Pre-chapter A/N; Breakdown of pokemon names;
Broly - Kleavor
Quicksilver - Pidgeot (dead)
Kisame - Milotic
Igneel - Charizard
Kenpachi - Tyranitar
Ino - Gardevoir
Snorlax - Snorlax
Tsunade - Clefable
Gai - Hakomo-o
Magnezone - Magnezone
Hashirama- Trevenant
Special thanks to the folks on pa-atreon for making this possible. Now without further ado let's get into it.
I looked left and right, across the field, feeling the crowd's enthusiasm catch me and nearly overwhelm me. The League President had turned this selection process into something else. It was the most popular tournament in recent history, with viewership numbers set to overtake the conference in a few days and we weren't even at the finals yet. No, we still had two more stages. This stage was more of a round robin. Everyone would face everyone, with those having the best ratio being sent ahead.
So far, things were looking good. I resisted the urge to puff out my chest as the crowd cheered me on as I took my position. I saw various sign posts, the most funny of which boldly displayed the phrase, "40 and 0". I'd not lost a match since the trial started and that made me a quick favourite. I also haven't faced most of the other favourites. Giovanni, Agatha, and most of the gym leaders hadn't been drawn up against me yet. Still, as one of only two people to still be undefeated, I had good odds riding on me. Of course, since the other person was Giovanni, its clear to see why I was the one getting the adoration.
I turned to my opponent, not allowing the crowd's noise affect me as I set my lips into an easy smile and relaxed my shoulders. Time to fucking rumble. The woman across from me was the gym leader for Fuchsia after Koga's death as his daughter and heir. Purple eyes stared at me with a worrying intensity as I considered my options for this battle. She'd almost beaten Sabrina, taking out both Hypno and Slowbro with some dirty tactics before being no-sold by Metagross. She was a poison type trainer, and clearly wasn't skilled enough to totally negate the complete type advantage held by steel type pokemon.
Of course, it wasn't like I could take advantage of that. Magnezone was still a total and complete idiot unable to pay attention for more than a second. I mean I could get him to do some training by turning it into a game and even make him fight a bit in actual battles where he had his teammates to rein him in. But that didn't make him even the slightest bit ready for a battle like this one. Especially not with the stakes.
The board flashed and showed that I lost the coin toss, so I started things off with Igneel. My fire dragon was always a good choice. I felt sweat break out across my skin and my nose caught the unpleasant scent of sulphur. I licked my lips as they'd suddenly dried themselves. My opponent didn't seem to be letting the heat get to her as she released her first choice a few moments after I released mine. She'd shown off three pokemon against Sabrina, and this one was the one I considered to be her most likely option when facing Igneel. After all, if Metagross hadn't been a steel type supercomputer. This fucker would have done him in quite handily. Two spherical heads connected by a tube stared down Igneel as we waited for the board to begin the battle. Most of these matches weren't directly refereed. Most league referees had come from Johto, and since Mewtwo's announcement, foreigners had seen all shades of hell from scared Kanto natives. It was sad, but not unexpected.
The board flashed with the word, 'Begin' and the crowd held their collective breaths. The silence was deafening as a massive wave of purple gas spewed out from both of the pokemon's mouths at the same time. Igneel took to the skies, careful to stay within the height limit of the arena and swept the gas away with a wave of his wings. The skies were safe for him, but he'd ceded the ground to Janine with that move. Purple haze covered every part of the battle field below nine feet. Any higher, and it would get dispersed by Igneel's wings. The haze thickened, until it formed a cloud even I couldn't see through. Igneel had better eyesight, on account of being a dragon and all, but I doubted even he could see within the cloud. Fuck.
Well, this was not untenable. The situation. Sure, we couldn't attack without clear visuals unless we decided to say fuck it and go for shock and awe, but Janine couldn't attack us either. Part of me chafed impatiently at the thought of waiting for her to go on the attack and hungered to cover the field in flames but I shut off Igneel's influence as quickly as I could. Janine was Koga's daughter. The same Koga who was widely recognised as the most crafty trainer in the league when he'd been alive. Considering all that, there's no way she wouldn't have been able to see an explosive attack like that. Igneel was the most popular of my pokemon, after all. Gifs of him exploding and dealing with Bisharp were even more popular than animated pictures of Ino whipping Claire's dragonite. The internet was a weird place no matter the universe.
