Everything settles into a routine given enough time. Molly Cypress had yet to encounter any event that could stop that, no matter how jarring, how traumatic. If you were still alive you would settle into a routine.
Like most routines hers started with an alarm, and the requisite inability to acknowledge the noise. There was only one answer to this, and Molly quickly encountered a sudden excessive amount of poking. To complain or to beg would not change her fate so Molly did the only thing she could to sate the beast, and turned off the alarm.
She knew that the poking would only continue in a few moments if she didn't start moving but that wasn't the point. She had already lost the war but refused to concede this battle, she was the Pokémon trainer and she wasn't about to let her Pokémon train her into being a functional person. A heinous plot only a Ghost-type Pokémon could conceive of. She lay back down ready to continue the war for another day.
Within half an hour she was out the door, still chewing some cold crustless pizza. Watching the Duskull that ruined her morning crawl into her shadow nibbling some pizza crust.
In hindsight naming him Dante may have been a bad idea. She resolved to never tell him about how the original Dante wrote a story where all his enemies burned in hell. The hellion didn't need inspiration.
Pausing only to throw the pizza box under her arm into the recycling, she made her way to work.
It wasn't far, the apartment she lived in was owned by her work for that exact reason.
A quick clock in, since computers weren't very common yet, so her sign in was just that, signing her name in the booklet behind the front desk with the date and time. The differences between this world and her old one always interested her. Despite being massively ahead on numerous technologies in some regards, it was rare to see a lot of it being used. Pokeballs were one of the rare examples of something high-tech being available to the average consumer and they had to massively subsidize it too. No one wanted a market to exist for bootleg Pokeballs.
"Hey kid, do you mind grabbing a fresh pot of coffee for us?"
Being stuck at the desk was always a drain, despite there being no one waiting in the lobby, two police officers were expected to man the desks at all times thanks to policy. The policy made sense but in this branch of the SPD was particularly undermanned so those who without essential skills elsewhere would find themselves with an awful lot of it booked in their schedule.
There were few duties that were as universally despised as Front Desk duty. Thankful Cadets weren't allowed to man the desk thanks to Molly's eternal relief, unfortunately this wasn't the same for the sewer inspection which was a systemic purge of the sewer system where every Muk and Grimer down there had to be caught for relocation into a landfill somewhere before. Which involved fighting a Pokémon battle in the bloody sewers, no one came out of that clean or happy. Molly had been unfortunate enough to encounter a Grimer while on her inspection and her senior officers out of an indescribable kindness from the bottom of their hearts let her practice her battling while they watched from afar. Those officers were marked, she never got them coffee.
Molly just yawned and grabbed the empty French press sitting on the desk, she was rewarded with two tired smiles. These two weren't in the Book of Grudges.
Well French press wasn't the right name anymore, it was a Kalos press now she thought as she made her way into the kitchen. The Daybreak Police Department's kitchen was well equipped but the greatest purchase beloved by all the officers there was the boiler right above the sink. Hot water on demand, no waiting around for a kettle to boil.
Quickly rinsing the French press out and refilling it with new coffee grounds, she filled it up with hot water and then found a mug and a tea bag and made herself a drink. She had never liked the taste of coffee in either life.
Stopping only to drop off the coffee pot at the front desk, she made her way to her own desk. One of twenty in the building that actually had a computer, she put the mug down, turned the computer on and looked over at the clock.
12:17pm, perfect. She promptly put her head down on her desk and closed her eyes.
In twelve minutes the poking had resumed.
The war between trainer and Pokémon knew no ceasefire.
"Dante I wasn't asleep I was just resting my eyes"
The Duskull's mask didn't lend itself to facial expression but Dante had long since learnt how to make the most out of what he had and had an impressive really now face plastered on it.
Dante might think he was winning his war but unknown to him, his plan had a minor hiccup, Molly could now take a nap whenever she wanted without worrying about how long her break lasted, surprisingly handy when you consider that the average person doesn't have an alarm clock, calculator, source of all of human knowledge and a phone in their pocket at all times in this world. This battle went squarely in Moly's favour, one of her rare victories.
She stood stretching, reaching over to grab the mug of tea and dropped the tea bag into the trash. The tea was long oversteeped but in Molly's opinion that didn't mean anything, the department brought budget black tea and she had learnt to love the taste of oversteeped cheap black tea in her old life. She started the quick walk to her next destination.
