First of all: Thanks for the feedback, especially the ones with constructive criticism. I am writing to learn how to write, so those are helping!
I am trying to get all the little blunders while editting but some slip through, especially since english isn't my first language.
Secondly: The only time in the day, where I can write in peace is while commuting, so there may be some days or sometimes even a week in between updates.
That said, here is the next one.
~David~
If you leave Blackthorn City through the main entrance and veer slightly off to the left side, you'd find a well travelled mountain path, at least it's initial trail was, since it connected to a main road. The latter part wasn't quite as well kept.
This path, the latter part at that, or rather where it leads, was where my chosen mission would take me. Zubat and Weedle were both out of their balls like most of the time, while Gastly opted to stay inside of his since he didn't like the glaring sunlight we'd be subjected to.
Normal sunlight, he can stomach just fine, but this day was supposed to be especially hot, so he decided, that that's too uncomfortable for him. He still wished his mother a good day, though. Sweet child, really.
Zubat was resting on my shoulder, since it was day time. She was awake, but tired and felt lazy. Her training routine left her physically drained while our move mastery training took a mental toll.
She needed less sleep than most of her species, since my blood seemed to have a revitalising effect on her, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't take a break when one offered itself.
Weedle, while sitting on my head, was letting out curious and excited exclamations. I couldn't fault her for that, it was her first time out of the city after all.
And while I did travel from Dragontooth Village to Blackthorn City, we went by Teleport, since short range ones were not exceedingly expensive. So this was technically my first time really on the road in this life, too. I couldn't help being a bit excited.
Nevertheless, I kept up my vigilance, because while our mission was somewhat close to the city at around half a day travel time, a bit more with some proper breaks in between, we were still somewhat in the wild. We didn't expect trouble this early on, but you never know.
Following the map I got at the mission center, I managed to find the trail, that split off from the main path. It could barely be called that, to be honest, but I enjoyed the somewhat challenging movement.
Doing what could be classified as something in between hiking and trekking, since there were some rougher patches, where the trail wasn't really a trail anymore, we managed to reach the end of the path by around midday. While I was sweating a bit, it wasn't nearly as bad as expected, since active aura alleviated fatigue.
This meant we had made good time, which was only natural as we moved the whole time, only taking some short drinking breaks with a snack or two thrown in for Weedle and some lazy bloodsucking for Zubat.
From here, it was supposed to be a short climb to the Phanpy herd, that was part of our mission. They usually made some ruckus when waking in the early mornings and were relatively silent the rest of the day with only some excited trumpets every now and then.
The last few days, though, the sounds were growing more agitated and frequent.
Something was upsetting the herd. My mission was to investigate what might be causing the unrest and, if possible, solve the problem.
I could already hear the trumpeting herd in the distance, sounding near-frenzied. The reason why I was allowed to take this as my first mission, even though it might be on the more dangerous side of things, was my status as an aura user.
Pacifying angry or upset pokémon was a specialty for those with active aura. We were able to genuinely state our intentions, since aura can not lie and pokémon knew this instinctively.
I asked Zubat and Weedle if they wanted to return to their respective balls while I climbed or if they wanted to make their own way. Opting for choice number two, Weedle jumped onto Zubat and used String Shot to glue herself onto her sister.
Creative little girl, I thought with pride. As they flew upwards, I started climbing. I wasn't an experienced mountaineer by any means, but I did know how to climb from my past life. Bouldering was one of my hobbies, after all.
Listening to the sounds while climbing, I could make out specifics by now. Their trumpeting wasn't just random noise and by closing in on them, I finally understood their intentions.
They were asking for help, but nothing more could be understood, since they were pretty desperate and didn't give any information on what kind of of help they needed. It was just a general SOS Signal in the form of trumpeting.
I reached the top, directing a bit of aura to the couple scrapes I've sustained while climbing, and looked around. What I saw was a little squad of four Phanpy. They, who by now had stopped with their not so musical performance, were watching us warily.
I raised my hands and emitted a bit of my aura, giving them my intent, namely wanting to help. The change was near instantaneous, as their eyes lit up in joy.
They turned around, three of them started rolling while one trumpeted a rather loud tune, that carried my intentions before it started rolling too. Curious.
I hurried after them, not wanting to loose my guides, while Weedle jumped from Zubat onto my head again and my inofficial starter took her place on my shoulder moments later, this time staying vigilant instead of lazing around.
