Previously on Galarian Days...
Through a twist of sheer dumb luck, Zander gets his own personal Armor Pass, granting him access to the Isle of Armor. There, he officially meets Sophia Zuker, and the both of them are greeted by the Gym Leaders in training, Klara and Avery... but they cheese it when the greeting goes sour, and enter the Master Dojo...
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Upon entering the Dojo, Zander and Sophia were greeted with the faint stench of sweat (which wasn't so faint to Zander due to his sharp sense of smell) while students and Pokemon were making use of the various training equipment. "So, this is the famed Master Dojo," Zander said trying to breathe through his mouth to keep from smelling the musk.
"I can't even begin to imagine what kind of amazing and/or terrifying things we'll end up finding here," Sophia wondered.
"Who's there?" a woman's voice asked. Zander and Sophia turned their heads towards the voice and saw a woman coming from the kitchen.
Sophia reached into her pocket and took out a paper card. "Right, I'm here to make a delivery for Honey?"
"Ah, that would be me!" the woman named Honey said happily as Sophia reached into her satchel and took out a cylindrical object. "So this must be my non-electric coffee maker!"
"That is correct!" Sophia confirmed. "And thank you for purchasing from the Battle Cafe!"
"Oh, I'm sure to get some use out of this handy device!" Honey said as she took her new purchase with her back into the kitchen.
"I thought you said you worked part-time at the Battle Cafe in Wyndon," Zander said after Honey was gone.
"I do," Sophia explained, "but ever since Rotom Phones were invented, most buisinesses in Galar get a lot of electronic orders for delivery. So it's my job to send out-of-town orders to their destinations should we get any such orders."
"Ah, so you're like, uh... an express courier for the Battle Cafe?" Zander guessed.
"Sort of."
"Welp, now I know what brings you to the Isle of Armor, but now it's time I got what I came for," Zander said before clearing his throat. He then called out to the dojo, "Could I have everybody's attention?"
At that, the students and Pokemon stopped what they were doing and gathered around the two new arrivals to the Master Dojo. After a few seconds of silence, Zander simply said, "I'm here to see Mustard, if I may."
"I'm right here," an elderly man's voice said. Zander turned around to see none other than the previous previous Champion of Galar walking towards the crowd from the trophy room in the right of the Dojo. "And who do I owe the pleasure of seeing little old me, if I may ask?"
"Me," Zander said. "I'm Zander, and it's an honor to meet you in person, Master Mustard."
"Pleasure's all mine," Mustard replied. "It's not every day we get an anthro coming to the Isle of Armor, let alone visiting the Master Dojo."
"I know," Zander said. "Anyway, this may sound sudden, unusual and unexpected, but the reason I came here is because... I humbly request a written endorsement from you so I can participate in the Gym Challenge."
"Is that so?" Mustard asked. "Well, perhaps I could be persuaded to give you the priviledge of taking part in the Gym Challenge... but it'll cost you. How did you fare with my two wayward students, Klara and Avery?"
"Oh, you mean the two Trainers in the Poison and Psychic uniforms?" Zander asked. "Yeah, those two greeters seemed pleasant at first glance, but my wolf ears overheard one of their discussions and found out they were anything but."
Meanwhile, Sophia saw through the blinds of one of the windows and saw two shades of purple approaching the dojo. "Uh, Zander?"
But Zander continued, "They were going on and on, talking about wanting to be Gym Leaders and hogging credit and all that mess, then they started calling each other increasingly graphic names that I don't want to repeat in front of mixed company."
"Zander?" Sophia asked again as the figures made it to the door.
"Not now, Sophia," Zander dismissed. "Anyway, so Sophia here and I took their bickering as an opening to get away from their crossfire and just hightailed it out of there and got here, I mean they were really going at it, really getting into it!"
"Zander!" Sophia shouted, but the doors already swung open.
"In fact, I'd bet the fur on my tail that if I hadn't offered Sophia my support, those shady creeps would have kept her from sending Honey her non-electric coffee ma...." Zander slowed down as he saw two shadows on the ground, then folded his ears back as he said sheepishly, "They're standing right behind me, aren't they?"
"Yep," the bystanders said in unison.
Zander turned around and saw Klara and Avery standing in the doorway, sweating and gasping for breath. "Shady creeps... are we?" Avery gasped, the Poke Balls around his hat starting to flicker.
"Would shady creeps... come here to report... that there's a giant... whatever..." Klara tried to say, but she was too exhausted. "Could I get something to drink here?"
"As well as I," Avery gasped.
