- Stonescale Trainers -

"So, how are things going, Colin?" Shawn asked the one Stonescale trainer that had not been dropped into a major problem yet. Behind him Gazimon was in the middle of helping with Janice's trip across universes and generally being upset over the increased workload that it seemed to be creating. The Felsic siblings were still looking uneasy after long conversations with their teams about why they were pokemon. A-0 was in charge until the others returned, and Serperior was going to be on call while the mostly human trainer handled the issues that had arrived with the four new faces. "Do you need any help with things, or can I leave you alone again while we try and fix these two?"

"It's been going rather well actually," the mine guard noted happily. "I've just received two more detailed sets of materials to test my Stonescale with, and my team has managed to get them to the point that it is reacting to attacks properly. Which honestly isn't that great as far as battle is concerned, but it is a starting point."

"Ah, good. Glad to know that somebody is having a sane series of events," the snake eyed trainer said with false cheer. "A-0, what problem just came up to ruin this moment?"

"You went asking for good news after I mentioned that the dev team has finished analyzing the malicious code that the cursed kids brought with them," the Porygon-2 responded dryly.

"Given I've got a transfer request to send the two of them into Box 201, I'm guessing the news is worse than it sounds," Gazimon complained before going back to his modified console.

"Uh, wait, what's 201 mean?" Jane asked.

"Our medical Box, primarily for digital world issues but still the most advanced facility in a week's walking distance," Serperior said with a groan. "Why are they in need of that kind of treatment?"

"Delta 2 should be the one to go over it, she's going to be handling the rest of that fallout now," A-0 complained. "Shawn, take them there, and see if she needs your help too."


Albert woke up to the sight of a Porygon floating above his head in the very bland room he had been given inside of the storage system. She proceeded to let out a series of beeps and clicks. "Um, I didn't understand that?" he asked groggy.

"Excellent! I was really worried that you would end up a pokemon, or at least able to understand them," she said in a far too cheery tone for a problem he now knew for a fact was a real and present one. "I have triple checked things, and even Shawn hasn't spent the night in a storage system before. You are the very first human to do so."

"So, how long do I have before that isn't true?" he managed to ask as his new boss floated out of the way so he could properly get up. "Because I have the impression you're working on turning humans into pokemon."

"I can get why you'd think that, but honestly?" Alpha 45 said more than asked. "I have a grand total of one 'human' I would have any reason to make such a thing for, and given how we can't even call him that entirely seriously that is still overstating things. My current personal project is actually just the opposite, turning pokemon into humans."

"That honestly makes a lot of sense," he admitted considering just how many talking pokemon he had met at the lab. "So, if I'm not going to be turned into a pokemon, what will I be doing?"

"Working with my teams on our main development projects," the Administrator told him with a nod. "Right now we're just at the start for two main ones, with technical support for the Acid Armor Adaptation Machine being continued for a while longer. I was planning on starting you off with Metal Claw, and then after you were more familiar with how we work we'd see if you could help on the Forest's Curse project."

"I'll admit, Metal Claw is a move that would be really nice to have as a TM," the trainer said thinking back to his own League run. "But I've never heard of the other one."

"Considering it is unique to a single evolutionary line I wouldn't doubt that. It is a move that adds the Grass type to a target pokemon," she said eagerly. "Working on the human/pokemon conversion project has given me a lot of information about that kind of thing, type alteration is all but required for the average human to be transformed. That, along with a method of causing that exact change that we had to use during the Upload issue, means that I have a really solid starting point to mimic the effects."

"It seems like it would be hard to use that kind of move unless you were a Grass type yourself," Albert noted thoughtfully. "Although, the Ghost type would probably be a more useful one since it is weak to itself."

"Yeah, we kind of had a pokemon that knew the Ghost type equivalent, Trick-Or-Treat, with us during the Upload problem," Alpha 45 nervously admitted. "There are some possible side effects to the move that causes that change, like getting stuck as a Ghost type, that should be avoided. The debate on if the pokemon in question technically died never really got resolved."

Albert simply stared off into space for a moment thinking about that concept while at the same time trying desperately not to think about it. "Dragon is another one that is weak to itself," he said afterwards. "Maybe do something with that? Frozen Flames are known to make pokemon into that type already."

"A solid suggestion, but MechIn Labs are more interested in existing moves than working on all new ones right now," his new boss noted. "How about I let you finish waking up, and maybe get some breakfast, before we introduce you to the others?"


