"You look like you're going to puke," said Lana, edging away from him a little. "Are you okay?"
It had been several hours since the Pokémon Contest had ended. Kevin and Lana were currently being bored in one of the Pokémon Center rooms, neither of them being tired enough to go to sleep. She was kind of weirded out from him being there; he could tell. But he wasn't going back into the Pokéball. Not if it was true…
Kevin grimaced and sat up from the end of the bed where he lay. "Tell me something," he said.
"Uh, what, exactly?" asked Lana. How was he going to put this…?
"Um, what's the science behind a Pokéball? Like, how does it work?" Kevin knew before he finished his sentence that Lana was going to be incredibly unhelpful.
"How should I know? That's high school science! University, even!" she said. She sighed. "Well, I guess if you really want to know, you could look it up on the internet."
"I can't read," Kevin said disdainfully. At the moment, he really wished he could. But no, stupid childhood-him decided that it was useless. Just like status moves and his little brother's battling ability. Excellent.
Lana groaned. "Can't you make somebody else read it for you? I mean, not me, but—"
Kevin grabbed Kari's Pokéball and headed for the door. "'Kay, bye."
As he stepped quietly down the stairs, Kevin wondered exactly how useful the internet would be. You had to search for something first, right? So what was he going to search for? Pokéballs that don't age the Pokémon?
He figured that was the only explanation for what had happened. There was no way that Crazyland was so far off from reality to be ten years in the future from Hoenn. He wouldn't believe it. And seeing as Kevin was still just fourteen (he was pretty sure he wasn't as old as Kari, at least), he couldn't have aged. Like, at all. But how would a Pokéball do that to him?
The public computer at the front of the building was free for any trainer to use, so he supposed that the Shades would have made the rule apply to Pokémon to. The night shift employees didn't say anything as he pressed the power button, so he guessed that it was all right. He dropped Kari's Pokéball on the ground, releasing her.
"…What is it?" she mumbled. She still sounded kind of cranky.
"Um… Can you help me look something up?" Kevin asked her. He felt so awkward for no good reason.
She blinked sleepily. "Like what, dear?"
He frowned. "Don't call me that. Um, well… So you know I'm fourteen, right?"
Kari blinked a few more times, trying to wake up. "Well, I suppose so. It doesn't make any sense, of course—"
"Wait, you knew?" Kevin cut in. He felt his jaw drop a little. What.
"Of course I knew. According to— to him, you were supposed to be my age. That's why it didn't really click until a little after we'd met. So you're telling me that you don't know why you haven't aged a bit?" Kari eyed him inquisitively, as if she could figure out the answer by staring at him for a while.
"Er… no." She freakin' knew?
Kari narrowed her eyes. "Then tell me everything from the beginning. You were off on a trip, right?"
"Y-yeah… It was really boring around home, so I wanted to travel a bit. I just went around Hoenn and watched contests when I could," Kevin said. "Then I got captured and ended up here."
Kari started to pace. "Do you know who captured you?"
Looking up at the ceiling, Kevin struggled to remember. "They got me from behind, so I couldn't see, but I think it was an old guy. Not the kid who had me before," he answered.
"You mean they just threw a Pokéball at you from behind and you were captured like that?" Kari asked. Kevin scoffed.
"I'm not that weak! Something used Sleep Powder on me." That he knew for sure.
"And this all happened in Hoenn, not Sinnoh?" Kari stopped pacing and glared at the floor.
"Lilycove City," he confirmed.
"Okay… Nothing odd seems to have happened during the capture, so let's focus on what happened after that," Kari said.
"How? I was in the Pokéball, I don't know anything," Kevin spat. The conversation was quickly getting irritating.
"Cool off, Kevin. We can infer what probably happened." She paused for a moment before continuing. "Obviously your captor never got around to using you in battle. If that's the case, we can probably safely assume that he put you into a storage facility and forgot about you."
"Wha— So Pokémon don't age in storage?" Kevin asked, completely lost.
She shot him a look. "They're supposed to. I don't know if I can prove it, though. The most I've been in storage is six months, and it's not easy to say if I aged or not."
"I think it's safe to say that you aged," Kevin quipped, earning him a death glare.
"Anyway," continued Kari, fuming, "I think we're still going to have to look something up. Try something like 'major Pokéball defects' and see what that brings up."
Kevin stared at the computer. "If I can't read, how am I supposed to type?"
"Do you think I can type, you idiot? I don't even have hands!" Kari glowered.
"I don't know how to type either!" he said indignantly.
"I've never even used a computer before in my life!" she retaliated.
"Well neither have I!" he shot back.
"Then how'd you turn it on?" growled Kari.
"The same way you turn on a TV, obviously!" Kevin said. He felt himself heating up; it had been a while since he was frustrated enough to start burning things.
Kari gave him an oh-you're-completely-useless look and shot her head towards the Nurse Joy at the counter. "Miss, could you please assist us?"
The sour taste assaulted him again as Kevin realized what he'd practically yelled for the rest of the world to hear. The nurse was at her desk the whole time… but she didn't hear everything, right?
"I assume you heard what we're arguing about. If you may, would you please search 'major Pokéball defects' for us?" Kari asked her politely when she hesitantly walked up to them. The nurse nodded. Oh, fantastic.
