Unbroken Disguise

It turns out that route 202, despite being one of the shortest in the region and equal to the size of the smallest cities on every map available, is long. Much longer than the maps made it seem, at least, though maybe that was more to do with how the path seemed to wind back and forth instead of allowing for a straight path through. Long enough that Mimikyu and N had been forced to camp out in the wilderness last night, surrounded by what sounded like hundreds of Kricketot. Mimikyu had sworn up and down that he saw the eyes of a Luxray reflect the firelight at one point, but N hadn’t caught sight of them. Nonetheless, they were able to make it through the woods and into the outskirts of Jubilife city by noon the next day.

Towering buildings stood before them. Compared to Castelia City, it wasn’t that impressive, but that wasn’t really a fair comparison. Castelia was one of, if not the biggest city in the world. Still though, going from sleepy little Sandgem Town to this was quite a difference. The crowds on the ground weren’t as jam packed as Castelia’s might be, but honestly that would be an improvement. This seemed… calmer. Older, in some sense, more used to handling so many people. Like the town had had the time to grow into itself, unlike Castelia which had grown into the behemoth that it was in a relatively short time frame. A few vendors were selling their wares out of carts parked on the sides of the road, but nothing being sold was familiar to him. He doubted that he’d be able to find a Casteliacone here…

He brushed off the short bout of homesickness. It wouldn’t do to be missing Unova like that when he’d only just arrived in Sinnoh yesterday.

“So this is Jubilife? It’s bigger than I expected. How exactly do you plan to find this Ash guy in a city of this size?” N asked the little fairy on his shoulder.

“That’s… an excellent question. My plan sorta ended at ‘Find ‘em in Jubilife’. I might’ve maybe forgotten ta account for the size of this place. The largest city in the region…”

N sighed before continuing over the border between the route and the city proper, walking down the stone path. “I suppose the place to start would be the Pokemon Center. He’s a trainer, right? Assuming he didn’t pass straight through, he probably has a room there.”

“Ya might be onta somethin’. Might be able ta catch him, or even ask Nurse Joy for a bit of assistance.”

“Do you know where the Pokemon Center is, then?”

Mimikyu’s silence was damning.

“I’m not sure why I even asked…” N remarked, looking around the entrance of the city for any sign of the orange roof. The design here may not be identical to the one in Unova, but to his knowledge the basics of the Pokemon Center design were universal, consistent even outside of the League.

Unfortunately, with how tall the buildings were in this gigantic city, it was impossible to see beyond their immediate surroundings outside of a few small gaps between buildings.

“Maybe we could ask someone for directions? It’s a Pokemon Center, someone’s gotta know the way.” Mimikyu suggested.

N considered his options. The many people in professional looking outfits probably wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted on what might be their lunch breaks. The children running around, laughing and chasing after a playful Shinx would likely be distracted by the Pokemon on his shoulder. The old man sat on the bench however…

Weaving through the people rushing every which way, N approached the old timer tossing seeds to the local Starly with a content smile on his face. Balding and wrinkled, his eyes were barely visible for how hard he was squinting.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me where the Pokemon Center is?”

The old man slowly craned his neck up to meet N’s eyes. “Come again?” he shouted. “Oh! A Pikachu! I haven’t seen one of them in a long time you know, not since I visited the Trophy Garden back in… ah.. What year was that…”

It seemed the old man needed both his hearing and vision checked. Maybe N’s accent was too strong? Professor Rowan didn’t seem to have trouble understanding him, but maybe it was thicker than he thought…

“The Pokemon Center? Could you tell me where it is?” N repeated, a bit louder this time, making sure to enunciate as clearly as he could.

“Oh! The Pokemon Center! Why, that’s just down the main road here. You’ll want to hang a right once you hit the trainer school. Ah, the trainer school… why, I used to attend the trainer school, you know! Back in the day, when I was a spry young thing… The teacher had a Pikachu, just like you! Hmmmm, yours isn’t looking very healthy though. Might want to get down to the Pokemon Center! They’ll fix your Pikachu right up. It’s over by the trainer school. I used to attend the trainer school, you know!”

Answer received, and worried that he’d be here forever if he let the old man keep repeating himself, N backed away with a “Thank you!”

But the old man had been quite loud. Children who had previously been preoccupied chasing the Shinx around had all turned towards them when they heard the name Pikachu. However, their eyesight was much better than the old man’s.

“WOAH! What is that?!” A young boy with glasses exclaimed. In an instant N found himself surrounded, children crowding around him and asking too many questions at once to make out what any of them had actually said.

