Pokemon Trainer Sarah
03-22-2015, 07:15 AM
revival
Alice frowned out the window of the train. Trees rushed past in a blur, their dark silhouettes contrasting nicely with the sky, now bathed with the colours of deep sunset.
‘Bye trees,’ she thought to herself. ‘Bye mountains, bye house, bye Viridian City, bye Kanto, bye home…’ She sniffed a little. She would miss the house in Viridian City where her parents regularly brought new friends home for her to play with. She had to leave most of them behind.
“They’re native to Kanto,” her father explained gently when she complained. “They belong here, it’s their home.”
‘This is my home too,’ she thought. “I’m native, too!” she sniffed stubbornly.
Her father chuckled a little, then patted the five- year-old gently on her brunette head. Alice’s parents were much better at raising Pokemon than children. They had given their little girl all the freedom she could ask for, and all the Pokemon friends her little heart desired, but they weren’t very good at understanding her feelings.
“I guess you are native to Kanto,” her father said, finally. “But unlike the Pokemon, your family is moving to Kalos, so you have to come too. Otherwise who would look after you?” he tried to reason.
“Mori!” Alice cried immediately, referring to the Kangaskhan her parents had been studying for the last couple of years. Unlike others of her species, Mori seemed to have some sort of mutation that prevented her from having children. Her pouch was empty, and so Alice played baby a lot of the time, and her parents had no issue with the two of them venturing out into the city together. Their neighbours began to think the family very strange, however.
Alice loved being with the Mori. The two would spend hours exploring Viridian Forest. The Kangaskhan was very strong, always able to fight off the wild Weedle, whose sharp stingers scared Alice, and once, even a swarm of Beedrill that they had accidentally awoken. Alice admired Mori very much and one day she wanted to be strong enough to battle Weedle by herself.
“Mori has her own baby to look after now. You’re not a baby anymore, are you?” her father persisted. Before they had left Kanto, Alice’s mother had managed to hatch a baby Kangaskhan in the lab, and Mori was now a proud adoptive mother. Alice had been sad to see her friend leave Viridian City to find her own kind, but she also knew that Mori was very happy to finally have a baby of her own. She had promised Mori that she would come and visit her near the Safari Zone one day.
Alice didn’t really like arguing with her father, and she knew it was no use anyway. They were almost at the airport, and soon they would be on a plane to Kalos, where her mother was waiting at their new house in a place called Ambrette City. She sighed sulkily and then continued to look out the window, trying to burn these last images of Kanto into her mind.
------
When they finally reached Kalos, after a long flight, Alice was too tired to pay much attention. They had landed in a place full of light and skyscrapers and were soon boarding a train which would take them to their new home. Alice slept on the journey, and when she woke up, curled up in her new bed, she could hear nothing but a strange but distant roar. She had never seen the ocean, nor heard its fury late at night. That strange sound, in a strange new place, seemed scary and unreal. After a while, she fell back to sleep, but she never forgot the roar.
Eventually she settled into their new life. Her father divided his time between digging for Pokemon fossils and working to revive them in the nearby lab. He was excited because new fossils had been discovered, which might contain never-before-seen Pokemon. Alice’s mother commuted often from their seaside home in Ambrette City to Lumiose, where she worked as a lecturer at the university. She still brought home many different Pokemon to study, but they were nothing like Alice had seen before and although she liked them plenty, she still missed her old friends. Her parents were often busy and never had time to play.
Alice amused herself by talking to the Pokemon and began to notice how different each was and what their different skills were. One day, her mother bought home two Pokemon of the same species, but they looked completely different. In a rare moment of free time, her mother explained that the cat Pokemon were different genders. Alice was intrigued by this and spent much time playing with the cat Pokemon. In the end, she concluded that both Meowstic were equally fun to play with, despite their different appearances. It was her first research project and she presented the results to very proud parents, who told her that she would be a great scientist one day.
