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Shadow
The story of a timid Dratini, caught as a Game Corner prize, who finds the perfect human trainer and, to his great distress, falls in love with her.
<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>
Thumbnail art by kenket, used with permission
But had they been talking about Runa’s family the whole time? The Vulpix batted her several tails: she knew something, he saw, and dragged it out as long as possible. “[O, nothing,]” she said—“[only that the Pondelores are ten times larger than we thought. You see they’re involved in more than just Pokémon Centres. Do you see the stand there, the one selling juice? No, that one, with the Smeargle. The one advertising how their fruit isn’t grown in Koffing sludge. It says they buy from the Artisan Steppes, in Hoenn.]”
“[So?]” Dyna said.
“[So the Artisan Steppes are owned by the Emerald Corporation,]” Rita said.
“[And—?]” Tanwen said.
“[And guess who owns fifty-one percent of Emerald,]” Rita said.
Dyna said, “[So, what, they’re into fruit? You mean they get it cheap for their fancy breeder Pokémon?]”
Rita said, “[But it’s far beyond that, Dyna dear. This isn’t mere Pokémon provender now. Do you know when the people in those Goldenrod glass towers hold a little soirée, chances are better than not they serve Artisan?]”
“[You’ve never even been to Goldenrod,]” Dyna said.
“[No, but that Smeargle has,]” Rita said. “[Do you think they cater themselves? Anyhow, it sparked my curiosity. I decided to look into it further: I went and asked the local library Pokémon.]”
Dyna stood up. “[Is that where you were when you went missing and the minder flipped out and called Runa?]” she said. “[And you turned up later all smug and said you were just affirming yourself or some garbage? I lost a day’s training for that!]”
“[And that’s terrible,]” Rita said, “[for, deprived of your company’s pleasure, Dyna, I find I can’t help but lose myself.]”
He looked away. Rita was always like this, always picking. Was she aware of how she looked, taking gross advantage of Runa? Was that the reason for it, to deflect attention? (Torus would know.) Once she wondered if the Pondelores weren’t really a sort of country family, not in fact much different from the wilds, as after all Runa liked to camp on the routes. What a rot she was! But she might still turn around … she said anything was possible once she got her Fire Stone.
“[—But they specialise in the traditional starting Pokémon,]” Rita said, “[you know, the sort they give to small children. Did you know, Dyna, that a third of starters in every region are born in Pondelorian nurseries? Like our friend here. They’ve got a monopoly.]”
He looked again. Tanwen folded her arms and said, “[It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not easier, just because I’m bred. Why do you care, anyway? You’re a wilder—that didn’t stop you being a priss.]”
But something in that seemed abominable—a monopoly on Pokémon! And wasn’t it expensive to raise them, and yet they were very rich? He turned and said, “[They don’t sell Pokémon, do they?]”
They looked at him—he shouldn’t have spoken, he felt. Tanwen said, “[Nursery Pokémon aren’t sold, you clod: they’re adopted. People only pay if a nursery raises their Pokémon a while. Which is weak training.]”
Tan was always worse to him when Gaia was away; and she was not quite answering the question, or did all the Pondelores’ Pokémon go to nurseries? “[B— But it’s expensive is all,]” he said.
Dyna said, “[I thought it was the government, you know? Like the Pokémon Centres.]” That was it, he thought: the documentary. There was a tax. He couldn’t remember the details; had to read up on it later, couldn’t let Runa see.
Or perhaps Rita knew. Before they might demonstrate their knowledge, he thought, she said, “[O yes, the Diet pays a fee to the Pondelores to this day. That was the condition for turning over the early Pokémon Centres: guaranteed rights to supply the nurseries. And it’s through a fixed percentage tax, which the Pondelores have brought their costs rather below. It’s quite an arrangement they have, for centuries now. Of course humans will always need Pokémon.]”
And—he ought not—he said, “[So they do get paid.]”
