Chapter Text
Lots of people get turned off from serious Battle training. They’ll watch the Finals of their Regional Cup, and they’ll say “That looks so cool… but I don’t think I could ever do it.”
They’ll do casual friendlies, but never dive into the deeper stuff. They won’t go to local Tournaments; and they won’t Coordinate for local Contests.
Mostly it’s children and people in crisis and those few with a family legacy who really try it for real. For the rest of us… is it worth it?
Yes.
I can tell you, without exaggeration, that doing even a little more than the usual Battle Training will bring you more joy than anything else you put hours into. It’s a distinct category of enjoyment unto itself, constructed from the greatest pleasures of life.
The childlike joy of calling your attacks; the slow tension of outmaneuvering an opponent with strategy and tactics and preparation; the satisfaction of studying someone’s patterns and exploiting their weaknesses; the magic feeling of doing it perfect.
It’s meditative. It’s rhythmic. It’s sports. It’s theraputic. It’s communal. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to feeling like your favorite shonen protagonist.
It genuinely, provably makes communities stronger and more resilient.
But it also takes a lot of hard work, and looking at that from the outside can be overwhelming and intimidating.
Step one? Decide you want to do it.
That’s kind of obvious, but only because it’s so essential. Your desire to Battle is going to be the thing that fuels you through the hard work and the failure. If you’re just Battle-curious— we’ve all been there, trust me— but you’re not ready to go all in, there’s some things you can do to gradually expose yourself. For starters, watch some matches! It’s really exciting to see the top Trainers just going absolutely Sawsbuck-wild on each other.
Available right now, on our Gym Server:
Laney Mankind versus Moira Undertaker at Ventress Conference absolutely rules. It’s rad as sh*t. It’s like an unstoppable force versus an immovable object. Undertaker’s defense is like a two-foot thick iron wall, but Mankind’s offense is just relentless. You know that Mankind’s team is going to do some work as soon as they get an opening, so every mix-up is just so tense, right? But Undertaker’s mind games are insane. It’s such a good example of a top-level Battle.
[ Direct Link To: Mankind vs Undertaker with Commentary ]
Michel Michel’s whole Lumiose Conference run was also great. Michel was an Alolan Trainer in a Region historically dominated by Kalosian, Galarian, and Paldean Trainers. So it’s a combination of an underdog in a snooty field, plus he ran a super interesting team with big, splashy moves. Z-moves had finally been approved, you see— and every match, something interesting would happen. This is because, as Michel later admitted, he was using four fully different teams of pokemon to take on the Lumiose Conference.
[ Direct Link To: Michel Michel at Lumiose Conference ]
But it’s not just about what the Trainers are doing. Seeing Pokémon at their best, hearing the audience and Commentators pop off for big moments, and hearing what the Referee’s call out next to those high-speed instant replay bumpers— all of that will help you figure out what’s important, and what to really pay attention to.
The Championships History Series is a great way to gain exposure to some of the strange intricacies of competitive Battling.
If you’d rather relax a little and watch some super thoughtful, accessible video essays about the underlying mechanics and philosophies of Battle, Lee Tanaka’s BattleCore series on Pokétube is a great place to start. My personal favorite is “Why Each Type is Strongest.” Also, follow some Battle people on Chattr and Watchogger and Pinstagram, as listed here. There’s a lot of people doing really interesting things and posting funny clips that are going to make you want to try it out.
There will be a lot of in-jokes and terminology you won’t understand if you’re new, but you’ll pick it up fast— like any new language— through context and someone kindly explaining things to you. If you need a Helping Hand, check out the Battle Glossary . Most of the direct lessons Leader Audrey gives will have at least one or two words from the Battle Glossary to start, and that jargon will increase over time.
As for those who think Battle is somehow unethical— it certainly can be! However, those ethical quandaries are nothing like what Team Plasma once espoused. There’s very little any human can do to make a Pokémon fight when they don’t want to. Any Pokémon can, and will, break their pokeball and simply leave if they decide staying isn’t right for them and a human tries to force the issue; or even kill the human outright.
Pokemon are not imprisoned by humanity. Humans are not a parasite in the world. There is no separation between that which is ‘human’ and that which is ‘not human’. The more closely you interrogate whatever separation you see, the less ‘real’ it becomes.
The actual unethical sh*t you see in the BTC is stuff like how old a pokemon has to be to battle at all, Nature and EV/IV breeding, is it right to catch an Eevee and force an Evolution on it when it wants to be something else even when it’s nature would make it a better whatever you wanted— that's the real ethical quandary sh*t. Battle itself? Like happens in Gyms past the fourth badge, where there’s real blood and serious injury?
Yeah… for one, Battle Training isn’t for everyday problems. This is a world where there are gods… and demons. And sometimes they wake up and take issue with the way the umpire is calling the ball game, and throw down some lighting about it. For example.
Or there’s an ancient wizard who keeps coming back from the dead so we keep having to find some kid in the woods with an Aegislash to stab the undead wizard in the head. For example.
Or your ancestors leave their dangerous crystallized Dragon-Poison energy in vaults underground and some blithering idiot entrepreneur completely disregards the warnings in fifteen different languages, two kinds of artworks, and the literal nesting grounds of at least thirty species, digs the sh*t up, and uses it to power their electric company.
For example.
We thought ourselves powerful.
We don’t get to know everything.
For one, there’s too much to know. For two, there’s only so much time we get to know anything with. Part of becoming an adult is actually about deciding what you want to know more about, setting limits on depth and complexity, and weighing the costs of acquiring the knowledge.
Some things are not for us to know— are made unknowable by their nature and our own. Other things are knowable if we’re not allergic to the zesty spice known as ‘it’s illegal because Corporate said so’. I, being a Punk, am not allergic to that particular zest.
I don’t know what happened. One morning I was at my desk, almost thirty— and then there was the physical sensation of a hypnagogic jerk, falling asleep and falling out of something like a tree or your bed— and I was somewhere else. I went from a nearly thirty fat brown-and-Asian woman in America to… not that. Really really not that.
I was still at my desk; and I was still fundamentally a woman, with a body that matched. Everything else was different. My parents weren’t toxically divorced without even the grace of marriage; they were married, and maybe should’ve gotten divorced. I wasn’t a fat brown girl of average height; I was a thin pale girl who would be very tall indeed. The country wasn’t America— it was Galar. There were no animals.
There were Pokémon.
I got to grow up again, in a world of Pokemon. For all the problems that came with this, I don't actually dislike my life. It’s very, very complicated, for both bullsh*t reasons and reasons I’ve done to myself. It’s also very, very fun.
For example.
On my last day off before the big Push to the End of the Season in the Galar League, I had an Adventure.
After an unintended thirteen hour power nap and a smoothie made of frozen mixed berries (not Berries), a double spoonful of yogurt, a scoop of vanilla ice cream flavored protein powder, and whole Lon Lon Milk, which isn’t pasteurized, build it in the Gulpin-cup I got from Corvi’s before blending it up— I got a phone call from Bebe, my daughter, who was stranded in Shalour City because of an unusual heat wave and almost no cell service because her poryphone is down with Pokérus. Bebe has also managed to: run out of hi-potions, break her sunglasses, outgrow her boots again, and catch mononucleosis from a freaked out Lucario.
Okay, day, if that’s how it’s gonna be— I muster a week’s worth of gusto in half an hour and within five phone calls and the kind of rigid politeness battleships are measured against, get her:
An express trip to the Shalour City Central PokeCenter, which I remember having the good beds; a three-pack of hi-potion refills waiting for her at that PokeCenter pharmacy (which is what those ‘pokemarts’ in the PokeCenter in the games actually are), when she’s healthy enough to go again; a refilled prescription in the Trainer-tough class, and if she’s broken her glasses she’ll also be wanting a new pair of bespoke glasses chains, so that gets folded into a letter, addressed to her care of the Shalour City Central PokeCenter, and clipped into the mailbox with the little ‘mail here’ flag up high; and, lastly, an appointment with the boot maker I met in Shalour City. She makes boots for the Kalosian Ranger’s anti-poaching division, which means to get that contract, all her products are the best of their kind and absolutely solid.
