Chapter 6: Knowledge is Power

"Where am I? Right, pokemon center. Bed. Warm. Good." Nate's first proper night's sleep in the pokemon world had clearly been a good one. After an indeterminate amount of time, Nate finally woke up enough to get out of bed. Thankfully, the center had washing machines and showers. Even if the latter were a bit communal for Nate's liking, it was far better than going unbathed. The center also had a bit of food for trainers, which Nate gratefully accepted. Finally, he walked up to the front counter.

"Can I help you?" said the nurse at the counter.

"Hi, I dropped off my Paras last night, I was wondering how it's doing?"

"One moment." The nurse left behind a door, and came back a few seconds later with a pokeball in one hand and a clipboard in the other. "Your Paras seems superficially healthy, and his fungal growth seems to be under control," She said, handing Nate the pokeball, "But we don't have any bug type specialists on staff, and there's very little medical documentation on the Paras line in the first place. For now, we're giving him a tenuous bill of health, but if any problems come up make sure to get an appointment with a bug type specialist."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Nate, taking the pokeball as well as Paras's medical charts. Nate stared at the chart for a bit, before realizing the futility of the action, the combination of medical jargon and bug type jargon made the thing damn near illegible. "At least now I know Paras's gender." The nurse seemed amused at Nate's confusion

"First pokemon?" Nate nodded at the question. "Thought so. I must say, he's an unusual pick for a starter."

"Well, Paras wanted to come with me, and who am I to refuse?"

The nurse lost her customer-service smile in favor of a genuine one, "That's exactly how it should be! I'm glad you understand." Nate was surprised at the nurse's sudden proclamation. "She must see a lot of entitled kids who think they deserve a Dragonite as their starter, instead of the Patrat or Lillipup they got."

"Say, does Undella Town have a library? I'd like to see if I can read up on Paras."

"Of course, let me write down some directions for you."


Nate entered through the front door of the squat, brick building. "That took longer than I expected. Either that nurse sucks at giving directions, or I suck at following them."

The library was on the small side, and was completely deserted, apart from a librarian napping at the counter. Nate debated waking him, but ultimately decided he would browse on his own. "If I can't find what I'm looking for, maybe I'll get his help." Browsing the library was a bit more of a challenge than Nate expected, mostly because of the absence of the Dewey Decimal System, but he eventually found a shelf full of books on raising pokemon. There were numerous books dedicated to water types, and a good number of flying and normal type books as well. Unfortunately for Nate, there were only two books on bug types he could find; "Bug Types and You," and "Guide to Unova's Bug Types, Vol. 2." There was no volume 1 to be found.

There was little to be gained from either of the books. The first was clearly aimed at children, and dealt mostly with caterpie, weedle and wurmple. The second was an extremely dense manual on Karrablast and Shelmet. Once Nate realized neither book had anything of value for him, he leaned back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh.

"Xat."

"Ah!" Yelped Nate. After a long while reading in silence, the unexpected cry of a pokemon was very startling. Nate found the source of the noise standing directly behind him. A lime green bipedal bird, standing so still it could be mistaken for a statue. Around its neck hung a lanyard, with a name tag attached: "Tole. Assistant Librarian."

"Oh, sorry, you startled me."

"Xat."

Nate was having a much harder time interpreting Xatu compared to Mankey or Paras. He couldn't tell if it was annoyed, happy, or bored. "Hell, I can't even tell if it's breathing."

"Xat." This time Xatu unfurled a wing and pointed it at Nate's books.

"Oh, no, I didn't find anything useful in th..." before Nate could finish his sentence, the two books floated away, back to their place on the shelf.

"Say, Xa...Tole, you wouldn't happen to have any books with information on Paras, would you." The pokemon stood completely motionless. Nate wasn't sure if it even heard him, until it mechanically shook its head back and forth. "Darn... does the library have a computer I could use, then?" This time, Tole nodded its head immediately. "I guess it didn't have to think about that question." Tole unfurled another wing, pointing at the staircase leading to the second story. "Thanks." Nate looked to the staircase, then back at Tole, only to find the psychic type had disappeared.

Ignoring the mysterious case of the disappearing pokemon, Nate climbed the stairs to the second floor. There he found several computers sitting on a table in the center of the room. Nate sat in front of the nearest one. "Time to get googling."


The first thing Nate found out was that google didn't exist. "Should have been obvious, in retrospect." It turns out that the ubiquitous search engine was called poochle, and featured a cartoon Poochyena as a mascot. After about an hour of poochling, Nate had compiled what he had learned.

