I almost fell asleep at the edge of Lake Verity.

Barry had left after 15 minutes when it became clear there was no Legendary to be seen. He suddenly realized how late it was and ran off, giving me a hasty goodbye and he stormed off to visit the professor.

Ralts kept herself busy with playing in the lower part of the lake. I had told her not to drown herself and hoped she would take my advice to heart.

She ran off to play in the water and began talking to some of the Pokémon that lived in the lake, mostly fish Pokémon like Goldeen and Magikarp but I also spotted a Ducklett and a small group of Surskit dancing on the surface of the lake.

They made it a game to splash water at the Surskit who in turn tried to dodge it and splash water back at them.

After two hours of just lying at the edge of the lake and watching the clouds I realized that I still had stuff to do.

Sandgem town was not that far away and I could make it before the end of noon with ease.

I got up and took Ralts on my shoulder again, she bid her new friends goodbye and we left to continue our journey.

I came across two Pokémon trainers who challenged me to a battle, and with me, I of course meant Ralts because I was not the one fighting.

The first fight was not that hard, he had a Charjabug which surprised me a little bit since that Pokémon was not from Sinnoh but Alola.

We still kicked his ass since his Pokémon was barely trained.

After the fight I asked him about it and he explained that he was not a professional trainer but just here to visit his grandmother in Sinnoh.

He had gotten bored and was looking for a distraction.

The second challenge was more interesting.

It was a kid around the age of 11 and he challenged me to a fight with money on the line.

I had wondered how the entire money thing went, I mean in the games everyone gave you money but in the anime they never did.

A brief exchange with the boy taught me a lot.

In this world you have two kinds of Pokémon battles, Casual and Professional.

Professional battles were Gym battles, Tournaments and other contests which were regulated by the League and required money to participate but you could also win money depending on how far you made it.

The exception to this rule were Gyms which could be challenged free of charge.

The amount of money you could win and had to pay upon losing was determined by an official algorithm that factored in the experience you had as a trainer, the duration of the battle and other factors that were kept hidden to prevent exploitation.

It was a lot like gambling except it was more skill based and probably meant to make trainers push themselves harder.

Battles against other trainers outside the official battles were considered Casual battles and didn't involve any money at all, which was apparently the kind of battle I had done with Chelsea and Barry.

However, people could bet money on a battle and make it a professional one, which some trainers apparently did to raise the stakes and make it more exciting for both parties.

And this kid just challenged me to a professional match.

I wondered how an eleven year old boy had enough money to gamble with it but when he started bragging about his rich parents it became very clear.

Luckily for me, the kid was stupid.

He had a Timburr which was a fighting type.

Ralts being a Psychic/Fairy type had the double advantage and beat him with a simple Confusion, which was enough to finish it off.

Ralts and I continued our journey after that with more money and a bigger smile on our faces.

After that nothing of interest happened, we just kept walking and after two hours we finally reached the outskirts of a town.

It was bigger than Twinleaf town but not much, it had no significant landmarks or building style.

Pretty boring all things considered but that was okay, I was only here to meet Professor Rowan and this town served no other purpose for me.

While I was walking through the town without a clear idea where Professors Rowan's lab was, Ralts sensed something interesting.

She pulled my hair locks and excitedly pointed into a side street that led deeper into town, "Raaalts!"

I had no idea what it was, but I had some time to kill and decided to investigate it anyway.

We walked through the street, passed more houses and made a few turns until I saw the thing that must have drawn Ralt' attention.

A shopping mall that happened to be located at the heart of the town, I frowned and approached the building.

It was a colorful building that hosted all kinds of different small stores and I saw a restaurant as well.

I heard the people in the crowd murmur, sigh and groan displeased.

My interest was piqued.

The shop window and door were taped off with police tape and in the middle of it was a sheet of paper stuck to the door.

The store had a distinct blue roof that had a Pokéball symbol on it and I could guess the purpose of this building.

It was a Pokémart, it was written underneath the Pokéball symbol with bold white letters so everyone could recognize it at first glance.

I still needed to visit one to get Pokéballs and Potions. I also wanted to look into getting a better diet for Ralts which the Pokémart supposedly sold.

