Chapter Three: Making Connections
I woke up earlier than I intended to, thanks to Toothpick deciding my face would be the warmest place in the room to nap. I gently moved the little guy onto the bed and stretched, a little sore from my sudden impact into the floor below in Mirage Tower yesterday. After a quick shower and brushing my teeth, I got dressed and made sure I didn't forget anything important, then I woke Toothpick up and put him on his shoulder perch to head back downstairs.
Coming into the lobby, I saw that the nurse behind the counter was a different one than the one I've been getting to know. I guess she's on the night shift, which would explain why she's the only one I've been in contact with after returning from these late-night escapades. Even so, she waved me down as I was heading out.
"Oh! You're Sammy, right? Claire asked me to pass along a message, she says she's going to be taking a few days off and heading back home to Fallarbor. Apparently, something has come up at home and she won't be back in for a while, but she told me to make sure you kept her updated about your findings with Mirage Tower."
I guess that means Claire is the name of the nice lady I've been getting along with lately. That's good to know, considering I never got her name and was stressing a little bit about what to input as her contact on my PokéNav. I thanked her warmly and headed on out to try and find the Rock Smash Dude.
I don't know if I stressed this enough, but Mauville is a big city. Even beyond the skyscrapers and massive crowds of people, it covered nearly a hundred square miles and had at least four other Pokémon Centers that I hadn't been to yet. It's been a long time since the New Mauville Project had taken off and expanded to the rest of the city, making Mauville into the technological capital of the region. Wattson took inspiration from LaRousse City with a lot of its electronic automation decisions, adding motorized sidewalks and reliable public transportation to anywhere in the city. I think it's brilliant personally, but I can't help but feel nostalgic for the way the city used to be when I was younger, still urban but not nearly as overwhelming.
Checking the map on my PokéNav, I started making my way to the Rock Smash Dude's apartment complex, and luckily for me it was surprisingly close to the city's gym. If everything goes well, I should be able to get both of my errands done today, but considering how busy Claire made Wattson seem, there's a fair chance I'll have to push my challenge date back a few days. In the meantime, there's no harm in thinking of strategies to make sure my team and I have the best shot of winning the badge.
It took about an hour and a half even with the motorized sidewalks and I passed the electrical marvel known as the Mauville City Gym along the way, but I finally made it to my destination. According to the business card, Doctor Rock Smash is on the fourth floor, so I made my way up and started hunting for his apartment and found it with little effort.
I made sure Toothpick was going to be well behaved, and rang his doorbell, and as I did i heard a pretty startling crash and someone scrambling around inside, before he came to answer the door. After unlocking what felt like an endless number of door locks, he opened the door with a frazzled expression.
"Yes? Hello? Do you have some business with me?" An older man with thick rimmed glasses asked somewhat frantically. It looks like I've disturbed him in the middle of some research.
"Hi! I'm looking for the Rock Smash Dude? I received your business card from a friend of mine and I was hoping to consult with you on an archeological matter." I said as politely as I knew how, hoping to make a better impression than I already had, and luckily it seemed to work, as he straightened up and fixed his crooked glasses with a smile.
"Aha! Yes, that would be me, Dr. Rock Smash Dude at your service. You can call me Dr. Georgio, since I know that title is a bit of a mouthful. Please, please, do come in, you're very welcome. Do excuse the mess, archeology has never been a tidy field of study."
I followed him in, closing the door behind me, and what a mess it was. Stacks upon stacks of research papers all over the place, drawings of various types of art and historical monument scattered throughout, even a handful of large stone tablets in the back corner. Not a problem for me though, and in fact this almost felt like home for me, my place is a mess too. Dr. Georgio brushed some scrolls and manuscripts off a couch and a chair and offered me a seat.
"Now! What's this matter you wanted to discuss with me?" he asked with a wide smile. I wasn't sure what to start the explanation with, so I started from the beginning.
"So! I'm sure you've heard of it plenty of times by now, but I was in the Mirage Tower yesterday evening and I found something I was curious about. I mentioned it to the night nurse at the Pokémon Center in the east of the city, she's actually the one who gave me your business card, but she says she's never heard of this before from anyone who's been to the Tower. And no, it's not a fossil - I know that's paleontology, not archeology."
He got a laugh out of that and looked with eager anticipation as I pulled my sketchbook out of my bag. I flipped to the relevant pages for him to peruse and continued.
"On the very top floor where the fossils can be found, I found this large mural painted across the walls of the room. It seemed to be ages older than any of the other glyphs in the tower, but it was in much better condition than I would have expected from something that old, it even had some of the original color remaining. It seemed to be an account of an ancient war between people and Pokémon, and a large depiction of the sun being a large part of the war itself. At least as far as I know there has never been a war like that in the history of Hoenn, so I was hoping you'd be able to shed some light on the subject for me. Pun intended."
He laughed again and flipped back and forth between the pages a couple of times. I'm surprised this guy actually thinks I'm funny, but I'm not complaining about having another captive audience.
"Ha! Shed some light, sun imagery. That's, that's a good one. But no wonder you haven't heard of this in any of your Hoenn research! Because this isn't Hoenn history at all. This is actually a depiction of a historical event that happened in the Unova region. It's fascinating you found this in the Mirage Tower, I guess that old place still has some mysteries to solve after all."
