XXVII

My first impression of Kanto will be forever sailing into its large bay beneath its bridge, and noticing just how much Pokémon is part of the daily lives of its people. The whole ideal of Pokémon is everywhere, ranging from Pokémon radio stations to its medical and social PokéCentres and beyond.

Once I arrived at the terminal in Vermillion and went through customs (there was a hassle regarding the Boomerang; apparently I was the first Fa’Dieli Guardian ever to visit), I set about what my trip was going to be for. I had decided that I would do what is known as the Gym Trek, where I would move from city to city battling my caught Pokémon against Gym Leaders, people who ran centres of Pokémon excellence that specialised in a certain Pokémon type.

Beforehand and all the way there, I had read up about Pokémon and the research done upon them. One part of that research was the classification of all the species of Pokémon into certain groups referred to as types, judged by their weaknesses and strengths against other Pokémon’s attacks and defence in battle. If I thought the strengths and weaknesses of the eight Fa’Dieli Elementals was difficult, the seventeen (known) Pokémon types proved to be worse. It is a complicated matrix and I was often surprised first-hand in my battling.

Another part I had read up about was the manner and way in which Pokémon are actually caught and kept: in little spheres imaginatively called Pokéballs. A Pokémon creature, even one as tall as me or even greater could be condensed into a little tiny ball, able to fit between two of my fingers, stored purely as electronic code. However, a law of the Pokémon League, the body that controls the keeping, battling and research of Pokémon, states that no more than six of the animals may be with one trainer (one who keeps Pokémon) at any one time so as to maintain a fair battling environment between trainers. So, electronics and the Interworldnet came to the rescue with the establishment of online databases to keep these electronic codes for use by trainers for when they had more than six in their possession. They even developed a system that would contact the database from the wild, check how many Pokémon the particular trainer had with them at that one time and then transmit the electronic code to the database if there were more than six. Oh, Ark would have loved it!

As time would show, though, that electronic code would lead to another one of my unhappiest hours. But, let’s start at the beginning.

I had already got in touch with the Pokémon League in Yoshibane so as to gain my trainer licence; all I would have to do was show the papers, get the official card, and then get my first Pokémon as part of signing up from a choice of three. The Vermillion PokéCentre was the place I had to go so as soon as I got off the boat, so I headed straight there.

Because I started off in Kanto, my choices were different than those starting in Hoenn or Johto. I didn’t even know what the choices for Kanto were until I was shown the holding pens by an assistant.

“Well, you can choose from a Squirtle, a Charmander, or a Bulbasaur,” she told me, gesturing to each pen in turn.

“Not all three?” I asked.

“No. League rules. There’s nothing to say you can’t catch the other two in the wild, though.”

I nodded and looked at each group. The Squirtles were blue Koopa-like creatures with mainly brown shells and furry tails. I had read that they grew into Wartortles, a long-living creature that was a sign of longevity, much like my own. They seemed to be playful and friendly, and possibly a little bit cheeky judging by the way some of them were carrying on.

I was really taken by the Charmanders, them being orange reptiles like myself. I moved over to the pen and was greeted by little yips of excitement; they probably thought I was some sort of father or a bigger version of them. One particularly brave one moved forward and clung to the little rail and looked up at me with sparkly eyes, swishing its tail fiercely: the very tip of it had a naked flame burning on it, just like the rest of them. One was a little too close to it and it flinched away as it passed by. I held my hand to it and it sniffed it, then rubbed its little face against a finger. Sadly, I had to admit to myself that they were a bit of a walking potential disaster, both from causing havoc by its tail and also to itself: should that flame go out, the creature would die. Knowing my love of the water, that was not going to be easy to start off with.

With a reluctant glance at the Charmanders (much to the disappointment of that little fellow), I looked at the Bulbasaur pen and the lone Bulbasaur in it. It looked up at me with its big eyes and plodded towards the front of the pen. It was a symbiosis of a reptile and a plant, as the large bulb on its back would eventually open into one, the whole of its flora providing it with energy. I would only have to feed it every few days. As it came forward, I gently scooped it up into my hands and picked it up, holding it before my face. He was a cute little fellow and certainly seemed expressive with his facial gestures. Something told me that he was intelligent; he seemed to be begging to come with me.

I gave the Charmanders another brief look, and weighed them up against the little green reptile in my hands. “This one,” I told the assistant.

