Ponymon

It was a lovely Spring day in the coastal city of Baltimare. The markets were bustling with ponies, seaponies, and even plenty of humans. Shops and stalls were selling everything from secret base decorations to lovely berry smoothies to one perplexing purple pegasus peddling some pretty pricey puny Pokemon. Down by the beach, a group of trainers started a small tournament, who’s spectacles have quickly drawn a crowd. Further along the beach, some duelists have also started showing off their battle skills for a crowd.

Coincidentally, five aspiring Pokemon trainers also happened to be in Baltimare this day. Whether they were enjoying the sights, browsing the marketplace, taking part in the beachside battles, or training to take on the local Gym, it certainly was a perfect day to be out and about. Certainly, absolutely nothing could go wrong.

"And fifty! Great work, Timburr!" Oathbound said, cheering for his partner as the latter finished a set of pull-ups on it's trademark log, exhausted by the training it had gone through this past hour. Oath was also sweating and panting from his own exercises. A mile run with a full backpack was tiring even for a pony like him.

They'd stayed in Baltimare for 2 days now, enjoying the benefits that a Ranger Association member brought them. Not lazing around of course, but training. They'd come straight to Baltimare from Ponyville after Oath had obtained his license as a Pokemon Trainer, a requirement for junior Rangers before promotion could be considered. That and the license also gave the Rangers an opportunity to challenge local Gyms for their badges - even compete in the Pokemon Leagues. Having a Champion among their ranks was a big status boost that the Association would not pass up. Of course, all that was completely voluntary. First and foremost they were concerned with things of another nature after all.

"Think you got some more in you, buddy? Or should we grab a snack and hit the beach proper?" Oath said, putting down his backpack in front of him. Timburr lifted its log from the stand and placed the original pull-up bar on it, wiping its brow with the other hand gave a dismissive "Burr." along with a shake of its head.
"Fair enough. We've been at it for a few days now, guess we've earned a bit of a vacation." Oath replied as he fished out a couple water bottles for the two along with some snacks he'd bought earlier from a human vendor - rice balls with raspberry jam in them.
Timburr meanwhile noticed the tournament going on in the distance and stared at it, interested. It completely missed Oath offering the bottle for it until he also noticed it.
"Tournament huh? Think we should go watch?" Timburr gave a nod and began walking over, its earlier exhaustion seemingly forgotten. Oath shook his head in amusement and packed away the snacks, keeping the bottles on a bit of rope on the back of his neck for easy access for either of them.
At least this way they save up on bits for any snacks people might be selling over there.

On the beach of Baltimare, a little ways away from the impromptu pokémon tournament on the sands, lay an oddly overdressed stallion on a beach-lounger underneath a large umbrella. Occasionally he would look up from the pokédex he held and towards the fighting area whenever the crowd cheered, gasped or otherwise made some noise indicating something spectacular was happening and every now and then he'd see a glimpse of a pokémon or a move being performed, but never in its entirety as the crowd blocked his view. Still, he seemed content with reading what was on the device.

"While I am enjoying the learning experience, this trainer business seems very... destructive." Wild Card commented to himself, and possibly to the pokémon surrounding him. "I mean, yeah. But it's awesome." Wild responded, in a strangely different voice to the first one. "Well that's all well and good being "awesome" but while you, Ace and Beast are fantasising over battles, I'm actually reading up on this whole thing so we don't make an ass of ourselves in our first actual battle." "Oh come on. Battles, duels, they're sort of similar to each other and we've got dueling down pretty well." "There's a difference between us fighting and us giving orders to our pokémon."

As Wild conversed with himself regarding the details of duels and battles, the Litten lazing on the lounger stretched itself out with a small "mew" and watched as a Rockruff ran circles around in the sand, stopping only to dig at a random patch in its course which in turn created a small hurdle which it would then jump over on every cycle. Right underneath the umbrella, however, sat a Deino, oblivious to the world around it as it gnawed away happily at the metal base of the umbrella. "He can't eat through that, right?" "Eat through what?" "The metal pole." "...I hope not, this is a rental."

A small distance away from where the tournament was taking place on the beach a tall, lanky thestral with an exceptionally long brown mane with white streaks stood besides a Ralts and a large pile of driftwood they had obviously gathered up. A Beldum floated about twenty feet away from the pony and Pokemon, it's single red eye staring dully at the pony.

