“Hey Psyche,” Lani whispered while rubbing my back, “you okay? You got all tense there.”
I might have fallen over into her a bit due to melting.
“Well hello there,” she teased, “didn’t think you’d flop over like that.”
“So comfy it’s unfair.” I muttered through my rising blush.
“Well I guess you can stay there until your Pokemon are ready.”
I suddenly felt multiple points of pressure working up my side. Then a few intermittent pats on the top of my head. Turning in surprise, I found Vulpix looking at me with a vulpine grin as she continued to pet me with her paw.
“Good girl,” Lani praised, “You get an extra treat in your dinner tonight.”
I broke out of my stupor with a smile, “thanks Vulpix, I kinda need to move my arm to see my phone though.”
Leaping from my shoulder to the floor with a dignified huff, Vulpix went over to Lani to demand the rest of the attention she needed.
Stamping down the anxiety vying to run rampant in my chest, I looked back down at my phone and started typing out a reply.
A few moments later he sent back a thumbs up emoji which shocked me a bit. Surely someone as old as him didn’t know how to emoji?
“Psyche Greenbriar?”
“I gotta go do training stuff now,” I mumbled up at my living cushion, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning?”
I got a wink in return, “Sure thing, just make sure you don’t stay out too late!”
“I’m sixteen,” I said while rolling my eyes, “I am perfectly fine going without a curfew!” Deciding to be bold I twisted around and gave her a hug, “see you later ‘Lani”.
Breaking away from the hug was a lot harder than it should’ve been and I didn’t know why.
***
“So the guy is finally starting to teach us how to actually use that thing now?”
I turned to find Ionia looking a bit off put, “It’s not like he had a choice, considering everything that happened in Accumula.”
If anything that soured Ionia further, “He could’ve appeared from the forest! That’s what all the mentors are supposed to do anyways! He has no sense of dramatic flair.”
I stifled a laugh as we turned onto the street with the Trainer’s School, my shoes clacking against the familiar bricks the city’s roads were made of.
“Ionia, he isn’t your Mother, if anything your expectations might be a tad bit skewed.”
She huffed, ”I suppose you’re right. I will refrain from roasting him upon our arrival.”
As I began climbing up the stairs, the psychic link retreated from my mind, both to avoid distracting either of us with mental bleed while we were being instructed, and to save Ionia’s strength. Not wanting to waste time, or worse, get seen and recognized out here, I loudly knocked on the door. The sound echoed down the hall as Oxide landed on top of my head, and began chatting with Ionia.
To my relief, the door swung open and revealed Blue Coat’s Espeon behind it.
“Ah you’re here! Quickly now, the others are waiting for you.”
She then bowed to Ionia, “Well met sister, I am glad to meet you after our trainer’s previous meeting was unfortunately cut short.”
Ionia responded with a nervous nod, and further psychic communication that I wasn’t made privy to as we walked down the dark hallways of the school. They felt bleak compared to what I remembered from my childhood. The shadows creeping up the walls in the shrinking amount of daylight left.
Thankfully, our trip down the hallway leading to the outdoor battlefield behind the school ended quickly. Espeon opened the door with a flourish, and revealed the trio who neatly upended my peaceful quiet journey in a single hour.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“There you are!” Rui greeted with a smile, “How was your trip from Accumula?”
“Fairly quiet,” I replied with a shrug, “We did some basic training, and Fjord got a new nickname, and that pretty much covers it outside of just getting to know Lani and Adrian.”
“That’s good,” Michael interjected, “this job can get lonely sometimes, having friends to talk to will help.”
“Go ahead and let out all your Pokemon, kid,” Blue Coat said while returning Espeon. “We’re gonna go over allllll the basics today”
***
It turned out that ‘allllll of the basics’ was Blue Coat’s way of saying that we were going to go over status conditions and what exactly they would do for me in a battle against Shadow Pokemon
“One thing that’s important to remember if you can find ways to inflict them, is that burns and frostbite hinder a Pokemon further than just sapping their energy.” Michael explained while munching on an apple, “burns make it harder for them to move freely which forces them to use less of their physical strength, while frostbite interferes with the concentration required to make ranged attacks.”
“And that makes the affected Pokemon weaker at that specific thing.” I finished for him with a raised eyebrow, “I did go here as a kid you know. I understand what status conditions are.”
“Doesn’t hurt to review!” Blue Coat said with a grin, “onto the more ‘Cipher-specific’ things,” I snapped to attention alongside all my Pokemon, “The most important thing to remember about Cipher is that they originated in Orre, this is important because it means our customs are baked into the organization. Which means that they always go for a double battle if they can help it.”
“Even if the member isn’t an Orre native?” I asked with a tilt of my head.
“Mhmm. We’ve already fought a few people who are definitely not from Orre, and they defaulted to doubles as well.” Blue Coat replied. “The only thing you luckily won’t have to worry about is that Cipher doesn’t pick their grunts for their creative thinking. They’re all battle junkies first and foremost, so they will keep to formats if you do. It’s always full team fights though, so I would recommend that you fill those slots rather quickly.”
