The New Normal - 17-12

The New Normal – 17-12 – Big Developments

However, as successful as the raids were, they were almost too successful. One of the issues that Unova now faced was that they had captured a huge amount of PLASMA’s members, and they were actually struggling to keep them all in custody as they were unused to dealing with such a surge of arrests at once.

Not only that, but unlike when we had made our big captures against the criminal Teams all that time ago, we had been able to place them all under psychic interrogation because they had deemed themselves a big enough threat to warrant the use of such barbaric procedures. Yet, in this case, none of PLASMA’s members had actually done anything that would justify them being psychically interrogated, which was a good thing, though it did mean that we were restricted to the much slower ‘standard’ interrogation methods.

What those interrogations revealed was that not all of the PLASMA members were deserving to be in prison. Many of the more junior members hadn’t even done anything that could be considered a crime, and we didn’t have the evidence to prove otherwise. In their minds, they had done nothing more than join an outspoken activist group. However, the more higher up the ranks that you got, and the more ‘experienced’ members of PLASMA were not looking so clean.

Those we kept behind bars for the time being. The rest, we had no choice but to let go because there wasn’t really any evidence that warranted their extended stay in custody. And we really did not want a massive legal issue on our hands.

Though we made sure that they were subjected to travel restrictions for the time being. Just in case.

Aside from the arrests themselves, we had also managed to seize a bunch of their equipment, where it turned out that PLASMA were far richer in resources than they pretended to be. We had captured a ton of equipment that seemed to have been specially made for saboteur and espionage operations. Moreover, the PLASMA Frigate, once it was eventually located parked right next to Seaside Cave, was revealed to be where PLASMA had hid most of their physical wealth. The ship had been filled with vaults containing what should be a large portion of PLASMA’s emergency funds, which had now all been confiscated.

The rest of the funds were found when we eventually located and raided the PLASMA castle below Victory Road. This was also where we had found where PLASMA had been keeping their ‘battling’ Pokémon for their own use.

And that was where the horrifying consequences of PLASMA’s actions had been exposed. Because all of the Pokémon that we found were showing horrendous and terrible signs of abuse.

It was a complete and utter demonstration of PLASMA’s hypocrisy. Because not only were the Pokémon that we had found abused, but they had been subjected to this cruel and vile fate for so long that they had become moulded into nothing more than obedient slaves for PLASMA’s use.

As I was stuck in Sinnoh, I couldn’t see for myself first-hand just how horrific this all was. But the comments that I received from Lorelei was more than enough to paint the very grim picture of what had taken place.

“When we headed into the unfinished construction of the so-called PLASMA castle, the first thing we noticed was all of the spare Pokéballs that had been shoved into the corner of one of the rooms.” She described, “They weren’t even piled up nicely as you would normally do – they had just been simply thrown to the floor like a pile of unwanted trash. That was already a big red flag.”

“And once we released a few Pokémon from within the Pokéballs to check on their condition, that was when I saw the completely lifeless eyes that all of the Pokémon possessed. They didn’t even seem to acknowledge our presence. There was no fear, no weariness. Just a sense of hollowness.” She visibly shuddered, “It was as if they had lost their very spark of life, the very instinct that all Pokémon have to grow stronger. They were nothing more than empty dolls, staring back at me with their dead eyes… it was as unsettling as it was pitiful.”

“Even the Pokémon that Team Galactic made use of were not as bad as this.” Lucian agreed, “Even as twisted as they were, they were at least fighting for something they believed in. I remembered that during our fight against Team Galactic in Mt. Coronet, I could still feel that there was some bond, warped as it might have been, between Pokémon and trainer. But the Pokémon we saw today… there could be no bond. Just the steel chains of servitude. It’s… honestly insane to say that a doomsday cult had treated their Pokémon better than a group that was meant to be for pro-Pokémon happiness. And I would laugh at the irony if it wasn’t so cruel and vile.”

I was almost morbidly curious to find out about just how they managed to achieve this, as normally, abusing Pokémon led them to lash out against their abusers, not submit with complete obedience. Especially not with Pokémon such Scrafty, Gurdurr, and Bisharp, which were the most common types of Pokémon that we had found. These were typically aggressive Pokémon, so seeing them act so subdued like this – almost like they were brainwashed – was incredibly disturbing.

