I Want To Be Unequaled Under Heaven, Like No One Ever Was (Cultivation-Pokemon Fic)

You live in a world populated by magnificent and awesome creatures.

For most of history, humanity has existed under the protection of the mightiest of these creatures, sheltered by millennia old pacts and the rare partnership that empowered humanity's greatest champions.

These creatures use many strange and wonderous abilities that are far beyond the natural capabilities of man, but through the creation of a bond between man and creature the same energies they use can be cultivated within men.

Gods, Monsters, Spirit Beasts, they have been called many things by many people's but ever since the industrial revolution and the subsequent standardization of apricorn based technology they've been known as Pokemon.

The invention and widespread adoption of the pokeball made the creation of a bond between Pokemon and Trainer, formerly the sole domain of Noble Clans and Secretive Sects accessabile to all. Well, once the Pokemon League put the Clans and Sects in their place with decades of bloody war.

The average person doesn't have a Champion's ability to form simultaneous bonds with a half dozen divinities, but even the 1-3 weaker partners that most people can attune to provides a dramatic increase in personal capability before one even considers what those couple of partners can do themselves.

You happen to burdened with such a Champion's Soul, however, and with it a responsibility to become a guardian of your people.

You are fourteen years old and after two years of apprenticeship with your father, your village's Gym Leader, you have earned his badge and are about to travel to the next nearest town to serve as a journeyman in their own gym.

As you are unable to fly or teleport, and tradition prevents you from receiving assistance from any besides your own bonded Pokemon, this will be a journey of some time. Luckily, you are very well prepared.

Before we get started, there are just a few questions we need to get straightened out.


You were raised as the son of a gym leader, with the intricacies of a single type(Not nescescarily Type) of Pokemon drilled into you from a young age and after raising several Pokemon of that type from an egg, bonding with them, cultivating their abilities to make them your own, and rearing them successfully into capable partners you have been awarded with a badge, with the presence of a League Representative at your final examination removing any rumors of nepotism.

What was that badge?



(Note: This will decide 3 of your starting team, 2 of which will be chosen by your father[read: me] and one of which will be a "starter" vote within that type in next turn. Your 2 could very well be the same breed of pokemon, you should expect the sort of team that gym trainers have apart from your "starter". It will also decide your Father's specialty, his punny gym leader name, and will decide the legendary feat he got famous for, as well as what types and Types of Pokemon that you are most able to care for, train, bond with, and cultivate the energy of.)

[][Gym] The Feather Badge: Your father is the Bird Trainer Hawkins, the only member of the League Quick Response Force who was able to stay aloft and support the then young Champion Lance during the quelling of Lord Zapdos and Lord Rayquaza when you were a toddler.
-Your "starter" will be a bird, though there will be some options there besides Flying.
-Your two other trained pokemon at start will be Flying/Normals, with at least one of them having three evolutions.
-You are on the pinnacle of being capable of independent flight, and will almost certainly obtain it before your 16th​ birthday. One of your Pokemon has been trained to Fly you, but is currently too small and will need an evolution to do anything besides tug up on your backpack in an emergency.

[][Gym] The Plow Badge: Your father is the Farming Trainer Deere, who's quick and decisive action following landfall of typhoon number 4 a few years ago prevented flooding of most of the low lying regions of your home province.
-Your "Starter" and 2 others will be selected from vaguely farm-yard pokemon. If it's on a "Cow goes MOOO" children's spinny toy it's probably on this list. Expect Grass, Ground, Water and Normal Pokemon mostly.
-While this option lacks a strong unifying Type or principle to aid in cultivation this is a strength of it's own. While you're not as a strong as a uniTyped trainer, you also don't have any glaring weaknesses like they do.
-You're close to having a trained surfing pokemon, but they need a little more polish before you're willing to risk riding them in open water.
-You have a more developed physique than you would with other starts besides Docks.