Joy booted up an internet browser and a search engine, as Kari called it. As much as Kevin would have liked to get into it, when the internet first got popular he couldn't due to lack of a computer and ability to use one. Still, though he knew little, he was pretty sure that the internet used to be much smaller than it was.
Apparently there were over four million results for the issue. Kari wasn't pleased; she kept telling Nurse Joy to search for rewordings and synonyms of her first suggestion but to no avail. She sighed, looking Kevin sternly in the eye.
"Do you have any ideas?" she asked, desperation clearly seeping into her facial features.
Kevin frowned. "Why don't you stop being vague and actually search for 'ageless Pokémon' or whatever?"
She looked back to the monitor. Nurse Joy sat with pursed lips, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, awaiting their next command.
"…All right. 'Pokémon who have not aged'."
After what Kevin could only describe as hundreds of articles about legendary Pokémon, most notably Celebi, Kari finally spotted something in a related article section that seemed relevant. Upon Nurse Joy's click, the article opened and with a squeal of delight, Kari grinned at him.
"Got it! This has to be it!" she said giddily.
Kevin was still reeling from the sound she'd made before (a sound that he was definitely not expecting), but he shook it off. "What does it say?"
Kari cleared her throat in preparation to read. "Okay, listen to this; it's from around 2002 or so…"
"For generations, trainers young and old carried all their Pokémon with them, regardless of how feasible it was. Known somewhat infamously as one of a trainer's many burdens, this was an issue until the mid 1980s, when a young aspiring Pokémaniac known only as Bill invented the PC Storage System.
"'I noticed one day that this lady had pretty much become a hunchback from carrying around thirty or forty Pokémon in her backpack. Computers weren't that widespread among trainers because they traveled a lot, but I figured I could easily change that,' says Bill.
"Indeed, Bill's idea was phenomenal. The PC Storage System allows anyone with a trainer card to store and withdraw up to eighteen (previously fourteen) 'boxes' full of Pokémon. Each box holds thirty, allowing a trainer to potentially store 540 Pokémon if they so desired. However, is this great invention of the twentieth century all it's cracked up to be?
"'Yeah, there have been some glitches, you could say that,' says Bill. 'Occasionally we lose a Pokémon somewhere in storage and can't find them. And in very, very rare cases, some Pokémon have undergone side effects that cause them to "glitch up", as some people like to put it.'
"Such rare cases are sometimes affectionately referred to as 'Glitch Pokémon' by some circles of trainers. The most famous of these 'glitches' is known as 'Missingno.', a Pokémon that was previously a Kangaskhan before having its DNA distorted from being deposited incorrectly. Missingno. went on to become a public nuisance and delinquent in Cinnabar Island, Kanto, before eventually being recaptured by an experienced trainer.
"However, there are more lesser-known problems in the system. For unknown reasons, there is occasionally a Pokéball model that is incompatible with the program. Upon being asked about the issue, Bill said, 'Oh, that's no big deal. When that error happens, it's just a problem with the state of suspended animation. All it does is slow down cell division to a fraction of the speed it's supposed to happen.'
"In simpler terms, the action is essentially equivalent to agelessness. Though depositing a Pokémon in a Pokéball with this incompatibility has no negative short-term effects, trainers are advised to discard the incompatible models and replace them with new ones to prevent any potential damage.
"As of this writing, there have been only four Pokéball recalls: Ultra Model #15673, Poké Model #22278, Premier Model #33, and Master Model #17. If you or one of your friends own Pokéballs under any of these model numbers, you may exchange them for compatible models at any Poké Mart free of charge."
Kari finished with a cough, her throat sore from reading. She attempted to clear her throat again, stopping when it caused too much pain.
"…You could have skipped all the background information," Kevin said quietly.
She coughed. "I thought it was relevant," mumbled Kari.
He paused before inquiring. "What was the Pokéball number?"
"22278," Kari read, squinting. She yawned.
"Wait here for a second," said Kevin. Swiftly, he turned around, bolted up the staircase, and soon returned, holding his Pokéball. He tossed it to Kari, bouncing it off her head (which she cursed at him for) to open it. Inside, in fine print, was the model number.
"I may not know letters, but I know those numbers. 22278." Kevin violently jabbed the power button on the computer, shutting it down. He turned to Nurse Joy. "Thanks. You can go now."
The nurse bolted out of her chair back to her desk. Kevin noticed that she was shaking, but he really didn't care right now. He looked at Kari, who was staring hard at the Pokéball.
"So someone caught you, shoved you into storage, and withdrew you ten years later to give you to that kid you were with before. That's what I figure," said Kari.
Kevin was shaking his head. "'Course. It's not a major problem because nobody was stupid enough to keep their Pokémon in a box for that long. Or, I guess, that's what Bill thinks. Damn it. I friggin' know Bill."
"Do you?" asked Kari with mild interest.
Kevin glared. "Friend of my dad's. You know, the Clefairy I told you about the other day?" The words were absentminded, but Kevin's dark mood made them sickening to say.
"The inventor of the Storage System is a Clefairy?" Kari said, her eyebrows creasing with bemusement.
"Yeah. Why else wouldn't he have a last name?" Kevin grabbed his Pokéball and stalked off towards the stairs, this time leaving a trail of charred floor behind him. Well, he wasn't sleeping tonight.