"Bulba, Bulbasaur", the wonderful green saurian miracle that is the pinnacle of 8 years of work spouted from the laboratory table. Well not really the pinnacle, as making pokemon was more of just a side project than the main goal of the EDEN project, but goddamn does it feel good to see something work so well.

"Congratulations kid, you actually did it"

Hold on, was that actual awe coming from the professor. And wow, an accompanying smile too, who'd have thought it was possible. The mess of scientists admired the blissful froglike specimen as it burped in their faces, ignorant to the fact that it had just made history.

I looked over at Green who was absolutely mesmerized from the window, and damn I will never get tired of seeing her radiant smile. It's clearly contagious, as I can't help but adorn a massive grin in response.

"Proud of your work there Seb?", Tristan said while trying to hide his glare. Tristan had always seen me as a rival in the lab, but I never thought of it that way. We are both trying to further the progress of mankind, although a little friendly competition never hurt anyone. Tristan doesn't seem to know what the term friendly means though.

"You know the synthesizer was the work of the professor, I just made the blueprint possible, and that was mostly EDEN doing the heavy lifting anyway." I responded.

Tristan did his best not to glower, as I failed to mention his work on the synthesizer too. I imagine his earlier prod was trying to get me to acknowledge him more, but his constant need for attention has gotten rather tiring. It certainly doesn't help that he's in love with my fiance too, whenever I bring her to work he can't seem to take his eyes off of Green.

"Sasha's looking happy", Tristan always seemed to bring the conversation back to Green eventually.

"Yeah this has always been her childhood dream, her grandad was raised on these games, and bulbasaur has always been her favorite pokemon."

I'd set our first trial as a bulbasaur, stating that it made the most sense since it was the first in the pokedex, but the real reason was to see that beautiful smile behind the window, which had failed to stop beaming since those first words. The constant burping coming from the little tyke certainly didn't hurt in its cuteness factor though, I could barely stop myself from smiling the whole time too. I imagine doing something like Seel would have been easier, since that is a lot simpler to make with it's lazy design, basically being a seal already, but I'll let them think we're working through the pokedex by number. With EDEN's capabilities far outstripping my expectations, it's not like it really mattered anyway.

Dr Siegfried finally turned away from the gaggle of scientists that were prodding the Bulbasaur, "I'm going to have reporters in later today, I'm going to need you here to explain all the science"

Damn, and here I was hoping that today was going well, nothing like having to drone on to reporters to screw it up.

"Alright Oak, I'll try my best", the professor shot me a look, he never did like that moniker, but hey we're making pokemon now, I can't not call him Oak.

Besides, he's getting old with his white hair, and that white lab coat completes the look.

"Alright RED, just make sure you're back here by three" the professor retorted, trying to get me back by using the nickname he's heard Green call me, but he fails to get a rise out of me as I actually like the nickname.

Great, that means I have time to get lunch with Green.

"Thanos, wasn't so bad, he was trying to save the Universe", Sasha countered at me.

We'd rewatched Infinity War last night, the MCU movies being some of her grandads favorites. Back when we were kids, she'd drag me over to her house with my brother Trevor and we'd mess with all of her grandads old things. My favorites were of course all the pokemon games. The DS and gameboy had amazing games, and some of the 3DS anything after that I felt like the games were too dumbed down, the puzzles in the early games were actually a struggle to get through, but when you got to later gens it felt like the game was coddling you, holding your hand throughout the entire process. The MCU movies were also some of my favorites, the age where cgi really took off, becoming a convincing animation that looks amazing. But that's besides the point.

"So? Everyone thinks they're the hero of their own story, do you think that criminals and totalitarias have thought of themselves as evil? Maybe some of the more crazy ones, but most of them are fighting for their twisted view of what they think is right." I replied.

"So what, only the people that have aligned with your views of what's right were actually good? That seems like a convoluted way of thinking, he was trying to save the most people that he could, and I'm not saying he was a good guy, just that he wasn't so bad"

"Ah but where does the line end then, Sasha? Everyone can justify anything with their lines of thinking, whether it's for the greater good or their faith or their people, they will justify hurting and killing innumerable innocents just so their view is satisfied. Thanos wasn't any different, and his plan wouldn't have actually worked anyway"

"Ah are you one of the, "oh why don't we just double the resources people", because that's also flawed" Green replied with air quotes, making an accompanying face to nail the point home.

