The dimness of the room's lighting was the first thing that greeted him, as it did each time. After adjustment, he could easily identify the room's defining features; there were several dusted bookcases set in narrow rows and lined with stacks of paper and cardboard boxes, a low ceiling dotted with crookedly hanging age-old lightbulbs and indented walls of peeling wallpaper, and directly across the entrance, on the other end of the room, was a wooden door that stood slightly ajar. The thrumming of some contraption filled the air with its mesmerizing rhythm. Lysandre began swaying his head from side to side and walked, as if in a trance, towards the door. The first time he set foot in the aisle between the bookcases, he couldn't lay his eyes off the titles of the documents and boxes stacked on the shelves. Quickly learning that knowledge of more valid value lay beyond the door ahead, any other no longer interested him enough. Lysandre tapped lightly on the door, which had a small makeshift plaque with the words "GMP Lab" on it, and pushed it open.
This room was considerably different from the previous. It was small and brightly lit, with various pieces of furniture pushed against the walls. A narrow table lined with scientific equipment was situated on the right hand side, and Kaien's lab-coat-clad figure stood over it, flipping open a toolkit box. A Lucario was sleeping soundly in the corner by the refrigerator. There was also a sink, a bookcase crammed with papers, a plastic chair with a crack running down the middle and a computer. It was a compact laboratory for all intents and purposes.
"Ah, there you are." Kaien remained with his back to Lysandre, continuing in the operation of emptying the content of the toolkit onto the surface of the table.
Lysandre raised an eyebrow. "There are simply no bounds to the warmth in which you greet your esteemed comrades."
"You're too funny."
Lysandre smiled slightly at his comrade's lackluster behavior that he was all too used to. In fact, he had not changed since the day Lysandre joined the lab. "You're no biochemist," Kaien tells him simply, that day. Lysandre can't tell if he was insulting him, or simply stating a fact. "You're right," Lysandre agrees. At that, Kaien scoffs inaudibly and storms off. Lysandre couldn't quite figure out what he had done wrong, either. Lysandre's slight smile broadened at the memory.
He receives a phone call one day. "Have I reached Sandy the Technician?"
Not even a hello, Lysandre derides in his mind. He says: "Hello, speaking."
"I've been trying to troubleshoot my computer all day," the voice rings out with indignation from the other end, "but I've made no progress. My programs won't stop crashing or corrupting. What time can I make an appointment for?"
Lysandre ponders on the question for a moment. "Within the hour, I daresay. What is the address of this computer?"
"Genetic Engineering Laboratory, on Ninth Street, 4th floor." The voice sounds somewhat familiar to Lysandre. He reassures that he will be there soon, and pockets his phone. It is his work phone, the one which's number he prints beneath the various "Sandy the Freelance Computer Repair Technician" ads he tapes on to lampposts situated in scattered corners of Jubilife City. For being the one and only work call he'd gotten that week, it is almost funny to him that it was initiated by a researcher from the floor above him at work. Lysandre messily deposits his lab coat on a rack and heads upstairs via elevator.
The elevator doors slide open and Lysandre steps over the threshold to 4th floor. "Someone called for a technician?"
"You're Sandy the Technician?" A tall male is standing by the entrance, carrying a keyboard under his arm. His features are sharp, his frown almost caustic. Nothing about the air around him transmits a shred of fondness or warmth.
Lysandre addresses him with a small smile, identifying the familiar voice he'd taken note of on the phone. "It's Kaien, right?"
Kaien exhales his indignation with a low "hmph". Lysandre spots an unoccupied computer two meters away, which Kaien motions him over to. He drops the keyboard on the desk, muttering under his breath. "Sandy. Lysandre. Sandy. Lysandre. How… utterly… ridiculous…"
Lysandre boots up the computer. It is a rather old system, and it signifies its revitalization with a dusty gasp sounding much like a broken motor's. He lurks about through the various content the system has to offer.
