-Equus, Canterlot, Jaded-
“Can you not ruin my day when you’re around Jaded?” Grinning at one of my good friends Bon-Bon. The earth pony secret agent that is a candy confectioner, and a recent hire for Capture Bridle Defend, who was one of my bestest friends ever.
“Oh, she hasn’t been that bad to you. She’s arguably more affectionately annoying towards Captain Spitfire.” Fancy Pants was also a good friend, he like my quirkiness. He likes things to not be boring too. We had a lot in common. “So what’s the good words today Jaded my good lass?”
“Well Secret Agent Fussy Britches, the Quarrelsome Quartet are holding up their end of the bargain, Celestia is going to admit to tax evasion since she no longer has an excuse of being a princess to not pay them and Luna is going be…” I was cut off when a tremor shook all of Canterlot.
“JADED LA PERM!” And that was Luna’s royal Canterlot voice going off.
“Never mind, she triggered the magical lock-on constant pie pummeling portal trap early. It’s going to be one pie for like every three minutes, I think, to the face for the next… uh. I never did the math on it, probably a good thing for the sake of the world, but there are a lot of pies involved.” I made sure to figure out what her most hated flavor of pie for it was. Also to make sure the pies don’t go to waste I have Green Smooze on clean up. “Forty pies, they’ll all be no miss pies over the course of several hours for certain. I took the time to count them and made sure that I didn’t accidentally do math, so that they don’t end up like Nightmare plague causing pies or something.”
“That’s as many as four tens!” Fancy Pants stated in honest astonishment.
“And that’s terrible.” Bon-bon nodded and seemed to feel sorry for Luna. “So why am I here again, can’t you catch up with Agent Fussy without me?”
“UGH, THE SMOOZE, REALLY JADED?!” Luna yelled from across the city.
“Well you’re here to carry a coded message to my underworld associates ‘The Squirrels’, also a large bottle of premium cashews… the fate of the world actually depends on it.” It made me smile to see Bon-Bon sighing in utter defeat knowing she’d be forced to do it somehow. “Also you’ll be left holding this bag, run Agent Fussy run!”
-Bon-Bon, AKA Agent Sweetie Drops of SMILE, now currently an agent of CBD-
“Wha-?!” I was left holding a bag and a message in hoof, there was also a wobbling plastic jars of cashews sitting next to me as the two ran away.
“Where is she!” As Luna came stomping down the street, the bag Bon-Bon was holding sprang open and a pie flew out of it.
Luna turned her anger onto Bon-Bon who took up the jar of cashews and the message, then started running for her life.
-Fancy Pants AKA Agent Fussy Britches of SMILE-
“This is proving to be a most fortuitous day!” My Abyssinian friend was entertaining, I should really invite her, the Storm Queen and the Barrister Beast over for a dinner party. Maybe even set up something for her to steal on purpose with as much security as I can possibly manage? Well I’m fairly sure she’d enjoy that. “Jaded, I would like to invite you and your family to a dinner party at my estate. Do you accept?”
“Will there be twister and blackjack?” Jaded asked while scrutinizing me closely as we ran. “Hookers is already assumed because of Fleur’s rather generous presence.”
“Oh my yes.” I stated plainly.
“I’m bringing Pinkie Pie with me!” The response to Jade’s suddenly jovial countenance was for me to smile, I do so love a good rogue that messes with the established order of things. Not that she’d ever target me like she does the other nobles, we simply have far too much fun working together.
-Ransei, Team Harmony HQ/Guild Hall of Helper’s Hamlet, another morning, Pom-
Mr. Schlurp was going to save me on having to cook every meal, but I still wanted to at least cook and clean somewhat. I also needed to exercise to see where my limits were currently.
Last night we got to hear from Smolder and Ocellus’s friend Gallus, he’s apparently a competent guard.
“If this keeps happening, I’m just going to start renting my body out as a pillow…” I complained audibly. “Also why can’t you guys just use Wooloo as pillows?”
“Maybe it’s because they are not as good smelling as you?” One of the three Rockruff, currently cuddling up to me, stated in a sleepy tone. “I mean the bathhouses here alone would help them with that, because those dirt baths for rock Pokémon were really nice.”
