“Holy crap,” I said out loud.
We all just stood there, gaping at the prototype poke ball that was sitting on the ledge next to the pool of water. The occupied prototype poke ball.
After a few moments of silence, Florence took a hesitant step towards the ball. She glanced back over her shoulder at me, her eyes wide. “It is safe to touch now?”
“Uh, I think so.” I said. After the first few failed trials I had stopped holding my breath in hope every time we tried a new design. And now…
Florence picked up the ball and peered at it. “There is a light behind the button,” she said softly, her voice awed. “It really worked.”
A few feet away from her, a Slowpoke that had its tail lowered into the water finally noticed what was going on. It tilted its head to the side and growled out a quiet “Slooooow?”, probably wondering where its friend had gone.
Suddenly Isaac’s voice rang out in a clear, pealing laugh. “We did it!” he crowed, racing forward to grab the poke ball from Florence’s hands and peer at it himself. “We truly did it!”
As the realization sunk in, I found myself grinning. All the long hours of work had finally paid off, and we were the proud new inventors of the poke ball. Well, sort of. It had to have been invented by someone else before in order for me to have Drowzee’s poke ball for us to learn from in the first place, right?
… I decided not to think about that too much. I was well aware that I was in dangerous time-travel territory, and I didn’t want to jinx it by looking at the problem too closely.
“And this was only the second of the four prototypes in that line,” Isaac said, hurriedly turning back to our sack of poke balls and fishing out two more that were labeled 17 in black paint on the top lid. “Perhaps these will work as well?”
Charity snatched one of the balls from Isaac and ran lightly over to the nearby Slowpoke, then bopped it on the head. The Pokemon disappeared into the ball mid-yawn, and we all watched in rapt attention as the ball shook, and shook, and shook, then fell still.
“Yes!” I yelled this time, thoroughly excited now. I took the other ball from Isaac and jogged over to a third Slowpoke that was dozing right next to the water, then tapped the ball against the Pokemon’s back. I practically danced in place as the Pokemon was sucked in, as the ball shook once, then twice…
… and as the Pokemon rematerialized and promptly shot a Water Gun in my face. By the time I had gotten my glasses cleared off the Slowpoke had slipped back into the water and was long gone.
“That is odd,” Isaac said as he jotted down the result in his notebook. “We will have to work on this inconsistency. Perhaps there is still a flaw in the design?”
I shook my head in response, then sent a reassuring grin to Drowzee, who felt a little concerned. “Poke balls not always working is normal, even in my, uh, home region,” I said. “There’s always a chance that a majū will break out if it tries. That’s why you’re supposed to battle them first, to wear them down.”
“Well, perhaps we will have to involve battling in our next attempt.” Isaac then clapped his hands, beaming. “This is a momentous occasion. We should celebrate!”
Isaac’s concept of celebration turned out to mean ‘get sushi and bring it home so we can keep working’. The sushi was different from what I was used to; the fish and rice had been pressed tightly together in layers and were cut into geometric shapes, and the whole thing had been wrapped tightly in bamboo leaves instead of packaged in takeout containers. It was just as good as the sushi from home, though, if not better.
“So,” Florence said as we all sat around the table, “we can now capture majū. What do we do next?”
“We can capture Slowpoke, and in very specific circumstances,” Isaac corrected, fiddling with his chopsticks. “Our next step should be to see whether the prototype also works on other majū species and in a variety of scenarios. For that, we will need to make a large number of replicas, especially considering that the current design does not work perfectly.”
“So we should stop making different versions?” Charity asked as she slipped a tidbit of rice to Maisy, who was sitting on Charity’s lap with her chin resting on the table.
Isaac didn’t look particularly happy at that idea, but he nodded. “For now. We can still record any new ideas and return to them at a later point.” He frowned as he clicked his chopsticks together. “I find it hard to believe that the poke ball efficacy must be inconsistent. There should be a way to design a ball such that a majū caught in it cannot possibly escape.”
That made me think of the half-conversations I had sometimes overheard when my dad took business calls in his workshop and forgot to close the door. There was one that had particularly stood out, something I had heard when I was seven, a conversation where he talked about a ‘master ball’ with a ‘perfect capture ratio’. Even at that age I had been able to tell that he was concerned just from his tone of voice.
Later that night I had asked my dad why people used classic poke balls so often when the more advanced great and ultra balls were so much better at capturing Pokemon. He just smiled and told me that most of the time, people wanted their Pokemon to have a choice.
Somehow, I felt like Isaac wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain it that way to him. Pokemon were just too different in this era – or, well, most of them were. I hid a grin as Isaac caught Charity sneaking her Slowpoke bits of fish and scolded her for sharing the good food with her pet.
