Start Game 1.4
July 5th, 2022.
“Just bear with me please?” Mirko rolled her eyes as I followed the instructions I had been given on giving a mammalian pokémon a physical. “This is just to keep an eye on your health and to create a baseline for my own use. While the dex-phone can get most of your measurements, a back-up is needed.”
She lifted one finger, and despite her clear disgruntlement let me continue with my poking and prodding, and spoke into the recording feature of my pokédex.
“Good. Ears are clean, lacking an excess of wax or any signs of micro-bug parasites such as mites. You’ve got a strong immune system from what Laven has said.” I spoke with Mirko, and she listened to my ramblings.
“Waa?” I continued my work, carefully not touching her ears as I moved on.
“An immune system is how your body protects you from diseases of various kinds, viruses, bacteria, fungus, parasites and parasitoids.” I explained and she looked intrigued. “Yours is strong and healthy, and can protect you along with your shots and boosters.” She flinched, recognizing what those were. Mirko had gotten all her shots before we had met.
She unfolded her arms and with a sigh changed her posture into a more relaxed pose.
“Thank you.” I shuffle over from my sitting position on the grass, and look at her eyes. “Okay. Eyes are clear and bright,” Mirko pulled down her eyelids, and I nodded. “Eye tissue is pink, and not red or or very pale, healthy, and shows no sign of discharge or inflammation.”
She had shown no signs of injury or illness, the lab had taken care of her very well since her husk had been caught by a trainer.
I started feeling her sternum, being careful not to squish her too tightly. Mirko squirmed a little, but seemed more curious about the purpose of my fiddling. She was about average in weight for a Buneary at five kilograms, and her ribs could be felt but not seen. So she wasn’t overweight or underweight, and she had a resting heartbeat of one hundred ten beats a minute.
I had already finished checking up on her legs, and their muscle density was insane. She could probably leap two stories with no trouble, and her ears while I couldn’t take direct measurements, were heavy and packed full of muscle and odd bio-hydraulic structures.
“As a pokemon, Mirko defies most laws of biology native to my home, with incredible muscle density and physical strength and durability. This is sourced from their Power, the metaphysical energy that makes up much of their bodies. Accepted terms for this energy are aura, qi, and chi in the eastern regions, infinity energy, orgone, and primessential energy in the western regions.” Pokemon are spirits, though most of them do have physical matter making up their bodies, some more than others. “This energy suffuses their bodies, acting as a zero-range skintight force field.”
For pokemon their force field was Typed naturally, and could be dampened with the right types, with the reasoning being biological or metaphysical.
Mirko didn’t seem to mind listening to my rambling, and I smiled.
This was going to be one of many necessities if I was interested in researching pokemon.
I was going to do my best, even if I felt like my best wasn’t good enough.
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In summation, the Mew-RKS Theory postulates that all Pokemon inherit the necessary genes for any typing but only express one or two in a population. Each expressed type gene comes packaged with a suite of traits that better support the typing in a biological sense.
This has been proven with identification of Type genes within the genomes of Pokemon species of every type, with analysis of their DNA with the discovery of PWM or Pokemon/Primessential Wavelength Matter allowing for analysis of even more esoteric Pokemon. Prime examples of Type genes include dormant dragon-type genes within the charmander line, steel-type genes in post-Hisuian colonization goomy populations and the rapid evolution of fire-type vulpix into the ice-type keokeo or Alolan vulpix.
It is believed that Type Change is induced by genetic and epigenetic activation of nascent genes, triggered by both Evolution-Metamorphosis and the pressures of natural selection. This is how—
I stopped reading the paragraph, nodding to myself as I added more to my knowledge base. The more I knew about pokemon, the better I would be able to take care of any pokemon I plan to catch. For example I had learned a fair bit about Pokemon Wavelength Matter, the substance of which pokemon are composed of.
PWM is a strange substance that has both the properties of a wave and a particle, like light crossed with matter. The ‘atoms’ of this substance are arranged with low matter in the same manner as molecules from other life like plants, humans and so on.
Pokemon vary widely between material and metaphysical if you would. Fairy, psychic, ghost, electric and fire are heavily metaphysical. Normal, steel, water, bug, ground, rock, ice and dark are neutral, with some leaning slightly in one direction towards metaphysical or material. Flying, poison, grass, fighting, and dragon types are heavily material. It was a rule of thumb of course, not a perfect and exact method.
