10-30-2022, 03:47 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-30-2022, 09:58 AM by SceptileScythe.
Edit Reason: minor proofreading edits
)
Yo I'm the player that controls Rex and I have decided to write up Day 5 since I'm quite bored. We're not actually this slow in the actual game (only slightly slower) seeing as we are in day 18 as of writing this post. Without further ado, enjoy.
The group is woken up early in the morning by a little shit of a scientist who was obstinate in them being up and about early in the morning for a meeting, much to the chagrin of Natalia and Dexter. After the band freshens up, they go to meet Dr. Morwen while letting their mons finish the apples from last night, which they were happy to do so. Well, most of them were happy to do so. Spencer’s new catch from yesterday, the Doedino christened “Panzer” was more than happy to just curl up into a ball instead. Spencer’s attempts to coax it out fail so he shrugs and leaves for the meeting and his Oshawott, Yasuho doesn’t have much luck either. Newton, Rex’s Drilbur took matters into his own hands by placing an apple next to Panzer and getting everyone to back away, which yielded a positive result.
Meanwhile at the meeting itself, the trainers meet a notable figure via video call. Ilsa Larsen who is a red-haired woman that is the Dean of the New Theneria Institute of Science while also being the mayor of New Theneria. She asks them to keep yesterday’s discoveries at the runes a secret as it would help the research go more smoothly but admits that she cannot make them sign an NDA over it. She instead offers to do them a solid in exchange for their silence, with Spencer getting a scholarship in the NTIS which he can start immediately after his time as Acacia’s intern comes to an end. She reveals to Natalia that she knows about her situation as Acacia trusted her with it and lets her know that there were rumours that her “lost possession” was spotted around Altheia Village. Natalia is unsure of what to think about another person knowing her situation, but she decides to put her trust in Ilsa. However, she is also confused since her previous information was that Charlie was in Sunfall Town. The dean then asks Q, Rex, and Dexter what they wanted and told them she would give it to them as long as it was within reason. Rex asks for the apps on his phone which were behind a paywall to be unlocked, and while she couldn’t unlock all of them, she does unlock the relevant apps for the group. Dexter asks for her to send a Pokémon to his family back home to help with the chores which she obliges as well. Q keeps silent and seeing this Hecate tries to help Q by showing Ilsa a photo in his pocket, but Q manages to get Hecate under control and keeps this mysterious photo hidden.
After the voice call ends, Doctor Morwen cordially states that Larsen likes them, and having a friend like her will get them places. He goes on to say that he doesn’t really have any answers for what happened the previous day, their attempts to investigate the ruins (and specifically the metal door) further ending in failure. He promises to keep in touch and provide them updates if they make any progress. With that, the group is off, walking from the ruins to Altheia Village, the location of the first gym and also where Charlie was last spotted. As their apps get unlocked thanks to Rex’s request, Dexter appreciates Rex’s presence of mind while also commenting that his egg was six days away from hatching and that was probably the case for everyone else as well. The group runs into sibling trainers: Mari and Zara, the latter being mute due to a childhood throat injury.
The pair challenge two of the group to a multi double battle, to which Spencer and Natalia step up to accept the challenge, while Q and Rex choose to spend their time training instead. In the battle, Mari and Zara reveal a Unovan Yamask + Galarian Yamask core, to which Natalia sends out her Alolan Grimer, Sal, while Spencer sends out his partner, Yasuho. Initial trade of blows swings the momentum towards Natalia and Spencer as a Water Gun preceded by a Bite onto the Unovan Yamask takes it out. Mari sends out a Cottonee to replace her fallen mon which immediately revenges by taking out Yasuho with a super effective Mega Drain. Meanwhile, Sal is doing massive damage to the Galarian Yamask with a Bite, also successfully managing to flinch it. The Fairy Wind from Cottonee wears down Sal a little, but he manages to tenaciously hang on and stay healthy with the help of his Black Sludge. Spencer sends out Rorin, his new Bronzor to replace Yasuho. The Galarian Yamask proceeds to go out sad in the next series of moves after taking another Bite from Sal. Sal, who is quickly turning out to be the hero of this battle hangs on for dear consciousness once again as a Fairy Wind from Cottonee barely fails to knock him out. Rorin chips down the Cottonee with multiple hits despite catching a nasty Stun Spore from the same but it manages to hang on still. Zara replaces her Galarian Yamask with a Combee while Natalia swaps out the unbreakable Sal with Buster, her partner Starly. While this swap was happening Mari quickly runs forward and heals up the worn down Cottonee to almost full, and this mon throws out another meaty Fairy Wind that smashes into Buster, who’s heavily damaged from this attack, but not quite out yet- wait never mind, down he goes to Combee’s Gust before he even got a chance to attack. Maybe next time. Rorin’s not just standing (hovering?) around, though. It focuses his attacks onto Combee, chipping it greatly, putting it on the verge of getting knocked out, while barely getting hurt itself. However, the Combee certainly was not finished, as it uses the energy it got from downing Buster to evolve into a menacing Vespiquen mid-battle. However, the siblings will soon learn that a mid-battle evolution does not give them the plot armour that they think it does, as Vespiquen immediately proceeds to get knocked out by Rorin before she could move, and the Cottonee despite its best efforts proceed to get cleaned up by Sal and Rorin.
