Angelique Romain's Story

“Now you're just being ridiculous, Caesar.” A young woman's voice broke the quiet in the early morning air, her voice accompanied by the sound of much stomping, walking, and beating wings. It was none other than Unova's Elite Four member, Angelique Romain and her troupe of Dragons. Her normally creamy complexion had a deep tan, announcing that she had been spending quite an amount of time outside. She had alternated between Caesar the Flygon and Atreyu the Dragonite on her long flight from Unova's Rainbow Valley to Pallet Town in Kanto and now, she would be there in less than five minutes.

“Gon! Flygon, Fly Flygon!” The Flygon was waving its arms manically as it tried to explain that baby Pokémon were born from seeds. Caesar wasn't exactly the brightest pastel on the canvas, but he was a real sweetheart and that's what Angelique appreciated about him. At the very back of her pack was a Zweilous that was fighting with itself, each head trying to bite the other. At least until a massive Dragonite landed right behind them, shaking the very ground beneath them and causing them to scamper away. Atreyu shook his head before ambling on behind everyone else.

“Alright, guys. You need some rest – I'll bring you out for lunch.” Angelique smiled, pausing to unclip her pokéballs and store her Pokémon inside, knowing that her Pokémon were tuckered out from the long journey and were aching to play. They would...after they rested! For now, she continued on in her white and green sundress, singing softly to herself the Relic Song. It had always been such a favorite of hers and her Pokémon adored it as well – Especially Aria. She smiled widely as the sun began to rise to her left, causing her eyes to light up more. In her arms was an egg case meant for five. There was a Bagon egg – That was hers, a Togepi egg, a Tepig egg, a Lapras egg, and a Riolu egg. They were all eggs that Pokémon from her Daycare/Sanctuary had and Professor Oak meant to study them.

Angelique thought this to be a delicate mission and had put herself to the task of delivering them to him herself rather than use of a PC. Plus, she had missed the old man and their talks of Pokémon. He was quite insightful, though sometimes a bit forgetful. He had been a big influence on her when she was a child and aiming to become number one in Unova. While she didn't challenge the Champion position, she still had never lost a battle in her life – Much to the dismay of many challengers. The current Champion of Unova was one of her closest friends and she did all that she could to protect his position and her record.

A few more minutes brought Pallet Town on the horizon and she began to run. She didn't notice a red beam coming from one of her pokéballs, so you could imagine her surprise when she was picked up by the strong claws of her Atreyu. The Dragonite smiled as he flew into the rural town and over the small houses. Angelique gripped onto her egg case tightly, using every ounce of her strength not to drop it as they came closer and closer to Professor Oak's lab. Her hair whipped viciously in the wind and her eyes began to sting and water until she closed them with a laugh. Atreyu let out a massive roar as his intimidating shadow caused people to look up in awe and wonder.

They landed right outside the front doors – And while Atreyu was perfectly balanced, Angelique had to take a few moments to steady herself. Her hair was a royal mess and her dress? Oh, dear Arceus, she did not look presentable in any way, shape, or fashion. She set down her eggs so that she could gussy up at least a little, adjusting her belt and backpack, smoothing down her hair and dress. Just as she finished, the door swung open and she was greeted by none other than Samuel Oak himself. “Oh, my! My how you've both grown. But...Just exactly how big is Atreyu now?” Angelique might as well have been invisible as the Professor moved to the Dragonite, immediately measuring and taking notes.

“He's twelve feet. He weighs five hundred and thirty-” She was cut off as Oak moved to her quickly and gave her a rather tight hug. “Oh, I've already measured him. But you! How's that record? Still untarnished, I hope!” Angelique smiled and returned the man's hug. “Perfect record. Oh – And here are those eggs. Minus the Bagon...But you can keep the case if you've got an extra single case.”

Samuel nodded fervently. “Indeed!” He picked up the large case and motioned for Angelique to follow. She smiled again and returned Atreyu to his pokéball after thanking him for the ride, heading inside after the old man, just catching the end of his sentence. “-and I have someone visiting today. An intern that you might know!” Angelique tilted her head some and furrowed her brow. “Oh...Who?”

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A young man pushed ahead through the grasses of Route One with a brown bag slung around his shoulder and a large egg in his hands. From behind a pair of glasses, his eyes betrayed a look of otherwise calm on his face--he was panicking. He was late, and he knew it. As soon as his stupid alarm forgot to go off, he knew that he had to hurry from Viridian. He was supposed to have been back in Pallet yesterday evening--if only his transportation hadn't come late after docking in Vermillion! More than that, though, he wished that the yellow lizard trotting alongside had not thought it necessary to headbutt an elderly woman for not paying attention to it! Why did she have to make things so unnecessarily complicated for him?

The small lizard held onto a large piece of loose skin, pulling it up like a pair of pants as it ran alongside the man with the egg. Occasionally, the pokemon would catch a glimpse of something interesting off in the grasses and begin to run toward it, but the bespectacled man cleared his throat in annoyance whenever it attempted to wander off.

"You know this is partly your fault that we're late, Hex..." the man muttered as he pushed ahead, knowing that he was going to look like an idiot in front of one of his idols. He had been waiting years for this opportunity--to work for the pre-eminent authority figures in the study of pokemon: Professor Samuel Oak. And now he was late! He was afraid that the professor would just ask him to pack his bags and return to Castelia City and continue his studies closer to home--or even worse, perhaps Oak would even tell him that he "wasn't cut out for this line of work despite his credentials"! What would he do then? What could he do if that happened?

"Scraaaaaa?" the lizard cooed softly, charging ahead through the grasses. The man sighed as the yellow Pokemon darted through the undergrowth, picking up the pace. He could see a few buildings looming in the distance--the glare coming off of one of them was particularly blinding, but he realized from the sheer size of it that it must have been Oak's laboratory. Of course, the man already knew that--he had only seen it countless times on television back home and had spent the last two-and-a-half months working there, how could he have not recognized it?

"Hex!" the man called after the lizard. "Don't run ahead of me!" He could feel his palms growing sweaty as his heart raced out of control inside his chest. Arceus, he was not used to running even after all of his time out in the field, let alone chasing after his scraggy. Suddenly, he paused for a second to look back in the direction he came from. "Zeke, are you coming?"

Following close behind was a small white tadpole-like creature, swimming through the air as a fish would water. The air around this creature seemed to crackle with electricity, making it seem a bit more dangerous than its appearance would otherwise suggest. Two beady black eyes looked up toward the man as it rose closer to his eye level. It did not say anything at all but instead began to chase after the scraggy, small jolts of electricity sparking in the air as it followed the lizard.

The young man pushed ahead after his two pokemon, following the winding path toward a large sign that had been impaled into the ground seemingly ages ago. As they drew closer, he could read the writing that had been carved into the wood and painted over--Welcome to Pallet Town: Humble Beginnings and Happy Endings Await!--and he grumbled a strange mixture of dissatisfaction and relief. As cheesy as that slogan sounded to him, as much as it grated against the inside of his brain, he knew that he had finally arrived.

No sooner had the man taken five steps into the town when an older woman walked past him, taking a bit of a liking to Hex. "Oh, dearie me, that's quite an adorable pokemon you have there," the woman cooed as she bent down and rubbed the scraggy's head. "Is it yours, sir?"

The man nodded. "Yes, that's Hex, missus Johnson... We've been through this before..." his voice trailed off as the floating electric fish began to snake around the old woman. Mrs. Johnson, he had been told, was losing her memory and tended to forget about a lot of things--this sort of made sense, considering he had been away for over a week retrieving an egg from a supplier he knew from back home, but how could she have forgotten Hex of all pokemon? Mrs. Johnson spoiled the princess rotten whenever she had the chance, and of course Hex milked the generosity for all it was worth. The lizard always did this.

"Missus Johnson, I'm sorry, but I need to go and talk with Professor Oak now and let him know that I'm back from Vermillion with the egg that he wanted!" the student interrupted the scritches that the woman was giving the scraggy. "Hex, Zeke, let's go--we've got to get this to the professor before it hatches and we have to go all the way back to Vermillion and get another one!" He took a few steps toward the lab and was slightly relieved to feel the hair on his head stand up on end as Zeke approached. Hex, on the other hand, was staying put next to poor Mrs. Johnson, smiling as the old woman continued to scratch her head.

"Oh, you'd best move along, little one--I'm sure your trainer will let you come back when you're finished with your errands!" Mrs. Johnson pushed the lizard gently toward the man holding the egg, "Take care, sir, and welcome to Pallet Town! Oh, and be mindful of the dragon--that's something new!"

"Hex, come on now--I'll make you one of those poffins that you enjoy so much if you just come to the lab with us!" the man pleaded as Mrs. Johnson walked back toward her house. Somewhat confused at first, the lizard began to follow the old woman toward her home but was quickly stopped by a quick grunt from her trainer. Hex scowled as she kicked dirt up in protest but slowly trudged behind her trainer, tail dragging along the ground almost in protest.

The young man paused for a second, readjusting his grip on the egg in his arms as he tried to understand what the old woman had told him must moments ago--be mindful of the dragon? Was Mrs. Johnson really that far gone that she started seeing dragons in the town? He smirked as he reached out for the handle of the door leading to Oak's laboratory, being careful not to let the egg fall from his arms in the process. The door opened wide enough for him to wedge his foot inside the complex, which allowed him to kick the door open and walk into the lab.

It was just as he left it: clean, sterile, fascinating. The machinery was left in pristine condition, almost as if Oak had asked him to clean them all yesterday. He placed the egg close to the front of the lab, being careful to leave it balanced in a scarf that he unwrapped from around his neck. Hex and Zeke stayed close to the man despite the allure of the shining chrome machinery. In fact, the only thing that seemed out of place were the other eggs that--

Wait a minute... When did Oak get new eggs?

And that's when he finally saw her. Of all the people in the regions, it had to be her. Angelique Romain. What was she doing here? He immediately clenched his jaw and cracked his knuckles more out of habit than anything else--what was so important with Professor Oak that she had to leave her shop and her duties in Unova to come out to Pallet? He slowly approached the two figures, each oblivious to his entrance until he stepped close.

"Uh, knock knock? I've brought back the egg you asked for, Professor... although it seems rather superfluous now..."

“Letta! Meloetta! Melo!” Aria popped out of her pokéball, complaining of the tight space. Angelique sighed softly and crinkled her nose. “Sam – You wouldn't happen to have any space in your habitat for my Pokémon? They're pretty tired.” She smiled politely, gently cradling her Meloetta as she turned to Professor Oak. It was then that she had caught the sight of J.T. just as he had spoken. A light smile curved upon her lips as she offered a timid nod. “So you're the intern, then?” Professor Oak looked between the two. “Ah – So you two do know each other?” Angelique offered a light shrug as if it was no big deal – Because it really wasn't. “His mother was my brother's mentor. We've met a few times...” Angelique had absolutely adored J.T.'s mother and her winning attitude. Not to mention her totally amazing Pokémon. She smiled at the fond memories of practicing with them and even going head to head in a Contest with them.

She had her ass handed to her on a golden plate.

She took a moment to recall what J.T. had said and canted her head off to the side. “Exactly how so? I assure you that the Professor is quite capable of studying multiple eggs at once.” She smiled politely, not quite sure what J.T. meant. “Plus, perhaps Sam just missed me and wanted a reason for me to come to Pallet Town.” She gave a light giggle that harmonized with Aria's as she covered her mouth gently.

The sound of a squealing girl brought her out of her little daydream and caused her gaze to wander until it fell upon the girl who seemed to be attacking J.T.'s Scraggy with as much as love as a teenager could muster. “Oh, my. I do believe that Hex has a new fan.” She smiled kindly as Aria giggled softly at the sight. She shook her head before turning back to Professor Oak. “Your Corral...?” He looked at her blankly before slamming a hand to his face, leaving an impressive red mark as he pulled it away. “Oh! Right, right! Of course there's room. There's always room! You can go ahead and take them out there while I look at these eggs.” He shooed her away and turned to the eggs, caught off guard by the teenage girl.

Angelique rolled her eyes and made her way absentmindedly back outside, heading towards the large fence. The Oak Corral was pretty much a giant pasture, with many different areas designed to suit the specific needs of different Pokémon types – Angelique loved it. She hopped over the fence with Aria, setting down the small Pokémon before unclipping the other seven pokéballs, tossing them into the air. She was always amazed at how the small, ping pong ball sized capsules held Pokémon so comfortably. She watched as her Pokémon came out in different colored flashes, stretching and roaring. “I have some snacks for you guys, but there are plenty of berries around here for you guys to eat. Please be nice to the other Pokémon here – Remember that you are guests in their home.”

Her Pokémon all nodded softly as the made their way slowly towards a group of Hoppips that were playfully bouncing around in the long grass. Chomper and Ashdir were the first ones there, immediately beginning to chat their ears off while Atreyu and Mint simply sat down and allowed the little Pokémon to jump and slide over and around them. They were gentle giants, peaceful and content with playing with the little ones. Caesar was spreading his conspiracy theories about Arceus knows what, Aria was happily singing to the little things along with Melody. Angelique smiled as she sat in the middle of them all and took her backpack off, setting it in her lap.

She sat with her knees tucked under her, and began to pull things out of her backpack, setting them out neatly. “Here you go -” She began opening up the packets of treats, emptying them into eight bowls. A smile graced her lips as her Pokémon eagerly shared their food, her smile grew wider as the Hoppips gobbled them down greedily. It wasn't too long that more Pokémon came around, looking on curiously. “Well, if you like the snacks that much, I'll make you all lunch, dinner, and dessert! How does that sound?” She giggled as a happy chorus rang out, which she took as a resounding yes.

She looked at the scene around her and grinned. The scene was too much to pass up! She didn't really have the variety of Pokémon that Oak did – The Pokémon she spent her days around were generally from Unova. It wasn't very often that she got to see Bulbasaurs, Charmanders, Pidgeys, or even Mankeys around in person. Of course she had spent a lot of time studying them when she traveled, but she never spent a lot of time with them. She picked up her sketchpad and her pencil and began to sketch out the happy scene, taking a mental picture. She'd go back in eventually...But for now, she would relax.

