Arden peeled off his damp and clinging clothes on a secluded stretch of the Cinnabar beach before laying them on the ground to dry. With a shiver, he took a seat on a rock and turned his face toward the sky. "Well," he said to Gimpy. "At least this creepy ever-present sunshine's good for making things dryer… What's with that, anyway?"

"Toise," said Gimpy, looking up at the sky as well.

Arden pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on them. "Do you think they'll be dry soon?" he asked. "This is embarrassing."

"Blastoise…"

"I had to take them off, though! They were all wet and clingingy," Arden said. "Guh! It's like having corpses grabbing onto you when your clothes are damp. You wouldn't understand—you don't wear clothes. But you know what? I do!"

"Really? Doesn't look like it," said a female voice behind Arden.

"Well, that's because I'm not wearing them right now," Arden answered flatly. "But, usually—gah!"

"Usually 'gah'?" asked the woman as Arden jerked around toward her. She was a young lady with black hair cut at her chin, dressed in a lab coat. "I wasn't aware that something could usually be 'gah'—I thought that was always a very unusual occurrence."

Arden blushed. "Ah—no, no, no that's not what I… I was just… Please stop staring at me."

With a smile, the woman turned her face away. "Yeah, sure," she said. "You're Gaius Blake's little brother, right?"

Blinking, the boy asked, "You know Gaius?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding cheerfully. "I ran with his gang until a few months ago when I moved to Cinnabar. My name's Elara, by the way." She held out her hand to Arden and he shook it.

"This is the first time I've ever met anyone from my brother's gang," Arden told her.

"Really?" she asked, seeming surprised.

"He mentioned heading a gang that runs between Cherrygrove and Azalea town," said Arden. "But he never said anything else. I never saw him with anyone else—not anyone who looked like part of a gang—so I just sort of took his word for it."

Elara grinned widely. "Well, I don't know what to make of that—but he always told us about you," she said, poking Arden's nose. "Every time he'd have a few drinks, he'd make us all get in close and he'd pull out this locket with your picture in it."

"How embarrassing," mumbled Arden.

"I think it's sweet. Anyway, he'd always pull out that locket and he'd say—." Here she puffed out her chest and deepened her voice in an imitation of Arden's older brother. "This is my baby brother! If you ever see him, you be sure to help him out with anything! Because I love my baby brother more than anything!"

Arden blushed. "That's even more embarrassing," he said. "Him saying things like that—making me sound like I can't do anything…"

"Embarrassing?" said Elara. "You're sitting on a public beach in your boxers and you find your brother loving you embarrassing?"

The young trainer's face turned even redder. "I-I told you! My clothes are all wet!"

"You didn't say anything about that," she replied. "When I walked up, you were talking to your blastoise. …Hi, by the way." She waved to the pokemon and he nodded back to her. "I didn't catch your name, good sir…"

"He's called Gimpy," Arden said. "On account of his leg."

She leaned over Arden to get a better look. "Oh, I see," he murmured, touching Gimpy's twisted foot gingerly. She looked up at him. "Does it hurt?"

"Toise."

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Elara. "How long has it been like that."

Gimpy looked at her side ways and shrugged. "Blas. Blastoise, blas."

"I'm sorry," Elara said again. "It must be hard for you…"

Gimpy shrugged again. "Blas. Blastoise," he said, turning his face away and gesturing to Arden with one thick hand. "Toise blas blastoise oise."

Elara giggled and Arden looked between her and his pokemon. "You understand that? Jeez! Am I the only one in the whole world who doesn't?!"

"It's an acquired skill," she told him, patting him on top of his head. "I've spent a long time learning it. Don't worry about it."

Arden frowned. "Okay," he mumbled. "But what's he saying about me? I know it was about me! He pointed and everything!"

Gimpy crossed his arms. "Toise."

"Self-centered, he called you," said Elara. Gimpy flattened his ears and looked at her.

"Blas-toise!"

"What? What'd he say?"

"He said not to tell you what he's saying," Elara told the boy. She paused and looked back to the pokemon. "Oh, I'm sorry. I did it again, didn't I?" The blastoise nodded.

"Blas-blas."

She smiled. "Alright!" she said. "But from now on, I swear that my lips are sealed!"

"Hey, that's not fair," said Arden. "Now it's like a conspiracy…"

Elara frowned. "You're a bit on the paranoid side, aren't you?" she asked earnestly. "Well, no matter! Hey, why don't you get some pants on and I'll show you where I work!"

