//------------------------------// // 318. Chrysalia Camp. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Equus, Ponyville, Sugar Cube Corner, Maries- “Okay, here are the results Ms. Silver Stream…” We passed the envelope over to her with a paw and the hippogriff looked nervous as she opened it. We were here in a professional capacity as lawyers for Silver Stream and had made sure what she was receiving was the real deal and not falsified documents. The last time someone attempted to falsify documents around us, they were a good hunt. We loved spending time with Magnolia… she was almost more nuts than our beloved Jaded was. Could do without the numerous ear rending explosions though, we had three heads and that made it so much worse for us in the disorientation department. “Oh my goodness, I did it!” Sitting across from Silver Stream Gallus up glanced at her from his snack. “You got that license to raise, work with and openly be a handler of cockatrices?” That is what happened Gallus, Silver Stream passed all her tests for certification. “Just a reminder, you are not licensed to handle all creatures capable of causing petrification.” We just wanted to put that out there incase she runs into something like a catoblepas or basilisk. Mind you since Edith was Silver Streams familiar, she didn’t have to worry about a license for having a cockatrice as a familiar, but she did need one to be a professional... oh goddesses, the pun of it finally hit home in all our minds at once. “So you’re a professional cock wrangler now?” Gallus said with a snort and a sharp bark of laughter which totally continued on into guffawing saying what we just realized. “Yes, and since I’m immune to being petrified thanks to Edith, it’ll be easy to be a handler for them professionally. It’ll be a good side job if I’m having trouble finding work in Equestria. My dual citizenship is guaranteed at least.” After a moment the pink, blue haired, hippogriff looked to Gallus with something approaching curiosity. “Why are you laughing so hard Gallus, what’s so funny about me being on talon to deal with a big cock problem?” “Oh nothing too…” With a renewed laughing Gallus was about to state something, when Marie couldn’t help herself and burst out laughing as well from what Silver Stream just said, which made Maria start laughing and if two of us were laughing than the last of us couldn’t be too far behind. “We’re sorry, but we realized what Gallus has.” We couldn’t stop laughing once the joke occurred. Then Pinkie Pie joined us in the laughter… “So… what are we laughing about?” Pinkie Pie finally asked? “Silver Stream just became a professional ‘wrangler’.” We all burst out laughing, then Marie whispered something to Pinkie. “Oh my goodness… too funny…” Pinkie was choking from laughter. “I don’t get the joke…” Silver Stream stated tilting her head. “Yona can be handling this, yak is best at story time!” Yona cleared her throat. “So a yak watches a hummingbird flies into a bees nest…” Silver Stream’s body went from being pink to straight red when Yona finished her story. Silver Stream had asked quite a few questions and the answers she received was quite embarrassing for the earned clarification. That’s when one of Jacky’s crew came slithering in, it was Flotsam De Brie the sea pony that couldn’t swim. Thankfully drowning was no longer a problem for her, but still sinking to the bottom of the ocean was. She further helped Silver Stream’s complete understanding of the situation. “…” Silver Stream just put her talons over her face and squealed quite loudly in embarrassment. “Yeah, that is the reaction I expected, well talk to you guys later!” Sammy went back to her date while she still had shore leave time and could get away from her playful little brother Nefer. “Would it be bad to say that you might want to wrangle a stone hard Gallus?” Mara said surprising all three of us, even Mara surprised herself as being the one that said it. “Really Mara? You seriously think she wants to get all ‘cocky’ with Gallus?” Maria couldn’t help herself either, our goat sister got in on it. “Wait… did I just say that out loud?” “Oh my goodness you guys, it's unfortunate that I can't go anywhere without you!” Marie stated as the laughter started up again. Our snake sister had some minor psychological issues with something 'like abandonment' even if she's been by our sides all our life and that she could even joke about it was a good sign about how life has been going for us in general as a chimera. Now Gallus and Silver Stream were both equally embarrassed now. “Let’s just call me a professional ‘draconic-chicken of magical stone perception’ wrangler…” Whined out Silver Stream who had Sea and Mer Pony knowledge of attraction and relationship values, she didn't quite completely understand dry land version of the 'birds and the bees' up until just now. “It’ll still be a good fallback in case I need a decent