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Mining Accident by Ferret-Badger - 1/5
Phil discovers a magnificent Fire Gem while mining, and it transforms him into a Groudon! Art and story by 
ferret-badger!
Original
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Phil ran a thumb through the handful of small gems in his gloved palm, admiring their glint and glitter under the light of his headlamp. Never had he – or anyone, to his knowledge – encountered such a strange treasure trove of different gems and stones. Ruby, sapphire, garnet, emerald, even diamond and type gems that magnified the power of certain moves when held by Pokémon… all miraculously pre-cut in perfect geometric shapes and arrangements of facets that glittered under the mining lights. But even their value paled in comparison to that of the evolutionary stones. Oh, the stones. Fire, leaf, water, thunder, moon, sun, shiny, dusk, dawn, ice, and some he suspected that had not yet even been discovered.
Geologically, it made absolutely no sense. Leaf stones were sedimentary fossils, fire stones shards of deeply colored volcanic glass, moon stones slivers of fallen meteorite, water stones amethyst quartz filled with bubbles of trapped water from the ancient water tables in which they grew. None should have been found together here, in one place, much less embedded in the rare black marble surrounding them on all sides.
If it all hadn’t been so valuable, or perhaps if he’d been a professor or an academic researcher, he might have taken the time to wonder why. But the sheer fact of the matter was that these gems – and even the precious surrounding matrix – were worth a lot of cash. Enough to expand his mining operations ten, twenty, a hundred-fold. Enough to buy equipment for larger quarrying operations and to hire teams of fighting and ground-types to do the work for him. He was already pulling a hundred gems a day with just a small team of human workers and pickaxes. Once they began to quarry…
He shook thoughts of an early retirement in warm, sunny, tropical Alola from his head as he tipped the handful of gems into one of his belt pouches. He shouldn’t get ahead of himself. There were still the permits to acquire, the surrounding land to survey and purchase if this miraculous belt of marble ran underneath them too. And he couldn’t let anyone else know what he had found before he had done so, or they’d take the profit for themselves.
He stretched, looking around, and yawned. The rest of his team had already gone back to camp for a late dinner before bed, as Phil preferred to remain behind to ensure for himself that everything was properly cleaned, stored, and turned off for the night. Looking around one last time, he began to nod, satisfied that everything was in place, when a faint red glow on one of the newly excavated boulders at the end of the tunnel caught his eye.
Kneeling next to the rock, he frowned. Gems and evolutionary stones were shiny, yes, but they didn’t glow with their own inner light. A tiny piece of stone, perhaps a millimeter square, had chipped from one face of the boulder to reveal a bare sliver of swirling, glowing red gemstone beneath. Maybe it was his imagination, but the pulsing red light felt warm as it fell across his face. As though entranced, he grabbed his pickaxe and began to chip it free. The stone around it crumbled easily, and he gingerly picked up as it fell to the ground with a clink.
It was a Fire Gem, but more massive than any he had seen before. He could feel the heat of the gem even through his thick leather glove, and with the gem fully exposed the temperature of the tunnel rose significantly. A trickle of sweat ran down back of his neck, leaving an odd prickling tickle in its wake, but he was too fascinated with the stone to be concerned. The fist-sized gem was entrancing. Iridescent fiery colors danced between the facets, seeming to change and flow between the deep reddish blacks of smoldering coals, the blazing orange of an inferno, and the piercing, painful yellowish white of a desert sun. He shuddered to think of the energy contained within a Blast Burn or Eruption used by any Pokémon holding such a powerful gem.
Suddenly the world seemed to tilt, and a wave of dizziness washed over him. The air was stifling and dry now, his gloved hand holding the gem nearly painfully scalding hot. He heard ringing in his ears, muffling the sound of tearing fabric and leather. His right boot and the rear of his pants felt too tight. What – ?
ferret-badger!Original
<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>
Phil ran a thumb through the handful of small gems in his gloved palm, admiring their glint and glitter under the light of his headlamp. Never had he – or anyone, to his knowledge – encountered such a strange treasure trove of different gems and stones. Ruby, sapphire, garnet, emerald, even diamond and type gems that magnified the power of certain moves when held by Pokémon… all miraculously pre-cut in perfect geometric shapes and arrangements of facets that glittered under the mining lights. But even their value paled in comparison to that of the evolutionary stones. Oh, the stones. Fire, leaf, water, thunder, moon, sun, shiny, dusk, dawn, ice, and some he suspected that had not yet even been discovered.
Geologically, it made absolutely no sense. Leaf stones were sedimentary fossils, fire stones shards of deeply colored volcanic glass, moon stones slivers of fallen meteorite, water stones amethyst quartz filled with bubbles of trapped water from the ancient water tables in which they grew. None should have been found together here, in one place, much less embedded in the rare black marble surrounding them on all sides.
If it all hadn’t been so valuable, or perhaps if he’d been a professor or an academic researcher, he might have taken the time to wonder why. But the sheer fact of the matter was that these gems – and even the precious surrounding matrix – were worth a lot of cash. Enough to expand his mining operations ten, twenty, a hundred-fold. Enough to buy equipment for larger quarrying operations and to hire teams of fighting and ground-types to do the work for him. He was already pulling a hundred gems a day with just a small team of human workers and pickaxes. Once they began to quarry…
He shook thoughts of an early retirement in warm, sunny, tropical Alola from his head as he tipped the handful of gems into one of his belt pouches. He shouldn’t get ahead of himself. There were still the permits to acquire, the surrounding land to survey and purchase if this miraculous belt of marble ran underneath them too. And he couldn’t let anyone else know what he had found before he had done so, or they’d take the profit for themselves.
He stretched, looking around, and yawned. The rest of his team had already gone back to camp for a late dinner before bed, as Phil preferred to remain behind to ensure for himself that everything was properly cleaned, stored, and turned off for the night. Looking around one last time, he began to nod, satisfied that everything was in place, when a faint red glow on one of the newly excavated boulders at the end of the tunnel caught his eye.
Kneeling next to the rock, he frowned. Gems and evolutionary stones were shiny, yes, but they didn’t glow with their own inner light. A tiny piece of stone, perhaps a millimeter square, had chipped from one face of the boulder to reveal a bare sliver of swirling, glowing red gemstone beneath. Maybe it was his imagination, but the pulsing red light felt warm as it fell across his face. As though entranced, he grabbed his pickaxe and began to chip it free. The stone around it crumbled easily, and he gingerly picked up as it fell to the ground with a clink.
It was a Fire Gem, but more massive than any he had seen before. He could feel the heat of the gem even through his thick leather glove, and with the gem fully exposed the temperature of the tunnel rose significantly. A trickle of sweat ran down back of his neck, leaving an odd prickling tickle in its wake, but he was too fascinated with the stone to be concerned. The fist-sized gem was entrancing. Iridescent fiery colors danced between the facets, seeming to change and flow between the deep reddish blacks of smoldering coals, the blazing orange of an inferno, and the piercing, painful yellowish white of a desert sun. He shuddered to think of the energy contained within a Blast Burn or Eruption used by any Pokémon holding such a powerful gem.
Suddenly the world seemed to tilt, and a wave of dizziness washed over him. The air was stifling and dry now, his gloved hand holding the gem nearly painfully scalding hot. He heard ringing in his ears, muffling the sound of tearing fabric and leather. His right boot and the rear of his pants felt too tight. What – ?
Category Artwork (Digital) / Transformation
Species Pokemon
Size 1280 x 1180px
File Size 252.9 kB
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