The Type Specialist Extra Chapter 4 - Pink

The brisk weather hit me first; it’d been a while since I’d escaped any sort of humidity. Where Alola and Hoenn would have this uncomfortable warmth to them, the weather out here was much closer to Sinnoh’s. However, Sinnoh’s environment tended to be dry, and Galar’s was undoubtedly wet.

Though it was not actively raining, clouds still painted the sky grey as if a downpour had just recently ceased. People held closed umbrellas and waited for everyone to disembark from the plane, dressed in dark-colored, smooth raincoats. My more fluffy and colorful outfit distinctly stood out from all the rest.

But though I was new to the region, I was not alone—Ninetales released herself beside me. It took only a second to unlock her Pokéball from the safety precautions turned on from the flight, and she shook to wake herself up from her nap and actually looked rather comfortable to experience the ongoing chill in the air.

And, there was someone else here—

“Alex!” a weathered voice called out from a distance.

Without hesitating, I walked over to where he was waiting, and I met my old friend with a smile.

“Old Man Harvey!” I said to him, squeezing the man with a hug. “It’s been a while. You’re shorter!”

“Bah! We haven’t seen each other in person for over two years, and you insult me over a hug?”

Ninetales snickered at my side, and the old man harrumphed, but his reaction was primarily in jest. The last time I’d seen him in person was all the way back during Hoenn’s Conference—I returned his journal, and I also told him about the true history of my life.

“I hope your research has been flourishing,” I said, pulling back.

Old Man Harvey grumbled, but he couldn’t hide the small smile that appeared on his face.

“Galar’s a region full of history,” he said, placing a hand on his now more hunched back. “And unlike most of what I’m used to, the chaps here are so stuck up that they actually bothered to write it down!”

He had a small, beetle-like car parked at the edge of the airport, and he hurried to invite Ninetales and me inside. Unfortunately, I had to hop into the back. Ninetales’s bark came out far too quickly, and she was able to call dibs on sitting in the front before I could even think I should.

“I have this place in Ballonlea where I've been staying,” Old Man Harvey said as he positioned himself behind the wheel. “Just temporarily, while I look for something more permanent. But it has plenty of space for guests and Pokémon, and its old owner was an avid book collector! His family barely bothered to put his things away before renting the place out for some extra cash.”

“An old man in an old home,” I quipped, and Old Man Harvey chuckled to himself, shaking his head while pulling onto the road. “Learn anything interesting?”

“A decent bit. Galar has a good number of myths and legends.”

As his car sputtered down the road toward the forest that contained Ballonlea, Old Man Harvey spoke. He told me of histories and rumors, giants and kings, and items and artifacts that had all been mentioned in the rented home’s eclectic collection of books.

“Your mention of non-Pokémon ‘Fairies’ from your old world got me thinking, which is why I’ve been doing all this research,” Old Man Harvey said as his vehicle jostled down the worn, dirt world. “Why are those kinds of creatures mentioned in both worlds? Why did you know about them? The Pokémon connection between our two worlds is obvious, but why do we have the same non-Pokémon creatures in myth?”

“Did you find an answer?” I asked, looking out the window and watching rolling hills pass us by.

“No. And I probably never will,” Harvey answered. “But at most, I do have a theory—believing that little, magical people are responsible for most of the world’s mysteries is easier and far more entertaining than searching for an actual explanation!”

He laughed and continued to drive down the road.

The hills changed to trees, and the trees grew so large that they began to choke out the sky. Glowing mushrooms started as nothing more than an interesting sight to glimpse from far off the road, but then they became so common that their glow all but replaced the sun’s light.

Harvey knew where he was driving, so we just chatted the whole time. He cracked jokes and spoke of the ancient stories he’d read, and I told him of the similarities I could see with the stories from back home.

Of course, I didn’t actually have that much to say. While I liked to consider I had a pretty good memory, most of the things I remembered from my old world tended toward Pokémon-related information rather than anything else. Pokémon games were my escape, so they, of course, had been my focus. At most, I could bring up surface-level references to myths, creatures, and stage plays, but that actually seemed to help Old Man Harvey more often than not.

“The Lady of the Lake. A sword, cast away?” Old Man Harvey hummed as he brought the car onto a more paved road. “Reminds me of this one story I read—”

“Probably Zacian,” I interrupted without thinking.

“Huh?”

“The Legendary Pokémon Zacian? You know, one of the two founding dogs of Galar?” I answered. “It’s a big canine Pokémon that wields a sword in its mouth while its sibling wields a shield. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t know about it. I think the region’s ruling family has been suppressing knowledge of its existence for generations.”

