[Pokemon World] Mage Quest

After a brisk jog, the party arrives back at the trainer school. Nick wastes no time and enters the building.
Okay sure, Nick does take a moment to catch their breath at the drinking fountain, but that's about it.

Eventually though, Nick walks to Kyles office and knocks.

"come in!"
Nick opens the door.

Professor Kyle looks up from his work and his expression immediately lightens.
"Nick! I heard what happened yesterday on Mt. Arbor! Can you tell me what's going on, with the police getting involved and all? Also what happened to that guy with the mini fridge?"

"uh, they had places to go." Nick looks to HAZEL and Diamond to explain the rest.

Professor Kyle shakes Diamond's hand, still trying to process all this.
"Nice to meet you too."
He falls back upon politeness. That always works at least.

"...oh, I remember why Charles took off now! we found a lead up there on Mt Arbor and he went to the place where the dittos might be located! But they took off so quick that he didn't get a chance to ask to borrow one of those statuettes to check with. Is there anything particularly special about them that would make it hard to replicate one from a photo reference?"

Kyle is definitely overwhelmed here, but he tries to stick to the question at hand.
"Well, they're made of a pretty durable material to hold up while on the road, but other than that, they're just figurines."

"Whew..." Nick pulls out their captchalogue camera.
"In that case, may I take some photos of a statue to send to Charles? they've got all sorts of tools back at their place, prolly even a 3d printer."

"Certainly!" finally something that seems to be making sense to the professor. He grabs a statuette off a shelf and places it on the table.
"Take as many photos as you need. I just hope this lead winds up getting somewhere..."

Fortunately the "send a reference photo" cover seems to be working. Nick takes a few photos of the statue from multiple angles, to keep up their cover. at least one of those photos records the captchalogue code to be sent later.

"...and that should do it. Thank you."

"No, thank you." Professor Kyle smiles.
"That reminds me. I know I gave your friend my number. Did I give you my number yet? I want to make sure we stay in contact, after all."

"uhh... if you did, I sure don't remember it."

"I'll just write it down for you then." Professor Kyle writes his phone number on a sticky note... and hands it over to Nick.
"Make sure to add me to your contacts soon."

"got it." Nick nods and pulls out their phone. they add his number to their contact list.

"A laser gun?" Kyle asks.

"It wasn't just a laser gun, it was a hyper beam gun!" Nick clarifies.

Professor Kyle is taken aback by that. The power of a hyper beam, in a gun?
It seems things are just getting weirder and weirder...
"Is, is this something having to do with that 'team abyssal' group?"

"uh, sorta, but only like tangentially. It was actually one of those junior rockets, but possibly hired by someone connected to team abyssal? Its kinda hard to confirm things."
With that, Nick looks at their phone and opens up pestercord. They better send this code before more months pass by over there...

And with that, Nick puts their phone away for now.
"Alright, I sent the photos over. Might take a day, might take a minute, its hard to tell. I'll call you when I get word back from Charles on the ditto situation."

"Glad to hear. Don't mind me asking, but what do you plan on doing aside from investigating crimes?"

Nick suddenly worries about the prospect of being seen as an aid to law enforcement. What if the cops decide they act too much like a vigilante?
What if their other self shows up and punches them in the face?
Okay, maybe that's just catastrophizing there.

"uh.... oh! I'm planning on challenging the local gym! Do you have any pointers on what to expect?"

"Ah, going off to challenge Shrouder? Just stay on your toes. That gym may be a first on most trainer stops, but it will be hard if you don't know what you're doing."

"I mean like, I'm pretty decent as a trainer, as it turns out. Somehow all those years of playing games payed off, I guess."

"Well then, you should probably be able to handle it. You have a slowpoke, right?"

"Yeah. Plus a larvesta and a weird looking porygon."

"That sounds balanced enough most likely."

Nick retorts quickly at Diamond's assessment.
"Oh come on, I wasn't that shaky!"
a pause.
"...okay, sure, I did jitter a bit, but that was because I was excited!"