Back in the lab, Professor Oak had handed J.T. a clipboard and began to take notes. “Hmm. They differ in sizes, shape, color, and design...fascinating!” Professor Oak jabbered on excitedly as he kept motioning for J.T. to take notes. He blinked and then looked back down at the teenage girl . “Oh, sorry Evee! Did you need something? Oh, and could you go outside and ask Angelique to come back inside? I could use her help.” He moved about the lab with speed impressive for a man his age. “J.T. - Bring me my laptop, please!” Samuel didn't play around when it came to his research – Even though he could be a bit absentminded when he was so excited.

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The professor and his visitor turned to address the newcomer. Oak nodded as the boy took a few steps closer to the group. He was about to speak when a flash of light interrupted his thoughts as a black and white humanoid pokemon with green hair akin to a music staff appeared next to Angelique, chirping as if it was attempting to try to communicate with the humans in the room.

The girl offered a weak smile and a small nod toward the man with the glasses. "So, you're the intern then?" she asked. The young man did not quite know how to respond to that quip. With all of her knowledge and connections, how had she not known that Oak had gotten an intern? And out of the hundreds of applications that had been sent in, how did she not find out that it had been someone from Castelia, the city where her first shop was located?

The intern was about to respond when he was interrupted by Oak. "Ah--so you two do know each other..." Not quite knowing what else to do or say, the student responded by cracking his knuckles--something of a nervous habit he had picked up during his studies, he had no idea as to why, but it was something he did.

Angelique shrugged. "His mother was my brother's mentor. We've met a few times..." What she had failed to mention to Oak, however, was that those "few times" were essentially him looking up from a book and saying "hello". She had asked once why he was not trying to get into battling like most kids their age or coordinating like his mother; the truth was that he never liked the concept of battling and he had been surrounded by all things "Pokemon Contests" that he did not feel like following in his mother's footsteps. When he told her this, she almost took it as if he had made some blasphemous remark about her mother, some personal offense that seemed otherwise mundane to the boy.

The girl tilted her head slightly toward the intern, appearing to try and wrap her head around his entrance with his previous statment. "Exactly how so? I assure you that the Professor is quite capable of studying multiple eggs at once..." Was she mocking him? Was she that dense where she could not tell when she had undermined the work that he had been assigned? He had been asked by Oak to retrieve an egg from Vermillion City; and all of a sudden, who shows up on his doorstep with four additional eggs from out of nowhere? It was not a matter of whether the professor could study multiple eggs at the same time--he knew that Oak, despite his... erratic outbursts, was more than capable of that--but more of a matter of pride; he felt betrayed that the professor would have taken eggs so willingly like that, especially if Angelique decided to visit as spontaneously as she had--

A high-pitched squeal broke the train of thought coursing through his mind. He whirled around to find a younger girl rubbing her face against Hex's head, giggling and praising how cute and adorable she looked. Even Zeke seemed to have a confused look in his eye as he wriggled and swam through the air, crackling with electricity. The intern heard a bit of laughter coming from behind him as both Angelique and her pokemon giggled at the sight of the excitable girl. He could not understand how they could have found this amusing in the slightest--did they not know that they were just perpetuating this sort of behavior by paying attention to her?

After a few seconds, Angelique had decided that it would be best to leave--the intern felt that his neck was growing stiffer and stiffer by the second and tilted his head to the side after she left to visit the different biomes outside the lab. A loud cascade of cracking sounds echoed through the lab after the door to the outside closed behind the girl. Of course she was going to show off her pokemon--she always felt the need to do that, what with her literal collection of dragons, two of them being colored differently than the norm of their species.

"...that's Professor Oak to you, not Sam..." the intern muttered through clenched teeth, making sure no one heard him. Zeke lowered himself closer to the ground, more content with wanting to swim around the man's legs than having to deal with the scowl forming on his face.

"J. T., did you say something?" Oak asked as he handed the boy a clipboard. "Here, let us begin with our research on the eggs, shall we? Please, take notes!" The professor began to wave his arms and throw out different words to describe the eggs that Angelique had brought and set down ever-so-carefully in the device in front of them. The intern, however, was not quite as focused on taking notes on the eggs but instead turned his attention to the young girl holding his scraggy, her face toward the ground almost out of embarrassment.

"U-Um... I... came to ask a few questions." The girl managed to finally speak--somewhat timid considering she had only moments before squealed in delight from finding Hex. The scraggy cooed in her arms, which both relieved and worried the intern at the same time. At least for the time being, the pokemon was preoccupied with attention, which kept her out of his hair when he was trying to research.

He took a deep breath and did his best to calm himself down desite the situation. He was getting too worked up over Angelique's sudden appearance at the lab--answering this girl's questions would be something he could to take his mind off of these things.

"Well, what sorts of questions to you have?" the intern asked, trying to avoid looking down to the scraggy in her arms. He could not tell if he looked calm enough--his face felt warm, either out of embarrassment or rage--but he did his best to look and act the part. He calmly took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt before realizing that he had forgotten to put on a lab coat before walking in. "I'd be happy to--"

"J. T., bring me my laptop, please!" Oak interrupted, too lost in his euphoric egg stupor to realize that the intern was dealing with the teenager that he had neglected to address. "Oh, and Evee, could you go outside and ask Angelique to come back inside, please? I could use her help."

The intern rolled his eyes and could not suppress an agitated sigh of approval. "Professor, with all due respect, Angelique is not your intern..." he muttered before walking down the hall, not wanting to hear nor caring to listen to any outburst he might have. "Evee, was it? Wait here for a minute and I'll be able to help you with any questions you may have--just let me grab the professor's laptop and I'll answer anything you ask to the best of my knowledge." With that, the intern was gone, racing to the back room ot try and find the computer in question. He passed by a rack of lab coats on the way, and he managed to swiftly throw it over his shoulders as he pushed ahead to a back office with a "Samuel Oak" nameplate etched on the door.

"Why of all possible days did you decide to come today, Angelique?" he groaned softly as the tynamo swam into the office ahead of him, his body glowing and radiating light in all directions. "Thanks, Zeke--the light helps out a lot. Maybe you could teach Hex how to be somewhat helpful?" He chuckled at the joke; had the scraggy heard and understood it, it probably would have earned the intern a headbutt to the back of the leg--lucky for him, that Evee girl was so infatuated with her at the moment that he felt it necessary to make the comment.

"Mo..." Zeke responded, his lights flickering and changing color from bright white to blue. The intern had always wondered what pokemon had tried to communicate to humans and thought back to the university in Castelia. There had been a pair of students his junior year--a boy and a girl, that he could remember; the girl's name was Dawn, he was sure, although the male's name escaped him... The two of them had a theory that spending copious amounts of time with a pokemon would allow one to understand or even speak with them. He was interested in the theory and perhaps wanted to use it in the field if it was ever proven a valid theory--perhaps his pokemon would become essential field agents that he could depend upon; but for the time being, it was a pipe-dream, and he had a laptop to find.

After another minute of rummaging through the piles of papers--the intern could not fathom how the professor stayed organized with all of this clutter--he found Oak's laptop and made his way back down the hall, Zeke in hot pursuit. When he came back to the main area in the lab, he was admittedly shocked to see that nothing had changed at all: the professor was still gawking over the eggs, calling out other random words to describe the shapes and designs printed on them; the young girl that had asked him to answer questions for her was still holding Hex, her eyes wandering around the lab. It almost astounded the student to see that Oak could be so absent-minded at times.

"Professor, here is your laptop; I'm going to take a minute to talk with the youngest visitor here, seeing as she has some questions..." his voice trailed off as he watched the scraggy wriggle around in Evee's arms. "Feel free to put her down, by the way--she gets like that sometimes." Turning back to the professor, he continued his thought. "Unless you want to answer them and let me take some observations of these eggs? Or are you so bent on having your... friend look at them for you?"

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The creature in her arms was just too adorable!

She was still looking down at the ground, giving her a rather good view of what was in her grasp. The creature had large eyes, somewhat widened perhaps in surprise? But it didn't appear to be running from her, at least, and seemed to warm a bit to her huggles. It began making the cutest cooing noises as she held it and she made faint murmurs in response. She wasn't really sure if there was an understanding but to her, it was like... adorabalishess lingo speak. A soft voice with a note of intrigue brought her eyes slowly upwards.

"Well, what sorts of questions to you have?" She blinked slowly at the man, his face was a vaguely familiar one. The girl furrowed her brows as she tried to place where she had seen him before. He certainly looked like someone she had seen around, so why couldn't she--oh! That was right, now she remembered. She didn't know him personally and most certainly didn't know his name, but she had seen him a few times around the town. He had always been friendly though, like her, with an air of distance, and had only ever waved at her.

Evee breathed out, wrinkling her nose a little as the creature fidgeted just slightly in her hold. "I'd be happy to--" Whatever the man had been about to say was cut off by the sudden ecstatic voice of Professor Oak.

"J. T., bring me my laptop, please!" A pause and then the man came to address her with just as much enthusiasm, though he seemed heavily distracted. "Oh, and Evee, could you go outside and ask Angelique to come back inside, please? I could use her help." The girl blinked several times once more, now out of confusion. Angelique...? Who was that? There was no one with that name that lived in Pallet Town... She looked down again, nervously trying to figure out who it was she was supposed to be fetching.

She pressed her finger into the cheek of the creature absently as she tried to figure it out. Well, at least this cutie had a squishy cheek! She poked it several times with a faint giggle--ohh, this was really just, ohhh, she wanted to take it home and cuddle. There was light muttering from above her, the same voice from earlier that had spoken to her in soft terms. She eyed him from underneath her bangs shyly, the man now speaking directly to her.

"Evee, was it? Wait here for a minute and I'll be able to help you with any questions you may have--just let me grab the professor's laptop and I'll answer anything you ask to the best of my knowledge." She nodded a little, a blush coating her cheeks more profusely. She really had wanted to ask Professor Oak but he was just so entranced in his work! At least she had a playmate in the meantime. She skimmed her fingers down to its tail, pulling at it gently and then giving the creature a little scratch underneath its chin. Awww, she really wanted to take it home! It was like a little lizard, wait... maybe it was... but then why was it standing on little pawpads? She glanced down at the small feet that were almost like tiny pajama bottoms--she had no way of answering her own questions so she merely shrugged.

However, she wasn't sure if it was because she had been holding it too tight, or maybe she had eskimo kissed it too many times--but the creature had started to wriggle in her arms. Evee loosened her grip a bit, she didn't want to suffocate the honey bun! She lifted it up off the ground, watching its feet swipe in the air a bit as if miming running. She smiled warmly at it and couldn't help but bring it in for another hug--ahhhn~ Whoever had created such a wonderful combination really needed a pat on the back! She caught sight of the man who had spoken to her walking back into the room, now with a laptop in his hands. He handed it to Oak, briefly commenting on the object before turning back to her.

He had a nearly unnoticeable smile on his face, a tad strained as if there was a trace of irritation behind it. She couldn't bring herself to smile back fully, raising the creature instead so that it was in front of her face a bit. It fidgeted even more, the man must've been its owner, why else would it be acting so antsy? "Feel free to put her down, by the way--she gets like that sometimes." The girl felt relieved--at least it wasn't anything she had done! She hesitated in putting the creature down, it was just so... huggable and... hnnnn. But she didn't want to disrespect him and she had a feeling that was his vague way of telling her to stop giving his creature so much attention. She put it down slowly, though she could've sworn she heard a noise of protest...

The teenager looked up at him with wide brown eyes, the blush not quite receding and giving her a bit of a rosy tinge. "Um... well..." Professor Oak was still so busy with whatever it was that he was doing, so perhaps she'd just have to ask this man instead. "That is, ah, I wanted to ask about something I saw on television! It was white and had uh..." She gestured with her hand, drawing a few triangles on her tummy. "Like that, on its stomach and it had wiiiiide black eyes! I think it was called a togekiss--oh! And it had wings!" She held her arms to demonstrate, flailing them in a rather crude imitation. She immediately stopped after a few seconds, feeling as ridiculous as she must've looked.

The intern had a bit of trouble stifling a chuckle. "I'm glad to see you're so enthusiastic about a particular pokemon!" His voice seemed to have a genuine lift to it now that he was actually discussing subject matter with someone. "Yes, togekiss are the final form of a pokemon that starts off as a tiny white egg-shaped creature called a 'togepi'. Like its 'mature' form, togepi also have those red and blue triangle marking across their shell--but I'm getting ahead of myself, really... Do you want to know anything in particular? Diet, mating habits, personalities, basic care?"

Her head was spinning with all this new information, the man's smile had suddenly lit up when they began discussing this topic! She tapped her chin, unsure of where to start. There was so much she wanted to know! But primarily, what mattered first and foremost was... "Well, um, actually, is it.. can I get one? I mean, not that I think they fall out of the sky.... er, do they?" She ended with a bit of an awkward laugh, the blush heightening at how little she really knew. She was fully aware that this man and Professor Oak had multitudes more knowledge than she did regarding these... pokemon? She tried to comfort herself with the fact that no one was ever born with knowledge so perhaps at one point long ago, they too had known as little as she. Evee gazed at him, not even making a point to hide her adoration for the possibility of owning this cutie pie.

The man took off his glasses and wiped them on his lab coat. "Well, it's sort of rare to see one literally 'fall' out of the sky unless it's been injured, but... Most togepi have been bred or raised by a trainer--finding one in the wild is almost unheard of here in Kanto, and even in Johto... From what I understand, the only place that may actually still have any sort of wild togepi would be Sinnoh, but even that's a stretch... If you have the money, your best bet would be to find a breeder and see if they would be able to get you an egg. I'm sorry, but--Hex, stop it! She's busy talking to me now!"

She jutted out her bottom lip at the word 'money'; that was always such an issue! She hadn't established herself enough to have any sort of in--huh? There was a tug on the fabric of her jeans, followed by several more compounded by many more as she looked down. The lizard-like creature was pulling at her pants with those googly-eyes, though it didn't seem to be happy. What had she done wrong? She looked back up at its owner--shaking her head a bit.

"O-Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... actually, I think I'm supposed to be finding someone named Angelique?" She remembered with a touch of a frown, not having figured out who this woman was. She got up gradually, accidentally throwing off the tuggings of the creature as she backed up a few paces. "Do you know where she went? I'm not even all that sure who she is..." She adjusted the strap on her messenger bag, tightening it slightly.

