The New Normal - 15-18 - Interlude - The Professors

The New Normal – 15-18 – Interlude – The Professors

(Blaine POV)

For those who didn’t know Samuel, they would have thought that the ex-Champion was as spry and as energetic as he used to be in his youth. It wasn’t strange for them to think this way, as despite his friend’s advanced age, he seemed to move around an act as if he was twenty years younger.

However, Blaine had known his friend for a long time now, and to him, it was impossible to miss the signs of aging afflicting his friend. Sam slept more often, and he was nowhere near as animated as he used to be whenever he went on his usual hour-long tangents. He also took far more breaks every once in a while to regain his energy, and his reaction speeds were no longer as good as they once more.

Despite all of this, it was undeniable that his friend was aging well. It was just a little sad to see that even his friend, who had seemed all but unstoppable in his youth, was still susceptible to the pains of old age.

“You got something you want to say?” Sam asked him, breaking him out of his thoughts, “Might as well get it off your chest before the others arrive.”

“No, no. Just lost in my own thoughts for a moment.” Blaine shook his head before moving to check the time, “…We didn’t misremember the meeting time, right? Surely one of the others should be here by now.”

Just like how the Gym Leaders and Elite Four from all four regions were meeting up and getting to know each other, they wanted to do the same as Professors. It would be a nice way for them to not only catch up with each other, but also as a way to introduce themselves to their Unovan counterparts. It would also be an opportunity for all of them to share a few of their own theories or discoveries with each other, and generally just be able to freely discuss and pool together their collective knowledge.

Who knows? Maybe today would be the start of an opportunity for all of them to work together on a project once again – much like they did for the reveal of the Fairy type.

Fortunately, before he could begin grumbling about people being late, the rest of the Professors finally showed up.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting.” Rowan waved at them at the front of the newly arrived group. Next to him were Professor Elm, Birch, Carolina, Juniper, and one other person that he didn’t recognise. “We got caught up on something.”

“It’s not a problem at all.” Sam replied easily, before extending a hand to Juniper, “And you must be Professor Juniper. My name is Samuel Oak. It’s a pleasure.”

“Oh no, the pleasure’s all mine!” Juniper shook Sam’s hand eagerly, “I’ve heard so much about you! I can’t believe you invented the Pokédex between all your other achievements! To think you were also the first Champion of Indigo too – you’ve accomplished so much!”

And then began the gushing that he had come to expect whenever someone met Sam for the first time. Despite this, he wasn’t envious of the attention that Sam got – in his mind, his friend deserved all of it.

In the meanwhile, he decided to introduce himself to the newcomer, “Nice to meet you. I’m Professor Blaine, from Indigo.”

“Ah! The man who started off the creation of the evolution items. I know you.” The man smiled at him, “Oh, where are my manners. My name’s Colress. I’m… not exactly a Professor myself, and I consider myself to be more of a freelancer than anything. I usually hop between project to project on whatever catches my interest.”

“Don’t let him fool you.” Juniper piped up from the side, “Colress is a brilliant scientist – it’s why I decided to bring him along. I haven’t known him for too long, but I can guarantee that his intellect and insights are both incredible. He would be wasted as anything other than a Professor.”

Colress maintained his polite smile, “I appreciate the compliment. But I’m just honoured to be tagging along for today. If it suits you, then please feel free to treat me as nothing more than a spectator.”

After introductions were all out of the way, they all relocated to the venue that they had booked for this specific meeting. Cameras and microphones were placed all over the room just so that they could have a record of what was discussed, just in case anyone wanted it.

“…So, I guess I should start off first, since I’m the new one here.” Juniper began, “I’m a Professor specialising in the origins of Pokémon, and most of my research has been focused around the finding out more about how particular Pokémon came to be. I’ve already compiled a summary of the origins of the Pokémon that can be found in the Unovan Pokédex, so you can go ahead and use those to update your records.”

“Thank you.” Sam said, “That would be most appreciated.”

“Besides that…” She turned to Colress, “Colress, didn’t you say you wanted to show off something today?”

“I did say that, thank you for the reminder.” Colress confirmed, taking out a small device that was the same size as a television remote, “This is a prototype for my latest invention. For now, I’ve called it the Colress Machine, for a lack of a better name. But what it does is that it sends out signals that stimulate neural activity within Pokémon, causing them to forcefully awaken. I’ve done some tests, and it even works on fainted Pokémon too.”

“…That can’t be healthy.” Sam muttered, “Pokémon faint when they’re badly injured – it’s a part of their natural recovery process. Forcing them awake artificially like that would just hurt them.”