Hey, the whole Impidimp line is Dark-Fairy, so it’s not so strange that I’d adopt a Fairy Specialist. Bebe doesn’t call me ‘mum’; but then, I told her she didn’t have to if she didn’t want to. She didn’t even have to take any of my names if she didn’t want to, but she did— calls herself Bebe Trewyn Cardinal Pendragon.
I look at this kid and sometimes, I wonder if I’m doing any good at all— but, she wouldn’t have known about her light sensitivity until way later, and she stole her first pair of glasses chains from me. Maybe I did have some influence? She refused The Enemy’s offer of sponsorship, too.
And she called when she needed help…
I’m already tired by then, so of course there’s unscheduled live humans at the door of my house, while A&E is active. I know I’ve made it properly illegal in Spikemuth for flash photography, but still— I don’t really want strangers seeing me in my giant Liepard t-shirt and bootyshorts that say ‘MANIAC’ in Mall Gothic Font on my perky ass. The shorts are fine; but the shirt is falling apart. So I greet them in those shorts and an Alola shirt that I manage to button up correctly on the second try, because I’m very dexterous.
Fortunately, it is not Arceans. (I was actually Too Kind to those cultists when they came around protelizing over the years, and I’m on the Do Not Talk list now, which. Yeesh.)
Unfortunately, it’s two Delibirdies trying to deliver my new phone except the new guy doesn’t know how to make the ‘sign for package’ Rotompad behave, and the old guy that’s supposed to be mentoring him is visibly decrepit, deaf, blind, and doesn’t actually know how to make the Rotompad behave either.
By the way.
Spikemuth doesn’t turn the neon lights on Highstreet off until about seven am. It is five am. The ambient glowing haze stabs me in the eyes even when I’m wearing my sunnies. It’s my least favorite feature of Spikemuth.
It takes almost thirty minutes to sign for the phone.
When I get back inside, I discover that Slick has gotten into a small, hardly noticeable, basically sisterly fight with Arabella and knocked over a vase. Premium Rush is raiding the fridge for electrolyte water again.
Zolt, the actual trouble maker here, who I’m keeping as a favor for Chia of Turffield while she does renovations on her farm, has learned how to open his kennel from the inside because he is now out and waiting patiently to be let out for sprinties. He also has litter all over his face because while he was waiting he also opened the trash and helped himself to a Pokemon-sh*t breakfast.
Zolt will be fine. He’s a working farm Boltlund. I think it’s in the farm dog charter that they’re legally required to have at least one really truly disgusting snack they love more than the ones you buy for them. But, more to the point: I have no idea when he learned to open his kennel from the inside. Has he been staying in it because he’s a polite good boy this whole time? Absolutely not, the little lad’s a menace to the common good.
Well, he’s at least not polite or good enough to not strew dried out Pokésh*t over the floor of my sunroom, and I’ve got other sh*t to do today.
Namely.
I’m seeing a Realtor. Realtors are hell’s most pathetic yet effective demons; and mine is also my Personal Assistant’s grandmother.
My Personal Assistant, Siri, is a fat brown goth girl, with a Dark-pink hijab she wears during Gym hours, and otherwise ones that match her outfits. She has a Bayleaf, a Rotomphone that she caught as a Rotom , and a Galarian Rapidash. She is registered and trains as a Gym Trainer, for third badge and down level Trainers; but she is actually my Assistant.
Siri was instrumental in getting my house arranged so that I could pass inspections and adopt Bebe after fostering her; and has always been helping me file all the legal work involved in operating my Gym; keeping my wardrobe from immediately devolving into ‘camp chic’ and ‘rags’ and ‘Special Events Only’; really, all kinds of stuff. I’ve known her since shortly after the man and the woman died.
I hired her to help unf*ck the Gym charter and the League’s sniffing around in it, plan another funeral, and help me work out what I needed to do to delay the reopening of the Spikemuth Gym so as to build up reasonable strength.
I had the idea to travel abroad for Dark-type Pokemon collection and recruitment.
Siri had a better idea; and now Spikemuth has it’s original bunker, several outdoor neighborhoods, the Docks are up and running again, the Canals are back in proper operation, the water-meadows, the flood-meadows, all the way up to the cliffs, the moorlands are slowly coming back to life, and the bog’s water table is almost stable enough to do another round of biodiversifying— and all of that is just the first third of our plan.
Spikemuth is a big deal. It’s the biggest energy-efficient city in Galar, rival in size to Hammerlocke and Hulbury. It’s the main national trading hub, the direct line from Hulbury to Circhester and back, the freight stop for Motostoke, Second Strongest Gym in the Region; and, most importantly, alive.
Collaboration makes everything better.
I would not be as good a Gym Leader as I am, able to run my Gym both in accordance with Galar’s League Requirements and Spikemuth’s Laws, and also my own desires, without her help.
I have never met her grandmother.
So, after I’ve let Zolt out for sprinties, put Arabella and Slick outside if they want to fight so bad, shooed Premium Rush back to the Cactus Room for photosynthesis, swept and sanitized, bathed, and changed into real people clothes, I get a reminder text from Siri’s Grandmother that I have an appointment with her. Or so I assume.
What I actually get is “🏠🕛”. Yes, a house emoji and a clock emoji reading 12:00, exactly like that. She is, according to her profile, at least seventy. So I reply “😌👌”, a closed-eye smile and an Ok, and she sends back a string of f*ckDAMN POST-MODERN EMOJI HEIROGLYPHICS THAT MY NEW PORYPHONE CAN’T READ.
She’s on a Rotomphone! They don’t translate! It takes half an hour of careful touch-tone-telephone with my Porygon-Z, Em-Dash, taking my online troubleshooting instructions and translating them to my Porygon2, En-Dash, who translates them again to my new poryphone.
It still takes me an hour to scrape the DRM off a Poryphone; and every time I get a new phone, I take an afternoon to scrape it and ask the Porygon inside if it wants to be friends. Most of them actually want to live in my Gym’s incredibly beefy cyber security and only come out when I need to catch them in safety pokeballs and register them at the Pokecenter, because some absolute madman digitized Pokérus and Porygon can catch it. They need to be vaccinated for safety.
I don’t have that kind of time today. That is an after Season activity.
Siri’s Grandmother has sent me the address and rules about pokemon and not wearing shoes inside. In emoji. Instead of, I don’t know, letters and words?
I’m fascinated, by the way; and simply must meet this woman. Siri is sort of like this, but only because her favorite reactions are things like “😎🕶️🤏🤨” and “😆😂😭”, which are reasonable pictographic strings.
I dare not recreate the ones I got from this strange force here.
Anyway, now that I know Zolt can’t be left alone in his kennel, I clip him to his ‘going to town’ leash, and take him with me.
As it happens, my Realtor is not the one texting me these hieroglyphs. It’s Miss Adele. More on that in a moment.
Okay, so: I’m going to see a house because, due to various circ*mstances, the Galar Champion Cup and Star Cup are also going to be hosting the International World Cup. I have friends and cousins who will want to stay with me. My house is not in a state for that; so I thought to just buy another one.
I actually ended up renovating, but that wasn’t important at the time.
So I get to the house and I get a text from Siri’s Grandmother, who is not the person who has been texting me in hieroglemoji. The person texting me in hieroglemoji is the homeowner, who the realtor says will let me in if I want, she’s running late.
Sure. Adult life is already so goddamn weird. This might as well happen.