A hand found itself on my shoulders, and I jumped and knocked it away with a half-suppressed scream of fright. I flushed when I saw it was Akari holding out a bottle of water, brows furrowed in confusion.
“You… uhh startled me.” I explained, feeling outright embarrassed at my reaction. Akari cocked her head, dark steel blue eyes rather piercing. “I’m still reading some research papers and textbooks that might help with exams in the future.” While a trainer license let you raise any pokemon, certain pokemon were Restricted and you needed to take exams or earn enough gym badges or equivalents to legally have them.
I was interested in such pokemon but it was definitely not an immediate goal. Going from a buneary to a garchomp would definitely be the last mistake I would ever make.
“I see you’ve been training Mirko.” Akari pointed out with a chirpy tone, and I nodded as I looked over to Mirko.
She was running a lap, running and hopping at top speed in intermittent bursts between longer jogging pace laps. Before that I had practiced dodging by… uhh throwing a ball at her, though we also played catch which was exhausting if rewarding whenever she caught one or I threw a fastball right.
“While I’m a lot more interested in pokemon research, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t put effort in training my pokemon.” Pokemon gravitated to strength and I couldn’t be weak in a world like this one, I wanted something to show for my effort until I can go home, if I can go home.
I pulled out my dex-phone, where it had recorded a good scan of Happy the Tepig.
Shared Characteristics
Species: Tepig, Fire Pig Pokémon.
Type: Fire/Ground
Egg Group: Field
Classification: Animalia - Chordata - Mammalia - Artiodactyla - Suidae - Sus
Wild Threat Level: Tepig are easily spooked and will snort fire from their nostrils before fleeing, their lava tipped tails can cause burns and fires however. Emboar are a high level threat if provoked however.
Growth Rate: Medium-slow
Suggested Diet: Roots, grasses, leaves, grain, berries, nuts, seeds, mushrooms, vegetables. Fire herbivore slop.
Personal Characteristics
Name: Happy
Holder: Akari Berlitz (Journeyman Trainer)
Age: Five years
Ability: Blaze (Fire-type moves strengthened in a pinch)
Physicality Analysis
* Minor notch on left ear due to bite-related injury.
* Height measured at fifty centimeters and body mass at ten kilograms.
* Mature male, average in size with above average muscle definition.
* Signs of having contracted type A Pokerus.
Known Moves: Tackle, Tail Whip, Ember, Mud Sport.
Pokerus huh…?
I had read some texts on studies of pokérus, it’s a microscopic agent, a cross between a virus, a bacteria and a protozoan, which seems to share a number of genes with certain pokemon species like solosis, grimer, and ditto. Type A is the safest, causing a permanent change in biochemistry with a boost of time-and-a-half for training. Though it can put a team out of commission for a week. Type B is more unpleasant, and can knock them out for two weeks and doubles growth at the cost of releasing limiters and risking recoil damage from overworking themselves.
Stolen story; please report.
Type C is silent for a month before a week of misery follows, and can cause permanent physical and mental damage, even creating Shadow Pokémon, and proving fatal. Type D is effectively a zombie virus with it’s creation of virulent Shadow Pokemon, and euthanasia is the best option there. It was recommended by both pokémon and people barring a divine miracle, or a built-up resistance from the weaker strains.
Which had at least reduced the danger from an active threat to society to just super-rabies. It was still a rather terrifying illness though, and one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
I sighed and focused myself back on the present, standing up even while I was sore from moving around all day. I had exercised more in the last two weeks than I had in the last two years. But when you were with a buneary that could run at over fifty miles per hour and leap a two-story building, exercise was a survival mechanism.
Akari followed me with a curious gaze, swaying as she walked behind me with a hard-to-read look. “You’re planning more training then, can I join?”
“Sure? The more the merrier?” I shrugged my shoulders, training involved a lot of coaching and teaching of techniques. Resistance training and lifting of heavy weights or consistent applications of moves, and learning how to apply the energy and physical techniques of new moves. A sort of cross between magic spells and martial arts.
Akari lit up, and with a little prodding brought out her Starter, the funky little tepig huffing ashy smoke from his nose.
“What did you wish to practice with Mirko?”
“I wanted to train in Nimbleness and Acceleration, she seems to work best as a close-range combatant.” Mirko was a bit of a brute, and Speed was a complicated subject.
