5 Rules and Regulations

"Empoleon Express? You'd think they'd at least use a pokemon that could actually fly like I don't know, a Staraptor?"

"W-well I think it was something to do with the owner having an Empoleon? Or at least that's what mom told me. She said it was called Piplup Express in the beginning."

"Adorable... So how long will they take to deliver the stuff? I didn't quite catch your conversation before"

"They said by tomorrow, Empoleon Express is known to do next-day delivery! They always say it in their adverts!"

Mark was walking down the same main street that Jason had walked down before. But this time instead of looking like a tourist, Mark seemed to know exactly where to go to reach the PokeCenter.

"So if you know where most places are in town, why did your mother make a map for you?" Jason asked as he moved from reflection to reflection, trying to keep up with Mark.

"I-I don't just know where places are in Sandgem. I've studied the entire map of Sinnoh! Cool huh?" Mark said proudly as he made a left turn "But mom doesn't trust me by myself so she always makes sure I have a map with me"

And in a flash, they reached the PokeCenterand it was huge. Twice the height of the Mart from before the 6 floors felt massive in a town that only had buildings that had at most 5 floors.

"Why do they even need a PokeCenter that big? Don't they just treat pokemon?"

"O-Oh umm no. They treat both pokemon and humans alike. And they give accommodation to trainers visiting the town for a short period. Tourists usually go for an Inn or hotel instead though."

"Right so it's a hospital and hotel all in one. Waking up to see the lobby full of sick pokemon and people probably isn't the most enjoyable experience I'd imagine."

As Mark walked into the building, Jason looked at the interior using the CRT TV he had given him a 3rd-person perspective. Right smack in the middle of the lobby was a counter with a Nurse Joy sitting, waiting to attend to visitors. Behind her was a Chansey busily moving something under the counter.

Filling up the space we're benches filled with all types of people. Some seemed to be there just to chat with friends, some were people waiting for their pokemon to be healed, and others seemed to just enjoy being in a heated indoor area away from the chilly weather outside.

Mark walked up to the counter to ask something from Nurse Joy. Jason noticed how similar the Nurse Joy looked to how they were in the games, with the pink hair with the circular curls behind her and the blue eyes. Jason wondered if every Nurse Joy looked the exact same here, or if there were any differences between them. He looked around the lobby to confirm this but didn't see any other Nurse Joy around.

"Yes there's a private terminal available, it appears that you're not a registered trainer yet, correct?" Nurse Joy asked and Mark nodded in response. "Then you're free to book the terminal free of charge, but you're only allocated 1 hour as per the rules."

"Yes, miss! I've been here before." Mark replied.

"Ah, I can skip the introduction speech then. The terminal room is on the east wing on the second floor, your terminal is E1-5." The nurse joy smiled and handed Mark what looked to be a plastic keycard with the characters 'E1-5' printed on it.

Mark started walking to the corridor on the right and found the lift lobby. Jason couldn't find a reflective surface in the lift lobby, but once Mark entered the lift there was a mirror for him.

"I've always wondered why lifts had mirrors in them. But anyways Mark, we need to find everything we can about Jirachi. And if we have time look for information about Celebi and Dialga!"

"You mentioned Jirachi before, but never about Dialga and C-celery?"

"Celebi! A time-traveling pokemon from Johto. Look if the whole Jirachi thing ends up failing, maybe we can use pokemon that can warp time to get us back to before you made that wish and stop you from doing it!"

Mark's eyes widened, and the thought of time traveling boggled his mind. "Yeah that sounds good, o-ok I just need to find our booth."

Looking at the booths on this floor reminded Jason of those Asian Internet cafes that his friends used to bring him to. Scanning through what he could see he found what they were looking for.

"Ah E1, it's on your left"

"Oh, I see it!" Mark walked down the hall and arrived at the booth marked 'E1-5'. The inside of the booth was pretty small, only able to just fit one adult person inside. There was a stool for you to sit on, and in front of it was a computer. Jason was immediately reminded of those really fat computers you'd see back in the 90s that used floppy discs. Mark took out the mirror they had bought previously and place it on the table.

"This is what we're gonna use to find information? This thing looks ancient!" Jason said as he looked at the terminal "Don't tell me it's gonna take a minute to load a page."