I give Zolt the ‘Sit’ and knock on the door. As much Crime as this dog commits at my house, Zolt is a Good Farm Boy with Good Country Manners, and would consider it an affront to his chauvinistic male honor to be Rude at someone’s Town House. This accord is held only by the presence of his Town Leash on his collar, and is immediately rescinded if I take it off. He is also very very cute, so I’m fairly sure Emoji, King of the Upper and Lower Font, will let him inside the house, where his manners are perfect on or off leash provided his kennel isn’t there too.
Boltlund are terrifyingly smart dogs, but kind of dumb as far as Pokemon go? It’s a fairly wide spread across species, honestly. Lots of people are vegetarians just as a matter of ethics in this world. Not me; but, you know.
Dark-type isn’t a joke.
The Door Opens. Another decrepit person, this one much closer to breaching the hundred-tens, with a spine like a Skwovet tail, naturally blue hair because her everything matches, and glasses that could be used as telescope lenses or perhaps coasters for shot glasses, opens the door. I know I know her but I can’t remember her name until she speaks.
“Oh! Audrey-byt! How lovely to see you!” she says— in the local dialect of Galarian, which. Well, I think it’s Welsh? It’s called Galarian here, Spikemuth-dialect Galarian; but it’s definitely Welsh. I remember that one YouTuber from Wales that I liked— I have a Welsh accent. Scotland is south, towards the Slumbering Weald and Postwick; Ireland is north, up near Wyndon-there. Galar is England— but actually, it’s none of those things. Those places don’t exist— Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and so on.
I will not buy this house. I will come away with a newfound respect for the friends I kept up with in Spikemuth. Priya will get a sewing machine for her mama’s quilting hobby.
A c*nt will get what she deserves.
And I will finally have an excuse to release ‘The Sound of Battle: Third Round’ on Squawkify. The first two were what I could remember of the Skullgirls soundtrack, not that I told anyone that; the third one was all kinds of themes and battle songs from anime I still remembered, which wasn’t that many, so I added the videogame songs that weren’t Skullgirls. I have a lot of those.
It’s been a moment.
Miss Adele knows me as a person, not as the Gym Leader, because she remembers my science fair project from primary and that my tapestry project is just one more summer from completion. The problem: I know about five-hundred hellishly strong geriatric women with naturally pastel-from-age hair, some level of old-person-scoliosis, and extreme prescription glasses with that classic Spikemuth accent like a melody in an ancient mouth. I know that many old women of a certain type because I’m in two weaving guilds, two spinning guilds, a knitting guild, a crochet guild, the At Home Pokédex guild, the Spikemuth SCA, and I have a backing band for when I release albums; plus the quilt guild, the Pokeball maker’s club, the computer club, and a few other things too, like the Zygardi.
I know every Nan and Grandmother and Granny currently alive in Spikemuth, just about (which is less than there should be); and if we aren’t battling, I can’t tell them apart. They all dress in sturdy Spikemuth seashore boots, petticoats and skirts or dresses, maybe a colorful long-sleeve shirt under their cardigan or jersey or gansey, a shawl, and a basket of whatever they want to carry, plus a cane or a walker. They all have pokemon just as old as them, but no less crafty or just hard as in the case of Martha and her bullsh*t Torkoal, and they all absolutely adore me.
Luckily, there’s a quilt in the kitchen, visible from the front door. I can’t tell old ladies (most people, really) apart, but I can recognize appliqué techniques at forty-paces. Also this house smells like Croagunk. His name is Nurse Stinky; he’s a service’mon for Miss… Adele!
“…Miss Adele? From SQA?” I asked.
“Yes! Come in, come in, introduce this sparker to me,” Adele said, not waiting for a reply. “Dyw, have you eaten? I just made butties—“
Zolt doesn’t understand full sentences. He understands enough keywords to know that “sparker” right before “butties” probably means “this person will feed me people food if I’m cute enough”; so, of course, he does a Sit Pretty and Shake, which I know Slick taught him because I saw her—
Miss Adele is bewitched immediately. That’s fine. I know I’m about to severely disappoint Siri’s Grandmother the Realtor, because I’m not subjecting my friends and cousins to This House.
The reason Miss Adele is moving out is twofold. The first is Miss Adele has decided she doesn’t need the space anymore, now that her Champion-tier Sylveon has decided to devote the rest of his days to f*cking eggs into my Umbreon, Rosehip.
—That Sylveon is the reason I have an entire collection of Eeveelutions and Eevees. Apparently, if you wild catch an Eevee who discovers it doesn’t want to be a Battler or a Contest-Mon, and only bother checking it’s gender after it decides it wants to stay with you because you feed it, brush it, and play with it anyway… and she evolves into your first Umbreon, Rosehip…
That Champion-tier Sylveon you see around sometimes will think your fat little housepet, who trains to keep herself healthy and has lustrous black fur and neon-bright rings of gold, is the most beautiful Umbreon to ever live. You will ask Miss Adele if her Sylveon, Maurice, is healthy enough for, um, activities; and she will howl with laughter at your bright red face, and explain how stud-fees work, and then she’ll actually see Maurice with Rosehip, and her war-gained arthritis in her everything will get much worse, and by then you’ll have learned quilting from her—
And then she will learn your full name, teach you everything you know about Eevee husbandry, give you her old setup for the Nursery you’re building, and put you in touch with other old-school Eeveelution Fanciers interested in ‘Dragonslayer’ Maurice’s descendants. You will get worryingly large amounts of money for selling the too-many-Eevees-that-want-to-go. Having kept an Absolite in your pocket since you were too young to know better, and used it as a meditation aid, you will have developed a similar set of skills to an Absol.
This is totally normal here— Humans have been becoming like Pokemon in this world for thousands of years.
You, if you’re actually me, will accidentally become like an Absol because you know humans have Aura, but that’s another story for another time.
You will get grandmothered into a Breeder’s license, having all the training but needing to pay absolutely none of the fees. You will learn that for competitive battling and more general training, Maurice and Rosehip in combination produce essentially gold-star Eevee every single time without exception. No matter what they eventually evolve into. It is genuinely uncanny. You try not to think about it; and you try not to think about how good you are at directly giving eggs and Eevees to people who will train them into what the Eevee will want to be.
Still totally normal here.
When Miss Adele gets too old to feed Maurice without crying from the agony of bending her back that much, Maurice will be traded to you, and he will escape your house every day to go back to his Trainer— until you talk with Nurse Beth, anyway, and get teleporters and a specialized Breeder’s Box Link installed. You have no idea what will happen when Miss Adele dies.
You try not to think about that either.
(When you meet Aegaeon in Sinnoh during your second Worlds, after Chairwoman Rose tells you outright she hates you and wants you to die, Aegaeon will give you a Togepi egg.
You will give him an Eevee Egg in return, because you are a polite young woman no matter what anyone says and have been raised by a Court of Grannies. A pack of Silverback Mightyena Matrons: Spikemuth Division.
Reciprocal gifts are part of who you are now.
Apparently he lost a bet and you’re the youngest person here. That doesn’t matter because that Togepi egg will have the Gold Star Togepi inside— which will become quite frankly the most terrifying Togekiss to ever live.
“What have you given me?” Aegaeon’d said.
“Well, a gift— I didn’t ask for what you gave me, and you didn’t ask for what I gave you. That’s what gifts are,” I’d said.
He will be charmed by your calm demeanor and both-hands-at-all-times handling of the egg case, even if Dev-Sliph Egg Cases are basically indestructible and pokemon that don’t eat eggs would never. He will be stunned to see a scan of the Eevee you gave him after it hatches, and further stunned to look you up and learn you Breed all currently available Galarian Battle and Contest viable Eevee , with a notorious ability to match Eevees to Trainers that actually want their optimum Eeveelution. You’re ranked at the very top of the breeding lists for Eevee for that reason. You are also in contention for the best Dark-type Trainer in the world currently living.
You have given him a Timid Eevee. He’s wanted a Glaceon his entire life.
You exchanged business cards with him, politely, and seemed genuinely delighted with the Togepi he’s seen you carrying around the Unova Battle Subway.
