Rustboro City means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
Truly it is a town of Pokémon, everywhere you look there are people and Pokémon enjoying going about their business. Wingull and Tailow perch on buildings, while workmen and their Geodudes pave roads. A Glameow lounges in a shop window, as the sign is flipped to "Open".
It is a city of Pokémon, and where there are Pokémon there are battles. On a dusty field, a Phanphy and Shinx face off, their young trainers standing in fierce poses of command. The battle is quickly derailed, as the dueling Pokémon become more preoccupied with their own play and rough-housing, than with listening to their exasperated trainers.
What sets Rustboro apart from other cities? Where Mauville boasts state of the art infrastructure, where Slateport has markets and long sandy beaches and where Ever Grande has the Pokémon League, Rustoboro has the Trainer School.
Internationally recognised, Rustboro’s Trainer School offers a wide range of courses. From students studying for their first licensing tests to postgraduate studies, those seeking to learn anything Pokémon find their way to the school.
And where there is a school, there is a library.
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Rustboro’s Public Library was a well stocked building, with floor to ceiling shelves crammed with books of all shapes and sizes. Armed with a new ID, Basil had made his way through the maze of shelves.
Swiping the shiny new ID against the attached card reader, Basil falls into the seat in front of the public computer with a sigh. The computer whirs to life slowly, displaying an animation of a Porygon doing loop-de-loops.
Having been thrown into the new world with no notice, the public internet was a godsend. How reliable was the meta-knowledge he had? And on the flip side, what were the glaring holes in his knowledge that everyone else around would take as common knowledge? Mega-Evolution, Dynamax, Z-moves and Terastallization. Would asking about them get him locked away in a government cell or just laughed off for being a lunatic?
Broken out of his musing, the computer finally finished starting up. The little Porygon icon unfolds itself and changes shape into a cursor. Navigating through unfamiliar applications on the desktop to a web browser, Basil got to work, fingers flying across the keyboard.
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Blinking and taken aback, another swipe of the ID resulting in the same message popping back up, Basil resigned themselves to come back another day. Picking their way back through the mazes of bookshelves, past the children's corner of brightly coloured picture books and back out the entrance, Basil found himself at a loss of what to do next.
It had been one thing after another and with a chance to finally catch his breath, he felt overwhelmed just trying to keep it together. Lightly slapping his cheeks, he set off with no particular direction, in hopes of finding a bench and having a nice, long sit down.
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Basil lounged on an uncomfortable wooden bench in a nearby park. The midday sun and gentle breeze nearly lulled him to sleep. Letting himself close his eyes, he mentally ran through his findings from the day.
For starters, he was definitely in the post-game. Old news articles had put the date of Steven Stone stepping down as Champion nearly two years ago. Allegedly he had stepped down due to the stress of the role, especially following what had come to be known as the “Invasion of Sootopolis”. Many details were missing, but it was widely agreed upon that Teams Magma and Aqua had both independently tried to seize Sootopolis, causing a large-scale battle to break out between the two factions, with League Forces acting to minimize damage and ultimately apprehend both groups.
The freak weather surrounding the event, wild rain and blistering sunlight, was explained to be a result of both teams making use of powerful weather machines. Apparently research data that had been stolen from the weather institute, months prior to the invasion, had been used to create them. This information, in combination with the utter lack of photos or videos of the event, spelled out a cover up.
Someone, likely the Ex-Champion himself, went through a lot of effort to put out an “official” story that had no trace of Legendary Pokémon in it.
That’s assuming I’m not leaning on my meta-knowledge too much, Basil mused, maybe that is what actually went down that day.
After Steven stepped down, Wallace had taken the mantle of champion after an impressive display against the current Elite Four. The leadership of the Magma and Aqua teams had been taken into custody and the teams had been dissolved. Although concern remains that splinters of the original teams are still around waiting to cause damage with their “weather machine”.
The rest of his searching had borne little fruit. He had figured that searching after prominent Kalosian trainers would be the best bet for looking for Mega-Evolution without leaving a too obvious trail. While he was able to find footage of Champion Diantha’s ace, her Gardevoir, there wasn’t any footage of it Mega-Evolving.
Dynamaxing was a lot easier to find information on. Galar, it seemed, liked to boast about their ability to have Kaiju sized Pokémon fights.There were even quite a few papers going into the science surrounding it, a majority authored by Professor Magnolia herself. A quick glance was given to the papers, but everything past the abstract went over Basil’s head.
