CartecTNN
patreon
The New Normal - 6-9
🕑 Added 2023-11-17 08:40:01 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 6-9 – A Fairytale Homecoming
I soon found that staying on a moving ship filled to the brim with potentially dangerous prisoners was far less exciting than I expected. In fact, it was just as boring as a multi-hour cruise with no access to the internet. In other words, a dull pain in the ass.
The prisoners weren’t in any position to break out. So, with nothing else better to do, I decided to wander around the boat and catch some fresh air and hopefully decompress after my last few busy days of running around trying to catch the many grunts of the evil teams.
After a small walk around, I found a nice spot in the shade that still managed to capture the pleasant and refreshing sea breeze. I stayed there for a moment, allowing myself to bask in the natural wonders of nature as I allowed my mind to wander. In the distance, small flocks of wingulls and Pelippers flew in the sky, while small schools of Remoraid swam around in the bright blue ocean. It was truly an idyllic view.
I don’t know how much time passed as I sat there, reflecting on the events that had taken place in Hoenn while also trying to anticipate the many changes that must have happened in Indigo while I was away. I looked forward to catching up on what I had missed.
The sounds of footsteps caused me to look up, and I saw Sidney casually walking up to me with his hands in his pockets.
“Hello.” He greeted politely, which was once again a little jarring when you considered his outwardly punk rock appearance, “I’m sorry for shaking you out of your relaxation, but I thought I might join you.”
“That’s no worry.” I replied easily, “Please. Take a seat.”
“Well, if you insist.” He chuckled as he sat. I watched as a content smile slowly formed on his face as he too recognized the calming effect of nature. He indulged in it for a moment like I did, before speaking up once again.
“I have to apologize for something, John.” He said. I turned to him curiously, not knowing what he was on about, “About not participating in the raids with you and Drake. The rest of the Elite Four wanted to, but we couldn’t.”
“And why not?” I said, not trying to accuse him. I knew that Drake had said something similar, but I wanted to hear what Sidney had to say.
“Because that would be seen as an extreme escalation by the rest of the League. Having the entire Elite Four acting together to deal with a threat is only really seen in the direst of circumstances, which was why the Committee was so against us getting involved as well.” Sidney sighed, “Maybe you’re unaware of this because you’re still relatively new to your position, and frankly, your time in the Elite Four has been quite unusual. Even in the Elite Four, it is rare to get involved in terrorist attacks as often as you did.”
I stayed silent, allowing him to continue, “The three of us had petitioned Wallace to let us come and assist. Especially after your string of successes, we felt that the committee SHOULD have been calm enough to allow us to assist. But Wallace, perhaps wisely, refused. Honestly, I felt bad for him, he was doing a huge juggling act trying to keep the committee from imploding on themselves and ordering something stupid, while at the same time trying to muster up whatever political support he could for you and Drake. He worked himself tirelessly to do so, and the three of us were so inspired by his actions that we quickly joined in. After all, we couldn’t leave him to deal with all the burden.”
“Wow.” I said aloud, “I knew Wallace was doing a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes, but that’s something else.” It really put in perspective why Drake had nothing but praise for him. He was not prone for shows of strengths like Lance, but he was great all the same.
Sidney continued with a fond smile, “You know, he told me just yesterday when he asked me to head to Indigo that he very desperately wanted to me in my place. He was really excited to be a participant at your newly opened Contest Hall! He’s always been one to enjoy the spotlight in contests, and I’m pretty sure he’s still sulking about it.”
I laughed. Yeah, that sounded just like the Wallace I knew from my meta-knowledge. Then, an amusing thought popped up, “Hey, you think Wallace is a better Contest performer than the Waterflower sisters?”
“Perhaps!” Sidney chuckled, “Truthfully, I have not seen much of the Waterflower sisters. Hoenn TV don’t often cover their performances, which is a bit of a shame. I have heard of their great talent, and I’d be honoured to see them in person.”
“You can see them in Indigo while you’re there.” I pointed out, “You probably could make the time for it. I’m sure Wallace wouldn’t begrudge you.”
“He might, if only out of jealousy.” Sidney replied amusingly, “But you’re right. I’ll try to make time for it.”
“Anyways, I’m glad that the two of you managed to deal with them.” He continued, returning to our previous topic, “I know some escaped, but you honestly did a great job with capturing many of them as well as dismantling their operations. This ship filled with prisoners is only proof of that.”
“Thanks.” I replied awkwardly, still not used to praise, “Are the others getting involved with the clean-up now that I’m gone?”
