When he awoke, he didn't feel the sweat that had pooled in his bandages overnight, but rather, a cool, soft sensation.
It took him a moment to remember that he wouldn't have to wrap his own bandages after being knocked unconscious.
The room he lay in was sterile and without windows. The walls were a baby blue that he could have easily mistaken for white. His bed was pressed against the wall with his feet facing towards the plain wooden door, and should he have stood up, he could have touched either wall by simply holding his arms out.
A machine beeped next to him, and his eyes screwed up in confusion as he looked over the bottles of medicine (and were those Potions?) on the nightstand. Acetaminophen was the only one he recognized, a pain reliever. It certainly explained why his skin didn't burn when he sat up. Tubes were taped onto his arms and led into a bag hanging from a pole, an IV drip. Or EV drip, all possibilities considered. He wasn't in any urgent hurry so he chose to leave them there. And as if some great will was rewarding him for his patience, a nurse entered the room soon-after. The pink hair was a dead giveaway as to her identity, but her clothes were different that he'd expected. A bit closer cut, faded pink, and lacking in the frilly aesthetic he'd come to expect from a Nurse Joy.
"Good morning! Are you feeling alright?"
"The painkillers are doing their job, thanks."
"Fantastic, now, please don't move while I do some check-ups…"
He sat still as she fiddled with the tubes, scratched out something on a notepad, and swept away most of the pill bottles.
"I hope you don't mind, but we had to try multiple different medicines. Ms. Sycamore figured you were an Esper after her analysis, but what we had in stock had no effect."
"I should probably start carrying around one of those medical cards," he mused, "Most don't seem to work on me, and I'd rather not get overdosed by accident."
The nurse laughed softly as she removed the tubes from his arm with a discomforting slick movement. After she padded it with rubbing alcohol, she wrapped a short bandage back around his hand and forearm. "We'll get you out of here soon. It didn't seem like you were too hurt, but you have strained muscles in your arms and back, so please be careful. I'll have you out of here soon."
"Thank you, Nurse…" He trailed off as if he didn't know her name, acting an idiot, before adding, "Pfft, just kidding. Thank you, Nurse Joy."
"No worries!" She smiled at him, leaving the room momentarily only to return with a cane. "Let's get you up, if you can stand."
It jolted him slightly, but he did manage to push off the blankets and get himself to the side. She moved to lift him up by putting a hand on his shoulder, but he shook his head. "I've got it," he struggled out before he pressed his weight on the cane and stood up. He was a bit taller than the nurse, but he wasn't quite tall enough to bang his head on the doorframe. "Where are we headed?"
"Well, I believe the Sycamores would like to speak with you, but if you can't make it right now, that's alright!"
"No time like the present," he grumbled as his ankles ached. Damn it, he might have had white hair, but he wasn't that old.
They got out into the hallway, a wider and taller affair which stretched fifty or so feet in either direction, one end leading into a lobby, another into a wall. Of course, the former was their destination. From there, it was like a catacomb. Hallways lead into lobbies, which led into elevators, which led into airlocks (seriously?), which led into hallways, and all over again, until five minutes later, they'd arrived outside of an office labeled with a singular 'Sycamore', imprinted on a spalted nameplate and a code which he figured was the room number.
He thanked the Nurse and opened the door as she continued with her, likely much more important business.
The room was nearly pitch black, only illuminated by a white bar of light that ran along the far wall. It was broken at the center of the room by a figure seated behind a minuscule desk, compared to the rest of the room.
Now, as he walked in, he expected to hear something about scenarios playing out, and the figure to be seated in a way not unlike the infamous Gendo Ikari. It was either that or… well, it could have been the Pokémon Lab, except he knew that it wasn't supposed to look anything like this, and he'd already been there. Did Professor Sycamore get relocated to wherever the hell he was?
All of his expectations were broken, as the girl playing games on her phone squeaked and fell out of her chair.
The lights clicked on, as if by a motion sensor, and he found that the room wasn't quite as empty as he thought. Pressed against the walls were tables covered in paper, office appliances, and various strange apparatuses.
A swivel chair was laid on its side next to the desk, the wheels still rolling with a weak whine, as the girl that had fallen groaned.
He blinked "...Is now a bad time?" He asked, hand on the doorframe and just barely leaning into the room. Then he realized he was being an idiot, and hobbled in to help whoever had fallen stand up.
She was dressed in a lab coat, a lavender dress shirt, and black slacks. Her shining black hair hung around her back as she pawed around the floor looking for her glasses.
Blanche suddenly remembered that ogling girls could wait, and at the same time noticed he was halfway to stepping on said glasses. He readjusted and crouched down to pick them up, ignoring the pain as she handed them to her.
"Ah… thank you," she sighed as she covered her pale-purple eyes with the half-moon glasses. She glanced at him, froze, and started stuttering. "I… I mean, well, yes, thank you, um, did you need something?"
"Nurse Joy said you wanted to talk to me," he said as he helped her to her feet.
He was already picking up the chair as she answered, "Ah, I did, yes, I should thank her, um…" She trailed off, before suddenly saying, "I'm Aveline Sycamore! It's nice to meet you!"
Great rehearsal, he thought, before nodding. "Same to you. I don't really have a name, but… Actually, my name is Blanche, yes."
"I see…. I did have some questions- That is, if you don't mind! Um… please?" She pressed the tips of her fingers together while looking at her shoes.
