Spoon: 4.13 Fish (Patreon)

Aaron's Pokemon

- Artoria (Kirlia)
- Jeanne (Flaaffy)
- Durvasa (Mankey)
- Deviled (Egg)

Fish 4.13

Aaron Fulan

Petalburg Woods

I raced through the woods, aura suffusing my body as best I was able. I could see the flares of emotion now, a corona that filled the glade in the distance. They acted as a beacon that drew me in, like a lighthouse that warned me of the jagged rocks ahead.

My sword was clenched in hand, held loosely but securely. I was almost there. Judging by the way my team was fighting, none of them were down yet, which probably meant the poachers didn't have any other pokemon than what Durvasa had seen, or that they weren't very strong. I thanked Arceus for that. Sending them out without me was a risk, one I'd only entertained because I trusted Artoria's ability to command them.

As I neared, I saw a spark of pink light up the glade and heard the adorable battlecry of my starter. Pride swelled in my chest. It seemed Artoria finally got her fairy sword working. One day, her Excali-Spoon would part the heavens.

They came into view and I quickly gauged the situation: Artoria was standing over a heavily concussed nuzleaf who was probably regretting its life choices at the moment. Similarly, Durvasa stood above a downed liepard, panting and with cuts that most certainly needed to be treated, but victorious.

I saw as Jeanne dashed out of the Electric Terrain, an Electro Ball in hand. She leapt into the air with the telltale blue glow of Agility and landed atop a pile of definitely-not-natural stone. Inside, I could see several chikorita, trapped. Jeanne used the pile of rocks as a makeshift launchpad, launching herself further into the air before pitching the orb at the bird pokemon I didn't recognize.

One of the poachers, its trainer, screamed for it to dodge. It closed its wings and sank like a stone, avoiding taking a direct hit. Jeanne's attack still managed to clip it, making it spasm in pain.

"Roost!" he ordered.

It obeyed, hitting the ground and grounding itself in such a way that could only be described as poke-magic bullshit. It lost its flying type and dispersed some of the electrical charge from Jeanne's attack to the earth below.

I'd seen enough. "Jeanne, on the bird! Take it out! Artoria on the skunk!"

That got everyone whirling my way. My mind linked to Artoria once again and I felt a wave of relief and resolve in equal measure flood through our bond.

I looked around for what else I could do. The shadow beneath Durvasa's feet pulsed and I shouted out a warning, saving my mankey from a painful ambush by the kecleon. I'd completely forgotten that thing could learn Shadow Sneak. If it could change type like in the games, it was the worst possible matchup for Durvasa.

Shadowy hands reached up out of the ground. The first ambush missed, but Durvasa went in, unfamiliar with the pokemon's quirks. I wanted to warn him but was too late. Without the telepathic bond between Artoria and I, I just wasn't fast enough.

He wore a surprised face for only a moment as his fist phased through the kecleon. Its tongue lashed out like a lance, punching and sticking to the mankey's forehead. It swung its tongue around like a bludgeon, slamming my mankey into the ground. With his already injured state, that was enough to knock him out.

That left us at a distinct disadvantage. They had a kecleon, skuntank, and the bird and I had Artoria and Jeanne. Off along the edge of the glade, I could see three chikorita huddling in the pile of rocks. A fourth chikorita lay several yards away, bleeding and broken but somehow still conscious.

Taking it all in, I came to one conclusion: I had to take the field.

This wasn't a pokemon battle. There was no referee. There was no crowd to please. No, this was a fight, one that could very well end with someone dying. And right now, not only was my team outnumbered, Artoria was also injured. They worked well together, but that alone wouldn't be enough if I didn't finish this soon.

'Stall, I'm going to try to grab their pokeballs,' I told her. A wave of dismay came through our bond but I drowned out her protest before she could voice it. 'Our priority is finishing this quickly. This is the fastest way. Just keep the kecleon off me.'

'As you wish, my lord,' she replied, unhappy but unable to deny the truth.

I flooded my body with psychic power as I rushed towards the two men. It wasn't anything like what the old martial masters could do; I'd seen videos of Elite Bruno or the grandmaster of Shalour City's Tower of Mastery, but it was enough.

The two men weren't looking at me. They'd long since dismissed the presence of a nearby trainer and were completely focused on my pokemon. They wore dark-green fatigues and brown jackets that blended well with the forest.

By the time they noticed me, I was almost upon them. One of them saw me coming out of the corner of his eye and turned. His eyes widened as they zeroed in on the sword in my hand.

