15th Move: Monscaping

15th Move: Monscaping

Kurt’s Workshop, Johto.

“Full?” I patted my bloated stomach while leaning back in my seat. It groaned in warning, not only because of the weight I put on the backrest, but also as a reminder to mind my manners. 

“Breakfast was great. Thanks.” It most certainly was not. Kurt and his granddaughter’s idea of the most important meal of the day was to pop ‘round the corner to the Pokémart, choose something from the ready-made section, and hope it wasn’t the stuff that hadn’t sold the day prior. Today, on my first ever morning with them, I fought off the reflux as given to me by an omelette, natto, and instant coffee. Only thing missing was the gripe water I’ll eventually need. 

“Rested?” That, though, I had zero to complain about. Very much the contrary - and I wasn’t talking about the ability, either. Jumpfluff-down pillows softer than anything, and practically laden with sweet scent from what I could smell.

“Like using Shaymin as my personal pillow.” I got a full eight hours, but that cushy bed was reeling me back still.

“Good.” Kurt nodded sagely while setting down his mart-branded paper cup of caffeine. “Now get off your balls and start shaving mine, you lazy Linoone!” 

Guess it was time I earned my internship. “I’m more partial to the sledgehammer, if you please.” Kurt’s phrasing left a lot to be desired for me.

“Are you also gonna teach your grandmother to suck eggs?”

Well, wherever April’s grandma, and presumably Kurt’s wife, happened to be, I’d accept the responsibility to do so. The state of our breakfast was deplorable. Anyway, better get to work. “Alright, show me where your razor is.”

“Bah!” Kurt stood, coaxed me with his curled finger, and guided me to the workshop proper. “You young ‘uns don’t know how good you have it. Back in my day, we had to brave the overrun wilderness just to get the right shaped rock to hit other rocks with. Spoiled - all of you.”

Speaking of spoiled children and stone age sensibilities, every step we took into the workshop proper was being punctuated with the rhythmic clangour of hard battering harder. Entering the main yard, the first thing I saw was a giant, clumped ore of black tumblestones being crushed into smaller bite-sized pieces by eight-year-old April and her trusty hammer. “Good morning grandpa - hrng!” Kachunk! “And Uki!” The very antithesis of Kurt’s whinging came (literally when a pebble sailed over and knocked me on my forehead), smacking us in the face. 

“Keep at it, girly. When I was your age, my own pops used to make me beat that with my fists. Count yourself lucky I gave you something to clobber with.”

“Okay!” April - kaboom! - eagerly went back to it.

He turned to me again after telling tales to his hardworking sprog. “Don’t get any ideas, boyo. Your limp wrist ain’t strong enough for that yet.”

Now, that was just a disservice to my beautiful frame. Flexing my arm, I bulged a bicep. “I drink my moomoo milk every day!” Though that confidence didn’t last too long.

April demonstrated her physical prowess again with another titanic swing of her arm. “Me too!” Straight from a tetra pack instead of the teat, I imagine. Nevermind, then.

Ignoring us, Kurt continues deeper into his workspace, prompting me to follow along. 

“Right, making apriballs ain’t all that complicated. In fact, any Mr Mime can mimic me and make one. It requires little know-how, very few tools, and just the bare minimum of easily acquired raw materials. Our forefathers lived in a time of scarcity and employed ingenuity and efficiency to craft themselves the perfect device to help them control Pokémon.”

True enough, as I surveyed the workshop in its entirety, I was genuinely surprised how relatively sparse it seemed to be. 

On the very back wall was a fireplace - more of a furnace, really. Like something out of a black smithery, only smaller. No bellows, but there were a couple of iron buckets hanging over the fire via hooks. “One’s got the apricorn tree resin I use to give my balls their glossy sheen. The other’s topped with Beedrill honey. The inherent venom in it makes it inedible, but by boiling it, I cook out most of the poison and use it as glue.” 

“Is that a Slugma I spy?” 

“Mhm.” Kurt grunted in assent when I spotted his flames were Pokémon powered. “That’s Hiru. Don’t bother him none. He’s got a full-time job keeping the fire stoked.” 

