Disclaimer: Pokémon is owned by The Pokémon Company, which in turn is owned by Nintendo, Game Freak, and probably others I forgot. The following fanfiction is me playing around in their sandbox, using characters they envisioned and created, except for the odd character that wasn't. I own nothing of this.
Chapter 7: Evolution
It was supposed to have been a night like any other otherwise unoccupied night, such few as they were: a glass of Hoenn rosé, soft piano music and a good book. It had been looking like one until ten seconds before, when he had heard bombastic notes echo from his study.
He was receiving a call, and the phone that received it was not a phone he had expected to use until three days from now. "Good evening."
"Good evening, sir," the female voice on the other side returned, before succinctly summarising events that had happened earlier that day, in a facility due north and east. Questions he asked were answered adequately, until he had received all relevant information. "How should we proceed?"
Restarting the experiment was not an option: if his suspicions regarding the opposing organisation were correct, further active forays would be picked up quicker than the seven months it had taken for them to dismantle the operation and, presumably, destroy the base entirely. Risk versus reward was not on his side going onward, even before other challenging conundrums, such as the acquisition of a test subject, were taken into consideration. He also had none of the recent results in writing, as the lead scientist vacated the premises without taking them with him. "We will need to retreat and recover. Other avenues are more promising as of now."
"Understood," was the answer, and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she did, for such was their partnership. "I'll be in touch."
The call ended, and he sat down at his desk. The undertaking's failure was a hindrance, but its purpose had never been to utilise it like Team Rocket had. He shook his head. Such a waste they were, utilising force to try and exert pressure upon society, in the unlikely scenario they were more than common thugs. Then again, Team Aqua and Magma had hardly been more sophisticated, from what he had been able to gather from his network.
And if his network was correct, he had just raised the ire of a thorn in the side of those organisations. No, it was best to brief the remaining facilities to exercise extreme caution. Restricting research cost time, but preserved the project. Next month was likely a reasonable time to restart the research.
As for this month… Perhaps it was time to work in another arena, one that teenagers – even if they were League Champions – only rarely partook in.
~~§~~§~~
The rest of the hideout was simple. There were a few rooms with beds, desks, chairs, wardrobes: the usual things for any Pokémon Center room, except this was underground, and the walls were rock. Ash and Danny had seen one trap while they cleared out the other rooms, but a simple tripwire didn't do much to stop anyone that was walking slowly and looking out for traps.
The slow search did help to calm Danny. The attacks he saw Ash's pikachu dish out, and the… ferociousness? Of sceptile and weavile, and of their opponents…. He realised he had a long way to go, and though he knew Ash would not let them come to harm, Danny had been a tiny bit scared.
The fled trainers were nowhere to be seen now, however. He was sort of glad for that. They only had Danny's Pokémon, plus Ash's croconaw and weavile, and the corridors were narrow and small. The hariyama could probably block the entire path. Sceptile and pikachu were with Max, as guards, and maybe to comfort him too. Danny had seen pikachu and Max be good buddies before.
He ducked underneath a low-hanging beam, turned a corner and closed his eyes as daylight assaulted them. It wasn't too bright, but way brighter than the tunnel. Opening his eyes, he stepped outside onto a rocky plain, passing by an opened door as he did. Sunlight bathed part of the plain, but the tunnel's entrance was in the shadows. To his right, he saw tyre tracks for some big car, going off, and the smell of something recently burned made him squeeze his nose shut.
Ash had seen the tyre tracks as well. "They're gone. Probably burned their clothing to keep us from tracking them with a flying Pokémon." He knelt by something to Danny's left, and when Danny turned, he saw the not-quite ashes of something that had burned just a few minutes before. "Croconaw?" Moments later, water doused the smoking remains of the clothes.
As Danny made to walk back in, Ash put a hand on his shoulder. "You want to call Professor Birch?"
It sounded like a really good idea, but Danny wasn't sure. How could he explain this? Before he could decide that, Ash spoke up. "He knows about what we were doing. Someone else told him," the older teen assured him.
The call went through to Joshua, but Danny simply asked if his uncle was available. He was, after a minute or so of waiting, and the Professor wasted no time. "Hello Danny! Are you okay? Did you succeed?"
"Sorta. Some of them got away, but one got caught. They weren't a big threat."
"But are you okay?"
"Stop worrying uncle, of course I'm okay." Danny rolled his eyes. He was making a call. You didn't do that if you weren't okay. "Ash's Pokémon are powerful." He looked over at Ash, who was making a call of his own, closer to the back entrance, out of earshot.
"Ash shared his Pokémon with you?"