"No of course not, doubling the resources wouldn't solve overpopulation, especially in population dense areas. But eliminating half the people in a second would cause so much other death as the world scrambled to try and recover from nearly half the workforce disappearing, as well as half the consumers. The economy would be in shambles, our present society would take years to recover and adapt to so many people disappearing, which means we'd lose a large portion of the people who survived during this period. And don't even get me started on how bringing all the people back 5 years later would look, but at least then your "double the resources" method might help some." I shot the air quotes back at her.

"Okay yeah I can see what you mean there, and maybe Thanos isn't the best example, but are you saying that anyone trying to do things for the greater good is flawed, that it's bad to try to help other people even if other people get hurt. Because if those people are bad in your eyes, what about all the people that never tried. The people that stand by and watch as those totalitarians and criminals use and step on other people and say nothing."

"I mean the bystander effect has always been a thing. You're much more likely to get help if you pass out in front of one person than three. It is in our human nature to do nothing, it's so much easier than doing something. And when it's only you who can help, you feel much more obligated than when there's a whole country of people that also stand by and do nothing. Especially when the few people that do stand up get slaughtered or jailed." I sighed. "But those people aren't bad in my eyes anyway, they're just flawed. There's a key difference. We like to dehumanize all of our enemies, and drawing the line of who and who isn't okay to be killed or hurt isn't something that should be decided by one person. Every culture that has existed on Earth has developed different morals throughout time, so clearly it can't be decided by any one people's either. And that really is the important question, who is right and wrong, if we all came up with different answers."

Green looked at me curiously."Okay now I'm just confused, do you think Thanos was a bad guy or not?"

"I think Thanos tried to do what he thought was right based on his life experiences. We all learn different lessons from the things that happen to us, because people, the one factor that will change every time, have the capacity to be really shitty. We go throughout our lives trying to find meaning in everything that happens, and while some people learn from every experience, others hold what they believe to be right sacred and never change their entire lives. And for some, those people that never change find solace in confirmation bias, where they see every event in their life that it made sense for them to keep their line of thinking and ignore every sign to change. And when you're only keeping track of the score for one side, of course it's going to seem like it's winning. Thanos saw his world being ripped apart and saw a solution. But his people refused to accept that solution, and so he saw his world die because people refused to change, to see things his way, to see things the right way, in his eyes. So he saw himself as a tragic hero, who could have saved the world, and now he sees it as his duty to make sure other worlds didn't fall prey to the same mistakes."

Green looked like she was starting to get bored, "You know you still haven't answered my question."

We'd walked all the way to the pier by now, the noonday sun beaming right above us.

"I think Thanos had all the right makings of a good guy, but his life made him learn all the wrong lessons and made him a villain, just like most of the people that we dehumanize and call our enemies."

"Ah so this was just a full circle trying to bring it back to the point that you want me to quit the Marines", Green looked at me with a smirk, thinking she'd brought the argument back in her favor. "You know I can't stand the thought of people out there that would hurt us, especially if they're holed up in the dead zones". Most of the world had blown up technologically in the last century, with everyone having implanted heart sensors at birth starting in 2080 and the explosive technological revolution that really started going off the rails in the early 21st century having only started to slow down a couple decades later. The dead zones were areas where people didn't have heart sensors, the areas more sketchy and dystopian than the current cities.

