Chapter 14: Dread Disambiguation

Lavender Town-Kanto/Seeking Aide
Midday/Sunday

Nurse Joy stared in astonishment at the three visitors who had just walked 
into her Pokemon Center. Two teenager, a boy and girl, dressed in the black 
garb with a red 'R' on their chests that signified Team Rocket. Their clothes 
however were strangely dirty, covered in in what looked like ash and dust. 
With them came a large Arcanine. The large dog was a horrible mess. Its coat 
had a dried coat of blood and its legs and body we're covered in bandages. It 
came in walking but it limped horribly, the two kids had come in supporting 
it.

When she had first seen them through the front lobby's glass doors, she had 
instinctively reached for the phone. Even in a small town like Lavender, the 
danger that Team Rocket posed was known. Behind the counter her finger 
reached towards the emergency speed dial button that would place a call for 
help to the police station, but she stopped. It looked like they were 
supporting something, and then they had come in.

Shock overrode caution and she practically sprinted across the lobby. The 
Pokemon Center was empty today, that was sort of rare. Lavender Town had no 
Gym, nor was it really necessary to pass through it to get to a town with a 
Gym. In fact, getting into Lavender from the north meant passing through the 
Rock Tunnel, which was difficult, and getting in from the west was completely 
arbitrary as Vermilion was directly south of Saffron.

Lavender was a memorial town, a place where pokemon were laid to rest. Yet 
the saddening thing was that although there were hundreds of pokemon whom 
have been laid to rest inside the Memorial Tower, the town was only visited 
by a few people every day. It seemed that Lavender was not only the final 
resting place of pokemon but of memories as well.

"What happened to this pokemon?" asked Nurse Joy. Now that she was close 
enough to actually see the Arcanine, she could see that its condition was far 
worse than she had initially perceived. Its body was covered in gashes, 
lacerations, and contusions. There had been some attempt to give it 
treatment, she could tell by the scent that drifted from its coat and the 
color some of the wounds had taken, but potions and revives could only do so 
much. This pokemon most certainly had several broken bones. She looked up at 
the boy for his response but the girl answered.

"We were attacked by Team Rocket," she said calmly. Nurse Joy looked at her 
in surprise, and looked them over again. "Please don't judge us on our 
attire, it was the only way we could escape. It's a long story."

"Please, Arcanine needs help right away, and so do our pokemon," as in if 
agreement, Arcanine whimpered. Chris removed two pokeballs from his pocket, 
and Karma drew out three.

Nurse Joy sniffed for a second, unsure of what to do but then she sighed. She 
reached out and took the pokeballs and ran across the room placing them on a 
tray on the counter. "Please withdraw Arcanine into a pokeball so that we may 
treat it."

Chris and Karma looked at each other for a second before he answered, 
"Arcanine doesn't have a pokeball."

Nurse Joy raised an eyebrow, "it doesn't have a trainer?"

"No," Karma answered.

"For emergency treatment, pokemon need to be inside pokeballs," Nurse Joy 
lectured from across the room. "One of you, please capture it for now, if you 
want you may release it after treatment."

Chris sighed and withdrew a small sphere and sighed, Arcaine was looking at 
the pokeball with dislike. Karma beat him to the punch, she didn't toss her 
pokeball, but tapped its central ring against Arcanine. With a flash of red 
light, Arcanine disappeared as Karma whispered, "don't worry."

Karma walked the pokeball over to Nurse Joy and placed it on the tray. With a 
brisk pace, Nurse Joy moved the tray to a machine next to the counter and 
placed the tray on a compartment on top of the machine. It resembled a large 
computer combined with some kind of transformer. Chris had seen these 
terminals at pokemon centers all over the world, it was how Nurse Joys 
handled speedy treatments, this was the first time he was curious about how 
it actually worked.