She nodded and gestured me over to a facility that would brand the creature’s electronic code in my name when it was in its Pokéball. “Alright,” she said, smiling. “Very nice choice, I rather like them myself. Anyway, what are you going to name him?”

I looked over the little fellow and nodded. The name instantly came to me. “Dridode.”

“Dridode?”

“Yes, it means ‘bulb’ where I’m from,” I explained. I told her how to spell it.

Soon, Dridode glowed red and that glow was pulled into a Pokéball for a few moments as his code was written. He reappeared with a white glow, looked up at me and gave me a wide grin.

Dridode was a delightful companion as I travelled around Kanto. I quickly came to discover that Pokémon understood parts of human speech when given in an order. So, if I told him to tackle a creature, he would do so. It may seem alarming to some that Pokémon training is actually quite violent in its purpose: to make a creature stronger, it needs to fight. This is also how Pokémon are caught using the balls, as if a creature is weakened, it will tend to resist fighting capture.

One of the notions of the Gym Trek is to fill that which is known as a Pokédex. It is basically an electronic encyclopaedia of all things Pokémon. Of course, the information is not what needs to be filled, but there is a feature of it that ties in to the databases that displays the record of what Pokémon has been owned by a trainer. That ownership list is what drives many trainers to travel and collect, being a widely recognised trophy of sorts among their type. Naturally, there are some Pokémon that are quite rare, and to catch them and own them is quite an achievement.

I drove myself to fill as much of the list as I possibly could. The boss of the Pokémon League was rumoured to have had all the different Pokémon species in his possession at one time or another, including some that were one-of-a-kind. Through his work, though, some creatures that were considered to be that way were discovered to be more common than previously thought, but still quite rare. I consider myself quite lucky, then, considering part of my “bounty”.

Bulbasaurs, though, are fairly common creatures. I would never, ever let Dridode or any of my Pokémon fight them. My second Pokémon, the first I caught for myself, was slightly different.

They say that every trainer remembers and values their first catch, so this is mine. Rattata are purple mouse-like creatures that are probably the most common Pokémon in Kanto, along with Pidgeys, a field bird. They grow to be quite strong creatures known as Raticates, who have a bite considered unequalled by any other creature. Dridode tackled what was to become my Rattata Bykaa into submission. Then with a quick flick of the wrist, my Pokéball snapped him up, wrote the code, and he was mine.

So, I went across Kanto and Johto with my Pokémon, doing the Gym circuit, collecting Pokémon to broaden my list and also to gain an advantage against the Leaders with, Dridode as my faithful companion. Some Leaders he helped me collect the Badge trophies with, others would have got him decimated, or else he would have been ineffective, so he was safely in the database at the time. But apart from those times, he was pretty much always by my side.

Dridode was quite an affectionate little creature. I would pick him up and hold him in my arms, sometimes I would turn him over and scratch his belly (he liked that); once or twice I actually put myself into that accursed pose Dogo had subjected me to in his torture and let him sit there as I travelled about.

The problem though was that he soon became heavy. While he was fighting a Pikachu, a yellow electric mouse-like creature, he underwent what many Pokémon do: instantaneous evolution, where they do a permanent form change to a stronger body. With a glow of white light, Dridode’s bulb split open and out came some leaves and a pinkish flower still in bud. My Bulbasaur became an Ivysaur. Like Dridode, many of my Pokémon would eventually evolve: even Bykaa, who lost his purple and became brown as he gained his larger form and his nasty bite.

I had sensed that Dridode was intelligent, and had heard that some trainers could teach their Pokémon how to read. So, Dridode learnt the Mushroom alphabet and how to put their sounds together to make words, but I’m not sure if he necessarily learnt what those words meant.

My now slightly larger green companion was not through with surprises just yet; he evolved again into a gargantuan six foot tall Venusaur, his large pink flower and leaves wide open to the sky during the day, completely losing the ability to move on just his back legs from its sheer weight. It was soon he that was carrying me around, my legs across his shoulders.

Dridode was not the only Pokémon I had collected that I valued. Six would stand out particularly, since they would reside in a permanent home around my waist.

The first I had collected early in my travels around Kanto, since I picked him up nearby near the entrance of a long underground tunnel called Diglett’s Cave, one end of which was near Vermillion. It is called as such due to the abundance of the brown tunnelling creatures known as Digletts. They spend their entire lives in the ground, only revealing their head above it – even the code in the Pokéball was attuned to making them appear in the ground in a suitable location. My little Diglett, Quake (a Mushroom word) seemed to become good friends with Dridode, even if my then Bulbasaur was responsible for his restricted freedom. Quake soon became a good companion, and when he evolved into a Dugtrio – he grew two extra heads in the process, a rather strange phenomenon – he gained the ability to create earthquakes, hence his name from the start.

