Astra and May got up first thing in the morning—much to May’s chagrin—and packed up everything they owned back into their packs. After a quick breakfast in the lobby, they officially handed in the keys to the room to the front desk and bid the hotel a fond farewell. Well, Astra did at least; she was unused to ‘temporary’ lodging and had grown fond of the soft bed, warm showers, and delicious breakfasts the building provided.

The duo met up with Brendan outside a small bakery where he’d gotten his own breakfast, and the trio made their way toward the Devon headquarters, filling the air with easy chatter along the way.

Eventually, they arrived at the gleaming towers and were ushered in to meet President Stone. Mr. Stone greeted them warmly as they entered his office, standing from his desk and walking to meet them halfway in.

“Ah, good, there you are. Ready to start the job?” he asked.

“Setting out today,” Brendan confirmed.

Mr. Stone nodded. He looked at them, his eyes staring into each of theirs in turn, then sighed. “What a detestable situation. While the risks should be minimal, it is still regrettable that Aqua has made this whole arrangement necessary.”

“Hey, it’s no big deal,” May shrugged, grinning. “If those pricks wanna pick a fight, we’re more than enough to take care of it.”

“Picking a fight with you is the last thing I want them to be doing.” Mr. Stone chided, frowning. “This job exists only because you three have both proven you can handle yourselves and are too fresh to be on anybody’s radar. You should only be facing those miscreants if something has gone terribly wrong.”

“Don’t worry,” Astra said, giving Mr. Stone a reassuring grin. “We’ll finish the job quicker than they can blink!”

Or, at least, Astra hoped so. Delivering a letter to Steven would be stressful enough as it was, she didn’t need that Aqua flunky harassing them on the way there. What happened to that guy anyway?

“By the way,” Astra said, “did anyone ever catch that guy that stole the briefcase?”

Mr. Stone shook his head. “I’ve not received any updates on the situation, and Aqua is still claiming innocence.” He paused, glancing at a clock. “Mmm, we’d best get on with it. To reiterate, your mission is to deliver a letter to my son Steven Stone in Dewford and a parcel containing documentation and machine parts to Captain Stern in Slateport. Do you understand the task as I’ve explained it?”

“Yes, sir!” “Got it.” “Yep!”

Mr. Stone nodded. “Excellent, excellent. You’ll be picking up the packages on your way out of the building. Protect them as best you can, and deliver them as quickly as you are capable. Keep them secret, keep them safe.

“As for your compensation,” he continued, turning to Astra. “I’ve told the boys in production to prepare one of our prototype PokeNavs for field testing. Should be just as capable as the full version will be, but we’ve included a feature for feedback and error reporting. Please let us know if you have any issues.”

“I’ll make good use of it!” Astra promised. “I’d be pretty dumb to ask for a better map then get lost anyway.”

Mr. Stone chuckled. “Well, hopefully you’ll use more than the map.” He turned to May. “I recall that you wanted a standard monetary payment. I’ve taken the liberty to write out a check for a third of the payment, and you’ll receive the rest once the delivery is completed.”

Mr. Stone handed May a small slip of paper. Her eyes widened a fraction as she read it, and Astra looked over to see quite a few zeroes. She stared. That made what they’d earned in the battle event look like pocket change!

“Y-yeah,” May said, blinking. “That’s fine. We won’t let it out of our sight.”

Mr. Stone nodded, then turned to Brendan, who was also staring at the check. He quirked an eyebrow. “Mr. Birch,” he said, causing Brendan to start. “I didn’t receive a request from you yesterday, but can I assume you would also be interested in monetary compensation?”

“Uh,” he said, glancing at May. “Well, I can’t say I’m not tempted, but I actually came here wondering if I could get a tour. I’ve heard a lot of rumors about some fascinating tech your company is developing and I wanted to, well, check it out.”

He shrugged. Mr. Stone looked amused.

