Interlude 1

Faller Four: The Eevees Enter

Original Poster: VaporeonLiker3

I suppose we should start by laying out the facts. Six weeks ago, the high priest of Hoopa and the Space-Time bureau reported the arrival of no less than five fallers on the same day, at three different (undisclosed) locations. Normally, this would result in local chaos (I think we all recall the ‘54 man who stole a master ball and attempted to catch Johto’s Lady Suicune) but after three weeks of no explosions, stupid thefts, or known rampages with unknown causes, everyone got the idea that this batch wasn’t going to cause problems.

It was only at this point that reports came in that Aurea Juniper, one of the foremost professors of the Unova region, had adopted two girls out of the blue. It didn’t take long before someone figured out both girls had no history, and newly issued trainer cards. Two and two make four.

A little more digging (in public records; no one’s getting past the Unovan Porygon Union) revealed that the girls were sisters, Sakura and Rin. They seemed content to learn more about the world before running off on their journey, but both were noted to be accompanied by Eevee, though one evolved into an Espeon soon after this information was revealed. Two fallers and two Eevees led people to a wards application for two more kids, this time in the storied Sinnoh region. Shirou and Illya already had an indirect media presence in the town of Celestic, where Shirou was known as the Auric Handyman. Apparently, the kid has been Lucario-vetted; a very good sign.

One week ago, all four kids took off on their journeys, and hit their first gyms with teams of two pokemon each. So far, Rin Toshaka has an Espeon and a Litwick, Sakura has an Umbreon and a Snivy, Illya has a Sylveon and a Snorunt (since evolved into a Froslass), while Shirou has a Riolu and a previously unknown Eeveelution, now dubbed Wyrmeon.

All four demonstrated considerable skill and flexibility in their first gym battles. Rin and Sakura fought Dark gym leader Henderson (videos here and here) while Shirou and Illya battled Rock gym leader Roark (here and here).

It seems to be a good year for newbie trainers across the world. Kanto’s Samuel Oak’s grandson, Gary Oak, has already swept two gyms only one month into the circuit. His rival, Satoshi ‘Ash’ Ketchum, defeated Brock of Pewter at an absolute type disadvantage, in addition to receiving several commendations for thwarting organized crime incidents (their threads are here and here). Other names which already have more traveled pages include Brendan Birch, Wally Verdant, Alain Grenadier, Ayumi Sakudo and Leon Dande; all of these new trainers have made significant impacts in the regions they’re journeying through. Add in four new fallers, and this looks like it’s going to be a great year for Pokemon fans.

Edit: no word yet on the fifth and solo faller yet. I’ve heard a few rumors that an unknown man was sighted in Kalos, but there’s no public records spotted, and he’s not shown up on any gym circuits.

Edit2: And now we know where the fifth one is. He has his own thread here, and he’s apparently Illya and Shirou’s dad. Though that’s not the big thing people know about him…

“Hmm, those four will be trainers to watch for,” a young dark-magenta-haired girl with waist-length hair remarked to herself as she paged through Sufficient Battling on her Rotom Phone, the official Pokemon League forum utilized by everyone from fans to professional trainers. Pausing, she opened a video showing one of the gym battles that had taken place in Roark’s Gym. “Especially the one with the Wyrmeon. Not often we see a new eeveelution, right Mana?”

“No need to be patronizingly smug because you and I discovered the normal type evolution, Misora,” the Eeveelution that the now named Misora was snarking at answered in fluent Almian. “Just because we discovered it doesn’t mean we have a monopoly of understanding on my pre-evolution’s evolutions. We’ve talked about this, partner.”

“Blah blah blah ego, blah blah blah size of the sun,” Misora grumbled, blowing a raspberry at her starter and partner. “But it is rather interesting that four fallers appeared at the same time, especially with Mystery Gifts like you, Mana,” the ACE trainer continued, a thoughtful look on her face. It was, after all, rather uncommon for that many mystery gifts to show up in the hands of fallers. Those jackasses tended to never get one in their whole lives.

