Spoon: 6.5 Palate Cleanser (Patreon)

Aaron’s Pokemon

- Artoria (Kirlia)- Jeanne (Flaaffy)- Durvasa (Primeape)- Magellan (Chikorita)- Omurice (Larvesta)

Palate Cleanser 6.5

Aaron FulanUnnamed Route

I grit my teeth as we endured the spiritomb’s ominous pressure. It wasn’t easy, but we’d all developed our own coping mechanisms. Junjie’s breathing exercises helped somewhat, but his calm was something he’d cultivated over a decade of ascetic discipline.

Instead, we found ourselves gravitating towards what was most familiar. Not out of comfort, but out of resolve. That was the essence of my team, the whole reason why we worked well together.

For Artoria and I, it was the sword. The spiritomb’s pressure filled our minds and spirits with illusions of their demise, of their creation. We heard the clashing of steel. We smelled the pungent aroma of iron, blood, and the shit of dying men. And, we learned not to resist. This was the sword. At its most basic, the sword was a tool to take lives. 

The modern kendo I mastered in my old life was a sanitized thing. It was almost gentle in that regard, bound in rules and traditions that blunted the edge. To be clear, that wasn’t a bad thing. It was a contact sport, with deep, martial traditions, but still a sport. And in that sport was the proof of peace, that society had moved on and still honored its traditional roots.

HEMA was a bit better in that regard. It was a bit more faithful to its roots in the sense that there were fewer rules and practitioners wielded a variety of weapons. But even that wasn’t anything like true combat for the simple fact that “real” fighting had “real” consequences.

I got a small taste of it since arriving here. Aura let me do incredible things. I trained harder, reacted faster, and saw more clearly. I crossed blades with a scyther and a golbat, however briefly. Had things gone even slightly poorly, I could have been severely injured.

But the difference between those brief skirmishes and the illusions the spiritomb imposed on me was like night and day. The sharp, momentary thrill of “real” combat was replaced by an oppressive, cloying certainty of death. This was the path of the sword taken to its logical conclusion.

Beneath its pressure, I quailed. I faltered. It was only because I had Artoria next to me that I could remain. My little knight sat with me. Our minds melded together as we embraced the spiritomb’s malice.

And, together, we stood. We supported one another. We reminded ourselves that the weight on our shoulders was not a physical weight. The bloodshed the spiritomb experienced was real. The carnage that followed the sword was equally real.

Yet, so was our resolve. Artoria shone brighter still. She longed to be a knight who surpassed her father. I too wanted to see how far I could walk along this path. Neither of us denied the spiritomb’s resentment; we allowed that pressure to temper our resolve.

Slowly, over the days of constant training, we grew accustomed to the ghostly pressure. We hardened our minds by pouring ourselves into our swords. The kata we knew by heart became akin to a ritual dance that guarded our hearts.

Junjie said our progress was ridiculous. He said that it was only possible because the two of us were so compatible. We agreed.

And then there was Durvasa. Unlike us, he had no measurable experience with the esoteric side of aura.

For him, aura was the thing that let him punch harder. Sometimes, he touched on other truths, such as when he learned to generate friction and heat with aura, but other than Artoria’s limited Shadow Sneaks, ghost type energy was completely new to him.

He excelled. He was like an empty vessel, eager to be filled. He remembered what I said about his final evolution, that annihilape were ghost types, and he seized this chance like a starving houndoom. He took the spiritomb’s aura and malice into himself. He paid its grief and resentment no mind.

After all, he was a primeape. The rage of over a hundred spirits was great. They felt such immense malice and hatred at the end of their lives. And yet, a primeape was always angry. While I doubted the resentment of ghosts was quite the same, he simply accepted it all as if to say, “Come on in, what’s one more?”

Yes, he gained the most from this training. Artoria and I could only watch in seething envy. We practiced kendo kata and old German longsword forms slowly, as a way of focusing our minds. He just let out an annoyed grunt at the spiritomb, then carried on with his workout with the usual intensity as if the spiritual weight didn’t exist.

He didn’t know what effects the ghost type should have on his spirit. And since he didn’t know, he didn’t care. His unshakable belief in his own wrath, his steely conviction that he’ll reach enlightenment if he kept walking his own path, these things were enough to shield him from the worst of the spiritomb’s influence. Ignorance itself was a weapon. Frankly speaking, it was terrifying. 

As he practiced, we noticed something. His fur began to take on a violet tint. Wisps of miasma curled around him. For a moment, I thought it was Rage Fist, that signature skill of his final evolution. But no, this was far too soon. The miasma was unpolished.

Durvasa had learned to sense the spiritual, and rather than ponder the mystical, he’d chosen the path that let him punch harder. It wasn’t right. It was barely touching on the full potential of ghost types. But it was a start. He’d stepped onto a road I didn’t truly understand.

