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 Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2022 4:39 pm
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With me more or less now having swapped places with Freth, because of whatever the hell happened to her, I had to get back to the swing of things…albeit, taking it easy in the process. Not taking on too much. Training my abilities were a no go other than check on my icy prowess because of Hinterbane, but maybe I could get away with training my Pokemon a bit. I did, after all, get a Galarian variant Zigzagoon that I am interested to see where he goes, and for that matter, I believe, last I checked, Torchic was on the cusp of evolution after all he had been through. Barring those two, there are others that I really need to spend time on because I had been so busy trying to juggle so many things before that so-called vacation to Galar. Maybe I should just take the opportunity to make up for lost time since I’m not really able to do much right at the moment. Hell, I’m still kind of achy for the most part. Indicative on how it seems like I’m walking with a slight limp and feeling rather sluggish still. That could probably be attributed of being in bed recovering all this time.
Before all of that however, I had to take care of one other thing. Remembering what I had talked to Freth about when it came to Tristen and noting that apart from having to rescue my hide from Freth’s sudden outpouring of psychic power he hadn’t really came to the med lab, I was left to question if he was still miffed at me for how I was during the tournament. The more I had thought about it, the more I started to see it Freth’s way on it. I made my way to Tristen’s room, knocking on the door. No answer, however. I opened the door and peeked in. “Tristen?” I spoke up. I entered the room once I got no reply. I would have figured at the very least that he’d be in here doing homework that Freth had left him. All I had found, however were at least two of his Pokemon, specifically Galvantula, who was perched in the top corner against the roof at the back of his room, perched on his Electroweb and Xatu on his stand next to Tristen’s bed. I noticed on the wall in the opposite direction to Galvantula was a desk where Tristen does his school work that Freth gives him. I walked up to it, looking down at the various notes and studies that Freth had been getting him to do. “…yikes, Freth’s got him doing Trig? Has he been at it that long to be capable of doing this?” I asked, taking note to the open math book. “Haven’t seen that since high school…” Nearby, other books, all of which were second, third, or maybe even fourth hand that Freth managed to get in some capacity over time during our stay here. Jhoto history, Sinnoh history, basic biology, some early high school language arts book. We haven’t really had any opportunity to actually settle down and get him into a proper school of any kind, but at the very least he is miles beyond what he started out as. I looked back towards his Pokemon who were looking up towards me. “You two know where Tristen ran off to?”
“Xa-xatu.” The psychic bird replied.
“Training room…huh. Thanks.” I told Xatu. I would then leave the room, heading for the training room.
It wouldn’t take too long for me to get down to the training room. As I went in, I started to look about, first noticing Tristen’s jacket on the floor nearby then over towards a weight bench where Tristen was apparently trying his hand at weight lifting. Bench presses it seemed like. Dragonite was apparently spotting for Tristen to make sure no accidents happened. By the way it looked, I don’t know if Tristen had been at it for a while, or if the weight was that challenging to bring down to his chest and push back up. He had long since broke out in a hard sweat, for certain; his black tank top completely drenched. “Tristen?” I spoke up.
Tristen quickly looked at me, but it was probably a mistake to distract him. He was in deep concentration as he was trying to push the weight back up. “Ack! Dragonite!” Dragonite reached over and pulled up on the weight, helping Tristen push it off of him and set it on the stand mounted to the bench.
“Urp…sorry.” I said. Tristen sat up on the bench, breathing a bit heavily trying to recover. “I didn’t think you were that into it. For that matter, didn’t think you’d be one to bother with this.”
“Well…” Tristen spoke up between breaths. “…you hadn’t gotten the heavy clothes like you usually do for me yet. And I figure I should do something…I kinda don’t want to lose this.” The Manetric teen then said, flexing his arm. The slight build that he ended up gaining upon evolution, he was referring to.
“Muscle isn’t everything, you know.” I said.
“No, but it wouldn’t hurt, either, I’d think.” He said.
“I guess not…uh, you got a minute?” I then asked. The question gave Tristen pause. “You’re not in trouble. In fact I came to apologize to you.”
