It's Research
A/N: whew, finally managed to finish up chapter 2. Enjoy!
Chapter 2
"Oh look, some fresh green onions! Those are good for almost anything!"
After the Mac & Cheese incident (something they agreed to never speak of again), Misty had hauled Gary's ass out of his bed at 8 AM, to force him to go shopping for food at the grocery store. The young man needed to learn how to cook food, good food – healthy food. Food that wouldn't make you puke afterwards. Misty shuddered at the memory. She threw the bundle of green onions in to the cart and happily pushed along the aisle. Gary was slugging behind her as if he didn't really want to be there.
"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not that rich," he said loudly after Misty dumped in some cauliflower and broccoli in the cart.
Misty blinked at the brunette. He wasn't rich? "Don't you have loads of cash?"
He sighed in response. "I do, but it's a trust fund. My actual on hand cash is pretty low every month."
"Reaaaally," she drawled out, not believing him. Pokemon Researchers should earn enough to live a comfortable life, even if luxuries such as new electronic systems couldn't be afforded – food was definitely part of that comfortable lifestyle.
"What do you spend your money on then every month?" she asked and stared at a can of peaches.
Gary simply pulled a sheepish grin and then tried to avoid the subject. "Hey look, corn is on sale!" he pointed out.
Misty threw the can of peaches away and zoomed past him to grab a bunch of corn and threw it in the cart. Corn was healthy, she definitely needed a bunch of those. She wasn't going to entirely let Gary pay for all of this, she was going to pay for half, as this was her idea, and she was going to be eating from it as well. It wasn't her place to question what Gary Oak spent his money on, it's not like they were friends or something. But since she was going to stay with him for a while, it was definitely her place to say what she wanted to eat.
"How much does a Gym Leader earn?" asked Gary after a while of tagging along with her.
"Why do you want to know?" she asked him, but wasn't really paying attention.
He shrugged. "Just curious."
"Enough to buy food and to live on my own – if I wanted to, that is."
"You still live with your sisters?"
"Didn't you live with your sister as well, until very recently?" she asked back annoyed.
"At least I only had 1 sister. I can't imagine 3. It would drive me nuts."
Misty giggled at this; her sisters were indeed a handful, especially since they lacked a lot of common sense. But at least she didn't have to deal with them when she was on gym duties.
"My sisters aren't that bad, just a bit girly and stupid."
Gary snickered at this. "You admit your own sisters are stupid? I'm quite proud of you."
The redhead's cheeks turned red for a while, embarrassed that she would badmouth her sisters out loud. "Anyways!" she said loudly, then turned the cart into another aisle. "Let's finish this because I'm hungry for some breakfast."
Misty rushed her shopping a bit, but bought a lot of fresh vegetables, some meat, and a few snacks. They had to carry it back in four plastic bags. Fortunately, Pallet Town was small, so the grocery store was right around the corner. When they finally got back, Misty stocked up his fridge with all the new foods, but left out the eggs and green onions – she was making eggs for breakfast.
"Will you be cooking for me as well?" asked Gary with a sly grin. He leaned against the kitchen counter, folding his arms across his chest.
"I kind of have to. You're like a baby that will die if not fed enough."
He gave her a nasty glare, but she shrugged it off and started to prepare her eggs. Gary silently watched her every move, and it was making her feel a bit nervous being stared at.
As she chopped some green onion, she tilted her head towards him."Do you want to learn?"
"I'm fine with Mac & Cheese, thank you very much."
"Alright, be my guest if you want to puke your guts out every night." Misty grinned and returned to chopping her green onions, which she then dumped in the frying pan along with the egg. "Either way, I'm an excellent teacher, I even managed to get my sisters somewhat self sufficient."
"As far as I can recall, I remember Ash telling me your food was utterly inedible, and compared it to poison," mused Gary.
Misty's cheeks burned red and she quickly shook her head; that stupid Ash. "That was at least 7 years ago! You can't compare that to what I am today."
He shrugged and finally sauntered away from the kitchen counter. "True, we're not the same as we were 7 years ago."
