Episode 10: The Storage System Inventor!
"Flareon, use flamethrower!" the third trainer commanded, and the fire pokémon unleashed a stream of fire from its maw and covered raticate in it. The grunt turned over to the trainer, mouth wide open in shock. Returning raticate to its pokéball, he turned to run away when another pokémon blocked him. This time, it was a fox-like creature with yellow fur. "Jolteon use thunderbolt!"
The grunt fell backwards, clearly surrendering when he wasn't able to get back up. The trainer, who the group noticed wore thick glasses and a dress shirt, walked over with his flareon. As he got down to grab a pokéball from the grunt's belt, Officer Jenny came rushing to the site alongside another pokémon, this time bright blue with a webbed tail at the end of its body. The officer got down and handcuffed the grunt from behind, and dragged him up on to his feet before leading him back onto the road.
"Are you alright kid?" the bespectacled man said, walking up to the teary-eyed trainer and patted his shoulder. The kid looked up, sniffling a little but smiling all the same.
"Y-yeah sir, I'm doing fine. I just need to get stronger with my mankey, and then we'll make sure that man doesn't take any more pokémon!" the kid pumped his fist a little in excitement.
"Hey kid!" JJ said, looking at the kid, "wanna have a battle? Let's see how good you are!"
"JJ, his pokémon just got its ass kicked…" Fay said, frowning a little at the lack of consideration.
"Hey, no worries guys! I have some medicine here. We can heal mankey up in a jiffy!" the older man said, getting onto his knees and pulling out a bottle from his messenger bag. "Now, may I see mankey for a moment?" the kid released mankey again. "By the way, name's Bill. Figured I should introduce myself at least," Bill said, smiling as he poured some of the medicine on a wash cloth and then applying it to the part of mankey's leg bitten on by the raticate. "This should take a few minutes to heal, but then mankey should be good to go!" Bill got up and looked at the other trainers watching him. "Say, what're you guys up to?"
"Well," Niko started, "we're just travelling to the coast. My name is Niko, and this is Fay, and JJ, and we're just killing time until the Cerulean City gym opens up again."
"Oh!" Bill looked surprised, "what a coincidence! I live right along the coast. You can all stop by if you've got the time."
The boys looked at each other for a moment, and then nodded in agreement. Bill smiled, and looked back down at mankey, who was finally getting up.
"How're you feeling buddy?" Bill said, getting down again to pet the pig monkey pokémon. Mankey chittered happily, running around a little bit to demonstrate its energy. "Well, looks like you can battle now, kiddo!"
"Heck yeah! Let's go big guy!" the kid said, pointing his finger at JJ.
"You got it!" JJ said, running a few paces backwards and throwing out a pokéball. "Beedrill! Let's go! Use poison sting on mankey!"
"Wait for it, mankey…" the kid said, and as beedrill got closer, mankey then leapt into the air above the poison bee pokémon. "Now use low kick!" the kid yelled, and mankey slammed it foot onto beedrill's head, the two then collapsing onto the ground. Mankey jumped off, and then rushed forward and punched beedrill in the face. As mankey was within close range, beedrill's stingers started glowing and it slapped mankey with the side of it to knock it off. Beedrill then flew backwards and swooped down onto mankey, its stinger colliding with mankey and the pig monkey shooting backwards into a tree trunk. Mankey fell down and, struggling to get back up, ended up fainting instead.
The kid walked over to mankey and caressed it for a moment while JJ and beedrill approached them. JJ reached out his hand.
"Hey kid, you did a great job. You had me and Beedrill worried for a moment…heh…" JJ laughed, scratching his head a little. The kid wasn't crying this time. Instead, he seemed more determined this time, albeit determined to get stronger. He returned the handshake.
"For sure! And next time we meet, I want to battle you and beedrill again!"
"You can uh count on that, for sure!" JJ replied, also smiling. The kid then got up with his mankey and began to walk off down the road, presumably to Cerulean City to rest after the battle. As he disappeared out of sight, Bill turned to the group.