Heeding his warning, I swivelled my attention to the opposite end of the room. A large, sturdy table you’d expect to find at a carpenter’s. Complete with a vise grip, and a surface pockmarked with innumerable gashes and divots displaying decades of use. 

Hanging on the wall above it was a corkboard littered with specialised tools of the trade. A neat row of carving knives, chisels, precision hammers, files, and even a range of protractors and rulers for measuring. 

Finally, by the table leg on the corner, was a crate full of broken and discarded old Pokéballs, if the scuff marks and scratches were any indication. 

A quilted table was stationed between the two zones. A kotatsu, surrounded by four cushions, stood on top of a soft rug, while burdened with books and ledgers. “That’s where I do all my bookkeeping and the girly her schoolwork. Sit.” He pointed at the plushest seat, likely one that hadn’t had a rump parked on it for ages. When I did, I got a clear view out of the floor-to-ceiling glass doors that opened out onto the veranda that oversaw their personal grove of apricorn trees. The small but respectable arbour was ringed by bamboo racks of shucked and halved apricorns drying out in the sun. 

Distracted by the picturesque view as I was, I missed Kurt hopscotching between all the different depots he’d guided me around until he thumped a selection of items on the empty space in front of me. 

“Watch.” First, he took a shard of the tumblestone April had been working over and began chipping at it with a small mallet until it was sized and shaped to look like a full fingernail. “Remember what I said about tumblestones?”

“They cause shrinkage.” From when I dumped my collection on his lap.

“Right. These little suckers here are responsible for the phenomenon that shrink, suck, and store mons in stasis.” Kurt held it up so I could get a proper eye. “The laws of our world are governed by many Pokémon with their Arceus-given capabilities to play around with the space-time continuum  - like you do with that thing dangling between your legs. Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Hoopa, and probably others I don’t even know about. These gems are the crystallised residual aura of that.”

“Johto itself has Celebi.” I pointed out - in epiphany - cementing Kurt’s explanation.

“Had. Been nearly half my lifetime since I’ve heard of even a sighting of our legendary protector. Used to be rampant when I was a wee one myself.” He moved on with a forlorn shake of his head. “Anyway, next we have the apricorns. Modern Pokéballs,” he tapped the regular ball he’d also brought, “are metal. Easy to mould and manufacture in a factory assembly line - but I don’t have that capability. Just my two hands. Apricorns husks are inert, they don’t produce aura, but do a stellar job absorbing and containing it. Which makes them perfect vessels to harness the tumblestone’s properties.” Kurt picked up the hollowed out half of a red apricorn and began carving into it with practised ease using a sharp blade. He slashed out two semicircles off the ends, then a bolt shape from the middle; and a small curve under it. Taking the cut-offs, he palmed a yellow apricorn, and used them to trace identical shapes which he slotted into the red. On the inside of the shell, he scraped out a divot to fit the tumblestone from earlier. “Then we put it all together.” 

“Is there a particular reason you use honey?” I wanted to understand the whole process.

“No. It’s just what’s readily available nearby.” He dipped his Smeargle tail-tip brush into a bowl full of hot Beedrill honey, and attached all the components. “Any type of adhesive will do here as long as it’s strong. I use the one I do out of tradition more than anything.” 

I remained mesmerised during the entire process. Not only because he so artfully stroked his brush to fit the puzzle pieces together with no excess movement or material, but also because each single action made the hair follicles on my skin perk up. He suffused every stroke, step, and little movement with a strictly controlled blanket of aura. 

A final puff of air through his lips, a thumb brushing over the pristine surface, and Kurt set the familiar visage of the top of a fast ball down on the table. “Ain’t take that much to make, did it? Just as I said - a few odds and ends, a little elbow grease, and we’re already halfway there.” He was seriously underselling the skill he’d displayed. But I figured it was probably as a result of years of expertise rendering the marvellous into the mundane rather than any notion of false modesty.

The entire process was deceptively simple. “Elegant.” Which, given my own burgeoning theories on move creation and teaching, I could deeply respect.

