“I really must thank you for inviting me here,” Zuri said as we walked up the path to the house. “I’m terribly curious to learn more about your devices.”
I barely kept myself from making a face. I hadn’t intended to invite Zuri to our house, not at first; she was a stranger, after all. But she had kept asking questions until I eventually said that Isaac would be the best person to answer them, and she had taken that as an invitation to come meet him.
Not that we had gone right away. We had spent some time breaking down the battle between Venomoth and Pelipper further, ran a few quick exercises, then wrapped up the training session with the usual shared meditation session. Zuri had waited patiently through all of it. She and Pelipper had focused on cleaning the Stun Spore powder off his body at first, but once they’d finished that she had taken a packet of sunflower seeds out of her bag and started sharing them between the two of them. The sound of her spitting out the shells was horribly distracting – I had been entirely unable to focus on guiding Echo through the motions of her agility training because of it.
Now I opened the front door to the house and wandered in with Pausso trailing behind me. “Isaac, Charity,” I called towards the back of the house, “we’ve got company.” I smiled as Echo launched herself off of my head and flapped over to hang from one of her favorite perches in the house.
Charity poked her head out of the workshop first and skipped forward to look over Zuri and Pelipper with clear curiosity. Isaac came right behind her with Oddish at his heels, and he looked much less enthusiastic. “Greetings,” he said slowly as he flicked a confused look at Florence and me.
“Same to you,” she said cheerily. “You must be the esteemed researcher I have heard of. I am Zuri Abwao, representative of Cianwood Village, and I have come to inquire about your new invention.”
“I see,” he said. “What exactly do you want to know?”
“Well,” she said after a moment’s thought, “your young friend here told me that these devices can be used to capture wild majū. Is this true?”
He looked wary, but he still answered. “Yes. They do not always work, but we have successfully captured a large number of majū using them.”
She nodded solemnly. “Can you demonstrate?”
He blinked at her. “On a wild majū? … No? We just ran a set of tests yesterday, it will be several days before we are ready for the next round.”
“Ah,” she said, clearly disappointed. “Well, can you walk me through how the process works?”
“I suppose,” he said dubiously. He pulled Oddish’s poke ball from his pouch and showed it to Zuri. “It is simple enough. You just lightly strike the majū with the button and they are pulled into the device.” He knelt down and held out the poke ball for Oddish. She scurried forward, tapped her head against the button, and was sucked into the ball. “When used on a wild majū there is always a chance that they will escape the ball and break the connection before it can be finalized, but once the bond is made you can release and retrieve the majū as needed.”
Zuri had watched this demonstration closely; she barely even blinked. Now she hummed and ran a hand over the fabric of her scarf. “You said there’s a chance a wild majū will escape. How often does this work?”
“It depends,” I volunteered. “The majū’s strength, how much it’s battled recently, any status effects it’s dealing with – lots of things can affect it.”
“But once a majū has been captured, they will not leave the ball unless you press the button,” Isaac told her.
As if on cue, Oddish’s poke ball shook once in Isaac’s hand; then a light sprang out of the button. The little grass Pokemon materialized on the ground in front of him and rustled her leaves happily.
Zuri raised her eyebrows. “How did you do that? I did not see you press the button.”
Isaac sighed. “I didn’t.” He glared down at Oddish. “I should correct myself. The vast majority of the time, a majū will not leave their ball until they are released. However, we have discovered a few notable exceptions.”
‘A few notable exceptions’ currently amounted to… well, just Oddish. That was it. To make matters worse, Oddish couldn’t explain how she was able to break out of her poke ball. When we asked she just said that it happened when she wanted it to. Our best guess so far was that it was due to some flaw in the design of her individual ball, but we hadn’t been able to replicate it on purpose.
Personally, I thought it would be great if Pokemon could escape their poke balls when they wanted to. If Pausso had been able to leave his own ball at will the whole situation in Violet City might have gone in a very different direction. But Zuri looked concerned. “How common is it for caught majū to escape their poke balls?” she asked immediately.
“Rare,” Isaac said drily. “Perhaps one in a thousand. Perhaps rarer still.”
She relaxed. “I am willing to take those odds.” She then nodded firmly. “Very well, I have decided. I would like to purchase one of your poke balls. No – three, to be safe.”
Isaac’s eyebrow twitched. “That is not possible,” he said shortly.
“I have been authorized by Cianwood to pay what is needed,” she replied, ignoring him. Then she named a price that made my jaw drop and made Florence gasp out loud. I hadn’t needed to deal much with money in this era thanks to Isaac, but I had done my fair share of shopping in the market and I had a general idea about what different items were worth. Zuri was offering a stupidly large amount of money.
Isaac didn’t even pause. “That does not change anything,” he told her. “The poke balls are not for sale.”
