Like No One Ever Was

It was not a dream, I found as I woke with a start, sweating and gasping for breath. It was hard to recall, the details slipping like water between my hands, but I remembered being out of place.

I was in an exam, for some university course that I had, somehow, missed half the classes for. I couldn’t understand the questions, and I’d have to tell my parents, but I hadn’t been in university for years now. I told my family about it, but they asked why I looked so weird. Then I walked up to a full-length mirror (a mirror we’d thrown out and remodeled the room years ago) and I saw-

Then I woke up here and - It’s all wrong. My room, my body, my home… It’s all gone.

The tears started flowing and I was crying, trying to hold back sobs that might wake up anyone else. It was still fairly dark, only a sliver of moonlight through the window illuminating my room, so I assumed they would all still be asleep. Not that my attempts managed much… but no one came anyway.

One upside to an enormous house I guess. I thought, in between remembered flashes of friends and family that I’d never see again. I managed to quiet myself down, but did not get back to sleep by the morning.

***

“All right, time for your lessons today, Young Miss.” Leah said with a smile plastered on her face. I understood why - it was hard to get me to focus on these things. Before, it might have been because I was an average, hyperactive young child. Now…

“If two Pawmi are charging a battery with ten volts of electricity each, and then another Pawmi starts charging it too, how many volts of electricity are they charging the battery with?”

“Thirty.” Now I’m just bored. Still, it shouldn’t be too much longer- Rotom made an alarm sound, hovering up in the air. “Ah, lesson’s over, thank you Leah!” I said, scrambling up, halfway out the door before I felt her hand on my shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going, Young Miss?” She asked in a deceptively sweet tone.

“Outside? The lesson’s done so I was just going to run a bit-”

“Excellent, I’ll let the majordomo know and we can head out together.”

The staff took care of us very seriously, so I was under constant surveillance when I went outside. We walked off the estate and up the path to a nearby hill. The grassy plain rolled gently out before us and there was a long stretch of smooth ground that made for a decent running track, a few trees serving as makeshift markers to help me measure distance. Beyond that was another house, currently being renovated, and in about a decade? Would serve as the home of one the greatest trainers to grace this land, the player character.

“Could we go a bit further-” I began before she interrupted me.

“No, Young Miss,” she said firmly. “I don’t think we should wander farther away from home than this.” I bit back a groan and all the counterarguments sprang to the tip of my tongue. They won’t do any good. I’ve tried before, but she’s adamant on making sure I don’t get into trouble.

With a small sigh, I dedicated that frustrated energy to running. My new body was strong, and part of me wanted to practice martial arts, and split trees apart with my newfound strength!... The other, more sensible part of me recognized that I was only super strong by the standards of a five-year-old in my world, so I’d still need to grow a bit before I could do anything like that (and that Leah would freak out if I tried in front of her). The trainer part of me was analyzing my weaknesses and knew what I needed to work on.

After a few minutes of stretching, I began running, doing suicide runs, (approximately) 100 meter dashes, and laps around the hill. These runs were often interspersed by rest breaks, as my stamina was, frankly, terrible. Is this just part of being a kid again? No, I feel like even a normal child’s body wouldn’t get dead tired from a minute of running. At least the view is nice.

From where I sat, I could see the hill, sloping down towards my house and branching off on different routes towards the major cities of Paldea. Other hills rose up, blocking my view from here of the nearby Los Platos or Mesagoza, but I saw the top of the giant Pokeball tower from the pinnacle school off in the distance. On the other side, I was treated to an endless expanse of blue, the sea stretching out seemingly forever, sparkling in the sunlight. Saying it was nice, was probably an understatement, the view was spectacular, here and down at the beachside home.

Something else I found catching my eye even more than the gorgeous natural terrain around me were Pokemon. This location was supposedly quiet and calm compared to others (likely another draw and why my parents moved here), but there were still Pokemon all around me. In the skies, Wingulls sang freely and soared through the air, drifting lazily by, while Fletchings swooped around them, racing each other. On the ground, Lechonks milled about nibbling on grass, tiny Scatterbugs (yet still gigantic by my still adjusting standards of ‘bug’) tried to avoid being underfoot of the pig-like Pokemon or chased off by the more territorial Tarountula hanging down from tree branches. Out on the ocean, Buizel drifted on the surface, frolicking playfully with Finizen’s leaping out above the waves.

I can’t believe I missed all of this, even while I was disoriented remembering… everything. Those thoughts still haunted me at times, especially at night, keeping me up and asking questions I had no answers to. ‘How did I get here?’ ‘Why am I here?’ ‘Am I even myself still, or Nemona? Is she dead, or does she just have my memories? Is there a difference?’ However it had happened, no one was showing up to give me the answers, so I just had to keep on moving forward every day. Admittedly, an easier thing to do when you live a life as blessed as mine.