“I think so. At least, that’s what Phoebe told me.” He replied, “The committee finally let loose the shackles a bit for the free PR and to show that they were doing something.” He said that part a little reluctantly, as if he disagreed with their course of action. I could understand.
“It’s a little strange to me how powerful your committee is compared to ours.” I admitted, “In Indigo, it would be rare for the committee to be able to browbeat someone like Lance. Normally, what he says will be what gets passed through.”
“Wallace and Lance are different.” Sidney explained, “Despite my full confidence and respect for Wallace, he is not as politically influential as Lance. In fact, I find it pretty absurd that Lance managed to earn his position as Champion while also being from such prominent and influential group in the Blackthorns. I’m guessing that’s why he’s been able to be so forceful and able to cow the committee like he does; Wallace couldn’t do that because his influence as Champion isn’t enough.”
“And that’s not all, of course.” He continued, “Professor Oak, when he was Champion, did a lot to install that kind of attitude within your Committee. After all, with his reputation and achievements, who would dare challenge him? Then Pryce, as his chosen successor, inherited that attitude from the committee, and that still carried on to this day. We don’t have something like that in Hoenn.”
I tilted my head in thought, never even considering that. I had totally overlooked how much Oak’s and the Blackthorn’s influence could have had on the Committee. Now that Sidney pointed it out, it seemed obvious why our two Committees had become so different.
I was just so used to the fact that, both under Pryce and Lance, the Committee were nothing more than puppets that had to be occasionally fed the odd morsel or so. Both Champions were able to cow the committee in their own ways.
“I never realized the difference.” I said to Sidney, “My impression of the Committee have always been that they were meek, often with more bark than bite.”
“Some of them are like that.” Sidney nodded, “But you can’t expect everyone to be a fool. Or rather, you can’t expect everyone to be as easily cowed. Not without some serious political backing. And unfortunately, Wallace doesn’t have what Lance has. Which makes our Committee meetings far more argumentative and combative, with many of them often challenging the Champion’s policies out of a desire to posture if nothing else.”
I agreed, understanding that both had their advantages and disadvantages. This is one of the times that I actually would have preferred dealing with Indigo’s committee, sycophantic as they were.
“Is that why you didn’t simply ignore their orders?” I asked him. “I mean from what you’ve said it really feels like you three were chomping at the bit to actively get involved.”
“Yeah. Phoebe especially was raring to go, but I reluctantly talked her out of it.” He admitted with a shake of his head, “It just wouldn’t have been worth antagonizing the Committee against us. They might have tried to set up a smear campaign against us out of spite, and they would almost certainly have done everything they could to block our future policies. They’re unreasonable like that. And so, after some careful consideration, we reluctantly realized that the long-term costs of our unauthorized intervention would have been a little too high of a price to pay. And since you and Drake seemed to have things handled, we ultimately let it go.”
I hummed understandingly. Getting involved against the orders of the Committee would have stepped on all of their pride, which was always a bad idea with overly prideful people in positions of power. So, I could get where he was coming from.
We winded down a little after that surprising bit of comparison between our respective Leagues. Our conversation quickly adopted a more casual focus once again, as we talked about a few of the more interesting sights in Indigo.
I reminded him of my invitation to visit the newly built Contest Hall once again before we finally parted ways as I made my way back to my room. Deciding to rest my head for a moment, I eventually fell asleep on the bed, unknowing to the surprising turn of events that was taking place in Kanto at this very moment.
=============
(Oak POV)
John’s Eevee, which he later learnt was nicknamed Euphie, was a real feisty one that was almost always in a playful mood. That was often a double-edged sword, as though her friendliness allowed her to make fast friends with many other Pokémon at the ranch, there were several times that Oak was alerted to by his assistants because Euphie had broken out of her enclosure in an attempt to make friends on the other side. Which almost always turned out poorly for Euphie.
Unfortunately, it takes more than a friendly attitude to get a Seviper to NOT try to eat you. Still, Euphie was far from any real danger, and it was nothing that Oak and his Pokémon couldn’t handle. The Pokémon on his ranch knew better than to go against his orders.
The Pokémon at the ranch all understood who was in charge. Even if he wasn’t their trainer.
Regardless, just like busy he saw John was in Hoenn from all the news reports, he had been hard at work over the past week or so training with Euphie in hopes that she would eventually evolve like they were hoping for.
Speaking of John, he was impressed by far how along Euphie was in regards to training up its Fairy type affinity. He realized that John was really underselling just how long he had been working on this; to have been able to progress his Eevee to this level would have taken far more than a month. And the more that he discovered about the potential of the Fairy type, the more he regretted overlooking such a pivotal type for as long as he did.
