TPJerematic
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Welcome to this Cherish the Moments One-Shot
This story is rated PG-13 for some coarse language
This is a diary fic that follows Cypher the flying type Gym Leader for the Air Gym on Springhall Island in the Actopon Region.
The following are excerpts from the Diary for the 20XX-20XX+1 season of the Actopon League. With Cypher handing out the Wing Badge.
Names of the Islands of the Fox Archipelago:
DISCLAIMER: POKÉMON IS NOT MINE; THIS STORY IS. I AM ALLOWED TO USE POKÉMON AS LONG I SAY THAT THEY BELONG TO NINTENDO/GAME FREAK, HOWEVER THE STORY, CHARATERS AND REGION BELONG TO ME.
Sept 1st 20XX
So it’s the first, the 20XX-20XX+1 Actopon Pokémon League has started. No doubt all over the mainland lots of 10 year old kids are jumping up and down waiting for a letter from the league to arrive in the post with their trainer’s licence. And many of those will be crammed into Redwell Town, waiting to rush to Aspen’s Lab and get their first Pokémon. And there will be all the established trainers who are queuing outside of Pokémon Centres waiting for the registrations for the league to open. Even though you have eight months to register.
Springhall Island is a lot quieter. That’s not to say the 10 year olds on the island are not excited, it’s just that the post takes about 9 days longer to get here than on the mainland and Aspen probably won’t come to the island again, letting the Joy at the Pokémon Centre do the deed of giving the kids their Pokémon, like the last seven years. Not that I blame him. It would be a nightmare to try and get out here quickly. Still it would be nice for one year. I think the kids would like it.
The guys at the gym are having a bet over how long it will take for the following: a trainer to challenge, a trainer to get to battling me and a trainer winning the Wing Badge. They are all being bastards about it though. I heard Guillemot saying all will happen on the same day ... the 15th. Of course he will now have to battle the first trainer first ... I hope he gets his ass kicked.
I’m running out of space here, so I’ll stop for now. Oh I forgot; I aim for the "Total Gym Battles to Total Badges Won by Trainers" ratio to be ... Erm ... 43:27 ... ... For no particular reason other than it’s an odd ratio. I’ll see what it will be like come July 20XX
Cypher
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Sept 14th 20XX
And the first trainer who will be challenging the gym is on the island. UN-fortunately he won’t be actually challenging the gym until tomorrow so Guillemot’s bet is still on. Although the kid is pretty early, not like the trainer a few years back who came here on the 5th, so he’s gotta be from a rich family. I’ll go down to the docks later to see if there is a new boat there ... I assume he would sail here. Seeing as the airfield has had no planes land since the league started.
But seeing as we now have a trainer on the island I will need to organise my team and gym trainers. The trainers will be in this order: Guillemot, Jack and Anthony
They will be allowed to use their usual Pokémon, although I will ban the use of Skarmory for now. I want them to be ready for the mail service to the rest of the Fox Archipelago. They started asking for supplies for their small Poké-Clinics in preparation for trainers and the Skarmory will be better suited to transport them.
Before I forget I need to make a note of MY team for September: Mantine, Altaria, Yanmega and Jubilee. That should give me a nice amount of coverage; even though they are prefer to use Special based attacks. Jubilee’s Hustle should work great with ExtremeSpeed as always.
Speaking of Jubilee she has been very brooding lately, I think she’s pining for Stephen’s Togekiss ... Arkbird. I might see if Stephen has any space in his ranch thing for another Togekiss so that Jubilee can spend some time with her hubby.
Cypher.
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Sept 30th 20XX
Well the first month is finally over aaaaaaaaaand ... Thirteen. We had thirteen trainers, and nine of those came here after beating Maria and Pixy, direct from Davenport. That said ALL of the trainers were over eighteen so they would have had a lot of experience ... and money. Of course THAT explains why all of them won the Wing Badge. I’m not bitter it’s part of the job. Hell, I’ve been doing it for THIRTY years. Still all I can hope for is a bit of a better October for the Air Gym.
Not much else to report on really. The Fox Archipelago is all stocked up on supplies; I haven’t been asked to visit anything off the island. I might get the old girl out and give her a good thrashing. Nah I better not, the airframe on that F-15 has seen better days. Still, nothing surpasses the joy of formation flying with Pokémon. I’ll do some of that if I have some free time. Staraptor and Pidgeot are out of practice though; And Jubilee can’t stand the jet noise.
Oh that reminds me, I need to phone Stephen about her and his Togekiss getting their thing on. I’ll do it later; he and Jessica must be busy wiping the floor with everything that enters their gym. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have given out less badges than me!
Oh well, all I can do now is look towards October.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 13. Trainers : Loss ratio for September 1:1 ... sad face
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October 6th 20XX
Phew, a grand total of eleven trainers in one day. I’m exhausted and so is pretty much everything else in the Air Gym. Except Jubilee of course. She’s off to Redux City to make her male Togekiss happy. Hopefully she’ll come back loaded with eggs, Togepi are pretty valuable to trainers.
Anyway back onto gym leader stuff of the eleven battles I had today. I lost seven ... which is pretty good. Jack needs to train his Pelipper a little more; while Wing Attack looks cool, it is totally useless. But it’s not my decision what he wants to use on that thing.
Yeah this entry is kinda short, but like I said I’m exhausted. I’ll forgo battles tomorrow and spend a little time fixing the fuel valve on my F-15, after the mess that was left all over the hanger after I landed on the 1st it needs to be done. Not that I like doing it, that’s why it’s been leaking fuel for the last five days.
Cypher
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October 10th 20XX
Sometimes I swear a day is out to make my life hell. While I don’t like bitching about my problems I need to let out some steam.
I lost all eight of my gym battles today. While that might not sound too bad, considering that five of those are native to the Fox Archipelago and two are from Springhall makes the loss worse. Guillemot was sick so they only had two battles to get beaten and run off crying. And one of the jerk trainers decided it would be fun to poison all five of my Pokémon I planned to use for the day ... IN MY FIRST BATTLE OF THE DAY! Right that’s problem one.
Problem two is with my damn ERJ 145XR, one of the Jets suffered a, irony headache coming on, bird strike ... you know what don’t fucking say it. I know you’re only a piece of paper but don’t bother.
Continuing on with the “Aircraft are fucking my day up” theme, my F-15’s fuel leak had nothing to do with the fuel valve oh no ... ONE OF THE DAMN TANKS WAS CRACKED. How the fuck did I check the tanks so damn badly that a crack went unnoticed. My only hope is that the Actopon FAA inspectors find that it was caused in flight by something out of my control ... or I will need to spend so much money on fixing it and getting it re-licensed it might not be worth it.
Ok phew, I got some of the frustration out of my system ... and swore a lot ... I should cut down on that.
That said I did get a nice call from Falkner, he needed some advice for his Murkrow. Not much else to talk about though. Johto sounds boring.
Cypher
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October 21st 20XX
I got a phone call from Jessica today, said that Jubilee was ready to come home. She has a healthy glow and a nice tummy bulge. I’m going to fly out to Davenport Airport (trying saying that 10 times fast) in a couple of days to pick her up. I don’t want to risk those eggs in the electronic transporter. I was able to get the engine on my ERJ repaired and after a crap-load of tests it looked perfect. I just have to watch out for birds ... damn irony headaches.
The gym was pretty quiet today, only three challengers; one won the badge off me so it was pretty good. Guillemot recovered from his illness a couple of days ago and returned to battling today. He still looked pretty rough though, I might tell him to only use two Pokémon for him battles. At least for a while.
I was a little bored earlier so I did a little maths. For the month so far the gym has had 58 challenges with 37 losses. Giving me a ratio of ... 58:37 ... stupid prime numbers. It gives me a 64% loss rate compared to my target of 43:27 which gives me a ... 63% loss rate. Whoop I’m on target! I’m giving out a healthy amount of badges while maintaining a degree of difficulty. With ten more days to the end of the month I would like to maintain that record.
Cypher
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October 30th 20XX
It’s a day early but this month’s worth of gym battles is over. Seeing as this weekend will be null and there is that meeting of gym leaders all of next week so no battling.
Today was a nice day; I had five battles and won three. The two I lost were too very good trainers, so I’m happy. Not much else to report really, only that having all of us using a Skarmory annoyed a couple of the trainers.
I forgot about the meeting being on the mainland so Jubilee is still in Redux City with Stephen’s Togekiss, who is apparently living up to its name, spending a lot of time with my Jubilee nuzzling. I may be in my mid fifties but things like that, and the video Jessica sent me of the two in their nest, make me go all mushy. Where was I, oh yeah, I didn’t want to fly to the mainland and back twice in such a short space of time. Or want to leave Jubilee here while I’m on the mainland.
The preparations for the annual Fox Archipelago Yacht Race are getting underway. After this meeting on the mainland I will need to go to Snake Island to help the initial planning for the flying display that will open the event. I’ve been asked to do one of my patented “Machine and Pokémon in Harmonious Flight.” fly-pasts at the event. Of course that will be fully dependant on my F-15 passing the Actopon FAA inspection. That being said five months is surely enough time to get that plane ready.
I had better get some sleep; I will need to be up early to get my ERJ ready for the flight to Davenport.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 106. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for October 93:61. 65% is not too bad. For the year 106:74. This is 69%, so I need a good November to make up for the losses.
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November 7th 20XX
While I hate these sort of league meetings. The ones that take a week despite us not changing a single damn thing. It was nice to see the other gym leaders and the elite four and the champ. For some reason I feel a need to describe how each of them were. I don’t know why, I just do. It makes me feel good that I’ve recorded them to this journal.
Maria was her usual bubbly self. She suggested that the number of trainers able to participate in the league be expanded again this year. It was soundly defeated as usual. She didn’t care much, I think she keeps suggesting it to try and make the week worth something.
Pixy ... okay, okay, LARRY ... was a lot more reserved than usual. Normally this would be worrying, but after finding out that he has lost over 90% of his gym battles this year it made sense. I tried to talk to him whenever we were at lunch or after the meeting and crap but he was nowhere to be found. Until today when I saw him up at Champion’s Point. I left him alone; he must have been reminiscing about his league triumph.
Stephen and Jessica were ... well themselves ... although A LOT MORE ‘cuddly’ in public than usual. I got Jubilee back from them; she didn’t want to be separated from Stephen’s Arkbird. But she can’t wait to get home and lay those eggs and get them out of her. From what I can tell she’s carrying about six of the squeaky Togepi’s.
Emma was completely hyperactive for the week, she had apparently heard from Roark in Sinnoh about some rare fossil of some kind. She’s demanding a month’s leave to go and look at it. But her father, Campbell, is having none of it. She’ll go anyway, but the league officials will tear into her when she gets back.
Heather was quiet again; she tried to approach Stephen a couple of times. But, of course, he was having none of it. I talked to her for a while, told her that it was pointless trying to get Stephen back. She didn’t listen as far as I can tell. Oh well. It’s not MY problem.
David ... yeah, I like the guy but ... he creeps me out. I don’t know WHY Stephen and Hal let him kiss them. I’m not against him being gay; it’s just creepy to make out with a guy, who he is not dating and in Hal’s case is married, in front of the guy who he is. I understand why he and Stephen are so close but Hal ... I don’t know ... or really want to know.