“That... That does fill in a few blanks,” he mumbled.

There was an entire town hidden in this forest—a series of wooden, medieval-like buildings. More modern amenities had sprung up between them, consisting of cars, roads, shops, and in one case, an enormous Gym. The glowing mushrooms were still the prevalent source of light here, and, even though this was a city, I could see Pokémon occasionally peeking in. Shadows that darted around to hide underneath the biggest of mushrooms had to be Impidimp, and then small Morelull drifted through the air while Shiinotic tried to blend in with the rest of the fungus.

I smiled slightly as I saw the large mushroom Pokémon again.

It’s been a bit since I was there for Lillie’s first Contest. I know she’s doing well, but I haven’t had the time to check in with her too much. From what I’ve heard, however, she should be doing okay.

“But, uh... Alex.” Old Man Harvey said as he continued down the road and pulled into the gravel driveway of one of the larger medieval buildings here. He took a moment to resume speaking, tapping his fingers on the driving wheel. “Just so you know, I... haven’t been doing this research all on my own.”

Just like me, Ninetales had been staring out the window and taking in the sights, but one of her ears flicked up the second Old Many Harvey said that.

Already, a mischievous grin had crept onto her face.

“There’s been, uh, people helping me,” Old Man Harvey said quickly. “Or, a single person with connections, I should say. When I was first asking around, my ‘unique’ questions caught her interest. We’ve been... study buddies, ever since.”

“Study buddies, huh?” I repeated alongside a hum.

The tips of Old Man Harvey’s aged ears were beginning to turn red.

“Yes. Of course. Solely platonic. We’ve simply been researching together.” He couldn’t keep his hands still on the steering wheel. “I... We...”

Ninetales barked something out, and Old Man Harvey jerked himself around to basically slam his head into the space between the front seats, pressing his face down and bringing up his arms with a pair of clasped hands.

“Please! I need your help!” His sudden desperation caused me to blink. “I don’t know what to do! This is all so strange! I never expected to feel this way again!”

“Uh... What?” I asked.

“I—” The weathered man leaned up, exhaling while trying to recollect himself after what he’d done. His expression was full of shame, but there was a certain desire in him that refused to go away. “My wife passed away over a decade ago. I thought her death would be a wound that’d never heal, and I was right. It hasn’t. But then... She... Her...”

Old Man Harvey let out a despondent sigh, and I finished the connection for him.

“Your study buddy,” I said.

He forced himself to nod.

“Yes. My ‘study buddy,’” the old man admitted. “I’ve only met someone as engaging as her once before in my life, and I ended up marrying them! I can count on one hand the people as elegant as her, and she has such a unique view on life that, while I’m around her, I feel as though I’m young again.”

“So you want my help with... asking her out?” I asked.

It felt weird to do this in the interior of a parked car.

“I want your help because you’re a specialist with Fairy Types,” came Old Man Harvey’s answer.

And, with that, I finally understood just what was going on.

“Oh,” I said, eyes widening. “So when you’re talking about this woman—”

Grimly, he nodded.

“Yes,” Old Man Harvey answered. “When I’m talking about the woman I’m interested in, I’m speaking about her.”

_______________________________________________________________________

I helped him prep. Despite just arriving in Galar, I threw myself into work. I might have had a little bit of jet lag, but this was a way to work it off, and my team and I had the equivalent of a battle to assist him with cleaning his place, making plans, and having a short chat.

“And... you’re sure this will work?” the old man asked after over an hour of effort.

“It should, but it does feel like our positions here are pretty reversed. If you’re so old, shouldn’t you be the one with experience—”

“High school sweetheart,” Old Man Harvey answered.

“Ah. That makes sense,” I replied. “And, it’s not even like my advice is that special. Telling you to clean up and just being yourself is a pretty generic thing to say, but my own romantic history is pretty small—”

“Hope, right?” he went on to ask.

I very pointedly did not respond.

Ignoring the growing heat in my face, I returned one book to a shelf to pull out two more. Ultimately, Old Man Harvey had made this connection through his interest in researching old myths and legends, and if there was ever an activity to have a date over, it would be something that they both enjoyed like that.

“So we have the table set up, the place cleaned, dinner cooking, and the only thing left to do is call her,” I said as I placed the last two books in a neat stack on this home’s kitchen table. “She has a phone, right?”

“A Rotom Phone, yes,” Old Man Harvey said. “She might be around my age, but she’s not one to fall out of date.”

He tried to smile at me as if just to reassure himself, and I sent him a supportive nod. He’d done his best to clean himself up, and the eager yet hopeful grin on his face as well as the pressed-down white tuft of hair on his head made him look pretty cute.

