Chapter 8

  You have to listen real close, but it’s there. The faint tapping on wood.

  “This noise is made by a pokémon called Pikipek,” Zuqimori says. “They are the woodpeckers of this world, understood?”

  I nod, treading behind him as quietly as possible. “Yeah.”

  Apart from getting accustomed to using Standard (Pokénglish), Zuqimori had also told me to make notes of our excursions in the wilds around Zeria Ruins. He had provided me with a pen and blank notepad and been quite insistent on this piece of homework.

  I was all too eager to accept. This wasn’t homework for me. This wasn’t boring old Geography and History, boring old English and French, boring old Mathematics or IT… this was like being an early explorer drawing maps of the world during the Age of Piracy. Or like being Charles Darwin and documenting never-before-seen species of animals. Or like being John Carter waking up in Barsoom.

  Like I said before, I was as immersed as I was during my first playthrough of Skyrim.

  We were hunting a pokémon called ‘Emolga’.

  Zuqimori had refused to describe it, saying I would see it when I see it, and the name rang no bells in my mind. It was an Electric-type though, which was somewhat odd considering the forested environment of the area. I remembered reading as a kid that Electric-types hung out close to electrically charged places such as cities and power stations.

  “When you hear that tapping,” Zuqimori says in a low voice. “You can be sure that Emolga are close by. They love to use the holes made by Pikipek as nests.”

  “Then what do the Pikipek use?”

  “They have to get lost and make a new hole somewhere else… Emolga only loses that fight if it is caught by surprise. Pikipek does not stand a chance otherwise.”

  I make a tiny bullet point reminder of it.

  “Will you be using the sleep gun again?”

  He keeps treading, stepping over a thick and gnarly root as he searches the trees with his eyes.

  “Do you see Missy here?”

  “… No?”

  “Then you bet I am.” He spares a glance back at me. “You still trust in Ken and Satoshi’s bullshit, eh…”

  “It just seems a little dangerous,” I reply. “It would be better if we had a pokémon with us.”

  “Oh yah, of course it would, no argument there, but who’s going to watch over my shit, boy?” He goes into one of his lab coat’s pockets and pulls a dark, blood-red marble out of it, showing it to me. “If needed, Missy can find us so don’t get your knickers in a bunch. I’ve done this more times than the number of fries you eat in a week, and wild pokémon don’t just up and attack for no reason, you hear?”

  My nose flares as I take in a big breath. “I’ve not had a single fry this week…”

  He whips his head around and gives me his exasperated-sensei expression, mouth hanging open, brows in a frown, eyes in disbelief. “Oeee! How many times do I need to remind you to show some respect? There is seniority here! Don’t be smart with me, boy, it’s embarrassing… tch.”

  “Sorry, Sensei,” I say with a tiny bow of my head.

  He blinks and nods before turning back ahead. “Okay. Good.”

  Good thing he has no clue what the fuck sarcasm is!

  It’s only a minute later when Zuqimori suddenly ducks and pushes his back up against a tree. I duck on the ground on the spot, cluelessly watching him. Our eyes meet and there’s a bewildered look behind his cracked glasses. He silently hisses something at me and I frown back, completely lost.

  “What!” I whisper.

  He motions frantically for me to get behind cover next to him.

  “Are you stupid, Baruto-kun? You see me hiding and you hide in plain sight like you are rock?”

  I don’t bother arguing. I know how it goes. “Sorry, Sensei.”

  “Good, Baruto. Good. We will party crash. You know party-crash?”

  I nod. “I know what it means, yes.”

  He’s got a nasty smile forming on his lips, his slightly stained teeth on full display. “Many Emonga here,” he says, reaching for the Wilder Gun in his inner pocket, and after, he hands me a mini-pokéball.

  “Put the notepad away and follow right behind me, okay?” he switches back to Standard. “I saw at least three of them, and if they think I’m alone, they might decide to have some fun.”

  Have some fun? Does he mean like attack? Cue my sweaty palms.

  Stuffing the notepad in my jeans, I can’t help but grow worried. “Are you sure we-”

  “Eeeeee!”

  We both duck by reflex when something whizzes past the tree we’re hiding behind.

  I spot it! A small pokémon. White with a relatively large, black tail. Hold on, even its head looks black, though its face is the same white as the majority of its body. It can fly!

  The thing latches onto the trunk of some tree a couple dozen meters away and cries out loudly.

