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!
“Another job well done, boys,” Captain Cyrus Drake said as he stepped out of the customs office with Ace, Gaster, and Taraka. The captain, along with his crew, had just been paid for completing their delivery of supplies to the colony Paradise on the Outer Rim world known as Nimia. With another paycheck in his pocket, Cyrus was in a particularly good mood.
“Where to next, Boss?” Gaster asked.
“I think we’ve all earned a little down time,” Cyrus replied. “It would be a shame not to enjoy this lovely place while we’re here. You’ve all got a few hours to do whatever you want before we leave.”
True to its name, the colony was indeed a paradise— a beautiful island settlement on the lush tropical world that was Nimia. With their previous job done and no new jobs lined up, Cyrus had little reason to not allow his crew some time to themselves, especially on a planet such as this.
“Sounds good to me,” Gaster said.
“Indeed,” Taraka agreed, nodding his head. “I think I shall check out the market,” the monk continued before walking off.
“Have fun,” Cyrus said. “See you all back on the ship later.”
“What a beautiful place,” Ace commented as he and Gaster walked along the coast. He gazed out at the waves lapping along the shoreline, appreciating the natural beauty.
The pair had taken a quick shuttle here, to an unsettled island in the same volcanic island chain as Paradise, hearing that it was a good place to find wild Pokemon. Not really sure what else to do with their free time on Nimia, they had decided to fall back on an old favorite.
“It’s not bad,” Gaster said. “Now, if we could just find some Pokemon.”
As it turned out, the former smuggler didn’t have to wait long for his wish to be granted. Not too much further down the coast, the pair came across a natural lava vent near which a few Pokemon were gathered. A Numel lay near the vent, obviously enjoying the heat it provided. There was also a Fennekin and a Lilligant wandering about nearby and a Pinsir standing near a palm tree a bit further away.
“Oh, I want that one!” Ace said, pointing out the Fennekin.
“Guess I’ll go for the Lilligant, then,” Gaster said. “I don’t have much use for either of the other two.”
Ace nodded and reached for his Pokeballs. “Alright. Let’s do this.” Selecting the ball containing his Gallade, the android released the Pokemon within.
Gaster followed Ace’s example, sending out his Salazzle. “Sakuya, get in there and use Smog on that Lilligant!” the former smuggler then commanded the Pokemon. Heeding her trainer’s command, the Salazzle skittered up to her target and spewed out a cloud of poisonous smoke at it. Unfortunately, the Lilligant managed to dodge the attack. The Flowering Pokemon then counterattacked, spraying Sakuya with a fine dusting of Sleep Powder, causing her to doze off.
As the battle kicked off, the Fennekin let out a nervous howl and began to back away. The Pinsir, meanwhile, began charging. The aggressive bug Pokemon was still a ways off, so Ace kept his focus on the Fennekin. “Blade, Psycho Cut!” he commanded his Pokemon. The android’s Gallade moved up after the Fox Pokemon and let loose a slashing attack of focused psychic energy at it, but wasn’t able to land the hit.
Ace then turned to face the Pinsir as it charged ever nearer. It was much closer than he had anticipated and he needed to quickly sidestep to avoid being hit. As the Stag Beetle Pokemon charged past, Ace watched Gaster open fire on it with his rifle. The former smuggler then had to dive out of the way himself, narrowly avoiding the raging Pinsir. Ignoring the pain, the Pokemon continued its charge, plowing right into Gaster’s Salazzle and waking her up.
“I’ve got this thing!” Gaster shouted as he got up on one of his knees and began to line up a shot on the Pinsir.
“Gotcha,” Ace replied, nodding. He then turned back to the Fennekin and ordered his own Pokemon to attack, “Blade, Slash!” The Gallade charged the Fennekin, this time landing his attack, but the fiery fox wasn’t going down without a fight. Standing its ground, the Fennekin spewed a blast of flames out from its mouth, engulfing Blade with the attack.
“Hold on, Blade!” Ace called out as he came to his Pokemon’s aid. Drawing his sword, he ran up to the Fennekin and slashed at it. The fire Pokemon quickly turned and shot more fire at the android, but he raised his shield and deflected it away. Ace then pulled out a Great Ball and tossed it at the Fennekin, capturing it instantly.
With his prize claimed, Ace turned around to see how Gaster was faring. The Pinsir now lay defeated on the ground and the former smuggler’s Salazzle was once again closing in on the Lilligant. “Sakuya, use Toxic!” Gaster commanded. As his Pokemon drenched the Lilligant in toxic goo, the former smuggler pulled out a Great Ball of his own and attempted to capture the Flowering Pokemon. Unfortunately, he missed and the ball went sailing past its target, impacting the sandy ground.
