A normal guy from a normal city from a normal world is thrown into a chaotic battle between beings greater than gods for the fate of all realities. At least, if he can gather the strength and allies to stand on the same level as them though. That might take a while.
A jumpchain story following a renegade as he looks for a way to save his homeworld.
The morning was normal enough. He had breakfast, he went for a run, he checked on social media to see if there was any interesting news. Nothing particularly interesting there.
His name, for reference, was Joshua.
It was just when he was beginning to plan what he'd have for lunch that it happened.
A great cracking sound. Something like a window breaking but everywhere at once.
Joshua flinched. He'd never been good with sudden shocks, once he recovered though, he looked out the window.
Cracks ran across the sky and they spilled out a spectrum of light.
There was silence at first, as if no one in the world knew how to respond. That was fair at least, he couldn't think of how to react either.
Cracks forming in the sky- no- cracks forming in empty space itself. It was impossible.
It was as the cracks started to expand that the screaming started. His mind flashed to Chicken Little. It had been years since he'd watched it but something still felt the same as the cracks started forming shapes and great plates of… "Something" began falling.
They'd vanish before hitting the ground but he saw a pair of glowing objects fall through the now open hole in the sky.
Was it aliens? That felt like it would make the most sense honestly. His mind was grasping for a way to rationalise this.
He left his flat and down onto the street.
The screams of other Londoners filled his ears but it was starting to slow down now.
The glowing objects had fallen in different places. One looked like it was going for the center of london and the other to the west of it.
Even as he pondered though, there came a voice. It was heard clearly by everyone in the city.
"Attention, inhabitants of this fine country of britain! I am Siegfried, your new god incarnate. Surrender peacefully and I may allow you to retain your own will."
No one… really knew how to respond to that.
There was a silence at first as it started to dawn on people that the voice had come from within their own heads.
Awe, terror and confusion then began to blossom as the man spoke again.
"I will wait in the tower of london. As your new god, I demand that you all come at once."
When the instruction came, Joshua found it hard to not immediately start walking there. There was something compelling about the voice.
Indeed, some of the others on the street had begun walking towards the center of London.
Finally you relented and began walking along with everyone else.
Chaos filled the streets as everyone moved. A crowd of the inhabitants of London all marched together to one destination.
You weren't able to get anywhere near the tower of London itself. The crush of the crowd prevented you from getting any closer to it. The man who called himself a god was only a small spot on top of one of the towers.
Yet his voice was still clear and easy to hear.
"For the past one hundred thousand years, your world has been safe thanks to a barrier put up around it. Your guardians stood and put up a defence against us as we launched our invasion and they have failed. There is nothing you can do now-"
There was a sound like a crack and the figure standing atop the tower stumbled.
Quickly though he stood back up straight.
"A sniper? Huh. Become as a beast and rip yourself apart."
As his command rippled out for all to hear, you heard screaming.
"Good." The man's voice came again "Now, if anyone else wants to try to go against me, remember this:"
An image appeared in your mind. A daydream that you couldn't look away from or ignore.
A man soaked in blood, a rifle on the ground beside him. He had been dressed in what looked like a soldier's clothes. His body was ripped apart as if by a pack of wolves.
Finally the image faded. You could remember it vividly though.
There was silence and whispers. Fear now gripped the heart of the crowd. They could now believe that they faced a god. And not a nice one.
Joshua had never considered himself religious before this but even he felt the fear of a man under the scrutiny of a god.
As the man continued to talk and explain, Joshua started trying to flee. The crush of the crowd stopped him though and he had to just stand and watch.
"As I was saying, now that we've killed your defenders, there's nothing you can do. This world has already fallen. All I and my associates are here to do is finish the process. To that end-"
Words appeared in your head. A contract of sorts.
"I, _________, do swear myself in my entirety to my new god Siegfried. There will be nothing I will not do for him."
A simple written oath.
The figure on the tower raised his arm and pieces of paper with the contract written on them began falling from the sky.
"Sign of your own will and your life and mind will remain yours… for now."
Joshua caught one of the pages and he read it over again. The same wording he had seen in his head.
The simplicity of it was a curse. It wasn't a long document detailing what each side would get. There was no legal text to obscure true costs. No fine print.
It was just giving away his very existence for not even that promise of life and freedom in text.
Even as he pondered that though, there were flashes of light from the crowd around him. People were signing and then vanishing into thin air.
Where were they going?
But Joshua would not sign, even as he felt a tug to do it. His very will was already betraying him.
He turned, the crush was now reduced with the lack of bodies and he went against the flow.
Running on, he came to tower bridge and ran across it and between vacated cars. All the time, he heard a mocking laugh from the self-proclaimed god.
Was it mocking him or mocking the world itself? Joshua didn't have an answer.
At the end of the bridge, he took a right and kept going. The city was empty. No one was here anymore. Pieces of paper, more blank contracts, were strewn across the ground.
Where was he running? He'd seen another falling object earlier. Would it be salvation? Or simply another god who bent the world to its whim?
He reached the south bank and crossed Westminster bridge. He ran past the houses of parliament and into St. James' park.
His fatigue was catching up with him now and he collapsed onto a bench.
His breathing was heavy. He panted and his dry mouth felt cracked.
It was past 2pm by this point and hunger was starting to gnaw at him too from the lack of lunch.
The other object shouldn't be too far. He could rest for now.
What had happened to the world he knew? In less than three hours, it had simply fallen apart.
Aliens? Gods? Immortals who don't fear a sniper's bullet?
What was the police doing? Or the Army? That one sniper had shot but what about the rest?
It can't be over already, can it?
With an effort, he stood up again and kept walking. He crossed the park's bridge. He had guessed that the other object had fallen in Hyde Park and he still had a ways to go.
It took another half an hour to reach Hyde Park. Through the trees he could see a soft light shining. It could be seen easily, even with today's clear skies.
He found what he was looking for by the old police house.
A woman was lying on the ground, a bloody spear by her side and a great hole in the center of her chest.
That sort of injury should have meant that he'd find a corpse but no, the woman's chest still moved shallowly.
She may be dying, but she wasn't dead yet.
As he approached closer, he was enraptured by her beauty. Describing it was nominally impossible but you could liken her to an ancient goddess. This was a figure that could be worshipped.
Well, if she wasn't dying.
As he reached her side, her head tilted slightly to see him. Her eyes were like a kaleidoscope, reflecting endlessly down into the deepest depths.
"A… local?" She murmured. Like the god from before, the voice echoed inside Joshua's head.
For him it had been because he wanted everyone to hear him. For her, it seemed to be because she couldn't speak normally anymore with her wounds.
Since he'd found her though, he realised that the laughter of the other god had gone silent. There was peace in this moment.
Joshua asked "Who are you?"
"I called myself Elpis." She sent to answer his question "I was… one of the ones in charge of protecting your planet. I'm afraid… we weren't strong enough."
The pain in her "voice" was obvious. Joshua could have hated her. It was her failures, and the failures of those that had stood with her, that had doomed his world.
But he couldn't bring himself to hate her.
As he touched her, he saw visions of what must be happening elsewhere.
In the American oval office, a child sat on the president's chair and spun around.
In China, a dragon was lying on a pile of treasure while a crowd of people prostrated themselves before it.
In Japan, a robotic overlord forcibly converted the people into more robots.
In India, a god-like figure, much like the one that had taken control of England, was ruling over the populace. Instead of contracts though, he was forcing everyone to accept a tattoo, a brand of slavery.
In Brazil… In Russia… In the Middle East…
"Is that it then, is this the end?" Joshua asked softly.
Elpis shook her head softly "There are always more. Your world is just one of many. We… we failed to save this one, but maybe you could save another."
A light shone in her eyes. A last flame of hope.
Her arm moved shakily as she lifted it to her chest, to just above her heart.
"Please, I must ask a boon from you. Your world has fallen, ensure that no other does. Please."
Joshua didn't fully understand. Other worlds? Was that where they were all from?
Before he could ask though, the woman grunted and her hand was lowered through her own chest. She groaned in pain as she drew out a small flame-like orb. Motes of energy drifted away from it as it was exposed to the air.
With a last grunt, the woman closed her fist on it. When the fist opened again, there was a small dagger in her grip.
"Take this." There was no telepathy anymore. She was forcing out the last of her life's breath to tell him these simple things.
Joshua reached for the knife.
It was a dagger that looked to be made of normal steel. The blade was engraved with a few words.
"À mon seul désir." My only desire.
At the top of its hilt was a small gemstone that reflected the sky above the treeline. A clear blue sky.
As he grasped the knife, there was a strange feeling in his gut. Something twisting him inside. The feeling spread to his body even as he promised the woman.
"I will. I promise."
That said, he wasn't just going to protect these other worlds. He had a goal now. He would save this world too. Somehow.
"That is a sparkblade." The woman whispered "I give it to you freely, may it never leave you."
Before she could explain any further though, her last breath was released.
She was dead.
Joshua closed her eyes.
He'd never seen someone die before. He didn't really know how to respond.
Even as he knelt beside her though, he heard the sounds of footfalls in heavy armour behind him. A woman stood there in a blue dress and armour. Blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail behind her head. Her eyes were blank and a black tattoo like a collar around her neck.
"Surrender." her voice was clipped and emotionless as she spoke "My Master wishes for you to sign the contract."
Joshua was still holding his contract. He hadn't let it go through all of this.
He stood up and looked at the young woman.
"Who are you?"
"My Master's Servant." She said simply "He calls me Saber."
Saber…?
He realised it now. Her clothes… her hair… her face! These were the features of Artoria Pendragon from the Fate series.
"What would you do if I refused?"
"My instructions are to take all who refuse in by force. My master has other ways to claim you other than the contract."
In that case-
His Sparkblade felt heavy in his hand, as his hand moved around, the dagger jerked to a stop every few seconds as if caught on something.
Instinctively he knew what to do. Power gathered in the dagger. What power? And from where did it come? Neither was a question that Joshua knew how to answer.
Instead, he simply knew what the next move was.
As he raised the dagger, Artoria drew her invisible sword.
She wasn't the target of his strike though. In a quick motion he cut the air beside him.
The blade got stuck for a moment but instead of just slipping out of the seam it had found like every time before, it cut down along the seam.
A seam in space and time.
Roaring power spewed forth from the gap and Artoria raised her guard.
Joshua raised his hand and called out to her "Another time maybe?"
Just as he left, he threw one last look back at the body of Elpis.
The rip in reality closed up behind him and he fell into the void between worlds.
Impossible colours surrounded him and shifted about randomly.
This space eroded at his very self as he fell through the unreality.
His eyes were squeezed shut to block out the horrible colours and by instinct he stabbed the dagger forward again. It struck against the seam of another world and the power of the space between worlds flowed out and carried him into the new world.
A world where his journey would begin.
This is just the result of someone inspiring me to write it. For those who don't know about Jumpchain… well, there are a lot of other stories (May I recommend https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/brocktons-celestial-forge-worm-jumpchain.70036/) that use it but to simplify, a random OC is chucked into an endless multiverse of stories and gains powers from each world they pass through.
Now, I have a lot of headcanon lore for jumpchains and when I was discussing it with someone on reddit, I was inspired to write this up.
It's a story following a random schmuck as he is tossed headfirst into Jumpchains the way I headcanon them.
That said, jump aware beings are rare so this story will also be very similar to this story https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/bootstrapping-multi-cross-book-2-now-in-naruto.770733/ which is also an inspiration for this.
While I will write the contents of the worlds themselves, I will allow others to vote on which worlds the jumper actually goes to.
This won't update anywhere even close to regularly. In theory at least. I'm just writing this because I want to write and I have nothing better to write right now.
Feel free to comment, if you do say what sort of world you'd think it would be interesting for Joshua to have arrived at.
I really enjoyed your prologue, and thought your introduction of the sparkblade was pretty fun! I'm already looking forward to seeing any possible updates in the future. As for future worlds, I think it might be fun if he ended up in one of the Digimon settings. Since it could give a wonderful opportunity to give him a partner in crime early on.
I really enjoyed your prologue, and thought your introduction of the sparkblade was pretty fun! I'm already looking forward to seeing any possible updates in the future. As for future worlds, I think it might be fun if he ended up in one of the Digimon settings. Since it could give a wonderful opportunity to give him a partner in crime early on.
Interesting idea. Which Digimon setting do you think would work best?
I'm partial to Adventures or Savers myself, each would provide the renegade with a different experience.
That said, other jumps are available to give partners in crime too. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is the classic example there and it would give the Renegade his first Alt form.
I still want to hear input if anyone has some.
If I don't get anything else, I was going to use the following rules:
1. No Nasuverse (Too soon after seeing Artoria)
2. Something that looks like a normal earth (To give Joshua something to recognise/relate to in the new world)
3. A setting where the world itself isn't in danger (So Joshua isn't "forced" to help try to save the world.)
Digimon kind of works, but point 3 is normally broken by the finale of each Digimon series. It could still work though.
No one else has commented yet, which is just leading me to wanting to pick randomly.
To that end, I've generated a list of 10 jumps Joshua could go to.
I am as yet, still undecided, feel free to speak up with a jump choice of your own or a choice of one of the 10 worlds so I at least know what you'd all like to see.
The ten worlds (And how many of my three rules they follow, it also assumes the main characters are competent)
Ar Tonelico (Two)
Ghost trick (All three, but is a gauntlet)
Overlord (The anime, One)
Pokemon (Three, technically)
Fire Emblem Tellius (One)
Generic Isekai (One)
NieR (...Two? Three? It's hard to tell)
Count of Monte Christo (Three, and very fitting)
Xenoblade Chronicles (One)
Star Wars (Two?)
Are there any that look very fun to read for any of you?
When he finally came to, he realised he was lying on a patch of grass.
His breathing was soft as he looked up and the clear blue sky.
Was he safe now?
Joshua's mind was still flooded with the events of the last few hours.
But even with those memories filling his head, he eventually dropped off to sleep. It was a dreamless sleep, thankfully.
After a while of dozing though, he felt something shake him. Opening his eyes, he saw a young girl with brown hair and a black dress.
"Hello?" She spoke with some curiosity "Didn't you know it was dangerous to sleep in the middle of nowhere?"
Joshua sat up slowly and looked around. It looked like he was in a field with a few trees poking up here and there.
"Sorry." He apologised as he stood up "I'm afraid I'm a bit lost."
"You're a bit lost?" The girl copied him as she looked him up and down "How did that lead to you sleeping in the middle of the day?"
"One thing led to another." Joshua remarked.
He didn't really know what kind of world he'd ended up in, nor did he know the proper protocol for these sorts of things. Were world travellers meant to hide the fact there were other worlds. That sounded reasonable at least.
The girl nodded, her eyes narrowing. She seemed perceptive for her age.
"Uh huh." Yeah, she didn't buy that at all. She didn't press it though, instead asking "What's your name, sir?"
"Joshua, you?"
"Green."
Joshua blinked at that. She was named after a colour?
Before he asked though, Green took control of the conversation again.
"Which way were you going then Mr Joshua, I could give you some directions if you wanted."
Joshua had to give a shrug before answering "Well… I guess you could say I wasn't really going anywhere specific. I'm just wandering around. Could you tell me what is around here?"
Other than being basically the truth, something also felt right in that statement. A warmth that came from… the Sparkblade? Huh. Somehow Joshua knew it was doing... something?
Green paused and nodded before pointing one way and then the other.
"Walk for about two hours in that direction and you'll get to Pallet Town. Walk the other way for about two and a half hours and you'll get to Viridian City."
Green? Pallet Town? Viridian City?
Okay. Joshua realised he was in the world of Pokemon. That sounded… fun?
"Thank you." Joshua nodded "I think I'll be going to Pallet Town then."
Green paused again but nodded, commenting "Have a safe trip." As she departed.
…Was this the Pokemon Adventures Manga? He was fairly sure that it had a girl called Green in it?
How could he go about verifying that though?
Umm… continuity. What was different between the Manga and the Games? He couldn't remember as he walked in the direction that Green had pointed.
Identifying the world properly came before trying to find help to get back his world. The legendaries might be able to help there but that might be very dangerous depending on the continuity.
Manga… What did he remember about the early Manga? He remembered seeing a meme that involved an Arbok getting cut in half but his knowledge was fairly limited there. He had taken the time to read it once but that was a long time ago.
Oh, weren't the tops of the Pokeballs see-through in the early Manga? That might be a good way to check.
The reason he chose Pallet Town was simple. He needed a starter pokemon. But he wasn't exactly a ten-year old. He was over twice that old.
Would he still be able to ask for a Starter Pokemon?
About an hour into the walk, he was starting to regret this whole "travelling" thing. While seeing real pokemon was cool, it was also a hike he wasn't even slightly ready for.
No water, no snacks, nowhere to sit down.
His feet ached, his stomach growled and his lips were parched.
Logically, this would get easier with time but-
He had come across bodies of water but it probably wasn't safe to drink from them… so he just didn't.
The most problematic thing was when he was attacked by a swarm of Spearow. He tried to smack them away but they pecked at him hard enough to draw blood.
He knew that he could have used the blade to cut them but something about doing that felt wrong on some fundamental level to him.
He'd had to run away from them, his feet crying out in pain with every quick step.
Finally, exhausted, he made his way to the fence that surrounded Pallet Town. Once within the gate, he slipped to the ground and leaned against the fence.
Was this what his life would be like from now on? Running from one threat to another?
Well… was that going to make him stop?
No.
He pulled himself to his feet and began asking around about the Professor's lab. Apparently it was a bit south of the main town. He had to manage some large ranches to keep any Pokemon he was studying safe and happy.
They also advised him to go to a Pokemon Center. They would patch up the wounds of people too, apparently.
Joshua was a little surprised that Pallet Town had a pokemon center but reason won out. Of course it had a Pokemon Center. Why wouldn't it have one when there are Centers which aren't even in towns like the one at Mt. Moon.
There they cleaned his wounds but they were healing well enough of their own so there was no need to put plasters or bandages on them.
Then, it was time to head to Professor Oak's lab.
The southern gate led to more grasslands but Oak's lab was in sight from the moment that Joshua had set off.
This walk wasn't more than ten minutes. In that time, he arrived at the main entrance to the laboratory.
Knocking on the door, he heard a call from inside.
"Who is it?"
"Someone looking for some help from you." Joshua called through the door "Is it a bad time?"
"Come in." The voice called back "I'll explain inside."
Joshua tried the door and found it unlocked, opening it into the laboratory.
Well, calling it that didn't explain everything. The building was split into four or five sections without walls between them.
First was the central area that he now stood in. Connected to it was a small medical area that seemed set up to treat Pokemon who were injured during his investigation. To the other side of it was a reading area piled high with books.
In the back left there appeared to be some kind of resting area. It had soft furniture and a small kitchen area. There were even stairs that he expected led to a bedroom of sorts upstairs. There was no way to confirm that for sure though as it actually did have walls.
The last area was the most "laboratory" like. It had beeping machines with flashing lights at least. The professor stood in that area, looking at a computer screen. He looked just as Joshua imagined.
While the world was real now, some things fit too well. It was like Artoria from back home. They might not be in Anime-style anymore but that doesn't stop him from being able to recognise them.
"Professor?" Joshua asked.
The old man stood up and turned around.
"Ah yes, welcome to my lab."
Joshua nodded but he put off asking about a Pokemon for now. Asking while the Professor was still having a problem sounded rude.
He nodded and simply asked "What's wrong?"
The professor sighed and looked at his computer which you saw had an entirely blue screen.
"It's just one thing after another today. This morning someone stole a Pokemon from my lab- a Bulbasaur- and now my computers have locked up. I've got very important research that I don't want lost."
"Ah." Joshua nodded, remembering the plot arc from the Manga. Green had stolen… wait, hadn't Green stolen the squirtle? Hadn't Red been given the Bulbasaur?
Well. That was different. Though if he knew who the thief was, it might make her easier to find.
"Do you know what the thief looked like?" Joshua did have to confirm that it was Green though. He had no evidence except what he remembered from the Manga.
The old man shook his head "Nothing. I'm really worried for Bulbasaur. Who knows what could happen?"
Joshua felt a strange heat coming from his Sparkblade. It was doing "something" again. Maybe if-
"I can go look for it?" He offered "I'll try and get it back for you."
"You would?" The Professor looked thankful "That would be very helpful."
Joshua looked up, an idea coming to mind "But I don't actually have a Pokemon of my own right now. It might be dangerous for me to go."
"Don't worry about that." The professor shook his head as the heat from the blade seemed to grow more "I can help register you so you can get a Pokemon. It's the least I could do if you're going to get that poor Bulbasaur back."
That would be... very helpful. Joshua would need a lot of help to hunt down a Legendary. Without Pokemon (Or any form of ID) travelling would become much harder.
The process was fairly quick. Just name, town of origin-
"Alamos Town." Joshua had said the first town that came to his mind. Hmm. Using a Galar town probably would have been better but he couldn't think of one off the top of his head, having never played that Generation.
"Where?" Professor Oak asked, typing it in "Ah, Sinnoh."
And that sort of thing.
In the end he was given his Trainer licence and the choice of what Pokemon he'd want as a Starter. There were actually more than the original three available.
They were sorted by type and one of them stood out to him. There were fairy-type pokemon here too. There was a Cleffa.
Not that it would be very useful against Green when he found her. No, this one was better.
"Are you sure?" The professor asked, "Their personality will make them hard to train."
"I know." Joshua nodded "But it will give me the mobility to cut the thief off."
The professor nodded and put the Pokeball in Joshua's hand. It's lid wasn't see through but he'd already noticed enough differences from the Manga to make him stop assuming it was as simple as that.
As the Pokeball was placed in his hand though, the Sparkblade cooled down at last. Whatever it had done was complete.
Joshua left the Lab to set off on his journey. At the very least, his new partner should be helpful in future worlds too.
He held up the Pokeball and called the Pokemon out.
"Let's go, Abra!"
The yellow pokemon came out of the ball… and it was asleep.
Yeah. This is what the professor meant.
I ended up picking Pokemon. Specifically, this is Pokemon Tabletop United's Jump. I've actually run games in the system before so I'm borrowing my setting for it which draws heavily from the Manga. I intend to give my players a Cameo appearance later in this Jump.
Each jump is split into somewhere between 5 and 20 "Milestones," CP is awarded based on Milestones, not on words written (As is done in many other Jumpchain stories)
I'm doing this so points are awarded for story content instead of just talking about my perks long enough that I earn even more perks.
It should be noted that Joshua's adventure will only cover Kanto though.
Edit: This chapter has been edited slightly after a review to make some points more clear. The reviewer didn't understand some of the motives so I've made them more clear.
"Joshua is hunting the thief in return for his Pokemon and ID."