A short run later, we arrived at a fairly large clearing, that sat at the opening of what looked like a ravine. In the middle of the clearing, a massive Donphan with a tired gaze could be seen.
It's eyes expressed wisdom gained with age, suffering and experience. Those were the eyes of a leader. It's size and the sheer presence it exuded even in it's weakened form made me think of an alpha. And that's probably exactly what it was.
The Alpha Aberration was a well known one. Pokémon born with it were usually a fair bit bigger than regular members of their species. Their stats were all-round a bit better, too, and they were typically more intelligent.
The important thing was, that it was very nearly impossible to tame a grown Alpha. Since they were born for the leader role, they won't submit to a trainer even under torture. The only way to train an Alpha was catching a very young one and earning it's respect or having the luck to hatch one.
This Donphan was a very old one as it's weathered body, riddled with healed over scars, likely gained through scuffles over territory and food sources, proved.
I stayed where I was while letting it inspect us with a heavy gaze, that contained a spark of curiosity. I only got closer, when it waved it's heavy trunk in a 'come-hither' fashion.
Part of it surely was survival instinct, as I didn't want to antagonize a pokémon that could probably sneeze me out of existence, even in it's weakened form.
I did, however, genuinely respect the old leader, as the state of frenzy and panic, that it's herd felt over it's... sickness? spoke well of it's reign.
Kneeling down beside the resting giant, I started talking softly, infusing my intent into my voice with aura, something I kinda managed to learn on my own with Thomas giving some hints to refine it.
"I want to help you and your herd, but I need to know what exactly the problem is to offer possible solutions." It studied me for some long moments before holding out it's trunk.
Unsure what was expected from me, I held out my hand and looked at it questioningly. Instead of answering in any way, it gently touched my hand with it's trunk.
The trunk's surface was rough, as I had expected it to be, but it was also surprisingly warm and the gentle way it closed it's trunk around my hand reassured me, that it didn't want to harm me.
Those thoughts fled my mind, when it started sending me impressions, emotions and intent through use of it's energy. I already knew what it felt like to be used as a aura-conductor and aura-battery.
Now, I was a receiver, and the experience wasn't that different to the one I had, when Morpeko sent it's energy through me. Where electrical energy felt, as if I was supercharged, ground type energy felt heavy instead.
It flowed slowly, but it had real weight and grounded me in a way I hadn't expected. Concentrating on the message it wanted to send me, I understood the problem fairly quickly.
It, or rather she, knew she wouldn't last much longer, so she had started to train the most promising member of her herd to take over, should she die.
But before she could make much headway in grooming the next leader, a territory war with one of the biggest Gligar beds in the mountains happened. They won and beat them back, but at a cost. The fight against the leader, a fairly strong Gliscor, had cost her a lot of her leftover vitality.
She was unlikely to recover and simply didn't have enough time to effectively train her successor and make it an adequate leading figure. She remembered the existence of a big settlement of humans close by, though, and made a decision.
She'd try to get their attention since even if they were all caught, it was still a better fate than dying at the claws and fangs of their merciless rival groups.
That must have been a hard decision to make. There was a different way, though. I started transmitting a bit of my aura with the intent to heal, to mend, to rejuvenate. I wanted to know if my idea was feasible, and it seemed, that it was.
Her eyes opened widely, as she felt a bit of her strength return. I winked at her and sent the intent to keep this to herself. She sent back a mix of excitement, gratitude and reassurance.
Slowly, I continued to send aura, while she directed it where it was needed the most. Connected like that, I could sense her strength more clearly, instinctively taking in what was essentially a Status Screen without the Screen, and while she wasn't nearly as strong as Magearna or Big Brain felt, she was a fair bit stronger than Zeus.
When I was at around half capacity, she sent me an 'Enough' even though she wasn't even close to done with her healing. I looked at her questioningly and she sent 'Enough' again.
This time, she followed up with the feeling, that she now had enough time to train her successor, which was all she wanted after all. I wanted to argue, but then I thought back.
Her tired eyes, marked by tragedy. The world-weariness I felt, when we were connected. She was done with her life, huh... I nodded, resolutely if a bit sadly, which earned me an affectionate nudge with her trunk, that nearly sent me scrambling.
She then stood up, and I had to confess, I underestimated her size. Her proportions were slightly different, than usually the norm for Donphan, with her legs being more muscular and slightly longer.
For this species, that could be a disadvantage actually, since they usually used Rollout to move long distances or if they needed to be fast.
