Instead of heading further inland we returned to the stream on the other side of the lab headed back towards the sea. After a bit of thinking this made sense. The combination of flowing water and shade made it the absolute best area to escape the heat and the delta was swarming with first stage evolution pokemon.

Since she was the one who knew the island, I only asked her if the Palpitoad would make trouble for us. The only answer I got was a chirping laugh. When I told her that my first encounter with it had been…contentious, she reassured me that there was nothing to worry about.

In retrospect, my panic hadn’t really been warranted. The bubble attack - a Bubble Beam probably - had clearly been fired above my head. The largest factor had been that in that moment I had no frame of reference for what creature I was looking at and what was going on. I didn’t continue to dwell on my unfortunate encounter and enjoyed the atmosphere instead.

From the flashes of random impressions and thoughts I got from my past I was sure this would constitute an almost perfect vacation spot. Most of my memories featured dreary, poorly maintained concrete monstrosities inhabited by people ground down by the heavy gears of capitalism.

Here I had warm weather, even if it was too hot right now, plenty of greenery, and white sand with no trash in sight. True, the wildlife could be pretty brutal, but with Bella’s protection I didn’t think I was at much risk.

While we were walking along the river path there was no shortage of pokemon all around us, but Bella only ever informed me that they were dull and thus of no interest to us. How she knew at a glance, I didn’t know, and she couldn’t really convey. In the end I chalked it up to her being very strong and very experienced, especially since she had seemingly helped in a lab for a while.

After a few minutes I was progressively less tense and began to enjoy our walk through the jungle. From the few memory fragments that bubbled up I gathered that this was my first time in one and the experience was only enhanced by the many pokemon running about.

I could hear the river delta long before we gained sight of it. It was a cacophony of pokemon cries and battle sounds that never abated. When we stepped out of the trees only the pokemon closest to us took notice, but they scattered unanimously. It seemed Bella had a reputation.

I got the blanket from my backpack, and we took a seat on a boulder near the riverbank. It was quite interesting to observe the many battling and feeding pokemon now that I wasn’t part of the food chain anymore. Seeing half-eaten pokemon carcasses didn’t get any more pleasant, but I was also strangely unbothered by it.

Next to me Bella mentally eliminated the pokemon as possible targets one by one. Whatever she saw, or in this case didn’t see in them, I still didn’t know, but she seemed so sure of her conclusions that I had no doubt she was right.

I nevertheless tried to implement Jess’ advice on spotting pokemon that behaved strangely. The general chaos made it hard to focus on any specific targets and even when I settled on one, Bella eliminated them all from contention eventually.

Just as I was of a mind to ask her if we should move on to another site, some newcomers joined from upstream. Five Tympole were swimming confidently right into the chaos. Their leader let out a loud shriek which was echoed by its followers. I was quite sure that this was an attack as I could see the air distort at their cries.

Their swift and brutal entry first invited multiple challengers from different species, but after the tenth of them slumped over even the dullest of pokemon knew to steer clear of them. Bella had also taken note of them. After a while she sat up straighter, her gaze fixed on the leading Tympole.

As it continued to lead its followers into battle her focus never once wavered until she jumped down the boulder in excitement. I was taken aback for a moment, but when Bella told me that the leader was undoubtedly a Bright pokemon I hastily scrambled after her.

Even as my excitement continued to rise as I followed after Bella who cut a straight path to the Tympole I couldn’t help but analyze the merits of it as a team member. Tympole was a water type with two further evolutions, so there was plenty of room to grow for it.

Both of its evolutions were nothing to write home about aesthetically, but their dual water and ground typing added a very valuable immunity to electric type moves. Depending on its ability it could even have a second immunity through Water Absorb.

While Seismitoad, its last evolution stage, had never been particularly viable competitively in the rigid world of peak-levels, maxed Effort and Innate Values, and four move slots, this was the real world where other considerations had to be made.

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I nearly stumbled as the foreign information flooded my brain. Whoever I had been in my last life, I’d had more than a passing interest in the then fictional world of pokemon. Bella had taken note of my altered state of mind and slowed down, but whatever she had perceived of it, she clearly didn’t feel the need to comment.

As I came to grips with a bevy of knowledge about the Tympole line we arrived just as the group was fighting their latest victim. A little Pansage had seemingly decided that its typing would carry it through. The Tympole we had our eye on taught the grass monkey that it had more options than shooting Bubbles at its adversary.