We waited, doing our best to stay still until a voice came through from the speakers, sounding mechanised and obviously modulated by some sort of software. 'A time limit has been placed on this match. Both participants have five minutes to win or it will be declared a draw by timeout' I guess no one was keen on watching us attempt to fake each other out for that long. Igneel heard the announcement, but clearly wasn't able to understand it. Here's a little unknown fact. Pokemon don't speak english. They don't understand a word of it. I can already hear your objections. "How do they take orders from trainers then?" I can hear you ask with a scoff. Well, the answer to that one is quite simple. Intent. They feel the intent laced with words and understand that. Most pokemon are empathic in that sense. They can feel human intent better than humans, and understand us better than we understand ourselves.
It goes without saying that mechanised voices through speakers couldn't communicate any intent, so Igneel had no idea what time limit had just been imposed. He looked at me, and I just shrugged, not telling him so he didn't get a bit overzealous.
We stayed still like that for two more minutes, as I waited for Janine to make her move, but eventually I realised that she'd be happy with a draw here. She was nowhere near my level. If standing still for a few minutes was all she needed to leave here with a draw, then it was a good deal for her. Fuck. Didn't think this through. I waited till the board flashed '2:19' till I instructed Igneel to move. He dove into the cloud with unreal speed and instantly exploded. His explosions didn't come with much sound, but the light display almost blinded me the first few times. Now? Not so much.
The arena was devastated, and all the purple poison was gone, replaced by light dust from the shattered stone that made up the field. I searched for Weezing with both my eyes and Igneel's senses, keeping a good look at the clock. '1:53', was the time remaining on the board when we finally found it. It was hiding in the dust, trying to pull off some sort of retreat.
Igneel moved left, before moving right with the aura of agility around him. The feint worked well, and he was almost on top of the poison pokemon before its trainer could warn it. It mattered little though. Igneel was right in range, drowning the pokemon in a sea of flames that agitated the light sunburns on my forearms. For someone with sensitive skin, I spent way too much time around living furnaces.
He cut out the fire at '1:39' and I noted that the pokemon had been able to survive with a protect just in time. Igneel didn't allow it to disappoint him and was even excited at his opponent's survival. Surrounded in flame armour, he moved in to the melee. Two spherical heads didn't make for the most aerodynamic of profiles, and its attempt to run from my dragon was almost comical. Igneel fought Gai and Broly on a near daily basis. He knew speed, and this wasn't even close. He caught up and raked through it with powerful claws, moving in to continue the attack as it reared back. He was a storm of claws and tail whips, each limb coated in flames that burned the poison up before it could reach him. I hadn't forseen this kind of effectiveness against poison attacks, and this utility took the flame armour from a showy tool to fuck with steel and grass types to a legitimate defensive tool in our arsenal. It was impressive. I watched Janine watch the board, clearly wondering if her pokemon could wait out the remaining minute and twenty seconds. It wouldn't. I just shook my head at her, and taking my advice, she returned her pokemon. Igneel was relentless, and that Weezing was already done for.
I closed my eyes in victory and waited for her next pokemon. She'd shown off three against Sabrina, and as she was a gym leader, I didn't have the required clearance to just check up her trainer profile for the rest of her team. I mean, I could have studied her previous matches, but what's the fun in that? Janine was cunning, but she didn't have the power to roll with the big boys. Igneel was going to sweep her entire team and not even break a sweat doing it.
Of course, she had to introduce complexity. She sent out a Nidoking from her ball. Wait, is that a Nidoking? Which one was purple again? I mean, wasn't Nidoqueen the purple one and Nidoking the blue one? Well fuck. Let's keep my inability to identify a pokemon native to Kanto away from Oak, shall we? He'd have me in remedial lessons for fucking ever.
The Nidomonarch took the field with a flourish and Igneel's roar was every bit as anticipatory as it was warning. My battle hungry dragon could already tell that this would be fun. I even had some trouble holding him off from attacking until the battle officially started. His previous battle and just spending so long standing around doing nothing was making him a bit restless, and he'd soon become ungovernable.
When the board finally flashed, he moved with the force of a ball shot out of a canon. Flame armour surrounded him as he moved through the air and collided with the power poison type. Nidomonarchs tended to have the ability, poison point, so we had to be careful not to get poisoned. Hopefully, the fire would burn out the poison before it entered him, but even if it didn't, we were raising his body temperature even higher than usual. His body would burn the poison out of his system in a few minutes even if he did get poisoned.
A powerful tail lashed out at him as he dove in, but ducking under the appendage was child's play. Igneel was built of nothing but muscle. Gravity training and a good diet ensured that. He was more built than any charizard I'd ever seen, even lacking in that customary bit of gut they all had. He was just pure muscle. In melee range, he used all his advantages as best as he could. Moving around Nidomonarch's attacks like he could see them coming from a mile away, and punishing it whenever it overextended. He'd rolled up his claws and was attacking fists instead. After their first few exchanges, it wouldn't have taken Ino to figure out that his claws were not going to make it through his adversary's armour.
