Akari’s face reminded me of a Snubbull on the way back to the campsite. While I had celebrated and exchanged excited hugs with Clarissa, she had sulked back into her tent and disappeared for the night. I now had three Pokémon. Bidoof, Shinx, and Starly. I intended to release Shinx back into the wild, however. I had taken it from its pride and felt pretty terrible about it. The Starly seemed like a solitary bird, but would need to be tamed. As for Bidoof? I was more worried about whether it was smart enough to follow orders than anything.

I would return to Jubilife with all three- in case either Cyllene, Laventon, Commander Kamado, or all three wanted to verify my catches. But I still vowed to release Shinx when next I found myself in the Obsidian Fieldlands.

Akari had taken away the spare Poké Balls- even the one I had broken. I supposed she could repair it or scrap it for parts. I had tried releasing Starly, but it had immediately tried to flee the second I had let it out. I was forced to recall it, and its panicked screeching had horrified Clarissa. I had thought the Security Corps member had a simple fear of Starly until she reacted the same way when I released Bidoof. As it turned out, she was scared of all Pokémon.

The entire village was terrified of Pokémon, in fact. I had later found that out from her on the way back. That had been a shock to learn. It had certainly explained why there weren’t any in the village.

Either way, Clarissa eventually calmed down around Bidoof when she discovered it was really stupid. All the small Pokémon really did was just gaze up at us with mopey eyes. “I think…” Clarissa had remarked from a distance. “I think it’s actually quite cute…”

I had grabbed Bidoof in my hands and lifted him up to my face- mostly to see if it would react. It didn’t. I noticed it was intelligent enough to recognise where my eyes were, though. Unless it was just coincidentally looking into them.

By the time we had called it a night, even Clarissa had managed to touch and eventually cradle the little Bidoof in her arms. The thing would occasionally let out its signature cry, but it looked more relaxed than disturbed for the most part.

I slept with it outside of its Poké Ball. If it wanted to run, then I could recall it no matter where I fled to and it’d inform me whether or not I’d release it along with Shinx. But when I woke up the next morning, it was curled up like a Glameow right where I’d left it.

The trip back was nice enough- though Akari was still giving me the cold shoulder. I chatted with Clarissa but was mostly thinking about my newly caught Pokémon in the back of my mind. What gender were they? I couldn’t tell myself and didn’t want to ask Akari. Maybe Laventon would help out?

We had stopped to rest on occasion, which gave us the opportunity to eat as well. I was still in my brown kimono and trousers and didn’t have a belt to latch the Poké Balls I was carrying on, like Akari had, so I was forced to carry the three in my hands.

When we returned to Jubilife, Clarissa joined us in the Galaxy Hall to make her report to Cyllene. Akari had wordlessly made her way across the carpeted floor towards Laventon’s research lab attached to the left of Cyllene’s office, so I simply followed her.

She stopped me with a fierce look at the door. I could hear Laventon humming to himself inside.

“I’m talking to the professor,” she growled. “Alone.”

I sighed. “Come on, Akari. Aren’t you at least relieved I won’t be exiled? I could’ve been sent to die out there!”

“I don’t care,” she snapped back with a sudden ferocity I hadn’t expected. I had almost taken a reflexive step back, if memory serves. “I made that test for you to fail! Nobody would have been expected to catch three Pokémon, let alone a Starly and a Shinx! But you did it all like it was easy! I don’t want you on the team! I don’t care what happens to you! I just don’t!”

With that, she angrily wrenched the door open and slammed it shut behind her.

I rubbed my face and squeezed my eyes shut. Not one of the most pleasant conversations I’d ever had. I heard Laventon greet Akari through the door- barely able to make out their words.

“He passed.” Akari had seemingly cut off the professor’s platitudes.

“That’s wonderful news, old girl,” I heard him reply. That did bring a slight smile to my face. You’ll quickly learn that Laventon was always on my side no matter the consequences. I’d never forget him.

But Akari’s furious response wiped the smile right off of my lips. “He caught a Starly and a Shinx, professor! Both of them! He used an oran berry to lure the Starly in. I didn’t even know Starly ate oran berries!”

“Starly eat oran berries?” Laventon’s disbelieving voice came a second after.

