Spacemon, Vol. 1 – Chapter 4: Tangling with Trevenant!

Welcome to another exciting installment of Spacemon, the tale of a Pokemon TRPG campaign! It is a sci-fi space epic played using the Pokemon Tabletop United (PTU) system and GMed by fellow TAY author DragonStorm247. You can get caught up on the entire Spacemon saga here!

“This place is bad news,” Arlon announced when he arrived back on the ship.

“What do you mean?” Morgan asked him.

“That package contained some kind of Pokemon fossil,” Arlon explained. “They’re only using it to clone a bloody army of the things.”

“An army? That doesn’t sound good. I’ll see if I can steal some data.”

“Good idea, luv. I’ll get the ship out of here.”

As Arlon detached the Dunsparce from the docking tube, Morgan hacked into the station’s network and managed to grab a large chunk of data before the ship flew out of range. Arlon took the ship down to the swamp planet below so that the crew could discuss their plan of action.

Once the Dunsparce had landed safely in the swamplands, the ship’s crew gathered to discuss what they had discovered.

“What did you manage to find?” Arlon asked Morgan.

“I’m not sure,” Morgan informed him. “I managed to get a lot of files, but they’re heavily encrypted. It will take a long time to sort through it all.”

“I guess we’ll have to wait before we do anything about the scientists,” Arlon said.

“In the meantime, I would like to conduct some experiments on this planet using that goo we created!” H exclaimed.

“Fine,” Arlon told him. “Better out there than on the ship. And we may as well look for some Pokemon while we’re here.”

The crew disembarked from the Dunsparce and headed out into the swampy wilderness to explore and experiment. H injected a nearby shrub with a sample of the goo which caused it to turn black. Two purple flowers with glowing pink cores soon appeared on the blackened shrub.

H poked a stick through one of the cores and the tip emerged out from the other. “Interesting,” he said to himself. He determined that the flowers seemed to be miniature warp gates and that any object placed into the core of one flower would appear out of the core of the other.

Curious, Dmitri picked one of the flowers from the shrub, which caused a burst of energy to shoot out from it as it imploded in his hand. The shrub then shriveled up and died.

“That was certainly unexpected,” H commented as he looked down at the dead plant.

Dmitri shrugged back at him and the pair decided to move on. Arlon and Morgan followed the pair as they headed further into the swamp.

They soon arrived at a small pond, and Arlon spotted a lone Froakie sitting on a lilypad. “That would make a nice addition to my team,” he said to himself. He pointed the Pokemon out to his new crewmates and let them know that he was going to capture it.

Arlon reached for his belt and grabbed the ball containing his latest capture. “Hydra, use Dragonbreath!” he commanded as he releases his Deino. The dragon Pokemon let out a surge of dragon flames, which struck the Froakie and knocked it right off the lilypad into the water.

In response to the new threat, the three lilypads in the pond emerged from the water, revealing themselves to be Lotads! Seeing this, Morgan released her Eevee. “Yvonne, get in the water and attack one of them,” she instructed the Pokemon. Yvonne jumped into the water and began swimming toward the Lotads.

Joining in, H stepped up to the pond and fired an electric Shock Wave into the water, electrocuting everything in the pond. Arlon quickly threw a Pokeball at the Froakie and caught it just before it was knocked out.

“What the hell!?” Morgan shouted at H. “My Eevee is in there!”

“Oh, relax,” H told her. “It’s fine. I’ll just heal it up later.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s fine,” Arlon told him. “Watch your friendly fire, mate.”

Returning their focus to the battle, the crew mopped up the Lotads and Morgan, Dmitri, and H each captured one. When the fighting ended, Dmitri pulled out his fishing rod and began fishing in the pond. After a few minutes, he got a bite and reeled in a Magikarp. He pulled out a Pokeball and threw it at the Fish Pokemon, catching it with ease.

Dmitri cast the line out once again, and soon reeled in another Magikarp. “I just caught one of these …” he grumbled.

“I’ll take that one, mate,” Arlon told him.

“Go ahead.”

Arlon pulled out a Pokeball and threw it at the Magikarp, capturing it without a struggle, just like Dmitri. Dmitri cast out the line once more and, this time, he reels in a Totodile. “Huh,” he said. “Anyone want it?”

“I’ll take it,” Morgan told him. “Yvonne, use Quick Attack!” Her Eevee ran at it and delivered a powerful hit. Morgan then pulled out a ball and tossed it at the Totodile, capturing it without much struggle.

“Are we done sitting around doing nothing?” H asked impatiently. “I would like to continue my experiments!”

“Go ahead, mate,” Arlon told him. “You don’t need to wait for us.”

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Tired of waiting around, H returned to the ship to get another sample of goo. By the time he returned to the rest of the crew, they were ready to continue exploring.

“We need to find a larger specimen,” declared H.

“How about that tree?” Dmitri suggested, pointing to a large tree in the distance.

