Starlight: Redshift

by the-pieman

Chapter 11

As I reach the front of the building, I see that the first floor doesn’t have a door, as the house is actually built into the side of the hill. A set of stairs leads up to the door, and a garage door is visible, along with a dirt road that follows the forest verge.

I walk up the stairs and into the center, and we enter the lobby, looking like the typical inside of a Pokémon Center, though in wood: Clean and sterile, but still inviting and cheery. How they found that balance, I’ll never know.

A large circular section of the floor is depressed downward, and has several cushions. As I walked in, a young woman with brilliant pink hair looks up. I watch as she stands up quickly, dusting off a nurse’s outfit. Her hair is loose, but I’ll be damned if she isn’t a Joy.

“Welcome to the Pokémon center! I’m sorry I wasn’t ready to greet you, but I rarely see trainers this far away from Krosa Forest and the shore. Usually, only really dedicated trainers try to get through Seabreeze’s denser forest.” She smiles a winning smile, and I start to understand why Brock always crushed on this lady and her relatives when he met them. Though maybe he exaggerated a little bit.

“Well, call me dedicated then. Though I admit I may have gotten a bit in over my head. Could you take a look at my pokémon and see what you can do for them? One got kicked through a tree and the other took a swim with a Crawdaunt...”

The nurse winces. “Ah, you met Old Man Hopkins, then. That big shellfish needs to be taken out eventually; he migrates whenever he cleans out a pond. Anyways, let’s take a look over here, the diagnosis machine is state of the art. Are these two alright? I don’t recognize the species, but I’m sure we can find something for them if need be.”

I chuckle. This ‘rare pokémon’ thing will never get old. “Nah, they’re fine, just these guys.” I hold out the shrunken Premier ball and Pokéball containing my two pokémon. “These are the ones that are hurting.”

The nurse nods, and takes them, then calls out. “Chance! Get a spot set up for this trainer; I’m guessing he’ll need a place to stay tonight.” She smiles at me again, and starts walking towards a machine. I turn at the sound of soft footsteps, and see a tall, rounded pink figure. Rather than the expected Chansey, a particularly tall Wigglytuff stands in front of me, and puffs up its chest. Well, puffs up its entire body a little, really.

“Tuff!” it says, then begins marching towards the lowered floor section, waving for me to follow. I walk after the out of place creature and follow it’s gestures, which I take as instructions. It only takes a few moments to get a pile of pillows covered by a thick blanket near the fireplace, which had been concealed by a thick wooden pillar. Surprisingly, the fireplace is concrete, and there’s a few small and large handprints in it. It’s also a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, and my companions and I find ourselves warm and drowsy very fast.

The Wigglytuff, Chance, then comes over and sits next to Rarity, who appears utterly fascinated with the Normal-and-Fairy type. after a few moments, she reaches out a tentative hoof, and gets nuzzled. The resulting delighted squeal and hug is adorable, as it looks like the marshmallow-colored pony is snuggling a giant plush toy.

“Heh, you certainly are popular aren’t you? Humans or Pokémon, you sure get a lot of attention.”

“Well, darling, it’s what I strive for.” Rarity says, still hugging Chance, who appears to be perfectly content with this. I hear a thump, and turn around to see that Nurse Joy has fainted.

I’m not entirely well-versed in the action to take when the local healer is the one who needs help. But one thing’s for sure, in a world like this, it should not be taken lightly. My mind races as I think of a plan. Twilight beats me to it though, lifting Joy up with her magic.

“Chance, help me find a place to put her down where she’ll be okay. Rarity, you look around, see if you can’t find the cause of this. Anthony, you... uh...”

“Beat up anyone who tries to attack someone else?” I shrug, and Twilight just shakes her head giving a quick ‘whatever’ as Chance leads Twilight to a back area, and Rarity starts poking around the area where Joy had fallen. I really don’t have much to do, but I feel that I should contribute, so I head through the door Chance and Twi had disappeared through.

I see I’m in a medical area, a few rows hospital cots of various shapes and sizes, obviously intended to support the varied species of Pokémon. I see Twilight setting Joy down on one of the more rectangular, human-sized beds.

