Chapter 4 – First Steps
Owen was younger than Ryan expected.
Maybe thirty, with an easy manner and the kind of face that was hard to distrust. He sat down on the wooden chair without being asked and set his notebook on his knee. The Eevee jumped onto the bed beside him and curled up like it owned the place.
Ryan sat on the opposite end of the bed and waited.
"So," Owen said, flipping the notebook open. "Mara's report says she found you on Route 201 around eleven last night. No Pokemon, no gear, disoriented." He looked up. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Fine," Ryan said. "Better."
"Good." Owen wrote something. "Can you tell me a bit more about what happened? How you ended up out there?"
Ryan had been awake since the knock. He'd had time to think about this.
"Not really," he said. "I don't remember much. I was somewhere, and then I wasn't. I woke up in the forest and had no idea where I was or how I'd gotten there."
Owen nodded slowly, like he was filing it away rather than disbelieving it. "No ID on you? No Pokeball, no trainer card?"
"Nothing."
"Family we can contact?"
Ryan looked at the Eevee. It had fallen asleep already, sides rising and falling steadily. "No. There's no one."
Owen was quiet for a moment. Not uncomfortable quiet just the quiet of someone thinking through a problem practically. "Okay," he said finally. "Here's the situation. Without ID or a trainer license you can't legally stay in Sinnoh long term. You can't work, you can't travel between routes without a registered Pokemon, and you can't access most facilities." He tapped his pen against the notebook. "There's one straightforward option. Professor Rowan's lab is two minutes from here. He registers new trainers gives them an official ID, logs them in the system. It's not complicated."
"And if I do that I'm legal."
"You're legal," Owen confirmed. "You'd need to pass a basic assessment but that's standard for everyone." He closed the notebook and stood. "I'm not pushing you toward anything. But it solves most of your immediate problems."
Ryan thought about it for exactly three seconds. It solved all of his immediate problems. ID, legal status, a reason he can stay here.
"Okay," he said. "I'll go."
Owen smiled, easy and genuine. "Good. Tell them Owen sent you, they'll know what it's about." The Eevee dropped from the bed the moment Owen stood, landing silently and falling into step beside him without being asked. "Good luck, Ryan."
He left without making it into anything more than it was.
Ryan sat alone in the quiet room for a moment. Then he stood, straightened his jacket, and went to find Professor Rowan's lab.
Sandgem Town looked completely different in daylight.
The streets were narrow and clean, buildings low and close together.
Ryan walked slowly and tried not to look like someone who was seeing all of this for the first time.
He mostly failed.
A Starly landed directly in his path, pecked at something between the stones, and flew off without acknowledging his existence. A woman walking with here Luxray passed him on the narrow pavement, nodding briefly like it was the most ordinary thing in the world which. Two Bidoof waddled along the base of a garden wall, completely indifferent to the people stepping around them. A Roserade stood beside a shopkeeper arranging fruit outside his store, occasionally reaching out to straighten a display with careful fingers.
He passed the Pokemon Center. Passed a small market with berry crates out front. Passed a bench where an old man sat with a Slowpoke asleep across his lap like a very large, very pink cat.
Then he heard it a sharp crack of impact from somewhere to his left, followed by the low thud of something hitting the ground and bouncing back up immediately.
He turned.
A small park sat back from the street, open and flat with trees along the edges. Two trainers stood facing each other across the clearing, maybe fifteen meters apart. Between them a Luxio and a Machop were moving fast, commads being called out and immediately acted on, both Pokemon flowing from one move into the next without pause.
Ryan stopped walking.
It wasn't that different from what he'd seen on screen hundreds of times. The moves were the same he recognised the burst of electricity from the Luxio, the way the Machop planted its feet and used its whole body weight behind each strike. But the speed of it was different. The way the trainers called and the Pokemon responded and then made their own small adjustments within that not ignoring commands, just filling in the gaps themselves. It felt alive in a way no screen had ever quite captured.
The Machop went low under a Spark, grabbed the Luxio around the middle, and threw it. The Luxio twisted in the air and landed on its feet, skidding back, breathing harder now. Its trainer called something sharp and encouraging. The Luxio's ears flicked and then it was moving again, fast and low, electricity building along its fur.
A minute later the Machop's legs gave out mid-step. It went down slowly, tried once to push itself back up, and then stayed down, sides heaving. Its trainer was already crossing the clearing, crouching beside it, talking to it quietly.
The other trainer recalled her Luxio without celebration, just a nod of satisfaction and a quiet word.
Nobody watching from the benches looked particularly moved by any of this. Just two people with their Pokemon, a Tuesday morning, nothing special.
Ryan turned and kept walking.
The lab was visible from the next corner a low building set back from the street, a garden in front, tall grass growing in careful sections along the path. A sign above the door he could read from here.
He stood at the corner for longer than he needed to.
He knew what was waiting in there. A test, a registration, an ID with his name on it. A first step toward something he hadn't chosen and couldn't undo.
He thought about the forest last night. About waking up with pine needles under his hands and no idea which direction was home because home wasn't a direction anymore. It was just gone.
He needed to move forward. That was the only thing that made any sense.
Ryan walked to the door and knocked.