In the vacuum of space, a girl drifts.
She's gotten over the panicking at this point; she doesn't seem to be running out of air or freezing or burning to death right now. But she is very very lost, and doesn't remember where she came from
There isn't really much to do except look at the stars. Her clamshell's gone flat and it's not like she gets the Archive in space.
A golden glow appears in the distance, gradually drifting toward her. She'd be forgiven for mistaking it for a star at first, except for how it seems to have more shape to it than a sphere as she gets a better look at it.
She looks. This is either very good news or very bad news and she's not sure which.
The glow draws nearer. It seems to be some kind of creature.
Its voice booms gently across the void.
"Be at peace, human child. It is well that thou art here. What is thy name?"
It nods, and the light dims, revealing an equine-shaped creature with a longer, almost centaurian section rising up from the front, a helmet-like head, and two golden, ring-like extrusions on its sides.
"I am that which humans call Arceus. I would see thee brought to a safer place, in hopes thou might one day learn thy power that brought thee here, and grow closer to humans and Pokémon alike."
It leans in closer to her.
"Thou wilt find friends easily. I will repair thy communications device."
Sparks of gold appear and swirl around her, before dipping into her purse and floating out her clamshell phone. The sparks swirl around the clamshell for a few moments, as a glow envelops the device, before receding to reveal a gold filigree in a delicate pattern of hearts around the pink exterior of the device, with a subtle ring-shaped design in the center of the top reminiscent of Arceus's rings. Then it floats back into her purse.
"Venture forth and grow, Audrey. Thy Pokémon Adventure awaits."
The glow envelops Arceus again, and then Audrey, before suddenly Audrey is shooting away from the Mythical Pokémon, falling through the void toward what first looks like a distant star, then rapidly reveals itself to be a planet orbiting that star.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!!!
She plummets through the atmosphere, wind whipping her hair but somehow not burning her from friction, plunging down down down towards distant green and the glass flashes of a nearby city -
And slams into the ground in a landing that somehow leaves her staggered and winded but not, actually, dead? Like, at all? She's doing okay?
She picks herself up off her hands and knees and looks around her, trying to ascertain just where the heck she's landed.
Audrey finds herself in a meadow full of wildflowers, near a tree-lined path that winds through the land. In the distance to the south she can see the edges of a city skyline, while over the trees to the north and east she can see distant mountains.
Unfamiliar creatures lurk in the grass and tree branches.
And just a few meters away are different unfamiliar creature, and a purple-haired girl just a couple years older than her.
The nearby creature is small, with a white body, round head, almost-leafy green bowl-cut hair, and thin plate-like red spikes to the front and back of her head.
"Raaaalts??" she says aloud.
{Sable, love, how did that girl fall from the sky and live? Is she okay?}, she asks Sable telepathically.
Meanwhile, the purple-haired girl is shocked and worried about Audrey. {No idea.}
"Whoa! Hell of a fall! Are you okay?"
She bustles over to start checking Audrey over, looking for anything obviously broken.
She's wearing purple hiking boots, durable-looking black leggings, a pale pink skort, fingerless black gloves with purple trim, and a black t-shirt with a purple design of a pokéball with wavy concentric circles radiating out from it.
Audrey dusts herself off and takes a moment to still her breathing. She's wearing a flared miniskirt in red and black, a tank top, and black arm warmers with a pair of stompy boots. She's also wearing an obvious collar.
"Yeah, I'm fine, nothing seems to be broken or anything." She rubs the back of her head. "Uh, does a white furred alien with gold rings on it that calls itself Arceus mean anything to you?"
Sable blinks, taken aback.
"That is what the few people who've seen it say Arceus looks like. It's the Mythical Pokémon said to have created the universe. Although... calling Arceus an alien is really not what I'd expect?"
"Sorry, I, uh, don't think I'm from around here. I woke up drifting in space and my memory is kind of foggy. Arceus, whatever kind of creature it is, sent me here using some kind of obvious magic. I realize this is probably a ridiculous claim for you but I've got nothing better than the honestly pretty ridiculous truth."
"Ra-ralts," she replies in a disagreeing tone.
{Not that ridiculous, no,} Maya comments privately to Sable.
"Exactly, Maya," she comments to the little white-and-green creature beside her, before looking back at Audrey. "You fell at least a few hundred meters out of the sky, with no obvious source for you to fall from, and face-planted without getting hurt. On top of that, you don't seem to know what pokémon are. At this point, my top guesses are either shenanigans by a Legendary, or a teleportation accident coupled with serious memory loss to make you forget what pokémon are, and what you just described is literally a shenanigan by a Legendary."
"I... see?" She shrugs. "Um, hi, I'm Audrey!"
She offers her hand to shake. "Heck of a way to meet someone new! I didn't expect humans, that's for sure."
"And that's Maya. She's a Ralts, a species of pokémon. Should I assume you know absolutely nothing about pokémon and explain everything from scratch?"
Sable stretches, bouncing a bit on her heels. "Oh wow. I've never gotten to do the speech before. It's usually the local Professor doing it, and then usually in a video you watch before you get your trainer license."
Then she grins at Audrey.
"Welcome to our world. This world is full of creatures we call Pokémon," she says, gesturing grandly at Maya.
Maya strikes a pose. "Ralts~," she says. Then, a bit of a purple glow around her horn, she floats a rock, orbits it once around Audrey's head, and then drops it to the ground.
"Pokémon come in lots of shapes and sizes, and, as Maya just demonstrated, with all sorts of abilities. Humans have shared this world with Pokémon for thousands and thousands of years, as far back as we have records, but we still don't know anywhere near everything about them. Most Pokémon live in the wild, some live with people as friends, and some partner with trainers to battle each other, whether for prestige or to get stronger and help people. Pokémon and their trainers work together to help out when natural disasters hit, or to mine ore, or to build houses, or anything else, because there's no end to the things humans and Pokémon can accomplish together with a strong enough bond.
