someday I will write a pokemon world building fic about fossil revival and how it relates to things like the mew/mewtwo project because it has fascinated me since i was a small child
topics to explore:
–the idea that fossil pokemon are REVIVED, not cloned. what the hell. are they raising the dead? the pokemon that come out the other end are not base level babies, what is HAPPENING there
–the fact that all fossil pokemon are part rock type, apparently because they were revived from stone. how is the process of revival altering them?
–for that matter, pokemon that are rediscovered in the wild like relicanth and kabuto, are they different than revived specimens?
–how did the expedition that brought back mew relate to the fossil reviving labs? are there mew fossils?
–the whole ditto being derived from mew thing, which is my favorite pokemon theory, being a plot centerpiece. possibly a pre-series sort of thing about the creation of ditto.
I would want the protagonist to be a fledgling scientist who is clearly marked as a future pokemon professor by having a plant surname but all the extinct plants are so WORDY.
like Glossopteris is not a great name
REDWOOD his professor name is going to be Professor Redwood.
Except it isn’t his last name right now! When we meet him he’s living with his boyfriend, whose last name is Redwood. They’re actually both researchers! Malcolm, our protagonist, is a paleontologist, while his as-of-yet unnamed boyfriend works for Sylph Co working out the bugs in early models of the pokemon healing machine we see in pokemon centers. His specific project is figuring out why they make psyduck headaches worse, so their place is just FULL of psyducks.
Malcolm, introducing himself at his new job with Cinnabar Labs: Hi, my name’s Malcolm, I just moved here with my boyfriend and his ungodly hoard of weird duck pokemon. Yes, that was him trying to herd them all out of the pokemon center on Sunday. We also have a Meowth and a Kadabra but they’re much better behaved, I promise.
The Kadabra speaks some sign language and while he’s technically Malcolm’s boyfriend’s pokemon, he’s so smart they consider him more of a family member. The Meowth is Malcolm’s.
The plot follows the early days of Cinnabar Labs’ success with fossil reviving, with Malcolm starting out enthusiastic and gradually finding more and more things that feel wrong leading up to the Mew experiments, at which point things go downhill FAST.
This process starts when they bring back a ton of Kabuto trying to get one to survive the process, and Malcolm brings one of the struggling specimens home to nurse it through the first days. He then promptly gets attached.
I’m naming his boyfriend Grant because using the last names of Jurassic Park characters is really entertaining me, I’m deeply sorry
The lab is empty of people, leaving Malcolm alone with the whirring and rumbling of the machines. The pumps are especially noisy, sucking in fresh seawater to feed into the heater. It’s attempt number four at creating survivable conditions for the Kabuto in the tanks, going for a natural environment this time. Sterile hadn’t worked, and neither had trying to artificially recreate ancient seas.
The veteran researchers had already given up on this batch, unwilling to work a second all-nighter just to watch another failure play out. They’ll go over the tank footage tomorrow, take readings, examine the dead, and start over.
Malcolm can’t bring himself to follow their example. He’s asleep on his feet and hasn’t seen Grant in two days, but he just can’t leave while any of their test subjects are clinging to life. At least Mitzi is still here to keep him company; his Meowth snores softly from atop the water heater.
There’s only one Kabuto left now, subject 26. It’s not the one Malcolm would have pegged as the most hardy of the bunch, given that it was missing a front claw from the moment they revived it. Still, it’s hanging in there, scuttling in a lopsided loop around the tank.
Malcolm watches as it carefully balances itself on its back legs to spear a chunk of food left on the tank floor. It’s a much slower movement than even the more sickly Kabuto he’s seen try to eat. Malcolm wonders if that’s why this one died the first time, getting outcompeted for food.
Wait.
All the pokemon they’re working with are fossil pokemon, which means they died once already. Healthy, fit pokemon don’t usually just drop dead on the seafloor. Of course all the ones they’re reviving are dying right away, the machines are calibrated to alter them as little as possible for their state at the time of fossilization, a time when they were dying.
He scrambles for the phone, attached to the wall near the door, and calls his home number. It rings for a long while before Grant answers, his voice hoarse with sleep.
“Hello?”
“Babe, it’s me, I need you to–”
“Malcolm, it’s two in the morning–”
“Grant, it’s important, I’m bringing a Kabuto home, I need you to start up your prototype right now.”
“Wait, what?”
“They need medical attention, Grant, that’s why they’re dying, I’m not letting this one die too!”
“Okay, okay! I’ll wake the pokemon, we’ll be ready when you get here.”
“God, I love you, I’ll be home soon!”
would you guys like it if I posted this on ao3/continued it over there? possibly with a prologue to make this make sense without the post lol
Just sent the first chapter of this to my beta, here’s an excerpt!
Malcolm hangs up without another word, leaving Grant listening to the dial tone. He groans and leans his head against the wall for a moment, takes a deep breath.
Okay. He’s got this. It isn’t like this is the first time Malcolm’s woken him up with an impending disaster. “Crisis” has been Malcolm Garcia’s default setting since they met. Sure, there were never any extinct pokemon dying in their living room, but whatever! He can handle it.
He hangs up the phone and beelines straight for the nest of blankets his Kadabra made their armchair into. Grant keeps offering to get him a real bed, but he’s too territorial about his chair to even consider it.
“K, wake up, we’ve gotta work,” Grant says, nudging the pokemon’s shoulder. K grumbles in protest and curls further into a ball.
The full first chapter is up! Read it here on ao3!
Reminder that this is ongoing!
i made sprites of the two main characters, just for fun!
@prof-peach this sounds like a pokemon story thread you’d probably enjoy reading! Great world-building going on so far!