"He got the Pokemon and ID because of the Sparkblade" Effectively it was fiat-backing so he had to get one "somehow" and oak was nearby.
"He wanted a Pokemon because it would help him find a legendary." Next chapter goes more into that.
Feel free to comment, I already know what sort of adventure Joshua will have here but your input is appreciated.
So, while he travelled north, he also needed to help train his Abra.
He had decided to treat it as trying to care for a cat, but there were some problems there. Generally when you get a cat, you lock them in your house for a few weeks so they were able to learn that it was "Home" before you allowed them outside.
Of course, if you lived in a big city like Joshua had, letting pets outside whenever they wanted was a good way of getting them killed so he'd never had the chance to do it.
None of this worked with Abra though, since Abra could just teleport away on a whim.
The Pokeball didn't have a strict range limit for how far they could recall from, but they did need line of sight to the Pokemon in question.
…In the end, Joshua needed to spend an extra few days in the area of Pallet Town. Abra kept running away and he needed to catch it with help from the townspeople.
At the same time though, doing odd jobs for the citizens allowed him to get a few gifts that would probably be invaluable. These included a tent, a water bottle and rations.
Oh, and a backpack that seemed to fit way more than it should have been able to hold.
As he started back on route one, he looked to the north.
"Well." he said to no one but himself "It seems it's time for my Pokemon journey to begin."
Cheesy? Yes.
It was half a day's walk, about thirteen hours, to reach Viridian City. On the way, he stopped to have lunch with Abra.
Then he heard the sound of something approaching.
"Lick-"
Joshua quickly stepped away as he saw the big-tongued pokemon approach. A Lickitung, on route 1? Well, it wasn't using normal encounter tables at least.
"Abra!"
The Pokemon took a moment to look at me before teleporting between me and the Pokemon after my lunch.
Abra was fast, he was also not just a wild Pokemon. He knew more than just how to teleport.
"Abra, Ice punch!" A frigid shell coated the hand of Joshua's starter as it slammed it into the Lickitung. Or it tried to at least. The attack missed and Abra tripped.
The Lickitung shot out its own tongue which wacked straight into Abra. Joshua's pokemon looked to be in a bad way, paralysed and low on health due to…
Right! Lick was a ghost type move. That would have been a super effective hit!
But, Abra's ability activated. The Lickitung was Paralysed too. That gave Joshua an opening.
To do what exactly? To Flee!
"Abra, come back!"
He held up the Pokeball and even as Abra returned, Joshua was already running. The Paralysed Lickitung couldn't chase after them for their food now. Ha!
…He still stopped later to eat properly. And to help Abra eat. Abra's body was still locked up by the paralysis.
"I'll make a note now." Joshua remarked as he put pellets of Pokemon food in his hands to feed Abra "I'll need to stock up on status healing items."
Abra grunted in agreement.
A few more hours and in the late afternoon, Joshua had made it to Viridian City.
He checked into the Pokemon Center, not just to heal Abra but also because they acted as rest stops for trainers. There were rooms in the back that anyone with a Trainer card could use.
Viridian Forest was the next stop on the list, he'd have to get through it to get to Pewter City. It was a dangerous journey though. Abra… Abra would need help. Or more training.
Route 22 was just to the west though, they could train up there for a few days.
And so he did, giving Abra some training and doing odd jobs to stock up on restorative items.
He also caught another Pokemon during those days, A Vulpix. Not great for Brock but… Well, it would be good for the bug types at least.
Heading through the forest would take a lot of time. It was a big forest. Without a vehicle, it took at least a day or two to make the journey.
On the first day, they were ambushed by an Exeggcute as they were setting up camp. Vulpix was able to defeat it with its strange variant of Ember.
Vulpix would create three flames at the end of its tails and fire them out. It was like… bullet seed ember? No, not quite that. Vulpix would fire one and then the next would fly at the target as they were preparing to counter attack.
…Damn. Joshua realised too late that a grass type would have been great against Brock.
Well, hopefully he met another tomorrow.
He did, in fact, meet another grass type the next day. Only…
"Mega-"
It was a Meganium. What? He had four pokeballs and two Pokemon with nowhere near as much experience as this pokemon must have.
Plus, this was a starter Pokemon wasn't it? Why was it wandering about as if it was wild?
Instead of fighting it though, the Meganium was happy to allow them to rest with it. So, come the third morning, they made it out of the Viridian forest completely refreshed.
And nowhere near prepared for Brock.
Pewter city was quite… stone-like? In fantasy stories, they always show Dwarven holds formed from purely stone but Pewter used many different colours of stone. Brown and grey bricks made up the walls of houses while tiles of many different colours made up roofs. Doors, for when stone would be too heavy, were made from the wood of Viridian forest. It was right next door for them too after all.
They asked around about Green anyway. She'd passed through a while ago according to the people they asked.
Training for Brock wouldn't help them catch up with her any faster… But that wasn't really Joshua's goal here anyway.
Beat the league, track down a Legendary that could help him save his world. That was the goal.
Beating the League would hopefully provide some way to find a legendary, even if it was just to allow him into celadon cave to beg Mewtwo to help. Him having a Pokemon would help him with that, even if he didn't end up having to beat the league, his Pokemon provided him with a new strength.
Beyond just that though, his Pokemon were the bright points in his life right now. As he sat in one of Pewter's parks, he reflected on that fact. His home was gone, he could just settle here in the Pokemon world if he wished.
But no. He had made the choice to save his world. If he could.
His Earth had already been conquered after all. It was about as "Un-saved" as it could get.
Anyway, he went to do some more training.
On the second day of the training, he caught an Oddish. A grass type like that would certainly be good when it came to beating Brock.
The fourth day of training was more scary as they had to hide from an Espeon. If they fought that, Joshua was sure that his team would lose.
On the fifth day, they beat another Oddish and Vulpix learned Roar. Joshua shook his head again though. The training wasn't going well in the forest.
He noticed that route three was open though so he thought to do some more training there. Five more days and Vulpix learned Baby-doll eyes while Oddish learned Acid.
During these ten days, Joshua had checked the rules for Gym battles. You were allowed to enter as many Pokemon as you wanted but the Gym Leader was then allowed to use that same number of Pokemon.
He asked inside and the Gym leader apparently had a large collection of Pokemon for trainers of various skill levels.
…They still weren't good enough. Oddish new Absorb but he'd need more to take on Brock.
Five more days, against Pokemon in both training areas.
Vulpix learned Quick attack as they were training but it still wasn't enough. Not against the Rock-type specialist.
Damn it. He'd wasted two weeks here. It was now or never for that Gym battle.
He stepped into the Gym and offered a formal challenge. He'd enter two pokemon. Abra and Oddish.
Brock was there and he nodded, Geodude and Onix would be his pair.
To the side an announced raised his hand.
"Send out your first Pokemon!"
As Joshua threw out Abra, A Geodude appeared across the field..
Abra struck first with an Ice-covered fist. That landed squarely but Geodude was ready.
Brock called out.
"Geodude, defence curl!"
Geodude formed into a bolder, that would make it harder to damage then?
"Ice punch again, Abra!"
But against the curled up rock-type, it didn't look like it did any damage.
"Roll-out!"
…Shit.
That was a big hit.
"Ice punch!"
As Geodude rolled around, Abra managed to land a hit that seemed to actually do some damage but Geodude was still coming back.
"Teleport, then Ice punch again!"
As the rolling stone came towards Abra, he shifted, appearing beside Geodude as the latter slammed into a wall. That stopped the momentum build up at least.
The Ice punch swung but didn't seem to do anything again. Geodude was just too hard. Speaking of that, Geodude was spinning back up to charge into Abra again. When it hit Abra, Abra was almost knocked out right then and there.
Now, to shift him out or leave him in? Oddish would be all that's left after this after all.
Joshua raised his hand.
"I'm taking Abra out of the fight, mark him as defeated."
Brock paused and he ordered Geodude to stop. He looked… impressed.
Oddish came out against Geodude and once again, Joshua's pokemon got the first hit in.
The green seed of energy that represented Absorb struck home. Just barely really. But it dealt major damage to Geodude as it curled up again. A second Absorb was enough to finish it off though.
Then, Onix came in. This time, it struck first as Brock called out
"Bind, grab it Onix!"
Onix struck quickly and bound up Oddish. The little plant was being crushed.
"Oddish, Absorb!"
"Crush it until it is knocked out, Onix!"
Seconds passed as Oddish passed out of sight, the crushing coils clearly growing tighter until-
"Oonn-"
Onix… fainted.
"Gym Leader Brock's Pokemon are Unable to battle!" The judge called "Challenger Joshua has won!"
…He won?
He had won.
"Well then." Brock Nodded. He took out a case and from it drew out something. Turning, he gave it to Joshua.
"The Boulder Badge is now yours. Along with that-" From another case he drew out a disk."-Here's TM 39, Rock Tomb."
Joshua smiled. He'd got it. He'd won his first Gym battle!
Now was time to plan for his trip through Mount Moon.
I'm back! And with it is the first leg of Joshua's Journey. The milestones btw are planned to be Pallet town > Each gym battle > Victory Road and the Elite four > Ending.
Ending will technically be an 11th milestone so it won't actually earn any CP. It's just to wrap up the plot
Edit: And just like the previous chapter, this one was updated to make the motive more clear.
"Why does he want to find a legendary?" Because they could help save his world.
"Why does he want to beat the league?" Because he thinks it could help him find a legendary somehow.
Also the milestones were changed quite a lot over the course of this. No need for an 11th milestone, what would have been the wrap-up is just the ending section of the 10th.
Feel free to comment, I already know what sort of adventure Joshua will have here but your input is appreciated.
Before actually starting the trip to mount moon though, Joshua took a short visit to the Pewter City Museum.
It was a bit bigger than in the games and it was broken into three main areas. One looked at stones as… well stones. There were gemstones, precious and semiprecious, on display along with some rocks that had formed in interesting ways.
The second area showed fossils and… well. It was certainly more than the first generation of Pokemon had contained. The Gen 5 fossils were here as well along with an…
Joshua couldn't remember its name. The Gen three fossil that wasn't Lileep.
The last of the areas was about artefacts that had been excavated in various digs. Rare bones, nuggets even an Iron ball.
However… there was one which felt out of place. He looked at the strange artifact before looking down to read the plaque.
"Unknown Plate.
Similar in design to plates excavated in the Sinnoh region over the last few years, this flat grey plate was excavated from a dig site on the shores of Cinnabar island very recently.
An expert with ancient text came to examine this plate and according to them it reads:
'Its title is a lie, its throne stolen.'"
Well… that was cryptic. And worrying.
Joshua knew about the plates of course. The idea of an extra plate that seemed to be trying to call something out was… worrying.
Regardless, it was time to head on. The hike through the mountain range that contained mount moon was apparently two weeks long.
Two weeks!
…That said, there was another way. Diglett tunnel That one would probably be even worse. It was roughly 300 km from end to end, assuming you didn't get lost. That was only a bit shorter than the distance between London and Paris! No form of mass transport would run in areas that are that full of Pokemon.
He looked at the map, trying to find another way…
Hmm. There were no official routes but he could try going from Pewter to Celadon City directly?
No routes meant that there would be no roadmakers. It also meant that incredibly strong Pokemon might attack without warning. He had no idea what was out there.
He planned his route. Celadon to Saffron, Saffron to Cerulean, Cerulean to Vermillion via the bike tunnel. Then take the East route to Fuchsia, the boat to Cinnabar and then back to Pallet.
If Green was travelling the traditional way, over mount moon, then he might run into her while he was at the center of the region.
Following that plan, he stocked up again on food and resources and headed out the east route out of Pewter. After a few hours, he turned south. His compass, obtained on the cheap as part of a camping supply kit he'd gotten in Pewter during the restock, was hopefully accurate.
He and his pokemon fought an Oddish. Abra took the knockout and he seemed pleased about it. All of Joshua's pokemon were getting used to combat now.
At night, they all bedded down and rested. In the morning they found a Meganium in the camp with them.
…Okay. Seriously. What was with the Meganiums? They really didn't fit in with Kanto and they kept coming to see Joshua.
He carefully avoided it and carried on south east. He was pleased when he made it to a coastline. That meant he was relatively where he thought he was. It should be due east from here to Celadon.
This day was largely uneventful but the sun was already setting. His food supply was good for a week feeding himself and his Pokemon. Hopefully the five days that were left were plenty enough to get to his destination.
The night passed peacefully this time, no Meganium in sight. They didn't even encounter any wild Pokemon as they headed east. The games really overstated how often you ran into wild Pokemon if you weren't specifically looking for them.
As the third day of travel was drawing to an end though, he came across a laboratory of some kind. Curious, he rang the bell.
After a moment, a voice answered "Yes?"
"Sorry to bother you." Joshua spoke up "I was just curious where I was? I'm travelling across wild areas without routes and I want to know: Is Celadon due east of here?"
There was a pause and the doors slid open.
"Hello there." It looked to be a professor of some sort "A traveller? I don't suppose you'd be willing to help me with a test of my systems?"
"Systems?" Joshua tilted his head.
"Indeed." The professor nodded "My name is Doctor Yung. I'm working on a Pokemon Simulator."
"Umm… I'd be happy to?" Joshua didn't recognise the Doctor's name but he was polite "But I also want directions."
The doctor nodded and waved "Oh yes, your guess was close enough. Travel due east from here gets you to Celadon City. But night is falling, you might as well rest here tonight."
Slightly reluctantly, Joshua agreed.
Doctor Yung was working on a system that could project digital Pokemon into the real world.
"Like Porygon?"
Doctor Yung smiled at that "Not quite. Porygon could be seen as a normal pokemon that just happens to have a digital nature. It can inhabit computers in the same way that Rotom can inhabit motors. What I'm talking about is an entirely original Pokemon that was brought out into reality."
Joshua nodded, considering.
"Well, if Pokemon can be transferred via a PC, I don't see why that couldn't work."
Doctor Yung smiled and went to demonstrate the system, unfortunately it seemed to be down right now. Doctor Yung looked annoyed when he realised it.
"Damn, this again?"
"Again?" Joshua queried.
The doctor explained "I've been getting a few glitches these last few weeks. The system would be working fine for a few hours and then there'd be a freeze and it would spawn in a Pokemon that was just wrong. I've seen amalgamations of two pokemon, Pokemon with the wrong type, that sort of thing. And then when the program despawns them, everything goes down for a few hours. Something in the root system gets zeroed out by the glitch somehow."
…Curious, but not relevant to Joshua.In the end he just accepted the Doctor's hospitality. The system still wasn't fixed in the morning but Joshua couldn't waste time sticking around. He had a grass type badge to get.
"I'll come back if I have the time." He promised as he left.
Now travelling via route 16, he quickly made for Celadon. On the way they got stopped by a Wigglytuff. It took the full team working together to take the living blimp down.
As a result of the battle, Abra evolved into Kadabra, Oddish learned stun spore and Vulpix… Vulpix was still himself. He didn't change.
They arrived in Celadon in the evening and booked into the Pokemon Center. It was good to rest on a proper bed after so long.
Anyway, he could take a day to walk around… or he could get right to training. His team hadn't really improved at all since Brock. Kadabra had evolved but he still hadn't learned any new moves yet. A few days of training would be good.
They had to run from a Ponyta on the first day but after that they were able to train against the Pokemon they encountered well enough as long as they worked together.
Kadabra ended up learning confusion and disable. Vulpix learned confuse ray and Oddish learned Sleep powder.
Joshua pondered after the fifth day. Was he now strong enough to battle against Erika? Vulpix offered a type advantage but not a very strong one as he was likely the weakest of Joshua's pokemon. They could do focused training of course but… Kadabra was strong too and psychic had an advantage against the many poison types that a Gen 1 grass team would have.
…He'd try.
The very next day, he approached the Grass type gym. Taking a breath, he stepped inside.
The smell assaulted him instantly. It was incredibly pungent within the gym. It was likely something to do with the massive arrays of flowers that grew throughout the building.
He offered his request for a gym battle. Erika herself came down to greet him.
"I'll be entering two Pokemon." He told her as he also showed her that he had a badge already.
The gym leader was elegant as she led him to the battlefield. She selected two Pokeballs from a collection on her side of the field and nodded.
A judge came out and gave the announcement to begin.
"May both trainers send out their first Pokemon?"
Joshua threw out Vulpix as Erika sent out a Tangela. Vulpix looked a bit distracted by the smell in here too but he focused on the Tangela quickly enough to throw out some balls of foxfire before the vine-covered pokemon came in.
"Vine Whip!"
The vines hit Vulpix just as the first of the embers shot into Tangela's face. Vulpix then moved just as Joshua gave his next order.
"Confuse Ray!"
The ray of strange energy hit but Tangela shook it off as Erika called to it.
"Keep your focus, Ingrain!"
Vines dug into the ground around it.
"Quick attack!"
But the quick slam from Vulpix failed to meaningfully hurt Tangela.
"Now Tangela, Poison Powder!"
Healing and poison? Luckily Vulpix was able to dodge and fire one of his foxfires back as a counter attack. It only barely hit but it did a lot of damage.
"Ember again, not Foxfire this time though!"
Another bolt of fire shot out from Vulpix's mouth while it still held another flame at the ready with its last tail. With the hit though, Tangela fainted.
"Tangela is unable to battle, may Leader Erika send in her next Pokemon?"
Erika nodded and held up the ball.
"Let's go Ivysaur!"
Vulpix was staying in, it was even faster than the Ivysaur so it took no time in going straight in.
"Ember, Not Foxfire!"
Again, it saved the last of its countering flames as it spat fire at the dinosaur-like plant. Or was it a plant-like dinosaur?
The ember even caught on Ivysaur, leaving a burn on it that continued to cause pain as it moved to counter attack.
"Leech seed!"
Just like Oddish's seeds during the gym battle against Brock, green tears of light fell onto Vulpix and rooted. Vulpix replied with the last of its foxfires though which singed Ivysaur again.
But that seemed to change something in Ivysaur. Joshua's teeth clicked as he remembered.
Ivysaur glowed green. Overgrowth.
"Vulpix, you need to finish this now! Ember!"
Understanding exactly what Joshua meant, Vulpix fired a bit of fire again. It looked like it wasn't going to be enough though as Ivysaur prepared to attack… before falling to the damage from the burn.
"Gym Leader Erika's Pokemon are Unable to battle!" The judge called "Challenger Joshua has won!"
He sighed in relief, he hadn't even needed Kadabra to help this time.
He obtained the rainbow badge and TM53, Energy Ball. Huh, might want to teach that to Kadabra. Later though.
Two badges down and the plan was for Sabrina to be next.
…Oh Arceus. Sabrina as a third gym leader. Regardless of if this was Anime or Game Canon, he was in for some problems.
Another milestone out without having to wait a month? Incredible. Also, with this Milestone he's picked up a social perk that aids him in making friends. I won't go into all the perks and items he buys. Well, I'll go into them at the end of each jump.
He's also not consciously buying these, he is getting what he wants though.
Also, the overarching plot of this jump probably won't be hard to guess at this point.
Before anything else let me, the narrator, explain.
Joshua… he wasn't a fan of horror games. Let it not be said that he was a coward though. He had played some here and there.
Just not a lot of them.
What was the source of this fear of all things horrifying?
…Well. Common sense, really. Scary things were scary, big surprise.
Why was this all being brought up? Because Joshua had made the decision to go to Pokemon Tower before taking on Sabrina. He needed ghost types to beat her.
Lavender Town hadn't originally been a destination he'd been planning to visit. The only thing of note there was Pokemon Tower after all.
Now, he was hoping ghost types were just friendly tricksters and not Dusknoir level "Will drag you to hell." That was the only way he thought he'd be able to deal with this.
He'd have to go through Saffron city to get there though so it would at least let him check if Team rocket had taken it over.
…Hmm. He was still in Celadon though. He could see if the game corner was currently infested with team rocket grunts.
It took him longer than he expected to find the game corner but upon looking at it all covered in Neon, he wondered if this was what Vegas was like. Just this building, not the surrounding area which seemed like a perfectly peaceful town.
…He'd never been to Las Vegas. If he had, he would have compared it favourably, it wasn't nearly as blinding as some places there.
Regardless, Joshua headed in and looked around.
There, standing at the back and to the right of all the flashing machines was what he had hoped not to see. A man dressed in dark clothes with a shifty look to him. They weren't blatantly wearing a giant R on their clothes so they were stealthier than that at least.
Well then… Saffron would be fun.
Walking along route seven took about eight hours. Joshua had left just after lunch so it was dark. Well, darker. It had been getting less dark each night and mornings were coming sooner. It was summertime weather which was nice to walk in at least.
All this hiking was good for Joshua. He hadn't exactly been out of shape before but all this time outdoors was helping.
Remembering home though…
As he came to the gate of Saffron, he was able to pass through without problem. The gate guard did warn him of criminal activity in the city though.
He found the Pokemon Center and rested there for the night.
Well, he was in Saffron now. He could poke around if he wanted…
No, Joshua decided to wait until after Lavender town before heading to the Gym… or the smaller fighting Gym he just remembered existed.
So soon after breakfast, he headed east once again.
It took another eight ish hours to get there. He battled a Drowzee on the way and Kadabra was strong enough to beat it.
Lavender town had an air about it. No, there was no music in real life so it wasn't anything to do with the town's theme.
He'd gotten here in the late afternoon so he had time to poke around if he wanted. He asked about the Ghost pokemon in the tower and got a few responses.
Ghost pokemon were, normally, not literally dead Pokemon. A pokemon from Kanto wouldn't change into a Ghastly at the moment of death of anything like that. No Ghost pokemon were just pokemon attuned to the element of spookiness… basically. Some got that attunement by, yes, being reanimated spirits of the departed. It wasn't common though. Thankfully.
That said, the fact that there was an element of "Spookiness" kind of spoke for itself. Was it just the elemental power of goth? Or was that the dark type?
…Back on topic. Towers acted as beacons for ghost types who'd harvest the spooky energy that gathered in those sorts of places. Humans generally couldn't feel it but in this sort of town it was easy enough to feel it's "weight" at least.
That meant, Joshua would… probably… be fine.
Right… about that.
So, he had supper as night fell before venturing into the tower. Vulpix walked by his side, creating balls of fire they could use to see around them while Joshua flicked a torch around, paranoid of the shadows.
They were here for a ghost type. Any ghost type, as long as they were willing to join his team.
But the first thing someone outside the tower would hear would be his screams.
Joshua was ambushed by a Haunter who immediately gave Vulpix a mean look. We wouldn't be running from this fight.
Fear gripped Joshua but Vulpix shot one of the flames at Haunter as he prepared to fight.
