The newly formed trio headed west towards Jubilife Village with a smog of awkwardness hovering around them inescapably. Rei and Akari were clearly wary of this stranger who appeared out of nowhere, wearing unknown clothes and without a backstory. Alec was just as wary, without knowing where (or when) he was.
They walked in silence for some time. Alec checked his watch. 7:29. The sun was nearing the horizon, meaning they had probably three hours of light left until nightfall.
Now having a moment to concentrate, Alec took a closer look at the outfits of the twins. Most notably, both wore a bright red scarf that trailed behind them several feet. Rei also had a matching red hat while Akari had a white cloth wrapped around her head. Both had jet-black hair which stuck out underneath their light-colored headwear.
They were both wearing dark blue kimonos with some kind of logo on them. At first glance, it appeared to be a gleam of light surrounded by diffraction lines, but it had additional details that made Alec wonder what it really meant.
Akari spoke up, trying to break the silence. She cleared her throat. “Is that your Rowlet? Why is it riding on your head?”
Alec chuckled, still trying to process the strange bird himself. “No, he’s not mine. He found me right after I woke up, and he’s followed me ever since.”
Rei and Akari nodded in understanding. “We both have partner Pokemon,” Rei added. “I have an Eevee and Akari has a Pikachu.” He pulled a Pokeball out of his pocket to demonstrate.
Alec stared at the Pokeball, taking in its peculiar materials. While a normal Pokeball from his time was entirely plastic, this one seemed to be made out of wood and stone. The red top half was glossy like stone and the white bottom half looked to be carved out of some kind of wood. The button on the front was instead a metal clasp.
Dang it, I wish I paid more attention in history class, Alec thought. There were a few events that interested him, but he completely zoned out for all the other ones. I wish I could remember when the Pokeball was first invented, to at least give me a time frame to work with.
“You know what Pokeballs are, right? You look confused,” Rei luckily asked. Alec shook his head. Rei nodded, “They’re a recent invention that somehow shrink down Pokemon so we can carry them easier.”
Alec nodded. “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one in person,” he improvised. “Is it handmade?” he said, trying to change the subject.
“Yeah, we polish ore for the top half and carve the bottom half from apricorns,” Akari supplied. “Anyways, we just have to cross Aspiration Hill, and then we’re at Jubilife. Sometimes Alpha Pokemon try to claim territory over there, so be careful.”
“Alpha Pokemon? What are those?” Alec asked. Was it a now-extinct species of Pokemon?
“An Alpha is a species of Pokemon that’s stronger and faster than others. They’re really territorial, so if you leave them alone, you’ll be fine.”
Alec shuddered. The thought of Pokemon attacking anyone who trespassed on their territory scared him, as he’d lived in the city his whole life. Stories of wild Pokemon attacks reached the news every now and then, but they never appeared often enough to warrant any danger.
But now here he was, actively living in an era where Pokemon weren’t as friendly towards humans.
His thoughts were broken by the loudest Pokemon cry that he had ever heard before. The sound slammed into him, seemingly loud enough to knock him backward off his feet.
Rei and Akari’s eyes both widened and the two immediately dove behind a nearby rock. Alec, however, stood completely frozen like a Stantler in headlights. A second later, he got his wits about him again and followed the twins to their hiding spot. Rowlet darted off to a tree, instinctually knowing that this Pokemon was not to be messed with.
Alec peeked out from the rock and saw the biggest Staravia he had ever seen. Amazingly, this Staravia was bigger than the Staraptor he had seen on TV, and he had thought that bird was big. It thankfully hadn’t noticed them yet as it flew sporadically around the nearby tall grass.
“What is that?” Alec asked incredulously. “Why’s it so big? Is that the Alpha you guys mentioned earlier?”
“Keep your voice down!” hissed Rei. “We can’t let it hear us; but yeah, that’s an Alpha. They’re bigger, territorial, and extremely dangerous compared to their regular counterparts.” Alec strained his ears to hear him because Rei was keeping his voice barely above a whisper to avoid alerting the dangerous Pokemon of their presence.
“We have to get around it somehow,” Akari whispered.
“There’s tall grass all around here,” Rei responded. “We should be able to sneak around it. Alec, be careful and follow our lead.”
