Pokemon: Resurgence Chapter 33

Hi all,

Here’s the next chapter. I am officially on vacation, and I am having a good time spending it fishing with some of my friends out at sea. What’s not so great is my laptop deciding to pack up at the wrong time.

I wrote this chapter on my phone, which I find challenging since I have fat fingers lol.  As a result, I abandoned the crossover insanity chapter halfway through to get this out. It will probably come out on the weekend sometime. I will also update the status post when I get my laptop fixed as it’s hard to edit on my phone.

Chapter 33

Lucas stepped out of the shower stall, wiping his face with a towel. He walked over to his locker and retrieved his clothes to get dressed.

"Already finished for the day?" One of the regulars asked.

His name was Macho, and he was extremely muscular. Nobody knew whether that was his real name or if he just chose to call himself that. Who would ever call their son such a name, though? He seemed to spend every waking moment at the Fighting Dojo training. At the very least, he had always been here when Lucas and Max came to train.

“Yeah. I'm just waiting for Max to finish up,” Lucas replied.

"You will not get a beautiful physique like mine if you don’t put forth the effort."

“I’m fine with that,” Lucas said. “Not everyone can achieve your level of physique, and I don’t have the time to devote to it either.”

Macho approached him and pulled out a potion from his pocket. “This may be able to help. Not only does it work to improve a Pokemon’s fighting-type affinity, but it also helps humans increase their strength training.”

“Are you taking steroids?” Lucas joked.

“What are steroids?”

“Never mind,” Lucas sighed. “Is that a new potion out on the market? I have never seen it before.”

“My cousin invented it,” Macho said proudly. “It’s perfect for the Fighting Dojo, where humans and Pokemon work together to strive for perfect bodies.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Lucas said. “What is this potion called?”

"It’s called the Macho Brace. The potion is having some issues being approved by the Alchemist Guild," Macho admitted. "There are some minor issues that need to be worked out."

“Is that how you went bald in the past week?” Lucas smirked.

“I told you that I shaved my hair off!”

“Whatever, dude, I sure hope it doesn’t have any detriment to your love life.”

“What do you mean?” Macho yelled as Lucas exited the showers.

He made his way through the building until he reached Max, who was finishing his spar with one of the dojo's Pokemon. Ashe lay on the floor, watching the spar with interest, but when she saw him, she ran over and jumped into his arms.

While he waited, Lucas examined Max's parameters. His training over the previous two weeks had produced excellent results. He and Max had been training at the Fighting Dojo nearly every day, and his fighting-type affinity had increased significantly. It gave him more options if he wanted to teach Max more fighting-type moves. He also improved his free-form trait as a result of all the spars he had with the other fighting-type Pokemon.

His increased fluidity in his movements improved both his offensive and defensive abilities. His agile footwork, particularly in defence, allowed him to pivot skillfully to avoid oncoming attacks. The speed stat wasn’t the only factor to consider, as his movement efficiency was also important.

After two weeks, all of Max's stats had been trained, and the experience in his cache had been used to bring him up to level twenty-five. Thanks to the two rare candies he fed Icaria, his entire team gained additional experience on top of what they earned in the battle arena. Except for Meowth, who was now level eighteen, all of his Pokemon were now between level twenty-five and twenty-six.

Max finished his training and came running over to him.

"Congratulations," Lucas announced. "Your fighting-type affinity has increased to fifty percent."

“Kid!” Max cheered. He extended a hand, silently demanding something from him.

"I promised to give you the growth potion once you reached that milestone," Lucas mused. “Wait until we get home. I will have Brock prepare some meals for you so you don’t starve after taking the potion."

Lucas exited the building, making sure his coat covered him properly before venturing out into the bitter cold. Ashe climbed onto his shoulders and wrapped her tail around his neck, serving as a scarf. The heat emanating from her body provided welcome relief.

As December started, a sudden drop in temperatures marked the onset of winter. People bundled up in layers of warm clothing before venturing outside, and children happily played in the snow, enjoying their free time now that school had ended for the year.