Rita looked at him and said, “[It’s a commission. Do you know what that is? They’re paid a fee for costs and services rendered, not the Pokémon themselves. It’s the same as how a Pokémon nurse is paid but the Centre is free. If they can make a profit on it that’s their quality.]”
Tanwen said, “[So what’s to stop them passing a law and ending it?]”
And Rita said, “[If the Diet tried it, the Pondelores would only set up private nurseries and blow it up into a fiasco. Not that they ever would, of course. No one, I hear, gives more election money to the councillors than the Pondelores, and who do you think votes on changing the law? That’s how humans work, don’t you know: it’s favours all the way down.]”
The Diet, he thought—the head of human government, split into parts if he remembered from that four-part documentary—was in the pocket of the Pondelores, of wealth, according to Rita. And she only saw the worst in them to match her thinking—she didn’t care at all about humans, not like him!—yet she was clever (they had to give her that), possibly the cleverest of all after Torus. Gaia said he was intelligent, learnt from all the things on the screen, but that wasn’t being clever, only repeating what he heard from memory. That was the difference between knowledge and intelligence: he had knowledge, absorbed a lot of facts, but didn’t know how to use it, and so to call him clever was false. And Rita understood it, stuck Dyna constantly. For always Dyna said,
—How d’you know?
to something Rita said, her interpretation of the dance in Ecruteak, an idiom or some other, something she ought not to know living in the wilds; and Rita said,
—O, you’d be amazed what’s in a book or two,
for Dyna, she was getting at, couldn’t read. And that was not her fault, not living a year in the Corner with subtitles on a screen (which was simple, matching the voices) or, as Rita said, a book she found in the long grass (which was much more difficult). So Dyna perhaps lacked knowledge; but she was really cleverer than him—they all were—as was Rita. But if Rita was clever, why did she dismiss Runa’s philosophy?
Runa’s family owned property in every region, Rita was saying, businesses and hotels and manufacturing plants and greenhouses, industries of every sort. Perhaps then Runa didn’t even pay at half the places they stayed, for if money was no object, if it was bound to make a profit later, why wouldn’t they simply buy a hotel in Cianwood City and put up their daughter in the finest room? (And the room they slept in had to be the best in the city. The people in the lobby straightened up and acted differently when they saw her. But Runa never said anything about it.)
“[And they’re in well with the ball factories,]” Rita said, “[and they’re on the boards of the Silph Company and Devon Corporation as well. There’s a lovely book I had them order on the whole history. They’re ranked with the Stones in Hoenn and the Blacks and Medivicis in Unova as among the richest, most powerful families in the world—the tip of the top. I must say we’ve all rather fallen into fortune.]”
He didn’t need any of this: none of it mattered, he felt, only detracted. If Runa were penniless, if she lived and travelled on the trainer’s stipend, she would be very happy; the wealthier her family, however, the more attention from others, and the more responsibility spilt onto her that took away from her mission. Or perhaps, he thought, looking back toward the cobble and the street (Stefan was still there), perhaps it did help; perhaps, wealth being so central to human society, she may use it to spread her method, her philosophy? For she mentioned it once in passing: a school, a place to teach Pokémon, which if everything went well was her great plan; and that required money. So wealth was not all bad: a human invention to make dreams possible, he thought. Then it was really the perfect fit for Runa (he looked again), being herself immune to its bad effects, what people called a sense of privilege.
“[You’ll turn to rot, I know,]” Dyna said, filling Rita’s glass. “[You’ll go to their place and turn into a couch cushion. They’ll have to put a sign up or people sit on you.]”
Rita sniffed and inspected the drink. “[When Runa returns to Goldenrod and buys a Fire Stone I’ll have a thousand years to do whatever I like—there’s no need,]” she said, “[to bowl after things.]”
Now Tanwen said, “[You’re disgusting.]” Oh, he thought—it was going to turn into an argument now, he knew, just from the tone. “[Runa shouldn’t give you anything you didn’t earn through hard work and grafting. Even Shadow does his bit. You’re just lax—a Fire Stone’s wasted on you.]”