Alec nodded. Hesitantly, the three stepped out from the rock, moving in a low crouch. He silently thanked Arceus, or whoever created most Pokemon, for making so many of them colorblind.
Alec stared at the Alpha Staravia as he walked. Somehow, its eyes even seemed to be glowing as it flapped around randomly. Every so often, as if to show off, it shouted another noisy cry. It didn’t even seem to be interested in finding food or any other Pokemon. It was entirely concerned with protecting its territory.
He had heard of territorial Pokemon before, such as Garchomp and Aggron, but he had never seen one in quite a frenzy before. How did it manage to grow so big without evolving? Alec kept his eyes glued on the bird, trying to gather more information on it.
*snap*
Alec slowly looked down in horror. A twig lay broken beneath his feet, silently condemning him for not being more careful. As he desperately clawed at time to slow down, time only seemed to speed up. His eyes snapped back up to the Staravia. He watched, horrified, as it raised its head, let out a caw, and charged straight toward them.
Normally, in movies and the like, time slows down during action scenes. The director orders the cameraman to get up close to the actors and take slow-motion shots to accentuate the action. The cinema industry has all sorts of tricks like slow-mo, specifically designed to captivate the audience into feeling every pound of force behind each blow, crash, or gunshot.
But in real life, there’s no slow-mo. There are no cuts, no retakes, and no stunt doubles.
The incredibly dangerous—and very, very real—Staravia was enraged and barreling straight towards Alec, letting out a mighty caw.
Acting purely on instinct, Alec tore his eyes away from the Pokemon and dove to the side, not bothering to check what was already there. As he jumped, Rei and Akari’s surprised shouts momentarily drowned out his thunderous heartbeat. He landed with a wince as his shoulder hit the ground and he skidded a few inches.
Luckily, the Staravia didn’t have perfect reaction time, so its razor-sharp claws only grazed the grass where Alec was hiding only a moment ago. Alec hastily climbed back on his feet and the twins both wordlessly sent out their partner Pokemon.
With a moment’s hesitation, Pikachu and Eevee popped out of their respective balls, landing on the ground and turning back to their trainers in anticipation of their commands.
Rei and Akari, without looking at each other, shouted out, “Swift!” and “Thunder Wave!” respectively.
The air seemed to crackle and grow tenser as an invisible current traveled from Pikachu’s body to Staravia’s, causing the bird’s feathers to ruffle and its wingbeats to slow. It let out a furious caw and turned to face the twins, only to be pelted repeatedly by Eevee’s star-shaped bolts of energy.
From watching so many competitive battles, Alec instinctively knew that Swift was one of several attacks that homed in on its target, meaning that the immobilizing effect of Thunder Wave was useless. Pikachu’s energy would’ve been far better spent on a stronger attack but Staravia was temporarily stunned regardless.
Acting purely on instinct, Alec picked up a large rock from the ground and threw it at Staravia with all of his might. He knows that Flying-types were weak to Rock-type moves so a regular rock, while not quite a Rock Throw, might still protect him.
It did not. It’s rather hard to think level-headedly when your life is in danger.
Instead, the rock almost harmlessly bounced off of Staravia. It only served to enrage the already angry Pokemon. Its glowing eyes zeroed in on Alec, without any higher thought. This Pokemon didn’t see friends or enemies—only targets in its territory.
Not taking its sight off of Alec, it began to beat its wings in a frenzy, stirring up the air around it.
“It’s going for an Air Slash! Pikachu, use Thundershock to intercept!” Akari shouted.
There’s an inherent danger of encountering a wild Pokemon without any of your own. Humans simply aren’t built to take attacks. Unlike an average Pokemon that could shrug off an Air Slash and keep battling, it would cleave straight through Alec’s body and kill him.
The winds answered Staravia’s call and spiraled around it, whirling and wooshing. It let out another caw before thrusting its wings forward and releasing the winds as razor-sharp blades.
Alec had already begun moving out of the way, leaping to the side with another headfirst dive. However, despite the sheer amount of adrenaline coursing through his body, his reaction time wasn’t quite quick enough.
As he dove, his legs stuck out behind them, leaving them wide open for an Air Slash to slice into his lower leg and leave a shallow gash just above his ankle.
