Chapter 219: Fourth Life, Starting Off Starving
His consciousness was muddled.
This feeling... Will was already used to it.
But this time, it felt like he had just had a normal nap. It didn't even feel like he'd been asleep for long.
A gentle breeze brushed past his ear, and leaves rustled.
He opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was the blue sky.
He shifted his gaze, and his expression slowly froze.
He realized he was in... a pit?
That wasn't important. For now, Will didn't care where he was.
"Ugh... I feel like I've been reborn as some incredible creature," Will muttered, lying flat as he took stock of his new body.
He had feet. But... seemingly no legs.
He had hands. But... they were flat.
And...
Will shifted his gaze downward and... he could see his own mouth?!
It was a beak.
He hurriedly checked his personal status panel.
"Piplup?!"
When Will saw the panel, he felt like the sky was falling.
The impression Piplup had left on anime fans was far too deep. It was the number one unlucky one.
Piplup was constantly getting blasted by Gible's Draco Meteor, so much so that Draco Meteor had earned the fan nickname "Piplup-seeking Missile." A random Trainer's Empoleon got one-shotted by a Meowth, and another was humiliated in a major battle, losing to a move it should have resisted four times over.
Even in the games, it had a permanent black mark on its record from losing to a Mudkip.
Calling it the most tragic Water-starter of all time wasn't an exaggeration.
However, the reason Will felt the sky was falling wasn't just because he'd been reborn as a dumb-looking little penguin.
After all, Piplup's final evolution, Empoleon, still had some status.
In the games, Empoleon's stats, ability, and move pool weren't ideal; it was mostly just a support tank. Most importantly, it had no Mega Evolution. The only thing it had going for it was the unique Water/Steel typing.
But those were just the games.
Will knew very well that in reality, you couldn't judge a Pokémon's potential by game standards alone.
Take Empoleon. Just because it didn't have a Mega Evolution in the games didn't mean he couldn't achieve it. And Empoleon's terrible speed disadvantage could be fixed with a move like Extreme Speed. Add in that insane typing—2x resists eight types, 4x resists two, and is completely immune to Poison—and Empoleon's prospects were actually quite good.
If you just compared Sceptile and Empoleon, the latter's development path was definitely smoother.
But here was the problem.
The "Potential" on Will's status panel was "White."
As a Sinnoh starter, Piplup had base stats of 314. Based on his past lives, Will's potential should have been "Blue" at the very least.
This meant his talent in this life was terrible!
In his last life as a Treecko, maybe twenty battles were enough to evolve into Grovyle. This life, forty battles might not even be enough to evolve into a Prinplup.
He... he might even be a "problem child," incapable of evolution.
The only saving grace... was that he had inherited the incredibly versatile Aura Power.
Will struggled to get up. He tried to take two steps.
His body wobbled. Walking felt incredibly awkward, and it was hard to keep his balance.
His legs were too short!
He was basically using his butt muscles to move his feet, which was exhausting.
"Whoa, this...? I'm a Shiny."
Will looked down at his feet. It was only then that he noticed his color was different from the Piplup in the Pokédex.
A Pokédex Piplup was mainly sea-blue. But Will's body was a much lighter ice-blue.
This was clearly a Shiny Piplup!
"Where is this? A graveyard?"
Will scanned his surroundings. He saw seven or eight tombstones. It looked like he'd been born in some kind of graveyard. And seeing that the writing on the tombstones was similar, it was likely a human family's cemetery.
But what confused him was...
Who builds a graveyard in a pit?
He turned his body, looking all around. He was definitely in a rectangular pit, about three or four meters deep. The walls were made of white marble; it looked purpose-built.
"Hmm... I hear waves. The air is damp. I must be near the ocean."
"But the temperature is pretty high... Am I near the southernmost coast of the Sinnoh sea?"
"First, let's try to climb out. I know Sinnoh pretty well."
Having finished his analysis, Will walked to the wall and slapped his two flat... hands... against it.
He froze for two seconds.
???
Will pulled his flippers back, trying to "clench" them. He just watched as the front part of his "arm" folded.
...No way.
He put his flippers on the wall again.
He couldn't get a grip.
He couldn't grip at all! He had hands, but no fingers!
And...
Will looked down at his raised, webbed feet.
He couldn't even get a foothold.
His beak would hit the wall before his feet could. And if he tilted his head back, his upper body would lean back, and then his flippers couldn't reach the wall.
"What do I do?"
Will tried to lean against the wall to think. His forehead hit the stone first.
