Fountain badge

They spent a night in Fontailune town and entered the forest the next morning equipped with repels and antidotes.

The plan was to catch an unaware needled larvae and escape the forest with it. If the wasps noticed them and started chasing them, they would have to either take them all out using Sunsun and Levy or blow up all the repel canisters at once to let the group escape.

Blaze Woke up early because of a nightmare again and used the extra time to tinker with all the repel spray bottles. He tied them by groups of twelve and rigged them to have them all activate at once like a huge gas grenade. He made three such devices at a total cost of fourteen thousand and four hundred dollars.

The monetary values of the things in this world were really all over the place. He almost shed tears of blood thinking of the price but it was better to do this than to die swarmed by giant wasps. Even if he ended up not using any of his repellent bombs now, they might be useful later.

That money was not wasted, he kept repeating in his head.

They stepped into the forest like many bug catchers and followed the road for a while. No one tried to talk to them, mostly because they felt intimidated by Blaze in uniform and mask. Most of the bug catchers didn't go far before stepping out of the road but since Blaze and the group needed to get to the other side of that forest, they kept walking forward. Soon, they were left alone on the road again, that was a good thing.

While walking, they often caught glances of other bug monsters but they were never the one they were looking for so they were all ignored. That forest was teeming with them, no wonder there was a bug gym just beside it.

Blaze liked bug typed monsters, he thought that all those slick exoskeletons looked great. They also often possessed sharp needles and crazy pointed bits giving them an intimidating air. However, they really were just huge bugs and so, they were rarely powerful and more importantly, often oddly disgusting to look at.

There were many creatures that were thousands of times more worthwhile to pick, either as warriors or companions. Only a bug gym leader would know enough about them to make them as effective as the more popular creatures out there. Sure, compared to a normal animal from his old world, the bug typed creatures here would seem extremely powerful but honestly, he doubted all those needles were strong enough to pierce the hides and armors of a lot of those other monsters. They were all about intimidating looks, poisons and cheap tricks.

Speaking of cheap tricks, a spider monster was probably way more useful than a twin needled wasp but he didn't really care. The reason he really wanted one was simply for the nostalgia. When he was a kid in his previous life, he fought against the league champion with one of those wasps in his team. He had not leveled up properly and won by a hair's breadth with that wasp as last monster standing. Since then, they stayed as one of his favorites through all the following generations of games. He had not played many afterwards but he felt that if he had, the wasp would have been in the team again.

Of course, with everything being real, he didn't think that he would keep it in the team for long, nostalgia was much less valuable than his life. Plus, he was pretty convinced that a wasp, even a monstrous one, didn't have that long of a lifespan to begin with. Maybe it'd be dead even before he left for the next world? He should probably check for the info soon.

Despite all that, a huge wasp was more than enough to kill a human being, they were quick to grow too. He couldn't help but picture in his head a huge swarm of twin needled wasps following his orders and assaulting an enemy base of unsuspecting fools in another world. In a world like the one he came from, he felt the wasps would do incredible damage before getting taken out. All he had to do was breed a huge swarm of them. With the right tools, that should be easy.

The sight would be astounding to behold.

"Blaze, what is that song playing suddenly?"

He was so focused in his vision that a weird mix between the ride of the Valkyries and the flight of the bumblebee started playing. That auto soundtrack was so good sometimes it became scary.

"I was thinking of something unrelated, that merge is great though."

In any case, before he tried to do anything, he first needed to get one. He let the song play out until the end before limiting the soundtrack broadcast to himself. It would be annoying to scare his target away because of some music.

Insects weren't the hardest thing to find in the world so they ended up finding one of those larvae rather easily without even having to leave the road. One was just munching on leaves by the roadside.

"There's one, look!" Gilly was the first to see it.

It was a fuzzy thing with a light orange coloration, a small stinger at the end of its body and a two inch long horn, both poisoned. It was a foot long it you included the horn, had a bunch of gross plump legs and a pair of tiny black eyes fixing the leaf it was munching on.

"Great, Dawnshield. bring it over here."

The small knight was already out to train with Magus so he didn't even have to get it out of the ball. He extended his vines, wrapped them around the horned grub and dragged it onto the road.

That kind of creature was obviously the weakest of the weak. It couldn't really talk, only knew how to poke things with its horn to poison them or shoot string at them to give itself time to escape. It was basically a defenseless newborn. It bit down on the vine circling it but Dawnshield shrugged off that attempt of an attack as if it was nothing. He kept holding it in case it decided to throw itself unto one of them to poison them with its small stinger.