Even once we had taken them to the Pokémon Centers for them to be healed up, the Nurse Joys reported that the physical and mental conditioning would take some time to recover from. That only further reinforced just how bad and cruel PLASMA had treated them.

I was also very curious about how Ghetsis and the other leaders planned to utilise these Pokémon in the future. Considering how unusual they seemed due to the mental conditioning that they’ve been through, it wouldn’t be difficult for even a layman to be able to tell that something was very wrong with them.

Unless Ghetsis didn’t plan on using these Pokémon in the first place. Or at least, not where they could be publicly seen. From what I remembered of his original plans, his planned takeover of Unova was meant to be mostly bloodless. He’d be voted into power, and persuade the citizens of Unova to release their Pokémon, and that was that. The brainwashed Pokémon were likely to only be used for emergencies or to be used in the shadows, away from the public’s eye.

Nevertheless, the good news with all these captures was that it was pretty safe to say that we had completely gutted PLASMA as an organisation. Not only had we wrecked their infrastructure and ripped away most of their resources, we had also released our findings of their Pokémon abuse to practically every news agency in the world, and allowed them to freely publish the crimes of PLASMA.

Needless to say, the backlash that PLASMA got after that exposé was everything we had hoped for. As Cyrus had painfully showed us, the power of public opinion was not one to be underestimated. But now, with all of their dirty laundry now exposed, PLASMA’s reputation was utterly dragged through the mud. Their lies about being a ‘humanitarian organisation’ was now fully seen through as the sham that it was, and the public was horrified about what we had revealed of the true extent of Pokémon abuse that PLASMA had been trying to hide.

Never again would they trust PLASMA. Their future recruitment efforts were now dead in the water.

Unfortunately, that was where the good news ended. Despite our best efforts, a few Sages still managed to evade our grasp. Though we did manage to capture both Bronius and Gorm, both of which had been hiding out on the PLASMA Frigate and had been found during our raid.

They weren’t as willing to open up as Rood was, and so we immediately subjected them to psychic interrogation, as unlike the grunts they had definitely warranted such a level of scrutiny.

That was still ongoing. We hadn’t managed to extract everything from them yet, but from the stuff that we did extract, most of the information was pretty much overlapped with what Rood had already spoken about.

More importantly, this meant that Ghetsis and N were still on the loose. And we didn’t know where they were hiding.

I suspected that they carried either the Light or Dark Stone with them, and I said as much to Cynthia, since she knew about my ‘visions’ anyways. I couldn’t predict which Stone it was, but either way, that meant that we potentially had another Legendary situation on our hands.

“Do you think it’ll be as bad as when we had fought against Palkia?” She asked me.

“No.” I shook my head, “Probably not as bad as that. I doubt that Zekrom could be as powerful or as destructive as Palkia. But just because it’s slightly less catastrophic than a rampaging Legendary of Space doesn’t change the fact that it’s going to be a massive disaster anyways. But I’ve already informed Regigigas – if the worst comes, I’ll be there to fight once again.”

“We’ll focus on hunting down Ghetsis and the others first.” Cynthia agreed.

However, hunting down Ghetsis wouldn’t be so simple. For one, after our big raid against PLASMA’s headquarters, the Unova League was ready to call this a job well done and pack everything home. They wanted to tout this raid as a massive success that showed off the efficiency and competence of their Unova Police, thank the International Police for their assistance, and sell it as a big PR win. Which it was.

There was nothing inherently wrong with this, except for the fact that Ghetsis was still out there and needed to be dealt with. We couldn’t rest on our laurels now and get complacent when we had just stirred up the Beedrill nest. Currently, public opinion was on our side. Ghetsis and the remaining Sages were now deeply hated and reviled, and we needed to make the most of this opportunity to take them down before they could recover and retaliate.

Because a retaliation was coming; Ghetsis wouldn’t let this slide.

Fortunately, the upper leadership of Unova were willing to listen to reason, and we were able to persuade them to not give up the hunt until all of PLASMA was cleaned up. We just needed to bring up examples of what happened when Cyrus was allowed to roam free as a reminder of just how dangerous someone like Ghetsis could be if left unchecked.

Hopefully, he would be found soon.

===============

While dealing with Ghetsis and the remnants of PLASMA was certainly the most important issue that we needed to handle, there were other considerations that I had to take note of.