It was during the delve into Alola’s Z-move that the timer on the public PC had kicked him off. From what he was able to quickly confirm, the Aether Foundation does seem to exist in this world. The blurb on the search results described them as a “Rescue, Shelter and Rehabilitation” group for wild Pokémon.
Terastilzation was a bust. The timer on the computer kicked him off before he had a chance to look into it, and yes, before you ask it was important to look at those cute Pokémon photos.
Turning his attention to more immediate issues, Basil was left with a looming problem. Namely, that he had no money.
There were plenty of jobs available through the Pokémon Center, but Basil was ineligible for nearly all of them. After all, people would only post a job on the Pokémon Center website or bulletin boards if they’re looking for a Pokémon Trainer to take on the work. Some of the requests seemed pretty open, asking for trainers to come and clear out a specific area, or catch a particularly annoying Skwovet.
Others jobs had more specific requirements, Grass types to help tend a field, Flying types for package delivery, Ground or Fighting types for construction work. The pay for these jobs easily dwarfed the easier jobs, paying out in the 10,000 to 100,000 range of Pokédollars.
A regular job was out of the question, that would take too much time and the chances are too slim. After all, Basil confessed to himself, he himself wouldn’t hire a strange amnesiac with no references or qualifications.
The only question that remained then, was if he could scrounge enough change for a Pokéball, catch a Pokémon (on the first try) and then convince the wild Pokémon to work with him so they both don’t starve.
Picking himself up off the bench, Basil begins to pick his way through the streets, back towards the Pokémon Center.
Unseen to him, a twitchy nosed Zigzagoon follows in his footsteps.
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Standing from her desk, Roxanne rolls her neck as she leaves her office. Walking down a hallway in the Gym she flips open a PokéNav, a phone charm of a Nosepass dangling off it. Dialing the desired number she continues to make her way through the Gym as it rings. On the third ring it picks up.
“Hi Roxanne!” A young voice comes from the speaker “How’s things? Oh! Let me guess! You’re sending Solrock back over?”
“Yes, Hello Tate” Roxxane replies with a chuckle “I’m on my way to the Center now to transfer them back over to Mossdeep. Solrock’s made great progress on the speed and accuracy of their Rock moves, though they still struggle with more physical combat.”
“That’s great! I’ll get to the Center myself. Liza!” Tate’s voice drops out as he shouts away from the phone “I’m heading out to get Solrock!”. A voice too indistinct to make out through the phone, shouts out a reply.
Stepping out of the Gym, Roxanne turns down the road towards the Pokémon Center. “I don’t know why you have to shout at the poor girl Tate, I’ve fought the two of you enough times to know you don’t need to use words at all if you don’t want to.”
“That’s true” Tate replies with a bright and cheery laugh “But this is more fun! Anyways, you have something you want to ask me, right?”.
“I do.” Roxanne says, long since used to the twins' peculiarities “I don’t proclaim myself to be an expert on psychic types, but as I understand it any… psychic interference will leave behind some traces on the target correct?”
“Yep! Think of it like a fingerprint. More skilled psychic’s can hide or reduce their traces, but it’s always there. Why are you asking?”
“We had a young man come in today, severe memory loss and no existing records in the system. I made use of Solrock to expedite the interview process and get them set up promptly. Afterwards, when I asked Solrock about the possibility of psychic interference, they seemed to indicate that they could find no traces of tampering.”
“That’s concerning. Solrock is a highly trained psychic, if there was anything to find Solrock would have found it.” The jovial tone dropped out of Tate’s voice, leaving only the voice of one of Hoenn’s premier psychic experts. “I’ll talk directly to Solrock once you send him over. Did any of their Pokémon have similar symptoms?”
At some point in the conversation Roxanne had arrived at the doors of the Pokémon Center, and stopped outside to finish her conversation. “No, he had no Pokémon with him. He confirmed that in the interview.”
“Roxanne.” Came the suddenly dry voice “You did set them up with some form of support network if they don’t have a Pokémon to look out for them? You didn’t just set an amnesiac loose and hope for the best?”
Heat suddenly shot up the back of Roxanne’s neck and through to her ears.
“I - I’m going to! I just got distracted with paperwork for the trainer school for a bit. Anyway I’m at the center, I’ll send over Solrock now.” Hanging up the phone Roxanne strode into the Pokémon Center, a plan already forming in her mind. After all, Basil did say he was staying at the Pokémon Center didn’t he?