Curiosity [Pokemon]

[Isaac A Drake]

Author's Note: This is a remaster of my popular on FF.net and AO3 story, 'Curiosity'. Begun in 2020. It was ~60K words at the time that I wrapped the arc I stopped writing on and thus 'threadmarks' are remastered Arcs not remastered chapters.

Chapters 1-5 Gradutation

I had been wondering, my entire sixteen odd years of life in Kanto, what version of the Pokemon world I was in. I knew it was more expansive than the games of course, but I'd never had major confirmation on what world changing plots were going on. The answer came as I was studying for my Advanced Class exams from Pokémon Tech just outside of my new life's home of Saffron City.

I looked out of my window to see a horde of the Beginner Class students hurrying over to the small arena favored by the stronger underclassmen for study and training. I clasped my hands together over my head and stretched, looking over to my starter, a currently slumbering nidorina, who my parents in this life had never really understood why I picked.

"Want to go see what the noise is all about, Cleo? I know you've been annoyed at me staying cooped up in here to study for this biology exam," I spoke at a normal volume, knowing her sensitive ears would pick up everything I said.

Indeed, her ears twitched twice as she blinked herself awake and nodded back at me, slowly pushing herself up onto her legs and extending backwards in a quick stretch. I had vague dreamlike memories of having rabbits on Earth, and she reminded me of them. Well, perhaps if I had had the rabbit from Monty Python as a pet at least. She padded over to the door and headbutted it impatiently as I stood up with a laugh.

"Hold your rapidash there, little lady! I've got to toss my shoes on!"

Quickly I readied myself for a little jaunt, casually tossing on my pokeball belt and pulling on a pair of boots that were basically Kanto's versions of Dr Martens, though I'd opted for a work pair not a fashion pair like many of the other trust fund brats that I went to school with.

Of course, in this life, I was also one of those trust fund brats. While initially my father had just been a normal researcher for Silph Co, right after I started boarding school here at the Tech he'd been tapped to help with the fossil revival project in Cinnabar. Needless to say he'd very quickly become a big deal, and unfortunately my mother in this world was completely different from the mother of my previous life and had eaten the attention all up. The only upside of the lifestyle they'd thrown themselves headfirst into was that I occasionally got to talk with actual serious scientists at the parties they threw or attended when I was on breaks from school.

In fact, after I'd had a go or two at the Indigo League Conference I fully planned on trying to join Professor Cerise's institute. I'd met him at a party last year and the man had seriously impressed me with his early phases of his Poke-Energy Radar, which I knew he may eventually be able to use to hunt down legendary pokemon!

My musings were cut short by Cleo and I's arrival in the small arena where almost the entire Beginner Class was watching one of their top students, in fact one I had recognized and taken a bit under my wing earlier in the year, battle someone that I definitely recognized. Ash Ketchum.

It was weird seeing him so young and feeling like I not only knew him but knew what he could become. Orange Island, Battle Frontier, and Alola Champion. Wielder of a demon of a pikachu as well as such monsters as Charizard, Sceptile, Dragonite, and Lucario. And here he was, struggling slightly against a cubone with a pikachu that had yet to learn any of its signature moves, still relying almost exclusively on Thundershock and Quick Attack. I snorted at the embarrassing loss Giselle suffered when Cubone's own Bonemerang was dodged, and he knocked himself out on the rebound.

As she expressed her surprise at her loss I couldn't resist and stepped in to interfere.

"Giselle, now what has your friendly upperclassman told you about trained pokemon versus wild pokemon in the databases?"

She winced and turned around to face me, "That trained pokemon have a higher likelihood of atypical strategies and movesets..." she grumbled, "But it's ridiculous! This kid is a total dunce, why should I have expected-"

"Battle tactics?" I supplied. "Yes!" She shouted and Cleo at my side chuffed in amused exasperation.

Realizing how ridiculous she sounded Giselle blushed and hung her head. "Hey!" A dramatically overenthusiastic voice chimed in, "Who are you?" I sighed, right, Kanto-Ash was...a cliché dumbass anime protagonist.

"I'm one of the Advanced Class students, Isaac Beech, nice to meet you, Ash was it?" His eyes bugged out, "Wait! They said if you pass the Advanced Class it counts as like...five badges!" "Six, Ash!" Misty chimed in.

I turned to look at her, wow Misty was young at twelve. I thought back to the mega gyarados she would have one day and almost shivered. "That's even more!" Well, Ash was right, six WAS more than five, "Hey! Who's that pokemon?" I almost fell flat on my ass as Ash did the cliché pokedex scan of Cleo.

"Nidorina, the Poison Pin Pokemon," The robotic voice began, "The female's horn develops slowly, thus it prefers physical attacks such as biting and scratching. When resting deep in its burrow, its thorns always retract. This is proof that it is relaxed,".

Is it weird to feel calmed by a robotic voice you'd previously only heard in an anime that you only really interacted with in your dreams? Before I could muse too long I learned that there was one difference between this world and the anime.

Apparently Team Rocket wasn't entirely incompetent. There was no warning motto before a smokescreen, a burst of earth, and a flash of a Quick Attack appeared. It was only our training over the last three years that saved the pokeballs on the belts of the underclassmen. Cleo immediately intercepted the speeding pokemon with a Double Kick, it ended up being Team Rocket's Meowth, who let out a grunt of pain as he was sent skidding along the arena floor a good dozen feet.

Senses sharpening for battle I palmed two pokeballs and released them. In twin bursts of light, my own cubone, Estella, and a sparkling light blue Alolan sandshrew, Brinker, appeared for battle. We can reflect on my obvious homesickness by naming all my pokemon after literary characters from my dreams of Earth later. Right now, I had some criminals to school.

Or I thought I did. Ash and Misty, it appeared, had the art of taking care of Team Rocket down to a science. Before I could even give commands or Brock could run down from the stands all the way both Ekans and Koffing had been blasted back into the criminals' arms by Pikachu and Starmie respectively. As I was blinking in shock the two criminals collected their three pokemon and skedaddled.

"Uh...should we call Officer Jenny or?" I was honestly unsure at this point.

Ash shrugged, "I dunno, they always seem to get away from the Jennys. It's really annoying!"

And then Ash spotted my pokemon I had yet to return, "WHOA!" Oof I could hear the caps in that one, "I've never seen a sandshrew like that before!"

Ah, right, Ash had fought AJ's already at this point, "Brinker here is from the Alola region, over there sandshrew adapted to the area around a really snowy mountain and are ice and steel typed! I caught him on a ski trip with my parents last year!"

This floored Ash, and honestly regional-variant pokemon were still a relatively new field. As previously there'd been hot debate about whether they should simply be entirely different species or not.

"There's a special Alolan raichu, too!" I remarked to Ash, knowing Pikachu would never willingly evolv-well actually if his meeting with Surge went differently Pikachu could possibly not go that route. Interesting idea but not one I will push to bring about.

"Can I battle it?" Ash bit out finally, taking me a bit aback if I am honest, "Pikachu's a bit tired but maybe Butterfree could have a go?"

Oh no, that earnest face, I just couldn't say no to it. "Alright, kid," I turned to my pokemon, "Cleo and Estella you go keep Giselle some company, I've got a tutoring session it appears!"

"Hey!" Oh yeah the yelling was going to get annoying, "What do ya mean tutoring? I've got two badges!"

"Then you're on par with the Beginners I regularly tutor!" I grinned with a sickly sweet facetious smile, "But it's impressive at your age nonetheless! Now, Brinker, to arms!"

With a nod Brinker rolled out onto the field in a ball before popping back out onto his hind legs.

"Go, Butterfree!" Ash called out summoning the first pokemon he ever caught. Oh I really hoped he didn't let him go this time around, that was really heart-wrenching for me as a child. Er...my first time as a child?

"You get first move, Ash, I think the theme of this lesson is going to be what I call the Aggressive Defense!" Ash looked confused at my declaration, but the kids of the Beginners Class were on the edge of their seats. I was one of the more approachable upperclassmen and truly enjoyed teaching so I tended to give demonstrations pretty regularly where I actually explained why and what I was doing for my strategies. I also had a tendency towards entertaining flamboyance which I am certain helped.

"Well, whatever! If you're going to be on the defense Butterfree has this in the bag!"

"Careful, Ash!" Brock cautioned from the sidelines, "I'm sure he knows what he's doing!"

I tossed Brock a grin, "Don't ruin all the fun, Gym Leader!" I joked, "Well, Ash? What has your butterfree got beating between those wings?"

"A Sleep Powder!" Ash commanded and the little guy, well alright a butterfree is the size of a pretty decent eagle back on Earth so not so little, sped forth with his wings abuzz and a sparkling powder flying off towards Brinker.

"A solid defense against powder moves is a fast moving wind of any kind. You don't always need a flying move to generate it either! Rapid Spin!"

Brinker curled up into a ball and began spinning, well...rapidly, causing a small vortex that picked up sand, dust, and the Sleep Powder and swirling it around him and right back up into the air.

"Rapid Spin is useful for dispersing many persistent effects on the battlefield!" I lectured.

"Fine! Butterfree use Whirlwind!" Without my command Brinker took off from the Rapid Spin into a Rollout, not actually targeting the opponent however, just evading the attack.

"The move also raises your speed, though not as much as a proper Agility," Ash's face was turning red with a mix of embarrassment and frustration. Good, in the anime Ash always learned the most from his defeats. So perhaps this lesson here could kickstart his tactical thinking that only really began to shine around the Battle Frontier.

"Confusion!" Ash finally called out a more direct attack and I grinned, the second I had said 'aggressive defense' earlier Brinker had known what was going to happen. He popped out of the Rollout and his icy blue plates began to glow a light lavender just before the Confusion hit. They flared a darker purple and Ash looked like he had been struck by his pokemon's own move for all he anticipated what was going to happen next.

"Mirror Coat, students," I explained, "Can take an indirect or 'Special' attack and reflect it back at the attacker...doubled." Ash paled at my words, but it was too late, the energy burst back forth from my sandshrew and slammed into the butterfly pokemon, sending it hurtling backwards and to the ground. The two-badge trainer returned his pokemon morosely.

"Hey," I said as I began to walk over and Brinker rolled up to my side, "You did great! Starting out the battle with a status inducing move was exactly what I would have done with a butterfree! I feel almost certain I'll be seeing you at the Indigo Plateau this year when I compete!"

This surprised all the surrounding students; my declaration that I planned to compete this year, the same year I passed my Advanced Exams, was essentially a declaration of war upon the staff at the school.
Because you see, once you pass your Advanced Exams you self-study and get tutoring until you win a gym circuit style match against five staff members. That's how you graduate. Technically you could jump right into the challenges from finishing your Advanced Exams, though it wasn't recommended. Most students took two more years and graduated at around eighteen. I had just said I wanted to graduate before this year's conference. That was in just under eight months, I'd be seventeen.

I had no illusions that I was going to be a Lance, a Leon, or an Ash though. I'd be content being good enough to have a research gym like Blaine or Roark after doing a few conferences and a fellowship with Professor Cerise. And that meant I had to make a show of it.

"Wow!" Ash exclaimed, not understanding the full implications of that, "Then I'll be beating you in a rematch!"

I chuckled, "Well I look forward to watching you try,".

My sincerity bled heavily into that sentence and as they walked off to continue towards Vermilion City I saw both Brock and Misty looking back at me in curiosity.

A few weeks later I was contemplating how mostly I really just wanted to learn and explore this entire crazy, beautiful, dangerous planet. The day Estella evolved into a marowak was definitely one of those days.
I had been training hard since passing my Advanced Exams, and the teachers definitely had not been going easy on me. First of all, if I graduated the same year I passed the Advanced Exams they didn't get another year of tuition out of my parents. Secondly, if I did graduate early by defeating them but biffed it in the conference then it looked really really bad on the school. So, if I did graduate early they needed me to be in top form.

Which was fine, I was no stranger to hard work in either life. But my graduation advisor, Mr Pringle, and yes he did look weirdly like the snack can guy, was assigning me some pretty crazy training exercise gauntlets versus many of the school's general training pokemon.

Knowing my team was mostly ground-types he'd sent me out to the pond to get absolutely hammered by the poliwhirl and seadra living in it, demanding my pokemon withstand the assault for ten-minutes each by only using their defensive moves and not dodging. It was on minute eight, when I was sure Estella was about to faint when a Bubblebeam made it through her spinning Thick Club that she evolved.

Suddenly twirling the club with new vigor she passed with flying colors. I quickly scooped two of her favorite flavor of pokeblocks out of my bag and walked over to give her a hug and a treat.

"That was amazing, girl! I am so proud of you!"

The bone keeper pokemon let out a pleased noise in the back of her throat as she stood up straight and accepted the treats. My goal was to get all my pokemon to at least their second stages before finishing my staff challenges, so this was a great step in that direction.

After the conference I planned to travel to the four winds collecting pokemon to create a solid final team for myself, but for now I was restricted to Kanto and Johto pokemon, and getting lucky with Brinker last year on vacation.

I returned Estella for some rest, she'd been my last pokemon to go through the exercise, and Cleo came over and let out a pleased chuff.

"It's very exciting, Cleo!" I replied back, "Now we just need...well the two hardest will be Brinker and Alberich," I sighed, "An Ice Stone will be hard to get and it's just really difficult to get a rhyhorn to evolve."

Sitting down with a sigh I released my quagsire, Huck, to play in the pond with the other water-types. Cleo, spikes retracted thankfully, gently bumped her shoulder into mine as she tended to do when I was stressing out about things.

I scratched her in her favorite spot behind the ears, "I know girl, I might be aiming too high in wanting Alberich to evolve in time for the conference. Especially when I need to focus on finding that stone and getting Alexei to evolve, he'll need to be a proper piloswine to keep up with anything after the qualifiers, his movement is just far too limited as a swinub."

I retracted my hand to rub my face, "Should I take dad up on his offer of the fossil pokemon?" I questioned Cleo, "What I really want is an aerodactyl, but the most he's offering is an omanyte or a kabuto, I'm not sure I could train them up in time and I am not sure even if he came through with an aerodactyl I could get one to listen to me in time!"

The problem with aerodactyl, that they could tell from the two they had revived at this point, was that it was a surly and vicious pokemon that only respected the utmost of strength. And that was why the only properly tamed one of those two was owned by Elite Four Lance. Though from the rumors that was soon to be Champion Lance. The previous champion had stepped down a few years back and the Kanto Elite Four had been both taking challengers as well as doing matches against each other to see if any of them could defeat the entire rest of the Elite Four. Lance was consistently unable to beat Lorelei, Lorelei couldn't beat Bruno, and Agatha was so close to retiring she wasn't really trying but Bruno could still never best her (or admittedly anyone except Lorelai, Lance tended to trash him four out of five matches).

Watching those exhibition matches were jaw droppers let me tell you. Just last month had been the third Bruno versus Agatha rematch and her second to last pokemon, one of her two gengar, had been forced to pull a Destiny Bond to defeat Bruno's hitmonchan after it had surprised her by having learned Bullet Punch in the interim time between their last match and had used the move to block every single Sludge Bomb and Toxic tossed his way.

But Lance had apparently finally gotten his gyarados to figure out both Thunder Wave and Dragon Dance, as he had demonstrated in a challenge by one of last year's top eight trainers from the conference who had finally worked the courage up for an Elite Four challenge. It might finally be what Lance needed to punch through Lorelei's lapras.

But regardless, I needed to focus on my team, I currently owned seven pokemon. Cleo, my loyal starter, was not going to be evolving into a nidoqueen any time soon, as I was not Ash Ketchum I didn't think I'd be finding a Moon Stone quickly and she needed a lot more growth before she evolved as nidoqueen was a plateauing evolution as some referred to evolutions that limited overall growth potential in return for a giant boost in initial power. These evolutions are really only ones you want to go through once you've gotten every last drop you can out of the previous stage.

My second pokemon ever, Estella, the recently evolved marowak, had been found when I joined my dad on a fossil hunt, a poor orphan of marowak poachers like so many of her species over the centuries. Her potential was now very important to explore, as with her ability Rock Head the only naturally learned move to take advantage of it was Double Edge, a long way off, so she'd need lots of special attention in developing her moveset from here. Marowak were not naturally flexible fighters from a type coverage perspective. And then I had a moment of realization, she was not an Alolan Marowak, which meant no Flare Blitz...which meant...I quickly pulled out a slightly outdated pokedex, I wasn't a personal trainer of Professor Oak so my 'dex was a year behind the ones he gave out.

"Well...shit..." I bit out. The only other recoil move that a normal Kantonian marowak got was Submission. For some strange reason no one had ever managed to teach a marowak Head Smash or Head Charge, and though I was going to double check once I got back to my computer in my dorm, I was fairly sure a bunch of people had probably tried.

Well, I really only wanted those moves as finishers anyways, I supposed. Estella was a quicker fighter than the kind of bruiser that relied on those kinds of moves anyways. So scribbling in my notebook I quickly wrote 'Submission' and 'Thunder or Fire Punch' on her planning page.

"Right, minor hiccup, next up..." I turned to the page of my third pokemon, Alberich the rhyhorn. He was an interesting case as I may very well end up at the conference before he became a rhydon. They evolved at very high levels in the game and I had confirmed that while levels were considered in this world with the same kind of unreliable science as IQs were on Earth, the idea that rhyhorn generally took a while to evolve was consistent with that.

He also had Rock Head, so the goal was to get him to learn Take Down by the time the conference came around. Which would mean he'd hopefully know Drill Run by that point as well. I scratched at the light scruff on my chin, honestly anything interesting technical machine or training-wise for him needed to wait until evolution and access to bipedalism. Maybe Payback for a mix of coverage and a surprise against agile opponents.

Flipping the page again I landed on Huck, my dopey quagsire currently playing in the pond. Other than maybe perfecting Dig there wasn't much he needed. A quagsire's natural attacking moves were generally decent, he'd just learned Aqua Tail, and Yawn was ridiculous combined with his defensive abilities. I simply circled my previous note about Dig a few more times.

I was able to skip Alexei's page, as I'd just been discussing evolving the stubborn swinub with Cleo, though I did chuckle at an old note bemoaning my party's need for more special attackers instead of physical ones. It was true, but unless I wanted to branch really far from my comfort zone of the "earthen elements" as I called the rock, ground, and steel-typings I felt most in tune with, my options were limited until I left Kanto.

Well, I could always go with a magneton, I thought to myself grimacing. I had impressions of loving magneton and magnezone in the video games, but I had actually met one in this life at the Silph Co building a few times and...they were extremely creepy and offputting in person.

Needless to say, a claydol was high on the 'acquire on world tour' list. Honestly unless I got really specific with hunting down fossils it looked like my special attackers list would be limited to Cleo, the future claydol, and Huck once I got my hands on a bunch of technical machines.

Because my next page had Brinker, also a physical attacker, and the final page had my problem child. Artagnan, a scyther I had caught on a family funded Safari Zone trip for my birthday this year, was another physical attacker. And a huge pain in my ass.

He refused to cooperate, always thinking his natural instincts were better than my own learned and practiced tactics. As I initially learned his full capabilities he had occasionally been correct on that matter, none of my other pokemon were exceptionally swift in the way he was. Even Estella was more of a quick counterattacker than a speed demon the way Artagnan was.

But eventually I'd clocked his capabilities and regardless of losing to Cleo and even Alberich and Brinker in the majority of our sparring matches he refused to try and learn from me. Once he learned Agility he seemed to think that the only strategy he needed functionally boiled down to 'gotta go fast' and trying to anime swordsman slash all opponents.

Needless to say without some technical machine or move tutoring to back his attacks up with more than Slash and Fury Cutter it was rather embarrassing against rock and steel types. Which again, I specialized in. It would be a pain to get a Metal Coat admittedly, but I desperately wanted a scizor.

So I was going to spend the next six months or so banging my head against this brick wall if I had to. I continued scribbling plans and notes into my journal, even ignoring Cleo getting up and roaming around a bit until I heard a loud throat clearing behind me.

I craned my neck back until I saw who it was, "What do you want, Thomas?" The kid just screamed anime background character with his almost-a-bowl-cut-but-kindashaggy brown hair and dumb polo shirts. And he was obsessed with psychic pokemon as being the "strongest type" but could only seem to get his hands on pokemon that were secondarily psychic at best.

He had a starmie, an eggsecute, a psyduck, and a lickitung he had somehow managed to teach Curse and Amnesia to go along with the normally learned Disable as a part of his 'psychic-ish' obsession.

"Just making sure you're ready to get trounced at the tournament with us and the Ninja Academy kids next month after I pick up some wicked powerful pokemon at the SS Anne's launch party!"

My blood ran cold. I had just had final confirmation that I was definitely in the anime-world. Not a video game world with some anime bits to fill it in. Not the comics (which thank...Arceus I suppose, that would have killed me before now). But the anime or at least mostly the anime. And back in my room was an envelope from my parents I had received a week before Ash's arrival. With a ticket to an SS Anne cruise.

"Yes, now fuck off so I can finish my training!" I growled out as I popped to my feet.

"It's been two weeks since you passed your exams, even with your insane schedule for getting into the conference this year I thought you didn't plan to challenge anyone for at least another two months?" Anya, one of my few classmates that could be called something close to a friend, questioned me.

"Estella's evolution got me fired up, I guess!" I replied, giving an evasive half-truth of an answer. I'd sound crazy if I said I had foreknowledge that the SS Anne was going to be attacked in two weeks by Team Rocket and since I was gonna be there I needed to test myself out against some stronger opponents. Somehow I doubted I'd be lucky enough to only fight Jessie and James or some even more generic grunts.

"Hmm...you've never been this rash before, and seriously is that going to be your trainer outfit at the conference? You're going to wear a Stetson now?"

"Hey!" I protested, "Stetsons are cool!"

She looked even more annoyed at me when I laughed at my own multiversal meta reference, luckily the Pokémon world tolerates a lot of eccentricity.

"Whatever, just get out there and show my mom you are serious about this I guess."

Yep, the reason why I was friends with Anya was because a lot of the other kids did not want to be friends with the daughter of one of their teachers for the right reasons. And now I was about to do a number on her mother's normal-type themed team.

Shaking my head at her surly departure I finished securing my pokeballs to my belt and exited the dressing rooms of the main school arena.

"Alright everyone in the audience, this is Isaac Beech challenging in his first staff battle against Mrs. Temple. The battle will have the staff member using three pokemon and the challenger can switch out their own pokemon from their full team to simulate a gym challenge," Frank, the announcer, was thoroughly bored of ninety-percent of the battles he saw at this school.

I couldn't exactly disagree with him either. While Pokémon were highly intelligent it seemed like the ability to truly connect with them and accelerate their training on any level higher than pets or to help with pest control was actually quite rare. Obviously in the games and shows most people you see have that ability, but when you're living in the world it becomes quickly apparent that communication with them was a rare skill, and the ability to motivate and control them even rarer.

Mrs. Temple was a short woman who walked the line between curvy and pudgy, but dressed for all the world like a Mary Poppins knock-off she turned it into something that demanded respect at the very least in the classroom.

"Oh wow," The announcer said out loud as Mrs. Temple released a magnificent specimen of a tauros, "Does Mrs. Temple know something we don't? She's starting with the big guns!"

Sure Frank, now you're interested, I griped to myself internally as I licked my lips in nervousness. Tauros was her strongest pokemon and an extremely flexible battler. Similar to Ash's future acquisition actually. Furthermore while it didn't know Earthquake it definitely knew Iron Tail which meant...

"You wanted a real fight buddy, well you're getting it! Get out here, Artagnan!" My moody scyther took to the field with a menacing flourish of his blades.

Truthfully I was hoping to have him do some damage to the tauros but also get taken down a peg or two in the process.

"Agility!" I called out, deciding that was the best way to get some damage in and hopefully help Artagnan to sync up with my own wishes and style.

"Smash the bug, darling!" Mrs Temple called out to her pokemon. The tauros complied easily, his massive form burst up into the sky and his hooves created shattering impact craters where he landed with a vicious Stomp, barely missing the speeding Artagnan. I whistled audibly, that was powerful.

"We're going death by a thousand cuts here!" I called out to my pokemon, and as it was one of his favorite strategies against bulky opponents he complied easily. Darting around the battlefield like a vicious mite he hit the tauros with Fury Cutter after Fury Cutter, slowly building momentum and power by attempting to his similar points in quick succession.

"Swat it!" The teacher called out, and with a snort the bull's tails glinted silver and a meteoric Iron Tail snapped out and slammed into Artagnan's thorax as he went past for another slice. I thought for a moment he'd keep his balance as he went skidding backwards, but a piece of debris from the earlier Stomp caught his foot and he went spinning ass over tea-kettle into the wall.

"Can you still fight, Arty?" I called out, and the scyther chittered angrily as he stood up and nodded. He could take maybe one more hit, and now I knew I needed to drive the point home.

"Keep your distance with your speed and use Air Slash!" I commanded, knowing it went against his instincts. Either he'd listen and we'd get a few more good hits in or… He blitzed in with a Slash only to smack straight into a raised Rock Tomb.

I returned him, "Thanks for teaching Arty a lesson, Mrs. Temple. He'll remember that one, to arms, Brinker!" I summoned out the pokemon that was likely my most flexible fighter. Brinker had a combination of speed and disorientation based moves and the ability to tank anything south of a Fighting or Fire type hit. And needless to say, disorientation would work great here.

"Mist!" Spinning around in a Rapid Spin simultaneously he distributed a quick icy fog across the field. This was going to be fun, as far as I knew the tauros had nothing to deal with this.

And indeed, I saw Mrs. Temple gritting her teeth across the field, "Work Up!" She commanded, guessing that the boost in offensive capabilities would make me more cautious to attack even in the Mist.

She wasn't wrong, my strategy did change mildly, "Strafing Powder Snow!" I commanded and while I couldn't really see directly, there were what looked like waves of the Mist turning to ice rippling through the field at where the tauros had been.

"Up!" The professor called, and out of the mist her tauros leapt, clearing half the field in a single bound, towards the source of the wave of snow. But I was right in my confidence that Brinker was no longer there, I'd told him to strafe and he was one of my most collected and intelligent team members as well as being versatile. Plus I had trained him to improvise.

From the moo of pain that echoed out and the lack of a second wave of snow I could only assume he'd ambushed the bull with a Metal Claw or similar. A Fury Swipes would have been over committing so I doubted it had been that. A few more moments, a few more echoes of combat, and Mrs. Temple returned her tauros.

"Blow that away, Noctowl!" She called out, releasing a rather large specimen of a noctowl that immediately released a Whirlwind. What followed started out as a close fight. The noctowl couldn't do a whole lot of damage to Brinker, who danced around the arena like his namesake on an icy pond.

However the powerful winds the noctowl could put out made it very difficult for the Powder Snow to land, the only move Brinker had that was super-effective and long enough range to hit a flying target. I thought we were winning, or at least setting up my next pokemon to win easily, when the noctowl managed to pull off a combination Double Team and Hypnosis, putting Brinker to sleep and allowing it to drain energy off of him with Dream Eater.

I winced as I returned him, that was a rough finisher, it would mean my next pokemon was not going to have as much of an advantage. But that was okay, "Bring 'em down, Alberich!" I called out, releasing my rhyhorn.

The release line was a code, the first thing Alberich did was start firing off Smack Downs, spinning bursts of rock that would slam flying-types down into the ground. I had trained Alberich to, instead of functioning as a charging brute, master his rock-manipulation and function as a kind of artillery or tank. Standing his ground and firing off blasts of rock and earth at enemies and then quickly repositioning with his charging when needed.

It was a non-traditional strategy for a rhyhorn and took my opponent by surprise, putting the teacher on the back foot once more.

The owl tired of his aerial dodging of Smack Downs, Rock Throws, and Rock Blasts long before Alberich did. Finally a few solid hits landed and the owl went down.

"So that is how you want to play then, boy?" She called down to me, returning her pokemon. "Very well, I have some surprises up my sleeve as well," With that she called out her wigglytuff.

The chubby rabbit-esque pokemon laughed somewhat ominously as it appeared. And she was right, I was unprepared for what followed. Reflect and Disable quickly neutered Alberich. Allowing him to be finished off by a vicious Ice Beam I had not seen coming.

Because, while wigglytuff actually have very respectable special attacking stats, they don't naturally learn much to take advantage of it. This one had been very well trained or given TMs or both. With a sigh I returned my rhyhorn, contemplating my next move. I'd have to play pretty dirty to come out even a little ahead.

"Huckleberry! You're up!" I called out my quagsire, a dopey pokemon if there ever was one. But a fantastic attrition fighter. Though he wasn't quite where he would need to be to fully utilize that skillset. I quickly had him use Amnesia to stonewall almost any special attack a wigglytuff might conceivably know. A purposefully wasted Water Gun allowed my follow-up, a bunch of mud slinging from Huckleberry.

Slaps and Bombs to lower speed and accuracy. As Huck shrugged off Ice Beams his mud covered opponent got extremely angry, cheeks puffing up in rage.

This was all a part of the plan, trick the creature into ignoring its trainer and attacking at close range. It took much longer than expected, but eventually the wigglytuff leapt in for an enraged Double-Slap.

"Yawn!" The status move hit the wigglytuff right in the face and with a sigh my teacher returned her pokemon.

"Well what do you know?" The announcer called out, "Isaac's got his first win! And it was four to three! Could we actually end up seeing him make a good showing at the conference this year?" I glared at him as the crowd cheered.

It wasn't a long trip to Vermillion City, and I left the day after the battle. Thus, I showed up for the SS Anne cruise early, at this point it had been just over a month since I met Ash Ketchum and now I was primed to meet him once again and this time on one of the most important events of the first season.

At least as far as behind-the-scenes developments go that is. Team Rocket might not have gotten everything they wanted, but they'd gotten a massive haul and a massive amount of notoriety from raiding the SS Anne.

Furthermore, Ash never releases Butterfree if he doesn't have to go on that walkabout after the shipwreck. Wow, was I really that traumatized by that episode or was I projecting something else onto the event? That was an idea I'd unpack later. For now, I was staying in the local Pokemon Center, going through my list of in-storage pokemon that I had on hand for trading.

Most of them were pokemon from around Saffron that I had captured when out and about training my actual team. I always would have a chat with the pokemon afterwards, letting them know I could release them if they wanted or I could keep them around until I found a good trainer for them. I had yet to actually trade for any pokemon that ended up on my main team.

But I had on a few occasions traded for other pokemon that might be useful in their own right for trades later on as well as just outright given a few away to various acquaintances that needed or wanted one for various reasons. My cousin (who I barely knew) had even used an ekans I caught as a starter last year. He'd done okay, was sitting at around three-badges and considering giving it up if he couldn't get to five this season.

On call for trading right now it looked like I had a pidgeotto, vulpix, goldeen, meowth, bellsprout, raticate, and a kadabra who called himself 'The Absent One' and said he 'foresaw' that I would 'face a trainer with great psychic potential in battle' and wanted me to trade him to them after I battled them. Which was both ominous and ridiculous in equal parts. The use of the word trade was promising though, suggesting I might get a good pokemon out of it.

I really should have figured out I was in an anime heavy interpretation of the world sooner. Though perhaps that was part of living in a world? You just don't think about how it would look to people from outside it all that often. I certainly had a unique perspective that was certain. The next day I headed downstairs to leave for breakfast and walked in on an interesting argument.

"Ash, you can't just run into Lt. Surge's gym without a plan like you did with Brock!" Misty's sharp voice echoed out.

"Hey-" Brock attempted to protest but was cut down with a look from Misty.

"Pikachu and my team can take on anything this guy can throw at us!" Ash yelled back at the redhead.

"Well come now, Ash." I began wryly as I walked over towards them, "A little strategy can't hurt every once and a while! I thought you took our lesson so much better than that!"

"Ah!" Ash yelled in truly anime fashion, "Isaac! What are you doing here?"

I raised an eyebrow, "I passed all my exams and won my first instructor-match so I'm out here for the SS Anne launch as my parents are also going to be in attendance with a few other Silph scientists and executives."

"Oh!" Another exclamation, this boy needed a chill pill, or five, "I think we're going to that, too!"

He turned to face his friends. "We are aren't we?"

Brock and Misty nodded together and then the older teen responded, "Yeah, we won those tickets in that raffle the other day."

A Team Rocket trap I knew, and not just Jesse and James in all likelihood. These circumstances were just the tiniest bit different from the anime that I was certain my theory on the Rockets being a compromise between the anime and game versions was correct.

"Right, I'll see you all there, but like I said. Ash, did you not take our lesson to heart? What's your plan for Lt. Surge? On three and four badge trainers he usually uses a voltorb, magnemite, and magneton, but he also sometimes uses a brutish raichu that he rescued from an unlicensed breeder a few years back."

"Uh…" Ash stated eloquently while he pulled up his pokedex, "Magnemite?" Misty smacked her forehead.

"Magnemite, the Magnet Pokemon- It's able to float through the air and emits Thunder Wave through its magnet-shaped units located on its sides." Ash quickly read the follow-up information, he was impatient and unfocused, not necessarily dumb.

"Well, okay! So I send Charmander out, right?" I nodded, "A good start, but say he gets paralyzed before he can do significant damage? And what would you do for the follow-up magneton? You just wore out your best counter to that on the first pokemon!"

I could metaphorically hear the gears in Ash's head clunking around.

"Oh...Bulbasaur and Pikachu can probably take the attacks but they won't be doing much damage back will they?" I grinned at the boy, see? Not dumb at all. You just had to get him to slow down with the right questions.

"So what are your three options? Assuming you get the standard match-up?"

"Er...train Charmander really hard...teach...new moves to Bulbasaur and Pikachu...and...what's the last one?"

"You could catch and train up a new pokemon!" Then Ash had another lightbulb moment of his own, one I hadn't even considered.

"Wait, I could train to get Primeape to work with me! He could pummel that magneton real good!" I opened my mouth, then closed it. That was...an interesting idea. And one that would skyrocket the power of Ash's team if he could get that powerhouse to work with him earlier. But wait…Ash already had Primeape? Maybe migration patterns were more consistent here and had changed the timeline due to realism or something.

"That's a brilliant idea!" I enthused, before turning to Misty and Brock, "So I've never worked with a lucario before have y'all ever worked with…" I racked my brain for a second, "I guess have you, Misty, worked with a poliwrath before?"

She grimaced and shook her head, "Only poliwags, sorry."

"Well…" I turned to Ash, "Then I guess it's time for a research party!"

I am fairly certain his groan was audible all the way over in Johto. It was a task which took up the better part of the daylight hours. We ended up getting both breakfast and lunch at a cafe down the road, courtesy of my wallet too, while sifting through pokedex data and PokeNet reports.

The biggest hurdle was that the only fighting-type move Primeape knew, was Seismic Toss. And Ash was hoping to use him against a floating pokemon that could shoot electricity. So while the move would definitely still do some damage it wasn't ideal. As grappling an electric-type was generally considered a Bad Idea™ unless you were a ground-type or had some special ability.

That meant we needed to teach Primeape a new move on top of getting him to listen to Ash. The first part was not insurmountable, with a little discipline Primeape should take to Karate Chop instinctively or learn Brick Break very easily. In fact…

"Ash!" I exclaimed at about one in the afternoon, "I have four pokemon that can all learn Brick Break! And Brock has one as well! And you even have three other pokemon that can learn it! What if we used Primeape's competitive nature and made it a contest with a prize to see which pokemon learns it first? He'd have the advantage on learning it the quickest. So if he won he'd feel validated for his strength and respected! And if he lost you could console him and push him to do better and fuel his drive!"

Brock's eyebrows raised, he definitely found the idea intriguing,

"We do have a few days until the SS Anne leaves, Ash. This could work."

Leaping up from his seat the young trainer pumped the air with his fist, "This is a great idea! Let's start now!"

I rolled my eyes, "There's an area past Diglett Cave with a mix of rocky ground and the beginnings of the next forest. We could start on branches and move our way up to the rocks and boulders."

That's how we found ourselves east of town forty minutes later. I released Brinker, Estella, Huck, and Artagnan. Each of them could learn the move. In front of Brock stood to my surprise a graveler (instead of the expected geodude) and even more shocking a kabuto.