Twiddling my thumbs and fidgeting from a need to do something, I sit and wait as Twilight and Rarity talk about what to do, until Chance finally seems to just get fed up. He poofs and puffs to almost double his size, making him a bit taller than me, then exhales in a series of golden waves, like wi-fi symbols. the shimmering golden waves settle into the nurse, and and she slowly opens her eyes.

Well, guess that’s a good reason to have something other than a Chansey if one’s unavailable. I walk over to Joy and check her over to see if she was bruised anywhere, though I’m sure the Heal Pulse would have fixed up any remaining injuries. Still, might as well make sure.

As she came too, she groaned. “Oog, what happened? I feel like I hit my head...”

“Well, you did. Right after you just... fell. We didn’t really know what to do so we just kinda laid you down.”

“Oh, I... I think I remember something about... heh, I thought I heard your pokémon talking. Oh, I’m just being silly I suppose; talking pokémon is a myth.”

That confuses me. “Uh... most psychic types can use telepathy to talk, and they can speak to humans and such. Yeah, it’s uncommon, but plenty of Pokémon can talk. At least in my experience. Besides, these two are special.”

“Telepathy isn’t speech, and the only pokémon that can mimic speech I know of is Chatot. Really, pokémon don’t speak the human language.” Joy says, speaking slowly, as if to a child.

“I guess that the Alakazam I chatted with earlier was just doing a really impressive job of faking it then, because I heard full sentences that made perfect sense.”

“I said telepathy isn’t speech, not that it isn’t intelligible!”

“Whatever, I still think a pokémon can learn to speak like us just as you would teach a human child. But either way, yeah, they did talk. Come on girls, introduction time again.”

Twilight has face-hoofed, and Rarity has already left the room, likely to get away from Nurse Joy. Twilight speaks up. “For the first thing, we aren’t pokémon. We’re from another world. Also, Professor Basswood said that talking pokémon weren’t too unusual.”

The nurse looks shocked again. “Wha- but- from another world? How is that even poss-”

“Magic.” I say, cutting off any further questions. “Also, there’s at least two pokémon that govern alternate realities, and several that are suspected from being from other realities and/or other worlds. Why is finding out something other than a pokémon could live in another world so shocking?”

Joy looks like she’s about to argue before turning pensive. “I- I guess I always assumed it’d be either pokémon or humans...”

“Yeah, same here.” I admit. “First time meeting these guys, I thought I was dreaming or hit my head. Anyway, if you’re still not convinced, they have trainer licenses as well. You can look at ‘em if you want.”

The nurse numbly recieves the trainer card that Twilight gives her with a magical flick. After a moment, the nurse appears to recompose herself, though she keeps flicking her eyes towards the purple unicorn. “Okay, well... I guess, uhm... do- do you three need to stay here tonight? Uhm, the common area is still open.”

“Yeah, that was our plan anyway. Don’t worry about it, we won’t give you any trouble, we just need a place to crash and get my pokémon healed. As I said, we had quite the adventure getting here.”

“Ah, yes, so I gathered. Uhm, I was coming back to tell you that your pokémon were healed up. Oh! They probably got dropped when I, uh, fainted.”

“Don’t worry about it. Weird stuff happens to me all the time. I guess the strange stuff just seems normal to me. So yeah, we’ll just rest for the night and be outta here by morning.” I pause when an idea pops into my mind. “Oh, you wouldn’t happen to know where we could find someone who would be able to offer breeder’s licenses would you? Rarity’s gonna try for one on top of being a coordinator.”

“Oh... well, there’s a few breeders working at the Primal Reserve. It’s about two or three days of walking along the road outside. One of them is a Master Breeder, if I remember right. there’s also a few Rangers there.”

“Eh, being a Ranger isn’t really my thing. Being called away to be a hero would cut into my adventuring time. Anyway, I’ll let you just... do whatever it is you do. I’m beat.” With that, I head back to the common room and get into the pile of blankets and pillows laid out by the fire.

Today was certainly interesting. But at least it’s not boring.

Comments

[KitsuneNoYomeiri]

There's an error:

Today was certainly interesting. But at least it’s not boring.

Yeah, it just sorta cuts off here. Is there more that you forgot to put in?

[the-pieman]

4826396 No. The story isn't over, you just have to wait for the next chapter.