It always does, though. The land. Area Zero. It has for a while. He feels it in his bones and it creeps like fog into his brain. It normally doesn’t bring any sort of sense of impending doom, horrible dread that makes him sick, but it’s still a little unnerving. Some inexplicable part of him is drawn there for reasons he doesn’t think he’ll ever understand.
It’s why he wakes in the early hours of the morning with the feeling that something is wrong. His eyes are sticky with rheum that he roughly rubs away with the heels of his palms, and he pulls himself upright with a groan. Mabosstiff is already awake, staring at him, and whines when their eyes meet before jumping off of the bed. Can you feel it too, buddy?
Ten minutes later he’s creeping out of the building and slipping off campus. The sky is aglow in vibrant splashes of orange and pink as the sun creeps over the distant horizon. The sea sparkles beneath its light. A Rookidee whistles in a nearby tree, a morning song. He calls a flying taxi to take him to Medali, and then spends a better part of the morning making his way up to the entrance of the crater. It’s the time of day where security is switching out, the graveyard shift making way for the morning, so he’s able to slip in undetected. The hulking metal doors open for him with a groan.
With all the teleporters activated, he has no issue actually getting down.
It still does make him a little nauseated, though. He slumps against the wall of the wrecked research station and holds his palm to his forehead, steadying his breathing, stilling the spinning of his head. And then he stands up straight, finds Mabosstiff’s Poké Ball to let the hound out, and he exits the building into the depths of the crater.
He feels like he needs to go deeper. To the lab, again. It’s been a while — he normally doesn’t journey this deep; it lacks the vivid greenery from the higher levels of the crater, and the only sounds are the leaking of water from the damp, glistening walls, and the creatures that call these caverns home.
If it weren’t for the perpetual gleam of the gargantuan crystals, it would be pitch black. He still has to watch his step, his boots crunching against rock and dirt, occasionally skidding on an unexpectedly steep slope. The Pokémon here don’t bother him anymore, for some reason. They act like he doesn’t exist, and he won’t try to question why, and simply makes the trek down to the lab encased in crystal.
Something is wrong.
There entrance was blocked off before, but now—
There are two figures there, in front of shattered crystal. One is massive, nearly seven feet tall, if he could hazard a guess from here. The crystal’s glow reflects off of the metal plates on its body. And the other figure is—
Huh?! Is that—?!
The strangled, startled sound he makes echoes through the cavern and the taller figure whips its head up, glowing eyes locked in on him. Its impossibly long tail lashes. Mabosstiff’s hackles raise beside him and he bares his teeth in a snarl, and Arven knows he should get the hell out of Dodge, but he’s frozen in place. His binder feels impossibly tight, his lungs are constricted, and he’s sweating.
There used to be a time Ignacio took an especially great care of cultivating his social media presence. Especially at the height of his racing career. However, even after his return to Paldea and its circuits, he had turned somewhat disinterested by managing his own PR. Which was why he thought it appropriate to break his year-long mediatic silence by uploading a video of a battle with the... interesting looking wild Hydreigon he captured just now.
Eh. As if. He knew what would happen as soon as he hit "Post".
The loading bar was halfway filled before the app crashed and an error message appeared on the screen of his Rotom Phone, announcing the upload failed. Not only that, but the video was seemingly corrupted and completely deleted from the device.
He huffed to himself. Everything was going according to plan. He opened the notepad app, and quickly typed:
[Like a Larvesta to a flame.]
[I didn't think I would get your attention so fast, professor. If only you were as efficient at keeping your pets in check.]
@visionairio asked: andrés help i need an update i can't keep up anymore / unprompted.
He sighed, still staring at the sheets of complicated-looking maths he'd pinned to the wall.
❝ You are the single greatest AI ever created. You are not a common RotomPhone in need of monthly updates - the system you exist on was designed specifically to remove the need for such time-wasting. ❞
It was technically true. The code Andrés had designed was more of a self-learning mechanism, able to identify the necessary changes and adjust itself when needed, rather than cramming every needed improvement into a single, large update. He could add or retract parts when needed, but it could run without any human interference. The AI had been created to help the work in the lab, after all, not bring everything to a standstill every time it needed to improve itself.
❝ What, exactly, is proving too difficult for you to keep up with? ❞
"Are you studying? It's important that you don't miss out on classes anymore." /DAD
It's hard not to roll his eyes in response, but he manages. It's a very... teenage boy thing to do, whether Arven realizes that or not. Arven crinkles his nose, glancing to where he's put his textbooks and notebooks on the table. They all have various post-it notes sticking out of them.
"Yeah," he replies, gesturing vaguely at them. "I wanna graduate on time! I'm not missing anymore classes, I swear."
Even if he has been outside and riding wild Dondozo, or practicing high altitude flying on a friend's Charizard, or any other mildly-to-extremely risky activity. Apparently he gets it from his mom, wherever she is. Coded into his genes or whatever.
"My teachers are helping a lot." Arven scratches his cheek. He looks a little embarrassed when he says, "... It's okay if you wanna help, too, I guess."
… So long as it was nothing to do with Saguaro's class.