Mari and Zara don’t take this loss too well, revealing that they have been in a slump for a bit, getting absolutely cooked in the swamp up ahead despite having breezed through their first badge. Dexter is concerned by this information as he isn’t quite sure how they were going to beat the Altheia Gym with no badges if trainers with one badge got their asses handed to them. Natalia confidently states that they would never know if they could beat the gym leader until they tried and asked him to worry about it too much. Rex reminds him of Damien’s words (or Haxorus Guy, as Rex calls him) that Gym Leaders always had different Pokémon they used depending on how many badges their opponents had. The time was a little past 9 am and they were around two hours away from Altheia Village, so the group hurries so they can reach there in time for lunch.
The mud-soaked group arrives at Altheia Village, which apparently was not an uncommon sight as the villagers moving about mostly ignore them. Not all of them, though. A grim-looking villager introducing himself as Nikias greets them without a smile. He informs them that the gym leader wasn’t currently in town, but they could get food and beds at the lodge. Medical supplies were a different matter, however. Healing was scarce and they were to only request it if absolutely necessary. He also informs them that they were to visit the Currency Exchange in the village, as the stores in the village operate only on cash, and not the digital currency that the rest of the world is used to. Natalia asks where Emmeline was if she was not at the village, to which Nikias replies that she was at Route 2, trying to quell the wild mons that were acting more rowdy than usual, mentioning in an off-hand manner that it shouldn’t be too much trouble for her, and that she should be back in a couple hours.
Rex and Natalia head towards the market while Q heads out on his own to Route 2 to see what the hubbub is about. Spencer figures Yasuho’s injuries were absolutely necessary to be treated and decides to head into town to try and get him some healing. Nikias isn’t impressed by Spencer’s plea and asks him to fuck off to the lodge if Yasuho was just down, mentioning that the heated swimming pools in the lodge have the ability to rejuvenate Pokémon. Q has similar luck as he finds the path to Route 2 blocked off by a man with a Palpitoad, who refused to move on Gym Leader’s orders. Rex has a more successful time as he picks up supplies at the market while Natalia overhears a couple trainers talking about a “Darkrai phenomenon” which she proceeds to enquire with them about. One of the trainers mentions that she had a dream to do with the phenomenon, which is somewhat of a misnomer as she didn’t see a Darkrai, instead seeing a small dog-like Pokémon, and a bigger dog-like Pokémon that chased it. On query, this trainer confirms that the bigger dog-Pokémon looked very similar to the smaller one, which leaves Natalia very confused as Charlie should be the only Delta Houndour in Medinia. Rex is reminded that Altheia Village has no Dex Phones, so he heads to the Currency Exchange where he witnesses Dexter malding over the cashier’s unwillingness to withdraw him a non-round amount of money. He shows off a newly caught Slowpoke to Rex which was hanging around the village and says he wants to replenish his pokéballs stock, but the lady was refusing to withdraw him his $887. He threatens to call her boss and fire her, flexing his connections, and this finally forces her hand, and she hands him the uneven change while not particularly pleased about it. Rex doesn’t feel particularly benevolent that day (like most days) and makes no comment about Dexter’s strongarming and simply asks to withdraw $900 so he wouldn’t have to deal with any additional fuss despite him only needing $880. Dexter forks over the uneven $37 back to the cashier as a tip as “an incentive to be a little less of a shit next time”, commenting that he hated uneven amounts, so he wanted to get rid of that change from his bank account. On their way to the market, Rex brings up what happened at the Currency Exchange asking if Dexter could really get the cashier fired (as he wasn’t around when Dexter was explaining his financial situation the first time). After Dexter explains his situation, Rex asks if he was really planning to whine to his father about a random cashier out in the sticks. To this Dexter claps back that he never speaks to “that old fuck” and could get it done through a PA instead. He further comments that he would never actually try to get her fired, his threat back at the Exchange were empty.
