Ohritori Vacation!

[kenfrompokemon]

[This morning, if you tune in to Ken's Pokemon Talk on the radio, you'll probably hear him announce the program will be on break for the next two weeks while he goes on vacation! And as soon as the program ends, he hops on a boat and is off to Ohritori Island.]

A. GATEWAY PORT

[You can see him arriving at Gateway Port in Turnbloom City, looking pale as he weakly hobbles off a boat and immediately falls onto his knees and hands on the pier, taking deep breaths and looking like he's been suffering from seasickness for the entire journey.]

It's finally over...! Ohritori Island, I'm so glad to see you...

B. POKEMON CENTER

[Once he's rested from his journey, he'll be sitting at the cafe in the Pokemon Center with an ice tea, glancing around somewhat restlessly. A green Ledyba is sitting at his table, eating Berry slices. Spotting you, Ken will smile and wave.

Excuse me, can I ask you a question?

C. ROUTE 1

[Later, Ken can be seen at Route 1 with his Cubburn. He'll find Professor Banyan's laboratory, he'll just wander near it for a while, glancing at the house sometimes like he's trying to gather the courage to approach. Eventually, he'll go up to the door, raise his hand to knock... then hesitates, lowering his hand again. His Cubburn looks up at him with a whine, and Ken sighs.]

I'll do it, just give me a moment...

D. WILDCARD

[Ken can also be seen wandering all around Ohritori Island during his vacation! He doesn't visit the more dangerous places deep in the caves or the forests, but he'll be checking out the tourist spots. Theater Hall, Stardust Beach, the different farms on Gilterrace Town, Route 2 and Route 3; and the Wildflower Cape. Meet him however you want! Also, feel free to recognize his voice from radio!]

Comments

[domeinion]

It was that, for sure! That was my first real field research project, anyway, when I started travelling when I was 11. Once I found out things weren't meant to be this way, I had to learn more.

[Well, there was more to it, but she's scared the poor man enough today.]

Even without tampering like the use of a Randomizer, different timelines and worlds often have fascinating differences, don't you find?

[kenfrompokemon]

Oh, you're a researcher? That's awesome! I'd love to learn more about your research sometime. Have you published it anywhere?

Yeah, I'll say! For example, my world has a lot of Pokemon most other worlds have, but they're all native to Ultern! Though, they have different names here.

[Speaking of names...]

Actually, I think we've forgotten to introduce ourselves! I'm Ken!

[domeinion]

Oh, that's right! I introduced Flamesplash, but not myself!

[Alice finishes her ice cream and inclines her head.]

Nice to meet you. I'm Alice Smith. I haven't put anything out in this world, but I've got plenty of notes and papers on the go in my lab on Ohritori Island!

[kenfrompokemon]

Nice to meet you, Alice! I hope to see you publish something, maybe in the local Pokemon magazines! I'm a frequent reader of those, since Ultern always gets Pokemon researchers from all around the world drifting here.

Oh, I'm a radio DJ, by the way! I talk about Pokemon on Chura Radio, so I'm always looking out for new knowledge about Pokemon.

[domeinion]

Fascinating! It sounds like fun to me. Chura's a great place for that, isn't it? There's so much nature and Pokémon habitat.

[kenfrompokemon]

I'm sure it is! But honestly, I'm not really much for field research myself. I just read other people's research and study it!

[domeinion]

Really? I suppose it isn't for everyone. To tell you the truth, the journey I set out on when I was a kid was really more studying and field work than gym challenging. Not that I wasn't also doing that.

[kenfrompokemon]

Oh, that's nostalgic... I never challenged any Gyms when I went on a journey as a kid, myself! In my world, there aren't as many Gyms as most worlds have. So when I was a kid, the closest Gyms were all the way in Kanto, and I just never made it that far from home.

I liked catching Pokemon more than training them, anyway, so I usually just ended up releasing the Pokemon I caught back into nature. And then I got into reading about Pokemon and gathering information about them... By the time they built a Gym closer to my home, I wasn't really interested anymore, haha!

[domeinion]

[Alice winces for half a second when he mentions release, and Flamesplash looks concerned, but they both shake it off. Of course release is literal there. Even in their own world, it hasn't meant death for a long time, not since OLDEN turned the PC into a paradise. At least... not for most. So Ken's telling the truth, and he deserves better.]

