The silence stretches out as she sits and simply waits for some kind of response. As she waits, she investigates the room just that little bit closer. Like the room where she met with Holly it's clean. With various strange things organized around the room, there's a desk and a computer, with a swivel chair, the kind that spins around as you sit on it. There's a bed set up near the back, and interestingly enough, unlike Holly's doctor's office this one has a few personal touches.
It looks lived in.
There's some photos on the wall, and up on the desk. Depicting various pokémon, various pokéumans at the front of many pictures in an eevee, and in others is a sylveon. There's a kind of progression to the images she notes with an amused flicker of one ear. Shaking her head she lets her eyes flick up to the wall, and the posters and paintings on the wall, some are motivational, others...
There's a rainforest scene, a waterfall, and a Pokémon Jhoto Poster.
All in all, while it still feels like a doctor's office, with all the trappings of one, there's the personal touch here that makes it feel... more.
'{Is... is there anyone actually here?}' Tammy's voice in her head is startling, and she jolts. Snapping back to a straighter position, before realizing that there was nobody actually there. Tilting her head she wonders the same thing.
'There... there doesn't seem to be' Hybrid muses, before huffing out a breath. Standing back up she shakes her head and turns around ready to leave. It takes a moment, but the sight behind her causes her to sit straight back down. Ears flattening and eyes widening.
'{WHERE DID THE DOOR GO?}'Tammy's scream is unnecessary but he makes the point for her. The door is just gone, the wall where it had been is blank. Uniform with the metal around it. It's as if there was no door. Curious at the phenomenon Hybrid gets back up and walks forwards. Looking first one way, then the other to see if she can't figure out what happened.
No answer becomes obvious.
It just remains a wall.
Now that's just, odd. Hybrid doesn't know how to really respond to that, not beyond what she's already done. She tentatively sniffs at the spot the door was, nothing about the scent seems odd. But to be fair this is the first time that she's ever really thought about using her nose to pick up something. She's a canine pokémon, pokéuman. So her nose must be more sensitive. But all she can smell is the uniform scent of the metal. Screwing up her nose she pulls a face.
Bewildered.
There's a scraping grinding noise from behind her, causing her to spin around, automatically dropping into a crouch, raising her hackles and baring her teeth. Only to blink in confusion, watching the far wall shift, and slide its way up. Leaving a new opening. She tilts her head, before once more getting instinctively defensive as a figure prances out of the revealed tunnel.
A familiar, albeit new figure.
A sylveon.
"No need to be so defensive" they laugh, voice light and airy. Even as the wall behind them slides back down, with a solid thud. "Did Holly send you my way?" the sylveon asks landing easily on the swivel chair spinning around a couple of times before facing her.
"Yes!" Hybrid inclines her head and the sylveon grins, before spinning the chair around to face the computer.
Tapping away with her front paws the fairy pokéuman hums before spinning around once more to face her. A calculating expression on her face. Tilting her head one way, and then the other, before hopping down.
"Well, aren't you an interesting one!" the sylveon says, with a smile. "Anyway, I'm Michelle and I'll be your physician for this evening! Particularly though, I specialize in Pokéuman genetic fluctuation levels... and tests of that nature..." she says, tail and ears flickering in amusement.
"And that means..."
"Well, as a hybrid your fluctuation would already be off for the average of your species..." Michelle says, bouncing back up to her chair. "But most hybrid's still have a relatively stable fluctuation point of about 8%, regular pokéumans have a fluctuation point closer to 5% to account for evolution, along with I guess the use of humanization technology and whatever moves do, with eevee and its evolutions(like myself) being the odd ones out at around 10%"
"Okay, but what does that even mean?"
"Well, your fluctuation point is off. Rather than being stable, it's well, a little bit unstable." Hybrid pulls a face at that statement, and the sylveon shakes her head. "The issue is, when someone transforms, any excess DNA is usually retroactively absorbed into the base code, or the prime ancestor. Which in your case must be Houndour/Houndoom, since that's the majority of your make-up. Your secondary is obviously the Shinx/Luxio/Luxray line, normally, that's where it would end. And your fluctuation point would stabilize higher than a pure pokéuman of one species or the other, but stable..." Michelle says, tapping on the keys, and bringing up a chart. "But you still have... what we call, useless DNA!"