paying job.” “Agreed.” Followed Gallus rather bluntly, he then glanced at Pinkie who looked to be shivering in place. “Okay… how many rooster jokes Pinkie? Since we know underage fillies and colts aren’t going to be around to hear any of it.” Yeah, most colts and fillies were off playing somewhere else today or completely busy with something else, which led us to idly wondering if little Gavin was getting along with Silvers. Also since it was a slow day for Pinkie, that would mean she had a lot of ammunition waiting in reserve for just such an occasion. Pinkie cleared her throat and her right hoof slowly lifted upwards into view, revealing a scroll. She pulled a bit of the scroll out, inhaled and then… Pinkie was known for a lot of things… an entire series of embarrassing dirty jokes was a new one for Gallus and Silver Stream from their 'Teacher of Laughter'. What occurred over the next few hours, especially when Cheese Sandwich showed up and started adding ‘hen’ jokes to the mix, none of it would soon be forgotten. Our little brother-in-law, as lawyers we made sure of that 'in-law' part, and his girlfriend were growing up. It was only a bit ironic that later this day a mega rooster attacked Ponyville, because someone kept chanting 'arise chicken' around Scootaloo and there was incidentally the right stuff for an oddly specific ritual, that Zecora apparently knew about, around them at the time. Meaning the Cutie Mark Crusaders finally got covered in enough tree sap for it to actually happen and barely avoided it happening previously a ridiculous number of times. -Pokémon world, Ransei, Bug Type kingdom of Chrysalia, Eastern Border Guard Encampment, the next morning, day after Gilgamesh attacked the travelers, Pom- “Do you want some more soup Shanty?” So we take a few days break to deal with the fallout of Ignis Kingdom issue, resting at Pugilis and now we’re all battered again. Could life give me just one big long lucky break that isn’t the end result of me outright dying? “Yes, please!” If there was one thing Shanty was, it was usually hungry and she was drinking rum on the side. Normally I would say it wasn’t a drink for breakfast, but this was Shanty, so I didn’t bother because I already knew what her response would be. Likely more rum, she did dredge up a lot rum from the river between Aurora and Greenleaf. The Beedrill unit still wanted to do their mission, but they were in no condition to carry it out and it was kind of obvious who was behind the problems in Illusio, whatever they may be. Gilgamesh was why the Beedrill unit was going to do a reconnaissance, but we still didn’t know what was happening in Illusio proper and we had little clue as how we could deal with someone who could create environmentally weaponized portals to anywhere. The answer was, there was no possible way for us to actually fight Gilgamesh without support from at least several factions. Even then, the chances of winning were quite miniscule. We could use all the help in the world, unless we could get another Legendary Pokémon or two involved. “… Sacrificing so much time and energy on us…” I could hear Ocellus faintly talking to Smolder and tried not to focus too much on that, but I couldn’t help but keep an ear out for trouble among my friends. Last night… hadn’t been particularly restful. “We could be a little more self-sufficient.” They were worried about me, it also sounded like Ocellus was also trying to come to terms with the number of sacrifices I was willing to make as long as they were small. Cooking and caring for everyone really wasn’t that big a sacrifice, but I could see what she was getting at. “Could be worse, she actually likes cooking, cleaning and taking care of us. Goodness knows Dolly appreciates the lengths she goes to make every meal for her healthy and tasty, that she’s getting exercise and is in good cheer. Dolly is a fountain of positivity, but even she has her limits Ocellus and we’re kind of stretching it after what happened yesterday with Pom becoming incapable of connecting with her family on Equus. There’s also other the issue we can’t discuss because it would be breaking Pom’s trust to talk about ‘that’ where someone could hear us, she told us about it in good faith and I bet there are Pokémon that are exactly like flies on a wall around here.” Smolder stated as she drank some piping hot soup from a saucer and nuzzled up against Ocellus. She wasn’t wrong as there were a lot of Bug Types on the wall around the encampment. “We should honestly appreciate how far she’s gone for us already… and that she’s even still alive. I don’t know if we could even get close to even hurting someone who can attack us from miles away and or move us miles away to attack us with something from much farther away. That Gilgamesh guy seems stupidly powerful, so it’s kind of dumb for Pom to make a declaration of war on him. Dumb, but completely understandable, I as