"Listen… Vi… Victor?" Hardwin supposed having a celebrity for a friend had its downside. Having to remember all these new alias the guy had to keep making in order for others not to recognize him was rather annoying. "Why not just be yourself? I'm sure people are mature enough to be chill around a famous trainer like you."
"… You do remember one of my fans trapping you in a net after staking out in our original room… right?"
"W-Wasn't that just the one?"
Vincent pushed his glasses down to reveal his gray colored eyes due to his contact lens. "Hardwin, Hardwin, Hardwin… one day when you're smarter, you'll understand the world better." He shook his head before he walked ahead in a faster pace.
The young clown just stared in bafflement as his roommate left ahead. "… He did mean older, not smarter, right? … Right?"
Zig blinked at his trainer then shrugged.
Hardwin lived in a circus so this weird stuff should be normal to him, but as the boy was starting to find out, weirdness was some kind of absolute law or something in this school.
Regardless, the two young men were on their way to grand stadium A-1 where all of the first years were meant to gather for the first announcement of the school. The stadium itself was as large as those giant stadiums of football fields with like ten to thirty story high bleachers.
Everyone looked at the giant battlefield in the center where a stage was set up and Headmaster Spencer along with some other faculty members were standing in wait.
When everyone was done, Mr. Spencer spoke on the mike. "Hello everyone! I thank you all for accepting your invitation to Battlecraft Academy! There are a lot of processes to go through since there are around five hundred plus applicants here. However, here to remind everyone of the basics is our very own Battlecraft Academy Student Council!" He threw his hand out as the lights around the stadium dimmed down greatly and smoke started to filter into the battle field.
A rather catchy theme music started playing as five figures jumped out of the smoke and landed dramatically in the stage in multicolored uniforms.
A green spotlight shined down on a green costumed, masked man as he stepped forward and posed dramatically. "Battlecraft Moral Representative!"
Then a yellow spotlight fell on a yellow young woman who also did another childishly heroic pose before shouting out. "Battlecraft Treasurer!"
"Battlecraft Secretary!" A deep male voice cried out as he posed again when a blue spot light fell on him.
"Battlecraft Vice President!" The voice of the black costumed young man sounded like a murderer trying his best not to kill someone who ticked him off.
"B-Battlecraft Student Body President!" The last red light shown down on a female wearing a skin tight body suit.
"AND TOGETHER WE ARE… STUDENT BODY COUNCIL!" All five of them shouted as they posed again as a team this time with multicolored explosions in the background.
…
…
The silence that followed was so deafening, you could probably hear someone blinking from the opposite side of the stadium.
However, the headmaster of all people started clapping and whooping wildly at the performance.
Well that explains everything—Hardwin thought to himself while he pieced together how the headmaster probably made his student council members dress up like that.
The red—the student council president walked up to the mike. "A-Attention! Ci-Citize… I can't do this!" She shrieked as she crumpled into a ball with her hands covering her face helmet.
"Arlet!" The yellow costumed girl removed her mask, revealing a dark tan skinned girl with dark curly hair trying to ease the girl in red. "Oh don't worry girl, it'll be alright."
"Oh come on! Those aren't the lineEEEKS!?" Mr. Spencer was talked down by his fellow faculty members, causing all students to sweat drop at the tussle in front of this.
"Oh enough of this." The Vice President removed his mask, revealing a handsome man with black messy hair and fierce brown eyes. Hardwin noticed some girls staring at the man as his face was shown in the mega screen up above. "Freshmen, you will be judged by ranking on battles and grades. You will receive a message on your phone telling you which stadium to enter and from there personnel will guide you to your evaluation matches that will overall determine your rank among your year. Got it? Now beat it."
He walked away from the mike and took out a Poké Ball and brought out a claydol. His eyes glowed and teleported all of the Student council away.
Another man with a rather annoyed look on his face walked up to the mike. He looked as old as Mr. Spencer, but he looked like a man who had lived his entire life following an idiot.
"As Mr. Balthazar so eloquently put, please head to your respective stadiums which should be on your phones. Due to the nature of how our… headmaster… decided to try and explain the details, you will have to ask the attendants and older students stationed at each of your assigned locations for further details."
"Bbbrreckkk! There was supposed to be a battle sequence between the student council and a man wearing a crawdaunt costume!" The headmaster managed to scream out of gag before the others put it back on and started carrying him away.
Vincent and Hardwin just stared at the … unique… event that transpired in front of them. The raven haired boy seemed shocked, while Hardwin just rolled his eyes.
"Well that was something." The celebrity managed to gasp out before there was a beeping in his pockets. It seemed like the message came out and he glanced over to his phone. "I've got Stadium T-9. What do you—whoa! That is one old phone you've got!"
Hardwin's phone was one of those old, gray flip phones with low quality cameras on them. The boy from the circus blinked as he looked at the phone where the texts were obviously pixilated. "Well yeah? It was pretty cheap, so my dad bought it for me. Why?"
"Uhh, nevermind. So did you actually receive a message?"
"Yeah. I got… Stadium L-2, so we're in different places this time."
Vincent and Hardwin exchanged contacts before they went their separate ways.
Hardwin was checking a map as he and his partners were walking towards their destination. In the back of his head, he was worried. Mr. Sepncer said specifically that his personal test would be harder than everyone else's.
"Zig zig zaza." Hardwin realized that Zig was right, he was sighing again. He really should stop doing that.
Zu started giving out another alarm. Hardwin was surprised to find out his Pokémon trying to warn him about something until a voice rang out that seemed aimed towards him.
"There he is!" When he turned around, he saw that one crazed fan girl, Anita, leading a mob of rather focused looking females.
"Anita?"
The green haired girl seemed to have a really evil smile on her face. "That bastard right there is Vincent Brook's roommate! Get him, and we get closer to Vincent!"
Hardwin had never been to war, but he was definitely not expecting the female trainers to suddenly give out a war cry as they all charged for him. The young circus clown yelled out in panic as he, Zu, and Zig ran for dear life.
"Okay, now I'm starting to see why Vincent warned me about his fanbase!" The boy ran as fast as he could from the screaming girls.
