Hard Enough - Chapter 407 - Sharing knowledge (Patreon)

The lack of immediate challengers storming the Gym ended up being an arceus sent blessing for me, as I was able to sit down and begin scrolling through the lore I had access to.

The trick was going to be making sure I wasn’t referencing anything in my report from sources that I shouldn’t have access to, but did thanks to the Guardian's network.

I treated it like I was studying for an exam, writing my own notes and comparing it to what I knew. The private online copy I had access to had comments and thoughts scattered throughout.

I’d even gone so far as to ask Agatha about inducting a specialised Professor of history from one of the Pokemon Universities into the Guardians, only for it to be shot down as too much of a security risk.

Still, I found I enjoyed going through the rather dense texts that Cynthia had put together on various regions, pokemon, and the history that she’d been able to gather.

Although for all that I was diving in and putting real effort into researching it now, that didn’t change the fact that there were a lot of rather thick documents that I needed to parse.

This… was going to take more than just a week of committed study.

Which, in another situation, kind of would have worked for me as I rather liked the act of studying like this. Especially because it was for pokemon, and also it was pretty much instantly applicable in the field.

Knowledge in this situation could and probably very much would be vital in the future.

While I focused on Paldea as the ‘next’ region on the list of places I had to learn of, Kitakami suddenly became a lot more important and jumped to the top of the list.

What I learned… matched up wonderfully to what I’d heard.

I worked through the documents for a day while ignoring requests from the Rangers for a meeting, only to realise that I was making a huge mistake.

There was a very good chance that Glimmers, as the Lorekeeper, if she hadn’t experienced these giant pokemon or the region of Kitakami herself, she would know of stories or songs.

So it would either be first-hand or second-hand knowledge at least which might make it even more accurate than Cynthia’s notes.

Huh, I’d have to message her about any ‘corrections’ I found. 

I knew her well enough at this point to know that she’d actually be delighted to be corrected rather than annoyed. She was a bit of an odd academic like that.

With that in mind, I sought out the resident Lorekeeper straight away!

…Only to be informed by Rachel that she was out at a dance class.

“Huh, well, I guess she did want to experience those,” I murmured, recalling a brief discussion about income and busking to pay for the services. Hmmm, I hope she wasn’t committing to too many of them. 

“How has she been going with them?” I asked.

“Oh, she’s loving it! She has been showing off a bunch of moves to Trixie and me when we went to the Gym the other day!”

“Cool,” I replied, only for an idle thought to come to the forefront of my mind. “Say, has Trixie worked out that Glimmers might have better endurance than her yet?” I asked, amused by the image of a girl who could dance literal circles around the woman who was a pinnacle of fitness.

“Hahaha! Oh, that’s a good one! Trixie runs ultramarathons, don’t joke!” she gushed as she flapped her hand in my direction like I was being silly.

I chuckled at her antics before coughing. “Glimmers once danced for three days straight just to style on someone, and I’m not talking a light two-step, but full-on tribal dancing and singing the entire time,” I replied. 

At Rachel’s disbelieving look, I smirked. “Ask her about it one time,” I suggested. “Until then, can you tell her I’d like to talk when she’s got a moment. I’ll be in the reserve working with Don as I need some fresh air.”

“Hmmm, gotcha,” replied a distracted Rachel.

Suddenly, I got the feeling that I’d need to set Cypher the Porygon to record whatever happened in the Gym when Trixie attempted to challenge Glimmers.

When I walked outside, I didn’t even have to wait to reach the Elite training area. Don dropped out of the sky to hover nearby.

“A bit eager eh, boy?” I asked, locking eyes with him and smirking at him.

He tossed his head in a proud fashion and screeched in a manner that let me know he was merely here to hurry me along, earning a laugh from me.

“Alright, alright. I want to get this working as well so let’s get to it,” I suggested as I broke into a jog.

Don screeched in agreement, and before long, we were set up within the training field. 