She still liked the same foods and drinks she had in her old life, though a few new foods had entered her favorites list. Magikarp tasted different depending on where it was caught and she was a big fan of river Magikarp which was basically just salmon, the flesh was both better and cheaper, but as a trade off you couldn't eat the skin anymore, it was too tough.
She remembered hearing in her old life that people had different taste buds and what tasted good to you could taste awful to someone else based on genetics not taste. Well with a sample size of two different bodies with different genetics, she could confirm that some people just had terrible taste and any nuanced argument of respecting each other's taste could be ignored.
Breaking that train of thought she stopped outside the Superintendent's office, and knocked. Hearing a muffled "Enter" she made her way in.
Superintendent John Rockwell could have fit on the set of any Earth police drama and no one would have blinked an eye, he didn't have the diverse range of hair colors or eye colours that Earth was lacking, just simple black hair, presumably dark brown eyes but in this world black was an option so you could never be sure. The stubble and bags under his eyes completed the tired detective look even if he wasn't a detective anymore.
"What do you need, kid?"
The voice expressing the utmost desire for nothing too exhausting or emotionally draining at this moment.
"Case fileeeeeeeeeeeees."
He sat up with that and looked more alert.
"Damn forgot I had you on those, alright."
He stood fishing in his pockets and pulled out some keys before making his way to the door.
"How many more of them do you have left?"
"Three full boxes left and the one I was working on yesterday."
Molly said as they made their way to the storage room where all the casefiles were kept, she had been scanning and uploading the contents of old casefiles to the database ever since John had found out she was fairly good with a computer.
"That's all of the low level ones done then, good. How about this then? Do three hours of scanning and I'll have you patrolling with Char and we can do some battling practice before your shift ends."
"Still trying to butter me up in the hopes I come back to the force when the season is up?"
He turned and smiled at her, before turning back to the door and fumbling with the keys again.
"Glad you remember how good cop works then. It'll be good when you come back."
"I already told yo-"
"Yea yea, Cypress is the name of a tree so you have to become a Pokémon professor. Not all Pokémon professor have tree last names kid."
"Oh yea? Name one."
"Just because I can't off the top of my head, doesn't mean they don't exist, there's gotta be one out there that doesn't."
Molly just scoffed at him as she pointed out the boxes she needed on a shelf she couldn't reach without a step ladder. When he turned to pass one of the two, she was already waiting by the door.
"Lazy brat. I still have to lock the door." He said fondly.
Molly walked up to him, and when he leaned down to let her grab the top box, she fished through the pocket she saw him put the keys in.
"I'm not telling you which key it is."
She just grinned as the door locked on her first try, she had kept her eyes open when he unlocked the door in the first place.
Eventually he started talking again as they walked to her desk.
"Look, just consider it alright? The sponsorship we offer will last you three years if you get two badges in your first season and three by your second. I know with a good team behind you can make it to five if not six. A five badge team and Cadet training will see you getting a very generous offer, plus Cadets always get better offers than other trainers do from the police department."
Molly sighed, it wasn't as if she didn't keep it in mind. She just didn't like making backup plans, always felt like it'll make her more likely to fail if she had some kind of fall back.
"I know, I know. Don't worry if I'm broke I'll be hitting you up before the Rangers."
Pokémon trainers were always in high demand by basically every government organization and many private businesses. Catch a Gym Leader's eye and you might be offered a Gym Trainer position which includes a living wage, accommodation, mentorship, training and most importantly connections. ACE Trainers were the Pokémon World's equivalent of the military and were expected to respond to disasters like rampaging Pokémon or military action, most of the time they just did guard work, this era was particularly peaceful. Rangers were basically weird park rangers on steroids, they worked on the routes keeping everything safe. Tracked and if possible relocated dangerous Pokémon away from routes. Posted warnings, found lost people, acted as a coast guard, and many other tasks that involved keeping the balance between the human world and the wilds. Since Pokémon training was heavily encouraged to children in what amounts to an extensive propaganda campaign by every region in the world, Private businesses were always looking to sponsor up and coming trainers to elite trainers so they could act as walking advertisements, or more rarely for private security.
