Special thanks to my awesome Betareader MewMewExorcist: if this chapter is here is thanks to you.
It would be great if you would like to show her your appreciation and/or have a look at her stories too: u/3246323/MewMewExorcist
Chapter 2: Test
February 27th 1996, Tuesday – Pallet Town
About two hundred people, from the age of 10 to the age of 20, were sitting in the large room on that day. The huge main hall had been designed like a Greek amphitheater: the seating was placed on different levels, allowing who was in the back of the room to freely observe the little stage at the bottom. It felt like being at a university class. Pure silence.
The audience attention was stolen by the huge LCD screen on the wall in front of them.
Everyone was greedily watching the images that the monumental device had been offering for more than 30 minutes now, and even if the quality of the movie wasn't excellent, that rarity was a pleasure for the eyes of all the students in the room. Two beings, in front of each other, were on that enormous screen that almost filled the whole wall.
It had been a no hold barred battle and now the curtain was ready to descend on this fragment of history: both trainers had just one more pokémon left.
The first one was a gengar, Ghost and Poison Type monster with the characteristic body that resembled one of a huge wingless bat, only filled by livid toxic gases. The second was a nidorino, a ruddy Poison Type that seemed a crossbreed between a porcupine and a little rhino. This one excelled in sheer force but, even if stronger, his strikes seemed to slip through its opponent body like in a cloud of steam, inflicting no damage. There wasn't hope for the little rhino pokémon to win, for only the ghost could hit him.
Both were fighting with no rest, trapped in that almost 30-years-old film. The finals of the first edition of the Pokémon League: the legendary "Tournament on the Indigo Plateau".
Nidorino had been sent on the field for last, when the gengar was already exhausted and had a serious burn from the battle it just won. But nothing seemed able to help the little rhino from that one-sided battle.
The two pokémon were running out of energy and the battle was out of plot twists.
The Poison rhino had just recovered from the last hit and, channeling its last drops of stamina, jumped towards his opponent with just a "tackle" that the gengar skillfully avoided. It almost look like the strike went through an actual incorporeal ghost body. This kind of mistake couldn't exist in a high level match of this kind. Even thirty years ago it was known that Normal Type attacks had no effect on Ghost Type pokémon but... Something unexpected happened. The ghost had fallen into the ground, defeated.
How was it possible?
A lazy hubbub started to fill the room while the audience was trying to catch the information that could reveal what happened to the livid pokémon.
The answer came from the east side of the room and began to spread through the idle talk. A burn, if not treated, caused a slow but unavoidable loss of energy. Gengar's trainer hadn't any pokémon left. The match was over; and with it the whole Tournament.
As the movie ended the room fell in a dead silence. Now the big monitor on the wall was empty, blank. No one would ever expected a simple conclusion to a battle so epic.
Yes, simple. Maybe it was just luck, or maybe that nidorino served just to gain time hiding the development of a tactic thought since the beginning? The silence, and the thoughts of the audience, were interrupted by an applause coming from just one man on the stage that seemed to disappear in his long white lab coat.
Everyone followed his actions, for he was their teacher after all, even if just for that summer.
Well… technically Elm was just an assistant who had stepped into represent the actual professor, but he was still considered an expert when it came to pokémon. If he tried hard enough he could pass as a professor, being in his mid-thirties, with a skinny build, bristly hair, and glasses. He certainly looked the professor archetype.
"And with this video..." Started Elm weakly. "The first pokémon related academic study session of the history ends." The movie touched him. "It doesn't matter where you are from, Viridian City, Fuchsia... No difference at all!" Suddenly his voice had changed and turned loud. He had manage to shake off the emotional effects of the movie, and now turned towards motivating the audience.
"Every single one of you is here..." Silence followed. "To become a Pokémon Master!"
The audience was now hanging off his words.
"After his uncontested triumph at the Indigo Plateau, which we have just admired, the Professor decided to share the result of his studies with you young promise..." This certainly was a prelude to a long speech everyone in the audience knew that and their thoughts would have been clear even at first glance: "ENOUGH BLABBING!" Was the only thing they've wanted to say. But, obviously, no one spoke.