Dexter apologizes for over-sharing and asks if Rex had a decent relationship with his parents, to which the latter quietly replies that they are missing and Beedee, the linoone at Seacrest Hospital that belonged to his father was his only lead. Dexter panics but Rex seems nonplussed about Dexter going on and on about his father while his was nowhere to be found, waving away Dexter’s offer to help out Rex by hiring a detective to find his parents. Rex does ask Dexter to keep quiet about his parents to the rest of the group, to which the wayward son happily obliges.
Meanwhile, Q and Spencer run into each other on the way to the lodge. Spencer raises his hand in greeting, but Q looks away, looking to limit his social interactions. They head into the building together and sign a couple documents to secure their lodging before being taken to the showers by a Bibarel. The showers blast them with ice cold water forcing them to haul ass to the heated swimming pool, which reinvigorates Yasuho, seemingly healing his injuries. Spencer tries to strike up a conversation about what potential Pokémon they could face in the first gym with Q, but Q was as taciturn as ever, preferring to watch his partner Hecate have her fun with the water. He sends out Orpheus, his Popplio to enjoy the pool as well, which turns out to be a good idea as he flips right into it, sighing serenely as the warm water relaxes his muscles. Dexter walks in, having joined them at the lodge, and introduces Q and Spencer to his new Slowpoke. Natalia had also made it to the lodge, washing up at the women’s bathroom before heading to the heated pool (which seemed to be unisex) meeting up with Q, Spencer, and Dexter. Dexter asks her if she found anything about her partner to which Natalia replies unsurely, not quite having gotten concrete enough information to get her hopes up.
Around the same time, Rex finds himself accosted by a strange young man named Keegan as he enters the custom pokéball store who offers him a tour of the shop. Rex is somewhat annoyed at this guy in his face but agrees, nonetheless. Keegan explains that the shop uses Apricorns to make balls, while the main official balls use metal casings which are sturdier but less comfortable for the Pokémon. The Apricorns are also apparently quite rare, and people have not found a way to cultivate them. Every part of an apricorn is useful and it's for this reason that the shop doesn’t charge trainers if they bring their own apricorns to make pokéballs out of, simply keeping every part of the apricorn to make use of or sell instead of charging the trainer a fee. After his speech he asks Rex if he would like a ball made for him. Rex states that he neither has apricorns nor currently has much money but he is willing to do the shop a favour within reason in exchange for a couple of balls. Keegan refuses, stating that they were self-sufficient enough and didn’t really need any favours, but did mention that apricorns grew in a couple places around the village and Rex could try his luck there if he wanted to get his hands on some of them. Before Rex could head out in search of apricorns though, a young trainer burst into the pokéball shop asking for every trainer on hand to help out at the swamp at the request of the gym leader.
Dexter, Natalia, Spencer, and Q who were conversing in the heated pool about Charlie and Slowpoke tails (two completely unrelated topics, check out the Shattered Earth discord for the full conversation), Nikias burst in bearing a similar message. The group at the pool quickly change out of their swimming outfits (Natalia grumpily so) before following Nikias into the town centre where they meet Rex who seems to have arrived at the same time as them. At the town centre they meet Emmeline, a woman in her early twenties wearing camo. She cuts through the questions and the chatter with her voice and talks about how it was basically “open warfare” out in Route 2 with groups of Pokémon attacking each other and also any passer-by trainers. She was basically ambushed by a small army of Pokémon and barely managed to get back to the village in one piece, and the exhausted Krookodile next to her was clearly in agreement. Around forty trainers had gathered at the town square, and she assigned ten of these trainers into leaders who would lead small groups out into Route 2 to quell the wild Pokémon. Natalia and Dexter are picked up by a formidable looking woman named Sandra while Q is pulled along by Nikias. Spencer gets picked up by a tall, balding man named Kallas while Rex accompanies the gym leader herself.
All the trainers of the group recall the Professor’s words about groups of Pokémon warring against each other which they were told to investigate, and this seemed to be one of those fights. Rex commands his Pokémon to try and glean why the wild Pokémon were fighting each other during the battle and convey to him what they had learned at a later point when they would have more time while Q asks Nikias to avoid fights if they can, a sentiment Spencer seemed to agree with.