The question was how did you get a Pokémon trainer to quit the Gym Challenge and start working for you? The former was always easy, 60% of trainers would quit before their first season ended. There were a myriad of reasons, from finding they didn't like Pokémon training, or just the constant travelling, sometimes injuries or death, be it the trainer or their team. Seeing their beloved Pokémon hurt badly scared them off, or getting injured themselves. A Pokémon dying almost always ended a trainers career on their first season, and dying themselves didn't need explaining. However the number one reason was always running out of money.
Taking the Gym Challenge was expensive and with how many that attempted it every year, the Sinnoh Government only offered discounts on some services instead of a fund. They weren't being stingy, it was generally regarded that handing out money to teenagers was a waste, after all the first lesson most trainers learnt in their first season was budgeting. Funding went instead to resources and discounts on certain goods and gear. So every organization had their own method of getting new recruits and the most successful was always sponsorships, at some point laws had to be put in place to stop teenagers from signing contracts mandating that they would work for X organization but even with that it was still more cost efficient to sponsor a trainer than to hire one. Though not everyone did, Rangers made do with propaganda, practical experience and offering long holiday periods that coincided with the Pokémon Season for promising recruits.
The Sinnoh Police Department Cadet program was the sponsorship that John had managed to convince Molly into taking. Free accommodation, money and not being stuck in a classroom like she had been for nineteen years since she had gone straight from highschool to university to primary school. It was arguably one of the best paying sponsorships but it had a few harsh restrictions and few would actually manage to receive the sponsorship. For a start, you had to spend two years as a Cadet while attending highschool or delay their Pokémon journey, a six hour shift six days a week. Most of which was grunt work like making coffee, being a messenger and other intern crap. Molly's recent task of scanning over a hundred years of receipts and other case files that were safe to hand to a teenager was a good example. Most teenagers couldn't handle doing a half day at school and then doing a six hour shift at their local police station and if you couldn't keep your grades up you would lose the scholarship.
This wasn't a problem for Molly since she had graduated at age ten and finished her two year degree at twelve, hence her sleep in. The Pokémon World was a lot more accommodating for geniuses, or in this case a reincarnated twenty year old. While this harsh workload sounds counterintuitive to the overall goal of convincing teenagers to rejoin when they have finished their third season, Molly had gotten her suspicion confirmed by John after she had noticed the workload notably got a lot easier after her first nine months. They were trying to get kids to quit, they taught all the basic police procedure, law and policy during those first three months and then the work really ramped up for the next six. The ones who could cut it were statistically more likely to get more badges over their sponsorship they had found, and the ones who failed? They now knew basic police procedure, stuff like what to do in a crisis, crowd control techniques, first aid, and a whole list of things that the Police Department wishes the average trainer knew.
The Cadet program was really a training program in disguise, the few trainers that actually joined after their Pokémon seasons was just a side bonus to their real objective. It was a dastardly plot and Molly couldn't help smiling as she remembered it, she had the only one from her batch of six to make it past those nine months, the sewers did the remaining two in.
John put the casefiles down near her desk and looked at her.
"As long as you keep it in mind, and come to my department if you do. Which is the one you were working yesterday?"
"Top one."
He reached down and picked up that one for her, placing it so she could reach inside while sitting and removed the lid for her. And promptly wiped the smile off her face by stealing the post-it note she had used to mark her position.
"You sick fuck John."
He ruffled her hair and laughed all the way back to his office.
After twenty minutes of comparing papers to the last page she had uploaded yesterday and then another three hours of scanning casefiles and a lunch break, John finally made his way back to her desk.
"Sorry I was stuck in a phone call for the last twenty minutes."
Molly just gave him a look of pure loathing. He shrugged and released an Arcanine, handing her the Pokeball.
"Go run the downtown patrol route with Molly here Char, and don't let her buy you snacks again."
The battle worn Arcanine in a big police vest; John's starter, Char, just grunted at that, and then looked at Molly and gestured to the door. She grabbed her hat, coat and headed out.