Rita smiled at her and looked bored. “[Perhaps it’s my nature,]” she said. “[Wouldn’t Runa say it’s shameful to abuse me for my most natural nature? I think it’s shameful, don’t you, Dyna?]” But Dyna only sucked her straw and watched.
“[It’s shameful being a weed on the team,]” Tanwen said. “[Runa wants ones who’ll battle and not just sleep and suck ice all day. I mean, what are you even for, following her? You’re only here because Runa won’t tell you to go away and munch grass.]”
And now Dyna wanted to argue; and Rita said, “[Because between Shadow, a shiny, and a stunted Quilava, Runa’s famous for her love of utility.]”
They were all moments from a great row, and now the minders had to see, and what did they think of Runa? Didn’t they make her look like a hopeless trainer? He shouldn’t get involved—but why, he thought, why did they have to abuse Runa in the process? Did they even realise? Wasn’t it the very peak of praiseworthiness that Runa chose them for their own good and not her own, that she never treated them differently but was meticulous in seeing they all got a fair part, all had equal attention?
He said, “[Runa loves us all the same.]”
At once he was the target. “[That’s fresh from you,]” Tanwen said.
He felt his heart doubling. “[Why?]” he said. How ridiculous, how guilty he must sound!
“[Really?]” she said. She turned fully toward him—oh, such a mistake to speak! “[Runa’s pet scarf is going to play innocent? Like we don’t see you wrapping round her shoulders every chance you get. You couldn't be more coddled if you were an egg.]”
He said, “[Y—]” and turned away to hide his blush. She was jealous, he might say, wanted Runa to herself; Dyna would support him, usually defended him since saving her, she put it, at Olivine, and Rita would join in. But then Runa returning would find her in a terrible mood; no one would explain or talk; the whole evening would be ruined. And suppose Torus really was reporting to Runa? He would know at once who was responsible—see it as a lapse in control.
[scene continues in next part]
The story of a timid Dratini, caught as a Game Corner prize, who finds the perfect human trainer and, to his great distress, falls in love with her.
<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>
Thumbnail art by kenket, used with permission
Level 30 [continued]But had they been talking about Runa’s family the whole time? The Vulpix batted her several tails: she knew something, he saw, and dragged it out as long as possible. “[O, nothing,]” she said—“[only that the Pondelores are ten times larger than we thought. You see they’re involved in more than just Pokémon Centres. Do you see the stand there, the one selling juice? No, that one, with the Smeargle. The one advertising how their fruit isn’t grown in Koffing sludge. It says they buy from the Artisan Steppes, in Hoenn.]”
“[So?]” Dyna said.
“[So the Artisan Steppes are owned by the Emerald Corporation,]” Rita said.
“[And—?]” Tanwen said.
“[And guess who owns fifty-one percent of Emerald,]” Rita said.
Dyna said, “[So, what, they’re into fruit? You mean they get it cheap for their fancy breeder Pokémon?]”
Rita said, “[But it’s far beyond that, Dyna dear. This isn’t mere Pokémon provender now. Do you know when the people in those Goldenrod glass towers hold a little soirée, chances are better than not they serve Artisan?]”
“[You’ve never even been to Goldenrod,]” Dyna said.
“[No, but that Smeargle has,]” Rita said. “[Do you think they cater themselves? Anyhow, it sparked my curiosity. I decided to look into it further: I went and asked the local library Pokémon.]”
Dyna stood up. “[Is that where you were when you went missing and the minder flipped out and called Runa?]” she said. “[And you turned up later all smug and said you were just affirming yourself or some garbage? I lost a day’s training for that!]”
“[And that’s terrible,]” Rita said, “[for, deprived of your company’s pleasure, Dyna, I find I can’t help but lose myself.]”
He looked away. Rita was always like this, always picking. Was she aware of how she looked, taking gross advantage of Runa? Was that the reason for it, to deflect attention? (Torus would know.) Once she wondered if the Pondelores weren’t really a sort of country family, not in fact much different from the wilds, as after all Runa liked to camp on the routes. What a rot she was! But she might still turn around … she said anything was possible once she got her Fire Stone.