Dexter and Natalia duke it out with a Mareanie and a Mankey, getting the Tikiki that was fighting them to stand aside since they were fighting its enemies. The Raticate that was on the side of the Tikiki gets poisoned by the Mareanie, but this activates its’ Guts which makes it smash everything in its path. They manage to quell the scuffle with Buster and Dexter’s Slowpoke and Natalia catches the Mareanie. Sandra quelled the Raticate with her Carnivine and catches it so it can be a guard in charge of protecting Altheia Village. Right as they thought they were done there, they come face to face with a large, green, quadrupedal Pokémon that seemed to be extremely angry with them for breaking up the fight. Natalia seems to recognize it. “-was that the Legendary Virizion?”. Luckily for them it doesn’t engage, disappearing into the foliage. The Tikiki manages to sign its way into explaining how it was sent by Virizion to scout the Rattata’s unit and agrees to come along with Natalia, who gets out of that encounter with two Pokémon she didn’t previously have.
Q and Spencer stop the fights in their zone without too much incident, with Q catching a Nidorina and naming it Venata and Spencer catching a Chicoatl and naming it Ray. Q did use his Whipped Dream to feed the Venata (which is really funny in context) as he promised he would give the temperamental mon something to eat if she joined her.
Rex alongside Newton (his Drilbur) and Galahad (his Rookidee) teams up with Emmeline and her strange water Krokorok to take on yet another group of wild Pokémon fighting each other. They put down the dissidents pretty quickly but then have a close encounter of the sword kind with a tall silvery-blue Pokémon with a moustache who is recognized by Emmeline as Cobalion, who also seemed to be furious with them for stopping the fighting. Cobalion charges at them and Emmeline reflexively sends out her Swampert, and the moustached Pokémon baulks at seeing the stone on Swampert’s neck before retreating back into the swamp.
After the scuffles are settled, all the trainers trudge back to the town. It was evening by this point. The group reconvenes and discuss their findings. Virizion and Cobalion were spotted, but Natalia notes that Terrakion was nowhere to be found. Spencer hasn’t really heard of these Pokémon before, but Q has something interesting to say. He dubs the group the “Swords of Justice” and wonders where Keldeo was if two of the members were here. Rex volunteers to register them for the gym battle tomorrow, asking for the spellings of the names of all the group, and for the first time discovers Natalia was not “Natalie” and Q was in fact, spelled with one letter. Natalia heads off to the custom pokéball shop while Rex goes off in search of apricorns after registering the group for the afternoon session next day. Spencer and Q have a little conversation about these Swords of Justice on their way back to the lounge. Q reveals that these Pokémon are from his home region, and they’re known for challenging humans in order to protect Pokémon, which seemed to be clashing with their behaviour today. They head to bed shortly afterwards.
Natalia talks to Keegan and arrives at the same conclusion that Rex did earlier that day, but she is spared of the effort of searching for apricorns by Rex who shows up with three apricorns as she finishes speaking to Keegan. They head inside to learn how to make apricorn balls after Rex and Natalia buy a pokéball making kit for $500. Robert was an old worldly-wise man that didn’t take much nonsense. He goes into a huge lecture you can read at the Shattered Earth discord server that I really can’t be asked to summarize cause it’s not too relevant to the plot but yeah Natalia and Rex learn how to make apricorn balls, with Natalia having a love ball and two lure balls, while Rex had a heavy ball, a moon ball and a net ball. Robert is happy with the results and implores them to carry on the apricorn ball making trade.
Natalia asks Robert about a “pokeball that nobody could open” to which Robert comments that he did hear about one that existed in Johto. She then proceeded to work on making those pokéballs a little while longer before heading to sleep. Rex heads back to the lodge and before going to bed looks up “Cobalion, Virizion, Terrakion and Keldeo” on the pokedex to get a measure of what they were dealing with. The pokedex barely has enough information on Keldeo going far enough to state that it has never had a documented reaction to humans, and Rex notes that Q still casually name dropped such a secretive mon that even the dex has barely heard of. He doesn’t make too much of it though and quickly heads to bed as the day comes to a close.
Holy shit that was a long-ass day. You could see me cutting corners a little bit there. Let's just say that's me encouraging you to join the Shattered Earth server https://discord.gg/bxxZzrnu4s where you can catch the action live instead of having to read musty summaries. I'm not a big forum guy as you could probably tell by the absolute lack of any kind of BBCode formatting, but you can catch me being way more active on discord.
