Member
Noctis
wintersoldier
BlazingBark
Izurich
Xaltwind
karishin42
Guardian Angel Haruki
rush99999
Half PintPhone Quest
Featuring Roxas, Bowser Junior, and Rika
Word Count:4145 (+5) (+5 rapport for Jr and Roxas)
After the meeting broke off, and people started slitting off, Jr was one of the first and most urgent to bail on the situation. He slipped out of his seat, hauled Dazzle over the shoulder (the one Mimi wasn’t occupying) from where the sea lion pokemon had been sitting in his lap, and then set off on his quest to get his new phone, Peeka floating along above him, and Rika casually keeping stride with his much shorter legs. Knowing exactly where the Koopa Prince was heading, Roxas hurried out of the crowded Common Room after him so he could lead him to where he was going.
Their destination? The workplace of the ship's very own resident pokemon professor; Professor Koa!
It was more or less a straight shot to where the Professor’s lab was located. They just needed to exit the Common Room into the nearby lift that they would then take all the way down to the second most bottom level, and viola, they were there! ”Professor?” Roxas called once he and Jr had entered the research lab. This elicited a casually dressed man to pop up from the pile of research material he was studying. Koa was not at all dressed like one would expect a scientist to dress. He had a typical lab coat, but that was worn over a black tank top and blue shorts, plus sandals on the man’s feet. Without that lab coat he’d be dressed like someone vacationing on a tropical island somewhere.
“Ah, Alola, Roxas!” Professor Koa responded with a warm smile. He got up to greet the newly minted Pokemon Trainer but was quick to notice the friend accompanying him. And more specifically, the Pokemon he was essentially carrying. “Another Trainer? Wonderful, Alola to you too, young Trainer. My name is Koa, I head the research department here on the Avenger, but I also study Pokemon for a living.” He said, already even leaning in to look more closely at the Brionne and Mimikyu Jr was carrying. But appeared to pay special attention to the Ghost Pokemon floating just above him.
”Hey there, you the guy with the phones?” jr asked ever so bluntly, before after half a beat adding ”Oh, yeah, and I’m Bowser Junior” and then pointing to each of his mon and introducing them as ”Peeka, Mimi, and Dazzle-” before adding regarding the last ”-who is going to go on the floor now because I am gonna have to rethink carrying you about” and then depositing the ghost tailed sea lion on the ground.
He dusted his hands off and then half turned to gesture back back at the ship girl who’d posted herself by the door to introduce her as well, saying ”and this is my sister Rika”
The ship girl who’s eyes had been roaming around the room flicked back to them with a ”mmm?” before she proved that she had been paying attention when she said ”Alo..la? To you too” to the professor, trying out a mimicry of his greeting for herself.
“Phones…?” Asked the Professor with a confused look on his face.
”He wants to ask you for a Rotom Phone.” Roxas clarified.
“Ah, that.” Professor Koa said and then smiled warmly. “Since we hardly get any Pokemon Trainers aboard the Avenger, I wasn’t exactly keeping a stockpile of them.” He explained, his tone apologetic as he rubbed his hand against the back of his neck.
”Awww what, come oooon urrrgh” Jr whined in frustration, before huffing that it was ”just my luck”
“But don’t lose hope, just yet.” the Professor quickly said and then added, “We’ve got the means to produce more thanks to Dr. Yu.”
”Dr. Yu?”
“She’s a technical engineer.” Koa explained. “All she needs to do is reverse-engineer an existing Rotom Phone and she’ll be able to figure out how to make more.” he said but had to also add, “There’s just one small detail we need to worry about. You see, the Rotom Phones get their name because they are phones that are possessed by the Ghost Pokemon known as Rotom. Dr. Yu can make the phone, but it’ll need a Rotom to possess it in order for it to become a full Rotom Phone.
”It's possessed by a ghost?”jr echoled, before going all starry eyed as he said ”Oh wow that’s amazing!” before pausing, sighing, and predicting ”but let me guess, you don’t have any of those either”
“Now now, simmer down.” Professor Koa requested. “I did have a couple of Rotoms in my lab to help with my research so we can use one of them. The trouble is, they can be very tricky and just love to bounce around between appliances and other electronic devices. But as long as you have a way to sniff them out, you should be able to round them up simply enough.”
”Hmmmmm” jr intoned tapping a foot in a thoughtful pose, before snapping his fingers and saying ”what better ways to catch a ghost than with another ghost!”
”Mimi! Peeka! Go find them for me!” he commanded, prompting both to tilt their heads at him as if to ask ‘ok but how?’
”Uh, um, I dunno? Use your like, ghost senses to detect them or something?” he tried, resulting in Peeka head tilting so far she ended up upside down.