“Let’s up the ante today! I want a Hurricane that you hold around my position! Let’s feel the passion and work with that!” I ordered, taking a slightly different bent to our efforts. It was slightly risky to do so within a hurricane, but as Rock Type I had found a way to increase my mass so that I wasn’t as easy to lift.

Within moments, I had Don circling me and the winds howling like a pack of hungry Mightyena.

I clenched and unclenched my fists, building up a tension within myself before throwing my arm up high and pushing my energy in just the right way through the keystone and into Don.

“Don! Mega Evolve!” I ordered.

Don began to light up as the energies coursed through him, only to flicker and falter as something sparked within him.

Eh? Wait, it wasn’t an issue of something I was doing? 

The hurricane broke up as Don found himself slowing to a pause.

He had a guilty look on his face and I blinked. “Don? Are you having reservations about this?” I asked, surprised at this turn of events. He’d been so gung-ho about it. Or was that all a mask he’d been putting on.

“Screee!” he shrieked, throwing his head back and forth. I tilted my head, confused by this.

“Alright, you want this to happen, and so do I… but something’s going on. We need to get you checked out cause everything felt good just now until it didn’t,” I said, deciding not to state that the issue had come from his end of the bond.

We jogged back to the medical rooms. “Chansey! Can you do a scan… on both of us?” I called out, deciding to once more shield Don’s ego.

Chansey rolled out from behind a stack of pokeballs with a magazine in hand. Her mouth moved up and down a few times, only for a bubblegum bubble to form and pop a moment later.

“Chans!” she declared, nodding once.

She then kicked off the wall to push herself to a scanner that we had. “Sey Sey Chans!” she declared, patting the bed that we had underneath it.

Don scuttled in awkwardly before flapping up to the bed. Chansey, showing no regard for his ego scruffed him into position, much to his annoyance. 

He attempted to bite her once, only for her to swat him down and then raise her other hand to demonstrate that she was more than willing to put him into the medical wing.

“Ahem,” I coughed. “Don, lay still so this can go quickly.”

He growled lowly as he settled back down

The scan went quickly from there, only for a shrill beep to alert us all. Chansey frowned and turned the monitor around, revealing that there was a small deposit of rock that didn’t belong.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Chansey Chansey! Chansey!” she declared, tapping the monitor and bringing up a written online text talking about intestinal inflammation caused by specific types of berries.

“Don… have you been sneaking out of the reserve to eat berries in the forest?” I asked.

Through the bond I got the vague impression that yes, yes he had been. 

I also got the imprint of a specific green and yellow berry that reminded me of a watermelon from my previous life.

“You ate an aguav berry?” I asked as I commandeered Chansey’s monitor to bring up the berry in question.

The screen that appeared had large text warnings on it telling trainers to avoid eating the berries in large quantities and to always make sure that it was a minor ingredient in cooking or meals due to the risk of confusion occurring.

“How many did you eat?” I started to ask only to hang my head. 

“Who am I kidding?” I muttered aloud. “Don? How much of the berry grove is left?” I asked instead.

Don refused to meet my gaze, and I sighed, knowing that meant he’d eaten a grove’s worth.

“You been stress eating buddy?” I asked. “You know if you want something to do we can arrange some fights or other releases for you, right?”

He nodded, still not meeting my gaze.

“Right… well we’re not going to be able to complete the training today right? No mega evolution for you?”

“Chanse!” Chansey cut in, causing me to blink. 

“Longer than a day, really?” I asked. 

Chansey tapped the screen, pointing out that there was a portion discussing the impacts of the berry per weight range. She tapped the worst one and I grimaced at seeing that the effects could last as long as three days.

Rubbing my brow, I cursed under my breath. This was why I tried to control my pokemon’s diet to specific foods, or to what I personally fed them from meals I’d prepared. As it was, I was going to have to send out Greta… oh wait, she was on her journey with Yolanda.

Right, I was going to have to send out one of the Gym Trainers to clear out the grove so it didn’t threaten any of my other pokemon that could reach it. We’d also need to do a sweep of any other berry patches to make sure they didn’t have harmful effects or were bringing in pokemon we didn’t want near the reserve.

