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]

"I recommend you return your rental and heal your Zigzagoon first," Bella says. "And probably train these two up a little bit more and actually read something on training 'mon."

[intricate_engineer]

"Yea. I need to figure out what I'm actually doing. Thanks for bringing me."

[the_very_best]

"You're welcome! Back to town?"

[intricate_engineer]

"Please. When do people normally learn to train 'mon?"

[the_very_best]

"Varies, usually somewhere between the ages of five and ten."

[intricate_engineer]

"Is what you do very different at it's core from what a non-professional trainer does?"

[the_very_best]

"Not that different. More 'mon, more time investment, more travel." Back to town they go.

[intricate_engineer]

"is there a limit to how strong 'mon can get?"

[the_very_best]

"Sorta hard to say. Not an obvious hard limit, though."

[intricate_engineer]

"Does that cause problems? If anyone can become arbitrarily strong with enough time and effort?"

[the_very_best]

"Well, it's anyone, not just some people, and it's a lot of time and effort. If there's a limit I'm nowhere near it and I'm semi-pro," says Bella.

[intricate_engineer]

"Alright, that makes sense. How much does it depend on the personality of the 'mon?"

[the_very_best]

"Plenty. It's really hard to get some of 'em to care about getting more powerful, or about the steps to get there."

[intricate_engineer]

"Are there any that actively dislike battles?"

[the_very_best]

"Sure, some. They are unlikely to attack you in the wild though."

[intricate_engineer]

Glen laughs, "I guess that would really bias the sample."

[the_very_best]

"Little bit! You see it more in the really rare species that people will go well out of their way to track down, and in the thoroughly domesticated kinds."

[intricate_engineer]

"Do you always need Pokéballs? Even for the domesticated ones?"

[the_very_best]

"Nah, people keep entire herds of Miltank or whatever without. And some individual 'mon are perfectly docile even without a trainer even if they don't do herds. A lot of Pokémon centers have 'mon around as assistants."

[intricate_engineer]

"Are there 'mon who are too aggressive to be trained?"

[the_very_best]

"There are 'mon who make it difficult, but I don't think any that are outright uncontrollable by somebody who knows what they're doing."

[intricate_engineer]

"Is there any risk of trained 'mon deciding to attack their trainers?"

[the_very_best]

"Only if their trainers are astonishingly terrible and the 'mon is unusually non-docile."

[intricate_engineer]

"That's reassuring. Definitely different from most animals in the worlds I know."

[the_very_best]

"Mon are their own thing!"