It sometimes felt to Lane like he was the only one who liked traveling since he was constantly around fuddy duddies, like Lulu who got seasick and couldn't keep him company during the trip. Then there was Dunsparce, afraid of his own shadow, not even mentioning other beings' shadows ('being' is the operative word since Dunsparce had been scared by inanimate objects too). Fomantis had the same problem as Lulu, his youth making him barf on the deck before being recalled. Lane wondered if it was an evolutionary thing in the line and decided that he would experiment later with another Lurantis.

  The boat ride was especially boring because he was on a normal ferry that gave people rides over to Cinnabar every week. It just felt lame. There were pokémon all over the world and people chose the lamest options to move around. Airplanes were nice the first time, but Lane couldn't forget the first memory of the high winds snaking through his clothes and air pressure slowly decompressing his organs—true flight instead of relying on a metal engine. Turbulence, if that even applied in the ocean, wasn't anything special either. Everytime it was a group of friendly pokémon who knew that tourists loved giving out food. Lane was almost hoping that Team Rocket had planted a bomb just to add some flavor.

  Still, he looked forward to the destination. The destination was always more important than the trip or where you came from.

  When they finally got on solid land, Lane wasted no time in getting his pokémon out. Lulu cleaned her head off with her blades, Fomantis splayed out in bliss from the sunlight and Dunsparce shivered at being released in yet another unfamiliar area. The tiny island had a homey quality to it with how little land there was and the homes being built without regard for any planning—diagonal, backsides facing each other, etcetera. Quaint, if Lane had to give it a singular word. That quaint-ness was traded for public utilities. No drinkable water, no bathrooms, no air conditioning or shade, and Lane wasn't about to reveal his grand plans in a crowded place like the pokémon center just so he could sit on a bench.

  So the pokémon sat on the mushy sandbar that disappeared during high tide. Those little military men were having trouble keeping their focus on the play act. Hup one two, hup one two. His knees hiked up with each step.

  "Alright recruits! Here's the itinerary before we meet Red again: we need to find three Lapras, get another bomb, get another makeover, and get a lawn chair." Lane paused with his knee in the air before gently putting it down. "Also we should maybe treat people a little nicer if we're going to continue traveling. While it's fine that Red wanted to go his own way for a bit, it kind of leaves us with nothing to do. I've already seen all of the region and it's pretty boring. The bad guys are practically beat. So we're kind of strapped for stuff to do. Well, that's not true. It's a whole region. There's always things to do but…"

  Lane glanced down at his pokémon. Even Fomantis had stopped enjoying existence to give him a pointed look. Lurantis' arms were crossed as the pokémon was trying to tilt its head as far as it could possibly bend.

  "I was a little too mean. To be fair, Red's also kind of a rigid guy, so my kind of—" His leg was poked by Lurantis. "Yeah, I'll stop making excuses. It's all on me. I'm the worst."

  Lulu nearly nicked his pants.

  "Okay, okay, I won't be sarcastic. I could've handled everything better and now we're ditched. I could've—ugh. I don't want to linger on that for too long. It makes me feel weird. And maybe it was messed up what I did in the last town, exploiting that I have enough strength and intelligence while looking vulnerable to pull off pranks like that. Can I say that was a pretty good prank, logistically speaking though?" Lane did a twirl. Dunsparce was nodding along while Lurantis rolled her eyes. "I'm like a Victreebel. Get 'em close and bam! But, ehehe, maybe I want to be a little less of a Victreebel. I don't know what I want to be. Uh…"

  There was a pause to let the buzzing of morning subside before Lane continued.

  "By the by, have any of you noticed something sinister? Like that this place isn't like it should be?"

  Dunsparce froze into a perfect statue impression while Lulu let her ear swivel. There was no evidence that the fellow tourists on their boat had even disembarked. None of them had been paying attention to where their fellow travelers had gone. No sound was present other than the water chipping away the land. It felt abandoned. Hanging between a building and the pokémon center, a clothesline shifted in the breeze. A few trees could hardly become a forest though it was the closest approximation to the bunches that covered the other half of the island. Slowly, then suddenly, it rose to a volcano. Between the volcano and ports was the island's sole claim to fame: an abandoned mansion, 'abandoned' in the sense that there was a little more dust built on the windows than appropriate.

  It was empty. It was silent. It wasn't a town of action, but the complete lack of action had the hairs bristle on Lane's arms. He looked at the boat that was still in harbor. Even the sailors had gone somewhere. The port let out a lonely creak as the group retreated towards the nearest building.

