AN:
FUN FACT: Vulpix learns the move Roar in earlier gens, but our SI doesn't know that.
Also, MASSIVE thanks to Farla for the review, I'll try to improve upon it.
Chapter 1.1: Pokemon world/move lore building.
Slowly gaining awareness of my surroundings, I remember that I was sleeping and now a bright light is being directed to my face.
Opening my eyes, I am greeted by the rising sun which tells me it is time to start the day..
I stood up with a yawn and prepared myself for the beginning of my daily routine.
Morning stretching? Check.
Perimeter tree status? Check. Nothing amiss
Morning piss on trees? Check. No idea if this is doing anything like mark territory, but I might as well space it out.
Snow surrounding the area is untouched by footprints? Check.
With the daily routine finished with no fuss, I start jumping from tree branch to tree branch using only my normal physical prowess in order to strengthen my body and increase my stamina without using energy or moves.
Once the trees were now further spaced in between each other where I won't be able to reach the next branch without using moves to enhance my movement, I landed into the snow below and started walking towards a path of snow paved by larger pokemon heading towards the river.
After finally reaching the river, I look around and only see Ivy the ivysaur and Exeggutor the… exeggutor being the only pokemon present, sitting by my rock with the former waving at me using her vine whip.
I quickly drank my fill of water and activated my drought ability while walking towards them.
The area around me started heating up, as the snow melts in a radius around me.
Sitting by my rock, I relaxed myself as I have two friends accompanying me this morning.
'Hrm. The area of influence of my ability has no visible difference from yesterday, but I feel the strain of keeping it activated cost me less energy...progress!' I thought to myself in glee.
"Good morning, Drought!" Ivy greeted me.
I nod. "Good morning to you too, Ivy." I turned to Exeggutor. "I thought I wouldn't see you today, especially with the houndour pack making their rounds in this side of the woods."
Exeggutor's massive body shifts to look at me. "While that is true, it turns out the houndour pack is farther than I initially thought."
I hummed. "Oh well, free breakfast for me."
The two grass types roll their eyes, as Exeggutor's eyes glow white.
Preparing my ember shot, I fired upon the three fish pokemon trying to wiggle around while held up mid air.
"Ooh, your attacks have improved." Ivy complimented me.
"Thank you, sadly I never get to train more seriously." I replied to Ivy as I started tearing into a magikarp.
After a few minutes of me biting into my breakfast, a stray thought popped up.
"Ivy, Exeggutor, what do you two eat exactly?" I asked them..
Ivy lets out a laugh while Exeggutor just snorts. "Just because I'm a grass type, it doesn't mean I don't eat berries and other types of food, Drought!"
She looked away and huffed. "Besides, grass type pokemon that focus on sunlight collection have larger leaves making them slower and they barely move around."
I feel myself tilting my head. "What kind of pokemon would even willingly do that and how would they defend themselves then?" I asked in confusion because while I have never eaten a grass type before, I know it can be done.
Exeggutor shifted and looked at me. "It depends on the pokemon's preferences, because while some grass types do prefer an active lifestyle like mine and Ivy's some will prefer to stay in one spot feeding only on sunlight and entrench their roots to absorb the minerals from the ground."
I nod in understanding.
"As for the second question, a grass type that stays in one spot gathering food from sunlight gains a trait of having larger leaves allowing them to collect more energy from the sun making their solar beams very quick to recharge and fire." He continued his explanation.
Ivy then added in her own piece of information. "Those grass types tended to have tougher defenses compared to us too."
I tilt my head. "How would that interact with the move sunny day?"
""The solar beam would do more damage."" They both andwered me.
"Huh, so we all can have varied physical traits depending on how we react in our environment?" I asked.
"Yes, but traits rarely happen and they only appear on pokemon doing a specific task over and over until they manifest it to help them." Ivy added.
"What about moves then? I changed my ember to what you saw earlier for example." I asked them.
"That's nothing special, everyone can do that but." Ivy answered me, who then gestured to Exeggutor to finish her explanation.
"You know that we are given a basic instruction on how to use our moves, yes?" He asked.
I nod.
"That is the baseline of the move itself, not a lot of pokemon will variate and change it since it is the most cost effective in energy and easiest way to use."
"What about my ember? it's not that much of a change but it has a big difference." I asked Exeggutor.
"It varies on how other pokemon's preference on their moves, but the reason why a lot of pokemon don't experiment with their attacks mostly comes from three reasons." He explained to me like a professor while I listened to him intently.
"One. The baseline move is already versatile enough that you wouldn't need to change it unless you want to specialize.
Two. Once an edited move is tried, it will cost more energy than the baseline at first until you master it enough that the reduced energy consumption is manageable which would cost you time and energy.