This Earth had battle simulations that had been turned into games, and Speed is the most ambiguous. There's Acceleration, the ability to change movement speed and direction. Nimbleness is agility and a pokémon’s ability to move across the terrain, which can depend on both location and the pokémon. Situational Awareness is their awareness of their surroundings, of obstacles and their target. Reaction Time is the last, critical to battlefield response and orders. All four make up Speed as a statistic of pokémon ability.
So… complicated is the simplest description of Speed in battle.
Akari cracked her knuckles as if taking on an unspoken task. “Your endurance leaves something to be desired. If you want to keep up with your pokémon you need stamina.”
I might have made a mistake.
“Umm…?” I stepped back while Akari stepped forward. Mirko was giggling at my plight.
The blue-haired native placed a hand on my shoulder. “Tell me? What do you think about running a few laps?”
Oh no.
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July 12th, 2022.
“Risland is a union of regions, made up of Unova, Quivira, Greater Orre, Kaskade, Orana, Florum, and Kyrona.” I read aloud, curious about learning more about the history of a planet in an alternate reality.
Unova corresponded to the East Coast of the United States, and Florum was once a part of it and added up to Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana, so the two regions were the Eastern Seaboard. Quivira was similar to most of Texas which had nominal control of uninhabited territories that added up to much of the southwest while Greater Orre was the rest. Kaskade was the Pacific Northwest, and Orana was Montana after eating up the Dakotas and Wyoming. Kyrona is Alaska, plus tiny bits of Canada and Russia.
Risland had gone to war with Nihoh from 1980 to 1984, some mess of a conflict that had stemmed from a civil war Nihoh had triggered in Greater Orre in the 40s that devastated the ecosystem. Which was why pokemon were so rare there, keystone species dying out caused rapid migrations and die-offs of pokemon.
There were dozens upon dozens of regions that had joined the International Association of Pokémon Leagues that had been re-established in 1996. Some I recognized from side-games while others were new and had varying levels of contact with the ‘Canon’ regions. I had also read up more on the Unified Regions of Nihoh, and their history at the behest of Akari.
The Celestica Period was the rise, height and fall of ancient and powerful cultures that had settled the islands of Nihoh from the east around one hundred thousand years ago. The Draconid People and Mizonotami of Hoenn, Pokélantis and Pokémopolis of Kanto acclaim along with the Celestica People of Sinnoh, Almia and Tohoku.
These earliest humans were closely related, several peoples who lived in the Nihoh archipelago and were the equivalent of the Jōmon, though being hyper-advanced civilization made them pretty different. They had collapsed around three thousand years ago, and were displaced by the Waa People who first settled Kanto before settling everything else. Even the Celestica of Sinnoh have taken in blood from the Diamond and Pearl clans of Sinjoh-descent. And they weren’t the first.
Almia and Hisui had once been one and the same until the Waa turned it into an outpost under the Waajin Empire’s great unifier over two thousand years ago. Almia was used as a base to spread into Hisui, with one of his sworn vassals at the helm.
The House of Berlitz.
The Imperial Family was dedicated to the worship of the three faces of Sinnoh, with the Berlitz protecting one branch dedicated to the face of Time. Up until the Imperial Family was murdered and a wave of betrayal and assassinations that cut out the heart of the empire balkanized it into the modern regions. The Berlitz survived as a minor merchant empire until the Age of Warlords, as raiders and five hundred years of war only ended by Sir Aaron in the Battle of Rota erased their mark on Hisui.
The House of Berlitz didn’t make their return until about three hundred years ago, when their last surviving heir had joined Galaxy Team. Officially recorded as Rei Berlitz, who had married a woman of unknown providence by the name of either Akari or Shou.
No one was sure which, because she had supposedly answered to both. The House of Berlitz was something like the kazoku, or a Scottish clan, no real political power besides history and wealth. Which was worth a lot less in a world where most commodities were dirt cheap and the minimum wage in more established nations was thirty dollars an hour.
But it still mattered and meant she had a target on her back as one of the few living members of the Berlitz family. Other known members included the former Champion of Sinnoh, Dawn Berlitz, Yanase Berlitz, Johanna Berlitz, and an unknown father. There were others like the Knotz family who were more distant relatives and a poorly known branch living in… Tohoku.
There was a lot I didn't know since a lot of records weren't complete, the last five hundred years were detailed enough with the Industrial Age beginning with the creation of Magearna. The Clockwork Princess who overthrew a tyrant in the name of her human creator, and whose actions led to revolutions over the next couple centuries.