You are not yet twenty. Something is very wrong with the Galar League.
And then you’re friends, somehow, with Aegaeon Shirona, Champion of Sinnoh. He has gone camping with you. He has house shoes at your house. Every time he’s in Galar, he stops by. His Garchomp— yes, that Garchomp— is named Nibbles.
His Glaceon is named Gift.
I guess it’s the little things.)
That’s how you really know Miss Adele— but you don’t bring it up in casual conversation, because Miss Adele from SQA talks to you like a friend, and Miss Adele Brightwater, who gave ‘Strong’ Mustard one hell of a fight for the Championship and retired to breed top-class Eevees the rest of her life, talks to you like a business investment and heir.
The second, more immediately important reason I knew immediately I wasn’t going to buy this place is that her neighbor is a f*ckin’ c*nt what’s been harassin’ Miss Adele and everyone else to form a HOA (uuuugh) and ‘improve the quality of our neighborhood’ because she has nothing better to do with herself than be an interfering racist busy-Combee. Recently, she’s set her husband, a Spikemuth Sherriff, on Adele, trying to bully her into signing paperwork and threatening her with legal action and writing her up for bullsh*t property violations.
I’m not putting up with that sh*t. Adele isn’t either.
Also, if my friends and family have to, there will be Problems later. This isn’t the eastern regions, where Gym Leaders have an inordinate amount of social status and clout; I can’t just have her politely kicked out of Spikemuth. I can politely kick her husband out, but only under specific circ*mstances.
Adele is selling her house and everything in it, as a quite reasonable response to this c*ntery, and is going to live with her grandchildren in Wedgehurst. Adele is also technologically impaired, so the only indication that there’s an estate sale happening is a small paper sign taped to her front window from the inside.
“Adele,” I asked, as Zolt made himself comfortable with a chewable poke toy, headpats, and pieces of ham, “Did you tell SQA or WAA or SWA or anyone on Lookbook that you’re having the sale?”
“Oh, I don’t know how to do all that!” She sighs. “It was my old man who did… I tried to call the Spikemuth Observer, but they just put me on hold for ages…”
”Watch Zolt for twenty minutes and he’s only allowed an ounce of ham in a day— the salt, you know?” I said, already digging my poryphone out.
I took pictures of everything Adele wanted to sell, put the address, time, and pics up on Lookbook, and informed both her quilt guilds, two more I have contacts for, the Weaver Collective of Greater Spikemuth-Motostoke-and-Circhester, Nextdoor, t/NoCorpo, all the Spikemuth forums I can think of with even a slight interest in this stuff, the Zygardi chatroom, and the local SCA Pinstagram page too for good measure. I also tag Priya of Hammerlocke on Chattr, because I know her Mama wants an old-school cast-iron sewing machine for her quilting, and we are friends if only because I know the exact amount of time I can handle being around her before we have to battle.
It’s twelve minutes and Zolt has murked the toy and is now murking a ham steak.
“No more ham, people will be here in ten. Where is your cash box?” I asked, because apparently I’m running an estate sale now. It’s fine. She actually does have one ready.
There’s about seven minutes of quiet.
The first on the scene is Miz Desdemona, who doesn’t believe in speed limits, helmets, or there being a thing as too much hairspray. She raised five of the ten fastest Galarian Rapidash in the country in her younger years; and retired from such things after one too many close calls with ornery Kantonian Ponyta. She’s arrived with a horse trailer. I remember, belatedly, that she is also moving.
“HI HI DELLA-BYTTY WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL OR WRITE I HAD NO IDEA THIS WAS TODAY I WAS GOING TO TAKE ALL THIS TO THE OP SHOP HERE LET ME SET UP ON YOUR LAWN,” Miz Desdemona says at a volume that can comfortably be heard in Kalos, across the Channel.
Miz Desdemona is seventy three, and has a special spiritual bond with Moissanite, who may have broken her hip recently. I don’t ask deep questions about people’s sex lives. I’m just grateful to have rebuilt my Gym with full accessibility in mind, and got it codified into Spikemuth building code so she can just go to the Vroomway whenever, even in a wheelchair. She’d have come to talk with me if I hadn’t.
Miz Desdemona weighs ninety-eight pounds minus the jewelry and fake nails, dresses exclusively in a mix of Dark and Fairy pink, and her towering Bouffalant-hair does not move even in high wind. She’s not technically allowed around open flames. She speaks without pause or concern for volume, much like my cousin Nora when she’s excited; and I still can’t believe she doesn’t have a Latios or Latias.
Half the horse trailer is spread out on the front garden. She brought her own folding tables. Miss Adele is putting price stickers on stuff as Miz Desdemona arranges for best effect. Zolt is trying to murder a bag of Wooloo wool.
This, and the arrival of approximately fifty-five mini-carts and bicycle-powered trailers, five more horse trailers, and the general din of the Silverback Mightyena Matrons: Spikemuth Division really getting going alerts the f*ckin’ c*nt that something’s happenin’. This bitch saunters up, bold as, and Demands— Demands! To know what’s going on here, you’re supposed to notify the neighborhood and get a permit and—
Adele, at last returned to her natural howl of silver-back Mightyena Matrons and full of spite, perked up and shouted. “OH, HELLO! EVERYONE THIS IS IMOGEN. I’VE TOLD YOU ALL ABOUT IMOGEN.”
It was then the Zygardi— what happens when Kalosian Pirates make families in Spikemuth— with their Perrserkers arrived.
You know those high school house parties you see in movies, where the kid we’re supposed to identify with invites maybe five friends, and those friends invite friends, and those friends invite their friends, and suddenly there’s a five-hundred strong party raging and a house utterly trashed in comedic fashion? I have somehow become the kind of person with a circle of friends like that— actually, I know exactly how it happened, I’ll tell you later—
And I know what I’ll become, too.
I’ll become like all the old people I know, who also do this in real life, except instead of house parties it’s estate sales on wednesday mornings and when the cop shows up there are lawyers present and he’s deep in the cacky because his wife just spent the whole sunrise and brunchtime admitting to doing a bunch of wildly illegal sh*t on tape. Not just illegal in Spikemuth; illegal in Galar.
I had, at this point, eaten a breakfast smoothie and two butties. I had not had a single drop of tea. When I mentioned as much, someone put a mug of Zygardi tea, hot and sweet with milk, by my elbow; which was very kind as I’d somehow expected more butties and Adele is many things, but good at making butties ain’t one; and her doctor has forbid anything other than fruit tea for years now.
That’s when I know the Zygardi arrived.
The party was really getting underway by then.
Imogen the f*cking c*nt had decided to crash the estate sale and whinge about “coordinating rummage sales as a neighborhood” and “your friends are blocking traffic on this dead end street while nobody is home” whinge whinge whinge— Desdemona is ready to Stomp this bitch, but she is not the most dangerous of the Silverback Mightyena Matrons.
That is Captain Basil Brown— Captain Brownbaz, when the black flag is high. Out of respect for me, she does not do this thing in Spikemuth-port. It’s not as bad as all that, these days— mostly she and her crew like dressing up as pirates, and ‘raid’ local Corvi’s for snacks after their rowing class at the community gym.
During the War, of course, things were different.
Captain Basil Brown doesn’t look like much at all. Captain Basil Brown also raised Leroy Brown from a minuscule Magikarp to possibly the smallest Gyrados ever recorded, to the horror and loathing of our wartime enemies, and earned enough wartime honors to have him buried in state and a bronze erected, in addition to the Leroy Brown Memorial Angler Museum; and for her ninety-ninth birthday last year, she went parasailing. Her hair is the color of steel; and her Starter is a positively grizzled shiny Lucario named Beckham. He wears a fishing hat and a tactical fishing vest, and his Bone Rush looks like a fishing pole.
She’s who I want to be when I turn old.
