“I need to catch myself a Skarmory.” Nina mused. “Or maybe a Bisharp — who wouldn’t want a cool samurai beetle? But then again, I suppose I’m gonna need a Magnemite at some point anyway. Ohhh… I know! Aggron! Those guys are freaking cool — spikes for the win! Who cares if they cost a fortune to maintain.” Anything was better than having every single Gym Leader pull Fairy Types out of their asses.
Nina was going on an internal rant. Because the moment that the match restarted again, Falkner’s Togekiss started charging up another Sky Attack. This time, however, the accumulation of Type Energy had a pinkish hue to it as the smell of flowers and cotton candy permeated the air.
“Return, Nitey!” Nina called, before her beloved partner could come to harm. The Dragonite dissolved into light and got sucked back into his Pokeball just before Togekiss could launch into the air, wasting the Sky Attack.
The girl frowned and considered her options; both Nitey and Espy were worn but still healthy. Poppy was definitely out of the question, given how unforgiving Falkner was being. With the shade provided by Nitey’s ongoing storm, Haunter might be viable even with her limited flight. But if possible, she would like to keep her in reserve as a last ditch effort.
“Which leaves only one…” Espy might have a chance at taking down Togekiss, but not alone.
“Go, Sir Clodington!!!”
“CLOOOD!!!”
Sir Clodington emerged with full force, causing the entire Sprout Tower to quake and wobble upon landing, just like its namesake Pokemon. There was a sharp glint in the Clodsire’s eyes, having just been informed of his rival’s Evolution by Espy. Or more specifically, the haughty Espeon taunted him with it.
“Altrusim is a virtue, Clody! You know what to do! For Nitey! For glory!” Nina cheered, prompting the Clodsire to cry out once more as he continuously clubbed his bulbous tail onto the floor, breaking and splintering the wooden panels.
While Nina’s Clodsire was vandalizing the historic Sprout Tower, he simultaneously conjured up a Sandstorm and shot Toxic Spikes out of his back to coat the wooden arena.
And outside of Endure, Sir Clodington eschewed his usual defensive buffs to avoid getting in the way of his Water Absorb ability. With the residual rain from Nitey’s turn and the Damp Rock adorning the Clodsire’s tail, he had more to gain from relying on his passive rejuvenation over hard defense.
Falkner frowned at the Clodsire’s odd behavior but still signaled for his Togekiss to probe the gelatinous brown blob with Extrasensory, a move that heightened the sensitivity of a target to the point of excruciating pain.
But jokes on him, unlike Brucey, Sir Clodington had the strongest mentality out of all of Nina’s Pokemon, save for Espy herself. A mental strength that was further bolstered by regular torture training via Espy’s mental assaults.
“Clody was the one who requested it, okay?” In fact, Nina was very much against it when that idea was first brought to her attention.
So despite his overtuned senses, the stalwart Clodsire just bore with the headache and continued to slam his tail into the tower. Until eventually, the floor caved into a gaping hole which Sir Clodington promptly dove into out of sight.
Nina grinned. “You did say that there were no boundaries right?” The girl gestured towards the precarious edge then pointed down at the floor. “So if that’s the case, wouldn’t the same apply to within the tower?”
But should Togekiss choose to maintain her Flying advantage, then Sir Clodington would persist with his Sandstorm to buffet his opponent with damage, tanking everything she threw at him until he eventually fainted. All in order to soften the Togekiss up for Espy to finish.
The tower shook and wobbled, at times even leaning precariously to the side as Poisonous muck flowed out from its hollow seams — Swampy Terrain. This was likely what Sir Clodington would have started off with in an attempt to entrap the Flying Fairy.
Nina almost felt bad for vandalizing such a historic building. And she definitely did not envy the poor saps who would have to handle the clean up, likely the tower’s apprentice monks.
Eventually though, the tower stopped wobbling. And a very incensed Togekiss reemerged from the gaping hole, her pristine white feathers now stained with Poison and mud.
Nina scowled, she was hoping that Sir Clodington would pull through. But apparently not. The girl made a mental note to ask the Clodsire what just happened once he recovered.
“You need not worry about your Pokemon, hand your Pokeball over to our staff and they will go and retrieve it… Though they would not be happy to do so, that much is for certain.”
Nina replied with a stiff smile, but feeling utterly unapologetic. Falkner was the one who was shameless enough to bring her to this arena to begin with. But regardless, there was more to this battle and who knew what other nonsense the Gym Leader might pull. So she sent out Espy with a determined glare.
“It’s all on you, Espy. If you can somehow take down that Togekiss then we can leave the rest to Nitey… Hopefully.” Falkner still had two more Pokemon in his sleeves, if Espy failed to take out Togekiss then Nitey would be going into the subsequent matches at a disadvantage.