Shape-ta was the next one, an Eevee, a sort of fox-like creature with a ruff and long pointy ears. I found him in a field east of Celadon City, as I ran to shelter myself from a rainstorm under a tree. He was curled up in a little ball, and when I arrived, he huddled against me for warmth. Once the storm passed, I figured that he was owned thanks to his behaviour, so I got up and left. However, he started following me, and quite willingly allowed himself to be caught. He had been abandoned by his previous trainer and was looking for someone to be a new one – I was more than happy to. Eevees are a quirk of nature in that they are genetically volatile, which I would discover when I was battling at Celadon Gym against the grass types there (Dridode excluded, of course). I had forgotten to take him out of my team, and once all my other Pokémon were defeated in the battle with the leader, Erika, I discovered that he was the last hope left. A flutter of vine whip attacks by Erika’s Tangela, a walking ball of weedy vines, caused Shape-ta to dart into my legs unexpectedly, and trip me up. At the time, I had put a Fire Stone in my pocket, a sort of elementally charged rock that endows that sort of power upon creatures susceptible to it. I had intended it for use on another Pokémon at the time, but Shape-ta was where it ended up. Being susceptible to just about everything, Shape-ta was struck by it, absorbed its powers and evolved into a creature known as a Flareon, and having fire abilities, he quickly won the battle for me.

Discovering that many Pokémon I wanted to add to my collection were in the water, I purchased a fishing line, went to the bay and waited for them to bite. The first one I caught was a rather pathetic fish known as a Magikarp. Its writhing prevented it from being caught, so Dridode had to pacify it with his vines – he seemed to look at me as if to say, “You sure about this?” Nevertheless, my Magikarp had to be named, and according to the Pokédex, it became a large sea-dragon serpent known as a Gyarados, but to achieve that would take a lot of patience and effort, seeing as the only thing Magikarp can really do is splash around. Exposure to the battle environment over time was what I needed, and it was during the capture of my last companion that he evolved and earned his name: Leviathan.

Before this, though, I became an extremely lucky trainer. As I have mentioned earlier, some of what were considered to be the rarest of the rare species of Pokémon were discovered not to be, and I was able to capture not one, but two of them. The first I found near an iron mine in the mountains of Johto, and it was a gargantuan effort played on the part of my Golem (a sort of walking boulder), Gnotu, to bring down my Zapdos, Thunder. He is a large black and yellow bird with a command of electricity.

Above this mine were snowy mountains, and I climbed into them. I guess you could say it was a foolhardy venture that I was actually chasing snowstorms as I did so, but the reward was great. Once more it was up to Gnotu to bring down the creature, the only female in my regular companions, Icydoom. She is an Articuno, a large blue bird with long streamer-like tail feathers, with a command of ice, and is so named thanks to the Articuno’s entry in the Pokédex, where it states that Articunos appear to doomed travellers in icy mountains.

My last companion was found in the Dragon Cave of Johto, a formerly rare creature that had become more common, known as a Dratini. I named him Nessie, the Tasnican nickname for “dragon”, as, over time and with patience, he would grow into one. He resembled a sort of blue snake with fins for ears. Nessie kept shedding his skin as he grew too big for it – I still have relics of it – and after a time, whilst fighting a Zubat in the caves near Azalea, he evolved into a handsome creature called a Dragonair, basically a bigger version of a Dratini, twice as long as I am tall, but sporting orbs on his tail and one on his chest. He had quickly grown to like me, which was fortunate, since they are rumoured to be able to control weather thanks to those orbs. Nessie was not done with evolving just yet, and after a time, he became the powerful flying Dragonite, an orange docile-appearing dragon creature, strong and able to go quickly to anywhere in the world. He is quite an intelligent creature, and I have been able to hold meaningful discussion with him.

Yes, I know you are saying, “What about Dridode, if you’re only allowed six at a time? And why can you understand your Pokémon like that?”

Maybe I was doomed after all by my Articuno’s appearance.

I had travelled through many of the Gyms, training and collecting my Pokémon, and since I seemed to be an interesting character to the League, I was invited to come up to Indigo City, in the mountains of Kanto, to battle, socialise and trade with other trainers of my level. This gathering was going to be a bit of an event, and certain interests had other things in mind as a result.

