[X] The young Nidoking and Nidoqueen wrestling circle has broken up a little in-between two bouts, and the winner takes advantage of the respite to throw you what you're pretty sure is a challenging taunt. You don't expect to beat a goddamn Nidoking in wrestling, but how often are you going to get the chance to try ?
Not gonna lie i kinda want soft boi to inexplicably win once, and then the niddoking never lets him have a moments peace trying to regain the honour lost from loosing to a human.
[X] You're happy that Marigold found some playmates, but you'd still rather be close at hand in case there are any incidents. Follow the lot of them as they play around, and make sure everything goes smoothly.
Adhoc vote count started by ReverendSwing on Apr 25, 2022 at 12:55 PM, finished with 48 posts and 38 votes.
[X] You're happy that Marigold found some playmates, but you'd still rather be close at hand in case there are any incidents. Follow the lot of them as they play around, and make sure everything goes smoothly.
[X] The young Nidoking and Nidoqueen wrestling circle has broken up a little in-between two bouts, and the winner takes advantage of the respite to throw you what you're pretty sure is a challenging taunt. You don't expect to beat a goddamn Nidoking in wrestling, but how often are you going to get the chance to try ?
[X] The Nidorina that was sorting berries tries to attract your attention, apparently wanting some help identifying a pile of ones you're not sure you've all seen before. Where did these even come from ? By the time you're done, Melati seems to be done catching Cassiopeia up and has instead pulled out a bottle of… Is that alcohol ? Maybe you should investigate.
And here it looked like we might get a tie-breaker, but I guess it wasn't to be. I'm going to leave this open for an extra four hours, and I guess I'll get started on the writing tomorrow instead. If we still have a tie at that point, I'll just toss a coin to pick.
Well, it's been four hours and no one's broken the tie, so the final vote goes to the right honourable gentleman over at Google coin flip, with heads for Nidoking wrestling and tails for staying with Marigold and the Nidoran.
And it came up heads, so looks like it's wrestling time. In the future I'll see if I can't set up something more transparent, didn't expect to actually have to call it here.
Well, it's been four hours and no one's broken the tie, so the final vote goes to the right honourable gentleman over at Google coin flip, with heads for Nidoking wrestling and tails for staying with Marigold and the Nidoran.
And it came up heads, so looks like it's wrestling time. In the future I'll see if I can't set up something more transparent, didn't expect to actually have to call it here.
To be fair, it honestly wouldn't matter if the QM acts as the decider in a tie, its not like they didnt give the pkayer base all the opportunity to pick an option, its on them for putting the QM in the position of making the choice for the player base
I have a feeling that it decides our personal Traits? The first option probably gives us a Caring Trait, the second a Helpful Trait and the third the Power Trait. Those probably aren't the exact names for them but its close enough. Probably shifts the direction of our Pokemon team depending on what we choose.
I'm not very sure about this though since QM probably would have told us about this beforehand, like he did for Marigold. We will only know for sure next update.
To be fair, it honestly wouldn't matter if the QM acts as the decider in a tie, its not like they didnt give the pkayer base all the opportunity to pick an option, its on them for putting the QM in the position of making the choice for the player base
Yeah no problem with a QM being a deciding vote on a tie IMO, just aslong as they don't say their bias while the vote is going on, but if at the time of closing the vote its a tie, then i see no problem with it
I have a feeling that it decides our personal Traits? The first option probably gives us a Caring Trait, the second a Helpful Trait and the third the Power Trait. Those probably aren't the exact names for them but its close enough. Probably shifts the direction of our Pokemon team depending on what we choose.
I'm not very sure about this though since QM probably would have told us about this beforehand, like he did for Marigold. We will only know for sure next update.
I think it's about who we befriend from the Nidoran enclave - the Nidorans, the Nidorina, or the Nidoqueens/Nidokings. Also, we might get a small benefit such as greater knowledge of berries, learning a bit about wrestling, etc. Here's what the author said:
There's no trap option in the choices — they're about what you'll be taking away first and foremost from this visit, and the kind of connection you'll be making to the Route 32 Nidoran enclave.
I think it's about who we befriend from the Nidoran enclave - the Nidorans, the Nidorina, or the Nidoqueens/Nidokings. Also, we might get a small benefit such as greater knowledge of berries, learning a bit about wrestling, etc. Here's what the author said:
Yup, I was referring to the part about what we take away from the experience. I was thinking that there's a chance that what we do will decide what we learn, and in turn, influence how we develop our team. But again, I'm not very sure about this.
Well, it's been four hours and no one's broken the tie, so the final vote goes to the right honourable gentleman over at Google coin flip, with heads for Nidoking wrestling and tails for staying with Marigold and the Nidoran.
And it came up heads, so looks like it's wrestling time. In the future I'll see if I can't set up something more transparent, didn't expect to actually have to call it here.
[X][Tiebreaker] The young Nidoking and Nidoqueen wrestling circle has broken up a little in-between two bouts, and the winner takes advantage of the respite to throw you what you're pretty sure is a challenging taunt. You don't expect to beat a goddamn Nidoking in wrestling, but how often are you going to get the chance to try ?
There's something about the Nidoking's little taunting gesture that gets to you. You're not sure how exactly you identify that it's a taunt, considering it doesn't conform to any body language you're familiar with, but there's just something about the intent that's unmistakable.
It's not mocking — you've seen plenty of that to know what it feels like — or disrespectful, it's just the excitable eagerness of a young adult that's exploring just where its limits lie. You just happen to be a new way to test them, a type of challenge it hasn't gotten to throw itself at. It doesn't get to you because you feel slighted, or because it smarts your pride.
On the contrary, it gets to you because you like the fact that this armoured mass of muscles thinks you could be an interesting challenge.