This got a bit of a fatigued, but somewhat agitated look out of Tristen. “Sub told you about Galar?” Tristen asked.
“No, Freth. I-wait, you talked to Sub, too?” I then asked. Tristen winced, namely at himself, then sighed out. “Never mind.” I would then say, walking over to him, approaching him on the bench. “You mind?” Tristen scooted down the bench some, giving me room to sit down. I would then sit down and after a few seconds, I spoke. “Freth ended up having to explain to me about what you were going through in Galar. And the way she explained it, I ended up seeing it her way. And between all of that plus Crystal and such yeah, I don’t think I really did you any favors even though you got the opportunity to go to the final rounds with Aden, that I heard. I’m sorry.” I said. “Though, I’m still inclined to ask, be honest with me: with Horus, were you actually trying to go in with some sort of strategy for the team overall or were you just trying to get back at Horus after all this time?”
Tristen gave it a few seconds and sighed. “I guess both. On the one hand, I figured if I couldn’t beat Horus, I could at least distract him enough for everyone to accomplish the objectives on that third day. We were all running after those drones, if you remember.”
“I remember.”
“On the other, I figured that maybe after all this time, after all we been through, maybe I could make Horus in underestimating me now.” Tristen said. “If I beaten Horus, then it would have been good for everyone in the long run. I kind of wanted to…I don’t know what you call it. Test myself, I guess? I mean, Horus had been a big hurdle for me for a long time.”
“I guess I can see it.” I said. “You hadn’t had too much of an opportunity to know what you could do since you evolved. And the one time where it needed to matter the most, you couldn’t do anything. The whole thing with Crystal in Galar shook you, didn’t it?”
“…yeah.” Tristen silently said. “Since we’re being honest here. Be honest with me then.” Tristen then said, looking back at me. “What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You haven’t been…all that right since after Ein.” Tristen said. “You’ve been hovering around Freth and me…more than usual. I think I heard you panic for a second there before the tournament started, when we were after the Shadow Caterpie. At times when you do try to think strategically, you try to do it in a way where you don’t need to worry about me and Freth. You try to take on more than you need to in doing it. Am I making sense?”
“I…might know what you’re talking about…” I said. “…and honestly, I…guess…Ein left his mark harder than I thought if that be the case. When I thought you two were gone because of Ein’s machinations, I told you before…I…thought I had lost everything. Before you two showed back up, yea, we beat Ein but…it honestly didn’t feel worth it. I…didn’t want to go through that again. Honestly, I…think I’m just terrified at the thought of it. That feeling of absolute failure.” Tristen didn’t know what to say about that one. He’d have to admit he couldn’t fathom that moment from my perspective. He ended up looking towards the floor, silent. “I guess the damage Ein did was more extensive than we thought.” I said. I then reached over to Tristen, arm around his neck to bring him close and hugged him. “I’ll try to be better, okay?”
“Okay.” The Manetric teen replied.
We stayed hugging for the better part of a good ten seconds or so. “You need a shower.” I said. A hard, yet playful elbow nudge was given as response. Perhaps too hard. “Gah!” I nearly keeled over off the bench from the damage I had taken from the assassin.
“ACK! Blizz, I’m sorry! Dragonite help!”
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2022 11:35 pm
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 9:55 am
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The day after their outing in Jubilife City and the incident with the Shadow Kricketune the Dark One was still fuming over how that ended. In his years of combating the Shadow Pokemon plague did he ever encounter such an ungrateful, positively antagonistic response to putting down a legitimate threat to people and Pokemon. He and his team had been ridiculed and mocked before but never for doing what he thought was clearly the right and most helpful thing. To imagine he would one day be verbally assaulted for containing a Shadow Pokemon and protecting the city.
The man was taking out his aggression out on the various targets and dummies in the training room, throwing kunai at them, each throw becoming more aggressive than the last. Where did he get such knives from you ask? He had found an old dusty box of them in the basement that smelled of coffee. He didn't care who they had belonged to, nor did he question that weird mallet or paper fan he found with them, all he could think about was wanting to use these kunai on a certain pig in blue, but instead he would settle for the inanimate targets.