"Huh, so this is what drew your attention?" I asked the Psychic Pokémon.

"Ralts."

I took a few steps towards the crowd and they moved around a bit so I too could get a chance to read what was written on the paper.

Closed due to an ongoing Police investigation

Sorry for the inconvenience

"What's this?" I asked out loud.

A girl standing next to me was the one to answer.

One quick look at her told me she was a Pokémon trainer as well, she was a year or two older than I was and had long black hair.

She wore a black shirt and had a backpack slung over her shoulder, more importantly she wore a black belt around her waist that had a few Pokéballs attached to it.

"It's Crimson again," she sighed like she just heard her favorite show got canceled. "Just when I'm out of Pokéballs he has to strike."

I blinked. "Crimson?"

She turned to look at me and she had a confusion written all over her face. "Wait, you don't know who Crimson is?"

"I'm from another region." I gave her an apologetic smile, it was not even a lie. "I'm not really caught up with the news in Sinnoh."

She nodded understandingly. "Crimson, he's a thief who robs banks. He's a bit of a celebrity here in Sinnoh. He has a real name but the media started calling him Crimson so he began to use it too."

I stared blankly at her. "Never heard of him, he's a celebrity you say?"

She shrugged. "He robs banks every few months or so, nothing major, he has been doing it for over 2 years and he is known as the best in Sinnoh. He hasn't been caught by the police despite the fact that he robs in broad daylight and doesn't care about keeping things under the radar." She scoffed. “He just likes the attention.”

Crimson, I recognized the name from the anime but it was all wrong. Crimson was a woman in the anime and worked together with another guy, they only appeared in one episode and were basically a throw away character, also they never robbed banks.

On the other hand, I was not in the original universe, considering all the differences I had already encountered it wasn't too hard to imagine things were different.

Also, it was quite possible there were multiple people going by Crimson in one universe.

I wrote him off as an unknown background character, it made sense that Team Rocket were not the only ones to commit crimes.

"He hasn't been caught in 2 years?" I asked.

"Yeah," A man joined the conversation. He was beardy and looked like he belonged in a woodcutting camp or something. "He works together with a Butterfree that knows the move Teleport. He shows up and takes what he wants and leaves, everytime the police manage to find his hideout he just teleports away and leaves them in the dust. The media loves this kind of cat and mouse game and gave him the fancy nickname Crimson, after the red capes he wears."

Thanks, random NPC for the infodump, still it was useful to know.

"Ugh, the media loves him but I hate him, I mean can't he just go back to robbing banks?" The girl complained.

"What do you mean with ‘back to robbing banks?’" I was confused.

"You don't know?" The man with the beard asked incredulously, repeating the girl.

"He's new here." The girl replied before I could.

"Aaah, well that explains it." The man chuckled, he stroked his beard like he was some great philosopher. "Crimson has been targeting Pokémarts all over Sinnoh lately, robbing everyone inside and taking all the TMs, it's been on the news. He apparently really likes TMs."

TMs? So they do exist?

They practically don’t exist in the anime, so this was something to reconsider.

"Ugh, he doesn't care about anything other than the attention. I mean, robbing a bank has to be more lucrative than selling TMs right?" The girl said angrily. She was getting heated.

"Weird shit." I muttered under my breath and the bearded guy nodded.

"Well, whatever his goal is, I won't be able to get the newest edition of the Sinnoh Daily."

And with that the conversation quickly died down and I continued listening to the rumors of the people in the crowd.

No one else had anything new to say, most of them just complaining about the fact the store was closed.

I heard a seven year old telling his mother he wanted to be like Crimson later which was funny but that was about it.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

It had made me wonder how Crimson managed to stay away from the police for so long, was the police incompetent or was Crimson that good?

If he has a Pokémon with Teleport shouldn't they just use a Pokémon with Disable?

I left the shopping mall and headed towards Professor Rowan's lab, my curiosity for that moment satisfied.

After asking a few times for directions I found his lab, it was a large metal construct built at the edge of town near the forest.

The building looked like it only served one purpose, researching.