"Hey you!" Hardwin glanced over to see someone motioning him around the corner. The circus boy didn't hesitate as he ran towards the corner. When the mob of girls went after him, they had found out he had disappeared.
"Where did he go?" "He must have gone that way!" The girls screamed before they ran in a random direction.
"It's only my second day here, and I got chased again?!" Up above, Hardwin was hanging on to a floating magnezone that had lifted him up in the air.
"You were chased just yesterday?" A male voice came from on top of the magnezone.
"Yesterday was a group of thugs trying to mug me, but yeah. I was chased." The steel and electric type levitated down for the boy to hope off without much harm. Hardwin looked up to see the other student jump down as well. "Thanks again for helping me out there."
"Appreciated, but I do admit you had piqued my interest when some random person seemed to be pursued by a group of women." The intellectual speaking, now that Hardwin got a closer look, was around the same size as him, if not just a bit taller. He was wearing glasses that looked a lot more high-tech than regular glasses. Despite his glasses and speech, he had this brown pompadour where his sides were clipped short and the left was longer on top and in the front. He also had a these hard-to-miss front teeth even though his mouth was closed. He was also in dress pants, casual shoes, and a button-up shirt with a light sweater over top
Hardwin sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "I may have ticked off their leader."
The pompadour teen tilted his head. "Hmm? Is that why you have a faint black eye?"
"What? No. This one is from an accidental move hitting me in the face," Hardwin best decided to change the subject since he didn't want to recall that memory again. "My name is Hardwin Wilburg, or Arz for short. The normal type you see on my shoulder is Zig and the blind bat over there is Zu. Thanks again for the assist."
"I'm Roman Nel Spring and the magnezone is one of my partners, Auto." Amazingly something was seen moving in Roman's hair and a small yellow spider popped up. "Oh right and this here joltik is Jojo."
"There's a BUG in his hair!" Zu spliced out another sentence from other voices. This caused the Roman and his partners to stare at the zubat with shock.
"Your zubat… can talk?"
"Well yeah." Hardwin then went into giving a brief rundown of how Zu could do that again.
"That is fascinating; I wasn't aware that zubats could learn to replicate speech like some chatots do! To think they could be trained as well!" He spoke with focused amusement. Jojo, the joltik tapped his head. "Ahh right. We wouldn't want to be late for our initiation."
"What arena are you in?" Hardwin interjected.
"L-2. You?"
"The same. If you want, I can tell you more about how Zu learned how to do that."
Roman smiled and reached for inside his clothes where he brought out a pen and a notebook. "That would be nice, thank you." With that, the two started walking with Arz telling Roman the story of how Zu learned to mimic sounds while he was healing with a chatot and their uncle who was a ventriloquist. Roman seemed very interested, as he was writing things down a lot of what Hardwin was telling him.
As they continued to the stadium, Hardwin found it a little weird that he was writing almost everything about him, like how he was born in Kanto but had his first birthday in Unova because of his family, and it was rather… well Roman asked a lot of questions and this was starting to feel more like an interview.
When the two got to the stadium, they were surprised. The Stadium was actually a building with students walking in and out of it. There was a sign that pointed freshmen to go pick up a specialized X-Transceiver before entering into the building along with a written pamphlet describing in full detail what should have been explained in the rally.
"There's a ranking system in this school?" Hardwin raised his brow as he looked up the piece of paper while he and Roman were walking towards the 3rd floor looking for battlefield 78.
"Yes, each year has their own ranking system. For example, the Student Council, while they were all wearing rather… 'unnecessary' clothes… they all just so happen to be the top five students among the fourth year students."
Hardwin blinked in surprise. The student council consisted of the strongest trainers? They sure didn't give that impression—except the vice president, he seemed competent enough.
"What is more interesting is the next page. According to this, the ones who will evaluate our rank will be the second year students. It's completely randomized, so there's a possibility of facing the first or last ranked among the second years."
Arz started to panic. Did this mean that the headmaster set him to battle the number one ranked among the second years!?
"Ah here we are." Roman caught Hardwin's attention as they came to the room.
The two came into the room, which was another battlefield much like the one Hardwin and Vincent were in—
"Flash Cannon!"
The two boys quickly shielded themselves as the flash of the attack blinded them and their Pokémon—except Zu. When the light died down, they looked to see there was a battle in progress.
On the battle field there were two Pokémon. The one that just fired the Flash Cannon was a blastoise and the opponent was a chikorita.
There were two female trainers battling it out. One of them was a rather short and plump girl around the height of 4'6. She had peach skin tone while she had brown hair tied in a French braid. She had purple colored irises that looked laser focus on this fight. However, what Hardwin noticed was that she was wearing a uniform of a black vest with a shield emblem crossed with swords, a long gray skirt and pants and a white polo underneath.
"That's obviously a second year." Hardwin heard Roman note out loud as he fixed his glasses. "There's a uniform you have to wear while in Battlecraft Academy, and we freshmen haven't received it yet. There's also the fact her emblem has two swords, meaning two years. With each sword on the crossing over the shield emblem that states how many years you've been in the school—like say, ours will have one sword crossed vertically over the shield."
"Oh wow, I didn't know that." Hardwin looked over towards the other side of the battle.
It was another female, and since she wasn't wearing a uniform, she was more than likely a first year as well. She was a little shorter than Hardwin and Roman and she was rather skinny and she looked as pale as a ghost sheet. She was wearing a white blouse with blue designer jeans with white socks and tennis shoes while wearing a pair of black hoop earrings. She had golden blonde hair that looked really well kept and her eyes had a much more vibrant green than Hardwin's eyes.
"Chika, Razor Leaf!" The pale girl cried out. The grass type shot out an impressive barrage of leaves towards her opponent.
However, the other shorter trainer called out Iron Defense and quickly the blastoise turned his shell towards the attack. The leaves pelted the shell, but it seemed like they were barely getting through the reinforced shell.
The trainer of the grass type called her Pokémon to continue her assault. While the attack still went on, blastoise continued to keep up Iron Defense.