The Primeon shrugged, lazily flicking her tail against her trainer’s foot. “Eevee and Pikachu are the most common mystery gifts, dumbass,” she chided with exasperated fondness, completely missing her trainer’s point. “It’s not that odd, especially with how active the Legends have been getting lately,” Mana remarked with considerably less amusement, a note of somberness entering the air surrounding the pair.

After all, just last week, a small settlement had been wiped off the face of the Earth by a royally pissed off Galarian Moltress in the Crown Tundra. That the settlement had been primarily composed of smugglers was a cold comfort to the sheer amount of lost life, largely among the innocents they’d kept in cages.

Misora pursed her lips as she nodded, returning her attention to the forum in an effort to put the scene out of her mind. Thankfully, the thread was exploding. Something that almost always happened during the beginning of the season.

QueenofKalos<3

Typical. Only showing Gym Battles. God, can’t we get some Contests in here?

Writer_of_Bad_Fiction

@QueenofKalos<3, you do realize this is the battling circuit section of the forum, right? The coordinator circuit section can be found here. They should have posted this year’s ‘rookies to keep an eye on’ already. Go take a look!

Machop_Stronk

Huh, kid with a Pikachu won against an Onyx. With an… Electric Attack? HOLD UP! I CALL BULLSHIT

QueenofKalos<3

Huh, @Writer_of_Bad_Fiction completely missed me trying to stir shit. Damn, now how am I supposed to entertain myself?

KirliaGurl

@QueenofKalos<3 You know the mods get bitchy when you do that. Stop it. Go home. Get some help.

Mana’s amused snort jarred Misora out of her reading momentarily, the Primeon somehow having managed to climb her way up onto her shoulders without her noticing.

“Oi-” Was as far as the ACE trainer got before a rather furry appendage was placed over her mouth.

“Shhhh, my dear trainer. I’m amusing myself,” Mana stated rather smugly, removing her tail before Misora inevitably got it wet with her saliva. Just in time too, her trainer’s tongue was visibly out of her mouth just as the furry appendage was flicked away. “And I told you not to lick my tail. It’s weird.”

“And I told you-” And once more, the tail was back over her beloved trainer’s mouth. Practically vibrating in amusement, the Eeveelution was unfortunately too late to notice her trainer grabbing her and yeeting her off her shoulder. Yowling in discontentment, Mana leveled a baleful glare towards the smug human as she landed, spitefully managing to land gracefully despite sudden thrown.

“Bitch.” She muttered mulishly in her native language.

“I can understand you, whore!” Misora snarked back, before returning her attention to her phone, grumbling only a bit as Mana made her way back around her neck, the Primeon’s chin resting against her right shoulder blade as she attentively kept her eyes on the Rotom Phone.

QueenofKalos<3

@KirliaGurl did you just tell me to stop spreading the glory of Contests in the Battling Circuit Sub-Forum in meme format! How dare you!

KirliaGurl

@Machop_Stronk Yes. The kid won against an Onyx with a Pikachu using an Electric Type attack. After the Onyx was hit by the environmental equivalent of Soak. Try to keep up.

Writer_of_Bad_Fiction

@KirliaGurl @QueenofKalos<3, please take this argument elsewhere. Queen, you’re just fishing for fights now, and that’s not something this forum needs.

FlareonBurnstheHottest

Dammit, another new Eeveelution? I love me some new fluff, but every time my best boi drops even further down the list of best eevee. Can’t we get a bug type, or maybe a Normal eevee? Those have to be worse…

Mana didn’t even get a chance to furiously hiss before her trainer was trying away at her phone’s keyboard, spitting furiously as she muttered under her breath, “Punk thinks Primeon is bad huh? Punk thinks normal types are shit huh?! Imma make this little shit rue the day they were born!”

MisoraOfficial (Verified ACE Trainer)

EXCUSE ME!? Did @FlareonBurnstheHottest call the Normal Type Eeveelution I discovered worse than Flareon?! I’ll have you know that Primeon has all the versatility of a normal type along with STAB-Adaptability-Extremespeed, you punk! Don’t you call my Mana worse than Flareon, who are fighting at a disadvantage cause no one’s managed to make a actually good Fire Type physical move that isn’t Flare Blitz yet!