Legendaries Above! he thought. That hurts!
Alec gasped as he slammed into the ground a lot less gracefully than his previous dive. The pain seemed to be crawling up through his body, permeating every sense of his being. He looked down to see a small patch of his pants growing a heavy sanguine color. Gritting his teeth, he could barely focus on the world around him. He swung his head up from his leg and back towards the Staravia.
Pikachu’s Thundershock finally arced straight to its target with a mighty yell. The previously-tough Staravia’s muscles seemed to seize up and it fell to the ground with an agonized cry.
“Eevee, Quick Attack!” shouted Rei, but his eyes were fixed on Alec’s prone form. As the bird hit the ground, a dark-brown blur slammed into it with a Quick Attack before darting back to Rei.
With bated breath from the twins and pained panting from Alec, the Staravia stood up, shook its head, and flew away. It seemed to wobble in the air as one of its wings was clearly injured. And with it left all the tension, leaving a sense of relief to flood into the vacuum.
Both twins dashed over to him with worried looks. Alec remembered some of the first aid lessons that he had received from the Rangers but naturally didn’t have any supplies with him. Akari reached into a side pocket on her satchel and pulled out a roll of what appeared to be bandages made from dried leaves.
“Hold still,” she said while Rei pulled up the denim and bunched it around Alec’s knee. He grimaced as he adjusted his sitting posture.
“Wait, don’t you need to clean it first?” Alec got out. He didn’t want to get infected.
“The closest fresh water is about ten minutes’ walk from here,” Rei explained as Akari began to wrap the wound. “Plus, Flying-type attacks are made directly out of the air so you don’t need to worry about any kind of pestilence from the dirt. Our best bet is to wrap it tightly and head straight to the village where the medic can examine it. The cut’s really shallow anyways, you’ll be completely fine, though you might scar a little.”
“It’ll be a nice reminder,” said Akari. “A reminder to never step on twigs near Alphas. I wonder where you’re from where you don’t have to worry about Alphas, newcomer.”
The tightness of Akari’s bandage brought much-needed clarity to Alec’s mind. This prompted Alec to think back to his first aid lesson, where the Ranger had said basically the same thing. Attacks like the one that hit him move so fast that they kill off any airborne bacteria. “If there’s any Type of move that’s best to be hit with,” his mentor had said, “it’s Flying. They hurt like crazy but they leave basically no lasting damage.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
His mentor had gone on to detail what every other Type feels like to get hit by, all the way from the long-lasting and painful Poison to the quick but agonizing Electric to the dizzying and vicious Fairy. The maniac had talked about the pain as if he enjoyed it.
Alec nodded, already committing Akari’s unspoken admonishment to memory. From now on, he’d be far more careful. “Thanks,” Alec finally said. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t focused on where I was stepping.”
“No problem,” Akari said grimly. “We’re almost close enough to Jubilife that we won’t have to worry about any more wild Pokemon.”
Alec thought he heard a sliver of contempt in her voice. His genuine mistake might have been fatal if the two weren’t so quick on their feet.
She extended her hand to him, and Alec grabbed it, pulling himself up to his feet with a wince. It wasn’t the end of the world, but the short walk to the village that the twins had mentioned seemed like it would be a painful one.
As they walked, Alec’s eyes kept darting off, examining every shadow for what might have been another one of those Alphas. By now, his breathing was under control, but he still felt as if his heart was fluttering with nerves. This did help him spot the Rowlet from before, returning to him and landing back on his head.
“I wish you’d have stuck around,” he muttered with a slight grin.
Rowlet only chirped in response.
“Yeah, that bird was way out of your weight class. You’d have to be way stronger to deal with something like that.”
Two chirps this time. Akari and Rei were looking at him in bewilderment but he paid them no heed.
“I don’t know, I’ve never had a Pokemon before. I’ve only ever watched, uh, heard stories about trainers,” Alec said with a shrug.
A pause, and then Rei asked, “How can you understand it?”
Alec, still glancing at the passing trees, said, “I really can’t. I’m just guessing. You can sort of get clues based on their tone though.”
“Hm” was his only reply, from both twins.
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“Ah, Akari, Rei! How did patrol go?” the gate guard asked. “Who’s this?”