Vulpix was normally a Timid pokemon. He was being incredibly brave in this, was it just to try and calm Joshua down?
More blasts of fire shot out as Vulpix unleashed its bravery. An attempted firespin missed though and the Haunter struck back with a Shadow punch which got it hit with another of the small balls of fire.
Vulpix attempted to create another firespin. This one landed well.
The Haunter's shadow stretched out, Joshua had no idea what even hit Vulpix as it wasn't the shadow. Some kind of energy attack that he couldn't see?
The firespin ended in a burst of flame just as the last bolt of ember was shot from Vulpix's tails.
The tower was plunged into darkness, other than a beam of light. Joshua had dropped the torch earlier.
However, Joshua didn't grab it. He had heard the pained sounds from Vulpix so instead he went for his bag and pulled out a Potion.
"Vulpix, here!"
Even if it attracted the Haunter to him, he would protect his pokemon! The potion restored Vulpix's strength and Joshua turned and dived for the torch before pointing it back at where the Haunter was. The Haunter looked… like it was considering something.
It hadn't attacked in the dark but now that it was lit up and Vulpix had created another trio of fireballs, it went in for a shadow punch again.
In return it got blasted with an Ember. The Haunter looked weak now and Joshua pulled a Pokeball out of his bag and threw it at the Haunter.
The ball grabbed the ghost type and shook.
Shake…
Then the ball exploded into red light as Haunter burst out, charging after Vulpix.
Joshua moved too, a second ball in hand that he'd prepared in case the first one failed. He held it out as a shield and it grabbed the charging Haunter for one more try.
Shake.
Shake.
Shake.
Ding.
"Woo!" Joshua called out, elated.
There was no time to celebrate though. He'd best get out of here before more ghosts showed up.
It was in the morning he now realised he was going to be challenging a Psychic Gym with a Pokemon that was part Poison.
…All his pokemon would need training then. Vulpix had learned Payback after the fight last night but all your other Pokemon needed bringing up to the Haunter's level.
Because yes, Haunter was now the strongest pokemon in the team.
Five days… Kadabra learned Psybeam after a battle with a wild Pikachu but it still wasn't enough so Joshua began to hike back to Saffron after that. He'd find tougher encounters there that his pokemon would be able to grow stronger against.
Because he was worried. More worried than before in some respects. Sabrina was likely going to take all of his effort.
Back in Saffron, Vulpix learned Will-O-Wisp. It was really just him doing his trick with fox fire but with more supernatural spooky energy. Oddish evolved into Gloom (Not that Gloom was likely to be used in the Gym battle, just because Joshua was training everyone).
Was this enough…? He'd have to trust it.
It was time for the fighting Dojo first.
Apparently they were ready for people getting tricky and bringing Psychic types because the Pokemon they used as part of their challenge was a Heracross.
Kadabra was thrown out against it and luckily it was faster.
"Let's go, Psybeam!"
That was enough to defeat the bug-fighting type before it had any chance to fight back.
Right… Now it was time for Sabrina.
Joshua headed to the front door of the gym after resting at the Pokemon center for a bit.
…Now was the time.
He stepped into the Gym. It was decorated with many small lights that seemed to drag attention towards themselves. There were also partition curtains made of light fabric that stood throughout the hall.
They were certainly going for that mystical theme.
Joshua slowly walked forwards until he came to the Arena and…
Okay. Sabrina was blond. It wasn't just a doll, the woman sitting on a throne-like chair looked down at Joshua and her hair was blond. Why?
No, that isn't even slightly an important question.
"I'm challenging the Saffron gym." Joshua announced. At that, the woman stood and Joshua heard a reply in his mind.
"Very well then. Prove your worth."
A judge, who looked to be a psychic trainer too, came in from the side and prepared the match.
Three on three. That was the battle that Sabrina requested when it came to third badges apparently.
They squared off and each threw out their Pokemon.
"Kadabra let's go!"
"Kadabra, I need you."
A mirror match. Her Kadabra was much faster though.
"Confusion." The attack dealt a critical blow to Joshua's Kadabra but it was able to fight through it with minimal damage and strike back.
You pointed and called "Teleport in and use Ice Punch!"
The punch missed though and Sabrina didn't even need to order the next confusion. Her Kadabra knew what to do.
Again though, Joshua's Kadabra took next to nothing as it swung in with another Ice punch.
Sabrina wasn't impressed yet but she gave a new order.
"Knock-off."
That was a dark-type move! It dealt Joshua's Kadabra a heavy blow that he could only make up for with another Ice punch-
"Teleport, then Confusion."
Sabrina's Kadabra teleported away and struck with a sudden blast of psychokinesis, luckily Joshua's Kadabra was still able to tank it before dealing a final ice punch.
Sabrina's Kadabra fell and without a word she threw out her next pokemon.
"Hypno, Meditate."
As Hypno focused, Joshua ordered Kadabra to ice punch again.
It did okay damage except then Sabrina played her trap.
"Disable it, then headbutt!"
Kadabra's Ice type physical move, the way he was still able to deal decent damage in this fight, had just been sealed.
Luckily the headbutt missed but what was the actual option now…?
"Kadabra, Struggle!"
Struggle was considered a unique move. All pokemon were capable of just charging into each other of course.
It was risky and inaccurate though, Kadabra missed with it and got hit by a headbutt because of it.
Or it would have, if you hadn't ordered a quick teleport into another struggle. That one hit for… meh damage.
Kadabra was then knocked out by another strike from Hypno.
Okay… next Pokemon. That should be…
"Vulpix, let's go!"
Vulpix spun out into the air and generated some fox fires as Hypno closed in for a headbutt.
It was a massive hit but Vulpix got to shoot back with foxfire before her proper payback.
That took Hypno out and Sabrina was down to her last Pokemon.
"…Xatu, I choose you."
Hmm. Joshua had really thought that the Natu family was Gen 3. Clearly not.
"Ominous wind."
That took out Vulpix but Joshua's friend made sure to deal a final blow with one of the foxfires.
Okay, last Pokemon time.
"Haunter, I'm leaving this to you!"
Joshua had trained a bit with the ghost type. It seems it respected the work he did to save Vulpix during their battle. That gave him a foundation to work off at least.
"Night shade!" Sabrina called vocally now.
As Xatu raised its wings, Joshua gave Haunter the same command "Night shade!"
Haunter got there first.
It didn't defeat Xatu but Haunter was close now.
But if there's one thing Joshua never expected, it was for Sabrina to have a pokemon that didn't know offensive psychic type moves.
"Peck?"
"Shadow Punch."
Once again, Haunter got there first.
And that was it. Sabrina had been defeated. She blinked in shock.
"Oh."
She let out a light chuckle and shook her head "I think I was going a bit too easy on you."
A bit too easy? That came down to the wire! Any harder and Joshua would have lost has that battle gone any other way!
Whatever.
Gym badge, TM29 Psychic. Good, got it, done.
He left the Gym and headed straight to the Pokemon Center to recover from the battle along with his Pokemon.
But really, why was Sabrina blond?
And here we go. It feels like it skips around a lot but that's because I still want milestones to be around 2k words and I know that battles take a while. There just isn't time to fit more than two battles in and I have to fit the wandering around between them. Hopefully this is less of a problem in future Jumps as battles won't be as in-depth there.
Feel free to comment for any reason.
We begin this chapter of the adventure a few kilometres north of Saffron City where Joshua was having lunch with his Pokemon.
He had put out bowls of Pokefood for each of them, though he broke off a bit of his own sandwich and offered it to Kadabra.
Gloom was happy to just plant himself into the ground to gather sunlight though and Haunter apparently didn't need to eat so Vulpix was the only one going at the food.
As Kadabra ate the bit of the sandwich, he seemed happy.
Joshua reflected then. Would he have to leave his new friends alone when he left?
For a moment, the fear gripped his heart. He'd only known them for what? A month and a bit? Almost two months now? But they were still important to him. His travelling companions.
Would they be willing to leave their world for him though? It isn't like their world is being destroyed. They shouldn't be forced to come with him.
Of course, then he'd be on his own again. If he could get a legendary to help him, he'd still need to gather more help so the Legendary would need to wait here while he looked for more allies. So he'd start another world alone.
Besides, what worlds other than Pokemon would they even fit in? Imagine if he brought them to a modern world with no obvious supernatural elements. The Pokemon would stand out like crazy there.
Maybe it would be better if they stayed here…
Joshua felt a pressure on his leg and looked down to see Vulpix was pushing his face against Joshua's leg. He looked down at the little fox who yipped at him.
Was that meant to cheer him up? But there was no way that they'd know the context of his worries. They just didn't want to see him sad.
Ah well. He could work more on that in the future.
Why was he even thinking about this? Because this was the route that the daycare was on in the games maybe? He could see that.
He got to Cerulean city in the evening. On the way there, Vulpix had learned Feint Attack in a battle against a wild Abra.
Once again, he had no hope in being able to take on his fourth Gym leader without any training so nugget bridge came first. Well, it came first tomorrow.
For today though, he rested in the Pokemon Center.
Fighting along the nugget bridge took up the morning. Each trainer wanted a quick fight of their own. Kadabra learned reflect while it was going on but the problem was Gloom.
Gloom needed more experience. He was Joshua's only counter to Water types. That was a problem though as Misty's water types could also know Psychic attacks that would counter Gloom's poison type.
Joshua foresaw a day of training against water pokemon in the Cerulean river. Gloom wasn't getting strong enough from these battles. He was so far the weakest member of the team.
Regardless, there was a rocket grunt at the other side of the bridge and Kadabra sent him on his way and learned Psycho Cut in the process.
But then…
"Hey, don't I know you?"
He saw someone coming from the direction of Bill's house. Someone that he did indeed know.
"Oh, hello Green."
"You're Joshua, right?" She asked with a nod "How have you been doing?"
"Oh you know, this and that. The gym challenge."
She raised an eyebrow at that "Well, it seems you now know where you're going."
He shrugged "Your directions were helpful, but on the subject of our meeting, there's something I've got to bring up."
"I'm listening."
"The same day we met, A Pokemon was stolen from Professor Oak's lab. I don't suppose you know anything about that?"
"Nope."
She said it so simply that it was hard to not just believe her. It sounded just like frank honesty. And yet…
Well, he hadn't actually accused her of anything yet. Any accusation might result in a battle and his Pokemon were tired.
"Want to go back to the Pokemon Center to rest up? We can continue this chat there."
She nodded and the two of them headed back. Their injured Pokemon were given over to the nurse on duty for healing while the rest of them were able to hang around as the two of them spoke.
"Did it seriously take you two months to get through Mount Moon?"
She shook her head "Of course not, this is actually my third time in Cerulean. I've also been to Vermilion City and I tried to get through Rock Tunnel but I ran out of equipment and came back to get some more."
As she spoke, Joshua glanced around at her Pokemon. There was no Bulbasaur, or its evolutions, but she could just have not sent it out.
She had a Clefairy, a Jigglypuff and a Snubbull. Pokemon often seen as cute.
"You thinking of being a coordinator?" Joshua asked, pondering her Pokemon.
She shook her head "No, I just found some Pokemon that I like. That's enough for me. I'm doing the gym challenge too."
You compared badges, you both had the Boulder badge but then it diverged. As expected she had the Cascade and Thunder badges. You were both on three badges though.
How could Joshua get her to confirm Bulbasaur's presence? He was fairly sure that she was the thief. It would fit her role in the Manga.
"Which of them was your starter?"
"The Jigglypuff." She commented lazily "Her name is Jiggly "
Of course it was.
Okay, time to be blatant. He couldn't find a way to just talk it out of her and Joshua's pokemon were now recovered. He retrieved them from the nurse and returned to Green who was sitting on a bench.
"Well, I'm not one for subtlety, so let me be honest here. I thought it was you that stole Bulbasaur?"
She looked lightly offended at that, which made sense.
"Why?" Was her only response "I helped you back then, why suspect me?"
"I just judged you to not be very honest. My apologies."
She gave a long sigh but just shrugged.
"I am a little bit dishonest but I'm not a thief."
"Would you swear to it?" Joshua prompted.
She nodded "I swear by all I hold dear, I didn't steal the professor's Bulbasaur."
Now, she could still be lying about that. Joshua tried very hard to get a read on her true feelings.
Was she telling the truth? Joshua couldn't feel any dishonesty.
"I'll believe you then." Mentally he added a "For now." to the end of that statement but it seemed to cheer Green up a bit.
They went their separate ways and Joshua did some favours for people around the City for some money to use for some items. He did that sort of thing in each city that he passed. And he sprinkled more "side quests" in during training days too.
Regardless, the training days began.
A Magikarp came the first day and a Totodile came the second day. Seriously, what was with Gen 2 starters just showing up in Kanto?
Another Magikarp and then a Wartortle were days three and four.
And then came Day 5 where Joshua found a Dratini.
Now, Joshua was of the opinion that Dragonite was the least interesting looking of the Psudo-legendaries. That didn't mean he'd turn his nose up at the raw power offered though.
Dragonair was amazing though. They might not be as strong but…
Was this really what he was thinking about? He should be caring about power that could help him retake his home, he wasn't doing this just to have a fun Pokemon Journey. He'd fully evolve this Dratini and use its power to rescue his home!
"Hey." He called at the serpentine pokemon. The Dratini looked over.
"I want to challenge you and capture you. Do you accept?"
This was a young noble Pokemon and deserved a proper challenge. With a nod it accepted.
"Let's go Vulpix!" Joshua threw out his Pokemon and quickly called "Fox Fire!"
The balls of flame flared up around its tails. At the same time, The Dratini accelerated, that was probably agility then.
"Vulpix, Will-O-Wisp!"
The ball of ghostly fire struck the Dratini but the Pokemon shed its skin, discarding the burning spot and flew towards Vulpix with a Slam.
Oh, that was a heavy blow, one of the Fox fires shot forward though in response but it missed, shooting past Dratini and igniting a patch of ground nearby.
"Vulpix, Payback!"
A good hit but Dratini wasn't done, it gained range and accelerated again.
What was its goal here? To outspeed Vulpix entirely? No time to worry about that.
"Will-O-Wisp again!" But the Dratini nimbly moved out of the way and struck back with another quick Slam.
Vulpix was now quite weak but he had another Payback in him and he launched it at the same moment the Fox fire shot forward.
For a third time, the Dratini accelerated. That should be the maximum though if it's two stages each time. It then instantly slammed into Vulpix without Joshua having any chance to call for a move.
Vulpix managed to throw itself out of the way though and the last Fox fire launched.
Well then, Vulpix was injured, no time to waste.
"I'm switching out!" Joshua called, holding up Vulpix's ball as the red light shot out. Then he threw out a different ball.
"Kadabra, Let's do this!"
Dratini was still quick though, it shot a Thunder wave at Kadabra.
"Kadabra, Synchronise! Psycho Cut!"
Dratini had already used up its ability to shed in this battle. It was slowed down at a crucial moment.
It tried to Slam but it couldn't move and Joshua readied the ball. It was a Great ball.
The ball hit its mark and pulled the dragon into it. It then began to shake.
*Shake*
It should work. Dratini is weakened and paralysed.
*Shake*
Here would be the most powerful Pokemon on his team.
*Shake*
A strength that would let him save his world.
*Ding*
Joshua picked up the ball and smiled.
Now it was just the matter of the Gym. Well, no. 5 more days of training first.
After that, he felt ready for the Gym. Reading the sign outside the Gym felt a little strange. It seemed Misty wasn't currently the Gym Leader. She was apparently off training. So her sisters had taken over. The current style was apparently a triple battle with the leaders each using one pokemon each and the challenger being allowed to use three.
There was only one problem, Joshua wouldn't be able to pay attention and give orders to three pokemon at the same time. He needed to train them how to react in different situations.
Well, to start with, which Pokemon would be coming? Dratini, Kadabra and Gloom? Sure, that felt good.
After three more dedicated days of training for the three of them, he went into the Gym.
The actual arena was based on floating bridge segments above a pool. Swimming Pokemon would be able to have amazing mobility while land-bound Pokemon would have to jump from segment to segment.
Joshua threw out his Pokemon at the Judge's direction as he looked at the three the sisters were using. The Staryu was expected but the Marill and Lanturn weren't.
Anyway, it was time to begin.
Staryu began by spinning up into the air. It could fly, apparently.
Okay, what was the most important threat right now? How could he lose? Staryu using a psychic move on Gloom?
"Kadabra, move into Psycho cut that Staryu!"
Kadabra ran along the floating platforms to the right in order to reach Staryu but it would take a little longer to get close. Joshua's other Pokemon began moving in too, Dratini beginning to accelerate.
The Lanturn tried to Paralyse Dratini but Dratini shrugged it off with a shed skin.
When Staryu came for Gloom, Joshua was worried until he heard its trainer call "Swift, get the Dratini too!"
Stars began raining down on Gloom and Driniti who was in the water next to Gloom's platform.
Kadabra was able to hop along the Platforms before launching a Psycho cut at the Staryu that hit and knocked it back slightly.
"Dratini, Slam!" Joshua called to the underwater Pokemon. Lanturn would be a problem if allowed to stick around. Without a lot of momentum though, the slam didn't do that much damage.
The Lanturn then shot another thunder wave, Paralysing Dratini properly this time.
Gloom took the time to Mega Drain the Staryu but it missed.
"Bubblebeam the Kadabra Staryu!"
The Bubblebeam missed though and Kadabra hit back with a Psybeam that dealt the spinning pokemon Major damage.
"Now Lanturn, Confuse Ray on the Dratini!"
They were using Parafusion strats? What?
Well it hit but Dratini was able to fight through it. She charged through the water to slam into the fleeing Lanturn.
Gloom then actually pulled off the Mega Drain and recovered to full health as the Staryu fainted. That was one of three then.
Marill hadn't been doing nothing all this time. It had jumped into the water and was now battering Dratini from the other side with Aqua Tail luckily that wasn't very effective.
"Kadabra, go to the other side of the platforms and attack Lanturn!"
At your command, your Pokemon hopped from its platform to the right of the center to Gloom's platform in the center. It moved past Gloom so it could get a good look of the Anglerfish-like Pokemon. He raised his arm and unleashed a Psycho cut.
With each hit, they were chipping away at the fish's enormous health pool.
The fish retreated some more as its trainer called "Stockpile!"
Please don't let it Swallow.
Dratini's confusion was getting to it, it bound itself up and was clearly struggling.
Gloom's next target for Mega Drains was Marill as Lanturn had retreated quite far away. That was certainly very effective But Marill wasn't done.
"Aqua Ring Marill!"
Oh for goodness' sake.
"Kadabra, after that Lanturn! Gloom, keep draining!"
Kadabra jumped over to a platform on the enemy side of the field as it chased after Lanturn.
A confuse ray shot out of the water targeting Kadabra and it hit its mark.
Dratini broke through its confusion though and continued the chase for Kadabra. It's fast slam missed though.
As more of Marill's health was drained, it leaped up onto the Platform to Aqua Tail Gloom. While it was a Critical hit, it wasn't that strong against the grass type.
Kadabra hit himself in confusion as he stumbled around the platform he was on while Lanturn retreated again, continuing to stockpile.
Dratini just barely fought through the confusion and continued to charge after Lanturn. They were now fighting on Joshua's side of the arena.
Gloom used Mega drain again and Marill barely held on as its aqua ring healed it. It tried to launch a Bubblebeam only for it to miss.
Kadabra was able to fight the confusion and he ran back the way he came to throw a Psycho cut at Lanturn.
With two stockpiles, the attacks weren't doing as much damage as they could to the fish who flanked Dratini and crashed into it using Spark.
Dratini was able to block it though before using a Dragon Rage that Lanturn blocked.
Gloom finished off the Marill before turning his attention to the problem of Lanturn too.
Kadabra hit himself again and Lanturn stockpiled to three as it fled once more. If it did know Swallow, it would be able to fully heal itself if given time to recover. Dratini wasn't fast enough to catch up to it as it was just so fast but Gloom was able to hop platforms to reach it with a sleep powder… but it missed.
Luckily, Kadabra finally broke free from the confusion and threw out a Psybeam as it hopped platforms. It only barely hit as Lanturn moved to block it.
But Lanturn hung on barely.
"Swallow!"
With a burst of life force, Lanturn returned to full strength.
"Everyone, strike as one!" Joshua called.
Dragon Rage, Mega Drain and Psybeam roared forth as the Lanturn spun and tried to hit Dratini with Spark.
The damage there was minor and all of your Pokemon struck again. In the end, there was nothing that Lanturn could do.
"The Gym Leaders' Pokemon are Unable to battle!" The judge called "Challenger Joshua has won!"
With a sigh, Joshua retrieved his Pokemon.
Good, that battle was growing tedious.
That earned him the Cascade badge and TM55, Scald.
On top of that there was another wonderful thing. Dratini evolved as the battle ended.
Dragonair was beautiful. Joshua was happy.
But again, he pondered if she should try to evolve further. Maybe… Maybe he should just leave it to Dragonair herself to decide?
Anyway, the next destination was Vermilion City, it was the only city in central Kanto he didn't have the badge for yet.
Before that though, he should see how hard it would be to get a bicycle.
This is the longest chapter so far and marks the middle of the story.
So, do you think Green is the thief and just lying or is she actually telling the truth? Find out…well… around Milestone 9 is the plan for that bit to be fully explained.
Then there is Joshua's internal worries about leaving his pokemon behind in Kanto when the time to leave comes. Pokemon really don't fit in with many settings.
And Misty being missing? That's strange.
I wonder if any of you have put together what's happening? Everything links together.
Feel free to comment if you wish.
Yeah, no way in hell was he affording a bicycle there. Why were they even that expensive?
Assuming Pokedollars were analogous to Yen, and that Yen to Pounds was calculated by dividing by 100, a bicycle that was 1,000,000 Pokedollars was ten thousand Pounds.
What.
He was fairly sure there were cars that were cheaper than that! This was a bicycle!
He calmed down and made the plans for his journey south.
A quick estimate based on the map he found in the pokemon center suggested the journey would be two days long to get to Vermilion City. He could stop in Saffron for the night… The alternative would be taking the bike tunnel without a bicycle of his own.
It's what you do in the games but…
Camping in an underground tunnel sounded like a nightmare to be honest. No, a stopover in Saffron would be fine.
He did favours for the people of Cerulean City to build up supplies for the journey and then set off the next morning.
On the way south, he encountered and fought a Bulbasaur. Honestly, Joshua had started this journey thinking starters were rare. Apparently not. Vulpix learned Hex from the battle though so all was good.
When he got to Saffron though, he was stopped at the gate. There was a different guard there than the one he'd seen before going north.
"No one comes in." He said "The town is under martial law."
Joshua blinked, quietly suspecting what had happened but asking anyway.
