Chapter 11 + Upcoming Schedule Notes

Author Note:

Hello! Here’s the upcoming schedule for this fiction:

Tentatively, chapters will come out twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays. If that schedule ends up being too compacted, I might shift things around.

I’m aiming to have the Royal Road release of this fiction be on Tuesday, November 18th. However, I still need to get the cover art in order, and the current WIP title needs to be changed—it’s misleading for what I want this story to be.

Once this story is out on Royal Road, I’m planning to release one more thing. Either the week of the 24th or at the start of December, I will be posting my old stories on two other sites (Fanfiction.net, Ao3), with one or two chapters coming out each day.

I’ll be touching up those old chapters to remove some minor grammatical and spelling errors in them, but I’ll otherwise be leaving them the same. So, if you want to join in on a re-read or just see new reactions to the Type Specialist and the Ghost Specialist, I’ll be making an announcement post with the links included here.

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Rotom flitted around me as I sat hunched on Dianne’s couch. He basically flickered from position to position, his movements causing him to resemble blurred lightning bolts that stretched through the air. At my side, Liepard lifted his head to watch Rotom for a little bit, but being the big cat he was, he soon let his head fall back down as he drifted off into sleep, his fur pressed against my side.

For what I was doing, I didn’t quite have the proper tools, but at least the tools in this world tended to be more sturdy. When a Pokémon could take a ten-thousand-pound punch and walk away just fine, the materials scientists here were able to make some crazy things, but a single screwdriver was still not enough to break through the ice.

“Sorry, buddy. Your microwave might have met its end,” I said, sighing and sitting back to let my hand run through Liepard’s fur. “Whatever Kyurem did to freeze it means the ice isn’t melting. I could salvage some parts, but using it in battle...”

I could only shake my head.

Rotom’s microwave lay in pieces on a short coffee table in front of me. Several of its orange chunks were mostly fine, but ice had crept into it in a way neither Rotom nor I had expected. Key parts of its functionality were completely frozen over, and that ice didn’t seem like it was going to melt soon, if ever.

“But at least,” I said, picking up one frozen piece and looking it over. “This might be an opportunity.”

The ice on this chunk was completely dry; it didn’t even drip to hint at melting. Rotom flashed over with a burst of lightning to look at the frozen metal. Even when he poked at it with his crackling arms, nothing changed, but that just proved my theory to be even more correct.

“Never-Melt Ice,” I said. “A held item that increases the power of Ice-type moves. Not sure if that’s exactly what this is, but fighting Kyurem might have just earned us a bunch of money. Held items are rare—with battle-rated held items being even rarer—and if we can sell this to the right person, that should be able to earn us a nice amount of profit.”

Despite the loss of his microwave oven, a grin almost immediately stretched across Rotom’s face. The specifics of money and its uses tended to be lost on him, but at least when it came to profit, earning money usually meant more things for him to possess as well as more items for me to tinker with.

The sound of metallic clangs came from outside while I inspected the frozen remains of Rotom’s microwave. Even with the ongoing tiredness from our last major battle, Metang had not wanted to sit and let his weakness last. He was already out back, using his claws to spar against Valiant.

That Kyurem battle had been good for us. It was necessary, in my opinion. We needed to not just know but experience the strength of those who sat at the top of this world. The battle had been less about us proving our strength and more about us setting the right expectations.

But for now, my team deserved to rest. The sun might have been setting, but there was no reason to keep climbing through the ranks tonight. I continued to work on Rotom’s microwave, Liepard continued to nap, and the other half of my team sparred outside.

All the while, the television played the nightly news in front of us.

“...and workers in that Castelia lab have stated that their data was left untouched,” a newscaster's voice announced. “However, several have expressed concern that their evolution-based data was copied. As proprietary work, that research is the cornerstone of their business, but the real loss has been the theft of their rare stones and metal, which—”

The television suddenly turned off.

I looked up.

Frowning at the person stepping into the room, I let out a purposeful whine.

“I was watching that!”

Dianne just threw her head back and laughed, placing the television’s remote back on the table next to the couch. She was still dressed in her bright red vest that marked her as a Pokémon Ranger. From outside, the sounds of sparring began to quiet down as Farigiraf stepped into that backyard, having returned to rest for the night.

“You’re still here?” Dianne asked. “I would have expected you to have headed out and be competing in more battles right now.”

“Not tonight,” I said, adjusting how I was sitting on the couch when Liepard jumped up to rub against Dianne’s legs. “With how hard I’ve been pushing everyone, I think my team deserves a bit of a break.”

“Huh.” Dianne started to walk away. “So, no point-gathering tonight? No trying to climb the ranks?”

She took off her vest and let it hang on a rack, and her voice became slightly more muffled as she moved to her kitchen to start fixing herself dinner.