Most importantly, this was the in-game world, mostly. The first thing Nate looked up had been "Ash Ketchum," which returned zero results. However, this world still retained some elements from the anime. Most notably, the annual Pokemon League tournaments. Nate also made sure to look up the various villainous teams, which thankfully had been defeated by their game's respective protagonists. Nate was especially relieved to discover that team plasma had already been defeated twice. "That means I don't need to worry about randomly getting frozen by a flying pirate ship."

The next thing Nate searched for was information on Paras. The results were less than ideal. The biggest problem with the pokemon is its symbiotic relationship with the fungus on its back. The fungus surrounds Paras's digestive system, stealing nutrients in order to grow. The Paras, meanwhile, gains protection in the form of spores. That's how the system works at first, but things get more complicated as the pokemon matures. The fungus grows significantly faster than the bug, as do its nutritional requirements. If the Paras is unable to secure enough food, the fungus begins to feed on its host. If the fungus ends up eating too much of the host, then they both die.

Things get much worse once Paras evolves, however. It turns out that the fungus evolves alongside the pokemon, gaining a load of intelligence in the process. The newly-sapient fungus takes over its host's body, and from that point on the bug type is functionally dead, and the fungus becomes the sole occupant of the body. When Nate read that last bit, he very concernedly looked up everstone prices, which thankfully were far cheaper than other evolutionary stones.

None of this information was easy to find, mainly due to the Paras line's unpopularity in battles. In fact, Nate was only able to find two notable Parasect users. The first was a quarter-finalist in the indigo league 12 years ago, who Nate couldn't find any trace of outside of that one tournament result. The other was a gym trainer at the Azalea Gym in Johto, who has been confirmed to occasionally use a Parasect when testing gym challengers.

Not all of Nate's research was so dark. He also took the time to look up some of the many questions that had been plaguing him since his arrival. Large animals did, in fact, exist, but were very rare, located only in sparse ranches or zoos. Their rarity stems from the fact that they lack any way to protect themselves from predatory pokemon, meaning that cows can only graze in pastures that are either very far from any predators, or are constantly protected by the rancher's own pokemon. Because of this, meat is far more expensive in this universe than Nate's used to. Most produce, however, is extremely cheap by comparison, owing to the fact that grass types can speed up their growing. Dairy was also much more popular here as well, because Miltank and Gogoat are so much more productive than cows. Interestingly, veganism is practically nonexistent. Back on earth opponents of dairy would say that an animal can't consent to giving away its milk, but because trying to forcibly milk a pokemon is basically suicide, it's guaranteed that all milk is given consentually, so there's no ethical concerns. Additionally, pokemon milk was almost unbelievably healthy, comparable to the already miraculous berries. The thought of food made Nate's stomach growl, and he suddenly realized how long he had been at the computer. He decided to head back to the pokemon center for some lunch. On his downstairs, he noticed that the librarian was still asleep. "I guess with Xatu running things, the librarian doesn't have much to do."


When Nate got back to the pokemon center, he saw a familiar face waiting for him.

"Nate!" yelled Bianca, "There you are! I've been looking for you all morning!"

"Really? Where have you been looking?"

"The beach! Where else would someone go in Undella Town?" she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, I spent all morning doing some research at the library." Bianca looked confusedly at Nate.

"I didn't know Undella Town had a library. Did you learn anything exciting?"

"Well, I learned raising Paras is going to be a headache and a half."

"How come?" Bianca tilted her head questioningly.

Nate gave Bianca the rundown on the Paras line's peculiarities. Once he had reached the end, Bianca looked like she wanted to cry. "That's so sad! Wait right here!" Without warning, she dashed away.

A few moments later, she came back clutching a messenger bag. "I know it's in here somewhere." She began rifling through the bag, first with one hand, then when that proved insufficient, put the bag on a table and used both hands. "C'mon, where is it!" Without warning, she bent over and stuck her face into the bag to aid her search. "Is that a freaking bag of holding? I've gotta get me one of those... I wonder how much it weighs. Damn, I kinda wish I was back at the library now."

"Found it!" Her upper body literally popped out of the bag, and in her hands she was clutching a small grey pebble. "Here you go, one everstone."

"Wow, it's so... plain?" Honestly, if the stone was lying on the ground, Nate wouldn't even give it a glance.

"I know, right? Thunderstones are so sparkly, and ice stones are cold to the touch, and dusk stones suck in light! But then everstones are just plain looking rocks! Cool right?"

"Uh, yeah?" If there was supposed to be any meaning to what Bianca said, Nate clearly missed it.

