Friday, October 27th, 2017
For the fourth time, I looked up from my desk to stare out the window at the snowflakes as they slowly fell to the ground. It was far from a heavy snowfall, but I was completely mesmerized by it, in part because I couldn't remember the last time that I'd seen snow before November.
A loud laugh behind me made me jump slightly and I turned around to see Al sitting at his desk with a wide grin, "Pretty isn't it?"
"Yeah," I said with a smile and tried to return my attention to the work I was supposed to be doing, but my thoughts drifted back towards the snow after a few seconds. Unlike many people I knew who liked to grouse about the snow and cold, I genuinely loved Minnesotan winters and was looking forward to the season now that I knew I would have somewhere to stay during it. That said, snow at this point in the year seemed unwarranted and I was glad to see that it was light enough that it should quickly melt off.
Knowing that it would be gone soon somehow made the snowfall even more enchanting and within a few minutes, I was once again stealing glances out the window. Movement on my other side caught my attention and I turned around to see Al exaggeratedly stretch in his chair. When he'd finished, he returned my gaze and said, "Looks like we're not going to get too much done for a bit. Why don't you send out Peren? I want to show you something."
"What about the no Pokemon in the lab rule?" I asked cautiously.
"It'll be fine this one time," Al assured with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Besides, he's well behaved enough that I'm not worried."
Not seeing the point of arguing with Al about his own rules, I shrugged and pressed the button on Peren's Pokeball. He appeared on the floor of the lab and curiously began looking at his surroundings, though he stayed completely still apart from his head. Peren's careful curiosity aside, it was immediately evident what Al wanted to show me as the Pokemon's coat had turned chocolate brown and appeared to be a little thicker than usual.
Al nodded to himself at the sight and said, "I assume you've noticed that Peren here has been changing his coat from day to day?"
I absently nodded, thinking that it would have been almost impossible to not notice. His green coat had become less and less common as the weeks had gone to the point where his orange one had become the default one that I associated with him. Today's brown coat was a new one, but I wasn't exactly surprised to see it given the apparent disconnect between game mechanics and 'real world' mechanics. I realized that Al was waiting for me to say something so I added, "Yeah, I just figured it was normal though."
Al's smile grew into a wide grin and he lightly waved a finger at me. "It's normal here. In other regions, Deerling and Sawsbuck change their coats with the seasons, but here things can change so much from day to day that they change with the weather. The ecotype isn't different enough to officially be considered a regional variant since their type doesn't change, but it's still a specific adaptation that the species has made. It's not as obvious on Deerling as it is Sawsbuck, but each of their coats are especially suited for the weather they're dealing with."
As I considered Al's explanation, I scooted my chair closer to Peren and started rubbing the top of his head, which he gladly leaned into. The differences between the local and foreign members of Peren's evolutionary line made sense to a degree, but it seemed a bit excessive when it came to the amount of energy usage that it would take to change their coat daily. Then again, I was considering creatures that could change their genetic makeup simply by standing in water, so maybe my baseline expectations were farther off than I'd thought.
"What about the rest of my team? What would they be doing for the winter if they were still in the wild?" I looked back towards Al to ask, wondering if there was anything else that I was wildly misjudging.
Al leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully stroked his beard for a moment. "Well, unlike most flying Pokemon, Blitz would probably stay right where he was. The Talonflame line has a high enough internal temperature that they don't need to migrate for the winter. Food would be a bit scarce, but his speed would make sure he's able to catch enough."
Al took a moment to take a deep drink of his coffee before continuing, "It's more or less the same with your other two, actually. Scout would have stored up a stash of nuts and berries, and then used that to get her through the winter. Nin would have found a nice warm spot underground, maybe an old Drilbur tunnel, and then hibernated there. Some Ekans stay solitary for the entire winter, but most of them form a colony to stay with."
Other than Blitz not migrating, that sounded more or less what I was used to with animals back home, and being able to stay in place over the winter certainly made sense for a fire type. I took a few more seconds to consider before slowly asking, "And the pack?" Peren immediately stiffened under my hand and I quickly resumed rubbing his head. Ever since that first day that I had worked solo, I hadn't seen any signs of the Mightyena pack, but Peren and Blitz always seemed generally uneasy, so I always assumed they were never too far away.