"Hmm not a bad strategy." Hardwin looked over to Roman while it looked like his focus looked to be on the battle. "Keeping up the attack pins the blastoise from moving out. However, that water pokémon has obviously been raised well with how little it seems bothered being continuously hit by a super effective attack."
"So aren't they both in a stalemate then?" Hardwin asked as he looked into the field.
"No, the second year is going to win." The blue haired boy looked over to the pompadour boy as he pointed to the trainer in question. "She's been planning this."
"Now, Blastoise, use Gyro Ball!" The water type quickly retreated into his shell and rolled around the battlefield quickly. The chikorita had a hard time aiming her attacks as the Blastoise kept rolling along the side.
However, Hardwin had just noticed that while the shell was spinning, he was seeing another light inside the shell?
The rolling shell jumped into the air, and out popped Blastoise with a full charged Flash Cannon that launched itself through some of the Razor Leaves and blasted the grass type head on. The grass type cried out before she flew and crashed into the ground unconscious.
A large buzzer sound came out; making Hardwin look up to the four screens placed all four walls of this arena. A picture of both trainers were on the board, and the one with the loser faded out before it declared the second year, her name was placed as Genesis Beaumont, the winner.
The name of the girl who lost was Maria Faraday according to the screen. The two trainers recalled their Pokémon and shook hands while seemingly sharing some words with each other.
"You see, while Blastoise was powerful, it seemed like the grass type was a lot quicker on their feet than they realized, so they baited the situation where they tricked their opponent into the offensive and locked them in place for Blastoise to finally land a clean hit."
"Wow, I didn't see that."
"To be fair, watching outside a battle is different from in one. Something everyone needs work on." He fixed his glasses as his joltik cried out in joy.
There was a loud beeping noise coming from Roman's X-Transceiver. At the same time, the screens around the stadium started changing and it showed Roman's face on one side of the screen where Maria's face was.
"Will Roman Nel Spring please report to the battlefield and wait for your evaluator?" A mechanical voice came out of the room.
"Hmm, how fortuitous. It appears we've come just in time for my battle."
"Good luck."
"Thank you for that. I'll see you later then, Hardwin." Roman and his partners made their way towards the front desk while Hardwin and his partners went towards the bleachers. As he did, he noticed the battlefield… was healing itself? Whoa; that's pretty high tech to have a battlefield that can fix itself in just one room.
As the clown wandered down the side where all the freshmen were gathering since on the opposite side of the field, all of the sophomores were sitting down. As he picked a spot around the corner, he and his Pokémon noticed someone sit down with them.
"Oh hey, you're that trainer that fought recently. You did pretty great."
"O-Oh? I thank you for your compliment, though I am afraid I didn't meet the standards I wanted." Hardwin blinked for a second. Huh, her accent sounded posh. Neat, he hasn't heard that type of accent before. "My opponent was quite practiced at handling the battle even with the obvious experience gap. This school is rather exciting to have such a large array of expert trainers and such. It's no wonder the requirements for this school were top notch."
"Yeah, tell me about it. I got lucky and just attracted the attention of a scout." Hardwin looked over to the screen as Roman's opponent was chosen as soon as the pompadour teen stepped into the field.
Maria glanced over to Hardwin with shocked eyes. The clown seemed nervous, was he not supposed to say that? "You also won the attention of a scout in battle?"
Now it was Hardwin's turn to look surprised. "W-Wait? What? How many badges have you won?"
"I… regretfully have to admit I have never went on a journey before, so my collection is nonexistent." Strangely enough, Maria yawned and she seemed troubled after yawning for some reason and tried to fumble something in her pockets.
However, Hardwin didn't pay much attention to this as he excitedly smiled. "Wow! I finally meet someone like me! Oh right! My name is Hardwin Wil… are you… sleeping?" He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't dreaming and lo and behold, Maria was sleeping. Yes, sleeping as in her eyes were shut and her breathing was softer.
The young clown and his Pokémon just stared. However, because they were sitting down in the bleachers, Maria's body started to tilt and tip over. Hardwin panicked and instantly scooted over to her, making her fall to his shoulder.
"Zig? Zagazig?"
"What? I panicked alright! What was I supposed to do, just let her fall?"
"Goon. Zag zag."
"I so did not bore her to sleep… I think? I mean, just a while ago we just had a guy write an entire note page worth of us." Hardwin tried to then nudge Maria awake, but for some reason she wouldn't react.
Then Hardwin noticed that Maria was about to open up three Poké Balls with how her hand was laying on the bench.
The clown told Zig to open them and three Pokémon popped out beside them, one of them was the chikorita he saw earlier, looking already healed up, but there were also two other pokémon: a poochyena and a chansey.
It didn't take much for all three Pokémon to look at their trainer… then at Hardwin who was a complete stranger to them.
Hardwin paled as he saw the poochyena and chikorita glare daggers at him. But Zig and Zu went in front of them to try and explain and maybe protect their trainer. That last part was sorta there only because he was the guy that fed them.
Before anything could happen, the announcement came out into the room. "We apologize for the delay, there was a technical difficulty. Will second year student, Blake Noxic please come to the field? You will be Roman Spring's evaluator."
Hardwin, and pretty much all the freshmen, looked towards the sophomore side of the field where they all seemed to be murmuring and whispering to each other at the sound of the name.
The clown turned towards Zu. "Hey, can you catch one of their conversations?"
Zu paused for a second before opening his mouth before two voices came out from across the field.
"Blake Noxic? That newbie got paired with the number one ranked trainer among the sophomores?" Hardwin didn't need to hear anymore as he stared in disbelief at the field.
There was a person who pretty much strode onto the field, catching everyone's attention from the moment she appeared. She was almost six feet tall maybe just shy an inch and had a distinct mesomorphic figure, but she was the only sophomore not wearing a uniform. She wore a black jacket with a denim vest with a red shirt that had an imprint of a black arcanine. She had ripped black jeans with strange marks and she tightened her red fingerless gloves. Her hair style was wild enough considering it was shaven off on her left side, but her hair also had different colors. The side with hair was black with white streaks while her shaven side seemed to be dyed dark blue? Her electric blue eyes just seemed to be frozen in a constant glare.