But he was determined to correct this oversight as soon as possible. He brought his old friend, now Professor Elm, to help him both with the training of Euphie and updating the Pokédex to identify any Pokémon that had been previously misidentified as a Normal type or had missed out on the Fairy type label. Elm was especially helpful in helping him identify the signs of a possible evolution when it came to Euphie, and his keen eyes aided them greatly in developing her Fairy affinity even further.
And Carolina and Shelly pulled their weight as well, helping them acquire many of the harder to obtain Sinnoh and Hoenn Pokémon respectively for him to examine and study, though he had to inspect some of the former remotely. Carolina and Blaine would also occasionally pop in and work effectively at his assistants, aiding him with his tests and helping him pour over results whenever they were free. He really appreciated their help; he would have seriously struggled to handle most of these tasks by himself.
Besides that, he made sure to introduce Professor Elm to all of the other members, barring John because he was unreachable, none of whom had any problem with bringing him officially onboard. They all recognized how valuable his expertise was.
And after some gruelling weeks of work, he had come up with a pretty efficient and convenient method for testing out whether was a Fairy type or not. Single type Fairy Pokémon were the easiest, as he could just copy over the method that he used for Clefairy and apply it to them. Dual typing took more time, but that was why he left them for later.
Some of the new discoveries that he made really did surprise him. For instance, who knew that a Granbull was actually a Fairy type?! He certainly didn’t. He even tripled checked his results to make sure he didn’t get anything wrong. But no, Granbull was indeed a Fairy type. An odd discovery.
Anyways, over the last week or so, he had wanted to call John and inform him of all the progress that he had made with his Eevee, but ultimately, he decided against it when he saw just the sheer chaos that had been taking place in Hoenn. The newspapers didn’t make it sound so bad, but he knew how to read between the lines. John was in the thick of it.
A part of him, the part of him that he had kept deeply buried, screamed at him to join in. To let his blood run wild once more. But he managed to keep that part of himself tempered. His glory days were long over, he reminded himself, and it was no longer his fight. Not unless they really needed him.
Shaking himself from his more nostalgic thoughts, Oak returned his attention to his ranch as it was time for Euphie’s daily training session once again. A few of his assistants waved to him as he walked past, which he returned. A few others gave him curious looks, likely wondering what he was doing spending so much time with an Eevee.
Oh, they probably suspected that he was trying to discover a new Eeveelution; that was hardly difficult to figure out. But he simply allowed them to speculate, it did him no harm after all. And it was here when he was actually thankful for his, in his opinion, overinflated reputation. He was confident that none would try to leak what he was doing, because to be shunned by him would be the equivalent of shunning yourself from Indigo. It was useful, in times like these, to have your privacy be so respected like that.
After a short detour around his ranch to pick up a few of the other Clefairy that weren’t currently undergoing tests, he finally arrived at Euphie’s pen. As soon as he approached, Euphie quickly rushed up to him with her tail wagging excitedly. She knew that his arrival always signalled the beginning of ‘play time’.
With a smile, he stepped aside and allowed Euphie and the Clefairy to play around together. Elm had pointed out that young and baby Pokémon often learn better when they’re paired up in groups of Pokémon with similar interests and skills. He explained that being able to relate more with each other improved a Pokémon’s ability to develop and nurture the group’s shared skills, which in this case revolved around manipulating the Fairy energy. The relaxing environment also allowed Euphie to develop her skills at her own pace, without being weighed down by unnecessary pressures often unintentionally forced upon them by their trainers.
And Elm’s advice was paying off with huge dividends. More so than when he tried to teach Euphie directly, simply allowing Euphie to spend her free time around the Clefairy had allowed her to grow her affinity with Fairy energy by leaps and bounds. Oak suspected that it also helped that now Euphie was constantly exposed to Fairy energy and was now much more comfortable with it.
Seeing this, Elm had helped him create a schedule that would efficiently split Euphie’s time between playing freely with the Clefairy while also spending time under dedicated training sessions, where they would look to nurture and train up a specific area that they found needed improving.
And the results of all this training was shown yesterday, where Euphie had managed to create a small pink glow within her paws, but it failed to manifest any further. Still, that was an excellent sign, and he hoped that Euphie could develop even further.
And so, today, both he and Elm once again simply stood a small distance away as they idly watched Euphie frolicking around the field with the other Clefairy. Every once in a while, the group would stop to show off a move or two, before they dashed off once again. This pattern would constantly repeat itself for quite some time, the Pokémon seemingly having infinite energy to play around with.
