The Journal of Arthur Lindt
June 2nd, 20XX
The Journey to Violet City has been something else let me tell you. Nearly a full week of walking through what are mostly maintained trails, it was actually rather uneventful. At least for most of the trip. We arrived at Cherrygrove a full day and half after we had left New Bark. With exception to Ethan we didn’t do much training or battling with wild Pokémon. The ones that actually stick around route 29 like that are so weak that battling them wouldn’t be beneficial to anyone other than Cheeka.
The Pokémon were pretty relaxed, and a few even seemed to be fine with the idea of a casual battle. A Spinarak, two Paras and a Pidgey were all that Ethan managed to fight over our day and half of travel. And in that time alone, Cheeka was already picking up razor leaf. It seems to be easier for her, sort of an inherent understanding of the move that she has, that Nova hadn’t gotten a hang of yet. Thankfully Ethan was plenty willing to have Cheeka try and teach Nova the move, and thanks to that we finally started making some progress.
In the week of travel since Nova mostly has a handle on using the move now, he had to fill his little sprout on his head with grass type energy and then swing it as a weapon. Turns out when you do that leaves launch with speed and durability they wouldn’t have normally. Nova was great at absorbing grass energy from his surroundings, but manipulating it inside of himself was the hurdle we were missing. Thankfully with guidance from Cheeka he’s been figuring it out exceptionally fast.
I’ve realized that there’s another advantage Nova has over other Pokémon, not just his perfect IV’s. Sunkern have low base stats. Nearly the lowest that exist, an even 30 in every stat. That on it’s own is exceptionally rare, since most Pokémon have at least one stat that is better or worse than another. All of a Sunkern’s stats are equally terrible. This would seem like a disadvantage, but it actually has an interesting side affect. Nova is inclined to learning how to use each of these stats equally. He has no exceptional advantage in any of them, which lends him to being a jack of all trades. His mobility, physical strength and manipulation of type energy are all supposed to be equally terrible, but people forget what that means.
They are all equal.
Even if the stats are low, he isn’t weaker in one form of combat than another. His body might not be shaped for physical fighting, and when he evolves he will definitely become more focused in his special stats, but right now he’s on an even playing field. He learns everything quickly, because he’s not exceptionally talented in any one attribute. He just learns what he decides to focus on, as fast as he focuses on it. It’s kind of terrifying.
Actually I should talk more about Pokémon stats and type energy, since it’s a pretty big deal in this world and something I only generalized in my last entry. Basically type energy is this sort of ambient energy that just exists. Now, despite some theories, there’s no evidence that it actually exists passively in the world. It seems that type energy is created by and focused on Pokémon. In fact the idea of Pokémon having ‘types’ like grass or fire is what led to it’s discovery.
In the world there exists energy. Kinetic and potential, essentially just a measurement of force. Standard physics, nothing surprising there. This energy however, can be gathered and resides in excess within Pokémon. Pokémon are quite literally brimming with potential energy. It can be gathered and manipulated by said Pokémon into what becomes their moves and attacks. This excess energy, that collection of power that resides within all Pokémon, is referred to as type energy.
Now, certain Pokémon have a flavor of energy that they manifest and prefer. This is how we have different types of Pokémon, and how different moves can do crazy things like create fire or water out of seemingly nothing. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, but somehow Pokémon know how to manipulate type energy to do just that. It is a weird gray area in science where technically they are just converting this type of energy into these things, so they aren’t creating matter out of nothing. They make it from type energy.
While we consider normal type energy to be the default that exists in the world, before being manipulated into other versions by Pokémon or the environment, it’s actually only the second most common typing that exists. Water type Pokémon, and therefore water type energy are the most abundant in our world.
Now this is where more theories come in. Normal type energy is considered the default. Pokémon of certain types can change normal type energy into the other types. So Nova absorbs normal type energy from his surroundings, and converts it into grass type energy. However, an environment can shape type energy on its own as well. All plants, like the grass, trees and shrubbery along this route, contain grass type energy within it on its own. The soil around us will contain trace amounts of ground type energy, and the boulder that Zee has currently climbed in some strange game she’s playing with Nova and Cheeka, would contain small amounts of rock energy.
Our campfire would have fire type energy, and the energy that gets blown with the wind would contain flying type energy. So environments also shape type energy on its own. This is where things get interesting, and the step that proved environments contained trace amounts of type energy. If normal type is the default state of energy, why was the most numerous type of Pokémon water? The answer was simple, the world we live on is mostly water.
