9:54 a.m. July 27th, Monday, 106 PH (Post Hoopa Event). Day 47.

Events: Rhea and the girls are now on a mission to get into the Silver Bracket, pushing many others in Bronze-tier to follow their example. Our girl started her journey on the 9th of June. Rhea had her first perma-evolution with Alice!

Alice shifted left and right, examining her new figure; her stomach was thinner than a lot of the Loppuny Rhea had shown her in pictures, and the muscle under her fur was more pronounced. Her fluff did wonders in hiding how strong her ears felt, as well.

Nova jumped up and down from her ref position, calling for everyone to clear the area; it was so strange being tall—at least, compared to Nova and, most importantly, Mya—her smaller rival was working around her large jaws in preparation for their battle.

“Lulu, no—I know you just got up, but we’re going to have a battle!” Nova cried, running into the middle of the field as the sleepy cloud teleported between everyone.

“Aww. I wanna play tag—huuu—Alice got big enough so I can ride her! Please, Alice—pretty please!” Lulu chimed, eyes practically sparkling while bouncing over to her, trying to emulate her movements.

“Hehe. Maybe a little later,” she said, using her big ears to scoop up the hyper girl, tossing her in the air a bit and making her Trainer giggle with everyone else besides Mya, who was itching to start the fight.

“Higher, Alice! Higher! I wanna see the top of Rhea’s head!”

Nova smiled as she jogged around with Pikachu to set up the tiny cones Ash had on him, showing the designated battle area boundaries.

Alice wanted to stretch her much longer legs, ears, and arms to get used to them; normally, she’d want to rush into the fight with Mya, yet her new figure made her tail twitch with curiosity, pulling her hyper-active mind away from the fight at hand, and she kept having to refocus herself.

Her retractable claws came out as she passively kept Lulu busy, but Rhea soon came to save them from the adventurous cloud.

“Aww… Rhea, I wanna play more; Alice is so fluffy and big now! Can I sleep on your ears?”

“Yup!”

“Yay! Let’s try to sneak up on the ghosts again, Sergeant Flutter!”

The black and white bird floating overhead snickered. “Later tonight, Private Vapor.”

“Aye, aye!”

Alice caught Gables, Serenity, and Terri talking to one another off to the side about the battle that was about to happen, and her chest swelled with pride at their comments; without a doubt, Mya had more firepower than she did, but that only helped if she could catch her. Although, they did have a point that she wasn’t accustomed to this new frame and weight distribution.

With Lulu safely in Rhea’s arms, cheering with a few other wild Pokemon that had stopped by to watch, Alice flexed her fingers, continuing to play with her claws. She had two new Moves and an Ability; although she felt like there was something else within her that had unlocked—she’d have to experiment to be sure, though.

All the work she’d put in with Rhea, Mya, and Nova was paying off; she just needed to gain a better grasp of her new athletic capabilities. Off the cuff, she felt a tiny bit bulkier and stronger, while a lot faster and tankier.

“Can you even move when you’re that big?” Mya snickered, showing a glaring smirk that drew Alice back to the Mawile. “You’ve just become a bigger target.”

“I’m faster than I was before,” she proclaimed, rolling around her neck and stretching her ears to prepare to box before doing a few twists and flips, ending with hopping up and down between feet.

I do feel faster… but I’m also a lot heavier and bulkier, which changes my weight distribution when moving. All that practice I did, learning how to move, went back to square one.

Alice felt like an alien in her own body after her change, and she couldn’t put her finger on what—it was everything… She knew she shouldn’t be feeling this way—suddenly, it was as if something clicked in her brain, and a lot of her previous petty thoughts dissipated.

It made her hesitate; why had her emotions shifted so dramatically? It must have been some kind of Status Effect, but she wasn’t aware of anything like that…

“Ready, Alice?” Nova asked, sitting at the edge of the field with Pikachu; she’d get help with calls if needed from their electric rat teacher. “We can wait a bit if you want to feel things out—I totally get it—hehe, sometimes I get a little confused with my new body after evolving.”

“Yeah, Big Ears, you don’t want to blow away if the wind picks up,” Mya jokingly smeared, making Alice giggle; they’d come to better understand each other over the last few weeks.

“I think all that slobber you produce when we sleep will keep me grounded! I’m ready, Nova; count us down!”

The Eevee folded down her ears, lifting each as she counted, ending by jumping up on two feet. “Three, two… one!”