Janine whistled, and a cloud of purple smoke exploded from Nidomonarch. It took the opportunity and disappeared into the crowd. "Hurricane" I ordered with a carefully blank face. No need to show the disappointment I felt at her resorting to the same tricks and expecting to beat me. The smog disappeared as the winds picked up and coalesced into a hurricane that travelled along the arena. The move gathered all the gas and funnelled it right into the air, dispersing it thinly and cleanly. I smiled at Igneel and shot him a thumbs up for the well executed move. His power and muscles weren't the only things growing it seemed.
Nidomonarch was nowhere to be found, so I made the obvious judgement and had Igneel take to the skies. Of course, that's what Janine expected. The moment Igneel began to ascend, Nidomonarch appeared out of the ground, to the left and tossed a massive rock right at him. Igneel was able to react, shattering it to a thousand pieces with a fist surrounded by flame. I just stared at Janine, wondering if that was the entirety of her strategy. I mean it wasn't very likely to work, was it?
The field began to visibly vibrate and develop cracks. I doubted using earthquake was very effective when one's opponent had already gone airbourne. The entire essence of her strategy seemed to be to confuse me as much as possible. With any other trainer, I'd assume them to be an idiot and move in for the kill, but this was Koga's daughter. I've only battled the man once, but even in that battle, he'd been a crafty bastard, with a trick up his sleeve for every situation. I found it difficult to believe that his chosen heir and daughter would be any different. There was a trap here. An angle was being played. All I had to do was fucking find it.
"Stealth rock" She commanded and multiple pieces of stones from the ground rose up and surrounded Igneel's position in the sky. He tested the trap by moving a bit to the left, and the rock closest to him exploded, scuffing his scales a bit. I 'hmmed' at the move choice. Igneel could probably just force his way out of the encirclement, but that would damage him needlessly, and besides, we had some long-range training to do, either way. This was good for us. We had allowed Igneel's skills at long range go ignored for a while since it became so easy to just wrestle anyone into submission with explosions and a body made of flame. Igneel was pure hax like that.
He took a deep breath and spat out a sea of flames right at Nido Monarch. A flash of blue from within the fire told me it was using protect to guard itself. Good. It would have been too easy if that did it.
"Let's do something new, shall we?" I whispered to myself, connecting Igneel to me even deeper, by opening up our aura bond further. I considered the options and decided that since Nidomonarch was a ground type, merely making the flames hotter would have no effect. It was going to survive most of what we threw at it unless we chose to get ridiculous. But I still had an idea. Igneel had spent months turning swift into the phoenix flame jutsu, and turning flame wheel into flame armour, or turning his body's natural processes into explosion. When it came to purely original moves, Igneel was far and beyond the most talented of my pokemon. Ino could match up to his learning pace with psychic cheatery but that was different.
'I have an idea, bud' I told him, communicating the basic idea behind the Rasengan to him, but repurposed to work with fire type aura, and to work in the context of how he understood his power. Instead of chakra, we'd be using Normal Type energy as the basis of the move, adding the flames later on when we managed to get this down. Wisps of blue light gathered around Igneel's hand as he stretched it out in front of him. My mind melded with his as we started the move together. I had no idea how aura let me do shit like this, but that was a matter for later consideration. Rotation, I focused first. We were going to get the move to work by using the shadow clone technique with no actual shadow clones. I would be the shadow clone, focusing on rotation and containment while Igneel focused on providing the power and helping me out when I lapsed.
I rotated Igneel's energy around his palm, allowing it to gain speed by virtue of the rotation itself. Spin created spin, as the normal type energy began to form into individual threads that span all together. Igneel increased the power, and I added it to the existing threads, and then focused on containing all of it into a sphere. Fuck, this was hard. I was moving around power that wasn't mine in a body that wasn't mine. Very fucking hard. I looked down with Igneel's eyes and found Nidomonarch staring right up to me. Some part of me wondered why Janine was just letting me obviously prepare a move but I tossed it aside. When the Rasengan was complete, I considered adding a spark and igniting the entire thing, but I honestly doubted I'd be able to control the move if it came to that. It took all my energy to prevent it from collapsing in on itself or exploding. Unlike the actual jutsu, this move could not just sustain itself once given a power source. I had to focus on maintaining the rotation and concentration while Igneel provided a constant stream of power. We shot straight out of the encirclement of rocks, allowing them to explode around us and ignoring what little damage they did. I'd overestimated the move's ability to damage Igneel apparently. As we got closer, I noticed something. Nidomonarch's fists were vibrating with the energy of an earthquake, but that wasn't the terrifying bit. That honour went to the hyper beam it had been building up in its mouth the whole time.