Don curled his wings in on himself and began to glare at the wall like it had done this to him.

“Hmmmm, anyway to speed it up?”

“Chansey!” piped up Chansey as she deposited a bottle of laxatives onto the table. It proudly proclaimed to be made from Persim berry extract with Aspear berry. Ah, dates and pears.

“How much does he need to take?” 

Chansey grinned and poured a large cup out before offering it to Don who growled at her. 

Chansey raised a glowing fist while smiling politely. Don slumped and opened his mouth wide.  

I grimaced. I was pretty sure Aerodactyl’s couldn’t learn Gunk Shot, but just to be sure I decided to have him spend some time in his cave.

No… actually he could go flying… over the swamp for the next few hours.

“Right, take it easy, I know it seems like a setback but the truth is that we pretty much had it. Lock in with your diet, get well, and we’ll have it soon enough!” I offered, trying to cheer him up. 

“Then you’ll be one of the strongest pokemon around,” I said as I rubbed my chin. “I wonder how your Hyper Beam will stack up against Regirock and Empress then?”

That had him perking up and in a much better mood before sending him off.

He flew away with a strange flexing of his legs. 

Oh right. The laxatives. He was trying to keep it in.

I turned away from him, deciding that with that no longer an option, I’d do some other busy work for the rest of the day.

As a Gym Leader, there was always some small job that I could do that wasn’t important enough to handle straight away or got put off for more important tasks. Shame I couldn’t go spelunking just yet… although there was a small gap on the weekend so maybe… I’d have to talk with Sabrina, as you always needed a cave buddy when going into those sorts of situations.

Mentally spinning a wheel, I decided that I might as well check in with Monique about my new wardrobe for this season’s circuit.

With Rachel and Georgina on the team, they’d been able to mount a solid argument for having yearly updates to Gym uniforms or my own personal attire.

It was still important to have a ‘look’ but that look could shift with small flourish. In this case I had a new bronze and steel pokebelt that looked a little more technical than the previous belts I’d worn.

I also had to update my shoes to have some darker tones. 

They were also organising something with Sabrina for after the wedding, and we returned from our honeymoon in Alto Mare.

There was still a bit of time to work on that, and it felt a bit over the top, but I suppose with Sabrina and I having already selected my suit and the gown that she was going to wear, there wasn’t too much else we needed in the way of fashion adjustments, so they could focus on that.

If I really had to distract them, I could always ask for Bertha and Titan to get fitted out to be a magical girl and a dark lord outfit that I kept on hearing them discuss.

Until something actually eventuated from it, I wasn’t going to spend too much energy on it.

As it was, I think Bertha was busy gushing over smashing in that giant Onix’s face the other day.

A knock on the door had me looking up and smiling as Glimmers sashayed into my office. “You wanted to talk to me Overlord?” she asked, observing me in her unique manner.

“Ah, yes. I recently encountered a giant pokemon that… well, it took a lot to take down.”

“Hmmm, that coming from you is quite a statement. You have two pokemon capable of Mega evolution no? I should have thought it would have been easy.”

“Hmmm, I suppose I should have mega evolved my pokemon before the fight started but using such a move preemptively might have come across too aggressive. I certainly regret not doing it in hindsight, but I was hoping to keep things simple and study the pokemon. As it was, the pokemon appeared and went on the attack straight away.”

“So it was a giant Pokémon that was hyper-aggressive?” she asked, her fingers drumming a beat on her thigh as she remained standing in the doorway. “Did you feel stronger once you captured it?” she asked.

I blinked, captured it? “No, none of my pokeballs bar perhaps a Heavy ball I had even took it in. you know what that pokemon was?” I asked, perking up with interest.

Instead of replying right away Glimmers moved into the room, pushing furniture back to make room for herself.

Then she spun once and twisted so that her legs were splayed to the side and her head was bowed.

Her head lifted to lock eyes with me but now rather than amusement and humour that so often danced between her heterochromic eyes, there was an ageless sadness within them.

And then she began to sing, her voice filling the room as she rose slowly taller, like a flower rising with the sun.

