~~~ Ch. 33 - Cues ~~~
Leah and the god-child sat at their bowls eating. The other leavanny had woken up earlier than her again. He hadn't thought of a name for him still, even after having both for weeks. The run must have worn them out, he thought to himself.
"You know that I do realize she's not human, right?" Artemus questioned Aurea. Professor Juniper had run off, leaving him, Aurea, and Emily, Avery's mom, to decide what they were going to do. Emily had light brown hair, preferring not to use not to dye it like Nurse Avery, her daughter. The middle-aged woman was about two to three inches taller than Aurea, but still quite a bit shorter than he was.
"Of course, Artie," Aurea said, watching his pokemon eat. "The issue isn't your perception, whether you think she's human or not. The issue is—" she dragged the word out as Leah looked up at her. "—the issue is that you're the one most exposed to her, and she's learned your cues."
"Uh-huh." He said. "I guess I can see it. She's learned to respond to my body language and vocal cues."
"Exactly, and more, even." Emily said, speaking up. "And it can be more than that. You see her antennae? How they occasionally tapped the air?"
"Yeah. I am quite aware they can pick up scents with their antennae." He said. "It sent her and my other leavanny here to the pokecenter the day you two got back from your research trip."
"No, it's not just that. She's picked up not just your scent, but your shift in scents."
"Oh?" He asked. He knew they'd learn to recognize him by his scent, and he knew that meeting leavanny and other friendly bugs was easier if you already had scents on him. "You can't mean…?"
"Yes. Humans put out a pheromone that shifts as their internal body shifts- they can tell if you're anxious, sad, and stressed." Emily stated.
"She'd be reading my intent by reading my scents?" he said, looking down at Leah as she fed the sewaddle in her lap another berry.
Aurea smiled, turning to Emily. "You know, that sequence of papers on bond I've been reading? There's quite a dearth of information about the benefits of bug-types and bug-type trainers." She turned back to him. "My father never gave you a proper research task when he gave you your pokedex, did he, Burgh?"
Art shook his head. "I thought taking care of the swadloon would be enough."
Her face turned dark. "Yeah, that sounds like something my dad would do. Smile at you, imply you were going to be useful in some way, and then lowball the task."
He just wanted us and the swadloon out of his hair. Whatever. The old man was probably going to retire before long anyway. Once Aurea made her way through the remaining Elite Four.
"So you want to give him an actual research project?" Emily asked. "Like what? Measure his ability to distinguish smells? See if he starts getting an unhealthy addiction to women's conditioners?" She said, glancing at his long hair.
Burgh had a good use for the stuff, though he hadn't used it yet. He smiled at the thought of what the bugs would do the first time he did. He had to use it at least once, just to see what they would do.
"Yeah, I mean, bug-bonds are well-known, in that people DO bond. But the exact specifics are under-studied. If the bugs have a sub-typing, the trainers still demonstrate some benefits of the subtype, even if the pokemon have three or more types... And, I disagree with my dad. Everyone who goes through Nuvema should get a research assignment." Aurea said.
"... But," Emily added. "You can't make any of those responsibilities official without your father's approval."
"Which you won't get, at least until I have my second badge, at least." Artemus added.
"Wait what?" Aurea asked, her face turning flush.
"The man made it crystal clear. He doesn't want his name on my public record until I get my second badge, at least."
Aurea closed her eyes, putting her hands to her temples, rubbing them in circular motions.
Emily chuckled, speaking up, "that stops us from even beginning to put out any research or collecting data for publishing. Even related to Giratina's kid we've got here, nothing can go official without Cedric's endorsement. Stubborn old man."
Artemus bent down to pick up the bowls. The bugs had all finished eating, Leah inspecting the swing she'd been sewing, the one that sat on the branch of the gym's nearest indoor tree. Deciding it was worth it to continue her efforts on the swing as the three humans conversed.
They hadn't even entertained trying to get the old man to change his mind, he thought.
And yeah, that tracked from his experience with the smiling demon. He exited, taking the bowls back to the little cafeteria. Aurea groaned, kicking the dirt of the gym floor before the door closed. They'd learned a lot of things the night before, and he'd managed to surprise the professor. Not quite as much as the Latias' Pressure had surprised the old man.
Leah had been moving dramatically slower the last couple days, and Artie had his own suspicions of that. Learning there was a new variant, like the latias? That was rare, but not unheard of. It wouldn't be world-changing.
He entered the door to the cafeteria, the place well-dusted and cleaned by the old janitor who kept the place clean for Alder and the city. Putting the bowls in the sink, he gave them a good rinse with soap, washing them. It would be a while before they returned, he'd make sure to clean up his own mess.
Learning that Giratina had a child, so soon after those archaeology teams managed to get the first real scans of the Creation Trio, after they'd uploaded said scans to the international pokedex databases? And that the kid was found, thousands of miles away, in the care of a leavanny and trainer who had no badges? He smiled, laughing to himself. Then, the image of Leah backing away from him and Kate popped in.