Roxas instead consulted his Pokedex. ”Says here that Rotom is a Ghost type AND an Electric type. So maybe instead of a Ghost we need…” Roxas glanced down at Scamp, who by now had plopped down for a sit to be more comfortable. ”How about it, Scamp? Think you can help us track them down?” he asked, which prompted a ‘bow-wark’ from the Yamper.
“Won’t know until you try.” Professor Koa said encouragingly. “Try letting him get a whiff of your Rotom Phone, Roxas, maybe he can get the scent of Rotom from the one possessing your phone?”
”Well, Scamp?” Roxas asked, trying to hold the phone close to the Pokemon’s nose. ”You smell anything?” Scamp sniffed the phone several times, and for a moment it didn’t look like he was going to get anything from it. But then suddenly he hopped up with an excited ‘bow-wark’ and bolted off somewhere. ”Looks like he's onto something!” Roxas said as he hurried after his partner Pokemon.
”Alright! Let’s go!” Jr called out to his mons, rushing out the door. Then rushing back in to grab Dazzle only for Rika to helpfully pick up the beached mon up in one massive mechanical hand.
”Thanks sis!” he told her, the pair trading thumbs up before racing out the room after the Nobody and his Yamper, and Peeka who was casually drifting along behind the leading pair
And so the great Rotom Chase began. Scamp bounded his way around the ship until he eventually led the boys and Rika to the upper levels where all the different living quarters were. And that meant there were lots of different rooms with varying electrical appliances or devices for a Rotom to be hiding in. Roxas didn’t really like the idea of snooping around in other people’s rooms, but what else could he and Jr do if one of the Rotom just happened to be hiding in one of them? Luckily for them, the Rotom that Yamper was leading them toward was not in one of the private rooms.
Instead it happened to be possessing one of the washing machines found in the laundry room. And when Scamp barked at the machine, the Pokemon in question popped right out of it. But because it had been possessing a washing machine, the Rotom in question had taken on the form of Wash Rotom - giving it a shape that resembled a washing machine in addition to making it an Electric/Water type. But this wasn’t the only one. Another Rotom also popped out, this time from a nearby electric fan - giving it the fan-shaped Fan Rotom form as well as making it an Electric/Flying type.
Rika, seeing threats , promptly held her free hand out and summoned her spear into it, only for Jr to race up and after her with a ”Wait wait wait!” before declaring it was ”Pokemon battle time” rather than regular ruble time. He then thrust a finger forwards and commanded ”Go, Peeka” prompting his Flutter Mane to float down from above and in-between the children and the pokemon to square off against the haunted appliances.
”You too, Scamp! Let’s take ‘em on!” Roxas joined in, with Scamp hopping into a position with a bow wark, trying to sound fierce but not really succeeding given how inherently cute and adorable an electric puppy dog generally is. But regardless, he was ready for battle too. Now, if Roxas were a more experienced trainer, he would have known that both of these Rotoms lacked their usual Ghost typing due to the forms they were currently in. But Roxas was not a very experienced trainer yet, and so he still assumed they were Ghost types and gave his command accordingly. ”Scamp, use Bite on the fan-shaped one!” The Yamper barked in confirmation and lunged for the attack. But the attack didn’t look like it was as effective as Roxas was expecting.
”Blast the washing-machine-one with, uh, whatever you got from the tentacle eyeball thing Peeka!” Jr called out, prompting the mon to look confused for a moment, then to focus and then finally to recoil back as a pair of dark purple orbs were fired from its necklace eye.
The pair of shots slammed into the machine mimicking mon, and then split, each orb blasting off at a right angle in either direction, one narrowly missing the fan Rotom before both slammed into and scorched the walls of the room
”Oops”
Meanwhile, the Fan Rotom fired back with an Air Slash aimed directly at Scamp. The move connected, but luckily Scamp’s electric typing allowed it to resist the damage and shrug it off for the most part. But that didn’t compare to what the Wash Rotom did. It seemed to charge up or inhale a moment before spewing out a torrent of water aiming to blast Peeka with a powerful Hydro Pump.
The mon got out a “flu-” before the torrent of high pressure water washed the floating mon away, sending her blasting out into the corridor and into a wall. Fortunately as a ghost she went through said wall. Unfortunately as a ghost she ended up outside the ship and only narrowly managed to swoop back onboard. Either way she was out of the fight.
”uhhhhh” Jr entoned as he just stared back at where his mon had gone before snapping back into the fight ”ok but, right the washing machine’s water, duh, obviously”
He knew how to deal with that, calling out ”Go! Mimi! Give it an electro ball!” and prompting the mimikyu to leap from his shoulder while she charged up a ball of electricity in one claw, which she then hurled towards the wash-rom upon landing.
