After that, everything moved by in a blur. I was kept out of the loop, since I was a small child and all, and neither Miya nor mother visited me anymore. I was left to the care of a seemingly infinite amount of grunts, rarely seeing the same ones more than once. I only found out details of what was happening around me in passing - father's funeral, mother gaining control of his company (the branch in Japan that is, the European half was left to his other relatives), and a long-term operation to gather information on Team Mythic commencing were the key highlights.
I also spoke my first words (or at least first ones that those here have heard, I could be rather talkative in my last life). The two grunts watching me were getting a bit flirty with each other, and I was feeling kind of uncomfortable as a result. So I spoke up - "Tired, I wan' sleep." The two were startled at first, wondering aloud briefly if I had ever spoken before quickly shrugging it off and leaving me in the crib. It worked out well for them too, after all, as they could continue uninterrupted. I took a bit more initiative and began talking more at the grunts after that, particularly when I needed food or sleep.
Within this same time frame, I was growing rather bored. I knew I didn't do anything wrong (at least I didn't think I did), but it still hurt to be left without the two people who, up to that point, were my entire world. I realized though that I had grown complacent, simply lazing away and wasting the time I could use to do something, anything. Last time, I died before I could achieve my goals, self-assigned or not. I wanted to write a book, graduate college, start a YouTube channel, travel the world - and even if some of these goals were frivolous, and some, like the book and YouTube channel, I had long ago realized that they would probably never happen, I still had my regrets. Therefore, I then decided that I would try to set more realistic goals this time around and put even more effort into achieving them. It would be a bit different, but I didn't want to leave this life with another set of regrets.
My first goal would be gaining access to the library.
I wanted to study up on this world, learn about its history, culture, and important laws so that if I decided to go on a Pokemon journey, as I always longed for as a child, I would be prepared to do so and wouldn't come off as naive to others. Even if I decided not to though, I still believed it would be worthwhile information to have (and besides, I was curious - was the Great Pokemon War an actual thing or just a crazy theory?).
So, once again, I spoke up.
"I wanna story," I demanded, cautiously taking my first steps towards my caretakers of the day after being haphazardly left to crawl around after breakfast. They looked at me, perplexed. One of them, a petite teenager with shoulder-length hot pink hair, spoke up.
"Is… is she supposed to be walking yet?" she wondered. The other one, a bulkier boy with pale blond hair, shrugged.
"It's close enough to normal, I think. A little ahead of time, sure, but she's already one - I think she's probably just a touch smarter than average," he rambled. I was startled. I'd already spent a year here? Why had nobody told me - shouldn't this be a big milestone for a kid?
"Yeah… should we get her a book? I don't know if there are any children's stories in the library - I know we got some romance novels, but… I don't know if those would exactly be appropriate for her," she said. The blond one looked at me quizzically with his emerald green eyes before wandering over and picking me up.
"Well, there's only one way to find out."
And that was how we ended up browsing books for nearly three hours until the blond one finally found a book they deemed appropriate to read to me.
The book chosen was well-worn, with a battered binding and leafy pages that seemed to crumble away at the edges with each turn. It had no title, but instead had an almost mosaic-like painting of Arceus and Mew adorning the cover. The pages themselves housed more paintings of legendaries along with information about their power, home region(s), and sightings across the ages. The most interesting part of the book to me though were the pages documenting the various legends surrounding them. Even if it was at a basic reading level, it made sense that Team Rocket had it, as the information compiled was pretty thorough.
"Here, Giovanna," the pink-haired girl said, pointing to a beautiful picture of a blue and purple creature running across a river. "This is a picture of Suicune. Now, the books says…"
From then on, library visits became a common occurrence for me and my grunts. It was… nice to be able to be read to again. Sometimes, their pacing was either a bit too slow or too fast, which could be irritating at times (the former occurring more often), but I appreciated the effort that they put in.
The routine helped me too, as it made it easy to learn how to read - and yes, though I was able to read already, I still had to relearn it as this world used a completely different writing system. It was easy though as I already had speaking down (which appeared to be the same as English to me for whatever reason), but it was still a challenge matching new symbols to existing words and phrases. Eventually, I did master it and was able to convince some of the grunts to let me bring books back to my room, and the rest is history. It was a breath of fresh air to be able to do something myself for once, and several weeks after tales of legendaries, trainers, and heroes from days long passed, I finally worked up the courage to swipe a history textbook to bring back with me (in the front was a faded name, I suppose an old Team Rocket member went to college or something, if that even existed here).