Shawn and the cursed trainers arrived in the medical Box to find Charlie 13's massive serpentine form floating inside, right next to the Mismagius from the day before who looked quite embarrassed. Delta 2 was clearly angry with both of the Ghosts, and TyranoGazimon was further off with a pokemon that notably had a polygonal stump where one of their limbs had been before. "I don't need to tell you how much I don't like being able to meet one of my siblings face to face, do I brother?" the Chansey shaped Porygon-2 was asking as they entered.

"That's Giratina," Jane suddenly said, claw extended in horror. "That's one of the creators of the universe."

"He's a Porygon that decided to look like Giratina," Shawn corrected the trainer while giving her a confused look. "Although I'm curious where you heard about that particular Legendary? We had to work a bit to find information that wasn't from Ghost types."

"Mom ran into someone who had met him," Jim said slightly faintly. "Apparently there was some big problem with a team going for the other creators. They were passing along the story because he'd gotten forgotten, and they wanted to get his existence more widely known."

Another pokemon then walked out from a hallway at the sound of voices. The Magmar had a curious look on his face as he inspected the pokemon and Troubleshooter, clearly expecting to see someone else and somewhat upset to see a Charmeleon. "Magmar!" Jane said with clear joy at his appearance. She then scrambled over to the suddenly confused pokemon to look him over better. "How's your leg doing?"

"Jane?" the pokemon asked slowly, then he turned to look at Shawn critically. "That's actually her isn't it?" he sighed.

"It is more my fault than Shawn's," Charlie 13 noted with a rumble of annoyance. "She cursed them because of that corruption issue that your ball had," he continued pointing at the other Ghost.

"For me it kind of is my fault. He was tired and still tried to stop us, kinda," the Charmeleon admitted while her brother looked over the two Fire types with growing concern. "But seriously, they aren't making the injury worse here, are they?"

"'Injury'?" the pokemon asked with caution. "What injury are you talking about?"

The reptile pokemon stopped moving at this statement, and her tail flame seemed to burn a touch hotter as well. "I mean that my father said you had gotten badly hurt, and mom had found a place that would still be able to give you something to do. He implied that the donation could be undone if you got better," she hissed at his genuine confusion. "Mom was a bit more evasive, but seemed to agree with that."

"Your father told me that you didn't have the space on the team anymore, and that they couldn't keep me there any longer," Magmar said, his own body also heating up a bit.

"We can put it on the list of actual crimes your father appears to have committed," Delta 2 interrupted the reunion. "There is enough here that we quite honestly have to call him a member of Team Plasma, and you haven't even heard the worst of it yet."

"He gave away one of my sister's pokemon without her permission," Jim noted unhappily. "How much worse can it get?" the Greninja asked with a roll of his eyes.

"A risk of crippling every pokemon you've encountered, and even getting you permanently stuck as pokemon," the Administrator harshly replied. This made Shawn and the two Ghost pokemon look at her sharply.

"How exactly did he manage to pull that off?" the Troubleshooter asked with an edge to his voice, red eyes focusing on the polygonal Chansey.

"Whoever made the second program we pulled off their stuff had two different facts exactly backwards: the way pokeballs work, and why they don't catch humans," Delta 2 complained. "Their type scanning devices had the full installation files for the stuff on them, including a readme detailing the intended operation. Which was so wrong about those things that the dev team double checked what it actually did to make sure it wasn't a trick." A plain text document appeared on a screen behind the Porygon-2. "They were under the mistaken idea that a pokeball analyzes the energy signature of the target pokemon in order to lock onto them. As a result they decided to make infected devices emit a signal that disrupts the energy of a pokemon to make it harder to track."

"It makes the energy of pokemon around it looser in order to try and make it harder for pokeballs to work on them?" Shawn asked incredulously. "That sounds like it would make it easier instead of harder."

"It does, and you missed part of it. It makes everything's energy looser, which means these two were at real risk of catching themselves if they used high end pokeballs," the Administrator said to the horror of the Felsic siblings. "It also isn't safe to have your energy disrupted like that. You can more easily be injured and can more easily overdo things with regards to using your own energy." She looked seriously at Jane, carefully inspecting how the current Charmeleon was moving and acting. "With these two having registered as expressing a type as much as they do I'm not surprised that she's so easily gone inhuman."

"'Gone inhuman'?" the Fire type asked nervously, her tail lashing behind her. "I'm, I'm not that bad am I?"

"You've been spitting flames from the start, sis," her brother dryly replied. "But, I'm only mostly okay with this," he noted to the Porygon with a finger pointed awkwardly at his tongue. "Wouldn't we both be effected the same way by that sort of thing?"

