Unbroken Disguise

The next morning, N found himself staring up at the ceiling of his room as he laid in bed. Lucas had left just a short while ago, giving some vague explanation that he wanted to walk around the city or something.

Something about that worried him. He wasn’t sure if it was the way that the boy had just barged into a random person’s home, the way he had so quickly accepted a breeder mill Pokemon from said random person, or simply the look in his eyes before he had left.

Lucas was a strange kid.

Though whatever had him feeling uneasy about the boy, there wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment. He would just have to wait and see if Lucas had gotten up to any nonsense when they met back up later in the day.

He knew not to expect much from a Pokemon trainer.

“Are ya jus’ gonna laze aroun’ all day?”

“You should be figuring out how to get Rotom a C-gear instead!” Rotom chimed in, and N’s vision of the ceiling was obscured by his possessed flip phone.

Right. The C-gear.

While advertisements for the devices had started being plastered all over Castelia a good few months ago, Plasma had known about them for much longer than that. From what he’d heard, they had initially been created by some no name scientist in order to organize reports from field work, but had somehow ballooned in scope to become the go to device for communication. The data collection features were still there, but that wasn’t exactly something marketable to the masses.

Part of him wondered what exactly had jump started that change. He very much doubted that a scientist would have pushed so hard to commercialize some clunky piece of research tech on their own, but if someone else had offered some serious funding in exchange for a change in direction for the device’s development…

Though that left the questions of who and why.

Silph or Devon might have jumped at the chance if they heard something early on. An opportunity to make loads of money not only on the device itself, but by being the first major company in the League to branch out into Unova. Well, successfully branch out to Unova. Obviously they’d done something in his home region if he could name them so easily, but all he really knew them as were “big Kanto corporation” and “big Hoenn corporation” respectively. They seemed fond of plastering their logos all over posters and whatnot, but seemed to think that somehow constituted proper advertising when he couldn’t even name a single product that either of them sold.

There was also the possibility of the League itself. They would most likely frame it as some nebulous nonsense like “improving the lives of trainers”, while behind the scenes they infected each and every last one of them with a League Porygon that would report information back to a horde of Psychics to parse through the data at their headquarters…

It would be impossible to know for sure until he got his hands on one for himself, and for that… Well, maybe when those Shadow Triad weirdos showed up again they might be able to give him an update on when they’d go public.

For now though…

“I’ll get you the C-gear as soon as I can, Rotom. Until that happens, you’re welcome to inhabit my flip phone and travel with us.”

Truthfully, he’d probably allow Rotom to stay for as long as the Electric type wanted. It was a deal he’d offered to plenty of Pokemon before, Mimikyu included. But something stopped him from phrasing it that way. Something about Rotom… something had him on edge. At first, when he’d gotten confirmation about the Pokemon’s typing, he had assumed it was just Rotom’s Ghost type influence leaking out. That had been a problem with Mimikyu for a long while, and occasionally his friend would still slip up.

But after a night of thinking about that possibility, as well as their conversation last night while Lucas tinkered with his “fixed” Pokedex, he had a feeling that it was something else.

“Speakin’ of the phone, now that Lucas is gone, why don’ we put yer claims to the test, Rotom? We need ta call Rowan without the League listenin’ in on us.”

“Fine, but make it quick! And Rotom expects some sort of bribe for wasting Rotom’s time with this!”

Now that they had finally become acquainted with a Rotom like his friend had wanted to all this time, Mimikyu had been eager to inquire about whether or not Rotom would be able to get around the League’s Porygons. Rotom had assured them that it wouldn’t be a problem at all. That Rotom was actually quite experienced in that sort of thing.

Why would that be?

N would be the last one to think it a bad thing that a wild Pokemon was actively resisting the League’s ever creeping influence on their lives. He actively promoted that they do so and was working on ending that influence once and for all. But there was something about the way that Rotom spoke about its experience. Something about the way Rotom had turned down Mimikyu’s suggestions of various appliances the Ghost might possess.

Rotom hadn’t said anything concrete, there was no final piece to the puzzle that would give N certainty on the matter.

But he had a suspicion that Rotom had a past that the Pokemon wasn’t talking about. Not too dissimilar from Mimikyu, in a way, except that something about it seemed familiar where Mimikyu had not.

N sat up as Rotom flipped his phone open, carefully grabbing it out of the air and pulling up the contact he had saved after pulling the number from the help section of Lucas’ Pokedex.

As the call tried to connect, he considered adding a question onto the list that he and Mimikyu had prepared in advance.

He discarded that thought when the connection went through.

“Hello? Who is this?” Professor Rowan’s voice echoed out though the speaker, loud enough for Mimikyu to hear.

It would be way too suspicious for him to ask the professor if there was some sort of Plasma equivalent hiding out in Sinnoh.

“This is N, Professor Rowan. Mimikyu and I had a few questions we wanted to ask you…”

Professor Rowan let out a tired sigh as he sorted through his notes and emails whilst ignoring all the problems his team had caused throughout the lab.

Was it really too much to ask that he be able to do some field research in peace every once in a while?