The building was shaped circular like a small tower of Babel and had antennae and windmills built on top of it.

The main building was connected to a windmill by a stone tunnel that made a very stark contrast with the metal of the main construct.

The windmill was made of red bricks and bigger than the lab itself which was a questionable design choice.

It made the entire place look like someone just decided to build a lab next to the windmill and thought, hey, why not just pretend those two buildings were built at the same time, no one will notice.

I didn't see any security measures, nor any cameras, only a small wall made of stone which I could jump over without any trouble. It made me wonder why no one has robbed this place yet.

This place was supposed to store all kinds of high tech stuff right? There was bound to be something expensive inside.

Then I recalled the bit about how the rival in Pokémon Silver and Gold just stole a Pokémon from Professor Generictree at the beginning of the game.

Yeah, I could see that happen here.

Ralts motioned me to stop stalling and I entered the building without much ado. I could just walk in, which was another questionable choice in security.

The inside looked much better and more organized than the outside.

It still had the metal covered walls which made me wonder how the building managed temperature and echoing, but meh, it wasn't my house.

Strange machines were attached to the walls and to the ground, various monitors were all over the place and cables snaked across every surface.

In the back there was a metal desk with a large computer mounted to the wall.

Professor Rowan sat in a comfy looking chair with his back to me, tinkering away at a metal device that I couldn't even begin to describe.

A mug of coffee was placed on his left and an empty pizza box to his right.

He didn't hear me coming inside, either because he was too focused or because the TV above him was too loud.

It was displaying some news channel that, according to the logo in the corner, was named: Jubilife TV.

On the TV I saw a typical news studio with a blonde woman and a man with curly red hair sitting behind a desk and smiling at the camera.

A news show?

"And what do you think of this?" the blonde woman asked the man.

He gave the camera the kind of bright smile that was only reserved for news readers.

"I think it's amazing and again it shows how all the regions are better and stronger when they work together."

The woman nodded approvingly. "And you are right. However, now that Hunter J. is driven out of Unova, people are afraid she might come to Sinnoh, what are your thoughts on this scenario?"

"Mmm," The guy said thoughtfully. "Unova and Kanto both agreed to continue their alliance with Sinnoh if Hunter J. shows up in one of the three regions."

He smiled brightly at the camera again. " There's nothing to worry about for our watchers."

Nothing to my ass, Hunter J. was coming to Sinnoh.

And she might be a bigger threat than I initially thought.

The anime already showed her to be quite good at being a bad guy, she had a Salamence and an entire fleet to her disposal with minions included.

However, I might have to give her a bigger threat rating, if three regions had worked together to stop her and only managed to drive her off she was definitely going to become a pain in the ass.

"Ralts." Ralts said, urging me to stop staring and alerting the professor.

He perked up as he turned around and gave me a long look.

"Hello there," he said. "You are Dust right?"

He had a calming voice perfect for narrating audiobooks and he spoke as if he reconsidered every word before speaking out loud.

"I'm indeed Dust," I said.

"Hmm…" he said "You're quite early. At least a week earlier than Looker told me you will be arriving.”

I shrugged. "The hospital burned down and the doctor said I was healthy enough to travel."

Normally you think such a question would elicit a shocked response, more questions, but this kind of stuff was apparently normal in this world.

“The Team Rocket situation?" Professor Rowan said. "That was quite unfortunate for you. Anyway my name is Professor Rowan. Welcome to my laboratorium."

Professor Rowan gave me a stoic smile, he had a white hair and a neatly kept mustache, he looked to be around 60 years old but he radiated strength and calm.

He wore a brown coat with a blue suit underneath him with a red tie, and brown pants underneath it.

"I'm Dust," I said, "Or at least that's what I call myself."

"I read about your Agnosia, are you recovering well?" he asked sternly.

"Not much," I lied, "But I will manage."

"Ralts raralts," Ralts added and I nodded because it sounded like she was making a valid point.

"I see, and you decided to become a Pokémon trainer?"

"Yeah, I'm going to become a Pokémon trainer," I gave him my best grin, "Believe it!"

After all, I'm the summoned hero.