"What happened?"
"A group of dangerous criminals is rampaging in the city streets, for your own safety, take the bicycle tunnel if you need to go south."
Well… Joshua already had his badge from Sabrina. The "heroes" of the story should be able to deal with this.
But… It still meant sleeping in the bike tunnel. Shit.
Well, no time like the present. He headed back to the entrance to the tunnel and went in. It actually seemed that a lot of trainers were doing the same thing as he noticed some others down there too.
As trainers are want to do, he got into quite a few battles before his watch said night had fallen.
The temperature in the tunnel was sweltering, even after the sun must have gone down on the surface. There were vents to try and get rid of the heat but it wasn't helping that much.
Looking at it now, it was an even greater pity that he couldn't have visited Saffron, he could have added a day or two to his journey to pick up evolutionary items for his pokemon. Vulpix had been a Vulpix for too long and Gloom was probably ready to evolve too.
The chances of finding either stone on the road was unlikely though.
The next morning he got up and Joshua continued south through the tunnel.
On the way he fought a couple more trainers and realised something strange. How were the tunnels under Saffron arranged?
There were two tunnels but they didn't cross underground. Were they built at different heights? Why would they be? He didn't really have an answer though.
Around lunch time, he finally broke back onto the surface. The sun was shining and it was overall a very nice day to walk the last stretch.
Night was falling as he reached his destination. Looking around though, there was a clear air of unease in the city. He could ask what it was about in the morning though.
In the morning he began looking around. Let's see here, there's the Gym, the Pokemon fan club, the SS Anne…
Wait…
He needed to ask at the port to confirm it.
He found one of the manages looking worried and asked him, he confirmed it for Joshua.
"No, the SS Anne was meant to depart a few weeks ago."
Yet it was still in port.
"What's wrong with it?" Joshua asked.
The man shook his head "We're not sure. It's sailed out to sea multiple times but we always find it in port the next morning. It's as if the entire ship is teleporting."
Bizarre indeed. Joshua couldn't really think of a way to help though so he left to train up.
Surge would be his fifth badge. That meant he was about to hit the first generation's difficulty spike. Sabrina hadn't been that hard but she'd just been his third badge. The same position that lieutenant surge was meant to take.
Joshua went to the gym, sliding past a tree that was, for some reason, growing on the path in. On the statue next to the gym he found the rules.
"Enter four pokemon. Normal rules."
Okay, which four pokemon would he use? Dragonair and Gloom would provide resistances against electric. Then… Kadabra and Vulpix? That felt right at least.
Training them all up would take a long time.
He was prepared for two weeks of training though. Hopefully that would be enough time to train his Pokemon well.
In all those two weeks though, he still never saw the SS Anne actually stay gone. It tried to leave port a few times but as he was told, it would be in port the next morning.
There was something holding it here, at least that was how he saw the situation. Joshua could almost see it like a bungee cord pulled taught. He'd stayed up one night to watch it happen. Not that it told him much. One second there was nothing there and then the next moment it appeared.
It wasn't actually teleportation though. He'd had Kadabra long enough to know that. It was… how best to describe it? Teleportation made you "Shrink and move". It was like whatever was being teleported was squeezed through a tube just big enough for it. The ship just snapped into being though. There was no moment when it "exited the tube."
That, and the Pokemon center's communication systems were apparently down. It was like the entire city was holding its breath, waiting for whatever had cursed it to reveal itself.
Even after the two weeks of training, Joshua still wasn't sure his Pokemon were up to the challenge.
…But there wasn't much point in training more now. His Pokemon had just received two weeks of training. He could keep it going but July was almost over and he wanted to try and be on the road again by August.
So all he could do was give it his all.
He entered the Gym and offered the challenge. Surge gave a grin as he accepted and was told that this would be Joshua's fifth Gym.
A judge emerged and declared the start of the battle.
As the gym leader sent out an Electrode, Joshua threw out Gloom.
The electrode, speed demon that it was, struck first.
"Rollout!"
This brought back memories.
The first hit didn't do a lot of damage but Electrode was coming around for another strike.
"Sweet scent!"
With a pokemon as fast as Electrode, if Joshua didn't decrease its evasion somehow, it would just dodge everything.
Gloom had never forgotten sweet scent. Good thing too otherwise Joshua would struggle to keep his own food down while they were all eating together.
Regardless, the next rollout was coming in. It landed well and Gloom was pushed back slightly.
"Acid!"
After the acid sprayed all over the quickly rolling ball, the third rollout strike turned and flew towards Gloom.
It hit and now Gloom wasn't looking too good. Time to break the new move out then.
"Giga drain!"
Green roots flooded towards the spinning ball and sapped its energy away. That had pushed gloom into the lead but the fourth rollout was coming in and that might quickly change the situation.
Gloom barely hung on and Joshua called out the only move that might be able to save it.
"Sleep powder!"
Of course though, that missed and the last rollout finished Gloom.
Grunting, Joshua returned his plant and Surge laughed.
"Did you really not come in here with any better options?"
He wanted better options did he?
"Let's go, Kadabra!"
"Ah, a Pokemon not resistant to electricity." Surge laughed, "Great choice."
His mocking tone was worth taking down a peg.
"Electro ball!"
But Kadabra nimbly got out of the way of that attack and Joshua began his counter attack.
"Psybeam!"
That brought Electrode low but didn't finish it off. Surge called for another Electro ball but it also missed because of Kadabra's quick movements.
"Again!" he called, ordering the last Psybeam needed to take out Electrode.
The ball fainted and Joshua smiled. Victory without tiring Kadabra meant that the game was evened up again.
But it was more than that as he watched Kadabra evolve in front of him. Apparently it had no need of trading. Joshua now had an Alakazam, one of the first generation's best pokemon.
Surge, annoyed, sent out Electabuzz. It ran up and tried to discharge but Alakazam shifted out of the way before Joshua called out "Psycho cut!"
The move hit in a critical moment and it made the Electabuzz stagger before it charged back with a thunder punch only for Alakazam to teleport out of the way and hit with another psycho cut.
The fist-fighting electric type tried to discharge again and this time it hit. The attack didn't hit as hard as it could have but Alakazam was paralyzed from the voltage. It was only barely able to move to use Ice Punch.
Electabuzz was still standing though and threw a thunder punch back before Alakazam struck it with another psycho cut. That was enough to take out the second Pokemon. As Surge sent out his next, Joshua tried to have Alakazam recover. It worked but it didn't solve the problem of the paralysis.
Lieutenant Surge chose a Jolteon as his next Pokemon. He seemed annoyed at this point and Joshua couldn't really blame him. He was losing.
Alakazam wasn't doing too well but if he could do significant damage to Jolteon, it was possible he could allow the rest of this battle to be fairly simple. Fairly.
Jolteon ran in before Joshua could react and discharged. Alakazam fought through his paralysis though but missed with his psycho cut. That gave Jolteon a chance to bit in with thunder fangs before Joshua's pokemon was able to hit back with an Ice Punch.
That said, Jolteon then finished Alakazam with another discharge. That made this match two to two.
Vulpix came out and created its fox fires in the moment before Jolteon Paralysed it to slow it down. That got Jolteon a fireball to the face but it didn't do that much damage.
Jolteon got in close and tried to discharge again. Vulpix took it, sent an ember that did exactly zilch and then released a flame burst that dealt major damage to the Jolteon.
Thunder fangs again clashed with flame bursts before a final discharge finished off Vulpix too.
Joshua was now down to the end. Everything came down to this.
"Dragonair, finish this!"
The serpentine dragon emerged from the ball and flew around.
Jolteon was faster and tried a thunder wave, only for Dragonair to shed it off instantly.
"Dragon tail!"
That knocked Jolteon away but not out. It dashed in and tried a discharge but it failed to paralyse and did little damage.
Dragonair missed its next dragon tail though and Jolteon got another chance, as it lashed out with its thunder fangs only to miss too and be knocked out with another dragon tail.
Now it was only one on one. Surge sent out his ace: A Raichu. One that quickly paralysed Dragonair with thunder wave.
A dragon tail quickly smacked it but then Surge called out.
"Thunder!"
It was a heavy hit as a bolt of lightning fell from the roof of the gym. Dragonair was still in this though and it used dragon tail again. It missed.
"Thunder!"
The second bolt fell and Dragonair was barely unable to get out of the way.
It was able to keep going but now both Pokemon left in the fight were weak, Dragonair had managed to land a dragon tail and Raichu was out of energy for Thunders.
From now on, it would only matter how many attacks each was able to get in.
"Discharge!"
"Dragon Tail!"
Both made contact.
There was a pause as both pokemon looked shaky and then…
Raichu collapsed.
"Lieutenant Surge's Pokemon are Unable to battle!" The judge called "Challenger Joshua has won!"
"Yes!"
This had been the closest battle so far and Joshua was feeling the elation from the victory.
Surge tutted but gave over the Badge and technical machine.
"This is TM25, Thunder. Use it well."
Vermilion City was done. He'd gathered every badge in central Kanto. After this, he'd be heading south via Route 12.
The SS Anne was still in the dock though. What was going on there?
As he made his way to the Pokemon Center, he felt a strange warmth. It had been long enough since last felt it that he didn't recognise it at first. But at the Pokemon Center he was given a lunch box by one of the nurses on duty. A lunch box that he knew by instinct would fill with a meal for him at lunch time every day from now on.
…Good. That will save money on Joshua's own food. Not his pokemon's though. They could eat off the land though in most places.
That battle was really close!
On the side though, this is one more clue for what's going on. The SS Anne can't leave port.
On a side, side note. Joshua only has 5 Pokemon. This is due to the fact that training them takes time. Haunter has barely been trained at all since Saffron City. Getting a sixth Pokemon would require even more time in training.
Feel free to comment if you wish.
Joshua was looking at a town map and trying to figure out how long it would take to get to Fuchsia City.
If he followed the road, it was possible it might take a full five days. Of course, there was another option. If he went to route seven and headed south west from there, he'd probably be able to make it to Fuchsia in just two days. He'd gone off route before. It wasn't that strange.
However, just charging to Fuchsia wouldn't help train his Pokemon. Taking the long way might help.
With a sigh then, he made his way onto the main route.
The Pokemon on this route weren't actually that strong. Certainly not more than the ones he'd been encountering up to this point.
On the first night, he slept on the beach of Route 12. Looking up at the stars, he pondered them. They were brighter than he'd ever seen them before back on Earth. That was the price of living in a city, he supposed.
He couldn't see the constellation he knew (Orion, the belt was easy to find) but he was still thinking about the other ones. He knew from playing Gen 5 pokemon that the horoscopes were apparently based on the same constellations as the real world. If that was true, then were the other stars the same too.
"Okay… let's see."
Using his compass he looked north and smiled when he saw what he had expected to see, Polaris. The north star.
Hold on, wasn't Polaris part of another constellation? He searched the heavens, looking up further. Yes? It looked a bit like a saucepan but he could see it. What was that one again? Was it the big dipper? No, that didn't sound right.
Ah, there to the east. Hanging above the sea were a triangle of bright stars. Weren't there…? Yes. He'd heard the names of the stars before, but to be honest he had no idea which was which. Deneb, Vega and… Altair? Right? Or was he just thinking of the main character of the Assassins Creed games?
Anyway, he slept soundly with the stars overhead.
The next day he made his way to route 13. The day after that was Route 14. Then 15, then Fuchsia City itself.
The training wasn't particularly exciting on the way over but now even more would be needed.
Koga was a man skilled enough to become a member of the elite four. Even if Sabrina was harder in the games, Koga is not one to underestimate. This might well be Joshua's toughest challenge. Well, other than the next two gym leaders of course.
He checked the rules. Four pokemon, single battles. And there was a note that the gym had traps in it that the challenger's pokemon could fall into.
Well, that was certainly going to be annoying.
So, who was going in? Alakazam had just learned psychic so he was in, Dragonair could fly and could shed off poison so she was in.
…Gloom was the next best trained but even if he was immune to poison, it still dealt him normal damage.
Due to the fact that the wild pokemon around here weren't that strong, it effectively left Joshua with only one option:
He'd have to actually challenge gym trainers.
Now, gym trainers were a special case. They were basically assistants to the leader. You couldn't earn a badge from them but they helped the leader train various teams at the same time.
In other words: It's time to fight poison-type trainers for a few days.
Joshua stocked up on healing items and antidotes and headed to the gym.
The day's training went well, indeed. Joshua would train for five days before feeling ready for the gym.
During the training, Haunter evolved into Gengar, leaving Joshua with another powerful Pokemon.
Additionally, Vulpix and Dragonair had learned how to banish rain. Vulpix by calling out sunlight, Dragonair by simply refusing to allow the rain to gather around by using strong winds.
Joshua was very proud of them.
They fought powerful pokemon during the training. A Venasaur, A Crobat, a Nidoking.
But now it was time to challenge Koga himself.
Before actually starting though, Joshua wandered the town and ended up bumping into a group of trainers on the beach. They had apparently travelled here from overseas. Among them was a psychic trainer who explained why they had come.
They had been exploring the Sevii islands and they had spotted a pokemon that looked like Mew heading towards Kanto. Because of that, they were beginning to search here.
While the possibility of finding Mew was interesting, Joshua had his own plan for how to encounter a legendary.
He said farewell to the trainers and set off for the gym.
The Pokemon that Joshua was going to enter were Alakazam, Dragonair, Vulpix and Gengar. Gloom was too much of a support, he didn't actually have that many offensive options as proved in previous fights.
Alakazam and Dragonair needed to be saved for his aces, so Vulpix would be going in first.
He offered the challenge and turned suddenly, finding Koga behind him. The ninja gym leader accepted the challenge but said it would be in a special room. One full of traps if that sign at the door had been telling the truth.
Vulpix was thrown out against a Venonat. Good! That gave an advantage.
"Foxfire!"
Vulpix generated his spheres while the Venonat used supersonic. When Venonat missed, a fireball was sent after it.
It dealt a strong blow and Vulpix was about to follow it up with another powerful attack.
"Flamethrower!"
There was a simple fact at play: Where Vulpix was currently standing couldn't be a trap. Nothing had been set off. It was in a way a "Safe space" that allowed for a measure of "fairness" to the traps.
If Vulpix didn't move, there was no risk in springing a trap.
The Venonat, weakened as it was, launched sleep powder towards Vulpix only for Vulpix to dodge again, staying in the safe zone as a last fireball was sent at the bug type.
There, the first pokemon was beaten without Vulpix taking any damage. Koga considered for a moment then sent out a Nidoqueen.
Vulpix was still faster but this one was likely to be much harder. Best just try to chip through Nidoqueen.
"Will-O-Wisp."
Vulpix shot out the ball of ghostly flame. Koga reacted even as his Pokemon was burned.
"Stay back, Toxic Spikes."
Joshua paled as poisonous spikes fell all around the "safe area." Vulpix froze. There was nowhere he could move that wouldn't make him touch one of the spikes. It also wasn't a direct attack so it didn't trigger foxfire. Clever.
They surrounded Vulpix entirely. He couldn't even jump to safety.
Best to try to stay back for now then.
"Hex."
The ethereal force missed and Koga called out for Nidoqueen to get back a little further, out of the range of all of Vulpix's attacks.
Okay… now. How to deal with this.
Vulpix only had one foxfire ball left. There were three options at this point. Keep Vulpix in and wait patiently. If a pokemon came in close, they would necessarily need to break some of the spikes as they were preparing to attack. That could give Vulpix a way out. On the other hand Gengar could be used to clear the spikes and go on the attack, doing that against a Ground type pokemon felt like a mistake but…
Joshua had a good feeling about it.
On the other hand, Dragonair could come in. She could just fly over the spikes and traps.
…Sure.
"Vulpix, come back! Let's go Dragonair!"
As Dragonair emerged into the air, another set of toxic spikes were set under the safe area.
Dragonair's aqua tail missed when she shot in for an attack. Nidoqueen lashed back with fury swipes. Many strikes connected before Dragonair struck back with a dragon tail.
The poisonous points on Nidoqueen speared Dragonair but the latter quickly shed the poison away as Nidoqueen bit at it.
Dragonair lashed back with an aqua tail as Joshua held his breath. With everything else, the Aqua tail was able to knock Nidoqueen out.
That said, Dragonair was hurt.
Koga threw in a Crobat next who used Mean look quickly. Dragonair wouldn't be able to escape to rest. Dragonair replied with a thunder wave to slow it down.
That didn't stop it from moving unfortunately so Crobat bit with Toxic fangs. Dragonair was getting weak but she lashed out with a dragon tail.
The attack had knocked Crobat away and forced it to recover, Dragonair didn't miss her chance so she quickly slammed it again. That one missed and Crobat bit her again, knocking her out.
That left two pokemon left against Koga's two.
With the toxic spikes still on the floor, there was only one option.
"Let's go, Gengar!"
The shadow hit the floor and instantly crushed the toxic spikes in that part of the safe zone, making it safe again.
"Shadow Ball!"
The ball dealt major damage, a critical hit! Crobat staggered slightly before freezing. The paralysis was taking hold.
"Shadow Punch!"
Crobat was able to move again after the shadow punch landed and it dived for Gengar.
"Air cutter" Koga called out.
It dealt minor damage and Gengar tossed another shadow ball but it missed, flying into the roof behind Crobat as the latter used Air cutter again.
"Payback!" Gengar tried to follow Joshua's orders but missed again, Crobat was paralysed though which gave Gengar a chance to fall to the floor and throw a shadow ball. That was enough to finish off Crobat.
Now was Koga's last Pokemon, a Weezing.
Gengar was quick though. Joshua had a sure-fire way to win from here.
"Curse!"
A curse was laid on the Weezing.
Koga tisked as he looked through the problem before calling out "Sludge Bomb."
Oh, did he not have effective moves against a poison type?
The curse was eating at it as Gengar continued to work. A shadow ball took it to its side.
A sludge didn't do much better to Gengar as hit back with a Payback. And then-
"Well done." Koga stopped the match "There is no path I can take to victory, and even an Explosion here wouldn't help. You still have two more pokemon in reserve."
Oh, so he remembered Vulpix. Joshua had honestly hoped he would forget his fox but… well.
Koga announced in place of the judge.
"My Pokemon are Unable to battle! You, Joshua have won!"
He handed over the badge and the technical machine for Sludge Bomb.
That was it then.
Brock, Misty, Surge, Erika, Sabrina and Koga. 6 Gym leaders down. Not in that order obviously but that just left Blaine and… Giovanni, in theory. Assuming he hadn't quit by the time that Joshua reached him.
Huh. Alakazam never even needed to join in. That battle went amazing. It was all thanks to the gym trainers that he had battled to help his pokemon improve.
With that battle all said and done, Joshua left the gym.
Now… How to get to Cinnabar Island? Fuchsia city had a dock of its own but it seemed that there weren't any ships sailing to Cinnabar. People were still worried about how the SS Anne had yet to be able to leave port so fewer and fewer ships were coming to Kanto due to the fear that they might be trapped too.
As he read the departure board, Joshua felt an itch on his neck. He turned and saw someone in a strange white mask watching him from the entrance of the docks.
Well, that was suspicious.
When the figure realised they'd been seen, they turned and ran. Had they been following Joshua? Why?
Well, there was a lack of ships here and something suspicious is going on. Joshua gave chase.
Because of his delayed start though, he lost track of the figure in central Fuchsia city. They had been running north though, the Safari zone maybe?
Well, even if they hadn't been going there, the Safari zone was meant to have rare Pokemon. Maybe in this version of reality they might have a Lapras or something like that? A pokemon capable of crossing the sea.
Well then, it was worth investigating.
A little shorter this time but still 2k words.
Those trainers before the gym battle were a Cameo appearance of some players who were going to be in a PTU game. That one never started properly but the idea was they were searching Kanto for mew. I would have shown the other party I used to run but that storyline doesn't happen for about 4 years in the timeline.
This is a little bit of a spoiler but Koga was actually the last gym battle. Joshua will get other badges but not through battle. (Edit: Sorry, no. I was wrong when I first said this, I thought a later chapter would go differently)
We've left the repetitive arc of "Go to a place and challenge a gym leader" and we're entering the classic Pokemon game arc of "Go deal with the unusual events that have been going on all game."
Feel free to comment if you wish. A possible theme for this chapter is the source of the problem. I've seeded enough clues to make it fairly obvious.
When he got to the entrance to the Safari zone, he saw that there was no one manning the desk to enter. At least, no one that Joshua could see from the door.
The trainers he'd seen before on the beach were here now, one of them was looking worridly over the counter.
"Hey." Joshua called as he walked over "What's happening?"
One of the trainers pointed over the desk and he saw that there was someone there. The person who was meant to be maintaining the safari zone.
He was out cold and there looked to be something strange going on around his torso. Colours were flickering across his clothes, changing randomly.
"We don't know what's wrong." One of the trainers said "We were coming here since we caught sight of Mew but when we got here, he was like this."
Joshua looked up "Did you see a man in white?"
One of them nodded "He barreled through a few minutes ago, running out into the park, we tried to stop him but…"
Yeah, this was serious.
"Thanks, I'll find them."
Without waiting for a response from the trainers, Joshua ran out into the safari zone. How could he possibly find who he was looking for though?
In Joshua's hands, his Sparkblade appeared. He hadn't thought about it in months. Now though…
He felt something very bad was going to happen very soon.
He ran. He needed to find the man in white before it was too late. His Pokemon helped him move around as he searched. Alakazam lifted him over bodies of water and to higher areas, Gengar was in his shadow and watching out for dangers, Vulpix ended up finding a leaf stone.
That last thing was a great discovery. It allowed Gloom to evolve into Vileplume. Joshua suspected he'd need all the help he could get with what was coming up.
Dragonair, scouting from above, called out. She saw them. A group of white-sillouetes were bothering a herd of Rhyhorn and Rhydon. They were throwing balls to catch Rhydon.
Was this poaching? Regardless, he had to stop them.
"Hey, stop!"
The poachers, if that was what they were, turned. They had masks on but Joshua could still hear their chuckling.
"He comes." One said.
"He who opened the way." Another continued.
Opened the way? Did they mean…? No. That was for later.
Joshua raised one of his Pokeballs and commanded "Leave those Pokemon alone!"
""Stop us, if you can."" They all spoke together, a voice of legion.
Damn it.
"Alakazam, Gengar!"
As Joshua threw out Alakazam and Gengar emerged from his shadow, the poachers threw out their own Pokemon.
A Poliwag, a Raichu, a Ditto, a Mr. Mime and a Nidoking.
