The next day, Colress threw himself back into his studies. Everything else felt too overwhelming to dwell on. When he stopped studying, Evelyn's face would swim in front of his eyes. She was young, no older than forty. She had the ability to love the unlovable. She made Colress feel warm. How could somebody like that die while Harold Harmonia Gropius was still alive and well?
'Pokémon strength.' Colress reminded himself as his thoughts strayed again.
He was eating dinner in his dorm room, barely tasting it as he studied a complex diagram of a Magnezone's ferrofluid system. A light knock on his door interrupted him out of his thoughts.
'Not Ghetsis, he would have tried to barge in.' he noted absentmindedly.
Colress answered the door and found Annie standing in front of him, not in her school uniform, but in a casual green sweater and jeans. His tired brain didn't offer up any words, so he simply stared at her with a look of confusion.
"You didn't come to the beach tonight, I just wanted to check you were okay." she explained, breaking the awkward silence.
"Oh, what day is it? Is it Tuesday today?" Colress wracked his brain. Yes, it was Tuesday. "I'm sorry, I completely forgot."
"That's okay, it happens." Annie smiled kindly. "Are you okay though? You look tired."
"I didn't sleep much last night." Colress admitted. Truthfully, he hadn't slept at all. When he shut his eyes, it was like a voice was chanting: 'Evelyn, Tin Man, Evelyn, Tin Man.' Eventually he gave up trying and resigned himself to continue reading until the sun rose.
"Worrying about Ghetsis?" she asked softly.
"Something like that." Colress managed a small smile.
"If you need some company, I'm always around. We don't have to battle if you're tired, we could just watch a movie or something," she offered, her fingers tugging at a lock of hair.
'Tin Man, Tin Man, Tin Man.'
"Thank you... But I think I'm just going to..." Colress gestured to the mess of books and electrical components on his desk.
"Oh, yeah. Of course. I won't keep you." Annie nodded, her polite smile not meeting her eyes. "Seeya later then."
"Yes, see you."
Colress sat back down at his desk, tears welling in his eyes. Watching a movie with her sounded like just about the best thing he could think of.
'No, I did the right thing. I don't know how to be her friend. I don't know how to be anyone's friend. Apart from Ghetsis, the psychotic megalomaniac.'
Colress picked up his book and resumed his research.
The next week passed in a blur. Annie visited his room a couple more times, but he couldn't bring himself to talk to her. He still attended the Team Plasma meetings, but he barely listened. Since Ghetsis had drawn attention to his hollow, tin chest, it was all he could think about. He could viscerally feel it, as if he could hear people's words echoing in the cavity.
Colress never usually allowed himself to think about his social deficiency. About how alone he was. It was unnecessary for his ambitions. He could live without it. But that cavity in his chest ached. Evelyn's death ached.
He didn't know what day it was. He awoke still at his desk. His whole body felt cold and stiff from sleeping in his plastic desk chair. The coldness didn't leave him as he began to move. He shivered as he forced down a slice of toast and he pulled his blazer tighter around him as he made his way to Physics class.
"We have a very special guest speaker today," Professor Fennel told them. "You may have heard of some of his inventions before. He was the creator of the Poké Ball General Healing Machine, as well as a lot of the equipment that your local Nurse Joy uses behind the scenes!"
Colress' chill turned into an icy frost.
"Please give a warm Blueberry welcome to Dr. Achroma!"
Hearing the name, Colress suddenly felt all eyes on him. Everyone knew Dr. Achroma was his father. If there had been any doubt, the man's blonde hair and insipid yellow eyes would have given him away. Colress was the spitting image of his father. The only thing he seemed to have inherited from his mother was a single unruly lock of her blue hair that never stayed where Colress put it.
His father didn't look at him as he began his talk on the basics of medical innovations. Colress had heard all of it before. It was noticeably dumbed down from the talks he had received at home. Colress made an effort to look interested and make notes, trying to shut out the whispering that rang around the room.
"He looks just like him!"
"No wonder he's such a nerd when that's his dad."
When his talk came to an end, he opened the floor for questions. Half of the class put their hands up.
"No questions about Dr. Achroma's relation to anyone in this room, please." Professor Fennel added. Most of the hands fell. "Zinzolin, you have a question?"
"How do you feel about Pokémon liberation?" asked Zinzolin. Colress shot him a glare.
'Don't bring him into this. The last thing I need is my parents finding out I've been involved in an anti-Poké Ball campaign.'
