
”It’s the biggest reason you most likely won’t meet any of the smarter mon’s who remember, or were taugh. Nothing personal kid, but we don’t want anything to do with you.”
With one last call of his name. He was gone. “Yea well fuck you too. ‘Sins of the father’ bullshit mentality is what yall got here, fuck.”
Carlos felt lonely, not for the first time. He sucked in air and steeled himself. He needed to survive, if nothing else than to spite these unbelievers.
”Gods I’m turning into a fanatic already.” Even though the Murkrow had cut him with its words, strangely he felt more at peace and finally let himself get taken by sleep.
Carlos didn’t know how long he had slept but it was past midday when a screech and an eery howl woke him up. He jumped up and saw a mankey and Poochyena square off and about to pounce one another in rage.
Mankey.
Mankey
Lvl1 Fighting 270/300 HP 60/60 Normal 300/300 Atk 11 A/U/S 4/4/2 Defense 6+1 A/U/S 4/3/3 Reflex 9+1 Pugilist Speed 5+1 Defiant Brave Male (Hidden)
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Known moves Mankey Survive Prevents lethal blows Rage(signature) (U), normal, cardinal Rage fist (Egg, A) ghost, Fury strikes (A) normal Revenge (A) fighting
Brave(nature): increases atk, slightly lowers speed.
Cardinal: doubles the power of a move, each living creature has a limit of 4 cardinal moves this mon has 1/7 cardinal moves.
pugilist: To fight with fists and feet is natural for this creature 3 fighting moves that directly tie into landing blows can be treated as cardinal moves. All fist or leg moves will benefit from A/U/S as if the move belongs to inherent typing of user.
Defiant: instead of lowering stats through status effects, the stats are increased by the same power instead. In combination with pugilist, this mankey will never flinch.
”Taunting mankey’s seems like a bad idea” Carlos thought.
rage fist/revenge: increases in power the more hurt the user is. power of these moves: (11*1.3)*1.4 = 20 further increased by 2% for each 1% missing HP.
Rage: Lasts 12 seconds before it needs to be refreshed. the more this mon is hit, the higher the base attack of this mon becomes. Each hit increases rage stacks by 1 and adds 3 seconds to a stacks. Currently has an upper limit of 6 stacks. Each stack adds: (11*0.6)*1.4 = 9.24.
All of it gave Carlos pause. “The potential of this little fucker is insane.
Fury strikes: hits an opponent with 3 to 5 hits, each hit consumes 10% TE, as long as the chain of strikes is not interrupted, more then 1 second between each hit, each follow up strike will provide +1 to speed. This bonus stacks for 3 seconds until it dissipates, at which point one needs to start from scratch
Poochyena
Poochyena
Lvl1 Dark 300/300 HP 40/40 Normal 270/300 Atk 7 A/U/S 4/3/3 Defense 4+1 A/U/S 4/3/3 Reflex 9+1 Fangs Speed 11+1 Nimble Quiet Female (Hidden)
Known moves poochyena survive prevents lethal blows Howl (U) normal Bite (A) dark Tackle (A,U) normal Shadow sneak
(U, egg) ghost/dark
Cardinal: This pokemon has 0/10 cardinal moves
Quiet: this pokemon knows when to stay quiet, it’s caution increases it’s speed and lowers its attack slightly.
Fangs: Any move that involves the fangs of this creature, regardless of it typing, can become a cardinal move and will benefit from A/U/S. Anyone with the fangs ability, has fangs and a maw, strong enough to carry ten times their own weight. The user can have 3 additional biting or fang moves as cardinal.
Nimble: all moves that boost speed and reflex, regardless of typing, can be learned, may become cardinal and benefit from A/U/S. 3 additional aforementioned moves, can become cardinal.
Howl: lasts 30 seconds, adds +1 to speed, reflex and defense. Affects the whole pack and can stack up to 6 times
Bite: dark energy is used to hurt the opponent. Damage is 150% of base atk (10.5*1.3)*1.4 =19 damage. The user of this move can latch on and continuously inject its prey with dark energy. Which deals 3 damage for each point of Dark TE the user injects. Injection of TE ignores half the prey’s defense.
Tackle: increases speed of user by 150% for 1 second to deliver a base normal attack. (7*1.3)*1.4 = 12 damage. During the one second tackle is active, the user may use speed, instead of reflex to deflect or dodge blows. May evolve into quick attack and eventually extreme speed. This portion comes in two parts. The tackle requiring 10 normal TE. And the attack requiring 20 normal TE.
shadow sneak: disappear into a shadow and reappear into another one of your own choice. An attack made from the shadows ignores half the defense, reflex and speed of the prey targeted. This move requires 60 dark TE.
Carlos idly wondered, while looking over their moves, where these two lone Pokemon had come from, it hit him that he was reading their moves. These were his mon’s.
