Obviously what happens is that Elise and Mariana find a single Luvdisc somewhere in the Mesagoza sewers while doing their regular ranger work. They then proceed to take care of it together while trying to find its partner, all while both Theodora and Erika are dying an agonizingly slow death from jealousy.
no pokéshaming please, you're into the bamboo rocket pokémon that may or may not contain a lunar princess, and i'm into the jojo posing dwayne "the succ" johnson, and both are valid
no pokéshaming please, you're into the bamboo rocket pokémon that may or may not contain a lunar princess, and i'm into the jojo posing dwayne "the succ" johnson, and both are valid
I can accept this peace agreement - humanity is plagued by ideological version divides, but the truth is: funny jojo bug and funny rocket princess can coexist. Also, you're 110% right about primarina.
[X] East Cortondo Province: The agricultural and economic heart of Cortondo. Vast farmlands managed by humans and Pokemon, occasionally broken up forests occupied by various Pokemon operating in mutually beneficial relationships with the locals. To its north lies the former Badajoz Province of pre-Great Collapse times. Built on its namesake plateau, it was fully abandoned by the time of Emperor Rodrigo's reunification of Paldea. But the centuries of human habitation, both its presence and its absence, have left its mark.
[X] East Cortondo Province: The agricultural and economic heart of Cortondo. Vast farmlands managed by humans and Pokemon, occasionally broken up forests occupied by various Pokemon operating in mutually beneficial relationships with the locals. To its north lies the former Badajoz Province of pre-Great Collapse times. Built on its namesake plateau, it was fully abandoned by the time of Emperor Rodrigo's reunification of Paldea. But the centuries of human habitation, both its presence and its absence, have left its mark.
"Instructor, this is unacceptable!" Yells Jacinto, who was quicker on the draw. Him speaking first caused Manuel to stop whatever he was going to say, resulting in the latter just grumbling discontentedly at Leaf.
"Jacinto will be unable to control himself. He'll mouth off and anger someone important. Especially since you've assigned us to West Cortondo." Manuel finally said. Leaf had a thoughtful look on her.
"Well I'm not changing it. This class is gonna be together for at least three years. You don't have to like each other, you just have to work together." Leaf said in an authoritative tone. The playful look on her face was gone, replaced by that same expression you saw before she left that Sunday. Her change in demeanor seems to have thrown Jacinto and Manuel off balance.
"I will hear no more of this. Are we clear?" The boys grumbled out an affirmative to Leaf's satisfaction.
With that done, she gives out a few more instructions before dismissing your class for the day. You turn to look at Elise and nod at her, which she returns. You had coordinated earlier this morning to do this. The two of you stay behind while the rest of your class pours out of the classroom.
Your instructor sits down on a chair and deflates in exhaustion. "Go and ask away." She takes off her sunglasses before pinching the bridge of her nose.
"What happened to your arm? You looked terrible last night." Elise asks, taking the lead. You didn't want to dwell on it much last night, but Leaf came home, drunk and with a broken arm. Whether she got it in Rime or when she got back doesn't matter, the two of you were worried about her.
"...I suppose I should give you two explanations on what happened. At least you didn't ask me last night. Would've been a mess." Leaf whispers that last part, before turning to the two of you.
"...Let's just say I got into a fight with a couple of old enemies from my past. I've met a lot of people in my career." Even now Leaf seems to be dancing around the topic of what happened.
"Was it Team Rocket?" Elise suddenly asks. You think back to the gossip and conversations you've had with Erika and Theodora. The latter clearly knows who Leaf is, beyond just knowing her as your class instructor.
Leaf rolls her eyes and scoffs. "Please, it's just some wannabees picking through the bones of a corpse. Malignants lining up to make sweet love to the shit smeared on the underside of a Capo's boot." There's venom in her voice, oozing hatred and disdain. Leaf quickly puts her glasses back after seeing the mildly shocked looks on your and Elise's faces.
"That's enough storytime for today. You two get going, you have an entire free day ahead of you. I'll clean up here." With that Leaf dismisses the two of you. You offer to help her clean up but she brushes you off. As you and Elise head out, ruminating on what she just said, you speak up.
"We're worried about you, Miss Leaf, if there's anything we can do—" Leaf interrupts you by flicking your nose. A shadow of a smile on her face.
"Geez, you're tall. I'll be fine, you two. I'm a grown woman, You learn to get used to it." With that she closes the door and that's the end of that.
"...Should you, though?" Elise whispers something under her breath. With no more answers forthcoming, you two split and head on with your day.
