Elesa was many things. She was a model, a Gym Leader, and the owner of the most profitable eco-friendly energy company in the world. She was a person who greatly valued what little free time she had, and spent it away from the constant cameras. She was a lover of technology, of video games, and of machines. She was brilliant at inspiring people, setting trends, bringing people together, and coping with pressure. She was a well-rounded person, who many believed had it all.

She didn't, of course. Quite honestly she didn't think she was even as lucky as most of the Trainers she battled, shackled as she was to Nimbasa City by the binding agreements made by her father with various agencies. It was taking everything she had not to scream as the man sitting across the table from her made another attempt to convince her to extend the contract before it ran out.

Elesa was many things. Patient, however, was not one of them.

"You made a commitment-"

"My father made a commitment," Elesa cut the man off with a glare, "and the two of us are no longer on speaking terms. He no longer speaks for me. Is this clear?" Her tone was sharp, nearly snarling the last few words.

As the man spluttered and protested and tried to cajole her, Elesa's hand slowly started twitching towards her hip. She had half a mind to— 'no, Elesa,' she thought to herself. 'Patience is a virtue.'

"...and we already have seven more shoots lined up for you this week alone!" the slimeball cried out.

'A virtue I no longer care for,' she decided, moving to throw either an empty Poké Ball or a punch. Skyla always said she had a mean haymaker…

Thankfully for the man's nose and left eye, her wrath was diverted by the sound of a Hyper Beam.

Glad for the interruption, Elesa shot to her feet. "I'm sorry, but I must investigate that." A sharp glare shut down any stammered protests the man might have had, and the electrifying beauty left the building as fast as she could. "Thank the Trinity," she muttered to herself.

Elesa dashed into the forest of juniper and oak trees, hand flying to her belt and releasing her faithful Emolga. "There was a Hyper Beam to the north- can you find out where it came from?" She asked, and the electric flying squirrel gave a quick salute before taking flight in the indicated direction.

Nimbasa's favorite model smiled at the easy and quick compliance from her old friend, then glanced down and sighed in frustration. She was still wearing her heels from the meeting- she'd left too quickly to change into something better suited for wandering the forest. She could still do it with ease, of course, a woman like her was nothing if not adaptable, but it was still annoying.

Waiting for Emolga to come back, her thoughts went to the Hyper Beam. The northern forests were thick, and not well-explored. She had little if any idea what kind of pokémon lived there, but what little she saw of that Hyper Beam showed power. Not the kind of power that came from good training, but the kind of power that only developed from years of battle for survival. It was wild, unrefined, unrestrained. What kind of purely wild pokémon knew Hyper Beam?

Of course, as soon as she asked herself that question, an angry roar rang out, and the terrified chittering of Emolga heralded the arrival of the pokémon herself, frantically motioning for her Trainer to follow her. Elesa muttered a curse under her breath as she began to run again. "Of course it would be a druddigon."

Trees flew by, with Emolga resting on her arm and pointing her in the direction she had explored. The only sounds heard from the duo were the occasional "Emo!" or other interjections from the flying squirrel, and Elesa's own steady breathing and footsteps as she ran. Other sounds, however, rang out loudly. Attacks, roars of anger, and the occasional cry of a smaller 'mon trying to flee or fight back. The Nimbasa Gym Leader clenched her teeth, pushing herself harder.

As soon as she saw the Druddigon, and the badly hurt boy standing over an injured Oshawott, Elesa knew what she had to do. She gave Emolga a boost off of her arm, calling out "Emolga, Volt Switch!" as she went for another Poké Ball. Her loyal friend complied, calling out a battle cry as she charged into the Druddigon before hopping straight back into her Poké Ball. In her place appeared Zebstrika, who followed up with a point-blank Thunderbolt to the Druddigon's jaw.

The angry dragon roared, igniting its claws with mystical green-blue fire and pulling its arm back for a huge haymaker. She could tell it was powerful— no young Druddigon knew Hyper Beam, and its rough skin was clearly covered in scars. Clearly, this was not a 'mon to be trifled with. Unfortunately for it, however, Elesa was an expert at trifling with that which should not be trifled with.

"Flame Charge, aim for the shoulder!" she snapped, and her oldest partner faithfully complied. Rearing up on his hind legs, his hooves wreathed themselves in flame and shot forward in a stomp that struck the base of the enemy dragon's arm before it could finish winding up. It staggered back, roaring and breathing out a wild Flamethrower, but Elesa was too quick on the draw. "Dodge it with Flame Charge, then hit the base of its wings with Thunderbolt!"

