Isaac took charge of the project without any delay.

“I like your apricorn idea, Charity,” he said cheerfully, smiling over at his daughter. “We can start there and switch to a different material if it does not work. I’ll go over to the Kurt farm now to see if I can acquire some materials.”

Charity insisted on joining him, so soon only Florence, Michael, and I were left in the house. Florence looked like she wanted to drag me off somewhere so she could give me a piece of her mind, but Michael spoke up first.

“Trainer Monroe,” he said in a thoughtful tone, “I believe I owe you an apology.”

“… Huh?” I didn’t know what I had expected him to say, but it certainly wasn’t that.

“I have treated you unfairly over the past few days,” he said quietly, looking me straight in the eyes. “That seemed justified at the time, given your unusual circumstances, but now I see there was good reason for your behavior. You were forced to come here against your will, and you are not familiar with Johto or its culture. You are also still a child. So I apologize for treating you harshly instead of providing help when you needed it.”

I squirmed a bit in my seat, feeling uncomfortable. I was glad that Michael was no longer glaring at me suspiciously, but I also felt weirdly guilty. I wasn’t unfamiliar with Johto; I was just unfamiliar with this Johto. “It’s okay,” I mumbled. “I understand now why you had to be careful.”

“Careful need not mean discourteous.” His mouth turned up in a half-smile. “Still, I must admit that you are quite… unusual, with your odd manner of dress and speaking.”

I snorted. “From my point of view, it’s you all who dress and talk strangely.” I had to resist the urge to blurt out that they all looked like they were in costumes for a historical festival.

“That is fair.” Michael’s smile broadened. “I hope that when we meet again, I can call on you and Drowzee as allies, and that you will do the same for Hoothoot and myself.” He held out his hand, and I didn’t think twice; I reached out and shook it. Hoothoot let out a sleepy hoot from her place on Michael’s lap, and Drowzee gave a quiet bray in response from next to me.

Then I fully parsed what Michael had said. “Wait, when we meet again? Are you going somewhere?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course. I have spent more time than I can afford in discussion with Isaac about the majū of this area. It is past time that I went back to Enrui.” He then turned to Florence. “We will leave this evening, once my partner is fully awake. Isaac gave us permission to use his supplies, so you should eat before we leave.”

Florence looked stunned at the implication, and I was as well. Both Michael and Florence were leaving? Okay, I didn’t know either of them all that well – I’d only been here for a few days – but Florence was the only person who knew about my whole being-from-the-future situation. Who could I talk to if she left?

Michael turned back to look at me, and behind him Florence caught my eyes and shook her head rapidly. She clearly didn’t want to go, and I could guess why; she thought she had a much better chance at finding a partner Pokemon here than back in her village.

“Florence can’t leave,” I said quickly before I had a chance to think too much. “She needs to stay here to help Isaac and me make a poke ball prototype.”

Michael frowned. “Why?” He turned back to look at Florence. “You have no experience with this kind of device.”

“No,” I said quickly, “but she does have experience with majū. She knows much more about the majū in this area than I do, she’ll be really helpful when we start testing the poke balls.” Florence nodded eagerly in agreement.

Michael turned to look at me again, eyebrows raised high. “Florence has much experience? Much experience with getting in trouble with majū, perhaps. Isaac has plenty of experience with majū already, you should be fine.”

“… Florence’s experience is more practical?” I volunteered weakly.

Michael gave me a look, then turned back to Florence again. “Let me guess,” he said in a dry tone. “You want to help Trainer Monroe develop poke balls because you think it will help you capture your own partner, correct?”

I thought that Florence would immediately deny it and come up with a better reason than my own flimsy ones. I was wrong. “That is true,” she told Michael, “I do want to help so I can find my own partner. However, I do not plan to merely capture a majū in a ball and call it mine.” She gestured at Drowzee’s poke ball, which was still sitting on the table, with a derogatory sniff. “I only seek the opportunity to travel further, search more broadly. I am happy to help support this project if it gives me that chance.”

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(I grumbled in the background. What was so bad about catching a Pokemon using a poke ball, anyway? There was nothing wrong with my connection to Drowzee… right?)

Michael let out a long-suffering sigh. “Florence. Your tenacity and confidence are to be admired, but your common sense is lacking. Majū are dangerous. You have seen this for yourself dozens of times, every time you have chased after them in the plains or forests around Enrui, every time Trainer Richard or I rescued you and dragged you back home.”

“I know they are dangerous,” she replied fiercely. “I do not care. I need this, Trainer Michael.”

“Why?” he questioned, sounding exasperated. “Why do you seek this with such persistence?”

Florence looked down for a moment to where her hands were clenched in her lap. Then she looked back up, and her face was calm. “I want to grow stronger so I can protect those in need. By myself, there is little I can do. With a partner majū, I could make a difference. We could travel around Johto, seeking challenges and those in need, and make the world a better place."