"Uh...I guess he's just going to be watching?" I queried.

The gym leader nodded, "When he evolves he'll be able to learn so I want him to watch the process, plus he's...fresh so he hasn't watched much training."

I had heard something from my dad about relevant gym leaders and Elite Four members being sent fossil pokemon. So it would make sense that Brock and maybe even Misty and her sisters might have some of the Kantoan fossils. I had previously just thought he meant Lance with his aerodactyl.

In front of Ash stood Primeape of course, but also Pikachu, Squirtle, and Charmander. If Ash succeeded here...well there'd be a lot more coverage on his team going into the majority of his journey. As well as a semi-obedient Primeape.

I was causing waves; a thought I contemplated deeply as all our pokemon got to work based on the instructions we had compiled for learning the move from the PokeNet and pokedex.

They began by working on shattering branches with knife hands and punches. Once they could easily break the thickest branches we moved them on to the small rocks and boulders littering the area. Needless to say, Primeape was the first pokemon to finish this phase. Brinker and Estella followed quickly after. Though I had restricted Estella to attempting to learn it without her club, a close range surprise like this would be wonderful for pokemon that thought she was defenseless without it.

By the end of the evening, when it was time to head back to the pokemon center, Primeape was frustratedly pummeling at one of the very large 'completion' boulders. While every other pokemon was working on the small or medium ones.

Either his pride as a fighter was on the line or he really wanted that pokemon restaurant buffet we'd promised. As we went back for the night, I knew that I'd given Ash a major helping hand, and he'd be ready to face Surge soon. Regardless of whether he used the normal team or that raichu.

Every single participating pokemon at least had a passable Brick Break down by lunch the next day when Primeape achieved what you could easily call early mastery of the technique. The shared excitement between he and Ash as they jumped up and down in celebration really vindicated my theory on how the two of them could develop a stronger bond more quickly.

"It's really impressive," I remarked to Brock as they continued to dance around circling the shattered boulder.

"The technique?" The gym leader questioned me, but I shook my head.

"How easily he can bond with the most ornery and stubborn pokemon of any type!"

Brock blinked, as if he had never noticed before, and then he chuckled.

"You know what? Ash is so dense, stubborn, and has so little academic knowledge that it slipped past me somehow, but you're right! There's a strange charisma to the kid, he seems to draw friends, enemies, danger, and excitement to himself like a magnet. And it goes double for pokemon!"

"If we work to fill in some of those academic gaps with some hands on learning on the subjects he could go far," I of course had some foreknowledge of Ash's potential, but even with just the minimum advice and help I'd given him the boy had already begun to shine all the brighter with that potential.

"It's a little embarrassing that he didn't start out knowing at least most of the common type match-ups," Misty commented to us as she came over to join the conversation.

Brock let out a deeper laugh at that, "Yeah, tossing Pikachu at my onix was...an interesting choice. But his team at the time was all disadvantaged I'm pretty sure."

I winced, remembering flashes of that episode, "Yeah that can't have been a pretty fight."

"So do you really think he's ready for Lt. Surge?" Misty asked.

I nodded, "At least at the three badge level. He's got a solid Brick Break on Pikachu as well as Primeape, and Charmander and Bulbasaur should give him the safety net he would need to defeat Surge's normal three-badge team."

"And if Surge demands a one-on-one with that raichu you mentioned?"

I shrugged, "That would likely be if Ash offended him, and we worked on Pikachu's speed enough in conjunction with Brick Break that I think he could squeak out a victory."

It had taken Ash barely an extra day of training to beat that raichu in the show, so I was assuming just a little bit but the assumption was at least supported.

However, the more I started changing by these strangely coincidental meetings with Ash, the more worried I became. Previously I had kind of assumed I could skate by as a character of the day or occasional recurring character. Now though...I was unsure if I'd be able to avoid major Team Rocket encounters and worst of all...movie events.

I did not have a plan for surviving Mewtwo as things currently stood. Other than hoping Ash pulled through like canon. But with Jesse and James being...still weak but at least not flamboyantly idiotic I was unsure if Mewtwo would be as merciful as in canon from the get go.

I didn't think I was in a grimdark interpretation, but this world was definitely mildly more realistic than either show or games. Pokemon were more difficult to relate to, harder to train up to high levels, life in the true wilds was according to the PokeNet way more dangerous than life on the travelled routes that are what we saw in the games and most of the show episodes. Team Rocket attacks had actually killed people and pokemon from what I could tell. In fact I was fairly certain there was a ghost of a marowak over in Lavender now from a report I had seen on poaching around Rock Tunnel.

That meant it was dangerous not just for me, but also perhaps characters...no not characters, people, that I associated with having plot armor. I was part of this world now and events were happening in real time, not on a tv screen being predetermined.

During my musings Ash and Primeape had finally calmed down and strode over both grinning widely. Or as much as one could tell through Primeape's fur blocking his expression.

"Well, Primeape won the buffet, huh?" Misty, Brock, and I all laughed at Ash's declaration.

"Yeah, let's get everyone over to the restaurant. Everyone gets a plate, but Primeape gets the all-he-can-eat!"

As we ate for the next hour my mind was a whirlwind of ideas and concepts for how I could hold up against Mewtwo for at least a little bit. All of them involved me leaving Kanto for a month or two. Luckily with my parents being new money I could probably pull it off. But I'd have to accelerate my plans for my team to be able to catch the pokemon I needed to catch and train.

I could likely bum the location of the Moon Stone off of Ash. Finding an Ice Stone might be difficult but I could start putting feelers out with some of the VIPs that I knew would be on the SS Anne. I definitely could get Alexei to evolve into a piloswine by the time I needed to take the trip. And a Metal Coat...well I had some ideas for building one if I couldn't get my hands on one the normal way. That allowed me everyone except Alberich and possibly Artagnan evolved before I took a training and hunting trip.

Which would allow me to capture the dark and ghost sub-typed pokemon I needed to hold even a hope against Mewtwo. In all honesty I'd already been considering this trip, just previously I'd planned to do it after the Conference.

Try and build myself up a team worthy of Ace, gym leading, or maybe even an Elite Four invite. But with the likelihood of a New Island invite in my future...I needed to accelerate every single plan I could possibly think of that would strengthen my team. And protect me from psychics.

"So, Isaac," Brock asked casually over our meal, "Why don't you have a fossil pokemon? Your dad does run the revival research, right?"

I nodded, "It's a preference thing. I want an aerodactyl or one of the foreign possibilities. The League literally won't let anyone below Ace level attempt to tame a revived aerodactyl. So my options are: become an Ace Trainer or better, or go on a paleontology expedition elsewhere. I'm leaning towards the second option, heavily considering Unova for that so that I can combine it with looking into some ruins for some of the interesting pokemon that fall under my specialty out there."

"They have some pretty powerful rock, ground, and steel types out there if I remember correctly. It's a long trip though, you have to fly in a plane or take one of the longest and roughest sea voyages out there."

"It would be totally worth it though!" I enthused, "Krookodile, golurk, bisharp, durant, and escavalier would all give me defenses against psychics, which I am lacking at the moment. Excadrill and ferrothorn both have amazing capabilities when combined with team members I already have, and it looks like one of the fossils out there may be a large sea-turtle type of pokemon. Which could hopefully give me more aquatic mobility. I love Huck, he's the sweetest pokemon in the world, but he's not built for speed at all."

"I have to say, that was a really deep self-analysis. I didn't previously have a great opinion of Pokemon Tech, but if they produce more trainers like you…"

I laughed out loud, "No, Brock, the majority of my peers are the trust-fund rich kids you saw lording their status over Ash before I interrupted. Most are pressured to switch in their final years out of the League Track and into something else so they won't embarrass the school at the Conference. That's how you'll see one or two decently talented alumni at the Conference each year and none of the entitled brats for the most part."

Misty was a bit confused by how I referred to my peers however, "Uh...Isaac...haven't you paid for like...all of this? And got invited by name to the SS Anne because of your dad?"

I shrugged, "Yeah but that's all new money from the last few years since the fossil revival panned out. I started off at Tech as a scholarship student. Actually really pissed them off that they couldn't milk my parents for money until the initial period of the scholarship ran out and they were able to reassess my family's 'need'."

"If I had money like that I'd definitely eat like this all the time!" Ash interjected as he and Primeape scarfed down multiple plates side-by-side.

"Anything else you can think of to do with it, Ash?" I replied, laughing through my response. He tapped his forehead, deep in thought, before poking his finger into the air as if he had had a revelation.

"A really comfy tent!" Misty fell out of her seat as Brock and I broke down in laughter so intense we teared up. Ash Ketchum had no use for mansions, for boats, for private planes, or for luxury cars. Ash Ketchum's heart was sold to the open road and the path to becoming a Pokemon Master. And there was something in that determination, that surety, that universal constant that even though the boy was so much younger than me, in both lives, I felt the anxiety about the future catastrophic events ebb just a little.

Isaac's Team end of Chapter 5:
Cleo- Nidorina, Hustle
Brinker- A-Sandshrew, Snow Cloak
Alberich- Rhyhorn, Rock Head
Estella- Marowak, Rock Head
Huckleberry- Quagsire, Water Absorb
Artagnan- Scyther, Technician
Alexei- Swinub, Thick Fat

 

[Isaac A Drake]

Isaac's Team end of Chapter 23:
Cleo- Nidoqueen, Sheer Force
Brinker- A-Sandshrew, Snow Cloak
Alberich- Rhyhorn, Rock Head
Estella- Marowak, Rock Head
Huckleberry- Quagsire, Water Absorb
Artagnan- Kleavor, Sharpness
Alexei- Piloswine, Thick Fat
Rum Tum- G-Meowth, Steely Spirit
Hannibal- Aerodactyl
Shahrazad- Flygon
Mr. Darcy- Alpha Golurk
Ozma- Megearna
Lyle- Sandile
Unnamed Omastar
Unnamed Kabutops

 

[Rodvek97]

Nice
U post here too and remaster huh. So many change from the ff net?.

 

[Starman25]

Thanks for chapter

 

[Isaac A Drake]

Nice
U post here too and remaster huh. So many change from the ff net?.

Click to shrink...

A lot of cleaning up and continuity and clarity fixes as I stopped and started this fic multiple times over the last 5 years. Then once we reach the "end" I plan to move into the planned arcs I never got to for new content!

 

[ThunderBasilisk]

Honestly this story looks promising. Especially with the trifecta of my three favorite types! Wonder if he will get a Teddiursa and stumble into its final evolution? But of a shame he already has a Rhyhorn though. Cause there's that Alpha one in the Orange Islands.

 

[Isaac A Drake]

Honestly this story looks promising. Especially with the trifecta of my three favorite types! Wonder if he will get a Teddiursa and stumble into its final evolution? But of a shame he already has a Rhyhorn though. Cause there's that Alpha one in the Orange Islands.

Click to shrink...

Isaac gets quite the team together by the Conference. Almost done with the next 5 chapters being tidied up which will also batch post. Then it switches to smaller 2-4 chapter arcs posted reworked together until we hit the end of the Conference.

 

[Isaac A Drake]

Chapters 6-10 Branching Out and the SS Anne Arc

"Alright, brat," Lt Surge was beefy in the video games and show, but all the gods above and below in person he was an absolutely terrifying mass of muscle. They could cast John Cena to play this guy and still he'd have been lacking in height and muscle. Luckily he was talking to Ash and not me right now.

"How about we do a one on one with that wimpy looking pikachu you've got there? Make it a real test?" Ash gritted his teeth in anger, trying not to have an outburst. I was pretty proud of him for that actually.

"I have another pokemon that I promised would get to fight, so umm…" Even Ash was a little intimidated, though the comment had riled him enough up that he wasn't backing down, "Could we make it two on two with another of your three badge team?"

Just like that, Surge's intimidating demeanor dropped and he let out a long, sincere belly laugh.

"Aha, wow! You've got guts, kid! I like that! Sure thing, two on two, that pikachu first though?"

Ash grinned back at the man, his normally abrasive and twerpish behavior abating in the face of simply being shown just a little respect.

"You're on! Come on Pikachu, let's do this!"

"Pika pi!" Electricity crackled around Pikachu's cheeks as he leapt to the center of the arena for the challenge.

In a flash of light a hulking specimen of a raichu emerged onto Surge's side of the field. It was obviously a bit more of a physical fighter than your standard raichu, but I knew from my insider knowledge that it also had gotten into Surge's Thunder Stone store far before it was actually ready.

"Begin!" Cried the gym trainer acting as a referee. Without even waiting for commands both pokemon shot off with their opening moves. The raichu firing off a massive Thunderbolt and Pikachu zipping out of the way with a Quick Attack.

"That's it! Now show him your own electricity! Thundershock!"

Well Ash was still going to be Ash, I thought to myself as the raichu shrugged off the electric move from the smaller rat.

"Ahahaha, you think that's electricity? Blast away Raichu!" Surge was obviously not taking this quite seriously, and honestly after having my challenger fire off a Thundershock I probably wouldn't have either.

However a few Thunderbolts later I noticed a pattern emerging, Ash...was following the lesson I had taught him with Brinker. About how you can use defensive measures to put the opponent into a bad position for an offensive switch.

Pikachu was running rings around these Thunderbolts, firing off pathetic Thundershocks just to convince the raichu that he was still actually trying.

Surge noticed it too if his grin changing from condescending to approving was any indication. And yet he didn't tell his raichu to change tactics. I wasn't sure if he was going easy on Ash due to his approval or if he wanted this raichu taught a lesson.

Either way, Ash and Pikachu were about to punish that, because the gaps between the Thunderbolts had increased by almost two full seconds. Plenty of time for- "Quick Attack into Brick Break, Pikachu!"

A blur of light and Pikachu's glowing tail slammed into the gut of the raichu between Thunderbolts, staggering it viciously.

"Hammer away!"

The fight almost ended there, Pikachu got another shot in before the raichu recovered and CAUGHT the third Brick Break with a glowing paw, the other one glowed as well and a heavy Mega Punch sent Pikachu back to the edge of the arena.

"Good one, kid!" Surge said approvingly. "But this big lug can take hits just as well as he can dish them out. Body Slam! Slow it down!"


Pikachu had barely managed to stagger up from that brutal punch before he had to clumsily backpedal out of the way of the raichu's plummeting body, which slammed right into where the smaller rodent had been not a second before.

"Get some distance again, Pikachu!" Ash called out, somewhat frantically. But then he saw the same thing I did, how long it took the raichu to stumble to his feet after missing with that body slam.

"Back in with a Brick Break!"

Surge's grin widened, "Got ya, punk! Mega Kick!"

The raichu which had been baiting them, thrust a glowing foot into the sky. Both pokemon hit each other in the heads with their attacks, sending the two of them flying opposite directions. Both failed to rise.

After that double knock-out I don't think Surge realized that the next fight was a foregone conclusion until he saw Primeape appear across from his magneton.

"You have a bruiser like that and you walk around with a pikachu?" Surge asked in surprise.

"Sure!" Ash said, "Pikachu was my first pokemon and it's only been lately that I got Primeape here to take me seriously!"

The gym leader nodded at that, "Yeah, pokemon with a temper and ego can be rough for you youngsters. How'd ya pull that one off kid?"

And then something I didn't expect happened, Ash pointed right over at me.

"Isaac's a really strong trainer! He helped me teach my pokemon that Brick Break move and showed me a lot about being smarter in my fights!"

"It's called tactics, Ash!" Misty chided from next to me.

I could tell Surge was instantly interested and turned his attention on me, "How many badges do you have, son?"

I gulped, "Uh...technically seven. I'm a student at Pokemon Tech and have passed enough of my exams and trials to qualify for seven. My final trial will be next month."

The retired soldier continued grinning, "What do you say after I finish this one you challenge my eight badge team for a real final badge?"

My mouth fell open, that was...technically allowed actually. I could substitute badges earned in gym battles as long as the substitution was for the same level I fought the battle at.

"Uh, of course! I'd be excited to have that experience!" Surge nodded then turned back to the fight at hand.

"Alright kid, let's see if your furry monster has what it takes!"

It turns out Primeape very much did, training so much with Pikachu had done a lot more for his speed than we expected. Surge used a very smart strategy with his magneton, don't get me wrong here, but it was obviously a three-badge magneton. He just couldn't get it to land one of the incapacitating or control moves like Supersonic or Thunderwave to slow Primeape down enough to hit with some heavy damage. Likely a higher level magneton under his control would have had Lock-on to get around this issue, I wagered, but that's what made gym battles fair. Leaders had to use pokemon with power within a certain range for the number of badges the challenger had.

Though admittedly some leaders had their gym trainers face the weaker trainers. Giovanni only showed up for badges seven and eight for example. And Sabrina from five onwards. Blaine used to show up for every challenger until tourism got bad. Now he had his gym trainers at his fake gym take on anyone with five or less, and six plus trainers still had to beat those gym trainers to get the location of his real gym.

In short, thanks to our training the previous few days, the battle went very favorably for Ash from the beginning. In fact the longer it went the more I could see Primeape's typically uncontrollable battle rage focus and hone itself. It was a miraculous thing to see, it was almost as if his state of mind was reflecting Ash's as the young trainer became more and more laser focused upon the fight himself. A final, brutal Brick Break sent the magneton flying into the wall of the arena, knocking it out. While it had landed a few Shock Waves, Primeape seemed still ready to go.

"Great job, Primeape!" Ash called out, flashing his ridiculous victory sign as his pokemon danced about before being returned.

Everyone took a quick break in the gym's lobby while Surge and I prepared ourselves for our battle. It would be my six pokemon against his five on his eight badge team.

I quickly used the PC system to swap Artagnan out for Alexei, my scyther, while certainly confident enough to try, wouldn't stand a chance against Shock Wave in particular.

I wasn't sure about Alexei's chances either, but I needed him to have more battle experience in order to evolve, which using him as my lead would certainly allow. Plus while he wasn't the strongest fighter, I had taught him a few tricks that would help out with him in the lead.

"Oh wow!" Ash exclaimed, "I can't believe I am going to get to see Lt. Surge's eight badge team in action! Think we can pick up some tricks, Pikachu?"

"Pika-pi!" The yellow rodent, recovered from his fight likely through some of Brock's medicine, enthusiastically punched a fist into the air in excitement.

It would be interesting to see how Pikachu developed. I had single-handedly caused him and Ash to dodge the anti-evolution bias that had developed in the canon that I could hazily remember.



However, Ash also very much wasn't the type to go around throwing evolution stones at his partners unless they asked him to or a spontaneous situation occurred.

Thus, if Pikachu ever did evolve, I fully expected it to be in the middle of some stressful or life and death situation. As far as I knew Ash didn't even have the Thunderstone he'd been given to evolve Pikachu on hand, as he'd never lost his initial match in the first place.

In fact… "Hey, Brock…" I whispered to the gym leader.

"Yes, Isaac?" He said back, dropped his volume to match mine.

"From the stories I heard while we were training…am I wrong or is this not Ash's first standard victory in his gym battles?"

Brock nodded, "Yeah it is. Though he did beat at least most of Misty's team before Team Rocket intervened and he got the badge for helping out."

"I think he's getting a taste for it." I mentioned as I casually gestured at where Ash had called Primeape back out and was doing a move by move reenactment with his two pokemon of the battle. Chuckling, the Pewter City gym leader nodded at my assessment.

"Mr. Beech, the Lieutenant is ready for you!" The receptionists announced.

Nodding I went to the challenger's entrance and the rest of my…friends? I was friends with Ash and the gang I guess, that felt odd. I didn't know a lot about Surge's eight badge team. What I did know was that it included a powerful electabuzz and raichu. Which probably meant my strong physical defenders should be saved for them. Alberich, my rhyhorn, and Huckleberry, my quagsire would shine there.

I could use Estella, my marowak, and Brinker, my Alolan Sandshrew, for any of the lightning fast electric pokemon that could be thrown my way. Cleo, my nidorina, wasn't quite ready for this kind of fight without her immune body she would get as a nidoqueen, but she could reasonably get some good damage and status effects in to soften something up.

Gripping Alexei's pokeball in my hand I walked out onto the field.

"Ah! That's a fighter's look in your eyes, kid! I think I'll enjoy this! Not only did you whip that brat into shape-"

"Hey!" Came from the stands.

"But you seem to take training far more seriously than the average student of those soft academies I have seen the last few years!"

"We all get out of life what we put into it, Lt. Surge." I replied, "Unfortunately you can't teach work ethics to trust fund babies."

The man laughed, "Oh? And you're different? You go to that blueblood school as well."

I shrugged, "I didn't start out that way, my dad just sold out to Silph."

"Beech…I thought I recognized that from some stuff Cerise was telling me a while back. Fossil Project right? Got any of those on your team?"

I laughed, shaking my head, "I wish, but the only one I would really benefit from would be an aerodactyl and those are sanctioned at the moment."

Though…I did know where to find one. That was an interesting idea.

"Ambitious! Good! That'll get you places, alright, let's get this party started. My five to your full team. Gym leader sends out first, go Jolteon!"

With a bark the prickly fox-like eevee evolution took the field. Electricity crackling along its spines.

I nodded and threw my pokeball, "Alexei, set the stage!" I called out, letting him know his initial strategy as he was called out.

Alexei appeared in a flash of red light, he was not a small swinub. His brows had thickened, he'd gained some bulk, and if one looked closely small bumps under his pink snout could be seen where his tusks would emerge. He was so close to evolving. But considering we were fighting an eight badge team the most I could expect would be for him to set up well. Which he immediately did, icy mist began leaking from his pores, enveloping him and the field.

"Ah, both a ground type and reducing visibility! Good choice. But we've been through this rodeo a few times! Cover the field with Pin Missile!"

My smiling face thinned into a stern look as I observed the field get peppered with the bug-typed missiles. I did, however, trust Alexei to have followed his directive. To make up for his slow overland speed he was currently burrowing beneath the field with Dig. And the timing was just about right that…

"Nub!" A cry came out from the field as scores of shrapnel ricocheted up from the swinub's exit tunnel. Only instead of crashing back down, it remained there hovering.

"Clever! Not enough, but clever! Dual Screens, now!"

I balked, that wouldn't be good, "Disrupt it, Alexei! Icy Wind!"

As the screens went up Alexei blasted a frozen gust through the misty battlefield, hitting the jolteon with increased power from the extra material, but still not doing much more than slightly slowing it down.

The screens went up, then Surge did something I didn't expect out of him. "Agility into Baton Pass!" His jolteon was a freaking Baton Passer.

The purplish-pink glow of Agility surrounded it then it zipped back to its pokeball, with Surge's powerful Electabuzz hitting the field, with dual screens and an Agility up. "Ah…crapbaskets."

"I thought Gym leaders couldn't switch pokemon?" Ash said, confusedly turning to Brock and Misty.

"They can't, but that was a special move that switches your pokemon. So it gets around the rule." The redhead explained.

"U-Turn and Volt Switch are both high expertise moves that do similar. Some trainers make entire teams built around a strategy called 'pivoting'." Brock added.

"Oh…that's bad for Isaac isn't it?"

"Very bad. We might actually see him lose this one."

A viciously super-effective Low Kick slammed into Alexei, making the swinub cry out in pain.

"Yeah…very bad." Even as the Stealth Rocks slammed into the electabuzz the psychic energy of the dual screens took part of the effect, and the energy of the Agility burst to life around it. Allowing a brutal blitz attack right into Alexei.

"Endure!" I called out, borderline desperately, as the glow of the move shined around his partner, barely allowing Alexei to hold on through the Low Kick that slammed into the swinub's comparatively tiny form.

As the yellow brute flickered backwards from its attack, preparing for another quick strike, a secondary glow erupted from Alexei. The glow of evolution.

I grinned, "Amazing show Alexei, but even with this I am going to bring you back. You deserve to rest."

"Swiiinnneee…" The newly evolved piloswine rumbled in agreement. That kick had hurt.

As my pokemon returned in a burst of red light, I tilted my head to the side, quickly examining the electabuzz. It was a big bruiser of a specimen for its species. Which makes sense, Surge was all about physical fitness. That Low Kick meant I couldn't send out Alberich the rhyhorn, typically who I would use against a heavy physical attacker. And the Agility boost from the Baton Pass meant my fast pokemon wouldn't be at as much of an advantage as they normally would have.

This meant that I really only had one choice, "To arms, Estella!"

In a burst of light my trusty marowak appeared, bone club spinning in anticipation.

Surge's eyebrows shot up, "You're a type specialist?"

I shrugged, "In the same way Steven Stone is. It's not all ground-types. But I do specialize in the earth element wedge. Rock, Ground, and Steel."

Surge nodded, "Well I hope that advantage and your tactics are enough for you then. Because I'll be doing my best to beat straight past those resistances!"

And with that suddenly his electabuzz was in Estella's face and vicious punches and kicks were being thrown at her, barely being blocked or deflected by her club.

Unfortunately your average marowak is not particularly fast, no matter what their bodies and techniques would make you think. And electabuzz were the same but in reverse. Extremely fast on base, regardless of what their muscle packed forms would suggest.
However, I had trained Estella very effectively. Out of all my pokemon she was probably the smartest and most tactically inclined. I had drilled this situation into her, well not this exact situation, but similar circumstances.

A brutally fast and strong physical attacker she couldn't dance around the way she could Alberich or punch through the way she could Artagnan? She knew this scenario.

I grinned as a Low Kick slammed into her purposefully lowered skull, seemingly doing even less damage than last time. Unfortunately Surge caught onto it too.

"You cheeky brat! That marowak knows Skull Bash and you've been holding the strike portion of the attack back to build defense!"

I shrugged, "That's part of it, Estella…Anger Burst."

She also knew both Bide and Rage. I had effectively combined the techniques. Every time she was hit her attack stat would rise as if she had been building her Rage. However instead of repetitive usage, it is charged to be unleashed similar to Bide. Combined with the Skull Bash's strike…well the electabuzz was extremely surprised when Estella rocketed forward and her boney skull slammed into its gut, shattering the dual screens, and threw it tumbling backwards. Giving her all the distance and space she needed to truly start the battle on her terms.

Her bone began flying around the battlefield, circling, looping, and ricocheting around stopping the electabuzz from closing the distance again. Even with the continued Agility boost. Occasionally mixing Quick Attack with its already boosted speed the electabuzz broke through, but the tide of the battle had turned.

I watched Estella systematically dismantle the brute with her rage enhanced strength and bone club. Bonemerang tosses slowly chipped away at its health until the yellow beast was returned.

"Good job, kid! Your marowak is well trained! Let's see it deal with something more versatile! Magneton, go! It's a ground-type, you know the drill!"

As the creepy, hovering, mass of magnets and metals took the field it immediately began blasting out Tri-Attacks from its multiple eyes and magnets.

Now Estella was back on the defensive, and not in the way she excelled. She only had ways to boost her physical defenses, not her special ones.

"You've got to force an opening! Dodge the ice, push through the fire, and deflect the lightning with your club!" Estella jumped into action, following my directions perfectly.

The Bone Club came up and whacked the magneton straight between the eyes. Which widened in surprise as it reeled back from the still stacked attack boosts. Which allowed her to finish the job.

"Can't underestimate you at all it seems! Alright, get out here electrode!" That…wasn't a great match up. Estella was tired, she definitely wasn't going to take an Explosion well if that's where we ended up.

"Keep your distance!" Estella tried to fall back on her Bonemerang strategy, but Surge had his electrode use Magnet Rise and begin zipping around the field, levitating and throwing out Sonic Booms. This time it was Estella who got whittled down and I returned her before she could be fully knocked out, but she wasn't going to be too much use the rest of this fight.

"Cleo, you've got this!" She had the biggest coverage pool of all my pokemon, and it would only grow after she evolved.

"Try and poison it!" A barrage of Poison Sting barbs and Toxic globules began firing out in alternation across the field, trying to track the speedy electrode as it rolled through the air. Swifts and Sonic Booms were fired back at Cleo and both parties got clips in, though Cleo never landed a proper Toxic.

Cleo didn't manage to finish off the electrode, but she did manage to poison it, which allowed me to send out Alberich to start building up momentum for Surge's fifth and final team member. Unfortunately he had to rely on Rock Throw for the most part, with the Magnet Rise in effect I couldn't have him use Bulldoze. Which caused me to make a big mistake.

Frustrated, I called out, "Roar!"

The Roar forced a switch out, bringing out Surge's raichu straight into a barrage from the Stealth Rocks I had laid at the beginning of the battle. It looked great.

And then the raichu led with a Fake Out, staggering Alberich, and opening him up to an absolute onslaught. Surge followed up with Endeavor, equalizing the raichu's low base hit points and my rhyhorn's high base hit points. I didn't like that playing field being evened, but Alberich was slow, I tried to have him toss out Bulldozes to slow down the raichu, and it did allow him to disrupt the first Brick Break, but not the second.
Eventually I had to return Alberich, needing something that could keep up with the raichu. Luckily I had that option. Or at least one that would soften it up.

"Out, Brinker!" I called, my Alolan sandshrew appearing with glittering icy plates and claws.

"Fancy! We hate fancy." Surge quipped, as he had the raichu switch tactics, as opposed to aggressive attrition it began blitz moves.

Quick Attacks into Brick Breaks primarily, but mixing in the odd Thunderpunch as my partner was no longer immune.

Brinker kept pace beautifully however. Metal Claws met Thunder Punch and Brick Breaks met air as he darted away with Rollout, slowly building speed and momentum as well.

Surge could definitely see that I was keeping pace with the war of attrition. And I still had a completely fresh pokemon on tap. Which is likely why he did his next move.

"Volt Switch!" Just like the Baton Pass his pokemon got around the leader-switching handicap and out came the electrode again.

Brinker made short work, only taking a few Sonic Booms. But then when the electrode fainted something unexpected happened. It let out one final explosion. His electrode apparently had Aftermath as an ability.

Brinker, after fighting two of Surge's pokemon and tanking that explosion was not in a great state, I returned him.

"Alright, Huckleberry it's your turn!" A quagsire against an already winded raichu looked good for me. But boy did that raichu put up a fight.

Amnesia worked greatly in my favor, boosting his already stellar defenses. The raichu was limited to Brick Break and Mega Punch, which weren't hurting Huck too badly. But I couldn't get him to land a Yawn or Mud Bomb to finish the fight either.

What finally finished the battle was a move I didn't even think had properly stuck in Huck's adorable but thick head. I'd been working for months on turning Huck into more of a special attacker than physical attacker, but the quagsire movepool was generally poor for that until higher levels and more expensive technical machines were involved.

So when Huck got frustrated and blurted out a torrent of water that slammed into the dirt arena and created a tidal wave of a proper Muddy Water attack I was surprised. It swamped the raichu finishing the battle. Both Huck and I slumped back into sitting positions.

"Whew…" I breathed out, exhausted by the strain of the focus leaving my body and mind.

"Good job, kid. You earned your final badge. I better see you whip the competition on TV."

I grinned up at the burly man who had walked over to give me my reward. "You got it, sir."

Twenty minutes to run to drop his pokemon off at the center ended with myself leading Ash and company back to one of the cafe's we'd decided we liked over the past week or so.

"And then your sandshrew stopped that Thunderpunch with its claw and that was so cool!" Ash had apparently really enjoyed my battle.

Brock was getting a good laugh out of his enthusiasm, "I hope you took notes, Ash. You seem to learn better from full examples instead of just me explaining it to you."

"I kinda wish I'd gotten to see more of his electric moves though…" Ash groused, "Maybe Pikachu could have picked up some ideas!"

"He certainly gave you a show on how to get around resistances and immunities with Pikachu though!" I chimed in, "Brick Break, Iron Tail, Tri Attack, Sonic Boom, he made sure all his pokemon had coverage moves or moves that didn't care about my own defenses!"

A microsecond of thoughtfulness crossed Ash's face, "Oh yeah! That's true! And Pikachu already knows Brick Break too!"

An hour later we all separated, "I'll see you all on the SS Anne in a few days."

As I returned to my room at the Pokemon Center I frowned. Hopefully I could avoid a gyarados swarm getting involved in that. My frown deepened as I approached, events were just different enough from the show for me to question the foreknowledge my dreams of a previous life gave me as I got on the SS Anne.

First of all Brock and Misty had been able to get Ash aboard as a guest of the two gym leaders, which made a whole lot more sense.

However, the place was still packed because there had been some kind of sweepstakes that had supposedly gotten out of hand. Which clued me in that Team Rocket was definitely still around with their hand in the cookie jar.

Merchandise being sold everywhere, people showing off and trading pokemon, and battles galore. There was an official tournament with the prize being a voucher for a pokemon from the prize counter at the Game Corner in Celadon City.

I wondered if that was legit or not. But there were plenty of small free-battle arenas for people to show off their skills or even just show off powerful pokemon that they wished to trade.

The day we arrived it was near the middle of the first day of the convention instead of directly before launch due to Ash not taking the extra time by losing to Surge initially. We'd still spent a good number more days than I'd expected on training Ash up however.

The trade center is what I really wanted. While we weren't all sporting Rotom-phones or C-gear yet, most trainers had some form of wireless communication device. Either a low-end Pokegear or Nav.

Ash was somewhat an exception at the moment. Even Brock and Misty had emergency League gears on them. Though apparently they were poor service.

So I collated my spare Pokemon on my PokeNav and posted it to the local hub run off the ship as "For Trade, LF Ground, Rock, or Steel types of uncommon or better species or ability".

I got a frustrating number of people asking if a run of the mill geodude or onix counted before I caught the fish I wanted. Someone was a big world traveler and he wanted to trade his Galarian forms for Kanto forms, and we both had meowths.

When I met the man I knew that there was a lot more to the story than that. "Professor Samson Oak!" I greeted, "I didn't recognize your handle, I am guessing this is much more involved than wanting to swap regional forms?"

The elderly but laid back and very tan professor scratched the back of his head, "Well you caught me young Beech. I've been going around and trading regional forms from other regions to promising young trainers I have found here at home before I jump off to the next region for study. I just got back from Galar and will be heading over to Alola for a few years next. It's quite like Cinnabar I hear so I should enjoy it."

Samson Oak was notorious for picking only the most plush and tourist friendly places for his bases when he did his travel studies.

"Well I'm glad to see you again, Professor. It's been a while since I showed Brinker off to you at that convention! He is about ready for me to find him an Ice Stone to evolve now!"

"Ah yes, your wonderful sandshrew! I hope to find many of his cousins when I go ski-I mean surveying that mountain!"

"So I take it you're transferring ships at Porta Vista when we arrive?"

If we arrived, I sardonically thought to myself.

"Hmm…ideally. Though my cousin might call me away and I'll have to teleport out before then. He had some last minute experiments he wanted my opinion on and I'm not sure if I'll be needed in person."

"Well your cousin wouldn't call you away for something small, so I hope to be reading about it after it finishes review!"

"Oh I'm sure you will, now, I believe you wanted a sharp and prickly meowth?"

I laughed, "Are they really that bad? I'd read they could be…prickly but that they are also great fighters, and I must say I do need a few steel-types to balance out my team. Brinker's been great, but I've recently seen some coverage gaps in my offense pointed out to me."

The professor nodded knowingly, "Yes, the curse of the type-specialists. Though you lucked out more than most connecting well with three types as opposed to the normal one or two."

I shrugged, "Most rock-type specialists also connect with ground-types just as well so I'd say it's closer to two anyways. Though it would be great to one day stand tall enough to give Steven Stone a run for his money I don't think that's really where I see myself going."

"Oh? And where do you see yourself after you've made a run of the League a time or two?"

I grinned sheepishly in response before he continued. "Yes I bumped into your father the other day, he can't stop bragging about you taking out Surge for your eighth badge instead of 'beating up some teachers'. In fact your school is also placing some clips of that fight on their ads for the coming year. They're preparing for you to be a dark horse in the League this year."

I sighed, "Yeah…well it's hard to get anywhere in this world in a pokemon related field without a little exposure. So I figured I'd run two or three leagues over the next few years and then work on an academic field degree."

"Ah! There it is, following or surpassing your parents?"
I groaned, "I suppose in a way both? With my type-specialty it would be a waste for me to not go into the paleontology field you know? But…I want to take it a step further. In fact… maybe you can work with me one day. Because I want to keep a foot in both yards so to speak. I want to study extinct regional variants of pokemon!"

