victory_road | Catch-all log for February

With a contented sound, Armin stretched his arms above his head, before dropping back on his bed in his and Jean's shared room. After living on his tiny really-meant-for-one boat since Jean arrived here, the inn room seemed almost like a princely kingdom, and Armin couldn't help but feel a little amused at how spoiled he had gotten. Back in the barracks, all the male recruits had shared the same room and privacy had been non-existent safe for the toilets. Sharing his boat with just Jean was already a huge step up from that, and yet this world had been good enough to him that even that felt cramped.

At least he'd have plenty of chances to enjoy the wide-open out on the road. Maybe not in their tent perse, but certainly out on the road. And it was good to travel again. Even if Armin had already travelled down these roads before, there were always new things to see. And more importantly, old things to introduce Jean to! He couldn't wait to take him to Cerulean and show him the aquarium there. Honestly, he couldn't wait to see it again himself!

Though it wasn't just travel and sight-seeing Jean had come for. He was here to set his first steps on the road to becoming a champion. In fact, he had been so eager, he had already set off for the gym soon after they arrived here. It was, if nothing else, a tangible goal to aspire to and that always had a certain level of comfort.

Rolling onto his stomach, Armin propped his e-reader up against the pillow, intending to catch up on some reading until Jean came back. It would help keep his mind off wondering how Jean was doing and if his strategy was working out well. Lt. Surge was a little more advanced than the first gym most trainers usually took on, but Jean had been eager enough to go for it.

Edited 2020-02-09 20:31 (UTC)

Not very long after Jean had left to take on his first Gym, muffled cursing and the rattling sound of someone struggling with the key-card lock came from the other side of the door-- Which Jean then flung open hard enough that it bounced against the wall-guard and rebounded to smack him in the shoulder. He bristled like he was going to slam it again, but stopped himself. He'd embarrassed himself enough already. His Lycanroc, Max, entered the room from around his legs, with an equally frustrated look on his face.

"They're closed. All the gyms are fucking closed."

In some ways, it was a good thing Jean still struggled a little with things like keycards. Or at least, in this case, it meant Armin had had a bit of a heads up to Jean storming into their room as, well, a raging storm rather than still be deeply engrossed in his book. If he hadn't, Jean probably would've had to peel him off the ceiling in surprise at this point.

For a moment Armin just blinked owlishly at Jean, trying to catch up on his words before he finally spoke: "C-closed? What do you mean closed?"

Gyms didn't close. Well, for the night, sure, but as far as Armin knew come rain or come shine, you could always go and challenge a gym.

"They're closed," Jean huffed, and shut the door behind him by hooking it with his heel and kicking it away. "There was a sign on the front entrance about taking the rest of the month off for the 'Lunar New Year'. What the fuck is a Lunar New Year? The new year happens once, and it's only been a month since it happened. How many more excuses do these people need to celebrate something?"

Max sullenly trudged into the room, then flopped over on the floor and heaved a sigh. He was really disappointed. Jean had said that he was going to be the star of the battle today, and now there was no battle to be had at all.

"Living in a world like this they must feel like they have a lot of reason to celebrate." Honestly, sometimes it was a little overwhelming to Armin just how often people here had some excuse for a festival or celebration. But then, they had come from a world where reasons for celebration were scarce and the means to even fewer. Probably if anyone from here ever made it to their world, they'd find it a sullen, unhappy place.

(They wouldn't be wrong exactly.)

"But I don't think I've ever heard of a lunar new year before. It has something to do with the moon, obviously, but..." He trailed off there, frowning as he dug through everything he had learned in this world for any reference to a lunar new year.

Harvey the Chewtle peered at Max from where he had been laying next to Armin's bed, busily chewing away at one of the industrial-strength Kong toys Armin had bought him. At Max's dramatic flop and sullenly sigh, he tilted his head, seemed to think for a moment, before he nudged his chewtoy, turtle spit and all, towards the Lycanroc with his snout. Does he maybe need to chew on things for a bit?

"Well, it's so constant it's impossible to keep up with," he grumbled, and went to sit on his bed. He leaned forward and balanced his elbow on this knee, and chin in his hand. "You've been here forever and you don't even know about it yet. They might have just made it up on the spot."

There was a strong feeling of they're doing this to me on purpose in Jean's tone of voice. The fact that it was so uncanny, even to Armin, only reinforced this line of thought.

To be fair to Harvey, Max did enjoy the occasional kong toy full of peanut butter, but that wasn't what he wanted right now. He pushed the toy back towards Harvey with a dismissive flick of his paw.