Hardwin blinked as he seemingly spotted… scars? Where those scars he could see on the few places she showed skin around her neck? Not to mention on both of her wrists, she saw a mega bracelet just like Vincent's. But on her other wrist… it looked a lot like the Z-Ring that Hardwin had, but hers was black and there was a crystal on it unlike his which was empty. What did that crystal do?
"Trainers! Your evaluation will begin soon! This shall be a one versus one battle! Do your best on both sides! Ready? …"
Both trainers took out a Poké Ball in preparation.
The screens all put the trainer's names and their picture into each individual display terminal.
"Begin!"
"Go, Zipp!" "Go, Hades!" The two cried out as they both brought out a blitzle and decidueye wearing a black bandana respectively.
Roman made the first move, commanding his blitzle to use Flame Charge at the grass type. Hades the decidueye grabbed a feather from his wing and quickly turned into an arrow.
"Don't let it hit even your shadow!" The electric type flared with his flames, incinerating the arrow as it flew towards him. Zipp charged for the ghost type, only for Hades to jump into the air with little effort. While in the air, the archer Pokémon impressively was able to gather more of his feather arrows and fire them from on high at the electric type. However, Zipp—true to his name—zipped around the battlefield much faster than before thanks to flame charge's speed boost.
However, due to the fact the grass type from Alola was up in the sky, he kept firing a hail of arrows from above. Bliztle looked over towards Roman who nodded in silence. The electric type slid to a stop and faced the ghost type while standing his ground.
Hades seemed to pause while Blake just narrowed her eyes.
Suddenly, clouds started appearing over the ceiling and the arena started to rain indoors!
Hardwin quickly noticed both sides using their own ways or Pokémon to shield them from the rain. As the water started pouring on them, he looked over to Maria. "How are you still sleeping through this!?" Despite his cry, he carefully removed his jacket and just used it to cover them… then Zig and Zubat squeezed underneath his jacket… then Maria's poochyena and chikorita smudged in as well. Hadrwin just looked over to the chansey and just gave up and let everyone else sleep in his jacket while Maria was moved over to her chansey. This left Hardwin alone in the rain without a jacket.
Meanwhile in the battle, Roman cried out his next order. "Thunder!" The little electric type shot a powerful bolt of electricity towards the sky. Blake's eyes widened as she ordered her Pokémon to duck down and brace for impact. Thunder cracked from the clouds and struck Hades down from the sky with a boom. The bandana wearing Pokémon cackled with electricity as it tried to get up, but Roman was on the offensive and ordered another Thunder to strike down on grass and ghost type.
"Sucker Punch!" Despite how far away the opponent was, Hades sped right in front of the electric type and connected his fist to the side of his face. Blitzle flew through the rain and tried to correct himself mid air, only to slip due to the water on the ground.
"Tch! I neglected to factor the water slowing my movements." Roman whispered to himself before deciding he would just go all out. "Keep using Thunder, Zipp!"
Bolt after bolt of thunder crashed down on the Decidueye. Despite the Pokémon's best attempt to dodge, it was nigh impossible to avoid with the rain boosting the accuracy of each attack. The grass type tried to get in close again, but this time Roman and Zip were more than ready to ward the evolved pokémon away with a well placed Thunder to back them off.
Hardwin was miserable under the rain, but even with this poor condition he noticed Blake was smiling.
And her wrist with the Z-ring… was it glowing?
Blake threw her hand out, and the Z-Ring started to glow. Roman's eyes seemed to widen as he called out for Zip to use his strongest thunder. However, a burst of light came from Blake's Z-Ring and went into Hades, the decidueye.
"Huh? Did it just get even darker in the room?" Hardwin noticed as it was getting eerily darker in the room even with the rain clouds blocking most of the light.
The only source of light in the room was Zipp gathering energy for one giant Thunder strike. It flew off, like a cannon right for Decidueye who flew right towards it—then vanished as the attack made contact and seemingly hit empty air. Then one arrow pinned down on Zipp's shadow, freezing it in place and out from above, Decidueye pointed—the same motion that Blake as she spoke out an attack, "Sinister Arrow Raid!" —then all the arrows rained down on Zipp just like the rain itself.
The clouds instantly let up, and the screens declared Blake Noxic the winner. The two got recalled their pokémon, and met in the field.
Hardwin noticed Zu fly out from under his jacket before he opened his mouth, revealing he was listening to their conversation for them.
"That was a good match." Blake's voice, Hardwin assumed, came out. It was a lot more easy-going despite how tense she looked.
"I had learned a lot. Thank you." Roman said as they shook hands and left.
Hardwin was still thinking about the battle, especially what that thing she did with her Z-Ring. What was that exactly?
The screens pulled up more people. Hardwin looked over to the X-Transceiver he received and noticed that it still told him to wait in the arena.
After a bit, Roman came towards Hardwin and noticed that the clown was previously soaked. He looked over towards Maria, who was sleeping on her chansey with Hardwin's sweatshirt on top of her.
"Who is she, and why does she have your jacket? Are you two…?"
"I don't know why you jumped to that conclusion. But no. I just met her today and for some reason she just… fell asleep!" Hardwin easily dismissed as he looked back at Roman. "By the way, your really did well against your opponent."
"Unfortunately, I still lost though."
"Dude, Zu hear overheard the sophomores say she's the top ranked among the second years. Don't feel too bad."
"Oh she was top ranked? That explains why she never seemed to lose her cool. Hmm, and I doubt I even truly saw the full capabilities of what she had considering she had a Mega Bracelet along with a Z-Ring like you… why don't you have a Z-Crystal placed on it?" Without Hardwin's jacket, Roman saw the ring around Hardwin's wrist.
"Actually, I don't know what it does? This was just a recent gift. What is this?" Hardwin asked.
Roman explained what the Z-Ring did in that it had the ability to increase moves into powered up elemental versions of most attacks. Some, like the one he saw awhile ago, was actually based on specific moves by specific Pokémon."
It was then that the entire room's lights blinked in and out.
"Hmm? Where their technical difficulties a bigger problem than they thought?" Roman asked before the lights quickly came back on. "Ahh never mind. After the battle, I was told to go pick up my uniform in a different building. But seeing as you didn't have your battle yet, I can wait."
