~~~ Chapter 10 - Fingers ~~~

Among the popular conceptions of Pokemon in the media and trainers is this idea that Pokemon are limited to a maximum of two ‘types’. It is true there are clearly primary and secondary expressions of some vague categories; however there is a growing mountain of evidence pointing to the popular conceptions and categorizations being incomplete and thus becoming inadequate for understanding Pokemon domains, even outside of academic circles. One need only examine the competitive circuits to see that many pokemon can learn abilities outside of their apparent domains.

We hope that you, the reader, will grow an increasing appreciation, fondness, and awareness for the spectacular abilities these animals demonstrate even while we live our daily lives. In the first half of this book, we will be examining the common models for understanding pokemon abilities and their categorization in detail, demonstrating the deficiencies in the popular models, using a record of the competitive circuits from the last ten years. In the latter half, you, the reader, will learn some of the newer and more nuanced models that have been discussed in scientific circles and how to evaluate each for its pros and cons. By the end, we hope you will understand that there is no “one size fits all” model, and that to truly know Pokemon, you must first, know your Pokemon.

- Erizal Pell, PhD, in: Pokemon: The New Models for Categorizing and Classifying Abilities, a Guide for Aspiring Trainers and Enthusiasts

~~~

Standing in the room, my slightly leg slipped on this, more waxy and slick tile. A quick inhale of air. The flavor was… A slight headache began to pressure me in the back of my head. The hint of bleach and, was that chlorine? Feeling the taste of the air with my antennae was abrasive and sour. Not far off from licking a chlorine tablet and vapourized vinegar, the very air itself launched into an all-out assault against my tongue, agitating my antennae and stinging my tongue. I pulled my helmet down and attached the clasp, folding my prehensile antennae under their covers in the hopes of reducing the exposure to the chemicals in the air. Doing this didn’t do much. If a clean koffing and wheezing existed, it would probably breathe mustard gas.

Lanky, the alien, the man with the egg-headed pokemon stood in this noxious room for a moment. Fluorescent lights were set into the ceiling, it was a small, unremarkable room with no windows and two wooden doors, one with a white labcoat on it. My vision restricted by my makeshift helmet, the man spoke some words, then stepped closer to the door with the coat hanging off of it, reaching out to a switch, flicking it with a click. I turned my eyes back to the alien, who simply watched me. They were clearly psychic, that much had been made blindingly obvious, yet made no communication attempt.

Air ducts hummed, followed by a motion of air, the pressure in my head grew lighter. The poison sting softened. The alien made no motions at the instant relief. The smell of the swadlies returned. What kind of inane contraption would you build in a room like this? Just. Why?

The man murmured to Lanky, who handed him the backpack, the pokeballs clinking around at every slight motion. Regardless of the alien's indifference to the clearing of the air, it was welcome for ME. The man held the backpack, their mouth was clasped shut, their face rigid and tight, lips in a slight curve. He'd asked Lanky for the backpack. The man, no, the professor took out a pokeball, then handed it to Lanky. I knew who this man was, their name momentarily escaping me. The professor reached into a little fanny pack he’d had on his waist, murmured more, handing Lanky another pokeball.

“If the Leavanny gives you any trouble, just Area-51 her ass and use this to catch it,” was probably what he'd said. Just, regally. With regal poise and an unchanging, rigid body language.

The man grabbed the lab coat, moving to don it. The alien just stared, making no movement. I pulled myself closer to Lanky, away from the creature, their scent wafting in the cleaner air. The professor, presumably changing his mind, setting it back on the hook, turned to lead us through the door on the opposite side, motioning for us to follow. I tried to stay next to Lanky, slightly slipping on the tile as we walked through the short hall, the little graspers embedded in the bottom of my legs barely finding any grip in the tiny gaps between the floor tiles. Nothing good has happened in these bland, fluorescent halls since I'd become a pokemon.

The alien kept walking, following behind both Lanky and I at a leisurely pace, their egg head looming behind us. I was sliding around on the floor, keeping an eye on the alien, another on Lanky and the professor. The professor's pokemon just trot behind us. Lanky put his hand on my head, pausing in their walk in the middle of the hall, talking. The professor paused, glanced at me, practically hugging Lanky’s leg. The professor's mouth was unsealed, showing the white of some teeth.