Don't laugh like that in front of her again, you've only had her for a few weeks, she's not acclimated to humans yet. Don't want another pokecenter-style incident again.
A single professor, regardless of how well-known he was, in his late sixties, literally delaying the progression of science and the understanding of pokemon. The pokecenter had assigned the god-child to him. Which was… strange, now that he thought about it. From the cafeteria, he pulled out his pokedex, and opened up the license page, double-checking the language about pokemon ownership.
"This license hereby given to the signed, certifies the trainer to keep two pokemon for use within the league, increasing by one with each earned gym badge, until the seventh badge is earned, at which point, this limit is removed."
Below that, he read:
"The league maximum of six pokemon for the purposes of battling remains. Though trainer pokemon may be used for commercial purposes, refer to your local township or city's rules for pokemon owned exclusively for non-league reasons."
There was nothing about pokemon being kept for use outside of the league. It made a kind of sense, but there were limits even on public non-trainer ownership of pokemon. He put the pokedex away, putting the bowls back in their proper drawers and cupboards.
He'd have to ask, later. Regardless of whether he or the pokecenter were technically breaking the law or not, no one challenged his ownership of the god-child. Not that he would have had many complaints giving the kid up. That is, if it wasn't for the clear relationship Leah had with the baby. Re-entering the atrium, he'd already lost the question he was going to ask. Both Emily and Aurea had taken to watching Leah from a distance as she worked on the swing she'd been working on for the last week.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
You already know she has impeccable forethought and planning. At least, when it comes to something she actually focuses on, he thought to himself, picking up his pack off its resting point on the hook in the wall. He looked around.
"Sooo," he said, catching his elders' attentions. "We can't actually perform the studies on pokemon without your father's endorsement of the research? Which he won't give until I have two badges under my belt?"
"Pretty much," Aurea said, frowning.
Biking to the nearest city would take him a full day, and he didn't expect Aurea to teleport him around everywhere. The first gym challenge would be a breeze; he was confident both of his leavanny could execute the first-tier of mastery challenges. Then, he could head east, to Nuvema then Striaton, and have two badges. At least by physical distance, assuming no black-and-pink latias or random portals from the god-child opened up to ferry his pokemon away, it would take that much time.
Perhaps she's friends with Hoopa too?
He pulled out his pokeball, "Leavanny!" he called. Leah paused, then immediately turned back to her work, as her nest-member returned to him, and was sucked into the pokeball. While Alder was kind enough to consider him a member of the gym, and he received a small stipend as a low-tier member, they couldn't stay in the city for long.
He looked up in the skylights. The sky was still dark. It had only been a few weeks, but his sleep schedule had already begun to adjust to the bugs' insane nightly "sleep".
If Leah wasn't under the weather, how much trouble would she have gotten in? Artemus pulled the medication the nurse had given him from the bag, walking up to his best friend. It was to be applied every eight hours, to both pokemon. The nurse didn't specify exactly what it was supposed to do. It wasn't your standard hyper/super potion, though, and he hadn't looked up its purpose just yet, but the effects of the last night were obvious.
He gave Leah and the mini-tina— heh, he thought. I'm gonna call you Minitina— he gave them both a good spray, making sure to get Leah's extremities, per instructions.
"We were talking while you were out," Aurea said, approaching him, "and we can study the swadloon and the leavanny. They're technically from the same nest, so should have similar cognitive profiles as Leah does."
He sighed. Only Leah demonstrated a proficiency with picking locks. Only Leah had demonstrated any real long-term planning, though her reasoning was sound. "Even if I can't collect data from Leah or your little Giratina—"
"Minitina," he said, interrupting her. "I've named them Minitina."
"Aaalll right. Well, even if neither I nor Emily are allowed to collect data on Leah or Minitina here without my father's signature, you can still take notes. When we get my dad's approval, we will set up a controlled environment, and study the pair when we can, but we can send you a couple tests and you can record them."
Leah had backed away, as she tended to do when people were standing over her. He could work with a plan like that.
"Even if I am suggesting this to you, don't think we'll be able to use it in a study, we really won't be able to. But if you think you can break some kind of language barrier with her over the next, what? two? three? weeks," she stated, smiling, "that means we'll be able to start that much further ahead. As for Minitina, the scans the pokecenter uploaded to your dex, hopefully mini's going to be fully healed by then."
The scans the archaeologists had gotten of the third member of the trio hadn't been enough to build a full image of the creature, and they had only had enough time to register the creature's existence in the international dex databases. To study the kid would prove invaluable to understanding the gods themselves. But for some reason, despite having a deity in his own leavanny's care, he just couldn't stop thinking about Leah.
Physically, the girl would probably be able to bench as much as he could, run twice as far without a rest, even for being three feet tall. But that presentation of her power just wasn't present in her demeanor. A barely-trained bug pokemon giving an elite-four-tier ampharos trouble. Looking down at Leah, he could practically taste his own anticipation in the air.