James was absent for the first two days ... lucky bastard ... he had a breakthrough with some research so has stuck in Icebourne until some test results came back. As a result he didn’t do anything productive for the remaining three days ... not like the rest of us did anyway.
Whoops ran out of space for today in the journal.
Cypher
Ahh screw it I’ll use tomorrow’s space.
November 8th 20XX
Continuing on.
Hal was trying to get the league to support a Yellowcake docks development programme. In a pitiful attempt to boost the economy for Lightvale I assume. Of course the bitter cycle of no reason for docks to be built because there is no demand from businesses because there are no docks to encourage businesses to set up in the Lightvale-Yellowcake-Birchwick zone resulting in no demand for docks continues.
I swear Keira was asleep for most of the week. I didn’t hear her voice once at any of the meetings. I think she zoned out and focused on training plans ... good girl.
Abbie was ill again, so she was stuck on Raven Island. Of course she didn’t tell ME this. I’ll visit her when I get back.
Campbell, when he was not telling Emma she couldn’t go to Sinnoh in the middle of the gym season, put up the suggestion of letting the quarter finalists from the league challenge the elite four after the league. I don’t know why he would want that. Maybe being the last of the elite four means he has too few battles for his liking. Although the system in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn AND Sinnoh of allowing ANYONE with the eight badges to challenge the elite four would work better it would devalue the Standard Actopon League, like it has with those leagues.
Jordan chaired the meetings ... as always. The only suggestion he put forward was with regard to Abbie retiring, but due to her absence he decided to not put it into motion. I do agree with him though, Abbie does need to stand down but on her own terms. Not that I want to take are place. Stephen or Jessica would be perfect for that role.
Ok so now I'm at the real end of this entry. Back to being gym leader. YAY
Cypher
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November 24th 20XX
Since the League AGM things have actually being going pretty well. Jubilee is doing fine; she’s spending a lot of time guarding her eggs. I forgot to mention how many she had laid so I’ll tell you now ... diary? Anyway Jubilee laid 8 eggs, however 1 was broken upon laying and I found one of the others away from the nest. So it must have failed to fertilize. Shame but six Togepi eggs is still a good result. I’ll let her keep the baby Togepi for about 3-4 months. That what I normally do and I don’t plan to change now. I’ll take 5 of them to give as gifts to the few trainers who deserve one. Jubilee can have one for herself. It might make her useless for the rest of the league season BUT will be worth it.
Also Abbie is ok; I spent a couple of days with her on Raven Island. She was down with some sort of ’flu. Apparently Jordan is coming over to visit her when he gets a chance. I might give him a ring before he does. I don’t want him talking to Abbie about her leaving the Elite Four, unless she brings it up.
Also good news the Actopon FAA has deemed my F-15 airworthy YAY!! I’m going to celebrate by practicing the formation for the Yacht thingy coming up.
There were no gym challenges today. And only seven in the last week. I suppose most of the experienced trainers who didn’t already have them, have all the badges now. Just waiting on the kids and late starters from far off lands to Actopon.
Cypher.
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November 30th 20XX
What an end to the month. It’s been a week since we (that’s me, Pidgeot and Staraptor) started practicing our formation flying and they have already returned to near perfect form. This got me thinking. We have four Skarmory at the gym, each of us uses the steel bird and I know they are very trainable Pokémon. So I might try adding them to the formation. Also because of their ability to carry weight that Pidgeot and Staraptor can’t, I could add a smoke canister to them. Might be a nice effect.
Gym battles have been pretty ok. We had seven today, lost five. Not brilliant but not to crappy.
December is coming up, and Delibird is getting anxious. Not that we get any snow around here. I don’t get the Christmas stuff anyway. Oh well he always makes the children of Springhall happy with his present giving.
On a side note Jubilee is getting on nicely with her baby Togepis. I won’t take any until after the winter. Probably around February time.
I’m changing my team around as well, it will now be: Aerodactyl, Charizard, Crobat and Xatu. My speedy Stone Edge abuser SHOULD make the ice types cry.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 201. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for November 105:71 = 71% I would have preferred NOT to lose that many especially as it nearly match the total lost in the last two months. For the year 201:145 = 72% Thankfully December isn’t cold around the Fox Archipelago so the ice types that dominate the mainland still suck here that should be a nice advantage.
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December 9th 20XX
I hate December; it’s such a slow month. For the month so far I have only had four challengers. That said I have had lots of time to get the Skarmory used to the jet of my F-15.
I found, as with Pidgeot and Staraptor that leaving the engines ticking over and bringing the birds up to them allows them to get used to the noise gradually. Even though I started only on the 1st all four Skarmory are more than used to the jet noise. Now all I have to do is get them used to the noise of the jets at power. What I’ll do is run the engines at 20% thrust for a minute or so every 10 minutes for a couple of hours. And increase gradually. Hopefully I can get the Skarmory flying with the plane by the end of the year.
I got a phone call from Emma today; apparently the fossil she was going on about last month was even more awesome than was first thought. She wants me to fly her to Sinnoh so she can take a look at it. Not that it would be a problem, Jubilife City does have an airport and Oreburgh City is right next to it. It’s just that I would have to go with her. For a week. Without her father knowing. Actually screw him. Campbell is a nice guy but he’s seven years my junior. And I could do with a break.
Okay looks like I’m now going to Sinnoh. I’ll phone Emma and try to go over after this Christmas holiday but before the end of the year.
Great!
Cypher
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December 18th 20XX
Ahhhh the pre-Christmas native badge rush. I hate it.
I had FIFTEEN battles today. All of them with natives to Springhall Island. I lost 11 of them as well, which sucks. There were few ice types being used and seeing as most of those who challenged the gym were returning from the mainland and most had been up to Icebourne it’s a little surprising... that said Springhall is such a small community that my tactics must be known island wide.
Jubilee has selected the Togepi she is going to keep already, a lot earlier than normal for a flying Pokémon. The other five were removed from the nest and are being cared for by Guillemot and Jack. We’ll give them to a few of the kids as presents seeing as I was expecting this to happen early spring not mid December. It will be a nice treat for a few of the younger kids to have their own squeaky cute Pokémon before they can become a trainer proper. I’m going to talk to a group of five families with a single or two kids. Preferably with no trainers so it will make the Togepi a lot more of a meaningful gift.
Even though it has once again only been nine days the Skarmory are coming on leaps and bounds and flaps with the jet. I stood them in roughly the positions they will be flying in formation with the plane. And out of nowhere blasted the engines up to full thrust. And not one of them flinched. I was really impressed. I’ll start flying with them tomorrow if there are no-more trainers at the gym, which is unlikely. If that is the case I’ll have a look at fitting the smoke canisters.
I sorted out the date for the trip to Sinnoh with Emma. We will be leaving from Davenport on the 27th early in the morning, around 5am. This might seem like a really bad time to be flying BUT it does mean I can avoid early morning air traffic over Actopon and the main flight path to Sinnoh. I’ve give more details then.
I’ll be closing the gym to challengers on the 23rd and will not re-open until the 11th of January. It might seem like a really long time BUT I really don’t want to battle around new years. Lots of fireworks agitate the Pokémon. I suppose I could open on the 4th instead. Fine I’ll do that. The extra week off would have been nice for the Skarmory to get some practice in but oh well.
Cypher.
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December 26th 20XX
There are now 5 more happy families on Springhall Island. It took a bit of co-ordination with the parents of the 5 families and Delibird but it all ran smoothly. Delibird when up to each of the houses and gave the child of the house a present from his tail pouch with instruction to come to Cypher’s Grotto. The excited child came down to a little Christmassy hut beside the gym where they got to meet Cypher Claus (I’m not wearing a white beard ... ever) and receive their own Togepi. Many happy tears were spilt.
After that I enjoyed the town’s festivities. It was a nice relaxing day.
Today however was different. The ERJ needed a once over which took forever, then I needed to pack my clothes ready for the trip. I’ll be flying to Davenport in about an hour, so this journal will need to be packed away soon.
I’ve cleared the flight path to Jubilife with Air Traffic control and booked a landing slot. Surprisingly the Airport there will be busy. I suppose people who visited family will be wanted to return home. Davenport Airport doesn’t want me taking off at 5am though. Something about noise laws and safety concerns. So we had to differ to 6:34am, seeing as the first few minutes have other aircraft, taking off.
That’s all for now.
Cypher.
Total trainers for season = 257. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for December 56:33 = 59% a quiet month and a nice ratio. For the year 257:178 = 69% a nice little improvement.
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December 30th 20XX
At the time of writing it is 8:30 pm Jubilife Time ... so about 7:30 pm Springhall Time. I have been forced by the airport to take a late take off slot due to increased traffic from charter airlines and the like. But to make up for it they have waived the fees. So it sort of evens out. I’ll be taking off in around 45 minutes; however there have been a few delayed flights so it could be an extra 20 minutes on top. Either way I’ll be on the plane with everything ready for the 9:15 slot and hope for an open one earlier or in the event of the delays actually affecting me soon after.
Emma had a great time in Oreburgh; the fossil is apparently made up of parts of Cranidos and Shieldon as if they died while fighting. There were also fossils of plants and Pokémon found in close proximity to the main fossil. The visit wasn’t without purpose for me. Firstly Emma gave me a present of an Old Amber, with a sizable amount of Aerodactyl DNA in it. Secondly I won a MASTER BALL from the TV station in Jubilife. And Thirdly I got on TV because while I was at the TV station I got interviewed as part of a live TV show about ... something.
I haven’t got much longer to write this so I’ll finish up quickly and get on with final preparations for my flight.
Oh I need a new year’s resolution ... I will aim to offer my services for flypasts and displays and try to do at least 1 a month ... once the Skarmory are trained ;-p (I hate emoticons but that was kinda funny)
Cypher
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January 6th 20XX+1
I had my first battles of the year today. Eight in total with six victories. While that might sound really good it isn’t because I will have to re-battle each of those losing trainers again soon.
There isn’t much else to talk about really. The Fox Archipelago Yacht Race will start on the 1st of May so I’ll need to be ready to go my display then. I’ve got the harnesses for the Skarmory on order along with the smoke canisters. I need to measure them for the headset so I can give them commands in the air. And teach them the commands of course.
That’s about it really. Not much else to say in this entry.
Cypher
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January 13th 20XX+1
The gym had no challengers today so I went up with the Skarmory and Pidgeot and Staraptor to get the formation in some form of order.
Although this will look awful I’ll try and show what the formation will look like:
Skarmory (Blue Smoke) – Skarmory (Red) – Pidgeot – ME (White) – Staraptor – Skarmory (Red) – Skarmory (Blue)
Obviously we will fly in a swept formation but it’s hard to show here.
As for the flight, well it didn’t go to plan. Because I don’t have the headsets for the Skarmory I had to rely on Pidgeot and Staraptor to forward the commands to the Skarmory. As a result there was a delay and the formation kept breaking up. However it didn’t matter too much, all I was aiming for was to get the group used to flying together. And they were perfect in steady straight flight.
I’m going to start teaching the Skarmory the commands as well as to focus solely on my plane. It’s the best method for formation flying so there is no reason to change from it.
On a gym note, apparently there will be a large number of trainers coming into Davenport by the end of the month. Probably the remaining foreign trainers who are leaving it late to complete the Actopon circuit. I don’t expect many to come here for this month. February will be a killer though. I might put the six or seven badge restriction on again this year. And I assume the Möbius Gym will do the same. I’ll send a message to the Davenport Docks to inform trainers planning to come to the Fox Archipelago to have a minimum of Six Actopon League badges before challenging the Air Gym.