The group is woken up early in the morning by a little shit of a scientist who was obstinate in them being up and about early in the morning for a meeting, much to the chagrin of Natalia and Dexter. After the band freshens up, they go to meet Dr. Morwen while letting their mons finish the apples from last night, which they were happy to do so. Well, most of them were happy to do so. Spencer’s new catch from yesterday, the Doedino christened “Panzer” was more than happy to just curl up into a ball instead. Spencer’s attempts to coax it out fail so he shrugs and leaves for the meeting and his Oshawott, Yasuho doesn’t have much luck either. Newton, Rex’s Drilbur took matters into his own hands by placing an apple next to Panzer and getting everyone to back away, which yielded a positive result.
Meanwhile at the meeting itself, the trainers meet a notable figure via video call. Ilsa Larsen who is a red-haired woman that is the Dean of the New Theneria Institute of Science while also being the mayor of New Theneria. She asks them to keep yesterday’s discoveries at the runes a secret as it would help the research go more smoothly but admits that she cannot make them sign an NDA over it. She instead offers to do them a solid in exchange for their silence, with Spencer getting a scholarship in the NTIS which he can start immediately after his time as Acacia’s intern comes to an end. She reveals to Natalia that she knows about her situation as Acacia trusted her with it and lets her know that there were rumours that her “lost possession” was spotted around Altheia Village. Natalia is unsure of what to think about another person knowing her situation, but she decides to put her trust in Ilsa. However, she is also confused since her previous information was that Charlie was in Sunfall Town. The dean then asks Q, Rex, and Dexter what they wanted and told them she would give it to them as long as it was within reason. Rex asks for the apps on his phone which were behind a paywall to be unlocked, and while she couldn’t unlock all of them, she does unlock the relevant apps for the group. Dexter asks for her to send a Pokémon to his family back home to help with the chores which she obliges as well. Q keeps silent and seeing this Hecate tries to help Q by showing Ilsa a photo in his pocket, but Q manages to get Hecate under control and keeps this mysterious photo hidden.
After the voice call ends, Doctor Morwen cordially states that Larsen likes them, and having a friend like her will get them places. He goes on to say that he doesn’t really have any answers for what happened the previous day, their attempts to investigate the ruins (and specifically the metal door) further ending in failure. He promises to keep in touch and provide them updates if they make any progress. With that, the group is off, walking from the ruins to Altheia Village, the location of the first gym and also where Charlie was last spotted. As their apps get unlocked thanks to Rex’s request, Dexter appreciates Rex’s presence of mind while also commenting that his egg was six days away from hatching and that was probably the case for everyone else as well. The group runs into sibling trainers: Mari and Zara, the latter being mute due to a childhood throat injury.
The pair challenge two of the group to a multi double battle, to which Spencer and Natalia step up to accept the challenge, while Q and Rex choose to spend their time training instead. In the battle, Mari and Zara reveal a Unovan Yamask + Galarian Yamask core, to which Natalia sends out her Alolan Grimer, Sal, while Spencer sends out his partner, Yasuho. Initial trade of blows swings the momentum towards Natalia and Spencer as a Water Gun preceded by a Bite onto the Unovan Yamask takes it out. Mari sends out a Cottonee to replace her fallen mon which immediately revenges by taking out Yasuho with a super effective Mega Drain. Meanwhile, Sal is doing massive damage to the Galarian Yamask with a Bite, also successfully managing to flinch it. The Fairy Wind from Cottonee wears down Sal a little, but he manages to tenaciously hang on and stay healthy with the help of his Black Sludge. Spencer sends out Rorin, his new Bronzor to replace Yasuho. The Galarian Yamask proceeds to go out sad in the next series of moves after taking another Bite from Sal. Sal, who is quickly turning out to be the hero of this battle hangs on for dear consciousness once again as a Fairy Wind from Cottonee barely fails to knock him out. Rorin chips down the Cottonee with multiple hits despite catching a nasty Stun Spore from the same but it manages to hang on still. Zara replaces her Galarian Yamask with a Combee while Natalia swaps out the unbreakable Sal with Buster, her partner Starly. While this swap was happening Mari quickly runs forward and heals up the worn down Cottonee to almost full, and this mon throws out another meaty Fairy Wind that smashes into Buster, who’s heavily damaged from this attack, but not quite out yet- wait never mind, down he goes to Combee’s Gust before he even got a chance to attack. Maybe next time. Rorin’s not just standing (hovering?) around, though. It focuses his attacks onto Combee, chipping it greatly, putting it on the verge of getting knocked out, while barely getting hurt itself. However, the Combee certainly was not finished, as it uses the energy it got from downing Buster to evolve into a menacing Vespiquen mid-battle. However, the siblings will soon learn that a mid-battle evolution does not give them the plot armour that they think it does, as Vespiquen immediately proceeds to get knocked out by Rorin before she could move, and the Cottonee despite its best efforts proceed to get cleaned up by Sal and Rorin.