Sometimes that happens! I've had to do a lot of different things, even ran a Gym for a while in place of its Leader due to extenuating circumstances, but science is still my main passion. People say I got it from my dad, but he was a PC admin and an inventor. Not so much into the cataloguing and study of Pokémon. You know?

[kenfrompokemon]

[Ken looks surprised by the reaction. Did he say something wrong? But if Alice is moving on, maybe he shouldn't pry... But it is bothering him a little. He pastes a smile on anyway, deciding to ignore it.]

Yeah, it sounds like your dad and you have different interests, but they still fall under the same umbrella of science... So I'd say you might've inherited the passion for knowledge anyway!

[domeinion]

I suppose you're right. I hope that's all I inherited. ...Well, that and the ice cream. He loved it too, but I'd better not turn out lactose intolerant like he did.

[She waves it off and looks around.]

What about you? What made you like radio so much?

[kenfrompokemon]

Hey, I've had some good ice cream that turned out to be lactose-free, so I'm sure you could manage either way!

[Ken will just assume that ominous "I hope that's all I inherited" was just about the ice cream! He's a positive thinker.]

Heh, well, we didn't really have internet when I was a kid, so we had to find ways to amuse ourselves, you know? And I was from a small town, so there wasn't much to do if you didn't feel like playing outside. So I ended up listening to the radio a lot! And sometimes, when playing outside, I'd pretend to be a radio announcer for the smaller kids in the neighborhood to "call in."

[domeinion]

So you're in the field you always wanted, too! That's always good to see. You mentioned you were from somewhere near Kanto?

[kenfrompokemon]

Yeah, I got really lucky! I managed to get a job interview at the radio back home, and they hired me right away!

That's right, I'm from Johto. Technically, I'm from the Nihon Region, but Johto's a part of it, and people from other worlds tend to recognize Johto better than Nihon. You're from Kanto, right?

[Or so he assumes from how she mentioned she did field research in Kanto.]

[domeinion]

That's right! I was born in Cerulean, but then I moved to Pallet Town. And then, of course, I went on my journey. Your world sounds fascinating in comparison to others!

[kenfrompokemon]

Really? And here I thought your world was pretty unique!

I'm from Silent Town, and I moved to Westport City for my job... But people from other worlds usually haven't heard of either of those.

[domeinion]

I do wonder what caused such a difference in societal development over time? Different distribution of people leading to different municipalities and the lack of a Johto League -- it's a fascinating domino effect historically!

[kenfrompokemon]

Yeah, me too... I'm not an expert on history or anything, so I'm not sure why, but for a long time, Kanto was the only area in the Nihon region to have the Gym Challenge. That was criticized for a long time for monopolizing the Gyms, but it was only recently that the Gym system was reworked. Most of the Gyms in Kanto were shut down and the Gym Challenge became national. Right now, there's eight Gyms in official use, and I think the plan was to build more Gyms across Nihon before opening up the Gyms in Kanto again...

[domeinion]

So does your region just encompass Kanto and Johto? Or does it include more areas, too? Theoretically I'd presume Hoenn and Sinnoh would also be included, and maybe some others -- possibly Ransei if you're a world that's got one...

[kenfrompokemon]

Hoenn and Sinnoh too, yeah. And some other regions... [Regions whose names Ken doesn't know since they haven't been named...] I don't think I've heard of Ransei before though!

[domeinion]

Its existence is temporally complicated anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if another world didn't have it. In my experience, most of them don't. When you come across enough timelines or reports of such, you start to notice the patterns -- though I'm sure you're also aware.

[kenfrompokemon]

I've noticed a lot of patterns in other worlds, yeah... Mostly the pattern that none of them seem to have my hometown or a lot of the Pokemon living near it. But you seem like you know a lot more about other worlds than me! I guess that's because of the timeline manipulation that happened in your world?

...How did you find out about that anyway? If the timeline was manipulated, wouldn't it just feel like everything was like it was supposed to be?

[domeinion]

It did, but I came into contact with an entity that showed me that things weren't supposed to be that way, and then I started to notice incongruence and began to study it. That's the simplest form of explanation I can think of.

[kenfrompokemon]

I see... That's lucky. I'm kind of curious about what that entity was, but from the way you're talking about it, I'm guessing it's not as simple as a legendary Pokemon or anything, right?

[domeinion]

Well, to be precise, it's more of a hivemind of tens of thousands of different entities, but they all blend together. I assume your home doesn't have the legend of the Voices. They don't seem to be common to the worlds other people here come from.