"Alright Knucklehead, you ready?" Bronze asked, the Beldum rocking up and down as it's form of a nod. The thestral gestured with her metal prosthetic limb to the Ralts to begin; the small mushroom-like Pokemon was soon engulfed by a blue aura which then coated the driftwood too, the chunks of discarded wood flying up into the air in several directions.

"Takedown!" Bronze commanded to Knucklehead, who shot off with such alarming speed he displaced a small crater in the sand behind him. The metal pokemon moved like a missile, smashing through the driftwood and never letting it affect it's speed, looping and twisting through the air to catch as many pieces as it could before they hit the floor. Splinters soon rained down on the stretch of beach as the metal batterimg ram soared through debris as if it wasn't even there.

Out on the ocean waters a small, sleeping mare was curled up on what appeared to be an oversized lily pad as a murkrow flew circles overhead and a Pichu in a comically oversized flat cap played with her ears. With a soft yawn and a stretch her eyes slowly opened and she ended up staring straight at the Pichu sat on her muzzle.
“Hey there, Cheddar. You having some fun there?” She said before giggling at Cheddar’s immediate attempt to hug her face, only to lose his balance and flop back unceremoniously onto the lily pad. “Awwww,” reaching out with a hoof, she tentatively rubbed his little belly and watched as the little Pokémon squirmed adorably, “Never stop being this adorable, my cute little mouse buddy.”

Just as she was about to give Cheddar a raspberry the Murkrow landed next to the pair and gestured at the beach with a wing. “Hmmm? You want us to go take a look, Pecker?” Looking over at the commotion on the beach, she shrugged, “Couldn’t hurt. Squishy!” Stetson sprung up onto her hooves and pointed at the beach, “Take us closer to the beach! Team Hat away!” She yelled and, Seemingly in response, the lily pad turned towards the coast and slowly ‘floated’ back towards land.

Fantasy needed a break. She had deadline, yes. One perilously close since the beginning and drawing closer every day. A deadline for which she didn't even have a date except for an agonizing and infuriatingly nonspecific "soon". But she had to remember that it wouldn't do her any good to approach that deadline without rest: if anything, it might turn the deadline's casual trot into a full-speed gallop to the misguided rescue when her body finally gave out from neglect.

It had been a full day, anyway. Eevee Eva had had a few good battles (well, good for learning, at least), and Fantasy'd had... rather more, with arguably less in the way of results. She wasn't sure what she was doing wrong. Was she too weak? She didn't seem to be too much weaker than the other foals (anymore). Did she not do the moves correctly? How hard could it possibly be to throw mud? Unless it had something to do with all the nothing it did to her opponents...

It had been a very disheartening day of magical impotence and looming demise, so Fantasy was taking a break. She'd had a late lunch and was now enjoying a peaceful wade in the water with her Eevee resting on her back, feeling the gentle push and pull of the waves and watching a school of Magikarp lazily tread the shallows. There was a lot of commotion behind her, battles and duels and such, none of which she had the slightest interest in; she just hoped they left her and the 'karps alone.

When Oath and his Timburr finally found a spot to watch the tournament from, they had caught the very beginning of the semifinal rounds. On one side, a cocky brown earth pony stallion stood with his Arctic Ninetails. On the other, a young yellow pegasus mare had sent out a Gabite, much to the stallion’s (and half the crowd’s) amusement. “That mare is an idiot, sending out a Pokemon with such an extreme disadvantage. How’d she even get this far?” A pony next to Oath asked no one in particular.

As Wild was lounging on the beach, a bright yellow beach ball bounced off his umbrella and landed beside him. Seconds later, a Mawile ran over to the ball and picked it up, gave Wild a quick apology, and went back to her trainer, who continued playing with her Pokemon.

The school of Magikarp that Fantasy was observing appeared to have a straggler. An oddly colored fish was trying to swim with them, but the other Magikarp was actively avoiding the poor thing.