Zebstrika once again carried out the order with the ease and precision that came naturally to a Trainer's starter, using the increased speed that Flame Charge granted to maneuver around the irate beast and deliver a strong blast of electricity to the sensitive area between its wings. The Druddigon let out a pained roar, giving her a spine-chilling glare before turning away and lumbering off.

Elesa let herself show a small, pleased smile as Zebstrika cantered back to her side. "Great job, Zebstrika," she told him, giving him pets before turning to the boy she had jumped in to defend. Well, 'young man' would be a more apt description, now that she had a better look at him.

His clothes were torn in several places and looked like he had been wearing them constantly for years. Wait- actually, as she looked a bit closer, they didn't seem to be as sturdy as most trainers' clothes. Maybe her estimate was off. Regardless, he looked like he had been through hell. The Oshawott was a strange sight as well. She didn't see very many of the pokémon, seeing as she was usually the fourth gym leader that Gym Challengers challenged, and its type was weak to her specialty, but she could see the tell-tale signs of a fresh catch. Was it even caught, actually? She didn't see Poké Balls anywhere on the young man. Either he was a fresh trainer, she concluded, or he wasn't a trainer at all.

She didn't say any of this, however, instead holding out a hand to help him up. "Are you okay?" she asked him. The young man stared at her for a moment with blue-grey eyes before taking it, pulling himself to his feet with her help and a pained grunt before standing up to his full height for a moment. Something in the back of Elesa's mind registered that he was taller than her even with her heels.

"Y-yeah, I'm… I'm okay- shit!" As soon as he tried to take a step, his left leg collapsed underneath him, unable to bear his weight. He hissed in pain as he touched his knee. "Yeah, that's a lie. No, I'm not. Ow. That hurts."

The Nimbasa City Gym Leader frowned, stepping forward to examine him. "If you can't walk, I'll have Zebstrika carry you back to Nimbasa," she told him. The loyal pokémon was already moving towards them in compliance. The young man smiled a bit.

"Yeah- yeah, that'd be nice…" he paused, then glanced over to the small water-type otter. "Take care of Oshawott, too?" Elesa's frown deepened.

"Oshawott is in much better shape than you are. Speaking of which, what were you doing out here?"

He sighed in relief, some tension leaking from his shoulders. "It wasn't planned, trust me," he replied. "I'm just gonna, take a nap, I think…" As soon as he was secured on Zebstrika's back, the strange young man was asleep. Fatigue, Elesa thought to herself. Looking back to where the Oshawott had been, she was surprised to see it already trying to hop on Zebstrika's back to be with its trainer- or whatever else the young man was to it. 'At least they had a strong bond,' she thought to herself, patting Zebstrika before heading back towards her city.

(A few hours later)

Elesa frowned at Professor Juniper. "You mean he's not one of your trainers?"

"Not even a little," the eccentric researcher confirmed. "Never seen him in my life. Where did you say you found him?"

"He was in the forest to the north, being chased by a Druddigon," Elesa began for the third time, slightly irritated. "I saw a Hyper Beam go wild, so I went to investigate and found him huddled over the Oshawott." Juniper hummed, looking back into the room of the unidentified young man. "He had some sort of identification card in his pocket," Elesa held up the item in question, "and it's perfectly legible, but doesn't match anything used in any known region or other area."

"He had physical money, too?" When Elesa nodded in confirmation, Aurea put a hand to her chin. "A physical identification card from nowhere in the known world and paper money. A plastic identification card, at that. Those were only around for a short time before the digital age began, so why does he have them? Those clothes don't look like any brand I know of, either. What else did you say he had on him, a device? It has a touchscreen, but it's nothing I've ever seen or heard of."

Juniper's rambling started to sound like white noise, so Elesa's attention went back to the young man she had rescued, currently asleep on a bed and separated from them by a sheet of clear glass. She hadn't been paying much attention to him other than his presence before, but now she recalled him being both striking and plain. That was difficult to manage, especially under the eye of a model like herself. His clothes were average at best, and not matched that well: just a thin, light grey zip-up hoodie over a green tee-shirt and blue sweats. But there had been something about those eyes that… intrigued her. They seemed to recognize her and not recognize her at once.

It was a mystery to her, and Elesa loved mysteries.

