“Let’s take a look at that list now,” Emilia said.
Cashe passed over his notebook. He hadn’t included any pokemon not listed in the pokedex, but he had included everything else, even those Emilia had already dismissed as truly rare or problematic. The pokedex was surprisingly full, with almost every single non-legendary included in it and many of the wandering legendaries from the game also having a spot. Jirachi wasn’t there, nor were any of the truly rare mythical pokemon, but several other legendaries were, including the big three from Hoenn, Sinnoh, Galar, and the two from Paldea.
The amount of information on each pokemon varied wildly based on its rarity, but general info like location was almost always included.
“Have you seen every one of those pokemon?” Cashe asked. It would be an impressive feat for someone so young.
“Me? No, of course not. But all pokedexes are updated as anyone with one learns more. Sharing new information is the foundation of any scientific field.”
Cashe nodded. So it was different from the games, then. That made sense considering a pokedex wouldn’t be much help for new trainers if it only contained information on pokemon they had already seen.
Emilia took a few minutes to go through the list thoroughly, drumming her fingers on the table as she read. After a few minutes, she looked up, “You have a lot of good pokemon for battling here, but there are some glaring omissions.”
“Isn’t that what I’m going to need, pokemon to battle with?” Cashe said, “And what omissions? I just picked pokemon I thought might be strong on a team.”
“You will need that, but it’s pretty obvious you have no idea what a trainer’s life is actually like. You’re not going to get any of these,” Emilia said, setting down the notebook, "Not for a long time at least. Not even for battling."
“None of them?”
“There are a few small exceptions,” Emilia said. She pointed to the list, “Look at your list. Besides being strong pokemon, do you know what most of these have in common?”
“They’re cool?”
Emilia rolled her eyes, “You’re such a guy. No. They all have almost no utility outside of a pokebattle. Blissey and Clefable obviously do, but besides a few of the larger flying types that might be able to carry you, what else are any of these pokemon going to do? How is Hatterene going to help you out in the wilderness? You may need to cross mountains, traverse caves, or dive to the bottom of the ocean. Which of these pokemon are going to help you with that?”
Cashe crossed his arms, “I thought the point was to battle with pokemon. Didn’t you just get finished telling me that I needed to be a strong trainer?”
“Part of being a strong trainer is being able to catch the pokemon you need and travel to the places you need to go safely. Pokemon aren’t just tools for battle and if you treat them that way, we are going to have a problem,” Emilia gave Cashe a firm look at this statement, letting him know there was no wiggle room in the statement, “Let’s just take a sample from you list, say, corviknight, Palafin, Dragapult, Volcarona, Venusaur, and Hatterene. A powerful team. But can you see the flaw?”
“What’s wrong with it?” Cashe said. It looked pretty good to him.
“If those are your pokemon, how did you get any of them? How are you going to battle any of the trainers that you will need to battle in order to get them?”
Cashe frowned, “What do you mean?”
"I mean logistically, how did you capture them?” Emilia raised her eyebrows, emphasizing the question, “Dragapult and Volcarona require you to travel to some of the most dangerous or remote places in the world, Corviknight and Venusaur are more common, but that means you will need them to be the very best if you want to stand a chance against your opponents. That means selective breeding, and that means money. Lots of it.”
“And Hatterene and Palafin?” Cashe said.
“Palafin shouldn’t be too difficult if you are set on one,” Emilia admitted, “But Hatenna are rare and easily frightened. Plus they can sense emotions from a distance. Finding one takes a lot of skill and a lot more luck.”
Cashe frowned and picked the pokedex back up, idly scrolling through the hundreds of pokemon listed, “So the rarer the pokemon, the more powerful I need to be in order to have even a chance at catching it, and the more common the pokemon, the better bred and trained they need to be.”
Emilia gave him a satisfied smile, “Exactly. Plus you will need a few pokemon to act as support, like Dad’s Chansey does. And another few who will help you get around. At least one flier, one to surf and dive, one for caves, probably one for deep woods and forests, mountains, deserts, tundra. Everything.”
“Jesus,” Cashe breathed, “How many pokemon end up being on a trainers team?”
“A good trainer? Usually around eighteen.”
“And only six are for battle?” Cashe felt his eyes widen in surprise.
“More like twelve are for battle,” Emilia said with a wave of her hand, “But we can go over the details of the Pokemon Circuit, the League and the Conferences later. There are more important things for you to do right now.”
“There are?”
“Duh,” Emilia rolled her eyes, “Did you forget? You just arrived from some place named after a car. We need to go to a Pokemon Center.”
“And do what?”
“The most important thing of all,” Emilia grinned, “Paperwork.”