Mari and Zara don’t take this loss too well, revealing that they have been in a slump for a bit, getting absolutely cooked in the swamp up ahead despite having breezed through their first badge. Dexter is concerned by this information as he isn’t quite sure how they were going to beat the Altheia Gym with no badges if trainers with one badge got their asses handed to them. Natalia confidently states that they would never know if they could beat the gym leader until they tried and asked him to worry about it too much. Rex reminds him of Damien’s words (or Haxorus Guy, as Rex calls him) that Gym Leaders always had different Pokémon they used depending on how many badges their opponents had. The time was a little past 9 am and they were around two hours away from Altheia Village, so the group hurries so they can reach there in time for lunch.
The mud-soaked group arrives at Altheia Village, which apparently was not an uncommon sight as the villagers moving about mostly ignore them. Not all of them, though. A grim-looking villager introducing himself as Nikias greets them without a smile. He informs them that the gym leader wasn’t currently in town, but they could get food and beds at the lodge. Medical supplies were a different matter, however. Healing was scarce and they were to only request it if absolutely necessary. He also informs them that they were to visit the Currency Exchange in the village, as the stores in the village operate only on cash, and not the digital currency that the rest of the world is used to. Natalia asks where Emmeline was if she was not at the village, to which Nikias replies that she was at Route 2, trying to quell the wild mons that were acting more rowdy than usual, mentioning in an off-hand manner that it shouldn’t be too much trouble for her, and that she should be back in a couple hours.
Rex and Natalia head towards the market while Q heads out on his own to Route 2 to see what the hubbub is about. Spencer figures Yasuho’s injuries were absolutely necessary to be treated and decides to head into town to try and get him some healing. Nikias isn’t impressed by Spencer’s plea and asks him to fuck off to the lodge if Yasuho was just down, mentioning that the heated swimming pools in the lodge have the ability to rejuvenate Pokémon. Q has similar luck as he finds the path to Route 2 blocked off by a man with a Palpitoad, who refused to move on Gym Leader’s orders. Rex has a more successful time as he picks up supplies at the market while Natalia overhears a couple trainers talking about a “Darkrai phenomenon” which she proceeds to enquire with them about. One of the trainers mentions that she had a dream to do with the phenomenon, which is somewhat of a misnomer as she didn’t see a Darkrai, instead seeing a small dog-like Pokémon, and a bigger dog-like Pokémon that chased it. On query, this trainer confirms that the bigger dog-Pokémon looked very similar to the smaller one, which leaves Natalia very confused as Charlie should be the only Delta Houndour in Medinia. Rex is reminded that Altheia Village has no Dex Phones, so he heads to the Currency Exchange where he witnesses Dexter malding over the cashier’s unwillingness to withdraw him a non-round amount of money. He shows off a newly caught Slowpoke to Rex which was hanging around the village and says he wants to replenish his pokéballs stock, but the lady was refusing to withdraw him his $887. He threatens to call her boss and fire her, flexing his connections, and this finally forces her hand, and she hands him the uneven change while not particularly pleased about it. Rex doesn’t feel particularly benevolent that day (like most days) and makes no comment about Dexter’s strongarming and simply asks to withdraw $900 so he wouldn’t have to deal with any additional fuss despite him only needing $880. Dexter forks over the uneven $37 back to the cashier as a tip as “an incentive to be a little less of a shit next time”, commenting that he hated uneven amounts, so he wanted to get rid of that change from his bank account. On their way to the market, Rex brings up what happened at the Currency Exchange asking if Dexter could really get the cashier fired (as he wasn’t around when Dexter was explaining his financial situation the first time). After Dexter explains his situation, Rex asks if he was really planning to whine to his father about a random cashier out in the sticks. To this Dexter claps back that he never speaks to “that old fuck” and could get it done through a PA instead. He further comments that he would never actually try to get her fired, his threat back at the Exchange were empty.
