I've been perusing the PC for a while, so I've got a solid Sit-Rep.
Important questions first: no, the schooling system is not going to fuck my sleep schedule into oblivion.
Alright, alright, fine.
I didn't get as much info as I wanted, for whatever reason the PokéNet or whatever shitty name they called their Internet rip off was about as fast as dial-up. Honestly, you have literal walking AI in the form of Porygon (yes, I did look them up, and they are bullshit) and teleportation pads but couldn't have anything quicker than a stereotypical sloth. Stereotypical Slakoth? This Pokémon world thing is getting a little irritating.
This world seems to be some kind of amalgamation. Searching for "Ash Ketchum," I got some images and videos of him fighting in the Hoenn League about a year back. Strangely enough, through my investigations of Pallet Town I came across their tourist site with the banner, "Hometown of Red and Blue!"
Blue was easy info; the dude had taken over the Viridian gym about ten years ago. A helpful article about Red conspiracy theorists had conveniently informed me that he had fucked off a while ago and didn't seem to have any intentions of coming back.
He must be living it up, murder-hobo style, on the top of Mt. Silver. A man after my own shriveled heart.
Regardless, we had Ash, Red, and Blue in one place.
Oh, and Pokédexes were bourgeois as fuck. Seriously, there were two ways of getting one legally.
Your first option was a commission. Professor Oak held the sole ownership, production, and distribution rights to the Pokédex, and rarely handed them out. But, research doesn't come cheap. If you want one, you pay a small fortune.
Otherwise, you were one of the lucky three starting trainers per region who got them from the regional professor. This helpfully led me to a page with the list of this year's trainers. Ignoring the randoms from the other regions, the pictures of Bianca, Cheren, and Hilda were plastered on the page.
Well, that gave me a lovely time frame for when I'm in. A quick search later had gotten me an article about a "splinter Team Plasma faction" stealing a Dragonite skull from the Nacrene City Museum four days ago, meaning that I was smack in the starting act of Pokémon Black and White. I'm going to reserve seats for the castle bursting from the ground nonsense, that's got to be an amazing watch.
Back to Pokédexes, I wouldn't be quite as upset if I hadn't figured out that Pokédexes are so absurdly useful. Unlike the recording devices of the games, these Pokédexes had everything you could want. An encyclopedia, a phone, the most in-depth scanner of Pokémon on the market, ID, and even a damn coin flip app.
I wanted one, and I wasn't going to get one. So, just like all the problems I normally come across, I just ignored it and stubbornly insisted that I didn't need any fancy scanner, even if it would help me immensely.
Anything else important? Pokémon is a literal utopia, some massive war about thirty years ago that was suspiciously lacking in information, and a dozen more uninteresting things. It's like reading a dissertation on parsley crop yield, about as interesting as the taste of parsley.
With the understanding that there were literally world-ending stakes at play alongside the less interesting criminal teams, assuming that both the anime and games co-existed here, I needed to build up a team. It would be convenient if I had other options than bug types, but life doesn't give me nice things.
Fuck you, life. What did Cave Johnson say? If God gives you lemons, find a new God? Not directly applicable, but the message is there.
But team building, that's important. I suppose I'll need to start training up Entoma, who has fallen asleep on my head, before I can go around catching the good bugs like I want to.
I start walking over to Nurse Joy and call out, "Oy, mind helping me with some questions on the PokéCenter itself?"
Joy, bless her heart, turns to me with the kindest smile and replies, "Of course, what specifically are you wondering?"
"Well," I chuckle, "I'm a bit forgetful and from a little village without a PokéCenter, so mind just giving me the rundown?"
The lady giggled and began her spiel, "Well, the Pokémon Center is simple enough. All facilities in the lobby are free. The only exception is non-urgent medical checkups not using the standard healing machine."
"Really, nothing? How do you pay for it all?"
"Donations to the PokéCenter foundation fund most of it. Say what you will about Team Plasma, but they are one of the most consistent funders of Pokémon welfare programs!"
Team Plasma, funding my ascent to glory. The world has miracles after all.
Curiously, I question, "what is there other than the lobby?"
"The medical facilities are just behind the counter, but the rest of the building is small housing for trainers and travelers. It's 50 PokéDollars for a night, but between you and me, you can camp out at the training grounds just behind the center itself and nobody uses it enough to kick you off," she winked at me.
To tent or not to tent? A question older than time itself, to be sure. On one hand, possibly comfy beds. On the other hand, I don't have any consistent income.
Fuck, I knew being a cheapskate would come back and bite me.