Everyone had already started decorating their homes for Christmas, and stores were getting into the holiday spirit. In this world, Christmas has a different origin story. It emerged as a celebration of the ceasefire after the war, with the intervention of the legendaries.

The end of the war resulted in the rapid establishment of a church, which instituted the holiday to commemorate the official date when the war ended. Before this, the day had no special significance and was simply a normal day. The holiday became so popular that it spread throughout other regions. Unfortunately, the Church of Arceus also spread and is now present in every part of the world. Only the Rota Kingdom was free of its taint, making it an appealing place to settle if you didn’t agree with their institution.

“Vulpix.” Ashe cried, alerting him to something.

Lucas looked where she was looking and noticed some people standing outside, braving the cold to continue their protest. He was the focus of their attention, and it was because of his relationship with Sabrina. The two weeks following their relationship's public announcement elicited both positive and negative responses. Unfortunately, the latter was more prevalent, and it primarily came from the church.

They didn’t make a public statement about it, but they had a large number of followers who were willing to do the dirty work and protest their relationship. Wherever he went, a few people followed him, complaining about how wicked he was for dating such a woman. Even though he had anticipated it, some of the oddballs he encountered were still surprising. But Zero had been the worst of the lot.

When they spotted him, the protestors raised their signs and shouted at him. Although it looked half-hearted, as they looked miserable.

“Don’t worry about them,” Lucas said, petting her. “They will go away once they have enough of the cold.”

Ashe fit right in with the rest of the team. She began to express her personality as soon as she hatched. She was generally easygoing and got along with everyone. However, if you irritated her, she would lose her temper, usually resulting in one of the team members being burned. Unlike humans, Pokemon didn’t go through a baby stage or any other maturational stages until they reached adulthood. As a result, most people didn’t keep track of their ages because they didn’t consider it important. A Pokemon’s lifespan was usually longer than a human's, hence, you would never have to worry about outliving them.

Their minds developed quickly in their eggs, thanks primarily to observations of their surroundings and the bond they formed with their trainer. Because she already knew Lucas through the bond, they didn’t need to go through the process of getting to know each other.

When he arrived back home, he found Brock busy making potions in the kitchen. Since Lucas had been training Max, he had him working on an affinity potion geared towards fighting types. It helped Max train his affinity and served to give the teenager valuable practice.

"How did your training go?" Brock asked. "Did you see any more protests?"

"Just a few," Lucas replied. "It was too cold today for anyone but the most zealous to come out and protest my wickedness."

"At least the cold is good for something," Brock said, shivering. “I hate winter.”

"Are you going back to spend Christmas with your family?" Lucas asked, taking an apple from a bowl on the counter and sitting at the table. He had worked up an appetite after his training session.

“If you give me the time off, boss,” Brock said. "Thanks to the potions I sell and the generous wages you pay me, I have been able to send a lot of pokedollars back to my siblings. But I am worried my dad will find out, so I would like to go check on them."

"I would like to come with you so I can see Pewter City," Lucas said. "Though I will be spending Christmas with the Ketchum family."

“Sounds like a plan,” Brock said, smiling. He began filling the vials with the latest batch of potion he had made, being careful not to spill a single drop.

“You're really good at alchemy,” Lucas commented. “It didn’t take you long to move on from salves. I don’t know why you needed my help in the first place.’

“That’s because I get the time and resources to devote myself to it without having to worry about my siblings.”

Lucas munched on his apple as he considered what he was going to do with the rest of his day. He needed to get out and explore some more of Viridian Forest at some point, as he wanted to start grinding his Pokemon’s effort values. He was just waiting for a milder day when he wasn’t going to run the risk of freezing to death.

In addition, he had to complete some difficult bonus evolution conditions. Max and Saphira would soon reach level thirty, and he wanted to be ready to evolve them when they reached that point. Saphira had some difficult conditions to meet, particularly two of them. One of them required a level fifty dragon scale, but he had no idea where to find one of those. The other involved defeating an opponent ten levels higher than herself. Not only was that a difficult condition on its own, but he would have to venture into a higher-level zone to find such an opponent.