"You've been trying to troubleshoot for hours. You've tried various software and malware scanners, though all have crashed on you, or given no decipherable results."
Kaien nods. Lysandre sets to work as Kaien watches over him. At one point, he tries to access a file titled "GMP", but Kaien slaps his hand away from the keyboard protectively, saying it was the one thing he wouldn't allow access to. Lysandre accepts this. A few minutes pass before he is able to conclude: "Your computer's been possessed by a Rotom."
"What?"
"Rotom may pervade all sorts of electronic devices, but since it has never been known to successfully manifest itself in a computer system, it does not stay for long. A particularly mischievous Rotom will leave signs to let you know it was there."
Kaien looks away, uncomfortable. "Yeah, I knew that."
"Do you know why a Rotom might be attacking your computer, or where it might've come from?" Lysandre asks calmly.
Kaien sighs. He glances up again at Lysandre, a look of deep sorrow reflected on his otherwise sharp facial features. "The Rotom was mine, and I asked it to possess my computer."
Lysandre is dumbfounded. "Why on earth would you do that?"
"It was the quickest means of transferring data," Kaien replies, in earnest this time.
"But that didn't work," Lysandre perceives. "Your Rotom must not like you very much."
Kaien scoffs at Lysandre's nerve.
"That being said, it probably found your file too heavy to carry out," Lysandre adds, scrambling over to the monitor and finding his way back to the file Kaien hadn't let him open, before he could be stopped. "That would be this file."
Kaien pushes Lysandre away from the monitor with a powerful wrench, sending the younger man backwards by several steps.
"I'd be glad if you can fix the problem," Kaien retorts, "rather than invade my privacy."
Lysandre, slightly shaken, nods.
Sometime later, as Lysandre sets about completing the clearing of Rotom's remains, Kaien attempts at making conversation. "A computer technician and a biochemist, huh? I'll say, Lysandre, that's pretty impressive." Kaien is calmer now, and rather impressed with Lysandre's swift and efficient troubleshooting.
Lysandre feels he has finished the task, and reboots the computer. It does not make the same broken motor sound it had the previous time, and Lysandre understands that the sound was a Rotom's cry. He checks over his completed work, and is satisfied with the results.
He eventually replies: "That's funny. Someone once told me that I was no biochemist."
Lysandre took a seat on the fractured plastic chair and watched as Kaien went about his preparations. One by one, the practiced biochemist placed the tools in an orderly fashion, first forceps, then scissors, then various funnels and a number of other lab utensils Lysandre couldn't remember the names of. A micropipette too, perhaps? Ever since he'd been introduced to the micro-liquid-transferring-syringe, Lysandre would nickname every complex laboratory tool after the one close-to-complex laboratory tool's name he could recall. He found it almost amusing, which Kaien, of course, found disagreeable.
All tools, he knew, were "borrowed" from the upstairs labs by Kaien a few months ago, before Lysandre was exposed to GMP Lab's existence. "GMP Lab?" Lysandre repeats the words on the makeshift plaque as a question, upon his first time coming across it. "Genetic Modification of Pokémon Lab," Kaien explains. Lysandre clenches his jaw at that. It sounds to him like the title of a freakish science fiction project. But instead of expressing this, he simply purses his lips and chooses not to say a word.
Kaien began depositing items from the refrigerator; microwell plate, test tube rack and flask were placed in a neat line by the tools, all filled with substances variating in colour and amount. He tilted his head, still purposefully avoiding Lysandre's gaze.
"Well, are you just going to sit and watch," he said, his voice edged with annoyance, "or are you going to get some work done?"
Lysandre snickered. He had waited for him to say that.
Eventually, Lysandre's side job as well as his disinterest in being a biochemist was uncovered by Doctor Huan, and he too was demoted to floor 4. He took the unoccupied desk next to Kaien (much to Kaien's mixed dismay and joy), and showed even less devotion to his job from that day onwards.
Some weeks later, Kaien returns from a short visit to the restroom, only to find Lysandre gazing intently at the content presented on Kaien's monitor.