"Thank you, miss, I think I just may do that."
Thankfully, the tent was easy to set up and came with a mat and sleeping bag. I had taken to a small cluster of trees just by the training grounds, which appeared to be just another word for a standard Pokémon gym arena.
If I had to guess, it was only about five o'clock now, but I didn't care much for staying in the sun anyways. Plus, this gave me time to start plotting.
"Alright, Entoma, it seems we need to get to work on you. Do you mind letting me know what moves you got?"
Entoma, who had been crawling on and had been hanging on the side of a tree, looked at me and blinked.
"You know, combat techniques? Poison sting, tackle, the usual?"
Despite the stoic and unchanging visage of the Venipede, the next blink had a subtle sense of dawning comprehension.
Entoma turned her head to the side and launched a set of poison stings from her mouth. Or, at least that's what I assume the little purple barbs barraged from her little beak-like mouth were.
Walking over to the tree they landed in, I plucked one out. A little barb not unlike a thorn was coated in a thin, viscous purple liquid that caused a light burning sensation on my fingers.
"Excellent, excellent. Anything else?"
Entoma seemed to contemplate, and then violently burst from the tree into a free roll. As she kept rolling around, picking up even more speed, I couldn't help but hum the Sonic theme.
Slamming into a tree and causing an impressive spray of splinters to fly out of the newly made hole, Entoma came to a stop. Before I could say anything, her beak thing opened into a maw with a bit of dripping dark energy, which she snapped into a big piece of leftover wood lying on the ground. It was absolutely obliterated, hot damn. Entoma looked at me with a proud gleam in her eyes.
A somewhat maddened giggle burst from my lips at the sight of my little bug blasting away with overwhelming force.
"Lovely! Poison Sting, Rollout, and Bite. I can work with that, assuming that's all you have?"
Entoma nodded.
"I see. Well, I'm rather new to this whole training thing, but I think I know the basics. For now, we just have to practice with the force you output in those moves. I'm not sure exactly how much more skilled you'll get from battles, but that is something I don't have to think about yet. For all I know, it could function as a Zenkai boost or something.
"I would recommend spamming Poison Sting for accuracy and quantity, because the main bonus for them is poisoning from a distance. If you can just keep spamming them in a fight, that would be absurdly useful. Once you get a bit tired of that, start swapping between using Rollout and Bite to train your body and jaws.
"Once you get tired from that, swap back to Poison Sting spam. Repeat, and we should have a beast out of you eventually."
Entoma gave me the most adorable yet determined nod and started shooting her barbs out at various trees. What a lucky man I am to meet her first thing.
Now to figure out some team composition. The bug only restriction is going to make this rough.
My only easy options right now come from Unova and Alola. This world is seemingly arranged like my own, with Unova and Alola replacing America and Hawaii, with a very cheap boat ride from Castelia away.
Kanto and Johto replaced Japan, but with a lot more land mass than Japan had. The rest of the regions replaced the Eurasian continent. The various Europe-based regions swapped out as expected, with Hoenn taking over for Asia.
I got a fucking kick out of the hellhole that is Orre replacing the Middle East.
Alright, I've got a bug and poison type right now. That leaves me with weaknesses to fire, flying, rock, and psychic. I can negate the psychic weakness by simply swapping out to a different type, so that's not a priority.
Fire is easily the biggest threat. Of everything available in Unova, a Dwebble or Larvesta is the easy option. Dwebble is very common in the desert just above Castelia, and with my vague memories of a Volcarona dwelling in the desert ruins as well, it seems that it's in my best interest to head over there if I want a chance at one of its kids.
If I get both, I don't have to be quite as worried with fire or flying types. Though, that would leave me with a double water weakness.
I have an easy solution for that though. Golisopod. Or Wimpod, I suppose. Wimpod is a bit of a disappointment, but Golisopod is a tank. Plus, I'll need a swimmer eventually.
Rock is still a scary type to go against. Every single one of my team is weak to it, even if Golisopod is super-effective with water. What I'm thinking: a steel type.
There's a surprising number of bug-and steel-types in Unova. Escavalier, Durant, and even a fucking Genesect. Though, I'll admit, only Genesect seems appealing to me.
Wait, wasn't Genesect made at some facility over by Nuvema Town? Oh, and there was a Larvesta egg in the games on an Island just past it. Worth a look into.
Otherwise, Scizor is always an option if I want to take an extended vacation. I'll have to head over to Alola anyway for a Wimpod. If I remember right, Scyther is found on some plains over there. Then, I'll have to figure out how to use a metal coat, easy enough.