You're self-aware enough to know you have a bit of a chip in your shoulder when it comes to people's perception of you. You may not be Melati-level fit, but you're in good shape. You wouldn't throw hands with a boxer, but you've done some self-defence and jiu-jitsu for a fair while. You're not exceptional at any sport in particular, but you've always been pretty good at most of them. You've been working your whole life towards taking up one of the most dangerous jobs out there. And still no one will take you seriously, because you were cursed with looking completely harmless.
You're not quite self-aware enough to acknowledge that's also partly your own fault. You've always struggled with externalising your feelings, and to many people that translated as hesitancy or you being soft-spoken — and in turn, being repeatedly told you were so turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, because you ended up believing it. And because you internalise your emotions so much, whenever your feelings do burst out, it's usually wildly disproportionate to the situation at hand, making it appear like the sort of childish tantrums that only feed people's perception of you even more.
It's part of why you've always enjoyed the company of smarter pokemon. Though no one at home ever really acknowledged it, your mother's Mightyena had clearly once been more than a housemon and even if it wasn't anywhere near the standards of intelligence Melati's team sets, it was clever enough to see you, and everything you strove for. It respected you. It's part of why your grades swung so wildly in trainer school depending on assignments. You weren't special at all with breeder-stock rentals raised and trained to be blindly obedient to anyone who holds their ball, but whenever you all got to work with the stronger or more unruly kind, they'd work far better with you than with the rest of your peers.
Every time you stutter, every time you lose your nerves, every time someone hums at you in that 'of course dearie' tone of voice, it's one of the very few things you've had to hang on to know that you weren't dreaming all that determination up.
So with a last glance to your excitable starter, and fighting against the overwhelming urge to stick close to her and ensure not a thread in her wool gets scuffed, you kneel down to her and issue some instructions (more for the sake of formality than any real hope she'll understand 'please for the love of Celebi don't wander out the clearing and get us killed', but the Nidoran with her should know what's up), give her a few head scratches before she runs off with her new playmates and then make your way to the circle of young Nidoking and Nidoqueen.
It's easy to forget that unless they won the genetic lottery, they're actually not all that big when they've just evolved — it's rare for a newly-evolved specimen to break the 1m60 mark, and those you join are no giants like their queen. In fact, you're the tallest one there by a fair margin.
The circle widens a little to let you pass, to the cheers of those there. If you had to give them an equivalent human-like age, you'd probably put them at around yours, probably a bit younger ; they radiate 'I've just become an adult but still fail to realise what it means' energy in a way only fresh-faced uni first-years can. Actually they feel quite young to you, and considering they all seem roughly the same age, you wonder if rather than natural evolutions Cassiopeia didn't get her claws on a stash of Moon Stones and given them out all at once. It would explain why they all feel the need to test their limits, and why they don't look all that different from the kind of fodder you had to use at trainer school aside from being obviously smarter. They haven't pushed themselves enough just yet.
… You don't think you'll be doing much to remedy that, truth be told, but you can at least try !
"Rules ?" you ask as you make your way inside, very much praying that this is wrestling only considering how low you reckon your chances are of punching through its armoured hide.
You ignore the slightly ominous way the circle closes back around you after letting you in. There aren't actually enough of them to make a proper enclosure, and you can see over them anyway, but it's still intimidating.
After a quick game fo charades with your opponent-to-be, you settle on a basic ruleset : grappling, push and pulls only (thank Celebi), and first to force submission. There's no out-of-bounds — the circle is the boundary, and if you reach it the others will just push you back in.
Not exactly the ruleset that plays the most to your strengths, that being 'find a way to rules-lawyer a technical victory', but it could have been worse.
Pride be damned, you'd have immediately surrendered if it was allowed to punch you.
Speaking of your opponent, you take advantage of the short explanation to take his measure. He's one of the tallest ones there, but that still has him barely break one metre fifty by your estimate, so you definitely have a height advantage. Not so much the weight, though that comes as no surprise. You also definitely have a reach advantage — even if Nidoking tend to have a longer wingspan than humans of equivalent size, that still thankfully wasn't quite enough to compensate for the height difference, but not as much as you would have liked.
Of course, that's overlooking the three most important areas where it has you comfortable beat. First, the massive tail it can use to balance itself, shift its centre of gravity and constrict you. Second, the massive, powerful bowed legs that are eminently more solidly anchored to the ground than your frail human ones. Third, it has giant poisonous spines on its back, meaning no reaching around its back carelessly, and also the giant pointy horn in the middle of its forehead.
Oh and that's overlooking the whole 'far, far more physically powerful than you' thing.
No pressure.
Seriously, there's a reason you don't train fellow humans to fight pokemon — but that's not what this is about.
Speaking of your imminent defeat, you think back to one of the very first conversations you had with Melati, about clothes, and the frequent lack of suitable amenities to wash them. Then, with a sigh, you strip off your shirt.
It's kind of mortifying. Not taking your top off in and of itself — who's going to care ? The Nidoran clan ? They're all naked in the first place. Melati ? Even without a top you're still probably wearing more fabric than she is — but just because of how cliché the whole thing must look. Also, because you must look like such a tryhard right now, when you're only thinking about laundry.
The Nidoking in front of you stomps his left leg, then his right before crouching a little, and you decide to assume it's a pre-fight ritual of sorts, which you imitate. Unlike him, the ground does pointedly not shake when you do it.
Then, just as you manage to get your game face on, one of the spectating Nidoqueen barks and only instinct saves you from being blasted away.
You dart back by reflex, and narrowly avoid your opponent's opening lunge, which immediately tells you three things : he moves much more explosively than you do and is doubtless faster in a straight line, but as he repositions himself you can also tell that his bulk comes at the cost of some agility and also that he's not quite used to two-legged movement yet, if the way he briefly crouched forward to bring his centre of gravity and lower and forwards means anything.
