As David walked to the Pokemart, he considered what he knew about Saffron.
It was an easy city to remember, being the only location with two gym buildings. The big one, the Psychic gym was hard to forget given how difficult it was. The other one, a Fighting dojo didn’t award you with a badge, but the rare Pokemon you received on completion was memorable. The pokecenter guard and his Hitmonchan was a nice confirmation he was on the right track.
Could he get another team member at the dojo? He wasn’t exactly in a good state to challenge a gym right now, but maybe..
David was dragged out of his thoughts as he swerved to avoid another pedestrian. The clamor around the pokecenter was less than earlier but some of that diverted traffic had moved to the Pokemart. Unlike the Pokecenter, there was one door in and out of the Pokemart and it was a wide revolving door. The Pokemart also had no security outside. Why the Pokemon version of a shopping center had no protection and the hospital did wasn’t clear to David, but he had larger questions to be concerned about.
Inside the Pokemart was well.. a pet superstore. The large building was divided by head height aisles. Cards hanging from the ceiling announced the contents of each aisle. David could spot several Pokemon types and more general categories like recovery among the cards.
A store layout hung on the wall to the left of the entrance was the first thing he checked but none of the categories seemed to be right for a ‘League Recovery kit’. The recovery section sounded obvious but the description covered healing items not general equipment. Unfortunately no other category sounded any better. In the end David noted the route to the recovery and safety sections. Might as well check them out before asking about the kit. Weirdly there was no section for pokeballs either.
He tried to get an idea of prices as he wandered through the Grass type section. It was all too similar to what he expected to see in a gardening center, potting soil included. The cheaper foods, which went as low as 10P, were in small sachets like cat food or those plant food packs. Some of the grooming tools looked familiar and were in the 100s. The P symbol on all the prices was the same as in the game. Poke money.
What was this world’s fascination with those four letters?
No, Focus.
David tried not to look too closely at the items locked behind cases that were in the 1000s. With his current net worth of 0P, he was so far from even thinking of being able to afford one.
How was he going to earn money? Beth hadn’t said a word about it, just steered him towards the one League program. The obvious answer was Pokemon battles. If it was anything like the games, each battle was a bet where the loser paid. He just needed to find some starting capital.
Which brought him right back to his original problem. He needed money to make money.
It took longer than expected to reach the safety section. The Pokemart was bigger than it looked from the outside. The building extended well back and away from the street. Even with all the aisles his loop back to the entrance, recovery section and checkout would only cover half of the building. Even with all the walking David wasn’t getting tired of the building. It was all so interesting.
In the safety section he found equipment that ranged from building safety clothes to a variety of thick overalls claiming resistance to different types of moves. Escape rope was a bit of a let down. It was just a 50ft extra strength rope with a hook on the end.
‘I guess it’s useful if you want to get up or down a slope.’ He still felt cheated by its depiction in the games. Still, it was added to his mental wish list.
There was a map case but it was in the range of 100s of Poke so he doubted that he would be getting it any time soon. As the map claimed strong location accuracy and updated route maps it joined the rope on his list. He was lost enough in this world without being lost in truth.
His progress through the building sped up as he made his way to the recovery section. Without any money it was easy to get tired of window shopping and while he wished to spend a few hours gawking, it would only make him feel worse.
The recovery section contained products that looked like a mix of cleaning products and pharmaceuticals. He was amused to see eye-catching warnings with ‘Not suitable for human use’ on the back of Potions. Other products had the opposite label on them and it seemed the medical warnings extended to specific types too.
Human use products looked as he expected, but pill style medicine was less common compared to poultices and homeopathic treatments.
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The price of everything was a lot more than he expected or remembered, with the most basic Potion sitting at 300P. Based on that, a single potion was more expensive than multi use tools and close to the price of electronics. The poultice style medicine for Pokemon was cheaper but it remained at least twice the price of human variants.
Browsing complete with no sign of his kit, David headed to the counter. After a short, covid style queue to save people from his smell, he was at a counter. A tired looking man stood behind it, organizing the register after the last customer. Thankfully the lack of anything bar the pamphlet in David’s pockets made it easy to find the receipt for the kit.
“Hello, How can I help you?”
