Wake 1.4

2010, September 4: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

That night, I was happy to find that SAINT had finished learning Protect. Along with Tackle, Conversion, and Sharpen, that gave him four moves to rely on. But just because I could theoretically learn new moves didn't mean I could learn all of them. Of SAINT's current arsenal, I could learn Protect and Tackle, not that there was much point in learning the latter.

Sharpen required an incredibly rugged body, like that of a porygon, onix, or cryogonal.

Conversion required a body that could adapt to different energy types at will by literally rewriting its own code, or DNA for organics like me. There was a reason that the only similar examples were found among ditto and the staryu line.

"Hey, buddy, thanks for all your hard work," I said softly. SAINT responded with a quiet trilling noise. "Come on out. I've got a treat for you."

After dinner, I'd raided the kitchen pantry for different snacks. Porygon were creatures made up of data, but they were also creatures of physical matter and aura. This left them in the curious position where they could survive without food, subsisting entirely off junk data packets in cyberspace, but could also consume regular food if they so desired. SAINT appeared through the screen with a ripple and I set an array of chocolate chip cookies, potato chips, nuts, and dried fruits on a plate before him.

"Go on," I encouraged. "This is what humans eat as a snack. Try each of them and tell me what you like."

"Poreee," he trilled. He nudged my hand and I found myself scratching his blocky head. I wasn't sure if and how he could derive pleasure from headpats; he wasn't a dog after all, but if he liked it, then I'd happily oblige.

One by one, he took the samples into his mouth, a hole that appeared from his blue beak and seemingly led nowhere. He spat out the dried cherries, but seemed to enjoy the caramel-crusted almonds most. He even did this weird duck-waddle butt-wiggle thing.

"You like crunchy things?" I asked. "Or do you just not like the sour fruits?" I couldn't decipher the noises he made, but the pulses I received through our bond left me with the impression that he enjoyed crunchy, sweet things with a savory aftertaste. "Alright, buddy, I'll get you more of these." I made sure to take a picture of the brand that sold the almonds so I could purchase more. "Hey, SAINT, how do you feel about showing me your moves?"

"Reee," he nodded. He couldn't show me Tackle without breaking something, but he did show me Protect.

His body glowed with a dim, white light before a green dome of energy spread outward. He held it in place, a perfect sphere surrounding a floating cyber duck.

"That's awesome, SAINT," I praised him. "Do you mind if I hit it?" He nodded in assent so I started to tap away with increasing force. Eventually, I punched the barrier hard enough to bruise my own hand. "Fuck," I muttered as I sucked on my tender knuckles.

"Pory?" He made a sound I'd never heard him make before. The barrier came down and he floated over to examine my hand.

"Are you worried, little guy?" I fed him another almond. "Don't worry; your Protect was just really strong. Can you do that again?"

"Gon," he replied, a stern warning to not punch the barrier again. For someone who could only make vague crooning noises, he was surprisingly expressive.

This time, when his Protect went up, I brought out the screwdriver I'd been using to tinker with from grandpa's toolbox. I held it against the green sphere with one hand and got a mallet with the other. The idea was to put as much force as I could into a single point, but even that had no effect. I hammered away at it, but all I heard was a dull tinkling noise, like breaking glass muffled through a wall of cotton.

"Awesome," I said, wiping the sweat from my brow. "You're really strong, SAINT. I don't think there's anything a normal person can do to your Protect." The porygon preened with a happy trill before setting into my lap. "I guess this makes sense," I mused. "Even weaker pokémon consistently output multiple tons of force after all. It'd be weird if I could scratch your Protect in the first place. I'm glad I didn't have you try to Tackle me. Can you show me Sharpen?"

He floated or a brief moment before a reflective sheen seemed to coat his blocky body. As the shine faded, he seemed to briefly change into a wall of pixels before fleshing out again. This time, his beak tapered to a wicked edge, as did his little feet.

I gingerly held out a sheet of paper and ran it along his beak, only to find that it came away in pieces. Bolder, I tried to cut everything from cardboard to an old t-shirt using his face. Sharpen made his edges as fine as a knife's, though that still left plenty of things he couldn't readily cut.

Test finished, he popped back into his safer form and hopped into my lap.

I laughed and picked up my guitar again. At approximately eighty pounds, he was heavy, but no more than a chubby child. A part of me wished I remembered songs from my past life, but I wasn't big into music back then. Still, Earth-Aleph had many of the same music so I looked up the Guns N' Roses. SAINT spent the rest of the evening huddled in my lap as I strummed to "Sweet Child of Mine." I wasn't much of a singer, but he seemed to enjoy it anyway.

