Pokémon Gakutensoku--Face the Future

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Previous parts:
Safe Passage, All Together Now, Cultivate The Vine, A Little Something Extra, Homecoming, Renewal


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Despite Arturo's enthusiasm towards the world and all the experiences it had to offer, he still preferred days like that, when the sun was shining and there was no inclement weather. He could function properly in a wide range of temperatures, and heat and cold held no discomfort for him, but he put on a jacket before leaving the lighthouse simply because he could.

It was still winter, though Paldea's weather was warmer than the global average. He recalled one of Turo's memories of a trip to a very cold city in Galar, needing to bundle up in a heavy coat in the middle of spring. The memory brought a smile, though it had been very unpleasant to his creator.

As he walked, he pondered that. Memory was a funny thing. A longing for one's past could tint experiences in a more pleasant tone, and this was commonplace in humans. Perhaps in other species as well.

His own past was mostly in the future, and simply referring to it would be a linguistic puzzlement, but those close to him would find it clear enough to understand. To speak of the future as the past had held no confusion to them so far.

And so went his thoughts. He had walked these lands before, both when he returned from the future and in that distant era, and he noted the geological changes between them. The river below Mesagoza had carved a deep canyon before drying up, and most of the species that would come to call it home would not exist for many millions of years. The few fully organic beings he could recognize as descendants of modern species had changed muchly, with Arrokuda forming a different evolutionary path entirely that enabled life on land, and Surskit taking on a new typing that cut through the soil as easily as it had the surface of water. The Iron Buoys, however altered as they were, were as playful as their present day ancestors, bouncing around the land that Buizel had once thrived in.

He wondered why they clung to such an area, as they retained the water typing. But even in the present, species did not always live where humans would find logical. A pokémon could live wherever it could eke out a niche, he reflected, and part of that could lead them to wander far afield. Or perhaps they had been assigned to protect the area with the assumption that such a place would always exist, and they continued to follow that order even past the life of the river and the species that made the request.

Or perhaps they simply enjoyed life wherever they were. They always seemed to be in high spirits, in whatever environs they had made home, and their infectious joy served as a reminder of the simple excitements of the world.

Having to cut through Mesagoza was something he had wished to avoid. It was a beautiful city, but being the biggest city in Paldea, the rich life there was overwhelming to his sensors, flooding him with far more data than he was meant to take in at a time.

He wished to enjoy his time there someday, however, so altering his data input was also on the docket.

It would take Arturo two days to reach the Zero Gate on foot. Nemona had offered to get him signed up for the flying taxi program, with Penny saying she could fake whatever paperwork he needed. But he wished to walk.

He did not need rest, and could enjoy all hours of day or night, observing all around him with that boundless curiosity.




"So I said to her that I thought that Galar's legends were a pair of giant dogs and she said she was going to punt me off that cliff outback someday."

Arturo chuckled. "That sounds like quite the eventful walk."

On the other end of the line, Arven laughed. "I had to stop on the way back and pick some stuff up, but I framed it like she was insufferable. In a joking way, of course. She picked up on it."

"Penny is quite astute. I always enjoy watching how the four of you engage with the world so differently."

Arven fumbled with something off camera. "Hold on. Dog fur."

"I remember the first night you met Mabosstiff. Or, he was a Maschiff back then," Arturo mused. "I recall it was very windy out. A storm, correct?"

"Yeah. I'm kinda surprised you remember that much. Dad wasn't paying much attention."

Though Arven couldn't see it, Arturo smiled. "He paid more attention than he let on. Even when he told you that Maschiff could only stay until the rain ended, a part of him knew that the two of you would be partners."

"Oh really?" With the feed from Arven's phone sending the signal directly to Arturo's system, he could see Arven's expression shift, but even in person he couldn't have determined exactly what the young man was thinking. "Dad was a lot more complicated than I thought, I guess. I've been learning that over the past few years. Always thought he was just Serious Scientist Guy and very little else," he sighed. "But I've been learning he was really into things like fantasy books, and he liked pastries, and he wasn't afraid of public speaking but talking to people one on one made him nervous, and he had a bunch of people he admired and would seek them out a lot of the time. I..." He trailed off, but perked up a moment later. "I've found a few of the autographs he got when he was a kid! He kept them in his file cabinet at the lighthouse. But...I guess you knew that, huh?"

"Of course. But it is good to know that you are connecting with him in a way."

The young man grinned and flashed a thumbs up. "Yeah! I was...I was actually working on that a while ago. But it's kinda been in my back pocket until you showed up." He leaned back in his desk chair. "How's your walk been?"

Arturo couldn't help but notice how suddenly Arven had changed the subject, but he wouldn't bring it up. "It is very pleasant! Although I admit I did spend thirty four minutes this morning studying an olive tree."

"Was there something special about that tree?"

"No, I have simply never seen one before."

Arven paused, slight brow furrow suggesting that he had never even considered such a thing to be possible. After a few moments, he asked "Are there olives at all in the future? They're not extinct, are they? Or was it just that specific type that you'd never seen before?"

Speaking to Juliana was one thing. They had demonstrated that they would keep important secrets, even at great pains to themself. Though that extreme was certainly nothing that Arturo would ever wish on anybody, he felt that some degree of secrecy still had to be maintained. On the other hand, it was so far into the future that it would be expected that most things would change. That was the fate of existence, after all, and change itself was not a negative concept. "I did not see any, but they may simply have existed elsewhere. They are not native to Paldea, after all, not originally." He had only learned that while studying the tree, accessing supplemental data to further his observation.

"Wow, it's weird to think of Paldea without olives. They're such an iconic part of the region." Arven laughed under his breath. "Before Uva was founded, I heard there was a school called Olivo. I wonder if their uniforms were green or black...Did they have school uniforms that long ago?"

"I could find the answer quickly if you wish."

"Nah, I don't actually care. But if you want to, go ahead."




The tangent was certainly entertaining, and the continued conversation made Arturo's walk quite merry. Occasionally he would stop and tell Arven what he was seeing or sensing, until eventually Arven had to return to class.

"Yeah, I'll see you later, Arturo. It's nice to talk to you. And..." Again he paused. "It's nice to talk to you about things that aren't Dad. Even something as silly as the fine details of olive trees."

"Have an excellent evening, Arven."

"You too, man."

And then Arturo was alone on his walk, headed into the evening. Even the decline in temperature, something that had sent passing trainers scrambling for their jackets or coats, was pleasant enough.






"It can't be."

"I'm gonna ask."

Arturo heard the conversation as he passed a group of trainers gathered at a campfire, and when it was followed by footsteps squishing in the damp grass, he knew exactly what it was they wanted to ask him. He slowed in his pace but didn't stop entirely.

"Excuse me," a voice called as one of the trainers jogged up alongside him.

At the direct address, he stopped and turned towards the newcomer. "Yes?"

The trainer looked at him very closely, leaning in slightly, eager eyes widening in the bright moonlight to take in his face. "You're him, aren't you? You're Professor Turo?"

This was something Arturo had been anticipating would happen, and had hoped to avoid. When he had left the Great Crater for Cabo Poco, he had not been approached by anybody, and when he had gone through Mesagoza, he had covered his face with the surgical mask as he had before. He was about halfway to the Zero Gate, and yet his wish that no one would stop him would go unanswered. Other trainers had certainly seen him but had paid him no mind. It was clear, however, that while this boy was an Uva student like so many other trainers he had passed along the way, he seemed a bit older than most. And that made sense to Arturo. His creator hadn't been in the news in years, and wouldn't be again until Arven would leave for university. Dedicated trainers and those who paid attention in class would be more apt to recognize Turo.

But not really him after all.

"I apologize." Arturo had to be mindful of his body language, of how he spoke, of how he returned the boy's gaze. He could not be overly direct or intense, he could not carry himself in the manner of his creator, he could not copy the same cadence of speech, all of those things that Turo had told him to imitate when speaking to others under his guise, because he could not maintain that guise any more. He would have to be himself, whatever that meant. "I am not. However, I do understand why you--" He was being too verbose, "--I get that a lot. I look a lot like him, don't I?"

"Oh, y-yeah..." The boy sighed, disappointment strongly evident. "Sorry to bother you."

"It is perfectly all right. As I said, it happens a lot." Arturo smiled, careful not to make it too broad. "You take care. Enjoy this brilliant night!"

"Of course. Uh...you too..." It took a hesitant moment before the boy turned and headed back to his friends.