"...so either he's a Team plant or he's from another world," Professor Juniper concluded, and the statement snapped the electric-type gym leader out of her thoughts.

"You think he's a Team plant?" Elesa's eyebrow went up. Juniper nodded. "On his own, being chased by a Druddigon?" The professor let out a humorless chuckle as Elesa's eyebrow raised further and she pressed more. "With one pokémon, that isn't registered to a Poké Ball, and is known for only being accessible to those with your direct favor?" At that, Juniper raised her hands in surrender.

"Look, I'm just trying to avoid getting fixated on a wrong answer. I've done that enough in my past research," she defended herself. Elesa sighed, rolling her eyes a bit at the researcher's admittance of her antics.

Changing the topic, the model asked, "What about the Oshawott?" At that, Juniper's eyes lit up, and she looked down at the digital notepad in her hand.

"Well," she began, "it's really quite strange. By all accounts, this is the most healthy Oshawott I've ever seen outside of the breeding grounds." Juniper swiped a few notecards offscreen, turning the pad to show Elesa the scans Nurse Joy had gotten of the pokémon. "No vitamin deficiencies, no physical issues that weren't caused by that druddigon. He's in excellent shape, too, and surprisingly young." The older woman tapped the picture of the Oshawott in question, zooming in on a 3D model of it. "But the thing is, he's undoubtedly a wild pokémon. There's no signs of any human grooming or any other influence— see how the fur on his back is more neat?" Elesa nodded. "That means that some other pokémon was grooming where he couldn't reach, because those patterns are neater, but not neat enough that a standard brush or comb could have done the job."

"So there's no way he came from the breeders?" Elesa tried to sum up as she put a hand to her chin, and the nod that came from the other woman confirmed it.

"Nope, not a snowball's chance in Stark Mountain," came the response. "And when I scanned him with the 'dex, it gave me some strange readings for his Ability." Elesa's eyebrow returned to its earlier position, now in a more confused shape as opposed to the previous doubtful. Juniper tapped at the pad a few more times, bringing up what looked like a more extensive and thorough version of the familiar, usual Pokédex scan result screen. She tapped a graph labeled 'Ability', enlarging it. There was only one line on the graph, a teal one that started on the bottom left corner and curved up and to the right. The researcher tapped each line with a fingernail. "This is the projected growth of Oshawott's Ability. The color indicates which Ability a Pokémon has, which in this case is Torrent. Usually it's just a straight line, but this Oshawott has a parabolic curve instead."

"...can I get that in standard Unovan, please?" Elesa asked, and Juniper sighed.

"Basically, this Oshawott's Torrent is going to be a lot more powerful and a lot less controllable in battle than a normal one," the professor explained. "Strange variants like this have been documented before, with other pokémon who have Torrent, Blaze, or Overgrow, but this is the first recorded instance of it happening with an oshawott."

It was at this time that a chanting of "A-wott, a-wott!" reached the ears of both women, and they turned to see the Oshawott in question hanging on the edge of the bed that the young man they had been talking about was sleeping on. As they watched, Oshawott let out a chitter before pulling itself up, waving its feet and tail wildly until it rolled its torso onto the bed. After taking a moment to rest and breathe, the determined little otter hopped back up, stepping over to the stranger's side and snuggling up against him. Elesa's heart melted a little, and Professor Juniper just giggled.

"Caught or not, you can't deny they've bonded," she commented, and Elesa absently nodded in agreement. After a few more moments of watching the pokémon and the young man, Juniper glanced over to her. "When was the last time you ate?"

Elesa blinked awake from her near-hypnosis, looking at Juniper in embarrassment. "Well, I..." The actual answer was that she had last eaten a small breakfast that morning, and it was now well into the afternoon. Juniper sighed.

"Go to the café, get yourself a bagel. If anybody asks, you're getting it for me," she ordered with a stern but caring look. "I know you're still underweight, you need to get something that's not just skin over your bones."

"It's not like I meant to skip lunch," the gym leader protested, but another glare from the professor sent her walking down the hallway to get food. She was getting pretty hungry, but she hadn't wanted to leave the young man she'd rescued alone.

Thankfully, it was a slow day in the Pokémon Center, so Elesa was able to get to the café on the upper floor and buy a freshly toasted bagel and a bottle of water without much trouble. By the time she got back to where she and Professor Juniper were talking, though, the scatterbrained scientist was nowhere to be seen. It became obvious where she had gone, though- the door to the room they had been outside of was open, and she could hear the other woman's voice from within.

