Dragon Boot Camp [Extravaganza One-Shot]
Feb 28, 2019 6:00:27 GMT
Post by illustriousrocket on Feb 28, 2019 6:00:27 GMT
This is a short story based on a prompt from Walrus for the New Year’s Extravaganza, “Lance is tired of people making fun of how goofy Dragonite looks, so he decides to put together a team of 'edgy', cool-looking dragons like Haxorus and Salamence.”
-:-
Leader of the Elite Four. Champion of Kanto and Johto's shared Pokémon League. Lance the dragon master was no stranger to accomplishment in life, and held more honors to his name than many a trainer could even dream of.
By all measures, Lance should have been content with his situation. But there was one thing that always nagged at the back of his mind. One thing that, with the impending opening of Unova's Pokémon World Tournament, he resolved to finally do something about.
Never would anyone mock him as a fake dragon master again.
The insults from the dark corners of the community following the Pokémon League pestered him in his thoughts. He despised the way they would mock him, calling him a fraud who really was ‘just’ a Flying-type expert. First of all, didn't those people notice that Agatha, his old colleague, used more Poison-type Pokémon than Ghost-types, her stated area of expertise? Maybe it didn't matter, since she was never Champion and never outranked him in the Elite Four. But didn't those critics realize just how rare dragons were? How hard they were to train? Lance only told every single challenger he met that dragons were mythical Pokémon! That they were hard to catch and raise, but that their powers were superior and they were virtually indestructible!
When the derision came, most of it centered on the fact that besides his Charizard, Aerodactyl and Gyarados, who were not ‘technically’ dragons, he used three Dragonite. Not cool enough, they said. Didn't fit the image people had in their minds of what dragons should look like. They were fools, Lance decided. They didn't see the potential each seemingly cute Dragonite held for power and destruction. The species was capable of flying around the globe in sixteen hours, at once a giant that could lead lost ships to shore and with its same claws reduce a forest to ashes. Why, he’d even manage to pass on the secret arts of the Dragons’ Den in teaching his prized Dragonite Barrier, even if in recent years it’d seemed to have done little more than draw spurious accusations of using illegal performance enhancements. Could any of those other dragons lay claim to such versatility? Still, his detractors’ words wore on Lance's nerves, and when the PWT was announced, he made a resolution.
Not only would he assemble a team including the dragons so often used to antagonize him, he would train them beyond anything his critics imagined. He was Lance, the greatest dragon master in the world. He would set himself apart and prove that when it came to taming the mythological creatures, he was second to none.
That was why he'd flown all the way to the region of Orre to meet with Krane, the desert nation's foremost Pokémon professor. Krane had agreed to lend Lance the use of his Battle Sim System, an extensive virtual reality device that could generate virtually any situation as if it were real, to put his new dragons to the test.
Lance and his Dragonite stood side-by-side on the banks of a lake simulated by the holodeck, reviewing the five new recruits to their team. Lance had traveled the world to assemble them and given them basic training to help them reach their fully evolved states. Now, he knew, they were ready to receive the kind of training only he could provide.
First, the three-headed, part-Dark-type Hydreigon. Lance suspected there would be some controversy over this choice in Unova, as it was well known as the signature Pokémon of Team Plasma leader Ghetsis, a man who had nearly caused the mass release of the region’s Pokémon and then tried to freeze the land in ice two years later. None of that bothered the Johtonian elite, and so his search went on unimpeded for a prime individual befitting of his master training. He went to Unova’s Victory Road seeking Deino, Hydreigon’s unevolved form, and couldn’t turn his back when he found one being attacked by a horde of Durant. Now fully grown, she cut an impressive, intimidating profile and had the strength and versatility to back it up.
Next up, Kingdra. This one was a bit personal, Lance had to admit. His cousin Clair, the Dragon-type Gym Leader of Blackthorn Gym, also used one. Many comparisons were drawn and debates run over which of them was the better dragon expert, and too frequently for Lance’s liking, some argued she was better simply because she only used one non-Dragon-type on her Gym team. How was that fair? She only had four Pokémon on that team, Lance had to always have five or six! Although he cared deeply about his cousin, he had to prove that her aptitude with her prize Kingdra was but a shadow of his own and thus sought a Horsea of his own to raise.
