The Type Specialist Extra Chapter 7 - A True Epilogue [END]

Author Note:

The sixth extra chapter came out before this one. Make sure to read it here.

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The world was changing. The stories that were once fated to become reality had now become nothing more than fantastical tales. Paths were redirected toward new myths and legends. Humans and their technology maintained their unceasing march forward. People and Pokémon kept growing, but the newest generation, the boldest generation, had yet to gather the time in this world needed to recognize all of that.

“Over here!” a young voice called out. “It can't be that far! I swear that it's just up ahead!”

“M-my mom says not to swear,” came another voice from behind. “She says that swearing too much will make your teeth fall out.”

A tongue was stuck out in reply, and a creature giggled from where it hung off that person’s shoulder. Gravel crunched underfoot, and leaves rustled in the wind. Only the barest beams of light peaked out through the canopy of the trees, and the two boys kept going. The Pokémon on the lead boy’s shoulder tightened its grip.

“Hey, Claude? I checked the history books,” the boy in the back said, pushing his glasses up his nose with a moderately shaking hand. “The pictures of this forest are different, and those were taken just a few years ago! There weren’t this many glowing mushrooms. And the trees weren’t this thick.”

“So what?” Claude said, barely glancing over his shoulder alongside his shout. “There were different Pokémon here back then! The TV mentioned it—it’s all due to ‘balancing the environment,’ or whatever it’s called. Something about needing to correct the mistakes of the past?”

“But the Flabébé—”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” Claude said, shrugging as he kept going. “What matters is that this forest isn’t empty. There’s someone really cool out here, and you need to stop peeing your pants so much, Quentin!”

Quentin gulped.

“But I’ve never peed my pants.”

“And both of us know that’s a lie,” Claude answered, tapping his nose.

His grin was bright, and a Whismur loudly giggled on his shoulder. Claude continued to march up the road, and Quentin hurried after him, mumbling something about wanting to keep an eye out for any wild Flabébé.

In Verdanturf, the rumors were persistent. Everyone knew about the mysterious figure that lived in the forest just outside of town. Both Claude and Quentin had tried to ask, but whenever they brought up their questions, their parents would just look amused and shake their heads, refusing to share any details in the slightest.

“Lizzie came here with her Minun,” Claude said as he hiked forward. “She said it was super spooky but super cool. I asked around after class, and everyone agreed—this place belongs to some sort of weirdo!”

“A weirdo?” Quentin repeated.

“Yup. A weirdo. Anyone who lives this deep in a forest has to be a weirdo,” Claude replied far too casually. “I mean, can they even be anything else with all of these mushrooms around?”

Though the sun’s light had been reduced to a dim glow, the forest itself was lit with hues of green, cyan, and pink. It was a mystical set of colors as much as it was an otherworldly set of colors. Honestly, Quentin himself almost felt as though they had somehow entered another plane of existence.

The foliage thickened, and the shadows grew, yet the path continued to wind through the forest, unabating.

Then, something rustled behind them, and both boys froze. However, when they checked to see what was there, all they found was an empty path stretching into the darkness.

“Th-there.” Claude brought up an arm to point ahead as he turned around, even though he had to fight to keep standing tall. “Can you see it?”

“More mushroom lights?”

“No. Those aren’t mushrooms. That’s light from windows.”

Reinvigorated, he ran, and Quentin was forced to run as well. They followed the path right to where the forest opened into a small grove, and there, they found what had to be a hidden home.

Specifically, a hidden home that had gone through dozens of different additions to become quite the eclectic structure. It was three stories tall and looked like an improperly assembled puzzle. All of the extra rooms seemed to have been constructed with different architectural styles. There was even a pond in front, but that pond was half-frozen over with ice. A field of flowers sat next to it, somehow having been maintained despite the lack of sun, and there was even a strange and exposed electric box that sat at the home’s side.

It was a complete mess, but it was a well-maintained mess, and it was something neither boy had ever seen before. Yet, neither Claude nor Quentin took a step forward.