As Arturo walked off, he could hear the trainers grumbling as to if it was truly someone else, or if the great genius was too busy to say hello.

Their answer would come soon enough, he knew, and he wondered what they would think of it.





The constellations were different in the future. Not only had the planet, the solar system, drifted to a new position in space, the stars had journeyed as well. There was one he liked to call "liber" due to its resemblance to an open book, though that was itself a bit of a misnomer as it was simply six stars arranged in a rectangle, two at each corner and two where a spine would be, with a seventh off the top like a bookmark. The name also ignored the many stars within it, though he preferred to think of those as illustrations.

Turo hadn't studied much of the stars. He knew their chemical makeup, their classifications, and sometimes their mythic stories, but most of that information had bypassed him, and thus Arturo as well. But, although Arturo had wished to know all of it, his imagination would suffice.

Or whatever he had that passed as an imagination. He could picture things that did not exist, but most of it was simply following along alternate pathways that had not truly occurred. In some sense they were more akin to a human dreaming about elements from their real life, and he wondered how different that was from a normal human. He wasn't certain if even Turo had the same thought processes as others of his species, as the man had never been especially introspective. Human individuals were often surprised to learn that others did not think in the same way they did, after all, so he did not have an objective understanding of if his limited perspective was due to his artificial nature or his creator's own mind.

He put those thoughts aside to enjoy the night. The cool breeze caught in his loose sleeved shirt in a way his body suit would never allow. Though he could see in much lower light than a human, the moon's glow cast a pleasing sense of contentment across the land. A species he didn't recognize but could sense the vital signs of rested in a den beneath the surface, five of them piled together, and another tree he had never seen before was host to several sleeping flying types. A nearby trainer camp glowed with fading embers watched over by a tired Quaxwell as the rest of its party slept in a large tent. A mischief of Maushold raided a pathside trash bin, set there to keep the region free from litter.

In this place, at this time, it was delightfully peaceful. And so he could take time to observe the world and all within it.





It was not that the far future was violent. It was simply wild. There was peace to be found there, amidst everything. But what it was not was, as he thought of it, domestic. It was untamed. And in that, it had a beauty that the modern world could never have. But the future could also never have the beauty of the modern world.

Arturo found himself wondering what beauty every age would possess. The ancient past in every stage, the future even further beyond what he had known.

Humans would only occupy the world for a short time. Even if they existed for a few million years, it would be a brief blink in the time frame of the planet. And the planet itself would only last as long as the greater universe permitted.

So the beauty of the present, whenever that was, had to be savored.





He could continue all night. The darkness held no obstacle for him, and his data inputs remained constant. But he slowed his walk anyway, to observe everything, and out of the enjoyment of the journey.

But it would reach its end in time, and soon, skirting around the edge of Medali and up the wayward cliff path, he found himself faced with Zero Gate.

He knew from what Juliana had said that it was still unlocked, though he chided them for continuing to go there. His credentials, or rather Turo's credentials, were unneeded, and he was glad for that.

Though he had only been to Zero Gate once, in his trip to the surface upon his return, it was familiar in a beloved way. A flash of memory played, taking only an instant but leaving lingering nostalgia. Turo's first visit there, as a young man with his first permissions to enter Area Zero, his heart pounding in excitement. Would the forbidden land live up to what he had imagined? By that point he had seen photographs, undergone briefing and education on the place, but nothing would match seeing it with his own eyes, living and working there, focusing his life on it. He remembered that overwhelming anticipation as he boarded the elevator, and the intense joy upon finally seeing that vaunted land for the first time, drawing tears from his eager eyes. Sada had elbowed him in the side, teasing him for his enthusiasm even as her lower lip quivered.

Sada...

He wondered how she was doing. Occasionally Turo would seek out her research, but refused to read anything about her personal life. Every few years she would return to Paldea for Lavencia's scientific conference, and he had always been tempted to attend, but always refused even when invited. Not if she would be there.

Arturo thought of how the news of Turo's death would reach her, how she would react to it. They had been inseparable once, but that had been so long ago.

He rubbed at his left arm, remembering that time that the feeling of Sada's hand on his had been the only thing Turo could comprehend as his mind swirled in chaos.

So long ago. Time to get moving.





Usually he would walk. The freight elevator no longer worked, but it would be simple enough to get it running again. But for now, he wanted to get started. And the permission to use the warp panel to go directly to the Zero Lab would mean he could bypass the fourth research station entirely...

Regardless, the sooner he could start would mean the sooner he could be finished. As he had already gone through the Zero Lab upon his return, he knew that the time machine would not restart, something he had already been certain of before beseeching Terapagos to return him or else he could not in good conscience have asked.

There had been a comfort in returning to those crystal caverns. He had only seen how they appeared in the present through Turo's eyes, never permitted to enter the Underdepths himself. The terastal energy that permeated every molecule of the place pulsated within him, filling him near to overflowing with life and energy. And yet, unlike the similar charge he had taken on during the Protocol's activation, it felt...beautiful. The entire place was alive, and he was a part of that whole and always would be.

And he felt that contentment, that joy of being a part of the world, even without returning to the Underdepths. For now he had a task to do. Not out of orders or obligation to a creator, but because it was one he wanted to undertake.

Perhaps it was for his creator's sake, he mused as he looked around the abandoned lab. After all, everything he did was, to some degree. But this was as much for his own sake and Arven's as anyone else's.

He could be sentimental later. There was a lot of work to do, and down time could be had when it was processing.

Every floor except the third had the ability to place a video call, as the third was the living space. Arturo had spent very little time there, but knew every other floor like the back of his hand, as the saying went. A fitting phrase, considering that his destination of the second floor was where he had been created and first activated.

Good, the artificial skin was still in the supercooler. Not that anybody would have been there to take it. He drew it out, letting it warm to pliability as he opened the drafting program in which he would finally design his new face.

There was an idea he wanted. Building off Turo's distinctive features, he had the idea of something fuller, perhaps where he could swap out the facial hair for different styles. If that was successful, he could return to create different parts of the head for different hairstyles as well. But he would see where this went first.

He had done this before, when the shape of his lower left leg hadn't been quite right and Turo had left him to fix things himself. Watching the components of the leg form in the printer and be molded together and wrapped in the synthetic skin had been fascinating, and he couldn't help but watch it as he performed the rest of his tasks. Opening the skin, prying each artificial part away at the knee to clear room for the new limb, had been utterly engrossing, even though Turo had winced seeing it. Scientific curiosity couldn't overcome some human mental limitations, it seemed.

The memory brought a small smile to his face, though he noted that it didn't reach his lips. But he was certain that he was smiling.

A moment later he had sat himself in front of the computer, a similar large structure to the one at the lighthouse, with multiple monitors, and began work on creating a new face.





It was a few hours before Arturo set up the video camera and called Arven. The young man's groggy face slid into view. "H'lo?" he mumbled.

"Oh, I apologize. Have I miscalculated the time?"

"No, I just took a nap after class. I was up late doing homework last night. Gotta study if I'm going to be worthy of culinary school!" He flashed a huge grin, but it quickly fell. "Yeah I'm...having a lot of trouble with it. Especially the math. That's why I was studying with Penny."

Arturo cocked his head. "I would not have thought cooking would involve much math."

"Neither did she, but there's loads! Especially if you want to calculate recipe conversions, or figure how an alteration would change anything. There's a lot of math involved in just the basic stuff, and I'm going into nutrition so there's even more!" The passion seeped into his voice as he talked. "I'm gonna have to remember all sorts of balances and what does what to what, and what not to eat when, and what's good or bad depending on someone's conditions, and then you get that I'll probably have to calculate it all over again for anyone I work for, and it's a lot to take in." He sighed but kept the merry tone. "I'm gonna have to learn how to use a spreadsheet. But apparently that's not nearly as hard."

"If you want," Arturo offered, "I could teach you."

Arven's eyes widened for a moment before he looked away slightly. "...Can we wait until you change your face then?"

This shift was a bit surprising. Arturo thought back to how Arven had resisted the idea initially, and now it seemed as though it couldn't wait. But, again, he set that aside. "Of course. I have come up with a sketch of sorts in the mockup program. I can switch the feed to first person view to show you."

"Uh...ok..." Arven rubbed an eye, trying to dismiss the strangeness of that offer.

"Very well."

For a moment, Arven's phone went black, and suddenly the view was of the computer setup. He wondered just what other oddities he would have to just get used to. The outline of a face was on one of the screens. "Ok, I see it. Can you get a little closer?"