On a completely unrelated note, props to the Emiya kid for discovering Wyrmeon. Eeveelutions tend to be tricky, as I can attest. We’re pretty sure Primeon isn’t a Pure Bond Evolution, nor is it a Stone Evo given that all of them have been tested uh, rather extensively. We’re currently thinking it has something to do with a mix of bond and environmental conditions, thought hell if we know.

FlareonBurnstheHottest

No supereffective STAB, can’t hit Ghost with STAB, no resistances… yeah, pure normal has some serious flaws. Fire is just outright better, though I’ll give you that the lack of good fire physical moves hurts. We’re working on it, but so far Meteor impact hasn’t worked out as we hoped.

We’ll do it! But it’s not ready yet.

JolteonisBesteon
I just came over to see what fbth was doin but now im interested

new eeveelution looks cool

give up fbth, flareon is never going to be cool

VaporeonLiker3 (Original Poster)

Bros, please don’t come and pollute my thread…

GaeSylveon

Oh wow there’s a lot of familiar names from the Eeveelution Subforum in here. @VaporeonLiker3 are you still in denial about loving Vaporeon? After all, it is the most compatible for human-pokemon relations~. Now to stay on topic so the mods don’t nuke me from orbit, it’s always nice seeing fallers that aren’t unironic morons who people wonder if they were dropped on their head as an infant. God, I can still remember that moron a few years back who tried to use a friggen Hypno to catch one of the Legendary Birds over here in Kanto. Mew that was a mess. The fact that these fallers are actually respecting our traditions is always a good sign.

SageLeafeon

Oh dear, is that a Flying Eevee? No, Dragon. How the hell do you evolve one of those?

Seriously, do we know any details about that?

AuraGardian

Forget the Eevee, the boy has a Riolu! That’s amazing! Shit, did he even ask for one, or did one go to him? That’s huge!

WeLoveTape

I’m more wondering about the Rin girl’s outfit. Seriously, did she mean to dress up like a Mismagius, or was that just an accident?

Also, WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

WitchyBusiness

@SageLeafeon No, we do not know how Emiya-san managed to evolve his Eevee into a Wyrmeon. He claims that a Time-Space Distortion was involved, which is corroborated by Eiznbern-Emiya-san and Champion Cynthia, and given that said Wyrmeon is already considered odd by everyone close to them, we will likely not know in the near future.

As for the outfit, I will neither confirm nor deny that it was intentional. After all, I’m sure all of you can come to your own conclusions given my User Name. I am rather amused to see that Sufficient Battling, as per usual, cannot stay on topic to save their lives.

AuraGardian

@WitchyBuisness Can you at least confirm you are Rin Toshaka? And if so, do you know how Shirou got his Eevee?

My_Espeon_is_a_King

Hey, it’s one of the subjects! How is it to have an Espeon as a partner??

WitchyBusiness

@AuraGardian

[A Selfie of Rin is present here. She is looking at the Camera in an utter deadpan]

All of the four fallers that have an Eevee received them the moment they awoke. As far as we are aware, they are mystery gifts.

@My_Espeon_is_a_King

Agate is a gem, and her intelligence is a sight to behold. I’m not only certain she’s smarter than everyone around her, I am also certain she is remarkably kind, and cares for everyone around her.

I also do not doubt that she would end someone for daring to hurt those she cares about, but given my research into the Friendship Trio of the Eeveelutions, that is a fairly normal takeaway.

MisoraOfficial

She’s on your shoulder, isn’t she?

WitchyBusiness

Yes, yes she is. You too?

MisoraOfficial

Mana is indeed judging me right now, yes. And laughing like a Chatot. The gremlin.

QueenofKalos<3

All three of you girls have such pretty Eeveelutions. Any plans to hit the contest circuit?

MIsoraOfficial (Verified ACE Trainer)

I’m a veteran trainer of five years, QueenofKalos. Bold of you to assume I haven’t. You can probably find some footage of my appeals and few contest wins in my dedicated thread, along with a few of the ‘rookies to keep an eye on’, where they keep mistaking me for a new coordinator. I can safely say it’s not for me, not at the level I invest into the battling circuit, but I do occasionally coordinate to keep that thinking outside the box.