“Well I can certainly arrange that. The boys in R&D certainly love to talk my ears off about whatever pet project they have brewing whenever I stop by, I’m sure they’d appreciate someone who’s interested beyond the business applications. I’ll even extend you the opportunity to help beta-test any that catch your interest, just like Miss Astra and her PokeNav.”

“I dunno, man,” May said, nudging Brendan. She held up the check. “Now that I got this, just taking a look around doesn’t seem very reward-y.”

“I can assure you that it would cost quite a bit more than you are receiving to lay hands on our tech ahead of the rest of the world,” Mr. Stone informed her. “To use Miss Astra as an example again, even discounting the price of the PokeNav, early access is a substantial advantage on its own.”

Brendan considered his words for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll take the tour, sir.”

May hummed disapprovingly. “You sure?”

“I’m not hurting for money,” Brendan explained. “I mean, more would be nice, but I can get that a lot of ways. An opportunity like this doesn’t come around just by asking.”

“I’d rather have the PokeNav than the cash,” Astra agreed. “We couldn’t buy our way out of that forest we got lost in.”

May rolled her eyes, but let the subject drop. Mr. Stone smiled. “Excellent. I’ll have one of the boys show you around. Lily will see you back to the waiting room. Thank you for your service, and I look forward to your success.”

One of ‘the boys’ turned out to be a tired-looking bespectacled man wearing a glossy white coat named Arin. He’d greeted them with a polite-yet-distant smile, which rapidly switched into confusion and surprise when he’d actually looked at them.

“I thought one of the boss’s investors was poking around again,” he chatted, his smile looking much more genuine as he led Astra, May, and Brendan through the building. “They‘re usually focused on how much money our developments can net them, so it’s rare anyone gets to talk about their project with people who don’t already know.”

Brendan chuckled. “Considering we chose this over money, I doubt you’ll have the same problem with us!”

“I’ll bet!” Arin grinned, walking the group towards a double door. He poked his head inside. “Look alive, everybody! We’ve got guests!” he shouted, then looked back and motioned for them to follow.

The lab was a fairly spacious place, full of computer-laden tables, strange machines, and large white surfaces covered with scribbles and diagrams. They were roughly divided into a half-dozen zones, with each one occupied by two or three humans dressed similarly to Arin. They all looked up at his announcement; most gave Arin a minor note of acknowledgement, but a few stared at the trio curiously before returning to their work.

“Wow!” Astra said, head turning every-which-way at the vast array of intriguing sights. “You’ve got a lot in here! Oh,” she exclaimed, spotting something on a nearby whiteboard. It looked like a drawing of a pokeball, but as if someone had separated every component into layers. “Is that how a pokeball fits together?”

“Sure is!” Arin chuckled. “We’ve made quite a few new types recently, and our boy Jeb is the one who thought ‘em up! Wanna go see what he’s working on?”

Astra and Brendan nodded eagerly, though May just shrugged. They moved over to the station, and Arin knocked on a waist-high wall that divided it from the others.

“Hey Jeb!” he greeted, smirking. “How’re your balls coming along?”

Jeb, a hefty brown-haired man in glasses, looked up sharply at Arin, mouth open—before pausing at May’s snicker. He eyed them warily, before turning a frown on Arin. “They’re fine,” he grumbled. “Just having problems integrating the full restore on the next one.”

“Full restore?” May asked, raising an eyebrow. “Isn’t that like, a cure-all? What are you doing with that?”

“Oh, my next project is a pokeball that heals whatever you capture to full health,” he explained. “Most pokemon usually need a bit of healing up before a trainer can use them, so I figured that having a ball that could provide that aid instantly would be handy.”

“Oh, that would have been really useful, actually!” Astra said, nodding. “We got in a dangerous fight recently, and I had just captured a Nincada before that. If he’d been ready to battle right after I caught him it could have gone much smoother.”

“Not sure Nincada could have done much against that Exploud, Astra,” May remarked dryly.

“Not much isn’t nothing!” Astra argued. “Either way, that sounds like a really nice feature, Jeb. Have you made any other pokeballs?”