Scyther will give me a double rock weakness for a bit, but I can live with that.
That leaves me with a general flying and electric weakness, both of which are easily countered with a Galvantula. Sounds like I've got a plan then!
My intentions for a final team are Scolipede, Volcarona, Crustle, Golisopod, Scizor, and Galvantula. I'll pick up a Genesect if I can, but you know. Mythical Pokémon aren't exactly easily available. I wouldn't mind a few tag-ons though, but from what I can tell if you get caught with more than six Pokémon at once, you can get some big fines.
That's a big issue, as it's a plot point that the only Pokémon storage method, PC boxes, are accessible to Team Plasma during their takeover, and I'm not about to hand my lovelies to them on a silver platter.
Thankfully, this is Unova. The blatant America rip-off. Sure, the worldwide EU/NATO style government dictates that more than six Pokémon at a time is considered an excessively armed force, but in my searches, I learned that Unova has been getting a lot of shit from the government for their blatant lack of enforcement of them everywhere except Castelia, where it was a 50/50 shot at the cop caring during the surveys.
Reminds me of Prohibition Era enforcement. Sure, it's national law, but nobody actually cares. I fucking love Ameri- shit, Unova.
And yes, there is a Unova stereotype in this world, and it is nearly identical to the American one.
Back to the topic, if I'm in Unova there isn't much of a worry about being capped at six Pokémon. But, since Alola is its own sovereign nation in this reality, if I head there, I will have to be quiet about my blatant violation of authority.
Ain't no Fedboy going to keep me down, even in the Pokémon universe.
Oh, and the reason that Pokéballs don't work with Ash in the anime when he exceeds the max is because the Pokéballs are tied to his Pokédex, which acts as a one-way transfer machine to enforce the law. The Kanto-Johto supernation is just as anal about laws as real Japan. I assume it's the same thing with the distributed Unovan Pokédexes, seeing as they're still produced by Oak.
My deliberations had taken about an hour, I had taken to doing my calculations while sitting in dirt. It's surprisingly difficult to remember bug type Pokémon and their locations.
During that time, Entoma had swapped between the two exercises at least 3 times and was starting to look exhausted.
"Hey, take a break. No point in wearing you to the bone in one session," I called over to Entoma, "You've been doing wonderfully, I'm glad you're so determined already."
Giving a slightly angry look at the tree she had just been wailing on, she crawled over to me and sat on my lap.
"Honestly, I was expecting to have to push more. What's got you so fired up for training?"
A chitter with a bit of anger in it was the response.
I scratched my head, "Damn, it's inconvenient that you can't speak. Let's see, a bit of anger. My best guess is some kind of conflict?"
"Chirp," came the affirmative noise with a nod of her head.
"Alright, conflict. Sibling rivalry, overbearing parents, or something?"
"Chirp," she called, though distinctly negative this time.
"Hmm, not a family issue then. Got a good familial relationship then?"
A shake of the head.
"Damn, sorry to hear. Not a rivalry, not a good relationship, does it have anything to do with family at all?
Another shake.
"I'm going to guess it's some kind of predator, then."
A nod, finally.
"Aha, now we're onto something. When did this happen, a long time ago?"
A negative.
"Alright, a recent conflict, poor familial relationship, and determination to train. Here's my theory, let me know if it's right.
"Sometime recently, a predator came around. Too strong for you to beat. More importantly, too strong for your family to beat. It fucked up your family, but you got away. Now, you don't have anywhere to go, but now you want to get revenge or something. Or, at the very least, you want to be strong enough to not get fucked up by said predator. So, you latched onto me in the hopes of getting stronger.
"Sounds about right?"
Entoma stared at me for a second. Then, she gave a little side-to-side wiggle followed by a nod.
"Close enough? I can live with that. Alright, darling, let's get you pumped the fuck up to the point no predator would even think to challenge you. It'll be a long time coming, and it'll take everything you got, but we can make it. Trust me on that."
If Entoma's face allowed for a smile, I'm sure she would be smiling. She let out a triumphant clicking and prepared to get back to training.
"That's what I'm talking about. Same exercises, and now that I'm done contemplating, I'll try and give you some pointers."
The day quickly faded into night, and I slept like a babe. Er, if the babe was laying on a mat in a tent on some rocky ground. That is, I slept the entire night and then when I woke up, I cried over a minor inconvenience. My fucking back hurt, alright?
Despite training for five hours the previous night, Entoma was spry as ever. Makes me wish I weren't just a basic ass human sometimes.