After an hour of exercise, I was marched back inside, as none of the maids or butlers wanted to spend hours on end just watching me run around, get tired, rest, and do it all again, over and over. Of course, while my body was busy, I was thinking and planning. I went straight online once I was done with my bath and no longer so sweaty.

Politics (international and local), technology, business, geography, history, and of course the factor that tied them all together and more: Pokemon. I had so much I wanted to learn about this wonderful world and began voraciously devouring every scrap of information I could get.

Some things were easy, a quick search on the Luugle (one of the main search engines the ‘Pokenet’ had) found the answer easily, for things like ‘Results of X or Y tournament’. Others I had to look through a few more articles. If I wanted to find ‘common migratory patterns of Girafarig in Paldea’, I’d have to look up a few different posts on forums and other sites and cross reference that with the Map App to get a clearer picture. And even then, that’s only because Girafarig is fairly common. Locations of Dragons like my beloved Axew are much closer kept secrets, with information on them scant.

I suspected there was some group intentionally obscuring this knowledge since I knew from the games that there was a lake in the north that had tons of Dragons roaming about, and plenty of Dragon trainers too. I suspected the latter was obscuring the former. Wasn’t Hassel part of a clan about that too?

Unfortunately, as much as I liked the game, I was pretty casual and thus did not seem to be blessed with the perfect knowledge that other self-inserts gained. Isn’t that why the genre exists in the first place? Future/meta-knowledge is the biggest cheat anyway, and I don’t even get all of that or the random superpowers everyone else gets? Unfair!

Aura was something I looked up extensively too, but to little avail. Most references about it were oblique, hidden things. Mentioning great trainers doing great things through ‘physical and mental focus’ or ‘bringing out their hidden potential to save the day.’ Hardly anything that would give me a place to begin. Honestly, I’m not too upset about it. Even at its best, it doesn’t feel like it lets you do much that a Pokemon wouldn’t be able to do better. Still, if I can find a teacher, I would like to learn it. Just seems cool to have, and every trick or skill or edge I can get, I want to aim for.

Anise, another of the maids looking after me and the house, came in to tuck me in for my nap. She was a bit older and a bit less enthusiastic about looking after me, unlike Leah, so when I said “Ok, I’ll go to bed now,” as I sat on the bed, I knew I didn’t even have to pull the covers over me before she had closed the door again and I could go back to my online explorations. To be fair, sometimes I do actually nap. Never really liked napping in my old life, but a child’s body works differently, and sometimes with the nightmares I don’t get as much rest as I’d like at night.

Today however I was feeling fine, and so I motioned for Rotom to come back to me. “Bzzt, are you sure you should keep on searching online? If I knew what you wanted I could compile some search results for you, Young Miss, bzzt.”

So weird to be referred to as ‘Young Miss’ here. Feels… like nobility or something, very much not what the majority of my memories are like. But I know Rotom means well and is just trying to help. “No thanks, I’m not even sure what I’ll want to look up next. There were some forums I wanted to respond to as well.” Rotom gave out a digital sigh but allowed me to peruse the sites. I knew if they actually wanted me to stop, they would just tell Leah or my parents.

My current search had to do with them, actually. My ‘parents’ had been so enamored by the performance they saw in Johto that they decided to buy nine Eevees after their trip, wanting to get their own set with the eight known evolutions and one base for their own little troupe. Not terrible in theory, but they’re not home often enough to see their daughter… uh, daughters I guess (still weird to think that about myself, but getting less). Let alone form the close bonds needed to evolve three of them into an Umbreon, Espeon, and Sylveon.

Besides, I’d hung out with the Eeevees. While it was hard for me to communicate exactly with Pokemon, with a bit of trial and error, I got the impression that the Eevee’s in question had different goals. Two of them were happy as they were, a third ambivalent. The fourth, fifth, and sixth were all hell demons ‘energetic’, and wanted to become Jolteons to be the fastest things around (and would often race each other to that end). The seventh wanted to be a Leafeon, and the eighth and ninth might have wanted to be Flareons, given how closely they huddled to the fireplace or oven.

I brought up my concerns with Leah at lunch today, and she just waved me off. “Oh yes. I imagine the Master and Mistress of the house will get bored of them soon and offer them to their friends or have Hamber sell them to someone else. Perhaps they’ll even offer some to the staff; I think Anise has been eyeing one of them. I raised an eyebrow at that. Anise has been eyeing the Leafeon wannabe not because she wants an Eevee or Leafeon, but because he has the fluffiest tail of the group and wants to use him as a duster. I was more perturbed by how easily they talked about buying or selling Pokemon.