That should reduce the amount of trainers that come here and fail miserably and have to waste 2 weeks going back to Actopon training then coming back here.
Cypher
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January 27th 20XX+1
The last two weeks have been pretty hectic. Sporadic gym challenges. Harnesses and smoke canisters to fit to four Skarmory. And get them used to flight with both the harness and weight of smoke canister AND smoke being released. Get Pidgeot and Staraptor used to flying with the Skarmory using the smoke. And there are still: headsets to be made, a control panel for the smoke to be fitted to the F-15 and remote switches for the smoke canisters to be affixed.
And on top of that Winona from Hoenn is going to be visiting within the next month. I don’t know why, she was being very secretive about it. According to some sources she has been spending a lot of time around Pacifidlog Town. So maybe she’s been looking into Rayquaza. I don’t know, I’ll find out when she gets here.
There are still four more days until the end of the month. So I won’t put a summary of the month’s gym activity yet. But it’s looking good, even with the low amount of challenges. Speaking of which Pixy has been reporting record numbers of challengers to the gym. Reaching the legal maximum of 20 for the last three days. And the sucker is still fully booked for the next two weeks by the looks of things.
I’m glad I put the badge restriction into place. It’s a nice little clause the Air and Möbius gyms can use. Because of the level of strength of the two gyms, as well as the Air Gym’s isolation, we can restrict trainers from challenging the gym until a specific number of badges have been gained. While none of the other 6 complain about me being able to do it gets up them that Möbius can as well. That said I wouldn’t challenge Stephen and Jessica until I had beaten the other seven gyms including myself. Those two can rip practically any team apart.
I even heard that Lance from Kanto had a very secretive battle with the two of them not to long ago. Secretive because it would be the most epic battle since ... Stephen vs. Jessica when she was trying to get her Möbius badge. That was an epic battle. Stephen closed the gym to only allow his fellow gym leaders and the elite four to watch. I’m digressing. And running out of space. But yeah, Lance apparently battled the two in a mock gym leader battle and got beaten to hell.
Cypher
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January 30th 20XX+1
Four gym battles today with two losses. A nice 50-50 to end the month on. But seeing as I only had around 40 for the month it’s not going to affect the overall balance for the season. Continuing with gym news, Guillemot, Jack and Anthony are all working hard with their training.
Anthony is finally beginning to develop his stalling style of battle. It is hurting him slightly that one of his Skarmory is being used for my display BUT he should only use one in each battle anyway. He’s been trying out a residual damage move set on his current Skarmory. Stealth Rock + Spikes + Whirlwind + Roost. That is just going to piss the trainers off. And an awesome idea. It suits his style of battling. He has to be careful though, with no attacking moves if he gets taunted he will be forced to switch and that could cost him as that will give the challenger a chance to set up and prepare to take him out.
He’s also been trying to get a good special wall and is using Mantine. Only it’s quad electric weakness sucks. I would suggest Togekiss but ... that’s MY signature Pokémon. So I’ve given him a Ledian. While not a good attacker its special defence is pretty ok. And it might be able to Baton Pass pretty well.
Jack on the other hand is struggling with his reliance on physical attacks ... not much I can do to help really. He just needs to think for himself on that one.
Guillemot is an idiot. While that is widely known I feel an urge to say it again. He battled a kid with his WINGULL. While he loves them he should stick to Pelipper in battle.
Not much to report on the formation flying or Winona. I still need to finish building the headsets for the Skarmory and Winona hasn’t contacted me yet telling me when she’s coming.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 298. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for January 41:24 = 59% same as December, not surprising seeing as both months were slow. For the year 298:202 = 68% looking pretty good. February will seriously fuck this up though. That said I do have about 150 more badges to give out.
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February 2nd 20XX+1
I got the phone call from Winona today and I was right, obviously, she was studying the Sky Pillar and Rayquaza. However that’s not why she’s visiting, she wants to study formation flying. That’s a bit of a shock, as she would have to ride on of the Pokémon in order to do it; which can be hard. Not that it will be a problem, I think what she wants to do it try and learn how to fly as a flock more than anything. That being said she’s already adept at it.
On a side note I got the head sets for the Skarmory made. There were no challengers for the last couple of days so I had lots of time to do it. I gave them a quick test today and the Skarmory responded to me commands nice and promptly with no complaints to their ears being covered. As a result we have started to really focus on making turns. While it sounds easy it really isn’t. The problem is that the Skarmory on the far edge of the formation are well over 30 meters away from the plane and 60 from each other. It means that when we try and turn the one on whatever side become up has to move through 30 meters AND keep position. And the one on the down side has to do the same only being careful not to lose too much altitude and keep position. It has been rectified somewhat by keeping their eyes focused on the cockpit of the plane. Still we are going to need some practice for the Yacht race display on the 1st.
Apparently a ferry has departed from Davenport packed to the brim with trainers with 6 league badges. They are expected here on the 14th meaning lots and lots of battles for a while. Not good news for my formation flying. I had better get some practice in while I still can.
Cypher
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February 18th 20XX+1
Good grief. Another day another 20 trainers hungry for a badge. Another 15 handed out today, on top of the 16 yesterday and 12 the day before and the 17 on the 15th. I'm pretty sure that I have given out more badges these last couple of days than I have for all of December and January.
I don’t feel like moaning about gym stuff. More importantly it was Stephen’s Birthday today. So I sent him a card and some ... present of some description ... don’t complain I send them over two weeks ago with the last ferry to leave.
Winona is coming on the 27th; she was delayed leaving Fortree city for some reason and missed the boat out of Slateport City. Not much else to say about that really.
I need to go to sleep, this journal takes time to write and that time could be being spent sleeping.
Cypher.
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February 28th 20XX+1
Oh what a month. So many battles. So many badges handed out. So many ways to impress Winona with my battling skill AND my formation flying skill.
I know she’s like 25 or more years younger than me but still. She is REALLY cute. Anyway I found a little time to talk to her today. We spoke about how I maintain the formation while turning and how all the Pokémon have to look at the canopy of my plane and know that when I say the command and say go my plane will move. What she wants to try and do is get a more natural formation where each member looks at one of its neighbours and copies their movement. Like in a flock. However it is a lot more dangerous when you have people riding the Pokémon. Still it would be interesting to see that in action.
This was once again the heaviest month for battles for the season with 191 ... nearly a third of the total for the first five months. And I gave out around 135 badges ... I have the exact figure somewhere. I’ll find it later I have the summary to write. With most of the February madness over, probably spilling into the first couple of weeks of March too, I will expect the number of trainers to cool off after that. April, May and June are normally quiet BUT do have a lot of trainers desperate to get that last badge.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 489. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for January 191:137 = 71% a sharp increase on the last couple of months. For the year 489:339 = 69% the effect of Dec and Feb must have been enough to keep the percentage for the year nice and ok.
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March 8th 20XX+1
The rush has finally begun to calm down. I only had 14 challengers today with 9 losses, which is kinda nice. I got a message from the Actopon League about badge numbers and predicted entrants to the league. Apparently 71% of those who signed up for this season’s Actopon League have at least 6 badges with 59% having 7 badges and 48% having all 8. Considering there have been a total of 586 applications to the league this year, there are now 281 trainers who are currently at entry standard. That includes the 47 Seeded Trainers (i.e. those that made it to the second round or better last year and are re-challenging the league this year.) so there are 234 new trainers and 209 wildcard slots. And there are still four months left for the badge collecting part of the league.
Looks like there will be a lot of disappointed trainers. Considering that roughly 47 (wow that’s kinda co-incidental with the number of seeded trainer entries) trainers getting all eight badges each month. With four left to go that’s ... 187 more entries to the league.
Winona left this morning; she’s taken a few books back with her. Stuff I don’t really have a need for seeing as I know pretty much everything about formation flying.
There are only 7 weeks left to perfect the display for the Yacht Race. Not that it will be a problem, the Skarmory are more than capable of learning the routine. It’s also going to be a simpler display. I would love to be able to do for more complex manoeuvres but we would need another four or five months to perfect them. For the display we’ll be doing a couple of crowd passes, a barrel roll from both directions and a loop-the-loop over the crowd before finishing off with a low level fly pass over the start line when the race starts.
Because of the distance from Springhall to Snake Island I will need to send the Skarmory, Pidgeot and Staraptor to Snake Island a week before the event along with Guillemot. He knows how to rig up the harnesses and headsets plus all the 6 birds adore the guy. It will make doing the display a lot easier on the birds if they only have to fly a short distance to meet up with my plane.
Not much else to do between now and the 1st of May but practice.
Cypher
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March 22nd 20XX+1
The ferry docked today and unloaded the next supply of trainers. Thankfully there weren’t that many, around 30 at the most. And it will be two weeks before they will be leaving. Unless they stump up the money to pay for a flight back.
Actually that’s reminded me, I haven’t had as many requests for flights from groups of trainers. Normally if 10 or more trainers are travelling as a group they fly out to Springhall by pooling their money. But I haven’t had any requests for my services. Not to say that no planes have been coming into the airport. Just the usual charter flights from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. There have even been a couple from Almia and Fiore and, surprisingly a couple from Mandarin Island Nth. Why anyone would want to come to the Fox Archipelago from the Orange Archipelago I do not know. Oh well, tourists are tourists.
The practicing for the display is going well; the barrel roll is very tricky to pull off though. We need to be climbing when we start because try and they might the bird Pokémon can’t maintain altitude when upside down. So when the manoeuvre starts we pull up 15 degrees and go though the motion of turning, however when we get to 90 degrees we compensate the birds inability to maintain altitude by allowing their flight path to return to level flight while we continue to rotate. After we pass 90 degrees there is no option but to continue the manoeuvre until we get to 270 degrees. It is impossible for the bird Pokémon to maintain flight at that angle and they naturally want to keep themselves upright. Pidgeot and Staraptor are not finding this problematic but they are closest to the axis (My Plane). The Skarmory on the edges are the ones who are struggling to maintain position.
I was contemplating removing the barrel roll from the display until I saw the birds freely practicing when I was at the gym. And it was an amazing sight. Without the jet they were able to talk to each other, probably supporting or advising each other. It is slightly worrying that they may need to be talking to be able to pull the barrel roll off. But hopefully they will be able to do it. All six of them are very eager about the flight.
The loop-the-loop on the other hand has been easy, unlike the barrel roll none of the birds have to worry about rolling while upside down. Only maintaining enough speed to climb. Not that it is without problems, the weight of the smoke canisters on the Skarmory makes it harder for them to be at the speed to pull up and roll with my plane, which is going as tight as I can make it go without slowing down or passing out. But these problems will be solved one way or another.
Cypher
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March 31st 20XX+1
Some days you just love being a trainer. So let me explain why today was so special.
Firstly Jubilee’s baby Togepi has started to really come out of its shell. Yeah it’s an awful pun but I can’t think of anything else to say. The Togepi has been waddling around the gym all day talking to the Pokémon making friends. It’s also been out in the gardens rolling around in the flowers and generally having a joyous day. On top of that Jubilee has been flittering around trying to let the Togepi be independent while still watching it like a Staraptor.