“Pom, do you honestly know where those Wooloo have been?” Ocellus stated as she continued to rub her sleepy face into my wool.
“Okay, yeah, fair.” I rolled my eyes exasperatedly.
Still, I was quite serious about charging Poké for using me as a functional sleeping aid, so long as all the Pokémon will do is use me as a pillow.
-Breakfast time-
Walking down the stairs, I sat down at a table and saw Mr. Schlurp serving up waffles for breakfast.
I idly wondered what excitements will come my way today. As long as others can do the fighting, then I can remain blissfully happy that I’m not needed for a pitched battle of life and death.
My answer would soon come in the form of a small orange chicken with small yellow wings and moderately length legs for its body that made it look like a remind me of a kiwi bird. The beak was distinctively chicken though. Judging by the smell and general appearance, the strange chicken was a fire type Pokémon.
“Hello? Is this where the Rescue team is?” Well yes, but I would like to know why more Pokémon from Ignis were showing up here, at least I’m assuming this one was from Ignis.
“Yes, can I help you in a set capacity that doesn’t require me to leave Aurora for any reason whatsoever that might end with me getting maimed and or harmed grievously?” My future was bound to be painful, the question was how painful and when would I feel safe enough to leave the safest kingdom on this continent. “Welcome to Helper’s Hamlet and Team Harmony’s HQ by the way. Commission, joining or other?”
“Commission!” She chirped merrily, as she reached into her backpack like pouch and showed she had a bit of Poké on her.
“Before that, I need to ask a friend of mine something, hey Motochika!” I turned to Motochika who looked to me while chewing through some berry covered waffles. “When are you going to head back to Fontaine; or when are you going to try and reach northeastern Fontaine?”
“Well it’s not hard for me to get there if you’re asking if I’ll need help, but I’m going to need something to shield all my units from being taken advantage of again. We’re going to need something to block out further mind control efforts before we go into an area where the Pokémon are still under its effects.” Motochika sighed happily into a mouthful of food, I idly considered how the otter Pokémon was a good leader as he was thinking ahead instead of blindly rushing off with the forces we rescued. All his units still needed some recovery time. “Until then, I’d rather not take up all of Evan’s hospitality and will be staying in Helper’s Hamlet for the time being until my recovered units are back in gear for moving around. We’ll all just jump into the river to the north and swim east until we hit the coast and northeast Fontaine. From there I will get a handle on what forces I still have available to me that evacuated southern Fontaine, that Squirtle Squad better have made it there after all the trouble Captain Skeeball went through for them. We’re water Pokémon so moving a force like ours is easy when there’s water to move it with, not hard to say we have the best navy around these parts. Which is another reason why I think the mind controlling my forces isn’t a military genius, the units we fought could have been in the water around the bridge for ambush potential instead of on dry land and out in the open waiting for targets to cross the bridge. Already told Evan he can keep the gear you guys grabbed from the Dutiful Duck Battalion, Jiri’s unit can certainly use them.”
Well that just proved my concern that the battle could have gone far, FAR, worse.
“Thanks, now what was your commission?” I asked sweetly of the fire chicken. “Also what are you?”
“I’m a Torchic, also my commission is for you to help train me so I can protect myself and others better!” This Torchic wilted a bit and hopped into a chair at my table to start kicking her legs. “The civilians up north are getting kind of battered by the civil war going on and our Brave Litleo unit came back almost too battered to stop the fighting from spilling over onto the more innocent Pokémon that don’t want to fight. They’re fine, but they really need help and I heard of a Rescue Team starting here, Ransei’s first even! I heard they act as mercenaries to find items, help Pokémon in trouble and or can do many things on top of rescuing people. So I want you’re help to learn how to fight for my friends!”
“Well I guess we should start with some exercises after breakfast then.” Sounded easy enough commission to me, once I knew what I was working with.
“Can I join in on that? I’ll paying for your help too! My training practice with my bear friends didn’t go over too well as we were watching the castle, I kind of need help learning how to train others more than I do knowing how to train personally… though there are some things I need to train in. ‘Like my bounce attack always going awry’.” Jiri had quite suddenly arrived and sat down at my table, the rabbit looked a little worn and weary. “Also those waffles smell really good, can I get some of those… please!”