“That will do nicely,” H replied, staring off approvingly at Dmitri’s suggested target. He set off toward the tree with the rest of the crew close behind.

As they approached, the swampy forest gave way to a large clearing with sparse trees, the large one looming in the center. H wasted no time in injecting this tree with the goo. After a few moments, glowing pink sap started oozing from the wound that he made in the tree.

“Amazing,” H enthusiastically stated. “If only I had something to collect this with …”

“I still have half a bottle of vodka on me.” Dmitri offered.

“Very good. Dump it out so that I may collect this sap.”

“No. I never waste good alcohol,” Dmitri said proudly as a true Romanov. “I must drink it.” He pulled the bottle of vodka out of his bag and then proceeded to down the entire thing. When he finished, he fell to the ground, coughing and sputtering.

H checked to make sure he was still breathing. “He’ll be okay,” he announced.

“Uh, guys. The tree is turning black,” Arlon told his crewmates, drawing their attention back to the tree.

The tree had indeed changed color, and glowing, pulsating veins began to appear along the surface of the blackened bark. Morgan started hearing a pounding inside her head, throbbing to the rhythm of the pulsing veins. “We should get out of here!” she shouted.

Suddenly, the tree vanished, leaving a giant hole where it once stood. “I don’t think that’ll do any good at this point,” Arlon told her. He reached for one of his Pokeballs and started backing away from the hole. He sent out his Deino and the others followed his example, releasing their own Pokemon.

“I’ve got a real bad feeling about this,” Arlon said.

As if on cue, the tree reappeared behind them and swiped at them with its large limbs! With his quick reflexes, Arlon dove out of the way, but the others and their Pokemon were not so lucky. The rest of the crew were all thrown to the ground while Dmitri’s Beldum and Morgan’s Solrock were completely knocked out.

Gathering their wits, the crew assessed the situation. A massive tree-creature stood before them, its bark now a pale and ghostly white. “Great job, mate,” Arlon jabbed at H. “You made a giant, murderous Trevenant!”

In response to the threat, Dmitri raised his hand and unleashed a blast of energy at the Trevenant, sending it into a confused rampage. “Now, Gigan, Wing Attack!” Dmitri shouted as he released his Scyther. The Mantis Pokemon charged at the Trevenant and slashed at it with one of her wings, but the attack didn’t appear to even leave so much as a scratch.

“Hydra, use Crunch!” Arlon commands his Deino. The Irate Pokemon ran up to the large tree and lunged at it with her teeth barred. Unfortunately, Hydra was unable to make contact. The Trevenant looked down at the Dieno and swiped at her, knocking her out. 

“Alright, you’re up next Crocuta!” Arlon shouted as he sent out his Poochyena. “Use Bite!” The Bite Pokemon rushed the Trevenant and sank her teeth in, finally delivering a harsh blow to the Elder Tree Pokemon.

From here, the crew started to slowly whittle the Trevenant down, relying on their numbers to overwhelm it. Finally, it began showing signs of weakness.

“Almost there, just a little more,” Arlon shouted words of encouragement. “Crocuta, use Bite again!” His Poochyena ran up and sank her teeth into the Trevenant once again. She started glowing as she continued to hold onto the Trevenant with her jaws, and evolved into a Mightyena!

“Now it’s mine!” H shouted. He threw a Pokeball, which struck the Trevenant right in the face and pulled it inside. The ball fell to the ground. It shook once … twice … three times … and the Trevenant was caught!

Arlon breathed a sigh of relief. “Well that just happened … Next time, be more bloody careful with your experiments.”

He just looked back at him while Morgan started freaking out next to him. “Oh my God, this is not okay!” she cried out as she fell onto her knees and burst into tears.

“That was incredible!” H proudly exclaimed, completely ignoring Morgan.

“Hey, we should—” Dmitri started before Arlon interrupted him.

“Shut up, mate, you’re drunk,” Arlon said, noticing Dmitri was barely able to stand up straight. As if on cue, Dmitri fell to the ground, completely passed out.

Arlon sighed. “H, help me throw him on your Rhyhorn so we can get him back to the ship.”

“Very well,” H agreed.  He sent out #1 and then he and Arlon lifted Dmitri off the ground and got him on top of the Rhyhorn.

H started leading the Rhyhorn back to the ship while Arlon walked over to Morgan. “C’mon luv, let’s get out of here,” he said to her, offering his hand to help her up. She ignored him and stood up on her own. Arlon shrugged and followed her back to the ship.

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Once the Dunsparce was back in space, Arlon set the ship to stay in orbit while the crew recuperated from the fight with the Trevenant. He then headed to his room and pulled up the Spacenet on his Pokedex to see if he could find any info on the Red Suns’ activities. His Mightyena curled up on the bed beside him as he began his search.

Arlon stroked Crocuta’s soft fur as he scrolled through various pages. Unfortunately, due to the heavy censorship of the Spacenet the Romanov Union government had recently implemented, he really couldn’t find much of anything. Giving up, Arlon lay back on his bed and tried to get some rest.