The man gave me a cold smile. "Well, we will see. Being a trainer is not as easy as you may think, but if you have decided I won’t stop you. I assume you are here to unlock your Pokédex?"

"Amongst other things." I took out my Pokédex and handed it to Professor Rowan.

He took it and weighted it in his hand before walking over to his PC.

Ralts jumped off my shoulder to get a better look, her eyes widened when she saw the Pokédex disappear into one of the empty slots in the PC.

Her head turned to the screen where a new window popped up, Professor Rowan pressed a key on the keyboard and the window expanded.

My trainer information appeared on the screen, the amount of Pokémon I caught and seen, the amount of money I had (quite a lot) and in the right corner it showed an image of me Hylla had taken during my stay at the hospital.

Professor Rowan scrolled down and a large section of text appeared; it was detailing my multiple encounters with Team Rocket however there were some blank spaces and stuff they had entirely wrong.

For example it detailed how I had gotten into a Pokémon battle with a Team Rocket grunt while in actuality I just stabbed him.

Professor Rowan typed a long code into one of the empty bars and all the windows closed, a ping sounded and the Pokédex slid out of the pc again.

Rowan handed it to me and said; "Here you go kid. All the options should be unlocked."

I took it and flipped it open, a menu showed up with all kinds of options displayed with cute and simple symbols.

"Do you need any help with it?" Professor Rowan asked concerned while I was quickly reading over all the options in the main menu.

"Nah," I clicked on the symbol that looked like an eye with a laser shooting out of it. "I love figuring things out myself."

A new menu popped open and I found the option for scanning Pokémon.

"Get ready, Ralts." I knelt down and aimed the Pokédex at her.

A red beam shot out of it and began scanning her, she giggled as the red light faded over her before it disappeared.

"You figured it out pretty fast," Professor Rowan complimented me.

I nodded, figuring out how technology worked was something I was quite good with.

"Ralts, the Feeling Pokémon. Ralts is the pre-evolved form of Kirlia. It can use the horns on its head to read human emotions. Ralts rarely shows itself to humans, but may occasionally approach when it senses positive or happy feelings." A mechanical female voice spoke.

Hello Pokédex lady, also I already knew that.

I studied the options on the menu screen and there were quite a lot of them, considering it was the sub menu of a submenu it made me wonder how advanced this device was.

"Moves," I said out loud to indicate what button I was about to press but to my surprise the Pokédex lady copied what I just said and tapped the button itself...herself?

"This Ralts, currently not nicknamed, has the special ability Telepathy. Currently known moves are: Confusion, Disarming Voice, Mega Punch and Double Team. This Ralts is a female and…"

I cut off the voice with a tap on the screen and looked Ralts in the eyes. "Huh, so you know Telepathy?"

Ralts rubbed her head, clearly confused as well.

She shrugged after a short moment and muttered. "Ralts."

Mmm, weird, never heard her speak or anything like that. Does it mean we have to train it or will it develop over time?

I hadn't seen her use Double Team before either so maybe she just had an affinity for those moves?

I chuckled to reassure Ralts. "Don't worry about it. We'll get there eventually."

It would be extremely useful to master Telepathy, besides it being awesome to talk to her it was potentially one of the best offensive moves Ralts could have, especially with opponents stronger than her.

I made a mental note to study that later.

Knowing this world both powers would manifest the moment we needed them.

"The Pokédex is currently in the advanced mode but you can set it back to basic mode like most trainers do."

"Nope," I said, "I like it this way."

I closed it and put it away.

Professor Rowan folded his arms in front of him, "So, you said you had other reasons to visit me, besides unlocking the Pokédex full capabilities?"

"Yeah, though still one quick question." I stood straight to meet the Professor's eyes. "Mega Punch? Isn't that a TM Move?"

"A typical rookie mistake. Although it's a move that Ralts can learn with a TM she can also learn Mega Punch without it, though it's rare."

I stared blankly at him, they don't learn Mega Punch, or at least they don't in the games.

He saw my confused look and elaborated. "What do you know about TMs kid?"

"Not a lot."