He was still waiting to hear from the mayor about the mines. But he expected a delay due to the severe weather conditions. He wasn’t in a rush, as he had become a millionaire after selling another two batches of growth potions. They did, however, sell for a significantly lower price at the most recent auction. It appeared that some powerful individuals were bidding low on them and intimidating everyone else to stop them from competing. He should have expected such tactics, but it was still annoying.

He should consider cooperating with the government at some point or starting his own business. The issue with the latter is that he lacked strength, which made him vulnerable to those who would try and take everything from him. Team Rocket came to mind. Perhaps he should do business with the government until he is better able to protect himself.

“Do you want to visit Pewter City because it's the closest city to the Rota Kingdom?” Brock asked.

Lucas nodded. He hadn’t made a secret of his interest in the kingdom. With how troublesome the church has been lately, it sounded like the perfect place to settle down. It was only an idea at the moment, though, as there were several considerations to take into consideration.

He would like to visit the kingdom first to see if it is a good place to set up a business. It wouldn’t be wise to enter a market where there was already too much competition unless he had a way to differentiate himself from the other Pokemon Breeders. Second, would Sabrina be interested in moving with him? While she was currently suspended from her position as the Saffron City gym leader, she could always return to it in the future. It’s not like she could commute, either, because the kingdom didn’t allow teleportation towers within its borders, so you couldn’t travel there instantly.

Lucas looked around, frowning as he didn’t see Meowth. “Where is that rascal?”

Brock shrugged. “Beat’s me. He left earlier and hasn’t returned yet.”

“He better not be getting into trouble.”

Lucas asked Brock to prepare meals for Max, and he fed him the growth potion later in the afternoon. While he kept an eye on him, he checked out his own status, as he had made some significant progress in the past two weeks as well.

He had reached level thirty thanks to the experience gained from training his Pokemon's stats. The function he received for reaching that milestone was called Region Maps. It gave him access to an interactive map of all the regions in the world. It showed him the areas he had already explored but left everything unexplored veiled in shadow. There was some basic information, such as harvestable ingredients, Pokemon territories, landmarks, roads and trails, and other terrain details.

It would save him a lot of time drawing maps and it may also help him stumble across some hidden secrets that would be hard to find otherwise. The cost to upgrade the function was fifty thousand pokedollars, which he didn’t hesitate to spend immediately. It added a new icon to the map, which showed where he had discovered hidden items. Furthermore, it displayed the number of hidden items left in the area, in a one-mile radius. While it didn’t pinpoint the exact location, it would help him save time by not searching for items that weren’t there.

He also spent a hundred thousand pokedollars to improve his Itemfinder function, expanding the range of items once more. It was the final upgrade for that function, so there would be no further improvements, but it was already overpowered.

Max finished eating more than a dozen meals after taking the growth potion. It would be interesting to see how big he gets in the coming days.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Lucas snapped awake and examined his surroundings. Something had woken him up, but he was still too sleepy to engage his brain and figure it out. He reached over and switched on the lamp, and he saw that his Pokemon were still sleeping. They usually slept with him rather than in their habitats, unless Sabrina was with him. Only Icarus and Icaria were absent, having spent more time together recently.

“Lucas…Can……hear…me?”

“Who is that?” Lucas blinked. Did that voice come from his mind?

“It’s…me…Icarus.”

"How come I can hear... Wait, did our bond grow strong enough to be able to communicate telepathically?”

“Still..hard to..speak……way.”

Lucas scrubbed his face to get rid of his sleepiness, feeling excited about the new development. He didn’t think he would be getting back to sleep anytime soon. He slipped out of bed and exited the bedroom quietly so as not to wake his Pokemon. When he got into the kitchen, he made himself a hot chocolate and sat at the table.

He attempted to communicate with Icarus without saying anything aloud. It took several attempts before he got any results.

“Is that why you woke me up? To tell me you could communicate?” Lucas asked. “Not that I’m unhappy, but it could have waited for tomorrow.”

