The New Normal - 19-7

A.N. Sorry for the delay. I'm still sick, and that means writing is slower going.

The New Normal – 19-7 – The Festival of Masks

Time flew by as the planning of the Kitakami Festival was underway. And for once, I was thankful for the down time, as I had definitely had enough fill of excitement. I was just happy to spend most of my time training up my Pokémon, and/or helping Ash and Gary (my new students) to train up as well.

Ash had actually visited Sinnoh during this time, escorted by Delia. It was his first time doing so, so I gave him a quick tour around the region. I mostly focused on showing him around the main cities, and introduced him to all of the Gyms that we had, as that was what was most interesting for him.

And as expected, practically all of his questions revolved around whether a certain Gym was stronger than a certain Gym back at Indigo.

Honestly, it was a pretty interesting question to think about. Besides a few Gyms that I was more familiar with, I hadn’t really thought about whether the Sinnoh Gyms as a whole were on average stronger than the Gyms back in Kanto. Assuming you excluded any Gyms that were run by former Elite Four or Champions, since that would be unfair.

So, on the one hand, Sinnoh had Volkner – the strongest Gym Leader in the world. Not even the likes of Clay, Giovanni, or Clair were seen to be stronger than him. That wasn’t to say they couldn’t win against him, and Clay and Giovanni especially had a big Type advantage over him, but on average they saw Volkner as being a more powerful Gym Leader than those three.

But on the other hand, the earlier Gym Leaders of Kanto were definitely stronger than their Sinnoh counterparts. For example, I was completely certain that Brock, the Waterflower sisters, and Surge were stronger than Roark, Gardenia, and Maylene respectively.

Therefore, it was just the middle of the pack that was a little harder to judge. Between Crasher Wake, Fantina, Byron, and Candice for Sinnoh, against Erika, Janine, Samson, and Dorothy for Kanto – it was really hard to tell who was stronger overall.

Personally, and this was the answer I gave Ash, I would say that the Sinnoh contingent was stronger on average. Or in other words, their strength was more consistent.

The Kanto Gym Leaders, especially Janine and Dorothy, often relied on tricks and deceit to secure an advantage against an opponents. But if they failed to do so, then their Pokémon were typically not as strong as opponents of the same calibre. However, the Sinnoh Gym Leaders were more straightforward with their strength – they were just stronger than you and used less fancy tricks overall (besides Fantina).

It was then that I had a small realisation. The Kanto Gym Leaders, more often than not, were more tricky and deceitful than their Sinnoh counterparts. Among them, Brock, Erika, Janine, Samson, and Dorothy all fought in non-traditional manners. But among the Sinnoh group, only Fantina could say the same.

When I said as much to Ash, he looked pretty enlightened by that answer.

“So different fighting styles might fare better in different regions?” He asked.

“Of course.” I replied, “And that’s a thing you’re going to have to come to accept as you grow as a trainer. Sometimes, to no fault of your own, you’re just going to be at a disadvantage because of your choice of Pokémon. There’s nothing you can do about it. Even as a generalist, you will one day have to fight an opponent that you won’t match up well against. All you can do in that scenario is to suck it up and take extra time to plan out the battle.”

“Planning wins fights.” He nodded, repeating the mantra I had done my best to instil in him over the course of our training sessions.

It was the one big thing that I wanted to drill into his head. A lot of times, the battle was won or lost in the first instance of the fight, when you choose which Pokémon you send out – as demonstrated in so many of my previous battles. Obviously, he knew that intellectually, but knowing that you needed to prepare and getting into the habit of actually doing so were two different things entirely. That’s why I wanted to make sure that Ash would get into that habit as early as possible, and I was also teaching him how to take good notes and how to keep them organised.

Honestly, I felt like an academic tutor at times. But it was fun, and I couldn’t deny being happy when I saw Ash’s progress.

I also came to learn that while Ash was not the smartest tool in the shed (he wasn’t dumb, but he wasn’t the type that liked to study), he was extremely passionate about Pokémon battling. So as long as I couched any lessons as being related to becoming a better trainer, he would take to it like a Psyduck to water.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one training up a new student. Cynthia had hinted to me that she was interested in finding a student for herself, as she had been inspired by my own efforts, and she had recently found someone that caught her eye.