“Beware the Alpha, towering tall!”

Her hand swayed around, palm out to make those listening slow and take heed to her words.

“Red-eyed rage at the forest’s call!”

Her fingers streaked across her face gracefully only to cup around her mouth like she was letting loose a loud call.

“Bigger than kin, with a savage glow,

They strike like storms, fast and slow…”

This time she inflated herself and mimed striking fast only to slow, twisting with the motions like she wasn’t just striking down one or two, but an entire army.

“Stand your ground, let courage stir—

When they fall, their power transfers!”

She stood tall and cupped a hand around her heart, as she grew larger, seemingly inflating on the spot. 

“The crimson aura, victory’s sign,

Washes your soul—your strength is mine…”

She trailed off with a cruel little smirk, and I blinked in surprise as the song ended suddenly. “Wait, are you implying that fighting and defeating such pokemon causes you to grow stronger? Did you need to catch it then or was just defeating it enough? I hadn’t felt any changes from fighting it. Or was it metaphorical, and overcoming such a challenge simply helped in binding you and your companions closer?”

“Yes!” replied Glimmers with a smirk which drew a groan from me.

I should have known she’d reply like that.

She continued before I could be too annoyed, however. “Both ideas are considered correct, but the song is about when the tribe encountered a Graveler upon a volcano’s slope. There is another song about the locations we need to avoid that references giant pokemon if you’re interested?”

“Very much so,” I replied, and she then broke down into a ditty that had her hot footing it across the room, her feet flying in small kicks and flicks as her hands tucked behind her back so that I could just barely make out the fingers moving along with the song about going to this or that place and knowing what was there.

“Ohhhh~ When daylight fades,

And shadows play,

As golden sun gives way to grey,

Beware you don’t, 

Become prey!

Upon the slopes!

Near the coast!

They’re a fiery host!

Beware my lord,

Grow not bold!

Beast lies low under the sun!

But wakes as day is done!”

It was rather interesting to find that they had a song version of pokemon habitats for who’d be where, as well as when they’d most likely be encountered.

Huh, I might need to make her a study partner to help add to what Cynthia has given me. It would just be one of the oddest study sessions around, part review, part performance, with me as an audience member attempting to pick things apart.

Still, I should probably circle back to that earlier point she’d made about the growing stronger. I began typing on my computer, bringing up the recording of the fight to play it on a wall monitor that we could both watch on. I gestured to a chair and she slowly sat as my explorations of the lower tunnels played out.

She watched in silence as I drew out a notepad to make some notes about how the fight had played out.

Now that I knew the pokemon was going to be aggressive from the start, I made sure to underline the idea of having my pokemon mega evolve from the start.

I had yet to check if I could hold more than one transformation at a time, but that was something I could attempt later with Jorm and Titan.

Don would just have to wait.

Towards the end, I sat up as Onix collapsed.

The aura around Sabrina… had it flickered and grown slightly brighter for a moment?

“Proximity or challenge due to being within a dark gem-infused cave might have made it better training for Sabrina perhaps?” I muttered to myself. I replayed the video and this time paid attention to our Ranger escort, none of them had stood taller or seemed stronger after the fight.

“Possibly so!” Glimmers sing-songed. “Careful if you got after that however!”

“Hmm, what makes you say that?” I asked before I could stop myself. 

With that invitation, Glimmers shot to her feet and began to dance once more. 

This time the song was more a lament of a fallen warrior who’d grown too proud. 

She swayed lightly back and forth where she stood only to flare her arms like a rooted Sudowoodo. She sang about making sure that if you sought power you made sure of your convictions and bond. 

The song ended that those seeking power for power’s sake would find themselves lost to it.

Tilting my head, I considered Glimmers. “So there is a downside to it?” I mused aloud.

“The issue is that having a weak heart or mind can lead to people and pokemon losing themselves,” replied Glimmers.

Hmmmmm, right, hunting down Alpha Pokémon for a boost to my pokemon’s strength suddenly had risks associated with it.