I had my current travel plans loosely stringed together at this point. First stop, Virbank for a boat ride to Castelia. Once there, head up to the desert, grab a Dwebble. I'll also snoop around the ruins and hope for a Larvesta. Then, promptly about face and head back to Castelia for a boat ride to Alola.
Alola has the ever-coveted Wimpod, which is somewhere on the Pony Plains. Poni Plains? Not sure, I only remember that because I really wanted a Golisopod after fighting the one villain guy who had it. I don't remember where Scyther is, but if I find one that'd be lovely.
I'll worry about the rest of my issues some other time. Off to Virbank! Packing up my tent was a breeze, and my bag of holding didn't care about how haphazard I was.
The trek to Virbank had been going for about an hour before anything interesting happened. I was just minding my own damn business, singing some nonsense from my old life to Entoma, who took her usual perch on my head.
Next thing, Youngster Joey himself burst from the bushes, rambling about eyes meeting and battles or some shit.
Well, a bit more accurately is that some snot nosed kid about ten years old called to me from down the road and challenged me to my first official Pokémon battle. I'm growing up so fast, sniff.
Time to explain Pokémon challenge rules. Casual battles like the rival battles shown in the show have no stakes, whatsoever.
But I had been challenged to an official battle. Official battles have, based on common courtesy, a betting system. There isn't an actual specific method to the betting, but typically you bet about $50 per badge you own.
First thing, though, you define the rules.
"1v1 sounds good to you?" I asked.
"Sure!"
"Alright, Entoma, kick some ass," I mutter to the bug on my head.
Entoma gave an unusually loud cry and hopped down onto the dirt path we've been walking down. The kid responded in kind by tossing out a Pokéball with a Pidove.
Damn.
He may have the type advantage, but I have status bullshit!
"On the count of three?"
I nodded.
"Three, Two, One, GO!"
"Entoma, Poison Sting barrage!"
"Pidove, fly away!"
The kid was clearly used to fighting in the playground. Or, at the very least he wasn't used to fighting at a particularly fast pace. After my first call, he had a shocked look on his face and took a solid couple seconds to yell out a very poorly worded escape command.
Entoma's first set of Poison Stings barely missed as Pidove took to the skies. Were it a single use of Poison Sting, that would suck. Thankfully, Entoma was a cruel enemy.
Pidove began to circle the sky only to immediately be prison shanked by the flying barbs. With a surprisingly ugly cry of pain, it started to wobble in the air.
"Oh no! Pidove, Quick Attack!"
Pidove showed some surprising ability and immediately turned towards Entoma and lit up with a Quick Attack. Directly into the spray of Poison Stings.
Fucking birdbrain.
"Entoma, hop to the side and Rollout!"
Entoma tried, but was not fast enough to avoid the very poisoned bird. She was tossed back a few feet, but somehow managed to turn the momentum from the Quick Attack into a high-speed Rollout despite the discombobulation.
Pidove, who hadn't been looking at Entoma, was still soaring close to the ground trying to get some lift. It looked behind it for a moment, its eyes comically widening at the purple blur chasing it down.
With a final few big pushes of its wings, it failed to get into the air fast enough to avoid Entoma's ass pounding spin move. With a last squawk, Pidove was launched in an arc and slammed onto the rough ground, completely unconscious.
Fuck, that's a good feeling.
The kid let out a disappointed cry and rushed over to spray a potion on the generic bird. I turned to Entoma, who had already scuttled to my feet and was looking at me with a proud glint in her unmoving bug face. There was a large bruise-like indentation on her carapace, just behind her head.
"That's what I like to see! Still got enough in you to fight some wilds on the way?"
A nod.
"Lovely!"
I walk over to the kid who just finished nursing the Pidove and returned it to its Pokéball. He turned to me with a somewhat impressed look on his face.
"Wow, that was so cool! Your Pokémon was so quick!" The child blathered on for a few more sentences, before I got bored of the little kid singing my praises.
"Thanks, kid, but I need to get going. Sorry if it's a bit sudden."
"Oh, don't worry! Here's the reward!" The kid passed me seventy-five Pokédollars. "My mom says you should always pay a little extra to show that you're a good sport!"
This kid's mother is an idiot.
"Your mother is really smart. You should listen to her a bit more," I reply, before starting to set out. "Goodbye!"
The unnamed child reciprocated, and I walked off with Entoma towards Virbank with Entoma firmly back where she belonged, my head.
Fuck, that was cathartic.