  Lane pressed his back against the wall. Fomantis was retrieved while Dunsparce and Lulu kept watch at each of the building's corners. Just so he wasn't one of those guys, Lane made sure to check the rooftop—nobody there. Looking in around the doorstep showed signs of habituation. The water had been left on so the soil in the bed of flowers was clumping together. Back on his wall was the slightly cloudy glass of a window, revealing nothing from his vantage point other than the cabinet of the kitchen next to it.

  Dunsparce's muscled body didn't let Lane's hands sink into it. The pokémon was carefully lifted up until his eyes poked over the sill. Only the kitchen and some part of the hallway from the front door were visible. Going together with the dreamlike emptiness was a thick cloud of what looked like dust floating around the room. Details inside were lost as the fuzzy cloud clung to the air. A shadow elongated in the hallway.

  Dunsparce hopped down from his trainer's grasp. His drill gestured at the door. Pebbles started floating around him.

  "No," Lane whispered. He didn't want to be responsible if he jumped the gun and injured an innocent person. "Let's go around the back."

  He ducked underneath the window and waddled through. It gave him the opportunity to see that something was lined underneath the window, missed on the first glance. Nabbing a piece and pulling made it resist like taffy until it suddenly had no more give. Each knead made it squeak. The black main body had a shape like a long, tiny body pillow. Its squishiness and slight friction rubbing against his fingers gave him plenty of ideas on how it could be used. He could imagine that it would be perfect for being a door stopper or making something have more grip than it'd otherwise have. What didn't make sense was why it coated the outside.

  They took notes of all the details as they walked around its circumference. The building was a completely normal four-walled house with the same design as a kindergartener's blueprints, with the yellow crayon sun and singular tree that stretches its claws over the roof. There was a window that peered into a room with bookcases and a desk. It was so opaque that the wall opposite turned purple.

  Lane tested the window in the back. Surprisingly, it lifted without protest. A puff of the dust hit his face, stinging his eyes and making his mouth question why it existed. Ducking prevented any more from getting on him but the initial damage wasn't going away. Hand in hand was an alarming feeling like he was getting drowsy when his heart was trying to beat faster. Lurantis was chittering nervously as his hands futilely tried rubbing his eyes. Little pebbles felt like they were rolling around back there, with the added property of stubbornly sticking when he rolled his eyes. There was a vivid memory of getting some of the spores during Red's fight at the grass gym breathed into his nostrils. It felt like a ball of spikes had lodged into the bridge of his nose and made him keep sneezing until he poured a water bottle down there.

  "This is sleep powder," Lane said confidently. Getting those words out felt like his throat was being scratched from both the inside and outside. "Lulu, close the window."

  With a piggyback from her trainer, she reached up to silently pulled down until the latch gave. The thick cloud of spores drifted out from the opening. They didn't do much other than clinging to her skin in droplets of purple. Her ear twitched. She shook the clinging spores like a dog would, sending an explosion of them into the air.

  Lane waited until his eyes stopped feeling so horrible before reorienting himself. Whatever was inside the house hadn't left yet. If their would-be opponent heard the tampering then they hadn't made it obvious.

  Looking around the small town from the corner of the house, he counted all the places that the perpetrators could be inside. Unless wild pokémon organized to form a coordinated attack, it was hard to imagine a human not being the mastermind. Lane thought the scenarios through: everything was cleanly organized so the tourists didn't suspect a thing and most likely walked into one of the spored buildings.

  The only problem he had with that was the inconsistency of such a strategy. Take the pokémon center, which is where the tourists most likely stopped first: the sliding door would open to reveal the spores inside, bodies of sleeping people, and would be unpleasant to walk through because of the sheer concentration of sleep powder. There must've been some method other than hoping the victims were dumb, Lane thought.

  With a new goal in mind, the pokémon followed their trainer as he carefully walked back to the pokémon center. He looked around the room as far as possible without triggering the door's sensor.

  Nobody was inside. No nurse and no Chansey. Lane squinted for better details and could see the opposite wall pretty clearly. That meant no spores were floating around either. Technically there wouldn't have to be a nurse manning the counter at all times—especially in a town with the population of a shopping mall’s employees. Being on an island with a gym was the only way it was validated to have an existence on maps, after all.

  He wasn't taking any chances.

  "Lulu. Go inside."

  Snapping a sharp salute, Lulu edged forwards. Motors whirred to life. The machine working sounded like grinding nails in the dead silence. She crept down to take as little space as possible as she stuck her head past the doorway. Her body going limp made her companions nearly yell in shock. Lane acted fast, picking up Dunsparce and running to the nearest wall. His back pressed against it just as his wounds flared up again; the consequences of the active life of a trainer. Even if he'd practically forgotten nearly becoming bird food, his body obstinately reminded him days later.