Roxas had a similar thought about the Fan Rotom. It using Air Slash must have meant it was a flying type. ”Go Scamp, use Spark!” The Yamper barked and bounded and rammed into the Fan Rotom while charged up with electricity. It may not have been super effective, but it seemed to be hitting harder than Bite did. And meanwhile, Jr had similar luck with the Wash Rotom. Electro Ball wasn’t super effective, but it appeared to do decent damage. And it also didn’t cause any structural damage, either.
”Yeesh, what type even are these guys?” Jr asked, to which Rika, currently leaning against a wall at the back of the room with her spear in one hand and Dazzle still in the other, replied by asking ”maybe the phone will tell you?”
”Uh,” Roxas fumbled with his Rotom Phone to find the results. ”The washing machine one is Electric/Water, and… the Fan one is Electric/Flying.” He said but then added. ”We’ll just have power through this, Scamp. Use Spark again!” Yamper lunged to the side to dodge an incoming Air Slash before he charged forward with another electrified Spark attack. It was about as effective as before. Clearly this wasn’t going to be a battle of type advantages, but instead revolve around who could outlast the other.
”Mimi use- ah! look out!” Jr called as the wash started spinning up its spin cycle. A moment later the hatch popped open, and another hydropump came blasting out. Forewarned by her trainer however, Mimi leaped out of the way and into one of the washing machines, using it as cover, getting only shaken up as the machine was hammered by the flow rather than also being blasted away.
”You good?” “mi!” ”OK! Now copy cat that move and blast the fan!” jr commanded after verifying that his mon was good. There was a brief pause as Mimi imitated the move, and then a moment later she and the regular washing machine she was in did their best impression of wash rotom by blasting out of it with a hydropump of their own, this one aimed squarely at the fan rotom. The attack landed, dealing a strong bit of damage though obviously not as strong as the Wash Rotom’s attack due to Mimi not being a Water type.
Roxas decided this was a good chance to pile on some extra damage to the Fan Rotom, ”Hit it with another Spark, Scamp!” He called out, prompting the Yamper to ram into the soaked ‘mon while electrified, boosting the amount of damage the attack dealt. The Rotom in question was practically overwhelmed having two attacks come at it so rapidly. After the Spark did its trick, Roxas grabbed an empty Poke Ball from his bag’s ball pocket and threw it at the weakened ghost Pokemon. The ball hit and opened up to pull the Fan Rotom inside and then began to wiggle. Once. Twice. Click.
”Gotcha!” Roxas cheered. ”One more to go!” Now it was two against one. As powerful as those hydro pumps were, the Wash Rotom would be running out of PP for them pretty soon, especially if it had to start firing them off at two separate opponents.
”Alright!” Jr cheered before pivoting around to face the wash rotom ”Now let’s fish this, because I’ve got something I’ve wanted to try!”
With that he held his paintbrush staff forwards, hand shaking as he built up mana in it, saying ”Mimi, take this power and-” before thrusting th staff up into the air, sending a burst of magic arching up through the air and down into his pokemon who’d hopped out of the washing machine ”show me what you can do with it!”
As the power suffused the little mon her eyes flashed like stars before her true form lunged for the wash rotom, tendrils wrapping it up and dragging it under the disguise that expanded to fit the washing machine. Once it was trapped in there, the specter within with delivered at dustcloud punchup before spitting out again, barely clinging to consciousness.
A perfect state for it to be bonked on the head by a pokeball and also captured by the prince.
The whole ordeal was a mix of horrifying and cutely silly, a vibe not helped by Roxas’ rotom phone helpful informing them that the Z-move that had just been used was called “let’s snuggle forever”
”What’s a ‘Z-move’?” Roxas wondered aloud to himself. Probably something to look up later. For now, they had to get back to the lab.
When they returned, they found the professor was no longer alone. With him, bent over a workbench, was a creature that would have looked mostly like an aline known as a sectoid had they not been covered head to toe in garments. Quite literally, as between surgical gloves, thick boots, a lab coat, a colorful patterned hooded shawl over neck and head, face mask across their mouth and welding goggles over their eyes, not an inch of skin was exposed to the open air.
Sparks flashed in the eyes of the figures goggles as she worked on soldered way on an open back of a phone, before she handed the tool she was using off to a lab coat and goggle wearing Audino that was acting as an assistant, and was handed the back of the phone case in turn.
