Anonymous asked:
Any chance you could do another short piece within the underground league pokemon universe? I'd love to see something where parallels are drawn between a pokemon's HP gauge and their sperm count, where "fainting" is equivalent to being rendered infertile from taking too much abuse.

“And you think this new stat-tracking technology could be ready for next season?”

“Definitely.” The researcher paused. “Um, well – actually, let me show you first. Then you can decide.”

Petra chuckled, folding her arms across her chest. “Smart answer. Okay then, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Loretta swallowed, trying to still her nerves as she opened the folder on her computer desktop marked “SP Tracking”. The Gardevoir had been a fan of the Underground League since college, and it had been a direct inspiration for her PhD research. Now the League Commissioner was HERE, in her office, interested in the results of that research. For the shy young academic, it was a dream come true.

“So um.” She bit her lip. “So hit point tracking has been a well-established science for years right? And it’s based on the combination of various biometric monitoring systems: looking at heart rate, brain activity, blood pressure, things like that. It’s not perfect, but it’s been pretty damn accurate for the past decade or two.”

“Right,” replied Petra gently. The Nidoqueen was quite familiar with the basics of HP tracking, but the Gardevoir seemed like she could use some positive encouragement to still her nerves.

“Right,” repeated Loretta, exhaling. “So I thought, you know…what if you could take a system like that, but target it towards something more specific? Like tracking the health of a ‘mon’s individual limbs, or tracking their, uh…”

“…Their what?” asked Petra.

“…trackingtheirtesticularhealth,” the Gardevoir blurted quickly, blushing.

The Commissioner blinked…then grinned. “Ah. Okay. That makes sense. Is that…is that what you’ve been researching?”

“Yeah,” she admitted, still blushing. “I mean, I’m studying how to track LOTS of different kinds of health, but testicular health happens to be a fairly straightforward application of the technology. Easy to monitor and easy to test. Here, um…” She double-clicked on a video file. “Let me show you.”

The Nidoqueen leaned closer to the monitor, watching as the video began to play. On screen, there were two ‘mon: a male Machoke and a female Arcanine. In the upper left corner of the screen was a traditional HP bar, commonly used to track a fighter’s hit points during a battle. But underneath the HP bar were two smaller bars labeled “SP Left” and “SP Right”. Both “SP” bars were full, but the “SP Right” bar was a little shorter – perhaps the first 20% had been greyed out.

“SP?” she asked.

“’Spunk points’,” explained Loretta. “That’s just a working title, of course – you’re welcome to call it whatever you want.”

Petra chuckled. “No, that seems fine. And it – this is tracking the Machoke?”

The Gardevoir nodded. “Exactly. Here, let me fast forward to the physical testing–“

She scrubbed forwards along the timeline of the video, and suddenly the Machoke was on his knees. All three of his HP and SP bars had dipped a bit. Petra and Loretta watched as the female Arcanine stepped forward and delivered a solid boot to the Machoke’s groin. The male doubled over with an agonized groan, clearly favoring his left side. In the corner of the screen, all three bars dropped again – but this time, the “SP Left” bar dropped precipitously, down to about 30%.

The Commissioner could barely believe what she was seeing. “And this is live data?” she asked incredulously.

“Yep!” The Gardevoir twiddled her thumbs anxiously. ”I mean – this is a recording, obviously, but the data you’re seeing was ‘live’. Afterwards, the test subject confirmed that his left testicle had taken most of the force of the kick, and a physical examination after the trial further confirmed his testimony.” She bit her lip. “It actually swelled up quite a bit. We had to ask Alexis to kick a little more gently in the future.”

Petra nodded slowly. “If you don’t mind me asking…how does this even work?”

“Uh…it’s kind of hard to explain to be honest,” she answered, scratching her neck. “The short explanation is that it monitors sperm count. We can monitor the rate at which the male’s testes can produce new sperm, and use that as a proxy for general testicular health.”

The Nidoqueen poked at the screen with one finger, pointing to the greyed-out section of the “SP Right” bar. “And what’s this bit here?”

“Oh – that’s permanent damage. Most of the time, a male’s sperm count will return to normal levels after a few days of rest, but in some cases, uh…it doesn’t.” She looked at the Machoke on screen, who was still crumpled with his hands between his legs. “Greg was involved in a lot of our early trials, so he took some pretty rough hits. His maximum ‘SP Left’ actually went down a bit after this kick, too.”

“I’m surprised he kept volunteering,” rumbled Petra.

Loretta nodded. “Well, the other half of this study was a lot more fun for him, I think. We had to take a LOT of sperm samples.”