And Three. Edited moves might come out weaker than their baselines because while that move would sound great in your head, execution would be a different story." He explained it to me.
My look of question prompted Exeggutor to continue his lecture.
"For example, what do you get if you only fired a singular but large leech seed or a non spinning Razor leaf instead of the norm?" He asked me.
"The former can be easily dodged or deflected while the latter won't do much damage if it landed the attack." I answered.
"Correct. Moves that are edited are specialized and it takes a creative mind to make them effective which is why most don't bother." He nodded.
"So we have move variations if done correctly will make them better than baseline, what else am I missing?" I asked them.
"Nothing so far." Ivy answered me.
"I see." I said while nodding. "Oh yeah, I remember a pidgeotto I fought only used one of his wings to gather energy to fire a gust attack instead of flapping its wings rapidly for a steady flow of wind, that was an experience."
Exeggutor looked interested While Ivy was gaping at what I said. "Is there any secondary effect to the attack?"
I shrug. "Well, it left some gashes at the tree bark so I reckon it would've hurt a lot if it hit me-"
"What do you mean you fought a pidgeotto?!" Ivy said in panic.
Nodding. "Well, it all started when."
Flashback no Jutsu.
Chapter 0.9: The Bird.
It's been about 15 days ever since I got inserted into the wonderful world of pokemon making it a total of 2 weeks…
Also I'm currently in a battle against another pokemon for their territory.
Why, you might ask? Well it's simple really, he has a nice place and I want it!
Seriously, his front door/window faces east so this guy gets a view of the rising sun when he wakes up!
I've ate pidgey before, so this guy is-
The pidgeotto's left wing glows white with energy being gathered as it did a sweeping motion with the wing sending it towards me.
schwing!
I dodged the wind slash attack by taking cover behind a tree since I couldn't afford to get hit, especially because it was able to leave a gash at the tree bark.
'This guy looked so anime with that wind slashes he's doing.'
I peek from my cover once the attack was dispersed by the tree and fired off my own ember shots with the first two bullets nailing the pidgeotto, forcing the bird pokemon to take evasive action.
Going on the offensive, I ran to another tree to get closer and continued firing at the pidgeotto.
With my attacks now hitting more and more, the pidgeotto decided to reset the tempo and flew high up into the air where my fire bullets slowed down due to the altitude so I stopped firing.
I took this chance to turn off my ability and took a breather to pace myself.
Then the pidgeotto was now flying lower to the trees, using the canopy as cover to limit my line of sight and landed a good distance away from me but close enough to be heard.
"Why did you attack me?! Why are you doing this?!" He shouted at me as I now can confirm this pokemon is a dude by the masculine voice.
I jumped to another tree branch to reposition myself for a better angle.
"You sir, have a nice house and I want it!" I shouted back as I aimed an ember shot.
But before I could fire, he quickly took to the skies and started circling me, using the treetops as cover, with him slowly getting closer to me as he clearly wanted to try to get into melee range.
I realized what he was planning so I started planning around him and how I could take advantage of it, until I realized I could do the same side step trick with the growlithe but this will be even more threading the needle.
In order to sell the illusion of him getting the advantage, I kept firing ember shots at him making it look like I'm missing him and I was panicking and was also moving around to make it look like I'm trying to escape.
But in reality, I moved to a location where the branches are thick enough that when he heads to my direction, it would be cramped enough that he won't be able to change positions mid air.
As the pidgeotto finally reached me, he dove down with his talons extended and ready to rip me apart, I gave him a cruel smile.
I jumped to the side using Quick attack and then used another to pounce at him, with my attack headed to his left flank.
My drought ability has been activated in preparation of what comes next.
While I played this perfectly, he was sadly not born yesterday like a certain growlithe and he quickly retracted his legs to protect his underbelly to cushion my attack.
By the time my quick attack powered shoulder crashed into his side, he managed to lessen the impact with the use of his legs causing him to only grunt in pain but I quickly followed up with fire fang and sunk my teeth in his flesh.
The grunt of paint turned to squawk of surprise as he tried to use his talons to try and knock me off but most of his swipes missed, forcing him to use his beak to peck at me as I was now shaking my head to tear off some flesh.
Sadly, he managed to land enough pecks at me that it was getting painful, forcing me to let go as I jumped off him.
I thankfully landed back into a tree branch.
'Calculated.'
That entire segment of me baiting the pidgeotto, then me shoulder checking him followed up with a bite and the disengage between us all happened within a minute or two.
I was breathing hard while he was barely able to stay in the air sporting a bald spot on his side bereft of feathers with a slight burn mark into it.
'Did he get the status effect burn?' I thought to myself.
My mouth glowed orange as a warning since he wasn't able to take the initiative, as he was occupied with trying to stay airborne.
