Faller, Noun: Someone Experiencing Interesting Times - Chapter 3

“How big is that family, anyways? Other than ‘very’.” Neil asked idly, meandering towards the iconic blue sliding doors.

As they stepped into the lobby and began walking towards the counter, Mawile walking in lockstep with the intrepid trio, Jeanne replied, “Very. Partially due to adoption, partially because apparently pink hair is genuinely a dominant gene. It especially got easier for the major clans to get bigger through adoption with the introduction of Ditto though. Those things single handedly are responsible for so much advancement in genetics in the past few decades.”

“Huh, so they can just blood adopt people with full on genetic shifts like it’s a bad fanfic?” The brown haired man asked with an arched eyebrow. He could see research into Ditto’s nonsense leading to that sort of thing.

“...Right, different world. No idea what kind of bad fanfic yours have, but blood adoption is actually a relatively new concept here. Well, at least in the sense of reality. It’s been practiced before in a ritualistic sense, but no one is sure if it actually did anything.” Jeane answered, slowly guiding Neil towards the receptionist desk that all of the nurses seemed to be positioned behind, “Speaking of, is the Pokemon Center what you expected it to be?”

“Well, it’s definitely designed to feel welcoming.” Neil replied with a crooked grin as he took in the soft, warm colors. Lots of sunny yellows and cream whites, lights mimicking the shade of genuine sunlight so nothing would look sterile or washed out, pastel colors for most everything cloth or plastic. It also had a fair few paintings, if nothing like the unofficial art galleries some of the older clinics back home. 

To his left, there was a room filled with computers which he’d bet good money were free use and with a two-click setup for videocalls. He couldn’t see any of the weird cups and tubes involved in pokemon transfer, but he was sure the infrastructure for it was somewhere around. To his right, a glass door led to a cafeteria, mostly furnished with long sofas rather than el cheapo benches and plastic chairs. Finally, there was a door on the back wall, to the right. According to the signage - which he could read just fine, thanks Arceus - it led to bedrooms for traveling trainers to use.

His starter chirped her agreement, hovering closely to Niel’s side. 

“Good.” Jeanne nodded firmly from her perch, “Now, Neil, with all that done, I’m going to go back to my shopping. If you’d like to meet up later, just wait for me in the lobby of the Center, or tell the nurse on duty that you’d like to leave a message for me. I’m staying in one of the rooms here, and if you actually talk to the nurse on duty,” Jeanne glanced towards the women, who was, indeed, of the Joy Clan, “A Joy, at that, you should probably get a room here as well, and the League will help you get set up, and figure out what you want to do with your life. As far as we’re aware, and despite a lot of research into the subject, it’s not possible for us to return you to your home.”

“Or send messages, given how a line of communication would’ve shook the world.” The transmigrant added with a grimace, all fun and games of playing coy gone. He’d just have to hope it had been a Legendary to whisk him here, meant there would be some subtle settling of affairs back home. Otherwise, well, he was effectively dead and enjoying his afterlife. “Take care out there.”

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Having a Mawile sitting in your lap was something of an awkward experience, Neil mused. Not because the beaked dino was in any way uncomfortable to hold - the steel fur was silky smooth and lovely to the touch - but because a Mawile was two feet tall and half of that was leg. This led to a weird hunch where he had his chin over her head, and she had the huge croc mouth haphazardly draped over his left shoulder. Still, the heavy biometal scales felt nice pressing down on his back, almost like a weighted blanket. So he’d just resigned himself to his spine bitching and moaning at him later.

For now, though, he was infinitely grateful that computer interfaces in this world were arranged in a sensible way. That was to say, they ran on Windows design principles. It made navigating around the local equivalent of the world wide web a breeze. Just like the fact that somehow, the keyboards were also laid out in QWERTY, though the letters themselves were different.

Funny how that worked.

