"IT WORKED!!!" I run to pick Sin up, spinning him around and through the air much to the hirity of the wild Pokémon around. I excitedly think about upgrades to my initial work. Leaving him to practice I grab my notebook to draw out better designs for him. I add more links to focus the energy, guiding it forward. Then I add the enhancements to the knuckles to protect them from their own power, creating circuits to infuse into his body to harden it at that point.
I hurry back to Sin to annoy him with my new design to find him slowly trying to remember this new move, punch I'll call it. Barely even a move instead of a waste of time but it's a start. I always loved going over these things with my grandpa when he sometimes made Graveler exercise a bit by training. He tutored me on how to create and edit the basic structures. He could never figure out how to make them weave together but I always loved to figure out his scribbles and enhance them.
Graveler was only used for protection at this point, using rocky walls and bulldoze to defend our home and vilge. He got mildly stronger but he struggled to understand what we showed him sometimes. I had to work with my grandpa to simplify it, breaking the bits apart such that they would still connect but also spread far enough so they were simple to visualize.
When my grandmother noticed my interest, she expined how different runes, structures, and formations(groups of structures) interacted and how much abuse they could take before they broke. She had gone farther than anyone else in my family in the circuit and she knew what she was talking about. Being able to know it and 'see' how the runes make the move run was a big part of what my grandmother taught me.
The only thing she taught that I couldn't quite understand was that she emphasized feeling it to make changes. But of course I wasn't able to do that yet, only see the end result. The connection makes so much more possible, I can see various particles floating about in the air. All very different in size, shape, and look that someone could order around with moves when they were controlled. I always earned top scores on the move tutoring section of summer training. Before it was calcutions and connections, now I could see them myself to get a more natural understanding.
But it was slow going in reality. For all my excitement the one handed Machop could only learn so fast, adding another 3 interlocked structures before Ian showed up with lunch.
Today's menu was Murkrow, and once again many wild Pokémon and trainers avoided us as Ian cooked them. Their bodies were the only edible part so he was able to get a couple of them together using his ribbon as a hand after chopping off the extremities and heads and I plucked the feathers. He was beginning to enjoy this part of his day even though he couldn't eat. A quiet time to work on his ghostly side and sense shadows farther away and take a break to do something fun.
It reminds me of times when my dad and I would go hunt some Azurill for their tails. Those things tasted sort of like a berry and his Machoke would always be very careful with them as her strength was far above what the rubbery outer yer could resist. We would have a fire and my siblings and I would enjoy eating the sweet tasting tails while passing starter would cook the cute looking bodies to roast. I was too irresponsible to be allowed to walk by the fire so he would put me on his knee while telling us stories of the world outside the forest.
He nicknamed his team but kept the names between themselves, an inside joke for the two of them now that the others were released. Along with Sawk who was usually around to watch over us all, they were able to keep us safe in the forest. He only had 3 badges but he seemed so strong, chopping rge branches off the younger trees with a bde of air much like Ian now. Ian was becoming a real woodsman, going through the extra effort to gather wood to be used in his spare time. For being so helpful, I let him ramble about his grudge against his dead captain.
Thankfully he was switched to talking about Monster with my newest addition after my flying type mentioned their previous battles. Puff is a real maniputor isn't she.
It wasn't long before the fire guided my friends over, and Ian prepared additional meat for the Pokémon eaters. Stew and his Pokémon were against the practice entirely in favor of pulling out homemade healthy meals that he had stored in his spatially enhanced bag. Zac convinced Chloe to try some and decided against the slightly burnt bird meat in favor of a couple berries but her Pokémon were less picky. A couple wilds entered our camp to beg for some after seeing others approach.
Normally they avoided getting near humans eating Pokémon. Like trainers avoided Pokémon eating humans, wilds worried they would become the next meal since it was a demonstration of strength. They usually didn't have access to cooked foods though, so they were willing to risk coming near for a tasty treat. I was willing to part with the excess we couldn't finish as Ian had killed way more than I had expected him to while practicing what I previously expined.
