Chapter 5: V1 C4 – Clumsy but Intelligent

It was a bright new day in Johto. After an encounter with not one but two Legendary Pokemon, Joe retreated to a hotel accompanied by his new companion, Absol. On the way to the hotel, Joe quickly entered the first shop he came across to buy some new clothes, receiving funny looks from the clerk behind the counter. Once he reached his destination he continued to notice people looking at him weirdly. Of course, if someone walks about town drenched in water from head to toe, people would find it strange. He moved up the hotel stairs sluggishly, with a bag of clothes in one hand, just wanting to get some rest. Once he’d sorted himself out, Joe went to bed much earlier than normal, and Absol followed suit by curling up on the carpet near his bed.

He awoke to his own stomach making a ruckus early the next morning. “So hungry…”

As Joe forced himself to get up out of bed, he made enough noise to wake Absol, who looked around with one eye open before starting to stretch. Joe put his new clothes on, zipped up his black and white jacket and went to eat in the cafeteria. While there he still felt eyes on him, but this time there wasn’t anything odd going on with Joe, so why were people staring?

Oh, they probably saw Ho-Oh, right? From down here there was no way to make out specifics like Raikou, but some people probably saw attacks being flung about the mountain yesterday. And then to top it all off, a Legendary Pokemon that rarely appeared showed up just to pick a fight with something or someone. It seemed reasonable to assume people were on edge due to what happened. Word of mouth results in rumour spreading rapidly so even those that didn’t see anything were probably told, ‘Ho-Oh attacked something!’ and then one person and his Pokemon came down from the mountain. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. People were on edge and someone believed Joe was part of the problem in some way.

It was easy to understand where they were coming from, so Joe held no ill will towards whoever thought he was trouble. With that thought in his head, Joe and Absol left the hotel, ignoring side-eye glances, and headed towards the nearby Pokemon Lab. He knew just as well as anyone else calling Johto home that Professor Elm was situated in New Bark Town. The reason for Joe heading there was to pick up a PokeDex. If he was going to be exploring the world and helping others, he figured he might as well document the journey and the Pokemon he encounters along the way. And of course, he needed all the information he could get his hands on in order to help Absol. He most definitely wasn’t doing this because he was excited about his upcoming globe trotting adventure.

Once there, he knocked on the door and was promptly greeted by a female assistant donning a long white lab coat and sleek glasses.

Joe and his partner Pokemon were ushered into a large room, where Joe sat in a chair while his Pokemon sat on the laminate floor beside him. Joe looked around at a number of bookshelves with who knows how much research material on them. It was so eerily quiet that he could hear the soft clicks of a keyboard nearby, probably the assistant working on something in the neighbouring room. There was even a Pokemon that showed up, with Joe only noticing it because it began poking his leg with its tiny arms. When Absol leant over to look at it, the Pokemon cowered behind Joe’s leg. Joe picked it up in response.

“Aren’t you just the cutest.” He said, observing its long, thin snout, short arms and closed eyes.

A man who appeared to be in his late thirties, or maybe early forties, rushed through the door not long after Joe picked up the Pokemon, and he sure looked flustered. Just like the assistant who had let Joe in, this man was wearing a white lab coat and glasses. They even looked a little similar. Were they related, perhaps? That’d be one hell of a family business to run, a laboratory.

“Sorry to keep you waiting! Something happened on Mt. Silver yesterday while I was away, you may have seen it. I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. Oh but enough of that, what can I do for you?” This man, who Joe now assumed was Professor Elm, said from behind a large pile of books and papers he was carrying in front of him. Once Elm managed to set them down on a nearby table he took one look at the small Pokemon Joe was holding and sighed in relief. “Cyndaquil, you can’t just disappear like that!”

A high pitched cry left the Pokemon as it moved about, clearly happy to see the professor.

Joe tried to put Cyndaquil down so it could run back to Elm, but it started making a racket as he lowered it to the floor. He took the hint, Cyndaquil didn’t want to leave Joe just yet, so the young man sat the Pokemon on his lap and kept his arms around it.

While Joe didn’t plan on saying anything to normal people, he figured he could talk to the Professor about Raikou and Ho-Oh. Elm seemed troubled by yesterday’s events, and had mentioned he was trying to figure out what had happened. Going on this adventure to help people would be pointless if Joe couldn’t even share information that someone needed.