Regardless, he could ponder on the implications of a near identical language and Windows-like OS later. Right now, he has to focus on the article on the Pokemon league he had pulled up from… literally Wikipedia. Convergent evolution! Though the symbol was different, it was still called exactly Wikipedia. At least, the auto-translate that was letting him understand this entirely foreign language in both English and his native tongue insisted it was just Wikipedia. Fuck if he knew.

The Pokemon League

The Pokemon League (often abbreviated as the PL) is the de-facto world government of Garde. Established on February 27th, 1976 AD, The Pokemon League is an evolution of the earlier United Regions, a coalition of regions formed in the aftermath of The Last War (also known as The Great War). The Pokemon League is responsible for the legislation, execution, and interpretation of the laws that govern roughly 70% of the nations of the world, and is a welfare state where every basic human right (as agreed upon during the Lumiose Convention of 1946) is covered without question by the government. The three most populous regions of the PL are Unova, Kalos, and Paldea. 

The Pokemon League has a short history, but in that comparatively short existence it has accomplished much. It has single-handedly solved much of the crises afflicting the world through intelligent use of both capital and welfare to encourage economic growth and a healthier culture surrounding the work one does for the world, and what money is. The League’s staunch commitment to anti-corruption measures and banning of lobbying, which was especially rampant in Unova, are cited as some of the major contributors to this phenomenon. The League, in addition, has been pivotal towards keeping the Last War as such by maintaining strong alliances with states that have not joined the Pokemon League, such as the Ranger Union and various unaffiliated states.

It is, however, important to remember that the League is not without controversy. There are accusations that the League has been occasionally too lax towards the various Teams that threatened the world within the last decade alone, and though the League adamantly denies this with backing evidence, they do still rest heavy on the minds of the average individual.

A quick tab told him that their AD wasn’t Anno Domini, but rather After Descent. Arceus’, specifically. Because that was a thing, apparently. It seemed like they considered legendaries less a matter of faith and old wives tales, and more ‘there are godlings deep in the wild, you’re either supremely lucky or about to regret every life choice if you ever see one’. There was a temptation there, to try and seek out Hoopa or Giratina or Palkia or any number of physical gods who may be able to at least send a message back home.

He had no idea what their temperament was like in reality, though, and didn’t fancy the idea of ruining himself tracking them down only to get obliterated or stranded in the Distortion World or worse. If he found some way to gain their favor, sure, but… he wasn’t the chosen one. Simple as that.

Shaking his head to push aside those thoughts, Neil instead dug in a bit deeper. He wanted to know what any random human under the League’s jurisdiction got just for existing, after all that talk about welfare and rights. Even beyond it being important information in its own right, he needed it to understand how much of a difference the extra handouts for Fallers made. 

The pictures of the welfare apartments he could dig up told him that they were spartan but serviceable. Clean, functional, but small and placed in the most drab parts of cities as subtle encouragement to engage with society and get the money to upgrade. Water was completely free, courtesy of the League having a stranglehold on all production and distribution baked into the laws themselves, with the only exception being fancy spring water. The bottled water equivalent of Cognac, basically.

Food was where it got interesting. The League had looked at ‘essential food product’ price limitations and called it sloppy work, instead outright footing the entire bill for things like bread, milk and rice. It was just… free. Entirely. Walk into any supermarket, pass by the register, go home with a bag of potatoes and a carton of eggs without paying a single cent. The humans around here were really built different, with how that didn’t get abused.

What was actually shocking was how someone had managed to argue internet access as a basic human right due to how fundamental to society it had become and how it let humanity interlink. A few arguments about easing SOS signals to grease things along and like magic, internet was free worldwide and there was a societal expectation to own a smartphone. 

Finally, there was a basic stipend everyone of age and unemployed got no questions asked. Hell, they still got it if they were just working a single part-time job. Not a ton, nor did it need to be with how all basic needs were taken care of for free, it was mostly meant for people to be able to pay for lessons to pick up useful skills and pull themselves up. Or, at the very least, keep small businesses and artisans chugging along by buying their product.

So it was onto his specific situation.