Disclaimer: Pretty sure this is obvious at this point, but I don't own pokémon.
Atala strode purposely through the square tunnels of the Guild Headquarters. Despite her short legs, her brisk pace was difficult to match, and Rok found himself having to speed walk to keep up with her.
"We'll begin testing right away." Atala said, "First off is battle testing. All of you except the houndoom have said you have at least some skill in battle, but I'll need more information before I decide what kinds of threats you can handle. Then we'll test you on medical knowledge, your improvisational skills, and your investigative skills."
Reaper raised an eyebrow. "That's a lot more comprehensive than I was expecting."
"It has to be. Our explorers get sent on all kinds of missions from item retrieval, search and rescue, and even the occasional infiltration operation. We try to start our new recruits off with some simpler missions to ease them into their roles, especially if they are brand new to this sort of work, but we can't afford to baby you for long."
Silvo grinned. "You won't need to! We're all pretty tough, we can handle anything."
Atala didn't even glance at him. "We'll see."
The lucario led them to a large room completely made out of a shiny, silver material. There were no decorations, no furniture, not even any windows, except for a large one positioned high up one wall. It was about as plain a room as you could get.
Rok gulped. He absolutely didn't like that.
"This is one of our training rooms." Atala explained, "You'll each go in one at a time and I'll evaluate your skill."
"How does it work?" Smoke asked curiously.
Atala smirked slightly. "If I told you, that would affect your performance. I need to see how you perform in the moment. The rest of you can watch, but I'll have you know that the room won't follow the same procedure for all of you, so you won't gain anything but a little bit of insight into your teammates' skill-levels. Now. Who wants to go first."
"ME!" Silvo cried, practically sprinting into the room. He bounced on the spot, glancing around eagerly.
Atala closed the door and gestured for the group to follow her. She led them up to a room with the big window looking out over their new testing grounds. Even through the glass, Rok could hear the pop of electricity as static jumped from Silvo's quills.
The thought made him smile. At least one of them was excited for this.
Atala leaned over a table with what looked like all kinds of little gadgets and devices built into it. She fiddled with them for a few moments before a steady hum rumbled from the training room.
Reaper smirked. "Let's see how well this guy can really fight."
"Silvo is actually pretty good." Rok said, "They don't let just anyone be guards you know. The espeon teachers had to decide that Silvo was good enough for the role."
Reaper rolled her eyes. "Even so, I doubt he's every come across a real threat."
"Even if he hasn't, isn't that a good thing?" Rok asked gently.
Reaper blinked at him, scarlet eyes wide with shock, when suddenly the humming morphed into clunks and creaks, and the room's plain façade gave way to its true purpose.
Parts of the floor rose up randomly, forming columns of every size and releasing what appeared to be fake pokémon made of the same shiny silver stuff as the room itself.
"Robots." Smoke murmured in wonder.
Reaper huffed. "How is this fair? Silvo's an electric type, he'll have a huge advantage over bits of machinery."
Atala raised an eyebrow at her. "You really think we'd make it that easy?"
Silvo bared his teeth in a feral grin as electricity sparked from his fur, catching one of the robots full in the chest and making it spasm slightly before it continued its charge. Though that moment of spasming was all Silvo needed to charge forward in a Quick Attack, reducing the fake pokémon to a smoking heap.
The other robots instantly charged the green jolteon, but Silvo managed to dodge out the way, launching electricity as fast as he could towards the robots, bringing them down with Quick Attack and Bite when he could.
Until finally, one of the robots got lucky and managed to pin him down on his back, slamming him roughly to the floor. Rok felt his markings heat up with fear at the sight of his friend gritting his teeth in pain, especially as the robot released an electric charge of its own into the jolteon.
But rather than hurt him, it seemed to…rejuvenate him. The electricity arced across his quills, making his entire body glow and spark. Rok swore he could see Silvo's eyes glow yellow as he smirked, and released a charge of his own into the robot. The robot stumbled back, twitching and smoking, and Silvo quickly lashed out with both legs, kicking the robot's head so hard it went flying off its shoulders.
Silvo stood panting for breath among the smoking wrecks of the fake pokémon, before glancing up at the window with an especially smug grin.
Rok nudged Reaper with a smile of his own.
The absol rolled her eyes. "Okay, so he's not totally hopeless."
"Indeed he isn't." Atala said, scrawling something on another of those white leaves. "Now. Who's next?"
Reaper went next, and (much to the jolteon's chagrin) quickly put Silvo's performance to shame. Her style was all about beating the robots as fast, and as brutally, as possible. As soon as she entered the room, her eyes glowed with a weird pink energy that (as far as Rok could tell) didn't actually do anything, but everything else she did certainly had an impact. Arcs of similar pink energy erupted from her horn, slicing the robots to pieces. Her claws glowed dark purple as she slashed at them, effortlessly ripping them apart. And every time one of the robots tried to attack, she always dodged out of the way, almost like she could sense what each of them were doing. Finally, there was only one robot left.
It charged her…
And suddenly exploded as a pink beam appeared out of nowhere and brought it down in one hit.
"Wait, what just happened?" Silvo exclaimed, and Rok was just as confused. He really needed to talk to Reaper about her moveset later.
Next was Smoke. His was definitely the most lacklustre performance so far, which wasn't to say he wasn't formidable. Mostly he breathed flames thick enough to smother the robots entirely, and even after the fire dispersed the robots still flinched with a Burn. Occasionally he'd dart in close to deliver a bite, sometimes with his fangs wreathed in flames, but for the most part he kept his distance until the robots were nothing more than slightly melted wrecks.
When the houndoom came back, Rok instinctively coughed at the foul smell that seemed to cling to him. Was that the smoke from the robots?
Rage went next, though he was probably more nervous than Rok. As soon as the robots moved to attack him, he flinched and flames erupted from his waist in a stream of fire more direct and targeted than Smoke's. When the robots continued to charge, he opened his jaws, and roared.
Actually, "roared" doesn't do the sound justice. It reverberated off the walls, pushing its way past the solid barriers between the incineroar and observers and hammered at Rok's ears like stone being crushed right in front of him. Even muffled, the sound was enough to make his markings flare to life with terror and take a step back. The others, even Atala, also flinched, though whether it was because of the roar or Rok's markings wasn't clear.
Down in the training room, the robots immediately turned tail and ran, and Rage slumped over in relief. Unfortunately, the effect didn't last long, and the robots quickly resumed their attack. Rage did manage to beat them all, but it was obvious he was panicking the entire time, just shooting more flames from his waist, igniting his palms with dark fire and rapidly swinging his arms at the robots, and even licking them until they'd all broken down.
When Rage returned from the training room, he was shaking. Rok wanted to sympathise with him, but he was too afraid for himself as Atala's sharp gaze trained on him.
"Your turn."
A/N: First time we see all the gang (minus Rok) in action. I'll give more detailed accounts of their various abilities later, but for now, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.
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