QueenofKalos<3

Was asking Witchy and her friends, Misora. Don’t make everything about you.

KirliaGurl

Oh, that’s rich. Still, I am also curious, @WitchyBuisness

WitchyBusiness

I’m a little too busy to go joining contests in any serious capacity, and I refuse to do anything at less than my best. Sakura might, though one of her pokemon is opposed, so it depends on any future recruits she picks up. Illya doesn’t seem to have any contest aspirations, but I don’t speak nearly as often with her as I do with my sister.

WallaceOfficial (Verified Gym Leader) (Hoenn League) (Verified Grand Coordinator)

Dabbling is actually something that is universally advised against for 1st year trainers, @WitchyBuisness. For a trainer’s first year, they should be focused on the circuit they are competing in, be it Gyms, Contests, Showcases, or just the Journey for the sake of it. Once you accumulate accolades, fame, and sponsors, you should most certainly dabble so you don’t stagnate. As @MisoraOfficial has stated, most battling trainers tend to dabble in contests or showcases, largely to develop outside the box thinking. Speaking of, Ms. Misora, are you still committed to this being an off year?

MisoraOfficial (Verified ACE Trainer)

@WallaceOfficial Yeah, I hashed things out with my sponsors, so I’m committed to this year being spent relaxing or handling League Jobs. I needed it after my Elite Four gauntlet last year. I’m burnt out. Word of advice kids? Don’t push so hard that just the thought of battling makes you ill. It’s not fun, realizing that something you enjoy doing is something you can’t enjoy doing due to burnout.

“God, I hate Wikstrom’s Aegislash,” Mana growled, eyes flashing in annoyance. Misora nodded along sympathetically, patting the poor floof around her neck pityingly, memories of their climactic loss against Wikstrom flashing before her eyes as well.

“There, there, Mana. At least we utterly stomped Seibold and managed a win against Gurkinn,” the veteran trainer soothed, scratching her Primeon between her ears. “And hey, it was a narrow loss. Next year, when we take on another circuit, we’ll definitely make it to the Champion, though I’m not sure which region we’ll do a run through yet.”

“Bah, stupid freaking Sword-Ghost thingie,” the irritated normal type grumbled, before snickering as she returned her attention to the phone still held in her trainer’s hands, “Hey, Misora, drama!”

Rolling her eyes fondly, the ACE Trainer returned her attention to her rotom phone, raising her eyebrows at the new posts.

WitchyBusiness

Thank you for the advice, Mr. Wallace. I believe we all have side projects as well as the League Challenge, myself with my research, Illya with the Warden’s Journey, and Shirou with his training. We’re also working local side jobs to fund our travels.

White_Fairy_Queen

@WitchyBuiness Toshaka, stop talking about us behind our backs. Also, this site is really cool, going to need to spend more time here.

@GaeSylveon any advice on how to teach my girl how to keep track of all of the battlefield at once? She tends to monofocus, and that’s dangerous. Is that a Sylveon thing, or just Matlida?

GaeSylveon

That’d be a Pokemon thing in general, actually. It’s why trainers exist in the first place, though there are drills you can run to get them better at it. Sufficient Battling has a few resources. You can find them here, here, and here. There’s also a Eeveelution specific subforum here, where you can talk to experts in handling Eevee and their evolutions, of which @MisoraOfficial is considered a member of (her by technicality, sorry Misora), as is @FlareonBurnstheHottest (not by technicality. He’s one of the acknowledged experts on Flareon). Honestly, it’s kinda surprising to find them out here, though the discovery of a new Eeveelution does tend to do that.

WitchyBusiness

Oh, hello Illya. I didn’t know you had an account. Does Shirou?

White_Fairy_Queen

He hasn’t made one yet, but he probably will at some point.

