Aaron’s Pokemon
- Artoria (Kirlia)- Jeanne (Flaaffy)- Durvasa (Primeape)- Magellan (Chikorita)- Baby moth, doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo~ (Larvesta)
Entree 5.19
Aaron FulanMount Chimney
The next morning, my team and I had a light breakfast at the expedition camp’s mess hall. It was a bungalow raised up from prefabricated boards, just durable enough to keep out the weather and allow for air conditioning. Which was good because the volcano was annoyingly hot and humid.
Henry, the site manager, found me as we were finishing up. With him was Taiyou, the ranger wannabe with a charmeleon. Apparently, Henry got it in his head that having a few more trainers wouldn’t hurt, so made the offer to the other three as well. The fire specialist was the only one who took the deal despite the poor pay, something about it being good for his resume if he wanted to be a ranger.
Henry introduced us to other trainers and paired us off so we could watch the perimeter in rotating shifts. This freed up a few people, who could then be sent off to accompany scientists on various outings. Our job was to keep wild pokemon out without hurting them too badly.
My partner for the day was a man in his mid-twenties named Lance. He kept his dark-brown hair in a short, military crop and had a prominent scar that cut through the corner of his lips. Despite this, he had a generally affable demeanor, softened by his partner, a truly massive stoutland.
“A stoutland, from Unova, right?” I said as we began walking. Larvesta sat on my shoulder and Artoria walked to my right.
“That’s right. I did my first circuit there before coming to Hoenn,” Lance said. “I’m not surprised you recognize his species, what with the firebug on your shoulder. You from there?”
“No, I happen to have a family friend who’s in the region. She gave me Larvesta’s egg.”
“Damn, lucky kid. I saw Champion Alder battle in person once. His team’s all great of course, but his volcarona… Those pokemon are the kind that forge entire legacies.”
“So I’ve heard.” I plucked her from my shoulder and swung her around from the end of a strand of silk. It was like a carnival ride to her. “Right now, she’s basically a potato on a string, though.”
“Heh, cute. She must like you a lot to let you do that.”
“Yup. That, and I think she just likes the vertigo feeling. How about you? What brings you to Hoenn?”
“Me? Not much of a story. I’m from Nimbasa, one of the biggest cities in Unova. I did decently well at the Vertress Conference and, a couple years later, decided I wanted to see at least one other League.”
“Huh. How’s Vertress compare with Ever Grande?”
He shrugged. “Eh, it’s about the same. As far as the gym leaders go though, I think Drayden has Wallace beat for sure.”
“No love for your own hometown gym leader?”
“Elesa? She only became a gym leader after I left the region so I don’t know much about her, to be honest. I’m actually more familiar with Lenora. You know who that is?”
I nodded in recognition. “Normal type gym leader. Uh… I wanna say Nacarene City? She’s the one who has the big museum, right?”
“Nacrene, not Nacarene,” he corrected, “but yes. She’s a bit like your Roxanne here. Second gym in the circuit, but she does a lot of work with educational institutions and the like. After my first Vertress Conference, I was a gym trainer there for a bit.”
“Sounds pretty interesting. What was that like?”
“Eh, it was a pretty mellow place. Lenora and Hawes, her husband, have the job locked down. A bit too routine for me, you know? After a few years, I realized that I missed being on the road.”
“I get that. I’m not sure I’d survive being a gym trainer,” I said. Not that any gym would take my team of chaotic misfits. No two of my pokemon shared a type.
“Yup. Anyway, Norman met Lenora in the last Pokemon World Tournament. They hit it off and did a bit of a pokemon swap. Some of Hoenn’s normal types went to Lenora, some of Unova’s normal types went to Norman. They also offered to sponsor each other’s gym trainers if any flew over so I took the deal.”
“That’s pretty cool. I remember Norman’s zangoose gave Artoria over here a hell of a fight. So you’re a wandering trainer again?”
“That’s right. It’s a pretty sweet deal. My main job is to make TM templates using the sheer variety of moves normal types can learn. I don’t need to travel, but Norman lets me do whatever I want so long as I make my quota.”
“Sounds nice. Templates, huh? Do you think you’ll make any original moves?”
He laughed. “Nah, that’s usually not worth the hassle. Remember, templating is also a business. A new move needs to be widely replicable, effective, and fill a niche that isn’t covered by another, already existing TM. It’s why no one cares about a TM for Ember, for example.”
I thought about some of the things I’d taught my pokemon. Mana Burst, which Artoria used to both augment her speed and impact force, wasn’t something the average pokemon could learn. The control it required would make it pretty unpopular as a TM, and therefore not very marketable.