“Then pay us however much you feel we deserve. Just don’t bankrupt yourself doing so.” I wasn’t going to set a price on this commission. “I hope you get what you both want out of this, since the commission is the same we can do both at once.”
“Yeah, we can be training our companions too while we’re being at it… regular fruit juice?!” having swallowed a drink from her cup, Shanty turned to him and looked a little angry. “I be wanting rum Mr. Schlurp!”
Mr. Schlurp shrugged in her direction as a sigh escaped my lips.
-After breakfast, some ways out to the east of Helper’s Hamlet in a grass field-
I started with stretching, Jiri and the Torchic did this easily enough.
Then I tried for more esoteric exercises, starting with Jiri.
“I’m going to practice jumping in place, increasing how high I jump each time. Starting with a small hop.” I did so, a small hop. I then did a slightly higher hop. “Doing things like this lets you know where your limits are. I’m going to figure out the limits of my normal jumping before I start into the enhancing it.”
“Ooh… this’ll be useful for when I learn Sky Uppercut!” Flapped the Torchic as she did a small hop too and hopped slightly higher the second time.
I then jumped, putting more effort into it and my lightweight body cleared half a nearby tree in height. I hadn’t hit my maximum jump height. As I came down I tumbled and Dolly did so next to me.
“Joining you Pom, I need to work out my super jumps a bit.” Dolly offered a simple explanation why she was here.
“It will also help if you know how to tumble or have another method of learning how to land from a high fall.” I looked towards Jiri who seemed reluctant to do any jumping. “You said you needed help with this didn’t you?”
“Yes… but my jumping leads to accidents…” Come on Jiri, I’m sure it’s not that bad. “I’ll try normal hopping, but I really don’t think I should use my enhancing jumping.”
“We’re just jumping in place Jiri.” I spread my legs out, crouched and then jumped, my height getting almost to the tops of the tree. Being fully healthy really is putting a pep in my step and a wonderful feeling… I inflated my wool before I hit the ground and finished dropping.
“Woo this is getting pretty hard!” Looking to the Torchic, she was getting higher and higher with each jump up to the point she could leap half way up the ten or so hooves tall tree.
I jumped again and cleared the top of the tree, which was me actually putting more effort into it, I inflated my wool before I landed. Looking back to Jiri, I gestured for her to do some jumps. She wasn’t looking to me, but at me wool curiously as she flicked both her ears…
She gave a tiny hop, then she hopped slightly higher, then she jumped a bit more. Jiri continued until she went well past the tree top and continued to land on her feet each time. Buneary could jump pretty darn high.
“Well I guess this isn’t… too bad.” Jiri said after landing while spreading her ears out to slow down her fall.
“This is also about control, can you keep control of how high you are jumping as much as increasing the height you can reach? Can you jump to a set height again several times in a row, I’m going to be pushing my limits here.” I seriously needed to test how strong I currently was and how strong I could actually be if I wasn’t being such a coward... which as a lambkin is a normal thing. “I’m going to do a full unassisted jump.”
Crouching down, I prepared to give it my all, my muscles tensed as I entered a Fleet Cunning Doe leaping stance with my legs spread out and then pushed off the ground. I went past the tree and the height of my jump was quite a bit higher. I just hung in the air with that realization for a few seconds before gravity pulled me back down.
I inflated my wool before I hit the ground, Dolly had leapt next to me and cleared the same height I did.
“Okay Pom, that was kind of amazing jump… but was that an assisted jump you were talking about?” Torchic stated as she jumped and reach three fourths of the trees height.
“Actually… no… that wasn’t assisted.” Though the Fleet Cunning Doe leap did throw me. I hadn’t actually done a full straight up jump with it, I’ve always used those jumps for maneuvering around horizontally around an opponent.
“What’s assisted jump look like then?” The Torchic stated before leaping slightly higher than last time. “I think I hit my limit, I don’t have a move to assist me higher.”
“I’ll show you.” Starting to start working the wool around my legs, I prepared to jump.
“This is going to be something, isn’t it?” Dolly stated as she moved over to the others and then went back to jumping normally, she wasn’t using her flow-motion or momentum powers.