"Shit! Watch out!" one shouted, alerting his buddy. They reacted quickly, already high-strung as they were, but it didn't matter.

Compared to two, untrained men who flailed more in panic than anything, I may as well have been an anime character. Who knew? Maybe one day, I would be. There were so many fictional sword styles, techniques blatantly impossible in my old world that could be made possible with a little psychic help. But for now, all I had was my mundane training to fall back on.

One poacher slung his backpack off his shoulder and thrust it in the way of my initial swing, trying to block the metal. He underestimated how quickly the lever-like hold of a kendoka could twist a sword's trajectory. My sword wove in the air like a firefly, gently brushing past his outstretched backpack to stab painfully into his hand. A burst of red was my reward.

"Gah!" he cried, dropping the backpack. The sword may have been blunted, but a point was a point. It was designed so I wouldn't hurt someone unintentionally.

I stepped into his nonexistent guard with a heavy swing, bringing the metal down onto his other hand. He probably didn't have any more pokemon left, but there was nothing wrong with taking insurances. With aura-boosted force, a rounded edge meant little.

I felt the fragile bones in his hand break under my practiced swing even as I turned my newly stopped blade into a sharp thrust towards his jaw. Not his throat, this world wasn't any kinder on murderers than my last one and I had no intention of seeing the legal system from the other side, but towards his face nonetheless.

The sword lanced through his cheek, leaving a wicked gash that would require a chansey's special attention to fix. Perhaps he'd be more appreciative of pokemon now. Another scream pierced the air as he collapsed to the ground.

"What the fuck?" his partner yelled. "Bombirdier! To me!"

That was a mistake. The skuntank could not help in time with its relatively slow speed and long-ranged but imprecise attacks. There was a real chance any attack towards us would hit the poacher instead of me. The kecleon was currently busy with a pissed off kirlia and was in no position to Shadow Sneak over. It made sense to call for the bird pokemon; it was by far the fastest responder under the circumstances.

But Jeanne wasn't stupid; she understood human common perfectly fine. The moment that bird turned around, she nailed it with everything she had. An Electro Ball careened into its back like a fastball, followed by an overcharged Shock Wave that looked more like a small Thunder. Her opponent collapsed like a stone as she turned to face the skuntank.

He whirled to face me with panicked eyes. He scrambled for something at his hip, a hunting knife about four inches long. He held it with some modest skill and I determined that he was a man who'd been in a few scraps before. He'd clearly never expected to fight a kid, but that inexperience made him unpredictable and I was forced to treat him with more caution than I had his partner.

Those cute disarmament kata that got shown off in dojos? They usually didn't work. They were cool to look at, and they were almost always necessary to receive a black belt, but they weren't nearly as effective as the mall-ninja masters claimed.

The one acknowledged constant of knife-fighting was that if a blade got pulled, your best bet was either to back off altogether, or engage with the understanding that you would likely be cut. Barring special circumstances, there were no winners in knife fights, just varying severity of injuries. That could be different here in this anime world, but I wasn't so far above a normal teenager that I wasn't afraid of a knife.

So, rather than lunge for him, I opted to wait quietly. If I saw him move first, he'd become much more predictable. I could afford to wait now that the rangers were coming and the poacher only had two pokemon left. Time was on my side here. The two of us stared each other down as we played a mental game of chicken.

I didn't have to wait long. He grew increasingly nervous as the pressure mounted. And when he came in with a thrust, I stepped to the side and brought my blade down on his wrist, breaking the bone with a sharp crack.

I followed through, bouncing my sword from his wrist and slammed the back of my sword into his throat. He screamed out in pain, only for that to die in his throat in a choked gurgle. A final strike to the temple knocked him out.

Moments later, I was rummaging through his belt. I found three pokeballs and hurled them all one by one at the skuntank until the third, of course it was the last one, forcibly returned it. Then I did the same with the first poacher I'd knocked out until I found the kecleon's ball.

Finally, it was over. There was no climactic end, no trade of super-moves or beam-offs, but that's how I preferred it. All that was left to do now was to clean up.

X

Chikorita

Petalburg Woods

Incredible. Just… incredible…

The forest was a peaceful place. Those who lived within its depths had few dealings with outsiders, not unless we wanted to. The paths where humans traveled were known to all. Pokemon who partnered with these "rangers" occasionally dropped by to inform us of changes or take a survey of the forest's denizens for one purpose or another. We were so isolated in fact that I had not known the humans called this place "Petalburg" until the previous year.