Luckily, Blanche, being the paragon of infinite wisdom about women, determined that she was just awkward and it wasn't because of some other, ridiculous reason. "Sure, I don't mind at all. I actually have some questions of my own, so I'm sure we can work something out."
"Right… I mean, thank you! You can… take a seat, if you want, um…" she whipped her head around, before dashing to one of the side tables, yanking out the chair tucked into it, and holding it opposite of her own seat, across the desk. She looked at him for a few seconds, probably wondering why he wasn't sitting down, before pulling her hands away like they were on fire and running back to where she'd been sitting when he walked in.
Yep, he thought, definitely awkward. He sat down slowly and leaned his walking stick against the desk.
"So… um, what did you have questions about?"
"You asked me to be here, I think you should go first," he replied. Jerk.
"Oh, I know. I mean, you're right! Um… well, I wanted to ask you if you were an Esper. Or an Aura-user. Either, that's what I mean!"
Poor girl, he sighed mentally. "No, I don't have psychic powers or aura. Do those mean the same thing?"
"Um, yes… If you don't mind, I just recalled I have a machine that can detect Aura, so if I could…"
"If it doesn't irradiate me, I'm all good."
The girl shot out of her seat, skittered across the room, and pulled a headset from where it was plugged into a mechanical mannequin. She power-walked back behind her desk before sliding the red and blue visor over her glasses.
"That's…" She pulled it off, staring at him blankly. "You'd… you don't have any Aura. But that's not…" She fiddled with a dial on the side before putting it back on. "This is… perhaps it's broken, I'm sorry…"
"Hey, what's that supposed to do, Miss Sycamore?"
"Um, you don't have to call me Miss, I'm not… I'm young! This is an Aura Reader. It was developed by Professor Krane, head of the Aura Research department of the United Regions. It can see the Aura and life energy of living things, it's very cool! I mean, interesting!"
"That does sound cool," he agreed. The Aura Reader totally wasn't a scouter from Dragon Ball, no, not at all. Aura Research sounded strange, but he already had a pretty good idea of what the United Regions was. "So, is it busted? Why don't I try it, see if it works for you?"
"Um, I'm not sure that's a good idea… you might strain your eyes."
"Ah. Well, you're the doctor here, not me. Call it a lucky guess, but I'm fairly certain I don't have Aura, so I don't think you have to check."
"No, this is important!" She insisted, before shrinking back. "What I meant to say was that you don't have to wear it. You were knocked out in a fight last night, and there could be all kinds of side effects you don't know about yet… I'll just…" She fiddled with another dial on the headset, before clicking a button and pulling away a small earpiece. She pointed the visor at herself and held the earphone up, before cringing back suddenly. "...I believe it works. I would like further testing, but it is… I don't mean to be rude! But it is strange that the Reader isn't picking up your AIAM fields."
"And those are…?"
"I apologize, AIAM stands for An Involuntary Aural Movement. All humans and Pokémon generate fields, though some are stronger than others. Ultra Beasts have some sort of energy field, but it's visible to the naked eye and can't be picked up by the Reader.
He recalled the blue and orange haze that surrounded Nihilego. "I see. And what exactly do they do?"
"Well… the fields are made of life energy. Pokémon moves only work because of them. And humans would be much worse off if you didn't have any to protect you. And I mean 'you' as in the general you, not excluding myself!"
"Right. So, I'm the only one without superpowers," he sighed, "Add it to the list of the bullshit I've had to deal with for the last few weeks."
"Last few weeks? I mean- I didn't wish to pry, let's move on! I… actually took a look at the cameras, the feeds, and I wanted to know why you were at dad's, I mean, the Professor's lab so late."
That made him raise an eyebrow, but he answered, "I heard Professor Sycamore was a very generous man. I actually only arrived in the city… last night, I think."
"Right, right… You weren't, um, planning on breaking in, were you?"
"What? No, of course not!"
"I'm sorry!" She shrank back in her seat, striking him with that feeling one got after punishing a dog for biting them.
"It's fine," he said as quickly as the thought occurred to him. "I was just disappointed he wasn't there, that's why I was hanging around. I… didn't actually have much of a plan other than that. I suppose I could have found a Pokémon Center, but I don't know if they'd let me sleep overnight if I wasn't seriously injured."
"I think they would have… but thank you for telling me. I think you should speak with the Professor when he arrives."
"When will that be?"
"Around one p.m., maybe?"
"And what time is it now?"
"It's, um," she checked her phone, which he realized was in fact, a small tablet displaying the video feed she had mentioned, "A little after eleven."
"Right- Hey, can I see that?" He leaned over the desk and pointed at the screen.
She put the tablet on the table between them and swiveled it around as she pressed play.
The video was low quality, but he could make out the relevant details. The Nihilego floating, him running towards it with a pole, and that orange-haired boy-
"Oh, shit, what happened to him? Did he get hit too?"
"Esper Geranium recovered him, he was only scratched a little," she offered.
"And that is…?"
"One of FLARE's field employees," she replied sheepishly.
"Pause." She did. "FLARE? As in, Team Flare?"
He thought, no way, Professor Sycamore's daughter was working for Team Flare? Those are the Bad Guys!
It was the most soap-opera thing he could think of.
"No, just FLARE."
The capital letters were also hurting his head.