Blaze turned to the side and pointed at it theatrically.

"Small bug, surrender to us now! If you are worthy, I will make a great swarm leader out of you! For me you will bring night upon the world, hiding the sun behind your multitude!"

Aurora looked at him as if he was an idiot and Gilly kept silent through her mask, he was sure she was about to laugh.

He needed to get some fun where he could, fighting for their survival was no place to say random things but against a small bug, it was way more fun to do that. Either it was that or he'd bully it for a bit. That wouldn't have been the best thing to do since he wanted to recruit it.

The reaction of the needled larvae wasn't as expected though as it just kept munching lazily on Dawnshield's vine. Or maybe it was a frantic munching but from his point of view, it was so weak it just looked like it was lazy? He was kinda disappointed it worked on Dawnshield but not on a bug.

(What is he doing?) Asked Aurora to Gilly.

"He did almost the same with Dawnshield, don't worry, he hasn't gone crazy yet."

Would it get caught if he just threw a ball at it now? It was so ridiculously weak after all. Maybe he needed to smack it a bit first? He decided to try the former first.

"It's pointless to resist, you obviously have no chance against us. Get in there and be my warrior."

He threw the ball at it and absorbed it inside in a flash. The ball shook violently and after a short moment, the insect got back out of it.

"Well, that's embarrassing." Mocked Gilly as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

He moaned of annoyance and the small bug propelled itself into Dawnshield. The small knight easily sidestepped the attack and waited for Balze's command.

"Just smack it a bit, not too hard, you might kill it by accident."

Dawnshield did as he was told and smacked the vine against the bug, sending it flying and rolling onto the road. It seemed knocked out, that thing had been thoroughly beaten by a single hit. Blaze walked up to the empty ball, picked it up and threw it a second time at the same bug.

This time, it worked without a hitch.

"Well, that was easy. We didn't even get attacked by the wasps."

Blaze felt her words could very well start such an attack so he urged everyone to move.

"That's a flag, let's move before we get swarmed."

"Come on, there's no way/"

"Do not end that sentence!" Blaze rushed up to her and placed a hand over her mouth to shut her up.

"You know I'm wearing a mask and your hand isn't actually stopping me from speaking right?"

"I do but it worked anyway didn't it?"

He heard her distorted laugh through the voice changer and the group moved onward. They did not get attacked by the wasps, Blaze had reacted in time. Either that or it would have never happened anyway, who knew?

He couldn't help but think he had wasted precious money on a large amount of repel.

They moved quickly but they still ended up having to camp in the middle of the forest because it was just too large.

The next day, Both Dawnshield and magus evolved in no extraordinary fashion.

Blaze was training them like usual with Aurora when a bright light started emanating from Dawnshield. Blaze shielded his eyes to escape the sudden brightness and when he looked back, the monster had changed from a pawn to a rook.

The chessrook was now two feet tall, he was essentially the same as before but he now looked like he wore an armored shell too large for him, or at least the old him. The current Dawnshield was a bit fat, he looked like a huge brown nut. Some of the quills were still there but apparently, most had fused together to form his armor. The spines that remained had become bulkier, sturdier and sharper.

The new Dawnshield was nowhere close to agile but the bulky armor gave him confidence and Blaze felt that his knight would now be much harder to knock out.

Honestly though, he had forgotten how much the middle evolution of his line was weird looking. He knew he would stay like that for a long time but seriously, he wished he evolved again tomorrow just for the looks.

His knight was now a large spiked ball, maybe it would be more effective to throw him directly at his foes rather than having him fight normally? A picture of Dawnshield replacing the ball at the end of a flail came to his mind and he felt glad he wore a mask to hide his amused smile.

Even if Blaze found this new appearance to be amusing, Dawnshield was joyous. He jumped about and twirled in happiness.

"Yes! I did it! I feel so much stronger now!" He roared victoriously in his still too high-pitched voice.

"Can you even roll properly in that form? I know you're kinda round now but won't those spikes hinder the roll? I guess we better find out now. Try a rollout attack."

Dawnshield executed himself, feeling like nothing could stop him now and plunged forward to start rolling. He made an impressive curve in the air and the two large spikes planted straight into the dirt road, stopping him from moving and locking him in place.