[][Gym] The Docks Badge: Your father is the Working Trainer Steve who led the AFL-PKMN in their struggle to expand worker protections, namely the 40 hour work week and overtime, to partner Pokemon.
-Your "Starter" and the 2 others will be selected from a mix of Fighting and Water pokemon capable of performing or assisting in manual labor.
-You are a supernaturally strong swimmer, and have a trained surfing pokemon though neither they nor you are capable of the speedboat speeds or hours of endurance you'll be capable of in a few years.
-You have a more developed physique than you would with other starts besides Plow.

[][Gym] The Fang Badge: Your father is the Dog Trainer Ruff, who responded to widespread wildfires years before your birth and calmed Lord Entei. Rumors say that he did so from the back of Lord Suicine, but that seems a little over the top.
-Your "Starter" and 2 others will be dogs, the "Starter" is pretty wide open but expect nothing but Dark/Normals for the other two.
-You are a very competent hunter, and will have a comparatively easy time on the trip compared to the other starts.

Originally, you were going to remain at your father's gym for two more years until something happened that moved your timeframe forward.

What changed?

(This vote affects what the primary source of conflict will be for the first few arcs, and can also add another good 'Mon to your starting party, though they will begin with comparatively little training compared to your other 3.)

[][PLOT]: He Needed Me: You found and bonded to a rare Pokemon in the woods, of a Type that your father feels unqualified to properly raise.
-Early Access to a Dragon or Fairy type.
-Dragon and Fairy energy are highly effective for all ends of human cultivation. Expect a large boost in personal ability over time.
-Longer/harder initial journey to Destination Gym, and limits choices significantly.

[][PLOT]: The Midnight Summons: Years ago you heard whispering in your dreams and went sleepwalking. You woke up to the sound of your feet crushing eggshells, as a Mother who lay dying asked you to raise the only of her young she was strong enough to protect. As you've grown strong enough to survive the journey, your father has decided that you need to learn this part of your abilities from someone more qualified to teach them.
-Early Access to a Ghost or Psychic Type.
-You have a moderate amount of natural Psychic ability. This allows you to more easily cultivate Psychic and Ghost energies, and even in a world where human's couldn't internalize the abilities of their partners could probably learn telepathy and how to make balls float in creepy ways.
-Psychic and Ghost energy are particularly well suited for the development of certain incredibly useful utility abilities like telepathy or teleportation that you will eventually learn. Moderate chance of a partner at start capable of telepathy. Small chance of a partner at start capable of teleportation.
-Longer/harder initial journey to Destination Gym, and limits choices significantly.

[][PLOT]: Show Up, Show Out: Your dad is cool and everything, but you went to a youth Tournament and did well enough that one of the judges at the tournament, a Gym Leader in their own right, gave you an egg of theirs and invited you to join their Gym once you earned your Father's badge.
-Gain a young untrained child/sibling of the Ace Pokemon of the Destination Gym. (Ace meaning their strongest 'Mon like Whitney's Miltank, Misty's Starmie, etc)
-You already have a little familiarity with the type or Type of your selected Destination Gym.

[][PLOT]: Blasting Off Again: A cell of Team Antagonists has decided that your "Starter" Pokemon is super special and that if they can put it in a lab and do vague evil things to it they'll find out what they need to take over the world or whatever. For a while their hijinks were almost funny, but after some locals got injured in one of their kidnapping attempts you decided to leave in the dead of night to pull their attention away from your family and neighbors.
-Your Starter is a variant. This is most likely a cosmetic change and a slight stat buff, but there are possibilities for weird moves and abilities. Small chance of getting a Type Variant like the Hisuin starters.
-You and your starter have both received more combat training from your Father than typical of a Trainer your age as he felt a responsibility to make sure you could protect yourselves.

-While you don't have another special 'Mon besides your starter, you did retroactively have more time to train your Gym Pokemon. Gain a 4th​ pokemon matching your Father's Gym and a slight increase in training for the other 2.