“Need a hand?” Ace asked his crewmate.
“Nah, I got this,” Gaster replied. “Why don’t you go for that Numel?”
“Okay.” Ace nodded at the former smuggler, then turned to face the Numel, which had wandered closer to the fight. “Blade, Psycho Cut!” Blade launched his attack, landing a direct hit and causing the wild Pokemon to charge at him! Erupting with a plume of flames, the Numel did some real damage to the Gallade.
“Now, Slash!” Ace commanded. Now in range for a melee strike, Blade swiped through the Numel with one of his blades, knocking it out.
“Oops,” Ace said to himself. He had been intending to capture the Numel, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
Turning once more to Gaster, Ace saw the former smuggler still hadn’t managed to nab the Lilligant. He watched as his crewmate’s Salazzle struck the grass Pokemon with her tail, likely to avoid knocking it out. It must have been pretty hurt by now. Gaster seemed to think so too, because he pulled out a Pokeball and made another attempt to capture it. This time, he was successful.
“Finally,” Gaster said as the ball fell still in the sand. “That was more difficult than it should have been.”
Ace laughed. “At least you caught it.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Gaster grumbled as he collected his newly captured Pokemon as well as the Great Ball he had missed with. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Hello,” Gaster heard Taraka’s voice sound behind him as he and Ace made their way through Paradise spaceport, headed in the general direction of the landing platform where the Maverick was docked. The former smuggler turned around to see the monk approaching them.
“Oh, hey Taraka,” Gaster greeted his crewmate. “How’s it going?”
“Well,” Taraka replied. “I found some interesting items at the market. How have you two been spending your time here?”
“We went looking for Pokemon,” Ace told the monk.
“You went looking for Pokemon? Without me?”
“Sorry,” Gaster replied.
Taraka chuckled. “Do not worry. I was simply joking.”
Gaster couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Anyway, you headed back to the ship too?”
“Actually, I was thinking of seeing if there’s a job board in this spaceport,” Taraka said. “Since the captain was kind enough to give us some free time on this world, I thought it would be nice to return with a new job as a token of appreciation.”
“That’s a great idea,” Ace said.
“I think I saw one when we first landed,” Gaster told the monk. “Over there, somewhere, if I recall,” he continued, pointing out a plaza area a short distance away.”
“Let us see,” Taraka said.
Sure enough, Gaster had, in fact, spotted a job board area. It was right where he remembered seeing it. “What have we got here?” he said as he began scrolling through the available jobs.
“Anything good?” Ace asked.
“Hold on … Ah! Here’s one: another delivery, easy money.”
“The best kind of money,” Taraka said. “Where are we headed this time?”
“Sector 33. Omen.”
“Omen?” Ace asked. “That’s the name of a planet?”
Gaster nodded. “Named by superstitious people. I’ve been there once or twice. Used to be an old smugglers’ hideout there back in the day. Now it’s just mining colonies, I think. In any case, it’s kind of in the far corner of the sector. It’ll take a while to get there, but the money’s good and it’s a delivery job so it’s gonna be easy.”
“Let’s take it,” Taraka said.
“You’ve got it,” Gaster said. He hit the accept button on the job board, then punched in the Maverick’s contact information. “Next stop: Omen.”
Notes: This was a short chapter covering some stuff from the end of session 46 that didn’t make sense to go in the chapter with the shipwreck exploration. After they were done on the shipwreck, Clarissa and unknown decided to go looking for Pokemon on a random planet. For the sake of the writing, I decided to have it be the same planet they were going to anyway. At this point in the campaign it wasn’t particularly clear where they were or where they were going. It was all broad strokes, no specifics. I further narrowed it down for the next session, specifying they were on a planet they had been going to before the shipwreck and picking up a new delivery job to lead them to the plot of the session. I ended up generating a new planet for that because, at the time, I didn’t remember what had been generated the session before or how, exactly, we had left things off, but for the writing it was easier to make them the same planet. The opening scene here was one I added to just explain the reason why the crew was on the planet, transition to the Pokemon searching, and describe the planet a bit. The generated planet ended up just being like Hawaii the planet so I rolled with it. The battle scene is basically is as it was in session. I added some extra details and changed others around some for the sake of flow, but the outcome is the same. The final scene is actually synthesized from details of the start of the next session that made more sense to include here. Novi was there for that session, so I worked Taraka into this chapter at the beginning and brought him back in at the end. Not a whole lot happens in this chapter but it was fun to write nonetheless.
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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"Literally the planet's name is Omen"