Secondly I got to battle a Phione. I have no idea where this kid from Johto got it but still. The offspring of the Legendary Manaphy. Pixy must have been so jealous. It wasn’t very strong but still was able to smack Fearow around.
And thirdly today is the last day for trainers to submit entry for the Actopon Pokémon league. It gives those who started today 2 and a half months to beat the Air Gym. Not much longer for this season.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 553. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for March 74:43 = 58% a relatively low percentage, kinda nice considering the number of trainers already trying to get into the league. For the year 553:382 = 69% no change. Will probably continue for the rest of the season seeing as April May and Early June are slow months.
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April 9th 20XX+1
Today was another quiet day. I didn’t do much in the end; I’ve been practicing the formation display with the Pokémon a lot over the last few days due to the quiet gym. So I gave the Pokémon an extra rest day, they deserve it.
Guillemot will be taking them to Snake Island tomorrow. It will take him around 10 days to get there. Hopefully the 6 birds will be able to fly on the 21st so that I can use the last few days to practice over the marina where the race will be starting. I will need to do a flight to Snake Island on either the 14th or 15th for timing. The race will be starting at 10 am sharp, so our display will need to start at 9:45 with it ending with the low altitude fly-pass of the start line at 10 am sharp. It will take me around an hour to get there so I will be leaving Springhall no later than 8:30, because I will need time to get into formation with the birds.
The flight path I will take is below. It’s a standard land tracing path really.
We only had a single challenger at the gym today. She won. But it was a nice battle. Her defensive style practically mirrored Anthony’s. It made for a brilliant display of stalling and residual damage build up. Anthony was impressed; he wouldn’t stop talking to the poor girl after he lost.
Her stalling style nearly lost her the battle against me though. Her Shuckle was relied on too much; my Aerodactyl dominated it and used the sandstorm to its advantage. Still she kept herself calm and collected and let the toxic poisonings and burns do their damage. After the battle we had spoke about her league challenge, she was confident about getting the wild card entry and couldn’t wait to get to the league. I had to advice her that the league battles have time limits and that if our battle had been a first round league battle she would have lost because it was 2-1 to me at 30 minutes. She took the advice on board I think. Oh well. We’ll see if she gets into the league.
Cypher
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April 21st 20XX+1
No gym battles today due to the second to last practice for our display.
The flight to Snake Island was fine; there was little turbulence and a lot of friendly chatter from the boats I flew past. It’s one of the better things about using the F-15 for flying. It get recognised a lot more and people have no problems with talking to me on the radio. Normally it’s little more than a “Hey Cypher” or “Nice Plane” etcetera, there is a lot of radio chatter between the islands anyway as its the fastest way of talking to each other.
We ran thought a mock display at Snake Island. We went thought the entire routine with the smoke. It went amazingly well. The outer Skarmory are more than capable of maintaining position during the barrel roll and the loop-the-loop looks amazing with the smoke pouring out.
After I got back I watched a video of the display Guillemot had recorded from the ground. It looks really impressive. A lot better than the standard “Machine and Pokémon in Harmonious Flight.” I’ll probably do another full practice display on the 26th after that however I won’t have time to do another and will need to get the plane prepared. Plus the Pokémon will need to be well rested for the 1st of May.
Cypher
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April 30th 20XX+1
Gym battles are a brilliant way of distracting myself from the flying display I will be doing tomorrow. I had 7 today and lost them all. But I don’t care. I’m excited for tomorrow. I’m going to need to go to bed soon. As I will be up at 5 am to get ready for the flight at 8:15. There is nothing left to prepare but I will want to do another once over on the plane before I take off tomorrow. Just call it paranoia. And not wanting anything to go wrong.
Guillemot says that the birds are all ready to go. Everything is in full working order and all the smoke canisters are topped up.
Only a month and a half until the gym battle season is over. I’m thinking that after the 15th of June I’ll spend some time on the mainland with Pixy. I’ll probably stay and help him out at the gym. Then go and watch the league in July/August.
Right it’s getting late (only 9pm but I do have to be up early tomorrow). ‘Night.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 607. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for April 54: 39 = 72% like I said at the end of March not a lot of trainers left. For the year 607:421 = 69% as expected no change. And unless I hand out only 30% of challenges for the remaining couple of months it probably won’t change.
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May 1st 20XX+1
WOOOOOOO! The 17th Annual Fox Archipelago Yacht Race got underway with a brilliant flying display, if I do say so myself. The crowds certainly loved it. I could see them cheering and waving up at the plane and birds as we did the display.
The birds are now on the way back with Guillemot; hopefully they will be here by the 10th so I can reward them. They didn’t put a wing wrong for the entire display. Keeping in perfect formation. I almost cried as we finished the display. Not the best thing to broadcast to the guys in the studio who were broadcasting the commands I was giving the Pokémon so that the crowd knew how we were staying in formation and doing the manoeuvres.
No gym battles today, I needed the rest of the day to relax after that display, seeing as I woke up at 5am, was in the air by 8:15 and didn’t touch down until 11:10.
It’s not as if there were many trainers banging on the door of the gym anyway. By now all the challengers to the gym have got the seven badges from the mainland and are willing to wait a couple of days before challenging me. But I will be back to my challenging ways tomorrow.
Oh before I forget so will Jubilee. She’s finally ready to return to battling. The baby Togepi, who we’ve decided to call Tornado. After we found him sitting in front of one of the aviation research books he had pulled from the shelf with the page about the Tornado open. Jubilee seems happy with the name so it’s going to stick.
Jubilee and baby Tornado.
Cypher
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May 19th 20XX+1
Today was the busiest day in the gym for a while with 14 trainers. Not surprising seeing as a ferry docked yesterday but still a large number for this part of the year. It caught us of guard a little so it isn’t surprising that 12 of them won.
Apart from that is was a quiet day. Spent most of the time when I wasn’t battling relaxing in the town with a cool drink.
I just love that. Being able to sit down at one of the cafe/bar/restaurant’s we have and enjoy a cool drink, a warm day and near silence in the dead centre of town. You don’t get anywhere else but Springhall Island. There can so little to do here but relax and let time drift by. I’m glad the feared expansion of hotels on the island never amounted to anything. I suppose that because there is so little to do away from the beach and the collection of shops in the town that there is no incentive for the big name hoteliers to develop the island. Mostly because the islanders are such a tight knit group that we can block any attempt to develop the island. Even if the regional government allows it. Those bureaucrats in Davenport don’t know what it’s like out here anyway.
I’m going to stop myself there. Thinking of that is ruining my evening.
Cypher.
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May 31st 20XX+1
Only two more weeks until the end of MY gym season. I don’t expect more than 20 challenges for June. Mostly because the last ferry, that will get to Springhall before the cut of date departed from Davenport a couple of days ago with 21 trainers onboard.
I had no challengers today although the gym did have 2 but both were defeated by Guillemot and didn't come back. They’ll make it 23 challenges in June then.
I’ve made preparations with Pixy to spend some time with him for three weeks. I’ll fly out to Davenport on the 16th of June and help out around the gym.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 642. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for May 35:21 = 57% and again like I said at the end April and at the end of March not a lot of trainers left. For the year 642:442 = 69% as expected no change. And unless I lose only 30% of challenges for the remaining couple of WEEKS it probably won’t change.
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June 15th 20XX+1
AND IT IS OVER! I had the last 2 gym battles of this season today. Unsurprisingly I lost them. As with the other 22 battles this month. But it was expected. They only needed my badge and weren’t leaving until they got it.
And now for the final summary:
Total trainers for season = 662. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for June 22:22 = 100%. For the year 662:462 = 69%. Compared to my target of 43:27 which is 63%. It wasn’t too bad of a year.
I’m off to Davenport tomorrow around 1pm. Not much to do there but relax and help out with Pixy.
It’s a short entry today but there really is nothing to talk about
Cypher.
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June 28th 20XX+1
Pixy has had a really rough time this season. His finishing loss percentage was 89% the worst of any gym leader. Maria was second with 81%. Emma and David tied with 77%. James pulled off an impressive 75%, considering his remote location. Heather had 72%. I was seventh with 69% and surprise, surprise Stephen and Jessica finished with only 58% loss rate. Meaning 384 trainers have got the eight badges necessary to apply for the Actopon League. With only 209 wildcard places available. There will be a lot of disappointed trainers that’s for sure.
However we have now entered the silly season. The Elite Four will be touring the gyms and battling trainers in each city. Unofficially of course. It’s part of the reason I came to Davenport. The Elite Four don’t go to Springhall Island because it is so far away. And I really want to battle Campbell.
I might give each of the gym leaders a battle too. Depends if they have time. I’m sure each of them wants a break after the last few tiring months.
Cypher
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July 12th 20XX+1
There was only one thing that happened today worth writing down here. It was a Pokémon battle. But no ordinary battle, mind you. Oh no. It was a 12 vs. 12 double battle between Me and Pixy and ... yeah it’s Stephen and Jessica. Each of us using six Pokémon. I won’t do into details here, mostly because I couldn’t do it justice but it was a true master class in battling. Oh I forgot to say, the battle took place at the Actopon League Central Stadium. Yeah, there is no better way to warm up the league stadium than to wreck it after a 45 minute battle.
The league officials didn’t see it that way though. Seeing as we weren’t supposed to be on the battlefield. Oh well, I’m 55, no snot nosed league bureaucrat is going to tell me what I do. I’m Cypher. Ok, ok I’m being selfish and an idiot. I’m just bored is all.
The league will be starting on the 4th of August and finishing on the 23rd
A short entry but to be honest there is so little to talk about during the silly season. Apart from training or as my Pokémon refer to it practice due to their high level of ability, I have nothing else to write about.
Cypher.
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August 23rd 20XX+1
And another season finally comes to a close. The final of the Actopon League was brilliant, the battle was between the number 37 seed, a 23 year old girl - Sheryl - from Almia and a wildcard trainer, a 35 year old “Late starting trainer” man - Garry - from Hoenn. It was a shame not to have any Actopon natives in the final but it didn’t devalue it. Anyway Sheryl won 5-6. She was just saved by her Kingdra’s Hydro Pump hitting Garry’s Venusaur ‘critically’.
She got to have her name written on the plinth at Champion’s Point and was presented the trophy by the previous year’s champion who she knocked out in the second round.
She’s going to be challenging the Elite Four soon. However Abbie is ill again. So I’m not sure what they will do, they’ll probably get someone to help her out. I’m not sure who but it won’t be me. I have to get back to Springhall Island. Leaving tomorrow morning.
Oh well all I can say is good luck to them all. I’ll catch the battles on the TV.
Cypher.
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August 31st 20XX+1
The gym is all prepped from tomorrow and the start of the 20XX+1-20XX+2 Actopon Pokémon League.
Guillemot, Jack and Anthony are all ready and raring to go. Their Pokémon are fully fit and trained.
As for Springhall Island, it will be the same as the last 25 + years with me a gym leader.
Except I have heard Professor Aspen is going to try and make an effort to get over to give the starter Pokémon out. That will be especially nice for the children.
Jeez a lot of fragments of thoughts today. Must be my old age.
Oh well, another year, another year of testing a wide variety of trainers. I shall enjoy giving them the chance to prove themselves and attempt to challenge the league.
Cypher.
This story is rated PG-13 for some coarse language
This is a diary fic that follows Cypher the flying type Gym Leader for the Air Gym on Springhall Island in the Actopon Region.
