July 25th, 2016 Dear diary, I think we're finally free of this dump. Gonna be honest, I think any and all admiration and excitement I had for Biloville has gone down the drain. C'est la vie, though. The banks around here just aren't really my speed, that Team Catch organization is a little too involved, and the closest thing we have to a friend around here's mom went and murdered an executive. Yeah, I think I may have forgotten to bring that up. Chase's mom apparently poisoned the President of Silph Co... I mean, we stayed with that woman. I was wearing her clothes! The whole situation is really messed up, and when we tried getting in touch with Chase, well... Theo, Jack and Sherman tried, but nothing really came of it. He wasn't at the apartment, and he wouldn't answer his phone. They did meet his mom's lawyer, some guy named Nick Swellows. Now that I'm thinking about it, I should probably reach out to Monty. He had some kind of relationship with the deceased, and I want to make sure he's doing alright... Maybe I should reach out to dad too. I faxed him the pictures of the Muk we encountered, but I haven't really checked in on him. I dunno, with the whole Billons Industries thing, I don't want him asking questions. It's just awkward, and he'll just try to make it into some teaching moment about "my vocation" or whatever. I don't really have the patience for it right now... Anyhow, like I promised him, I met up with Danny in the park. Told him that Nym would be doing the gym first after all, which he wasn't exactly happy about. I don't wanna get into it too much, but I hope those two work out their differences at some point. I think they've been bringing out the best out of each other. To get into the meat of the day, everyone started congregating around the gym. Nym trained up their Pincurchin, and Theo prepared a handful of Wingull to bring with him. Nym and I actually got their first, so I took as many notes as I could to prep up the others. Which reminds me, I met Sylvia's mom... who said I looked Seminole? Apparently black hair is very uncommon for Hulputulke people? I uh... yeah, maybe I really should talk to dad... Anyways, right, notes! Here's what I got down on Sylvia's team: Aquatic battlefield, littered with rocks Aquatic Pokemon can use this to their advantage, hiding under the water to avoid attacks Rocks serve as obstacles, and punching bags. Moves that have on-hit effects seem to still work on these rocks Clobbapus - Fighting type - Eats some kind of recovery item when in a tight spot - Uses Power-Up Punch, which'll make it stronger with every hit. Hits the rocks if you dodge! - Uses Reversal, which does more damage if its low. Best to beat this guy with one strong hit. Heracross - Fighting/Bug type - Has some move called "Swords Dance"? Doesn't seem to do anything. Pretty sure I saw Charlie D'Marowak do this dance on KlingKlang... - Uses Pin Missile, a multi-hit attack. Standard but strong - Uses Endure, which lets it stay alive even if an attack should knock it out... - Use Reversal. You can probably tell this is gonna be NASTY with Endure. This thing is pretty fast, but seems like Sylvia's strategy is to use this, so maybe a fast move is key to an easy victory! For each of the fights, I kept a pretty basic play by play of matchups. I'm a little surprised by some results. If I didn't think Pokemon battling was lame and barbaric I might even say I'm impressed. Nym vs. Sylvia Nym sends out Croconaw Sylvia sends out Clobbapus Croconaw > Clobbapus Sylvia sends out Heracross Nym switches to Pincurchin Heracross > Pincurchin Nym sends out Bibarel Heracross > Bibarel Nym sends out Croconaw Heracross > Croconaw Nym sends out Igglybuff Igglybuff > Heracross This one was honestly down to the wire. Crazy to see the little balloon thing pull its weight so hard. Sylvia's Reversal strategy was on full display though, and definitely did some serious damage across the board. Nym got their Diver Badge though! Sylvia even gave me one, for helping out with the Team Catch situation? I don't really need it though, so I'm not sure exactly what to do with it. Could be a bargaining chip down the road, maybe? Theo vs. Sylvia Theo sends out Wingull Sylvia sends out Clobbapus Clobbapus > Wingull Theo sends out another Wingull Wingull > Clobbapus Sylvia sends out Heracross Wingull > Heracross I'm pretty sure Theo didn't even break a sweat, and he wasn't even using his own Pokemon. Despite spending a lot of time with him by now, I really have yet to figure him out. Between all this mystic bullshit, the crowbar, the self-sacrifice shtick, and a surprise hair-color change, I'm pretty sure he's keeping a lot more under wraps than he's leading on. Guess I could say the same about myself though, I haven't told any of them about Bekah yet... eh, whatever. If he wants to hold things close to the chest, more power to him. Jack vs. Sylvia Jack sends out Vulpix Sylvia sends out Clobbapus Clobbapus > Vulpix Jack sends out Chewtle Clobbapus > Chewtle Jack sends out Dustox Sylvia switches to Heracross Heracross > Dustox Jack sends out Pignite Pignite > Heracross Sylvia sends out Clobbapus Pignite > Clobbapus Another one down to the