Stuck upside down in the air, he waved his arms and legs in an attempt to unstuck himself but he failed.

"Mhn... We'll need more training. Let me help."

Blaze walked up to him and placed his hands on either side to yank him off from the ground.

"Congratulations on your evolution." Told him Magus, slightly turning his head in an attempt to match the orientation of Dawnshield.

"Thank you. Now hurry up and do the same in honor of your lady."

"I'd rather not end up on my head."

"That's not what I meant!"

Blaze pulled and managed to free him from his prison of dirt. He placed him back on his feet and after a curious frown he knocked on the knight's armor.

"Mhn, that's funny, it sounds like a nut too, it doesn't just look like one."

"Really? Let me try."

Gilly came as well to knock and soon enough, even Aurora had a go, all of them listening to the sound it made. Dawnshield made a grim face, enduring the ridiculing situation.

While Blaze was wondering just how thick and sturdy that armor really was, Aurora wondered if Dawnshield felt anything through it instead. If she rubbed his head, would it be like rubbing a helmet or more like rubbing the bald head of someone?

The round Dawnshield was kinda cute but Aurora hoped for her frog-plant-lizard to grow as well. She gave magus a smile a hug and a pat on the head which gave him an outburst of energy sufficient to train twice as hard as before.

By the time they left the forest, the blinding light happened again, this time for her magus. She had been eager to see an evolution up close all this time but in the end, she wasn't sure if the sight was impressive or disappointing. It must have been an extraordinary process but it was just so bright she couldn't see it at all and could only marvel at the result.

The new and improved Magus was almost as tall as her... She wasn't that short! It was him that was too tall because of the flower bulb on his back! Aside from that, he was like a bigger version of the old Magus, with the huge yellow flower now out in the open, freed from the leaves now extending outward from him. Even though the flower remained closed, it's golden color was very eye catching.

He was larger, stronger and taller but he still had the same sleepy red eyes. His ears were more clearly defined then before and his skin more rugged. Finally, his teeth seemed sharper than before and a few jutted out from his mouth but it wasn't menacing, at least not on him.

When he managed to evolve, he made a tired sigh and let himself fall to the ground, exhausted from all his exercise. Aurora could still feel his happiness radiating from him though and skipped up to him to give him a big hug. Her arms were still barely able to go around his head. He squinted his eyes in content.

Like for Dawnshield before, everyone else congratulated Magus on his evolution. His flower was of such a pretty yellow color too, almost golden, Aurora was very impressed.

Aurora wondered who would be the next to evolve. Following a certain logic, Starburst should be the next. Birds evolved faster and he had been with her for longer too but, to be honest, she didn't feel like he'd evolve soon. Maybe it would be Sunny instead, or Blaze's new would-be wasp, bugs tended to evolve fast after all.

|| Maybe it could be Houndy too.|| Sunsun proposed.

Aurora doubted it, that dog was too lazy he'd make no effort and wouldn't evolve before a long time unless Blaze and Gilly pushed it hard.

|| You're probably right.|| Agreed the seekrid after thinking about it some more.

"You know what would be great?" Asked Blaze suddenly.

"What?"

"It would be really great if we found someone able to teach those two the giga drain."

"I guess it would?"

(What are you trying to say?)

"I'm just saying we'll have to look for a move tutor at some point. If Magus knew that move, it would be a great boon for us. I could have sworn they learned the absorb moves on their own but apparently I was wrong."

Aurora and Gilly agreed that it was the sort of moves grass types were known for but Gilly kept Blaze on track.

"I agree it's a great move but let's not get distracted right away. We have more important things to do for now. We have a gym to take on and teams to fill, a single move can wait."

"Yeah, you're right, I barely have a knight and a grub, I should fill up the team first. We should go then, I don't want to sleep in the forest again."

The others nodded and Aurora presented Magus his ball in case he wanted to rest after all his efforts. He nodded and bumped his head onto the ball to go back in. He had deserved his break.

later that day, they left the forest and followed the river all the way up to the bridge of Harmoneau. It was getting pretty late and their monsters had trained all day so they decided to wait for the next day before challenging the leader of the town's gym.

They had a night as comfortable as they could in the small inn's room but the breakfast offered was great. Particularly for Aurora since Gilly removed her bandages for good that night. For the first time in forever, her meal wasn't liquid and everything tasted divine.