"So, are you gonna give it to Paras or what?"

"Oh, right!" Nate grabbed Paras's pokeball out of his pocket. "I've gotta get one of those belt-holsters." "C'mon out buddy, Bianca got you a present. Paras looked around, saw Nate, and immediately began trying to climb him like a tree. "Ow! What did I tell you about how sharp your legs are?" If Paras understood what Nate was saying, it didn't show. Nate sighed, and changed the subject. "Paras, meet Bianca, Bianca, Paras."

"Aww, so cute! Do you have any name ideas?"

"I can honestly say I haven't thought about it. I'll brainstorm some ideas over lunch." Paras chirped with joy at the mention of lunch. "Yes, you'll get lunch too."


"Hmmmm, Symbiote? Sym? Cordyceps? That's a little on the nose. Psilocybin? Nah, too edgy." Nate stared at the Paras he was thinking of names for, currently stuffing its face with center-provided pokemon chow. "Tarrare?"

"Any Luck?" Bianca asked questioningly.

"Nah, I can't think of anything I'd actually want to call him."

"Hmmm," Bianca stared at Paras for a while, who seemed to finally notice that he was the subject of attention. "Micah." She said decisively.

"Micah?" Nate played with the idea for a bit. "Micah, use spore! Micah, dodge, then counter with x-scissor!"

"Yup, Micah. Short for Mycorrhiza," said Bianca, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Nate stared incredulously at Bianca.

"What?"

"Nothing, I just forgot that you're actually supposed to be a scientist," Nate teased.

"What's that supposed to mean!?"

"So, Paras, what do you think? Is Micah a good name?" Nate ignored Bianca's outburst in favor of talking to his pokemon. Paras seemed content, though to be honest, that could have been because of the food. "Alright, Micah it is."


"Tell me again why we're doing this?" Nate was behind the pokemon center, standing on one side of a practice field, Bianca was standing on the other side, pokeball in hand.

"Because, if you're going to be one of the Professor's sponsored trainers, you'll need practical battle experience," yelled Bianca from across the arena.

"I know, but don't people usually start off against wild pokemon? Maybe against other no-badge trainers? You competed in the Unova conference!"

"Don't worry, I'll go easy on you! Come on out, Frederick!" Bianca ignored Nate's protests and tossed out a pokeball, from which emerged an enormous dog with an equally enormous mustache. Micah seemed terrified of his opponent, and Nate didn't blame him.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Don't worry about Frederick, he can handle Micah's attacks just fine!"

"I don't know any of Micah's attacks though."

"Oh, right, let's see..." Bianca fished through her bag and pulled out a red plastic rectangle. "That must be a pokedex." "Okay, Dexter says he knows scratch, sleep powder, poison powder, stun spore, and absorb."

That was another thing Nate had to get used to. Pokemon could use way more than four moves, but Nate still wasn't sure if there was an upper limit.

"Alright, fine. Micah, use sleep powder!" Micah started to shake like a wet dog, and from the mushrooms on his back emerged a cloud of orange spores. Nate watched with anticipation as the cloud... continued to float around Micah, until it eventually settled to the ground. "Okay, I guess we need to work on aiming your spores before that's a viable battle tactic."

"You see? This is why you practice before jumping into a serious battle first" As annoyed at Bianca as Nate was for suddenly springing this training bout on him, she did have a point. It would've been awfully embarrassing for Micah to get trounced by some youngster and his rattata just because Nate didn't know his pokemon's capabilities.

"Alright Micah, let's try absorb" Micah chirped in affirmation, and then the mushrooms on his back began to subtly glow. At the same time, motes of green light began floating off of Frederick and towards Micah. If the Stoutland was at all bothered by the attack, it didn't show.

"Hmmm, that's a bit weaker than I was expecting. I guess Micah didn't do much fighting before you caught him," said Bianca.

Nate thought back to when he first met Micah, getting tossed around by a Tangela for attempting to steal food. "I think you're right, but I suspect he's probably better at taking damage than dealing it."

"Okay, let's test your theory! Frederick, tackle!"

"Bianca, what are you doing!?" Before Nate could recall him, Micah was sent flying by a furry missile. Nate glared at Bianca with exasperation.

"Ehehehe, oops."

Author's Note: I'm not terribly happy with this chapter, it ended up a lot more meandering than I would have liked, but I can't justify rewriting the whole thing. Also, Nate and Bianca ended up reading as way more flirty than I intended, so I'm just gonna say right now that I have no intentions of adding a romantic subplot to this story for the time being. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, thanks for 100 follows.