Episode 9: Valley Windworks
Niko looked up at the specks of light breaking through the space in between the tree leaves above him. He had just woken up from a quick nap on Route 205, and found himself surrounded by his pokémon—turtwig, shinx, and piplup. Looking around, he noticed his three friends all sitting up and watching their pokémon play around near the edge of a river.
Their next destination was Eterna City, which according to their estimations would take roughly a week to get to. Most of the trip would take place on route 205, a valley route in between a river and a small mountain range. The four trainers had spent much of the previous day walking along the river that led east of Floaroma Town, stopping often to appreciate the view or to simply relax as they were that day.
"Sleep well?" Brittany asked, turning over to Niko, who was rubbing his eyes carefully.
"Yeah, didn't expect to dose off like that. Apparently, these guys didn't, either," Niko said, gazing at his pokémon with admiration. The previous day Niko got back to training with them, which included their usual running and practicing new moves. Niko was impressed with the effort his pokémon were beginning to put into their training.
He always knew turtwig would show a determination to get better, partly out of its loyalty to Niko, but also its budding rivalry with its teammate, shinx, who was beginning to show a similar level of resolve. However, it was piplup that surprised Niko the most. The little penguin put in far more effort than any of his pokémon or Lauren's, constantly getting up to run and get faster while practicing its peck attack, which it had recently mastered in a battle with Lauren's budew-turned-roselia.
Lauren, on the other hand, was seeing similar interest in training from her pokémon. Haunter was working on the potency of its confuse ray and hypnosis attacks—in order to make them last longer—while roselia was practicing its mega drain for similar reasons. Chimchar, on the other hand, still found more enjoyment in playing than undergoing hard training like the other pokémon. It would often be found running around with JJ's pokémon, who occasionally battled one another or just simply ran around in the grassy fields of route 205. This lack of effort hardly disturbed Lauren, who wanted the chimp pokémon to work at its own pace rather than being forced to train for the sake of it, which often caused her to butt heads with Niko, who would criticize her for not taking it seriously. These small skirmishes between the quarreling trainers would end with Brittany or JJ getting in between the two, forcing them to stop.
"So," Niko said as he got up, accidentally waking turtwig up in the process. "Wanna get back to walking?"
JJ, Brittany, and Lauren all nodded in agreement. Standing up, they all returned their pokémon and packs their bags before hoisting them over their shoulders and continuing on their journey.
"So Niko," Lauren began, breaking the silence between the four of them. "Got any siblings?"
"Oh, yeah. A younger brother, Jake. He's on his own journey in Kanto right now after travelling with us for a year in Hoenn."
"Oh, cool. What's he like? How old is he?"
"Turned 12 last spring. But he's ready to travel on his own, I think."
"Well, 12 is young compared to you, right? I mean, you left at 17."
"Yeah?" Niko replied in a slightly accusatory tone. "Your point?"
"Oh! No, nothing. Just found it interesting is all…"
"Jake's a really good kid," Brittany said, saving the conversation. "He never gave us any problems when we were travelling. Usually kids his age are, well, a little unruly," She wasn't wrong. Niko had met some of Jake's friends from school. They were like tiny savages.
"Where'd he get that from?" Lauren said, ribbing Niko with her elbow. Niko winced, turned to Lauren with annoyance.
"He got it from my parents. I'd like to think they have raised us both pretty well, but you'd obviously disagree with that, wouldn't you?" Niko replied, looking at Lauren through his peripheral vision. She simply shook her hand and grinned.
"Can't take a joke, I see."
"I thought you were being serious!" Niko said in protest. "Anyways, do you have any siblings?"
Lauren shook her head. "Nope. Only child. I always wished to have a brother or sister, though. Would have been nice."
"What's it like being an only child?" Niko asked for the sake of the conversation. He had known what being the sole child in a family was like, albeit only for a short period of time.
"Well, it can get lonely. But for those of us who are more introverted, it isn't necessarily bad."
"There's no way you're an introvert," Niko said in surprise. Lauren looked up at him with her dark eyes and nodded. "You're always so outgoing, though!"
"Is that a compliment?" Niko shook his head. "Well, I am sort of introverted, but I'm used to playing it off because growing up people didn't seem to care for that. If you weren't outgoing where I grew up, you had no social life. And, well, you know what growing up is like, obviously. You want to feel cared for. You want attention and validation from others."
"I suppose so. But it isn't always a bad thing to not constantly need attention from others. Sometimes it's just better to let your social batteries recharge."
