Chapter 6:
Confusion
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I heard that people who were the victim of burglary describe it as traumatic. Even when the burglar took nothing of value they often say that they don't feel safe anymore.
I now understood what those people felt. The plush Pidgey with the camera inside didn't really change anything. A lot of hospitals had cameras, though none of them were hidden ones. None I knew of at least. I wasn't even doing anything that required privacy yet I felt unsafe. What was supposed to be a long recovery at the hospital turned into a game of mysteries.
I had fallen asleep with my pocket knife under my pillow, even though I knew it was futile. Considering there were literally Pokémon who could attack me in my sleep, realistically I was totally defenseless. Still, I managed to get some sleep that night. Clutching the pocket knife like it was a teddy bear.
I woke up at 8 in the morning. Feeling tired as hell.
Now, I was a big fan of sleeping in, but I had to forego my usual habits. I really wanted to work on Ralts training. Yesterday I couldn't really focus on anything but today I felt a bit better.
I had managed to calm myself down and went over everything. I promised I would not panic or freak out. Stay logical and don’t do something stupid.
I stared at the Pidgey plush.
Sure it was creepy as hell and totally ruining any sense of personal space I had but would I let it ruin my day? No, I had to be practical about it, there was nothing I could do about it and if this world wanted to throw me into a game of mysteries, I would do everything to come out victorious.
And being strong enough would help me with that.
With that goal in mind I started my day, pretending nothing had happened. I prepared to wake up Ralts.
I turned my head and saw Ralts was still asleep...and she was drooling on my pillow.
Well, that did it.
I tapped Ralts on her horn thingy to wake her up.
She turned around and began to sleep on her left side, I tapped again and this time she woke up. Her eyes lazily opened and and looked back at me accusingly. I pointed at the pool of saliva on the bed, she spotted it and her eyes widened. Her face turned red and she began to mutter an embarrassed "Ralts."
I chuckled, "Don't worry about it. Wanna go out and train?"
Ralts happily nodded and moved out of the bed. I sent her out of my room and began to change my clothes. It was the same pair from yesterday, the clothes I woke up with. I made a mental note to get my own stuff soon.
I changed out of my sleeping gown. Sleeping in a hospital gown was really uncomfortable and made me feel like I could die any moment. I was grimly reminded of my lack of privacy by the Pidgey plush, I was torn between acting like I wasn't aware of the camera, turning away from it and potentially showing my hand or taunting it and dressing myself as slow as I could.
In the end I did the smart thing and acted like it wasn't there. It was better not to reveal my cards.
I left the room and met up with Ralts, we passed the rooms that Hylla and Chelsea had claimed as their own. The doors were firmly closed.
Guess they both like sleeping in.
It reminded me of how weird my stay here was. In name I was a patient but Hylla and Chelsea were okay with me doing my own thing. I was only here so they could observe my recovery and keep the bandages clean. It was better than a regular hospital in every conceivable way, in fact it was better because I was the only one. I could run in the hallways!
Ralts and I went down the stairs and passed an empty lobby.
I was not sure if I was supposed to wait until they woke up or if they expected me to make my own breakfast. Not wanting to intrude I went outside and wandered around the area before I found behind the hospital the perfect training spot.
It was located behind the main building, it was only a minute walking away from the hospital and was just your average Pokémon battlefield, lines drawn on the ground to mark the edges and an indicated spot sprayed white for each Pokémon during a 1 on 1 battle.
Convenient.
It made me wonder if any of the two sisters had Pokémon, probably since this was the world of Pokémon and everyone had them in the games and anime.
The lines drawn in the sand had faded a little and different kinds of weeds had crept into the battle area. I guess if they had Pokémon then they didn’t use them for battle.
Ralts and I stopped in the middle of the field. Precisely when I was standing on the white dot I turned around.
"Okay Ralts, time to do some testing." Ralts nodded and narrowed her eyes in concentration.
"Confusion, full force!" I yelled dramatically, why did I yell? Because that's what Pokémon trainers do. I pointed my finger at a patch of overgrown grass.
It took about two seconds for Ralts to do it. She clenched her fist and arched her back. As if preparing for a strong punch. Then, defying all laws of physics, a long purple ray came from her horn.
The ray she fired was big in range, bigger than the one she did in the forest. The size of the purple circles were getting bigger as it got further away from her but they faded when they reached some point away from her.
I estimated the distance the Confusion covered was about 15 meters (50 Feet) which is quite good.
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As the purple circles crossed the battlefield they stirred up dust and sand alike, tearing a few patches of grass along its way. I made some calculations. It took the ray around 5 seconds to cross the field before fading away which was quite slow but considering the size of the attack it wasn't too bad.
"Please do it again," I asked and I picked up a stone from the edge of the field and threw it into the ray that soon followed.
The moment it came in contact with Confusion it was launched forward. It kept following the direction the Confusion was going and eventually it crashed into the ground where it was firmly stuck into the ground.
Huh, well, it seems that the Confusion ray does have a physical impact on non organic materials as well as Pokémon, considering it did affect the Raticate in the forest.
The Raticate in the forest had been thrown away by this attack but it didn't really hurt him.
I knelt down, grabbed some sand from the ground and threw it up. I took a step back and commanded Ralts to fire a Confusion at it the moment I let it rain down.
As expected, it created a perfect hole in the falling sand, the sand in the middle being accelerated forward while the sand that was not within range of the ray fell down like it normally would.