He gave a very light, short cough. I took a breath. Even through the leaf-helmet, I could smell the synthetic on my tongue, it still stung. The professor pulled out a pokeball and tossed it lazily at the alien. In a flash of light, it was gone. Which was better? I guess? I took a breath and tasted the aftereffects of the flowing lab air. People showed their teeth when coug—Ooh. Oh no. That was a smile. I breathed in again. He had been laughing! The professor was smiling! This was the second time I’d mixed up laughing and coughing. How many other times had I missed?

Another breath. I thought of running. I thought of the swadlies. I’m a bug. I thought of the bug-nest I had left to come to a human town. I still didn’t know how many swadlies had followed me. The short month I’d lived in the nest, I never bothered to count how many there were. I took a breath. Leave them behind? Again? Can I do that to them again? Well. They seemed to do fine on their own, right? I fiddled with the clasp I’d just completed a few minutes ago, the simple release mechanism I’d built. The appeal of following humans around was a lot less interesting or appetizing now.

Unova. Professor. Nuvema. I couldn’t be certain, but I was ninety-percent sure. I didn’t remember any guy-professor. I thought the Unovan lead professor was a lady? Maybe this old guy was her assistant? At the end of the day, it didn’t matter, people followed this guy and did what he told them to.

They promised me freedom! They promised me peace! They promised me a garden! I had been betrayed! Betrayed, I say! Actually, they didn’t do any of those things. And I didn’t try to ask for them. But I don’t care! Leaves in the ceiling began to swim like static.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“The gods gave you a new life, sent you to the pokemon world.”

And the monkey’s paw curls.

“Now you’ll be battling. Until. The. Day. You. Die.” I looked down. My arms weren’t quite shaking. The taste in the air wasn’t doing any favors. The smell of the nest had long faded.

The professor left us in a room with some chairs, taking the back of swadlies with him.

I slipped, falling to the floor. Before getting up, I rubbed my arms together. I inhaled. A long strip of keratinous shell had fallen to the floor. I had to get out. I needed REAL AIR. My arm stung. I looked at the skin on the floor, then back at my arm. My blades make good impressions of potato peelers against the skin of my arm. A flash of light, and Lanky had a swadloon sitting on his lap. It looked around, opening and closing its mouth, tasting the air. Lanky looked down at the swadloon, which crawled off the chair, hopping down onto the floor, next to me. The kid’s knees were fidgeting, one bouncing up and down.

He was instead staring at the other ball.

He clicked the button.

It popped open.

Empty.

Did the Pokemon universe have potatoes? I’d make a pretty great potato peeler. I got a whiff of the harsh cobalt fearanxietyanticipationexcitement that was practically oozing out of him. It being a mostly positive smell helped me calm down for a minute. I paused and took a deep breath. I am a bug.

The door was shut behind us. I clicked in distaste, pacing around. Lanky, sitting around, was fidgeting more. I couldn’t see any windows. He continued opening and closing the pokeball with a clink. The swadloon remained closed and ignored in comparison. His knees, clearly agitated, bounced up and down. I took a breath. When the old man put that labcoat on... If fate was really real, I was where I was supposed to be. I could only imagine the forces that made me a leavanny, whatever force had pulled me into the world of frozen gray after I'd died.

Where you're supposed to be is preparing for a grind! Follow your trainer to the end! Go out into the wild, fight, get beat up, get in the pokeball, get shoved in front of more wild pokemon, beat up a few more. Get back in the pokeball. Fight again. And again. And again! And eventually, you can fight in a gym! Or in a tournament, or contest!

In my past life, shit just happened. Now, when I do stuff, stuff happens back. “I’m not ready!” I complained. Lanky was looking at me. Oh shit. I'd been yammering out loud. The swadloon was fidgeting too. The smelltaste of its own anxiety wafted up. It didn’t like the smell of this place either.