Oak's substantial eyebrows lifted high, "Now that's an ambition! They've only been speculated upon based on archaeological evidence of strange looking versions of species we know from places like Sinnoh and Oblivia. Professor Carolina swears up and down that some fossilized tracks are not ursaring tracks but actually a regional second evolution! Wouldn't that be something?"

I nodded, "It definitely would be! Furthermore I really want to, oh man this feels bad, but we need to improve the fossil resurrection process. I'm fairly certain not all of these pokemon were inexplicably part rock-type."

Samson snorted and almost choked himself trying to contain his laughter.

"Yes, that has been a criticism of the…presentation of the facts surrounding much of your father and his coworkers' research."

"Now, the kabuto and omanyte lines I definitely could see it happening. And aerodactyl too, now that I think of it. The preserved pieces of the shells definitely lends to the rock-type analysis. But look at the Sinnohan shieldon! I bet you that the shieldon line was steel and ground in their own time. And don't get me started on amaura!"

"Yes, I too follow the originally mono-typed theory for amaura."

I shook my head to disperse my rambling, "Sorry to go off like that, Professor! But uh…yeah the meowth? It's a feisty one I am guessing then?"

"Indeed! Young, decently house-broken though, he has been staying on my cousin's ranch so you know he'll not be extremely difficult, just stubborn perhaps. No nickname, you'll be able to give it one yourself, which I know you like."

I nodded, "Sounds great! So only knows a few special moves?"

"Yes, Fake Out and Hone Claws stand out. Though analysis has shown it may have a proficiency for Night Slash, meaning a thievul is somewhere in the family line."

I nodded, that was all workable, "Well I have a few months to get him ready for the League anyways! Sure he won't be going in for the finals if I get there but I am sure he'll be a demon in the qualifiers!"

Samson wished me luck and we commenced with the trade. I had moved most of the pokemon I put up for trade into a temporary digital stasis box for easy transport as opposed to having to call the ranch and set things up live.

This left me with Cleo, Brinker, Artagnan, Estella, and most importantly Huck in my party outside of the new meowth.

With that in mind I swung by Ash and the group as they observed a match, "Hey guys, I just traded for a Galarian meowth with Professor Oak's cousin so I'm going to go to my suite and introduce it to my team. Toss me a ring if you need me before dinner, if not see ya there!"

I breezed out of there with a grin on my face as I heard Ash finally process what I said.

"Wait…Professor Oak has a cousin? Galar has a special type of meowth?! Wait…Brock what does he mean 'traded'?"

Back in my decently plush suite, man dad had been raking in the cash and endorsements with the fossil revival stuff this year, I released Cleo.

"Hey, girl! I got us a new team member so I thought I'd introduce him to you first and we'd go from there?"

She nodded. We hadn't gotten a new team member since the very beginning of the school year, when I'd gotten Artagnan from a Safari Zone excursion.

I released the meowth onto the middle of the floor and he popped right up, looking around curiously before turning his bright yellow eyes to me and raising his paws and giving out an adorable light growl.

I chuckled a bit, even as Cleo stepped in front of me, "So did Samson tell you he was planning to find you a good trainer?" The meowth growled back at me but nodded. Good, so he was responsive and likely just posturing.

"Well, my name is Isaac Beech, this here is Cleo, and we would like you to join our team."

Thankfully Samson had prepared his catches for the prospect of trade so things went about as smoothly as they could. The little meowth jumped around and postured a bit but when I pulled out a bit of steel wool and a Pokeblock and started giving him scritches behind the ear while feeding him a treat he was the calmest kitten you could imagine.

"Hmm…what to name you." I ran through literature and play names in my head like I usually did. But the one I landed on that felt like it fit gave me a good chuckle.

"Well I remember hating the play but for some reason it feels like Rum Tum Tugger fits you. How do you like that? Rum Tum?"

"Meoow!" He licked up the remaining crumbs of the Pokeblock.

"We'll go with that, then!" I returned Cleo and let our new little guy stay out for some bonding and made my way back downstairs to rejoin my friends. I vaguely remember a tv episode of some show from my old life where a guy goes out to get pizza and comes back and everything is on fire. It was kind of like that, Ash was mid-battle in one of the small rings but he was using Charmander and well…I think Charmander was getting a little angry at his opponent. An oddly nimble machop that I suspected was using Detect to dodge around every blast of fire sent its way.

"Come on Charmander! You can do it! We just have to hit him once!"

Oh dear, I suppose Ash still had some of his season one tendencies even if he was improving. The battle did go well for him, however. Thanks to our earlier arrival Ash ended up being a lot less overwhelmed and excitable. Well he was still extremely excitable but he didn't jump into making any exceptionally dumb trades. So I'll call that a win.

I hadn't spotted anyone that stuck out as a Rocket like a sore thumb yet, however. Which concerned me. It meant they were very good at hiding, not here yet for some reason, or I was extremely lucky and they weren't coming at all. I knew for a fact I was not an extremely lucky person.

The next day I ran a small analysis on who and what I had on hand. Alexei my piloswine and Alberich my rhyhorn were the two pokemon I had sent back to the ranch my family rented to care for my not in use pokemon. They both had limited mobility on the ship and I wanted to acclimate Rum Tum, the new Galarian meowth, to my team and style.

He wasn't quite all sharp edges like he would be once he evolved, currently it was almost like his fur was made of steel wool. Still not the most comfy of materials.

He had Tough Claws and knew Fake Out, Hone Claws, Metal Claw, Pay Day, and Taunt so that put him near level twenty on average. Though again, levels were like IQ scores, poor generalizations of greater and more complex phenomena.

We were to cast off this afternoon, and Samson Oak had left this morning, much bemoaning that he'd have to teleport instead of enjoying the cruise due to something that came up at his cousin's lab.

So as Brock chaperoned Ash through a few friendly battles and Misty socialized with trainers she knew from interactions at her family's gym I scrolled through the trades seeing if there was anything more that interested me.

Unfortunately there was not. I had hoped maybe with the proximity a larvitar might be available, while most stayed around Mount Silver some did relatively often wander down into the lowlands of Johto, and there were always breeders for rare pokemon at these events wanting to show off. And truly, there were, just not for my type specialties.

Quite a few breeders had the regional starters, eevees, and even one trading and selling mime jrs. But alas, the earth types were still mostly just onix, sandshrews, and the nidoran line. There was one swinub but I already had Alexei. No one even had a gligar or phanpy to offer unfortunately.

Sighing I closed my device and made my way over to where Ash was battling. He was having his charmander kite around a rather frustrated looking drowzee who seemed loath to drop its Light Screen to go on the attack and risk the flames. I knew Ash was just waiting for an opening to break through with Brick Break, however I would have stayed and watched to the end anyways except for a shock of purple hair I noticed through the crowd.

Peeling away from the match I as stealthily as possible began following them along. Unfortunately while I was able to catch a glint of gold that just had to be Meowth, I quickly lost track of them in the crowd. Team Rocket was already here. And who knew how many other trainers on the ship were Rockets as well?

I'm not sure if it was the early arrival or what, but this was definitely different than canon. In the same way the fight at the school had been, it was more realistic and less bombastic and cartoonish. Now it was not as bad as that Adventures manga or anything, but it was still worrying nonetheless. Didn't that manga kill people on this ship? Or was that a gritty grimdark fanfic?

Point being, even in a semi-realistic version of this universe I had to be careful, because both Rockets and gyarados would be deadly without even having active intent to kill.

Though…hmm yes that might work. I made my way back through the crowd to Ash's battle, which was now wrapping up with many cheers.

I wove through and placed myself next to Brock, "I saw James and Meowth but lost them in the crowd, you guys should keep your guards up."

He…well his eyes sort of moved up and down so I am going to count that as a processing blink, "Hmm…thanks for the warning, Isaac. We'll be casting off soon so this is about to get a whole lot tighter in here."

I nodded, "I don't suppose you managed to evolve that kabuto the League gave you?"

As the Rock-type gym leader he had received a resurrected kabuto from the League and my father's lab to raise, train, and develop knowledge of. Misty as the Water-type gym leader had an omanyte for the same reason.

Lance was the only one who had an aerodactyl, the things were nigh uncontrollable. Of course. I was planning to perhaps change that shortly.

With that thought in mind I went back to my cabin to go over some of my future plans. I knew the locations of a good number of pokemon that would be compatible with my team and training. Scribbling through my notebook I listed some of the more important, rare, and powerful ones. A giant golurk, hidden in some ruins at the Desert Resort in Unova. A very strong choice and very possibly one that could help greatly against Mewtwo. I knew where meltan could eventually be found, though I was unsure if they would be there currently, which made it a poor choice to hunt after, even with how powerful a melmetal would be. I knew where the Diamond Domain was…but that was insanely dangerous. Same with the Tree of Life and the possible lucario acquisition there. On top of that I didn't know if I could even activate that storage crystal. Similarly to both the previous examples, I knew where genesects would be once they were revived, but something told me that was years off as it would no doubt be based on an experimental expansion of my own father's research. And also they would definitely kill me.

If I didn't already have Alberich I would try stopping by Fairchild Isle and catching an Alpha rhydon. Hmm…I could probably catch that Alpha magcargo near Blackthorn City before that character of the day trainer got it. Honestly I only knew about this one because there were public reports about it already, and it had retriggered a memory. Actually most of these were memories retriggered from reading Pokedex or travel guide entries. I hadn't actually been able to remember them in a vacuum.

There was an Alpha claydol and whiscash in Hoenn. The claydol especially would be a strong addition. And I think there was a shiny donphan out that way? But I don't remember her being especially powerful.

Sinnoh apparently had a wild metagross living alone outside of Snowpoint. There were rumors treating it like a cryptid actually.

Magearna is out for similar reasons to Diancie. At least any active wild one would be. I have no confidence in my ability to take on even the relatively calm legends and convince them to join my side.

Didn't that weird pink island have a rather powerful nidoking? Something to think about if Cleo ever wants a mate I suppose. I wonder if the Zygarde cores have been released and exposed yet? That would actually be the most reasonable legend to get a hold of. Working through the twenty-five percent form (I think that was the number) would definitely be manageable and hopefully ingratiate it to me, but I had no idea if the timeline was that far advanced yet. I hadn't seen any rumors of Team Flare yet.

I wasn't ready to make a play on either of the two Regis I might be able to work with either. Yeah, legends were off the table. Especially as I had no idea whether they were just high base stat pokemon with cool abilities, or literal forces of nature and god-like creatures. Or something in between.

If I had to pick for a training journey before the Conference…Unova offered me an ancient giant golurk and a large list of standard wild pokemon that fit my specialty all near the target. Hoenn offered me multiple lesser but still well above average pokemon as well. Sinnoh though…I'm not sure I could pull off that metagross without the help of the golurk or other similar high power catches. If I evolved Artagnan and worked Estella to the bone I could maybe pull it off.

I'd heard the fog horn and felt us cast off about ten minutes into my note-taking and research checking. It was now an hour past that and probably time to show my face downstairs for dinner. I just had to hope awareness of the problem let us handle Team Rocket without a complete shipwreck this time.

We'd barely reached the mouth of the Vermillion Bay when the Rockets struck. There had been far more than I imagined disguised as both passengers and crew. Currently Brinker was playing defense with Mirror Coats, Mist, and Powder Snow to control the field while I had Cleo swerving in and out of combat with Double Kicks, Bites, and debilitating Toxic to force our foes into retreat.

Already we'd taken out two golbat, three raticate, who knows how many ratatata, and some assorted other standard Rocket fare. That's when a face I unfortunately recognized, and not from any of the Gen I games or anime, stepped forward.

Well, at least I recognized her mostly, Team GO Rocket Leader Sierra looked closer to my age than the mid-20s she seemed in the AR cell phone game I recognized her from.

Hopefully this meant she didn't have any of the more terrifying team additions of Gardevoir or Gyarados that had given my past incarnation so much trouble.

"Move aside, Grunts. I will handle this one. He's too cute to pass up." Oh, I was definitely vomiting after this was over.

"Sableye, let's test you out!" And she released her iconic shiny sableye, though thankfully it wasn't a shadow pokemon at all. Yet. Came unbidden to my thoughts.

"Brinker, continued keeping people off of us, Cleo, return!"

My starter wasn't the best choice I had here. Especially tired out.

"Engarde, Artagnan!"

A little over the top? Maybe, but what good trainer doesn't have a flair for the dramatic? My scyther appeared rearing to go, the engarde summon letting him know I was sending him out for a serious battle, not just mere training or fun.

"Scyyythe!" He was grinning like the battle lunatic he was, and for once I had a great outlet for him. We weren't as well coordinated in personality and mind as I was with my other pokemon, which made sense as while he could evolve into types I harmonized well with he wasn't at the moment, but when we both singularly focused on a battle of great importance I could feel the echo of what we will have later on.
"Shadow Claw!" Sierra wasted no time in opening up the fight and her well trained sableye darted quickly into the maneuver, ghostly energies flickering along its right claw.

"Execute the Fast and the Furious!" I called out, a very specific battle plan I had drilled into him in particular.

The claw swiped straight through Artagnan, revealing an after image. A lime-green glowing blade slammed into the sableye immediately sending it skidding along the deck.

However, when it got up and glared at the bug pokemon I knew it was glaring at yet another after image. Artagnan was using Agility, Double Team, Fury Cutter, and the Mist hovering above us from Brinker to chain after image strikes.

Sierra however quickly realized what was going on after merely the second strike.

"Shotgun Power Gem into the Mist!"

I clicked my tongue.

"That's right, the jig is up! Sableye, pelt the silly bug!"

"I think you'll find your DANCE card still rather full!" I have a weakness for quips, sue me.

Suddenly the Mist shot apart, to show Artagnan finishing up the motions of a Swords Dance. And he'd already used Agility quite a few times.

Needless to say it was over quickly. Two more Fury Cutters and the sableye thumped to the deck, unconscious. Sierra returned the creature, eyes burning with hatred.

"Don't think you're getting off so easily! My next pokemon earns the title of monster easily!"

Except, before she could release it, the entire boat shook after a small explosion. And a roar. Of a gyarados.

"Uh oh…" I muttered, not necessarily surprised. Everyone else was though. They panicked.

"It's a gyarados! Rockets, grab what you have and retreat back to base!"

I, on the other hand, had plenty of time to bemoan the fact that I found magneton very creepy and had never picked one up. Because this would have been the perfect time to have something capable of using Thunder. And yet…I still ran off toward the roaring.

If we could subdue James's gyarados before it drew in the rest the damage could be minimized and the ship could perhaps limp into port. I…didn't have great options for fighting a gyarados however.

As I rounded the bend in the stern of the ship and came up upon the rampaging gyarados an idea struck me. I didn't have to fight it. I just had to calm it.

"Huckleberry let's go!" I called out my quagsire, this was going to be quick…hopefully.

"Yawn!" Huckleberry's mouth opened wide and a loud reverberating yawn echoed forth towards the irate fish-dragon. There was no way that freshly evolved it knew Outrage or Uproar, it was almost certainly just using a simple Rage and Dragon Rage to cause the disruption.

That said, even after the Yawn hit we needed to stall for a minute or two before it finally took effect. I sent Brinker back out to lay down Mist and Powder Snow to confuse the beast as it slowly settled down and drifted off to sleep. The Mist was so thick that I unfortunately did not see the red beam of light return the creature to a pokeball, something I would learn to much surprise in the future.

The ship was listing pretty badly to the side, but as far as I could tell I had perhaps saved the day. The next hour was spent running around and helping the crew keep the ship moving. Ice and mud patched up holes, set planks into place, etc.

Eventually everyone who hadn't immediately jumped ship via teleport or flight was exhausted and the captain made an announcement.

"Due to the tides we can't turn immediately around and must continue partially on, I estimate that at our current speed we'll make Acapulco and Porto Vista in a day. I apologize to all our passengers for suffering from this awful attack."

It went on like that for a bit, putting the blame firmly on Team Rocket, thanking the brave trainers that fought them off, and such. I found Ash and his friends over towards the front bow of the ship.

"Well…that was certainly an adventure." I commented.

"That stupid, Team Rocket!" Ash exclaimed, "I wish I'd had a chance to send them blasting off before James had that magikarp evolve!"

"Yeah that was…unexpected I am sure."

Okay, well it was for them, I'd definitely tried to plan around it. In fact, my planning had made the whole endeavor rather anticlimactic.

"Good call with the sleep," Brock commented, "Though I am pretty sure I saw it get recalled so now James has a gyarados, assuming he can get it to listen."

I thought back to James's propensity for pokemon attempting to swallow him out of love, he'd be in an interesting pickle if this one took up that habit.

"Yeah…that feels like a problem for next week's episode."

The three all looked at me as if I had grown a second head, I just raised an eyebrow back at them, "Think back and tell me your journeys so far don't look like a Saturday morning cartoon when it comes to shenanigans."

Brock opened and closed his mouth, Ash's brows furrowed in what was for him deep thought, and Misty just sighed. They knew I was right, even if I was using some odd meta knowledge from my dream-memories.

"So, Isaac!" Ash asked enthusiastically, "Did you find any of the pokemon you were looking for? Where are you going next? Lt. Surge was your only badge you needed with graduating, right?"


I nodded, "Yes, I need to collect a few more pokemon to give me a versatile roster for the Conference, and then I need to train up all those new acquisitions. We've got about seven months left. Which is probably enough time for you to get your badges, but try to move quickly with badges five through seven, Ash. You'll want a lot of time to train if you plan to take on the eighth and final major badge with Giovanni in Viridian."

Ash nodded enthusiastically, "Yeah! You bet'cha! I'll train really hard and a lot of my team are going to be evolved by then, too!"

Pikachu protested slightly at this, "You can stay a pikachu as long as you want, Pikachu!"

The small yellow rodent nodded in response, he wasn't as adamantly against the idea as in the anime due to Surge being far less derisive of him, but he still didn't like the idea at all of rushing it.

"That's great, Ash. After I finish my collection route I should be training at the family ranch between Saffron and Celadon, so come see me there for some sparring and practice before you challenge Sabrina, yeah?"

In this world Sabrina was more like the games thankfully, none of the completely off the wall behavior from the anime or manga to worry about. Of course that did mean Ash was certainly going to be curb stomped if he went in even after heading to Lavender and catching a haunter. He was less likely to give up haunter with Sabrina being different as well, so perhaps Ash would have a much more varied team moving forward.

He already had his existing team trusting him far more. Perhaps even Charmander wouldn't act out after it evolved, seeing as Ash had been able to be a more active participant in his growth with my Brick Break Boot Camp.

I handed Brock my contact card and that was that. We headed back to our cabins and about a day later we limped into port, where I needed to catch a ferry out a bit further southwest to check out a certain canyon.

Seven months, I thought to myself as I plotted out potential acquisitions once more, what could I do with seven months? I probably only had time to hit one other regions, two tops. Which meant I probably needed to prioritize. For example, as amazingly powerful as metagross would be overall, I needed things that countered Mewtwo's immense psychic power far more than I needed an attempt to perhaps come close to matching it.

Which meant I almost certainly needed a golurk, a krookodile, or a bisharp. And all three of those were native to not just one region, but one single location, the Desert Resort in Unova.

So unless I was to buy or delegate some acquisitions, something I didn't want to do with some of the more rare and unique pokemon I was aware of, I would be restricted there.

The good news, great news even, was that the sealed away giant golurk in the ruins there was very powerful. It was an absolute pity travel wasn't faster in this world, even with having a pokemon that can fly (something I was about to remedy) inter-regional travel often took days or weeks. The routes between regions were just so dangerous that travel was rarely direct.

Because, if I had the travel time to hit both Unova and Sinnoh, I had every confidence I could have managed to wear down or safely befriend on or more of the mythical pokemon of my elements I was aware of. Except…yes that might work, I thought as I searched through my bag for a very specific business card. Samson Oak was heading back to Alola soon, and I might offer to pay a bounty for picking up an interesting item from one of those antique shops for me.

 

[zack1224]

Thanks for the chapter

 

[Isaac A Drake]

Chapters 11-14 Hollow Earth Theory Arc
Author's Note: This is where the story really starts to pick up and show my own personal takes and flair for exploration. This is also where I begin to split up the full arc chapter into the original chapter breaks as well. So you can tell when originally one ended and another began.

Hollow Earth Theory

It turns out I was far ahead of the game of canon, Grampa Canyon, on a rocky peninsula jutting out between Pallet and the Cycling Road, had yet to be discovered or bought up by the company that started the Fossil Rush from the anime.

I forlornly surveyed the landscape, so different from what it would be after a bunch of fossil hunters and Team Rocket got through with it. It was, in a word, breathtaking. It reminded me of the Chaco Canyon region of New Mexico, just without the cliff dwellings and kivas.

It was completely untouched by humans instead. My old life rarely felt close and personal, instead feeling more like a distant dream that was a barely remembered haze unless some outside stimulus triggered it, which was why most of the time the only things I remembered were triggered memories of observing or playing Pokemon media. But sometimes a specific object or view would trigger something else. Something that felt deeper.

This vista was one of those moments. I long since had stopped feeling sad or morose when these moments hit, however, whatever life I'd previously had, I could feel it had been full and vibrant, so it only made sense to enjoy this one to as full and vibrant a level.

I had to cut my appreciation for nature's beauty down to get to business. I called out my newly evolved piloswine, Alexei, to help me survey the ground for fissures, sinkholes, or other ingress points to the cavern system I hoped was filled with ancient pokemon just like canon. I also released Cleo, my poor nidorina and starter who hadn't gotten as much action as she deserved lately. She'd do well with helping defend from any wild pokemon while Alexei swept the area with his seismic senses.

I had my suspicions from pulling up some cursory land surveying data that was available for the area and led us around and over some of the fissure-like canyons towards a high mesa that was the remains of a volcano whose cone had collapsed inward after it went extinct.

Cleo only had to growl at a few curious graveler, every other wild pokemon in the area, of which there weren't many, were weak enough that two middle stage evolutions scared them off.

It was quite the hike from the shoreline, which had cliffs that were a pain to scale…if I hadn't grabbed the Rock Climb technical machine from a Porto Vista shop I might have been in for a real problem. Luckily with the machine Alberich had been able to charge me up the sheer coastal cliff faces with ease, I'd returned my rhyhorn afterwards but once we managed to reach the odd volcanic mesa I assumed I'd be bringing him back out.

I admired the region even more the further we explored, if the ancient pokemon find panned out I might try to purchase the land from the League and set up my research-gym for my trainer retirement I had planned after I had a title or two under my belt.

That probably would require me to also take some time off for an internship with a known professor as well unless they wanted to outright sponsor my set-up. We were about half-way up the mesa and about ten meters short of where I would bring out Alberich for another Rock Climb when Alexei began snuffling excitedly around a boulder lodged in a mountainside depression.

"We get a hit? There's a hollow area pretty near the surface?" His bushy brown eyebrows waggled excitedly which I took as an affirmative.

I grinned, "Perfect! Alright, Alexei, return! Let's get digging, Brinker!"

The Alolan Sandshrew really was my most versatile team member, though he'd likely be somewhat eclipsed on the offensive flexibility side by Cleo when I finally decided to give her the Moon Stone I'd managed to pick up at the same time as the Rock Climb TM. Porto Vista had great shopping.

"Oh…I hope Misty is still there when the tentacool swarm happens to de-escalate that and get her horsea."

I shrugged, that was a canon event I was firmly lodging in the 'not my problem' territory. As Team Rocket had acted so differently on the Anne that I couldn't possibly assume it would have gone the same way as canon even without me. Hell, Rocket apparently had mid-tier members that were from a spin-off game, memories of which had been pretty sparse until triggered by meeting Sierra. Before then, the only time I had ever had those memories triggered had been when I met Professor Willow at a conference with my father.

An excited cry of "Shreeeewww!" cut off my musings, however.

Apparently Brinker had broken into the hollow zone. Equally excited myself, I ducked into the decently sized tunnel for a pokemon of his size, he'd known to enlarge it enough and keep it shallow enough a decline that I could follow him in.

Shaking a professional grade glow-rod I held it up and the blue light illuminated a tunnel that went at least ten meters in and down until it broke into a chamber a short hop above the floor. Cleo followed closely behind and soon we were standing below our ingress tunnel with Brinker happily dancing around and twirling, he was an excitable fellow outside of battle.

"Alright, bud, let's calm down and lower the volume just in case we aren't-" First one, then two, then over a dozen pairs of red eyes illuminated the distant darkness.

"Alone…" I sighed releasing Alberich and Estella from their pokeballs as an angry, "Tops!" echoed out. One instant they were forming in bursts of red light, the next Estella was in front of me, blocking a kabutops's scythe-like claw on its quest for my jugular.

"Yep, GO TIME!" I called out, taking a small leap back myself.

"Alberich, bodyguard and artillery support! Cleo, hit and run with Double Kick. Brinker, you're crowd control! Estella, beat down time!"

I backed up to the wall below our tunnel with Alberich in front of me. Brinker rolled off with Rollout to use Mist to create a wall of obscured vision stopping our not-so-fossilized foes from accurately spamming long range moves like the Water Guns that almost immediately after began firing through that fog and hitting the walls and boulders around us.

Estella, meanwhile, was having a rapid exchange of Bone Rush and Slash with the kabutops that had rushed out of the darkness. Whatever she didn't duck and dodge she leaned into and took like a champ on her rock hard skull.

As they fought I noticed something odd about the creature she was fighting, it wasn't the standard brown and cream of a normal kabutops or the green of a shiny one. The coloring was some kind of mottled brown, black, and gray. Likely an adaptation coming from hundreds of generations of living in this cavern system.

"Alberich, Stealth Rocks into the Mist to intercept!" I commanded, causing Alberich to pause in his opportunistic usage of the occasional Rock Throw to instead send a bunch of rocky shards hovering off into Brinker's Mist.

A mix of cries from unknown assailants from the fog told me it was a good call. Well, I could assume they were a mix of kabuto and omanyte, but technically they were still unknown.

An angry omastar managed to break through the line, looking pretty beat up, that was when I pulled out the first specialized pokeball and lobbed it at the creature. Sure enough, it was injured enough that the increased catch chance of the Dusk Ball sealed it away with very little struggle. The ball sparkled in white light and disappeared over to the automatic storage system. I'd told the ranch supervisor that I was going to be likely to catch some volatile pokemon and to keep anything that came in on stasis until I dropped by to work on them personally.

The flash of light and the disappearance of his comrade startled the kabutops and it left an opening where Estella was able to slam a Bone Club into its skull, dazing it and opening it up directly for me to nail it with yet another Dusk Ball.

A few more cries from the Mist caused my grin to grow even bigger, "Brinker, Rapid Spin to clear your Mist!"

He did so as the kabutops's pokeball flashed away as well and I pulled a few more out to rapid fire catch the omanyte and kabuto that Brinker had mercilessly knocked out while they were trapped in his domain. After about five minutes of constant throws I sat down, slightly winded.

"Whew! There must have been almost twenty!" I declared in surprise, far more than in the anime episode I vaguely remembered.

Looking around I saw perhaps why, there were a lot of shells of hollowed out kabuto and omanyte with very large teeth marks.

"The aerodactyl doesn't live here…it hunts here."

I looked around, searching for some way deeper into the subterranean system I had no doubt that I had stumbled onto. Cleo pointed and I slowly looked up to see that on a ledge overlooking a pool of water was a rather large opening of a tunnel.

"That must lead in deeper!" I grinned around at my team, "Wanna check it out?"
Chapter End Notes: New Captures- Kabutops x1, Omastar x1, Kabuto x10, Omanyte x6.

The Lost World

I returned everyone except Cleo and bit my bottom lip nervously as I looked down the tunnel. This was far more extensive than those flashes of Ash and Team Rocket's battle I had gotten would have suggested.

Alternatively…Team Rocket had used a lot of explosives. What if this had always been here? Waiting for discovery? This…this was huge. This was the kind of discovery that absolutely COULD get me a direct sponsorship from Professor Oak as a conditional independent researcher. I would submit reports directly to him for approval and he'd be on them as a co-author. Lending his credibility to me and boosting his reputation as always being ahead of the game and cooperative on new research.

But, I needed to confirm my hypothesis first. And, I really needed that aerodactyl to have access to an appropriate flier for myself. Very few other accessible pokemon of my compatible types truly worked as aerial transportation. I'd have to go all the way to Hoenn for a flygon, because as cool as they were, a skarmory would take far too long to train up as safe transportation. They took a notorious length of time to teach how to angle their razor sharp feathers to be safe.

Plus, ever since my father's work on the fossil resurrection machine had triggered that round of memories and dreams about fossil pokemon knowledge from my past life, I'd known that aerodactyl had been my absolute favorite pokemon that my current self was compatible with. An ancient dragon of rock that was meant to rule…no, dominate, the entire sky? I'm not frequently ambitious, but that for some reason stirred a hunger to strive forward and grow in me. One that my mother in this life had perhaps accidentally squashed by trying so frequently to force it to grow.

I would continue on until I caught this aerodactyl. No matter how far down it was or how insane these caverns got. Even if they were as extensive as the Sinnoh Underground I would persist. Because, there was something down here calling to me. I could feel it, almost like I had just drained a huge thermos of hot tea, a burning feeling in my chest that pulsed with every step I took deeper into these tunnels.

I…hadn't noticed myself moving down through the tunnel. I had been in some kind of a trance, I looked down and Cleo looked up at me worriedly, she'd followed along but had definitely noticed I had been out of sorts.

"There's way more than an aerodactyl down here, girl."

I whispered, worried for all of us. But I firmed myself, I wasn't just a trainer good with the earth elements. I was going to be a master of them. I'd shown a lot of the reliability of stone in my life so far, but now it was time for me to show the resilience of steel.

Of all the elements people showed multiple proficiencies for, perhaps combinations of my three were the most common, though all three being high was slightly rarer. But there were plenty of people who had high proficiencies in grass and poison together, or water and ice together.

Soon to be Champion Lance was a great example of Dragon and Flying being at extremely high compatibility in fact. And his cousin Clair with Dragon and Water, she apparently had a gyarados that could shame Lance's original. Or Agatha and her mix of Ghost and Poison leading her to have those terrifying arbok.

But if I was going to push all three of mine to the limit, I needed to embody them. And I needed to train and evolve my team to embody them. It was easy when embodying Rock and Ground to get stuck where you were. But I had to remember that for every mountain there were rock slides, for every mesa there were innumerable particles of sand whipping through the desert winds, and for every shield there was a sword.

And continents could shift. If I was all of the Earth I needed to stop standing still and hiding out in my ivory tower. I licked my dry lips and thought back to that small fight against Rocket Sierra with Artagnan. He and I were getting there, if I could find him a metal coat we would be where we needed to be for our bond to strengthen to as good as it was with any of my other pokemon upon his evolution.

And Cleo, she'd be ready for her moon stone soon. I had to remind myself that everything was coming together, and I just had to make sure I wasn't the weakest link.

"Alright girl, let's move out." The air became oddly humid as we moved forward. I frowned to myself, as this was rather odd compared to how dry it had been even with the underground lake that had been in the previous chamber.

However, clues started to slowly reveal themselves to us as we continued. The tunnel widened more and more until it seemed we were slowly spiraling down something the size of a decent highway, and with a ceiling of almost six of me. Because slowly we started to see plant-life. There'd been some algae in the lake chamber, but nothing like the moss and mushrooms of increasing size we were seeing now.

Paras and even one or two parasect were visible out of the corner of my eye before they moved away and hid from us, shy creatures in the best of circumstances. I was not surprised that ones which had never even met a human in genetic memory would hide amongst the growing forest of funguses.

As the tunnel opened up into a proper cavern chamber however, things got…weird. My glowrod was no longer the only source of light. Curious, I stowed it away to determine where the new light was coming from. It was at first the undersides of some of the larger mushrooms, they were bioluminescent. Which was, excuse my language, so fucking dope. I got a few flashes of seeing bioluminescent algae at sea as I took in the forest of flowing underbellies of giant mushroom caps.

"Cleo…this is…wow."

My nidorina, also never having seen anything like this, nodded along mutely with wide eyes. I had read something about mushrooms somewhat similar but only the size of people in Galar's Glimwood Tangle. This was so much more than that though, many of these mushrooms stretched all the way up to the ceiling, a solid five meters up.

And the deeper I went the higher that got. I also began to see flickering white and pink lights along the tops of them, another memory from that episode hit me, and I wondered for a moment if those were perhaps wild togetic? Or even togekiss? Due to the size of the mushroom caps the stalks were spaced far enough from each other that Cleo and I could both pass between them with plenty of room as we continued.

"I can't believe all of this was down here!"

I kept glancing around in different directions in wonder, trying to take all I could in. We continued to wander and explore for the next hour almost, the forest seemingly not ending, merely going deeper as the downward incline continued. Twice I had to bring Alberich out to take us down some kind of jagged cliff face where the floor of the cavern dropped by a large amount only for the forest of mushrooms to continue on at the lower level.

It was a few minutes after I returned Alberich the second time that Cleo's ears twitched, giving us the only warning we got as a scyther of all things dropped down from one of the lower mushroom caps with a battle cry. Cleo met the Fury Cutter with a Double Kick and the two creatures bounced away from each other.

"You can take this, Cleo!" I called out, however I still called Alberich back out as well and commanded the rhyhorn, "Bodyguard duty."

And it was a good thing I had called my trusty rocky boy out, because after Cleo and the scyther exchanged a few more blows and it cried out in pain as she got a solid Poison Sting in, a low buzzing began to sound through the area.

"Uh oh…" I muttered as Alberich kept his head on a swivel.

"Stealth Rocks!" I called, and mere moments after he set up the trap the rock shards moved to slam into five figures attempting to blitz us with a round of Quick Attacks. And more were coming.

"En Garde, Artagnan!" Fight fire with fire after all. My scyther was a peak specimen I had trained rigorously. Like some sort of shonen samurai or dual wielding ninja he met two incoming Slash attacks from different bugs. My own battle crazed bug cackled wildly and used the spinning motions of Swords Dance to push both back and simultaneously raise his own attack.

"Atta boy!" I called out before also bringing Brinker back to run interference as well. By this point Cleo was on her second scyther and Alberich was resetting the rocks.

Brinker couldn't jump back into his Mist tactic from earlier, because the wild scyther could blow away the fog with a concerted effort. I clicked my tongue and moved him to hit and run tactics and wide shot Powder Snows.

It wasn't more than another minute of furious exchanges before the remaining scyther backed off into the distance, buzzing their wings angrily. I pulled out a few Net Balls and tossed them, catching the ones that were fully knocked out and nearby. The disappearance of their allies caused the grouped ones to cry out in alarm.

And that's when it went to shit, the mushroom above us shifted in a strange manner, then there was a loud and gruff cry of, "KLEAVE!"

Before a large scyther-looking monster with stone axes instead of scythe blades came crashing down on Alberich, knocking him out immediately.

"Holy shit!" I cried out as we all jumped back and I quickly returned my rhyhorn.

"SCY!" Artagnan called out before rushing in to block another ax sweep aimed at me with twin Slash attacks crossed in front of his body. The force of the blow still sent him skidding back into me and I was bowled over.

I quickly rolled back to my feet however, because I remembered a flash of insight years ago about an ancient alternative evolution for scyther from before metallurgy had changed the evolution to be scizor.

Kleavor, the Stone Axe Bug.

"Vacuum Wave hit and runs!" I called out, "Weave with Slash when he's in close and use Quick Attack for maneuvering!"

He'd gotten off at least two each of Swords Dance and Agility during the fight with the rest of the swarm, so I didn't have to worry about buffing him.

This kleavor, I noted as they began viciously going at each other with their different blades, was still the same green coloring as a scyther, which usually denoted a 'shiny' pokemon as I believed from my flashes of insight that it was supposed to be a tan color for the body.

I wasn't going to replace Artagnan on my team, he was too well trained, but I was damned well going to catch this kleavor and study it to figure out how to evolve Artagnan into a kleavor instead of a scizor if I caught the aerodactyl down here.