“Well it’s not what I came here for, but I was on Mt. Silver yesterday.”

One of Elm’s eyebrows raised quizzically. Clearly he wasn’t expecting to hear this kind of comment so he was stunned into silence for just a second, which was enough time for Joe to begin sharing the story without being asked. Joe told the professor about everything that happened, from when he encountered Absol to when Ho-Oh chased off the Legendary Beast.

“Raikou attacked you?” Elm put a hand to his chin. “But why? That doesn’t make any sense…”

“I’m not sure either. I wish I could be more helpful.”

“Oh no, you’ve been a great help already! We have much more information compared to earlier, thank you.”

As if ignoring the praise, Joe continued. “But if I had to say, something seemed off with Raikou. I don’t know why, it’s not like I would know how Raikou should be acting in the first place, but that’s the feeling I got. It wasn’t acting right.”

Professor Elm thought about it for a time before carelessly yanking his tablet from the pile of books and loose papers he’d placed on a table, knocking some content off the top of the tower of research. As he complained and set the tablet back down so he could collect his work, Joe came over, placed Cyndaquil on the floor and helped Elm pick up his papers. Even Cyndaquil, with its unfortunately petite arms, picked a few pages up and handed them to Joe, who then handed everything to the professor.

“Thank you again.” Elm sighed, placing his research on the table and adjusting his glasses. “This morning has been crazy so far. Everyone I can think of is rushing to ask me what happened on Mt. Silver. Oh, but look at this.” The Pokemon Professor grabbed his tablet again and began tapping away until he got to whatever he wanted to show Joe. Turning the tablet to the visitor, Elm asked, “Does anything strike you as different about Raikou?

Having picked Cyndaquil back up after it started tugging on his jeans, Joe held the Pokemon in one hand while taking Elm’s tablet and looking closely at the image of Raikou in his other hand. He looked over every inch of the Legendary Beast, seeing if just one thing stuck out, but the Raikou in the picture looked identical to the Raikou he’d encountered.

“Hmm…”

“What is it? Anything will do. Any difference, no matter how small.”

“...Well, it’s the eyes. It was constantly glaring at me yesterday, like its face was just naturally like that. But Raikou’s not glaring in this picture.” Joe thought back to the multiple times they’d looked at each other. He may have spent most of his time running from the beast, but he couldn’t forget those eyes. They looked like they harboured a deep hatred for something, and that hatred was temporarily directed at Joe. To put it simply, Raikou’s eyes were scary. But then Joe thought about it some more. He couldn’t shake this feeling there was something else about the beast’s eyes. Did they briefly change colour occasionally? No, that didn’t seem right. 

“That’s it! Raikou's eyes were glowing.” Joe hurriedly pointed at the picture, which was a little awkward for Cyndaquil. “They’re not glowing here, you can tell they’re just a flat colour.”

Elm took the tablet back and started typing furiously, either to remind himself of something later or to search for whatever he was thinking right now. It looked like Professor Elm was in his element, like he’d been given a tiny but important bit of information and was now on the path to figuring out what was going on.

Unprovoked, the Pokemon Professor started talking about his hypothesis. “If Raikou really did have glowing eyes as you say, that means it was being controlled by a psychic Pokemon. When a psychic-type Pokemon is strong enough to control another Pokemon, the Pokemon it controls will either have glowing eyes or pink eyes.” It was nice to know Elm understood he was with someone who didn’t understand Pokemon and so he took the time to explain in more detail than he needed to so Joe could follow along. “So what’s controlling Raikou? Not just any psychic-type could control a Legendary. Alakazam? Metagross? Is the psychic Pokemon being ordered by a person? Who? Why?”

A true professor, questioning anything and everything. Although Joe felt like the main question was the final word Elm spoke. ‘Why’. Why would someone want to control a Legendary? Why on Mt. Silver? It was likely going somewhere else and the mountain was just a stop along the way. But then, where was it going?

Now Joe was doing the same thing as Elm. The topic was too broad right now, there needed to be concrete answers before anyone could act on a solid theory. And he only had an Absol right now. If someone really was controlling Raikou then Joe wanted to figure out who they were and free the Legendary. His first thought when teaming up with Absol was to help people, but there was nothing to say he couldn’t help Pokemon. To Joe, it seemed like Raikou needed help. So he had his first goal. He was going to save Raikou. Even if the Legendary Beast wasn’t being mind controlled, it still seemed angry about something. Whatever angered Raikou was a problem that could most likely be solved, so Joe was going to be the one to solve it.

