Wes’s consciousness floated detached from his mortal ailments. He felt the presence of his body in his mind, yet the weariness of his muscles and the painful cold that gripped his body remained distant. Instead his thoughts wandered in a dreamy slowness that made focusing on any one particular thing difficult. Perhaps it was a reflection of his mental state before entering the pokeball, or perhaps it was something related to the nature of the device.
At the same time Wes was aware of the happenings outside the pokeball. He knew that the ball lay in mud, pelted by rain. He knew that Adam reached down and picked it up, dropping it into the pocket of his jacket. Wes also understood that he wasn’t really trapped in this ball, and that a mental push would set him free. Some balls inhibited this, but not Ras’s. He always had more respect for his friend than that.
Adam broke into a run along the clifftop path. Trees and rocks passed by in a blur of gray and brown. A small flock of wingull, the small blue and white birds huddled together against the storm, called out in annoyance as he ran by. Waves crashed against the rocks below them, disrupting the steady rhythm of pounding feet.
Adam’s breathing grew heavy as the kilometers fell away. Steam rose from his jacket. Sweat mingled with the rain.
The Slate Cliffs slowly diminished until they gave way to sandy beaches and grassy dunes. Adam’s feet brought him and Wes to the edge of the forest where the green fields of the Denville park mantled the town’s North Beach. Nestled between the dunes, river stones marked out a rectangular pitch frequented by the locals for pokemon battles.
Beyond the field and parking lot, a single-lane road followed the dunes towards the center of town where distant vessels could be seen moored in the bay beyond the stone breakwater. Small wooden houses raised on wooden stilts began to line the edge of the road. Dozens of wingull and even a few grayish-brown starly roosted beneath the houses, chirping and squawking as they fought for space.
Half a kilometer later the houses gave way to stores, small businesses, and the wood and stone of the old Denville Wharf where the small town’s fishing fleet was anchored in the bay. On the near edge of the wharf sat the familiar sight of a squat, single-story building painted in wavy bands of green, brown, and blue in an artistic representation of the coastline. Rain dripped from a wooden sign hanging above the front entrance. ‘Denville Coastal Observatory’ it read. For the past two years Adam worked here as an assistant researcher and herpetology expert while Wes attended school at Denville High.
Adam slowed as he rounded a parked pickup truck with an observatory decal on its side and made his way to the front entrance. Pulling open the door, a bell sounded and he stepped inside with a sigh of relief. They stood in a large room split between educational displays and a gift shop stuffed with various nicknacks and plushies of pokemon native to the Kasper region.
Wiping his sodden and muddy shoes on the doormat, Adam headed across the room past the cash register in the back to a door leading further into the observatory. He punched a code into the keypad beside the door and stepped through into a hall sided by doors. Even in his detached state, Wes’s thoughts churned as the sight brought back vivid memories of the ship’s bowels.
Footsteps echoed out from down the hall and a woman stepped out into view. Some forty years old with a severe face, she kept her dirty blond hair in a small bun on the back of her head. She wore serviceable pants and a shirt with the Denville logo over one breast. A name tag that read ‘Anna’ was sewn over the other.
“Adam.” Anna said with a frown. “I thought I heard you. Why did you insist on going out in this weather?”
“I had to take another look.” Adam said
“Without taking Ben with you?” Anna’s frown softened into a look of concern. “It’s been a week Adam. The league is doing the best they can. Why don’t you head home. Take another week if you need it.”
“Anna, I found Rastigan.” Adam blurted.
“You found Rastigan? Where?” She asked, her eyes wide with shock.
“Atop the cliffs next to the break in the Slate Cliffs. He’s in a bad way. I need your help.”
“A bad way? How? What am I working with here?” Anna said, grasping control of the situation. She turned back down the hall even as Adam made to respond.
“Wounds as if from a fight. There was blood in his fur. But more than that he was freezing.”
“Freezing?” Anna said, glancing back over her shoulder. “It’s almost fifteen degrees outside and he’s an absol. How could he be freezing?”
“I don’t know!” Adam yelled. “He couldn’t even walk!”
“Adam, take a deep breath. Rastigan is a pokemon. He can take a beating.”