Dexter apologizes for over-sharing and asks if Rex had a decent relationship with his parents, to which the latter quietly replies that they are missing and Beedee, the linoone at Seacrest Hospital that belonged to his father was his only lead. Dexter panics but Rex seems nonplussed about Dexter going on and on about his father while his was nowhere to be found, waving away Dexter’s offer to help out Rex by hiring a detective to find his parents. Rex does ask Dexter to keep quiet about his parents to the rest of the group, to which the wayward son happily obliges.
Meanwhile, Q and Spencer run into each other on the way to the lodge. Spencer raises his hand in greeting, but Q looks away, looking to limit his social interactions. They head into the building together and sign a couple documents to secure their lodging before being taken to the showers by a Bibarel. The showers blast them with ice cold water forcing them to haul ass to the heated swimming pool, which reinvigorates Yasuho, seemingly healing his injuries. Spencer tries to strike up a conversation about what potential Pokémon they could face in the first gym with Q, but Q was as taciturn as ever, preferring to watch his partner Hecate have her fun with the water. He sends out Orpheus, his Popplio to enjoy the pool as well, which turns out to be a good idea as he flips right into it, sighing serenely as the warm water relaxes his muscles. Dexter walks in, having joined them at the lodge, and introduces Q and Spencer to his new Slowpoke. Natalia had also made it to the lodge, washing up at the women’s bathroom before heading to the heated pool (which seemed to be unisex) meeting up with Q, Spencer, and Dexter. Dexter asks her if she found anything about her partner to which Natalia replies unsurely, not quite having gotten concrete enough information to get her hopes up.
Around the same time, Rex finds himself accosted by a strange young man named Keegan as he enters the custom pokéball store who offers him a tour of the shop. Rex is somewhat annoyed at this guy in his face but agrees, nonetheless. Keegan explains that the shop uses Apricorns to make balls, while the main official balls use metal casings which are sturdier but less comfortable for the Pokémon. The Apricorns are also apparently quite rare, and people have not found a way to cultivate them. Every part of an apricorn is useful and it's for this reason that the shop doesn’t charge trainers if they bring their own apricorns to make pokéballs out of, simply keeping every part of the apricorn to make use of or sell instead of charging the trainer a fee. After his speech he asks Rex if he would like a ball made for him. Rex states that he neither has apricorns nor currently has much money but he is willing to do the shop a favour within reason in exchange for a couple of balls. Keegan refuses, stating that they were self-sufficient enough and didn’t really need any favours, but did mention that apricorns grew in a couple places around the village and Rex could try his luck there if he wanted to get his hands on some of them. Before Rex could head out in search of apricorns though, a young trainer burst into the pokéball shop asking for every trainer on hand to help out at the swamp at the request of the gym leader.
Dexter, Natalia, Spencer, and Q who were conversing in the heated pool about Charlie and Slowpoke tails (two completely unrelated topics, check out the Shattered Earth discord for the full conversation), Nikias burst in bearing a similar message. The group at the pool quickly change out of their swimming outfits (Natalia grumpily so) before following Nikias into the town centre where they meet Rex who seems to have arrived at the same time as them. At the town centre they meet Emmeline, a woman in her early twenties wearing camo. She cuts through the questions and the chatter with her voice and talks about how it was basically “open warfare” out in Route 2 with groups of Pokémon attacking each other and also any passer-by trainers. She was basically ambushed by a small army of Pokémon and barely managed to get back to the village in one piece, and the exhausted Krookodile next to her was clearly in agreement. Around forty trainers had gathered at the town square, and she assigned ten of these trainers into leaders who would lead small groups out into Route 2 to quell the wild Pokémon. Natalia and Dexter are picked up by a formidable looking woman named Sandra while Q is pulled along by Nikias. Spencer gets picked up by a tall, balding man named Kallas while Rex accompanies the gym leader herself.
All the trainers of the group recall the Professor’s words about groups of Pokémon warring against each other which they were told to investigate, and this seemed to be one of those fights. Rex commands his Pokémon to try and glean why the wild Pokémon were fighting each other during the battle and convey to him what they had learned at a later point when they would have more time while Q asks Nikias to avoid fights if they can, a sentiment Spencer seemed to agree with.