On the other hand, I could see Stim Shot being a useful option. It’d be pretty niche, especially because most competitive battles were done in the singles format, but doubles did have a following. It’d be something to consider, not that I was in desperate need of cash.
We continued to make small talk as we patrolled the perimeter. The most interesting thing to happen was a small group of graveler that came barreling by, but a set of premade ditches redirected them elsewhere.
X
The next day, Margaret found me over a bowl of oatmeal.
“Hey, Aaron, right? Good morning,” she greeted as she set her own bowl down on the table.
“Morning to you, too. What’s up?” I asked. I’d opted to eat in one of the outside seating areas so I could have my whole team out.
“You. You said you were interested in what we did here. Did you mean just the camp, or were you serious about wanting to see us work?
“Definitely the latter.”
“Good. Do you want to come with me and my team?”
“We’re going to the summit?”
“No, that’s where Dr. Kagari is. We’re going about a third of the way down the mountain. We’ll see if we can map the caverns beneath us and prospect for important minerals.”
“Ah, right, the boring part of this survey you said is for the sponsors,” I said with a wry grin.
“Exactly,” she laughed. “But, if you’re lucky, you might stumble on a fire stone or something.”
“Alright, I’m in. I’ve been to the Oldale Ruins and wouldn't mind seeing another cave system,” I said. Knowing exactly where the entrance was could only be helpful later.
Assuming Courtney was Magma, or would be soon, this must have been how Magma knew to build their base here. Even in the game, the player could find drilling equipment lying around so it must have been a relatively recent expansion.
Margaret introduced me to the rest of her team before hooking me up with some basic spelunking equipment, mostly a hardhat, tracker, and safety harness, just in case. Her team was especially happy to learn I had a flaaffy, both for the natural lighting and to act as a zubat deterrent.
“How it works is pretty simple,” Margaret explained as we took a car to the cave entrance. “We use a set of lidar beacons that create a 3D map of the surroundings. When we're done, we proceed from that position with the help of electromagnetic compasses, rangefinders, and inclinometers until we get to a new position to set our beacon. Rinse and repeat.”
“I think I get the idea. It sounds like the kind of thing that seems simple on paper until you try to do it.”
“Hehe, that’s true, too. There are hidden crevices and tunnels, pools of water that can mess with readings, sudden magnetic fluctuations, you name it.”
“What about wild pokemon? Does lidar bother them?” Cave-dwelling pokemon tended to be fairly solitary and appreciated their peace and quiet.
“Theoretically no, but sometimes yes. Lidar uses short-range infrared light, which isn't usually noticeable for most. That said, some species can be extremely sensitive. You and the other trainers are here to deter them.”
“Makes sense. Any major threats? Should we put a lampshade over Jeanne’s tail bulb?”
“There are some truly powerful pokemon, but they prefer to live deeper underground. You're dealing with the usual suspects: zubat, aron, machop, geodude, and the like. We’ll move slowly so pokemon have the chance to find darker caverns.”
“Sounds like a good training opportunity. Let's see how it goes.”
X
Margaret lied to me. Or rather, she forgot to mention that when she said we were moving on from the previous lidar beacon, we were moving down.
There were zubat colonies. Those could be deterred easily by having Jeanne spam rapid-fire Thunder Waves. The occasional golbat took a Thunderbolt and reconsidered their life choices.
There was a powerful lairon. It was beaten by a ranger's blaziken before being captured for his team. While my team was nowhere near as strong, we took care of most of the weaker wild pokemon so his more experienced pokemon were completely fresh.
But past the surface layer, the temperature became like a muggy summer day and the cave's demographic began leaning heavily towards fire types. We didn't see rivers of lava thankfully, but we were relatively close to the magma pool that made up Mount Chimney's heart.
Here, Jeanne went back into her ball with a bleat of disgust. Wool did not play nice with natural saunas. That left just me, Artoria, and Larvesta to watch the veterans at work.
The men seemed to have an answer for every possible crisis.
A koffing decided to flood the passage with smog? They had a haunter that took control of the poisonous gases and kept them away from us squishy humans.
A magcargo turned a passageway into its personal jacuzzi? They had a dugtrio dig it a better, more spacious hole off the beaten path.
A medicham picked a fight because we disturbed its secluded meditation? The blaziken offered to “trade pointers” like only a xianxia young master could before punting it into dreamland.
The prospecting was also quite interesting. Turned out, that was what Margaret was good at. She took rock samples, categorized different minerals, and explained to me exactly what they indicated. Anything beyond “Igneous rocks form in volcanoes,” went right over my head, but listening to someone passionate about their work was always a pleasure.
