//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Rock Type // by TDR //------------------------------// I took another sip of the coffee I was given only, picking a little at the burger and fries from the Lab's cafeteria. As expected I had been questioned extensively about what happened. I was scolded a bit for taking on the rockets as I did by an Officer Jenny. I say A Officer Jenny because there are lots of them. A full family of women who go into law enforcement. Much like the Nurse Joy family. There were rumors that the girls were a type of Pokemon, but I didn't believe it. I had met Doughnut Joe in Canterlot, Manehatten, and Neighpon and several other places three hundred years after he died. It was weird, but not unheard of to have a family line like that. Twilight probably would have dropped into some sort of genetic anomaly rant. Spike had just accused him of being a pod pony. In either event I gave a full description of Claymore to the ones asking the questions. Dark hair, sandy colored skin, blue eyes, and some sort of scarring on both his cheeks. The officers were far more upset with how I described the Rapidash he summoned. The pokemon had obviously been and was still being tortured. The two Rockets that were captured had pokemon that were fairly well cared for however, a koffin, a houndoon that hadn't been released, and the electrode that had self destructed. The three cases that had been stolen, well one now, were all full of pokeballs. I wasn't sure on the why of it, but I doubted it was anything anyone wanted Claymore to have. I dropped my hand down swatting Rose's hand away from my fries, she let out an annoyed huff having shoved her food into her mouth as fast as a Guard in training. It had taken me several lifetimes but I had finally dropped that habit myself. Professor Oak himself had asked me to stick around for a bit. He wanted to talk to me but getting the lab back in order had taken precedent. He had listened in on all the talks and questions that were asked, but he had added nothing of his own aside from pointing out what needed to be done to fix the lab to his assistants. It took a few hours, during which we were brought some food, but now the tall professor was approaching the little table in the main lobby they set me down in and offered a wave. “Yes hello again Jer'rahd. I am sorry about the wait, if you are finished eating please would you mind coming with me?” Professor Oak asked. I nodded pushing the half finished plate over to Rose , who promptly upended the whole thing into her mouth like a mini snorlax. I rolled my eyes draining the coffee as I stood, glancing around for a place to put the dishes. “Don't worry about it, just leave it here I'll have an assistant come and clean it up. If you like I can have one of the rooms used for trainers prepared for you for the night. It's not much, but it's a little better than the quarters provided at poke centers. “That would be nice, thank you.”I offered following along with him, Rose bounding up after us with her floating skip walk. “If no one has done it yet I would like to thank you for your actions today. The three cases that they were running off with contained pokemon from various areas that were sent to the lab for study. They contained Johto, Sinnoa, Alohan, and even Galor pokemon as well as a number of other areas including some private reserves, and 'lost' islands that are out there.” I raised an eyebrow at that. Oak glanced back and smirked. “I have sponsored a number of trainers and sent them out in the world to see what they can find. They often send back some of what they acquire releasing the pokemon to the lab. Those three cases were the latest shipment from Red, Blue, and Green. Yellow sends back notes but doesn't send in pokemon unless they are injured or a problem to the environment they were in.” I nodded. I knew of Red and I had heard of Blue who was Red's rival, the other two I had no clue about though He guided us down a hall to a door with a number code. He tapped what sounded like ten different numbers into the pad before opening the door. “Have a seat.” he gestured to the room that looked to be half a massive lab, and half living area with only a small banister like thing between them. I moved in with Rose before we both took a seat on a couch in the more friendly looking area. I had no idea what any of that equipment did, but it looked expensive and I didn't trust myself to be anywhere near it. Professor Oak wandered over to the lab area digging around before he came back holding a tablet of some kind and a poke ball. He set them both down on the coffee table before me before he dropped back into a recliner on the other side with a low groan practically deflating. “I'm getting too old for this sort of bullshit.” he sighed and I couldn't help smirk at the comment having said it a lot myself. “So I would like to offer you a deal for you help today Jer'rahd.” Professor Oak stated his hand waving in the air but his head remained