To say that Faba was unhappy with the recent development would be like stating that the sky is blue. He wasn't yelling or anything. That wasn't his style. No, the man was sneering at Lillie the moment the elevator doors opened. Lillie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She never liked the man, be it before or after her reincarnation. Faba, in return, didn't think highly of the young blonde. Usually, though, the two kept it civil while talking to each other.

"Well, well. Her highness decided to grace us with her presence graciously!" Faba announced to everybody in the room. Lillie almost laughed. "Princess" and "her highness" were two nicknames she had earned herself whilst living at Aether. It was pretty obvious where those two names came from.

"Sarcasm? My doctor Faba. I always thought you were above such petty delights," Lillie replied, making it a point not to sound smug. In fact, she made it a point always to sound professional when talking to Aether employees or even her own mother.

"Joking aside, I take it you have objections to my proposal?"

"Hmph." The man crossed his arms. "Objections? Oh, I have many objections believe me! I cannot fathom what you did to convince the President to agree to such a ridiculous idea. What can a girl like you possibly hope to accomplish?" the man proclaimed.

"Results." Was Lillie's simple answer. "I plan on delivering results. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Oh please," the man scoffed with an eye-roll. "You wish to spend more time with your toy. I have seen how you interact with it. As if it was your Pokémon."

"With all due respect, doctor. I interacted the way I did with the subject because it was for the good of the project. Cosmog's well being is mandatory to the success of everything. Or have you ever seen a dead Gyarados launch a hyperbeam?"

The older blonde shook his head. "If the subject's well being is all you care about, then why do you play with it? All you'd need to do is feed it, and that would be it."

It was Lillie's turn to scoff. "The mental health of the subject is just as important as it's physical health. Wasn't it you who wrote in your report that inflicting it with pain and terror resulted in the strongest reactions? If Cosmog is mentally broken, it won't feel any terror and won't care much about pain as a result."

"Do you even know what you're talking about? You might be smart for a child, but what you said sounds like something that came out of a cartoon." Faba smirked. Lillie's face remained impassive.

"The results of Team Rocket's experiments are publicly available. You cannot claim I do not know what I am talking about. In fact, every child knows about this since Team Rockets atrocities are part of the standard curriculum nowadays, acting as a deterrent to repeat their mistakes."

"Are you saying that all I have been doing is making mistakes?" Faba asked in an accusatory tone.

"No. The results speak for themselves. You are on the right track. But being on the right track doesn't mean you haven't been making some mistakes."

Faba's eye twitched.

"Specifically, Cosmog's mental and physical health. The very two reasons I made my proposition to the president in the first place. I have been keeping detailed notes of Cosmog's behavior and condition. It is not eating as much as it used to, it's losing weight, and the latest ECG readings taken by your staff have been worrying, as I have been told. If we continue this experiment without changing our methods, there is a real chance Cosmog will perish. And unless you happen to have a second Cosmog in your pocket, I doubt even you will be able to do much with a corpse."

The doctor glared at the little girl for a couple of seconds. He was a proud man, and to have his work called into question in any way tended to make him angry. Especially when the criticism came from someone who had not even entered college, let alone high school. There were a lot of things he wanted to say to the little brat in front of him, but he knew it would make him look childish in front of everyone else in the room. As such, there wasn't much he could do, especially since the final decision had already been made.

"Fine," he said, his voice taking on its usual smugness. "Let's see if your ideas bear any fruits. Personally, I highly doubt you will accomplish much, but who knows?" he shrugged. "Miracles do happen from time to time, I suppose."

The man stepped out of the way and looked at one of his underlings. "Open the door," he commanded, to which the worker dutifully pressed a button on a console in front of them. Seeing as this conversation was over, Lillie was making her way to Cosmog's habitat.

"Of course," Faba's voice made her stop in her tracks, "one might also assume that all of this is simply an excuse to make a little... "excursion," so to speak?"

The girl turned around and gave Faba an icy glare, which he returned with a smug smile. "I would greatly appreciate it if you wouldn't compare me to that failure of a human being!" Lillie spat out the words like venom. The other employees were slightly taken aback by the girl showing genuine emotion.

"Harsh words, especially when one assumes you're talking about your brother."

The other people in the room began whispering among one another.

"Brother? Don't make me laugh." Lillie turned around. "If I were capable of doing it, I would forget his name. Sadly my intelligence won't allow me to forget things easily. Even if those things are as insignificant as the dirt under my shoes."

