- Life Goes On -
Janice nervously stood across the small training room from the same cousin that had attacked her the day before, now with both of them wearing the foil over their aura sensors. The strange part was the actually combat trained pokemon, if anything, looked to be the more nervous of the two about facing off against each other. She was quite sure that being the largest Lucario they'd ever seen wasn't enough to produce that reaction.
"Alright, I think this is a sufficient handicap," her grandmother gleefully told the crowd around them. "Janice is familiar with working without aura sight, but is untrained in battle, and Evan is a notable combatant against other Lucario, but is fighting blinded."
Her parents looked amused from where they were standing at the edge of the room. They had insisted that this second day in this world should be spent as much as possible with exploring the local customs. As a result she was now going to have to fight her cousin Evan. She was rather sure his name was short for something, but didn't have any idea what.
"I'll try not to embarrass myself," she allowed at the prospect, which strangely did nothing to improve the mood of her opponent. Janice was quite sure that her family could not possibly be missing that given she could see it so clearly without the benefit of aura.
"I'm ready," Evan said calmly despite his appearance.
The elder Lucario raised a paw in the air at this, and then after a short moment dropped it to indicate the start of the battle. Janice prepared for ranged attacks to start, after all Aura Sphere was the identifying move of her species, and her own lack of ability to make one was in her opinion her largest gap in this fight. Given she had a lot of gaps that wasn't saying a whole lot.
Evan, however, instead of keeping that advantage moved forward to close the distance while forming just such an attack. The Team Lead had to frown as she shifted so she could avoid the blast. He continued a good ways past what she felt was the safe minimum range where it was worth using over Force Palm, and then closer still before launching the sphere.
Janice hopped to the side just enough to avoid it and then decided to push herself forward to send an aura coated palm towards his gut. She was quite surprised to find her attack making contact as he moved slightly wrong to avoid the blow, as if he had thought she was aiming for his head.
The more experienced pokemon clearly took the hit well, and disengaged far enough back to avoid any followup attacks she could manage. Then he seemed to almost reluctantly begin to form another sphere at this greater range.
That was the point that Janice gave up on the fight. He clearly wasn't taking her seriously if the badly aimed attempts were to be believed, and the resulting time to think that the slow rate of fire gave her would be more than enough to attempt to apply Shawn's trainer tips to this fight. Given the Troubleshooter tended to end up in combat himself even before he gained access to true moves, there was a solid chance some of it had been more suited to fighting on your own than if she had learned from a typical trainer.
She moved forward quickly, aura coated paws carefully moving to intercept the orbs of energy as they became more accurate with decreased distance. Which took far too long in her opinion, as she managed to get close enough to sweep a leg similarly coated with the glowing blue energy under the smaller Lucario, knocking him to the floor.
"Enough," her grandmother called out, the older canine's voice a mixture of confused, angry, and concerned. "Evan, what is the meaning of this?"
The young Lucario groaned from the floor, and as he lifted himself up he visibly had to stop himself from pushing the foil off his sensors. "I can't make her out!" he complained sharply. "How do other pokemon even manage without aura?"
"What do you mean you 'can't make me out'?" Janice asked thoughtfully.
"You were moving fast, and far away. How am I supposed to see anything with just my eyes that far away?" he clarified with the same sharp tone.
"You can't see things as far away as she was?" the old Lucario asked astounded. "How long has that been the case?"
The confusion on their grandmother's face, or perhaps in her tone Janice considered, seemed to get through to the younger pokemon that there was something strange about his statement. "Metagross, can you project a vision test?" the Troubleshooter Lead asked her pokemon as her cousin looked over at their shared relative clearly feeling despair.
"Standard test for pokemon vision research is available, along with human normal test," the machine like pokemon noted. "Former is noted to be more applicable to your species and the local reading level." They then projected a screen with a set of small line drawings in various scales against one wall of the room. "Lucario standard is line four at halfway point of the room."
