"Char!"
"Char!"
The two pokemon looked at each other, sizing each other up. On one side was a stout red bipedal scaled lizard, with a bright flame at the end of its tail.
Across from it was a yellow scaled lizard, with no flame on its tail. Instead there were red pouches on each of its arms, kind of like a Pikachu's cheeks except streamlined, where stray electricity fizzled out. It was down on all fours, with its fangs bared at its counterpart.
"Alright Professor, tell me what I'm looking at here."
The Professor had brought me to his lab deep in Champions Hold. The city was built on a hill, so the buildings got taller the deeper into the city you went. His lab was far enough in the city that even where we were on the third floor, I could easily see over the wall that encompassed the city.
Oak clapped his hands together. "Your first assignment!" The Professor walked up to the confused lizards and picked one up.
The red scaled one nipped at the Professor's hand as he picked it up. "This Charmander is one that I'm sure you're familiar with. Strong headed, a combustion and scale type. Eventually to become a combustion, air, and scale type at its final evolution. Even at its first evolution it carries a threat of fang 3 and claw 2. It's chomping ability is a little more developed than it's arm muscles at this age, so its slashing and piercing ability is not too dangerous yet."
That's interesting. I had always thought it was bullshit that Charizard never got his dragon typing. The scales would make sense for a "dragon" typing though. Scales are natural armor that can easily be categorized together.
"Wait, so if he's already a "scale" type at the third evolution, what are the typings on his mega-evolutions?"
The Professor paled. He quickly put the Charmander on the ground and walked over to me. He grabbed my shoulder and quietly asked into my ear. "How do you know about that?"
Oh… Right. Some of this knowledge might be dangerous. I wonder how much carry over there is from the games. I don't quite see how evolutionary stones would make sense from a realistic standpoint, but if that was still true and somehow undiscovered, it could be quite lucrative. Megas, Z-moves, Gigantimax. What else was there? Game breaking mechanics that might actually be all hush-hush in the real world. There might even be secret organizations that kill people over this kind of information.
Okay. So I kind of blew it here. The Professor already knows that I know about Mega Evolution. Well it's too late to turn back now. I might as well fish for information about how this world works.
"I vaguely remember something about a spherical stone with a helix. I don't remember where I know it from though. Just the name. Mega- evolution."
The Professor narrowed his eyes. Did my explanation not track? Oh shit I guess I did ask about Charizard in specific. Are there only a few discovered Mega-Evolutions? And the fact that I asked about one of the few known ones makes it seem like I know way more than I should? Well I guess that's already true. I mentally facepalmed as I remembered the rest of what I said. I asked about mega-evolutions. Plural. Were both discovered? Even if some people knew about one of them, how many would know about both? Hopefully Oak didn't notice.
Oak carefully watched me, looking for answers. After a couple seconds, he sighed.
"You seem to know way more than you should. I don't quite know how far that goes, but I don't think you trust me enough to divulge that. Which is good. If you shared everything from the start, I'd be worried you were trying something behind my back. You're naive enough at this that you are clearly someone stumbling their way through a confusing world, trying to find their place, and not somebody pretending to know nothing to trick me into making a mistake or revealing something. But I suppose you might also just be smart enough to be convincingly stupid."
Oak laughed. "Well this will be fun. I don't fully trust you. You don't fully trust me. But at the very least, there is a lot to gain from working with one another. I don't have quite as many competent field researchers as I would like. In fact I only have one that's strong enough to make it through one of the gates to this region anyhow, and he's strung up on other duties at the moment. You don't have the experience. But you do have knowledge that nobody else has. Somehow. Which is something I'm willing to overlook, so long as I can benefit from it. Do you understand?"
I cleared my throat. I grinned. This would be fun. "Crystal. What I'm hearing is you're too old to do any of the dirty work. But I'm going to be doing this my way. You can tell me what to do, but you're not going to tell me how to do it."
Oak laughed. "Fantastic! That's less work for me anyway. That sounds like a win-win for me. Honestly, why was Gary never like this? I had to hold his hand the entire way, and he still turned out so snobby. Oh… Maybe that's why he turned out so snobby." Oak continued to talk to himself about some Gary kid.
That name did instill anger in me.
"Oak."
Saying his name seemed to shake him from his musings. "Ha! Maybe I am getting senile in my age. You don't seem the patient type, so I guess I'll cut straight to the point."
The Professor went to go pick up the other Charmander, but had to stop as it clawed its way out of his hands. The Professor tried again, this time grabbing the underbelly, leaving the lizard no leverage to claw the Professor.
"There we go. This here is also Charmander. Very strong headed like his counterpart. He is also scaled. But the similarities end there. There have been many variants that show up in different regions of the world."
"Like Alolan Ninetails." I replied.
