Levy and Sunsun

The small group walked along the road towards the next town. On the way, they did not forget to train their monsters. The good thing about all of this being real instead of a game was that they didn't have to throw their small friends into fights against wild creature to train them properly.

Yes it was a good way to test their abilities and see how far they came but they didn't need to do it in order to simply improve. After all, if everyone went out in the wilderness to beat random creatures in order to buff their own monsters, it wouldn't be long until most of them became endangered species or even instinct.

So the group walked while having their pets exhaust themselves using their abilities on random trees and imaginary targets. Even Gilly gave out orders enthusiastically but it was probably because she was relaxing on Blaze's back.

He carried all their belongings in his own bag he wore on his chest instead of his back which was occupied by Gilly. She had her arms wrapped around his neck and he held both her legs under his arms. At first he didn't really mind but walking for hours like that was starting to get a bit tiring. The only reason he could still hold on was because of the 'super' powers given to him.

"Gilly, I said I would carry you if you got tired of walking not that I would carry you all the time."

"But I am tired! Look, I'm exhausted because of all that training." She complained.

"You aren't, the only thing you've been doing was give orders. You've been on my back since we left the city."

"Yeah and you're not even tired. Look Aurora, my man is awesome, he can carry me all the way with no problems!"

Was she trying to use the girl to stop him from dropping her?

(He sure is strong, that's cool. I don't really feel tired either. I thought that walking for so long would be exhausting.)

"That's because I had you buy 'Physical fitness'. It's not performing at its best yet but eventually, you should end up close to me in terms of strength and endurance."

Aurora nodded her bandaged head in understanding. She hoped it would be the case soon.

As for Blaze, contrary to Aurora, he was getting pretty tired but now that he had been called awesome and cool, he couldn't just drop Gilly. He had to keep her on his back and endure the burning sensation in his arms. That was good training anyway, he tried to convince himself.

Instead of thinking about his own fatigue, he focused on the training of their four monsters. Now that the bird had been healed, Aurora had let it out of its ball to present it to everyone and give it a name. He ended up being called Starburst because of that dumb candy commercial, the one where the jet pilot feels so alive just before dying. Blaze felt it was more of a bad omen than a good name but the bird wasn't his own so he didn't complain.

Going back to its abilities, the foot tall bird knew no moves aside from bumping into his opponents and throwing sand at them. Blaze would have appreciated if it at least knew how to use gust but it didn't. The road to train it into something useful would be long.

Like the rest, he had Starburst fly around until it was dead tired. There was no point in having him practice ramming into things. The attack would only get stronger if the bird either became larger or faster. Having it practice that would more likely result in it getting knocked out by smashing his head against a tree.

He could have asked Aurora to test its abilities on a random critter but he doubted it could win against anything at all.

On the way, they did encounter some wild creatures, all of them small and easily removed out of their way by their three other, stronger, monsters. They were far from having the strength to defeat a gym leader but a entire week of nothing but intense training showed impressive results.

In particular, Magus now knew the vine whip attack it demonstrated on Starburst and leech seed which was in Blaze opinion a fantastic move to have. An attack that couldn't be blocked once it hit and sucked out the life of an opponent was amazing. The only real limitation of that thing was the amount of seed the small plant lizard could produce, a disappointingly small amount. Regardless, it was a great move in many circumstances.

Houndy learned the smog move which was in fact just him belching in his opponents face. Blaze was always disturbed by that dog. It could leer in disdain at you, spit fire, belch poison and howl but it would never touch his opponents. With how scary his teeth were, he thought it would be more effective to just bite them but the dog seemed to think it was above such a low class action.

Dawshield wasn't as reluctant and could bite surprisingly hard. The small rodent was very motivated and gave his all in every training sessions. Its vine whip was way more precise than before and he wasn't as confused and dizzy as in the past after he used a rollout. Now, Blaze could only build up its strength and endurance until it started producing seeds. At that point, the internet said it would be close to evolving.

In the days it took them to get to the mining town, they also encountered a few trainers but Blaze just glared at them under his mask and even showed them the gun in order to scare them away if he had to. Challenging everyone for money would be good for his wallet but he had no way of knowing what kind of monsters they would throw at them and their teams were far from ready for this kind of things.