They entered a large and immaculately clean ‘laboratory’ that Adam referred to as the ‘Mammal room’ after Anna’s preferred subject of research. She was working on something to do with Yungoos, but Wes couldn’t remember what exactly.
“So physical injuries and possible hypothermia.” Anna continued. “Straightforward enough. I’m going to get some hot water flowing before we let him out of the ball. I’d rather not waste a full heal if we don’t need to.”
She turned and held out her hand expectantly and Adam fished Rastigan’s pokeball out of his pocket before handing it to her. Walking over to a large steel basin set into the floor, Anna switched on the hot water.
“Ras, I’m going to clean up your injuries and see what we’re dealing with here.” She said, pointing Wes's ball at the basin. “Can you leave your pokeball now?”
Wes hesitated at her request. Detached as he was, the reality of his injured body hung at the edge of his mind. Outside the pokeball was only pain, cold, and the undeniable truth that he was no longer human.
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“Come on Ras.” Anna soothed. “I know it’s going to hurt, but it’ll only get worse if you wait.”
Easy for you to say. Wes thought. Still, he took a mental breath and pushed against his prison.
A flash of fight filled his vision, followed by pain, cold, and a weary numbness in his limbs. He winced as hot water sloshed against his skin, aggravating open salt-covered wounds.
“You are cold.” Anna said almost with surprise, but Wes sense the tension flee from her voice. “These wounds are strange.” She continued. “Did you get into a fight with an ice type? It would explain the cold.”
No. Wes thought. No, but there was no way to tell her.
“How is he?” Adam asked.
Anna shrugged. “He’s a pokemon, he probably would have healed on his own from wounds like this on his own given time. I’ll see what I can do to clean him up and stop any scarring.”
**********
An hour later, a warm, damp, and exhausted absol stood on a metal scale while Anna typed new measurements into the computer.
“I’m telling you, his file was updated at the pokecenter a month ago!” Adam was saying to his annoyed coworker.
“I find that hard to believe.” Anna frowned. “The only people with the ability to delete data like that is the League itself. The only information I can find in the system on Rastigan is in the trainer database which hasn’t been updated in seven years. His medical file simply doesn’t exist.”
“I’ll go talk to the pokecenter tomorrow. They’ll have his physical records somewhere.” Adam sighed.
“I’m just going to create a new file for him.” Anna said. “The center can add their data to the past history.” She turned back to Wes.
“Alright Rastigan, I’m going to take a blood sample next. This is going to prick a bit, so try not to move.” Anna reached over and showed Wes a small needle. Wes nodded, finding himself too tired to care.
“Watch where you swing that thing, you almost cut me.” Anna reprimanded, grabbing a small vacuum-vial with some sort of liquid at the bottom. She attached it to the needle and twisted so that fresh blood began to fill the vial. “And sorry for the prick, it’s hard to do this properly through that fur. I didn’t think you’d appreciate me shaving a patch.”
Wes fumed silently. Small prick? Why was he just standing here while his brother’s co-worker checked him over like some prized pokemon? Neither of them had so much as guessed that anything was wrong or different beyond the visible injuries. He needed to find some way to tell them. He needed to find his way out of this mess somehow.
More than anything he needed to curl up into a ball and sleep.
Anna removed the needle and vial from his shoulder. She opened the plastic lid of a large white machine nearby, slid the vial into a holder, and shut the door. The machine began to hum.
“Let’s see,” Anna said, glancing over her notes. “Height is 127cm, slightly above average. Weight is a bit low. Adam, Ras probably hasn’t eaten much this past week. It may be a good idea to supplement his food for the next few days.”
Anna opened her mouth to say more, but the machine with the blood sample began to beep. She quickly moved her attention to a nearby computer monitor where lines of text started printing in a terminal window.
“No foriegn chemicals in the blood at first glance.” Anna mumbled, reading the output. “I can run a proper test later. Genetic tracers show 16 in H1, 31 in A1, 23 in D1-”
“Just pull up the summary.” Adam interrupted. “We can look through the details tomorrow.”
“There’s not much to say.” Anna said after a minute. “His is a wild bloodline that doesn’t match with any breeders in the database - not that there are many for absol. However, it does look identical to what’s recorded in Rastigan’s trainer file.”