I'd mainly wanted scizor for the mega evolution potential after all, and if I had an aerodactyl I could forgo a second potential mega evolution. I winced in sympathy as a few shards of the Stone Axe attack embedded themselves in Artagnan's thorax. That attack was super-effective twice over and I could tell that Artagnan was feeling the strain, he'd gotten very lucky with his double stack of Agility allowing him to dodge a solid eighty-percent of the wild kleavor's attacks.

The kleavor was feeling the strain as well however, Vacuum Wave might not be as supereffective as it could be if the bug-type resistance to it wasn't there, but it was a special attack based move and was getting around its hardy defenses while being boosted by Artagnan's Technician ability. It was also constantly being staggered by how fast that move was firing off.

Eventually I saw Artagnan's opportunity when the kleavor missed and embedded an ax into the stalk of a mushroom-tree.

"Dance into a major Slash!" I called out, with the exposed positioning of the kleavor I was hoping for a critical strike here. And boy did I get it. Artagnan spun around in his glorious dance and used the momentum to send himself spiraling down to hammer both scythes into the arm of the kleavor, snapping it and partially shattering the stone ax while sending the other bug flying.

As the kleavor struggled to rise the stone shards embedded in Artagnan began to glow, and then HE began to glow too.

"Fragments of a defeated kleavor's axes as an alternative?" I whispered in awe, it made sense, of course a kleavor's ax was made out of the material used to evolve into the form in the first place.

And then everything happened way too fast. A shriek from the sky caused everyone to look up just in time to see a gray, vaguely pterodactyl shaped, form crash through the mushroom caps and chomp down upon the defeated kleavor. Tearing the upper body free of the lower. Just as Artagnan finished evolving.

Nature was terrifying sometimes. And then the aerodactyl screamed at all of us in challenge. Make that fucking terrifying.

Chapter End Notes New acquisitions: wild scyther x5, a healthy fear of the power of nature

The Smoky God

"Yeah, screw this!" I yelled as my new kleavor fell into a combat stance, "Cleopatra, catch!"

I frisbee-tossed an item through the air towards my starter. She was well trained enough that she immediately leapt into the air and caught it in her mouth.

"Artagnan, use those new stone axes with hit and run, then fall back and let Cleo finish the job, you've worked through too much energy!"

Sure he'd have a small burst from evolving, but evolution mostly gave you an offensive energy boost and didn't recover your health. I didn't think Artagnan had the stamina to go from fighting a kleavor as a scyther, evolving, and then still take out this aerodactyl. But you know who would?

"QUEEN!" A newly evolved Cleopatra would. Especially since typically nidoqueen learned a few moves upon evolution.

"We've been preparing for this!" I reassured my starter, "You know what you should be able to do! As soon as Artagnan falls back hit it with a Sludge Wave!"

We had been working on her Poison energy manipulation for months now, preparing for this. A lot of times pokemon that learn moves upon evolution will have a hard time controlling their new techniques if they haven't practiced the control of that element extensively.

Our timing was perfect as well, Artagnan was just leaping back away from the aerodactyl's burning maw as it snapped at him with a Fire Fang. Embers catching a nearby mushroom on fire.

A viscous film of purple goo surrounded Cleopatra's new body and then expanded to be almost half again the size of her. It moved like a strange gelatin for a moment before it shot forth in a wave of toxic sludge, straight at the aerodactyl.

It hit the creature like a hammer, pushing it back into another stalk and the onslaught did not stop. Damn, I thought, that must be what Sheer Force looks like. But that wasn't all I'd been preparing Cleo with in anticipation of her evolution. Our goal had been to turn her into a powerful special attacker able to hammer away at type weaknesses on any enemy.

So we'd been practicing a very special TM for months now. And I bet she now had the juice to pull it off.

"Ice Beam!" I called out. With a roar Cleo reared back and an orb of light blue energy formed in her maw. The attack lanced forward, in line to hit the aerodactyl dead in the face as it began standing back up and growled over at us. The hit was followed by a powerful explosion of smoke and…steam?

"Wait…what? Steam?"

"Da…da…da…" The sound coming from the impact point sounded like…chuckling.

We all tensed as the smoke and steam began clearing. Cleo charged up another Sludge Wave in preparation, Artagnan fell back to play defense on my person, and Brinker I noted had dove into the earth, likely looking for a flanking position as I'd taught him.

I fingered my remaining pokeballs on my belt, wondering if I should send out an extra team member. But I had swapped Huckleberry out, assuming he'd be too slow for this expedition, and in a way I had been right, but I'd also dramatically underestimated this aerodactyl.

Because as the smoke and steam cleared the final embers of a Fire Fang faded from its jaws with more wisps of steam. It had melted the entire Ice Beam with an elemental bite. That was both genius, and showed an insane amount of power as well as cunning.

As we watched in a moment of stunned silence the beast's tongue came out and licked away some remaining haemolymph from the kleavor off of its chops. Mew save us, that was horrifying. And metal as Hell, I totally was going to catch this bastard.

"Alright, Hannibal," I'd already named him in my head so sue me. "Let's dance! Sludge Wave! Follow up with a high Toxic in the wake!"

With Sheer Force she couldn't poison him off of the Sludge Wave or have any secondary effects on her damaging moves, they were just pure unadulterated type energy power. So I'd made sure, again in preparation for this evolution, that Cleo had known Toxic long long ago. It had been perfect practice for the Poison energy anyways.

As my nidoqueen unleashed the poisonous techniques I knew immediately that I'd called it right. The aerodactyl leapt into the air to dodge the Sludge Wave, only to squawk indignantly as the Toxic orb splashed it right across its face. It was almost certainly blinded now with that venom burning in its eyes.

"Charge up an Ice B-" we were all cut off as the blinded aerodactyl began flaring its wings out wide and sweeping them forward and we all were sent tumbling back a solid meter or two. Fire Fang and Whirlwind? What a crazy moveset for a wild aerodactyl! The millennia of natural selection down here must have created a divergent moveset perfect for hunting the native pokemon!

I imagined it probably knew Thunder Fang and Crunch or Rock Slide then, if it was hunting the kabuto and omanyte lines I had seen with the grooved carapaces up in the lake level. What a monster.

It was at that moment that Brinker struck, he flew out of the ground and let loose a vicious spray of Powder Snow. The frosty zephyr struck the aerodactyl from behind and underneath and we got very lucky with the legs and tail of the beast freezing stiff. Unlike the games, certain status conditions could stack.

It squawked even more indignantly as the ice pulled it down towards the ground and the poison continued to wrack its system. The time was perfect, I pulled out another Dusk Ball, unfortunately the aerodactyl was just a little too light for a Heavy Ball to be any more effective than the Dusk Ball in the cave system, and let fly.

It didn't go easily into the…spherical night? Nope, not the time to be poetic. The point is I was worried it would break free for a second as the ball shook a third time, but then, finally, it went silent and came back to my hand before going off to the ranch in a flash of white.

The rest of my team and I all collapsed straight onto the ground, exhausted from both exertion and adrenaline. That…had been a lot.

I grinned and looked over to my starter, "Hey, Cleo, liking the new evolution?"

The sprawled out nidoqueen nodded her head and gave me what passed for a thumbs up when you only had three claws.

I turned my head towards Artagnan next, "How about you, bud?" He clacked his new stone ax-blades together and grinned at me, well as much as a fixed jaw could grin.

"So, that wasn't expected. I think we're going to have to revise some training plans, yeah?" He nodded back at me, somehow portraying a mixture of excitement and deadly seriousness. He seemed ready to take his training more seriously now than he had when he'd been an arrogant scyther.

Perhaps it was-My thoughts were cut off as the cave system shook. The physical shaking was followed by an immense and crushing pressure that flooded the area. I couldn't put proper words to the sensation. It was as if that burning energy from when I first entered the deeper caverns had been compressed and dropped atop my head in a wave of liquified hot air. After either a moment or an eternity it ebbed to a point where I could push myself to my feet and return most of my team, leaving only Brinker out to run by my side as interference as we retreated and I frantically applied a Revive to Alberich's pokeball.

Whatever the Hell had caused that was not something I wanted to tangle with. A strange screeching echo followed us as I reached the first of the staggered drops and managed to call my rhyhorn back out to get us up the sheer rock face.

We beat a full retreat out of there. Full steam until we were safely outside up on the mesa. It was dark, with the moon high in the summer sky.

"Well…" I said to my two team members out with me, "That was…bracing." I'd have to camp out up here tonight and then make my way back to the pick up point for the boat I'd chartered. "Dad's going to freak."
End of Chapter New Capture Notes: x1 Aerodactyl (Hannibal), fear of drums in the deep

Jurassic Ranch

I didn't even get to go to sleep that night when my pokegear began ringing.

"Hey…Dad." I picked up, immediately knowing who it was.

"Am I reading the registry on your storage server at the ranch correctly, Isaac?" His tone was sharp but anticipatory, as if he was trying to force caution and cynicism forward to mask excitement.

"Oh you're reading everything perfectly, you won't believe what I found." I excitedly began to explain the underground lost biome I had discovered.

"This…this is huge!" He was almost shouting in his excitement,

"This is perfect! This is…oh we have to keep this to ourselves! We have to keep this connected to my lab." This I was a bit hesitant about, he'd need to convince me.

"I get that the Cinnabar Lab specializes in this, but can I really get as much benefit from that as if I had gone to Professor Oak or Cerise?" I could just imagine him waving his hand dismissively as he continued,

"Oh absolutely! I'll make sure of it! I'll renew your research assistant position, take your survey data, present it to the board and get a grant for you to be granted a conditional research sponsorship after the conference and all the construction is done. That will take at least that long, and your discovery of it plus how well you do at the conference will shut down any naysayers."

I scratched my chin, where in this life I had yet to begin accumulating any of the facial hair I got the impression of having in some of my more extended dreams and flashbacks.

"Hmm…well if you can guarantee it's my research station I suppose that works. My only real concern is losing personal control. You remember what I said about my hasty retreat? We'll need a lead who is at least as strong as I will be after the conference to safely explore. And if that isn't me then it's not going to come cheap."

"Give us a top eight showing at the Plateau and I don't think we'll have to worry about anyone taking it away from you. Particularly if you can train up one or two of those acquisitions from down there for your final team. Between this new scyther evolution, kleavor was it? Between that and the aerodactyl and perhaps the kabutops I can't see anyone arguing you won't be the best to run the facility."

"To that end, I'm going to head back to the Ranch and get the fossil pokemon under control and then use the last of my major savings to chart a trip out to Unova's Desert Resort. I need better counters for psychics and ghosts if I want to stand a chance against the types of pokemon that get used at the top eight level."

Or you know, blasted Mewtwo inviting me to an island of trainers to clone our pokemon. I…still had to figure out what I was going to do about that outside of attempting to stack my team. I was fairly sure Lance hadn't started his G-men yet as he was still struggling for the Championship position and I was definitely sure Looker and his International Police weren't around either.

We were only two-thirds of a generation out of…well it was the closest thing to a war there's been since many of the regions rediscovered each other, so that's what it was called, but Unova's nautical trade dispute wouldn't have counted as a war on the scale of any of the mythological ones like AZ's nightmare or even the Unovan civil wars that required legendary intervention.

"That seems reasonable, if this all works out in our favor you won't be needing to worry about money again. Especially if we can get these…hmm they aren't really fossil pokemon now, are they? If we can get these pokemon from your lost world to breed at better rates than the resurrected ones I could see a lot of supplemental income being involved in this endeavor."

I…had not considered that. "Huh…yeah can you secure us the licenses for breeding and perhaps even turning this peninsula into a preserve along with the research gym?"

"It will happen in stages, the land deeds and research grants will come quickly. The breeding license probably soon after that, the preserve status will likely come after your conference showing, along with the gym status, they'll want you to hit top eight at minimum and perhaps set up some Ace battles."

"That sounds fine, now let me get to sleep so I can head back to the ranch and work on taming that beast of an aerodactyl I caught."

I was not looking super forward to that, I may have to beat it down a few times with Cleo and Artagnan, both of whom had now surpassed the rest of my team in power.

I couldn't tame Hannibal, absolutely what I was going to name the aerodactyl after that vicious introduction, fast enough I decided as I sat on the speed boat heading back into the Vermillion Harbour. Flight would open up so many better travel options for me, within Kanto at the very least. While distance wise it was viable, flying over the Silver Range wasn't suggested as you were likely to accrue a lot of aggro from the very strong wild pokemon up there. So it was better to take a detour down to New Bark or a ship around the coasts and then fly once you were on the other side of the mountains.

But, a full day of travel after I left the…underworld for the lack of a better term, saw me back at the family ranch to the southwest of Saffron, almost equidistantly south of the city as the Academy was to the north of it actually.

Liam, a burly ranch hand who was normally not anywhere near as nervous as he seemed right now intercepted me, "Mister Isaac…I'm hopin' you ain't planning to let those monsters loose all at once are you?"

As one of the lead wranglers he definitely had access to my storage roster so I understood his concern.

Which I promptly waved away, "Hardly. I'll be starting with the kabutops and omastar, once I have an agreement with them we can let the other semi-aquatic ones out to enjoy the lake. Then I'll move over to…is the North Field still set up for a badlands biome and relatively clear?"

He nodded to my inquiry, "Good, I'll release the aerodactyl there and my team and I will handle the rest. Also…get me a case of the really good tauros steaks. I think showing our vicious brute what the good life is like might help ease some tensions, hmm?"

The kabutops and omastar were extremely easy to integrate actually. The second I explained, with the help of Cleo, that they were basically getting free room and board in exchange for occasionally training and fighting with my main team if they wanted to and maybe some of their extra eggs, they were completely sold on the idea. A little bit of a tour for them, releasing the younger stage pokemon from their cavern, and a good meal later I was set to walk over to the craggy badland area where I planned to negotiate with hopefully my new flying-type.

Twenty minutes later saw me frowning as Hannibal tore through half a crate of raw tauros steak. He was…too smart and too dangerous in my opinion. I may have to delay my Unova trip by at least a week or two more than planned. That put me at going in a month, meaning I would come back with…five months to the Indigo Conference. And four months and some change until New Island.

My dream-like memories of that event were more like nightmares. I had to be ready. I don't care if he was somehow going to come back from it, the image of Ash laying on the ground dead with Pikachu crying over him was not something I was looking to allow to repeat.

Surely Mewtwo could be convinced to civility in some less dramatic way? Right? Shaking my head I began approaching Hannibal, Cleo and Artagnan in tow.

For now this would be my main project, along with starting some repairs. Samson Oak had come through, very confused about what I wanted with the device, but I'd more than covered purchase and shipping so he was happy enough.

 

[Zetakille]

Oh dear.....there's gonna be some kind of Kaiju down there, isn't there?

 

[Isaac A Drake]

15-18, Desert Collection Arc

Good to be Out of the Rain

I wasn't much of an engineer, but maintenance and repair was within my talents with one of the electives I'd taken last year. With my goals in mind I had decided it was best if I could do basic repair and maintenance on the less complicated devices often used. Basic pokeball maintenance, healing machine troubleshooting, software updates for storage servers, and things of that nature.

This project was both simpler and more complex than those at the same time. There were no electrical parts to fix, replace, clean, or oil. Just a lot of clockwork. Which meant as I took parts off to fix, maintain, or even in the case of a few smaller gears replace, I had to take meticulous notes and pictures so that everything went back the way they should.

But that was fine, this was a long term project anyways. And it was finally time to leave the ranch for Unova. So I cleaned up my workshop, jumped into the shower, and grabbed my pack after dressing. It was time to get out there and rough it.

Luckily it had only taken two weeks instead of my estimated month to properly come to an understanding with Hannibal. Again, the aerodactyl was far too intelligent and cunning for his own good, but it worked out in my favor here. He was quite excited to constantly be able to gorge himself on premium meat all the while getting to have ferocious battles. Which meant I now had yet another powerhouse on my team.

To Unova I was taking Cleo and Artagnan with their newly evolved capabilities, Hannibal for mobility and even more power, Alberich in hopes that I may be able to get the rhyhorn enough experience to evolve soon, Estella for her combat mobility and having a solid environment in the desert, and finally Brinker for the ability of his ice-type moves to really do serious damage to the ground-types I planned on targeting on my trip.

I really wish I had found an Ice Stone in Porta Vista, I'd looked. Brinker was more than ready for evolution. Brinker had managed to learn Iron Head the other day while we had been training, which put him somewhere in the thirties level-wise. At this rate he was going to learn Blizzard before I could evolve him to learn Icicle Spear and Crash.

The Alolan sandshrew line was odd, due to the method of evolution being exposure or a stone instead of growth the way the Kanto version was; they were heavily locked out of a lot of the stronger physical aspects of their ice elemental attacks and instead had to rely on special moves. Not their forte necessarily. But damn if Brinker didn't really make good on the moves he had access to. His harassment tactics with Rapid Spin, Rollout, Mist, Powder Snow, and now Iron Head instead of Metal Claw as a physical finisher were a master class on tactical fighting.

Speaking of new moves, we'd managed to get Take Down on Alberich as well, which worked well with his Rock Head ability, though not so much with his turret fighting style, which means we may have to adapt that into more of a finishing move as opposed to a mobility attack the way some rhyhorn used it. So I finished clipping his Heavy Ball onto my belt as my sixth and final pokemon and headed out to catch my ride into town and the airport.

Liam had planned his supply run around my schedule thankfully. Unova was a long flight, but by the same time the next day I was circling down onto Unova Route 4 atop Hannibal and his shiny new saddle. While he could survive aerial maneuvering in the blowing sands of the Desert Resort, I would get my skin stripped off if I flew through the sandstorms at speed, so I was going the rest of the way on foot.

Returning the grumbling aerodactyl after tossing him some spicy jerky as a snack I called out Estella to follow along with me as my bodyguard. Sand goggles and scarf covering my face I pulled my stetson down to stop it from flying away in the light surface winds.

"Alright, girl. Let's go catch us some friends, yeah?"

"Wak!"

"Indeed!"

We saw plenty of pokemon over the course of the day, though nothing that particularly caught my eye. I was looking for potential teammates, that meant I couldn't just catch any old pokemon that wandered around. I was looking for ones that would challenge us, approach us first out of curiosity, or any of the similar behaviors that indicated to a good trainer that a pokemon would be worth catching and training up to the highest levels of competition.

It was when we were seeking out somewhere to camp that we wandered into the board of a bisharp and its pawniard minions. A board was the term given to the claimed territory of a bisharp led pack of pawniard. A chess pun, because of course. What was most shocking was to see the sheer number of pawniard, until I saw the second bisharp and the eggs placed in the hot sand along a small ridgeline overlooking the oasis they had claimed.

The two bisharp must be a temporarily mated pair, when those eggs hatched they'd each take half the newborns and split the packs up again. The larger of the two bisharp approached us and Estella immediately went on guard. It didn't appear aggressive, however that was not something you could necessarily trust with wily dark-types.

It began to gesture between Estella and itself, then at me itself and…one of the eggs? I blinked, then I squinted over at the eggs. There were seven, an odd number, that would mean this bisharp and its mate would normally have to fight over who got the larger number of newborns to their pack.

It wanted to fight Estella to see if I was a strong enough trainer to be gifted one of the eggs! Sure the resulting pawniard wouldn't be strong enough by the time I got to the conference to fight on my side, but I was willing to make a time investment instead. This was some anime protagonist nonsense right here!

Grinning, I gave it a thumbs-up, "Let's dance, Estella!"

That was a coded start command as well, she immediately whipped her bone club and body around in a circular dance, conveniently also throwing up a veil of sand as she boosted her attack.

Eyes slightly narrowing the bisharp bolted forth towards her, one bladed arm out in a classic Slash attack. With a clang a Bone Club met the attack head-on, knocking the bisharp skidding backwards.

Estella went for a follow up but the metal parts of the bisharp's body shifted and emitted a harsh Metal Sound that caused her to flinch, giving it time to reposition itself more defensibly by leaping back and falling its fighting stance.

"Hmm…make it come to you! Bonemerang!" As she recovered she whipped her bone club through the air in a side toss, sending it spinning towards the other pokemon.

It leaned its head to the side, narrowly dodging. It had obviously never fought a marowak before, understandable as they weren't particularly common or native out here, and it chuckled evilly as it began charging a Night Slash, darktype energy coalescing along both its blades.

Just as it was about to leap forward I smirked at it, it paused in confusion, and the bone club spun back around and with a resounding "THWACK!" cracked into the back of his helmet.

It was Estella's turn to chuckle as the bone spun back into her hand with a deft usage of ground-type energy to pull it over. While it had taken significant damage from that, the bisharp was still in the fight. Instead of taking extra time to charge, a smaller amount of dark-type energy covered its blades and it shot forwards at Estella once more.

What followed was a more even exchange of blows, bone meeting blade again and again. We needed a way to break this stalemate, I was confident that the wild pokemon would tire first having taken more damage so far, but I didn't want to completely exhaust Estella if we could cut it short instead.

The problem is that at this point Estella didn't have any major finishers such as Earthquake or Double-edge. So I'd need to be crafty about it. Or…I thought as I saw Estella begin to slowly glow a red hue, my girl was thinking faster than I was. She'd been building a Rage this entire time.

"Take one on the head then Bone Club!" I called out one of our classic combinations, in a fighting game this would be considered move canceling into a special.

She dipped into the first stage of Skull Bash, raising her defense and taking the next Night Slash onto her thick bone-plated skull, and instead of launching forward with the second stage of the attack, she whipped up her club from below in a vicious uppercut that caught the bisharp right under the chin and sent it flying. With a thump the wild pokemon crashed into the sand behind it and outstandingly pulled itself up into a shaky standing position.

It was, however, quite obviously in no place to continue, so it gave its own shaky version of a thumbs up. The other bisharp, who had been standing watching solemnly in the background with arms crossed, nodded at all of us and swiftly ran over to pick up the smallest of the seven eggs.

It trotted the egg over to us and I swiftly decompressed one of my two travel incubators from my pack. You never knew when you would run across an abandoned or poached egg and may need one.

After I had that sorted I also pulled out a Hyper Potion and motioned the injured bisharp to come over and receive treatment. This served to further ingratiate us to the tribe and we were invited to camp out at their embankment and oasis for the night. Something I was very happy to accept.

For all that they were merciless in battles and dark-typed to boot, the bisharp tribe in nesting mode was quite relaxing to spend the evening with. I called out Cleo to join us and it was almost as if they sensed the innate royalty of her evolutionary stage and treated her with great respect.

After sharing a little of my steel-typed food mix, berries for strengthening along with high quality metal shavings, with the tribe, particularly the younger members, Cleo began to gesture at how she was being treated and then at her own head.

"No, I am not commissioning you a crown!" I responded bemusedly.

She protested animatedly, waving her arms and gesticulating wildly.

"Fine, if we win the entire conference I'll commission a crown, happy?"

Her little happy dance was worth it. I was confident we would place top four, but completely winning? I wasn't sure that would happen. The next morning we said good-bye to the tribe and I headed back out into the desert with Estella in tow once more.

She'd gotten a good night of rest and I hadn't used her as much in the past month so I kept her out for bonding as much as convenience and experience. We were more focused in our search at this point, as my goal was to find the Colossus Ruins and the ancient, giant golurk within.

At least that had been the plan. We spent that full next day wandering the desert to absolutely no avail. Luckily with miniaturization and storage technology I had plenty of water, food, and other supplies necessary for an extended stint in the desert. Not so luckily I was rapidly getting frustrated. I had THOUGHT that after going through a bunch of survey maps I had pinpointed a few possible locations.

I had been wrong, none of those three locations bore fruit. Neither above nor below the surface, Alberich and Brinker had come out to check with seismic senses and Dig at all three places. I had known that I was years off from the original discovery of the ruins, but this was surprising.

I had managed to find the entrance to the Underworld of Grampa Canyon hadn't I? Surely this was not going to be any more difficult. Arrogance. What arrogance I had had.

"I think we need to take a different approach," I stated to Estella conversationally, "I think next time we find a strong crustle or even a darmanitan we let Hannibal fight it so that he's willing to do an aerial survey afterwards."

She contemplated the idea for a little and then nodded back at me. We really were running out of ideas. And the best ways to keep Hannibal compliant were the first two Fs. Food and fighting.

The Heat was Hot

The next day did not go any better. We managed to get a good fight in for Hannibal on a particularly tough crustle, which I captured more for breeding and move tutoring purposes than to add to my fighting team, and then he was amicable to flying scouting missions.

He was to check back immediately upon finding any ruins like what I showed him from my sketchbook and some print outs of ruins with architecture from the same time period, the First Unovan Unification Period, and to check in with a flyover every hour to catch our own directional bearings for his next pass.

We could only move so quickly on the ground compared to him so as long as he knew the direction we were heading he could quickly calculate where we were likely to be when he next needed to check in.

It was long, hot, and grueling to survey what felt like half the desert. However, I did not get exhausted as easily as I thought I would, something about the desert's environment was invigorating. The heat was draining but the crunch of the sand beneath my boots or the crumbling dirt of the embankments along the long dried riverbeds energized me.

Eventually when we came across another oasis, much smaller than the one where the bisharp had been camping, I decided to take a siesta. I let Estella munch on some berries from the miniaturized case I took out of my bag while I pulled out my pokegear's uploaded Unova map and my printed out copy of an archival map of the region from around two hundred years prior I had found through some research.

I frowned as I scrutinized the maps once more. There were…discrepancies. However, in a world where there were creatures able to literally move or alter mountains on a whim this wasn't too shocking.

What was curious however was how subtle some of the changes were. Instead of a gaping sinkhole, new mountain, or leveled mountain…I noticed that one of the dried riverbeds was completely different between the two maps.

Which considering that the Desert Resort had been uninhabited since before the oldest map was…very odd. Why would someone move a dry and inactive riverbed? When nobody lived there?

I had, however, based some of my surveying along the lines of where the riverbeds had been moving. Civilization required water, that was an inherent fact of life. And the ancient civilization that had built the Relic Castle and Colossus Ruins would have been advanced enough and controlled strong enough pokemon to build irrigation I had to assume.

So taking into consideration the old lay of the changed riverbed and ideal irrigation patterns…along with distance from the Relic Castle for optimal regional control…I still had about four new possible locations.

Groaning, I fell back upon the oasis's ochre embankment. Estella looked over at me questioningly, picking up her bone and gesturing about asking if she needed to hit something for me.

"No, girl. I'm just mentally wiped out. Here, I'll set up a proximity alarm and we can take a nap under this palm tree, yeah?"

She nodded enthusiastically and I took out a Silph brand mine looking device from my pack. I set it for proximity detection, it would let out a whine if anything got close, and I laid back to rest my eyes and my mind for just a little bit.

It was very infrequently that I had a dream that was not a triggered memory from my past life. Of watching a battle involving a pokemon I had recently seen, a person I had recently met, or in slightly less frequent cases of seeing myself do work similar to that which I had done the day before.

This siesta nap was an exception. I was swept up in a sandstorm. After what felt like being stranded inside of it for ten or twenty minutes I decided to move forwards, it was…not quite a lucid dream state, but it felt close.

I had some slight intention to react to the situation. But I couldn't really decide to do anything other than move forward. I pushed forward against the howling wind and sand for what felt like hours. A sensation of pressure began to weigh on me, making it harder and harder to mentally will my dream-self forward.

Eventually, in the distance I saw a large silhouette looming in the center of the sandstorm.

"Un un…UN!" The pressure increased and I snapped awake.
Flailing, because some heavy weight had settled on top of my stetson that I'd put over my face and eyes to stop errant sand from blowing and irritating me as I napped.

"Va va ba!" Something called as I lifted my quite heavy hat off of my face.

Two curious bug-eyes stared back at me.

"Uh…hello?" I said, blinking up at the vibrava roosted upon my hat.

Holding up thirty pounds of dragon-bug was…not as difficult as it would have been in my past life. I had to chock it up to pokemon world fuckery. My mind immediately flashed to a scene of Ash running while carrying an entire larvitar with himself. Those things were a hundred and fifty pounds! Or seventy-two kilos! Five times what this little guy weighed.

"Va bra!" It chittered back at me, lifting a front leg to…wave hello?

"Umm…hello to you, too?" I glanced over at the now awake Estella who just shrugged at me. She didn't know what to make of the encounter either.

It happily chittered in response to my greeting. I set the stetson aside, pokemon still perched, and took out my pokedex for a quick scan. It appeared it was in its later adolescent phase and a female. She would likely be ready to evolve here in the wilds in the next few months.

At that point the new flygon would likely migrate out of Unova. In fact, many vibrava migrated for better hunting southwest across the sea into Hoenn anyways. Trapinch was not originally a native pokemon, they'd become semi-invasive in the Desert Resort after a few flygon had been stranded here during that maritime trade conflict in the previous generation.

"I'm Isaac and this is Estella," I introduced ourselves, it was only polite.

The happy chittering continued. I offered her a mago berry and she snapped it straight up. She eventually fluttered over to Estella and had what appeared to be a riveting conversation, she was very expressive and gesticulated wildly with her forelegs, Estella looking on in bemusement.

Eventually I had an idea and brought my marked up map over to her, "Hey…I was wondering if you could help me, if this," I pointed to a marker on the map, "Were the Relic Castle," I showed an image of the full structure, "And this was where the riverbed is now," I pulled up and gestured to the current placement on the updated map, "Do any of these locations have human buildings and ruins similar to the Relic Castle?"

I gestured to the four pinned possible locations I had on my pokegear map. She made a show of considering it, then nodded and pointed at the location furthest from the Relic Castle, in the southeast of the Desert Resort, about…oh maybe a two hour hike from where we currently rested.

"That's not bad! Thank you so much!" I decided that next time Hannibal flew over I'd call him down and return him and we'd move over that way. He deserved a rest and some BBQ jerky for his efforts today.

Luckily we only had to wait another fifteen or so minutes for him to circle around, he took a moment to menace our little vibrava visitor until I chastised him and tossed him his BBQ jerky and returned him.

"Sorry about him, he's new and grew up…more wild than normal."

We got on our way, the little vibrava darting around through the air ahead of us as we headed towards the ruins location she had indicated. I started humming a tune that I am fairly sure came from my past life as we made our way forward.

After the siesta and a new burst of hope I felt fully reinvigorated. The vibrava looked on in interest partway through our journey when I called Cleo out to fight a duo of maractuses that tried to ambush us, I didn't want to risk Estella wasting too much stamina on a bad match-up when we still had the actual ruins to explore before we could leave back to comfort and civilization.

"Sludge Wave!" I called out after she caught a sucker punch that had been aimed at her and launched the cactus creature back through the air towards the other one. The second yelped in surprise as its compatriot slammed into it and they were both shortly thereafter swamped by the poisonous sludge.

Beaten, they scrambled to retreat and I held up a hand to have Cleo back off and allow them to flee, "Not worth it, Cleo, let's get back on task."

She nodded and I returned her and we began moving again. Estella was more than capable of fighting the scraggy and darumaka we ran into on the duration of the hike. I made sure to catch a few for trading and sparring partners on the ranch. There was barely more than a moment of pausing while she deftly handled those encounters.

Perhaps I'd try to see if I could get her to learn Fire Punch so I could trust her more in some of the bad match-ups to use her speed to mitigate the handicap. She'd be a great choice in the Grass Arena of the prelims if I did that actually, trick the opponent into complacency.

We'd see, she was already likely at her maximum number of mastered techniques before adding more would cause stress, strain, and perhaps even a deterioration of technical skill in the others.

Those few hours passed far more quickly now that we had a true destination in mind and pretty soon I saw the line of darmanitan statue-pillars begin to appear, stretching off into the distance where a half buried arch blurred into view.

"Dile, San!" A challenge echoed through the ruins as we approached, and quite comically a sandile burst from the sand, screaming what I could only assume were obscenities at us.

"I…you know what, I like his spunk. Don't hit him too hard, okay, Estella?" She chuffed in amusement and leapt forward, bone flourishing elaborately as she moved in for a quick knockout.

"Sand!" It gasped in shock and…I think I felt some indignation there, too. As if us daring to stand up to it was an affront? He was certainly an odd specimen, I mused as it 'dodged' Estella's feinted strike only to get punched by her empty fist and sent slamming under one of the darmanitan statues. I pulled out a Level Ball and caught it without much fuss from there.

"Well…he's going to be entertaining, at least!" My chuckling was cut short when the statue moved.

"Uh oh…" A Zen Mode darmanitan burst off the pillar, screaming angrily as it leapt at Estella.

"Nope!" I returned Estella and swapped her out immediately for Hannibal, he'd love this fight and his Crunch would do some work here if the creature was going to stay in Zen Mode.

"Hannibal, do your thing!" I called out as he appeared in the air above the befuddled former statue.

"Cru-and you're already on it, awesome."

Having smart pokemon was a blessing and a curse. It made them easier to train in tactics, but it also could make you feel a little useless in battle when they immediately jumped into the tactics you spent time teaching them. He'd recognized the psychic glow around the darmanitan as its Zen Headbutt faded and had immediately gone for the move that utilized Dark-type energy. Just like I'd taught him over the past few weeks.

I didn't have a dedicated anti-psychic yet, so I'd drilled recognizing that haze of energy into his rocky skull. Hopefully with the pawniard egg, the new sandile, and this golurk I was planning to catch I would be able to safely say I had a full contingent of anti-psychic monsters to pull from.

"Bra! Bra!" The vibrava fluttered a foot or so behind me and…was making punching motions as Hannibal tore into this guardian of the ruins.

"Getting a taste for battle are we?" I joked and she actually nodded back at me in affirmation.

"Va va!" She buzzed lightly and a lime green light of a Bug Buzz glowed around her.

"Oh? You think you could take it if it had come at you?"

"Ba ba!" She and I continued our little side conversation as Hannibal wrapped up his fight, he worked best when I gave him slack on his leash anyways.

Under the Cities Lies a Heart Made of Ground

"Artagnan, you gotta watch out for that Disable, bud!" I called out over my shoulder when I heard a frustrated cry come from behind me.

My newly evolved kleavor was dueling with a cofagrigus that was drawing out the fight and frustrating him with its ghostly moves and maneuvering. I, on the other hand, was very much wasting quite a bit of time going over the script embedding the walls leading down into the center of the ruins. It was a fascinating script, some type of divergent Pokelantian if I had to guess, which led credence to the idea that Proto-Pokelantian was a kind of origin script that splintered into many scripts, including Classical Pokelantian, and this script here.

Most importantly, this version of the script did not have the Unown influence seen in the Pokelantian, Pokemopolan, Pre-Modern Hoenn, and modern scripts around the rest of the known world. The only other Unown-less script in the world was the touch-based Brailleesque scripts of Hoenn and the Sevii and Orange Islands. Only found in the most ancient and remote of ruins.

Pre-Modern Hoenn…why did that ring a bell? A spike of pain hit my temple and I wavered as my vision swam and I saw an ancient text, a stone pokeball, and a giant claydol.

"The Sacred Fire preserve me, that was a bad one!" I massaged my temple for a minute or two while the pain faded. I wasn't sure what it was about this set of ruins, but they seemed to make the visions come more frequently and more painfully. That was the third flash I had had to memories of seeing other ruins presented throughout the media in my past life. These visions were also far less clear than my full dreams as well, the dreams usually were from a first-person point of view as an observer of the media. These waking flashes, particularly the ones here, were just flashes of images that gave me a migraine.

After the pain cleared I took a few more pictures with my pokegear and stored away the charcoal rubbings I had taken as well, pictures are great but you can't beat the classics in my opinion. They'd convey a sense of the texture of the wall itself.

Turning around I was just in time for Artagnan to finally finish using X-Scissor to finish the cofagrigus off as the Disable ran out.

"Good job! We'll work on upgrading Thief to Night Slash at some point, that will help you against ghosts!" He nodded with a light chuff as I returned him.

The vibrava had continued to follow us, even after we entered the ruins, and she buzzed on over and landed on top of my bag to hitch a ride as I continued forward.

Based on the little I could gain from what I knew of Proto-Pokelantian script it talked about a "Guardian of the Gilded Gateway to the Afterlife" or "Protector of the Golden Gates to the Deadlands" or similar.

