Michael, Examine! The Snag Machine
Examine! | accepting
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It's your Snag Machine! It's your trusty device that allows you to snag Shadow Pokemon from other Trainers. It's designed only to work on Shadow Pokemon, so no one can use it for any other reason. Good thing, too, since there are certain people who would want to get their hands on it. Its stainless steel is scuffed, and the grooves of the wire have sand stuck in them, but otherwise you keep it pretty clean.
You wonder, sometimes, if you're doing the right thing. Of course, it's the right thing to help the Shadow Pokemon and stop Cipher, that's a no-brainer. But you think about how you're still... stealing from other Trainers. Some of them don't even know they have Shadow Pokemon. But you think of how Cipher treats the poor Pokemon, about the horrible things the Pokemon must have gone through to become how they are, and the thoughts disappear. You have to be doing the right thing.
... It hurts your heart, sometimes, to look at it for too long. You remember being seven and overhearing Prof. Krane and your father talking about their plans for a new Snag Machine and the Purification Chamber, just in case something like the Shadow Incident happens again. Krane did the designs, while your father did most of the programming. They were a good team, the people at the HQ Lab would tell you. Your father never got to see them done.
Maybe you're imagining it, but sometimes, when you're feeling your loneliest, you feel the Snag Machine weight just a bit heavier on your shoulder. Not like it was heavier itself, but more like it was being pressed gently down. As though someone had their hand on your shoulder.
This is a piece of your father that you take with you everywhere. It's seen everything that you have, been through everything you've been through.
You hope that, wherever he is, your father is proud of you.
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