There was something wrong with each of them though. The Poliwag didn't have a spiral at all, the Raichu was the wrong colours (Not a shiny pallet, just as if his colours were all swapped, orange in place of yellow, yellow in place of black), The Ditto constantly looked like it was trying to morph but it was taking on crazy shapes. The Mr. Mime… Oh god. Its head was on backwards. It's back was to Joshua but it was still staring with warped eyes. And then there was the Nidoking. The same static-like effect that had been on the person at the Safari zone gate was on it.
What was wrong with them? Was this becoming a Pokemon Creepypasta? Was he about to see hyper-realistic blood?
"Shadow ball the Mr. Mime!" Gengar got his orders first as Joshua looked at the battlefield. He needed to thin their numbers quickly.
It hit, but then something strange happened. The Mr. Mimes colours changed to being dark purple. Was that…? Was that Kecleon's colour change ability?
Regardless, Alakasam quickly used Psychic and took it out.
At once, all the white-cloaked grunts chanted "Metronome."
Their pokemon all raised a finger each and wagged it back and forth.
Raichu dashed in with a volt tackle against Alakasam. Poliwag used Captivate to lower both of Joshua's pokemon's special attack. Luckily Nidoking's use of Spectral thief backfired as he then stole those lowered stats from Gengar. It was still a super effective hit but Gengar held on. Luckily Ditto failed when it tried to used Refresh so it was time for Joshua's pokemon to strike again.
Raichu was the main target this time as it had taken damage from the recoil.
…Hmm. While Payback might hit hard, it would leave the Raichu immune to Psychic attacks. Well, Alakazam still knew ice punch for a reason.
Raichu barely hung on after the two attacks, first turning black and then ice blue.
Another round of Metronomes were on their way.
Raichu began with a flying press that thankfully missed. What was with this Raichu and getting attacks that the Pikachu line could access in one way or another anyway?
Poliwag got quiver dance while Nidoking got Fire lash and Ditto got echoed voice. None of them were that effective but it did make Poliwag a high priority target. Gengar hit it with a confuse ray that it resisted immediately as it body slammed and paralysed Alakazam. Of course, Alakazam then just paralysed it right back with synchronise.
Alakazam took this chance to recover as the other pokemon came in.
Raichu used double team, Nidoking used Focus energy and Ditto… Ditto seemed to melt further into madness. Then it used metronome again and ignited itself before exploding into fire behind Alakazam before reforming itself.
Gengar started off his next turn by throwing a critical hitting shadow ball at Poliwag that made it kind of spectral.
Raichu then missed with a Spark and Alakazam took it and all of it's clones out with a psycho cut.
Nidoking then missed with a Horn attack and Poliwag shot a critical bubble beam at Alakazam. A Major hit but Alakazam wasn't quite out yet. Ditto then used Sparkling aria on Gengar.
The next of these strange Pokemon that needed to faint was the Poliwag. It was currently ghost-type so Gengar took it out with a Payback.
The Nidoking had to be next so Alakazam used Psychic on it.only for the move to miss as Nidoking got out of the way.
The strange corruption on Nidoking's body spread as it used metronome again, as did Ditto as it melted further. That could not be healthy for it.
Nidoking got recycle while Ditto got Secret Power. The latter hit Alakazam hard but not hard enough. Joshua imagined the low health sound effect from the game as he watched his weakened starter continue to fight. He had another use of recover in him though so all that happened that turn was that Gengar threw a shadow ball at Nidoking.
The enemy pokemon's Metronomes resulted in Slack Off for Nidoking and double team for Ditto. Even if Nidoking was to heal though, Gengar was just going to drop him again with a shadow punch. Not quite as strong as the shadow ball but it would do.
Alakazam joined in though, letting loose a psychic on Nidoking. With a critical hit, the monster went down leaving only Ditto. Ditto… Ditto looked barely alive as it continued to attack.
It hit Alakazam with Overheat. It didn't even do that much damage though.
It was normal type so Gengar couldn't hit it with ghost moves so Payback was used. That forced Alakazam to use Ice Punch.
Ditto then tried and missed, to hit with a Bug bite. Joshua's pokemon both worked together to take it out right there though. He knew somehow that if he'd allowed Ditto to act again, it's… "Rotting" would have killed it. Not just made it faint, it would have died.
But he now noticed, as each pokemon had been defeated, the grunts had fled. They had captured some Rhydon already and now were running off.
Damn it, it had been a distraction. Joshua chased after them quickly.
He was in time to see Mew get captured.
Mew had been fluttering around above the cultists' heads when one of them, a man without a hood or a mask, raised some sort of claw. It was like the sort of claw one would find on an arcade crane game. With a press of a trigger it extended rapidly, grabbing Mew.
Joshua heard the ancient Pokemon scream as he ran up.
The man who had caught Mew handed it off to an underling and then turned to face Joshua.
His face- He didn't have a face!
And yet, Joshua could still hear him talk.
"Ah, he who opened the way. Welcome."
"What do you mean?" Joshua yelled "Let Mew go!"
"I'm afraid not." The man's face was unreadable but there was mirth in his voice "They're required you see. But if you want to try and fight, I'd be happy to oblige."
Gengar and Alakazam were weak, best to use someone else.
"Vileplume, let's go!"
"Bulbasaur."
The Bulbasaur charged in, it had the same effect as the pokemon from before. It was "Wrong."
No, perhaps the word would be "Glitched."
"Explosion." The faceless man ordered.
The sudden eruption of the Bulbasaur blew Vileplume back. Joshua's Pokemon was still standing though. If barely.
The man snorted and sent out another Bulbasaur.
Shit.
"Switch out, Vileplume return! Go Gengar!"
"Explosion."
Gengar, being a ghost type, was unharmed by the exploding plant. He made it out just in time.
"Ah, a ghost type." The faceless man commented "Well, then I guess I'll have to use the prototype then."
Joshua grew tense. What was he going to try now. Before he threw out the ball, Joshua yelled to him.
"What's your name?"
The man chuckled "I am-"
Then a horrible noise, a noise that contained no information at all, was heard. It was a horrible screech.
As Joshua winced, the man continued.
"-but you may call me Zeezeeayezeezee."
ZZAZZ. That was a glitchy name if ever Joshua had heard one.
"And this is my Pokemon;" He continued "You might know him."
What emerged out of the Pokeball was a corpse. A pile of bones. Familiar bones. Bones that assembled themselves into the form of a skeletonised Kabutops.
…Oh.
Gengar was faster though, right now Joshua had to just trust in his Pokemon.
"Gengar, curse and return!"
She didn't have the strength to avoid fainting after the curse but Joshua wasn't worried. The curse laid on that… thing. That curse would help them win this.
Plus, it robbed it of a target as Gengar returned.
Dragonair came out, Joshua was placing his trust in her.
"Dragon tail!"
There, just what Joshua was hoping for. When the… not a Kabutops was attacked, it also changed into a dragon type.
"Sky attack."
The Kabutops shifted, it's skeletal structure growing wings as it flew to the sky. The wings weren't normal though, they were glitchy messes of space that left afterimages in time itself.
"Agility!"
Dragonair would need to be fast to dodge this. The sky attack soared in and Dragonair got out of the way before responding with another dragon tail. Due to the acquired weakness to Dragon, that was enough to cause the bone pile to collapse.
ZZAZZ looked… Well, Joshua couldn't read the expression. He noticed again that the grunts had run off during the battle. With Mew.
Welp.
ZZAZZ turned and then… began falling apart?
"Well, that was enough I think. I've done my duty."
And… he vanished. Turning to just lines of code that faded away.
His clothes were left behind though. Joshua picked them up and turned back to the entrance of the Safari zone. That's where the grunts had run to and… he should be able to find where they were based.
He held the knife in his hand, there was still danger around him. Nothing had been sorted. In fact, the danger appeared to only be growing as seconds passed.
This wasn't his world, but this was certainly not something that should be allowed to go on. If he was the hero, he'd step up to the plate.
And there's the first big reveal that everyone probably saw coming. Glitches.
ZZAZZ, for those who don't know, was one of the Gen 1 glitches. When triggered it replaced the pokemon in your team with Bulbasaurs that all know Explosion.
This is also the second chapter this week, I'm not strictly bored but I do want to get the Pokemon arc over with. So far this hasn't been a Jumpchain story as much as it has been a weird Pokemon story.
Next chapter, the full scale of this evil team's plans are revealed.
Feel free to comment if you wish. I will keep saying that until it doesn't need to be said anymore.
That isn't really surprising. Most of them need to be triggered very intentionally. I think the only glitches you'd see by accident are the 1/256 Glitch, the Critical Hit ratio glitch and the Badge Boost Glitch. All of the "Cool" and "Dangerously corrupting" glitches require that you know what you're doing.
It was easier than he had expected to find where they had been running off to.
He wore a mask, taken from one of the defeated grunts, along with the cloak from ZZAZZ. That said, ZZAZZ hadn't originally been wearing a mask himself. Hopefully the disguise worked though…
He couldn't bring his backpack with him with the disguise though so it had taken him a moment to figure out what to do with it. It had been his Sparkblade that had helped him with that actually.
He could use the knife to cut reality in just the right way to create a small pocket. He could close that tear and make another one elsewhere to retrieve whatever he left in there. It could only hold a really small amount of stuff though so he'd have to be careful with what he kept in there.
That said, that ability would have been helpful earlier. For example, it would have made it much easier to carry camping supplies during his hikes.
One of the cultists actually seemed to have been waiting in town. Upon seeing the disguised Joshua, he ran over.
"Sir, we're ready to depart, have you got it?"
It?
Joshua just gave a nod, speaking might give him away.
At that, the grunt ran off. Joshua followed behind him to the docks where… there was now a ship there that hadn't been there before. It was the SS Anne?
The paint job had been completely changed, now it was just a mess of whites and blacks with some occasional grey thrown in for flavour.
Other people at the dock were gawping at the ship. Had it only just come into port? Well there was no way to ask while he was in disguise. He just needed to get on board and ditch the disguise before anyone tried to talk to him.
He walked to the boarding ramp and the guards who appeared to be on duty watching out for people let him past. He headed into the ship and picked a random direction as he looked for stairs.
Ah, there. He headed down the steps at a calm pace before turning and heading into a storage room.
There was a grunt in there but he was sleeping. Perfect. No one would notice a random grunt.
There was even some spare rope here to tie the grunt up with, this really was his lucky day.
With a new disguise acquired, the question was what to do with the old one. After a moment he stashed it behind some boxes and left the room, a perfect disguise. Now he just needed to offer enough bluffs to get into secure areas.
He'd start here. He was already on a lower floor. If there was any cargo they were transporting, it would likely be down here.
Pacing softly down the corridor, he passed many other grunts. All of them were very quiet, at most they offered a simple "Hello." when they passed him. Occasionally he'd see a pair walking in a quiet conversation.
He found a door that was being guarded laxly by two guards and walked past it uncaringly at first to not arouse suspicion. How could he see what was inside…?
Hmm. What about this?
On his next circuit of that area of the hall, he entered the door to the left of the door being guarded. It was a resting room though and there were a few grunts in there. He left before many of them noticed him and tried the other side. Ah, that one was a computer room.
Damn it. From above maybe.
The ship had departed by now so he had to be careful, if he was caught, he was probably in a lot of danger.
He was checking a lot of rooms as he headed up a floor but didn't find anything interesting on his way to the corridor above the guarded room. This was out in the open though, he couldn't do what he was planning here without being seen.
Ah, there was a cloak room here to the side. He ducked in and pulled out his Sparkblade. This was a weapon that could cut reality and he'd tested it on other things during his months in the Pokemon world. It could cut anything.
Sliding it into the wooden floor offered no resistance. It was like cutting some kind of foam. Like sticking a knife into a chocolate custard dessert.
He ran the knife in a circle, cutting out a hole in the floor which he failed to catch in time before it fell and made a loud clattering noise on the metal catwalk below. Shit.
It seems the guarded room was some sort of massive storage room. Why would it be so heavily guarded? As he thought that, guards rushed into the room from the door and noticed the hole in the ceiling before yelling.
He'd better get out of here.
Instead of heading through the hole as he had planned, he calmly stepped out of the cloak room. He'd willed his Sparkblade to vanish and it had. It was really convenient that way.
He just blended in as another grunt as an alert sounded. They know they had an infiltrator now.
Time to get a little reckless then.
Joshua headed back downstairs to the guarded entrance. The guards were no longer at the door. They were inside the room as it turned out. They were shouting to the people that could be barely seen through the hole above and so distracted from whatever he'd do.
Let's see… What was here?
A few caged Rhydon, a caged Bulbasaur… wait, was that?
He looked over at it. He couldn't tell for sure, but was this the professor's Bulbasaur? The one stolen when he first arrived in the Pokemon world? It looked hungry and terrified.
What else was there? He couldn't see Mew anywhere but there was a large plate… that had been in Pewter city, hadn't it? Had they stolen it?
Let's see, what was the connection? The plate, the Bulbasaur, the Rhydon, Mew…
A plate of Alpha pokemon, Pokemon number 001 of the Pokedex, the first pokemon created in the games with the index number 001, the ancestor to all normal pokemon.
He walked back over to the plate and recalled what the plaque had said.
'Its title is a lie, its throne stolen.'
Glitches…
Oh. He turned and walked to the side of the room as he processed what he'd just figured out.
There he found something he hadn't expected to find: A crate of evolutionary stones. He quickly nabbed a fire stone and created a tiny opening to his dimensional pocket before dropping the stone in and closing the opening.
That would be useful… later.
He left quickly and searched for another abandoned room where Vulpix could evolve. He had plenty of time before this ship got to Cinnabar Island after all.
Because that's where it had to be going.
He thought about it as Vulpix evolved. The fact that Rhydon was included was the clue that gave it away. There should be nothing important about Rhydon in this real world of Pokemon; the fact that they found an importance in it would mean that it was a key to their plan.
In a real world of Pokemon, a world where every part of Pokemon is made real, what was a Glitch?
If we saw a glitch in reality, what would it be like? An anomaly. Something out of the SCP project. Something that Lovecraft might write about.
He had been right on the money earlier. These were cultists, and they were trying to bring their "god" into this world. A god that was the incarnation of Glitches, a being that warped the world into mad illogic.
A god that made the world digital because it was easier to glitch a computer.
Then we get to the two last keys. The words of the inscription echoed again.
'Its title is a lie, its throne stolen.'
He hadn't actually played Pokemon Legends Arceus, but he knew about the legend plate. Rather, he knew that all the plates told a story of Arceus and the creation of the world.
If the "Its" is meant to be Arceus…
Arceus wasn't in the first Pokemon Game. The glitches were.
This was a being that considered Arceus, the pokemon world's equivalent of the abrahamic God, its equal.
How the hell was he meant to fight against something like that? Maybe… he could stop the ritual?
But then the last note. His Sparkblade. It was important to all of this somehow. At least the cultists seemed to think so. The Bulbasaur was stolen, most likely, within an hour of him arriving in this world.
Well, if he'd caused this problem, it was his responsibility to fix it.
Come on then, let's see how many of these grunts he could beat!
He raided healing items from storage rooms as he began to fight his way through the grunts. It was funny in a way, he'd gone so long avoiding the various dungeons. Mount Moon, Diglett's Cave, Rock Tunnel, The rocket base, Silph Co. But now he was fighting his way through one of his own.
In the end he managed to take out a good number of them before coming to the Captain's cabin.
This was it.
He stepped inside.
There was another "Glitch" inside, like ZZAZZ. It had a humanoid form but its features were constantly switching. Not just all over though, the left and right halves of his body were changing independently.
And it was a "He." His features were always masculine. If there was any way for a Glitch to choose what it looked like, this one had that.
He had a face, even if it constantly kept changing. It was never in sync, when the mouth would move, there'd be something like a "tear" between the two halves of the mouth as they were slightly higher or lower on their respective halves of the face.
""Hello""
And oh good, it had the voice of legion, two separate voices talking at once.
"Who are you?" Joshua asked.
The figure smiled.
""Jack, but you can call me Jacred""
If that was a glitch, Joshua didn't recognise it. He had never really been interested in trying to glitch his came until it was irreparable. He'd always enjoined playing the games more than trying to break them.
"If I beat you, will you give up?" Joshua asked, already expecting the answer.
Jacred tilted his head, it just kept on tilting, it slid through his shoulder and continued turning. Finally it came up around again and returned to its original position.
""Do you think you can win?""
"Of course I can!" Joshua held up a Pokeball.
Jacred grinned though.
""I'll crush you.""
"Go, Vileplume!"
""Blastoise, come on out.""
What faced Vileplume was an abomination. Two of Kanto's starters mashed together into a freakish abomination. This wasn't like Pokemon Fusions, this was the result of a mad scientist playing god.
This wasn't the best matchup for Vileplume… Well, that depended on the pokemon's typing.
Joshua mentally just decided to call the monster "Chariblast."
The monster moved first at a call of ""Flame Burst?""
The blast missed though, thankfully. That meant Vileplume needed to act. It was a pity that poison powder wasn't accurate. But then, Joshua remembered that Vileplume had learned a new trick in that regard.
"Toxic!"
Which couldn't miss if the user was a poison type, which Vileplume was of course.
Chariblast then tried using another flame burst, releasing the fireball from its mouth. It crashed into Vileplume. Vileplume was still standing and it made the next move obvious.
Joshua crossed his fingers that Chariblast would be weak to grass moves as he called out "Giga drain!"
As the leaching vines made of energy struck at Chariblast, Joshua's face fell as he saw it wasn't very effective.
Either Water and Flying or Fire and Water should have been normal damage at worst, did this monster just have Charizards typing? Or was it three types?
""Use Flamethrower!""
Two orders with two different effects. The Chariblast stamped its foot down and the room filled with hot air. Chariblast's eyes were filled with a mad fury as its arm-cannons were raised and a flood of flames poured out.
Again, Vileplume barely held on
The power of a Blastoise's cannons used to increase the power of fire. Joshua could see some marks on the edge of the cannons that looked like marks from them being overheated. These cannons were never meant to be so hot.
Chariblast was in agony.
As Jacred prepared to call for another flame burst, Joshua recalled Vileplume. There was only one type built to handle this kind of fire and water. Dragon.
Dragonair dodged the flame burst as she came out. She didn't need to hold for long, just long enough for the toxic to knock out the mutant.
With that in mind, Joshua called out "Agility!"
Jacred called for a wing attack and the warped wings tried to beat towards Dragonair, but Joshua's pokemon was just too quick.
"Aqua tail!" here, this should be super effective regardless.
Chariblast's arm cannons were too damaged for another release of flame so instead the flamethrower that shot out next came from its jaws. Luckily it still wasn't very effective against Dragonair.
The toxic then took root. Chariblast collapsed to its knees.
Jacred frowned but called out ""Blastoise, front and center!""
With a sudden roar, Chariblast stood again, its body morphing. The wings folded into its body, removing its ability to fly. The shell grew, covering more of its body. Joshua could also feel something, its power was growing.
Steam began hissing out of the four cannons that now decorated its body. One on each arm then two coming from the shell as per a normal Blastoise.
""My pokemon has more left in him than you thought!""
Any signs of the Toxic were now gone. Dragonair needed to act swiftly.
"Thunder wave!"
""Hydro pump!""
Dragonair was able to push through the flood of water from the four cannons as before but she wasn't doing great.
"Dragon Rush!"
The damage wasn't great though, it was a glancing hit. Chariblast lowered all its cannons and there was a moment of silence as Jacred called out.
""Hyper Beam!""
The steam mixed with light from the air and gathered in front of the cannons.
Dragonair tried to get out of the way, but in a burst of power, she was caught in the beam as it even broke the wall behind her.
Joshua returned her, she'd taken the attack remarkably well but she was out of the fight.
Luckily, since Chariblast was exhausted after the attack, there was a chance.
"Vileplume!" Joshua called his pokemon back out "Toxic!"
Before Chariblast had fully recovered, Vileplume was called back out and Johua had picked his next Pokemon.
"Gengar, you're up!"
Due to the fact that Chariblast was still slowed from the earlier thunder wave, Gengar got the first hit in. Well, the Shadow Ball ended up bouncing off Chariblast's shell but it was the thought that counted.
Chariblast was unable to move due to the Paralysis though so Gengar got another hit in quickly. Well, it tried but the Confuse ray missed too.
Then Chariblast was able to move, it prepared itself for another Hydro pump, but the damage done earlier in the fight apparently hadn't been entirely fixed by the reset. The arm cannons knocked the back cannons off of their mark and the entire attack soared over Gengar's head.
Once again, Shadow ball missed. Gengar was really off of his game today. He took a mouth-released flamethrower for his failure.
However, Chariblast was looking weak now. The reapplied Toxic was taking its toll.
To avoid any more risk of missing, Joshua commanded Gengar to use a shadow punch. It wasn't quite enough to finish Chariblast off though. It was enough to make Jacred desperate though.
""Flame burst!""
But the burst missed as Gengar dodged it by converting itself into a shadow and back again. But before Gengar even got a chance at a second strike, Chariblast collapsed.
The battle was over.
Jacred cursed but after he returned Chariblast, Joshua saw he was fading away too, just like ZZAZZ.
""It seems that my master has no more need of me.""
"Your Master," Joshua needed to confirm. "Is it MissingNo?"
""That proves it.Your dagger was the key you know?""
Sorting out that mess of information took a moment but Joshua asked "What do you know of my blade?"
""It damages dimensions.When you entered our reality, you made a tear he could enter through.It was closed too quickly and was too small to allow him to come through fully at the time.That's why he needed us.""
So it was true, this was all his responsibility. He had to be the one to stop it.
"All I have to do is sink this ship and your plan is stopped." Joshua noted angrily, "Once I do that-"
""It won't stop him, all it will do is delay him.And when he does rise, none will be able to stop himIn addition, it would mean killing every person and Pokemon still on this ship.""
With that, Jacred faded away completely, leaving Joshua with an impossible choice.
Well, he could try and reduce the threat.
He went downstairs to begin freeing Pokemon.
And here's the penultimate chapter of the Pokemon arc along with (I believe but haven't checked as of writing the chapter) the longest one so far. I actually wrote everything up to the Chariblast fight two days ago, I just didn't have the time to go through the fight until now. Toxic stalling is really effective, isn't it?
And yes, Jacred's speech is meant to be really annoying to read.
Anyway, the Sparkblade. It hasn't really seen much use up till this point so I didn't want to go into it but yes, it can cut absolutely everything. That little dimensional fold that Joshua can store things in is relative to the world. It can only hold about as much as would fit into a cupboard and if he doesn't take something when leaving a world, it's left behind.
Feel free to comment if you wish.
As he set the Rhydon free, he wondered what was actually keeping the boat going. He had gone down to sabotage the engines but they weren't even running when he got there.
The power of glitches maybe? At this point, he could probably use that to describe just about anything though. It was like just looking at something you couldn't explain and calling it magic.