Seated upon what the twins called Jubilife Hill, the walls of the village were made of hundreds of tree trunks lashed together with rope. They stood at roughly twelve feet tall, just under twice Alec’s height. At the gate, a guard stood, holding a spear and wearing a belt with three Pokeballs attached to it. Alec wondered what kind of Pokemon he had to protect the city with. The Rowlet that had followed him since the beach had flown off to a tree, leaving him.
“Not bad, we barely found anything,” Akari lamented.
“But remember Kamado’s order to search for the person who emerged from the rift?”
The guard’s eyes widened. “Him?”
The twins nodded. The guard, eyebrows raised, stepped aside, allowing the three entrance into the village. As Alec made his way through the gates, he looked at the buildings mostly constructed of wood and stone. The entrance to the village seemed to be mostly commercial buildings, as many had open storefronts and large signs that signified things such as marketplaces, tradeposts, or craftsmen.
“Alright, we’ll take you to the infirmary to get you looked at first,” Rei said. “And then, Kamado.”
There’s that Kamado name again, Alec thought. “Is he your leader?”
“No, that’s Cyllene,” said Akari. “Kamado is the chief of Jubilife. When the rift began growing, and a strange shape was spotted falling from it, he put out the alert for everyone to keep an eye out for what fell.”
Alec nodded. Hopefully, this Kamado person wouldn’t be too adverse to the idea of a mysterious outsider appearing, claiming to have no memory. Yeah, he wouldn’t be suspicious at all. Totally.
“But you don’t need to worry. He’s tough, but he means well,” Rei butted in. “Plus, we’re going to the infirmary first anyways.”
As the three walked down what seemed to be Jubilife’s main street, Alec couldn’t help but notice how heads seemed to turn as he walked by. Rei and Akari weren’t immune to this either, so it seemed this was new for them too, meaning it was caused by his presence.
This village definitely didn’t appreciate outsiders.
----------------------------------------
“Rei, Akari, welcome back. And who is this?” the medic said from the doorway into the infirmary that the twins had spoken of earlier. She wore a headband with a red plus sign on it and a dark brown canvas apron that was covered in various stains. She had red-orange hair that hung down to the middle of her back, and her face was covered in frown lines, despite her calm expression.
“This is Alec,” said Rei. “Alec, meet Joyce, Jubilife’s medic, apothecary, and physician. She’s an expert at making remedies out of herbs and plans and using them to heal people and their Pokemon. She’s saved our lives more times than we can count.”
Joyce narrowed her eyes at Alec’s lack of introduction. She stood in the doorway for a few more seconds, before turning around and reentering the building. Rei followed her, holding the door open for Akari and Alec.
“I’ve never seen you before,” said Joyce. “Where are you from?”
Alec saw the twins exchange glances.
“I, uh, don’t know. The first thing I remember is waking up on the beach. I explored the area and ran into these two.”
“On the way back, we got jumped by an Alpha Staravia!” Akari butted in. “He stepped on a twig and it gave him that gash on his leg. Anyways, can you heal him and our Pokemon?” Both twins released their Pokemon onto the floor.
While she was talking, Joyce began grabbing various jars with messily written labels, each one filled with some kind of herb, plant, or liquid. “Sure thing, but does Kamado know about him yet? I can’t waste Corps resources on outsiders without authorization.”
Alec winced, knowing that he was an outsider here. His backstory would likely raise great suspicion from the people, but his amnesiac front was far more likely than revealing that he was chosen by Arceus and from the future.
“No, we came to you first,” said Rei. “Kamado did tell us to search for whatever it was that fell out of the rift, and we think it was Alec. I mean, look at his clothes, they aren’t anything like I’ve ever seen from either of the clans.
Alec self-consciously looked down at his hoodie, sweatpants, and running shoes. The sweatpants were solid black and the hoodie was gray with a blue silhouette of a Milotic, his high school’s mascot, on the front.
It was a safe assumption that no one from this time period had ever even seen anything like it. He just shrugged, hoping that his amnesia would dismiss the questions.
Joyce sighed as she grabbed a small handful of leaves from a jar, tossed them into a mortar, and began grinding them with a pestle. “I’m gonna need more details before I break protocol. Alec, what exactly happened?”
