Day 1: History is BORING.
(and repetitive.)
"Hi! Sorry to keep you waiting!" the gratingly tinny device said, showing a small, flickering hologram of a middle aged man in shorts and labcoat moving as though talking - though it didnt work much. The sound was off by more than five seconds.
"Welcome to the world of Pokemon! My name is Birch." Birch, as he is now to be called, moved, and took a small orb-type object from one of his holographic pockets, before continuing. ",But everyone calls me the Pokemon Professor."
Opening the orb, a flicker of light lit up his features for a moment, and before him stood a small, six-legged leaf. "This is what we call a "Pokemon". "
Towards the back of the dimmed class, Emma, our Heroinie, did a bored sketch of the Guardian Gyracabulldash, muttering to herself "no shit, sherlock…" and got a stern glare from the teacher, who was leaning up against the classroom wall.
The small hologram "pokemon" looked happily around, and said "Lotad!" its voice echoing through time to fall mostly on deaf ears. Lotad had died out a long time ago, when a drought had gripped the whole planet for nearly a millenia, and any life at all barely survived. Within the last 150 years, the drought had finally slackened off a little, and water was becoming slightly more available. Many grass pokemon, unable to survive solely on water from water type pokemon, had died out, or had become hardier, more desert type pokemon. The one who excelled at this was the Cacnea ev. branch.
"This world is widely inhabited by creatures known as pokemon." Emma rolled her eyes, but mad eno comment… aloud. "We humans live alongside Pokemon, at times friendly playmates, and at times as co-operative workmates." Emma couldnt help but snort in a derisive tone when hearing this - to her, back in the old days, pokemon had been used for nothing more than free labour. All the surviving evidence of that era supported her theory too.
"Emma…" the teacher, also Emma's mother, said quietly, but warningly. Emma rolled her eyes in response.
"And sometimes, we band together and battle others like us." a flickering picture replaced Birch for a minute, showing two long-exctinct, though once common pokemon, a Nidorino, and a Gengar, fighting one another. Flicking back onto the hologram, Birch continued, recalling the Lotad.
"But, despite our closeness, we don't know everything about Pokemon.In fact, there are many, many secrets surrounding Pokemon. To unravel Pokemon mysteries, I've been undertaking research. That's what I do. You can find my lab…" the hologram went fuzzy and the voice faded out, worn with age and wear.
The lights came back on, and Emma looked boredly out the window, at the lone figure of Nidoyenabatooler, who stood silently, the Celebi light still glowing around her.
Returning her atention to the classroom, she slackly wrote down the 'homework' she was assigned, a 500 word essay about the inner meanings of what the hologram had told them, using their notes they had taken down. Well, if they had bothered to - which Emma hadn't.
The bell rang, and in the usual rush and clutter of everyone trying to get out the door first, Emma slipped out of her chair, and tried to blend in with the herd, to get out unnoticed.
"Emma? I need a word." The teachers voice sounded out clearly above the rabble. Emma flinched inwardly. Great. This can only mean one thing - detention. She stepped aside, and melted up against the wall, waiting for everyone to have left the room, in the qiet morning hours, before the primary junior school kids came in to school.
(Junior kids get morning hrs, middle get afternoon, and senior get night. theres only 2 rooms for the whole school, and one is the staff room.)
"Yes muuuum." Emma said, dragging her words out, flopping into a chair.
"emma…" her mother started, then paused. "Emma." she started again, her voice a bit stronger. "Wht were you doing in class? you -know- you'll fail and have to redo the year if you dont pass your next test - whats going on?" the mother asked the daughter, clearly worried for her spawn's welfare.
"nuthins sup." Emma said slackly, sucking at a bit of her hair - two creamy blond bangs hung fluffily on each side of her slightly canid face, that was covered in an extremely fine orange down. She was a Pokemorph, but just barely. The thinnest trace of Arcanine ran through her veins, the same as her mother. She looked boredly up at that same mother, Sapphire Blue eyes showing nothing but extreme boredom.
Because of the scarcity of water and pokemon these days, the whole concept of 'pokemon trainers' had largely been abandoned, due to too many deaths over tiny water holes, and the arid land. Otherwise Emma would have been well into her Journey, at nearly twenty three years of age. Instead, she had schooling, and farmwork on the village plot, using all the knowledge she had aquired over the years to get a meal from the herd of cows (some had miltank or tauros in them, but, like Emma, it was a very faint strain.) and the vegetables, using nothing but filthy water, used at least two dozen times, for washing dishes and clothes, sometimes even themselves, but the vegies grew… stunted and often non-bearing, but they at least did grow.
Emma's mother gave her a worried look, but said, "go now. its time for your work with the stock. I have to prepare for the next class." Emma didnt complain, she was very good in handling the stock, and hell - it was better than boring old school!