A short while later, Arlon’s nap was interrupted by the movement of the ship. Being a pilot, Arlon was quite attuned to the movements of the ship and knew that someone had started flying it. He got up and headed to the cockpit to find out what was going on.

When he arrived, he found Morgan piloting the ship. “I thought we agreed that I’d be the one to fly the ship from now on,” he said.

No response.

“Right then. So where are we going?” he asked.

“Home,” said Morgan.

“What for?”

“I need to get away from all this. From these experiments, from them,” she said, pointing to H and the freshly woken and hungover Dmitri, who had just walked in behind Arlon.

“Look,” said Arlon. “I don’t think going back to the Confederacy is the best thing to do right now. It’s not someplace I want to go. Let’s just say I’ve been staying in the Outer Rim for a reason.”

“I don’t care,” Morgan coldly responded.

“Wow. I thought we were all friends here. I said it when we first got the package, luv: I can drop you off wherever and then we can be on our way. Just don’t make me go back to bloody Genevan space.”

Morgan ignored him.

“We don’t have time for this,” H told her. “I need to go to Sinai space so I can find out more about the warp goo!”

Arlon and Dmitri spent the next several minutes trying to persuade Morgan, but nothing seemed to change her mind. Finally, Dmitri gave up and put Morgan to sleep with his psionic abilities. Dmitri and H brought Morgan to her room while Arlon sat down in the pilot’s seat and set a new course.

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The Dunsparce dropped out of warp space at the Sector 17 warp gate and the ship was once again hailed by one of the Romanov cruisers guarding it. The ship simply sent the Dunsparce docking instructions and Arlon complied, docking with the cruiser.

Arlon headed to the airlock and greeted the Romanov officer and soldiers waiting to board. “Routine inspection,” the officer told him once Arlon had opened the airlock. This man was a bit older and gruffer than the officer that had conducted the inspection on their way into the Union.

The Romanov inspectors found nothing amiss in the cargo hold, so they proceeded to search the rest of the ship. When they arrived at the cockpit, Arlon noticed a blinking light on the console, indicating a message.

“You have missed call,” the Romanov officer told him, noticing this as well.

“Ah, yes, it seems that I do. Must’ve come in while we were in warp space. I’ll get to that as soon as you finish your inspection.”

The Romanov officer gave Arlon a judgmental glance. “It is not polite to keep people waiting,” he said. He then turned and departed from the cockpit.

The Romanovs soon disembarked from the ship and the Dunsparce was cleared to go through the gate. Arlon flew the ship into the gate with a course set for Sinai Sector 12.

“So, we’ve got a message,” Arlon announced over the comms once the ship was in warp space.

A short while later, the rest of the crew joins him in the cockpit. Morgan, who was now awake, seemed to have calmed down a bit. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Sinai space,” Arlon informed her.

“Oh,” she said, sounding a bit annoyed.

“Right then,” Arlon continued. “Shall we listen to this message?”

He pressed the button on the console and the message began to play.

“Greetings GCS Dunsparce. I understand that you have made an interesting discovery. My employer would very much like to acquire a sample and is willing to pay quite handsomely. You can find us at any of these coordinates.”

Along with the audio, the message also displayed five different sets of coordinates, one of them in the Sinai Sector they were currently headed to. 

“Well that doesn’t sound suspicious at all,” Arlon said sarcastically. “But on the other hand, we do need the money.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to sell that stuff,” Morgan responded.

“I say we at least think about it,” Arlon told her. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

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Notes: With all the detail I include with these chapters now, I can’t really keep them all at one per session all the time anymore. But for these two-chapter sessions, I will be posting both chapters in the same week, just so you don’t have to wait so long.

The first three sessions were shorter, plus they were written from memory the first time around, so even adding in all that detail wasn’t making them long enough to warrant multiple chapters per session. Session 4 was the session where I started taking notes to assist with the writing of the chapters so I already had a lot more to work with when it came time to rewrite this one. Not to mention this session started our precedent for going for around six hours per session.

It made sense to split it here because there was the whole business with the Trevenant at the start of this session and the second half was quite different. Speaking of the Trevenant, that was our first “boss fight,” so to speak. But that’s what you get when you inject a tree with warp goo: a shiny, teleporting Trevenant.

This was also the first instance of a character breaking. The funny part is that DragonStorm did it completely unintentionally. 

Update 9/6/21: I called this our first “boss fight” in the notes here, but that Trevenant isn’t even fit to be a low tier enemy with the way this group plays the game now. I find that amusing. These notes also mention posting multiple chapters a week. Ha! Imagine more than one new Spacemon chapter in a week. You’re all lucky I even managed to get back onto a schedule of posting one a week. There’s not much else to report here. Aside from converting to past tense, I touched up some wording and added minor descriptive details here and there.

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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!