Like even more so than my old world was, the world of Pokémon is about 80% water compared to the 70% of our world. It was basically one large supercontinent surrounded by islands and small archipelagos. If the environment altered type energy (like we now know it does) than the excess water would result in an abundance of water type energy compared to the others, ergo more water type Pokémon.
Actually pretty interesting stuff, as far as I’m concerned. The science behind type energy is neat. But that leaves one interesting question, what type are humans? Normal type was the assumption for a while, since it was pretty rare for humans to be able to do anything even close to what we would associate with the other types. However that’s actually not true. Turns out, for whatever reasons, most people can’t gather type energy of any kind.
We have no typing, which is odd but makes sense. If a human were to punch something, it would only hurt as much as a human punch could. If a Pokémon of the same size and strength did the same, and they imbued that punch with type energy, turning it into whatever half dozen punching moves there are, it would do way more damage. That’s actually why tackle is considered a move and not every Pokémon can use it. Even if anyone can slam their body into someone else, but not everyone can manifest normal type energy as they do so. Makes all the difference in the world.
So in basics. Normal energy is the ambient energy that exists everywhere. Environments can flavor that energy into specific types, and Pokémon can gather excess to do the same. This energy can be manipulated to do things that are otherwise impossible, and is how Pokémon do moves. Nova was great at absorbing type energy, both normal and grass from his environments, and is now learning how to better manipulate it.
There, the science lesson is over. Now back onto the interesting things that happened during our journey to this point.
Cherrygrove was mostly uneventful, with one notable exception. While we spent the night in a hotel, (since we were literally days early for the start of the circuit the Pokécenter rooms weren’t an option) the morning was an early one, where we grabbed a quick breakfast before stopping at the mart for some supplies. It was fairly plain, until that notable exception arrived.
Nova and I were stopped on our walk by a hand on our shoulder from Martin. Martin Princely. He was alone, his usual goons nowhere to be found. Nova and I originally assumed he was looking for a fight, but it was the opposite actually. He wanted to apologize to Nova.
We were both surprised, but it made more sense once he explained that he wasn’t apologizing for what he said. He still believed Sunkern was weak and not worth training, but he wanted to apologize for how they had been ‘training’ against him. The rangers had stopped by his family home to explain the situation, and while Martin’s father was pissed the rangers would even make a fuss about such a thing, Martin actually felt terrible. He didn’t realize that the potions weren’t healing Sunkern properly, and that his injuries were stacking up. So he apologized for the pain he had caused.
I let Nova make the call, and in the end he decided to forgive Martin. He had been the one trying to fight too after all, if he didn’t realize things were that wrong, how would Martin have? Martin for his sake, did look relieved at the forgiveness, before putting back on his emotionless front. I made it clear to Martin that even if Nova forgave him for his actions, I didn’t forgive his words. We were still going to beat him in the conference this year. Martin simply dismissed my challenge, and left us. For a moment though I swore it looked like he was smiling as he left.
I really can’t get a read on Martin at all, what he wanted or how he actually felt about things. He didn’t seem exactly like a bad guy, but he was definitely still an asshole. Both times we’ve met he’s been a prick, but it really felt like that’s just sort of his default behavior. I think he does really enjoy Pokémon and battling, he just doesn't know how to talk about it. Not that it’s my problem to fix of course, but it has me curious I can’t lie.
After that lovely encounter, and some light shopping for basic supplies Lyra, Ethan and I were back on the road once more. It took us about 2 days of travel to reach Ethan’s destination, a house nestled into the hillside just off the path.
It was a productive stop, since Ethan reached his destination, and Lyra caught a new Pokémon. I know, big drop to leave this late, but when we were waiting outside of the house for Ethan to do what he needed, a Poliwag walked out of the forest. It had looked tired and exhausted, and Lyra didn't hesitate to offer it a bottle of water and a potion. Marill mostly translated for us, and explained that it was chased out of its home in a river by some hostile Pokémon.
Poliwag didn’t recognize the Pokémon that attacked it, but it was going fairly wild and attacking anyone in our by the river that it could. Lyra and I wondered why the Rangers haven’t dealt with this yet, since it sounds like a mad, or possibly even invasive Pokémon, which is kind of their whole deal. Poliwag explained that there weren’t many people near the river where they lived, so we figured it was likely that nobody else knew.
Lyra asked Poliwag to come with us, that we could help him rescue his home and I tried my best to convince her that was a terrible idea. We had no clue how strong this Pokémon was, or what it even was, and picking a fight could go badly for our own team. I thought I had a pretty great explanation.
So I was confused as to why I was camping with lyra in the woods only an hour or so from where Poliwag’s home was. It took us a full three days of walking to get here, time that could have been spent getting to Violet City to tell the rangers what was going on. Instead we were here preparing to go pick a fight with Arceus knows what tomorrow.
