The Pokédex and the new backpack finally arrived at the Layered Peaks Gym after Nova had spent a full week training there.
Back in his previous life, this kind of turnaround time would have counted as painfully slow. Here in the Norlandia Alliance, though, it actually counted as an express case. That was only thanks to the two old men pulling strings behind the scenes. Left to the usual pace of Alliance paperwork, an application filed a month ago might still be sitting untouched.
Over the past few days Nova had met plenty of Trainers attached to the Layered Peaks Gym. One young woman had already been working at the Gym for half a year and her Alliance registration still hadn't gone through.
The Pokédex currently issued by the Norlandia Alliance functioned, in practice, like a souped-up smartphone. The phone features were really just a bonus though; its main purpose was still pulling up detailed data on Pokémon.
The newest models could even run a rough read on a Pokémon's potential. In Nova's opinion that feature was mostly for show and nowhere close to his own eye for breeding, honed over years of hands-on experience, but for Trainers who had no instinct for reading potential at all, even an unreliable estimate built from pooled data could be a genuine lifeline.
A Pokédex like this carried an official price of 29,999, which felt like a tax on the desperate, but owning one meant you were officially on staff at an Alliance institution. In plainer terms, it meant the person carrying it had become a direct Trainer of the Norlandia Alliance itself. They could draw a salary from their affiliated Gym, hold a proper post, and were no longer lumped in with ordinary Professional Trainers scraping by on bounty work.
Nova found the whole thing almost funny. Did this count as landing a government post, just in a different world?
If there was one perk to a new position like this, it was getting to throw a little weight around. Not at Aresdra, obviously, she was strictly off-limits. His "sweetheart cat" would just have to take the hit instead.
With that, Nova reached over and gave the neck of a daydreaming Meowscarada a light flick, earning himself an irritated hiss for the trouble.
Well, what else was having a cat for, if not to poke at it the moment your hands got restless?
Right now Nova and Meowscarada were killing time in Gilbert's enormous office, and with nothing better to do, the two of them had ended up wrestling again. It had turned into something of a daily ritual by this point.
Ever since Meowscarada had evolved, the easy peace between them was long gone. With proper hands and feet now, Meowscarada had started roughhousing right back, shoving and swiping whenever it got the chance, and Nova was never one to just take a hit without returning it. The two of them tumbled around Gilbert's guest sofa on a near-daily basis these days, wrestling and grappling until the cushions ended up scattered across the floor.
They had just about wrecked the sofa completely when the office door opened.
The two old men walked in to find Nova and Meowscarada mid-scuffle, Nova with Meowscarada pinned in a loose headlock while it clawed at his sleeve trying to wriggle free.
Gilbert cleared his throat. "You two have more energy than sense. Try not to break my furniture. This is meant to be a respectable office, you know."
"Exactly, exactly," Mort added from just behind him.
"Are you two really going to lecture me over a bit of cat-teasing?" Nova shot back, letting Meowscarada go. "Don't tell me neither of you ever winds up your own Pokémon for fun. Sounds like a boring life."
"Enough nonsense, get up, we have business to discuss," Gilbert said.
"Exactly, exactly," Mort echoed again.
Honestly, when did these two turn into a matching comedy act?
He'd come here to join a Gym, not sign up for a stand-up routine.
Nova and Meowscarada straightened themselves out, and Gilbert finally handed the backpack over.
"Try it on, see how it fits. Every backpack on the market these days looks like it was designed for a schoolgirl, if you ask me."
Taking it in hand, Nova had to admit Gilbert had a point. Judging by the size alone, if this were an ordinary pack with ordinary capacity, it would barely fit a laptop and nothing else.
The bag itself had a sleek, sci-fi silver finish, clean and striking to look at, though wearing it practically guaranteed every eye in the room would land on him, as if he were trying to announce himself as the flashiest Trainer in the whole Gym.
As if picking up on Nova's hesitation about the color, a small electronic voice suddenly piped up from the shoulder strap.
"If you're not happy with the color, I can help you recalibrate the shell's tone, Rotom!"
Startled, Nova nearly flung the backpack clean across the room.
Had this thing somehow come alive?
Years of Pokémon knowledge from his previous life kicked in fast enough for him to catch the one word that mattered.
Rotom.
Could it really be?
He flipped the backpack over and found a small mount built into the front of the strap, meant for holding a Pokédex. An orange-red phone Pokédex swung gently from it, and on its little screen sat an unmistakably cheerful face.
"Nice to meet you! I'm Rotom!"
Nova's eyes practically lit up.
"Nice to meet you too, Rotom. I'm Nova, and I'm really looking forward to working with you."
"I'm so happy! It really seems like my new partner already likes me a lot!"
"Of course I like you! Getting to travel with a Rotom has been one of my lifelong dreams!"
Hearing that, Meowscarada let out a disgusted little spit in Nova's direction.
Meowscarada's whole posture made the accusation clear enough without a single word: was there anyone Nova didn't fall head over heels for on sight? It hadn't been so long since he'd been gushing those exact same lines to Aqua.
Which, admittedly, was a little unfair to Nova. Back in his previous life his favorite Water type had genuinely been Lapras, and a Rotom that could talk, battle, and occasionally translate had been something he'd wanted for years. Meowscarada, for its part, had no way of knowing that its own species had always been Nova's favorite Grass type, and that meeting it in this life ranked among the luckiest things to ever happen to him, quite possibly the luckiest thing of all.
Nova wasn't fickle. He just happened to love Pokémon far too broadly for his own good.
Gilbert kept the routine going with his old friend. "Just like you called it. This one's always been bold but sharp. When I first got my own backpack I nearly jumped out of my skin at the Rotom inside it, but this kid barely blinked."
Mort, turning the fine teapot Gilbert had once gifted him over in his hands, said, "There's something odd about this kid. Phone Pokédexes are common enough, sure, but the ones built to house a Rotom are brand new technology. Fewer than twenty people in the whole Norlandia Alliance have one. So how does he act like he's known about this for years?"