“Could I get a, em, League Recovery kit? I have a receipt here.“ David passed the paper over.
The man let out a “hmm” and a sigh before turning around and disappearing into a door behind him. It wasn’t long before he reappeared with a hiking backpack on a small trolley. The backpack was basic and in a plain shade of tan brown. A wrapped up bundle hanging off the bottom was its only real feature.
The man hefted the backpack up onto the desk before pushing it over to David. David lifted it up and his arm dropped as the bag left the desk. He was already dreading carrying the weight around. As soon as the backpack cleared the desk, the man slapped a clipboard and pen down.
“Sign here please.”
David signed the next spot on the clipboard but didn’t hand it back. With how the man was already looking behind him, he figured it was the last chance he would get to ask a question.
“Would you mind telling me where the pokeballs are?”
The man behind the counter gave David a long suffering glare before curtly replying. “No pokeballs are available to those without 6 badges outside of the season, tournament or not. You know the rules.”
David didn’t know the rules but he also wasn’t about to inform anyone why that was.
He wasn’t pleased about being unable to buy the balls that made this world go round, but he didn’t have any money anyway. Besides, Beth had told him the season was starting in two weeks. Two weeks should be long enough to earn enough to buy a pokeball. Feeling a little wronged, he nodded and handed the clipboard back. There was one more thing he needed to know.
“Any way to make some money here?” The expression on the clerk’s face told him that he was pushing it but David needed something. He had nothing to go on.
“No, we don’t buy from trainers and I don’t care how the marts work in your hometown. Try the market or the bulletin boards. Neeeext!”
With that dismissal, David hoisted his new backpack onto his back and left, trying to avoid whacking someone as he turned.
David stopped under the nearest signpost.
The sign for Route 7 pointed down the road away from the Pokecenter in the middle of the junction. Beth had said that Route 7 was westerly which put the alley and League office on a north-south road. The pokemart was also on the south-west corner so he had a straight path to the route.
It was looking like there wouldn’t be a shower for him in the city but he might get lucky on Route 7. Camping spots often had facilities or water nearby.
As he walked through the city he passed wide open spaces full of Pokemon and people. The air still had a chill to it and they were wrapped up warmly or in the case of Pokemon, huddling with their trainers or fellow Pokemon. David didn’t have that issue. The heavy bag on his back was warming him up quickly. It was the only good point to the weight. His back was starting to ache already and a bad night of sleep didn’t help.
The people in these parks were not there for the sun or temperature though. Feeding Pokemon seemed to require a lot of space and was messy. Pokemon were catching food thrown through the air, eating out of bowls, the ground, plates and bags. While some trainers were quite neat, the majority were leaving plenty of marks and stains.
Wild Pokemon were everywhere, drawn by the food. Rattata lurked on the fringes of the park and a mixture of Pidgey and Spearow hovered in the air. Occasionally a brave Pokemon would dart forward to snatch some food but the majority that did were scared off by the Pokemon they were attempting to steal from.
The appearance of the wild Pokemon was concerning. They were quite small compared to the trainer’s Pokemon and messier on average. He really wasn’t in a state to judge them for the dirt, but why was there such a difference compared to the trainer Pokemon? There was so much he didn’t know.
The city became more residential as he walked. The road narrowed and absorbed the pavement as the tarmac disappeared. The buildings and common green areas grew smaller and merged, leaving more private gardens. Here was where a lot of variety in the style of buildings kicked in. The construction materials seemed to change wildly from stone to wood to metal. The houses ranged from squarish apartment blocks to older Japanese or manor style houses to modern edifices of glass. Some buildings were minimal and the majority of the house was taken up by the gardens.
If you could even call the nature areas attached to each house a garden. The open areas might be dominated by mounds of earth, tall trees, ponds and occasionally a mess of metal and cables. Each had a theme but most were alien to those around them.
As he approached the outskirts of the city, buildings became rarer and ranch style buildings became common. Grazing Pokemon herds roamed around these ranches in fenced off areas.
A sign in the shape of a cute cartoon image of an Abra marked the ends of the city boundaries. David smiled as he read the ‘See you in the future’ pun along the bottom.
Past the sign there was only one building, before the path he was on narrowed and twisted behind a line of trees.
David was in the wild.