He would rather take the time to train his team until it could almost guaranty his wins than gamble the little money he had. As for the two girls, neither were a big fan of battling so him stubbornly denying every challengers was good thing.

Aurora did want to get stronger and be able to protect herself but not only did she understand that it was better to learn diligently and steadily than jump steps but she also believed that fighting random people was pointless. Contrary to Blaze, she didn't need the money and also, if she could defeat the gym leaders for a badge, it would be proof enough of her progress.

Like that, the trip to the next town over was pretty uneventful. Sometimes, they would see a train pass them by on the rails following the roadside. All of them were merchandise trains, carrying the stuff from the mining town down to Hitawar city.

It took them three days to walk all the way there but they did not feel any threat at all. They did come across a police roadblock on the first day though.

They were there to make sure Blaze Sherwood would not slip out of Hitawar. Fortunately, the police officers were more informed than the hotel staff and recognized Aurora and her guards. They let them through easily and even commented on how wise it was to leave the area suspected to hide Sherwood.

Blaze felt elated that this trick could really work so easily. Aurora had felt stiff since she knew the truth of the matter but the cops just thought she was scarred of them and their intimidating roadblock. They had a literal wall of police trained monsters to block the way, each sturdier and scarier than the next.

Even with a gun, there was no way he would have been able to go through, not unless Dawnshield reached his third stage evolution. Even then, they had more than one fire types that could have caused serious problems to him.

Luckily, they escaped easily and the police was none the wiser. Gilly even managed to not laugh out loud when the cops praised Aurora for leaving.

On the third day, they came in sight of Coalburg. As its name would suggest, the town was mostly known for its deep coal mine, even its gym was themed about it and its leader boasted of a great amount of rock monsters.

He heard that before, there was only one way into town from Hitawar city and it was through a tunnel dug in the mountain but nowadays, they had blasted that part open to make some space for a concrete road and a railway. Everything was now in the open, with rubble and boulders moved to the sides.

When they got there themselves, they saw that it was indeed the case, the town entrance was no more. There were stones and rock strewn everywhere for a few hundred meters into the forest before entrance. The path was now wide and smooth, more than large enough to accommodate the railway, the occasional truck and the many people coming and going.

The town itself was what you would expect from a mining town. It smelt like crap, it was dusty, it's overall feel was drab and it was inhabited by a bunch of people who didn't mind all those things.

The place had a gym and a museum but they ignored both. They had no fossils to use in order to revive an ancient monster and they weren't there for a badge.

Considering that the guy here only used rock types, they probably could have won with their two grass types but they weren't in a rush and neither of the two participants possessed any backups in case Magus or Dawnshield failed to win. It was best to stay away from Roark.

They still stopped in Coalburg for a shower and a night on a real bed but departed first thing in the morning and went straight towards the entrance to the cave system leading to the other side of the mountains.

This would be the main difficulty of this part of their trip. The tunnels in here were brimming with rock typed monsters and cave-dwellers. This was the moment to prove that the training of their own monsters had been fruitful. This should be easy, after all, they would have the type advantage the whole time.

They still had to make some minimal preparations though. If it had been one of the games, Blaze's heart would have bled just thinking about what he was about to do but fortunately, here, it wasn't that disastrous. They booted up Aurora's hidden machine and used its knowledge to teach Dawnshield how to smash rocks.

In the games Blaze had once been used to, rock smash was a move of its own, it wasn't that good and stole one of the only four spots the monster had to remember an attack. Here though, it was more like a very specific set of instruction on how to identify the weakness in a rock-like structure and where to hit in order to produce the maximum results.

Once the machine was done with its magic, it took only around an hour for Dawnshield to be able to break down large boulder with the simple power of his vines. Now that this was done, they shouldn't get stuck in the tunnels.

They walked in with flashlights and battle monster at the ready. Since the path to the other side of the mountains could hardly have been described as complicated, the chances of getting lost in there were low. But, even with the lack of branching paths, the interior was wide and full of corners and places to hide. Huge boulders where strewn everywhere and the path kept going up and down like a roller coaster.

