Pokémon: Outcast of Comb Island (Ch1)

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Chapter One
Found


	Thousands of Combee lived on Comb Island, but none were more frightened than one particular female flying as fast as she could through the island’s rainforest. Dashing between trees and past vines, dodging gusts of strong wind and small drops of water from the brewing rainstorm, the lone Combee breathed heavily as her two small wings buzzed furiously. She was exerting herself more than she had in a while, as she had spent the last few days since becoming outcast laying low, but she now had good reason to push herself. She was being pursued by a human, and she had heard about what humans could do. Warnings and rumors floated around the whole island that they were dangerous creatures, and to be avoided. Though she had never encountered one, she had always heeded those warnings and wanted nothing to do with humans.

	But even as she struggled with all her might to escape her pursuer, growing dizzy from hyperventilating, her small wings and weak body were not strong enough. She felt something hard slam into her back and bounce off, and she cried out and began to fall out of the air. She fell towards the ground, but before she hit the dirt, a loud pop and whooshing sound rang out. Then, her eyes widened as everything suddenly went white and a tingling sensation flowed throughout her body. She struggled to move, but found she could not do anything. Her last thoughts were garbled by fear as she lost all sensation and blacked out.


***


	Jaunty fiddle music and loud conversation filled the air as the Pokémon researcher stepped into the tavern and out of the storm. He took a deep breath as he looked around the bright room, a stark and welcome contrast to the inclement weather outdoors. He let the door swing shut behind him as he walked through the tavern, the familiar smells of alcohol and smoke in the air. He never cared much for such scents, but seeing as they came with the package of a warm and dry place to stay, he could not complain.

	He removed the hood of his big yellow raincoat as he walked along, revealing his long blond hair, and approached the bar. The bartender was crouching beneath the counter, his bald head the only part of him showing above it. But as the researcher drew near, the bartender happened to glance up and see him. He stood up and grinned widely, his several gold teeth shining in the light.

	“Vincent Free!” he said with a laugh. “Welcome back! Hope you weren’t out in the rain too long, mate.”

	Vincent sat on a barstool in front of the bartender and shrugged. “I wish I could say I wasn’t, but I hate to lie. It set in when I was pretty far out in the wilds, so it took me a while to get back.”

	“You were out there doing your bug catching again, I wager?” the bartender asked. When Vincent nodded, the bartender grinned. “You’re pretty determined to keep that up, eh? Well, I suppose if you’re gonna, this island be the best place to do that. Plenty of bugs here. But did you find anything good?”

	“Actually, yes,” said Vincent. “For once,” he added under his breath.

	“Beg pardon?”

	“Nothing. Anyway, like I said, I actually did catch something good today. I finally got a female Combee.”

	“Really?” the bartender said, raising his bushy eyebrows. “That’s surprising. How many followers did she have?”

	“None.”

	“What? I thought every female Combee had at least some followers.”

	“Well, this one didn’t. Maybe she just lost hers in a duel and didn’t have a chance to get any more before I caught her.”

	The bartender shrugged. “That seems likely. But I wouldn’t think much about it if I were you. I’d just be glad about it. I’ve had too many people come in here telling sob stories about getting chased across the whole island by an angry swarm of Combees when they tried to catch their warlord. Good to see you got lucky enough to catch yourself an outcast instead of a warlord, then. Speaking of, how did you manage to catch her, anyway?”

	“There’s not much to tell. I followed her and recorded her location and behavior, like usual, but she noticed me quickly and flew off. She almost got away from me, but I was able to throw a Quick Ball and get her.” He tapped the Poké Ball hung at his hip, where the female Combee was currently stored.

	The bartender nodded. “Well, lucky you. Them female Combee, and especially outcasts, are especially skittish around here. Not without reason, of course—life’s rough for them here, after all. Anyway, you best make sure you hang on to her, mate.”

	“Oh, I’m not planning on keeping her,” Vincent said with a shrug. “That would disrupt the ecosystem here. There are so few females on this island that we can't take any away from here. I’ll just do the research I need to and then release her when I’m done. I haven’t had a chance to get started on that research, though. Right after I caught her, this storm came in, and I had to get back to town.”

	“Aye. This island sure gets some nasty storms. I wouldn’t dream of walking about in one of them. Always best to let them blow over while you’re indoors. Preferably with a nice stiff drink to help you pass the time. Speaking of which: can I get you anything?”


