Cobalt in Red - Chapter 11

“Okay, so walk me through it again?” Cobalt asked. 

Kong sighed. “Mankey. Man. Key~mank. Mankey key~key mankey.” I. Am. Not able. To use both at the same time.

The fuzzball sounded it all out slowly, moving his hands in exaggerated motions and looking at Cobalt like he was a complete idiot. 

Cobalt’s face fell in annoyance. “I get that, Mr. Fuzz. I’m not a dumbass.” He ignored the disbelieving raised eyebrow. “I’m wondering why you can’t use two at a time. Is it fundamental, or a skill issue?”

A pebble bounced off his head.

Cobalt blinked. He didn’t even see the angry puff move. He probably would have been angry about the completely uncalled for abuse if he wasn’t so impressed.

“Was that fling?” He asked, and received a condescending nod. “Damn you really picked that up fast, huh?” 

Kong shrugged. “Mankey.” It was easy. 

“Whoa there. Don’t go getting a big head- I mean you’re just a sphere with limbs, so all of you is a head. Don’t make your situation worse.” Another pebble bounced off his head.

The ten-year-old’s eye twitched. 

The pebbles didn’t really hurt all that much, so the little bastard was underpowering the move quite a bit - and with his newfound durability as a resident of this world, it felt like he was being flicked in the forehead. It was still supremely annoying, though. At this point, he was regretting teaching him the move - even if he was just as excited about how prodigious his starter was. 

He didn’t forget the fact that fling was a big help in saving all of their lives that morning, but hindsight was giving him other strategies that didn’t involve future munchkinning. 

“Back to the point,” he gritted out. “Why aren’t you able to use two types of energy?”

“Man~man key?” Why do you care? “Mankey mank man. Key mank mankey.” It was interesting. But it doesn’t work. 

“Because, dumbass, if I know why it doesn’t work I’ll be able to help you work around it.”

You’re the trainer! A vein on Kong’s forehead pulsed. You’re supposed to know this shit!

“I can’t use type energy!” Cobalt threw his hands in the air. “How would I have figured this out before now? I’m still not sure how we’re currently talking!” Easton wasn’t particularly vocal on the mechanics of that last point. Was the Power of Friendship™ a real and quantifiable thing? Or was it just the Power of Frantically Not Dying Together™? Regardless, it was a bullshit anime moment, and he wasn’t going to complain. Much.

He could only understand Kong, though. Sabie, or Mace (Easton’s magikarp, he came to learn) were still mostly incomprehensible. 

Your sire didn’t teach you?

“My sire- you mean my dad? How would he know?”

Kong gave him a disbelieving stare, then sighed. Fine, he grumbled. Type energy all comes from the same place. To use it, I have to change it all at once, then move it around.

Cobalt’s face scrunched. “So you can’t change it outside of the source? Like say, move it to your arms, and change the type?”

Kong swiveled in his rendition of a negative head shake. No. I can’t even move it unless it’s taken on a type. 

“Where is the source, by the way?”

Kong blinked at him, and pointed to the center of his spherical body. You’re an idiot.

“Fuck you.”

Another pebble went ignored and fell to the ground. The spot on his forehead was starting to smart.

“Okay, so how do you actually use it? You change it in your… core?” Kong nodded. “Core. Then you move it to the area of your body that you want to use a move with?”

He got a wiggled-hand, so-so in response.

Cobalt sighed and sat down on a nearby rock. “Right.”

The two had woken up far before either Easton or Valerie that morning, and spent the first couple hours of the day working through everything. Cobalt was right in that they made good time to the entrance of Mt. Moon, and managed to make camp just before sundown. 

He was just glad that the world’s immune system seemed to get tired of trying to kill Easton after a while. The constant attacks and fly-swatting stopped about halfway down the route, and didn’t restart at any point during the night. So they all got a decent amount of sleep

Cobalt was used to waking with the sun, though. A smoothie later, and he was rearing to go. 

Lord was he happy that he packed a blender. 

It was another hour before Easton woke up - sometime around nine. Valerie was apparently one for sleeping in.

In that time, Cobalt found out that all pokemon had a pool of energy inside of them that their type energy came from. That wasn’t really headline-worthy though. No, the thing he actually learned was that this pool was made up of un-typed energy. Pure Aura, if he were to guess. 