Truthfully, his outing had started as an attempt to run into his most recent “research partners” and exchange information with them, but once he got out on the road…

He had been a young man, once upon a time. He had travelled across Sinnoh with a team of Pokemon, the same as every trainer he sent out into the world with one of his starters. The adventure, the thrills…

Perhaps he should have expected that he’d get caught up in such sentimentality and stay out in the field for far longer than initially planned for.

Of course, his assistant hadn’t appreciated being dragged every which way that caught his fancy, but what did he pay these fools for if not to cater to his whims? Certainly not to do quality research, if the state of his lab was any indication.

Although, perhaps her attitude had come more from those buffoons who had accosted them at the northern end of Jubilife, rather than his meanderings. They caused him a bit of concern as well, of course. People who thought they could just up and steal from strangers, someone like him no less, were obviously delusional. And delusional meant dangerous.

Normally, anyway. His concerns about the group had been washed away when they were trounced by his assistant and that boy, Lucas.

If he had rid himself of concern for them, then she should have too.

Perhaps it had been the week or so they spent in the Eterna forest that had her in a tizzy? He’d been told that most people didn’t have the same appreciation for observing wild Burmy evolutions that he did. He couldn’t understand why that might be, though. Sexual dimorphism that broadened into entirely different Pokemon upon evolution! How was that not exciting?! And on top of that, the female Burmy would keep whatever Cloak they were adorned in permanently when they evolved! The current theory was that, while a Wormadam appeared to just be wearing a Cloak like its pre-evolution, the Cloak actually became part of its body. He had made sure to include it in the Pokedex entry, even if he didn’t quite have conclusive evidence yet.

Now, there were many fools who took such a statement as a pure, unadulterated fact. Those who wouldn’t know how to do proper research if he sat them through an entire semester long lecture series. But it had not been proven! Until the day he died, he would continue to swear that… oh, what was it now, some forty odd years ago? He had seen a Wormadam without its Cloak! Nobody believed him, and he’d been unable to observe the phenomena again in the forty years since, but he knew what his eyes had seen!

His silent rambling was cut off when his phone began to ring.

Biting back his annoyance with the interruption, he answered it. “Hello? Who is this?”

His voice echoed on the other end. They must have him on speaker. There was also… some odd quality to the audio. Some sort of background hum that wasn’t quite right.

“This is N, Professor Rowan. Mimikyu and I had a few questions we wanted to ask you…”

N? Where did he… ah, the boy that travelled with Mimikyu, wasn’t it? But how…

“Well, it’s a pleasure to hear from you, but may I ask how you got my number? I don’t recall us exchanging contact information when we last spoke.”

And it truly was good to hear from him. Well, it was Mimikyu he wanted to speak to, but since this call was audio only the boy would have to act as an interpreter for them.

“I got it out of the help section in Lucas’ Pokedex, but-”

“Lucas, you say?” Rowan interrupted the boy. “I thought you were travelling with that… oh what was his name, Samuel’s boy…” He frantically dug through his notes, trying to find the name that was stuck on the tip of his tongue.

“Ash?” N suggested, some odd tinge to his voice.

“Yes! That was it. Weren’t you…” trying to get him to lead you to Sinnoh’s Legends? He still didn’t believe such a thing was possible, but even the thought of uttering such a thing when the League’s Porygons would be listening in had him reconsidering his words. “Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say…”

The odd background hum intensified. “Not to worry!” An unfamiliar voice called out, but it was somehow… more crisp, cleaner than N’s voice. “All Porygon with access to this line have been temporarily disabled or redirected!”

“Mi-kyu?”

“Of course! Rotom is a professional!”

Rowan’s thoughts paused.

“Hold on a moment, I must have misheard you. Did you say Rotom?”

He heard N sigh on the other end. “Yes. I seem to have picked up another… interesting friend.”

“Rotom can tell you mean that in a rude way. Rotom will remember this!”

“Wha- No, Rotom, I don’t-”

“Kyu-mi!”

Rowan zoned out as the trio started to argue.

Could it really be? A real, genuine Rotom? He’d seen them in person before, but not in Sinnoh, and not since before…

No, he could get lost in the fact that a Rotom had been discovered in Sinnoh later. One thing at a time, before he got lost in so many tangents that the original conversation was lost completely.

“Why are you with Lucas and not Ash? Or did Lucas join your little band?”

The argument on the other end went quiet.

“Ash’s group fragmented after the events in Alamos.” N finally answered.

“Alamos? You mean that quaint little town that fancies itself a kingdom or some such nonsense? What happened there?” It’d been a while since he last heard the League whining and moaning about them, but the town rarely crossed his mind.

“You don’t know?” N asked, a hint of shock in his voice. “I thought Cynthia would have told you, given how much gossiping seems to go on in the League…”

Perhaps she had. It’s not like he’d had the time to go through his emails yet. Keeping the phone to his ear, he used his free hand to search for emails from the Champion.

“I’m afraid I’ve been a bit disconnected lately. I’ve just spent a week or so deep in Eterna forest doing some research, so I’m a bit out of the loop.” He started skimming through his inbox. New protocols, something from Bebe…. Ah, there it was. Regarding the Alamos Incident the subject line read. “What could have possibly set you off from your goal? I highly doubt that-”

The words caught in his throat.