"Wow! You're really good! No wonder you're Class VII!" You're currently in the school Battle Arenas training Roland for the first Field Exercise. There you encountered someone you haven't met since the entrance exams.
Astrid de Ambrette had her hair in the same style as when you met her, she was wearing a purple uniform with the Pasio Numeral for two on her collar, signifying that she was a member of Class II and more importantly a noble. She also had an Ekans wrapped around her neck.
She was also just as energetic as ever.
"Hehe, thanks..." Unlike when you first met her, you're a lot less nervous. You could actually focus on a conversation with her. The two of you had just finished battling, Roland flew circles around her Ekans, going intangible whenever the Snake Pokemon tried to wrap around and trap him.
The two of you made small talk about each other's Pokemon. She prefers to fuss over and pamper her Ekans, which weirdly seems to make the latter dissatisfied. Like they're irritated at the constant affection and worrying Astrid was giving them. Apparently her Ekans was a gift from her parents, which makes sense. The Arbok line isn't native to Atlantei, the continent where the regions of Galar, Paldea and Kalos were in.
"Wait!" Astrid suddenly interrupts. She narrows her eyes to look at someone behind you. "Is that Manny?" Who?
"It is! Is he also Class VII!?" You turn around to look at 'Manny' and find Manuel looking at you and Astrid, panic clear in his eyes.
"It'sbeenfunMarianabutI'vegottagotalktoMannyHere'smynumberseeya!" Astrid speeds off after Manuel, who immediately books it. Before she leaves she shoves a strip of paper onto your uniform's breast pocket. You look at it, and it has her email and number.
Manuel is probably gonna be fine.
With Roland all rested up, you gather up the confidence for what's to come. The entire reason you wanted to train today was to prepare Roland, regardless if you're challenging the Gym or not. Two Pokemon are currently registered in your Trainer Card, Roland and Renne. You're technically eligible for a Gym Battle. But with how Renne isn't interested in battling or even training, if you did challenge the Gym, Roland will have to do it on his own.
Can Roland 1v2 a Gym Leader? You're gonna find out Sunday, in the Mesagoza Battle Arenas. With the opening of the circuit so close, there are more trainers than ever preparing for the start or continuation of their Journey. There's so many of them, in fact, you had to challenge people ahead of time and book arena's for you to use rather than just walking and randomly challenging strong looking people.
You put your condition in the challenges that you're only accepting battles from Trainers with two Pokemon and one Badge, and that it'll be a 1v2 in their favor. You put a little extra cash to sweeten the pot for some of them. But that's two days away. Right now, you need to find out if you're even capable of taking that first step.
You're gonna challenge Nemona again.
Back during the first Round Robin, you decided that Nemona was going to be your measuring stick, the one whose progress you're gonna compare yourself to. In order to judge your worth as a Trainer. Knowing full well it's not gonna be easy.
Nemona is for all intents and purposes your rival. Even if she doesn't know it. God, just saying it like that makes you feel pathetic—
Roland's tail smacks onto your face. He has an impatient look on his face. Right, he also has a little bit of a rivalry with Sunny and Mercury. He probably couldn't wait to fight them again.
Mustering up all your courage, you go over to where Nemona was sitting spraying potions on Sunny.
"Hey Nemona, do you wanna battle?"
Yesterday was a blur.
You challenged Nemona to a battle, she of course used her Wattrel against Roland, and you won. She even congratulated you and everything. Sure she might've been going easy on you, she hadn't sent out Sunny after all. A part of you thinks it doesn't even count.
But now you're fighting her for real. Coaching it in a request of wanting to train against a stronger opponent, Nemona is going to be battling you using Sunny. From the glimpses you've caught of the Monferno, they're even faster and stronger now. You doubt you're gonna win. But you have to see just how far you still have to go.
"Are you ready?" Nemona asks from across the arena, she's also been spending the weekends training her Pokemon, you're pretty certain battling and training are what she spends most of her free time on.
"Ready as I'll ever be—thanks for agreeing to this by the way." You send Roland out onto the Arena and Nemona follows suit, releasing Sunny.
"I'd never say no to a battle!" Nemona enthusiastically replied.
This is the first time you'd be battling Sunny since the Round Robin. You don't doubt that they've gotten stronger. The question is how much.
"Close the distance with Mach Punch! Don't let him escape!" Sunny throws his arm back for a punch, his fist glowing white, before he swings and vanishes, only to reappear in front of Roland. Roland for his part had already sunk into the shadows, using Shadow Sneak to slighter away.
