There were lots of different methods of travel in the pokemon world.
Planes, trains, cars, and boats were the most obvious. But they were a bit frowned upon for use by those adolescents on their journey. After all, could it really be called a ‘journey’ if one simply drove from gym to gym, never stepping foot onto the routes between towns or encountering a single wild pokemon?
Then there were the ‘pokemon’ methods of travel — surf and fly were the two most utilized in the games, but there were other less common methods as well. Namely, dig and teleport. Unfortunately, each of these came with drawbacks.
Dig was more commonly used as a tool of exploration than it was a mode of transportation. I supposed it could be used to travel between towns, but it would take a small eternity and was likely to draw every curious underground wild pokemon in the region if you tried to go too fast.
Teleport was the fastest by a long shot, but it was also the rarest, and it generally required an extremely powerful pokemon to use it effectively for travel. Sure, every wild abra would know teleport, but their version of the move wouldn’t take them more than a hundred yards in a random direction. For a pokemon to be able to bring their trainer along with them on a teleport between cities, much more across the entire region, they needed to possess at least alakazam-levels of power. Which was not exactly an easy metric to meet.
Fly was much more common, given that pretty much every flying type (and even some non-flying types) could learn it. But just like with abra, just because a pokemon could learn the move didn’t mean they could use it effectively for transportation. No matter how powerful a pidgey might be, they wouldn’t be carrying their trainer in their talons across the region. The tropius I’d ridden a few days earlier was one of the few ‘mass transit’ flyers that I could think of that wasn’t a hyper-aggressive dragon type or legendary.
Surf was by far the most accessible. Even a goldeen, coupled with some waterproof bags and other supplies, could keep a swimmer alive and comfortable in the open ocean for days at a time. Which some people even did, searching for wild pokemon in the deeps or battling other trainers in the arena that gave them the greatest advantage. But I didn’t think that would ever be me.
I didn’t think I had full-blown thalassophobia or anything like that. But the thought of spending that much time in open waters, no land in sight, with tentacruel, sharpedo, bruxish, and who knew what else potentially swimming just beneath my feet…
I planned to avoid surfing any more than what was necessary.
All of those options were moot points, however, due to their biggest restriction — you actually needed a pokemon with the moves to use them. I hoped to eventually teach Porygon teleport, assuming I could scrounge up the money to afford the TM for it. But that was far, far down the line, given my current finances.
That left either walking or good ol’ pedal power as my only two remaining options. Bikes thankfully weren’t as comically expensive as they were in the games, but even at a good pace it would take me upwards of a week to bike all the way to Pewter City from Fuschia, much longer if I walked. And I wasn’t sure if the remaining diamonds I was sprinkling on top of each of Sableye’s meals would last that long.
So I bought a bus ticket.
Sure, it was frowned upon. But it wasn’t actually prohibited. And at the end of the day, the health of my pokemon came before whatever strangers or anyone else might think of me.
It did end up being a miserable two days, however, for both myself and my pokemon. Crammed into a window seat over the wheel well, I ignored the judgemental looks of the other passengers as I tried to doze without my head slamming into the window every time we hit a bump. My pokemon were forced to remain in their balls (or my phone, in Porygon’s case) almost the entire time, only released for meal times at the few rest stops during the cross-region road trip.
Hobbes suffered the most of the three. Neither Sableye nor Porygon seemed to mind their confinement as much, but Hobbes had grown accustomed to spending almost all of his time outside of his ball and was just as grumpy as I was when we finally arrived in Pewter City.
It was just after noon when the bus pulled into the station and announced the stop. I’d hardly done anything but nap, stare out the window, or play ekans on my phone for the past two days, but I was strangely exhausted despite all the sleep I’d gotten. I wanted nothing more than to get a room at the pokecenter and collapse into bed, and from the look on Hobbes’ ‘face’ it seemed like he had the same idea. As soon as we got off the bus I released him onto my shoulder, where he sulked with his disguise rumpled around him.