Evan paled at the result. "Line four! I can barely make any of them out," he complained from just a bit farther than halfway across the room. "What even are these squiggles supposed to- oh that's a berry," he continued walking forward, and at a quarter of the way across the room finally being able to identify the largest images.
"That can happen?" an older relative that might have been his mother, but Janice wasn't quite sure, asked horrified. "Please, is there anything that can be done about that?"
"Mom," her opponent complained, confirming her suspicion. "I can just use aura. It's worked so far."
"Over-reliance on one sense, especially one you seem intent on blinding in others, is an issue that I have attempted to counter for far longer than you have been alive, grandson," their grandmother said bluntly. "Now, back to the important part, can anything be done about this issue?"
"Humans typically use glasses, small lenses of clear material that correct for the problems with their wearer's eyes," Janice informed the group, uncertain on how helpful the information would actually be. "I don't know if anyone helps pokemon out with that sort of problem."
"I do," her Zoroark uncle noted proudly. "That is to say I help out pokemon with that problem. Well, actually, they tend to start as humans that can use normal glasses, but the point is that doesn't work for pokemon forms that need to fight." With a very deliberate and clearly untrained motion Daniel Fairview formed a set of black banded goggles. "You need something that stays on with a lot of motion. Getting the correct lenses for a particular pokemon shape is a bit difficult at times, but with the right coloration it can be hidden easily enough." He put the demonstration recreation on, the color blending almost perfectly with his own fur. "I can get him checked out and fitted easily enough, and if we don't need to hide them then the cost for extra pairs will go down dramatically."
"We need to get you in touch with Ruby," Janice's grandfather said at this display. "The talent to know how to hide something like that should not be paired with the lack of skill you displayed making it."
"That's one of several reasons why I'm here now," the Zoroark agreed, Janice just barely able to spot how the illusionary goggles faded away as he said this.
"I think we also should take this chance to see if Janice has a sensitivity to aura," Janice's grandmother suggested. "Perhaps even check both of these for everyone while we're at it?"
Celebi knew that he had taken too long to figure out that the strange digital monster he had let himself get caught in a conversation with was too focused on Legendary pokemon. It had started with simple questions on what exactly he could do, if a bit more detailed than was typical. However, instead of taking the basic responses to those increased details as an end point, she started with strangely appropriate questions about those fine details.
"I'm sorry, but I think we've gotten a bit off track. Didn't you want to focus on how Legendaries are created?" he interrupted at the end of a discussion that had somehow ended up on temporal cloning. "I know it must be interesting to hear all about my abilities, but I don't want to take up too much of your time." Rather than make her realize what she had been doing, this simply caused her to visibly deflate.
"If the original intent of your creation is still possible, but the way you operate in that capacity has been corrupted, is that able to be acceptable?" she asked, the question cutting deeply.
"Did someone tell you what happened to my forest?" the time traveler asked sorrowfully. Once again she surprised him, and started to really worry him, as she very clearly indicated that she had not, meaning that she had her own reasons for that particular question. "They weren't always 'lost' woods. Long ago." He paused as he really considered what he ended up saying next. "Longer than it had been around before this happened actually. Something turned my forest into a Mystery Dungeon, making it so that random items, dangers, and even pokemon would form within an ever twisting maze." The thought that his other part had been like this longer than it had not made him pause again to collect his thoughts. "For Legendary pokemon who are specifically tied to one location, like myself, that location is a part of our bodies. Damage or alterations done to it is also done to us."
"Personality alterations as a side effect of the change?" she asked, still sounding like she wasn't really asking about him.
"Among other issues," he admitted. "I don't even think anyone is around that remembers who I was before. I don't dare go back to that particular time, or any time I visited back then." Then he really looked at the body and spirit of the creature he had been talking with. Her form was stable, but now with the thought in mind he compared that stability to his own. "Does anyone remember-" he started to ask.
"I am the result of a pokemon being formed, and then immediately afterward being corrupted by one of these," she cut him off, the last word spat out as she formed a small dome shaped almost-creature from her tail.
