Still in the hospital…er, Pokecenter bed, I begin to formulate an excuse. An excuse about how I got here and why my identity isn’t in any system. It took me a bit but after a lot of brain-racking and some web searching, I found a fairly decent excuse.

I hoist myself off the bed and walk out the door, the Pokecenter’s medical wing (As shown on some signs I passed by.) looks exactly like your standard hospital, with white walls, a clean and sterilized smell, and fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling. It’s extremely empty, ‘Am I the only patient here?’ I walk slowly through the halls too tired to move any faster. Part of it was me being tired from Chansey’s healing, but more so because the Ask app just drained a lot of energy from me.

After some wandering I finally manage to find the main entranceway, it looks pretty much the same as in the games. Two sliding glass doors across from a counter with a healing machine behind it. Next to the healing machine is a door that leads into some other room, probably the ER or something.

And standing behind the counter is Nurse Joy, I give her a little wave when she sees me and I start to amble towards her. She looks a bit concerned about me being up and moving, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Hello, Nurse Joy!” I say as I walk towards her.

“Hello…uh, sorry I never really caught your name.” She says while scratching the back of her head. ‘Should I give her a fake name?’ I ask myself but ultimately decide that it didn’t really matter so might as well give her my real name.

“Ah, I’m Elliot Walker, but friends call me Eli!” I say with all the enthusiasm of an excitable youth ‘Gotta act like my new age.’

Nurse Joy gives me a nod and then begins to type on a laptop that she pulled out from under the counter. After a few minutes, she begins to frown and look confused ‘Alright here it comes’ I ready myself for the obvious question coming my way.

“Say, Elliot, where are you from?” She closes the laptop and stares directly in the eyes. No backing down now!

“Oh, um I’m from the Orre region.” Trying to look a bit nervous or even scared at the mention of my home. ‘Pull the heartstrings a bit.’

Nurse Joy looks noticeably shocked, but quickly regains her composure.

“How did you end up all the way here?” She says in a soft tone, kinda like a therapist’s.

“Oh well…” I twiddle my thumbs and start to lay on more of the ‘Kid that doesn’t have a good home life’ act “There was this balloon-looking Pokémon.” Speaking slowly to act as though I was reliving a traumatic experience.

“And… it grabbed me and began to fly away. I passed out for a while but when I woke up I was over the forest over there and managed to wiggle free from it.” I continued with the skills I procured by lying to my mom back when I was a kid.

Nurse Joy’s eyes widened, and she began to tap her figures on the counter. Clearly nervous or worried about what I just said. A few moments passed in silence until Nurse Joy started speaking.

“Elliot.” Her tone is soft and kind. “What was your home life like?” That caught me off guard. I didn’t have any lie for that, which in retrospect was a bit stupid of me, so I decided to just speak without thinking.

“Well…” I fidget with my hands, “It wasn’t the best… parents always wanted me to be something…more. But I couldn’t live up to that…” my voice cracking slightly, the first thing that I came up with wasn’t fully lie but rather a bit of truth from my actual life.

“S-Sorry can I, uh…stop there.” I wasn’t ready to vent about my life to this stranger.

She nods solemnly and takes a deep breath. “Well, Elliot, Orre is widely known to be…well not the best place to raise a kid.” She spoke to me slowly, much like one would with a kid…which I am now I guess.

“And I, in good conscience, can’t send you back there…” she froze for a bit thinking really hard about something. She begins to tap her chin then begins to speak “So I have an offer for you, you can stay here in the Pokémon center, and help me out. At least until you feel ready to go challenge the league” The offer shocked me a bit, I thought that I’d have to go into an orphanage or something. Staying here, and learning how to care for Pokémon would surely be a great help whenever I start my journey. From my web surfing, I know that challenging the league is basically a coming-of-age ritual. And is normally when kids become independent. ‘Though 12 seems a bit young to just travel around the world with monsters.’ I snap out of my musings and respond to Nurse Joy.

“Um, don’t I need a parent to get a trainer’s license?” I place my hands in my pocket.