The heart sensors made it so your vitals were shown everywhere at all times, which it took people the better part of a couple decades to get over privacy issues in the 21st century, but the benefit of aid anytime you got mortally wounded was too helpful to pass up. So if you were say stabbed, the sensors would ping your location to the nearest police station and send immediate help, varying on the extent of the wound and how many other sensors were in the area(criminals usually found ways to disable their gps on their sensors, but sensors in the area could send out a pulse to get a count of ones nearby, so you would get a count of assailants to organize a response). Tritech could have made it so the gps couldn't be tampered with, but this made it so criminals and the like wouldn't actually avoid getting them for their children and themselves, as Tritech wasn't owned by the government, they just helped them out whenever possible. The sensors are actually the professor's greatest invention, even beating out the synthesizer, which while amazing, has had many similar iterations developed worldwide ever since the biotechnological revolution ran rampant early the 22nd century, really taking off a couple years ago. So tritech gives the information of the people only when necessary, which really curbed the privacy issue for most people. The sensors keep an active feed of the person's health, so by looking at past logs, doctors can determine immediately when problems start happening, and what they are w/ access to family information and the like. All information sent out is determined by the person, so they can choose if the doctors have access to that information, or even letting significant others have access too it, which did become a problem for some when the fact that their heart rate was sky high while they were supposedly sleeping, but most people don't use this feature unless they are incredibly paranoid. It became a stigma for a bit for people who didn't let their SO have their information, as it seemed like they were hiding something, but now it's mostly just reserved for the most paranoid of people.

The old man told me he could have made it so the gps was turned off too, but this let the government trust in Tritech for giving information, and that criminals finding ways to turn them off was a real hassle and not something Tritech could do anything about. Otherwise, criminals would have just avoided getting sensors all together if the gps was untamperable, but the professor found a good middle where the sensors would only benefit people, so everyone got them. This made it so that crimes committed by criminals would not involve hurting other people, or really involve other people at all. As in a bank robbery, taking hostages isn't actually hurting people per say, but the increased heart rates of everyone in that area would send out a warning anyway, and there would be an immediate police response(areas like amusement parks or city squares would have logged activities, so only when something happened out of the ordinary, like every in the banks heart rate spiking, would a response be sent). There are some basic AI that monitor these activities, and check cameras and have access to people's phones as well(the privacy issue was lessened when people heard it was an AI checking things, instead of a person, which made a difference for some reason), to make sure nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

Which means much of the world has become safe to live in, people do not fear for their lives or even worry about injuries as much, as the heart sensors get you the help you need whenever you need it. This means that the few areas in the world that don't have them, the dead zones, are a lot more hectic. More of a modern Tortuga from Pirates of the Carribean, this is the hangout for many criminals and those who didn't want to evolve with the rest of the world(nearly every major city/country requires heart sensors to enter now). Most of the world's militaries have dwindled, during the economic expansion that happened when crime dropped, a lot of countries realized they were falling behind by spending so much money on their military rather than infrastructure and building up their own country, with the military now being a much more elite force, with operatives in the Marines, like Green and my brother, being the only semblance of a police force in these dead zones. Although police force is a loose term, more of an extermination crew for anybody that got too out of line. The dead zones are spread out around the world, with some being small and remote and confined to just a city like what used to be Dallas Texas, or as big as an entire country like Egypt. Dallas is the only area in the US that is a dead zone, whereas other areas like Southeast Asia and South America having much more dead zones scattered throughout. There are still governments and police forces in these areas, but without Tritech's backing(their choice, not ours), they are usually very corrupt and disorganized.

But as the decades have passed, the dead zones have gotten smaller and have been decreasing in number, but that makes some of the more popular dead zones all the more dangerous, as seemingly all the people willing to hurt others are being crowded into the same spaces.

I glance at my feet while I scratch my head, and then look back up to meet her gaze. "No actually, I just think that the people you so easily kill in the dead zones are not these evil beings that we need to kill on sight. They don't trust the technology, and I can understand that, they genuinely don't know that we are trying to do what's best for them, because they are the kind of people that have learned that people only try to use them. That nobody would actually want to help them, so they turn to other venues to try and coexist. When they see you, they just see these monsters that are coming to kill them and their families, the same way that you see them. They fight tooth and nail because they see you as someone trying to take everything away from them, they aren't inherently evil".

"So what, I shouldn't kill terrorists then? You know you think the world is so perfect, but people from the deadzones still launch terror attacks on the free cities all the time. People die, because we haven't freed the world from these people that you don't think are "evil", people that will bomb power grids, hospitals, trade towers, anything to try to fuck up our world even more" Green's eyes betrayed her anger, her fists almost clenched.