Alice had never really thought about growing up, but now the idea of being a scientist captured her imagination. She studied her Pokemon friends more closely, taking note of what they ate and how they played, which were lazy and which silly. She wrote all this down as best she could, in a notebook she carried everywhere. Alice felt her new life was almost perfect. Until the day it changed forever.
“Yes, school,” her mother repeated. “You’re old enough to go now. Don’t you want to meet other children?"
Alice had never really been around children. She wasn’t sure she liked them at all. In fact, she would rather go to a school for Pokemon, and told her mother such.
“Pokemon don’t go to school, silly,” her mother replied, pulling on one of her brown pigtails playfully. “If you want to be a scientist, you have to start learning about all kinds of things, not just playing with Pokemon.”
Alice was very offended that her mother thought she was just playing. Didn’t she know that Alice had been doing lots of research of her own?
“Come on now, Alice. Be a big girl. When you finish school, you can be a scientist, or maybe even a Pokemon trainer. Would you like that?” her mother persisted.
Alice nodded slowly, knowing she was being tricked into agreeing. It was no use arguing with her parents though; it never had been. Picking up her best friend of the moment – a mischievous Helioptile, Alice solemnly walked up to her bedroom. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was scared of children. She chased Helioptile around the room to vent her frustration, while it tried to escape using Quick Attack. Eventually the pair collapsed on the floor, shaking with laughter.
A knock on the door caused Alice to sit upright. Helioptile crawled into her lap and curled up there, its favourite position. “Come in,” she said, stroking the Pokemon gently behind the ears. Her father peeked in. He had a relieved look on his face when he saw that she wasn’t upset.
“Hello darling,” he said, sitting by her on the floor. “You mother was just telling me you’re going to start school soon. You’re such a big girl now,” he said, smiling. “We’re very proud of you!”
Alice frowned a little. “Do I have to go to school?” she asked. “Can’t I just be a scientist now? I can help you!” she said, suddenly excited. “You can teach me!”
Her father chuckled, “I wish I could, but every scientist has to go to school. There are so many things about the world that you don’t know yet. So many wonderful things for you to learn! You’re a very bright child Alice, I think that environment will help you grow.”
Alice flushed at her father’s praise, but she still wasn’t sure about school. “What if I don’t have any friends?” she mumbled quietly. Back in Viridian City, the other children had thought she was weird because she was always playing with Pokemon. They had laughed at her when she rode in Mori’s pouch and called her a baby. It didn’t bother Alice at the time, because she was happy having Pokemon friends. But if she was made to play with children, she wanted them to like her.
“I’ll tell you what,” Alice’s father said. “If you promise to go to school, I’ll let you come to work with me tomorrow. How about that?”
At that, Alice’s small face lit up. She had dreamed of going to work with her mother or father and being a real scientist. They had always said she was too young, but it seemed that going to school made her just old enough. “Okay!” she said, without hesitating. She reached up and gave her father a hug, startling Helioptile which promptly started sparking. “Sorry,” she giggled.
“That’s settled then,” Alice’s father laughed, too. “Now you get to bed. We have a big and exciting day tomorrow.”
Alice nodded, but once her father was gone, she struggled to get to sleep. The roar of the ocean still bothered her. It sounded like some monster was steadily getting closer. Eventually exhaustion overcame her and she slept peacefully.
------
When Alice woke up the next day, her father was already making breakfast. He poked the skinny five-year-old in the stomach. “You’re much too thin,” he said playfully. “You better eat all these pancakes or you won’t be strong enough to dig for fossils.”
Alice frowned. She was pretty skinny. “Okay,” she said solemnly, and began to shovel pancakes in her mouth. Helioptile begged for some at her feet, but she shook her head. “Not today, I need all these,” she announced through a mouth full of pancake.
