Welcome to another exciting installment of Spacemon, the tale of a Pokemon TRPG campaign! This is a spinoff of the sci-fi space epic played using the Pokemon Tabletop United (PTU) system, this time GMed by yours truly. You can get caught up on the entire Spacemon saga here!
The UAS Maverick sat docked on the planet Erai in Outer Rim Sector 32. Located in the Irra system, the planet was the nearest settled world to the sector’s warp gate. Erai wasn’t the only habitable planet in the system, but it was the only one that had any trace of Human civilization as the other two worlds, Berith and Telmun, suffered from rather low temperatures. That was only one reason why the planets didn’t make for good locations for colonies; Berith, a snowy forest world, was also plagued with frequent volcanic activity, and Telmun was covered in a vast, frozen tundra and dense marshlands.
Erai itself wasn’t free of its own natural dangers either. It was a dry, arid planet whose atmosphere was full of electrically charged particles, which made it prone to massive electrical storms. Despite this, Erai was still preferable to its chilly neighbors. The storms didn’t bother the citizens of the planet too much. They really only needed to be considered by ships entering and leaving the atmosphere as they wrecked havoc on sensors and navigation systems.
The Maverick had been on the planet for a few days now, waiting for the date of the upcoming raid on Rooker’s ships. It was close enough now that the crew didn’t have time to fly elsewhere and still make it back in time.
At the moment, most of the ship’s crew were on board relaxing, but Axel and Taraka were out exploring the spaceport settlement, located on the border between Erai’s largest grassland and it’s largest desert. The settlement was quite sprawling, and was full of people from all walks of life.
As Axel walked along the streets, there was one goal on his mind: finding someone to trade Pokemon with. He was still in possession of an extra Growlithe that he didn’t have any use for, and none of his crewmates really wanted to trade for it. The next stop of his list of places to check was a cantina not too far from where the Maverick was docked.
Entering the establishment with Taraka close behind, Axel looked around. The place was packed full of all sorts of mercs, space travelers, and merchants. Surely one of these people might be willing to trade, Axel thought as he approached the bar.
“Hey, bartender!” the Alliance mercenary shouted over the cacophony of conversing voices filling the air.
“Yes? What can I get you?” the thin-lipped man behind the bar asked.
“Is there any place around here where people can trade Pokemon?” Axel asked. “I’ve got a Growlithe I’m looking to unload and I’m just looking for anyone with interesting Pokemon looking to trade.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?” Axel asked, not liking the man’s noncommittal answer.
“I mean, there’s all sorts of folk coming through here that might be interested.”
“Well, where would you suggest I head to?”
The bartender simply shrugged . “Look man, I just serve drinks.”
Axel frowned. “Man, you bartenders are supposed to know what’s going on in these areas.”
“Everyone always assumes that,” the bartender said as he let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Now do you want a drink or not?” Axel got the feeling he had to deal with people making that assumption a lot, and suddenly felt just a little bad.
“No, I’m good,” Axel told the man. “Sorry to bother you.” The mercenary departed from the bar, then glanced around the room, his eyes eventually falling upon Taraka.
“So now what?” the monk asked, chuckling and shaking his head.
“Well, I guess I’ll just ask around and see if anyone wants to trade.”
“Whatever you say,” Taraka said as he followed his crewmate through the crowd.
It had taken a while, but Axel had eventually found someone in the cantina who was interested in trading. She was a youngish space traveler Axel had estimated was in her late twenties. Axel had tried to chat the attractive young woman up, but she made it clear she wasn’t interested in anything more than trading Pokemon. Axel didn’t mind too much. At least he finally found someone to trade with. She had recently captured a Chimecho on the last planet she had visited, but she wasn’t too keen on keeping it. Axel wasn’t too interested in it, but it was better than having two of the same Pokemon, he figured.
With that business taken care of, Axel and Taraka were now venturing beyond the outskirts of town to search for more wild Pokemon to catch. It didn’t take the pair long to find what they were looking for; a few kilometers out from the settlement, they spotted a Helioptile basking on a rock as well as a Shinx stalking a Blitzle in the grass.
“Whad’ya say we capture these Pokemon?” Axel said, nudging Taraka with his elbow.