She munched on pancakes, waffles and freshly baked warm bread with a large smile.

Thinking about it now, since they had the masks, Blaze could have brought her to an hospital for examination just after they got them. He had not thought about it at all. Hopefully, Gilly was right in her examination and her treatment. At least, Aurora seemed fine at a glance.

After the breakfast, they first went to the monster center to make sure their whole team was top shape. Blaze left the larvae in its ball even after it had been healed, mainly for two simple reasons. First, he had not found it a good name yet and second, he had no time to train it now.

They then took their time as they walked down towards the gym to sight-see. This was quite a scenic place after all. With the elegant fountain and old architectural buildings, it's roads of stone tiles and thoughtfully placed flora. It was obvious that this town took great care in its own appearance and the large river flowing to its side only enhanced the spectacle.

(In the game,) Aurora told them. (there was only four buildings in that town and there wasn't any gym.)

"Reality sure feels different doesn't it? Surely, this one is better though, right?"

(It is, we get warmed by the sun, the place looks more lively and it feels better in general.)

"Yeah, I get what you mean." Gilly said. "It's like seeing a place on TV and going there yourself, absolutely different."

(I hope we'll see many more great places.)

"I'm sure we will, we have a bunch more places to visit and then other worlds too. Who know, in a few decades, you might think this place or even the city of light is nothing impressive at all."

Aurora would prefer to not think about decades from now. She had enough things to think about right now.

"Do you think you'll end up visiting a world made of cotton candy someday?" Wondered Gilly aloud.

"I don't think 'we' will see something as dumb as that." Blaze insisted on the we.

Gilly just nodded and they soon reached the water gym.

The place was a huge building all made in height, with waterfalls running down on its sides and flowing back into the river and many sculpted fountains.

As they reached the entrance, they were welcomed by an old man working for the league.

"Hi young folks, welcome to Carver's water gym. Are you here to train, to challenge Carver for a badge or are you here to attempt to take the title of leader of Harmoneau?"

"Miss Stardust is here to gain her first badge." Blaze answered for her.

She was standing in the front but not only did she not understand what the old man said, she couldn't answer.

"Carver will be glad." The old man smiled. "Almost no one ever comes to claim the fountain badge. Just follow the middle path to the elevator and reach the top to challenge him. He will be easy to find, he's always sculpting new fountains for the towns of the region."

"Thank you." Answered Blaze.

That old man was impressive, he didn't even have any reaction to their masks. Either he knew what they meant and wasn't bothered at all or he had some monsters so strong he didn't fear them at all.

Blaze repeated what he said to Aurora and she thanked the old man with a nod and a smile as well before taking the path towards the elevator.

The inside was made of yet more waterfalls and basins. There were a great amount of them flowing down from floor to floor, crashing through large openings in the ceiling and falling down unto the next step. All those waterfalls flowing from the giant basin gave a obvious impression that those were in fact the giants steps of a gargantuan multi-layered fountain.

It was a perfect place to train water typed monsters. Indeed, there were dozens of disciples here using the gym to train their battlers in various things. At the far end of the building, an elevator made of glass rose from the inside of one of the many waterfalls all the way to the last floor of maybe four. This middle elevator rose through the central pillar and didn't disturb the overall visual effect in the least.

As they stepped in the gym, the old man pushed a button on a nearby wall and a large pane of light showed up close to the ceiling with a buzzing sound and the words <First badge challenge|Défi du premier badge> flashing on it. Every disciples stopped their own training to look up to the huge screen and a few wooed in wonder.

Like the old man had said, challengers were a rare sight here and someone choosing them for their first badge almost never happened.

Now that they knew what the trio of visitors were here for though, every disciple without a badge was allowed to challenge them to have them prove they were worthy of fighting Carver himself.

There were many that swam from the sides of the building to stand in their path but honestly, none of them stood a chance now that Dawnshield and Magus had reached the second stage.

The first kid they fought was a bit taller than Aurora and had a Rank turtle. He paled when Aurora got magus out of his ball and the Blooming saurian easily defeated the turtle.

After that, the other badge-less kids were much less keen to fight them and only two more attempted to defeat them. Blaze had Dawnshield take them on and he beat them easily with only using the vine whip.

Then, they all got drenched as they stepped under a waterfall and into the elevator. Aurora even had to store her keytar into her bag before passing the water veil to dodge any inconvenient situation or accident. Both her and Gilly winced anyway when they felt the lukewarm water flow in their hair and soak their clothes.