She didn’t tell me who it was, no matter how much I tried to pry it out of her.

Oh well, I’ll probably find out later. I just knew that, whoever it was, they couldn’t be just some ordinary talent. If they managed to catch her eye, they must be someone that would definitely grow into a very powerful trainer in the future.

I looked forward to finding out who that was.

However, it wasn’t just my personal life that had their own developments, as the world continued to spin as time went on.

On the scientific front, another Mega Stone had been found after both the Absolite and Glalilite – the Gardevoirite. Much like the other Mega Stones that had been found recently, this stone hadn’t been found by some prominent Psychic specialist like Samson or Will, but rather just some random trainer that accidentally stumbled across it while they were submitting random stones that they had picked up to the League.

In this case, the Gardevoirite had been found in Verdanturf. And the trainer that found it, a woman named Sherrel, had been skyrocketed to fame overnight.

It was just completely tragic that she wasn’t even a trainer to begin with. She literally only had her starter Pokémon – one that just helped her out with the household chores and was more of a ‘pet’ than teammate. So because of that, she didn’t have any use for the Gardevoirite.

And as she had no family members to really pass this on to, she made the decision to sell the Gardevoirite. It was the first time anyone had placed a Mega Stone on the open market like that, and one of the bigger auction houses in Hoenn freely offered their services to host the auction for the first-ever Mega Stone to be put on sale.

Obviously, such a sale immediately became front page news on basically every newspaper and article, with many expressing their interest to become a potential buyer – even though the starting price for the Mega Stone was enough to buy an entire house outright. And that was just the starting price – the final bid price was likely going to be multiple times higher than that.

People got even more excited when Steven announced that he wouldn’t be participating in the auction, since that meant that the others had more of a chance to win.

Cynthia did off-handedly ask during dinner one day if I had any interest in participating in the auction, to which I said:

“Absolutely not.” I shook my head, “I’ve better things to do then throw away money like that. Besides, no matter how well-off I am now, that’s still way out of my price range. Why? Were you considering participating?”

“No, I was just curious about what your thoughts were on this. I’m already satisfied with the Garchompite, so I don’t need another Mega Stone.” She explained, “Especially not one for a Pokémon I don’t have.”

“…Although, aren’t you friends with other Psychic specialists like Samson and Will?” She continued, “Did they say they would participate? I know Lucian’s going to be participating remotely, but only to scout out the competition. He doesn’t realistically think he can get his hands on it.”

“Samson’s not bothering with it at all.” I replied, “But I think Will’s in the same boat as Lucian. He’s definitely interested in it, but I doubt he could match some of the wealthier bidders.”

Will was wealthy. However, while he styled himself as a businessman, he didn’t actually own any businesses himself. Instead, most of that wealth came from his connections to other wealthy individuals who WERE actually running their own businesses – people like Steven Stone. So in reality, there was a big gap in wealth between himself and those other businessmen. Meaning that he wouldn’t realistically be able to afford the Mega Stone.

Speaking of Pokémon though, the developments with the Mega Stone were far from the only thing that had happened, as Cynthia had recently acquired two more Pokémon for herself.

She had gotten herself a Gothita and a Darumaka.

It was following one of our discussions that we had as we watched TV together. She said that with her Kleavor becoming strong enough to enter her main team, she needed more Pokémon to train up. And she was especially interested in training up Pokémon from Unova, as she had yet to do so.

Therefore, after discussing it over with me, she decided to get two Pokémon that would fill in the current gaps in her team, as she lacked both a Psychic and Fire type.

There was actually a little bit of debate over which Psychic type from Unova she wanted to get. She had some difficulty deciding between Gothitelle and Reuniclus, as they were both very similar Pokémon. They were both defensively inclined Psychic types with a large arsenal of support moves, but while Reuniclus was much better in Trick Room and had Magic Guard, I insisted that Gothitelle would be the better choice.

This was purely because of its Shadow Tag ability combined with Gothitelle’s ability to learn Mirror Coat, Taunt, Torment, and Hypnosis.