I pushed of the ground and my push was assisted by my wool stretching downwards, I practically launched far and well past the tree.
The air rushed past me as I jumped, my wool have launched me far higher than my muscles ever could.
I took a moment to consider my talent as a fluffmancer, it ‘was’ minimal and I could barely armor myself and manipulate my wool before.
Now, I think was at an intermediate level, given I just replicated another thing that Paprika can do. I just now jumped high enough that I could get a pretty good glide going and might be able to catch some thermals.
My talents went from barely being able to control my wool armor to gliding, wall climbing, thickening wool around my hooves to increase striking force like boxing gloves, turning myself a living drill and now I can jump this high without entering Shock Ram.
In the few seconds of weightlessness, I started thinking I should take the time for myself to really focus on figuring out how to do other things with my fluffmancer abilities… like the wool wings I created.
Wait… Shock Ram doesn’t affect my magical limitations only my physical limitations… well not correct, my magic is kind of tied to my mental state and at the time I made the wool wings work was focused to a fine point and moving with Dolly assisting me with her personal power. Does that mean if I’m positively focused enough, and not an anxiety driven mess, that I can learn to fly?
With a panicked gasped, I inflated my wool a foot above the ground before setting down softly.
“Something like that.” With a small weak smiled on my lips, I flopped over on my side.
“Huh.” Torchic stated as she looked at me lying on the ground.
“Just straight up and landing right here… okay… I’m doing it too.” Jiri crouched and then used Bounce, she disappeared in to the sky, going far higher than I did.
Getting up, I looked up as did Dolly and the Torchic who probably doesn’t have a name or hasn’t told us one yet. They looked back at me and then up as something flashed brightly in the sky and something came crashing down towards us, also we could eventually hear screaming as two creatures came down before they hit the ground kicking up a lot of dust.
-Thirty minutes later-
“Again, I am so sorry to have disturbed you from your duties!” Jiri received a gentle pat on the head from a colored arm.
“There you go, you’ll be fine Mr. Latios, just take it easy for a little while.” Happiny stated with a stern voice, the little ponytail pink puff Pokémon was unhappy at having heard the ruckus Jiri created. At least Dolly was quick with getting her services. “No flying too fast and keep those bandages on your head for a few days unless they need to be changed out. Get your sister Latias to help you with that.”
“Thank you.” The Latios, strangely aerodynamic flying blue and white Pokémon that it was that looked vaguely airplane shaped, dizzily and slowly floated up into the air in an entirely wobbly manner from an immediate concussion. Without another word he slowly flew away while slowly turning invisible.
“Oh my goodness… now there are going to be rumors that I beat up a legendary Pokémon!” Apparently, according to a distraught Jiri, Latios and Latias were the jet stream twins that maintained a high altitude air current around the world and were some of the fastest Pokémon alive. “Why does my Bounce move always go wrong?!”
She just happened to hit one by accident, because hitting one of them on purpose was darn near impossible when they were invisible and moving at such high speeds.
“Do you want to move on to training with a spear?” I said comfortingly placing a hoof around Jiri who was crying two rivers of tears like a fancy water fountain. She started hugging me tightly and was getting the wool on my chest wet.
“That was an awesome training exercise!” The Torchic stated with a fire in her heart.
“Well I’m glad that guys okay at least, also you have to admit Jiri accidentally suplexing a dragon into the ground without hurting herself is pretty darn awesome.” Dolly said with a grin.
-Latios-
“What happened?” Latias asked, my red counterpart and sister looked worried. “I was about to fly down there and look for you.”
“I was accidentally suplexed by a Buneary.” Nobody was going to believe that it happened, yet I’m the victim of it and I didn’t believe that it just happened.
“No seriously, what happened?” Apparently even Latias, my sister, didn’t believe me.
-A few hours later, before lunch-
Jiri took to wielding a spear far better than I did when Tianhuo first taught me the guard tradition weapon. Anything you couldn’t be dealt with using fire, life for instance a cherufe, is why Longma had spears or weapons at all.
“My turn, my turn!” The Torchic had been waiting patiently for me to help her with combat training.