~
We took a week to build an arsenal of prototype poke balls, churning out many copies of the same design that had worked so well in Slowpoke Well. We had long ago settled into a steady working pattern, so we were able to produce ten or twelve balls in a day if we really focused on it.
We also took that time to consider the two Pokemon we had caught. We had been so caught up in the question of how to catch a Pokemon that none of us had thought about what we’d do with the creatures once we had them. At first Charity suggested that they might be able to use moves like Maisy did, but that didn’t work out; the two Pokemon just stared at us blankly whenever we told them to use Water Gun or Growl. I couldn’t even tell if they weren’t reacting because they had been wild Pokemon, or if that was just something Slowpoke did.
Luckily, the Slowpoke of Slowpoke Well weren’t all that different from the Slowpoke that were spread around the rest of the town. They were perfectly willing to lay in one spot all day as long as we brought them meals. Florence tied a red ribbon around the tail of one Slowpoke and a blue ribbon around the tail of the other so that we could distinguish them from the rest of the town’s population; then we basically left them alone. Soon it felt like they were just another part of the scenery.
Anyway, after a week had passed we had a sack full of poke balls and we were ready to test them on real wild Pokemon, not just Slowpoke. Personally, I was excited about this development. Sure, it was convenient that we could just walk up to a Slowpoke and tap it on the head with a prototype, but it kind of felt like cheating. I wanted to have a real authentic Pokemon catching experience, with battling and throwing a ball and the whole shebang.
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Not that I actually wanted to catch a Pokemon for my team – quite the opposite. I had spent a lot of time thinking about my situation, and I eventually decided that it wouldn’t be fair to catch a Pokemon here in the past. I still fully intended to go back to my own time as soon as I could; how could I ask a Pokemon from this era to follow me when I did that? It would be better to just stick with Drowzee and keep things simple. I’d have plenty of time to catch new teammates in the future.
But catching Pokemon for research? That was a different story. I was practically skipping in excitement as our group made its way to the south side of the town, and I could feel Drowzee’s excitement through our bond too. He would be our primary battler in this expedition, which meant he would get to show off all the progress he’d made in our month and a half of training. I was a little nervous about whether the Pokemon we encountered might be too strong for him, but Isaac had reassured me that the Pokemon of the grasslands were easier to deal with than the Pokemon in Union Cave.
The path that led south from town was well travelled and lined with houses and shops; Isaac mentioned offhandedly that that was due to the docks on the southern border. Azalea wasn’t one of the major trading hubs, but it apparently generated enough food to export to other cities and towns. Isaac kept talking on and on about how this was because Azalea had such a productive relationship with the Slowpoke, and maybe the other cities would be able to prosper as well if we could get the poke balls working well enough, and so on and so forth. I nodded every so often and mostly tuned him out, focusing instead of the new sights and aromas all around us.
After half an hour of walking we went off-path, heading west towards a large, open plain. This was clearly a wild area. A bunch of Hoppip and their evolutions floated casually on the breeze in plain sight, plenty of Spearow pecked around in the grass and perched on the trees, and the grass moved with the passage of small creatures. I liked that it was so open, since it meant we’d be able to see any large, dangerous Pokemon before they got too close.
“Be careful,” Isaac cautioned us as he motioned for the group to stop. “There are Ekans in this area. Watch where you step and do not get too close; their bite is venomous.”
I frowned at that thought. Maybe it wasn’t only the large Pokemon that were dangerous.
“We do not need to start with the snakes, though,” Isaac continued. “There are plenty of Rattata here; they would be good test subjects.”
“Those could be interesting as well,” Florence suggested, pointing to the cluster of Hoppip. Her eyes were gleaming, which made me grin. I could tell she was more interested in the Hoppip for herself than for the research.
“They can also fly,” Isaac said flatly. “I believe we should stick with majū that cannot run away so easily for the initial tests.” Florence made a face, but she didn’t argue the point. “Monroe, are you prepared?”
“We’ve got this,” I said, patting my starter on the back. “Ready, Drowzee?”
He flicked his trunk up and down and sent a burst of enthusiasm through our mental bond. Then he pushed forward through the grass, sniffing the air as he looked for a Pokemon to fight. I followed a few feet behind him and the rest of the group trailed behind me, Charity lugging Maisy in her arms so the Slowpoke wouldn’t get lost in the grass.
Drowzee found his target fairly quickly. A regular-looking Rattata crouched in an open part of the plain, nibbling something that it held between its paws. Drowzee walked up to it and trumpeted a challenge. The Rattata looked him over, then dropped the thing it had been eating and squeaked, getting down on all four paws in a battle-ready stance.
The battle started before I was ready; the Rattata dashed towards Drowzee in a Quick Attack and shoved him to the side, knocking the breath out of him. Drowzee stumbled for a few steps, but then caught himself and snorted, ready to go.