Before I went to bed, I put him back into the TM Scanner and hooked up the Downloader and Interface. After adjusting the settings for human use, I locked my door and put on the headphones.

"SAINT," I spoke into the mic, "I'm going to have you monitor the download process. I want to learn Protect tonight so while I'm asleep, can you upload the data you have of the move to the Interface? It should do the rest."

I felt nervous. If this worked, I'd be able to use a move. Hell, it meant more than that.

I was learning to use aura.

I would have effectively given myself powers, something only the best of trumps could manage in this world. This set of tech alone would make me one of the most wanted men in the world. I took a deep breath and lied down on the bed.

"Good night, SAINT. Begin the download."

X

2010, September 5: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

I woke up to a throbbing headache. Most people described hangovers like a "nail through the skull," but this was nothing so pointed. Instead, there was a pervading ache, like a long-term injury that just wouldn't go away. I groaned in misery and checked the TM Interface. Green, so the upload was complete. I set my headphones on top of the desk and stumbled into the bathroom.

I normally liked to take my showers at night but opted for one this morning. The hot water did wonders to dispel the lingering headache and gave me some much needed clarity. Protect, the single most essential move in competitive battling, was now firmly embedded in my brain.

Hopefully, I'd need to spam it a bit less than they did in VGC.

Now that I had a chance to turn my focus inward, I realized that my TM Downloader did a bit more than simply download the procedures needed to perform a move. It was a machine that tailored a pokémon's technique for use by a human. To accomplish this, the human body itself needed to be changed, not on a physical level, but on a metaphysical one, hence the pervading headache.

I grit my teeth and drew from the flickering light I felt inside.

"Protect," I called, my voice drowned out in the hot water.

A barrier made of emerald motes of light, much like SAINT's own, materialized around my body. Unlike his, it was practically translucent and flickered as though it would vanish at any moment. After about ten seconds of trying to hold it, the aura I felt escaped my grasp and the shield faded to nothing.

"Tch, guess I'm going to need to practice that."

I got out of the tub and toweled off before returning to my room.

"Morning, SAINT," I greeted. Sometime during my shower, he'd crawled out of the monitor to explore my room. He opened my desk drawer somehow and was currently upside down, head stuck with his fat, blue feet waddling in the air. I picked him up and placed him on the bed. "Didn't I tell you not to be spotted by mom or Sierra?"

"Gon!" he said, and I could hear a mix of indignation and mischief.

"You won't be spotted? The door was closed?" He nodded enthusiastically. "Well what if Sierra barged in? Besides, that's not where I keep the crusted almonds."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He drooped in disappointment. "Poreee…"

"You know, for an overgrown block of Legos, you're dangerously cute," I mock-chided. "Fine, fine. I'll go buy some more for you tonight, but only if you learn Recover by the end of the day, Deal?" He nodded frantically and I realized that what I was doing was the equivalent of bribing a child into doing his chores with cookies. Still, alongside Protect, Recover would go a long way to keeping me alive.

Our deal struck, he dove back into his monitor. Earth-Bet was filled with regenerating brutes and there were countless videos of Panacea working her magic. He wouldn't be lacking any examples on that front. Reasonably sure that he wouldn't be leaving cyberspace for at least today, I went downstairs to join my family for breakfast.

'I wonder if I should tell Sierra about my powers?' I mused. 'She was a splendid lieutenant for Skitter in canon and as far as unpowered help goes, I'm not sure I can get someone more loyal than my own sister. But if I tell her, she'll want me to join the Wards, or at least moderate my tinkering.'

Sierra was a deeply morally-conscious person who cared for others even to her own detriment. I'd grown to truly love and cherish my big sister in this life, but I had no delusions about her. The same moral compass that pushed her to support Skitter and rebuild the Boardwalk following Leviathan would push her to force me into the Wards. Hell, she was a woman who looked at a city post-endbringer and said, "You know what? I'm going to start an orphanage."

That beautiful, compassionate heart was exactly why I loved her, and also why I feared involving her. At the very least, she would try to moderate my tinkering and force me to become a hero.

'But is that such a bad thing? Doesn't a power like mine need a strong moral compass?'