X

Omurice was burning. Not to be confused with the Omurice, of course. Now that my adorable larvesta had found her name and calling, our entire family jumped in to support her. We took turns holding the frying pan beneath her while we fried various ingredients.

Larvesta could learn Psychic. I knew that because volcarona was a staple in competitive play. Despite this, volcarona had only a handful of coverage options: Hurricane and Air Slash, Giga Drain, and Psychic. Tera Blast gave it a fantastic toy to play with, not that it needed much versatility with Quiver Dance.

One day, Omurice would be able to manipulate all manner of kitchenware. I could see it now, an entire orchestra of pots and pans glowing violet or dancing along invisible threads. Artoria and I were certainly well-equipped to teach her.

But that was a matter for later. For now, she was practicing the fine art of flame control. Unlike a normal chef, she didn’t get to turn the dial on a stove. She was the fire, and was used to far hotter flames than what would normally be acceptable for cooking.

Marcus Moore said that many fire types possessed organs specially designed for producing fire. For most fire types, it was an internal organ that quickly metabolized food into heat. Some, such as numel and torkoal, had a biological furnace that stored coal or molten rock on top of that.

My dear Omurice was no different. She possessed a series of internal organs directly connected to her digestive system. I wasn’t sure about the precise biological process, but the heat gathered and was released in a violently exothermic reaction from the red horns along her neck.

This was largely an autonomic function that she could choose to manually adjust, not unlike breathing. In battle, she fueled this process with an inflow of aura, fanning the flames hotter or allowing them to reach further.

But fire was alive. It hungered and grew and devoured indiscriminately. The most important lesson Marcus instilled upon me was not how to make her fire hotter. Rather, I was told to teach her as much control as possible.

I understood where he was coming from, of course. It was obviously best to teach her good habits while she was young. However, her youth made that somewhat challenging. As a child, she had the attention span of a drunk skitty and wasn’t above throwing tantrums or begging with soulful, blue eyes until she got her way.

So, I was doubly grateful to Junjie. Omurice intuitively preferred high-intensity flames. Her five torches ignited all at once, flaring up in an inferno that would turn most things into charcoal briquettes. There certainly was a place for such flames in battle, but cooking provided an immediate feedback in the form of charcoal’d omurice.

I pulled the pan out of the fire and showed it to her. “This ain’t it, Omurice. Cooking isn’t a sprint. Do you want to try again with something simpler?”

“Lar? Larvesta,” she pouted.

“I have some bread and cheese. How about a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner?”

“Larvesta… vesta.”

“That’s the spirit. We’ll buy more eggs in Fallarbor. We can start with frying them by themselves. Or maybe hard-boiled eggs? That’s bound to be a lot more forgiving.”

“Lar?”

“Water won’t boil hotter than its boiling point so you’ll have time to adjust. Remember, this is about endurance and control, not power.”

“Larvesta,” Omurice nodded, resolute.

X

Fallarbor Town

Fallarbor was a large-ish town, perhaps a small-ish city. There were about eighty to one hundred thousand people in the metropolitan area. Most of that population was rather spread out, far more so than any other city I’d been in.

The town was the nearest major settlement to the Draconid’s ancestral lands. That was entirely why it existed. Fallarbor began as a trading post and a point of negotiations. The town’s outskirts were surrounded by farmland and pasture specifically meant to take advantage of the nutrient-rich volcanic ash that drifted down from Mount Chimney.

The Draconids favored powerful, high-flying dragons like salamence and dragonite. In turn, those dragons favored high, mountainous cliffs like Meteor Falls. That was all well and good in terms of defensibility, but their lands weren’t exactly productive.

Funny enough, their proximity to the Draconids helped the town build and thrive. Though the scalies were historically conquering warlords known for their ruthlessness, most of their leaders understood that burning their own farmland would be stupid.

Even today, they were net importers of food and modern technology. It was one of the biggest sources of leverage the League had over them. That meant the local farming collective had a lot of influence in the region.

These days, the town was known for two more things: contests and mining. The town boasted one of the most prestigious geology and mineralogy graduate programs in the region, a source of pride and friendly rivalry with Rustboro down south. Several minerals were uniquely abundant in this part of Hoenn, which led to a rapidly growing mining industry.

Obviously, farms and mines couldn’t really coexist. This created a bit of friction between the two most important industries. And, this being Hoenn, there was a sizable ecological movement that criticized both parties.

Not that I cared about any of it. It was interesting to read about, but my goal here was the contest. We stopped at the town’s outermost pokemon center. Here, I bid my teacher goodbye.

“Thank you for your guidance, teacher,” I said, bowing at the waist, one hand clasped in the other. Next to me, my pokemon mirrored my show of respect. Well, those with arms did at any rate.