***
Cashe Followed Emilia as they walked towards the Pokemon Center in Pallet Town. With his tattered suit and unfamiliar face, Cashe stood out like a sore thumb in the small town, but people paid him little attention. They were too busy talking to Emilia.
Pallet Town probably only had a hundred and fifty people, but it seemed like all of them decided to greet Emilia that day. As the daughter of the famous professor, she apparently knew everyone and took the time to exchange pleasantries with all of them.
It wouldn’t normally have bothered Cashe, even though he was from a big city and friendly neighbors were more something you heard about rather than ever saw, but it put in stark relief his own solitude. In the entire world, he knew exactly four by name, and one of them was a tiny child.
Emilia said goodbye to an old woman who had bestowed upon her a basket of freshly baked muffins and turned to Cashe, her grin falling to a frown.
“You alright?”
“I’m fine,” Cashe said unconvincingly. He stuffed his hands in his pant pockets and hunched his shoulders as he and Emilia resumed their walk to the Pokemon Center..
Emilia’s frown deepened, “Did you have a lot of friends in Van Town?”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“So do you go to school to be a pokemon trainer, or what?” Cashe said loudly.
“I did, actually,” Emilia said, taking Cashes' none-too-subtle change in topic in stride.
“Wait, really?” Cashe said, “I thought everyone started at a young age.”
“Yup. Just graduated. We keep the official starting age for trainers at twelve for the sake of tradition, but if you want to be a serious trainer, you go to school for it.”
Before long the pair came to the Center. Cashe stopped as it came into full view. Emilia kept walking but turned back after a few steps.
“You coming?”
“Yeah,” Cashe swallowed, “Just taking it in.”
The Pokemon Center. A pillar of the games he grew up with and a landmark for trainers everywhere in the world where he now found himself. A red roof in the shape of a pokeball sitting on top of a white building with glass doors. Through the glass Cashe could see someone talking to a woman in a nurse’s uniform.
“Are they really all family?” Cashe asked as they entered the building, drawing on his admittedly limited knowledge of the anime.
The interior of the Pokemon Center was small, as expected for a town this size. It was a single floor, with a desk running the length of the room. Behind the desk, a pair of double doors led to a recovery area. On the left was a nurse, in full uniform, with pink hair tied in two distinctive loops. At the opposite end of the desk, a man sat in front of a wall of various items. Cashe could see pokeballs and bottles of something, but couldn’t make out anything else.
“The results of nepotism, it’s rampant within the League,” Emilia grumbled, “They got in on the system early and now every Joy has a guaranteed position in an important institution.”
“Aren’t the Oaks kind of the same?”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Emilia complained with a wide grin, “We totally could be, but besides the occasional perk or two, Dad refuses to participate!”
Despite her grumbling, Emilia made a beeline to the Nurse Joy. She was an older woman, and smiled brightly as they approached.
“Emilia, it’s been years! Look at you, all grown up,” her eyes drifted to Cashe, her smile fading somewhat, “Is this your boyfriend? He has an interesting sense of style.”
“Don’t be silly,” Emilia waved her hand in a quick dismissal, “He’s new. Pokemon incident. He’s going to need an ID.”
“We did get a call about someone like that,” Nurse Joy gave Cashe a critical look, “Are you sure this is him?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Alright, Mr…” Nurse Joy's look turned expectant.
“Mr Cashe, just call me Cashe, please.” Cashe said.
“Mr Cashe, we will need you to fill out some paperwork. Quite a lot of paperwork, actually. But before we do that, I take it you are not vaccinated?” She was already ducking behind the desk and taking out an array of needles and laying them on the counter.
Cashe looked at them, eyes bulging, “I’m up to date on mine, but maybe not on everything you have here,” he squinted at one needle, “Does that say Pokerus?”
Nurse Joy nodded, “It’s a rare, beneficial virus that pokemon can contract, but it causes damage to the nervous system in humans.”
“I’m definitely not vaccinated for that,” Cashe said.
“Come right around and I’ll stick you a few times, then,” Nurse Joy said, lifting up a section of the desk to let Cashe through, “You can fill out the paperwork as I do. Are you left or right handed?”
“Right.” Cashe said as he sat down. Nurse Joy handed him a small stack of papers and pulled up a seat for him to sit in and walked to the left side so she could vaccinate him as he filled out the paperwork.
The paperwork was unpleasant, mostly because someone was jabbing him with sharp objects while he filled it out, and it started fairly standard. Name and address (he had to ask Emilia for that one) and things like that. He needed to borrow a calendar for his date of birth since apparently the pokemon world didn’t use the Gregorian calendar. It was the first strange part of the experience. They used the same months of the year and days of the week, but they were in year 246. Go figure.