"Really? You don't have to do that." Right, his battle hadn't been called yet judging by how they get chosen in their X-transcivers.
"It's honestly fine. I would like to go over my notes, and I can do that better by watching other people battle." He said as he sat down on the opposite side. "By the way, did she stay asleep even through the rain?"
"I think so, yeah." Hardwin zoned out as the next trainers were called into the field.
"Hmm…" Roman stood back up and walked over towards Maria, the female trainer's Pokémon tensed as they looked at the newcomer, but Roman just seemed to look at her thoughtfully. "I think she is a narcoleptic."
That word caught Hardwin's attention. "You mean the sickness where you just fall asleep without control?"
"Exactly." It seems like she'll be asleep for a while. She must have forgotten her medicine or something. Poor girl."
Hardwin frowned at the thought of that, but then he recalled that Maria said she also was just like him, a person who impressed a scout without a single badge. Even though she seemed to have sickness, it was actually cool of her to be able to battle with such handicap. The clown respected her for that.
So with that figured out, they just watched battles pass by in their arena. Time went on, and between that time Hardwin could have sworn he felt shaking for some reason but shrugged it off when no one else seemed to notice.
Seconds passed.
Minutes went by.
Hours had come and gone, but Hardwin still wasn't called.
Strangely enough, after the last battle, the overseers in the room declared that today was done with evaluation and all students were free to spend the night as they wished.
Hardwin and Roman looked on with surprise. The young circus boy checked his X-Transceiver again only for it to say that his match was still pending. That didn't make a whole lot of sense until the young man recalled that headmaster Spencer declared that he would be having a very hard match up today. The young boy paled. Was this what he meant by that?
The young man went over to the attendants for help. When the young man had mentioned the headmaster, the attendants suddenly became a lot nicer to him—as if they pitied him or something. But they were sure that it only meant that the headmaster chose someone specifically for him, which did not help the boy calm down in the slightest.
It was then that someone entered into the room while everyone was living. He was a massive and muscular man with dark tanned skin, wild black hair, and he was wearing something that looked like a black and red karate gi. He wore fingerless red gloves, had a Battle AR around his left ear, and had this powerful aura with him even though he was giving a friendly smile.
"Which one of you is Hardwin Wilburg?" The kind, giant of a man asked out as he raised his hand.
The boy in question hesitantly raised his hand. "Uhh that's me."
"Well, I owe Drake a few favors, and he uses it to have me evaluate you." He folded his arms as he sized the boy up. "The name's Glenn Stark and I'll be your evaluator today. A pleasure to meet you."
"Glenn Stark!?" The usually calm and calculated Roman was uncharacteristically shouting out in shock with his eyes wide open. "As in, the former Ferrum League Champion!? That same one!?"
Oh, he was a former champi—someone tell a dialga to stop time right this instant!
"Yo—ya-wha-bu-famik… brrugggh narrrgghh?" It seemed like both words and thought have left Hardwin in his time of need as he blathered towards the towering man.
Glenn gave a hearty chuckle, which was more like booming laughter to the two freshmen after hearing that. "I don't go by champion anymore. I was beaten fair and square. Right now, I'm just a guy that loves to train his pokémon, and Drake asked me to see how you fair."
"Muuuggaaa?"
"I'll apologize accordingly." Roman dispassionately stated as he slapped the back of Hardwin's head.
"Ow. That hurt!"
"You still seemed in shock, so I hypothesized trauma would snap you out of it."
"Thanks, but did you really have to do it so hard!?"
"Sorry. I'll find a gentler way to do that next time."
Glenn smiled at how friendly the two young men seemed to be. "Well, when you're ready to face me, stand in the opposite side of the battlefield."
When he left, Roman, with expert subtlety and compassion, said, "You stand no chance of winning."
"You know, I appreciated that sentence better when it was just in my mind and not in your voice." The blue haired boy gave a deadpan expression.
"Sorry, but you have to admit that the odds are stacked unfairly against you."
Roman probably wasn't the best at trying to cheer up others, but was Hardwin, for the faintest of seconds, smirking?
"Tell me about it." Hardwin felt a headache coming on as he went back to the bench where Zig and Zu were.
"Alright guys, who wants to go in?"
Zu was the one who excitedly volunteered.
"Well, if you're excited, so am I! Let's show that jerk of a headmaster, he messed with the wrong clown! … Okay that sounded a lot cooler in my head." Hardwin admitted before heading towards the battlefield.
Roman sat beside Zig. His joltik crawled down to meet with the normal type as they looked towards Hardwin.
"Aaaahh? W-What?"
Roman and Zig looked over to see that the girl was finally waking up.
"Oh god, I didn't take another an extra pill, did I? At least I didn't wake up in a bloody cataplexy…hmm?" Maria noticed that she had a warm but slightly damp sweat shirt covering over her. "W-Where am I?" She spoke up as she looked to see her Pokémon out and around her who were happy to see her awake.
"Building L-2, Battlefield 78, and it's nnoowww, 5:16 PM."
The blonde girl looked confused towards the pompadour adolescent in front of her. "And who are…?"
"Roman Nel Spring, friend of the guy who took care of you while you were sleeping and who is about to face a former champion."
Maria looked at the sweatshirt and did recall there was a boy she was talking to before she suddenly fell asleep. "Oh! I was having a conversation with someone before… did you just say he was battling a former champion?" The sentence finally caught her attention as Roman pointed over to the battlefield where Hardwin and Zu were ready to face against Glenn.
"Go, Machamp!" Glenn threw out a powerful fighting type that towered over the already tall champion.
"Ready, Zu?"
"Say the word, captain!"
Hardwin gave a small smirked and whispered something before turning towards Glenn. "Zu… let's test the waters!"
Zu flew up and screamed with an ear-piercing sound wave towards Machamp. The fighting type avoided the attack by jumping to the side. Then, Machamp leapt off the ground in a single bound and came up right above Zu.
His fist glowed and then unleashed a Mega Punch right on to the Zubat and hammered him down into the ground in a puff of smoke that shook the arena.
