Pokemón : The Price of caution

hesitating. "Do you know what n-nuclear fission is, professor?" He asks, resisting the urge to touch his burns.

"Like with power plants and whatnot, yes? It's not my field of study, but I've read some things and watched a few documentaries." "Yeah, and..." Lee gulps and suppresses his shaking. "Yeah, power plants."

He can feel Vulpix's eyes and hot breath on his chin. Birch notices something out of place as well and frowns. "Lee, you're pale. If you don't want to say, that's okay."

"I was caught in a nuclear explosion, one with city-leveling yield," Lee forces out as fast as he can without the words turning to mush. "I-I can speculate all day about how physics might have broken down under that kind of strain and punched a hole in space, but I'm not an expert so..." He takes a deep breath and focuses on the soft fox in his lap forcing the image of...of... Skin peeling Flesh bubbling Forcing the imagery from his mind before the bile rolling in his stomach could rise into his mouth. Lee swallows dryly and takes great heaving breaths of blessedly cool and not superheated air. Sweat dots his brow and his burns pinch and sting. He loosely hugs Vulpix, who cuddles into his arms without any protest and watches his face with troubled eyes.

Birch gulps and looks away, his expression disturbed and his hands wringing themselves. "W-well. Maybe we should move on to more pleasant topics? Was all the information on that license correct and up to date?"

Lee blinks at the strange question. "Yeah, it was. My DL was updated just a few months back. Why?"

"We're going to need that info for me to sign as your sponsor."

'What?'

"What?" Birch looks nonplussed but repeats himself. "We're going to need that info for me to sign as your sponsor."

"As my sponsor?" Lee questions, looking to Vulpix who just shakes her head. "I don't follow."

The professor groans and lightly slaps his own forehead. "Duh, Birch. Different worlds. I guess your games never went into detail about trainer sponsorships?"

"No mention at all."

Birch hums. "Okay, so being a sponsored trainer is a pretty simple thing. I give you a pokedex and the League fronts you a bi-weekly stipend to use as you see fit. In return, you're considered an active trainer who operates on my behalf and represents me in official tournaments while you conduct your own studies. Basically? You get paid to battle and bring prestige to the lab, and the better you do, the better grants I get from the League and the bigger your stipend becomes. I only have two sponsor slots since I'm the newest regional professor. One is going to Brendan, but my friend Norman decided he'd pay for his daughter's journey himself, so I have a free spot for you. Great, isn't it?!"

Lee sticks a pinky in his ear and rubs it around. When the digit comes back clean, he levels the grinning Birch with a flat look. "I'm sorry. I must have something crazy stuck in my ear. It sounds like you're just handing a coveted position to me. An interdimensional stranger."

The professor's grin falls some. "Is this... not what you wanted?"

"I expected a couch to crash on for a day or two as I got up to speed without anyone asking questions, and maybe being pointed to a job that a guy with no ID can do," Lee says with a shake of his head. "I just need something to keep Vulpix and myself fed and warm as I figure out my next steps. I dunno if you-"

"I'm certain."

Lee stops at Birch's curt reply. "You said you came here with a revolutionary training method, and I know you were fibbing to have an excuse to talk to me, but," Birch smirks, "I think you do have a revolutionary training method, even if you don't know it."

The younger man blinks. "I don't follow."

"Answer me this, Lee. How good are you are those pokemon games? How much do you know about pokemon?" He asks. After a second of inspecting Lee's clothing, he also adds; "And what did you do for a living back home? Something outdoorsy I take?"

Lee thinks to himself for a moment, rubbing a circle in Vulpix's chest tuft with a thumb. "I played competitively as a teen against other people and did fairly well with a few local tourney wins to my name. That's more being aware of the current meta and prep than actual skill. At that age, I had pretty much the entire pokedex of every available game memorized, but that's limited to types, movesets, stats, and whatnot with no actual biology or behavior factored in. And as for what I was, I was a zookeeper, one specialized to work with large carnivores, though I frequently lent a hand to other exhibits."

Now Birch seems confused. "But you said there were no pokemon?"

"There aren't," Lee replies, stopping when Medicham returns with a glass of water and several pills for the professor.

Birch accepts both the water and aspirin with a smile. "Thanks, friend."

Medicham returns the smile with a small one of his own.

The professor tosses the pills into his mouth and downs the entire glass before turning back to Lee. "Sorry about the interruption, Lee. Please keep going."

Lee does. "Like I was saying, there aren't pokemon back home, so animals filled their place. Think pokemon, only much less intelligent and lacking any special powers."

"I'm aware of what animals are," Birch says, now looking at Lee with a manic, almost unsettling gleam in his eye. "They don't exist outside special reserves and farms anymore since fighting with pokemon for territory is near impossible, but anything outside of domesticated livestock is dangerous and unpredictable. You handled carnivores of all things?"

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