She wondered just how much of what he had said pertained to her cooking, and how much of it was directed towards their lifestyles. Misty glanced back at him, and studied his figure for a bit. It was a lot different than she remembered, he had always been a scrawny kid, just like Ash, but now there was a man standing in front of her, with broad shoulders and long arms. Seven years was a long time not to see each other, so long that they were practically strangers. She became increasingly curious about what happened to him during those seven years, but decided to keep her questions to herself and finish making her eggs.
"So when is Professor Oak coming back again?" asked Misty to change the subject.
"Didn't I tell you already?" he asked a bit irritated.
Misty bit her lip, she vaguely remembered something like that. "Uhh, I don't remember," she said, playing innocent.
Gary sighed. "He'll be back tomorrow evening, though expect him to be late because Tracy has a horrible sense of direction and always manages to get anyone lost."
Misty giggled at that, then finally slipped off the eggs from the pan and onto a plate. She grabbed a fork and knife and happily hopped over to Gary, who was already waiting for her at the table. She placed the plate in front of him, and waited for him to take the first bite.
Gary slowly grabbed the fork, his eyes staring right back into Misty's. She never even noticed that he had green eyes, almost like an emerald. The man in front of her then coughed loudly. "Do you mind? I don't like being stared at when I eat."
Misty took a few steps back. "Right! Sorry!" she said and hastily went back to the stove where she could make her own portion of food.
She listened carefully to him chewing the food, and became increasingly nervous at what his reaction might be. No one else, other than her sisters, had eaten her food in a very long time, so she was kind of curious what other people thought. When the expected reaction didn't come, Misty turned around, curious why he hadn't said anything about it yet. She placed her hand on the side and cocked her head at him.
He gave her a frown in return, then popped the fork out of his mouth so he could talk. "What?" he asked in a gruff voice.
"It's only polite to tell someone their cooking is good," she said bossily.
Gary snorted out loud, and laughed to add to the insult. Misty glared at him, annoyed he would simply laugh at her face. He then twirled his fork in the air and looked at it with his green eyes. "It's alright."
Misty took that to mean 'it's good' so she smiled and returned to her own egg, which was cooking quite nicely in the frying pan. She used the spatula to flip the egg, getting hungry just by doing it.
"So, Professor Oak," started Misty, emphasizing his last name. Calling him that was kind of fun. "What will we be doing for today?"
Gary ignored the way she addressed him, but answered nonetheless. "A few tests here and there, but the biggest one involves… killing you."
The spatula dropped out of her hands, and she whirled around to look at Gary with horrified eyes.
The brunette simply laughed out loud. "Come on, don't take what I said so seriously!" he said in between laughs, which made Misty's head turn red of embarrassment. "Let me explain, I don't mean to actually kill you, but simply make it look you are. We have to make it look like you're in danger, to see how your Pokemon react to the situation."
She awkwardly picked up the spatula from the floor and brushed it off with her long sleeve, trying to ignore the small chuckles emerging from the other person in the room. "So you're just going to use me?" she spat out, a bit angry at him making a fool of her.
"Basically. You catch on quick." Misty gave him a dirty look, which he only smiled at innocently. "Don't worry, it won't be anything dangerous, it'll just look dangerous."
Misty finally finished her egg and slipped it on a plate, then strutted over toward the small kitchen table to where Gary was gobbling up the last piece of his egg. To put herself in fake danger for the sake of test, it sounded weird, but she hoped Gary was right when he said it wasn't actually dangerous.
"What kind of results are you expecting with this 'fake danger'?" she asked as she sat down next to him.
"I'm expecting to see a strong bond of loyalty between Pokemon and their trainers. Hence why we needed someone who trained and bonded a lot with their Pokemon."
Misty unconsciously rubbed her Pokeballs that were on her belt, smiling softly at all the memories she had made with her Pokemon.
"I won't die for real, right?"
He gave her an all knowing smirk, one that was reminiscent of their childhood. "I can't guarantee that."