Al's easygoing nature also faded at the mention and he frowned slightly, "They might have a tougher time of it with there being only one Mightyena for the six runts. Poochyena are decent enough hunters, but their black fur makes them stand out against the snow. Even if that wasn't the case, they sometimes have a hard time finishing off a kill on their own. If none of them evolve, that Mightyena is going to run itself ragged making sure they have enough food. The good news for them there is that they are technically omnivores. Their diet is primarily meat, but they are able to eat some other things to supplement it. That said, the fact that they attacked a human in the first place means they were already desperate for food."
"So what if some of them evolved then?" I asked, trying to find some hope in their situation, despite how I'd encountered them. Now that there was plenty of distance between us, it felt awful to know that some of the Poochyena that we'd fought wouldn't survive the winter. I was well aware that the pack's survival relied on them killing other Pokemon, but slow starvation in the winter seemed so much worse than the quick death that their prey would get.
"Well, there'd be a couple issues with that," Al began answering, unaware of my thoughts on nature's cruel indifference. "First off, it takes a lot of energy to evolve, which they're probably not going to have. That's why Pokemon grow and mature much faster when they have a trainer. Next, it can sometimes take a Pokemon a bit to get used to their evolved form, so they wouldn't instantly be better hunters. Finally, Mightyena need more meat in their diet than Poochyena, so they would be forced to hunt more and not less."
I glumly smiled when he'd finished, "Yeah, I guess that all makes sense. Thanks for the explanation."
Al must have finally noticed my dropped mood since he coughed awkwardly and declared, "Well then, I think that's enough talk for now. How about we get back to it?"
I silently nodded and moved my chair back to my desk, gesturing at Peren to come with. For the next couple of hours, Al and I silently worked, and this time I only took occasional breaks to pet Peren instead of looking outside. Peren ended up staying out of his Pokeball until it was time for lunch and we went outside to get food for him and the rest of my team. When we were finished eating, I finally returned him so that he wouldn't track snow all around the lab when I returned to work.
Tuesday, October 31st, 2017
It was about nine-thirty in the morning when I finally decided to text Al and ask if he was coming in. The ground was once again clear of the early snowfall that we'd had earlier in the week, but it was still too cold out to go back to fieldwork, which meant that I was once again stuck at my desk. So far, Al had come in a bit before nine on days that we weren't going out, so it was a little odd that he still hadn't arrived. It was certainly possible that he had just decided to work from home today, but I wanted to check since he hadn't said anything the previous day.
I'd returned to what I was working on when my phone buzzed a few minutes later. Al's text didn't offer much in terms of explanation, since it simply said, 'Did you forget it's Halloween?' I had barely started to puzzle out why that was a valid response before he followed up with, 'Would you mind hanging out at the library or gym today? I forgot to get any Cleanse Tags for the lab.'
I still had no idea what was going on, but I was unopposed to his suggestions as they definitely beat sitting at my desk, so I replied that I would. As soon as I'd sent the message, Al responded right away again, 'Thanks. Have a good day off and I'll see you tomorrow.'
I didn't even bother replying before quitting out of the messaging app and switching over to the browser so that I could do a search for Halloween. I didn't have to dig too deep since the very first result was a page that explained what it called the Ghost Host, which boiled down to there being an unusually large number of ghost Pokemon that appeared on Halloween.
In addition to there simply being a lot of them, the ghosts tended to be particularly mischievous and loved to prank people. It was such a distraction that most workplaces and schools closed down for the day and it was essentially a civic holiday. Cleanse Tags would dissuade the ghosts from congregating too much, but if there were too many people in one place, then the Pokemon would ignore them and go about their pranks unabated.
I was still in the process of reading about unusual phenomena when suddenly the overhead lights in the lab started to flicker. Realizing that I should do as Al asked before anything happened, I quickly gathered my coat and made my way outside. After being blasted with cold wind when I exited the building, I started walking towards the gym since I had just been to the library the day before. Plus, if there were going to be a bunch of ghost Pokemon around, I'd rather be in a place where my team was already out of their Pokeballs.