I was going to have to write up some reports on this. The League probably wouldn’t consider it too seriously when I posted that my ‘source’ for this intelligence was oral history through songs.

Then again, it wasn’t the League that I needed to warn, but rather Rangers as they were the ones rechecking the routes for any other emerging pokemon like this.

I was going to have to impress upon them the risk and dangers to the Head Rangers, as I suspected if the rank and file knew, there would still be more than a few who would chase the power up.

Which, considering it took Sabrina and I’s team to lay this pokemon out, after multiple hits and powerful moves, I suspected that the rank and file might find themselves in a very poor situation.

Yeah, best to pass this along.

“I’m going to have to share this with some people pretty quickly. Would you be able to—”

“I have another dance class in half an hour,” Glimmers cut in.

I grimaced. “Sorry, but this is a bit more important than that, I can assure you.”

She leaned back and narrowed her eyes. “I find your claims that anything is more important than dance to be ludicrous!” she declared with a dramatic toss of her beaded hair.

“I thought dancing went hand in hand with singing?” I pointed out, unable to stop my big mouth.

She blinked. “Well… yes, but we’re talking about not attending a dance class after I registered. I went to a lot of trouble for that!” she growled at me.

I almost laughed at the idea of going to the trouble of booking something in, only to abort at the last minute. 

Right… in a way Glimmers and the other Crushers were foreigners in a foreign land. The fact she’d been able to navigate things well enough to book in multiple classes actually spoke well of her determination and intelligence.

It was wrong to make light of that.

“Ah, I will make it up to you with more classes, or we can arrange a dance instructor to come here full-time?” I offered. Before she could shake her head, I raised a finger to make a point. “You’re going to need the extra time to pick up singing lessons, I suspect.”

“I am an amazing singer, I have no—”

Deciding to head this argument off at the pass, I loaded up a few videos demonstrating different styles of singing and skills.

From opera to country to shanties to even an out-and-out rock star jamming out.

Glimmers was spellbound.

“Ah… I still have much to learn, it would seem,” she said, her face shifting into a delighted grin. 

She reached for the screen and I let her play the songs for a few minutes. Interestingly, I noted that it only took her maybe a minute or two at most before she started tapping her fingers on her knee in time with the songs, almost perfectly.

Huh, if this kept up, I was going to have to see if Yolanda could learn from Glimmers.

Hmmm, no harm in suggesting it. I shot Yolanda a message and then blinked when I got a stern message from the Rangers all but demanding an update.

It was the most politely aggressive message I think I’d ever received.

“Ah, it’s time for us to go report to the Rangers on the alpha pokemon,” I stated.

“Hmmm,” Glimmers replied, slowly leaning closer to the screen.

I put my hand on her forehead and slowly pushed her back only for her to resist and growl. “NO! I’m watching this!”

“Glimmers, you’ll get to watch it later, but not now. Also you need to make sure that you’re not too close or you’ll damage your eyes,” I said with my best big brother voice.

That got her to shoot back into her seat. “Watching screens can damage your eyes?!” she gasped.

“Yeah, something about the image being too close for long periods causing your eyes to adjust to that distance… or was it the brightness issue causing them to dry out?” I tilted my head as Glimmers shot the computer screen a small glare. 

Shaking my head I waved towards the door. “Well, regardless if you do it for too long, you’ll need glasses. Keep doing it past that and you need stronger and stronger glasses until you can’t see much without them cause everything will be a blur.”

I suspected that if any optometrist heard my explanation just now, they’d be a touch offended, but it worked for Glimmers which was the most important thing. It also reminded me that I needed to book my siblings in for their eye tests.

As well as the Crusher Tribe members, come to think of it.

I messaged Sabrina and she appeared in a flash next to me, which caused Glimmers to flinch and draw a small dagger only to relax when she spotted Sabrina. 

“Overlord, your reflexes are rather bad. We’re going to have to get you a knife,” Glimmers declared as she noted my lack of response.

“Ah, I’m used to Sabrina appearing next to me like this,” I replied. “After a while, you just stop flinching.”