Without further ado, Lillie walked into Cosmog's room. Faba watched after the girl, stroking the beard under his chin. He knew very well that the girl was in over her head. Whether her ideas held any water did not matter in the slightest. She would return without anything to show for herself. And when that time came, Faba would have a field day ridiculing her in front of everyone.

Turning around, he saw that his staff was looking at him expectantly. "What are you looking at? Don't you have work to do?" he asked.

"But sir," one female staff member asked. "I thought the project was canceled.

"It's been put on hold," Faba hissed through gritted teeth. "Log your latest observations and find work somewhere else. Or take a vacation, I do not care. Be ready to pick up where we left off when the princess inevitably fails in her endeavors. Or do you any of you seriously believe she will have more success where a group of highly educated scientists wasn't able to?"

"The president sounded confident," a male scientist remarked.

"As of," Faba waved him off. "I do not know why our president believes so much in her daughter. Perhaps she let her emotions get the better of her. A parents' pride, if you will. Miss Lusamine will soon enough realize her mistake. Trust me in this."


Cosmog's cell, if one could call it that, was bare bones. If Lillie's memory served, the room was originally designated as storage space, and it showed. You could see the old imprints of shelves on the ground and some of the walls that once stood there. Exposed piping ran beneath the ceiling. And the monitoring equipment, consisting of cameras, microphones, and loudspeakers, had been added after the fact.

In the corner stood a water and food bowl, respectively, a litterbox (Pokémon are surprisingly easy to potty train). Cosmog's bed was in another corner. It was a cheap, old rag that the scientists had pulled out of some storage or other.

Speaking of the psychic-type, it (no one had bothered determining Nebby's gender as of yet) was lying on that sorry excuse of a bed with its eyes closed. The psychic-type appeared to be still tuckered out from the experiments of the previous day.

Not for the first time had Lillie to suppress the urge to jump in glee. Simply seeing the small legendary had been exciting in the past. I mean, imagine you could visit a real-life Mew every single day of your life. But now that Cosmog was officially hers, the blonde could barely contain herself. Her heart was pumping at a rate it hadn't ever since she realized in which world she had been reborn into. Her inner child demanded to come out and do a little dance number with the small Pokémon. It took all of Lillie's willpower to keep her urges under wraps. No need to make a fool of herself in front of all the adults, especially after her performance just now.

The girl kneeled in front of her (not yet) starter and carefully placed a hand on its plushy body. It wasn't as soft as the previous day. In fact, Nebby's fur felt slightly crusty in certain places, as if it had been singed. This was, sadly, not an uncommon occurrence. From time to time, the small Pokémon would receive small electric shocks. This didn't happen on purpose. The container the scientists always put the Pokémon in wasn't completely isolated. Lillie had once gotten shocked herself.

Luckily all of this was over as of today. If things went according to plan, Nebby would never have to suffer again. The adorable, little cloud slowly opened its cute, yellow eyes and squealed in delight when it saw Lillie in front of it.

"Morning, Nebby!" Lillie greeted in a cheerful tone, smiling like she was usually seen in the games and the anime. No need to unnecessarily scare the poor little creature in front of her. Especially since it was the key to everything.

Nebby leaned into Lillie's hand like a cat would do, letting out small happy noises as her fingers went through its fur. This had become part of the Pokémon's daily ritual. Before anything bad happened to it, Lillie would visit, comfort it in any way she could, bring breakfast, and occasionally check up on it.

Nebby had learned to enjoy Lillie's company, as she was the only one who did not hurt it in any way. She always smiled, always played with it, and comforted it after a day of grueling pain. The psychic-type practically only lived for those small moments and nothing else, as there was nothing else to look forward to in the day.

"I have something special for you today," Lillie announced, taking the small Pokémon into her arms. At first, Nebby was happy to be in the girl's arms. More often than not, it wished Lillie would stay with Nebby during the night, so it could enjoy her soft body instead of the blanket it had been given.

When Lillie began moving to the door, Nebby was at first confused, then terrified. The only reason Nebby ever went through that door was when the other humans were going to hurt it. Nebby screamed in protest ad tried to get out of Lillie's grip. Despite being surprised by the sudden movement, the girl kept her hold on the small Pokémon. Even if it hadn't been weakened already, the Cosmog wasn't strong enough to escape.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong, Nebby?" Lillie asked, being taken completely off guard.

