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Aaron sat on the edge of the roof of the Pokémon Center playing a silver flute he had found in the Lost Plane. He watched the sun rise as he played the calming, serene tune. He didn't see her, but May was watching him play the tune. "Wow, he's really good." She thought to herself turning around to return to the others before Aaron spotted her. Aaron stopped playing the flute as he put it in his bag and headed back inside to change his bandages before setting out. The wound seemed to be healing, but it was still causing him pain and occasionally bleeding.
Nurse Joy changed the bandages for him and handed him some spares. "Don't go stressing yourself out. You'll excite the wound."
"I'll try, but I can't make any promises." Aaron said getting off the examination table and heading for the ferry to meet up with Ash and the others.
They stood on the boat headed for Slateport City talking about what they were going to do when they got there. "I'm going to enter the contest." May said excitedly.
"I'm going to check out the market." Brock said looking at a pamphlet with Ash and Max.
"How about we all do that?" May asked the group who smiled in agreement. She looked over at Aaron who was leaning over the edge of the boat rail. "What are you going to do in Slateport City?" May asked leaning beside him on the rail.
"I have a meeting at the museum." Aaron told her before walking away. When the boat docked in the harbor, May went to go practice her contest routine with Ash and Max while Brock went to go check in to the Pokémon Center.
Aaron walked in to the museum and looked at the receptionist. "I have a meeting with Professor Jennifer Holly."
She looked at her computer and typed something. "Downstairs conference hall, and don't forget to erase your mistakes."
"Thank you." Aaron said walking away. "What the heck does that mean?" He thought to himself as he entered the conference room and flicked the switch on. "Jenny?" Aaron asked out loud as he scanned the room. He saw several things written on the dry erase board. "Erase your mistakes." He thought to himself as he picked up the eraser and watched a panel in the wall slide up. Aaron walked down the dark corridor the panel closing behind him. He continued walking until he stopped at a metal door with a very dim light above it. Aaron saw a keypad and pressed a button and watched as a hologram screen popped out.
A girl, no older than eighteen with short, sandy brown hair with a ponytail in the back appeared. She took off her goggles revealing her light green eyes that looked at Aaron. "Aaron, it looks like you didn't have trouble finding this place." She smiled.
"Yeah, when you're stuck in a void for some weird amount of time, you learn to think." He said glaring at the screen.
"Okay, come on in." She said turning off the screen as the door opened. Aaron walked inside standing inside a combination of a laboratory and a workshop. The girl in front of him was wearing a lab coat with a blue t-shirt and a short red skirt underneath "It's so nice to finally meet you." She said hugging him. "Did you bring what I asked for?"
"Yeah, I got it right here." Aaron said reaching in to his backpack and pulling out what looked like a large diamond. He handed it to her.
"I can totally get the refractor to work with this." She ran over to a large machine in the corner and opened a hatch in the bottom where she inserted the diamond. "This machine can alter Pokémon's abilities and make them more suitable for certain skills or environments." She pulled a pokeball out of her lab coat pocket. "Come on out, Bulbasaur!" She said excitedly. The Pokémon hopped in to the machine knowing full well what was going on. Professor Holly began typing several configurations in to the computer console attached to the machine. "Here put these on." She said handing Aaron a pair of goggles. Aaron put them on as he watched her push a button on the console and the machine started to warm up. The Bulbasaur was blasted with an electric green light that enveloped it. When she turned off the machine, the Bulbasaur jumped out of the machine and smiled and let out an excited cry in its Pokémon talk. "Bulbasaur, vinewhip!" She shouted. The Pokémon shot out the vines which seemed thicker and stronger as they destroyed the target in front of them. "Bulbasaur, return." The Pokémon returned to its pokeball while Professor Holly jumped up and down excitedly. "It works. Thank you so much." She said giving Aaron a huge hug.
"Glad I could help, but I need to get going." Aaron said heading for the door.
"Wait, before you go don't you want to talk to me about something?" She asked the young boy.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Aaron said walking away thinking about the lie he told. "I'm not in the mood to talk about my feelings. The void screwed me up and that's it." Jenny sighed as she watched the boy leave her lab.
Aaron went to the market and purchased something to eat before heading to the Pokémon Center to meet up with Ash, May, Brock, and Max. He saw Jenny talking with them. "Aaron, how are your bandages?" May asked when she saw him walk over.
"Jenny, what are you doing here?" Aaron asked angrily.
"I was just talking with your friends." She said standing up and putting her hands on her hips. "No need to freak out."
"You know Professor Holly?" Ash asked.
"Yeah, she grew up in my town and was my old babysitter." Aaron admitted.
"Oh, so you guys are old friends." Brock smiled.
"Yep, it was my job to keep this little squirt out of trouble back in the day." Professor Holly said tussling Aaron's hair.
"I'm not a little kid anymore, so why don't you just back off?" Aaron stormed off angrily and locked himself in his room. He took off his shirt and saw the blood seeping through the bandages. He cleaned the wound before rewrapping the new bandages. He walked out of his room and made his way to the roof of the center. He sat on the ledge playing a sad tune on his flute as he looked at the waves and the ships moving by. "I'm not a little kid." He kept repeating to himself as he continued to play his flute.