“That is not an appropriate solution. What if it were someone else? Have you not had an enemy psychic ever attack you before?” she asked.

My mind recalled Will, and I smirked, knowing that he was in a specialised prison somewhere and that I’d punched him so hard I’d laid him out. “Oh, there was one guy. But we handled him,” I replied.

“Hmmm, I’m sensing a story there,” Glimmers mused as she accepted Sabrina’s hand moments before we teleported out.

We appeared a moment later at the Indigo Plateau’s Ranger headquarters.

Glimmers blinked and shook her head as I worked my jaw at the sudden pressure difference. My ears popped, and I gestured around. “Welcome to the Indigo Plateau Glimmers. This is the city that was built specifically to unify Kanto and Johto into the Indigo League that it is today.”

I pointed out some of the various buildings that were important such as the Hall of Fame, the Champion’s tower. The battle coliseum. The large corporate buildings like Silph Co. and Pokechow.

“What’s that building?” Glimmers asked, pointing towards a rather tucked-away drab building.

“That’s where people go to be punished,” I muttered, earning a snort from Sabrina. 

Glimmers frowned and drew out a small telescope to give the building a closer inspection. “Ah, I see you are correct. There is a man in a ripped white outfit that I believe is called a gi, crying near the front steps while looking at papers?”

Sabrina began giggling a little more and I blinked.

Oh… Kong was handing in his taxes today was he? Why was he still doing that? Hadn’t I spoken to him over a week ago… hmmm probably why he was crying. You can’t punch numbers into compliance.

“Yeah. that’s the Taxation and auditing building,” I said, before pointing behind us to the building we’d landed in front of. “Today we’re here to talk to the head honchos of the Rangers. We’ll be talking about the Alpha pokemon we encountered so if you have anything to add feel free to speak up.”

Glimmers nodded at this, and I led our group into the reception, which turned out to be an interesting area. Plants were everywhere with a wide open plan area with natural materials being used around the room.

There was a rough granite wall that had small alcoves for small Geodude to live in while a stream allowed Goldeen and Magikarp to swim leisurely through the area while Oddish and Bellsprout rested near the banks of the water.

Glancing back at the windows I spotted more than a few that were open, allowing Pidgey and other pokemon to come in.

The Receptionist turned out to be a long-haired man who was being preened by a Pidgeotto.

“Brock, Sabrina and Glimmers here for a meeting,” I said, causing the man to perk up.

“Ah! Gym Leaders! Take the stairs all the way to the top floor, the meeting room is straight ahead!” he offered. 

Sabrina blinked. “You want us to walk up twenty flights of stairs?” she asked.

The man tilted his head. “Oh… right. Sorry! Ranger policy to offer stairs first. There’s an elevator tucked around the corner as well!”

I held back a chuckle. If Sabrina had her way and the building didn’t have state-of-the-art dark emitters, I suspected she would have just teleported us into the room.

Instead, we settled for a lift. Sabrina gave it a look like it offended her and I bit my lips.

When we entered the meeting room four Rangers were seated at the table. Each of them had various icons on their shoulders, signifying mountains, plains, oceans, swamps, deserts, and even a city. None of their badges had numbers on them lower than five, with one or two even being twenty on the side.

“Gym Leaders,” they offered with a nod.

“Ranger Generals,” I replied, taking a seat as Sabrina and Glimmers did the same.

The oldest of the Ranger Generals, a silver-haired man by the name of Nate pointed to a small coffee station. “Would you like a refreshment, Gym Leaders and…” 

My eyes darted to his shoulder patch which had a twenty for mountains and a ten for caves on his opposite side. 

Huh… how small the world is.

Sabrina nudged me subtly, and I pushed my thoughts away as I realised Nate had been asking me a question when he’d trailed off. . “This is Glimmers-on-the-cliff, she’s the lorekeeper of the Crusher Tribe,” I offered, introducing our guest.

That caused the group to stir with a glint of interest entering their eyes.

Glimmers glanced at the display. “I’d like a soda.”