"Well I suppose you still have to learn, it is true that most Ralts don't learn Mega Punch but they can learn it occasionally. However the effort to learn it and the time it takes is too big of a commitment for most trainers who would rather focus on the moves that come naturally from their Pokémon."

"So TMs are like cheat codes? A bypass for impatient people?" I thought out loud.

A cloud moved past the window and cast a shadow on Professor Rowan.

"Yes," he nodded. "And just like with cheats most people don't use them. It's allowed but it is frowned upon by the majority of the Pokémon trainers who consider it a trainer's duty to learn it the hard way. A move learned by TM is always weaker than when it's learned the hard way, it's also very expensive which means it is mostly used by people who have money to burn and care more about winning than the bond with their Pokémon."

Wow, he sounded judgemental.

Ralts didn't practice Mega Punch in the slightest but it was nice we had a move like that to our disposal. Although Professor Rowan was wrong about it requiring a lot of practice.

Lots of people in the anime thought that battles made Pokémon stronger and they weren't entirely wrong but battles were not the real cause.

What was it called again? False cause fallacy?

Whatever the point was. Pokémon might become tougher by battling physically but the real big guns like evolving and new moves were not achieved by battle but by stress.

Just look at the anime, the direr a situation was, the bigger the chance a Pokémon learns a new move or evolves.

And when are Pokémon under a lot of stress?

Indeed, in a battle. I guess it's something like how adrenaline works but it enhances the strength permanently.

Of course, this was just a theory, a game-

"A lot to take in?" Professor Rowan asked when I stayed silent for a few seconds, I really should stop monologuing in the middle of a conversation.

"Just processing this new information," I answered, "And I think I got it. TM bad, training good."

"That's one way to put it." Professor Rowan said dryly.

Ralts started hugging my leg for no reason at all, because why not?

He walked towards one of the shelves and took out a paperback book and handed it to me.

It had your typical Pokéball symbol in the middle and white bold letters spelled out: Trainers Guide Sinnoh edition(7th released)

"You like reading?" he asked and I nodded.

"It should cover most of your questions," he explained, "Though if you have more questions my number has been installed on your Pokédex."

"Thank you," I said and I put it in my backpack, this was hella useful.

"So, was that all?" He asked and I shook my head.

"One more thing," I gave him an apologetic smile, "you got any spare Pokéballs? I wanted to visit the store but it apparently got robbed and is closed."

"I'm sorry Dust," he shook his head, "but I just gave away my last spare Pokéballs. A boy came here just an hour before you."

I groaned, "was it Barry by any chance?"

His eyebrows moved up, "you know him?"

'Yup," I said, "Met him on the way here, we battled and chilled together before he stormed off. It seems like he got here first indeed."

Goddammit Barry, you made it personal.

This means I won't be able to get my hands on them until I reach Jubilife City and that I probably have to beat Roark, the first Gym leader, with only a Ralts.

I mean I could get a Pokémon between Jubilife City and Oreburgh City but I doubt I could get it to a decent level before facing the first Gym.

Then I remembered another option.

"Uh, Professor, you don't happen to have a spare starter Pokémon right?" I asked him, "Or a Pokémon you just got you can't take care of?"

He raised an eyebrow, "You know most trainers try to catch themselves a Pokémon?"

I picked up Ralts who smiled vaguely. "Already caught a Ralts, technically I never got a starter. Maybe you have one for me? Or maybe you have an egg I can take with me?"

He didn't budge.

"A Pikachu you found in the back chewing on some cables?"

Come on, you are the professor, you must have some spare rare Pokémon lying around in case someone important shows up.

He shook his head. "Although I appreciate the excitement, I don't have any Pokémon I can give you right now."

That's so anticlimactic.

"Awww, that sucks."

"Raaaa ra Ralts!" Ralts copied.

"I will keep in mind you are still looking for your starter," Rowan said.

"Ralts!" My Pokémon leaned to the left and forced me to turn with her weight, I turned around and saw someone else had just entered the lab.

A boy with black hair had walked through the door, he was followed by a purple monkey that had a hand-like appendage stuck to its tail.

When he saw us standing in the corner his eyes lit up and he spoke.

"Hi, Professor Rowan. I was told you could help me find Pikachu?"