Molly was in her second year of University studying Anthropology when she had died, so studying the Pokémon World from an anthropological point of view had been her only hobby when she was younger, well that and freak out adults. For example, on Earth sending a fourteen year old Cadet with a dog to patrol alone would get you fired. In this world however, no one would blink at it. Molly wasn't really patrolling, the route she was going on is the safest route John could send her on, and even if something happened, it was expected that Char would handle it. Molly's real job was to follow along, call in any incidents and write a report for Char if necessary. It was a cultural difference built off how the Pokémon World typically considered fourteen year olds adults that couldn't buy alcohol or vote, but could live alone, and Pokémon as responsible figures. This was a world where babysitting was a very niche market since you could just leave your Pokémon at home and never have to worry.
John was basically sending Molly on a glorified dog walk but she got to ride Char and it was a nice day so she wasn't about to complain. Stopping to pick some gear, notepad, pen, walkie talkie, cuffs, first aid kit and some spare Pokeballs for wild Pokémon, and signed out her gear.
She started blinking at the sunlight, her desk was far away from the windows and she'd been staring at paper or a computer screen for the last few hours. Char was waiting and knelt down to let her climb onto him, his police vest acting as a saddle. She called in her patrol and got the clear to go from Communication. Char moved without a command as he heard it himself with his superior hearing.
She kept her eyes and ears open because it was good to keep in habit but this was for the most part pointless, she knew the best way to know if something was happening was to pay attention to Char. His ears, nose and eyes would spot anything long before she did. There was no point competing in the first two brackets and even with her glasses she wouldn't spot anything before he heard it.
Daybreak Town didn't see much serious crime, at most she expected to deal with a pickpocketing incident and to give some directions. The town made most of its money off tourism, it's harbor long since turned to a lovely waterfront with seaside cafes and hotels. On a day like this yachts would be out in full force, the beaches packed as tourists coming from Carmilla Town and Sunnyshore City came to enjoy some time on one of the few beaches in Sinnoh that wasn't freezing cold.
She was prepared to enjoy a nice calm patrol right up till she remembered what the time was and where her route was going to take her. A sense of dread overcame her as she realized she would be outside a primary school right as they released all the little monsters.
"Hey Char, can you use John's Kalos Press as a chew toy tomorrow morning before he gets his coffee?"
Char just snorted and some smoke floated up out of his nose, her long history with him told her that meant while he was amused, he wasn't going to do it.
"He sent us past a primary school when the kids are going home."
He paused in his step with that, and then grunted. She had him, no further bribery required.
That said even with her revenge prepared, she still had to emotionally prepare herself for the nightmare to come.
Molly hated children.
It wasn't that kind of hate where you saw her referring to children as crotch goblins like those childfree people who made it their personality. No, her hate was born of exhaustion. Molly was six when she regained the full extent of her memories, before she had them to a degree but like they were like half remembered dreams. Rarely impactful and she only had evidence since they expressed themselves in artwork of her own original Pokemon like the Kiwi or the Elephant or what John had referred to as a weird Empoleon when she had first met him. Along with weird personality traits like an obsession with tea that her younger self had and she was fairly confident she hadn't erased some poor child with her existence.
While she had managed to skip being an infant, she didn't quite get out of schooling. Molly now had the patience to impress a saint, not through some innate talent; she hadn't been very patient in her last life, no she had to learn this the hard way. Even if she only had to attend six years of schooling and only four of those with her full memories, that's still nearly a thousand days. Sinnoh might only do ten years of schooling compared to her old nation of New Zealand's thirteen, they made up for it with longer school years, and started earlier to boot. Children weren't terrible; she'd seen plenty of examples of some fantastic kids, but did they ever drain. It was exhausting to be around them and since she had moved so often, she was always the new exciting thing. It didn't help that the most common personality was the unholy offspring of horse girls and Pokémon nerds.
Molly shuddered as they drew closer to the school, she knew this one, they were terrible at teaching children how to behave around Pokémon. Char paused as if steeling his will. They crossed the road, so they wouldn't be on the side the school was, they could avoid the entrance that way.
"Bend down Char, I'm going to have to run interceptor on the dumb ones. Dante, keep an eye on the traffic, just in case."
Sliding off Char, she saw Dante emerge from her shadow where he had been napping and nodded at her, before vanishing back into her shadow. He knew this dance and it was best to keep him out of sight, ghost Pokémon weren't taboo but around children? Best to play it safe.