We, the chikorita, were among the guardian species of this place, nurturers. She Who Blooms with the Dawn was our leader, a great, aging meganium who acted as our matriarch and the leader of the herd. Before she passed with the final sunset and the herd scattered, she would tell us stories of far-flung woods, a place called Ilex that was home to the Great Forest Guardian.

My matriarch had arrived here with a human, one who loved and cherished nature as much as she did. Though we did not know what became of the human, we knew where she was buried, along with the worn pokeball that She Who Blooms with the Dawn had once called home. A great, gnarled spruce sat atop a small hill, alone yet peaceful. It swayed in the breeze and overlooked the herd. That tree had been special to her. To us.

To the herd, it was a precious gathering place, our own slice of the forest. It was a place of community, where our matriarch entertained the young and nourished the forest around her. And when others came to visit, it was where she held court, addressing the forest at large, dispensing her vast wisdom, and soothing wounded hearts. It was the place where I grew up, where I first learned to feel the life energy of all the flora around me.

It was also the place She Who Blooms with the Dawn was buried after she'd seen her final sunset, buried with her dearest and most cherished friend. It was the place where the entire herd mourned her passing, where we sang and stomped the earth until the trees swayed in concert with our steps.

It was beneath its swaying leaves that the herd gathered for a final time before we went our separate ways. It was the only home I'd ever known.

And these bastards took it from me.

Ugly, blazing hatred burned in my heart, so very unlike the rest of my kind. My kind were a peaceful lot. We were nurturers and caretakers. It was our lot to sing to the forest, to guide and nourish. We loathed fighting, one and all.

Except me.

My blood sang and I struck out against those who would further scatter the herd. My leaves sliced the air and threatened to tear them to pieces. Powders of poison, as ugly and vile as the wrath inside me, flooded the air.

I wanted revenge. I wanted justice. I wanted to watch as their blood wet the soil, the slightest measure of penance for the tree they had so carelessly torn down, the home they had destroyed, the grave they had defiled.

I called my brothers to fight with me. I called, for surely they felt the same burning in their hearts.

And yet, not a one rose to fight for what we had lost. Not one would honor her memory.

My wrath blazed ever brighter at the sight of my quailing siblings. Cowards! Spineless wurmple! They ran! Ran like frightened calves! Even when they were captured, they did not struggle.

It sickened me. And I understood, for we were nurturers, not warriors. And it sickened me twice over that I understood.

We were a peaceful lot. Not one of us had known of battle. We had no need to, for none in the forest would dare raise claw nor fang against us. Why would they? Why would they harm the ones who most selflessly gave of ourselves for the sake of our shared home?

Even the scyther, sharp and terrible predators though they were, left us be. Their leader, the scizor with countless scratches on his claws, decreed it so.

But they were gone now, and so was our matriarch. Her tree lay sundered and the ground beneath rotted with toxins. War had come to my home and I found myself woefully unprepared. I cried and raged and fought with all I had, but I had to face the truth: I wasn't good enough.

But someone else was. I watched, broken and bleeding, as three pokemon came to our rescue. A flaaffy, mankey, and kirlia, none fully evolved, none I'd ever seen before.

I had to rely on the goodwill of strangers to gain some slight measure of justice.

It burned. The indignity. The wrath. It burned like a physical fire that I could feel coursing through my veins. It burned and left a gaping hole in my chest knowing there was nothing I could do but watch as someone else fought my battle.

And fought they did. It was clear to see, even in my inexperienced eyes, that they had a plan coming into this.

I saw the kirlia and mankey cover the flaaffy. I saw the kirlia cleave fire like a stone that parts the river. I saw her tempt the liepard into attacking her, only for the mankey to take over seamlessly, landing strike after devastating strike. I saw the flaaffy shock the bird and keep him away, making him all but useless.

I saw them maneuver the liepard with ease, making the damned bird strike his own ally. I saw the mankey strike down the feline with shattered stone into his eyes. I saw a sword of ethereal energy illuminate the glade. I saw a lamb shine like a star.

Most of all?

I saw them fight as one.

It was incredible. They weren't impossibly swift or mighty like a salamence. They did not have numbers on their side like the mightyena packs. No, their strength, at least individually, wasn't much greater than my own. They did not stand as towering giants, yet the shadows they cast felt all the longer because of it: Their strength seemed achievable.

'I can do that,' I thought. 'We could have done that. Together. As one herd. We could have fought as one, if only we had not gone our separate ways.'

And yet, there they were, fighting, fighting a battle that should have been mine.

