“Phew…” Larry wiped the nonexistent sweat from his brow as he looked up from the piece of paper. On the first day, he’d gotten an overview of all the letters and was tasked with memorizing all the noises they made and how they looked. It had been extremely obvious to Larry when he’d first entered human society that while whatever humans spoke sounded very much like English to him, it also very much wasn’t.
Wherever a written script had come up, it had been utterly unintelligible. Squiggles and scribbles, which made no sense at all to Larry, so he’d simply settled in like anyone else who was looking at a foreign language. He resigned himself to looking at all the pictures and guessing the rest, while occasionally letting Valerie interpret for him. Which meant, most of the time, he was utterly helpless when it came to reading.
He couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but he guessed that even though he was in Kanto, a region based in Japan, their language wasn’t based on Japanese. Being a nerd and knowing a thing or two about the language, while admittedly never speaking the language, led to that conclusion. What Cal told him brought that fact home, every letter here corresponded to one sound your mouth would make, unlike Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, or whatever else was used back in Japan, which could most of the time have multiple sounds corresponding to a single letter.
That made Larry calm a bit at the prospect of learning a new language, because he’d basically already mastered half of the process. He could listen and talk back if it wasn’t for his ‘being a Larvitar’ situation; it was the writing and reading that he’d need to get caught up on.
One task he’d been given as homework by Cal was to write the letters out one by one to get a feel for them. ‘It sounded easy, just pick up a pen and start writing away, but what if you didn’t have any fingers, much less hands?’
The only thing Larry had was his two pathetic little stubs he called arms, which were barely long enough to meet in front of his chest. He could hold himself up with them or use them to hit things, which worked pretty well, all things considered, but… ‘Using them for actions that required dexterity and finesse? No way, no how!’
Any pen or pencil he’d tried to hold up with an arm simply slipped out. With two arms, he could kind of wedge it between his body and arms, but it still felt impossible to write with, since he was then forced to weave and roll his body around while standing to move the pen on a piece of paper. ‘It might work if I get good at it, but it isn’t a good solution…’
Attempt number three had him hold the pen in his mouth, holding down the paper with his feet, while articulating the pen with his arms to write things out. This one looked promising, if it wasn’t for the awkward hunched posture, he’d be forced to take up writing stuff out. He’d use this one if his only writing utensil were a pen or pencil. It might take a while to write stuff out, but it works.
The one Cal had finally settled on was far better, and Larry was amazed he hadn’t thought about it, because as Cal told him, it was the standard way Pokemon wrote things, since most didn’t have the opposable thumbs required for a pen.
Fingerpainting! It's not just for the kindergarten anymore!
His stubby arms turned into actual, useful appendages simply by putting some ink at the end of them! It wasn’t as fast as a simple pen or pencil, but it was by far his fastest method of writing. Did it make a mess? Absolutely. Was it wasteful? Kind of, you’re forced to write bigger after all. But was it fun? Most definitely!
Maybe it was due to the fact that Larry was at most a month or two old, but he loved writing out the letters! Still, he turned slightly pink in embarrassment when, at the start of their first lesson, Cal showed him to a wooden baby stool, complete with a locking fold-down table attached to its front. He explained that it was for the smaller Pokemon the Trainer School taught, since they were forced to accommodate Pokemon of all sizes, and smaller ones had problems seeing from their positions lower to the ground.
The seat had creaked slightly under Larry’s Rock-Type heft, but had managed to hold up during all lessons so far.
Back at home now, he was completing his drills on Valerie's office desk. At home, he would be forced to use his pen-in-mouth technique, but once he got his letters down, he would ask Valerie if she could buy him some fingerpaints at a later point.
Done with his drills, Larry mused to himself, ‘I used to scribble a lot in my notebooks, maybe I had an artistic streak I never explored? Anyway, knowing spoken language is going to make this a whole lot easier. I can already see a bit of the Alphabet in these letters, even if there are more than twenty-six in this one. It's going to mess with me that the letter that makes the sound for A isn’t in the first position.’
…
“And how are you feeling, Val?” Her father tested, speaking through her phone.
“I’m doing fine.” Valerie put on a slight pout at her father's worried tone, “I was surprised by how big Viridian City is when I first got here.” She was lying back in bed with both of her Pokemon next to her, already in her pajamas and ready for bed, when she received a video call from Drew.
“You used to watch so much TV back home,” Drew chuckled to himself, “I thought you would’ve seen it on TV before.”
“Of course I did, but you rarely see it like we did when we flew in. It gives the city a whole new look!” She defended as she rubbed at her eyes in drowsiness.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“I guess so…” Drew bit his lip, “How are Michelle and her husband treating you?”
Valerie averted her eyes, “They had an entire room prepared for me and introduced me to all the regulars in Gustav’s bakery.”
“Huh. I’ve never met him but…” Her father paused, “Uh…How is Gustav?”
“He is a good cook, I guess.” His trainer shrugged, still unsure of how to feel about the man, “When I came here, he made this soup that was pretty great.”
“U-Uhuh…” Drew grew tense, “I bet it couldn’t hold a candle against my pancakes, though. Right?”
Larry rolled his eyes, ‘God, she’s been here a day or two, and he thinks his daughter already found a new father or something?’