"Any questions so far?"
"What kinds of abilities? Do all of them have magic like that? Why battle and not, like, date? Do I need a pokémon to be safe around here?"
"In order: Lots! It ranges from physical movements stronger than muscles alone would allow, to elemental punches or bites, to healing, to telepathy, and so much more. They all can do something, usually several things, not usually the same things. Most pokémon want to battle but not all, while pokémon and humans interested in dating each other are comparatively less common and there's occasional stigma. And finally no, not if you stay safe in a city and stay out of trouble, but otherwise yeah totally."
"Ra-raaa..."
{Sable, I think she was not asking about pokémon/human relations, but rather the human trainers.}
Sable blushes. "Aaand you probably weren't asking about pokémon-human dating. Oops."
"No, actually rishathra just makes sense, especially if you don't have to worry about cross-species fertility. A little surprised that not everyone's on board with that but I guess it could be hard to establish consent through the language barrier? And huh, interesting that pokemon have an inherent competition or conflict drive, that's funky! All of them? Really?"
She hop-skip-jumps over to Sable's side and runs a hand through her hair with a shy smile. "Um. Sorry if I'm a little intense, alien culture and all." She opens her arms. "Do you do greeting-hugs here?"
"I do, not everyone does, more common among girls than guys."
She hugs Audrey cheerfully.
"Also, rishathra? It sounds from context like that's a word for interspecies relationships, but I've been staying out of your head since I don't know how you feel about that, so I didn't grab the exact meaning as you said it. As far as consent, I cheat, psychic human and psychic pokémon."
"You can read my mind??? Whoa, cool! That's only very vaguely possible using advanced techology on my world and you have to, like, implant a chip in the person's brain about it to even give them basic controls for a computer - totally wicked!!" She grins and bounces up and down.
"Definitely don't scan me just casually, but I definitely want to see if you can sort through my memories sometime and try and retrieve stuff. And yeah, it is. From a fictional book series, where I come from there's only humans who are smart."
"Oh wow. That's wild, a world without pokémon." Sable smiles warmly and shakes her head in wonder.
"Oh! Good question," Sable replies to her partner. "Maya wants to know if you have other creatures at all, even non-sapient ones."
"A ton of non-sapient creatures - we call them animals. Some of them we mostly leave alone, some of them are pests that get into garbage or ruin crops or bite people, some of them we domesticate and live with even though they're not very bright, some of them we domesticate, kill and eat. In between the two options there's things like eggs and milk and honey. There's been some recent studies on tool use in cows so there's a lot of investment in trying to make lab meat these days, which is just starting to come down in price enough to be affordable. Unfortunately a lot of people on my home world have texture sensitivities to vegetables so it's hard to go wholly vegetarian, but a lot of people will eat a tasty meat substitute preferentially over meat - falafel's big where I come from, so are persine wraps, but people like meat so a lot of them go on eating animals despite their ethical misgivings."
"Wow! That's fascinating. We've got synth meat too; the last big breakthrough was a bit before I was born, when they figured out how to use a combination of pecha berry solution and... something to do with Ditto cells, I think, to stand in for the immune system. It's pretty common these days. We need it, too, honestly, because there are a lot of mostly or exclusively carnivorous pokémon."
"That makes sense. I'm glad they're not eating each other if they're smart about it."
Audrey stretches and smiles. "So, what do we do about me now? I assume there'll be some exception handling process for "sudden appearances"?"
She reaches into her purse, rummages around, and pulls out a small wallet. "It looks like I still have my ID, so that should help?"
"Mhm!" She bounces a bit. "Wild kids wander in from the woods or mountains sometimes, kids who got raised by pokémon, and the pokécenters can handle that, so I'm sure they can handle you too. We'll just have to go back to the city and talk to Nurse Joy about it."
"Tsa ra-ral tsaaaall."
{It is not like you will be able to focus on training for the rest of the day anyway, darling, with a New Friend to make.}
"Maaaaya! You're not wrong but do you have to say it like that?"
Sable responds out loud, completely forgetting that her and Maya's psychic channel hasn't been extended to include her.
"What did she say?" Audrey wiggles.
She opens her wallet and starts going through the cards casually as they walk.
"Hmmm. This seems to be my conspiracy wallet. I think this is my conspiracy purse as a whole, actually. How old is this Nurse Joy person?"
"Um. She pointed out that I'd be too caught up with New Friend excitement for us to manage much more training today."
"Oh, but conspiracy wallet? You have conspiracies back on your world? Open ones that are known to exist, to the point you can talk about a conspiracy wallet, rather than villain Teams that run around stealing people's pokémon?"
"Yeah! They're partially open organizations, usually with ordeals to join and be initiated, and they collect people with common causes. The ones I'm in are childrens' conspiracies, for the protection of children from adults and their enrichment as people. I've just been kicked out of one of them for turning twelve, but I have another that's keeping me until I'm sixteen. The identification cards I have on me in this wallet are... I made a promise to not show any of them to anyone too old to be in on the conspiracy, because adults talk and you have to be cautious of people's privacy around their conspiracies. If the breach of trust was serious I could be thrown out of the conspiracy over it. Naturally it's safe for me to share the information from the first one, the one that's kicked me out - they knew I was going to age out and didn't confiscate my cards or anything - but the cards for the one I'm still in shouldn't be shown to anyone over sixteen if there isn't a pressing need."
"Well, lucky me I'm fourteen then. Wow, conspiracies to protect children from adults! That's so great! Here we just have pokémon journeys, and it's kind of assumed that if you need to get away from bad parents you go on your journey a bit early and then don't go home after."
