Searching Far and Wide

[intricate_engineer]

Glen was creating a prototype for a new gate design. It was meant to be affordable and provide quick transport between individual homes. She tests several objects and a rat and everything seems to be working.

She steps through. Instead of finding herself in the room next door, she finds herself standing on a sidewalk in an empty city. The buildings are tall and perfect, colorless with doorways far too tall for any human. The roads have no straight lines and twist in on themselves. There is no life or sound.
Glen tries to stay calm. She begins to walk along the road, randomly opening doors and exploring buildings that are as silent as the rest of the world.

She opens a door that she hopes will lead onto a roof and is instead met with warmth, and soft noise, and color.

Comments

[the_very_best]

"Sometimes a 'mon will gain or change type when it evolves but it's completely per species. They can't all learn all possible attacks; some they'll learn naturally and others you can sort of install with machine thingies. Most of the time they learn attacks the same type as they are but you can get variety. They can't keep more than four straight at a time, though."

[intricate_engineer]

"How often do you have to fight?"

[the_very_best]

"I mean, that depends on whether you want to leave your house to do anything other than once weekly grocery shopping! 'Mon that don't fight on the regular get bad at it. You need to keep 'em in shape if you want to travel much. When I'm in the field there's a dozen little scuffles some days; in towns I do tournaments or face off my own against each other so they don't forget how to do it."

[intricate_engineer]

"Don't they get hurt?"

[the_very_best]

"Some? Not usually that badly. I carry meds and stuff with me."

[intricate_engineer]

"Doesn't it start to add up after a while?"

[the_very_best]

"Potions are expensive-ish, but they're a necessary expenditure."

[intricate_engineer]

"I mean the injuries. Even if you're given them medicine, I would think there'd be a point where they would be getting hurt faster than they could heal."

[the_very_best]

"Oh! No, they heal really well on their own compared to humans, and also remember how they can be stored as information, there's a thing in any town that can just sort of... flip some bits and they're okay."

[intricate_engineer]

"Can you do that with humans?"

[the_very_best]

"Nope."

[intricate_engineer]

"Why not?"

[the_very_best]

"We... don't represent as information very well for some reason? I'm not really a field expert."

[intricate_engineer]

"That's unfortunate. How long do Pokémon live?"

[the_very_best]

"Depends on the species. Legendaries supposedly forever, bugs not that long, dragons longest - by type, anyway, there's exceptions - Zag was older when I got him so I might be looking at just another decade there, everybody else I've got will probably outlive him."

[intricate_engineer]

"Do dragons live longer than humans?"

[the_very_best]

"Some species can. Not by that much though."

[intricate_engineer]

"How long have Pokéballs existed?"

[the_very_best]

"Like... coming up on a century? They've improved since then and before that we used these fruits that do the same thing but not nearly as well, if you hollow 'em out."

[intricate_engineer]

"Do Pokémon age when they're inside?"

[the_very_best]

"In balls yes, in computers no."

[intricate_engineer]

"And you can rewrite aging the way you can heal?"

[the_very_best]

"No, haven't tackled that one yet."

[intricate_engineer]

"But there's no hard rule to prevent it?"

[the_very_best]

"Don't think so. Their age is stored like everything else, we just don't know what to toggle. They figured out healing because you can look at a before and after and narrow it way down, age changes over a long enough time that lots of other things change."