It wasn't a huge concern, the school bus was the only vehicle in sight right now since cars never really took off here. Rideable Pokémon was Molly's leading theory as to why, especially in Sinnoh on account of Mount Coronet since that made any drives across the country a very long road trip. That said she wasn't about to let Dante get away completely scot free from this, at the very least he'd have to watch carefully while Char and her suffered.
The reaction was exactly as she expected, a few parents caught their children before they ran out of reach but many children were expected to walk home from a fairly young age so only a stern remark from one of the teachers at the crossing held them back from sprinting at them. That teacher even had the nerve to smile at them, like they did some kind favour by doing the bare minimum of keeping his charges in line. The Book of Grudges didn't require a name for an entry.
Most of them slowed down when they closed in but a few kept running, she knew they were about to use poor Char to climb on. There was a solution to this.
"Stop right there."
It was firm, stern and to their credit all but one particularly dumb child stopped. Sinnoh's children were infinitely better trained than what she remembered from Earth, they were just exhausting like all children. She stood in front of the path of the one dumb one, he ran around her and jumped on to Char, she caught him by the backpack before he could land. Exactly as she planned.
She bent down, and stared into his soul. Intense always worked well on kids she had found.
"What. Are. You. Doing?"
"Playing?"
He had the look in his eye that said he knew he was in the wrong, but was surprised he was being called on it.
"Did you ask? Do you know this Pokémon?"
His eyes widened as he started to realize that this wasn't going to be shrugged off, that hesitation meant he didn't respond fast enough to the question and Molly barreled on.
"No, you didn't. You didn't ask me if you could play with my Pokémon, you didn't ask for permission from Char here either. You just treated him like your personal playground without regard for his feelings."
He flinched at that, and Molly kept going. She knew from history how far she could push this and she was getting close to making him cry. She'd have to stop soon if she wanted this to work.
"Would it be fun if Char here climbed all over you? Well he'd probably crush you but I imagine that isn't fun either."
This was how you dealt with them, you gave them a chance to realize their mistake, and made an example of the ones who failed that basic task. The rest would remember this moment, even if they weren't the one in trouble they knew that might have been them. It had the flaw where the example might double down on their behavior but you couldn't help human nature.
"What do you say?"
He sniffled, proving he wasn't about to double down like some did. If he had, Molly would have dragged him to his teacher and used him as a tool in her revenge.
"Sorry."
He directed it to Char so she gave him a nod and let go of his bag.
"Good man, now head home."
She wasn't perfect at handling kids, she was good at it in her own way, but she wasn't willing to go the extra mile. She was happy with an imperfect lesson, so long as it was brief. One of the children who had stopped when she told them, thought fast and spoke quickly.
"Can I ride your Pokémon?"
She nodded and watched as he repeated the same question to Char, and then picked him up and put him in a secure position, Dante would catch him if he did something dumb like swandive off Char. She started moving towards that one teacher before anyone else could ask.
Part of the trick was to reward the smart ones.
Molly enjoyed the smug sensation she felt in her soul for the rest of the patrol. The teacher had fallen for every verbal trap she had left open.
"You mean that was acceptable behavior?"
"Char is a 6th Badge tier Pokémon, a Police vest is not enough to be sure and if you are teaching children that I will be making a note for my superiors."
She didn't end up making a note, John would just try to organize a school trip in the four days before she left to start her Pokémon Journey just to spite her for his soon to be destroyed French press. Doing it in front of parents not subtly listening in was enough, overkill but she had seen too many bad teachers and this guy had all the red flags she learnt to spot.
She called in returning from her patrol, slid off Char who promptly yawned and returned himself. A quick walk to return her gear and made her way to John's office to return Char's Pokeball.
The man in question looked all too eager to use Molly as an excuse to get out of doing more paperwork. Officially he was doing his job and teaching her, in practice the man never got to battle very often and he wanted to beat her around and call it productive work.
Not that Molly cared, John was fair and used some of the department Pokémon not his personal team. John got some stress relief, Molly got to battle a competent trainer using Pokémon on par with Dante and the department Pokémon got training against a ghost.
Win win win, for all parties.
The Police building had a backyard with an arena for officers to practice in on their breaks or after their shifts. It was only rated to 2nd Badge combat any higher and you needed more safety precautions than patch of dirt. Dante was all but humming on the walk down there, in a rare moment where he wasn't in Molly's shadow.