Espy dismissed Nina’s worries with haughty confidence. If she couldn’t even take down that broken omelette then what good was she?
Togekiss spared no time in launching to the skies, beyond the flightless Espeon’s reach. All the while, singing to hijack Nitey’s storm and used it to conjure a powerful Hurricane.
Espy scoffed and launched into the skies as well with Quick Attack, conjuring Psychic panels as footholds to continuously boost herself upwards to chase after Togekiss.
“We really gotta find a way to work on your Teleport, babe. Would’ve been really handy at this stage.” Nina mused, earning her a pulse of annoyance from her Espeon.
Espy could Teleport. It wasn’t that she couldn’t. But she could only do it once, regardless of distance. Once she was done Teleporting, she would have no energy left for anything else. Unlike one of the noble Psychic lines — Pokemon of the Psychic Typing from birth — who could Teleport around like it was second nature, their energy expenditure only compounded by distance.
Midway through Espy’s ascent, she faltered. The ongoing storm was simply too much for her to overcome as she found herself sucked into the Hurricane’s vortex — exactly as she intended.
Espy allowed herself to be whipped around by the wind, concentrating all of her mental bandwidth on mitigating damage and deflecting Togekiss’s attacks — a much more exhausting endeavor than it seemed as Nina could feel her princess encroaching upon her mind to offload some of the strain.
Togekiss flew around the Hurricane like fish in water, using every single move in its arsenal to break Espy’s defenses; Fairy Wind, Air Slash, Ancient Power, Magical Leaf, Swift and so on… But to no avail. And naturally, any utility moves were ineffective as well.
In fact, Espy was even cheeky enough to Deflect some of the attacks back to the Togekiss, much to her surprise.
So then, Togekiss changed tactics and resorted to physical attacks, slamming into Espy’s barrier in Extreme Speed, veering off, then Flying back in again.
Espy braced herself, this was exactly what she was waiting for. Using her Foresight, Espy timed the Togekiss’s impact perfectly and dispelled her barrier at the last second, allowing the Togekiss to crash into her while she latched on to the Flying omelette with her fangs and claws.
Nina winced as she could feel the pain of the impact and the suffocating G-force that Espy was now being forced to endure. Then… nothing. Because Espy had severed their mental link.
And not long after, a colourful nebula of stars exploded in the skies, dispelling the storm clouds and summoning stellar light amidst clear blue skies.
Nina sighed, Espy had used a point blank Last Resort, in a repeat of her match with Mob the Alakazam. Once Espy started getting competitive in battles, there was no dissuading her. The Espeon was too prideful for her own good.
“Alright, that’s it! After today, both those reckless Voltorbs are getting a stern talking to!”
Nina vowed, referring to the self-sacrificing duo of Espy and Brucey.The girl glanced anxiously at the skies, worried about the wellbeing of her beloved Pokemon. Until eventually, Zuki landed with her Altaria, with Espy in her embrace.
“Hand me her Pokeball, I will entrust her to a nurse on your behalf.”
“Thank you Lady Zuki, I owe you one.”
The older girl giggled. “No need to worry, your Espeon put on a very impressive display. Kazuki was quite smitten,” said Zuki with a coy smile. “Perhaps we can set up a date between our two Pokemon at some point? That would please Kazuki a great deal.”
Nina chuckled and said she would think about it after the match after she handed Espy’s Pokeball over.
The next two rounds were difficult, but not as bad as facing the Togekiss or Swellow. Falkner’s remaining two Pokemon were a Noctowl and a Pidgeot.
The Noctowl was tricky due to its arsenal of Psychic and Ghost Type moves. But it could hardly compare to Espy, who Nitey was used to sparring with.
One thing to note though was that all of Falkner’s remaining Pokemon knew Sky Attack. But now that he knew what to expect, Nitey dealt with it handily enough. Albeit, he was utterly drained by the end of it, huffing and puffing in exertion as he slumped onto the wooden arena. If he had failed then Destiny Bond with Haunter would have been a last resort, clearly marking Nina as a hypocrite.
“Forget lecturing Espy, she’d never let me hear the end of it if it comes down to that.”
***
“Congratulations, Miss Jones. You have earned yourself a Zephyr Badge.”
Nina groaned as she held the hexagonal wing shaped badge between her fingers — one that, she noticed, was without a star.
“This is ridiculous! That was clearly your Star team!”
Falkner laughed in amusement, prompting veins to pop from Nina’s temple. “I believe you have misunderstood. Only two of the retinue you faced were part of my Star team — Tsubame and Ai.” He said, referring to his Swellow and Togekiss. “The rest were part of our Gym’s expert tier line up.”
