We continue with our look into Professor Decker's lab. What will be the result from their discussion? Will we learn more?

Also, thank you to everyone who read my story "The Heir to the Dragon". I would appreciate if you continue to read and support it in the future! You can get there through my profile! The story is finally completed! Thank you for reading!

The Pokemon Academy Best Girl 2 Finals are up and running! Who do you think is deserving of the title of Best Girl in the second year of the contest? Cast your votes! We've only gotten a few votes so far, and I know that a lot of people are reading, so come on guys! The poll's in the profile, who do you think deserves to take the crown?

Finalists: Sylvia, Marion, Sango

Rosealine gold: Well, I'll give you a hint, it has something to with pokemon genetics.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Don't worry, this chapter is a direct continuation from the last one.

KedharS: Always has been.

Thunder Fire: Who can say?

Rowlets and Oshawotts: Don't worry, it's not as far away as you might think it is.

JoshGamerV: He may not have been totally honest. But who said his research was connected to Mega Evolution? I sure don't remember doing it.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 705

"The ADAM Project…" Professor Decker muttered, shaking his head.

"I've been looking into it to satisfy my curiosity, but for some reason I can't find anything," Sylvia said. "Nothing concrete, anyway. Do you know how rare that is? For me to set my mind to something and not discover anything about it? The last time this happened was when I was looking into the Village of Demons!"

"You should take a hint," the professor said. "I don't know what this ADAM Project is, so maybe that's why you couldn't find anything about my connection to it."

Sylvia snorted, like that was believable. "Sorry, professor, I'm not buying your bullshit," she snickered. "So let's be real here. Tell me about Project ADAM."

The professor shrugged his shoulders and gave her a lopsided smile through his beard. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Sylvia scowled. "So, I guess the time of honest conversation has passed us by," she sighed.

"I don't know what Project ADAM is, but I imagine if information on it is so scarce, then it's either an urban legend, a failure… or something far too dangerous for you to be poking your nose into." Professor Decker ended his warning with a threatening tone of voice, but Sylvia wasn't exactly intimidated by the decrepit old man in front of her.

Sylvia smirked, and shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry, professor, but that doesn't quite work for me. You see, I'm the kind of girl who only does what excites her. And right now, learning about Project ADAM is exciting. So come on now, professor! Tell me everything! Project ADAM, the µ Gene, and your connection to it!"

The professor shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Sylvia took a second to regroup. It was clear that the professor wasn't talking. Which meant her methods of extracting information were limited. It was obvious he was lying, but how could she work with that?

"Professor, I think that your poor image of me is quite cruel, don't you think?" Sylvia decided. "I could be very helpful to you, you know."

The professor let out another tired sigh. "I already told you that I'm not interested in continuing this discussion any further. Not while you're busy working with that friend of yours. What does he call himself? The Phantom?"

Sylvia raised her eyebrow. Curious. She had sensed some animosity between the two of them, but not to this degree. What did that mean?

"Richard Valon? What about him?" She asked.

The professor let out a cackle of disbelief. "Richard Valon? Yes, him. Why not ask him about Project ADAM, if you're that curious? He seems like a bright sort, maybe I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you everything you want to know."

A couple dozen thoughts flashed through Sylvia's mind in the span of a second. "…Well, thank you, professor, that was very helpful. I think I can see where you're coming from now."

"Oh, really?" Professor Decker asked, adjusting his glasses. "And what do you mean by that?"

"The reason that you agreed to meet me, to pump me for information, it isn't because you're suspicious of my motives. Rather, you already have a good idea of my motivations, don't you? Or at least, you think you do. And for that matter, it's also the reason why you won't tell me anything about your experiments, isn't that right?" Sylvia asked. "You think I'm working with Richard Valon. There's a history between the two of you, and that grudge is keeping you quiet."

"Half right," the professor admitted. "You are still the kind of person who I could never trust with my research, regardless of your association with anyone else. Someone who just does things that excite them? You're the worst kind of scientist."

Sylvia snorted. "Better than someone who claims to be working for the greater good. I wonder, just how many atrocities have been committed by people who claimed that what they were doing was righteous and necessary?"

Professor Decker shook his head. "You simply have no idea of my vision, foolish girl. For all your intelligence, you're still just a child. You don't understand the big picture."

"I can understand quite a lot, actually," Sylvia replied coolly. "I've seen my share of things that you wouldn't even be able to comprehend. Don't pretend like your experience has made you an expert in the world, professor, there are things that even someone as smart as you couldn't begin to comprehend. Like this."

At this point, it wasn't about convincing him to talk. That ship had sailed. Sylvia was more focused on messing with the old man now, trying to destroy his pride by whatever means she could think of, and she had a great way to do it.

She reached into her bag and placed a vial on the table in front of her. It was filled with a strange black substance that Professor Decker couldn't identify.

"What… tell me, what is that?" The professor breathed, his eyes widening.

"It's water," Sylvia smirked. "That's all it is. You could perform whatever tests you wanted on it, but that wouldn't make it anything but water."

"Food coloring and water, I don't see what-"

"No, it's naturally like this," Sylvia said, shaking her head. "Do you remember, Professor, when I was absent for two weeks not too long ago?"