"During the summer..." Elm was the only one that hadn't noticed, he was too busy finding the right words. "You have studied, you have prepared and waited for this unforgettable day here, at Pallet Town's Laboratory... BUT!" He swallowed. "Before commencing the test..." He was almost shaking in excitement. "We would like to extend a warm wel..."
The young assistant stopped talking. From the hall came echoing footsteps, accompanied by the taps of a walking stick. "Come on, Elm. Enough with all this..." A voice said, while a figure come into view from the back of the hall. He was wearing a white coat too. "I'm just a poor seventy-year-old man!" The man chuckled, pleased, while he approached his assistant.
His grizzled hair was dense despite his age, but the time had found other ways to mark him. Wrinkles highlighted every one of his expressions while, slightly, he limped walking toward the stage, supported by his walking stick. Everyone in the hall knew who he was, they had even seen him to fight and won earlier.
He was surely aged, but there was no doubt about it. In front of them there was whom have been the first Pokémon Master in history, the current "Pokémon Professor": Samuel Oak.
The spectators started a loud round of applause but the professor stopped them immediately with a gesture of his hand. He took the microphone from his assistant and, clearing his throat, started talking to the audience.
"Hello there, trainers wannabe. I introduce myself, my name is Samuel Oak, but people call me the Pokémon Professor." He reached one of the large pockets of his lab coat with the empty hand to take out a PokéBall. For lot of the people in the audience that was the first time seeing that little device in person. It was just a bit smaller then a fist and made of smooth and lucid metal, half red and half white with a black stripe in between.
"This world" said Oak. "Is inhabited by various species of creatures called Pokémon."
Three rectangular portions of the object, like little hold doors, lifted by a couple of millimeters from the sphere revealing bright outlines of a feeble blueish light. The white and the red half of the object rapidly separated showing a tiny pillar inside the sphere, it seemed like a turbine, while the black stripe started to spin round and round. Three flames made of the purest light came out the device and immediately rejoin on the ground, while the PokéBall was already put back together in Oak's hand.
In an instant a tiny four-legged creature had appeared. The cyan colored fur, the tiny whiskers and the big bunny ears gave it a cute and harmless appearance. A female nidoran specimen, which emitted a feeble cry to the audience.
"For some people they are pets. Others use them for fights. Myself..." Oak grievously lowered his eyes. "Alas, with my aches and pains battles are part of the past."
Nothing weird about it. The spectators, studying apart, had took part in practical exercise essentials for a "trainer": an explorer with practical skills in trekking, hiking, surviving in hostile environment and even self-defense. And to catch and classify the wild species, in environments just as much wild, these skills were just the bare minimum. Teach a pokémon to obey orders was just a tiny bit of a trainer duty... So it wasn't difficult for the audience to understand why battles were just part of the past of the old, limping Samuel Oak.
"Now I'm only one of the most famous researcher in the world" He chuckled while the nidoran went back in the PokéBall. At least he seemed to have regained his good humor. "For three whole months you waited for this day and finally... Here we are!" All the public was focused on him. "At the end of the test you're about to take, every one of you will be given a License, a PokéDex and a supply of six PokéBalls."
Not bad at all. Each Ball costed barely 200 Yen at the Mart... But the Dex was a technological knick-knack far more expensive, almost 80,000 Yen.
[1,00$ is 113,75¥. So a PokéBall and a Pokédex have a value of, respectively, 1,75$ and 703,30$]
Although, even if pleased by the information, the examinee was expecting something else, an information far more juicy then the last one.
"But the three of you that will score the best results... Will be able to choose and take with them one of the three rare pokémon of the Pallet Town Natural Reserve!" To these words the audience was drowning in excitement. Everyone was waiting for this, for the real goal of the test: to get a good Starter Pokémon from Professor Oak.
One guy seemed to be the most agitated. Fourth row on the left, last seat. Medium height for someone in his twenties, brown eyes and hair but, above all, a considerable punk crest.
"Only the best three?" He thought. "And there goes my chance of getting a free pokémon that is not a rattata..."