Third was Salamence. Lance considered him to be both the most difficult to obtain and the most educational of his newfound team to train. Dragon-type enthusiasts the world over knew of the legends of a secretive tribe of dragon tamers known as the Draconids hidden in the mountains of Hoenn. The thing was, while many had searched for the Draconids over the years, and there had been claims of their discovery for ages, none of the evidence brought forward conclusively proved it. Lance’s search for a Bagon in Meteor Falls forced him to press on deep into the mountain range on Hoenn’s western coast, and as he went, he felt a growing suspicion he was being watched. Eventually, when he did find the Bagon that would become his Salamence, he battled his quarry with Dragonite before executing the capture. Right after that, he suddenly found himself surrounded by people. All wore clothing and accessories bearing patterns similar to those on the body of the legendary Rayquaza, and Lance knew who he was speaking to before they told him. The Draconids. They’d been the ones watching him during his expedition, and when they saw that he too was a dragon tamer, they decided to reveal themselves to him. He understood, before long, how they had remained hidden. They lived in the deepest caverns beneath the falls, sustaining their hardy existence on the berries that grew on the mountainside, and only revealed themselves to those they trusted. As it turned out, they could tell Lance was a dragon tamer of great talent, and that earned their trust. He even got to see their underground village, where he discovered that Salamence was also a revered Pokémon to them. Generations of the tribe’s Lorekeepers trained them, some even unlocking a new form of Salamence that Lance had never seen before. While resolving to keep the village a secret, Lance also secured permission to return and investigate this alternate form. His time there also ensured Salamence a spot on his team, as a way to honor the Draconids.
Lance’s fourth new Pokémon was, incidentally, one he caught on the same trip to Hoenn. After deciding not to go to Sinnoh and pursue a Garchomp, he went instead to the central Hoenn desert and sought out a Trapinch instead. He was joined in this leg of his journey by a man he met named Aarune, who called himself a Secret Base Expert and trained a Flygon. Aarune invited Lance to use a Secret Base he created in the desert as a base camp, and during the time Lance spent there, they swapped stories about their Pokémon and adventures. He even offered Lance a special stone he called a Garchompite, claiming he and his Flygon had no use for it. Lance refused, citing his decision not to seek a Garchomp of his own out of respect for Sinnoh Champion Cynthia, whose signature Pokémon was Garchomp. Since Cynthia was not a Dragon-type specialist by trade, Lance felt no need to compete with her the way he did with Clair. He captured his Trapinch in the desert shortly afterward, and bid Aarune farewell, with the Secret Base Expert promising to watch Lance compete in the PWT.
His sense of competition was what motivated Lance to fill the final slot on his team with Haxorus, the Axe Jaw Pokémon found in Unova. There were not one but two Dragon-type experts in Unova, and both used Haxorus as the anchors of their teams. Drayden was the Gym Leader of Opelucid City, a community where past met present. Half of the city had been meticulously maintained much as it had for centuries honor traditions of the past, while the other half was a jumble of newly-erected glass and steel at the cutting edge of technology and progress. The other Unovan dragon user was, in fact, another Opelucid native. Lance understood that before this girl, Iris, became the region’s Champion, she’d spent time as the leader of Opelucid Gym as well. Those accomplishments at her young age earned Iris Lance’s respect. He was looking forward to meeting and competing with her even though he’d heard she declined a place in the PWT. No matter, he thought. Both Red and Blue, the children who’d defeated him in the inaugural Pokémon League, would be there. He could meet and challenge Iris later.
Hydreigon, Kingdra, Salamence, Flygon, Haxorus. All of them were there on the shores of the simulated lake, standing in a line before Lance and Dragonite.
“I have handpicked all of you to form the greatest team of dragons the world has ever seen,” Lance told them, earning a chorus of enthusiastic roars in response. “For us to fulfill that mutual goal, I will teach you specialized tactics other trainers don’t prioritize. Some of what you are going to learn may seem unorthodox, but in time you will understand how to apply these lessons in battle.”
Lance turned toward the lake and spread his arms. This was a previously arranged signal to Professor Krane’s assistant, who was outside the simulation operating it. When he saw Lance’s gesture, he executed a line of code that made a red Gyarados emerge from the lake with a shriek that shook the artificial earth.
“There are three lessons!” Lance announced to his team. “First shall be a simple battle exercise against this red Gyarados. The second lesson will be practicing a raid on a storefront acting as cover for a secret Team Rocket base. Finally, there will be a simulated operation against Team Rocket in which we will storm said base. All of these are experiences Dragonite and I shared. By allowing you to experience them as well, you shall learn unique skills that will turn you into a force like no other!”