…Even if that was a strange thing to bring up in a world of magical creatures.
He freed mew who fled quickly, hopefully that should help in some way. It wouldn't help the other Pokemon get to safety though.
From the map back in the control room, they had basically been planning to ram the ship straight into Cinnabar's coast. That was still a few hours away though.
Joshua finished freeing the last of the Pokemon before hovering up all the healing items he could find in the ship. It was enough to get all his Pokemon ready to fight again. And this would quite certainly be a fight.
His information was so limited though, he didn't really know what would happen other than MissingNo would probably be summoned.
Let's see… Cinnabar island. What's there? The Pokemon mansion, the gym, the fossil revival lab-
Oh. The volcano mentioned in the Gen 2 games. He'd need to prepare just in case setting that off was part of the plan.
But how could he prepare for that? He had Pokemon on board the ship that would need to get off. It would require a massive evacuation of the island. Did they even have enough ships to pull something like that off?
This was the sort of thing that was likely to become a disaster and he couldn't think of a way of stopping it that wouldn't also kill the Pokemon on this ship.
Now, one possibility was simply… well. Being a "Hero" and killing the smaller number of innocents. Kill twenty-ish Pokemon and however many cultists were still on the ship to save an entire island full of humans and Pokemon. But Joshua didn't want to do that. It was like Jacred had said, he wasn't a murderer.
He didn't want to accept that he needed to kill innocents to save the island.
Of course, if he was wrong… If he was wrong then they'd all die and it would be his fault.
As the hours passed, the island came into view. It would be best to try and warn them before the ship arrived.
…He'd have to risk it.
He found some paper and wrote an explanation and a warning of everything that was going on (Mostly the believable things like "There is a ship that's going to ram into the island"). He gave the message to Dragonair (By which he meant that he tied it to her).
"Take this to that island."
He pointed to Cinnabar and then looked back.
"Go to the gym, show someone there the letter, then come back."
Dragonair obeyed, flying off ahead of the ship. He just had to wait back here and hope no one tried to steal the very rare Pokemon he'd just sent as a messenger.
He went back downstairs from the deck and began pacing.
This was all his fault. Jacred had talked about how his Sparkblade had caused all of this. Would the same happen when it was time to leave the Pokemon world? And would it happen to every world he went to?
If his travelling was putting more worlds in danger, did he have any right to travel at all. He was trying to save his world, yes, but if he endangered other worlds while he did it…
He didn't want to be like them. Like the people who'd invaded and said they owned the place. The people with no respect for the places they went.
Therefore, his first priority would be cleaning up the mess he had made here.
As he thought about it, time passed and Dragonair returned to the ship without the letter. Hopefully they were taking it seriously. Joshua hoped they would. He sent Dragonair back with Bulbasaur (The Rhydon were too heavy) and prepared for what was to come.
Dragonair returned only a short time later, the island had grown close enough that he could make out that there was no one on the beach. He couldn't see anyone on the streets visible from the sea either. Hopefully-
There was a massive crash and the ship shook, Joshua fell to the side as the entire ship tilted. They had probably hit a rock. They were still powering forward though. If stopping the engine wouldn't stop it then stones wouldn't either. It was ploughing right through the ground.
It felt like someone had pushed ice against his back. Joshua stood up with a start and saw something on the floor. No, through the floor.
It was like he had X-ray vision, he was seeing something on a lower floor that shone with an impossible light that could be seen through solid matter. Or in game terms, it was like an object that had been rendered at the wrong time so it could be seen through other objects.
Judging by the location and the shape of the light, it would be the plate.
Joshua made it over to the wall even as the ship slid to the side again. He fought his way along the wall to get out into the hall. The entire ship was now at a 45 degree angle but it was still going straight along and wasn't stopping.
Following the light, he headed out into the hallway to the stairs. He quickly descended and headed for the storage room. He had to try and stop this now before it got any worse.
If there was any day to stab an eldritch god of glitches in the face, it was today.
The light was somehow growing brighter even as it shifted colour. It had been "shining" in a grey tone before but now it looked closer to black. How was black shining. It was like it was throwing out shadows that darkened whatever they landed on.
As he entered the storage room he saw a tear. It ran from one side of the plate to the other, no it stretched slightly beyond the plate. It split the air itself. It was like one of the slashes made by his Sparkblade. It somehow looked more brutal though.
He felt the sensation of being pulled, no, not his whole body. Joshua realised it was pulling his arm, the arm still holding the blade. It wanted him to cut it free.
While Joshua had managed to get the Bulbasaur to safety but the Rhydon were being pulled towards the rip too. He searched desperately for a way to help them before calling.
"Get in these Pokeballs!"
He tossed them to the Pokemon who allowed themselves to be caught. In that same instant, Joshua threw out Alakazam.
"Use your psychic power to stop the balls from falling into the rip!"
Alakazam, his starter, The pokemon that he'd come all this way with, nodded.
As Joshua denied the eldritch god his sacrifices, he saw something thin emerging from the rift in reality.
A claw? A tentacle? Whatever it was, it pulled at the edges of the rift.
Through the rift he saw the colours of the spaces between worlds. He needed to get rid of this being now or it would just attack again when he left.
He looked at Alakazam.
"Would you be willing to follow me, even if it meant never going home again?"
Alakazam nodded.
Joshua sent out the rest of his Pokemon and asked again.
"If, to protect this world, we had to leave it and never return. Would you be willing to come with me, or do you want to stay behind?"
Their answers shocked him. All of them were willing to come with him. None of them would abandon him.
They would be willing to leave, to banish themselves, to protect their home. He knew that was their reason of course.
They wouldn't leave their homes for him alone. Right?
Regardless, he returned them all to their Pokeballs (Other than Alakazam who still had a job to do) and stepped forward.
"You want my blade MissingNo?"
The tentacle froze and "Looked" at him. Joshua held the blade up and stepped forward. Then in a quick motion he ran towards the rift. The tentacle flew towards him but Alakazam teleported beside him and then teleported the both of them to just in front of the plate. The Rhydon Pokeballs had been safely placed elsewhere.
That was good. Hopefully someone would come and get them after this. Joshua knew he surely wouldn't.
With Alakazam by his side, he jumped through the rift and in a swift motion with his knife, he sealed it behind him.
He had now left the "Pokemon World." Joshua had made a slight mistake though, this wasn't actually the space between worlds. It just looked similar. It was a window to those eldritch spaces. A bubble on the surface of existence that acted as MissingNo's home.
And the being that defied reason was right there, bent over and staring at the portal that Joshua had just forced closed.
It gave a roar that could only be described as static and it focused all of its attention solely on him.
Describing MissingNo was hard. It shifted from moment to moment, lines of code running across its body as pieces just vanished and reappeared. It was skeletal at least, that was easy enough to say. The bones that made it up changed quickly though.
Well then, if this was to be the final challenge you faced, you looked at what you had to deal with.
Two "claws", two "wings" and a Halo. Five targets before it would be time to finish it off. Well then. It was time to begin.
"Come on out everyone!" Joshua threw his Pokeballs wide again. In this glitched space, they'd be able to stand on the air "It's time for our final battle!"
Ninetales was first. He would be targeting one of MissingNo's wings, the one on the right to be specific.
With a flick of his tails, Ninetales generated the classic orbs of foxfire. In return, MissingNo struck back with a flap of the wing and a pulse of glitchy data assaulted Ninetales. Ninetales sprang out of the way though and threw back the first ball of foxfire. The ball made contact and ignited the wing (though it didn't seem to bother any of the other "body parts" at all)
Ninetales unleashed a Hex, while it only barely connected it dealt major damage.
Joshua took note of that, it's weak to ghost type moves.
MissingNo released another wave of glitchy… "Matter?" "Energy?"
This one made contact and caused Ninetales to "Fuzz" for a moment. Another of the foxfires shot back but it missed.
Ninetales stood and threw itself towards MissingNo with Payback. The monster wasn't going down that fast though and it shot another of the glitchy pulses out only for Ninetales to dodge again and send the last ball of foxfire out before creating another set quickly.
It was growing weaker, that much was true, but it was really slow. MissingNo released another wave, was that all it could do? But when Ninetales fuzzed this time, all of the balls of foxfire vanished.
Joshua realised it then, that was a move that stripped Pokemon of their moves. Maybe it was filling Ninetales' memories of learning it with static? With corrupted data?
Ninetales wasn't daunted though as he breathed out a flamethrower as the next wave came. That wave stripped Joshua's timid and yet brave Pokemon of flamethrower too.
He still knew payback though! But it missed.
Ninetales barely held on as that move was deleted too by another wave. Joshua called out to him.
"Fire Blast!"
And with that blast of fire, the wing faded away. Ninetales was weakened but there were other problems that needed dealing with.
Near where Ninetales fought, Gengar was taking on the right claw.
She first barely landed a Shadow Ball before the claw slashed towards her. The claw's path was traced in glitchy energy. Gengar quickly moved, ducking under the slash before throwing a shadow punch.
The Slash came again and this time Gengar wasn't able to move fast enough. The glitch made Gengar fuzz too. It put pressure on her. Each time from now on that she used a move, she'd be unable to use it again for a while.
She threw another Shadow ball to try and get an advantage and it just barely connected again. That meant she was down one ghost type move though.
MissingNo made a clicking sound as it used Metronome and it sent a heart at Gengar as it copied Heart Stamp. That was a big hit against Gengar.
Gengar threw a shadowy punch though, desperate to win quickly now that her moves were limited. Like before though it didn't do that much damage.
MissingNo launched a set of pin missiles at Gengar then, a weak attack that gave her a moment to recover. It did hit five times though.
Gengar then had a bright idea and used confuse ray. MissingNo fought through it this turn but used fell stinger to very little effect.
Chance looked to be on Joshua's side as Gengar… missed with a dark pulse. That had been the last offensive move that Gengar knew.
Luckily, MissingNo hit itself in confusion so Gengar got a turn to plan her next move. She just rammed into MissingNo with a struggle attack instead of wasting another move. The damage was minimal though.
MissingNo fought through its confusion again though and used sparkling aria. Gengar was now left quite weak.
There was an ally here now though. Ninetales rushed into the fight with a quick attack… which missed. Gengar continued working away at it with struggle.
MissingNo, randomly, didn't launch an attack to finish them off. Instead the claw just created a smokescreen around itself.
Ninetales launched a ball of will-o-wisp which burned the unseen claw and Gengar struck again with struggle, though she missed.
The claw of MissingNo covered itself in fire and swung at Gengar from within the smokescreen only to miss, blinded by its own cover.
Ninetales launched a last quick attack and Gengar struggled again to finally finish the claw off.
As normal, Joshua's pokemon got the first hit on the left claw. Well, not literally but Alakazam foresaw an attack.
The left claw unleashed its own glitch move. A wave of energy that felt like it tore apart your skin without actually doing any damage. It lowered Alakazam's speed but Alakazam threw a disable right back at MissingNo to remove its ability to do that anymore.
MissingNo began pulling out moves with Metronome though, first came Magma storm.
Alakazam struggled against the blasts of fire but shot a Psychic attack at MissingNo. The moment it landed, the future sight did too. The two attacks together dealing major damage.
MissingNo then unleashed Bug Buzz, Alakazam burned its teleport to get out of the way of the move though as it unleashed another psychic attack. It dealt major damage and the claw was looking on the edge of breaking. Alakazam took that chance to break out of the magma storm.
MissingNo then… grew a tail and slapped Alakazam with it? It dealt good damage but Alakazam replied with a psycho cut and finished off the claw before recovering.
For once, Joshua's pokemon wasn't the one to get a hit in first. Vileplume took a lashing from what looked like a glitchy… ethernet cable?
Much like Gengar before it, the move put Vileplume on edge, it would only get one shot at using its moves properly.
It tried to use sweet scent to increase the chances to hit… but the wing moved away and was unaffected.
When the wing didn't seem to be attacking though, Vileplume struck again, using an undodgeable Toxic.
The wing used swords dance and then a beam of light came out from nowhere and hit Vileplume. It was a Doom Desire that had been set up the last turn. Vileplume kept going though.
Vileplume then managed to land a sleep powder.
When the wing failed to wake up, Vileplume used moonlight to stall for time. Any attack could wake it up but for now the tox was taking its toll.
The pain from the toxic woke the wing up after that so Vileplume lost the chance to stall more. Vileplume took the chance to spray acid.
The wing "bit" at Vileplume which made it flinch but then another Pokemon showed up. Alakazam had arrived from the claw! It then missed its attack though.
The wing tried to take Alakazam with signal beam but it missed and the wing fell to the toxic.
Dragonair approached the final target: The Halo.
The Halo tried to defend itself, unleashing Psyshock. Dragonair replied with a quick thunder wave before rolling into a Dragon Rush.
The halo let out a flash of light that reduced Dragonair's accuracy and Dragonair's next rush was a glancing hit before the halo increased its special defence.
Dragonair lashed out with an Aqua tail only for the halo to quickly disable it. That forced Dragonair to go into a Dragon Tail.
Each hit was powerful but the halo was tanking them as it used Nasty plot to increase its own power. Dragonair had to finish this fast.
After her next Dragon tail though, the halo unleashed a blizzard. That was a powerful hit that sent Dragonair reeling. The next dragon tail was almost enough to finish it off.
And look, Alakazam and Vileplume were sprinting over, this would be easy-
The Halo unleashed its glitch move, kept unused until now to deal a massive blow.
There was a flash of blue. The shade of a crashing computer and-
Dragonair and Alakazam just dropped, their brains overloaded entirely. Joshua called them back as Vileplume went on the offensive with a Giga Drain. It missed though.
MissingNo's blue screen move used, it went back to rolling for random moves with Metronome, the result? Mystical Fire. Luckily it missed as Vileplume used Moonlight for a second time.
MissingNo then unleashed a Boomburst and that blasted Vileplume back to low health. Vileplume replied with a flow of acid… which missed.
The Halo created a barrier around it but while Vileplume was blocked, the new arrivals from the other side weren't. Ninetales and Gengar were here and Joshua was with them.
This was a battle for the sake of the world. MissingNo wasn't what he considered to be "A living, thinking being."
It might think, but it wasn't alive. It wasn't able to care.
Thus, he was mostly comfortable stabbing it as many times as was possible. Additionally, to help their limited move pools, he'd pulled his TMs out of storage. They had infinite uses too!
These were only being learned on a temporary basis, once the other moves had recovered, they'd take their place back.
The main move of note was teaching Gengar psychic, a move it unleashed once Ninetales burned the halo with will-o-wisp. That was enough to shatter the halo.
Now all that was left was MissingNo's face. A target that Joshua was happy to take down himself.
He jumped down towards it and slashed with his knife. It split the code-flesh as easily as just waving the knife through air. There was nothing, not stone, not metal, not spacetime and not the flesh of gods. There was nothing that this blade couldn't cut!
MissingNo gave a roar as the blade dug deeper and then-
It fell still.
Joshua breathed out as its code dissipated. That thing, that monster of code, was dead. The world was safe.That said, his team was exhausted, they had only just managed it.
It was so sudden. Joshua had been collapsing and then there was suddenly another presence in this space.
"Then this was all your fault outsider?"
Turning, Joshua saw the face of god.
The llama god. The Alpha pokemon. Arceus. It had a clear voice. That wasn't to say it was talking, the words were simply appearing within his head.
Arceus floated there, Unown swirling around him along with eighteen plates.
Joshua fell to his knees.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know what I was doing. I never would have come here if I knew-"
"Be silent renegade."
Joshua shut up immediately. He felt a pain in his head for a moment. Was Arceus going to destroy his brain?
"Hmm? It seems you truly didn't know."
One of the plates was glowing, the mind plate? Had he read Joshua's mind?
Joshua nodded and Arceus continued.
"I didn't see you enter my world, you seem to have some form of protection from mine eyes. Regardless, what you did was dangerous."
Joshua just nodded but he glanced up, saying "I did my best to try and make up for it?"
Arceus didn't deny it "So you did. Yet had something gone wrong, this dimension would have been consumed before I could have reacted. I only became aware of your presence when The Lost One perished just now."
Joshua remained silent and Arceus turned, looking out the "Window" to the space between.
"Renegade, in reading your mind I saw what transpired in your world. I feel sorry for you, truly I do. However, following this path will do more harm than good. With your reckless use of a Sparkblade, you endanger any world you visit. You would best give up your quest now."
"I'm sorry." Joshua whispered "But I can't. I want to save my home, I need to!"
"While the company's actions are deplorable, you should leave that fight to others. Should you agree to give up your blade, I will allow you to remain in the world you travelled to. It's distant from my core dimensions so I don't mind a being from outside the natural order messing it up a bit."
Arceus was pushing hard for him to give up the quest. It was understandable but-
"No." Joshua repeated "I'll be as careful as I need to be, I'll close every opening I create properly."
"...I will state this clearly. If you continue on your path and ever return to one of my worlds, I will kill you. I cannot allow a Renegade to act freely, even one with good intentions. In light of you keeping your word here though, I will let you go in peace from here."
"Thank you." Joshua nodded, standing up slowly "Then I have two requests I wish to make."
"I will consider them, but I make no oath."
"First-"
He sent out his tired and defeated Pokemon.
"-I doubt all of my Pokemon will want to leave with me. They only came with me so they could protect their world. May you take them to safety?"
The Llama god snorted "No, they followed you willingly. As their lord I know that much. All of them have accepted the idea of travelling with you. You are their home now."
That lifted Joshua's spirits, it was like a light in his chest that was warm and bright. He wouldn't have to leave them behind.
"Then my second request," He continued "Can you tell me of my enemy, this 'Corporation'?"
"They are slavers!" Arceus's anger was obvious in the way the words burned, "They steal the good, the just, the brave and they turn them into slaves. People and Pokemon alike. I have been fighting them for millenia."
Ah. Joshua understood that. They came to his world, his earth, to enslave people after all.
"They have 'Clients' who buy slaves stolen from other worlds. They have 'Contractors' which are the equivalent to you or another Jumper-"
Joshua didn't really know what a Jumper was but he wasn't about to interrupt.
"-and then the owners, the "Patrons", those beings on tier with myself who thought all of this was right and good. Those monsters who need no money and yet feed their endless greed and lust with money from a million worlds."
Beings on par with Arceus!? Well, Joshua could guess they'd exist in an unlimited multiverse.
"That is what you'd be challenging if you continued on in your quest. That and the damage you do to worlds every time you travel."
Joshua saw for the first time what a massive challenge he had chosen to endure.
And yet-
"I'm still going to have to try. If I stop here, it will haunt me for the rest of my days."
Arceus' eyes closed.
"Then begone from my sight, and never again visit a world I oversee."
Joshua turned, his pokemon returned and he reached out with his Sparkblade. He stepped to the very edge of the bubble and cut. As he stepped out into the endless space between worlds, he made sure to seal the path behind him.
He was once again falling through the void between worlds. Impossible colours surrounded him and shifted about randomly and the void acted to erode his existence.
But he was stronger now. While the colours still hurt his eyes, he peered into the void to find his destination. He could go anywhere, it was just a matter of navigating when he could barely see.
And so, he fell. And so, he flew.
Onto the next world.
My Llama god! That chapter was long. I've been writing for-
*Checks time*
Three or four hours! And that battle was really close to going the other way, when the Halo used Boomburst, another one of the choices it had was using Rest. Also, keep in mind I will only offer music during the final chapter of each world or after getting a music perk/item. Don't assume that's a regular thing.
And so Pokemon ends, the only choice is where to go next. Now, anyone can feel free to suggest a setting but you should know that even if that setting is chosen, there is only a 1 in 18 chance of getting to that setting. There is a 50% of getting to something like that setting (Such as ending up in Digimon Frontier if you aimed for Digimon seasons 1 and 2) and a 50% of going somewhere completely random.
So, feel free to suggest anything.
As this is the end of the world, I'm really encouraging people to chat about it. What was good, what was bad. What should I keep in mind going forward? And yes, what jump do you want to see next?
Just some thoughts for you guys to discuss in case you wanted to offer suggestions.
The next Jump should be to give Joshua some personal power.
Thus I'm thinking of these for the sets he'll aim at (Keeping in mind he only has a 50% to hit one if it's chosen)
High fantasy/RPG (Final fantasy, Fire emblem, the cosmere, something where people use swords and magic)
Superheroes (Worm, DC, Marvel, a world where costumed supers fight others)
Science Fantasy (Star wars, Metroid, Gundam, Space Opera, high tech with psudo-mystical elements)
Feel free to suggest your own.
Any genres that provide easy access to a Psudo-Warehouse would be good.
This was edited in a long time later, but I've had enough people comment about it that I feel it needs saying. During this world and in a later one I remove/reduce the main character's agency using in-jump means of mind control. I'm generally doing it to spark character growth in one way or another but if you don't want to read a story where the main character is under someone else's control, I advise skipping to the next world. As a further warning though, the events that occur in this (and the later) world are an important piece of Joshua's development. Plus he'll earn powers here that will come out of nowhere if you didn't read how he got them.
Through the void he fell and flew. Flying is really just falling with style after all.
He searched for spots of light, the worlds he could visit. They were like constellations. Collections of worlds were formed into small clusters. Each with some kind of theme.
…Not that Joshua could very easily tell what the theme was. There was a cluster over there that felt like "Space." Another over there that felt like "Heroes."
Neither was the one he picked though. He adjusted his movement, fighting against currents of… well. What appeared to be currents of light. A thousand points of light, smaller than his finger nail, flew past him and knocked him off course slightly. They had been bothering him during the long, yet short, journey. They could be compared to air or water currents for the medium that was this "Endless space."
Now came the tricky bit. The cluster he had chosen was one of "Magic." That was the sort of power he needed. He had no idea what was in each world though so he just had to hope he was lucky when he landed.
The currents were stronger near worlds and they blew against and wore away at him. It was like getting sandblasted in a way.
He picked a world at random in the cluster and dove towards it. As he approached, he saw that it wasn't just "one world."
What he'd seen as one spot of light was actually two, they were connected by a thin bridge of the same light that made them up. Two connected words in a magical cluster felt like a place he could find some kind of personal power. Hopefully it would be inhabitable enough for his Pokemon too.
Now, where to cut into it from? He'd need to cut in, quickly seal the way he'd taken in and then begin exploring from there.
That pathway between the two worlds might be good. It was probably designed for travel after all, right? Okay, one of the worlds was larger than the other, that one should be something like "the main world" right?
Oh, look at that? Near where he was planning to cut there was already an opening… If he wasn't cutting them, then it was fine right? Well, it felt safer at least. It meant he wouldn't be damaging the world itself.
He headed through the opening.