Despite my caution, I didn't see any sign of other people, let alone wild Pokemon, for several blocks. Though it was a small town, Aitkin was generally busier than its size would imply since it was one of the few towns in the area, making it popular amongst the people who lived in the more rural areas nearby. That was definitely not the case today and without anyone else on the streets, it felt like I was walking through a ghost town. The fact that no one else was around made me even more nervous when I spotted a Misdreavus floating above one of the buildings, but thankfully it didn't seem to notice me as I scurried past.
Despite also seeing a Gastly and Shuppet along the way, I made it to the gym unaccosted and sent my Pokemon out right away so they could get started on their training. For once, I wasn't met with a clamor of battle challenges upon entering the building which was a nice change of pace. The kids' parents must not have wanted them to be wholly unsupervised today and I was far from upset about that, though the total silence of the gym was definitely weird.
My Pokemon seemed equally unnerved by the lack of other people but I just shrugged before addressing them. "Looks like we got the place to ourselves today. Let's see… Blitz, I think you've got Ember but let's stick to it for at least one more day and you can focus on making your fire stronger. Scout, keep up the good work with Thunder Fang. Nin, you want to keep with Headbutt? And Peren, do you want to stick with Worry Seed or try something else?"
Blitz, Scout, and Nin all nodded to what I'd told them and moved off to their sections of the gym, leaving me alone with Peren. A few days prior, I'd finally remembered that Worry Seed existed so we'd decided to take a break from Stomp to learn that one, but it hadn't been going particularly well. So far Peren was having a hard time differentiating it between his other seed moves, and I hadn't been able to help since I couldn't come up with a way to conceptualize the move. It also didn't help matters that the only way that we had for him to test the move was to use it on Blitz, which wasn't a popular option for obvious reasons.
Despite all of the setbacks, Peren fired off a single seed from his flower which I took to mean he was still interested in learning the move. "Alright, well, let me know if you change your mind," I said, and Peren responded with a nod before starting to walk away. After a second I added, "And let me know if Blitz gives you any trouble!" I glanced over to the fireproofed corner of the gym to see if Blitz had heard me, but there was no indication that he had as he fired off another stream of Embers.
With my Pokemon all situated, I found a chair to sit in and once again pulled up the web browser app to continue looking into what was up with Halloween. The short blurb that I'd read earlier had explained what was special about Halloween here, but there hadn't been a single explanation as to why there were so many ghost Pokemon on October thirty-first.
In fact, it seemed like the sudden appearance of the ghosts was so accepted as a normal fact of life that for a while I could find nothing that even approached an explanation. Instead, I just kept finding articles with tips about dealing with and avoiding the Pokemon, which wasn't enough to satisfy my curiosity. After almost twenty minutes of searching, I finally found something that attempted an explanation, which turned out to be a research paper. I was disappointed at first when I realized that the focus of the paper wasn't about Halloween itself, but got over that when I realized that its main subject was something critically important to me.
The existence of a multiverse.
I quickly began to devour the contents of the article, skimming past the theoretical physics that went over my head so that I could get the meat of the information. Eventually, I realized that the author's main point wasn't so much the existence of the multiverse, but rather its mechanics. Citing the Distortion World and Ultra Space as examples of other 'worlds,' they claimed that the different 'worlds' that made up the multiverse moved closer and further away from each other on certain dates, which is where Halloween was finally mentioned.
The author posited that October thirty-first was the day that the Distortion World was closest to this one, and the relative proximity of Giratina was what made the ghost Pokemon more active. In a similar vein, he pointed out that a statistically significant number of Ultra Wormholes appear on June eighteenth, making that the day that Ultra Space was closest. Despite the importance of what I was reading, I couldn't help but be a bit surprised at the casual mention of Ultra Space since I'd been under the impression that it was supposed to be a secret. Though, I supposed there was a limit to how long you could only keep wormholes that monstrous Pokemon come out of hidden.