Sunny's tail was suddenly covered in the tell tale signs of Dark TE, and you yell at Roland to emerge and strike. He emerges just in time to avoid the Monferno's Knock-Off from slamming into his shadow. Roland crashes right into Sunny's face, biting his nose, before speeding off with Quick Attack to dodge the Monfernos efforts to grab onto him.
Putting distance between them, Roland activates Agility and soars off into the sky. Infestations, already building up in his mouth. You might not win but you're gonna make her work for it.
"You wanna show Roland what you've been working on?" Nemona asks her Pokemon, who howls in excitement in reply. Sunny leaps up into the air as fire spews out of all of his limbs. The Monferno rocketed off after Roland. Fast. But nowhere near enough to—
"Mach Punch after them!" Sunny's left arm stops spewing fire, as the Monferno pulls his arm back and throws it forward in Roland's direction. In an eyeblink, Sunny has crossed most of the distance between them. Not great.
"Send them out now!" Roland unleashes the Infestations at Sunny, while continuously playing keep away. Your practice has finally gotten him used to multitasking with Infestation, as a steady stream of green lights emerge from Rolands mouth and hone in on Sunny.
As Sunny rushes headlong into the veritable swarm of Bug TE, you wonder what Nemona is planning. At the very last moment before impact, Sunny's arm swings right, sending Monferno out of the path of the still homing swarm.
The chase has reversed, as Sunny flees and evades Infestations, using Mach Punch from his arms to maneuver away. Behind the swarm of Bug TE was Roland who's focusing more and more effort into Infestation, even experimenting with using the much slower Will-o-Wisps. Directing them onto Sunny's path, as per your instruction.
Yet not a single one has hit. The swarms are numerous now—even if all of them hit Sunny, it wouldn't take them down, but the move's homing nature would make it so that just a single hit would mean the other swarms would follow in quick succession. Infestation's unique nature means that they wouldn't be able to fly like that anymore. And that'd force Nemona to rely on ranged options, which you don't doubt she's also prepared for.
As the swarms begin to corner Sunny more and more, exertion visible in his face, you're unable to help yourself. You're beginning to believe. Could you do this? Could you catch up to Nemona? Is it possible—
"Now, Sunny!" The Monferno stops flying, cutting off the flames from all of its limbs. As he lays in freefall, Sunny draws back both of his arms and aims in Roland's direction once more. Before you can even shout for your tired Pokemon to dodge, Sunny was already on him. And so was the swarm now homing onto his new location. Oh shit.
Sunny grabs Roland with both arms and puts him between themself and the Infestations. As the swarms impact the two Pokemon, a massive explosion sends both Pokemon flying.
Sunny lands on all fours before stumbling, their leg was bent in a weird shape and their arm was broken. He had a massive grin on his face, even as sparks of green Bug TE surrounded him. But it doesn't matter as Roland crashes into the ground unconscious. It's over.
Of course the moment you get your hopes up, it all goes wrong.
"Great Battle!" Nemona walks up to you with a smile on her face. You two go and recall your Pokemon to get them healed up.
You battle once more after your Pokemon are healed up enough from Potions and the Academy Battle Arena's healing machine. You did finally learn what Nemona's ranged options are though. Not including the obvious of Sunny getting better at continuous streams of Incinerate. Nemona's developed a modified Rock Throw, where Sunny would Rock Smash with his tail to carve out objects to set aflame and throw from afar.
You thank her once again for indulging you. Maybe one day it'll be a more even fight so you don't feel like you're wasting her time just challenging her. You go back home exhausted.
With that humbling from Nemona, you and Roland throw yourselves into Training and Battling during Sunday. Thankfully you decided to spend all day at the Mesagoza Arena so not only were you battling, you were able to rub elbows with people who at least seem to know what they're doing. By the time the day was done, you were exhausted and so was Roland. He's gonna be so lazy because of this, even if he did enjoy the battles.
Finishing up your nightly routine, saying Good Night to Renne and explaining what a Field Exercise is and that she's going with you to Cortondo for a week. She seems excited to be getting out of the dorms again so you're wondering if you can maybe hang out with her and Roland in the town. Cortondo is pretty famous for its pastries.
Checking your phone for the night, you see that you got a message from your mom.
'Remember your letters! It has to be handwritten, and it's good for you to remember how to write in Andosin!'
You roll your eyes at her message but don't. She's right that it's important to keep your connection to Andosin language and writing. Thankfully you bought some letters, stamps and paper in anticipation for this.
As you stare at a blank piece of paper, you think about what to write. Probably what's happened in the month so far, though you should probably leave out the parts involving you being pathetic and also nearly dying to Renne.
