Chapter 22

It had been a few weeks since I had last seen Alice and I would have to say that having Gastly in our team really opened up our options when confronting criminals. To say he terrified them is an understatement, he put the fear of God in them and more often than not they ended up soiling themselves.

He had an uncanny knack for the theatrics and put them to good use setting up the scene, both Cinder and I still got involved quite often but Gastly, well, Gastly was our opener. There was nothing like watching the goons get spooked so easily and it made both cinder and my jobs way easier. I mean you start hearing disembodied voices through the alley and next minute you have a flaming lizard running at you.

It made taking on larger groups of guys much easier and we were watching our exp shoot up, we would have easily taken down numerous groups of goons in that time, it was hard to keep count looking back. My aura sense had improved by leaps and bounds and using it we were able to track down incidents easily.

I would have to give it up to the criminals in Brooklyn, wanting to group together for safety has meant that we have been able to accumulate a large amount. Not sure why the cops aren't taking down more but their presence has reduced even further, kind of their levels before I started operating in the area.

Still don't know the reason, but I really need to try and find out why that is, maybe look at getting myself some kind of informant or set up a kind of intelligence network. I would really have to look at exposing myself more to people if I want to do something like that, and I'm not sure I'm that ready for it yet. Unless I managed to use Pokémon for it down the track, there might be something there for certain types of Pokémon that would work well in this city.

Maybe something like a Rattata or Pidgey would work, they would maybe blend in a little bit more compared to Gastly and Cinder. Though I would also have to look at improving my aura and psionics in order to properly understand my Pokémon that would make it useful. One thing that had happened over the last few weeks was I had gotten a mention in the newspaper, nothing by name but J.J had an article written about a man helping save his daughter from child smugglers or something along those lines.

I was a bit annoyed when I saw it and he didn't name me, but then I thought about it and if they were a part of a larger organisation, it may have sent unwanted and most likely hostile attention my way so in the end it was kind of good for the anonymity. I had also seen Cinder advance his 'scratch' move to advance and let me tell you it was bloody amazing.

He had been able to manipulate the normal type energy to form a sort of coating over his skin composed of pure normal energy. It formed a set of claws that extended 15-20 cm past his paws, and they were razor sharp, being able to cut clean through some steel bars I had procured that were maybe 3 to 5 cm thick. Anything beyond that only left some deep scores in the metal without piercing the whole way through.

'Growl' and 'ember' hadn't had much further improvement but his competency with said moves had increased and I could tell that most likely before he evolved, he would have progressed those two moves to advanced.

CHARMANDER (Cinder)

LVL 15 (24/90)

GENDER: MALE

ABILITY: BLAZE

BOND: 90%

HEALTH: 100%

STAMINA: 100%

MOVES: Scratch(Advanced), Growl (Intermediate), Ember (Intermediate), Smokescreen (Beginner)

NOTE: A bond of less than 40% will cause Pokémon to ignore some commands

I was a little bit concerned though as I knew that before he evolved Cinder should be able to start manipulating dragon type energy. But I wasn't sure as to what generation the move sets were based off, earlier generations he doesn't learn any dragon moves until after he has evolved and some, he doesn't at all.

Yet in those same generations he doesn't' learn smokescreen as early as he did compared to the later gen's, which made me think the move sets in this world were based on the later generations. This then meant that he should have started manipulating dragon energy around level 12, so something must be up for this not to happen.

GASTLY

LVL 12 (41/70)

GENDER: MALE

ABILITY: LEVITATE

BOND: 69%

HEALTH: 100%

STAMINA: 75%

MOVES: Confuse Ray (Intermediate), Lick (Beginner), Hypnosis (Intermediate), Mean Look (Beginner), Payback (Beginner)

NOTE: A bond of less than 40% will cause Pokémon to ignore some commands

Gastly had become more proficient at some of his moves with us training his abilities and using them in different ways, 'confuse ray' has been interesting as the effect has been the same with his advancement, however the potency and duration is much longer. It also uses significantly less stamina and the cast time is faster.

Hypnosis, now that one has been very effective with dealing with criminals, Gastly has managed to use it to persuade the recipient to confess when we have dumpe… I mean turned them into the police. The compulsion has become stronger and much harder for the individual to break out of, I wonder if there is the possibility of using that move as a form of therapy for traumatised individuals. Maybe the way to advance it further is to not only be able to use it effectively against criminals, but to be able to use it to help people in bad situations.

Not everyone is a criminal by choice, some are forced into it and yes some or most choose to live a life of crime, yet they may have had no other choice and feel like there's nothing else for them to choose. Those individuals I can pretty much pick out due to my aura sense, it has been giving me flashes of emotions and the colour of their aura.

STATUS

NAME: SAMUEL FARTHING

AGE: 21

LEVEL: 3/??

EXP: 48/55

JOB: Novice Trainer

BOND: CHARMANDER (90%)

GASTLY (69%)

DRAW CHANCES: 9

POKEMON: 2/∞

POKEMON STORAGE: 0/∞

ABILITIES/ PERKS: Mental Fortitude (MAX), Genetic Anomaly, Inventory, Inspect (MAX), Aura (Beginner+), Psychic (Beginner+)

I hadn't had many changes in my status, mainly going up two levels which as far as I knew didn't do much, apart from getting close to that 10-draw bundle and another Pokémon. These last few weeks has seen some good improvement in my aura and psionic abilities and with my aura sense developing along nicely I wasn't sure what to do next to progress it further. I got the feeling that moving much further than I had would require a partner Pokémon that also utilised aura to facilitate the increase in my abilities.

My psychic ability has developed slightly, and I had the same feeling as aura that I would require assistance to move it further, but some simple stuff like moving things with my mind I had managed to get a handle on. It wasn't crazy and the weight I could lift was pitiful, but I had seen some progress.