"Yes." From the smoothness of the camera, it was clear that Arturo was remaining in his seat and panning in closer with just his eyes.

Before taking a look, Arven slammed his head into the pillow. Maybe he would have to wait for the call to end for the day's overall weirdness factor to start going back down. When he did look, however, he was puzzled. "What am I looking at? Is that a face? It's all spread out."

"Yes, this is the draft to be molded. It will be uploaded to the printer and shaped into a new face."

Arven's eyes narrowed and he tried to take a closer look, but figured that even if he had been there in person, the screen only a foot from his face and not depicted on a tiny phone, he still couldn't make heads or tails of it. "Yeah, sorry. I can't figure this thing out at all. It's like trying to look at partially folded origami and trying to guess what it'll look like when it's finished. This could be the greatest, most perfect face in the world and I couldn't tell."

"That is all right. It is a bit hard for most people to discern in this state."

"Yeah, you've got that robot brain and everything."

Arturo didn't want to tell him that Turo had been able to picture it perfectly in his head from that stage. "I certainly do. Would you like me to fold it up?"

"Is that what it's really called or are you just following my origami reference?"

He thought about it for a moment. "You know, I am not certain what the name is for most of these processes. Your father simply, as they say, winged it for large parts of my creation. Nothing he drew from was nearly as advanced as what he pursued."

Arven rolled over in bed and sat up. "Heh. He was a pretty impressive brain. In every way that didn't involve actual human contact."

"Exactly." Arturo was certain to meter his tone to properly convey both a sympathetic ear and a dry sense of humor. A few keyboard clacks, and the image on the screen began to fold together around an implied mold, forming a much clearer face.

It still strongly resembled Turo, but broader, with less pronounced cheekbones and a weaker chin, the eyebrows a bit thicker and the ears at a slightly different angle. Arven took in the image for almost a full minute before sighing. "...Could pass for an uncle or something."

"Know that that is simply my inspiration, not my intention. I have no want to claim to be someone I am not."

"Yeah, you told me that. I just feel like it could. But...this is a big decision."

"I know."

"...You have to be really sure."

Arturo smiled even though Arven couldn't see it. "If I do not like it, or you do not, I can return here and make another. There is enough artificial skin left to make several more, and I could create more of that as well."

At the mention of artificial skin, Arven shuddered just a bit before latching onto that thought. "Dad made all of that?"

"He did. It is a specific complex matrix of..." Arturo remembered how Nemona had zoned out when he had attempted to detail what his body suit was made of. "...very elaborate structures, if you wish me to explain."

"Nah, that'd all go over my head. Give me the short version."

Arturo considered this for a moment. "It is made of small interlocking structures that can be divided easily and pressed back together. In case of injury, I can remove sections to access any damaged area and reattach them later."

"That actually sounds badass," Arven mused. "If you ever need money, you'd probably make a mint selling that design to hospitals and stuff."

"It is entirely inorganic and would not work on a being like a human." He resumed typing. "However, it could be studied and perhaps an organic variant could be constructed. That is not my field of expertise, but I imagine it to be theoretically possible."

"Do you have a specific field of expertise then? I guess dad was focused on...Terastal energy?" Arven shrugged. "I don't know everything he worked on, but it all seemed to run off of that."

As he continued to type out notes, Arturo considered it. "That would be a fair assessment of his field, although he was curious about everything. As for myself..." He ran a quick mental scan, trying to prioritize everything he had done in the future. But his answer surprised even himself. "I suppose right now, I would not call myself an expert in anything. I am good at many things, and could likely contribute to the study of many fields. But I would not consider myself to be an expert in any particular field."

"Not even an expert about the future?"

"I existed in the future, and I did study it," He stopped typing and shifted the view back to the webcam, "but I would not think of myself as an expert. You have studied the world as it is, after all. Would you say that you are an expert in the present?"

The young man started to say something, but his face twisted in confusion. "Uh...I guess not, but I don't know. I guess it's kinda a vague topic. I just remember dad would call himself a futurist but then get steamed at other people for saying it about themselves. He said they were using it wrong. But I looked it up and it's got like five different definitions."

Arturo smiled for just a second before glancing over at the camera. "You understand what I mean though, correct? Additionally, I would like to ask your continued thoughts on the image I showed you earlier. Have you had time to think on it?"

Arven shifted a bit. "Aww I don't know. Even all put together and kinda seeing him in there, it's hard to imagine without everything else around it. And trying to imagine it looking around and talking and stuff, it's hard."

"I understand. Your father had to make a functioning head before deciding that I was to his satisfaction."

"Uggggh that's so weird!"

"I suppose it would be weird to someone outside the field of robotics, yes. But to him it was simply part of his task."

The young man flopped back. "Scientists are weird. And YES I know nutrition is a type of science but you never hear about any mad nutritionists out there."

Arturo typed another line before glancing back at the webcam. It wasn't as though he couldn't split his focus, but he followed his creator's example. "On the contrary. There was once a spate of nutrition-based cults in the Unova region and surrounding areas."

"...Y'know," Arven muttered with a slight pout, "I'm honestly not all that surprised. I thought I would be, but I'm not."

"Humans themselves are very strange. I imagine most life forms are."

"Yeah. Listen, I gotta get some studying done, and I gotta go out to Artazon to pick something up, so I'm gonna get started on that. I'll call you later if that's ok."

"Of course!" Arturo said with a smile, one that was slightly wider than typical but not as much as the one that Juliana had spoken of. "What is it you are going to get?"

"Oh yeah uh, I'm trying to try different types of things, and there's a cheese that isn't carried anywhere in Mesagoza, so they're the closest place. It's a Kalosian Gogoat cheese that's supposed to be really delicate." Arven laughed. "Totally not healthy food, but I'm learning how to cook all sorts of things."

Arturo had turned entirely towards the webcam as Arven had spoke. "I imagine it is excellent. I could analyze a small sample if you wish me to do so."

"Aw no, I know what it'll find--absurd fat contents, sugar in the other ingredients, then you got even more fats from the nuts. I think even you'd gain weight after a bite!"

"I am incapable of--"

"Joke. It's a joke."

"I apologize." Arturo's eyes flashed for a moment, prompting a small flinch from Arven.

"Hey..." the young man started with a sudden caution, "If you do finish your new face before we talk, then can you maybe...wait until we're in person to show me? I want to be with the others when we see it."

Arturo thought he had already shown Arven, but supposed that his failure to fully interpret the sight caused a rift between the fact and the mental image. "Of course. If that happens, I will default to first person view."

"And I wanted to know...ugh." This was even more cautious, more hesitant. "...what you're going to do with the old face."

Arturo had a few ideas. He could destroy it, of course, but that felt wrong. He could set it aside in case there was some use for it, but he couldn't think of any possible use that wouldn't involve poor coping skills and perhaps a return to the pillowcase. He could ask Terapagos to send it somewhere else, but that would only cause confusion wherever it ended up. So he spoke the most logical conclusion. "I considered burying it with your father, but would like your input."

Arven blanched, and Arturo could hear his breathing pitch up. "-No. No that's fine." His voice was slightly higher as well. "Just don't involve me. I don't even want to know where you put him. God no. No, don't say a word, just do whatever, I don't--"

"...I am sorry," was all Arturo could say. In person he could make a calming gesture, touch Arven's arm or something, but over a phone line he could only watch.

"I've gotta go, bye." And the screen went black.

Arturo noted that Arven had averted his eyes.





Production and construction would take quite some time, so Arturo decided to take a walk. As much as he wanted to apologize to Arven, letting things cool off was his most direct conclusion. Besides, this was what Arven had told him he needed to improve. He had not considered what such a blunt statement would carry from an emotional standpoint.

But Turo had preferred bluntness. Even Juliana and Penny seemed to, even though Penny was often hesitant to offer it herself. And from what he had observed, Nemona often needed those around her to be direct.

Clavell was excellent with others, but very busy. To call him for advice would be putting him on the proverbial spot. Although a written message could be replied to at the man's convenience. He set that notion aside for later.

Perhaps he could ask Lydia to elaborate. She seemed to be very good at communicating with others. Even the way she had expressed her own shortcomings out of concern for her child showed an openness that other humans often refused to show.

But he wanted to do that in person. Something individual had to be applied, and his history in that regard was limited.

It felt strange. Back when he had first been created, Turo had chided him for being so stiff, but Turo himself was what other humans would call stiff for his formal and scientific manner. The man had put effort into coming across as more personable and charming, learning how to navigate the social necessities required to obtain funding. To learn how to convey his enthusiasm into talking points that could be understood and agreed upon by people without his same educational backing had been especially difficult.