The clothes of the two were thick so they thankfully didn't become see-through once soaked. If Gilly's clothes had betrayed her though, Blaze would have knocked out everyone that looked their way.

The elevator brought them up to the roof where a bare-chested man was busy working on a fountain that looked like a sea dragon. He was tall, had chiseled muscles to fit with all his sculptures and a head of slick black hair held flat on his head from the water that kept splashing on it.

When he saw them arriving he gave them a smile so radiant it could have made an entire class of schoolgirls faint in admiration. Only Aurora reacted in kind, except she was a bit upset about getting soaked.

"Welcome to my gym! I'm Carver, maker of fountains. I'm so happy to get a challenger after so long!"

"Well, we aren't happy to get soaked." Retorted Gilly angrily.

The man open and closed his mouth twice before finding something to answer.

"Uh, I mean, I'm sorry but this is a water gym. I understand this is your first badge but maybe you should have dressed appropriately for the gym you were challenging. I didn't mean to upset you or the young lass, it's just to get people in the mood before they face me."

"My hair is going to get all messed up now." Complained Gilly still while Blaze translated his speech to Aurora.

(What! He said I was small!)

That wasn't really what he said but Aurora never made much difference between small and young. She was a bit annoyed before but now she was really angry.

(Tell him we'll beat him up!)

"Allright." Blaze agreed.

He cut Gilly in the middle of her complaints and presented their group.

"Anyway, this is Aurora Stardust, the heiress of Starfuel company. She is mute so me and number one serve as her interpret for people who don't speak sign language as well as serving as her guards. All three of us wish to challenge you for the Fountain badge today. Aurora says she will beat you up because you called her young."

"What? But she is young."

He clearly couldn't follow what was happening, this was pretty normal all things considered.

"She hates getting called young or small. Will you accept her challenge leader Carver?"

The man regained a bit of his composure from the more official sounding Blaze and agreed with a fierce nod.

"Alright, I'll take you all on one at a time, follow me to the arena. it will be my pleasure to test if you are worthy of gaining your first badge."

He led the group up to a large circular arena. Both the left and right extremities of the arena house a wide and deep fountain. They were clearly big enough to let water monsters shine. The key to the victory here would be to stay out of those fountains. The task could turn out to be annoying as the space in-between the two was only about three meters wide.

Carver walked all the way to the other side of the arena and stomped on one of the tiles of his floor. Some sort of podium with a large "1" written on it rose from the ground and he picked up two p-balls from it. Those would be the monsters he intended to use for the match.

"Alright, we will go for a classic one against one, no switch, the match ends when either of the participants forfeit or none of his monsters can fight anymore. I will be using those two for the first match, who will go against me first?"

Aurora stepped up and got her keytar ready.

"The girl first, then. Do you want the match to be recorded?"

"Recorded?"

Blaze had never heard of this before.

"Yes, recently, people took a real liking to seeing champion rise from nothing. They aren't satisfied of just seeing them show up in world tournament anymore, they want to see how they progressed too. There's a huge online community about professional trainers and all their fans now. I don't care much about it but the league had everyone install cameras and echorecorders in every gym a few years back just for this."

"I see."

Blaze told all that to Aurora and the trio took a short moment to think about whether this whole thing should be recorded or not.

In the end, they chose to have aurora recorded but not the other two. She was a well known figure so not having any records of her fights would seem more strange than anything. Plus, they were pretty sure that her parents would love to see the videos. As for the other two, it was better if as few people as possible knew what sort of monsters they carried around.

Aurora stepped up to the challenger mark and finalized the challenge setup with Carver. The cameras all turned on and she summoned Magus on the field.

Her opponent also sent out his own monster, a small blue duck.

"You're starting strong young girl. Let's see if you have the ability to go with the chosen monster. Canelaitte, looks like you're flying today!"

Aurora was a bit disappointed that he had not named the monster but thinking about it, it made sense. To meet any and all challenger, he probably had around a hundred monsters stored in that podium, naming them all would be insane. It was logical that aside from his true main team, he only referred to them using their species names.

The ugly blue duck rose in the air and Aurora started playing the notes of battle. Magus placed himself at the ready and she played for the charge and sleep powder.

"That's a very original way to command your monsters." Commented Carver as Magus rushed to the middle of the arena.