Oath pondered the question while taking out his Pokedex and scanning the two fighters on the field, starting with the mare's ferocious-looking Pokemon.
"Gabite, the Dragon/Ground type Cave Pokemon. It sheds its skin and gradually grows larger. Its scales can be ground into a powder and used as raw materials for traditional medicine."
"Interesting..." He thought to himself while pointing the Pokedex at the regal-looking fox creature.
"Ninetales, Alola Form. The Fox Pokémon. An Ice and Fairy type. This peaceful Pokémon is known to rescue people from treacherous mountain accidents." The device said in a mechanical tone. These two seemed to be very able companions to their owners, but the type advantage was clearly visible to Oath now that he'd scanned them.
"I don't know." He answered to the one who gave the offhanded comment about the Gabite's owner's intelligence. "She might have something in mind. If she plays her cards right, the types of the fighters might be irrelevant." He said. Timburr meanwhile was too busy focusing on the coming fight to pay attention. That Gabite certainly looked strong.

Wild was caught unawares when the beach ball hit the umbrella Deino was chewing away at, and the dragon pokémon was just as surprised. So much so that they immediately stopped biting away at the metal, worried that such an action would cause another of these objects to fall from above, probably as a way of fending such determined nibblers away from the delicious stem of the umbrella. "Well that got him to stop eating the shade at least." Wild commented as both his Deino and Rockruff slowly approached the yellow ball, his Litten not bothering and instead opting to watch from the comfort of the lounger.

Then the owner of the ball showed themselves, a Mawile. A very polite Mawile at that. The pegasus nodded in return and went back to reading the pokédex... or he would have if the Deino and Rockruff did not pursue the yellow ball back to the other trainer. "Oh... Beast! Ace!" Wild called out after them, but to no avail, "Come on Cheshire, guess we've got to make sure they're not going to get in any trouble. Well Ace probably won't, but Beast might eat the ball..."

Holding out an arm, Cheshire the Litten stretched and clambered its way up it and on to Wild's back as he got up, settling back down into a comfy position and yet making sure to be able to see anything and everything that happened. "Oh I'm terribly sorry about those two. Ace is, well Rockruffs do love to play and Beast... well he's very enthusiastic about experiencing the world... through taste." Wild explained as he landed next to the other trainer, watching as Ace hopped around the Mawile and the ball with a wagging tail while Beast seemed to stare (as much as a Deino can) intently on the Mawile's second mouth. Beast then sniffed the other pokémon's maw before beginning to nibble on the lower portion of the mouth.

Bronze Gasket winced as Knucklehead collided hard with a lump of driftwood and a loud metal clang rang out; the Ralts beside the thestral paused and watched as the Beldum stopped in mid-air, almost like it was thinking about what had just happened, before plummeting into the ocean below with an impressive splash, kicking up a wave that went in all directions, enough of an impressive height to carry both Fantasy and Stetson several feet off course before Knucklehead surfaced just beside Stetson, it's red eye spinning in a red spiral and thoroughly disoriented.

"Eh heh heh..... bugger." Bronze remarked, wincing again as the piece of 'driftwood' Angel had thrown for Knucklehead fell to the sand with a dull clank, as it turned out to actually be a rather sturdy hunk of rusted metal. Bronze unfurled her wings and flew out to the water where her poor Beldum was floating in the water, still looking like he didn't know where he was. "Sorry about him." Bronze apologised quickly to Fine Fantasy as she placed her metal hoof on Knucklehead's head and checked him for any dents. "He's not the brightest but he means well." She said with a sheepish expression that was mirrored perfectly by Angel on the shoreline, the helpful mushroom already retrieving Knucklehead's pokeball from Bronze's saddlebag.

Sunset Shimmer turned a page from her book where she sat at one of the tables being served food from a Cabana on the beach. The unicorn saw something from the corner of her eye, a scale reflecting the sunlight different from the endless swarms of Magikarp and Goldine.; a Feebas was swimming amongst the schools of more common fish, not as appealing a sight maybe but definitely a more rare one.
"You're mine." Sunset whispered to herself as she levitated a pokeball from her back, took aim and flung the ball, spinning through the air toward the crowd of fish, only to smash into a wave of water as a Beldum plummeted from the sky into the water and scattered the fish in all directions, the brown coloured Feebas smacking into the white unicorn that had been in the water near the school of fish and nearly knocking her fully backwards into the water.
"Sorry about that!" A voice called from the shore as a thestral paddled out, stroking a prosthetic looking hoof on the Beldum's head. "Sorry about him, Knucklehead here doesn't know wood from steel, do ya buddy?" She cooed, patting the dazed looking Pokemon on a small dent on it's head which soon popped back into place.
"Auugh, glargh!" Was all that came out of the white unicorn's mouth until she spat out a good amount of sea water. "It's, it's fin-fine!" Fantasy stammered out, her mouth full of salt water and a set of fins smacking her on the cheek repeatedly. "Oh. Oh shit." she muttered, spotting the green, sickly-looking fish. "That doesn't look good." The white unicorn produced a pokeball from her bag on the shore and levitated it over, the thestral moving her Beldum away. "Come on, let's get you to the Pokemon Ce-"

"Hey, I saw it first." Sunset shouted from the shoreline, Bronze ignoring the commotion to tend to her concussed partner.