“I guess I could, but I think I have a better option when it comes to making some money. And the points I’ve been getting per battle haven’t been... that much, honestly.”

After a few weeks of nightly battles, I was sitting at just under three hundred points, which wasn’t much for all of the weeks of battling that my team and I had been doing. With how most of the trainers in Lacunosa being people toward the bottom of Normal Rank, the matches we’d been having hadn’t been a challenge—and they hadn’t earned us that many points on a win, as a result.

“So you’re struggling to earn enough to climb higher,” Dianne mused as her own, still-intact microwave began to hum. “I guess Lacunosa Town doesn’t have that much to offer.”

“No, no. It does,” I said quickly. “It’s just that most of the trainers that are still around aren’t...”

“Aren’t that strong?” she finished for me.

She walked out carrying a steaming bowl of some kind of leftover stew, letting herself plop down into a cushioned chair. Liepard immediately jumped into her lap, and it took all her effort not to have her food spill over both of them.

“The problem is, I think most of the tougher trainers have moved on to big cities,” I said as I watched Rotom possess the disconnected keypad of the microwave oven. All he managed to do was have it hop around. “It’s either that, or they’re training on Routes. Everyone still here is someone who isn’t necessarily trying to make it as a professional trainer. Or, they’re like you and Daryl—”

“Please don’t compare me to Daryl.”

“Or, they’re like you,” I quickly corrected, “where they could technically compete but are too attached to their ongoing jobs.”

Dianne hummed as she spooned some of her food into her mouth. From where he sat, I could hear Liepard purring from here.

That little traitor.

Dianne ate a few more bites and petted that big cat. She soon nodded once as if coming to a decision.

“Alright. I get it. With how you’ve been relaxing all day, I take it that you plan to move on pretty soon, right?”

“Probably,” I answered. “I figured I could head to Opelucoid. The Dragon-type trainers there should be of a higher rank and be pretty strong.”

“But!” Dianne sat up, and Liepard was forced to jump out of her lap. She looked me straight in the eye. “Let me ask you this: If they’re so strong, why would they ever want to fight a Normal Rank trainer like you?”

I blinked at her, trying to process the question.

“For experience?” I offered. “To... make money when they defeat me?”

“But...” Dianne said, letting the word drag out, “Would they defeat you, and would they recognize that inevitable loss?”

I opened my mouth to try to deny her, but I knew I couldn’t. The reality of my situation was settling in.

“Oh no,” I said, letting my head fall into my hands. “They would. They totally would. They would have nothing to gain from accepting a battle, and since they’re at a higher rank, they would be allowed to turn down my challenge.”

I was totally screwed.

I needed more points to be assigned a promotion battle and rank up, but we weren’t earning enough in our battles against Normal Rank trainers. We would be able to rank up eventually, but only eventually. These matches were only really earning us money and not experience. Being forced to keep this up for even longer meant we’d be unlikely to reach Master Rank by the end of the year.

“This system sucks,” I grumbled. “It’s super flawed. So just because my team is strong, we’re going to be trapped at the bottom?”

Despite my morose tone, Dianne was smiling. She put her bowl down just to waggle her finger at me.

“Ah, but my dear friend, you’re forgetting something: I live in Unova, and I know some tricks. There’s a reason the World Coronation Series is being held here instead of Galar. So tell me, Nick, have you ever heard of a little place called the Battle Club?”

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The next day, Dianne brought me toward the main street of town. Embarrassingly, this was basically the first time I’d been around here. Most of the battles I’d participated in happened in the side streets, and the only time I’d gotten close to Lacunosa’s main street was to go to the Pokémon Center, but that saw me arriving immediately after turning a single corner.

Here, Dianne walked on the sidewalk alongside me, forgoing the option of riding on Farigiraf’s back. While she could get away with that as a Pokémon Ranger, it was a bit of a faux pas to send out a big Pokémon like that in the middle of a populated town.

No, the only Pokémon out with us was Liepard—ignoring Rotom in my watch—who happily followed along at our backs. If someone was a trainer, it wasn’t uncommon to have at least one Pokémon out walking with them. Even with Liepard’s strength, his species was commonly kept as a household pet, so no one blinked an eye at the Pokémon that possessed the power to sweep through almost any of their teams.

“Battle Clubs are unique to Unova,” Dianne said as we walked through town, and there was an audible level of excitement to her voice. “I used to go to this one a bunch—they’re places made to give trainers a chance to connect and set up big battles. Some of them run regular tournaments, but usually only in the bigger cities. Otherwise, they’re buildings attached to a big communication network with dedicated battlefields.”

“Huh,” I said. “So I didn’t need to go around and ambush people at night?”

To that, Dianne laughed. On her face was a full-blown smile.