“Call her,” I told him.

“Y-yes. I’ll go do that no—”

And then, all of our carefully formulated plans came crashing straight down.

Because a sudden knock came straight from the front door.

“Oh no,” Old Man Harvey whispered.

“Is that...”

He nodded as if he was the most defeated man in the world.

“We usually meet at this time, but I told her I was picking someone up from the airport. I thought we weren’t meeting today!”

“Harvey!” I hissed, walking over to stand right next to him and keeping my voice in a whisper. “Did you say that your meeting was off, or did you just mention that you would be out picking someone up in the morning?”

His expression went utterly pale in the realization of his own mistake, and then the knocking stopped. For the briefest of seconds, I thought whoever was outside had turned around, but then a click rang out, and the front door’s handle began to turn.

“You gave her a key?!”

“Of course I did!”

“Why?!” I asked under my breath.

“Because... Sometimes I get distracted reading, and my hearing isn’t the best. I thought it was better if she could let herself in whenever I didn’t hear her knock.”

There was nothing we could do. She was already opening the door. All of our preparations were about to be needed right now in this second.

Except, there was an extra problem with this situation:

Instead of Old Man Harvey having the chance at a quiet, personal moment, in my panic, I’d neglected to leave the room before his visitor could step inside.

As the door slowly opened up, the edge of a light teal hat came into view. Followed by that, the tip of a long, wrinkled nose. Blue eyes emphasized with mascara peeked in to glance about the room, and an old woman with an extremely fluffy scarf around her neck took a proper step into Old Man Harvey’s home.

“Ah, Harvey!” said the old woman. She was exceptionally thin and stood with a hunch. “I’ve managed to acquire another old tome from an auction—”

She paused when her gaze landed right where I stood.

Genuinely, I didn’t know what to do. This was not just a random person; Old Man Harvey had made a connection with someone of significance. At one point, she had fought to claim the role of Galar’s Champion and had just barely lost, but she and her team of Fairy Types had held prominence in the region for not just the past several years, but for decades.

Opal, also known as the ‘Wizard,’ but more commonly known as the Leader of Ballonlea Gym, properly entered Old Man Harvey’s rented house. Despite her visible age, her eyes carried boundless energy, and there was an overflowing amount of life to her movements.

...Which became exceptionally clear the moment her full gaze settled on me and ran straight forward.

“Pink!” she shouted, and then she was suddenly right there, inches away. Honestly, that initial shout almost reminded me of the squawk of a bird.

She went on to poke and prod, bobbed her head, and walked in a circle around me while giving a lecture to both everyone and no one at all.

“Pink, but not quite pink!” she said, each word coming quickly but with a careful enunciation. “Sincere and straightforward, but also with a hint of mystery to you, hm? You have your own share of tricks, but that doesn’t stop you from acting with truth. A definite willingness to care, but also a need, a desire to always chase greater and greater goals going forward.”

She nodded to herself, satisfied, and then she stopped right in front of me and clicked the tip of her spiral, pink-and-blue umbrella against the ground.

“Yes. You are pink,” Opal said. “Except, you aren’t. Not quite. Not yet.”

“E-excuse me?” I stuttered out. I was already at a complete loss, yet Opal’s thin lips curved up into a ruby smile. 

“You have no need to be excused, Alex. I’ve been following your performances for quite a while. It’s not often I learn of a trainer so dedicated to the Fairy Type so early on, but you? You’re still chasing. Despite your and your team’s strength, you are still chasing after the peak of that color and racing after a grand destination. The pink in your heart is still developing, so... you are not yet the person I seek.”

Her smile then became a slight smirk.

“Of course, not right now, but maybe sometime soon. You would have made a good Psychic Type specialist, I’d think, so it’s no wonder to me that you are still striving to adapt. And— Don’t give me that look!” Opal clicked her tongue. “I follow many trainers. I plan to retire. It should be no surprise that I’ve been shopping around.”

With that, she laughed, covering her mouth as if to hide the haughty-sounding noise.

At the side of the room, Old Man Harvey looked shell-shocked. 

Honestly, I felt the same way.

“O-Opal,” Harvey stuttered, finally taking a step closer to the visitor who had entered both his heart and his home. “I... I!”

He had to breathe in and swallow to gather the courage he needed to speak. His face was bright red.

“I was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me?” he finally blurted out.

“Of course. I—”

Only then did Opal blink, and that let her recognize the current state of the room.