Snapping out of my thoughts when she released a trumpeting sound, that was deeper than anything I'd heard from a pokémon up until this moment and caused a minor earthquake. I looked at her curiously.
The intent within this call was 'assemble' and since she didn't send me away, she wanted me there. Soon, Phanpy and Donphan started to arrive in droves, totalling at around 100 specimens. Likely a bit more than that, actually.
I had no idea this herd was this big, and there were some pretty strong looking ones. She seemed satisfied with the attendance rate, since she started 'talking'.
From what I could understand, she was telling them, that I used a treasure to prolong her life and that she would recompensate me with one of her own.
I wanted to object, but a look of admonishment from her left me with a helpless smile. She then announced me as 'always welcome', which was a pleasant surprise.
The excitement of the herd at her temporary recovery was a heartwarming scene and the way they communicated silently, while leaving the finished assembly evoked memories from my time at school in my past life.
Listening to the matriarch of the herd, I followed along while telling her. "You don't have to recompensate me, really. I lost nothing and I am happy to help."
She snorted dismissively and simply continued on, at which I could only shrug helplessly and hurry after her. Reaching our destination, she pointed at the entrance of a large cave.
Well, if she insisted, then I won't be polite any longer. I made my way inside and looked around curiously. There were some mushrooms, that seemed to be bioluminescent, since they glowed just strongly enough for me to see clearly, which would allow me to effectively search through the hoard.
There were natural treasures, some backpacks and a fair bit of other stuff. Quite unsure of what I should take, I told Zubat and Weedle. "Look around, you two. If you find something, that resonates with you, tell me and I'll look at it."
They gave an affirmative and started comb through the contents of the cave. I decided to look through the backpacks if there was anything useful in there.
Lots of healing items, some spoiled because of time, same with food and other consumables. Surprisingly, I found some evolution items, that might fetch me some much needed money, if Neither Zubat nor Weedle found anything else of note. I didn't want to take too much, this was basically their treasury after all.
They finished looking through the stuff moments later and brought their finds to me. Zubat found a rather long tooth, that probably belonged to a Gliscor. It had a tiny resonance with her and could be used to increase her training speed for Bite type attacks, was what she told me.
Weedle seemed to have fallen in love with an orb, that had a strange miasma within it. It took me a bit, but I recognised it as a Toxic Orb. That one was huge.
This thing could be used multiple times, since once used up, it would refill with time. It could be used to increase a poison type's potency. The problem was, that to use it, you had to have at least high grade poison potency. It would help greatly in the future, though.
Having decided to bring those items to her, I leave the cave. I had to be especially careful with the orb, as directly touching it would infuse it's poison into me. That could very well be my death, so let's just avoid that situation.
She was waiting just outside the cave, watching us curiously. "Did you know, that you have healing items in there?" I asked her since those backpacks had a layer of dust on them, which indicated, that they were simply thrown into the cave after finding them.
She didn't know what I meant, so I went in again collected some of them and showed her how to use them with a normal cheap potion. Her use of her trunk was delicate as to not break the bottle and dexterous enough to actually use them.
When she saw the little wound she had inflicted on herself to heal it with the potion, close and disappear within seconds, she was excited. I could understand that, as the possibility to heal grave wounds with a simple spray from a bottle could alleviate a lot of the pressure from their situation.
It might also increase her successor's training speed. Still... "Be careful with their use, though. The possibility to heal your wounds quickly can make people reckless."
She trumpeted in understanding and I showed her the different consumables and explained their effects. It took some minutes, and after we were done, she looked at the small pile of things we had taken out of the cave.
She nodded and indicated, that we may take that stuff with us. I had planned to take the tooth and the orb, but she insisted, that I'd take the evolution items too. Her argument was, that I did more than necessary to just help, so she'll reward me with more than was necessary too.
I couldn't say, that I understood her logic, but you know what they say about gifted Mudsdales. Our final haul was the following: The tooth and the orb. 2 mid-grade Fire Stones, a low-grade Dawn Stone and a Razor Claw. That last one I would not sell, as it could be useful.
The Fire Stones and the Dawn Stone would be sold, though. Evolution Items were not just that. Most of them contained a fairly large amount of pure type energy. This made them popular items to increase potential, through evolution or otherwise, even if the pokémon doesn't need them as a trigger.
That fact made their prices skyrocket and fluctuate a fair bit, with mid-grade Fire Stones leveling off at around 11k Poké while even low-grade Dawn Stones fetched 9k, since they were on the rare side of things.
