Summary: A new partner!

Chapter 6 – A New Team Member

"2B! Since you're coming out here with grandfather, can I assume he's talked you into accepting the lab's sponsorship?"

Daisy was there to meet them just outside the lab, where 2B assumed she'd been waiting to find out the answer to that very question. Before she could give said answer herself, the Professor boisterously did it for her.

"She did! Even if it took a little convincing! Have you rounded up the pokémon that are interested?"

Daisy's smile, which had been huge at the news 2B had accepted, turned slightly strained at the question.

"That…proved to be a somewhat larger problem than expected. So many of the pokémon here like 2B that I had to go through the crowd five times to eliminate ones too powerful for a new trainer to be allowed to take. Some of them kept trying to sneak back in. Even then, there were far too many in the resulting group, so I set some standards and only brought the ones capable of hitting the benchmarks I set. I used our usual markers for the Kanto Trio as a baseline, which cut the herd down to just a handful beyond said Trio."

2B blinked in surprise. Had that many pokémon really wanted to come with her? Maybe it was her aura? Or simply that they knew her and not another trainer, she supposed. She was a known quantity they were certain they could work with. On the note of the Kanto Trio, though…

"I would prefer not to choose from the traditional Trio. The Professor said you do have a lab trainer this year, and I would not want to deny them the chance to meet a pokémon that could be their ideal partner."

Daisy smirked, an expression 2B had rarely seen on her friend's usually smiling face.

"I thought you'd say that, so I left the Trio in their pokéballs. That way they aren't disappointed at the lost chance. That does only leave four that made my cut without breaking league rules, though. There's one very unusual surprise among them, too. She's a little bit of a loophole case, but does qualify, I checked."

Daisy said no more, gesturing for them to follow her. 2B was curious, she could admit, but there was little point in trying to pry the secret out of Daisy when she would find out shortly anyway. Professor Oak seemed just as clueless as 2B, even as both of them followed his granddaughter to one of the ranch's buildings. The particular building in question was one normally used to introduce new pokémon to the ranch. All too often pokémon that had been caught but not trained arrived here via standard teleporter, on account of max carrying capacities. Those pokémon needed to be introduced to the population very carefully as a result, often confused and aggressive as they'd gone from fighting in one place to healed and disoriented somewhere entirely new.

This building was one of the ways they managed the issue, at least for smaller pokémon. Its interior was divided into a number of individual rooms of moderate size, all of which had fake natural flooring and advanced temperature controls. New pokémon would be brought out in the closest to their natural environment as the system could manage, in order to ease their transition onto the ranch. Now, one of those rooms had been temporarily repurposed, its settings left on default. Effectively, it looked like a walled-in section of meadow from the one-way mirror that allowed you to look in from the outside. Daisy frowned as she glanced at that window.

"Odd. Where is the last one? Well, I'm sure she'll turn up."

None of these pokémon were 'new,' no starter truly was outside of exceptional circumstances. As such Daisy didn't hesitate to enter the room, followed by Oak and 2B. Just a 2B entered, there was a cry from above and behind them.

"Vuuuullllpiiiixxx!"

The 'roar' was far more cute than fierce as a Vulpix that had somehow balanced on the inner lip of the door leapt for 2B. There was no sense of malice in the 'attack,' only a feeling of intense playfulness, and 2B hadn't exactly been caught by surprise. Feeling out the environment around her with aura had been one of the first tricks she'd figured out, and she'd taken to using it in place of her now-absent sensor suite. Having felt the location of the small Vulpix, and sensing the lack of actual threat here, 2B merely sidestepped the attempted tackle…and caught the perpetrator by the scuff of its neck.

"V-vulpix?! Vul, vul, vulpix!"

The adorable ball of blue and white fluff reacted first with shock, then indignation as it 'fiercely' but uselessly swiped at the air. Finally, it huffed and went limp, radiating the strong sense that it was pouting. Professor Oak and Daisy had both watched the entire interaction with amusement, though there was an odd note in Oak's voice as he spoke.

"Well, that's the odd one out you mentioned, I'd assume. Have you checked with Gary?"

Daisy nodded, her amused expression shifting to a semi-serious one. Pointing to the pouting Vulpix, she spoke.

"Of course. Thankfully, I was able to get ahold of him this morning after this one's mother dropped her off with me."

2B brought the Vulpix in closer and it was now looking blissed-out instead of pouty as 2B rubbed its ears. Daisy smiled at the instinctive action on both their parts, then shifted her attention to a bemused looking 2B as she explained properly.