Misty had her doubts for the rest of the day about Gary's promises. Faking danger sounded kind of, well, dangerous. Something could go horribly wrong, and her pokemon would be traumatized! The brunette however, acted like nothing was wrong, and quickly went over some data on a long sheet of paper as they stood inside the lab.
"So, what exactly are you going to do to me?"
Gary peered over the sheet, and she could slightly see his hidden smirk behind it as well. "Why Misty? Anything in particular you want me to do," he then leaned closer to her face. "… to you?" he asked, emphasizing that last part. Seeing Misty's agitated face, Gary leaned back, satisfied at the result. "I'm gonna hang you."
Her hands shot to her neck and she grabbed it defensively. "What?"
"Idiot, I don't mean like a noose around your neck. Just tied up with some rope, dangling from the ceiling above some boiling lava."
Her eyes widened in fear. Lava? She was going to be held above freaking lava? Where'd he get lava anyway?
"Chill, that was a joke. Haha. You can laugh," he said dully. "Well, the lava part was a joke, but I'm still tying you up," he then pointed his pencil towards a big window in the wall behind her. There were a few chairs huddled around the glass, and behind the glass was a very large and empty room.
"What if I refuse?" she said and crossed her arms over her chest to make her point. She wasn't liking this one bit, she was expecting to run some tests on pokemon – but not actively engage in some experiment.
"Well then, it's a good thing you can't refuse me," he stated simply, then placed the pencil behind his ear, brushing away a few spikes of brown hair out of his face as he did so, and he folded up the long sheet of paper.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she barked at him. Maybe she was wrong, maybe Gary never changed from when they were young, he was still a pompous arrogant jerk. Just because he happened to be wearing a lab coat and earned the title of 'Pokemon Professor', that didn't mean he was actually a good person. Gary started walking towards the window, and Misty followed him while shooting daggers in his back with her eyes.
"I'll be sitting here, observing everything." He sat down at one of the chairs, and gestured her to do the same. She stubbornly sat down.
"You, will be inside there," he pointed to the room behind the glass. "There's a few cameras in there as well. If anything goes wrong, I can push this red button over here," he leaned back so she could see the red button that his back was hiding from view, "and you'll be pulled to safety instantly."
"What about my pokemon?" she blurted out.
"They'll be fine, they won't hurt themselves if they're smart enough."
"I still don't like this."
He gave a disappointing and long sigh. "Would you be happier if I explained everything step by step?"
"Yes, I would."
"Great. Then let me lay it down for you. I am going to tie you up, and you'll be wearing a safety harness underneath the rope. You will be lowered down from the ceiling, about a good 40 feet from the ground – but again, you're wearing a safety harness. One of your pokemon will be at the bottom, and then you'll have to act like you're in danger, by calling for help. I'll be up as well, ready to take any action if something goes wrong. Then we just watch and enjoy the show. If anything goes wrong, the red button will reel you back in to safety."
Gary looked at Misty's dumbfounded face. "Questions?"
"You won't let me fall, right?" she asked meekly.
He gave her a tired look. "Let's get started, shall we?"
Gary had already prepared everything in advance. He was spouting a bunch of information to her, as well as what she was supposed to do as he strapped her into the harness. Within minutes, whether she wanted to or not, Misty was tied in a bunch of rope, wearing a safety harness like Gary had promised, and was about to be lowered down in the observation room. When she was ready to go, Misty peered over the edge, the height scaring her a little bit, and shuffled away, knocking into Gary's chest as he was standing right behind her.
"Now, remember what I told you to do?"
She nodded her head nervously. "This is safe, right?" She pointed to the harness.
The hand that was placed on her shoulder startled her a bit, but she appreciated the gesture he was making. "I promise, nothing will happen to you," he said, his face hovering besides her ears which caused her nervousness to increase.
"So, you ready?"
"I think so," she said, not really ready at all. It was sort of out of the blue and she was strapped into this thing so quickly too.
"Alright then, you know what to do. If you want me to reel you back in, just yell 'strawberries'."