“Apparently if you cut them up!” was the exasperated reply. “Not even you knew about it! But he did. Can’t you see that he’s obviously hiding something from us?! I can’t stand being near him! Professor, you have to let him go!”

“And let a poor young lad like him survive out in the wild?” Laventon sounded scandalised. “I thought you better than that, Akari.”

“He’s like twenty years old,” she scoffed. “He can look after himself.”

“That’s besides the point,” for the first time, I heard Laventon raise his voice. “You need to get a hold of yourself, old girl. We learnt something valuable for the Pokédex from Rei, today. Knowing Starly can be lured with oran berries can help us study them! Can’t you see that he’s useful to us? What else do you think he can do, if he’s so capable of catching notoriously hard Pokémon?”

A quiet footfall had sounded behind me, breaking me from my eavesdropping.

“Snooping, are you?” Cyllene’s emotionless voice from behind me caused me to leap out of my skin. “I heard from Clarissa you passed,” she eyed the three Poké Balls in my hands. “I have never been so disappointed in my life.”

Gee, thanks. “Do you want to verify them?” I opted for diplomacy instead of a retort.

A flicker of disgust crossed Cyllene’s otherwise harsh expression. “Heavens, no. You are not to release any Pokémon in the village, understood? Breaking that rule is an immediate expulsion- no questions asked. Even Akari is under the same restriction. The only exceptions are Pesselle's Chansey and Laventon’s specimens in his lab, but I suppose he’ll explain to you the rules around that now that you’re officially hired.”

Akari was shouting something behind the door, but we both ignored it after an awkward silence. “Go up to the Commander’s office and report in,” Cyllene said with a slight huff. “I believe he’s in right now and will want to hear how you did. After that, come see me in my office for your one-star member card.”

She left without another word after that. I had decided to take her advice and trundle up to the third floor to see Kamado. The Commander was talking to a Security Corps member in his office, so I waited a respectable distance away until he beckoned me in.

“Those are Shinx, Starly, and Bidoof in your hands right now?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.

I cast my gaze down at the three Poké Balls and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Kamado giant moustache raised in what I later interpreted as a smile. “When I heard Cyllene approved of such a challenging initiation trial for you, I almost intervened. But I wanted to see how you would perform…" there was a brief moment of consideration. "Do you know what the normal initiation trial for a Survey Corps member is?”

I either raised my eyebrows or cocked my head. Can’t remember which exactly. “No?”

“They are tasked to spend two hours in the Obsidian Fieldlands without sustaining a single injury. So long as they remain outside of the campsite bounds- they are free to hide or cower as they like. They are also given five scatterbangs to ward off wild Pokémon in case of attacks.”

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A ‘scatterbang’ sounded like some sort of stunning device, I had assumed. “That sounds… easy.”

Kamado cocked a brow. “And yet half of the recruits shiver and shake like leaves when they set foot towards their trial. You, however, showed no fear. Why is that?”

I had felt my heart tighten at that question. I remember feeling like Kamado was very, very interested in my answer. “Pokémon just don’t scare me,” I rubbed the back of my neck with a sheepish smile. “They’re commonplace where I’m-…”

“Where you are from?” Kamado finished. He didn’t look angry that I had essentially given away my lie over my amnesia. Instead, he looked thoughtful. “Tell me what your world was like. And no more lies. This will be the only leeway I give.”

I had wanted to smack myself in the head. “It’s kind of like the opposite to yours,” I admitted. “We have tall buildings and advanced technology. Most people have Pokémon as companions. Some even keep them as pets.”

“Hmm,” the Commander’s eyes narrowed. “Definitely the opposite to ours. I hail from a land called Unova, you know. Most of us in Jubilife originate there. We all fled for the same reason; two legendary Pokémon wielded by so-called heroes. The White Beast and the Night Terror. Just two lone Pokémon they are, and yet that was all it took for our entire continent to turn into an ash-heap. I will never forget it.”

You’ve probably guessed it, like I had back then. Reshiram and Zekrom. According to Kamado, the two heroes weren’t as heroic as the documentaries claim. Their war had torn Unova asunder. Hundreds of thousands perished under their staggering power. Millions, if you count Pokémon. And all because two brothers had fallen out with each other.