Destination Gym will be decided in one of the next two votes once you see the starter options and meet most of the rest of your starting team. There will be a time skip of a few years following arrival at this gym before we pivot to the "standard" "Get 8 badges and challenge the League" Pokemon story. In my world they don't just cut 11 year olds loose in the wilderness, the closest they get to that is this one ritualized trip through the wild.

Vote Consolidation(Approval voting is both allowed and encourage):

What was that badge?
[][Gym] The Feather Badge
[][Gym] The Plow Badge
[][Gym] The Docks Badge
[][Gym] The Fang Badge

What changed?
[][PLOT]: He Needed Me
[][PLOT]: The Midnight Summons
[][PLOT]: Show Up, Show Out
[][PLOT]: Blasting Off Again

With that, I'll be grabbing the two posts below this one and then y'all'r good to post.

Please let me know if you have any questions, I'm just kind of making up this setting as I go along. Assume that it's a fusion of Pokemon with common Xianxia tropes and you won't be too far off.

Just gonna ramble about how I see cultivation working in this world, prioritizing getting thoughts on the page over organizing them at this point.

Humans are dull and weak compared to Pokemon, but through the creation of spiritual bonds between man and 'Mon humanity can take some of their power for their own just as the Pokemon takes some of Man's intellect for their own.

In terms of personal potency, a Trainer is usually slightly weaker than their strongest partner. This gap tends to stay proportionately the same as one gets stronger, which means that in absolute terms it widens at the top end.

All Trainers are not created equally. While all humans have the ability to bond with Pokemon, it is very rare for someone to be able to bond a full team. Most people start with the ability to form between 1-2 bonds, and over time develop the ability to bond a few more, with extra slots normally being restricted to Types or themes(This is my attempt to explain all the Bug Catchers, Collectors, and Fishermen, lol). It's incredibly rare for someone to be able to bond more than 3 partners without type restriction, and basically guarantees the option of a high-paying career with the League.

While some of what a Trainer takes for themselves is permanent, the greater part of what a Trainer gains from their bond with a Pokemon is reliant on that bond. Kill a Trainer's partner and they will Immediately experience an injury to their soul that weakens them profoundly, both in the immediate sense and by the permanent loss of hard won abilities.

(If you ever lose a partner violently, expect to be stabbed in the xp and lose moves/abilities.)

Bonds can be severed in a less dramatic fashion of course. When a Pokemon is "Released" in such a way the Trainer loses most of the power they gained from the bond, but can immediately regain most of that power by forming a bond with another Pokemon that can support it.

The amount of cultivation that a Pokemon's bond can support depends on how strong the pokemon is, how close they are to the Trainer, as well as how good that Trainer is.

In general, most of the Moves and Abilities that you gain will be Bond abilities like this that you will lose if the bond is severed. As you grow more powerful and gain additional partners some of those Bond abilities will become Personal abilities which you will retain even if you release that Pokemon. Personal abilities are still at risk if you lose the Partner that granted them suddenly.

In addition to having an empty bond slot, whether or not one can bond to a Pokemon depends on personal strength, familiarity with the type/Type of the Pokemon in question, and how they feel about you.

Generally speaking you can expect a young childless Pokemon who lost a dual to you to submit, but if you had to get creative, killed half it's family, or had to gang up on it with your whole team to beat them than expect a failed bond or a standard "Ash's Charizard" situation.(Note: You are less fireproof than Ash)

Badges help with that a little.

Types and You:
All Pokemon possess a certain Type to the energy which infuses, with many possessing a second. This Type is for more than playing Rock-Paper-Scissors though, as different Trainers will have different Affinities with different sorts of energy. Different energy is useful for different sorts of things, it's easier to give yourself long distance vision with Flying than with Fire for example, but easier to give yourself thermal vision with Fire than with Flying. Normal energy tends to be omni-capable and everyone has at least a moderate affinity to it, but it's also a bit slower in terms of cultivation. Dragon and Fairy share this near omni-applicability but affinity to these is much rarer and it's much harder to get a "source" of the energy in the first place.