I went into a battle against another trainer with Dridode, my Venusaur, who had a Charizard, a fire-breathing dragon creature. After our battle, the trainer divulged to me that he had not got a Venusaur recorded as being owned by him in his Pokédex, as I divulged to him that I hadn’t got a Charizard. So, we decided to do a “momentary swap”, where we would trade Dridode and the Charizard, then trade them straight back again. To perform an official trade requires the use of a special machine which rewrites the special code as it is transferred from Pokéball to Pokéball. So, we started the trade.

The power went off and the machine went dead. Panic erupted as the Kantolese terrorist group, Team Rocket, raided the building, trying to steal the rare and powerful Pokémon that we trainers had so that they could be sold on the black market for vast sums of money. Since I naturally had the Cyan Arc with me, I was able to help protect the trainers. Such a weapon had never been in Kanto before, and in the darkness, it was able to scare off the raiders, particularly when I could inflict some harm upon them, thanks to it and spells.

The power was restored and I was seen as a hero. I shrugged myself away from the limelight to try and finish off the trade we had started. The machine made some very strange beeping noises and suddenly flashed that it had an error. The trainer and I quickly looked to our Pokéballs. He opened his, and his Charizard came out. I opened mine.

Nothing. Dridode was gone.

Being near League officials, I quickly reported the problem with the machine and they tried to fix it and get Dridode’s code to re-appear. As much as they tried, it wouldn’t.

In protecting the other trainers and their Pokémon, my prized one, my friend, had been sacrificed. I cannot say that he was killed, because killing is the cessation of life. He was code at the time and I cannot say deleted either, because deletion is the result of a conscious choice. I console myself in that maybe his code is lost somewhere in the realms of cyberspace, so he is not dead, but to a degree, has obtained some sort of eternity, even if it is just in the forms of numbers and symbols.

In my grief, the League took me aside and gave me a form of consolation and thanks which, to this day, I wear around my neck: my Pokémon Language Translator, or PLT. These things are only given out as prizes to the best trainers, so I am extremely lucky to be in the possession of one. With it I am able to hear what Pokémon are actually saying – what’s sad is that I had longed to hear what Dridode was actually saying to me, and I only became able to after he had left.

I did not want to deal with the media for my heroics, so I made a quick exit out the back door, my new prized six on my belt (Quake taking Dridode’s place), called out Nessie, and left for Yoshibane on his back. I could not stay in the Pokémon countries any longer, and I have not been back since. Maybe one day I will return to explore Hoenn, which I never really got to do. But Dridode’s impression on me remains to this day. I miss him, I really do. Perhaps I am forever doomed to win friends of all sorts, only to have them taken away from me.

My GPS receiver at the time had a handy compass feature that would point me in a straight line to any point in the world I entered into it. Home and Toad Town were some of my presets, so it was easy to guide Nessie over the ocean to Miyamoto, then down towards the Archipelago. While some aeroplanes may be faster than a Dragonite, Nessie makes quick time – the fastest round the world trip was recorded at sixteen hours by one of his kind, though probably at a high latitude – and it was mere hours before I arrived in Toad Town. I decided that, with my being upset, I would cheer myself up and stay in a ritzy hotel, and indulge in the chocolatiest dish they had to offer as my desert that evening. I’ve never had chocolate better than it, even the best quality Pakkun on Fa’Diel.

The next morning I set off again on Nessie (much to the surprise of some Mushrooms) and headed for home, on as best a straight line as I could. It would bring me over the central mountains of the Main Island, and as I discovered when I got there, a snowstorm was blowing over them. Nessie told me that he had an aversion to it, but I wanted to get home as quickly as possible, so we would fly low, right under it.

I had never been flying by myself before, and, not understanding weather systems, I quickly discovered that these things have high winds, and the phenomenon of white-out, where all sense of balance is lost. Buffeted by them, and then confused by the whiteness, we tried to go down – my PLT was showing which way thanks to its weight and pointy nature – and so I descended.

Next thing I knew, there was an incredibly strong gust which pulled me off Nessie’s back and I fell, screaming all the way. Suddenly, there was a wooden crash beneath me – I mustn’t have been that far up because I passed out after I heard a very distinctive, somewhat ethereal voice yell, “What! How did you get here? This is my Lair; it is off limits to mortal Yoshians! Look at what you did…there's a hole in my roof!”