Chapter 5 – Shell

"... You should be happy, you know – most shellder usually clamp down hard enough to actually break a nose."

"I dib no dat, but danks."

"Hmm, does it feel broken? We could swing by the medical bay, if you need to," he said worriedly, offering me some tissue paper.

"Do, I don dink dho."

"Still! You're coming with me, buster!"

"Va?"

"You've got the shellder as your starter, which is good, but we've got forms to fill in! And of course, those assholes down at records would just love blood-splattered paperwork, so yeah... to the medical bay we go!" He began pushing me towards the right turn in the corridor – the one which I had been told led to the naval science department.

"... yed dir."

xxx

General Harding had warned me that Dr. Esther was scary, and that she tended to be rather vacant. Once I had seen her, however, I decided that no warnings, however detailed, could have possibly prepared anyone for seeing her without getting a minor fright at the very least. Fortunately or unfortunately, she didn't immediately attend to me – instead, she handed him a bunch of cotton balls with a kidney dish, and told him to get me cleaned up first.

"So... how did your nose get broken?"

"A shellder clamped it, doc."

"Ah, I see... the hazards of pokemon training... It's only a minor break, so I'll just need you to keep some ice on it... Maybe some decongestants would also be needed? Yes, yes, those would be good, too..."

All the while, her back had been turned to me as she scribbled down notes on a clipboard, her purple hair hanging down past her shoulders in a messy rendition of a ponytail. When she turned about to get a look at me, I involuntarily reeled backwards out of shock.

Her skin was flaking and peeling, as though she was suffering from some seriously bad eczema. Then, her eyes, which were yellowish at the edges, were bloodshot and watering, constantly flicking about as though she was in a high state of nervousness. Her mouth was hidden behind her surgical mask, and I was half-thankful that I didn't have to see what that part of her facial anatomy looked like.

"... Is this your first visit?"

"Yes, ma'am," surprisingly enough, I sounded quite normal once I had blown out the dried blood from my nose. "I just arrived today, in fact."

"First day here and already you're in my clutches? What an unlucky soul you are..."

"If you say so, ma'am."

"Get the shellder out, please..."

"What?" That order got General Harding's attention. "Why would you need the shellder?"

"... I'm hoping that I can scare it into not pinching him again. Heaven knows I've got enough work to do as things are..."

"Let it out, then," he said, turning to face me. "Maybe she will scare it, somehow."

"... One moment," she muttered, as she rummaged around in a cabinet next to her table. "... Piriton, vicodin, acyclovir... Ah, here it is... lorazekinase. Let the shellder out, boy."

Nervously, I let the shellder out of its pokeball. It materialized on the floor with its shell tightly shut, and remained motionless even though it had been released.

"Now what, doc?"

"Lorazekinase..." She murmured, bending over and spraying something onto the pokemon's hard shell. For a few seconds, nothing happened, but soon enough, it began to twitch, and suddenly opened up its shell all the way. The black mass of flesh that was the shellder's true body was also twitching, and its two wide eyes were glancing about fearfully in all directions.

"Whoa! Never seen anything do that with a shellder before – just what was that?"

"Simple drug that permeates most solids... I use it to treat General Fen, since his steel affinity makes his skin less permeable to drugs. It basically makes membranes permeable to other substances... So when I mixed some with this agent here," she said, gesturing to a smaller bottle, "it triggered a muscle spasm... Open sesame, shellder..."

She turned to squint at the shellder, which was looking visibly unnerved by her appearance and proximity.

"... Listen here, you spineless mollusc – I've got enough things to worry about here without people coming in with injured noses thanks to you... You stay clear of injuring your trainer, you hear?"

It merely flicked its tongue at her in response, though its eyes betrayed the fact that her words were probably sinking in.

"Good... Otherwise, I'll open you up again and let General Kylie's team have a go at you..."

With that being said and done, she turned to face me again. For some reason, I got the impression that she was smirking behind that surgical mask of hers.

"... And now, I think we should get your physical done."

"What?"

"You're here, so we'll get two birds killed with one stone... Yes, indeed we shall... Get into the cubicle there and strip, please..."

"Have fun, kid," General Harding said, with some sympathy in his voice. "See you later back at my office, eh?"

xxx

As it turned out, the physical didn't take longer than an hour. Dr. Esther, despite her creepy appearance, turned out to actually be amazingly proficient with the tools of her trade. At first, she surprised me by taking my pulse and checking my eyes out with a flashlight at the same time, followed by a several other groups of tests that were carried out simultaneously. She finally let me go with a report saying that I had no health problems on the date of my physical examination, and that I was due back in another three months for another physical.