Once she had washed and dressed herself, Alice waited by the front door for her father. He was wearing his fossil hunting clothes, khakis and big boots. He carried an orange helmet with a light on it and a pickaxe. “These are yours,” he said to Alice, handing her a brush, and clipped a light onto her head. “You have the most important job. When we find a fossil, you’ll use that brush to gently excavate it, okay?”
Alice nodded. She would be very very careful with the fossils. She knew fossils could turn into Pokemon and she didn’t want to hurt them.
Alice’s father led her to the cave they were currently working in. The cave itself had a large entrance propped up with thick pieces of timber. Lights were hung along the wall. It was cool and damp inside. To Alice, it seemed like a very big cave, but it only just extended above her father's head. Alice sniffled a little, but followed her father eagerly as he led her to the current digsite in a cavern with a very high roof. Shovels and tarps were scattered around. One of her father's colleagues was waiting for them.
“We’ve almost got it,” the woman said excitedly. She was short and chubby, with a kind voice. “We just need to finish the tail and we can move it out. I’ve looked through every book on this region I could find in the library and there’s nothing like this recorded. I think it really is a new Pokemon!” The excitement in her voice was clearly evident. “Oh,” she said, noticing Alice who was standing shyly beside her father’s leg. “Did you bring a helper today?”
Alice’s father smiled. “Yes, this is my daughter, Alice. She wants to be a scientist.”
“Well hello there, Alice, I’m Jemima,” the friendly woman bent down to Alice’s level and clicked the light on Alice’s head on. “There you go, all ready. Are you going to help your dad finish digging out this fossil?” she pointed to the wall on their left.
For the first time, Alice noticed the grey-white formations sticking out of the brown rock. Pieces of wood were wedged into the wall around the fossil and yellow tape surrounded the area.
“This is the head,” Jemima said, pointing to the skull of the fossil, “and this is the tail.” The head and tail were quite close together, the whole fossil seemed to be curved around. "We think this is a dinosaur-like Pokemon, from the way the bones fit together."
“What do I do, daddy?” Alice asked, suddenly nervous. The fossil was beautiful, and very fragile. She didn’t want to break it.
“You just brush right here,” her father said, showing her a spot a little away from the foot of the fossil. “I’m going to finish off extracting the tail, and then Jemima is going to grab the rest of the team and we can move this guy out of here!” Alice had rarely heard her father sound so excited.
Alice got to work on her section. While her father and his colleagues worked on the main fossil, she brushed carefully at a small patch of oddly coloured dirt nearby. After a while it seemed as if the dirt would never end, and she started to get a bit bored. But then something blue started shining through. “Daddy!” she called excitedly, accidentally dropping her brush. “I found something!”
“In a minute, darling,” Alice’s father replied as he finished off what he was doing. “Oh look there, it’s some kind of evolution stone!” he said, patting Alice on the head. “That’s a great find! Why don’t you keep working on it. Be careful now,” he reminded her, and then went back to his work. Alice was a little disappointed that her father hadn’t seemed that excited by the blue stone, but she kept working anyway.
After a lot of brushing, Alice could finally fit her small fist around the stone. It glowed with a cool energy, like the first rays of light after dawn. This time when she called her father over, he bent down and had a proper look. “Yep, that’s a Dawn Stone,” he said. “Well done! Not a scratch on it. You'll be a fine excavator some day.” With his own large brush he managed to flick out the remaining dirt and the stone fell gently into his hand. He grabbed his daughter’s fist and opened it, placing the stone inside. “This is yours to keep,” he smiled. “I think it might come in handy some day.” He then left again, back to coordinating the removal of the dinosaur fossil, which was now underway.
Alice was ecstatic. Not only had she found something really pretty, but she was allowed to keep it! She placed it carefully in her jacket pocket.
“Come on now, Alice,” her father called suddenly. “We’re going out to revive the fossil!” he could hardly contain his excitement. “If this is a brand new Pokemon, well, this whole move will be worth it.” He lifted Alice and spun her around in the air, something he did very seldom. Alice was very glad her father was happy. She wondered if she would get to see the new Pokemon.