Collapsing onto the floor, he quickly spun and tried to take in as much as he could. There were people in this room.
People in fancy outfits, definitely a fantasy setting and-
"Blizzard!"
A chill overtook him as he heard the mad voice call out a spell.
Joshua's skin prickled and was covered in a thin sheet of ice. The ice chilled him to his core even as it shattered, allowing him to move again. His fingers were numb as he looked in the direction the voice had come from. At that moment though there was another call from his side.
"Blizzard!"
It was a feminine voice this time and the sudden cold made him woozy.
"Stop…" Joshua croaked out pulling his dagger out. He looked around at all the figures, they seemed to be pausing now that he'd spoken but-
*Thud*
Something hit him on the back of the head. Joshua couldn't remain conscious anymore and he let the pain take him.
He didn't know how much longer it was before he woke. Joshua was tied to a chair, his dagger was out of his hand… it was over there. Turning his head, he saw it on a desk nearby. He could summon it to his hands but… no. They were bound too tightly. Even if he could summon it to his hands, he'd not have the right angle to cut his ropes.
…He'd come to this world to get the power to avoid situations like this. This was just annoying really.
His Pokeballs had been taken too and were sitting on the desk beside the dagger. That was bad. He needed to get them safely within the tear before whoever the people who captured him were discovered them.
The rest of this room seemed to be an interrogation room, or a torture room, judging by all the sharp implements over there on the wall.
Something was familiar about them. The people who had captured him, he meant. He hadn't got a good enough look at them to know for sure though.
So, without a way to better his situation for now, he just waited. With no watch to tell the time in this windowless room, he just tried to think of an escape plan.
When he was moved, his hands would be freer. He could summon his blade then and fight back.
As he was starting to wonder if anyone even knew he was awake, he heard a door open behind him and craned his neck to see. While he couldn't see them, he did hear one.
"Silence!"
A wave of power washed over Joshua and even if he wasn't gagged, he now suspected he'd be unable to make a sound.
The people at the door then entered properly and came around the chair so he could make them out. First was an old man in red with long white hair, then came a scientist and lastly… a clown? By his chuckling, he had been the one to cast that silencing spell just now.
It was the scientist who talked first.
"Greetings, are you awake?"
Without the ability to answer vocally, all Joshua could do was raise an eyebrow in annoyance. When the scientist didn't react to that, he had to nod.
"Excellent." The scientist nodded "Now, do you mind telling me what you were doing outside the world?"
There was a pause as he first ungagged Joshua and then Joshua made a point of looking at his mouth.
In his head, he complained "I was silenced, do they honestly expect me to be able to answer their questions?"
The scientist looked to the man in red "My Emperor, can the silence not be lifted? For him to answer your questions he'll need his voice."
The emperor snorted "Don't be foolish. If silence was removed, he would now be able to cast at his leisure. No. Continue asking yes or no questions to him."
The scientist paused.
"Didn't the reader say he lacked any mana in his body though? He's not an Esper."
"He could just be disguising it somehow." The emperor pointed out "Continue asking questions."
The scientist turned back to Joshua and continued asking questions.
The great thing was, because of how specific the scientist needed to be to make one of the questions a yes or no question, it allowed Joshua to figure out where he was. This was Final fantasy 6. The clown over there was Kefka. The scientist wasn't Cid though, must be someone else.
…Shit. He'd been captured by the empire.
Joshua answered the questions honestly. Or as honestly as he could.
"Are you an Esper?" Shake of the head.
"A human?" A nod.
"Where are you from? Are you from here?" He hadn't known where "Here" was yet so he tilted his head in confusion.
"Vector?" Shake of the head.
"Doma? Figaro?" Two more shakes of the head, but combined with the clown and the mention of Espers, he'd figured it out by here.
"Do you come from this world at all?" He paused and then shook his head. That got a reaction from the watchers.
The Emperor, Emperor Gestahl, smiled "So, there are more lands out there. Interesting."
…Hmm. Note to self, don't admit to tyrants that there are more lands for them to conquer.
The scientist took over again, looking at the table. He picked up the Sparkblade.
"Recognise this?" A nod. "Can it cut anything?" Pause.
They'd already tested it then.
He nodded.
They then went to the Pokeballs and held one up.
"And these, they held strange monsters. Did you tame them?"
Shit. Shit. They found them. Please let them be safe.
He nodded, but the worry must have been clear in his eyes as Kefka laughed.
"They're all alive, for now. We could always use more tamed monsters after all."
…Damn it.
He needed to escape, and soon.
The emperor seemed to have heard enough by this point. He nodded to Kefka who picked up the Sparkblade from the table and walked around behind Joshua's chair, holding the blade to his throat.
"I'm going to dispel the silence now. If you try anything funny, your head will roll. Maybe we'll even feed it to your monsters. Understand?"
Very carefully, Joshua nodded.
"Esuna."
There was a moment as Joshua licked his lips and the emperor spoke again.
"What is your name?"
"Joshua."
He'd taken over from the scientist now.
"Where are you from Joshua, what's your home nation called?"
There was an air to him. The knife wasn't the only reason he was talking.
"England."
"And how did you get from England to here?"
"Luck. I wasn't following any specific path." He cringed. The answer was incomplete and he suspected the emperor knew that. Even so, Earth had already been invaded once.
The Emperor seemed to be out of questions for now, instead he nodded to Kefka who was still behind him. The knife lowered just a bit and it sounded like Kefka was being handed something. Was someone else still at the door?
"I'll have you serve me." The emperor announced "You'll help me conquer my world and then you'll guide us to the worlds after that."
Joshua shook his head slightly but the emperor smiled "I'm afraid you don't have a choice in this."
He froze as the realisation hit him. The feeling was worse than those ice spells from earlier.
"No." His voice was quiet but Kefka laughed as Joshua felt cold metal touching his head.
He panicked and flailed against the ropes, screaming out for them to stop.
But it was too late.
The Slave crown was in place.
Well, a bit disappointing that none of my readers had any thoughts on worlds they'd want to see. Either way, here are the rolls I made to decide.
Targeted Cluster: Final Fantasy.
(Contains 1 to 7 and 15. I don't know enough about the others to confidently write in their settings... I've never played 2 or 3 either though so I hoped I wouldn't roll them. They feel easier to understand though)
The roll to try and hit the Cluster:
Now for discussions on the chapter itself. The FF6 jump is kind of starved for Drawbacks so I had to take what I could get. By combining a couple of other drawbacks, from Universal drawbacks, the renegade supplement and from the FF6 jump. Combined they result in the following: Joshua will start the story enslaved to the empire, eventually have the chance to get out and then will have to deal with amnesia and dampened emotions like Terra.
And yes, this is literally his worst nightmare at this point in time. On the plus side, he'll be able to get magic?
Now, since Joshua can't really be a main character, what with his personality suppressed and the like, I, the narrator, will simply discuss what happened around him. I will accept my role as my title, call me nothing but narrator. My name may or may not be revealed in time.
As previously mentioned, a slave crown was placed upon his head. For those not in the know, the slave crown is a magitek device used to strip the will, memories and personality of the wearer while keeping their powers intact.
While the emperor was disappointed when he detected no magical power from their visitor from another dimension, he was happy to enslave them.
On top of that, he wanted to see what would happen should an outsider go through the process to create a Magitek Knight. The infusion of magic drove Kefka insane when he went through it as an adult but the scientists weren't afraid. After all, Joshua was bound by a slave crown.
Unfortunately, while the process worked, Joshua didn't display any magical powers at first. Not even when ordered could he use them. The emperor was annoyed but simply found a new job for him.
During the week that the operation and recovery had needed, one of the empire's agents had gone rogue.
(No points for guessing it was Terra.)
So Joshua was sent along with Kefka to try and recover her. They were dispatched via ship to Narshe, her last known location. Reaching it would require them going through the Figaro desert.
They landed in south Figaro and met up with more forces. There they also heard more information about Terra. She'd left Narshe and was likely heading south through the desert. She also apparently had someone else with her.
(Again, no points for guessing it was Locke.)
Kefka decided that, since they'd just die if they tried to make it all the way south, it was likely that they would stop at Figaro castle. So that was to be their next destination.
And they began to walk there.
They could have taken Chocobos, but no. They had to walk.
This narrator will take this moment to remind you that Kefka is insane.
The Figaro desert wasn't actually as hot as you'd expect, it was certainly very dry though. As they travelled, one of the soldiers that was coming with the group asked the important question.
"Sir? Why didn't we bring Chocobos? Or Magitek armour"
Kefka gave an over dramatic sigh and leaned back.
"Blasted birds, they don't ever do as I say. And I won't put it past that tricksy king to want to steal a suit of the armour for himself."
The soldier nodded slowly, backing away in case Kefka decided to want to kill him for asking the question in the first place.
Yes, Kefka was brutal to his own soldiers. Did you expect any different?
He did end up killing that soldier later for a different reason. It was a day later though, so hopefully it was unrelated to that discussion.
They arrived at the castle only a bit after that murder actually.
Kefka was grumbling about the emperor's orders and then his attention turned to the king they were going to talk to.
"Edgar you pinhead! Why do you have to live out in the middle of a stinking desert? These recon jobs are the pits!"
He then looked down and scowled.
"Ahem! there's sand on my boots! Joshy, to work!"
With the slave crown in place, Joshua was just a puppet. At Kefka's orders, he polished the boots.
Kefka grinned and let out a laugh.
"How pathetic!"
After making that comment, Joshua and the remaining soldiers needed to follow him up to the gates of Figaro Castle.
One of the castle guards tried to get in the way.
"Sir Kefka? What in the world brings you-"
"Out of my way." Kefka demanded and shoved the guard to the side before leading his soldiers and Joshua into the castle. There they were met by king Edgar.
He looked between the people there.
"I hear you've been busy down south, taking over a country or three. Just what is the empire up to?"
The soldier he talked to snorted "That's none of your concern."
Turning his attention to the other soldier, Edgar continued "You wouldn't be thinking of invading my kingdom next, would you? We have an alliance."
"An alliance? With this miserable little sandpit? Don't make me laugh!"
Before turning his attention to Kefka, he looked at Joshua "And who are you, some new knight in the empire's service?"
Joshua couldn't answer. Kefka laughed.
"Oh don't mind him. He's just here to help."
The king turned his attention to the jester at last.
"What brings Emperor Gestahl's own court mage to my humble castle?"
"A girl of no importance recently escaped from us. We heard she found refuge here."
Now that was just a stupid lie on Kefka's part. If Terra really wasn't important, then there would be no reason to send Kefka of all people after her.
King Edgar had likely seen straight through it too.
"This wouldn't have anything to do with that 'witch' everyone's been whispering about, would it?"
"Lies!" Kefka spat "She merely stole something of minor value. Is she here?"
Again, Kefka, lies don't work like that you gigantic manchild..
"That's a tough one…" King Edgar held his chin as he mimed thinking. He certainly did know where she was but he'd seen through those really awful lies too. Finally he smiled "There are more girls here than grains of sand in the desert. A man couldn't possibly keep track of them all."
Huh, hadn't pictured him as the playboy type. Of course it was a bluff but if he was intending it to be believable, there'd need to be some truth in it?
Or maybe he was just trying to make Kefka feel inadequate? It didn't seem to be having that effect though as Kefka shook his head in mock sadness.
"Oh Edgar, you know you only stand to lose by trying to hide her from us!" He chuckled as he finished talking and began to walk away before pausing and turning his head to say just a little bit more "I truly hope nothing happens to your precious Figaro!"
Oh I wish Joshua had enough freedom to cut the clown. Unfortunately that would need to wait for later. Kefka left, calling for "Joshy" to follow him.
Outside, they returned to where they'd left some supplies that they'd brought while travelling.
Explosives, fire bombs, accelerants. Everything needed to make a place burn up and fall to rubble.
Kefka put his hands together, a grin filled with gleeful malevolence on his face.
Turning to his troops, he gave his orders. He sent for Magitek armours to be brought. They would be kept away from the king's "grubby mitts" but only used in case something was to go wrong. For everything else there was the supply cart.
"We'll set his precious castle alight." Kefka chortaled "And he'll be forced to give us the girl, if he still tries to refuse then we squish him- No, I can keep him alive and force him to watch as his people are barbecued!"
…I like to think that Kefka was evil even before he underwent the procedure to make a Magitek knight. Being insane doesn't make you evil, not by default. And Kefka was evil, his hard was as black as they came.
The plan went off as night fell. Fire bombs were launched at the castle, spilling fuel that burned and spread. Kefka watched the fires spread and laughed, throwing a few spells of his own.
"Fire!" "Fire!" "Fira!"
Detonations of fire magic made the fire even fiercer as Kefka strolled towards the burning castle.
He smashed through the castle gate with a blast of magic and strolled up to where King Edgar was talking to a guard. He noticed Kefka and his expression was full of anger.
"What do you think you're doing!?"
"Bring me the girl. Now!" Kefka was tired of being playful. Now his malicious nature was on full display. The hatred of a madman who had been denied.
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Edgar managed to keep a handle on his emotions well enough.
"Oh?" Kefka smiled, "Then enjoy the barbeque!" His laughter could be heard throughout the castle.
Kefka's other soldiers seemed a little lost by all of this. They were laughing along with their master, calling "Fire!" But it seemed that they just didn't want to be the next target of his flames.
King Edgar turned, his rage building, and he began walking back to his throne room.
Kefka, and likely Joshua too, couldn't hear what he said to the guard who hurried off as Kefka approached.
"Had a change of heart?" Kefka smiled, assuming that the guard had been sent to bring Terra here.
"It seems I have no choice…" Edgar acted defeated but then moved. He ran over to the side of the castle and leaped atop the railing. He quickly whistled from there and leaped off the edge of the wall.
Off the edge, the lead Chocobo in a trio caught him as he fell. The king looked back up the wall to Kefka and Joshua with a smile.
"...Or perhaps I do have one!"
He quickly rode the Chocobo out of sight of where they were standing.
"Oh my!" Kefka called out in a mocking tone "The brave and noble king abandons his people to the flames in order to save his own skin! How utterly delightful."
The madman liked that idea. Proof that the just and noble weren't all they claimed.
Even so, the whole group ran to another part of the castle to watch as a pair of figures, Terra and Locke most likely, jumped from a wall to land on the other two chocobos at Edgar's barked order.
He had needed to make a lap of the castle for that though so Kefka's group caught up to the heroes as they passed the castle gates.
Edgar turned his way, but when he spoke it wasn't to Kefka.
"All right! Sink her into the sand!" With that order given, the three raced off into the desert.
The castle around them all began to rumble, drilling into the ground. The guards evacuated into the structure but Kefka's group had been lured outside first.
"Witness the glory of Figaro!" Someone called out from the castle's tower just as it sank below the sands.
All of Kefka's troops were trapped now in an empty desert and the sand would snuff the flames. A genius move.
Kefka, enraged, ordered the Magitek armours, that had come per his earlier orders, to chase after the group. He then turned to Joshua.
"Joshy, use one of your tamed monsters! Capture them!"
Joshua, forced to obey, sent out Dragonair. It was lucky that Pokeballs offered supplies as he hadn't been able to take care of them very well.
He, in an empty voice, gave Dragonair the order to hunt them down. Luckily, Dragonair was a smart girl and knew what order he'd have given normally.
"Let them escape, but make a show of it."
She flew off west after them, catching them as they were fighting the Magitek armours. Now any of her moves might hurt them too much so she just resorted to struggle attacks but she tried hard to give them an opening to escape.
Finally, Edgar dropped a smoke bomb. While Dragonair could of tracked them, she gave up and allowed them to get away. She looked down and saw that the soldiers had been killed and pondered what to do. If she were to return, she expected that the clown that was controlling her master may kill her for failing. But then how could she help her Master?
She did her best to smile as she set off into the sky. She'd have to leave for now.
Back at Figaro Castle, or rather the bit of desert where it used to be, Kefka was enraged. He struck at Joshua, knocking the latter to the floor.
"Dagnabbit! I will get them-" but a smile crossed his lips "Before that though, I wonder if general Leo is up for…" he started chuckling and then gave a full throaty laugh again.
So yes, the Narrator is back. They'll be sticking around until Joshua is freed. The Narrator does have a name, they are not a character that has appeared in the story yet though. I just brought them in because there are comments that I'd want to put in the story but since Joshua's brainwashed, I can't have him think about it.
Now, you might have noticed this is really soon for another chapter? Well, on one side I want to try and get more readers, on the other hand I've taken a drawback that would normally add 10 years to a jump's duration. For the purpose of this story though, that's ten more chapters. Yes, FF6 is going to be (roughly) twice as long as Pokemon was.
Also, anyone who knows FF6 will know exactly what the next chapter will be about. For those that don't know... Well, let's play a game of "How many reasons can I give Joshua to want to put Kefka in an early grave."
Feel free to comment (Or ask questions) if you want.
Before it was time to go bother the Final Fantasy equivalent of Fire Emblem's Camus archetype, the group had other places to go first.
Kefka led the still brainwashed Joshua and the rest of his soldiers back down to South Figaro. That journey took a few days trekking through the desert.
"Oh I HATE this weather." Kefka complained "Isn't it winter?"
Oh yes. While Joshua had left the Pokemon world in late summer, it turned out that he arrived in the world of Final Fantasy 6 during midwinter. Was this due to time differences between worlds or was it just that his method of Jumping took a while?
Unfortunately, Joshua was still too brainwashed to wonder about it and so it falls to the Narrator to point it out.
"Yes sir." One of the soldiers responded to Kefka's questions "But the climate of this desert makes it hot the whole year round. Even though Narshe, which is covered in snow for most of the year, is only a few days north of it."
The random soldier had a point and Kefka almost screamed.
"I don't care! Someone should just flood this desert. Blood or water, I don't care."
That's about how the journey south went.
Eventually they got to the tunnel to the plains of South Figaro, something that hadn't been mentioned before due to the ease of travel the first time through them. Now though, it seems that someone had sabotaged the entrance and made it impossible to get through.
That meant they needed to waste even more time for a boat to come collect them, time in which Terra could get further ahead of them.
Huh, maybe this was why the Tunnel Armour was in the cave during the later parts of the game? To clear up things like this?
Finally though, they returned to south Figaro by an empire ship and Kefka got right back to being a pain to everyone.
It seemed that a rich merchant in the town was willing to sell out the town to the empire, something Kefka was just as pleased as he could be to exploit. Turns out that he's reasonably confident when it comes to weakening power structures from the inside.
Who knew?
That then distracted him for a week. A full week. A week when Terra was on the move with the other heroes and a week in which Joshua was basically useless. Just forced to standby and act like a bodyguard for Kefka of all people.
Finally when the city was coming under imperial control, Kefka was finally willing to get back onto bothering Leo.
He arranged for another imperial boat to take them to the base camp that was preparing to take Doma castle. That journey on the sea took another three days. It was then another day's travel from the landing point to the camp itself. They had landed far north of Doma castle instead of taking the river for safety.
Finally, Kefka arrived at the camp. General Leo came out to greet him but Kefka didn't show him the same kind of respect. He just settled in and began arguing.
The assault on Doma castle was progressing slowly, their warriors were skilled enough to hold off a dedicated invasion force.
Why were they here in the first place? Well, it was something to do with Doma assisting the group that the good guys joined during the course of the game, the Returners. A group that was opposed to the empire.
General Leo suspected that diplomacy could win out here. While previous attacks had proven the two armies evenly matched, Leo also saw that his opponent was honourable. He'd be willing to bring them to a negotiation table. He wouldn't need to conquer them if they simply stopped giving support to the returners.
…That was how he likely saw it at least.
Kefka was of a different mind. One that could basically be summed up as "Blow them up." He was advocating for a plan similar to the one he'd used on Figaro Castle. Just setting alight and threatening the people into doing what he- no, "the empire" wanted.
After a couple of days of discussion, another person showed up; General Celes. All three of the empire's generals had gathered for this. That said, Kefka wasn't really a general, control just defaulted to him if, for example, there were no generals around.
Joshua's mindless form watched over Kefka as he penned a letter to the emperor, requesting that General Leo be sent back to Vector.
As one attack was being led against Duma castle, Joshua was made to follow Kefka as he left his tent. There were two chatting guards nearby who Kefka berated and promised "And don't let me catch you slacking, or I'll make you regret being born!"
As Kefka left, Joshua's ears could have caught one of the guards grunting.
"Like we're going to listen to you, you pompous little- What's wrong with that guy anyway? It's like General Leo got all the good qualities a man could have and Kefka got stuck with the rest."
They were still talking as the noise got too much to hear them anymore.
Hours passed before the attack was finally over. Kefka smiled as he walked through the camp.
"Once Leo's gone, I can turn this water into a flowing river of poison." His voice was quiet, there was no way to tell if he was talking to Joshua or to himself as he looked at the river that led to Doma castle.
"Anyone who touches it will be pushing up daisies." he let out a laugh at that.
Yes, this man was plotting genocide and Joshua had no ability to stop him.
Just as he was muttering to himself though, General Leo exited a tent nearby and headed straight for Kefka. Any hope there was in him being there to yell at Kefka were dashed when he began to speak though.
"I'm afraid the emperor has called me back home. Try not to cause any trouble in my absence."
Kefka gave a "Hmph." before replying "I'll take care of things faster than you ever would!"
"Nothing dirty Kefka!" Leo noted, a small flare of anger in his eyes "They may be our enemies, but they're still human beings. Try not to forget that."
Oh, Leo. It's not a problem of Kefka forgetting, but one of him caring in the slightest.
"We needn't show mercy to those who side with the Returners. Which is good as I never seem to have any of the stuff." Kefka noted, a flame of madness dancing in his eyes.
General Leo sighed "Regardless, the troops will still follow General Celes. All I'm telling you is to not get into any trouble."
He then turned and left, Kefka snorted as the general moved away.
"Yes, you just go off and be a good little boy…"
Then seeing a familiar soldier, one that Joshua had seen coming and going from Kefka's tent during the days they had spent here, Kefka dashed over.
"Is the poison ready?" He asked, nearly breathless with anticipation.
The soldier paused "But General Leo and General Celes-"
"Leo's not here anymore and I'm senior to Celes, I'm in charge. Fork it over!"
The soldier shuddered "But some of our people are being held prisoner inside the castle! If any of them were to drink the water-"
"Who cares?" Kefka interrupted, "They're the ones who were stupid enough to get caught by the enemy!"
As Kefka snatched the poison and headed north though, a pair jumped out at him. One dressed in martial arts equipment and one dressed as a Ninja.
"You're inhuman!" The monk yelled out.
Kefka took a step back in surprise "Pests at every turn! Guess I'll have to take care of you too! Or rather… Joshy, another of your monsters please?"
He was willing to get all of Joshua's Pokemon killed.