“[—But they specialise in the traditional starting Pokémon,]” Rita said, “[you know, the sort they give to small children. Did you know, Dyna, that a third of starters in every region are born in Pondelorian nurseries? Like our friend here. They’ve got a monopoly.]”
He looked again. Tanwen folded her arms and said, “[It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not easier, just because I’m bred. Why do you care, anyway? You’re a wilder—that didn’t stop you being a priss.]”
But something in that seemed abominable—a monopoly on Pokémon! And wasn’t it expensive to raise them, and yet they were very rich? He turned and said, “[They don’t sell Pokémon, do they?]”
They looked at him—he shouldn’t have spoken, he felt. Tanwen said, “[Nursery Pokémon aren’t sold, you clod: they’re adopted. People only pay if a nursery raises their Pokémon a while. Which is weak training.]”
Tan was always worse to him when Gaia was away; and she was not quite answering the question, or did all the Pondelores’ Pokémon go to nurseries? “[B— But it’s expensive is all,]” he said.
Dyna said, “[I thought it was the government, you know? Like the Pokémon Centres.]” That was it, he thought: the documentary. There was a tax. He couldn’t remember the details; had to read up on it later, couldn’t let Runa see.
Or perhaps Rita knew. Before they might demonstrate their knowledge, he thought, she said, “[O yes, the Diet pays a fee to the Pondelores to this day. That was the condition for turning over the early Pokémon Centres: guaranteed rights to supply the nurseries. And it’s through a fixed percentage tax, which the Pondelores have brought their costs rather below. It’s quite an arrangement they have, for centuries now. Of course humans will always need Pokémon.]”
And—he ought not—he said, “[So they do get paid.]”
Rita looked at him and said, “[It’s a commission. Do you know what that is? They’re paid a fee for costs and services rendered, not the Pokémon themselves. It’s the same as how a Pokémon nurse is paid but the Centre is free. If they can make a profit on it that’s their quality.]”
Tanwen said, “[So what’s to stop them passing a law and ending it?]”
And Rita said, “[If the Diet tried it, the Pondelores would only set up private nurseries and blow it up into a fiasco. Not that they ever would, of course. No one, I hear, gives more election money to the councillors than the Pondelores, and who do you think votes on changing the law? That’s how humans work, don’t you know: it’s favours all the way down.]”
The Diet, he thought—the head of human government, split into parts if he remembered from that four-part documentary—was in the pocket of the Pondelores, of wealth, according to Rita. And she only saw the worst in them to match her thinking—she didn’t care at all about humans, not like him!—yet she was clever (they had to give her that), possibly the cleverest of all after Torus. Gaia said he was intelligent, learnt from all the things on the screen, but that wasn’t being clever, only repeating what he heard from memory. That was the difference between knowledge and intelligence: he had knowledge, absorbed a lot of facts, but didn’t know how to use it, and so to call him clever was false. And Rita understood it, stuck Dyna constantly. For always Dyna said,
—How d’you know?
to something Rita said, her interpretation of the dance in Ecruteak, an idiom or some other, something she ought not to know living in the wilds; and Rita said,
—O, you’d be amazed what’s in a book or two,
for Dyna, she was getting at, couldn’t read. And that was not her fault, not living a year in the Corner with subtitles on a screen (which was simple, matching the voices) or, as Rita said, a book she found in the long grass (which was much more difficult). So Dyna perhaps lacked knowledge; but she was really cleverer than him—they all were—as was Rita. But if Rita was clever, why did she dismiss Runa’s philosophy?
Runa’s family owned property in every region, Rita was saying, businesses and hotels and manufacturing plants and greenhouses, industries of every sort. Perhaps then Runa didn’t even pay at half the places they stayed, for if money was no object, if it was bound to make a profit later, why wouldn’t they simply buy a hotel in Cianwood City and put up their daughter in the finest room? (And the room they slept in had to be the best in the city. The people in the lobby straightened up and acted differently when they saw her. But Runa never said anything about it.)