“No,” Icarus replied. “Icaria and I have produced an egg.”

“Really? Tell me more.”

Lucas listened as Icarus described how Icaria and he produced an egg while in their habitat. They decided it was the right time, and everything went smoothly. As he talked, Icarus’ communication over the bond continued to improve, until I could almost speak whole sentences without stumbling over any words.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” Lucas told him. “I wish I was there to see it, but I can’t complain about the results.”

He had produced his first egg as a Pokemon Breeder. Although he didn’t contribute to the actual task, what he did in the background, such as training Icarus and Icaria, would benefit the Pokemon in the future, both in terms of potential and its starting point in life.

Lucas opened his menu to look inside Icarus' habitat. Icaria had created a small nest in the tree where she had placed the egg. It was a brown and white egg that matched the colour of its parents' feathers.

"How does Icaria feel about passing on her egg to someone else?" Lucas asked.

He hadn’t given it much thought before, and now he was worried about breaking the promise he made to Ash about giving him a Pidgey egg.

“She’s fine with it,” Icarus replied. “She knows that her child will have the best chance in life by bonding with a human. Just give her a couple of days with the egg before you give it to the boy.”

“I can do that,” Lucas said, smiling.

He spent the rest of the night in the kitchen, feeling energised. He was already considering where he would go next to produce more eggs and advance his Pokemon Breeder career.

Lucas realised that in the future, he would have to be more careful about how he produced eggs. He couldn’t keep adding Pokemon pairings to his personal team just to make more of them. There had to be a clear distinction between the Pokemon he used to produce eggs and the team he formed to explore the world and protect him from danger.

It wouldn’t be sustainable to put so much effort into training every Pokemon, as he would exhaust both himself and his resources. But the Pokemon he used for breeding couldn’t be weak either, as their strength would have some influence on the eggs they produced. It was an interesting dilemma to have. Should he hire more staff to train his breeding Pokemon and take care of them? Perhaps he should ask Gloria. She owned her own breeding business in the city, and she had plenty of employees, so it wasn’t a one-man operation.

Another consideration was deciding which type of Pokemon to breed first, but it didn’t take him long to figure out this question. There were plenty of  Pokemon species that were considered rare because they were difficult to breed in captivity and had low populations in the wild. If he were to solve that issue with even one of these Pokemon, then he would have a path towards a successful career.

Eevee was the perfect example of this. Because of its popularity and potential evolutionary forms, it was hunted until its numbers were drastically reduced. They used to be almost as common as Rattata are now, but their rarity made them expensive commodities. Furthermore, if he were to solve the requirement for some of its evolutionary forms, then Eevee would become even more valuable.

Outside of Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon, the remaining forms were much rarer because the requirements to evolve them weren’t fully understood and only occurred by chance.

Although Eevee was already a huge market, so breaking into it wouldn’t be easy, or cheap. Perhaps he should shop around some more and have a look at other Pokemon.

“There is no need to decide now,” Lucas said with a yawn. “Maybe I should go back to sleep.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Lucas slept into the late morning. He would have probably slept in for longer if there wasn’t something else that disturbed his sleep. He had a vivid dream in which he was still sleeping in his bed, but he could see everything in the room even with his eyes closed. Brock came into his room at one point with a breakfast tray in his hand, which he set on the bedside table, before leaving the room.

It wasn’t terrifying like a nightmare, but it was unusual enough to startle him awake. He sat up in bed and almost immediately looked to the right. The tray was sitting on the table, and the breakfast appeared to be the same as in his dream. Unnerved, he took the tray into the kitchen and set it on the counter.

“What’s wrong with you?” Brock asked, walking into the kitchen and seeing his expression.

“I just had the weirdest dream,” Lucas said, and he proceeded to tell him about it.

He expected Brock to laugh, but instead, he appeared unusually serious. “Did anything else strange happen last night?”

“Yeah. Icarus can now communicate with me telepathically.”

“When a bond reaches that level, sometimes it reveals abilities that the individual didn’t know they had.”