Fuck. I considered abandoning the run, but that would be boring, and not epic at all. Besides, I've seen Naruto do this half a dozen times already. Igneel expressed no doubt at my chosen course of action, and increased his speed as we approached the Nido monarch. I could see some shock on its face but it didn't allow that prevent it from sending a missive hyperbeam right at us. We stretched our arm holding the rasengan out, handling our body behind it. Just like it did in the anime, the rotation of the rasengan helped in redirecting the energy beam. The hyper beam came into contact with the rasengan and separated into multiple beams of light that spun with the rasengan. It was like what a disco ball did with focused rays of light, just much more deadly. We finally got within range of the Nido monarch as its beam attack ended. It tried to use one of its earthquake fists on Igneel, but we just dodged out of the way and slammed the spinning ball of energy down on its head. It ground at its armour, before breaking through and sending the powerful ground type pokemon to the ground, knocked out. I didn't need Igneel's senses to feel the shock in the crowd. They'd just witnessed a completely new move. A new, effective move at that. Even Janine, ninja that she was, was quite shocked. For that, I needed Igneel's senses. My eyes weren't good enough to spot the slight widening of hers, and my nose definitely couldn't smell the emotion on her. Sharing bodies with Igneel like this was lovely, but I had to return to mine. The power in his muscles, the fiore in his belly. It gave me a heady feeling that I had to be careful not to get addicted to.
It was as I returned, that I heard Janine's next words.
"I forfeit. That Charizard is beyond the capabilities of the rest of my team, and my opponent still has two more pokemon up his sleeve." She said, and the crowd cheered her on as she left the platform. I followed her lead, taking the emphatic win for what it was. Igneel roared to the crowd to show his dominance, and I let him have his fun before I returned him to his ball.
XXXXXX- The Sinnoh Elite
I looked around me, taking note of the silence in the forest, before it was disturbed by the sound of an explosion. I grit my teeth in frustration, feeling just as terrible about our consistent failure as Volcarona. Logically, I shouldn't. My models predicted that it would take her at least a month to get this down, but the fact that we'd pulled ahead of schedule on everything else had spoiled me just a bit.
"Keep up on it, sweetheart" I told her, as I began walking around the rest of the forest to check on the team. I'd bought this place with my first paycheck as an elite four member, and hadn't found much of an excuse to use it personally. My family enjoyed the place, but this was my first time living here for any long period. This is where I;d do the training to secure my spot and silence my doubters. It was clear that the other elites thought me the weakest of them all. I was the only one without mega evolution to rely on, and the fourth elite in terms of numbering, so it was easy to see why they thought so, but understanding why didn't make it any easier to swallow.
I dodged around a flying rock as Heracross shattered another one, working to strengthen the force of his pincers. He was the one I spent the most time with, as I did all I could to strengthen our bond in the hopes of trying mega evolution again. Something told me it wasn't anything from my end, but trying to speak to him had gotten me nowhere.
I walked past Crustle running from one end of a clearing to another, moving around all types of obstacles to train both speed and manoeuvrability. Vespiqueen and Beautifly flew in the air above me, training both their flight and the ability to call upon their powder attacks instantly. This was just a warm up for most of them, as the real training required everything they could give and more. My models showed they'd be able to power through the training at the end of the day, but I was still a bit worried.
I watched Drapion as he walked, getting used to the gravity bracers on him as he walked on some of his more exotic poisons. This one was an idea that had literally come to me in the shower. Poison type pokemon could produce poison pretty much on demand, yes, so what would happen if I tried to change what that poison was, or what it did? I mean, if you thought about it long enough, there was no reason why not. Poison types could stoke certain glands in their body this way or that to make the poison they used.
However, the process wasn't entirely biological. Sure, their bodies were like chemistry labs, mixing different compounds to get unique results, but at some point, pokemon energy had to come in to turn what they created into what they needed. I couldn't for the life of me describe it much better than that. All I could say was that somehow, we'd managed to isolate a unique poison I built in the lab and after making Drapion ingest it a few times while monitoring his health, he'd proven to be able to manifest trace amounts of it in his regular poison. Now, all I needed to do was train him to be able to use that one on demand, and then branch out into more poisons. I could still remember the conversation with my father when I'd brought up the idea and asked for his help in designing the poison.
"So your idea makes some sense, but I still need to understand the rationale."