Suddenly, Jubilife’s intense fear of Pokémon made sense to me.

"Your claims of originating from another world are truly unbelievable," Kamado's eyes focused once more. "But it does lend credence as to why you'd hide that from me. Know that I am keeping a close eye on you. If you are lying, I do not yet know why. As strange as your so-called truth is, I cannot dismiss it so callously after the events of recent..."

Kamado dismissed me soon after. There were obviously things he knew that he wasn't telling me. Such as why he acted so reasonably when Cyllene was so disbelieving, for example. But I wasn't in the right place to ask at the time, so I simply left.

I next retrieved my new member's card from Cyllene, who had it already finished for me by the time I arrived. She handed it to me without a word.

Rei: One-Star

Survey Corps: Researcher

Signed: Cyllene

I headed to Laventon’s lab next.

“Jolly good show!” the good professor greeted me with a clasping handshake. Akari was sat by a blanketed low table reminiscent of a kotatsu scribbling something into a leather-bound book. She was completely ignoring me, but Laventon looked positively delighted. “I knew you’d pass the trial I set for you.”

He hadn’t set the trial, though. But I didn’t mention that. I wonder, writing this, if he was trying to claim credit for something he didn’t do or whether he was covering for Akari.

“Thanks,” I returned a small smile. “It was tough, but I managed…”

I caught Akari rolling her eyes.

“Come, come,” Laventon beckoned me further into the room. “Enjoy the guided tour.”

He showed me around his lab. To say it was a mess wouldn’t have been inaccurate, per se, but it had a certain quaintness to it. The lab was lightly coloured with wooden flooring. A thick patterned carpet sat underneath the kotatsu-thing where multi-coloured books had been piled high. To my left was some sort of strange boiler-looking machine nestled in the corner of the room. Laventon didn’t say a thing about what it was, though. A little Cyndaquil sat atop one of its pipes among layered blankets. Its long snout sniffled calmly as it slept. Bookshelves lined the rest of the left-hand wall and looked surprisingly organised compared to the rest of the place. A tall whiteboard featured a map, and some notations was also carelessly left off to the side. A messy desk sat in the wall opposite the door- its chair facing the wrong way. In the far-right corner, a Rowlet sat atop a branching indoor plant. It watched me with wide, unblinking eyes. The oval-shaped flying/grass type stood out quite harshly against the darker coloured branch and walls, yet it seemed to think it was perfectly camouflaged where it stood.

Finally, there was a large tank in the right-hand corner. It was filled with water but held no Pokémon. Laventon claimed it was for studying aquatic species. “We’re only supposed to let Cyndy and Rowland out when I’m specifically studying them,” he explained to me, “but I bend the rules a little, as you can see.”

Little Cyndaquil, or ‘Cyndy’, was a female. Apparently, that was rare for her species. Which reminded me… “Can you check the gender of my Pokémon?”

“Oh, I’m afraid not.” Laventon sounded genuinely remorseful. “Not until we’re into the Fieldlands again, old boy.”

It didn’t really matter too much, so I let it drop.

I spent the next few hours learning the ropes from Laventon. My duties would be mostly in the lab- survey work instruction would follow when our next outing was confirmed- and involved mostly paperwork. The professor seemed particularly eager for me to check over his Pokédex, which was essentially a thick-bound notebook filled with writings on the Pokémon in the Obsidian Fieldlands. There were also hand-drawn pictures of the Pokémon in question, too. They were surprisingly well done.

“Akari mostly does the drawings,” Laventon had noticed where my eyes lingered. “She’s mighty good at it.”

Our resident artist had been occasionally glaring up at me while I was toured around, but apparently some sort of wire snapped within her at that point. She slapped the low-desk with an almighty smack. Both Laventon and I flinched.

“How did you know about our Poké Ball?” Akari accused me with a very confrontational look on her face.

I froze and blinked rapidly in confusion. “What?”

“When I gave you those Poké Balls, you looked at them like everybody else usually does- like they were foreign. But then you just knew how to use them, huh? I purposefully didn’t explain how they worked to you. I wanted to see if you could figure it out yourself. So, imagine my surprise when you just knew what to do with them.”