"Ah," he commented uselessly at the thing she had made. "That explains it." He considered it a bit more. "I've had to turn pokemon back into the right species, and in one extreme case figure out just how to deal with one turned into an inanimate object, because of what has happened to me," he explained. "Nothing I've ever heard has helped with that issue."
"I would prefer to discuss another topic," she said at that, and he had to admit that wasn't the best way he could have handled that one. "However, with that information disclosed, I feel I should provide my full designation before you permit me to continue. I am the result of the incarnation of a program known as the Legendary Analysis System, and the creation of one of these by an advanced sensor system."
Celebi now realized that he had truly pissed off that Quagsire, and wasn't getting out of this conversation easily.
"It's actually really weird to live with pokemon," Floramon said as the two digimon reached her field of plants just outside of the town. It was split up into quite a few different sections for a variety of plants, mostly berry bushes. "They are some of the nicest people I've ever met, but I don't know if most of them can go a month without getting into a fight with something."
"That seems to be the case from what I have observed as well," Tyranomon said, then carefully moved to the edge of the tilled soil to sit. The plant digimon had offered to talk with him while she worked. "Although they have been very willing to allow me to not do so if I desired."
The flower monster giggled at that dry statement. "Yeah, although my customers still pester me a bit from time to time. The Lucario that lead the village also did make sure I knew how to fight 'properly' first too," she noted. "Mostly that I knew how to tell when to stop so I didn't seriously hurt someone, because they apparently assume that you will get into fights just because you exist."
"That is the first thing my team had me work on as well, along with a failed attempt to increase my strength with their methods," the digital dinosaur agreed. "It took bringing up the topic for them to realize that not wanting to fight was even something I could possibly want."
"That way they get stronger actually seems to me to be part of why they fight so much," Floramon said thoughtfully as she started to go over the plants for any issues or fully grown results. "They can only get stronger by actually using their abilities, and unlike us they actually get weaker bit by bit if they don't keep using them. It's actually a little scary to think about being like that," she confessed. "To just get worse at something without evolving into a less impressive form."
"I had not considered that," he admitted. "Gazimon, another digimon who is now in the other world, has complained a bit that the current issues are taking time away from his team working on their own combat skills." The other digimon looked at him in confusion at this statement, causing him to realize that he had left part of it out. "He was made partially into a pokemon as a side effect of something, and now even has one of their 'types'."
"That's possible?" Floramon asked intrigued. "I'm guessing there are other side effects to such a thing, but I will admit I would be tempted by the option. Have you ever seen what one of their Grass types can do with plants? I could handle this entire patch all at once with that sort of power."
"The three I've seen gain that sort of power all started enjoying battling more, although admittedly they were all Gazimon originally," Tyranomon cautioned her. "However, at the same time I've seen Serperior raise entire fields of grasping vines in a moment, and I think that those were actual plants he had created rather than just the effect of an attack."
"They can do that, and they seem to understand plants better as well," she confirmed, then looked thoughtfully some of her berry bushes. "Can you toss me one of those baskets? I should have grabbed one right off, but I didn't realize how many of these were this far along."
The massive dinosaur digimon carefully plucked a basket from a small pile set near boxes and other storage containers located under a small covering at the edge of the field. Cautiously he tossed it, and to his relief she was able to easily catch it. "I have not seen anything that I would want to have myself," the larger monster noted. "However, I can see why you might want that one. Do you have issues with Grass types making better plants than you do?"
"Not personally, this area doesn't actually have the best soil and because of that not many of them live in this particular town. Most of our food comes from further downstream, where a bunch of them grow lots of food they sell everywhere," she explained. "I mostly grow smaller batches of specialty stuff that is hard to get from somewhere else. Along with berries for healing damage and status conditions, which are always in high demand."
"Those would have been helpful to have back in our world, and the humans of their world have frighteningly powerful medical abilities," Tyranomon noted.
"I keep some on me all the time just in case I end up back in the digital world," Floramon admitted. "These grow so easily compared to what we had there, and even just a couple of kinds would have given us more of a chance to stop the two Cherrymon from taking us over."