Mirko was fiddling with the advanced first aid kit, and I shuddered at the harsh lessons I had taken over the last week. An advanced first aid and wilderness training course had been my life for the past seven days, teaching me everything I could so I wouldn't die like a punk. Fortunately, it was very well organized even if I was admittingly still a total newbie.
Mirko had learned first aid with me and seemed to enjoy it. I was happy she was learning some new skills. Hmm.
“Mirko?” I called out, and her ears swiveled in my direction, her nose twitching as she hopped over to the couch I was crashing on. She was still odd to look at, translating magical monsters to reality was hard apparently.
For example legs, she had them. They were mostly hidden under fluff but jumps and kicks revealed them. They were like a lopunny’s legs but shorter, and covered in the same yellow fur, standing on four toes. The fourth toe acted as a shock absorber and lever for enhancing their jumps, channeling their internal energies.
It was metaphysical biological bullshit.
Mirko had a round leporine head and large dark eyes, with slightly ruffled hair rather than the weirdly slick designs of animated pokémon. She stretched out her arms, splaying out three fingers and a thumb. She twiddled her thumbs, tilting her head. She wasn't meek, but expressing anxiety through minor violence was an issue.
“I feel like the past ten days have been pretty packed, and I thought maybe it was a good idea to sit down and uhh… just chat?” Mirko blinked, and I felt weird about this whole situation.
The buneary line was a distrustful lineage of hares, living harsh lives in the wilderness, and was considered low on the food chain, so introductions between them and predator pokémon can be tough. Their most natural enemies were murkrow and misdreavus, due to some ancient evolutionary battle between them that related to Mega Evolution. Communication was key when it came to pokémon especially as I learned more about the Tohoku region.
There were dozens of cities and towns and hundreds of villages, though they had suffered from a natural disaster some eleven years ago that had killed hundreds of thousands of people. There were more than 8 gyms but there was a core of eight that were signs of true skill and competitive spirit.
The nearest gym was in the town of Irori, which was… over two hundred kilometers on foot. Running along a major river, traveling through rural countryside, flat plains, gently rolling hills, and then more plains. It was a two-week-long trip across both untamed wilderness and small towns and villages scattered between.
Route 301 could be considered this region’s route 1, with at least thirty-one routes up to 332 interconnecting the region of Tohoku. Tohoku was a large and diverse region, acting as a bridge between Kanto-Johto and Sinnoh. The southern half of Tohoku was home to a higher proportion of pokémon of the Kanto and Johto region while the northern half had more Sinnoh natives, and interspersed throughout the region were Tohokun variants and surviving Hisuian(Sinnohan?) variants.
Mirko blinked. “Mrrr…?” I sighed and found my confidence.
“I’m your trainer, correct?” Mirko nodded with a befuddled look. I smiled awkwardly. “But I also want to get to know you better, we’re supposed to be partners in this mess of a world. I think a little Q&A is in order, I know you're from a colony on Route 301 not far off of Ishigama. Why become a Starter?”
I had no idea if she could answer or not, even with what I knew about pokéballs. They were naturally able to store the energy of a trainer which was then directed toward a pokémon. Through this field, a pokémon can understand how compatible they are with you. Otherwise, you're fucked and not going to catch a thing.
Starter pokémon are often given time to could get an idea of what they were getting into. Starters are the species considered most compatible with humans, dozens of species are carefully selected and marked as suitable partners. My… aura field was unusual, but it at least worked. Mirko had chosen to become a Starter, the question then was why?
The bunny flicked her ears, pointed to a map of the region, and then gently traced her paw along the winding routes.
“You want to travel… to see the world beyond your colony?” I asked, placing my hands on my thighs with a lopsided grin. She pointed to me, and then to my pokédex, where my journal entries were written and opened up. “And you like what I do?”
She shook her head. “Buu! Waa!” She mimed talking and writing with her paws and mouth, and then to the medical kit.
“You like when I talk when I tell you things? And when we’re learning new things?”
Her eyes shined brighter as I understood her. “Wawa!” Her perpetual smile was curled in a more sincere expression.
“Well, then that’s something we have in common,” I was happy to see that, I wanted to make this work. This wasn't just having a superpowered pet, this was closer to taking in a roommate as their life coach in kicking ass and taking names.
“If you’d like, maybe I can tell you more about my home?” My heart clenched as I thought back to what I had lost. I had been ignoring it for too long.
Mirko's fist was pumped and my lips curled into a sad smile.
Yeah, just take it one step at a time.