Circhester

Fuse

As it turns out, there's a mystical spell on me that prevents me from seeing things past generation 9, the generation when I died. Why? God knows. Maybe he doesn't know anything past generation 9 either.

So the only two ghost-fighting type Pokemon are Anihillape, whose evolution line isn't even in Galar, and Marshadow, a mythical Pokemon.

Standing on top of a random building in Circhester, I made peace with the world.

Yeah, my team wasn't going to have all 18 types unless I count Vermont in his base Rotom form and I catch a fighting type somewhere.

Kicking a random pebble off the roof, I put Vermont away as I mildly fume over the fact that I screwed up my team building.

I mean, I wasn't really thinking about it until like, 2 days ago. But it still mildly bothered me.

Still, there really wasn't much I could do aside suck it up and figure out which fighting type Pokemon I wanted to catch.

Jumping down into a dark alleyway to bring me back to the floor so I could walk around the city, my glasses allowed me to see something.

It was a very long time ago at this point, but my sunglasses were a pair of detector sunglasses that I soul-bound myself and called Gore. It lets me see things a normal person couldn't see, whatever that meant.

Apparently, Chekhov's Gun is real because that allowed me to see something hiding in the shadows of this alleyway.

Focusing on that shadow, I found a Pokemon. But just not any Pokemon.

It was a fucking Marshadow.

Instantly, I knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I sure as hell wasn't going to squander it now.

With the increased speed of my anemo delusion working overtime, I took a Pokeball out of my inventory and threw it at the hidden Marshadow.

The Marshadow was caught completely off-guard and was hit by the Pokeball without even realizing it.

Before the Pokeball even hit the ground, I immediately pulled out another to ensure that I wouldn't lose the Marshadow somehow.

Predictably, with only one tick, Marshadow broke out of its ball. The expression on its face was furious.

Without delay, I threw the next Pokeball, but Marshadow simply leapt out of the shadow to kick it away.

"You're joining my team, whether you like it or not," I immediately declared, weighing my options on what to do next.

Given how this is the last Pokemon I'll catch, and that it's a mythical Pokemon, I think there's only one correct option for me to take here.

Readying my two blades, Washington and Lincoln, I told the Gloomdweller Pokemon, "Today, your opponent is me."

The Marshadow simply frowned as it fled into the shadows.

Then, it tried to escape the battle.

Oh, that motherfucker.

Still being able to see him, I chased after it.

Unfortunately for Marshadow, it was in the middle of the day and Circhester wasn't a place where there were many shadows. But the buildings still casted enough shade to where it had an express route away from me.

I was still faster with my wings, though.

Catching up to the speedy bastard, I immediately cut straight into it, nicking its head. The force of my attack forced him out of the shadows, giving me the opportunity to slice him down with both of my swords.

Marshadow endured the attack, and though he was injured, immediately followed up by kicking my shin.

If my body wasn't made out of slime, I would no longer have a shin.

Instead what happened was that I was tripped up and fell towards Marshadow. It took the opportunity to jump up and uppercut my face, knocking me back up with a terrible concussion.

Dazed, I swung my sword down towards it but it blended into the shadows to avoid my attack. A moment later, it jumps out of the shadow to punch me directly in the stomach with a ghost type attack.

Being pushed back, I gave my fair assessment to Marshadow, "Holy shit, you're strong. I need you on my team!"

It knew how to fight, and it was thoroughly kicking my ass. If I had it on my team, Marshadow could probably sweep one or two of Lily's Pokemon without much sweat.

With an unenthusiastic groan, I could tell that the Marshadow wasn't too pleased with the idea of joining my team.

It doesn't matter, though, as I recover from my daze from its uppercut. I need to change my game plan just a bit.

The ground beneath Marshadow suddenly burst forth, launching it to my position.

Infusing my swords with the few remaining B ranked souls I had, I immediately position myself to cut down Marshadow as soon as it reached my striking range.

But like how Gore was finally useful today, my curses decided to make their appearance today as well.

The skeletons whose souls I stole from rebelled against me for a singular moment, causing my action to be delayed.

In the span of that single moment, Marshadow held both fire and ice within his two fists.

The souls I had didn't want to be infused within my swords and I instinctively tried again, but I didn't have the time to do that. I was caught off guard and this is the consequence.