I saw and was filled with shame and disdain. At myself. At the cowardice of my species. At these poachers who had desecrated the matriarch's resting place.

I could not scream or shout. I could only bite my tongue with bitter self-loathing as they were slowly but surely overwhelmed. Once glancing blow after another, they simply could not handle the numbers. Though none had fallen yet, it was only a matter of time. I tried to force myself to stand but felt my ribs scream out in white-hot agony.

And then he came. A human calf who wielded a blade like a scyther.

He rallied them even as the mankey fell. His presence alone breathed new life into the kirlia and flaaffy and they fought all the harder because he was here. He could do what I could not: He inspired them, calling them to fight beneath one banner with nary a word.

He struck down the men with a grace I'd not thought possible for his kind. The taillow and swellow often spoke of humans as bumbling and graceless, like newborn calves who had yet to find their feet. There was blood. There was the sound of breaking bones. There was fury and righteous wrath and ruthless retribution.

I loved it. I watched grown men brought low by a child and felt the dark delight of vindication. For the pain they'd caused, for disturbing the matriarch's rest, they paid in blood and I was satisfied.

I'd wondered who led them, a kirlia who fought with the speed and grace of a scyther, a mankey with the discipline and cunning to temper his rage, a flaaffy who shone brightly like the sun. And now I knew.

I'd found my trainer.

X

Aaron Fulan

Petalburg Woods

After forcibly returning the poachers' pokemon, I went about treating my own, starting with Durvasa. He'd taken the most damage from the kecleon, and I assume the liepard. After giving my team the lion's share of my potions, I had Jeanne keep an eye on the poachers and turned to the chikorita.

The chikorita was looking bad. It was about half again as big as its brethren and had a large, green leaf on its head that was browning at the edges. Bruises and cuts littered its body, so much so that I almost saw more discolored bruises and weeping cuts than its natural, pastel-green hide.

"Hey, you've been through a lot, haven't you?" I said gently. It looked up at me with crimson eyes. Rather than fear, I saw the hues of awe and vindictive satisfaction in its eyes. I held out my potion. "This is going to sting, okay?"

"Chiko…" it moaned and nodded. It didn't react to being sprayed with the healing liquid beyond a light wince.

Then, once the pain subsided, it tried to stand. Its forelimbs pushed it up with moderate difficulty but its hindlimbs failed to work. I saw its legs twitch a little as it tried to get its feet under it.

'My lord, he was slammed into a tree by the nuzleaf's Bide,' Artoria filled me in as she came to my side. Her dress had been torn but she would fix it herself once she had the chance to recover her psychic power. Beyond that and a few scrapes that had already begun to scab over, she was in good health.

"Don't get up," I told the little dinosaur. "You probably injured your spine. Trying to get up will make things worse for you."

"Chiko-rita. Chiko," he said. He tried for a moment but I placed a hand on his head and gently but firmly pushed him back down.

"The best thing you can do right now is rest."

"Chi? Rita-chiko."

"Kir-Kirlia, kirlia-kir," Artoria replied.

I let them talk things out while we waited for the rangers. It didn't escape my notice that he was the only chikorita that was seriously injured. Was he their protector? Big brother?

Either way, his admiration for my starter was plain to see. I had a feeling I knew what was coming.

'I wonder what his dream will be?'

Author's Note

Really short chapter, but I think it's a good stopping place.

I'm not a huge fan of pokemon fics where the human MC is a DB-esque warrior too, but at the same time, Aaron's been building to that. That said, I love Ruroni Kenshin so if I had to give Aaron a fantasy sword style, it'd probably be Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu. Sure, it's not the strongest in fiction or anything, but that's a plus in my book.

If it wasn't obvious, yeah, the chikorita is the fifth (depending on if you count the egg) member of the team. I suppose he doesn't really have an archetype. If Artoria is the Knight, Jeanne is the Idol, and Durvasa is the Sage, this one is… kind of ambiguous. I do have a picture of his personality in mind, but a single word that captures his archetype eludes me. I'm sure it'll come to me eventually.

Animal fact? Nah. Have a star fact: The sun, via nuclear reaction, loses 4.7 million tons of mass (4.3 metric tons) per second. I know that when we talk about comic book characters, battleboarders like to say someone is "star-level," but I think very few people realize how absurdly powerful that would really be.

You know what weighs that much? About 790,055 elephants. Or 33,424 blue whales. Or 471 Eiffel Towers.

The sun yeets 471 Eiffel Towers across the solar system each second. Respect it.