[ti]closed[/ti][C/Altair][TUTORIAL] Here, Kitty!

"Sadly, there isn't yet," Josh added. "Wouldn't surprise me if it's at the end of the current main quest line that's going on. Dragon is one of my favorite four types, too. The other three being electric, fire, and flying. They're the four types with the highest median travel speed." Because of course that's what the Pokémon racer wanted.

Altair's point made sense, given how much of the map was covered by ocean. If it was anything like other video game world maps, all the land masses would conveniently fit in a rectangle, with no wrapping around the edges. Final Fantasy II was the only game with such a landmass that came to mind, and was that game ever poorly received. A failed experiment, that much was for certain.

"I want to fly, too," Josh nodded as their Pokémon continued to rout out normal-type Pokémon. "I've heard there's a serious height limit, though. I would just love one zone where free flight is possible. Could you imagine, say, flying on a Dragonair? With how nimble they are in the air, it'd be like a living roller coaster."

Josh, too, reined his mount to a stop as Altair paused, his friend clearly upset with the revelation that flight was limited. "I haven't been able to try myself," he admitted. "Don't have a flying Pokémon I can saddle yet. I couldn't tell you firsthand." He had his Naganadel, Izoni, but the young trainer was nowhere close to being able to saddle the Ultra Beast. That would be one long grind. Rewarding in the end, but a very long grind.

"My guess is maybe...a few dozen feet in the air? There's got to be a free flying zone somewhere. They probably just don't want to have to deal with performance issues that come with great draw distances." Even with modern hardware, processing limitations were a thing. He expected to experience it when he saddled the very fastest Pokémon UNOVR had to offer.

"I am growing tired of hearing Lillipup. Think they chased all the Purrloin away?" Josh half-joked as he waved for Altair to keep moving.

"It's one thing that's going to be a bit annoying with raising the Pokémon I want," Josh mused as he watched Altair 's Pokémon chase the Lillipup away. "Canine and feline Pokémon are both fast. Real-world wolves can hit 40 miles an hour. I can't imagine how fast a wolf Pokémon could go." A Mightyena could be fun to travel on in the early game, but the power would taper off so quickly.

"That or the devs start adding free-flying zones," he added. Limiting flying made sense to ensure they wouldn't have unfair advantages in combat, such as being out of attacking range. Even so, a place where he could ride a diving Pokémon, only to swoop up at the last moment, sure would be nice. "A place where we could race Pokémon and take full advantage of the third dimension. Of course, I'm nowhere near the level you'd need to be to ride a flying Pokémon. A Yanmega is the first one I'll have access to, but not until... I think level eleven. And even then, it doesn't seem like a great first one to learn with."

Altair's reaction came to no surprise; those uneducated about how truly massive the species would find out of their scale when they saw the bug-type for the first time in person. "They're... big. Really big. When I get Xira evolved, you'll see. That's a ways off, though. Four whole levels. And every level seems to take more time than the last one, despite moving to zones that have Pokémon that are the same level I am." The bigger concern wasn't the size, but the noise. Wings strong enough to lift an insect of that size on top of a rider on its back had to be extremely loud. It would be yet another solution he would need to handle when he got that far.

Josh rolled his eyes at the sight of yet another Pidove. The little bird was cute, but not the Pokémon he was looking for. "No kidding. 25% encounter rate, my ass," he swore in frustration.

Some of those sizes couldn't have been right. It was well-known that with the size-to-mass ratio of a Wailord, the giant water-type should have been lighter than air. Realism also would have eliminated what Josh wanted to do with his Pokémon. "If we went by original in-game Pokédex sizing, then the Square-Cube Law would get in the way of a lot of Pokémon... existing as we understand them," Josh pointed out.

But that was part of the series' charm.

"I'm starting to grow bored," Josh sighed as his partner shooed yet another Pidove away. "Gonna hop on global and see if there are any new instances anyone's discovered. Really fell like exploring the world instead of catching a cat that I'm gonna need to go through some extra hoops to be able to ride on." Little did he know just how many hoops he would have to jump through...

Josh did a spit-take at the mention of the Dragon-type trainer class that was still undiscovered. "I'm sure there would be a staff announcement on global for something like that," he laughed. "I highly doubt just anyone could stumble into that. I was more thinking to get our battle skills up to snuff. Get that precious XP. Maybe a few hidden BYTES if we're lucky."

He did a search and as it turned out, there was a recently discovered Instance with openings for parties. "Come take a look at this," he gestured. "It's called the Gnarled Root. Looks to be like... the inside of a giant tree. Has a really low level recommendation too. I think it'd be a fun little adventure; what say you when we bag my little cat?"

If that cat would ever show up, Froakie continuing to be on bird-shooing duty. "You're not the only one. I love dragon Pokémon. They're some of the fastest Pokémon out there, behind electric, fire, and flying-types!" Because of course the speed-focused trainer would know that...

"Correct; I believe all the others are accounted for," Josh confirmed after rummaging through the Class menu for a while. He, too, wanted to meet the Aviator class requirements, but some of them looked... scary. Riding accidents were not fun, and it looked like many of the requirements would be linked to one. "I'm still chasing Bolter myself, but no one's organized a race yet. I think I'm going to have to do that myself. Would you be down in the near future?"

As the two made small talk over future plans, it seemed Altair's Froakie got to the wild Pokémon faster than his Mudsdale could. No surprise there; while the horse was speedy, he lacked the agility of the smaller amphibian.

"Gnarled root. I think we'll be going underground, not climbing," Josh speculated, based on the title and description.