Turo had been curious from the very beginning, always with a book in his hand and wide eyes observing everything around him. But while other children would want to play, he would want only to study, and his brilliance only further divided him from others his age. If not for that sandy-haired and very loud girl who was often the only other student to raise a hand in class, he would have only interacted when he had to.

Arturo brought a hand to his forehead in frustration. He was thinking so much of Sada lately, a woman he had no right to reach out to. She had walked out on all of them, on Turo and Arven and Miraidon, and some unreasonable, human part of Arturo felt she had walked out on him as well.

She would have loved being there. There, in the depths of Area Zero, where she had smiled so brightly and worked so eagerly, because it had been her dream as well.

It wasn't Miraidon's fault. It had been young, likely a hatchling, when it was delivered by fate to a strange and different world. It wasn't Miraidon's fault that it perfectly embodied everything Turo had dreamed of, that its mere existence proved right all of his theories.

Arturo rested a hand on a small crystal, taking in passive data about it that he already knew from centuries of study. Even with all of that extensive history, how it distorted the light in such a way as to somehow reflect any nearby figure from behind remained a mystery. He doubted that anybody, in all history, could ever unravel all the mysteries that Area Zero held. The place itself defied description, classification, any attempts to understand it.

"Enough sadness," he mused to himself, to the cave around him. This was supposed to be a day of new beginnings. A day on which his new life could be built.

Even the fact that the crater, the cave, the lab had been his prison for the first stage of his existence wasn't the source of his melancholy. For all his mechanical and artificial nature, he was still marked by an unfailingly human side.

And humans had difficulty saying goodbye.

He continued on, up the trail to the cliffs overlooking the lab complex, past multiple biomechanical creatures that had their origins in that far-off era, past the fated fourth research station, until finally he reached the plaque that had been discovered by Heath's expedition so long ago. He knelt next to it and brushed some dirt away from the mysterious symbols, tracing them as he went.

Underneath this marker was where he had laid Turo to rest, the man's still-warm body placed carefully and gently beneath the symbols he had once held with almost sacred reverence. The Guardian, seeming to understand that it had committed a terrible act, had dug the space and covered it over again. The professor had been no threat to its territory, after all, and had not been its target.

Arturo trailed a finger down the side of the plaque into the soil around it. "Hello professor." His voice was devoid of emotion, the perfect robot. "I am sorry."

So many things he could say. So many things he could have said. He sat next to the plaque and stared up at the roof of the cliff with a small sigh, Turo's sigh.

"I do not know if there is an afterlife. Your physical remains cannot hear me, of course. But if such a thing as a soul exists is entirely unknown. If it does not, then I speak only to myself. But I..."

He let his eyes close, wondering what still existed of his creator.

"...I have things I must say." The hand that trailed on the ground balled slightly as he continued. "I hope that you would understand. It pained me to do so, but I had to end Paradise."

On occasion in the future, he would imagine speaking to Turo. That the man would be at his side as he had been when they worked together. But in those imaginings, he was always as he was when he was alive. Here, being so close to his grave, Arturo could not help but imagine that some sort of spirit was nearby.

He couldn't fathom what such a thing would properly look like. In movies, spirits were usually depicted as slightly transparent, like a ghost type pokémon trying to fade into invisibility, but that was of course based off of living beings. Other visual depictions showed balls of light, wisps of energy that resembled cobwebs, or even a human with white or gold wings, perhaps derived from the colors associated with Arceian worship. But Arturo didn't wish to analyze any sort of supposition, so instead he chose not to imagine a visual image at all and simply focus on how he felt being around Turo during his lifetime. A presence, a closeness, a feeling that went beyond any reading on his sensors. A..."warmth", so to speak, though no temperature changed.

If that feeling existed, he could imagine that some remnant of Turo lingered in the world still.

"I have missed you. The future was not what we imagined, but it was beautiful. I believe you would have agreed."

To sigh again felt like the breath of a ghost.

"It was wild and vibrant, so full of life. In some ways it felt very primal, despite the biomechanical nature of much of the wildlife." Some trace emotions were seeping into his voice. "Perhaps you would have mourned humanity. I did, in some ways, but to be surrounded by such wonders left little time to miss them. I missed individuals, of course. You, and Arven, and..."

He trailed off, falling silent for nearly a minute with only the sounds of the cave to fill the time.

"I wonder when you were forgotten. You would be remembered much longer than Arven, and that knowledge is, while logical given your accomplishments, rather upsetting. I want to think that you would be remembered for centuries. Perhaps people a thousand years from now will still speak of how you advanced our understanding of the terastal phenomenon."

More silence.

"I want to think that your sacrifice will be remembered as well. That you gave your life to protect your beloved Miraidon. But your complexity will, eventually, fall by the wayside. You will be a footnote, and then not even that. And that will be the greatest loss of all."

Everyone in history would be forgotten in time. That was simply the fate of things. Someday the world would no longer remember humans at all. But to know that one person would be lost along the path to the future he so treasured was heartbreaking.

"...I do not have many regrets in my life. Fewer now that I have been able to explore the future for so long and was able to return to this era and connect with those who came to my aid. But I have always and will always regret that I could not save you."

Arturo let the words exist without further action, and sat simply in vigil for a while longer. By that point, the print would be finished. But it could wait. He had to keep his creator company.








Some time later, he wordlessly returned to the Zero Lab. Though his thoughts and memories weighed heavily on him, he could multitask better than an organic being, and there was work to do.

The plants in the lab had long since dried up, but the soil, rich in tera minerals, was still viable, so he packed some of the containers to return to Cabo Poco with him. Perhaps he could try growing something outside. Care would have to be taken to ensure that the soil didn't mix with the natural ground, but it should have a fairly simple solution. He made a note to contact Lydia for her input.

He cleaned up the musty sheets on the third floor, preparing to wash them in the machine to the side but noting a distinctly sour smell from it. That much he could research on his own. He could take them all with him to the surface, perhaps use a laundromat in Medali, but they were property of the Zero Lab and thus would likely need to remain where they were.

It was odd, when he thought about it, that no further team had been assigned to the lab. Turo's funding had come mostly from the league, under the task of monitoring the Great Crater and Area Zero within it. The computer system still received feedback from the massive dish antennas, although with no one to interpret that data on the other end, the continued project would be nearly meaningless.

Although it was possible he was assuming something baselessly. The Zero Lab was powered by the massive tera crystals surrounding it, the same that had once been his sole power source as well. It could continue to run so long as the crystals remained.

Briefly, he wondered what would happen if the diodes and converters were exposed to the same overcharge of terastal energy that he had been, before coming on the conclusion that they would likely explode. They were much less durable than his robotic body, after all. Although the idea of a simple desktop computer continuing to retain power without an external source for billions of years was somewhat amusing, as he imposed the image of the machine into an overgrown field, sky above turning to day and night rapidly to indicate the passage of time.

He had realized some time ago that, as limited as his imagination was, he could combine things into mental images, and this sufficed to present something 'new', in a manner of speaking. New enough for his purposes.

One thing he had difficulty with, however, was imagining how his new face would look, but he didn't have to, as it was finally time to try on what he had printed out.

He set in front of the computer and opened the printer. The piece needed to be trimmed, the crystalline base and extra synthetic skin needed to be fitted into place, but it was unmistakably a recognizable and distinct face. Picking it up and examining it showed no evident flaws--the print had worked perfectly.

To remove the faceplate he already wore, he needed only to activate two buttons in his skull behind his earlobes, an action he took quickly and then immediately stopped. He had taken it off before for various upkeep reasons, but the enormity of the situation stayed his hand. Other than the bare crystals and mechanisms underneath, this would be the first time he would ever look *different*. Like something other than himself. Like something other than Turo.

But that was his intention. Why was he so reluctant?

"...I can do this," he murmured in affirmation, and finally set the faceplate that he had worn since his creation aside.

He remembered its creation, from Turo's memories, the scans and measurements and precise alterations to ensure it was his exact likeness.

He remembered the man fitting it onto the artificial head, not yet filled with any sense of self, only a basic movement programming that robotic toys had possessed for decades, such a rustic beginning for what would be the most advanced robot ever created.

He remembered how Turo had smoothed even that programming to ensure the movements would be natural and human-like, but had decided that getting it perfect wasn't of top priority and it was close enough.