There's a strange little floating moment where you're surprised that you could tell this much in so short an exchange, considering none of the sparring you've ever done in your lessons gave you any sign you had that capacity, until you remember that you've spent a sizeable portion of your entire existence thus far watching pokemon fighting. Of course you'd have acquired a good feel for it.
Then you shake yourself back into focus at the realisation that it'll all be useless if you can't actually do anything about it.
It's easier said than done, though. You try a first cautious approach, but your caution makes you too slow, and you've barely gotten your hand on his arm when you see the other one dart at you for a grab. You pull back just in time, mostly thanks to the reach advantage you'd been exploiting. A bit worried about being put on the back foot, you immediately attempt the exact same manoeuvre, to the exact same retaliation… although this time you were ready.
In the last exchange, he gave you a crucial detail — the length of his reach. And as you know yours is longer, you manage to pull yourself just far enough away for his hand to miss you while still keeping a hold of his left arm. A gleam of worry and surprise runs thoruhg his eyes, and you triumphantly pull on his arm to… do absolutely nothing.
See, the problem is that in your current position, your arm is almost fully extended and you yourself are standing mostly straight. That means you are trying to move a Nidoking with only your arm power. Not even your whole upper body, let alone the rest of it.
You fail, and there's a very awkward moment where your opponent and yourself sort of… stop. Trying to acknowledge how anticlimactic this was, before you break away and retreat a little.
Alright, so that was incredibly embarrassing, but it's time to move on. If that doesn't work, it just means that you need to figure it an angle of attack that allows you to holy shit you need to dodge.
You barely get out of the way another lunge, but not adroitly enough to recover your balance quickly, and this leads to a series of increasingly awkward dodges as you suddenly find yourself on the back foot. With your failure to tip him over when you had the opportunity he's finally realised that you can't actually compete with him head-on, and this sudden increase in aggression is likely his way of exploiting this. It doesn't matter if he leaves more opening that way, because they're not openings you can actually exploit.
You're not too proud to admit you're out of ideas, and that your dodges are beginning to have more to do with luck than skill. Of all things, however, it's finally being pushed to the edge of the ring that lets you see a possible solution to your current conundrum.
You don't have the kind of explosive power necessary to change direction full speed without carefully adjusting your footwork — that is, too slowly for exploiting the openings your opponent's repeated overcommitment leaves for you. But the Nidoqueen arms about to push you back inside do.
You hadn't really thought about it, but the whole idea of the unescapable ring made up by the audience that just pushes you back inside when you reach the limit is to force the confrontation and ensure it doesn't become a game of cat and mouse rather than a proper wrestle. So the moment you feel those hands on your back, you let inspiration strike and brace yourself.
The Nidoqueen sends you hurtling back towards your opponent, but despite an awkward first step you managed to shift your footing just in time not to trip yourself up on the way. He doesn't react quite quick enough to make a grab for you as you reach his range, and that's your cue to exploit everything you've seen of him so far.
You push forward with all your might as you careen into his bulk. It's not enough to topple him over, especially not with his powerful tail perpendicular to your push and keeping him upright, but it does unbalance him. As your momentum dies down, you take advantage of your hands being solidly planted on his torso, brace your right knee and push yourself straight back away, but to the left.
Now you just have not to mess up the execution in your mind's eye.
As you careen off to the side, you break into a half-pivot as soon as your left foot makes contact with the ground, as your left hand trails his torso and down his arm until you reach the rough equivalent of where his wrist would be. It's a bit awkward because there's no convenient handhold the way there is for a fellow human, but you grab it and this time you pull, using the momentum from your pivot and his own still shaky balance against him. Your other hand joins your grip and with the added strength, you find yourself shoulder to shoulder with the Nidoking, holding his right arm in your hands as he topples a little towards you. Not near enough to fall, but that was never the point of this manoeuvre.
With the last burst of strength you can summon out of your arms, you pull his arm downwards, forcing the two of you to lean. That's not going to be enough to make him fall either, but you're not even watching his body or footing at the moment. Instead, you keep careful track of his tail, until you see the exact moment you've been waiting for.
A fully-grown adult Nidoking's tail can crush steel in its grip. Now your opponent's not quite there yet, but the simple truth was that so long as it could use the appendage as a counter-weight your attempts were doomed to failure.
As you noted earlier, however, this Nidoking is still a bit new to his form, and has some lingering quadruped instincts. So when you lean him forwards and force the two of you into a crouch, he raises his tail in the air as you lead him to a position which he must still associate with going on all fours.
Now not only would you not be surprised if that tail was worth a good quarter of his mass, but it's also alongside his footing his main means of controlling his centre of gravity. So when he raises it high in the air, it gives you a very short window of opportunity, where his mass is distributed more evenly and his centre of gravity is both unstable and higher than it normally is.
High and unstable enough that you push with your shoulder against is with all your strength, putting your entire body into it, and the two of you collapse.
You technically are on top, but needing to put your entire strength and body into the effort means you lose balance too and can't capitalise on it. Unfortunately for you, the Nidoking also landed on his side, meaning you're gonna to have to work him into a better position if you intend to have any chance of restraining him.
The two of you jostle for advantage for a moment, but the plain truth is that you're not skilled enough to manage that, and even if you were you just plain and simple aren't strong enough. You give it a valiant effort, but just as you think you've managed to force a stalemate, you realise that he'd been baiting you to better lock you in. Because it;s interesting how quickly you'd forgotten he had a limb advantage. The tip of his tail finally manages to catch your leg, and within seconds it's coiled around your ankle.
With the added strength, there's nothing you can do as he easily flips you over and you find yourself in a hold.
You could struggle, but you know when you're beat. You let yourself go limp and tap out, and your opponent lets out a triumphant roar before releasing you.