"And I'm guessing," he remembered that the evil team had owned a hideout beneath Lumiose in X and Y, "That we are in one of their bases?"
"The largest, yes."
"So, evil team or paramilitary? Because I don't think that Nurse Joy would work for the former, and this seems to be a pretty organized place."
"...You could say it's paramilitary. The United Regions provides much of the funding in exchange for Team Flare dealing with the Anomalies around the world."
"Anomalies like Ultra Beasts?"
"Well, Ultra Beasts, Shadow Pokémon, rogue Dynamax Pokémon, rogue Espers…"
So, he counted off mentally, that's Gen 7, side-game Gen 3, Gen 8, and what were probably Dark Magical Girls, all in one timeline. He wondered, half-praying, what kind of deity would create a world like that.
Because he had to admit, it was pretty ****ing awesome.
"Huh," he said, face blank, before continuing the video.
It was just about how he remembered it, with the Nihilego floating away from him after being hit, but he realized from the new angle that it never looked directly at him, but rather at the pole. "Something's up with that. Is it blind?"
"The current hypothesis is that UB-Symbiont sense their surroundings with their energy fields, but lack all senses except touch."
"Looks like to me that it couldn't sense me," he said.
"It's very possible…"
The video feed cut out as a crackling field of energy expanded in a sphere, catching the camera in the blast.
"Electromagnetic?" He guessed at the field. "Did it blow itself up, or…"
"We have recovered it as well, and it was dealt with accordingly."
He felt a small tingle in the back of his head, something mixed with foreboding, but ignored it. "So… that happened. What now?"
"Well, um, the way I see it…" She pushed herself back and the wheels squealed beneath her. "...If you've recovered enough to walk, I suppose you could just leave… but I would like for you to stay here. To further study the conditions of your AIAM fields, that's what I meant!"
He laughed at the slip, knowing that was the only possible reason. "I suppose I'll do that. You said the Professor will be here soon, anyway, so I might as well stick around."
"Really? Thank you! I'm sure you'll make a great test subject!" She slammed her fist into her palm, before freezing with a thousand-yard stare. "Wait, I mean-"
When she stopped stuttering a minute later, she showed him out of her shared office and back into the catacombs that made up, as he saw on a sign they passed, FLARE HQ. They took an elevator rather than the stairs, and so the height difference was only awkward for a little less than two minutes.
The Aura Lab, as he read outside the door, was actually connected to the airlock he'd walked through earlier. After it sealed, the air pressure increased, then decreased sharply, pulling away loose dust and hair from their clothes. It wasn't painful, but being forced to exhale wasn't exactly comfortable.
Inside, it was much cleaner than the Sycamores' office. Pearly white tiling and dull gray walls, it was basically what he expected from a lab. Red, green, and blue wires ran along the floor, taped or pressed down with a pad. Seven large tubes rested against the wall to his left, topped with red but empty, though one of them was dimmed and opaque. On his right, screens covered the wall, blinking and showing flat biometric graphs. Against the far wall, a window slanted outwards, and he noticed it was slightly concave. It too was dim, but it seemed that there were lights somewhere below the lip.
They weren't the only ones in the lab, as an older boy was typing at a keyboard with a much-clunkier Aura Reader flattening most of his spiky red hair. His undershirt was black, his track pants were blue, and Blanche was no fashion expert, but that yellow vest did not at all go well with either of those. He looked up, so to speak, and took off the headset as the airlock sealed once again.
"Good morning, doc," the boy nodded, eyes flicking over to Blanche. "Good morning, eh, did I forget your name or have we just not met? You'd think I'd remember names better, but apparently not."
Blanche had a few names for the boy rolling around in his head. None of them were insults, it was just that the boy looked enough like a generic fighting manga or anime protagonist for it to be a toss-up.
"I don't think we have. I'm Blanche. That's my name, I mean, it's pretty clear that everything about me is blanche." From the top of his head to the tips of his toes, this was true. "It's nice to meet you."
"I'm Michael, no weird Kalosian dialects apply. I'm from Orre, so, you know. Same to you."
The thoughts clicked together in his head as he placed Michael as the protagonist from Pokémon XD, fitting him right next to Shadow Pokémon and Aura Readers, and really, how hadn't he realized that before? He was careful not to let it show, however, because it would look strange if he knew the personal history of someone he just met but not his own name.
"So, did you guys need something? Happy to help," The boy said, pushing himself away from the table and turning towards them.
"Uh, yes, my personal Aura Reader, the one in my office, doesn't pick up anything from him, so…" she pressed her fingertips together, and from Michael's sigh, it was clear that this wasn't a strange occurrence.
"So, is it broken? You could have called me and I would have come up."
"No, it worked on me… would you mind running him through the full-body scanner?"
"Huh?" Michael's eyes darted to a tube that Blanche just realized was against the front wall, nestled in the corner and connecting to the computers. A seam separated the outward-facing corner, and he guessed it would slide open. "Yeah, alright. Let me close out the battle simulator first."
Is that mother-****ing Pokémon Battlegrounds? Blanche internally yelled as the window on the top screen closed, a pop-up declaring the VR simulation had stopped running. Michael's Reader must have doubled as a headset.
I'm not even mad, I'm just…
He couldn't find the words, not even in his own head. Michael minimized .com and started running another program. The tube in the corned slid open with a snap.