  The crooked nose poked through the doorway first. Then came the yellow head that swiveled, looking for where the new pokémon came from. Lane looked through his bag. Unlike Red's infinite (not infinite, just very large) bag, his was a mundane one that almost had normal, euclidean dimensions—'almost'. It acted like it had an extra few inches of space in every direction, much less impressive than the higher-end stuff.

  "Of course I packed barely any medicine," he mumbled. Dunsparce shuddered underneath him. "Whatever is there right now, it's something that can put things to sleep without the powder. That's how they were able to put everyone to sleep in the pokémon center so quietly. I mean, if the Chansey was more competent, then it should've been able to heal everyone, but c'est la vie, eh? What does that mean again? Wine? Meh."

  Dunsparce was too busy shivering to pay attention. He slung the bag back on and glanced around the corner. Hypno was coincidentally looking the other way.

  Lane clicked his tongue as he pulled back. "No way to take him out quietly with just you. I'd use Yawn if Hypno didn't have Insomnia. What a pain."

  Dunsparce glanced around the corner just as the Hypno turned around. Thankfully, Dunsparce's haywire instincts caused him to easily pull back within the split second.

  "Here's the plan: we visit the store for medicine. If it's also spored up then…" Lane shrugged, slinging the bag back on. "We may have to fight alone. You good with that?"

  Shaking his head wildly, Dunsparce made sure that he was as vehement as possible. His brain hurt with how much he was shaking.

  "Well you're gonna have to. Otherwise we're going deal with all this blegh stuff and be blegh'd ourselves. Y'know. Like kidnapping or whatever they're doing here. Honestly, what kind of idiots put an entire town to sleep? This scale of crime is just tacky." Lane paused, lightly banging the back of his head on the wall. "Anymore than occupying a national landmark or taking over an entire corporation's headquarters? Hm. Maybe the criminals around here just like showboating."

  It took a few seconds for Dunsparce realized that his trainer was walking. Hypno had stalked back into the building, giving them free reign to travel again. He waddled along with a cry that was supposed to contain all his grievances with the current situation. Lane took it as a battle cry but didn't appreciate the loud noise when they were sneaking.

  They took the longest route around the island rather than walking directly to the shop. From a different angle, he could see that Lulu's body had disappeared. Explained why the tourists went missing.

  Thankfully they weren't caught by the Hypno or its colleagues when they approached the front of the store. On the other hand, there was the familiar paranoia that came as they approached the sliding doors. It was just as likely for there to be a Hypno inside as the pokémon center, for there to be a pair of eyes following the idiot kid walking crouched as if that'd make him harder to see. Lane clicked his tongue in annoyance as he did a circle around the building to confirm that there was not a second entrance built in. Employees just hauled shipments through the front door, making it less efficient than the game corner that was built by literal criminals. A glance at Dunsparce made an idea come to mind.

  "We're not going through the front door. It's going to be messy, but I need you to dig into the back rooms of here," Lane whispered, kneeling down to rub his pokémon's head. "Keep it as quiet as possible and get some awakenings while you're in there. You remember how they look, right? It's the blue liquid in a canister, or a blue canister with a liquid. Whatever. Can you do that for me?"

  For once Dunsparce didn't look as if the entire world was being brought down to bear onto him. Avoiding combat was practically his species' purpose. The ground kicked up into clumps when his tail spun, letting him easily submerge. Because it was a biological process, the sound of the tail whirring fast enough to pierce ground was negligible and faded with every bit lower. Harder bits of dirt and rocks still made enough noise for Lane to nervously glance around.

  It didn't take very long for him to come back with awakenings in his mouth. The medicine felt a little slimy, unavoidable with any pokémon that carried things in their mouths. They ran back to the pokémon center, Lane talking as they moved.

  "Let's repeat the same strategy. When you're inside, peek out to make sure that there's no Hypno inside, and then peek out from the back room. If you don't see him, then walk out the door. If you see him, don't fight and come back out so that I know he's blocking us."

  He waited on the same wall that they hid behind. Fingers rapped on the wall at a steady rhythm. Lane could swear that he heard voices talking loudly from one of the houses and couldn't tell if that was from the stress. There was a hole next to his foot, fresh dirt kicked onto his shoes.

  "Always surprising how easy it is to go around society stuff even with a normal pokémon," Lane mumbled. Dunsparce poked his head out and squawked. "Guessing that means the Hypno is still in there. Don't worry. I have a plan. Go back in and hang around the counter. Wait until the sliding door opens, and you'll distract Hypno by using Rock Throw. While he's distracted, I'll run in and revive Lulu. This'll probably attract the attention of whoever else is in the town, so be ready for a longer fight."