The following are excerpts from the Diary for the 20XX-20XX+1 season of the Actopon League. With Cypher handing out the Wing Badge.
Names of the Islands of the Fox Archipelago:
1 Snake Island, 2 Solid Island, 3 Liquid Island, 4 Octopus Island, 5 Ocelot Island, 6 Raven Island , 7 Mantis Island, 8 Wolf Island, 9 Hal Island, 10 Raiden Island and 11 Sunny Island
DISCLAIMER: POKÉMON IS NOT MINE; THIS STORY IS. I AM ALLOWED TO USE POKÉMON AS LONG I SAY THAT THEY BELONG TO NINTENDO/GAME FREAK, HOWEVER THE STORY, CHARATERS AND REGION BELONG TO ME.
Sept 1st 20XX
So it’s the first, the 20XX-20XX+1 Actopon Pokémon League has started. No doubt all over the mainland lots of 10 year old kids are jumping up and down waiting for a letter from the league to arrive in the post with their trainer’s licence. And many of those will be crammed into Redwell Town, waiting to rush to Aspen’s Lab and get their first Pokémon. And there will be all the established trainers who are queuing outside of Pokémon Centres waiting for the registrations for the league to open. Even though you have eight months to register.
Springhall Island is a lot quieter. That’s not to say the 10 year olds on the island are not excited, it’s just that the post takes about 9 days longer to get here than on the mainland and Aspen probably won’t come to the island again, letting the Joy at the Pokémon Centre do the deed of giving the kids their Pokémon, like the last seven years. Not that I blame him. It would be a nightmare to try and get out here quickly. Still it would be nice for one year. I think the kids would like it.
The guys at the gym are having a bet over how long it will take for the following: a trainer to challenge, a trainer to get to battling me and a trainer winning the Wing Badge. They are all being bastards about it though. I heard Guillemot saying all will happen on the same day ... the 15th. Of course he will now have to battle the first trainer first ... I hope he gets his ass kicked.
I’m running out of space here, so I’ll stop for now. Oh I forgot; I aim for the "Total Gym Battles to Total Badges Won by Trainers" ratio to be ... Erm ... 43:27 ... ... For no particular reason other than it’s an odd ratio. I’ll see what it will be like come July 20XX
Cypher
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Sept 14th 20XX
And the first trainer who will be challenging the gym is on the island. UN-fortunately he won’t be actually challenging the gym until tomorrow so Guillemot’s bet is still on. Although the kid is pretty early, not like the trainer a few years back who came here on the 5th, so he’s gotta be from a rich family. I’ll go down to the docks later to see if there is a new boat there ... I assume he would sail here. Seeing as the airfield has had no planes land since the league started.
But seeing as we now have a trainer on the island I will need to organise my team and gym trainers. The trainers will be in this order: Guillemot, Jack and Anthony
They will be allowed to use their usual Pokémon, although I will ban the use of Skarmory for now. I want them to be ready for the mail service to the rest of the Fox Archipelago. They started asking for supplies for their small Poké-Clinics in preparation for trainers and the Skarmory will be better suited to transport them.
Before I forget I need to make a note of MY team for September: Mantine, Altaria, Yanmega and Jubilee. That should give me a nice amount of coverage; even though they are prefer to use Special based attacks. Jubilee’s Hustle should work great with ExtremeSpeed as always.
Speaking of Jubilee she has been very brooding lately, I think she’s pining for Stephen’s Togekiss ... Arkbird. I might see if Stephen has any space in his ranch thing for another Togekiss so that Jubilee can spend some time with her hubby.
Cypher.
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Sept 30th 20XX
Well the first month is finally over aaaaaaaaaand ... Thirteen. We had thirteen trainers, and nine of those came here after beating Maria and Pixy, direct from Davenport. That said ALL of the trainers were over eighteen so they would have had a lot of experience ... and money. Of course THAT explains why all of them won the Wing Badge. I’m not bitter it’s part of the job. Hell, I’ve been doing it for THIRTY years. Still all I can hope for is a bit of a better October for the Air Gym.
Not much else to report on really. The Fox Archipelago is all stocked up on supplies; I haven’t been asked to visit anything off the island. I might get the old girl out and give her a good thrashing. Nah I better not, the airframe on that F-15 has seen better days. Still, nothing surpasses the joy of formation flying with Pokémon. I’ll do some of that if I have some free time. Staraptor and Pidgeot are out of practice though; And Jubilee can’t stand the jet noise.
Oh that reminds me, I need to phone Stephen about her and his Togekiss getting their thing on. I’ll do it later; he and Jessica must be busy wiping the floor with everything that enters their gym. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have given out less badges than me!
Oh well, all I can do now is look towards October.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 13. Trainers : Loss ratio for September 1:1 ... sad face
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October 6th 20XX
Phew, a grand total of eleven trainers in one day. I’m exhausted and so is pretty much everything else in the Air Gym. Except Jubilee of course. She’s off to Redux City to make her male Togekiss happy. Hopefully she’ll come back loaded with eggs, Togepi are pretty valuable to trainers.
Anyway back onto gym leader stuff of the eleven battles I had today. I lost seven ... which is pretty good. Jack needs to train his Pelipper a little more; while Wing Attack looks cool, it is totally useless. But it’s not my decision what he wants to use on that thing.
Yeah this entry is kinda short, but like I said I’m exhausted. I’ll forgo battles tomorrow and spend a little time fixing the fuel valve on my F-15, after the mess that was left all over the hanger after I landed on the 1st it needs to be done. Not that I like doing it, that’s why it’s been leaking fuel for the last five days.
Cypher
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October 10th 20XX
Sometimes I swear a day is out to make my life hell. While I don’t like bitching about my problems I need to let out some steam.
I lost all eight of my gym battles today. While that might not sound too bad, considering that five of those are native to the Fox Archipelago and two are from Springhall makes the loss worse. Guillemot was sick so they only had two battles to get beaten and run off crying. And one of the jerk trainers decided it would be fun to poison all five of my Pokémon I planned to use for the day ... IN MY FIRST BATTLE OF THE DAY! Right that’s problem one.
Problem two is with my damn ERJ 145XR, one of the Jets suffered a, irony headache coming on, bird strike ... you know what don’t fucking say it. I know you’re only a piece of paper but don’t bother.
Continuing on with the “Aircraft are fucking my day up” theme, my F-15’s fuel leak had nothing to do with the fuel valve oh no ... ONE OF THE DAMN TANKS WAS CRACKED. How the fuck did I check the tanks so damn badly that a crack went unnoticed. My only hope is that the Actopon FAA inspectors find that it was caused in flight by something out of my control ... or I will need to spend so much money on fixing it and getting it re-licensed it might not be worth it.
Ok phew, I got some of the frustration out of my system ... and swore a lot ... I should cut down on that.
That said I did get a nice call from Falkner, he needed some advice for his Murkrow. Not much else to talk about though. Johto sounds boring.
Cypher
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October 21st 20XX
I got a phone call from Jessica today, said that Jubilee was ready to come home. She has a healthy glow and a nice tummy bulge. I’m going to fly out to Davenport Airport (trying saying that 10 times fast) in a couple of days to pick her up. I don’t want to risk those eggs in the electronic transporter. I was able to get the engine on my ERJ repaired and after a crap-load of tests it looked perfect. I just have to watch out for birds ... damn irony headaches.
The gym was pretty quiet today, only three challengers; one won the badge off me so it was pretty good. Guillemot recovered from his illness a couple of days ago and returned to battling today. He still looked pretty rough though, I might tell him to only use two Pokémon for him battles. At least for a while.
I was a little bored earlier so I did a little maths. For the month so far the gym has had 58 challenges with 37 losses. Giving me a ratio of ... 58:37 ... stupid prime numbers. It gives me a 64% loss rate compared to my target of 43:27 which gives me a ... 63% loss rate. Whoop I’m on target! I’m giving out a healthy amount of badges while maintaining a degree of difficulty. With ten more days to the end of the month I would like to maintain that record.
Cypher
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October 30th 20XX
It’s a day early but this month’s worth of gym battles is over. Seeing as this weekend will be null and there is that meeting of gym leaders all of next week so no battling.
Today was a nice day; I had five battles and won three. The two I lost were too very good trainers, so I’m happy. Not much else to report really, only that having all of us using a Skarmory annoyed a couple of the trainers.
I forgot about the meeting being on the mainland so Jubilee is still in Redux City with Stephen’s Togekiss, who is apparently living up to its name, spending a lot of time with my Jubilee nuzzling. I may be in my mid fifties but things like that, and the video Jessica sent me of the two in their nest, make me go all mushy. Where was I, oh yeah, I didn’t want to fly to the mainland and back twice in such a short space of time. Or want to leave Jubilee here while I’m on the mainland.
The preparations for the annual Fox Archipelago Yacht Race are getting underway. After this meeting on the mainland I will need to go to Snake Island to help the initial planning for the flying display that will open the event. I’ve been asked to do one of my patented “Machine and Pokémon in Harmonious Flight.” fly-pasts at the event. Of course that will be fully dependant on my F-15 passing the Actopon FAA inspection. That being said five months is surely enough time to get that plane ready.
I had better get some sleep; I will need to be up early to get my ERJ ready for the flight to Davenport.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 106. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for October 93:61. 65% is not too bad. For the year 106:74. This is 69%, so I need a good November to make up for the losses.
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November 7th 20XX
While I hate these sort of league meetings. The ones that take a week despite us not changing a single damn thing. It was nice to see the other gym leaders and the elite four and the champ. For some reason I feel a need to describe how each of them were. I don’t know why, I just do. It makes me feel good that I’ve recorded them to this journal.
Maria was her usual bubbly self. She suggested that the number of trainers able to participate in the league be expanded again this year. It was soundly defeated as usual. She didn’t care much, I think she keeps suggesting it to try and make the week worth something.
Pixy ... okay, okay, LARRY ... was a lot more reserved than usual. Normally this would be worrying, but after finding out that he has lost over 90% of his gym battles this year it made sense. I tried to talk to him whenever we were at lunch or after the meeting and crap but he was nowhere to be found. Until today when I saw him up at Champion’s Point. I left him alone; he must have been reminiscing about his league triumph.
Stephen and Jessica were ... well themselves ... although A LOT MORE ‘cuddly’ in public than usual. I got Jubilee back from them; she didn’t want to be separated from Stephen’s Arkbird. But she can’t wait to get home and lay those eggs and get them out of her. From what I can tell she’s carrying about six of the squeaky Togepi’s.
Emma was completely hyperactive for the week, she had apparently heard from Roark in Sinnoh about some rare fossil of some kind. She’s demanding a month’s leave to go and look at it. But her father, Campbell, is having none of it. She’ll go anyway, but the league officials will tear into her when she gets back.
Heather was quiet again; she tried to approach Stephen a couple of times. But, of course, he was having none of it. I talked to her for a while, told her that it was pointless trying to get Stephen back. She didn’t listen as far as I can tell. Oh well. It’s not MY problem.
David ... yeah, I like the guy but ... he creeps me out. I don’t know WHY Stephen and Hal let him kiss them. I’m not against him being gay; it’s just creepy to make out with a guy, who he is not dating and in Hal’s case is married, in front of the guy who he is. I understand why he and Stephen are so close but Hal ... I don’t know ... or really want to know.
