Chapter 3

"Listening and taking turns can be fun!"

The professor had invited his "guests" into his living quarters of his lab. He had a fairly moderate sized room to sleep in, eat in, read in, and do whatever the normal populace would do in their time off. The sounds of machinery from the lab could only be faintly heard in his living quarters, which gave him the peace and quiet he needed. There were a few gadgets and gizmos lined about along his shelves, most of them resembled metallic shaped guns, but Ash and the gang didn't think much of it as they glanced about them. The professor had calmed down a bit and had decided to fill them in on what exactly he does for a living. First however, it was business as usual.

"10,000 dollars," the professor stated.

"Ten thousand?!" Ash exclaimed.

"Yep…that just about covers everything you broke since you've gotten here," the man said nonchalantly, checking his fingernails while resting in his armchair.

"You're serious, aren't you?" an astonished May asked.

"Sure am," the man said, taking out a fingernail clipper from his pants pocket.

"I can't believe he's going to make us pay for everything," Max said uncertainly, looking up at his older sister.

Brock stepped forward, "But sir, can't you see that most of us are just kids? You can't expect us to have that kind of money."

The professor started clipping his fingernails while talking, "I assume you kids have parents, do you not? You didn't just appear on the street one day out of nowhere, I'm sure of it. "

The gang stared at him confused with a bit of anxiety, as they watched each finger nail fly in the air after being cut.

"You want our parents to pay for your stuff?" Ash asked.

"Well that would be obvious, would it not? If you don't have the money yourselves, you have family I assume," the man said still clipping away at his nails, "Let's see now…"

The man put down the fingernail clipper on the small wooden table next to his chair. He raised out his fingers and began counting down on each them, "One was for the glass window that I had smashed by such a charming young man, two was for making me get my lab coat on fire thus completely ruining it…"

Max cut him off, "But we didn't get your coat on fire, you did it!"

"True I suppose," the man replied, "But had you kids not come into my house I wouldn't have caught the fire on my lab coat. It's all a chain reaction you see…you break my window…you come inside by lab…and you cause me to get myself caught on fire…and as I was saying before, the third and most expensive item being my mechanical arms and conveyor belts, thus ruining one of my experiments. Lots of money went into building that equipment you know."

"But…" Max tried to say.

May put her hand on her brothers' head and motioned for him to be quiet. A timid Max looked up at his sister and noticed that she was as nervous as he was. Ash took a glance at the two frightened siblings and decided to approach the man once more.

"How about we work for you to pay off the debt, like you asked us to before?" Ash asked, the rest of the group glaring at him.

"Hmmm…you'd be working for an awful long time you know," the man said, scratching his chin.

"Listen," Brock added, "We're very sorry for what we did, but can you at least tell us what you even do here? We'd be willing to pay our debt…but heck…we don't even know your name for one thing!"

"I thought I told you my name…but ah never mind…that was my name from 10 minutes ago," the professor replied.

"Eh?" Ash muttered.

"My name now is "Mr. Lenient", and I'm willing to go easy on you since you're such a swell bunch of kids."

"So…we don't have to pay…or work?" May asked, putting her hand up by her face.

"To some extent yes, but I believe I should tell you what my lab is about," he stated.

"Good, it's only reasonable for us to be curious," Brock said nicely, attempting to smooth talk the man.

"NOW THEN!" the professor suddenly shouted as he slammed his hand down on the table.

The four kids jumped in the shock of the noise.

The man looked as if he was confused, "Let's see…what were we talking about again?"

"Uh, you were explaining to us what you do in your lab?" Ash reminded him.

"OH that's right! Thank you young man!" he replied.

The professor stood up from his chair, "If you must know, I work as a researcher for Devon corp, you may have heard of them."

"Hey, we were there!" Max said happily.

"Yeah, didn't we go there back when we were in Rustboro City in Hoenn, Ash?" May asked.

"Yeah, we met the President of Devon corp and everything," Ash said happily.

"Oh so you DO know them. That is just swell. You kids are such a lovely bunch," The man said slyly as he looked over at May. "Your friend here is quite the looker."

"Wuh?" May said as she felt herself blush.

The professor then looked over at Ash, "You sure can pick them kiddo. This girl is really quite a prize, you must have good taste in women."

"Wait, I think you got it wrong a bit. May is just a really good friend," Ash said reluctantly.

May moved her arms over her chest awkwardly. Her voice trembled as she said, "Yeah, Ash is my…"

"Oh really, does that mean the girl is free then? I know a couple of young fellows at town who have been looking for a nice innocent young girl for a while," he said rubbing his chin.

