"We're hitting the quarter-finals, folks, with our Sinnoh-born Donovan Garner and his Gyarados about to face off with Kalos' own Octavia Bolivueau and her Metagross! Right after the commercial break we'll be starting the fight at the speed of a Quick Atta-" Arceus his voice is so annoying… I think as I skip forward a few minutes, well into the fight. I’ve watched the video tens of times now, after the Lily of the Valley conference has concluded for this year. I press play again, and pay close attention to the screen.
“Oh my folks! Donovan has finally Mega evolved his Gyarados, turning the tables on Octavia! He’s gone from cornered to hunting Metagross down for supper!” I lower the volume, to better focus on the actual battle. After a minute or so in to the current clip, I spot it - the moment Octavia lost the fight.
Gyarados was right on Metagross’ heel and was working up a nasty Crunch. Octavia had ordered a Teleport to give her Pokemon some breathing room, but was a hair too late, as Gyarados bit down on Metagross’ leg, hard. Which wouldn’t be much normally, but the Dark-type energy in the hit completely disrupted the Psychic-type Teleport, and it showed.
Metagross was stunned, and massively hurt by the Super-Effective move. It’s eyes flickering, and it’s movements slowed. Gyarados roared in triumph, it knew just as well as the battlers what was to come. Before I could continue watching the rest of the battle, my phone’s alarm went off, signaling my shift was to start soon.
I stood up from the very comfortable couch in the corner of the Pokecenter’s break room and stretched. As I finally looked around I saw Pam on her break, chowing down on some microwaved noodles. She’s one of the three assigned ‘Nurse Joy’s’ of this Center, and works the afternoon shift, just like I do, but she starts a few hours before I do. “How’s the front doing today?” I ask, making light conversation. “Eh, it’s pretty light tonight, you guys shouldn’t need to cook too much, trainers are starting to move on to Hearthome and Sunyshore.”
I sighed in relief, culinary was getting hit pretty hard these last few weeks with how many people were using the hotel here. I said my goodbye to Pam, clocked in, and got to work.
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Wimpod’s head was foggy, and hurt with a sharp pain as she awoke, eliciting an instinctual fear her species was so known for. Where am I? Where is my swarm? Am I safe?
Hundreds of questions swam through her mind as her vision cleared, giving her the sight of her entire swarm slowly awakening from the artificial slumber they were placed under. They were all inside of a massive box, full of water. The last thought she had before the strange slumber took her was eating the scraps the swarm left for her. She wasn’t a ‘true’ member of the swarm after all, not with her unique coloration, which made her stand out to any predators at the bottom of the ocean. She soon heard… sounds - voices, from above, and saw The Humans. Odd, she thought, slowly calming down as she understood she was not in immediate danger, how do I know they are not like us? Like Pokemon? She shook her head, her white-and-blue colored carapace sore from being still for so long. The others were coherent as well, and were swimming around frantically in the box, desperate for safety.
“Hey Ray, look! The wimpies are waking up. Thank Arceus that new guy had a Drowzee with Hypno, huh?” one of the humans above said. “Mmmh, yeah…” the other said, known as ‘Ray’. “Pssh, c’mon man, the Safari Zone and fish markets in Pastoria will pay a fortune for this many Pokemon. And we didn’t have to do anything, just chuck the damn net out and rake in the cash.” the first human said. The Wimpod couldn’t quite understand what the humans meant, but could only hope they weren’t being brought to their doom.
Hours passed, and the humans would come and go, constantly talking in the language Wimpod could somehow understand, yet never speak. They kept speaking of ‘money’ and somewhere called Pastoria. She took to swimming around the massive box to pass the time, the other Wimpod instinctively giving her as wide of a berth as they could, for fear of some unknown predator targeting her and those near her. During one loop around the box, it shook, harder than it usually did, the false suns above flickering, and the humans shouting and running around frantically. Just like a Wimpod, she thought, as one of the humans ordered the one known as Ray to take those false suns from us and give complete darkness in return.
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Shit! Ray thought, running around below deck. Old Henrick passed him, yelling. “Ray! Go cover the wimpies. We gotta pod of Tentacruel after us. When you’re done with that get up topside!” His head raced with thoughts as he went to put the heavy tarp over the Wimpods, noticing the shiny they happened to catch in the batch staring up at him. Creepy, he thought, as the boat lurched to the side, knocking the fire extinguisher over onto his back. “Fuck!” he barked out, struggling to get up deck with the unfamiliar swaying of the ship. This job was supposed to be easy money, not my fucking death!
He stumbled back and forth climbing up the stairs, and saw pure chaos. One of the deckhands he would eat lunch with lay bleeding out from a gnarly wound, his left leg a stump from the ankle down, the tourniquet doing barely anything. He raced over and tried tightening it, but when he looked up at the deckhand’s, Will’s, face he saw he was already gone. Arceus damn it, he thought as he stood up to help where he could. Some other deckhands had their Pokemon out, the Drowzee that caught the wimpies shooting Psybeam after Psybeam at the tentacles reaching over the deck, to little effect. Someone had a Vikavolt darting around, sending lightning attacks at the Tentacruels directly. Overall, it was a shitshow.