James was absent for the first two days ... lucky bastard ... he had a breakthrough with some research so has stuck in Icebourne until some test results came back. As a result he didn’t do anything productive for the remaining three days ... not like the rest of us did anyway.
Whoops ran out of space for today in the journal.
Cypher
Ahh screw it I’ll use tomorrow’s space.
Continuing on.
Hal was trying to get the league to support a Yellowcake docks development programme. In a pitiful attempt to boost the economy for Lightvale I assume. Of course the bitter cycle of no reason for docks to be built because there is no demand from businesses because there are no docks to encourage businesses to set up in the Lightvale-Yellowcake-Birchwick zone resulting in no demand for docks continues.
I swear Keira was asleep for most of the week. I didn’t hear her voice once at any of the meetings. I think she zoned out and focused on training plans ... good girl.
Abbie was ill again, so she was stuck on Raven Island. Of course she didn’t tell ME this. I’ll visit her when I get back.
Campbell, when he was not telling Emma she couldn’t go to Sinnoh in the middle of the gym season, put up the suggestion of letting the quarter finalists from the league challenge the elite four after the league. I don’t know why he would want that. Maybe being the last of the elite four means he has too few battles for his liking. Although the system in Kanto, Johto, Hoenn AND Sinnoh of allowing ANYONE with the eight badges to challenge the elite four would work better it would devalue the Standard Actopon League, like it has with those leagues.
Jordan chaired the meetings ... as always. The only suggestion he put forward was with regard to Abbie retiring, but due to her absence he decided to not put it into motion. I do agree with him though, Abbie does need to stand down but on her own terms. Not that I want to take are place. Stephen or Jessica would be perfect for that role.
Ok so now I'm at the real end of this entry. Back to being gym leader. YAY
Cypher
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November 24th 20XX
Since the League AGM things have actually being going pretty well. Jubilee is doing fine; she’s spending a lot of time guarding her eggs. I forgot to mention how many she had laid so I’ll tell you now ... diary? Anyway Jubilee laid 8 eggs, however 1 was broken upon laying and I found one of the others away from the nest. So it must have failed to fertilize. Shame but six Togepi eggs is still a good result. I’ll let her keep the baby Togepi for about 3-4 months. That what I normally do and I don’t plan to change now. I’ll take 5 of them to give as gifts to the few trainers who deserve one. Jubilee can have one for herself. It might make her useless for the rest of the league season BUT will be worth it.
Also Abbie is ok; I spent a couple of days with her on Raven Island. She was down with some sort of ’flu. Apparently Jordan is coming over to visit her when he gets a chance. I might give him a ring before he does. I don’t want him talking to Abbie about her leaving the Elite Four, unless she brings it up.
Also good news the Actopon FAA has deemed my F-15 airworthy YAY!! I’m going to celebrate by practicing the formation for the Yacht thingy coming up.
There were no gym challenges today. And only seven in the last week. I suppose most of the experienced trainers who didn’t already have them, have all the badges now. Just waiting on the kids and late starters from far off lands to Actopon.
Cypher.
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November 30th 20XX
What an end to the month. It’s been a week since we (that’s me, Pidgeot and Staraptor) started practicing our formation flying and they have already returned to near perfect form. This got me thinking. We have four Skarmory at the gym, each of us uses the steel bird and I know they are very trainable Pokémon. So I might try adding them to the formation. Also because of their ability to carry weight that Pidgeot and Staraptor can’t, I could add a smoke canister to them. Might be a nice effect.
Gym battles have been pretty ok. We had seven today, lost five. Not brilliant but not to crappy.
December is coming up, and Delibird is getting anxious. Not that we get any snow around here. I don’t get the Christmas stuff anyway. Oh well he always makes the children of Springhall happy with his present giving.
On a side note Jubilee is getting on nicely with her baby Togepis. I won’t take any until after the winter. Probably around February time.
I’m changing my team around as well, it will now be: Aerodactyl, Charizard, Crobat and Xatu. My speedy Stone Edge abuser SHOULD make the ice types cry.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 201. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for November 105:71 = 71% I would have preferred NOT to lose that many especially as it nearly match the total lost in the last two months. For the year 201:145 = 72% Thankfully December isn’t cold around the Fox Archipelago so the ice types that dominate the mainland still suck here that should be a nice advantage.
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December 9th 20XX
I hate December; it’s such a slow month. For the month so far I have only had four challengers. That said I have had lots of time to get the Skarmory used to the jet of my F-15.
I found, as with Pidgeot and Staraptor that leaving the engines ticking over and bringing the birds up to them allows them to get used to the noise gradually. Even though I started only on the 1st all four Skarmory are more than used to the jet noise. Now all I have to do is get them used to the noise of the jets at power. What I’ll do is run the engines at 20% thrust for a minute or so every 10 minutes for a couple of hours. And increase gradually. Hopefully I can get the Skarmory flying with the plane by the end of the year.
I got a phone call from Emma today; apparently the fossil she was going on about last month was even more awesome than was first thought. She wants me to fly her to Sinnoh so she can take a look at it. Not that it would be a problem, Jubilife City does have an airport and Oreburgh City is right next to it. It’s just that I would have to go with her. For a week. Without her father knowing. Actually screw him. Campbell is a nice guy but he’s seven years my junior. And I could do with a break.
Okay looks like I’m now going to Sinnoh. I’ll phone Emma and try to go over after this Christmas holiday but before the end of the year.
Great!
Cypher
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December 18th 20XX
Ahhhh the pre-Christmas native badge rush. I hate it.
I had FIFTEEN battles today. All of them with natives to Springhall Island. I lost 11 of them as well, which sucks. There were few ice types being used and seeing as most of those who challenged the gym were returning from the mainland and most had been up to Icebourne it’s a little surprising... that said Springhall is such a small community that my tactics must be known island wide.
Jubilee has selected the Togepi she is going to keep already, a lot earlier than normal for a flying Pokémon. The other five were removed from the nest and are being cared for by Guillemot and Jack. We’ll give them to a few of the kids as presents seeing as I was expecting this to happen early spring not mid December. It will be a nice treat for a few of the younger kids to have their own squeaky cute Pokémon before they can become a trainer proper. I’m going to talk to a group of five families with a single or two kids. Preferably with no trainers so it will make the Togepi a lot more of a meaningful gift.
Even though it has once again only been nine days the Skarmory are coming on leaps and bounds and flaps with the jet. I stood them in roughly the positions they will be flying in formation with the plane. And out of nowhere blasted the engines up to full thrust. And not one of them flinched. I was really impressed. I’ll start flying with them tomorrow if there are no-more trainers at the gym, which is unlikely. If that is the case I’ll have a look at fitting the smoke canisters.
I sorted out the date for the trip to Sinnoh with Emma. We will be leaving from Davenport on the 27th early in the morning, around 5am. This might seem like a really bad time to be flying BUT it does mean I can avoid early morning air traffic over Actopon and the main flight path to Sinnoh. I’ve give more details then.
I’ll be closing the gym to challengers on the 23rd and will not re-open until the 11th of January. It might seem like a really long time BUT I really don’t want to battle around new years. Lots of fireworks agitate the Pokémon. I suppose I could open on the 4th instead. Fine I’ll do that. The extra week off would have been nice for the Skarmory to get some practice in but oh well.
Cypher.
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December 26th 20XX
There are now 5 more happy families on Springhall Island. It took a bit of co-ordination with the parents of the 5 families and Delibird but it all ran smoothly. Delibird when up to each of the houses and gave the child of the house a present from his tail pouch with instruction to come to Cypher’s Grotto. The excited child came down to a little Christmassy hut beside the gym where they got to meet Cypher Claus (I’m not wearing a white beard ... ever) and receive their own Togepi. Many happy tears were spilt.
After that I enjoyed the town’s festivities. It was a nice relaxing day.
Today however was different. The ERJ needed a once over which took forever, then I needed to pack my clothes ready for the trip. I’ll be flying to Davenport in about an hour, so this journal will need to be packed away soon.
I’ve cleared the flight path to Jubilife with Air Traffic control and booked a landing slot. Surprisingly the Airport there will be busy. I suppose people who visited family will be wanted to return home. Davenport Airport doesn’t want me taking off at 5am though. Something about noise laws and safety concerns. So we had to differ to 6:34am, seeing as the first few minutes have other aircraft, taking off.
That’s all for now.
Cypher.
Total trainers for season = 257. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for December 56:33 = 59% a quiet month and a nice ratio. For the year 257:178 = 69% a nice little improvement.
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December 30th 20XX
At the time of writing it is 8:30 pm Jubilife Time ... so about 7:30 pm Springhall Time. I have been forced by the airport to take a late take off slot due to increased traffic from charter airlines and the like. But to make up for it they have waived the fees. So it sort of evens out. I’ll be taking off in around 45 minutes; however there have been a few delayed flights so it could be an extra 20 minutes on top. Either way I’ll be on the plane with everything ready for the 9:15 slot and hope for an open one earlier or in the event of the delays actually affecting me soon after.
Emma had a great time in Oreburgh; the fossil is apparently made up of parts of Cranidos and Shieldon as if they died while fighting. There were also fossils of plants and Pokémon found in close proximity to the main fossil. The visit wasn’t without purpose for me. Firstly Emma gave me a present of an Old Amber, with a sizable amount of Aerodactyl DNA in it. Secondly I won a MASTER BALL from the TV station in Jubilife. And Thirdly I got on TV because while I was at the TV station I got interviewed as part of a live TV show about ... something.
I haven’t got much longer to write this so I’ll finish up quickly and get on with final preparations for my flight.
Oh I need a new year’s resolution ... I will aim to offer my services for flypasts and displays and try to do at least 1 a month ... once the Skarmory are trained ;-p (I hate emoticons but that was kinda funny)
Cypher
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January 6th 20XX+1
I had my first battles of the year today. Eight in total with six victories. While that might sound really good it isn’t because I will have to re-battle each of those losing trainers again soon.
There isn’t much else to talk about really. The Fox Archipelago Yacht Race will start on the 1st of May so I’ll need to be ready to go my display then. I’ve got the harnesses for the Skarmory on order along with the smoke canisters. I need to measure them for the headset so I can give them commands in the air. And teach them the commands of course.
That’s about it really. Not much else to say in this entry.
Cypher
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January 13th 20XX+1
The gym had no challengers today so I went up with the Skarmory and Pidgeot and Staraptor to get the formation in some form of order.
Although this will look awful I’ll try and show what the formation will look like:
Skarmory (Blue Smoke) – Skarmory (Red) – Pidgeot – ME (White) – Staraptor – Skarmory (Red) – Skarmory (Blue)
Obviously we will fly in a swept formation but it’s hard to show here.
As for the flight, well it didn’t go to plan. Because I don’t have the headsets for the Skarmory I had to rely on Pidgeot and Staraptor to forward the commands to the Skarmory. As a result there was a delay and the formation kept breaking up. However it didn’t matter too much, all I was aiming for was to get the group used to flying together. And they were perfect in steady straight flight.
I’m going to start teaching the Skarmory the commands as well as to focus solely on my plane. It’s the best method for formation flying so there is no reason to change from it.
On a gym note, apparently there will be a large number of trainers coming into Davenport by the end of the month. Probably the remaining foreign trainers who are leaving it late to complete the Actopon circuit. I don’t expect many to come here for this month. February will be a killer though. I might put the six or seven badge restriction on again this year. And I assume the Möbius Gym will do the same. I’ll send a message to the Davenport Docks to inform trainers planning to come to the Fox Archipelago to have a minimum of Six Actopon League badges before challenging the Air Gym.