“Bah! Don’t be swallowing none of my glue, you hear? I ain’t need your honeyed tongue swirling around my ear.” Taking the regular Pokéball, Kurt started dismantling it by separating it into two clean parts. “In times past, I would’ve used a white apricorn and one of those old metal buckles to clamp bottom to top. But these days, folks prefer the functionality of the recall button, and also being able to transfer Pokémon for trade and the link system.” He took the bottom half with the button clasp of a regular Pokéball, affixed it to the apricorn husk he’d carved, and ultimately created a red, yellow, and white fast ball. “So I just use one of these to make my life easier.” 

“The ideal ball to target overly agile Pokémon.” As I held the apriball in my hand, I couldn’t help but contrast the sleek metallic bottom to the more rough hewn tactility of the gourd-like apricorn husk. “But I gotta admit, it’s more of a rinky-tinkatink operation than I initially assumed.” The resin coating would probably give it a more uniform sensation later on.

Kurt scoffed and took it back from me. “A lesser known effect of this ball is that it also provides a higher catch rate for electric and fire type Pokémon, too.” Then suddenly, with barely a flick of his wrist, the ball went flying, rebounded against the wall, and thwacked back into Kurt’s palm in the blink of an eye. Far outpacing any conventional ball in the market. “But you know what’s funny? You could copy everything I did, down to the last minute detail, and you wouldn’t be able to replicate its effects. Guess why.”

The answer was as obvious as the goosebumps I’d experienced. “Aura.”

“Nail on the iron head, boyo.” He taped his nose conspiratorially. “Aura. Everyone has it, but not everyone has the aptitude to use and grow it. And if you can’t - then you can’t make no apriballs. Simple as. S’why it’s so rare, and I can set my price however I choose.”

Aura manipulation was a hard won skill. It manifested differently in mons versus humans. Pokémon were naturally predisposed to wield it however they wished. However, people were limited to imbuing it within themselves, giving them heightened senses and abilities, like the ninjas under Koga or martial arts masters who could physically go toe-to-toe with their Pokémon. Apparently, according to Kurt, into objects to materialise effects as well. “Alright, I think I understand. So, does the colour and pattern you make with the apricorns also matter? Or is that all just aesthetics?”

“Ha! Maybe teaching you this won’t be a waste after all. That, right there, was a good question. Short answer, yes - for an amateur like you at least. How you perceive colours and symbols affects how your aura subconsciously behaves during the process. Bolts are electric. Red and yellow make orange - like fire. Excitement, light, heat.”

“Ipso facto speed.” Connotations. That was the word that immediately popped into my mind. 

“Good. That’s right. You’re getting it. Let’s take it up a notch. Try to explain why you think a friend ball works the way it does.”

Rubbing my chin, squinting my eyes, and pursing my lips; I thought about it for a second. “Well, it’s got small accents of red and yellow so fast again, but… it’s overwhelmingly green.” I inhaled, and the scent of my pillow flitted across the forefront of my mind. “Comfort.” 

“Not a bad interpretation at all. Fast comfort. Since friend balls make your Pokémon more affectionate on capture, it would fit. When I started out, I used to think nature for green. As if it’s natural for the caught Pokémon to be in that ball, which is why they cosy up so quickly. Made catching grass types easier, too.” Kurt supplied his own definition.

“Huh. It makes an astounding amount of sense, but in a strange sort of way, eh? This might be easier than I thought.”

Kurt immediately wiped away that theory. “Don’t get cocky, boyo. It’s easier said than done.” He tossed me a fresher, red apricorn, and a square piece of sandpaper with it. “Your job from now on is to sand the inside of them apris smooth. At the same time, try to filter in some of the right type of aura into it. See for yourself just how tough it is to slip even a drop inside.”

I glanced at the two items cradled in my hands. Without ceremony, I - skritch, skritch, skritch - began shaving Kurt’s balls. “When I do,” because there weren’t gonna be any ifs about it, “how about we celebrate with a non-minimart meal?” That burning in my tummy wasn’t me accessing a pool of aura, that’s for sure.

“You want good food? Cook it yourself.”

“Deal.”