Alice shot forward, pink eyes going wide as the world narrowed in; she went right for the slow Mawile, focusing entirely on her opponent. Her Moves charged far faster than Mya’s, meaning she’d set the pace for the match—Fake Out was her plan—yet it wasn’t long until she realized something new about her transformation; she was way too fast.

Rocketing right up to her smaller opponent—her reverse Run Away Ability propelling her quicker than she’d anticipated—both Mya and her eyes went wild as she barely managed to cartwheel around the Steel Pokemon without running smack into her, and barely managing to leap into an aerial twist; sadly, she misjudged the landing.

Her face eating grass, Alice coughed while using her ears to flip herself upright, just managing to stop herself before exiting the field; she silently cursed as her building energy collapsed.

“Bleh—ack!”

“W-What was that?” Mya asked, somehow managing to get the first attack in any battle they had had by smoothly twirling in a circle to face her and send a gale of Fairy-infused wind in her direction. “Are you playing with me?”

Recovering from the far too rapid acceleration, Alice reprimanded herself for not realizing her much longer legs would thereby carry her to her opponent faster than she planned.

Jumping into the air to dodge the focused stream, her stomach tightened as she was suddenly eye-level with the upper branches of trees around them.

How am I supposed to fight like this?! she internally cried, staring down at Mya’s glare, thinking she was messing around. Her Moves weren’t being used because they were building too fast and collapsing due to not being used fast enough; the time she had to delay Moves had shrunk dramatically with her increased speed.

Tucking into a ball, she strengthened her fur, landing near her starting position. “Eh-heh… Just getting warmed up!” she shouted, flustered as the others cheered at how fast and agile she was; hopefully, no one saw her actually eat dirt in her previous whirlwind of motion. “Let’s try that again.”

Paws flexing against the grass, she took a deep breath and set herself up for another attack; this was a match, not training, and Alice knew she’d be pissed if Mya was messing around when they were in a battle.

“Ready, Mya?”

“Yeah… You really are a lot faster, but… you haven’t even used a Move,” Mya grumbled, nose scrunching up a bit. “Are you sure you’re ready for a battle?”

“Mhm. I have to feel like I’m going to be in danger.”

Mya’s crossed arms and glare turned serious as Alice channeled energy into her eyes, causing her pink irises to illuminate, and the Mawile’s movements became more predictable, showing outlines of where she might move.

“Okay, let’s try something new I learned from watching the League match.”

Alice grimaced as Mya took a deep breath, and thick, light blue mist escaped her body—Misty Terrain—and part of the field became veiled in the twinkling fog; she knew where this was heading as claps came from the humans and Pokemon.

Dashing forward, fire lit in her fist almost instantly as she came upon the Mawile; her strike hit a snickering illusion as the Mawile flickered in the haze to hide in the swirling clouds she created—she really was the Deceptive Pokemon, as the Pokemon site Rhea listened to said.

Flames dying down, Alice turned in a slow circle, centering on the clumps of fog that were large enough to hide the Fairy Pokemon, yet her left ear twitched upon hearing the rustle of movement in the grass, causing a smile.

“You think you’re so clever,” Alice mused, brushing out her ears as the fire she gathered faded; she followed the Mawile’s steps through the mist. “Is this what you were doing at night when you’d sneak away with Pikachu?”

“Your speed doesn’t mean much if you don’t know where I am,” she laughed.

Alice’s focus shot to a large Mya that shot through the fog, massive fangs large enough to swallow her whole, but she didn’t panic; she’d seen Astonish enough times to know it was a staple of the Mawile’s to hit targets that were out of range.

Drawing once more on her Trainer’s site’s knowledge, she didn’t even bother moving, knowing she was immune to the Ghost-type move; rather, she watched in slow motion as the attack really exited the fog, Foresight giving her an advantage of what Mya would do. In truth, the Mawile had sent it at an angle, since it could be curved to an extent, and was attempting to sneak up behind her to deliver a Fighting-Type Move. She battled her rival enough times to know what Moves she’d fall back on.

She wanted to go all out—to use her speed to the fullest—but charging in like she had at the start wasn’t an option with how little she knew her body now. For once, she had to be smart instead of just fast.

Her Moves activated too quickly, so she needed to wait until Mya was right on top of her before blurring into action to end it with a critical Fire Punch. Mya shot through the nearby cloud, making Alice grin with anticipation as she prepared to dance around her wide jaws, yet her amusement fell like a rock in her gut when a chill quivered through her spine and ears.

