Part #7 – First Night

Eisen was quiet after they left the room they had taken their oath in. They walked the rest of the way to the flight of spiral stairs Satoshi had seen on the way to the room and went up it. Though the stairs continued up further, they stopped on the next floor up from the room they had just left and went down a hallway to a door. Beyond was a lab. The three people there all bowed slightly to Eisen then their eyes turned to Satoshi before they went back to their work. Eisen walked to a table that had several metallic black pokèdexes on it. He picked one up and took it to a machine.

"Satoshi, come over here," he said, pointing to a small opening in the machine he was hooking the pokèdex up to.

Once he was done setting up the pokèdex, the head of security walked to Satoshi and took his hand, placing it into the hole that the newcomer was standing in front of. He pressed a button and smiled. A heavy weight was pressed onto his hand, holding it down with a gentle but firm pressure so he could not move it.

"This may hurt a little."

Suddenly, a needle pierced the skin of Satoshi's wrist and he gritted his teeth because it did hurt. After a moment, the needle was removed, as was the weight on his hand, and Satoshi immediately withdrew his hand, looking at his wrist. He saw the blood still oozing out some but Eisen quickly placed a cotton ball over the small wound then covered it with a bandage. When he looked up at the older man, he was just smiling.

"What was that about?"

"It checks three things." The head of security walked back over to where the pokèdex was hooked up. "First off, it checks your blood for any diseases. Secondly," he pushed a few buttons and detached the pokèdex from the machine, "it codes your new pokèdex for your use only. Lastly, to see what your purity level of you blood is."

Satoshi looked puzzled. "Purity level?"

Eisen continued to smile. "Hard to explain, so just trust me. I'm not the expert on that anyways, that'd be my grandfather."

The trainer flexed his hand some as he watched Eisen walk over to a person in a lab coat who was looking over several dozen pokèballs. Satoshi hurried over, looking at them. "Hey, these are mine, aren't they…"

"Yep." Eisen picked one of them up. "And now they get to be named as well."

"These too!" He groaned. "But like I said before, I'm no good at naming my pokèmon. And now that Shigeru's not here how…"

"I can understand pokèmon languages just as well as Shigeru can. It's a requirement for getting the highest level security clearance."

Satoshi had a feeling he should have figured as much. "Oh."

"We'll go about this one at a time. There's so many here and most have not had their check-ups yet."

For over an hour they went through and named all of Satoshi's pokèmon. It was quite a boring process for Satoshi, though. He thought it was a rather pointless waste of time to name them. Eisen, though, like he had read the trainer's mind, told him at least any of the ones he had had more than one of had not been sent there. He asked what had happened to those pokèmon and Eisen informed him that he believed Ookido-hakase had been allowed to keep them.

After that, though, Satoshi was quickly bored again. He wanted to get on with the tour of the island. There were also so many questions he had. He also knew there was a lot for him to see, considering how large the island was. Once the naming was over and all the pokèmon had gone through their rather quick check-up, all the pokèballs were sent to another room. Satoshi hoped that meant he was about to get the tour.

"Now, there are a few more things that I must mention before we leave here."

Satoshi sighed, which just made Eisen smile. It seemed everyone on this island smiled – except Ichibei, at least.

"There are three items about pokèmon. Firstly, you will be allowed to carry ten pokèmon while on the island. But, if you ever leave you must surrender four of them at the Pokèmon Center. Second, pokèmon can be caught while you're on the island, but you must have cleared permission to do that. Your stuff is already being approved, actually. You must remember, though, that you can only have one of each pokèmon. Third, if you are caught mistreating your pokèmon, you will be reprimanded…severely. The rules on this island prohibit any cruelty to pokèmon, though battles and normal training are not considered cruelty if they remain within reason. Do you understand all that?"

"Yes." For a moment he hoped that meant they were leaving. But he was quickly proven wrong. Could they not be discussing this while they were walking instead of just standing there?

"Now, there is also the note I must make about restrictions and security levels. There are some places that you are not allowed to go, at least at the moment. Right now your clearance is third level. First level is the highest and fifth, the lowest. You can be both promoted and demoted in clearance levels. Kasumi and Takeshi are at fourth level clearance. There will be some places you won't be able to take them or talk with them about. Understand?"

"Yeah," Satoshi said, his impatience showing quite clearly in his voice.

"Good." He ignored the trainer's impatience and just smiled. "You're pokèdex is also your key to enter all facilities. I will show you how to use it a little later." He turned and began to leave the room. "Sadly, since it's getting rather late, we will start your tour of the island in the morning. I'll take you to where Kasumi and Takeshi should be having dinner so you, too, can eat. Then you'll be shown to where you'll be staying."

"Why can't we start the tour tonight? It's not really that late, is it?"

"The tour can take several hours, so unless you want to be up well past midnight, it will wait till morning." He smiled back at the young man. "It's not like the island won't be here in the morning, you know."

Eisen showed Satoshi back up the flight of spiral stairs to the next floor. They walked down a hallway to a door that led outside. They emerged near the center of town. The head of security led the trainer across a large green that had trees encircling it and an elaborate fountain at the center. Here and there around the green were tall obelisks that seemed like they were monuments to commemorate some past events. There were some children out playing in the grass, some with pokèmon at their sides.