------
Later, Alice was playing with her Dawn Stone while sitting in a hard chair in the laboratory. Mostly everything in the room was white, even the coats the people wore. Her father looked different in his white coat. He was messing with some kind of machine. Lab aides were rushing around, plugging things in. The uncovered fossil lay on a table, wrapped in light plastic. Alice wondered if the children at school would like the stone she had found. Would they want to be her friends now?
“Ready!” her father’s booming voice rang out. Suddenly everyone was still. Jemima and two men in white coats unwrapped the fossil, lifted it and placed it in the drawer of a large, white, beeping machine. Alice got to her feet, she wanted to see what would happen.
“Left laser,” her father said.
“Check,” one of the men in lab coats replied, flicking a switch on the machine.
“Right laser.”
“Check.”
“DNA extractor.”
“Check.”
“DNA amplifier.”
“Check.”
“Host cell calibrator.”
“Check.”
“Oxygen.”
“Check.”
“Alright, all systems go,” Alice’s father said, finally.
The man in the lab coat pressed a large red button and suddenly every button on the machine lit up. A whining sound started, growing to a grind. Alice looked at her father questioningly, but he was entirely focused on the machine.
“Everything looks good so far,” Jemima said. She stood at a control panel with a large touch screen. “DNA extraction complete… amplification 65...70…95%... host cells prepared. Here we go!”
The grinding sound grew to a low roar. The machine began to shake a bit. Then, silence, followed by the sound of gas being expelled from a tube. “Oxygen at 20%. When this thing was alive, the oxygen levels were much higher.” Jemima explained for Alice’s benefit. “We’ll need to monitor the levels. And now the most important part…” There was silence.
Suddenly a throbbing noise could be heard echoing through the lab. Ba-boom ba-boom ba-boom. Alice would never forget that sound.
“We have a heartbeat.” Jemima said. “Pokedex isn’t making a reading, no matches in the database… it’s a brand new species... I can't believe it... We did it…” she said, her voice disbelieving.
And then there were cheers. The usually serious scientists hugged, clapped each other on the back and smiles could be seen everywhere. Many of them were congratulating Alice's father, who scratched his head modestly.
“Is it alive?” Alice asked Jemima after everyone had calmed down. “Can I see it?”
“It’s alive,” Jemima smiled. “I can’t believe it, but it is. We’ve never revived a brand new Pokemon before. It’s more difficult when you don’t know what parameters the revived Pokemon requires. In this case, we used an enucleated host egg from what we believe is a related species, a Garchomp. We inserted the DNA extracted from the fossil, and it colonises the egg. We zap it to start the heart and presto! The Pokemon is now alive. But it still needs to hatch, of course. So you can’t see it yet.”
Alice didn’t really understand what Jemima was talking about, but she was glad to know the Pokemon was alive. Her father came over and patted her on the head. “Okay Alice, I have a lot of work to do here. Your mum is going to be here soon to pick you up, okay? Be good until then and keep out of the way. You did good today…” He smiled distractedly, but then someone called him over and he was gone.
“Your dad gets like this sometimes,” Jemima smiled. “This is a huge discovery and the results need to be published as soon as possible, not to mention our new Pokemon needs to be monitored around the clock. We expect it to hatch in a few days... Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Alice,” she said. “You take care of that Dawn Stone now.”
Alice was left alone to wait for her mother, as everyone else rushed around. She walked over to the beeping machine and noticed a small window in the side. She looked through and saw a round Pokemon egg with wires attached to it. It seemed to be moving slightly. "Hello egg," she whispered. "I hope you're alright in there. I hope I get to meet you one day..."
------
Later, Alice lay in bed with Helioptile at her feet. She held the Dawn Stone tightly in her fist.
That night, the roar of the ocean didn’t bother her at all.
