- Partners
-
It was a Monday morning like any other for a traveling trainer. Waking up in the Pokemon Center – thank goodness for free lodgings – and getting ready for the rest of the day. The next step on her journey lay ahead of her.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Julia had something of a wait on her hands. The local Gym Leader was going to be occupied (in a sense) until around the end of the month. It was just something she had to make the most of. Her friends weren’t up yet, so she was just enjoying the morning quietly with her Pokemon.
Until the peace was shattered by a screaming boy with spiky, fiery hair.
“Pete Stephens is here! He’s in Johto, filming live!”
Julia hated loud noises! Why was he screaming indoors? “Who’s here?” she asked, amidst gasps of surprise from the people around her.
“The Krookodile Tracker! He’s on TV, right now!”
Oh, that guy. Julia knew him by that name. Her sister used to like him back in the day. But she hated him. She could understand the Pokemon languages like they were English or Japanese. He was not only the kind of person who would poke the Ursaring, but would do a lot more to them as well. And she would hear every complaint the poor Pokemon made about his antics.
More gasps. The other kids around her, and even some adults, reacted with surprise. They asked questions one after another.
“Wow!”
“Where in Johto?”
“What channel?!”
“The TV in the lobby’s showing him now!” Everyone but Julia hurried away with that. The boy did so too, but paused and glanced back. “Come on, you too!” he urged.
“I don’t care about that!” she shouted, perhaps louder than she wanted.
More than a few people took pause. “What?!” an older teenage girl yelled, making Julia’s hands fly to her ears again. “How could you not like Pete Stephens?!”
“I…” There was no good way to explain why. “I don’t mean I hate him, I just…never saw his show.” She tried to make up a lie to get out of it, even though she felt lying was wrong. It would be better than telling the truth. She quickly regretted it.
“Then come watch!” the excited boy urged. “It’s great, you’ll love it! And he’s here! In Johto! It’s once in a lifetime!”
Everyone else still in the room waited for her answer. All the questioning and even hateful eyes on her were making her buckle to the pressure. She wished so much that her friends were awake right now to tell them to leave her alone. She looked over her shoulder just in case, but no such luck.
“Okay…” she mumbled, wandering over to the television in the lobby of the Pokemon Center like a lost Growlithe. Her Pikachu followed idly at her side. She didn’t like this at all, but anything to get these people off her back. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? That was probably just wishful thinking, though.
“G’day, mates! Pete Stephens, here!”
She arrived just in time to see the program return from commercial. To Julia’s surprise, the Tracker was underwater. He was dressed in a diving suit that looked like a suit of armor, and was wearing goggles with a face mask that had a microphone built into it. His dusty blond hair flowed freely in the depths of the lake he was beneath.
In the background were countless blue and yellow pufferfish. The man verbally set the scene, “We’re here in a lake on Route 32 in Johto. Right smack in the middle of a swarm-a Qwilfish!”
That was from the part of her journey where she was sort of rushing through. She didn’t really remember much about it, other than catching her Ledyba (now a mighty Ledian) there. The fact that it was an uneventful trip, and that it was sandwiched between two major milestones on her journey, didn’t help.
The camera panned across the scene. Julia shuddered at the sight of the Pokemon. She was something of a toxiphobe when it came to Poison-types. Moreover, the murmuring of the countless Qwilfish was like the crowd at a baseball game on TV. It was just as headache-inducing, too.
Some of them in the background puffed up threateningly, but did nothing else. A few swam over to the man out of curiosity. The Tracker showed them no fear, actually reaching out and patting a few between their spines. The reactions were mostly indifferent. One puffed up in surprise and swam off in the tizzy, screeching that the Tracker was a jerk. Another enjoyed the attention and gave a showy twirl before leaving.
“Ain’t he a beaut?” Stephens asked as the Qwilfish swam away. “They huff and puff when you give’em a fright. But believe you me, they’re super sweet Pokemon like any other.”