The head of security pointed out the Pokèmon Center – a rather simple looking building made of marble. He pointed out a few of the other things of interest around the town's green, as well – two restaurants, which he said the young man needed to try, the grass pokèmon research center, and the breeding center (which was a little ways up the mountain but was still visible to them). He then pointed out another restaurant which was open-air and full of greenery, a small fountain at the center. The top of the restaurant looked to be made of arbors with vines growing thickly along them. As they entered, Satoshi gazed up at the sign reading "Garden Arbor Café".

"Satoshi," called Takeshi from a table. He was standing up, waving to his friend.

Heading over to the table, he waved as well. He noticed that they, too, had bandages on their arms. At least he was not the only one to have had that needle poked into him. When he reached them, though, he turned and saw Eisen was disappearing back across the little park they had just crossed. He hoped that Kasumi or Takeshi knew where they were staying, then, because he had not been told. He took a seat next to Takeshi and looked at the menu.

"The water pokèmon facility here is so wonderful! There were some pokèmon there that I've never seen before!" Kasumi was smiling, her eyes seemed as starry as the sky. "I think I'm going to really love it here!"

"And the breeding center is the best I've ever seen – even if Ichibei seems to be a rather silent, irritable boss."

"Well, I haven't gotten to see anything yet." Satoshi set the menu down with a sigh, though he really had not looked over it any. "This is all so boring for me."

"You had to name all your other pokèmon, too, right? The ones Ookido-hakase sent." The young woman giggled. "Both Takeshi and I only had a few other ones to name – ours were sent over, too." She smiled at her old friend. "Anyways, I'm sure you'll love getting your tour of the island tomorrow."

Satoshi looked back at the menu. "So what do they have to eat here? I'm starving."

"It's all vegetarian," Kasumi said with a smile, spinning some noodles onto her fork.

"Vegetarian? I want something with meat. Which of these restaurants has some…"

"Yuko told me that Lady Reidan doesn't allow the consumption of any meat on the island. The food, though, is really good."

"No meat?" Satoshi groaned and smacked his forehead onto the table. "This is going to be horrible."

"Oh, quit your whining." Kasumi shoved the forkful of noodle into her mouth. "Twy sumfing. Is all gweat."

Satoshi got a plate of what Kasumi was eating and did find it rather enjoyable, though his stomach still wanted something meaty in it. He wondered if he had some sandwich meat still in the backpack from his mom. If so, he could eat that whenever they went to where they were to be staying. While they ate, Satoshi listened to Kasumi talking about how Yuko had told her she would see if she could find a water stone to change Kasumi's eevee into a vaporeon. Satoshi spent a lot of dinner looking through his new pokèdex.

Once they were finished eating, and after Satoshi was informed they did not have to pay for dinner, they all started heading out. Satoshi was about to ask if they knew where they would be staying when they saw Eisen standing nearby waving to them. He led them off and showed them to a rather nice looking set of apartments not far from the center of town and down near the water. He showed them how to use their pokèdexes as the key to the building, and then their actual apartment on the second floor – which the three of them would be sharing. It was well furnished and had a small kitchen, living area, three bedrooms, and a very large bathroom. Kasumi headed straight for the tub for a nice long soak. The guys were shown to their rooms then Eisen left, telling them he would be back to get them all in the morning.

Pikachu went straight to the window and looked out at the water. Their room had a great view of the lagoon. The small island at its center was only visible because it was a darker color than the water around it. He was staring at it for a while before his trainer came up to him, looking out the window, too. Satoshi opened the window and felt the nice cool breeze blowing in off the water as he stared at the island.

"I wonder what's out there, Pikachu."

"Kaapi."

"Oh, that's right. I already forgot. I have a nickname I can call you now." He sat down and scratched his pikachu behind his ear. "Raimei."

The pokèmon sounded happy hearing his trainer call him that then he looked back at the island. He knew what was on the island. Too bad that Satoshi could not understand him, otherwise he would gladly tell him. He looked back to his trainer, seeing him staring out at the island again.

"For some reason, I feel like there's something out there that's calling to me. Something more than just my curiosity."

Raimei nodded. He felt it, too. Though he was not quite sure why his trainer did.

"This is really strange, though. The thought of staying here, I mean." He sighed, already missing his mom and hoping that she would be alright without him. "This wasn't where I was planning to be now that I've stopped with all the Leagues and become a pokèmon master. Granted," he laughed, "I hadn't even known this place existed."

For a while after that, there was silence. Raimei looked back at Satoshi and was surprised to he had fallen asleep, propped up on the windowsill. The pikachu suddenly realized how tired he was from not having slept the night before. He hopped down from the sill and curled up in his trainer's lap, quickly falling to sleep himself.

& & & & & & & & & & & & &

Just as a reminder in case you forgot or to clarify –

Satoshi - Ash

Shigeru - Gary

Kasumi - Misty

Takeshi – Brock

Ookido-hakase – Prof. Oak

All traditional pokèmon and characters are copyrighted to Nintendo/GAME FREAK/Creatures (and any others I've forgotten) from 1996-2006. Author's created pokèmon and characters, though, are copyrighted Sati.