  Thankfully he wasn't completely bereft of useful materials, like a plastic bag that crinkled as his fingers sank into the material. It had been from his little fashion spree back in Saffron. Everything that he had, even the junk, generally was kept waiting for a second life to be found. Sometimes he needed to do a spring cleaning by upturning his bag over a trash can; other times he felt vindicated, like when his weapon crinkled in his grip.

  There wasn't really a great tell for when his pokémon would be prepared. All that he could do was stand in front of the door and wait. Wait long enough to make absolutely sure that Dunsparce was in position. Don't wait too long or Dunsparce would lose his nerve. Wait long enough to control his hammering his heart. Swallow to make sure that he didn't choke when stressing out. Remember to breathe. Why worry? The world does as the world does. At least this place is better than a stupid river with a bunch of dumb birds.

  The sliding door opened just a bit too slow for Lane's liking. Staying at the door for just an extra second made sure he didn't mess up the plan by falling asleep himself. He heard the sound of a face crumpling from the power of a thrown rock and ran inside. The Hypno was recovering from the surprise attack, focused on the Dunsparce that had already gotten another rock ready. It was able to dodge the attack, robbing his attention from the tiny figure that dashed across the room. Hypno aren’t the tallest pokémon of the bunch and are further diminished by their hunch. Even then, Hans would’ve had to reach to pat its head.

  So the table that was behind the pokémon was used as a vault. He imagined himself as the tallest of men, ball in hand, reaching forwards for a slam dunk in front of a cheering crowd as he soared.

  His hands descended with the same force as a professional player, the bag having enough give that he bounced upwards with a jolt. Hypno let out a startled cry as its vision was covered. The third rock hit straight onto its body, sending him stumbling until he tripped on the same table. Lane was now thoroughly uninvested in the battle and the yellow hands that were torn between clawing at the bag or defending itself, instead focusing on the pile of people and pokémon that were in the corner. The Hypno was a professional. It moved all its victims away from the transparent door so they couldn't be seen. Lulu rested soundly on Nurse Joy's chest who was in turn in an uncomfortable arch from laying on her Chansey.

  A continuous spray of the awakening on Lulu's mouth made her eyes snap open. Lane never understood the medicines. He always sprayed it on their faces since it made sense for it only to work when ingested but Lulu's mouth was closed when he sprayed it. Did their skins absorb it? He was too absentminded to pay attention as Lulu joined the fight with the fury of a tricked pokémon. Ignoring the sounds of a body getting slammed into the ground repeatedly, he read the label.

  "Not recommended for humans."

  He shrugged, spraying it on Nurse Joy's mouth. It took the entire bottle to be emptied before her eyes fluttered open.

  "Gah!" Nurse Joy awoke with a start. Lane considered that maybe he should've checked the ingredients list before using pokémon medicine for humans. 'Lizxoxacscene' and 'Oparezmarole' as primary ingredients with 'this makes human spleens explode' as a lesser one. "Where…"

  "Calm down, ma'am. Doing my work here, ma'am. Your back okay, ma'am?"

  She stood up, stretching. "Now that you mention it, it feels like I slept on a rock."

  Chansey was definitely more doughy than a rock. He knew from pressing his hands down as he applied the last drops. Pushing the ball aside revealed one last person who'd been at the bottom of the pile. Lane winced at the camera with a cracked lens that laid around the tourist's neck, balanced on his Hawaiian shirt.

  The front door finally opened when the hostages were all awake. Their opponents wore normal clothes, jeans and shirts, and gas masks which may have been the fashion of the area. Team Rocket had been the most likely culprits on his list and they never walked around without their dorky outfits, making Lane feel that these were either the elite human capital of the group or that this ambush was a little more serious than he treated it. The trio spread into a formation to face the entirety of the room as each of their Oddish waddled in front of their trainers.

  Gas masks were ripped off. Whatever the reason, Lane found them more intimidating when he couldn't see their dorky faces.

  "You! How did you get out of our trap?"

  Lane pointed to himself. "Moi? I accidentally found it. Thought about making a trap that doesn't suck?"

  The tallest of the bunch stepped forwards with a pokéball rolling around in his hand. "It's not as if this matters. We put the town to sleep so there'd be no help you could turn to. Even the loss of a single Hypno doesn't matter, nor that you've managed to wake people without combat-capable pokémon. Come with us now or else."

  "Else what?" Lane tilted his head. "I'm not very imaginative. You're going to have to make a real threat here."

  "Come on, kid. We don't want to do this, but you've toyed with the wrong people," the woman said.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "So you're part of an organization? Team Rocket?"