Lance’s infectious enthusiasm won his new dragons over to the unusual training he proposed, and they cheered. Like the one who had assembled them, they looked forward to becoming the special team he described.
-:-
Leader of the Elite Four. Champion of Kanto and Johto's shared Pokémon League. Lance the dragon master was no stranger to accomplishment in life, and held more honors to his name than many a trainer could even dream of.
By all measures, Lance should have been content with his situation. But there was one thing that always nagged at the back of his mind. One thing that, with the impending opening of Unova's Pokémon World Tournament, he resolved to finally do something about.
Never would anyone mock him as a fake dragon master again.
The insults from the dark corners of the community following the Pokémon League pestered him in his thoughts. He despised the way they would mock him, calling him a fraud who really was ‘just’ a Flying-type expert. First of all, didn't those people notice that Agatha, his old colleague, used more Poison-type Pokémon than Ghost-types, her stated area of expertise? Maybe it didn't matter, since she was never Champion and never outranked him in the Elite Four. But didn't those critics realize just how rare dragons were? How hard they were to train? Lance only told every single challenger he met that dragons were mythical Pokémon! That they were hard to catch and raise, but that their powers were superior and they were virtually indestructible!
When the derision came, most of it centered on the fact that besides his Charizard, Aerodactyl and Gyarados, who were not ‘technically’ dragons, he used three Dragonite. Not cool enough, they said. Didn't fit the image people had in their minds of what dragons should look like. They were fools, Lance decided. They didn't see the potential each seemingly cute Dragonite held for power and destruction. The species was capable of flying around the globe in sixteen hours, at once a giant that could lead lost ships to shore and with its same claws reduce a forest to ashes. Why, he’d even manage to pass on the secret arts of the Dragons’ Den in teaching his prized Dragonite Barrier, even if in recent years it’d seemed to have done little more than draw spurious accusations of using illegal performance enhancements. Could any of those other dragons lay claim to such versatility? Still, his detractors’ words wore on Lance's nerves, and when the PWT was announced, he made a resolution.
Not only would he assemble a team including the dragons so often used to antagonize him, he would train them beyond anything his critics imagined. He was Lance, the greatest dragon master in the world. He would set himself apart and prove that when it came to taming the mythological creatures, he was second to none.
That was why he'd flown all the way to the region of Orre to meet with Krane, the desert nation's foremost Pokémon professor. Krane had agreed to lend Lance the use of his Battle Sim System, an extensive virtual reality device that could generate virtually any situation as if it were real, to put his new dragons to the test.
Lance and his Dragonite stood side-by-side on the banks of a lake simulated by the holodeck, reviewing the five new recruits to their team. Lance had traveled the world to assemble them and given them basic training to help them reach their fully evolved states. Now, he knew, they were ready to receive the kind of training only he could provide.
First, the three-headed, part-Dark-type Hydreigon. Lance suspected there would be some controversy over this choice in Unova, as it was well known as the signature Pokémon of Team Plasma leader Ghetsis, a man who had nearly caused the mass release of the region’s Pokémon and then tried to freeze the land in ice two years later. None of that bothered the Johtonian elite, and so his search went on unimpeded for a prime individual befitting of his master training. He went to Unova’s Victory Road seeking Deino, Hydreigon’s unevolved form, and couldn’t turn his back when he found one being attacked by a horde of Durant. Now fully grown, she cut an impressive, intimidating profile and had the strength and versatility to back it up.
Next up, Kingdra. This one was a bit personal, Lance had to admit. His cousin Clair, the Dragon-type Gym Leader of Blackthorn Gym, also used one. Many comparisons were drawn and debates run over which of them was the better dragon expert, and too frequently for Lance’s liking, some argued she was better simply because she only used one non-Dragon-type on her Gym team. How was that fair? She only had four Pokémon on that team, Lance had to always have five or six! Although he cared deeply about his cousin, he had to prove that her aptitude with her prize Kingdra was but a shadow of his own and thus sought a Horsea of his own to raise.