Of course, they weren't alone in the caves, there were all sorts of hikers and travelers roaming the place as well. Like the trainers on the road, the trio had no wish to fight them and so made a point of going around the obvious path. This meant that they encountered way more wild monsters than they should have but between a bunch of large rock type they could beat easily and trainers with unknown powers, this was a better choice.

The bats weren't that big of a problem as long as you kept your lights shining low to the ground but there were a ridiculous amount of everything else. The place was much more horrible than they expected. Just because they weren't walking straight up the path, It seemed like everything that was moving decided to stop them from going forward.

There was so many fighting types that Blaze had to step up himself at some point to beat them up. There were just too many for their few monsters to handle.

Whenever there was a living rock attacking them or that parody of Nigel's face, (1) their two grass types could handle them but with all the punchops and those annoying meditating bastard, Blaze had to fight himself. Every time one of them seemed like an opponent too hard to handle for Dawnshield or Magus, he used martial arts to out-power the martial monster. They always tried to use the same karate moves on him and he always turned it against them before beating them up.

He knew trainers weren't supposed to fight themselves but those were frustratingly annoying and refused to get out of the way without a fight. They were almost asking for it, it was like they found great joy in fighting with someone. Sure Blaze was able to defeat them but kicking in the stomach a creature used to beat up actual stone as practice was more exhausting than it seemed.

He only collected a few bruises throughout the cave. He didn't make any real mistake in any of his fights but those short dudes packed quite the punch. Even the meditating guys were a surprising threat. If they were so hell-bent on meditating, couldn't they just remain out of their way instead of moving in front of them on purpose.

The conclusion of the whole thing was that they survived even though everyone was super exhausted when they got back out on the other side. The whole ordeal hadn't been pointless though as not only did they get to the other side, Gilly found a moon fairy on the way.

Dawnshield had just defeated a living stone with an expertly placed attack and they progressed deeper into the cave.

"The little guys are getting tired, maybe we should take a break." Gilly proposed.

They all agreed and relaxed somewhere that seemed safe to rest for a moment. They made sure the rock they were about to sit on weren't actually alive and sat down for a while. Dawshield fell and laid on his back completely spent, the others had a similar reaction to the break.

None of the fights they had were actually hard, there were just too many of them and their stamina couldn't keep up. A break was welcome for everyone. The three of them got some snacks out for everyone and they all took a well deserved breather.

And so, while they were resting, a large pink and fluffy thing showed up. Blaze had no idea if it had way to much pink fur or if it was just fat but the wobbly way it walked was incredibly funny.

The thing had seemingly short and velvety pink fur, with enormous moist eyes and large cat-like ears ending in darker brownish fur. It had a large twirling tail and two disproportionately small wings. The creature was barely reaching to their waist and seemed to be in a very good mood. The dog growled at it in an attempt to scare it but in reverse, Gilly was very excited about it.

"Oh my god, it's a moon fairy!"

She got another snack from the bag and extended it towards the pink creature. The moon fairy smiled happily, took the snack between its short pudgy fingers and sat down beside Gilly to eat it with gusto. The fairy completely ignored the dog.

"I love moon fairies, they're so cute and fluffy."

She reminded Blaze of a schoolgirl in front of her favorite singer. He didn't know about whether the moon fairies were cute or not but those things were rare, valuable and practical. He wanted to urge her to catch it but feared that saying it aloud would make the fairy flee.

Aurora shared the opinion of both. That fat fairy was endearing and charming, it was worth spending one of Gilly's leftover team slot for.

"That thing is tasty, you are a bunch of good people." The fairy was saying.

It licked the tip of its fingers and looked smilingly at Gilly.

She removed her mask for the fairy and asked it eagerly. "Can I hug you?"

"Sure, I love humans, they're cute and squishy."

The fairy spread its small arms and Gilly took it in her bosom. They both seemed super happy. They were very similar for this kind of things. The whole body of the fairy was wrapped and squeezed in her arms while her breasts were pressed against its head.

"Gilly,"(you should try and catch it.) Blaze urged her using sign language after he got her attention.

