[Sokka nods along as Ash explains all of that in depth. Sokka at one point has actually seen the secret laptop in the tunnels (though admittedly he really doesn't fully know how it works), so all of that sounds (in a very very hand-wavey sense) something like that. Nevertheless, that's still a fair bit to take in.]

Okay, okay, let me make sure I've got all this.

[Sokka clears his throat to lay all this out much more elegantly.]

Pokémon are either wild or owned by a trainer, and the only differentiating factor is that trained Pokémon are associated with a very particular Poké Ball. Something about that pairing process must change the Pokémon so that other Poké Balls can't capture them... or even hold a creature that doesn't belong to it. But if you destroy that Poké Ball, the guy it's associated to immediately becomes wild again.

[He ponders a bit more about this.]

So how do these transfer machines work? And... you honestly can't have more than six Pokémon on you at one time? No one's figured out a way to get around that?

[Because if Sokka were in Pokémon World, that's what he'd be trying to do!]