a dragon wouldn’t want the current most important thing to me taken away.” That being Ocellus, Smolder is quite emotionally connected to her and they were cute together. Among the ones of us that were injured… Sami stayed entirely untouched by staying within Canard’s Digivice and Charjabug stayed entirely unscathed by finding a corner of the wagon to hunker down in. The other least injured were Cleffa and Frizzle. Frizzle needed a little rest in the Digivice that Dazzle carries, but was for the most part fine too. Without digital energy, Digimon tended to have problems staying manifested if injured. Thankfully Gilgamesh wasn’t hitting Frizzle directly with dimensional energy that Pokémon wielded. “Ma’am, we’ve sent some scouts and you weren’t waxing poetic about the huge disaster that left tons of weapons lying around everywhere down south. I have some groups working on gathering any weapons that you might find useful, we really don’t have many people that can actually wield them. Might sell the weapons off to Pugilis to make a quick buck though, you wouldn't happen to know any merchants that could help us?” General Dos said as he approached me with a bowl on his back. “As for your wagon, we’ve helped to fix the damage to the best of our abilities and it was pretty sturdy to stand up to so many weapons striking it.” Yeah we arrived at the encampment with weapons sticking out of the wagon and caused quite a stir around here. Thankfully we had papers of our current commission as evidence, with a Chrysalia seal on it, to prove we are who we said we are. “Want some soup?” I asked earnestly. "Also yes, I have an idea as to some merchants who could help you make some sales. They are a bit... off... but they are good people." “Well… if you’re offering.” With a flick of his two antenna like protrusions on his abdomen, General Dos pushed the bowl forward and I started loading it up with soup, he looked quite eager to try it. “So anything you want to talk about?” “How about Bug Type culture?” I quickly learned some things from listening to General Dos. Outside of being omnivorous Bug Types were oddly insectivorous, that was towards normal insects and not other Bug Types. Most Bug Types don’t mind eating regular insects, but they explicitly asked any guests about their food preferences to make sure to prevent bugs from getting into food they shouldn’t. They were actually very good hosts about making sure we weren’t mosquito bitten to Tartarus and back. My life has pretty much been Tartarus enough already… The construction ability of Bug Types was a bit iffy when it came to above ground structures, they preferred to work with nature where possible as they had some problems constructing things and enjoyed the vast swath of forests that Chrysalia had. Despite high end construction being an issue for Bug Types, they were quite fairly decent at arts and crafts. However what Bug Type do construct with great enthusiasm… was traps. Honestly it made sense given they farmed flies, spiders, mosquitoes and basically anything they’d find useful as a food source using webs alongside have farming fresh fruit and vegetables with slightly more trouble. Basically Bug Types were never hurting for resources even if some of their food goes rotten, it just attracts insects they can eat. Sometimes Bug Types even enjoyed eating rotten food too. Quite frankly Chrysalia was rather efficiently run as they had their supply chains and everything else in order, the only issue was they were insular and rarely left their borders like what is now Charjabug. They were all for community and mostly keeping to themselves. As for what Lumpy told us about their cuisine, it was rather true. They tended towards loving sweet foods… cookies were common and came in hundreds of flavors, some had actual insects baked into them. Cricket cookies were fairly popular around here for those who didn’t mind eating insects, even a large number of Pokémon outside the borders of Chrysalia enjoyed them too. “So is there anything being unique to this country?” Shanty decided to learn some things too, she had an appreciation of other cultures from traveling around with Sly Cooper and the places we’ve been to before meeting the friendly thief of thieves. I noticed Favela was slightly skittish around Bug Types and was sticking to Shanty’s side, for the most obvious reasons. Sure Favela was calm around one or two bug types, but a fort full of them? “Oh you want to hear something unique, we have alchemists!” General Dos was really enjoying the soup, must not get very many well cooked meals out here watching the eastern borders. Bug Types also had some issues with cooking food given a lack of limbs to properly utilize utensils with, they can get by with using String Shot Pokémon move to grab and manipulate things if it doesn’t ruin the cooking process. “Alchemists?” That earned some interest from me. “Well we do have the