Time for my first research task!

That had been how enthusiastic I was on the journey there.

But in reality? Surveying work was terribly boring. Wurmple, like Bidoof, weren’t at all scared of humans for some reason. So, Akari and I had wordlessly found a space in the Fieldlands with a large quantity of big Wurmple and just sort of sat down and waited for something to happen.

Truthfully, despite the dull work, I actually much preferred it to my office job. The weather was wonderful today and just about warm enough that the sun’s rays cast a warming glow onto my skin. The rustling leaves and odd cries of distant Pokémon was accompanied by a backdrop of rushing water from the nearby river. It was the type of place tourists would pay to relax in.

The Wurmple were doing… whatever Wurmple do. Most of them were stationary and munching down on leaves while others had curled up and seemed to be napping. I soon started to notice that some Wurmple had differing personalities to others. A couple had shied away from us when we had sat down, but one had been bold enough to even approach after an hour.

Akari flinched away from the bug type as it slowly crawled its way towards our legs. I saw her hand fly to her Poké Ball, but she refrained from releasing her Oshawott. When it got close enough, I felt it butt its head lightly against my shoe. “Hey there,” I smiled down at it. Like all Wurmple, this one had protective bristle-like skin over its back with a pale-ringed underbelly. It had giant yellow eyes with large black pupils complete with a small horn atop its forehead. Two venomous spines protruded at an angle facing upwards behind it. Starly often attacked from Wurmple’s blind spot.

I reached down and lightly caressed Wurmple’s skin. It felt coarse and almost sandy, but it seemed to enjoy the touch.

“You do know they’re venomous, right?” Akari remarked with a mix of disgust and awe. “You’re such a freak for letting it near you.”

I ignored her. It was the best way to get her to shut up. Akari constantly seemed to want to pick fights with me and her completely unwarranted hatred had really started to get on my nerves. She had this… look about her. The ‘I’m better than you’ look that had just the right mix of derision and spite.

Soon, though, the Wurmple got bored or something and slowly crawled off to pursue adventures elsewhere. A new silence befell us as we continued to wait and watch.

Not ten minutes later did an unfamiliar albeit friendly voice snap me out of my daydreaming. “What are you doing?”

I turned to find that black-haired lady I had seen on the bridge during my trial. She was really pale up close and had warm but sharp facial features. She had darkish blue eyes and wore a stylishly loud hoodie with a logo I didn’t recognise plastered across the chest. Some sort of charm adorned her hair. “Hello,” I spoke up since Akari didn’t seem to want to give the lady the time of day. “We’re studying Wurmple.”

“Oh?” the lady crouched down next to me with a smile. “What about Wurmple are you investigating? I’m Mai, by the way.”

“Rei,” I returned my own name. “Professor Laventon noticed that we’ve never seen Silcoon or Cascoon in the Fieldlands, so we’re trying to figure out why.”

“That’s an easy one,” Mai replied, apparently already having sussed that out ages ago. “Whenever the Wurmple here grow big enough, they make for the eastern forest to evolve. The food is better there, you see. It’s a whole ordeal for them, too. They have to cross the river and dodge predators all while scaling the central hill. Only the strongest are able to reach their destination and evolve.”

That did sound pretty hardcore for a Wurmple. “Oh… well that was easy,” I smiled and rubbed the back of my head. “Thanks!”

“We can’t trust this girl’s words, Rei.” Akari spoke up right in front of her. Could she not have at least waited until Mai had left?!

“Huh?” I turned to face her. “Why?”

As always, Akari didn’t meet my eyes. “We need to observe it for ourselves. If we were to take any unverified piece of information as fact, it’ll ruin the rigour of the Pokédex. It’s literally science.”

“Oh, I can assure you I’ve observed plenty of Wurmple make the journey,” Mai chuckled lightly. “I can’t enter The Heartwood myself, but I can still spot plenty of Silcoon, Cascoon, Beautifly, and Dustox from afar.”

“We can’t take your word, I’m afraid.” Akari stared ahead coldly.

“But she’s constantly at that bridge, right?” I argued back. “If she’s seen it, then who are we to claim she’s lying?”

I had seen Professor Rowan constantly talking about how he managed to obtain useful information from local fishermen and Pokémon rangers. In fact, there was a big push for citizen-science in Sinnoh to aid in completing Rowan’s own Pokédex project. Some people simply knew things from experience that a researcher could never lay their eyes on themselves.

“Whatever,” Akari muttered. I caught her rolling her eyes. “Talk to Laventon if it’s so important to you. Maybe he’ll endear his favourite new pet and let you jot it down yourself.”

I opened my mouth to snap back at her, but Mai spoke before I could get the words out. “I’m afraid I must make my way back to the bridge. It was nice meeting you, Rei. I had heard from Yoshimi that there was a newcomer in Jubilife. I’m glad to see you settled in.”