“If you’d allow me I could act as your legal guardian for when you get your license.” My eyes widen a bit…isn’t that basically her adopting a random kid? Not that I’m complaining or anything, but why go through all that effort? I want to ask her but it seems to be pretty personal so I decided against it.

I nod my head “That would be great!” I say with some strained enthusiasm. She nods back, hands me a key card, and points down the hall across from the Medical Wing, that being the Residential Wing. Basically a hotel. She tells me to go over there and rest up, and that tomorrow I will be helping her out. ‘I guess the legal guardian thing is just for the license?’

After some quick goodbyes, I find myself in my new room. The room is the very last one at the end of the hall so it was a bit of a trek. It’s scarcely decorated with just a bed, a dresser, and a tv on top of the dresser. A door leads to a bathroom and a small kitchen by the front door. I flop face down onto the bed and the guilt starts to rush into me.

The guilt from lying to a nice lady like Nurse Joy affected me more than I thought. I mean she offered me a place to stay, a job, and even basically pseudo-adopting me. And I lied to her with some sap half-story about being from Orre.

I decide to push the guilt away and instead begin to doze off on my, surprisingly comfy, bed.

=====

I spent the next couple of weeks helping out nurse Joy. I asked to get my license only a day after I got here so now I was just waiting for that. Nurse Joy, being the saint that she is, bought me some new clothes that actually fit. A pair of black slacks with a blue t-shirt and a navy blue jacket, the jacket was very thin and not meant for cold weather. I also got a pair of black running shoes, she even let me scrounge around in the lost and found for a bit.

In the lost and found I manage to find a Pokeball belt, basically a magnetic belt that was meant for holding pokeballs. Tapping on the square magnets twice also seemed to teleport any ball you’ve thrown back onto the belt. Though I haven’t been able to try that yet.

I spent those weeks helping Nurse Joy, whose first name is Cora, around the town. Since the town is pretty small and not really known for its battling scene. I mostly helped with home visits to some old Pokémon, and people for routine checkups. I did some grooming on an old Stoutland, who voiced his appreciation by getting slobber all over me. I even started doing some odd jobs for the locals, fixing fences, babysitting some pokemon, and other various stuff that paid me. ‘Need to have some funds for when I start traveling.’

Other than that my time here was pretty uneventful, I never managed to find that auburn-haired guy who took me to the pokecenter. When I asked Joy about it she just said “Patient confidentiality.” I would like to thank him, but my best guess is that he was a trainer or a traveler passing through town, so maybe I’ll see him on the road.

The pokemon around town were all pretty normal, nothing above a B (Except for Chansey) hopefully the daycare has some high potential mons for when I get my starter.

And that about sums up the weeks, just some studying and working. I look around my room, which before was scarce in any decoration, but now has various nicknacks around. Some guy gifted me a big grandfather clock for fixing his fence so that now sits in the corner of my room. A tiny Pidgey pops out when it reaches 12 PM.

I look at my Arc-Phone and brace myself to check out the one app I’ve never used. The “Edit” app.

I know that this app also uses Aura, so I’ve been kinda afraid of using this and the Ask app after the warning that I could die from using too much Aura. I click the app with a pen on it and I’m taken to a camera app. ‘Huh?’ I look at the front of the Arc-Phone and see that there’s no camera on it.

‘1 second in and it’s already confusing me.’ I sigh and whirl around the room with the camera. The camera starts to outline various items in my room, I point it at a little statuette of a Growlithe that I won at a small arcade in town. I click the button at the bottom of the screen and take a photo of it.

“Growlithe Statuette”

Description: Manufactured by “Doll Co.” and distributed at Maple’s Burrow Arcade. The Growlithe is in a stoic pose looking upwards, made from oak wood.

‘Huh, it appraised it…is this another Isekai trope?’ I click the description it gave and learned that I could type in the description. So I can edit it, ‘Not sure what I expected honestly.’

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

I edit it a bit and take a look at my changes.