Toothpick perked up at the sound of his native region, and awkwardly fell off my shoulder in his excitement to be involved. We didn't meet in Unova, and honestly I'm surprised he even recognized the name considering I don't think he's ever been there. I rescued him from an angry Hippowdon in the Haruba Desert when we were both much younger and still living in the Almia region, during my Ranger training days, and we've been together ever since.
"This mural is a depiction of a war that was occurring in Unova somewhere between 3000 and 2500 years ago, a massive conflict of a scale that would be almost unheard of in modern history. The exact date is debated, as almost all of the records of the event were burned. Most of the information we know today has been passed down through word of mouth or found later through archeological dig sites. People and Pokémon both took arms against each other; it was an awful, bloody war that spanned across years."
He stood abruptly, interrupting his telling of the story, walking across the room to one of his many bookshelves and pulling out a dusty old tome. He scoured the pages momentarily, before seemingly remembering I was in the room with him and coming back to sit, book in hand.
"Here - this is another set of recreations of images found from the same period. I'm not sure how informed you are about ancient Unovan history, but one of the primary events that still remain in common knowledge was the dispute between the two brother kings, the conflict that brought the legendary dragons Zekrom and Reshiram into being. You might remember the incident a handful of years ago with miss Hilda and N of Team Plasma, followed by the remnants of that group abducting the dragon Kyurem and leading an assault on Opelucid City. It's said that this war between people and Pokémon occurred as a result of the original conflict between those brothers. The exact details of which brother took the throne are disputed, but either way, there was a significant percentage of the human populace that was dissatisfied with the way that event turned out, and a civil war broke out."
He grabbed a bottle of water from beside his chair and took a sip, offering me a second bottle that I politely declined. It looked to me like it was already opened. The good doctor knows his stuff about history, but not so much about interacting with people.
"This civil war is the event we're seeing in these murals. When the victorious brother took the throne, human civilization and society in the region took a large step forward, expanding the region from scattered towns and villages into a unified country, but as a side effect of this expansion - whether as an intended result or not - people began taking over and destroying more and more of the natural habitats of the wild Pokémon of the region. Consequently, the Pokémon weren't particularly thrilled with this and began to fight back against the human expansion to defend their homes. This evolved into a full-blown conflict between humans and Pokémon, and everything came to a boiling point in what we now know as Icirrus City."
At this point I was pretty enraptured with the story, and I knew after I left here, I'd have to thank Nurse Claire for her help. This was exactly the information I had been hunting for; at least, I thought it was.
"The exact details are unclear, but at some point, an enormous, unstoppable fire began in the forest north of town. This fire was large enough that the smoke from the burning forest was enough to fill the sky for weeks, if not months on end. This is what's shown in this part of the mural you brought in," He explained, gesturing towards the part of my sketch where it seemed the sky was blacked out and there were people freezing. "Icirrus City is known for a heavy snowfall and intensely cold winters, so you could imagine that with the sky full of smoke and a lack of sunlight, people and Pokémon both were at risk of freezing to death."
"That brings me to my primary concern: there are no remaining records of this mural that you brought me. I hate to say it, but I have no idea what this sun symbol represents. I could hazard a guess or two, but I would rather not give you faulty information and lead you down the wrong path. If you came to me with this, clearly you have at least a passing interest in this story, so I'd like to propose a deal with you."
I sat up straight, somewhat confused. Toothpick and I shared a look, and I gestured for Dr. Georgio to continue.
"If you let me keep this sketchbook for a while, just long enough for me to make copies of it in my own records, I will happily get in touch with a contact of mine in the Unova region and let him know to expect you to come by, because let's be realistic, I know you're not going to be satisfied with my lack of a concrete explanation. Just judging by that Styler on your hip and your bond with your Sandile, I can see you're a man that would much rather leap into action blindly than accept this as the whole story and move on with your life."
Well, shit. Am I that easy to get a read on? Because he's completely right, I was planning on going to Unova before he even offered to contact his colleague. This would be a miracle if this panned out.
"There's a harbor in Slateport City to the south that has relatively frequent trips between Hoenn and Unova, and it's honestly not all that difficult to get a ticket to ride as long as you have the qualifications. With my reference and two badges, you could be on your way as soon as tomorrow."
Ah. I knew this wouldn't be so easy. I don't have a single badge, let alone two of them. I can manage to take care of Wattson's gym while I'm here in town, but what about the next gym? I know the world has decided to expand each region from eight to twenty badges per League, but the Slateport Gym is Steel typed, and that won't be a walk in the park. This is going to be an issue. But I can't let this opportunity go to waste.
"You know what Doc; I'll take you up on that. I would very much appreciate it if you could make that connection for me. I don't think I can manage to be on tomorrow's ship, but I have your number, and I will definitely be back in touch with you as soon as I'm ready to go. I had actually already planned to fight the city's gym today, so this is perfect. I'll leave that sketchbook with you - just, do me a favor, and don't judge my miserable lack of artistic talent if you look at the other pages."
He and I chuckled at that, and I shook his hand and began to head on my way to the Gym, but Dr. Georgio must be a dark-type, because he just had to leave me with a Parting Shot as I left.
"Be sure to tell Nurse Claire I said hello!"
I rolled my eyes as he and Toothpick had a laugh at my expense, and we got ready to go take on the electric-type gym.