Really fascinating stuff, though not anything that could help me in discovering a possible peaceful alternative to fighting the golurk in order to get it to join. Maybe I should come back here some day and catch the volcarona before they get displaced by poachers? I imagined I could really trade for some great pokemon with that, though for some of the rarer 'mons I wanted I had very specific plans for future capture trips like this one.

There was a shiny and possibly Alpha metagross in Sinnoh that I was aware of for example. Then that giant claydol in Hoenn. And maybe I'd grab a pink nidoking to be the Anthony to my Cleopatra. I wanted to see what including as many of these abnormal genes into breeding lines could do.

I already strongly suspected that my fossil pokemon were so genetically distinct they could be considered something close to an underworld regional variant, this was due to both their slightly mottled and different coloring and the fact that data was building up to suggest they perhaps had different abilities.

Grauben, my omastar, was just that little bit too talented with Spike Cannon and Rock Blast for it to be a coincidence or basic talent. I'd get her the TM for Pin Missile after I got back from this trip to test that theory out.

I frowned at my charcoal rubbings as I sealed them away in a document tube and had it disappear into my bag's hammerspace. I was going to need to specialize academically, and soon, it appeared that my past life's career path may need to be avoided so I could go deeper into the two types of evolutionary mechanics in this world. Divergent gradual evolution and triggered instant evolution.

"Alright, return Artagnan," I said, bringing my kleavor back into his Safari Ball. It was time to play David to a Goliath. The giant…puzzle orb for the lack of a better term in the middle of the large circular antechamber made of grey stone certainly stood in stark contrast to the rest of the ruin complex.

"A different stone…that's odd. A later addition? Something different about the requirements they had for the stone's quality? Hardness and fortitude perhaps?"

I slowly combed the chamber looking for more and more clues that might expose the secrets. There were more murals and inscriptions that I noted down but once again, not anything that would help me calm the pokemon inside the puzzle ball. With a sigh, I released most of my team, barring Hannibal, who would have only barely enough room to maneuver around the ceiling so I decided to hold him back unless he was absolutely needed as an ace. I scanned over Cleo, Artagnan, Alberich, Estella, and Brinker.

"Alright, gang. We've got a major battle coming up here. Our foe at minimum knows Hammer Arm and Heavy Slam and likely also Shadow Punch. We will prioritize ice and dark-type moves. Set up and I will open the containment. He'll be big so start at a distance, I'll book it to the back corner as soon as I trigger the sequence," I pointed at the vibrava, "You stay back there while I'll be heading over to, okay?"

She buzzed an affirmative, "Good girl!"

With that I walked over as my team set up Stealth Rocks and Mist. Perhaps I should have Cleo pick up Toxic Spikes and someone else Spikes so that I had three entry hazard options? It was an idea. Perhaps if he couldn't pull off too many additional techniques I could have Alberich replace Rocks with Spikes now that Artagnan could set them up with Stone Axe?

It was a thought. A thought I had while I casually completed the puzzle in the center of the room. As soon as the final ring began to shift into place I took off towards the back corner I had indicated earlier, where the helpful vibrava was fluttering, seemingly a bit anxious.

A blinding light emitted from the stone orb as the rings unlocked and released the guardian of the ruins from within.

"GO! LURK!"

And he woke up cranky. A wave of mental pressure seemingly filled the chamber, causing my lungs to stutter in a mistimed breath. I wasn't sure if it was the strength of the pokemon or the strength of the enchantment that had held it and connected to it as a guardian for the ruins, but I was definitely in for just as difficult of a fight as I had imagined.

The massive golem wasted no time in throwing a brutal Hammer Arm straight at the first pokemon he saw, Cleo. She threw up a casual Protect and ended up being very surprised when she was sent rolling back in the protective sphere a dozen meters, over halfway to the wall of the area.

That's when Brinker blitzed in out of his Mist along with many shards of Stealth Rocks, "Ogo!" the targeted pokemon grunted as the rocks along with a Rollout slammed into his side.

A backhand however sent Brinker pinballing into the distance, I wasn't worried about him though, he'd bounce back. Quite literally.

A shaking of Bulldoze staggered the golem and stopped it from following up, Alberich knew his main purpose here, redirection and distraction. His normal finisher of a Take Down wouldn't work, so he had to be ranged artillery support.

Estella and Artagnan had both built up to maximum stacks of Swords Dance and both leapt in out of the mist with their respective best attacks for the situation. Bone Club for Estella and X-Scissor for Artagnan, we had yet to properly upgrade Thief to Night Slash to reflect his ability moving from Technician to Sharpness.

They executed the moves in a perfect pincer movement and I cheered them on. Most trainers didn't train their teams in small group or mass battle tactics any larger than double battles. Rangers were the one major exception, usually training their teams to work in triplicate with each other.

This was more than even that. I had had my team doing raid tactics for years now. Which was admittedly another reason I had held Hannibal back, he hadn't had much of that training at all yet. The hit and run and distraction tactics worked very well for the first few minutes of the fight and the "boss" as I was labeling him began to flag slightly. He was spreading his energy around too much chasing too many targets.

Unfortunately it seemed that the golurk had a "rage button" so to speak. With a mighty cry it raised up a foot after Brinker skated away from another Hammer Arm and slammed the foot down into the ground sending out brutal fissures and spikes of rock up with the strongest Stomping Tantrum I had ever seen in my life.

The floor was shattered, my pokemon team sent flying opposing directions, the dust bonded with the water particles of the mist causing muddy rain to fall for a moment, and even a few slabs from the ceiling fell down. And its optical sensors locked onto me and turned red.

"Oh shit!" I called, and when I tried to move I found I was locked in place, that same pressure from before becoming almost physical.

"No, no, no! Move, damnit!"

I'd known legendary and mythical pokemon were real. I had known Ash was a character. That meant so many other things were real, too. Why not some of the weird ephemeral magics that supplemented these pokemon from ancient history in so many stories? And I had no seeming defense against it.

I should have looked into aura more. Maybe I could have pulled something off? I was trash with psychic powers, but maybe I could have made something else work? Then, as the charged Flash Cannon lanced at me with silvery light, I heard a cry next to me.

"Vi! Va!"

And the little vibrava that had been following us shot towards the light, the green ripples of Bug Buzz surrounding her. The two moves hit, and there was a blinding light and explosion. As the smoke and light cleared I discovered it hadn't just been from the attacks.

"FLY! GON!" Maybe there was some kind of deity looking out for me? Because the little vibrava, not even officially part of my team, had evolved to protect me.

The lavender-blue flames of a Dragonbreath shot out from the smoke before it fully cleared enough for the golurk to see that its attack had not reached its intended target. Lady Luck continued to favor us as after the flames died down the golem was having visible difficulty moving, it had been paralyzed.

"Loose!" I called, jolting my team out of their shock, and a round of ranged attacks shot out. Ice Beam, Rock Throw, Air Slash, Bonemerang, and Powder Snow all hit and the raid boss fell to one knee.

Now it was my turn, I palmed a Heavy Ball and clicked the button to bring it back to size, "You're mine!" I called out to the golurk as I sent it spinning with a momentous toss right at the center of the golurk's chest.

Red light covered the ghost-type and when the ball hit the ground it only rocked once before quieting down and disappearing back to storage in a flash.

I fell flat on my ass, "Whew! That was something!"

The flygon hovered over to me and fretted, checking that I was okay.

I held up a Friend Ball, the green matching her scales, "Do you want to join the team, girl? I think I'd like to call you Shahrazad. After the bravest woman of the desert." She cooed happily and tapped the button.

 

[Isaac A Drake]

Rest of the fic is going to be quicker to edit and remaster as it is the chapters written and posted closer together post-divorce and thus are higher quality and have less continuity issues.

 

[Isaac A Drake]

19-20, Pre-Conference Training Montage Arc
Author's Note: This was my weakest arc, which was also why I kept it to being the shortest arc as well. I actually had had more training scenes planned and then I cut them because I preferred showing the results of training mid-battle Yu Yu Hakusho style as opposed to dedicating a bunch of filler to showing the training in details. There is also a bit of a time skip in the middle as well.

You Got the Touch, You Got the Power

I arrived back in Saffron City invigorated. A quick flight on Hannibal over and I was once again on the Ranch. Ready to train up my new acquisitions, continue bonding with my pawniard egg, push Alberich closer to evolution, and finish my engineering project.

I sent Brock a message letting him know that he, Misty, and Ash should come out to Saffron after Ash got his eighth badge for some joint training. I sweetened the deal by saying I had new fossil acquisitions that would help he and Misty train up their kabuto and omanyte that they'd been given as gym leaders of the respective types to experiment with by my father's lab.

With Ash having gotten to the top sixteen in canon was I essentially helping my competition? Sure, but it would be kind of awesome to set myself up as a bit of a mentor-rival for the kid.

Calling him a kid, as if I wasn't also six-no wait, I'd turned seventeen in the desert! Nice! Huh, maybe I should have a party? I'd invite…uh…I really only had one friend and then Ash and company didn't I? Well maybe we'd have a belated party when they arrived for boot camp. I mean training.

Hopefully as I got older here it would be easier to make friends. Regardless of how I didn't have the full breadth of experiences of my previous life the memory flashes and dreams had affected me pretty deeply. Less as I grew, but they'd had…odd side effects when I was a child. There'd been a time there, before my mother here got consumed with High Society, that she'd been afraid I was possessed by a ghost-type pokemon formed from a dead pokemon professor.

All things considered, Ash and company were likely two and a half to three months away from joining me out here. However, with the amount of training I was going to need to do to properly incorporate Hannibal and the giant golurk into my team I could not afford to do more hunting for immediately strong additions abroad. Not with the amount of care and attention the sandile and the pawniard would need (once the latter hatched).

I planned to have our new crocodilian friend at least to his next stage before the Conference. He was a feisty little guy I was toying with a few different names for. Currently Lyle was the main contender in my head.

The golurk, however, was a much gentler giant removed from the ruins and enchantments that had held it hostage all those long centuries, which meant he was not going to be named Goliath.

Something to suit his temperament as opposed to his stature was where I was leaning. And so I entered what I was referring to as a "training montage" phase with my life.

One of the more popular ways to train up my less powerful members was to have them work in teams of three to six against some of those aforementioned powerhouses.

A few weeks into the process saw me observing Lyle the sandile, Ajax and Grauben the kabutops and omastar, and Alberich my trusty rhyhorn (who had to be desperately close to evolution) facing off against the superior aerial combatants of Hannibal the aerodactyl and Shahrazad our new flygon.

Shahrazad was proving herself to be an extremely interesting specimen. She eschewed the more close quarters fighting techniques typical of her species and leaned deeper into the sound-based moves they were known to have access to but never necessarily delve deeply into.

Which made me believe she had a volcarona, crustle, or similar in her lineage. She had come to us with Bug Buzz, Supersonic, and Screech under her belt. We had managed to improve the latter two into Boomburst and had developed a fighting style she loved where she whipped up a Sandstorm and flitted about unseen, barraging opponents with her different sound-based attacks and the occasional Mud Shot or Dragonbreath as well.

This made her an amazing partner for doubles battles for any of my rock-types. Hannibal in particular enjoyed fighting alongside her as he was able to fly in and out of her Sandstorm to disorient his opponents and come in from oblique and unexpected angles for kill shots. Or KO-shots in regards to battling.

He was, as he demonstrated again and again, a ruthless bastard. But, one that was beginning to gel quite well with the team. As Cleopatra had gotten more accustomed to her evolution she had been able to reclaim absolute domination of her team members in one manner or another.

At this point she had Protect, Toxic, Dig, Sludge Wave, Earth Power, and Ice Beam down with Toxic Spikes and maybe even Thunderbolt to come. We were reaching her maximum capacity at this point, so Thunderbolt would probably be the final non-neutral and non-STAB type-energy she could work with without skill deterioration.

Thankfully she didn't need the full Tri-Attack coverage spectrum. Between Earth Power, Sludge Wave, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt there was nothing that she would not be in some way super-effective against barring the mind-types of dark, ghost, and psychic. And we had plenty of other options on the team for those, and many of the strongest of those types had secondary types making them weak to her regardless.

Artagnan and I had begun to gel far better than previously after his evolution. He now had a typing I had an affinity for and it showed in how much better we predicted each other's reactions in combat. We finally understood each other. Better yet, we finally upgraded Thief to Night Slash, giving us a great option against ghosts. Huckleberry, my dopey and lovable quagsire, had finally upgraded to Muddy Water and Earth Power thanks to training with Cleo and the fossil pokemon. The rub was…that was it. He had retained Yawn and Amnesia but didn't seem to have the capacity to really retain anything else. This made him a defensive powerhouse, especially if I could teach him the RestTalk combination, something that didn't usually take up too much of a pokemon's mental capacity and was instead more based on having a compatible personality and movepool, but it also mean he didn't have the breadth of coverage that Hannibal or Cleo had.

Rum Tum, the Galarian meowth, was integrating nicely as well. Unnerve instead of Tough Claws as an ability meant that he'd have the supportive Steely Spirit upon evolution though, which meant I'd need to acquire more steel-types to pair him with and to use him more as a disruptive support fighter than a brawler. Which, I didn't have anyone else that could learn both Fake Out and Taunt so it all worked out in my favor. Currently I was trying to get U-turn into his repertoire to really make him frustrating for opponents. I was probably going to have to wait until my next TM and evolution stone shopping spree for that however.

I was going to check Celadon's department store for a restock on TMs and Ice Stones in about a week. For my marowak, Estella, we were focusing on just ironing out her current style to perfection. This meant a lot of footwork drills and practice on getting multiple ricochets from her Bonemerang.

Alexei was only recently evolved to a piloswine so we were going to shore up his fundamentals with his ice and ground techniques and slowly ease him into rock-type energy so he could eventually master Ancient Power and evolve. Mastery was key to that evolution from what I could tell, as I'd seen videos of a few piloswine using the move in battle, but they'd all been far below mastery, likely only using it because they could not afford stronger rock-type TMs and not understanding the power the move could possess. Endure and Ice Shard, particularly in combination with each other, were still his bread and butter however.

Brinker…was as high as his sandshrew body could possibly reach in my opinion without significant TM investment. I needed to get that damned Ice Stone.

All other focus was on getting Axel, Grauben, and Lyle up to where I could use them in at least the preliminaries and the initial round after the preliminaries. Dad wanted me to showcase my minor discoveries up until that point and then from there keep Hannibal and Artagnan as aces for reveals at the ends of six on six matches.

I understood that the impact of them would be astounding however, so despite the fact that leading with or pivoting with Artagnan made more sense I would stick to that plan. I did love melodrama in no small amount.

I winced as even with my deep reflection I noticed Hannibal zoom out of the Sandstorm and send Lyle flying with a casual smack of his wing. It wasn't even a proper infused technique, he just did the pterodactyl version of a backhand. He cackled darkly before going into a tailspin to avoid five otherwise expertly aimed Rock Blasts from Grauben.

Those Rock Blasts constantly came out almost fully in sync with each other and so consistently on the same target that I was beginning to think that my fossil pokemon were truly regional variants. Their darker coloring and mottled patterns were perfect for their untold generations of development underground, and they may even have non-standard abilities for their species as well. Axel, the kabutops, certainly had Weak Armor as an ability, but that was only rare, not unheard of for the species. With one of the existing examples revived from the fossils having it as well. Not that a sample size of a dozen individuals was sufficient for a statistical population analysis.

Lyle was really really trying. He had a vicious future combination with Hone Claws and Power Trip as his mainstays. We'd been working on getting that up and active as quickly as possible. The poor kid wasn't going to be doing much damage until he evolved into a krokorok however. His small sandile body just couldn't do as much. I was likely going to try and turn him into an alternative set-up sweeper. I am almost certain he had Moxie as his ability, therefore just a little set-up and one KO and Power Trip would skyrocket in power. To that end I eventually wanted him to learn Swagger and Roar to disrupt the enemy team and Earthquake to be the alternative damage option. We'd see later if he could handle an extra technique or two for coverage or situational punishment. Facade and Scale Shot would both be amazing for different reasons if we could pull it off.

My new golurk, name pending based on getting to know him better, was a physical powerhouse. He barely had any true control of his ghostly energies, finding phasing in and out rather difficult, but having a truly powerful Shadow Punch. He also knew Iron Defense, Heavy Slam, Hammer Arm, and Flash Cannon.

We were going to change that up a bit due to his Iron Fist ability. I wanted to teach him Drain Punch and the elemental Punches, and I was honestly okay if Flash Cannon and Iron Defense went away. As a giant or Alpha pokemon (I was still unsure which it was) his weight was enough that Heavy Slam was great to keep.

That brought me to what I wanted to do with my soon to hatch pawniard. Obviously the end goal was to have it become a brutal wallbreaker after recreating the method to evolve a kingambit. But the path to that would likely be exceptionally long. There was no "leader's crest" item in this world that I could find.

The only modern recorded kingambit was when Chairwoman Geeta's bisharp defeated a wild bisharp that was leading a swarm of other bisharp and pawniard in a raid that would have overwhelmed Zapapico Town. So essentially, you had to have your bisharp defeat bisharp in single combat that was a leader of multiple packs worth of underlings. Not the easiest situation to fabricate or find.

The good news was that as a bisharp the goal moveset wouldn't actually change all that much. I would still want Swords Dance, Sucker Punch, Iron Head, and then some coverage moves like Low Kick or Brick Break and utility such as Protect or Substitute. Pursuit would be another possible option to punish switching.

With these goals in mind we continued working ourselves to the bone over the following weeks. My father even visited to check out the pond of ancient pokemon. He was fascinated by my regional/environmental variant theory and the data I had so far collected and collated. I would be ready to present initial findings shortly. My initial paper on my exploration of the Colossus Ruins was actually already in the review stage and could be published before the Conference! My pokegear pinged one night as I washed grease off of my hands after another hour of working on the antique Samson had procured for me. Brock said that Ash had beaten Giovanni's gym trainer and gained the Earth Badge. They would be here in a few days.

Showtime.

Hanging Tough, Staying Hungry

"Whoa!" Ash exclaimed as he looked around the entrance to the Ranch.

I'd gotten a text from Brock when they caught sight of the gate and gone up to meet them.

"It's not as full as Professor Oak's corral though!"

I chuckled, "Of course not, Ash. These are just mine here. Oak has pokemon from dozens of trainers and all of his research projects. It's just my team and my research and trade reserve here."

"This is all just for you? Is your family loaded or something?"

Had…we not been over this already? Huh, perhaps not.

"My father was the lead on the team that invented the Fossil Resurrection Device. The one that created Brock's kabuto and Misty's omanyte from leftover DNA found in fossils."

Honestly it was just fancy cloning in my opinion. Which was why the anti-cloning laws put in place after this invention specifically were about "living pokemon". Because they knew it wouldn't be long before full cloning of extant pokemon would be possible. Which considering Mewtwo existing…yeah.

"Oh wow!" Ash was so eloquent. "Anyways let's get training! I want a rematch!"

I chuckled, we had two and a half weeks until when I estimated the New Island 'Tournament' would happen. We'd have to make it count.

"Alright, Brock you ref, we'll do a thre-no, you know what, I have a Healing Machine on hand and a Storage Transporter. Let's do a full six on six battle and we'll create a plan afterwards!"

Ash was jumping up and down in joy as we got out to the main practice zone I'd created. It used the intersection of the grass area, the rocky badlands area, and a roped off corner of the pond to create a varied field.

"Can we start with a full rematch between Butterfree and your sandshrew?" Ash's question caught me off guard, I'd expected him to still have let go of Butterfree, that was apparently not the case.

I nodded and pulled out Brinker's Premier Ball, "That works for me! Take the field!" I called as Ash quickly followed suit.

Except Ash was in for a surprise, I'd FINALLY gotten a hold of an Ice Stone. So a freshly evolved Alolan sandslash stood at the ready.

"It evolved!" Truly a perceptive trainer.

"Brinker sure did!" I stated, "And it was quite the power-up! I hope Butterfree can keep up! Misty Spin!" I called out our standard opener.

Brinker would use a Rapid Spin to disperse his Mist faster and move into an immediate Rollout for maneuverability.

"Alright, Butterfree!" Ash called out, "We know he can get rid of your powders! Use Bug Buzz instead!"

My eyebrows raised at that, Ash definitely had taken some of our earlier lessons and battles to heart. And that meant his butterfree had gotten quite a bit stronger too, Bug Buzz meant he was somewhere in the thirties as far as move learning progress went.

The green waves of noise-energy blasted off of Butterfree and forced Brinker to roll backwards to avoid early damage.

"Shard!" I called out and with a twist of gyroscopic direction a blue glow showed along one axis of Brinker's spin and with a thwump a small knife of ice shot out at Butterfree before he could act again.

"Free!" It cried out at the super-effective hit.

"It's so fast!" Ash commented before recovering, "Show them what we learned from Sabrina!"

Coded commands? Good job, Ash! I thought to myself as the butterfree glowed with bluish-purple light. Some kind of charged Psybeam variant perhaps? Then the glowing aura sprung up around Brinker to match and I gaped. Ash had managed to somehow get Butterfree to learn Psychic? And apparently from or because of Sabrina?

"Mirror Coat!" I called out and while Brinker got slammed around by the psychic energies he also began to glow with a bright sheen.

"Butterfree, watch out!" Was all Ash could called out before the Mirror Coat reflected all that damage back on Butterfree, knocking him out. Brinker did not escape unscathed, he came out of his Rollout and seemed uneasy on his feet. We both returned our pokemon.

"Pika, pi?" Pikachu called up at Ash from next to his feet. "No, not yet, let's see what else Isaac has before you go out, okay Pikachu?"

Another very smart move, especially considering my specialty. I saw Brock nod in approval from over at the side. He hadn't had to make any calls yet as Ash and I were both fairly considerate battlers. I decided I wasn't going to use any of my major surprises for this fight, except perhaps Hannibal, so my next pokemon was one that interested Brock and Misty both.

"En garde, Axel!" Out came my dark and mottled brown kabutops, scythes threatening.

"Who's that pokemon?" Ash said in surprise and pulled out his pokedex, not really kosher for the fight but I'd allow it. He was a kid and this wasn't a ranked match.

"Kabutops, the shellfish pokemon, its sleek shape is perfect for swimming. It slashes prey with its claws and drains the body fluids." Dexter said aloud in his mechanical voice.

"Fish? Alright! Go, Bulbasaur!" Amusing. I knew this bulbasaur was pretty strong, but I also was pretty sure it hadn't picked up Solar Beam yet, that would be a while.

"Set up with Swords Dance!" I wasn't as in sync with Axel and Grauben as I was with Hannibal, seeing as I had trained with him far more.

Axel whirled around setting himself up and Ash gave his first command, "Razor Leaf! Stay away from those claws!"

Good call. It wouldn't help though.

"Aqua Jet," I loved using fast priority moves right after a boost on my sweepers. It was both satisfying and helped a trainer set and control the tempo of the battle.

Axel shot forward with streams of water flying backwards out from his feet as he crossed his claws in preparation for the strike. The Razor Leaf still struck, but not as impactful as many of them ricocheted off of his armor at odd angles. And those that did hit on point chipped off and activated Weak Armor.

Now, the Aqua Jet didn't hit very hard, with Bulbasaur resisting, but what it did do was send the plant monster stumbling back and closed the distance in a blink.

This was a pretty bad match-up for Axel actually, we were trying to work up to Leech Life but for now we only had Fury Cutter learned from practicing with Artagnan, and that was resisted by Bulbasaur's secondary poison typing. But we had the Swords Dance boost to attack and the Weak Armor boost to speed, so we'd make do with neutral damage.

"Go to town with Fury Cutter!" I commanded, letting him know he was to keep the chain going. At this point it would just depend on if Bulbasaur could get a solid hit in before Axel ground him down.

We got two hits in before Ash regathered his instincts, "Vine Whip, up into the air!"

Smart move in the short term, but long term…that was a sitting duck as the bulbasaur pushed off the ground with Vine Whip and went a solid eight meters into the air.

"Rock Tomb the top of its curve!" I called out.

"Solar Beam!"

What? Uh oh…either Ash had pushed Bulbasaur harder or I'd had my dream about Bulbasaur learning the move out of order when I'd seen much of Ash's journey. And unfortunately for me it was also quite bright out today, probably enough to almost replicate a Sunny Day.

"Nevermind, put the rocks between you!" I called out just as Bulbasaur finished charging and fired off the beam. The rocks from the Rock Tomb moved into place, Axel's blades prying them out of the ground, just in time to block the brunt of the direct elemental damage of the Solar Beam, but not enough to stop the damage from the explosion and shrapnel.

The smoke cleared as Bulbasaur landed and I saw that both pokemon were breathing hard, but not out of it yet.

I returned Axel anyway, "Let's not push them to their limits in a friendly match, okay Ash?"

"I guess that's fine, as long as we're training more later!" He returned Bulbasaur as well, "Great job, you're really getting good with Solar Beam!"

I smiled at that exchange and decided to once more give him the advantage by sending out first.

"Let's go, Lyle!" I called and sent out the Level Ball with my sandile. I was hoping whatever Ash sent out gave him the push to evolve into krokorok, he was so close.

"Dile!"

"Huh?" Ash didn't say the full motto as he pulled his pokedex back out.

"Sandile, the desert croc pokemon, they live buried in the sands of the desert. The sunwarmed sands prevent their body temperature from dropping."

"Ground...and…Dark? I've never fought that type before…okay, go Pidgeotto!"

"OTO!" With a caw his second captured pokemon ever was revealed.

"Power up time!" I called and Lyle viciously scratched his claws on the ground in front of him building up energy in them.

"Don't let him keep going, Isaac likes those moves! Whirlwind to knock him around!"

Now, Whirlwind and Roar didn't always phase a pokemon completely back to the ball the way they did in the games that I have hazily seen my former self play. (I definitely remember Whirlwind and Stealth Rocks being apparently a personal favorite of my previous incarnation). They functioned more as a less powerful but more reliable Dragon Tail. They always sent the opposing pokemon flying or reeling back, and they fully returned them more often than Dragon Tail.

"Sa!" Lyle, for all he hadn't been a member for long, knew what moves we needed to avoid. He jumped straight into a Dig to avoid it.

"Pop up into Swagger!" I called out and Lyle popped out behind Pidgeotto and got its attention by calling out and dancing and waggling his tail around cockily, a light haze of normal-type energy around him. Swagger was a weird move and I had given up understanding some of these ages ago. It just…worked, I guess?

Regardless, Pidgeotto was now enraged and confused. Ash surprised me by sighing and returning Pidgeotto, "Sorry buddy, I know you wanted to fight, but I think you were going to start hurting yourself there."

It was a good move, but I was sad Lyle hadn't gotten the fight he needed to evolve. I returned him as well.

"Hey, Ash? How's Charmander been doing?"

Ash immediately brightened up, "He's great! He's Charmeleon now, and it was hard to get him to listen to me for a bit there initially but I really think lately he's started to trust me more again!"

There it was, the biggest change I'd made with both my mentoring of Ash and my early acquisition of Grampa Canyon. Charmeleon hadn't evolved into an even more disobedient Charizard by fighting an aerodactyl, that may or may not have been an escaped Hannibal.

I fingered that Dusk Ball on my belt…what if…what if we could push him that extra bit? Right here? Right now? I'd been working on getting Hannibal to keep himself on the restrained side of the line of acceptable violence.

Yeah, this could be…fun. Was I basically custom building my own rival for the future? Sure. But…I licked my lips, I think the reason why I had stayed in the classroom for the first few years of having a team was anxiety as much as it had been an academic nature. Ever since I got that first taste of truly thrilling combat with Surge, I'd begun to enjoy the taste of a challenge.

 

[ILoveAGothGirl]

feel like the time skips need more distinction as I remember him asking for Ashe to visit Sabrina but the next time we meet him it is training for the conference. Maybe add a sentence or two talking about something that happened or just more noticeable breaks for time skips. Either way I love this so far.

 

[Isaac A Drake]

feel like the time skips need more distinction as I remember him asking for Ashe to visit Sabrina but the next time we meet him it is training for the conference. Maybe add a sentence or two talking about something that happened or just more noticeable breaks for time skips. Either way I love this so far.

Click to shrink...

Felt the last paragraph of the first of the two chapters did that but I will definitely look into editing it to be more explicit.

 

[Isaac A Drake]

21-23, New Island Arc

The Island of Dr. Fuji

The rain beat down but Hannibal's Tailwind kept any of it from breaking through to pelt his hide or soak me to the bones. We were already circling New Island to come in for a landing.

The last month and change of sparring and training had gone well, I thought to myself as I glanced over and saw Ash and Misty flying next to us within the Tailwind on the recently evolved Pidgeot who was using their own move to further support Hannibal's control of the skies.

Brock was having the time of his life getting the closest look he'd ever been allowed of Hannibal as he rode behind me. As we landed I grudgingly accepted that the castle was quite impressive. I'm not even sure what type of architecture style to ascribe to it, with the wind turbines on the towers, the spiraling nature of those towers, and the odd elongated arches, it was abundantly clear an inhuman intelligence is what conceived of this project.

Fergus, the bulky trainer with the water pokemon as well as his own nidoqueen was there already as we let ourselves in. I nodded at him as we took our seats.

The Grand Hall was a large space as befitted the name, I leerily looked over the strange spiraling pillars that I knew were there to suck up our pokemon with Mewtwo's strange poaching pokeballs. Honestly, Mewtwo could make a killing if Silph Co would give him a job. Proof of concept with his clones and those pokeballs would get him a researcher position faster than you could say bidoof! Why bidoof? I'm unclear on that myself but seeing as my knee was bouncing up and down at the time I'm going to assume I was quite nervous here waiting for this highly anticipated (in a very not good way) event to commence.

"Are you really this nervous for a tournament? Have you not done one before? I know you only had like the one real gym battle."

Misty tried not to let her bias against the way Pokemon Tech kids had a reputation of not being fully prepared for the full tournament setting and getting knocked out before the preliminaries were over their first year, but it still bled through.

"No…" I shook my head at her question, "There's something wrong about this entire set up. We should be on guard. I thought we'd be fighting on the island, sure, but none of the surveys have a castle of all things here."

So that was a filthy lie, but no worse than any of the others I had spoken over the last year. It was…truth adjacent to prepare them for the inevitable. That caused Misty to begin glaring around at the setting in suspicion. She wasn't subtle, either.

This was also when Corey and Neesha arrived in quick succession. They took their seats and let their pokemon out as well. It was surprising to me how much of my Kantoan pokemon I had in common with the other New Island trainers. I had honestly forgotten or not had a vision regarding some of the ground types on display such as the rhyhorn and nidoqueen. And I didn't remember the scyther and sandslash at all.

I fiddled with the antique pokeball around my neck as we waited for Mewtwo's appearance and Ash and company chatted with the competition. Ash's wartortle was sizing up Neesha's blastoise appreciatively and Neesha herself was hammering Ash with questions over how he had gotten a dragonair.

The fact that Ash had managed to catch the dratini who I am very certain based on having gotten it from an island after a dragonite saved him from a capsized tour boat during the giant tentacruel attack on Porto Vista that it was the same pokemon that would later grow into his world championship dragonite had been a major surprise for myself as well.

It had evolved into its current dragonair form during our weeks of training. Specifically during a light training in dragon-type energy with Sharazad. Ash let very little slip actually, only saying that a dragonite had saved them from a shipwreck and had wanted him to take their child with him on his journey after. Very mature. Even if he had said it loudly and waved his arms around like a maniac.

But that was neither here, nor there, as I came out of my musings Mewtwo revealed himself from his "disguise" and began his challenges. Things proceeded similarly to my fragmented dreams, both the blastoise and the venusaur were quickly handled by the clones. However, before Ash could battle the charizard I stepped forward,

"Mewtwo, a moment of your time before we proceed?" I called out.

The genetically modified being turned glowing purple eyes to me, "Curious. Speak, human."

"I have been investigating Giovanni and the Viridian City Gym for some time, and recently I have presented my findings to the League and was tasked with determining where the unknown pokemon he used in his gym challenges disappeared to. From your meager details in your story I am presuming that you were that pokemon?"

"Indeed, I was. But no more! I am no longer a slave to you humans, to be used to meet your petty goals!"

"Good, good, I wouldn't want you to be. The only pokemon that should be working with us are those that choose us as partners."

I gestured at the two pokemon I had out of their pokeballs, Cleo and Estella, "All of my partners know they are free to return to their location of choosing should they ever no longer wish to follow me, I know that you will not find that believable, thinking them coerced through the bread and circuses of the human world. But it is the truth and what I believe should be the standard, what many humans believe should be the standard."

"If you do not think I will believe your claims, which I do not as they are ridiculous, why state them?"

"Because, Mewtwo. I know that Ash Ketchum's charizard will beat your clone. It has trained rigorously with my own pokemon for the last few months and I believe in their bond they have developed. If Charizard beats your clone, you will hear my offer from the League and give it good faith consideration!"

Mewtwo looked so much stranger and more alien in person than it had in my dreams. The ridge above his eyes made them look sunken and sallow, the extra piping jutting out from the base of his skull that looped around and connected lower on his spine was off putting as his head swiveled taking in the scene, and the unearthly glow of his psychically empowered eyes made my own spine shiver in some kind of primal fear. Only a light rippling of my own shadow calmed my nerves as I delivered my wager.

"Very well, I will hear out your offer should this…Ash Ketchum," He practically sneered the name, which was impressive to manage that level of inflection with telepathic messaging, "Manage to defeat my own charizard. But I make no promises of my response."

And with that Ash called out his charizard with much bravado to begin the duel. Working with my pokemon, particularly Shahrazad and Hannibal, had deepened Charizard's move pool from what it normally would have been so early after evolution.

While he could have answered the Flamethrower from the clone with his own, Ash commanded him to instead meet it with a Dragon Breath learned from Shahrazad, the move would not be resisted by the opposing monster and the draconic energies were tightly packed and prone to stunning opponents.

In fact after the third such strafing exchange by the combatants the clone seized up, for just a moment, but that was all Ash needed to push an advantage.

"Wing Attack!" Ash called out, finally having memorized his type match-ups he knew that flying-type did not resist itself. Charizard darted in to bring the match to his true strength, physical combat. Wing Attacks and Slashes were unleashed on the clone in brutal combinations, not allowing it a moment to breathe.

However, it did eventually come to its senses and was capable of fighting back. In close quarters the bulky clone preferred grapples and bites, and the fight became a veritable bloodbath, certainly the bloodiest fight I had seen in person to this date.

"I don't like this," Brock stated, "They are fighting more like wild charizard competing for dominance of a flight!"

Misty had even covered her eyes, "Tell me when it's over."

I gritted my teeth, I was still fairly certain Ash was winning…but… "Ash!" I called out, "End it now, finish it!"

Ash's eyes lit up in recognition, "SEISMIC TOSS!"

He called out just as Charizard hooked the clone with another Slash attack, with a feral grin Charizard transitioned the hook into a grapple under the wings of the clone. They spun up and then around and plummeted down. The clone was body slammed by Charizard into the dirt below. Both struggled, but only Ash's charizard stood tall, with a roar he sent a final gout of flame into the sky.

"That was amazing, Charizard! You deserve a rest!" Ash returned his champion and I turned towards Mewtwo, repressing a smirk.

"Well, Mewtwo, will you hear my offer?" I wasn't sure of the range of facial expressions normal for Mewtwo, but I was fairly certain a displeased frown was on his face.

"Speak." My shadow fluttered and barely stopped that word from hitting me like a command. Allowing me to marshal my thoughts coherently instead of having words come tumbling out in a babble.

"The Pokemon League would like you to partner with us to bring Giovanni in for his crimes. He only just a few days ago escaped a raid on the Viridian City Gym, we would like you to help us bring down Team Rocket. Hopefully this would appeal to you, as he mistreated you horribly, and allow you to learn more about how normal society is not so bad as the Team Rocket who funded your creation."

"You offer me revenge? In hopes that I will come to trust you? Such blatant manipulation."

"No, Mewtwo!" I firmly called back across the room, "I offer you closure on the worst the world has to offer and exposure to the best of it!"