While Molly didn't care, Dante was well aware of the suspicion many had for Ghost Pokémon and kept out of sight of the public when Molly was out and about. He didn't care for his Pokeball and instead would ride along in her shadow, enjoying rest where he would prevent Molly from taking any if she was working. She was convinced John had got him to do it, but didn't want to see his face if she accused him. She knew that smug look too well.
"You ready?"
John called from his end of the field, the Pokeball in his hand could be anything.
"To crush you like always?"
Molly surveyed the terrain as she lied through her teeth. It hadn't rained in a few days so it might be dusty, Dante didn't have a way to kick up a dust strom yet but John's Pokémon might. Nothing else except the burnt out tree Molly had heard plans about getting rid of since she started here and that was outside the boundaries.
He just laughed and threw the Pokeball out. Dante was Molly's only Pokémon so he didn't have to wait for her to make up her mind.
"Buizel!" "Dante!"
Molly didn't throw a Pokeball out, Dante just emerged from the dirt in front of her. Buizel was one of the more common Pokémon you could expect the Police department to have, they were easy to train, could be used to put out fires or leant to Lifeguards when the beaches got too busy. Water-type moves were also less destructive to property, than say Rock-type. It's why Fire-type and Electric-type were popular for the police force.
The training it'll have would be focused on search and rescue and fire fighting. Trying to drain it's internal reservoir of water was pointless as that's where it's training would have started, duration was important, output would come with evolution or could be compensated with more Water-types. He'd be able to pull moisture from the air, and with the coast only but a kilometer away there was plenty of it.
"Dante, it's fast and can deal out damage, but it can't take a hit. Long haul, bait out Pursuit!"
"Buizel, use Water Sprout on the ground around you and wait for him to emerge."
Both Pokémon obeyed the orders from their trainers. Well advice in Molly's case, she didn't believe in shouting every basic command like evade or tackle. Dante knew what he was meant to do. Long haul was how Molly preferred her fights, slugging matches gave her time to think and her style of battle made it less tiring. Interject when she saw an opening, tell Dante which moves were to priorities and which he had to look out for, otherwise let the battle play out.
Dante immediately phased through the ground as Buizel turned the torn loose soil, damaged from past battles, into a mud patch all around him. Buizel didn't even look remotely out of breath, confirming her earlier assumption.
Molly grasped John's plan in a moment.
'He's going to use the mud to slow you down Dante!"
It wouldn't be too severe but Dante had to unphase himself to strike at Buizel, and with the mud all around them some of it would cling to him as he emerged. Fighting ghosts was a lot like dealing with dig, you either used something that could force them out, or started using set up moves like Safeguard or Sword Dance until to force the Ghost to interrupt or lose the lead.
Dante emerged from the mud and Leered at Buizel when it turned, hearing the mud slosh. Dante phased back into the ground before the Water Gun could land. John must have coached Buizel on the way down, because he didn't shout a command.
It was a good educated guess, but the real intent behind the Water Sprout was to give Buizel an audio cue when Dante emerged. The mud wouldn't slow Dante down too much as once he rephased it slipped right off him, but the sound the mud made? That'll give Buizel a moment and it was fast enough to exploit that.
"Use Confuse Ray as well!"
She shouted, trusting Dante would hear her, and then she did her best to counter John's plan. The field was small enough for it to work.
"-ow a song that gets on everybody's nerves, everybody's ner-"
She'd looked over the League Rules once to be sure some of her tactics wouldn't get her disqualified, and there was no limit on what Trainers could say outside of slurs. She planned to remedy that across her career, so she could die happy knowing she was annoying enough to get a rule changed to stop only her.
And that was the fight, Dante would emerge from the ground and fire off Confuse Ray for a moment, Buizel would twist and fire a Water Gun, Dante would phase back underground, rinse and repeat. The short term Confuse Rays slowly built up over time to make up for how brief they were.
It wasn't going perfectly for Molly and Dante, Buizel had managed a few hits and once she started singing, John started calling out directions on a clock whenever Dante emerged. When she finished 100 bottles on the wall, she joined in shouting directions. Buizel hadn't spent enough time with John to know his voice immediately, police Pokémon could be used by anyone and it had the instinct to obey anyone shouting at it in a police uniform.
