Chapter Text

(Being a reprint from the unpublished drafts of John H. Watson’s chronicles concerning his life with Mr. Sherlock Holmes)

In regards to non-fictional works, the art of story-telling calls for the appropriate balance of elaboration and suppression, with the aim of presenting to the reader a structured narrative pertaining to the facts, mindful of propriety, but never devoid of romance.

The constitutive elements of an adventure are the circumstances and their protagonists, both of which I endeavour to present in the correct order.

I am privileged enough to be one of the main characters of this story, in addition to being the vessel through which the events will be related.

I was born in the region of Galar during the reign of Her August Majesty Queen Victoria, from a family which was neither rich nor illustrious, and baptized under the name of John Watson.

In the wake of adulthood, I choose to pursue a career as a doctor of medicine and, in the year 1878, I completed my studies at the university of Wyndon, from which I was released with an admirable final evaluation and the responsibility to care for a Happiny. This Happiny, who I had named Murray after an old crony of mine, had for some years been assigned to me during training in the capacity of a personal collaborator and was now, as I myself was, about to embark on the practical side of the profession.

The promise of an occupation wasn’t however included in the honours granted along with graduation. For a man whose situation in life was such as my own, the financial barrier was a distinctive difficulty in the establishment of a medical practice, especially in the town. I was so left with no other alternative than to join Her Majesty’s Army in the quality of field surgeon.

The second Pashan war broke out and my regiment was stationed deep into the enemy’s country, where, in spite of the dire conditions in which life was to be consumed, I refined my academic knowledge and developed the high-level practical skills crucial to the realization of any competent physician.

A distinguished career laid in front of me, had not an unfortunate injury brought the prospect to a sudden alt.

Attending my duties on the battlefield, I felt a sudden, excruciable pain running throughout my body and I lost consciousness.

I woke up in my corps’ camp, lying on a cot and suffering. A nurse informed me that I had been hit by a discharge of multiple Electro Balls and had been gravely wounded on my left side, shoulder and leg. Murray, who had enlisted as my Pokémon orderly and whom I had trained to evolve into a Chansey in preparation for our stay in the army, with courage and devotion had succeeded in removing me from the enemy lines, thus saving me from the ultimate fate that can befall upon a man.

The pains of my convalescence were prolonged by a cursed fever. When my health was deemed irretrievably ruined and my person not able to be of any utility to the regiment, I was put on a ship to Galar, with leave to attend at the improvement of my health and the permission to bring my trusted Chansey along with me, as a supervisor of my hopefully continued recovery.

Being without a relation in the world, I gravitated towards the chaos and confusion governing the metropolitan area of Wyndon, the capital of our empire, with the expectation that movement and technological advancements would provide better opportunities in life than a seclusion in the country.

For a time, I lodged at a private hotel, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. Loneliness and caprice led me to the purchase of a finely bred Snubbull pup and, with an additional mouth to feed, I could no longer avoid the pursuit of a less expensive accommodation.

The other protagonist of this story is a man whose character is much more extraordinary than my own and to whom I was introduced thanks to a combination of fortune and external aid in the from a common acquaintance.

It must be said that the custody’s of a Happiny doesn’t come free of charges for the medical student. The Pokémon belongs to a substantially rare species, whose members are decidedly useful in their curative abilities and who, when brought up within the confines of an universitary facility, receive all the advantages of being educated in a modern establishment, furnished with the most up to date technical knowledge.

Every Happiny so raised is expected to be of service to society. This is achieved by having the Pokémon employed by its trainer as an assistant for a minimum number of years or having it returned to the university, in order to be independently relocated in a clinical institution. Occasionally, special arrangements might be accorded, in which the trainer can retain the guardianship of the Pokémon, but its capabilities must be exercised for the benefit of the system who procured and formed it.

Determined not to lose the company of my friend, I found myself limping on the pavement of the street leading to PatholoMew’s Hospital. The intention was to conclude a deal which wold allow Murray to offer her services in the premises for no more than a few hours a day, until I could return to serve in the army or find the means to open my own practise.

There I had the chance to experience the joy of encountering a familiar face and the pleasure of unexpectedly getting acquainted a stranger one.

The air seemed that of a very busy day at the hospital. It became apparent to me that I would have to join a fairly long queue to have a word with the clerk in the lobby. Confident in my knowledge of the building that for a full semester had been home to my studies, I decided to avoid the crowd and go directly to the administration’s front office.