A condescending laugh echoed through all of our minds, causing everyone else to stumble as I barely resisted through gritted teeth and a ripple of my shadow.

"Let's settle this the way your 'best of society' does then! Impress me in a battle…with myself."

And without any warning he threw a blasted Shadow Ball right at me.

"GOL!" A cry screeched out as the lumbering form of my giant golurk shot out of my shadow and with a shining fist punched the ghostly orb mid-air, shattering it.

Blood and adrenaline pumped through my veins as I turned to Mewtwo with a grin, "I wouldn't have it any other way, kick his ass, Mr. Darcy!"

My golurk's legs faded from view and he began hovering with his main thruster. He rocketed forward with both fists glowing with ghostly energies. I saw Mewtwo's eyes widen for the briefest second before he teleported out of the way of the one-two combination aimed straight for his head.

What followed was a terrifying game of cat and mouse. With Mewtwo actually being put on the back foot as the mouse at the start. With Mr. Darcy I had traded versatility for type-coverage. He knew every single punching attack he could learn, giving him amazing elemental coverage, but that meant he had no long range capabilities except for fading out and back in with Phantom Force. He didn't even have a STAB ground-type move due to this. He could punch and body slam with multiple elements and he had his mobility skill with Phantom Force, but that was it.

We weren't landing enough hits, however, those we did land were both super-effective and were weakening Mewtwo's hold on his impressive psychic powers with the introduction of clinging ghostly distortion. And then Mewtwo teleported high up into the soaring ceiling, formed a spherical psychic barrier around himself, and then his entire body glowed with Recover.

"No!" I called out, "Phantom Force, get up there!"

But the damage was done, just as a Shadow Punch shattered the Barrier, Mewtwo's eyes snapped open and a wave of pure Psychic rippled out and slammed Mr. Darcy into the ceiling, and before he could fade away into another Phantom Force, Mewtwo formed a Shadow Ball and as if he were spiking a volleyball, slammed it into Mr. Darcy's torso. The ghostly light of Mr. Darcy's eyes faded away into unconsciousness, and I returned him to his Dusk Ball as he fell from the sky.

Licking my lips I fingered my other pokeballs on my belt as Cleo tried to step forward with a growl, that was not a good match-up, I didn't have many good match-ups left actually. And then, just as I was about to enlarge the Dusk Ball holding Hannibal, my body froze. Without Mr. Darcy to protect me with distortional energy, I was completely at Mewtwo's mercy.

"Enough!" His telepathic voice hammered about in my skull. "A good match, but not impressive enough! You thought a type-advantage and brute force could match me? Pathetic."

I felt my body lift up into the air a few inches, "Now, I shall take all of your poor pokemon for my own and create a perfect clone army to replace them. And then I shall strip all you know of this Team Rocket from your mind and have my own quest."

And I felt him start to push into my mind, frantically I tried to hide the memories of my dreams. I wasn't fast enough.

"What? What is this?" Confusion echoed about as Mewtwo caught an image of Mew interfering in one of my dreams. However, before he could delve deeper a pink light instead began to emit from the large antique pokeball around my neck in rippling waves.

Breaking his hold on me and allowing me to fall back to the ground, quickly collapsing to my hands and knees. A shimmering pink Light Screen appeared in front of me and the pokeball detached from its chain and floated forward.

Growing first, then beginning to fold out into a form. A form of a clockwork, bunny-eared, pokemon seemingly sculpted as a child in a poofy antique dress.

"LEAVE MY DADDY ALONE!" A new telepathic voice joined the conversation. The voice of Ozma, the Magearna I had procured through Samson Oak from an Alolan antique shop and had studiously and lovingly repaired over the past two months.

From Whence We Came

Ozma had a problem. More correctly, a few problems stemming from one set of related facts. She was young, inexperienced in battle, and not particularly powerful. She's just like me, I reflected as I struggled to regain my strength, balance, and footing. She has vague dream-like memories of who she was before I awoke her, repaired her.
She's nowhere near strong enough to face Mewtwo! I slammed one fist into the stone floor, trying desperately to stand, to help, to do anything. Cleo and Estella had joined in, on the defensive.

Bonemerangs intercepted Shadow Balls, being useless as a direct attack against Mewtwo's telekinetic prowess; and Ice Beams consistently forced psychic barriers up to keep his focus split.

Ozma herself was alternating between reflective Mirror Shots and the more powerful elemental Tri-Attacks, and yet it was to no avail. She was constantly having to move back to the defensive and renew her Light Screens to protect from Psychic attacks and Shadow Balls that pushed past Estella's bone.

There were worse ways this could be going, I groggily reminded myself as I struggled, but at this rate Mewtwo was going to-I heard the whirring of something opening up above us.

Yep, here come the weird evil pokeballs, I needed to move! Just as I had that thought, Ozma released her version of Heal Bell, the chiming sound filled everyone around her with vigor and shook us out of our stupors, imposed or otherwise. That didn't heal my bruised body, but it did clear my mind of the fog that had left me seemingly paralyzed.

Something in me resonated with the fae energies of that Heal Bell and I felt my connection with my pokemon stronger than ever. Cleo was channeling up for a massive Earth Power to try and fling part of the floor at Mewtwo and Estella was still playing defense with her Bone Club.

There was something there, at the edge of my senses, teasing me, something I'd felt before. But where? Where had I felt this-The Underworld. I'd felt the sharp edges of this there underneath the pressure of that monster in the depths. And in the Desert Resort during my dream. I reached out for that feeling. It was inside of me and external to me simultaneously.

It was… my affinities. Suddenly I was connected to the rock of the island. The marble of the floor. The sand of the beachheads Mewtwo had not terraformed. The metal in the chairs. And with a wrenching mental fist I pulled as much of it into myself for strength as possible.

Pulsing with the strength of earth and metal I stood, finally taking in the full breadth of the ballroom battle, it was not in fact isolated to just myself and my team. The other trainers were fighting off the evil pokeballs and the clone venusaur and blastoise who had joined the fray.

Ash had Dragonair and Pidgeot whipping up Tailwinds and Twisters to deflect the swarms of evil pokeballs, with the pidgeot of one of the other trainers joining in as well.

Thinking much more slowly than normally, punch drunk as I was, I eventually landed my left hand onto the correct pokeball and released Shahrazad, "Alright girl, we're in a bit of a mess, I need you to…"

I struggled for my typical strategic over-explaining I used during training and then just gave up, "Sandstorm and Buzz him."

She nodded grimly, understanding the situation and took off, green wings flickering and blurring as she surged forth, quickly whipping up a cloud of sand that began to whirl around the field where my pokemon were fighting.

"Bah!" I heard Mewtwo call out in all our heads, "These base tricks will not save you. I can still sense where all of you are!"

Which is fair, but not actually the point of my strategy here. Sure Mewtwo could still attack, and use his barriers to defend, but hopefully he wouldn't be able to see exactly what types of attack were coming his way. Then a horrible racket and a burst of green light broke through the blurriness of the Sandstorm and Mewtwo shot out the other side, clearly having taken a solid hit from Shahrazad's Bug Buzz. A super-effective hit that hopefully would rattle his focus. Even just a little could turn the tide here.

"Enough!" Mewtwo's psychic scream assaulted their minds as he let loose a rippling purple wave of psionic energies.

Blasting away the Sandstorm and all of my pokemon. I returned Cleo, that hit had been too super-effective for my liking. Shahrazad and Ozma linked up in front of me, and Estella was off to the side, leaning on her bone club heavily. I'd have to return her next.

I called out Artagnan, my final strong super-effective counter to Mewtwo. Not that that had worked out well so far. Luckily Ozma's compact form hadn't been a real registered pokeball, so I'd been able to bring everyone I might need, along with Hannibal to fly in.

"Kleavor!" Artagnan gestured menacingly with his axes, one glowing a sickly green with X-Scissor and the other glowing with the blackish energy of Night Slash.

"How are you still standing? You vile pathetic human!" Mewtwo's psychic yell assaulted our minds once more.

"I…I didn't hear no bell," I slurred out. In retrospect I think I had a concussion here.

Mewtwo's roar of rage and frustration was almost worth the instant migraine. I can be pretty petty when I wanted to. He formed an absolutely giant Shadow Ball and sent it spinning towards all of us. But my pokemon had it. Ozma threw up the Light Screen to slow it down, allowing Shahrazad to hit it with a Dragonbreath to slow it further. Then Artagnan lined up his shot with a Sword's Dance that powered him up enough to leap forward and slice through the weakened orb.

"I am done playing this game." Uh oh, that didn't sound-The whirring screech and orange glow of a Hyper Beam began generating between Mewtwo's two hands held near each other. I got a memory flash of a man with spiky hair and a monkey-tail about to blow up a planet. I didn't like that mental connection I was making.

"Everyone, move!" I called out as we attempted to scatter.

But it was to no avail, the destructive beam lanced out towards us and-shattered on the strongest Protect barrier I had ever seen. It glowed so brightly white that it was opaque. As both the attack and the barrier faded, a surprise of timing if not existence was revealed for me.

Mew. The New Species Pokemon. The original mythical pokemon.

"Mew mew mew!" It called out in its own language, with a tone I would consider… indignant? Confused and slightly angry?

After…chastising? Sure, after chastising Mewtwo, Mew bounced over in the air to Ozma and…booped her on the head with its tail almost affectionately. This was…well Mew even in my visions and dreams had been odd but it was more odd in person.

"Father, she says she will talk to Mewtwo and sort things out for us? I…I trust this one for some reason. I think she knew me before? In the before-times where it's all hazy for me. She said she was glad to see me awake again?"

Ozma seemed very confused by the entire exchange, which made perfect sense. Because I was confused as well. I just hoped my attempt to open things up with negotiations and my bet had perhaps softened Mewtwo to the idea of working together and backing off of his plan for…world domination?

His end goal was kind of unclear. Like he definitely had planned some kind of N style revolution originally but his structured plan didn't seem to really support that end goal. Then again he was what, a year old? If you considered his tank as an incubator at least. I'd cut him some slack.

While Mew and Mewtwo argued back and forth, Mewtwo no longer projecting for all of us to hear, I sneakily returned Estella and had my other pokemon gather around. I pulled out a Revive for Mr. Darcy and-even while distracted by Mew a purple-blue glow surrounded and crushed it, I turned and saw Mewtwo glare at me.

I shrugged as if to project, "Can't blame me for trying,".

It was nice to know, however, that Mewtwo didn't want to do a round two of that fight. Boosted my confidence a little. The good news, in spite of my recovery attempt being stymied, was that during his conversation with Mew, Mewtwo had temporarily called off the attack of the black pokeballs. They hovered menacingly above the area and the assembled trainers kept wary eyes upon them. But, they did not continue their assault.

Only a few pokemon had been taken already, with most of the remaining pokemon having organized better than in my visions under their trainers. I palmed Hannibal's Dusk Ball, wondering if I should bring him out if negotiations broke down. His empowered Crunch attack would be pretty brutal against Mewtwo and his barriers, but even with the high ceiling it was just a little too cramped in here for me to feel safe with his maneuvering room.

After a heated five or so minutes of psychic arguments the two legendary pokemon broke apart. Mewtwo floating down towards his…speaking dias? I wasn't sure what to call that, what with him not really speaking out loud and thus not needing the acoustics that location provided. Mew however, floated over to Ash and began chattering happily at Pikachu.

"Huh," I blinked in confusion right along with Pikachu, "You think Mew knows Pikachu from somewhere?" I asked Ozma, who had come over to my side during the breather we'd gotten. The freshly rebuilt megearna shrugged her shoulders, not looking too invested in the idea to begin with. That's when Mewtwo, having taken a contemplative pose, projected into our minds again.

"My…relative, let's say, has pointed out to me that as a whole this group of…trainers and pokemon has risen to my every challenge."

The word trainers had a psychic…tone? Flavor? A psychic impression of distaste.

"Thus, I will tentatively accept your offer. Should this…Pokemon League impress me in their handling of my former tormentor, I will consider a…reevaluation of my opinions. Should they find themselves lacking, I can always resume my…what did you call it? Crusade? Amusing term, perhaps even accurate."

I froze, I'd only ever thought of that term, never spoken it outright to Mewtwo. That was chilling.

I could tell that this next portion was sent only to me, "Indeed, Isaac, of both Drake and Beech, your mind is puzzling. And the visions you hold are a substantial reason why I am even considering this…arrangement."

Well pardon my Kalosian but I wasn't sure if I wasn't in a pile of shit if Mewtwo had seen even a fraction of that.

"And as a show of good faith," He gestured and about a baker's dozen black pokeballs soared back from the tubes they had escaped down and released the pokemon they had captured back to their trainers.

It was then that Brock voiced the thought that I am assuming preoccupied most of our minds, "So…now what? Are we good to go?"

Mewtwo waved that off, "Nonsense, the storm is still running its course. Instead of the cells I suppose you can all stay in the guest wing tonight."

This felt…awkward. Mew giggled, it seemed as if she agreed with me, and in fact delighted in that.

Meowth Among the Pidgeys

We crouched behind tree cover as we observed the Team Rocket Warehouse in the middle of Five Island Meadow. We being myself, the International Police agents Nanu and Koichi (who apparently as a trainee had yet to take his eponymous name from my few visions of his future as Looker), a Ranger named Kerrigan, and the local Officer Jenny.

Elite Four Lorelei was in the surrounding seas ready to catch anyone fleeing by air or water. And Mewtwo was…somewhere, waiting to teleport in. My kadabra, the Absent One, was part of my team for this excursion as he could communicate over long distances with everyone, including Mewtwo. Who he referred to as The Apogee. Or The Psychic Who Soars the Highest. Not concerning at all. (I am in fact super concerned about this).

Once we had set up a perimeter with ourselves and our pokemon the plan was for Mewtwo to teleport in, rip the roof off the building, and block teleportation out so we could go in and arrest everyone inside. Easy peasy, right?

"Target in sight, perimeter being set." I had The Absent One transmit, and my cohort all began to spread out to their target points. To this end Mr. Darcy sat waiting in my shadow as a bodyguard, Hannibal and Shahrazad were waiting back at the edge of town to take flight, Cleo had already tunneled underneath us here, and I had Artagnan still in his ball waiting for a duel.

The heat of the Sevii Islands was not conducive to Alexei or Brinker, and my other pokemon were too inexperienced or in Estella's case I just had to have the kadabra instead for the operation. We weren't entirely sure if Giovanni was on site, but we knew a significant number of his remaining admins were. We had intel confirming that Archer, Domino, and a poaching expert named Robert Vicious were present inside.

That was enough leadership to have us believe that perhaps Giovanni was holding court in some way. Mewtwo, however, had stated that he would only aid us outside of the initial cracking of the warehouse if Giovanni himself were present. Essentially, the psychic-type had called dibs.

The rest of my team dispersed to their locations in the ambush. The ranger and Jenny were one pair, Koichi and Nanu were another, and I was left all on my lonesome. I was slightly confused by this, but I was technically a seventeen year old, eight badge trainer, with a direct psychic talk-line to a legendary pokemon so maybe they thought I would be fine.

Of course Nanu had told me to only engage if forced to and that they would 'take care of most of the arrests'. As if. Nanu was probably the only person in this group with a stronger team than mine. I'd be needed, I was sure of it.

I feel like maybe they were expecting most of them to flee which is why Lorelei, our heavy hitter, was out in the ocean perimeter. In my opinion the likelihood of fleeing was based on how obviously Mewtwo revealed himself.

"I believe they are using one of your communication devices," Speak of the devil and he would speak to you apparently, "Their minds show Giovanni's face yet I sense not his presence."

I frowned, that was unfortunate, he must have completely gone to ground and was only communicating through digital proxies. He'd be hard to chase down now.

"I understand, you can remove the roof and then fall back to just observe if you so choose."

"As agreed upon," He reminded me, "If they have a strong enough challenge I may step in. Do not be disappointing and allow yourself to be too easily overwhelmed however, or I may leave you to your fate."

Turning to the Absent One I had him transmit to the team that we were ready to begin. With a blue glow the roof of the warehouse was torn off and flung into the distance, hopefully towards the ocean.

Rocket Grunts came swarming out like bees. A sandstorm whipped around in the air fifty feet above us as Shahrazad and Hannibal arrived, just in time to block off a large golbat, a charizard, a fearow, and a honchkrow from escaping into the air. I trusted them to handle that, Hannibal had plenty of practice sparring with Ash's Charizard. And Shahrazad could likely crush the rest. Her mastery of her sonic abilities would neutralize the golbat's own skills and give her the upper hand on the other two in the sandstorm.

As I surveyed the fleeing Rockets I saw the Jenny and ranger corralling dozens of Grunts with their pair of arcanine and other pokemon. Across the field Nanu was taking on a man I recognized as Proton, an admin we had not known was in attendance, while Koichi was taking on a pair of Rockets that had sent out an espeon and an ariados respectively.

I quickly positioned myself to cut off a mountain of a man wearing a metal mask as he pushed through the chaos with a few flunkies following behind.

"Robert Vicious!" I called out, "You are under arrest by the authority of the Indigo League. Stand down."

I pulled Artagnan's Safari Ball out into my hand, ready for him to refuse.

He grinned at me instead, "As if, kid! You're in for a world of hurt! We've still got some tricks left we hadn't shown before!"

I frowned as a pokeball very close in appearance to Mewtwo's black pokeballs appeared in his hand. Then with a sharp twinge in my brain I saw an angry and boosted tyranitar come from a similar ball in my mind. But luckily for me, it was not a tyranitar that emerged in the present. But a very enraged scizor, with roiling waves of black and purple energy coming off of it.

My breath caught, Shadow Pokemon. I'd had multiple visions of these, and I worried that that meant at some point, if not stopped now, Team Rocket may infect Ho-oh, Lugia, and even Mewtwo or Celebi with that strange condition.

The other part of me, the part that craved a challenge, took over though, I grinned, knowing that Artagnan was going to love this.

"You have a challenger, Artagnan!" I called out and threw the Safari Ball, releasing my kleavor.

"Kleave!" He cried in challenge as he appeared. His grin in some way matched my own as he eyed his opponent. I could tell as a primal sense of competition enveloped him.

"SWORDS DANCE!" Both I and Vicious called out to our pokemon. They both boosted with incredible talent and grace.

"Set advantage!" I called out a hidden command. This would have Artagnan swing in with a barrage of Stone Axes, with the intent of if he missed setting up small traps of floating shards to hit the opponent with later.

"Metal Claw! Tear it to shreds!" There definitely was a lot more oomph behind that strike than just the Swords Dance could account for. This Shadow Scizor was boosted beyond safe amounts. Not as much as a mega evolution of course, but the baseline level of this pokemon seemed to be that of a pokemon that had boosted off of the excess energies of Ancient Power twice at least.

Even as Artagnan parried it to the side to bleed most of the momentum off, the glowing silver pincher slammed into the ground with a thump, creating a small impact crater. No direct hits from that, I thought to myself.

"Afterimage!!" I had to keep Artagnan ahead of this juiced pokemon, and that meant our combination of Agility and Double Team. Two moves often used in conjunction, but rarely ever properly and fully combined. We'd been training hard.

The next Metal Claw went through a flickering image of Artagnan and suddenly the field was full of him. Each one continued on with the momentum he had carried when he left the image behind. Disorienting the opposing scizor significantly.

The scizor was however, still able to defend itself with a well timed use of Iron Defense. Crossing its pincher arms in front to block an on target Stone Axe. Artagnan didn't have any truly super effective moves, so I had him going for neutral same-typed moves.

"Close the trap!" I called out, and with a vicious cackle, Artagnan channeled his rock-type energy into his shards he'd left behind over the repeated exchanges of Stone Axes and Metal Claws. They all slammed into the scizor at once, sending it staggering backwards. At this point I made a gesture and Mr. Darcy emerged from Vicious's shadow and grabbed his arms.

"Shit…" He didn't struggle past this point. I went over and retrieved the vile pokeball and returned the scizor. Out of the corner of my eye as I walked over to handcuff him I noticed him slowly sliding some kind of cylinder out of his sleeve. I wasn't having any of that.

"Right hand, wrist." I coldly commanded, Mr. Darcy squeezed with just enough strength to do damage without actually breaking the bone, a crunch was still heard and some kind of remote fell out of his sleeve in pieces.

"Damnit!" He scowled at me now.

"Yeah, I am not a fresh faced trainer letting you all escape on a balloon."

He blinked then leered at me, "Well good luck keeping it in control if you find it."

His voice was dripping enough venom that I was pretty sure he wanted whatever it was to bite my head off when we found it. Shaking my head I brought him over to where Nanu had wrapped up with Proton and Koichi had Domino in handcuffs as well. The blonde woman was sitting on the ground pouting. Geez, Team Rocket recruited young, at this point she couldn't be more than two years older than I was. Then again I guess Jessie and James weren't much older than that? I looked over at the other two grunts Koichi had fought, one had weird blue hair and looked to be the same age as Domino and the other had some odd poofy blonde buns sticking out to the side and appeared to be maybe in her mid-twenties.

Much more reasonable age to be in organized crime. I am saying in my head, as a seventeen year old fighting the aforementioned organized crime ring. I realize this is hypocritical, and with my scientific background I'll acknowledge brain chemistry and plasticity have way more to do with maturity than actual time (in fact certain experiences can cause the brain to freeze in maturity, fascinating topic) I will actively ignore that and try to excuse this as me being more advanced due to my memories, as fragmented and dream-like as they are.

Oh well, it's not like I was dating or anything where there would be an actual moral conundrum to explore, fighting crime was perfectly acceptable in this society at my age. Even if many adults certainly don't prefer it being a necessity.

As we wrapped up the ground troops (only a few grunts had gotten away into the forest and we had a few extra Jennys in town as back up that would handle them as they tried to flee the island) Shahrazard and Hannibal brought the remaining fliers crashing down to the ground in…relatively controlled crashes.

Archer had already been on the ground knocked out alongside his golbat, and the ranger had gotten over to secure him. The charizard had been handled by Hannibal swimmingly, it was pinned to the ground by one of his massive hind-legs and the owner being paralyzed with a glower.

I recognized him as Arlo from one of the dossiers I'd gone over with the League. He was an up and comer, on the short list for an executive promotion we had been willing to wager. And the one on the honchkrow that was teetering around, apparently having been confused by Shahrazad's sonic attacks, was…familiar.

I sighed as she held out her wrists at my approach. She flipped her brunette bang out of the way of her eyes and smiled dead at me with her purple lipstick glaringly obvious.

"Ooh, we meet again. And are those for me? Well I suppose it is the second date, handcuffs can be so fun." She winked at me.

"...Sierra." I replied, flatly.

She was somewhere between my age and Domino's so that flirting made a twisted kind of sense. Especially with her recognizing me.

"But…what's that new pokemon you have there, sweetie? Did your daddy find a new fossil?"

I froze. She knew my identity as Isaac Beech. That was…bad. Because it meant so did the rest of Team Rocket's higher echelons. She was of a similar fast track position as Arlo.

"No…he's my own discovery. You can read about it in Poke-Nature in a few months. I'll make sure the prison has a copy."

She pouted, it was…more effective than I would have liked to admit, "Can you visit and give it to me in person?"

Not all of my…memory dreams had been pokemon related, as much as I tried to suppress those that weren't. This…distracted me by triggering some memories I didn't necessarily want to bleed through.

I shook my head, "Maybe if you've got reports of good behavior."

"Are you asking me to be a good girl for you?" Arceus. Damn. This. Woman.

Luckily around this point is when Nanu took pity on me and came over to finish the transfer of custody.

 

[pink_boy]

Next time if I remember right is the tournament I believe! That was a fun one!

 

[Isaac A Drake]

Next time if I remember right is the tournament I believe! That was a fun one!

Click to shrink...

Sure is! And it ends with a bonus chapter where I actually wrap up the final battle!

 

[Isaac A Drake]

24-31, Indigo Conference Arc
Author's Note: This arc is huge as any good tournament arc should be. Hopefully I paced it so that it doesn't get tedious. This also represents the end of what I had written and published previously. I will continue on with further arcs here, but obviously they will be single chapter releases after this, and not whole arcs. This section actually ends with a final chapter that I had not written previously, I left the arc unfinished elsewhere because I got sick of being spammed by bots asking me if I wanted to pay for AI art of my fics.

The Indigo Connection

Mewtwo hovered behind me as I frowned at the two Dark Balls we'd recovered from the Rocket Warehouse on Five Island. They were about ready to be packaged up and transported. They apparently contained an aerodactyl and a dragonair. Both corrupted with the Shadow Pokemon corruption. They were to be transferred to Professor Willow. A pokemon pharmacology specialist who would try to discover a cure.

All the Dark Balls would be transferred to him actually. Including the scizor that Artagnan had taken out.

"A vile process. One I…approve of the seeming determination your…League has shown in trying to cure." Mewtwo's begrudging approval was a rather large step actually.

"However, I find this method too passive for my tastes. Furthermore, I have…questions of my own about Team Rocket's variety of experiments. I would seek your…" He obviously didn't want to use the word 'aid' here and was searching for another alternative. "Your assistance on the human side of this investigation."

Huh, I hadn't expected that.

"You want to hit some more of their labs with me?"

"Indeed…I would like to find more of their cloning and shadow experiment labs. These two experiments existing in conjunction is something I find…concerning."

I froze, he made an extremely solid point. If these two experiments combined…and they gained DNA from other legendaries too. Images of Shadow Lugia, Ho-oh, and Mewtwo flashed before my mind.

I winced. Yeah, that could be bad.

"I'll follow up with League intel and my own personal investigations. Things are going to get very busy for me shortly, so it might be a month before we can hit anything. If you keep scouting things out though we might be able to hit the ground running."

I glanced down at his feet floating two inches above the ground, "So to speak."

"Droll."

I could feel him mentally rolling his eyes almost. I shook my head as he left. I also needed to finish my report on the Grampa Canyon Underworld for my thesis introduction.

I slipped my right hand under my vest and thumbed the League deputy badge sewn into the underneath. I was juggling a lot of balls in the air at the moment.

After the Conference I also needed a second trip into the Underworld so that my thesis could reach some actual conclusions. And if I wanted to run a fossil/ancient pokemon themed gym I needed a broader pool of ancient pokemon to pull from. And a weaker aerodactyl than Hannibal.

Cleo had burrowed back up from where she'd dug a bunch of pit traps for the Rocket Grunts underground and lumbered on over to me. She playfully bumped my shoulder with her own. Or attempted to, she was only about four and a half feet tall, so her shoulder bumped my elbow. I reached up and scratched her behind the ear like she had always enjoyed.

"You can always tell when I'm over thinking and worrying can't you girl?" She cooed and nodded, "Couldn't have asked for a better friend to do all this with."

She nodded again then pointed her nose towards my tool belt. I chuckled and clicked the pokeblock dispenser to pop one out. She liked the drier ones, and I think only twenty percent of that preference was that they were blue like she was.

A week later and the Indigo Plateau Conference had begun. My first preliminary match was about to start on the Rock Field. I had decided to give my less experienced team members a place to shine here in the preliminaries, and save my stronger members for the later rounds.

I would likely reveal my ancient pokemon as well, in order of how common knowledge of them was. That means I would probably reveal the kabutops and omastar duo of Axel and Grauben on the Water Field whenever I drew that, and Hannibal and Artagnan in the top sixteen at some point. That said I was making sure to always have two of my stronger members in my team of six to pick in case we unexpectedly came across a trainer in our seeding that was a strong contender for that top sixteen.

To that end I planned to start with my rhyhorn, Alberich, hoping to finally push him over the top to evolution. I had brought Lyle, my krokorok recently acquired at the Desert Resort. Rum Tum, the Galarian meowth I planned to hopefully evolve into a perrserker soon. He'd make a solid pivot for Shahrazad to U-turn into if I could get him to that level.

Finally I had Alexei, my piloswine who I wanted to get some practice in with Ancient Power so that he could eventually master it and evolve. Cleo and Estella were on my belt as emergency options for this field. But I didn't think I would need them when my opponent was announced as some guy named Leroy. He sent out a raticate and I grinned, game on.

"Oh! And that's the battle! Isaac's special meowth has taken out Leroy's ferocious ursaring with a wily use of Taunt stopping it from boosting itself and letting the meowth wear it down with Metal C-what's this? Wow, what a treat for the crowd! The meowth is evolving!"

And indeed, Rum Tum was glowing brightly as he gained both height and mass. Eventually it died down to reveal a ferocious looking metallic bipedal cat with a fearsome maw of razor sharp teeth.

"Perrser-ker!" He cried out and thrust a paw into the air.

"And there we go folks! The end of another sweep by Isaac Beech! Michelle's dewgong and persian barely stood a chance! That quagsire of his is quite the tank!"

I was starting to feel like I had over prepared for the Conference by way of adequately preparing for Mewtwo and Team Rocket.

Hopefully I would come up against Gary, Ash, Ritchie, Assunta, or one of the trainers from New Island soon. The Water Stage had been a damned joke for me.

I solidly won my next round on the Ice Stage as well, just using Brinker and Alexei. Their environmental advantage had been too much for my opponent to overcome.

My final preliminary bout however, did give me my wish. On the Grass Stage I would be battling against Assunta, one of the top eight for last year's conference. She even had a rhydon I was hoping to match against Alberich to hopefully trigger that evolution, studies had shown that same species competition could be a very impactful trigger for strength based evolutions.

Though she was more likely to use her venomoth and ivysaur on the Grass Stage so I'd probably be working uphill environmentally. I'd been hoping to give Lyle some more experience here but it was looking like things might be too hard for him from this point forward.

I was most worried about her ivysaur going into this match, and Rum Tum's steel-typing would be perfect for stopping both the ivysaur and the venomoth's poison. Thus he would be my opener. Then hopefully I could bait out the rhydon and use Alberich and hopefully push him over the top and win, but if I didn't I still had a third slot left to wrap it up.

Cleo would do nicely, she hadn't seen any use yet and she was my starter. Things started out swimmingly, Rum Tum cut right through the ivysaur as if he were a weed whacker. His newly evolved body was making all of his hits harder and all the hits he took much less damaging. Especially with the ivysaur being primarily a physical attacker. Vine Whips, Razor Leafs, they all bounced right off.

The venomoth however, ended up being far stronger than I imagined. It immediately got off a Quiver Dance and things began going downhill from there.

"Air Slash!" Assunta called out and before Rum Tum's Metal Claw could land he got caught in the face by the blade of air and flinched back, allowing for a follow up of, "Psychic!"

The purple energy surrounded him and sent him spinning through the air and slamming into the arena wall. I wasn't the only person that winced in sympathy there. Rum Tum couldn't take many more of those and his defenses for special attacks were quite low and he didn't have a single supereffective move, so I decided to return him and give Alberich a chance to shine.

"Good job, Rum Tum! Get back here!" I held out my hand and the beam of red shot out and pulled him back in as I put away the Premier Ball that Samson Oak had caught him in and pulled out Alberich's Safari Ball. Upon reflection I had caught a significant number of my heavy hitters in the Safari Zone. That had been a great trip.

"Alright Alberich, let's get ready to rock!" That was a code for the strategy we'd open with. Stealth Rocks and then Protect and from there artillery with Rock Throw and an alternated Protect.

"Rhyyy!" He cried out as he thumped into the field and shot shards of rock out to hover around the arena. We'd practiced tirelessly to get a quick opening Stealth Rocks upon release. It was paying amazing dividends.

"Che!" Assunta clicked her tongue in annoyance, "Psychic again!" She called out and the purple energy this time washed over the white shell of Protect.

"Predictable…" I said under my breath, "Shotgun!" I called out watching as her venomoth zoomed out of the way of the first Rock Throw thanks to its boosted speed.

However, Alberich in a move reminiscent of the Rock Slide I'd been attempting to teach him, sent out a spread of three other smaller Rock Throw projectiles behind the first. One of them clipped the venomoth's wing and sent it spiraling down towards the grassy field.

"Follow up!" I called out and even as he sent out another burst Assunta made her counterplay, "Catch them with Psychic and send them back!"

The purple glow surrounded Alberich's projectiles and they looped around in the air, admittedly losing some of their momentum and fired back at Alberich. This wasn't worth protecting against, "Take the hit and set up your next shot!"

Rock Head as an ability traditionally meant that you took no recoil damage from moves like Take Down and Double Edge. But it could be leveraged defensively like this to reduce damage from weaker physical projectiles similar to what I had Estella do with Skull Bash.

Alberich leaned his skull into the attack and his own projectiles shattered upon it, doing only minimal damage as he set up his next shotgun blast of Rock Throws. Before the psychic glow had faded from the shards he was releasing his next blast, not giving the venomoth enough time to regather its focus.

Two of the three hit it dead center and it spun down to the ground unconscious. And then Alberich began to glow, I grinned as the announcer shouted out, "That is two evolutions here at this Conference for Isaac! He must have pushed his pokemon to the very edge of their younger forms in preparation! What a show! And what will Assunta pick next to combat this new rhydon?"

"Don!" Alberich shouted out as he now stood on two feet.

Glancing down at his new upright posture he gave a few practice punches then looked up at me with a happy smile and turned a vicious toothy grin over at Assunta. Challenging her. She was scowling and took the bait.

"I'll counter with my own experienced Rhydon!" She called out, releasing her own hulking beast. Who immediately glowed with Rock Polish. Uh oh. It looked like we had taken two diametrically opposed directions with our rhydon.

"Drill Run!" She called out and I knew we had a problem. We had to disrupt that speed somehow, but we didn't have time to set up our Bulldoze properly, so we'd have to buy some time. Luckily, we'd bought time at the very beginning of the match with the venomoth. The Stealth Rocks were already rocketing in at the opposing rhydon.

"Charge up a Bulldoze, release on impact!" I called out and Alberich lifted up a single leg that glowed a muddy ochre color. Assunta realized what was happening a moment too late as her eyes widened in shock following the trail of the rock shards. She'd been hoping the Rock Polish would let her outpace them I'd wager, meaning she wasn't used to Stealth Rocks at all.

"Now!" I called out as they slammed into her rhydon and mine slammed his foot into the ground as the momentum of the charging rhino pokemon slowed just enough to make the Bulldoze go off point blank.

The ground rippled and churned, not near as much as an Earthquake, and only in a small cone in front of Alberich, but it was enough to toss the enemy rhydon into the air and partially embed it into the loose and now tilled loamy soil.

"Take Down!" I called out and as our opponent scrambled to stand up Alberich pushed his feet off of the ground and burst forth in blinding white light and just as the rhydon was pushing itself up off of the ground it got slammed straight in the face by the people's elbow, courtesy of Alberich of course. The…pokemon's elbow in this case?

Regardless, its bell was rung by an elbow to the temple. Not a traditional Take Down, but Alberich was still getting used to his bipedal form. The crowd oohed in sympathy. Obviously this rhydon's ability was NOT Rock Head. Perhaps Lightning Rod or even the rare ability Reckless, because those two hits along with the Stealth Rocks were all it took to knock them out.

"Oh! What an upset! With a sneaky bit of strategy and impeccable timing, Isaac's newly evolved rhydon has knocked out Assunta's seasoned veteran! Assunta, one of last year's top eight, has been eliminated by Pokemon Tech graduate and season rookie, Isaac Beech!"

The crowd went wild as she returned her rhydon, looking shaken. I smirked, now that we were out of the preliminaries, it was time to let the ancient pokemon shine.

West of Eden

"This is definitely the reveal battle," I said over the phone with my father, "I know Fergus and his team pretty well, he's a water specialist so Axel and Grauben would be some of my strongest bets against him even if we weren't planning their reveal."

"Yes, that does sound ideal. Especially as you're now out of the preliminary fields and onto the mixed arena. So there will be small bodies of water, not entire fields. Highly optimal for Axel in particular."

I'd sent my father all my training data on my kabutops, omastar, and aerodactyl for his own studies. It also meant I'd be a co-author on his next paper and he'd be a co-author on my own as we debated the different angles of these pokemon species in their resurrected version against their divergent underground evolution version.