As Elesa entered the room, Juniper was rapid-firing questions at the still-half-asleep man. "What's your name? Where are you from? How did you get that Oshawott? Where-" Elesa grabbed the hyperenergetic woman's shoulder and shook it, cutting her off. "What? I was just getting started!" she protested as Elesa just stared at her.

"You were. And you were also freaking him out," she told Juniper, indicating the young man's confused and half-conscious expression as well as the Oshawott giving her the stink eye. The other woman blinked, then laughed in embarrassment, nodding when Elesa told her, "Let me take it from here."

The young man blinked, then clearly relaxed as Elesa turned to look at him. Cobalt met steely blue as the Gym Leader spoke, "You took a real beating from that Druddigon. Do you feel well enough to talk?"

He carefully lifted an arm, clenching and unclenching his fingers, then coughed. Clearing his throat, he responded, "Yeah, I can talk," before coughing again a few times. When he spoke again, his voice was less rough and flowed more easily. "You're the one that saved me, right?"

Elesa nodded, and he gave her a tired smile. "Thank you for that. Not sure what I would have done there." He pushed himself back a bit, sitting more upright. "My name's Aaron Jones," he introduced himself, "and I think you've already met Oshawott." The otter chittered, taking a proud pose and pointing to himself. "You're… Elesa and Professor Juniper, right?" he asked, looking at the two women.

Juniper nodded, then went to speak before Elesa snapped her fingers under the older woman's nose. "That's right," the supermodel confirmed as the researcher pouted. "Can you tell us anything about what happened to you?"

Aaron (she finally had a name to match the face) winced. "Uh, kinda? I didn't even really know where I was, all I knew before that was—" He cut himself off, clearly not wanting to continue. Juniper, however, didn't let the subject drop.

"You were where, exactly?" She peered at the young man analytically. He glanced around desperately for something to derail the topic, but nothing was to be found. "So you're a Team plant, then," Juniper stated, and Aaron quickly shook his head no.

"No! I'm not- no!"

"So where were you, then? And why do you not exist in any known records?" the professor asked pointedly, and Elesa found herself thankful that she didn't make a habit of provoking her.

After a few moments, Aaron slumped back. "You'll never believe me."

"Try us," Elesa responded.

"The Entralink."

At that, both women raised an eyebrow. The Entralink was completely inaccessible. Everybody knew that. It was impossible to get to it by any means known to man or mon.

So why did he say he was there? As insane as it may sound, Elesa found herself willing to believe his claim. It made at least some sense, since she had found him in the forests between the "Entra-Lake" and Nimbasa.

"Maybe the story will make more sense if you tell it backwards. Saying you arrived in the forest from the Entralink begs more than a few questions, so why don't you start at the end and work backwards so we know how you got there?" Elesa suggested.

"Alright… yeah, I can do that." Aaron nodded, then started to speak again.

"Before Elesa came in and saved us, Oshawott and I were running from that Druddigon. I don't even know why it was so mad in the first place, it just attacked us on sight!"

"Well, to be fair, Druddigon are notoriously territorial," Juniper put in, "not to mention short-tempered."

Aaron sighed. "Then I guess we ended up being thrown straight into its territory after we were teleported off of the Entralink."

"Teleported?" Elesa asked.

The man nodded. "Yes. We got sent off of the Entralink by teleport."

"Who teleported you?" The model was curious. Not many Pokémon in Unova had teleportation capabilities even for themselves, much less the power to teleport others.

"Zygarde."

"Wait, WHAT?!" Instantly, the professor had bolted to Aaron's side, grabbing both sides of his head. "Why was Zygarde there? What did you do that made it teleport you? What did it look like? TELL ME!" She was shaking him more with each word, and Elesa huffed in frustration before stepping over and gripping Juniper's wrist tightly.

"Let go of him," Elesa ordered, and after a moment Juniper obeyed. Elesa, in turn, released her grip, and the other woman pulled back to massage her wrist, muttering something about how she had no right to have such a tight grasp.

Looking relieved, Aaron continued. "Zygarde was the one who teleported Oshawott and I away from the Entralink. They said that I wasn't supposed to be there, that the place wasn't supposed to be disturbed."

This time, it was Elesa who interrupted. "Why not?"

Juniper glanced over to her. "Elesa… sometimes, there are things you just shouldn't mess with. I know I sound hypocritical, but some things are best left known by as few people as possible."