“Oh, Jeb here’s made quite a few!” Arin said, grinning. “You know Timer and Repeat balls? All Jeb.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of those,” Brendan said. “Repeat balls catch pokemon you’ve caught before more easily and timer balls work better the longer a fight lasts, right?”

“Some of my best work!” Jeb said, proudly. “Took me forever to figure out how to get a pokeball to download and share construct data like that. Both of ‘em create an environment suited to the pokemon you’re fighting, the difference is Repeat balls connect to your other Repeat balls and Timer balls connect to a central database. Downloading all that data takes time, so that’s why stalling makes timer balls work better.”

“Neat!” Astra said. “Say, how do pokeballs work, anyway? I always wondered.”

Jeb considered Astra for a moment. “How much do you know about organic-data conversion?”

“Nothing at all.”

“It’s magic.”

May and Brendan snorted, then coughed into their fists to hide their laughter. Astra glared. “Hey!”

Arin shook his head, an amused smile playing across his face. “Good stuff, good stuff. Anyway, we’ll let you get back to it. Now, who should we visit next—ah, Becky! How’s that Dreamscape project coming along?”

Becky’s project was some sort of device that let you view someone's dreams in real-time. Astra listened to the woman complain about the innumerable roadblocks she’d run into with half an ear, distracted by the sudden feeling of void from somewhere in the room. She glanced about, trying to pinpoint the source, when she spotted another woman working at some sort of machine box radiating black light.

Astra stared at her. Breaking away from the group, she glided over to the woman’s zone. Noticing Astra’s approach, the woman looked up and blinked at her. Astra looked from her to the box. It felt...like how a Poochyena would.

Dark.

“What is that?” Astra asked, gaze fixated on the strange machine part.

“O-oh...um....” the woman stuttered, shrinking in on herself slightly. “R-right, the tour. Um. Well, I—Devon, we’ve been trying to apply various pokemon energy types to...to machines, and such, to make them work better. A-a few months ago we helped build the...the rocket? In Mossdeep?”

Astra’s gaze snapped to the woman. “You made the rocket?” she asked, awed. “The one that went to the moon?”

The woman flushed. “I-I mean, it wasn’t just me, but, uh, y-yeah. I—we, um, made the metal more permeable to Psychic and Flying energy. So the pokemon on board could, you know, lift it easier, and it would cut through the air better.”

“Woah,” Astra said, eyes wide. There were pokemon on the rocket that lifted it? “That’s incredible. But, what does that do?” she asked, returning her attention to the box.

The woman shifted in her seat. “Um. It’s...kind of the opposite of what I did for the-the rocket. It’s a module that’s supposed to mimic Dark-type pokemon’s ability to, uh, nullify psychic abilities targeted at whatever it’s inserted into, so nobody can, um, make their pokemon teleport it away? Or throw it? Honestly Courtney, would an explanation kill you?” she muttered under her breath. She hesitated. “I-I guess it’s for security reasons—”

“Oh hey Mami!” Arin greeted from behind Astra, making them both jump. “Still working on that commission for your friend?”

The newly named Mami ducked her head and nodded. Arin chuckled.

“Well, keep up the good work. Sorry for the bother. C’mon,” he said, addressing Astra. “Don’t go wandering around like that, Mami’s—well, she’s more of an inventor than a talker.”

“Sorry,” Astra said, glancing back at the Dark box. “It...just looked interesting.”

“Dreamscape not doing it for you? Well, alright. Maybe this next one will be up your alley. Hey Dave! Tell us about the fossil machine!”

Despite Dave’s best efforts, his ramblings about some machine that let him recreate old pokemon from rocks didn’t really hold Astra’s attention, though May and Brendan seemed into it. Astra’s thoughts and eyes kept drifting back toward Mami and her invention.

They had a machine that could copy Dark types. They had a device that let them completely nullify psychic abilities. That...if that became widespread, they’d be able to completely flatten the village! Put one of them on those buzzsaw vehicles she’d seen cutting into the forest and it would be even more literal. If it could extend the effect onto a human or even a pokemon...