We didn't find much, at least in terms of stones that were valuable for trainers. There was a single fire stone that went to the ranger with a blaziken; he had a vulpix who'd been looking for one. If any treasures existed in Chimney's depths, they were much deeper underground.
No, the real complication emerged when we headed back topside. As we were driving back into camp, we were stopped by a person this time, a slim woman who stood barely five feet tall.
She wore fitted cargo pants for hiking and a vest with rows of functional pockets. In her hand was some kind of scanner, a blocky, chrome affair with a pair of adjustable antennas that reminded me of dowsing rods. They were pointed squarely at us.
Her outfit was no different from anyone else’s, but her bright, lavender pixie cut and a calm, placid smile told me exactly who she was: Courtney Kagari, very likely the cutest psychopath in the world.
‘My lord and master, this is a strange time for you to experience puberty again,’ Artoria’s voice rang with admonishment in my mind.
‘Hey, I have eyes. I’m just saying; she’s cute,’ I thought back with a wry chuckle.
‘Have you considered looking for romantic partners who are less likely to murder you? Or condemn the world to apocalyptic supervolcanic eruptions?’
‘Ah, but if your partner can’t kick your ass, are you even in a relationship?’
‘Flannery was nice. I’m told Lisia is quite attractive by human standards. They are both from old, distinguished lineages and extremely promising trainers in their own right.’
‘Too young. And being a good trainer or from good families aren’t criteria I look for in women.’
‘You are thirteen, your mind notwithstanding. Besides, by that logic, wouldn’t she think you are too young as well?’ she pointed out, quite reasonably.
‘Oof, fair enough. We may have lost the plot a bit. I’m mostly joking, anyway,’ I said. ‘I didn’t come here just to meet her. Well, I did, but not like that.’
“Dr. Kagari? I thought you were up near the summit,” Margaret greeted. “Did you get back early?”
“... Un,” Courtney nodded. I didn’t think people really made those noises in real life, but here we were. “Returned early… No point anymore… Signal compromised.”
“Compromised? By what? Did whatever’s in the summit begin to fluctuate?”
“No… Him,” she said, pointing squarely at me. So were the scanner’s antennae. “... You are interesting.”
“Me?” I asked with mounting trepidation. Her emotional aura was muted, as if I was looking at something underwater. “I only came up to deliver supplies two days ago and haven’t even been up to the summit, Dr. Kagari.”
“... Interesting. You are interesting… I want to analyze you. Come.”
So saying, she turned and walked away, humming something under her breath.
Our team stood in awkward silence. Courtney was… She was certainly a character. The whole time we talked, she had an unerring, laser-focused lock on me. I wasn’t sure if she knew how to blink at all. It left me feeling rather vulnerable.
“I… Uh… Okay…?” I looked at Margaret, who shrugged in confusion. “Am I in trouble?”
“I don’t think so?” she said. “Dr. Kagari is brilliant, but she does tend to make leaps in logic that are hard to follow sometimes. I think she means that you can help her.”
“That’s good, I think.”
“Well, you did say you wanted to see how camps like these are run and she’s the head honcho here. Go see what she wants and take this as a chance to learn, yeah?”
“You’re right. Thanks for letting me tag along today, Margaret. I learned a lot from watching you all.”
“Don’t thank me. You really pulled your weight. See you, Aaron.”
X
I followed Courtney to her private quarters. She took up one of the smaller bungalows for her personal use. It had a small lab, kitchenette, and a bed in a studio apartment layout, just an open space that had been partitioned by function, not walls.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. Maybe the wallpaper would be decked out in red and black? Tapestries of the letter “M” hanging from the walls? A shrine dedicated to a doll that looked suspiciously like Maxie?
It certainly would have told me where she stood, but alas, real life wasn’t quite so convenient. That said, her room did have a personal touch.
There was a shelf full of rock samples, from fire stones and gems to more classically luxurious objects like rubies and garnets. Each was accompanied by a notecard with its material composition, date acquired, and the precise coordinate. This shelf was by itself a mineralogical glossary of Mount Chimney.
As to her bed, it was covered in stuffed toys. I didn’t think she’d be the type, but a camerupt plushie that had to weigh a good third of her weight sat pride of place on her blankets. There was also an entire squad of slugma plushies that served as her pillows, led by a larger magcargo.
She must have seen me staring because she coughed insistently. Her aura flared with mild embarrassment. She wasn’t unemotional, simply unexpressive. “Bed isn’t comfy… Can’t rest otherwise… Slugma squad necessary.”
“Hey, no judgment. It’s cute. Besides, the beds they have here are more like cots,” I agreed, more because I had no idea what else to say. “And the camerupt?”