"Oh, Angelique? She's out in the back with her pokemon... no doubt scaring Mrs. Johnson..." His voice suddenly grew deadpan serious. "You can't miss her--she's the one playing with the dragons." He then bent down and picked up the lizard, who was still struggling to reach out toward Evee with outstretched arms.

Evee nodded quietly and turned on her heel, wandering gradually to where she came from. She paused as she approached the door, noticing something she hadn't seen. It looked like an egg, but it was larger than any egg she had ever seen, and had odd designs on its shell. It was wrapped loosely in a scarf, a snug fit at that! Her eyes widened as her curiosity was piqued, fingers reaching out gradually to brush against the surface with wonder. Just as her fingers touched the shell, the object shook just a little bit. She hesitated--now what was that about? She poked it this time. Just as she withdrew her finger, an indent appeared where she had touched it, small cracks forming around it.

Her stomach dropped as she paled slightly--oh, what had she done, what had she done?! She instantly turned, sloppily trying to throw the scarf over the crack in the process as if to hide it. She darted away in the opposite direction towards the door in the back, rushing past the man and Professor Oak. She had done nothing, it was going to be okay, no one was going to notice! She didn't crack it, she didn't crack the egg--it was like that!

She pushed open the door in haste, shutting it behind her with just as much speed. She breathed out in relief, though it was mild. She rather hoped she had been correct and that egg was going to be okay... She finally looked up to take notice of where she had run out to, immediately noticing a green-haired woman throwing a bunch of balls into the air. There were red beams that came from the objects and then suddenly--oghngownogwo What the heck was THAT?!

Her mouth slackened as she stared at what appeared to be an... orange dragon?! But it was so large! It was at least... three times her size! She backed away from it, more like scampered really, trying to edge closer to the woman without coming in contact with this giant... thing. It wasn't that it was ugly, per se, but it was just so big and she felt like an ant when in close proximity to it. She decided to stay close to the fence, avoiding the less-than-attractive pig monkeys and what appeared to be blue turtles...

"U-Um," She called out to the woman, hoping to get her attention--though her voice admittedly came out a bit timid due to her apprehension regarding the large dragon. "Angelique...? I think Professor Oak needs you inside, he said something about help." She tried to regain her composure, she didn't want to appear like such a child. She brushed a stray strand of her brown hair out of her eyes, trying her best to focus on the woman and not on the egg she had potentially ruined inside the lab. She really hoped that was going to be okay.

Angelique had not even come close to finishing her sketch when Evee had called out for her. She tucked her pencil behind her ear and glanced over her shoulder to see the teenager edging along the fence, seeming to try and avoid Mint and Atreyu. She smiled gently as she spoke. “Oh, alright – And you've no need to worry about those two. They're quite gentle. Though you'll want to watch out for Brutus and Judas.” She pointed out the last part by motioning to the Hoppips and Jigglypuffs who apparently thought the Dragonite and Salamence were playground equipment and Brutus and Judas who were headbutting each other. Aria the Meloetta ran up to Evee and was quick to hop onto her shoulders, giving a wave of her quarter note hands. “That's Aria.” She smiled at Evee once more as she began to pack up her backpack, leaving out only an apron. As she stood up, she stretched out at the same time and let out a groan as she curled her toes in the small ballet flats that she wore. She was gripping the apron tightly until her stretch was over, after which she was quick to put it on.

Aria had made herself comfortable playing in Evee's hair, chatting the young girl's ear off. “Aria – Don't overload the girl. I'm sure she doesn't want to hear about how soft you think her hair is.” She rolled her eyes as she patted Mint's lowered head. “I'll bring your egg out as soon as I'm finished with Sam – And then I'm sure you'll have better luck sleeping.” She pressed her forehead to Mint's as the dragon let out a low, pouting growl. The Salamence had trouble sleeping whenever she didn't have her egg with her. It bothered Angelique to see her so upset, so she had been trying to keep the dragon out of her pokéball as often as she possibly could so that she could be with her egg. But people were a lot more scared of Mint than they were of Atreyu, who was large, but just so darn adorable! She moved her hand and scratched under Mint's scaly chin. “You'll be alright, sweetness.” Angel absolutely adored how sweet and gentle the Salamence was, despite her frightening appearance. And patient! You'd think that such a large creature would be easy irritated and often acting like a human woman on the rag. But – She wasn't. She was just as sweet as could be.

Angelique dusted off her hands and glanced back over to Evee and Aria, motioning them to follow before she moved towards the fence, going under it this time. She would have taken Brutus and Judas with her, but they deserved the fresh air and running space and she was sure that her other Pokémon would keep them in line as they always did. She hummed to herself along with Aria, pulling her hair up into a loose, messy ponytail as she walked back into the lab, smiling to the Professor and J.T. “You rang?” She quipped, moving towards him and stopping at the egg case. She moved the Bagon egg off to the side, catching sight of a egg case meant for just a single egg. She placed it inside and turned up the heat a little for it to incubate. She was delicate in handling the egg, stroking it and speaking softly as though it were a child.

“Yes, yes I did!”

Professor Oak was just that – A Professor. He knew quite a bit about Pokémon – He was one of the leading experts, in fact! But he specialized in studying the relationships between humans and Pokémon; Professors tended to study one or two aspects of a Pokémon on deeper, intimate level – Breeders generally studied every aspect; breeding, relationships, proper care, diet, care for and hatching of eggs, medical treatment, habitats, evolution – The list went on. Breeders cared for Pokémon and their eggs in the way that humans care for their children. Angelique herself thought that Breeders made excellent Trainers when it came to battle because she felt that the bond between Trainer and Pokémon strengthened them. That belief is what helped her rise to the top.

Lost in thought while stroking the egg, Angelique didn't notice until Professor Oak poked her temple several times. “Hello in there?” Angelique shook her head and laughed softly. “Sorry about that.” She put the glass case back, sealing the egg in after kissing the top of it. She turned around and followed Professor Oak back to the table with the other eggs. “Okay! Let me guess -” Professor Oak excitedly proclaimed as he hovered over the eggs. “This one is a...Togepi?” He pointed to the egg that had previously been described to Evee by J.T. “Indeed it is.” Angelique smiled and nodded in approval as he moved on to the one next to it, which was slightly larger than the previous. “And this is...” He stared at the egg that was dominantly orange with a black stripe at the top, a yellow in the middle and another black at the bottom. “Erm...A Raichu egg?” Angelique shook her head. “That is a Tepig egg, sir.” Professor Oak's eyes lit up – Tepig was a pig-like Pokémon that was native to the Unova Region and was also one of the three Pokémon that Professors handed out to beginner Trainers who went to them for their first Pokémon. His hand next moved to an egg that was much larger than the rest of them. It was a shade of blue that matched the sky on a good, clear day, a few gray speckles decorating it. “And this is a Lapras egg, correct?” Angelique nodded again.

Professor Oak, Angelique thought, was very childlike when discovering new things. At least he wasn't one of the grouchy old Professor types. Angelique didn't tend to get along with people who had foul temperaments. “And this one is...” He was looking at another blue egg that was slightly larger than the Tepig egg, yet smaller than the Lapras egg by far. It had two black bands decorating it in the middle. “A Riolu egg, right? I've heard about these! To think that I'll be able to study one straight from the egg!” He was very giddy as he touched the eggs gently as though touching it any harder than such a caress as he was doing now would surely crack it – But many Pokémon eggs tended to be quite durable. There were even some mean wild Pokémon that liked to play games by tossing them around. Angelique laughed softly and nodded.

Angelique caught a glance of the egg that J.T. had brought in and was quickly hovering over it. “This Cottonee egg is so....” She let her fingers dance over it as she caressed the white egg with soft lime green speckles and seeming to be covered completely with a thin layer of cotton fluff from tip to base. A disruption in the smooth egg caused her to freeze before letting her fingers gently trace over it. “ - about to hatch!” She squealed out finally. “Professor – We need a wet, warm rag, Moo Moo Milk, and some Oran Berries!” She didn't touch the egg any further, moving her hands back. Angelique would never hatch a Pokémon without the consent of the Trainer – Unless said Trainer was an awful Trainer. Her gaze instead fell to J.T. “I do believe that the honor is yours – Have you ever hatched a Pokémon before?” The excitement of hatching a Pokémon never got old with Angelique. Aria was dancing around happily herself, waving her arms from atop Evee's head.

Angelique found joy in the simple things within life – From the blooming Gracideas to dew glistening in the morning sun on an Spinarak web. Of course, Pokémon hatching was her favorite! What could be better than bringing a new life into the world? To be the first thing a newborn sees? It was beyond heartwarming when you held a new Pokémon, forming an everlasting bond. Angelique could already feel her eyes brimming with tears as she practically vibrated with joy. “Oh! And you should hatch it outside – Pokémon are born more advanced than human children, so they remember things from even when they were still in the egg. Imagine how frightening it would be for the first thing you see is-” She looked around and motioned. “-a cold, steely laboratory. With a few Pokémon skeletons.” She referred to the artifacts Professor Oak had on a few of his desks. “This isn't a Vullaby, y'know?”

---

---

The intern turned back toward the professor after directing the girl toward the corrals where Angelique was letting her pokemon out. He sighed as he bit down on a pen he had picked up from off of the table seconds earlier--did the breeder not seem to understand that some people might have been intimidated from seeing so many dragons in one place at once? He noted a lime-green salamence and a zweilous among her pokemon; he had seen incompetent trainers nearly have their arms ripped from their sockets because of a cranky dragon, and more often than not it had been because of a salamence or a defiant zweilous or even a particularly strong deino. Even though he knew that Angelique was skilled enough to handle these pokemon (How could he not? All of Unova knew about this girl, for Arceus' sake!) he always imagined that he would be too incompetent to wrangle with one of these in the wild. As much as he wanted to do studies on the mythical dragon-type pokemon of the regions, he knew that they were rather rare; besides, not only did he want to bolster Angelique's already inflated ego even further by studying her dragons, his data would be invalid considering they were all hatched and not born in the wild.

Hex wriggled around in his arms, trying to squirm her way out of her trainer's arms. She had a scowl across her yellow face, brow furrowed in determination as she watched Evee walk around the corner toward the front door--

"You're heading the wrong way, y'know..." J. T. called after the girl, getting a rather nasty little nip from the scraggy. "Arceusdammit, Hex, I'm going to put you in the ball..." he muttered, rearranging his grip on the pokemon as he reached for his belt to pull out a red and white capsule. In doing so, Hex managed to slip out of his arms and collapsed onto the floor with a thud. She began to run in the direction that Evee had gone, pulling her second skin high enough up so that she would not trip over it as she ran.

"Hex!" the intern's voice became gruff as he pushed the button on the ball. A stream of red light shot out and enveloped the scraggy. A moment later, both were gone; the only reminder that Hex was in the ball at this point was a slight feeling of weight in the capsule. He clipped it to his belt and shook his head disapprovingly, muttering incoherently under his breath as he grabbed a pen and clipboard and began to make observations--

The girl from before ran past him, looking pale as a ghost before heading out toward the corral. What had taken her so long? Did she not hear him before? There was nothing over there except the exit back to the town, so it must have been very hard for her to have gotten lost. Besides, he had even pointed the door out to her--how could she have missed that? Above all that, why were her eyes so wide?

"J. T., you said you had an egg for me as well? Where is it?" Oak broke the boy out of his momentary stupor. "Bring it over here so I can study it with the others!"

The intern nodded and walked back toward the entrance, finding the egg wrapped in his scarf. Zeke swam up next to the intern's cheek, eyeing the spheroid with curiosity. J. T. took a look at the strip of fabric that now seemed to drape the egg--had he been that careless with taking care of the egg? Regardless, the tynamo wormed itself away from the eggshell as J. T. lifted it up ever-so-gently and brought it over toward the professor, placing it in a small indent beside the other eggs that Angelique had brought.

"Thank you, J. T.! What species did you say was in that one again?" the professor asked, examining the egg as the intern wiped his glasses on his scarf.

"It's a cottonee, Professor," the intern explained. "It's a grass-type pokemon native to Unova--it resembles a giant cotton ball with eyes and leaves hanging off the sides of its body--"

J. T. was interrupted by the entrance of the green-haired girl back into the lab. "You rang?" she called out before taking a look at one of the eggs she had brought for the professor. Angelique immediately lost herself with this egg, caressing it and kissing the shell and even... murmuring to it? As much as he learned about this sort of behavior in the classes that he had taken back in the university, it was slightly unsettling watching this woman do that in front of him--if he had not known how respected this woman was in the eyes of the Unovan people, he would have thought the woman mad.

"Yes, yes I did, as a matter of fact!" Oak's attention snapped back to reality. "I need you to identify the eggs that you brought for me!" His eyes lit up like an excited child entering the Nimbasa Park for the first time--eager to prove himself on all of the scary big-kid rides so he could brag to his friends about it in school the next day.

"...Professor, I don't think you necessarily needed Angelique for that--I'm fairly knowledgeable in identifying eggs myself..." the intern's voice echoed over the excitement that Oak exuded from every pore of his body. The professor, however, was too busy trying to garner the breeder's attention by poking at her until she finally snapped out of her stupor.

"So this one is a... togepi egg?" J. T. stopped listening at this point--he was beginning to feel that Oak was doubting his abilities as a potential professor. Angelique was, of course, distracting him and babying him through the naming of the eggs as if Oak was going through Beginning Breeding Techniques 101 all over again. At one point, the professor, in his infinite wisdom, misidentified a tepig egg as belonging to a raichu--at the sound of this impossibility, the intern slapped his forehead with his palm, the noise reverberating through the lab. Evidently, the two ignored his little display, which actually worried him a bit; perhaps the professor was not noticing how senile he was becoming...?

Angelique eventually turned toward the intern, a slight upturn in the corner of her mouth as she caressed the egg that J. T. had brought. "This egg is so..." her voice trailed off as she paused, running her fingers over a section once, then twice... three times? The intern raised an eyebrow in speculation as to what the breeder might have seen or felt along the shell.

"...about to hatch!" the breeder's eyes lit up as she turned back toward J. T., giddy like a schoolgirl. "Professor, we need a warm wet rag, a bottle of Moomoo Milk, and some oran berries!"