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Ray heard his name get called out behind him, and saw Henrick motion to come over, his Drednaw beside him. Ray rushed over, a poison move shot past him, missing by an inch. The Tentacruel were really angry. “Sir! What do I do?” he asked. “Get to the rafts, make sure they’re ready, we’re gonna have to-” a particularly long tentacle lashed out at us, interrupting Henrick. The Drednaw next to us bit it, tearing it in two. “Good job,’ Henrick said. We’re gonna have to jump ship, one of the flyers with us saw a big ass Gyarados coming.” Oh damn it. “Alright, how many do we need?” Ray asks.
“Get five of em, should be enough for all of us. Get ‘em ready within… ten minutes. Should be enough time before the big bastard gets here.” Ray nods, and rushes over to the aft of the ship, and thankfully there were enough for everyone, and no Tentacruel focusing over on this side. He quickly gets to work, readying the life rafts as Henrick started sending sailors over to the rafts, quickly filling up the first three without incident.
The Tentacruel had started to notice by the fourth, and as Henrick and Ray started clambering onto the last one along with the rest of the crew they were lazily attacking, trying to get one last meal in before the Gyarados arrived. Soon enough they peeled away, back to the deep. And minutes later the Gyarados arrived, and tore the 60 meter ship in two. “Arceus…” Ray breathed out, horrified by the sheer power of it.
“Alright boys,” Henrick started, “land is an hour out, and help should be coming. Grab an oar and start paddling, slowly. Don’t want to piss off that thing.” Everyone nodded, and Ray swore never to set foot on a boat again.
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Wimpod was scared, more so than she had ever been. The titanic Gyarados had snapped it’s jaws right in the middle of our box, devouring hundreds of her kin and clipping her carapace, making her bleed. She didn’t know where she was swimming, simply far away from the king of the waters that was currently having its fill. The humans were long gone, and the swarm disbanded, all other Wimpods that survived had swam off in different directions. Her carapace hurt, blood slowly seeping out.
It seemed like ages, but she eventually slowed down, the ocean floor steadily climbing up to the surface. That thing can’t catch me here she thought, as she finally breached the surface onto a beach. The air was odd, as she had never been above the surface before. The land looked alien, with large plants coming from the surface. There were a few humans as well, playing with Pokemon she’d never seen before. The movement scared her, and she scurried off to a small outcropping of rocks to hide. The sky eventually darkened, the sun dipped past the horizon to allow the moon to rise.
Wimpod was hungry, and her wound had stopped bleeding. She slowly crept out of her cover, and saw the beach abandoned, aside from one human. The human had hair as red as her antenna and tail, eyes as blue as her triangles, and skin as pale as her carapace. She looks like what I would as one of them… she thought bemusedly, as she slowly crept towards the human, who was sitting still with some food with her.
Food.
She was so hungry, and knew the food would speed up her healing process. At around 20 feet away the human noticed her, and both of them froze at the same time, not knowing what to do.
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A wild pokemon is coming up to me? I thought, confused. I came to this beach every night after work was over, and had never seen a Pokemon that looked like this one. It was hurt, badly. A dark fluid was caked over from a crack on the top of it’s body. After a moment it slowly approached, reaching my feet, it’s eyes darting between my face and my sandwich. Oh, it’s hungry. I cleared my throat, and it darted back a foot. And skittish too… I slowly bring my sandwich forward to it, and gently set it down on the towel I was sitting on. “Hi there buddy,” I start, and it looked right at me, with a glimmer of understanding behind its eyes. “You look really hurt, okay? And hungry.”
It kind of nodded at me, which was rather cute.”Thankfully, I can help fix both, and quicker than you can on your own, but you gotta trust I won’t hurt you, okay?” I ask, wondering what I was doing. The right thing.
Right. I couldn’t call myself a worker at a Pokecenter if I didn’t help a Pokemon that needed help. It approached me again, and sucked the sandwich down like a vacuum. I giggled, which made the Pokemon look at me confused. ”Oh it’s nothing, was the sandwich good?” It paused for a moment, before nodding again, and I smiled. “Okay, now that you ate the food, I get to help you heal, right? Well you’re gonna have to come with me, the help is somewhere else, but it’ll do wonders for your shell, promise.” Its already narrowed eyes narrowed further, but it acquiesced, and I scooped it up to bring it to the Pokecenter.
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Everything was new, and almost overwhelming for the Wimpod, but the human’s food was tasty, more so than anything she had eaten before. And being held was a new experience as well, but not one she hated, the warmth from the human more than she had ever experienced from her swarm. Maybe the human can be part of my new sw- no, that’s an absurd thought. Wimpod sighed in the humans grasp, her eyes growing heavy from exhaustion, as it ran towards a massive building that was pink and white with an odd circular symbol above.
Inside held a few other humans, with one in similar colors to the building behind a desk. “Wendy, I need help, right now.” The human holding me said urgently. The human, Wendy, glared at her. “Cammy, It’s Nurse Joy out front. Leo will bring you to another nurse for wild pokemon.” As she finished speaking another human walked over in clothes similar to Wen- no, Nurse Joy. Wimpod tried to keep her eyes open, but the fatigue that had been building up finally overtook her.