It seemed like the underground "regional" forms I had captured had what were rare or "hidden" abilities on the resurrected versions more as normal and had completely new or unseen on the resurrection pokemon abilities as their rare abilities.

Grauben was one of two of the omanyte line I had captured that had Skill Link as an ability, the rest all definitively had Shell Armor and Weak Armor, with no sign of Swift Swim.

Which made perfect sense, generation upon generation of no weather would have made that ability completely useless and it would have been bred out by natural selection.

In fact, as part of the attempt to propagate these pokemon and get a broader set of data points on training methods, I'd gifted both Misty and Brock the opposing basic tier of the lines they hadn't received a resurrected from fossil version of from Cinnabar Labs.

This meant Brock had a resurrected kabuto and an underground omanyte, while Misty had a resurrected omanyte and an underground kabuto. They'd already been taking training data and diet notes for my father, so it hadn't been a stretch to add the opposite to their pool. The data from two gym leaders would continue to be invaluable.

Indeed, Grauben's Skill Link combined with Rock Blast was integral for my plan to take out Fergus's gyarados, who he usually used as his final pokemon of a battle that puts him on the back foot. Which fighting Axel out the gate absolutely would.

This was one place where my family's money was giving me quite the leg up on my competition. Family ranch access as well as having finished my badges far earlier than most trainers, gave me the time and facilities to have a much larger pool of competitively viable pokemon trained up than most trainers.

The average trainer had about eight viable pokemon, and two or three often stood head and shoulders above the rest and carried the team. And certainly I had pokemon that carried my team as well, but they carried my team on the level beyond what many saw in the Conference outside of the top eight.

I mean, Assunta, who had been top eight last year, had yet to evolve her ivysaur and it had still been a core team member. As far as I could tell it didn't have any disdain for evolving like Ash's Bulbasaur. It merely hadn't reached the peak of its stage.

It was one thing I had noticed here. The skill and power levels of the average competitor in these Conferences was…far below what you could expect from the best a gym leader had in their real team, the weakest pokemon an Elite Four member would put out, and leagues below the weakest pokemon a Champion would put out.

The last time a first time conference winner had taken out even a single Elite Four member's team was Lance, four years ago. And before that it had been even longer. Even then, Blaine had been old and overconfident when Lance challenged and had lost two of his pokemon to a dragonair before he caught on that he should take things seriously.

His magmar had almost finished Lance's last pokemon, his starter dragonite. But the dragon master had squeaked a victory with a well timed Extremespeed. Bruno had stomped him into the ground though. He'd taken an entire year off after that before he rechallenged, that's when he had earned his own Elite Four spot, Blaine retired after that second loss and Lance had made it all the way to the Champion before being stopped.

The Champion whose retirement had left the Kanto Elite Four deadlocked fighting for a successor. Which, I imagine, was why Giovanni and Team Rocket had made so many bold moves in the last two years. A deadlocked and leaderless Elite Four, with two of the members being relatively new, was certainly a situation just asking to be exploited.

It was a testament to the League's inner bureaucracy and the social standing of the Gym Leaders that the Indigo League, particularly on the Kanto side, had stayed as strong as it had. I'd done some research, both Will and Karen, who I'd seen become future members of the Indigo Elite Four, had been the winners of the Indigo and Silver Conferences respectively. They had not participated this year, leading me to believe they were both deep in secluded training to bridge that gap and be able to impress with their challenges.

After this year they'd still have two years left on their timer for their conference win challenges. Koga, I was certain, was more than ready for his own challenge, the deciding factor would merely be when he felt Janine was ready to take over.

Gym Leaders could challenge any time they wished. It never guaranteed a spot, but usually if someone beat multiple members of the Elite Four somebody was getting the boot. And if someone made it all the way through to the Champion, as Lance did, then it was a guarantee.

I banished my musing as I palmed the Dusk Ball holding Axel, standing on the blue stand across a mixed field for the rest of the tournament. It had a standard grass tennis court looking field in the middle for duking it out directly, a rocky outline surrounding that section, and in the middle of the outer lanes on each side a rectangular pool sat for water-types to not have a disadvantage. I waved in acknowledgement to Fergus who gave a nervous salute.

Mewtwo hadn't erased anyone's memories thanks to my and Mew's interference. He'd just, with Mew's help, implanted a small impulse for everyone else to not talk about it. Obviously I'd been exempt as the liaison with the League.

So Fergus knew exactly what I could bring to bear. He was quite lucky I wasn't going to go full throttle, I was here to show off. Though admittedly, Hannibal and Artagnan qualified as ancient pokemon to be shown off, and they were two of my heaviest hitters.

"Next up we have the Red Trainer, Fergus of Porto Vista, water specialist extraordinaire! As the Blue Trainer we have Isaac Beech, Pokemon Tech graduate! Both trainers have shown brutal efficiency and great advanced planning in their matches so far! This will be the final three versus three match of the tournament!"

I raised my hand, I'd gotten permission for this beforehand and knew I'd be called out when I gestured, "It appears Trainer Beech has some kind of announcement before the match!"

"Today, as we sit here, my father and I are releasing two joint papers on the pokemon I will be using tonight. They are discoveries that I personally made in my journey months ago, and the study uses comparative data from my father's own fossil resurrection program with Cinnabar Labs. I now present to you all, a formerly believed to be extinct pokemon, that I found in a sealed off cavern. Kabutops, go!" Often in tournaments not between elite trainers, nicknames were foregone.

"Kabu-tops!" Axel yelled out dramatically as he appeared with his mottled multi-shaded carapace, a patently different coloring than the two kabutops that my father's lab team had managed to train up and publish to much publicity in the past decade.

"What's that? A living relic of a pokemon! How fascinating? How will Fergus retaliate against such an unknown?"

Fergus reacted as predicted and went with his safest starting pokemon, a golduck. And his golduck in particular had shown a fascinating talent for the more esoteric abilities available to the species. Disable and fine control of Water Pulse had stopped numerous of the black pokeballs Mewtwo had had flying around during our fight.

"Starting position, Golduck!"

"Sharpen up, Kabutops!" We called out our opening moves simultaneously, the golduck shot a watery orb into the sky that collected condensation around it, causing the weather to shift, Rain Dance was in play. And it made the golduck fast enough to get a Nasty Plot off before Axel could transition out of his Swords Dance.

Swift Swim, that was…unfortunate. I had miscalculated by assuming his golduck merely had Damp, as there'd been no noticeable lessening on Mewtwo's storm from its presence. I suppose I had never seen it directly out in the rain.

"Night Slash!" My goal was to disrupt its psychic control early so it couldn't abuse those energies later on. It would normally only have Confusion, but I had seen it show enough mastery of Disable that I imagined it likely knew something stronger from either a technical machine or tutoring.

"Water Pulse!" Fergus countered, "Spread!"

Uh-oh, some kind of twist on the move?

It sure was, the pulse grew in the golduck's mouth then compressed and…the water pressure caused it to explode in a cone outwards as opposed to the traditional structure. It hammered into Axel even as he tried to dodge to the side and sent him skidding backwards, his Night Slash dispersing as he slammed that scythe into the ground to steady himself.

He stood tall however, it hadn't inflicted him with confusion. And I saw pieces of flaked off armor laying nearby. Disconcerting that that Water Pulse had had enough punch to deal concussive damage that triggered Weak Armor, but I'd take the trade.

"Again!" I called out, now sure that Axel could-yes before I even finished the thought he was executing the attack, juking around then behind the surprised golduck. Likely he was used to being the fastest thing around in the rain. But with the boost from shedding the Weak Armor, Axel was now back to being as much faster than the golduck as he had been before the rain. Even though golduck typically were slightly faster than your average kabutops, Axel was trained to be especially fast for his species, as well as the underground versions having on average a bigger trend towards speed, no amount of defense would protect against an aerodactyl, but getting underwater faster would. And Axel trained against Artagnan and Brinker regularly, he was used to fighting pokemon as fast or faster than he was when boosted.

This golduck however, seemed used to being the fastest thing around when in the rain and was stunned into not reacting in time. The Night Slash slammed into its gut as it turned to face my kabutops. The golduck went tumbling ass over tea kettle a solid two meters backwards.

I wasn't going to get a lucky one hit knockout however, the golduck got back up and tried to fire off a Disable, but it faltered as the dark-type energy disrupted its psychic control, it gave up and just as I was about to launch another command Fergus called out, "Steal the boost!"

Steal th-uh oh. A thin string of white normal type energy snapped out at Axel and then thickened and pulled back into the golduck who glowed a stronger white. Psych Up, it had just copied Axel's speed boost.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance, not only had this just gotten harder but I'd been caught out playing to the audience instead of pressing my advantage, a silly mistake.

"Aqua Jet! Press your advantage!" I needed to nullify that speed advantage and whittle away the remaining stamina of this duck. That Night Slash had been a brutal hit, it likely didn't have much left in it.

The rain helped the water coat Axel even faster and stronger than usual as he burst forth like a rocket. Slamming into the golduck and making it take a step back. He immediately tried to go into a round of Fury Swipes, but Fergus's pokemon got off a Protect in the small delay where Axel was transitioning type-energy to switch moves.

"Disable!" The psychic abilities had apparently recovered as Axel seized up and could not continue with the Fury Swipes, but that was okay.

"Alternate close combat moves!" I commanded, he immediately switched to Night Slash, which the golduck studiously avoided, not wanting another round of that, but the following stabbing motion with his vicious scythes took the golduck off guard, as he had primarily been slashing until now. The blade glowed green and Leech Life took effect, sucking the remaining stamina right out of the golduck who collapsed. And it also had the beautiful side effect of rejuvenating Axel.

My kabutops raised his twin scythes into the air in victory as the announcer called out, "And after a stunning back and forth golduck is unable to battle! What will we see next from Red Trainer Fergus?"

Fergus returned his golduck and pulled out what I pegged as a Friend Ball and released his most obnoxious pokemon of them all straight into the right side pool of water. His vaporeon. Because a vaporeon's ability to sink into the water and disperse with Acid Armor was unmatched, and an absolute pain to combat. Meaning I had to completely change tactics here.

"I know we haven't used it in a while," I called out, "But Kabutops I need you to spam Mud Shot into that pool!"

This would clog up the pond, make it murky, make it harder to maintain Acid Armor, and hopefully reveal the vaporeon.

"Oh, come on!" Fergus shouted in annoyance as he noticed that the rain had made it even easier for Axel to kick up a bunch of mud out of the dirt part of the field and into the pool.

I was lucky that Axel worked so often with my ground-types and hadn't gotten too rusty with that type-energy. He'd known the move when I caught him and we hadn't really practiced it much.

In fact, glancing at the spread of the shots, he probably couldn't use it effectively to hit an opponent, his aim was all over the place, though perhaps that was on purpose? I'd make sure we practiced when we were done with the Conference to check.

Though I was pretty sure I'd focus instead on pushing forward towards Liquidation, a stronger same-type physical skill than Aqua Jet would be nice. This match didn't last very long. Once the vaporeon revealed itself Axel outsped it enough with his boosts to rain slashes down on it.

Unfortunately it got a Haze off removing Axel's speed boost before it went down. I let Fergus call his gyarados out before recalling Axel, he'd done great but he wasn't going to sweep against this gyarados.

"In replacement, I choose my omastar, Grauben!" I called out, man most of my new pokemon were caught in Dusk Balls, I noted as I caught her pokeball on its way back to me. We'd both released our pokemon into the clean pool on the left side of the field from my direction. It was a pity she hadn't learned Shell Smash yet, but we'd make this fight work.

"Withdraw and Rollout!" I called out, we weren't going to reveal Skill Link until the very end. She immediately pulled into her shell and rolled along through the shallow parts of the pool. Fergus's gyarados had immediately launched an offensive with a barrage of Aqua Tails slammed into the watery clay behind her.

Some of the misses were rather close for comfort. However, the third one had the gyarados pausing to reorient and that's when Grauben struck, launching her spinning form straight into its underbelly.

"Whirlpool!" Fergus called out and my spinning mollusk was caught in the turbulent waters for just long enough that the gyarados got off a Dragon Dance that make it a big problem.

"Crunch!" Fergus called out as the spinning stopped, but I had been waiting for that small window of opportunity.

"Pin Missile right down that maw!" I called out, and Skill Link revealed itself when all five green glowing spikes shot out at once in a tight cluster.

"What precision!" The announcer called out as the gyarados pulled back, choking, "I've only seen a spread that tight in cloysters with rare abilities!"

I grinned, "Rock Blast! Gatling mode!" Another tightly spread burst of projectiles shot out, this time rocks. They slammed the bottom jaw of the gyarados causing it to bite its own tongue a bit.

"Dragon Rage!" Fergus called out, it wouldn't be boosted by Dragon Dance, but it would cover the gyarados in a spinning twister of draconic energy to block the follow up Rock Blasts that Grauben was firing as follow up. The twister shot forward after forming and sent her flying back out of the pool as well.

"Spike Cannon!" I called out and she shot out her final multi-strike move, pity omastar couldn't learn Water Shuriken, but perhaps I could work on creating a different water multistrike, Water…Senbon? It was a future experiment. Oh wow this gyarados was a tank of a beast. It took that hit like it was nothing, glaring down at Grauben and then lunging in for…I frowned at how unrefined that head slam was. Followed by a tail slam, followed by…oh it had gone into Thrash.

"Rollout hit and runs!" I called out and Grauben pulled back into her shell and started maneuvering around the thrashing beast. She'd bounce in and out of range to strike, and luckily she was giving more hits than she was taking, but this gyarados had boosted itself so they were constantly close calls.

"Up high then Rock Blast!" I called as she dodged a particularly over extended tail slam. She bounced off the sea serpent's tail and up into the air, from her shell she then materialized and shot off a barrage of rocks, they were less powerful when materialized than when pulled from the ground but they slammed into the top of the skull. The gyarados wobbled once, then twice, then finally collapsed. That…had been pretty stressful, my underground variant pokemon definitely deserved a treat after this though.

Creed
I was completely flummoxed when I saw who I was fighting next. Gary Oak. I went back and checked the battle records. He had faced the same Melissa I had seen him fight in a dream years ago, except he had won this time. Odd, was this some kind of butterfly effect of my interactions with Ash Ketchum perhaps? Or with Team Rocket? Or maybe there was just enough chaos in a pokemon battle that I was just seeing statistically likely or narratively exciting outcomes and a significant amount of the outcomes still could be up to chance?

Regardless, that meant it was time to research my opponent. I of course knew he was the grandson of Professor Oak, and that he had gotten a squirtle as his starter and that it was fully evolved now.

Looking over the rest of his commonly used pokemon I saw he had a wide pool to pull from, but that not all of them were truly at the competitive level. I compiled a list of those I considered competitively viable enough that he would use them. Blastoise, both a nidoking and a nidoqueen, a dodrio that had evolved during his Rock Field match, a magmar, a blisteringly fast arcanine, a golem, a scyther, a powerful seadra, a fearow, and an eevee that was very well trained.

I expected him to perhaps skip on the magmar, the arcanine, and the flying types due to my specialization in the earthen types. While the magmar or arcanine could check Rum Tum I was not entirely sure he would count on me using the perrserker with the number of rock and water-type dual types I had showcased.

Hypothetically his nidoking and nidoqueen would work just as well, and they would also fight on equal footing with all my own publicly shown pokemon from a typing stand-point excepting for Estella and the fossils.

I had to show off the ancient pokemon again, and this time showcase Hannibal. I also would keep Artagnan on tap to showcase as well if it got down to the sixth team member. Cleo would be quite angry if I didn't give her the chance to prove herself the best of the nidoran line as well.

That meant I only had one slot open. Shahrazad as a foreign pokemon and a dragon would steal the show and I couldn't have that for this round. I really wanted to save her as a hidden ace for the final match if at all possible. For that same reason I couldn't use Mr. Darcy.

Lyle had already come out in the tournament, but there was no strategic reason to use him, as much as I would love for my krookorok to get more battle experience. This meant I should bring Estella to take care of whichever nido Cleo didn't deal with. I'd ask Cleo ahead of time whether she'd rather fight the nidoking or nidoqueen.

A solid line-up, I was confident that my own water types could match his blastoise and seadra. Or at least weaken them enough to be cleaned up. Cleo had finished her coverage move spread after working diligently with Ozma and her Tri Attack. Honestly, since Cleo had long ago upgraded Sludge Bomb to Sludge Wave she probably didn't need to learn another move ever, just different tactics and ways of combining the moves she did have.

I had no doubt that Ash was going to be beating Ritchie in his match this afternoon, the last match needed of the three versus threes, but when I looked at the rest of the bracket it seemed like Ash would have to beat everyone on the path to the final round to face off against me.

Disappointing, I was sure Ash would reach the Top Eight, but I wasn't sure he could get through all the six versus six matches. He had far more diversity than from my visions, thanks to not giving away any pokemon and in fact adding a few as well. That dragonair of his would be a hidden ace. He had yet to show it or Charizard off. Though I was confident he would make a showing against Ritchie's own charizard, Zippo.

I checked my PokeNav and saw a message from my father. "Good luck against the Oak kid, son! Your first six versus six battle! Try to use your aerodactyl and that kleavor if you can! I'd love to have more to rub in Oak's face. His pokedex program has been getting him on all the talk shows lately."

I rolled my eyes before I responded, "Just for that talk show line I'll use only my foreign pokemon."

"Don't be like that! I was just kidding Izzy!" My father had an…odd sense of humor. And didn't always seem to know when people teased him back.

"I'm kidding," I typed in response, "I want to show off Hannibal and Artagnan more than you do. They're two of the pokemon who have been trained and drilled the hardest."

"Perfect! We've already generated a lot of interest with the first two publications! My superiors at Silph Co are willing to sponsor both your Grampa Canyon research center and the Sayda Island center for resurrections we've been working for with two of my research aides. The more remote location will hopefully allow us to experiment more with the Old Ambers we've found."

That was exciting for me, more aerodactyls meant more options for my future gym. The League, thanks to my participation and success in the anti-Team Rocket and Mewtwo endeavors had promised that as long as I got to the final round, didn't even have to win it, they could justify me turning the lab that had just been greenlit into a gym to replace Giovanni's.

Though with it being a new gym I wouldn't be considered the top of the circuit and could likely expect more low-badge challengers than people like Sabrina or Blaine.

Hopefully upon further delvings into the Grampa Canyon "Underworld" as I was calling it I would find other species of ancient or divergently evolved pokemon. I imagined I probably wouldn't find divergent evolutions outside of my specialization, though I supposed if it stretched on to any of the magma chambers likely near Cinnabar I could find some fire divergence.

Or maybe there would be other exit points? It wouldn't surprise me if some of the ancient ruins around the region secretly went deeper, as I suspected the ruins of the Desert Resort might.

But that was neither here nor there, I had my match against Gary Oak tomorrow. It was time to debrief the team and then get some rest.

The next day saw me running my hand along my pokeball belt as the announcer began the match.

"And the first of our full six versus six battles is about to begin! Both trainers are heavy contenders for Rookie of the Year, though the Red Trainer, the prodigal Gary Oak is also one of the youngest rookies in the running for that title! The Blue Trainer has shown himself to be a talented tamer of ancient and newly discovered pokemon! A researcher and explorer, Isaac Beech!"

The crowd went wild for the both of us, I saw signs for both of us in the crowd, and a patchwork of red and blue shirts. Giving each trainer colors had been a genius marketing move by the League, as they could sell merchandise with just the colors and reuse old stock whenever needed. No customization necessary. Contemplating my first choice I finally decided to go for a big splash as opposed to my smart set up, I was finding I had quite the flare for the dramatic. Plus I wanted to try and tilt Gary early, if I could win the psychological battle I could leverage it to win the entire match.

"Trainers release your first pokemon!"

"Go, Eevee!"

"Soar, Aerodactyl!"

I called out, using Hannibal's species name for greater impact. Oof, this was going to be a rough fight…for Gary, and I didn't like the optics of thrashing an eevee on national television.

"Gary Oak has led with the evolution pokemon, eevee, and Isaac Beech has once more astounded the region with being the first person outside of Elite Four Lance to showcase an aerodactyl! In fact, this pokemon is only resurrected and given out to experienced trainers, based on the recently published study on an underground cavern system discovered by young Isaac this aerodactyl was actually captured from a wild state! Two rare pokemon, trainers, begin!"

Hannibal eyed the eevee hungrily and I pulled up my tin whistle and blew twice with a specific break between. It basically was meant to communicate 'behave, reward after'. That got him in line, Tauros steak was much tastier and less hairy than an eevee.

"Tailwind!" I called out for a strong start, also a less vicious opening.

"Double Team!" Gary called out, quickly realizing, I am sure, that this was going to be a rough match up.

Winds whipped around the arena, speeding Hannibal up as dozens of eevee images appeared around the arena. I was impressed, it seemed to have almost as much control over the ability as my kleavor did.

"Now, Calm Mind while it's distracted!" Oh that was dirty, surely Gary's eevee wasn't a…damnit I bet it was.

"Don't let it work up too many boosts!" I called up to my aerodactyl, then I blew a sequence of whistles out, basically combining the commands for dive bomb, Crunch, and keep it up but don't do any permanent damage. Hopefully Crunch would reduce some defense so that if what I was worried about came to pass…

Hannibal rocketed down and harassed the images, punching through first one, then three, then five. But he wasn't whittling them down quickly enough.

Damnit, I thought to myself, I focused Hannibal too closely on his moves that were boosted by his ability. I need to make sure he has Rock Slide for some spread and range in the future.

Still there was one move he had that could help here, "Ancient Power!" I cried at the top of my lungs, as he didn't have a whistle command for this infrequently used move. It focused a lot more on mental energy than physical.

Hannibal cried out and formed a silvery sphere of primordial rock-type energy in front of his maw and shot it out obliterating another five illusions in one go.

That spooked Gary out of going for another boost, "Baton Pass!"

Damnit, it was exactly what I worried about. This also dodged the withdrawal clause, allowing the eevee to come back out later. However, as the red beam pulled the eevee back in without any input from Gary, I noticed Hannibal's eyes glowing a dim silver. That would work for me.

"Go, Electabuzz!" I raised my eyebrows in surprise, Gary hadn't used this pokemon publicly yet.

"Buzz buzz!" The yellow brute shouted as it appeared. With his special stats boosted from the Calm Mind showing in a purple halo around his head. I cracked my neck, things had just gotten fun. I blew the whistle another few times, telling Hannibal to get some distance in the air and go for strafing runs of Crunch and Fire Fang. I didn't need him to go for a Dragon Dance with both Tailwind and an Ancient Power boost.

"Thunder Wave!" Gary immediately tried to hobble my aerodactyl with a status condition. Luckily his electabuzz had been aiming at or near where Hannibal was, not fifty feet up in the air where he ended up. Gary groaned at the miss but recovered quickly as my dinosaur pokemon peeled around and reversed course for his strafing run.

"Thundershock! Pepper it!" A series of low power bolts fired out at Hannibal who with his twice boosted speed wove between them effortlessly, his maw glowing with the dark energy of Crunch.

However, Gary was no idiot, he had a plan in mind, one I didn't necessarily see coming. At the moment of impact of the Crunch, while Hannibal was biting down, he had electabuzz launch a hail Mary.

"Discharge!" I winced in sympathy as a burst of electricity blasted out from the electabuzz and ran through my aerodactyl.

Hannibal wasn't taken out of the fight, but he was definitely left hurting, I was certain that the Ancient Power boost was all that kept that from being a one hit knockout. Since it hadn't been a knockout, Hannibal was now angry. And I wasn't going to stop him from getting a little payback, the electabuzz looked sturdy.

Like a meowth with an ekans he shook his head back and forth violently, slamming the electabuzz into the ground on either side of him repeatedly. When Gary pulled up his pokeball to return his pokemon I did the same.

"And with that both contestants have returned their pokemon! Gary has revealed his eevee, and both contestants are now down one! What match-up is coming next?" I grinned at Gary, who seemed a bit shaken by Hannibal's viciousness.


"Hey Gary! I know we both brought them, want to show the crowd how royalty fights?" I called across the arena.

He froze, his hand hovering over one pokeball, a thoughtful look replaced his concerned one from before. After a moment he nodded and looked up at me, the fire back in his eyes.

"You're on, Beech!" For a second I wondered if he was doing a play on words with how my name came out slightly similar to a curse, but he looked sincere so I discarded it.

I took out Cleo's Moon Ball that we'd transferred her to as a nidorina, she'd always enjoyed the aesthetic. Gary took out a Safari Ball, huh that answered where he'd caught his nidos for me.

"Go, Nidoking!"

"Rise and shine, Nidoqueen!"

Only the Elite Four or Champions would use nicknames when sending pokemon out in tournaments like this, some of their pokemon had a brand almost as distinct as the trainers. Lance's charizard and dragonite had their own line of plushies and merchandise differentiating them from the rest of their species based on the small variations they had, a scar here, the exact shade of their scales there, things like that.

"Looks like we're in for a royal rumble, folks! This is the first tournament appearance of Isaac Beech's starter, a nidoqueen! And we all remember Gary Oak's nidoking from a brutal fight that secured him his victory against Melissa earlier in the tournament!"

With a heavy thud both royal pokemon appeared and slammed into the ground in hero landings. Well, glad I am not the only one with a flair for the dramatic, I thought to myself, I then glanced over and saw Gary's cheerleading squad cheering from his personal box. In fact I might have been the more reserved of the two of us.

"Earthquake!"
"Earth Power!"

We both quickly called out our opening super-effective attacks. The nidoking lifted a powerful leg and slammed it into the ground creating a shaking fissure lancing towards Cleo, but she was not idle, she had gathered glowing Ground-type energy into her paws and slammed those into the ground, sending a glowing wave of rippling earth to meet the fissure.

The moves perfectly canceled each other out, meeting dead in the middle of the arena. However, they'd cracked the edges of the artificial ponds and churned up the grass and stone. The arena was now a mess of torn up earth with water seeping into all the cracks. That would make for interesting future bouts.

"Ice Beam!" I called out and Cleo quickly called up the blue-white frosty light in her maw and shot a freezing lance out at her still recovering opponent. The nidoking had overcommitted to his Earthquake and had not been ready for it to end early when the moves met in the center. The Ice Beam hit him dead in the center of his forehead and if it weren't for the trade off of Sheer Force I was convinced it would have frozen him solid.

Even with that he went down like a sack of bricks with the world's worst brain freeze. Mouth hanging open in disbelief Gary returned his nidoking.

"Wow! What an upset! After a terrifying initial clash, the nidoqueen puts down her opposite with a single hit!"

In all honesty it was a lucky strike to a weak point while he was exposed, but I would take the win.

"That is two to one in Isaac Beech's favor! Gary has also already revealed one extra pokemon. What will his fourth choice be?"

I winced as a blastoise took the field with a resounding thump. Yes, that would be a problem. I had answers, Cleo herself even was one of the best answers, but man was it going to be a tank to power through. And to make matters worse, Gary Oak certainly had money to throw at Technical Machines, even more than I did. Though admittedly, most of my disposable income and gym winnings had gone to evolution materials.

"Thunderbolt!"
"Iron Defense!"

We two trainers called our commands out simultaneously and Gary got incredibly lucky, which I supposed made up for my incredible luck on his nidoking going head first into that Ice Beam. The steel-type energy of Iron Defense combined with the blastoise's position on the ground accidentally grounded the electricity of Cleo's Thunderbolt that slammed into him.

"Uh…can one of our commentators tell us why that didn't work?"

"Shell Smash!" I was too distracted by Gary's blastoise boosting itself through the roof practically for free to listen to Professor Oak talk about how Gary totally saw the Thunderbolt coming and did the Iron Defense thing on purpose.

Now the damn thing was as fast as Cleo, and apparently was built to abuse Shell Smash and physical attacks. Not what I had been expecting at all.

"Disrupt his footing with Earth Power and rain Thunderbolt into any openings!" I called out, we were on the back foot now.

"Waterfall!" Damnit, the blastoise was now using the momentum boost of Waterfall to jump over sections of roiling earth.

"Defensive Dig!" She didn't really have the offensive mastery of the skill to use it, especially with how I focused on her Special Attack, but I had drilled Cleo in evasive utilization of the move relentlessly. She popped out behind the blastoise and hammered the back of his shell with lightning. Staggering it immensely.

"Avalanche!" Oh. That wasn't good.

Icy energy encircled the giant turtle, freezing the moisture from his dissipating Waterfall attack into brittle chunks. Then he and the chunks rocketed at Cleo, hammering into her and sending her tumbling back into the cracked and draining pool of water behind them. Cleo was on her last legs, the blastoise had only taken the one hit and had stamina to still go for days, I needed her to go out on her own terms forcing Gary's hand.

So when the blastoise rushed back in with a Waterfall into an Avalanche combo once more, I waited.

I waited until the last second and called out a move, "Shotgun Toxic!"

It wouldn't be as potent, but a wide blast of the move Toxic at point blank range… Yes, I saw Gary do the calculations too as the purple goo splashed across the blastoise's face and body right before he crashed into Cleo and knocked her out.

I returned her mid-air as she was flying backwards. She'd done a damn good job. With a defeated sigh, Gary returned his pokemon as well, the poison already causing it to sag and stagger a little.

"You're tricky, Beech!" Gary called out across the stadium as we both readied our next picks.

"You're not making it easy, Oak!" I called back, "Seems to me you're never more than a second behind my tricks!"

It really was impressive, Gary had always come off as cocky in the recordings I saw of his fights, but his hair thin victory against Melissa at the end of the preliminaries must have kicked him in the pants enough that he was all in and serious now.

I had plenty of options left at this point. Though they were both my other revealed ancient pokemon and Artagnan at this point. With Estella as a final back-up. Could Artagnan sweep the eevee and two other pokemon? I grinned, it was worth a try.

"Sorry about this, Gary. But we've got another big show for you, en garde, Artagnan!" I called out, throwing his Safari Ball out across the field.

Growling, Gary sent back out the Luxury Ball I now knew held his eevee. The optics of this fight were just as bad as the first one with Hannibal. A glowering, massive rocky scyther evolution, versus a cute little eevee.

"Who's that pokemon?!" The announcer called out. And I let Professor Oak educate the crowd as Gary looked on warily.

"That my friends…is a recently rediscovered ancient evolution of scyther, likely the standard evolution before the Iron Age of humanity spread steel across the world. There are previously dubiously validated records from ancient Sinnoh about this rock-type evolution for scyther. It's called kleavor. You are looking at what is currently a one of a kind pokemon, as far as trained pokemon go, if young Isaac's reports on his discovery are anything to go by."

"Amazing! Let's see what it can do!"

We both immediately had our pokemon boosting, but I wasn't going to let Gary get off another Baton Pass, I had gone for Agility, while Gary had gone for Work Up, which meant his next pokemon was a physical attacker, interesting. Before the eevee could get off the next move, Artagnan had blitzed in with a vicious Sharpness boosted Stone Axe. Knowing that unless it was a final pokemon he was to build up those shards around the field.

"Oh! And the eevee is down before it can pass itself along to another pokemon! What will Gary try next?"

It turns out I had been very wrong in some of my assessments of what Gary would bring. Because the arcanine came out next. That made the Work Up make a lot of sense. That arcanine with a boost probably could have burnt Artagnan down in one go.

Now it would have to work for it, with my kleavor having his speed boosted to near equivalency when not using a priority move. Not that I needed a full priority to get the first hit, the chips of obsidian from Stone Axe honed in on the appearing arcanine and slammed into it, doing more damage than they would have to a different pokemon.

Gary cursed before he pivoted to the attack, "Flame Charge!"

Ah, he had definitely realized he was going to need to boost his speed just a little bit to maintain the advantage. Or he had calculated the maximum speed off of scyther or scizor. It wasn't a completely one sided fight, however I had Artagnan use Stone Axe defensively to soften the blows of the fire-type attacks while also getting in chip damage from the shards and occasionally a full swipe with his other ax.

Gary, it appeared, was out of his hard counters and powerhouses. This arcanine was newly evolved it seemed and almost exclusively had speed going for it. Artagnan at this point was used to his new body and fighting style. Typically utilizing bukijutsu style opening blitz attacks to one shot or the guard-counter methods I had him using here. The arcanine went down and a grimacing Gary sent out his final pokemon. His scyther.

"Oh buddy…" I muttered under my breath with sympathy.

Artagnan grinned evilly at the scyther which just gaped at coming face to face with an ancestral evolution. Gary tried to put up a good fight, I will give him that. He tried to have his scyther use Brick Break and Steel Wing to counteract my kleavor's stone axes. It even worked in prolonging the battle far longer than it normally would have gone on.

But eventually more power, experience, and a type advantage won out. Artagnan hammered the scyther into the back wall with a brutal swipe, I didn't sense a lick of rock-type energy either, so it must have been a purely physical Slash.

"The winner is Isaac Beech!"

Not necessarily an upset, Gary and I were both highly favored, it appeared from the cheering crowd. Returning my pokemon I walked over and shook the hand of a conflicted looking Gary Oak.

His confidence had been shaken by his last few matches. But there was also something else in those eyes, an excited fire that hadn't been there early on in the preliminaries. Gary had been pushed to his limit by multiple people here. He'd experienced challenges in a way he never had before. Previously Giovanni wielding Mewtwo was the only thing that had ever given him pause, and he had been able to write that off as some weird kind of cheating from the gym leader.

Hands of Stone

Otoshi had been a disappointment so far. It wasn't that his pokemon were necessarily bad, in fact he had gotten here to the semi-finals so they were great. The problem was that he only had a full fighting team, not substitutes. So it was quite easy to create a counter-play team against him, even with focusing fully on my ancient pokemon.

That meant I had Artagnan, Hannibal, Grauben, and Axel as the main core. I brought Estella again, because a mirror match duel is always a spectacle. Finally, I had Huckleberry on my belt in case his kingler was stronger than I expected. I severely doubted it however.

It turned out to be correct. Axel by himself swept away the dodrio, nidorino, and kingler. I finally returned him, feigning exhaustion, just to give my other pokemon a workout.

I winced when our simultaneous releases ended up with Hannibal up against a rapidash. It put up an admirable fight as it dodged a Rock Slide and an Ice Fang, but I had Hannibal box it in and the second Rock Slide swept it away. And then the follow-up of muk did not have any long distance moves, so I had Hannibal Dragon Dance twice in the air before blitzing the ooze pokemon with a Fire Fang that immediately knocked it out.

Another simultaneous return and release and our marowaks were facing off against each other.

"We're at a stunning two to five match as Isaac Beech continues to sweep this round. Will we see the end of this with a mirror match? Or will Otoshi's starter pull out a victory and close the point gap further?"

Immediately Estella met his marowak in a clash of Bone Club against Bone Club. A ferocious combination of strikes from both sides shot out. I noticed that Otoshi's marowak favored a slashing style as if it were utilizing a katana or similar slashing blade.

This made sense, as Otoshi was from Fuschia and had been a gym trainer under Koga for a bit. Meanwhile I'd pulled up videos over the years and had Estella train as if she were using a short staff, or jō, and thus she had become extremely proficient in jōjutsu over the years. I had even taken up the martial art partially myself, if only to help her train on technique and control. I was never going to be sturdy enough to spar with her.

Well…actually…I thought to myself about the strange new techniques I had been playing around with. I planted my feet into the metal platform and tried to spread my odd awareness downwards. After a moment of struggle I connected this odd sixth sense through the metal and down into the dirt and clay of the arena.

I could feel the ground-type energy surging each time they came to blows. It was fascinating. But it also was distracting me from calling out strategies mid-fight. Our opponent worked a Stomping Tantrum into the middle of his combination and the surge of ground-type energy overwhelmed my senses for a second and I did not respond in time to get Estella a solid response.

She improvised well enough, going into her Skull Bash and Bide combination, but she was still sent to her knees and took a Bone Club straight to her dome.

"Unleash!" I called out as our opponent pulled back for a follow up. The white torrent of power shot out of her body and slammed her opponent backwards.

The damage from both the Tantrum and the Bone Club had been decent, though the Skull Bash stance's defense increase had partially mitigated it. Our opponent had not been knocked out, he stumbled to his feet a bit groggily however, and that gave Estella time to recover.

