Recording I

Transcript of 'February 27th, 1979, recording' - 'Birch Labs' sector zero.

...

—Daniel Birch here, inputting log 1 on 'Subject 'Grey'...

—Hoo boy...where do I even begin from the incredibly vast information Melony has just transferred to my mind? Erhem...

—Subject Grey recently left the lab premises with his pokédex and starter, combusken, who was not long ago acquired by 'Birch labs', I.E, myself. However, she has been technically disowned due to 'unforeseen circumstances', and while accompanying Grey and considering her to be, in concept, his starter pokémon; as far as the 'Pokémon Registry Overseer and Bill's Enquiry' (PROBE) system is concerned? She has reverted to being unowned, and wild.

—Concerning the circumstances, subject Grey has shown himself to be an extremely self-disassociated member of our world's society...That is not an erroneous statement. I meant, 'Our world's society'...I can't believe I'm saying this...but according to the undeniable truth of Melony's psionic transferal and translated information from his mind to mine...Subject Grey is not of this world.

—How is this possible? I'm not sure. Several theories are plausible at this point. After all, our world is filled with mysteries and powerful kinetic beings. But the study of time-space distortion or extra-dimensional phenomena is not my field of expertise and will require further referential investigation. So this issue shall be circumvented for now.

—What these logs will be focusing on is Subject Grey's unique perception of our world, and the difference between his and our world...Note: As Grey experiences our world for the first time, this will be expanded upon throughout the 'Subject Grey' log series. Attached to these, if available at the time, will be any call registry recording for the sake of researching every facet of this remarkable individual.

...

—Topic I: Meta-Human potential.

—Just from the fact that Grey is from an alternate Earth timeline/dimension, possessing knowledge, whether primary or secondary, that isn't shared with this dimension, makes him a viable 'Meta-Human candidate'. But there are other important factors that also strongly contribute to his candidacy.

—Theoretically, and for now, I've dubbed him as a 'passive psionic', which in general terms means that with regards to 'pokéspeak', he bypasses the necessary process of decrypted linguistic information relay from a psychic-type pokémon to understand another pokémon's 'pokespeech'. In other words, Grey understands pokéspeech with no psychic aid required, whatsoever.

—This points to latent 'psycho-kinetic' potential, as the only existent Meta-Humans able to achieve this linguistic barrier bypass, are appropriately termed 'Psychics' or 'Heightened empaths'.

—At the moment, in psionic terms, this is Grey's current and only ability. Thus 'passive psionic'...With two exceptions. One that has manifested itself on two observed occasions. And the other, only once.

—If in extreme distress or under life-threatening duress, Grey is able to massively and temporarily surpass his current human strength and pain tolerance. On both occasions so far, this feat came with the side effect of a state of panicked delirium, before losing coordination and consciousness. The first occasion was the crushing of a Steel type-I alloy pokéball…with his bare hands, resulting in severe lacerations that required Melony's healing intervention.

—The second occasion was when he woke up from the first and displayed another psionic-level behavior. Three grown men, including myself, along with the assistance of a two-stage psychic pokémon, we're unable to detain him during his renewed panicked delirious state.

—Note: the psychic pokémon involved was unable to hypnotize or mentally influence him in any way, and instead, received an aggressive, grade-two, psionic backlash. Melony was fine but claimed 'it was most definitely a 'psychic' counter-attack she wasn't familiar with, catching her off guard.

—Oh dear, hehe, I hope the recording didn't catch my stomach rumbling, it seems I'm quite famished from all the drama...Guess I'll be signing out for a late lunch break, and possibly until tomorrow. I'll keep this marked as log 1 on 'Subject Grey', for topic continuity. Next time I'll be restarting from this recording checkpoint…

—Daniel Birch signing out...Hey Brendan! Could you check the lasagna in the oven!?

—Sure! If you'd let me start my journey like May!

—Oh come the hell on! Still pissed about that!? I already told you, you're too young!

—Am not! I'm only like two years younger! What's the big deal!?

—Ah Geez...I'm starving my ass off too, don't want that thing to burn...Could you just check it already!? I've still got some finishing up to do down here!

—Enjoy your burnt lasagna, Dad!

—Hey! That's your dinner too!

—Don't care!

—Shit...Why that little...Fine! You have one chance to convince me over non-burnt lasagna! Now check it, please!

—Kay!

—Honestly that boy—Eh, oh shit, is this thing still recording!?

...

Transcript of 'February 28th, 1979, recording' - 'Birch Labs' sector zero.

