I'm writing this from the Pokemon Center in Orebourgh City. Yep. Orebourgh City. As in that city in the Sinnoh Region. Which makes absolutely no f***ing sense seeing as I woke up yesterday morning at home in Azalea Town back in Johto. Dad drove me from there to New Bark Town, where I got my starter, a Cyndaquil that I named Wolverine. Then s*** got weird. The last thing I remember is seeing this wormhole, and almost becoming hypnotized by it, before blacking out. When I woke up, I was in Twinleaf Town in Sinnoh. There I ran into a few other trainers who also seemed inappropriately dressed for the colder climate, that carried Pokemon not native to Sinnoh, and seemed just as f***ing confused as I was.
As we were trying to figure out what the hell happened, this group of people who were dressed in a uniform that made them look like a group of idiots as opposed to individual idiots, walked past, shouting something about the nearby lake being off limits. We proceeded to ignore them until we heard an explosion, which naturally peaked our interest, causing us to go have a look, where we found a few more people who seemed to be in the same position that the rest of us were.
Basically a fight broke out, and whilst we seemed to beat the Pokemon carried by these Team Galactic idiots one on one, there were too many of them, and the only reason we weren't in a lot of trouble was because two other people came along with stronger Pokemon, who were able to fight off these thugs. But the weirdest was yet to come.
Turns out the reason Team Galactic were there was the rock formation on the island in the center of the lake, which was actually revealed to be a cave after they blasted the s*** out of it with some explosive. The reason they were so interested in this rock formation was because it housed a Legendary Pokemon called Mesprit, which they were attempting to capture, however in the chaos that had ensued, it managed to escape.
To be honest though, that wasn't the thing that stood out most about that experience. It was what happened when one of the Galactic a**holes tried to grab Neith, one of the other trainers. Before I knew what was happening, I had intervened, and left him a bleeding and crying heap on the ground. That's not to say that he didn't deserve it, but it was the first time I had done anything like that to another person. Sure, I had gotten physical, but usually that was to make a statement, and didn't involve actually hurting someone, but this was different. I had taken the training that Dad had given me the last few years, which I had practiced hundreds of times on a dummy, and used it on another person. That's not to say that he didn't deserve it, but I feel like I hadn't really been prepared for what it would do. Dad had always said that those three strikes were good because they didn't do lasting damage to the person on the other end, and every time I had practiced on the dummy... Well, it's a dummy. It goes thump and then gets hit again a minute later. I had broken this persons nose, and ruptured his eardrums, assuming I landed the hits correctly. Even if it wasn't going to be lasting damage, the pain that he is probably still in would be unbearable.
Anyway, the two newcomers introduced themselves as Professor Rowan, the regional professor of Sinnoh, who handles new trainers and their starter Pokemon, and Nathan, another trainer who apparently like us, came through a wormhole, only instead of being at the same time as us, he arrived in Sinnoh a few days earlier, and was helping Professor Rowan try and figure out the cause. However, Professor Rowan told us there was more to our situation, and offered to give us a lift to his lab and explain things better there.
When we got to the lab, Professor Rowan dropped one hell of a bombshell. We weren't from this world.
According to his theory, based on what he had seen of the wormholes, and his conversations with Nathan, this world is one of countless, almost parallel worlds, with slight differences across a multiverse. And whilst we had been pulled from our homes into the Sinnoh Region, the Sinnoh Region we were in was not the one from our own worlds.
In addition to this, Professor Rowan seems to think that us all being pulled from different worlds, to the same location, in the same world at a very similar time, right before Team Galactic launched an attack against Lake Verity, wasn't an accident, but be it the will of Arceus or some other God, was actually intentional, and that maybe the key to us returning home is tied in with Mesprit.
The Professor told us about two other lakes. Lake Acuity in the northern reaches of Sinnoh, and Lake Valor on the mainlands east coast. Each of them houses a Pokemon like Mesprit, which could be part of the reason why we were brought here, and part of finding our way home.
The Professor then offered us his assistance, in the form of a Sinnoh Starter Pokemon, as well as signing us up as Trainers in Sinnoh, allowing us to take on the Gym Challenge, as well as use the facilities available to traveling Pokemon Trainers in Sinnoh. Before he gave us the Pokemon, he interviewed each of us, to determine whether we would be suitable to take one of these Pokemon, and to figure out where we may fit in the team. After that, he then gave everyone a role in the team.