  "You've offended someone and they want to make you pay!" the youngest one there said, who was supposed to be in school rather than terrorizing a town. "This knocks two Pidgey with one stone! We'll take you and force the brat who's been destroying our bases to back off!"

  The tallest one grinned cruelly. "Exactly. One person will get his revenge while Team Rocket benefits. We know your name, Lane, and we know that you've been around Red during his exploits. You're a leech, an add-on, and your weakness will be his downfall."

  Lane dug into his ear with his pinky, feeling if there was a tiny pokémon whispering lies to him inside there.

  "I'm sorry, what?" Lane asked.

  "Don't act like everybody doesn't know! You don't fight while he does! You're nothing more than a hanger on!" the youngest yelled.

  Lane looked to the nurse for some kind of confirmation. She was too terrified of the group to even move.

  "No, this still doesn't make any sense. I—" Lane shrugged uselessly, looking over to Lulu. "I'm sorry. I've lost any ability to have respect for any of you. You're all criminals, sure, but I don't really care either way with that. Even kidnapping me ain't any biggie. But you're, like, wrong. You're just wrong. You're so wrong that it makes all of you look really stupid. Yeah. That's the issue. All of you look like you're idiots now. If there's one thing that I don't respect, it's people that are this big of idiots."

  "Thrash around all you want. It doesn't matter," the oldest one said, waving his hand dismissively.

  Just to make sure he wasn't going crazy, Lane took a closer look at all the pokémon who were gathered. Lurantis' coat shined. Underneath even the artificial lighting inside she was still a beacon of pink that stood out from the faux-colors of the pokémon center. No amount of comforting psychology could stand out from the power of a well-kept garden. Dunsparce, though shaking, had easily stalled his opponent without any orders from Lane. Compared to the poor little grass-types who lacked luster, confidence, any signs of development, it would take a fool to think that both were comparable.

  They genuinely compared his adorable, angelic Lulu to their weeds.

  Lane's eyes narrowed. "Okay, you've gone and poked my pride. Good job. I'm rarely angry but you've done it. I can tell that you're pure idiots. The only reason that I haven't swept all your pokémon is that I'm giving you a few seconds to give up the stupid thing where you're filling up the room with spores. I can see the things stuffed in your nostrils, idiots. I'm going to steal those when you're beaten, along with your gas masks, maybe your money, and probably also dunk you in salt water for good measure."

  Already the spores were forming a translucent layer of purple that shaded the light coming in. None of them had a comeback for that, which made Lane roll his eyes and decide to finish it.

  "Lurantis. Superpower."

  All the non-trainers huddled in the corner with wide eyes as leaves, poison and rocks flew around the room. That only lasted a scant few seconds before all three of the Oddish were tossed through the front door. He felt a little bad for the sliding door that splintered straight down the center. Plastic. Not glass. Glass in a pokémon-oriented building was asking for a problem to happen. Plastic still found itself shattered. Whatever the case, it should've been bulkier in anticipation for a fight. He loved Lulu, but she was not a powerhouse in strength without enacting their strategy (of which Lane had been trying to tag a name onto it—The Bunker Buster, Superman, Punch a Hole Through 'Em, The Pokémon Killer, Eightfold Punch—without any success). Whatever facsimile that let her punch through a pokémon's steel chassis didn't translate to being a planet-buster.

  It took that one minute exchange for the grunts to realize that they had miscalculated. More pokéballs came out.

  The real problem that came with the fight was just how tedious it was. None of their pokémon were particularly well-trained, a deficiency that didn't matter when each of them had a full team and were unwilling to give up. Compounding that was that the town's store had been raided too. Lane's opinion of them had risen as they swapped out pokémon to use revives on the ones that he had previously knocked out. Normally he'd imagine that such a strategy would be unbeatable with enough items, though his original assumption of them being simpletons was on the mark. If they weren't, then he wouldn't be standing over their handcuffed bodies next to the biggest authority of the island thirty minutes later.

  Plastic crunched under his shoe. Once again, he threw a guilty look back at the front door.

  "And I hadn't heard a thing back at the gym. Of course they didn't bother coming for me. Nobody ever comes to visit ol' Blaine," Blaine grumbled.

  Lane liked the old man. He wore a lab coat casually (which was awesome) and was bald. The island was also a dormant volcano which made the gym an evil volcano base (which was also awesome). The man was also super pragmatic. Came with handcuffs, pokémon and documentation that he was already filling out on the criminal's arrests. He wasn't the judge, jury, and executioner; he was the police, investigator, judge, jury, executioner, and lawmaker all wrapped into a power package of an old man. At least this was how Lane saw him. It was so admirable that Lane almost wanted to definitively say that's how he wanted to grow up, without the balding ideally even if he could somewhat remember that both his grandfathers may have been bald.