The desk was unattended, therefore I sat on minimal bench from which I could control the situation and waited for a secretary to return.

A couple of minutes had passed when a tall man with a swift attitude marched up behind the desk with a set of keys and some other item wrapped under his arm, unlocked a door and entered into a small room, leaving the shutter open. I raised myself in preparation for his return, but, after a minute, I grew impatient and followed him inside.

The space appeared to be a window-less storage of sorts, prevalently filled with papers. The man had lit a oil lamp hanging from a shelf and was bent over a small table, going through some documents, while the set of keys rested next to his elbow and a jug of dark liquid.

“Good morning sir,” said I, “may I ask-“

“Please, do not mind me.” He spoke over me, without bothering to interrupt his activity.

“I would like an interview with recruitment manager regarding the placement of a Chansey in the hospital’s work force.” I continued. “I don’t have an appointment but I was hoping I could be received within the afternoon or get one scheduled before the end of the week. Can I refer to you?”

He seemed too preoccupied with his task to answer my query. As I would not leave, he must have perceived my confusion and turned towards me.

“You make yourself at home, but you don’t work here.” He stated. Although the room was dark, I could observe a twinkle in his expression, a curvature in the line of his lips. Then he selected one of the folders and replaced the others into a cabinet.

“I would just like to speak with someone in charge.” I said, with an ounce of self-defence.

Again, I waited for an answer, but the man’s attention had diverted to the jug upon the table; he examined it through the feeble light coming from the oil lamp and I realized that the content of the bottle was in fact blood. It seemed inappropriate to solicit a reply, so I prepared to leave, but, after some seconds, he lowered his eyes on me.

“The secretary is away for lunch, won’t be back for at least a full hour.” He said.

“Would you at least be able to tell me if this is the correct desk to relay my affair?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t work here either.” He smiled to me. After a moment, his eyes drifted from mines, he held the folder and the bottle of blood close to his chest and grabbed the keys with his right hand. “I have to return these before they are missed.” He said, shaking the key-chain. “And you’ll probably want to follow me out of this closet, as I’m about to lock it.”

I followed his instructions and hurried out, leaning on my cane. Once his business was concluded, he drifted off along the corridor, humming one the latest Psydovskij’s tunes. When he disappeared behind the corner, I tried to get one last peak of him through the windows and for some instants I could see that he had started waltzing his way through the hall, clasping the keys as the hand of a dancing partner.

I decided that my wait would be better spent in refilling my own stomach, so I headed towards the hospital’s canteen. Nor the place nor the food had changed much. As I was digging my spoon into a large bowl of puree, a shadow darkened my meal. Staring at me was the face of young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me during my internship.

“Is this not John Watson?” He greeted me.

He occupied the seat in front of mine with his own tray and we lunched together. In turn, we complained about our troubles, but, in the end, he was of much more use to me than I to him. He assured me he would personally seek the recruitment manager to see that I would be allowed to keep Murray under my roof.

“The hospital is severely understaffed. It cannot afford to hire any additional doctors, but the helping hand of a Chansey will sure be valued.” He said.

“Wouldn’t it be more convenient for the hospital if they were to remove Chansey from my custody altogether?” I asked.

“Surely, but we can stress out your prolonged need for a personal nurse for some other months at least. You require a companion.” He answered.

“Not only on behalf of my injuries. I’m running low on money and I am trying to solve the problem of finding comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.”

“What a fateful thing,” he cried, “you are the second man today that has used that expression to me.”

“And who was the first?”

“A strange fellow, working at the chemical laboratory.”

“I should like to get acquainted with him. But what do you mean by ‘strange’?”

“One might consider him queer in his ways.” Stamford said. ”He’s an enthusiast in some branches of science, but his ideas are pushed to excesses. A scientific mind that, in its intelligence, approaches cold-bloodedness.” He explained. “It was only last week that I walked on him to find a Zubat attached to his arm.”

“Draining the blood out of it?” Enquired I.

“That must have been the situation.”

“I suppose he is a student of medicine.”

“Not that I gather; that still doesn’t stop him from occupying a workbench for days on end when the fancy strikes him.”

Not intimidated by Stamford’s account, after finishing our meal, I let him lead me through the familiar corridors up to the laboratory. What a surprise was to discover that the person I had requested to meet was none other than the odd stranger I had stumbled upon not an hour before in that dark backroom.