"So it hasn't been reabsorbed?" Hybrid asks, not understanding anything that's been displayed on the screen. Whether it's the numbers, or the small pop-ups from a little model of herself on the screen. Michelle shakes her head, before turning to her eyes narrowed in focus. "So, uh, any idea what might have caused that?"
"Nope!" Michelle states, far, far too happily before jumping down and practically stalking towards Hybrid.
Nervous, Hybrid backs away, until her tail is against the wall. Her tail waves a little bit, awkwardly, as she offers a sheepish grin up at the slightly taller pokéuman. Michelle looks down at her, something in those blue eyes studying her closely. Reading something about her apparently. On edge, Hybrid finds herself shifting, baring her teeth again, and inching into a more aggressive stance.
Electricity sparks in their fur and Michelle nods her head. Seemingly finding what she was looking for.
The sylveon spins on a dime and leaps up onto the swivel chair before bringing up a display once more.
"Let's scan you quickly just one more time..." Michelle says, almost singing the statement. Hybrid doesn't argue, stepping forwards, hopping up onto the bed and letting the sylveon fix all the pads and the bands onto her. "Now here we go!" again Hybrid winces as a loud whining fills her ears, and Michelle hums, tapping away at the computer before finally cutting it off. "Quick question... did you suffer from any kind of serious trauma during your transformation? Such as contact with some unknown substance in use by pokextinction(or pokéumans), or suffer an attack from an already transformed pokéuman?"
"Uh..." Hybrid has to think for a moment.
'{The furious gardevoir!}' Tammy fills in the blank.
"Yeah, there was a pretty furious gardevoir that I had an encounter with... third day of my transformation..." Hybrid says, waving one paw awkwardly.
"And they attacked you?"
"Yeah, that was definitely an attack..." Hybrid's voice sounds a touch sarcastic as she reflects on being plucked off the ground and her mind being, well torn apart. "Actually split me, I think... or else exacerbated the already existing problem..."
"Oh? Is that the Figments?"
"Yeah! The figments!" Hybrid agrees nodding her head. Michelle hums, before jumping down. Leaving the screen visible, although to Hybrid it's still nonsense.
"Well, your fluctuation point seems to have finally stabilized, at about 14%" Michelle frowns at some of the clutter around the room before swiftly moving to clear it. "And I think that I have a theory about why you've still got some useless DNA..."
'{I have a bad feeling...}' Jane's voice echoes in the back of her head, even as she watches Michelle finish clearing up a decent area. Before nodding to herself and looking at the hybrid with a grin.
"It's all related!" Michelle says, before straightening up. "Now! I need you to see if you can, tag out! Tag in!"
"What?"
"You know! Swap with one of those figments of yours!" Michelle says, tilting her head. "Because if I'm correct, the sudden influx of foreign psychic energy early on in your transformation altered the progression of things. It left an imprint by locking that 'useless' DNA to your figments, and left the paths still there. Therefore the fluctuation, which means unfortunately you trade the ability to evolve, for the ability to swap. At least, that's what I believe has happened!" Michelle nods her head, before straightening and staring at Hybrid. "Now, tag out! Don't worry, I'll be right here, in case anything goes wrong!"
"Alright!"
Hybrid takes a deep breath. Closing her eyes. Shaking a little bit. Not quite sure what to think, but within her head.
'{Finally!}'
'{It's about time!}' Tammy says. '{Now let's do this!}'
Alright.
Deep breaths.
In.
Out.
And Hybrid keeps her eyes shut, focusing on the feeling of her breaths. In and out, until she can get a sense of falling. Down into her own mind. Hopefully. Her eyes snap open, and she blinks. Sitting across from her are two figures. Around them pulse so many colours, cerise pink, citron green, apple green, crimson and lavender. But Hybrid can only stare.