You're actually not all that frustrated. Sure, you let yourself hope halfway through, because you can't give a proper performance if you don't believe you can do it, but objectively you were never going to win this. What you could do, however, was give as good as you got and show your mettle. Judging by his boastful cry and the clap on your shoulder that almost sends you bowling over, you gave him a good fight, and more importantly…
You brought a Nidoking to the floor.
Sure, it was within a somewhat contrived ruleset that wildly advantaged you, against a newly evolved 'mon clearly not too at ease with his body and once it was there you couldn't actually do anything to it… But come on ! Surely you've gained… at least ten points in manliness, right ?
No, you don't know how the scale works either. Would you have your problems with public perception if you did ?
The other pokemon break their circle to crowd the two of you as you get up, pats on the back all round hitting the both of you faster than you can think 'oh god they're all jocks'. Though you get a little taunting for your loss, it's mostly good-natured — everyone here was more than aware you were at a significant disadvantage, and if nothing else they seem to respect what was a decent showing.
You don't really take the time to bask in it, though, because as soon your field of vision clears up you cast your eyes around for Marigold, who you're relieved to eventually find running around by the pool/pond-looking thing, which most of the young ones seem to congregate around. Your heart stops for a moment when you see one of the younger female Nidoran jump at her, but she just retreats into her wool and the rest of the group cheer as the Nidoran bounces off it.
Your Mareep's head pokes out again, and she preens smugly before enthusiastically bounding up to another would-be taker.
It seems they've decided to make a game out of seeing if any of them can break through her fur.
Considering they don't seem to be using Moves and there's only the youngest ones there, you won't bet on it.
Marigold seems to be having fun, though.
Reassured as to her well-being, you catch a glimpse of Melati and Cassiopea, still sat where you left them as your mentor continues to regale her with some manner of tale. Is that ?… Yep, they're drinking what looks like Alolan rum in a pair of crudely carved stone bowls. You… aren't going to touch that one with a barge pole.
Not that you get a chance. With your curiosity sated, you find yourself pulled back into the circle as a Nidoqueen pair begin squaring up in the middle. Letting yourself get taken in by the boisterous atmosphere, you help close the circle (more for show than anything else, you don't really think you could push either of them back in) as they start their bout.
And that's how your morning goes, cheering on various contenders as they vie to establish themselves as top dogs, going the odd round yourself. You don't really manage to replicate your good performance from the first round, considering your opponents are wise to your tricks, but at least you don't embarrass yourself.
You actually feel very good about how well you've handled the first couple of Nidoqueen you went against, until you've seen enough bouts to realise the truth of it : there's two hierarchies at play here, one for the males and one for the females, both wholly independent of each other. Whenever a Nidoking and a Nidoqueen match up against each other, they clearly put in less effort than they do against those of their own gender. It seems that beyond Cassiopeia being at the top, the members of both social ladders aren't too interested in finding out where they stand relative to the other one.
It's a bit strange, considering that, Nidorina and Nidoqueen being unable to lay eggs, they have the exact same standing as the Nidorino and Nidoking. Maybe an artefact of them actually being distinct species, as opposed to a severe case of sexual dimorphism. You don't know. That's what Pokemon Professors and pokezoologists are for.
Either way, it's pretty clear where you stand on the male side of that hierarchy, but you don't really mind. Not only do you think you've done a fine enough job for someone who's never really defined themselves as a fighter, but, well… they're putting you in that hierarchy in the first place.
It sounds a bit silly, but that means something to you.
Eventually, though the circle breaks down as you all head down to the pool whose primary purpose you're glad to discover is actually washing yourself. Pokemon might have a hardier immune system, but you're not too crazy about drinking near stagnant water if you can help it.
Also you're caked in sweat, sand and dirt from all the rolling around without a shirt and even a quick rinse sounds absolutely heavenly.
You only hesitate for half a second before stripping down to your underwear — there's still a complete lack of people who might be bothered by it, and the only person present who even shares a species with you isn't shy about how little she cares.
You don't regret it, because a dip in water of the non-salty variety is absolutely what the doctor ordered.
Well, not really, it feels wonderful but you're bruised everywhere. Salvation thankfully comes in the shape of that Nidorina from earlier who was sorting Berries out, who trots up to your group alongside a handful of other Nidorina and Nidorino. You're even worse at reading the body language of quadrupeds than you are of their bipedal cousins, but you could swear the tone of her growls has big exasperated older sister energy coming through as she watches over them critically.
You're a little chuffed to be included in said examination alongside the rest.
Then she prowls back to her Berry pile in a huff and picks out a few of them before coming back. To those who'd gotten least involved, she tosses an Oran Berry to their thankful cheers, before picking out a lone Sitrus Berry and carefully cutting it up with her claws. Then she throws a chunk to each of the ones who'd gotten most banged up during the wrestling. Which includes you.
That's… a very kind gesture, actually. Even to a such well-run wild group, Sitrus Berries can't be common enough they'd give them out like candy — after all, their restorative properties are good enough they even work for humans, as far as light injuries go. You thank her as sincerely as you can while you gulp it down, biting into the juicy sour flesh, and find yourself smiling as she just turns away from you.
You can just imagine her saying 'That's right, you'd better appreciate my magnanimity you big lunk' in your head and even though you know that's probably not quite exactly what she's going for the thought is enough to draw a laugh.
Apparently it's a fairly common sentiment amongst your fellow wrestlers, a couple of which even seem to growl at her in a way you think yourself relatively safe in calling teasing. One of the Nidoking even reaches to pat her back affectionately (you're beginning to realise that they're all very tactile as a species), but apparently that was the drop too far, because she just stares at him annoyedly before firing a small Bubble Beam at his face, to his squawk of disapproval.