It was late afternoon when I was done, which would have made trekking fairly dangerous in the dark, so we opted to stay over night after asking for permission to pitch my tent within the perimeter of this herd's territory.
I didn't forget to send Joan a short message that everything went well and that the problem was solved already. She sent back a 'Thumbs Up', and nothing else.
I shrugged as I looked into the sky. The sun's intensity had weakened a fair bit, and while it was still fairly warm, I thought that Gastly should be able to withstand that much.
As he appeared in front of me after I released him from his ball, he looked around curiously while floating. Not recognising the surroundings, he turned to me questioningly.
"Don't worry, little one. We are in a safe area. The place belongs to a strong pokémon, that I helped out, so we are allowed to camp here. I thought, that it may be a bit boring alone in the ball, so I wanted to ask if you can stand the temperatures and want to stay out or if you want to return?" He thought for a moment before 'tackling' my chest with aura to be actually tangible, forcing me to catch him. Mischievous little bugger, I thought fondly.
The big smile on his face was worth it though. I played with my pokémon until nightfall and turned in early after warning them, that they shouldn't cause too much mischief here.
The next day, in the early morning, we did some basic training till sunrise, and then we said our goodbyes. I had achieved my mission after all.
On the way back, I could only think, that maybe, Murphy's Law wasn't a thing in this universe. After all, nothing really out of the norm had happened.
~Joan~
While David was on his first mission, I had my own. Babysitting! Well, not exactly babysitting. My mission was to watch over David's first mission and making sure, that he didn't bite off more than he could chew.
This wasn't preferential treatment for him alone, since it was somewhat usual to do this for promising young'uns, who officially joined the league early.
I volunteered because, well, as his kinda sorta big sis, I had to keep him safe. And troubles started on the path, already. Two Ursaring had chosen to get into a brawl over some fruits. Both of them were of the advanced rank and would have been a bit much for David to deal with.
It was an easily solved problem, as Zeus simply pressured them a bit, which made them scamper off. It continued like that, with multiple advanced and even some elite rank pokémon causing trouble on his chosen path.
What the heck was going on? They usually didn't come down that far, they mostly stayed in the mountains and the caves systems that permeated them.
As he arrived at the Phanpy herd, things were a bit more manageable, since he would be stationary and I could put up a perimeter with my team.
At least that was what I'd thought. Turns out, I had to deal with some Rocket grunts sneaking about since they got lost within the cave system and somehow wandered over here all the way from the Lake of Rage.
I sent a quick report about that to the headquarters and left them beaten and bound to be picked up by the league, or maybe some wild pokémon, I didn't care enough about them to make sure.
While fighting them, David sent me a mission update. I didn't have time to chat, so I sent him a 'Thumbs Up' and concentrated on the task ahead. After that little debacle, I thought I'd finally have some peace.
And then those f*ckers from the Gligar bed decided, that they'd surely manage to overwhelm the Phanpy herd even without their killed leader. They decided to invade at night, which was lucky for us, since dark types were the strongest then.
It was a massacre, but it was a hard fought one, simply because of the high number of enemies. Usually, the league wouldn't interfere in the natural system in the wilds, as it usually regulated itself.
But since the Gligar line was starting to overwhelm the other species in the mountain with sheer numbers, they had opened hunting season on them.
We managed to repel them with heavy losses on their side and none on ours, but it was exhausting.
Finally, I had my peace and it lasted until the next morning, when David decided to leave the herd and return to the city. That was shortly before I had a run-in with the Alpha Donphan.
Luckily, with the help of Morpeko, I managed to communicate, that I was watching over David, which mollified the scary giant. It dismissed me with a wave and went it's own way while I had just a bit of cold sweat running down my back.
Nothing quite like fearing for your life to properly wake you up in the morning. Making my way back, I had come to a conclusion.
David's life would never be normal, if this mission and the way he collected his starting lineup were any indicators. And yet, I couldn't think of that as a reason to stop associating with him. In the short two weeks we knew each other, we grew as close as blood siblings and it was a bond, that I wouldn't sacrifice for anything.
Content with my thoughts, if a bit tired from all that crap, I scouted ahead on David's path and found no troubles nearby, that may have made his return dangerous.
It stayed like that until he reached the city, which was nice. Now to take a nap before reporting the ludicrous amount of trouble he would have had, with not a single one low grade enough to let him deal with it himself. Thomas would have a laugh... Well, a smirk, once he heard of it, for sure.