She looked at him stupidly and raised her eyebrows; strawberries? Gary frowned in return. "When you're pretending to be in danger, it's kind of hard to tell if you're acting, or if you're really asking me for help. So we'll use a word that wouldn't crop up in your vocabulary when screaming at the top of your lungs. Got it?"
She sort of got it, but not really. "Alright, off you go." Suddenly a button was pressed, and Misty felt herself being yanked to the side, something was moving her towards the pit of doom.
Fear of heights had never really bothered her, it wasn't one of her phobias … bugs on the other hand. Yet when she was dangling, a good 40 feet above ground, and only one piece of rope was holding her up, she started to become very fearful. Misty shakily looked to the side at the window, and saw Gary smile at her smugly and waved at her. Jerk, she was going to kick his ass for putting her in this situation once it was over.
The young professor pressed a button on the side of the wall, and an intercom was turned on by the sound of his mono-voice. "Okay, you're all set to go, release Politoad." His voice was awfully grating on her nerves when it sounded all computerized like that.
"My pokeball won't break if I throw it down there, right?" she asked uncertainly as she held Politoad's pokeball in her hands.
"Pokeballs are designed to not get broken that easily, it's safe to throw it down."
Misty eyed the pokeball in her hands, not wanting to break it and hurt Politoad who was inside. Then again, she didn't want to hurt herself for dangling above a huge pit!
"Come on, throw it," said Gary impatiently.
Misty gave him a mean look, but then finally threw the pokeball down at the bottom. "Politoad, come out!" she yelled. Now was the time to start pretending she was in danger.
She glanced over at the window, and Gary was giving her a thumbs up. When Politoad appeared at the bottom, Misty sighed and took a deep breath.
"Help Politoad! I'm in danger!" yelled out Misty, though her acting skills were not really worth mentioning.
Despite her lack of real urgency in her voice, Politoad nodded its frog-like head, and started to climb the walls, as if he were a spider. Misty tried to wiggle around when she saw Gary motioning for her to act a bit more crazy, and she kept calling for Politoad's name, while at the same time hoping this wouldn't traumatize him. It was rather uneventful how Politoad managed to reel her in with his tongue, break the line that was holding her up, and carry her down to safety despite not getting any commands from Misty whatsoever. Misty wiggled herself out of the loose ropes and gave her Politoad a hug.
"You're such a good pokemon, thank you Politoad!"
Suddenly Gary's voice boomed through the room, bouncing off of the stone walls making it seem even more menacing.
"That was … not what I was expecting." You could hear the distain in his voice as he said this, as if it were all Politoad's fault or something. "But, good work anyway. Stay there, I'm coming down."
Misty returned Politoad in her pokeball, very proud that he had saved her in a very gentle way – that was her pokemon alright! A few seconds later and Gary opened the door at the bottom to enter the room. He sulked openly, his hands in his pockets as if he had just lost an important battle or something.
"Let's try it out with Gyarados," he said, not even addressing Politoad's actions. He then took her pokeball out of her hands and handed over Gyarados instead.
"Why, what was wrong with Politoad?" she snapped defensively. "He saved me! Isn't that what you wanted?"
Gary brought a hand to his chin, deep in thought. "Hmm. Maybe if you panicked a bit more then we could see some true urgency."
"Oh come on, Politoad did good. I'm not hurt at all!"
"That's because this is a test situation, you wouldn't get hurt in the first place," he said with a sigh. "Nonetheless, it's data, so let's gather some more data. I have to tie you up again."
"Again?" she repeated with disdain.
"Yes, again. Come on."
"Fine."
The next few minutes Misty let herself be tied up again in the same way as before, which also included a new safety harness of course, since Politoad broke the previous one to rescue her. Gary gave her a weird look before sending her off to the pit of doom again. He pushed his finger on the intercom to talk.
"Okay, act a bit more crazy this time. Use that voice of yours, I know you can be pretty damn loud."
Misty whipped her head at him angrily. "What's that supposed to mean!" she yelled out at him
He simply shrugged at her knowingly, while a smirk graced over his lips. "That's the spirit. You ready?"