His eyes widened in alarm and quickly raised altitude. "You win this time, Fox!" He said with a snarl as he flew away in retreat.
I slumped down in relief causing me to wince in pain as the adrenaline wore off.
Turns out he managed a glancing blow at my right shoulder as three red lines started leaking out blood, while I'm probably sure the pecks managed to pierce skin.
"Not even close, baby!"
End flashback.
"What is wrong with you?!" Ivy asked angrily.
I shrugged. "what? I won."
Before Ivy could berate me, Exeggutor commented in his own opinion.
"What you did was questionable, especially with the disadvantage you had entering that fight, young Drought."
I frown in confusion. "Disadvantage? But aren't my fire type attacks neutral to his typing and I do remember flying types being generally squishy."
Ivy looked at me like I'm an idiot while Exeggutor sighed, knowing he's about to lecture me again.
"While type effectiveness is a factor in fights, the pokemon species themselves also have a factor in them too." Exeggutor explained.
At my blank look, Ivy just groaned and used her vine to do a facepalm.
"Drought, what do predatory bird pokemon normally eat?!" Ivy asked me.
"Small pokemon." I answered nonchalantly.
Ivy looked like she was about to blow a gasket, Exeggutor comes in with the save and steps in.
"You do know that vulpix counts as small pokemon and predatory bird pokemon are known to hunt your kind if given the opportunity." He deadpanned.
I blinked and then realized the implications. "Ohhhh, so I was at a disadvantage?"
"Yes, oh! I thought you were fighting the damn bird in self defense, not because you wanted to take his house!
And then you nonchalantly tell me that you got injured because of it too! Now let me see for infections!" Mt. Ivy finally exploded then she started lecturing me about how careless that was.
I nodded to pacify her and used my tail to lift up the long hair to show 3 faded horizontal white lines running across my shoulder reaching up to my sides.
While Ivy fusses over my wound and checking for any compilations like puss..
Shrugging. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize this whole predator/prey would go both ways."
'Should have realized that If a Bellsprout beats an onix by typing alone sounds stupid and will only work in the game especially with how large an onix is.'
Then a random thought popped up to me. "Wait, how much would type effectiveness change this in terms of a fight?"
Ivy stopped and motioned me to go on.
"I'm a fire type, how would that work with steel types?" I asked her.
"It would depend on how hot your flames are, if they don't reach the temperature required, then the steel type in question would not be as affected and would just be counted as neutral damage." Exeggutor answered me.
"Why so?" I asked in confusion.
Exeggutor shrugged despite having no arms. "Some species of steel types like steelix do tunnel deep below into the earth that would get hotter, it's the sudden change of temperature that damages steel types the most."
"Then what about immunities like steel versus poison?"
"No such thing as immunity, just a very high resistance." Exeggutor corrected me while Ivy nodded.
Our discussion devolved to us gossiping about how our days have been until noon where we decided to go our own separate ways.
Turns out that Ivy doesn't care that I hunted pokemon for food even though I was told vulpix preferred berries and fruit because she once told me that her mother, a venusaur, had to hunt some other pokemon once sunlight and food was very scarce after a week long snow storm.
Exeggutor liked my company for not only the sunlight I'm giving, but the fact that I'm a vulpix who's not acting like a vulpix…
'I really need to ask them about my species more later.'
With them gone, I headed back home since I had secured some fresh food.
Due to feeling lazy, I decided to walk all the way back until I reached my perimeter and since I didn't want to disturb the snow I climbed a tree and jumped into my large tree house.
Since I have a lot of free time and excess food, I started activating the move slash so I can get used to the feeling and the energy drain it will cause me.
Activate.
Deactivate.
Activate, left paw.
Deactivate.
Activate, right paw.
Deacti…
…
I have no idea the exact time that exercise took me but I stopped practicing it when I'm down to my last fish for fuel.
I look out my window and see it's dark out. I decided to start my nightly routine of checking the area around my home before I let myself relax.
After finding nothing, I decided that I'm not in the mood to hunt today and ate then buried the leftover fish in some snow tucked in between some roots under the tree I'm sleeping on then went straight to sleep.
AN: This took me a lot longer than expected because I tried adding ANOTHER mechanic until I changed my mind and decided to keeping it simple which led to rewriting this chapter.
Drought's Log:
Things I've learned.
River truce: In the absence of predatory water pokemon, the river will be treated as a neutral ground where no one is to hunt. Ponds, lakes don't count if there is a bigger source of water.
Element weaknesses: Fire beating steel will only work if the fire is hot enough, steel immunity to poison is just very high resistance.
Common sense vs game logic: Pokemon species matter, not just the typing itself.
Trait: A physical adaptation some pokemon develop for doing a task over and over.
Ex. Grass type pokemon that prefers to feed on sunlight will grow larger leaves etc.