Captain Basil and Beckham sort of hobbled over to Imogen and point-blank said, “So, I understand you’ve been tryin’ to start a homeowners association?” with the same kind of sh*t eating grin my Sharpedo wore when he tore strips off of Daria’s Liepard during my Unova Gym Run. Imogen entirely misunderstands the tone of that toothsome-wide grin and starts enumerating her Trials. Her Tribulations. Oh won’t there be Justice for All?
The fool.
It’s been So Hard, you see, trying to start one HOA, because SOME PEOPLE DON’T RESPECT what she’s TRYING to do for EVERYONE, and all the paperwork, and the talking to people, and she even had to ask HER HUSBAND, a SHERIFF OF SPIKEMUTH, to go around and hand people stuff to sign— some people, right?
Captain Basil nodded. “Some people,” she agreed. “You know, my son is a lawyer. Why don’t I give him a call?”
“Oh, that’d be lovely,” Imogen said, sealing her doom.
Captain Basil, hobbling back to Adele with Beckham ever faithful at her side, said “Don’t worry,” you know, like a liar. “Mathew will handle this.”
Meanwhile, the Horde of Friendship had started to arrive in waves, lured in by promises of “Longarm Sewing Machines” and “Hand-Made Quilts”. I had already purchased a few things, particularly the ‘Skarmory Featherweight 214’ which Adele wouldn’t let me have without the three boxes of feet, needles, and assorted notions, a whole sewing table, a cutting table, and a jar full of buttons; and, as I always did better by purchasing gifts well in advance of needing them, I’d bought two quilts for every single friend and cousin and cousin’t I had, that I knew they’d like. One for birthdays; the other for whatever other big holiday I’d learned (from them) a large gift was appropriate for. It barely made a dent. I also snapped up a Dark-pink crochet lace shawl, but there was only one of those and I was wearing it out.
The various factions I know in Spikemuth include, but are not limited to: probably six different quilt guilds besides the four from Spikemuth, because there’s a lot of quilting in Galar; the Motostoke Art League; the Motostoke Leather League; the Local DIY Punk and Fairytale Club; the Zygardi; the Spikemuth-Circhester Wild Game Share; the Hulbury Anglers Association; a scribble of Scientific Illustrators, and their assorted tag-along scientists; the Wooloo Lesbians; the Eldegoss Lesbians; the Galar Horse and Pony Club, Spikemuth Chapter; Three Extremely Competent Orreans (my Scientific Illustration Professor and her sisters, known as the Yucca sisters) who immediately shooed me away to finish my food and turn the estate sale into an auction to maximize profit and keep the taxes in order; as well as two additional Boltlunds named “Punch” and “Judy”, and they are Wyndon Boltlunds, so weigh perhaps forty-two pounds apiece.
Zolt is a Turffield Boltlund and weighs sixty-two pounds because he’s huge even for a Turffie, and is Delighted with his New Friends. The two clowns worship him as a muscular god, and follow him around so every time he sticks his long face into something, two slimmer faces immediately appear, one on each side. Like an adorable bright yellow Cerberus, which doesn’t exist here.
Pelts and meat shares are being traded out of the backs of trucks and vans, and I do pick up some of those because after the Season I’ll be wanting new boots. I have a boot maker. And I always need more fresh meat for the deep freezer…
There is a portable fire pit with a large side of Feebas going down with a secret Zygardi sauce on the pale meat. Someone is making boudin— raw ones, and cooking them right then and there, and I enquire if Miss Pelly’s son is going to re-open the butcher’s soon…? Yesssss— and also, yes, I would like a grilled boudin.
Intrigued by the Happening, Adele’s neighbors appear. They are equally geriatric and experts in their particular fields, and their pokemon are equally ancient, or service ‘Mon, or too much for such idiots to legally face in battle. Imogen has been harassing them, too. They are telling this to the members of these factions that are also lawyers. There are at least five neighbors with Stories so far, and Mathew the Lawyer isn’t here yet. There is a Lawyer with each neighbor, delighted to be recording storytime. There are two with Imogen the Fool.
I realize that my Realtor isn’t here. I decide to text her. She is somewhere in the crowd and having a nervous breakdown because she’s so LATE— Ma’am. It’s not even noon. I just asked for two more bouds because I know, somehow, when Priya of Hammerlocke sets foot in Spikemuth; and I know she’ll want one.
The worst bitch I know of is incriminating herself on the lawn.
Come sit on a garden bench and watch the Boltlunds play with a stuffed pokedoll. They’re disassembling it like lanky zippy murderers. Have a boudin.
One of the Zygardi appears, having physically carried my Realtor through the crowd, and gently deposits her on the lawn before handing her a boudin. She sort of settles next to me like a stunned Eldegoss with a boudin.
Siri’s grandmother is named Najda. She is a Realtor. She has a Minccino on her shoulder; is not much older than the man and the woman would’ve been, if they’d lived; and she’s from Hulbury. Her lipstick matches her hijab. She’s one of those people who “never had a pokémon growing up” and “didn’t know people just, made? Blankets?” And “what is this? It’s like a hot dog but… better? And it’s halal?”
Najda is having a Learning Experience.
Priya shows up, sets a winning bid on a sewing machine for her mama, and settles down next to me (on the other side) to gnaw on grilled boudin and enjoy the show.
One of the Horse Lesbians comes over and compliments the apparently expensive brand name scarf Najda is using as her hijab. Najda thanks her and compliments her expensive Dianthus (of Kalos!) handbag.
“Do you… know all of these people?” Najda asks.
Horse Lesbian Diana explains that she’s part of the SCA, and what the SCA is, and that, why, yes, she does know or know of all these people. Her girlfriend, Tasha, is an armorer; and her cousin Lila makes swords. Yes, like for knights— but they also breed the world's tiniest Honedge! Would she like to meet Letteropener?
Najda is a little afraid of Ghosts, but she’ll make an exception because this little blade looks very polite. This draws the attention of Zolt, Punch, and Judy— more keywords.
More Livestock Lesbians of all descriptions assemble. Shirts are coming off to show off livestock and battle scars. Biceps and back muscles are rippling in the golden haze of the morning. Najda is learning so much! Would any of these women be interested in purchasing houses?
Several recently married Livestock Lesbians would be interested in purchasing houses!
Priya is Live Chattring this whole thing. I keep a straight face and throw up the Punk horns when she comes in for a selfie. Social media hasn’t earned my smiles.
I am just here to get everyone’s contact info and update their photos, and make sure the dogs don’t eat their own weight in meat and wool, and also not buy this house or fight that cop. Speaking of! BWOOP! Wha-oh; Imogen’s Husband the Sheriff is here. I stand up and move through the crowd.
He has used the siren in his kit— that’s illegal— to part the crowd and stomp into his walkway, but they’ve closed up back around him and there is No Escape. He starts huffin’ and puffin’ about blocked traffic and permits and the like, but this is not his usual I-Can-Bully-Them-With-No-Consequences crowd. These are War-Hardened Veteran Grannies. These are the crowd that gave old Strong Mustard what-for. These are the crowd that crossed paths with Professor Samantha Oak and Adam the Ghost of Indigo and Petunia of Mahogany Town when they were young and thought fighting was for the young, and then there was a War On the Boil.
He’s starting to turn bright red and looks like he’s about to cry and I’ve got my poryphone out to record whatever Incident is about to occur. And then— a Kantonian Rapidash in full tackle— trots up.
It’s Mathew. Captain Basil’s son, Mathew. You know. The Lawyer.
Actually, in terms more analogous— there’s Lawyers, District Attorneys, and Prosecutors, much like there are Aces, Gym Leaders, and Champions.
Prosecutor Mathew is not a mere ambulance chaser. Prosecutor Mathew is who the Region of Galar sends to prosecute Corporate Fraud and Organized Crime and Other States. Prosecutor Mathew was part of the Team that took down the Galar branches of Team Galactic, Team Plasma, Team Rocket, and Team Flare. He rehabilitates Shadow Pokemon on the side.