  It was a nice sight with the three of them sitting with their backs to each other. To Lane's mirth, the town being awake didn't do much for the traffic. The people of Cinnabar Island much preferred a lackadaisical lifestyle on their whole tiny square footage of civilized land. Nobody seemed to care that the culprits were being interrogated on the rockiest part they could sit them on. Some were working on their laundry while others lounged on their porches, uncaring of time. Lane almost envied them, but being active was fun. Fun was looking back on things that he did and remembering, 'oh yeah, that happened'.

  Blaine folded back the page on top of his clipboard to read a pink paper underneath. "Right. So we're dealing with residents of Fuschia who are most likely members of Team Rocket. They have a squeaky clean history before this. None of their pokémon are registered. Pretty typical overall, I'd say."

  "Fuschia seems to have a lot of Team Rocket people," Lane said, putting a finger to his mouth.

  "Every city has Team Rocket. They don't get to the level of infamy that they did without having the numbers," Blaine said. His mustache twitched as he looked around the city. "Most cities have Team Rocket. I believe that we have the pleasure of being the only city in the entire region without having a single resident being part of that group."

  Lane accepted the argument easily enough. The story fit. Some people were mad that friends of theirs in the organization were jailed because of him. They learn the barest minimum of information about him, somehow suss out that he'd be in Cinnabar next, and then spring a trap. Good thing some sort of town pride had them using poison-types rather than stocking up on more Hypnos, otherwise he'd be sleeping with the fishes.

  "Why aren't you the one destroying Team Rocket's bases if your pokémon are that strong?" the woman groused.

  "Because it'd ruin Lulu's coat. I have priorities, you know." He pressed his finger against the paler pink that was still recovering. His pokémon was sitting down, enjoying the sun like her youngest. "You see this?"

  "No."

  "It's where she was hit by a Sludge Bomb against a strong trainer. This isn't going to recover properly until I bring her back home where we can give her an involved treatment. It's going to require good water and nutrients for it to return to its luster," Lane said.

  Blaine chuckled, signing all the papers to finish the work. "You're a hoot, you know that? I'd be insulted if I lost to you after you said that."

  "Good thing I'm not doing the gym circuit, else you'd learn humility." Lane opened his hands right after. "Kidding! If Dunsparce gets taken out, then I don't have any way to beat you. Lulu is strong but she isn't able to beat an entire team that is super effective against her, especially when the pokémon are a whole level above her."

  "You were talking about her luster? Is she perhaps like a Venusaur?"

  Lane's brow furrowed. "What about it?"

  "Ah, it's not very well known, but Venusaur have quite the gap in appearance between those who are taken care of properly and those who aren’t. One of the most important things is for it to get nine hours of direct sunlight every day. Water is important too, but the sun is required for the pokémon to enjoy a healthy life. You can tell with the flowers on their backs more than anything. Those who were taken care of during their youth have larger flowers, and depending on their current care then the petals are either firm or brittle. Those who are cared for by inferior trainers have their flowers constantly chipping off," Blaine said.

  Lane tilted his head slightly, amused at Blaine's naked interest. "Interesting. That reminds me of Sunflora. Does the pokémon care about heat?"

  "I've heard that the harshness of the desert doesn't work well with it."

  "The same thing with Lulu. A Lurantis can't take extreme dry heats without losing some of their color. The color itself has something to do with a chemical reaction the pokémon does only when they have enough resources to do so, I think. It's a bit interesting, isn't it? No reason to do so other than their own beauty, though I guess it would also be a mating thing for them. Y'know, the brighter they are, shows the more food and better shelter they're able to scrounge," Lane said.

  The man adjusted his glasses to get a better look at Lane. "Hm. Why haven't I heard of you? A good foreign trainer who takes good care of his pokémon's appearance and understands the principles of pokémon biology is rare around these parts. Would you mind if I picked your brain for some quiz questions on foreign pokémon?"

  Fact number one: Blaine's gym was made up of factoids you had to answer to progress. Fact number two: Lane had a lot of knowledge about foreign pokémon. Fact number three: even if he understood, Lane was still miffed about being left behind. Fact number four: Lane had already brewed up the perfect revenge plot.

  "I would be honored, sir."

  It was beautiful, the expanse that stretched in front of him and cupped the little pocket of dirt inside the creases of its hands and held them close to its chest, even his nature-cranky self could admit. There was a whole 'nother world that laid beneath the ocean's face. He put his chin on his knuckles to bring forth information that he'd never studied, or at least never remembered studying.