Word Count: 3,244
Pokemon Obtaining: Tyrunt and Dawn Stone
Alice frowned out the window of the train. Trees rushed past in a blur, their dark silhouettes contrasting nicely with the sky, now bathed with the colours of deep sunset.
‘Bye trees,’ she thought to herself. ‘Bye mountains, bye house, bye Viridian City, bye Kanto, bye home…’ She sniffed a little. She would miss the house in Viridian City where her parents regularly brought new friends home for her to play with. She had to leave most of them behind.
“They’re native to Kanto,” her father explained gently when she complained. “They belong here, it’s their home.”
‘This is my home too,’ she thought. “I’m native, too!” she sniffed stubbornly.
Her father chuckled a little, then patted the five- year-old gently on her brunette head. Alice’s parents were much better at raising Pokemon than children. They had given their little girl all the freedom she could ask for, and all the Pokemon friends her little heart desired, but they weren’t very good at understanding her feelings.
“I guess you are native to Kanto,” her father said, finally. “But unlike the Pokemon, your family is moving to Kalos, so you have to come too. Otherwise who would look after you?” he tried to reason.
“Mori!” Alice cried immediately, referring to the Kangaskhan her parents had been studying for the last couple of years. Unlike others of her species, Mori seemed to have some sort of mutation that prevented her from having children. Her pouch was empty, and so Alice played baby a lot of the time, and her parents had no issue with the two of them venturing out into the city together. Their neighbours began to think the family very strange, however.
Alice loved being with the Mori. The two would spend hours exploring Viridian Forest. The Kangaskhan was very strong, always able to fight off the wild Weedle, whose sharp stingers scared Alice, and once, even a swarm of Beedrill that they had accidentally awoken. Alice admired Mori very much and one day she wanted to be strong enough to battle Weedle by herself.
“Mori has her own baby to look after now. You’re not a baby anymore, are you?” her father persisted. Before they had left Kanto, Alice’s mother had managed to hatch a baby Kangaskhan in the lab, and Mori was now a proud adoptive mother. Alice had been sad to see her friend leave Viridian City to find her own kind, but she also knew that Mori was very happy to finally have a baby of her own. She had promised Mori that she would come and visit her near the Safari Zone one day.
Alice didn’t really like arguing with her father, and she knew it was no use anyway. They were almost at the airport, and soon they would be on a plane to Kalos, where her mother was waiting at their new house in a place called Ambrette City. She sighed sulkily and then continued to look out the window, trying to burn these last images of Kanto into her mind.
------
When they finally reached Kalos, after a long flight, Alice was too tired to pay much attention. They had landed in a place full of light and skyscrapers and were soon boarding a train which would take them to their new home. Alice slept on the journey, and when she woke up, curled up in her new bed, she could hear nothing but a strange but distant roar. She had never seen the ocean, nor heard its fury late at night. That strange sound, in a strange new place, seemed scary and unreal. After a while, she fell back to sleep, but she never forgot the roar.
Eventually she settled into their new life. Her father divided his time between digging for Pokemon fossils and working to revive them in the nearby lab. He was excited because new fossils had been discovered, which might contain never-before-seen Pokemon. Alice’s mother commuted often from their seaside home in Ambrette City to Lumiose, where she worked as a lecturer at the university. She still brought home many different Pokemon to study, but they were nothing like Alice had seen before and although she liked them plenty, she still missed her old friends. Her parents were often busy and never had time to play.
Alice amused herself by talking to the Pokemon and began to notice how different each was and what their different skills were. One day, her mother bought home two Pokemon of the same species, but they looked completely different. In a rare moment of free time, her mother explained that the cat Pokemon were different genders. Alice was intrigued by this and spent much time playing with the cat Pokemon. In the end, she concluded that both Meowstic were equally fun to play with, despite their different appearances. It was her first research project and she presented the results to very proud parents, who told her that she would be a great scientist one day.