The man turned his head to the left. Something must have caught his attention, because his eyes widened. “Crikey!” he gasped. “Justy! Point the camera over there, mate!”
The cameraperson did as instructed. Floating alone in the lake was a lone Qwilfish that looked different from the others. Its upper body was black with purple spine tips, and its lips were a different color. The girl would have believed she was looking at a shiny Pokemon on the television, if not for the different tail pattern. Julia had to confess that she was actually interested. Just a little.
That was, until the Tracker swam back into the picture and flashed a thumbs up. She was immediately reminded why she didn’t like the show when he started talking. “That there’s a Sinnohian Qwilfish, all by their lonesome! They’re Dark and Poison variants who dwell in chilly waters, and have a whole different evolution! They were made famous by the fictional Hisui books, but one thing they got right, these ain’t around as much in this day and age. They’re near-threatened on the endangered list.” He smiled sadly. “Needless to say, little fella’s far from home. Why don’t we swim on over and say hi to ‘em?”
Stephens and the filming crew grew closer. As they did, the hollow murmuring of the Pokemon became clearly audible to Julia.
“Alone. Abandoned.” Her words rang with an empty sorrow. “Why, Elle? I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”
She scrunched her hands. What?! Who would abandon their Pokemon like that?! She almost thought of saying that out loud, before remembering it was unlikely that anyone would believe some random girl could understand Pokemon languages. Heck, even she and her parents couldn’t explain how, she just could.
“Hey, little guy!” The Qwilfish puffed up in surprise when the Tracker suddenly spoke to her. “Whatcha doin’ out here?”
“Wh-who are you?!” she asked, recoiling and trying to look intimidating with a shake of her body. But even Julia could tell from the tone in her voice it was just posturing.
“It’s a’right, fella. Here, lemme give ya a pat.”
“Stay away!” cried the Qwilfish.
“Afraid, are we?” the Tracker mused, pausing as she recoiled. “Guessing you were left here by someone?”
“Yes, and no one here likes me!” cried the black Qwilfish. “They say I’m weird and evil and to leave! How am I supposed to?!”
“Ohh…” Julia’s Pikachu, Hikaru, groaned. “I understood a bit of that. She’s like me.”
Her starter Pokemon’s family had abandoned her just because she looked different. Julia wished she could rush over there and do something for this poor Pokemon! She may have had a fear of Poison-type Pokemon, but even so, this one instantly won her sympathy. No Pokemon deserved to be treated this way!
Stephens didn’t understand, of course. “It’ll all be fine, fella,” he consoled, only aware enough to see her discomfort. “Jus’ come here for a sec, so I can check somethin’. It’ll be quick, promise.”
“No, stop! Leave me alone!” she screamed, desperately swimming backwards to escape the man. She flailed and thrashed, but the Krookodile Tracker grew ever closer, oblivious or uncaring of the Pokemon’s growing discomfort, if not abject terror.
Suddenly, the screen went to darkness. After ten seconds, a commercial came on. A bald, shirtless guy with a trimmed beard started screaming about men’s deodorant while flexing his oversized muscles. Julia had to turn away in revulsion. She hated commercials like that!
“What the HELL?!” cursed the boy who drew her into watching this, stomping a foot on the floor. “Just when it was getting good, too!”
It was weird, yes. Maybe something had damaged the camera? Something felt off about the whole thing. But it didn’t matter, Julia was going to use any excuse she could to get the heck away while she could.
“This is why you film live on delay, people!”
Manna Schrader had immediately taken control of the situation as soon as it happened. She had security shoo the gawkers away and told them all they needed to know. At least they were easy to deal with. She had her hands full keeping the crew calm. She had to threaten more than one intern not to post about it on social media, else she would make sure they got blackballed from the industry forever. It was a threat she could and would make good on, given her family’s influence.