fallen back over the back of the recliner. “I heard you talking with Officer Jenny about coming down to Pallet to try and find a grass type. In that ball is a grass starter we had extra from one of my associates in another region named Jacq. Honestly I'm not supposed to give that one out as it was supposed to be used for our research, but I was in the middle of scanning him in when the attack happened. I can easily register him with you and then simply claim he was part of the group that went missing. He's not registered to us yet so no one knows for sure anything but the count lost.” Professor Oak offered. “If nothing else consider him a reward for stopping a much worse situation.” I looked at the ball rather surprised wondering if it was a bulbasaur like I had wanted. A glance to Rose saw her staring at the ball with a bit of worry. I reached out patting her on the head, I wasn't giving up my starter for another pokemon, I was just adding to the team. She murred pressing her head up into my hand as I smirked. “So what's the deal?” I asked. “I would like you to become one of my sponsored trainers.” Oak offered. My eyes widened. A sponsorship from Professor was a big deal. Usually one could get a sponsorship from a gym if you were skilled enough or knew some one. For a gym this sort of thing would get you a stipend to use on your travels as well as a place to store any pokemon you caught that you didn't want on your team. The size of the stable varied on the sponsor. I think Pewter Gym had a average of 10 in their stable. I had no idea what the pay and storage space would have in a lab like this. Not to mention with how well known Professor Oak was the prestige was going to draw attention, and since that was my goal to have my name thrown out this was perfect for my goals. “I certainly didn't expect that.” “No one expects the Samuel invitation. Our chief weapon is surprise.” Professor Oak announced to the air still waving an arm though his head hadn't moved from staring at the ceiling. “Ummm.” “Right ten, forget about it. No one learns any good pop culture any more.” Professor Oak grumbled.” Any way I take you are interested. There's some paper work to fill out, but the bulk of that will be sent to your parents to fill out due to your age. Any thing you sign is just agreeing that you want to do this but isn't valid until a parent of Guardian also sign. That avoids some issues we've had in the past.” I didn't want to ask about the issues but I knew one of them because mom had harped about it, some kid signing away all his pokemon to a gym leader in a sponsorship and being left with nothing at the end of his journey. The kid had enough intelligence by that point to bring it to the League and the Police and they came down on the trainer like a ton of bricks. They also found a number of other gyms doing something similar and shut them down. It was one of the reasons why there was no Steel, Bug, Dark, or a few other type Gyms in Kanto at the moment. Luckily the major Gyms played it legit and were still intact so the league didn't need to adjust their eight badge path any, the lesser gyms were still there, but their badges didn't mean anything at the moment other than bragging rights, and only the most dedicated trainers went after them. “Well I accept that. I could certainly use it. I've been selling berries to afford the basics and I've been avoiding capturing everything like most new trainers as I wouldn't have been able to afford to care for them long.” I offered. “Well don't worry about the last bit if you want to catch something but don't want to keep it you can send it to the lab. We trade a lot of our local common pokemon to other regions for their local common pokemon for study. “ “Alright sounds good.” I nodded looking down at the ball and pokedex on the table. “ I do have one other question for you though.” “What's that?” I asked. Professor Oak lifted his head and looked at me again, this time with an intensity I hadn't expected. The goofy looking smile he had had all day was gone as well. “So. Which world are you from then?” Professor Oak asked flatly. “What?” I asked with a stammer. “Hmm, are you not from a different universe? I thought I had gotten rather good at telling that. Maybe you are from just further along the timeline one way or another. I was never good at the temporal side of things.” He glanced back to me as I stared. “Don't worry you are hardly the only one I've encountered... well I take that back, you are the first in this place...” “I was born in Ponytaville.” I stated glancing to Rose before pulling her back into her ball as she looked at us confused. “Yes. But this wasn't the first time you were born was it?” Oak offered narrowing his eyes a bit as I called my pokemon back into the ball. I stared a moment at him before frowning. ”What are you even talking about?” Oak sighed sitting back in his chair staring into the air.” A long time ago I was on my first training trip. I encountered a Jirachi and I