  You can’t realize how strange pokémon sound until you hear them face-to-face, with your own ears. It is another reminder that I’m in a different world. Their sounds are too distinct and too muck like voices. In the couple days we had Drilbur, there had been several occasions when out of the blue, it would vocalize certain sounds besides its usual growling and grunting.

  It was like living in a world full of pixies.

  Zuqimori hesitates. “It is too far…”

  I can only keep my eyes locked on the thing, still crouching on the ground. “That is Emolga?”

  “Yes, boy.”

  … I was slightly disappointed. It was a small thing, but then again, I should have expected it when Zuqimori told me they nest in trees.

  When I thought of Electric-type pokémon, I thought of Manectric, Luxray, Raikou… Pikachu was the most-known pokémon ever – everybody’s grandmother had heard of it, but in the games, having a Pikachu on your team was almost a handicap. There were just way better options out there for battle.

  This was real life though, and Emolga, though disappointingly small, struck a chord with me right away. The best way I can describe it is when you have ten different papers in front of you, all with different handwriting, and among those ten, you recognize your own and go: “Ah, that’s mine.”

  I need to catch it.

  …

  ZWIP! ZWAP! ZWUP!

  More Emolga flew past us, chirping and singing like whistles.

  Zuqimori cursed and stepped on one of our tree’s bulging roots.

  “Go, boy! Take their attention!”

  “What do you mean!” Seeing his obvious fear, it was hard not to feel it myself. I was the one without a clue of what we were up against!

  Zuqimori was hugging tightly onto the tree, as if it would somehow protect him. I promptly copied him.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, BARUTO-KUN!?”

  “I don’t know!” I yelled. “What are you doing?”

  The Emolga seemed to be loving it, doubling back and forth as crackling and buzzing sparks flew between them.

  “Can you call Missy?!”

  “Baruto-kuuun!!!” Zuqimori wailed. “Electric don’t hurt you, baka! Go! I shoot!”

  “You said they don’t attack for no reason!”

  “Maybe they are thinking your stomach is full of berries! Go! They will shock me!”

  I can’t tell whether he’s serious or not, but the Emolga do seem extremely animated or agitated. If you’ve ever had a bat fly into your room by accident, darting erratically all over the place, you would have a pretty good picture of how the Emolga were moving about our tree.

  I had only been electrocuted by Garuvan once (consciously), but according to Zuqimori, I was unmistakably impervious to the effects of electricity on my “constitution”. He told me that he had run tests for the first three days I was unconscious on my arrival, noticing that electrical equipment was behaving oddly around me, and getting the idea to plug me into the mains of cave’s electrical system after Garuvan had, totally unrequested, zapped me the first time it saw me, and with no ill effect. When Zuqimori had seen no stiffening or jerking of my limbs during higher-voltage tests, he had wondered where all that power was going (thinking my body might have been storing it like a battery), but he found that it simply ‘dissapeared’.

  “Maybe property of star-piece,” he had surmised. “And maybe your body is fuse with star-piece.”

  …

  I’m still scared. “They won’t hurt me?”

  “No!” Zuqimori instantly replies.

  Heart pumping, lightheaded and giddy, I let go of the tree and gingerly walk several steps out below the zone where the group of Emolga are playfully hopping, leaping, and gliding from branch to branch above us.

  “Eeeeyo! Eeeeyiii!” they whistle with baby-like voices.

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  I’m staring up at them, holding the mini-pokéball in my hand, when one of them glides straight at me and wooshes past. They’re bigger up close! Like small cats, with large, dark orbs for eyes which are honestly nothing if not cute – and I don’t use that word a lot.

  Despite my first impression from afar, I instantly take a liking to it now that I’ve seen it better. Patrat’s vicious, frenzied-looking eyes were a stark contrast from an Emolga’s. Scratch that, it was different from the others in every regard. Emolga seemed naturally high-spirited and playful whereas Drilbur was a sulky little runt. Deerling was slightly more curious, but any attempt I had made to touch or interact with it made it extremely haughty, as if I was an annoyance. Sewaddle and Foongus… well, let’s not talk about Foongus, cause it set up camp in any corner of the room we put it in and remained there, unresponsive. Sewaddle showed the most interest – just not in me, preferring to talk and play with Missy and Garuvan, and it would look right past me unless I got close, in which case it would let out a whiny cricket-like chirp and scoot away.

  “Talk to them!” Zuqimori calls out in Standard, still hugging the tree.

  “What do I say?”

  “Call them cute! Tell them we’re lost!”