The redhead pouted, but then took out her pokeball. "Yeah," she said. She then threw the ball at the bottom.
"Gyarados, please come out and help me!" she yelled, trying her best to sound panicked. She look over at Gary for approval, but he had a sullen look on his face and sighed heavily – even though she couldn't hear it, it was pretty obvious.
Gyarados popped out of his pokeball and looked around in a confused state. Misty gave Gary a glare, she'll show him, she could act like a damsel in distress! She started to wiggle a bit, so that her body swung from left to right.
"Help me Gyarados!" she yelled in a very high pitched voice. "They're going to get me!" She had no idea who 'they' were, so long as Gyarados believed that 'they' were after her.
Her pokemon looked up at her with his fierce look, then roared out loud, sending vibrations down to her bones. For a split second, she had second doubts about this; Gyarados was her strongest pokemon, he could do more harm than good. But no, she trusted him, he would save her, right?
"Help!" she screeched again, wiggling for good measure.
The pokemon then went ballistic and started to spew out water from his mouth, filling up the pit so fast that his entire body was almost submerged. Misty's eyes grew wide when she saw he had no intentions of stopping his water gun attack, she wouldn't drown like this, right? She hastily looked over at Gary, who had his eyes strained on Gyarados, and looked strangely excited. She had a feeling that she couldn't rely on Gary if something really went wrong, there went her metaphorical safety net.
Misty believed (about ninety percent) this would have ended well if Gyarados would just keep filling up the room with water until he reached her, but she never counted on him to reach the glass window where Gary was, and the pokemon gave the loudest roar ever once their eyes met. The brunette's eyes widened when he realized that Gyarados was going to charge at him. It seemed that Gyarados believed 'they' really meant 'Gary' and totally discarded her safety and went for him instead, he launched a full out body slam on the window, but it barely even had a scratch.
"No, Gyarados! Save me! Don't attack him!" she called out at him.
Except it was useless, her pokemon was disobeying her direct orders and kept smashing itself against the window. She saw Gary hurriedly scrambling over to the intercom to talk to her.
"Misty, I'm reeling you in, this is becoming too dangerous," he said in a slightly panicked voice. He then pressed the emergency button, and Misty felt herself moving closer to the gap in the wall, to safety.
Gyarados noticed the sudden movement of Misty, and finally stopped to roar out loud, and launched a hyper beam at her. Misty screamed bloody murder when the beam went her way, except it wasn't aimed at her, it was aimed at the rope that was keeping her up there. Misty could see her plain regular life flashing before her eyes as she saw the rope getting torched and snapped in half, and she slowly fell down towards the water.
Her body hit the water hard, the impact knocking out most of her breath, and her body slowly started to sink. Her eyes were open and she tried to see if she could kick her way up to the surface to be able to breathe again, but Misty wasn't a Seal, she was human, and she couldn't swim up when her arms were held against her body. She saw Gyarados's tail swipe by her face, he'd either take her up to the surface, or totally ignore her. When there was no indication that Gyarados was going to save her, Misty wondered just how well she had tamed her pokemon. Misty sunk deeper and deeper, until her body hit rock bottom, and she was literally out of air.
So this was it, this was how she was going to die, drowning by her own pokemon's actions, all because that stupid wannabe professor thought it would be a great idea to put her in a fake dangerous situation. Except it turned much more dangerous than expected, and here she was, all the way at the bottom with no way out, and she finally let out her last breath. She couldn't even rely on Politoad, since she left the pokeball with Gary and only kept Gyarados with her. So much for her safety net. Goodbye cruel world, lived for 19 years, had an unrequited crush for 4 years, never managed to get a real boyfriend, and now I'm going to drown in my own pokemon's water.
She instinctively tried to breathe in air, but all she sucked in was water, and it filled up her lungs. A few seconds later, and her vision blacked out.