“No, no! Don’t get me wrong, after seeing what you did to Daryl? That was completely necessary,” she said, her smile more akin to a predator’s grin. “But Battle Clubs are more for... scheduled matches. They’ll connect you to the right kind of opponent, but they also tend to take longer. During any other year, relying on them might have resulted in your team getting in more battles overall, but right now, most people are out. Going to one won’t get you anywhere near as many battles as you tend to get at night.”

Lacunosa’s Battle Club was only a block away from the city’s Pokémon Center, and now that I knew to look for it, I could already see one trainer moving between the two buildings. Dianne said that Battle Clubs did have their own treatment centers, but they were never as advanced or in-depth as a Pokémon Center, so many trainers preferred that other building.

Here, the Lacunosa Battle Club blended in with the other structures constructed of worn, tan stone. It looked like any other place in this ancient town, but there was the barest hint of a more modern structure peeking up in the book.

The roof of its battlefield, most likely, I realized.

Dianne brought me to the building’s entrance.

There was no automatic glass door to slide open when we approached, but stepping inside, I did find us entering a more modern style of lobby, complete with a tiled floor, various seating areas, an electronic screen displaying dozens of names and images of trainers looking to battle, and a long counter situated in the very back.

“Dianne!” came a merry shout from an older, heavyset man standing behind that counter. I couldn’t tell if he was muscular or just overweight. “It’s been a while since you’ve shown up here. It’s good to see you after so long!”

Smiling brightly, Dianne approached the man and met him at the side of the counter. Being pulled into a hug, his arms practically dwarfed hers.

“It’s good to see you again, Don George. I would have come more often, but my work as a Pokémon Ranger tends to see me pretty busy during the day.”

The man laughed proudly, but his smile was almost completely covered by a thick, bushy mustache. However, with the way his eyes curved up, I could tell his hidden expression was genuine.

“Well, you’re welcome anytime,” he said in a baritone voice. “And who’s this?”

Dianne waved me over as the man moved back to his position behind the counter.

“Don George, this is Nick, Liepard’s current trainer and a competitor in the World Coronation Series. Nick, this is Don George. His family runs Unova’s Battle Clubs.”

When we shook hands in greeting, Don George’s hand was large enough that it felt like it was going to swallow mine, but there was not a single ounce of hostility on his face. He just grinned at me from under his mustache, and he looked over me with sharp, discerning eyes.

“You carry yourself like a powerful trainer,” the heavy man said. “Hm. If Dianne brought you here... You’ve trapped yourself, haven’t you?”

“You already know?” I asked, blinking.

He walked over to deposit himself on a stool that he pulled to roll over and position himself behind a computer. The device almost looked comically small when compared to him, but he was able to type on it just fine.

“As the owner of a Battle Club, I’ve been assisting with some of the Series’s set-up. Ranks and points are earned based on an algorithm devised by some very skilled thinkers assisted by smart Pokémon like Gothitelle and Alakazam. However...”

His mustache twitched. He looked slightly uncomfortable.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Don George said. “They wanted to encourage quality over quantity, but they went about it the wrong way. Since the points you earn are determined by performance rather than outright victory, strong trainers incapable of participating in challenging battles tend to earn fewer points than they should.”

“So...” I began slowly, “if I didn’t come here, I would have never gotten enough points to rank up.”

“My understanding is that they’re devising a new algorithm to determine the points earned,” Don George said, “but it’s still in development, and they’re still trying to find a way to implement it without harming the integrity of an ongoing tournament.”

He started to type on his keyboard, but then he looked up, flicking his gaze over to me from underneath his thick, bushy eyebrows.

“Can I see your trainer ID?” he asked.

I passed over the card containing my unique identifying number as a trainer, and he looked over it before beginning to fill the information in.

“Thankfully, you should be able to qualify for a promotion battle now instead of later,” he said. “There’s a bit of leniency given to me for that because of the mistakes, so I have the authority to approve them on a case-by-case basis.”

As he started to maneuver through whatever was being displayed on his computer screen, Dianne quietly nudged me on the arm.

“See? I told you this was a good idea,” she whispered.

“Thanks,” I said. “Would have sucked to be stuck in the Normal Rank, but now we should be able to keep climbing properly.”

With Don George helping me, Dianne walked off to look at the wall-sized screen that displayed a bunch of trainers’ names. Several of them had changed; a few trainers had walked in and out of the room, and it seemed they had managed to organize and secure themself a fight.

“Let’s see here,” Don George mumbled. “Nicholas. No badges. A trainer from Paldea. Three— No, four Pokémon on your team. You’ve been traveling for just over a year, and...  There’s a note from the Pokémon League itself? Your sponsor—”

Don George froze. I felt the need to cover my face.

“Just... ignore that, please.”

“Will do,” he said quickly. “I just didn’t expect to encounter someone sponsored by such a big shot here today.”