He remembered that Turo had smiled fondly and run a hand down the artificial face before turning the power off, not to reactivate it until after it had been attached to the rest of the carefully modeled body and imbued with the spark of life.

There was no use delaying it. He attached the new face and brought up the webcam to serve as a mirror.

That was a stranger looking back at him, but it was, undeniably, himself. That was his own image on the screen, his own and not Turo's. After ensuring that everything was fitted into place, he tested it. First his eyes, back and forth. Then his mouth, tightened into a line. Rapid blinks, nostril flares, brow furrows, until finally, cautiously, he smiled.

"I am Arturo. My name is Arturo. I am Arturo. It is nice to meet you."

The mouth moved in tandem with his words as it would on a human. It retained his slight stiffness, but it was within the acceptability scope he had always displayed.

Only the loose skin around the edges of the face gave away that he was not an organic being. He had expected for more to be needed, but the only thing that he could predict at that point was trimming that into shape. It was much quicker than he had anticipated.

All the more time to settle on it, to be alone with his thoughts in ways that he had not felt even in the free isolation of the far future.

A quick visual scan meant he could mark exactly where the trims needed to be made, and he removed it and set about making the necessary alterations. The angle of the scalpel had to be precise, but that was what he was made for, after all.

And once he was finished, he was able to affix the edges of the artificial skin to that of the rest of his head without issue.

He examined it further. Even down to the tiniest detail, the smallest detectable measurement, there was no flaw. If he could not find anything wrong, a human would not either.

Staring at his creation, his thoughts wandered. He had done that without approval, without anyone ordering him to, without supervision, acting entirely on his own wants.

Which meant that it was his, his face, his creation, the one thing he had made on his own.

And so he smiled. On one level it was meant to test the muscles, the skin, the lips, but another part was his own joy.

He smiled the practiced half smile. He smiled the overly broad smile. He smiled with his eyes instead of his lips.

And he was satisfied with everything he saw.





"Hey..." Arven's voice spoke into Arturo's sensors. "Sorry about earlier."

"No, I wish to apologize. I should not have been so blunt."

Arven shook his head. "It's fine. You had to tell me that part eventually, so I'm glad you just ripped the bandage off about it. So how's it coming?"

"Actually..." Arturo adjusted something, and prepared to turn on the webcam if Arven approved of it. "I believe I am finished. It took much less time than I had predicted. As such, I would like to show you what I have constructed."

Silence.

"Arven?"

"Yeah, I'm here. I just don't know if I'm ready."

Though he knew Arven couldn't see it, Arturo nodded. "I understand. If you like, I could call Juliana."

More silence But before Arturo could ask again, Arven finally replied with a low sigh. "I gotta see it sooner or later. Show me."

Arturo hesitated. "You are certain?"

"Yeah." Arven's voice was breathy and heavy. "Yeah, I gotta see now or else I'm gonna drive myself nuts with it."

More hesitation. "...If you are positive, I will turn on the camera."

"Go for it." The young man's dedicated frown was a sign of determination.

"Very well." As he reached for the camera, Arturo counted down. "Three. Two. One." And turned it on.

He could tell that Arven was drawing in a deep breath, that he was examining every detail, every fold and corner. Finally, Arven raised a finger to his own face, around the edge of his right cheek. "I can see the seam right there."

Arturo felt the area and sure enough there was a slight detachment. "I see. Such a gap was not there previously." He snapped it into place again. "Thank you for informing me. It seems the flaw is internal. I will have to ensure that this does not happen again."

Arven nodded. "Yeah, that would be really embarrassing. But uh..." Nodding again. "It looks good. Like what you described, like you could be a relative."

"Although that will not be what I tell people."

"Right." A pause as he looked again. "...Dad never really...talked about his family. For all I know, I could have some uncle that looks just like you."

Even with the research Arven had spoken of, so much of Turo's life still remained a mystery to his own son. Arturo would tell him someday, he would have to. For then, though, he said only "No, your father was an only child."

"Oh...haha..." A laugh so artificial it was almost, ironically, robotic.

Arturo almost took the shift into discussing the professor as an opportunity to bring up his plan to bury the previous face with the man, but stopped. It had upset Arven before. He did not want to upset Arven. Arven had gotten angry with him for being so blunt before. And that was something he needed to work on. He had a new life now, not simply for having a new face or a new name, but for having a second chance in the era of his origin. So instead he levied the subject into a branch from a prior one. "I would like to know what you think of my plan. What I will say to others about who I am."

"Yeah sure go for it." It was spoken very quickly.

"I will be honest to some regard. I was Professor Turo's assistant. I worked with him until his death. I was prevented from speaking of what happened, took time for some independent research, and now I wish to pursue my own path in life."

Arven mused over those words and finally nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense. Though with your name and still kinda looking like him, people will think he was an egomaniac. Which I guess he kinda was," this was accompanied by a halfhearted laugh, "so it still kinda works."

Arturo made note of how Arven had used the word "kinda" three times in two sentences. "Do you have any feedback?"

"Not really. I think it's good. How long are you going to stay down there now that you've got more work to do?"

"That depends. I did not know that was an issue so I will have to perform more structural tests. Although I believe I do know how to properly address it. When he was still working on my physical shell, he ran a movement test on my facial structure, and my faceplate fell off!" He hoped his tone was properly conveying the comedy of the situation. "I as I am now did not exist yet, so I only remember it through him, but it was quite vexing for him."

"Heh, I can imagine. Would probably be really weird to experience first hand. Never happened once you were up and running?"

"No, by the time he installed his mind into me, my shell had been tested much more than that."

Arven nodded. "Makes sense." He paused and looked around. "Hey, I was headed back from Artazon and I need to kinda double time to get this cheese back to the fridge, so I'm gonna call a cab. Is that ok? I feel like we wouldn't be able to continue talking like this once I get on."

"That is fine. It is good to see you." Arturo smiled, carefully, with a hand to his cheek to make sure the attachment held. "I would like to hear how your creation turns out."

"Hey," Arven protested, "I can call with the touch of a button. I don't need to go yet!"

"Oh! Then I am glad to continue talking to you."

"Yeah, I'm gonna need radio silence when I get started. It's a really delicate recipe with a lot of steps to it." The young man sighed, and it carried a much different tone to it than previously. "It's a hell of an endeavor but I think I'm gonna be up to the task. I'm putting everyone on emergency call for it, so they'd have to call me twice in a minute to get it to go through."

"Of course. I admit I know very little of the culinary arts. Your father--"

Arven's sudden laugh was sharp. "I saw all those microwave noodles lying around. Penny ended up swiping some on the way out."

Arturo practiced another smile. "I am glad they did not go to waste, although that may not be a good thing."

"See, someone like Nemona or Juli, it wouldn't be so bad, since they get a lot more in their diets and Nemona is really physically active. But Penny..." He chuckled. "I know she's a hard worker but she mostly sits at a computer, so she needs a different diet. Aaah but she won't listen. When you're seventeen you have a different metabolism, but it's not gonna last."

Hearing Arven talk about a subject that was important to him was a relief. Arturo had worried that his new face would cause a rift between them, but the young man was continuing on with aplomb. "How are your nutrition studies coming along?"

"Well not so well with the cheesecake. Oh yeah, I didn't say that's what I'm working on, did I?"

"You did not but that is all right." He was dimly aware of the concept, related to Turo's sweet tooth, but didn't have a direct image in mind. "How long does it take to construct such a thing?"

At the wording, Arven paused before snickering under his breath. "'Construct', heh. Uh, few hours from start to finish, I guess. I've gotta lock in and do it though! Just like with uh..." The enthusiasm shook loose from his voice. "With uh. With seeing your new face. Gotta be honest. It's gonna take a while to get used to."

Arturo understood, he really did. After all, he had borne the same face for three hundred years. And he would be burying his past, and in a way his future, with his creator. He had a new future now, one he could set for himself. "It will take me a while to get used to as well. I can update my personal data but there is always a division between the expectations of my programming and those of my mind. Logically I will know many things and still I will be surprised by them."

"Humans are the same way," Arven shrugged in agreement. "It's pretty common."

"I wonder how much of my irrational behavior is due to your father specifically, versus how much is due to simply having a more human-derived mind."

"Doubt it's really either. It's like when I'll be watching tv and there's some sort of dog on there, and Mabosstiff will start barking." Arven's chuckle filled part of the words. "He's a smart guy. He knows that it's not there in front of him. And he'll still bark up a storm. I said humans do the same thing, but I don't think they're the only ones."