“Sorry, where are my manners?” Elm snapped back to reality, remembering he still had a visitor. “I’ll come back to this later.” He turned the tablet off and put it down so as to not distract himself any further.

“Don’t worry about it, I was doing the same thing. Being a Pokemon Professor seems interesting at least. No shortage of questions to ask.”

Giving a faint chuckle and rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, Elm confirmed that he spends most of his days asking questions and trying to reach logical answers. “Thank you once again for the help. Having information only someone up close would know is rather useful. But enough of that, I think I recall you saying you were here for a different reason?”

You are reading story Pokemon: Becoming Legend at novel35.com

Joe had completely forgotten about his original reason for being here. He was after a PokeDex. Slightly embarrassed considering his age, Joe finally spoke about why he was at Elm’s Pokemon Lab. “How do I put this… This might sound stupid, but is it too late to become a Pokemon Trainer?” Joe was already in his early twenties, and as far as he was concerned it was unheard of for someone his age to become a Trainer. It was something that children did. They went out on a journey across the region while they were still young. After a certain age those same young Trainers settle down and end up with a normal job somewhere. Joe doing the opposite, working first and then becoming a Trainer later on, made him feel like he stood out in a bad way.

“Don’t be silly!” Elm said with a smile. “You’re never too old to go on an adventure! I just need to fetch a few things, so if you wouldn’t mind waiting for a moment, I’ll be right back.”

Elm left as Joe nodded in response. The young man then walked back to the chair he was originally sitting in, still holding on to the clingy Cyndaquil. Joe began thinking he’d need some small toys like a feather wand or an inflatable ball to amuse whatever Pokemon he caught, but for now he just held onto Cyndaquil and stroked its head. It seemed happy enough with the current situation.

The professor came back a few minutes later with three more Pokemon, one of which was flying around overhead and had sparks of blue electricity leaving the orange core that Joe assumed was the Pokemon’s body. “ Sorry to make you wait, do you mind bringing your phone out?”

Joe obliged even though he didn’t know why he was asked to do such a thing, yanking his smartphone out of his pocket with his spare hand that had been stroking Cyndaquil just a moment ago. 

“Go ahead, Rotom.” After Elm spoke, the Pokemon hovering near the professor’s head darted straight towards Joe’s smartphone. It completely disappeared into the device, expelling small bolts of blue electricity for a few seconds and making Joe almost drop his phone due to the small shocks he was receiving.

Once it was done, large eyes and an equally large grin appeared on the screen of Joe’s phone. “Oh yeah, Rotom like electronic devices.”

While his knowledge was extremely limited when it came to Pokemon, there were a few things Joe knew. A customer had come into the PokeMart with a Rotom once and the Pokemon thought it would be fun to possess the cash register. What a mess that day was. Besides Rotom that he had real world experience dealing with, Joe dug up a few memories from school about basic and starter Pokemon. The Pokemon he was holding was Cyndaquil, the fire-type starter in Johto. The other two starter Pokemon of the region, Totodile the water-type and Chikorita the grass-type, were the other two Pokemon Elm had brought into the room with him.

But Joe technically had Absol already. Should he really pick one of the starters too?

“Is that Absol yours?” Elm inquired.

Joe looked at the Pokemon sitting beside him and nodded. “Yes, although it’s not like I have a Pokeball to store Absol in. We only teamed up yesterday.”

“On Mt. Silver? Interesting. It’s certainly an odd choice for a first Pokemon.” Seeing that Joe didn’t understand what he meant, Elm continued. “I’m sure part of the reason you’re here is for a PokeDex, right? Well that Rotom in your phone will act as a PokeDex from now on. Rotom, examine Absol.”

Joe’s phone shot out of his hand and started floating in front of Absol. It pointed its back, specifically its camera, at Absol and then quoted directly from the PokeDex. “Absol, the Disaster Pokemon. Long ago, superstitions were spread about it, saying it brought disaster. This fed a hatred for it, and it was driven into the mountains. Although it’s said to bring disaster, in actuality this Pokemon possesses a calm disposition and warns people of any crises that loom.”

The moment disaster was mentioned, Absol started growling at the synthetic voice coming from the floating phone. So much for a calm disposition. Although It was understandable, anyone misunderstood and treated poorly due to that misunderstanding would be annoyed.