… You didn't even know the line could learn that move.
The others (and you too) erupt in laughter as he squawks indignantly, before the helpful Nidorina just walks away smugly with her little retinue.
You might have hit on something with that 'older sister' thought, actually. Between the ease with which she used the move and her control of it (good enough to do barely anything despite the Type advantage), you'd actually tentatively say she's quite a bit stronger than all the fully-evolved mons here.
You pull yourself out of the water and are just done dressing back up when you see Melati approaching you.
"We're leaving soon," she just tells you abruptly.
"… Is anything wrong ?"
"No," she reassures you, "a hunting party came back empty-handed. There's some kind of trouble up North. Probably some humans traipsing around where they shouldn't. Would explain why they looked at me weird. Cassiopeia's going to have a look."
"And she doesn't exactly trust us enough to leave us unsupervised," you conclude. "Makes sense. Shouldn't we… intervene, if it's humans ?"
"Why ?"
You just stare at her.
"Ah. Right. Newbie. No, we probably shouldn't. Almost every time, it's one of two things. Hikers going where they shouldn't, in which case Cassiopeia just scares them away. Not the kind to attack a random passerby. Most likely case, Battler looking for fights and not understanding what it means to do that in a Named's domain. Or worse, that doesn't know it's one."
"… Shouldn't that really mean we should go check ? Won't they just die otherwise ?"
"Well, if they're any good they won't. They'll apologise and run away first thing because they'll understand they're outclassed. If they aren't… It's an Article 13 situation."
The sudden non-sequitur to legalese throws you off as you search for Marigold. Where has she… Ah, there she is, running around with some of the other young ones.
"Which one's that again ?"
"The 1987 Regulation and normalisation of pokemon training, breeding and battling and the Trainer statute Bill. Article 13, paragraph two. Can't remember the wording, but in a situation where a trainer with combat-capable pokemon is present to witness a potentially life-endangering engagement between a fellow trainer and wild pokemon and could reasonably be expected to intervene, any refusal to provide assistance will be counted as non-assistance to a person in lethal danger and, should there exist reasonable doubt of a malicious intent behind the refusal to assist, can potentially be upgraded to accomplice to murder."
"… Are you trying to tell me that if someone were stupid enough to pick a fight with Cassiopeia, we would be legally obligated to help him ?" you ask incredulously.
"Yes."
"Whereas if we never find out what's going on…"
"The police's Psychic truth-tellers can't detect any lies when we say we didn't know what was happening."
"… That's pretty grim."
"Beats being dead. The law passed because that 'reasonable' part should exonerate us of this kind of stupidity, but that was before they gave the boot to the Rocket plants in the magistrature and the supremacists from the Reclamation Party in the Supreme Court. There's too much jurisprudence against us to take the risk."
You think you're beginning to understand where the stark separation line Melati draws between Trainers and the rest of society come from. You wonder if you'll be this jaded too, one day. She's just so very… cynical, about it all. Maybe it's just the wonder of finally achieving your dream that's letting you wilfully blind yourself to how things are, but surely it's not that bad that things warrant this kind of negativity constantly ?
Marigold darts for you as soon as she realises you're nearby, excitedly rubbing herself all over your legs as her little crowd of hangers-on walk up to you curiously. You're pretty sure you recognise a couple from the trek to here, actually.
After explaining it's time to go and cajoling her into not sulking, you call her back to her ball, and head towards Cassiopeia.
Goodbyes are curt — not out of irritation, but she's clearly in a hurry to go, so you merely thank her formally for her hospitality, and she looks pleased enough about it. Before dismissing you, she takes you in for a handful of seconds, before nodding with one of those snorts that shake the earth.
You're not really sure what that means, but Melati just gives you a look that says 'later'.
On your way out, you swing by your group of wrestling partners, who make various amicable sounds and gestures, though they're notably less boisterous with Melati around, eyeing her warily and being much more respectful of her personal space.
You guess that's what it would be like to be at the top of their little hierarchy.
And without further ado you're off, this time without an escorting horde — you're neither a novelty nor a possible threat, so there isn't any real point to it.
As you're finally well on your way down the trail out of the clearing, you can finally ask Melati what that little moment with Cassiopeia was.
"She thinks you're alright."
"… What ?"
"It's all it is. You made a good impression. You were respectful, you mingled with her subjects, you played by their rules and you didn't hesitate to blend in. Marigold didn't pick a fight either."
"… Huh. I thought it would take, you know, more."
"Why ? She doesn't want to be worshipped. You respected her strength and authority and you're willing to be cordial. Sometimes that's all it takes."
You mull over the lesson for a little while, thinking the whole thing through. You suppose that makes sense enough.
"I'd go back," Melati suddenly tells you out of nowhere.
"Back ?"
"If you're ever back around here. I'd drop by when you can. Named are always useful to stay on good terms with. She doesn't have a designated point of contact with the League yet either besides Falkner, and he's not particularly close to her. It'd be good for your standing with other Trainers and with the League. Also, you're not too strong yet. If you can grow alongside her clan — and credit her for part of that strength — it helps with bonding. A couple of months more to settle into your thing and a handful of visits, and I think she'd even be fine letting you take a Nidoran. The young ones liked you, at any rate."
"I'd… have to think about that," you answer, which is true enough. "These sorts of things are pretty much lifelong commitments, right ?"
"Smart. Good. Yes, they are. Nothing stops you from pulling out, but… If you've offended them, you shouldn't really go by the area anymore."
"And Violet is my hometown."
Melati just hums in agreement.
"Another reason she could be worth frequenting more often. It's your turf."
You grimace at the thought.
"That... remains to be seen."
"Ah. Parted on bad terms ?"
"Not openly, no," you concede with a wince. "But there's a lot left unsaid. My career choices weren't exactly what they'd have preferred."