"I'm sure I've mentioned before that my little brother is a bit of a capture fiend. Thankfully, he doesn't capture everything he comes across anymore. But he does capture any regional variants he encounters in his travels. He sends them back to the lab so that we can study and record the differences, but he rarely adds them to his team. Sometimes we arrange to release them, other times they stay."

She pointed to the now happy, and still very blue Vulpix churring in 2B's arms.

"In this case, he had captured an Alolan Ninetales we studied, and it happened to find a mate in a Kanto Ninetales belonging to another trainer that stables with us. They've had a number of kits, most of which favored the Kanto Vulpix. Three have not, with the reasons why being unknown and thus subject to considerable scientific interest. That little terror in your arms is the most fierce of the lot, though, and very much wants to be a trainer pokémon in order to get stronger."

Professor Oak hummed at this granddaughter's explanation, nodding his head slowly.

"Which, since she's a lab pokémon, would normally be problematic. Except that 2B is actually certified now to continue monitoring her. It would be unusual to have a variant as a starter, but not technically against the rules, since Vulpix are native to Kanto. Even more, this one had a Kanto pokémon as one parent, as well. You checked the fine print?"

Daisy, who the last question had obviously been directed at, nodded her head.

"Yep. There's actually a precedent or two, though no recent ones. If 2B wants to take her along, I don't think the League will protest, given her status as a registered research assistant for the lab. Gary was completely fine with it, too. That said, there's no obligation for you to take her, 2B."

2B hummed, looking over the rest of the pokémon in the room. All three of them looked interested, in particular a young Dratini she knew was one of Oak's own Dragonite's grandchildren. Yet…none of them had the same level of determined spark that had caused the Vulpix in her arms to actively engage with her. She thought the Dratini might have it, with a few more months to grow, but it was young and shy still. Not quite, in her opinion, ready to leave the ranch. Slowly, she nodded.

"I believe it is fitting. This one would not get the chance without me, even as I would not have gotten a chance of my own if I had not found my way here. Besides, she reminds me a bit of an annoying pest that was always a bit overeager. Charging in with a squeaky roar when he really should have stayed back in his support role."

Somehow, someway, both Oaks in the room had the feeling that some far distant soul's masculinity had been terminally damaged by the comparison. And that in pure spite of the fact there was a sad but fond smile on 2B's face as she made it. It was an odd feeling, causing them to both make equally odd faces for a moment, before Daisy shook it off.

"Well then! If that's your decision, that's your decision! Personally, I think it's a good one. Though I may be entirely biased as I'd love your observations on the aura of a variant like Vulpix there. We've never quite been able to pin down if it's aura, environment, a combination, or something else entirely that causes regional species drift!"

2B listened attentively as Daisy when on her own little monologue about variants, making sure to ask a few questions that steered her friend towards what sort of care an Ice Type Vulpix would need. It was times like this where Daisy most resembled her grandfather, who was himself looking excited at the possibility of new information about evolutions…

... ...

There had been paperwork, of course. 2B had come to realize that humanity had a paradoxical love/hate affair with paperwork. They couldn't seem to get anything done without it, yet they simultaneously seemed to near universally hate it. Personally, she thought it was a bit inefficient at times, yet could understand the intent towards organization behind it. If they'd just stop making it so obtuse that the average person struggled to understand the language used in it, it would probably serve the intended purpose quite a lot better.

Regardless, she'd gotten through the registration process with her new starter quite easily, and she had a solid two weeks left before the circuit was officially supposed to start. The Professor and Daisy had both insisted she take the time off to spend with her new companion, so that was what she was doing. Though Daisy, who had tagged along out of interest in seeing what 2B made of her new companion's skills, was looking at her very oddly as she put her tactical visor on and linked it to the custom pokédex that had now been officially activated in her name.

"Uhhh…2B…why are you blindfolding yourself to evaluate Vulpix? Is this an aura thing or something?"

2B blinked, then abruptly made an 'oh' expression as she realized that Daisy had never seen her visor. It must, she thought, look very odd from the outside. She'd never really considered that before, since everyone from YoRHa had know what the visors were. Silently, she removed it and handed it to Daisy.

"Look."

Daisy looked strangely confused at the simple request, but took the visor anyway. The confusion faded away as she loosely wrapped the visor around her own head and her expression morphed to one of surprise. She slowly panned the view around, eventually latching onto Vulpix. There was a chime from 2B's custom dex, but no voice came from it. The chime made 2B frown and pull it out. Why had it done that? It could be a liability if she was attempting to be stealthy. It was supposed to just stream the data to her visor. Before she could investigate, Daisy removed said visor with a rueful shake of her head.