***


	Less than an hour later, Vincent had returned to the meager hotel room he had rented during his stay on Comb Island and taken a seat at his desk in the cramped bedroom, filled with research equipment provided by his employers, the Bayview Institute of Pokémon Research. He reached towards his desk to pick up one particular piece of equipment, a black tablet with a touch screen called the Silph Scanner, and began navigating its menus to reach the scanning function that could record the information of the Combee he had just caught.

	“I sure got lucky back in the forest,” he murmured as he tapped the screen and prepared the scanner. He then set it down on the desk and reached for his hip to grab the Quick Ball with the Combee inside. He looked at it for a few moments, thinking back to the encounter with the female Combee and the chase to catch her.

	“I was starting to think I’d never find a female Combee,” he said, “but I’m glad I did. We don’t know too much about the females of this island, so this’ll definitely help my research. Speaking of which, let’s begin.”


***


	The Combee woke up to find herself lying on her side, on top of some kind of hard surface. She was looking at a plain beige wall, and as her mind began to clear up, she started buzzing her wings and got herself upright. She glanced around, rotating in place to take in her surroundings without taking off. She was clearly not in the wilderness anymore. She had been brought somewhere else, to an enclosed space well-lit by a single large light on the ceiling. The room was cluttered, and contained several objects that she did not recognize.

	As she continued to look around, she happened to turn about and realized with a shock that she was not alone. A male human was sitting close by, looking right at her. She hovered back a few inches, staring up at the human in surprise. She had seen them before, but this was the closest she had ever been to one, and she was slightly surprised to find that she was not dead yet. Perhaps the horror stories she had been told about humans were not completely true.

	“Looks like you’re awake,” he said. “That’s good. Hopefully I can get going on my research now.”

	The Combee looked up at him with a combination of fear and confusion. She could understand his words, like almost all Pokémon, but she did not know quite what he meant by “research”. Was he planning to hurt her? And if he did, how could she stop him? She was just a lowly Combee, unable to do much of anything on her own, in contrast to the human, who was able to completely incapacitate her back in the forest through a means she still did not know. Clearly, this human was a force to be reckoned with. Her inability to fight whatever he wanted to do made her shudder.

	The human paid no heed to her nervousness, and simply picked up a thin black rectangular slab from the surface the Combee hovered over. He tapped the slab a few times, looked at it closely, and turned to the Combee.

	“Now, hold still,” he told her. She froze up and hovered in place motionlessly, less out of obedience and more out of fear of what that device could do. He was clearly planning to do something with the black slab, but the Combee could not imagine what. Would it make her black out like she had earlier? Or would it do something far worse? Her breathing quickened, and she glanced about the room for an escape route, not caring about the human’s order. She did not want to stay around to find out what his device did.

	The Combee’s six wandering eyes finally fell upon a window set in the wall across the room. The window was open and revealed an overcast sky, and the Combee believed that if she moved quickly, the window could serve as a way to escape this human. And so, once the human raised the rectangular item in front of his face, the Pokémon took her chance to flee as soon as his view of her was blocked.

	In a flash, she took off, zooming through the air towards the window. But before she could reach it, she heard a shout from behind her, followed by a whooshing sound like the one she had heard earlier, after being struck in the forest. An instant later, the same thing that had happened back then occurred again: the world turned white; her whole body tingled; and then, despite her best efforts to remain conscious, she blacked out.


***


	Vincent looked at the Quick Ball and sighed as the Combee was drawn into it. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t act like this,” he muttered. “Let’s try this again.”

	He clicked the button on the ball, releasing the Combee again. She appeared from an amorphous blob of energy and looked around in surprise. She soon happened to turn about, and as soon as her eyes fell on Vincent again, she started and spun around, trying a second time to flee out the window. Vincent simply raised the ball and clicked the button, hinging it open and drawing the Combee inside again. She buzzed angrily as she was morphed into energy and forced back into the Quick Ball. As soon as it clicked shut, Vincent reopened it. The Combee reappeared facing away from him, and quickly spun around to glare at him, her six eyes turning red and all three of her mouths frowning.

	“Alright, first, thanks for not trying to flee again this time,” he said to the angry Pokémon hovering a foot in front of his face. “Apparently you’re a quick learner. And second: I should probably have told you this earlier, but I don’t mean you any harm.”

	That surprised the Combee, as her eyes returned to their normal darker hue and she tilted her whole body to the side, her own version of cocking her head in confusion.