Sighing after the grunts of the day finally left, I snuck over to the window and cautiously opened the book, letting the moonlight illuminate its pages. And… I was shocked.
I stopped suddenly while skimming through its table of contents. No, that can't be right, I thought. The chapter titles were eerily reflective of events that occurred in the world I lived in before - the warring states period, Russo-Japanese War, the two World Wars... it was all the same. Well, with the exception of Pokemon and the lore surrounding them, that is. Human history though… it was so, so similar. It was baffling - and I had to know more. So, I stayed up until midnight reading, trying to decipher what it meant.
I… learned a lot. The book stopped at the end of the 1960s (not that I had much of an idea what year it actually was anyways), but it gave me a good enough idea of what happened to start drawing some conclusions.
First, the facts - most events and locations were the same as where I came from, except that in battles (the war kind, not the ones from the games and anime) Pokemon often took part alongside their trainers. Additionally, there were a few Pokemon-centered conflicts that occured here but not back home, and some locations or kingdoms came about only because of Pokemon, and therefore did not exist back there either. One example of that is the kingdom of Cameron, where the legendary Sir Aaron came from (which, coincidentally, was one of the stories a grunt read to me earlier that week). Also, because people could travel across oceans and through mountains with the help of their Pokemon companions, trading across continents and cultures was much easier to conduct. This led to small European-like kingdoms popping up across Asia and vice versa. However, even with these differences, the most shocking parts for me were the ones surrounding the world wars.
Astonishingly, even though they took place in the same decades, the causes and responses to them were very different.
The first war's cause was a territory dispute (due to a language barrier) which caused the alliance system to implode, and the war itself was also heavily centered around the role of Pokemon combatants in a world full of new and increasingly deadly weaponry. In the past, Pokemon were given weapons and armor, but they only used their special abilities for support roles like changing the battlefield environment or the weather for a strategic advantage. And as a result, mosts countries banned the use of Pokemon in this war to protect them while letting the humans duke it out with planes, guns, cannons, tanks, and the like. At the end, somehow - most likely through the power of a rare legendary Pokemon - an international language was established and people were now able to inherently understand each other across all borders (which is probably why I could understand what Miya and mother were saying but had to relearn how to write, now that I think about it). Unfortunately, the second war was not nearly as kind to Pokemon companions.
...And yes, the second one is called the Great Pokemon War. It was devastating, to say the least.
In the years leading up to it, Pokemon battling with large teams had become commonplace as pokeballs just became cheap enough for the average person to purchase, and medicine strong enough to heal Pokemon quickly and efficiently after battle also became more readily available. Six Pokemon per trainer was the standard, but the rules varied by region - some only permitted four or five while others allowed up to nine at a time. Pokemon leagues became more popular as well. Although they had existed for hundreds of years, it wasn't uncommon for trainers to lose several partners along the way, which discouraged many from entering in the first place.
When the war broke out, people were on a battling craze - and as such, their Pokemon partners joined them on the battlefield, utilizing various attacks to devastate their opponents. Both sides used this strategy though, so instead of becoming a one-sided slaughter, the war dragged on and on as each country kept on losing more and more young soldiers. Eventually, multiple sides developed nuclear weapons, and a truce was called to prevent the world from imploding on itself. Neither country trusted the others not to pull the metaphorical trigger, so from there countries themselves were disbanded and the current system of regional governments fell into place. After that, global communications practically ceased for the average person, and only the rich and powerful could afford to travel across oceans with some small exceptions. This is also why although everywhere had a new "regional" name, most people simply refer to overseas locations by their old names as they just don't know what the places they're referring to are called now (or they simply don't care to correct themselves).
I was stunned, to say the least. It made some sense, but… that the world I loved as a child could be secretly so immersed in violence and bloodshed was difficult to accept. Either way, I loved stories, history, and learning in general, so this was a fun little adventure.