When I got back to General Harding's office, he was already occupied with a veritable mountain of paperwork. He barely looked up as I knocked and entered, cursing under his breath as he thumped his fist on the form he was filling out.

"Fuck you!"

"... Yes, sir?"

"I made a spelling error, GAH! Now I'll need to get another one of these forms," he muttered, glaring at the form. "And I had extra copies of ALL the forms, except for that one!"

"Do you need help with that?"

"Well... let's see... Hmm," he murmured, as he took in the sight of the paperwork swamping his desktop. "You could get me another copy of the BZ-272 form, for starters. Then I'll show you how it's done, alright?"

"Do I get it from the records department?"

"Yup – just go to records and tell them to give you a BZ-272 form. Heck, ask for a stack of them if they're feeling generous."

xxx

The records department turned out to be the entire fourth floor. There were no offices, since the whole department seemed to consist of a cubicle labyrinth with numerous filing cabinets lining the walls, and so finding the forms General Harding had asked for shaped up into quite the task indeed.

Fortunately, there were still kind souls in the world. Or at least, there was a kind soul in the records department.

"Can I help you?"

I looked up from the messily sketched floor plan tacked to the side of one of the cubicles, and saw a mousy-looking woman with huge spectacles looking at me curiously.

"Umm, yes. Could you tell me where the BZ-272 forms are?"

"BZ-272... wait, are you from General Harding's office?"

All I could do was blink, "How did you know that?"

"His paperwork is always late, and he always screws up with that particular form," she said with a disdainful sniff. "I'll give you the forms, but make sure he gets them right this time – we don't print an infinite number of them, you know."

"I'll be sure to notify him of that."

xxx

When I got back to his office, the good general had actually finished most of the paperwork, and was busy doing push-ups on the floor.

"Took you long enough," he said good-naturedly. "I guess they held you up?"

"They told me to pass you a message, sir."

"Ah, I see. Must be telling me to keep my paperwork on time, and to not screw up the forms, yes?" He sniffed, not missing a beat in his exercise. "Well, fuck them! Most of the paperwork is pointless, anyway."

"I guess... Here are the forms – they gave you three copies."

"More than enough... So!" He grunted, jumping to his feet. "Let's get this pissing show on the road now, shall we?"

xxx

After that afternoon I spent in his office, I definitely learned two things – namely, that General Harding was horrible with paperwork and that paperwork was pure evil. We had spent no less than four hours finishing the rest of the paperwork, and managed to get it to the records department just as one last unfortunate clerk there was about to leave. Of course, he grumbled about being held up, but we didn't leave him much choice in the matter, really.

Admittedly, General Harding grabbing him by the collar and hauling him out of the elevator as he tried to flee might have been a little extreme, but hey – we got our work done!

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," General Harding said, as he zipped up his hoodie. "Just where are you staying, anyway?"

"The hostel, I think. I'm supposed to sign-in there by midnight today."

"Oh, you're staying at the hostel? I could get you a ride there if you want?"

"You could do that?"

"Well, there's this old military engineer named Moira Hew-"

"Aunty Moira!"

"Ah, you've met her! Lovely lady, she is – always willing to give people a ride home."

"... Doesn't her driving scare you, sir?"

"Kid, you're talking to a man who had his license taken from him for charges of reckless driving, drunk driving, and carrying out obscene acts while driving, all at the same time. I'm not about to criticize her driving!"

"I'm surprised she still has her license, though."

"Well... she's got this old lady thing going for her. There's that, and the fact that she once beat a gang of cops in a pub brawl," he said with a smirk.

"She did what?"

"Don't let the old lady act fool you, kid – she's got muscles where it counts. So do I give her a call or not?"

"Umm, thanks but no thanks, sir. I think I'd prefer making my own way there."

"Alrighty, then! Know how to get there?"

"No, sir – I was actually going to ask you for directions once we were done," I replied, sending him into a laughing fit.

"I'll just take you there, then! It's on the way to my place, anyways!"

"Really, sir?"

"Sure! The military hostel is two blocks away from the apartment I'm sharing with General Fen, so it's no big deal, really."

zxx

General Harding hadn't been lying when he claimed that his place was just two blocks away from mine – we passed it on the way to the hostel. It looked like a decent enough place to stay in, and he told me that the only reason he'd moved out of the hostel was because he was constantly being harassed by some female soldier from the accounting department. Apparently, she had sent him several marriage proposals – as well as other sorts of proposals – and so he had turned tail and fled when he got the chance to do so.