	“I’m sorry for not telling you that earlier,” Vincent continued, “but I thought you wouldn’t be so afraid, and I didn’t want to waste any time explaining things. But since I can see you’re nervous about all this, I’ll tell you who I am and what I’m doing here: I’m a Pokémon researcher, here to study and learn about the Pokémon on this island. I’m not here to hurt them. My job is just to research the Pokémon here, in the hopes that what I learn can benefit humans and Pokémon alike. That’s why I caught you. Now that you’re here with me, I can study you and do some tests with you, and the information I get can help a lot of people. So, even though you might be afraid of being with a human, please don’t cause trouble, and don’t worry. I won’t hurt you, and with your help, humans and Pokémon could both benefit.”

	Vincent fell silent and waited for the Combee to respond. As he waited, she did little more than eye him warily. She remained somewhat suspicious of him, but the human’s words made her more inclined to cooperate. If nothing else, staying would let her see if he was telling the truth. She hovered up and down again to show that she agreed with the human and would not cause trouble. Vincent saw this and smiled, and then he raised the Silph Scanner in front of his face again. He tapped the screen and activated its scan feature, preparing to scan the Combee.

	“I’m glad you’re willing to help me,” he said. “I appreciate that. Now, I’ll begin by scanning you real quick. It won’t hurt. I’ll just shine light on you and record your stats. Don’t move too much, though, or else this won’t work.”

	The Combee stayed in place, choosing to trust the human instead of fleeing again. Seeing as he had yet to make a truly aggressive move against her, other than hitting her with whatever he had thrown at her back in the forest, she was more inclined to believe his words and stay put to see what the human did. As she stayed in place, Vincent tapped the screen a few more times, and a small beam of blue light emerged from the emitter on the back of the tablet and shined on the Combee. It remained on her for a few seconds before shutting off and transmitting its findings to the screen. Vincent looked over them, reading the stats aloud.

	“Level 15 Female Combee. Careful Nature, highly persistent. Ability, Honey Gather. Moves are Sweet Scent, Gust, and Bug Bite.” He shrugged. “Well, nothing too surprising there. But it’s good to have that logged. Now that I’ve done that, we should move on to the next part of the study.”

	He turned off the Silph Scanner and placed it back on the desk before leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms, and glancing out the window. He noted that the rain had yet to start again, leaving the sky merely overcast instead of rainy. He looked back at the Combee, who was still hovering in place over his desk. “Since the storm seems to have blown over, maybe we could head out for some battling,” he said. “Part of my research requires me to see how you can perform in combat. How do you feel about that?”

	The Combee shuddered, and Vincent raised an eyebrow in confusion.

	“Wait, you don’t want to fight?” he asked. The Combee bobbed up and down, simulating a nodding motion to show that Vincent was correct. “Why? Is it because you’re afraid?”

	The Combee bobbed again, and the researcher put a hand to his chin. “Well, that’s not too surprising,” he said. “You are a lone Combee, after all. And on this island, that’s a rarity. Considering you’re a female, I presume you’re alone because you lost your followers in a duel, right?”

	The Combee lowered her gaze, and Vincent could guess at her meaning. “I thought so,” he said. “I knew that a Combee wouldn’t willingly go it alone on this island. Based on what I’ve learned about this place, it seems like your kind needs to gather in groups here to survive. And since you’re all alone, then that means you’re in constant danger.”

	The Pokémon looked up again, preparing to respond to his statements by bobbing up and down to show that he was correct. However, she noticed that the human was smiling, and that made her pause.

	“But not anymore,” the human said. “You’re with me now, and trust me—I’m definitely going to do my best to help you out. You’re my research subject, after all. It wouldn’t be good to let you get hurt too badly out there.”

	The Combee stared at him, her emotions partway between surprise and confusion. Her thoughts were racing: “He wants to help me? Really? But I’m an outcast! I’m worthless until I can prove my strength again. Is he really going to help me even though I’ve lost my followers and still haven’t proven myself again? Do humans really have such a different way of looking at things?”

	But as she thought this, she realized that the human’s promise to help her, though odd in her opinion, was actually very timely for her. She was desperate for a companion, having been an outcast for a few days, each of which was spent searching in vain for followers to join her while she struggled to survive on her own. It was not the first time that she had known the loneliness that came from losing followers, but it still hurt her. She had spent too many nights sleeping alone, without any friends nearby, and only the deadly forest to keep her company. She felt like she could not handle any more. She could not last long as an outcast, so having an ally would be very useful. Even if that ally happened to be a human, having an ally would lift her out of her outcast status, and greatly increase her odds of survival.

	“As long as you stay with me and don’t go running off, you’ll be safe,” the human said, snapping the Combee from her thoughts. “And that includes when we’re fighting wild Pokémon. Although it seems you’re afraid of that sort of thing, you shouldn’t run into too much trouble. I’ll make sure you don’t get too badly injured, and if the going gets rough, I even have some other Pokémon with me that are able to support you. So, what do you say? Will you go out and fight to help me with my research?”