"So, would you all care to join me at my home? I have some things that you all might be interested in," he said, motioning in the opposite direction of the kid.
"Uhh, sure, why not!" Niko exclaimed, looking eagerly at his friends and Bill, "it should be fun! And we'd get to see the beach!"
The group then headed off towards the coast. As they were walking, they learned that Bill was also an inventor. His famous creation was the pokémon computer storage system that trainers use. As they all knew, trainers could only carry six pokémon at a time, and so this system allows them to train more pokémon and rotate them out for battles, such as league matches.
"So if you really want to catch all of the pokémon, then this system is definitely for you!" Bill exclaimed, looking over at the three young trainers, all surprised by the genius of this inventor. "Oh, by the way, I should introduce you to my pokémon. This is Flareon, Jolteon, and Vaporeon," the three pokémon looked behind them at JJ, Fay, and Niko, and all cooed quietly, communicating their greetings. "They're all different evolutions from eevee. Did you know that eevee can evolve into almost a dozen different forms?" JJ looked at him curiously.
"Really? A dozen?" Bill nodded. "Well, I have an eevee actually. What kind of evolution is recommended?"
The inventor shook his head. "There isn't any 'recommended' evolution, JJ. Whatever evolutions works best for you and eevee is the right one. I evolved all three of these by using evolution stones. There are other ways to, as well, such as bonding incredibly well with your eevee. In faraway regions, eevee reacts to a specific type of rock that allows it to evolve into other forms. It's really an incredible pokémon, I would say."
"I wonder what evolution would be best for my eevee…" JJ thought to himself. He hadn't given it much thought, for one thing since he didn't know his pokémon could evolve into so many different forms. Oddly enough, it was a pretty stressful thing to consider, especially at this point in his journey.
They made it to the coast around midday. The boys hadn't seen the sea in ages. Pallet Town was on the southern coast, but they didn't go to the beach as often as one might think. This was partly due to their close proximity to the ocean; since they could see it whenever they wanted to, if wasn't as much of a luxury as it seemed to be at this moment.
Standing atop a cliff along the coastline, Bill pointed over to a rather large house nearby. "That's where I live. C'mon, I'll show ya around."
As they got closer, the group noticed that Bill didn't just have three pokémon. No…he had dozens, all of varying types and species. It was a ranch-style home where the pokémon all lived outside in vast fenced off areas and a larger wooden structure for them to use as shelter. One would think that this coastline would have more human inhabitants.
"People don't usually come to live here due to how often it rains here. There is also the occasional storm, and when they hit, they can be very nasty," Bill noted as he was pointing to the pokémon shelters.
"Are those…strong enough?" Fay inquired.
"Well, not really. I actually need to reinforce them. The pokémon like to help out with that; it's a nice bonding activity for all of us," Bill smiled, petting Jolteon, "I'm never really lonely. They all keep me company, and if I ever need human interaction I'll drive back down to Cerulean City or fly to another city or region to do research or help implement new inventions. When I first created the storage system, I had to travel all around the world to set it up in each city. Luckily, I had some help. Like Celio on the Sevii Islands, or Lanette in Hoenn."
"Sounds like a nice job, Bill," JJ said, petting a butterfree that was sitting on the fence next to him.
"It's a lot of hard work, but that's what I love about it. You know it's your dream when you have to spend days on end trying to work at it. And when the going gets rough, you don't just give up. You keep going, because you love what you do. You have a passion. Mine is research—trying to understand this world to the best of my ability, and using that knowledge to make life better and more fulfilling for those around me. That's the inspiration behind the storage system, actually," Bill said, winking at the end.
"Did you want to do all of this when you were our age?" Fay wondered.
"Well, actually, yeah. I invented the storage system when I was your age."
"What made you want to do research, besides understand this world?" Niko asked. "I mean, what was the catalyst for your passion for studying?"
"Oh, hmm…" Bill rubbed his chin, deep in thought. "I guess I'd have to say it was a teacher I had when I was younger. I didn't grow up in a rich family; it was more modest than you might imagine. No one in my family did any sort of scientific job for a living. So when I was going to school here—I'm originally from the Johto region—I had a teacher that really sparked my interest in computer science, and it all kind of just snowballed from there, I guess."