"I know the feeling."
"You do ? I thought your parents are spoken of as rather supportive, though ?" you ask. You'd be worried about overstepping your bounds, but you're beginning to realise that Melati prefers curiosity to be expressed as bluntly as possible.
Weirdly enough, you think hanging out and attempting to communicate wordlessly with all those Nidoking and Nidoqueen might have actually made you better able to understand your mentor.
"They realised very quickly it was always going to happen and that there was no point fighting it. Don't mean they liked it."
"Ah," you say, because what else are you actually supposed to answer to that ? "Speaking of families, that Nidorina who took care of the Berries… Why is she still a Nidorina ? She was stronger than all those Nidoqueen I wrestled with, and I'm pretty sure she was older too. Considering that unless I'm mistaken they were all from a massed Stone evolution, why didn't she get one over the others ?"
"Good eye. On her strength and the Stone evolutions both. She's still a Nidorina because she's clever like her mother, that one."
"What do you mean ?"
"Hmm," she hums amusedly. "Try working it out."
Another thought exercise. Let's see if you can wrap your head around this one.
Her mother no doubt means Cassiopeia. Which considering she couldn't have been able to lay an Egg since she was a Nidoran, definitely puts that Nidorina as older than the group you were with. Also older than you by probably quite a few years.
So she's the queen's daughter. This didn't seem like the kind of the place where that'd grant her undue privileges, but even if ancestry isn't everything there's a reason pokemon eugenicists are a thing. And clearly, between her obvious strength and the fact she's got enough skill to have mastered a move so far removed from her line as Bubble Beam she didn't exactly slack off with what she was given.
A matter of power dynamics, perhaps ? If she were to be come a Nidoqueen, could she be at risk of becoming a viable threat to her mother's power base ? Unlikely. Nidoran are known to form tight-knit family units, and nothing you've seen suggests things are different in the enclave. Besides, Cassiopeia hardly seems the type to hold back someone from growing strong, and to add to everything you didn't get to see the true adults of the group (being presumably off hunting) so for all you know she's only very good, not exceptional.
Also, she was clearly at least partly in charge of logistics, and you don't hand over that responsibility to someone you don't trust.
So if she's not being held back, and wasn't passed over when the Stones were handed out, that leaves two options.
The first, that she didn't want to evolve, you discard almost immediately. She was too annoyed at the ribbing she got from her newly-evolved brethren not to want to be like them, and pokemon who actively don't want to evolve are ridiculously rare in the first place.
Which leaves the final option : the scenario where not receiving a Moon Stone is the privilege. Given what you know of Stone evolutions and how lacklustre they can be compared to natural ones…
"She has the potential to get there naturally, doesn't she ? That's why she didn't get a Moon Stone. Because it'd be a waste of her potential to cap her growth there."
"Correct," Melati smiles at you. "There's a reason they're called Nidoking and Nidoqueen rather than Nidochief. Cassiopeia wants a legacy. Someone to pass down her little kingdom to when she grows too old to hold it, that it doesn't disappear. And she'd rather that someone was of her line. But she respects strength too much to just have it be a given."
"She has to be worthy," you finish. "So she can't ever take the easy way."
"Exactly."
You're still mulling over Nidoqueen politics in your head when Melati's voice breaks the silence again.
"So, do you get the difference now ?"
What does she… Ah.
"Between Named pokemon and the rest ?"
"Yes."
"… Obviously, there's the presence. Cassiopeia was… She had so much weight to her. Like Jura does, but somehow even more. It's not just about strength, even if she had plenty of that, but kind of like anything she does is suddenly the most important thing in the world. And…"
You stare at your mentor, a little lost for words, but she just nods at you encouragingly. So you grow quiet for a minute and turn your thoughts inwards, trying to figure out what that niggling feeling is from what you've seen and already knew.
"… They warp the world around them," you eventually breathe out in realisation. "Cassiopeia didn't just watch over a herd… she ruled over a society."
And it's blindingly obvious now that you think back to it. Actual homes, carved out in a defensible location. Logistics and storage. Roles and assignments dependant on skills and availability. Training. Behaviours and social hierarchies you had no problem translating to similar human-equivalent ones. That throne.
Sure, it's a primitive one by human measure, but when you stop and actually take it all in… Melati and Cassiopeia traded stories over a drink. Marigold played games with the other children. You basically did the equivalent of playing pickup basketball and bantering with some of the younger adults. A strong wildborn is plenty clever, sure… But it can't inspire or even conceive that.
"Every Named shapes the world in their own way," Melati simply nods, "but all of them tend to break from what we think is possible. They become more."
"… There's that word again," you point out. She has a tendency to use it a lot, and make it sound blindingly obvious and annoyingly vague at the same time.
"Simple concept. Complex execution," she just shrugs, and her laconic delivery draws a smile out of you.
"Are all the other Named like that ?"
"Hmm… If you mean as impressive, then not really. They're even moreso. Cassiopeia is pretty much the bottom rung of the ladder. If you mean whether all domains are little kingdoms… Not really. Nidoran are a very social species. Akashi has no subjects, for example. He doesn't care about anything going on in the lake. He warps the Lake of Rage by being the only thing to stand out. Almost all Gyarados prefer the open sea. Why do you think he stays in a lake where no pokemon is even close to strong enough to challenge him, and he can't even struggle against the current ?"
Huh. Now that she says it… You don't really know why arguably the region's most notoriously aggressive battle-maniac would do that.
"Simple," she explains. "There's nothing but him. No distractions, no other strong pokemon to weaken or soften up trainers heading for him, no tides to waylay travellers, not a single distraction between potential challengers and himself.