made a wish that I wanted to know everything about all the pokemon there were.” He ran a hand through his gray hair. “Well it seems the wish was granted. Only I have to learn everything myself and I only have the one lifetime to to do it in. Ninety six years each time barring accidents. And when that ends, I pop up as another Oak the next dimension over which sometimes has a completely different run of Pokemon or changes their abilities. Hell for a lot of them most people didn't know how to evolve certain pokemon and families that did know kept the secret tight in their family lines. Some of them had different results to the wars or divergent histories. But there was always things to learn about Pokemon. After a time I became aware that there were others sort of like me. People reborn in the pokemon world or yanked here for some reason or another. Sometimes they were people like you or I, sometimes they were pokemon themselves. Perhaps there are always people like that whom I just never met. But there are always two things that are always the same in places I've been. There are always pokemon, and there's always some one on their first Journey who catches my attention. Usually it's some kid named Ash Ketchum, but there's no one I've seen with that name not even the last name Ketchum. He trailed off a moment as I continued to stare. “Why do you even think I'm one of these whatever, reborn people or not?” I questioned. “Your Aura is wrong in a specific way. Nothing harmful, I've just been doing this long enough that I can sense the variation.” “So how long has that taken?” Oak pondered.” I dunno, a few hundred years or so, I lost count but I expect I might be nearing two maybe three thousand years of doing these sort of loops. Every time I think I am getting closer to discovering all there is to know some one finds a new region. Seriously how big is this damn world? Does Arucus keep expanding it or something?” “Ah. A young immortal.” I smirked. He looked at me with an eyebrow raised as I grinned.” There is a story there that I would love to hear one day. So....” “Equestria.” I offered simply. He mulled that over for a moment before nodding.” I've met a few of those, most of the time I just let it go and watch them , though with your interaction with this Claymore fellow I felt I should get a little more involved, particularly with how you say that Rapidash looked. I don't like making myself known, I did that a few times in the past and those wound up being short lives.” “So what does this mean then, now that you know this?” I questioned. “For you? Pretty much nothing. I doubt you'll say anything about me and if you do I'll just laugh it off as some silly belief of a ten year old. I've been mentioned in stranger conspiracy theories after all. But you don't seem the sort to do that. “Professor Oak hummed. ”What I want to know however is what your connection is with that Claymore fellow?” “He's someone I need to kill.” I growled. “Ahh one of those. While I would prefer you not kill anyone, if he's willing to treat pokemon like that I'm not going to lose any sleep if he is made to be no longer among the living, so long as he doesn't become a ghost type, I can see that being a pain.” Professor Oak sighed and gestured to the pokedex on the table. “This is the current Gen of the Pokedex, it's been updated to something I call the National Dex. It will auto update every time you come into a open network like at a poke center. Any new discoveries that have been found will be loaded, and anything you find will be uploaded. Most of them will be minor from other owners of this sort of pokedex. Maybe a feather color variation on a pidgy or some one found a Manky with a 'passive' temperament. But occasionally new discoveries will be found, and it also acts as a video cell phone.” Professor Oak explained. “I want you to take this and keep me updated on what you are doing. I'm not sure how you are going to handle things being from another world, but that is something I want to study as well. Even if you are no different than any other Kanto 10 year old now.” This whole thing was weird, but I had long ago learned to simply roll with weird. I had no idea if I would go any where beyond Kanto, but given my goal this was perfect. “I have a request. On top of this.” I stated. Better to hedge my bets. “Oh?” “There may be others like me if Claymore is here. I want you to keep an eye out for them? Their names are Luna, Velkorn, Rhede, Bleu, and Starfall, there may be others but those in particular. If you meet any of them make sure they have a way to contact me.” “Lost friends.... I can respect that sort of search. I suppose you are looking to be the champion so your name is heard by everyone too?” “Of course.” Oak smiled.” On that I wish you luck. Famous as I am there is only so much I can do with the league.” He gestured to the ball I had picked. “Well now this is all settled and you've made your choice, how about to introduce yourself to your new turtwig?”