“Growlithe Statuette”

Description: Manufactured by “Doll Co.” and distributed at Maple’s Burrow Arcade. The Growlithe is in a playful pose looking upwards with its tongue out, made from oak wood.

Nodding to myself I hit enter, the statuette glows white for a bit, making me blink dots out of my vision. Once I was able to see it again, the statuette’s pose changed to what I put in, this got me really excited. ‘Could I possibly make items have special effects? Can I turn a Pokeball into a Masterball?’ the possibilities made me giddy.

I make a few quick changes and then enter, but this time a warning popped up.

[WARNING: This will use up too much aura and place you in a comatose state for 2 weeks, do you want to proceed?]

I quickly hit no. Okay, maybe making the statuette increase shiny odds was a bit much. I retyped it but got another warning. Basically the same one but 1 and a half weeks instead of 2. ‘Okay let’s make the statue do something really weak, rather than making something OP’

“Growlithe Statuette”

Description: Manufactured by “Doll Co.” and distributed at Maple’s Burrow Arcade. The Growlithe is in a playful pose looking upwards with its tongue out, made from oak wood.

The Statuette has the side benefit of making whoever has it on their person for 24 hours slightly more energized.

I hit enter and this time got no warning. Energy drained from my body and I stationed myself on the bed to stop myself from falling over. As the statuette began to glow once more, the light dissipated and I grabbed the statuette. ‘Welp, guess I’m holding onto this for a day.’

I throw the statuette into my pocket and get ready for the day, I change out of my pajamas and throw on the clothes Joy gave me. After taking a comb to my hair and trying to clean it up as much as possible, I quickly gave up after the comb broke when trying to untangle a particularly tangled bit of hair. ‘Jesus, what is my hair made of?’ I throw the comb in the trash and head out of my room.

I walk towards the counter and to my surprise, a trainer was actually there to get her pokemon checked up. The woman, who looked to be about 17, hands over six pokeballs, a few being great balls, Nurse Joy spots me and motions for me to come towards her. I walk over and mosey behind the counter, the woman just stares at me with a grumpy expression, not saying anything, kind of unnerving but it is early so maybe she’s just tired.

“Alright Elliot, follow me you’re helping me with this.” She says with her cheery voice, I nod and rub my eyes. 'What even is Aura, and why can it make me so sleepy when I use it.’ I follow her through the door behind the counter. Which I figured out was just a big check-up room. As I walked through the door I eyed up the healing machine, I learned that the healing machine was made by studying moves like heal pulse and refresh.

I look around the check-up room, which looks like it used to be a battle arena, there’s a table to the side and various cabinets filled with medicine.

“Alright, for the first part of the check-up we’ll be looking at the pokemon’s body, making sure it’s all healthy. We’ll check to see if we need to update its diet and maybe offer some advice on training.” I nod ‘The last part I can probably help with.’

“After that is checking its moves and cognitive abilities.” I start to tune out her voice a bit, the exhaustion from editing the statuette is getting to me. I try to tune back in.

“And finally we’ll be asking the pokemon personally about how the trainer is treating them.” I tuned back in right at the end ‘Dang, time to wing it at those parts I guess’...wait a minute, asking the pokemon?

“Um, how will the pokemon answer us?” I ask with my hand slightly raised, like this was a class or something.

“We’ll be using Espeon to translate for us.” She says matter of factly. ‘Joy has an Espeon?’ I think to myself slightly impressed, Eevee only evolves into Espeon with a deep bond and even then Espeons’ will only stick around those who it thinks are worthy. At least if I remembered their dex entries correctly.

I nod back and the check-up starts, first up is a Flaaffy, the pink bipedal electric sheep forms from a beam of red light shot out by the Pokeball.

I quietly mutter to myself “Status”

Fuzzy (Flaaffy)

- Attack: C+/B-

- Defense: C-/B+

- Special attack: B+/A+

- Special Defense: B-/A-

- Speed: C+/B

- Luck: E-/E-

- Reactions: A+/A+

- Intelligence: C-/B-

- Overall: This Flaaffy is close to reaching the end of his potential, he’s quick to reach and is strong at a long range. This Flaaffy is close to evolving and doing so will raise its potential.