...

—Daniel Birch signing in, continuing log 1 on 'Subject Grey'...

—Already, we have some progress from our esteemed subject, and his most recent Meta-Human candidate qualification, which honestly blows my mind...Now he not only has one, but three pokémon following him out of their own volition. I also forgot to mention that Grey has not only refused the usage of 'pokéballs' from the start, but he has also refused the PA's funding. For how long? I'm not sure. But the fact remains that he has three pokémon, including his starter, following him out of their free will, and without the usage of 'pokéballs'. In essence, this means he has current leadership (presumably) of three wild pokémon. Or, as he prefers to dub them, 'free'. Not only is this behavior rare in wild pokémon, but it's also absolutely unheard of.

—When asked about the 'pokéballs' before his departure, Grey raised questions about the ethics behind the, globally depended on, devices, proving his unnatural dissociative behavior within a world that mostly finds no such ethical issues in such a socially ingrained standard. But, as it stands, this otherworldly human, is currently and single-handedly defying what most of our humanity for hundreds of years or more, has come to know as 'reality', in terms of 'pokémon and human relationships'.

—It's a bit early to tell, but if this unforeseen development continues to gain momentum, it might just be enough for even myself to begin questioning what hundreds of years worth of social conditioning has deemed 'ethical' and 'normal', with regards to pokémon-human relationships, potentially flipping such a standard over on its head, at least for me. We'll see...

—Speaking of 'pokémon and human relationships', I believe a scheduled meeting with the globally renowned Kanto-born specialist in the field, Professor Samuel Oak himself, is due for serious consideration, to further expand our understanding of this remarkable phenomenon.

—Might it have something to do with Grey's psionic potential? Perhaps having formed a mental bond of sorts with this trio of pokémon? Or might it be more relevant to his 'otherworldly presence' that the pokémon's heightened instincts seem to respond to? Maybe because he can understand them?

—Or maybe...His incomplete psychology profession...I did ask him to send me anything he deemed noteworthy in terms of pokémon behavior and outlooks since he can speak with them directly...We'll see.

—This topic awaits further expansion as Grey finds and builds his stance in our world.

...

—Topic II: Alternate Earth.

—Note: The imagery from Grey's mind to my own is just...Staggering. Not to mention all the knowledge contained. A psychic pokémon would have no problem suddenly absorbing such vast amounts of primary, secondary, and general information accumulated over Grey's 24 years. But for my inferior human mind, I can only take so much before succumbing to mental strain. I will have to gradually learn it, with Melony feeding it to me slowly for weeks, heck maybe months or more!

—First point. The most glaring difference between Alternate Earth and this one...is a lack of pokémon. But, not as a concept, oh no...In this alternate Earth, pokémon is an extremely popular and world-famous fictional franchise, but nothing more. Pokémon in that alternate Earth...simply don't exist.

—Alternative sources of energy and defense take the place of pokémon, with animals being thousands of times more abundant and variant over there than here. Gargantuan cities that make our ones look like dollhouses dot the planet everywhere, with their roads and rail tracks far more numerous and extensive than ours. Of course, the notorious differences in geographic placement and conditions may play a big part in this, not to mention the planet's landmass to water ratio is significantly different from ours. According to Grey's general knowledge, just over 30% of the Earth's surface area is covered with land, the rest is underwater. That's a full 11% difference from our 19-81.

—In terms of lifestyle, humans there aren't necessarily too different. If anything, their behavior is much the same except with no pokémon, and more common 'house' pets, like cats and dogs amongst other things. One kind of competition their pet animals engage in are these events called 'talent shows', where pets are trained to do, honestly mundane, tricks that human spectators find entertaining and fascinating. A lot less exciting than pokémon contests or battles in our world, culturally speaking. And according to the emotional lining of these memories, Grey seems to mostly agree. I don't blame them for such, with no 'real' pokémon present but a mass diversity of animals to practically take their place.

—But, possibly, the most interesting thing about Grey's memories of his world, as an individual...Is that despite the 'pokémon franchise' basically being the highest revenue-generating media of this world, and its masterfully successful marketing...His knowledge about it is close to nil, with his last personal investment in it being 19 years ago, and his mind until now seems to have filtered out anything remotely related to pokémon, only registering that adults around his age range seem to enjoy the games of the franchise on a competitive level. Meanwhile, in the relatively closer past, Grey has shown interest in a variety of different franchises. The terminology 'planeswalking' he had used earlier with me, comes from a trading card game called 'Magic: the gathering', a high-level and competitive strategy card game he was once heavily invested in.

