Pokémon species are hardly Burnet’s area of specialty, but she does know a lot of them from courses and osmosis from her husband’s work. It turns out that there are far more species of animals than Pokémon, but a lot of that comes from insects and fish. It also turns out that a surprising amount of Pokémon correspond at some level in appearance, function, and / or name to animals from Dusk’s world, and to a level that Burnet thinks is somewhat implausible to be simply convergent evolution. Not all Pokémon correspond to animals, though; there are quite a few that are plants or fungi, and plenty don’t correspond to any living organism - particularly Ghost-, Rock-, Steel-, and Fairy-type Pokémon, but with a smattering of other typed examples as well.

The similarities are definitely weird, but not weirder than the language and countries being the same. Or not much weirder, at least. It's still pretty weird. (Ghost, rock, steel, and fairy Pokemon are also kind of weird, but not the same way.)

It’s not that weird to Burnet! For her, Pokémon are the baseline. The wind is just as convenient on the way back, despite them heading in the opposite direction; if Dusk is paying more attention, she might rralize that it stays with them even whenever the Charizard banks. After about an hour or so, the Charizard comes in for a landing on Melemele island by Burnet’s house.

A man and

A girl are

out in front of the house, alongside a strange looking dog.

Hello again.

“Hello! Sorry about misunderstanding your confusion yesterday. It’s not every day you fail to notice you met someone from another world.”

“H-hi.” It’s almost more of a squeak, and immediately afterward her cheeks go red with embarrassment.

That's all right, she hadn't figured it out yet then either.

“Do you have a safe place to stay and a source of food? You seem alright, but it’s not the kind of thing I like to leave up for assumptiom. I don’t know what you would call them, without Pokémon, but for us that kind of free short term housing is usually handled through the Pokémon Centers.”

Yep, that's where the police sent her. Her world doesn't have things like that so much but churches do it sometimes.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Charizard.”

The Charizard flies off, in the same direction the first had arrived from.

Thank you, she sends, before the Charizard gets out of range.

“Zard I.”

Lillie’s bag wiggles, a little.

Hm?

Lillie seems to be trying to keep hold of the bag, but it it quickly proves fruitless; she rushes inside quickly.

Dusk's telepathy conveniently doesn't need line of sight. Is Lillie okay?

“I’m fine!”

She sounds kind of nervous, though.

All right. She's not upset about it, whatever it is, but she'll leave Lillie alone about it now.

Neither Burnet nor Kukui will talk about that, unless Dusk pushes.

He will chat a bit about other things, though, if she's willing. "It's fascinating to think about how our world and our relationship with Pokémon must seem, if you didn't grow up with it. What do you think of it so far?"

It's... different. She's not sure whether she should be comparing it to how her world's humans treat animals or how they treat each other - probably not quite either, really. The thing where they capture wild Pokémon is really weird regardless, but it seems to work okay from what she's seen.