"Akashi craves great battles where he can prove his might. So he settled in the most peaceful area possible, with absolutely nothing that could interfere in his fights, no outside factor that could affect them, and absolutely no distraction whatsoever to give a Trainer the desire to do anything but fight him."
So he turned the entire Lake of Rage into a giant "fight me" sign, by making sure that trainers in the area had nothing else to do.
… Wait, is she telling you he willingly and consciously made himself a tourist attraction in order to make sure he got better fights ?
Named are weird.
But you can't deny they're something else alright. It's… kind of crazy to imagine that Cassiopeia barely registers even within Johto, let alone the world.
And having finally met one face to face, you have to admit that between the myriad of emotions swirling within you, you overwhelmingly feel…
[][Write-in] Give one prominent emotion you feel with regard to having come face to face with a Named, and what the concept of Named pokemon inspires within your character. One emotion/adjective, with a short write-in as to why that one above all others. This is a character-building vote — to help me better determine how you'd like Joan to handle future such encounters.
It's already well into early afternoon by the time you make it to your camp, and you're absolutely starving — the cons of skipping lunch.
Thankfully, you had leftovers from breakfast which you supplement as much as you can, though you have to apologise to Marigold as you give her chow. You didn't exactly have enough spare for her. Melati's pokemon don't even consider the option — they're all off hunting as soon as their trainer tells them what's up.
With the day thoroughly shot, you don't bother getting Marigold through what would be be a pretty short training session, and instead play around with her for a bit before heading off back up the trail to gather some wood for tonight's fire and do a little foraging — you could use some Berries and herbs to liven up your dinner a little bit, and you don't want to constantly rely on Melati's pokemon. Marigold tagging along turns the chore into a pretty fun outing, what with her constant amazement at anything and everything new.
By the time you're done, evening is very much near, and you don't waste time cooking up the strangest stir fry you've ever made, including some bamboo shoots you found, some water chestnuts you fond growing in a stream, a Tamato Berry which was the only one you had to show for your search (clearly those Nidoran are much better at this than you are), egg and some clams Yero found and which he needed someone with actual digits to open.
You're not gonna say it's the best thing you've ever eaten, but honestly you expected it to turn out much worse. Besides, you managed to save some of the water chestnut flour to make water chestnut cake. Not exactly your favourite dim sum but you're kind of glad you even managed it in the first place. Your use of canned golden syrup instead of sugar gives it a distinctly odd taste, but at least it's recognisably a dessert.
As a little nightcap, Melati hands you a shot of that Alolan rum she was drinking with Cassiopeia (you're pretty sure the bottle was brand new, and are very concerned to discover it was three quarters through already) and you're very glad this isn't your first experience with alcohol because it's definitely on the stronger side.
Actually delicious, though.
Before you turn in for the night, however, there's one thing left to do.
Tonight is Tuesday evening. Melati wants to stay here until Saturday, because it's a convenient place for her to work with Pep and Jura on their new routine whilst also being a calm secluded place for you to put Marigold through her paces in peace.
Meaning you have to draw up a training plan for her for the next three whole days.
Now what to do ?
[][Write-in — Plan Name] Give me a training plan for Marigold, same as last time. Unlike the previous time, you're spacing this out over three entire days, so it's fine to have more than one focus. Keep in mind that the more things you work on, the less progress you'll make on a specific area, though some options have more synergy than others and will let progress in one area bleed through to another. I don't necessarily need you to break it down in terms of what gets done what day, just give me an order things should be done in if they matter. Check Training Conditions for any further details.
Not much has changed. You are in a small creek bordered by cliffs, on a beach large enough to run around in but that no one would call particularly big. There is a small trail leading to some forested hills and crags, but those lie in Cassiopeia's territory and you're not keen to venture there unwelcome
You have at your disposition sand, water and rock in abundance, and you have some extra firewood from what Melati brought. She is willing to put Yero the Seviper, Nekeh the Arbok and Yasigi the Sandaconda at your disposition if you need help, though she warns you not to rely on them to do all the work. Manasa the Serperior is still uninterested in getting involved, and Pep and Jura the Gyarados and Milotic are working on their own training.
Marigold knows the move Tackle, Growl, Take Down, Charge and Electric Terrain. Melati has cautioned you against training the first two, as they usually are not worth the investment. She has the traits Beautiful, Battery and Heightened Senses (Magnetic).
Melati has also cautioned you against trying to learn a new move before Marigold has a bit more mastery over her current ones, bar the eventual choice of Thundershock which is instinctual enough to a species like Mareep it shouldn't be too much work, and told you that any intensive purely physical training would likely not yield as strong a result as it could with a pokemon so young. To be clear, none of these are bad choices, but they will be harder to get benefits out of as fast when she's still a few days old.
In terms of the surrounding wildlife, in case you want targets or a challenge, there are mostly Wingull around, who don't seem to have a Pelipper in their lot, and some common Water-types (Krabby, Goldeen, Remoraid, Mantykes…) close to the shore as well as a small colony of Corsola.
Marigold is still young, but having interacted with more pokemon of her age and 'won' her first battle, you'd definitely be a bit more comfortable letting her get into a couple of fights against the surrounding weaker pokemon with a Type weakness.
Please don't attack the Corsola, they're a protected species in this area, and they can and will wreck Marigold. Also, the basic Water-types do include the occasional Goldeen, some of whom will be immune to the Electric-type, so that's a risk to keep in mind.
A/N: There it is, the next chapter. Even if you'd picked the most athletic background imaginable, you were never going to win a wrestling match with a Nidoking, but actually the Soft Boi archetype was not the worst equipped for this - years of wanting to be manlier on top of needing to keep in fit form for pokemon training meant I'd already determined you had some prior background in fighting of sorts.
