Nathan Cole (Resident)
Nathan's Apartment, Hickory Street

A cold air drifted through Nathan's dusty apartment as he worked tirelessly for hours doing his research. There was a lot left undone in his small but functional apartment. Unopened mail was scattered on the metallic center table, the dishwasher had finished the last load days ago but remained shut, a thin sprinkling of dust had covered most of the rarely-touched furniture, and Nathan couldn't remember the last time he actually made his bed before sleeping in it.

He spent the last two hours in his dimly lit bedroom researching online while Kano the Cinccino enjoyed sleeping in what was Nathan's bed as opposed to the smaller pen that was supposed to be his. As to Nathan, what he researched might have been the most absurd thing to him at first, but he had already factored in all the alternatives and they didn't hold the same promise as his current pursuit.

There was the option to find a Pokémon that could speak both to Pokémon and humans through English. And he would have to trust this Pokémon. The time needed to find such a Pokémon would be immense and there was no guarantee it would work. Not to mention trying to teach a Pokémon to speak, if it were even possible, could take years. Which was why he needed to try to perform this crucial interview himself to get the real answers. So in those last two hours, he tried diving for information on how exactly a human could become a Pokémon, for at least a temporary amount of time.

To his surprise, where he thought most topics of discussion online would treat the whole prospect like a joke, the subject matter wasn't regarded as ridiculous as he anxiously expected to many online sites. Many sites had claimed it had happened before, though there was no real dependable and truly scientifically validated means to do it. Some claimed certain Pokémon were capable of doing such a thing, others claimed a mixture of regents and untested recipes could do it, and there was even a claim that one human had become a Pokémon and had visited an entire other world solely inhabited by the creatures and came back to tell the tale. However, as expected, almost everyone else doubted that claim as there was no evidence to support that.

The labyrinth of possible means and answers seemed just as complex and winding as what he might have expected trying to hack into Megans Technologies networks. But at least here he wasn't doing anything illegal or would get him caught and have the authorities pounding at his door. But there was one lead that he found that might have validated answers. A Pokémon researcher in Goldenrod City, named Bill, reportedly had unintentionally turned himself into a Pokémon during his studies on teleportation. He was wondering if, in fact, this Bill had investigated it further as follow-up research. If anyone in the world had really found the means to accomplish such a thing, it would likely be him. A researcher of his experience would at least try to go for a verified means.

It took a bit of courage to pick up the communicator and give the researcher a call, but he decided to try it anyway. He typed in Bill's number, watched the video display feed, and waited for a response. Shortly after, the video turned on to reveal Bill, wearing his usual grin accompanied with his wavy brown hairstyle.

"Hey there, you've reached Bill the PokéManiac!" the friendly and welcoming voice of the researcher had spoke on the other line. "Who is this?"

"Hi Bill, my name's Nathan Cole," he spoke to him in a direct tone. "This might seem like an unusual request, but I need your help with a few things. It's in direct response to the current Ryme City crisis."

Nathan figured if he wanted to get Bill's help, he needed to be as open and as honest as possible, hiding nothing. In essence, there was no reason to bring Megans Technologies into this. While he had his suspicions about the encroaching company, those didn't need to be known to the researcher.

"Ryme, huh?" Bill asked, sounding and looking fascinated. "Always wanted to visit there but never had the chance! I heard Ryme City was having some problems down there?"

"That's right," Nathan replied with a nod, figuring it was likely some of the recent events had attracted media attention. "What we have on our hands are rogue Pokémon attacks. As a resident of Ryme for 29 years, this isn't usual and is fairly recent. But while the RCPD has their hands full trying to neutralize the attacks and do damage assessment, I want to investigate what might be the root cause of all this. I think the only way to accomplish this is to interview one of these rogue Pokémon."

"Ohh, that sounds hard and a bit dangerous," Bill replied with a look of caution, knowing a provoked or angered Pokémon was hard to control and capable of seriously hurting someone. "Not a lot of Pokémon understand human speech, however. Certain commands and attack orders, sure, if the Pokémon trusts their trainer. Thing is that's usually a one-sided conversation, of course! You're not going to understand too much of what the Pokémon says back to you as you probably know."