Flipping through the pages once again, I glanced outside. It's getting rather late, I should probably go to bed soo-
My thoughts were cut off as the door slowly creaked open. Footsteps began approaching where I was sprawled across the floor, and I closed the book and turned towards them, hoping it wasn't an assassin like the last time an unexpected visitor came in.
Thankfully, it wasn't - it was just mother. I hadn't seen her in a while, so I was curious as to why she decided to show up now. I didn't get my answer though. Instead, she squinted at the book in my hands before clicking her tongue in annoyance.
"You're reading a textbook. At midnight." I gulped.
"Yeah… sorry, I just finished. I'll go night night now-" she cut me off.
"The grunts said you were growing fast - all I see is a freak, not a child." She then proceeded to storm out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
I was confused and nervous - the first time I saw mother in ages, and she says that? It… it didn't bode well.
I still didn't know why she decided to visit me in the middle of the night, but the next morning, two people dressed in slightly different uniforms than usual (they both wore small red scarves for some reason in addition to their Rocket uniforms) came in and escorted me to a room with a makeup table and a rack of tiny dresses (tiny as in size - I quickly deduced they were for me - I was rather small, after all). It reminded me of the dressing rooms I used as a kid back when I did theatre. I was curious, but I held my tongue. If mother had finally come to terms with her husband's death (I refused to call him father, he wasn't around long enough to earn that title - though really, neither was mother) and had something planned for me, I didn't want to accidentally make her angry again like last night.
Wordlessly, the two passed me off to a smiling woman in a light grey sweater with a red "R" pin. Her pale hair was done up is a sloppy bun and her face was lightly coated in makeup.
"You must be Giovanna, are you excited for today?" she asked as soon as the others left the room. She then gently guided me over to a chair and gestured for me to sit down in it as she waited for my response.
"I… no, I don't really know what today is, so…" I trailed off. She feigned a look of hurt and dramatically placed her hand on her chest.
"Oh no, child - you wound me! It's your birthday, silly!" she exclaimed with a grin. I paused.
"Really?" I asked. She nodded.
"Yup - August 1st! And since last year your momma was still sad then, we have to throw a proper party now for you. You'll get to meet a bunch of new people," she declared. "So we gotta get you a pretty dress and all 'cuz it's a fancy party for rich little boys and girls like you! I'm here to give you a makeover - don't worry, I promise it'll be fun."
It wasn't fun. She poked and prodded at my face and skin, making me constantly dress and undress in a variety of poofy skirted little kid dresses, all of which seemed to be more uncomfortable than the last. I tried to cooperate though - if it was a rich people party it'd probably be necessary (wouldn't want to make a bad impression after all). And besides, I'd had plenty of experience with situations like this anyways (the dressing up, that is), even if that didn't make it any more enjoyable or bearable.
After what seemed like an eternity, the woman - whose name I learned was Emily - had finally deemed me appropriate for the public.
"Aw, so adorable! Here kiddo, there's a mirror over there so you can see what you look like too." Carefully taking my hand, she brought me over to it. I was, for lack of a better word, speechless.
I didn't look anything like I used to.
My skin was a tad tanner than it used to be, my hair was light brown with a tinge of orange, my eyes - the kaleidoscope eyes of green, blue, and hazel I used to take so much pride in - were pitch black like a never-ending void. The only thing that carried over was that my hair still fell in gentle waves, even if the length wasn't the same.
Logically, I knew my hair color was different. I knew my skin was too, but seeing it all together - seeing a small child in a black dress with red ribbons move as I did was… heartbreaking.
I always knew I could never go back, I always knew I wouldn't look like the person I was before, never be the person I was before, but in that moment, all I wanted to do was to punch, scream, and kick at that mirror - to smash it to pieces. I… I just wanted to watch the glass shatter across the floor, and this new, strange image to break along with it.
AN: And title drop! I really like the end of this chapter, it gives Giovanna something to anticipate for next time and a mental hurdle to overcome (also, her mom is mean - there's a reason why she came in her room then and why she said that to Giovanna though, it'll probably come up in a chapter or two). I think this one turned out well, giving at least some insight into the world's history. This is an extra chapter for this week too, so there *should* be another one up Saturday too. Have a great week!