Lucas froze. “Are you talking about an Aura Guardian?”

He remembered reading about them before, so it was not a complete surprise to him. Everyone had aura to some degree, which protected them from certain Pokemon abilities like mind reading. Some people had more aura than the norm, and they awakened to become Aura Guardians, who could perceive and manipulate aura to perform incredible feats.

Brock nodded. "It appears that you have awakened aura vision. Which allows you to view the surroundings even with your eyes closed. Some guardians only have one ability, whereas others have several. However, they typically awaken with the most basic ability first, which is aura vision. Why don’t you try and make it happen again?”

Lucas closed his eyes, and he tried to imagine seeing the kitchen in detail. At first, he couldn't see anything, and he was beginning to think he had allowed his imagination to get the better of him with his dream. But then, a point of light appeared within his mind, and it rapidly grew to form an image of the kitchen. Brock was standing in front of him, and he was performing a rude gesture.

“Stop that,” Lucas muttered, then realised what he had said.

“I was right,” Brock crowed.

Lucas opened his eyes. "This is an unexpected turn of events. If the church finds out about this, they will hate me even more.”

“They aren’t just going to hate you. They will persecute you if they discover the truth. I bet the Rota Kingdom looks even more appealing right now."

When he was alone again, Lucas opened his menu. He hadn’t noticed anything different last night, but he had been preoccupied with the news about the egg. When he saw that he had a new profession, it didn’t come as a huge surprise.

The Aura Guardian was the new profession. He took out the guidebook and searched for information on it. The more he used his abilities, the more he would level up the profession. It already came with the aura vision skill unlocked, so he expected to gain more aura-related skills as his profession progressed. Unlike his other skills, there were no upgrades, so he wouldn’t have to spend his precious skill points on them. But he imagined he would get better at using his aura skill as he practised them.

Aura was a finite resource, so he couldn’t cheat and use aura vision continuously to gain experience. He would have to find his limit, and then wait until his aura recovered before using it again.

After thinking about it some more, he wasn’t disappointed that he became an Aura Guardian, although it would complicate his life. He was most excited to see what other abilities he would acquire in the future. For the moment, he could work with aura vision. He wondered if it could be used as something else other than a visual aid for the blind.

He was about to close out of the menu when he noticed he had unlocked something else. His Pokemon Breeder profession had finally levelled up to five, and he received a new skill.

==========

Skill: Skilled Breeder Level: 1/5  Next: 4SP  Type: Passive  Charges: --

Description: A great breeder understands how to produce Pokemon eggs more efficiently and how to maximise their potential. The first level of this skill increases the likelihood of all Pokemon owned by the player producing eggs by 25%. Furthermore, every egg he produces will take 25% less time to hatch but it won’t lose any of the benefits, such as developing a bond with its trainer.

==========

This skill was incredible. This had to be the top priority moving forward. If he had more skill points, he could immediately level this skill to the maximum. The second level was already expensive enough. How much would the final level cost him?

He was interrupted by the ringing of the phone, which he answered.

"Hello, Lucas," Delia's voice was heard on the other end of the line. “Am I calling at a bad time?”

“No, I’m not busy at the moment. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing well, and so are the kids. May I ask when you are going to visit again?”

“You called at a great time,” Lucas said as he leaned back in his seat. “I have produced my first egg. I’m sure Ash is going to be excited that he will be getting a companion soon.”

“That’s great news! But I feel like I should pay for it. I don’t want you giving it away for free.”

“It’s not necessary. I don’t want to brag, but I have become very wealthy in recent times thanks to a potion I created.”

"Well, if you are certain," Delia said, her tone sceptical. “When can I expect you?”

“In two days. Do you mind if I bring a friend along?”

“Sabrina?”

“No. He’s someone I met on the cruise ship, and Iater hired as an assistant. His name is Brock and he’s fifteen years old.”

“He is more than welcome.”