“Headbutt,” I told him eagerly. He had just learned the new move two weeks ago and we were still practicing with it, but this was the perfect opportunity to see how well it could do.
Drowzee trunk-nodded his agreement, lowered his head, and charged at the rat, who had wheeled around and was running towards him again. As Drowzee ran, the top of his head started to glow softly. It added extra power when he slammed his forehead into the Rattata, sending the rat flying backwards several feet.
The Rattata shook itself briskly, then dashed forward and latched onto Drowzee’s arm with a surprisingly fast Bite. Drowzee trumpeted in pain, and I gritted my teeth as some of that pain leaked through our mental bond. The dark aura that shone around the Rattata’s teeth reminded me that Bite was a dark attack; it would be super effective against poor Drowzee.
“Shake it off!” I yelled, and Drowzee did exactly that, shaking his arm rapidly and eventually sending the Rattata flying off into the grass. “Confusion, make it keep its distance,” I said as a follow-up, not wanting the rat to get another chance to Bite my partner. His eyes shone with a bright light as the Confusion attack hit Rattata, and the rat shrieked at the mental attack. I winced at the sound, remembering my own encounter with Confusion. Pokemon were hardier than humans, though… right?
The Rattata eventually snapped out of the mental attack and ran back at Drowzee, slamming him with a Tackle. But the rat looked weaker now; its legs trembled, and the Tackle didn’t have much force behind it. This seemed like the perfect moment to try a catch.
I turned around and motioned at Isaac, and he immediately handed me one of the prototype balls. I took a step towards the battle, but the Rattata turned towards me and hissed, showing its teeth, which made me take a step back again instinctively. Clearly we weren’t going to be able to bop Rattata on the head like we did with the Slowpoke.
That meant I got to do things the traditional way. I grinned, wound my arm backwards, and threw the prototype ball right at the Rattata, shouting “Poke ball, go!” the way trainers always did on commercials.
The ball shot two feet past the rat and landed on the ground, rolling quickly to a stop in the grass.
I blushed fiercely, but forced myself to take a deep breath. This would just take practice, like everything else. The Rattata stared at me, bewildered, as I turned back to Isaac and grabbed another poke ball to throw. This one got closer, but it still flew a foot to the right of the Pokemon, not even touching it.
The Rattata started to scamper off to the left, but Drowzee lumbered over to block it from getting away, taking another weak Tackle attack in the process. I swallowed my pride and decided that what mattered now was the experiment, not who tossed the ball. “You guys should try,” I mumbled, looking back at the rest of the group. “I’m bad at this kind of thing.”
Florence raised her eyebrows at me, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, the three other people all grabbed poke balls from the bag and tossed them at the Rattata.
Isaac’s ball went wide by several feet – I was mollified to see that he wasn’t any good either. Charity’s went in the right direction but landed too early. Florence’s ball was right on target, but it hit the Rattata at the wrong angle; the bottom lid of the ball smacked into the rat, so the prototype just bounced off of it and rolled into the grass, not activating its energy form at all.
I blinked at that, surprised. Didn’t poke balls automatically reorient themselves so that the capture button would hit the Pokemon when they got close enough?
… well, maybe modern poke balls did. Clearly the same thing didn’t apply to our apricorn balls.
The Rattata put its ears back and spat after the prototype ball hit it, then shot off towards the right, away from Drowzee and the rest of our group. I sighed as I watched it run. We clearly needed more practice with actually using poke balls before we could experiment with them.
Florence screamed incoherently from behind me. I spun around halfway to see what had happened and was shocked to see her dash past me, a ball held tightly in one hand. In several long strides she caught up to the Rattata and tackled it, forcing the Pokemon to the ground. For a few moments the two of them wrestled as I watched, mouth agape; then Florence slammed the poke ball she was holding onto the rat, button-side down.
The Rattata brightened into its energy form and was pulled into the ball. Florence rolled away, breathing hard, as the ball fell onto the grass and started shaking. The ball shook much harder than it ever had with the Slowpoke; it jerked back and forth, almost rolling a complete cycle forward in the grass.
Then it stopped moving, the ball’s entry button facing upwards. A light glow behind the button showed that the Rattata had been caught.
Behind me, I could hear Isaac make a tsking sound while Charity laughed and applauded. In front of me, Drowzee snorted, and I could feel that he was amused through our bond. I just stared at Florence, flabbergasted. The rat had clawed at her arm and a small amount of blood was starting to seep out of the cuts, but she didn’t seem to mind; in fact, she had a huge grin on her face.
“What was that?” I yelled at her, somehow frustrated and impressed all at once. Florence looked me in the eyes; then, instead of apologizing or telling me off, she fell over in a fit of giggles.
Girls. They just didn’t make sense sometimes.