"Okay, just step in there, if you don't mind," he enunciated lightly as he began typing up a new profile. "We don't use this thing very often, aside from Geranium and that Unovan chick, so I don't think it'll have broken since the last test."
Blanche ducked his head as he entered, and the upper half of his vision was obscured by the red top. "How do you get Pokémon in this thing? It's tiny."
"You're a pretty tall guy," Michael replied, typing faster, "Correct units or metric?"
"The former."
"Alright, in that case, you're six foot even."
He thought with a hint of amusement, that in fact, he did shrink as he'd noted with Ariel. He hoped she had gotten home safe as the data continued streaming in.
"One-ninety L-B-S," Michael enunciated, "Eye color, red, hair color, white- What's the story behind that?"
"Wish I could tell you. Not hair bleach though, I'm pretty sure."
"Alright, running Aura Scan…"
The glass ran with blue and red blocks swirling around him. And as if blasted through a horn, there was a resounding…
Nothing.
"I think it's still loading," Michael said.
Then thirty seconds passed, and the blocks continued swirling.
"...Maybe the GPU needs to cool down?"
After a full minute, Michael gave up and shut down the diagnostics program.
"I'm going to make an educated guess that if two machines give the same output, which is to say, none at all, then the issue is with the changing variable. Blanche, do you have any idea why you don't have aura? Because as far as I can tell, you're walking and talking but I haven't met a robot that passes the Turing Test, so your aura is either so weak that we literally can't pick it up, or you don't got none at all. Neither of those should be possible, because I've seen Ratata with more aura than you."
"Maybe it was top percentage?"
"You know, I have a friend of a friend of a friend who doesn't shut up about his Ratata. He's been at it for three years, and he's still talking about it. I hear about it all the time on the GTS. But I realize now that it makes sense that you're covered in bandages, because I can't imagine how screwed we'd all be without aura to protect us from Pokémon. Hey, doc, this answer your question?"
Sycamore perked up, and stammered, "Ah, it does, thank you. Um, could you please send the results to Clemont? I think he'd be interested…"
"He still wants to build something with an Infinity Battery that won't blow up when whoever's wearing it gets a little bit emotional?" Michael asked rhetorically as he opened up an email window and began typing. "Hey, Blanche, you know what an Infinity Battery is?"
"Something with Infinity Energy, right?"
"Yep. It's created by Mega Evolution spontaneously, but around six years ago, Devon Corp. over in Hoenn, I think, found a way to harness it more consistently. But here's the thing, right? Infinity Energy is really, really similar to aura. If you keep it centralized in an AIAM field for too long, it'll fizzle out because the energy will cross-contaminate and become dangerously unstable. They turn themselves off automatically like a breaker switch."
"Don't cross the streams."
"Something like that. So basically, they're fantastic for power production when they're not near any people or Pokémon, but if they get diffused, they break."
"I think I get it."
"And see, Clemont, one of the best engineers in this region, has a thing about making machines that run on them. It's like an obsession. You know what the problem is?"
"What?"
"He keeps them in his bag literally all of the time. They break if he turns them on for five minutes, usually less, more often when it's funny. He wants to make power armor with the worst power source he could choose."
"Well, it sounds safer than nuclear power."
"What's that mean?"
"What do you mean, what? Haven't you ever heard about Hiroshima or Nagasaki? Chernobyl?"
"I think Chernobyl's a treasure hunter or something," he shrugged, "I've never heard of that before. Are you thinking of Blast Burn thermal energy?"
Blanche ran a hand down his face, a little dumbstruck. "...Never mind."
"Well, whatever. Clemont replied to me, said he'd be here in few."
Before Clemont arrived, however, the elder Sycamore arrived. His hair was a rich black and curled to perfection, and he had just enough scruff on his face via his sideburns to not look too much like a pretty boy. Regarding his frock (lab) coat, rolled up sleeves, and expensive-looking belt that separated his black dress shirt and slacks, well, it didn't change Blanche's impression very much.
"Good morning!" He called as he swept into the lab. "I got your message on my way in. I wasn't up late drinking last night, Aveline, I promise." The professor turned to the two boys, one standing and the other turning away from the keyboard. "And good morning to you too, Michael and… blondie. I don't believe we've met. Might I have your name?"
"You can call me Blanche, sir. You'd be Professor Sycamore, then?"
"In fact, I am! Small world, isn't it? So many people, and yet, I am the only one who goes by the name Augustine Sycamore. What would we do without these natural wonders?"
His daughter coughed, red in the face. Blanche guessed it was because parents were just like that sometimes, as in, incredibly embarrassing. Not that he could remember exactly how or when, he just had a feeling. "Um, dad, he actually had some questions for you…"
"Oh? Then I'd be happy to oblige!" The professor held his arms out in a way that could be called heretically messianic. "What can I help you with?"
"I was under the impression you could help me out. I really should have thought it through more, but you were the only person I could name from Kalos other than Diantha, and I couldn't exactly ask a movie star." Or the few other people he also knew of, but the more desperate he sounded and the less strange, the better.
"In that case, why did you come to Kalos?"
Why had he? Because it would be easy? Clearly that didn't apply anymore, considering the last eighteen or so hours, and it wouldn't make sense to anyone else. Think, think, think- Actually? Tell a little bit of the truth.
"I have amnesia." He shrugged, trying to keep his face relaxed. "I'm pretty sure I'm from around here though."
Michael stopped typing for a split second, just long enough for the silence to be audible, before continuing.