That woman was crafting Astra’s worst nightmare and didn’t even know it.

There was a brief impulse to smash it, to pulverize the abhorrent creation into dust. But it wouldn’t help, would it? The researcher—Mami?—had already made the one, and she’d probably recorded how she’d done it somewhere. Breaking it would only get Astra in trouble. Was there anything she could do?

Astra tore her gaze away, rubbing her fingers against her eyes. She’d just have to make sure it never became a problem. Beat the champion. Become the champion. Save her village. No Dark machines necessary.

Simple, right?

The motion caught May’s attention, and she looked at Astra curiously. She frowned. “You okay?”

No. “Yeah,” Astra replied, giving her a tired smile. “Just...got a little headache.”

May’s eyes narrowed. “Not gonna collapse again are you?” she asked, shuffling a step closer.

Astra scratched her cheek, laughing slightly. “No, nothing like that,” she said, waving her off. She turned back to see what project they were looking at now.

“—So if you find any intact fossils, consider bringing them to me,” Dave said. “With my machine perfected, I’ll be able to restore these ancient pokemon to life!”

Astra blinked. Why did he need them to find material? “Aren’t there a ton of fossils in Roxanne's gym?” she questioned, confused.

Dave scoffed. “Most of those are either unusable or the owner won’t let me try. Even after I gave her that Aerodactyl of hers. Sure it’s sterile and the rest of my other outputs were stillborn, but I fixed those issues! Nobody trusts me anymore,” he sighed.

“Well, Mr. Stone did say I could beta-test some things,” Brendan mused. “If we ever find a fossil, we can come back and give it a try.”

“Please consider it,” Dave pleaded. “One proven success would do so much for me.”

“All right man, take it easy,” Arin said, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ll get a break eventually.”

They moved on, Astra’s thoughts inexorably drawn back to that feeling of emptiness in that corner of the room. They came up to another man's workplace. He was fiddling with a strange-looking metal headcap that had all sorts of wires coming from the scalp. He looked up at them and beamed.

“Oh, you’re the ones looking around? Hi, I’m Darren,” he said, holding out a hand. Brendan shook it. “Are you here to see what I’m working on?

“Sure,” May said, leaning against a wall. “Whatcha got?”

“I’m actually working on a device that will let us speak with pokemon more easily,” the man said, beaming.

Astra’s head snapped up.

“With my research, I believe that someday we’ll be able to talk as easily as we are right now.” the man continued. “Once I get my machine working, people and Pokemon will finally, truly be able to communicate!”

“Why?” Astra blurted. It may have been uncharitable, but the hollow itch in the corner of the room cast a dark light on her thoughts. One employee was already developing something that could cause her home havoc, why wouldn’t another? Why did he need to talk to pokemon? Did he expect to extract some sort of secret from them? Was it all in service of ordering them around better?

Darren blinked at her, considering the question. “Because they’re our friends?” he asked, confused. “They’re such an integral part of all our lives, but sometimes it seems like we still barely know anything about them.” He smiled, looking at the helmet in his hands wistfully. “How much could we learn if we could talk to even a Zigzagoon? I wonder what stories a Taillow that’s traveled the whole of Hoenn could tell. I want to tell my own pokemon how much they mean to me, and know that they understand.”

He looked at Astra and grinned. “I just think the world would be a better place, if everyone—human and pokemon alike—could sit down and understand each other. That’s all.”

He...really believed that, didn’t he? Astra could feel it: sincerity, bathing his words like sunlight. It was...soothing.

“Dunno about all that cheesy shit,” May murmured, “but being able to talk to Tentacool would’ve really saved me some time back on 104.”

Brendan nodded along, smiling. “That’s a really nice dream,” he said. “I hope it works out.”

“Ah, thanks!” Darren said, scratching his head with a dust of red on his cheeks. He slumped, sighing. “Unfortunately, my experiments aren’t showing much promise so far. I’m not sure I’ll ever see my goal through.”