"Pokémon liberation? It's not a concept I've heard of. It doesn't seem particularly relevant to my field of work." Dr. Achroma answered dismissively before moving onto the next question.
Colress let out a sigh of relief when the bell rang. He lingered at his desk, waiting for the class to file out of the room before approaching his father.
"I didn't know you were coming here today." he said. His father didn't look up from the stacks of notes he was packing back into his satchel.
"Yes, well, Cyrano is a friend of mine, he asked me to come as a favour."
"Oh, right."
Silence hung in the air, heard only by Colress. He fidgeted with the hem of his sweater as he lingered.
"I must be going. I have another class to attend." his father said brusquely, slinging his bag over one shoulder.
"Um, Dad?"
"Call me Dr. Achroma, I'm working."
"Right, sorry. Dr. Achroma, I was wondering if I could show you something I've been working on?" Colress pulled out his notepad and held it out to his father before he could refuse. "I've been theorising about a way of unlocking the potential power of Pokémon. These are my plans for a device that could give Pokémon a power boost during battle."
Colress waited with bated breath as his father's eyes whipped back and forth over the pages, dissecting and analysing them. Finally, he dropped the notepad back into Colress' hands.
"Interesting theory, but theories without results are meaningless." he said. His eyes were unyielding steel. "If you're serious about being a scientist, you need to show you can deliver real breakthroughs, not just ideas. In this world, it's the outcomes that matter. Prove this works, then come back and show me."
Colress could only nod sheepishly as his father turned on his heel and left the classroom.
That evening, Colress threw open the door of his dorm room and clattered down at his desk with renewed resolve. His hands shook as he pulled his notes from his bag and begun calibrating the device he'd been tinkering with for the last few weeks. It didn't look like much, just a jumble of wires and circuit boards connected to an antenna from a deconstructed radio. It had just two buttons and a dial - also taken from his radio.
Colress let Klink out of its Poké Ball and it hovered curiously above his shoulder as he worked. Colress taped down a patch sensor to one of Klink's gears. It connected to a small monitor, picking up on Klink's energy fluctuations and gear rotations per second.
'If I've calibrated it correctly, it should create an artificial surge in Klink's ferrofluid flow. It will be just like inducing a natural adrenaline rush.' Colress reiterated to himself as he finished tightening the final screw. He turned to Klink and aimed the antenna at it.
"Klink?" the Pokémon's metallic voice trilled.
He pressed a button and the device hummed to life, emitting a low static hiss as Colress increased the output.
Colress kept his eyes locked on Klink, holding his breath. The Pokémon's gears began to spin slightly faster, the faint whirring of its movement becoming incrementally louder. He glanced at the monitoring device. It was the same one they used in Pokémon Centers - the perks of having a father in the business.
'Spin rate up by two percent. Not bad...' he thought, 'Not good either. In order to get significant results, I'd need to increase the output considerably.'
Colress turned the dial slowly, measuring Klink's response. The device was working, but only just. The effect it would have in battle was negligible.
"Klink!" it chirped, bouncing a little in mid-air.
'This is as high as I can safely go without risking a ferrofluid embolism.'
Colress sighed in disappointment. The maximum output had only raised Klink's stats by a hair. He reached forward to switch off the device, but his hand faltered.
"Theories without results are meaningless."
'Just a touch more wouldn't hurt. The risk is still low at this point.'
Colress continued twisting the dial, watching the readings increase.
"Up to five percent." Colress muttered, excitement crackling in his fingertips. It was working. If he could get Klink's stats up by ten percent, while staying in a moderately safe range, it could be the breakthrough he'd been looking for.
Klink's movements became jerky, it let out a small shriek like a metallic scraping noise.
"Just a little more, we're up to nine percent." Colress' muttered, his eyes not leaving the monitor.
"Klink!" the Pokémon began to wobble and sway. The monitor showed elevated stress levels, but he was too close to stop now.
"Ten percent! I did it!" Colress exhaled, relieved. He grabbed his notepad and began scribbling the information he'd require to replicate the results. As he did so, Klink let out a shriek as it began to scrape and spark.
The room flooded with a blinding white light. Colress gasped and covered his eyes. When he uncovered them, hovering before him was not Klink, but Klang.
"Evolution! Fascinating!" Colress exclaimed, returning to his notepad with vigour.
But as he did so, a cold realisation dawned on him that something wasn't right. Colress' pen hesitated over the page as the excitement of the moment faded into unease. Klang floated in front of him. Its central gear spun faster than the others, vibrating violently. The three interlocking gears seemed to grate against each other with a sharp, metallic whine.