With that, she politely bowed her head and quietly strode towards the bridge.

“What’s your problem?” I remember specifically calling out Akari the second Mai was out of earshot.

Akari had spared me an annoyed glance. “That girl is from the Diamond Clan. She isn’t to be trusted.”

The Diamond Clan. One of the two native clans than inhabited Hisui far before the establishment of Jubilife village and the Galaxy Team. “…and?” I failed to see the problem.

“The Diamond Clan and the Pearl Clan are at war,” Akari had explained in her usual haughty tone. “But neither of them could overpower the other, so they’re currently at a forced peace. An impasse. Both of the clan leaders seek out Jubilife in order to tip the balance in their favour. Mai was just trying to curry favour from us. She wasn’t actually being friendly.”

Now that was a cynical way of looking at things. But something didn’t add up. Why would two warring clans think the Pokémon-fearing denizens of Jubilife would be able to help? I relayed my thoughts to Akari.

“It’s not Jubilife as an entity they’re after,” she replied vaguely. “Rather, it’s a certain someone…”

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“Who?”

But Akari shook her head. “I can’t and won’t tell you.”

I gave it some thought. Mai had approached us. Why would she try to gain the favour of two young and inexperienced adults? “Is it you?”

“Me?!” such was Akari’s shock that she had actually met my eyes. “Oh yes,” she quickly recovered, however, and returned to her usual sarcastic self. “My Oshawott is the epitome of power. You got me.”

The rest of the day passed by quickly. No activity from the Wurmple.

Before returning to the camp, I had released Shinx from its Poké Ball and snapped the contraption in half- officiating its return to the wild. The tiny electric Pokémon growled and snarled, but it ultimately ran away without too much aggression.

Back at the camp, Laventon confirmed that my Bidoof was a male. He was riding a high after seeing a Snorlax first-hand in the wild. “It was incredible,” he had gushed with stars in his eyes. “I have never seen such a big Pokémon in my life!”

Starly kept fleeing when I released it from its Poké Ball, so no gender on that yet. In my tent, I had covered the entrance flap and had let the bird Pokémon out. I hoped its confinement within the tent would eventually force it to calm down, but it had made such a racket and panicked so much that I had to recall it in fear that it would injure itself. I honestly didn’t know what to do with it. I had almost released it then and there. But I decided to keep investing in it and would try something different. I planned to scavenge some oran berries the next day to feed it when I returned.

Two days later, and we set out for the last day of surveying before our return to Jubilife. We had little luck on Wurmple so far, though my efforts with Starly was finally seeing dividends. It no longer panicked when I let it out within my tent and would accept sliced oran berries from a distance. But it was still terrified of me and wouldn’t approach at all.

In the meanwhile, I had figured out the four moves Bidoof had under its belt; Tackle, Growl, Defence Curl, and Rollout. A pretty standard move set I had figured. It was weak and would do little to defend me from wild Pokémon attacks, but it could help in a pinch. I mostly used Bidoof as an adorable, huggable, pet. It really didn’t seem to mind the affection at all, so I kind of let loose.

Truthfully, in hindsight, I was probably really hurting- though I was refusing to acknowledge it at the time. I had no one in Hisui. Everyone seemed to hate me and my friendship with Clarissa was just born out of gratefulness instead of genuine companionship. I was missing my parents. I was alone…

But my folks didn’t raise a quitter, so I had soldiered on. I was okay.

The sunlight was shimmering against the river water when I had finally noticed something odd in our Wurmple entourage. I was sat in the same area again with Akari and was lazily watching a particularly large Wurmple climb a tree when I noticed it had begun to descend down the trunk with what looked like a pecha berry in its mouth. I didn’t say anything to Akari at first, but when it started slowly crawling towards the river, I pointed it out. “What’s that Wurmple doing?”

It wasn’t eating the berry. In fact, I was pretty sure Wurmple actually hated them. So why was it carrying one towards the river?

I soon received my answer when a gang of Buizel started fighting each other with Headbutt. Nearby and completely nonplussed by this, the Wurmple continued to soldier on towards the river. Eventually, a single big Buizel had won out and earned the right to approach the Wurmple. It skittered on all-fours over and lowered its head to sniff at the pecha berry in the bug type’s mouth. The Wurmple bowed its head and placed the berry on the floor. “An offering…” I heard Akari whisper to herself.

The Buizel seemingly accepted and used its flipper-like arms to munch on the berry. I had to marvel at how cute it was from afar- even after I had watched it ferally fight off its competitors. Buizel were around four-foot tall when stood upright but mostly ran energetically on all-fours. They had paw-like feet jutting from its orange body and had wide eyes accompanied by a button nose. It had two tails with cream-coloured tips.