To Amy, the rebellious looking, and slightly apprehensive, but friendly and loyal once you got on her good side, fashion designer from Kalos, he gave the task of being the Kecleon. Blending in and being inconspicuous. Finding out information, and completing tasks when discretion is required.
To Tony, the mostly quiet, but compassionate and friendly, son of a nurse from Hoenn, he gave the task of being the groups medic.
To Neith, the mostly quiet, but sometimes slightly hyperactive and bubbly trainer from Kalos, he gave the task of being a data analyst.
To Kinnie, the quiet, almost robotic girl, who I am not even sure I know where she is from, he gave the task of being a tactician.
To Matthias, the blonde from Kanto with sticky fingers and a distaste towards anything authoritative, he gave the task of being the scout.
To Renny, the kid who seemed to be unable to look at the world without going through his camera, he gave the task of being the chronicler.
The biggest surprise came when he gave me my role. He asked me to be the leader. This surprised the s*** out of me. I'm not even sixteen yet, and in all honesty, I'm not much of a leader. Amy or Tony would be much better, but he insisted that I be the leader. He said that in me he saw a natural instinct to protect those around me, and that is more important in a leader of this type of group than age or experience.
The thing that came to mind most about this was what Dad had drilled into my since I was young. He had lots of rules for when I was going to travel. But two he mentioned the most.
Never get involved with Legendary Pokemon.
Never let yourself be responsible for someone else's safety.
By taking on this role, I was breaking both of those. The sad thing is, I really couldn't care less. He has parroted all of this to me for years, refusing to give me any reason why, when it was clear he had reasons for it, and expecting me to follow blindly.
Things started to go downhill from there. First was Renny, the kid with the camera. I think he might be slightly handicapped, because he seems unable to focus on more than one thing at a time, and the thing that makes that tricky, is that his focus hardly changes. When he saw Mesprit, he decided he wanted to make a documentary about it, and it seems like nothing else is more important than this in his mind. He actually took off, because he viewed taking the Pokemon and being part of the team, as being indebted to Professor Rowan, which in his eyes would get in the way of his documentary. Granted, Nathan managed to bring him back, and he ended up taking a Pokemon and coming along with us.
Then Matthias seemed to get himself into trouble. Turns out the jacket he was wearing was one he stole, and the owner and her aggressive boyfriend recognized it and wanted it back. I ended up having to try and find a way to diffuse that, without just bailing Matthias out, and letting him know that this wasn't okay.
We spent the night at the lab, before leaving the next morning, making our way to Jubilife City where things became even more complicated. Upon entering the city, we were approached by a man in a suit, who said he was representing the CEO of Dash Corp, one of Sinnoh's leading technology developers, who was wanting to have lunch with us.
Trying to figure out how to handle this best, how to not turn away something that could be potentially innocent, but also not be naive enough to walk into a trap, I ended up giving everyone in the team a small task to make sure we were covering our backs, and everyone seemed on board except Renny, who flat out refused, and kept calling me Miss Parks, for some odd reason, even after I had told him that wasn't my name.
He kept being difficult, and it put me in an even more difficult position. Do I let him come along and risk him getting himself, or one of the others hurt because he is refusing to act as part of the team, or do I leave him behind? I opted for the second, but he refused, insisting he would come, causing me to do something which got me in the bad books of a lot of the group. I lied.
I told the security guard that Renny was a recovering kleptomaniac, and that him going to a place like Dash Corp would be too much on him, which meant the security guard wouldn't let him come along. At least that kept him from getting us into trouble.
We were taken to this big building where we had lunch with a man who introduced himself as Davis Thomas but told us to call him Dash, where he gave us each a prototype for the new Poketch, however these ones had been modified to record data of wormholes that appear, and send the information back to him. The weird thing was that he seemed to know me. However it got weirder, he then offered for us to test out a battling simulator he had designed disappeared. Turns out we had been having lunch with a hologram the whole time.