The first thing she did when she regained consciousness again was cough up a lot of water, while simultaneously bumping her head against someone else's. Misty squeezed her eyes shut and coughed some more, trying to catch her breath. When her coughs finally started to go down, Misty took a few deep breaths, happy to breathe in oxygen again. When she had calmed herself down enough to look around, she noticed that Gary's body was hovering over hers, which was laying on the ground, with Politoad was standing right next to him. Sincere green eyes were filled with fear and worry, and even guilt. His brown bangs were wet, but so was the rest of his body. She was outside of the pit, on the floor, and all she could think about was that she was lucky to be alive again, to see those green eyes once more.
"Can you breathe?" asked Gary as he sat down next to her, those eyes still filled with worry.
Misty rubbed her throat and coughed a few times to get rid of an itch, then took in a very large breath. Sweet, sweet oxygen, she hadn't drowned to death after all. She then gave him a small grin. "First you poison me, then you try to drown me."
He gave her a sigh. "Good, you can." Gary's eyes finally pulled away from her and he looked at the floor. "I understand if you want to go home now. I'm really sorry about all this, it shouldn't have happened."
"I thought I was going to die," she said in a single breath, staring aimlessly at the high ceiling. "Water has always been my safe haven you know, I never thought I was actually going to drown in it." Politoad then gave her a big hug and licked her face. "Thanks Politoad, I'm guessing it's because of you I'm actually alive. I knew I could count on you, buddy."
Gary gave Politoad a warm smile. "He sure did, very heroic, not to be underestimated. Now, your Gyarados on the other hand."
"He's just a big brute, he doesn't know what he did was dangerous," she said defensively. "Is he okay?"
"Yeah, I recalled him."
There was a silent moment between them, with Politoad continuously licking her face, making sure she was alright.
"Are you okay?" asked Gary after a while, avoiding her face.
Misty finally sat up straight to look at him properly. "Not sure. I mean, it was such a traumatic experience, you know? Yesterday I was puking my guts out, today I'm coughing up water, and it seems that each one of those experiences were the direct cause of your actions."
"Your sarcasm is greatly appreciated in the face of death."
She finally laughed out loud, which quickly turned into a fit of coughs. Gary rushed to her side and rubbed her back to calm her down. She looked up at him, still coughing a bit.
"Gary Oak, I don't know whether to hate you, or like you!" she exclaimed with another laugh.
"I think you should appreciate the fact I know how to give CPR."
"You wouldn't have a reason to use it if it weren't for your crazy idea in the first place."
"Which, by the way, gave me excellent results, better than I was hoping for."
"Hey! I'm not your test puppet!"
The look he gave her sent chills down her spine, he reluctantly bit his lips and turned away from her, opting to lean his back against hers. "No, no you're not. You can leave if you want."
Misty gave him a snort and a shrug of her shoulders. All this time Misty had been living a rather uneventful life, with the occasional gym battle here and there, and no friends coming to check her up, Misty realized that even though her life had been on the line, she liked the change in her life. Merely two days after coming over she had experienced food poisoning, and almost drowned. Yet, she felt more alive than ever. What good was life if all she ever did was lounge around and watch everybody around her grow up while she remained stagnant, not achieving anything worthwhile. This was the most action she had gotten in the past five years.
"And miss all the action? No thanks, I'm good here. But you owe me big, mister Oak. Very big."
"Shouldn't it be the other way around? You know, with me saving your life and all."
"Excluding the fact that you were the one who put me into a situation like this in the first place – it was Politoad who saved me, not you."
"How would you know," he mumbled under his breath. "You were out cold."
Misty pushed her wet head against the back of his. "Hey Gary?"
"What?"
"I want to stay here, but you gotta promise me you won't try to kill me again."
"I'll try not to."
"Good," she said, then finally passed out after such an eventful day.
The next time Misty woke up again, she noticed she was in that crappy old bed that she had slept in just a day ago. She raised her body from the bed and sat straight, rubbing her eyes while simultaneously trying to remember what happened after she passed out. She couldn't remember a thing after Politoad had saved her. Misty then noticed she was wearing her pajamas. Suddenly feeling all embarrassed, she quickly checked her underwear, and they were still the same ones she wore yesterday, so she gave a relieved sigh.
