29th Move: Pedigrees of Separation

29th Move: Pedigrees of Separation

Route 37, Johto.

STAB stands for ‘same type ability bonus’; that phenomenon where the power of a move is boosted based on its aura coinciding with a Pokémon’s inherent typing. Luckily, neither of the two Stantlers were Wyrdeer yet, so I wasn’t in any further danger of getting psychically screwed in my sleep. Which meant I was comfortable allowing the Poké pair to bunk with us a few nights while we worked on our deal.

“Unless we want the Pokéblocks as burnt as the daylight, I think it’s high time we pitch the tents, yeah?” There wasn’t a need to shade my eyes and survey the sky to gauge the hour; the setting sun had swallowed my shadow with it. 

“I was not aware you had aspirations of dining on anything except our depressing rations of instant noodles, Uki.” It had gotten too late in the day for any elaborate meals, as Naoko stated in her roundabout manner. 

But despite the blanket of darkness coaxing us to bed, I didn’t let us rest until we reached the edge of route thirty-seven’s central thoroughfare. “Hey, now that we’re somewhere with the possibility of foot traffic, I can actually make an honest attempt at earning enough to afford something worth eating. In the meantime, we’ll just have to settle.”

“Very well. Then you get us settled, and I shall endeavour to rescue our cooking pot from a fate reserved for the commode.” That’s certainly one way to take a shit in the woods; hopefully Naoko’s culinary determination would prevent us from painting the bark browner than it already was.

Leaving her to it, I went about my own doodies. 

Tent poles, a portable stove, and chow bowls were brought out with practised precision. My bit was done quicker than anticipated. Naoko, however, remained stubbornly sanguine—purposely obtuse towards our collective chorus of rumbling tummies as she insisted on preparing dinner at her own languid pace. Which involved meticulously stirring MSG like she was performing a tea ceremony, instead of just tossing everything in a pot to boil for a few odd minutes. 

“You making dinner or breakfast, girl? Damn!” 

Without looking away from where she was hand peeling the few spare Pecha’s we’d pilfered from earlier, Naoko stayed knelt in front of the burbling red broth. “Rituals are important. You are young yet; the benefits of routine have not dawned on you.” Says the girl whose arrival heralded the complete and utter upheaval of my slow-but-steady plan for a leisurely life. “Go make yourself useful. Or wait patiently like our new Stantler friends.” She threateningly wagged her knife to shoo me away toward the doe and her beau curled around each other on a mattress of loamy soil.

Content to not poke that bear, I instead decided to bother my real bear. “Baloo, get over here! This is a great opportunity for a refresh sesh.” I grabbed him by his stubby lower paws and dragged him behind me.

He fought me. His front claws did little except uproot his own patch of mossy softness. I don’t know why he bothered. Come sunrise, my Teddiursa would inevitably be splayed across my torso, blowing rancid puffs of morning-breath directly in my face. 

So, it very much behooved me to groom my Pokémon to alleviate as much of that alarming stench as possible. 

My refresh kit was rudimentary for the most part. None of my team required extra-special care. Meaning, a couple of brushes, a pair of tweezers, and some files, largely did the trick. Plonking Baloo down over my criss-crossed lap, I began scrubbing away the accumulated dirt caked into him from our extended trek. 

Skrch, skrch, skrch. As I combed over his pelt, both unwanted detritus and clumps of fur clung to the bristles. Particularly from the more prominent tufts that’d recently begun poofing out from around Baloo’s shoulders. 

“Check it out! Someone’s started on the road to evolution!” 

Baloo excitedly hopped off of me and bobbled his head from left to right to inspect his burgeoning physiological changes. He stood on his hind legs, raised both claws into the air, and roared with all the ferocity he could muster.

Too bad, though, that his transformation into Ursaring was still many moons away. 

Yecu, my Krabby, was actually closer. When shaving the excessively thin and brittle spikes (the ones liable to obstruct his joints and break into hazardous shrapnel during a battle) from his carapace, I noticed how hard his shell had become. 

Thuk, thuk. My knuckles ached as I knocked. No give, and nothing hollow. He’d be ready to moult soon; a few more cycles of that and he’d have the protuberant crown of Kingler. 

Clear indication that his succulent flesh was packed densely inside his exoskeleton. Yecu tilted up at me with confusion when he felt a bit of drool dribble onto him. 

“You would’ve been so tasty in the ramen.” 

“Bibibibi!?” He immediately scurried away sideways, leaving my hands suddenly empty.

Not for long, though, as Tuki perched herself onto my open palms—which meant her considerable size consumed most of my torso as she readied for her turn of primping and preening. 

My alpha Pikipek was the newest addition to my team, and among the trio, she was the nearest to her evolution. As I carefully tweezed the flaky casing off her fresh pin feathers, it was abundantly clear that her plume was changing from bright red to Trumbeak’s black crest. The shift in hue also continued across her head. Showcased by the zigzagging choker of neck feathers, alongside her beak fading from monochromatic grey to rings of red and orange. “Man, you guys are growing way too fast.”

“Strength derived from sustained effort.” Naoko, now finished cooking her three-minute meal in half an hour, finally dished every man, woman, and ‘mon their bowls of noodles. “And most critically, hearty sustenance. Eat up, and may you all continue to thrive.” 

Every Pokémon in the campground approached the individual bowls arrayed neatly for each of them.

