A strand of wind brushed across Luke's face. Standing atop a small hill, the young man turned his head and saw nothing but scorched earth.
After last night's inferno, everything except Slowking's research lab on the hill had been reduced to ruins. The entire town lay in ashes.
Just as Luke stood there, lost in thought, a bright and energetic voice called out from behind him.
"Mr. Luke! It's time to go!"
Down the slope of the hill, Brionne lifted a flipper and waved enthusiastically at the human who had stopped walking.
"…Coming."
Luke gave the ruined town one last look. He had only known it briefly, yet it had already vanished. Then he followed the two Pokémon waiting below.
Because of the attack the previous night, Pallet Town was no longer fit for even basic living. With no other choice, after Slowking finished packing all kinds of medicines into Kirlia's small satchel, the newly minted human trainer set off immediately, hoping to reach Viridian City before nightfall.
Not long after they left Pallet Town, a young boy wearing shorts popped his head out of the grass by the roadside.
"Shorts!"
When the boy saw Luke looking down at him, with two Pokémon standing at his side, he let out a shrill cry of "Shorts! Shorts!" and vanished into the distance at full speed.
[Youngster. Common type. The most frequently seen category of humans. Extremely weak.]
Before Luke could recover from the shock of seeing a so called common type human for the first time, a mechanical synthesized voice sounded beside him.
He turned his head and saw Kirlia holding up a phone shaped like a Rotom, aimed at the spot where the boy had disappeared. The information had clearly come from that device.
"That's… a Human Dex?" Luke asked.
"Huh? Mr. Luke knows this app too?" Brionne stared at him in disbelief, wearing almost the same expression Luke had moments earlier.
"…Just a guess."
Being called "Mr. Luke" ever since his name was revealed, Luke had no idea how to explain himself, so he settled for a vague answer.
What else could he say? That in the Pokémon world he knew, this Rotom-looking phone was supposed to be a Pokédex?
"As expected of a super intelligent human, even rarer than rare types. You guessed it just like that," Brionne said, completely convinced.
She even grabbed Kirlia's arm and shook it excitedly.
"Lulu, Lulu, you're so clumsy. At this rate, you won't be taking care of Mr. Luke. He'll end up taking care of you instead."
Kirlia, who had been quietly proud of how clever her human was, immediately deflated. She glanced at Luke to make sure he had not misunderstood anything, then politely removed Brionne's flipper from her arm and tapped her friend on the head.
"Hey!"
Kirlia's hit did no real damage, but Brionne still let out an exaggerated, adorable cry. Of course, she was not about to take that lying down. Raising her flipper, she struck back at Kirlia.
Kirlia dodged at once, and soon the two friends were play fighting right in front of Luke.
Poke, poke, poke.
Pat, pat, pat.
Watching them, Luke suddenly imagined two ridiculously cute kittens batting at each other with tiny paws, meowing furiously as if they were about to start a world-shaking battle.
Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, the kittens stopped after a short while. It was clearly all in good fun.
"By the way, Kirlia, the phone you're holding is…" Luke asked once they settled down.
No matter how he looked at it, it resembled a Rotom Phone. Still, this world surely had not gone so far as to stuff an actual Rotom into a phone for Pokémon to use.
"This is a Rotom brand phone, made by Silph Co. It comes with the latest and most accurate Human Dex," Kirlia explained, holding it up for him.
"Actually, I prefer the Magnemite brand phone. The screen is bigger. The only downside is that it can't compete with Rotom phones in terms of features," Brionne added, somehow producing a slightly larger phone to demonstrate.
After confirming that "Rotom Phone" was just a brand name, Luke nodded and stopped asking. As long as there was no real Rotom trapped inside, he had little interest in the technology of this world.
Kirlia, however, had an idea.
She raised the phone again, but this time, she pointed the camera straight at Luke.
[Adult human. Common type. Classification unclear. Extremely weak.]
Luke had expected the device to label him as an unknown human, just as even Professor Slowking had been unable to determine his category. Instead, the verdict appeared instantly.
…
An awkward silence fell.
Kirlia stared back and forth between Luke and the phone screen several times. Thinking it might be her posture, she quietly muted the phone and scanned him again and again. The result never changed.
"Mr. Luke… is a common type?" Brionne asked in disbelief.
Unlike the stunned Kirlia, Brionne almost thought she was hearing things. Although the AI systems developed by the Porygon line were often mocked as unreliable, the Human Dex inside Rotom phones had been praised since its release.
To ensure its authority, the creators had once paid a fortune to have Professor Slowking personally calibrate it. Its error rate was below 0.5 percent, and when encountering unknown human variants, it would simply label them as unknown rather than forcing them into an existing category.
And yet now, this world-renowned Human Dex, personally verified by Professor Slowking, was calling Luke a common type?
Brionne's tail trembled again as she recalled the way Luke had controlled the flames last night.
"I… I guess Rotom phones aren't that reliable after all," she said shakily, turning to Kirlia.
"…I'm calling Professor Slowking right now."
Kirlia, already angry that the Dex had belittled Luke, could no longer hold it in. She angrily tapped Slowking's profile on her messaging app.
An old-fashioned ringtone echoed from the phone. A few seconds later, it stopped, and Slowking's face appeared on the screen.
"Hm? Little Kirlia? Why are you calling so soon? Did something happen to Luke?"
Slowking had been puzzled at first, but the moment she saw the familiar anger in Kirlia's eyes, a bad feeling crept into her mind.
Kirlia said nothing. She simply sent a screenshot.
On the other end, Slowking opened it. Her smile froze instantly.
It seemed Professor Slowking was about to receive another round of Kirlia's very personal education.
Luke withdrew his gaze and looked at the pure white bracelet on his right wrist. He already had a good idea why the Human Dex had classified him as a common type.
Thinking about it, aside from a few exceptions, whether it was Heisei Riders, Ultraman hosts, or even Ben Tennyson, none of them were especially remarkable in terms of physical constitution.
By that standard, being labeled common actually made a strange kind of sense.