“I was thinking the same thing,” the monk replied, pulling out one of his Pokeballs. Hitting the button on the ball, Taraka released his giant Tangrowth. Axel wasn’t too far behind, releasing his trusty Charmander.
The Pokemon didn’t seem to notice them just yet, so the duo and their Pokemon crept up silently. Taraka surrounded them with a protective shroud of psionic energy as they approached, a preemptive countermeasure in case any of the Pokemon started showering them with sparks.
“Roma, use Shadow Punch,” Taraka commanded once they were in range. He pointed at the basking Helioptile, and his viney companion extended out one of her vine arms at rapid speed, knocking the surprised Pokemon right off its rock.
The Helioptile responded in kind by blasting Roma with a shower of sparks. The Tangrowth was, thankfully, quite resistant to electricity, but the hit still left her a bit stunned. Seizing the opportunity, the Helioptile attempted to run away. Taraka was having none of that; the monk pulled out a Pokeball and chucked it at the fleeing Pokemon, capturing it instantly.
“Nice work!” Axel complimented his crewmate as he moved in on the Shinx, which was now very much aware of their presence. The electric feline stared the mercenary and his Charmander down as they approached.
“Ritsu, use Ember!” Axel commanded his Pokemon. The fire lizard spit out a jet of flame that set the Shinx ablaze. Her trainer immediately followed up with another lick of fire from his flamethrower.
In response to this onslaught of flames, the Shinx began sparking violently and charged right at Ritsu. The two Pokemon collided in an explosion of sparks, but when the smoke cleared it was clear that the Shinx was the one that was close to going down. While it was stunned from the collision, Axel ran forward and pressed a Pokeball against the Shinx. The ball pulled the Pokemon inside, shook several times, and then fell still.
“Nice,” Axel said as he looked up to see how Taraka was doing.
The mercenary looked up just in time to see the monk’s Tangrowth strike the Blitzle with one of her vine arms. The Blitzle didn’t seem too happy about that, and charged at the Tangrowth, coating itself over in flames as it ran. It hit Roma dead on, but she seemed unfazed, despite her weakness to fire.
“You’ll need to do better than that,” Taraka said as he pulled out another Pokeball. He threw it at the Blitzle, and captured his second Pokemon of the day.
“This was too easy,” Axel said, walking up and patting his crewmate on the back. “We caught ‘em all like clockwork.”
“Indeed,” Taraka replied, nodding at the mercenary.
“Now, how about we head back to the ship and see what our new Pokemon can do?” Axel suggested.
“A fine idea,” Taraka agreed. “Perhaps they will be of some use on our upcoming mission.”
“Yeah,” Axel said with a laugh. “We need all the help we can get.”
Notes: And that’s it for session 7. After wrapping up stuff on Cacia, the party decided to head back to the sector where they would be raiding Rooker’s ships, opting to hit up a planet to explore for the rest of the session along the way, since I needed the next week to prep the raid mission. IR had to leave for dinner as his family was going out to eat, so this part of the session was just Axel and Novi. Axel really wanted to trade out his extra Growlithe and decided to check out a cantina to look for someone to trade with. I randomly generated a Pokemon, which happened to be a Chimecho. I made up the trainer at the time of writing, nearly a year after the session, and decided to make a little dig at Axel’s womanizing tendencies. Axel also asked a bartender for information for the second time in the session, so I had the guy give him some shit for it. Then, as IR was gone, Axel and Novi opted to look for Pokemon since IR wasn’t a fan of that particular activity. Novi got a pair of really good capture rolls, catching both of his instantly, and Axel got a really awful one, but he got the Shinx so low on HP that he literally couldn’t fail the roll. Not much else to say about the chapter since it was a short one, but for narrative pacing it made sense to break things up this way. Look forward to the raid mission next chapter!
That does it for this chapter. As always the Spacemon gang and I will be monitoring the comments to foster discussion and answer any questions. Feel free to give feedback and critiques of the writing so I can improve it for the future, or just leave a comment with what you think about what went down in this chapter or what you think might happen next! You can also revisit past chapters, check out the rest of the Spacemon saga, join the Spacemon Discord server, or like our Facebook page to stay updated on all things Spacemon! Click here for the next exciting installment of Spacemon: Frontier!
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