"One thing to always keep in mind, kid – women are SCARY creatures. Never underestimate one, because she'll rip your balls clean off the first chance she gets."

"I'm sure they aren't all that bad, sir."

"Watch and learn, kid. Watch and learn... And here we are!"

"This is it?"

"Yup, Canalave's military hostel. Lovely accommodation, though if you room on the third floor, I'd be careful in the showers – the water sometimes gets cut-off halfway through your bath."

"Thank you, sir!"

"No problem, kid... Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment."

"You have an appointment at this time of the day, sir?"

"What, you expected me to not have a life?" He retorted, even as he walked round the corner and left my sight.

I was just about to enter the hostel's compound when I heard him calling to me from behind, "Oi, kid!"

"Sir?"

"Stop calling me that!"

"Yes, sir!"

"God damn it!" He cursed, throwing his hands up in the air.

"What was it you wanted to say, sir?"

"Just stop calling me sir!"

xxx

When I got there at half past seven, port control was as silent as a graveyard. The petite receptionist I had met yesterday was sitting behind her desk and sipping from a large ceramic of something that let out wisps of steam, and several people in rumpled clothing were engaged in a hushed conversation by the elevators.

"Good morning to you, ma'am."

"Ah, it's Zachary's newbie again! I do hope he didn't traumatize you too badly?" She brightened up, nearly upsetting the mug in the process.

"He didn't ma'am. Should I go up to his office now, or should I wait for him here?"

"Just go on up to his office. Most days he beats me to port control, but ends up sleeping until eight thirty in his office."

"He does that?"

"Uh-huh. Some days when he didn't get any sleep the night before, he even locks himself in and snoozes till about noon."

"... Is that allowed in the military?" I was bewildered – just what did they let him get away with, anyway?

"Technically, no..." she sighed. "But Zachary's one of the best in the field, and he also handles some... other duties. So the top brass turn a blind eye to his misbehaviour as long as he gives them what they want, I guess."

"Wow."

"Now scoot! I'm going to enjoy what's left of my coffee in peace before the crowds get here."

As I walked towards the elevators, I approached the group of ruffled-looking people that I had seen earlier. They were still having their little discussion, and as I passed them, a snatch of their conversation made it to my ears.

"- broke into the television station last night!"

"Kingsley isn't going to be happy about this," muttered one of them as she rubbed her eyes. "As it is, there's enough reports of strange activities in all regions..."

Even before I could process the information which I had just (accidentally) received, the elevator arrived at our floor. The sound of its doors opening startled them somewhat, causing them to look around with squinty eyes for a moment, before they went back to their talking. I managed to catch one last piece of their exchange before the doors closed, though.

"They suspect it's the terrorists."

xxx

What I found in General Harding's office told me that the receptionist was possibly a psychic. True to her word, he was leaning back in a deckchair next to his desk, sleeping soundly with his shirt draped over his body like a blanket. His hair was all mussed up, as though he had gotten into a scuffle the night before and hadn't found the time to comb it before he came to the office.

I looked at the clock hung above the door. Seven fifty. Going by what the receptionist had said, that probably meant that I had another thirty minutes or so before he woke up and started whatever work we had for the day.

Since I had nothing better to do at the moment, I decided to check out the massive collection of books that he had in his office. To my surprise, most of them turned out to be novels instead of the technical books that I had been expecting. And what made me a little more amazed was the fact that most of said books were considerably old stories.

'Animal Farm'. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'. 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. 'Kim'. A huge leather-bound volume labelled as 'The Grimm Brothers', which had a spine that was held together by duct tape. Several other books whose titles I didn't recognize, such as 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'The Long Walk'.

The sound of the door opening drew my attention away from the books, and I turned towards the door to see just who the visitor to his office was. Imagine my surprise when I saw that nothing other than a slowbro had opened the door, and that it was holding two mugs of black fluid in its paws. Just how it opened the door with both of its paws occupied was beyond me – the best guess I could make was that it had used its psychic abilities or something like that.

It slowly cocked its head to one side, fixating its vacant stare on me.

"Why, hello there."

I almost turned to see who had spoken, when I realized that it had been the pokemon using its psychic powers, "Umm, hello."

"You must be Zachary's new assistant, I take it?" The pink pokemon walked up to his desk and placed both mugs of coffee down on it, even as the shellder on her tail's end gave me a dirty look. "My name is Adrienne – nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too. I take it you're one of General Harding's pokemon?"