largest variety of berry producing plants on the north western end of our territory. We can makes some interesting concoctions to heal whatever ails you by blending berries together into a nice juice. Getting medicinal herbs from Greenleaf is kind of hard, because of their quite reasonable distrust of bugs in general, but when we do we can make some extremely powerful healing potions by mixing them with sitrus berries. Outsiders tend to emphasize citrus as if the name of the berry started with a C, I’ve always been curious to ask about that.” After letting that sink in for a bit General Dos continued on. “We also make berry blocks, a popular candy that can come in a variety of textures and flavors, you want something crunchy, chewy, gummi or even a variety mixed together. Want chocolate? We can do that too… we’re kind of the sweets specialist of kingdoms. Tends to draw Milcery, Alcremie, Munchlax and a number of other Pokémon with a sweet tooth to do some cooking for us in exchange for supplies for making such excellent cuisine in the first place.” “Is there anything else you can do with alchemy?” Ocellus seemed fascinated with where this conversation was going. “Yes, actually, we can use alchemy our alchemy labs to mix two things together to create something wholly new. I’m not talking just berries, we can mix objects into something new two. Take a cube of rock and mix with a wooden box and it might turn into a stone box with wood lining or the wood becomes as hard as stone, it’s kind of an imprecise science at times.” General Dos was fairly open with this information. “Sometimes we even end up with random objects that we don’t know what they can do, if I remember right one of the outcomes was something like the pink scarves you and you’re little canine companion wear.” “So who’s the leader of Chrysalia?” It seems we were all a little curious as Smolder was the one that brought that up. “King Yoshimoto, he’s a Forretress and evolved from a Pineco playing Unite Ball. He’s not exactly keen on war and prefers to play games all day, he’s pretty good leader and face when it comes to inspiring tourism even if we’re not exactly keen on it. He loves Unite Ball to a ridiculous degree and we have one of the better stadiums on the western side of Ransei. Unfortunately he’s a bit of a flaky person, when it comes to actually doing more than making our kingdom an excessive amount of money and playing games all day, being richest entrepreneur around this kingdom at least proves he’s a decent king. Now if only he wasn’t always going on about the virtues of Unite Ball and how it can bring the world together, too bad he was born into our relatively insular nation. We Bug Types tend to rely more on the nobles for organizing our regions defensive capabilities, though we do have to run stuff through Yoshimoto when it’s important like an impending war with Illusio.” General Dos sighed audibly. “You wouldn’t believe how many Pokémon from outside our kingdom to expect us to have an overall Queen running the country. We definitely have a lot of queens in our nobility though. Still… I guess I can credit Yoshimoto for not allowing us to cut ourselves off from the world at large entirely, we’ve avoided some real major problems by watching our borders carefully before.” As interesting as this conversation is, my mind is still going back to the fact that I declared Baa-Ram-Ewe on an insurmountable and likely unbeatable person. Well maybe not beatable by me, but I’m sure others could find a way to beat Gilgamesh and I would definitely help them with it. “Do you mind us camping here in your local base?” This base wasn’t very fancy and I was asking to see if I could set up a tent here. “Stay as long as you need, whether you’re heading back to Aurora or continuing the mission to find out what’s going on in Illusio. We might know who’s likely causing something in Ilusio, but we need active eyes on the region to get a better idea of the ‘what’ of it all.” General Dos wasn’t hiding the fact that Chrysalia watched their neighbors or was part of a kingdom that mostly stuck to itself. They were only moderately interested in seeing if trouble was coming their way and possibly making sure tourists don’t cause problems. I can relate given Huoshan does have tourist problems at times, surprisingly the home of the longma was a popular vacation spot in the dragon lands. “Terrifying that we have news of someone who could attack our outposts by themselves and destroy it outright without needing an army. If you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to and I have to make sure my troops aren’t getting too lazy what with a major threat so close to us. We’re supposed to be on relatively high alert.” With that General Dos was up and off yelling at a bunch of green six legged fake spiders to get their abdomens in gear. -Canard- “Sorry I couldn’t help while we were all being assaulted, but someone