"Start skipping Dante!"
Skipping being a prearranged move, where Dante would emerge from the ground long enough to be spotted and then diving back down before either side could use a move. It exposed Dante to Water Gun which could damage Dante while phased thanks to the Water-type Energy in the move but without the force from the water it was only chipping away at him, not dealing real damage. The real intent was to force Buizel to keep spinning around.
Soon enough, poor Buizel was struggling with the constant Confuse Rays Dante was using, along with all the spinning around to aim at Dante. Molly didn't call out a command, she trusted Dante to know when to strike.
He emerged from the now thoroughly soaked soil in front of Buizel and smacked both sides of Buizel head using Astonish tanking the Water Gun Buizel fired by reflex and then Shadow Sneaked behind Buizel.
"Pursuit!"
Buizel was fast enough to spin around and use Pursuit, he'd only get faster if Dante tried to phase away but it had flinched and Dante landed the Shadow Sneak, striking Buizel again.
"Hold!"
Dante didn't dive back into the ground, and was rewarded with Buizel using Pursuit after slowly turning around, too stunned and confused to hear John and Molly shouting different commands at it. Dante promptly used Disable without order from Molly, he'd been instructed to at the start of the fight and he knew the drill.
"Keep up the pressure!"
With that the fight was over, John tried to get Buizel to use Quick Attack and Water Gun, one to reposition and one to fire on Dante however, the Buizel clearly hadn't been trained for that and the ghost Shadow Sneaked until John called the fight.
He approached the two while Molly gave her Duskull a well deserved hug and promised him to order a crust only pizza tonight for him.
"Now what did poor Buizel do to deserve that?"
"Exist? Dare to challenge my glorious ghost's undefeated reign?"
John just laughed, he was well used to Molly's antics.
"Well done, you two have been practicing since we last battled. I thought the Water Sprout trick and Buizel's speed would be enough to give you a hard time. Just keep in mind that trick won't work in every fight, Earthquake will still hurt Dante even if he's phased. That said, it'll get you through the first two Gyms."
"I know, it's just one of the best tricks we have available right now."
He shrugged at that, content that his advice had been heard.
"You've got it down, the only training you need to do in future is incorporating new moves. Now then, you didn't take nearly as long as you normally do. Ready for a second round?"
He had one of the department's Magnemites and a smile on his face.
It was time.
The thought gave her pause, she'd grown accustomed to this routine, her lifestyle here in Daybreak town. She hadn't had that very often since she came to this world, at best a few months at most. It'll be another six months before she'd be settling down again, to wait for the next season and it wouldn't be here.
She'd miss this apartment, it had been the first sign that things were returning to how they used to be, that she wasn't a child anymore in need of care anymore. Molly had it to herself for two years now, with only her assigned agent in Child Services and John popping in and checking she hadn't trashed the place. This was the last time she'd see it, the last time she'd lock that door.
There was a weight to that finality that hadn't existed before she died. The knowledge that things could change and never return to the way it had been, how she wanted it to be. It had existed as a concept in her past life, everyone knew it but felt wanted to acknowledge how fragile existence could she felt it deep in her bones, the weight that never again could hold.
She spent most of yesterday cleaning, and then the rest walking the city. It was Monday now and her last shift had been on Saturday and John had thrown a small celebration. She hadn't complained like he expected, not when he surprised her, not when they took photos or gave some speeches, not once, she knew how precious those memories would be now. Besides he brought a lemon cake, that was worth any number of sins.
She wouldn't be taking that much, she'd donated all the clothes she wasn't taking and the furniture was here before her. She had six general outfits fit for the outdoors, and one nice set of clothes and shoes for special occasions or if she decided to enter a contest. A mountain of socks and underwear. Two pairs of boots she had broken in, jandals, comfortable shoes for when she was back in civilization. 26 liters of water, three weeks of non perishable food, cooking equipment, camp stove, camp lanterns, camp chair, camp table, camp bed frame, sleeping bag, inflatable pillow, blankets, tent.
As she went down her physical list she had already ticked off, she thought to herself that perhaps that she had more than she first thought. She hadn't even made it all the way down the list, there was still more to go. The thing was it didn't look like much when you stared at the unassuming messenger bag she had it all in.