  Octillery. Sniper, one of its abilities. All of the abilities? Suction Cups, Sniper, Moody. The eggs were made of water. If you shook them around, then you could hear the water sloshing around inside and do not under any circumstance do that. Pokémon only became hardy when they reached adulthood, and there was an adulthood even during the first evolution. 62.8 pounds exactly. With Kanto being right next to Johto, there have always been Octillery who can be found even if the locals only knew of their existence after communicating with the people from Johto. Why? Recall a cliff that fell into the ocean. Most of Kanto's waters were notoriously deep, not being even close to fully explored even right next to the bay.

  "The world is round," Lane said.

  Blaine looked up from his work. The two had taken a break on the rocks behind the mansion; even a homebody like Blaine got tired of being inside for too long. Fresh juices grinded from his personal garden laid still inside plastic cups that refracted triangles on the flat rocks they used as tables. Older women were chatting in front of the only house Lane could see from their position. A Meowth sank into the hand of his owner as she, pastel pink dress with floral designs wrapping around their hems, started laughing. At their feet were two Psyduck who kept butting heads.

  "Indeed it is," Blaine said. "How was this discovered?"

  His legs were hiked up onto the rock, sitting on it with his arms wrapped around his knees. Lulu had Fomantis in her lap, dozing off with her back against a warm rock while the little one melted. There was a little hovel dug into the side of the island where his other pokémon was resting. Blaine had chosen a rather low tech solution for doing high tech paperwork, having all of them laid out on a long, oval-ish rock that had a flat surface. He was sitting on a normal chair because that's just how things work out when you’re older.

  Lane put his mind to the question. How. How. How. The wheels spun and spun as the horse was let inside, millions of men packed away in its butt ready to leap out with their spears aimed at the men's throats; Lane supposed that it would be recreated with people inside of a Mudsdale's dreads being let inside of a Kanto castle. No, that's a whole different story. It'd be a creaky old plank of wood, drifting around all the cool capes of the world before coming back home. From what he remembered, only a single crewmate made the whole journey. Not exactly a child-friendly bedtime story.

  "No idea!"

  Blaine tutted, setting his documents into a neat pile. "You truly are some kind of savant. You can list facts that I'm foggy on yet can barely tie your shoes."

  "That's a li'l bit of a fairy tale retelling, m'sir. I'm proficient at the young man's bundle, yes I am."

  "That's not a knot," Blaine simply said. He made the motions in the air. What Lane was referring to was crossing the threads over, moving on underneath where they crossed, then pulling. "It is not a knot."

  "If you say so. You done?"

  "Are you done?"

  Blaine continued staring as Lane leaned further and further back. When he was laying straight down like a model, he finally rolled his eyes.

  "Are you done?"

  "I am!"

  The documents were shoved inside a red binder, official looking, not like the type that you got from the office supplier store. Wealth showed itself in the most peculiar of ways. Households could be rundown mansions on islands with a population of 46 yet the glasses had to have little details making them clearly more quality than the peasant's methods of drinking water. Smudges of the dirt that had gotten on the back of the paperwork made Lane grin.

  His pokémon didn't follow as they started walking across the island, underneath the shadow of the mansion. It was a ginormous thing, trying to rival the volcano that was barely a mile away. Hubris, Lane thought, that would be punished in the coming years.

  "Why do you even have so much paperwork anyways? No 'ffense, but there ain't much stuff here that looks like it needs paperwork." Blaine looked down at him. With a sigh, once again he ceded with, "there doesn't look like there's much around here that requires paperwork. Happy?"

  "Very!" At the back of the gym was a red door. A scanner at the back beeped green when a pink card passed over it. Getting used to everything in Blaine's life being some shade of red had made Lane appreciate the color more. The handle was yanked down, letting a gust of air conditioner blast into the 23 celsius heat. "I'm not nearly as active as Professor Oak. Most of the research that I've wanted done has been done. Nowadays I'm involved in novel ways of training fire-types to respond to disasters and rescue scenarios, which leaves me quite a bit of free time. It gives me time to handle a lot of requests that require a gym leader's approval."

  "I'd personally use my free time as me-time but…" Lane glanced back where they came from, at the stretch of rocky beach that barely would fit a trailer. If the volcano didn't swallow the mansion then fifty years of tides surely would.

  Blaine finally pushed the door open fully. "That's enough dawdling. Come along! The puzzle machines won't fit new answers by themselves."

