Nuvema Town, Unova. It isn't big - to be completely fair, it's not a town at all, not even a hamlet. Nope, it's just where Professor Juniper's lab assistants and interns live.

The place really isn't much to look at - a handful of identical houses, gravel paths, a single access road for mail and supply deliveries, shuttled down from Accumula to the north. It's very boring, and also, the plumbing kinda sucks - the water pressure is spotty as all hell, since we're so near the ocean. It's certainly not the kind of place that gets awards for best living conditions.

There is nowhere on Oceanus I would rather be living at this moment.

My name is Dawn Blaise, and I am one of Professor Juniper's current crop of interns. There are three of us - my good friend, Nolene Thatcher, Cheren Ferryman (yes, his parents had a cruel sense of humor) and, of course, myself. We've been here for nearly two and a half years now, assisting the Professor with her research, and in the past year, we've formulated an incredibly exciting hypothesis.

Pokémon - not just the clearly-intelligent psychics, not just the human-shapes, but the really dumb ones like Magikarp or Oddish - all have a language.

Oh, they don't all share the same one, and it's not always really complex - for instance, the Starly idiom only encompasses a few directional indicators, "follow me", "go away" and "food" - well, at least that's all we've identified so far - but the fact that such a thing exists and can be quantified-!

It's beyond exciting. And I'm right in at the ground floor.

I've been working with a Snivy, Nolene has been working with his sister, and Cheren's been caring for a Tepig, and I'm reasonably sure that we've all picked up a working grasp of our personal companion's language.

What's his name? Well - I'll translate, it wouldn't mean anything to you, I know - it basically means, 'blossom that the gods delight in.' Yes, it's very flowery - it's very typical of the Serperior line, though. His mother's name is... I think it's 'first rose of spring bathed in dew.'

Yes, it does all sound like a lot of hissing.

Yes, they willingly accept nicknames, in fact, his mother's nickname is Rose... yes, if Professor Juniper lets me keep him, I know exactly what his is going to be.

Granted, it means "gods' peace," which is not quite the same thing, but... I think it fits.

Today is our first real, recorded test, and I'm going to document the whole damn thing for posterity - this will either make us as brilliant scientists, or break us for being foolish enough to try to talk to the Caterpie. Either way, it's kind of a one-way street.

Ah well. Time to head downstairs and face the day, either way.

Nolene's up earlier than I am, as usual - sitting on the kitchen table, a piece of toast in her mouth. She shakes her head, mumbles something inaudible around her breakfast, shoves my coffee mug at me.

Thank Arceus, she made coffee. Best roommate ever.

I snatch my mug and drink deeply of the life-giving elixir within as she polishes off her toast - only coming up for air when she pokes me lightly in the side.

"Get your food and let's go." She hops off the table, dusts her neat black slacks down, straightens her white button-down shirt and shoves her mop of red curls out of her face. "And, for Arceus' sake, Dawn, put something reasonably nice on!"

"Even though I'm going to be working with you-know-who, the living grass stain? And you are too?" I shoot back, grinning.

"You can't be wholly practical on a day like this, Dawn. Don't make me ransack your closet." She grins, and I smile back, relenting.

"All right, all right, I'll go ransack my own closet, then."

I've got my coffee, I can deal with her bothering me about my clothes.

It takes a good half-hour before she's satisfied - and I wind up feeling like an idiot, wearing a dark blue skirt my dad got me for my fourteenth birthday. I don't do skirts - and furthermore, I really don't know how I should feel about it still fitting. Regardless, it does fit - and I have to admit, paired with one of Nolene's blue blazers, a white blouse and a floaty white scarf that she dug out of somewhere in her bottomless wardrobe, I look pretty good.

Of course, now we're late - but at least we look classy!

We arrive at the lab ten minutes later, and Cheren's waiting out front. He seemed to have the same idea Nolene did - he's wearing an actual, honest-to-Arceus suit, and his normally untamable mop is actually combed for once.

I have to admit, the guy cleans up nicely.

He adjusts his glasses, smiles. "Good morning, you two - did you oversleep?"

"Ah, shut up, Cheren." Nolene elbows him in passing as she breezes up to ring the doorbell. "Had to get Dawn ready - the silly Patrat was going to show up for our big day in - in -"

"...what she usually wears?"

"EXACTLY!" Nolene throws up her hands, nearly hitting us both in the face. "You don't do that."

The door opens before either of us can retaliate, and Professor Juniper steps out, all smiles.

By Arceus, the woman is wearing make-up. Make up and high heels.

This IS big.

"Dawn, Nolene, Cheren, good morning! Now, this is a big day - and I'm fairly sure Dawn is recording this -"

I blink, fiddle with my Pokétch.

"I am now, yes."

She grins at me, mouths "me too" - it's then that I notice the Porygon floating after her - and continues.

"Very good then - I am Professor Aurea Juniper, Ph. D., alumnus of Castelia University - and today we will be putting our Pokémon Language Hypothesis to its very first recorded practical test. Are we all ready?"

Cheren, eager little Bibarel that he is, is the first to chime in.

"Yes, Professor!"

Nolene nods, I nod, and the Professor beams. "Very good then! Cheren, Nolene, Dawn, bring your partners and come this way."