“Important partner… He is too big to come inside. Alternative arrangement.”
“Fair enough. I’d cuddle with Artoria but she’s too stubborn, even when she loves to taste positive emotions.”
“... Not important. Punch.”
“Excuse me?”
“Punch. Drink?” she asked. She pulled out two bottles from the cooler and offered one to me. “Red… Best color.”
“O-Oh, you’re offering me a drink. Thank you,” I said, still somewhat bewildered by her way of talking. I wasn’t very thirsty, but I felt as if I’d be failing a test if I rejected it. “Red ones do taste better.”
“Un… Invited inside… Refreshing beverage offered… Social obligations fulfilled…”
“I… I suppose so? Do you have a checklist?”
“I do… Preliminary analysis: You are interesting.”
“Thank you, I think…”
“Mega stone… You have one,” she said. Her tone remained completely flat, but her eyes gleamed with intense fascination.
I froze. She knew. That wasn’t the gaze of someone who was taking a shot in the dark. Her emotional aura showed no hostility, but still, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“... You possess a mega stone… Show me?”
“H-How?” She held up the blocky scanner she’d been using when we arrived. “The scanner. It… You can track mega stones?”
“Proprietary technology… Not publicly available.”
“That’s… impressive. Even mom can’t do that.”
“... Maternal figure…?”
“Sharon Fulan, the seventh gym leader.”
“... Understood. You are an anomaly… Psychic divination is different… Represents an avenue of research that is real yet difficult to examine…”
I took a deep breath. She wasn’t hostile, just… fixated. Reading her was a little easier for me, but I still found her stare somewhat unnerving. “How does it work? The scanner, I mean.”
“Scanner meant to analyze abnormal energy signature detected near the summit… Input atypical with previous norms coincides with your arrival… Data is approximately similar to evolution stones, yet different… Conclusion: You must possess a mega stone.”
“That shouldn’t be possible, though. Aura signatures given off by mega stones and other relics can’t be scried.”
“... By psychically-attuned humans or pokemon,” she said with a smug, self-satisfied smile. “Energy signature can be sensed… Confirmed through a previous sample.”
That… That was true. Artoria had been using the gardevoirite to get a feel for fairy type aura. Relics couldn’t be scried, probably by Arceus-mandated fiat, but that didn’t mean they didn’t give off energy. By “previous sample,” she likely meant a cameruptite, likely Maxie’s.
This was my mistake. I hadn’t been entirely sure what exactly Courtney had been investigating here, but I should have known she’d be smart enough to leap to the right conclusions. The fact that she had the chance to examine another mega stone with proprietary technology heavily implied she was receiving support from Magma already.
“You weren’t positive until you saw me react,” I accused.
A flare of smug satisfaction suffused her aura. “Comparative analysis can be done… Sample size of one was insufficient… Confirmation more likely… Now… Show me?”
I’d underestimated her and I was kicking myself now.
Mega stones originated from the power given off by Xerneas and Yveltal, especially when King AZ used the Kalosi Ancient Weapon to glass a part of the region. Professor Sycamore, the foremost authority on the subject, said something to that effect in Pokemon X and Y.
But… But what did Life and Death have in common? Xerneas exuded Fairy Aura. Yveltal exuded Dark Aura. They were polar opposites. And if stones got magically converted to mega stones because of them, then shouldn’t these stones be only of the fairy and dark typing?
In that light, it made sense that it would be the evolution stones that changed, taking on the power of a Legend to become something more. Given the stones were typically found alongside large populations of their designated pokemon, I could also conclude that they took in something from the nearby pokemon as well during the transmutation process. A water stone near a lake full of magikarp might become a gyaradosite and so on.
So… That meant that there was nothing special about Life and Death. It only hit me now, but it should have been obvious: Rayquaza didn’t need them to mega evolve. Which gave me a new hypothesis: Any sufficiently powerful Legend, or even a place full of a Legendary’s power, could do, provided that energy could be gathered and condensed into a stone.
That must have been what Team Magma or Aqua were doing in ORAS. A lot of things clicked for me as I stared into Courtney’s blank, purple eyes.
Unfortunately, the same was true for her. She knew I had a mega stone. She knew the scanner reacted similarly to both the stone in my bag and the power of the summit. Presumably, that was where Groudon liked to crash on occasion. I’d helped cement the connection for her.
“... Show me,” she repeated, more insistently this time. “Told you about scanner… Trade… For science.”
“You’re brilliant,” I muttered. And, she was. I had a lot of out of context knowledge that I hadn’t put together until just now. For her to have done the same without my advantages was honestly a little scary.
“I know… Show me… Please?”