"Indeed I am," she nodded, as she picked up one of the mugs and chugged down its contents. "Ah, that hits the spot..."

"A slowbro can take coffee?"

"Why wouldn't I be able to take coffee?"

"Will you two just shut it already and let a man get his sleep?" There was a groan from General Harding's direction. We both turned to face him, seeing him slowly rubbing at his eyes with his palms. "Jeez, it's like sleeping here is illegal or something..."

"Just shut up and drink your coffee."

"I love you too, Adrienne."

"If you would actually SLEEP at night instead of going off gallivanting, you wouldn't be like this."

"Yes, mother."

"Sometimes I wonder why I even bother," Adrienne sighed, scratching the side of her head. "And you were supposed to teach your assistant a thing or two about training his shellder, too."

"I can do it, Adrienne!" He protested, jumping out of the deckchair. "Just you see – we'll have him sweeping Kylie's team in no time!"

"I highly doubt that."

"Whatever. Return!"

xxx

For the second time in two days, I found myself chasing after General Harding as he made a mad dash through the corridors. They were mercifully empty since most of the working crowd hadn't arrived yet, but he still managed to send several people scurrying frantically out of his way. If his crazy running had been bad under normal conditions, the coffee he drank earlier seemed to make it worse.

"Hurry up, kid! We need to beat Don and Elena to the training area!" He seemed agitated at the very thought of those two people getting there before us, and was practically vibrating by the time I jumped into the elevator.

"Who are they?"

"A couple of people who spend too much time in training, that's who! And who also leave questionable smells in the training area!"

"... I don't know what to say about that, sir."

"You tell me – everyone in the building suspects that the two of them have christened the entire bloody training area," he said with a shudder. "I'm not saying anything more about them, thank you very much!"

All I could do was to stare blankly at him once I had made it to the elevator. Between my hyperactive superior officers, a mad old woman who drove a jeep and now people who screwed each other in public places, port control was turning out to be a little more interesting than I had originally expected.

xxx

As it turned out, we actually did manage to beat the mysterious Don and Elena to the training area. The training area itself turned out to be a large, gymnasium-like room on one of the basement levels, and had no windows. Fortunately, it didn't stink that badly, thanks to several large exhaust fans and vents that were very audibly at work.

"So, we need to train your shellder. But of course, the training school at Coronet wouldn't have prepared you much for this, so I'll have to bring you up to speed, alright?"

"Alright, sir."

"Hmph. So, shellder is a water type, obviously. Name the attack types which water has an advantage against," he said, even as he began doing some basic stretches.

"Fire, ice, steel, water," I counted them off on my hand. "Yup, four of them."

"Correct. Now the types that ice is weak against?"

"Fire, steel, rock, fighting."

"So you see shellder's two types cancel each other out for fire and steel... which means you need to be careful when up against those types. Fighting types would be a constant headache for you, though."

"Who's the one who hates fighting types?" A calm voice asked from the training area's doorway.

"Good morning, Don," General Harding called out. "Where's the psycho bitch?"

"Sleeping in for once – last night was hectic."

"You two need rehab for sex addiction, I swear!"

"Hey, look who's talking! I recall an incident-"

"We shall not discuss that now, thank you very much. I have a newbie to teach, so if you'll pardon me?" He hurriedly said, cutting the other man off before some undoubtedly scandalous information could be leaked out.

"Oh, he's the newbie? Hey there, kid."

I turned to look at the man who had just stepped into the training room. He was a tall, slender man, with a lean, muscled build. His movements were graceful and almost cat-like, to the extent whereby he didn't make a sound as he walked up to us. Bright green eyes clashed with his sleepy facial expression, giving me the impression that he would be a nasty opponent to reckon with in a fight.

"The name's Donald Hackett," he said with s faint smile. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise, sir," I replied, shaking his hand.

"Don here is the head of combat instruction. His bitch of a girlfriend is in charge of the fighting types," General Harding said, with a smile that seemed just a tad forced.

"So what's the newbie here for?"

"A shellder, of all species. A shellder!"

"Shellder?" That seemed to pique his interest. "Partial ice, partial water... Interesting indeed..."

"Umm, sirs?"

"Yes?"

"What's so interesting about shellder?"

"Nothing much, really. It's just that you'll someday need to make a trip over to Snowpoint to get it checked out," Don shrugged, the slight motion causing his muscles to visibly flex.

"For real?" I asked, eyebrows raised – travel to Snowpoint was severely restricted.

"We need an expert on the type to clear its compatibility with you. But since you're water dominant, anyway, it doesn't really matter that much in this case."