The professor nodded. He had assumed that she had just been blowing off his classes. After all, there was little he could teach her that she couldn't figure out on her own.

"I was transported to another world," Sylvia explained. "A world with laws of physics beyond what is possible in ours. A place without the need to eat or drink or sleep, a place where time didn't pass, not in a conventional sense. People didn't age. I was gone for over two years in that world, but here? It was only a couple of weeks."

"Impossible," the professor scoffed, shaking his head. "What you're describing is simply impossible. There is no scientific basis for that. You lived two years without aging a day? With no food? No water? Ridiculous."

Sylvia smirked. Of course a scientist would think about it like that. "This water? I took it from that place," she explained. "You could test it as much as you like, and you would never be able to find an explanation why it was black."

"Ridiculous!" The professor insisted, shaking his head. But even as he rejected her words, he couldn't deny the truth he saw in those eyes of hers. As a scientist… could he really deny the possibility? …No, no, there was no possibility! It was a lie, it had to be!"

"Well, while I was there, I happened upon a lot of strange things, things that not even I know how to describe to you. Your intelligence is too limited." Sylvia sighed, tossing the vial back and forth between her hands. "Professor, I could explain what I saw to you, but you wouldn't understand. There's quite a lot that escapes you."

"Are you looking down on my intelligence now?" Professor Decker asked, glaring at her. He knew that Sylvia had quite a talented mind. She lacked his years of experience, but she could still argue that she knew nearly as much as he did on the subject he had devoted his life in pursuit of. It was quite terrifying, and it stung his pride.

"No, in fact, I hold a great deal of respect for you," Sylvia confessed, which came as a surprise to the professor. "You're quite intelligent, and have great vision. But unfortunately, that doesn't mean you'd be able to understand."

She sighed. She almost looked sympathetic. "It's like I said before, professor, your mind is too limited, you can't see things the way I can."

It didn't sound like an insult, that was the worst of it. It reminded the professor of the way a teacher would speak to a child who couldn't yet perform multiplication.

"You must explain!" Professor Decker insisted. "I must know, how such a fantastical thing can be possible! It isn't rational, I won't believe it!"

"And I must know about Project ADAM," Sylvia said. "So what say you we make a trade?"

The professor was tempted by the offer, he really was. But he couldn't do it. In spite of his intellectual curiosity, he was not about to jeopardize his research, and potentially the safety of the world, by letting it fall into this girl's hands.

If she learned of Project ADAM, he had no doubt that she would try to recreate it. And that mistake was not something that should happen a second time. That was what the professor had vowed when he saw what he had wrought.

But before he could even have a chance to explain that to her, Sylvia retracted her hand and slipped the vial back into her purse, rising to her feet.

"Forgive my poor joke," she apologized, giving him a rueful smile. "I was merely messing with you. There would be no sense in trying to explain it to you, professor, you simply wouldn't understand."

"So you are mocking my intelligence in the end," the professor glowered. How painful. To have spent a lifetime's worth trying to decipher the truth of pokemon and their connection with the universe, and here was a girl barely old enough to drive speaking to him like he was some child.

"Professor, someone as smart as you must be capable of understanding that there are simply things beyond your understanding, right?" Sylvia asked. She sighed, and scratched her head. "How do I make you understand…"

Sylvia could expect that any other scientist would dismiss what she was saying as a lie, but not this man. This man, who had devoted himself to things that others would so readily dismiss as impossible, simply because he believed it to be so. He may be a scientist, but there was a bit of a dreamer in that crotchety old man somewhere, and it was keeping him from dismissing her out of hand.

It was why Sylvia could spare him a shred of respect.

"Professor, imagine you were a Ratatta. Spending your days in a lab, running on a wheel and crawling through a maze in search of cheese, what would you think of the world around you?" Sylvia asked. She wasn't sure if she could get him to understand this way, but it should be a metaphor that he could decipher.

Professor Decker was taken aback by this. "I do not know what you mean."

"Think about it, professor, really try and think," Sylvia urged him. "If you were a Poliwag, in a tiny pond, what would you know about the ocean?"

"I would know nothing," the professor said. "I would live in a pond."

Sylvia smiled. "Exactly. And if I came to you in your tiny pond, and told you about the big, beautiful ocean, can you imagine what you would think of it as?"

"My only frame of reference would be the pond," Professor Decker mused, stroking his chin. "So I would hear your words of the ocean and think of it as a larger pond."

"Good, professor, good, this is what I'm talking about," Sylvia smiled. "Now, imagine that you're a Ratatta in a lab, being experimented on by, say, you, a geneticist. Can you picture that? Just you, as a Ratatta in a cage."

The professor nodded.

"Now, if the foremost expert on genetics, you, came to that Ratatta, and explained what was happening to it, why it was going through those treatments, what do you imagine that Ratatta would think?" She asked.

Professor Decker blinked. "I don't understand."

"As a Ratatta, you wouldn't have any thoughts about genetics? The DNA of pokemon, the µ Gene, nothing at all?" Sylvia inquired.