Arturo noted that Arven did not seem to react in any way to how he had called Turo irrational. "That makes sense. It is not as though irrationality is inherently a negative. It is irrational, I suppose, to wish to feel rain on one's face. But when one comes across a mimicry of Ditto fully stretched out in an afternoon shower, it is hard to resist."

"Is...are you speaking from personal experience? They have Ditto in the future?"

"Ditto are perfectly evolved to adapt to any environment. The only difference I could find in them from the present day was a slight color change."

Arven scowled comically enough that Arturo could tell he was joking. "Aaaaanswer the question."

"Oh, yes indeed I am. It was quite enjoyable, even though it was an unnecessary action. But there is also value in having fun."

The young man nodded. "That's a good thing to keep in mind. 'ts why I got stuff like that hot chocolate mix to keep over at your place. Oh--my ride's here."

"Have fun baking your cake. I am certain it will be delicious."

Arven smiled just a little bit. "Maybe you can try some like you did with the tea. Anyway I gotta go. I'll talk to you later, man."

Alone again, Arturo sat still for a moment, taking in how good it felt to be accepted.






The minor flaw took very little effort to repair. Arturo was left with a great deal of spare time. And alone in the lab once again, he fell deep in thought.

It was effectively his old home, after all. The place, though it had been where he developed his wanderlust and wish to leave it behind, still held a great deal of good memories. Nostalgia, he realized.

On a more practical note, he wondered if he shouldn't take the machines necessary for his own construction with him. Turo had installed them specifically for that purpose, and they were not part of the continued monitoring of Area Zero. He would be the only one who could make use of them, but they were technically League property same as anything else in the place.

Technically, *he* was League property. A sobering thought, one he would have to contact Clavell about. The man was effectively his contact with the League, unless Nemona would be willing to take that task.

He knew that the children--he still thought of them that way despite Arven and Nemona being young adults now--had a collective group chat on their phones, and he wondered if he wouldn't benefit from the same degree of multiple contacts at once. But he had no phone of his own, and made his calls either from the lab or from within his own software. Such a thing would likely require an external device.

That could be addressed later, perhaps with their help. The thought of meeting with them always caused a feeling of joy within him.

But he couldn't dare ask them to help him with anything in the lab. He knew that Juliana had visited again, gone through Turo's notes trying to find anything that could grant insight into the time machine, but had found everything above their level. Which was, he knew, no failing on Juliana's part. They were a very bright student, but Turo was simply at another level that hardly anyone else in the world could match.

Arturo knew on some level that he should not exist. But he did exist, and had existed for three hundred years, and would continue to exist for some time yet, no matter what his creator had planned. And that made him appreciate life all the more.

Something that he had removed from his memory bank was the presence of a book in Turo's bedside table. It was a fantasy epic, one he had barely touched with his busy schedule, but he had read it years before. Arturo was certain that his memory of the ending had not transferred over. The book was added to the list of things to take with him back to Cabo Poco.

On that subject, he figured he should be moving along. He could return later, barring any unforeseen events. If that had not changed in three years, he doubted it would be changing any time soon.

Quietly, he gathered up the soil from the botany experiments, Turo's books and some of his old clothes, and a smattering of small crystals that glowed slightly brighter when he picked them up. The crystals could be contained within the soil capsules, and those could be carried in the same structures that was used to move them to the lab from the different strata to begin with.

But before he could leave, he had one more thing to do. He set the items to take with him next to the warp panel, and left the lab via the front door with his original faceplate clasped to his chest.





Someday, he wondered, would anybody find it? Would they know that this artificial likeness was meant to mirror a real human, and would they know that his earthly remains had been laid below? Though Arturo would not dig nearly far enough to know what was left of his creator, he knew that decomposition would have taken a heavy toll already. He dared not delve deeper than he had.

Once he had carved out a small area from the loose soil, he set the faceplate down. Even with blank holes for the eyes, it was still identifiable as Turo's exact likeness. Or perhaps that was only Arturo's perception.

"Goodbye, my creator."

He knew, as he sifted dirt back over the hole he had dug, over the only face he had ever known for three hundred years, that he would return to Area Zero. That he would return to the gravesite, that he would continue to speak to Turo in some way. Even that he may continue to envision the man at his side, encouraging him to live the dreams of both of them.

But for that point in time, he would need to live without that guidance. To find his own niche in the world. To be himself and no one else.

Silently, he returned to Zero Lab, and remained silent long after he had warped back to the surface.





It was a day and a half's walk there, and thus would be a day and a half back if he took the same route, so Arturo decided to take a bit longer. The crystals, the soil, the clothes and books would keep in their storage. Nothing was time sensitive, and he had a lot of thinking to do.

With a different face, he could traverse through Medali rather than avoiding it at the outskirts. The many cafes and restaurants changed the chemical components of the air, and by dissecting everything that went into it, he could conclude that the city smelled delicious.

A familiar set of vital signs was nearby, and he was able to conclude as he passed the League building that it was Geeta. He would likely need to speak with her later, but he would need Nemona's help with that, and he was in no mind to do so at the time.

Arturo paused as he left the town to dump the unnecessary data he had passively analyzed, though he maintained the analysis of the many wonderful smells that filled the area, and continued back the way he came.

It was an unusual sight, the discrepancies between day and night, and though he had witnessed it over a hundred thousand times in the distant future, it was different when seeing it over a human population center. That one element changed many things about how the area itself embraced daylight or dark, and he hoped to analyze that aspect on its own at some point.

Keeping to the path showed differences just from the other day. The trainer encampment with the Quaxley was long gone, though the watered remains of their campfire were still where they had set it. The Mausholds that had raided the trash bin were underground in a nest, sound asleep.

But one group was still around, some raucous trainers up on a ridge. One of them was the young man who had asked if he was Professor Turo.

He decided to approach, though it involved winding around another side of the incline. If he had Miraidon, he could scale the cliff with ease, he thought.

The group was laughing, playfully shoving each other as they sat together on a fallen log that looked to have been there for some time. One of them seemed partway off the end, and nearby a group of pokémon that included a Girafarig of a different color all played together.

The trainer on the end looked up. "Hey, if you're looking for the Girafarig outbreak, it disappeared a few hours ago."

"I caught that one!" the trainer next to the boy he was there to speak to pointed enthusiastically at the shiny specimen.

"Congratulations!" Arturo smiled. "Although I am here because of a conversation I had with one of you the other day."

They all looked quizzical at first before the boy stretched out a bit. "Oh yeah. You're the guy I thought was Turo, right?"

Arturo nodded. "I did not expect to see you again. But now that we are in the light of day, I thought I would clear up the misconception."

"I donno, you still kinda look like him," one of the boy's friends remarked. "I can see why he'd make that mistake."

"Yeah, you look a *lot* like Turo."

"Is that hairdo some sort of fashion statement?" That was said with a teasing extended tongue in a display of mock disgust.

"Hey be nice; the guys at the Pokémon Centers have the same hairdo."

"Isn't your uncle one of those guys? You've got flesh in the game there."

The trainers descended into friendly bickering, so Arturo decided to make his exit. With a friendly wave, he congratulated them on the shiny discovery and proceeded back to the main path.

On his way down, he could hear one of them wondering "How did he see us from all the way down there?"





Arturo walked back through the desert, grateful for clear skies and no sandstorms. Up through Cascarrafa, where he sat for a while to watch the setting sun over the city's many water features. The night was not nearly as bright as before, but letting his visual sensors adjust to the dimness took only a moment.

He passed an arena known as a Star base, this one once headed by Penny's musician friend Giacomo. Though he had graduated the previous year, the field training they implemented continued under a new head. Penny had expressed gratitude about this, though she had not told Arturo many details. He could find them himself, but if it was something important to her then he would let her speak of it as she wanted.

Even a still and quiet night was vibrantly alive. Humans in their homes and encampments, pokémon in their dens and the underbrush, and a soft breeze blowing through it all. He was grateful to be able to witness it.

And he decided that he was in no hurry. He took a few hours to sit and watch the stars.

What sort of life awaited at them? Who was looking back at him, at his planet, at that very moment? What sort of stories could they share? There was so much that Arturo wanted to open up about, so many experiences in the future, that he had to keep to himself for fear of altering the path of time. But to tell someone so distant felt as though it couldn't run that risk. Perhaps those foreign storytellers would have a similar tale to tell, that no one on their world could know.

He whispered some things to the stars. They could surely keep secrets.