Third was Salamence. Lance considered him to be both the most difficult to obtain and the most educational of his newfound team to train. Dragon-type enthusiasts the world over knew of the legends of a secretive tribe of dragon tamers known as the Draconids hidden in the mountains of Hoenn. The thing was, while many had searched for the Draconids over the years, and there had been claims of their discovery for ages, none of the evidence brought forward conclusively proved it. Lance’s search for a Bagon in Meteor Falls forced him to press on deep into the mountain range on Hoenn’s western coast, and as he went, he felt a growing suspicion he was being watched. Eventually, when he did find the Bagon that would become his Salamence, he battled his quarry with Dragonite before executing the capture. Right after that, he suddenly found himself surrounded by people. All wore clothing and accessories bearing patterns similar to those on the body of the legendary Rayquaza, and Lance knew who he was speaking to before they told him. The Draconids. They’d been the ones watching him during his expedition, and when they saw that he too was a dragon tamer, they decided to reveal themselves to him. He understood, before long, how they had remained hidden. They lived in the deepest caverns beneath the falls, sustaining their hardy existence on the berries that grew on the mountainside, and only revealed themselves to those they trusted. As it turned out, they could tell Lance was a dragon tamer of great talent, and that earned their trust. He even got to see their underground village, where he discovered that Salamence was also a revered Pokémon to them. Generations of the tribe’s Lorekeepers trained them, some even unlocking a new form of Salamence that Lance had never seen before. While resolving to keep the village a secret, Lance also secured permission to return and investigate this alternate form. His time there also ensured Salamence a spot on his team, as a way to honor the Draconids.
Lance’s fourth new Pokémon was, incidentally, one he caught on the same trip to Hoenn. After deciding not to go to Sinnoh and pursue a Garchomp, he went instead to the central Hoenn desert and sought out a Trapinch instead. He was joined in this leg of his journey by a man he met named Aarune, who called himself a Secret Base Expert and trained a Flygon. Aarune invited Lance to use a Secret Base he created in the desert as a base camp, and during the time Lance spent there, they swapped stories about their Pokémon and adventures. He even offered Lance a special stone he called a Garchompite, claiming he and his Flygon had no use for it. Lance refused, citing his decision not to seek a Garchomp of his own out of respect for Sinnoh Champion Cynthia, whose signature Pokémon was Garchomp. Since Cynthia was not a Dragon-type specialist by trade, Lance felt no need to compete with her the way he did with Clair. He captured his Trapinch in the desert shortly afterward, and bid Aarune farewell, with the Secret Base Expert promising to watch Lance compete in the PWT.
His sense of competition was what motivated Lance to fill the final slot on his team with Haxorus, the Axe Jaw Pokémon found in Unova. There were not one but two Dragon-type experts in Unova, and both used Haxorus as the anchors of their teams. Drayden was the Gym Leader of Opelucid City, a community where past met present. Half of the city had been meticulously maintained much as it had for centuries honor traditions of the past, while the other half was a jumble of newly-erected glass and steel at the cutting edge of technology and progress. The other Unovan dragon user was, in fact, another Opelucid native. Lance understood that before this girl, Iris, became the region’s Champion, she’d spent time as the leader of Opelucid Gym as well. Those accomplishments at her young age earned Iris Lance’s respect. He was looking forward to meeting and competing with her even though he’d heard she declined a place in the PWT. No matter, he thought. Both Red and Blue, the children who’d defeated him in the inaugural Pokémon League, would be there. He could meet and challenge Iris later.
Hydreigon, Kingdra, Salamence, Flygon, Haxorus. All of them were there on the shores of the simulated lake, standing in a line before Lance and Dragonite.
“I have handpicked all of you to form the greatest team of dragons the world has ever seen,” Lance told them, earning a chorus of enthusiastic roars in response. “For us to fulfill that mutual goal, I will teach you specialized tactics other trainers don’t prioritize. Some of what you are going to learn may seem unorthodox, but in time you will understand how to apply these lessons in battle.”
Lance turned toward the lake and spread his arms. This was a previously arranged signal to Professor Krane’s assistant, who was outside the simulation operating it. When he saw Lance’s gesture, he executed a line of code that made a red Gyarados emerge from the lake with a shriek that shook the artificial earth.
“There are three lessons!” Lance announced to his team. “First shall be a simple battle exercise against this red Gyarados. The second lesson will be practicing a raid on a storefront acting as cover for a secret Team Rocket base. Finally, there will be a simulated operation against Team Rocket in which we will storm said base. All of these are experiences Dragonite and I shared. By allowing you to experience them as well, you shall learn unique skills that will turn you into a force like no other!”
Lance’s infectious enthusiasm won his new dragons over to the unusual training he proposed, and they cheered. Like the one who had assembled them, they looked forward to becoming the special team he described.