Aurora was wondering if they were strong enough to defeat a moon fairy but Gilly apparently had an entirely different way of seeing that problem. Her eyes shone when Blaze gave her the idea.

"Say, would you like to join the team?" She asked bluntly with it still in her arms. "What would you like for me to do in order to convince you?"

"Will I get as many hugs as I want? I also want to stay out at night for the moon."

"What did it say?"

Aurora translated what it meant to the great incredulity of Blaze and Gilly accepted it's conditions easily.

"Sure, hugging you is the best! I have no objections against letting you stay outside at night."

"Good people, good food, good hugs, I'm in!"

After seeing Aurora's translation, Gilly placed it back on the ground and presented it with an empty p-ball. The fairy just bumped it's head against it and got in willingly.

Was it really that easy to catch a rare monster? Blaze was speechless.

"I want more hugs too mistress!" Wined Houndy while scratching her front legs with his paws.

"Onnn come here you needy boy."

She crouched and hugged it strongly too. The dog looked very pleased and shot a smug look at Blaze, as if he had won some big victory over him.

"Good lord." He commented in a sigh before turning back his attention to his food. What a bunch of nonsense.

Like that, the team got its first female monster member, Gilly named the fairy Levy. For once, and for the rest of their trip through the caves, she walked on her own to hug her new friend.

Blaze briefly evaluated the fairy and concluded it was a bit stronger than the rest of their team. One on one, it could have won against any of them but it wasn't smart at all so Blaze was confident that their own monsters could have beat it with the right instructions. To put it simply, the thing was a gullible airhead.

Aside from that, it already knew a few useful tricks like follow me and defense curl but the most scary was that it knew how to slap. Slapping a monster wasn't the most effective move ever but Gilly was a slap expert. It wasn't for nothing that she always threatened people to slap them when things didn't go her way. If Gilly and Levy combined their slaps, the poor soul at the receiving end would be left in an horrible state.

Blaze was very interested to see this but of course, he did not intend to be the guinea pig.

When they finally got out of the caves, they were welcomed by the sight of waterfalls and rivers flowing down the mountain around them.

"Yay! We're out!"

Gilly almost jumped in joy. Outside, the day was still not over but the sun was on the other side of the mountains by now and their looming shadows was spread across the land.

The next city wasn't that far off from here but Blaze doubted they could reach it before it became too dark to move safely.

"We'll camp once we reach the forest."

No one objected to that and they walked across the bridges solidly built above the water.

From now on, they could encounter some seekrid at any moment. They lived pretty much everywhere on this side of the mountains. Since they were to camp in the nearby forest anyway, they'd probably not stop in town at all and focus on moving around the woods to search for their target.

They walked a bit further off from the road and set up their temporary camp. As promised, the moon fairy was let out and she took over the night watch. Blaze didn't trust it at all to protect them in their sleep since the thing didn't seem to ever feel threatened by anything but it was still the best they had.

After another night of insane nightmares, they were ready to hunt the psychic fairy. It turned out that those common fairies were apparently much harder to find than the moon fairies who were supposedly rare and came from space.

They spent four days in those woods but found no trace of a seekrid.

(Maybe just walking around until we find one isn't the best strategy?)

"Even if we find one, how do you catch something that can just teleport away?" Added Gilly to Aurora's question.

"Let's check on the peardex then, or the internet, I'm sure we'll be able to find an answer."

They did find an answer, very fast for that matter.

"They only appear to people and monsters with good intentions and those that have happy feelings."

The girls both looked intently at him. He didn't need to be told out loud to know. He had too much in his mind to be constantly happy, they had important things to do and the future was bleak. Because he was there, there would never be a single seekrid that would show up.

"Then let's do this, you two girls will stay here to find one while me and Dawnshield go back to the cave entrance. I'll train in there with him until you find one. If you do not get one today, come back before the night so we don't end up split up and try again tomorrow. If possible, keep the dog the bird and Magus in their balls too."

"Is it really okay?" Worried Gilly. She really didn't like the idea of being separated from Blaze.

"You'll be fine, we won't be that far apart and just for a few hours at a time. You have a total of four guardians with you, nothing can happen."