“Okay, do you think you can continue from here Jiri?” It seemed as if I didn’t even have to ask as Jiri threw me a salute before taking up her spear and held her shield in front of her to shadow fight by stabbing it forward.
I turned and moved over to the Torchic.
“Okay what can you do?” I was being paid to teach and I was going to teach, so far today hasn’t gone too terrible wrong.
“Scratch, Ember, quick attack and growl!” Torchic announced.
“Okay let’s practice you’re ember attack, don’t worry about me. My wool is relatively hard to burn down.” Not that it can’t burn or the fact that it can will be used in an emergency for fighting.
“Okay!” Opening her being the flames built up and the Torchic started firing small darts of fire.
I looked to my left as the darts evaporated.
“Aim a little to the right…” The moment she does so she’s missing by a wide margin to my right. “Okay aim straight down.”
The moment Torchic does, the flames start shooting out the nostrils of her beak and straight up instead of lighting the grass on fire.
I felt a bit of sweat rolled down my forehead. This… might take a while. Her aim was not only horrible, it didn’t look like she would hit anything.
“How about we try a leaping scratch, right here at me?” I held my left leg up horizontally in front of me and tapped it with my right hoof for emphasis.
“Okay, I’m coming right at you!” She ran straight for me, jumped and kicked out with her right leg. “Huh, what, wait!”
The flying scratch kick she tried went flying by me to the left where she tumbled and ended up with her beak stuck in the ground.
-A minute later-
“Yahhhh!” Torchic went flying to my right and ended with her beak in the ground again.
-Another minute later-
“Yahhhh!” Torchic flew over my head and I heard a painful sound of a beak going into wood.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Torchic’s beak was now stuck in a tree that wasn’t there a minute ago.
“Build.” A bidoof stated blankly as they walked by.
-Yet another minute-
“Yahh-Pgfpfpfff.” The Torchic went sliding between my legs as I tried to stop her and she ended up behind me with her beak, and half her head, stuck in the pile of dirt she dug up with her face.
“You know what, I think was should stop for lunch and maybe you can make a few friends around here?” Moving over to the poor bird, I started to dig the dirt around her face up with my hooves.
-Lunch-
“Smolder, Eriflamb, I want you two to help teach the Torchic how to breathe fire accurately. Dolly can take care of herself with her training and I want to work with Jiri in her spear work.” Looking both in the eyes with my own watering and my lips quivering. “Can you please do this for me?”
“Sure thing boss lady!” Eriflamb was on board and we both looked toward Smolder.
“Well, I am a dragon. If teaching a fire breathing chicken, how to breathe fire right, then I’m going to do so.” Well that was a good thing Smolder, because you taught Eriflamb how to control his flow maybe you can do better?
-After lunch, east of Helper’s Hamlet again, Smolder-
I watched as the fire veered in a spiral around us and missed us entirely. Even if it had hit either of us, Eriflamb was a fire type and I was a dragon.
“I’m impressed that you somehow managed to get an ember attack to look like a fire spin... without actually hitting anything.” Eriflamb said dully, the little fox dude was matching how I currently felt on an emotional level.
“Can you actually try to breathe fire with your eyes open?” Trying to keep the calmness in my voice as I watched the chicken close her eyes and fire with her beak wide open. She eventually stopped and looked at me.
“I have problems breathing fire with my eyes open when my beak moves into my view.” After Torchic said that, I think I knew exactly why Pom left this up to us and went to train Jiri.
Jiri was someone that Pom could actually work with and she could even possibly teach Jiri how to control her jumping issues.
We were also much better suited to train the Torchic being fire breathing specialist and all, I had helped Eriflamb with controlling his flame this shouldn’t be too much harder… right?
“Can you shoot fire in any other way than your beak?” Just asking for the sake of curiosity.
“Yeah, but I don’t like doing that.” Okay Torchic, I actually wanted to see this.
“Show us.” It didn’t take long for me to see the other way Torchic could spew fire.
The Torchic turned her backside towards the target that’s been set up, one of which Eriflamb had hit multiple times and that the Torchic had missed constantly. Raising her rear up, Torchic looked behind herself with concentration started firing incredibly accurate flames out of her backside and hit the target.