Astra felt her lips twitch upwards. “Don’t worry,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. She gave him a big, slightly cheeky grin.

“I have a feeling that you’re closer than you think.”

After touring a few more projects, the trio were finally on their way. The Devon parcel and the letter were entrusted to Astra’s bags by virtue of her having the most empty space. Alongside the deliveries, she was handed a freshly made PokeNav, which was a beige hand-sized, half-oval-shaped device with a blue sphere in the middle. The trio checked their bags one last time—now fully restocked with food, toiletries, and other essentials—and hovered at the entrance to Route 104. They had at least a day’s walking before they reached Mr. Briney’s home—and his personal pier—on the other side of the forest, but they took one last moment to look north back at Rustboro from the hilltop.

“One badge down, seven to go,” May mused. “Fucking hell of a week.”

“Exciting days,” Brendan agreed. “That explosion, the cave, the job...I wasn’t expecting any of this when I left Littleroot.”

Astra gazed at the distant skyline. It was almost surreal how much had changed in seven short days. In the distance she saw the rocky walls of the Gym, where she’d prevailed over Roxanne for her first badge and had evolved. To the left soared the shining Devon Towers, where she’d gone on a frightful chase culminating in a deadly battle in Rusturf Tunnel. To the right, outside of the city—she faltered, grin fading. Shot through the sky was that awful pillar of bruise-yellow, an everlasting scar proclaiming her negligence. But at the other end of the horizon, she could just make out the tip of the lighthouse they’d visited, and the memory of friendships forged.

She’d come as a Ralts, and now left a Kirlia.

Astra breathed in the cool, clean air, took in the vista one last time, and smiled. “Well,” she said, “it’s been an adventure. Goodbye, Rustboro. Hopefully the rest of our journey won’t be as chaotic as it was here.”

They left the city, and headed into the forest. Astra smiled as the woods enveloped them once more. It was nice to be back under a canopy again.

Still, something was niggling at her, as if she’d forgotten something. Astra puzzled at the feeling for a few minutes. She’d gotten all her supplies—well, she still hadn’t gotten a handle for her knife, but that didn’t feel like the thing she was forgetting—she had all her pokeballs, her team was well fed and at peak health...

Hrm. This was irritating. Maybe if she asked—

“Oh right!” Astra exclaimed, brightening. She couldn't believe it’d slipped her mind for so long. She turned to Brendan. “Hey, I actually had a question for you.”

Brendan quirked an eyebrow. “Me specifically? Shoot.”

“Yeah, May said she couldn’t tell me,” Astra explained. May looked confused for a moment before her eyes widened.

“Astra no—!”

“Can you explain what puberty is?” Astra asked, blithely. “May was pretty insistent that you were the one to ask.”

Silence. Brendan stared through Astra. His mouth opened a crack, and a low, crackly gurgle began to emanate from within. His now-twitchy gaze turned toward May, and Astra could almost feel the creak as his head jittered around.

“May,” he said, hollowly.

May looked at him, face blank. Very slowly, she brought her arm up and looked at her bare wrist. “Oh wow look at the time, I better—NOT IT!”

She took off at a dead sprint. Brendan hopped on his bike and pedaled after her, roaring.

“Get your ass back here or so help me—!”

Astra stared after them, bemused. In the distance, Brendan caught up and full-on crashed into May, sending them both sprawling.

Was...was it that bad of a question?

An hour later and a stilted lecture delivered by an awkward Brendan and a sullen, extremely uncomfortable May, she discovered that it really, really was. There had been answers. There had been explanations. Much to both Astra and May’s vocal protests, Brendan had drawn a diagram, which May had then very enthusiastically burnt to ash.

Never before had Astra been more grateful to not be a human. Evolution was a much more sensible way to go about things, thank you very much.

But there was one upside, at least.

“You lied!” Astra crowed, pointing a finger at May victoriously. “People do have eggs!”

May closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands. “Only you, Astra,” she sighed. “Only you.”

Astra just grinned.