After a few more seconds of waking up, Misty finally swung herself out of the bed and went out the hallway, knocking on Gary's room.
"Gary, you in there?" she called out. There was no response however. She sauntered downstairs, and then noticed two pokeballs sitting on the table, along with a small note. She took the note in her hand and read it.
"At the lab, that's all it says? Not even a 'sorry I drowned you'?" she asked with a snort, then put the note down and retrieved her pokeballs.
She quickly got dressed and headed to the lab. She didn't expect to run into anyone besides Gary at the lab though, so when she almost knocked into someone opening the doors, it gave her a freight.
"Misty! Good to see you!" said the tall boy with black hair.
Misty cracked a smile. "Tracey!" she said happily. He had gotten mighty taller during those years they were separated.
"Are you okay? I hear what happened yesterday," he said in a more serious voice, then took her hand and guided her inside of the lab.
"Yeah, I'm fine for now. When did you get back?"
"This morning actually, we managed to get back earlier than expected. Gary's been briefing us about the research you have helped us with. But anyways! So how's it going? Aside from the near death experience."
Misty gave a small giggle at Tracey's enthusiasm. She hadn't seen him in years either, so it was good to see him again after such a long time. "Everything's normal, just everyday life."
"Good to hear – so how's Ash doing?"
Ash, that dreaded topic that always came up whenever someone talked to her. Misty bit her lip, trying hard not to look agitated at Tracey for asking such a question – it's not like he meant any harm by asking it. But it was just rubbing salt in her wounds when she knew just as much as they did when it came about Ash; nothing.
"Dunno, haven't heard from him in a very long time," she said with a shrug.
"Is that so? I thought you were best buds."
Misty shot him a hidden glare; did he have to state it so plainly? Luckily, before she could even answer that, she was already inside of the research room, and saw two Oaks hard at work, standing near a big machine while holding a bunch of papers.
"Professor Oak!" Misty squealed out and ran over to him.
Both heads turned, and Professor Oak gave her a warm smile. It had definitely been too long she had seen him without a videophone screen in the way. He looked a lot older in person though; probably nearing his sixties.
"My, it's Misty! How are you? Is everything alright with you?"
Misty hand waved her near death experience since she was happy to see him. "Oh that, it's fine, really. Did you have a nice trip?" she asked politely.
"Splendid!"
Misty suddenly noticed that Gary was also right next to Professor Oak, but he hadn't said a word. In fact, it seemed he was avoiding her as well.
"So Gary's been telling me the experiments you have participated in, and it seems to be going rather well."
She wouldn't call drowning 'well', but chose to ignore that part. "Yeah, it's been rather fun too."
"Hey Gary, why don't we review the footage you recorded yesterday?" piped in Tracey.
"Sure, I was going to anyways in a few minutes. Want to watch too, Misty?" he asked, finally addressing her.
"Is ehm," she started a bit awkward. "Is that part on it too?"
"Everything."
Misty gulped, not quite wanting to see herself drown so helplessly. Professor Oak then put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry Misty, you're safe and sound, why don't you come join us?"
That old grandfather voice melted her like butter; she could never deny the Professor Oak, except for the younger Professor Oak. She nodded mindlessly, and followed the trio as they walked into another room with a big TV screen. Great, now her life's worst failure will be magnified in front of her eyes, suddenly she was starting to have second doubts again.
Gary popped in a CD on the side of the TV, and an image appeared on it immediately. The screen was split into four sections, each having recorded a different angle. One at the very top, aiming towards the bottom, one at the bottom, aiming at the top, and two on the sides that each recorded the top and bottom section of the pit.
"Alright, so this was the first part, using Misty's Politoad," explained Gary as he held a remote in his hands, making the video play.
Misty took a seat like everyone else, sitting next to Tracey, but her eyes were glued on the screen. Though part of her really wanted to look away, since she didn't really want to see this. The video started to play and she could see herself being reeled out into the open, and she summoned Politoad. Politoad obeyed her commands, and quickly managed to bring her down to safety.