"Oh, of course it is. But that wasn't really my point," Lauren said decisively, which sounded rather intimidating to Niko and forced him to end the conversation.
Lauren then turned to Brittany and JJ. "You two got any siblings?"
"I have an older sister, but that's it," JJ mentioned.
"Older brother," Brittany said with a sincere smile.
"Wow, what's it like being the younger siblings?" Lauren asked in genuine interest.
"Well, it's nice to know you have someone closer to your age that has more experience in life than you do," Brittany stated. She was about to continue when they all simultaneously looked up and stopped.
In front of them was a canyon littered with massive wind turbines that looked to be roughly 100 feet in height. At the base of the canyon was a building that looked like a laboratory with walls surrounding it and a gate. Niko had surely never seen anything like it.
"What is this place?" He said with wonder.
"Valley Windworks, I think," Lauren replied. "I've never visited, but I've heard of people mentioning it. I think a family member of mine used to work here, but I'm not sure. Anyways, Valley Windworks is known for providing power for a lot of western Sinnoh by using these wind turbines. You see, when they spin they generate energy from the wind and convert it into electrical power."
"Woah…" JJ and Brittany said simultaneously. "We don't really have that kind of stuff in Kanto."
"That's because we have the Power Plant," Niko reminded them, thinking back to their visit to Kanto's power source several years back. "But still, this is really cool. Think we could go inside?"
Lauren shrugged. "Don't know, maybe? Worth a shot," They walked down the road to the front gate, which was unlocked. As they passed through, a man in a lab coat was walking alongside an ampharos who appeared to be exhausted from something. The man turned to them with a curious look.
"What do you kids want?" He asked in a friendly tone.
"We are interested in checking out the wind turbines. My friends here have never seen these before," Lauren explained, motioning her hand to the other three with a smile.
"Oh. Well, sorry to disappoint, but we're closed today. Been having problems with keeping the wind turbines running recently. This here ampharos hasn't been feeling well, and hasn't been of much help recently."
"Is everything alright?" JJ asked. "Maybe we can help?"
"Thanks, but I've got taken care of. My wife is Nurse Joy, and I was about to travel to Floaroma Town to visit her and see if she can nurse my ampharos back to health."
He was about to walk away when a young woman popped out of a nearby door. "Dad! Are you going to Floaroma Town?" The man turned around and nodded. "Can you bring back something for the drifloon? They're getting hungry."
"Sure, Marnie. Now I've got to go. Nice meeting you four. Name's Karsten, by the way."
Karsten then walked his ampharos over to a nearby car and drove out of the front gate, leaving the group standing in front of the Valley Windworks building with Marnie.
"Are you here to visit?" She asked. She looked like a spitting image of her mother, Nurse Joy, with her pink hair arranged in a similar way—two loops in the back and front-facing curls covering her forehead. The group nodded, and Marnie led them inside. "So, have you ever visited her, or any other wind farms?"
"No, three of us are from Kanto, where the Power Plant is the major source of energy," Niko explained. "Do you work here with your father?"
"Yeah! My drifloon and I help out whenever we can. My little sister—Paige—is training to become a nurse just like our mother, but I'm far more interested in what my father does. Where in Kanto are you from?"
"Pallet Town," Niko said, and the two continued the conversation for a bit before reaching a large room crowded with various generators and other machinery, presumably for harnessing the wind energy provided by the turbines. "So is this where everything goes?"
"Sort of. The energy from the turbines first comes through here, and we have specific machines that take it to other parts of the region. This building is dedicated to transferring energy to the western half of Sinnoh, which is everything west of Mt. Coronet. The building next to us—to the right of the front gate—transfers energy to the eastern half of Sinnoh."
"So is this building identical to the other one, then?" Lauren asked. Marnie nodded slightly.
"Sort of. There are minor differences, one being that the other building is slightly larger since there is more need for electricity on the other side of Mt. Coronet, what with there being more cities. But yeah, that's the basics," As she said this the room suddenly grew dark. "What the…?"
"Power must've gone out…" JJ said plainly. "Niko, your shinx can light up, can't it?"
"Yeah, good idea JJ! Shinx, I choose you!" Niko said, and with a brief flash of red light emanating from a pokéball came out the tiny teal and black feline pokémon. "Hey shinx, I need you to use charge and light up the area around us, alright? As you can tell, we can't really see."
"You do the same, pikachu!" Brittany said, summoning her electric mouse and repeating the directions. Suddenly the room was lit from the two small sources. "That's better. Now, Marnie, how can we help you fix this?"