"Hey, Kaien!" he calls him over. "I think I can solve this logic you've been working on."
Kaien rushes over, knowing all-too-well that anything presented on his monitor is certainly not for his nosy comrade's eyes. His expression freezes when he recalls just what it was he'd left on.
"There's a logical consistency here," his comrade continues. "Here, I'll show you."
Slowly, unwillingly, Kaien looks over Lysandre's shoulder, as Lysandre goes about explaining the logical consistency he has found in the wall of letters, sounding much like the technician that he is. Kaien hides his awe with the disdain he feels in light of the fact that his comrade solved something he had been working on a while to solve.
Lysandre narrows his eyes at Kaien. "This looks like the kind of decoded DNA I used to deal with downstairs, except much more complicated."
Kaien bites his lip.
"But you were demoted from the labs for lack of performance," Lysandre points out.
"I was," Kaien says, avoiding Lysandre's gaze.
This scenario repeats itself over the next few weeks. Lysandre begins to think that Kaien is purposely leaving his hush-hush-top-secret files open on purpose, so that Lysandre may solve the logical consistencies for him. Of course, his comrade would never admit to it.
On the other hand, Lysandre finds it most enjoyable. Doing what he was best at, while acting as his same prying self, and simultaneously defeating Kaien Huan by miles? It sounds too good to be true, frankly. He once expresses this in front of his comrade, and the latter twists his face into a grimace upon hearing his full name. He utterly despises being identified as the Doctor's son.
"What are these for, Kaien?" Lysandre asks him one day, after solving yet another wall of letters for his comrade. "You never say."
Kaien purses his lips. "It's a personal project."
Lysandre is highly dissatisfied with his reply.
"I'll tell you about it sometime," Kaien murmurs, somewhat against his will.
"No," Lysandre states, "you'll tell me about it now."
Kaien doesn't argue. Sharing classified information with Lysandre no longer seems like a bad idea to him as it did when they first became acquainted. And so, that evening, Kaien finds himself going down to F-4, accompanied by an ecstatic Lysandre who wouldn't shut up about his different theories on what Kaien might be hiding.
Lysandre studied the wall of letters that had been scanned from the DNA of a Staravia. His eyes hunted for a consistency, and his mind thought over all the possible consistencies that he'd previously discovered. If one was tangent to Staravia's, it would create a situation where enzyme snipping could be done to remove and replace sections of DNA, the rest of which was a matter of a concept Lysandre couldn't really grasp, and thus he left it all for Kaien to understand.
He recalled the first time Kaien had explained the technicalities of it, as well as how he had come about starting the lab, and how he began his earlier experimentation, and how his father was furious when he'd discovered the project and so on. Now, Lysandre may be skilled at identifying logical consistencies, but he certainly couldn't find any in Kaien's long-winded lecture on his project. The one thing Lysandre registers, "genetic engineering in Pokémon", is enough to kindle a flame of strong curiosity within him. His mind expands on the ideas that Kaien presents: using DNA snipping to modify a Pokémon's DNA and allow one species to harbor the abilities and moves of another. Lysandre considers it, and a creeping infatuation with the idea seizes his mind and soul.
A thought strikes Kaien's mind. He faces Lysandre with sincerity.
"I need you on my team, Lysandre," he says. "I need your technician eyes."
Lysandre asks: "What's in it for me?"
But he doesn't hear what Kaien replies to that. His mind is racing, his eyes shining. He has been waiting for an opportunity like this for a long, long time; an opportunity to take part in creating something grand.
A/N: the science aspects used here are alternated and simplified. If you are an expert in any of the fields mentioned, I'm truly sorry for my errors and ignorance in these fields. There is only so much I can research for a story set in a world where science logic varies from that of the real world's. Also, I would like you to keep in mind that some things haven't yet been invented in the electronic field in the Pokémon world, which is fair, since depending on electric-type Pokémon has always been the name of the game.