"...what." The intern's face suddenly fell as he tried his best to contain the pressure building inside him. With all of the mishaps he had to overcome in the past twenty-four hours, he was already a ticking time bomb: the delivery boy had come with the egg later than he had promised; the man he had hired to take him back through Diglett Cave was also late; and in Viridian City, Hex thought it would have been great fun to headbutt into an elderly woman, causing the group to spend the night in the neighboring city in order to help make amends for the scraggy's transgressions. Now with Angelique's sudden appearance and her inadvertent undermining of what he had been asked to do, and now, with this egg hatching before Oak had a proper chance to study it before it hatched, J. T. realized that his work had been for nothing and the professor would need another egg for his studies despite the fact that Angelique could provide the old man with enough eggs to study for the rest of his lifetime. It was not the quanity or the quality of the pokemon in the egg itself--it was the principle of the matter! J. T. had promised Oak an egg to study, and by Arceus he was going to deliver him an egg to study, come hell or high water!

"I do believe the honor is yours--have you ever hatched a pokemon before?" the breeder asked the student, taking a few steps away from the cracking egg. Indeed, J. T. could now see somewhat clearly the very small cracks forming across the shell.

"I-I..." he stammered, not having actually witnessed a hatching egg in a controlled environment since his days in Castelia University. Of course, he had observed eggs hatching in the wild, what was a rare sight indeed, but he had never been forced into a situation where he was required to help facilitate a hatching before. J. T. understood the theory behind everything--he had been required to take an intro-level breeding course in his undergraduate studies--but lacked the knowledge that Angelique had gleaned from her years of breeding experience... The last thing he wanted at this point was the woman telling him what needed to be done for a pokemon he was not particularly interested in raising as his own anyway; while Zeke was never any problem with keeping his cool and listening to J. T.'s orders when given, Hex was three handfuls too many for the intern to handle, and adding a baby on top of all of that would just make matters more complicated. Still, he did not know quite why he exclaimed, but a burst of adrenaline suddenly overrode his normal senses and kicked him into overdrive.

"I know enough of the basics to get it done..." J. T. picked up the egg, his thumb feeling the small patch of shell that had chipped off from the rest of the form. Zeke eyed it curiously again, swimming around it as the intern held it in his hands and forcing the tiny nodes of light across his body to glow a gentle blue.

“Oh! And you should hatch it outside – Pokémon are born more advanced than human children, so they remember--" The intern blocked out the ramblings of the breeder, not wanting to listen to the intricacies of how pokemon babies were, of course, smarter and more developed than human babies--of course, almost everyone knew that already; he had no idea as to why she was making a huge deal about it, but she insisted on reviewing this information as if it were the most important detail in living life. He sighed and quickly ran back toward the entrance to grab the bag that he had left there, turning quickly and carefully as to not let the egg fly out and smash against the cold tiled floor.

Heading back out to the corral, J. T. passed by both Angelique and the young girl with the questions about the togekiss. She seemed to shy away from him as she made his way past her with the egg in hand. Perhaps she was just overwhelmed by everything that was happening around her--after all, she had been asking about pokemon; granted, the pokemon in question was not native to the region, but still. She was curious, and that actually seemed to lessen his... distaste for the situation.

The intern sat in the shade of an ancient tree close to the doors of the lab, using the shade from the leaves to lessen the intensity of the sunlight that might scramble the baby pokemon's senses when it finally emerged from the egg. He ran his finger over the break in the egg, feeling the change from hard shell to fluffy body. On the surface, he attempted to display a calm sense of excitement; however, on the inside, he was rather furious at the turn of events that had completely thrown everything upside-down.

Another crack, another piece of shell popped off of the bottom of the egg. The intern watched with interest as he placed the egg on the ground next to him and turned away for a brief second so he could grab a black book from his bag and begin to write down any observations he felt were necessary to archive. The leather-bound tome felt familiar, homey to him, and he opened up to the next blank page and scribbled in a corner just to get his pen working--

The egg was gone. Pieces of the shell were scattered around the place where J. T. had set the spheroid down moments before, but the egg itself was gone. Where did it go?

"Tyn! Mo mo mo!" Zeke chirped as he swam back toward the lab, his eye apparently onto something.

"Zeke, what are--"

And there, heading back toward the lab, J. T. saw the newly-hatched cottonee, still with an eggshell covering its eyes and face, running back toward the glass door where Evee was standing and watching. A soft clink as the baby ran into the door, causing the eggshell atop its head to fall off, revealing two large yellow eyes that stared up at the hesitant girl.

"...nee..." it whined, not quite sure how to react to the new situation. Was it... crying? Zeke merely floating around it, was chittering away and sparking with light somewhat out of sight of the newborn but within Evee's line of vision.

"Zeke, you're going to scare them if you keep that up! Come here..." J. T. instructed, calling back the tynamo with a finger. The tadpole-like creature turned toward the intern before slowly swimming back through the air toward him, J. T. taking notes in his notes in his book all the while.

---

---

She kept her fingers laced around the fence as she eyed the woman hesitantly. Her cheeks had still not recovered their rosiness, pale complexion lingering from her fright. The older woman seemed to sense her unease as she smiled. “Oh, alright – And you've no need to worry about those two. They're quite gentle. Though you'll want to watch out for Brutus and Judas.” Brutus and who-now? Her question was answered from her as one of the two-headed creatures gave a sort of response to the woman. It wasn't a fearsome roar or anything of the sort (headbutting) but it was enough to make her start.

When she had ventured to the lab earlier, she had not anticipated any of these events occurring. She had only come to get a question about the togekiss answered. The man who was assisting Professor Oak had been gracious enough to her and she did appreciate him answering her questions! But now she was surrounded by so many unfamiliar creatures, some rather offensive to look at! That pig-monkey, blegh.

There was a rustle from below her, a flash of red and black, and suddenly there was a weight upon her shoulders. Evee blinked in surprise, an effeminate face smiling at her. The hands it waved resembled music notes. “That's Aria.” She heard Angelique say. Aria? Well it was a fitting name for one that looked like music itself come to life. It definitely looked to be a female and the pokémon was quite pretty. Aria played with some of her hair, singing as it did so. She was unsure whether it was singing a song to her or merely chatting away. Though debatably it was a combination of both.

Angelique gave a roll of her eyes, fingers brushing over the head of a nearby pokémon. “Aria – Don't overload the girl. I'm sure she doesn't want to hear about how soft you think her hair is.” Oh, that was what she was saying! Evee looked back over at Aria. Did it want her to sing back? She was a bit too embarrassed to sing out loud but she tried humming a few notes in response. She wasn't that good of a singer, she played much better on her guitar, but fortunately, her tunes were masked by the loud melodic chiming of the pokémon. A gesture from Angelique brought her attentions back to the woman who was heading back into the lab. Evee stopped leaning against the fence immediately, walking behind her with wide eyes.

Angelique had a confident sense about her, easily quipping as they re-entered the facility. “You rang?” The teenage girl felt just a little envious. She was never that smooth with people--she had always been shy and somewhat distant when it came to things like that. Not that she didn't try to be friendly but she couldn't just walk into a room and announce her presence like that. To see someone else do it, and without any hesitation at that... She hoped maybe one day she'd be able to do the same. As it stood, she was too awkward in those sorts of settings and her gaze flickered downwards. The professor and the other two were discussing the eggs--wait, did he say togepi?

She edged just a little closer as Professor Oak moved along to the next egg, eyes remaining focused on the white egg with triangular designs. So that was a togepi egg... and that would evolve into the... togekiss, if she remembered correctly. Despite her urge to do so, she didn't dare reach out and touch it. What if she cracked it like she had the first one?

And to her horror, that was precisely the egg that drew the most attention. Angelique gazed at it proudly, announcing loudly that it was due to hatch. She felt a mixture of apprehension and relief. On one hand, at least she hadn't harmed it. On the other, she wasn't exactly sure if it was her fault or not. The events were all happening so fast--the green haired woman telling Professor Oak what was needed for the soon-to-be-newborn and the other man taking the egg carefully at the suggestion. Were they going to figure out she had touched it earlier?! Evee felt the dread bubbling up again at the mere thought.

Everyone seemed to be headed outside to watch the splendor the the birth but the girl chose to stay indoors. She was attempting to put as much distance as she possibly could between her and the egg. She would not be to blame a second time around. She stared out the window, eyeing the man as he put the egg down in the shade, turning to grab something from his bag. While his back was turned, the egg cracked open and... a fluffball was laying in the egg shell remains. The man wasn't paying attention though, still searching for something--what was it doing?

The cotton creature started to wander closer to her but blindly, there was still an egg shell on its head. It bumped up against the door, the egg shell cracking and revealing large eyes. Evee stared back at it as she noticed what looked to be tears building up in its eyes. Uh-oh, it wasn't going to...

"... nee... co... cotton... nee!" And just like that, the creature burst out into tears. She was at a total loss as the fluffball cried before her, quickly looking over at the eel-like creature that was floating nearby. The newborn didn't cease in its sobbing--she was beginning to feel rather sorry for it! No one else was approaching it, why were they all standing still? Was she supposed to do something? The baby pushed against the door again as if it was trying to get inside. She hesitated only a few seconds more before turning the door handle and opening the door a crack.

Instantly, the cotton fluff pushed its way through the gap and into her arms. H-Hnnn. She knew she should feel a little sorry but it... it was so cute. She placed a few fingers on top of its head, surprised at just how soft it was to the touch. It flailed its tiny white stubs for arms, the leaves making rustling noises as it did so. Not knowing what else to do, she hugged it to her chest much like she had done many a stuffed animal and like she had done to the lizard not too long ago.

"Shh shh... no need for that," She cooed as gently as she could manage. She admittedly felt just a tad awkward doing so but it wasn't long after she started that the fluff started to calm down.

"... nee..." It responded with what sounded to be a large sniffle. A blush had worked its way on to her cheeks as she stared down at the creature. This was endearing... and something she could get used to. This cottonball was warm and cozy and holding it made her feel somewhat content. Evee blinked several times, slowly realizing that she had literally just been standing there in the doorway and neglecting the others. She forced her eyes up to Angelique and the man with the scarf, stuttering out a faint apology.

"I-I'm sorry, I hope I didn't do... anything wrong." She shifted, loosening her arms slightly as she prepared to release the creature from her grip. It didn't seem to want to depart just yet though and nuzzled into her more firmly. Her blush heightened, though whether it was from happiness or embarrassment, she couldn't tell. Somehow, she felt like she had become an unwitting momma to this newborn--what was that thing about animals imprinting on the first thing they see? She had read it in one of her books, usually those creatures ended up thinking those figures were their parents or some sort. Were pokémon the same way? She couldn't say for sure but her current experience seemed to point in that direction. So she went on holding it, nervously keeping her gaze steady. She really hoped she wasn't in that much trouble.

“Wrong? What in the world could you have done?” Angelique had went right behind Professor Oak when J.T. had taken the egg outside, making sure that the razzled Professor wasn't losing his head over the event. Even though it happened every day, Pokémon births were so exciting! It wasn't a common sight for humans to witness, even when their own Pokémon had eggs, for it was rare that Pokémon captured from the wild would let their Trainers near their eggs. She and the Professor returned downstairs with the required items in hand, smiling softly at the newborn ball of fluff. Angelique had stood next to Evee, offering her the warm rag. “Use this to gently wipe down the Cottonee, removing any remaining pieces of eggshell.” She spoke softly, not wishing to overwhelm the girl any more than she already might be – She wasn't sure if Evee was the fainting type or not, as she hadn't really seen her around aside from a few glimpses when she was in town on previous days.

She motioned to the warm bottle of Moomoo Milk and the bowl of fresh Oran berries in her arms. “A feast fit for a king – At least as far as newly hatched Pokémon are concerned, it is.” She chuckled. Aria, who had long since sang her way into her Pirouette Form, was dancing about the room and singing happily before landing back on Evee's shoulder, chirping softly at the cotton ball in the teenager's grasp. “Aria – Cool it, please.” Angelique called, motioning for the Pokémon to come down, forcing Aria to stop staring at the Cottonee, probably freaking it out. “Make use of yourself – Take Mint her egg, please and thank you.” She waved the Pokémon away as she motioned for Evee to come outside with her. She by no means intended to take over, but she was rather intent on showing the girl how to take proper care of the hatchling, assuming that from the red in her cheeks she had never seen a Pokémon hatch before, much less handled one.

Aria quipped at Angel, giving a soft nod of her head. She was much like her companion in the way that she adored baby Pokémon. But how could her face ever be considered frightening? Even to one so new into the world? “Melo.” I am beautiful!, she told herself as she levitated to the case that housed and incubated the Bagon egg, poking at it gently before lifting up the cover, which happened to be awfully light. She grabbed the egg, holding it close to her before taking off out of the nearest open window. She coddled the egg, smothering it with kisses as she made her way over to the corral where Mint was sun bathing - “Melllloo! Meloetta!” She called out, letting the 'shiny' dragon know that her baby was near. Mint moved sluggishly, obviously having a hard time with any sort of relaxation without her egg. But, never to fear! Aria was here! The little dancing Pokémon danced her way over the air straight to Mint before floating down to the ground, setting the egg by her friend's feet. Mint gave a soft snort; A thank you. She curled her warm, scaly body around the egg and gave what could easily be identified as a smile.

Brutus and Judas spied the egg and for once, thought to work together. They wanted that egg! Not to eat, but to play a game with it – See who could crack it open first! A test of headbutting power! The two snuck around the giant dragon, their tongues practically lolling out of their mouths as they tried o find a good-sized crevice to sneak into. But they were spotted easily by a nearby Bulbasaur who sensed they were up to no good. The two didn't have time to think with the brain everyone assumed they shared before they were wrapped up in vines and tossed away. Mint found herself thanking the tiny, green Pokémon before slapping her tail down on the Zweilous, pinning it there while she took herself a very nice little nap.

All was well in the Oak Corral as Angelique held open the door to the lab. “Sam – It looks like this little ball of cotton has imprinted on this young lady – What are you going to do about it?” Technically, the egg was his, making the Pokémon his. Though, Angelique had no doubt that the Professor was going to let the girl keep it. He looked at Evee with a soft smile, reaching over to gently pat the Cottonee. “Tell me, Evee. Given a Pokémon...What will your path be?” Angelique smiled softly as the Professor asked the question, knowing already just what the old man had decided.