He looks like cottage cheese in a formal pinstriped suit. He moves with such unshakable confidence and authority that the Pillar Men Theme is blasting at full volume behind him at all times. His Rapidash is named Ember. He is followed by three other lawyers from the State’s Office on their own personal Ride Pokemon.
Mister Sheriff goes from red to white like a color-changing Clobberpus and I am not convinced he didn’t sh*t himself. Because what he and Imogen have been doing is very, very, very, very, f*cking illegal in the Region of Galar.
“—Imogen!” he gasped. “—Shut your f*ck up!”
Imogen, in the middle of the road, having spent the last three hours recounting to anyone who will listen about the ‘measures she’s had to take’ and now the five whole genuine lawyers that were here are delightedly handing over the paperwork that she had forced on Miss Adele and Her Neighbors, and pointing at all the doorbell cameras— also wildly illegal in Galar without a special permit I know she doesn’t have— and witnesses out to the toughest Prosecutor in Galar: absolutely does not shut her f*ck up.
Folks.
I laughed until I cried. And when I explained it all to Priya, she went up to talk to Prosecutor Mathew to see if she could put this whole thing on Chattr.
She could! I laughed again. There’s a whole remix of my laugh and ‘Theme of the Moon’ aka Cynthia’s Theme on PokeTube now.
Apparently I sound like a cartoon supervillain when I laugh.
No less than four hours later, the auction wrapped with a solid forty million of Poké to Miss Adele, plus pending sales on her larger furniture and antiques. (I bought a set of sofa, chairs, and loveseat, because I’d decided to renovate my house and turn the old servant quarters into a guest wing. And also I had enough empty staterooms that another couch set would be fine.) Plus whatever Prosecutor Mathew can get in damages from Spikemuth Sherrif’s Office. Imogen and husband are sh*t outta luck, because that’s enough for me to politely ask them to leave Spikemuth.
Volt spent all day getting petted within an inch of his life, eating floor food, and bossing around smaller Boltlunds. He told all of this to Slick, and is now passed out on the couch. Realtor Najda is meeting up with a pair of Newlywed Livestock Lesbians next week to show them some other houses in her portfolio.
Since I’ve decided on renovations, I’m adding a whole sewing room, and seeing what I can do to make this whole place wheelchair accessible and easier to clean.
I also ordered a pint of sweetcream ice cream, but I fell asleep before it got here, so it melted.
So, in Order of the Adventure:
Bebe is coming home to train for the Lumiose Conference, and I expect her to arrive by boat a few days after Last of May.
Dog Tax. Zolt went back home to Chia about a week before the end of the Season, which worked well for me because that was when the Architect had wanted to get started on the renovations of my house. Which is a castle.
What was EXTREMELY f*ckING ILLEGAL about what Officer and Mrs. f*ckin’ c*nt were doing?
I don’t know all the details, but Officer c*nt was going door-to-door, in uniform and armed with his Official Pokemon of the Law, telling his neighbors they had to sign the papers or else. That’s textbook coercion and abuse of office. Also, if I understood the summary Claire Sawyer (my lawyer) gave me on Chatter, the actual legal setup they were pushing was some kind of shady land-ownership and tax evasion nonsense.
All of this happened in ONE DAY. I had to go back to work the next day!
Charges aren’t files, let alone a trial, a conviction, a payout, or any other consequence; so they could still be involved in active litigation for like, a year. My request they leave Spikemuth can’t be enforced until after their legal doin’s are done.
It’s an unfortunate truth that living near a cop that’s having a meltdown is a great way to get murdered— even in the world of Pokemon, some pigs stay huffin’.
So. No. I’m not buying that place.
Also, while Miss Adele brought up the idea of moving because of Those c*nts, she’s also very close to her granddaughter and they both want her to move down to Wedgehurst where there’s more sun and less neon.
It’s later, so I’ll tell you how to become the lynchpin in a circle of friends that could casually dismantle a theater and move it across the river in the most hilarious historical theft that happened in two universes. It’s still called The Globe, even…
To have a life like mine, I have a simple, but high effort, process. It is as follows: 1) Go Outside. 2) And Do Things. 3) In Person.
Specifically, when you realize the people who are your parents in this world are too wrapped up in hating each other to sign you up for the stuff your peers are doing, you make your own arrangements and join a bunch of organizations that are relevant to your interests, don’t ask invasive questions about your age, and you keep showing up and participating in those events. You go to free classes for everything that’ll get you out of the house, and you arrange your own doctor visits and ask about ADHD medications, and you do your best because this world is much more dangerous than the one you knew before while also being much kinder at heart.
People will notice and remember you. They will notice the skinny pale kid with sunglasses at night, glasses chains, and hair like Cruella DeVille (also doesn’t exist here. Disney is not a thing; but I digress). They will remember that you have a pokemon escorting you, but no parents. They will come over and say hi. They will introduce you to their pokemon, and you will rotate through the man and the woman’s neglected pokemon as escorts because they’re quite strong as you can judge things; and you will absorb as much care instructions as you can, and care for these pokemon like they are your own, and they will be your own by the time you’re ready to leave, even if legally they aren’t usable in the Gym Challenge until your fourth badge and the man and the woman die. And they will die; possibly of their own hatred.
People will remember you saying that the pokemon with you are your parents pokemon. They will remember you saying you took over caring for them. They will remember their obviously neglected condition; and they will remember how much those pokemon improved under your care.
You will think of it as ‘what anyone should do’. They will see it as ‘a child worth supporting’.
No one will be surprised that you want to travel the world.
(In this world, there’s evil wizards that come back from the dead regularly enough that sword-fighting lessons are part of your school’s gym class. As soon as I heard the word Hyrule in Geography, I took Sword and Shield days much more seriously; and I even got into the SCA because they could help me practice more. If an evil wizard named Ganon or any variation therein comes back, I want to be ready to stab him in the head.
Anyway.)
You make friends in your mutual interest clubs, and talk about your mutual interests, and listen to what they have to say. Most importantly, you get and save their contact information, then give your own back. Did you know you can get a phone and, at least when I was seven, there are totally free data plans? You can’t browse the internet with them, or have more than the basic apps on a PokeTech; but you can call, leave and take messages, text, everything. Totally free.
I got the contact information of every single person I ever met and liked at every single club, event, and suchlike I could while I was growing up. When I got enough money together from scouring the beach, yardwork, pet sitting, dredging the canals, and selling off whatever the crew of Creeklaw and Flapscal on our apartment building’s roof gave me out of pity— a lot of old coins, and once a whole gold nugget— and so on, I printed calling cards and handed those out. I got a better phone. I learned I have a terrible memory for faces, and so I save the information with their name, where I met them, who introduced us, identifying features, and Important Facts About Them.
I also took it upon myself to introduce all my new friends to each other slowly, and invited them to any event I thought even vaguely might be in their interests. Even if they couldn’t come, I know it’s nice to be remembered and reached out to. They did the same for me, after all.
In return, they also invited me to things and the rule for that is: Unless I am Sick, Genuinely Broke, or Already Had Plans, my answer is Yes. Even the ‘broke’ bit was flexible, because most of my friends are Silverback Mightyena Matrons, so when I said “Hm. I’d love to, but I don’t have the supplies for that” or “that sounds fun, but I can’t afford a ticket” or even “will lunch be provided” a few too many times, they’ll just Adopt you. And then you’ll be like me, with fifty-five bazillion Nans and Grams and Grannies and Aunties, and one of them would pay for my ticket or give me the supplies or bring me a lunch, and I had fun. Even if the man and the woman wanted nothing to do with me; so what? I found people who did.
I know pretty much every little old lady in Galar, and a f*cktilion people in the rest of the world; and in an emergency, I can make two phone calls and a social media post and summon The Friendship Hordes. I am also on call for every ‘this needs a young person’ emergency, and developed a shocking number of friends more or less my own age according to my birth certificate here. I wasn’t expecting to, but I did.