“Maybe, but I’ve felt that there’s always been potential here.” Colress continued, seemingly unbothered and unaware of the frowns that he got for his lack of care towards the wellbeing of Pokémon, “If I can stimulate neural activity in Pokémon to awaken them, then that also means we can do the reverse. We can use this to calm down agitated Pokémon and prevent a rampage.”

That got everyone interested, “Would it really be that easy to accomplish?” Elm asked.

Colress winced, “…Not exactly.” He admitted, “Right now all I have is an imperfect prototype. It works more than 85% of the time, but the machine has a tendency to break not long afterwards. And, Pokémon that are forcefully awakened like this often are aggravated and may rampage.”

That was not ideal, “So what we’re hearing is that there’s a lot of things still to work on.” Blaine said.

“Let’s not be too pessimistic about it.” Birch quickly added, “I believe I see a lot of potential with what Colress has described, even in its current form. There might be niche situations where you would want to forcibly awaken a fainted or sleeping Pokémon. Furthermore, dealing with ornery and overly aggressive Pokémon has always been an eternal struggle for our rangers – something that could calm them down forcibly would really help with that.”

Then Birch gave Colress an inspecting look, “Is that why you’ve brought this up? To secure funding?”

“That’s right.” Colress nodded shamelessly, “Sadly, I’ve not manage to find much patronage in Unova – Professor Juniper aside. And frankly I was hoping to use this meeting as an opportunity to work alongside some or all of you to bring my ideas into reality. The Colress Machine is only one of my many inventions, after all.”

“…You seem like a very intelligent person, why would the people of Unova not fund you?” Rowan asked curiously, “Surely you could qualify for a few grants.”

Juniper winced, “Colress is an amazing scientist… but he is horrible at trying to hold a budget. The last time he got given funding to do something, he massively went over the budget and got into a lot of trouble.”

“After that, no one really wanted to deal with me in Unova.” Colress finished for her. Yet despite his words, he didn’t look at all ashamed for what he had done, “Therefore, I was hoping for one or some of you to be able to overlook these flaws of mine and provide funding for my own projects. After all, science should never be held back.”

Blaine held back a slight frown; the way that Colress said it really rubbed him the wrong way. It just seemed like the man felt entitled to receive support. But it was strange. Such entitlement didn’t seem borne out of arrogance or pride, but from something else entirely. He just couldn’t quite place it.

However, it seems like some of his colleagues didn’t feel the same way, “I’d be happy to work with you for some time on a provisional basis.” Birch said kindly, as expected of the friendliest Professor amongst them, “I can’t promise anything right now, but maybe we can come to an agreement after I’ve seen more of your work.”

“That will do nicely, thank you.” Colress nodded politely, “Sorry for taking up so much of your time – I know you have other things to discuss.”

So that was what they did. They moved onto chatting about all sorts of different topics – and were generally just having a good time.

However, several hours into their discussion, Birch suddenly received an unexpected call. After a brief conversation, they found out that the caller, Joseph Stone, had apparently wanted to speak with all of them.

So Birch set the phone to speaker, “Sorry for interrupting your meeting, but I figured that now was the best time to propose a joint project that I’d like for all of us to work on.”

“All of us? Are you sure?” Elm asked, “What kind of project warrants such attention?”

“Something that I will not speak about until I have your signed agreement that you will cooperate. However, I will say that this is a project that I am certain will change our fundamental understanding of our Pokémon’s true capabilities.” Joseph replied with deliberate ambiguity, “And I have chosen to reach out to you all because, despite the best efforts of Devon Corp, we have not yet been able to uncover its secrets. But we know that there is something there. We just need help finding the key.”

Blaine let out a whistle. Devon Corp, while not technically on the same level as a dedicated research lab run by a Professor, was no less competent than one with the sheer amount of manpower and resources that they had on hand. So the fact that Devon Corp was struggling to figure this out was a sign that this was something worth their time.

In the end, with his curiosity unable to be withheld, there was only one answer he could give.

“I’m in. I don’t know what it is that you want me working on – but I can tell it’s going to be very interesting.”

A.N. And here’s Colress! In the games, he’s primarily attached to Team Plasma, but given that the timetable is so different now, I felt it would be interesting to take a different direction with him. You’ll be seeing more of him soon!

As for Joseph’s project, I don’t need to be coy about it – it’s the Mega Research that he had been working on. Yet because he’s been hitting a dead end, he’s decided to bring the Professors on board to try and help. Hope you enjoyed!