This led to the two silently contemplating that reality while the dinosaur sat on the ground and the flower lizard continued managing her plants. Without any other creatures around both of them were able to just for a moment think that they were back in the digital world.
"We could probably give you the Grass type, if you wanted it," Tyranomon admitted with great reluctance. "It is something we know how to do to digimon, and if you're fine with possibly wanting to battle afterward it could help."
"I don't know," Floramon confessed. "It is peaceful here, and I don't even know if the digital world will ever be free, but a big part of me still wants to go back even after all these years." She checked over another plant, carefully inspecting all of its parts. "Although, I guess I might not mind getting back there with that kind of power."
"Is introducing all this stuff from the human world going to be okay?" Janice asked her father quietly after a very detailed exploration of just how off some of her relatives' ability to see actually was. "The foil, or other stuff I came up with, the glasses, and who knows what else?"
"Our family has been trying to get the transport pad working better for longer than I've known them," the Typhlosion said calmly, while her mother sat off to the side to process how Janice had actually gotten her own oversensitivity from her, and the recommendation by Janice's grandmother that they should both continue wearing the foil, if a thinner layer of it to let some more through to them. "This honestly was just a matter of time to have happen. They do teach pokemon how to speak like humans do in my home world after all."
"We had been planning on using a lot of the things that allow access to that world for just that purpose at some point," her grandfather agreed, apparently having heard the conversation. "However, even with that we simply cannot support anything major. I don't know how easy the trip can be made, but I suspect that it should remain harder and more costly than traveling between towns in either world from the descriptions I've heard."
"It is going to be a slow thing. The two who act for your moving pictures are the only ones that will be going back and forth all the time," her grandmother complained. "I don't think we know enough about your world to do much more than that."
"Three towns on record in the region only have major contact to outside their borders once a year," Metagross noted. "Primarily in the form of young trainers leaving on their League run and thus making the name of the location known. Provided the capacity to assume a human form the location of the transport system could easily be used as a basis for this location's inclusion in that act."
Everyone present had to take a moment to figure out exactly what they were suggesting there, either to decode the wording or to realize they were serious. "You think we can just decide to be a town in the region and get away with it?" Janice asked dryly. "What about officers, or a Pokemon Center?"
"Officers can be invited to this location to discuss the possibility in depth, and none of the three towns in question currently feature a full status Pokemon Center," the machine-like pokemon noted happily.
"They are usually like this, aren't they?" her mother asked about the cheerful chaos inducing suggestion with a sigh.
"Only when they feel the need to speak up," the Team Lead noted. "If it does happen though, the metal foil is probably the easiest of the aura blockers to make for this kind of thing. Fast to put on or take off, easy enough to acquire, and safe to handle when you're done with it. After that would be the clay mixture, but that bakes rather solidly just by body heat alone. With how I tend to change back to human as soon as I can it isn't worth the setup, but if it works for others who are oversensitive." She looked at her mother uncertainly.
"That does look to be my best option," Eleanor Grades confirmed. "I still didn't expect this to be a good explanation for why we prefer being human though."
"It likely isn't just that," Janice's grandfather said certainly. "The lack of clarity that results from getting so much at once is bad, and working to learn to deal with it generally isn't worth it." His tone briefly shifting to long held annoyance. "However, that doesn't mean you can't still feel like being a Lucario is more enjoyable than the prospect of being human again."
"Dad, when did you learn what feeling like a human was like?" Eleanor asked of the strange statement.
"The pad has worked partially for quite some time," the older jackal pokemon confessed, after a moment of looking thoughtful while his wife laughed at him quietly. "However, not everyone who travels from this world to the other stays a pokemon when they do so."
"Are you saying I could have possibly turned human from it, and didn't?" Janice had to ask.
"And that it was possible for me to have stayed a pokemon?" her father added just as upset.
"Yes, and I'm not sure about that second one," her grandfather replied to them respectively, with a somewhat confused look directed at his son in law, before he continued. "I was stuck on your side for a week, and by the time I figured out how to get back I was entirely done with not being able to see aura."