And your first glimpse at the kind of things Named can carve for themselves. In a way, you pick the right Route to start on - Cassiopeia was very much a good first introduction, and with Melati's help you couldn't really fuck it up. That said, you did one better by choosing to immediately place yourself in the pecking order with those roughly equivalent to your age, however, because it's the sort of attitude a Nidoqueen understands, and that she personally respects. Better initial contact for you, but it does mean that if you intend on seeing her again you'll have to keep growing between each visit not to disappoint her.
I'll try and see if I can't find the time to put up some dex pages for the Nidoran line within the next couple of days, Joan's earned them.
Votes for this update :
[][Write-in][Approval] How you feel about Named
[][Write-in][Plan form] Marigold's training for the next three days
Once again, there is FOUR HOURS moratorium on voting.
The whole Named thing makes me wonder how Pokémon Rangers work with them. And how the Ranger Corps works here in general. But my opinion on the Named themselves… Respect, for sure. Awe, obviously, but more than anything, "I want That". Not in trying to catch the Named, that's just a bad idea. But that confidence, that ability to make the world bend to them, even just a little. I want that. I want Protagonist Plot Armor.
I think we should work on Thundershock, since Marigold is still too young for much physical training. Beyond that, maybe learning what materials can provide the most static charge? Yeah, build up static on a specific material, use charge to figure out thundershock, repeat.
Huh, I am... pleasantly surprised at how well that turned out. And it just underscores the fact that mon perceive things differently. I agree with Nox that Respect is the big takeaway here. Not just Cassiopeia, but also Akashi. The infamous Red Gyarados is so intent on being able to draw strong combatants to himself to test his strength that he removed any other major source of conflict in the area.
You've been working your whole life towards taking up one of the most dangerous jobs out there. And still no one will take you seriously, because you were cursed with looking completely harmless.
This is exactly the same reaction our dude wants to happen to his social interactions.
So, I am sort of split between going for Wonder or Aspiration.
Wonder due to us seeing a sliver of an example of what we want. That being the ability to clearly tell the world whenever you are in Serious Mode.
Aspiration though, could work better depending on the details. It's a goal for us to work ourself up into someone who has a human version of a Named domain. That being the ability to bend one's surroundings to one's will. To be more than just a soft boi (because I don't want to give up soft boi characteristic.).
[ ][Named] Inspired- named are able to shape the world on their image, and this one was able to create a small society just for those she cares about. I may neve have the sheer power that even the weakest name does, but I can carve out a little world for those I care about.
If we could eventually convince her to let us catch one, what themes combine nidoran and mareep? Evolving into bipeds? Don't touch this?
Oh, boy. I'm not much good at write-ins, but I want to throw some things out there. I'd like to do some dodge-training to help Marigold get started on the concept. We could get one of Melati's pokemon to help with that, or we could throw firewood.
If we want to teach her Thundershock, I'd leave that for last and have her practice Charge first to get more practice with Electric moves beforehand. We could also have her try combining Charge and Take Down, but that combo move seems like a different battling style than Thundershock. It feels like we should focus on one battling style to start with to avoid confusing Marigold when we have limited time to give instructions during battle.
I think that maybe seeing what her upper limit on Charge is might be a good idea? And seeing if she can focus that energy on a single point and let it go outwards. Right now we just need her to be able to project the energy as something other than terrain. Though maybe telling her to take how she was doing Electric Terrain and push it up instead?
So, I am sort of split between going for Wonder or Aspiration.
Wonder due to us seeing a sliver of an example of what we want. That being the ability to clearly tell the world whenever you are in Serious Mode.
Aspiration though, could work better depending on the details. It's a goal for us to work ourself up into someone who has a human version of a Named domain. That being the ability to bend one's surroundings to one's will. To be more than just a soft boi (because I don't want to give up soft boi characteristic.).
I'm thinking "can use dragon moves without naturally being dragon type" would work. Both Mareep and the Nidoran lines qualify for this. There's only a couple dozen dragon type moves, but it doesn't lock us into the usual Mono-Type specialization. Also means we can get Dragon Clan rivalry without them getting legal BS on their side.
I considered "are in both the Field and Monster Egg Groups" to line up with that softboi/steel spine contrast we're going for, but that's a really narrow theme, only four evolutionary lines; the Nidorans, Mareep, and Whismur.
I'm thinking "can use dragon moves without naturally being dragon type" would work. Both Mareep and the Nidoran lines qualify for this. There's only a couple dozen dragon type moves, but it doesn't lock us into the usual Mono-Type specialization. Also means we can get Dragon Clan rivalry without them getting legal BS on their side.
Right now we still don't actually know what themes really entail. We'll need to wait for the next update to get that so far as I understand. All we know right now is that having a theme can help a lot, but it needs to be cohesive and it can't be too broad.
Aspiration, that's a good adjective for what I'm going for. Good job.
I'm thinking "can use dragon moves without naturally being dragon type" would work. Both Mareep and the Nidoran lines qualify for this. There's only a couple dozen dragon type moves, but it doesn't lock us into the usual Mono-Type specialization. Also means we can get Dragon Clan rivalry without them getting legal BS on their side.
I considered "are in both the Field and Monster Egg Groups" to line up with that softboi/steel spine contrast we're going for, but that's a really narrow theme, only four evolutionary lines; the Nidorans, Mareep, and Whismur.
If specialising in the Monster egg group is a possibility, it wouldn't be the worst option tbh - great type diversity, some really cool pokemon. Lots of reptilians (bipedal ones, like Mareep will eventually become as an Ampharos), which is a neat possible tie-in with Melati and her snek focus, even if she might disdain the very concept of legs.
I can see a mythology student reconsidering every old myth he knows by taking into account that pokemons can build societies on their own and how domesticated pokemons could cause issues between human and pokemon groups. It might not be out of our reach to work on an alternative history book on human societies by taking pokemons as political actors.