That should reduce the amount of trainers that come here and fail miserably and have to waste 2 weeks going back to Actopon training then coming back here.
Cypher
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January 27th 20XX+1
The last two weeks have been pretty hectic. Sporadic gym challenges. Harnesses and smoke canisters to fit to four Skarmory. And get them used to flight with both the harness and weight of smoke canister AND smoke being released. Get Pidgeot and Staraptor used to flying with the Skarmory using the smoke. And there are still: headsets to be made, a control panel for the smoke to be fitted to the F-15 and remote switches for the smoke canisters to be affixed.
And on top of that Winona from Hoenn is going to be visiting within the next month. I don’t know why, she was being very secretive about it. According to some sources she has been spending a lot of time around Pacifidlog Town. So maybe she’s been looking into Rayquaza. I don’t know, I’ll find out when she gets here.
There are still four more days until the end of the month. So I won’t put a summary of the month’s gym activity yet. But it’s looking good, even with the low amount of challenges. Speaking of which Pixy has been reporting record numbers of challengers to the gym. Reaching the legal maximum of 20 for the last three days. And the sucker is still fully booked for the next two weeks by the looks of things.
I’m glad I put the badge restriction into place. It’s a nice little clause the Air and Möbius gyms can use. Because of the level of strength of the two gyms, as well as the Air Gym’s isolation, we can restrict trainers from challenging the gym until a specific number of badges have been gained. While none of the other 6 complain about me being able to do it gets up them that Möbius can as well. That said I wouldn’t challenge Stephen and Jessica until I had beaten the other seven gyms including myself. Those two can rip practically any team apart.
I even heard that Lance from Kanto had a very secretive battle with the two of them not to long ago. Secretive because it would be the most epic battle since ... Stephen vs. Jessica when she was trying to get her Möbius badge. That was an epic battle. Stephen closed the gym to only allow his fellow gym leaders and the elite four to watch. I’m digressing. And running out of space. But yeah, Lance apparently battled the two in a mock gym leader battle and got beaten to hell.
Cypher
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January 30th 20XX+1
Four gym battles today with two losses. A nice 50-50 to end the month on. But seeing as I only had around 40 for the month it’s not going to affect the overall balance for the season. Continuing with gym news, Guillemot, Jack and Anthony are all working hard with their training.
Anthony is finally beginning to develop his stalling style of battle. It is hurting him slightly that one of his Skarmory is being used for my display BUT he should only use one in each battle anyway. He’s been trying out a residual damage move set on his current Skarmory. Stealth Rock + Spikes + Whirlwind + Roost. That is just going to piss the trainers off. And an awesome idea. It suits his style of battling. He has to be careful though, with no attacking moves if he gets taunted he will be forced to switch and that could cost him as that will give the challenger a chance to set up and prepare to take him out.
He’s also been trying to get a good special wall and is using Mantine. Only it’s quad electric weakness sucks. I would suggest Togekiss but ... that’s MY signature Pokémon. So I’ve given him a Ledian. While not a good attacker its special defence is pretty ok. And it might be able to Baton Pass pretty well.
Jack on the other hand is struggling with his reliance on physical attacks ... not much I can do to help really. He just needs to think for himself on that one.
Guillemot is an idiot. While that is widely known I feel an urge to say it again. He battled a kid with his WINGULL. While he loves them he should stick to Pelipper in battle.
Not much to report on the formation flying or Winona. I still need to finish building the headsets for the Skarmory and Winona hasn’t contacted me yet telling me when she’s coming.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 298. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for January 41:24 = 59% same as December, not surprising seeing as both months were slow. For the year 298:202 = 68% looking pretty good. February will seriously fuck this up though. That said I do have about 150 more badges to give out.
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February 2nd 20XX+1
I got the phone call from Winona today and I was right, obviously, she was studying the Sky Pillar and Rayquaza. However that’s not why she’s visiting, she wants to study formation flying. That’s a bit of a shock, as she would have to ride on of the Pokémon in order to do it; which can be hard. Not that it will be a problem, I think what she wants to do it try and learn how to fly as a flock more than anything. That being said she’s already adept at it.
On a side note I got the head sets for the Skarmory made. There were no challengers for the last couple of days so I had lots of time to do it. I gave them a quick test today and the Skarmory responded to me commands nice and promptly with no complaints to their ears being covered. As a result we have started to really focus on making turns. While it sounds easy it really isn’t. The problem is that the Skarmory on the far edge of the formation are well over 30 meters away from the plane and 60 from each other. It means that when we try and turn the one on whatever side become up has to move through 30 meters AND keep position. And the one on the down side has to do the same only being careful not to lose too much altitude and keep position. It has been rectified somewhat by keeping their eyes focused on the cockpit of the plane. Still we are going to need some practice for the Yacht race display on the 1st.
Apparently a ferry has departed from Davenport packed to the brim with trainers with 6 league badges. They are expected here on the 14th meaning lots and lots of battles for a while. Not good news for my formation flying. I had better get some practice in while I still can.
Cypher
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February 18th 20XX+1
Good grief. Another day another 20 trainers hungry for a badge. Another 15 handed out today, on top of the 16 yesterday and 12 the day before and the 17 on the 15th. I'm pretty sure that I have given out more badges these last couple of days than I have for all of December and January.
I don’t feel like moaning about gym stuff. More importantly it was Stephen’s Birthday today. So I sent him a card and some ... present of some description ... don’t complain I send them over two weeks ago with the last ferry to leave.
Winona is coming on the 27th; she was delayed leaving Fortree city for some reason and missed the boat out of Slateport City. Not much else to say about that really.
I need to go to sleep, this journal takes time to write and that time could be being spent sleeping.
Cypher.
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February 28th 20XX+1
Oh what a month. So many battles. So many badges handed out. So many ways to impress Winona with my battling skill AND my formation flying skill.
I know she’s like 25 or more years younger than me but still. She is REALLY cute. Anyway I found a little time to talk to her today. We spoke about how I maintain the formation while turning and how all the Pokémon have to look at the canopy of my plane and know that when I say the command and say go my plane will move. What she wants to try and do is get a more natural formation where each member looks at one of its neighbours and copies their movement. Like in a flock. However it is a lot more dangerous when you have people riding the Pokémon. Still it would be interesting to see that in action.
This was once again the heaviest month for battles for the season with 191 ... nearly a third of the total for the first five months. And I gave out around 135 badges ... I have the exact figure somewhere. I’ll find it later I have the summary to write. With most of the February madness over, probably spilling into the first couple of weeks of March too, I will expect the number of trainers to cool off after that. April, May and June are normally quiet BUT do have a lot of trainers desperate to get that last badge.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 489. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for January 191:137 = 71% a sharp increase on the last couple of months. For the year 489:339 = 69% the effect of Dec and Feb must have been enough to keep the percentage for the year nice and ok.
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March 8th 20XX+1
The rush has finally begun to calm down. I only had 14 challengers today with 9 losses, which is kinda nice. I got a message from the Actopon League about badge numbers and predicted entrants to the league. Apparently 71% of those who signed up for this season’s Actopon League have at least 6 badges with 59% having 7 badges and 48% having all 8. Considering there have been a total of 586 applications to the league this year, there are now 281 trainers who are currently at entry standard. That includes the 47 Seeded Trainers (i.e. those that made it to the second round or better last year and are re-challenging the league this year.) so there are 234 new trainers and 209 wildcard slots. And there are still four months left for the badge collecting part of the league.
Looks like there will be a lot of disappointed trainers. Considering that roughly 47 (wow that’s kinda co-incidental with the number of seeded trainer entries) trainers getting all eight badges each month. With four left to go that’s ... 187 more entries to the league.
Winona left this morning; she’s taken a few books back with her. Stuff I don’t really have a need for seeing as I know pretty much everything about formation flying.
There are only 7 weeks left to perfect the display for the Yacht Race. Not that it will be a problem, the Skarmory are more than capable of learning the routine. It’s also going to be a simpler display. I would love to be able to do for more complex manoeuvres but we would need another four or five months to perfect them. For the display we’ll be doing a couple of crowd passes, a barrel roll from both directions and a loop-the-loop over the crowd before finishing off with a low level fly pass over the start line when the race starts.
Because of the distance from Springhall to Snake Island I will need to send the Skarmory, Pidgeot and Staraptor to Snake Island a week before the event along with Guillemot. He knows how to rig up the harnesses and headsets plus all the 6 birds adore the guy. It will make doing the display a lot easier on the birds if they only have to fly a short distance to meet up with my plane.
Not much else to do between now and the 1st of May but practice.
Cypher
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March 22nd 20XX+1
The ferry docked today and unloaded the next supply of trainers. Thankfully there weren’t that many, around 30 at the most. And it will be two weeks before they will be leaving. Unless they stump up the money to pay for a flight back.
Actually that’s reminded me, I haven’t had as many requests for flights from groups of trainers. Normally if 10 or more trainers are travelling as a group they fly out to Springhall by pooling their money. But I haven’t had any requests for my services. Not to say that no planes have been coming into the airport. Just the usual charter flights from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. There have even been a couple from Almia and Fiore and, surprisingly a couple from Mandarin Island Nth. Why anyone would want to come to the Fox Archipelago from the Orange Archipelago I do not know. Oh well, tourists are tourists.
The practicing for the display is going well; the barrel roll is very tricky to pull off though. We need to be climbing when we start because try and they might the bird Pokémon can’t maintain altitude when upside down. So when the manoeuvre starts we pull up 15 degrees and go though the motion of turning, however when we get to 90 degrees we compensate the birds inability to maintain altitude by allowing their flight path to return to level flight while we continue to rotate. After we pass 90 degrees there is no option but to continue the manoeuvre until we get to 270 degrees. It is impossible for the bird Pokémon to maintain flight at that angle and they naturally want to keep themselves upright. Pidgeot and Staraptor are not finding this problematic but they are closest to the axis (My Plane). The Skarmory on the edges are the ones who are struggling to maintain position.
I was contemplating removing the barrel roll from the display until I saw the birds freely practicing when I was at the gym. And it was an amazing sight. Without the jet they were able to talk to each other, probably supporting or advising each other. It is slightly worrying that they may need to be talking to be able to pull the barrel roll off. But hopefully they will be able to do it. All six of them are very eager about the flight.
The loop-the-loop on the other hand has been easy, unlike the barrel roll none of the birds have to worry about rolling while upside down. Only maintaining enough speed to climb. Not that it is without problems, the weight of the smoke canisters on the Skarmory makes it harder for them to be at the speed to pull up and roll with my plane, which is going as tight as I can make it go without slowing down or passing out. But these problems will be solved one way or another.
Cypher
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March 31st 20XX+1
Some days you just love being a trainer. So let me explain why today was so special.
Firstly Jubilee’s baby Togepi has started to really come out of its shell. Yeah it’s an awful pun but I can’t think of anything else to say. The Togepi has been waddling around the gym all day talking to the Pokémon making friends. It’s also been out in the gardens rolling around in the flowers and generally having a joyous day. On top of that Jubilee has been flittering around trying to let the Togepi be independent while still watching it like a Staraptor.