In practice, buying or selling a Pokemon was seen as ‘acceptable’ because you were paying the person for ‘facilitating a good match’. Akin to how you’d pay a matchmaker, but on a more platonic level. Or at least I will always hope so and take great pains to avoid any parts of the Pokenet that go further than that. My worry came from the fact that the regulations I looked up to ensure these laws were upheld were… lax, to say the least.

Both human parties have to sign an official document and send it into the League for any official sale. But there’s nothing from there that guarantees any investigation of the matter! You could easily be putting a Pokemon where it doesn’t want to be, giving it to someone abusive. And there are clearly people who capture Pokemon, fellow sentient creatures, solely to sell them off! I tried posting some of my concerns online, to see if there was something I was missing or if others agreed with me that we needed better protections, but got a bunch of people shouting me down instead.

Things like: ‘Pokemon are way stronger than humans, wtf are you worried about?’

I’d answer: ‘A lot of Pokemon in their first stages are weaker or easily trapped, especially if the people catching them use other Pokemon to keep the newly caught ones in line.’ Which is kinda horrible to think about, but Pokemon are fully capable of thinking for themselves, which means they’re just as capable of being bastards to each other as people are.

They’d counter: ‘If the Pokemon doesn’t want to be there, they can just break out of the ball whenever they want.’

I’d respond: ‘They could be hundreds or thousands of kilometers away from their homes with no way to get back.’ Master Balls exist too, and while those are supposed to be highly regulated by the League, I wouldn’t be surprised if people with enough wealth and connections could get some. When I asked Leah about them, she just said they “were very fancy”, which makes me think she’s seen them before.

Also, I’d be accused of things like: ‘Are you just a Team Plasma wannabe? We won’t give up our Pokemon again for some mad scheme, loser.’

I’d say: ‘I do not agree with anything Ghestis or his cult at the top tried to do, but the base idea of trying to make sure Pokemon are protected is a good one, and one we should take steps to achieve.’ At least that maniac is gone. Most of the really evil teams have been dealt with already in this world. Pretty sure Rainbow Rocket never showed up in Alola this timeline though, so I should keep an eye out if they pop in with a bunch of failed other evil team bosses (and Ghestis).

Some more moderate posters said: ‘Don’t they track how Pokemon are traded? You can’t trade more than a couple dozen every year, so why would anyone try and get involved in that?’

I’d argue: ‘Some rare Pokemon are traded for vast sums each. Also, there’s no limits on how Pokemon are gifted to others, which means you could ‘give’ them to people working with you, letting you catch and trade hundreds through proxies.’ I understand not wanting to limit how Pokemon that are passed on within families as people would get quite upset if they had a beloved Pokemon in their family they grew up with and wanted to take on their journey. But some of the ‘top rated’ traders seem suspiciously like there’s one barely legal poacher and a bunch of cousins and close friends working with them.

One interesting reply: ‘Pokemon are to be protected from abuse. If you see someone hurting a Pokemon or other suspicious activities, then please report them to the League right away, and we’ll do our best to investigate.

Edit: and thank you for the information on traders that might be looking to skirt the rules, I’ll look into that.’

Gratefully, I said back: ‘Thank you for the hotline number, I appreciate it.’ At least someone is taking my claims seriously. Ah, this user is tagged as an Official Member of the Pokemon League, username… League_Official_Geeta, that makes sense. Huh, guess she isn’t a Champion rank or Chairwoman yet. I wonder when that’ll happen?

Eventually, I gave up on trying to scream into the void and stopped posting on the forums, though I did keep a bit of an eye on them… by which I meant I had Rotom look into it. I felt guilty, but Rotom quickly tried to reassure me. “Bzzt, it’s no problem young Miss. I can automatically alert you if anything comes up. I often scroll these forums anyways- ahem. I mean bzzt, that I…”

I waved him off. “It’s fine if you want to spend some time online. I know I do plenty of that too. What do you tend to look up anyways?”

Rotom blushed, which I was not aware was something they could do, possessing a phone and all. “Just some stuff looking into artificially created Pokemon bzzt. Porygon can also inhabit machines like I can bzzt, but in an entirely different way. Bzzt, I also like listening to Ryhme’s raps.” They admitted.

“Cool.” Rap wasn’t my favorite genre of music, but I did like some of the Youtube ciphers back in my old world that had some Pokemon-based raps and Rhyme was pretty good at what she did. “She’s a Ghost type gym leader too, right? Makes sense you’d like her.”

“Actually, you’re mistaken, bzzt.” I blanched as I realized that was a bit of future knowledge I’d mixed up again. “It’s her sister, Tyme, that's the Rock-type Gym Leader though, so that’s an easy mistake to make, bzzt.”

Hearing the sounds of footsteps approaching the door, I quickly assumed the position of a good, sleeping girl for Anise to ‘wake’ me up for dinner.