The situation was utter chaos. Pete Stephens was dead. He had been struck by a Barb Barrage attack that went right through a weak spot in the diving suit and pierced an artery. It was nothing short of a freak accident. He survived just long enough to carry him out of the water and hear his last words. He likely wanted to make sure the Qwilfish was unhurt or verify that she had been released, and maybe get a shot of her swimming away.
When she woke up in the morning, Manna had an eerie feeling about the day. It only got worse when Pete thanked everyone for everything they’ve done before he went in. She didn’t act on anything, since the show had to go on. A gut instinct certainly wasn’t a valid reason to stop it even if that wasn’t the case. She expected an accident, but not this.
People were hurling all sorts of questions at her, and she answered them all one right after another.
“Ambulance is on the way, should I go with?”
“No, I will.”
“There’s this one persistent fisher, Ralph–”
“Keep. Him. Away.”
“You need coffee, ma’am?”
“Black.”
“Should we tell the family, auntie?”
“If you mean ours, absolutely not. Take charge and keep the others in line for me.” She walked away to deal with pressing business.
Although the Schrader family were traditionally reporters or news anchors, she had graduated from that role into a producer. She always felt more comfortable behind the lens rather than in front of it. She had met Pete Stephens on a trip to a region in Australia. When he offered her the chance to produce his new show, she accepted on the spot.
“Mrs. Schrader,” said the camerawoman who had accompanied Pete underwater. Justine Hailey, the best they had. She sprang into action while everyone else was stunned with shock, capturing Pete’s killer with help of her Whiscash.
“We’re back from commercial in one,” she said. “What should we say?”
“Same thing we told the gawkers, he suffered a poison injury while filming,” Manna answered at once. They didn’t need to let people know the extent of what had happened. “Have Phil deliver it over a panning shot of the lake. Go to the footage we’d planned after.”
Her phone started to buzz. She took it out of her pocket and saw it was Nadia calling, from way over in Mahogany. Nosy as always. Manna promptly put it away and let it ring.
“All right,” Justine said, muttering a prayer under her breath. “What about the Qwilfish?”
“Give me some time to think about that.”
She pulled out the Dive Ball that the camerawoman had used to capture the Qwilfish and gave it a thoughtful glance. It was easy to speculate that the pufferfish had been released into the lake. Whoever did it better pray they weren’t found out. There were laws about being responsible for the actions of released Pokemon, but in this case, the court of public opinion would be far harsher than any court of law.
Pete loved Pokemon. He did countless things to help them and preserve their habitats. He always made sure they got the respect they deserved, from their rights to insisting that the P should be capitalized out of respect in response to the strange folk who thought otherwise. As the Krookodile Tracker, he went on record before saying that he’d gladly give his life if it meant saving one Magikarp. He died doing what he loved most. Regardless, the public was going to be out for blood. Especially for this lost, frightened Pokemon. The last thing he would want is for this Qwilfish to be condemned, even if they had taken his life.
She went into her tent to think about the situation. That’s when she saw it sitting on the table. A stapled together set of pages from a web blog. It gave her an idea, a means of salvation.
She picked up the copy of a report written by a far-removed cousin of hers, Arumi Schrader. It documented events that took place at the Sunyshore Gym over in Sinnoh during the first eight months of the year, involving a certain Pokemon Rehabilitator. Someone who could handle Pokemon that no one else could – or would. Not even the most powerful Champions or best care facilities. It struck like a bolt of lightning called down by Raikou. Yes, this was a perfect idea. They could use him. If anyone could turn public opinion around, it was the Demon Tamer Nori Carino.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Julia had something of a wait on her hands. The local Gym Leader was going to be occupied (in a sense) until around the end of the month. It was just something she had to make the most of. Her friends weren’t up yet, so she was just enjoying the morning quietly with her Pokemon.
Until the peace was shattered by a screaming boy with spiky, fiery hair.
“Pete Stephens is here! He’s in Johto, filming live!”
Julia hated loud noises! Why was he screaming indoors? “Who’s here?” she asked, amidst gasps of surprise from the people around her.