"That… that was one-sided…" Roman stated plainly as he felt that this was rather unfair for Hardwin to be treated so poorly in comparison to the other students.
Maria agreed with the glasses wearing adolescent. However, when she looked over to Hardwin, she was understandably confused. "Hold on? Is… is he… smiling?"
Indeed, Hardwin was indeed smiling. "Zu, you alright?"
Out of the smoke, Zu ascended up into the air and spread out his wings before flapping himself back into the sky. He looked badly injured, but he was definitely still conscious.
"Huh, I'm starting to see why Drake told me you would be a fun battle," Glenn admitted as he looked at his two opponents. "You must have Endure as a move, huh? That would explain why your pokémon is still flying. But I need only one hit left, while you haven't scratched us."
"All true points, Mr. Stark," The blue-haired clown admitted as his eyes narrowed while his grin widened. "But what if I told you that I was waiting for you to make a move?"
"Oho? A bold statement coming from someone in your circumstance. Think you can pull something like that off?" The former Champion of Ferrum slowly readied himself.
The young clown threw his right hand into the air. "I'm glad you asked!" Then he snapped his fingers that echoed in the near empty battlefield. "It's show time!"
Zu suddenly threw his wings out, and then a large fog of mist started flowing heavily and quickly from the small bat Pokémon. It quickly spread through the entire stadium, dampening the vision of almost everyone in the room.
"This is… Haze! Hardwin is producing so much that it's impossible to see except that Zu can see just fine because he uses echolocation!" Roman theorized despite the haze covering the field. "That's a good move!"
"But can't that Machamp…" Maria was about to point out that Machamp had more than enough power to blow away the growing fog. However, she and everyone else was distracted they heard that.
"W-Wha? I-Is that… music?" Maria and the others, except Zig who was wagging his tail excitedly, stared in shock as they heard a guitar sound coming from inside the fog.
It was a small guitar sound that started… followed by another one, followed by an echo, soon a guitar riff started into a musical sequence. It was then that something had seemingly flown out of the hazy fog, it wasn't Zu, but actually… a mike?
"Was that one of the mikes the attendants were using?" Roman was increasingly baffled at what was going on in front of him along with his Pokémon, Maria and her Pokémon as well.
It fell back down into the fog just as the music started to build up faster and faster…
"~Welcome to the Jungle! We got fun and games!~"
The amount of jaws dropping was staggering on the bleachers. Zig only chuckled as he saw all the Pokémon and people staring with utter bamboozlement.
"~We got everything ya want honey, we know the names!~"
Glenn heard the singing and was also deeply confused. "Machamp, blow away the Haze!" He shouted to get his voice past the singing.
"~We are the people that can find whatever you may need!~"
However, for some reason, Machamp didn't react. "Machamp? Machamp!" He activated his Battle AR to see that his machine could still detect his Pokémon was right in front of him, but why wasn't he responding?!
Inside the haze, Machamp was wondering why on earth he couldn't hear his trainer. The fighting type was annoyed he couldn't see anything in this deep fog, but then he spotted a small silhouette flying towards him. He threw a punch, at the shadow, but it disappeared as soon as his fist made contact.
"~In the jungle, welcome to the jungle! Watch it bring you to your knnn knne knees, knees
I want to watch you bleed!~"
Suddenly, a strange purple and goopy substance was shot all over him that seemed to be quickly hardening around him. The mighty fighting type quickly tried of break off the goop, but as he did, more and more was poured at him from different directions.
Machamp was pissed at all of this and with one strong effort he threw away the goop and slammed his hands together, creating a shockwave that blew away the haze. As soon as it did, Hardwin was revealed holding a mike and it seemed like the music and singing abruptly stopped.
"Ahh! Machamp, above you!" His trainer's voice finally reached Machamp and when the look up only to see Zu was flying right above him.
"Supersonic!" Hardwin acted quickly as he pointed to his friend as the another soundwave hit Machamp and disoriented him.
Glenn ordered his Machamp to fight through and hit his injured opponent, but then Zubat suddenly split into multiple versions of himself which meant that all those images Machamp saw during the haze were just Double Team images!
Hardwin punched the air in front of him. "Now, Zu! … Mega Punch!"
"Zubats can't learn Mega Punch!?" Glenn shouted out in confusion when lo and behold, one of the Zu images flew in with energy that was similar to a Mega Punch and landed right at the back of Machamp's knee! The impact of the blow caused the fighting type to buckle over as Zu pushed on through and flew back up in the air, knocking the Machamp into the ground.
"True," Hardwin said over the mike. "They can't learn Mega Punch, but they do know Mimic. And your Mahcamp used Mega Punch in more than one occasion during the haze screen!"
Glenn stared in utter shock before he suddenly started laughing even harder than before. "Alright, I'm not that smart, so how'd you do that, kid?"
"Sorry, Mr. Stark, I can't tell you that until after the battle," The eyes of Hardwin lit up as he threw his hand out. "Zu, Haze again!"
The zubat quickly filled the arena again with a deep, not see-through haze. Glenn smiled at the move and was thoroughly impressed by the boy.
"Kid, if it was anyone else, you actually might have won. But now? Play time is over." Glenn then pressed something on his Battle AR, suddenly a rainbow aura started shinning in the fog and then an explosion of light blew away the haze much faster than before. The burst of power threw even Zu for a loop as he struggled to stay in the air and forced everyone to shield their eyes.
When Hardwin opened them up, he was surprised to see Machamp enveloped in a rainbow aura that exuded with power.
"Go! End it!" Machamp then moved far faster than before, even though the goop from awhile ago was Venom Drench and should have reduced his speed and attack, this rainbow aura was somehow making Machamp go back into full power and beyond!
The fighting type then decked the flying type down back to the ground. But instead of crashing again, Hardwin was already there, catching his Pokémon—who then made both of them crash into the opposite side of the wall.
"O-OW!" The boy said as he rubbed his back. That hit could have done so much more… he was still holding back? Dang it! He had so much to learn.
Hardwin looked up to see a hand being offered up to him and saw Glenn with this hard-to-miss smile. "That was one of the most memorable battles I've had in a while. Now can you explain how the heck did you make a zubat do all of that?"