Was that surprise in his uncle's voice? Danny wasn't sure. "Uhuh. He said it was safer. Max chose sceptile and Ash gave me croconaw to use. Sceptile and treecko took down a huge ursaring together!" He frowned. "Wish I did as much..."
"I'm sure you helped the best you could, Danny," his uncle encouraged him. "You're a good trainer. Not everyone can get four badges in three months, you know."
"Not as good as Max," Danny replied truthfully.
"Stop it, Danny." His uncle's voice was hard. Danny could picture the scowl on his face perfectly. "You're not Max. Stop comparing yourself to him."
"I know, I know! It's just... he told me about jirachi and the groudon and kyogre thing. And the Team Rocket guys too. And Max didn't even have Pokémon then." Danny replied. "He's not that much more experienced."
"What? Jir… Never mind. He was still there, Danny," his uncle explained calmly. "Rampaging Pokémon and criminals don't care if someone is a trainer. Besides, do you really think none of the Pokémon would listen to him? You told me earlier that he and Ash's pikachu got along great."
"I guess..."
"That sceptile was one of Ash's first Pokémon in Hoenn, too. Max is going to know what sceptile can do and can't do, and croconaw makes sense for you, because you know what they can do, too." Danny mulled over that explanation, but his thoughts were interrupted. "Are Max and Ash okay, by the way?"
"Ash is making a call," Danny said, "and Max..."
"Yes?" Professor Birch said after Danny trailed off. "What happened?"
A deep breath. "We found Max's ralts. They were using him for their signal... He was..." he trailed off again, unsure how to continue.
"It died, didn't it?"
"He did. In Max's arms."
There was a loud, harsh, sound from the other side; one that made Danny reflexively move the Pokénav away from his ear. "Of all the Pokémon, it was that Pokémon," his uncle mused. "Did you insult Arceus lately?"
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Can you tell Max to call me tonight? If he wants to."
"I'll try." Danny didn't want to promise any more.
"That's all I can ask." Danny heard a familiar sound in the background. "I need to go. Danny, no matter what you feel, you did great today, and I know you can help Max with this too. Just be yourself, okay?"
Danny's reply was lost to the ether as the call ended. Turning around, he saw that Ash's call had also ended, and the teenager was now leaning against the mountain, waiting for Danny to return. "Your call went okay?"
"Yeah. They're okay with them getting away. The technology is more important. They did want us to see if there wasn't some sort of journal or report or anything."
"Then we'll have to go look," Danny stated confidently. "Start with the bedrooms?"
"Yeah. Let's give Max some more time."
Danny could only agree with that.
They found a couple of things in the bedrooms, but nothing really important, even after Danny put his ear to the wall and tapped on the stone, looking for something hollow. It was a bit disappointing, Danny felt, but Ash just shrugged, mentioning that he wasn't expecting to find anything in the bedrooms. "They had time to clear out, remember?"
Max had moved. He'd been in full view of the door, but he wasn't any more, so he had to have moved. When Danny entered the main hall, the sound of a squeaky chair told him where his friend had gone: Max was reading something on one of the computers.
"Ash, come over here!" he called when he noticed them; the closing of the door alerting him to their return. Pikachu and treecko had already noticed them, the former closing the distance to Ash with quick leaps.
Looking over his friend's shoulder, Danny saw Max was reading some document on the 'experiment'. It read like one of his Uncle's journals. Danny'd tried to read those a few times, but he always lost track. Too many words he didn't get.
"Eh, Max..." Ash started, gently, "I don't understand this."
In reply, Max scrolled the document upwards. "Oops. That's the technical part. There's a summary up here." He highlighted three long paragraphs. "There."
The summary talked about how they got the ralts, how they'd made him evolve forcibly and how they were trying to make the signal more powerful, in language Danny actually understood. He wasn't sure he wanted to, especially when he read about the 'problems' they were having with kirlia, but he did. Then he remembered that Max had probably read that too, and he winced.
"Okay. Good to know," Ash said when he had finished reading. "Let's get out of here."
"Right." Max pushed himself out of the chair, and Danny instinctively shot forward to support him, like he'd done three months before, but Max stopped him. "Thanks Danny, I'm okay."
"Chu-hu," came the pikachu's disbelieving cry that echoed Danny's own thoughts.
"Okay to walk, then," Max amended. "Busybody."
Danny never knew a pikachu could look so smug.
~~§~~§~~
The camp that night was subdued, and awkward. Ash and Danny didn't want to really talk about anything, but they managed to annoy Max. Somehow. Danny wasn't sure how that happened, but for once, he was pretty happy Max left the camp after dinner, pikachu on his shoulder as a guard, something Danny didn't see in his hand..
