As soon as training began, I immediately regretted that I’d ever joined the tournament. It sucked! It also took up a LOT of my day, leaving me very little time to practice on my own. I’d just been getting started on custom transforming and now I had an hour or two to work on it before bed at best.

Although, I have to admit that there were some advantages. I was taken around the valley and shown things that the Guardians kept to themselves. This didn’t mean that others didn’t know, they just kept quiet about it or avoided the places to not get on the bad side of the pokémon in charge.

Among what I was shown were two places that really spoke to me.

The first was another training area. It was separated from the rest of the valley by some cliffs and only those permitted by the Guardians were permitted to train there. Many of the strongest fighters from the tournament trained here, being groomed as potential future Guardians or to provide assistance should the valley be attacked.

It was while visiting this place that I was informed that I was not the only new member that year. The number of Guardians was not set, and winning the tournament did not actually guarantee membership, though it was a strong advantage when being considered for it. There was another newbie, the geodude I defeated had also been welcomed among the Guardians and the merill had been invited to train there with the possibility to become one in the future.

I was afraid he might dislike me for defeating him, but he was a cool dude and became a good friend as we hung out.

The second place was the source of the river that flowed through the valley. It was a huge waterfall that spilled into a beautiful pool that was perfect for relaxing in. The waterfall and pool was not a secret, and was actually a popular spot among the water-type pokémon. I’d been there before to relax and enjoy myself. What I was shown was a hidden area behind the waterfalls.

If I thought the outside was amazingly beautiful, then this place was heaven! It was a place only fliers could reach easily, so very few of the Guardians visited, but I knew I’d be coming back frequently.

Crystals covered the walls and ceiling giving not only a wondrous view, but also slight amounts of light, so even the furthest parts of the cave were traversable without a portable light source. And in those depths was a place where the water flowed into a pool with a slight scent of sulfur… a hot spring!

Oh yeah, this was going to be my new bathing spot.

Unfortunately with advantages came drawbacks. As a Guardian I was to be protector, peace keeper, mediator, teacher, and a leader of the valley.

As I’d said before, I was left with little time to myself.

For the first month on the job I was shadowing pidgeotto as he showed me how to do these things. Breaking up fights or arbitrating disputes before it reached that level, punishing rule breakers, assisting the newly hatched in learning the ways of the valley while also preparing them for their eventual departure. All of these were now among the myriad other things I had to deal with.

It was exhausting!

There was a reason I never wanted a management job back in the day. Sure there were some advantages, but the responsibility was crushing.

Oh don’t give me that ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ BS. Being a good fighter doesn’t mean one can be a good role model or leader.

Still, I learned what I was taught and got better at it. Didn’t mean I liked it. I was told off by the other, older Guardians a number of times when they disagreed with decisions I’d made or things I’d done. I’d apologize if I felt it was warranted, but stood my ground and defended my actions when I believed I’d made the best decision available at the time.

Spending time among the Guardians, I made a lot of new friends, and a few enemies. I also got my pretty pink tail kicked from one end of the training field to the other when dueling with some of my seniors. I might have all the moves and a ton of power, but they had the experience to put the hurt on me.

It was for the best that my ego was bruised and I was taken down a few pegs. I might have died had I experienced my first invasion with an overinflated ego.

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The invasion happened at the end of the summer.

I was at home working on improving the place for when I finally achieved a human form. I could become a humanoid, since there was an entire egg group of human-like pokémon to shift into, in order to do certain things, like cook, something I’d been sorely missing as a pokémon.

When pidgeotto came flying down screaming at me to get ready for battle my mind went blank for a bit. My first thought was if I’d promised to fight someone and lost track of time, but when I heard what was happening, I dropped what I was doing and did as instructed.

A pack of houndour led by a houndoom were trying to claim this valley as their own.

Oh, muk!

I joined pidgeotto in gathering our forces. With teleport I could get places a lot faster than him, though I wasn’t experienced enough to take more than one other when I did so, hence I took the strongest to try and hold off the pack until others could arrive.

Fortunately, the pack hadn’t gotten very far before we headed them off. Still, four versus over twenty seemed like it might be a bit dangerous.