Dinner was an interesting affair, to say the least. While I was getting used to the extravagance of our home, and I could definitely appreciate the delectable food, my family was a different story…

“And earlier today, I think I saw… a commoner,” Billy said in tones one might use to say they had encountered a Legendary, to a level of shock from his wife which matched that, who gasped out loud.

“No! Really?”

“Yes! It was just for a moment, I think they mumbled something about getting lost from the touring group, and by the time I had rubbed my eyes in disbelief, they were gone!” Despite being in an anime-esque world, somehow a giant drop of sweat did not appear on my forehead at the ridiculousness of this all. They do know they’re surrounded by commoners right now, don’t they? The staff counts too.

I looked over at Leah, who caught my glance and slowly but firmly shook her head and raised a finger to her lips, warning me to keep quiet. Laughing, I took a quick sip of water, to hide my reaction, and my new ‘sister’ rolled her eyes. Either at me or our parents, it was hard to tell.

The topic moved on, and they addressed us. “Girls, why don’t you tell us about your days?” O’Nare brightly asked myself and Cyan.

Cyan spoke up first, eagerly puffing up with pride. “My tutors taught me algebra. They said I was very advanced for being able to solve for ‘X’ right away.”

Billy clapped his hands together. “Yes, bravo! Truly you’re a shining star of the Glitterati family.”

“Those lessons will do you well in calculating the values needed, for income tax or phone shipments.” O’Nare added. “Have you decided which business you want to pursue?” Jeez, isn’t that a bit much? She’s only ten.

“Uhh…” The white-haired girl said, frozen like a deer in the headlights. Yes, I’m still going to call them ‘deer’, regular animals exist in this world too you know! They’re rare, and we can only eat meals like this rib-eye steak because our parents are so rich, but still. A lot of the phrases wouldn’t even translate well - ‘sheepish’ works because sheep are often a little nervous and can’t conjure lightning to electrocute you! And also don’t grow up to become a kangaroo dragon thing. Man, the Mareep line is pretty weird, though kinda cool.

Seeing that my sister was still floundering, I decided to step in. “I had a good day today,” I announced loudly. “I ran a lot and lasted a bit longer than yesterday, and then I looked up a bunch about Pokemon battling.”

I knew Cyan looked up to our parents a lot, which is why she never wanted to disappoint either one of them. They were also busy enough with work that we basically only saw them at dinner time.

Despite that, she didn’t seem to appreciate my save, sneering in a manner that would be subtle… for a ten-year-old. “What good is looking up Pokemon battles?”

“Plenty, considering I’m gonna be the Champion.” I fired back. You can have both of our parents' companies, battling is all I need. Well, not all I need, but, I mean who could get reborn into Pokemon and not want to ‘be the best?’ We all gotta want that, at least a little bit. Part of that desire might also be coming from the original Nemona, I didn’t know. I doubted I would be quite as crazed about battling as her (or at least, would probably conceal it better if I was), but this was definitely what I wanted.

“I think you mean ‘champion ranked trainer’,” Cyan tried correcting, though she was still a bit off-balanced by my declaration.

“No, not just Champion ranked, the strongest Champion. I’ll be the next La Primera!” The title Nemona always should have had in the games, being a far greater challenge than Geeta was. Honestly, I felt like the only reason she wasn’t declared as such was because Geeta didn’t want there to be that much pressure placed on a teenager's shoulders. But I’m not really a kid, am I? I’ll be able to take it all on when the time comes.

“Oh how magnificent! With your drive you’ll make for an excellent champion!”

“How spectacular! Aim for the top to always push past your limits!”

Billy and O’Nare exclaimed and I could practically see the stars in their eyes. Isn’t this a bit much for a child just randomly saying they want to be a Champion? I mean, they aren’t wrong here, I have the drive and the skill to do so, especially if I get started now - did they see all of that instantly from just a few words? I eyed them suspiciously for a moment before shaking the thought away as silly.

Abruptly, Cyan pushed her chair back. “I’m not hungry any more,” she mumbled, her eyes growing wet. Before she could break out into tears she rushed off, practically running from the room.

“Hmm, well it is good not to overeat when you’re at your limit,” O’Nare said. I (barely) resisted the urge to face-palm. Yeah, they love us but they aren’t the most perceptive. Not that noticing the problem helps me solve it. How do I live up to Nemona’s potential while not stifling her sister’s?

It was a question I couldn’t figure out the answer to over dinner, or before I went to bed that night. Despite that and other things weighing me down, I was happy with the day. Every day I’ll grow and learn a little more, until I become… me, whoever that is.

***

That was the average day I’d settled into in the first few months of having my restored memories, but it couldn’t stay that way forever.