Just how far will we go, little one?
He looked back down at Aurea, several feet away. Despite her own physical strength, after the Ampharos incident, and her father's stumbling under the new Latias variant's Pressure, the regional enigmas had lost a lot of their own presence, even if it had only been a couple days since he'd met her.
"Sounds like a plan to me," he said. "But," he began, turning to Emily, then back to Aurea. "Forgive me if this sounds harsh, Juniper." Aurea Juniper grimaced. His own stomach sank, but he continued. "Let's say I get these two badges. What's the chance your father actually changes his mind, or gives me the swadloon or the other leavanny?"
Aurea turned to Emily, deferring to her father's aide, who spoke up. "If Alder was around to help you train them or care for them? He probably wouldn't have any issues. But, having worked with Cedric since graduating college… And without Alder around, your chances of him softening up after two badges were significantly better before last night's incident."
Artemus shook his head. "So it probably will be more than two badges, even with Minitina here."
"Yeah, probably." Aurea spoke up. "And well, to explain a bit— my dad and I, we don't really care about new species discoveries too much." She said, her face turning a bit sheepish.
Yeah, for a person the public considers to be the next region champion, she's definitely not made of steel. Maybe her dad is stubborn as steel.
Aurea continued, "of course, we'll do a basic biology run-down of Minitina, but we aren't really worried about the so-called gods? We're studying pokemon behavior. New pokemon were always Oaks or Elm's things." Oak was in his late eighties, though yet to retire from the professorship, if Minitina had Pressure, the weight of the force would probably straight up kill the guy. It wasn't like Artie would be getting a passport any time soon, regardless.
But even with those thoughts in mind, he'd already agreed with them. He could still go to a university, go public with the information right away with a stop at Opelucid or even Castelia's own local research facilities.
There would still be no rush. Unless Giratina themselves was after getting the kid back. It was hard to imagine that the god-child, who could rip open planar portals, wasn't just allowed to run free, able to return home to their parent any time they wanted.
Logically-speaking, the prioritization of group and mass pokemon behavioral study, in a way, did make more sense— during the Coronet event, not a single legendary was reported to have attacked a city or a trainer. Thundurus, Landurus, Kyogre, Groudon, Reshiram or Zekrom, none of them or others showed up. No, the ghosts had just shown up in overwhelming numbers, as distortion rolled through the world.
Finding a new pokemon was commonplace. Finding one that was effectively a god? Significantly less so. Finding a manaphy or latios or latias egg was rare, and would absolutely make the news, but it wasn't world-breaking. Having the confirmed child of a god? It would still change things. But that was less because of a paradigm shift, than potentially setting off an arms race to see if there were kids of Dialga or Palkia running around, or bad actors vying for power. It would do well to keep a relatively low profile with the ghost-god's child, at any rate.
"In that case, this is my plan," he said. "I'm going to head east, and hit all the gym badges I can over the next couple months. In the meantime, I'm going to keep Minitina." he looked at Leah, then back to Aurea and Emily, who were themselves ready to go. He called Leah to him, picking his bug up, exiting the Castelia city gym, locking everything up as they left.
He sent a text to Kate, telling her not to come back to the gym later. Pulling his bike out of its collapsed container-form, setting Leah in the basket. Saying short goodbyes to Aurea and Emily, he and Leah went to the northeast, to the central roundabout everyone passed through on their way into the city, where he received a buzz on his phone.
Where are you goin? Kate had texted him.
He responded. Headin' east for first badges.
Good luck! I'll head there next too.
Thanking her for the help at the gym the last couple days, Artemus put his phone away, continuing his and Leah's bike ride through the city, through the burgeoning populace biking and walking into their places of work. Following the signs, fighting the morning traffic of people migrating from their apartments and homes into the early morning city, Leah and Minitina both sitting patiently in their basket, Leah content to observe the greater layout of the city, clutching Minitina when he occasionally wobbled from his inexperience of riding. Aurea or Emily would send him some simple memory and language tests to use on Leah that night.
Hours later, Artemus pulled out of the city, sun well over the eastern horizon and risen high in the clear sky, shining right into the teen's face, but his bangs did well to keep the worst of the sun out. Bikers passed him, giving courteous waves, bird types fluttered about in circles above, catching updrafts of heat from the massive steel and concrete bridge. Approaching the SkyArrow, the largest suspended steel bridge in the region, he was struck with awe as it stretched for literal miles.
Leah's head followed birds flying low, ferrying passengers over the expanse of bridge and ocean. Artie looked back at the path he'd come, just following the signs from Castelia to the SkyArrow. One of the region's key marvels of engineering, forethought, and planning sat before them. More than fifty miles of bridge, long enough that there was a mall and restaurant in the middle for weary travelers, sat in front of them.
He reached his arms forward, pulling Leah, eliciting a slight squeak from her as she was lifted out of her basket. He hugged the bug, then set her back, taking a breath as she readjusted her leaf-dress.
They set forward, the beginning of their first real adventure together.