Audrey nods along. "Makes sense! A little hard on someone who's bad at communicating with Pokémon, but definitely better than nothing."
"Yeah, it'd be rough if you had to befriend your starter from scratch, but usually if you hang around a 'center you can usually find an older trainer to help you catch a starter from the wilds around town."
She starts walking down the trail, back toward the city.
"Makes sense!" She smiles and follows along, tucking her wallet away again so she doesn't lose her cards on the way.
"So tell me about yourself! What were these conspiracies like, what else are you interested in, do you know what your type is — do people on your world even have types, actually?"
"You mean like redheads or blondes or girls with autism or authors or people who can recite pi?"
Sable blushes very faintly at Maya's tease before continuing. "What I mean, though, is a type affinity. Pokémon each have one or two types — normal, grass, fire, flying, psychic, fairy, poison, ghost, and so on — and a lot of humans do too. It's not always easy to figure it out, though. The obvious sign is unusual abilities, like my psychic abilities, but other types can be more subtle. I never would've figured out my fairy-typing without Maya's help."
"Well, I got here somehow, but I don't know if it was something I did or something Arceus did. My last name is Songbird?"
"Suggests I should probably show you some flying types for possible starters, just at a guess. At least if that last name resonates with you at all. My last name is Orchid, but you'd think from that I'd be all about grass types, and I'm really not. I like 'em well enough, but not that much."
She pulls out her pokénav plus and pulls up the limited free pokédex app (no real scanning options, but enough to get pictures of most pokémon at least). She filters by flying type (and Hoenn availability, of course), and starts flipping from species to species, holding it out so Audrey can see.
"Oh! That one! The one that looks like it's half bird half marshmallow! It's perfect!"
"Ooh, Swablu is a cutie. Normal/Flying, evolves into Altaria, which is Dragon/Flying. And it's the right time of year that some might come down from the mountains if we head up onto route one-eleven. We'll check that out after we get you registered."
"So what's the conspiracy you're still in like? What sorts of things do they do?"
"We write slam poetry and we do political organization! We're the Truth To Power Conspiracy. Technically a junior wing of an adult organization but we're our own chapter. We do, like, protests of ageist laws, really fast spoken word songs, investigative journalism, and stuff like that. I'm mostly in it for the poetry honestly but I do go to rallies sometimes."
Sable bounces on her feet a bit as she walks, smiling wide. "Oh that's so cool. I wish I could join that, but we don't have any good conspiracies here. Do you remember any of the poetry?"
"Sorry, I've never been big on memoriziation. I do have Jabberwocky by Louise Mirror memorized, but it's not exactly modern stuff."
"Alright then, I'll do my best! It's nonsense poetry, most of these words don't even mean anything in my language -"
She clears her throat, and recites:
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Huh! Okay that was fascinating. I'm pretty sure a lot of those weren't words, but I understood it anyway? Cool."
"Ra-ralts." The little ralts nods in agreement.
{Those were not words, but there was clearly intent. Very cool.}
"Yeah, Mirror's poetry is fun like that. She also wrote some children's books that were very popular, and still are to this day."
"Tsa-aaalts," Maya replies, her tone curious but accepting and patient.
{It would be nice to read books from another world, but a new friend is the better interdimensional gift if we have to pick one.}
"Yeah, I agree, a friend is better to get than a pile of books, even if the books really would be nice to see too."
"Sorry, I'm so used to there being everything available on the Archive that the only things I have on my clamshell are reference books - one or two of my favourite poetry collections and a few books on how to write the stuff."
"Understandable habit. Most people don't live the kind of life that leads to preparing to be dropped in different worlds. We'd love to see the poetry at some point, though."
"Sure! Maybe once we sort things out a little more though."
Audrey stretches and hums a little note. "New world new world off on an adventure~" she sing-songs.
Sable tries to catch the tune and continue it, "An adventure together with new friends~."
Audrey grins and snaps her fingers, and tries to carry the tune along, though it takes a moment for her to come up with words. "Adventure adventure as we go along, adventure adventure and so we sing this song, we're cuties together in a world of friends, on an adventure that never ends~"
She giggles. "That's life, right? At least, it is if the people in charge get their way and figure out how to solve aging." She bobs her head from side to side and smiiiiles.
"Yes please. That'd be great. I think some people here are working on it too. It's complicated, though. Fairy-type trainers tend to age a tiny bit slower, so that's one angle they're looking into, I think? But I dunno, it's not my specialty."
"They've figured out a way to preserve people after death so their neurons are intact a decade or so ago, but so far there've been no successful revivals of humans. One thing to preserve the body so it's theoretically possible to revive, another thing to actually reverse the process. I think they're doing testing on animals - do you have animals here or is everything smart enough to talk to?"
"No animals, just pokémon. Well, there are like... non-pokémon bugs, but basically nothing bigger than that. Some species of pokémon don't get people-smart without training-ish attention, while some start out that smart, and all of them can get at least as smart as a five-year-old. On average, they can get as smart as humans do, and some can get a lot smarter. People used to do casual pokémon testing in science, but nowadays they treat it the same way as testing on humans, with consent and all that."
"We have... significantly less smart non-humans than you have, up to human size and beyond. Some of them are pests, some of them are pets, some of them we, uh, eat. To what degree the animals in my world count as people is hotly debated - there are some that are close, but almost none of them can use language like a human can, and none of them or us have psychic powers to communicate with either. We're trying to dial down the use of animals for food, but people are used to eating meat, culturally, so it's a slow process to change that."
Sable nods. "Yeah, that's understandable. I think having pokémon instead of animals made us rush synthetic meat a bit faster than y'all did, because we're both very aware that some pokémon have to eat meat, and aware that they all either are or have the potential to be people. So we had to figure it out quicker. Maybe if we figure out how to get our worlds talking, we can share the tech."