---

---

The intern watched as the cottonee began to whimper slightly after accidentally running face-first into the glass door of the lab. He jotted down a few notes in his observation log, making careful note of the fact that it first laid eyes on the young teenager that remained in the lab. Evee carefully opened the door and to her surprise, the newborn immediately leapt up into her arms and rubbed its body against her shirt. J. T. made a note of how the girl's face seemed to turn a bright pink from embarrassment as she stood there in the doorway, flustered and unsure as to what she should do next. Was it a question of everything happening so suddenly, or did she not have that much exposure to pokemon before now?

"I-I'm sorry, I hope I didn't do... anything wrong..." The intern heard the girl's voice crack slightly before listening to the words taper off to nothing. So it was more the latter than anything else--either that, or she had never seen an egg hatch before her very eyes before. Angelique, however, seemed to be awestruck by the entire spectacle. With a flash, the green-haired woman was up and running around the lab, grabbing various objects and placing them on a small table nearby before offering a cloth to the bewildered girl with the pokemon in her arms.

“Wrong? What in the world could you have done?” Angelique seemed to be too chipper for her own good despite the circumstances. Could she not see that Evee was being rather timid and could not honestly tell what to do? Still, J. T. did not want to interfere quite yet--after all, Angelique was quite excitable and tended to get this way whenever any egg hatched; this was the same thing that happened when she had brought an egg to his mother's house in Nimbasa a few years earlier, he recalled...

“Use this to gently wipe down the cottonee, removing any remaining pieces of eggshell,” Angelique instructed, handing the frazzled girl a cloth before turning away to prepare a small bowl full of berries and a bottle of milk. Good Arceus, did the professor just have a stash of this stuff laying in a storage shed underneath his lab!? Did he have his own private herd of miltank that he could use to feed hatched pokemon on a whim? Regardless, he watched as Angelique's pokemon leapt onto Evee's shoulder for a brief moment before making some gesticulations toward the baby in the girl's arms.

And I thought Hex was bad... J. T. chuckled to himself as Zeke looked between his trainer and the others in the lab. At least Hex can't jump onto people's shoulders like that...

“Aria – Cool it, please. Make use of yourself – Take Mint her egg, please and thank you.” Angelique ordered the now orange-haired pokemon to get off of Evee's shoulders. It was for the best, anyway--J. T. doubted that the young girl needed the extra attention at this point, especially when Angelique was providing what he felt was too much anyway. A few seconds after her command, the meloetta bounded out of the lab with an egg in her arms, heading toward the green salamence with a smile across her face. No sooner than the pokemon made its way out of the lab had Angelique already begun to lead the flustered teenager out of the lab and back to the outdoors, a bowl of berries in one hand and a bottle of milk in the other.

“Sam – It looks like this little ball of cotton has imprinted on this young lady – What are you going to do about it?” The intern gritted his teeth at the sound of Angelique calling the professor "Sam" once again--could she at the very least refer to him as "professor", even if they had some sort of prior relationship? It was at least professional. He put the log back down on the ground next to the bag and stood up, releasing Hex from her capsule.

"Zeke, make sure Hex doesn't do anything that might cause too much trouble," he told the tynamo. "I'm already not in the best of moods, and I don't need her causing me any more migraines..." J. T. rubbed his temple after taking off his glasses. The levitating tadpole responded with a bzzzzt of approval, floating down around Hex's level and swimming through the air around her face, causing the scraggy to swat at him. The intern smirked--this usually was enough to keep Hex occupied for a while: a nice game of "Hide'n'go Zeke", as he called it.

“Tell me, Evee. Given a pokémon...What will your path be?” Oh no. Not this question. J. T. was asked this question once before by Angelique when they were younger; he remembered answering it honestly: if given the choice, he wanted to merely research them, not own them--ironic now that he was forced to babysit two of them during his travels and his internship. The girl, for whatever reason, had taken it as some sort of personal offense that someone would not wanted to be given a free pokemon to do what they pleased with it. In J. T.'s mind, pokemon were creatures that needed to be respected and further studied, not necessarily turned into fighting machines or into models for fashion. While his mother had been supportive of his interests, Angelique... well, at least when she was a teenager, she was rather passionate about them, to put it bluntly.

"Angelique, don't you think you're being rather forward by insinuating that she wants to do anything with pokemon at all?" the intern interrupted, now feeling the need to intervene. He could see not only Evee's apprehension and uncertainty but also that of the newborn. "I mean, sure, she just came to the lab today to ask some questions, but don't you think that could be more for curiosity's sake than anything else? Besides, some people don't want to battle or learn about breeding or go into fashion--some are more than content with having one around the house just for companionship, and that's enough for them. Can't you see that she's scared about having a pokemon imprinted onto her--a pokemon which, I might add, hatched from the egg that I brought for the professor to study..."

"Oh, J. T., it's fine," Oak's voice called from the lab. "You're being over-dramatic. It's no big deal--I'll just ask Angelique to get me another--"

"No, professor!" The intern could not control himself at this point. " You don't understand--it's not the fact that the egg hatched, it's more the principle of the matter! I went through so much to get that egg--that one egg--for you to study, and what happens when I get back? Miss Romain swoops down from the sky and hands you four and acts like it's no big deal! It might not be a big deal for her, considering it's what she does for a living, but to me, it's such a huge deal taking care of an egg on the road! I brought that egg for you to study, professor, and you and I both know that this particular egg should not have hatched as soon after I arrived as it did!! I'm going to--"

"Scraaaaaaaaa?" A tug at his pants suddenly stopped J. T.'s ranting. Hex was looking up at the intern with large eyes and a slight frown across her face. Taking a brief second to recompose himself, the young man sighed and wiped his glasses on his scarf before picking up the lizard and letting her play with the fabric around his neck.

"Professor, I promised you that I would hand-deliver an egg for you to study," the intern's voice was much calmer and more collected after a few moments to collect his thoughts. "I'm going to be heading to Unova, come hell or high water, and I assure you that I will be getting another egg for you to study--one that will not hatch in the first five minutes of my arrival."

---

---

Her gaze was brought upwards as she heard the amused inflection in Angelique's voice, the woman brushing off Evee's worries easily with laughter. “Wrong? What in the world could you have done?” The blush coating the girl's cheeks had not yet receded but fortunately did not deepen any more than it had. The green-haired woman seemed too happy for the situation and had gone off in the direction Professor Oak had in order to fetch a few things. Left alone in the lab--save for the dancing pokémon upon her shoulders and the baby that was still snuggling into her chest--Evee looked around, noticing the male from earlier still outside. He seemed exasperated for some reason, though she couldn't quite place it and was hesitant to ask. His eyes moved from the cotton fluff towards her face and she immediately turned away, a bit too nervous to maintain eye contact. Angelique returned with a cloth in her hands, holding it out to Evee.

“Use this to gently wipe down the Cottonee, removing any remaining pieces of eggshell.” She blinked, looking between the fabric and the pokémon in her arms. Was she supposed to take that? She awkwardly reached out, grabbing the cloth and finding it warm to the touch. Angelique was already turning away to attend to Acerus knew what, leaving Evee once more to tend to the situation at hand.

Inwardly, her mind was reeling from what was happening. It was all transpiring so fast and she was just so confused... On one hand, it didn't seem she had done anything worth reprimanding, at least from the way the others seemed to be taking it. On the other, how was she going to explain this to her parents? She lamented over the inevitable conversation with them as she dabbed at the creature, receiving "nee nee" noises as she patted it down. Well, at least this little piece of honey was a sweetheart.

Aria was still dancing around on her shoulders, even more excited than before and reciting chipper melodies in Evee's ear. The girl heard Angelique give a sigh before ordering the pokémon off Evee's shoulders. “Aria – Cool it, please. Make use of yourself – Take Mint her egg, please and thank you.” The pokémon complied and was scampering off faster than the teenager could've anticipated. Before she could even think to catch a glimpse of where Aria had gone, Angelique was already gesturing for her to come outside. There was a bowl of berries in her arms and a small bottle of milk--was that for the baby? Either way, all Evee could do was follow slowly after the woman.

The baby in her arms gave an appreciative squeal, perhaps it caught the scent of the goodies that were in store for it. "Cotton... cottonee!" It flailed its little stubs of arms around, the leaves flapping about and fanning air in Evee's face. It bounded out of her arms, bouncing on the ground gently as it followed the lull of food and quite literally dived into the waiting pile of berries. The juices splattered into its face but it didn't seem to mind, happily eating up any bits that it could find. Angelique moved in front of where the baby was eating, blocking Evee's view of the sight as the woman walked over near her. The woman directed her question towards the professor with a wide smile on her face.

“Sam – It looks like this little ball of cotton has imprinted on this young lady – What are you going to do about it?” Do? Wait, she had been right? It had imprinted on her? Oh no... Neither of the adults seemed to be worrying about this though! Professor Oak only smiled at her as he nodded towards the feeding fluff.

“Tell me, Evee. Given a pokémon...What will your path be?” She looked between the two and back over at the man before trying to voice her answer.

"W-Well, I..." She was cut off as he spoke up, voice highly irritated as he adjusted his glasses.

"Angelique, don't you think you're being rather forward by insinuating that she wants to do anything with pokemon at all? Wait, she never said.. "I mean, sure, she just came to the lab today to ask some questions, but don't you think that could be more for curiosity's sake than anything else? Besides, some people don't want to battle or learn about breeding or go into fashion--some are more than content with having one around the house just for companionship, and that's enough for them." Hang on, he was getting ahead of himself--no one said she didn't want to learn anything, this was just moving to fast... "Can't you see that she's scared about having a pokemon imprinted onto her--a pokemon which, I might add, hatched from the egg that I brought for the professor to study..."

"I'm not--" And once again she found herself cut off as Professor Oak laughed off the man's words with ease. Were they all impervious to her interjections?

"Oh, J. T., it's fine. You're being over-dramatic. It's no big deal--I'll just ask Angelique to get me another--" The man, J.T. seemed to get even more annoyed by this and his voice came out in a bit of a hiss as he continued.

"No, professor! You don't understand--it's not the fact that the egg hatched, it's more the principle of the matter! I went through so much to get that egg--that one egg--for you to study, and what happens when I get back? Miss Romain swoops down from the sky and hands you four and acts like it's no big deal! It might not be a big deal for her, considering it's what she does for a living, but to me, it's such a huge deal taking care of an egg on the road! I brought that egg for you to study, professor, and you and I both know that this particular egg should not have hatched as soon after I arrived as it did!! I'm going to--" Whatever he had been about to say was cut off as the lizard-like wonder she had hugged so tightly earlier tugged on his pants with a confused expression.

J.T. sighed before continuing, voice a bit weary but still firm. "Professor, I promised you that I would hand-deliver an egg for you to study," the intern's voice was much calmer and more collected after a few moments to collect his thoughts. "I'm going to be heading to Unova, come hell or high water, and I assure you that I will be getting another egg for you to study--one that will not hatch in the first five minutes of my arrival." Evee took a step back gently before taking a very large breath and before anyone else could speak over her, she decided to take the initiative.

"Doesn't anyone want to hear what I have to say on the matter?!" Her voice cracked a bit at the end, she wasn't used to raising it quite so loud. But it did the trick, they all turned around to face her. She stopped short, breath hitching in her throat. She wasn't used to this attention either but she had to continue. "I-I'm not some child to be coddled--I may not know much b-but..." Her voice trailed off. She really didn't like confrontations.

"I... I don't know what I want to do," She spoke softly now, looking down at her feet. She felt bad for having spoken so out of term to the others--especially the Professor. "But that doesn't mean that I want the decision made for me. I feel terrible about the egg, even if it doesn't seem like a big deal to you... And I want to make it up somehow." She looked up at J.T. with wide, brown eyes. "If you're going back, at least let me help you--it's my fault that it hatched anyway." At mention of the egg, it seemed that the fluffball became aware it was being chatted about and it bounced right over to her. Its face was covered in berry juice and it flapped its leaf arms again.

"Nee?" It inquired, trying to jump a bit but just floating lightly back to the ground. Evee bent over, picking it up but careful not to get any of the juice on to her clothes.

"Please," She asked weakly. She wasn't sure if J.T. would want anything to do with her now that she had pretty much just admitted she was to blame in the first place. But she felt a certain amount of responsibility and if there was one thing her parents had taught her, it was that she should never back down from any situation--no matter how uncomfortable.

Angelique had turned for only a few moments to set down the bowl that the small Cottonee had jumped into, devouring the Oran Berries like they were the last thing it'd ever eat. It brought a fond smile across her face, though that gentle smile was cracked as J.T. exploded. What was wrong with him? She thought personally that the young intern sounded a bit jealous – But why? She had been conducting business with Sam since she was a teenager. She had known him since she was a child when her mother did business with him. What was so wrong of him asking her to bring him a few eggs that most people only dreamed of getting their hands on so that he could study them all at once and compare them? Sure, he could have asked J.T. to bring them along with the other, but then what reason would he have to invite her from work in Unova all the way to Kanto? And could he have even handled that many eggs at once on the road from so far away?

She had to agree with Oak that J.T. was being a bit of a drama queen, but she let him rant, attempting to remain placid, but her eyes were already welling up with tears.

Her hands curled into fists as instinct struggled to break through for her to knock him into next week,but she did well to reign it in while Evee interjected. After the girl spoke, Angelique took a few deep breaths. The look on Sam's face was a furious one, but Angel held up a hand, pausing his words. “I did not mean to insinuate that she had to keep the Pokémon. It may have imprinted on her, but the fact of the matter is that the egg belonged to Professor Oak. Therefore, the Pokémon is his to do with what he pleases. I simply assumed that Samuel would ask that the girl would come in every now and again to help him take care of the Cottonee - Feed it, bathe it, play with it, talk to it. Nothing too hard. I doubt the Professor would simply send Evee on her way and never let the two see each other again – The Cottonee would spend its time trying to escape and find her.”

It was at that point that the Cottonee bounced over inquisitively. Angelique took a moment to try and reign in just how overwhelmed she was – Why did he yell at her like that? It made her clench her fists tighter, turning her knuckles white, contrasting against the tan of the rest of her person. “Sam...I'm sorry – This was a mistake. If it means so much to your intern that he can't handle when you work in partnership with anybody but him while he's present, then I should go. I'll be gone in a few days.” She turned to walk away, but paused, turning back to face J.T. “And just for your information, brainiac, Sam didn't ask me to bring those eggs to undermine you but so that he could study them all at once. The difference in size, the hatching rate, newborn activity. You know – Breeder stuff. The reason he didn't ask you to bring them all at once is because he wasn't sure if you could handle it. You said it yourself – Caring for even just a single egg on the road, especially all the way from Unova is a tough job. Next time, why don't you actually think before you open your mouth.” She turned back around, shouldering her backpack that she had set down as she headed into the Corral, wiping the tears from beneath her eyes.