However, after this pattern repeated itself a few times, something interesting began to occur. In one of their ‘breaks’ to show off their moves, this time ALL of the Clefairy decided to form a small orb of Fairy energy in their little pudgy hands. 5 small pink balls began to surround the lone Euphie, who also had her eyes shut, hard in concentration. Oak took a step forward to have a better view of what was going on.
“Clef! Fairy!” One of the Clefairy’s cheered as she waved her hands above her head. The others quickly joined in, forming a circle around Euphie as they waved their fairy-infused hands around in the air.
Euphie’s eyes remained shut in concentration, and a very faint pink aura managed to shimmer around her small form for a brief moment before it quickly faded away. Euphie drooped in disappointment as her recent attempt seemed to have resulted in failure.
“Clef! Clef! Clefairy!” Unwilling to allow Euphie to simply give up, another Clefairy let out an enthusiastic cheer before it suddenly threw the small orb of pink Fairy energy that it was holding straight towards Euphie.
“Eevee!?!” Euphie cried out in surprise from the attack. However, the sudden influx of Fairy energy seemed to have broken whatever barrier that held Euphie back, and suddenly her entire form was surrounded with a faint, but noticeable, glowing pink aura.
“Eevee!? Eevee! Eevee! Eevee!” She exclaimed with astonishment as she was suddenly filled with an unfamiliar sensation. Before the sensation disappeared, she shut her eyes once again as she tried to focus on the sudden burst of energy. With immense concentration, a small, yet distinct, pink orb slowly coalesced in front of her, hovering slightly in the air.
Just then, the pink aura surrounding her grew even brighter, as she continued to channel more and more fairy energy into that pink orb. Until suddenly, the pink aura emanating from her transformed into a harsh white light that quickly grew blindingly bright, covering up her form entirely.
At this point, Oak had broken out into a small sprint as he wanted to witness what was about to happen first hand, with Elm following right behind him. Was this finally it? Was their hypothesis about to be proven right? What kind of Pokémon would this Eevelution be like? He assumed it was going to be pink, but what would it actually look like?
His answers couldn’t come soon enough as the blinding white light of the evolution faded, revealing Euphie in all her magnificent glory. Just like Oak had expected, her form was a bright mix of pink and white, and there seemed to be many feelers attached to her form that swayed in the wind like ribbons.
“…We did it.” Elm’s breathless voice came out, and he couldn’t help but agree. The form that stood in front of them was utterly remarkable. Elegant, yet cute. It was practically the perfect representation of the Fairy type.
“Sylv! Sylveon!” She sang out excitedly, as she straightened herself as if to bask in the attention of her new form. The other Clefairy quickly surrounded her, eager to inspect and explore her new evolution.
Oak allowed them a few moments to enjoy themselves before he unfortunately had to intervene. There were so many tests that he wanted to run. A new evolution, especially with an Eevee, was always extremely exciting, and he was having trouble holding himself together as is.
Fortunately, despite her obvious desire to continue playing around, Euphie remained obedient and, slightly reluctantly, allowed Oak to return her to Pokéball so that she could be brought back into the lab discreetly. Having a new, undiscovered, Pokémon simply walking around his lab was a recipe for disaster.
He shared a giddy look with Elm before they quickly headed back to his lab, both equally eager to run tests on their new evolution. The trainer side of him wondered how strong his new evolution was compared to the other eevelutions. Many of the eeveelutions were all coveted Pokémon for their strengths, so he hoped that this one would be no different.
Before he forgot, though, he made sure to fire off a message to all the other members of their little group to inform them of the good news. He was sure that some of them would be quick to visit them as soon as they read his message.
And what a surprise they’d be in for. And he was particularly excited to see the look on John’s face when he got back.
A.N. A slower chapter this time, but I wanted to provide a different insight to what happened behind the scenes in Hoenn politically. I also wanted to give a more detailed reason into why the rest of the Hoenn E4 didn’t get involved. I hope you found that interesting!
And yes, Sylveon is here! And with that, the Fairy type will be revealed to the public very soon.
This chapter has been BETAed by Allute! Cheers!
Comments
Bored Peasant
Interesting take on the politics of the different regions. In the genes you don't really notice it until galar or maybe when Steven is champion. Then with alola it is more noticeable. But it's a good take. And we have Sylveon! Looking forward to the public reveal.
Cerber
I wonder how much she misses John now? Will she have the heart to leave his side after meeting up again or will possibly leave? There has been some few different takes on Sylveons evolution
