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my gyms water themed. yu do water level puzzles and fight swimmers and those kids with the floaties. everyone has water types. knowing the theme, yo bring a team half/half strong against fire and water, just in case because ofnthe last gym. you get to me.

my team is made entirely of gastly, haunter, and gengar, all named exactly 5 purple hearts. i just really like gengar.

the gym? you ask.

it was on sale, i respond.

You walk through the soft meadows of my gym thinking what should I expect this time? Electric types? FIRE TYPES???? You cross over a beautiful field of daises and tulips, encounter trainers wearing flowers crowns and boasting a plethora of high-level grass and fairy types. Than, deep in the forest while you’re still wondering how the fuck I fit all of this into one building, you encounter a ring of mushrooms, a fairy ring. Inside the ring sits me, the gym leader. You step into the ring ready for battle.

I stand up, walking slowly over to you take you’re hand in mine and gently place something cold and hard into your palm. 

It’s the fairy gyms badge.

I’m not even a Pokemon trainer, I just respond to an ad on craigslist for a gym leader and was the only applicant. 

I ask you a bunch of questions and help you out and even give you a special Pokémon. Then I ask you if you’ve been to the gym and talk about the gym leader. When you say no I push you in the gym.

You battle rock types and you are wondering if you’re even prepared to fight the gym leader. When you finally get to the leaders room, I’m there.

I strike up a friendly conversation and ask you what you think of the gym. I then say “Thanks, I made this myself. It’s still growing. So if you come back I can give you the badge then but it hasn’t come in the mail yet.”

At this point you probably don’t even want to be there anymore. I hand you a small pin that is in the shape of the badge but it’s definitely homemade and cheep. “It’s an I.O.U” I say.

After stocking your team with dark types you take the gym head on. Battling your way through psychic trainers with ease, you finally arrive to a large room. There I stand. The battle commences and you defeat my first two Pokemon, Hypno and Alakazam, with ease. You laugh to yourself, after the hardships of the previous gyms this is like child’s play. I send out my third Pokemon, a beedrill. Dark is weak to Bug. “Something bugging you buddy?” I say with a wink as I decimate your team. You leave without a badge.

Supposedly the Gym Leader uses fighting types. She’s a body builder who wrangles Krookodile in her free time. You don’t know what to expect, so you bring a few psychic and flying types, and then make the rest of your team fairly diverse type-wise just in case.

You’re able to battle your way through the trainers and work your way through the Rock Smash puzzle with little difficulty. You meet me in a small room with wrestling mats on the floor and dumbells next to the walls. I’m working out on the opposite side of the room. I set down the weights as you approach. “I take it you are here to battle me.”

You nod. I flex. “Very well. If you want to receive my badge, you’re going to have to fight me for it. Literally.”

Oh, yeah, I’m one of those. You-can-win-with-any-Pokémon-just-use-what-you-like. Whatever, that one multi-types douche from Kanto was pretty predictable, typical species, no tricky type combinations. ‘Cute’, huh? You switch in a few Steel and Poison Pokémon, expecting a couple Fairies. You remember that one Pachirisu story and bring a Ground type, just in case.

My Gym has zero trainers, but it’s full of bright colors and cheery pastels, cushions and stuffed Pokémon toys lying around on the plush carpet — and not in the creepy abandoned-kid’s-room way, just genuinely cute and playful. Feel-good. I greet you with a pleasant smile and offer you candy.

Ok, your expectations have been punched in the face every time so far, but you’ve actually got my personality pinned down, and there is absolutely no threat in it. You relax, and actually feel confident for once.

“I’m not particularly good, let’s just have fun!” I tell you cheerfully. 

The townsfolk can’t seem to stop talking about the gym leader’s Ice Pokemon, “Glaceon this” and “Mamoswine that”. Alright, this should be good. Easy enough…or is it too easy? Fire, Rock, that Lucario might even come in handy. Gotta keep a variety in case some shit goes down.

The trainers in the gym are dressed in artic gear. The temperature inside needs to be kept cold for everyone’s pokemon to be comfortable. You’re feeling pretty good about this one. You get up to the top, the pinnacle of the gym and find…a pile of blankets on the other side of the room. It shifts to reveal a darker skined man huddled in the pile, “Oh! A new challenger! Sorry, but the gym leader is at home sick with a cold - dove into a frozen river to save a child and what not. I’m his substitute, but they didn’t tell me it was going to be so cold inside as well. I’m used to the desert, you see. Well, shall we?” The first pokemon out is a Sandslash.

You ask around about the Elite Four and the champion. The Four, people know about. Not many get past the utterly ridiculous gym challenges, but hey, the Four are celebrities in their own way, and you gather as much intel as you can. You think you’re pretty well prepared for them.

The Champion, on the other hand? No one knows. No one. Turns out there’s no rules saying the champion has to be, well, a public figure of any sort. And this one’s kept to themself pretty well. But you’ve seen it all at this point. It could be a child. It could be your mother. You have no idea. You actually don’t care anymore.

Eight badges in your bag. You march down Victory Road. You’ve put up with so much crap it isn’t hard at all to plow through the Four. You ask each one about the Champion before you leave their rooms, but each in turn shrugs and doesn’t answer.

But here you are. Behind this door is the Trainer you’re going to fight. The Trainer who, like you, has bested everyone before. The cream of the crop. The Trainer who somehow is the leader of this jacked-up mess of a gym system.

You open the door, head high, prepared for whatever insane person you’re going to challenge, and you’re ready.

But not for this.

It’s a goddamn Pidgey.

always seen and heard writing in a tome 

spells out absurdly long and confusing incantations to cast magic 

“hacking the system” / “reveal the arcane" 

holds every spellbook out sideways like an open laptop and it makes everybody mad

uses a floating quill as a magic mouse cursor to click and drag goblins into each other

unlike other mages, it takes a LOT to silence this one due to their “Wi-Fi” (Whispering Invocation For Incantations) followed by a magical dial-up connection sound

study is full of potion bottles coloured like this

Jonny Sims: Okay, Alex, yes you, my coworker and good friend, the person who brought me on to rusty quill to do this show because you liked my idea. Would you like to be in my show.

Alexander J Newall: I mean I kind of assumed I would, who will I be?

jonny: so alex, you’re going to be playing my subordinate, who has an unrequited crush on me, sounds good?

alex: not the weirdest pitch i’ve gotten

*an unspecified amount of time later*

jonny: i think this isn’t working out, we might have to tweak some things

alex: like what?

The first run was five hardbacks of progressively increasing girth. The stack is hefty, but the books are comfortable. Each chapter has chapter art too, which I consider a plus in all fantasy books.

I still think the 5-volume split was the best option.  It’s a big damn story.

Original Fallout Equestria was written by someone known as Kkat who I’m 90% sure is a woman and the story only has some PG-13ish scenes at worst (you know, aside from the violence and gore that comes with a Fallout setting.) Project Horizons was written by a guy known as Somber, who I remember him mentioning in the post-chapter notes that he got fired for failing the wrong student once and the fic itself includes multiple explicit sex scenes.