Secondly I got to battle a Phione. I have no idea where this kid from Johto got it but still. The offspring of the Legendary Manaphy. Pixy must have been so jealous. It wasn’t very strong but still was able to smack Fearow around.
And thirdly today is the last day for trainers to submit entry for the Actopon Pokémon league. It gives those who started today 2 and a half months to beat the Air Gym. Not much longer for this season.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 553. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for March 74:43 = 58% a relatively low percentage, kinda nice considering the number of trainers already trying to get into the league. For the year 553:382 = 69% no change. Will probably continue for the rest of the season seeing as April May and Early June are slow months.
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April 9th 20XX+1
Today was another quiet day. I didn’t do much in the end; I’ve been practicing the formation display with the Pokémon a lot over the last few days due to the quiet gym. So I gave the Pokémon an extra rest day, they deserve it.
Guillemot will be taking them to Snake Island tomorrow. It will take him around 10 days to get there. Hopefully the 6 birds will be able to fly on the 21st so that I can use the last few days to practice over the marina where the race will be starting. I will need to do a flight to Snake Island on either the 14th or 15th for timing. The race will be starting at 10 am sharp, so our display will need to start at 9:45 with it ending with the low altitude fly-pass of the start line at 10 am sharp. It will take me around an hour to get there so I will be leaving Springhall no later than 8:30, because I will need time to get into formation with the birds.
The flight path I will take is below. It’s a standard land tracing path really.
We only had a single challenger at the gym today. She won. But it was a nice battle. Her defensive style practically mirrored Anthony’s. It made for a brilliant display of stalling and residual damage build up. Anthony was impressed; he wouldn’t stop talking to the poor girl after he lost.
Her stalling style nearly lost her the battle against me though. Her Shuckle was relied on too much; my Aerodactyl dominated it and used the sandstorm to its advantage. Still she kept herself calm and collected and let the toxic poisonings and burns do their damage. After the battle we had spoke about her league challenge, she was confident about getting the wild card entry and couldn’t wait to get to the league. I had to advice her that the league battles have time limits and that if our battle had been a first round league battle she would have lost because it was 2-1 to me at 30 minutes. She took the advice on board I think. Oh well. We’ll see if she gets into the league.
Cypher
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April 21st 20XX+1
No gym battles today due to the second to last practice for our display.
The flight to Snake Island was fine; there was little turbulence and a lot of friendly chatter from the boats I flew past. It’s one of the better things about using the F-15 for flying. It get recognised a lot more and people have no problems with talking to me on the radio. Normally it’s little more than a “Hey Cypher” or “Nice Plane” etcetera, there is a lot of radio chatter between the islands anyway as its the fastest way of talking to each other.
We ran thought a mock display at Snake Island. We went thought the entire routine with the smoke. It went amazingly well. The outer Skarmory are more than capable of maintaining position during the barrel roll and the loop-the-loop looks amazing with the smoke pouring out.
After I got back I watched a video of the display Guillemot had recorded from the ground. It looks really impressive. A lot better than the standard “Machine and Pokémon in Harmonious Flight.” I’ll probably do another full practice display on the 26th after that however I won’t have time to do another and will need to get the plane prepared. Plus the Pokémon will need to be well rested for the 1st of May.
Cypher
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April 30th 20XX+1
Gym battles are a brilliant way of distracting myself from the flying display I will be doing tomorrow. I had 7 today and lost them all. But I don’t care. I’m excited for tomorrow. I’m going to need to go to bed soon. As I will be up at 5 am to get ready for the flight at 8:15. There is nothing left to prepare but I will want to do another once over on the plane before I take off tomorrow. Just call it paranoia. And not wanting anything to go wrong.
Guillemot says that the birds are all ready to go. Everything is in full working order and all the smoke canisters are topped up.
Only a month and a half until the gym battle season is over. I’m thinking that after the 15th of June I’ll spend some time on the mainland with Pixy. I’ll probably stay and help him out at the gym. Then go and watch the league in July/August.
Right it’s getting late (only 9pm but I do have to be up early tomorrow). ‘Night.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 607. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for April 54: 39 = 72% like I said at the end of March not a lot of trainers left. For the year 607:421 = 69% as expected no change. And unless I hand out only 30% of challenges for the remaining couple of months it probably won’t change.
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May 1st 20XX+1
WOOOOOOO! The 17th Annual Fox Archipelago Yacht Race got underway with a brilliant flying display, if I do say so myself. The crowds certainly loved it. I could see them cheering and waving up at the plane and birds as we did the display.
The birds are now on the way back with Guillemot; hopefully they will be here by the 10th so I can reward them. They didn’t put a wing wrong for the entire display. Keeping in perfect formation. I almost cried as we finished the display. Not the best thing to broadcast to the guys in the studio who were broadcasting the commands I was giving the Pokémon so that the crowd knew how we were staying in formation and doing the manoeuvres.
No gym battles today, I needed the rest of the day to relax after that display, seeing as I woke up at 5am, was in the air by 8:15 and didn’t touch down until 11:10.
It’s not as if there were many trainers banging on the door of the gym anyway. By now all the challengers to the gym have got the seven badges from the mainland and are willing to wait a couple of days before challenging me. But I will be back to my challenging ways tomorrow.
Oh before I forget so will Jubilee. She’s finally ready to return to battling. The baby Togepi, who we’ve decided to call Tornado. After we found him sitting in front of one of the aviation research books he had pulled from the shelf with the page about the Tornado open. Jubilee seems happy with the name so it’s going to stick.
Jubilee and baby Tornado.
Cypher
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May 19th 20XX+1
Today was the busiest day in the gym for a while with 14 trainers. Not surprising seeing as a ferry docked yesterday but still a large number for this part of the year. It caught us of guard a little so it isn’t surprising that 12 of them won.
Apart from that is was a quiet day. Spent most of the time when I wasn’t battling relaxing in the town with a cool drink.
I just love that. Being able to sit down at one of the cafe/bar/restaurant’s we have and enjoy a cool drink, a warm day and near silence in the dead centre of town. You don’t get anywhere else but Springhall Island. There can so little to do here but relax and let time drift by. I’m glad the feared expansion of hotels on the island never amounted to anything. I suppose that because there is so little to do away from the beach and the collection of shops in the town that there is no incentive for the big name hoteliers to develop the island. Mostly because the islanders are such a tight knit group that we can block any attempt to develop the island. Even if the regional government allows it. Those bureaucrats in Davenport don’t know what it’s like out here anyway.
I’m going to stop myself there. Thinking of that is ruining my evening.
Cypher.
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May 31st 20XX+1
Only two more weeks until the end of MY gym season. I don’t expect more than 20 challenges for June. Mostly because the last ferry, that will get to Springhall before the cut of date departed from Davenport a couple of days ago with 21 trainers onboard.
I had no challengers today although the gym did have 2 but both were defeated by Guillemot and didn't come back. They’ll make it 23 challenges in June then.
I’ve made preparations with Pixy to spend some time with him for three weeks. I’ll fly out to Davenport on the 16th of June and help out around the gym.
Cypher
Total trainers for season = 642. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for May 35:21 = 57% and again like I said at the end April and at the end of March not a lot of trainers left. For the year 642:442 = 69% as expected no change. And unless I lose only 30% of challenges for the remaining couple of WEEKS it probably won’t change.
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June 15th 20XX+1
AND IT IS OVER! I had the last 2 gym battles of this season today. Unsurprisingly I lost them. As with the other 22 battles this month. But it was expected. They only needed my badge and weren’t leaving until they got it.
And now for the final summary:
Total trainers for season = 662. Trainers to Gym Loss ratio for June 22:22 = 100%. For the year 662:462 = 69%. Compared to my target of 43:27 which is 63%. It wasn’t too bad of a year.
I’m off to Davenport tomorrow around 1pm. Not much to do there but relax and help out with Pixy.
It’s a short entry today but there really is nothing to talk about
Cypher.
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June 28th 20XX+1
Pixy has had a really rough time this season. His finishing loss percentage was 89% the worst of any gym leader. Maria was second with 81%. Emma and David tied with 77%. James pulled off an impressive 75%, considering his remote location. Heather had 72%. I was seventh with 69% and surprise, surprise Stephen and Jessica finished with only 58% loss rate. Meaning 384 trainers have got the eight badges necessary to apply for the Actopon League. With only 209 wildcard places available. There will be a lot of disappointed trainers that’s for sure.
However we have now entered the silly season. The Elite Four will be touring the gyms and battling trainers in each city. Unofficially of course. It’s part of the reason I came to Davenport. The Elite Four don’t go to Springhall Island because it is so far away. And I really want to battle Campbell.
I might give each of the gym leaders a battle too. Depends if they have time. I’m sure each of them wants a break after the last few tiring months.
Cypher
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July 12th 20XX+1
There was only one thing that happened today worth writing down here. It was a Pokémon battle. But no ordinary battle, mind you. Oh no. It was a 12 vs. 12 double battle between Me and Pixy and ... yeah it’s Stephen and Jessica. Each of us using six Pokémon. I won’t do into details here, mostly because I couldn’t do it justice but it was a true master class in battling. Oh I forgot to say, the battle took place at the Actopon League Central Stadium. Yeah, there is no better way to warm up the league stadium than to wreck it after a 45 minute battle.
The league officials didn’t see it that way though. Seeing as we weren’t supposed to be on the battlefield. Oh well, I’m 55, no snot nosed league bureaucrat is going to tell me what I do. I’m Cypher. Ok, ok I’m being selfish and an idiot. I’m just bored is all.
The league will be starting on the 4th of August and finishing on the 23rd
A short entry but to be honest there is so little to talk about during the silly season. Apart from training or as my Pokémon refer to it practice due to their high level of ability, I have nothing else to write about.
Cypher.
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August 23rd 20XX+1
And another season finally comes to a close. The final of the Actopon League was brilliant, the battle was between the number 37 seed, a 23 year old girl - Sheryl - from Almia and a wildcard trainer, a 35 year old “Late starting trainer” man - Garry - from Hoenn. It was a shame not to have any Actopon natives in the final but it didn’t devalue it. Anyway Sheryl won 5-6. She was just saved by her Kingdra’s Hydro Pump hitting Garry’s Venusaur ‘critically’.
She got to have her name written on the plinth at Champion’s Point and was presented the trophy by the previous year’s champion who she knocked out in the second round.
She’s going to be challenging the Elite Four soon. However Abbie is ill again. So I’m not sure what they will do, they’ll probably get someone to help her out. I’m not sure who but it won’t be me. I have to get back to Springhall Island. Leaving tomorrow morning.
Oh well all I can say is good luck to them all. I’ll catch the battles on the TV.
Cypher.
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August 31st 20XX+1
The gym is all prepped from tomorrow and the start of the 20XX+1-20XX+2 Actopon Pokémon League.
Guillemot, Jack and Anthony are all ready and raring to go. Their Pokémon are fully fit and trained.
As for Springhall Island, it will be the same as the last 25 + years with me a gym leader.
Except I have heard Professor Aspen is going to try and make an effort to get over to give the starter Pokémon out. That will be especially nice for the children.
Jeez a lot of fragments of thoughts today. Must be my old age.
Oh well, another year, another year of testing a wide variety of trainers. I shall enjoy giving them the chance to prove themselves and attempt to challenge the league.
Cypher.
that was really good (I'm still reading it). Did you make up Falkner's Murkrow or get it from me?