"Giant?" Zander wondered before heading back out, but was hit with an intense wave of heat and bright sunlight! "Gah! Was it always this hot out?" he exclaimed as he shielded his eyes. "We were out here 30 minutes ago, it was not this hot!"
"I was there too, I can vouch for him!" Sophia added.
A dual sigh of refreshment was heard in the background as Klara and Avery had just each chugged down a beverage from the dojo's recently installed vending machine. "Well, if you need to cool down, you should stay here, especially with all these drinks we have now," Klara said. "Thanks, Mrs. Honey!"
"You're welcome!" Honey called back.
"Well, you can stay, but I'm doing something," Zander said as he exited the dojo and approached a log.
"Ha! Do something, he says," Avery said derisively. "We tried to do something about that thing, but our Pokemon were almost reduced to dried broth stock! What makes him think he could manage?"
"I think you'd be surprised," Sophia said as he watched Zander work.
Everyone looked outside as Zander snapped a branch off of the log, and with a flash of cyan light, the branch changed into his sword. He then used it to quickly chop off a section of the end of the log, and when he picked it up, it changed into his shield in a flash of magenta light. Already, the comments were pouring in. "Whoa!" "That is so cool!" "How did he do that!?"
But a gutteral roar rang out, cutting off their amazement. Zander turned towards the sound and saw a giant flaming red lizard in the Soothing Wetlands, blasting flames and making the sun burn hotter each time. It dried up all the puddles and even made the Pokemon there pass out from heatstroke, if not made them shriveled up and dried out!
Zander rushed towards the monster and shouted, "Hey, bonfire! There's a fine line between well done and burnt, you know!" That got the monster's attention and made it blast more flames at him, but he simply raised his shield and activated the force field, rendering the flames useless. Not wanting to waste time, Zander then leapt at the monster and shoved it into the rock wall with the force field, knocking the wind out of it. After letting the field down, he then extended his sword and swung it at the monster, finishing it off with several slashes and making it roar out in pain until it exploded into a massive cloud of red dust!
With the monster destroyed, Zander's weapons disappeared in flashes of light, and a cooling breeze blew some clouds towards the wetlands. With a low rumble of thunder, a drizzle of rain gently poured over the wetlands and rehydrated them, cooling them down and refilling the puddles, and especially making the Pokemon happy that the wetlands were once again wet!
Zander even opened his muzzle and caught some raindrops on his tongue, until the voice of Mustard caught him by surprise. "Well, I'll be! I was just about to see about this monster I hear fom Klara and Avery about, and here I find the sunlight's gone back to normal! What did I miss?"
That started the students' commentary back up. "Oh, Master, you should've seen it! There was some giant, red fire monster turning the wetlands into a sauna!"
"But then that wolf made a sword and shield out of a log, and used them to destroy the monster! He was all, 'Tsyun! Shew-don! Shoyan!'"
"And then the monster exploded, and the rains came back and moistened everything back up! Oh, it was epic!"
"My, my, sounds like you all were given quite the show today!" Mustard exclaimed. "But how was it all possible?"
"With all due respect, Master Mustard, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you," Zander said.
"Oh? Try me."
"Well, simply put, I was recently chosen by Zacian and Zamazenta who marked me with the royal colors to become the Wolfen Knight of Galar, which is how I'm able to arm myself with a sword and shield from pretty much anything... I think," Zander explained. "As a matter of fact, they were the ones who told me about the Isle of Armor and to get an endorsement from you."
"So, the legendary Pokemon of Galar have finally opened up enough to others to let them in on defending Galar," Mustard contemplated.
"Indeed so," Zander confirmed. "As for that giant monster I just fought, well... I don't know what it's called, or where it came from, but I do know that I also fought two similar hazards yesterday, so I guess I'm lucky that I only had to face one."
"Perhaps we can shed some light on that subject."
Everyone turned around and saw Klara and Avery, with their wits back about them. "That monster is called a Dynamiasma, a creature created from Dynamax energy by draining said energy from a Power Spot," Avery said.
"As for where it came from, all we know was that after you and that girl left us hanging from our one-time-only teamup," Klara added, "a man in black and a woman in white came by and took us up on that offer by spraying some kind of perfume that made that monster, then left us with it saying they were going mushroom picking."
"Mushroom picking?" Zander asked.
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While the conversation was going on, a Flying Taxi was coming out of the Forest of Focus with Elle and Turner inside. Elle was just pocketing her perfume bottle while Turner was holding a sack of glowing red mushrooms in his lap...
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