‘Interesting, evolving increases your potential? By how much? I wonder if its A+ reaction will become S?’ The highest stat I’ve seen so far is A+, but I know thanks to the Ask app that it’s not the limit as it goes up to S and beyond that is where things get a bit more abstract. I don’t know much about the higher levels.

Snapping myself out of the daze I begin to help out Nurse Joy, mostly just grabbing some tools for her like little pads that test electricity. Flaaffy’s exam passes by and eventually, it’s time to ask the pokemon how it is. Nurse Joy reaches into her pocket and pulls out a premier ball. ‘Fancy.’ Joy throws it and out pops a slender lilac colored…fox…cat? With a gem on its forehead.

“Right, Espeon ready to translate?” Espeon gives a lazy nod to nurse Joy’s question. Nurse joy nods back and asks Flaaffy one question.

“How does your trainer treat you?” Flaaffy turns to Espeon and begins to say “Flaaf” Over and over. ‘Wonder how pokemon speech works.’

Espeon then looks over to nurse joy and its gem begins to glow a pink color, Nurse Joy nods and then returns Flaaffy to his pokeball. ‘So psychics can use telepathy? Can all of them do that?’ I’m going to have a lot of things to google…er Pory-Goon. No, it’s not the same.

The rest of the check-up is pretty much the same, the stats were about average, I believe for, a fighter’s team. I turn my gaze over to Espeon then mutter “Status”

Espeon

- Attack: B+/B+

- Defense: B-/B-

- Special Attack: S-/S-

- Special Defense: A-/A-

- Speed: A+/A+

- Luck: B/B

- Reactions: B+/A+

- Intelligence: A+/S

- Overall: This Espeon has almost reached her full potential, this Espeon would easily make it on any elite four or even champion level team. Her psychic powers and speed make it tricky to catch and even then she can still take a hit.

I rub my eyes and then take a double check. ‘What?’ This is my first time seeing the S rank, and it sure is leaving an impression. Only one stat below B and it’s only B-. So this is the type of stats on an Elite pokemon… ‘Wait, why does Nurse Joy, the woman who lives in the village of Maple’s Burrow have an Elite-level pokemon?’ I look Espeon up and down, noticing the scars under her fine thin coat, and the small tear on her ear. Espeon begins to get annoyed with me and uses psychic to move me away from her, carefully sitting me down on the floor and making my legs crisscrossed.

“Espeon! No using psychic on humans we’ve been over this!” Nurse Joy begins to reprimand Espeon whose ears droop down in shame. ‘Well now I have to ask’

“Say, Joy, where did Espeon get all those scars from?” I ask trying to hide my awed expression caused by Espeon’s stats.

“Oh, Espeon here was my starter when I started my journey, we’ve been in a lot of battles and even managed to face off against Marice, an old Elite Four member.” She says nonchalantly with a wave of her hand. I just nod, dumbstruck by this information. Then why did she become a nurse? But I’m not sure if it’s personal so I decided to just forgo any more questions.

The pokeballs are returned to the grumpy-looking woman, and Nurse Joy repeats the results from the checkups. I look at her for a bit and she looks back and gives me a wave to leave. I’m more than happy to oblige, I leave the counter and head out of the Pokecenter.

Maple’s Burrow is a village surrounded by a dense forest, there are various hiking trails as that’s one of its most known tourist attractions. There’s a small arcade that only has some claw machines and pachinko machines, the biggest building in this town is definitely the pokecenter, as it’s the only building that isn’t just a square with a roof. I walk around the town, breathing in the fresh air and waving to some people I know as I walk by them.

There’s only one paved road out of the town, and that leads to the capital city of the Olanim region, Mepoli, other than that there’s nothing really here. There’s the daycare and some other business, but they’re small, just a fruit stand here or there. Maple’s Burrow is the type of village someone goes to for retirement.