	The Pokémon hesitated. Though she would like having an ally, she still did not know what to think about this human and his insistence on helping her despite how she had recently been dishonored and become outcast. A Combee receiving support in such a state was an alien kind of thing to her. Still, she could comprehend that humans, being a different species from her entirely, might well have different customs and ideals. As such, though she was still somewhat perplexed by his kindness, she resolved to not refuse it. She instead simply bobbed up and down again to show that she agreed to join the human.

	“Thanks,” Vincent said with a smile. “I’m glad you’re willing to help me out. I really hate when I run into a Pokémon that I need to do research on, but it doesn’t cooperate. It’s good to know that you don’t want to hinder me.”

	He paused, and his smile faded. “Actually, before we get going with more research, there’s one more thing I want to take care of. Since we’re going to be together for a little while, I feel like should give you a name of some kind. I’m not really the most imaginative guy, though, so I was planning to just use a codename, like I’ve given the other three Combee I’ve caught on this island before you. Unless you despise it, I’ll start calling you Comb Island Specimen 4—CIS4, for short.”

	The Combee bounced up and down in the air to show her agreement. In actuality, she felt ambivalent about the name, but she did not want to try to argue with the human, seeing as she could not easily suggest anything else to him—after all, everything she could say would just sound like buzzing to his ears.

	Vincent nodded back at her, glad to see her accept her new name. “Good. Also, I feel I should mention that my name is Vincent Free. Nice to meet you.”

	As he spoke, Vincent picked up the Quick Ball he had used to catch the Combee and put a finger on its button. “Now let’s get a move on, CIS4. I’ll call you into this ball and go battling back in the forest. Ready?”

	Vincent noticed that the Combee was looking at the ball nervously, glancing back and forth between it and him, and he realized that she had probably never seen a Poké Ball before today and had no idea what it did. He had used it on her a few times, and done so repeatedly when she made her escape attempts just recently, but she was likely still unsure what it was or what exactly it did. She might have even not noticed that the ball was what he had used to stop her from escaping. He thought that she might be afraid of going into one, and if that was the case, he felt like he had to think carefully about how to convince her to let him use it on her.

	“This won’t hurt you,” he said. “This is just a method for me to transport you around easier. If I use it on you, I’ll be able to keep you safe inside it and take you with me, instead of leaving you outside. And besides, you’ve already been in here before. This is what I used on you back in the forest, and what I used to stop you from escaping here.”

	CIS4’s eyes went wide as he said this. If he was telling the truth, then that was proof that the ball would not hurt her. It would cause a strange sensation and make her black out, but she would not be harmed. That made her more inclined to agree with the human. And besides, she would not be able to resist him if she refused and made him angry enough to force her into the ball.

	As such, she chose to play along, and bobbed up and down to show that she was willing to let the human use the ball on her. He smiled at her and thanked her, then clicked the button on the ball. It hinged open and emitted a beam of energy that washed over the Combee. She felt the same sensation that she had the several times that she had entered the ball before, and then she felt nothing else. Her last thoughts were filled with worry about the ball and the human’s plans for her, but a bit of hope cut through her fears. She was no longer an outcast, and even though she felt like she could not fully trust a human who treated her strangely and had access to such strange devices, she was still happy to not be alone anymore.


***


	The ball clicked shut and sealed CIS4 inside. Vincent looked at it for a moment. He and this Combee had gotten off to a rocky start, he thought, but it seemed like she was slowly warming up to him. She trusted him enough to let him use the Silph Scanner and the Quick Ball on her. Hopefully that trust would only grow in the future.

	He attached the ball to his belt, opposite the other two Poké Balls that he wore on his hip already. Those balls contained his other two Pokémon he had brought along on this trip: a Weavile, his starter and strongest Pokémon, with whom he had gone on many missions and travels; and a Scyther, given to him by the Institute to aid him in this specific assignment. He hoped he would not have to deploy either of them to help CIS4 in combat, but he knew that it might be required to keep the Combee safe.

	He knew that such a task might be hard, considering how weak Combee typically were, so he took a deep breath to mentally prepare himself for the next step of his assignment. However, before he got up from his desk and set off into the wilderness again, he recalled that he had one last task to complete. He grabbed his laptop, turned it on, connected it via USB cable to his Silph Scanner, and began copying the information obtained from the Combee into the laptop. At the same time, he reached into his pocket, withdrew his cell phone, and called the number of the researcher back at the Bayview Institute with whom he was collaborating.