Instead, the faint sound of cloth rustled at their back.

“You two plan to keep going, or are you just going to freeze out here, then run home?”

It took all of Claude’s courage not to scream. Quentin didn’t have enough courage to prevent himself from doing that.

“Y-you!” Claude accused, snapping himself around to point. “Y-you’re the weirdo! You’re the person who lives here and—”

His shouts were interrupted by a belly-deep laugh.

“Me? Sorry, you have the wrong person. I just decided to go for a walk after visiting a friend, and that’s when I noticed you two outside.”

Quentin managed to recover enough to trade a look with Claude, and Whismur’s ears twitched with nerves from where it hung off of Claude’s shoulder. The man behind them was confident and wouldn’t be out of place in any city. Claude didn’t hide how he thought the man’s dark trench coat was a bit much, however.

“O-okay...” Quentin stuttered. “Then, who are you, exactly?

The coat-wearing man simply smiled, and he shook his head as if amused.

“Ah, I suppose I’m someone who’s about to learn a lot more about wandering, pretty soon. But most people just call me by my name—which is Thomas, by the way.”

“Thomas, then,” Claude said to himself, nodding as if that mundane answer had been expected all along.

“S-so...” Quentin continued. “W-what are you doing here?”

“I was advising a friend to take what Hope they have and hold onto it for as long as they can,” Thomas replied, still sounding distinctly amused. “But really, I already told you: I was going for a walk, and then I just happened to stumble upon you two.”

He crouched down.

“Why are you here, anyway?” the man with a dark disposition asked.

“We—”

“We’re here to fight the weirdo!” Claude yelled at the top of his lungs.

The second Claude said that, Quentin felt as though he was about to vomit, and it looked as though Thomas had to fight for his life not to laugh.

“Oh? The weirdo, huh?” Thomas said through a slight smile. “That’s interesting. Tell me, what exactly do you know about this... weirdo?”

“I know that they live in the forest and that no one ever tells us anything,” Claude huffed.

“They like battling?” Quentin offered. “Like he said, we don’t know that much.”

“Hm.” Thomas stroked his chin and looked both boys up and down. “Have you ever stopped to consider that, maybe, they just like their privacy?”

Quentin didn’t have an answer, and Claude looked like he didn’t want to respond. Thomas, however, merely laughed, and he rustled the hair on both boys’ heads.

Claude really hated that.

“Well, if you want to know a bit more about the weirdo that lives here, you should probably know that they aren’t someone to be messed with,” Thomas said. “Do you know the Trick Master?”

“The guy on Route 110?” Quentin asked.

“Yup. Him. Think of this place as Verdanturf’s own little challenge room.”

Quentin turned back toward the eclectic structure with awe, and Claude turned to face it with re-ignited fire in his eyes.

“People come from all over to challenge the person who lives within,” Thomas continued. “That person isn’t always here to accept those battles, but whenever they are, some even equate this place as Hoenn’s secret ‘ninth’ Gym.”

“A Gym, huh?” Claude mumbled. He could feel Whismur hanging off his shoulder. He had yet to start his journey—he had only caught Whismur last month—but he knew he and his partner Pokémon would take the world by storm once they properly started out.

“...Do they ever get bothered by that?” Quentin asked, voice quiet. “Facing constant challenges, I mean.”

“Not really. They welcome it,” came Thomas’s answer as he stood back up. “All trainers like to be challenged, but they have to be challenged first. That means you have to present them with a proper battle. You can’t just do what you were planning and storm ahead to barge your way inside.”

Thomas looked between the two boys, but Claude was already taking a step forward, and Quentin’s eyes were still on the house.

“Good luck,” the man said.

Claude began to stride toward the door, and Quentin turned around to give his thanks to the stranger, but when he checked, Thomas was no longer there. It was as if the shadows themselves had somehow swallowed him up, but ultimately, Quentin didn’t have time to react, given how Claude was currently running straight toward the front door.