"A unique poison can be made to do any amount of things" I'd replied, smiling brightly in enthusiasm at the idea.
"Yes, but the matter at hand is quite simple. You need only one poison, and that's the one most likely to work on other pokemon. What's our assurance that this will be any more effective than his already existing poison."
Anticipating that question, I handed the tablet over to him and watched his eyes widen. It was a result of a study I'd carried out on some DNA samples gotten from Heracross and models made from that. Drapion's poison had a 12% effectiveness in small doses. A random poison I dug up from a few old journals had double the effectiveness. "Do you know why this is?" He asked, while stroking his white beard. I resisted the urge to comment on how ridiculous it made him look. Mother would deal with that when she stopped finding it funny.
"My theory is resistance. Every pokemon builds some resistance to poison over their lifetimes, or even as a result of evolution, but that only applies to poisons found in the wild. Imagine how effective a completely new poison that no one could build a resistance to could be?"
From there, I knew I had him, and now we were working on a second poison. The first had just been proof of concept. Now, we were working on something that could actually change the game as it was played. I could imagine Drapion ascending to becoming one of my more deadly pokemon if this worked out. Now, I just had to perfect the rest of the moves I was working with the team on. We had a lot in front of us, but were well placed to make something truly beautiful. After all, how many times would one get to see completely new moves.
I walked towards Galvantula's part of the forest, careful to avoid startling her and provoking a reaction. Her job was simple. Increase her ability to store charge in her body and learn even more powerful electric type moves. Her utility as an ambush attacker with her web was beginning to approach its end. Now a single pokemon at the Tournament of Power would be bested by such a tactic. I had subterfuge and skill down pat, I just had to match it with raw power.
This course of action grated at me, but the models were clear. Power would trump skill when applied correctly. I couldn't survive, relying entirely on my pokemon being more skilled than the rest. As things stood, my models gave me a 32% chance of beating Bertha, and she was the one with the highest odds. The 0.4% chance of beating Cynthia that the model had given me when I ran the battle had been heartbreaking. I knew she was stronger than me, but so much stronger that it was virtually impossible for me to beat her was disheartening to say the least.
Turning away from Galvantula's nest after giving her some words of encouragement and watching her, I made my way back to Volcarona. I hadn't heard any explosions from her chosen training area in a bit, so I was hopeful that progress was being made.
XXXXXXX- CHAMPION OF HOENN
I sat in front of my predecessor as we both contemplated the madness of the world. I knew Indigo was doing something stupid, but to think that they'd bioengineered a legendary of all things. The brutish barbarians had put the entire world in their mess, and now we were going to be forced to fight for our lives. The entire thing turned what would have once been a celebratory reunion between friends into a sombre affair as we each nursed our glasses of whisky and tried to strategize for the future.
"You and I are a given for the team, of course" Steven said, and I just nodded, noting that his skin had acquired a healthy tan over his travels. I thought through the elite four as they stood now, and tried to come up with two clear favourites to join us. Drake was the strongest of them, for sure, and wasn't that much weaker than me if I was being completely honest.
"Sydney, Glacia, or Pheobe?" I asked him as I took another small sip of the burning alcohol. The heat I felt travelling through my body was just lovely at this time.
"In terms of strength, they're all close enough that we could take any of them without losing out on too much. What we have to be careful about is typing. Psychic, ghost, or ice? That's the question we should be asking."
I nodded at his reply, agreeing with him in principle. Type advantages meant little at our level, but a fight between Blaziken and a Sceptile at the same level would end in the Blaziken's favour nine out of ten times. Between equal matched opponents, type matchups meant everything.
"We'd have to find out the representatives from the other regions first, of course. To make sure our team is ready for anything" I said, nodding at the man in the shadows.
"Yes, of course, our spies are the best in the world." Steven replied, catching my drift.
"Zero, you know what to do" I said, using the codename that I found a bit ridiculous. He disappeared in a blur of movement, ready to search out and bring us whispers from across the world."
"We'll discuss the tournament tomorrow. Now, tell me about your travels. I've been stuck here for so long, I might as well live vicariously through you" I said, relaxing into my chair, and doing my best to put the issue out of mind.
A/N; Another chapter done. Let's gooooo. Thanks for reading, guys. We're officially sixty chapters in(on pa-atreon at least). Isn't that something? How was the reunion with our poacher friend? Yes, I didn't forget about him. He still has one more key role to play before we can finally be rid of him.
We've got the next seven chapters available on pa-treon, and you can read all of them right now just by heading to the link on my profile or searching for my username up there. I also have a new story I'm working on, so you can also check that out here.