—Another game he had shown great interest in is 'League of Legends' and 'Dota', a multiplayer online battle arena game...There are many examples of these sorts of combative and competitive games that Grey has shown at least some kind of investment in…

—'Pokémon: scarlet and violet'—since his memories of it are foggy and secondary-general only because his colleagues have spoken about it in his proximity—seems to be, at this time, the latest installment of the franchise; sharing a similar combative and strategic aim with the other games Grey preferred...Yet he shows a severe level of bias toward 'this' particular franchise, being pokémon, resulting in his ignorance…

—I wonder why this is? Is there more to it than just a preference? And most curiously, Melony was unable to access that part of his subconscious mind which seems to be connected to this strong bias against the pokémon franchise. Almost as though he either retracted it into the deepest recesses of his psyche, or has severed it due to some extreme trauma, and buried the memory long ago in an act of instinctual mental self-preservation…Strange.

—With regards to Grey's knowledge about the pokémon franchise, he recalls quite a few of the Kanto region's native pokémon, like pikachu, charizard, machop, tauros, meowth, arbok, weezing, amongst others. Less so of Johto region's natives, and practically nothing of Hoenn's, or any other region for that matter. But to be fair, we've only just begun discovering more species of pokémon beyond the pokédex's current 365, thanks to other labs around the world, and adding to our own database here in Hoenn, also thanks to our very own lab trainers.

—It's a shame that Grey's knowledge of pokémon is so surprisingly low...It would have been interesting to perhaps have a potential glimpse into the 'future' had he at least known just a few more past our database. The franchise form of pokémon from his world seems to be scarily accurate per entry from Grey's memory. Heh.

—Well, ironically, apart from the sneasel known as 'Neva', having an interesting eye-lash color variation; one of his newest additions to his—I presume—roster, happens to be unidentified by our pokédex! Grey is already contributing to our continuous growth in knowledge in his way! I can't express my excitement any more than I already am! He claims it—excuse me—'She' is called a 'Salandit', and went by the name of 'Joanna'.

—Turns out I got a quick answer from the 'Global Pokémon Science Community' forums, as well as a pokédex format file generously sent to me for registering with our database. Though naturally, the information is a bit limited since there have only been five known owners of salandit from the Alola region, with two of them successfully evolving theirs...Though I worry about the warnings and the incident with the last one...I've already sent the file to Grey, but I get the strangest feeling I've forgotten something very important...Rats…

—Anyway, getting back on topic. I made mentioned alternative energy sources in Grey's world. Turns out, instead of electric pokémon discharging continuous amounts of electricity to power their cities—which are enormous compared to our own—amongst other things, they use a combination of three major processes. One is the burning of crude oil, known as a 'fossil fuel' that is made from deep-earth organic fossil remains which over millions of years of heat and pressurization, turn into this carbon-rich substance; which is then drilled from deep underground. The other is renewable energy that comes from solar panels, wind turbines, hydropower from dams, and geothermal power stations using heat energy turbines from underground sources of steam.

—And the final one...What's the matter, Melony?

—Chime, chimecho…

—Not to worry, this is for the private recording of information for the sake of personal research and getting all these thoughts down. We've been doing fine so far as a society and with pokémon like yourself as our allies...But...To think that nuclear fission was actually possible by normal means...I didn't think Dr. Akihabara's theories deserved much merit, granted his personality...

—But wow...the sheer amount of energy produced by the splitting of atoms. To think they weaponized it too...Gods above...Is...is that real? They...They did that? Tens of thousands of people...The concept of war isn't something new to us, but to take it so far...

—Uh...I...I-I think I'm going to call it a day for this log. However, I will take this opportunity to attach today's call recording with Subject Grey...

...

Call registry recording I:

...

'Buup'

"Hey professor, what a coincidence, was actually gonna' call you earlier"

"Glad to see you've familiarized yourself with the pokédex phone function."

"Yeah, not that different from back 'there' really…"

"Barely two days and you're already running into trouble I see."

"What do you mean?"

"I saw the news, Grey. You're being dubbed 'The hero of Oldale'."

"Please don't tell me they televised the pokécenter's camera recording..."

"Right you are. You fought well with 'Ginger'? Was it? Though the recording was abruptly cut, that's all that was needed to jumpstart your rep, and improve the lab's."

"R-right…"

"Though as great as it is for you to take matters into your hands, I would suggest caution, Grey."

