Jun blinked sluggishly as sunlight filtered in through the seams of his cozy tent. He rubbed at his eyes, momentarily disoriented. The incessant cacophony of pokemon calls and the gentle lapping of the waves on the lake surrounded him, the familiar symphony assured him he was indeed still in Galar. His sleeping bag felt warm and comforting, and nestled in the folds of his new black hoodie by his head was his newly captured partner, a Blipbug, who seemed to be half-dreaming himself.
He brought up his SystemDex, upon bonding with his first Pokémon the SystemDex finally revealed its true value. Opening it to the first page, the most important row had finally changed.
Name: Jun
Age: 15
Talent: [Bug Affinity I]
Pokemon(observed): 165
Pokemon(owned): 1
Pokepoints: 65
Seeing the 1 after Pokemon owned felt so good after 15 years. However this was not the only change in the SystemDex. A brand new page had opened up right after his own character page. The page was labeled {Bonded Pokemon} had only 1 entry, a Blipbug, but this entry was much more detailed.
Pokemon: Blipbug
Name: Echo
Ability: Telepathy (+)
Gender: Male
Nature: Bold (+Defense/-Attack)
Level: 2 (+)
Moves: Struggle Bug, Sticky Web (+)
Stats: [expand]
Items: N/A
Status: Asleep
Moving over to the (+) symbol truly began to show the importance of pokepoints. Compared to the hefty price of 100 pokepoints to grant himself a talent and the subsequent upgrades requiring double the previous price, all the options for pokemon seemed almost first cheap in comparison.
For just 1 point, he could switch Echo's ability to either Swarm or Compound Eyes, and switching to hidden abilities only cost 2 points. This meant that he had basically spent the past 2 weeks in vain. Quashing his annoyance, he reflected that even if he knew, he probably wouldn't have changed anything, Echo was perfect and 2 weeks wasn't too big a price to finally meet his perfect partner.
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Moving on to levels, he had paid 1 pokepoint the night before to advance Echo's level by 1, just to see the effects, glancing over at the sleeping form of his partner, nothing seemed to have changed, maybe he was a tiny bit bigger? He wasn't sure if that was just natural growth or the level up. Regardless, now to level to level 3, it requires 2 pokepoints. Technically he could pump all his points and evolve Echo, but he knew deep in his heart that the process of progression would do nothing but help him establish an even greater bond with his starter.
Onto the final (+) symbol, this was the one that attracted Jun the most. This one expanded into every single move in existence. Now THAt was broken, the only thing keeping Jun from teaching every move to his little bug was the price. Every move that Blipbug could naturally learn, via TM or level up only cost 1 pokepoint to add it to his movepool. Egg moves and move-tutor moves cost 2 pokepoints. But from there, it got really Expensive. Any Bug or Psychic type move would cost a discounted 50 pokepoints to buy, but moves of other types would cost 100 pokepoints per move. Signature moves were calculated individually, the cheapest were non legendary signature moves such as Kinesis and Eerie Spell, which cost 100 pokepoints, but from there the prices rose drastically, ranging from 200-500 points, legendary signature spells were all in the thousands. Pushing the thoughts of the tiny Larva Pokemon annihilating his foes with Prismatic Laser out of his mind, he turned to the moves that truly interested him. This meant that eventually, he could teach Echo to teleport, or to heal with Heal Pulse, maybe even teach it Quiver Dance and let it sweep away all opposition. Looking at his meager 65 points, he sighed. He would have to spend some time working out how to ration his pokepoints, there were so many places to spend it on but only 1 way he had currently to earn pokepoints. Pulling himself out of his reverie, he turned over and slowly got up
“Wake up, Echo,” Jun murmured, reaching over to gently poke at the tiny creature.
The Blipbug stirred, its antennae twitching in irritation, sending a wave of discontent that reverberated through Jun’s mind. ‘Tired.’ the Blipbug's telepathy sounded as grumpy as a lazy puppy forced to get up for a walk. Jun chuckled, looking over at Gardevoir, who hovered beside them, seemingly amused.
As he stood up and got dressed, Gardevoir deposited Echo into the hood of his hoodie. As Jun busied himself preparing the day's first meal, Gardevoir, with elegance befitting her nature, was also busy playfully teasing the Blipbug's little antennae, causing the tiny Pokémon to flick them away with a determined swat. Jun couldn’t help but laugh. Their bond had already begun to flourish, even in this early stage of their journey.
After they all had breakfast, Jun turned on his laptop and opened up the files provided by Professor Magnolia's assistant, Marvin. It held a plethora of local Pokémon data that would be invaluable for his field research. No doubt he could look all this up in his SystemDex, but it would be a good idea to have some actual references, especially since Gardevoir was still around.
As he scrolled through, an array of pictures and descriptions lit up the screen, showcasing various Pokémon native to Galar.
“Let’s see what we have here,” he muttered, leaning closer to the screen. First up was Galarian Slowpoke, a pure Psychic Type Pokémon, in contrast to its Water/Psychic type from other regions. Much like its Kantoan counterpart, Galarian Slowpoke also had branching evolutions. There were documents here stating that its diet of Galarica would determine which form it evolved into.
“Galarian Slowbro or Slowking,” he read aloud, allowing the words to roll off his tongue. Then his gaze fell upon the Toxel line, noting the two distinct evolutionary paths: Toxtricity − Amped and Toxtricity − Low Key. No particular notes on how to achieve this branched evolution. Cross referencing his SystemDex showed him that it was actually their nature's which determined their evolution, he briefly wondered how he could set up an experiment to prove his theory before pushing that thought away and refocusing on his laptop, there would be plenty of time to hypothesize later.
Scrolling further down, his thoughts flickered back to a note inserted in the file on Applin. It hinted at a rumored third form that remained elusive, documentation and hearsay stated that a man was seen many decades back with a Hydra that greatly resembled the aesthetic of the Applin line. “A triple branch, how exciting,” he whispered. He was sure that Professor Aria would be shocked at how many branched evolutions were present in Galar.
As he continued scrolling, he stumbled upon information about Mr. Mime and Koffing. “Sharing their initial forms but diverging their evolution based on the region,” Jun noted, grinning at the idea of regional forms also technically constituting as branching evolutions. Gardevoir tilted her head, peeking over his shoulder, seemingly intrigued, as she offered him silent encouragement.
Finally, the words “rumored sightings of Kubfu” caught his eye. That was a dilemma, Jun knew from both the SystemDex and the vague memories from his past life that there were definitely Kubfus in The Isles of Armor. However, they were protected by the former Galar Champion and Fighting type Master, Dojo Master Mustard. He wasn't sure he wanted to open that particular can of worms. Jun decided that he would leave that for last, along with the Galarian Slowpoke line, since they were both located in The Isles of Armor. That left 4 options to start his research: Applin, Koffing, Mime Jr. and Toxel.
Pulling up the known locations for each, he displayed them in a row.
“Gardevoir,” he called aloud, glancing over at the elegant Psychic-type, dragging her attention away from messing with the poor baby bug type.
“Let's see, we can start with Applins which are found on Route 5 and Toxels found on Route 7. We’ll have to find a new camping spot, but there's no sense walking back and forth every day for a couple hours.”
Sending off a quick email to Professor Aria informing him of the 5 diverging lines he had found, excluding Kubfus as he still had no idea how to approach that. Jun packed his belongings and set off with Blipbug on his shoulder and Gardevoir by his side.