The next morning came bright and early in the form of an overly motivated dad. “Wake up, we don’t want to be late!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting up…” I grumbled half asleep.

Breakfast was a rushed affair, you would think an adult would be somewhat less energetic when meeting his new boss. My dad apparently not, he forced me to move out after only 2 cups of coffee! Cue my not so happy face.

“Light up, we will meet an authority on Pokemon!” my dad said happily as we walked towards the lab.

“Yeah, but I would like to be awake when I meet him.” I grumbled a quirk of my lips.

We arrived shortly, the automatic doors opened on their own. The entrance was what you expect from a lab. It was an entrance area with some seats around a coffee table and a welcoming desk that was not manned.

“Come right through, the right door!” came the voice from the right.

Now we entered the lab proper, where we saw the Professor a desk with a computer typing something on it. He swivelled around on his chair to us.

“Ah, you must be Frank Inei right?” he asked while standing up and shaking my dads hand.

“That’s right, sir.” my dad answered.

“No,no, none of that. I want to leave it a bit more casual here, I don’t want to waste time with all that formality.” Birch chuckled. “And you are?” he asked towards me.

“I’m Iruni Inei, Professor. And I would like to ask you something if possible.” I answered nervously. Because let’s face it, he can shut down my plan to learn from him and interact with Pokemon. If this falls flat I would have to learn with the PokeNet and if its anything like the internet back home, I will have to spend a lot of time searching information that is correct.

“Well, let’s talk out back. That way we can introduce you to my other assistant Joshua.” he said while walking to a door in the back.

“Welcome to Hoenn and my lab.” he said in a grandiose tone after we stepped on the porch on the back. And it truly was a sight, several Pokemon roamed the land. Although not as many as I saw in the anime when there where scene at Oaks ranch. I saw Mightyena, Linoones and much much more. Birch showed us to a coffee table with some seats and for some reason there was a mini fridge at the wall.

“What will you drink?” he asked us.

“I will have water.” “Yeah, same.” we answered while taking a seat. After passing the bottles around Birch looks towards me with a smile.

“So what can I do for you?”

“Well to start, what has my dad told you about me?” I asked, I wanted to start with the boys backstory because that can come back to bite me later.

“Hm, not much. Just your age and that you are the studious type.” he answered after a bit of thought.

“Ok so not much. Then I will start with my request and then explain my background if that's alright with you.” He gestures me to go on. “I want to intern or work at the lab to learn more about Pokemon and learn to interact with them.”

“Excuse me but a boy your age should have interacted with Pokemon if not gone on a journey till now right?” he asked confused.

“Yeah, that's where my past comes in.” I proceed to explain the Gyarados incident and my (or the boys) not so stellar behaviour in the past.

“Now with a new start in a new region I want to move past that. I want to learn more about Pokemon and maybe after some time go on a journey through Hoenn. Maybe I could even help out with field research later on.” I explain and ramble a bit.

“Huh, so let get this right. You had a near mauling from a Gyarados, proceeded to harass smaller Pokemon which later transitioned into apathy and now you want to learn more because you want to move past that?” he asked still a bit confused. My dad was looking between us and was visibly nervous.

“That about sums it up, yes.” I state.

“Hm….” he mused. “We could always use a hand here and there, especially with feeding the Pokemon or running the odd errand.” He looks around and sees another man walking around with empty sacks of what looks like Pokemon food.

“Joshua! Can you come here for a second?” Birch shouts. Joshua nods and walks over.

“Joshua, this is Frank Inei and his son Iruni Inei. Frank will start working here tomorrow, he is the one who wrote the Sneasel behaviour pattern thesis.” Birch introduces us.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“A pleasure.” Joshua greets us with a nod. “Iruni has a proposal which I would like you input on.” Birch then explains my proposal and circumstances.

“I don’t see the problem as long as he follows the rules and respects the Pokemon and the research. We can keep an eye out for a while, it would help to reduce our workload and free up more time for research.” He said after thinking it over.

“Well that's that then.” Birch states. “You will start tomorrow as an intern. Depending on how well you do we can discuss payment later if you can work alone.”

“Thank you so much Professor!” I exclaim. “Yes thank you Professor, it also helps me a lot.” my dad adds.

“Just call me Nigel, as I said I’m not big on formality.” Birchs says with a smile. “Joshua can you show Iruni around and explain the feeding process? He will shadow you for a while when you feed the Pokemon.”

“Sure no Problem, come along Iruni.” Joshua says and starts to walk away.

“Thank you again, Prof-- I mean Nigel.” I say as I leave. “See you later dad!”

“See you later son.”

“Thank you for accepting him Nigel. I’m glad he finally warms up to Pokemon. I thought for a long while that he will go on to work at some office or something.” Frank says to Birch after I left.