who can create portals that could have just teleported us directly into the center of a volcano is terrifying.” Sami had been trying to think of a strategy to deal with Gilgamesh and was coming up blank, even I was hard pressed to think of anything. “It’s okay, we’re not too badly hurt Sami.” Cleffa was still holding onto that strange rock, what was strange is that it seemed to make her so happy. “I would have done the same thing if I could.” “So what is it that you got there?” My question made Cleffa perk up. “Oh this is a moon stone piece, it was inside that big rock the mean guy tried to drop on us!” What in the world was a moon stone? “It’ll help me evolve into a Clefable when I’m ready, of course I want to choose when to use it... I mean I do want to try being a Clefairy for a while first before using the stored energy in it to evolve. First I have to become a Clefairy… kind of hard to do though.” “Why is it hard to do?” I felt bad about ignoring Sami, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. I was beginning to think that Gilgamesh couldn’t push us into a portal in the middle of a volcano without magma spewing out of the portal first. Still terrifying to be that close to a convection based death, we all had Dolly to thank for keeping us alive through that. “Well I need to form strong friendships and bonds to evolve into a Clefairy from the happiness resulting of it, but instead of doing that with other Cleffa or Clefairy like normal… I chose to do it with you two!” Okay that was a little heartwarming for the cute little Pokémon to say. “Well back to you Sami, like Cleffa said I can’t blame you. That guy makes Suarians look tame with their dark magic, massive robot armies and magical cloaking technology… yeah those guys are still a mental thorn in my backside. Drake Ducaine had his work cut out for him, but I doubt he’s seen beings as powerful as what we saw yesterday.” One that we couldn’t do anything to at all. I knew reality warping entities were recorded as existing, but portal making one were just as terrifying even if they couldn’t just blink you out of existence on a whim. “Hmm…” “Got something?” Sami picked up the fact that something occurred to me. “I think… I think that guy has limitations on where he can open the portals he makes.” Not exactly helpful when the guy can basically manipulate any environment hazard he wants into us. The guy did launch tons of falling icicles at us and a few of them even went straight through the axe head I was using as a shield. “How did you come to that conclusion?” Sami stated as she got to work on making me a hockey stick, she was going to ask for whatever made Dolly’s board nigh indestructible despite clearly being made of wood. I wouldn’t mind a low maintenance nigh indestructible hockey stick if it could be done. “Well he can open the portals in liquids, but he can’t open them inside of solids… so he can’t split us in half at least.” That did not mean I dismissed his capability as a threat being quite up there. “Unless he can possibly do so by closing a portal on us…For that guy to teleport us anywhere, we’d have to actively move or be pushed straight into his portals.” “What about those spikes of stones he made?” There was a good answer for that Sami. “It just means his portals are not static, once made he can move them. Thus he moved a portal over a spike and slams that portal down at a given speed and it comes out the other side at that speed…” Though it was a little difficult to tell how he opened a portal in the middle of blizzard conditions, which sounded a bit trickier to justify as being possible. “He can make a portal in blizzard conditions by creating a portal at a really small size and then slowly expanding it, it would be much slower but still doable under the constraints I’m putting down. If he makes a small portal then uses his psychic powers to move the air away from the portal, he can likely grow it in size much faster. It did seem like his ability to open a portal into a blizzard was a little bit slower than his other efforts.” We all had a quick rundown on what Psychic Types could do, telekinetically kicking hundreds of weapons at us in seconds without a care for said weapons. That monster showed us what a top level Psychic Type Pokémon was capable of, especially when he projected himself before us from an entire kingdom away and dropped a meteor on us. Something was up about that though. “I don’t think he can open portals beyond the atmosphere.” If my supposition was right he could at least lift something the size of that meteor and drop it into one of his portals easily enough at atmospheric limits. “What use does knowing that do for us?” Cleffa really didn’t seem to be too afraid of seeing that Gilgamesh guy again. “Well maybe can make many portals, but he can only move one portal at a time, while opening and closing various others wherever he needs them to be? Also