”STOP!” Carlos had gotten up and yelled loudly.
“THERE WILL BE PLENTY OF FIGHTING LATER, STAND DOWN!!!”
both mankey and poochyena looked startled at Carlos. Carlos didn’t know how he would hold up, in a fight, against either of these mon’s but it wouldn’t be a one sided beatdown on his end so this gave him some measure of confidence, combined with thoroughly being done with his whole situation, he used his anger to stand tall and attempt a commanding presence.
The mankey bristled in rage and his super ugly but adorable face, scrunched into a face of anger and rage. Not so cute anymore. He squared off with Carlos this time.
Carlos didn’t show any fear. Even if the mankey had almost double his strength Carlos was slightly faster, according to the system at least. He had somewhat of a strategy on fighting the mankey if it came down to it.
“How did you two get out of your pokeballs anyway?” He reached for his belt and didn’t feel the pokeballs in their holster. He frantically looked around and saw all 3 pokeballs next to a very dead looking fox pokemon, fang bites and a crushed jugular let Carlos know who killed it, his system let him know it was called a nickit. Putting the terrible pun out of his mind, it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened. Dead dumbass over here, tripped the release of the pokeballs while stealing.
Carlos rushed over to the pokeballs and hit the button which forced the mankey leaping at him, to be returned to his pokeball.
He minimized the ball and the empty one and held the pokeball for Poochyena in his hand.
Poochyena snarled and growled at him, eyeing the pokeball. She cautiously sized him up.
”In case you didn’t recognize your new pack leader here is some dried primeape meat. It tastes like shit but it will fill you up.”
Carlos tried to inject authority into his voice and approached the poochyena slowly. Not flinching when she barked at him or even when she snapped her maw at his ankle. He instead made a lunging motion with a growl, at the poochyena and she used a tackle to create distance between him and her.
Realizing she lost the battle of dominance she sat down looking dejected. Carlos sat down and held out a piece of primeape meat. She slowly approached him and snatched it out his hands, took a few paces away and watched him warily.
”who you? Poo and where my pack chyena?”
Her voice tore a bit at Carlos’s guilt it was markedly child like, indicating her young age. Her emotional expression was raw and blunt. What he was about to do in the near future, warred with his conscience. This was a child he was going to train in the ways of hunting, perhaps even battle and war.
”I am your new alpha, your old pack including 3 other packs, all died, trying to kill the Primeape troupe.”
”evil monkeys! Poo”she barked angrily, hatred radiated from her eyes.”
”no, not evil, stupid monkeys.”
”yes stoopid too chyena!”
The way it emoted stupid, in such a young and naive way, stabbed at Carlos’s conscience even more, he didn’t have any evidence for what he was about to do but steeled himself, he needed his pokemon to at least be willing to work together.”
”no only stupid, the poison king spread nasty lies about the mightyena to the primeape’s. Told them that the mightyena said many nasty things about the primeape, said mightyena might even have stolen primeape food”
”Noo dats a lie! Yena’s don’t steal! We hunt! Proud hunters we are!” Poochyena bristled and raised her hackles and growled at the insult.
“Let’s ask the mankey to confirm ok? What I just told you, are rumors so they might not be true”. Poochyena Growled for a bit more but Carlos could tell she was thinking it over. Eventually she gave a curt nod.
Carlos conscience eased a bit.
He got up, held out mankey’s pokeball and released him. Mankey was still mid leap and as fate would have it, Carlos had aimed the release in such a way that Mankey slammed into a tree. Poochyena Hackled and yipped obviously amused at the stoopid mankey.
Mankey angrily looked around confused but still pissed off ready to dish out some violence.
”HOLD YOUR ANGER! What did the poison king tell your troupe, that made your troupe attack the mightyena packs?”
Carlos spoke quickly, he remembered from the anime that mankey’s had a short fuse at best and patience wasn’t part of their vocabulary. This mankey seemed to follow that trend.
”triksy king MAN never said anything! triksy salandit! tolds us of filthy mightyena. Key! He hates triksy king! Man Said so mankey! himself! Me heard so!”
Carlos almost smirked, “gotcha, this is gonna be easier than I thought.”
He spoke with a clear voice. “No triksy salandit works for the nasty king. Last night when the fighting had ended and only you 2 still alive, the Serpent king came with his pack, salandit was part of that pack.”
”YOU LIE!” Mankey fumed.
”I AM the new alpha! What i tell you is the truth, i swear this upon Arceus himself!”
This shook both mon’s, they looked up at the sky terrified, when nothing happened. They looked at Carlos with newfound respect. Carlos didn’t understand it but went along with it.
”You not lying?” The mankey had lowered its fist clenched paws. He looked at Carlos with suspicion but no longer outright rage.