When finished with its berry, the Buizel picked up the Wurmple and carried it towards the river. Placing the bug type down on the sandy bank, the Buizel lowered itself into the water and patiently waited as the Wurmple slowly clambered onto its back. I almost gasped when its twin tails started spinning like a propellor and it begun to ferry the Wurmple across the river. “That’s how they get across!” I had realised. “They grab Buizel’s favourite berry from a tree and offer it to one. And since Buizel can’t climb up to get their own, they exchange the favour by carrying Wurmple across the river.” The Buizel even had competition among each other to decide who garnered the honour of trading transport for the berry.

Akari was silent and remained so during the journey back to the campsite. As always, she had ducked into her tent the moment she was able. That left me to report the good news to Laventon.

“Good work!” the professor was practically buzzing. “I’ll let you do the honours of adding that to Wurmple’s Pokédex entry.”

I probably wasn’t as honoured as Laventon expected me to be, but at least he didn’t seem to notice my comparative lack of enthusiasm.

The journey back was in good spirits. Laventon was chatting among the Security Corps about the Snorlax- it was apparently fairly docile and didn’t seem inclined to move from its beach-view vista in the south- while Clarissa had surprised me by seeking me out for conversation. “So…?” she smiled at me with kind eyes. “How was it?”

“It was good, bar company,” I shot Akari a backwards glance. She was walking alone behind the main group with her resting-Snubbull face, as always. “We found out that Wurmple bribe Buizel to carry them across the river to evolve.”

“Wow, that’s actually kind of cool,” Clarissa blinked. Out of all the villagers, she seemed to be the most enthusiastic to learn about Pokémon. Maybe she was humouring me. Or perhaps holding Bidoof in her arms had sparked that curiosity? She then leaned in conspiratorially. “Don’t worry about Akari. She’s always been that way.”

I had guessed by the way the others seemed to avoid her. Outside of Laventon and Cyllene, the villagers seemed to ignore her as much as they were wary of me. “I just don’t understand why she’s so cruel all the time,” I had decided to confide in Clarissa. She was the only one who I felt would listen to me. “I really try to be patient with her, but…”

“I heard her parents died when she was really young,” Clarissa looked around slyly to ensure nobody was listening in. “The were burnt by the White Beast in front of her eyes, apparently. She was only twelve at the time.”

“Oh…” I had to admit I did feel a lot more sympathetic to Akari after hearing that. If I went through something similar? I’d probably be quite cranky as well.

“Yeah…” Clarissa seemed not to know what to say next. “It really sucks.”

Yet she was the only one in the village, aside from the nurse and I, who had a Pokémon…

I suppose it explained her relationship with her Oshawott. The little creature seemed to adore his trainer, but Akari always treated it phlegmatically- as if he were a simple work colleague to her.

With that nugget of Akari’s past now in my mind, I had started to bear her ill-humour with a lot more patience in the lab. Laventon had showered us with praise over our success with Wurmple- even though I didn’t tell him about Mai’s claims over them evolving in wherever The Heartwood was- and had bought Akari a small hand-crafted Spheal plushie as a reward. My reward, apparently, was having the honours of filling in that information into the Pokédex.

I had eyed Akari while scribing down Wurmple’s notes. The nineteen-year-old clutched the plushie close to her with a small smile whenever she thought nobody was looking.

Once again, the days flew by. As part of the Survey Corps, I had started to take crafting lessons from a man named Anvin. He was slowly getting me up to speed over how to craft my own Poké Balls. The crafting materials were actually quite minor. A wooden base and, what they called ‘tumblestone’, as its lid with a tiny pre-made latch to hold it shut. I had very quickly learnt that, while wood was not an issue to gather, tumblestone was incredibly tough to mine in large quantities. Therefore, Poké Balls were a rare commodity.

I held my tongue from commenting on the fact that Pokémon could very easily solve the mining problem. It would've gotten me nowhere.

When not learning how to craft, I was in the lab working with Cyndy- since she liked me the most. I had grown rather fond of the fire type and wasn’t looking forward to her looming reintroduction into the wild when Laventon was finished researching her. Cyndy always greeted me with a blaze of flames from her back- an act of affection, I had interpreted. Unfortunately, it always caused the room’s temperature to soar when nearby.

“We need air conditioner in here,” I had stupidly commented after Cyndy’s greeting one morning. “It’s boiling.”

“Air conditioner, dear boy?” Laventon had unfortunately overheard me. “What’s that? Is it a Pokémon?”

Argh, I’d done it again.

I was saved from having to come up with an explanation, however, by the lab door bursting open without warning.

“It is I!” a dramatically keen voice spilled into the room. I turned to whoever the source of the voice was and felt my heart drop. “It’s… Volo!” he pointed towards me. “And you! It’s your day of reckoning!”