It wasn't that Max went far away, and in the setting summer sun, Danny could easily see Max's outline, looking out over a small valley as he sat near the edge of the plateau. That, at least, hadn't changed. "It doesn't make sense," Danny murmured.
"What doesn't?" Ash replied, walking past with a full plate of food for the charizard, setting it down a moment later. "Max?"
"Uhuh. Wasn't like this last time." Danny turned to look at Ash, who'd sat down at the opposite side of the small fire they'd used to cook on. "It's weird."
"He always wants to be alone when things don't go his way, you know that."
"It's not that," Danny replied, a bit more forcefully than he intended. "It's just... He wasn't this... I don't know... Active? Angry?"
"I don't know." The cry of a swellow – wild, not Ash's – overhead prompted both of them to look up for a second. "I really don't know, Danny. Brock's better at this stuff than I am. Misty too. But I think he'll be okay."
"As long as that guy we captured gets in jail. Thought Max was gonna punch him when we came out."
"If sceptile hadn't stopped Max, I think he would have. Probably no less than the guy deserves."
A Pokémon cry to his left alerted Danny, but it was only pikachu electrocuting some wild flying Pokémon. It probably got too close to Max, and pikachu took his guarding seriously, Danny knew. "Probably? Ya think?"
Ash held out his hands in an apologetic gesture. "Okay, point taken." He paused, taking a moment to check how far along his eating Pokémon were with emptying their plates. "I thought about capturing the ralts, screw the risks. Maybe I should have."
"Risks?" They always heard that capturing a very injured Pokémon was something you didn't do, but Danny hadn't really thought about why that was. It just was.
"Entering a pokéball for the first time isn't easy. Using it on very wounded Pokémon can cause a coma or death."
"Oh. Okay." Silence fell, uncomfortable, but understandable. "I don't think he would've survived."
"I don't think so, too," Ash said. "But what if..."
That was the question. What if… They'd be waiting in a Center, probably, waiting for news from Kanto, hoping, perhaps even praying, that it was going to turn out alright.
"I think ralts would've been a good Pokémon for Max," Ash said at length, a few minutes after Danny's thoughts about might-have-beens.
That was an understatement. "Well, duh," Danny said. "He couldn't wait to get to Izabe Island. Made plans and everything."
Ash shook his head. "No, I don't mean that. It fits his style."
"I don't get it."
Ash stood up, starting to pace a bit. "Every trainer has their own style. I like fast Pokémon, I don't like switching Pokémon out just because they're at a type disadvantage and lots of people say I'm unorthodox. That's my style." Ash waited for a nod from Danny before continuing. "I think Max really wants to limit the options his opponent has. Ralts are perfect for that. They can teleport away from physical attacks, and they can create barriers to stop smaller projectiles. It's really annoying to fight a gardevoir." Ash's hand went to the bridge of his nose. "Probably the most annoying opponent I faced in the Lily of the Valley Conference."
Danny and Max hadn't seen Ash fight a gardevoir, and this was the first time he spoke of the earlier rounds. "That bad?"
"Worse. It knew Draining Kiss." That prompted a wince. Recovery moves were annoying. Half of the matches Max's treecko won in sparring were because he recovered stamina with Absorb. "Took out weavile and sceptile, and I only won because it didn't have enough psychic energy left to deal with snorlax."
"That sounds like my battle against Flannery," Max said as he sat down. Danny hadn't heard him come back. "Tire the opponent out and win because you had a big lead. Still was pretty close."
Ash chuckled. "That's because Flannery used a more powerful Pokémon against you. Gym Leaders don't like to lose without getting a single knock-out in," he said as he unzipped his bag. "I don't think I ever won a badge without having to switch Pokémon. If it was more than a 1 on 1."
"Pikachu did it against Wattson," Max reminded Ash.
"I'm not counting that," Ash said. Then, to Danny. "Pikachu picked up a ton of extra electricity from some of Wattson's robots. One hit knock-outs on all of Wattson's Pokémon." The electric mouse walked up to Ash, sniffing at the backpack. "You already ate!"
"Chu?" the pikachu replied, adding a "Pi-ka-chu." as he pointed at Ash.
The first time Danny had seen this, he'd been amazed at the level of understanding Ash had of what his Pokémon were saying. Now, a week later, he was pretty sure that pikachu just wanted to snack on the sweet marshmallows Ash was retrieving from his backpack, and the electric type wasn't going to give up until he got one as well.