“What kind of-”

“Is that your-”

“How many-”

“Look at-”

“Excuse me!” N shouted out, trying to be heard over the horde of excitable children. While their wonder in the face of unfamiliar Pokemon was to be expected, this was not the way to express it. “Would you all back away, please? I need to-” One of the children stumbled into him, having been pushed forward by the crowd. N was perfectly fine, but the sudden jolt had launched an unprepared Mimikyu from his shoulder and onto the ground.

The children’s shouts suddenly changed, “Catch it!” and “Dibs!” being the loudest among them.

Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but Mimikyu seemed to defy all expectations of normality and posed an actual danger if the children got too grabby with his disguise. “Hey! Don’t get too close, Mimikyu doesn’t-”

N and Mimikyu saw it at the same time.

One of the children had a Pokeball, and was winding up to throw it.

Why a child obviously too young to be a trainer was carrying around an empty Pokeball was a question for another time. Far more important was that they not be allowed to capture Mimikyu. N sought to deflect the ball, smack it out of the way, reaching for the child in hopes that he could stop it.

Mimikyu decided to run.

Mimikyu was apparently much faster than N had previously thought. He won’t be winning a race against an Accelgor any time soon, but at this rate it won’t only be the children who lose him!

N couldn’t keep track of him in the crowd, the little ghost weaving between people’s feet, trying to put as much distance between himself and the group of children chasing after him as he could. But the children were apparently used to chasing Pokemon, and probably each other, through the busy streets, allowing him to follow along. The problem was that this forced him to follow with them instead of getting ahead and away from them.

With every block they chased Mimikyu down, some of the children dropped out, too tired to continue, only to be replaced by others who seemed to think this was a game of some sort. The word would quickly spread between them, and they would gain a fire in their eyes, determined to capture the “weird Pokemon” for themselves, even if he only saw one or two Pokeballs in the crowd.

The skyscrapers gave way to open fields and a large circular building, if only for a single block. Trainers and their Pokemon looked to be practicing for something, but none appeared to be actively battling. Whatever they were doing was relaxed enough that just about every head in the area turned towards the group running into the field, chasing after Mimikyu.

This meant that N could finally see his partner again, with the heavy foot traffic having been left behind. He pulled ahead of the group of school children, breaking into a sprint so that he could grab Mimikyu and get them out of the situation… but Mimikyu had other plans.

A group of trainers had caught the little fairy’s eye, and N watched as he ran up to them, not pausing for a moment as he scurried up a stranger’s clothes. Baffled, N tried to get a read on the trainers that Mimikyu apparently trusted enough to get that close to them. A short girl with long blue hair, an older teen with a darker complexion, two Pokemon on the ground he didn’t recognize. But the one Mimikyu had latched onto was interesting. While Mimikyu had startled the boy by suddenly perching himself on an unoccupied shoulder, the other shoulder was taken up by a strikingly similar figure. A real Pikachu.

The group of trainers caught on to the situation, the Pikachu jumping down between them and the incoming horde of children, cheeks sparking menacingly.

“Hey! What’s going on here?” The Pikachu’s trainer yelled. Not the local accent… Kanto maybe? Or maybe it was Johto, he had trouble telling them apart sometimes. Either way, the children behind him, as well as N himself, slowed to a stop. N promptly bent double, gasping for air. I’m used to long treks, not sprinting halfway across a city.

The children had no such problems. “We’re trying to catch that weird looking Pokemon!” One of the few who had a Pokeball on hand raised it in the air, and Mimikyu forced himself closer to the trainer’s head, making himself as small as possible.

“And you chased him all this way? This Pokemon obviously doesn’t want to be caught!” He looked genuinely angry as he declared it.

A trainer telling people not to catch Pokemon? How strange.

Having finally caught his breath, N stepped towards the trainers. Too tired to bother figuring out the sentence structure in League, he spoke to his friend in Unovan. “Did you really have to run so fast Mimikyu? And halfway across the city as well…”

“What was I s’posed to do? Let some snot-nosed brat catch me? It all worked out in the end, didn’ it?” Mimikyu jumped down from the trainer’s shoulder, running past a confused Pikachu, and taking up his spot on N’s shoulder once more.

“Are you this Pokemon’s trainer?” the older teen asked, glancing between the two. He spoke slowly, probably assuming that N didn’t know the language very well, if at all.

“We’re… friends.” N answered in League. The answer was an obvious no, but saying that now would lead to some problems. They could just clarify once things settled down.

The teen nodded, making his way over to the group of children, starting up a lecture that N didn’t care to listen to and probably wouldn’t understand anyway.