"You're a..."
"Vulpix!" Jane says, flicking her tails and smiling. "Yes I know, alright then Tammy!" she looks at the inverted cyndaquil beside her who smirks. "You're up!"
"About time you switched out!" Tammy says, puffing himself up before charging past her. Hybrid doesn't have a chance to react beyond a small startled gasp, and spinning around, to reach after him.
Outside of their mental space, the change between them takes a matter of seconds. The body jerking as its form undergoes rapid transformation. So fast that a light seems to glow from the limbs. As it shrinks and twists, before finally settling. Looking just like Tammy. An inverse coloured cyndaquil, with a small bit of fuzz on his head.
He blinks his eyes open carefully before shaking his head. Looking one way, before the other and finally looking up at Michelle curiously.
"Well, that worked!" He says, observing his stubby limbs with a grin.
'{Tammy! Tammy! You take good care of my body you hear!}'
'{It's our body Hybrid!}' Jane corrects and the cyndaquil huffs out a burst of laughter before resting back and looking at Michelle.
"So, was there a reason to this beyond curiosity?" he asks. "Because yes, it worked, completely... gender included!" he says, sounding just a touch confused by that last point, a small flush rising up under his fur. "Uh... was that supposed to change? I thought it was just a mental thing..."
"Psychic energy influx! It must have supercharged the genes, which then linked to you. And yes! As I suspected you can swap!" Michelle bounces on the spot before jumping down over to the wall, raising a paw she taps a slot and the wall slides away. "Now then! Let's see if the rest of my guess was accurate! Do you, as an alternate person, do you have a completely unique move set?"
'{Tammy? Please be careful when using your moves... the transformation itself took a lot of energy...}' Hybrid says, sounding a little bit frustrated. '{You need to build it back up by eating, rapid fire transformations like that sap a lot from you, it's kind of why werewolves are such voracious eaters immediately after transforming... and therefore mistakenly bloodthirsty...}'
'{The smart ones eat a lot before transforming, or leave food nearby!}' Jane agrees. '{We might need to organise rapid snack packs...}'
"I am... pretty hungry honestly..." Tammy says with a frown, shaking his head. Michelle pauses just ahead of him, looking back with her tail erect in the air.
"Oh?"
"I said, I'm pretty hungry honestly!" Tammy says, letting out a puff of embers in his annoyance. "So can we, I dunno grab something to eat." The sylveon pauses before nodding her head.
Realizing the same thing that Hybrid and Jane did. Such a rapid transformation would take a lot of energy to sustain. And that energy would need to be rebuilt afterwards by eating. It's the same reason that athletes have big appetites, or rather eat multiple times a day because of how their metabolism burns through the food that they use to fuel their bodies.
In this case though, it's more that they're using it all in one quick burst.
For a rapid change. Michelle still leads them quickly through the tunnel. Before emerging into a familiar room. The mess hall. Confused Tammy spins around, to see where they came out from. Nothing but a solid wall.
'{That must be some kind of set up here...}' Hybrid muses. As Tammy shakes his head. '{I wonder how it works...}' They're both distracted as Michelle whistles. Calling them over. The sylveon smiles, before waving a paw over the offerings of food. Around them, are many other pokéumans. Some of them just eating, others only just arriving. Many of them talking, Tammy looks around for a moment. Frowning before peering at the food.
Berries.
But also, some strange nuts, and breads, and other things that just don't strike them as familiar. Although the meat is definitely familiar enough.
'{Carnivore food!}' Hybrid cheerfully calls in the back of his mind. Tammy snickers, before selecting a bunch of the berries, and some of the meat along with grabbing one of the moomoo milk drinks that are being offered.
It's delicious, and he hums in pleasure as he eats. Ignoring the grumbling from Hybrid in the back of his head. Finally finishing off the last few bites, he lets out a relieved sigh. And Michelle laughs, before jumping up.
"Alright! All recharged!" Michelle says, and he nods his head. "Alright then! Time to test your move set!"
