The New Normal - 17-12 - Interlude - Aaron

The New Normal – 17-12 – Interlude – Aaron

The first thing he thought when he had arrived at Kitakami was that this place was truly empty.

He knew as much from the descriptions that Yukiko had given him during their trip here, but hearing about it and seeing it for himself was two different things.

For one, the sole settlement in the entirety of Kitakami was Mossui Town, and calling it a ‘town’ was already stretching it. Compared to even Solaceon Town or Celestic Town, both locations in Sinnoh which weren’t known for their high population count, the amount of people living there would easily dwarf the residents of Mossui Town.

However, that was not to say that this place was a Ghost town or anything. There were still visible signs of life, and from what Yukiko had told him, they were happy with the things that they had. Sure, their lives were very quiet and somewhat uneventful, but living in the wilds had its own appeal.

He could see it. The border between ‘civilisation’ and ‘wilderness’ in Kitakami was very blurred, so much so that Yukiko mentioned that it wasn’t uncommon for the occasional wild Pokémon to just wander and hang around Mossui Town – something that would almost never happen back in their own cities in Sinnoh.

“You just have to adapt to living alongside the wilderness.” Yukiko had said, “Over here, you can’t run down to the shops to buy everything. We have to forage a lot of things for ourselves. It’s pretty hard work, but it’s rewarding in its own way. At least I find it better than your overcrowded cities and towns that you have. I don’t know how you live with all this noise around you all the time.”

“It’s the price of convenience.” He had replied.

“Then it’s not a price I’m willing to pay.” She responded, “…And I hope that all this newfound attention to Kitakami wouldn’t transform us into what you have back in Sinnoh.”

“We wouldn’t let that happen.” He replied firmly, “I won’t deny that you’ll receive far more attention now than you’ve ever received before, but we won’t do anything that would completely remove the unique culture that you’ve fostered here. There will be changes of course, but I promise you that your way of life will be protected. I swear.”

She had accepted it at the time, but he could tell that she wasn’t entirely convinced. That was fine, he fully intended to prove his words to be true.

Regardless, now that he was actually here in Kitakami, his first priority was to actually investigate the new Pokémon that had been pointed out. On that note, Yukiko had brought him and the small group of League officials and researchers accompanying him to Apple Hills, which was apparently where a large apple orchard was located.

“Applin, and its later evolution Dipplin, are naturally attracted to the scent of apples. Not surprising, considering they live inside of one. So the orchard in Apple Hills is often swarming with them.” She explained.

“And do they not eat all of the apples that are growing?” He asked.

“Well, many do.” She admitted, “But the point of the apple orchard isn’t really to grow food for the village. We already have enough as is. Instead, the orchard is mainly used as a way of fostering friendly relations with the Applin and Dipplin, and they in turn help us out by protecting us against the more ornery wild Pokémon that we occasionally encounter. It’s a win-win for the both of us.”

He nodded; that was a pretty clever way of doing things. It also once again highlighted just how integrated the people of Kitakami’s lives were with the wild Pokémon that surrounded them.

Once he had arrived in the orchard, just as Yukiko had said, there were a large group of Dipplin already there. But it wasn’t just them, as there were also a bunch of Appletun and Flapple – which were apparently alternate forms of Dipplin. These differing evolutions were caused by the type of apple that an Applin would frequently eat.

While his accompanying researchers began to document everything, his own his curiosity got the better of him as he walked over to a few apple trees.

“Can I try some of these apples?” He asked, “I want to see what’s the difference between them.”

“Oh sure, go ahead. The Pokémon shouldn’t mind.” She said, “Judging by how they’re acting, they’re all full anyways.”

So that was what he did. He grabbed one apple of each type, and took a bite out of each of them.

The Tart Apple had an extremely sharp and tangy taste; it was very sour. Yet it wasn’t unenjoyable – far from it. The mix of sweet and sour made it a really enjoyable mouthful.

Meanwhile, there were the Sweet and Syrupy Apples. As their name implied, they were both incredibly sweet, with the latter almost being too much for him. It was almost like eating a dessert. He wasn’t the biggest fan of sugary foods, but for someone who was, the latter was likely going to be right up their alley.

“I think people back in Sinnoh would love to eat this.” Was his conclusion, “With apples this full of taste, there’s no way people wouldn’t be buying bags of this stuff.”

“We have considered it before,” She nodded, “but we were never able to grow enough of these apples for us to sell commercially. This one orchard field is all we have. And it’s not like we can grow these apples anywhere else – the unique conditions of Kitakami are what allows these apples to be grown in the first place.”

“Hmm… true, but I think this is something we could talk about more later.” He said, “I definitely see this as potentially becoming one of Kitakami’s unique products.”

That small distraction aside, with the researchers finishing documenting everything about the Applin and their evolutions, they moved back to Mossui Town so that they could look at both the new Poltchageist and Toedscool, as one of their other trainers had returned from their foraging to show them off.

Admittedly, Poltchageist was less interesting than Dipplin and its evolutions, because even though it was a rare Grass/Ghost type, not having any known evolutions means that there wasn’t as much to discuss about it. However, that could change in the future, especially now that there were proper experts here that could do further research on them.

But Toedscool was different. The residents of Kitakami had known about Toedscool’s evolution into a Toedscruel, but even after an initial inspection, it was hard to say for certain whether these Pokémon were an alternate version of Tentacool or if they were a new Pokémon entirely that just so happened to look similar to a Tentacool and Tentacruel.

Yet, considering the myriad of similarities, it was judged that they were far too similar for this to just be a mere coincidence. Something must have happened in the past that led to this divergence. Obviously, further study was going to be needed.

However, Kitakami and its surroundings were proving to be a breeding ground for many new Grass types – there were three new evolutionary lines discovered already! And perhaps there were more out there, still waiting to be discovered.

With all these things going for it, he had no doubt that Kitakami was going to be very important in the future.

A.N. I felt like having a short introduction to Kitakami from a non-John perspective would be nice for some worldbuilding. Needless to say, there is a lot that is unique about Kitakami that will be of significant interest to the rest of the world. Of course, even from this there is definitely more out of Kitakami out there to look at, and those aspects will be explored in the coming chapters. Hope you enjoyed!