But I didn’t give in to the temptation. The last of the diamonds were nothing more than crumbs at the bottom of the cloth bag. We were in Pewter City, the city of rocks, and it was time to get Sableye on a proper diet.
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The bell dinged over my head as I crouch-walked through the door. Sal’s Rock Emporium lived up to its name; from the first step into the store, I was surrounded by rocks of all shapes and sizes. Crystals, jewels, and other knick-knacks on display stands, meant to catch the eye of passers-by and children dragged along behind their trainers. Held items, evolution stones, and even rarer rocks sat behind glass cases, locks on the other side of the counter preventing any casual theft of the valuable goods. And on posters behind the counter were listed prices of bulk purchases of various rocky resources — apparently Sableye wasn’t the only pokemon with a special diet.
“Chop, sandchop,” the pokemon behind the counter cried, and I looked at it with a raised eyebrow. The sandslash-machop fusion just stared back at me with a welcoming smile until another voice called from the back of the shop.
“One sec, be right with ya!”
“Thanks, take your time,” I called back before slowly straightening up and removing my hand from Sableye’s shoulder.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
We’d had a long, serious talk before stepping into the store. I’d told him what we were doing and that I would like for him to be present, but only if he could control his impulses. I kept my left hand ready on his pokeball, ready to return him the moment he made a move toward what I was sure to him were delicious temptations, but thankfully he controlled himself. His hands were twitchier than normal and his gemstone eyes were wide as he stared at all the sparkling rocks surrounding us, but he didn’t make a move toward any of them, so I slowly returned my attention to the shop around us.
One entire wall was pure stone, unadorned aside from the display shelves drilled into the rock. It was something I’d noticed in my short walk through Pewter City — whenever possible, the designers chose to lean into the theme of ‘rock city’. Obviously not all buildings could take advantage of it, but with Pewter City nestled into its rocky valley, Indigo Plateau to the west and the crags of Mount Moon to the east, there were enough stone protrusions for many of the buildings to be built adjacent to or even into the cliffsides. It made me wonder how they dealt with rockslides, but after a few seconds of thought I gave it up as likely pokemon shenanigans.
“Sorry for the wait — I’m Sal. How can I help ya?” the namesake of the store said as he walked through a doorway from the back, wiping his hands on a rag before tossing it on the counter. He was an older man, probably into his fifties or sixties, and he looked like someone who used to be in incredible shape but the inevitable march of time was finally starting to catch up to him. Despite that, there was a pep to his step as he looked me up and down, his gaze pausing for a second on Hobbes perched on my shoulder.
“Marcus. I’m looking to hopefully purchase some diamonds in bulk. They don’t have to be polished or cut or anything, just rough diamonds, as cheaply as possible.”
If Sal was surprised by my request, he didn’t show it, simply reaching below the counter and pulling out a laminated placard that had different quantities of various minerals and their associated prices, a more condensed version of the posters on the wall behind him. He slid it across the counter and pointed to the section devoted to diamonds.
“There’s a bit of wiggle room if you need larger amounts; let me know if you’re looking for anything different than what’s listed there. Won’t find any better prices anywhere else — if you do, bring back proof and we’ll match ‘em.”
I nodded as I scanned through the placard, finding the section for the amount I’d calculated Sableye should eat in a week — and I winced when I saw the price.
In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t a ton, considering the fact I was purchasing diamonds by the pound. But it was still way out of my price range.
“This for a pokemon?” Sal asked as I bit my lip, pondering what to do.
“Yeah. A sableye,” I replied, gesturing to where Sableye had his face pressed to a nearby glass display.
Sal’s eyes widened as he noticed Sableye for the first time, before they narrowed as he gave a low whistle. “Rare pokemon, that. Super useful in the mines. Don’t suppose you’d consider selling it? Or maybe a trade?” He jerked his head to the sandchop standing next to him.
“Sorry, no,” I answered, concealing my frown. If the sandchop was bothered by his trainer looking to trade him away, he didn’t show it. And Sableye seemed too engrossed in his examination of the rocks to care about our words. But it didn’t exactly endear me to Sal.