Before we could announce our presence and state the reasons of our business, the man quickly interjected us.

“I would be ever so grateful to you both if you could refrain from creating any considerable distraction from my work.” He demanded, without raising his eyes from the microscope. “This is a turning moment in the history of toxicology, if you could please maintain absolute silence for about five minutes.” He then extended an arm and indicated some nearby stools for us to accommodate in. Stamford and I followed his instruction and patiently waited what was required from us.

This fellow, of whom I then knew so little and I was told so extravagantly, had not failed to make an impression on me during our first encounter and was certainly producing a fascinating one me now. He had quite an outstanding figure, rather over six feet, I reckoned, once standing, and excessively lean. His face sported some very prominent features. The polygonal frame hosted a pair of grey, determined eyes, a thin mouth and a markedly Talonflame-like nose, together in giving him an air of alertness and decision. I could see that his hands were tattered with stains and lesions, which I attributed to the bizarre experiments Stamford had related me about.

“Beyond expectations!” the curious man suddenly ejaculated. “Come! Come! You are both of the medical profession, you will be interested in knowing that you have just witnessed the invention of the ‘anti-venin’. It will soon be recognized as the most effective antidote against poison from the members of the Zubat family and the pioneering technique behind his creation will certainly open the doors for the development of other types of anti-venins. The existing antidotes are very unreliable, as I’m sure you will know.”

I was drawing near his space at the workbench, when he reached for me, put an arm around my shoulder and placed me before the microscope.

“Can you see how the blood has regained its viscosity? The quality of its coloration?” He asked of me expectantly, while his formidable countenance dissolved into a warm, almost joyful expression.

“Was it not so before?” I enquired.

“Not at all!” He cried. “Shall I repeat the test for your benefit? I assume you would know that the Zubat family is a species of hematophagous Pokémon, that is to say, they satisfy a good portion of their alimentary needs by the means of draining the blood out of other creatures’ systems. In order to do so, their fangs are equipped with ability to produce an anticoagulant substance, which permits the blood to become thinner and easier to extract. The quantity of poison exuded is normally minimal, but there are some factors which can contribute to make of it a lethal danger, such as the volume circulating in the organism, the strength of the Pokémon and the intent to hurt.”

He separated an inch of spare blood and released a number of drops into the sample, then placed it under the lens of the microscope.

“I have now contaminated this slide with Zubat poison.” He said. “You should see the ties in the blood getting looser.“

“And you found a way to reverse this process?” I interjected, while making use of my turn at the microscope.

“Precisely. The principle is akin to that of vaccines. If a creature is exposed long enough to minimal amounts of diluted poison, the body learns to develop what you might call an ‘immune response’. With an innovative reaction of my ideation, I was able to isolate the particles responsible for the restoration of the blood’s natural thickness and preserve them in a durable and portable solution.” His finger delicately lifted a small phial, containing a rather pinkish formula. “This is the anti-venin. I will drop a small quantity into the contaminated sample. Please observe.”

He had proceeded in liberating the hailed liquid into the slide, then placed my hand upon the eyepiece and remitted the full control of the instrument to me.

“The blood is condensing at a noticeable speed. A truly incredible phenomenon!” I cried, before relinquishing my position to Stamford.

“My congratulations! I told you, Watson, this was one clever fellow.” My companion commented.

“And now I shall have to test it on an actual person.” Holmes said.

“You should do that as soon as possible,” I complied, “such a remarkable discovery will substantially advance the science of medicine and society should be deprived of its applications for as short a time as feasibly possible.”

“I am not so fortunate in my ability to test my product with ease. You see, I do not aim to cure the common bites of a Zubat, there is no need for that. I created a powerful anti-venin to withstand the sharp deadly fangs of a Crobat, but the Pokémon is rare in the Galaric region and it will be long before I have the opportunity to inject the antidote into an ill-fated victim. I would test it on myself if I could, but, alas, that is not possible. Well, I think my harvest at the moment can supply for no more than few doses.”

The phial containing the anti-venin was in fact not ample. He divided its content into in three small flasks and was for a moment lost in contemplation.

“We came here on business.” Interrupted Stamford.

“I thought as much.” said Holmes cordially. “May I be so bold as to suggest that the gentleman you brought along with you has an interest in going halves with me?”