“Got you!” Mya laughed from behind her slobbering mouth—Alice hadn’t even realized she hadn’t used her Ability yet—and Intimidate momentarily locked up her body, dropping her Attack.

“Heh.”

The Mawile underestimated her transformation; her opponent’s movements were slow as the sun in the sky. Alice recovered in an instant, claws igniting with fire as she used Mya’s own jaws as a platform, ears flipping her over them to deliver the critical strike, yet her mouth parted in disbelief upon not seeing the light orange glow around Mya’s fist that she’d expected—Alice’s punch met a haze of darkness.

Trapped in the air, ears suddenly without purchase to propel her away, all Alice could do was see her rival’s gleaming, toothy smile as she appeared just behind her darkness-infused hand aimed to catch her from the side—she’d been too cocky—Mya’s whole goal was to bait her into this position, yet the blow never landed.

In utter confusion, Alice found herself staring up at a partially hazy sky, sprawled out on the grass; Mya was nowhere to be seen.

“Huh?”

* * *

Rhea held Lulu close to her chest while watching Alice’s dashes and leaps; it was obvious she was having trouble controlling her speed or gauging how to use her body since she’d typically be all over Mya by now. Even if she was faster, the Lopunny was having trouble keeping up with her unfamiliar figure.

Amira hummed next to her, red eyes following the match as it took a far slower pace than Alice’s typical battles. “I don’t know if she’s figured it out, but she doubts her timing, which has put her on the back foot, and Mya’s playing the long game since it’s hard for Alice to break past her level and defense advantage… What do you think, Rhea?”

She could feel Lulu growing anxious in her arms while listening to them, her puffy hands lightly pounding against her Trainer as she cheered on her big sisters. “Alice is using my energy, but… she’s barely using any of it, causing a lot of it to go to waste, and it’s all Fast Attacks; she’s not charging it or holding it to make them stronger.”

Ash stopped off near them, pulling away from Lori and her sister, who were discussing it on the opposite side of the battlefield.

“Hmm. It’s common for Pokemon that experience big Stat increases upon evolving to take some time to get used to them. Alice probably doesn’t know how to since her entire attack style has changed, especially with how well she’d trained to know how her previous body reacted. It’s rare for Pokemon to be so invested in that area, which is now coming back to bite her in the tail.”

Rhea put a bit of pressure on Lulu to let her know they weren’t making fun of her big sister or talking bad about her. “On the other hand, Mya is… Wow, that’s umm… a lot of my Fortitude—” she mumbled, almost choking upon seeing the sparkly fog. “When did she start using Misty Terrain?”

Ash chuckled. “You probably haven’t noticed since she’s been practicing at night, sneaking away with Pikachu to ask for advice on how to fight Alice’s speed.”

Amira chuckled. “Wow—it’s smart—she’s using it as a cloak, but don’t Lopunny have excellent hearing? Alice should be able to tell where she is regardless?”

“True,” Ash whispered, showing a gleam in his dark eyes. “Oh—let’s move over here, so the mist doesn’t block our view of Alice.”

They swiftly walked to a better viewing angle, Rhea starting to worry for her newly evolved speedster; she’d tried to use a few attacks, yet they kept collapsing. By her illuminated pink eyes, she’d managed to get up a Foresight, yet there were so many options for Alice when it came to fighting, and she wasn’t using any of them, which was very unlike her fast-acting bunny.

Maybe her transformation is having other effects on her that she’ll need to work through; we don’t know how the genetic modifications will affect each evolution stage, all we have so far to go off of is Nova, who always goes back to her Eevee stage.

Her breath caught as Mya attacked Alice from the fog, and she used the Mawile’s own jaws to flip around her body, yet in the rapid exchange, Mya vanished in shadows to appear beside the Lopunny; Rhea knew Alice was fast enough to potentially dodge even a Sucker Punch, but she was fully exposed in the air.

“Checkmate,” Amira chuckled. “Wait—what?”

Rhea’s braid whipped left and right as Mya’s strike flew through a sparkle of white dust; Alice vanished. “Where—huh—Alice doesn’t have a teleport?! Lulu?” she asked in a panic, glancing down at her snuggle buddy, who shrugged in a way that said she didn’t do anything.

Mya was spinning in circles, awaiting a counterattack, yet it didn’t come, and everyone’s attention snapped to a pair of floppy ears that suddenly rose out of the mist; Alice appeared as bewildered as them.