"Really? Because it looked like it was just swimming to me."
"Well I meant to catch it before that stupid Beldum got in the way!"

"...so it isn't yours then." Fantasy replied and pointedly stared at the unicorn as she touched her own pokeball to the Feebas, which was soon pulled into the orb with no resistance at all from the rather ill looking fish.

The air around the battlefield chilled as the Ninetails’ Snow Warning ability whipped up a small hailstorm.Thankfully for the spectators the referee had made a magical barrier to protect them from the weather. Her trainer ordered her to use Aurora Veil, but the Gabite was faster, and the battlefield turned from a mild hail to a near-blinding Sandstorm. As the Ninetails and her trainer tried to regain control of the battlefield, the Gabite rushed forward, striking the Ninetails head on with an Iron Head attack. The Ninetails was knocked back against the barrier and slumped against the ground, defeated. The half of the crowd who mocked the mare previously had to eat their words as her Gabite stood proudly, awaiting his next challenge.

The Mawile’s trainer, a bright pink pegasus mare Wild would recognize as Strawberry Breeze, greeted him as he landed. “Hey, Wild was it? I see you decided to take up Pokemon training.” She glanced at his team. “Litten, Rockruff, and… Deino? Wow, I’ve been looking for one of those. Good find.”

The Mawile looked uneasy for a moment as the smaller Pokemon crowded around her, but only for a moment as she regained her composure. She appeared to speak to Ace, holding up the ball and motioning to Strawberry as if asking if he wanted to play with them. As for Beast, her second mouth grinned before grabbing and holding Beast by his head.

Meanwhile in the water, the school of Magikarp started swimming erratically, as if in a panic. A short distance away, a long blue dorsal fin poked out of the water, rapidly moving towards the school of fish Pokemon.

Wild Card tilted his head as the trainer called him by his name, going through several thought processes before a look of realisation appeared on the stallion's face. "Oh! Yes, hello again. Dear me, I was too caught up with these two that I didn't recognise you at first. Miss Breeze, pleasure to meet you again, and with myself as a trainer this time." Wild replied with a smile, the Litten on his back not reacting in the slightest to any of the movements its trainer made or the other pokemon nearby. "And yes, well, I was wondering about it for a while but you did give me that final metaphorical push and all that. The Deino... well Beast just kind of happened across us honestly. Didn't seem too interested in fighting us, just wandered around nibbling on the landscape. Ate four pokeballs he escaped from, decided to chew on a nearby rock and then finally just let me walk up and capture him. Speaking of how are- oh dear."

As Wild was explaining the story behind coming across such a pokemon, Ace had given a few spins in place and responded with a few cheerful barks to the Mawile's offer, eager to get any amount of exercise and socialisation possible. Beast on the other hand was incredibly confused. Things didn't smell normal anymore. Things didn't feel normal anymore. What he was biting had bitten him instead which was very confusing. It was new territory, but Beast knew how to handle new territory. It was with a muffled and mighty (or what he thought was mighty) roar, and a blast of Dragon Rage.

Oath fought back a smirk as he saw the Ninetales lose rather quickly, the Gabite having no such reservations as it smiled almost maliciously at the easy victory. Timburr gave a cheer at the Dragon-type's victory, which Oath soon joined in on, along with those who weren't busy mocking the Gabite's trainer previously.

Giving a small glance as he cheered, Oath looked at Timburr and smiled. He knew Timburr would one day grow just as strong as that Gabite. Maybe one day they'd even have a battle with it. The more he thought about it, the better that idea sounded. Maybe he'd try to look up that mare when this tournament was over.

With that idea in his head, he craned his neck sideways to snag one of the water bottles with his snout and offer it to Timburr, who takes a swig from it and cheers some more for the Gabite in it's adorable way, spilling a bit of water behind their makeshift seat. At least they were at the beach so there was no reason to complain that much if they or other watchers got a bit of a soak.