I wasn’t following. “…and?”

“Laventon invented Poké Balls less than a year ago,” Akari stood and pointed a finger at me. “We’re the only civilisation in the entire world that knows about them. Yet, you knew. How?!”

I fumbled. Truthfully, she had caught me there. I had been careless. I should’ve known that a person in my made-up position likely wouldn’t know what to do with a Poké Ball- and I hadn’t known they were a recent invention, as well. Only Kamado knew that I was originally from elsewhere, after all.

“Akari! Calm down, dear girl!” Laventon suddenly spoke up for me. “I taught him how to use them.”

That was unexpected... and a total lie.

Akari reared back and blinked. Her mouth parted slightly. “Uh… what?”

Laventon continued without a hitch. “I told Rei how they worked the day before his trial, Akari. After setting him with such a challenging task, it was the least I could do.”

I had shot the professor an odd look but decided to keep my mouth shut and roll with it. Akari was silent for a moment. I could see the wheels turning in her mind. Eventually, though, she settled back down in a huff and went back to whatever she was doing.

Well… I remember thinking. That was close…

The next few days went by in a blur. I had grown quite accustomed to lab work and enjoyed helping Laventon with his research. The professor’s delight at my hard work was a nice buffer to Akari’s cold stares and scathing remarks. Rowland the Rowlet was still very wary of me, but Cyndy had very quickly warmed up to my presence. I had been shocked when flames had first erupted from her back. Apparently Cyndaquil did that when they were surprised or angry. I’d assumed the thing was a normal type based on her looks, but she was actually a fire type. And before you ask, yes, I had known about Cyndaquil but had never learnt what type they were. Before you call me stupid…

It was on the fourth day that our team got word of another planned expedition. The last survey had revealed a rather sizeable Snorlax on the southern-section of the Fieldlands by the river and the Survey Corps had wanted to conduct further investigation to determine whether it could threaten the campsite in the future. Laventon was practically quaking in his boots at the chance to study a rare Pokémon. Munchlax typically needed so much food for evolution that even modern-day trainers struggled to acquire enough consistently. So, to find one in the wild was a really big deal back then. We had two days to prepare but, unfortunately, Akari and I weren’t going with the professor and the other Survey Corps members. Instead, the professor had tasked us with the much more exciting job of studying the local Wurmple population.

“They are supposed to evolve rapidly,” Laventon had told us. “But I’ve never ever seen their evolved forms in the Obsidian Fieldlands. Isn’t that odd?”

And thus, our task to study Wurmple’s evolution was set. Once Akari had stopped hogging the only Pokédex we had, I checked up on the notes they had gathered on the bug type.

Wurmple are bug/poison types with venomous spines to protect themselves from predators such as Starly. They feast on dead leaves that have fallen to the ground, however, can also climb trees if food is lacking. Wurmple are naturally slow and have little in the way of defences if their venom fails to suffice, and so are capable of spitting silk in order to immobilise small predators. They are fast growers, however, and are capable of evolution in rapid times. Despite this, it is unknown where their evolved forms reside…

Wurmple was a bug/poison type? I wasn’t sure if that was correct. It did have venomous spines, according to Laventon’s notes, but…

The preparations came and went. As a One-Star member of the Survey Corps, I was given a small stipend to spend on travel supplies. Clarissa was allowed to join us as part of the escorting Security Corps and had promised to cover my food as thanks for being so successful and pleasing her boss enough to allow her to go on more outings (even though I really didn’t do much), so all I had to do was buy a waterskin for the journey there. The river in the Fieldlands would allow me to refill, so I’d bought the smallest one that Ginter fellow of the Gingko Guild recommended. Clarissa had also advised me to buy a couple of scatterbangs, if I could. They were expensive and I could only afford one with what money I had, but it was worth every Pokédollar if it could save my life.

I had also been given my official Survey Corps uniform from a very reluctant Cyllene. It was a mirror image of Akari’s bar a red flat cap to go over my head. The shoes also looked as ridiculous, but they protected my feet far better than the casual sandals Pesselle had supplied me.

Before I knew it, everything was set. Time for my first research task!