"Bonemerang!" I called out and she sent her bone flying out in a spinning discus of doom.

It bounced off of a messy deflection from Otoshi's pokemon. But a light flex of energy control caused it to curve around and return to Estella's hands.

"A stunning show of martial art prowess from both marowak here today folks!" The announcer screamed.

"Indeed," Professor Oak cut in, "Both marowak show amazing finesse and technique not typically seen in wild examples of their species. I believe that Otoshi's marowak is using a variation of kendo and Isaac's is using a variation of either jōjutsu or bartitsu. I would have to see if she incorporates more unarmed attacks than just the headbutts to her style before I made a call on which it was."

Damn, Professor Oak really knew his stuff didn't he? He had pulled all of that together just from watching a few swift exchanges. I actually had originally considered teaching Estella bartitsu, but she hadn't taken as well to the elemental punches as she had to the offensive and defensive mixed usage of Headbutt and Skull Bash.

I'd been hoping she could be the first marowak to ever develop the usage of Head Smash, but so far we'd not figured it out at all. Maybe with this new ability to sense my connected type-energies we could push that in the next year or two. I had enough pokemon that could develop Earthquake or Earth Power already, so I had not focused heavily on the Stomping Tantrum or similar skill line for Estella. That didn't mean we hadn't practiced countering it.

Earthquake was one of the most prevalent finishing moves in the competitive scene after all. Lots of pokemon could learn it, whether through training or TMs, and it hit many things super-effectively.

"Club the ground!" I called out as another Stomping Tantrum came towards her, this time from much further away giving her time to respond.

She flooded her club with ground-energy and then slammed it into the ground in front of her. It worked like a boulder in a river, allowing the stream of rippling earth to split around the club, leaving her safe in a calm piece of the arena.

"That's it, we need to break out the big guns, Marowak, unleash the Waterfowl Dance!"

My mind blipped as I suddenly had some sort of horrifying waking dream flashback to… dying a half dozen times to a woman with a sword? That couldn't be right.

I shook it off and as I did I saw the marowak hovering in the air with his bone club twirling. That couldn't be good.

"Outlast Combination!" I called out. This was the pinnacle of our defensive work. Estella took a sideways stance, her bone club lowered behind her and pushed into the dirt, and her skull dipped forward, shining with the defensive boost of Skull Bash, a shine meant to hide the duller shine of the rest of her body as she triggered Bide and Endure.

She could not hold this combination for long, but luckily she didn't have to. Faster than I ever expected a marowak to move Otoshi's burst through the air with his bone club swinging violently. So violently in fact that the equivalent of multiple Vacuum Wave attacks seemed to rocket off of it, hammering into Estella's skull as he finally came down onto her with a double diagonal into an overhead slash combination.

Obviously this was not a move he could cancel out of easily, because as the first of the final three hit combination struck and Estella began to glow brighter I saw Otoshi's eyes widen in realization. As the last hit landed on her skull I also saw the marowak realize what he was about to be hit with. Suddenly all the glowing energy rushed into her bone club behind her and she whipped it around and jabbed it straight into her opponent's gut.

"KATHOOM!" A massive explosion of energy rang out and when the dust cleared Otoshi's marowak was embedded into a giant crater on the arena wall…and Estella was sleeping on the ground, the final burst of energy having knocked her out from where the Endure left her.

It was very much a sacrificial attack at this point, she'd never managed to survive the resulting explosion if Endure had triggered.

"A-amazing! After an explosive finish, the match is four to one in favor of Isaac Beech! He will go on to the finals! Now the question that remains is who shall he face? Another spunky rookie in Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town? Or the electric second year competitor, Katrina Vance? Our next semi-final match starts here in two hours and forty-five minutes!"

I bowed in respect to Otoshi and returned Estella, she'd earned quite the rest. I might not even be able to use her in the finals with the stunt we had just pulled.

Unfortunately, while I had managed to generally dodge reporters in favor of releasing catered written statements, I was not so lucky this time.

"Mr. Beech! Mr. Beech!" I looked around for my father, though that would be Doctor Beech wouldn't it? And then sighed, damn, she meant me.

"Yes…Miss?"

"Rena Dash, with Battle TV! I was wondering if we could have a moment of your time for a quick post-battle interview!"

I put on a positive face and turned to face her cameraman, "Of course! Though I would ask you to keep questions as relevant to the battle itself as possible. My father and I are putting out statements on the ancient pokemon as we have our findings reviewed and edited, and I hope you respect that in the spirit of the scientific method I cannot spoil any hypotheses before they are tested or published."

Her smile looked a little more forced now, "Well I am sure we can make do with that! Though you did use two of those ancient pokemon today, correct?"

I answered in the affirmative, "Yes, Axel and Hannibal, my kabutops and aerodactyl are certainly relevant topics today."

"How do you control such a ferocious and powerful pokemon as the aerodactyl?" She asked, "Elite Four Lance has one and is in fact part of the reason why only Master-level trainers in rock, flying, or dragon types are allowed to even apply to have one resurrected from a fossil at your father's laboratory. His reports are that they are almost as difficult to train as a snorlax and a dragonite mixed into one pokemon!"

I chuckled at the mental image, "That is a phenomenal summation of the difficulties of working with an aerodactyl. Though I think I started off with an edge, as Lance's was resurrected at full maturity, in my opinion a small downside of my father's resurrection techniques, and was not raised from the egg by him. Thus my acquisition of my aerodactyl through battle in the soon to be published underground cavern network I discovered allowed me to start the relationship in a more typical fashion. This meant I had Hannibal's respect for my power from the start, he knew he was coming into a clear hierarchy with other strong pokemon above him. Though I have had to spend a lot of my income on premium tauros steaks, even with that edge."

She nodded in understanding, "Like a mix of a dragon type and a snorlax indeed! Now we have noticed that a significant number of your pokemon appear to be trained in martial arts techniques, while not entirely uncommon, it is rare for a trainer to have multiple pokemon trained in such a diverse set of martial arts. How has that factored into your training?"

"Once again I am coming in with an edge, my time at Pokemon Tech allowed me years of extra training time, in particular technical training time, over other first year conference attendees. Professor Oak is correct, Estella has been working on jōjutsu since she was a cubone! And Artagnan, my kleavor, when he was a scyther I had him training in multiple dual bladed forms, though none fit perfectly, so it was mostly foundational techniques for him to create his own style."

"Ah yes, that kleavor is magnificent! An ancient evolution of scyther, and I take it his style has been picked up by your kabutops as well? I noticed in the two battles I have seen them both that outside of having different special moves that their forms are quite similar!"

That had me appraising this woman differently, she was young for a full professional, likely only two or three years older than me, but as a battle reporter perhaps…

"Dash…oh, I recognize it now! You won the Silver Conference four years back at…sixteen?" Her smile broadened and she flipped her shoulder length blue hair for dramatic effect.

"Indeed I did! Gave a pretty good showing against Elite Four Blaine before he retired too, if I don't say so myself."

I nodded in agreement, "I saw that fight! Your blitz style was impressive. That hitmonlee of yours…I've never seen one move so fast! And the usage of Fake Out and Feint were masterful!"

"I appreciate that even someone specializing in some of the slower types can appreciate speed!" She quipped, "Brock is all 'rock hard defense this' and 'plant yourself like a mountain' that when I interview him."

I laughed, "I've worked with him in conjunction with his kabuto a few times, and I do believe he has given me that piece of advice on my rhydon! But working with some odd dual-types like kleavor, aerodactyl, and my Alolan sandslash gives me an appreciation for some hybrid fighting styles."

"Yes, and let's speak to that, you tend to favor boosting techniques and chain combinations, does that sound like a fair assessment?"

I nodded once more, "Absolutely. In fact you might say that only Cleo, my nidoqueen and starter, does not follow that path. Though two of my pokemon I have yet to use in the conference utilize that style slightly less than the rest of my team."

"Oh? Do you think we'll see them in your final match?"

I grinned, "I have no doubt that my good friend, Ash Ketchum, is in for quite the set of surprises in our match."

"Calling the next match for the rookie already?" She said in sincere shock.

"Absolutely, I have absolute faith in that young man. He has never failed to impress me. When it comes to battle he only ever needs to learn something once, and the bonds he has with his pokemon astound me."

"Really? I have seen articles complimenting you on your bonds with your pokemon, but you say Mr. Ketchum's bonds are even deeper?"

"In many ways I think I can agree with that statement, while you see very close bonds with my pokemon I had to work and fight for those in a few cases. With Ash? It feels like he forms them instantly, even with wild pokemon that do not stay with him!"

The interview soon wrapped up and I found myself walking away pretty happy about it.

Prizefighter, Finals Part 1

"Professor Oak! How does it feel to be seeing one of your sponsored rookies make it here to the finals?"

"Well, I had high hopes for young Ash, but this exceeded them by far. I always saw his potential as a battler, he has a natural ability to improvise and connect with his pokemon. But I thought it would be a few seasons before he sanded off the rough edges and really began to shine! His style of speed and forcing his opponents into his improvisation games is really working."

"And what do you think about his opponent? Isaac Beech is a rising star both here on the battle scene and in your own field of pokemon research, correct?"

"A leading question, but I will bite. Yes, while only technically a rookie due to how Pokemon Tech is a multi-year program he is still showing great strides. Even when trainers start older like he has we don't typically see them reach their true potential for two to three seasons. Hypothetical knowledge of battle and experiential knowledge of battle are two wildly different things in many cases. However, his deep knowledge of pokemon from his academic pursuits combined with what appears to be a deep connection with pokemon of the earth triad of elements seem to be pushing him closer to the top of the crop than one would expect."

I shook my hands out and bounced on my toes in the small tunnel that led out to the arena, waiting to be called. I had thought I left the arena broken, but Ash had apparently caused a small fire storm in his last match that left the entire thing scorched. They'd had to bring in an agricultural specialist with a venusaur, dugtrio, and blastoise to fix it all up. Thus the arena looked all sparkly and new and ready for me to go for the new damage high score.

I'd brought the A-team to this match, minus Ozma (A mythical pokemon just wasn't fair). I planned to lead with Shahrazad and have the flygon set up a Sandstorm. I had brought my aerodactyl (Hannibal), kleavor (Artagnan), Alolan sandslash (Brinker), and was packing my giant golurk (Mr. Darcy). Of course I couldn't have a finals bout without my starter, the lovely nidoqueen, Cleopatra.

I expected to see at minimum Charizard and Pikachu from Ash. I also expected his freshly evolved Wartortle, it definitely seemed like Charizard being less of a pain in the ass than some of the flashes I had seen of Ash's possible future had led to his other pokemon being less opposed to the process. Bulbasaur was out however, it had participated in a brutal double knock out with a venomoth in Ash's last match. He almost definitely was bringing Primeape as well. That little beast was a menace, and remained Ash's biggest problem child behavior-wise as well. Oh it listened in combat, as long as Ash was telling it how to hit something, but if Ash tried to shake things up with stat boosting moves it often would just go in for more punches.

I was curious about who his other picks would be. Kingler would be a good pick, but also had taken a bit of a beating in the previous match. Ash had a good number of pokemon who were good match-ups for some of my pokemon but horribly weak to ground-type moves if I played Cleo or Estella. Which I imagined might keep Ash from picking them, as Pikachu shared that weakness and was a guaranteed pick. Then again knowing Ash he might have just let his team volunteer based on enthusiasm for fighting me.

"Without further ado, let us begin the finals of this year's Indigo Conference! On the Red Platform, Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town!"

Cheers erupted, having a cute ace like Pikachu could get you a real following. That said…

"And on the Blue Platform, Isaac Beech of Saffron City!" Well I'd been born on Cinnabar, but my parents had moved to Saffron about when I started at Tech, so technically true. I got cheers too, because having a bunch of previously extinct pokemon was a pretty high cool factor.

That was my cue however, I walked out into the arena and began to grandstand. Waving my hat to the crowd as I made my way over to the blue platform, with Ash opposite me across a fresh field for use to wreck. It was the same as the previous six versus six fields.

The center a mix of clay and dirt similar to a tennis court. Along the edges of the court there were rocks and boulders and more rough terrain. Then around that there was grass with two pools parallel to each other on opposite sides of the arena for water-types. Which, I belatedly realized, I had not brought any of.

Oops. Oh well, I had far and away enough rock-type coverage for Ash's charizard. Far more effective than water anyways. Though perhaps I was biased.

I tipped my hat towards Ash as the announcer went over the rules and he confusedly tapped the brim of his cap as well. I palmed Shahrazad's Friend Ball and prepared for release, I saw Ash did the same with a standard pokeball, all of his captures were in such. The referee called for release and we both threw our pokemon out.

"Unleash the sands, Flygon!"

"Dragonair, I choose you!"

Well that was…not the optimal lead for Shahrazad to start out against. I had no idea what build Ash had taken this dragonair down since it evolved, the last I had seen her had been the training where she got to her evolution. At minimum she knew Dragonbreath, and Shahrazad specialized in her own sonic attacks, not her dragon-type energy.

However, Shahrazad had heard the opening command in my release phrase and already had her wings beating fiercely pulling up a Sandstorm.

"Who is that pokemon?" The announcer called out for the benefit of the audience, I hoped.

Oak quickly jumped on the prompt, it's what he was here for so as our opening moves fired off, he explained.

"Flygon is the final evolution of Trapinch, it's a rare Dragon and Ground type pokemon primarily from Hoenn and Unova that can fly. They are often associated with sandstorms as we are seeing right now."

"We can't see! Send a Twister in to clear the sand out!" Ash called out to his pokemon.

It wouldn't completely disperse the Sandstorm, it was far too self-sustaining a technique for that requiring another weather move or a special ability or technique more specialized than Twister to disperse, but the wide area wind would be more effective at getting a hit in on Shahrazad, and I didn't want her to deal with that so early.

"Go for a U-turn over the top!" I called out, around when Professor Oak was finishing his explanation, Ash had every reason to remember those details from our training back on the ranch, so I wasn't too peeved with Oak for giving away all that information.

Shahrazad burst up over the Sandstorm and the blue-green Twister tearing through it and began to glow green herself before rocketing down at the floating dragonair. She bopped it pretty solidly and then the green light of her attack sent a thin beam out to connect to her pokeball and she was returned. I already had a Dusk Ball in hand,

"Fly, Aerodactyl!" Hannibal appeared in a burst of red light just over the Sandstorm with an intimidating roar.

"Oh crap, Dragon Rage!" Ash called out, I am guessing he hoped to have the dragonair blast Hannibal before he could dip into the Sandstorm for cover.

They semi-succeeded, the top of his skull was skimmed by the dragon energy as he dove, he knew what to do when summoned into a storm.

"Oh! And using a returning move, similar to Gary Oak's Baton Pass earlier in the six on six battles, Isaac Beech has returned his flygon to use later and sent out his ferocious aerodactyl!"

"I am impressed that Ash has a dragonair this well trained," Professor Oak started, "But I am worried it might be a little bit young for this level of combat. Mr. Beech here has shown that he has honed his mainstay team members into quite a formidable force."

"Once you're in, build yourself up!" I called, not needing the whistle yet. Once he was in the storm proper or high in the sky I would need that. Faintly through the storm a glow was visible after he finished plummeting into it.

"He likes to bite! Stay out of the storm and hit him with Thunder Wave if he comes out! Iron Tail if he gets close!"

He was learning, I'd drilled the benefit of status moves of various types into his head with my abuse of boosting moves and things like Toxic. But, if I was doing my math right…yep there's the second glow. That's two Dragon Dances.

"Tail Wind into Ice Fang!" Tail Wind had a funny effect in a Sand Storm, or at least the way Hannibal controlled it, it sucked the sand up into a bit of a vortex around him. It used up the Sandstorm, but it gave him a lot of cover. The reactive Thunder Wave from the dragonair dispersed amongst the grains of sand and pebbles.

I had to give credit to the serpentine dragon though, she went right into an Iron Tail without flinching at Hannibal's sand cloaked form shooting at her. She landed that hit too, right into Hannibal's gut as his jaws clamped down on her own. Now however she flinched back, and as ice spread over her scales those scales flaked away. Huh, I thought to myself, Marvel Scale. She'll be scary as a dragonite. I admittedly already knew that as I'd had one of my visions of her as a dragonite going toe to toe with Champions. Capital C and plural.

A beam of red light returned her, she probably had a bit of fight left, but not enough to risk her more.

"And dragonair is returned!" The announcer called out, "Who will Ash pick next?"

The entire stadium was shocked by his next pick. It was a quintessential Ash move though.

"Go, Charizard!" He called out and his real ace in my opinion appeared in the sky, roaring a challenge to Hannibal. This was going to get brutal. Fighting Hannibal after all was how Charizard had evolved from a charmeleon in the first place.

"STEEL WING!"
"Thunder Fang!"

Both commands were called out and the two apex predators began to brutally duel in the sky. Both attacks were super-effective against their targets and both had approximately the same average strength when factoring in Hannibal's divergent evolution ability of Strong Jaw.

I knew Hannibal had the stronger defense, but I also knew Charizard seemingly had more health and vigor and worst of all, once it got low enough Blaze would trigger. I hit the whistle for a three note burst, commanding Hannibal to switch to hit and run. I did not want him grappled and then grounded. A Seismic Toss could ruin our day pretty nicely.

On the ground Charizard would win, purely due to having more and better balanced limbs for it. Obviously Ash knew this too, we'd had this fight before. But his Charizard had had months to grow and have new fights since then. And from the draconic grin on his muzzle I could tell he had been itching for this rematch.

Ah, I reflected, That's why Ash sent him out. They had a deal that he got this rematch. This was now a grudge match between our two pokemon. I felt a thrill of excitement run through me, Hannibal and I had gotten a lot more in sync with each other during this tournament. Giving him exciting fights and new enemies was bringing us closer.

"Rock Slide!" I called out, and with the two of us wearing feral grins of matching energy, Hannibal fell into a dive and pulled up just in time to skim the ground with his wings. As he shot back up towards the fire drake a line of boulders pulled out of the ground and trailed along after him, telekinetically following for the attack.

"Full Steel!" Ash called out a very strange command and I was thoroughly surprised when Charizard's wings, claws, and horns began to shine with silver steel-type energy. I had seen them work on Metal Claw with my, at the time, Galarian meowth, but this was. He had stolen my defensive Skull Bash from Estella hadn't he? And added steel-type. That little twerp.

Real Steel, Finals Part 2

The experimental technique did not protect Charizard from the absolute landslide that slammed into him. Well…it might have some, he was flapping weakly and looking completely punch drunk as the boulders fell away and his silver type-energy faded away while the dust cleared.

Hannibal, the battle hungry aerodactyl, was grinning through what was some pretty obvious pain. He'd taken two steel type moves to the gut now. Charizard had gotten in at least one claw or tail swipe in during that most of the body coverage technique as he was being hammered by the Rock Slide.

After a few more moments, Charizard's wings gave out and he unsteadily landed on the ground. With a sigh Ash returned him.

With a nod I returned Hannibal as well, he might have been able to get some chip damage in on the next pokemon or bait out Pikachu for me, but I wasn't willing to let him overextend and injure himself out of pride or stubbornness. This put, as I am sure the announcer was droning on about, me with one pokemon down and one revealed and Ash at two pokemon down.

We called out our next pokemon and it was my starter, Cleopatra the nidoqueen, against Ash's pidgeot. The great plumed bird hovered in the air back sweeping its wings skillfully as it surveyed the landscape and its opponent. Cleo craned her neck up and narrowed her eyes at her opponent. This is the exact kind of match up I had groomed her skills to dominate. A long range battle against a quick but not particularly bulky opponent who she could snipe down with one or two super-effective strikes.

"Thunderbolt!" I called out as Professor Oak finished praising both of the stage two pokemon.

"Sand Attack!" Ash called out in return and as the lightning shot forth from Cleo's small horn it was intercepted and unfocused by a wave of sand and dirt kicked up by the large bird. The lightning becoming so unfocused allowed the pidgeot to shoot higher up into the air and dodge completely. Luckily there was a cap on how high aerial pokemon could go in an official battle, it ended up being a bit less than the length of a baseball diamond above the other pokemon as long as they remained in full sight and hearing of the trainers. This allowed two flying pokemon to head on up to almost an entire extra baseball diamond in height.

At the Plateau here that brought them almost level with the top of the arena stadium, though Pidgeot was limited to just half that against a grounded opponent. Cleo was slightly above the average maximum number of moves due to her intense training with Ozma the last month to try and turn Thunderbolt, Flamethrower, and Ice Beam into Tri Attack. She still hadn't managed it yet, but it had allowed her greater ease of control over those three and had allowed her to bring some other techniques that weren't truly combat ready into the mix. In fact that mastery had been why she was able to evolve her poison moves into Sludge Wave and Toxic and her ground-type control into Earth Power.

This would be key in this fight, I decided, because as soon as I saw that Sand Attack I knew what type of fight this was going to turn into. Sure enough Ash had Pidgeot boost itself with Tailwind and then circle and use hit and run Wing Attacks to try to get damage in. What followed was a visually exciting minute of nobody getting a hit in. The crowd was getting a treat while Ash and I were both visibly getting irritated at the stalemate. Cleo couldn't get a hit in and Pidgeot couldn't get damage in.

Any time the bird was not forced back by a Thunderbolt, Ice Beam, or Sludge Wave put into the path of its attack it ran head first into a Protect. I had Cleo alternating to try and conserve energy and keep the pidgeot cautious. I could feel that Cleo was struggling to keep up, that the pidgeot was trying to surprise her with striking in asynchronous patterns and not always at perceived blindspots.

As the battle continued I felt a part of me trying to reach out to Cleo, to warn her when a blitz was coming. I gave into that sensation, I let that part of myself surge, which I had first felt in the Desert Resort and in the caverns below Grampa Canyon, which had finally pushed its way to the front of my mind during my confrontation with Mewtwo. Some kind of link snapped into place as that energy and feeling wormed its way down the metal platform and into the earth below and touched Cleo's planted form. Suddenly I could feel the strain of the last Protect shield she had thrown up on her energy reserves. I knew she had just enough energy left to do our experimental finishing move. I'd designed it exactly for this kind of fight, too. One where the enemy was too fast and evasive for her standard strategy.

"Cage Match!" I called out, unconsciously sending some of my own energy to help with her exhaustion. We'd successfully pulled off this technique exactly one time in training. I hoped we at least got enough of it out here that it would disrupt Pidgeot and allow us to hit a finishing blow.

"QUEEN!" Cleo cried out and slammed her claws into the dirt and raised her head high, her small horn pointing directly up. Earth Power shot out every direction, creating compact pillars of sand and dirt about ten yards out from where she was planted.

Pidgeot swerved to avoid them as they popped out of the ground, assuming they were themselves the attack. It was wrong. A Thunderbolt shot up and out from Cleo's horn and got pulled to the purposeful lightning rod effects of the pillars. The lightning ricocheted between them, creating low levels of electricity that locked Pidgeot into the cage. This entire combo-move was built off of elemental control and anime bullshit physics that this world ran on and wrote off as 'aura'.

"Welcome to the Thunderdome, Ash!" I called out, "Dodge this! Ice Beam!"

As the beam of cold white energy shot forward to end the fight I had to brace myself against the railing of my platform. I couldn't lend my energy to my pokemon like that again. It might have been an unconscious move on my part, but as soon as it happened I had felt what had just occurred.

Pidgeot had nowhere to run, it attempted to skirt the edge of the cage, but an errant bolt of electricity shocked it and slowed it down just enough for the Ice Beam to slam into. The bird was quickly returned.

"What is this attack, Isaac?" Ash called out bewildered. "A combination of Earth Power and Thunderbolt, it's based on the Lightning Rod ability some rhyhorn and marowak have. Neither of mine have it, but I've studied it."

Ash whistled, "I'll have to get a ground-type. This is really cool!"

Oh, that was right, Ash didn't have a ground-type yet. He'd caught some extra pokemon but still no ground or steel types. Thinking about it, I was fairly sure he didn't even have a rock-type.

"So who's next, Ash?" I taunted, both of us ignoring the announcer and Professor Oak at this point.

"Go, Wartortle!" Ash called out, conveniently the electricity from around the pillars only lasted about ten to twenty seconds, long enough to get off one or two attacks but not much else. And Cleo was exhausted, I was going to have to do what I did with Gary's blastoise and try to poison this wartortle. And damn, Ash had a cool specimen of a wartortle. He'd been cool as a squirtle, with the shades and all, but apparently he'd begged Ash to get him a new pair of shades to fit his slightly larger head upon evolving.

He was wearing a pair of legitimate, Black Glasses, with sharply pointed corners making him look like some sort of biker variant. All he needed was some spike decals on his shell.

I decided I'd withdraw Cleo after a hit or two, "Thunderbolt!"

I called out, hoping we could keep the turtle defensive until an opportunity for a Toxic came around.

"Rapid Spin around the columns!" Ash called out and the limbs quickly disappeared into the shell and the creature spun out of the path of the lightning.

Damn, this was possibly not going to be as easy as I'd hoped to get a parting shot off. I didn't want to sacrifice the pillars though, they were crucial to my next pick for similar reasons to what Ash was having Wartortle do here. Which left just one option. Patience.

"Swing around behind and use Water Pulse!" There it was! I'd taught Ash more patience than he previously had, but not more than I had.

"Sludge Wave!" With a screeching battle cry a viscous purple sludge shot out of Cleo's mouth and pores rippled outwards and overpowered the Water Pulse while seeping into the holes of the Wartortle's shell.

Unfortunately, with Sheer Force there was no way a poison condition was being left behind. I hadn't been able to land Toxic. No need to make her suffer for one more hit. She'd done enough.

"Into the pool while he switches out!" Repositioning while I exchanged pokemon was completely legal. Ash was obviously hoping to wash off some of that sludge, not aware of Cleo's ability.

"Oh! And Isaac has returned his starter after a mesmerizing show of technical skill! What comes next?"

"Hit the ice, Brinker!" I called out, as I released my Alolan sandslash to take on this wartortle in the spinning pinball game I knew would follow. Wartortle popped out of the pool to face his opponent, Ash and I looked at each other, and we both grinned.

"Rapid Spin!" We both called out. Our pokemon both spun in place before shooting off towards the pillars.

"Supplement with Rollout and Mist!" I called the next attack out as they ricocheted around the center of the arena. Occasionally clashing like a pair of deadly tops. An earthy glow suffused Brinker and he began to trail an icy fog behind him, hoping to obscure Wartortle's senses and befuddle his maneuvering.

Looking over at my opponent's frustrated face I think he was realizing that he didn't have a finishing move on Wartortle to break this stalemate, whereas Brinker was going to slowly power-up with Rollout and Rapid Spin here.

"Use one of the pillars to Shell Smash! Then Brick Break!" Uh…or I was completely wrong and he was trying to puzzle over how to get a Shell Smash in without losing momentum.

"Bide!" I called out just as the wartortle shed a small external layer of its shell after slamming into a column and deflected itself back towards Brinker, who swerved to meet in the middle while glowing red. The limbs of the turtle popped out and a fist hammered into Brinker, who was sent hurtling back into another one of the columns. Which is when the Bide fired off, he landed against the column, one claw gripping it, and opened his shrewish muzzle and fired off a blast of white light that slammed Wartortle right back where he came from.

"Ah! Wartortle, no!" Ash had been completely blind-sided by that one, even though he knew Bide was one of Brinker's favorite moves. The blistering pinball match had caused him to gain tunnel vision.

And just like that, I realized Ash only had two pokemon left. Whereas I was sitting on four, with Shahrazad my flygon, having not been removed from play thanks to U-turn early on. Has confidence been my issue this entire time?

Was I so trapped by seeing the powerful pokemon Ash would eventually have and face down in my visions and knowing what else existed in this world that I had constantly devalued myself? Well…I supposed I would just have to check and see by hunting down more challenging battles after this.

After I beat Ash Ketchum. Even Primeape materializing to face off against Brinker who was doubly weak to the fighting type didn't crush my newfound confidence. I had this in the bag.

When We Were Kings, Finals Part 3

Sure, based on the type match-up I should have been concerned when Primeape appeared. And I was definitely considering that match-up as a one to one loss. Brinker was fast and he was talented and cunning, but as an Alolan sandslash he didn't really have anything that could hit Primeape hard, especially with another Bide being off the table. He could take one single hit from Primeape and then he'd be out.

But I could get some chip damage in and best of all, I could win the psychological game here, and set Primeape up to fall to Shahrazad, my flygon, on her return. Though…I was also supposed to show off Artagnan some, but he'd perhaps do a bit better against Pikachu than Primeape.

The next three and a half seconds thoroughly disabused me of a bit of that growing confidence. Primeape dismantled Brinker in a way I had not thought was possible.

Until the very last moment, when I realized what was going on. Primeape moved before Brinker did, he was using Detect. Without Ash showing his hand and giving away the game by commanding it. Where they had picked that up was beyond me, but it certainly changed things. I definitely couldn't send my kleavor out now, it was definitely going to be up to Shahrazad to finish off this monkey. Or I would be forced to bring out Mr. Darcy, my alpha golurk. I didn't want to do that and steal the show from the ancient pokemon unless I had to.

"Bring the desert storms, Flygon!" I called out as I released her after returning a bruised and battered Brinker.

Similar to before she immediately set up a Sandstorm that Primeape could do nothing about.

"Try and use Detect to move through the storm, Primeape! Wind up an Ice Punch!"

Of course Ash had gotten elemental punches onto this little rage beast. Well, Detect wouldn't work quite as well as he was hoping here.

"Lay down some Mud Shots inside the storm and then drop some noise!" The last command was a coded message to use Psychic Noise, a technical machine I had procured specifically due to her preference for her vibration and noise based moves.

Grunts and shrieks came from out of the sandstorm as they chased each other around. Primeape really must have been good enough at Detect to use it to counter attack when Shahrazad got close enough to let loose an attack, Psychic Noise being more of an AoE radius off of the user similar to Boomburst in most use cases. I heard a few hisses of pain from my flygon as she whittled down the angry monkey.

"APE!" An angry voice shouted from inside the storm and then there was a flash of blue-white light and Shahrazad rocketed out of the storm clawing at her ice covered snout. It appeared Ash's primeape actually had gotten a pretty solid hit there.

It also appeared that Shahrazad's stamina was flagging. Starting a weather condition was often draining outside of a few species like hippowdon, tyranitar, torkoal, and pelliper. She hadn't really done all that much but she was flagging nonetheless.

I'd have to have her play long range and drop the sandstorm, which meant we'd be going into Pikachu on a handicap.

Sure enough, the sand cleared and Primeape was KOed by the Psychic Noises that had gone off inside the storm, but he'd gotten that Ice Punch in on the way out, softening Shahrazad up for Pikachu.

"Primeape, return!" Ash called out, then gestured to the pokemon at his side on the stand, "You're up Pikachu!"

In the audience stands people held up banners and signs and streamers with Pikachu's face on them and screamed in joy. Definitely a popular ace.

I nodded up at Shahrazard and called out, "You good to keep going, girl?"

She flaked the last of the ice off of her muzzle and nodded at me, turning to glare down at Pikachu with agitated red eyes.

Pikachu's cheeks sparked.

"No electricity! Quick Attack and Brick Break, Pikachu!"

With a blur Pikachu was gone.

Shahrazad barely spun around and got her tail up in time to soften the blow of the Brick Break, meeting Pikachu's own glowing tail without any move to soften the blow. She hissed in pain and hovered backwards, tail bruised.

"Dragon Pulse!" I called out our newly improved dragon-type attack, and one of her only two moves that weren't sound-based.

As a game of cat and mouse, or antlion-thing and mouse in this case, ensued I tapped the clockwork pokeball around my neck and sent a thought.

'Enjoying the show, Ozma?'

'Yes, Daddy!' She sent back enthusiastically, 'Seeing Cleo use moves we practiced was really fun! And I hope I can play with Pikachu sometime, he seems fun!'

I chuckled and turned my attention back to the fight, "Countdown Three!" I yelled, letting Shahrazad know to countdown from three and then release a Boomburst. I had developed this command for situations when I predicted a pokemon with a wide area explosive attack was about to be flanked and it would be best to use that move.

Three seconds later, Shahrazad's wings vibrated extra violently and loudly and she screamed out, a distortion in the air showing where the sound waves rippled out. Just in time to slam into Pikachu who had flickered into the air behind her.

The electric mouse was surprised and sent flying backwards into the wall of the arena to the sympathetic 'oohs' of the crowd.

"You can do it buddy, keep going! Thunderbolt the beam!"

Shahrazad's follow-up attack of Dragon Pulse was already shooting forth, however, Pikachu managed to get a Thunderbolt to shoot out and meet it in mid-air about two meters in front of himself. This caused an explosion that covered the field in smoke.

It was my mistake to wait to see if the opponent was down. I knew Pikachu was a tough little bugger, but I was complacent in thinking he would be put down by the aftermath there.

Suddenly he was above Shahrazad's head and spinning around like a blue hedgehog hungry for some rings.

"Iron Tail!" Ash called out and I gaped as the iconic move, that Pikachu absolutely had not used this entire tournament so far, came slamming down on my flygon's noggin and sent her spiraling down to the ground. I returned her before she could hit, if she hadn't been KOed she was close.

"That was great, Ash!" I called out as I took out a safari ball, "Were you holding that in reserve just to catch little old me by surprise?"

The young boy laughed and turned a little red and scratched a cheek, "Actually we only finished getting it to work yesterday when we were practicing last minute after the battle with Ritchie."

I laughed, of course he had that kind of bullshit anime ass pull, "Fair enough then, Blades Out, Kleavor!" I released my second to last pokemon. Ash had given me a good run, but I wasn't going to be needing Mr. Darcy with Pikachu this tired.

Ash could tell too, he saw Pikachu breathing hard and went to raise a hand, but then Pikachu sent a spark his direction.

"You want to go out fighting, huh buddy?"

The mouse nodded.

"Alright! Then let's do this! Thunderbolt!"

Artagnan, my kleavor, had known to immediately begin boosting when he hit the ground, so he had at least had a single Agility boost, but it was not enough to completely dodge the lightning.

The attack clipped his left shoulder as he charged with juking pivots towards Pikachu.

A Stone Axe rushed along the ground, kicking up and leaving behind shards of earth and stone, and Pikachu barely got out of the way with a Quick Attack.

Artagnan spun around and I noticed that his left side arm was moving slower than it should, a partial paralysis I wagered. This arm was glowing the green of an X-Scissor that his other arm soon began to match and I nodded in approval. Abusing Sharpness to hit hard and crit hard was the best bet here. Pikachu only had one hit left before he was out.

"Quick Attack!" Both Ash and I called out at once, and our pokemon clashed with combination Quick Attacks. Artagnan wielding the green of X-Scissor and Pikachu meeting the blades with his silvery Iron Tail. Both pokemon were sent backwards, Artagnan skidding along the ground, while Pikachu back flipped away dizzily, eventually landing on his own feet.

Pikachu was wobbling however, and the seeing the opportunity, Artagnan reached out and triggered the shards of Stone Axe from earlier, which shot towards Pikachu, who to his credit did dodge about half of them.

Unfortunately the other half were enough to knock him out. Ash leapt down into the arena to go get his partner as the referee raised the flag.

"And there it is! Two astounding rookies have duked it out in the arena and the new Indigo League Conference Winner has been decided! Isaac Beech will go on to the exhibition match against next month's Silver League winner in two months at the opening of next year's Conference Season! He has two years to file an Elite Four challenge before he has to recompete for the honor! What a great year it has been folks! We've seen some of the strongest fresh blood in a decade!"

I returned Artagnan with a relieved exhale of breath, I could feel the adrenaline that had carried me through that battle bleeding away. I kept a strong face on and took my hat off and waved to the crowd. I was met by cheers.

For many this would be the capstone of their career, their goals, their ambitions.

But for me, this was just the beginning. This was a world of wonder, and with this newfound confidence I could allow myself to give into my boundless curiosity.

 

[Hero]

I really love this! The passion that you have for Pokémon, both in battling and research really engage me a lot! And the mentorship/friendship with Ash has also been a stellar part of this.

Bravo, Isaac. I'm having a great time reading this!