“The shot is a successful one.” replied Stamford. ”Dr. Watson, may I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

“You’ve been in Pashtan, I perceive.” Said Holmes, addressing me.

“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.

“Never mind,” he said, dismissing me “I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street, but I hope you are not adverse to smoke?”

“I do not mind it in the least,” I reassured him, ”I’m very partial to the pipe myself.”

“Forgive me for the misunderstanding. While I do smoke with perhaps an alarming frequency, my concerns were mostly directed at the presence of a Koffing I have kept for many years, from which I cannot fathom to part myself.”

“It actually makes me all the more comfortable, as I keep a young Snubbull with a terrible temper, who I would otherwise have many scruples to impose on anyone.”

“The violin then? Do you approve of it?”

“If you are as proficient in music as you are in your waltzes.” said I, remembering the lightness of his moves as he proceeded along the white lanes, slightly aware of the impropriety of my teasing. I could see that I had embarrassed him.

“Then it is all settled, that is if you like the rooms.” Holmes said, short of a murmur, adverting the conversation in a different direction. Then, after a pause, he’s mood changed considerably.

“If I want my the effectiveness of my formula verified sooner rather than later,” he continued, “it is no use for me to keep all existing samples in my possession. I shall post one of the bottles to my correspondent Dr. Corneliu Acula in Transylvania, where several zones can be found in which Crobat is a common enough inhabitant. One I shall keep to myself and the other…” He looked right into my eyes with a friendly mien and extended to me the last of the flasks. “I was thinking of giving it to you, as a present to get to know each other.”

“Are you trying to make me do your work for you?” Said I with a laugh. “I’ll let you now that I am extremely lazy.”

“On the contrary, I’m trying to woo you. I can see that you are a medical doctor, which means any remedy against poison could be of immense use to your profession. Were you to chance upon a wounded citizen who claims to have been attacked and bitten by a Crobat, you could inject them with my anti-venin, save the poor devil and gain the notoriety necessary to set up your own practice after news of it comes out to the papers.”

“Why would a Crobat happen to attack anybody in the very middle of the city?” I asked, half-jokingly, but then I grew suspicious on another count. This Sherlock Holmes was quite charming, but a tad too over informed. “And how do you know about my plans to open up a practice, have you researched me beforehand?”

“I have very precise reasons to expect such an attack to might occur.” He answered gravely, then continued “I must leave you now. We will meet tomorrow at 221B, Baker Street. Is teatime convenient to you?” I nodded as he talked. “It is a truly nice set of rooms. I don’t think you could be inconvenienced by it, seen as you have been used to sleep in a tent during your days in the military.” On that note, he dashed through the door and out of my view.

I turned to Stamford and asked “How could he possibly know I was in the military?”

We did meet the following day at 221B, Baker Street, and the flat was indeed as decorous and delightful as the shared quarters of two refined gentlemen lodging in Wyndon should be.

The living room was well illuminated by two large windows and a wooden reproduction of a Xerneas’ head, a foreign legendary Pokémon traditionally associated with life and nature, was hanging from the spot on the wall in between them. The ornament, Holmes told me, was given to him by his Kalosian grandmother. There were numerous mineral protrusions, covering each of its eight horns, which emitted a faint pleasant glow; they were cut from the colourful crystals formed on the rocks of Glittering Cave in the Kalos region and, when the light of the sun would withdraw in the evening, their intensity would grow brighter and fill the room with rays of seven different tonalities.

Two comfortable armchairs were situated near the lit fireplace, courtesy of Mrs. Hudson, the landlady. The sight of this picturesque reality laying in front of my eyes produced in my mind the prospect of a merry cohabitation; I could envision the delight of many a cosy night spent close to relaxing warmth emanating from the burning of logs, perhaps accompanied by one of my new comrade’s fine violin melodies.

Holmes showed me the adjoined bed-rooms in the back of the house and let me have the pick of the better, in lieu of my persistent frail health. He then came along with me as I returned to the hotel to communicate the end of my permanence and collect a few belongings of mine.

So dear were his manners towards me and so valued his assistance in my relocation, that, then and there, I could not doubt, if one were to look for me, I could be found right at the starts of a spectacular friendship.

As for the circumstances of our adventure, the first of many, I will soon lay them out for the reader to experience. I will attempt to put together all the good ingredients of an engaging story and one thing I can promise you – our events are romantic enough to call for suppression, rather than expansion.