"Err, I don't know…let me think," She said down in a nearby chair and pondered for a moment. Shinx and pikachu, in an attempt to conserve their energy, dimmed the light they were generating using the electricity in their bodies. Suddenly, she came to an idea. "Alright, follow me."
The five of them and the two pokémon ran out of the room and down a hallway, eventually reaching a door on the left. Opening it, Marnie revealed a small room with a generator sitting unused.
"This is a backup generator. Might not be much, but if we can get enough electricity running in it to start it up, maybe we can restore the power. I'll be honest, though, I don't know that much about this stuff yet. My father hardly tells me what to do, or explains it to me so that I can understand what I'm doing."
Niko tapped her shoulder. "We trust you, Marnie. You probably know more than you think, and surely more than any of us. Now, how can we help you generate electricity? Do we hook shinx and pikachu up to something?"
Marnie smiled sincerely. "As a matter of fact, yes you do. Here," She led Niko and shinx over to the other end of the room. Picking up some cords attached to some sort of sticky tab attached at the end. She placed them on pikachu and shinx in specific places, then stood back up and turned to Niko and Brittany. "So, all they have to do is start generating electricity as if they were using an electric move, and voila! We'll have energy soon enough."
"So what about the wind turbines, are those still working?" Lauren asked.
"Good question. We should go and check that out. Can someone watch the electric pokémon?"
Niko nodded. "I got it, you all go," The four others nodded and filed out of the room, with Marnie looking back as she did so. They then ran back down the hall through the dark until the lights came back on and they searched for the back door.
"Ah, that makes sense…" Marnie said as she ran over to the problem site. "This freakin' came unplugged! Who would do that…" As she finished posing the question, she saw someone running around to the far side of the building. "Hey! You! Come back!" She shouted, running off after the man. Lauren, JJ, and Brittany quickly followed after her, eventually reaching the side of the building to see a hooded figure dressed in all black clothing standing several yards away from Marnie. "Who are you!?"
"Just someone who enjoys a little chaos here and there," It said in a dark, clearly voice adjusted, tone. They could see a smirk under the hood, with bright white teeth shaped in a grin of sorts.
"I'll asked again—who are you?"
"We should call the authorities…" JJ said. Then the hooded figure jumped into the air, throwing out a pokéball from under it, releasing a salamence. Then the two flew off, but not before destroying a nearby wind turbine, causing it to crash into the river below it.
"Was that…?" Brittany asked, turning to JJ, who shook his head.
"Nope, she wouldn't have any reason to be here," He said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Who!?" Marnie and Lauren said simultaneously.
"No one of importance, because that wasn't her. She would have recognized us," JJ said. "C'mon, let's go. The threat's clearly gone, but you do need to tighten any security that you have," He said, looking at Marnie.
"We just need security, as we have none. But you're right—let me go fix the problem in the back and I'll meet you inside. The pokémon must be tired by now.
Half an hour later, the group plus Marnie were sitting around a table having an early dinner. JJ made a specialty recipe for shinx and pikachu, as well as make something for Marnie's three drifloons as a way of thanking her as well. Curious, Niko pulled out his pokédex for the small balloon-shaped pokémon:
"Drifloon, the balloon pokémon. Ghost and flying type. Because of the way it floats aimlessly, an old folktale calls it a 'signpost for wandering spirits.'"
"Oh, JJ, you don't have to thank us. We should be thanking you!" Marnie said as JJ handed her drifloons three bowls of pokéfood.
"No no, you let us check this place out, and I for one enjoyed it. The only thing that's bothering me is the identity of that person."
"I don't know either, but it's certainly someone you should alert the authorities of. Who knows, maybe others have reported some mysterious hooded person, too," Niko added, looking right at Marnie from across the table.
"I'll do that tonight when my Mom gets home. She has a solid working relationship with the Officer Jenny in Floaroma Town."
Niko and JJ both nodded, finishing their own food. Minutes later, the group got up to leave, thanking Marnie in the process. As they were leaving, Lauren could see a twinkle in Marnie's eye as she said farewell to Niko. Raising an eyebrow, the blue-haired trainer felt oddly possessive for a moment, but was unsure as to why.
Exiting Valley Windworks, the group continued in a northwards direction for a couple of hours until they hit the base of the same river from earlier, and decided to camp out for the night, sleeping soundly after a long day of travelling.
Author's Note: I am quite aware of how little I understand about the physics of energy and electricity, and I made it kind of clear in this episode, so please bear with me. I just wanted to do one episode on Valley Windworks, as it is a landmark in the Sinnoh region and does deserve some attention. I hope you enjoyed, though!