It wasn't a bag of holding to her endless disappointment, there were simpler solutions to that problem. The answer was repurposing an existing technology, and so enters the Storage Cube. The technology behind how Pokémon fitted inside Pokeballs but with the life support removed, significantly less capacity and massively overpriced. These little cubes could expand to 30 cubic centimeters, or 12 inches cubed roughly, and then you could jam as much as you could so long as you didn't compromise the seal between the lid and body. Press the button and they shrunk back to their original size and weight, effectively a cube Pokeball that stored stuff not living breathing creatures. She had six of them, all but one the same size. The exception was a rectangle where she put all her tent and other long objects that couldn't be folded inside.
Six was a ridiculous number, most people would be lucky if they could afford two but she hadn't broken the bank for this luxury, hell she hadn't even paid for any of these. While planned obsolescence did exist in some aspects but this was a world where massive chunks of every government had very strong feelings when it came to environmentalism and you couldn't get away with even a fraction of what Earth companies got away with. Because of that, these were all hand me downs from her work, still going strong nearing two decades after they were first brought. She had their warrant of fitness checked a week ago and they were good to go for another two years before she had to get another warrant. Normally these would be kept in the family but the department had still managed to ask around for six of them, even with the expectation that they would never get them back. Just for her, a gesture she wouldn't forget anytime soon.
Unlike Pokeballs which had the patent brought out by everyone everywhere decades ago, Storage Cubes weren't massively subdized so they cost a nifty two to four grand each if you brought the latest model on sale and not secondhand. Hers could probably go for nine hundred if she was lucky, maybe more. The market could be very competitive since the companies producing them had no incentive to lower their prices, governments had to step in to allow some to reach the public but the vast majority produced were snapped up by freight and other logistic services.
A poke in the back broke up her thoughts.
"Alright, just one more minute Dante. Just gotta close the windows and say goodbye to the old place."
He shook his body in a no and pointed at a window she had open earlier to air the place out, now closed. She gave him a look, the Duskull was extraordinarily helpful compared to what she had been forewarned to expect, but sometimes he didn't get it.
"Or we could say goodbye now I guess, you impatient ghost."
She leant down and swung the bag across her shoulders, checked her pockets for anything out of place, her belt for Dante's Pokeball, straightened her clothes and took a moment to take in the apartment one final time.
Her goodbye went unspoken, not everything had to be said. Only remembered.
And with that silent goodbye, she took those first steps and started her Pokémon Journey.
Author's Note: So yea, I'm doing the thing. This will be the first fiction I've written seriously since Primary School, so take it easy on me. Molly is not me, and only loosely based on myself.
Inspiration goes to The Natural by lightningwarrior215, Borne of Caution by Fuggmann and Y'know Nothing Jon Snow! by Umodin. I'm a big fan of The Natural, and wanted to do my own take on the Self-Insert genre.
That said there are elements of each I don't agree with, or didn't line up with my personal headcanon, which partly inspired this fic. I could enjoy the writing but sometimes the world building bothered me and I figured why not do it myself, aiming for a fusion of game lore and the anime. I want to do more stuff like the Storage Cubes.
Somethings that won't be appearing in this fic.
Pokemon team sizes over six: I might change my tune in the future but as of now I've got a firm limit in mind.
The Anime Plot: Let's be honest, Pokemon Movies? Kinda bad. The settings will appear because I kinda love Alamos town and PokeVenice's aesthetic but if the movie's plot appears they'll be abridged. Same goes for Ash, he'll exist but probs not appear.
Metaknowledge from the anime/game: Molly gets whatever I can remember of the anime, so most of the movie plots roughly and a bunch of random assortments of stuff, and then muddled a bit more since I watched them about a decade ago and that's nearing two decades ago for Molly. Same with game knowledge, I overleveled my starter growing up, I don't know anything cool.
The Imperial System: I'll try to include some conversions but no promises.
Smoothed over Departure from Earth: Molly got issues and it may have been nine years since she's arrived, she's not over it. She's also kinda a dick.
Probably some more stuff I can't think of but this author note is getting long, updates whenever I write. Still getting in the swing, I make no promises.