wire! Jack wasn't feeling 100% confident about this one, so I'm really glad he won. Truthfully, he's been seeming a little off since the Theo kidnapping incident. Can't exactly blame him, the guy basically got into a knife fight... I suppose we all went a little feral in this city. I have the taste of glowstick in my mouth still, and Sherman keeps insisting that Munna is an effective seige weapon. We could all definitely use a break, and some time to blow off some steam. Luckily, I have a present for him that I think will help... A little wrung out, Lily July 25th, 2016 (part 2.) Dear diary, So apparently I still have a few things to learn about gift-giving... the Clobbapus down in the cave that punched Jack at full force? Yeah, I caught it. Wanted to put the bastard in time out, and maybe let it know what happens when it messes with my friend. So as a gift to Jack, I let it out and told him to get a clean solid punch back, as is fair! Well apparently that's "morbid" and "makes him uncomfortable". Not to mention this thing decided to start wailing on us! I was ready to pull it back into the Pokeball when Sherman decks it full force with a haymaker... last person I saw coming. Anyways, it respects us (him) now and is gonna be on the team, I guess... it's a she. Named her Olive. Speaking of Sherman, his Yanma isn't doing so well, after its Pokeball got Spill all over it. Apparently the best option would be turning it over to Silph Co., but Sherman isn't giving up on keeping it just yet. Nurse George referred us to Nurse Joseph on Route 102 to try to take care of it, so I suppose that option's still safe on the table. Route 102 is on the way to Soosopolis anyways, and that's clear on the way to Ampup City, so it's fine by me. Whatever gets me to Bekah, mom, and some answers already. Anyhow, we spent the night at the Dollar Power Hotel. Theo committed a little microagression on Nym, and apparently it fell on me to explain what that means? Cool work putting the emotional labor on the one woman around here, guys. I'd rather get into a spiel about the market forces surrounding the Spill, and who can efficiently benefit from it, but nobody ever asks my opinion. Anyways, long day ahead of us. We were considering taking a Taxi, but frankly, a slow walk back will probably feel real nice after a week of nonsense. The next day, Nym notices a video on ChewTube.
"My Story" - Titatits A lavender sky pans over a scene of volleyball to Titania. Moments from her family history are shown and described in joyful detail. Any mention, and almost any image, of Nym is completely missing. She's collected all 8 gym badges from Yapos. She announces her perspective on achieving your goals, no matter where you may come from, and her rhetoric sounds vaguely familiar to the manifestos of Team Catch... She announces she'll be a judge for incoming contests, and a member of the Croli Elite 4. [The page begins with several scribbled out entries, including ‘Dear Journal’, ‘To the Diary’, ‘Dear Book’, ‘To the Journal’, and ‘How the hell do you start these things?’]
Journal, I have no idea who I’m writing to here. Writing to myself feels weird, and writing to a book feels weirder. But apparently Lily, Jack, and Nym do it, so I should start too. Things are getting too complicated for me to properly understand, so I’m writing this stuff down so I can at least get a better idea of what is happening. So if anyone is here looking for my deepest, darkest secrets or whatever, [there are several scribbled out lines here]. The point is, a while back I agreed to go with some bad guys called Team Catch. I think they’re poachers? They catch pokemon from other regions and sell them to the highest bidder. It doesn’t sound that bad, but they clearly don’t care about anyone but themselves. They kept treating the pokemon they caught badly, and they tried to kill Nym and kidnap Jack! They were considering keeping me around anyway, so I struck a deal with them. I went with them willingly so they wouldn’t have to deal with Jack kicking and screaming. I’m not sure what I was thinking either. I was so scared I couldn’t move, and it was all I could think of! I’ll be honest, though, that wasn’t my only reason. There was this really strong guy who had a weird vibe around him. It felt like I should know him, even though I don’t. It wasn’t like Dragon’s, but it reminded me of that. Some sort of sixth sense? Add that to the list of weird shit I can do I guess. I wanted to try to talk to him more, as scary as it was, but the sharp chin guy kicked me into a pool with some weird slimy fire pokemon to prove my worth Thunderdome style. I didn’t even have Rook with me. I left him back with Jack, but I think Sherman dropped his Yanma with me. I wish I was better at training pokemon though, I just ended up getting the poor guy sick from fighting that thing. I’m not quite sure what exactly happened with everyone else, since I was in a pool and trying not to get eaten. Everything I write about for a bit is based on stuff people told me happened. Our squad came looking for me, since Lily knew Team Catch was hiding out in some old warehouse Billions owns. Now that I’m writing this, why