Access to the entire document will require a Porygon2 level encryption.

Summary: The trend has continued, and Alamos town became the site of Sinnoh’s first major █████████ event in recent history. Although damage to the city is no longer an issue, it should be noted…

“Professor?” N called out to him.

Rowan startled. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts.

“N… what exactly did you call me for?”

“Kyu-kyu!”

“Well, we had a few different questions that have come up during our travels, but this is the first time we’ve had a secure way to ask them. I also figured you would want some updates on your research request.”

Right. The Fairy research… That was important wasn’t it? More importantly, it was something to take his mind off of the email in front of him.

“Yes, yes, I suppose I can make some time for that. What did-”

“Rotom is amazing, but Rotom can not do this forever.” N’s newest “friend” interrupted. “There are a lot of Porygon trying to monitor you. Did you upset the League?”

Rowan didn’t know nearly enough about Rotom to tell whether the amount of time the Ghost had managed was impressive or abysmal. He hadn’t even been aware that they could be utilized in this capacity! He’d been spending lots of time trying to get his hands on a Porygon2, but…

There was too much to consider right now. Too much information, too many questions, and not enough time.

“Where are you right now?” He asked the trio on the other end.

“We’re in Hearthome? Why?”

“I’ll Teleport in tomorrow to talk with you. It seems that we have much to discuss. I would do it right now, but…” His eyes fell on the mess his assistants had made of the lab. “I have a few things to take care of. Expect me at noon.”

“Kyu?!”

“Wait, Professor Rowan what do you-”

Rowan hung up the call.

Fairy type infection, discovery of a Rotom, and, if his interpretation of the email was right, an encounter with Legends.

N and Mimikyu were either turning out to be the best source of data he had ever worked with, or the cause of his first heart attack.

Maybe both, at this rate.

Lucas felt at peace, having explored most of Hearthome.

He still hadn’t stepped into the Contest Hall, but… well, even if that Keira girl had asked him to go there so she could “thank him properly”, whatever that meant, he just couldn’t bring himself to enter the building.

It was for contests! He wasn’t a coordinator! He was a Gym challenger, not some artsy showman. He’d check the place out still, just… later.

For now, he had more important matters to attend to. Like these poffin things? Apparently one of the buildings he had stumbled into was some sort of poffin hotspot, and they’d insisted that he join in on making some.

It had gone… well, it had gone.

He had lots of berries to choose from for ingredients, what with the whole emptying every berry bush he passed, but so many of them were useful and he couldn’t justify using them on some sort of treat. So he’d gone with the Durin berries he’d been gifted by his fellow collector in Amity Square.

A lot of frantic yelling from the person running the place had guided him through the baking process, but he’d still burned them for a bit, and spilled some of the mix over the side of the bowl twice. Now he was left with…

Hmm. Were these edible? They were some sort of toxic green color, and his instructor told him to put the yellow sprinkles on top.

If they weren’t good enough to eat, they would have told him to throw the poffins away instead of putting sprinkles on top, right? These weren’t going to make his Pokemon sick?

With a bit of trepidation, Lucas released Grotle and offered up the treats. Grotle seemed happy to eat just about anything, so as long as these poffins weren’t absolutely awful it should be fine.

His starter sniffed at them, gave him a curious look, and promptly ate the entire batch at once.

He really hoped that they wouldn’t make him sick.

When Grotle didn’t promptly keel over in pain, he took that as a good sign, and started leading the Grass type out of the city, back towards the area he’d been hunting Ralts in. Trying to catch one after his team had just grown was probably not a good idea, but it was still a good place to train.

And he definitely needed to train. Grotle and Bibarel were holding up well enough, and if his battle history was anything to go by, they might just be enough to take on the gym by themselves.

But, if he just let his other Pokemon sit around on the sidelines, they wouldn’t grow stronger. Or at least, Eevee wouldn’t.

Togepi… hmm. Maybe he should try using that crazy thing Professor Rowan’s assistant had given him. What did he call it? An Experience Share? It still seemed a little sketchy to him, but if it had come from the professor…

When he and Grotle got to the clearing, he released the rest of his team.

Bibarel stared at him with a blank expression. It wasn’t quite what he wanted, but it was a vast improvement from when she would wander around and completely ignore him.

Eevee looked up at him with big, curious eyes. Lucas really hoped that teaching him the command system would go more easily than it had with Bibarel.

Togepi cheered upon release. “Toge-priiii!” The little egg bound Pokemon waddled over to him with a smile on his face.

Lucas kneeled down, smiling at his youngest friend, before digging into his bag. When the Experience Share came out, he held it up to Togepi…

The contraption, which he was told was meant to go on the Pokemon’s head, was bigger than Togepi’s entire body.

He thought it over for a moment, and the rest of his team, sans Bibarel, gave him odd looks as he strapped up the young Normal type.

It was a gift from the professor. Nothing would go wrong. This would just make Togepi stronger, get him up to speed faster.

Lucas switched the device on.