"That's very unfortunate. Well, what can I do for you, young man?" Sycamore's bravado visibly decreased, as he placed his hands in his pockets and stopped throwing his chest out like a bird. Or, in the local dialect, like a Flying-type.
"Well… I heard that the Pokémon League conference was happening this year," he half-muttered. "And I think that if I traveled around I might recognize something," he lied through his teeth. "And well, I don't have my own Pokémon, so…"
"I see. How old are you, Mr….?"
"I don't have a last name. Because, y'know, Blanche is a nickname someone gave me while they were helping me out. While I was there, well, they guessed I was around sixteen, maybe seventeen."
"Hm… that is unfortunate. One, you're not old enough for a license under the UR's restrictions, which wouldn't stop you from taking care of a Pokémon, but it means you can't take on the Gym Challenge this year. Two, even if you could, you would need to attend Trainer School beforehand. It's not 1998 anymore, kids can't just run around the region without knowing how to set up camp or what kinds of equipment they need to fit their Pokémon's needs."
"Right…"
Damn it.
Blanche quickly lost himself in thought. Most of it was his Ego swearing at his misfortune, a good amount of it was his Id telling him he should have expected the worst, and a small amount of it was his Superego just wanting him to cool off and lay down somewhere in the sun.
Trainer School? So like, high school? Why the hell would he go to school when he could be out there, catching Pokémon and having the time of his life?
But he could starve himself to death in the wilderness. When he thought about it, he knew how to camp, but he knew nothing about the flora and fauna in their natural habitat. Knowing movesets wouldn't help him if a bear or an Ursarang ate all of his food. If he did catch a Pokémon, he would have no clue how to take care of it. It couldn't just be like feeding a dog or a cat, that would be too convenient. Some Pokémon were piles of rocks, some were psychic ducks.
Why not become a janitor or something? Wouldn't be too terrible, if this place was a fully-equipped headquarters, they might have some spare beds.
Then he remembered that he was in the Pokémon world, and as necessary as blue-collar work is, it would comparatively be boring as shit. They also probably had Pokémon that cleaned the floors for them.
"I think I need to go… sit down, or something." Blanche began to walk off, his cane tapping exactly once before Professor Sycamore held out a hand.
"Now, I know you might feel a little lost, and I know that you kids grew up hearing that you could go on your journey the year you turned sixteen, but you do have to make up for lost time. Last I checked, no Trainer Schools have had plans to open before later this January. You'll probably be in years premiére or terminale. The last two years, I mean. That's… junior and senior year in Unova, I believe."
"Sir, I don't know anything. I don't have a chance of catching up now."
"That's a quitter's attitude! Trust me, you'll enjoy it. Maybe Aveline can tutor you!" Sycamore clapped a hand on his shoulder and smiled, holding a thumbs-up between them.
He glanced back to see the shy girl red in the face and stuttering, and sighed. "I don't think that would go so well, even if she's a professor. The material's probably changed since she was in school anyway."
"Um… are you calling me old?"
"No!" He responded quickly, jerking away to wave his arm in surrender. "I just thought… Well, what's your Ph.D.?"
"Energy and Power Engineering, Kanto Pokémon Tech," she recited. "With a minor in Applied Biological Sciences.
That would explain her olive skin. Kanto was based on a place in Japan, and she was probably from there originally. "So you've got to be at least twenty- Hey, wait a minute."
"I'm actually… a little under seventeen?" She corrected him, becoming sheepish.
Bull. ****ing. Shit.
"Okay, Professor Sycamore," he turned to the older one, "How old are you?"
"I can already see what you're thinking... And in fact, I am still an eligible bachelor! Not thirty yet!" The man let loose a glorious laugh, before calming quickly and responding, "But yes, I did adopt Aveline. I wasn't that much of a player at your age."
Blanche gagged at the implication and folded over his cane like a flag in the wind. "...Right. You know what? I think I need that seat right about now. "Back on topic, even if I wanted to go to school, wouldn't I need an address?"
"You could stay here," the male professor offered, "I go way back with the boss, so I doubt anyone would give you trouble. I'm sure we have temporary housing in this bunker somewhere."
"Professor, nepotism is like, bad, and stuff."
Michael decided to add his own thoughts, as he said, "You did technically do our job when you knocked out the UB. I think you could spin that into us owing you."
"Are you trying to convince me to blackmail a paramilitary organization?"
"Is it working?"
As he recalled he didn't have any alternative plans, he said, "...Yes."
"Welp, there you go." Michael soon turned his attention back to the computer and reopened the Smogon window in his GTS browser.
"Hey, Michael, print our friend Blanche here some paperwork."
"Paperwork?" Michael asked, disgusted. "What are you, some kind of monster?"
"That'd be the school system," he clapped him on the shoulder again as the printer in the corner blinked on and started shuddering. Violently. "Good talk, team! Oh, and while you're at it, Michael, can you check my emails?"
"No. You have your own office, go there."
Sycamore scratched the back of his head and laughed, considerably embarrassed. "Well, if that's everything, I'll take my leave." The airlock door slid open, and Sycamore stepped inside. "Good luck with everything, Blanche!" And with that, it sealed behind them, leaving only the three of them and the tapping of keys to occupy the room.
Soon after that, a weedy, out-of-shape blond in a sky-blue jumpsuit arrived, slightly out of breath. Blanche couldn't see his eyes behind the glasses, which were constantly reflecting a glare no matter where they were.