From there, there were more unusual questions. Did he work regularly with pokemon or other ‘beasts’? Did he plan on working with pokemon? What was his education? How tall was he? Height? Weight? (Nurse Joy helped with those).
He had to tell his story of arriving in the world of pokemon on four separate forms. Each form let him know trauma counseling was available.
The medical section went into quite a bit of detail. Cashe was pleasantly surprised to see the forms asking about things like his MMR vaccination, Tetanus and Polio, as well as a laundry list of common diseases with which he was familiar. The final section gave him pause, however, which asked what common diseases he might be carrying that were not listed in the form. The instruction said to contact a Nurse Joy immediately if he could think of any.
"Um, Nurse Joy, do you have COVID here?" Cashe asked hesitantly.
"I've never heard of it," she said, "What is it?"
Crap.
Cashe explained the disease to her, having to describe bats as Zubat or Swoobat-like creatures. Nurse Joy took the issue very seriously, but kept asking what type "bats" were, despite Cashe trying to explain it didn't work like that. Ultimately, when it was determined Cashe did not have the symptoms of the disease and had not had the symptoms in the last few weeks, he was given firm instructions to limit his contact with people until the normal infectious period passed, and to keep on the lookout if anyone near him developed any similar symptoms.
When he was finished his arm was sore from the shots and his hand was sore from writing. He got up and handed Nurse Joy the stack of papers. “Thanks for the help.”
She smiled, “That's what we’re here for. I’ll get these filed and your identification package will be sent to your listed address. Emilia mentioned you were planning on becoming a trainer?”
“That’s right. The professor has apparently already filed the paperwork.”
“Then hopefully my family will be able to help you on your journey. Have a good day, Mr Cashe.”
Cashe nodded and looked around the Pokemon Center, Emilia was chatting with the bored employee in front of the wall of pokeballs and other accouterments. She noticed Cashe getting up and said a short goodbye to the employee who gave Cashe a dirty look. Probably just mad that his distraction was leaving.
Emilia walked up to him, “So, how’d it go?”
“My arm hurts and my hand hurts.” Cashe said.
“That sounds about right,” Emilia grinned, waving for him to follow, “Come on, Mom and Dad have a surprise for you.”
Cashe followed her out of the Pokemon Center, into the warm afternoon light. “A surprise?”
“You’ll love it, I promise.” She waved for him to follow again, and ran off back towards the lab.
----------------------------------------
Cashe collapsed into a kitchen chair. Emilia could run. He wasn’t out of shape by any means, but damn. He wheezed into the glass of water she placed in front of him before he took a long drink.
“That was kind of pathetic,” Emilia said, her eyes sparkling in amusement, “I had all these muffins and you still couldn’t keep up.”
“I’m hurt, okay?” Cashe said defensively, “I just got stuck with a thousand needles and I’m wearing dress shoes. Plus half the distance is a dirt road. Has no one here heard of asphalt?”
“Yeah, I know,” Emilia grinned, “I was just giving you a hard time so you wouldn’t see Mom and Dad come in.”
“What?” Cashe spun around in his seat. Misty and Blue were standing in the entrance of the kitchen. Misty was holding a small cake while Oak had a case of lacquered wood. Annie was between them, holding a small wrapped gift and Chansey and-
WAS THAT A GENGAR?
“Surprise!” Misty cheered, making Cashe jump as he tore his eyes away from the ghost type pokemon.
“There would normally be more of a ceremony for this, but considering the circumstances,” Oak shrugged, “I figured this would do just fine.”
“A ceremony? For what?” Cashe turned his head and looked around the room, “Where did the Gengar go?”
“Spooky probably jumped into someone’s shadow,” Misty shrugged, “He likes to do that.”
They named the Gengar ‘Spooky’?
“The ceremony for becoming a pokemon trainer,” Oak explained, “You are still planning on becoming one, correct?”
“Yeah?”
“Good,” Oak placed down the lacquered wooden box in front of Cashe and pulled back the lid, revealing a velvet lined interior, and three pokeballs.
Cashe blinked.
No.
“In Kanto, we have three traditional starters,” Oak continued.
Cashe’s eyes went wide.
No. Was this really happening?
“On the left, we have Charmander,” Oak opened the ball and a flash of light revealed a small fire lizard standing on its hind legs, tail aflame.
Oh my god.
“In the middle we have Squirtle.” An adorable blue tiny turtle.
Oh my god.
“And finally we have Bulbasaur.” A green quadrupedal frog-like pokemon with a large plant bulb on its back.
Oh my god.
Oak smiled at the look on Cashe’s face.
“You may choose one,” he said.