"Yeah...about that, turns out trouble found 'me'."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…"

"...Good grief! Now it makes sense. Sorry, Grey, I had no idea. The Oldale Police Department didn't mention anything to the press about you having also run into this so-called Team Aqua, only that they and Team Magma existed...But to think you've already gotten tangled with two criminal organizations…"

"Sall' good teach', now that people and the authorities are aware, it should make things a bit harder for those idiots."

"I hope so. Do take care. So do you have any observations you'd like to share? About 'Ginger' perhaps? Or your new companions?"

"...Well, there isn't too much at the moment. However, I'm more and more convinced that pokémon are pretty much humans in different forms."

"...What do you mean?"

"Well...They're just so human in so many ways. Their speech, habits, emotions, expressions, preferences, reactions, etc. Honestly? I find nothing remotely animalistic about their behavior like many of these theoretical published works seem to suggest. For instance, 'An insight to the mind of pokémon' by Clark Dickensvale, suggests that they have a limited form of communication with each other and that psychic types are considered a pseudo-exception, being that they can decrypt 'pokéspeak' into something perceivable by us. But Dickensvale suggests that the psychic-type isn't exactly translating, but more like 'interpreting' what other pokémon are saying by analyzing their brain waves and emotive state, before feeding the human with the resultant information…"

"Ah yes, quite a hotly debated topic, what are your thoughts on that?"

"Well, if we're being honest, Dickensvale's theory of 'sub communication' just went down the shitter, thanks to the fact that I can speak to them directly—for some reason—and, when I listen to any pokémon talk, at least so far, I'm preeetty' sure I'm hearing another human speak, with their own genuine voice. Just because humans, in general, have trouble understanding pokémon, doesn't mean that pokémon have limited linguistic communication amongst themselves. Other publishers on 'pokémon psychology' seem to even suggest that pokémon are intrinsically wired to eventually submit themselves to humans for the sake of an easier life...As you can imagine, I quickly exited such ridiculous and narcissistic articles that were clearly written by a corporate puppet."

"Oh yes, I've heard that one before, not a fan of it myself. I see, very interesting and refreshing to hear from a different perspective."

"Others argue their—In my opinion poorly dubbed—'animalistic' behavior by suggesting they are transcendentally evolved animals, due to sharing traits from long-extinct animals in 'this' world, according to fossil findings. Plausible, considering their heightened instinct. But then again, biological and instinctual adaptation is something all organisms share and pass down through each colonial subculture; so that hardly makes much of a contribution to the realm of conscious and cognitively complex psychological decision making. Not to mention they're waaay fucking smarter than these authors seem to give them credit for...And I'm currently learning that the hard way, actually..."

"Oh? Interesting, so you've been utilizing the encyclopedic function very well I see."

"Yeah. I mean, you did give the pokédex to me, but since I'm not running around capturing pokémon, I may as well do something with it and make observations for your benefit too."

"Good point. Though, Grey, you're helping a lot more than you think. You've even befriended a new species to the pokédex. Do what you must Grey, don't worry about me too much. Anything from a different perspective helps."

"Oh, that reminds me...Did you get any news from the 'GPSC forums about Joanna?"

"Ah yes! Almost forgot! Turns out professor Kukui from the Alola region was able to help me upon recognizing the photo you took. Turns out the 'Salandit' genus is a recently discovered one, though there are some records from a handful of trainers who happen to have captured and raised them. I'll send the pokédex file format to you. It's only based on a few sample averages, five to be exact. But it should do the trick with the pokédex able to do some cross-references. It should also record the evolution as well, though there is even less data on it. Only two cases."

"I see...Thanks for that professor."

"Though Grey, there has been an issue with one of the trainers, an incident with regards to the salandit evolution. Professor Kukui made a warning about—"

"What's...hat...Prof...sor? You're cut...ng out…"

"There's a warning about—"

"...Sor? E...llo—"

'Buup'

—"Your call has been disconnected. Please try again later."—

"Damn, connection lost. He must be going down a few forest slopes if he's headed for Rustboro... "

…

—"We're sorry, but the number you're trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later"—

"No go...It won't connect. I'll just send him the data and warn him lat—"

"Hey Dad!"

"Gah! Arceus, Brendan! You scared the shit out of me! I told you not to sneak up on me in the lab, son."

"Sorry bout' that. Well, did you consider our talk last night?"

"Still considering it and—Ah, left it on record again. Silly' habit of mine..."

…