"Weren't you in the middle of telling us about your job?" Brock quickly interrupted.

"Yeah and besides that, May's not for sale," Ash said in a stern voice.

May glanced at Ash and smiled off of his remark. "Thanks Ash," she said to herself, proud of the fact that he stood up for her.

"Relax, I was just kidding," the man said waving his arms cheerfully. "There's too much tension in this room, it was time to lighten the mood!"

May walked over to Ash and decided to stand with the right side of her body behind him, as it made her feel more secure when the man was talking. Ash noticed her standing beside him, and cracked a gentle smile at her.

"Anyway, as you know Devon Corp. studies all sorts of things. From fossils of prehistoric Pokemon, to new and improved Pokeballs, and to various technology that will help shape our future. I'm one of the many professors who live around the region apart from the main Devon offices, as I do field work with Pokemon as well as sending various cargo from my lab to ships at the port. Being the genius that I am, I have those mechanical arms in my lab which helps do my work for me. Unfortunately one of my mechanical arms broke due to circumstances beyond my control…" he stated.

Ash and May grinned nervously knowing that he emphasized the pair of mechanical arms that they broke earlier.

Off their reactions the professor smiled and continued, "But I still have many more of those arms around the lab that continue to hasten production and help me finish my orders quicker than ever before. Some of them have a few kinks to work out, but that's besides the point."

"Hmmm…if you don't mind me asking," Brock asked curiously, "Does this place send the equipment to other Devon facilities around the region?"

"Yep, you're right. Give this man a silver dollar because he hit the nail on the head!" the professor said boastfully, "I'm merely one of Devon's oldest employees who helps manufacture many goods for the company."

"Uh, if you work for Devon then don't they give you those robot arms? I mean, why should we have to pay for something from your company?" Max asked.

"Max!" May scolded while still standing partly behind Ash.

"Gee…I was just asking." Max said sarcastically.

"My my, aren't you the little prodigy?" the professor exclaimed, "Yes you're right, I should be able to easily get another shipment of those arms from Devon…but that'll take about a week or more to get here. In the meantime, I have to do all that work by hand and that won't be pretty."

"So then why did you want to charge us for the arms?" Brock demanded.

"BECAUSE….kids these days need discipline! You can't expect to go away scot-free when destroying another persons' property now can you?" the professor replied.

"So then what ARE you going to have us do?" May asked as she rested her left hand on Ash's shoulder for reassurance.

"Well your boyfriend here brought up the idea of working for me," the elderly man coyly stated.

"Didn't I already tell you that I'm just her friend?" Ash said quickly to avoid embarrassment.

"Well sure…but it looks like your girl likes to rest herself beside you a whole lot," he said slyly.

May's eyes opened wide as she quickly let go of Ash's shoulder and moved her body away from his.

She said feverishly, "I was only a bit nervous that's all. When you started talking about working and paying, I went to my friend because I wanted to know what he thought about the situation…."

May felt her face getting red, as she said softly lowering her face, "I didn't realize I was leaning myself against him."

"Aw, that's sweet how she looks up to you, Mr. Hero," the man said coyly at Ash.

Ash's right eyebrow raised but he couldn't think of anything to say.

"Are you really that concerned about our relationship with one another?" Brock snapped, "Instead of talking about that, why don't you just explain to us what we should do to pay for this debt?"

"PUSHY PUSHY are we? OK OK, as I said before my name is "Mr Lenient." I'm willing to go easy on you kids, just to reiterate," he said in a loud voice.

"This guy says the same things over and over again, doesn't he?" Ash whispered to May. She nodded in agreement.

"That's good," Max said quietly hoping for the best.

"How's about this then?" the man said pacing the floors, "It will take about a week for the shipment of a pair of mechanical arms to come in. In the meantime, you can work for me on various chores to pay off your debt."

The groups' faces began to light up in relief.

"Aaaaaaaaaaand….I'll forget all about the $10,000 you owe me. Heck, I won't even charge you for the window. 7 days total, about 5 hours a day of work, and I won't even report the vandalism. Now, how does that sound?"

"That…sounds great," Ash said, relieved.

"Hmmm….it does sound like a pretty good deal myself," Brock said, sizing up the situation.

"Cool, what do you think May?" Max asked his sister.

May staggered a bit nervously as she wasn't fully paying attention, "Oh what?! Oh…uh yeah that IS great. Thank you "Mr. Lenient!" Thank you a lot!"