I hadn’t even seen much of the world yet! A bug. The thought of constantly being shoved into a ring, getting beat up, and coming back to a pokemon center. The smell of the swadloons had been shifting, and they had been anxious. Even in their balls, they could tell the air in this place was toxic. It was unhealthy. It was alien. It was aggressive. It smelt angry. It smelled like living garbage oozing purple and yellow gas. I have to leave.

Lanky stopped paying me any mind. The air, it all tasted so wrong. The simple door we had come through, it had a knob on it. I still had the hooks I used to climb back at the poke-center. All of the doors I'd seen had knobs. If I could get outside, I could at least get out of reach. With no fingers, it meant I would not be manipulating any knobs. And Lanky had a pokeball in his hand. I took a short breath of air.

I had to get out of here. Actually. I hatched a quick plan. I paced towards the door opposite the one the professor had gone through, passing a trash bin and a small stand. Lanky said something. I glanced back at him. I held up my blade arms, pressed them against the knob, pushed my right arm up, and my left arm down, and a clang next to my head, on the wall— the ball fell into the bin. He threw too hard and missed me. “Practice your overhand throws, bitch!” I spoke, sticking my tongue out, and ran as the kid began his own perilous pursuit down the tiled, fluorescently-illuminated floors. The floor is a lot more slick than the pokecenter. I put my foot down at the end of the hallway, ready to open the door again and get back to the room we had teleported into.

Instead of stopping, I slid into the door, falling on my abdomen. “Eeeanyy,” I cried out in shock. I scrambled, trying to stand up as Lanky approached. “Yyyeeee,” I complained as the kid looked at me, water wet in his eyes again, pokeball in his hand. He tossed it at me, saying stuff in a soft tone. The words they'd used were probably something like: “If you’d just calm down, I wouldn’t have to do this to you!” With that familiar flash of red light, the world went from light and vibrant to a dull, muffled tone. I couldn’t see either. I was caught again. I managed a little movement, but nothing which pressured the ball’s release mechanism. How had I gotten out last time? I heard the clinks of the ball, more muffled voices. But I could still taste scents of both the swadloon and Lanky’s panicexcitementsanxiety mood.

I breathed again. Was I having a panic attack? I paused for a moment, then breathed in slowly, and turned inward. That was a panic attack. The synthetic air spikes the feelings of fear. If I took short breaths, that exacerbated my heart rate. The thing about being in a pokeball. The thing about being in a pokeball, it isn’t the act of being inside one. It’s what I’d be missing. If I take long breaths instead…

That first time the pokeball had, what, malfunctioned? Released me? Did I trigger a safety mechanism? Anyway, the first time I was released, I felt like it had only been a couple of minutes, but it had pretty clearly been a couple hours. But I couldn’t tell just from my thoughts and observing the world. If I took long breaths instead, the synthetic scent that remained in the air was still leaking the feelings of fear.

What if the PCs were just a pokeball teleport system and they kept you on ice the whole time? I could hear the clanking of the bag of swadloon in stasis. Their scent grew stronger for a short moment, then weaker. But this time it stayed consistent. That gross synthetic taste actually, finally went away. Eventually, the perception and feel of muffled movement ceased as well.

I liked being around swadloons, and, well, being around humans again was nice. One day, I’d be back in an actual Big City, with a human by my side, and I’d open a flower shop. That’s my plan. I’d set up and build my own greenhouse if I had to. I’d only fight to fend off fiendish fowl. I’d have a street shop. Sunflorae would grow in their little pots of soil, sewaddle would deliver little packets of fertilizer to the hydrangeas. I’d prune the little bushes, and Lanky would run the cash register.

I’d even make him a leaf apron. When I was done with my armor, that is. Then, I remembered the scent of that city’s air. I had had a panic attack back then, too. As a human, I had panic attacks when… I had panic attacks in places with lots of noise. Lots of people. And lots of sounds. And, well, just going about my day and doing nothing at home too, but I won’t talk about that.

If stuff got done, then, well, getting things done always felt good. Working always felt good. Being productive always felt good. If that's what they wanted from me, I would be a bug.

A busy one.

A busy bug I will be.