“Ash?” she asked, instantly looking for answers from the Legend.

“Eh-hehe… Your mom is something,” he mumbled, signaling Nova to declare the match a draw. “Ugh. Mmh. I had no clue that was in Lopunny’s genetics—she’s a monster!”

“Mind sharing with the class?” Lori asked as everyone gathered around. “Shanny is keeping her lips sealed; I don’t think even she knows.”

“I’m just in a little denial,” the Elite-4 member chuckled. “Your mother is quite the genius, Rhea.”

Rhea caught Mya going to help Alice up, who was still dazed, and probably not only from her sudden disappearing act as if she were a rabbit in a magician’s hat. Her Pokemon were asking their teammate what she did, Lulu wiggling out of her arms to join them, to which the bunny’s ears shook with her head.

Ash scratched his head while looking up something on the Pokedex website, turning his phone around to show Rhea. “It’s an extremely rare Ability, and it’s not even listed under Buneary’s profile because it can only be obtained on evolution… and there are only a few recorded accounts of it.”

“Swap++?” Amira asked, scanning down the information. “The most advanced version of the Ability that can trigger to change the Pokemon’s location with another small object nearby, typically something larger than a coin and smaller than the Pokemon in question… Alice really is broken.”

Lori bent over to pet the listening bunny. “I just can’t get enough of these fluffy ears, but seriously… Her insane Sleep-On-Hit Ability, and now this short-range teleport. It makes me wonder what Zyra and Roxie are going to get.”

Her Rockruff and Rookidee chirped with curiosity, starting conversations amongst themselves regarding all the genetically enhanced Pokemon.

Alice wasn’t all that happy, though, causing Rhea to bend down to get a better feel for what was going through her Lopunny’s mind. “What’s wrong?”

“Pun-Lopunny… Lop-lop, punny…” she mumbled, rubbing her arm and looking to the side as Mya sat down next to her with a low hum; after a few minutes of discussion, Rhea discovered the issue her Pokemon was having, with Pikachu settling next to her to listen.

“Ash… Alice says she can’t control it; she has no idea how it even activated.”

“Hmm. That is troubling,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Your mom should be in Lavender tonight, right? We’re not far away, so maybe it would be best to ask her since Pokemon should naturally know how to use their abilities when they evolve—it should be second nature—but she did swap places with that small stone over there.”

Rhea’s gaze settled on the object that was revealed after the mist faded, and Mya proposed something that made Pikachu nod and motion to his Trainer.

“Pika.”

“Hmm? Oh, uh, yeah… I suppose that does make sense… Oh, uh, Mya thinks it could have to do with danger since it activated just before she was hit, and Mya was going for the one-hit-knockout. Heh, but I don’t think you would have gotten it after the Defense Curl.”

“Maw-maw,” she huffed, likely saying she disagreed.

Rhea stroked her depressed Loppuny’s head, knowing it was never fun coming to terms with the fact that a lot of your effort was wasted; it was clear she’d need to start with the basics again after evolving.

“Look on the bright side,” she said, placing Lulu on her head while moving behind Alice to pick her up. Rhea knew carrying her a little way would cheer her up—although, the bunny was a lot heavier than she’d been this morning. “You get to push your limits all over again. Won’t that be fun to test out?”

“Lopunny. Lop-punny-punny?”

“Cosmog! Mog-cosmog!”

“Punny,” the bunny giggled at Lulu’s offer to help, using an ear to bring the semi-corporeal ghost to her body so they could hug. “Lopunny.”

“Cosmog!”

“Pwe-pwe!” Nova chirped from beside them as they continued their journey.

Rhea went as far as she could before letting Alice run off with the others to test her new limits; Mya was shockingly compliant; wanting to be involved in the new games the bunny was creating, pulling in random wild Pokemon to join in the exercises.

Terri absolutely adored the Lopunny, following everything she did like a little sister, trying to be cool. Nova transformed, which did put a lot of stress on Rhea’s chest after the fight and the extra evolution pressure that had been placed on her soul, but she bore it.

The lush forest they passed through on Route 8 took them into the hilly range as the altitude rose from the grasslands they’d left, and more Trainers were beginning to pass by them now that they were on a major trail.

A hot-blooded ‘Super Nerd’ and his team wanted to battle them, yet, oddly, the Battle App wouldn’t allow for a group fight, claiming a miss-match in tiers.