An uncomfortable pit settled in my stomach as I realized I had no answer. I wasn't evil, but I was broadly selfish. I didn't mind helping those around me, but I knew I wouldn't go out of my way to perform great acts of heroics if left to my own devices. The age-old adage came to mind: With great power comes great responsibility.

Except… That wasn't necessarily true. I amended the quote. 'With great power comes great possibilities.'

Frankly, I didn't know what kind of cape I wanted to be, only that the Wards would stifle my potential and something in me railed at the mere thought of my freedom being restricted so. But even discounting the Wards, I had a breadth of options I wasn't ready to explore. Beyond ensuring my family's safety, I was all about fun.

I supposed I wasn't entirely free from the hedonism of the original Bryce Kiley. I only hoped I'd be less of a reckless fuckwit doing it.

'Power first, options later,' I decided in the time-honored tradition of all teenagers: procrastination.

"Hey, mom," I was drawn out of my ponderings by my sister, "can my friends drop in sometime this week?"

"Of course," mom replied. "Kayla, right? I haven't seen her since you both graduated."

"Oh… Kayla and I don't really talk anymore," Sierra said awkwardly.

"What? Why? She was such a sweet girl."

"She's that Filipino girl, right?" I asked. I vaguely remembered the short, Asian girl with a wide smile and dazzlingly white teeth. "She was pretty cool."

"Yeah, I guess we just kind of drifted apart. I majored in engineering and she went into history so we just never found time to hang out."

"So who's coming then?"

"Some girls from my major. You haven't met them."

I nodded. "Alright, cool. Do you need me to leave the house for a few hours?"

Sierra and I had an understanding. It started when she first brought home some of her friends in high school. She'd give me twenty bucks to go wander the Boardwalk or Hillside, giving her the house to hang out. My own lack of friends meant I never reversed the same privilege.

"Nah, it's cool. Just don't be too loud," she said. "We have a group lab and their housemates are a bit… party-hardy."

I snorted. "Party-hardy? You're so lame."

"I'm amazing," she sniffed. "I at least have friends."

"Sierra!" mom chided.

"So amazing," I drawled, "friends you're bringing to do lab work… Much jealous."

"Whatever, Bryce. Just wait 'til you get to college and see how you deal."

'Been there, done that,' I thought wryly. "Sure, I'll make sure to stay out of your way," I said instead.

Breakfast ended, mom went to church, and Sierra holed herself up in her room with a textbook. I did the dishes then went up to my room.

I locked the door and tossed what few tinkering materials I had onto the floor. The last of the two headphones I bought from Keys & Notes, my old Zune mp3 player, my collapsible phone with a keyboard, and my mic that I wasn't getting much mileage out of. It wasn't much to build with; if I had a different specialization like Mass Effect, I could probably build an omnitool and some programs. I was once again reminded that I would need more materials soon.

"SAINT, please set an alarm for four hours," I spoke. I initially bought the mic with the thought that I would need it to communicate with SAINT while he was in my computer, but it turned out that the mic built into my PC was sufficient. Its shitty quality aside, it could still pick up my voice so long as I spoke at a reasonable volume.

I set grandpa's toolbox, a set of dentist's tweezers from dad's supply, and other tools I'd nicked around the house on the floor and got to tinkering.

A tinker fugue was an interesting thing to experience.

On one hand, I knew exactly what I was doing; every step seemed so natural in this state, as though there was someone reading off a recipe in my mind.

On the other hand, if I tried to focus on the explanation for each step, why such piece had to be attached in such manner, I came up blank. The instruction manual in my mind evaporated into smoke. As I delved deeper into the fugue, I could feel my consciousness drifting away, replaced by my Shard with a subtlety that I wouldn't have noticed had I not been explicitly aware of Shards in the first place.

I was brought out of my fugue by the beeping of my computer alarm. In front of me was my very own pokémon navigator, or PokéNav for short.

Rather than the burnt orange color scheme from Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, it was a faded, military green like my old phone. In fact, it looked largely indistinguishable from my old collapsible phone on the surface. Appearances could be misleading though and I was honestly proud of my gear. My old phone had a physical keyboard that could snap out from one side for texting, giving it a thicker profile than the iPhones and Galaxies I used in my old life. The thicker profile worked out for me; I'd torn out the keyboard and completely replaced the phone's entrails with bits of machinery that I couldn't even name.