Alice had never really thought about growing up, but now the idea of being a scientist captured her imagination. She studied her Pokemon friends more closely, taking note of what they ate and how they played, which were lazy and which silly. She wrote all this down as best she could, in a notebook she carried everywhere. Alice felt her new life was almost perfect. Until the day it changed forever.
“Yes, school,” her mother repeated. “You’re old enough to go now. Don’t you want to meet other children?"
Alice had never really been around children. She wasn’t sure she liked them at all. In fact, she would rather go to a school for Pokemon, and told her mother such.
“Pokemon don’t go to school, silly,” her mother replied, pulling on one of her brown pigtails playfully. “If you want to be a scientist, you have to start learning about all kinds of things, not just playing with Pokemon.”
Alice was very offended that her mother thought she was just playing. Didn’t she know that Alice had been doing lots of research of her own?
“Come on now, Alice. Be a big girl. When you finish school, you can be a scientist, or maybe even a Pokemon trainer. Would you like that?” her mother persisted.
Alice nodded slowly, knowing she was being tricked into agreeing. It was no use arguing with her parents though; it never had been. Picking up her best friend of the moment – a mischievous Helioptile, Alice solemnly walked up to her bedroom. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was scared of children. She chased Helioptile around the room to vent her frustration, while it tried to escape using Quick Attack. Eventually the pair collapsed on the floor, shaking with laughter.
A knock on the door caused Alice to sit upright. Helioptile crawled into her lap and curled up there, its favourite position. “Come in,” she said, stroking the Pokemon gently behind the ears. Her father peeked in. He had a relieved look on his face when he saw that she wasn’t upset.
“Hello darling,” he said, sitting by her on the floor. “You mother was just telling me you’re going to start school soon. You’re such a big girl now,” he said, smiling. “We’re very proud of you!”
Alice frowned a little. “Do I have to go to school?” she asked. “Can’t I just be a scientist now? I can help you!” she said, suddenly excited. “You can teach me!”
Her father chuckled, “I wish I could, but every scientist has to go to school. There are so many things about the world that you don’t know yet. So many wonderful things for you to learn! You’re a very bright child Alice, I think that environment will help you grow.”
Alice flushed at her father’s praise, but she still wasn’t sure about school. “What if I don’t have any friends?” she mumbled quietly. Back in Viridian City, the other children had thought she was weird because she was always playing with Pokemon. They had laughed at her when she rode in Mori’s pouch and called her a baby. It didn’t bother Alice at the time, because she was happy having Pokemon friends. But if she was made to play with children, she wanted them to like her.
“I’ll tell you what,” Alice’s father said. “If you promise to go to school, I’ll let you come to work with me tomorrow. How about that?”
At that, Alice’s small face lit up. She had dreamed of going to work with her mother or father and being a real scientist. They had always said she was too young, but it seemed that going to school made her just old enough. “Okay!” she said, without hesitating. She reached up and gave her father a hug, startling Helioptile which promptly started sparking. “Sorry,” she giggled.
“That’s settled then,” Alice’s father laughed, too. “Now you get to bed. We have a big and exciting day tomorrow.”
Alice nodded, but once her father was gone, she struggled to get to sleep. The roar of the ocean still bothered her. It sounded like some monster was steadily getting closer. Eventually exhaustion overcame her and she slept peacefully.
------
When Alice woke up the next day, her father was already making breakfast. He poked the skinny five-year-old in the stomach. “You’re much too thin,” he said playfully. “You better eat all these pancakes or you won’t be strong enough to dig for fossils.”
Alice frowned. She was pretty skinny. “Okay,” she said solemnly, and began to shovel pancakes in her mouth. Helioptile begged for some at her feet, but she shook her head. “Not today, I need all these,” she announced through a mouth full of pancake.