it helps somewhat to know if he can possibly put a portal at the edge of this planet’s atmosphere and try to shoot us into space, we’d be more careful about moving too fast around him at the very least.” That would be a good thing to get a good handle on Sami. It would certainly go a long way to explaining why he encased us in a dome and didn’t immediately collapse it inwards to send us all over the place, possibly in pieces. “This is mostly conjecture right?” “Yes, I’m just working with the information we have from what we saw of the guy, but we need our team running on all cylinders to try and figure out how we can beat someone that absurdly powerful. The most we’ve gotten so far is that Dark Types like Quetal are almost a requirement, but there aren’t many around here.” That information was still quite terrifying, I would try not to put a big target on my back like Pom seems willing and able to do it. We were all quite worried about the traveling white wooly wonder. “We’ll probably run it by everyone, some Pokémon has to know something about that guy. They did mention he was a Hoopa right? Come on, I’ve been smelling that soup since Pom finished making it and I’m hungry.” -Pom- Canard was quite large, so he had to go through several portions, I should remind myself to make more next time. Apparently he had a taste for the cricket cookies they had here on the base, the Puckian definitely appreciated it and General Dos just wanted me to do some cooking tonight as well. I’m always ready to make a meal for friends. These Bug Types were not unfriendly, but they seemed to be like Changelings in a way in having a healthy community and it being one of the most important things to them. All the Bug Types around here knew each other really well and definitely congregated like actual bugs. I was a little concerned that it should be creepier than it is, it was actually full on wholesome that the Bug Types could work together to an absurd degree. The problem with that however is that Bug Types basically had no dual Dark Types among them, even if they could already fight psychic types fairly well. “I’m still wondering what made Gilgamesh target the bridge in Aurora before we could go back across it.” Could he really be reading that far into the future to know that my group would become a big problem if he hadn’t or did he redirect us to end up going through Fontaine on purpose? I had so many questions. Gilgamesh certainly knew we were going to come after him long before we even knew he existed, now he’s almost made it like it’s his mission to make me rush after him in a stupid manner without thinking about the consequences. He certainly made it quite personal, what is he expecting me to do really? That guy said we were fated to be enemies and I think he saw me as a threat, even a minimal one to his plans. So what was he doing that would possibly motivate me even further to be more of a threat than I already am in finding a way to deal with him from whatever he saw? Future sight or being a seer was apparently a thing Psychic Type could do and apparently he saw me being a thorn of some kind, one he can readily deal with, but still a thorn all the same. “Who can truly know Pom.” Quetal seemed to be thinking on it as hard as I was. “It is quite concerning that he even admitted to doing it. He’s not ‘The Hoopa’ at least, goodness knows what would happen if we were facing the actual Legendary himself who has had who knows how long to get good with his abilities, instead of just this Gilgamesh guy. Doesn’t seem like there’s a real difference in power though. Arceus preserve us, since we’re inevitably going to have to deal with that guy.” I saw Canard approaching with Cleffa and Sami, he looked like he had something he wanted to talk about. He was done with breakfast and seemed satisfied with my cooking. I idly glanced in the direction Dolly was and saw her quietly sitting on top of a tall vertical log in a meditative position. She opened one eye to glance at me and her tail started wagging, she inhaled softly, closed her eye and got back into meditating. Though I could feel her trying give me positive vibes from there as I looked up to her. I might want to meditate on things myself when she was done with the large wooden climbing pole. Wonder why Dolly took to meditating… was it me stressing out and she was meditating to calm me down by association of our bond? That's... actually pretty clever come to think of it, and it was actually working now that I was focusing on our bond. It was so subtle of her and I had to actually look for it. -Shanty- “What did you be needing to talk to me about?” Having pulled me off to the side alone, Smolder and Ocellus looked to each other. Ocellus nodded and went to be keeping Favela some company. “How quickly do you think you can get stronger?” Smolder asked in return as an answer. “I be having some ideas, but I would be needing quite