"Water dominant? You must have slept with Lady Luck the night before he came over, Zachary."

"Shut up, Don. Alright, kid! Let's see what your shellder can do!"

xxx

My shellder apparently was quite shy, since it absolutely refused to open up its shell and respond to instructions. After nearly getting my fingers snipped off (apparently, Dr. Esther's warnings didn't leave much of an impression), I decided to take it aside for an attempt at making conversation instead of training.

"You sure about that, kid?"

"I'm sure it just needs time, sir," I nodded. "Maybe it's timid or something, so I'll take it out of here for while."

"If you think that'll work... Here, take Adrienne with you – she can help translate."

And that was how I wound up talking to a shellder in the corridor outside the training area, while Adrienne watched me with some barely-concealed amusement.

"So... how are things in there?"

"It isn't responding, hmm," she said, scratching her head. "Maybe you'll need to scare it a little."

"Scare it?"

"Be creative!"

"Umm," I looked at the bivalve pokemon's tightly shut shell. "Look, if you don't open up, I'll have to use force on you."

It stuck its tongue out and blew a raspberry at me. Finally, progress!

"Alright, now can we talk? I've got a psychic here who can help to translate whatever you say."

After about five minutes of it sitting there with its tongue out, I had had enough.

"Adrienne, you sure it didn't say anything?"

"Positive."

"Alright, time for some drastic action, then. Do you know where the mess hall is?"

"Sure, but why..." Her voice trailed-off as she caught on to my plan. "You can't be serious."

"We'll see about that – lead the way, my good lady!"

My shellder let out a panicked squeak as I returned it, vanishing into its pokeball with a flash of red light.

xxx

"So, my dear shellder... will you talk now?"

It let out an angry squeak and tried to splash water at me, but to no avail. When I had first initiated my plan for making it talk, I had decided to bind its shell shut with some cord, first. So its movements were severely limited, and of course, the container I had put it into was barely big enough to accommodate it, anyway.

"I'm sure this qualifies as some form of pokemon abuse!" Adrienne said, translating whatever the shellder said. "Help, help, MURDER!"

"Oh, it's saying that now? Listen here, shellder. I know you're shy and all that, but can you at least work with me here?"

"I'm not saying anything until you release me from this torture!"

"Torture? Please... I haven't even turned on the gas yet," I said, tapping the stovetop with a finger. "Unless you want me to, of course."

"And you expect me to cooperate with you?"

"Well, yeah." I tapped the stovetop again. "Do you really want to see if I'll try to make you into clam chowder?"

"Try. It."

"If you say so," I shrugged. With a flick of my wrist, I switched on the stove, lighting some small flames beneath the large soup pot that my shellder was presently bound and submerged in. It began thrashing about, very nearly tipping the pot over – I had to hold it down to prevent water from spilling out onto the stove.

"THIS IS MADNESS!"

"Madness of your own invitation... when you're ready to talk, I'm here."

"FINE."

The shellder stubbornly remained silent after that, with Adrienne peeping into the pot occasionally with a worried expression.

"Are you sure it won't get hurt?"

"That depends on it, I guess..."

"Oi! I'll need my pot back soon," called one of the mess hall's cooks. "You'd better have it washed up within ten minutes!"

"Okay!" I cranked up the gas. "Looks like your time got cut a little shorter, sweetheart."

"YOU'RE NUTS!"

"Hmm, maybe some peanuts would go well with clam chowder?"

"Ah, there you are!" General Harding had somehow managed to track us down, it seemed. "Where's the shellder?"

I didn't have to answer, though, once his eyes fell on the soup pot.

"No kidding," he deadpanned, with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, sir."

"You do realize it could die in there?"

"Not yet," I stuck a finger into the water. "Still warm, hasn't boiled yet..."

"You're crazy..." He said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I've done some pretty crazy shit to make shellder talk, but this takes the cake... Whatever you do, just don't kill it, alright?"

"I yield!" cried Adrienne, as the shellder made a noise somewhere between a squeak and a shriek. "I'll talk, I'll talk! Let me out of here!"

"It worked, eh? Good job, kid."

"Thank you, sir."

I switched the stove off, and fished the shellder out. Untying the knots in the cord that bound it, I placed it on the stainless steel countertop.

"So, shellder. Anything to say for yourself?"

I leapt aside as it sprang forward, shell open in preparation for clamping onto some part of my anatomy. Grabbing it from behind, I hefted it up and held it face-down over the pot.

"Do we really have to do this again?" I sighed. Just as I thought I had made some headway...

"... You win."