Once she had washed and dressed herself, Alice waited by the front door for her father. He was wearing his fossil hunting clothes, khakis and big boots. He carried an orange helmet with a light on it and a pickaxe. “These are yours,” he said to Alice, handing her a brush, and clipped a light onto her head. “You have the most important job. When we find a fossil, you’ll use that brush to gently excavate it, okay?”
Alice nodded. She would be very very careful with the fossils. She knew fossils could turn into Pokemon and she didn’t want to hurt them.
Alice’s father led her to the cave they were currently working in. The cave itself had a large entrance propped up with thick pieces of timber. Lights were hung along the wall. It was cool and damp inside. To Alice, it seemed like a very big cave, but it only just extended above her father's head. Alice sniffled a little, but followed her father eagerly as he led her to the current digsite in a cavern with a very high roof. Shovels and tarps were scattered around. One of her father's colleagues was waiting for them.
“We’ve almost got it,” the woman said excitedly. She was short and chubby, with a kind voice. “We just need to finish the tail and we can move it out. I’ve looked through every book on this region I could find in the library and there’s nothing like this recorded. I think it really is a new Pokemon!” The excitement in her voice was clearly evident. “Oh,” she said, noticing Alice who was standing shyly beside her father’s leg. “Did you bring a helper today?”
Alice’s father smiled. “Yes, this is my daughter, Alice. She wants to be a scientist.”
“Well hello there, Alice, I’m Jemima,” the friendly woman bent down to Alice’s level and clicked the light on Alice’s head on. “There you go, all ready. Are you going to help your dad finish digging out this fossil?” she pointed to the wall on their left.
For the first time, Alice noticed the grey-white formations sticking out of the brown rock. Pieces of wood were wedged into the wall around the fossil and yellow tape surrounded the area.
“This is the head,” Jemima said, pointing to the skull of the fossil, “and this is the tail.” The head and tail were quite close together, the whole fossil seemed to be curved around. "We think this is a dinosaur-like Pokemon, from the way the bones fit together."
“What do I do, daddy?” Alice asked, suddenly nervous. The fossil was beautiful, and very fragile. She didn’t want to break it.
“You just brush right here,” her father said, showing her a spot a little away from the foot of the fossil. “I’m going to finish off extracting the tail, and then Jemima is going to grab the rest of the team and we can move this guy out of here!” Alice had rarely heard her father sound so excited.
Alice got to work on her section. While her father and his colleagues worked on the main fossil, she brushed carefully at a small patch of oddly coloured dirt nearby. After a while it seemed as if the dirt would never end, and she started to get a bit bored. But then something blue started shining through. “Daddy!” she called excitedly, accidentally dropping her brush. “I found something!”
“In a minute, darling,” Alice’s father replied as he finished off what he was doing. “Oh look there, it’s some kind of evolution stone!” he said, patting Alice on the head. “That’s a great find! Why don’t you keep working on it. Be careful now,” he reminded her, and then went back to his work. Alice was a little disappointed that her father hadn’t seemed that excited by the blue stone, but she kept working anyway.
After a lot of brushing, Alice could finally fit her small fist around the stone. It glowed with a cool energy, like the first rays of light after dawn. This time when she called her father over, he bent down and had a proper look. “Yep, that’s a Dawn Stone,” he said. “Well done! Not a scratch on it. You'll be a fine excavator some day.” With his own large brush he managed to flick out the remaining dirt and the stone fell gently into his hand. He grabbed his daughter’s fist and opened it, placing the stone inside. “This is yours to keep,” he smiled. “I think it might come in handy some day.” He then left again, back to coordinating the removal of the dinosaur fossil, which was now underway.
Alice was ecstatic. Not only had she found something really pretty, but she was allowed to keep it! She placed it carefully in her jacket pocket.
“Come on now, Alice,” her father called suddenly. “We’re going out to revive the fossil!” he could hardly contain his excitement. “If this is a brand new Pokemon, well, this whole move will be worth it.” He lifted Alice and spun her around in the air, something he did very seldom. Alice was very glad her father was happy. She wondered if she would get to see the new Pokemon.