I really need to tread carefully here, this is what she fights for. Her strongest belief. Sasha's always been rigid, fighting hard for what she believes in. Its half the reason I fell in love with her, but it isn't helping me now.

"No, it's just sad that we live in a world where we justify killing each other so easily, and the people that benefit from it are never even close to the trigger. That if there's money to be made, there's lives that can be traded for it. And yeah I don't think killing people out of revenge is a good idea, as an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind, but you don't let wolves run amok in the pasture where your children live"

"What? You're losing me on these metaphors here Red, we don't have any kids, or at least not yet." She patted her baby bump, which had steadily been growing the last couple weeks.

"Yes we need to eliminate the threats that endanger our homes, but generalizing is a really shitty habit to have. You group every criminal that graces the streets who might only fight to keep their family from starving with the extremists who fight to cripple the world in any way they can."

Green looked out over the pier, the comfort of the waves crashing against the shore seemingly out of place in this conversation. She adopted an almost somber look, almost resignation. She looked down at her watch, "Well I think you've lectured me long enough, and those reporters are going to get into the lab any second now, you know Oak is going to be pissed if you aren't there".

I checked my phone, "Shit", well I might make it if I spring the whole way back, we kind of got carried away there. "I'll be out in a couple hours, then maybe a sunset stroll so you remember why you don't hate me?" I added with a bright smile.

Green gave me a smile, but the somber look from earlier still hadn't gone completely away. "Yeah, yeah I'd like that".

While I didn't want to leave things there, an angry Oak is not to be trifled with. I booked it.

"Scientific revolutions come in waves. In the 19th century, the theories of mechanics and thermodynamics led to inventions like the locomotive and the industrial evolution. This brought us into the machine age, where we moved from doing everything by hand to finding more efficient methods. In the 20th century, we moved onto electricity and magnetism, creating generators, radio, TV, radar and more for the electric age. Then in the 21st century, the transistor and laser were made by quantum physicists, leading to the computer, the internet, modern telecommunications, the digital age. And now our century, the 22nd century, where we've made huge advancements in artificial intelligence, biotech, and nanotechnology." I brought the reporters into the EDEN room, which was across the building from the synthesizer, but that was the last stop on the tour.

"Now here at Tritech, you may think that our focus is studying these three fields, hence the name, but that was actually due to our three founding fathers, with Dr Siegfried here being the last one remaining. Our main focuses here are artificial intelligence, which is my main field, with EDEN being our biggest success yet, and biotech. I'm sure you all know all about the heart sensors, but that is just one of the many projects we've worked on over the years. Our most recent biotech endeavor is the synthesizer, which we can program to make any kind of flesh, all you need is the blueprint, but we'll get to that more at the end of the tour."

The reporters all nodded along, but I knew this was mostly just for show as none of them really knew what was going on, but I'd save the in-depth explanations for the scientific blogs and fellow scientists from other companies would be allowed to visit, which I heard would be sometime next week. Hence why I didn't go more into the waves of tech, as talking about ramjet fusion machines, laser sails, antimatter engines, and nanoships, and other probably 23rd century tech is all just hearsay and hopeful wishing for them. Hopefully, here at Tritech, we would prove them wrong.

"Now our most recent project will likely be something you all recognize. Now EDEN is the most advanced AI that Tritech has been able to develop, and our most recent endeavor was recreating a Pokemon. Now while it is nowhere near as popular as it was a century ago, they still make lots of toys and pikachu is still a household name. Our biotech department spent 7 months trying to recreate a bulbasaur, which if you don't know is the grass based starter from the most popular region, the Kanto region, and is the very first pokemon in the pokedex. Now trying to map a new organism is incredibly difficult, but using our mapping technology that you know is in the heart sensors, we've mapped every known organism on the planet. Our scientists tried combining many creatures, pulling biology from many different creatures, ranging from frogs as the base form to many different plants to actually be able to utilise energy from the sun, but after 7 months of work, they had only created about 70% of the bulbasaur. I tasked EDEN to try to map it, and she mapped the entire Kanto pokedex within 37 minutes. We still don't even understand how she made some of them, as pokemon like Abra who have psionic powers, something nothing this world has, EDEN seemingly figured it out. Now this is still theoretical, as we have only so far synthesized a bulbasaur, but the bulbasaur that was made has passed every test with flying colors".