"No it's fast to pop up what we need, you just can't play any games on it." Mark replied, "I have a friend who tried to get a game on the terminal but he got in big trouble so it's a no-no..."

"Nevermind we're getting a bit sidetracked here and the clock is ticking. Why don't you start searching for Jirachi"

Mark nodded and started opening up an application on the terminal. A search bar popped up with a logo at the top reading 'Information Database' and paused before he could even start typing.

"Ermm, Jason? I-I don't know how to spell Jirachi..."

"Right I forgot you didn't know about it. Do you know at least one legendary pokemon?"

"The only ones I know of are the lake spirits from a trip I went with mom to Celestic Town. Like Mesprit that lives in Lake Verith nearby."

"Does the pokemon Dialga and Palkia ring any bells?"

"I-I don't think so..."

Jason sighed as he looked at Mark, if the kid only knew of the lake spirits he'd doubt the kid understood how ridiculous the current situation they were in was. He started the question of whether he'd be able to even return home at this rate.

"Fine, let's see if we can find anything out through this pokemon database thing. So type in J-i-r-a-c-h-i"

Mark typed in the following characters and hit search. It only took a second to load, and what appeared was an article for the pokemon Jirachi. But what concerned Jason was the amount of text on the screen. There wasn't much, and there wasn't even a photo of Jirachi. Only a picture of a crudely carved drawing of a star on a stone slab.

Pokemon: Jirachi

Type: ???

Region Discovered: Hoenn

Tags: [Mythical Pokemon]

'During an excavation of ruins found in Hoenn led to the discovery of a pokemon that was unknown to professors in the region. They had unearthed a carving of an odd shape star with a circular object above it that looked to be falling down from the sky. In the ruins there were more carvings using words, calling the star pokemon Jirachi, the millennium star.

The carvings say that Jirachi would come and grant the wishes of one filled with great emotion. There is however no other mention of the pokemon Jirachi that has been found as of yet. Some professors have come out claiming the pokemon in the carving was of a Staryu and not a new pokemon. But carvings of Staryus were also found in the same ruins and were accurate depictions of the water pokemon.

A festival held in Hoenn called the Millennium Festival celebrates the Millenium comet that was found by Astrology professors to fly over the night sky every Millennium. After the discovery of Jirachi was announced to the public, locals claim that Jirachi was linked to the Millennium comet and has celebrated the mythical pokemon during the festival.'

[Mythical Pokemon: Justifying The Documentation Of Myths]

[Importance of the Jirachi Findings]

[The Comet Temple Ruins, Findings, and Their Sources]

[The Millenium Comet: Breakthrough in Astrology]

Upon clicking on the top three articles showed a locked page on the screen. It required some kind of authorization to access these articles. The only ones that could be accessed were the last article about the comet. But it didn't mention anything about Jirachi, though the Millenium festival appeared a couple of times.

"Restricting access to knowledge? Just great..." Jason muttered as he looked through the article again. "Millennium festival? That seems familiar, search that one."

Mark nodded and searched for it. A much longer article appeared with pictures showing a festival at night filled with people walking past food stands.

Name: Millennium Festival

Region held: Hoenn

Tags: [Festival]

'The Millennium Festival is a week-long festival held in the Hoenn region in the outskirts of Lilycove City. The festival celebrates the Millenium comet that appears in the sky every Millennium and is said to bring good luck to people who make a wish on the 7th day of the festival. The festival is held on the week when the millennium comet would have been able to be seen on the second week of December.

Upon the discovery of a carving depicting the pokemon Jirachi, locals have taken it upon themselves to link Jirachi with the Millennium comet due to the comet found on the carving. This has resulted in many merchandises created based on the carving of Jirachi. The Millennium comet hasn't been documented yet, but experts claim the Millennium is projected to arrive within the next decade.'

[The Millenium Comet: Breakthrough in Astrology]

[Region Festivals: Shaping a Culture]

"T-the 2nd week of December..." Mark muttered as he read the article.

"Your mom said that the camp is next week, so that would mean this week is the third week." Jason said, "So when did you make that wish?"

"T-today is the first day of the week..." Mark replied, "A-and I made the wish Y-yesterday night..."

"So this is either an extreme coincidence or this Millennium Comet week is really related to Jirachi..." Jason said with a frown. "It says it'll appear again within the decade. That other article also said the same thing... so if we wanted to check the comet out we'd have to visit Hoenn every year for a decade?"

