Into the Dark - A Pokemon Isekai

I’d always liked old samurai films.

My father had preferred westerns, but ever since I had learned that many of those movies had been based on the black-and-white Japanese films, I had decided to watch those instead.

At first it had been partially out of spite, but I grew to love the artistry of the films.

There was something about the final battle between samurai that had always entranced me. Two warriors, facing off against each other, the tension slowly ratcheting up until they burst into action. A couple of quick blows with their swords, and then it was over.

Akira Kurosawa’s film Sanjuro had perhaps one of the most influential final battles, complete with a blood spray that would leave an enduring mark on action films and anime for decades to come. It only lasted two seconds, but the feeling of tension and catharsis had stayed with me for years.

Watching Zetian fight Gardenia’s Cherubi reminded me of those old samurai films.

An intense staredown between the two combatants, a burst of motion, then a resolution.

The battle was over in a single exchange. Zetian sliced through the air, her stinger leading as Sakura aimed towards the sky, its stems and leaves already glowing with a Leafage.

Zetian stopped her mad dash towards the Cherubi by reversing her wing’s motion, halting her in mid air. The leaves flew just in front of her face, and she responded with a vicious sweep of her wings.

The Gust blew forth, catching the Cherubi right in the center of its body.

Sakura staggered once, then collapsed on the ground unconscious.

Zetian hovered in the sky for several long seconds, staring at the unmoving form of the Cherubi, almost as if daring it to get back up.

After a long moment, when nothing happened, the referee stepped forwards.

“Leader Gard-”

He was cut off by a brilliant, eye-searing light that burst forth from Zetian. I had to throw my hands up in front of my face, but I could hear the excited murmuring from the crowd.

When it finally faded, Zetian was hovering in place, looking down at her new body with awe.

Gone was the conjoined hexagonal Combee, replaced with a magnificent Vespiquen. The jewel in the middle of her head shone with an inner light as she looked at her body in awe and disbelief. If I was being honest, despite how amazing she looked as a whole… Zetian looked a little ragged when you looked at her more closely.

She was still a bit wounded from the battle, and there were some faint scars and ragged patches of the incredibly fine fur all across her body. One of her wings had a little bit torn out of it, and she was obviously exhausted.

Professor Rowan had once explained to me that even though nobody was really sure of exactly how evolution worked, they did know that it took a lot of energy in order to accomplish it, and Zetian had already gone through the wringer, courtesy of Gardenia.

But the one thing that really stood out to me was that, unless my memory was deceiving me, Zetian was actually bigger than her mother had been. It might have been the steady access to food, something that wasn’t a certainty in the wild, or better healthcare in the form of regular Pokémon Center visits, or even just the fact that Zetian was getting a lot of exercise in.

Her mother had been maybe a little under four feet, a bit small for Vespiquen. Zetian? Zetian was pushing four-and-a-half, easily.

Even though we had practiced using weights to simulate the weight of a Vespiquen’s lower abdomen, Zetian was sinking slowly in mid-air, too exhausted to keep herself fully flying.

Ignoring everyone else, I hopped the short railing around the competitor’s stand, and hurried out onto the field to try and catch her.

Zetian buzzed happily as she saw me, and tried doing her excited wiggle-dance, only to realize that her new body made it impossible. Instead she gratefully flew over to my open arms, allowing me to relieve most of the strain from her new weight off her wings.

“Oof.” I muttered quietly, realizing that she had to weigh a good ninety pounds at least.

It stung a little bit that my Pokémon was almost as large as I was, but I was too happy for her to focus on that.

“You did so well!” I cheered, and Zetian raised her arms happily.

Then she caught on to the fact that she actually had hands and arms for the first time, and stared at them in amazement.

Zetian clicked her mandibles happily, and reached out, gently stroking my hair.

It was a little bit creepy to have a human-sized bee run her claws across my head, but I wasn’t going to focus on that right now.

“I know you want to stay and investigate your new body,” I said, catching her attention again. “But we need to get you back to your Poké Ball, okay? Just long enough to get you to the Pokémon Center.”

Zetian pouted a little bit, which was impressive considering the fact that she had no lips or facial features to actually pout with, but allowed herself to be put back into the Ball.

As I’d learned from Professor Rowan, it was always best to have a recently evolved Pokémon checked out by a medical professional as close to the actual time of evolution as possible. Nine times out of ten the evolution would be just fine, but there was always a chance that something could have gone wrong.

“Congratulations!” Gardenia said brightly, and I looked over at her in surprise.

At some point she had also hopped the rail on her side of the court, and had come out to join me.

“That was a great battle! And wow! What a finish! Here, this belongs to you!”

I blinked at Gardenia’s outstretched hand, my brain not quite catching up to the reality of the situation yet. In her open palm laid an enameled pin, three green diamonds put together in a vaguely triangle-like shape.

“Oh, uh, thank you.” I reached out and gently picked it up.

“You’re pretty good for a first-timer!” She chirped as I stared at the pin. “You’ve definitely earned that badge!”

I blinked again, feeling slightly detached from the situation. This was the Forest Badge. I’d done it, I’d officially beat my first gym.

“Don’t worry, there’s no more paperwork to worry about! Your winnings will be deposited into the account specified on your League forms!”

“Winnings?” I said.

“Well of course! It’s not a lot, but it’s a little bit of a cash deposit to help you prepare for the next Gym! I’d like to talk some more, but I bet you wanna get your Pokémon to the Center, right? Plus we have some more challengers coming in soon. We should talk later though!”

“I… yeah.” I was caught a little more than off guard by her stream of thoughts, and by everything that had just happened.

I had done it. I had done it!