Before, I was an introvert. Most of the strongest most famous Trainers are introverts. Here, my before-level of introversion is apparently Insane, Outrageous Extroversion.
I am invited to go on an Adventure nearly every single day. In fact, one invite in a day is positively slow.
This is how I made my own life very, very complicated; and very very fun. And you can too, if you’re not a f*cking coward.
It’s important to remember you’re not alone in this life. No matter what anyone says: there’s always someone or something out there for you to fall in love with.
If I had been an actual child when I was physically a child here, I’d have had no chance of learning that.
The man and the woman didn’t want me. I know that because they told me so. First the man told me, when I asked him on his deathbed.
I just asked.
He said no.
This horrified his pokemon; but not me. I already knew. I asked him about the woman; but he didn’t know. I asked him if it was okay to keep his pokemon. He said fine; they weren’t going where he was going.
He signed the paperwork to that effect; and Siri helped me file it. Stern and Lina were my pokemon legally after that, even if they wouldn’t listen to me in battle or be allowed in my Gym Challenge until Stow-on-Side. I got the man’s things, too— which honestly weren’t much of anything. The PC Box I use for the Gym came from him; a spinning wheel that folded down into a book, some hackles and combs too; a weird paperweight that felt cold but good in my hand, that had always been mine but now legally, it was mine too and I knew it was an Absolite now too; and a weird bracelet made of dark stones and one singular rainbow marble.
There’s some obvious stuff, in hindsight, that makes it clear why exactly the man and the woman were Like That. Grief makes strangers of us all, I suppose… Next of kin arrangements are odd here. It’s not just the stuff that gets divided— it’s the Pokemon too, and everything that goes with caring for them.
The woman threw me out, and died soon after. I’m disappointed that she never got to be a different person; and I’m sad I never got to meet whatever version of her raised Slick and Snuggle, who are sweethearts, even if Snuggle doesn’t battle anymore and Slick causes problems on purpose for fun.
My cousins are nice, though. Nora and Suzy and Daria, in Unova; Nana and the Boneheads, in Alola. My Unova cousins are powerful Trainers. Nana’s surprisingly diligent in her work, it’s just easy to misunderstand what her work actually is. The Boneheads have really improved now that they have a Pokemon League to grow up around like kudzu. The Alola Trial system wasn’t right for them; but a Pokemon League system of Gyms is significantly more malleable. And their Bug-type Gym is starting to be something really incredible.
Nora and Suzy are obsessed with trains, and every time there’s a train rally in Motostoke or Hammerlocke, they come stay with me. They also helped with the design and troubleshooting of the Spikemuth Tram System, and helped integrate the Gondolas in too. They keep mooching for a Battle Tram or a Battle Gondola, but I don’t have anyone to run that yet, so… that’s just a back burner plan for now.
Daria mentored me a lot, my third leg of my Journey; and I owe her so much. I just can’t lend her money.
The first game I ever tried to play all by myself was Pokémon Yellow.
I was a battle enthusiast, mostly in that reading Smogon battle strategies helped me inform my headcanons about pokemon behaviors. Pokédex entries as I knew them were just flavor text.
I still need a big chart posted with type matchup triangles to reference. Or I forget. I still knew things about training, and the world, and just… stories? So I did have an advantage in a world where stories come true nine times out of ten.
I am in a version of Pokemon where the anime and games were essentially a unified thing. Everything not explained in the anime or games was filled in by other things— Fakemon, as I’d once called them, were just pokemon here. For the sake of a functional ecosystem.
Hyrule was a region.
There were other things about being here that were different. Interconnectivity was different; and there are things that are just easier. There’s no reason why they should or shouldn’t be— but it’s very easy for me, who grew up once with computer science classes in elementary school and learned to research in highschool and college, to just… excel. I know it’s hard for people to understand Porygons. I have never had that problem.
Most people prefer RotomDevices because of their friendly UI. I prefer PorygonDevices because of their data security— which I know, for a fact, is more important. In this world, if you know how to clone a hard drive, or how to look up cloning a hard drive, you can breed Porygon. If you know how to scrape DRM off of anything meant for an end-user, you can get a Porygon out of your Trainer Scheme Poryphone, catch it with a pokeball, hook it up to your mostly empty Pokédex, copy that Porygon onto a thumb drive, and then you’ve bred a Porygon.
If you’ve ever fixed a Joycon’s drift, you can upgrade and mess around with your Trainer Scheme Pokédex, which you don’t have to give back after the fourth badge— because your new Porygon doesn’t like battling, and you’ve been using your Pokédex as a journal for everything you don’t want to forget, and adding extra space for your new buddy Bracket is just a matter of buying a forty-Poke chip for space.
There are two broad kinds of Pokédex. If you have parents in at least the middle class, they’ll opt for the mid-range in expense ones, which are the ‘pocket dexes’. They’re simpler than the one I got, with entries centered more on the use of Pokémon in battle, as well as tips on how to train, catch, and care for them. They’re a little encyclopedic, but mostly they’re Battle oriented, mass-produced, and regional.
They’re a product. Basically, they’re like smartphones, which is why most trainers have Rotomdexes. Legally, to be classified as a Pokédex, an object must not require access to the internet for the actual index. Trainers often explore in rural and mountainous areas.
The nicest modern Pokédexes have apps and web browsers as extra features. Add in a Rotomdex, and you’ve got a little friend in it’s own sturdy case, ready to go on adventures.
Rotoms, even in devices and displaying secondary typings, are still fundamentally Ghosts. They don’t like me; I’m a Dark Type.
So, I use Poryphones.
Anyway, the Pokédex I have is not like that. It was a researcher’s model, heavy and rugged, meant to be used as an interactive encyclopedia. I liked it better because it was more like a laptop than a gameboy. The UI for me was better. It had full in-depth entries for all of the Pokémon detailed— with objective information about biology, migration patterns, habitat, diet, lifespan, and more.
The act of completing the Pokédex solely pertains to seeing all of the pokémon native to your region, and this goal can take years. No trainer would attempt to capture every species they met, for both practical and moral reasons. Bonding with a wild pokémon to the point that they would willingly partner you takes time, and is not a process you’d go through for one you never intended to train. Moreover, removing a pokémon from the wild for bragging rights is pretty badly frowned upon. Not to mention that the cost would be astronomical - your PC Box subscription would go through the roof.
Pokedexes are guides. They offer tactical information, some useful background reading, and a bit of entertainment when you’re camped out in the Gym reception waiting for your (probably overdue) appointment. They’ve also got a pretty solid GPS system, which everyone ends up relying on at some point. Because of my involvement with the Spikemuth Computer Club, which was also the Anarchist’s Club, mine became something a little different.
History lesson for you. The Galar Trainer Access Scheme and the Galar League are the same thing. To apply to one is to agree to the other. I did not need parental approval to apply.
The Scheme is instrumental in giving young people of all financial backgrounds and in all situations the chance to become Trainers, and independent. On successful application, I was supposed to get discount cards, a PC system account, travel passes, education exemptions, a trainer card, and a Starter.
For reasons I still don’t totally know all of, I actually got… some of those things.
Spikemuth has a funny place in Galarian politics. That place has done more to say what happened in my life than anything else— at least, it has in Galar.
Galar’s League was unique in how regimented it was. In most regions, a Gym challenge is a personal journey; Trainers can challenge it at their own pace, in whichever order they choose, and there is no limit on how many times they can face any one Gym Leader.
In Galar, the Gym Challenge occurred within a specific period of the year, Leaders had to be challenged in a fixed order, and participants had far less freedom when it comes to organizing battle dates - all challengers had to face the same opponent within a few days of each other, so as to align with TV scheduling demands.
Most strikingly, Challengers were given only one chance to battle each Leader. If they lost, they’re out of the tournament. Eastern trainers tended to dislike this formula, claiming that loss is a part of a trainer’s growth.