------
Later, Alice was playing with her Dawn Stone while sitting in a hard chair in the laboratory. Mostly everything in the room was white, even the coats the people wore. Her father looked different in his white coat. He was messing with some kind of machine. Lab aides were rushing around, plugging things in. The uncovered fossil lay on a table, wrapped in light plastic. Alice wondered if the children at school would like the stone she had found. Would they want to be her friends now?
“Ready!” her father’s booming voice rang out. Suddenly everyone was still. Jemima and two men in white coats unwrapped the fossil, lifted it and placed it in the drawer of a large, white, beeping machine. Alice got to her feet, she wanted to see what would happen.
“Left laser,” her father said.
“Check,” one of the men in lab coats replied, flicking a switch on the machine.
“Right laser.”
“Check.”
“DNA extractor.”
“Check.”
“DNA amplifier.”
“Check.”
“Host cell calibrator.”
“Check.”
“Oxygen.”
“Check.”
“Alright, all systems go,” Alice’s father said, finally.
The man in the lab coat pressed a large red button and suddenly every button on the machine lit up. A whining sound started, growing to a grind. Alice looked at her father questioningly, but he was entirely focused on the machine.
“Everything looks good so far,” Jemima said. She stood at a control panel with a large touch screen. “DNA extraction complete… amplification 65...70…95%... host cells prepared. Here we go!”
The grinding sound grew to a low roar. The machine began to shake a bit. Then, silence, followed by the sound of gas being expelled from a tube. “Oxygen at 20%. When this thing was alive, the oxygen levels were much higher.” Jemima explained for Alice’s benefit. “We’ll need to monitor the levels. And now the most important part…” There was silence.
Suddenly a throbbing noise could be heard echoing through the lab. Ba-boom ba-boom ba-boom. Alice would never forget that sound.
“We have a heartbeat.” Jemima said. “Pokedex isn’t making a reading, no matches in the database… it’s a brand new species... I can't believe it... We did it…” she said, her voice disbelieving.
And then there were cheers. The usually serious scientists hugged, clapped each other on the back and smiles could be seen everywhere. Many of them were congratulating Alice's father, who scratched his head modestly.
“Is it alive?” Alice asked Jemima after everyone had calmed down. “Can I see it?”
“It’s alive,” Jemima smiled. “I can’t believe it, but it is. We’ve never revived a brand new Pokemon before. It’s more difficult when you don’t know what parameters the revived Pokemon requires. In this case, we used an enucleated host egg from what we believe is a related species, a Garchomp. We inserted the DNA extracted from the fossil, and it colonises the egg. We zap it to start the heart and presto! The Pokemon is now alive. But it still needs to hatch, of course. So you can’t see it yet.”
Alice didn’t really understand what Jemima was talking about, but she was glad to know the Pokemon was alive. Her father came over and patted her on the head. “Okay Alice, I have a lot of work to do here. Your mum is going to be here soon to pick you up, okay? Be good until then and keep out of the way. You did good today…” He smiled distractedly, but then someone called him over and he was gone.
“Your dad gets like this sometimes,” Jemima smiled. “This is a huge discovery and the results need to be published as soon as possible, not to mention our new Pokemon needs to be monitored around the clock. We expect it to hatch in a few days... Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Alice,” she said. “You take care of that Dawn Stone now.”
Alice was left alone to wait for her mother, as everyone else rushed around. She walked over to the beeping machine and noticed a small window in the side. She looked through and saw a round Pokemon egg with wires attached to it. It seemed to be moving slightly. "Hello egg," she whispered. "I hope you're alright in there. I hope I get to meet you one day..."
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Later, Alice lay in bed with Helioptile at her feet. She held the Dawn Stone tightly in her fist.
That night, the roar of the ocean didn’t bother her at all.
Word Count: 3,244
Pokemon Obtaining: Tyrunt and Dawn Stone