  If I had a drink in my mouth, I would have spat it out.

  “That didn’t work so well last time around!”

  “Say something, boy! Can’t you see they’re waiting!”

  …

  I’m not sure how the Emolga darting around means they’re waiting, but he’s the one who’s been here for the last two decades, so I take his word for it.

  “Hello, guys!”

  “Eeeeyiuuu!!”

  “Myayiiii!”

  The Emolga come to a stop, each on different branches, but all equally fixated on me.

  …

  This is more awkward than I thought.

  “Would any of you like to come with us?”

  There’s a slap behind me and I glance over at Zuqimori, who has his hand to his face.

  “Baruto-kun… you are like pedophile.”

  I shrug and ignore him. The Emolga are quietly chittering and shifting slightly on their perches.

  “Ehh, I’m new here! I need a friend who’s not insane.” This is really damn awkward damnit. I can feel my ears getting warm from embarrassment. “Maybe it can be one of you? …”

  I turn back to Zuqimori, shrugging in defeat, but he quickly points up, somewhere above me and I snap back towards the Emolga.

  One of them has left its perch, gliding down towards me, and something tells me it’s the same one which spotted us to begin with, the same one which whizzed past me earlier.

  This time though, there is a noise coming from it, but not from its mouth. It sounds like fidget spinner at full speed; a low, vibrating buzz.

  Zuqimori utters some unintelligible thing, but I can’t peel my eyes away from the approaching Emolga. It’s glowing. Something bright all over it, like the filter on a camera when you turn the exposure all the way up.

  *ZZCRACK!*

  A bright flash of light strikes me on the forehead, and I stumble backwards, once again falling on my ass with a thud. I’m wide-eyed and blinded, seeing nothing but white as I wait for the pain to start. My ears are ringing like a bell.

  Moments pass and the brightness fades, my eyesight returns slowly, but there is no pain whatsoever. Not even a tickle. Maybe I’m already dead. Or maybe I’ll wake up in my room back in Thunder Bay now.

  As the ringing subsides, distant bird-like cries and frightened squawks begin filtering through my ears. I blink dumbly a few times, and my head tilts all the way back. I catch glimpse of the sky. Beautiful, blue, Unovan sky…

  Something is different.

  I gasp quietly, by reflex, and keep staring up, seeing the green, swaying leaves on the branches above me, feeling the cool, grainy, earth between my fingers and the softest breeze wisping across my face, totally mesmerized by the beauty of something as simple as a clear blue sky.

  “Baruto-kun!” Zuiqimori sounds worried. “Baruto!”

  I tilt my head further, looking at him with my vision upside down. “Yeah?”

  He blinks and I see the immediate relief in his body as his chest deflates and his grip on the tree eases up. He might act callously tough and blunt, but I realize now that it’s not how he truly is.

  “Ogh…” he sighs, managing a grin. “I will call Missy now.”

  He’s holding his blood-red orb caught between his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, swinging my head back forward and getting to my feet. “We can handle this.”

  He begins to say something but stops himself, then after a pause says, “Emonga is very fast, Baruto-kun, we don’t have surprise anymore. And this party is very, very violent. It is better if- Watch! Watch!”

  Something is different.

  I am calm. The calmest I’ve ever been. And awake. Lucidly so.

  I take a deep breath and exhale in complete satisfaction. I didn’t know breathing could feel so good.

  There is that quiet, vibrating sound again, and a moment later another bright flash. It strikes me on the shoulder, but this time, I’m not taken by surprise, and I don’t budge. Another Emolga glides by, perching on a different branch.

  “Eeeewo!!”

  *ZZFRRAP!*

  And another.

  I stand there as flash after flash smite down on me from the group of Emolga darting through the treetops. The most I feel is as if someone is softly blowing on you. Zuqimori was correct. I am impervious.

  The Emolga manage to keep it up for minutes, but eventually, they begin to tire.

  “Won’t one of you come?” I chuckle, feeling like I’ve already won.

  One especially vocal Emolga begins to whine loudly, meowing some long syllables and quivering as its short fur puffs up and stands on end all over its body.

  “Ayaa!” Zuqimori exclaims but instantly smacks a hand to his mouth as if he’s afraid of being heard.

  “It’s you, isn’t it?” I say to Emolga. “You’re the same one…”

  I’m certain in my gut that this is the one that spotted us, and the one who attacked first.