She steps aside, letting us into the lab - Cheren is, again, the first, followed by Nolene, and I bring up the rear. As usual, really - but I don't mind.

Our partners usually sleep outside, with their families, but last night the Professor brought them in and bedded them down in cages for just this purpose. Granted, we can call them - but they only listen when they want to. What can I say, they're only a year or so old; they still prefer the company of their siblings to us, most of the time.

I let Nolene and Cheren get their Pokémon before I step in to retrieve mine.

He's still sleeping, the lazy little snake, and I take a moment to admire him - I like all Pokémon, don't get me wrong, but my little friend here is special. I practically raised him, after all.

He's the runt of his clutch, unfortunately - but that's fine, he's an interpreter, not a fighter. His scales are glossy green, smooth and cool, and he's just big enough to coil around my neck. It's his favorite perch.

He stirs a little, and I can't help but smile, reaching in to rub the creamy scales under his chin with one finger. "Come on, you - it's our big day, wake up."

I know he doesn't quite understand everything I say in the human idiom, not yet, so I repeat it in his, a series of soft, sibilant hisses. His soft brown eyes blink open and he flickers his tongue fondly against my finger, then coils around my wrist and lets me take him out of the cage.

Nolene nods in approval, her own Snivy curled loosely around her shoulders, like a living scarf. "Are we all ready?"

"I hope so." Cheren responds, his Tepig snuggled in his arms. She's still napping. "...either way, this is enormous."

"Yeah."

I drape my little friend around my neck, and we all shake hands - it seems appropriate in this one last moment before we test a hypothesis that could entirely change the world. Then, one by one, we file back out of the lab.

I'm still last in line.

The walk around back, to the flat lawn where we occasionally hold mock battles, seems longer than usual. I know it's just nerves, but either way, I can't help but fidget.

"Dawn, would you please stop that?" Cheren hisses, and I can see the panic in his face - he wants us all to look good for the camera, and I have an inkling that this is making me look like an idiot.

Nolene just chuckles, pats my shoulder. "Deep breaths. We've got a minute." She glances over at Cheren. "No matter what, we should be proud of having gotten this far. Even if this doesn't convince the university schlubs, I've seen enough to believe that we really canlearn to communicate with Pokémon, and even if we die unrecognized for it, we've done something good here."

I can't help a smile at her words. "You're going to give the best motivational speeches of any professor ever, you know that?"

"I know, I know, I'm great." She mock-preens, then nudges me again. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

"While we're still young, yes."

I'm tempted to knock Cheren over for that comment, but I refrain. I doubt he'd ever get the grass stains out of that suit.

Instead, I brush past him, and saunter onward, head held high. "We'd better hurry, we're late."

Professor Juniper greets us with a smile, directs us to stand in a line, gives the Porygon floating obediently beside her a little prod. "Right - record, unit twelve. Okay... good." She turns to us fully, and she's using her lecture hall voice. "We will now perform a series of simple tests to determine whether Pokémon and humans are capable of verbal communication. Dawn, Nolene, Cheren, please release your partners and direct them to come to me."

We do as we're told - and our Pokémon scuttle across the field to the Professor. She steps between them and us, kneels, and for a moment nothing happens, apart from the Porygon recording them; but then she stands, and they come scampering back.

My little friend lets me scoop him up, settles on my shoulder, hisses contentedly in my ear, "A blue ball, with a yellow star." No sooner has he said that, than the professor motions to Cheren.

"Please come here, and tell me what your Tepig just told you?"

He goes, and comes back - and he's smiling as he does, hands in his pockets, practically strutting.

A good sign.

The professor calls Nolene next, and she, too, comes back smiling - nudges me in passing, whispers, "this is genius."

"Dawn, come here, please."

I take a deep breath, and walk across the lawn. The Professor is smiling, the Porygon is whirring and clicking away -

"This is the first test. Which of these did I show your Snivy?" She holds out her cupped hands, and I can't help but laugh.

They're overflowing with those little toy bouncy-balls you get out of vending machines - all colors and sizes. I tilt my head one way, then the other, pick through the pile. "He said a blue one with a yellow star..."

She smiles, lets me shuffle through the pile - I find the right one near the bottom of the little heap, and my little friend nods an emphatic "yes" when I hold it up to him.

The professor practically glows as she turns to the Porygon, and gushes. "As you can see, all three of the interns found the correct object, which was shown only to their Pokémon. The camera was always on me, and I have not moved from this spot, and nothing was written on the Pokémon, nor was anything given to them, as you may plainly see." She pauses, dusts her hands nervously on her lab coat. "Now, naturally, this single trial alone is not proof - although I hope it is eye-opening! - so we will be conducting a few more tests."

She motions Cheren and Nolene over. "Now, to begin with..."

It is nearly six hours before we finish - six hours of describing things to our Pokémon, of having them describe objects to us, of ridiculously complicated maneuvers being dictated to us, to our Pokémon -

It is worth it, because by the end, the Professor's blue eyes are glowing like someone turned on a light behind them.

"There is no way they can debunk this."

We look at each other - we three interns, and the Professor, and we smile.

It is a gala occasion when she mails the recording, later that night.