"This is incredible, 2B. Did you make it yourself?"

2B shook her head in denial, then paused and made a so-so motion with her hand after a moment of thought.

"Not the original visor. That came with me from my original home."

2B had never hidden who she was or where she'd come from, not from Professor Oak or Daisy. Though both of them had told her it was probably for the best if she just…didn't mention it to others. As a result, Daisy barely blinked as she nodded but waved 2B to continue, since there was obviously more to it from that hand waggle.

"It took quite some time for me to adapt it for use without a direct network link. That part, plus creating the linkage to the pokédex so that it can access the pokémon library and other functions, was my work. Much of the basic functionality could likely be reproduced by someone like Silph Co. Some of the more advanced sensor functions could not."

In truth, the sensor suite in the visor itself wasn't nearly as powerful as what it would have had access to when properly linked to 2B. That said, it did have some independent sensors, and they were lightyears beyond anything the local tech could replicate. Perhaps if 2B had been another type of android, she might have been able to reproduce that level of tech eventually. As it was, she hadn't exactly been loaded with an extensive library of technical and scientific studies.

She had exceptional programming and hacking abilities, along with a fair bit of understanding how to repair or repurpose technology. She didn't necessarily know how to make it from scratch. Particularly not when much of what she did know of would have required a case of building the tools, to build the tools, to build the tools. She'd needed to do some amount of that just to modify her tactical visor. Let alone make a new one.

"Hmmm, interesting. I could see quite a market for glasses or goggles with a pokédex link built in, at the very least. If you routinely wear it, it will also provide a lot of raw data for research. Though, its appearance…"

2B cocked her head, uncertain why her tactical visor's appearance mattered. Daisy's lips twitched as she handed it back and 2B put it back on. She didn't say anything farther, though, so 2B decided to put the comment aside. Instead, she focused on her new starter, who had been watching the exchange with a mix of annoyance at the delay and curiosity. The mere act of focusing on a pokémon triggered one of the primary new features of the visor, just as it undoubtedly had for Daisy with the way she'd stared at Vulpix. Information streamed across 2B's vision, regarding her new starter.

… … …

Alolan Variant Vulpix

Type: Ice

Moves Known: Powder Snow, Tail Whip, Disable, Ice Shard, Hypnosis

… … …

There was a lot more information, of course. Everything from physical sizes to details about its food preferences pulled from the lab's file on this particular Vulpix. For the moment, however, the Moves Known list was what drew 2B's focus. There was an interesting outlier to the pattern in Hypnosis. It wasn't too out there, given that the Vulpix line were known to learn Psychic moves and this one was the daughter of a fairly powerful pair of Ninetales. But it still wasn't part of the normally-expected move set. It was certainly a nice addition, though. Particularly as it gave her starter an innate feel for Psychic energy. Quickly running through a number of ideas, she decided she needed more information first.

"Alright, Vulpix, we'll start with going through the moves you already know. Jigglypuff?"

Her more experienced partner, who had been riding on her shoulder this entire time, perked up at her name.

"Two of Vulpix's moves require a target. I want you to help our new friend demonstrate those. After that, I believe you will have a lot to teach Vulpix about accuracy in motion with Ice Shard. Do you think you can mentor her through your obstacle course?"

Jigglypuff considered for a long moment, then firmly smacked her hands together with a determined fire in her eyes.

"Jigglypuff! Jig, jiggl, jigglypuff!"

2B smiled at her determined little friend. Meanwhile, the Vulpix shivered, then stared around in confusion. It had never been cold before. Why had it shivered? And why was the Nice Human that fed it looking at it with pity and backing away slowly? No matter, it would show its new trainer just how badass it could be! She was going to be the best, like no one ever was!

…

…

…

Seriously though, why did that little puffball's expression fill her with dread?

... ... ... ... ...

Author's Note: 2B got her starter! Now, I'm sure some purists out there that have memorized move pools (or take the time to look it up) are going to scream about Hypnosis. Please don't. I'm not sticking purely to the game mechanics on what pokémon can and can't learn. Essentially, if a pokémon normally gets access to the TYPE, and there isn't some reason why the move is unique, I'm considering it possible for a pokémon to learn a move. Or even to get it as an egg move, which is what happened here. One of her Ninetales parents knew the move, and passed it on to her instinctively. I choose it out of the move pool that can be learned via TM so that it's not completely out there, but I wanted her to have a psychic move available for...reasons. Plot relevant, potentially, so I won't spoil them.