a bit of time why do you be asking?” If this be going where I think it is. “You’re likely the only one of us that can possibly keep up with Pom without killing yourself.” There, Smolder be saying it, I be needing to step up so that Pom doesn’t end up in a situation where she sacrifices herself like she fears she will. It is being a pretty scary thing that we all knew it was almost guaranteed for Pom to sacrifice herself if someone can’t be stopping any situation from getting too bad. “What about Ocellus?” Slapping myself with a hoof for that bit of stupidity that be passing through my mouth. “No, wait, I get it… she is not being much of a fighter. Even if she can be adapting for combat it’s still not her thing and then there’s the fact that she actively needs to think about how to modify her form to best fit a situation. You are strong physically and hard to hurt, but that not be protecting you from Lu Bu. While I am having Dodo and I can be quite powerful in a fight… do you think I can actually be keeping Pom safe.” “You can certainly try, but I seriously doubt we could keep our fearful leader completely safe from everything like she’ll try and do for us.” Smolder wilted a bit. “That Gilgamesh guy is definitely not going to go down easily and it’s a bit much to believe or even ask Pom to take him out, even if the guy is really taunting her to try.” “There’s Dolly…” It was good to me that Pom had someone who would try to be by her side at all times, Pom kind of be needing that comfort. “She is a good companion for Pom, but her capabilities are kind of very specific to the gear she wields and her personal strength can only grow so much before hitting a peak.” Smolder is not being wrong since Dolly is quite small if fairly capable of putting up quite a fight. “Ocellus says Dolly also has the issue of having a limited amount of magic she can wield at any given time with her body being incapable of channeling too much before she gets headaches from over doing it, well at least she has a limited on her more powerful magic.” “Wind tends to go everywhere, but when it blows in your favor you don’t have to worry about a rudder.” I be watching some pirates be making it back into port on a raft with less. “Still, coming up with more abilities to fight on par with Pom is going to be being quite tough. I am barely being able to create two clones or new techniques on the fly.” “Yeah Pom is kind of insane in that respect, but from what she taught you, you’re not too bad yourself Shanty. Considering how legendary a warrior Lu Bu was said to be.” Yes and he still almost be killing me Smolder. My spirit is both willing and strong, but my body be taking a rain check on being able to endure a long fight. “I could be using some good training exercise and it will be being several days before the more peckish guys show up.” Yes, but who would be helping with my training, Pom wouldn’t say no to helping me be more self-sufficient. If this is how bad things are being before I can become a true captain worth any salt, then I be having my work cut out for me whether I be sailing the sea or the skies themselves. “I be needing a lot of help to refine my techniques.” “Well since we’re going to be camping out here in Chrysalia…” Smolder trailed off. “What do you think you need to get better at what you want? We’ll try to find training aids for you if you can give us an idea as to what you need Shanty, we’re going to be here for several days in bug country. Pom taught you what she knew and she obviously got you off the ground into creating your own cut-lash style, which has been pretty impressive so far.” “I’ll be needing a lot of things… including water.” I was getting better at manipulating water, maybe I could do something similar to my Bouncing Blades technique with water encasing me. “Then it’s a good thing the eastern part of Chrysalia is small and we’re close to the northern shore. I mean on top of being close to the entrances to Illusio, Pugilis and Terrera… we always need to be alert for border jumpers who might have ill intent.” We both were spooked when a bug that had a gold, grey and black carapace and two large red eyes showed up behind us, this bug be reminding me of a ninja in appearance given his looks. “If you need training in general just ask a Ninjask like me and our shell family member, the Shedinja, to help you out. A Ninjask is never lonely when we evolve into what we are, we will always have family… even if they are a little creepy to others. Of course we’re not going to help you pro bono, but if you want training beyond general stuff we can help with training in speed, infiltration and stealth or variety of other techniques. We’re good as gold on those subjects as long as you can do stuff for us. Your friend definitely got General Dos’s approval to cook and it’s giving you guys a lot of credit with us, given we’re always interested in trying something that is