David shifted restlessly as he waited his turn in line. The tall brunette in front of him had — judging by the dirt on her boots and the faint sour smell — just arrived in Lavender Town. Ahead of her, a man with a shaved head was wrapping up his business with the receptionist. It wouldn’t be long now before it was David’s turn, something he was dreading.

  His hand glossed over the knots of his centise, feeling the smooth, cold metal beneath. His woven belt was due for some care and maybe a wash. If left too long, the ropes would stiffen up and make it a pain to pull pokeballs from. It was a boring chore and one he’d rather do than have the upcoming conversation.

  He resisted the temptation to drum his fingers against his waist as the man left and the woman stepped forward. Thankfully, the receptionist manning the desk this morning wasn’t the same one who checked him in yesterday. He’d be too embarrassed to face her after all the warnings.

  “Next!”

  The woman didn’t take long at all. Likely eager to enjoy the trappings of civilization after a long hike between the world’s cities.

  David stepped forward, feeling light with his backpack, but all the more exposed.

  “Hello, can I see your trainer’s license, and how can I help you today?”

  “Good morning,” David said, passing the metal card over. “I’m in a room here, but I wanted to see if I could extend it for another two days.”

  After a single night on a proper bed, he was not eager to get back on the trail north to Cerulean. There were also Georgio’s warnings to consider.

  “Good morning to you too,” the receptionist mumbled back, eyes glued to the chunky screen in front of him already. “Hm... Let’s see. Allowance... Schedule... O-okay. We have space and you should be fine to stay in the same room.”

  “Thank you.”

  The Pokecenter receptionist raised an eyebrow as David took his license back but lingered. “Is there anything else?”

  This was the part he was dreading.

  “Well, there was an incident yesterday, and the room’s-my bedsheet was damaged. Nothing terrible, but there were a few... nibbles taken out of it.”

  It pained him to say it. All those warnings to not release Pokemon.

  The receptionist snorted, which was not the reaction David had been expecting. He looked back at his screen, typing something. “I see you have a recent Bug capture. I’m guessing it didn’t take you long to identify the culprit. Look, my best advice is to make sure you feed them before you go to sleep. It isn’t unusual for recent captures to release themselves and go for wanders. An extra helping of food will make them less energetic and be easier on your wallet. For the sheet, you’ll need to pay a charge of Fifty Poke when you leave.”

  “That’s it?” David asked in surprise. He’d been expecting some fines of some kind, possibly a deduction from his monthly allowance of center stays. It was not a difficult decision to keep quiet about what actually happened, and place all the blame on Venonat either. Something told him that the receptionist would be a lot less helpful if David told them that he’d released Venonat himself.

  “That’s it,” the man said, not looking up from his screen. “You came and told us, so you get to skip the investigation fee. Replacing sheets is easy, and it’s far from the worst a Pokemon can do. It’s also one of the reasons the Pokecenter is here and provides accommodation. Trainers can be destructive.”

  “It’s not a Silver League thing? I thought with the license and badges that-”

  “No, Pokecenters offer accommodation across the globe. The League helps in Kanto, but... Traveling trainers have a tendency to be less than careful. Some property damage-” He looked up and around the room. “-a knocked over urn or two, and a grudge is born. Grudges led to violence, violence to destruction and... its best to stop it at sheets. Now, I do have a queue, so if you wouldn’t mind?”

  David thanked him again and walked away feeling like he’d dodged a bullet and a little more curious about the White Pokeball. The knocked over urn was too specific to not be a true story.

  -.-

  Lavender Town was an odd place. The streets were solemn and quiet, you couldn’t go one hundred meters without crossing paths with a funeral procession, but the whole town couldn’t help but give off touristy vibes. Some of that was the sameness. The buildings, the streets, the wizard tower in the background, it was all built from the hill stone. All the roofs were the same purple. It felt closer to a movie set or theme park than an actual town.

  Then there were the people. The locals, those which David could pick out anyway, really matched the theme. They wore long white robes and were adorned in far too many beads. Some carried torches around, waving the flames back and forth as if seeking to hypnotize themselves or others. The funeral goers may as well have been actors, dressed in elaborate outfits that would not have looked out of place in a medieval drama or a horror movie.