"Yeah!"
After another moment of cheerfully walking along, Sable asks, "I wonder if you'll lean more battles or contests or something else, after you get settled in here.":
"Well, some people try to make a living on the battle circuit, pitting their teams against others' for fun and competition. There are bets between trainers over the battles, prizes for beating gym leaders, more prizes for competing in the League tournaments, and so on. Contests are more competitions of style and flair more than real fights, though they do include a stylized battle portion too. There's a whole separate circuit for contests, with prizes and payouts as well. On top of that, there's a small stipend that trainers get just for being registered trainers and staying active, because every active trainer is helping to make the wilderness less dangerous by catching pokémon and treating them well, forming strong bonds with them. Some trainers work as rangers, maintaining the routes between cities and helping to take care of wild pokémon populations and manage disasters. Some non-ranger trainers participate in disaster response, too. Gym leaders and a region's elites and champion all help out with that a lot too."
"I think I could go either way, honestly. It probably depends which one my pokémon like best!"
Sable glances ahead down the path. "Maybe another five minutes to get to Mauville, the nearest city, then another three or five from there to the center?"
"I see!"
Audrey nods along and looks around at the scenery, taking in the view. "Might as well enjoy the walk then; it's a whole new world after all."
"Oh, good question, Maya. Do you have a favorite type of landscape to visit? Or any favorite places from your world?"
"I visited the Cascades once, that was fun - they're a really big set of waterfalls way to the north of where I usually live. There are tunnels behind them in the rock so you can see the water rush past overhead. Great tourist attraction! There's a whole city around them these days because the falls are good for tourism."
"That sounds pretty! You might like route one-nineteen, then, there are some nice waterfalls there. It's on the other side of the city. Wanna add it to the list of places to visit while you're here?"
"Sure, why not? Any other cool places you can think of in that direction?"
"Ooh, good question. The Weather Institute is interesting, and Fortree City is really pretty, both continuing east along route 119. Continuing a good ways south from Fortree, Mt. Pyre is awesome, and the Safari Zone is pretty cool."
"Actually, no! It's a mountain dedicated to the spirits of those who've passed, especially pokémon, and it's one of the best places in Hoenn to find ghost-type pokémon."
She throws a smile over her shoulder and continues, "The volcano is Mt. Chimney."
"Ghost-type pokemon? Why are they called that? Are souls real here? I have SO many questions. Can they turn insubstantial?"
Sable bounces in place as she walks. "Yeah! Ghost-types! They're so cool. Most of them can turn insubstantial, and the ones that can't are pretty heavily themed around being something haunted so that I don't think they'd separate from their thing well. I'm pretty sure souls are real; there are occasional rumors of ghost pokémon that used to be trainers. I think, if I wasn't so focused on psychic and fairy types, I might've specialized in ghosts. Still might catch one."
"Gosh, if souls exist here that has so many implications. Like maybe resurrection eventually."
She shakes her head. "Not right now, Dreydrey, you have more important things to do at the moment."
"I'm sure somebody's looking into it, but it's definitely on my list of things to ask Arceus if I ever get the chance. Presumably it's doing something with the souls of the dead."
Little by little, they're getting closer to their destination, the path turning paved and houses approaching.
"Presumably, yes!" Audrey nods along.
She looks around at the buildings, noting their construction. Most of them seem noticeably smaller than anything back home - it seems like this city she's walking towards is more of a town?
"What's the name of this place you're taking me again? I think you might have said it but it's slipping my mind at the moment."
"Mauville! It's the home of Hoenn's electric-type gym, led by Wattson, along with the region's best cycling shop."
"Oh cool, there are enough bioelectric pokemon they get their own type? This place just keeps getting cooler!"
"Yep! There are eighteen recognized types: Normal, Fire, Water, Grass, Electric, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Steel, and Fairy. Type energy of different types interacts differently with each other, for example water-type moves are stronger against fire, steel is strong against fairy, and so on. Actually, here."
She pulls up a type-effectiveness chart on her pokénav.
Audrey looks at the chart and lets out a low whistle. "Gosh. Keeping all this in mind must take some memorization."
"It really does. It's mostly intuitive, at least? Waters put out fires, fires burn dry grass and wood, electricity grounds out in the earth. And then some types are defined by their resistances. Dark type, for example, is defined by the fact that psychic powers like mine or Maya's can't touch them."
"It does. You'd feel like an illusion to my senses, if you were, like your mind wasn't there, just something person-shaped and talking. When I was a little kid, like seven years ago, I was scared of dark-types, said they didn't feel like people."
"Took me a couple years to get over that, but now I kinda like 'em. They're some of the only people who can surprise me, if I'm trying."
"Aw, cute! I like that, yeah. It's good that you get to be surprised every so often."
She smiles broadly and nods. "I keep my senses pulled back enough that I don't really predict what people are going to say next, though, even without dark-types around, just because it's polite. If I don't, then I wind up finishing everyone's sentences. Psychic powers are so cool."
"Psychic powers are so cool! But yeah, please don't finish my sentences for me, I think it'd get tiring pretty quick."
Sable grins and laughs. "Yeah. I can usually resist that even if I'm in people's heads, but I definitely know if I don't suppress my telepathy."
"So it's a gift you have innately, huh? That's kind of cool. Wouldn't that make you Psychic type though? Is it possible for a human to have multiple types?"
"Yep! Up to two, same as a pokémon. The only difference is that not everyone does has two, or even one."
"Huh. I see. Is there a difference between being Normal type and being untyped?"
"There is. It's subtle, but Normal-type humans usually have enhanced mundane senses, and a knack for teaching."
"Cool! That sounds fun to have." She wiggles a little, some distant part of her psychobiome pinging at the word teaching.
She tilts her head. "Are there any other funky senses? What do ghost type humans get?"