You look out the window of your room. You've gotten used to routine in Mesagoza. It's pretty nuts just how fast you've managed to adapt. Mesagoza is still pretty alien to you but you no longer feel like you're a stranger in a strange land. You think about the friends you've made. Even if you are still estranged from the world's largest city, at least you won't be alone.
NEXT UPDATE:
ARC 1: FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD
CHAPTER 1: BUG BUZZ
No vote for this Update, was technically gonna be part of the prior update but I decided to split it since I was busy this and last week with irl stuff.
330 KNOW XP
1000 SKLL XP
1000 POKE XP
2 MXP
Fundamental Fundamentals has now expired
Thanks to Nemastrea for proofreading
Agreed. Badge 2 level for a dreepy this quick is pretty impressive. If we had as many mastered moves as nemonas monferno I bet we deff had a shot at winning.
Nemona marks Julianna as her new friend/rival from the moment she sees Clavell offering them a starter, and has to be talked down from challenging Julianna with her Champion-level team then and there by Clavell.
Strength isn't really the main consideration there, or else she wouldn't have marked someone who just got their first Pokemon and doesn't even know how to catch more as her rival. There's something else to it, and whatever that something else is, Marianne just doesn't have it.
The comedic answer is 'yuri vibes'; the more realistic answer is that it's probably a drive towards strength-via-combat that Marianne just doesn't have in the same way that Nemona does.
For context's sake; let's remember that taking into account the level ranges of the main game, Julianna at this point- ready to take on her first badge- is only a single level away from working with Arven to challenge the first Titan Pokemon of the game. Regardless of anything else, regardless of the fact that she tackles it with Arven and never alone, that's insane to consider in a serious take on the world. Marianne wouldn't even consider it, I think; she'd just consider it a death sentence, and rightfully so. You'd have to be actually cracked in the head to do it.
I was so happy with getting skill 13 but then when we look at our 'Rival' she has skill 15! plus she has more AP than us to devote to training. Always knew it was going to be hard but man this is absolutely brutal. I guess it can be a way to get our willpower developed instead of some thing that will break us cos if reading Xianxia is taught me anything is that willpower is the most important stat 😃
Is there a way for us to get more AP? lot of our class seems to have a lot of stats in 12 and we seem to have no advantage besides our dragon Pokemon . Hopefully we're able to close the gap on our KNOW after the FE and have enough league points for the KNOW trainer
Is there a way for us to get more AP? lot of our class seems to have a lot of stats in 12 and we seem to have no advantage besides our dragon Pokemon . Hopefully we're able to close the gap on our KNOW after the FE and have enough league points for the KNOW trainer
Mary wouldn't have better stats than her other classmates, because she doesn't actually have any advantage over them, yeah. She's just one person out of many in Class VII; Elise is the actual 'protagonist' (but she doesn't even have particularly good stats either).
You can visually see a lot of their stats listed in this post. Ostia, for example, has equivalent SKLL to Mary, but substantially lower CHRM and PROW; Ostia's CHRM of 7 is equal to Mary's lowest skill at KNOW 7, but Mary's next highest stat is PROW at 11, where Ostia only has PROW 8.
Erika has a single stat higher than any of Mary's at KNOW 14, and she has a very high SKLL at 12, but she has a lower CHRM than Mary has in any stat at 6. My guess is that Erika's PROW is probably around the 10 mark, which would make her total stat level roughly equivalent to Mary's.
We go down to Nemona, and she absolutely dunks on Mary with a SKLL of 15 to Mary's 13. However, Nemona's two other revealed stats are very low, at CHRM 7 and PROW 9 respectively. One presumes that she probably has a decent-to-good KNOW level; 10 or 11 would make her total statblock roughly in line with Mary's, and she is meant to eventually become Student Council President.
Etc, etc.
Mary appears to have a statblock that's pretty roughly equivalent to the total statblock of her classmates, minus probably Elise, who might have a higher total statblock at the cost of not having one particularly high stat. Everyone seems to be roughly around the 42-44 stat mark or below.
Nemona has the strongest Pokemon out of everyone, of course- a late 2-badge Pokemon and a roughly mid 2-badge Pokemon. Everyone else varies from having a singular 1-badge Pokemon to a 2 badge Pokemon and a 1 badge Pokemon. Yeah, Nemona kind of dumps on Mary here- but then, it's Nemona; that's really to be expected.
I don't think that Mary's out of line with the rest of the class currently. She seems to be fitting in with the average pretty well, just suffering going up repeatedly in battle against the class's battling prodigy.
Hell yeah, update!
