A Superior Land (Mega Adventure Tribute) - Wizarmonfan X Mandriel

The far-off region of Akito holds promise for adventure and excitement. With lush forests and grand mountain ranges to explore, young trainers are jumping at the chance to journey far and wide to learn and experience everything that the region has to offer. The secrets of Mega Evolution lay hidden, ready to be uncovered by curious minds while legends await to be conquered by courageous souls.

But danger is never far away. A mysterious organisation known as Team Prime has arisen, their influence seeping though Akito like a plague. It's up to two unlikely heroes - a Pokémon thief and failing dragon tamer - to rise to the challenge and defend the future of the region.

The fate of Akito rests in your hands.

 

A shadow flittered across Okimira Town and a large flygon descended from the sky, gusts of wind from its powerful wings tearing at the leaves on surrounding trees. The heads of every passerby turned in awe as its trainer - a tall, well-muscled young man with a handsome smile - leaped down from the flygon's saddle, his royal purple cape fluttering as he landed. He surveyed the town, memories of his own Pokémon journey flooding back to him. Had it really been almost a decade since he'd set out from Okimira town with nothing but a trapinch? Time had flown so fast and it was now his little brother's turn to embark on his own journey. The dragon tamer had been eager to deliver him to this town and watch him take his first steps.

And speaking of his brother...

"Arach?" he called, turning back to his flygon. The boy was still clinging onto its back, having not budged an inch since they'd landed. "Are you coming or not?"

Ara kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing to look down at the ground. His fingers gripped onto his saddle so hard that his knuckles had turned white, "I can't get down." he mumbled.

An involuntary groan rose from the dragon tamer's throat. He should have seen this coming. "Just jump, you'll be fine."

"Ryu!"

Ryu rolled his eyes and held out his arms, "Come on, I'll catch you." Out of the corner of his eye, he could see people stopping and staring, this time out of amusement rather than awe. He could feel his face flush, but he kept his expression stoic. "Come on Ara, everybody's watching."

After what felt like years, Ara let go of the saddle, almost slipping from the flyon's back. He shrieked, wrapping his arms around the Pokémon's neck, much to its discontent. He closed his eyes and let go, slamming into Ryu and knocking the two of them to the ground. Ryu groaned again as peals of laughter erupted from their onlookers; they were not off to a good start.

 

"Are you sure you've got everything?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"You guess? But are you certain?"

Ara squirmed under Ryu's scrutinising gaze, fingers toying with the woven bracelets wrapped around his wrists, "Yeah, I'm pretty certain I've got everything I need." They'd already had this exact conversation three times that day. Ara couldn't tell if his brother was just concerned about him or if he thought he was downright stupid.

Ryu pinched the bridge of his nose, "This journey marks your coming of age; please take it seriously. Your elders won't like it if you have to be picked up at route 2 because you forgot something important. Have you got your phone?" Ara nodded, "Medical kit?" nod, "Emergency money?" nod, "Spare pokeballs?" nod, "Wyvern?"

Ara felt his mouth go dry. His hand drifted to his jangmo-o's Pokéball that was clipped to his waist and he nodded. Ryu didn't appear to catch sight of the look of discomfort that crossed his younger brother's face as he carried on.

"You have your trainer card?" nod, "Badge case?" nod, "Spare clothes?" nod. Ryu hesitated for a moment, still not appearing satisfied with Ara's answers. He turned back to his flygon, "Well, I guess that's- Hold up!" he suddenly remembered something, spinning back around to face Ara with his hand outstretched, "Repels." Ara nodded, causing Ryu to frown, "No, I mean, give me your repels."

If it was possible, Ara felt his mouth go even drier, "Wh-what?"

"The aim of a Pokémon journey is to get stronger." Ryu said in a babying voice, causing Ara's face to blush in shame, "And you can't get stronger if you spray every wild Pokémon you see. How are you supposed to be able to catch anything when you smell like repel? We're expecting you to come home with a full team of dragons." Unable to meet his judging eyes, Ara gave in and swung his backpack off his shoulders, unzipped it and dropped two cans of repel into Ryu's hands, "I want all of them." He handed over another one. "Is this all?"

"Yes." Ara lied. Ryu gave him a hard look and he handed over another, "Ok, that's the last one. I mean it this time." His brother didn't pursue the topic further, almost making him sigh in relief. He still had another three repels laying undetected at the bottom of his bag.

Ryu was silent for a moment, mentally checking a list of everything he felt the need to cover before Ara departed, "I suppose that's everything. I'll head back home now, but if anything comes up, don't hesitate to give me a call, 'kay?" he flashed him a grin, "I know that you're not supposed to get outside help on this quest, but I'm fine with bending the rules for my little bro."

