Questionable Questing

And maybe he also has a machine similar to the one that Bill had, with which he accidentally fused himself with a pokemon. Anyways, now you've got me thinking in another direction: humans are the pokemon breed with the most shinies, and the only one with more than one type of shiny (indeed, the shiny population is uncountable).

Bill's the guy you have to split from the pokemon he fused himself with in one of the games, right?

Though actually, it's already relatively known information in-universe that Humans are just the least poke' kind of Pokemon. Maybe his creepy contribution to science is discovering the means to awaken the normally inactive bits of Pokemon-ness in people's genes, like powers (of which only Psychic type survived in active form in the populace),

and vulnerability to the siren call of those berries.

I've only played the first two generations, but sure. Maybe our MC invents TMs and HMs that work on people - or maybe they *always* worked on people, it's just that no one ever tried. Or maybe they work on people, but the person has to *forget a move*: like TALK, or REASON, or USE TOOL.

...this should probably be a thread, huh?

Oh God, if people are pokemon then human women in the Pokeverse should TOTALLY lay eggs.

Is there any evidence from the games that this isn't true? Tell me there's not.

I'd like to suggest that human women in pokemon go through every stage BUT laying the egg. Or perhaps they lay the egg immediately before it hatches.

Anyways, maybe not TMs and HMs that work on people, but a treatment that awakens the latent pokemon-ness in someone, giving them Types, some pokemon-esque traits both physical and mental, and the ability to use things that only work for Pokemon.
Also, yeah, thread, maybe. Idea thread?

I just find the image of infant Ash hatching from an egg to be hilarious.

The awakening might work better in a quest, but as a concept, I prefer the idea that people already do have types, and already could use those things; it's just that at some point along the way, they've forgotten that they're actually pokemon.

Most people only have two moves, TALK and TOOL, but Fighting-Type people can learn moves like KARATE or KUNG-FU. (Normal-Type people have to make do with STRUGGLE.) Since people don't have trainers, they don't really realize that this is the case, and they're almost all level 2-4.

I prefer the idea that over the course of time, human evolution prioritized trying to master other pokemon over being awesome pokemon themselves, so things went in such a direction that most of the cool traits are by default sleeping, inactive in people. Everyone has their types from birth, but only the psychic type isn't unexpressed by default in humans, because it was actually /helpful/ to aspiring trainers.

What cool traits would those be? Just the ability to use items? It could just be that *wild* people don't benefit from items, but once they've been caught, they do.

Do we ever see (other) wild pokemon using items, even berries?

Cool traits like having wings, or breathing fire. Also, things that aren't that cool, like 'whatever pokeballs look for in a passenger'.
Essentially, the treatment concept is 'dig through the person's genetic code and activate some of the refuse of evolution, traits humanity left aside in it's quest to become the mastermind scientist pokemon'.

Now that I think about it, that might actually require a slight sacrifice in the field of 'being the mastermind scientist pokemon' on the part of the patient.

Oh, I thought you meant cool traits that are intrinsic to being pokemon, like maybe the HP bar. Machop has neither wings or a flaming breath weapon.

Though, that does raise the question of what the Stage 2 evolutions of Human might look like. I'm guessing this is one of those things where you need to be holding a special item or... hell, maybe humans have to be *traded* before they evolve. And, like Evee, the circumstances matter a lot. So you get your wings and fire breath that way.

"Your HUMAN evolved into ... PARAHUMAN! Misty learned FLY!"

In a way, you might consider being a mundane human the base evolution, the Stage 2 to be the post treatment, and the Stage 3 to be...a thing?

I'm always going to like the version that doesn't require a treatment better, but with your version, I'd treat the unaltered human as the Stage 0 and/or not-a-pokemon, with the Human being a Stage 1 pokemon (with the possibility of hidden evolutions).