She turned back to the data form. “Adam, Rastigan is registered as a battler as Gray rank, but there’s no battle data yet. Is Wes planning on entering the competitive circuit?”
Yes. Wes thought.
“Mom and Dad gave Wes Rastigan as a kit for the Junior League and the gym challenge.” Adam explained. “Wes got his license at ten and registered Ras as his starter. After Mom and Dad died and Wes couldn’t do the gym challenge anymore, we decided to just leave him registered as a battler.”
Keeping Rastigan’s registration open ended up being more of a false promise than anything. 'Next year.' Adam had told Wes again and again. 'You can start your journey next year.' Yet there was never a ‘next year’. Not when Adam was finishing university. There just wasn’t enough money to support it.
Wes grimaced as a headache began to build behind his eyes.
“I didn’t realize Ras was a gift for Wes. I always thought he was your parent’s pokemon.” Anna said, submitting the data. “I’m done here. I suggest you head home and get some rest.”
“I’m going to swing by the station on the way home first though.” Adam said. “Let the police know that I found Ras. No thanks to them.”
“I’m sure they’re doing the best they can.” Anna said dismissively
“The best they can?” Adam bristled. “How did they miss Rastigan, a bright white absol, sitting beside the trail? Their lillipup should have at least been able to follow his scent.”
“I don’t know. What about the rest of the town?” Anna asked. “They missed him too.”
“The rest of the town what?” Adam said, crossing his arms. “The first thing the police did was block off the path to ‘avoid obscuring the trail’. What a load of tauros shit.”
“They blocked the cliffside trail?” Anna said, giving Adam an incredulous look. “Why would they do that?”
“I just told you why. The town is organizing a search tomorrow regardless of what the police say.”
“Then why let the police know about Rastigan at all?”
“I… The other reason I wanted to visit the station is that I saw a large ship in the bay a few kilometers north near where I found Ras." Adam admitted. "I’d like to report it.”
“A ship? That seems like a dangerous place to anchor a big ship in a storm.”
Adam nodded. “I know. Maybe they saw something. Maybe I can contact them. Does ‘Maetherics’ ring a bell to you?”
Anna’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard of it. It’s a private research firm. If you found Rastigan near one of their ships, you need to bring the league a full report of what you saw.”
She frowned and began to pace across the room.
“Now that I think about it, there are too many things that don’t add up. Rastigan was found injured in a storm after a week, the police blocked off the path against search and rescue laws, Rastigan’s data was apparently removed from the League medical database, Rastigan's strange irregular wounds.”
“What are you implying?” Adam asked, but Anna shook her head.
“Rastigan needs to go to a certified League facility with a telepathic pokemon. Something strange is going on with the local branch. I bet Ras knows something about what happened to Wes.”
The pain is Wes’s head built to a crescendo.
Researchers dressed in pristine white coats scurried about a laboratory filled with a myriad of strange equipment. A woman wearing a deep green lab coat embroidered with a golden sunrise design oversaw the operation from the corner of the room. Before the woman lay the white-furred form of an absol who struggled in vain against thick chains which bound the pokemon to a stainless steel examination table. Its red eyes, wide with fear, spun wildly around the room. One of the researchers injected syringe of clear liquid in the absol's shoulder. It's thrashing limbs stilled seconds later. Another worker carried a-
Anna put a hand to her forehead with a wince. “Alright! No league facility!” Anna groaned. “I didn't know absols could project emotions like that.”
“He’s done it before.” Adam said, crouching down in front of Wes. The researcher gazed at the distraught absol with concern. “What’s wrong Ras?”
Wes stared back at his brother, a new determination bubbling up from deep within his chest. He wasn’t just some pokemon waiting to be experimented on. He was Weston Gibbson, Adam’s brother. Nothing about his situation would get fixed if he kept acting all passive like this. If he ever wanted to solve the absurdity of his situation, if he ever wanted his old body back, it would have to start with his own actions. Right here, right now.
Wes took a deep breath and stepped into the center of the room. Lifting his right paw, he began to scratch crude letters into the vinyl flooring while his brother and Anna watched in disbelief.
I AM WES