Faller, Noun: Someone Experiencing Interesting Times - Chapter 10

After spending so much time in Evergrande and Anna’s Threads, the quartet had agreed to conclude their shopping for the day and head towards a restaurant recommended heavily by Raiko. A rather humble hole in the wall nestled between two major restaurants, but having twice their customers combined as the line stretched nice and long.

It was moving at nearly walking pace, though, so Neil didn’t whisper so much as a word of complaint. He knew what flavor of eastern eatery he’d gotten signed up for.

“I’m surprised you agreed,” His companion slash new friend stated, her Eevee held gently in her arms. Said foxcat was purring as Raiko continued to give her pets almost idly, “Especially after I told you how long the wait would probably be.”

“Quality food is worth it. Hehehe, I’m going to come out of here rolling.” The brown haired man chuckled lowly.

“Fair enough.” Raiko smiled back, walking forward even as she glanced back towards Mawile, “Your partner okay on the floor? I thought you were enjoying serving as her platform?”

“Funny beaked dino does what she wants.” Neil replied with a roll of his shoulders. He was just treating her as a humint cat and that seemed to be working out so far.

“They do tend to do that.” Raiko responded fondly, casting a gaze towards where the aforementioned funny beaked dino was examining her new outfit with a very cheerful skip in her step. She was even spinning in front of one of the windows of the other shops. 

After that, the conversation fell into comfortable silence until the pair had been seated within the small, crowded restaurant. After ordering their meals (and ordering something for their Pokemon), Raiko clearly decided that’d been enough silent vibing, “So! Is there anything you’d like to learn about? Since you’re a Faller, you won’t have a lot of the context behind stuff in our world, and I’m probably one of the better people to explain all of that.

“How much cultural oomph do starters have? I can’t imagine they don’t have some, given their role, but there’s a lot of latitude there to play with.” Neil asked after a couple seconds of scratching at the edge of his jaw in thought.

For the moment, Raiko looked confused. Then, with dawning awareness, she nodded, “That’s actually a very good question.” She held up her hand, breathing deeply as she considered how best to phrase things, “The answer depends. The cultural importance of a starter is… debated. And highly romanticized. It doesn’t help that every reigning World Monarch;” She paused at his mildly confused look, “Best trainer in the world. Victor of the Pokemon World Tournament, as it were.” After clarifying, she bulldozed ahead, “Has had a starter that most consider their ‘Ace’. Their strongest Pokemon. The partner that is always at their side, ready to push beyond their limits for the person they’ve so tightly bonded to.”

“Kind of inevitable, being the one they’ve been with the longest.” The brown haired transmigrator grunted in agreement, waving for her to go on.

“Exactly.” Raiko nodded firmly, giving the Eevee beside her a fond look, “But it’s not always true. A starter is exactly that. The Pokemon you start your journey with. As both of you grow, you might not always grow in the same ways. Some starters just aren’t suited for the lifestyle that their trainer eventually decides on, and that’s fine. It’s okay.” She scowled, “There’s definitely a lionization of the bond that a Starter has with their trainer, it’s ingrained into our culture. It’s not always a bad thing, but when it is it’s extremely hard to combat because of the way our culture works.”

“Lots of ‘come on, we can make this work!’ instead of taking a step back to re-evaluate?” Neil hazarded with an arched eyebrow.

“Yep.” She nodded, “On both the end of the Pokemon and Human.”

“And I’ve got an extra complication on my plate that Mawile is a Mystery Gift. Either she was made ex-nihilo for me, or she got cherry picked and whisked away for the same purpose.” He grumbled without any real heat. Not like there was anything he or his starter could do about that.

“I should have guessed, given the Cherish Ball.” Raiko answered, reaching down to give her own Eevee a pat, “If you’d like some advice on how to handle a Mystery Gift, I’m probably one of the few people around here qualified to give it,” She paused, looked around, and reached behind her, accessing her fanny pack. 

A Cherish Ball sat in her hands, significantly more beat up than his own, yet still very much taken care of. With a trill at the sight of her ball, Eevee briefly gave the device a baleful glare before she settled back down into her little nook by Raiko’s side.

“Well, I’m not about to pry, but whatever you’d like to share would be appreciated.” Neil said after a long, faintly awkward moment.

“Eevee here is a Mystery Gift. I received her as a,” She paused, trying to figure out the right way to say something given the way her face twisted as she thought, “Gift.” She paused, looking intently at his face, which was kept carefully neutral. Seemingly satisfied, she continued, “Given Mystery Gifts are generally created by what most people think is Arceus, they simply come into existence at a preset maturity that their creator determines by a metric that we do not currently understand.” Pausing again, she reached down to give Eevee a pat, “She’s been with me for around three years now, and we’re both going stir crazy because she’s as much of a competitive little shit as I am.”

“Chomping at the bit to start collecting badges, huh?” Neil asked with a crooked grin. He somehow doubted the albino wanted to take the Contest circuit by storm, given her comments at Anna’s. “If Mawile’s up for it, we can have a quick match later, to take the edge off a bit.”

The challenging glint that entered both his new companions’ eyes definitely meant he’d said the right thing. A trill from Eevee directed towards Mawile accompanied the “Bet” from Raiko as they settled into another, brief, silence.