Gilly was still reluctant but after sharing a goodbye kiss with her, Blaze left towards the caves, leaving the two girls alone.

Aurora watched Gilly take a big breath before she turned towards her and asked her how she wanted to proceed. Aurora would have been fine to just listen to Gilly but the taller girl gave all the responsibility to her.

"This is your future monster after all, you're the one who has to make the plan and the catching."

That made sense, she had to take it in her own hands. They needed two things, happy feelings and a sure-fire way to catch it if they found one.

The second part would have been easy if Magus knew how to make sleep powder but he didn't yet. Would it be best to do like Gilly with Levy? She couldn't talk though. Maybe music would do?

(Let's go a bit further and find a place to sit. All we have to do is have fun right? We'll talk and play music until one shows up.)

"It's worth a try. Alright then, lead the way!"

Following that new plan, it took them another two days before they had any results. They played music, danced around, watched funny videos on the internet using Blaze's laptop, talked about things from the other world Aurora knew, some movie they saw and so on. By the end, they were about to run out of things to do in the woods. Neither of them were that interested in outdoors activity, they had no ball to play and weren't inspired with anything.

Still, in the end, it worked before they ran out of stuff to do.

A very tiny humanoid appeared in front of them while Gilly was reading a bunch of jokes from a bad joke book. They were so horrible that the two couldn't help but laugh at how bad they were.

The small monster had a white body that was just as large as a tissue box if you didn't count the head. The fairy had its eyes hidden under its green hair and had two huge red and rounded horn-like things sprouting from its head. Overall, it looked like it was wearing an overlong pajama.

The psychic fairy curiously got close to them wondering what the fun was all about. Its voice shot into their minds.

||Can I play too?|| (2)

It was a telepath! Even better, she could hear it despite the fact that the show cancelled her own telepathy until the adventure ended. Did this mean she could talk to it properly? She felt very excited. (3)

||Why would you not be able to talk properly to me?||

It worked, he or she could read her mind! Probably a she according to the voice. Anyway, that was great! She felt so used to have no voice, it was very different to know that someone could hear her clearly than how it felt to use signs. Her mind was a bit confused and jumping about because of her joy but yes, she had no voice, she attempted to think about clearly.

||Having no voice seem sad, but you look happy. Being the friend of you two must be warm. Also, I'm a girl. Can't you tell with how pretty I am?||

She didn't know about being friends with her but she thought that being friends with Gilly and Blaze was indeed warm for her. It was getting harder and harder to imagine herself without them, not because she depended on them but because the more she learned about Gilly, the more she thought she was a good person.

She still wasn't sure about Blaze though. She understood he was always thinking about how to best help the three of them but he wasn't the kind of man to talk a lot. It was usually Gilly who made the conversations and Blaze just answered. In any case, she felt much safer with him around, nothing much had happened yet but she felt like she was covering herself with a blanket to escape a thunderstorm and that blanket was Blaze.

"I think that the fairy can read into my mind!" Exclaimed Gilly, a bit late.

||You want to catch me in a ball.|| The fairy stated, ignoring Gilly.

It was sure hard to hide that kind of thing from someone who could read minds. Really, what she wanted was more friends. Her mother had a seerknit too, those were really strong and pretty. Mela, she remembered, seemed really cold from the outside but she had only love for her mother and herself, Aurora could tell by her aura. She could be trusted with anything.

She hoped she would have a friend like her one day, like a guardian angel. She needed one too since she seemed to get in trouble a lot even though she wasn't doing anything in particular.

Finally, she needed help with her own psychic powers. Blaze had said so, a psychic monster would be able to help her develop her own abilities. If she wanted to be able to stand on he own, she would need someone like the fairy in front of her to help.

She wondered how to convince her to be her friend. Gilly managed to do it easily with a cereal bar and a hug. Aurora wasn't used to making friends. Back in the previous world, it was Cassia who made the first steps and here, she had forced herself onto Blaze and Gilly because she was too afraid to do anything else.

"Aurora?" Gilly nudged her.

She was so lost in her own thoughts she had completely forgot what they were doing. She was doing it again! Not paying attention to the things happening around her. Gilly had nudged her because she had not answered to her mind reading comment.