Elm took the microphone and said loudly. "The test is on the laptop in front of you. You have 90 minutes starting from... now!" He pushed a key on his computer's keyboard and a timer appeared on the huge LCD screen on the wall. The first trial on their path to become a Pokémon Masters.
Everyone opened their laptops and started to read the questions that were keeping them distant from their first achievement.
"Is it true that your grandson is one of the participants?" Elm whispered at Professor's ear.
"Over there. Fifth row in the center, second seat from the right." He answered while getting closer.
"The brown-haired one?"
"Indeed."
After indulging for a second Elm continued. "Hum... You think that... well, I mean... your grandson will be among the top three?"
"Oh. No, no."
Actually it was comprehensible that it was difficult to reach the top positions among all of those participants, but the bluntness of his hoary mentor had took Elm unprepared.
"My grandson will be first, of course."
The assistant was surprised one again. "First? Oh, well... If you say so..." Faltering concluded.
It had been a little while since the test had started, and time was running out. All around the test room, all types of expressions could be seen: serious, worried, nervous, irritated, and even resigned. If you could think of an expression, it probably existed in that room at that moment.
"What do you think?" The Pokémon Professor addressed his words to his bespectacled assistant. He was obviously talking about his grandson.
"I think that, even if he never attended classes... Your grandson seem to be quite... self-confident."
This answer made Oak proud and he kept looking at his boy until this one finished his test. Many participants were taking their hand off their keyboards by now; the 90 minutes where running out after all, it was plausible to see many of them to close their laptop even at the same time.
"Time Out" said Elm to the audience and feeble voice of malcontent started to fill the room.
Electronics sound echoed in the muted hall.
"There they are! Your results!" Elm was maybe the most excited.
Professor Oak's grandson stood up and started walking towards the stage. No one even noticed, they were just too much focused on what the young assistant was going to say.
"Well, well... First place, with... oh! Sixty correct answers out of sixty! Number 087!"
"Sixty!? Who the hell is the freak that got everything right?" The punk guy gulped, feeling discouraged.
Elm, instead, was pleased while looking at the audience desks in order to find the plate "087". He wanted to know who the lucky first was.
"Number 087, please come for..."
"Here I am."
Professor Oak's grandson was already on the stage, ready for his prize.
The old man smiled proudly. "See Elm, the boy knows himself. I'll wait for the other two downstairs."
He took under his arm his grandson, that tried in vain to wiggle out, and exited the hall. Silence followed.
"Well, hum... where was AH! The second place, with an outstanding fifty-one right answers out of sixty: number 150!"
Someone applauded while a young man stood up and got to the stage.
"Congratulations, go downstairs to retrieve your prize." Said Elm cheerfully
"51... jeez, that's a lot..." The punk guy had lost his hope.
"And lastly, at the third place, with forty-nine correct answers out of sixty, number 167!" The crested young man couldn't believe it.
"It's me!" Thought to himself jumping up.
"YEAH! All right! I'd like to thank everyone who..."
"Oh, what an airhead I am, I'm deeply sorry." It was Elm. "I meant 177, I'm mortified... number 177 please, came here."
"Who... DIDN'T help me get this far..." The young man sat again with an unexpected nonchalance.
Meanwhile the guy in second position, seat number 150, was walking through a long corridor to reach what another assistant he found along the way told him to be the "heart of the laboratory". Tall libraries stuffed with heavy books yellowed by the time, dozens of shelves with hundreds of PokéBalls lined the walls.
"Outstanding..." Thought the young man.
He was a teenager, not so tall, slim and with a pale skin opposing his black hair and his deep ruby colored eyes. He was almost at the door when he suddenly stopped.
"And you want me to believe that no one among these three is really the strongest!?" The voice came from behind the door, it belonged to a young man. Astounded from his tone.
"Ahh... It's just as I told you, is a little paradox, I chose them because of this..." This second voice was Professor Oak's.
"Tch... I'm taking this one!" The young man behind the door was certainly annoyed by something.
"Wait for me outside for the ceremo..."
A door slammed shut and books falling on the ground were heard. Then silence.
Question Of The Week
If you where there with all the other guys trying to complete the test... What kind of question do you think you could fail? XD
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