N turned towards the boy with the Pikachu, which had taken its place up on the boy’s shoulder once more, the four of them mirroring each other to a startling degree. “Thank you very much. When those children pulled out a Pokeball, Mimikyu panicked and I struggled to keep track of him in the crowds…”

“Mimikyu? I’ve never met that Pokemon before.” He pulled out a Pokedex, only to be disappointed when no information came up. “Huh. Well it’s nice to meet you! I’m Ash, and this is my partner Pikachu!” He introduced himself with a smile.

N paused. Wasn’t that the name of…

“Yes, this is the guy.” Mimikyu whispered to him.

N looked at the trainer before him in a new light. Always in the right place at the right time? Seems that’s more true than Mimikyu implied.

Ash Ketchum somehow looked nothing like he expected, but seeing him now, something about him felt right. It was a dubious feeling, one he was unsure of, but it was there all the same.

“It’s nice to meet you as well. This is Mimikyu,” he gestured to the ghost on his shoulder, “and I’m N.”

Introductions were made, and the horde of children were sent on their way. Though explaining that N’s grasp on the League Language was poor led to an argument between the two youngest humans over whether the proper name was “Kantonian” or “Sinnohian”. And even worse, nobody in the group understood Unovan. N and Mimikyu would have to fill the gaps in their knowledge quickly.

“B’fore anythin’ else, I think that little escapade makes it clear that we gotta take care of somethin’. If you don’t ‘ave a Pokeball, ask Ash for one, cuz I need ta be registered to one.”

“Are you sure?” N asked. He could understand the reasoning, but catching Pokemon…

“I am not about ta deal with all that again.” Mimikyu deadpanned, “I trust ya, just catch me already b’fore someone else goes and gets int’rested in me.”

N paused for a moment, searching Mimikyu’s eyes for any trace of doubt. Apparently satisfied, he turned toward Ash. “Would you happen to have a Pokeball I could use? I’ll be sure to pay you back.”

“Huh? Yeah, I think so, let me check…” The backpack came off, and he began to rummage around through it, digging out a Pokeball that he tossed to N. “So Mimikyu decided that he wants you to be his trainer then? That’s awesome!”

N caught the ball, staring into the button at its center. “Not awesome. A necessity. Too many people have taken an interest, and it would be dangerous to allow them the opportunity to take it any further than that.” What sort of awful people might try to snatch his friend up? Not having the courage to toss the ball himself, he simply held it out, allowing Mimikyu to tap it himself. The little ghost disappeared within the ball, and it shook once in his hand before signifying a successful capture. Not a moment later, Mimikyu appeared once more in a flash of light.

For once, it was not N who shuddered. “Ugh, that is freaky stuff. I think I’ll avoid bein’ inside that thing.”

“Finally! Someone who gets it! It’s a bit weird looking at a doll of myself, but you’re alright, Mimikyu!”

Interacting with foreign Pokemon was strange. The way that they physically spoke didn’t actually change between regions, so his understanding of their words didn’t suffer. “Pika Pika” sounded the same in Sinnoh as it would in Unova after all. But a Pokemon born and raised in Sinnoh wouldn’t understand Unovan, not unless it was taught to them. Back when he had only just started to learn the League Language, he had met a trainer from the Hoenn region, and found that he couldn’t understand the trainer, but could understand the Pokemon. The Pokemon could understand the trainer, but not him. The trainer, however, couldn’t understand either of them. It had led to a very confusing conversation.

But while he could understand the words of the Pikachu in front of him, he was still left puzzled.

While at a glance, their relationships seemed to mirror each other, it seemed that Pikachu was much closer to Ash than Mimikyu was to him. It was strange to see. For a Pokemon forced into battle on a regular basis, he was surprisingly fond of Ash. The Electric type was sat on top of the boy’s head, leaning forward and pushing the brim over his trainer’s eyes. Ash just laughed and grabbed him, picking him up and moving the mouse to his shoulder.

“Pikachu’s not a fan of Pokeballs either. I think I can count the number of times he’s been in one on a single hand!”

“That number should be zero! I don’t know how everyone else does it without going crazy!” Pikachu rebutted.

“Is it always like that then?” Mimikyu inquired.

“Well, like he said, I haven’t spent much time inside them, but every experience has been awful!”

“What is it like?” N knew it had to be awful, but since so many of the previously captured Pokemon he knew had been abused, he’d never had an opportunity to ask that might not be considered rude.

But his answers would have to wait.

“Can you understand Pokemon or something? The way that you talk to them, it’s like you understand what they say!” Dawn asked him. An excitable girl, but also loud mouthed and rude. N wasn’t very impressed by what he had seen of her so far, but that was true of all trainers.

If he was going to be traveling with the group like Mimikyu wanted, there was no use in trying to hide it though. “Yes, I’m able to understand Pokemon. Better than most, at least.”