"Interesting…" Fay said, now also deep in thought.
After looking around outside, Bill brought the group into his home. It was far more incredible and impressive on the inside as compared to outside. There were machines upon machines, all hooked up to each other. As they walked from room to room, they noticed more of the same: sometimes rooms full of arcane machines, other full of servers. For any tech nerd, it was truly a sight to see. Eventually, they got to one room in the very back of the house. As they were about to enter, Bill stopped them.
"So years ago I tried a…unique experiment, to say the least. I tried to become a pokémon myself," the group's jaws dropped. "Yeah, I get that reaction a lot. It ended up not working out as planned, and a very kind trainer ended up finding me here and helping me out a little bit. Years later, it definitely seems like they solved the problem!" he chuckled, "or maybe not. Sometimes it's hard to tell!
"Anyways, I'm about to show you the machine that I used. Hopefully you find it as neat as I did," Bill remarked as he opened up the door. Inside were two machines hooked up to each other, and then hooked up to a rather large desktop computer to the side of the room. The group walked in and explored the technology for a couple minutes. As they were doing so, JJ must have touched something on accident and ended up opening the capsule. He walked in.
"JJ what the hell are you doing?" Fay yelled, scolding his friend, "what if it still works?"
"It doesn't, actually," Bill said, "Since my last attempt at turning into a pokémon, I haven't used this machine."
As Bill was talking, his flareon jumped onto the desk where the computer lay and pressed a button, turning on the computer. Once it was on, the pokémon pressed another button, closing JJ in the machine and turning it on in the process.
"Oh no…" Bill said softly. "Uhh…I guess…it works?"
"JJ! WHAT THE HELL MAN!" Fay screamed at his friend, who was banging on the glass window of the machine before being teleported.
"Bill! Bill what's happening to him?" Niko yelled out to the inventor.
"Well…he's going through that big cable on the ground. If the machine works, then he'll appear on the other side."
"And if he doesn't…?" Fay said, growling.
"He's stuck."
"Excellent," Niko muttered.
Luckily, however, JJ wasn't stuck. What came out on the other side of the machine was indeed JJ…but it certainly wasn't human. It was an eevee. JJ turned into one of his own pokémon. Bill then ran over to the desktop, picked flareon up and set it back on the ground, and started trying to reverse the machine. After a couple of minutes, the machine JJ was in started to glow, and he once again disappeared, only to reappear in the first machine a moment later as a human. Walking out, JJ gripped his head in pain.
"How do you feel buddy?" Fay asked, now less angry and more concerned.
"Well, I have a massive headache now. But otherwise I feel fine."
"Don't ever freaking do that again, you understand?" Fay said, now getting over his concern, "What if you got stuck in that cable, or you died?"
"I know I know, it was more of an accident than anything. Won't happen again."
"Good," Fay said, turning back to Bill, "what happened there?"
"Oh, it was flareon actually. It must have hit one of the computer keys that turns the machine on by accident. Everything is good now, and glad it worked out for you, JJ! How did it feel?"
"It felt…weird. Like, I could think and remember everything I've ever done, but couldn't speak English."
"Makes sense, you're a pokémon, and they don't speak our language," Niko piped in, glad that his friend was safe.
"Interesting…anyways, what a day!" Bill exclaimed, "First that skirmish with Team Rocket, and now this! I don't usually see this much excitement, much less in a single day," The inventor then motioned his new friends back out of the room, "C'mon, I'll make you boys some food. You can hang out here until tomorrow, unless you have other plans."
"Wow, that would be wonderful, Bill. I think the gym will open back up tomorrow anyways, so it works out just fine with us!" The inventor smiled, and the four went back to make lunch and enjoy the rest of the day.
The following day, Bill offered to drive the group back to Cerulean City after healing up Fay and Niko's pokémon first. When they got back to the city, the two would finally get a chance to challenge Misty for their second gym badge.