The winding mountain path down to Cortondo was a bit slippery, from an overnight rain that had not reached where Arturo had stargazed, so his steps were slow and careful. He had survived without paths, but there would be a special embarrassment if he were to fall within the sight of so many passing trainers. Perhaps he should have run more stress tests on his face. After all, if it were to pop off while within sight of others, there would be a panic! But it remained firmly in place, with no reason to be concerned. Even the seam that had been visible was behaving itself.

And he could enjoy his surroundings, even if he had to keep to such a cautious pace. In slowing down, he could observe that much more, analyze that much more, and in general simply take in that much more.

Some children from the nearby town played tag in the field. In an underground tunnel, an extended family of the Pawmot line bickered and napped and played. The many birds flying overhead called merrily to each other across the sky. A Mudbray, no more than a few hours old, was already running with its mother.

The people tending to the olive trees sang a traditional song as they worked, one that Arturo had never known of but could feel the weight of generations behind it. One of the fieldhands set their hat aside and wiped sweat from their brow without missing a note, and a few Smoliv ran around the fields.

And the town itself was lively, the air full of what Arturo knew would be distinctive scents, especially the closer he got to the proximity of the bakery. He wondered if Arven had ever gone there, if they stocked the specialty he would have been so hard at work on, and how that turned out. But he would be able to speak with Arven in just a few hours.

The plan was to call Arven once he reached Mesagoza. But that could wait just a bit. He lingered in the town for a bit, examining the different corners, how the buildings were made, what wild pokémon lived there. It was much different from Medali, not as busy but just as alive. There was so much to see, and again he had to pause and dump unnecessary data.

A sphere rolled out in front of him and it took him a moment to access the data on a rubber ball. A child in a yard off to his right asked if he could kick it back, and he had never done so before, but was able to get it back to where it had originated. The child called out a thank you, and he waved politely as he kept walking.

Had Arven ever had a toy like that? He couldn't recall, and that was troubling, as he had dumped very little data on Arven.

That likely meant he had not. Turo's own childhood entertainment had been books and research, and he had had difficulty applying anything but his own experience to his son.

He wondered if it was too late to remedy this, if a rubber ball was meant for small children. But he wished to extend the thought, at least.

Before he had left, Nemona had gifted him some pocket money for "just in case", and although he had told her that he would not need it, he had taken it with him anyway. Perhaps there could be a use anyway.

He turned around, returning to the child's yard. "Excuse me, where might I purchase a ball like that?"







"Thanks for calling. It's great to hear from you."

"How did your cheesecake come out?"

Arven paused, mulling over how to answer that. "Well, I'm not really sure. We won't get our results back until tomorrow."

"Oh? Does it not need to be eaten fresh?"

"Cheesecake can usually keep chilled for a few days, and I just turned it in a few hours ago. It takes a LONG time. Though not usually this long." The young man paused again, and Arturo could hear him fiddling with something. "This was an especially complicated one. But I've got to get good at this sort of thing for culinary school. Calories be damned, you know?"

Arturo wasn't exactly certain how to answer that, and shifted the handles of the bag he was carrying around his fingers. "I suppose that goes back to what you said before, about 'a little something extra'."

"You remember that, huh?" It sounded like a faucet was running in the background.

"Of course." Arturo remembered every moment of his time with Arven. Every word spoken, and every emotion involved. "Are you with someone?"

"What do--" And he cut off and hissed slightly before fumbling for his phone again. "No, everything's fine but I gotta go I'll see you later!"

Before Arturo could ask what was happening, Arven had hung up.

No matter. Likely something embarrassing, such as his reaction to having to be tutored by Penny. Arturo wouldn't press the issue.

He paused at the pond south of Los Platos to watch a Fidough lap up some water. Such a different creature from its future relatives! They, along with many other canine species, had been used to design Iron Sentinel, the ultimate guard dog, and despite its predominant resemblance to Mabosstiff, had chased Arturo away multiple times. There was no need for them to maintain guard over the organic Mareep descendants, who were more than capable of defending themselves (as Arturo could attest when one kicked him in the chest with a strength that would have shattered a human's ribs), but they kept to their immortal task no matter what.

And as he approached the bridge nearing the lighthouse, he could sense Arven's presence, as well as his own treasured Mabosstiff.

And Juliana. And Nemona. And Penny. And Lydia. And a Sylveon, likely Penny's. And a Flamigo, likely Juliana's. And Chippy.

If they were going to wait for him, he would pretend to be surprised. He was capable of dishonesty, after all, and using that ability to joke with friends was an enjoyable usage of that ability.

As he walked up the hill, Mabosstiff, who was waiting outside, began barking. A flurry of activity burst through the lighthouse, and Arven stumbled out the front door. "Hey! Just the man I wanted to see! Let me take a good look at that new face!" He put a hand to his chin and acted as though he was focusing, but shook his head. "Nope, it's too dim outside. Come in and let me see!"

It was beginning to fade to evening, but was not nearly dark enough to impede normal human vision. This must be part of Arven's plan. Arturo followed him inside.

The lights were off, when they had been on a moment ago, and quickly turned back on with a loud and collective "SURPRISE!" as the group he had sensed lept up from crouching positions and cheered.

And then fell silent as they took in the sight of Arturo's new face. Lydia arched an eyebrow and leaned in slightly, and he noticed that her pupils were slightly dilated. Nemona just grinned and patted Juliana on the back, while Juliana seemed to not know what to think, but smiled. Penny gave him a subdued thumbs up, which he returned to some laughter from the group as he set aside the bags he had brought.

Flamigo, which was certainly Juliana's, began pulling at a decorative banner made of tied together construction paper letters reading CONGRATS ON THE NEW FACE. "Pardon me," Juliana said and pulled the overeager bird back by the knot in its neck. "Ok sorry about that!"

"It was no issue at all," Arturo reassured with a smile, something that brought Arven a little closer, leaning over to investigate with a hand to his chin just like his father would do.

"Well," the young man admitted, "I can't see the seam any more."

"The seam?" Penny asked.

"Ah yes." Arturo gestured to where it had been visible. "The seam between my face and the rest of my head had been visible during a call to Arven. I have fixed it."

Penny worked her way closer. "Wow, I don't see any evidence of a seam at all. I assumed you were going to rebuild the entire outside of your head and just wrap it all back on.

"While that would be possible for me to do," Arturo mused, "it would be much more involved and take a much longer time. Additionally, I have never done so myself." Although he added "I have never done this by myself either. So perhaps someday."

"Well, I think it looks really good!" Lydia hadn't taken her eyes off him the entire time.

Having wrangled the wayward Flamigo, Juliana put a hand on their mother's shoulder. "Mom. Do not the robot." This prompted a dramatic sigh from Lydia.

"I think it looks good too," Arven remarked. "It's just like you described, like an uncle or something. Though like I said..." He averted his eyes to conclude with "it's gonna take some getting used to." But he quickly clapped his hands. "Something that's not going to take some getting used to is the cheesecake!"

"Yes! Cheesecake!" Nemona cheered as she dashed to the fridge.

"Hey no! Wait your turn!" Arven chased after her, but she only grabbed the paper plates that were atop the fridge.

Penny pulled up a seat at the table with an eager look directed towards the cheesecake as Arven produced it from the refrigerator. There was already a slice missing, likely all he needed to leave for his grade.

But the young man sighed. "Ok, who had some already. Nemona I'm looking in your direction."

"Whaaaaat, me? You see that the cake knife is clean, right?"

"Yeah, *freshly* cleaned. It's *wet*, Nemona."

She giggled. "It looked so good! And it tastes amazing~"

Arturo kept watching them as he took a seat as well, Juliana beside him. Chippy climbed up on Juliana's lap, and Juliana handed the squirrel off to Lydia, who remained standing.

Soon, Arven and Nemona had finished slicing the cheesecake and distributing it on paper plates around the group. Arven had specially cut a mere taste for Arturo, and set it in front of him with a flourish. "Your sensors are gonna love this."

"I am certain they will." Arturo's sensors were incapable of loving anything, but he knew it to be a colloquial term that humans used to refer to things that were pleasing to the senses.

"Ohhhhhh god..." The groan came from Penny and sounded inappropriately pleasurable for someone her age. "Ohhhhhhh hnnnnnnnggg..."

"Penny," Juliana said with an accusatory point of their fork, "you need to stop watching those animes with the red labels on them."

It took Lydia a moment to understand, and she laughed. "Yes, you're too young for that."

Arturo had no idea what they were talking about. Neither did Nemona.

"What?" Penny objected. "I can't express enjoyment of a delicious baked good? Seriously, this is amazing."