Zig came running up to Hardwin as he stood up and carefully held a weakened Zu. Zig was followed by those still watching the battle.
"Well, I knew that in a straight match, I would stand absolutely no chance at all against you and Machamp. Sooooo I figured out a strategy with Zu here on how to get around that. The purpose of the Haze was pretty straight forward, blinding everyone except Zu so he could move freely around the battlefield. That was the first part, but I also knew that you must be competent enough to order Machamp to remove that Haze… but what if… Machamp couldn't hear you?"
What would happen if a Pokémon couldn't hear their trainer? Well that would cripple one of the strongest parts of any trainer with their Pokémon, their communication! The boy found away to circumvent a pair's greatest strength? "He should have been able to. He was right in front of me, but you didn't hear me at all?" Glenn turned to his Machamp who just sheepishly shrugged his shoulders, rubbed the back of his head and scratched his nose at the same time.
"That was Zu and my doing. Zu learned how to mimic sounds from a Chatot, but he's far more sensitive to them because of his ears and echolocation. That's why I was singing, I was giving a loud sound wave to echo around the fog so that Zu could manipulate it. It was designed so that Machamp would hear mine, but not your voice, so it was basically isolating you from your partner."
"My my! How did your Zubat do that?!"
"We work in a Circus, and Zu helps out with the sound systems when they get broken sometimes. He can filter out sounds from practice in helping everyone else speak to the crowds for them. So he's more than familiar with filtering sounds he hears and projecting them."
"I'm impressed I never would have thought such an ability would be used like that in a battle! You might have actually gotten me if I didn't have Synergy Burst!"
"What is Synergy Burst?" Hardwin asked honestly.
"You have no idea what Synergy Burst is? It's a staple for trainers that were born and raised here in Ferrum!" Roman was just increasingly shocked at Hardwin for pulling off something so complicated, but at the same time not knowing something like Synergy Burst.
"I have to congratulate you, Hardwin. That was a great battle I had and I actually had a lot of fun! You have without a doubt passed your evaluation." Glenn fished for something in his pockets. "And Drake told me to give you this if I thought you earned it."
He tossed something in the air that Hardwin quickly caught with ease despite still carrying Zu in his other arm. When the young man opened his palm, he saw a see through crystal.
"It's a Z-Crystal, Normalium. Congratulations, young man." Glenn stated as he bowed lightly and started walking away from the boy.
Hardwin looked at the crystal with wonder before he placed it in his blue Z-Ring… a perfect fit.
"That, Wilburg, was a very, very unorthodox method of battling. How did you do that?" Roman asked him with even more interest than before.
"Well I noticed that a lot of trainers here are stronger and more experienced than me in almost every way possible… so I thought, instead of trying to catch up to them, why not turn fights into something favorable to me? It's kind of my basis in planning fights."
"Simple, but…hmm…" Roman started opening his notebook and furiously started scribbling things down.
The young circus boy just stared before he noticed the girl was finally up and about. "Oh! You're awake now?"
"Indeed I am. I must apologize for that, I must have not taken enough of my pills beforehand." She then handed him his sweatshirt back to him. "Thank you for helping me while I was down."
"You're welcome. Are you sure you're fine right now?"
Maria's smile lowered after Hardwin asked that. "I am well. Thank you for asking. I never did hear your name while we were still having a conversation?"
"I'm Hardwin Wilburg, or just Arz for short."
"Arz? As in arse?" Maria seemed confused at the pronunciation since it sounded like another word for butt.
"Uhhhh, I did not think of that until today." Great, he just found out his nickname is another word for ass. And was he called that for almost all his life!? "J-Just call me Will then."
Maria giggled. "Well then, Will, I must thank you for your sweatshirt during the times people had used weather moves in here. But I must be off; my family must be worried about me for being gone for so long. Farewell for now." Maria waved goodbye as all of her Pokémon eyed him cautiously.
"Oh right, Roman, where did you heal your Pokémon after your battle? Zu here is still like out cold."
Roman peeked out of his notebook for a second. "Hmm? Did you say something?" Then he went back towards writing in the book.
Hardwin sighed. "I'm starting to see a pattern here. I really hope not every day is going to be some kind of unexpected twist."
Still, all things considered, things would settle down instead of get even crazier.
A/N: Hello, everyone! Here is the third chapter of Battle Craft Academy! A little more world building and we get to meet a lot of characters this chapter!
25th Doctor: Maria Faraday.
SomeoftheFame: Roman Nel Spring
FinalPower: Genesis Beaumont
Fool Arcana Kaiju: Blake Noxic
There are technically a lot of people who submitted. I was trying to find a way that I could somehow introduce their characters, but at the same time, I wanted them to have a chance to focus on them or not. For now, I was able to squeeze four (Maybe three or two since I more or less focused on the first years.) Ocs and mark their appearance.
Allow me to say not to worry. This story is going to be a little different, while Hardwin is one of the main characters, he's not always going to be the focus in some chapters. He's here as a tool for world building and introduction to Helio City and Battlecraft Academy. When things are settled down, I'm actually planning to have chapters that will center around your OCs instead of Hardwin. (That's right folks! You guys even get your own chapter down the lane!)
I am so glad for the support I've been getting for this story. In less than a week after the second chapter, I got like 3 more favorites, and four follows! (But only one review—*sad face*)
Speaking off, you're all probably wondering why this has been faster than so many usually slow updated OC stories… well… I'll be honest, I don't know what's going to happen in the future of my life that will affect this story, and I have other writing projects as well that isn't on this site, so for now, I'm trying to pump out as many chapters as I can before things start to mess with my life which is why this may seem frequent as of this upload.
Thank you for reading. Please support this fic by reviewing, favorite, and following it.
(Oh wait, before you all go, I have one last little fun One-shot I made for this chapter.)
One shot: Magi's day.
"I left some food for you in your bowl. Don't finish it all in one go." Hardwin finished explaining before he and the others stood in front of their door. "I'll be back in the afternoon. See ya, Magi!"
Magi glanced around the room, seeing no sign of Hardwin or anyone else in the room.
Splash!