"It can depend on a lot of things actually, and she's also got a head start on you as well," Delta 2 informed him as she walked up with a few scanning devices following her. "The thing is if it was a bad enough disruption you might have been a bit too close to already being a pokemon when you were transformed." Mismagius paled at this statement and rushed over to the pair. "So, curse maker, what do you think with that new information?" the Administrator harshly questioned.

"It explains really well why I had such a hard time holding this one back," the haunted fabric said faintly. "Their father has been doing this to more than just the two of them. Good news is I've already compensated for it for the most part."

"And the bad news, Mismagius?" Charlie 13 asked threading through the air to get a better look himself.

"That there is a bit more of a risk of it lasting longer than I intended than I had thought there was," she said as Jane growled at how close she had gotten to her. "Uh, this is a bit awkward to ask, but you didn't have any sorts of connections to Chars did you? Relatives, teammates, important events?"

"I had a chance to get a Charmander for a starter," Jane replied quietly, while her brother simply looked away from them.

Mismagius looked between the Charmeleon and the Magmar, and then sighed heavily. "You probably aren't going to get your father back to normal," the Ghost said. "That's too much negative impact he's done with this issue. You will probably turn back just fine though."

"You are sure about that?" Delta 2 asked with a strong glare. Jane took a moment to consider her current body a bit more carefully in response to the serious idea that she might be stuck in the form.

"That she can possibly get back to normal, yes. That it is more likely than 'probably' not so much," Mismagius admitted. "I'd ask if he had anything to do with the Greninja line," The frog pokemon shook his head. "but I'm fairly sure that I can tell she has a bit bigger connection than he does."

"Do your scans show anything, Delta 2?" Shawn asked critically. "Because while I'm willing to trust a mage I don't personally know about her own spell, I also know you've got experience with people turning into pokemon."

"She's just as much a Charmeleon as she was yesterday when I reviewed the data you grabbed on the Pokedex. Which is a bit worrying considering that's a bit more pokemon than her brother is right now," the Administrator noted unhappily. "Not as close to evolving as she acts though," she continued absentmindedly.

"I'm a Charmeleon," Jane commented on that with an arrogant huff. "We know we're just about to get our wings," she continued sounding like she was quoting someone.

"Just so you know, that's from a movie she really..." her brother started to clarify at their confused looks, before trailing off with a disturbed look on his face. "Uh, some pokemon actresses have to be actual pokemon, right? Because her shot at a Charmander was a lot weirder otherwise."


Albert made his way to the basic looking cafeteria area soon after he finished getting ready for his day, nodding uncertainly at the various pokemon he passed along the way. There he was able to eat a very basic and rather blocky meal that he was not entirely sure he should have tried, but the Zoroark coated in a layer of black smoke seemed to find his reaction to the taste amusing.

"Are you ready to get started then?" the pokemon suddenly asked as the trainer was getting ready to find the Box's Administrator.

"Uh, you are actually talking right? Because the boss was saying that understanding pokemon would be a problem, and I'm not entirely sure about breakfast right now," Albert cautiously noted, receiving only a harsh laugh in response.

"I still cannot believe that she was a Porygon before," another voice said to someone from the doorway. It was revealed to be from a blue shaded dome shaped polygonal creature, followed by two others clearly of the same species. "It explains why she's so much more stable than us, but still that's a horrible thing to learn."

"Analyzer use should be halted entirely," a golden version of the same creature said harshly, only partially sounding like an actual response to the other statement. "Our very survival was already questionable, but this is too far."

"Now be fair Be, we are only really using them as target practice," a third purple one said confusingly. "I don't think we need to worry about things that we only make to break."

"Halting our main use isn't going to help anyone," the blue one reluctantly agreed. "Although I hope we can disable more of their functions."

"I really don't see why everyone is always surprised that three former police listening devices spend so much time stealing secured information," the Zoroark complained with a shake of his head. "What is going on with you three now?"

"The LAS is actually a corrupted Porygon," the golden one complained. "Not just a smart corrupted like we are." She then seemed to finally notice Albert's presence. "Oh, who is this?"

"I believe this is our new human team member," the Dark type noted with amusement, waving his arm in a motion to the trainer that clearly was asking him to introduce himself.

"Albert, seven Badge trainer," the lone human responded with a nod. "Just starting with Mechanical Insight Labs now."

"I'm De," the blue dome creature said. "This is my sister, Be, and my brother, Al." They said pointing at the gold and purple ones respectively. "We are digital life forms that mainly work as living sensor arrays, while also producing some fairly standardized targets for testing out moves on."