not entirely doused in sugar or sweet flavors. It’s honestly a rarity to get new tasting food around here.” That’s when a second, highly stiff looking, brown Bug Type floated up with an incomplete white halo and a similar appearance to the Ninjask if it were dead and resembling an angel. It almost looked as if the Ninjask could live inside the other Pokémon and the brown Pokémon is feeling hollower than Pom recently was being. “Shed.” Stated the hollow creature slowly, there was something quite off about it. “Inja.” “Yes, this one wants help training her skills. Though I don’t know why she’s looking at me like that, pirates are basically ninjas of the sea right?” This Ninjask stated in a friendly tone. “The Ninjask and Shedinja units are bound to take over for the Beedrill squad anyway and it would behoove us to work up some camaraderie. The Beedrill were aerial reconnaissance experts. We Ninjask more the spy and stealth experts and sure we could do aerial reconnaissance too, but the Beedrill are far more sturdy for it. That doesn’t mean we Ninjask and Shedinja can’t be dangerous fighters in our own right.” Why do I always be meeting ninjas and not pirates?! “So what do you say, need some help?” At least the Ninjask was letting me decide. “Come on Shanty, what else are we going to be doing while waiting for those Morpeko guys to show up anyway?” Smolder be making a very good point and I do be needing to get stronger so Pom isn’t burdened. “Fine, but I already be being an expert at stealth, I be training with a master thief.” That seemed to be making the Ninjask excited. “Oh ho, a challenger has arrived, pirate in nature, thief in skills and a bit of ninja as backdrop… we’re going to have a lot of fun camping together!” The Ninjask seemed too perky to be a real ninja, but I be getting a feeling that he was more than he seemed. “Ah, I think you also have a keen eye for observation as well, quite useful for a pirate.” “What, you going to be teaching me to read body language too?” I asked sarcastically. “Sure could, Pokémon body language isn’t hard to understand, but there are nuances to it. We have several days to help you build up what you want to.” Curious that Ninjask be recognizing me as having pirate traits and I never said I was pirate to him. “Also I know I’m a bit chipper, but my job hasn’t exactly been all too hard thus far. I mean you guys being here is giving me something more to do than working with my family Sheddy here.” “Shed… Inja…” Replied the floating object, because it certainly didn’t seem to have any moving body parts aside from the odd halo floating above its head. “Yes, yes, you’re quite excited to be a spotter and a training assistant, I know.” That was Ninjask’s family member being excited? “Shedinja here really can’t wait to get started in helping you in your training, it’ll certainly help us in ours as well. So let’s get stronger together!” “So what, you’re both into the whole talkative and quiet one shtick?” Smolder raised a brow. “Well yes, but you don’t really need to point that out… Inja...” We both stared at the hollow creature speaking plainly for a few seconds before reverting to sounding lifeless. “One of these days you’ll stop being so shy Sheddy.” Ninjask stated giving a flat stare to his family member. “What exactly is up with Shedinja being a part of your evolution, before we get started on hearing Shanty’s training ideas?” There was a few seconds of dithering between the two on Smolder’s question. The two bugs fluttered and floated away from us and started talking. “Well this might seem odd… but…” After we were told what Shedinja were, we both stared at it in disbelief. “That… makes no sense. You just… I mean… really… creating a sentient family member out of nothing more than a shell from your evolutionary energy to become two separate Pokémon?!” Bug Types were apparently being quite weird like that Smolder. “I don’t be seeing a problem, it be like making an imaginary friend come to life. Wish I be having that ability growing up...” Now to be getting onto my ideas for training. “For my first few ideas we’re going to be needing Favela, Ocellus, Lit and Mr. Mundo… Mundo do be having that Coaching move thing to help me during training right?” “Coaching is pretty helpful in a team or unit battle too, but in a one on one fight… yeah, not as much.” Ninjask seemed to know something about it. “Still getting that Hawlucha to use Coaching on you while you train, it’s a good idea as Hawlucha can be very inspiring and can feasibly double the effectiveness of your training ideas if the training works as you intend it too. Even if it doesn’t work, Coaching will still give you some better insight on how you can improve yourself. Get him to us it on us as well, we could use a boost in our training sessions as well.” At least the bugs here won’t be a problem as far as camping is concerned, plus a few days of training could be fun.