Ethan had volunteered to accompany us, once he heard what Lyra’s plan was, but given that the package he had to bring to Elm was a Pokémon egg we told him to focus on that task. We would meet him in Violet city when he caught up, and explain everything that happened.
As such it was just the two of us, with just our partners and a young Poliwag against something that had managed to clear out a river. I felt it was a terrible idea, but it was pretty clear Lyra would go alone if I didn’t help her, so here I was. Nova and I had spent the time traveling practicing razor leaf even further, so I hoped that it would be enough to handle whatever we would face tomorrow. If not then I would drag Lyra out of there myself if I had to. Hopefully things go well.
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Pyukumuku
Why? Why did he leave me? I wasn’t strong enough? Why? I tried my best why wasn’t it enough?
Tears flowed from my eyes, being swept away by the flowing water I was in. I felt tired, heavy. It didn’t matter how much I slept, or how much I ate. Whenever I woke up I was still exhausted, whenever I ate it solved nothing. It would never solve anything. Suddenly there was movement in the water, a tail slapped through the space smacking against me, brushing my spines. I hate when they touch my spines normally. Lately they hurt constantly even without being struck. Everything hurt if I stopped to think about it. So I couldn't stop.
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I struck back, the impact had hurt, but the spitting out my insides, condensed into a large fist, hurt them more. I could vaguely see as they went flying out of the water and out of sight. They didn’t come back. I wish I could see clearly who I had bested, but I couldn’t it. I don’t know how long it’s been, but for a while everything has been sort of blurry. Despite beating threat after threat, I could never see who I was besting. But I knew I was winning, undefeated in this river.
See. I’m strong. Come back, see how strong I am. No one here can beat me, so why did you call me a failure?
I cry into the water, hoping my voice carries. That my trainer, my friend, would hear me and come back. He never did. I am convinced he was only being harsh to make me better. That he wanted me to be stronger, and that leaving me in the river with those harsh words was to see if I could succeed and train on my own.
That thought is what got me through the days, staying in the river even though the water was wrong. Wrong? Why was it wrong? I couldn’t think clearly it was all fuzzy. Was that caused by the water? No, I lived in water before I met my friend. Water was where I was supposed to be. But why did it hurt to breathe, despite me having done nothing different. I don’t know.
I don’t know what I did wrong. Just come back and tell me. I’ll do better I promise. I’ve already gotten so much stronger here, just tell me what I did wrong…
Again there was no answer. Just more movement in the water. Another enemy. They tried talking sometimes I think. Early on. I attacked them then, tricked them into hitting me and striking back even harder. I had to get stronger, and beating them was how to do it. It worked. I got stronger, and they stopped trying to talk to me.
I regret that sometimes, when it feels less fuzzy. Maybe if I had talked to them they could have told me why everything hurt. What I was doing wrong, what was wrong with the water. They could have helped. No one tries to help anymore, they attack and I fight back, and I win. I get stronger. I am getting stronger… right? Why do I feel so tired then? Why doesn’t it stop hurting?
The movement entered the water again, different this time, two large trunks standing on the bottom. One of those had attacked me first when I got here. They only hit me once, but it was harder than any attack I had felt since. It was them that made me strong. I countered their hit, and bested them. They surrendered the water to me and any who attacked were too weak to best me. I was strong.
But I didn’t feel strong anymore. I felt tired. My head wouldn’t stop hurting, and the pain never went away. Maybe I would lose this time. That would be okay right. The pain would stop if I lost.
No. I couldn’t lose, I had to be strong or my friend wouldn’t come back. I couldn’t attack on my own, but I could hurt whoever tried to hurt me. I could hurt them worse. It made me strong, and I had to be strong.
Go on. Attack me, I’ll finish you off too. And then my friend will come back and I can leave this water. Please. I want to leave this water. I don’t want to hurt anymore.
Please. Stop the hurting…
Please…
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Arthur Lindt.
Arceus above how did this happen? Lyra and I got to the river early in the morning and saw quite a sight. There were probably a dozen members of the Poliwag family on the edge of the river. Mostly Poliwags, a couple Poliwhirls, and one Poliwrath. Poliwraths are terrifying, strong fighters with plenty of versatility, more than enough to be a major contender against anything that should normally be in waters like this.
And it was injured.
It had a massive amount of bruising across its entire torso, and was leaning against a tree near the water's edge. It looked like it had been hit by a truck. As it saw us approach it slowly rose to its feet, leaning against a tree to support themselves. The younger Poliwags ran behind a tree, while Poliwhirls backed up to be beside the Poliwrath, they clearly relied on him for defense.