Nebby wanted to say that it was too early for this, that it hadn't spent nearly enough time with Lillie. It hadn't even received breakfast yet. But sadly, it was more than aware of the language barrier between humans and Pokémon. Somehow, Pokémon could understand humans perfectly, but not the other way around. As such, the only thing Nebby could do was to continue trying and hope that Lillie would somehow understand it.

"Don't worry, Nebby. Calm down. No one is going to hurt you." The girl brought the Pokémon to her face and kissed it on its head. She turned the tiny cloud around and was saddened to see tears streaming down its eyes.

"Calm down," she repeated and gave it another kiss, this time on the cheeks. "I promise you, from now on, everything is going to be okay. No one is going to hurt you anymore. From today on, everything will be different."

The girl pressed the Pokémon against her chest, hoping the action would calm it down. There weren't any screams, but small muffled protests coming from her soon to be partner.


On her way back to her own room, Lillie had to cross half of Aether. She realized too late that she should have brought a bag or something similar with her. Over half of the Aether employees weren't even aware that Nebby existed. Plus, Aether paradise received a lot of guests daily. They, too, undoubtedly would have questions regarding the unknown Pokémon in Lillie's arms. It was especially bad since Cosmog was currently whimpering into her arms. If the image of a small girl and a seemingly hurt Pokémon didn't scream suspicion, then Lillie didn't know what did.

The fact of the matter was, she didn't want any attention to herself. Luckily for her, there were staircases, which were barely used by the employees. She used those to move between levels, increasing her overall travel time by a significant margin, but allowed her to stay out of sight. Barely anyone used the stairs.

The tricky part of her travels would come when she arrived at the level she needed to exit. To get to her personal quarters, she had to cross a large bridge outside of the habitat-zone. The bridge had its fair share of foot traffic consisting of both employees and visitors. Lillie thought about hiding Nebby beneath her hat when she found her solution.

It was a fire, slash, maintenance staircase. Not really a staircase, but it acted similarly. Aether paradise was a human-made island in the middle of the open sea. The walls got hit by waves daily. As such, it has a metal exoskeleton build around it to make maintenance work easier. It doubled as a fire-escape in case of emergencies and was connected to almost all facilities. This included Lusamine's and Lillie's personal housing.

Lillie had to hold her hat with one hand, as the wind was pretty strong. The girl held Nebby extra tightly to the chest, as it was light enough to be blown away by such strong winds.

"I should have thought this through," Lillie said to herself, looking down. The wind was completely messing up Nebby's fur, with its two "ears" flapping back and forth. The small Pokémon had stopped whimpering as soon as it felt the wind on its body and looked up. The girl was relieved to find that Nebby had finally stopped crying and was looking at her in wonder. It tried to move its body around, but Lillie's grip was too tight.

"There, see? Nothing bad is happening to you," Lillie tried to reassure Nebby once again. She was unsure why the small furball freaked out earlier but was glad that the issue was resolved. At least she hoped it was. "Alright, we're almost there. Now I need to remember which door I have to enter."

Lillie's shoes made clacking noises on the metal as she traversed. To the best of its abilities, Nebby tried to turn its body around and tried to see where it was. It had been so long since it had felt the wind that it had almost forgotten what wind was.

Eventually, Nebby managed to turn around enough to see more than Lillie's white clothes. And what it saw caused its jaw to drop. Water, so much water, as far as Nebby could see. More water than he thought could ever exist. If it could drink all of this water, it would never have to be thirsty ever again. How come humans only let it have so little water when there was so much around?

"Wingull!" "Wingull!" "Wingull!"

A flock of white flying Pokémon flew out towards the great water. Nebby felt a pang of jealousy go through its tiny body. It wished it could fly as good as those Pokémon. All it could manage was fly slightly above the ground. If Nebby tried to go any higher, it usually dropped to the floor. It was hard to fly high, yet those Pokémon made it look easy.

Nebby let out a low "Pew," wondering if it could someday fly as easy as those other Pokémon.


"I know the bag-memes are overdone, but next time I am putting you in one," Lillie announced as she entered the hallway adjacent to her private living quarters. Nebby totally didn't understand what she meant, but that was fine. Maybe one day Lillie would tell it where that she originally came from another world. Funny, considering Nebby was born in another world, too.

Now that she hadn't had to fear the wind taking her precious Nebby away, she loosened her grip and turned the little thing around, allowing it to see where they were going. A couple of steps later, Lillie opened the door to her very own room. Considering how rich Lillie's family was, her room was pretty spartan.