“Eh, none of that, kid,” he laughed boisterously, his bald forehead gleaming in the noonday sun. “You’re a fast learner and it was nice having some company for a bit.”

“Where will you go now, Junjie?”

“Who knows? I’m sure I’ll see something to point the way eventually. Until then, I suppose I’ll wander around here. You? You’re meeting with your friend, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Chaz offered to host us for the duration of the super-rank contest. It’ll be good to see him again.”

“Then go do that. I have a feeling we’ll see each other again.”

“I will. Good bye for now.”

X

The Rosemund Estate was a small, two-story manor with an expansive yard somewhere between the suburbs and the business district of Fallarbor. I could tell with a single glance that it was a storied building, probably built several generations ago, back when the town was much smaller.

Chaz was old money. I knew that, but it didn’t quite sink in until I walked by the small park nearby dedicated to one of his ancestors. Apparently, the Rosemunds were one of the first to take advantage of trade with the Draconids, acting as middlemen between the League and those prophecy-obsessed lizard-lovers.

Chaz’s family used to be farmers but transitioned to managing the premier trading post in the area. Long story short, a significant portion of this section of town used to be theirs. When the town began to develop into a proper cityscape, Carlton Rosemund, the man referred to in the honorary plaque, donated a lot of this land, which was why the town dedicated a park to them.

The plaque I saw made this out to be an act of altruism and civic responsibility, but I wondered if that was really the case. Fallarbor had no powerful trainer families; the Draconids simply didn’t allow rivals. That meant that for a family to be wealthy in the area, they needed the backing of the dragon riders. When the League took power and began exerting more and more influence over the area, they were probably given a very firm, technically still polite suggestion.

Well, it wasn’t as if the Rosemunds had been left destitute. Nowadays, Rosemund Enterprises was a major manufacturer of cosmetics. They also invested in advertising, public relations, media, and just about anything tied to pokemon contests. Rather than seek strength in the traditional sense, they’d carved out a niche for themselves while divesting themselves of their agricultural roots.

The doorman and his guard-grumpig let me through after a quick call. The grumpig was an inspired choice. The species wasn’t known for being the most powerful of psychics, but they were very good at incapacitating lots of people through their dance. Not to mention, pigs had excellent senses. For a guard incentivized to deescalate as much as possible, they were perfect.

I found Chaz waiting for me in front of his house. Dewford had been very good for him. He still looked like a rich snob, but there was a healthy tan to his skin now so he didn’t look like he’d combust in particularly strong sunlight. His arms also had a bit of definition now, still scrawny, but on the right track.

Most importantly, his team had grown. Macherie was a machoke now, flexing proudly as I turned my gaze to her. Behind her was Veronique, his venomoth, another recent evolution. Smolder the growlithe was still the same, goofy pup I remembered and he’d added an aron to his team.

“Aaron,” Chaz greeted, “you’re cutting it close, aren’t you? The contest starts in two days.”

I let my own team out, though there were no surprises for him since he’d seen Omurice hatch. “Hmm? What do you mean? I made it early by two, whole days.”

“Suit yourself. Oh, have you met my aron? His name is Snapjaw.”

“Nice. Granite Cave?”

“Yes. He has some interest in contests. I actually participated in the normal-rank contest here while waiting for you with my other team members.”

“You can do that? Huh, I guess the super-rank ribbon is tied to Macherie.”

“That’s right. It’s a good way to give other pokemon the contest experience without throwing them into the deep end. You should consider it yourself,” he said.

“I will,” I agreed. I picked up Omurice and held her out for my friend. “Meet Omurice, she’s probably going to enter a contest at some point.”

He looked at the squirming larvesta, then the rest of my team. He pointed at my kirlia. “That is Artoria.”

I nodded. “Her majesty, the King of Knights.”

“Jeanne.”

“She of great floof.”

“Durvasa.”

“The Sage of Rage.”

“Magellan.”

“He knows what to do with a drunken sailor.”

Chaz took a deep breath. He thought about it. I could see it in his eyes; he seriously considered not asking. Then, curiosity won out. “Aaron, why is your larvesta named after food?”

I placed an arm around his shoulders. “That’s a long story, my good man, full of daring adventures and silly hijinks.”

“Fine, whatever. You can tell me after I show you your room. Come on, let me show you around.”

X

Chaz and I stood across from one another in a battlefield behind the house. It’d been an addition by his great-uncle, one of the few accomplished trainers in his family tree.

After showing me my room, he took the initiative to challenge me to a battle. Not a contest battle, just a plain ol’ two-on-two. Durvasa versus Macherie, Omurice versus Snapjaw. His parents were on some business trip or other, but we gathered a small audience of the house caretakers.

“I’m surprised to receive a challenge from you,” I told him. “You’re not the type to battle.”

“I’ve changed, Aaron,” he said with a confident grin. “Macherie and Veronique aren’t the only ones who evolved. Besides, after Dewford, I need to try.”