For one, the Dojo idea back home in Indigo had finally taken root after quite a few delays due to logistical and political issues. It hadn’t been easy getting the idea through the Committee, and once it was, the construction of four new Dojos simultaneously was no easy task.

Yet now that they were all complete, with the relevant Dojo Leaders brought on to run them, right on time before the next Circuit began. Currently, the new Dojos were of the Fighting, Dark, Grass, and Fire Types respectively. I didn’t recognise any of the trainers that had become the new Dojo Leaders, but I had been assured by Karen that Lance wholeheartedly believed they would be suitable for the position. So their competence should be unquestionable.

Furthermore, the introduction of alternate ‘Gyms’ was something that many other regions took notice of, and were considering if they should implement something similar for themselves. In the case of Sinnoh, the need was not as urgent as we had the Battle Frontier to keep trainers occupied, but Hoenn was seriously considering whether it would be best if they adopted it as well. As, just like Indigo, it had a few spare islands that it currently wasn’t doing anything with – such as Mirage Island and the island that would later be used to build the Hoenn Battle Frontier in the games.

So they were very interested in this year’s Circuit to determine whether such an idea could truly be feasible or not.

Hoenn and Indigo aside, we here in Sinnoh had our own developments too – and from a very unexpected source.

One day, someone in the Committee had an idea that I couldn’t tell whether it was pure insanity or pure brilliance.

They wanted to renovate the leftover system of tunnels that Cyrus had once built, which he later used as a means of infiltrating Mt. Coronet without being detected.

Currently, the tunnels had been completely abandoned. Even I had all but forgotten about it. But the Committee member pointed out that these tunnels, having already been dug out (which was the hardest part) could be used as something instead of just being left to gather dust. He argued that we could turn Cyrus’ tool for infiltration into an ‘attraction’ that could bring benefits to Sinnoh.

He then went on to elaborate on his plan. Basically, he wanted to have this system of tunnels (which he fittingly dubbed ‘The Grand Underground’) to be connected to Eterna City. Subsequently, tourists could descend underground and explore the large and winding tunnels for themselves, where they could engage in pre-prepared activities like mining for ‘rare gems’, hunting for ‘wild Pokémon’, or just enjoy the feeling of being underground.

In other words, it was just like a cave diving experience. Only instead of caves, it was in a tunnel. And the Committee member emphasised that this experience was going to be tailored to be far more causal than your average cave diving experience. He described it like it was going to be an ‘underground shopping mall with a playground attached to it’.

I saw the appeal. Better to make use of that space than to waste it, and having an underground ‘shopping mall’ of sorts was definitely unique – so long as the relevant safety measures could be put in place. It would make for a very appealing tourist attraction, if anything.

With this, you could enjoy the ‘atmosphere’ of being in a cave without having to suffer through all of the difficulties that come with cave diving. For example, even under a guided experience, going into a cave was understandably pretty daunting. And if you only stuck to the ‘safe’ upper areas, there wasn’t all that much to explore.

However, those problems were mostly alleviated when you were exploring long dug-out tunnels. With these, there was a lot more space for you to walk around in, and those tunnels were wide enough to house massive groups of people simultaneously. It would be like an immersive museum experience.

Yet something like this was undoubtedly going to be a big investment. Even with the tunnels already dug out, doing the necessary renovation and refurbishment work was going to be very costly. So it was going to be up to Eterna City to argue for why they deserve to receive such funding.

Besides all these developments in mainland Sinnoh, there was another bit of development that had initially completely gone under the radar, but had been rapidly rising in prominence as the sheer magnitude of its implications became known.

It was about the region of Kitakami.

Honestly, I had completely forgotten that Kitakami was even a thing. I hadn’t heard it come up in any reports, even after I moved to Sinnoh, so I assumed that the place had just been mostly left to its own devices. After all, it was a place that was completely disconnected from the rest of the wider world, as it didn’t even have access to the Pokénet, given how far away it was from the mainland of Sinnoh.

And it likely would have remained that way – if not for a group of visitors from Kitakami that had suddenly and recently decided to visit us here in Sinnoh.

While it was definitely rare for the villagers of Kitakami to come all the way to Sinnoh – given the distance between us – it wasn’t unheard of. Therefore, if it had been just a regular visit, no one would have paid any attention to it.