Lucas said his goodbyes and hung up. His brows furrowed, as something about Delia’s call felt off. Although she sounded pleasant enough, there had been an underlying edge throughout that he had never heard from her before. Maybe he was imagining it?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Two days later, Lucas and Brock rolled into Pallet Town. With the continuing bad weather, they opted to ride a carriage instead of riding their bikes. He had got a bike for Brock as well, so he could get around more easily. They made their way to the Ketchum residence and disembarked from the carriage.

Ash greeted them at the door, not suspecting that Lucas was hiding some presents in his bag. They entered the kitchen where Misty was helping Delia bake some cookies, and he introduced Brock to the three of them.

“Sit down and I will put on the kettle,” Delia said, fussing over them. “The cookies should be ready soon as well.”

“Lucas didn’t tell me how beautiful you were Mrs Ketchum,” Brock murmured, offering his most charming smile.

“It’s kind of you to say so, but please call me Delia,” she replied, bemused.

Ash mimed being sick, and Lucas could understand where he was coming from. Who would want to see some dude hitting on your mother? And one that was so young as well.

“What have you got there?” Ash asked as Lucas opened his bag.

“I’m just keeping a promise.”

“No way!” Ash exclaimed as Lucas handed him the egg.

As the boy cradled the egg and admired it, Misty looked on with jealousy, although she quickly hid her expression. Lucas pulled a potion vial out of his bag next and handed it over to the girl.

“What’s this?” Misty asked.

“Before I tell you, I need to ask all of you to keep it a secret,” Lucas said, “This is serious. If it gets out that I am handing these out, then I will be in for a hard time.”

They promised him they would keep his secret.

“Remember when you asked about how Icarus grew so much?” Lucas smiled. “This is a growth potion. Have you heard about it?”

Judging by their amazed expressions, they had certainly heard of it. They asked him a bunch of questions, and he patiently explained how he invented the potion. With some carefully edited out details of course.

“This is too valuable,” Misty said. “I can’t accept it.”

“It’s only valuable because of its scarcity,” Lucas assured her. “Once it’s mass-produced, and distributed to more people, the cost will go down fast. In terms of materials, it’s not that expensive.”

“Thank you,” Misty beamed.

Finally, Lucas pulled out a present for Delia, who tried to protest when he handed it over to her. He had got her a custom bracelet, with images of her Pokémon delicately woven into its design. He wasn’t sure if this was appropriate or not, as he was pants at getting presents for women, but Delia seemed pleased with it. She wore it straight away and held it up to the light to examine it closely.

“You did so much for me when I was kicked out of the orphanage,” Lucas explained. “So it’s the least I could do.”

“This is wonderful,” Delia said, hugging him.

After they had finished their snack, Delia gestured to Lucas, hinting that she wanted to speak to him. Lucas decided to distract the kids by introducing Ashe, and they went outside with her to play. Ash seemed thrilled to have a Pokémon named after him, although it wasn’t the same. Brock, getting the hint, followed them outside.

“Is there something wrong?” Lucas asked, noticing how she was twisting the tea towel with her hands.

“It has to do with Giovanni,” Delia said, sitting down at the table. “Luca, what do you think of the man? Give me your honest opinion.”

“I think he is bad news,” Lucas replied. “There is no evidence that I can base my opinion on, but I can get bad vibes from him. Even Meowth can’t stand him, and he’s an excellent judge of character.”

Delia nodded as if confirming her feelings on the matter. “He has been pestering me for a while now about any research my late husband may have left behind. I keep telling him that there is nothing, but that isn’t exactly true. He left me something, and told me not to do anything with it unless he was dead.”

“If Giovanni was to find out…” Lucas trailed off.

“That’s why I want to give this to you,” Delia said, reaching into her apron and pulling out a key. “I would like you to pass this along to Sabrina or someone of higher authority.”

“What does it open,” Lucas asked curiously.

“A safe deposit box. My husband used a forged identification to open up a bank account. So, Giovanni wouldn’t know about it.”

Lucas took the key from her, wondering what he should do with it. Should he investigate it himself, or pass it on to Sabrina?

So, what do you think? In the next chapter, Lucas is going to follow the trail of a dead man.

Thanks for reading.