Usual disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon, unless you count individual copies of the video games. I only own a few copies of Doctor Who seasons and a Netflix subscription that lets me watch most episodes whenever I want. I do, however, enjoy both franchises immensely and wish to tell a story combining the two.

Disclaimer rebuttal: Is it really necessary to tell you all that? When someone at school mentions the Dallas Cowboys, do you assume his parents own the franchise? Yeah, I thought not...

Enter the Archaeologist

Claire climbed down from her flygon's back and gazed upon the massive, manmade crater in the mountainside. The hole was twice as deep as when she left last night, but now she could see something at the bottom. Finally, months of studying, searching, and digging were about to pay off. She looked around proudly at the small excavation camp: two tents to shield two dozen witnesses from the blazing sun.

"It's a shame more people aren't interested in archaeology," she spoke to her bug-like dragon as she placed her hand on its scaly head right between its long antennae. The man-sized pokémon rumbled affectionately and pushed into her hand. "Let's go check on the team."

A welcome breeze blew through Claire's short, black hair as soon as she stepped under the tarp. She walked straight up to her assistant Belle and, without offering a greeting, adjusted her glasses and looked at the map on the table.

"Did we find an entrance?" she asked.

Belle smiled sarcastically. "The diglett team drilled us a tunnel up to the southern wall. We have the ground team clearing out the debris now." She placed her chubby hand on Claire's thin shoulder to get her attention. When Claire finally turned her blue eyes to her assistant, Belle said, "Good morning, by the way."

"Right. Good morning. How are you? How're the kids?" Claire's attempt at small talk was horrendous, and yet terribly amusing to those who understood that she wasn't rude—she was anxious. Extensive research, stretches of sleepless nights, and a tendency to get too wrapped up in work to remember to eat turned Claire from a pleasant, intelligent, and healthy explorer into the curt, narrow-minded, and skinny woman she'd become.

"Did you remember to eat last night?"

Claire sighed. "I ate at the Solaceon Grille and stayed overnight at the Comfort Inn. Then Indy and I came here first thing." She looked from the map to one of the men in the diglett team. His tiny, thumb-shaped, mole pokémon rested in the dirt right by his feet. Claire hollered for him to get that diglett out of the sun.

Belle whispered in Claire's ear, "What did you eat?"

"Poached magikarp, I think. That or grilled psyduck."

"You can't tell the difference between fish and poultry?"

"I had a lot on my mind." Finally looking away from the map, she turned to Belle and asked, "Are we ready for this now?"

She glanced past Belle and caught sight of a strangely-dressed man. He wore a shiny, black vest over a white dress shirt with a bright, blue ascot. Over his face, he wore thin-framed sunglasses with lenses dark enough to keep secrets. "Who's he?"

After taking a look to see which "he" Claire meant, Belle turned back and said, "Oh. He's a reporter for the Pokémon News Press here to do an article about the dig."

"Are you sure? Awfully funny dress code for a reporter. Who wears an ascot anymore?"

"He's not undercover," Belle pointed out. "Besides, he has credentials."

Claire also noticed the small crowd of children standing just on the other side of the reporter. "Are they reporters, too?"

"Don't be silly. They're school kids here to witness a piece of history. Aren't you always saying it's a shame more people aren't involved in our projects?"

Claire blew her hair out of her face. "I don't remember saying that." Her flygon Indy lifted his head and looked at her with those big, glossy eyes. Caught in the act, she said, "Fine, maybe once or twice. They can stay. Let's just get things moving." She looked at Indy and muttered, "You've got to learn to stop tattling on me."

"You could just stop being snarky," Belle suggested, "but then you wouldn't be you."

Claire watched as the Pokémon Trainers—volunteers from Solaceon Town who spent the entire previous day learning excavation techniques—commanded their sandshrews (large, burrowing mouse pokémon) and geodudes (mobile rock pokémon) to break down and clear the rocky rubble from the tunnel.

Digletts were perfect excavation pokémon because of their size, speed, and meticulous focus. These pokémon could break away the surrounding rock without damaging the ruins themselves. Once they cleared a tunnel, other small, ground pokémon were great for clearing debris. The real beauty of recruiting pokémon was the speed. No piece of machinery could clear away rocks and debris as quickly as a team of ground-types.

"This is exciting," the reporter commented when he sidled up next to Claire. He wore a big, goofy grin as he spoke—the kind of wide, triangular grin that let her see every one of his teeth. "I always wanted to see the unveiling of the Solaceon Ruins."

"Just stay back and don't disturb the diglett," Claire told him without even looking at him.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it."

Claire took a few steps toward the tunnel while the pokémon continued their work. Despite her single-minded goal of entering the ruins and discovering the secrets hidden within, she still noticed the sounds around her. Trainers continued to give commands and healing ointments to their digletts, the school kids chattered amongst themselves, and her flygon did not follow her up the mountainside.