"Where you work…?"

With an enthusiastic nod, she straightened up and spun around, pointing to a large, stark building not far away. "I'm an assistant at that pokemon lab," she said proudly. "I get my own lab coat and everything!"

"Pokemon lab?" said Arden, rubbing his chin. "Like the one in New Bark? Or Pallet? …man, I hated that Pallet town lab. It gave me the creeps. Professor Oak has a real 'pedo' vibe to him." Gimpy nodded in solemn agreement.

Elara laughed and crossed her arms behind her back. "Well, it's kind of like that," she said. "But here we study different things from Elm and Oak. We also don't hand out pokemon, because this island's so remote…"

"What do you study there?"

"We study extinct pokemon," she said looking at the building fondly. It was the same expression she'd worn talking about his brother—a loving expression. "There are so many different types of pokemon all over the world, and only a tiny fraction of those have been discovered and catalogued by humans. But, even if we ever saw them all—every single pokemon all around the world—we'd only be seeing a tiny, tiny piece of all the pokemon that have ever walked the earth. Pokemon researchers like Elm and Oak are looking at the ones that are alive now—they study rare pokemon like your blastoise in an attempt to understand how pokemon evolve or how their special abilities work. We're studying the fossils of pokemon that died before human beings were even a dream in an attempt to understand how pokemon and people are related. We're looking at fossils like a mirror, and trying to see ourselves in them…"

"What have you found out so far?" Arden asked her.

"We found out that there are more things in this world than we could ever have anticipated," Elara answered. "We're learning that there are so many pokemon that have passed across this same ground we're standing on. And though they'll pass upon it no more, they've very graciously left pieces of themselves behind so that we can get to know them. Or, at least, so that we can imagine what it would have been like to know them… It's quite a treasure to us. I'm sad that those pokemon are gone, but I'm glad that I've got the chance to research them."

"You sound very passionate about it," noted Arden.

"Oh, I am," said Elara. "Here, get dressed and I'll give you a tour of the place."

"My clothes aren't dry yet," said Arden, putting his chin on his knees again. "I really don't like wearing them wet…"

Elara reached into her coat pocket. "I can fix that," she said brightly. She pulled a pokeball from her lab coat. "Go, Elfi!"

With a flash a houndoom appeared from the young woman's pokeball. "Hoooou!" barked the pokemon rubbing her head against her trainer's hand.

"Elfi!" said Elara, kneeling down and patting the houndoom's head. "Who's a good girl? Who's a good girl?"

"Hou!"

"That's right! Elfi is!"

"A houndoom?" asked Arden, craning his neck to get a better look. "Gaius has one, too, doesn't he? But his is bigger—it has bigger horns…"

"His is a boy," said Elara, patting her pokemon's cheek. "But Elfi here is a cute, precious little girl."

"Well, she's not exactly little," murmured Arden. "Eh—how is she going to help me dry my clothes."

"Guess."

"I… I've got nothing."

"Then it will be a surprise!" said Elara. "Elfi! Those clothes! Flamethrower!"

"Hoooou!" barked Elfi, arching her back.

"Fl-flamethrower?!" exclaimed Arden. "Flamethrower?! No!"

The houndoom let out a blast of fire over Arden's clothes as Gimpy scrambled back and away from it. "My clothes!" said Arden.

"They're fine!" said Elara, waving off his concern.

"They're on fire!"

"No, they're near fire," she said. "It's alright. Elfi does this sort of thing all the time."

"They're going to get burnt!" said Arden, standing up. "Get that away from them!"

"But they're not dry yet…"

"They're going to be too dry! Ashes are too dry!"

"Fine," said Elara. "Elfi!"

The fire died out and Elfi barked happily. "Hou!"

Arden dashed over to his clothes and picked up his jacket, hugging it to his chest. The boy blinked. "It's warm," he said. "And dry."

"No need for thanks or anything," said Elara, smiling. "Though, if you want to thank me, I prefer cash. Or chocolate."

"Hooooundooom!"

"Oh, yes," said Elara. "And if you want to thank Elfi, she prefers steak. But not chocolate. Chocolate's bad for pokemon."

"Oh," said Arden. "Well, I don't really have any of those things…"

"That's alright. It was a joke," said Elara, putting her hands on her hip. "Get dressed. Let's go to the lab."

Nodding, Arden obeyed.