“Whoa whoa, hey big guy. One of your family brought us, we are here to help.” Lyra spoke first, she had been leading the way while holding Poliwag. She set him down on the ground and he ran forward, happily hopping and crying his name to his group.
The Poliwrath listened intensely, but never took his eyes off of us. It was intense to be stared down by a Pokémon that could easily snap either of us in half if it wanted too.
Eventually the Poliwag finished talking, and the Poliwrath just scoffed out loud, before leaning back down against the tree where it was. It gestured towards the river ahead of us before relaxing. I realized what it meant pretty quickly.
“Lyra, it couldn’t beat whatever's in that water. It is willing to let us try because it doesn’t think we are capable of doing what it couldn’t. And honestly neither do I. We should go to Violet City and get the Rangers.” I was explaining the situation as I heard a loud thump from the Poliwrath.
He was staring me down and pointing his hand at me. He raised a finger, before wagging it in a gesture that universally means absolutely the fuck not. I mean if I used it I’m sure it would just mean no thank you, but attached to hand like Poliwrath, yeah it was definitely more intense than just a no.
“Arthur, he clearly doesn’t want the Rangers here, besides look at the rest of his group. Some of the Poliwags are hurt too, about the same amount. Whatever could hurt Poliwrath that bad should have been able to kill a Poliwhirl. Yet they're just injured.” Okay, looking across the group I could see what she was saying. The Poliwags were hurt too, although not quite as bad looking, it was still noticeable.
“If the Poliwhirls thought they could beat what was down there it obviously didn’t beat Poliwrath through pure strength alone. And if it did it has enough control to choose not to kill. I think we can at least check it out.” Arceus damn it Lyra I hate when you made sense. Still it made some sense.
“Something tanky at the bottom of the water that hits like a truck, but does damage relative to what they are fighting… Could it be the move counter? Or perhaps pain split? Something that does damage relative to what they receive. That or we are terribly wrong and about to get super hurt.” I mumbled to myself, before explaining louder to Lyra what I thought.
“Okay. So I can send in Zee to check it out, see if she can knock whatever's in the water out of it. But that’s all we have for options I think. Nova shouldn’t go in there right?” Lyra as usual is ready to charge forward. Unfortunately I don’t have a better argument against it then this is a bad idea, and it was clear from before that argument was never going to work.
“Fine, keep a potion ready though. Nova is ready to back her up if whatever's in there chases her out." I did what I could to get on board and support her plan, as much as I disagreed with it. Is this what it’s like arguing with me? Arceus what a pain.
“You got it.” Zee hopped out of Lyra’s arms, moving towards the river before diving in and disappearing beneath the surface.
The river wasn’t the largest and according to our maps it flowed from Mt. Silver, actually feeding the lake at Violet City. So at the very least it wouldn’t be hard to get to a center if someone got badly injured. The river couldn’t be any deeper than 10, maybe 12 feet at its greatest depth and wasn’t moving too fast. It was wide though, probably 30 yards at least, and we couldn’t see from the shore what was supposed to be the threat. We quickly lost sight of Marill beneath the water, and were waiting with baited breath.
Eventually though, Zee came flying out of the water landing in the shallows and rolling up to where we were waiting. We both went into panic mode for a moment before we realized Zee was mostly okay. A little beat up, but not enough to be genuinely concerned, she seemed ready to go back in but I stopped her before Lyra could be reckless enough to agree.
“Zee, don’t just go rushing back in there okay. Tell Lyra what happened, what you saw. What’s down there, how did it send you flying?” I asked the question specifically and allowed Zee to explain things to Lyra.
She was better at understanding her Pokémon than I was, getting the gist of full sentences instead of general responses. I was trying to learn but it was a slow process, and it didn’t help that Nova mostly just gave one word answers or asked questions about training. His focus made him easy to understand, but did not help me with understanding others in general. Eventually though, Zee finished and Lyra translated.
“Zee doesn’t recognize the Pokémon, but described it as sort of a black rock with pink spikes. When she hit it with her tail it suddenly shot out an attack from inside of its mouth that sent her flying. She didn’t hit it that hard, but it definitely hit back with more force she gave. I don’t recognize what that could be, anything?” Lyra explained to me and I listened intensely, running as many details as I could through my head, trying to remember what was familiar and what was not.
Black and pink, kind of rocky looking. Mostly aquatic. Knows counter.
“Well, I have an idea but that doesn’t make any sense. They only reside in salt water. Even if one got out here it wouldn't stay in a river like this. One second.” I pulled out my Pokédex, and used the search function to find what I was looking for.