Oh, Armin recognised that tone of voice. Listening to it, it was almost hard to imagine Jean was a grown, proper adult, and not still the brat Armin had been in training with. Some things never changed. "Well, I'm sure they didn't make it up just to annoy you."

Maybe it was something new they had come up with just now, but even then, Armin assumed there was a bigger reason than just wanting to annoy one trainer.

Setting aside his e-reader, he reached for his bag which contained his handy little laptop. "Why don't I look it up and we'll see what it is all about?"

Harvey meanwhile looked from his offered toy to Max then back again. Boy, if this was the sort of situation not even a nice chew toy could fix, it must be bad. Unfortunately, Harvey was still very much a baby. He didn't even 'speak' much yet. Lifting onto his chubby little feet, he trundled closer so he could pat Max on the head with one paw. There, there.

Jean had grown a lot in the years he'd been away, but he was still Jean. The occasional moment of victim-hood was still something he liked to indulge himself with. Just not when other, more important things were going on... Which was most of the time back home. He was backsliding a bit now that he had so much free time.

"How many of those thingies do you have?" Jean lifted his head as Armin pulled out yet another thing with a screen. Everything was screens here. Jean still had a bit of trouble working his Dex. "Don't they all do the same stuff?"

Thankfully, while he did want to have a battle, Max was probably Jean's gentlest and most patient Pokemon. He let the little Chewtle try and comfort him, even if it wasn't working at all.

"Just the two." Armin booted his laptop, waiting until he could sign in. "And they are pretty different." He gestured at his laptop. "This is a laptop, which you can do a lot of things on. You can watch movies and write notes down and look up things online. I can even follow classes through this."

Digital learning! Wasn't this world grand.

"That--" here he gestured at his e-reader, a gift from the previous Jean. "--is called an e-reader. It's like... having a lot of books in one. You can read on it and have hundreds of books at your fingertips. And you can put new ones on there too." Which was why Armin had only needed to bring this along with them (well, that and a few notebooks, of course) rather than try and lug his whole library along.

Jean sat through Armin's little tutorial without interrupting. He knew that you could put letters into the computer by using the keyboard, and make it answer your questions, but he really didn't understand what the internet was, or how any of these screens really worked. He felt like it was so beyond him it wasn't worth understanding. He just had to accept it at face value.

When Armin finished, he just let out a hum of assent, with an is that so? sort of tone. How did the professors get into the laptop? How did all those books fit in the reader? These were questions he had, but also rabbit holes he didn't want to go down at the moment.

"So what about this Lunar New Year shit?"

There were many things Armin didn't understand about laptops and the internet either. He tried his best to understand. He had even asked Pidge for some explanations, but even then there were some things he just couldn't wrap his mind around. But, he reasoned, he didn't necessarily need to understand every bit of it to work with it. And though it nagged at him sometimes not to understand something, he still gained a lot from it.

"Right, let's see."

Logging in, he brought up his Vulpix browser and went to the google. Here he then proceeded, with two fingers, to hen-peck his question into the search machine. At least he had stopped adding a 'please' at the end of every query. Apparently that was not necessary. A hit of the enter key and a few moments later, Armin had the information they desired.

"The Lunar New Year is the beginning of a calendar year whose months are cycles of the moon. Though New Year is now generally celebrated on January First, some local regions still celebrate a traditional Lunar New Year one the first full moon of the year."

Edited 2020-02-09 22:15 (UTC)

Of course Armin is that guy that ends his Google queries with 'please.' Of course.

All of the turning the computer on and going to the search engine was something Jean already recognized, so he just watched it happen.

"...So there are two different calendars? One that follows the sun, and one that follows the phases of the moon?"

Thankfully, Astrology was one bit of human knowledge that Paradis didn't entirely lose. They understood that a year was the amount of time it took to orbit around the sun, so Jean could understand the gist of this idea.

"That's right." Armin scanned the rest of the article, his brows furrowed in curiosity as he took it all in. "From the looks of it, a lot of different societies and regions developed their own calendars throughout history. Nowadays, it's unified, but in some places, old traditions still stick around."

He hummed thoughtfully as he regarded the screen. "I didn't hear about them celebrating this before, but maybe they only make a big thing out of it every so many years?" He mused aloud, not expecting Jean to give him an answer.

"Makes sense. It'd get chaotic if everyone had a different idea of what month and day it was."

It'd be impossible to organize anything that required more than one kind of culture meeting otherwise. But Jean still knew that sometimes, the old ways were too dear to the people that kept them to give them up so easily.