Indy was, in fact, standing with the reporter and rumbling as if having a real conversation. The reporter just laughed and patted Indy in the sweet spot directly between the antennae.

"Indy!" his master shouted to get his attention. The flygon quickly turned and buzzed through the air, kicking up grass and dust, until he rejoined Claire. She looked curiously at the reporter and then back to her flygon. "I need to keep the site as flawless as possible, so you'll have to stay in your pokéball, okay?" Indy nuzzled Claire's hip to acknowledge that the pokéball wasn't his favorite place, but he understood her intent. With a flash of light, the bug-like dragon disappeared inside the apricot-sized pokéball.

The Ground Team pokémon did good work. Claire stepped through the rocky portal into a surprising cavern. She could still hear the pokémon working in the darkness. They already cleared the area immediately surrounding the stone walls of the ruins and set up hardened mud walls to secure the cavern ceiling.

Unfortunately, her visual acuity was weak inside the cave. She pulled another pokéball from her waist and opened it near the ground. A flash of light produced a small, white, squirrel pokémon with glowing cheeks. The pachirisu chattered for a moment as Claire handed it a berry from her pocket. After polishing off the berry quickly, the squirrel pokémon ran excitedly in circles.

"Are you ready to discover the unknown?" Claire asked. Her pokémon squeaked and his cheeks began sparking brightly, illuminating the cave well enough for Claire to see the ruins.

The ruins appeared to be some kind of temple, shaped largely like a tetrahedron with the top leveled off due to erosion and wear. Crumbling columns surrounded the temple and lined the walkway in front of Claire's pachirisu. The patterns of columns on one side suggested a courtyard of some sort, but that kind of research and study would wait for Belle; Claire was much more interested in the temple itself.

"Take the lead, Chan." Her pokémon darted a few feet ahead of her, always keeping a quick but cautious pace. The pokémon had to match Claire's slow, intentional pace, yet make up for the fact that his legs were only the length of Claire's thumbs. But with as many times as Claire and Chan teamed up to explore previously undiscovered grounds, they worked up an effective level of synchronicity.

Claire wasn't afraid of poison-tipped arrows, moving walls, or rolling boulders. Those kinds of magical traps only existed in the movies. What she worried about more was molds or poisonous air that could render her sick just by excavating. And occasionally she found dangerous pokémon lurking in her untouched-by-man environments. But Chan was as skilled and perceptive as any pokémon at noticing dangers to his archaeologist, and Claire trusted his response to keep them both safe.

"No issues?" she asked as he sniffed the air for but a moment before moving on. "Okay, then. Let's go see what's hidden inside."

The electricity sparking from Chan's tail really helped with visibility, but there was one thing Claire needed him to do before she was really comfortable with her surroundings. "Use Flash."

Chan curled up to make himself as small as possible before in order to cycle his electrical power back and forth through his body, increasing the speed of conduction and the intensity of his power. Brimming with electrical energy, he released the electricity in a powerful burst of light that carried through to the ceiling and illuminated the area just as if there were fluorescent tubes posted overhead.

Claire had her eyes closed during that exercise, but she opened them now to find it much easier to navigate. "Perfect," she said as she tossed Chan another berry and watched him scarf it down in one bite.

The room was dusty, marked by erosion, and covered with rubble. Yet the cinderblock floors appeared solid. There was some kind of moss growing in the creases, suggesting there was moisture and nutrients present within these ruins. "Substance Bryophyta," she spoke as she picked a small sample and bagged it. "Let's see what Colter can learn from you."

Two eroded stairways descended on the east side of the room and a third on the west. It wasn't unusual to see stairs in ruins, but this was the first time she saw them underground and in the mountains. She was terribly curious about what may lie beneath her feet, but she still wasn't finished with this room yet. Rock samples and dust samples, all potentially representative of an extinct epoch and filled with the knowledge of ancient time, she placed in separate bags, as well, and sealed them tightly for her geology friends.

Sometimes, it's impossible to shake that feeling of being watched. Eight eyes opened slowly on the northern wall and focused on the quiet intruder. They watched in silence her movement across the floor collecting samples, taking pictures, and making notes and sketches in her notepad. Some eyes chose to follow Chan as he darted back and forth around the room, burning off his excess energy.

Suddenly, Chan stopped and looked up at the wall, but the eyes were all closed and nothing seemed out of place. The pachirisu still felt like something was odd, and so he bounded over to Claire's side and began squeaking.

"What?" She couldn't really understand Chan's squeaking, but she caught from his tone that he was bothered, and his body language—the way his head faced her but his body was turned toward the back wall—indicated the location of his disturbance. She stood from her spot and followed the pokémon to examine the wall.

Six lines of text, each with two distinct words written in letters more than a foot and a half tall, set on the wall like an introduction to the ruins. Claire adjusted her glasses before taking a picture of the pattern, just in case the characters decided to move.

Unown did that sometimes when people weren't looking.