	After a few seconds of ringing and waiting, the familiar and rather monotone voice of a tired-sounding young woman came through the phone. “Hello?”

	“Hey, Susie, it’s Vince.”

	“Oh, hey. How’s the research going?”

	“Not bad, actually. In fact, I’m calling to give you some good news: I just caught a female Combee.”

	That caused a slight hint of emotion to enter her voice. “Really? That’s lucky. Did you scan her yet?”

	“Yeah, and I’m about to send you the data once I finish transferring it to my laptop.”

	“Great. We’ll analyze it once we get it. And while we log that data, you can just do the same stuff you’ve done with your other Combee. Take her out battling and study her. Observe how well she does, how she follows orders, the usual.”

	“And what about the... physical samples?” asked Vincent.

	“I heard that,” said Susie.

	“Heard what?”

	“That hesitation. Like you had to force yourself to say it: physical samples. You’re still squeamish about taking them?”

	“Can you blame me?” said Vincent. “I just hate having to knock out Pokémon if it isn’t for training. It just makes me feel bad to knock one out and then start messing with the body, drawing their blood, plucking their fur or feathers, stuff like that.”

	“Yeah, but still, they give us beneficial data. And it’s safer than using tranquilizers, because we don’t know the proper dosage for a lot of these Pokémon, and it’s much better than leaving the Pokémon conscious while you take the samples. Unless you want them to get scared and hurt, and you to get attacked, that is.”

	“Of course not. But what should I do to get this Combee’s samples? Same thing as with the three males I caught before her?”

	“Exactly,” said Susie. “Send her into battle and let her get knocked out, then extract the hemolymph you need. Better than attacking her with your own Pokémon to knock her out. That way she doesn’t hate you for it, and we still get our data.”

	Vincent disliked the idea of sabotaging his own Pokémon, but he thought that it sounded like the best way to get the samples. And after all, it had worked while he was studying his other Combee from before. And so he simply said, “Fine, I’ll do that. I hate to have to do it, but I will. Is there anything else you have to tell me?”

	“Actually, there’s one more thing you need to know,” said Susie. “Because this Combee is female, there’s a special sort of research we want you to do with her. Among the supplies we gave you, in one of the cases of empty syringes, there’s a special syringe with a mixture already inside. You can’t miss it. It’s the one labeled ‘Top Secret’.”

	“Oh. That one. I was wondering what it was for.”

	“Well, now you’ll find out: it contains something called Rare Elixir. It’s a mixture of chemicals derived from Rare Candies. See, the Institute is studying Rare Candies and trying to determine what exactly about them makes Pokémon grow stronger. To that end, they concocted a mix and put it in that syringe, and they told me to authorize you to use it on a female Combee if you found one, so we can see how she reacts and whether it improves her ability to evolve.”

	“Why wasn’t I told about it before I left?”

	“We didn’t tell you about it at first because we wanted to wait to see if you could capture a female Combee first. The label’s a bit melodramatic—it’s not exactly top secret, but it’s not something we really want to get out in the open because it’s still experimental. So we wanted to keep it under wraps and not explain what it was until we had a reason to use it. Now that we do have a reason, you’re authorized to use it on her. But there’s one catch.”

	“What?”

	“Based on the research we’ve conducted with it here, it appears to cause pain if used on a conscious subject. If the subject is unconscious, there are no signs of any pain. As such, we want you to ensure that the Combee is unconscious before injecting her with the Rare Elixir.”

	Vincent turned all this over in his head. “Alright, just to make sure I’ve got all this straight: you want me to take the Combee out battling and observe how she does. But in addition, you want me to let her get knocked out at some point so I can extract some hemolymph from her and also inject her with the Rare Elixir without causing her any fear or pain.”

	“That’s right. And once she’s injected, try to get her to evolve and see how that goes. With luck, she’ll evolve much sooner.”

	“Alright, sounds good,” said Vincent, though he only partially meant it. He disliked having to sabotage his own Pokémon, but if it was for science, he felt he had no choice. “Anything else? Or can I get going now?”

	“That’s all,” Susie replied. “Goodbye and good luck.”

	The call ended, and Vincent let out another long sigh. Contemplating what he was about to do, the researcher detached his Silph Scanner from his laptop and sent off the data obtained from the Combee. He then stood from his desk, grabbed all his necessary equipment, and left his room to set off into the overcast afternoon. Though he disliked the thought of deliberately pushing the Combee too far and making her faint, it was the best way to make her unconscious so he could do what he had to do, and so he steeled himself and went on his way.

	He just hoped that, if she ever found out about it, she would forgive him.


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