"'Kay." Ara echoed glumly. He really didn't blame Ryu for thinking that lowly of him, but it still hurt to be reminded that everybody expected him to fail. He watched his brother leave, eyes fixed on the sky until his flygon was nothing but a green speck in the distance.

He let out a shaky sigh. This was it. His Pokémon journey had just begun. His family was expecting him to conquer every one of Akito's Gyms and build his team of dragons, like they all did before him. He couldn't afford to fail.

"Thief!" A voice broke through his thoughts. An old man in a lab coat came bursting out of a building, pointing down Route 1. The tall grass was still shaking, as if somebody had just run through it. He caught sight of Ara and shouted, "A girl with red hair! She's taken my litten!"

Without a second thought, Ara took off in the direction that the thief had disappeared.

 

Ara blundered through the undergrowth, stumbling to a halt right before he could slam face-first into a tree. He strained his ears to listen for the pitter patter of thieving feet escaping. What hind of horrible thug would steal from an old man? He'd heard stories about poachers stealing rare Pokémon to sell at high prices. Was that the kind of person he was dealing with?

In the distance, he could hear the sounds of new trainers battling, starlys twittering in the trees and... Pained cussing?

He headed toward the noise and caught sight of a flash of red hair. He burst through the foliage, causing the girl who was trying to pry the litten from her hand to look up in surprise. She opened her mouth to say something, but Ara didn't give the criminal a chance to make a sound.

"Wyvern, use Draco Meteor!" he commanded, hurling his jangmo-o's Pokéball into the air. The ball split open and the dragon emerged in a flash of red light, sharp teeth and claws glinting in the sunlight.

Without showing any indication that she'd even heard her trainer, she curled up on the grassy ground and pointedly turned her back on him. In the confused silence that followed, Ara buried his face in his hands in an attempt to hide the red blush that was spreading across his face.

 

The sound of her footsteps faded and Ara cast his Pokémon a hopeless glance. "Wyvern..." He swore he could see the corner of her mouth twitch upwards in a nasty smirk and he buried his face in his hands again. He had an unpleasant feeling she was enjoying every second she watched him fail.

He crouched beside the jangmo-o and she cracked open a scarlet eye to glare at him. He cringed and shuffled back a little in case she tried to bite him and cleared his throat. "So... Uh..." he hesitated, "L-look, I get that you don't like me too much, b-but..." he tried a shy smile, "Maybe we... We could reach some kind of compromise?"

Wyvern leapt to her feet, snarling. Ara shrieked and fell backward, slamming into the ground hard and having the wind knocked out of him. As he struggled to suck air back into his lungs, he could hear Wyvern's scratchy laughter. He groaned and stared up at the sky, doing his best to blink away the oncoming flood of tears that was threatening to spill from behind his eyes. The girl was right; he was a joke. How was he supposed to capture and lead a team of dragons when his only partner refused to listen to a word he said?

Something rustled in the nearby grass and Wyvern was on her feet once more, scales clanging defensively. In an instant, Ara was sitting bolt upright, pulse racing. Not many things scared Wyvern, but the one thing that did just so happened to also be Ara's greatest fear. They held their breath as the creature emerged from its hiding place.

Instant panic flashed through Ara. He grabbed ahold of Wyvern. She was too terrified to protest. Without thinking how how he might look like to other trainers, he sprinted down the route, screaming like a maniac.

The igglybuff blinked its large eyes in confusion before waddling back into the undergrowth.

 

Ara dropped down from the tree, failing to properly land on his feet and landing on his face instead. He scrambled to his feet, glancing around to make sure that the igglybuff was gone and sighed in relief when he found it was nowhere in sight. His heart was still pounding from the experience, though. Even though the wild Pokémon was still young and relatively weak, it sent shivers down his spine just thinking of its large soulless eyes and destructively super-effective typing.

Ready to continue his pursuit of the litten's thief, he returned Wyvern to her Pokéball, figuring that he might come off as slightly more intimidating if his disobedient Pokémon was out of sight. Or at least, as intimidating as a short, mildly chubby 14-year-old could look.

"Hey there! Wanna battle?" Ara almost jumped out of his skin as a young boy in a red cap materialised beside him, a pikachu sitting on his shoulder, its tail wagging in anticipation for said battle.

"N-no, sorry, I don't have any Pokémon." it had always guilted Ara to lie, but he knew a battle would result in nothing but humiliation for him.

The boy's smile melted into a look of confusion, "You're holding a Pokéball." he pointed out and Ara awkwardly hid it behind his back. The boy quickly added, "Which, you know, is fine. We don't need to fight. I just thought... Well, you know-"

"I-I'm actually looking for someone." Ara told him, cutting in before the conversation could get any more awkward, "She's kind of tall, athletic-looking, has bright red hair..." his eyes fell on a figure standing with two other girls by the entrance of the Corrda Forest, "Never mind, found her."