(She can, I was talking to her.)

"Oh! I'm sorry then, I didn't mean to interrupt."

Not wanting to make any blunder, Gilly kept silent and watched the scene unfold in front of her. She would feel so bad for Aurora if she messed it up now.

||I see what you mean, friends are important. I would like to have friends too.||

Don't you have friends? Wondered Aurora, curious.

||No... The others don't want to be my friend.||

Why not?

||I like to move and have adventures. I like to explore and see new things. The others don't, they like to play hide and seek, they don't like it when I get there from elsewhere. I see new seekrid when I go to new places but no one shares my curiosity. It feels cold. No one wants to have fun with me.||

Her story made Aurora think about how she wanted to live an adventure too before. How she read so many stories and how she was whisked away from her home to be brought to this world, how it would happen again, sending her into even more unknown worlds.

The fairy saw her interest and her secret. She became very curious about Aurora's adventures and the two bonded over their respective wanderlust. They started sharing stories, those she read, those she lived and those the fairy lived. The small fairy had traveled surprisingly far on its own. She must have walked across the whole region, from the mountains to the sea and back.

Aurora had a great time sharing what she felt was needed for a good adventure and felt a bit sad to admit that now that she had lived such hardship, she would have liked the adventure to stop already. She knew it would not stop, she didn't have the choice, but this was not the kind of adventure she had wanted.

||Why not change it then?||

She was too small and too weak to change anything. She would only get more trouble.

||But if I help, you will be stronger, we can change it. Let's do that!||

Did she mean it? Did that mean she would come with her?

||You feel warm, I like it. You will go everywhere, in this world and others. I want to see. Promise to bring me along and lets discover the world together. I want to.||

Aurora made a huge smile but immediately regretted because of the pain. It wasn't as bad as before but with such a large smile, her wounded jaw wasn't pleased. Still, she herself was pleased. Of course she was willing to bring her along, that was the whole point. She gained a new friend to look at the world with and share new experiences.

The seekrid made a very pretty smile too and jumped up in her arms.

||Warm.||

The fairy was cold but quickly warmed up. Aurora kept her close while Gilly applauded in excitement.

"Did you do it?"

She answered with a nod.

"Amazing, congratulation Aurora! What's her name then?"

Did she have a name already?

||No, I'd like you to give me one though. A good one!||

What would be a good name then. She already had Magus and Starburst, she wanted this one to be pretty and warm since warmth seemed to be what she cared most about.

Letters and words jumped here and there in her head until she stopped on what she felt was the best she could come up with. Sunny. It sounded a bit like a name Gilly would give but it fit her so well.

||Sunny Sunny, I like it! Sunsun. Now let's play!|| (4)

***

(1) It's a smashing reference.

(2) From now on, telepathy and mind talk will be marked with ||...||

Just to remind everyone. <...> is for the text. (...) is for sign language and "..." is for normal talking or misc communication methods, maybe self reflection if it applies.

(3) I meant to ask everyone for their opinion on this beforehand but I forgot. The house rule about this will be the following: She cannot use telepathy because of the drawback but she can be affected by the telepathic powers of others because her own drawback should not affect the communication methods of anyone else.

(4) As you saw, this chapter, the group caught two more friends, they fought neither to get them. I felt that for narrative purposes it didn't feel right to punch them into submission even if I could have. If it can make you feel better, I am very willing to consider that 2 of the 3 master-ball they own were used for this. Think of those two balls as used, if I do in the end make use of them for narrative reasons, I promise to pay the point price for them again or never use what was caught with it. I'm not here to 'cheat' even though I'm the one making up the rules as we go along. The next team members won't get in so easy.

(note) I usually like to go around and catch whatever I think looks interesting but nothing catches my eye in this region. I didn't even feel like having Blaze battling them. What I would like though would be to get a bunch of them and bring them all with Blaze with the intention of breeding large armies of them later on because why not. Or maybe some sort of multiversal zoo. It would be fun to make fusions too because many are awesome but, I can't bring that many "companions". Even though I want most of them as livestock, the rules say that all of them are companions and all of them would cost me (Blaze) a fortune in points to bring. let me know if you have an idea.