"The sign said that it was the 'Year of the Rattata.' Does the laptop say anything about that?"

Armin tapped in the new search query, getting immediate results.

"Ah, yes, let's see. Says here that in some regions, pokemon are associated with certain years based on an old myth. The Rattata is one of those pokemon. It goes in a twelve-year cycle and when it gets to the end, you start counting again from the first animal."

"And the Rattata is the first," Jean continued, and pointed at a picture of a Rattata at the top of a dial, rather like 12 o'clock on a watch. "Maybe that's why it's special this time. It only happens once every 12 years."

"That might be it. Rattata are native to this region, so maybe they feel more closely connected to it."

Armin's eyes flicked to the side the glance at Jean, looking somewhat amused. "Either way, a somewhat unfortunate coincidence, but not a personal attack campaign against your badge quest."

"I never said that," Jean retorted, and leaned back from the laptop screen. He was perfectly aware that that's what he may have sounded like, but still, he didn't say it. "But I still think it's over the top. Taking a whole month off? What're people like me supposed to do in the meantime, twiddle our thumbs? I'd psyched my Pokemon up about it and everything."

"You didn't need to say it," came Armin's simple, slightly blunt reply. Sometimes a tone was worth a thousand words. Or something along those lines.

"I know it's disappointing to have to wait, but you'll be able to get them next month. And it looks here like they will be hosting some special events and celebrations this month for the Lunar Festival." A few taps had brought up a calendar with the scheduled events for the month. "Uhm, let's see. It looks like there is going to be a race. And a big celebration at the end with... lanterns? Lots of plays and-- Oh!" Armin's eyes widened a bit in excitement as he read the next few lines. "Jean! Look! There is going to be special Double battle challenges." He pointed at the screen indicating exactly where Jean should look.

Armin's first comment didn't get a reply, just a snort. Because. Well. They both knew it. It didn't need to be discussed further.

Jean didn't perk up until a race was mentioned, and didn't lean back in until the double battle challenges came up. Plays, lanterns, blah blah blah. Jean was in this for the action!

"What does it say about the race? That first."

Domino, Blaze and Penny would all love something like that, depending on how it was going to be held. Was it just to see who the fastest Pokemon was? Because Penny and Blaze were literally some of the fastest species out there.

But Armin wanted to gush about the double battle opportunities!

But okay. He scrolled back a bit to get to the part about the race. "It says there is going to be an obstacle race on the 22nd of this month. Apparently in the myth, Rattata was the first to come in from a line of animals, and that's why they are holding the race. It says here it's both about being quick and smart."

A bit more reading. "Oh, and there is going to be a prize."

"Hmm..." Jean scanned the rules further, then found what he was looking for. "Ha, there! It says that the Pokemon has to be ridden by their trainer somehow. And that they have to be touching the ground when they do it. Shoot. Sorry, Penny."

"Well, it sounds like something either Domino or Blaze would be perfect for."

For Armin's part, he didn't really seem to have a pokemon that would work. Well, technically he could ride Hannibal, but the Piloswine took everything at a plodding pace, and he probably wouldn't make it to the finish until the next day. Let alone stand past any potential obstacles. Unless Hannibal could muscle through that would probably just be a no-go.

Though, fortunately, he didn't have much interest in racing to begin with.

"But which one? Which-ever one I pick, the other one's gonna be mad as hell that I left them out. Domino might stop listening to me if Blaze goes instead of her... But Blaze is bigger and faster..."

"It's still two weeks to the race. What if you had them race each other first to decide who gets to participate in the race? I suppose it might spur on their rivalry--" then again, that was a bit of a forgone conclusion at this point "--but maybe getting a chance to actively influence your choice will keep them from blaming you when you make your choice."

Armin wasn't sure if it was a great suggestion. Thankfully, he had been able to avoid inner-team rivalries so far. At least to the point of Blaze and Domino.

"Do you want to judge that race? Because I sure don't," Jean sighed. "Normally they play by the rules, but when they battle, it can get pretty dirty. I can only imagine what they'd do to each other in a race. I might end up with a Zebstrika with its face kicked in, or a Rapidash with a broken leg."

Armin scrunched up his face. "Pass."

Hey, he had already done his time stuck in the middle of a ridiculous rivalry. He was not going to repeat that again.

"Then I really don't know how to solve things. I've never had to deal with a rivalry like that between any of my pokemon. You might be able to ask around on the network, maybe see if someone else has any experience with this?"