“Well, while his past behaviour is not something I like, I also can see where he came from. Also he was younger, we all don’t make the best decisions at those ages. Come I will show you where you will work.” Birch says while getting up.

“Lead the way” Frank says and also getting up.

Joshua leads me to an area with a few Pokemon up and about. Most of them are Pokemon found around the area and up till Petalburg.

“Are those the only Pokemon here?” I ask somewhat confused why there are no rarer Pokemon around. I only see the Mightyena, Linoone line, the local Bug Types that evolve from Wurmple and a Seedot and a Lotad.

“Yes those are the only ones, although that may change in the future. You see the lab is young and only running the second Year now. The old region lead Professor was located in Lilycove City, well on the outskirts at least. We had no sponsored Trainers last year, this year is our first. The Mightyena and Linoones are owned by the lab as security. The Seedot and the Lotad are from our sponsored Trainers, as are the Bug Types.” He explains at length. “The Zigzagoones and Poochyena are also owned by the lab, we forgot so supply the supplements that temporarily makes Pokemon near infertile.” He adds as a Zigzagoon and a Poochyena come running.

“You two already got your food! This is for the Trainer Pokemon!” Joshua interrupts their attempt to get to the food.

“Hey you two.” I say while kneeling on the ground. “I’m Iruni. I will be around for a while.”

The two Pokemon look to me, then toward each other then again to me and promptly dog pile me.

“Aren't you two excitable.” I laugh while rough housing with them.

“Well looks like you will be just fine.” Joshua smiles at me.

“Dunno, maybe its just these two.” I shrug while sitting up and scratching the two behind their ears.

“Maybe, come on I will show you where the food is and the rest of the duties that are involved.”

“Alright.” While we are walking towards a building attached to the lab the Poochyena and the Zigzagoon follow us. “You wont get more, go on. Go play and explore.” I say to the two.

They drop their ears but nod when they see we are both not moved.

After showing my the food storage, how to lock it and where everything is he leads me back to the lab. Its afternoon now and we missed lunch.

“Ah, you two are back.” Birch says as he noticed us, then looks to the clock. “Oh my, where is the time. Ok, we will stop here and continue tomorrow.”

After saying our goodbyes my dad and me walk back to our house but make a quick stop to get food supplies. We cant be living on delivery after all. After eating diner my dad holds me back.

“Was everything alright with Joshua and the Pokemon?” he asks a bit worried.

“Yeah no Problem there. The only Trainer Pokemon are a Seedot and a Lotad together with Wurmple and their evolution.” I explain. “I got along nicely with the Poochyena and Zigzagoon from the lab though.”

“That's good to hear. Well we will begin tomorrow at 10 am, Nigel isn't an early riser.” my dad says while yawning. “I’m off to bed, don’t stay up to long.”

“Yeah, say can I use your Laptop? I want to read a bit online.”

“Sure, but again don’t stay up to late.”

“Yeah, yeah no worries.”

After setting the Laptop up on the desk in my room I log into the Pokenet. Apparently there are only forums and a video Platform, no social media like in my old world. Thanks for small mercies I think while the official Hoenn forum site loads. I start looking for threads on dark type Pokemon, because I always thought that type specialists are something I can see doing myself. Of course in the games that’s not optimal and frankly with the four move limitation not really fun. You can’t really use Pokemon that are build for trickery and deceit or that are build to be nimble enough to dodge attacks and so on.

After reading through many threads I begin to understand another layer that is in favour of type specialists. You will have Pokemon that can help each other learn moves that the other Pokemon learns easier, also you yourself can help your Pokemon more because you likely already helped a team member with that move.

While looking through the dark type forum I barely see any threads of people discussing them like they are viable. I mean sure there are people discussing Sidney of the elite four, he is after all a dark type specialist. But other than that? There are more threats on how to avoid Mightyena then others. I don’t see any Absol or Sableye threads. I saw one Umbreon thread but that was more someone whining that he didn’t get his Eevee to evolve into Espeon.

So dark types are not that often used or dark type users avoid the forums. I would guess its a bit of both, as I remember that Absol Pokedex entry from Gen3.

Next I think about what Pokemon I should try to get as a ‘starter’. Because I don’t think I can get a regional starter, they are for younger trainers than me.

Eevee is out because I doubt we can afford one, they are very very expensive (the guy in the Umbreon thread complained about it) and finding one in the wild is unlikely.

Sableye is out, because I doubt getting a ghost as a first Pokemon is a good idea. Carvanha is out because it wont be able to do much on land. The other dark types of Hoenn are all a possibility but I will have to learn more about them in how my game knowledge transfers into this world.

After shutting down the laptop and finally lying down I shut my eyes and await what’s in store tomorrow.