“A Staravia got him with a-”
“I didn’t ask you, Akari. I want Alec here to tell me what happened,” Joyce said with a flat tone, putting down her mortar and walking closer to Alec. Her eyes bore into him, and Alec could’ve sworn he saw a red glint in them like Alphas had.
A beat of silence.
“Well, I, uh, I’ve never been in an area like this before, I think,” Alec hesitantly said. “I’m really sure that I’ve never seen an Alpha Pokemon, or, uh, anything similar. I accidentally stepped on a twig, and it charged at me,” he said with a wince. “I dove out of the way the first time it attacked me, but it used Air Cutter and I couldn’t move quick enough. After I got hit, they helped me bandage the cut and brought me here,” he said, gesturing to Rei and Akari.
“It was entirely my fault,” he continued, breaking eye contact with Joyce to look at the ground. “I wasn’t paying attention. I was staring at the Staravia instead of watching where I was going.”
For a second, Alec saw his former Ranger mentor instead of Joyce standing in front of him. The emotions in his head, despite never having met her before, felt the same. He let down someone.
But the Rangers hadn’t expected his perfection, and something told him that Joyce was just testing him too.
“Hmmm,” Joyce said, returning to her mortar and pestle. Her hardened expression lightened as she considered what Alec had said. “Alright, I’ll allow it. Rei, grab two Vivichokes from the garden. Akari, draw a bucket of water. Alec, I assume you know how to start a fire?”
----------------------------------------
After they were successfully healed, Alec followed the twins to the town hall. His leg still ached where the gash was, but it luckily was very shallow and wouldn’t leave any lasting damage, at least according to Joyce. She clearly was very good at her job, so Alec had no reason to doubt her.
The town hall itself was extremely imposing. It was at least three stories tall, with dark stone architecture. It had dozens of windows, which meant it likely had dozens of rooms inside it. Its concrete foundation was extremely firm, and the building itself looked like it had been standing there for decades.
As they approached the front steps, they passed a covered wagon where two people, a man and a woman, covered completely in blue clothing waited. The wagon seemed to be overflowing with items, such as various berries, clothes, and other things he didn’t recognize.
One of the two people, the man, stood up from his chair and approached the three as they walked by.
“Ah, twins! Have you reconsidered my offer? I’m the only place you can get that many berries in bulk, and I can’t go any lower, so you’ll have to act fast if you want it.”
“No thanks, we’ll manage without them,” Rei said.
“We like to harvest them fresh, anyways. Thanks though,” Akari said.
“No matter. I’ll let Volo know you’re not interested. And who is this?” the man asked, turning toward Alec and extending a hand. “My name’s Ginter, head of the traveling merchant guild. I’ve got the best deals in this entire town.”
Alec hesitantly took his hand and shook it, noting the firmness in his grip. “I’m new here,” he simply said. “Next time I need anything, I’ll come to you first, I guess.”
“Fantastic. I’ll give you a discount,” Ginter said, raising his voice toward the end as the three walked off.
Once they were out of earshot, Akari turned to Alec, saying, “Don’t. The general store’s got way better deals than he does for everyday stuff. The only thing he’s good for is buying in bulk or specialty items.”
Alec nodded. His mind briefly flashed to how long he would be staying here, in this strange land. Arceus had given him no indication that this would be a quick endeavor, and something told him that he best get comfortable to wait out the long haul.
He wondered what his mother was doing.
But his thoughts were jerked back to the present with whiplash by the imposing figure exiting the town hall. His fierce posture was only matched by his fierce expression. He wore a black coat that seemed to have soaked up red and blue highlights on the bottom. His age was vague as his mouth, chin, and nose were covered by a black bushy mustache. He wore his long hair tied back in a knot, which only allowed his sharp eyes to slash right through Alec from the distance.
This, without a doubt, was Kamado.
From the top of the stairs on the porch of the town hall, Kamado stopped and looked around the immediate area. His eyes quickly fell on Alec, Rei, and Akari, and his eyebrows scrunched together in intense thought. After a second, he began to descend the stairs.
The three didn’t move at all as Kamado approached. He seemed to be sizing up Alec as his eyes scanned him from head to toe.
“Rei. Akari. What is the meaning of this?” he asked, once he reached them.