“The Krookodile Tracker! He’s on TV, right now!”
Oh, that guy. Julia knew him by that name. Her sister used to like him back in the day. But she hated him. She could understand the Pokemon languages like they were English or Japanese. He was not only the kind of person who would poke the Ursaring, but would do a lot more to them as well. And she would hear every complaint the poor Pokemon made about his antics.
More gasps. The other kids around her, and even some adults, reacted with surprise. They asked questions one after another.
“Wow!”
“Where in Johto?”
“What channel?!”
“The TV in the lobby’s showing him now!” Everyone but Julia hurried away with that. The boy did so too, but paused and glanced back. “Come on, you too!” he urged.
“I don’t care about that!” she shouted, perhaps louder than she wanted.
More than a few people took pause. “What?!” an older teenage girl yelled, making Julia’s hands fly to her ears again. “How could you not like Pete Stephens?!”
“I…” There was no good way to explain why. “I don’t mean I hate him, I just…never saw his show.” She tried to make up a lie to get out of it, even though she felt lying was wrong. It would be better than telling the truth. She quickly regretted it.
“Then come watch!” the excited boy urged. “It’s great, you’ll love it! And he’s here! In Johto! It’s once in a lifetime!”
Everyone else still in the room waited for her answer. All the questioning and even hateful eyes on her were making her buckle to the pressure. She wished so much that her friends were awake right now to tell them to leave her alone. She looked over her shoulder just in case, but no such luck.
“Okay…” she mumbled, wandering over to the television in the lobby of the Pokemon Center like a lost Growlithe. Her Pikachu followed idly at her side. She didn’t like this at all, but anything to get these people off her back. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? That was probably just wishful thinking, though.
“G’day, mates! Pete Stephens, here!”
She arrived just in time to see the program return from commercial. To Julia’s surprise, the Tracker was underwater. He was dressed in a diving suit that looked like a suit of armor, and was wearing goggles with a face mask that had a microphone built into it. His dusty blond hair flowed freely in the depths of the lake he was beneath.
In the background were countless blue and yellow pufferfish. The man verbally set the scene, “We’re here in a lake on Route 32 in Johto. Right smack in the middle of a swarm-a Qwilfish!”
That was from the part of her journey where she was sort of rushing through. She didn’t really remember much about it, other than catching her Ledyba (now a mighty Ledian) there. The fact that it was an uneventful trip, and that it was sandwiched between two major milestones on her journey, didn’t help.
The camera panned across the scene. Julia shuddered at the sight of the Pokemon. She was something of a toxiphobe when it came to Poison-types. Moreover, the murmuring of the countless Qwilfish was like the crowd at a baseball game on TV. It was just as headache-inducing, too.
Some of them in the background puffed up threateningly, but did nothing else. A few swam over to the man out of curiosity. The Tracker showed them no fear, actually reaching out and patting a few between their spines. The reactions were mostly indifferent. One puffed up in surprise and swam off in the tizzy, screeching that the Tracker was a jerk. Another enjoyed the attention and gave a showy twirl before leaving.
“Ain’t he a beaut?” Stephens asked as the Qwilfish swam away. “They huff and puff when you give’em a fright. But believe you me, they’re super sweet Pokemon like any other.”
The man turned his head to the left. Something must have caught his attention, because his eyes widened. “Crikey!” he gasped. “Justy! Point the camera over there, mate!”
The cameraperson did as instructed. Floating alone in the lake was a lone Qwilfish that looked different from the others. Its upper body was black with purple spine tips, and its lips were a different color. The girl would have believed she was looking at a shiny Pokemon on the television, if not for the different tail pattern. Julia had to confess that she was actually interested. Just a little.
