C007 - Getting to know Professor Elm

"So, you're from Unova, Pete?"

"Yeah, I could release my Solosis to convince you?"

"Sure, I've never actually seen one before, a great regret of mine! Their species are so totally unique with their physiology - it would make a great topic for a research paper," Professor Elm gushed.

By now, Pete and the professor were seated in a wide open room at a lunch table that could easily fit ten people. The professor, seeing Pete's miserable form, had even allowed him to wash up a little in his restroom and was now serving him snacks the professor's wife had made before. Leppa berry pie.

It was also the very first time Pete saw himself in the mirror and was kind of confused that his young late teenage face from his last life was looking at him. It was a more welcome surprise than looking completely different, so that was okay. He had short, light-brown hair with eyes you couldn't tell if they were blue or green. He was passably handsome in his own opinion and he still held a kind smile, something he liked most about his face.

"Not to brag, but my girl is even more unique! I managed to luck out and hatch a shiny one," Pete boasted as he pulled out Solosis' pokeball.

"Are you okay with me releasing her?" Pete asked as he looked to Professor Elm. It would be rude to just release a pokemon in someone's home without permission. Some might even directly order their own pokemon to attack.

And, despite his good first impression, he was still just a stranger to the professor.

"Yesyes, go ahead," Professor Elm excitedly gave his permission.

The cranky Granbull lurking behind a corner, however, tensed up. It would jump in to defend the professor at a moments notice.

"Ohh, a luxury ball. You don't see those often in Johto," Professor Elm praised as Pete held up the ball to release his pokemon.

"Hey, Solosis. The professor is really excited to meet one of your kind. Is it okay if he asks you a few questions and takes a good look at you?"

'If you're not comfortable, just say so. We want him to like us, but not at the expense of you,' Pete thought at the same time he asked the question from before.

Solosis in kind nodded by rolling her entire body up and down midair.

"Marvelous! Color variants are always a sight to behold. You look magnificent, Solosis," Elm praised. As a professor obsessed with pokemon, he, of course, knew how to become friendly with a pokemon.

Pete watched from the side how the professor worked with Solosis and learned quite a few little things he never really thought about. He even learned that upon evolution, the two ice cream balls that make up her real body would split and then partly reabsorb each other to form Duosis.

Elm had the hypothesis that that would make it so the pokemon had two independent brains, which in turn would greatly boost its psychic powers. Elm asked Pete to absolutely record the evolution if possible and send him a copy.

Pete himself had written about evolutions but had never seen it happen with his own eyes, so he kept quiet mostly and didn't weigh in.

"Getting to meet you was already more than worth the pie your trainer ate, Solosis. Thank you for being so cooperative," Elm said as he finished fussing over the pokemon. Elm was afraid he would reach the limit of its patience.

"Have you ever met a Minccino? I recently hatched two lovely little girls," Pete suggested as the professor sat down again.

"Ah yes, I have met some Cinccinos during my travels. My good friend Professor Juniper has two to help her clean her laboratory. Otherwise, it would probably look as messy as my lab, haha," Elm answered. "Though, sure. You can release them. Granbull loves fussing over little ones, and it might help her calm down a little."

Pete released his two Minccino, and they looked around curiously before Granbull came over eyeing the two. Pete didn't know, but Granbull checked if they were raised and cared for properly, so Pete's standing in Granbull's eyes rose a little when she checked the healthy and cheerful little chinchilla pokemon.

"Those two look very healthy. You're doing a good job," Elm praised.

"Oh, actually, I didn't really do much. They hatched while I was out in the wilderness with no real resources to care for them. So far, they haven't even gotten a proper cooked meal or anything. And they love taking care of each other's fur - so that's not to my credit, too," Pete responded with an awkward chuckle.

"Oh? You know how to cook proper food for these two yourself?"

"Yep, I have a few ideas, and ideally, I want to cook for all my pokemon eventually. Ideally, I want to raise them on a farm and be self-sufficient with the food. I don't have the tools for cooking right now, though. The storm barely left me with a few necessities and a few riches," Pete explained.

"Hmm, so you were surprised by the storm and were made to hide in that cave you mentioned?"

"Yeah, I hid there for a few days. Luckily, Rapidash was able to keep us warm. Though I lost the bag with all the travel utensils along the way, so camping wasn't really a fun endeavor. No cutlery, my tent was damaged. Ugh, it was terrible," Pete narrated, trying his hardest to sound convincing.

