Canalave City

In the Poke Center, I learn from a fellow traveler who picked up the strength "HM" in the same spot I did that defeating this city's gym leader is necessary to use the technique for moving boulders. This should make no sense, but I'm starting to understand how this world works. Excellent. I will defeat this gym leader and have Apsu move some boulders around for me. But first, to explore the city itself.

Canalave City seems to take its name from the word "canal." It functions as a port. Or rather, it used to. That's what one of the citizens says anyway. It was a hub of cargo transportation "in the old days." The "old days" couldn't have been that long ago, since there are some cargo ships sitting right there on the water. I can see them. I find a place called "Harbor Inn" but the door is, unlike almost every door I ever encounter, actually locked for once. Interesting.

One of the houses has a man claiming to be a "move deleter." He can make pokemon forget moves. This doesn't seem useful, but whatever. In another house, someone gives me a TM because I am a trainer. There's also a Poke Mart. I do need to stock up on supplies. I should remember to do that. A woman in the Poke Mart mentions something about "Iron Island." It might be worth checking out. I step onto the bridge and begin crossing the canal to reach the other side of the city. This seems like one of those points where Slave is going to run right into me. Ah, there he is.

As usual, Slave is one step ahead of me: he has defeated the gym leader. He's moving up in the ranks of trainers, but always tastes defeat when he goes up against me. I intend to make this battle no exception. I should have changed my team in anticipation of this, but the current team will do. He leads with Staravia. I set up two layers of toxic spikes (I've learned from previous battles that two seems to be the maximum). They won't hurt his Staravia, but he has five other pokemon. Staravia misses against Enki with take down, then uses double team. Next we exchange attacks. Aerial ace for Slave and Surf for me. Both pokemon are badly damaged. I switch Sekhmet in. Slave is clever, and sets up double team some more. Now his Staravia will be very hard to hit. Fortunately Staravia's attacks don't do much damage and Sekhmet finishes it off. Slave sends out Ponyta. I bring Enki back in. Ponyta does a little damage, but surf demolishes it. Next, I pit Hanuman against his Heracross. For some reason, Slave has his Heracross use the ineffective night slash against Hanuman. Two flame wheels put the bug down. Now Slave brings out his strongest pokemon: Prinplup. Sekhmet is faster and has a super-effective move, so this part is quite easy, really. Finally, with most of my team unscathed, Slave resorts to his last pokemon: Roselia. Too easy. The toxic spikes fail to poison Roselia (being a poison type and all). Flame wheel nearly ends the fight in one attack. Roselia retaliates with grasswhistle, putting Hanuman to sleep. Roselia uses leech seed. I switch Sekhmet in. Roselia uses giga drain. Slave knows he cannot win, but he's still trying to make a fight out of it. Or possibly he's delusional. I haven't ruled that out. Roselia defeats Sekhmet with giga drain due to a critical hit. Nanabozho ends things with a quick attack.

Slave, having been defeated at my hands yet again, tries to keep his spirits up.

"Yeah, yeah, you're just a bit better than me, as usual. But listen up! Let me tell you who's going to take on the Pokemon League and become the Champion. You guessed right! It's going to be me! Anyways, you should be able to take the Gym Leader here. Hurry up and go make the challenge!"

With that, he turns and runs back the way he came. I do intend to challenge the gym leader, especially now that I know I need his badge to move boulders. But first, I want to see the rest of this city. Is that a library? Yes! Excellent. The gym can wait. Finally, a city with a library. Books, books, books! Of course, the strange properties of this world won't let me actually pick any of them up, but it's still comforting to see them sitting there on the shelves. All of the books on the first two floors are impossible for me to pick up. Somehow, the third floor is different. I seem to be able to "read" one book on each unit of shelving here. But I can only really read what seems to be an excerpt and somehow I am compelled to reshelve the book instantly after that. Nevertheless, these books do give me some insight into Sinnoh. Apparently Sinnoh is absolutely soaked in mythology and superstition, which is consistent with what I've seen so far. Predictably many of these myths deal with pokemon. Most of the mythology seems to be folk stories on the relationship between humans and pokemon. Some of the myths deal with ancient beings that created the world. Having read everything I can here, I leave the library.

Barging into another house, I find a reporter from Jubilife TV wanting to interview me. Oh no, my trespassing has finally caught up to me. The police are waiting outside. Great. Nope, I was wrong. Enough of this. I move on. I meet a man who mentions Iron Island. The trainers in this city apparently go there to work out and to train their pokemon. I need to find a way to get there, though. Articuno doesn't know how to fly to any islands yet. I find a man with a boat who will take me to Iron Island for free. I just need to decide whether to do this before or after crushing everyone in the gym here. If the local trainers congregate there, perhaps I can learn their weaknesses before taking on the gym leader.

Before leaving, I change my team. Ninhursag replaces Enki for now. Inanna replaces Nanabozho. Khali replaces Kazza. The trip seems to take almost no time at all. I barge into a small house on the island. No one is home. Well, there is a cave here. I'm sure that's where the trainers are.