Shaking my head to refocus on what was actually important, I flipped over to the calendar app and attempted to remember what day I'd arrived in this world. I remembered that I hadn't been working that day and I couldn't remember anything going on that I would have taken it off for, meaning that it had to have been Labor Day. Oddly, the first Monday of September wasn't marked as Labor Day on the calendar, but that ultimately didn't matter since knowing that I'd arrived on September fourth was all that I needed.
I spent the next couple of hours trying to make more sense of the paper and scouring the internet for more information. The only time that I looked up from my Poryphone was to occasionally give my Pokemon half-hearted words of encouragement. Eventually, the device gave a warning message saying that the battery was almost out and I quickly stood up so I could have Scout charge it, but stopped myself after taking a deep breath.
If I took the article at face value, it would be almost eleven months before it would be possible for me to get back home. I didn't need to get everything figured out today and when I paired the low battery with the headache I could feel coming on, I decided to take it as a sign that I should stop for the day. Instead of asking Scout to recharge my phone, I called out to my entire team, "Hey guys, why don't you all take a break for lunch!"
With us being the only ones in the gym, we were able to eat right in the middle of the gym's floor instead of having to find a free corner like normal. With that oddly novel experience out the way, my Pokemon returned to their training, and this time I actually participated. About a half-hour later, I was in the process of trying to help Peren with Worry Seed when we heard a noise of outrage from Blitz in his corner. We quickly turned around and I immediately spotted that there were some Embers that had moved away from the fireproof corner of the gym.
I was still in the process of figuring out which of my Pokemon could most effectively put out a fire when I realized that the Embers weren't moving. I stared at the floating fire in confusion for several seconds before I glanced at Blitz and saw that he seemed as perplexed as me. I was about to ask Peren to try putting out the odd flames with Sand-Attack when I noticed that the fire was slowly starting to lose its normal reddish-orange coloring. Moments later, the flames had turned a deep purple and the gym was filled with the sounds of eerie giggling.
Looking around for the source of the noise, I saw that Scout and Nin had likewise stopped what they were doing to watch. After I'd spent a few seconds fruitlessly searching, Peren nudged me in the side before looking directly above us. I followed his gaze to see a small white blob floating near the ceiling, which I was eventually able to identify as a Litwick when I saw a faint purple glow coming from the top of its head.
Blitz must have noticed where we were looking because a split second later I saw a red and white blur streaking up to where Litwick floated. I didn't have time to say anything before he reached the other Pokemon, but he flew right through the ghost type instead of making contact. Without missing a beat, Blitz started to bank around for another pass but halted when I called out for him to stop. He hovered about ten feet away from Litwick and all five of us waited to see how the Pokemon would react to Blitz's ineffective attack.
For several seconds there was no visible reaction from Litwick, then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the purple flames that had once been Blitz's Ember were moving. The five small flames slowly merged together to create a single large purple ball of fire, which Litwick then brought up closer to itself.
"Hey, uh, Litwick," I quickly called up to the wild Pokemon when I saw how close the fireball was getting to the ceiling. "Could you be careful, please? I'm sorry about Blitz trying to attack you." I shot a pleading look at Blitz and was relieved when he made a slightly placating, though grudging, chirp.
Litwick and its fire stilled, then both slowly started to descend down to the ground. Peren stiffened at its approach and I quickly put a hand on his back trying to placate him. Dealing with a fire on the floor of the gym would be significantly more manageable than the ceiling, but I still wanted to avoid a fight if at all possible.
When Litwick reached eye-level with me, it stared directly at me and I did my best to match its gaze. I wasn't entirely sure that was the correct move to make in the situation, but something told me that it wouldn't be a good idea to show fear or hesitation in the face of a wild ghost. After what seemed like thirty seconds, it suddenly giggled and started bouncing in the air. Blissfully, this was followed shortly by the purple fireball shrinking to about the size of a Pokeball.