“[And they’re in well with the ball factories,]” Rita said, “[and they’re on the boards of the Silph Company and Devon Corporation as well. There’s a lovely book I had them order on the whole history. They’re ranked with the Stones in Hoenn and the Blacks and Medivicis in Unova as among the richest, most powerful families in the world—the tip of the top. I must say we’ve all rather fallen into fortune.]”
He didn’t need any of this: none of it mattered, he felt, only detracted. If Runa were penniless, if she lived and travelled on the trainer’s stipend, she would be very happy; the wealthier her family, however, the more attention from others, and the more responsibility spilt onto her that took away from her mission. Or perhaps, he thought, looking back toward the cobble and the street (Stefan was still there), perhaps it did help; perhaps, wealth being so central to human society, she may use it to spread her method, her philosophy? For she mentioned it once in passing: a school, a place to teach Pokémon, which if everything went well was her great plan; and that required money. So wealth was not all bad: a human invention to make dreams possible, he thought. Then it was really the perfect fit for Runa (he looked again), being herself immune to its bad effects, what people called a sense of privilege.
“[You’ll turn to rot, I know,]” Dyna said, filling Rita’s glass. “[You’ll go to their place and turn into a couch cushion. They’ll have to put a sign up or people sit on you.]”
Rita sniffed and inspected the drink. “[When Runa returns to Goldenrod and buys a Fire Stone I’ll have a thousand years to do whatever I like—there’s no need,]” she said, “[to bowl after things.]”
Now Tanwen said, “[You’re disgusting.]” Oh, he thought—it was going to turn into an argument now, he knew, just from the tone. “[Runa shouldn’t give you anything you didn’t earn through hard work and grafting. Even Shadow does his bit. You’re just lax—a Fire Stone’s wasted on you.]”
Rita smiled at her and looked bored. “[Perhaps it’s my nature,]” she said. “[Wouldn’t Runa say it’s shameful to abuse me for my most natural nature? I think it’s shameful, don’t you, Dyna?]” But Dyna only sucked her straw and watched.
“[It’s shameful being a weed on the team,]” Tanwen said. “[Runa wants ones who’ll battle and not just sleep and suck ice all day. I mean, what are you even for, following her? You’re only here because Runa won’t tell you to go away and munch grass.]”
And now Dyna wanted to argue; and Rita said, “[Because between Shadow, a shiny, and a stunted Quilava, Runa’s famous for her love of utility.]”
They were all moments from a great row, and now the minders had to see, and what did they think of Runa? Didn’t they make her look like a hopeless trainer? He shouldn’t get involved—but why, he thought, why did they have to abuse Runa in the process? Did they even realise? Wasn’t it the very peak of praiseworthiness that Runa chose them for their own good and not her own, that she never treated them differently but was meticulous in seeing they all got a fair part, all had equal attention?
He said, “[Runa loves us all the same.]”
At once he was the target. “[That’s fresh from you,]” Tanwen said.
He felt his heart doubling. “[Why?]” he said. How ridiculous, how guilty he must sound!
“[Really?]” she said. She turned fully toward him—oh, such a mistake to speak! “[Runa’s pet scarf is going to play innocent? Like we don’t see you wrapping round her shoulders every chance you get. You couldn't be more coddled if you were an egg.]”
He said, “[Y—]” and turned away to hide his blush. She was jealous, he might say, wanted Runa to herself; Dyna would support him, usually defended him since saving her, she put it, at Olivine, and Rita would join in. But then Runa returning would find her in a terrible mood; no one would explain or talk; the whole evening would be ruined. And suppose Torus really was reporting to Runa? He would know at once who was responsible—see it as a lapse in control.
[scene continues in next part]
Category Music / Pokemon
Species Pokemon
Size 94 x 120px
File Size 6.23 MB
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