Humming to himself, he went on to look through his system. It was taking him a while, and for some reason, it carried the same vibes of being in the middle of a medical appointment.

“Hm. It’s clear that you should be eligible for a promotion match to reach the Great Rank, but it’s one I’ll need to approve rather than one that happens automatically,” he said. “It won’t be official, so your potential opponent will have the choice whether or not to accept. But once a battle is scheduled, all you need to do to rank up is defeat the opposing trainer in a battle.”

“Got it,” I said.

“The problem is...” Although I couldn’t see the man’s mouth, I could tell he was frowning. “There’s no one in town able to accept your challenge.”

“Seriously? Not even a single Great Rank trainer?”

“There are a few of them, but I know them all personally, and they aren’t the kind of people to accept this kind of challenge.”

The man hummed, rubbing a stubble-covered chin as he looked at the screen, but at least I could think of an easy solution.

“The Battle Club here is connected to all other Battle Clubs, right? I don’t care about fighting in town. If you expand the search to include any towns nearby, I’m fine with needing to travel as long as I get the chance to be promoted.”

After all, even if I traveled, being promoted then would still be faster than needing to wait in the Normal Rank until the algorithm was changed.

Don George nodded and went back to typing. Dianne returned from where she had been looking over the board.

“So you’ll be heading out basically tomorrow,” she said.

“Honestly, maybe even later today,” I said.

“Man. I knew you were planning on leaving, I just thought... I don’t know. It was nice to see Liepard again.”

The big cat walked up from where he had been sitting behind me, and he didn’t hesitate to press himself against Dianne’s legs. Even though he didn’t speak, the message was clear.

He liked seeing her again soon, but he needed to head out with me to continue chasing after his dream. But that distance didn’t mean they wouldn’t be friends.

“We only have so much time,” I said quietly. “Can’t afford to fall behind when we need to reach Master Rank by the end of the year.”

I must not have been speaking that quietly, because Don George looked up to meet me in the eye.

“Master Rank in just six months,” he said, essentially repeating my words. “That’d be an impressive feat.”

“Maybe for someone else who doesn’t already have a strong team,” I said. “It looks like we’re coming out of nowhere, but we’re strong. I’m willing to take on anyone if it means we get promoted. And I know that we’ll win.”

“That’s the spirit!” The large man dramatically hit the enter button on his keyboard, and a short ding rang out from his computer. “And there we go! The message has been sent! All nearby Battle Clubs in other cities will be notified of your request, but just be aware that it might be a while before someone sees your situation and chooses to—”

A second ding almost immediately rang out, and his speech was interrupted.

Don George flicked his eyes down to see the source of that notification. Sweat started to form on his brow.

“Wait, was that it?” Dianne asked, speaking up.

“Do I already have an opponent already?” I asked, chiming in.

Eyes wide, Don George stared at his computer, and he took out a white cloth to wipe his forehead.

“You... do,” he said slowly. “Which is a surprise. And it’s more of a surprise that... Hmph. I just assumed a trainer like him would be at Ultra Rank, instead.”

Dianne’s eyebrows shot up. I was unable to look away from where Don George sat.

“So, Nick got some kind of super-impressive opponent?” Dianne asked.

“Indeed,” Don George replied. “One I didn’t quite expect.”

Annoyed at how long this was taking, I leaned forward, pressing my arms against the counter.

“Please get on with it. I don’t want to wait.”

Amused, Don George exchanged a look with Dianne, and the heavyset man let out a chuckling laugh.

“Well, he’s a Humilau trainer. A Water-type specialist,” he said. “A trainer that probably shouldn’t be at the Great Rank.”

Dianne breathed out, mouth opening slightly.

“No way,” she said, making the connection before me.

“You’re dragging it out on purpose at this point,” I grumbled.

Don George gained a slight smile. However, he also looked at me, his gaze appraising. It was as if he wanted to see for himself if I was someone who could actually live up to my stated goal.

Then, finally, he spoke, and Dianne looked genuinely shocked.

“Your opponent for your promotion battle will be Marlon,” Don George finally said. “As in the Marlon, the Leader of Humilau City’s Gym.”

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Author Note:

Don George is a canon character from the anime. Battle Clubs are also canon.

In addition to the upcoming releases, I’m also in the process of touching up some of the initial chapters of this story. These chapters were written over a month ago at this point, but I edited them one last time before posting them here. Since going through with daily releases resulted in a tight schedule, I’m just looking through them to make sure everything is okay. So, if there have been any egregious sections that need to be modified, please tell me and I will give them a change!

Next chapter, a step into the past for a short interlude.

Pokémon mentioned in this chapter:
Alakazam
Gothitelle
Kyurem

Nick’s Team:
Iron Valiant
Liepard
Metang
Rotom

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