His white backpack was weighed down and clanked with each step. As the boy entered, a huge, glove-like hand exited, gripping onto the metal coat rack as the bag's straps bisected themselves. Defying what he knew about levers and fulcrums, the bag pulled itself towards the hand until it was at rest on the rack with nary a creak.
"Greetings, everyone!" The boy called as he stretched his shoulders, wringing them out. "Today is a great day for science, isn't it?"
"As is every day, Clemont," Michael said, not even pausing to speak. "As is every day."
"Y-yes, I agree. In fact, I, um, think I have something for you to study." Sycamore gestured to Blanche stiffly using a closed fist. "Uh… this boy, here, doesn't have an AIAM field. And I know that since Infinity Batteries shut down around AIAM fields, I figured you would like to speak with him. If you're still working with Infinity Energy, that is!"
"That's very thoughtful of you. Did you double-check?"
"They ran it on Sycamore's personal reader, the lab's chamber, and mine." Michael tapped the side of his headset. "I looked before I used the computer, but every scan turned up a negative result. None whatsoever."
"I see…" Clemont readjusted his glasses, showing his blue eyes for a split second before the glare intensified. "There will be… so… much… SCIENCE!" The boy threw his arm in the air and whooped. "So, because I'm a scientist, I just want to ask you a few questions."
"Okay, ask away."
"When did you first discover your lack of the field? If it was suddenly nullified, then we can study the surrounding conditions and attempt to replicate it."
"Well, I'd say it was when I woke up. An educated guess." He pulled back one of the many bandages, specifically the one on his wrist, and let it snap back down. "These sorts of injuries don't happen to most people because of aura, or so I've heard. Also, multiple Nurse Joys have told me that a lot of medicine doesn't work on me."
"I see… Professor, hasn't it been theorized that many effects of Potions wouldn't work on a living being without an AIAM field?"
She hesitated before responding, "It has. There hasn't been any proof of a lack of effect on fauna, but many plants don't respond at all to Potions and other medicines."
"Fascinating. It was… Oh, I should introduce myself! I'm Clemont!"
"I heard. I'm Blanche. It's a nickname, I have amnesia of the laser-guided sort. Really unfortunate, don't bother taking time out of your day to pity me."
The glare subsided in Clemont's glasses, showing the boy's simple reaction of a blink. "...Perhaps AIAM fields can be tied to memory as well? A tree doesn't have a field, but a Trevanant does, and you can only train the latter… I'll have to research that later! Now, about your lack of field… How much would you take to stand in a room with an Infinity Battery for a few hours?"
"What?"
"I'm trying to find a way to make Infinity Energy more applicable in the field. FLARE needs that sort of firepower to deal with any sorts of threats."
Oh, yeah. Clemont works for the evil team too. What a world, what a world, he thought.
"And Infinity Batteries have circuit breakers built into them, miniature Aura Readers that can shut off the battery when the two energies begin diffusing, so there's no risk. It'll just be incredibly boring. But! It's a small price to pay! For the future is now, thanks to-"
"Don't finish that sentence," Michael cut him off, "I don't want something to explode."
"Ah…" Clemont slumped slightly. "That is a trend. But, Blanche, I believe I can compensate you considerably!"
"I kind of owe FLARE," he admitted. "What does healthcare cost around here?"
"...It's subsidized by the government, so I don't think you owe them that much. Maybe 4,000 if it was full treatment."
Blanche did the math, figured that Pokédollars were based on Japanese yen, and kinda-sorta equated one yen to a cent. $40? So like, a bit above minimum wage.
"Alright, sure. What do you need me to do?"
"Just follow me! I have the feeling that this is the start of a beautiful friendship!"
Between a cripple and another genius? Yeah, sure, pull the other one, he thought.
He stood in a perfectly cubic room of concrete walls and floors. The ceiling was broken in its monotony by a single lamp. The floor was bare except for a simple metal table. On the table was a squat cylinder, shorter than it was wide.
The door behind him slid shut with a hiss, and one portion of the wall faded out to show glass, behind which was Clemont and Aveline, who had come along to supervise. Both owned a keycard to the deeper, sealed room, but the latter was higher ranked than the other.
"Alright. The room might seem unnecessarily big, and it is. One hundred cubic feet will fit most Pokémon, and the concrete is reinforced. We use it to identify auras and some employees here use it to train."
"We couldn't have done this in the Aura Lab?" Blanche asked, not out of any sense of snark, but rather confusion.
"The average range of a human's AIAM field is around two feet in diameter. For Espers, that number grows exponentially. For Pokémon, the lower range is six inches for small Bug-types to more than fifty feet, though it is difficult to get Waillord in here in the first place. The extra space is to account for movement and margin of error."
"That makes sense, but how did you get the Battery in here before we arrived?"
"I dropped it off after I got the Professor's message. Getting it from the backup generator station to here by hand was a nightmare."
"Right… And you're sure this thing's not going to blow up in my face?"
"Even if it breaks, there is no chance of that. Unless you tried really hard to, but I don't think you're a moron."
"Don't overestimate me," he replied, "So, I just lay down next to the table until it breaks?"
"Make sure it's running first, but yes."
Blanche took thirty seconds to reach the isolated table, and when he twisted the disc on top to turn it on, it began glowing white and faintly whirring. An LED of some kind outlined an outlet, though he didn't recognize the small shape.