Nurse Joy stood in front of a monitor and typed away. Red light, very similar 
to the red light seen when a pokemon is called to or from a pokeball, 
suddenly flooded the tray compartment and surrounded the six pokeballs. Chris 
leaned over the counter to get a better look at what Nurse Joy and was 
suprised to see the 3D image of an Absol appear on her monitor. It was 
accompanied by varying bars and words, near the top, Chris could make out 
Karma's name, 'OT Karma Metrawire'.

"Don't you even know how that works?" asked Karma behind him. Chris looked 
back and found that she was looking at him in a exasperated way. He shook his 
head and she sighed and pointed at the pokeballs in the tray. "Pokeballs 
convert pokemon to energy and contain them in the small sphere using 
technology. Did you know that?"

Chris shook his head, it was the first time he had heard this. Karma looked 
at him reproachfully, "honestly, what kind of trainer are you? How did you 
think pokemon were contained in those small balls?"

Chris scratched his head and laughed sheepishly, "well...I sorta thought 
maybe the pokemon were shrunk or something..."

Karma eyed him with disbelief. "Shrunk? You thought pokemon were shrunk? 
Jeez! Look," Karma pointed at the pokeballs again. "Modern pokeballs are 
designed off of old pokeballs which were made from Apricorns. Apricorns are 
rare and delicate fruits that were discovered to have some innate parasitic 
capacities. Essentially, they were found to draw out minuscule amounts of 
energy from living organisms."

"Picking up a Apricorn wont have any negative consequence to humans, this 
innate parasitic system seemed to have been a dead end for the fruit until it 
was discovered that pokemon avoided Apricorns at all costs. It turns out that 
when an Apricorn makes contact with a pokemon, something very strange 
happens," Karma paused and shifted on her feet. "Pokemon are very different 
when compared to humans, they have a mystical energy that most humans 
lack...that is to say, they have an energy that is present in humans but only 
in minuscule amounts when compared to pokemon. When coming into contact with 
pokemon, the Apricorns parasitic system suddenly rapidly activates. It 
forcibly draws out energy from the pokemon in response to this strange energy 
that pokemon have, and the Apricorn ends up absorbing all the energy a 
pokemon has, if given enough time."

"That's why pokemon avoid Apricorns?" Chris asked.

"Exactly, you too would avoid something that rapidly drained you of energy. 
Further studies into Apricorns revealed that it was the hard outer shell that 
caused the energy absorption. It drew the energy into the inner center, and 
if it were still attached to the Apricorn tree, it would presumably feed the 
tree. A system for survival. Humans eventually hollowed out the inside and 
supplemented the shell's ability to absorb energy, strengthening it, making 
it possible to convert matter into energy, and fitted it with a simple 
mechanism to hold the captured energy," Karma lectured. "Matter is captured 
energy, those Apricorn pokeballs were the original pokeballs. The modern 
pokeball technology is based off of that."

"Well okay, that's interesting but what exactly does that have to do with..." 
Chris shrugged in the direction Nurse Joy.

"Well...you understand that pokemon can be stored electronically in the P.C. 
right?" asked Karma, she pointed to a group of computers located on one 
corner of the Pokemon Center. "The energy-matter transformation that 
pokeballs are capable of is taken advantage of, the energy is converted to 
data and stored as memory. The terminal Nurse Joy uses combines the two 
different properties of the pokeball and P.C., in order to quickly heal 
pokemon."

"First, the energy within the pokeball, the pokemon itself, is analyzed and 
turned into data so that the computer can read it. This analysis quickly 
shows the operator, usually Nurse Joy, various information about the pokemon 
and any injuries it may have suffered," as Karma explained, Chris looked over 
the counter and saw a 3D model of a Golem on Nurse Joy's monitor. "Energy is 
produced by the terminal, thats the red light you see, which in turn is also 
digitized. The operator uses this to 'fix' anything wrong with the pokemon's 
code, such as 'injuries'. In effect, it's similar to the reworking of a 
computer program in order to fix bugs or glitches. When the code is 'fixed', 
the monitor displays the code's product and if all is in order, the pokemon 
is reformed into energy and returned to its pokeball."