"Shadows, and sometimes a sense for whether a place has seen death!" She bounces excitedly. "Poison gets an intuition about stuff that is or can be mixed to be toxic. Ground has soil stability and erosion, usually. Steel has a knack for metalsmithing. Grass has a great sense for helping plants grow. Flying can do air currents. Types are really cool."
"Yeah, for sure! I don't think we had them back on my world. I wonder if Arceus gave me one or not."
"Good question. It's hard to know for sure. Easiest thing is just to put you into a lot of circumstances that tend to prompt various type intuitions, like tunnels, or high windy places, or big gardens or forests. Takes a while to tick all the boxes, but has the bonus perk of a lot of exploration."
"Sounds fun! I'd love to go exploring. So there's some environment I'd react to in a characteristic way?"
"Mhm! Going through an underground tunnel could bring up rock or ground intuitions, for example."
"Tsalral raaaalll."
{And high, windy places, or riding a flying pokémon, for flying type.}
"Yeah! That's a good point, Maya. We should see if there's an opportunity to ride a flying pokémon at some point."
"Oh, that would be brilliant! We have flying machines on my world but I've never been on one before, so riding a flying Pokemon would be amazing."
"We could take one to the next city we head to rather than walking there, after we're done here in Mauville, if you'd like? I can probably fit a flight into my stipend, and you'll probably get a stipend too once you're registered."
"Awesome! We've gotta catch you a starter, and me a second, and then I need my Dynamo Badge. That's Maya's and my list before leaving. You could add to that, though, maybe get you a second, or challenge Wattson. The electric gym is a hard pick for a first badge with a swablu starter, though."
"Yeah, I would guess birds would not do so well against storm conditions."
Sable nods. "Flying's weak against electric, ice, and rock. Normal's weak against fighting, but flying's strong against it, so Swablu evens out there. But yeah, I feel like unless we're clever with who you aim for your second pokémon, Wattson's a really bad first gym for you. Better to figure out where you wanna take your team gradually."
"Flannery, Lavaridge Town's fire-specialist gym leader, who gives out the Heat Badge."
"That seems like it'd be a neutral type matchup? Fire versus birds doesn't have an obvious way it goes in my head."
"Yep, neutral match-up. Types that deal extra damage against fire include water, ground, and rock, so that's worth keeping in mind for your second if you want to challenge Flannery. I should keep that in mind with my next captures, too, actually."
"Marill, water/fairy, and wingull, water/flying, are both commonly found near here, among others."
"Pellipper is like somebody took a pelican from my world and cartooned it. Do they really look like that?"
Sable giggles and nods. "Yep! They tend to be pretty tanky, too, in battles."
"I could see myself having one of those. I like the unevolved form more but the pelican look is also cool."
She nods. "They're pretty great, from what I've seen. I was aiming to get a Roselia," she pulls Roselia up on her phone, "for our battle against Wattson, and then add a Marill before leaving the Mauville area for water coverage."
"Neutral against it, strong against the other type of one of the native electric pokémon I think he's likely to use, and fits the vibe we're going for with our team more than any of the ground-types found around here except baltoy, which is also on our list."
She pulls it up, and its evolution. It looks like a floating doll made of clay.
"Okay, maybe I shouldn't assume based on names then. I would not have predicted that at all."
"Yeah! The names definitely aren't always connected. Its evolution, claydol, has a much more descriptive name."
"I see! Cool. I like how Roselia looks too; I wonder if I could get one as well."
"I bet you could! They're pretty common on route one-seventeen, not too hard to find at all."
They're passing by houses and office buildings now, and soon they approach a building with a distinctive red roof and a pokéball emblem over the door. "And here we are, the pokémon center!"
"The first stage of our journey complete!" Audrey giggles and nods. "So who do we talk to?"
"Any Nurse Joy inside, they'll be able to get things started for you."
The doors slide open as the three walk up. Inside, there's a waiting area, a counter, and two hallways leading into the back, one behind the counter and one accessible to trainers.
A pink-haired nurse stands behind the counter. "Welcome to the pokémon center. "Sable, Maya, you two are back a little sooner than you'd planned. Does that have something to do with this young lady?"
"Hi, I'm Audrey. I, uh, am from way the heck far away and am here because of 'legendary pokemon bullshit', I don't have any family in the area and don't own any pokemon. In fact, until today I'd never seen a pokemon. They don't exist where I'm from."
For a moment, the nurse's smile doesn't change. At all. Nurse Joy is buffering.
And then her smile widens a bit in excitement and she leans forward.
Wow okay legendary pokémon happened here. That's very cool.
"Well, Audrey, I'm Nurse Joy! Welcome to Hoenn, and Earth, and a life full of pokémon! The simplest thing to help you get self-sufficient as quickly as possible is a wilderness child form, but I should ask, first, do you want to become a pokémon trainer? If I know Sable — and I do, she's been staying in the trainer dorms here for a week — she's probably introduced you to the world of pokémon and explained your options. But if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask."
"I do! I think they're amazing - actual smart non-humans! And I can't wait to learn more about them and make friends with them and and and and..." Audrey trails off, too many possibilities going through her head for her to actually get words out.
"I bet you'll be a great trainer, Audrey. Let's get some paperwork done, then."
She grabs a few forms from a cabinet and starts filling out a few fields, before turning them around and sliding them across the counter with a pen. "Okay, I'll need you to fill out all of this as best you can. I can take you into an exam room to get some of the physical stuff if you'd like."
The form declares itself a Form 213-ITW, Application for New Identification and Trainer License, Wilderness Child Edition, and asks for her name, age, gender identity (male, female, agender, non-binary, fill in the blank other), pronouns, names of any family members (these are marked optional in bold), and a bunch of physical details like height and weight and eye color and hair color and type (if known).
