“Apollo, can I come out yet?” Lindon said through the door to his room.
“No, they’re still here!” Cashe shouted back.
“Please, Mr Cashe, we are not here to cause trouble,” the enormous scientist, who had introduced himself as Dr Arbutus, said, “Master Stroute is free to come out of his room if he wishes.”
“We are only here to debrief you on your situation and take some readings.” The tiny one with silver hair, Dr Elliot, seemed to find the entire situation hilarious. She kept glancing up at the big one, her eyes sparkling in amusement every time Cashe doubted their integrity.
For his part, Cashe had put on some clothes and invited the scientists inside, sitting them at the tiny kitchen table. They had apparently been chasing him down for about three months, so the least he could do was humor them.
“What do you want?” Lindon said, having heard Dr Arbutus’s words and deciding to believe him.
“Well,” Dr Arbutus reached inside his lab coat - both the scientists were wearing lab coats, even in the heat of Alola - and produced a laptop with an array of sensors attached to it, “We would like to get some readings from Mr Cashe to help us determine several things. After that, we will have a better idea on where things stand and we can bring Mr Cashe up to speed.”
He looked at Cashe for permission and Cashe nodded. Lindon walked up next to him as Dr Elliot began attaching little sensory pads to various points on his body, watching the process with curiosity. It reminded Cashe a bit of the strange machine that the new Team was planning on hooking him up to, and he bit his tongue at pointing it out. It was probably rude to tell people that they reminded him of weird terrorists - or whatever a Team counted as.
Dr Elliot placed the final sensor on his temple, pressing it down firmly with her hands, and took a step back.
“There we go,” she said, “All done.”
Dr Arbutus nodded and tapped at his laptop for several moments. He turned the screen towards Dr Elliot. As he did, Cashe caught a glimpse of several shifting graphs, filling with data points as time elapsed.
“What do you think?” Dr Arbutus said, “It looks consistent, right?”
Dr Elliot nodded, “It does.”
“Well, what does that mean?” Cashe said, “Consistent with what?”
“With someone who has interacted with Jirachi’s power,” Dr Arbutus said, “It seems you were brought here by it.”
“I thought you already knew that?” Cashe said. “I knew that. That’s what I was told about ten minutes after I got here!”
“We knew someone or something was brought here by Jirachi’s power,” Dr Elliot said, “And we knew you showed up out of nowhere, in the general area where we detected the power surge, but we had no idea if you were the person or thing that was brought here by Jirachi.”
“What?” Cashe gave them an incredulous look, “Who else would it have been?”
“It did seem very likely,” Dr Arbutus admitted, “But we made a similar assumption in Paldea a few years ago, and it turned into this whole thing.”
“That Iron Treads was not happy,” Dr Elliot nodded in agreement.
“That was you?” Lindon gaped, “That was on the news!”
Dr Arbutus cringed, “Yes. I know. And you can understand why we wanted to be sure with Mr Cashe.”
“So, is that all you know from the data?” Cashe said, glancing between the two scientists, “You were searching for me for months just to find that out?”
“No,” Dr Elliot said, “We should be able to answer a number of questions we have had in addition to your origins.” She pressed a few buttons on the laptop and leaned in closer to the screen. Cashe craned his neck to peek over her shoulder. She had pulled up two other graphs, both of them frozen in place instead of moving like Cashe’s.
“Well?” Dr Arbutus said. Apparently he knew what she was checking.
“Huh,” Dr Elliot said with a little slump of her shoulders, “That’s disappointingly conclusive.”
“Disappointing?” Cashe said.
“Conclusive?” Dr Arbutus said at the same time.
“Yeah, I was hoping it would be less textbook.”
“Dammit, Connie, what does it say?” Dr Arbutus twisted the laptop back around, nearly pressing his face into the screen in order to read it. “Huh.”
“See?”
“Can someone please explain to me what’s going on?” Cashe said, “You both look annoyed. Did something go wrong?”
“No,” Dr Arbutus removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, “It’s just that when you have been chasing something for months on end, you don’t expect the answer to give itself up so easily. It’s kind of like if you were playing a game and the final boss turned out to be no challenge at all. It’s disappointing.”
“But what does it tell you?” Cashe said.
“Well, a couple things,” Dr Elliot turned the screen towards him, “See this?” She pointed at the middle of the three sets of graphs, “As you can see these graphs look substantially different than the two sets on either side of it.”
“So?”