"Bah!" The professor scoffed, waving his hand. "Of course not! I would be a Ratatta, my mind would never be able to understand such things."

"Even if you, yourself, were to try and explain it?" Sylvia asked. "You, an expert in your field, who knows everything there is to know about Pokemon Genealogy, you still wouldn't be able to enlighten your Ratatta self?"

"I could speak until my voice gave out," the professor admitted. "And still the limits of a Ratatta's mind would prevent it from understanding a word. Not in any meaningful way. Perhaps, glimpses and specks, but true understanding? No. Not possible."

"Then professor, why can't you accept that there are things beyond your comprehension?" Sylvia asked quietly. "After all, your brain may be more advanced than a Poliwag or a Ratatta, but does that mean there are no limits to your understanding?"

The professor considered Sylvia's words carefully. He considered them for a very long time as he looked into her shining blue eyes. He felt old, so very old. He had always carried himself with the belief that nothing could escape his comprehension, that with enough work and persistence, with his faith in science, he could decipher any truth.

But here was a girl saying that as smart as he was, he could spend an eternity trying to comprehend this world she described, and it would be fruitless.

He couldn't accept that. But he would be a fool to do otherwise.

He gave a tired smile of defeat. "Perhaps… I have gotten too old for such things," he admitted.

Sylvia laughed. "Come now, professor, there's nothing for you to be ashamed of. It's a wise man who can admit his own limitations, after all. You're an expert in Pokemon Genetics, but would anyone come to you about how to repair a carburetor?"

The professor chuckled. "I would think not."

His expression hardened, and he narrowed his eyes into a glare. "And don't for a second think that mollifying me like this will lead me to give you any more information on the ADAM Project. Like I said, I know nothing."

Sylvia shrugged. "It was worth a try. And besides, perhaps I simply enjoyed the intellectual discussion, ever imagine that?"

"I'm aware of your intelligence," the professor said. "And somehow, I find it hard to believe."

"I'm not smarter than you, professor," Sylvia replied. "I'm just not so limited in my thinking. It's as simple as that."

"I believe that's what it means to be smarter than someone," the professor replied.

"…And that's because you're too limited in your thinking," Sylvia triumphantly declared.

Professor Decker was too tired to discuss this. He had work to do. There wasn't anything more that he sought to learn from Sylvia; whatever she knew about "The Phantom", she wasn't going to disclose it. He was no longer even sure that she had come here on the man's request. And even more, he had no intention of letting her know anything else about Project ADAM or the evolutionary variance enhancement.

More concerning, however, was the fact that she might begin to guess about something else he wasn't telling her, something concerning. If she learned about what else he had done while he was at the Pokemon Academy, then things might end up being problematic.

"Is there anything else you'd like to discuss, or have you had enough of wounding my pride?" Professor Decker asked.

Sylvia smirked. "Project ADAM, of course."

"I've already made it clear. I have nothing to discuss on that subject with you," the professor replied. "So with that in mind, I do believe we're done here."

Sylvia shrugged. "Fair enough," she agreed. She paced around the couch, stroking her chin in contemplation. "But I hope you don't take my willingness to leave as a sign that I'm going to give up on this."

Professor Decker worried that that was the case. This girl was anything if not persistent. But there wasn't anything he could do about it. "Do whatever you want," he muttered, shaking his head. "It doesn't concern me."

And with that, Sylvia Driscoll was done. The professor escorted her to the elevator, watching her closely to make sure she didn't try anything suspicious.

On her best behavior, Sylvia skipped into the elevator and disappeared from the laboratory, and when she was gone Professor Decker let out a sigh of relief. Finally, he could breathe again.

Being around that girl was exhausting. He had managed to deflect her questions as best as he could, even if she was far more cunning than a teenager had any right to be. And he had emerged out from the other side of this discussion mostly intact, damage to his pride aside.

The important thing was that she had no idea about what else he had done.

The professor returned to his lab, and looked at the two DNA samples he was working with. One of them was the DNA of the Gyarados that he had extracted.

But the other one? That was a vial of Dakota Evan's blood. A vial mixed with the µ Gene.

It was a very important sample. The human genome… I had considered it before. Perhaps it's the final stabilizer I need to complete my project…

Sylvia's offer couldn't have come at a better time. The professor had tried to synthesize his own DNA with the µ Gene, but after Project ADAM that was no longer possible. And as much as he would have liked, ethically he couldn't just extract someone's blood.

But Sylvia had offered up the perfect test case, and her family had agreed. Professor Decker had never seen the µ Gene bond to a human's blood so readily. Could it be because of her own DNA? Was there something in there that made her a more receptive host? He wasn't sure. Nor was he sure of the effects it would have on the girl in question.

But what he did know for sure was that he had a prime sample to work with, and now his research could continue.

Thank you for your donation, Dakota Evans. I will make excellent use of this. You've done a great service for the world of pokemon, Professor Decker silently thanked her.

So, there seems to be some suspicious activity going on in Professor Decker's laboratory. What will result from this? Will the professor perform some strange experiments? When WILL we know what his research projects entail? Hopefully someday. But for now, let's return to the Pokemon Academy!