"So Gym Leaders have a lot of different Pokémon they can use?" Danny asked after pikachu had been given a marshmallow on a stick as well. "And that magmar was probably more powerful than the houndour and growlithe?"
"Of course." Ash seemed completely certain. "Here's a good one for you. What did you think we fought in our first Gym in Sinnoh? It's Rock-type, three Pokémon."
Danny thought for a bit. It was the first gym, but Ash was a pretty experienced trainer, so... "Graveler, onix and... lairon?"
"Close, but wrong. Max?"
"Golem, magcargo, rhydon?"
"Golem's correct, and there was an aggron too, so you weren't that far off, Danny," Ash said. "Pikachu ran circles around the aggron, sceptile beat golem no problem. Then the Gym Leader sends out a tyranitar." Danny winced, and Max blanched. "Yeah. That was hard, and it countered nearly everything. One of the hardest badges to earn for me. But what did you think he sent out in the next battle against a beginning trainer?"
"Geodude, nosepass, onix?" Danny ventured. "Maybe a cranidos. They're Sinnoh-native, right?"
"They are, and he had one. No nosepass. That's Roxanne's." Ash took a sniff of his marshmallow, taking it out of the fire, and started blowing on it every few seconds. "The stronger you get, the stronger the Pokémon the Gym Leaders will use. Don't expect them to go easy on you all the time."
~~§~~§~~
One week onwards, the hiking had temporarily made way for a well-travelled route as they'd emerged from the wilderness onto route 114 between Fallarbor Town and the Meteor Falls. Danny had asked Ash why he'd stayed with them when the job was done, but Ash had just said that he had to be near Meteor Falls anyway, so they could travel together.
Though the route was well-travelled, they didn't go all that fast. There were a ton of trainers around, and most of them wanted to battle, something that Max and Danny gladly obliged. Practice never hurt, and Danny liked working with his new Pokémon. His mudkip was now a marshtomp, and it wouldn't be long before he'd be entirely immune to electric-type attacks. Anything Max's electrike sent at him did nothing, and he only flinched at pikachu's Thunderbolts out of habit, not because the electricity actually shocked him.
It was hard to unlearn habits, but he was getting there.
He'd also picked up how to use Dig and Mud Shot in the past week. Max's ninjask hadn't happy when the globs of mud had intercepted him.
The bug-type was faring much better right now, as he defied the type advantage the opponent's plusle had on him, using a lot of the loose sand and rocks to weaken and block the electricity that tried to zap him. Around the battle, off to the side, up on small ledges, were a few trainers. Ash and Danny were there, but next to them were two more trainers, a few years older than Danny. They travelled with Max's opponent. The girl next to Danny was going to fight Max next, and Danny heard her mumble ideas under her breath.
It didn't end up working because Max's baltoy slammed a rock into her magnemite. Repeatedly.
The scene two hours later saw Max and Danny laze on the ledge and Ash showing off against some teenagers his age. The sun wasn't too bad, and a soft breeze made the temperature just perfect for falling asleep. Danny's eyes closed once, then another time.
A Pokémon crashing into the ground caused Danny to open his eyes again, and only a moment had passed: it was still sceptile battling a vigoroth down below. He shook his head, intent on getting the sleep out of his head, and stood up. Sleeping now was not a good idea, he knew. Max looked like he was nearly falling asleep as well, head nodding as he tried to watch the battle. "Max." Danny's foot met Max's knee, softly. "Wanna look around?" he added after Max looked up.
A nod, a yawn, and an almighty stretch followed. Max yelled that they were going to explore, and after getting a wave back, they left, into the evergreen trees that lined the main route and the small arena. Soon, the sounds of battle faded as they weaved through the trees, carefully stepping around obstacles like roots, fallen branches, rocks, and piles of Pokémon poop. "You looking for a Pokémon?"
Danny shook his head. "No. I mean, swablu are okay, but not looking-looking for one," he admitted as he tested the strength of a low branch. It was strong enough to support his weight, he found out after Max gave him enough of a boost. "You want one?" Danny asked as he scanned the immediate area.
"No," came the expected answer. "Not after..."
Danny jumped down from the branch, landing on flat ground, not roots, and put his hands on Max's shoulders. "Max... You can't—"
"I know," Max cut him off, smiling sadly as he pushed against Danny's right wrist, who promptly let both of his arms fall by his side. "Just drop it, okay? I'll catch more Pokémon. Later. Besides," and his smile morphed into a grin, one that reminded Danny of happier times, "my sister has a swablu. I am not getting anything my sister has." Then, softer. "Sure want an eevee, though."