Pideotto and I landed in front of the group, and we’d each been able to bring one other with us. The rest of our forces were coming up behind us, but would take five to ten minutes to arrive.

Before getting straight to combat, we tried to deal with the matter peacefully…

“Halt! This place is under our protection. Turn back.”

This was one of the two who’d accompanied us, another guardian, a poliwhirl. The fourth member of our group was a surskit. Both were capable of using water-type moves. This was good since I knew the enemies were essentially hellhounds, so were dual dark/fire type. They’d be able to blast water attacks at the hounds, and be able to extinguish any fires that were set. I couldn’t recall off hand what dark’s weaknesses were, but I knew that they were highly resistant to psychic attacks.

The games claimed there were immunities to certain types of attacks, but that was just a game. I could believe ghosts were immune to fighting or physical moves unless materialized, but otherwise there was no way they’d be completely unaffected. It just meant more power was needed to overcome their resistance.

The leader of the pack, houndour’s evolved form, a houndoom, looked at the forces arrayed against them and just laughed, not even considering us a threat or important enough to respond to.

The pack had slowed when we’d arrived, but hadn’t stopped, instead trying to circle us at the leader’s command.

Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. Two of us might be able to fly, but we can’t let the others get trapped.

The fight was brutal, and took forever. The hounds were excellent at group tactics, and while we’d had some practice, it wasn’t enough to defeat them with so small a group. It WAS enough to slow them down until reinforcements arrived, though we’d had to constantly give ground to prevent them circling us.

While I’d have liked to take out the leader, I’d been instructed to whittle away at their numbers. I stuck to water attacks, being careful to not run out of PP before help arrived. If I did, I was dead. That’s something I’d learned during my Guardian level combat training.

I did however trick some of them in by pretending to be exhausted, taking out three of their number with a single attack.

I’d liked to have been able to observe what the others did, but I was too busy trying not to die to get more than a glimpse here and there. Any inattention could have been fatal.

In the end we were victorious, driving off the few survivors, though it was not without cost. While there were no casualties on our side, there were many injuries. Few would have permanent consequences beyond some scars, but a few were not so lucky.

The Surskit that had accompanied us was the worst damaged, having lost a leg. Had it been intact when combat was over, it might have been fine, but it was charred and half of it was turned to ash. I’d forgotten that bug-types are weak to fire, but if he hadn’t been there we definitely would have lost.

Fortunately, the fight also provided benefits. Dispatching opponents could lead to an increase in a pokémon' s strength. While training fights and duels did the same, the benefits were extremely reduced.

The surskit might have lost a leg, but it’s personal power had increased greatly, boosting it close to where it had a chance to evolve. It wasn’t quite there yet, but if it was able to, then the loss of the leg could possibly be overcome. While sometimes evolution carried over wounds and scars, there was a chance of them disappearing or being reduced to minor inconveniences.

We left the cleanup of the fight to the others. I’d been using my PP sparingly, but having to fight against such numbers had drained me. I couldn’t even muster up the energy to heal any but the worst of the wounds I took. Fortunately I knew I’d be able to erase the scars, so I wasn’t worried.

There was only the one attack that year. Though it was a hard fight, I knew it might not be the last, so I pushed for increased training. Pidgeotto agreed with me and helped oversee it through the winter. He’d planned to migrate south that year, leaving me in his position, but he’d gotten injured enough to make it too dangerous to do so, hence he stuck around an extra year.

Telerean

So, that escalated… The basis of this story was a dream, but the fight I had in it was with a ursaring with a pair of cubs that was too stubborn and stupid trying to kill Rynn. But for some reason I just couldn’t write it. This happened instead. Even this was hard to write. Conversations and fighting… not my strong suits.

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As I’d promised, I’d gotten on and checked the poll about posting my other stuff or waiting, but it was tied up, so I had to wait some more. Next check had the result for rolling the dice up by 2. Since there were 2 choices, odds were to prep and post now, evens were to wait till I got completely stumped on this one. d20-sama rolled a 2. Sorry for those who wanted to see my other stuff ASAP.

When I get to posting them, I’ll check the chapter 7 poll for the setting. Though there’s far more medieval stuff than modern, just so ya know. Though with magitech, the settings can be a bit of both.