My swords stayed idle as Marshadow bypassed the two swords, landing a devastating fire and ice punch straight into my stomach.

Being knocked away for the second time in the fight, I held down the urge to throw up whatever was being digested in my stomach as I skidded across the ground.

God damn, this Marshadow hit hard.

But instead of running away once more, Marshadow decided to be proactive and rushed towards me, intent on ending my life.

Immediately, I begin to salute…

…But on second thought, I didn't pull out my domain expansion.

I already chose the difficult path by fighting Marshadow by myself instead of jumping it with my Pokemon. Why would I take the coward's way out and use my domain expansion right now of all times? That's some serious loser shit.

My victory condition is capturing this Marshadow, but I chose to make it more difficult for myself because I wanted this occasion to be special. I'm not going to end it with a single move Marshadow had no counter to.

With my mind made up, I grabbed chunks of the pavement and threw them towards Marshadow to delay him slightly.

Marshadow effortlessly dodged each of my blasts by ducking and weaving through the shadows. It wasn't as predictable as I wanted him to be, so I decided to target someone who was more predictable. Myself.

Creating a tall pillar beneath me, I ascended into the air, but still on the platform.

Deciding that it was really going to try and end my life, Marshadow uses the shadow cast by my pillar to start climbing up towards me.

But I had a much cooler idea.

As the Marshadow reached my location, I immediately break up the pillar beneath us using my earth blasts, which used the pillar as fuel, and sent them towards the ground.

But Marshadow did not connect itself to those shadows, and was now helplessly floating in the air.

Not to mention, I positioned myself using my wings to ensure that I wouldn't be casting a shadow on Marshadow to let him ride the shadow all the way back to the ground. He would be casting a shadow on me.

Marshadow immediately figured out what I was going for, and immediately went to defend itself. But I had a feeling that it wouldn't help him for long.

Pulling out more old skills, False Swipe ensures that my next attack wouldn't kill my target. Quick strike lets me attack faster on my next attack. Both of these had pretty low stamina usage, so I could spam them like 50 times without much penalty.

Marshadow didn't know it, but this battle was over.

Activating my two skills, I attacked Marshadow over and over with astounding speeds. There was no shadow for it to hide in, so it took every single attack of mine.

And eventually, Marshadow's endurance failed, as Marshadow cried out in pain.

Though False Swipe didn't allow me to kill, it sure did allow targets to faint.

With that, the battle came to an end as Marshadow fell out of the sky, unconscious.

Before Marshadow hit the floor, I threw a Pokeball at it, capturing it in its grasp.

By the time I reached the ground, Marshadow was now officially mine.

I took a lot of damage from that fight, so I stumbled my way towards the Pokeball. But even so, I felt joy from the battle.

What a little rat bastard. I'm naming them New York.

"Well done," I said to no one but myself, picking up the New York's Pokeball, "You're definitely worthy of being the final Pokemon on my team."

Quest Completed!

[I HAVE TWELVE FUCKING POKEMON!]

Objective: Collect 12 Pokemon for your team

Description: Your fortune cookie stated that someone would eventually pull out 12 Pokemon. Wouldn't it be cool if that were you?

Addendum: Good luck feeding all of them!

Rewards: 5 Gacha tokens, A lot of food for your 12 Pokemon placed into your inventory, 12 Major Rank up points.

Wait a fucking minute.

I had a quest for this?

Since WHEN?


(Pitter)

Circhesters Local News:

We have spotted #ChallengerLily 's rival, #Fuse , in Circhester fighting personally against an unknown Pokemon!

A source who decided to stay anonymous sent his Rotom phone footage to us so you can all see the fight!

[3 minute video to the entire Fuse Vs Marshadow fight]

Vtolma:

He's literally using magic. That isn't just Pokemon moves. It's not a trick of the light, it's not high tech gadgets, it's not some kind of Pokemon ancestry. It's magic. Straight. Up.

Gerry:

Say, does anyone know where Fuse learned all of this stuff? Asking for a friend.

Rattata Hater:

So, does the Galarian Government have some kind of secret experimental lab that created this dude? Fighting a Pokemon isn't easy. Speaking of which, what even is that Pokemon? I've never seen it before.

Please_Don't_Come_Here:

Wtf is a Marshadow doing in Galar? That's an Alolan mythical Pokemon!

Edit: I know there are more than one mythical Pokemon you morons.