An Absol led the way, sensing that we wouldn't harm it with some sort of prediction and more followed. Some of them started getting comfy with us, trying to get us to catch them thinking that we were strong. About half of them tried walking up to me, sensing my energy scar and feeling at home near it.
At this point I wasn’t really interested in catching any of them. Ian already had to sughter enough wilds already to feed who was already on the team. So like I previously mentioned, unless they were amazing then I would pass. A few Larvitar had potential but then I sensed a terrifying presence coming from the forest. I wisely decided I wasn't going to mess with a Tyranitar at all and moved elsewhere when the Larvitar were done with me, sad that I had missed my chance to get a great Pokemon.
Hannah seemed to enjoy petting the Poochyena that was ying across her legs and Chloe was giving a garian Zigzagoon a look over as Stew fed it some of his own food. I started talking more with Zac about their trip and what happened without me. Apparently, I missed a dynamax storm that they had to hide through. A nearby Pawniard had fought a Nuzleaf in their giant forms while they hid not to far from the battle.
While not dangerous in of in themselves, Pokémon that dynamaxed in those storms using the unfiltered energy of Eternatus were very aggressive and were better left avoided as they could be of any power level. My grandma once told me about a powerful Tyranitar getting enrged and attacked a city that destroyed a couple skyscrapers before it was demolished by a Zacian. It was the inspiration of the Godzil movies that came out in the next couple years although its power was spiked up far more than reality.
That led to a conversation about the gym itself and what strategies everyone was working on to fight one of those massive Pokémon. I would be working in a team of 6 against a dynamaxed Pokémon one badge higher with no “gimmicks” for the most part on our side. Gimmicks being dynamax, Z-moves, mega evolution, or terra crystals of course.
Chloe was doing some variant where she was against a weaker pokemon with her team of 3 alone. Her pn was to have her Sneasel and Wiglett get close while her Girafarig took pot shots from afar. Sneasel was her Pokemon from when she was a youngster and would be doing most of the work occupying the opponent’s attention while Wiglett poked at its feet(hopefully it would have some) to guide it away from Girafarig. I like that pn, I was originally going to use my new fighting type but slowly damaging from afar sounds like it would work well. I'll think it over.
Zac was doing the same version as me and he was going to use his starter to get up close and personal to stick some fruffles on the dynamaxer to slow it down. He has been working with Froakie on creating the sticky balls and tossing them, making them weigh enough to be thrown farther and practicing the motion that he could take advantage of when Froakie hopefully became a Greninja.
We moved on from that topic and I told them about Thomas who hadn’t come back to the outskirts yet despite his battle being long over. Chloe pointed out that he could have lost, marking his second loss which was bad. The league gave you three chances, fail challenges all three times and you were kicked out of this year’s circuit. It was something that sometimes ended a trainer’s journey at the second loss, too afraid to try again lest they fail again.
He beat me so he should have a decent chance right? I hoped for his sake that there was another reason for this dey and felt bad for missing his big moment.
We broke off to train individually, Hannah and Stew going off together for a battle. For the rest of the day I worked with Sin and Puff for varying intervals, the tter because I needed to keep her focused as she was more than willing to talk with any wilds that walked up.
Spritzee did indeed come back, nice and full from successful berry foraging that he shared with Puff and Fly (more as an offering than because he wanted to.) He said that he had been looking for us for hours before seeing a famous statue of a featureless man with a small sword called the "Hero of Freedom" in retion to this city's nickname. Puff transted while taking a break from her training, telling me about the pque Spritzee read about how a Zacian had given this hero its sword in its final moments. The man then defeated the dynamaxed Gothitelle that wrecked havoc in the area with his team of dark types and founded Darkuf here.
After that break we got back to training, I admit that near the end there the darkness was able to make me angry at Spritzee again but I was able to keep my hands away from my knife at least. I had Spritzee accompany Fly instead, separating the two chatterboxes. He had a look of fear when Fly paralyzed him from a distance and then licked him but Fly behaved well and did her training under his worried gaze.
And it was that night that Thomas showed up, with a pale face.