That was, until the Tracker swam back into the picture and flashed a thumbs up. She was immediately reminded why she didn’t like the show when he started talking. “That there’s a Sinnohian Qwilfish, all by their lonesome! They’re Dark and Poison variants who dwell in chilly waters, and have a whole different evolution! They were made famous by the fictional Hisui books, but one thing they got right, these ain’t around as much in this day and age. They’re near-threatened on the endangered list.” He smiled sadly. “Needless to say, little fella’s far from home. Why don’t we swim on over and say hi to ‘em?”
Stephens and the filming crew grew closer. As they did, the hollow murmuring of the Pokemon became clearly audible to Julia.
“Alone. Abandoned.” Her words rang with an empty sorrow. “Why, Elle? I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?”
She scrunched her hands. What?! Who would abandon their Pokemon like that?! She almost thought of saying that out loud, before remembering it was unlikely that anyone would believe some random girl could understand Pokemon languages. Heck, even she and her parents couldn’t explain how, she just could.
“Hey, little guy!” The Qwilfish puffed up in surprise when the Tracker suddenly spoke to her. “Whatcha doin’ out here?”
“Wh-who are you?!” she asked, recoiling and trying to look intimidating with a shake of her body. But even Julia could tell from the tone in her voice it was just posturing.
“It’s a’right, fella. Here, lemme give ya a pat.”
“Stay away!” cried the Qwilfish.
“Afraid, are we?” the Tracker mused, pausing as she recoiled. “Guessing you were left here by someone?”
“Yes, and no one here likes me!” cried the black Qwilfish. “They say I’m weird and evil and to leave! How am I supposed to?!”
“Ohh…” Julia’s Pikachu, Hikaru, groaned. “I understood a bit of that. She’s like me.”
Her starter Pokemon’s family had abandoned her just because she looked different. Julia wished she could rush over there and do something for this poor Pokemon! She may have had a fear of Poison-type Pokemon, but even so, this one instantly won her sympathy. No Pokemon deserved to be treated this way!
Stephens didn’t understand, of course. “It’ll all be fine, fella,” he consoled, only aware enough to see her discomfort. “Jus’ come here for a sec, so I can check somethin’. It’ll be quick, promise.”
“No, stop! Leave me alone!” she screamed, desperately swimming backwards to escape the man. She flailed and thrashed, but the Krookodile Tracker grew ever closer, oblivious or uncaring of the Pokemon’s growing discomfort, if not abject terror.
Suddenly, the screen went to darkness. After ten seconds, a commercial came on. A bald, shirtless guy with a trimmed beard started screaming about men’s deodorant while flexing his oversized muscles. Julia had to turn away in revulsion. She hated commercials like that!
“What the HELL?!” cursed the boy who drew her into watching this, stomping a foot on the floor. “Just when it was getting good, too!”
It was weird, yes. Maybe something had damaged the camera? Something felt off about the whole thing. But it didn’t matter, Julia was going to use any excuse she could to get the heck away while she could.
##########
“This is why you film live on delay, people!”
Manna Schrader had immediately taken control of the situation as soon as it happened. She had security shoo the gawkers away and told them all they needed to know. At least they were easy to deal with. She had her hands full keeping the crew calm. She had to threaten more than one intern not to post about it on social media, else she would make sure they got blackballed from the industry forever. It was a threat she could and would make good on, given her family’s influence.
The situation was utter chaos. Pete Stephens was dead. He had been struck by a Barb Barrage attack that went right through a weak spot in the diving suit and pierced an artery. It was nothing short of a freak accident. He survived just long enough to carry him out of the water and hear his last words. He likely wanted to make sure the Qwilfish was unhurt or verify that she had been released, and maybe get a shot of her swimming away.
When she woke up in the morning, Manna had an eerie feeling about the day. It only got worse when Pete thanked everyone for everything they’ve done before he went in. She didn’t act on anything, since the show had to go on. A gut instinct certainly wasn’t a valid reason to stop it even if that wasn’t the case. She expected an accident, but not this.
People were hurling all sorts of questions at her, and she answered them all one right after another.
“Ambulance is on the way, should I go with?”
“No, I will.”