Lily! (Challenger):

Well, it looks like Fuse is having fun!

Hop (Challenger):

I don't think that's the issue here, Lily.


Wyndon

Leon

Ah, yes, the consequences of his actions. His least favorite meal.

Because Leon had chosen to talk it out with Fuse in front of a crowd instead of simply apprehending him, Fuse was set free. Then what does he do with his freedom? Create media scandals for Galar, apparently.

First of all, it was the whole thing with Chris's defeat. Then Fuse stumbled upon a Pokemon trafficking ring and totally annihilated it within a day, causing people to question why the Galarian Government didn't even know that was happening.

Which, by the way, is a totally absurd question. They may have well just asked them to outlaw crime.

Finally, Fuse is just out here using what Leon is willing to call magic, and the rest of the world is calling an Galarian experiment on humans. Now every region is calling in to see if they want to share any results that they obviously don't have.

Not to mention the entire rest of the world thinks that they were committing crimes against humanity, and Fuse somehow escaped their facilities.

It wasn't true, obviously. Fuse's one contact that's easily available to the public, Lily, has essentially said "Woah, that's crazy," in response to all of the conspiracy theories. But now people are questioning why a 9 year old is even competing in a highly televised event like Galar's gym circuit anyways.

Hell, people are suggesting that Lily wasn't actually that young and she was the result of human experimentation too, particularly in getting the genes of long-lived Pokemon into humans to have them live longer.

All in all, it was just a massive mess. Quite frankly, this was probably the closest Leon had gotten to wanting to retire.

Switching his gaze from his Rotom phone to his boss, Chairman Rose, Leon lightly asked, "So… Do you want me to try and take Fuse in again?"

Rose didn't seem too concerned as he took a sip of his glass of wine, drinking for a moment before calmly answering, "No. The tournament is close enough to where if you were injured now, you might not be able to give it your all on that battlefield. Instead, we'll just let things play out."

Well, that made things easier for Leon. But he isn't sure if he's following the logic here.

Tilting his head, he questioned, "Ah… Why? Fuse isn't hostile to us now, but wouldn't it be bad for him to keep creating scandals for us?"

Disapprovingly humming, Rose wagged his finger to tell Leon, "Ah, you see, they aren't really scandals. After all, we have done nothing wrong, have we? The media will do its research and find nothing wrong on our part. All we have to do is temporarily weather this bad storm and it will pass. But more importantly, Fuse's goal happens to be moving towards us right now."

Yeah, he had no idea where this was going.

Rose knew that Leon had no idea where this was going, so he continued, "Fuse's goal is to defeat Lily. The last, good opportunity to do so is in a month from now when the tournament occurs. Whatever magic Lily has, she won't be using it there, and all of her Pokemon will be at their wits end by the time she's in the arena. That is the perfect time for Fuse to strike. And us as well."

Ah.

Now he hated it.

"You want to use the tournament as bait?" Leon's mouth fell in disbelief.

"That Pokemon Fuse fought, Marshadow, any one of your Pokemon could likely fight it in a one on one duel, yes?" Rose didn't wait for an answer, "That is the level of power Fuse has. He may be unique, but he isn't very strong. We'll have all of our gym leaders standing by in case Fuse drops by. It will not be a very quick fight."

That actually made sense, but the simple fact that Rose would be willing to spoil the tournament for it…

Ergh, he has no choice but to accept it. Leon doesn't quite believe he'll be able to catch Fuse off-guard, so putting him in the worst spot ever would be the next best bet.

So, Leon sighed, "Alright. I'll trust you then, Chairman."

With a smile, Rose thanked him for his time and dismissed him.

Really, what a pain…


AN:

I literally forgot Labor Day was around the corner. I started writing this at 12 AM after I remembered that Labor Day exists.

Luckily, my GOATED laptop came in clutch and I finished this chapter in around 6 hours of on and off writing.

Anyways, the anniversary is technically on September 4th, but that was labor day. So we'll just treat every labor day as the anniversary. Though I doubt we'll need another year to finish this fic.

So, 1 year of Manifest Destiny, 37 chapters in.

Damn, that's crazy. Especially when I started this after a 6 month hiatus with no expectations other than "Fuck it, we ball."

The lows were spectacularly low, and the highs were like a speedbump, but damn, this is fun.