Valerie took the question seriously anyway, “I can’t really compare the two…But I liked your pancakes…”
“Sure!” Drew's expression lit back up again, “Then, when you find a break in your journey, I’ll go ahead and make them for you again, ok?”
That earned him a smile from his drowsy daughter, “Sure thing, Dad.” Lost in thought for a moment, Valerie realized what she wanted to say, “Also, Michelle put me into a Trainer School here in Viridian, to learn the basics of trainer life.”
“Yeah, we talked about it.” Drew nodded, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I remember how much you hated your lessons back home. I thought it better to broach the subject when you were already over there.”
“No issue,” His trainer waved off his concerns, “ that first day made me realize that I’d been missing a lot of stuff.” When she saw Drew grinning at her over the video call, she pouted, “I’m not gonna suddenly start liking school though, this is for my journey.”
The topic fell toward all of her and her Pokemon’s school material, with Drew helpfully supplying that his Pokemon never really showed any interest in learning to write, even after being prompted.
“So how is Larry’s mother doing?” Valerie asked, forcing Larry's tired eyes open once more.
“From what the Nurses told me, still recuperating. She should be cleared to leave back home sometime next week, just as proposed.”
“I’ll call the Center next week then,” Valerie nodded with a yawn, “I’ll try and set up a call so Larry and she can talk before she gets sent back into Mt. Silver.”
In another lull of conversation, Valerie helpfully supplied the next topic with bleary eyes, “Oh yeah, I already managed to sign up for the Viridian Gym. I’ll have my first Gym Challenge in two weeks.”
That forced Drew to perk up, “Huh, really?”
“Yeah, sure, why not?” Valerie argued, “Worst case, I get my butt kicked, right?”
Drew simply sighed at the notion, “Haaa…Sure, it’s your journey after all. Just…don’t expect to win, ok? Giovanni is nasty for new trainers, since he doesn’t keep low-level teams for beginners.”
“Michelle and Gustav said that, too. Don’t worry…” Valerie trailed off.
“It is getting late,” Drew mentioned, “I’ll let you get some sleep now. Call me again when you get lonely or have some news, ok?”
“Sure thing.” Valerie yawned, “Good night.”
“Good night, Valerie. Love you, I’m rooting for you. Stay safe out there, ok?” Her father waved a hand into the camera.
“I will. Love you too, good night.” She disconnected the call before placing her phone on her nightstand. Pulling Sybil and Larry closer to her, she repeated herself, “Love you guys too, good night.”
…
It was the next day, and Larry, Sybil, and Valerie were once again in the large court behind the local Pokemon Center after their lessons, Valerie once again directing their training efforts, “Alright, today. I want Sybil to once again focus on Night Shade. You were so close yesterday, you’re bound to get it down today.”
“I will endeavor to learn it today.” She bowed before hopping over to her side of the training court. ‘She has been attentive in her Psychic lessons, maybe some of that rubbed off on the Ghost-Type too?’
“Now, Larry.” Valerie had an excited grin on her face, “Normally, I’d tell you to continue learning Crunch, since this might throw a wrench into our gym training, but…You want to try learning Dragon Dance, right?”
Nodding back fervently, Larry practically vibrated in excitement, “Yes!”
“Dragon Dance isn’t easy to learn,” Valerie explained, “from what I’ve read about Dragon-Type Moves, most non-dragons have a hard time learning them due to a lot of different reasons.”
Larry would have to agree, this was an entirely new Type of Type-Energy he’d be forced to harness. He’d been lucky so far that most of his moves fell into four different camps, either Rock, Normal, Dark, or Ground, all of which Larvitar were either innately gifted at or were generally simple Types. All of them responded to a different type of thinking, and Larry still remembered his first days when he workshopped how to even use the moves.
Each of them corresponds to specific emotions, images, and thoughts, like Dark-TE coming to him with Dark and Evil thoughts, ‘Hmm…But what does the Dragon-Type respond to?’
Dragons…When Larry thought of Dragons, it went back to medieval fantasies. To giant lizards with wings and fiery breaths, sitting upon hoards of treasures and gold. Beasts of unimaginable power, who were personifications of Sin itself. Greedy and Prideful to a fault, with Power and Authority to rule over whatever they pleased, ‘Wasn’t there also something about them being a metaphor in old stories, an obstacle to overcome for the heroes?’
In that way, Dragons of old weren’t so much the big, bad reptiles most of the media back home portrayed them as today, but in the olden days, they were the idea of something impossible, most of the time malicious, made alive to be overcome.
Valerie, waving a hand in front of his face, dragged him out of his musings, “Larry? Still there?” A phone screen was pointed at him, where a Dragonite stood, presumably about to perform a Dragon Dance.
He shook the cloud from his thoughts, “Whoops! Sorry!”
“There we go,” Valerie smiled, “Here’s a video of one of Lance's Dragonite performing a Dragon Dance. From what I could tell, the dance is different for every Dragon I looked up, so you won’t need to learn any choreography, I assume.”
Larry tapped the play button, and Lance's Dragonite began to twirl and flip in the air as an ominous purple-red cloud with blue lightning inside it began to form around the Pokemon, “Whoa.” When it finally stopped, the cloud of presumably Dragon-TE was sucked inwards, towards the Dragon-Type until it disappeared into its body.
“Yeah, Dragons are show-offs.” His trainer agreed, “You’ll know when you've got it.”
Longer Chapter released less often or keep the same schedule?