A bed, two bookshelves, one closet, a work desk with a PC, a window, and her chair. Naturally, the room was all white, as was most of Aether. The shelves didn't contain any personal items unless you counted the books. Lillie hadn't even bothered to ask mother about posters, as the girl could guess the answer. The computer and the furniture were all in the style of aether. Even the bedsheets had the Aether-Logo on them. All in all, the room looked more like a student dorm.

Nebby looked around curiously. Lillie's scent was all over the place, so it could guess this must be where she slept. It was so much nicer than the room he was sleeping in.

"Welcome to your new home, Nebby!" Lillie announced. "From now on, you are staying here!"

Nebby looked up to Lillie in shock and awe. He was staying with her? Unable to contain its excitement, it shrieked happily and jumped out of the girl's arms. The Pokémon then proceeded to dance around the young girl, who laughed at the Psychic-type's antics. After a few rounds, Lillie caught the cloud and nuzzled it against her cheek. Nebby cooed happily, nuzzling right back. It wanted to show Lillie as much affection as it could. Unfortunately, the human girl stopped way too early in the Pokémon's opinion and placed it on her bed.

Nebby cried in protest, but Lillie ignored it in favor of kneeling and getting something from under her bed. The previous day, Lillie had gotten some items from the Pokémon caretakers. She stored them temporarily under her bed: a dog bed, two new bowls, a package full of pallets, and a Clefable plushy. The bed had the Aether logo on it. Quickly, she filled one of the bowls with food, which made Nebby ecstatic. It had forgotten how hungry it was.

"There we go. Not five stars, but I heard it's better than what you got down there."

The Pokémon happily jumped down the bed and began wolfing down the pellets as if it went out of style.

"Oh right, should probably fill the water bowl," Lillie remembered. The bathroom was just down the hallway. So she hurried, filled the bowl with water from the sink, and returned before Nebby could wonder where its friend went.

For the next couple of minutes, Lillie watched Nebby stuffing itself full of food. She was pretty sure at least one of the laws of physics was broken, as the tiny Pokémon ate more food than was physically possible. One had to wonder where it stored all the calories. Maybe this was the "magic" part of the magical creatures that were Pokémon.

Nebby ended its breakfast with a satisfied burp. Lillie giggled and saw all of the crumps Nebby had left on the floor. There were also a couple of crumps stuck on its fur.

"You're a messy eater, huh?" Lillie ruffled the Pokémon's fur. Nebby let out a happy "pew." "Oh well, I meant to give you a bath anyway."

Nebby had ever received what you would call a proper bath. All Lillie could work with back at the lap was a large sink with a handheld shower. This item was actually supposed to be used to clean lap equipment or wash chemicals out of one's eyes. And they had only cold water down there. Not exactly what one would call comfortable.

Since Nebby didn't know the word "bath," it didn't suspect much until Lillie took it and brought it to the bathroom. The Pokémon shuddered, memories of being sprayed with cold water entering its mind. It would protest, but the older humans had been mean to it the first few times it did so. So, it kept quiet and watched as the water began to flow.

Lillie held her hand under the water and waited until she was satisfied with the temperature. When she was, she plugged the sink and let the water fill up. Nebby let out a nervous "pew." Once the water had risen to a satisfying level, Lillie stopped the flow and held the Pokémon up to her face.

"Cry loudly if the water is too hot," she told it.

Hot water, Nebby had to wonder. Since when was water warm, let alone hot? Water was cold, which wasn't bad when you drank it, but it was nasty when it got into your fur. Gritting its teeth, Nebby awaited the inevitable coldness. But it never came. Instead, its fur got soaked with warm, comfortable water.

"Pew?" Nebby was surprised. The water was warm, just like Lillie said it would be. It wasn't hot like she had worried. It was a similar warm to when the Pokémon would cuddle up to its human friend. "Pew..." Nebby was in heaven.

"Glad you like it," Lillie said in a happy tone as she began pouring the water over various places of Nebby's body. "Now sit back and relax. I will take care of you, Nebby. Oh, and keep your eyes closed. We don't want any shampoo getting into your eyes."

Nebby didn't know what "shampoo" was, nor did it care at the moment. Lillie was spoiling Nebby as it had never been spoiled before. The smaller human had always been so nice to it, and today she was especially nice. More than once, it had wished it could spend the entirety of its life with simply this one human and forget about all the other ones. Little did it know, its wish had already come to fruition.

As Lillie took care of Cosmog, she couldn't help but smile to herself. This grin wasn't that of a happy girl who would soon start her journey. Rather this one was reminiscent of Lusamine's malicious grin.