Spikemuth is the second-strongest Gym in the Major Division. I worked hard to make that so.
I worked harder to change the way the Galar League operated.
To start, I did data collection and research. I asked my friends to log every injury, with special note of fatalities, for three years. I asked the same of the Joys. I checked League Ratings, both nationally and internationally.
I met Prosecutor Mathew with my findings, to see if I had something here— and I did. We had to close the Galar League for a year while the case was being litigated, but at the end— Galar’s League changed. Gym Leaders record all their battles; but the Challenger has to agree after their match to broadcast it. There’s more things we won; and a few things we lost.
The rigidity of the Galar Gym Challenge really does put all competitors on equal footing— but what happens when you lose? The number of gym badges a person has weighs up against what kinds of jobs they’re considered for, if they can get a passport, if they can go hiking or camping… all kinds of things. It is fair for the competitors to be out of the League Cup if they lose against the Gym Leaders they’ve challenged for the right to compete in it. It is not fair for the competitors to be unable to earn a Gym’s Badge entirely— simply for the sake of their future prospects.
Some people want a full set. Some people don’t want to be Battle Trainers. Some people have disabilities that are invisible, aren’t good TV, don’t work well with sponsors— should they be denied access to a job they might excel at, a life they might adore, just for the crime of being ordinary?
No!
Furthermore… The whole point of a Gym Leader is not just to act as a challenge for prospective Trainers, or represent their town and region in national or overseas tournaments. The point of a Gym Leader is to teach their specialty, train local talents, foster relationships between their home and others, and maintain the local ecosystem. A Gym Leader is Elite by necessity, not design. It’s right there in the title! Gym and Leader!
There were enough people who grew up and lived through the War to agree.
Chairwoman Rose (who did not quite remember any of the War and Post-war years, due to being too young) pushed for the Exhibition matches in response; and Relegation as well.
Scarcity is fake and I hate it.
I’m not an unbiased opinion on Chairwoman Rose. I’m also not wrong about her. I just don’t have proof.
That Woman first met Bebe in a one-off visit to Spikemuth’s Orphanage. She was intrigued by her brusque attitude and her raw battle skills. She visited again to give her a Hattena— and that’s when I got involved. Or really, that’s when Oleander involved me.
None of what That Woman had done was quite illegal. Merely wrong.
That Woman— Briar Rose— kept dropping by over the following years Bebe was still in that Orphanage, usually to see Bebe specifically, generally with new gifts on hand.
In another version of this world, Rose would have presented Bebe with an endorsem*nt; and there wouldn’t have been anything Bebe wouldn’t have done for her. In this version of this world, Oleander watched this escalation with growing unease. He told me, in confidence, how Briar Rose thrived on the attention, the idolization, and fed back into it.
He didn’t say ‘grooming’; he didn’t have to.
I’d watched That Woman do the same thing to Danielle, once upon a time. I didn’t know what I was seeing; and I couldn’t save my friend; but I could save Bebe. Oleander’s influence helped me get all my Ducklett in a row the first time, before my new house was inspected. If asked, I’m sure he’d say everything to help me was just to preserve That Woman’s reputation.
Sure. And I’m just a Dark-type Specialist. It’s not like Oleander was Danny’s friend too, once, and equally horrified by what was obviously happening but not provable…
Bebe is in Kalos; her first Gym Challenge, in a country with much stricter focus on protecting children, especially after what happened with Team Flare. Professor Augusta Sycamore and Champion Dianthus de Parfum don’t f*ck around, especially if the Dark-type specialist they worked with on stuff none of them can legally discuss asks them to keep an eye on their adopted child.
Bebe has no contact with That Woman; my friends help make sure of it. Things were well on their way to becoming much more seriously dangerous, what with That Woman’s increasingly erratic choices and constant mentioning of an energy crisis. And all of that still doesn’t count as proof.
I can’t prove anything.
I’m sure I could if only Oleander wasn’t in love with That Woman. Alas; he is. And here we are.
The other thing I can’t prove is that this Energy Crisis is absolute sh*t.
(For a game I once played, there was a theory about why a surprise villain did what he did.
It was posited that the villains ‘energy crisis’ protestations were a guise for a much deeper and more complex emergency. By the time Mustard was defeated as Champion, the villain had been siphoning Dynamax energy from Eternatus for a little over twenty years, and struggling to keep the Pokémon asleep for almost as long.
There was a balance to be struck: farming excessive energy from Eternatus risked waking it, but farming too little made it impossible to keep up with rising demand. The new champion’s media presence only accelerated the public obsession with Dynamaxing, and swept other concerns with it aside. Stadiums were relocated to power spots; Gigantimaxing became a feature in almost every Gym Battle; and Tourists were pouring in to see it first hand.
I watched this happen as a child but didn’t understand until I remembered what was coming for Galar, after Danny became Champion.
The villain knew that Eternatus would wake if an alternate source of Dynamax energy wasn’t found; so they authorized some discreet experiments into Dynamax crystals, which carry and facilitate energy of their own. There’s no actual way to keep that kind of thing secret, if you know what for and how to look; and, after doing research in Unova, I did know how.
The villain aimed to discover whether large volumes of Dynamax crystals could produce enough power to cover the excesses. Preliminary testing was promising— but, by the night of the finals in that game, nowhere near ready for implementation. When the villain spoke with the Champion, the situation was at it’s crisis point. However, the villain was too used to secrecy to explain properly; and so the Champion disregarded the warning, took to the pitch, and Dynamaxed their Charizard to the cheers of thousands.
That burst of energy was enough to finally rip Eternatus loose.)
This world is not a manga or anime or game, subject to censorship laws. People and pokemon can die here, senseless and brutal and cruel. I have seen it happen.
I had my suspicions about what Dynamax Crystals actually were. Evil wizards, Hyrule, Legendary Dragon-type Pokemon…? Yeaaaah. That’s something worth looking into with an expert on hand.
I made a point of gathering up lead from the e-waste recycling center in Motostoke, rare black-hull hazellanuts, and black tumblestones to create a container for the Dynamax Crystal I found while riding the rails one summer when I was eight. I had Lina with me, it was fine.
There’s things you can figure out how to do in a world where Hyrule is a real place, your local library is actually the oldest in the country, and you know for a fact things like Picori exist based on the amount of valuable things you keep finding in large pots and behind bricks. A Dynamax Crystal wrapped in freely given Whimsicott fluff and then again in Spinarak-woven bandages soaked in holy water from the Temple of the Shield, stitched with ancient Sheikah runes I learned at the Occult Club populated by ancient Zygardi Grannies and several genuine Witches, and the whole thing set inside a holding-ball made of blackhull hazellanut, black tumblestone, and lead; and wrapped again in Eldgegoss linen bandages and sealed with another ancient Shiekah seal I made according to a description in a book only children can see. I’m fairly sure a Picori in the library read my notes and shoved it out for me.
I can't prove sh*t.
When I went to Hyrule, I checked. I’m not right— but I’m not wrong, either.
A Dynamax Crystal isn’t Gloom, thank f*ck; but it is bad . Actually bothering to go about checking what that means in a world where an evil wizard regularly ressurects himself from the dead to f*ck with people? Where gods like cookies and will eat them from your hand?
Apparently that makes me both responsible and wise. Being able to use ancient Sheikah Runes properly makes me… of use and interest to the Sheikah.
My grad school Advisor was Impa Kakariko. I have ninja training, actual war-footing ninja training in how to fight alongside pokemon, and Moves I can use at any time. In addition to being a Gym Leader, internationally famous for a variety of reasons, and looking like some astoundingly weird cross between Barbara Streisand and Cher at their youngest and most juicy— or a cute and hot and not-evil Cruella Deville.
Yeah, it’s weird for me too, when I think about it too hard.
And then there’s the fact I’m actually proper nobility— but enough about me.
You’re here for the Pokemon.