“Angel!” Sam called after her, an exhausted sigh coming from him. He turned to face J.T. with a frown. “Now, why in the world would ever think to be so mean? And why would you question me? Do you really think that I would ask her to bring eggs just to one-up you? If I had known that you would be so sensitive about it, I wouldn't have asked her bring them.” He shook his head disappointingly. “I don't need another egg – I already have four. You should be happy that you got the egg back in one piece and that it didn't hatch before you got here. Now I have a newborn to study until Miss Evee decides just what she wants to do about it. And you, J.T. You will go apologize. Angelique did nothing wrong to warrant such harsh words from you - She was acting on my orders and if you had an issue with it, you should have said something to me.” His voice was just as stern as his expression.

“No, Atreyu. I'm fine. There's no satisfaction in pulverizing weaker Pokémon. That is bullying and that is not cool.” Angelique sighed as she patted the Dragonite's back. She couldn't leave right away, of course. She would be in Pallet down for another day or two. Her Pokémon needed rest! And so did she. Ashdir and Chomper were whining, rubbing the top of her feet in an attempt to sooth her. “Men are just so stupid!” She grunted as she walked further into the Corral, Pokémon trailing behind her and nodding their heads. “Not all of them, of course. Just the ones of my generation. They're all so big-headed with their egos!” Aria was floating on her back next to her, nodding her head in agreement even though she really didn't care too much about the subject. “I just want to go home now.” She sighed again, coming across a pond where she took a seat on the banks, removing her shoes and sticking her feet in.

She watched in silence as some of the Pokémon played, others sunbathed, and some simply sat with her and watched with her – Except for Mint who was beating the Zekrom out of Brutus and Judas for trying to take her egg. Her bottom lip quivered as she bit her tongue, fighting back the waterfall of tears threatening to flow. She didn't know J.T. that well - But she did like to think that the few times they had briefly met that she had left a good taste in his mouth about her. She had been polite and kind. She didn't talk to him enough to annoy him; Well, she didn't talk to him at all. And his mother spoke very highly of him every time they talked and her brother seemed to have no qualm with him. What could she have done that would have him just...explode? Sure, he said it was about the eggs, but the way he said it made it seem much more...personal.

---

---

The intern could not believe that his temper had gotten the best of him, especially in front of Professor Oak! And now, the girl--Evee--was standing up for herself as if to prove that she was a strong independent woman in her own right despite the fact that she still looked to be in high school. J. T. remembered his years in high school and how rebellious he had been--in a sense, she almost reminded the intern of himself... except by her age, he had known more about Pokemon than most other kids his age that had gone off to battle and challenge the Unova League...

"If you're going back, at least let me help you--it's my fault that it hatched anyway... Please..." the brown-haired girl finally concluded, looking up toward J. T. as she held the cottonee in her arms. The intern, not quite knowing what to say to this, merely inhaled deeply through his nose as he squeezed the scraggy in his own arms; Hex did not seem to mind. Zeke continued to float around his trainer's head, the sounds of crackling electricity buzzing in his ear.

"Look--"

“I did not mean to insinuate that she had to keep the Pokémon..." Angelique interrupted J. T.'s thought, feeling the need to speak her mind before the intern had a chance to explain himself. Could she not understand that she was causing him stress now? And now that she was not letting him have the chance to clear the air between everyone, he was feeling less inclined to do so, especially if she would not even want to listen to what he had to say in the first place.

After a bit of a rant, Angelique apologized to Oak before running off, clearly distraught. Normally, J. T. would be so inclined to follow and attempt to make amends, but he was not in this mood at this time. In fact, he felt it necessary to isolate himself from everyone else before he exploded once again.

“Now, why in the world would ever think to be so mean?" Oak frowned at the intern. "And why would you question me? Do you really think that I would ask her to bring eggs just to one-up you? If I had known that you would be so sensitive about it, I wouldn't have asked her bring them.” He shook his head disappointingly. “I don't need another egg – I already have four. You should be happy that you got the egg back in one piece and that it didn't hatch before you got here. Now I have a newborn to study until Miss Evee decides just what she wants to do about it. And you, J.T. You will go apologize. Angelique did nothing wrong to warrant such harsh words from you - She was acting on my orders and if you had an issue with it, you should have said something to me.”

J. T. placed the scraggy on the ground before feeling his fists clench in anger. "Professor, normally I'm not one to question you... however, how was I supposed to know that your little child prodigy would be coming if you never told me that she was to deliver a shipment of eggs to you? All you told me a few days ago was that you had an egg that was being delivered to Vermilion, and you asked me to fetch it for you, which I did. You never mentioned that she would be coming and bringing you a literal load of eggs--if the egg I brought was from her ranch in Rainbow Valley, why didn't she just bring it over with the rest? As for how I acted toward Angelique, you can't claim to know my history with her..." he felt his voice trail off, realizing that the more he tried to reason with Oak about his star pupil, the deeper of a hole he would be digging for himself.

There was, however, his ace in the hole... his "Get out of Jail Free" card...

"I was told I have a two-week vacation where I can travel where I wish. I'm packing my bags tonight and leaving for Unova tomorrow. I'm using my time to go back home and settle down for a few days. When I return, I will have an egg that you will study, whether you need it or not. It's not whether you need it, but it's more for me to show you that I'm more than capable of doing what I've been asked to do." J. T. reached into his jacket which he neglected to take off in his rush to find Oak's laptop from earlier and felt a small box inside. "Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to take a break before I end up doing something that I'll regret later."

Taking off the lab coat as he walked past the bewildered professor, J. T. hung the cloth on a hook near the entrance before looking back toward his confused Pokemon. "Hex, Zeke, c'mon," his voice was rather flat and monotonous. Not having dealt with this side of their trainer before, the Pokemon followed, not quite sure how to react. J. T. left the lab and walked all the way to the edge of Route One, taking a seat against the Pallet Town sign and reaching for the box he felt in his jacket. He pulled the cellophane-wrapped box out of his coat, revealing a box of Torkoal Smokes. Inside he felt the weight of a silver lighter and half a dozen cigarettes and he exhaled slowly, pulling the metal lighter and a white tube from the box and lighting one end.

"...gy?" Hex looked rather confused at the display, walking over to J. T. and examining the thing that he had pulled from the box. She grabbed the Torkoal Smokes, looking inside to see what was inside.

"Not for scraggys like you, Hex..." he pulled the box away from the Pokemon He placed the box back in his pocket, making sure to keep it away from inquisitive little paws. J. T. knew that this was a disgusting habit he had, but he was able to at least control it so he did not have to do things like this all the time. The cigarettes were only to be used in emergencies, and this just happened to be one of those times. He needed to calm down--everyone would be better off if he was not freaking out like he had. Granted, he was willing to say he freaked out a bit, but the way that Oak had neglected to tell him anything at all was rather troublesome to him. Still, no one had told him it would be easy...

Too bad I have to find out about all this shit the hard way... he thought to himself as Hex surprisingly sat down next to the intern, not vying for any sort of attention. J. T. inhaled deep and closed his eyes for a few seconds. He was looking forward to going home.

---

---

When had the events escalated onto this ridiculous scale?

The lizard creature had settled nicely into J.T.'s hold and she saw him pinch his nose, as if preparing to say something. Yet somehow, what she had said hadn't worked to calm anything down. In fact, her words seemed to only make things worse than they already were, Angelique speaking indirectly to her by voicing her displeasure towards J.T. In fact, her words pretty much went disregarded altogether now that she listened closer to what the woman had to say. The male stood almost stoically as he listened to her words, though Evee caught sight of slightly clenched fists. With a loud exhale and and faint squeak on the ground as Angelique turned on her heel, the woman was walking back towards the area the teenager had first spoken to her in.

The professor called after her before rounding on J.T. with a stern expression on his face. The cottonee in her arms quivered and shook its head, sending juice bits flying here and there. Neither of the other two adults seemed to be in the least bit conscious of this display however and even the lizard creature wasn't doing anything overly dramatic. The girl buried her face into the fluff, eyebrows furrowed together as she listened to the strained tones. She didn't like these arguments, she had only come here to ask questions and that was it! And now suddenly everyone was at each other's throats as if some great offense had been wrought. At this point, she wasn't even sure if these disagreements had anything to do with the egg that had hatched or it was something deeper than that.

She looked up suddenly as she caught movement from J.T., the man moving to hang his coat on one of the hooks. "Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to take a break before I end up doing something that I'll regret later." He said shortly, calling to his pokémon soon after to follow him. The two of them bounded after him soon enough, leaving Evee with the tense-looking Professor Oak and several of the eggs that had been delivered earlier. Her eyes lingered on the egg with the triangular designs a bit before she shifted her attention to the professor. She'd try asking about that when everything had settled down later...

Still holding the cottonee to her tightly (though it didn't seem to mind and was giving small mewling noises in response), she bowed her head out of respect to Professor Oak before heading towards the door. "U-Um, I'll get him. I'm sure he's just..." Just what? She didn't even know J.T., who was she to guess what he was feeling? She trailed off and left her sentence hanging in the air awkwardly as she walked out of the front door. She looked around to her left and right, a frown touching upon her lips. Now which way could he have gone?

She wandered a few more steps forwards, peering over towards the entrance of the town with squinted eyes. She could just about make out someone standing near the sign--maybe that was him? She cautiously approached the figure though as she got closer, she could see that it was indeed J.T. With a relieved sigh, she put on her best smile, though it came across a tad hesitant due to what had just transpired.

"Er..." She began, her small voice first attracting the attention of the lizard creature who was sitting on the ground.
"Scraaaaaaa?" Hex turned toward the newcomer, as did Zeke. The scraggy waddled over toward the girl, eying the cottonee in her arms. "Scraggy scraaaaaaaaa!" She let go of her loose skin, reaching up toward Evee as a child might to their mother if they wanted to be picked up.

"Hex, what did I--" J. T. began to call out before turning and catching the girl out of the corner of his eye. "Oh..." he took another drag from his cigarette. "Uh... hey there...?" He tried his best to be polite and not... angry, but the only thing that was really heping at this point was the cigarette--he hated that idea.

She glanced at the cigarette with an unsure expression on her face, deciding against commenting on it for now. He didn't need to hear her "That's bad for you!" rant, not at this point anyway. "Um..." C'mon Evee, you can do it! "We uh, never got a chance to really speak in the lab..." Man, she sounded so lame. He must've totally thought she was just a kid. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to continue even though she was sure her voice must've been turning rather high-pitched due to her nervousness. "W-well, that's not really why I'm here... You left so suddenly and the Professor... well, are you okay?" She ended on an odd note but didn't want to him to feel like she was pushing him to go do anything.

He chuckled a bit, taken aback slightly that this girl was taking the time to check up on him. "I guess... I just needed to, y'know, get away from the things that were making me feel angry... I imagine you get like that sometimes with your parents, yeah?" He took another long drag from the cigarette as Hex pulled on Evee's leg, eyes glued to the newborn cottonee. "Hex, get away from the hatchling--Zeke, y'mind taking care of this?"

"...mo." Zeke floated toward the scraggy, waggling its tail at the lizard and forcing a chase around the middle of the town. Another chuckle as J. T. watched their game.

"I'm more concerned about you, though--are you feeling OK? It's not every day a pokemon suddenly hatches and imprints itself on you..."

For once, she was able to fight past the childish blush that normally would've coated her cheeks. She had always been unused to prolonged attention of any kind, her parents were a tad distant at times. "M-Mm, I think so! I mean, I guess I would've been super upset if the pokémon in the egg was ugly..." She laughed a little, adjusting the baby in her arms. "But I got lucky! It's really cute and I like the way it feels. It's like a warm stuffed animal that you can cuddle to real close at night and whisper all your secrets to... Um!" She stopped herself, coming up short as she realized she was rambling.

"Will you be heading back in? I think that other woman looked kind of upset, so it might help if... someone apologizes." She quickly altered her words around--she had seen how testy he was at the mention of Angelique, so perhaps it'd be best to be vague about who was to blame and who had to make up here.

"Look, I'm going to level with you here..." J. T. began before taking another drag of his cigarette. Damn, I might need another... this isn't a good sign... "Angelique is... somewhat temperamental... She gets like that sometimes, and I've learned that it's just best to walk away from that situation. I don't expect an apology from her because she did nothing wrong; however, I didn't do anything wrong either aside from speaking my mind about the situation at hand, and it's her fault for overreacting." He could feel his voice growing a bit gravelly--he coughed a bit and then took another drag of his cigarette before mashing the tip against the ground, extinguishing it.

Evee wrinkled her nose as she watched the flame expel and resisted the urge to raise her fingers in front of her mouth as some of the smoke wafted in her direction.

"Oh, I'm sorry... I normally don't do this..." J. T. apologized. "This is... a bad habit I only resort to when I'm feeling stressed out of my mind, which surprisingly doesn't happen as often as you might think, what with me working for the professor..."
Her smile came a little easier this time--he really wasn't so bad after all. In fact, she felt a bit of sympathy for him really. But she wasn't about to say that--didn't men have a thing against girls giving them pity plays? At least that was what her dad always told her. She only shrugged, shaking her head. "It's okay... well, I mean, it's not, it's a really bad habit and it'll..." Wait, no, she wasn't going to do that.

He chuckled. "Nah, it's fine. I got the same speech from my mother when she found out I had taken it up in college. I was really bad a few years back, but I've managed to get it under control..."

She nodded faintly before looking back over her shoulder towards the lab. "Well... I think someone should make her feel a little better and if you feel you're justified in your actions, then... I guess I will!" She flashed him another smile before giving a polite wave and getting ready to turn back to return to the lab.

"Wait a second, before you go..." J. T. called after the girl. "You had said something about wanting to go with me to Unova?"