He had been assuming Normal was the base form of type energy up until now, but even that required some alteration in order to be used. He wasn’t entirely wrong, however. There seemed to be certain stages of complexity in the change. According to Kong, on a scale of one to ten, Dark was about a five - specifically in how much he had to manipulate his base pool in order to form it.

Normal wasn’t even at one. 

It was super easy to alter his internal pool into it, and could be done on a dime with zero forethought or issue. Fighting was only slightly more complicated at a two. Requiring a base level of determination and willpower, and that was pretty much it. Dark was only more complex because Kong had to get himself in the right frame of mind for it. 

That was the other thing that Cobalt learned that morning. Type energy was changed based off of an emotion, or internally held concept that was then submerged into the pokemon’s (probable) Aura pool. The pool would then react - almost on its own - and adopt the type that the emotion or concept was best tied to. 

It was an instinctual thing. Done without thought or deliberation in most cases. The ease of the switch, Cobalt thought, likely came down to the species. A classically seen Psychic pokemon would have a much easier time getting themselves in the correct frame of mind to use Psychic type energy, for instance. But then they would have a much harder time using Dark, as it was anathema to the way their mind worked. 

This was why Kong couldn’t use two types at once, since that would require him to be in two frames of mind at the same time. Thinking two, fundamentally different things simultaneously, and wholeheartedly believing in both. 

This, to Cobalt, wasn’t really a closed door though. Living beings were contradictory by nature - just look at teenagers. None of what goes on in their heads is logical. Too many hormones fighting for control.

So no. He was fully confident that contradictory frames of mind could work in tandem if enough effort went into it. Sure, it might induce some sort of bipolar psychosis, but that was a bridge he would happily cross in his quest for deicide. I’m coming for your drama-llama ass, Arceus. I don’t care if I become the Mad-fucking Hatter by the time I get there!

Easton looked over at him suddenly, blinked, then shifted his eyes up to the sky, searching the clouds overhead.

Cobalt followed the gaze. Was there another divebombing pidgey, or something?

After a moment of nothing though, he just shrugged and went back to Kong. 

The frame-of-mind issue also didn’t hold water for pokemon with multiple heads - or even pokemon like alakazam, that had a canonical IQ of 5,000. With a brain that moved at the speed of a supercomputer, there would be virtually no difference between using two different type energies at the same time and using one after the other. And that’s only if it couldn’t think two things at once, which Cobalt highly doubted.

Supercomputers had a lot of processors, allowing them to perform any number of calculations simultaneously. Alakazam were likely the same, but in organic form if he had to guess. 

Still though, this was a limitation they had for the moment. He would still try to build the foundation for it, but the focus would remain on switching between the type energies for now. He also put off the specifics of move mechanics, since Kong was having difficulties understanding the problem.

How was quick attack formed differently from tackle? Kong just said that the former was faster, and didn’t understand how else to explain it. 

“Okay, so let’s try some linked move practice for a minute,” Cobalt thumbed his chin. “You did this against the gyarados, but I didn’t get a good look at it.” He pointed at a tree. “Quick attack into low kick.” 

Kong huffed, but nodded. A white glow surrounded his legs, and a small burst of dust was kicked up as the puffball disappeared from sight. A second later, he heard a crackling thump as the targeted tree took a direct hit.

Cobalt narrowed his eyes, and waved Kong back. “Try with agility instead.”

The sequence repeated, but with a notable hiccup in the middle.

“Why did that take longer?” Cobalt asked. The puffball had literally stopped when he got to the tree, then did a low kick. Unlike in the first where the two moves blended together fast enough for Cobalt to not see the change. 

Kong shrugged. Harder to switch. Can’t see well moving that fast.

“What?” Cobalt blinked. “Agility is faster?” 

A lot faster. 

“That’s not agility.”

Cobalt jumped and turned to Easton, who had snuck up on him sometime in the past couple minutes. “Jesus. We need to get you a bell, or something.” 

Easton tilted his head with a smile. “You need to be more observant. What’s a Jesus?”

“A pretty cool guy,” he answered numbly. “What do you mean that’s not agility?” He looked to Kong, who just shrugged.

Easton also shrugged. “Agility is a Psychic type move. That’s clearly using Normal type energy.” 