 

The thought of having an even larger audience to watch him attempt to battle made a nervous sweat trickle down Ara's neck and he opened his mouth to refuse but then reconsidered when an idea come to him. Maybe he could use this to his advantage...

"I'll battle you." he told Ash as he unclipped Wyvern's Pokéball from his belt. He let out the little dragon and fixed her with what he thought was a stern look, "Ok Wyvern, you're going to listen to me, and we're going to win this. Do you understand?" Wyvern hissed and he flinched, causing one of the fangirls to giggle.

He turned back to Kayla, forcing his voice to remain steady under her her suspicious gaze, "If I lose, I'll leave you alone." he drew in a deep breath, forcing his own eyes to meet hers, "But if you lose your own battle, y-you're gonna have to return the litten you stole."

 

There was an awkward pause from Ara as all heads turned to him. Well, it was a little too late to go back on his deal. Not that he'd intended on breaking it, but he'd been hoping that Rath would have been a little more resistant to Kayla's authority. Looking back, perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to wager everything on a maybe.

"O-ok. Wyvern, are you ready?" he looked down at his Pokémon, who was giving him a smug look. That probably wasn't a good sign. He turned to Ash, "R-right, l-let's go!"

Pikachu hopped down from Ash's shoulder, at his trainer's command, he launched a Thundershock attack at Wyvern.

"Counter it with Draco Meteor!" Ara shouted. Wyvern turned her head to shoot him a dirty look only to get zapped by her opponent. She snarled and charged at him trying to land a less effective Tackle. "Draco Meteor!" she wasn't listening. Ash's pikachu was faster than her, dodging her clumsy attacks and sending yellow sparks in her direction when she was off-balance. Even though electric-type attacks weren't very effective against her thick hide, she was losing health fast.

Ara groaned and looked away, unable to stand staring at the scene much longer. The look on Ash's face was downright apologetic as his Pokémon zapped Wyvern again. A flash of light drew Ara's eyes back to his Pokémon. A coloured stone wrapped in a glowing aura appeared above her head and she readied herself to hurl the Draco Meteor at Pikachu when the electric Pokémon sent one last bolt of lightning at her and the attack dissipated as her legs gave out beneath her.

 

A quick trip to the Pokémon Centre restored Wyvern back to full health. Ara made his way back to the outskirts of the forest, where he noted that Kayla, Ash and the fangirls had gone their seperate ways. The fact that he didn't have to face them made him feel incredibly relieved; he'd had enough embarrassment for one day.

The forest was quieter than Route 1, as most starter trainers preferred to battle closer to a Pokémon Centre that they could quickly run back to in case they found themselves in trouble. Ara was slightly concerned about running into Kayla as he didn't want to give her the impression that he was breaking their agreement, but he figured that if he lay low, he should be able to avoid her just fine.

He let Wyvern out of her Pokéball. "You, uh... You fought well back there." she didn't look as if she believed him at all, "No, really! I'm pretty sure that was the first time I'd ever seen you actually try and use Draco Meteor." Even though it was only after she'd gotten beaten up by Ash's pikachu. But he figured it probably wasn't in his best interests to add that.

He began to reach into his bag for a repel, but decided against it. It would be a better idea to save them for an emergency. Plus, Wyvern could handle most wild Pokémon, provided they weren't a fairy type. And it actually seemed as if she was willing to listen to Ara's commands. At least, for the time being.

With his spirits somewhat lifted by this thought, he set foot inside the Corrda Forest.

 

The young trainer huffed in indignation as she returned her pidgey back to its ball and Ara found the beginnings of a smile curling the corner of his mouth. Despite Wyvern's stubborn resistance, he was beginning to believe he may have been making some progress with her. Though most of the time, he had a feeling that she was following orders more because she didn't want to get beaten up by the opposing Pokémon again rather out of respect to her trainer.

His smile instantly melted away as the other trainer sent out a cottonee. The puffball of doom set its sights on Wyvern and Ara could see her legs begin to tremble. His hands shook. "I n-need to g-go." he stuttered, grabbing Wyvern's Pokéball before the cottonee could deliver an attack.

The trainer quirked an eyebrow, "What are you talking about? Don't tell me your bailing now just because you have a type advantage!" Ara tried to respond, but the words felt stuck in his throat. He tore his eyes away from the fairy and stumbled down the path, legs feeling like jelly. The trainer gave chase and he broke into a sprint.

Once he'd put enough distance between himself and the cottonee, he collapsed at the base of a tree. It took a long time for his racing heart to finally slow down.