He spoke extremely calmly, which seemed to contradict what Alec had assumed his voice would sound like. In his experience, people with presences that demanded attention like Kamado’s typically had emotion-filled voices. As the stereotype goes, the strong, tough man has to have an extremely deep voice, but Kamado had nothing of the sort. His voice was still clearly masculine in pitch, but it wasn’t nearly as gritty and gravelly as the tough-guy biker stereotype.
“Sir, this is Alec,” Rei reported. Alec noticed that the boy was standing with a far straighter posture than he had been using before. “We found him wandering around the Fieldlands.”
“He says he lost his memory,” chimed in Akari.
“We think he was what fell out of the rift,” finished Rei.
Kamado hummed, bringing his hand to his chin and leaning in close to Alec. He couldn’t bring himself to make any sound. It briefly reminded him of when Arceus summoned him and seemed to peer into his very soul, but Alec quickly dismissed it; Kamado was nowhere near as intimidating as Arceus.
“Zoroark. I thought you two would know better than to be fooled by one of their tricks,” Kamado finally said. He took a half-step back and lowered a hand toward his hip, where a weapon was presumably concealed.
Alec shook his head in confusion. He thought he was a Zoroark? Well, he guessed it made sense, as the Zorua line tended to play tricks on people. He had heard an old urban legend of a Zorua kidnapping a kid, replacing him, and going unnoticed for years. With the species’ proclivity to simply cause trouble, it was almost certain that this village had experienced its fair share of infiltrations. All Zoroarks could speak the human language, which definitely didn’t help his case. Zorua could too, although they had to be taught how to speak. Some naturally could, though very rare.
Was it a common occurrence for a Zoroark to infiltrate the village? Alec assumed that Kamado’s assumption was mostly justified, if so. He could barely utter a response to the accusation.
“No, sir, he’s not a Zoroark. He took an attack hard enough to dispel any illusion on our way here.” Akari said, luckily defending Alec.
Kamado nodded, but his expression didn’t change. It was as if his conclusion (to be suspicions of Alec) remained the same, but he now needed to explain it with a different reason now that his first intuition was proven false.
Thank goodness for their ability’s weakness, Alec thought. He remembered that while their illusions could make physical contact with things, but they couldn’t take any kind of damage or they’d immediately dispel. No matter how much training one did, this limitation couldn’t be surpassed.
“Is it true? Do you have no memory?” he simply asked, looking down on Alec as a Pidgeot might gaze upon a small Ratatta it wants to make a meal of.
Alec took a second to calm himself, before saying, “Well, I don’t remember anything here before they found me. I just woke up on a beach and started exploring.”
“But what about before elsewhere?”
“What?”
“Before you awoke. Do you remember anything from before that?” Kamado asked, lowering his eyebrows in suspicion.
“Well, my head feels very foggy when I try to think back,” he said truthfully. It was almost as if his memories of his past life weren’t fully integrated with the time he was sent back to. “I remember a dark void, though, with a bright light.”
Kamado whispered something under his breath, looking away from Alec for the first time in the entire conversation.
“Alright. Since you have nowhere to go, you can stay here in Jubilife. You’ll have to work for your keep, just like these two,” he said, gesturing to Rei and Akari, who nodded. “You’ll be working as a low-level member of the Survey Corps. They run expeditions to gather resources, fend off attacks, and train Pokemon. You’ll also occasionally take requests for specific items from people around town. In return, we’ll provide protection and an allowance for food and supplies.”
All of these tasks sounded very similar to just being a Trainer, which meant Alec couldn’t help but crack a small smile at it.
Rei coughed. “He’s got a knack for getting Pokemon to trust him. He befriended a Rowlet on the way here and it stayed with him up until we neared the gates. They’re usually really skittish around humans.”
Kamado’s frown lessened slightly. “Good. Make sure to introduce him to Laventon. Good day to the three of you. Rei, Akari, show him the ropes today.” he said, before turning and walking off. The three pairs of eyes watched him walk away, and he didn’t look back at all.
Akari turned to him with a grin. “You’re like us. Survey corps members, I mean. The sun’s almost down, we’ll show you around town. The best places to buy supplies, the best food, and stuff. You’ll like it here.”