"What legendary got you, if you don't mind my asking?"
She fills it in as best she can:
Audrey Ingram
14 years old
Female (Stylatic)
She/Her
Evangeline Evenstar & Tourmaline Hearts
5'1, pretty light and she guesses they can weigh her, green, pink (permanent dye) and wavy.
"This one with golden rings on it! Something really weird happened to me, I sort of popped into space but I can breathe and then along came this shaggy white furred beast..."
She smiles. "Sable tells me it's called Arceus and is big important, but I'd never even heard of it before."
"Oh wow, Arceus! That's the pokémon who created the world! Congratulations!"
She looks over the form for a moment.
"Stylatic?" she asks with a soft smile. "I've never heard that term before."
"Oh, um. It's one of the two major possible genital configurations? The outwards one?"
"Oh! You're transgender, that makes sense. We don't have distinct terms for that. Hmm, maybe we should? Something to consider later, in any case."
She looks further down, at the type section, where Audrey checked "unknown", and nods. "Did your homeworld have types?" she asks while leading her around to a scale to stand on.
Nurse Joy notes down the weight in kilograms, then measures Audrey's height as well.
"Okay, that's all for you, Audrey. Let me just get this filed, and then I'll have some documents and a voucher to give you."
She leads the way back out to the lobby and turns to Sable while she starts tapping things into her computer. "Do you mind helping her with her starter, dear?"
"Already got plans to head east and see if we can't find her a swablu," Sable replies with a smile.
"Oh, it is getting to be that time of year. They'll be coming down from the mountains around now. You've got a good shot."
"Thank you, Nurse Joy!"
Audrey goes and offers Sable a fistbump. "Off we go once the forms are done, then?"
Sable grins and fistbumps Audrey back. "We'll have to go buy you a couple things, but yep."
Awww! Right, the Ralts is a person too!!! She's so used to only seeing humans that it totally slipped her mind!
She fistbumps both of them in turn.
"Lead on then, fearless leader!"
Nurse Joy waves Audrey over, sliding a few things across the counter.
"Okay, dear. I've got you into the system. This one is the physical copy of your ID. The next one is your account details for your League account. Finally, this last one is a voucher for a PokéNav, which you can use for everything else, including accessing your trainer stipend and making payments. Once you've got the PokéNav, go buy a few pokéballs and have Sable take you out to catch a starter."
"Okay!" Audrey accepts the offered items and tucks the cards away into her wallet.
And Sable excitedly takes Audrey's hand and leads the way out of the pokécenter. "Okay. We need to head to one of the major electronics stores to use this voucher and get you a pokénav. There should be one nearby..."
"Aha, right there!"
Across the street they go, and inside to look at the selection. The PokéNav Plus appears to be a similar sort of device to the clamshells Audrey's familiar with: screen on the inside of the top half, keypads and the like on the bottom, a couple side buttons, a camera, a little speaker, and comes in a wide variety of colors.
"Oh, I have one of those!"
And Audrey pulls her modified clamshell out of her pocket.
Blink blink.
"Huh okay cool. Did Arceus hook yours up to our networks, or did it just already work somehow?"
"Arceus modified it! I don't know how they did it but they sure did!"
"Most mysterious Legendary does something inexplicable, news at eleven," Sable replies with a giggle.
Audrey giggles. "I'm getting the sense they have a reputation," she says with a smile.
Sable laughs and nods, leading the way back outside, and heading toward a pokémart — a blue-roofed building that looks rather like a convenience store.
"They so do. Legendaries on the whole are mysterious, and then they all have individual reps from meddlesome to adorable to catastrophic. Arceus is definitely the most mysterious one, but I think that's partly because it's responsible for so much? Not sure though."
She drops down onto a bench outside the pokémart. "First, we gotta get your ID and account stuff onto your pokénav."
Sable cheerfully helps Audrey get the basic apps installed — League Wallet, which handles ID and payments, and the free version of the DexNav, which lets her look up pokémon and log sightings and play back calls — and walks her through adding her account details there. Then she adds her contact info and makes sure Audrey's nav can make calls and send texts well enough, which works fine.
"I keep a quick-access button assigned to the League Wallet app so I can just push that and tap my nav on a payment pad or a door lock. Otherwise you have to open the app up first." There's an easy menu to assign functions to the quick-access buttons, thankfully.
"Makes sense! Slightly clunkier than I'm used to but it makes up for it in customizability, which I like."
"Every trainer's different, right? Now c'mon, let's get you some pokéballs."
She stands up and leads the way in. The impression of a convenience store only increases inside, with snacks, magazines, and basic medicines on the shelves as well as unfamiliar things like different varieties of repellent, "potions" in spray bottles, and whole racks full of pokéballs, ranging from basic red and white ones to countless other varieties. Some are listed as "Great" or "Ultra", while others boast type or environmental specialization, or features like being luxurious for the occupant or healing an injured pokémon. They list prices ranging from P200 to P1,200, and most have a badge count restriction on purchase. The various specialized ones require one badge, while the Great and Ultra balls require two and four respectively.
Sable rests her hand atop a basic red and white pokéball to start. "This is the basic pokéball. This is how you capture a wild pokémon."
"Right. It's definitely possible to break out of one of these, and easier if the pokémon hasn't been worn out by a battle first, so you shouldn't try to capture a pokémon you haven't either talked with, battled, or both."
"Do pokemon, uh, like, being battled and captured? I was under the impression this was more of a voluntary-partnership kind of thing."
"Complicated. As best we can tell, pokémon know roughly where human routes through the wilderness are, and the ones that spend time on and around the routes overwhelmingly tend to be the ones that either are curious about humans or want a fight for whatever reason. The ones that lurk the routes almost always understand some human languages, and usually engage trainers if they're interested. I can't speak for everyone, but I plan to talk to any potential capture first, and let them go if they're not interested."