However, one of these visitors from Kitakami turned out to be a Pokémon trainer. According to her, she had decided to visit Sinnoh because, much like the rest of the world, she had been affected by the enormous pulse of power that the entire world felt when Palkia was summoned into the world. Even though that had been some time ago, that moment had caused her to eventually make the trip herself to see what could have caused such an extraordinary phenomenon. Hence her visit to Sinnoh.

Where she had brought along both of her Pokémon that were native to Kitakami – her Poltchageist and Dipplin. She didn’t even think anything of it, assuming that these were just Pokémon that were also available in the mainland.

Oh how wrong she was.

From what was reported, she had apparently stumbled into a random friendly match against a random trainer on the streets, where she had sent out her Dipplin to fight, which caused the opposing trainer to be floored with surprise.

Not unreasonable, considering the circumstances. It wasn’t everyday you got to saw an entirely new Pokémon.

Subsequently, that trainer proceeded to record and post the video of their battle on the Pokénet, where both Poltchageist and Dipplin could be seen in action. Naturally, that immediately caught the attention of every League in the world, who were equally surprised to see two completely new Pokémon just casually sent out like that.

Especially since they weren’t even new evolutions on existing Pokémon. They were entirely new Pokémon. The fact that Dipplin was reportedly part Dragon type also added to their interest.

In short, the whole world was freaking about these two new Pokémon, and the trainer from Kitakami – who I learned was called Yukiko – was immediately invited to speak with Professor Rowan so that we could learn more about her two new Pokémon.

Things got even more exciting when, through an interview with Yukiko, we learned that Pokémon like Dipplin and Poltchageist were very common there. Not only that, but after we showed her our Pokédex so that she could compare the Pokémon we knew about to the ones that she had seen, we had also learned that their version of Tentacool was not the same as ours. In fact, they were calling it something entirely different – theirs was known as Toedscool.

Unfortunately, that was the only new addition she pointed out. From what I remembered of Kitakami from the games, there should have been more Pokémon from other generations that we hadn’t discovered yet that could be found there. For example, Pokémon like Glimmora and Hattarene. Sadly, it seemed like these Pokémon must have only been brought over after these regions were discovered, as according to Yukiko’s testimony those Pokémon weren’t there yet.

Nevertheless, this was a huge and unexpected find, especially when it was revealed that Dipplin was only one of its many possible forms – there were also other forms in Flapple and Appletun.

Because of this, there was a lot of sudden attention placed on Kitakami. As many people were incredibly interested to see if there were other unknown Pokémon species out there waiting to be discovered.

So practically overnight, Kitakami had gone from a place that no one really cared about, to the main topic of discussion over all of the news channels. It was only fortunate that this took place a few days after the exposé of PLASMA’s actions, as this might have overshadowed that.

Therefore, people were immediately sent over to Kitakami to investigate and learn more about this once-forgotten village for themselves. Furthermore, Yukiko was instantly elevated to be the ‘cultural advisor’ of Kitakami, and I expected that we would be seeing a lot more of her in the coming months. There was no way that Kitakami would be forgotten with the recent developments.

In fact, even though Aaron had been sent over there first to join in on the investigation, I wanted to head over there just to see everything for myself. Fortunately, even though the conflict with PLASMA hadn’t been resolved yet, Kitakami was only going to be around half a day’s travel if I flew there, which meant going there for a day trip was very possible.

I mentally made plans to invite Cynthia over there for a quick holiday. It would be nice to do something like this together, especially since we hadn’t really had the chance to go on a holiday even after we had gotten engaged.

It was something to look forward to, I suppose.

A.N. I had been wanting to include Kitakami into this story for some time now, but I didn’t really know when was the best time to introduce it – considering everything else that had been going on. However, now that John has more than settled down in Sinnoh, I felt like exploring such a development would be interesting, especially since I do like writing about how a region can develop. And I want to make it clear that Sinnoh will get its own developments too in the future.

Also, I understand that Kitakami in canon had a lot more Pokémon from the other regions. However, as mentioned in the chapter, I felt like it wasn’t a good idea to introduce so many new Pokémon at the same time – so I’ve left them out (except for the three Pokémon I introduced in this chapter). I apologise to those who may have wanted more discoveries, but I felt like introducing too many things in one go might be too overwhelming, so keeping it simple was better and made more sense given the worldbuilding I’ve crafted for TNN.

So yes, both Kitakami and PLASMA will be the focus in the coming chapters. I felt that this would be more balanced than just focusing on the latter. Hope you enjoyed!