Dexter and Natalia duke it out with a Mareanie and a Mankey, getting the Tikiki that was fighting them to stand aside since they were fighting its enemies. The Raticate that was on the side of the Tikiki gets poisoned by the Mareanie, but this activates its’ Guts which makes it smash everything in its path. They manage to quell the scuffle with Buster and Dexter’s Slowpoke and Natalia catches the Mareanie. Sandra quelled the Raticate with her Carnivine and catches it so it can be a guard in charge of protecting Altheia Village. Right as they thought they were done there, they come face to face with a large, green, quadrupedal Pokémon that seemed to be extremely angry with them for breaking up the fight. Natalia seems to recognize it. “-was that the Legendary Virizion?”. Luckily for them it doesn’t engage, disappearing into the foliage. The Tikiki manages to sign its way into explaining how it was sent by Virizion to scout the Rattata’s unit and agrees to come along with Natalia, who gets out of that encounter with two Pokémon she didn’t previously have.
Q and Spencer stop the fights in their zone without too much incident, with Q catching a Nidorina and naming it Venata and Spencer catching a Chicoatl and naming it Ray. Q did use his Whipped Dream to feed the Venata (which is really funny in context) as he promised he would give the temperamental mon something to eat if she joined her.
Rex alongside Newton (his Drilbur) and Galahad (his Rookidee) teams up with Emmeline and her strange water Krokorok to take on yet another group of wild Pokémon fighting each other. They put down the dissidents pretty quickly but then have a close encounter of the sword kind with a tall silvery-blue Pokémon with a moustache who is recognized by Emmeline as Cobalion, who also seemed to be furious with them for stopping the fighting. Cobalion charges at them and Emmeline reflexively sends out her Swampert, and the moustached Pokémon baulks at seeing the stone on Swampert’s neck before retreating back into the swamp.
After the scuffles are settled, all the trainers trudge back to the town. It was evening by this point. The group reconvenes and discuss their findings. Virizion and Cobalion were spotted, but Natalia notes that Terrakion was nowhere to be found. Spencer hasn’t really heard of these Pokémon before, but Q has something interesting to say. He dubs the group the “Swords of Justice” and wonders where Keldeo was if two of the members were here. Rex volunteers to register them for the gym battle tomorrow, asking for the spellings of the names of all the group, and for the first time discovers Natalia was not “Natalie” and Q was in fact, spelled with one letter. Natalia heads off to the custom pokéball shop while Rex goes off in search of apricorns after registering the group for the afternoon session next day. Spencer and Q have a little conversation about these Swords of Justice on their way back to the lounge. Q reveals that these Pokémon are from his home region, and they’re known for challenging humans in order to protect Pokémon, which seemed to be clashing with their behaviour today. They head to bed shortly afterwards.
Natalia talks to Keegan and arrives at the same conclusion that Rex did earlier that day, but she is spared of the effort of searching for apricorns by Rex who shows up with three apricorns as she finishes speaking to Keegan. They head inside to learn how to make apricorn balls after Rex and Natalia buy a pokéball making kit for $500. Robert was an old worldly-wise man that didn’t take much nonsense. He goes into a huge lecture you can read at the Shattered Earth discord server that I really can’t be asked to summarize cause it’s not too relevant to the plot but yeah Natalia and Rex learn how to make apricorn balls, with Natalia having a love ball and two lure balls, while Rex had a heavy ball, a moon ball and a net ball. Robert is happy with the results and implores them to carry on the apricorn ball making trade.
Natalia asks Robert about a “pokeball that nobody could open” to which Robert comments that he did hear about one that existed in Johto. She then proceeded to work on making those pokéballs a little while longer before heading to sleep. Rex heads back to the lodge and before going to bed looks up “Cobalion, Virizion, Terrakion and Keldeo” on the pokedex to get a measure of what they were dealing with. The pokedex barely has enough information on Keldeo going far enough to state that it has never had a documented reaction to humans, and Rex notes that Q still casually name dropped such a secretive mon that even the dex has barely heard of. He doesn’t make too much of it though and quickly heads to bed as the day comes to a close.
Holy shit that was a long-ass day. You could see me cutting corners a little bit there. Let's just say that's me encouraging you to join the Shattered Earth server https://discord.gg/bxxZzrnu4s where you can catch the action live instead of having to read musty summaries. I'm not a big forum guy as you could probably tell by the absolute lack of any kind of BBCode formatting, but you can catch me being way more active on discord.
I plead the 5th.