I breathed a sigh of relief at the smaller flame and nodded thankfully at the candle Pokemon. "Thanks. Umm, I think we're going to get back to training but you're welcome to stick around if you want." Litwick tilted its head slightly and then floated back up another couple feet, which I presumed was to get a better vantage point. Between my words and the apparent danger being gone, Nin went back to practicing Headbutt, but my other three Pokemon kept their attention on Litwick: Scout with curiosity, Peren with light suspicion, and Blitz with near hostility.
"Hey Blitz, I think we can say you got Ember down," I said, once again trying to forestall a potential disaster. "Why don't you move on to Double Team like we'd talked about?" Blitz shifted his attention from Litwick to me and then nodded before starting to fly around the rafters of the gym in a tight circle. He had originally been resistant to spending time on a non-damaging move but had eventually decided to give it a shot once I'd explained that it involved moving so fast that you leave after-images.
Following Blitz's example, Peren and Scout returned to their training as well while Litwick watched the proceedings. After several minutes it became apparent that none of my Pokemon were working at the same level that they had before lunch, primarily because they kept stealing glances at our unexpected observer. While it wasn't ideal, I decided that it was better than the alternative and frankly I should be glad that we were able to get anything done on a day that had been declared a holiday because of the abundance of distracting ghosts.
The rest of the afternoon continued much the same, with the only other occurrence of note was when Litwick split its fireball back into multiple flames. My first thought was that it had decided to cause some mischief after all, but it didn't do anything other than juggling the flames. I slowly realized that it was training itself as well, which almost made me regret the fact that I was out of Pokeballs.
Since using my last two Pokeballs in the forest to capture Mightyena, I hadn't gotten around to buying any more due to their price of thirty dollars apiece. I still had the broken ball that I'd used to capture Mightyena, but a cursory internet search had revealed that while I could get it repaired, there was no one in Aitkin who was capable of doing so. Another search confirmed my suspicion that the only store in town that sold Pokeballs was closed, so I wouldn't be catching anything today, which bummed me out more than I would have expected.
Before reading the paper, I hadn't planned on catching any more Pokemon given that I thought that the four that I had would be sufficient for continuing to earn badges. My other main reason was that I didn't want to catch something only to say goodbye to it and the world a couple of weeks later. Now that it seemed that I would be here for at least the better part of a year, it made sense to expand my roster and Litwick would have been a great pick.
The first and most basic reason was that Chandelure was one of my favorite Pokemon. Even though it would be a second fire type, it was much more of a special attacker so the ghost Pokemon and Blitz wouldn't have stepped on each other's toes when it came to battle roles. Since catching the Pokemon wasn't an option, I settled for simply watching Litwick's practice alongside my Pokemon for the rest of the day.
Saturday, November 11th, 2017
For what would hopefully be the last time, I sat at my desk in Al's lab and worked on entering data into the computer. The last couple days had been particularly cold, but Al and I had still braved the weather to do some last-minute surveys before I was set to leave. I'd long since stopped walking to survey sites since it was simply too cold to do so, instead going with Al in his truck. The sub-freezing temperatures outside sapped too much energy for us to want to spend the time entering the data that we had just collected when we got back to the lab, which is why I was taking care of it on a Saturday morning.
As I worked, I couldn't help but wonder how it would go returning to being a full-time trainer instead of someone who only beat the untrained Pokemon of local kids. The Blizzard Brawl was supposedly where just about all of the trainers in the state competed for the duration of the winter, so I was definitely worried that I was rusty. The one bit of good news was that with my pay from working with Al, I wouldn't be as dependent on the earnings that came from wins as I would have been otherwise. The fact that I would have housing provided by the Brawl made things easier as well.
My only other concern was that I hadn't been able to find any more leads on returning home since Halloween. I hadn't gleaned anything new out of the paper, despite reading it several times since then, and so far I hadn't been able to find any more information on the topic. Despite the frustrating lack of concrete information, I was still glad to at least have found something to go off of instead of being completely blind.
My musings continued as I kept working and just as I was able to finish up, the door to the lab suddenly opened. I swiveled my chair towards the door and saw Al standing at the entrance holding a large paper bag. "Hey Al," I said, confused by his unexpected arrival, "What are you doing here today? I thought we were going down to the cities tomorrow?"