“Here, did it look like this?”
I held out the photo that I had pulled up, showing it towards Zee. She nodded in clear recognition, and I began to panic. I stood up quickly and suddenly walking over to where the Poliwrath had been watching us from. He stood as I got close, a little shorter than myself, but still large and intimidating, large bruises aside.
“You. How long has that Pokémon been in the river? How did it get here? Has it come up out of the water at all?” I didn’t have any fear, adrenaline was already overpowering that emotion. The Poliwrath looked shocked for a second, but eventually began gesturing, holding up seven of his fingers. He pointed at us, and then shook his head no.
“Seven days, a trainer left it, and it hasn’t come out of the river?”
“Arthur?” Lyra spoke but I ignored her, looking for a response.
The Poliwrath nodded its head yes, and then watched me silently. Waiting if I had any more questions but I didn’t pay him any further mind. I turned back, running to the water side. I took off my vest and hat, throwing them to the side.
“Arthur?! What’s going on, what are you doing?” Lyra sounded more panicked but I didn’t have time to explain things.
“Nova, keep watch on the shore, I’ll be right back. Lyra, get a potion ready, we will need one right away.” I kicked off my shoes and socks and began wading into the river.
Lyra was calling out behind me but I didn’t answer, I was scanning the floor the river best I could, looking for what I knew I would see. A Pyukumuku, a Pokémon native to Alola that should not be in fresh water for as long as it’s been. Eventually though I saw it, a black smooth pod, with pink rocky looking spines coming out of it’s back. It was just a little bit smaller than Nova, about a foot along and resting on the rocks at the bottom of the water. The water was up to my chest, and I could feel the current light tugging on my now wet pants and shirt.
It turned to face me as I approached, but didn’t do anything on its own. It couldn’t. Pyukumuku couldn’t learn any attacking moves, only counter and status affect options to defend themselves. How it survived and hit back a Poliwrath to that effect I couldn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. I took a deep breath and lowered myself below the water, keeping my eyes open and on the little guy. He was facing me but it was tough to tell any emotion from the Pokémon from here.
I moved as carefully as I could, remembering what the Pokédex entry had said. They hated to have their mouths or spines touched in any way. As such I took care to make sure my hands approached from the sides, carefully sliding my palms below the Pokémon and then lifting them from the rocks. I noticed they had been resting on a tattered piece of cloth, and I grabbed that as well, just in case it was theirs somehow.
I rose from the water, being sure to lift them above the water with my hands. They didn’t struggle, move or resist. In fact as I lifted them out their weight felt to settle in my hands and looking at their face I could see that they had closed their eyes. They had passed out, but thanks to the fairly steady movement of their body I could tell they were still breathing at least.
“I got them. Lyra, they're not okay. We have to get them to the center in Violet City, like as fast as possible.” I waded through the river, getting to shore as fast as I could. I set Pyukumuku down on the grass next to my bag, and grabbed my shoes, throwing them on without bothering with socks. I threw the clothes I took off into my bag, and threw it onto my back.
“I got Zee and Nova. You carry them okay Arthur. Let’s get going.” Lyra didn’t question what I said, picking up Marill into her arms, and setting Nova into the open top of her own bag, making sure she could carry both and move quickly.
“Poli!” As we turned to follow the river, Poliwrath stepped in front of us. He crossed his arms and looked aggressive.
“Oh hell really? Listen, I know you're mad at them for attacking you and your family, but they got abandoned in an environment that isn’t healthy for them. They clearly weren’t thinking properly and if you try to stop us from getting help, they could die. Let bygones be bygones. Please.” I was begging. I doubt Nova and I could fight a Poliwrath, much less while trying to protect this Pyukumuku, but If I had to I would try.
He stared at us, flexing as he crossed his arms. He looked ready to fight before the small Poliwag from early on, the one that Lyra had befriended as they guided us here jumped up, shouting it’s name and putting itself between Poliwrath and us.
After what I’m certain was a very heartfelt and emotional speech I couldn’t understand, Poliwrath relaxed. It stepped aside and gestured towards the small worn path alongside the river.
“Thank you sir. We will remember this, and we will take good care of Poliwag.” Lyra answered, apparently she had picked up on what was being said well enough to respond. I wanted to ask more but in the end there just wasn’t time. I would ask later but for now, we had to get to Violet City as fast as possible.
Why was it every Pokémon I met was always in need of desperate medical attention. I only hoped that we got them to a center before it was too late. I don’t know what their story was, but they were strong enough to force a family of Poliwags out of their own river. I wanted to find out, and they needed to live for that to happen.