"Ah, that's certainly unlucky." And apparently, it somehow worked.

"Well, I made it here with no harm to me and my pokemon. So it could have been worse. The other stuff I can just buy again. Thankfully, I kept the other eggs from Unova save."

"Oho? You have some more eggs? Let me take a look."

Pete agreed because that would be a great conversation starter on the value he could bring as an assistant.

"You see, my family wasn't treating pokemon very well. They trained a whole bunch of dark types like the Sandile line and the Vullaby line to steal eggs from pokemon in the wild to sell them. My grand uncle even has a Spiritomb with the Infiltrator ability for risky snatches. They were poachers, really. But I wanted nothing to do with stealing away another's offspring. So when I planned getting away from there, I hid on a shipment of theirs and made my escape. I packed all the eggs I could get away with to save them from being given to unfit trainers and looked into where I could go now, so far away from home. That led me to you."

Pete's made-up story was based on facts. Not him being part of it, but dark-type pokemon with a naturally more vicious nature were often used to poach pokemon in his story. And if it wasn't a villain group like Team Rocket doing it, big families did 'business' with them.

"Me? You said you wanted to run a farm, no?"

"Yeah, true. But the farm is just so I have all the resources I need to see more of pokemon eating habits and how certain diets influence their growth, behavior, and mating habits," Pete explained with a serious expression.

"That... certainly sounds like an interesting topic. You raise good questions, though to start out, the topic is a little broad, don't you think?"

"Ah yeah, I don't think I'll get definitive results for more than a few species in the first five to ten years."

Professor Elm began to think. The dietary habits were not yet a part of his focus in breeding research, so he could totally justify hiring someone with Pete's goal. But if it would be Pete, he had to be sure, "do you have any credentials, diplomas from Unova? Any background in research at all?"

"No, sorry, professor. My family wouldn't let me attend courses like that. But I do have several observations I have noted down over my years listening in on the poachers of my family, with most of them verified with my own eyes. I believe I even figured out why certain pokemon that came from two different species parents know certain moves they shouldn't. A concept I call 'egg moves'," Pete shamelessly bragged. Breeding wasn't a part of his story, but his world building did include certain rules, some existed in the games, some he made 'more realistic'.

"'Egg moves' you say?"

"Yeah, Minccino - come over here for a second," Pete ordered, shortly forgetting that he had two and he didn't say which one he needed. They both came over hurriedly, much to Granbull's chagrin.

"Sorry, little ones. But this is just as well. You're the cutie who knows Aqua Tail, right? Could you show us?" Pete looked at one Minccino in particular. Over the span of two short days, Pete became really good at telling them apart.

The one that knows Aqua Tail was the more excitable one. She was a bit of a tomboy - if that even was a thing for pokemon.

As it was showing off, Pete started to explain, "you see, Minccino knew this move without being shown and without being introduced to water type energy. I believe it is very likely one of her parents or grandparents was a Floatzel, because they are both in something I call 'egg groups', and the Minccino and Buizel line are both in the egg group I call 'Field', which is mostly pokemon that resemble the rodent classification."

"So you're saying it hatched knowing a move its species shouldn't because a parent of her knew the move and passed it on? Fascinating... I knew about these 'egg moves', but I was still searching for the cause. It makes so much sense! And you know about 'egg groups', too? I only just coined the phrase in a research paper that I sent to my friend Samuel Oak for review!"

Professor Elm didn't think Pete stole any research from him because the young man in front of him explained some concepts, classifications, and terms he didn't yet have enough data to verify. In his mind, the professor already made up his mind to sponsor this promising young man with everything he needed. But he was too engrossed in the discussion to voice his plans.

And since Pete didn't know about that, but was also too afraid to just ask, he kept bringing up some of his hypothesis on classifications, especially the very controversial 'mineral' egg group. He also brought up 'his thoughts' on the fact that several different water pokemon egg groups existed - so far, the only typing group he had 'observed' that had more than one.

Their talks about this lasted until Vivian, Professor Elm's wife, entered the lab with a toddler in her arms and an Aipom behind her, carrying some groceries.

Only now the two noticed that is was already almost time for dinner. And they even forgot inspecting all the eggs.