FlareonBurnstheHottest

Well, all four of you guys picked up non-standard Eeveelutions. You must really trust them, to have them all bond evolve so soon. I’ve heard of some folks who go years without their Eevee evolving, though that usually happens because of lack of battling, not lack of care.

Trainspotter214

@WitchyBuisness someone noted that the Subway bosses put in a commission for a lavender coat; and rumor has it that Ingo was seen in Nuvema a couple days before. Any gossip you’d like to share?

WitchyBuisness

We did have a meeting with Ingo, yes. First I’ve heard of him commissioning a coat, though. It might not be related.

SubwayMasterOfficial_Zekrom (Verified Facility Master)(Time Traveller)(ALL ABOARD)

@WitchyBuisness We are looking forward to your challenge, both you and your sister, Ms. Toshaka. Please stay behind the yellow lines and do not lose your luggage. Also, congratulations on beginning your journey.

PikachuKing (Moderator)

*Ahem* if we could attempt to stay on topic, it would be appreciated. Additionally, Trainers, if you could keep your communications to Private Messages, it would be greatly appreciated.

That said, it’s nice to see two of the many rookie trainers being discussed chatting within their current thread answering questions. Just keep in mind that Sufficient Battling does have rules, and we’d appreciate if you followed them so we don’t have to issue infractions. Carry on.

Writer_of_bad_Fiction

Thank you, PikachuKing. So, I have to ask, @White_Fairy_Queen, how did you teach your Sylveon aura sphere, if that’s what she actually used?

AuraGardian

@WitchyBuisness @White_Fairy_Queen rewatching your videos, I noticed you react really dynamically to your Pokemons’ cries. Do you guys have aura training?

“Riolu kid is definitely using Aura.” Mana chirped immediately, Misora nodding along with a smile, “I’m guessing the one with the Mismagius aesthetic is using magic, which is odd considering that there hasn’t been a serious mage in a long time. I dunno about cherry blossom, and I’m fairly sure the albino is using a variant of aura.”

“Agreed on the Riolu kid, though I doubt the one with the Mismagius aesthetic is using magic. My- Nevermind, they actually blatantly told us, except the albino.” Misora grumbled, throwing a mild glare at her starter, “You’re insufferable when you’re being smug, you know that?”

“Bitch, I’m always right.” Mana crowed triumphantly in her native tongue in response to her trainer’s use of it, snickering as the exasperated indidivudal in question yote her from her resting place on her trainer’s shoulder. Really, messing with Misora was far too easy these days.

WitchyBusiness

I can confirm that my sister and I have ways of speaking to Pokemon directly; I use magitech, and Sakura has a psychic talent she’s cultivating. I don’t know about Illya, and I won’t speak for Shirou without his permission.

White_Fairy_Queen

All I’m going to say about me is that I bent the rules far enough they work really well for me. Shirou isn’t bothering to hide his Aura training. It’s why he has his Riolu training buddy, so they don’t go overboard too much.

KirliaGurl

If these kids all have special powers, it might be easier for them to teach their Pokemon non-standard moves. Easier to teach when you can practice and demonstrate alongside them. Too bad I’m not actually psychic. Would make things a lot easier…

FocusSashesSave

There’s been a lot of chatter about the kids, but almost nothing about the leaders. Roark flubbed the Emiya match at first, and Henderson still has problems coming up with measured challenges for newbies. Seems like the matches were a little off-kilter. Thoughts?

JolteonisBesteon

ease up on them

new trainers with no battle experience but well-trained partners are difficult to manage

Lt. Surge has similar problems, when he’s not just being aggressive

WeLoveTape

Henderson is retiring soon, and as a Unovan native, I’m sorry to see one of the few Dark-type major circuit gym leaders leave. Unova will be less for his absence. Still, he was always best at the 3-8 badge levels. I do think his challenge for Sakura was fine, but for Rin, he overestimated the edge type advantage gave him. Rin was well-prepared to deal with dark-types, and considering her sister’s ace, that makes a lot of sense.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

MisoraOfficial (Verified ACE Trainer)

To be fair to Henderson, Miracle Eye isn’t actually something Espeon is “supposed” to be able to learn. Nor is it something most rookie trainers actually think of, given the prevalence of thought that psychic types are ‘overpowered’ among the masses. I swear, one Gym Leader *cough* Sabrina *cough* uses a extremely well trained Abra to throw a Pokemon’s attack back at them, and everyone suddenly thinks Psychic Types are the best thing since sliced bread.