He paused to see if I needed anything repeated, and at a shake of my head he continued. “Now this all comes down to the name of the game, and bleeding Cipher’s resources.” He gestured to his left arm, “Get your Snag Machine on kid. I’m gonna teach you the ins and outs of how to work these things.”
Figuring this moment was coming, I had already unstrapped the case from my backpack and left it to the side while my teachers well… taught me. Like before, the case slid open to reveal the sleeve just floating there almost expectantly.
I gently wormed my hands underneath the machine, and pulled it out with no resistance. Whatever gravity effect was being projected only served to keep the sleeve floating in the case, and not make it difficult to remove. The first thing I thought after putting the thing on was that it was incredibly comfy, and anywhere that was too tight or too loose shifted to fit me perfectly, like I was wearing a skin tight sweater and not an almost illegal catching device. The palm felt a bit more stiff, but that was probably due to mechanisms buried in the material.
Seeing that I was finished putting the Snag Machine on, Blue Coat began his lecture. “Now first off, you always want easy access to your Pokeballs,” He said while patting a bag on his hip, “You have a fancy backpack that likely has a spot near where your hands can easily reach back, but I advise getting a pouch or something to attack somewhere on the left side of your waist so you can grab one without any sort of delay. You never know when an opportunity to Snag a Pokemon will appear.”
“Or how long until it disappears,” Rui called out, “Cipher knows just how bad the Snag Machines are for their operation, and they will try to do their best to keep you from attempting a snag!”
“Exactly, anything from recalling them, having a regular Pokemon block the Snag Ball, or attempting to destroy the ball with a move.” He let out a feral grin, “That first one luckily doesn’t work anymore as of a few days ago, Krane had that one scientist with the blue hair thingy-“
“Colress,” I corrected.
“Yeah, yeah him. He upgraded our machines after you left Accumula. Made it so once the Aura Reader identifies a Pokemon, it will track it even into their Pokeballs where it will just absorb the whole thing.”
Noticing one issue with that plan I gestured that I had a question, “So how do you get rid of the original Pokeball then?”
“Good question! …Technically the Pokemon isn’t snagged when that happens.” He said with a wince, “So after you get somewhere safe, you have to release the ball, and then send out the Shadow Pokemon and actually snag it for real.”
“On the bright side, snagging a ball is incredibly easy,” Michael said as he started looking over my team with his own pokedex this time, “even if the Shadow Pokemon inside of it is perfectly healthy!”
“Making it a valuable tool to remove Shadow Pokemon from Cipher quickly,” Blue Coat continued, “Makes our jobs so much easier.”
He then turned to Michael, “Anything to note on her team that we didn’t get to last time?”
“Her team is pretty much in the same place unsurprisingly.” Michael responded before flinching, and sending me an apologetic look, “no offense, it’s only been a few days after all, and your team is very solid for someone who hasn’t challenged a gym yet.”
He then walked over to me, “Colress also gave us a bit of a gift for you, Pokedex please!”
Once I handed over the sleek device, he took out a flash drive and plugged it into the dataport on the bottom, “Professor Krane only just recently compiled all the type data on Shadow Pokemon you could reasonably need. We would’ve given it to you in Accumula, but we didn’t have a way to update your Pokedex at the time.”
After it gave out a happy little electronic blurble, Michael passed my Pokedex back to me. I wasted no time in finding the new info underneath the ‘Type Library’ menu, and scrolling through the moves the type boasted.
I looked up in disgust, “Who named these moves? They’re all so… vague.”
Rui snorted, “Welcome to dealing with Cipher, where their own name is the most creative one they’ve made.”
“Okay,” Blue Coat said with a clap of his hands, “rather than just give you a bunch of advice beyond just ‘train more’. We’re gonna have a bit of fun.”
“Michael head to the other trainer box,” he ordered as he moved to the other, “follow me kid, you’re gonna get your feet wet with your Snag Machine before you have to snag one from Cipher directly.”
“And who knows, if you want, maybe you’ll get a new team member out of it.”
Boilerplate time!
I’d like to give a big thank you to for help editing!
Current Team:
Ionia (Hatenna)
Trained Abilities: Anticipation
Moves: Teleport, Confusion, Play Nice, Life Dew, Disarming Voice, Mystical Fire
Oxide (Emolga)
Trained Abilities: Static
Moves: Nuzzle, Tail Whip, Double Team, Quick Attack, Thundershock
Fjord (Tirtouga)
Trained Abilities: TBD
Moves: Water Gun, Withdraw, Aqua Jet, Smack Down, Ancient Power, Bite
Do you want more words written by me?
A Spark of Sylvan Flame A story about a trans farmgirl facing off against plant aliens, with items bought from an AI chip in her head!
Thanks for reading! :D
-DeliriousSprite