Cobalt paused. “Magikarp doesn’t learn Agility.” He kind of doubted that Easton’s knowledge of move-pools went far past his specialty.

Easton waved at the surrounding forest. “A lot of the chaff can use it.”

“Huh.” He supposed that made sense. Also how in the fuck did he not know agility was a psychic move? He didn’t really use it at all in the games. If it didn’t do damage, he ignored it back then. Real-world mechanics made a lot of those ‘useless’ moves more viable, though. 

“Then what is it-” Wait. Kong said it was a lot faster than quick attack. It was also a Normal type move.

He turned to Kong. “Have you actually been using extreme speed this entire time?”

Maybe? Kong half-heartedly replied. Like it didn’t matter. 

Was his angry little bastard of a partner an actual genius? “How did you even learn that?” He paused. “And why is it so slow?” 

He had seen both his father’s dragonite, and Archie use it. The move was basically teleportation with how quick the user got from point A to B. Kong was fast when he used it, for sure. But not that fast. 

I was raised in the Baron’s brood. Kong answered simply.

“Who’s the Baro- The Bristleback Baron?!” Cobalt cut himself off, drawing the connection.

Kong nodded.

“The biggest Sandslash in the world.” He continued. “The fucker that started a fight with Moltres of all pokemon, and nearly won?! That’s your dad?!”

The Baron was the entire reason the ‘Moltres Incident’ even started all those years ago. Some territorial dispute between a local legend and a minor deity that ballooned into a molten hellscape across North-West Kanto. It’s why Route 3 was barely more than a rocky ravine - the foliage only recently returning to life. 

It took the lives of half the teams that participated in that year’s conference, over thirty Rangers, fourteen Ace Trainers, and thousands of wild pokemon that inhabited the area. It was nothing but a miracle (and Red with his bonkers pikachu) that prevented Pewter from getting drowned in the miles of molten rock that resulted from the fight. 

Of course not. Kong looked at him like he was crazy. He’s my great grandsire. 

Cobalt stared at his starter for a moment, rethinking every single decision he had ever made in his new life - and even some in his last. He was pretty sure the mankey and sandshrew lines were in the same egg group, so that kinda made sense? But still absolutely didn’t!  “How in the balls did my dad pick you up if you were under the fucking Bristleback Baron’s protection?” 

He asked. The puffball grumbled. 

“Bullshit.” 

What do you want from me? Kong sighed. The fool has been friends with the Baron since before I was born. Took one look at my training, and asked if he could take me to meet you.

“Bullshit!” No way was his dad friends with one of the most terrifying forces of nature outside of the Legends. No way they were friends, and had never introduced Cobalt! 

Betrayal! Of the highest order! This was unforgivable! He no longer had a father! 

“And he said yes?!” 

I don’t know why either! Kong stomped the ground, puffing up a bit of dust. The old bastard just laughed and said ‘Good Luck,’ and that was it. Next thing I know I’m in that stupid ball, and punching you in the gut.

“That’s fucking stupid. Also, fuck you for that. Horrible first meeting.”

Good times. Kong smiled wistfully.

“It was like, two days ago-” he shook his head. “I need to sit down.”

“You are, in fact, already sitting down.” Oh, Easton was still here. “I’m only getting half of this conversation, but it sounds as if your spherical, lesser teammate spawned from an Elder Alpha?” 

Easton tilted his head, absently dodging a flung pebble. 

“Elder Alpha?” Cobalt asked the other boy. “Is that a technical term?” 

Easton shrugged. “More colloquial. Old, large pokemon. Multi-generational leaders and forces of nature, mostly.”

“Then yeah. Sounds like a match.” 

The loud sound of a zipper cut through the conversation, and everyone’s heads turned back towards the camp. Only to see Valerie’s own cranium pop through a tent opening. Horizontally, as if the rest of her body was floating, prone in the air.

“Why is everyone so loud? Can’t a girl get her beauty sleep?”

Cobalt just laughed. Broken and tired. Maybe with a touch of crazy. “I think I could use a nap,” he said.

Easton kicked him lightly in the shin. “No time for that! We’ve got places to be. The depths of the moon await!” 

Valerie nodded - still horizontal. “Exitential dread waits for no one.”

That didn’t even make sense!