"He has used that excuse every time I have suggested going to your side to visit," her grandmother said conspiratorially. "Now, our fellow Steel type's suggestion gives a much better reason for the two of us to go there and see if we can add our town to your region."
"What are you doing for your team now?" Floramon asked as she started to replant in locations where fully picked berry bushes had rapidly deteriorated and been removed. "It took me some time to figure out I was one of the few people in town who really enjoyed this sort of thing."
"Right now? Telling what few stories I have about the digital world, lifting heavy objects, and sitting around uselessly," Tyranomon complained. "But, all that Etemon had ever used me for was fighting."
"Oh. I didn't think about that," the other digimon replied sadly. "Do you like fighting?" She fidgeted a bit with the Oran berry she was preparing to plant.
"Not particularly. I'm fairly good at it all things considered, but I don't actually enjoy having to do it very much," the dinosaur admitted. "However, there is nothing I know how to do that would be an alternative. I lack technological skills, or the finesse to do simpler things, and I am much too large to do work like yours."
"Hmm. Can you carve?" the flower monster asked taking a long look at his claws. "I know a few locals that do that to keep their claws sharp, although the real good ones tend to not use them in a fight so they don't damage them." She then blinked at what she had just specified. "I might have been around pokemon too long, I'm explaining battle tactics out of nowhere."
"If not for how I'm surrounded by so many experienced leaders I'd consider telling my own knowledge of combat as an option," Tyranomon laughed, but he also carefully inspected his claws at the same time. "That does sound like a possibility for something to take up time, but I mostly want to do something other than exist."
"That takes quite some time to actually pull off," the other digimon said seriously. "It took well over a year for me to even understand how things worked around here enough to have the start of an idea on what I could realistically do, and I've only been seriously running the shop for two now." She finished the process of planting the berry and moved onto the next cleared spot. "It took a good part of that first year for them to figure out that I didn't even like being around fights much, and then explaining why was hard. I think most of them would still want to outright invade the digital world on my behalf after I did tell them everything."
"I have allies that can reach the Ultimate stage writing plans from what my little group of digimon has told them," he agreed. "Although I think they have a better idea on just how dangerous the forces of darkness could become, especially after we defeated Datamon."
"Wait, Datamon was alive? And evil?" Floramon questioned confused. "And there? How did he get there?"
"He was also revived from the remains of the Dark Network," Tyranomon started to explain the events that led to his current state of affairs.
Quagsire had ended up taking her pokemon on a shopping trip around the small town for the entire second day in an attempt to give the two digital members more time with their own issues. Possibly while also untangling a bit more of Grant's apparent problems with remembering a lot more of the past than they had realized.
That was an issue she wanted to get home to handle now that she had a better grasp of just how much he remembered, or perhaps it was better to say how little he didn't. "I think that if we had known how to make buildings like this back then I probably would have lived longer," the fossil former trainer noted for the third time. "Although, thinking on that, I might not have become a fossil if that didn't happen."
"I'm still a bit uneasy about you being able to do that kind of thing. Resurrecting the dead is the sort of thing I'd expect only from Legendary pokemon, like Ho-Oh or Giratina," the Lucario who for some reason had kept being their strange group's guide finally admitted. "I know you are mostly using advanced knowledge to do that sort of thing, but it is still troubling."
"Usually fossil pokemon don't remember very much at all," Kabutops dryly asserted, clearly tired from having dealt with his fellow fossil all day. "And Tyranomon was sort of brought back by a Giratina"
"Sort of brought back, or sort of Giratina?" the jackal pokemon asked unamused.
"The second one," Quagsire cut in. "A creature that might be a Legendary, there is a bit of an argument on that one, that is shaped like a Giratina, and rules slash is a place like the 'Distortion World'."
"I have so many questions about that statement, but I've never before been more certain that I don't want to know the answers," a much more tired looking Celebi said floating forward with a similarly exhausted LAS. "Were you aware that she can ask questions for six straight days? I wasn't when I decided to take us far enough into the past to let her ask everything without causing any problems."