It was a phone, yes, but now it also doubled as a 3D map and navigator independent of any GPS on the planet. While it lacked any advanced tracking functions, it provided me with a bird's eye view of the city's layout and my position on it in real time. It could also access police and emergency medical dispatch frequencies, though I was unable to tap into those unique to the PRT and Protectorate.

All that aside, I was proudest of the way I'd imported the Pokémon Condition function from the games. I took inspiration from Alola's rotom-dex. In Hoenn, the Pokémon Condition was an app built into the PokéNav which allowed the main character to look over his team's condition in preparation for contests. I gutted the whole thing and coded in a giant, duck-shaped void in its place. Seeing how I wasn't likely to have any more pokémon, the entire app was essentially a mobile home for SAINT to reside.

This way, he could accompany me and interface with the PokéNav directly to provide me with real time intelligence. If things really went sideways, SAINT could also step out of the PokéNav to help kick some ass.

Daily tinkering complete, I slid in the accompanying in-ear headphones and went for a jog.

X

That night, in the privacy of my room, I looked over SAINT's movepool. "Tackle, Conversion, Sharpen, Protect, and Recover… Great job, SAINT," I praised. "As promised, here are your nuts, bud."

We spent two hours just lounging about, SAINT munching on his snack while I fiddled around with the DAW. I then decided to practice with Protect for a bit. "SAINT, I'm going to use Protect. I need you to Tackle it so I can see how sturdy the barrier is."

"Porr," he trilled his disagreement and concern through the bond.

"I'd rather find out my limits here with you where it's safe," I pointed out. SAINT reluctantly stepped to the corner of the room and braced against the carpet. "Okay, here goes. Protect," I said, making sure to curb my impulse to shout the name of the move. I didn't need Sierra calling me a weeb again.

The sphere of emerald light surrounded me. I beckoned to SAINT. A moment later, his pastel colored head crashed into my Protect with the muted sound of glass breaking. It held, but I could feel a metaphysical strain on my mind.

"Reee?"

"It's fine. Again."

SAINT reluctantly wound himself back for another Tackle. "Pory-Gon!"

This time, the shield shattered like glass, though it did keep SAINT from reaching me. The backlash was enough to toss me on my ass with the beginnings of a migraine. "Okay, now I know why Protect isn't used constantly in the anime. Note to self: breaking backlash hurts."

"Reee," my loyal porygon crooned with concern.

"It's fine," I said. I held him in my arms to reassure the little guy that I was okay. "I need this. I need to get stronger or I'm going to get hurt out there. You're really helping out. I know it looks like I'm getting hurt, but sometimes, a little bit of sacrifice is a good thing if it means you can reach farther in the long term."

I don't think he understood everything, but he nodded with conviction anyway. Maybe I wasn't training the move right; it's not as though I had a full training manual used by Lance or Cynthia or anything, but I could feel my bond with SAINT growing along with my proficiency with the move and for that, I was content.

We practiced several more times until I could withstand a full three Tackles. Hopefully, that would give me enough time to either strike back or run.

Who was I kidding? I wasn't ready, not by a long shot.

But, I would be. Eventually.

Author's Note

Remember that SAINT is not a standard AI. He's also at least partially a creature of aura, as are all living things in pokémon. This makes him both better and worse than Dragon, JARVIS, Skynet, Cortana, etc. The major advantage SAINT has is obviously a tangible body that can interact with both the physical and digital worlds. This body can scale to some ludicrous feats of strength if properly trained. His adaptability and affinity for mystical or supernatural energies that can't readily be explained by science, like psionics, is much greater than that of a normal AI's.

That said, SAINT does not share the same intelligence as a human. He perceives the world differently, unlike Dragon, JARVIS, or Cortana, who have largely shown human feelings and responses. He is also incapable of forking himself and it's explicitly stated that a porygon cannot be directly copied in canon. This means that he's incapable of "going Skynet." I'm using this as an excuse for why he can't learn every move Bryce has stored up in his archives simultaneously. His ability to process information is greatly limited compared to Dragon. It may change when he becomes a porygon-2, but for now, SAINT can only do one thing at a time at maximum efficiency.

Porygon can eat normal food according to Bulbapedia. As for whether pokémon can eat human food or not, Ash's pikachu's addiction to ketchup is a long-running gag in the series. Aside from extraordinary diets like the grimer line consuming sewage to grow, humans can eat pokémon food and pokémon can eat human food.

VGC, or the Video Game Championships, is the official competitive format run by Nintendo. It is ironically the less popular format compared to the one run by fans, Smogon.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.