Is that why people were staring earlier? Because they still think Absol brings disasters with it? Joe found this thought incredibly annoying, for obvious reasons. Absol had risked its own neck to protect him. Without thinking, Joe reached out and stroked Absol’s head. Having to justify it somehow, he rushed to speak. “Don’t let it get to you, I know you’re a good Pokemon.”

Absol looked at its Trainer out of the corner of its eye before falling silent.

Just as Elm was about to start talking, likely still on the topic of Absol, Rotom flashed a bright red light on the phone’s screen. “ERROR. Pokemon Ability unidentifiable. No adequate data available.”

“Oh?” Elm looked at the floating RotoPhone while he adjusted his glasses. Well that’s news to me. Absol should have one of three abilities: Pressure, Super Luck, or Justified. Rotom, can you double check that please. I want to make sure you’re correct.”

As asked, the floating smartphone did what it was told and scanned Absol again in order to gain more data. The same result occurred. Rotom had access to the most up-to-date information about every Pokemon, yet the database was unable to find a match for Absol’s Ability. The Disaster Pokemon’s Ability was going to remain a mystery for a while longer, there was no easy way to figure out what it was.

Intrigued by this, Elm questioned Joe about the previous day once more, but he specifically asked if Joe felt like he’d seen an effect from Absol that had only triggered once, or something like that. Joe couldn’t think of anything that stood out, although admitted his knowledge of Pokemon was basically non-existent.

“In that case, could I ask a favour of you? I would love to study Absol myself and determine what its Ability is, but I assume you don’t want to part with your companion for an extended period of time. So could you keep an eye out for anything that seems different? Something that rarely happens is your best bet. It’s likely a battle-related Ability considering Absol’s skillset, so pay attention whenever Absol is in a fight. If you spot nothing in battle then look to see if something stands out while you travel, since there is a chance it’s a non-combat related Ability. There are other ways to research an unknown Ability, but those are for the experts.”

Finding it interesting himself, Joe accepted. He accepted since someone was asking for help, but of course Absol was now his Pokemon so he would try to figure out his Pokemon’s Ability regardless of what others wanted. He’d use anything he could get his hands on to be stronger, so knowing more about Absol was a means to that end. 

Elm briefly detailed other Pokemon Abilities as examples of what Joe might want to look out for whenever Absol enters battle. The Pokemon Professor also mentioned that Rotom was connected to a huge database and every Trainer with a PokeDex had access to said database. While the main function was to give people a greater understanding of their Pokemon, there was also another section for the app that allowed user generated content. Trainers could do things like upload videos of their Pokemon using moves or showing off an Ability. It was a sort of shared knowledge, people passing on what they’ve seen and done to new Trainers.

Elm gave a forced cough to clear his throat after talking so much. “But to get back on track, I highly recommend picking one of these starters. You don’t seem too knowledgeable on the topic of Pokemon so raising one from when it’s young and untrained should ease you into being a Pokemon Trainer.”

Watching Totodile dance around the table while Chikorita relaxed in the middle, Joe thought that line of reasoning made enough sense. Absol was definitely stronger than starter Pokemon and may be hard to get used to at the beginning. But if he were to start from the very bottom, he could grow alongside his Pokemon until he’s ready to use Absol in combat properly.

He looked down at the Pokemon still sitting on his lap. “Then I’ll have this Cyndaquil if you don’t mind.”

“Perfect choice, Cyndaquil already seems to have taken a liking to you.”

From there things naturally came to an end at the lab, so Joe got up while keeping Cyndaquil tight in his arms. Rotom continued to hover around near Joe as he moved. That was going to take some getting used to, seeing his phone flying around like that. “Thanks for the help.”

“This is the least I can do.” When Joe reached the professor, Elm held out some small red and white Pokeballs. “Here. Pokeballs. This one on the right is Cyndaquil’s, the others are yours to do what you want with.

Joe was probably going to need some sort of bag for items and a holster for the Pokeballs, but, for now, they fit in his jean pockets since his phone wasn’t there anymore.

The professor then turned his attention to Rotom. “You have my phone number, don’t you Rotom? Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need some help. I’m not just here to learn about Absol’s Ability. Now then, good luck out there Joe.”

Out of respect, the two men shook hands. With a final thank you and goodbye, Joe exited the building and started his journey towards Kanto with his already growing team.