There really was no way around it, was there? The blush returned in full to her cheeks--he had been listening? She had totally thought that her question had gone straight over his head. This was absolutely embarrassing. "O-Oh, um... t-that... I... yes well, I mean, i-it was my fault and I..." Too nervous, heating up too much! Wait, why was she seeing two of him, ahh, escape... she had to find an escape. "E-Excuse me!" She blurted before promptly turning on her heel and retreating back in the way she had come. Idiot, idiot, idiot--she was so bad with strangers--especially those that had heard her being so vocal! She backtracked, walking around the side of the lab and heading back indoors.

She didn't say anything to Professor Oak, nodding at him again as she moved around to the back of the lab to head out to where she had seen Angelique go. She poked her head into the corral, immediately catching sight of the woman who had her back turned towards the door, looking at the playing pokémon. Evee walked over towards her, freeing one of her hands from around the baby and letting her fingers brush lightly on the arm of the woman. On the rare occasion that her mother found her upset, her mother always held her hand without saying a word. That had always helped Evee so perhaps...

The girl let her fingers skim down to Angelique's hands and she slid her petite digits into the woman's hand gently. She gave the faint squeeze, trying to reassure her. "Um... I'm sorry about what happened back there," She said softly, thankful that her voice was coming out normally. In some ways, Angelique reminded her of one of her stuffed animals--he was sad sometimes (at least in Evee's imagination) and she always hugged him to make him feel better. "Do you want a hug...? They help Picard..." She said, referencing one of her toys. No matter how old someone was, they never really grew out of hugs. At least she knew she wouldn't.

The mint-haired woman blinked for a few brief seconds, feeling the slender and petite digits of another along hers. "Eh-?" She turned to see that Evee had apparently followed her. She used her free hand to gently brush away the few stray tears and offered her usual gentle smile. "Sorry about all of that, darling - Er...What's your name?" Her big eyes looked back at the girl and then out to the playing Pokémon, heaving a large sigh.


Evee tilted her head slightly, well, the smile seemed genuine enough. Perhaps it had all just been a spur of the moment thing--the atmosphere had been a tense one. "Mnn, my name is... well, everyone just calls me Evee." She giggled quietly as she introduced herself.


"Angelique Romain -" For a moment, she had almost said 'as if you didn't already know', but she swallowed her words and instead gave another smile. "Evee. That's quite a pretty name." By then, Brutus and Judas were edging their way over, content with having given up on trying to steal Mint's egg. The two-headed dragon seemed to smirk as it snuck up behind Evee, intent on scaring her into the pond. "I dare you." Angelique cut off her conversation with the teenager to turn her gaze to the dragon behind her, her smie creasing into a frown and the gentle sparkle in her eyes going cold. The Zweilous snarled, baring its sharp fangs. "Zwei! Zweilous!" They complained. Angelique rolled her eyes. "I won't let you have any fun if it's trying to hurt others. Now go attempt to be nice. Or I'll push you in the pond." They growled at her once more before taking off to pounce on the Axew and Gible playing harmless pretend spies.


Evee faltered for a brief moment--was that cold stare directed at her? Her question was answered for her as she heard loud protests from over her shoulders and turned around to gaze at the two-headed pokémon she had noticed earlier. It seemed downtrodden for some reason, the pouty walks imitating that of a child caught in the act of wrong-doing. She returned her gaze to Angelique, partially wondering if now would be the appropriate time to let go of the woman's hand. "Uh.. t... thank you. Ah... er..." She trailed off into an awkward bit of silence and swallowed, leaving her sentence hanging oddly again for lack of knowing how to end it.


The silence was indeed awkward - Not exactly something Angel was used to. She was more used to the constant chattering of the Pokémon in Rainbow Valley, vying for her attention for food or other things. She was used to interaction nonstop all day with them. People...Not exactly. It was these awkward silences that made her glad that she surrounded herself with Pokémon. She was a social creature and silence just would not do! It was rare to find a Pokémon that didn't want to talk about something. Talking about anything would just about satisfy her. Even if she was talking with Brutus and Judas about why it wasn't socially acceptable for them to attack her customers or their Pokémon. She cleared her throat and looked back at Evee, watching as Ashdir and Chomper bit at Brutus and Judas' ankles, screaming 'Viva la revolution!' at the top of their little Pokélungs. Or at least, that's what Angelique heard. Evee would have heard just their usual Pokémon sounds. "Is there...something that you needed?"


She looked down at her feet--she was such a fuddy duddy sometimes. First with J.T. and now with Angelique. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk, she just didn't know how. An isolated life did that to a girl. She made herself look back up, nervously widening her smile. "Oh, well, I guess I wanted to check to see if you were alright..." She really needed to work on her social skills--she did like the company, really. "E-Er, and it's... um, I spoke to J.T. but he was preoccupied with something so... I think maybe the Professor was worried about how quickly you left the lab." She released a deep breath, comfortably having gotten through the sentence without too much of an uneasy pause. She still didn't retract her hand, though she did glance down at it as if to indicate whether or not it was the proper moment to let go.


"Oh, thank you." That was sweet of Evee - To not even know Angelique and to check up on her nonetheless. "I do apologize about the...display back there. I think it was just the tension from traveling talking. For both he and I." Why was she defending him?! He had just exploded on her. She was about to start crying once more, but she sucked it up by taking a deep breath and releasing it. "I am fine, though. I'll probably head back later to talk to Sam before I come back out here." Angelique intended on sleeping out in the Corral with her Pokémon. Partially because she didn't really want to be around J.T. and assumed that he was going to be staying at the Professor's house and the other half was because it was a nice summer day which meant that it was going to be another nice summer night with the stars ruling the skies. She would pray for a nice breeze to go along with it. Mmm - Campfire with some grilled pork chops and Watmel berries. Yeah - She was definitely going to be sleeping outside tonight. Aria, who had noticed her new acquaintance, jumped up happily and danced over the air, taking a perch on the air near Evee's shoulder, chirping in her ear. "Melo! Meloetta etta!" Her quarter note hands were flailing wildly about as she spoke, her eyes wide. "She wants to know if you're going to name the Cottonee and if so, what you will name it." Angelique smiled. "You don't have to answer, though. Aria doesn't know the meaning of personal boundaries."


She perked up immediately at mention of the small fluff that was in her arms. That was right! She hadn't named the adorable little thing yet and that was the best part about getting a new companion! She could remember all the times before when she had named all her assortments of stuffed animals and she had just the perfect name for him. "Actually! I did have something in mind..." She adjusted the little fluffball again, the creature giving a curious "neeeee?" in response to the movement. "I was thinking... Mr. Cotton Huggles McFluffenpuff!" The cottonee in her arms quite literally froze and if there could be a word to describe its little face, it might've been something along the lines of questioning and blank. It even stopped moving, as if so shocked by the name. Evee frowned a bit. "Er... not good enough?" She said while looking down at the baby who furiously shook its head as if to say 'absolutely not!'


Angelique laughed softly, kicking her feet in the water. Her laughter harmonized with Aria's, who was now lying on the air. Talk about 'rofl', right? The green-haired woman hid her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle the giggle. "I'm sorry...How old are you?" The girl was so...adorable. To say the very least. The initial name she had picked for the little fluffball was just the icing on the cake.


Evee cleared her throat, a faint blush beginning to coat her cheeks again. "I-I'm almost eighteen, so I'm not a kid or anything." She tried to puff up her chest a bit to make herself seem more firm on this point. But a sneeze from the baby in her arms told her otherwise.


"Co... cottonee." It said, almost mischievously at that. The girl sighed a bit and looked down at it, shaking her head a little.


"Ah - You're still pretty young. You've got your whole life ahead of you, hun." Angelique quickly changed the subject, not wanting to further offend the young woman. She gently patted the Cottonee before looking off towards where the sun had set over the tree tops. "Speaking of which - I don't mean to intrude, but is there anything in particular you had in mind for your life? At your age, I had already traveled the world. Well - I'm not saying that you have to or assuming that you want to -" Oh dear, there she went again.


The girl paused, unsure of how to answer. No, she hadn't seen anything outside of Pallet Town. And at times like this, she was most certainly aware of her limited exposure and how much others had seen or traveled. She shook her head faintly, settling her chin back down on top of the cottonee. "No... my parents were... are still pretty keen on keeping me in a lot. Not that I dislike it! It's just--I want to be given a chance to figure things out through experience... t-that's kind of why... when J.T. said that..." She took a deep breath, making herself continue. She felt like Angelique wasn't going to judge her. "I wanted to go to Unova too. So maybe.... I can discover myself... E-Er, sorry."


Angelique nodded as the girl talked, Aria moving to sit in her lap. She as well had not moved her hand - She didn't want to seem rude, or anything. The girl's company was nice, Angelique paying attention as she talked before speaking again. "Well, maybe I'll see you in Rainbow Valley - I'm going to be heading back soon, anyways. I'm sure you'd love it there." She didn't completely understand why her parents would keep Evee at home until she reached adulthood rather than letting her go out and experience the world - But it wasn't her place to question their authority. Her parents weren't really happy to see herself and her twin leave when they were ten, but they were proud. Thinking about her family made her homesick and forced her eyes to glaze over again.


Evee's smile widened again, genuinely this time. "That... that sounds pretty." She personally didn't know what the place looked like but she would have to make a notation later to look it up when she got the chance. As it stood... she'd have to talk to her parents soon about accompanying J.T. She had made the proclamation and had tried to tell him earlier that she was serious--but she wouldn't be leaving until she got the okay from them. Hopefully they'd concede... It wasn't as if she was trying to leave all on her own! She would at least have someone with her for the journey. Thinking of J.T. now made her wonder if perhaps she should head inside. She had spent ample time with Angelique and the woman wasn't going to be heading back inside--at least not for now. She glanced over her shoulder at the lab door vaguely before turning back to Angelique. "S-Speaking of going to Unova... I... think I really need to talk that over... I kind of announced it suddenly and I don't even know if J.T. knew I was serious... let alone my parents..."


Angelique quickly shook herself from her family-missing daze and gave a light, delicate sniff. "Oh! Right. I suppose you should head on back to the lab, then. It was nice speaking with you, Evee. I hope I'll see you again one day." It was a big world and Evee hadn't even put a dent in exploring it. While Angelique did live on the other side of the world, practically, Evee was headed there, so she assumed that she would see the girl again at least once. "Oh - Here." She pulled her backpack off and pulled a piece of paper and a pencil out, quickly jotting down her number. "I don't exactly have a cell phone right now...Brutus and Judas ate it on the way here. But that's my office number and if you call any time after next week, I'd be happy to talk to you about anything you need like Pokémon or whatever. Trust me, I have a lot to spare. And you sorta remind me of a younger me." She smiled. Some people would think Angelique was crazy to just offer some a Pokémon out of the blue - But it was her job not just to take care of Pokémon, but to provide them to people who needed them or wanted them; Granted, she was pretty strict when it came to giving them directly to Trainers, but Evee had a spark that she liked.


The red hue upon her cheeks deepened in gratitude as she listened to Angelique speak. She hadn't been given this type of kindness before and admittedly, it was just as overwhelming as it had been when she was given those items for her tiny cottonee. But she felt some form of gratitude--not a great many people would present themselves like this and it was touching to her. She took the number, sliding it gratefully into the messenger bag that she kept as she nodded delicately towards the woman. "I'll be sure to... I hope I have interesting things to tell you by then." She bowed her head a bit and turned, now holding the cute fluffball with both hands again as she walked back towards the lab door. She glanced one more time at Angelique, giving a polite wave before letting herself back inside. Perhaps J.T. had returned from his smoke by now...? She really needed to make sure he understood... and it wouldn't hurt to speak to the Professor either at that.

---

The girl seemed to grow rather hesitant as J. T. attempted to clarify whether she was rather serious about heading off to Unova. Sure, he had mentioned about going home--which would involve travel by foot, minecart, boat, and off-road vehicle--but he was not sure she would be able to get away from everything in Pallet. It seemed rather... sudden to want to travel the world like that; then again, it wasn't necessarily unusual for teenagers to want to get away from their origins and see what else the different regions had in store for them.

But why him? Why not go with Angelique, the dream girl that could show her just about everything she ever wanted to know about pokemon before getting sick from overexposure? What did J. T. provide her that the breeder/trainer/elite/coordinator/showman could not? Or rather, was it something about Angelique that turned her away from trying to hitch a ride atop her dragonite all the way back to Rainbow Valley with the wunderkind? J. T. could think of a number of reasons, but he was completely and utterly biased in his opinions--he was unable to make any assumptions on Evee's behalf, but then again, it was not his place to do that. She would find out on her own if she chose to walk down that path, but for now, her fate was up in the air still.

"Scraggy! Scrag scra!!!" Hex yelled as J. T. watched the young lizard tripped over her loose skin and fell to the ground in a heap. A satisfied chirp escaped Zeke's mouth as the levitating tadpole crackled with electricity, content with wearing the scraggy out. The scene brought a slight grin to the intern's face--after being bombarded with so many negative feelings these past few days, it was nice to see something as light-hearted as his pokemon chasing each other around. He looked to his bag and pulled out a small red canteen-shaped container which rattled as he gently placed it between his legs.

"Hey, you two, c'mere," J. T. beckoned the pokemon as he opened the container. "You guys look a bit hungry..." He poured a few multi-colored berries into an open hand--some blue, some red, some pink. "Dig in, you two. We're gonna be heading back home for a while, so you're going to need to be nice and strong for another long walk back to the city with the boats, OK?"

Hex plucked the blue berries from the man's hand, bringing the fruits to her mouth and nibbing away at them with a smile on her face. Zeke swam down toward J. T.'s open hand and managed to take a sizable bite from one of the red ones. "You guys like those ones? I only have a limited supply for now--maybe mom'll have some more when we go to visit her."

The scraggy's eyes lit up at the sound of returning back to Nimbasa. Both she and her trainer knew that his mother was notorious for babying the yellow lizard; then again, she had a penchant for finding the best qualities of a pokemon in general. In Hex, it had been her appealing cuteness--she had even said something about possibly being groomed to make for a potential pageant winner, but that was something J. T. did not to get involved with personally. He did not see the need to boost Hex's inflated ego further, nor did he care to have to deal with it if he was never going to attempt to follow in his mother's footsteps. He had chosen his path; while this was something that she respected and encouraged, the intern could not help but feel that she was disappointed in him for not following the same path as her.