"That's what that does?" Chris looked worried. "Couldn't that backfire? I 
mean...couldn't you totally mess up the pokemon?"

"Relax...this isn't like 'creating' pokemon. This pokemon simply takes the 
'code' of a pokemon, its digitized energy recorded into memory, analyzes the 
irregularities caused by injuries, and uses extra digitized energy in order 
to 'fix' the irregularities in the existing code. The operator doesn't mess 
with the code, or rather the operator can't. The pokemon code is so large, 
complex, and intricate, that one mistake could cause errors in the code that 
change the pokemon irreversibly and more than likely, negatively," Karma 
motioned toward the terminal again. "However, even if the operator would have 
some reason to want to alter with the digitized code, they wouldn't be able 
to. You would need the power, knowledge, and capabilities of an entire 
genetic lab with seasoned doctors and researchers, the computing power and 
memory of hundreds of computers. Not to mention an immense source of energy 
for such changes, enough financial power for such an undertaking, and time, 
lots and lots of time."

"Anyways, compared to something like that, this terminal here is a simple 
machine. All it does is heal pokemon, by using energy to fill in the missing 
fragments caused by injuries after the energy has been converted to data, so 
that it is most easily manipulated for its purpose," Karma finished. Just as 
she said it, the light inside the tray compartment flashed and disappeared. 
The 3D model of an Ryhorn disappeared from the moniter and the screen turned 
white. Nurse Joy shuffled the tray out of the compartment and placed it on 
the counter.

Karma reached out and retrieved four pokeballs. Chris didn't know how she 
knew that those were hers, but he didn't question her. He retrieved the last 
two pokeballs and checked their underside. The small 'C-Bay' and 'C-Mis' he 
saw scratched on the underside of each sphere respectively identified each 
pokemon.

Chris looked up and found Nurse Joy studying him, "you say you were attacked 
by Team Rocket? Do you want to go to the police?"

Chris opened his mouth to respond when Karma pulled him backwards by grabbing 
his elbow, "I'm sorry, but we can't do that, we need to change out of these 
clothes, mind if we use the bathrooms?" Nurse Joy studied her and finally 
shook her head.

"No, go right ahead."

Karma dragged Chris toward the doorway on the left. A sign near the ceiling 
illustrated bathroom symbols. Chris changed into clean clothes, a pair of 
jeans and shirt, in the mens bathroom and used the chance to go. It had been 
roughly a day after all.

When he came out, Karma was in the lobby, newly dressed in purple, looking 
annoyed and impatient. "Hurry it up."

Chris moved forward but stopped by the counter where Nurse Joy still stood. 
She was looking at Karma's choice of clothes with a raised eyebrow. He spoke 
quickly, "thank you." Then turned around and followed Karma out the door.

Nurse Joy considered him for a second as he left, then she turned to her 
monitor and started clicking away. She pulled up a 3D picture model: a moon, 
silvery and large. She studied it for a second, then clicked another key. The 
3D model of a what looked like a teenage boy appeared. She studied this one 
too, something seemed familiar about the eyes. Finally she clicked again, and 
a final picture appeared, a 3D model of a large golden bird. When she had 
first seen it, she thought it to be a Fearow, but the computer had identified 
it: Ho-oh. That was a name she recognized, 'the phoenix'.

These three pictures had been generated, seemingly randomly, when she had 
been treating Arcanine. The boy and girl hadn't seen the pictures appear as 
they had been talking about pokeballs and energy. Nurse Joy had quickly 
hidden the pictures, for what reason even she didn't know. She went through 
the pictures again but couldn't make a connection between them. The Arcanine 
data code had been strange, she didn't know why, but something about it 
seemed...odd.

Nurse Joy sighed, she lowered the pictures and looked out the lobby glass. 
They were gone, but something about the encounter had unnerved her.