Kapitel 4: Partner Pending

'Keeping viability in mind; Inkay, Murkrow, and Sneasel are Pokémon I can't choose. Despite joining this guild, I'm still poor, and even if I could afford it, who's to say certain evolutionary items aren't banned from the general public? It's too risky. Plus, Malamar scares me.

'Stunky and Scraggy are weak in the long run, while Pawniard and Vullaby will take a long time to evolve. However, the weaker duo also evolves fairly late, meaning Pawniard and Vullaby are the better choices.

'If I had better circumstances, Vullaby would be the better choice. Its base stats as a Mandibuzz are higher than Bisharp's and its ability to fly also provides great utility. However, Vullaby can't fly and it's gonna be a Vullaby for most of its life. In this dangerous place? Pure power is much more valuable than being defensive but weak.'

Since he couldn't read, Nova asked Sol to read out the information regarding each Pokémon. With the guild only able to make assumptions about each Pokémon and their strengths, Nova knew his game knowledge of Pokémon was much more reliable. Based on that, he decided to choose-

"Pawniard. I choose the Sharp Blade Pokémon," he said confidently.

Sol looked a bit concerned. "You sure? That one tends to follow only the strongest Bisharp's in the wild, so it'll only listen to you if it recognizes you as stronger than it."

"Positive," he replied, trusting his gut and his knowledge.

Nova was aware that he was ignoring the fact that Pokémon may not evolve via levels, as shown in the anime where they tend to evolve when pushed too far and sufficiently trained. However, he didn't care. In his opinion, the Pokémon with swords for hands was more useful than a flightless diaper bird.

Sol shrugged after a moment of staring at him. "Alright, if you're sure. I'll set up a job listing for it. You should get your Pawniard in hopefully a week or two."

"Oh, I'm not getting it right now?" he replied with poorly veiled disappointment.

If she noticed his dismay, she didn't show it. "Of course not. What, do you think we just have convenient starters ready for whenever someone joins? If we could afford that, we wouldn't be in a renovated power plant and most of our supplies and equipment wouldn't be stolen."

Nova flinched as if struck. "But I thought you said you didn't do crimes anymore!"

"No, I said no one here is legally a criminal. It would be a disgrace to all dark types to get caught stealing something." Sol rolled her eyes. "Now come on, I'll show you your room."

Without waiting for a reply, she walked out of the room, flicking the lights off on her way out. Nova took one last look at the screen, burning the image in his memory, before catching up to Sol and following close behind.

Soon, they reached his room and Sol left quickly, muttering under her breath about deserved naps. It was a simple room, only having a bed, a desk with a chair, and a lamp on top of said desk.

Putting down his backpack and sifting through the little number of items he owns; Nova took out his notebook and wrote down the names of each Pokémon he saw in the starter choosing room. He made parallels between the letters in their English names and the letters he saw on the screen. It was a one-to-one translation.

Until now, he hadn't tried to learn the written language of the Pokémon World. After all, he didn't have anything familiar to compare it to. Additionally, he didn't trust the people at the orphanage enough to ask them for anything, much less how to read.

That, however, didn't last long. The day was much more mentally taxing than he thought it would be, and he drifted to sleep in his chair, only getting up as he remembered to lock his door and then flop onto the bed.

[}-0-{]

And just like that, two weeks had passed.

Nova had done and learned quite a bit in those weeks.

By cross-referencing English's letters with the letters of the Pokémon World, he knew all but 6 letters. Then, he looked at street names and used context clues to figure out the rest. Finally, after a few days of memorization, he could now say he knew the Pokémon World's version of English completely.

Sadly, a lot of his time was cut short by a fact that Sol failed to tell him about. As it turns out, since he technically lost the guild money by having the guild pay for his starter Pokémon's job listing, he was stuck on cleaning duty. Usually, people were paid to work in certain parts of the building.

And since he didn't have a Pokémon, he was forced to pay for his starter Pokémon by cleaning in the kitchen.

On the bright side, since he spent a lot of the time in the kitchen, he was able to devise a balanced diet with the known constant food available. On top of being balanced nutritionally, he put a certain focus on calcium, attempting to strengthen his bones from a young age.

He then coupled his diet with his very active attempts to learn to Parkour and his strength training that consisted of using low pound weights but high repetitions. There wasn't much of a difference yet, but he suspected in the coming years that he would gain a good amount of lean muscle and stamina.

At the moment, however, he was simply laying on his bed reading a book. He managed to find a few books scattered around the base, yet he only took interest in the ones related to Pokémon. Specifically, the book he was currently reading, detailing the shocking anatomy of Pokémon. It talked about how every Pokémon had extremely strange bodies.

In particular, it talked about how when Pokémon died, they didn't leave behind anything besides bones. In fact, Pokémon didn't have much of anything even when alive. They didn't even digest food, it simply became the energy that makes up most of their body. Nova did notice how quickly they glossed over the energy portion, not even explaining what said energy was.

Sadly, his research was cut short as he heard a knock at the door. Before he could even get up, a note slid under his door. Eyeing it, he closed his anatomy book and walked over to it.

A bit annoyed and very confused, he picked it up and read the very small note. All it read was 'Come to the entrance hall. -Sol', confusing him even further.

Suspicious.