Magi jumped out of the bowl with incredible precision, landing on its fin much like a person and then burping out a small fedora to wear on his head.
Magi flipped over to underneath Vincent's desk and placed his fin on the wall. A small wall caved in and a door opened up before the magikarp threw himself into the secret door. He slid through a water tube before landing inside a pool of water under a large screen.
It was then the screen opened up, revealing a man wearing a military uniform. "Good morning, Agent M. The nefarious Mister Professor Doctor has been seen in the northern area of the Ferrum Region in Helio City. It seems he has taken a job as a teacher in Battlecraft Academy, which is why you're here to put a stop to whatever horrible scheme he's up to. Remember Agent M, it's crucial that your secret identity as a normal magikarp remain intact! Good luck!" The man on the screen saluted just as magikarp raised his fin to salute as well, before diving into the water.
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)
Ma-gi!
He's a fully-aquatic, crazy flip-flopper of action!
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)
He's a scaly red swimmer,
Who'll never flinch from a fray-ee-ay-ee-ay!
He's got more than just mad skill,
Fe(Wah-ah-ah)
He's got swimming fins and some gills,
Fe(ah-ah)
And the women swoon whenever they hear him sa-a-a-ay
"Magikarp."
"~Aaahhh..~"
He's Magi, Magi the magikarp!
But you can call him Agent M.
Magi!
I said you can call him Agent M!
All Singers: A-gent-M!
Meanwhile, on top of Battlecraft Academy's science and lab building…
A window was broken as Magi crashed in, kung-fu styled and ready.
A voice came from the shadows. "Ahh, Magi, the Magikarp… how unexpected. And by that I mean—COMPLETELY EXPECTED! HA!"
Suddenly the floor opened up and trapped Agent Magi in a glass sphere.
A dark and campy laughter echoed as the secret agent tried to break out of the glass sphere to no avail. "Haha! It's no use, Magi the magikarp! That is no ordinary glass! That is especially designed glass to stop magikarps!" He then briefly stopped his evil monologue. "And that handy man said I was crazy for wanting to make magikarp-proof glass. WHO'S CRAZY NOW!?"
Out of the shadows came a man who looked cartoonish by nature with a lanky body, a pointy nose, weird mop like brown hair and the fact he looked hunched over with horrible posture. He was wearing a distinct lab coat and had a fine mustache.
"Now allow me to tell you my evil plan. You see, I was invited to this school by a really cool dude I met online."
[Flashback.]
"Ahaha!" Mr. Professor Doctor chuckled evilly… while he was playing an online moba. "This spinning character guy is really quite skilled. I feel like we're on the same wavelength as we crush those that oppose us!" He said as he rapidly pressed on his laptop screen. "Ooh what's this? He wants to have a 'chat' with me?! Oh I'm so excited I don't even have much social interactions from real people!"
[Flashback end.]
"He offered me like this awesome job from our game chat and told me I was perfect for what he had in mind as THE HEAD OF THE ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE DEPARTMENT!" He threw his hands out in the air in an over the top manner and laughed manically while thunder boomed in the background— "By the way, what do you think of my evil Laugther-tron? I've always wanted to have lightning and thunder to go with my evil laughter, but do you think it's too much? … No? Ahh what the heck, I'll just keep doing it until I get sick of it. MWAAAHHAHAHAA!"
Magi may have been trapped, but while Mr. Professor Doctor was laughing like a lunatic, he noticed that there was some poorly placed hydrochloric acid canister on a nearby table.
"Oh right. Got sidetracked for a second. So the point is this place is great; the job is good, and my coworkers have to put up with me! But my problem came when I first tried to open the door to my new office—I got static electricity! It wasn't just then: the rails, static electricity! The door knob, static electricity! Going to the bathroom! … I don't know how but I still got static electricity! Well, no more!"
He put on a light switch revealing a large menacing looking machine.
"Behold, the No-More-Static-A-Tron! This beautiful machine is designed to suck in electricity! Once it's activated, it will hone in all potential static and nullify them, so I don't have to be annoyed by being randomly shocked! And now I shall activate it! Sure it might cause just a tinsy little problem with machines but that's only because machine have electricity in them." Soon, he took out a remote and started the machine. As it powered, the lights in the building started to flicker.
"It's working! It's working!" Mr. Professor Doctor cried out in elation while beholding his invention.
During this time, Magi banged on the sphere again; this time he hit the table that spilt over the acid on to his glass dome. With it weakened enough, the red fish kicked through the weakened glass sphere.
Mr. Doctor turned around in shock with a gasp. "Magi, the magikarp!? You've broken out of your trap!? But you are too late!" He grabbed another remote and pointed it at Magi. The thunder and lightning from before returned but this time it tried to strike the water type agent. The fish gracefully avoided each blast and flipped over to one side of the room.
"Hold still!" He then fire the machine as Magi splashed upward to avoid the hit and the thunder hit the machine instead.
"Oh no! I've hit the machine with actual electricity! It's going to blow!" Mr. Professor Doctor cried out as Magi jumped right back out the window he crashed and out popped up a hang glider from his hat.
"Curse you Magi, the magikarp!" The scientist called out in anger as the machine exploded, causing a massive blackout throughout the entire city.
Meanwhile…
"Hmm? Where their technical difficulties a bigger problem than they thought?" Roman asked before the lights quickly came back on. "Ahh never mind. After the battle, I was told to go pick up my uniform in a different building. But seeing as you didn't have your battle yet, I can wait."
Back up on the sky, Magi dove into a pond where a secret passage allowed him to enter back into Hardwin's dorm room and for him to jump back into his bowl before swallowing his hat.
After a while, Hardwin came back looking exhausted. "Oh hey, Magi, how was your day?"
"Magikarp."
"Man, sometimes I envy you, Magi. I bet you just stay in your bowl all day and just do nothing all day."
Hardwin fell onto his bed with another sigh, but he didn't notice Magi smiling at him.
A/N: … What? I like Phineas and Ferb. This one shot was just for fun and it isn't actually Cannon. Unless you want it to be. I can't even take credit for this idea because someone already did this in their deviant art about how a Magikarp can be just like Perry.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy your day!