When I used the battling simulator, something weird happened. I was sent to a specific room with the simulator, whilst the others got to pick one, which I didn't notice at the time. When I finished the battle, the simulator powered down and a door opened, revealing an aggressive Pokemon. Whilst it scared the s*** out of me, I realized that it was just growling, but wasn't actually trying to attack me. I stood my ground, and demanded it stand down, and it begrudgingly did. That was when I met the real Dash. He explained to me that this Pokemon was called Type: Null, and was actually humans failed attempt to recreate the Legendary Pokemon Arceus, and that he wanted me to take it. He said that the Type: Null was sensitive to energy signatures, and mine matched his own close enough that I may be able to tame the Pokemon. But that wasn't the weird part. He said that he was like us. He wasn't from this world, but instead of coming through a wormhole, he came here a different way when he was a teenager. His home world apparently came to some sort of end, and he escaped to here. Something called Shadow Pokemon appeared in his world.
Then when I asked how he knew my name, he said something which was the first answer I had heard to a question I have had for years. He told me to ask Dad, and said "Say hi to Jacob for me."
For years, Dad had been forcing me to learn things like how to battle, how to survive on my own, and how to defend myself. He forced me to learn about Legendary Pokemon, and how to fight them if I ever had to. He told me about how people who get involved with Legendary Pokemon get killed and to stay away from them, and that traveling with others is a bad idea, because their mistakes will get you killed. He tried to show me that the world was a terrible and dangerous place, and the best we can do is to just survive, but refused to give me any answers why. My guess was that maybe something bad happened to him, and it wasn't until Laura told me almost a year ago that he battles like his life depends on it because once upon a time it did, that I had been told anything. Mum knew, but she kept me in the dark. So did Gwaine. Dad had them all sworn to secrecy, and after Laura told me what she did, I never heard from her again. She stopped answering my calls and messages, and hadn't been back to Johto since, and I think that is because Dad told her to stay away.
That comment shook me. There was no doubt that Dad knew Dash. But Dash had been in this world since he was not much older than myself, and he doesn't look like he could be more than ten years older than me. That being said, neither did Dad. He is thirty seven but looks ten years younger. This means one of two things. Either Dad has been to this world before, and met Dash here, which seems unlikely as even when he has been on his tournament trips, he was always calling home to check on us, or this world Dash came from, that fell to Shadow Pokemon, my Dad came from as well.
If this were true, that Dad wasn't from my world, but before I was born came from a world that was attacked by Shadow Pokemon, and a Legendary Pokemon like Dash mentioned, then everything I have wondered about, the training, the hatred towards Legendary Pokemon, even what Laura said, suddenly makes sense.
Dash left the room, and I was left with answers, but now even more questions. I picked up an extra Poketch for Renny, as we made our way out of the building, where I also found another Poketch in a nearby bin. Turns out Amy's world had been affected by someone using devices like this to cause havoc, and had left.
We regrouped at the Pokemon Center, where Nathan also joined us, and I made a silly mistake. I gave Renny the Poketch before I talked to him about actually being part of the team. The reason that was silly, was because it beeped to say there was a wormhole nearby, and his first instinct was to run straight to it to film it, without the thought of it being dangerous even crossing his mind. Thankfully, Nathan went after him, and managed to slow him down enough for us to regroup, before approaching the location of the wormhole. Instead of Team Galactic, this time we found a teenage girl. Palila. A wannabe-skater from Alola, with a really s***y attitude. It almost seems that she sees herself as someone who is so mature, purely because she talks a lot of s**t and causes issues with the other members. Unfortunately she is one of us. A wormhole trainer, and as disrespectful as she is, I would hate to see her stuck here. I just hope she pulls her f***ing head in, because if we have to deal with this every day until we get out of here, I think Amy is going to murder her. We were also joined by this other guy Drake who is apparently from this world. One of the others almost told him that we came through a wormhole, but I quickly covered it up. He is a nice enough guy, but I would rather it not get out that there is a group of trainers who claim to be from other worlds traveling Sinnoh. It is asking for trouble.
We arrived in Orebourgh City early this evening, but the gym was closed, so we have to spend the night here at the Pokemon Center then battle the gym tomorrow. So I guess next up is organize some dinner and get some sleep. Tomorrow we continue east towards Lake Valor, so I will need the rest, especially with this rag-tag team of misfits I am somehow supposed to be leading...
Bookmarks