Zuri narrowed her eyes slightly and considered Isaac. Then she grinned widely. “Very well. If I may not purchase the device itself, I will instead invest in your expertise. We have a problem in Cianwood that your poke ball can solve. I am willing to offer the same rate I mentioned before if one of you will come back to the city with me and use these poke balls to assist us. You may keep the balls and any majū you capture; we only ask for your help.”
This time Isaac hesitated briefly before he shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “We are too busy with our work here. We do not have time to go running off on errands for other towns.”
“We will pay double.”
“No,” Isaac snapped. I nearly jumped at his tone – he sounded angry now. “I am not going to debate this topic, and I think you should leave.” At his feet Oddish growled softly and shook her leaves, the green glitter of Sleep Powder visible at the top of her head.
For a few moments Isaac and Zuri silently stared at each other. Then the woman nodded her head in agreement.
“Of course,” she said calmly. “I wish you all a pleasant evening.” She turned around and casually left the house, Pelipper waddling along behind her.
I watched Zuri as she left, then looked over towards Florence. She looked just as spooked as I felt. I had known Isaac was adamant about the poke ball technology not getting out into the world any more than it already had, but I hadn’t known how fierce he could get about it.
Charity, on the other hand, looked uncertain. “Papa,” she said carefully, “should we not at least hear what they want help with?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Isaac had already turned away to head back to the workshop. “There is no point,” he said quietly. “Whatever is happening there is none of our concern. Right now it is most important that we focus on the continued development and improvement of the poke balls.” He glanced back over his shoulder at us, then, and brightened. “Monroe, Florence; Charity had a new idea for how we might implement a small degree of automatic targeting. Shall we discuss it?”
I decided to let the matter drop as I followed Isaac further into the house. At the end of the day, Zuri was just another traveler. She would sail off and find another solution to her problems, and we would focus on our work.
~
I realized that Zuri would not be ‘just another traveler’ when I showed up to training the next afternoon to find her waiting at the edge of the field.
“Ah, Florence and Monroe!” she called out, waving to us. I stared at her for a moment, then exchanged a tired look with Florence. She rolled her eyes slightly and motioned for me to handle the conversation.
“Hello again,” I said cautiously. “Shouldn’t you be on your ship?”
Zuri shrugged. “They are not going anywhere without me, and I am not going anywhere without a solution to my problem. I realized last night that I never told you what the situation was, so I would like to remedy that now.”
“Uhh, we have to train,” I said, only to look around and see that Smith and Alonso weren’t there yet. We could begin training without them, but we usually waited so we could all start together…
It didn’t matter; Zuri just ignored my attempt to brush her off. “It is simple, really,” she told us. “A wild majū in the mountains to the west of Cianwood has been attacking people and other majū recently. Brutally attacking them. At the time that I left four people had already been killed, and I would not be surprised if the number has increased since then.”
That got my attention. “Why?” I asked immediately. “Were they on its territory?”
“Perhaps the first person,” she allowed. “He went up the mountain to gather herbs. But the rest have been on the outskirts of the village, well outside the range of any majū. And we have found several dead majū in the same area that look like they were killed by the same attacker.”
“Why come to us?” Florence asked. “Do you not have trainers for this kind of thing?”
“We do,” she allowed. “One of them tried to go fight the monster. He and his partner never returned.”
Well. That was ominous.
“Since then, Trainer Sheng has focused on protecting the village instead of venturing up the mountain,” she continued. “He wants a better plan before we go after the killer again. When we heard of your poke balls, we thought they would be the solution. It should be easier to capture the majū instead of finding a way to kill it.”
That was probably true. But the ‘easier’ approach would still be difficult if the wild Pokemon was really that powerful.
“We truly do need help,” Zuri said. “Would one of you be willing to assist? Or could you at least convince your researcher friend to sell me the devices?”
Florence spoke up before I could think things through. “I wish I could help,” she said wistfully, “but I am not strong enough yet to take on such a task. Perhaps if I had assistance it would be different.” Then she glanced over at me meaningfully.
I looked over at Pausso and Echo. They were already doing their warm-up stretches with Florence’s Pokemon a short distance away, next to a tree so Echo could hang from a branch. My team and I had improved a great deal over the past few months, but we still had a long way to go. Besides, hadn’t we been through enough already after everything that had happened earlier in the summer?
I shook my head. “I’m sorry about your situation, but I don’t think we can help. Isaac really wants to keep the poke ball project in-house for now, he’d never agree to sell some to you.” I felt a little guilty, sure, but I also didn’t see why this should be my problem. Isaac had mentioned the previous night that Cianwood wasn’t part of the Johto collective (not yet, anyway), so I wasn’t under any obligation to go support the trainers there. And I needed to focus on my work on the poke balls and training my team. I couldn’t afford to get distracted again.
Zuri didn’t push me on whether I could actually help or not. Instead, she frowned. “I do not understand. If your friend is so passionate about this poke ball project, why does he refuse to distribute the results?”
I scuffed at the grass with my foot and looked down. “We had a bad experience the last time we tried to share the poke balls with someone else,” I said flatly. Memories from Violet City flashed vividly through my head, and Pausso paused his stretches to look over at me. “They can be dangerous in the wrong hands. He doesn’t want to take that risk again.”