  It was clear that Kanto had a large variety of funeral customs, and Lavender Town was prepared to meet them all. Intricate shawls were on display beside masks carved in torturous rapture. Heavy cloaks were draped over mannequins that David watched for movement. The streets were lined with these shops and signs for hotels.

  All together, this led David to disrespectfully dub the place as Halloween village. The only sense of normality he felt was when he crossed paths with another trainer, their hiking clothes a refreshing beacon.

  It was only when he left the town and grew nearer to the wizard tower, apparently named Pokemon Tower by someone without a creative bone in their body, that this goofy and artificial vibe disappeared.

  The Town was close to the sea, and this morning it left a cold chill to the air. Dew gathered at the side of the road, where clumpy grass and moss grew on less trodden ground. The cobblestone was wet, not from mist or rain, but from the passage of mourners. Their footprints were distorted by the uneven rocks, creating claw prints out of soles. When David reached the tower, all the background noise of civilization had faded.

  Up close, Pokemon Tower might as well have been a skyscraper. It was thirty-forty meters in diameter and loomed like few buildings could. The walls were perfectly smooth hill stone, again the same kind as that cobbled the road to the tower, but joined without a visible seam. More moss crept around the oddly shaped windows to the tower. Despite knowing that it was seven stories tall, David felt like it was the tallest building he’d seen in this world.

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  He exhaled, his breath fogging in the shadowed air. A funeral procession crossed beneath the arch signaling the entrance. A great slab of hill stone loomed at the top of the arch, placed like a threat to all who entered. Behave or be crushed, it seemed to say.

  David spent some time examining the unique building and all its strangeness before moving on. The tower was not a burial ground as much as a place of mourning and remembrance. While many burial plates and urns were stored there, it was the hills behind that most of Kanto’s dead were interred in. The locals had long ago carved into the stone, cutting tunnels to harvest their stone and lay their dead. Tunnels that were now catacombs for the country. Most were not open to the public, but there was a large one that allowed visitors.

  He shivered once more in the shade of the chilly morning before stepping inside. It didn’t take long for him to find a quiet spot.

  “Hello everyone. I know it’s been a while, months even, but well, so much has happened. Sometimes I don’t even know how I got here.”

  David took a look around the cave, headstones carved into the stone. He’d tried to choose a spot that wasn’t close to any grave in particular. It was a good spot. His voice didn’t echo, and the torch set in the wall behind him lit up the tunnel and made it feel warm.

  “Always, actually. I’ve never found any answers about how I came to this world. I know nothing. I don’t even know if I should be talking here. You all aren’t dead. At least… I.. I hope...”

  It took a few moments before he was ready to speak again. The thought that he was the only survivor from his world was an unwelcome one.

  “I don’t want to mourn you. It would be- wrong, admitting defeat, giving up. I think you’re alive. I think I can feel it. I guess... I guess I’m just here to say I miss you all. I miss your voices, I miss your laughter, I miss your cooking, I miss home.”

  The stone gave no response. David reached out to it, feeling the rough surface. It wasn’t as cold as he’d expected.

  “That’s all I guess.”

  -.-

  David blinked at the sign again. A small blob of dirty moss had overtaken the top side of it. It was a very recognisable sign. This was his third time seeing it in twenty minutes.

  “Crap, I’m lost, aren’t I?”

  He groaned.

  “How am I getting lost if I keep following the signs?”

  “Ssssh!”

  David winced at the admonishment, then felt relief at what it signaled. “Hello? Is someone there? I’m a little lost.”

  The resulting sigh echoed around the tunnel. “Over here.”

  He tried to follow the prompt, and a few more and eventually found the source of the noise in the fourth tunnel he tried.

  An old woman sat on top of a grave, one hand against the wall to steady her as she studied a grave. A shawl was wrapped around her shoulders, but it was unneeded as thick, gray hair hid her face.

  “Hello, sorry to disturb you, but I’m lost. Do you know the way out?” David frowned slightly as his voice came out steady and not echo-y as he’d expected. Odd.

  “She was my first Pokemon. A family Pokemon really, but I thought she was mine,” the old woman said, ignoring his question as she reached a hand out to stroke the carving. It was a simple rendition of a Diglett, if David wasn’t mistaken. “She died protecting my father in these very tunnels. He was a digger, and the stone got him in the end too.”

  In a burst of motion, the old woman spun around to face David. “People judge Pokemon, calling them weak, or small, but it is them that is wrong. All Pokemon are strong!”