  The little guy shines bright as a bulb and leaps in the air. Hell, it’s shining so brightly that the sky looks dark in comparison. Sizzling yellow sparks arc around it before it flies straight at me.

  I press the mini-pokéball’s center button, expanding it in my hand.

  “Ba-ru-to-kuuuunn!!! …”

  “EEEYOuuu!!!” Emolga screams with all its might. My hair is standing on end as I bring up my arms to cover my face. I’d rather not get struck on the head – it makes my ears ring.

  The flash is bright as anything, and this time, I can hear crackling arcs bouncing off me and striking the ground around me, sending a gust of splintered twigs against my clothes.

  When I lower my arms, there’s a light cloud of dust reaching just under my chest which I wave away as I step clear of it.

  Emolga is standing on the ground before me, panting.

  “That was a strong one,” I say to it without sarcasm.

  “Catch!” Zuqimori yells out. “Catch, Baruto!”

  My fingers twitch around the Poké-Ball, reacting to his words, but I stop myself from doing so. Instead, I squat down and wait to see how it reacts.

  Its eyes track my movements, watching my feet when they shift, then a quick glance at my eyes, then at my knees as they bend. It drops to all fours and turns, taking a few hops away, but I don’t throw the Poké-Ball, much to Zuqimori’s dismay.

  “Baruto…” he whispers behind me, and I can hear the wince in his tone.

  Why I’m suddenly so calm is a mystery to me, but there was just something after that moment when the first Emolga attacked.

  Maybe it was because my brain finally understood that they couldn’t hurt me, or maybe the zap had knocked a few screws loose, but I felt like things had really been put into perspective.

  It was a new world, so why was I still behaving like same old me?

  This was my chance to start again and be something else besides a fat loser. Be something new.

  The greens had never been greener, the sky, never bluer. If I knew some poetry, I would have poeted the shit out of this moment, because only then I could describe just how serene I was feeling…

  Emolga looks back at me and stops. His buddies are still up on the trees, but they’re all silent as whispers. Finally, I get a clear view of its face. The similarity to Pikachu there is very notable, it’s even got those round blots on its cheeks, though they’re orange instead of red. Its ears though are round instead of pointy, the skin of the flaps it uses to glide hangs loosely about it like its own tiny blanket, and its tail is fully black with the same short, glossy layer of fur that covers its body.

  I remain where I am, squatting and smiling gently at the little guy. I have no desire to scare it off by lobbing the Poké-Ball at it. We had already caught four pokémon using Zuqimori’s methods, and none had wanted me. I would do this one my way.

  I lift my hand slightly, hinting to Emolga at the Poké-Ball in my hand. “Wanna play catch?”

  It eyes the Poké-Ball then looks me right in the eye before a few sparks dance across the orange blots on its cheeks.

  Just like Pikachu…

  Slowly, I put the Poké-Ball on the ground. “If you don’t want to come, you can move out of the way…”

  I press the top button, making sure the amber light glows around the center button, and roll it towards Emolga few meters away.

  My heart surges when Emolga doesn’t leap away, but instead gets on all fours, tail sticking up menacingly, and bears its tiny teeth with a growl. Right as the Poké-Ball is about to reach it, it takes a quick, cat-like swipe at it, and the ball snaps open.

  Its little form is transformed into blue neon light and in a second, it’s swirled into the Poké-Ball as it snaps back shut.

  The other Emolga are murmuring now, letting out an alarmed whine here and there, but my eyes are fully on the wagging Poké-Ball, red light blinking round the center.

  “Very good!” Zuqimori cries out in relief, and the next moment, the red ring flashes white, then glows that steady green.

  I grin.

  I had I strong feeling that this time wouldn’t be like the others. This was my first real catch.

  …

  “Nyeh?”

  I turn at the voice with a sinking feeling in my gut.

  There she is… Missy…

  She’s staring at me with a puzzled look, like she can’t quite understand what’s going on.

  “What’s she doing here?” I say, walking towards Emolga’s pending Poké-Ball, suddenly feeling urgent about it.

  “I call her when these violent kusogaki attack. I tell you truth, Baruto-kun, in twenty years, I never see Emonga-pokémon attack like this…”

  I pick up the ball and promptly press the center button to secure Emolga. I press it again to shrink the ball and put it in one of my jean’s pockets.

  “Yeah, well, she can go back if you want.”

  Zuquimori hops off the root he had been standing on and glances up at the other Emolga, who are now scampering closer to us, giving Missy curious looks and probably wondering where their buddy disappeared to.