This combination of moves were incredibly deadly and extremely difficult to fight around. Shadow Tag meant that the moment Gothitelle entered the battle, any non-Ghost type would instantly be forced to stay in and fight. When that happened, if that Pokémon was a Special Attacker, then they would have their attacks countered and reflected back into them thanks to Mirror Coat. And they would be ‘encouraged’ to attack thanks to moves like Taunt and Torment.

Alternatively, if the opposing Pokémon refused to attack, then they could be put to sleep with a Hyponsis. This would allow Gothitelle to begin setting up with Nasty Plots. Or in 2v2 battles, then Gothitelle could be an extreme nuisance by not only making use of the aforementioned moves, but it could also severely disrupt opponents with Skill Swap or Ally Switch.

Basically, I had convinced Cynthia to choose Gothitelle because it was more versatile and was an incredibly powerful support Pokémon that she desperately needed, which would give her a Pokémon that would finally open up some more options for her in battle when it came to enabling her other battlers in a fight. Or, it could serve as a trap card for very specific opponents.

The other Pokémon she had gotten was her new Darumaka, where she was trying to train it up so that it could master the ability Zen Mode and switch forms mid-battle. If it could master that, that would allow it to switch forms and become a Physical/Special Attacker at will, allowing it to fight with two completely different fighting styles.

Honestly, it was pretty ambitious of her, and I doubted that it would be easy. Usually, once a Darmanitan was injured enough, it would automatically switch forms and would stay in its Zen Form until the end of the battle. This would transform Darmanitan from a relatively speedy and incredibly hard-hitting physical attacker to a slow, but bulky and equally as hard-hitting Special Attacker.

Right now, this was a pretty difficult to utilise niche, which was why Darmanitan were not really seen at higher levels of fighting. And if they were, they mostly ran their other ability – Sheer Force – since that was more straight forward and easier to make use of. Its Zen Mode ability was actually seen more as a liability than as an aid, since switching forms once it was injured was crippling in a close-range fight, which a Darmanitan often found itself involved in.

However, I knew that with Cynthia, things could be different. I knew that if there was anyone that could show off the effectiveness and power of the Zen Mode ability, it would be her.

Because who else could it be?

So, naturally, I had full faith in her to be able to accomplish this, and I said as much to her. And once she did, her Darmanitan would easily be one of the most powerful Pokémon in her roster thanks to its incredible offensive power, both physically and specially.

Especially since Darmanitan also had access to a decent range of support moves too like Taunt, Encore, and Yawn, while also having great setup moves like Belly Drum and Work Up. In other words, a properly trained Darmanitan under Cynthia would definitely prove to be a very versatile threat.

Seeing her begin to train up her own Pokémon had me pumped to do the same with Sona and Tails. Obviously, I still trained with them regularly, just like I do with my other Pokémon, but now that they had ‘rivals’ of their own, I wanted to make sure that they would surpass Cynthia’s new Pokémon.

And I knew she felt the same way. We were both competitive like that.

Therefore, with Tails especially, I wanted her to get ready for her impending evolution. Right now, she was still a Minccino. But with all of the training that she had gone through, she was more than ready to evolve into a Cinccino, it was just a matter of when.

She had already mastered all of the fundamentals that I had taught her. Not only had she gotten good at making use of support moves like Helping Hand, Encore, Charm, Sing, Mud Slap, and Thunder Wave, she had also became sufficiently proficient at making use of multi-hit moves like Tail Slap and Bullet Seed.

Currently, we were in the process of training up Baton Pass and Triple Axel. And Tails and I verbally agreed that she would evolve once she had mastered those moves.

Unlike Winston, she cared not about when she evolved. She was not as prideful, and was just happy to contribute and get stronger.

Nevertheless, with all of that out of the way, it was time for the main event. The Festival of Masks was finally underway, and as one of the guests of honour, it was time for Cynthia and I to make a trip to Kitakami to view the festivities for ourselves.

So we flew over on our respective mounts before landing in a designated arrival spot that was just a small distance away from Mossui Town. And I immediately noticed just how much had changed with Kitakami in preparation for this event.

Before, Mossui Town looked a little rundown and empty. Even though it was the only village in Kitakami, it had always looked quite barren and hardly lived in.