“HEY WEIRDO!” Claude shouted, bringing up his fist and slamming it against the building’s wooden entrance. “I’M CHALLENGING YOU TO A BATTLE! AND SINCE WE’RE BOTH TRAINERS, YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT IT!”

“U-um,” Quentin stuttered, just barely catching up. “I don’t think this is what Thomas—”

The door creaked open.

“Meant!” Quentin finished.

Claude sent Quentin a single, flat look—one which Whismur shared—and then he strode straight into the building, entering a room that resembled an old-style dojo. Its presence honestly made a lot of sense if battles were happening here a lot. It was probably an addition built later; this place seemed as though it had a lot of rooms that’d slowly been tacked on.

There was nothing to inspect in here save for a tatami battlefield and a set of screens that covered the walls. The ceiling itself glowed with dim lights hidden in the rafters, but a much brighter glow came from behind another, lone screen in the back.

A flickering fire illuminated a silhouette draped in flowing cloth.

“You... challenge me?” the voice said. It was ambiguous, and it sounded as though it came from both everywhere and nowhere at once.

“I... I do!” Claude shouted. Despite his initial hesitation, he made sure to show his confidence by clenching his fists.

Quentin moved up to stand at his friend’s side, taking this chance to look around. He didn’t miss the additional screens set up like cover in front of the room’s walls. Without any light behind them, there was no way to tell if there was anyone else hiding at the room’s sides.

But, ever so faintly, he swore he heard something—an extremely faint sound. It was snickering, or maybe something closer to giggling. Someone or something was trying very hard not to laugh.

“Well,” the voice said, and that muffled noise seemed to cease, immediately getting its faint laughter in order. “A Pokémon battle, here in my own home! As a trainer, I have no choice but to accept.”

The silhouette nodded, and just like Quentin expected, something walked out from behind the screens at the room’s walls. A canine, one that looked like dough freshly claimed from a bakery, strode out to position itself on the battlefield floor.

“Whimsur!” Claude said, and he helped his friend off his shoulder. “We’re winning here!”

In agreement, Whismur shouted its name, and the dog on the floor didn’t let that go unanswered with its opposing bark of “Fidough!”

“It’s great to see kids like you starting your journeys. It brings me back to my own start way back when,” the silhouette mused. “Challenging unknown locations, taking on potential dangers... It’s always about the journey and not the end.”

The flames flickered behind them.

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it? This world we all live in? There’s always so much more to see and experience, and I always—”

A bark interrupted them.

That bark did not sound like it came from a dog.

“Yeah, yeah. I know! I was kind of a mess back then, but I got better!” came the silhouette’s reply. The figure waved a hand, and Quentin felt the need to hang his head. “Anyway, that’s enough stalling on my part. I accept your challenge! Are you ready to battle?”

“I’m ready!” Claude shouted.

“And I’ll... Well, uh, I guess I’ll watch,” Quentin said.

A moment passed. The two Pokémon on the tatami mats readied themselves, facing off.

Though nothing was visible, when the figure next spoke, Quentin swore he could hear a smile.

“Then, without further ado... there’s nothing else to say but this:”

For one last time, Alex, the figure behind the curtain, spoke.

“No sense in waiting any longer,” Alex said. “Let the battle begin!”

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Author Note:

As these chapters took over a year and a half to get out, I might sit on them for a bit longer before posting them to Royal Road. I want them to be as close to perfect as possible, but now that I've written them, I feel like they could use some slight improvements. Only a bit of touching-up, though. They contain everything I wanted to write about.

Likely, I'll make all of these extra chapters public next week, but that's not the exciting part of what's happening next week:

The next fiction will begin to come out! I'm extremely excited to finally be getting to it. I know it's been a bit—thank you for waiting so patiently!—but I wanted it to be good. Before you know it, we’ll be settling back into a normal schedule with regular chapter updates.

See you very soon.