"Its perfectly natural to be nervous when just starting out. You'll get used to it."
Professor Kyle speaks with calm observed authority on the matter.

Nick just puffs up their cheeks, feeling not unlike the first time they had their fitness age calculated to 70 upon starting to play wii sports back in middle school, despite the fact that the first session in that mode always gives that answer.

---

After a few moments however, Nick's phone buzzes with a notification.



While the update to Homestuck Beyond Canon is tempting, Nick knows they'll need to read the backlog first anyways.
"...Charles got a match!"
Nick shows off the photo on their phone.


Professor Kyle's expression lights up.
"Yes! That's a match! Tell me, where are they?"

"uh..." Nick hesitates. Should they really mention that these ditto are currently on another world in a different dimension, and are probably also locally famous by now?
"...its complicated."

Kyle notices the two food bowls in the background.
"...they've already been adopted, haven't they?"

"...yeah."

A sigh. "...I was afraid of that. You can't exactly un-adopt a pokemon to give to somebody."

"Yeah. Plus, there's not much word on the rest of them went beyond those two."

Having seen enough, Professor Kyle finally gives up the search.
"well... at least it seems like they're well cared for. Its gonna take a while for the next batch of ditto to be pre-trained though."

Professor Kyle thinks on this. a ditto shortage like this has never been such a pressing problem. Granted, not everyone ends up starting with a ditto, but for those who follow the tradition... one that was started by his late father...

Kyle looks away. He can't stand the idea of losing such a tie to his father's work.
But at the same time, it's irresponsible to cause such a delay just because he wanted to continue a particular way of doing things.

"uhh... are you doing alright there?" Nick asks, completely oblivious to all of this layered angst.

"...it's... fine. I'm fine. it's everyone else that's going through more here. I let them all down.."

"Dude, it's not your fault. most of this is stuff totally out of your control."

"it's always out of my control, isn't it? I've always just been on the sidelines, just watching important events change my life forever. Do you even know what that's like?"

Nick blinks. they're starting to get the hint that there's something else going on here.
"I do, yeah. probably not in the way that you know, but where I came from, I lost everything at one point. I lost my family, I lost my home town, I lost my entire world. and then I lost my brother, and everything I'd been expected to fight for. at some point I was stuck on a meteor hurdling though the void, just hoping that I'd be able to see the light of day again one day. none of that had anything to do with me, just that I happened to be there."
Nick takes a deep breath.
"...I don't know how well you knew the me from this world, and I know I can't replace them. But I made a promise that I'd carry out their wishes." They clutch their pokeball shaped bag.
"I promised I'd go on the pokemon journey they never got a chance to go on. I promised I would challenge the gyms of the pinto league. There may be things that we can't change, but there's still things that we can do in the here and now. we still have choices and agency... even when it doesn't feel like it."
At this point, Nick is at the edge of tears.
Kyle is too.
"It's not fair... it's not fair what fate does... the burdens we must bear..."

A few hours later....

Nick couldn't figure out what to do, so they bowed out for a bit to focus on training for a while. Meanwhile, Diamond stuck with professor Kyle to hash out some alternatives to the starter dittos that clearly aren't an option anymore. Granted, this did involve a lot of consolation, but it seems Diamond knows a thing or two about the perils of death and mourning, apparently.

Nick returned after what felt like 5 ever to check on them.
"so uh, how'd it go?"

"It went... surprisingly well. You never told me this kid was so good at making phonecalls with results to them."

Nick furrows their brow like wut.
"Honestly this is the first I'm hearing about that."
they think for a moment. Isn't Diamond like, 11 or something?

"That being said, it took some convincing, but for the time being, I'm retiring the ditto tradition. I've been... using it to cope with some things. Diamond convinced me to find a different way to respect my father's memory." Kyle looks away for a moment.

"...I hope you can find the solace you need." Nick scrunches their mouth a bit, reminded of their own repressed grief... again.