That was all different now. While Mossui Town itself didn’t really get a makeover, the surroundings definitely did. A large swathe of land had been transformed into a sea of shops and stalls, all of them selling all kinds of different knick-knacks or foods. The smoke from the many kitchens wafted into the air, scenting the air with the smells of grilled delicacies.

Meanwhile, the sounds of Pokémon and trainers from all walks of life, many of them wearing very recognisable masks on their face, resonated throughout the entire place. It was noisy and chaotic, but in a good way. Like a festival should be.

There were two people waiting for us as we arrived, “Champion Cynthia. Protector John. Thank you for making your way here.”

“We should be the ones to say that.” Cynthia replied, “I know how hard you’ve all worked to making the Festival a success. We’re honoured to be able to see it through with everyone else.”

“We appreciate your words, and for the opportunity you have granted us.” One of them replied formally, “We have other events scheduled for later that we cordially invite you to participate in, but for now, please enjoy the atmosphere.”

“Thank you, we will.” I said, and we did just that, since it had been quite some time since we had last gone on a date together.

One of the first things we did was to buy a mask, because we definitely weren’t going to be walking around this festival while undisguised. I bought two pairs of Teal Masks for myself and Cynthia, as I wasn’t comfortable wearing the masks for the Loyal Trio, since I knew the truth of their actions.

We allowed ourselves to enjoy the festivities of the moment, blending into the crowd with our arms linked together as if we were one of the many hundreds of couples that had come to this Festival. We currently were not the leaders of Sinnoh, just two couples spending time together just like everyone else.

“Feels like its been so long since we went out like this.” She muttered to me as she leaned against my shoulder, “Normally our dates just consist of dinners together.”

“…I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll try to organise more things we can do as a couple.” I replied.

“No, it’s not your fault. We’re both busy. Besides, the dinners themselves are something I always look forward to.” She said, “But it’s nice to be able to walk around like this with you, with nothing to worry about but each other.”

I gently squeezed her hand, “Same.”

We continued walking about like that, just taking in the sights for a moment, before Cynthia suddenly pointed towards one of the stalls, “Hey John, remember when we went fishing in Ecruteak?”

I chuckled, “Yeah, and we were both horrible at it. Why? Do you want to try it again?”

She nodded, “Surely we couldn’t be any worse than before. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

I gave her a strange look, “And tell me how does fighting against two Legendaries make us better at fishing…? I’m pretty sure there aren’t any transferrable skills there, unless you want me to ask Regigigas to help out with the fishing. Though I’m pretty sure it’d suck too.” I chuckled, “Just imagine the Legendary Titan trying to hold a comically small fishing rod in its hands. It’d look so ridiculous.”

She snorted, “…Now that’s a cursed image. But enough stalling, let’s go now while there’s still no line.”

So that’s what we did. We paid the money, got a few Old Rods, and began to do some fishing. And even with the fixed conditions that we were in, we still sucked.

We were terrible at putting the bait on the hook, and we were equally terrible at throwing the Rod into the water. So while we did catch a few things, our performance was as lacklustre as we expected.

Fishing up Pokémon was a serious test of your own strength. The Fishing Rods you got helped a little bit, but even when fishing up ‘weak’ Pokémon like Magikarp, Finneon, or Mantyke, those Pokémon could really pull hard.

That being said, I did suspect that this fishing game was a lot harder than what you would see in the stalls back on the mainland. For one, we were fishing actual wild Pokémon – Pokémon that, until recently, had been fighting for their lives in the natural laws of the jungle. Therefore, they were much stronger and fiercer than the mostly domesticated Pokémon back at home.

To make matters worse, Drake ended up showing up as he was patrolling the event. He immediately realised who we were, though he didn’t expose us, but I was pretty sure he winced and cringed every time we tried throwing the rod into the water. So that was embarrassing.

After that, both Cynthia and I vowed that if there was any fishing-related events in the future, whether official or otherwise, we would sit out of it in order to preserve our reputations.

“I still caught more than you though.” She teased as she stuck out her tongue.

“Okay, that’s a load of crap. Your side of the pond had way more things to catch than mine did!” I pointe out, “You had a way easier time than me.”

She giggled, “Aww… is someone mad that they lost? It’s not like you to be a sore loser.”