“So one of the questions we had was whether or not a big berry tree was one of Jirachi’s wishes being granted,” Dr Arbutus said.
“You mean that huge one that was in the news?” Cashe frowned, “That was a Jirachi wish?”
“Yes, but the question was regarding another berry tree,” Dr Elliot said, “Our equipment back in Mossdeep picked up some strange readings from that area, and the berry tree was the only thing there when someone went to check it out.”
“It had some odd readings, as you can see,” Dr Arbutus said, nodding at the graphs.
Cashe couldn’t see that, he had no idea what the graphs meant, but he nodded anyway.
“But looking at your readings, and the readings of the berry tree on Akala, it’s pretty obvious that it was not the subject of a Jirachi wish.” Dr Elliot finished.
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“Couldn’t you tell just based on the Akala berry tree?” Cashe said, “Those graphs look pretty different.”
“They are different, but they aren’t so different that we could simply write them off,” Dr Elliot said, “We didn’t know if it meant that subsequent wishes from Jirachi had significantly different readings after the fact, or if it was completely unrelated.”
“It was weird, because two giant berry trees didn’t seem like a coincidence,” Dr Arbutus said, “But at the same time, we didn’t get the chance to see the readings on our good equipment back in Mossdeep, since we were out looking for you. But also the first berry tree is just rather big, while this one is obviously the result of something more.”
“So the answer to our question seems to be ‘no’. The second berry tree was not a wish.” Dr Elliot said.
“So Jirachi has used two wishes?” Cashe confirmed.
“Well, that’s actually something interesting, because if you look at this,” Dr Elliot brought up yet another set of graphs, “In these readings, we see almost identical patterns as we see in the false wish berry tree.”
Cashe frowned. Even Lindon noticed something.
“Those graphs are completely different,” Lindon said.
“Oh, those are for pokemon, not trees,” Dr Elliot waved away his concern, “What we look at are the elevated levels of certain particles in the pokemon and in the berry trees, and in you Mr Cashe.” Dr Elliot grinned and pointed to the two graphs that showed Cashe’s readings and the Akala berry tree, “As you can see, there are significant levels of heightened radiation in you and the berry tree. Similarly,” she pointed to the false wish berry tree and the pokemon graphs, “we see heightened radiation levels - but less so - in the false berry tree and these pokemon.”
Something clicked in Cashe’s head, a cold worm of foreboding, crawling into his heart, “Why do those pokemon have heightened levels?”
“Those pokemon are the ones we believe to have been in close proximity to the berry tree when the wish was granted,” Dr Arbutus said, “They picked up a significant amount of radiation from the wish, but not as much as its subject.”
Cashe sighed and slumped back in his chair. “Dammit.”
“So?” Lindon said, looking nervously at Cashe, “What does that mean?”
“It means that our final question also has an answer,” Dr Elliot said with a relieved smile, “Jirachi has used all three of its wishes. We simply do not have any idea what the second one was at the moment, only that it happened by a tree!”
Cashe felt his heart fall and his stomach churn. He put his hands over his face, trying to calm his thoughts. Across from him, Dr Elliot’s face fell as she realized the implication her words had for Cashe.
“I’m sorry about that, Mr Cashe,” she added belatedly.
Cashe looked up, smothering his emotions, “It’s fine,” he lied. He glanced at Lindon for a moment, but continued, “What about my other options?”
“Other options?” Dr Arbutus said.
“Palkia and Hoopa,” Cashe said, his voice carrying no amusement.
Dr Elliot’s eyes bulged, “How did you-”
“If you try to find Palkia you will be stopped,” Dr Arbutus interrupted, “There was an incident in Sinnoh years ago. The methods for summoning it are closely watched, now that we know what they are.”
“Daryl! You shouldn’t-”
“Hoopa’s trainer has refused to let anyone experiment with its abilities,” Dr Arbutus continued, “But from our records, it is likely that even if you did convince the trainer to help you, your quest would be in vain. Hoopa appears to have limited control over its portals when jumping between dimensions. I’m sorry, Mr Cashe.”
“Hoopa? Palkia? What are you talking about, Apollo?” Lindon said, wide eyed.
“They are pokemon, Lindon,” Cashe said. He stood, peeling the sensors off his body and moving to the door of the bungalow to hold it open for the scientists, “You two must be very busy. I’m sure you have the subject of that second wish to track down. I won’t take up any more of your time.”
“Actually, we-” Dr Elliot started.