The Stantler duo were the most tentative. Probing sniffs that lead to testing sips of the soup. Baloo, as per usual, hadn’t hesitated and was doing his level best to drown himself face-first in his food. Tuki displayed a similar lack of decorum as she pecked and slugged each noodle as if it were a Wurmple. Yecu—surprise, surprise—seemed the most unpredictably elegant. Pincers for chopsticks combined with mandibles made for sucking soupy strands down with ease. 

I, on the contrary, had to be reminded of my own manners. Naoko tucked herself beside me and lifted her cutlery to take a bite. In the same smooth motion, she surreptitiously elbowed me to signal I engage with the portion she’d handed me as well.

Hint taken, I ate. While also ensuring I slurped loudly—both the polite and honest expression of thanks and deliciousness. “Don’t be too eager to fatten ‘em up. They’re not ready for next steps until I can source something to aid the process. It’s everstones for each of them on the horizon.”

“Oh? How curious… I was under the impression that you wished for Tuki, especially, to evolve posthaste. Were you not intent on including a flyer for travel’s convenience as soon as possible?”

“For sure. But that’s no excuse to compromise the conditioning we’ve already toiled so hard to achieve, is it?” 

“Another strange theory, I assume? Most trainers consider evolution the payoff for their diligent labour; not an additional moment to exploit for gains. Rather, it is often the case that trainers even choose to rush to evolution by relying on items that induce the event in the specific species of Pokémon chosen for that very capability.” 

I shrugged, unable to refute her. She had conventional wisdom on her side. “My thought process on the topic isn’t too dissimilar. I’m also keen to take advantage of stones and other evo items to boost my Pokémon’s powers; it’s only in my application that it differs. Because, as extraordinary as they are to me, my team’re still relatively classic examples of their species—thoroughbred or inbred, I couldn’t tell you. Unlike our stabby tagalong.”

“One crackpot hypothesis at a time, please, Uki. Are you saying you have an explanation for the Stantler’s unusually powerful psychic prowess?”

“It’s sorta a one-size-fits-all concept. In the same way that certain shifts in physical aspects of a Pokémon indicated encroaching evolution, atypical phenotypes are also self-evident markers for lineage.” Show was probably more useful than tell to get my point across.

Too distracted savouring the salty vestiges at the bottom of his bowl, the Stantler unconsciously curbed the reflexive kick that my nails trailing across his flank might’ve instigated. 

Akin to several of my methods, I went against the grain. 

As his fur rippled between the gaps of my fingers to more visibly display the Stantler species’ signature spots, I highlighted the obvious difference between this specific example and an average member of the herd. “Larger, sharper—polygonal stamps. As opposed to the soft round dots we can even see on the doe there, in comparison. She’s normal, but he ain’t entirely. If I had to hedge my bets, old boy’s mommy probably rustled some bushes with a male Girafarig to conceive our new buddy.” 

“While that may shed light on Stantler, I do not understand how it pertains to your Pokémon’s evolution.”

And as if reciting my own ritualistic prayer, I reiterated the single most vital theory carrying my career. “Because it all comes down to aura exposure and familiarity. I teach Pokémon moves by mixing type-energy and physiology to create a final action. Why can’t I apply that to evolution, too? By using evo items—massive reservoirs of contained aura types—during evolution, in an effort to reinforce the type training I’ve been giving each of them, respectively.”

“Hmm…” She dabbed her lips with a napkin, pondering what I said. “It almost sounds as if you are trying to artificially replicate branched evolutionary lines.” 

All attention was on me now, Pokémon included. Tuki, in particular, tilted her head as she vacuumed the last wormy strand of her dinner. 

Good an illustration as any. 

“Let’s take Wurmple as a study case. It can evolve into either Silcoon or Cascoon—no experts know unequivocally why, but they posit it has something to do with arbitrary personality traits. I don’t think that makes enough sense, though. Isn’t it more reasonable to suggest that a Wurmple’s evolution depends on its parents or what type-energy it’s most familiar with?”  

“How so?”

I spread my arms apart to balance the two sides of my argument. “Both these Wurmples hatched from the same clutch of eggs laid by a Masquerain dad and a Dustox mom.” Exhibit ‘A’ arose with my lifted left hand. “This little wiggly was averse to head-on battle and tried to flee whenever it could, the flighty thing.” Left lowered and right rose for what I had on the other hand. “Wurmple ‘B’, however, had a penchant for Poison Sting. Neither eventually evolved into the same Pokémon. But I suspect if I fortified either of their transformations with an item—say a poison barb or sharp beak—they potentially could have.”

Naoko also did her own raising—namely of her sceptical eyebrow. “So, your aim is what exactly? Discovering unheard-of evolutions?” 

“That’s impossible, obviously. Not without successive generations of selective breeding, at least. Tuki isn’t gonna become an Aerodactyl even if I miraculously meet and beg any of the weather genies for a wish. But that doesn’t mean I’m not able to cement her rock-type training by exposing her to something with a lot of rock aura to supplement the very energy-intensive process of her evolution. Make learning heavier rock moves less painful down the line since I’ve added new bricks to her foundation. And who knows?” I pointedly stared at Stantler and Baloo. “Maybe I could inadvertently tap into ancestral heritage. Teach them the right move, give them the right item–anything’s possible!” 

“Ambitious. Many would uncharitably deem your goals futile. But… you have already revived one Pokémon lost to the ages, have you not? What is another?”