“I’ll see if you can stay so smug after you lose the next one.” I replied, before pointing at another stall, “We’re doing that one.”

She turned to see what I was pointing at, before rolling her eyes once she did, “…Really? Poffin making. That’s what you want to be doing? You do realise that I’m the better cook between us.”

“Yeah right, you and I hardly cook at all. Since when was the last time either of us actually made use of our kitchen to actually cook something?” I asked rhetorically, “You and I live entirely off of takeout.”

“…We should probably stop eating so much of that.” She muttered.

“True. But unless you want to start doing meal prep, we’re out of options.” I pointed out.

“I mean, we could. We generally have more free time over the weekends. Want to make that a thing to do together?” She asked.

“Sure.” I smiled, then it turned competitive, “But enough of that. I’m going to win this one.”

She scoffed, “You wish.”

The activity was actually berry-picking AND poffin-making at the same time, and you were expected to play with your Pokémon. For the berry-picking, instead of doing it all by yourself, you had your partner Pokémon to assist you in collecting all of the berries. Then once that was done, you could make use of a few of the berries to make your own poffins, which of course you could share with said Pokémon.

It was a pretty simple game, and the only goal was to set the best time. But it had been a long time since we played around with our Pokémon like this in public, so Cynthia and I sent our weaker Pokémon (as sending out anything greater than that would be complete overkill) with her new Gothita and my Tails that we played around with.

Fortunately, our Pokémon were common enough that no one recognised us from their presence.

In the end, I ended up picking more berries than Cynthia, as I was a bit more athletic than she was, but I ended up fucking up the poffin-making process and mine came out slightly burned.

So even though I had more ingredients to work with, since I fucked up my poffin, she ended up winning again.

She definitely rubbed that victory in.

After that failure (on my end), we decided to take a quick rest as we went to get some drinks and find a place to sit down. We still had a little bit of time before the main events started, which we would need to be there in person, and so we decided to take a little breather to regain some of our energy.

But as we both were browsing our phones, an amused snort came out of Cynthia.

“Something funny?” I asked her.

“Something like that.” She replied amusedly, “Just got a text from a… former acquaintance of mine. I honestly didn’t think he would be reaching out to me again.”

“Who? And what about?” I asked.

“His name’s Darach. I’m not sure if you remember him – he’s one of the candidates I had in mind to become a Frontier Brain, but he declined the position due to him having prior commitments. He said he wanted to fulfil his dreams of becoming a butler, so I respected that choice and sent him on his way.” She explained, and I nodded to showed that I remembered, “But, coincidentally, he’s apparently here at the Festival with his new charge. He told me that his charge had found out too and wanted to meet me, and asked if that would be okay.”

“Sure, I don’t have a problem with that if you don’t.” I replied. I greatly suspected that his ‘charge’ was someone that I was very familiar with – Caitlin, though I obviously didn’t say that out loud, “Did he say why?”

“No clue.” She shrugged, “But he’s waiting for us near one of the stalls near where we landed. So let’s go see what they want.”

And so we did just that. Honestly, I was pretty excited about this.

If the person we were about to meet really was Caitlin, then I was really interested in speaking with her and getting to know more about her. As we walked, the political side of my brain was running a mile a minute as I prepared what to say to her.

Caitlin was someone who had the potential to become a member of the Unova Elite Four. She wasn’t one yet, but considering that she made it there in canon and kept that position, it was definitely only a matter of time before she made it in.

And the ambitious part of myself wanted to make sure she viewed us favourably before that. After all, influence was always important to have.

A.N. A slower catch-up chapter this time around as we go through a quick timeskip. The Festival will be the main event for the next few chapters, but I didn’t want to rush into it without describing the things that had happened in the background. I hope you enjoyed the new Pokémon choices that I selected for Cynthia; I only felt that it made sense for her and I tried to pick out Pokémon that were more ‘unique’ than the rest. And I also wanted this chapter to serve as another mini ‘date’ chapter between John and Cynthia, since its been some since the last one. So this chapter was a bit more slice-of-life than usual.

And yes, I am about to have John meet Caitlin. And as John has already described in-chapter, he has his own plans for her already. Hope you enjoyed!