“Then why keep working on this project at all, if it is so dangerous?”
“We all have our reasons.” I wanted to fix the gold and silver ball so I could go home, of course. Florence was helping me, and she also wanted to meet many more Pokemon so she could find her partner. Charity loved having an excuse to play around with inventions and crafting. Isaac…
“Isaac wants to learn everything he can about majū,” Florence said. “He does not care about money or fame. He just wants knowledge.”
“Knowledge, hmm?” Zuri said with a thoughtful look. “Perhaps I can work with that.”
I started to ask her what she meant, but at that point Smith and Alonso called out to us from further down the path. I turned around to wave at them, and soon we settled into the normal pattern of our training routines. It was comforting to take my mind off of worries about far-away problems and focus on the here and now.
But all the while Zuri and Pelipper sat off on the sidelines, talking quietly.
~
Training went well enough. Echo and I worked on her Supersonic move for a while. I wanted her to master using it while moving, but that was tricky because she couldn’t sound out her surroundings while also screeching the attack. If she flew while using Supersonic, she was basically flying blind. But she was getting better at sending a pulse of sound out at her surroundings, memorizing the layout, and then waiting a while before she sent the next pulse out. I was confident that she’d be able to hold a continuous moving Supersonic attack soon, which would be hugely helpful if we ever had to fight a mob of Pokemon.
When training was done Zuri tagged along after me and Florence. I told her there was no point, that Isaac would just turn her out of the house again, but she cheerfully brushed that aside. Then she started telling us stories about her previous adventures. I tried to ignore her at first, but she was a good storyteller and I found that I quickly got pulled into the tales she spun.
“… and it took a bit of elbow grease, but I was eventually able to pull him through the window so we could get out of there,” she said, finishing another story as we turned the corner to the block that the house was on. “The Majū Appreciation Society tried to get us banned from Vermillion after that, but the dockmaster laughed them off.”
I chuckled and Florence shook her head with a small smile. “Have you ever sailed further than Kanto?” she asked, sounding curious.
Zuri shook her head. “Not yet, no. But I plan to make an attempt on Hoenn someday. It is tricky to be far from land for so long, and there are supposed to be some strange majū far out in the sea.” Her eyes glinted. “It should be a challenge, but I believe the crew and I can manage it. We just need to find the right opportunity.”
We had walked up to the house as she talked and found Isaac and Charity sitting outside, enjoying the late afternoon breeze. They had been idly working on prepping apricorn shells for another batch of poke balls, but when Isaac saw us walking up he frowned and set his carving tools down on the ground.
“I thought I told you to leave,” he told Zuri firmly as he stood up. “I will not negotiate on this topic.”
“Peace,” she said quickly, putting her hands up in a placating gesture. “I understand that you will not sell me poke balls. I want to offer a different exchange.”
“I highly doubt you have anything that could interest me,” he said in a cutting tone. “You should –“
“Information,” she interrupted.
Isaac paused.
“I understand that you are interested in majū,” she continued. “The lead trainer in Cianwood comes from a long line of trainers, and a few of his ancestors were said to have an especially strong bond with their partners. That bond led to the trainers having certain abilities that some might consider… uncanny.”
Isaac raised his eyebrows and motioned for her to continue. I was curious too, since I had no idea what she was talking about.
“He has a few ancient artifacts that have been passed down through his family,” she said. “He does not show them to outsiders, but he has told me a few stories of them.” She paused for emphasis. “One of them, he said, once served as a prison for an ancient majū. Not too dissimilar from your poke balls, eh?”
My ears perked up and I exchanged an excited glance with Pausso. That sounded useful. That sounded very useful.
Isaac also looked interested, though he tried to hide it. “I am sure I can learn about these artifacts from other sources,” he said nonchalantly.
“I doubt it,” Zuri replied drily. “They are considered family secrets, and Sheng keeps them close and safe.” She paused again and looked over all of us. “But if you agreed to help us, I think he would be willing to share what he knows with you. Perhaps seeing these artifacts and learning more of this history would help you further your own work?”
This was the best lead I’d gotten yet on how a lock on a poke ball might work. If I could see a device that used to serve as a prison, maybe I could figure out how its lock worked. Maybe I could use that knowledge to finally go home. Florence nudged me lightly; she was probably thinking along the same lines. Charity just looked excited at the prospect of investigating an ancient device.
Even Isaac seemed to be caving, finally. “Perhaps you should come inside and tell us more about your situation,” he said. His voice was perfectly calm, but I could tell from the twitching of his fingers that he wanted to know more.
It took over an hour of discussion, but eventually she convinced us. Yes, the trip meant we would have to pause our work. Yes, it would be incredibly dangerous to face down a murderous Pokemon that had already taken out another trainer. But the opportunity to learn more was too good to pass up.
We were going to Cianwood.