Aaron nodded quickly. "Yeah. Yeah. I really don't think it's something people should know."

"Zygarde was there because you weren't supposed to be, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"So, how did you get there to begin with?" Elesa had been wondering the same, but Juniper asked first.

It was at that question that Aaron looked down, closing his eyes. He didn't speak for a while, and Elesa started to worry about it.

"If you don't want to tell us—"

"Hoopa." The mythical being's name was spat out like a curse. "Hoopa tore me away from everything I knew and loved, and then just dropped me and left me there." He started out venomous, but his tone became more and more sorrowful as he spoke. "I have nothing here. No life, no family, no home. I'm a stranger to this world. What am I going to do…?"

After a moment, he broke down, crying into his hands. The Oshawott, who had been quiet this entire time, hopped up to press himself against the man's chest in as much of a hug as he could give. Aaron held him tightly, tears slowly stopping.

Elesa waited a few minutes before sitting down on the side of the bed and quietly saying, "I'm so sorry this happened to you." She couldn't imagine how it would feel, to have everything ripped away from her at the whim of a mystical being who she couldn't hope to oppose or deny. "If there's anything I can do to help you…"

Juniper snapped her fingers, and both Aaron and Elesa turned their heads to look at her. She grinned impishly before speaking. "So, you need a place to stay, right?" Aaron nodded, and Elesa's eyes narrowed, the woman wondering what the other was leading up to. Juniper continued, "And you need someone to help you get established in Unova, right?" Again, Aaron nodded without speaking. "So," the professor tapped her tablet, "I have an offer for you. What would you say about working as my research assistant for a while?"

Aaron's eyes immediately lit up. "Really?" he asked hopefully. Juniper's grin went from impish to kind.

"You've already told us you want to learn as much about this world and Pokémon as you can," she started, "and you're definitely in need of assistance. I can help you get established, and working as my research assistant would provide you a steady source of income and a place to stay at my lab. Fennel might complain a bit, but she'll love you," she waved a hand. "Plus, I'll admit, I want a chance to study that oshawott." At that, the oshawott in question gave her a prideful look and a self-assured smile. Aaron just smiled.

"I'd love to!" he answered, turning his eyes between the other two, and when their eyes met, Elesa saw something. Her uncle had always told her that the eyes were the windows to the soul, but she had never really understood what he meant until that moment. She saw hope, joy, and relief. She saw a great weight being lifted off of the young man's heart, and the energy that it had long been suppressing exploding outward. Deeper still, she saw sorrow and grief, both old and new, but she also saw curiosity, and wonder, and at the deepest point a fire of passion and love that could never be quenched.

Before she even knew it, Elesa's mouth was moving. "I'll help you, too," she said. "I can help teach you about Unova's culture, and whatever else I can do."

Juniper raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you can offer that? You don't exactly have an open schedule."

"Then I'll make time!" Elesa snapped. "I'm the one who found him, it's the least I can do to help him get established." The professor raised her hands in surrender, conceding the point.

"Alright, alright! Just don't overwork yourself more than you already have to. I'm going to call the lab and let Bianca know we're gonna have a new boarder, don't kill each other." With that, the older woman left the room, and Elesa and Aaron glanced at each other.

"You'd really help me?" the bedridden man asked.

"Of course!" the woman smiled. "Like I said, I'm the one who found you. I'll help you however I can."

Aaron returned the smile, though it was weary. "Thank you so much, Elesa. Maybe you could help me get some new clothes when I'm out of here?"

The model rolled her eyes fondly. "Of course. Your style needs a lot of work, though!" she teased. The man smiled, and then closed his eyes.

"Sleepy… see you tomorrow?"

"Absolutely."

"Alright, 's a date. See you then, 'Lese…" and he drifted off to sleep. Elesa smiled, leaving the room and turning off the lights, and then her face went bright red as she processed his last words.

'He must be really out of it to say that so casually. That Druddigon really did a number if he's talking nonsense like that! It'll be funny to talk about it later.'

'...Right?'

Chapter 2 is here! I'm sorry it took so long.

I'll keep it short and simple: Special thanks to DestructionDragon360 and UDTimburrhog for helping me finish the chapter, and to Cavik for doing a quick beta read.

If you like stories like this, Howling Armadillo's Throne of Mud, or Spiderc's They Mostly Live In Minnesota, come join the Fanfiction Treehouse Discord! discord . gg / 9XG3U7a (delete the spaces)

Have a good day, everyone.