Then she shakes her head. "Sometimes there isn't a choice. Sometimes there's a disaster, and someone — human or pokémon — could get hurt or die if you don't battle and capture a rampaging pokémon. The polite thing to do there is offer to let it go after, but sometimes that can't happen, and sometimes it could but the trainer doesn't want to."
She sighs.
"I'm lucky. I can guarantee I'll be understood by anything but a dark type."
"Yeah, that makes sense. Sad that it sometimes happens that the pokemon doesn't have a choice. Or the human. If only the world were a little more fair."
Sable blushes, but hugs Audrey gratefully. "Thanks. Gets me down sometimes."
"Totally understandable. I get down on myself sometimes too. But try to see the bigger picture, yeah?"
"Yeah. You're right. And we do what we can about it, too. But anyway, pokéballs. The great balls and ultra balls clamp down harder, and they're harder to escape from, but they should only be used in special circumstances, so there are badge restrictions on buying those. Some of these other pokéball types have other specialized uses, but for what we need the basic ball will be fine."
Sable grabs a hand basket and sets a pokéball in. "So how many d'you want to get? Six is the soft max on how many pokémon you can keep on your person, though there are exceptions. Partly that's because around four to six is when the cost of feeding your team overtakes the stipend and you have to be doing something else to supplement your income, like the battle circuit or contests or ranger work. Every ten balls you get a premier ball — basically just an all-white basic ball with red trim, they're easier to decorate with decals — and having spares is good in case you need to participate in a disaster response event or something. I've got ten on me, and I'm not really worried about premier balls since the purple decals I use are bold enough to go over the red just fine."
"Maybe a half-dozen? I expect any additions to my team to be voluntary, and we'll have a chance to shop again later, right?"
"Definitely," Sable confirms as she sets five more pokéballs into the basket. "I expect the same, honestly, I'm just trying to be prepared in case something goes wrong. If I do have to force a capture, and I can't just offer to release it, I'll send it to a wildlife preserve or something, or to one of the Professors. Somewhere I know it'll be treated well."
"Yeah. These don't seem too expensive for - some kind of mass-capture technology? I have no idea how they work, they seem to small to fit a pokemon in."
"Basically pokémon can turn into an energy form, where their whole physical form is stored as just their type energy, and that's what gets stored in the ball. They can see out around it, too, keep an eye on you while they're in the ball. Some very protective pokémon will release themselves when you're in trouble."
"Huh. That's super cool. I wonder what Type Energy even... is. Do you have, like, Pokemon Professors?"
"We do! They all specialize in different aspects of studying pokémon, from evolution to moves to so much more. The Professors are so cool."
Sable swings around onto a different aisle and grabs Audrey a few more things: a couple potions and antidotes, and a repel. Then she leads the way toward the cashier.
"Antidotes and potions, huh? Your world's medicine seems a little advanced past mine's. Or maybe I'm just being confused by the names."
"Our medicine is pretty advanced, but potions and antidotes are mostly only usable on pokémon, because they're so integrated with their Type Energy."
Sable walks Audrey through how to pay with her nav, then heads back outside. "Wanna grab lunch in town before heading east?"
"Okay! Lemme show you our favorite ramen place. They make it Rustboro-style, it's so great."
Maya cheers this idea. "Tsa! Ralts tsaral!"
{Oh yes please, love. Mr. Takahashi's ramen is excellent.}
She reaches up and takes Sable and Audrey's hands and leads the way/
Down a few side-streets they go, until they reach a small shop labeled "Takahashi Ramen". It's a small place, just a few tables, and a row of stools at the counter, but the smell filling the building is rich and savory. A kindly-looking older man greets the trio as they enter. "Back again, Miss Sable and Miss Maya, and with a friend?"
"Yeah! This is Audrey, she's from really far away, legendary nonsense. Three classic Rustboros, please!"
"I'll have them right out, girls," the old man says as he sets to bustling in the kitchen.
Maya asks Audrey a question as she hops into a chair of her own. "Ra-altsra?" {Does your world have ramen?}
"It does! But I've only ever had the prepackaged stuff, not actual ramen from a ramen shop."
"Absolutely worth it, totally different experience. Plus, Mr. Takahashi uses lab-grown meat, and even lab-grown bones for the broth."
"Good question. Honestly Texcalan is not bad? I like wraps in general."
Sable nods. "Wraps are pretty great. I think a lot of that kind of cuisine made it here from around Orre? And especially other regions further south? And a different kind from over near Aegan? Never visited either, but I like the food."
"Cool, I'll have to try some sometime! I can't wait to try lab ramen, that's incredible."
A few moments later, Mr. Takahashi comes back out with three big bowls on a tray. Each one has an unfamiliarly-sized soft-boiled egg, some rich and tender-looking meat, thin and firm noodles that have clearly soaked in the broth, chopped green onions, and pickled ginger. It smells amazing. One of the bowls has some cubes of tofu floating in the rich broth as well, soaking up flavor.
"Thank you so much!"
And Audrey eagerly digs in to her first meal in a new world.
The ramen is rich and flavorful, and the broth is smooth and intense from the hours the bones were boiled. The egg doesn't taste quite like a chicken egg, but it's tender and savory all the same. The meat is like the pork she's familiar with but a bit darker. The whole dish combines marvelously.
It's delicious.
Audrey comes from a world that's barely discovered soy sauce. To her, this cuisine is incredibly high class for a random noodle shop. She feels spoiled.
"Wow," she says after a drink of the broth, letting out a warm breath of air. "That's really good."
"Aegan? We could do that tomorrow, sure, and there are probably things Audrey hasn't had there, even if she's already used to wraps."