“Alright, I get it. You want to see how your training stacks up. But are you sure you want to use Macherie? The contest is in two days.”

“I am. She wants to throw down, too. No moves.”

“No moves? Just martial arts without aura reinforcement?”

“Yeah, I want to know how far we’ve come.”

“Alright, but you’re the one who needs to call the match. Durvasa isn’t the one who has to compete in a contest, after all.”

“I know,” he said, palming his ball. “I’ll return her if she starts taking injuries that might affect her performance in two days.”

I nodded proudly. He really had changed. “Alright then. Durvasa and I will show you how far you still have to go!”

Well, I said that, but we didn’t actually have much input. This wasn’t a battle in the normal sense, after all. The trainer’s job of finding optimal moments to use a move, or trying to read the opponent, wasn’t applicable here.

Durvasa and Macherie stared each other down, both grinning like loons. Jeanne was the contest pokemon. From that perspective, she should be Macherie’s rival, but there was something more fundamental about this. As a fighting type, it was natural for the machoke to want to test progress against a peer.

She had a solid food and a half on Durvasa, but he wasn’t deterred. He darted in with two, sharp jabs that led into a cross and a left hook. Macherie took the hits on her forearms with barely a wince before launching a front snap kick that made the air whistle.

Durvasa slipped off the line of attack. He turned that into a hook that would have rocked her temple. She ducked, slipping the strike, only to meet an uppercut from his left hand, snapping her head back. Still, she glared down at him with a cut lip and a fanged, reptilian grin.

She whirled in place, sending a hammer hand in a wide arc. Expecting him to duck, she raised her knee to return the favor. When he stopped that with his own elbow, she turned her hammer hand into a grab. One, meaty palm grabbed my primeape by the scruff of the neck and pulled him towards her as she connected her other fist with his nose.

Macherie was a karateka, pretty much by default. The machop line were the progenitors of the art in this reality and the full contact variant was baked into their instincts. Durvasa didn’t have any singular style he devoted himself to, but the only formal training he’d received was from Archie the hitmonchan in Petalburg City.

They reset and studied each other with fanged grins. Full contact karate versus boxing. It was interesting to watch, but without any aura-enhanced moves, I had a feeling Durvasa was in for a rough time. He was a lot more mobile, but he had less reach and was outclassed in terms of raw strength.

More to the point, primeape were adapted for fighting in jungles and dense forests. They were swift, light, and had the sense of balance and awareness to take advantage of just about any kind of terrain. Machoke were far more direct in their approach.

Whatever advantages Macherie’s species naturally had in a slugfest, I knew that Durvasa was too stubborn to give a fuck. If anything, the challenge just spurred him on. He dodged what he could, took the hits that he couldn’t, and often allowed her to clip him, so long as he could use that opportunity to duck inside her guard.

Still, I was genuinely impressed with the machoke. Dewford Gym had polished her natural instincts. Her strikes were sharper, faster, and she simply didn’t fall for most feints anymore. Someone down there gave her a lot of experience with dirty fighting.

Eventually, Chaz called it off. He returned Macherie for a second and then let her loose by his side. “That’s enough, if we go any further, she might not recover in two days.”

“Primeape! Prime!” Durvasa screeched. I could see his smoldering rage tint his aura red.

I walked over and put a hand on his head. “Nah, he’s right. You two can finish beating each other up after the contest.”

He looked like he’d argue. No doubt he considered it his win. To be fair, he’d landed far more hits than she had.

“And, after the contest, you’ll both be able to use aura,” I offered. “You’ll be able to settle this without restrictions. Doesn’t that sound much better?”

“Prime…” He grumbled, but acquiesced.

“Good. Clear out, bud. Let’s let Omurice and Snapjaw say hello.”

“Prime. Primeape.”

“I know. You two can beat each other black and blue as much as you want in a few days, promise.”

Author’s Note

Aaron and Artoria are basically sword cultivators trying to cut a “heart demon” with “sword intent.” Durvasa just gives no fucks.

Without aura, in a purely physical contest, I’d say Macherie can fight Durvasa. Machoke are no joke.

Animal Fact: As of 2019, kangaroos and wallabies are responsible for anywhere between 80-90% of all animal-related car crashes in Australia. Animal-related collisions account for 5% of fatal crashes overall. In 2018, the National Roads & Motorists Association (NRMA) reported 14,500 claims.

It’s gotten so bad that Volkswagen has developed RooBadge, a mountable plate-thingie that can fit onto the front of your car. It uses GPS to figure out where you are in Australia. Then, directional speakers will activate, emitting a sound that is optimized to your region’s specific ‘roo to scare them off the road while you’re driving.

Can my Aussie friends tell me if this is a genuine answer worth using or it’s a hilariously overengineered boombox?