"Maybe," Jean could only shrug. He wasn't the one to be expected to solve such a conflict. He'd at least been able to work with Eren... Until he disappeared. Honestly, his life had gotten way easier since that happened. And it wasn't like he could just abandon one of his Pokemon. "I'd let them fight it out, but it never ends. They're really similar in strength."

"It's always difficult for a parent when they end up with a child just like themselves." It was said sotto voce and with a bit of sass, because let's face it. That is exactly what is happening here, isn't it? After keeping up an obnoxious, meaningless rivalry for several years, now he gets to be the one to deal with it.

"You watch it," Jean pointed an accusatory finger not far from the tip of Armin's nose. "You don't know what it's like to hate someone's guts and still have to work with them every damn day of the week. You'd end up with your fist in someone's face sooner or later too, trust me."

The only thing Jean's finger jab earned him was a mild roll of the eyes. At this point, Armin didn't even bother responding to this anymore. He had done his time trying to make both Jean and Eren see the other's better points, but it had never gone anywhere. The two were just too similar for it to work.

Instead, he focused back on the screen again, pointing out a part of the text. "Did you see this? They'll be holding special double challenges this month. There might not be any badges for you to get, but I think you should be able to do one, if not two of these. It'd be a good preparation, I think."

"What's a double battle in the first place?" Jean neatly took the bait, and changed subjects willingly. "Two Pokemon out at the same time on either side? I didn't know that was allowed..."

Jean was the type of person that would throw out all six of his Pokemon at once if it wasn't against the rules. Who ever said he respected the sanctity of one-on-one battles? It was the Pokemon themselves that refused to fight with those kinds of odds stacked in their favor.

"That's right. It can either be two people teaming up using one pokemon each or two trainers using two pokemon each. And it is allowed, as long as those are the rules you agree on first. One-on-one is the standard battle format and the most popular, but there are other ones too."

Armin never had any problems respecting those rules. But that was mainly because these sort of battles held no real danger. In situations with actual danger, such as the fight in the cave against Necrozma, all bets were off though.

"Using two pokemon instead of one can really change the dynamic of a fight around. You can use one pokemon to compensate for another's weaknesses or use certain follow up attacks to create different effects."

"Change the dynamic..." Jean put his chin in his hand, and rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Maybe that's just what I need. Domino and Blaze have never had to work together to get something done before. And they both like battling so much... Maybe they could put their differences aside for a minute to work for the win."

The logic was sound. Jean tolerated Eren best when they were fighting together. It might work the same for Pokemon.

"A common goal, huh?" That certainly sounded like it could work. As long as the two of them could set their differences aside for long enough.

"What level are they right now, anyway? Maybe we could have a double-battle first to test things out? Assuming I have something close enough in level to them." Unless they are low enough that it might make more sense to have them team up to take down one of Armin's many level hundreds. That was an option too.

"Domino is level 42. Blaze is level 40," Jean answered. "Do you have any not-Water Pokemon that could face them? Going against Water Types would give Domino too much of an advantage."

"I do." He's not a complete one-trick pony. Just... mostly. "But the ones I've got are nowhere near their level. It wouldn't be a fair fight." Even the closest pokemon he had to those levels still had a good twenty or so levels on Domino and Blaze. "Unless the two of them would team up to take on one of mine. That might be a more equal fight."

"Would yours be willing to do that? We'd need something around level... 60 maybe? You'd think level 80 would be right, but I don't think their growth is that clean cut. A level 80 Pokemon could probably flatten them both in one attack."

"Lancelot, Boris and Mika are all a bit over level 60. Mika might be the fairest match, seeing as there won't be any type advantages on either side. Lancelot and Boris are both water types, so they could probably flatten Blaze before he'd have a chance to do anything."

"And which one is Mika again? You've got so many, it's hard for me to keep track sometimes."

Armin can't deny it, not when he's got more Lapras alone than most people will ever have pokemon.

"My Mienfoo. She's my only fighting type." And, just in case, he added: "The one who always wears a scarf."

"...Ohh, now I get it. Mika. Sure. Okay."

Don't look so smug, Jean.

"She's kinda small, you think she can take on bigger Pokemon?"

Hey, wow, Armin shan't accept any buffoonery from a man who called his weedle Prick. Naming a pokemon after Mikasa might be a little embarrassing, but it sure beats using a dick joke.

"You don't need to worry. Mika might be small, but she packs quite the punch."

Hey, at least he wasn't a Kakuna anymore.

"As long as you're sure what you're doing."

Armin gave Jean a somewhat amused look. "I do think I know what I am doing when it comes to this."

They don't just let anyone become Champion, you know.

Catch-all log for February

Closed - Jean

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