  “Stronger than us anyway,” he answered, reassessing his plans to get out of her quickly.

  She harrumphed and took her time in scanning him. “I’ll see you out in a while. Getting lost at your age. Huh!”

  David examined her back. She was small. Even with her heavy purple dress, he could see rigors of age had affected her. A cane with a ridiculously thick pommel rested by her side. Heavy frown lines wrinkled her face and even some scars were dotted about. She carried no visible pokeballs, and he felt very odd for even checking.

  The old woman broke the silence first. “Well, if you’re already here, you might as well listen to a story, yes?”

  David shrugged. After several attempts to leave, it was clear that he wasn’t getting out of here without help or a lot more trial and error. He had time to kill today, and it sounded like this woman was lonely and needed to talk to someone. “Sure.”

  The old woman snorted, clearly finding something amusing about his answer. She shuffled over and sat against the headstone she’d been examining, moving her cane to lean it against the wall with her.

  David winced at the blatant disregard for the grave, but the old woman just raised an eyebrow, daring him to say something. He kept silent. The grave was too big to be for just a Diglett. For all he knew, it was the woman’s husband, friend or family. She might be lonely and wanting to talk, but a fight worked just as well as a conversation for some.

  “It all began at the beginning, of course, for where else would a story start?”

  David resisted the urge to scowl. A long tale in the catacombs wasn’t exactly how he wanted to spend his morning. The old woman knew it too. Her expression hadn’t changed, but he could tell she was enjoying this. It was something about how her wrinkles shifted.

  “The omnipotent Arceus decided one day to grant a gift to the universe. All Pokemon were given it then, right at the beginning. A spark. Some call it a fragment of divinity, but what it is doesn’t matter. What matters is what that spark does. With it, all Pokemon, big or small, can achieve greatness. They can reach heights that they were never destined for, create wonders, and destroy. Destroy all too much in their rage. This spark is an equalizer of sorts. A path to power for all.”

  Despite himself, David found he was interested. It wasn’t a story about the dead Diglett or even her past, but something else. The old woman had a note in her voice that made it hard to ignore.

  “But then you might ask, what about us humans? Do we have that spark?” She paused.

  The pause lingered.

  David finally understood and rolled his eyes. “Do we?”

  “Once, yes.” The old woman launched back into her story as if she’d received an immediate answer. “Arceus gave all creatures that spark, humans included. But that was at their own folly. For while Pokemon were the work of two, humans were one alone. Arceus’s. Enraged, the other sought to take back this gift. Human by human, it traveled, reaching within and snuffing out that spark. But it was not Arceus, it had neither the power nor the desire to fix, and so it left a hole in each of us.” She took a deep, rattling breath. ”Arceus did not wait idly by. They are omnipotent, but that is their limit. Arceus had to search for the other, following the holes it left behind. Now chased and running out of time, the other began to get sloppy. It began to leave parts of the spark behind. In the end, the other won the race, and reached all humans, but those sparks it left eventually grew into the Psychics, the Aura and most importantly the Mediums. Arceus chased the other away, but they had lost and so too had humans.”

  It was a nice story – lack of detail about ‘the other’ aside. The tale explained some of the powers humans had in this world nicely and set up a classic good vs evil scenario. This must have been Lavender’s version of this world’s origin story.

  David grinned at her bias for the ‘sparks’ from her own town. Could Mediums actually do anything or was that a priest’s commune with spirits thing?

  The old woman sniffed at him and his grin. “Of course, not all ends as it was intended. Humans now had this hole in them. A yawning pit that desired to be filled. And Pokemon had these sparks that they were not originally intended to have. Imperfections both. What was done could never be undone. The sparks grew. To bursting at times. The pits ate. Little by little people and Pokemon came together, balancing each other out. When the sparks grew, a Pokemon could feed a little to the pit. When the pit ate, the sparks had more room for growth.”

  She grew silent. Eventually, David had to say something.

  “It’s a nice story.”

  The old woman hummed. “It’s carved into the stone on the seventh floor of the Pokemon tower, next to glyphs of Arceus, and a very small, wispy creature.”

  David chewed on his lip. Another legendary Pokemon? Or even a clue about where he could find them. Maybe he needed to plan a trip to the top of the tower after all.

  “Now, how did you get lost in here? Did you not follow the signs?”