Ash pointed out that Lori was now technically in Silver-tier after Sabrina’s declaration and recommendation sent to the League, while Amira and Rhea were still Bronze. Leslie—the ‘Super Nerd’—was low Silver-tier, which meant fighting Rhea and Amira was off the table.

It became even more awkward when Leslie challenged Lori to battle with her ‘Legendary;’ Terri was raring to go, but Ash swiftly shut it down. Currently, they were unbonded and unlicensed to participate in matches, making the battle-loving Kubfu depressed.

Somehow, the battle never happened as the group continued with them; the Silver-tier team was far more interested in Alice’s games—or, it might have been more accurate to say their Pokemon were.

The Mankey, Machop, Nidorina, Illumise, Diglett, and Sudowoodo of Leslie’s group had never experienced the type of training they were doing; Rhea figured their Trainers were also quite interested in getting advice from Ash, and Amira’s cynical mind came to the conclusion that they’d purposely engaged them on ridiculous grounds to get a chance to speak to the Legend.

Rhea let the whole thing slide, putting all her attention on Alice, enjoying all the new recruits to her games. She’d been keeping a close eye on the bunny, and it made her smile, remembering all the training she’d done throughout the month, especially when they went kayaking.

There were a few embarrassing trips, and her biggest problem appeared to be her far larger ears and body shape; it made Rhea snicker every time she saw the bunny fall on her face because, every time, without fail, her long, fluffy tail would go straight as a nail, fur bristling with frustration.

That being said, she really was a terror to behold when running at full speed ahead of them, taking the group in laps and passing them over and over again, her big fluffy eyebrows weaving in the wind with her pulled-back ears.

Rhea’s gaze was pulled to the forest as a gentle fog rolled in unexpectedly, and the boys swiftly made their exit as Shauntal’s typically hidden ghosts revealed themselves, wearing sinister grins; they were entering the supernatural-linked zone of Lavender Town, and she moved closer to Lori to listen to Shauntal’s answers to her little sister’s inquiries.

“So… uh, Shanny, this place is like… really close to the Ghost World, right?”

“Mmh. You could make that assumption,” the woman whispered, pushing her glasses up a little on the bridge of her nose while staring around the haunted woods; the dimming sun had darkened dramatically under the haze.

“When you have such a large concentration of graves in an area—which Lavender has become known as the place to lay your Pokemon to rest—then it is bound to cause a ripple effect between the two worlds.

“Plus, have you heard the rumors that Kanto’s Pokemon Tower has endless floors? Whenever a person goes to lay their Pokemon at the site, a new floor appears. There is quite an occult following revolving around the place and its mysteries—one of which Agatha wishes me to put to rest. Hmm?”

She slowed to a stop, scanning the fog as if spotting something within its depths and making everyone else follow her gaze into the veiled.

“C’mon, Shanny! Don’t do that to me!” Lori hissed, rubbing her shoulders as her powerful Grandmaster-tier Ghosts spread out, two vanishing within the mist. “What is it?”

“Mmh. Probably nothing for you to be worried about,” Shauntal chuckled, moving to hug her sister. “Well, it looks like my guide has arrived. I’ll see you soon… heh, maybe.”

“Huh? No way, Sis! Don’t you… Ugh!!!”

They all fell for the bait as Shauntal pointed into the milky thicket, and when they looked back, the giggling Ghost Specialist was nowhere to be seen.

“I hate you, Shanny! Don’t you dare sneak up on us at night! I almost had a heart attack the last time you spooked me like that. Ugh. I hate ghosts,” she snarled, scooting closer to Ash.

He forced a laugh and jabbed his thumb toward the road again, where a town seemed to materialize out of nowhere. “Looks like we’re here. Let’s jump to the Center; isn’t that where your mom is, Rhea?”

“Uh-huh,” Rhea mumbled, still trying to puzzle out how Shauntal managed to vanish so suddenly all the time.

Lulu had come to hide in her shirt front; she could sense unseen things moving around them, and not all friendly, yet they appeared to be kept at bay by the talismans placed on houses, or so Ash explained.

Swallowing the thickening saliva gathering in her mouth, she sent a text to her mom and brother in a group text.

7:22 p.m. - Rhea: We made it to Lavender, and it is way spookier than I thought. I can see why Kate is so terrified of this place, and Lulu isn’t liking something here. We’ll be at the Center soon. Love you.