Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon.
Click click…click-click-click…click.
Kincaid tried to concentrate on the results spewing out in front of him, but Isaac's clicking was getting the better of his self-control. It was night time, and one of the many evenings Kincaid was to spend locked up in a cramped laboratory in the basement of a school that trained his enemies. Added on to that, he had to smile and pretend to be enjoying myself to keep the boy genius beside him happy, which was necessary for the plan to succeed. Needless to say, Mr. Kincaid was not in the greatest of moods.
The headache that always started throbbing the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed began throbbing at full force. It wasn't unexpected; his day had been a particularly stressful one, and it wouldn't be over for a while yet. He thought of his first class of the day- juniors who were noisy, immature brats, even to the most patient of teachers. They had yelled across the class, flirted shamelessly, flipped out their wretched cell phones, asked the more stupid questions Kincaid had ever heard, and then acted completely shocked when this behaviour met with an instant detention.
But they were nothing, nothing, compared to the seniors he had after lunch. The ones that would graduate this year (only a couple more weeks, Kincaid was constantly telling himself). By the time most students reached their final year, they had learned, if literally nothing else, not to misbehave in front of Kincaid. Most of his seniors would just sit and whisper behind his back, at the worst. Though they all still retained the same level of stupidity as the juniors. But every year seemed to produce at least two hooligans that flat out refused to learn any form of respect. Last year it was a scrawny brat named Crawford and his little mechanic buddy Elaine. The year before, a hick named Sven dominated detention. And this year, Kincaid was unfortunate enough to have to tolerate three students of this particular breed.
These students all shared similar traits; they always sat at the back of the classroom, they were the absolute favourites of the other teachers, they ran in the hallways, they always refused to stop their little conversation, even if forced to opposite sides of the room- Kincaid was outraged to find they simply yelled across the room at each when he did this. Honestly, how disrespectful could they be? And, worst of all, they always had that same, self satisfied smirk when being addressed by him. As if he was not worthy of respect. As if he was somehow inferior to them. He, Kincaid! Inferior to a bunch of idiotic children that were going nowhere in life. They very thought made his headache spike painfully, so Kincaid turned his mind away from the troublesome trio and returned to his work.
He noticed that the clicking had stopped. Kincaid almost snarled in frustration before reigning himself in. What more could possibly be going wrong with this blasted experiment? Mr. Kincaid looked over to the overly trusting genius, expecting to see his brow furrowed over yet another complicated technological problem. What he saw instead heightened his bad mood even more.
Isaac was sitting at his work station, surrounded by multiple papers baring even more mathematical symbols and numbers, all buzzing together and blurring into what was to Kincaid's mind an incomprehensible bundle of ink. And Isaac was sitting in the middle of it, playing with a paperweight. Kincaid felt a very strong urge to grab the back of the boy's head and smash it into the desk.
"Isaac, what are you doing? I thought you were working on the frequency of the transmitted waves," Mr. Kincaid said, unable to keep a bite of impatience out of his voice.
"Sorry sir, I just think it's a very…interesting paperweight," said Isaac softly, now spinning the paperweight like a spinning top on the desk. "Have you ever looked at it closely?"
It was a very simple paperweight; a sphere that was about the size of his fist and had a flattened circle on the bottom about three centimetres in diameter, like a ball of play dough pressed against a flat surface. It was made of what was either solid glass or crystal, coloured a pure black, and was smooth as marble.
"No, I haven't." Why would he waste his time studying something as unimportant as a paperweight? More importantly, why was Isaac wasting his time studying said paperweight? The boy had work to do. Kincaid had no idea what Isaac could possibly mean when he described the paperweight as 'interesting'.
"Well, when you first glance at it, it looks like it's pure black, right? But it's not. It's not even gray. Look," the boy genius explained, holding the orb up to the light.
With the light spilling through the orb's murky depths, Kincaid could see that the orb, was indeed, not black but purple. He could also see that the density of the paperweight also hid the fact that it was filled with little bubbles, barely the size of a small ant. It really was quite pretty, once given a good look, Kincaid decided. Not that trivial things like that warranted a break.
Isaac then lowered the orb back to the desk, though now that he knew what to look for, Mr. Kincaid could still see the faintest bit of a purple gleam to it.
"It's odd, isn't it? I was sure enough that it was black, that I didn't even stop to question myself, and you probably didn't either. Which goes to show you that we should question appearances more, instead of trusting our first glance." What? No. No, no, no. The last thing Kincaid needed was for Isaac to start questioning what was told to him, to start trying to find out the truth for himself. If Isaac started to question Mr. Kincaid, how was he ever going to make him believe that team Dim Sun was harmless, despite what the press said? It would be a hard lie for him to feed the boy, even if remained as trusting as he was then. Kincaid desperately wanted Isaac to just continue working so as to save the Kincaid the trouble of steering the conversation back into safe waters. However, he could not think of a way of telling Isaac to get back to work without sounding rude.
"Do you think it would be as easy to disguise something that is already black as another colour?" Ah, now here was a better question. Kincaid knew he could turn this one around to benefit him.
"I highly doubt it. As a general rule, since black contains all other colours, if something looks pitch black it usually is. The same is true if something looks like it is pure white. Light and dark aren't as deceiving as the colours in the middle ground," was Mr. Kincaid's carefully thought out answer. Kincaid was quite proud of himself for coming up with such a crafty answer, and was about to return to his work, when Isaac came out with yet another rather unsettling comment.
"I read in the newspaper that there's a weird group of people causing trouble in Almia. The pictures showed that the uniforms were black and purple as well. There must be something about those colours…they're not mutually exclusive." Though unsure of the direction the youth's mind was taking (purple an black could easily be mutually exclusive, and this stumped Kincaid beyond reason), Mr. Kincaid knew that he did not like talking about team Dim Sun and their links to Kincaid himself, regardless of how vague and irrelevant the connection was. It was too early for Isaac to know about Dim Sun, and Kincaid needed to get the boy's mind off of it.
The teacher felt yet more annoyance spark inside him. Isaac was supposed to be a scientific thinker, not some artsy kid asking disconcerting questions spurred on by a paperweight. Kincaid thought Isaac was a linear thinker, which was what made the plan so easy. The last thing Mr. Kincaid wanted was the task of lying through his teeth at a disbelieving genius added on top of his sacrifice for the team
"What do you mean purple and black aren't mutually exclusive? That simply doesn't make sense."
"…I don't mean anything by it, I guess. Just," he shrugged, "musing, I guess." He leaned forward and placed the paperweight back to its original spot with a slight thunk. He grabbed a sheet of paper and went back to deciphering the multitude of complex figures in front of him.
They worked later than usual, and when Mr. Kincaid apologized for working Isaac later his response was the first comforting thing he heard that night.
"Don't worry about it sir. I don't care what I have to do, as long as I get to submerge myself in research. Goodnight, Mr. Kincaid."
Though happy with the boy's response, Mr. Kincaid did not want any more awkward conversations. When Isaac returned the next night, the paperweight was gone. Isaac didn't question its absence, or ask any weird questions, much to Kincaid's relief. It was okay, Isaac wasn't catching on to Dim Sun.
The plan could go on.