"It's on! Now, we wait."
And then they did. After a minute, there wasn't a flip of a breaker, and Clemont didn't seem too surprised. After two, he seemed to be a little anxious, but the battery kept on keeping on. After three, he said over the intercom, "The mode breakage time is five minutes, but they've been observed to continue working for one or two hours."
When five minutes passed, Clemont held out a thumbs-up, and Blanche started staring off into space, leaning against the table.
When ten minutes passed, he laid down to take a nap. The concrete was cool and uncomfortable, but it felt soothing in an odd way.
When twenty minutes had passed, he was starting to feel drowsy.
When an hour had passed, he was already half-asleep, fading in and out of consciousness far too often to keep track of time.
When a few hours had passed, he jolted as Clemont suddenly buzzed, "I think that's enough for today. It's a little late for lunch, but the Professor got you a sandwich from the cafeteria."
"Huh-buh-wha?"
"Get some food. It's on me."
Blanche rolled over a few times before finally pushing himself to his feet, stumbling over his cane. The battery was still glowing, and wasn't showing the slightest sign of slowing down.
"Where does all that energy go? It's a generator too, isn't it?"
"Sort of. Do you know what a perpetual motion machine is?"
"Does it move perpetually?"
"Yes, but it also can be used to create force and therefore kinetic energy. The battery is similar, using a loop of Infinity Energy to generate electrical energy."
"That… doesn't that break a few laws of physics? Conservation of mass and all of that?"
In his sleepy stupor, he had evidently forgotten he was in a world when big dragons could lose to tiny pixies because of arbitrarily typed energies.
"Well, yes," Clemont replied, "But the future is now! Thanks to-" Rather than the battery exploding, it turned out to be the intercom, as it cut out before the boy could finish his sentence.
"Should I turn the battery off?"
Clemont, finding that his microphone wasn't working, just nodded at him through the window.
Blanche, for the moment, figured out his living situation for the week before Trainer School topside would begin. He stayed in what could be called the nurse's office, having taped a sign to the door to ask people not to barge in. Nurse Joy gave him a medical kit with bandages and compression shorts, explaining how often he'd have to reapply and wash the coverings. He'd heard most of it before coming to Kalos, but he thanked her anyway.
During the day, he would have his aura scanned in the lab, just to make sure, and the test would turn up negative. He would then spend a few hours in the battery chamber studying the basics of Pokémon care and biology, as he understood most of the math and language, while the younger Professor Sycamore would attempt to tutor him over the intercom, and Clemont would record the absolute lack of data. For some reason, this only seemed to excite the boy.
Strangely, UBs, Shadow Pokémon, and Espers were not covered in his textbooks, but they'd only been written before 2009, the year the Heavens Shattered late in August. One of his books that briefly mentioned Orre touched on a crime syndicate's treatment of Pokémon, which he only understood meant the creation of Shadow Pokémon because Michael pointed it out to him when asked. He still thought it was important, given that there was a huge organization established to fight them, but yet, the school didn't bother sending him the pamphlet after he sent the paperwork, which in fact, he could fill out with his FLARE ID.
Funnily enough, he was deemed an employee, though he was also technically a resident there, and given a branded Holo Caster and a keycard of his own that accessed… the turnstiles in the city's monorail stations. FLARE seemed to have the same authorities as the police, which really should have made him worry more, but Lumiose-3 didn't seem too dystopian.
That actually raised a question, which he asked Clemont when he was bored out of his mind scanning the same passage about the difference between the effects of a Paralyze Heal and a Pecha Berry.
"Hey, Clemont, why is the city called Lumiose-3? Is it, like, a legacy thing?"
Clemont responded in short order. "Most people call it Lumiose, because it was still called that before 2010. Most people evacuated, but when the Heavens Shattered, the entire city was destroyed by a battle between Legendary Pokémon."
It was Kalos, so he guessed the Pokémon mentioned were Xerneas and Yveltal, though weren't they supposed to be a tree and cocoon before the climax of the games?
"After that, they rebuilt it about the same as before, but Prism Tower was still in reconstruction when an Ultra Beast, this massive robot covered in ice, destroyed it. It's actually an interesting story. Not because of the Aura Guardian showing up and fighting the Ultra Beast back, but because of Lysandre, FLARE's president or commander, depending on who you ask."
"Why's that?"
"It's in the mission statement on the pamphlets, if you've ever read one. He had a vision of a fortress city that was strong enough to defend itself in this world of strength, and so demanded the construction of Lumiose-3. People started moving here when it proved to be safe from Anomalies. FLARE has a system. The League handles everything but those. We just do the logistics and research. Most people only "know" that an Ultra Beast is a Pokémon from another continent that can teleport."
"Shouldn't people know about things like that? There's a search filter blocking off the Shattered Heavens incident."
"That was the United Regions, don't get it wrong. And even then, it could be a lot worse."
"Well, a lesser evil is still an evil, isn't it?"
"It would also be very bad if people got the wrong idea and started using it to support or condemn Helix or Arceus or even science itself."
"Ah, so misinformation is the issue."
"Essentially."
"...That's not right, though. Didn't people die? It was like the apocalypse, wasn't it?"
"Well, yes, but... I'm not sure, actually. I forget sometimes, but I'll look it up later."