"Isn't it just?" Nemona was leaning against a wall, her slice almost entirely gone already. "God, I could eat this all day."

Arven groaned, but it had a laugh behind it. "I left you alone for forty five seconds and you already carved into it. It wouldn't *last* all day; it would last maybe five minutes."

Nemona pointed with her fork in the same way Juliana had. "Arven, I say this with the utmost seriousness, I will pay you to make more of this to enable me."

"How about having him teach *you* how to make more?" Lydia asked, breaking off a bit of the tallest part around the outside edge and handing it to Chippy, who squeaked happily.

"Oh. Oh I could. But it's just really good, you know?!"

Flamigo was attempting to get at Juliana's plate. "No! Birds can't have cheesecake!" they said as they recalled the flamingo back to its ball. "God, when Chippy is behaving himself you know it's good."

Penny had already slid the wedge from the innermost part under the table to Sylveon. "So good."

Arturo's attention, however, was on Arven, who he found was watching him back. With a nod, he raised the given sample to his lips. "This is the first thing I will eat with my new look," he said before sliding it into his mouth.

Everything Arven had said about it was correct. It was horribly lacking in nutritional value, overloaded in fats and sugars, and even the high quality ingredients did nothing to dissuade this.

But the combination together, all of these things at once, formed something utterly wonderful. He lacked data on what all of the ingredients tasted like together, but he could surmise based on their chemical makeup that it was something elevated beyond the sums of their parts. And it was independent of how much he valued Arven's work. It went beyond any emotional attachment or presupposition and showed the young man's sheer talent in the kitchen.

"So, you like it?" Arven was smiling, but his heart rate was slightly elevated.

Arturo nodded, setting the fork back on the plate. "It was wonderful. Highly unhealthy, as you had cautioned me, but wonderful."

"W-well, what did you like about it?"

"Ooh!" Nemona interjected. "Do you have to get all our friends and family's opinions on it and report back to the teacher?"

And family. What an odd thing for her to say, Arturo thought. He was the only one there who could even pass for family, but he had no real right to think of himself as such. To say nothing of Arven's opinion on the matter.

But Arven didn't seem to notice. "Nah, Saguaro just wants to test our dessert skills, nothing else."

"That man has a real sweet tooth," Juliana said with a mouthful of cheesecake. "I wouldn't be surprised if he did this entirely so he could get to eat a lot of desserts and get paid for it."

Lydia put a hand on Juliana's shoulder and gave her child a slight, gentle shake. "Your cookies were really good too!"

"We could have cookies?" Nemona snapped to attention.

"I gave the rest of them to Eri. She wanted some cookies for Carmen's birthday."

Penny nodded. "Yeah, she was asking a lot of people. Carmen *really* likes cookies. I think everyone who made cookies for that exam ended up giving them to her."

Nemona deflated a little. "Aww. Don't get me wrong, that's super nice of you, but..." She grimaced. "Cookies."

"Well, you'll just have to learn how to make cookies too!" Arven kidded.

"Heeeey, I know how to make cookies! I just like them better when other people make them..."

"What was it you told me, Nemona?" Juliana's voice was light and teasing. "That you think a tablespoon means different things to different people?

"Aaaaahhh!" It was a mock scream, much quieter and lower in pitch than a genuine one would be. "I told you that years ago and you keep bringing it back up!"

"Because my friends say some ridiculous things and if I didn't keep bringing them back up, I'd forget them." Juliana slung an arm over Arturo's shoulder, pulling him a little closer. "We can't all have computers for brains, after all."

That was not entirely accurate. "Close enough," he said with a lighter, more casual tone.





Soon enough, everyone had finished, and then it was time to leave. Everyone had something to do the next day, including Arven's home ec class where he would learn the results of his submission. Penny teased Nemona along the way by showing her own invitation to Carmen's party. Lydia roped Juliana into cleaning up, and reminded Arturo to get more dishwashing liquid before they left.

This left Arven, who was gathering the last of his things when Arturo got his attention. "I have something I would like to give to you."

Arven paused, setting the cake knife into the box he had transported the cheesecake in before turning around. "Just so long as it's not a disembodied robot face."

Arturo went to retrieve the bag he had brought with him, the result of his trip to Delibird Presents in Mesagoza. "I thought of how you were never given one of these in your youth, and I thought I would remedy that."

The young man peeked into the bag as he took it. "A...it's a big rubber ball?"

"I do not know if it would be geared towards small children or not, but the store employees assured me that it is suitable to playing with many of your pokémon. Although Mabosstiff may damage it if he bites it, and you must take care to not let Scovillain strike it with strong fire." He paused, recalling what the child in Cortondo had been doing. "Or you could bounce it yourself. It seems to be relatively amusing, and a test of reflexes. I could join you if you like."

Arven took off the bag and drew out the ball, which he bounced against the table a few times. It made a satisfying boinging noise. "Heh. I guess that's pretty fun. I did have a ball like this though. I got it with my pocket money from a yard sale in Los Platos."

The ramifications of this, that Turo had somehow never noticed or forgotten, went unspoken by both of them. "That is good. I am certain you had fun with it."

"For a while. Mabosstiff, well, Maschiff at the time, was chasing it around the beach and it got in the water, and the last we saw of it, a passing Finizen was batting it around." He shrugged. "For all we know it's still out there. For creative writing class that year I wrote a story about Finizen playing basketball because of it."

Now that was something Arturo remembered. Something Turo had remembered. He had read the story, and kept a copy of it with his treasured items, even despite Arven receiving a low grade due to his spelling and grammar. It had gotten a star for imagination, and that was something Turo was proud of. "One moment." He excused himself to the back, and came back a moment later with a few pages of stapled together paper with a child's awkward handwriting on it. "This story, yes?"

Arven's smile all but vanished as he saw his old story. "...Oh my god...He actually kept it...He actually..." He felt a little weak, but gathered his courage, exhaling a shaking breath before flashing a thumbs up gesture. "That's actually...really good to know."

"He was proud of you. He was unable to show it, but he was."

"I'm starting to believe that..." He shook his head and picked up the rest of his things. "It took a while. Even when you told me that he did, I didn't think it was true. Not that you lied or anything, but that you must have been misinterpreting the data or something, but..." His hand was tightening around the satchel he had packed everything into. "I think now I can accept that he was just really messed up. He was unhappy too, wasn't he?"

Arturo nodded. "He wanted to be a real father to you. But he was obsessed with his work."

"Addicted. That's what the director called it. Said dad had always been like that even when he was little. That research was how he dealt with everything in his life..." Another head shake. "I think my pokémon will like this ball. But I don't think whoever's rooming below me would appreciate me bouncing a ball around my room, so maybe I'll take it up to the schoolyard." He summoned up a smile as he rolled the ball back into the bag it had come in. "Maybe we could go up there together now. I think it'll do you some good. There's a lot of stuff up there like a garden, and people like to hang out there, and it'll show you a lot of different kinds of interactions you could study."

"Of course. I would like that."

Arven looked away, not from Arturo but from the papers still in his hand. "Can you put that somewhere but not tell me where? I don't want to think about where it is."

"Very well. I will do so after you leave."

"Gotcha. Well," Arven hoisted his bag, "time to hit that ol' dusty trail! Come on out, Mabosstiff. We'll walk together." The large dog appeared in a red beam and barked happily. "Yeah, it's hard to keep him restrained when cake is on the line. You saw how Bestie was going for it--oh yeah, that's the name of Juliana's Flamigo. We needed him to hang up the banner. But it's easier to restrain him than it is Mabosstiff. Or Nemona. But you can't really put her in a pokéball."

"Capturing humans was tested once, out of the notion that it could help transport injured people, but it was stopped when it dawned on the scientists that it could be used for evil."

"For real?"

"Indeed."

Arven whistled to himself. "Well dang, learn something new every day. Come on, boy." He waved to Arturo and headed for the door, where more bags waited. "Oh hey, I was meaning to ask you. What else did you bring?"

"Mostly things to study. Soil we had used in growth experiments, some tera crystals, and so on. Also some old clothes." Arturo knew better than to mention the book.

"Neat. Maybe some plants will liven this place up. Anyway I'm outta here. Remember to lock up behind me!"

"I will do so. Good night."

"See ya!" And Arven and Mabosstiff were out the door.






Arturo closed and locked the door, just as Arven had reminded him, and retrieved the book from his bags.

Before going to bed that night, he read it cover to cover. It was just as good as he remembered it.