didn’t they bring the gym leader or someone? Whatever. Getting in using her card didn’t work, which scattered everybody. Lily managed to get through the front door during the confusion, and even faced down J for a bit. I’m sure she could have won with her new swellow, if the fucker didn’t decide to take a nap in the middle of a battle. Who even does that? Jack ended up going around one side of the building with Sherman, but they still ended up separating. Jack got Pogi to try to punch a hole in the wall before going back around through the front door to save that octopus pokemon (I guess steel is strong against fighting pokemon? Makes sense.) Sherman went around the side with Beanlet and got in a fight with a Team Catch member. Don’t ask me how this works: apparently Beanlet used harden so much that Sherman just picked it up and clubbed their pokemon with it. Not sure how much I believe it, but apparently he did it AGAIN in front of Lily against J’s pokemon. Please keep in mind I write this based on hearsay. Still trying to figure out what exactly happened. Nym somehow ended up getting chased all the way around the back (they said they led the grunts around. I think they got chased.) Apparently, whatever this place is, the pool I was in was connected to the ocean, so Nym hit a button to start letting water in from the ocean before jumping in just as I was about to get eaten. While I appreciate it, they also immediately got knocked out by the slimy pokemon. I got a bunch of windy powers and tried to hold off the monster pokemon. I thought I was out of magic, but apparently that’s something else? More on that later. Apparently I got a bunch of fire, water, and lightning rolling around me while the wind held back the pokemon. It sounds like I looked cool heck, but the wind was so strong it felt like it was going to tear my eyes out. I really don’t want to do that again, but at least it worked? The water Nym let in dragged the giant pokemon out to sea, so Jack and Sherman were able to get Nym out of the water and I helped Rook. While we were doing that, J flew off with one of his pokemon. Oh yah, someone else did come in during all the confusion. Chinhoy brought Rook and tried to help, but at that point we were mostly (?) cleaning up. Again, figuring out the timing of everything is a pain. [There’s another line here, but the ink is smudged in the shape of a paw print. Looks like something stepped on the page.] The next part I was actually there for. We got Nym to the hospital, where the gym leader was so impressed that they got invited to fight her first. Nym was pretty mad at me for running off like that though. I did get everyone nearly killed, myself included. But before they could get mad at me I had to convince them I was actually me! Apparently the windy thing turned my hair white, but it never went back. I thought that was just like a super saiyan power up or something, but it’s still white! How am I supposed to explain this to Mom and Dad? Oh yah, I learned magic and it turned my hair white. I don’t actually care that much, but everyone keeps saying I look like some “Komaeda” guy, and it’s getting on my nerves. Point is, to convince them I tried playing the Village Bridge Song again, but I think I spaced out and ended up back in that ocean world with the sharp toothed person. I swear, if he’s not related to Nym they have to be from the same tribe or something. Is that how it works? Anyway, we actually had a nice talk. Apparently he lives in [there are several crossed out spellings here] Supplemental Space, some world that exists in people’s minds in headaches, and is 400 years old. He pointed out I might be a Tao, one of the big tribes of Croli. Which brings up a lot of new questions! Is my magic a Tao thing, or can everyone do that too and I just got it early? How am I a Tao if I’m from Unova? And what about the windy thing, because even he seemed confused by that. He also said “Look out for the man in the-” before I woke up, so that doesn’t help! I’m going to assume he meant Crow, because that guy seems like bad news. As if that wasn’t enough, the news is saying some CEO that Lily met got killed by Chase’s mom! I can’t say I knew her very long, but something about that doesn’t add up. I’m definitely not going to be the one to figure that one out. I’m more concerned with how Chase is taking the news. Lily is shocked, but I can’t imagine how Chase is doing. We should find him soon. Not going to lie, my head hurts, I’m tired, I still have no idea what’s happening, and it feels like there are too many people who do. As much as I want to run off looking for answers, everyone also has their own things going on. I’m still worried about Nym, Lily, and Chase. The mind guy doesn’t seem like he’s going anywhere, so I’ll focus on [The rest of the text is a garbled mess of ideas and curse words.] PS Buy a pencil pens suck |
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Pokémon Treble & Bass, aka Croli, is a Chambers & Charizard campaign that begins in the summer of 2016. It's set in the Croli region, based on the south of the United States. Archives
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