Ugh... Will was speechless.
This top-heavy, big-headed, short-legged little penguin.
How did this species even survive ancient times?
After five minutes of questioning his existence, Will resorted to the most primitive method.
"HELP!!"
"Piplup! Piplup~~"
A series of penguin squawks echoed from the pit.
Time slowly passed from day to night.
What baffled Will was that not only had no humans appeared, but not even a single Pokémon had shown up.
Had he been reborn on a deserted island? Otherwise, some passing Pokémon should have at least come to look.
Grumble...
Grumble...
His tummy rumbled.
As a baby Pokémon, Will was at an age where he should be eating every couple of hours. An adult Pokémon might eat two or three times a day, but it wasn't an exaggeration for a baby to eat eight, or even ten, small meals.
In his current situation, it wasn't just that he'd missed two or three meals.
He'd missed at least five or six.
"Am I going to starve to death here? Sigh..."
Will looked at the dark night sky and the spooky tombstones, sighing.
To think of his magnificent, world-saving last life... and this life, he was going to starve to death right at the start?
"This life has no talent anyway. Maybe I should just ram my head into the wall and end it. It's better than starving."
Will sat on the ground, his eyes vacant. This ridiculous penguin...
Suddenly, his gaze fell on the tombstones.
In front of one tombstone, there was some food. It looked fresh, probably placed there in the last day or two.
"Dude... eating offerings for the dead... that's just wrong."
Will shook his head, slapping himself twice.
If a wild Pokémon ate offerings, that was one thing. They didn't have a concept of "offerings"; they just saw food left on a rock.
But Will knew.
That said... Will still waddled over and sat down in front of the tombstone.
"Can I eat this? I'm so hungry..." Will asked the tombstone quietly.
In the Pokémon world, some spirits did linger near their graves. The chance was small, and Will figured he was just delirious from hunger, but he asked anyway.
Whoosh~
A sudden breeze blew past his face.
Will squinted.
When he opened his eyes again, a small berry on the tombstone's plate had been blown out of its dish and was rolling... right toward him.
Thwack.
The little berry hit his belly and stopped.
"...Thanks."
Will picked up the berry and bit into it.
When you were starving, even a normal berry tasted unbelievably sweet and juicy.
"Well then, I won't be polite about the rest. As for payment... I'll protect your descendants."
Will grabbed the other offerings and began to feast, starting his non-stop bragging.
"Don't mind the white-potential penguin, I'm actually amazing. In the future, Elite Four, Champion... that'll be no problem..."
Elsewhere.
An eight-year-old, cute, red-haired girl puffed her cheeks, stomping angrily up the mountain.
"Which bastard is yelling 'Piplup! Piplup!' in the middle of the night! Grrr, just let me find you, I'll teach you a lesson!"
Lorelei was wearing a pair of ice-blue cotton slippers and heading to the back mountain, holding a mop.
When she stormed into the back mountain, she followed the muttering voice to the graveyard and froze.
She saw a super-cute little penguin.
But the next second, that penguin became hideous in her eyes.
It was eating the offerings she had just left for her grandma this morning!
"How dare you! You little glutton, prepare to die!"
Lorelei didn't say another word, charging with the mop.
Will's ears twitched. He sensed the wind coming from behind him. Years of instinct made him immediately roll to the side.
However, his webbed feet slipped. He just flailed in place, and the mop poked him right in the forehead.
Ugh. Will was speechless.
This body's structure...
It was only slightly better than when he was a Weedle or a Dratini.
And even as a Dratini, he was carried around like a young master by Liz, Hestia, or Iris. When had he ever had to squirm on the ground?
After thirty years as an agile Sceptile, he just couldn't adapt to this clumsy body.
It seemed the Pokédex entry for Piplup—"It's a poor walker, so it often tumbles. It's very proud, so it always puffs out its chest"—wasn't just flavor text.
"Hmph! Look at you, you clumsy thing! How dare you steal my grandma's offerings! Take this!"
Smack! Smack! Smack!
The young Lorelei unleashed a frenzied mop-fu, whacking Will until he was knocked out cold.
Just then...
"Huh?"
Lorelei looked down at her chest, at the Poké Ball pendant her grandmother had left her.
It was a blue-and-white Poké Ball, a Dive Ball.
This type of ball made it easier to catch Pokémon that live in the water.
Lorelei looked at her grandmother's tombstone... and then at the little penguin passed out in front of it. Her eyes lit up!
"I get it! Grandma! This little penguin... this is a sign from you, isn't it!"
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