A grin stretched across my face, and I looked out to the crowd. People were clapping and cheering at the end of the fight, like we were at a baseball game or something. Ted and Lucas were on their feet, and Kōjin was letting out little bursts of fire.

I held the pin up in victory, feeling like a champion.

/^\

“I feel awful.” I moaned as I stared up at the lazily spinning fan in the Pokémon Center.

“Told you.” Ted said, a bit snidely. “You ate enough to feed a Snorlax.”

“It’s a celebration.” My arm dramatically flopped to the side as I tried to explain. “We couldn’t not eat too much.”

“Agreed.” Lucas said, from his spot on the foot of the bed where he was currently splayed out. “We had to eat ourselves sick.”

I could hear Ted rolling his eyes, but he might have had a point. We might have eaten a little too much in celebration of winning my first Gym Challenge.

In fact, I was beginning to see why the Gym had reopened in the first place. With the buzz of victory still strong in my mind, it was easy to forget that there had been a less-than-natural disaster just a week ago. The Challenges gave people something to focus on that wasn’t just the depressing reality of rebuilding parts of the city, and gave them hope for the future when things would return to normal.

My Pokémon seemed to agree with me. Venus had recovered spectacularly, and my qualms about having her fall unconscious quieted down. She was ecstatic that she had been a part of the battle, and seemed even more excited to battle more in the future.

Kōjin was all fired up, literally. Even though he hadn’t participated in the battle, he’d been a ball of energy all morning in wanting to train, and had accidentally released a couple small gouts of fire.

We’d have to work on that more, but for now he was thankfully asleep in a food coma, curled up with Venus.

Zetian though, Zetian was quietly reveling in her victory and evolution. She had reluctantly submitted to an examination by the doctors at the Pokémon Center, but thankfully nothing had gone wrong during her transformation.

Through a process I didn’t quite know the specifics of, and wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know, Zetian would start breeding her own colony of little bees for her own protection. That was part of the reason why we had splurged on so much food - forget eating for two, Zetian was now eating for two thousand.

For now though, she was sitting in a chair, quietly reveling in being able to pick things up and put them down with her new hands.

“So.” Lucas said, looking up at all of us. “What now?”

“Well now that Alina’s done with her match, we both still have ours. After that, I’m not sure.”

“Well,” Lucas muttered, looking down sheepishly. “If you all wouldn’t mind, could I come along with you?”

Ted and I shared a surprised look.

“I mean,” I started, feeling incredibly awkward.

“We didn’t actually really mean to travel together for this long.” Ted said. “We just met after we responded to the same Ranger alert, and started traveling in the same direction together.”

“Plus traded some tips in regards to Hisuian Pokémon.” I said, and he nodded.

“You definitely helped with training Switchback.”

“But…” I shrugged. “You two are really some of the only friend’s I’ve made since coming to Sinnoh. I wouldn’t mind traveling with you all.”

“Yes!” Lucas pumped his fist in the air, and Ted looked contemplative.

“I’d have to double check a few things, but I’m not against the idea.” He said.

“I’m not going anywhere right away.” I said with a shrug. “Sure I beat Gardenia’s Gym, but I’m not in a hurry, and I’d like to stick around and see your battles. Besides, Zetian and Venus still have to rest for a little bit.”

Zetian looked up with a bit of a glare at the idea that she would have to rest, but she obviously was still unused to her new body and bounced her head off of the back of the chair.

“Well, we’ll figure it out over the next few days. For now though, sure. I’m good with traveling with you all.” Ted said, over Lucas’ cheering.

“Although I’m going to be spending a lot of time training.” He continued. “Having seen some of what Gardenia’s tricks are, I have some ideas for Mayfly and Switchback.”

“If you need any advice,” I said smugly. “As an official owner of the Forest Badge, I can give you two pointers.”

I’d decided to buy one of the metal tins with the foam insert to carry my badges around in, and I’d been pulling it out every now and again to look happily at my new badge.

They both looked at me flatly.

“We have more battling experience than you by a long shot.” Ted said. “I’ve already done a full loop of the Hoenn circuit.”

“I have two Fire-types.” Lucas added. “Besides, I already have experience in fighting a lot of Grass-type Pokémon.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“Yeah! It started out back when I was first going around to do the research for Professor Rowan, back when Sunny was just a Chimchar! So there we were, actually in Eterna Forest, not the nice sections of the road but the real forest, looking for a stone that’s supposed to help Eevee evolve into Leafeon.”

Venus’ ear twitched, but she didn’t bother to raise her head.

“Then we ran across this old guy who told us he knew where it was, but before he would show us, we had to help him. For some reason he needed fifteen leaves from Oddish.”

Lucas frowned. “For some reason, he needed leaves from fifteen different Oddish, so we couldn’t just ask two or three Oddish if we could pick their leaves.”

“Wait, wouldn’t that hurt them?” I asked.

“They grow back quickly.” Ted explained. “And they’re not actually connected to the nervous system, it’s like our hair. In fact, if Oddish don’t shed their leaves regularly, they’ll start to rot.”

“Yeah! You got it! Anyways, so we started to go around and try to collect the leaves, but none of the Oddish wanted to let us take one. In fact, they started to get really aggressive, and attacked us! Sunny and I had to scare them off or knock them out, and as it turns out there was a really aggressive Vileplume who moved into the area recently, and was trying to take over. It was really weird too, because…”

I leaned back further onto the pillows of the bed, closing my eyes as Lucas continued his increasingly improbable story of fighting a hundred Oddish, just to get fifteen leaves. Venus shifted closer to me, never quite fully waking up, but wanting to be next to me nonetheless.

My hand rested softly on her head, and I scratched behind her ears, earning a soft purr.

Ted and Lucas were now arguing about the logistics of how to pluck Oddish leaves, and I couldn’t help but smile.

This is the life.