I find myself on one of the many forest trails, just walking around for a bit. ‘This is by far the most foresty forest I’ve ever forested.’ The trees are tall and the dirt path I’m walking on was formed by years of walking. Every so often a pokemon wanders by but quickly leaves.

While it’s very peaceful in this town, it’s also really boring. There’s only so much hiking you can do until it starts to get old. I sigh and sit down under a tree, ‘So my license should be getting here soon…hopefully, and when that happens I have to go to Mepoli when the league season starts’ I take a small pebble lying on the ground and throw it at another tree.

‘There a small ceremony will be held to mark the start of the league challenge, that starts around a week from now.’ I sigh at look at the canopy of trees ‘That will barely give me any time to bond with my pokemon once I get them. Unless I take time away from the challenge, I would rather just go straight away. Thanks to helping out Nurse Joy I have a pretty good understanding about caring for pokemon so that shouldn’t be an issue.’

I stand up and start walking to town, ‘As for what my starter ‘mon will be…I don’t really know. The daycare wouldn’t let me check out any of the pokemon they have so I’m flying in blind. But I’d imagine that there’s just going to be a lot of household pokemon, like Lillipup or Meowth.’ I find myself back in town, hands in my pocket and pocket monsters on my mind. ‘I suppose it doesn’t really matter too much about the pokemon itself but rather the potential it has, since this is the real world that means that type advantages are a bit less important. Since you can train your pokemon to fight against its weaknesses.’

I look at the Growlithe statuette, that’s been poking me basically the entire day. ‘Wonder if this thing will actually work, I mean the Arc-Phone said it would.’ Looking at the statue I’m reminded of something. ‘Oh, I totally forgot to buy camping gear or a backpack…Oh well, that’s future Eli’s problem’ I think with a shrug.

=====

Another day passes and I grow increasingly more worried about my license ‘Now it’s just six days…’ The fact that I haven’t gotten it yet is starting to concern me. But in better news that Growlithe Statuette actually worked! I woke up a bit more energized than usual, I’ll have to tinker around with the “Edit” App later. I sigh and eat some breakfast in my room, it’s just some pancakes and syrup.

I look at the pancakes and an idea pops into my head, I whip out my phone and enter the “Edit” App.

"Pancakes With Maple Syrup”

Description: Pancakes topped in maple syrup, do I really need to say more?

‘Wow, I think this app is learning how to be sassy!’ I ignore the sass and type in some effects.

“Pancakes With Maple Syrup”

Description: Pancakes topped in maple syrup, do I really need to say more?

When consumed they will make you luckier.

That gets me a warning so I edit up a bit more.

“Pancakes With Maple Syrup”

Description: Pancakes topped in maple syrup, do I really need to say more?

When eaten you have an easier time making choices.

That one works and drains only enough to make my vision of the room slightly tilted instead of spinning. ‘Okay looks like that worked!’ I devour the pancakes, leaving not even a drop of syrup on the plate. ‘So editing one use things seems to be less taxing than making a permanent item.’

I throw the plate in the sink and head out of my room. I find my way to the counter and spot Nurse Joy, I give her a wave when she spots me and she motions for me to go over there.

“Elliot!” She says in a very excited voice, more so than usual. “I have some great news! Your license is here!”

My eyes widen and excitement rattles around in my gut, “Really!” I answer back just as excited. She nods in affirmation and then hands me a yellow card. There’s a smooth shine on it, on the front of it is my trainer ID and a photo of me, I’m so excited I don’t even notice the big grin on my face. Nurse Joy chuckles a bit at my expression and gives me a pat on my head, I move away from her hand, all while not breaking eye contact with my license. ‘This might be the most excited I’ve ever been!’

I finally tear my eyes away from the license and look at Joy “So this means I can get a pokemon now, right!” I can almost feel the stars twinkling in my eyes. She gives me another chuckle and then nods.

I look at my license once more ‘Finally, time to start my journey!’ The smile on my face goes from ear to ear.