While I was talking, our holographic models in the center of the room were supplying visuals for everything, as I had EDEN monitoring what I was saying and having her pull up accompanying data.

"Here we see bulbasaur absorbing solar energy at a rate that was previously thought impossible, you can even see light flecks in the air as it is pulled in from all around. And what can the little guy do with this energy?"

EDEN pulled up a visual of 5 concrete barriers being put together, and the bulbasaur releasing all that solar energy in a beam that cut through all of the barriers like paper. This had all been set up and tested during the time I went out for lunch. Tristan and his group did work fast, I'll give him that.

There were a couple shocked gasps and a reporter even dropped her coffee cup, her tricorder still hovering next to her filming everything.

"Now you can see why EDEN may be the single most incredible thing that has come out of Tritech. Once we are given the green light to apply her capabilities to world problems, we can solve all biomedical problems, we can revolutionize transport, industry, everything that we can do, she can do better, faster, more efficient, and she'll do it all to make the world a better place."

I wish I'd said all the stuff about next century tech now, I bet ending it with and thanks to EDEN, that next generation tech may be possible within our lifetimes would have been a better line, but that's what I get for winging this.

I got lots of questions about the how the hell EDEN works, but I just spouted some bullshit talking about quantam mechanics, as whenever people here the word "quantam", their curiosity is satisfied, as their brain checks the bubble that asked why, even if they don't actually understand anything better than they did before hearing the explanation. I didn't really feel like going in depth on the actual science, as I would be able to do that next week and it wouldn't be wasted on these journalists who have no idea what any of it means.

"Hey Sebastian, EDEN seems to be having problems with some of our new scientists we got from BrennLow Labs, do you think you could fix this real quick." Huh that's weird, Lt. Teller was almost never in the office, but I don't really have to fix this right now, Oak is gonna be pissed if I ditch the reporters. Now EDEN can usually fix internal errors before they even happen, but access errors are something she's restricted from fixing herself.

"EDEN override 12, give anyone in the room access to your problem engine for the next 6 hours", there, that'll let them do whatever work they need to do, and I can fix the issue tomorrow. Nobody can access the room besides level 7 access employees anyway, with the reporters being the only others in the room and I'm clearing them out right now anyway for the next spot on the tour.

"There Lieutenant, I'll do a more in depth fix tomorrow but everyone should have access if they're in here with you now".

"Thanks Sebastian, and tell Sasha I say hello will you?" The Lt was Green's old CO, they've kept in touch over the years but she was always his favorite, her being one of the most ruthless and kind recruits he had, an interesting combo and hard to forget. He comes into the lab to consult all the time, and has a part time position as one of the lab heads, with his Biomedical and Mechanical engineering background. The fact that he's the son of one of our founding fathers certainly didn't hurt his standing at Tritech either.

"Sure thing Lieutenant", I turned back to the reporters and went back into customer service mode, "sorry for the delay but we will be moving on to check out our Garden next, where we try to synthesize new plants with new healing qualities, you'll remember our notable staunch root we made, which if rubbed on a wound immediately clots the blood, stopping soldiers from bleeding out and the like."

We moved down the hall and into the giant arboretum, "we've got tons others like it, and this will be our last stop before the synthesizer".

"So how'd the tour go?"

I met back up with Green, she seemed in a much better mood now. Awesome, bullet dodged.

"Great, they really liked the arboretum, which is admittedly the most boring from a innovational perspective, but hey pretty colors and plants right"

"You're just upset they didn't drool over EDEN, like every scientist friend of yours does."

"Well of course, EDEN is revolutionary! She could change everything! The arboretum just has plants."

I looked at the smirk on her face and realized how out of hand I was getting, but it physically hurts me when people are incapable of realizing how amazing something is just because they can't wrap their head around it.

Green checked her watch absentmindedly, "and the synthesizer? What'd they think of that?"