“I… Fine,” I sighed. I took out the mega stone and presented it to her.
She took some scans with the quiet intensity usually reserved for military snipers on stakeout. Then, “... Can I keep it?”
“Not a chance in hell. Artoria would kill me, then you.”
“Your kirlia… Makes sense. Rare to have the stone before the final evolution… You are an anomaly.”
“So you keep saying.”
“... How did you find it?”
“Luck mostly. They have a habit of showing up for the pokemon they’re meant to be paired with, you know?”
“... Superstitious?” she hummed. Her emotions dipped blue with disappointment.
“Psychics exist. So do Legends. Who’s to say there isn’t a bit of destiny involved?”
“... I don’t like unprovable things.”
“That’s fair; you’re a scientist. But hey, you have a scanner. Are you going to go on a mega stone hunt now?” I asked, a little worried. If so, mom and the League had to hear about it.
To my surprise, she shook her head. “No… Unprovable does not mean nonexistent… And… range is too short… Inefficient.”
“Heh, that’s the real reason, isn’t it? You think it’s not worth hiking everywhere to get in range of one.”
“Un… Too many false positives… Evolution stones are far more common.”
“If evolution stones and sites like Mount Chimney trigger it, then yeah, you’re right. Any chance you’ll keep the gardevoirite between us? I don’t want people hounding me over it.”
“Sharon Fulan… Why not give it to her?”
“Because it’s mine,” I said firmly. “Maybe I’m being childish, but I want to give it to Artoria the moment she evolves. You know, a little proof that we’ve made it.”
“Not childish… Trainers desire to prove themselves… Tale as old as time… Won’t tell.”
“Thanks, Dr. Kagari,” I said gratefully. Not that I expected her to keep her promise. She was sincere now, in the moment, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t talk if Maxie asked about the data. “Can I ask you something?”
“Un.”
“Why do all this? I mean, what do you want to do with this research?”
“... Help pokemon,” she said with uncharacteristic emotion. She looked at the giant camerupt plushie. “Earth is important… Evolution… Power… Change… All come from the earth… More understanding can create paradise.”
“But how, though? Let’s pretend that you understood evolution stones to such a degree that you could make your own mega stones. That wouldn’t help pokemon and humans coexist. That’s what you mean by paradise, right?”
“Un… But mega evolution is power… Can use to protect and advance the vision.”
“I see. I can agree with that. Pokemon are strongest when they fight for something they want to protect.”
“... Humans, too.”
“Yes, humans, too.”
It was a pity. This unnerving, weirdly cute scientist was almost certainly Magma already. She wasn’t hostile towards me; if anything, she seemed to like me somewhat.
That said, I’d have to proceed in the future with the assumption that I was now a known quantity to them. Both because of the mega stone, and because she had my trainer ID, and so knew about my mother.
In a way, I’d gotten what I wanted. I met Courtney, figured out what she was studying here, and even identified the caverns that would likely be a Magma hideout in the future. At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel I’d exposed myself, even if they probably didn’t think much of me yet.
Author’s Note
So apparently, Courtney is 5’0” in leaked documents? I have no idea if this is true or not but that’s what a Reddit post I found says so I’m rolling with it.
Yes, Courtney does talk like this, both in-game and in Pokemon Generations. She has these strange pauses in her dialogue.
She might also be prophetic to some degree. Just before battling Brendan in the Lilycove hideout, she receives a vision of Primal Groudon obliterating Magma after his awakening.
Animal Fact: Let me tell you about Operation Cat Drop. Official name, by the way. In 1960, the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force airdropped cats to the then UK colony of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. That place is a part of Malaysia today.
Why? To curb an infestation of rats, of course.
To be clear, some newspapers at the time said they only dropped twenty-three cats. Apocryphal sources claim as many as fourteen thousand. So yeah, the number got blown way out of proportion.
A bit of background: In the 50s, people used harmful insecticides like dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. You may recognize it as DDT, the stuff that makes bald eagles’ eggshells fragile. Well, DDT got used in Borneo in order to kill mosquitos and stop the spread of malaria.
How does that result in a rat infestation, you ask? Biomagnification, that’s how. It’s the same thing that happens with mercury and other heavy metals in seafood.
Insects have trace amounts of DDT. Those insects are eaten by birds, rats, etc. and those small critters are eaten by bigger predators. This process leads to a buildup of DDT inside predators who are higher up the food chain. Like cats.
Well, that, and because people sprayed DDT everywhere back then. They even sprayed it in their own homes, which probably did their pets dirty.
In any case, this led to a mass die-off of local cats, resulting in the rat boom we started with. Hence, Operation Cat Drop.