Al closed the door behind him and gently lowered the paper bag to the floor before he responded, "I came over for a couple reasons, one of them being that there's a slight change of plans for tomorrow. Tammy called and let me know that she arranged for someone named Cait to come pick you up. She said that that way you two could go sign up for the Brawl together."
"Oh, sounds good," I replied, doing my best to hide my apprehension at the idea. Other than the couple of texts that we had exchanged while I was in St Cloud, I hadn't interacted with Cait since we met more than two months ago. That encounter had gone far from well so I definitely wasn't looking forward to being in a car with her for two hours. Not wanting to worry Al, I changed topics, "What was the other reason for stopping by?"
"Well, since I won't be seeing you tomorrow now, I figured I'd stop by and give you your going away slash thank you present." I opened my mouth to protest, but Al quickly cut me off, "You've been a model assistant, and your hard work the last month has been a huge help. Case in point, yesterday was your last day and you're still working." He nodded slightly at the computer that I'd been working at to accentuate his point.
I wasn't convinced I'd been nearly as useful as he claimed, but I reluctantly shut my mouth since I had a feeling that I wasn't going to win this discussion. Seeing his victory, Al smiled and continued, "And besides, you're really doing me a favor by taking it. A colleague of mine borrowed one of my Pokemon for some breeding research, and they got a little, uh, carried away. Long story short, there were a few more eggs than he had planned."
My eyebrows shot up as I realized where Al was going, and he continued with a wide grin. "At this point, I don't exactly need a new Pokemon, but I told my colleague that I knew a young trainer that would take great care of it." As he spoke, Al bent down and carefully lifted a container with a large egg inside of it out of the paper bag at his feet.
The base of the container was light gray and there was a dome of glass affixed to it, allowing me to see the egg within. It was about the size of a breadbox and its pattern made it look like it was covered in pastel blue and pink clouds. Completing the picture was the white and red Premiere Ball that was atop the glass part of the container.
I stared at the egg in silence for several long seconds before I finally found my voice, "So… so what's inside?" The egg's pattern looked vaguely familiar but it was escaping me what Pokemon it looked like, leaving me to my awkwardly phrased question.
Al winked at me, "That'll have to just be a surprise then. There'll even be plenty of build-up for the big reveal since it will still be a while before it hatches."
For a moment my stunned smile faded as Al's words sank in and I realized that a baby Pokemon would make my plans to get back home a bit more complicated. It had been less than two weeks since I'd decided that I wanted to add a new Pokemon to my team, but there was a massive difference between catching a wild Pokemon and raising one from an egg. That said, it wasn't as if I could use that as an excuse to decline the overly generous gift and I realized with some surprise that I didn't even want to decline. Though I was still slightly apprehensive about it, I allowed my smile to return.
Thankfully, Al didn't seem to notice the lapse and continued his spiel, "Now, the hatcher will take care of most of the leg work when it comes to taking care of the egg, but you still need to be sure to check on it every day." As he spoke, he took a few steps towards me and I gingerly accepted the container when he held it out. "If you have any questions, just call me or Tammy and we'd be happy to answer."
I nodded and then turned my gaze down to the egg hatcher that sat on my lap, noting that the combined weight of the device and the egg within were surprisingly light. Looking back up at Al, I gratefully said, "Thanks Al, I'll take good care of it."
He hummed approvingly and said, "I know that you will." He paused to glance around the lab before returning his attention to me, "I'm pretty sure that was everything. When you leave tomorrow, you can leave your keys on your desk and just make sure the door is locked behind you when you head out."
"Will do," I promised.
"Well then, that's me off!" Al announced and returned to the lab's entrance. He paused again as he walked out the door to add, "And good luck at the Brawl! I'm sure you'll do great."
A/N: As usual, thanks to both krazykz and Star for their help with the chapter. I also want to thank another one of my friends, Yalatede, for letting me bounce my worldbuilding ideas off of him.
We're finally done with the Fall arc, though the next chapter is a bit of a transitional one before we really jump into Winter. At any rate, next up is Chapter 16: Moving Day