“Well… that… works. I know that that can be useful in a battle… if just for the surprise factor alone.” At least Eriflamb was somewhat optimistic about this. Also it was a good thing that Torchic didn’t make a farting noise doing that so that it’s silent, but deadly… snrk.. “What?”
“Nothing, just thought of something funny.” My grin wasn’t going to leave my face for a while. We would continue training Torchic to get her to try and do something that was more capable of facing an enemy head on.
I take a small glance at what Pom was doing, she was training Jiri in how to fight with a spear with blunted training equipment so they don’t seriously injure one another. Jiri was actually keeping up with Pom despite the slight difference in size and stature.
“We should be trying to do what those two are… having fun.” Receiving odd looks from the two fire Pokémon, I grinned as I watched Pom and Jiri spar.
-An hour or so later, Pom-
So I’ve went over one hoofed and two hoofed spear styles and Jiri was managing to translate that to using her paws. Jiri was paying me to train her, but that didn’t mean that what we were doing wasn’t fun as I taught her how to hit with accuracy and power while wielding a spear.
I smacked the small ball with an overhead swing and watched as it shot towards jiri who jabbed her spear at it to send it flying back my way while keeping the shield up. So long as she didn’t use her Bounce move, she was quite competent and nothing went wrong.
Reaching out with the hoof, I caught the ball signaling the end of our exercise.
“Okay, I want to call break to see how Smolder is doing. What do you think of training so far and did you learn what lessons I’ve been trying to teach you?” I was much better with my hooves than a spear, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know how to wield one, so I taught how I was taught.
“Precision, speed and the basics of wielding a spear as you know it.” Jiri smiled as she had gotten good at jabs and wide swings. “You seem to have better knowledge of how to use a shield.”
“You’ll have to figure out your own style and or learn advance spear techniques elsewhere.” We’ve had fun here, but I couldn’t spend the entire day training just Jiri. “As for the thing with the shield, I specialize in defense and speed when it comes to fighting and you would probably do better with a teacher who can teach you some offense.”
“Personally I think you did great in teaching and training with me Pom!” With that said Jiri moved on by me with her spear laying over her left shoulder. “Now let’s see how Torchic is doing.”
-Smolder-
“Come on Torchic, show what you got… Pull!” I stomped down on the board and a berry launched into the air, there was a basket next to me with enough of them for training purposes.
Dazzle and Eriflamb proved to be a good shots with their fire. Torchic was getting moderately better at shooting flames from her beak, even if she still wasn’t that great at attacking at point blank range. In fact the Torchic wasn’t great at much really, but she was trying and actually showing at least some improvement.
Out of the numerous darts of flame I watched fly up, only one tagged the berry. At least she managed to increase the volume of her fire dart spewing attack, not that the accuracy got any better...
Torchic got all misty eyed.
“I finally hit something!” Torchic got to eat that berry too with teary eyes, first time she hit anything successfully all day.
“Congratulations Torchic, later we’ll work on being able to do that at least twice in a day.” I seriously doubted her accuracy would get much better that quickly, but if she was sticking around she had some willing teachers at least.
“So today has been quiet… tomorrow is going to be bad isn’t it?” That was a pretty decent prediction Pom. Following Pom was a happy Jiri who had apparently had a good time training with Pom.
I heard some barking as Dolly came up to us and she pointed back to Helper’s Hamlet.
“Yeah, we’re calling it a day Dolly.” Pom said while running a hoof gently down her back and she smiled under the attention. “Though I’m curious…”
We all turned to Pom.
“About what?” Asked Dazzle after a moment.
“Use bounce and do it straight up again.” Pom, didn’t Jiri knock a legendary Pokémon out of the sky doing that? “I want to make sure of something.”
“Well… okay!” Jiri gained a look of determination and passed her spear and blue shield off to Dazzle before launching into the sky.
We waited for about a minute and then a large white bird Pokémon came falling down with eyes rapidly rotating in his head and Jiri’s head buried straight in his esophagus. He slammed into the same place that Latios did.
Apparently it was the legendary Pokémon Lugia who had heard something had happened to the Jetstream inspecting duo.
“Cursed?” Pom stated flatly as dirt, dust and chunks of ground fountained into the air.
“Definitely.” I said a second later with a nod.