"Yes! Exactly like Alolan Ninetails. Now these variants have sprouted off the pokemon living in a different environment for thousands of generations, with that Pokemon slowly changing to become more attributed to living in those conditions. But many of these are confusing. Some speculate that Alolan Execcutor grew out its neck far longer so that it could reach the fruits in the taller palm trees of Alola. But somehow along the way it also grew scales and became carnivorous. Sycamore has speculated that there might have been two different mutations for Execcutor. One, to become more evolutionarily viable, grew its neck higher to reach the higher fruit. The other decided to not eat fruit anymore and start eating meat for its nutrients. The more aggressive it got, the more draconic it became in nature. And somewhere along the line, these mutations both combined into what we have today."
Uh…what?
"Now I like to tease Sycamore about this. After all, why would an Executor spend thousands of generations slowly growing out its neck when it already has psychic powers that let it grab fruit from any height. Many other theories for why certain pokemon have variants have similar holes."
Oak continued to pace around the room. The yellow Charmander continued to try and wiggle its way out of Oak's arms, but he ignored it as he continued to monologue.
"This here is a variant unique to Starfall. Charizard in Starfall are the kings of the Sky Jungle. I'm sure you've noticed the floating islands over at the edge of the horizon. There are incredibly powerful magnetic fields that keep those islands in the air. We haven't quite figured out how it works, but the Charizard have evolved to take advantage of those magnetic fields. They whip through the islands, using each island's magnetic pull to slingshot itself faster, and using the ambient fields to build up electro-magnetic charges. In the Sky Jungle, you will find nothing faster or more ferocious than a Charizard. A Starfallen Charizard can take out a veteran Hydreigon with one fully powered blitz."
I looked to the yellow Charmander with renewed interest. I thought the pigmentation was odd. Something in me told me that just meant it was a shiny Charmander. Something incredibly rare. But this Charmander was something even more special.
Oak put the Charmander back on the ground, where it promptly scrambled as far away from the Old Man as possible.
"Your first mission will be to train these two Charmander. I want you to log everything you notice. For starters I want to know how your knowledge helps you in training something. This is a test to see whether it makes a difference when training you have knowledge for, and when training something unknown. Given that Charmander are rather hefty burdens for even veteran trainers, giving you two of them off the bat, with one even more ferocious than the standard, will be a good initial test of if I can trust you with more difficult tasks. You'll have access to all the lab facilities, and I'll also give you a research license that will give you access to anything in the city."
Oak gave me a crooked smile. "Don't abuse it, okay. Remember, you have no identity here. I basically own you. That's one of the reasons I'm giving you so much creative license. Do my job well, and I'll reward you. Cross me, and I can just kill you. Nobody knows you exist. Nobody will miss you if you're gone." Oak patted me on the cheek. A shadow crossed his face. "Do keep that in mind, okay?"
Cold shivers ran down my spine, but I shook it off. "Don't threaten me old man. Everything you said is true, but you forget. I have nothing to lose. Your threats are meaningless. And also I'm not stupid. Somehow you've gotten yourself into a pretty high position. And you're giving me exactly what I need to get to eventually get the answers that I want. These are things I would have wanted to find out myself anyway. Besides, threatening doesn't really suit you. I can tell you don't do it often. The cheery harmless scientist visage fits a lot better. I doubt you'd have the balls to kill me even if it came down to it. Give me what I need, and I won't get in your way."
Oak smiled at my response. He clapped his hands together and jumped to his feet. "Fantastic! I'll get your pokeballs ready for you. You can take some time to get acquainted with your new buddies. I'll send up your pokedex with your researcher's license in an hour or two. Your researcher license will be linked to your trainer's license, so you can still do anything a trainer could do. You'll get a weekly stipend, but I do get reports of what you buy. And I will cut you off if need be. Sound good?"
I turned my head from the brawling Charmanders back to the Professor. "Sounds perfect."
The Professor started walking out of the room when something occurred to me. Something hadn't sat quite right this whole time. Nurse Joy had mentioned how they never see any new faces around here. Oak had mentioned that only one of his field researchers would be strong enough to get to Starfall.
"Oak. Wait. You mentioned you were from Kanto, and that it's rather difficult to get into Starfall. How the hell did you get here? Why the hell are you here?"
Oak paused in his steps and turned back to me. The air in the room seemed to change. The cheery Professor was gone. This man was dangerous.
Oak smiled. A mirthless smile. The smile of a predator finally cornering its prey. "We all start somewhere. Let's just say I like to explore the world. See everything. Do everything. It takes a certain skill set to be able to do that."
Oak softly brushed his lab coat aside, and I could see the line of pokeballs on his belt. Some were old. The red paint was scratched and worn. There were other kinds too. Two yellow and black Ultra Balls. And finally, a single purple and white ball with pink bumps. A Masterball.
Oak turned, his lab coat fluttering behind him, and left the room. My mouth was still gaping when the door closed. I audibly gulped as I processed what I had just seen.
Shit. Just what had I gotten myself into.