"Just wait for it to evolve, then get one," Danny offered as they started walking again. "That counts, right?" He saw Max nod. "I want one too. We might have to fight each other for it. Like Ash for croconaw."
"You're on!" Max stated confidently before suddenly snapping his head to their right. "What's that?"
"What's wha... Hey, wait up!" Danny said as Max ran off, jumping over an uprooted, young, tree without a problem. Danny followed more carefully, wary of tripping over roots, even though Max hadn't tripped, and was now kneeling next to something blue in the green undergrowth. It looked like... "Is that a Pokémon egg?"
"Looks like it," Max said, carefully putting a hand on it. "Feels like one too. Probably isn't too close to hatching."
Danny knelt next to Max, performing the same tests Max had done moments earlier. The egg was a light blue, with a grey half-cap. It looked like it had been there for a few days already, nestled against the roots of whatever bush it was, a few green specks lying on top of the grey.
He didn't know what possessed him to do it, but Danny picked the egg up, and thrust it, gently, into Max's stomach. The other boy automatically closed his arms around the egg, which was the prompt Danny needed to unhand it. "Meet your new Pokémon once it hatches."
"Danny! I... You... We," Max spluttered. "We can't just take this! What if—"
"They'd been there before now," Danny interrupted Max's exclamation. "It's been here for days. You found it, you keep it."
Max shot a glare at Danny. "You're not going to let this go, right?" He let out a sigh. "Okay, fine. If it hatches into a swablu, it's yours, though."
"Sure," Danny said, happy that he'd managed to talk Max into taking it that quickly. "Pretty sure those eggs are blue and white, not blue and grey." He checked his Pokénav, finding that it was only fifteen minutes since they'd entered the forest. Felt a lot longer. "Let's head back. Maybe Ash knows which Pokémon it is."
Ash didn't know which Pokémon it belonged to, but he agreed with Danny that it probably wasn't a swablu egg. He offered to call around to see if they could identify it, but Max put a stop to that. They'd find out anyway.
~~§~~§~~
A Pokémon egg. His own Pokémon egg. He found it, instead of earning it like Ash had done, or getting it, like his sister and a few of his classmates had done, but it was an egg. And he didn't even know which Pokémon was going to hatch from it, and he knew next to nothing about raising some of the more difficult Pokémon, and he wasn't even sure why he'd just agreed to take it when Danny gave him the egg.
But he had accepted it, pretty much instantly. Maybe it was because he was with Ash again, and weird stuff always happened around Ash, and the others in the group had learned to just roll with it. And as he laid on the ground, getting ready to sleep, the egg near his face, he felt better than he'd felt in a week. All because of the egg, waiting to hatch, and a friend, helping him.
"Hey, Danny," Max whispered, unsure if the other boy was asleep already.
"Hm?" Danny's voice was deep, thick with near-sleep.
"Thanks."
"For?"
"The egg, last week... Everything."
"'swhat friends are for," Danny replied softly, a yawn following. "Night."
"Night."
For the first time in over a week, Max's sleep was uninterrupted and good.
~~§~~§~~§~~§~~
The lifespan of Pokémon is extremely varied. Many are capable of living as long as humans, if not longer, and equally many possess a smaller lifespan not exceeding even a quarter of the average human. Apparent rarity (see: Pokémon Index of Rarity, appendix C) is the best predictor of lifespan, followed shortly by innate aggressiveness, typing, and region.
The various bug-types featuring a chrysalis state (e.g.: kakuna, metapod, cascoon, silcoon, spewpa) are widely recognised as having the shortest lifespan, yet caterpie in Hoenn live up to two years longer than Kanto caterpie, and three years longer than their Sinnoh brethren. The leading theory is that Hoenn's climate allows for a longer life, but no biological markers have been found upon dissection of caterpie, metapod, and butterfree. Evolution, while as near-inevitable as it is for all bug-types, is slower for Hoenn caterpie as well, and statistical research indicates that there are no significant differences for the proportion of life these bugs spend as caterpie, metapod, and butterfree.
[…]
Contrary to commonly-held beliefs, longevity, rarity, and evolution are not correlated. The common rattata is as likely to remain a rattata is it is to turn into a raticate in the wild, which is similar to the average evolution rate of sandshrew.. Yet rattata's wilderness lifespan is in the 10th percentile, whilst sandshrew scores in the 37th percentile. A part of this is explained by predators eating rattata: adjusting the data to exclude preyed-upon Pokémon still shows a 14 percentile – 21st to 35th – difference, however.
From: Pokémon Lifespan: Facts, Factoids, Fiction