My current theory was that Ralts drew psychic energy from somewhere and manifested it into a beam of energy that was being released in small amounts, like a machine gun in burst mode.
It didn't really matter how it worked but I always loved theorizing about superpowers. Guess that was a useful skill in this world.
Still, it took Ralts two seconds to charge a Confusion and it still wasn't that strong. Sure it had the reach and range but the damage output was not even close to Pikachu's Thundershock or something comparable. Guess she was really a low level Pokémon. Right now this move was probably meant to drain the enemy of strength instead of knocking it out.
The start up time was big and could probably be reduced by her leveling up, metaphorically speaking of course. Beside that, Ralts seemed to be immobilized when she fired that beam which was a huge disadvantage in my book.
It was a big commitment to fire the Confusion full force and it left Ralts open for counter attacks if her attack wouldn't hit her opponent first. If it were a bit more powerful it could be considered a high risk-high reward attack but it wasn't strong enough yet.
But what if…
"Ralts," I said, "try to fire another Confusion again but this time less powerful. In fact, put as little power in as possible."
"Ralts?" Ralts asked, confused.
"I have a theory, if I am right it could change a lot of things. If the previous attack was 100% then try 10% now."
Ralts nodded and faced away from me. Immediately a purple ray shot out of her forehead just like before. But this one was slow, way slower.
It was as slow as when we had first met and was around walking speed, the width of the ray was also smaller whereas 100% was around the size of a big tractor wheel this one was the size of a basketball.
However it just reached as far as the 100% beam before fading away, it just took a bit longer to reach.
"Okay, it looks promising so far."
"Ralts?" She asked, a puzzled look on her face.
"Trust me on this one okay," I said. "It will all make sense later. Now I want you to try to fire again but this time after firing, take a step to the left and try again."
"Ralts!" She said determined before she narrowed her eyes and focused. A purple ray instantly appeared and she hopped to her left where she fired again.
The result was two purple rays moving parallel to each other, one being ahead by only a tiny bit.
"Yes!" I cried out having my theories confirmed.
Just like I thought. Reducing the amount of energy Ralts put into her Confusion negates the startup time and removes the immovability entirely.
"That was amazing Ralts," I said, "now I want you to find the right amount."
"Ralts?" She asked and I think she was asking what I meant with ‘the right amount’.
"I want to see how much energy you can put into the ray without it affecting the startup time okay?"
Ralts tilted her head and began to think before nodding and walking towards the middle of the field where she would have more space to experiment.
She fired Confusion after Confusion, moving and jumping while firing it. Rays were sent flying everywhere. At some point I was almost worried one would reach me.
It was necessary though. Finding the right amount of energy would be like trying to find a radio frequency, possible but with trial and error.
Still this was great, Ralts had met all my expectations and the future seemed a bit brighter.
Sure she only knew one move but we were still in the tutorial so we could take our time to find our way.
"Ralts!" Ralts cried out and I fixed my gaze on her. She was excitedly waving her arms while trying to tell me something.
"Show me." I folded my arms. She turned away from me. Immediately a purple ray appeared, she walked left and right and more rays kept spawning every second.
It had the size of a small fridge this time and it still crossed the same distance as the 100% one.
Ralts was now creating a small area that was continuously being occupied by the rays of purple energy. Because of its low speed it was able to cover a whole lot more ground than the 100% one which was something to keep in mind.
I picked up another stone and threw it into the rays, it was thrown towards the other side of the field but with less force than the 100% one.
"Are you not getting tired of spamming a low power Confusion?" I asked when Ralts finally stopped.
"Ralts." She shook her head with a proud smile on her face. Her smile was practically beaming. Small droplets of sweat did fall down her head but the smile deterred all of them.
"Okay, so final question about the Confusion, how many percent of the full force Confusion was that?"
"Ralts," she told me and I wondered why I even asked it.
"20?"
She shook her head.
"30?"
"Ralts!' she happily nodded.
Okay, 30% of a full force beam was without startup time, no end lag and a slower traveling beam perfect for spamming and sealing off areas on the battlefield to limit our opponent's movement.
Sure the damage it did was lower but that could also be used as an advantage. It reminded me a lot of the character Fox in Super Smash Bros.
Fox had a blaster that shot out a red laser, the laser only did around 3% damage and didn't have any knockback on the opponent, nor did it make you flinch but it could be fired rapidly. The laser could be dodged but because of its low damage most people ignored the blaster and stormed through it, however as the match goes on and Fox keeps shooting and camping the damage stacks up.
Before you know it he had done 50% damage by laser blasts only.
The spamming of Confusion would slowly but surely damage our opponent if they were not careful enough. A death by a thousand cuts!
Even better, we could let them get used to the slow, low damage Confusion and then suddenly hit with a full force Confusion and catch them by surprise.
And that was not even considering the Confusion status effect it could give. In the game it had a 10% chance of giving the status effect. I knew it could inflict the same status effect in this world too thanks to the Raticate but I was unsure how it worked.
Was it 10% per ray or 10% per second one was exposed? Or was it not at all measured in percentages and was it a combination of chance, exposure to the ray and the opponent's strength?
I knelt down and hugged Ralts to reward her for her efforts.
Ralts squealed in delight and hugged me back. After a few seconds of hugging I took a step back and smiled.
"Now how do you feel about becoming Daredevil?" I asked with a smile.
"Ralts?"