The fridge with the drinks opened of its own accord, and three drinks floated towards us. Sabrina gave the generals a look, but they shook their heads.

“If it's alright with you, we’d like to start as soon as possible,” asked Elenor, a black and grey-haired woman with a twenty on a patch for Oceans while also having a ten for a city landscape on her other.

“Not a problem,” I replied, loading up the video I had. “As you’ve no doubt been made aware, Sabrina and I led a small team of Rangers into the Depths of Mt Moon recently.”

“We’re aware and we’ve seen the video. Thank you for supplying it,” stated one man.

I nodded. “More information has come to light thanks to Glimmers. It seems that the Crusher Tribe has encountered these pokemon in the past and thanks to their tradition of oral history, they have some knowledge of these ‘Alpha pokemon’.”

“Anything we can learn would be welcome,” stated the older man calmly.

I nodded and opened my hand to Glimmers. “Can you educate us as you did me?” I asked.

Glimmers rose, more than happy to perform.

The Rangers, as an organisation, were perhaps the most straightforward to deal with. Once they knew of the potential issue of alpha pokemon and the ‘power up’ traps that existed, they began proposing specialist teams to monitor the threats.

“We’ll need to control the wording of the pokemon. If it gets out that fighting such pokemon and winning directly empowers you then we’re in for trouble! People will get the wrong idea,” stated Eleanor.

Nate nodded. “Call it an adrenaline spike so people assume it is temporary. Still, we’ll need to get professors involved and monitor this… Do your songs or stories know if this is a permanent boost or a temporary one?” he asked of Glimmers.

“They do not say,” stated Glimmers, “Only that continued pursuit of strength will eventually result in catastrophe.”

“Possibly permanent then… if it can be reduced by the pokemon being defeated via multiple trainers and their pokemon most people might not notice it. We can also institute more training with the people going out. Make them meditate and such on their life goals. Call it holistic health. That’s popular these days, no?”

That got a round of nods and within an hour a plan was laid out. 

Nate rose and offered me his hand for a shake. “Thank you for alerting us of this issue, Gym Leaders. It's always good to work with you both.”

“Hmmm, some in the rank and file are starting to treat us like lightning rods, or Absol,” I murmured.

“Hmph, when you’re in the thick of it, it makes sense, but with your track record, I imagine you give them a lot of peace of mind as well,” he offered, still gripping my hand, his eyes searching mine.

“Something the matter?” I asked, noting he had yet to release my hand.

He tilted his head for a moment, only to shake his head and release me. “Ah, apologies, old eyes must be playing tricks on me. Have a good Circuit Brock, and hopefully we won’t have any more disasters to manage this year.”

That drew a round of snorts from the other generals, and my own lips twitched upwards.

With that handled, Sabrina led us to the front of the building before teleporting back to Pewter, where Alexa met me with a smile. 

“We have a booking for tomorrow!” she announced, causing me to blink and my mind to stall out for a moment.

Oh, right, Gym challenges, with the easier first few days, I’d started to relax into other tasks.

I smiled, glad for the return to normal.

Sabrina hummed. “Well, I still have a month at least until my first challenger,” she murmured, causing me to huff at her.

“You’ll get them eventually,” I muttered half-heartedly, knowing that less trainers made it all the way through to challenge her, or indeed, planned their runs around not facing Sabrina.

“Yes, but I’ll also push that back with our honeymoon. Most of the trainers this year won’t be able to fight me until the final four months.”

Ah, my fiancée was smart.

“Hmmm good thing we’re having two weeks for our honeymoon,” I replied, earning a smile from her.

Yeah, for all there were shadows and power ups we barely understood starting to rise up, there was also a lot to look forward to this year.

_________________

A.N. Thanks go to my patreons for your continued support!

For the record I do not like Glimmers anymore… purely because she brings the expectation that I need to make up songs for her to sing and poems for her to recite. Which is something I suck at majorly. Case and point the above examples…

If anyone would like to post their own better versions, please do so. While I dislike writing it, I can appreciate such works.

It also goes to Twmmy for proofreading this chapter!