"Vileplume."
Just like Dragonair, the plant Pokemon understood what was happening. Though how could he allow these heroes to escape when Kefka was watching?
Vileplume realised in an instant. It sent out a sweet scent and Kefka took a step back.
"Pee yew, what an unpleasant flower. Leave it here Joshy." and the two of them headed off to another place that the river could be poisoned.
"Kefka, wait!" The monk called out.
Kefka grinned back "Wait, he says? Do I look like a Waiter to you?"
With that he dashed off, followed by Joshua.
Vileplume took the chance to delay the heroes slightly by throwing sleep powder at the monk and the ninja's dog. It wouldn't actually kill either of them though, so it would have to fake its own death.
Vileplume eventually dashed off and planted itself in the ground.
"I will wait for you." Were its thoughts. He would wait here for his Master.
There was chaos in the imperial base. Kefka had managed to get away from those heroes but there was someone else stopping him now.
"What on earth is going on?" General Celes demanded answers.
Unfortunately for her, Kefka still had his guards and a trick up his sleeves.
"Finishing this siege." He informed her, a smile on his face "With a deadly poison in their water source."
Celes' face was horrified at that information, she took a step back.
"No, you can't." She focused, taking on the air of a general again "I outrank you, I order you to stop."
Kefka's smile didn't drop "Well then, it was you who let the Returners in, was it?"
A blatant lie, one that caught Celes off guard.
"What?"
Kefka continued, weaving the lie that his soldiers were hearing.
"We were just attacked by a small band of Returners, you must have let them into the camp to assassinate me. You're a traitor. Soldiers, seize her!"
"I didn't I-"
"Silence!"
And with that spell, he denied her the ability to defend herself, either with her words or her magic. The soldiers approached her and she hesitated but didn't draw her sword. She allowed herself to be captured rather than spilling the blood of the soldiers who, apart from being her countrymen, were just doing their job.
Kefk's grin went from ear to ear. He and Joshua were now alone by the edge of the river.
Chuckling, he made an admission.
"Nothing beats the swift music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison."
From his coat, he pulled out the poison he had taken before and unstoppered it. A vial with a poison potent enough to kill hundreds of people even if mixed into a flowing river.
As he poured it in, the water became murky and a purple layer floated to the surface. That film covered the water as far as the eye could see.
…
There was nothing that could be said after that.
Kefka chuckled. It became a laugh and then a great guffaw. A laugh that could be heard around the camp as his plan went off perfectly.
The battle with Doma was over, now all that he had to do was deal with the "traitor."
And this had all happened less than an hour after General Leo left.
Three chapters in as many days? I'm mad! But really it's just because the quest chapter I was going to write today didn't have enough votes cast for it and I wanted to write something.
I'm starting to feel that I'm using the narrator to bash Kefka too hard. Which feels a little ridiculous when I say it because he just committed genocide!
Also, I'm fairly sure this was why Celes was arrested in Canon, though it probably happened before Sabin showed up in the game. Celes discovered Kefka's plot and tried to stop it but was captured and arrested for it. You can see as much in Locke's storyline. The only difference there was she was arrested seemingly a while before the poisoning. I changed it slightly to allow for Locke's path to occur after Sabin's chronologically.
The first five chapters of this story do just seem to be the "Kefka is the main character arc." because of Joshua's lack of agency. I'm really looking forward to being able to direct Joshua's path around again.
…That said, he is probably just going to join the good guys. If only to make sure that Kefka gets stabbed. multiple times preferably.
Feel free to comment (Or ask questions) if you want.
Ex-General Celes was imprisoned and gagged for the trip. She'd be taken to South Figaro and then back to the empire to stand trial.
And yes, the charges were entirely trumped up. But there was no way to prove that. No one gathered any evidence, under Kefka's direction the only "evidence" in the trial would be testimonials from those he threatened into saying things damning for her case.
There was no need to walk for a day out of the imperial base now. There wasn't anyone left to attack them if they just sailed down the river.
Kefka was elated during the first day of the voyage. His scheme was perfect it seemed.
That said, as the days at sea dragged on slightly, he got more and more frustrated again. He started pacing up and down the ship as the immobile form of Joshua watched him.
He looked up at a storm cloud to their south and frowned.
"If we were a little further out, no one would notice if I sunk this ship." He muttered "I'd send Celes to a watery grave… I could even blame it on her. I could have said she did it to avoid the law. It would prove her a traitor posthumously… No. Too close to shore. Someone else would survive."
…Why is this man trusted to do anything?
No one had overheard his comments though. Pity.
After the journey was over, Kefka oversaw Celes being locked in a dungeon while ordering a new ship, one with some more sources of entertainment for him, was called from the empire. It would take a few days to reach here though so until then Kefka waited in his office. What he did there was unclear as Joshua's body wasn't present for it. Instead, he was acting as an extra guard on Celes' cell.
Unfortunately for Kefka, the ship wasn't coming that fast.
"A MONTH?" He yelled at the messenger "IT NEEDS A MONTH?!"
The soldier shrank from the raging clown and nodded.
"Yes sir. That's what the emperor has decreed."
It seems Leo had heard of what had happened. He wanted a proper investigation done. Not just on Celes' case but on the poisoning in general. While there wasn't a strict law against genocide in the imperial laws (And would you expect there to be?) there were provisions for related events.
So yes, General Leo was stalling for time while he investigated and got people to look over laws.
Kefka was enraged by all of this and he'd made a decision. If he wasn't allowed to leave, he'd pull every string he had in the meantime to gather a force to take the Esper in Narshe.
Piece by piece he was creating an invasion force to crush Narsh in its entirety.
Joshua had no care for any of that though, he just waited. Honestly it was a little foolish that he'd been chosen as a guard. He had next-to-no combat experience. He was being taught knife fighting by the empire… or at least he was meant to. Kefka hadn't been setting up trainers as anything more than excuses to watch people get hurt.
It was all heavily balanced one way or the other. He would arm soldiers with training equipment and order Joshua to kill them. Or he would get soldiers who were experts to crush Joshua.
…It was the first time Joshua had ever killed a human. Though you could debate if it was "Joshua" doing it. Regardless, this was certainly something that would haunt him in the future. For now, with his blocked emotions, it didn't matter to him more than anything else about this situation.
Back on topic. Kefka didn't even bother to keep Celes silenced anymore. None of the soldiers believed her anyway when spoke of her innocence or of Kefka's monstrous deeds.
The sound of her words and of the beatings of the soldiers who guarded her that came from inside the room could be heard by Joshua.
There was a tiny ember burning inside Joshua. It was ever on the edge of being smothered out by the slave crown but it flicked even so. This couldn't be called "Joshua's will," as that was heavily suppressed. Nor could this be anything like his spirit, his resolve or anything else fancy like that.
This was a single crystalline desire. The desire to make Kefka pay. He couldn't remember the reason for that desire, not with his memories suppressed. There were no emotions attached to it as they were suppressed too. This was something deeper.
Due to the slave crown, he couldn't even remember who Kefka was most of the time. Only when he was in sight did he recognise his insignia and the control it gave him over Joshua. Those symbols had been ripped from General Celes, she couldn't order him as he was now.
On the subject of General Celes, it had been her voice that had also cast spells at him when he first entered this world. There was no anger about it within him about that, there couldn't be. It was a different thing from Kefka. He couldn't even remember her, much less what had happened when he arrived.
As the weeks passed, Kefka's invasion force grew until he finally thought it ready. Kefka sent the force ahead of him, as he wanted to mock Celes a bit first. He went to her cell in the dead of night.
He told her of his plan to wipe out Narsh and to find the frozen Esper. She called him a monster, nothing you probably couldn't see coming.
He left, chortling as he did and Joshua just continued to stand there as a statue.
When the morning broke, her jailers returned. Joshua knew them by their symbols of office too. It was only a kind of instinctive knowledge though. An order had been given via the slave crown to let those people pass if they were there to do their job.
Celes had been breaking down over the course of these weeks. She wasn't as strong, either in body or spirit, as she had been when she was first taken. She was kept underfed and her muscles had atrophied. While she could still cast magic, she failed to see a point in it.
At the start of their time in south Figaro, she hadn't tried to break out because breaking out would only act as proof of her guilt. Now though, she didn't try because she simply thought it impossible.
But then…
As Joshua waited, a soldier turned around a corner in the hallway he was guarding. The soldier paused as he saw him though. As he wore the proper insignia, Joshua didn't bother him.
Even though we can probably guess that it was Locke in a disguise.
Inside the room, Joshua heard the voice of a guard. Locke took a chance to step closer so he could hear too.
"This is what happens to traitors!"
There was a pause as footsteps could be heard from within before the same guard spoke again.
"So, the mighty Celes has fallen!"
He let out a laugh and Celes' voice could be heard.
"Not as far as those who'd use their strength to oppress the weak…"
The guard turned after her… slightly hypocritical comment and yelled at her to be quiet.
She had been a general of the empire after all; invading foreign lands for the empire had been her job description. That and then using force to prevent the towns and cities from rebelling.
Celes groaned something out, it sounded like the guard had grabbed her.
"Kefka slaughtered every man, woman and child from Doma with poison."
"Shaddup!" The guard struck at her and a thump could be heard, likely as she fell back against the wall.
The guard then grunted "Run that mouth of yours while you can, your execution's tomorrow."
"What?" Celes asked in a croak "I was to be taken back to-"
"The emperor has abandoned you." The guard said, turning away "Apparently, it would take so long to get you back to the capital that they're just not going to bother with the trial."
That was Kefka's lie. He wanted Celes out of the way before he moved on Narshe it seemed.
As the guard walked towards the door, Locke quickly left, continuing down the tunnel until he was out of sight. He was probably trying to make it look normal so Joshua wouldn't notice anything wrong.
As if he could right now.
The guard left after ordering his companion to keep a close eye on her. He looked at Joshua as he passed.
"Have you seen anything suspicious?"
Joshua's only answer was a shake of his head. He hadn't seen anyone without the right insignia after all.
Locke came back after that, instead of going into the room though, he just stood beside Joshua.
And then-
*Wack*
He hit the back of Joshua's helmet and sent him staggering. With a few quick strikes, he'd knocked Joshua out.
Now, while Joshua couldn't observe what happens next, the narrator still can.
The sound of Joshua being attacked had woken the other guard, who had instantly fallen asleep even after saying he could stay awake for days to his ally, when he left the room to see what had happened Locke ambushed him too. He pulled the guard and Joshua into the room, watched on by Celes with a raised eye.
"You aren't a normal guard. You're too short."
Locke pulled of the disguise and gave her a grin.
"Name's Locke, I'm with the Returners."
Celes' eyes turned to momentary panic and then to hope.
That hope fell away as she realised just how impossible their escape was.
Locke went over to her, examining the chains that bound her.
"Well, let's get going."
"You'd take me with you!?" Celes asked, she couldn't quite believe he'd save her.
She turned, shaking her head "No, I can barely walk, I'd never make it out of here. Besides, the key to these chains is held by the man who just left."
Locke rolled his eyes and got out tools to pick the lock. As he began though, Celes continued to talk, to give him reasons not to help.
"I appreciate this but… even if you got me out, you wouldn't be able to protect me. I'm better off waiting here for my executioner. At least that way I'll keep my pride…"
But Locke clicked the lock open and looked up at her, making his declaration.
"I'll protect you! Trust me, you'll be fine!" With a wink, he pulled her to her feet and called "Let's go!"
Celes made him pause for a moment though, she turned to Joshua and took his Sparkblade off him. She looked back to Locke and explained "Here, he has a knife that can cut through anything. It could help us escape."
She tossed it through the air to him. Locke quickly caught it and tested the blade against the stonework of the dungeon, marvelling as it cut straight in.
And then the two of them left.
Joshua was awoken about an hour later when the previous guard got back. Then alarms went off. Joshua, still a little woozy from being knocked out, had to attend him.
In his fury at Celes' escape, he sent the rest of his forces off towards Narshe too. He and Joshua were also travelling with them.
All of this would be settled at Narshe, that was the choice he had made.
And it was to be Joshua's chance for freedom.
4 in a row in as many days?! I'm mad! …I made that joke last time, didn't I? Oh well.
Partially this is me wanting to get the Slave crown arc over and partially this is me seeing if there would be anyone who would like to read this story but who wouldn't find it due to when it was posted.
Don't expect these frequent updates in the future though.
…I'm just bored.
Eh, it's a way to earn points. On that subject, Joshua is picking up the "Innate Magic" perk at the end of this chapter. He was going to pick up "Uncrowned" but that feels better for later. The former gives access to FF6 magic in the same way that Celes or Terra can simply learn it as they level up, the latter gives resistance to slave crowns and faster recovery from their effects. Seeing as he's going to be freed anyway, it wasn't as desperately needed.
This chapter was originally going to be longer and have a bit where Joshua used Gengar to follow the heroes through the Figaro caves but I decided against it, it was too hard to make work.
Feel free to comment (Or ask questions) if you want.
As the warband trekked across the desert, Kefka was getting more and more testy by the minute. He screamed at soldiers and even killed a pair of them when he learned they hadn't bothered to get equipped properly before setting off.
They found the destroyed Tunnel armour as they were making their way through the Figaro caves. It was still throwing off sparks even after it had been scrapped by the fleeing Returners.
As they passed it, Joshua's eyes seemed to linger on the scrapped robot. Normally that should be impossible. No one ordered him to pay it attention. But there was something that wasn't part of his conscious mind, something the slave crown wouldn't suppress.
His ember was growing ever so slowly and something had catalysed it. Something unknown to all around him.
His Sparkblade hadn't returned to him since Locke took it but it was still linked to him. Wherever it was, it was doing its job of extracting and purifying the world's nature for him to use.
And this world's nature contained something special.
After the tunnels, the walk across the desert continued. It was basically just solid marching through the sand and the heat.
As they approached the desert's edge, the army encountered forces from Narshe who were determined to stop them. If that wasn't possible though they were set in to slow Kefka's forces while they went to tell Narshe that the invasion was on its way.
Kefka stood back and let the Magitek armours deal with the scouting force. Explosions and blasts of magic covered the battlefield as Kefka watched, the puppet that was Joshua beside him.
Kefka grinned as he saw the devastation the armour was inflicting. He looked like a cruel child watching toy soldiers perform for him. He laughed when troops of either side fell. When the scouts launched a heroic last stand to take out some magitek armours, Kefka clapped. His applause continued as their last stand was destroyed in a few explosions.
Finally the battle ceased. With only a short time to revel in the carnage, Kefka just ordered the forces forward again.
Leaving the desert, they needed to make their way through a forest and then onto the cold fields south of Narshe.
There was no snow on the plains but the air was chilly. Some of the soldiers shivered. Kefka interpreted some of that shivering as fear and ended up killing a few more soldiers due to it.
"You're scared of a few measly town guards, how pathetic." Kefka laughed.
Even though he was saying things like this, he shivered from the cold too. No one was brave enough to point that out to him.
All this travel from South Figaro had taken about nine days. There was no telling when the Returners were getting there but they'd be dug in with their defences.
This narrator only hopes that their defence plans will be as effective as it was in-game.
That said: I am, technically, an omniscient observer here. Just adding a little narration here and there to ensure this isn't as bland as a history book.
On the approach to Narshe, Kefka was giving his final orders.
"I don't care what you have to do in order to get it, just get me that Esper!"
One of the soldiers, the highest rank one that hadn't yet been killed, had to ask though.
"Kefka, sir… what about the civilians?"
What? Did he expect anything different than what Kefka said next.
"What about them? Kill them all."
Such a simple statement. Kefka had already wiped out Doma and it seemed he wanted Narshe to be the next ghost town he'd leave in his wake.
"But sir, Narshe is a neutral city!"
Well, it was good knowing you soldier number twenty-five. You will be missed for talking back at Kefka like that.
"Idiot!" Kefka spun on him "Read my lips: Mercy is for wimps! There's a reason "Oppose," rhymes with "Dispose." If they get in your way, you kill them!"
…Huh, was the soldier actually being spared? Kefka was hopping about like a madman while still keeping perfect pace with the rest of the marching army.
"March!" He yelled and pointed forward as he kept jumping around.
Huh. Kefka seemed to forget about the slight against him. Well soldier number twenty-five, you live to fight another day. Assuming of course you don't die to the main characters later.
When they reached Narshe, no one got in their way at first. Kefka smiled but that quickly turned into a frown.
No one was opposing him, but that meant disposing of them would be problematic.
"Eh, I can always come back for them once I have the Esper." He murmured.
Continuing through the city, they eventually got to the mountain pass that led to the frozen Esper. A natural choke point, one that the Returners would be protecting in three teams.
"Ah." Kefka had seen them all gathered there on the other side, ready to defend different paths through the pass.
"If it isn't general Celes the traitor! Excellent, now I won't have to hunt you down later."
He was glad that the woman he was planning to execute on false charges could still be murdered horribly.
The crystal in Joshua's metaphorical heart was solid. A chunk of resolve. All that would be needed to free him was one chance.
With a laugh, Kefka organised his army. They'd pour through the pass. Trying this would almost certainly see some of them getting caught or falling in the paths. The Returners wouldn't even need to do all the work.
Regardless, they began marching and the heroes took up positions and moved into chokepoints. While there were three groups, it seemed one was more prepared than the others. There were two squads to guard and one to go on the attack.
Terra, Celes, Locke and Cyan made up that group. A group of everyone who had a grudge against Kefka. Well. Not everyone. Locke didn't have a specific reason, he was just following Terra and Celes into danger to keep them safe.
Banon and Gau made up one of the defence groups while Sabin and Edgar made up the other one.
Joshua's thoughtless form watched as the groups began their tricks. Banon and Gau created an avalanche of snow and ice to crush some soldiers and send others tumbling off the side of the mountain pass. Sabin fought a group of soldiers by himself as Edgar cut off any reinforcements with Magitek.
And then there was the main group ploughing through the front.
It was a pity that Joshua wasn't fully aware now as he was seeing plot armour for the first time. Eight people were standing against an army of trained soldiers. Sure, a part of it was good tactics and another part was the fact that these heroes were the best of the best. But they never had to fight numbers that would actually worry them. Each squad of enemies was dispatched one at a time. Then they made use of potions and other restoratives to keep right on going.
Kefka was snarling at seeing this.
"And what fruitcake is this?" Kefka… swore? I think that was a swear at least. He swore at what was going on, realising that he'd need to step in too.
Turning his head to Joshua he ordered "Joshy, draw your knife. We have people to kill."
In an instant, the knife was in his hands and he heard a yell from the attack group.
Well Locke, maybe try not to wield stolen magic weapons into battle in the future. Luckily he had spares.
Before the attack group got to them though, they had to go through an empire monster tamer and that gave Kefka an idea.
"Joshy, use your monsters too. All of them."
"Alakazam, Ninetales, Gengar."
The three mystical-seeming Pokemon were released from their balls as he held them up and called them.
Alakazam took a peak at Joshua's mind and was horrified to find out how he was being controlled.
Kefka pointed at the attack team and declared "Joshy, send your monsters after them. Tell them to kill them or die trying!"
Joshua repeated the orders but the Pokemon were smart enough to understand it for the nonsense it was. Now it was just a question of how they could get out of it. They rushed towards the attack team and used only a little of their strength. They were still stronger than the heroes even with their plot armour.
Gengar "died" to a blast of fire from Terra. It gave him perfect cover to flee into the shadows. Alakazam was much the same. When he was hidden from Kefka's view by a stone, he made an apologetic gesture at Cyan (Who had been attacking him) and teleported away.
Ninetales was finding it the hardest to get away but the Returners were starting to clock that if you gave these monsters a chance to run without them being spotted by Kefka, they would take the chance and leave. Terra had also figured out that Ninetales was immune to fire and the two were able to fake Ninetales' death with a fireball at the edge of a cliff.
Hopefully they'd all be safe though, even if it meant that Joshua was left with no Pokemon for now.
With victory close at hand, the attack team ran at Kefka.
Kefka ordered Joshua to aid him in the fight so he clashed with Locke as the other three fought Kefka.
There was no doubt that Locke was the better fighter though. If anything that was a good thing. Genga had been riding between shadows for a while and was able to knock Joshua's Sparkblade out of his hand.
Locke caught it in the air with surprise as he realised that Gengar was still there. Not only was she still there, but Gengar was pointing him towards the Slave crown.
In this city, Locke had already saved one person with a Slave Crown, why not two?
The Sparkblade could cut anything!
Locke unconsciously tapped into one of the Sparkblade's abilities, one that even Joshua hadn't fully figured out yet. There were thousands of ways he could make this cut, but most would end in Joshua wounded or dead due to how close to his skull Locke needed to cut.
Those thousands of possibilities were cut. Each one after another. Locke followed along one specific path with a set of cuts in the perfect place. And he cut the crown.
Joshua let out a scream. A cry of freedom in a way. Once he was done, he fell to the ground, unconscious.
That act of Locke's, cutting away timelines, was a metaphorically noisy power. Everyone felt it. It was like a small shudder passed through them. If not for Locke's skill, that would have required far more power though.
While Joshua was now out cold, Kefka was driven back.
He growled "Don't think you've won!" However, those were but the parting words of a coward as Kefka fled back the way he came after leading the army to their deaths at the frozen peaks.
And here is where I must end my narration unfortunately. Joshua is now free and when he wakes he will be free to observe and draw his own conclusions again. I'll still be here of course, but not as major a focus.
But now Joshua must deal with a new problem, the aftereffects of a Slave crown. Amnesia, loss of emotions, basically everything that Terra is suffering through.
Well, it's something to bond over at least.
Assuming he gets the chance before what happens next in the story...
And freedom!
So I did break my streak from before but I still got to this point anyway. That's good enough for me.
So, what did Locke do there? Joshua's Sparkblade has an ability called "Cutting the branches," in its passive form it's the source of his Pseudo-precognition. The power that let him know where to find MissingNo's cult back in Fuchsia City. It also has an active form though as you saw here: Cutting timelines. You can't cut all of them though, you can't even really cut that many all things considered. You just have to cut the worst though. Locke's skills were great enough that he was likely to get a "good enough" hit most of the time, he just needed to cut all the branches that would result in a "Disastrous" outcome. In D&D terms, it's the power to prevent yourself from rolling a 3 or less. If you were to roll 1, 2 or 3, you wouldn't. It can also allow you to break "Fate," if someone was fated to be impossible to hit, the ability could be used to land a hit on them. The active form is "Noisy" though and can draw the attention of beings you don't want to draw the attention of. While in theory it would be possible for Joshua to return to a Pokemon world, using the active form would instantly get Arceus onto him and would very quickly result in his death.
Feel free to comment (Or ask questions) if you want.