“Eh, worth a shot,” Sal shrugged, unconcerned with my refusal. “I guess you’re turning your guy into a battler? Looking to up its defense with the diamonds?”
“Yeah, an Officer Jenny suggested it to me. She said diamonds would be best, but that there might be some cheaper alternatives that are almost as good…you have any suggestions?”
“Far be it from me to correct a Jenny…but when it comes to rocks, they’re not exactly the experts.”
This time, I didn’t bother to hide my frown.
“She’s not wrong about certain minerals being better for your pokemon than others,” he continued, and Sableye turned to face him, finally paying attention. “If you want your sableye to be a successful battler, you better watch its diet. But everyone always jumps to diamonds as the ‘best’ option. Not as often with sableye, we don’t get many of those through here. But graveler or onix? Everyone thinks they’ll just feed ‘em enough diamonds and they’ll be indestructible.”
“…is that not true?”
“No, it’s not true!” Sal exclaimed, then he sighed. “They just hear that diamonds are the hardest material on the planet and think it’ll be the best — but let me ask you this: what does ‘hardness’ mean? Scientifically.”
“Er…” I paused, thrown by the sudden question. “How difficult it is to break?”
Sal just shook his head. “Hardness means how easily it can be scratched. So something like chalk isn’t hard at all — you can scratch it with your fingernail. While diamonds can’t be scratched by anything but other diamonds. But it has nothing to do with how ‘breakable’ the material is. That’s usually what we’d call toughness — and diamonds aren’t all that tough. You can fracture a diamond with a hammer without too much effort.”
I frowned. His words were triggering some memories from my old life. Maybe from a late-night youtube video? Unfortunately, my materials science memories from my previous life weren’t nearly as clear or as thorough as my knowledge of pokemon.
“What would you recommend instead, then?”
“Depends on what you’re looking for. For fighting someone like Blaine or Lorelei, you’re gonna want something that doesn’t conduct heat — diamond is one of the worst for that, by the way. Cubic zirconia is what I’d recommend if that’s what you’re looking for. Most minerals don’t conduct electricity, so unless you try to feed it gold or something similarly idiotic you should be good against electric types regardless of what you choose. If you want a higher speed, you’ll want a lower-density mineral — I’ve seen some trainers feed their pokemon amber, but you’ll be sacrificing pretty much any defensive benefits, so I can’t say I’d recommend it. As for general defense…well, there’s a number of different metrics with that: compressive strength, shear strength, tensile strength. But like I said, the most important is toughness.”
“What’s the best for that?”
As if he was waiting for that very question, Sal reached forward and tapped at the placard in my hands. “Jade. If you’re looking for resilience against physical impacts, you won’t get any tougher, at least not from a mineral. Almost as hard as quartz, and not terrible heat resistance. It’s denser than some of the others, but its toughness more than makes up for it, in my opinion. Plus, it’s easy on the eyes. Feed your pokemon jade for a few months and they’ll be a lock for whatever beauty contest you put them in.”
I looked at him skeptically at that. I didn’t want to disparage my pokemon, but I doubted Sableye would be winning any beauty contests anytime soon, regardless of his diet. And Sal’s words were starting to sound less like a geology lesson and more like a sales pitch the longer he went on.
Although…from the way Sableye had been staring at some of the prettier rocks on display, it was possible the ‘beauty’ sales pitch wasn’t meant for me.
To be fair to Sal, the prices of jade on the placard were quite a bit less than diamond, so it didn’t seem like his words were completely based on greed. I’d walked into his shop already looking for diamonds — all he had to do to ‘upsell’ me was keep his mouth shut.
The problem was that I had no real way to verify any of his claims. With the way the internet in this world worked, it was a nightmare to search for any lesser-known specific information. All I’d most likely be able to find were a bunch of unverifiable claims from other trainers’ experiences in a couple of forums. Would those be more reliable than the guy in Pewter City with a rock shop named after him?
I was distracted from my musings by the ding of the bell behind me, and I looked back to see a face both new and startlingly familiar.
“Ah, Gym Leader Brock! Come in, come in.”