“That’s amazing!” Ash exclaimed. “I like to think I’m pretty good myself, but I’ve still got a lot to learn!”

“From what I’ve seen, your understanding is much more literal, where Ash is more…” Pikachu paused, trying to find the right word, “he gets the gist of it? Still a lot better than most humans, though.” He explained with a smirk, as if proud of his trainer.

“If you can understand Pokemon, that would be really useful for figuring out what’s wrong when they’re injured or sick…” Brock appeared to be lost in thought, writing in a notebook as he spoke.

“When they’re injured or sick?” That was a strange line of thought to have upon hearing about his ability.

“Ah, right, I’m interested in keeping Pokemon in tip-top shape! I’ve studied a lot on Pokemon diets, grooming, health… anything that might contribute to their overall well being. I used to be a Gym Leader back in Pewter City, but… right now I’m traveling with Ash and getting some real world experience in helping to care for Pokemon.”

N hadn’t understood every word that Brock used, but it sounded like an ex Gym Leader turned Pokemon Doctor in training then? N could respect that he had seen the error of his ways and sought to make up for his mistakes, but he wondered how traveling with Ash and Dawn contributed to that goal.

“Speakin’ of injured and or sick Pokemon, what’s wrong with me, doc?” Mimikyu marched up to Brock, staring up at him. “I don’t know how ta use any moves!”

“You what?” Pikachu was flabbergasted by the claim.

“Could I get a translation over here?” Brock looked to N and Ash.

N sighed, taking a moment to remember the correct words to use. “It has recently come to light that Mimikyu, somehow, does not understand how to use any moves. He’s hoping that someone among your group could explain to them how they’re supposed to work.”

Then, switching back to Unovan, he asked Mimikyu “Why am I translating? What happened to the notebook Rowan gave you?”

“I might’ve dropped it in the chase...” the little ghost replied sheepishly.

“Oh, that’s easy!” Ash exclaimed. “You just let it build up inside of you and then BAM!” he smacked his hands together with a clap.

“...does anyone have any useful information?” Mimikyu asked the rest of the group.

“You have no idea at all? Not even any egg moves?” Brock raised a brow, digging through his things to pull out a rather hefty notebook filled to the brim with miniscule text that N had no hope of ever understanding. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“That was my reaction.” N could sympathize with Brock’s befuddlement. “I’m not sure where to start… maybe Pikachu or Piplup could help?”

“It’s about time someone asked the expert.” Piplup put himself front and center. N wasn’t sure if he had always been like this, or if Dawn had already rubbed off on him in all the worst ways.

“When I use Bubblebeam, I focus the energy inside of me, let it build up in my beak, and then WHAM! I shoot it all out at my enemy!” His flippers were waved around dramatically with just about every word.

“...isn’ that the same explanation that Ash gave?” Mimikyu hesitantly asked.

“What?! It is not! My explanation was much better than his!” Piplup stomped his foot, giving Mimikyu the dirtiest look he could manage.

“What are you trying to do, exactly?” Pikachu interrupted.

“Use a move? What do ya mean?” Mimikyu tilted his disguise’s head to the side.

“What move are you trying to use? Ash and Piplup’s explanations weren’t wrong, they were just… too broad. If we can get into the specifics, maybe that will help you.”

“Well… I don’ know. How do I know which moves I know if I’ve never used them?”

“That’s… hmmm… well what moves do a Mimikyu normally learn? What are they known for?”

“I guess Play Rough and Shadow Claw, but those typically don’ come ‘til later… Shadow Sneak maybe? Wood Hammer is s’posedly an egg move…”

“Right, right, that’s great and all, but let’s not try to run before we can walk, shall we?” Pikachu tried to lower his expectations. “What about the basics? You know, Tackle or something.”

“Does Scratch work for ya?”

“Perfect! A simple Normal type move, nice and easy. I can’t use it myself, but a lot of these Normal type moves are basically the same thing used in slightly different ways. Tackle, Pound, and Scratch are just focused in different parts of your body. The closest I’ve got is Quick Attack, but that’s slightly more advanced. I hope you’re ready to learn, because I’m not sure how easy this will be to teach someone with no clue about the basics.”

“The alternative is bein’ completely helpless. Teach away.”

N just hoped they would make some progress rather quickly. He didn’t want to interrupt, but all that running around, and not having eaten yet…

His stomach rumbled, and everyone looked his way.

“I think I’ll cook up some lunch while they try to figure things out.” Brock began to set up what looked to be a rather large meal…

Someone who can actually cook? Perhaps traveling with them won’t be so bad after all…