Nina opened her mouth to argue, but was silenced by a casually raised hand from the Gym Leader.
“You might consider this taboo for a Gym Leader, but I wanted to give you a test worthy of your abilities. So I studied your profile and matched my team's prowess in accordance with yours.” Falkner continued with an amicable smile.
“I am nothing if not fair, and can you honestly tell me that your current team with three, now two, of your roster still at a fairly underdeveloped state, is Star badge worthy?”
“If it wasn’t for this stupid arena, my team would have trashed yours…” The girl grumbled with a childish pout, eliciting more amusement from the man.
Falkner was not wrong and Nina knew it. Each Gym Leader had their own standards. And while Forrest had gone easy on her with his Star battle since they were on friendly terms, Falkner was evidently stricter in his assessment. In reality, this was the standard that all Star battles should be held accountable to.
It was a good fight though. Both Nina and her Pokemon had a lot to learn after today. Mainly that she really needed to get her newer members up to par and come up with more anti-Fairy countermeasures.
Falkner said it best, this was Johto. It would be reasonable to assume that each Gym Leader would have some sort of Dragonsbane in place to deal with the occasional unruly Blackthorn — a fact that never crossed her mind until now.
“Now then, allow us to return to the main Gym, so that I may confer you a reward befitting your accomplishment.”
The mention of rewards instantly shook Nina from her melancholy and brought a greedy smile to her face.
***
The trip back down the tower was easy enough — Zuki gave Nina a ride on her Altaria. The avian Dragon’s cloud feathers were so fluffy that Nina couldn’t help but bury her face in and give it a good huff.
“Swablus are super cute too. Maybe I should catch one when Bev and I go to Hoenn.”
Back in the Gym, the reward for Nina’s victory at the ‘extra special’ expert tier was a whopping 7,000 Pokedollars. And Nina would be lying if she said she wasn’t feeling giddy about receiving her first ever prize money from a Gym battle. “Gosh, I should do ante matches more often…”
“And in addition, as recompense for misleading you…” Falkner elegantly uncovered a wooden box to unveil a TM case. “Normally, I would present winners with general use TMs — think Flash and Rock Smash — that would be helpful in a budding trainer’s journey. But in your case, you may have this Giga Impact TM instead. A powerful, if somewhat draining, move that you will find is generally applicable to most Pokemon.”
Nina squealed like a boiling kettle and vibrated on the spot. Falkner was not wrong. Giga Impact was a very powerful Normal Type move that would usually be quite expensive to buy thanks to how universally applicable it was.
It was a move that could be learned naturally by more “brutish” Pokemon like a Tyranitar. But it was also just as easily transferable to any Pokemon who could muster up the required physical strength through a TM.
In fact, out of Nina’s team, Nitey, Espy and Sir Clodington could all learn the move. And just quickly checking on her Pokedex, Nina almost set fire to her screen from how long she had to scroll to get through the list of Pokemon capable of learning Giga Impact.
“Actually, with how flexible it is… I wonder if we can further customize the move? Something to experiment with some other time.”
“Thank you for your generosity, Lord Falkner! I will make sure to put this gift to good use!” Nina finally replied, once she calmed down enough to do so. “All of that ridiculous struggle was worth it after all!”
***
Author's note:
A couple of quick announcements!
First of all, in regards to Into the Unown. I may or may not need to take a short break on public releases in the coming weeks.
The reason? Because work has been overwhelming recently. I've pretty much been spending most of my free time over the past month or so sleeping. And when I'm not sleeping, I would be too tired to do anything productive.
All the while, my backlog continues to dwindle and only 2 chapters have been written the whole of September, minus the handful of chapters that I decided to axe because I wasn't happy with them.
That said, this is still undecided. But there are a couple of points coming up that would make for good stopping point without leaving you guys hanging. So I will decide before then.
Regardless, advanced releases on Patreon will still continue at a reduced rate of 1-2 chapters a week until I run out of backlog. At which point, I will put a pause on billing.
Again, this may all be subject to change depending on how things go in the coming week.
Additionally! Regarding GESTALT.
For the dozen of you who cared enough to read it and are looking forward to the next chapter, I apologize but I will have to pause my work on it as well for all the same reasons. I don't even have time to write one story right now, let alone two.
I've written a prologue Chapter 0 to supplement the story and was in the midst of rewriting some of the chapters when progress stalled.
Some people might have even noticed that I removed the announcement chapter leading to the story in its entirety because I don't want to leave anyone hanging for now. Rest assured, I have not given up on the story just yet.
Anyways, thanks again for reading. I'll keep you guys posted.