I blinked multiple times. That was why Florence wanted a majū? I hadn’t realized her reasons were so, well, noble. It didn’t seem all that different from why many trainers decided to stay on their journeys for multiple years, at least based on what I’d heard in trainer interviews back in my own time.

Michael looked at Florence silently for a few moments; then he looked down to the Hoothoot on his lap. At some point during the conversation she had woken up, and she was staring at Florence without blinking. “Well, what do you think?” Michael asked her.

“Hoo, t’hoo oo.” She clicked her beak in a decisive way at the end.

“I agree.” Michael shook his head, then looked back at Florence. “You do realize your mother will not be happy about this, and she will take it out on me?”

Florence stared. “Wait.” She gulped visibly. “You mean I can stay?”

Michael groaned and stood up, carefully transferring Hoothoot to sit on his shoulder. “Yes, against my better judgement, you may stay. Assuming Isaac consents,” he added quickly as Florence’s face split open into a grin, “and you must make yourself useful and not cause trouble. You cannot go wandering off by yourself anymore, not when Trainer Richard and I are not here to help.”

“I will be useful!” she promised right away, catching my gaze across the table. I grinned widely back. It looked like I didn’t have to figure out all this time travel stuff on my own after all.

~

An hour later, as the sun was just starting to set, Florence, Drowzee, and I watched Michael and his Hoothoot enter Ilex Forest. I waved eagerly until they disappeared between the trees.

“Are you sure they’ll be okay?” I asked, squinting to try to see between the trees. “It gets dark pretty quickly in there. Though I guess Hoothoot is more comfortable in the dark, isn’t she?”

“Trainer Michael is more comfortable at night as well,” Florence said absently. “He and Hoothoot usually patrol in the evening, when certain wild majū are more active; the past few days have likely been difficult for him.” She turned and gestured to indicate that we should start walking back towards the Kurt farm, where we planned to meet with Isaac and Charity. “I am surprised by you, Trainer Monroe.”

I sighed. “Okay, what did I do this time?”

“Agreeing to this whole project, to help Mr. Isaac make poke balls.” She tilted her head to the side. “Should that not cause one of the time complications you mentioned before?”

I winced; she wasn’t wrong. “Maybe,” I admitted, “but I think it will be okay if I’m careful. Anyway, Isaac was going to try to make one as soon as he saw Drowzee’s ball. I’m just giving him a bit of an extra push.”

“If you say so,” Florence said, sounding skeptical. “I will not complain, for what I told Trainer Michael was true; assisting in this project will help me achieve my own dream. But how will making poke balls help you find a way home?”

“It might help more than you think.” I glanced around to make sure no one was nearby, then pulled the strange gold and silver ball out of my pocket. “I showed you this earlier – it’s the ball that Drowzee sniffed. It’s connected to Celebi, I think. Actually…” I turned to Drowzee, who was ambling alongside me, and showed him the strange ball. “You were smelling this before. Is it connected to Celebi?”

Drowzee waved his trunk up and down. “Zee!”

“… is Celebi inside this ball?”

Another trunk nod. “Zee, zee!”

I stared at the strange ball in excitement (and more than a little fear). I had suspected as much, but having it confirmed sent chills up my spine. “Okay then. All we have to do is figure out how to get the fairy out of the ball.”

“Should that not be easy?” Florence asked, looking at the ball with interest. “With Drowzee’s poke ball, you could just press a button and he appeared. Would this one not work the same way?”

“It should, but I tried it before and it didn’t work.” I pressed the button on the strange ball again to demonstrate; again, nothing happened. “I think it must be locked in some way. And that’s why I want to work with Isaac. I know a lot about poke balls, but I have no idea how you could lock one. If I learn more about making poke balls, maybe I’ll learn how to get this one to work.”

Florence tilted her head. “Couldn’t you just break the ball and let Celebi out that way?”

I shook my head frantically. “No! If you break a ball the wrong way, it can really hurt the Pokemon – uh, the majū inside. You have to use the proper release sequence to remove their energy from the center band instead.” I turned the golden ball around in my grasp, considering it. “I suppose I could try to do the usual release thing on this ball, but I’m worried that Celebi will just run away if I do. If I can find a way to free it while it’s still connected to the ball, it will have to stick around and listen.”

Florence frowned at me. “That is not a good reason to keep them imprisoned.”

I rolled my eyes. “So I’m selfish. I want half a chance to go home, and your Celebi in the forest wasn’t willing to stick around and chat.”

“She is not my Celebi,” Florence told me severely.

“Whatever.” We were getting close to the farm now, so I hid the strange poke ball back in my jacket pocket. “Let’s just focus on making poke balls for now and see what we can learn. If we get stuck, we can focus on Celebi’s ball again.”

To be honest, I wasn’t all that worried, not yet. I just wanted to dive into a new invention project. All of this talking and planning and training was stretching me thin. Once I had a tool in my hand and a project to be completed, everything would make more sense. … I hoped.