  The laboratory was Blaine's personality splattered out onto interior decoration. Outside with the general lab was a clean atmosphere—also known as boring—that made laboratories so ably parodied in movies. Stepping past the open-air door became a fiery brimstone that would make uptight scientists balk. Red and white checkerboard tiles greeted their dirty shoes. Five desks ran from nearly wall to wall were spread apart with different materials and whiteboards on each one; if it weren't obvious at first glance, the little paper that was tacked to their base denoted each project with code names. The furthest one, with a red quartz top, had a computer as its centerpiece. Books and papers took up nearly every working inch of the table. Ideas that survived the rigorous process were put on the whiteboard before being imputed into the machines. Lane didn't know anything about programming but thought that typing out a new program, putting it on a drive, then doing more work on the machines themselves was horribly inefficient. What did he know? He wasn't a programmer, scientist, and riddlemaster. At the same time, he somewhat doubted the self-appointed title was accurate since 'trivia' are not 'riddles'.

  They went to the puzzle table. He once asked what the other projects were for and decided that hearing the professor yapping for an hour about terms that didn't dredge up meanings would be better spent picking his nose in the back of the pokémon center.

  A bump at the back of his leg made him gasp. Reaching down he picked up Lulu and nuzzled her close to his cheek. She returned it while Fomantis was squeaking in alarm, squished into his chest.

  "I've never asked, but is she the mother of the Fomantis?" Blaine asked.

  One of the greatest things that Lane liked about the man was any term that Lane used even once never had that confused tilt of voice other people would have. Letting Lulu go let him lean down and pat Dunsparce on the head. It made the pokémon shiver slightly less. He wasn't sure where his little guy learned it, but for some reason Dunsparce flagged Blaine as a mad scientist and started shivering whenever he was around.

  "Yep! I was there when the egg hatched!"

  "It's a life changing event seeing an egg hatch. I've never seen a person go through it without changing in some way. Many colleagues changed their entire focus of research once seeing it. Did you know that ol' Samuel's current obsession began when he saw a Spearow, of all things, hatch? Heh! You should've seen the old coot's face!" Blaine's gaze turned fond before refocusing into the present. "Either way, the planet. Yes, the planet is round, though you didn't look like you were surprised by that. The reason that we know the planet is round is—you guessed it!—the space voyage!"

  "What," Lane dully said. Without any sort of emotion, it came out as a statement.

  Blaine didn't notice. "Legend has it that with a pokémon unknown to us, they went straight up into the exosphere. From there he could see the curvature of the aurora, edges of the earth wrap around themselves, and the stars! Oh, the stars! How they're lost before even reaching down to us brings a tear to my eye! When I was younger, you know why I came out here? To completely avoid light pollution so I could become an astronomer. I still carry along the torch though the days of my most important research are behind me, I believe."

  "Okay. Yeah. Space voyage before circumnavigating the planet. That's normal. Hmhm." Shaking his head, Lane focused on the important part. "You think that's a good question? If you're making it for all ages, then I think that a bunch of kids won't know the origin exactly. Maybe just have that the planet is round?"

  "No, that's not hard enough. Everybody, everybody knows that! Otherwise all our understandings about how flying-types are able to—the ground-types that certainly have—Frumpy, the famous Alakazam from 2000 years ago, already knew that the planet was round!"

  "We have written records from 2000 years ago from a random Alakazam?"

  A hand laid heavy on his shoulder. Blaine took his glasses off.

  "Random?"

  Lane held his hands up. "The best Alakazam ever?"

  Blaine just nodded. He sat down, typing furiously on the tiny computer. The keyboard was interesting, in the same way that a coroner in his off hours walking his dog would say a car crash was interesting. The letters were listed alphabetically. No left shift, tab, and control. Symbols that he was half-sure were Japanese were where the numpad was supposed to be. None of the 'f' keys were at the top. None of this compared, most egregious of all, the escape key missing on the left side of the keyboard, replaced by the 'é'.

  "And don't forget it. Much of Kanto's early history would be lost if it weren't for him working overtime preserving the old texts. From those we can extrapolate much about the history between surviving documents and archeology. Hm, maybe that'd be a good question?"

  "No!" Lane jumped forward, almost knocking the screen over. "We want these to be answerable! If you want to include that question, then make it Red's!"

  Blaine looked behind with a grin. The glasses stayed off. Looking at the world through a different perspective gave him a better ability to think in riddles. "Are you sure? Let me restate what we have: what pokémon migrate into Route 2 during the summer? How many known flying-types are there? Which normal-type moves use a pokémon's claws? You want to add the Alakazam's name? I think that's not tough enough for the level we're expecting from a Champion. Maybe we can consider also having to remember the years that he was alive?"

  Simple relaxation usually didn't come easy with Lane. With good company and a stupid goal, anything could be possible. Weeks passed without much complaint.

  The only thing that annoyed him was that Red was surely getting involved in crazy adventures without him.