"Marvelous!" piped in Professor Oak in a happy voice. "Your Politoad is a fine pokemon, you raised him well, Misty."
She had to blush a bit at the compliment, then smiled and nodded in return.
"Next up was Gyarados, and as I said before, we ran into trouble with that one," said Gary.
Misty didn't really want to look at the screen as she heard herself yell out loud that 'they' were after her, which caused Gyarados to go on a rampage and fill the camber with water. Hesitantly she averted her eyes away from the screen, though when she heard a loud splash, she immediately returned to watching it again. She saw how she went under, the camera perfectly capturing everything as she sunk to the bottom, wiggling desperately to get back up again.
On one of the other camera angles, she saw Gary opening a door from the side, then called out Politoad while he quickly dove straight into the water, managing to escape the wrath of Gyarados as Politoad kept it distracted. Misty was kind of flabbergasted at seeing Gary dive all the way down and grabbing her lifeless form, then quickly retrieved her pokeball as well and called Gyarados back. He then swam to the side and opened a secret hatch, which made the both of them burst out of the chamber when it was opened, the water pushing them out. She couldn't really see what happened next as the camera barely captured part of the secret hatch, but she saw Gary's form hovering above hers, and he was about to do something when the real Gary stood up from his chair and paused the video.
"Alright, that's enough, end of footage," he said with a scratchy voice.
Misty gulped loudly when she realized what exactly had happened after she blacked out. She thought Politoad had retrieved her from the water, he was after all, a very good swimmer – but never imagined that Gary would use Politoad to distract her Gyarados as he went down himself to retrieve her body. Suddenly she felt extremely embarrassed at giving the credit to Politoad when she woke up again, completely dismissing Gary's effort at recuing her.
"Man Misty, that was intense!" said Tracey out loud.
"As I thought, Politoad is a very fine pokemon. Your Gyarados needs training though," mentioned Professor Oak.
"Sorry that Gary had to put you through that, but at least you're safe now," said Tracey as he gave her a pat on the back before exiting the room.
Misty sat there awkwardly in the room with the two Oaks, not quite sure what to do with herself anymore.
"Well Misty, I can't thank you enough for participating in this research, I'll be sure to let your sisters know what a great help you have been." Then Professor Oak left the room as well, leaving her alone with Gary, who was staring intently at the wall.
Misty squirmed on her seat, then decided to get up and walk over to Gary.
"I … uhm," she said, trying to find the words to properly thank him.
"What?" he said, finally addressing her, albeit with a little bit of rudeness.
She brushed her orange hair out of her face and bashfully looked at her shoes. "Sorry for giving the credit to Politoad. Thanks for, you know, saving me and all."
Gary returned to wall-staring, as if something really interesting was written on it. "Yeah," he said curtly.
Misty bit her lip, then leaned in forward a bit more to see his face that he was trying to hide, and noticed that his cheeks were ever so slightly tinted pink.
"Oooh, you're embarrassed!" she said almost with a squeal.
Gary whipped his face around and gave her an angry look. "I'm not!" he said, despite his face getting redder.
Misty giggled in awe, finding it extremely cute that Gary – the Gary Oak, the one that tormented her years ago – was embarrassed at having her thank him for saving her life. "You so are!" she said with another giggle, then tried to push his hands away that were covering his face.
"I'm not, now stop – stop that!" He tried to evade her hands, all the while his face was steaming red. It was so cute and endearing, Misty couldn't help but feel embarrassed as well – but only since he started it.
Misty finally managed to grab his hand and pulled it away from his red cheeks, and brought it to her chest. "Thanks, Gary, I mean it," she said with a sweet smile.
That action only served to embarrass Gary even more, and he quickly jerked his hand back and stormed out of the room, mumbling something about impossible redheads.
Misty's laughter started to slow down, but she was still grinning from ear to ear. Near death experience? She was so over that, she had this cute little Professor to torment to make up for it.