"Anytime my dear," the professor responded, "Now you kids can sleep in the guest room if you like, and for now you can wander off doing whatever you do in your free time, I won't put you to work until tomorrow. After all, you'll need plenty of sleep for the next day!"

With that the professor opened the door which led back to his lab, he started walking out before he suddenly forgot something and poked his head back in the room.

"Oh and one more thing….PLEASE don't break anything else while you're here? It would make me really, really upset. OK?" he said politely.

"Sure!" Ash smiled.

The man nodded and closed the door.

"Phew…that's over with," Ash said gasping a bit.

May walked over to the armchair and sat herself down. She looked exhausted as she stretched out her legs and arms.

"How do we get ourselves into these messes?" she asked.

"Heh, I'm going to go explore the rest of the lab. It's better than just sitting around here at any rate. The professor didn't say anything about food though, I hope he's going to get us some things to eat. Anyway, anyone want to come with me?" Brock asked.

"Oooh…I do! I want to see some of those other robot arms, they looked so cool!" Max said exuberantly raising his hand.

"Food…?" May uttered as a thought registered in her head. "OH that's right!" she continued as she jumped up.

"What?" Ash asked her.

"The strawberry shortcake, that's what, silly!" she said happily as she clasped her hands.

"That slipped my mind, the game, you won fair and square, May," Ash said.

Ash took off his backpack and took out the piece of cake which was carefully covered in a napkin. He brought it to a long table that was a few feet away from them.

"Yay! I can't believe I almost forgot about eating this!" May said cheerfully as she took out a plastic fork from her fanny pack.

"C'mon Brock, let's go already!" Max said impatiently.

"Oh, ok, see you guys in a bit!" Brock called out to May and Ash.

Brock and Max began to exit the room as May leaped toward the table and quickly pulled out a chair to sit on. Pikachu jumped toward the armchair and started to curl up to rest.

"OMG THIS IS GOING TO TASTE SO GOOD! I love strawberry shortcake!" she said as she prepared to dig in with her fork.

Just as she was about to stick the fork in the cake she noticed that Ash was standing next to her. May looked up and saw Ash's mouth watering. He looked as if he was completely famished and was dying to eat a piece of the cake.

"Uh…Ash? You're drooling on me," May smiled.

"Eh, sorry about that…I'm just remembering how good that cake tasted when we were having it for lunch," Ash said shyly.

May took a glance back at the cake and then looked back up at her friend.

"Do you want a piece?" she asked.

"It…it wouldn't be right. You won it fair and square, you can have it. Besides, it's already a pretty small piece to begin with," he said quickly.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, you can eat it. I won't mind," Ash said as he started drooling while staring at the slice of cake again.

May's face beamed.

"Sit down, Ash," May instructed as she pulled a chair next to her.

"Huh?"

"I know you want some, I'm willing to share. Besides, I want to thank you for what you said earlier. The professor is a bit creepy, don't you think?"

"I guess I can see what you mean. He does seem a bit….odd."

May put her hand over the empty chair and rubbed it to tell Ash to sit down, "C'mon, I'll give you some!"

Ash chuckled and sat down next to her. The small slice of strawberry shortcake sat there on the unfolded napkin on the table. Both Ash and May took a glace at it and looked as if it was the greatest thing anyone could eat in the world.

"Wait a minute…we only have one fork," Ash said.

"Oh yeah, just this plastic one," May said as she twirled the fork in her hands.

"Hmmm," Ash thought to himself.

"Wanna use the same fork?" May asked.

"Really?"

"Sure, we'll take turns eating, kind of like a game. I'll take one piece of cake off with the fork and eat it, and then I hand the fork to you and then you take a piece and eat it. Sounds fun?" May giggled as she looked at her friend.

"Awesome, what are we waiting for?" Ash asked in anticipation.

With that being said, May cut off a small piece of cake and brought the fork to her mouth. After she swallowed, she handed the fork to Ash and watched as he took off a piece and tasted it. The two of them delightfully continued to take turns, each breaking off only the smallest piece of cake so that they wouldn't eat too much and leave too little for their friend respectively.

May would occasionally get nervous and drop the fork on the table from switching too much. Ash watched as she put the fork in her mouth, and he could hardly sit still while waiting for her to hand him the fork so he could get the next piece. Not a word did either speak, the only sound that could be heard is low giggling and the sound from tasting the cake. Side by side they sat, sharing the same fork and eating what little cake there was left in fruition.