“We will contact you through Professor Oak or through your pokedex if we have questions in the future,” Dr Arbutus said, taking Dr Elliot by the arm and gently leading her out of the house by the arm, “Thank you for meeting with us.”
“Daryl! We’re not done, we need to find out how-”
Cashe shut the door on Dr Elliot as she complained. He leaned forward, letting his head fall against the door with a solid thud.
“Apollo?” Lindon said from the kitchen, “Are you alright?”
Cashe took a deep breath, “I think I need to go to the Pokemon Center.”
“Are you sure? You were there for a long time over the last few days.”
“I’m sure.”
***
“And then Grimer ate even more garbage!” Annie said, spreading her arms wide to demonstrate the massive amount of garbage eaten.
“Gross,” Emilia said.
“I know!” Annie laughed in delight, clapping her hands together at the idea of eating garbage.
Emilia was in a park with her sister and niece, enjoying the pleasant Alolan weather. Both Charmeleon and Omanyte were out of their pokeballs, relaxing with the free time they had after the stresses of the True Rookie Tournament.
“I hate those stinking things,” Elise complained as Annie wandered over to Charmeleon and tried to touch the flame of his tail. Charmeleon saw the curious child coming and waved it out of her way, taking cautious steps backways as Annie advanced, “I don’t know how Bruce deals with them on a daily basis.”
“Do you mean poison types in general or Grimer?” Emilia said, sitting down beside her sister on the wooden bench.
“Both,” Elise sighed, “You know he has two Muk and two Weezing! Two! Every time he takes them out of their pokeball it's like the whole house gets fumigated.”
Emilia snorted, “Cashe’s Ivysaur is poison type. It’s not bad at all.”
“Ivysaur is grass type first,” Elise sniffed, “It’s not the same. Real poison types are disgusting. And that’s just for the standard ones! Don’t get me started on all the weird stuff that Marcus has found over the years.”
“I’m sure it’s been horrible,” Emilia said, rolling her eyes, “It must be so hard being married to a handsome, talented, and kind pokemon trainer who retires to let you work while he takes care of the kids and doesn’t care at all that you’re the World Champion or an Oak.”
Elise gave her sister a look, “You’re still hung up on that, huh?”
“You have no idea how bad it was Ellie,” Emilia said with a tired sigh.
“I’m an Oak too,” Elise pointed out.
“You’re the first Oak,” Emilia said, “No one knew what to expect from you. I came after you and Maggie and Selena. And I started trainer school when Selena became champion and I was halfway through school when she became the gym leader of the city I was in.”
“It’s not her fault,” Elise said, patting Emilia on the leg, “She didn’t step down as Champion because it was convenient or easy, and I don’t think she chose Viridian because she liked the city.”
“I know,” Emilia sighed, “It just had knock on effects, you know? Gym leaders have a lot of sway. Suddenly everyone wanted something from me.” She pinched her face in frustration, “I found out I didn’t have any friends. My boyfriend asked me to hook him up with Selena. Even some teachers at the school wanted an introduction.”
Elise made a disgusted face, “I didn’t know that, Emi. I’m sorry.”
“I got over it,” Emilia grumbled, “It was two years ago. I just focused on pokemon. I guess that’s why Cashe was so refreshing.”
“He doesn’t care that you’re an Oak.”
“He doesn’t even understand what it means,” Emilia said, “I don’t think he can understand it. Plus he was like a lost Yamper. It was nice to feel wanted as a person instead of wanted for connections.”
Elise wrapped an arm around her sister, “You know I’m your friend, right?”
Emilia leaned into her shoulder, “I know,” she groaned, “I didn’t mean to say you weren’t my friend.”
“I know,” Elise smiled, “I was just making sure you knew, too.”
Emilia nodded, “I do.”
“Because friends do things for each other. So do sisters.”
Emilia sat up and looked at Elise suspiciously. “What did you do?”
“Nothing much,” Elise said, “I just talked to some people at the True Rookie Tournament.”
“Ellie, what did you do?”
“We agreed since you had your grand prize stolen, it needed to be replaced with something,” Elise continued, “So it’s nothing you didn’t earn.”
“Ellie…”
“We couldn’t replace the Master Ball, of course, even for the World Champion, those are rare,” Elise smiled and reached into her bag, pulling out a series of pokeballs, “But we thought,’ what might you have caught with the Master Ball?’” Elise smiled and placed them one by one in Emilia’s lap, “Don’t get excited. You get to choose one.”
*****