It used the air distorting move again that I now could identify as Echoed Voice. While the move doubled in power with every use in the games, that was obviously not the case here. The distortions still got stronger with every use, but at a more reasonable pace.

The Pansage was not enjoying itself. Starting with the third blast every subsequent one was powerful enough to shove it back until it performed an involuntary backflip on the sixth one. It continued to float on the water for a moment, face down and completely motionless. Just as I was about to intervene and flip it over, it shook itself and quickly paddled off.

A loud cry alerted me that the Tympole had found yet another victim. When I turned to it I noticed with amusement that it had apparently decided that Bella hadn’t shown it the respect it thought it deserved. Now it and its comrades floated in the water, barely clinging to consciousness.

I should have paid better attention to my surroundings instead of watching the Pansage swim away. Bella could probably keep me safe regardless of how careless I was, but bad habits were hard to unlearn, and I had no intention to die due to my own stupidity. I was a fragile human, and it would take only one solid hit from a stray attack to cripple or even kill me.

Jess had explained the basics of catching pokemon to me, and it was close to identical with the games. It all boiled down to weakening a pokemon as much as possible before going for the catch. The only significant changes were that causing a pokemon to faint didn’t make it ineligible to catch and the pokemon would not only struggle against the pokeball but also the trainer’s psyche.

According to Jess it was inadvisable to catch a fainted pokemon, even if that removed the mental and physical contest. It had apparently been proven that giving the target pokemon the chance to struggle against the pokeball and the trainer would make it more compliant afterwards.

It was theorized that something in a pokemon’s psyche needed the contest to accept the defeat. As a nice bonus that also strengthened its connection to the trainer who caught it. All in all, there was ordinarily no reason not to catch a conscious pokemon.

After I had fumbled through my bag and withdrawn one of the pokeballs I made sure that the Tympole I wanted to catch was still conscious before chucking the ball at it. Seeing it open up and sucking in the comparatively huge Tympole was quite surreal, even with everything else that happened that day.

After a few moments of shaking the pokeball calmed down again and I held my breath while I hoped for the best. When I heard the same chime from my pokedex that had also played when I had bonded with Bella earlier that day, I was elated.

After exploring my connection to Bella since the lab, it didn’t take me long to find the second one that was developing between Tympole and me. It was incredible how much the two connections differed. Where Bella and my connection to her were almost entirely inscrutable to me, Tympole was an open book and I felt the connection clearly.

Now there was a second, simpler mind in the back of my head. The dominant sensation I got from it was discomfort at his injuries, but it seemed Bella had been careful since he only seemed to be roughed up a bit.

That was another change. I knew Tympole was male and also there was a natural hierarchy between the two of us and I was in the dominant position. I had no proof, but it seemed logical to me that the pokeball had something to do with that hierarchy. It seemed that even after her lengthy lecture there were some things Jess had neglected to mention.

Not that I could fault her. She had after all crammed what amounted to a primary school education on pokemon into an hour or so of talking. We waded back out of the water and to our boulder, where I laid down to rest for a bit.

The connection to Tympole was sapping my strength in a way I hadn’t anticipated. When I thought about how much the little guy was taking out of me, I shuddered to think how Bella could weigh on me if she wanted to. As he recovered Tympole thankfully took less and less of my energy until I felt well enough to make the trip back.

As we started to leave, I saw the four dull Tympole recover their bearings. After a bit of searching for their leader they seemingly simply accepted that he was gone and swam back upriver. If it had played out any other way I might have felt bad about the whole affair, but if they weren’t concerned, why should I?

The return trip was just as pleasant as our journey to the delta. Being back in the shade did wonders against the heat instead of watching every pokemon that scurried by I was busy plotting my future. I would need to find out Tympole’s moves and ability and come up with a suitable nickname.

Then I would need to devise a training plan with Jess’ help and see whether my otherworldly knowledge could give me any edges. On the other hand, I’d need to be careful not to get a big head. The people here weren’t dumb, so before I discarded any of their advice or implemented my own ideas, I would have to be very sure that I was on the right path.

My dreams of information gathering and training must have bled over to Bella as she sent over mental scenes of herself training various young pokemon. I was apparently lucky enough to have stumbled onto a very knowledgeable helper.

When I thought about it some more, I came to the conclusion that I’d had gotten it all wrong. I was the helper, not Bella. She had experience training young pokemon and I had some extra knowledge and half-baked ideas. It was only logical that she would train Tympole how to battle and me how to be a trainer.