Jason scratched his head as he started going through scenarios. If they were unlucky this comet would appear the latest 10 years from now according to these 'experts'. But even then, would this comet actually be the ticket to finding Jirachi? What if this whole thing is completely unrelated to it? Heck, the article only mentioned that the locals believed it, but didn't mention anything about what the professors think.

With the amount of information they had on Jirachi available, their chance of even finding it was close to zero. That's unless this comet thing somehow summons Jirachi.

"Hey kid, are you able to travel to another region by yourself?"

"N-no it's not that easy to travel around regions. I heard you need to be a certain number of badges to do that. That's why mom never brought me out of the Sinnoh..."

"A certain number of badges? Did your world decide to say fuck you to tourism or something?"

"W-we can check the requirements on here! Y-yeah let's do that"

Mark opened a different application and pressed a tab labeled 'Region-Region Travel'. On it was a wall of text detailing rules and regulations for traveling. The number of things on it was staggering, it included submitting a document indicating the pokemon you were going to be traveling with, stating where you were traveling, the conduct you need to have while in another region, and identification of the region you were from to be kept on you at all times during the visit.

The rules and regulations felt extremely constricting, but what Jason was shocked by was the requirements even be able to travel.

'A traveler must have either one of the following documents to be allowed access to region-region travel:

- At least 5 Badges obtained in the Traveller's home region.

- Has a company signed a letter of approval for region-region travel (List of registered companies here)

- Has the head professor of the region signed a letter of approval for region-region travel (List of approved head professors of each region here)

- Has a valid Pokemon League Travel Pass (More information here)

Failure to provide any of the listed documents will result in rejection to travel.'

"Five badges?" Jason muttered as he tried to remember the gym leaders of the Sinnoh Region "Kid, what's usually the most amount of badges someone gets?"

Mark quickly searches for it and found that Sinnoh had one of the better statistics for the percentage of trainers with 5 or more badges with a 20% of current active trainers having it. But the more badges you go the percentage drops drastically. The number of people who had 7 or more badges was only 1.1% and those who had all were only in the hundreds. But looking at the statistic for just last year gave quite a bleak image. A total of over 10,000 trainers attempted gym challenges during that entire year. But those that got badges 5 or higher were only a few hundred. It seemed like this whole gym circuit would take longer than just 1 year.

Looking at other regions, most like Kanto, Unova, Johto, and Kalos were similar in overall percentages to Sinnoh but Johto had an odd drop in badge owners when it came to getting 2 or more badges. The region with the worst amount of trainers with 5 or more badges was Hoenn with only 5% of current active trainers getting past the 5th Gym. They however had much more trainers getting the 7th badge at 4%, only dropping massively at the 8th badge with only a few hundred people having obtained it.

Searching more about the travel rules gave them more information. For example, the company letter of approval is available to employees once every year to go on vacation as part of working for the company. The head professor's letter of approval is meant for researchers to do fieldwork or do collaborations with other regions. And the last one is the Pokemon League Travel Pass.

If you were a citizen of the Alolan Region you have been given this pass automatically when you reach the age of 15. This pass is also available to trainers who settled down in their home region and had children there.

"Ah, mom is originally from Kalos so she wouldn't be able to get the Travel Pass," Mark said as they finished reading. "And dad..."

Looking at this, the only way for them was to get 5 gym badges so they could travel to Hoenn and see the festival. But looking at the statistics, their chances didn't look very good.

"Alright, I guess we need to get 5 gym badges as quickly as possible." Jason said as he thought about a plan "If that's the case the camp your mother got us into will be important. A good starter would get us a good head start."

"Y-yeah!" Mark replied hesitantly, "B-but 5 badges? I-i don't know if I could do that..."

"We can do this," Jason said and muttered, "We've just got to be prepared, search for information about the gym leaders here it'll give us a better picture of what we're up against."

Mark didn't reply to Jason, only nodding meekly. He started searching for information on Sinnoh Gym Leaders but before they could see the page load a big window appeared on the screen.

[1 hour has passed. Thank you for using the Sandgem PokeCenter Terminal E1-5. Your available hours are now 0, this will be reset after 24 hours. We hope to see you again!]

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