"You travel relative to concepts?" the amphibian trainer asked with what she felt was an appropriate level of horror.
"That's part of why I can't get Floramon home myself," he replied simply. "I can't go to a time period I don't have a reference for, and my forest is now twisted too much for me to really tell when it was connected to her world instead of some other world."
"Data acquired," the digital jellyfish said quite happily. "Do pokeballs function in this world?"
"Yes," Quagsire, Kabutops, and the Lucario all said together while glancing at Dugtrio's ball.
"Then I would like to return to mine," the LAS told her trainer with a nodding bob. Quagsire quickly returned the digimon to the modified device.
"Has someone tried to replace her?" Celebi asked quite seriously. "For whatever they tried making her to do, has there been a replacement made?"
"She managed to talk about that?" Quagsire asked tightly. "I'm surprised. Why do you ask that in particular?" she questioned.
"When my forest, the now Lost Woods, was made into a Mystery Dungeon, my creators made some attempts to restore it to normal," he replied with false calm. "Then, when it became clear that it would not be possible without destroying... the forest, they decided to just leave it like that and make another Celebi and give her a nearby forest instead."
"Hate to say it," the amphibian replied slowly after processing that response. "But LAS has it a bit worse. Imagine if instead of doing that, your creators tried to make another Mystery Dungeon, but got what you were supposed to be instead." She then held up a hand before he could respond. "No, wait. They didn't just want to have her, they wanted a version of her more willing to use the more dangerous parts of what was corrupted about her."
"Ah. That does explain a lot," he responded sadly. "I'm not sure how much help a time traveler tied down to an eldritch forest will be, but if she needs anything let me know."
Contemplation of this offer was then interrupted by the arrival of Janice's family, and in particular her Zoroark uncle, as they turned onto the dirt street. "It should be right over here," their Lucario leader's mother noted, the older jackal pokemon pointing at a building that Quagsire had written off as too troublesome to deal with. Mostly because it didn't have shadows that quite matched up with the structure itself. "I'm not sure we can help with introducing you, given how things..." she trailed off as she spotted the disbelief present in the special effects expert's expression.
"They quite obviously find people worth talking to about this topic by testing them on how many things are wrong with those illusions!" Daniel Fairview all but shouted at the structure, earning a giggle from the probaby-not-a-Lopunny nearby who had clearly been waiting for someone to comment. They looked a lot less amused as the former human began going into a bit too much detail about what specifically was being done wrong.
"Um, wait," the currently rabbit looking pokemon said after a particularly harsh one. "Uh, that wasn't intentional," she said at a note on some of the shadows being easily spotted. "How would you even do that?" she finally asked loudly enough to attract his attention, breaking her illusion at the same time.
"Huh? How would I? Well for that last one I'd need some time in the shop with some wooden frames, a bit of paint, and a good ten minutes to shape some basic illusions over it to fill in the gaps that leaves," he replied distractedly, to the amusement of the Lucario and Typhlosion next to him.
"Frames and paint?" the other Zoroark asked disbelievingly. "You think you can do better with frames and paint?"
"And some simple illusions to fill in a couple of details," Daniel confirmed. "Did a shot that went all the way around something about that complex once with just that much."
"That was not 'yes I can', that's 'I've done it before'," the local Dark type replied disbelievingly.
"So, busy day?" Quagsire quietly questioned Janice at the edge of the discussion, her team plus the Legendary moving closer to hear better.
"I've been told that I actually have a medical reason to wear this stuff, but otherwise just a nice time with family," the Team Lead said happily. "How about your team? Did this trip work out for you?"
"Honestly? Overall things went well. Found some food for Grant, who apparently remembers everything about his past life. Dugtrio isn't allowed out on their own in towns anymore, don't ask," the amphibian trainer said jokingly. "LAS found a Legendary that actually let her ask all her questions." She nodded at the unhappy form of Celebi. "And Tyranomon is off talking about how to deal with being a digimon in a pokemon world with the local digimon."
"What local digimon?" Janice asked with a dry lack of amusement.