He did not give any commands to his monster right away and instead waited for magus to do something. Once the saurian reached the middle of the arena, he took a deep breath, all his back muscles contracted themselves and the huge flower spouted out a large cloud of spores. Carver Reacted immediately as the cloud rose and expended towards the Canelaitte.

"Use defog before it reaches you and attack it with your wing."

The duck did as it was told and with a powerful beat of his wings, blew away all the spores towards Aurora. She had not expected that. The fact that it was a water gym and he started with a flying monster was a bit annoying. Although she could concede that ducks indeed really liked to laze in ponds and fountains.

If she had known all that, she would have started with Sunsun. It was too late now though and the bird was diving at Magus. She played the notes for a charge with all of his strength and quickly wore the rebreather Blaze gave her to escape the sleeping powder coming up to her. It would have been really embarrassing to fall asleep because of her own monster's attack.

Meanwhile, Magus took the wing attack head on and attempted to take the duck down when they hit each other. The shock was brutal, Magus had to take two steps back despite the difference in size while the duck rolled on the slick tiles all the way up to Carver. It had been knocked down. If Magus had not evolved the day before, he would have been the one knocked away.

"Sorry Canelaitte, it seems her blooming saurian is beefier than I taught. You're done for today."

He called it back to its ball and the disciples cheered for Aurora from down bellow. They were all following the fight with the big screens. No one would be really upset if Carver was defeated in a badge gathering test. After all, the point wasn't to crush the challengers, it was only to test them. Only in a true challenge for the title would none of the disciples root for the challenger.

Aurora was really happy about the first round and played some praising notes for magus.

"Your turn now my water mouse." Carver said.

The second and final monster to take part in this test was a small blue mouse, round as a ball with a long tail ending in a second smaller ball. it was very cute with its pale belly and soft looking fur but it was an opponent so she needed to keep her guard up.

"Into the fountain you go, quick."

The mouse followed the order and plunged towards the water. Aurora needed to stop it. She played the notes for vine whip.

Magus sent two large vines growing at the base of the flower towards his adversary but the small mouse was too quick and surprisingly agile. It darted left and right and dived deep into the fountain before magus could do anything. Only the floating tip of its tail remained at the surface.

"Good, now use scald!"

Scald! That mouse knew how to use scald!

Its face showed up at the surface with its cheeks filled and bulging with water before shooting it straight at Magus with a strength close to that of a hose used by firefighters.

Neither Aurora or Magus had any time to react and the lizard took the brunt of the hit. Vapor blew up in the air on contact and Magus recoiled as he felt the burn.

"Water might not be that effective against grass but boiling is a common way to cook vegetables. Keep it up!" Carver declared. "We use that move often here to cut through the stones we're carving.

Aurora played the leech seeds notes while Blaze translated what he said for her. Sweat mixed with the water on her face while she hoped Magus would resist the burning water.

Magus could barely take short peeks through the bouts of scalding water but manager to throw the seeds effectively and hit the target. The parasite plants took root immediately and Aurora followed with the vine whip notes again.

The mouse was thrown off by the seeds but still dived to escape the vines. It would have managed to dodge again but the floating tail betrayed it and Magus took a grip on it.

The parasite plant connected with the vine while Magus raised it out of the pond. He was about to slap it over and over again with the other vine but Carver didn't let it happen so easily.

"Bubble field and water gun to counter the vines."

The mouse turned on itself while blowing bubbles and soon enough, the field was covered in those. magus ignored them and stroke with his vine through them, blowing up dozens at the same time. Not only did he somehow miss the target but a jet of water came from near where the mouse should be and struck him in the eye.

He attempted to beat the mouse over and over but each time he did, he either completely missed or the vine was knocked away by a jet of water. The bubbles were surprisingly effective into distorting the perception Magus had on the mouse real position.

The situation was annoying for both him an Aurora. The mouse could not escape and it's life was slowly drained into Magus but at the same time, Magus couldn't put an end to the fight because he couldn't get a clean hit on it.

"I know I'm going to lose in the end but I would like you to remember this. Type advantage means nothing to true trainers. That mouse is at a disadvantage since the start and weaker than your blooming saurian too, I know, but it could still keep you stuck here for so long. Scald!"

Another jet of burning water came to crash on Magus's face. It was very painful, yes, but he managed to find the true location of the mouse through the field of bubbles because of it and gave it a powerful smack that stopped the water beam.