Colress wasn't sure if he should say something to it. Instead, he reached out his hand towards it.
The response was immediate and hostile. Klang's single eye flashed a bright red, and it emitted a low, mechanical growl. It floated higher, jerking out of his reach, its movements forceful and agitated. The monitor showed its readings spiking wildly.
'Energy reading still increasing, now at twelve percent. This isn't right,' Colress thought, feeling a tight knot form in his stomach. Klang rotated sharply toward him, its gears grinding harshly.
"Klang!" it roared, its voice low and grating, lacking any of the innocent curiosity Klink once had.
Colress had never seen Klink act this way. His hand hovered over the deactivation switch on the device, but he hesitated. 'No… this is part of the process. Newly evolved Pokémon often experience temporary instability. I just need to gather more data… This is still a success.'
"Klang," he said, aiming for a soothing tone but his voice sounded as robotic as it always did, "I'll try and stabilize you."
He adjusted the dial again, returning it to the lowest setting, but Klang's movements remained erratic. Colress' pulse quickened. The more he watched, the more he realized how unbalanced Klang seemed, how different its behaviour was from the Pokémon he'd known.
'The ferrofluid is still surging,' he noted, glancing at the readings, 'Evolving during an energy spike seems to have sustained the effect.'
Klang lunged forward suddenly, its gears spinning violently, and slammed into the wall with a loud crash. Colress jumped to his feet with a yelp. "Klang, stop!"
For a moment, Klang hovered there, its eyes flickering, as if considering his words. Then, slowly, it turned to face him again, its gears grinding loudly. Colress' breath caught in his throat. The Pokémon didn't seem to recognize him... Or worse, it did - and it was furious with him.
'I've pushed too far... I should never have increased the output above safe levels. I knew the risks…'
"Success demands sacrifice."
Colress swallowed hard, quashing the rising tide of panic. "This… this is still a breakthrough," he reassured himself. "Evolution is a sign of progress. It means I'm on the right track. I've proven that the device can trigger a significant change. I've done what no one else has dared to attempt."
Klang made another sharp, angry lunge, smashing into the desk and sending his notes scattering across the room.
Finally, Colress hit the deactivation switch. The device powered down, its hum fading to silence, but Klang continued to float there, eye glowing, gears grinding. It seemed to calm slightly, but its gaze remained cold and resentful.
Colress' hands were shaking. He had achieved a breakthrough, but at what cost? Pride mingled with guilt in a sickening concoction in the pit of his stomach.
"It worked... I did it."
Klang slowly turned its back to him, quietly facing the wall.
"Klang, I've shut the device off. The experiment is over." Colress watched helplessly as Klang ignored him, silent and dismissive. The only sound in the room was the quiet scraping of its gears.
He had crossed a line. There was no going back from this point now.
The secret clicked into place.
It was no secret at all, really. Success demanded sacrifice, just as his mother had told him. His parents hadn't just sacrificed their lives for science. They had sacrificed their relationship with him. And Colress had done the same with Klang.
His Pokémon would never forgive him, but that was the cost. That was the reason why he would succeed and others wouldn't. He was prepared to sever any chance of a bond to gain knowledge that others could only dream of.
The softness of friendship and love was never meant for him. He wasn't built for it. Colress' pale-yellow eyes, identical to his fathers, grew cold as he looked away from Klang and returned to his notes.
His eyes came to rest on the piece of paper with Annie's Xtransceiver number on it, knocked on the floor during the chaos. He picked it up and looked at it one last time. Her neat handwriting, the way she crossed her sevens... He ran his thumb over it, a small goodbye, before tearing it into tiny pieces.
There would be no room for friendship or love in his future. He understood now. It was like a weight off his chest. Pushing the boundaries of science, he was good at that. There was no need to force himself to be anything but a Tin Man.
Colress found himself laughing. Really laughing. Klang silently put itself back in its Poké Ball and that made him laugh even harder. He almost couldn't believe he'd been so worried.
"Splendid! Splendid!" he laughed, wiping a tear from his eye. "It's all so… simple."
The final pieces of the torn paper drifted to the floor like ashes, the last remnants of something he would never allow himself to miss. Colress turned back to his notes, his pen scratching feverishly across the page. He was already thinking of the next experiment, the next boundary to push, the next sacrifice to make.
He would be an extraordinary scientist, better even than his parents.
And he would never feel that hollow ache in his chest again.