"Digital life forms? Like the Stonescales?" he asked with a glance at his newest pokemon's ball.

"It does kind of explain why we were the ones who messed up the minds of the Stonescales we tried to revive," Al noted quietly at this statement.

"The Stonescale units are a bit more stable than we started, and a bit less than we are now," De said more loudly, clearly trying to cover their brother's statement. "Although if they are giving them out already then there has been a breakthrough we don't know about."

"I'm hoping to have yours help a bit with Metal Claw actually," Alpha 45 said floating inside. "I see you found Zoroark and the RAS units. I'm glad, because those four will be working with you most of the time. Now let's have a proper tour of the whole facility."


"Okay, I have finished checking and confirmed that the actress in question is in fact a pokemon by birth," Delta 2 said after a rapid information check prompted by Mismagius having a panic attack over the possibly that it was not the case.

"That's something of a relief," Jane started to say, before turning to the Administrator with a harsh look. "Wait, why did you say it like that? 'A pokemon by birth' also describes that Janice lady doesn't it?"

"So, some of their human actors and actresses are actually pokemon turned human," the Chansey shaped pokemon said throwing her arms in the air. "Because of course they are going both ways."

"Please tell me she doesn't do that very much," Mismagius groaned. "I need to check the entire family now, because they apparently are repeat offenders on this topic."

"Just dad actually," Jim said looking amused by the result. "I was too busy being mad that it wasn't my favorite movie star pokemon showing up because of a letter, and mom was honestly more angry about how he acted than the Charizard and her handler." He paused to consider his statement. "Although now that we know a bit more about this whole thing I'm not sure 'handler' was the right term."

"Ugh," the Ghost pokemon groaned even louder. "I still need the whole family at this point to actually figure out if this has been entirely messed up."

"Right, calling your house," Delta 2 said bluntly at the clarification, and then immediately shifted the screen behind her to a phone display. "Ms. Felsic?" she asked of the Venusaur that appeared on it after a moment.

"Yes? Oh, this is about the curse isn't it?" the Grass/Poison pokemon roughly said having spotted Mismagius. "I've unfortunately found my husband," she continued, one of her vines tapping a pokeball. "It turns out that he actually just shoved himself into a pokeball for some inexplicable reason."

"Please not that," the Administrator complained while dropping her head. "Please, tell me he wasn't dumb enough to stuff himself into a tainted pokeball." As she moved the two Fire types in the room became more clearly visible to the camera for the phone.

"Is that Magmar? What is he doing there?" the Venusaur asked confused, but clearly identifying the pokemon. "My idiot husband said that you ran off, and had me give that stupid line about you getting donated to cover for it until we found you."

"Nope, he actually donated me," the Fire type sighed. "Didn't break my leg, didn't run away, and apparently wasn't unwanted."

There was a moment of silence as everyone processed the new information. "I don't suppose you could do anything with a useless Nidoran?" the mother toad said darkly, tossing the ball in the air a couple of times. "I'm sure there are ways of keeping him from changing back into a human."


Colin Vein set another group of rocks on the floor in front of his Stonescale. The pokemon quickly checked over the six stones, before shuffling them around into three piles. They had spent quite a bit of time working on this skill over the past couple of days, and the DSS personnel seemed more than willing to give him some space in an out of the way office to do the work.

The mine guard nodded at the result, double checking the intended status of each of the rocks in the pocket guides that had come with them. The farthest pile had the three stones that should have been empty of any typically useful materials. Then there was one pile with the two evolutionary stone dust speckled rocks mostly used for identifying larger deposits, and the lone iron ore bearing rock.

"Very good," he told the pokemon, and tossed a small hard pellet of food to it. The reptile snatched this quickly and gladly as he collected the stones again.

He then selected eight more stones from the box of samples he had requested, along with the description paper that went along with them. Cautiously he made sure that it took more than a glance to match between the paper and the stones and set them out again. He was fairly sure that the pokemon could at least match symbols, if not outright possessing the ability to read, so that was proving a needed precaution.

The Stonescale quickly set to work on the new set, visibly pausing at one stone, and then to Colin's minor dismay carefully splitting it in two. Checking the documentation he noted that it was not a piece intended to have multiple minerals, and with that in mind he decided to see what it had found instead of just letting it know he had not wanted it to alter any of the items.

Overall, he could understand why the others would have issues with training the creatures, but found himself unsure why they all seemed so upset with what had happened so far. It didn't seem all that bad to him.