"I concede, the challenger win. Remember my words and become more clever than the surface information. True mastery lies in the depths of the fountain of knowledge."

The mouse was recalled and Aurora played her victory tune in pride. Magus came back and she hugged it in joy, the leaves and the flower were all flabby from the heat but a good rest and a visit to the monster center would fix all that just fine. They had a bit of trouble but in the end, she beat the first gym with only him, she could call that a success.

Meanwhile, the cameras all shut down and Blaze prepared himself for his own match. Looking at the fight just now, he had no idea how the three guys from the other day managed to get a badge each, they were way too weak to defeat someone like Carver. Even if Aurora had a type advantage as well as an evolutionary advantage, she was driven in a five minute long stalemate. He couldn't imagine the working order goon defeating carver.

When his own fight started, music erupted out of nowhere.

"What is that?" Asked Carver, confused.

"It's the first generation gym leader theme song." Blaze felt it was very appropriate and he loved it.

(It's just a chiptune.)

Of course it is, it's what makes it great! The very original! Blaze complained in his head. How about we make it more spectacular then? He was annoyed at their comment and wished to show them how great that music truly was.

The music swiftly evolved from a 95 game tune, gaining instruments upon instruments. Hundreds of strings instruments were added over the span of a single music loop and dozens of organs made a thundering choir in the background. They couldn't look down upon this grandiose orchestral rendition of it now could they?

In any case, his own match ended in a success as well. Carver got a new set of suitably trained monsters and Dawnshield tanked everything they threw at him. He ended the fight with whip strikes and punches with his arms full of his needled armor. He didn't move much but neither of the two monster Carver sent managed to do anything to him.

Finally, it was Gilly's turn. Houndy wanted to show off but she chose Levy instead. She sang a bit, put the opponent to sleep and then slapped it all the way to next week. The second one was ready for the lullaby but Gilly did something absolutely unexpected.

"Metronome."

Both Aurora and Blaze gawked. How come that airhead knew such a move!

Her fingers wiggled, Carver panicked and ordered his monster to hide into a defensive curl and Levy used the opportunity to run up to it and kick it out of the arena.

Everyone gave a puzzled look at Gilly while she crumbled in laughter, holding her sides and rolling on the ground.

"You really thought she knew Metronome! I can't believe it! That's so funny!"

"So she doesn't?" Asked Blaze to clarify.

"Of course not! I just asked her to wiggle her finger when I say that and then charge up to them for a pound or a few slaps! I'm dying it's too funny look at your faces!"

"I see now why you two are the bodyguards." Carver told them with a sigh. "I believe that with someone as clever as that, the miss doesn't have to fear anything. In any case, those three fountain badges are for you. You defeated this gym with resources to spare and it would honor me if you wore this badge in the future. I also give you the Scald TM. It might not be the strongest water move but it can surprise many unprepared opponents and the pressure of it can even cut through boulders. It's a good base to learn hydro pump from."

Blaze translated to aurora and she walked up to the leader to receive the badges with a beaming smile. They pinned it in their respective badge case, asked about the information they came to get and left though the elevator again with their prizes.

They now had their first badge and they knew were they needed to go to get the frog and the turtle they wanted to get. That was a great day.

***

(AT) I wanted to have Slush come out to fight, cutting Magus in line to prove how much stronger than him she is but because of my old father's birthday, I lacked the time to write this bit. This is why the fight with the duck is so disappointingly anti-climactic. The chapter has the usual length though.

Speaking of this, I usually have some half decent reason when I give you shorter chapters but next week will be a short one and I really have no valid excuse. A post on reddit reminded me of the existence of ATG and I saw I was 300 chapters behind in my reading so I wasted most of the time I was supposed to write the next chapter reading those 300. I'd rather use the time I'm supposed to use on TV show than the time I'm supposed to use for Born from a divine gamble. BFDG is after all my main.

(AT2) I wondered if it would be fun to have people in this region actually speak French, with the English translation bellow. I wanted to try but the chapter was already a 1000 words over the target and I had no more time so I gave up midway. Even if French is my true language, it's a bit disorienting to pass from English to French just like that and it's easy to make grammar or spelling error in French. It takes me around twice as long for each sentence in French then for the sentence in English, not because I don't know how to build them but rather because there are so many words I never remember how to spell it's insane. I might add this later since half of it is already done anyway.