"So," Sable asks after another couple bites of ramen, "what sorts of things would you like to do, now that you're in a world full of creatures that do things your world thought were impossible? Flying, for one, but anything else?"
"Basically everything to do with being psychic, as far as that's possible. Studying ghost types! I want to figure out if there's a proper afterlife here - if there is then my planet could really really use that. Probably investigating fairy and dark types a little too. Also, Dragon is a type? I so want to see a dragon."
"Well, we can definitely look into all of those. I'm sure we can find a Dragon somewhere, might even see one in a battle, and Drake, one of our Elite Four, is a Dragon specialist. Fairy and Dark types are both worth a look, and Phoebe in the Elite Four is a Ghost trainer. Also we can probably learn a good bit about Ghosts at Mount Pyre. As for psychic stuff, we've been keeping you out of our telepathic link for mental privacy reasons, but you're free to opt-in."
"Maybe once I get to know you a little better, I think. Not that you're not cool and all but it's been literally a couple hours at most."
"So fair. There's also a psychic gym leader — a pair of twins, actually — in Mossdeep City, on the southern islands. And of course we can show off some weird psychic tricks if you want later."
She slurps up some more of her ramen.
Sable takes a breath, then grins, as her eyes start to glow violet. A slice of soft-boiled egg floats up out of her bowl, and then into her mouth. She chews and swallows, and her eyes stop glowing.
Maya replies by floating a series of tofu pieces up to her mouth, one after another, with a grin of her own.
Gosh, this really is a wonderful world she's stumbled into.
"Still cute!!"
Sable giggles and smiles. "So yeah. This is the kind of silly stuff we do to stay in practice. The more you use it, the easier it gets. I hope you've got a type. Wish I could just ask Arceus, but it's not really the type to hang around for questions."
She slurps up some of her broth — she's getting toward the end of her bowl.
"Sounds fun! I wish I had telekinesis too, then we could play telekinetic soccer or something like that."
She giggles and takes a drink of her broth.
"Even if not, you can still play if we restrict the tee-kay to our side of the field or something like that. We'll help you figure out your type, one way or another."
Audrey finishes up not long after Maya and sets her bowl down.
"So," she says. "Where to now?"
After a last slurp of broth and a twirled-chopstick bite of noodles, Sable stacks her bowl on the other two and replies, "Head east out of the city, up toward the mountains a little ways, and find a swablu willing to challenge us on your behalf and be your starter."
The utensils all float into the stacked bowls, and the bowls into one of Sable's hands, while the cups stack into her other hand, stabilized with a purple glow, and she stands up and walks the dishes over to the counter.
"Thank you, Mr. Takahashi. It was amazing, as always."
"You're welcome, little Sable. Come back anytime. And did I hear right that you're looking for swablu? A few patrons last night were talking about seeing a flock in the foothills on one-eleven, on the northeast shore of the lake."
"Thanks for the help, Mr. Takahashi.* That's exactly what we needed to hear."
* The honorific here sounds somewhere between "Mr." and "Grandpa Takahashi" to the translation effect granting Audrey the language. Sable and Maya have clearly eaten here a lot.
"Yeah, it was really really good!"
And Audrey will hop down off her stool and follow where Sable wants to lead her!
Sable and Maya lead the way east, walking through neighborhoods, gradually reaching bigger streets, then heading out onto route one-twelve. The path ahead of them heads into the sandy foothills, with rocky peaks rising beyond those. Brick-patterned sandshrew peek out of burrows, while cacnea wander the sands and rocks like ambulatory cacti. Flocks of taillow and swellow fly through the sky high above.
"Gosh, this is really pretty. Reminds me of some places on my world, except you'd see the animals less. And none of them would be walking plants."
"So weird to think of a world without pokémon." She shakes her head with a smile. "Glad you're liking the view, though."
"No swablu yet, but then that lake you promised me hasn't shown up yet either."
"Yeah, that'll be another couple miles. We might see the west shore in two, I think?"
As they walk, Audrey starts to hum a jaunty little tune, improvising it as she goes along.
Sable cheerfully finds a harmony to match her, following her through the little tune.
And Maya hums along as well. They pass the time enjoyably, playing off each other's improvizations, as they approach a lake on their left, then turn left to follow the shore.
Finally, a little ways up the hill from the shore, they spot a small flock of blue pokémon with fluffy wings.
Sable grins back at Audrey, then starts carefully stepping closer to the flock.
There's an aura of calmness around her, a felt sense of coming in peace, of not doing anything these swablu don't agree with.
When she gets close enough that they've definitely noticed her, and can definitely hear her, she stops, and speaks. There's a layer of intent to her words, something that makes her more understandable, to the point that even if Audrey didn't know the language, she could probably understand this.
"Hey there, Swablu. I'm a trainer, and my friend here is a brand new trainer too. She doesn't have a starter yet, and when I was showing her pictures of the local pokémon, she thought y'all looked really cute, pretty, and strong, and she'd love it if one of you would fight by her side. Maya and I are willing to challenge you on her behalf. What d'you say?"
She's not entirely sure this bunch have been around humans enough to pick up the language. They probably have, but she's not going to take a chance with her new friend's starter.
The swablu look at Sable, then turn to each other and talk amongst themselves for a moment.
"Swa. Bluswa?" That human girl. She's a new trainer?
"Blusblu swab." New trainers do need starters.
"Swab bluswab swabl blu blu." But I don't want to break up the flock.
"Blu. Swa swablu. Blu bluswa swa." The purple one and her ralts are strong. She could take one of us if she wanted.
"Swa swa blus. Swab blu bluswablu." She didn't, though. She asked, and offered challenge.
"Swa—" But—
"Swablu." I'll do it.
The last swablu to speak flaps over to stand in front of Sable and Maya, giving them a look of challenge.
"Swabl bluswa." Challenge accepted, trainer.