After the two pokemon had finished their snack, J. T. closed the canister once again before placing it back in his bag. He slung it over his shoulder before picking himself up off the ground and stretching his legs out. With a sigh, he slowly trudged back toward the center of the hamlet, knowing full well that he was serious about his word and what he had told Oak and the others. Besides, it had been over three months since he had heard from him mother--it was about time that he could finally get to go back home and at least spend a little bit of time with her.

"Scra?" Hex tugged on the intern's pants once again, ain, hoping that he would pay some attention to her before taking care of some serious business.

"No, Hex," J. T. spoke, his voice somewhat tired and listless. "This isn't the time for these antics... I've got to book a room on the ship, pack up my clothes, grab a bit of extra money, maybe clear the air with the professor if he's feeling up to talking with me after how I went off on him..." He stopped for a moment, collecting his thoughts on the matter. "...was that Evee girl being serious when she mentioned she wanted to go to Unova?"

"...gy...?" Hex shrugged, although she had a glint in her eye, one that hoped the young girl was in fact willing and able to accompany her trainer--if only because she had paid so much attention to her back in the lab.

"Mo..." Zeke added, not really meaning anything much by the verbalization but adding a bit of agreement by lighting his body with different patterns of blue and white lights.

"Well, I guess we'll have to cross that bridge if she's serious..." he muttered to himself before recalling both of the pokemon to their respective capsules. "It'll be easier for me to get everything done with you guys away, I'm sorry." J. T. picked up the pace, making his way into the lab and catching a glimpse of Evee and Angelique talking among themselves in the corral. He would have stopped to observe their body language--maybe see if they noticed him spying through the window (how hard was it to look through a pane of glass, anyway?)--but he had bigger things to take care of at this particular time.

J. T. picked up the pace as he headed toward the back of the lab toward a room with a bed and a desk, papers strewn about everywhere with random notes and scribblings and findings from all sorts of notes taken over a period of weeks. The intern rummaged through the various sheets, eventually finding a decent-sized camera hiding among notes of the sizes of adult miltank and the quality of milk produced.

"Can't leave without this..." he smirked as he placed the device in his shoulder-slung bag. He found another suitcase tucked away in a closet along with several changes of clothes--for the time being, he could cram everything into one suitcase; he'd just be washing it when he returned home anyway, so it would not matter too much if it all had to be crammed into one place for a few days. His mom knew a good dry-cleaning place in the city--she knew all of the good places in the city: just one of the many perks of being one of the city's most famous citizens.

After cramming his clothes in the suitcase, J. T. took a quick breath as he turned toward the hallway once again and grabbed his trenchcoat, throwing it over his shoulders and making sure that his bag was not caught on anything. He made his way out of the hall and was about to continue out the front and be free of this place for the next two weeks--

"Oh, there he is! J. T., a moment?" Oak's voice sound slightly lower than it normally had, which concerned J. T. slightly; the professor only took this tone when he was somewhat displeased. After his little outburst from earlier, though, the intern was not surprised by this at all.

---

---

The sound of his cellphone ringing at three in the morning was never something that J. T. wanted to wake up to... ever. Still, the surprised ringing of the phone caught him off-guard, and he groggily answered it as coherently as he could muster at dark-o'clock-in-the-morning.

"...hrgl... Hello?" J. T. managed to mutter after clearing his throat and putting on his glasses.

“Meet me at the lab. It's quite important.” It was the professor--he sounded rather troubled, moreso than normal. What could have been so important that it could not have waited until the morning? Was something hatching? Did something try and escape the corral? The intern sighed as he stood up and stretched before throwing on his shirt from the previous day and quickly grabbing his pants. After hastily putting the trenchcoat over his shoulders and neglecting to grab any footwear except for a pair of bland slippers, J. T. quickly shuffled his way across the sleeping town toward the lab, which, strange enough, had the front door propped wide open.

When the intern entered the lab, he was almost stupefied by the chaos that greeted him. The place was almost in complete and utter disarray--papers strewn across the floor, other aides standing by with puzzled and bewildered looks across their faces, but most intimidating was the crimson R that was painted across the far wall. Most confusing, however, were the frantic duo of Angelique and Oak scrambling around the area searching for something... or somethings. While J. T. was rather amused by the fact that Angelique looked frazzled for once, there was in fact sheer panic strewn across her face--even for someone that he did not see eye-to-eye with, he knew better than to gloat or show any sign of schadenfreude. There were more pressing matters than his petty squabble with her, and he knew it.

"...what happened here?" J. T. asked, although he could tell from the blatant vandalism that it was anything but good.

The Professor glanced over, catching sight of J. T., giving a slight "Ah." He cleared his throat and motioned towards his now messy (or messier, for that matter) fact. He then pointed to the giant red 'R' that was painted on the back wall. "That. That is what happened here. This certainly gives me reason to believe that Team Rocket has been here. Or some sort of new gang modeled after them. Either that or its just extreme pranksters, and my dear boy: This is not funny." His voice was stern, but still rather sleepy in tone. Oak enjoyed his sleep and no disaster could snap him wide awake in such short time. Angelique herself was pacing, rubbing the tears away from her eyes and mumbling incoherent sentences underneath her breath. It was quite possible that she would have some sort of breakdown. "Mister Eische, I'm going to have to ask you to stay here with me and help me dial up the police as well as the other Professors and notify them of this. I can ony pray to Arceus that this is just a silly prank." Oak knew better - But it was a mix of his optimism and exhaustion speaking. He turned to Angelique. "My dear, I'm afraid that J. T. and I can be of no assistance - or at least not much - in retrieving your stolen Pokemon. If I remember correctly, you have more at your disposal." He was answered only by a simple nod. She had ceased her pacing and hair-pulling, opting to sit down in a chair she had turned upright, placing her face into her hands. This was a disaster, indeed! Oak turned back to J. T. "Ah - Angelique woke earlier to find that her Pokemon and their pokeballs were missing." That was never a good thing. Angelique had to choke back a sob at the reminder, as if she had tried to forget and pretend it to be nothing more than a dream.

A very terrible and nasty dream. A nightmare. But it wasn't.

Oak continued on speaking to J. T. "I myself will call up our colleagues within the Kanto and Johto areas. You will call those in Hoenn and Sinnoh and we can split the Unova branch down the middle. We can only hope that nothing like this has happened there. That...wouldn't really be good."

The gravity of the situation hit J. T. in the chest like a brick. He had heard of the activities of the Rockets, but they had disbanded nearly eleven years before. Granted, they had never tried to come to Unova with the same intensity that Plasma had a few years ago, but this must have been a serious problem in Kanto if Oak was going to great lengths to warn the other professors. Angelique's pokemon had been stolen, too--this was something that someone would have needed a deathwish to even think to pull off on someone as reknown as an Elite. Still, the deed had been done, and Oak was absolutely correct--J. T. had never been good with battle theory, nor could he really control his pokemon well enough to get them to battle for him the way he wanted them to. Still, there was the ability to warn the other professors, even though J. T. did not have Professor Birch's nor Professor Rowan's numbers. Still, he had Professor Juniper's, and he could at least let her know--she would remember him from his days back in school, and she would take the situation to heart and let the others know. She had to!

"Professor, I'll call Professor Juniper and let her know--I can't call Birch or Rowan because I haven't ever met with them before..." In a flash, the intern whipped out his cellphone and found the professor's number saved in his contact information. He walked off to the side, away from Angelique's sniffling and muttering, just so he could ensure the best chance of communication.

"Angelique, you should hurry before they get too far away. There's no telling what amount of damage they could and possibly will do with a Pokemon team such as yours. I can't honestly say I have any sort of communication with any of the Elite Four - Of any region. Nor with anyone else that has experience with dealing with these thugs. You may want to aler -" He paused as J. T. called over to him, catching his attention.

"I don't think it'd be a good idea to just have Angelique run out with guns blazing... Think about it for a minute--are there any clues to where they could have gone?" J. T. piped up after telling the professor on the other end of the line to wait one moment. "Hadn't they made some sort of secret base in Kanto or Johto that got flushed out some years back?"

"This isn't my first rodeo. I know what I'm doing."

Before Oak could reply, Angelique had stood abruptly. She had made the transition from the stage of sorrow to that of anger, showing in her eyes and clenched fists. She pulled her small PC from her waist where it was nestled in her belt, flipping it open. "I'm pretty sure Unova is having some sort of the same trouble." Her voice came out as an irate sigh, recalling the e-mail she had received from Alexander. Right about now, she wished that she hadn't ignored it. Maybe she should have shaken herself awake and gathered her Pokemon and left for home immediately. Maybe if she had, she would have come across the thugs who had her beloved companions now. She could have dealt with them then. She was most worried about Ashdir and Chomper. And the egg. Ash and Chomp weren't exactly young, but they were so naive. And Caesar! He wasn't the brightest star in the sky - He probably thought it to be another of Ashdir and Chomper's games.

She felt...incomplete. She always had them with her. Whether out or about ot safely in their pokeballs on her waist. She had never thought about what would happen if she lost them because she never imagined it would happen. A groan slipped past her lips as she poked furiously at the keys on her PC. She was answered by the voice of a rather...unhappy sounding female. "What do you want, tramp?" Classic Morganna. She rolled her eyes and continued poking away at the keys. "That's your team? How weak." She never was going to get used to these damned messages. There was a soft click and a tray slid out from the side. Rather than the tray looking as though it would hold a disk, it had six holes that were deep enough to fit a pokeball not in use in each. Which was exactly what happened to be in them. She plucked out the small pingpong ball-sized capsules and clipped them to her waist in the places where the others normally went. Astin, Christina, Leonard, Emmy, Emmy, and Aretha had been her choices. She felt that the others weren't quite ready for what might come. She decided to play it safe and stick with her B-Team.

J. T. closed the cellphone at the sound of the new voice, having finished his phone call with Juniper moments before. It sounded familiar--he recognized the attitude in the voice... but he thought she was... He shook his head. It couldn't have been! Still... He turned toward Oak, his face locked with a serious expression as he turned toward the professor. "Juniper knows now and says that she'll help out in any way she can, which includes calling her colleagues through Unova and even to the other big-name professors in the other regions. I also told her that I'd be back in Unova in a few days..."

The professor nodded and went back to scouring the rooms looking for something that apparently had gone missing or he had misplaced--the intern could not tell. His mind was more focused on the woman typing away on her little device that spat pokeballs at her. These must have been other pokemon that had been stored away for her future use, but he had certainly never seen anything like that before! Still, he cast his wonder aside as he slowly approached the intense woman, hoping to make some sort of amends before this situation spiraled further out of control.

"...I... I wanted to offer my condolences for what happened to your pokemon..." J. T. kept his voice low, but he was being sincere. It was a terrible fate to befall anyone, especially someone as well-respected as an Elite. "...I don't know why they struck now or how they got away with it, but... this should not happen to anyone, least of all you...'

"Emmy, I'm going to need you to use yo-" Angelique had paused her speech, having been speaking to a smallish Riolu that was gazing up at her with intensity. The mint-haired woman watched as J.T. came closer, her small hands curling into fists as she slightly expected him to have something to say about her speaking out earlier. Normally, she would apologize for having used such a harsh tone. But she wasn't exactly in the kind mindset right now. Her eyes narrowed as he stopped near her, watching him intensely. Emmy let out a soft growl and took a fighting stance as well - She didn't know J. T. or what he had done that might have put Angelique on edge. But she simply took a cue from her taller companion, expecting a brawl. Oh, how Emmy loved to brawl! What had come out of J. T.'s mouth did something that rare people could do when she was angry: It made her speechless. It's not that she thought his sentence was random - She would say the same had it been him in her shoes. But she was quite sure from his earlier behavior that he wasn't exactly her biggest fan.

She had met her biggest fan once. He was a creeper.

She took a moment, blinking rapidly in the way that she normally and seemingly quite often does, her mouth agape. "Rii." Emmy nudged her, looking back up to her. "I know - Shut up." She sighed, irate once more. She then quickly shook her head and placed her left hand to her face, splaying her fingers. "Er - Not you, J. T. Emmy. You shut up." The Riolu rolled her eyes and delivered a jab to Angel's calf, producing a yelp and a light kick to her own shin. Emmy did her best to lighten the mood. Slightly effective! Angelique gave a soft smile to J. T., at least glad that he didn't hate her. Or maybe he did. But at least he wasn't being a jerk at the moment. "It could happen to anyone. I'm no better than anyone else that it shouldn't happen to me." She gave a light shrug, doing her best to compose herself. She wasn't going to leave in blind anger.

"...says the woman whose face is plastered across billboards all over Unova," J. T. smirked a bit at the joke, but realized that it might have been in bad taste. Shaking his head again, he crouched down, trying to get on the woman's level. "Look, about earlier... It's just been a long couple of days for me, let's just leave it at that. I apologize for acting like a jerk earlier... It's not quite the way I should present myself to people as a future professor, I admit... Like Oak said, I can't really help you get your pokemon back, but the very least I can do is maybe keep an eye out for anything suspicious in Unova while I'm there?"

His apology warranted a light smile from her, showing from underneath the base of her palm just a bit. She lowered her hand some, looking up a bit into his eyes. She did still have to look up some, considering she wasn't really the tallest woman in the world. "Thank you...I apologize as well. I really didn't mean to speak to you like you were a child...I didn't mean to upstage you or anything, either." She gave a light sniffle and brushed under her nose gently with her forefinger. "I'd really appreciate that...I should probably go now. I'll repay the favor somehow." Ha. A rhyme. Slightly better mood. Apology: Super effective! She stood slowly and took only a step towards him, her arms outstretch as if to hug. Though, her fingers started to twitch along with the muscles in her face as though she had been suddenly paralyzed. Her hands finally formed fists and she gave an awkward, tight-lipped smile before giving him an even more awkward light punch to the arm. "Uhnn...Good luck." Way to motivate, Angelique.

"...likewise. I should get a few more hours of sleep before I begin the trek to Vermilion..." J. T. yawned before turning toward the door and walking out, rubbing his arm as he did so. Of course she'd offer to repay me... The woman has everything in the world; she could afford to do that... Still, the offer was a nice gesture, even if he dreaded the thought of being given an egg for free--an egg, he might add, he did not need nor care about receiving. His thoughts began to wander toward the next day; he had yet to hear from that Evee girl...