Everything had been cleaned and organized. Dirty dishes from the preparation of a meal still lingered on an open kitchen’s counter. A table had been cleaned off of its scattering of notes just to be replaced by a selection of tomes that Harvey found the most interesting.

And, of course, Old Man Harvey himself had cleaned up, putting on his best clothes and wearing a hopeful expression on his face. So filled with nerves, he licked his lips, fighting for his life to try to make them not be so dry.

With the reality of the situation settling in, Opal’s expression softened. She walked toward that old man, crouching ever so slightly to better match his height.

“Harvey, you know how much I value our friendship,” she said quietly, “But...”

“But?”

“But I’m not interested in younger men,” she said to him. “Sorry, but I don’t think this would work out.”

She sent him the kindest possible in that moment, and it was like Old Man Harvey’s entire world shattered.

However, he got better. It took only a single second for him to build all of that back up.

“Ah, well. I get it. I’d probably react the same way if I were in your boat,” Old Man Harvey said with a laugh.

To that, Opal laughed again and stood back up, returning to her previous, slightly hunched height. She took one more look around Harvey’s temporary home, and she smiled at the sight of it being so cleaned up.

“Well then. I did say I value our friendship, and I would very much like to continue that. If you have a meal prepared—”

“It’s still being cooked.”

“Then there’s no sense in letting it go to waste!” the Gym Leader said, dramatically raising her hand, still holding her umbrella. “Now then. I didn’t realize you two knew each other, but it does explain quite a bit. Let’s not pass up this moment—this is an opportunity for everyone! Alex, you especially, I’d love to pick your mind while you’re here.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Later, Old Man Harvey properly recovered, and Opal was brilliant. I shouldn’t have been so surprised that someone who had trained the Fairy Type before there was even the Fairy Type itself would be so incredibly informed.

She stayed to chat, eat, and discuss some books, and then she left a while after dinner, and I stayed the night. The time difference made sleep harder to get through, but after everything that had happened, I was just tired enough to pass out and wake up on time.

“Thanks again for the help, Alex,” Old Man Harvey said the next morning. “It’s for the best that I didn’t try to make it more special.”

“I thought it was pretty special,” I said over a bowl of cereal. “You were trying to be yourself. When asking someone out, there’s nothing more special than that in their eyes.”

“Not even a grand, romantic gesture?” Old Man Harvey countered.

“Maybe save that for date two,” I said.

He laughed, and he shook his head. Across from me, he put the book he was reading back down.

“Thank you again, but I know you weren’t here just for me,” he continued. “I appreciate the visit and the help, but I am a little curious about just why you decided to visit Galar.”

I stopped eating, carefully placing the spoon against the cereal bowl before me. I brought my gaze up toward Old Man Harvey, and I looked him in the eyes.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

He stared back.

“I’m sure,” came his answer.

Pushing up from the table, I gestured for him to follow, and we both walked to the couch in his temporary home’s central living room.

Old Man Harvey followed at my side, and Ninetales was already here, napping on the carpet on the floor. Gardevoir was in the back, meditating to memorize a safe teleport location in the garden. Florges was with him, inspecting the small selection of plants and mushrooms outside, and, as usual, Ribombee was with her. Meanwhile, Rapidash was in my pocket, still resting within his Pokéball.

However, between all of them, that was only five Pokémon—I still had room for one more team member.

Holding up a certain, modified Pokéball, I hit the sphere’s central button to send a beam of light onto the couch. As a certain being coalesced onto its cushions, metal clanked against metal as a mechanical body settled down.

“That’s...”

“A Fairy Type. A very special one,” I answered. “She’s why I’ve been traveling around. I did come to Galar to visit you, but also...”

“Here I was talking about Legends, and you were carrying one on you the whole time!” Old Man Harvey exclaimed.

The Pokémon on the couch didn’t move. Its eyes were closed as if fast asleep. There was no stir to it, but there was a sound—a constant ticking. The faint noise of clockwork. Something about its internals was still progressing, even without any other signs of life.

“I’ve visited other places for help with little success,” I said. “Silph Co. The Devon Corporation. And other, smaller companies, too. I’ve been traveling the world to look for help, and Galar is my next step. You wanted to know why I’m here, and this is my answer.”

Old Man Harvey pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead.

“The main reason I’m in Galar,” I continued, “is so I can talk to the right people, and so I get the help I need to wake Magearna up.”

________

If you missed it and need context, read the first extra chapter HERE.
(Originally posted almost two years ago.)

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Author Note:

This is the last of the “standalone” extra chapters. We’ll be entering an extremely short arc from here.

After that, the true epilogue, and then there’s only the new fiction to post after that.