The Nidoqueen laughed. “You know, that works on a lot of the men in the Underground League, too.” She leaned back in her chair. “Very impressive. And it’s non-invasive?”

“Yes! The setup process is pretty straightforward, actually – you just need a Psychic-type to assist with the installation, and then you have to give the guy one hard squeeze for the system to calibrate properly.”

“Mm, that’s simple enough.” The female furrowed her brow. “Also, uh…excuse my asking, but have you tested the system…thoroughly?”

The Gardevoir perked up. “Um, yes, actually! We got lucky. We had one volunteer who was diagnosed with testicular cancer – which, I mean, clearly that was really awful – but I asked if he was willing to let us try some things on his testicle before it got removed, and he actually agreed.”

Petra was clearly impressed. “Damn. You must be VERY persuasive.”

“Well, um.” She blushed. “Again, there were a LOT of sperm samples.”

The Nidoqueen couldn’t hide her curiosity. “Well, what happened? Is there footage?”

Loretta blushed even harder. “Uh…y-yeah! Just, um…keep this one private, if you don’t mind?” She double-clicked another video file, and–

Now it was Petra’s turn to blush. On screen, a naked Ampharos lay on a table, his thick erection pointing straight up into the air. Next to him stood Loretta – also fully naked, with one hand gently stroking his cock. The same HP and SP bars were shown in the upper left corner. SP Left was full, but the maximum value of SP Right had already been reduced by half.

“Ah.” Petra coughed. “Okay, now I see how you convinced him.”

“Yep.” The Gardevoir fidgeted, trying to still her nerves. “So uh, I’ll skip ahead here too–“

She scrubbed forwards once more, and suddenly the Ampharos’s SP Right bar was just a sliver of red, almost completely gone. The male on screen was clearly in a lot of distress, despite the ongoing attention to his still-hard erection. A guttural moan came from Loretta’s speakers – the sound of a male overwhelmed by agony.

“Yeah, here we go.” Loretta’s voice was quiet now. “I had been punching him in the testicles for the better part of two hours – just the right one, of course, I didn’t want to damage the left one. I took sperm samples while we did it so that I could compare it to the results of the monitoring. And at this point, I knew we were close to the end, so…”

On screen, the Gardevoir lifted her fist high, then brought it crashing down onto the male’s right gonad as hard as she could. The Ampharos let out a high, despairing wail, twitching on the table. The “SP Right” meter went down to zero.

And yet, when the female lifted her fist, his testicle was still clearly intact. It was incredibly swollen – perhaps four times the size of its twin, and not exactly round anymore – but there were still two separate lumps in the Ampharos’s ballsac.

“Uh…did the monitoring not work?” asked Petra, frowning. “It’s still there. I was expecting it to pop or something.”

“Well, that’s one of the limitations of my research,” she explained. “The monitoring is based on sperm count, not the structural integrity of the testicle. At this point, his nut was ruined – there might have been a SMALL chance of regaining some functionality, but that gonad was shooting blanks, even if it was technically still intact. By that definition, his SP Right was zero, even if I hadn’t popped his right ball yet.”

The Commissioner raised an eyebrow. “‘Yet’?”

Once again, Loretta’s cheeks were red. “I mean…there’s still twenty minutes left in this video. I wanted to get all the experimental data that I could.”

“Oh don’t worry, I understand,” Petra assured her. “I’ve popped my fair share.”

“…This was my first one,” the Gardevoir admitted.

The Nidoqueen chuckled. “Well good for you! Sometimes you’ve gotta crack a few eggs to make a discovery. Or to make an omelette. Either one, honestly.”

“Uh, yeah,” Loretta agreed sheepishly. “And there’s still plenty of work to be done. I’m currently investigating new techniques that would monitor the structural integrity of each testicle, rather than the sperm count. That would solve ‘the popping problem’, as I call it, so that the bar doesn’t go down to zero until the testicle actually ruptures. That research is still quite primitive though, so I probably won’t have anything to show you for another year.”

Petra waved her paw dismissively. “Oh no, don’t worry about that – this technology is already incredible. The Underground League needs this, like, yesterday.”

Loretta lit up. “Really? That would be…Arceus, that would be incredible. I would love to help with that.”

“Well I’d love to have your help.” The Nidoqueen stood up, grinning. “I should go talk to the League tech team about this stuff, but before I go…any chance I could get a live demonstration? This still seems almost impossible…I’m itching to see it in action.”

The Gardevoir rose from her chair as well. “Sure! Let me call in two of our grad students – I’m sure they’d be happy to demonstrate.”

Together, they headed down the hallway, excited for the future of the League.