”Why would i lie? I am an alpha, i need my troupe, my pack to trust me. How will you trust me if I lie? However I need to know more. What did triksy Salandit tell you. Can you remember the offense the mightyena gave your troupe according the triksy salamander?” Carlos inquired.
Poochyena had come closer to Carlos and began to growl again but Carlos sat down and scratched her on the top of her hear between the ears. “Calm down girl. Gotta know all sides to know the real truth lie or not”.
Mankey responded well to the diffusion of aggression by Carlos and his willingness to listen. The strip of mightyena meat helped as well.
“il explain later”, he whispered to poochyena. She began a soft growl when she picked up the scent and recognized the smell.
She gave him a look off: “you beter” but let it rest for now.
Mankey began regaling all the things, the salandit had told the troupe alpha. Carlos raised his brow quite a few times, and quietly asked Poochyena her side of the story.
his earlier made up assessment of the situation, was eerily accurate. Salandit had in riled up the angry monkeys in a very cliche fashion and had pulled all the stops. Sneasel’s had at the same time in a much more subtle way, convinced the Mightyena of the opposite.
Some of the things salandit had claimed, sounded so bad, now that mankey was calmly retelling it all, you could see his own brow furrow, a hesitation creep into his simple mind. when he was done he almost looked guilty but one look at poochyena flared his defiance and he started to relapse into anger. The mightyena packs had required a more subtle approach but had similarly been tricked.
”alright! Thank you for telling me mankey! This is very revealing, but let me ask you a question”.
Mankey focused on Carlos intently. If nothing else its single minded focus was commendable.
”Do you think laazy triksy snakes and salamanders like to get tired”?
Mankey shook his head.
”Do you think they are honorable like the venerable primeape”?
Carlos picked up poochyena and put her in his lap, she had started growling in protest at the blatant flattery of mankey, He stroked her fur and scratched her belly that had her grin with her tongue out within no time. “You are a smart girl, you will understand what the alpha is saying once we reach the conclusion.
Mankey was shaking his head vigorously over and over to drive home how dishonorable he believed the triksy ones to be.
Carlos continued with mankey. “So how do you think triksy mon’s hunt and get their food when they are lazy and dishonest?”
Mankey furrowed his brow and struck an adorable thinking pose with one elbow resting on an arm, while it stroked its chin deep in thought.
Carlos saw a simple minded creature suddenly go above and beyond in deep thought. A thrill went through him. This mankey wasn’t just a meathead he had the potential to be so much more.
“Dey… hunts wid triks?” He nodded his head at that.
Carlos shook his head. “No they are even triksier, they trik honorable, venerable primeape’s strong and mighty to hunt for them.”
Poochyena had gruffed skeptically at everything mankey had said to mankey’s aggravation but when the explanation resonated to its conclusion, Carlos saw them both reach the same conclusion simultaneously. He saw their hatred reshape before his eyes. It had a new target. The evil poison king.
”My god it’s straight out of an edgy shounen manga” Carlos mused silently. He continued and put the final nails in the future coffin of the poison king.
”after both primeape and mightyena killed or weakened the other enough, the poison king struck and ate himself fat on your both your fallen kin.”
Mankey got up and roared and started slamming into a tree. Furious about the dishonor. The tree splintered left and right.
Poochyena let out a bone chilling howl to the sky that haunted through the forest and the canopy’s of the trees.
Carlos felt weird about it. He wasn’t a vengeful person, not by a long shot. However the sadistic smirk the arbok had was something burned in his mind. He didn’t feel guilty about raising the temperature against that monstrosity of a snake.
Once they ran out of fumes. Tree down and the forest around them, silent in respect of the loss poochyena lamented. Carlos spotted the murkrow from last night in the distance, a stony expression.
Carlos wondered for a hot second if the murkrow would join him, he highly doubted it though, quite frankly he didn’t want to. That was a mon who had straight up sadistically admitted he loved inflicting pain.
Living in alaska Kodiak had cured him quickly of his earlier liberal notions that animals were deep down, friendly loving creatures. Once an animal had tasted human meat it changed something about them and you had no choice but to put them down. The horror stories people had experienced and regaled him with, of having to fend off a pack of bold wolves sneaking up to the stroller with their baby in it, he shivered.
Carlos hadn’t forgotten about the fact that poison, dark and ghost pokemon had a capacity for evil and were apparently more easily corrupted. Thinking on it a bit, he suspected the Honchkrow it flew with had also been part of a criminal team in the past.
He shook his head. He doubted this particular murkrow had any inclination to join him.
No he had everything he needed right here. Two young pokemon who had not been taunted by the darkness of this world. He intended to keep his eventual team that way.
Free of the taint and stink of evil. He understood that defending his life was going to be a part of it but he had to draw the line not just for himself but for the two mon’s who looked at him with a slight sparkle in their eyes. He felt their trust in him was building too fast but he had no choice but to go along with it.