"That's exactly why I'm calling," Nathan confirmed. "I'm trying to do my own side investigation and this is where I've hit a roadblock that you might be able to help with. I need to know if you might have something that could change me into a Pokémon to perform the interview myself. I've considered all the other options and this was really the only one that would give me the full and unaltered information I need from one of these rogues. I feel we may not be able to get the answers otherwise and word has it you may have unintentionally discerned the means to do this."

He could hear and see Bill sigh, looking like he was trying to gather his thoughts, but then he eventually responded.

"Uhh, yeah, about that," Bill replied, sounding more bashful than doubtful. "I'll admit I've delved a bit into that in those rare occasions I have some downtime, although the first time was a total mishap! A few people have looked into this kind of thing, though let's just say a lack of study sponsors that think such a thing has any utility or market value are, well... they're just not out there. And neither are willing study participants, which of course have to be human for this to work! Unlike some medicines and new healing items that you can test on Pokémon, you can't exactly test something that changes the recipient into a Pokémon on someone that's a Pokémon already! I'll admit, it sure would be fun as a prank and I'm sure many teenagers would love it, but you're talking about an untested serum that would be expensive as the raw materials are tricky to find. No one would pay that much just to, well, you know, jump out from behind a bush as a Pikachu and scare their parents!"

As Nathan knew, the approval process from regulatory branches of the government would be hell on these researchers to make such a thing available to the public. That and it being untested carried a presence of it becoming a liability. The only other choice was to thoroughly test it to verify its safety for public use, but that would only be considered if the return on investment was there. With all those factors considered, he had to decide if he would take the risk and subject himself to whatever consequences that would be involved because of it being relatively untested..

But as he told Bill, his number of options was low and his time was short.

"I think we can both gain something out of this," Nathan told Bill. "You said you needed willing human study participants and I may have found a justified use for this. If you send the serum, I'll take daily temperature readings, report any side effects, and will send you whatever information you need regarding any other in vivo study details you require."

"Whew, you're pretty brave, I'll give you that," Bill replied, wondering if Nathan might just be one in a million. "I'm sure you're going to want to have the agent that should change you back, of course. I'll send that too, but if you could give me ten days of research data, you'd be doing me a big favor. And hey, you know, give me some insight as to how that interview goes. If that works too, you know, I might be able to get some sponsors for this kind of study if they see the ways it can be used!"

While Nathan was hoping this wouldn't be a big mistake, there was only one way to find out. Still, he'd rather live with the regret that his attempt to find a solution failed rather than live with the regret that he stood by and did nothing while Ryme went to shambles around him.

"Sounds like a deal," Nathan replied. "I'm transmitting my address to you now."

"I just need one more thing," Bill requested. "What Pokémon would you want to try on for size?"

Considering all that which happened, that wasn't too difficult of a question.

"Cinccino," he told Bill. "Having raised one of my own, I have quite a bit of experience with the species."

That and as Nathan recalled, that experience went a bit beyond even just owning one...

"Not too bad, thankfully that's not too super-rare of a Pokémon," Bill replied. "I'm quite sure I have the DNA of that one on file. If something goes wrong, let me know right away. Hopefully I'll be able to talk you through it!"

Ten days. It was going to be a bit tricky for Nathan to work around that for that kind of duration as a Cinccino, but he needed to uphold his end of the research deal to Bill. That and take very detailed notes regarding the performance of the serum.

"Sounds good," Nathan confirmed. "I'll get started right away once I receive the package."

"Well good luck!" Bill smiled. "Looking forward to working with you!"

"Take care," Nathan replied.

After the connection was ended, Nathan made a checklist of things he might need for this study. While the package shipping was in process, he needed to make sure he had enough food, supplies, and everything else both he and Kano needed. Human interactions and transactions needed to be completed now before the ten day trial had gone into full swing. It wasn't like he could head off to the local grocery store as a Cinccino and not cause commotion when he tried to pay with a credit card. Bills needed to be paid in advance, and he needed to inform anyone he had regular interactions with that he would be away for a short while. For the next ten days, he needed to make sure there was nothing on his calendar. At least nothing he needed to be present as a human for. In terms of Anotech, he was already on a work from home basis with them, but he needed play it as if his microphone and video feed were malfunctioning, but could still type while listening in on meetings.

While it might be a challenge for the upcoming ten days, it would be worth if he was able to get a hold of information from one of the rogues. But until he got that information, all he would have at the end of the day were suspicions but no real leads to pursue.

He wasn't about to wait until time ran out and he only found the truth when it was too late...