As for Roark, I genuinely don’t think he has an excuse. He underestimated the fallers, plain and simple, and got his ass kicked, and actually lost a serious amount of ACE circuit rating as a result. By the way, @White_Fairy_Queen, please extend your brother a warm welcome to the ACE circuit. You aren’t in at the moment, but we expect you’ll find your way into the leaderboards at some point in the near future.

White_Fairy_Queen

My brother is currently confused. I mean, he knows he’s part of the Ace circuit, but I don’t think he ‘gets’ what that means. He just wanted to give Ritsuka (Wyrmeon) a good fight.

SageLeafeon

Speaking of which, is that Eeveelution a trade secret? Misora has been less-than-clear on how Mana evolved, so a straight answer would be nice.

White_Fairy_Queen

I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you, actually. @GarchompChampion, are Shirou and I allowed to tell people?

GarchompChampion (Totally Not Cynthia)

Illya, we’ve talked about this. For official questions involving League Business, please ping my official Pokemon League account. Not my personal account that I use purely to post memes and fuck with people. But since you asked…

CynthiaOfficial (Verified Champion) (Verified Masters 8) (Sinnoh League)

Yes, you are allowed to tell people about your own suspicions and assumptions on how Ritsuka evolved into a Wyrmeon. You are not, however, allowed to release Professor Rowan’s conclusions and research until he does so in the scientific paper he’s working on.

JolteonisBesteon
how do you have champion cynthia on quick-response

White_Fairy_Queen

I think she counts as like… one of our legal guardians? Maybe a big sister. IDK if we were ever actually adopted by Professor Caroline. I don’t think so, but…

As for the Wyrmeon thing… we don’t quite know, but it involved both a one-on-one fight with a primeval dragon and a battle within a Time-Space distortion. We’re not certain whether either of those were what did it, or if it was both, or if Shirou is just bs.

SageLeafeon

What’s a time-space distortion?

Edit: Wait, those are a THING in Sinnoh? WTF?

MisoraOfficial (Verified ACE Trainer)

@SageLeafeon I’m not being coy on purpose. I genuinely have no fucking clue how Mana evolved. Neither does she. Best we can tell, it was a combination of bond, circumstance, and a seriously tense and heightened emotional state, given she evolved during the finals of the Lumiouse Conference as we were about to lose. Which, as you know, resulted in us winning instead when she clapped the other trainer’s Dragonite.

That aside, yes, Time-Space Distortions still happen on Coronet and in the wildlands of Sinnoh. They’re utterly miserable to be caught in, and even more miserable to rescue someone who got caught in one in. They also have recently been picking up again, though the Hero of Hisui has actually stated it should die down by the end of the decade. Given that we know she comes roughly from this time period, it makes sense.

Walked500Years (Hero Of Hisui) (Time Traveller) (God-Llama Chosen)

No spoilers, but yeah, I originally came from this time. I’m really happy to have indoor plumbing again.

@White_Fairy_Queen please let Shirou know that I will be sending another test his way soon. Also, I’ve told the Nobles you’re on your way. Some of them are excited!

KirliaGurl

What. The. Fuck.

“Why the fuck is the Hero of Hisui casually chatting with the albino and aura brats?” Mana blinked from her position atop Misora’s head; having climbed there while her trainer had been utterly engrossed in the drama, looking utterly baffled. Misora could only shrug in response, and as one of the many leaves surrounding the clearing she was in rustled, she stood up, sighing as she put away her entertainment.

“Mana, I assume you’ve noticed our company?” she asked, receiving a nod from her starter, hand going to her belt, where the rest of her team was resting. “You can come out now. It takes a lot more than that to sneak up on an ACE trainer, even one that’s completely distracted by absurdity.”

“I would hope so, miss. Come, we have a lot to talk about…”