  “No, she comes with us now. I am not safe with you, Baruto-kun. Pokémon really, really hate you.”

  “Are we going back now?” I say, constantly mindful of Emolga in my pocket. I’m getting all jittery and impatient to take it out of the ball and get to know more about it, but there’s something nudging at the back of my head.

  “Yes,” Zuqimori replies. “We have what we come for. Let us go.”

  Emolga’s buddies still look quite confused, and the reality of it is… that I feel quite shitty about that. In the games, I couldn’t bat an eye because I didn’t really see them as living things. I could get attached to them, but only in the way that you might get attached to your favorite t-shirt or pair of shoes.

  Now, knowing that the games were based on reality – that the world of pokémon isn’t some fantasy dreamed up in some Japanese dude’s head, but rather a real world that has been secretly studied and documented for profit… it really makes you look at it all different. Emolga had a life before we stumbled into its playground. It had friends and family it had spent its life with, and now it was inside a Poké-Ball on its way to someplace new. It felt like a kidnapping.

  I pull out its ball as we start walking away and bounce it on my hand a few times. Without thinking much more about it, I expand it and press the release. Neon light flashes as Emolga is released back outside. The other Emolga chitter and cry out as soon as they spot their buddy.

  It doesn’t even look around, but instead simply leaps up and glides towards the others of its kind.

  Missy hums. Zuqimori glances at it with some surprise, then back at me with quizzical, perked up eyebrows.

  “What are you doing?” he says in Standard.

  “I don’t think I should take it by force…”

  He stops walking and Missy begins giggling in her soft, quiet, phantom voice.

  “Is this about the Poké-Ball thing? I told you –”

  I shake my head. “I dunno… something is telling me to let it stay here for now, besides, why did you tell me that Missy never goes into a ball?”

  “Agh… boy…” Zuqimori groans. “There are special cases everywhere. Outliers. Ghost-types actually have the biggest number of them. They already exist in a trans-physical state, the dreamlike biome they experience inside a Poké-Ball is to them nothing novel but in fact, rather limited,” he explains.

  “The Emolga can enjoy the Poké Ball to its heart’s content, but it is imperative that the trainer and pokémon spend time together after its capture. Sooner rather than later!”

  Listening to him in Standard is way more insightful than Japanglish. He articulates very differently.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because the critter enters an imprinting stage,” he replies. “Generally, the first several times you put a pokémon into a Poké-Ball, its brain experiences states similar to the ones experienced during infancy – and for prolonged periods of time. It makes it extra receptive to impressions made by whoever is handling it.”

  A smirk creeps on my lips. “You just made that all up, didn’t you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Nyeh?”

  “Bartholomew, my boy… do you think I have the time to fool around with children? I never waste words, mark my words. Put Emolga in the ball and let’s scram, you have your writing to do.”

  I sigh. “Mr. Zuqimori… Sensei… I just don’t have a good feeling about it…”

  He sighs and quickly says, “Is it your heart or your gut speaking?”

  I cock my head at him. “What?”

  “Is it a gut feeling or from the heart, boy?”

  … It’s a weird question, and I take a moment to consider it.

  “Both? But mostly a gut feeling, I guess…”

  “Fine then, leave it if you must.”

  That was easy. So easy that it catches me off-guard.

  “Really? I mean, we can come again tomorrow to check on it – it’ll be better if we let get used to us slowly.”

  A scoffing sound comes out of Zuqimori’s mouth, and Missy immediately copies him, shaking her head. One of the reasons I don’t want to take Emolga back to the cave is because I don’t want Missy spending too much time with it. I’m almost certain her translations are bullshit.

  Zuqimori starts walking back the way we came. “You are soon going to learn that pokémon are not animals!” He lifts a hand up, back to me, pointer finger extended like a teacher. “They have a natural pull towards evolution, dear boy, and humans have proven to be the most effective method to achieve just that! But enough now! Leave it behind! With a gut that big, it would be tempting fate not to heed it.”

  There it is. It wouldn’t be Zuqimori without some backhanded remark squeezed in there. Can I hate him for it though? Hell nah! He’s the reason I’m in the freaking Pokémon world!

  I look back at the Emolga and oddly enough, I can immediately tell ‘mine’ apart. The four of them are all perched on a branch, grooming themselves and chittering, but only one is watching us leave.

  A smile comes over my face and I wave.

  A perk of its ears and a twitch of its tail is all that tells me that it’s noticed.

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