To the energy sensitive though they would gradually feel a swelling of Dark energy, that is in the form of an oppressive force, bad vibes and negative emotions. Of course they were coming from the training room downstairs, the source of them being the Dark One himself. Was he Channeling? No, of course not, his artifact was gotten rid of long ago.
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 10:12 am
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:34 am
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 11:55 am
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 12:04 pm
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TerashiLeonGoken Keiko would flinch at Sub's response to missing his target, but calm down as she realized he wasn't angry at her. She waited for him to say his peace before responding. "You don't have to lie to make me feel safe, Sub," Keiko pointed out. She didn't know for sure that's what he was doing, but she knew he tended to hide his emotions for the sake of the other Snagems. "That Keiko died when some stupid ~/~ forced Lopunny DNA into her gene pool."After a second, she realized she may be forcing things a bit by bringing that up and sighed at herself before interfacing with the training room's terminal, causing a chair to appear. "Why don't you sit down and tell me me about it. You look like you could use some mild relaxation." she offered.
Sub listened to Keiko and stared at her for a moment longer. If he was being truthful he might say that bringing up the terms of her hybridization didn't exactly make the way he was feeling currently any better, as he felt partially to blame for her current status as well as many others, due to his inability to stop Ein for so long. However he would say nothing and instead had a chair conjured up for himself and sat down with a grunt.
"Just frustrated is all. I knew there was going to be some adjusting after the war ended and Ein finally fell, I guess I just didn't actually understand what that all entailed." He explained. "The world is moving on, for better or worse it is." |
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 12:15 pm
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:01 pm
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"Yeah, something happened." Sub started as he twirled one of the kunai around his finger, staring at the ceiling. "We spent the better part of almost two hours chasing a Shadow Kricketune around Route 202 and Jubilife City and knock it out only for the cops to roll up and tell us that not only will they take it from there, despite the fact we have already taken care of it, but also that in the future Sinnoh doesn't require nor want Snagem's help. I was shocked to say the least and when we got back I called up Laverne at our front office in Mauville City, our global representative, you remember her? The waitress from Snag-A-Cup? Any who, she tells me that Sinnoh did not sign the Indigo Accords at all after the war, of which had a provision that allowed us to legally operate in any region for the sole purpose of containing a Shadow Pokemon, provided we pay for damages but that's something else."
Tossing the kunai at a target, and this time hitting it, he resumed his explanation. "The Sinnoh government has also asked us to refraine from operating in their region and any actions we take to contain a Shadow Pokemon will be considered vigilantism. Apparently they've come up with their own answer to the Shadow Pokemon and no longer require us."
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:09 pm
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"What the ~/~?" Keiko asked, shocked by hearing that Sinnoh was pulling a Kalos, in a way. She then sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Well, when the Shadow Virus mutates, Sinnoh will probably become Ground Zero. I guess we'll get to say 'I told you so' then,"
"What makes you think that'll happen?" Absinthe asked as she and her Pokemon entered the training room. "Though yeah, screw those guys. I told William what happened and he responded with 'what's wrong with them' which the right question to ask, I think."
"Yeah, that's a good question," Keiko sighed. "Anyway, we don't have any evidence that the Shadow Virus is going to mutate any time soon, but I mean, that's what viruses do, right?" Keiko asked, making it clear that she was just assuming it'd mutate at some point.
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 2:16 pm
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 2:22 pm
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 7:07 pm
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The next day, after resting from the whirlwind Shadow Kricketune corral attempt in Sinnoh, Monique decided she needed to acquaint herself with the Snagem medical lab. All those bug bites were nasty, and while one might be a minor nuisance, she had taken quite a beating in some of those battles.
Not quite realizing she was still in the same tattered clothes, she entered the lab to find a Machamp, whose name tag declared his name was Orderly, at the front desk.
"What can I help you with?" Orderly was looking at her all over, and Monique even felt a primal shiver. Must be my body telling me that's a Fighting-type, she thought to herself.
"I just got back from Jubilife... Bug bites. Lots of them," she sighed.
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 7:48 pm
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2022 12:24 pm
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