"A little more excitement than EDEN, I made a pigeon in front of their eyes which they thought was amazing, but it was still somehow less exciting than the plants, even though I manufactured life in front of their very eyes, something that was solely reserved for God up until the professor came along." I ranted on, but Green has always listened to my rants. She seemed to be enjoying this one more than usual though.

We kept walking along the streets of LA, talking about the tour and how annoyed I was by the reporters. I noted she kept checking the time, which I thought was unusual.

"Got somewhere important to be?"

The sun had set by now, and we were walking back towards our apartment. We were in the alley of two looming buildings, the Tritech logo reflecting on the black windows from two streets down, it was just that damn big and bright.

"Sorry, just anxious, you've heard how women get crazy when they're pregnant".

"You're only three months in, I didn't know it worked like that."

She turned to me with a bright smile, "Well you're just going to have to deal with it, I expect you to indulge me in all the cravings I have these next couple months."

"Oh I can manage that", I returned with sly smile, kissing her in the dimly lit alleyway.

That's when the world decided to go wrong.

The ground shook as an explosion wrecked something a couple streets over. I started to run out of the alley to see what the hell was going on when I heard an ear splitting scream come from behind me. My blood ran cold.

Green

I turned around only to see something red and blue burst from her stomach, tearing it's way through the skin like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. The red and blue tentacles combined into a helix, tearing its way from my fiance's abdomen.

I stopped, nothing like this had ever crossed my mind as ever being something that could physically happen. My mental models failed to compute the sight that laid in front of me. Green screaming again tore me from my indecision as I ran forward, I'm not sure how to help but please oh god please I need to save her. She fell on her back, blood gushing from the hole in her stomach, the tentacles had retreated but I saw her stomach glowing pink and oh my god something was moving in there. Her heart sensor should have already alerted emergency services, so I just need to try to stop the bleeding in the meantime. Good thing I accidentally left the staunch root from my demonstration earlier in my pocket. I tried running to her side as I heard something behind me.

My shadow appeared on the alley wall as a blazing inferno howled its way into the alley, blinding in the previously dim alley. It tore it's way past Green and I, shattering the asphalt with every step, charring the ground. A horse with a flaming mane and hooves, a tail that was almost white, signifying just how hot the flames were. It wasn't galloping, it was an awkward sprint, moving asymmetrically, one foot after the other.

Like a person would

As it blew past me I looked into its eyes, such human eyes, betraying only fear. Green screamed again, but I couldn't look away from the sight before me, a real life Rapidash, spawned in hellflame, tearing through the streets of Los Angeles. Was this what caused the explosion earlier, did one of the lab hands make a Rapidash? I was torn from my thoughts as the Rapidash tripped on the curb, slamming its head into the corner of a building, its horn insufficient protection from the granite, splitting its head open, spilling blood in a pool all around it. A flash of light appeared around the flaming corpse, before it was replaced by a woman, who looked like a middle aged woman in her forties, with her head torn in half, split top down, as if she had run into the building headfirst.

What the hell is going on?

I saw a flash of pink light to my right, where Green was, and a figure floated into the air. A small triangular head attached to a slim grey body, its arms red and blue helixes, a purple pearl in the middle of its chest, rising from the giant hole that used to be my fiance's stomach. The miniature deoxys floated forward another foot before it promptly ragdolled and fell to the pavement.

There was a sound, not quite a ringing sound, but like there was pressure being built up all around me. It had been there ever since the rapidash appeared, but it grew worse with every second. I tried to move forward to her, I still saw her chest rising and falling, I could still save her. But each step became harder, more sluggish. My skull felt like it was splitting open, the gory scene I had just witnessed not helping in the slightest, god I could still see the middle aged woman's brains spilling out from over here. I tried to move forward, but the world seemed to be growing around me, the skyscrapers rising to new heights and the car next to me growing to the size of a house. I tried to take another step, only to fall on my face.

I looked down, but my legs were missing. There was a small green stub as a replacement. I looked in the shiny rim of the wheel of the cruiser next to me, the fiery path of the rapidash still alit in the dark alleyway.

What the fuck is going on?

I saw a small nub with a circular green body on top of it, a bloodred gem at its center, with a round face with two bright white eyes staring back at me.

Zygarde.