“There’s this one persistent fisher, Ralph–”
“Keep. Him. Away.”
“You need coffee, ma’am?”
“Black.”
“Should we tell the family, auntie?”
“If you mean ours, absolutely not. Take charge and keep the others in line for me.” She walked away to deal with pressing business.
Although the Schrader family were traditionally reporters or news anchors, she had graduated from that role into a producer. She always felt more comfortable behind the lens rather than in front of it. She had met Pete Stephens on a trip to a region in Australia. When he offered her the chance to produce his new show, she accepted on the spot.
“Mrs. Schrader,” said the camerawoman who had accompanied Pete underwater. Justine Hailey, the best they had. She sprang into action while everyone else was stunned with shock, capturing Pete’s killer with help of her Whiscash.
“We’re back from commercial in one,” she said. “What should we say?”
“Same thing we told the gawkers, he suffered a poison injury while filming,” Manna answered at once. They didn’t need to let people know the extent of what had happened. “Have Phil deliver it over a panning shot of the lake. Go to the footage we’d planned after.”
Her phone started to buzz. She took it out of her pocket and saw it was Nadia calling, from way over in Mahogany. Nosy as always. Manna promptly put it away and let it ring.
“All right,” Justine said, muttering a prayer under her breath. “What about the Qwilfish?”
“Give me some time to think about that.”
She pulled out the Dive Ball that the camerawoman had used to capture the Qwilfish and gave it a thoughtful glance. It was easy to speculate that the pufferfish had been released into the lake. Whoever did it better pray they weren’t found out. There were laws about being responsible for the actions of released Pokemon, but in this case, the court of public opinion would be far harsher than any court of law.
Pete loved Pokemon. He did countless things to help them and preserve their habitats. He always made sure they got the respect they deserved, from their rights to insisting that the P should be capitalized out of respect in response to the strange folk who thought otherwise. As the Krookodile Tracker, he went on record before saying that he’d gladly give his life if it meant saving one Magikarp. He died doing what he loved most. Regardless, the public was going to be out for blood. Especially for this lost, frightened Pokemon. The last thing he would want is for this Qwilfish to be condemned, even if they had taken his life.
She went into her tent to think about the situation. That’s when she saw it sitting on the table. A stapled together set of pages from a web blog. It gave her an idea, a means of salvation.
She picked up the copy of a report written by a far-removed cousin of hers, Arumi Schrader. It documented events that took place at the Sunyshore Gym over in Sinnoh during the first eight months of the year, involving a certain Pokemon Rehabilitator. Someone who could handle Pokemon that no one else could – or would. Not even the most powerful Champions or best care facilities. It struck like a bolt of lightning called down by Raikou. Yes, this was a perfect idea. They could use him. If anyone could turn public opinion around, it was the Demon Tamer Nori Carino.
Julia comes from the fic of @Juliko , Pokemon: A Marvelous Journey. Used with permission plus with input, partially as a mythology gag in how this series technically started as alternate history (noncanon to this too), and to help set the stage.
If you're wondering about my use of a real world country name, it's just my way of futureproofing. I don't want to spend hours making up a region name only to have it potentially be invalidated by canon, so I sidestep it by not mentioning those and having countries exist as basically-superregions. Which, kinda got screwed up anyway by Paldea encompassing two countries, but I managed a patchjob there. Though it also validated my use of real-world language names (which the games use anyway), so.
And yes. This is a crazy concept I had. Hopefully it's enjoyable for/in spite of it.
If you're wondering about my use of a real world country name, it's just my way of futureproofing. I don't want to spend hours making up a region name only to have it potentially be invalidated by canon, so I sidestep it by not mentioning those and having countries exist as basically-superregions. Which, kinda got screwed up anyway by Paldea encompassing two countries, but I managed a patchjob there. Though it also validated my use of real-world language names (which the games use anyway), so.
And yes. This is a crazy concept I had. Hopefully it's enjoyable for/in spite of it.
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