Blanche felt an itch in the back of his head, like a golden crown of red light and spines were pressing into his skull, but the pain vanished as quickly as it had come.
"Are you alright?" Clemont asked as he doubled over holding his head. "I'm sorry! If you lost your home or something similar, I didn't mean to offend."
"No, it's fine, just… headache." He quickly added, "Unrelated, not a battery thing. Back to hitting the books, I guess."
On Saturday afternoon, the eighth of January 2012, Blanche received a very ominous text from Aveline Sycamore through the FLARE directory. It said only one word. "COME."
A second later, the young Professor added that her keyboard had glitched out and clarified the room number, which wasn't one he recognized.
He shrugged off any misgivings, figuring that he probably wouldn't get kidnapped or anything, and left his makeshift desk in his makeshift bedroom. His legs had healed from the strain for the most part, but he still kept the collapsible cane in his bag just in case. Most bags in that world, as he may have joked before he'd arrived, were bigger on the inside, thanks to some reality-warping courtesy of small, much more stable Infinity Batteries.
The walk was longer than the walk to either of the labs, or anything else inside the underground complex. Even with its size, there was always someone else in sight or hearing range, the sounds of footsteps near everpresent. FLARE employees, or grunts, as he automatically assigned them, were mostly dressed in orange button-ups, black-slacks, and snazzy ties, but there were enough exceptions that he figured it wasn't the uniform.
After descending four staircases, he really had to wonder how deep the thing went, but he followed the map that the Professor had grafted a path onto and sent to him. From the bottom of the steps, he traced along the wall of a corridor before finding his query.
The room was pitch-black, the door cool and made of metal. The artificial light seeped in and showed rough-shod concrete.
"You guys better not be making out in here," he called into the darkness, more to mess with the shyer Sycamore than anything else.
There were two distinct voices in the darkness, and in a few moments, the lights turned on to show Clemont and Aveline in the workshop, much too far apart. Clemont was waving his arms above his head and red in the face, while Sycamore looked the same and was staring at her shoes.
"...I was joking, you know."
"We were waiting for you! It's nothing like that!" Clemont shouted, before groaning, "You're acting like Bonnie…"
Clemont did mention that he had a sister at some point in the past few days, so that got a snicker out of him. Bonnie and Clemont replaced Brock at some point in the series, mainly with the gimmick of Bonnie proposing to every girl the two came across in Clemont's stead. But after meeting the boy, that seemed much less… relevant wouldn't be the word.
"I-I-I'm a professional!" Sycamore shouted after gathering the courage. For a brief moment, it seemed like steam was pouring out of her ears, but that might have been the many junk machines hissing behind her.
"So, what did you two need?" He asked after closing the door behind him.
"Well, it was supposed to be a surprise, but I suppose there's no point in hiding it." Clemont sighed, slumping slightly as the light glared from his glasses. He walked over to a tall, tarped object, and slowly took said tarp away.
The object was a black mechanical mannequin. Wrapped around it was a series of tubes and straps, centered around the chest. An Infinity Batter protruded from the chest, only two inches, in front of where the heart would be aind in the center of the ribs. The strapping was uneven, but it seemed secure as anything. As he walked around the back, he found a series of overlapping plates running down the spine that widened near the base of the neck. Black tubes and bracings ran down the arms and legs, looser at the joints. At the hands, they came into armored silver-gray gauntlets, and at the legs, around the lower calves they "solidified" into boots. Beneath the soles, it seemed like they were held up by springlocks. It seemed more like a prototype than something worth showing off.
"...What am I looking at?"
"This… is my machine. My magnum opus. In fiction, there are many like it, but this one is mine. The battery at the center of this armor has been modified to create a field of Infinity Energy when activated. It coats itself in the field, adding a layer of protection to the wearer that can match many Pokémon or other, previously developed armor. The field can also be used offensively. This is a very unstable machine. Like normal Infinity Batteries, it will not function correctly when it is in close contact with an AIAM field when activated for an extended period of time. This makes it essentially useless to anyone with aura. When the field is concentrated using an uplink to the lab, it will act similarly to a Typeless move." Clemont snapped out of lecture mode with his glasses on full blast. He twisted the Infinity Battery once in both directions, and everything except for the core disappeared. "You may think it is stored in hammerspace, when in fact, using the power of science, this Battery is linked to the armor which is now stored in the Lab, and it will answer your call." He held out the cylindrical disk, almost a six-inch cube.
"Are you making me a Power Ranger?"
"A what? No." Clemont shook it at him. "Take it. This is your compensation. I'd rather someone courageous like you have it than let it gather dust here."
"...I'm not courageous, Clemont. I'm just some guy."
"And I thought I didn't have any confidence. Get real! You've helped someone before, and you'll need protection for when you try to help someone again. It's my way of paying you back, so just take it."
Blanche knew he didn't deserve it. He got what FLARE owed him and then some. If they'd kicked him out, he wouldn't have told them they were wrong to do it. If it was someone else… maybe. But it was him, so he didn't care.
He took the Battery, assigned it the role of "morpher", more as a private joke than anything else, and nodded. "Thank you. I mean it. No sarcasm intended."
"Of course." Clemont smiled, a clever edge to his lips. "There is one person who can use this machine in this world. That person is standing right in front of me. That person needs protection even though his courage drives him. And because it will shield you, I will call it; CLEMONTIC GEAR: SHIELD!"