They glanced up from their work, and then, in a voice that raspy yet still distinctly feminine, said “ahhhh, excellent timing, I feel you return in triumph” which was an odd turn of phrase, before introducing herself as “I am Dr Yu, the ships technological and biological researcher, and up until recently, also the person running the proving grounds. The latter is a roll I was quite happy to hand off to that lovely Tora fellow so that I can focus on studying all the technologies that have been poured into this great melting pot of the world I was created in”
“Still, as he is not yet set up, and this ‘procedure’ is quite the novel one, I am still the one handling the creation of the professor’s rotom phones” as she set down the phone into a stand and plugged it in to a cable that lead to a mish mash of circuit board and occult rituals circles that looked to be the perfect size to sit a pokeball in the middle. She tinkered with the set up a little while the Audino ran a long charging cable from it to the massive reactor powering the ship that for some reason was in the same room as the laboratory.
“If you would place it here, I can begin in just a few moments” she requested, tapping on the workbench counter rather than offering a palm to receive it from hand to hand, prompting Jr to toddle on over to do just that. When placed, the Rotom inside sensed the new device it could enter and traveled to it along the charging cable that was plugged into the phone. Then after a brief flash, the previously ordinary looking phone had transformed a bit. It gained what looked like a red outer casing with little swirly-shaped tails on each vertical end, plus a pair of googly Rotom eyes appeared on the back of said phone case.
“And there you have it.” Professor Koa announced, “Your very own newly minted Rotom Phone!” he said with a ‘ta-da!’ style gesture. “It can make calls, send messages, take pictures, and of course access the Pokedex App to help you identify Pokemon you encounter and provide you useful observations about their moves and abilities. And if red’s not your color, I’ve got a few different style cases you can choose from to switch it to if you want.”
”You do? Cool let me see” the prince replied, hurrying over to take a look, before turning and calling back ”and thanks doc!”
”Oh, we caught the other Rotom too, Professor.” said Roxas while Jr was choosing his phone case. He held its Poke Ball out for the Professor to take, but instead Koa just held up and hand and shook his head.
“Why don’t you go ahead and keep it with you for a while?” He suggested. “These Rotoms were probably running around because they were getting bored being cooped up in the lab all the time. So I’m sure it’ll do them both good to be able to get out and see the world some more.”
”Really?”
“I’m sure. Besides, Pokemon only allow themselves to be caught when they meet a trainer they feel they can trust. So obviously this little guy found something to like about you.”
”Oh, right. That was kinda my last ball so can I have it-” Jr said in the background, before going ”oh” at the totaled ball.
Before he could even turn to ask, Dr Yu informed him that “I reverse engineered the technology quite some time ago, so workshop already has the schematics to produce more if you can get them the materials they need” heading off any requests to get her to make replacements, before saying that “but if you have anything new and novel for me to take a look at I’d be delighted to learn how it ticks”
”Not unless there’s something you can do with my mask or my gauntlets?” Roxas asked, holding up his hands to show the modules in his gauntlets that produced the RockGun and StepSword respectively. And also retrieving the silver jackal mask out of his backpack. ”Of course, I’d prefer they not get totaled in the process. I kind of need those for my missions.”
“Not to worry, I am very meticulous when it comes to making sure I can put back together what I take apart in-order to research it” the doctor replied.
”I think I’ll have to do that some other time. I’ve got other preparations I need to get to for now.”
”We’ve got a ton of stuff you could look at, so we’ll stick around, right sis?” Jr said, getting a thumbs up of agreement from Rika
With that decision made, it looked like they’d be going their separate ways. But before Roxas left the lab, Professor Koa offered them one more bit of advice. “By the way you two, my own number is already registered on your phones in case you need to call me for advice or to rate your Pokedex Completion.” he said but then also added, “I suggest you register each others’ number as well, that way you can call or message each other even if you’re far apart on separate teams.”
”Good idea.” Roxas said, his own silver-cased Rotom Phone popping out of his back and floating just in front of him, as if waiting for another phone to connect to.
”Oh yeah cool we should totally do that” Jr agreed, popping out his light green one in turn which floated out to complete the connection. The two phones then automatically exchanged contact numbers on their own thanks to the Rotoms possessing them and then floated back into the possession of their respective owners.
”I guess the Rotoms are able to make the phones control their own functions, don’t they?”
“Indeed they do. Makes them very convenient and user friendly as a bonus.”
”Given that they can do that, do you think they” jr was saying, before addressing the phone itself ”or rather you, could float up and take a picture of us?” prompting it to bob up and down and then over into the air prime group photo taking distance, before bobbing back and forth in a ‘wherever you are ready’ kinda way.
Roxas struck a pose, holding up his right hand in a ‘V-for-victory’ gesture while resting his other hand on his hip, ”Cheese!” he said while grinning up at the camera. Beside him jr did a fist pump, and a moment later there was a flash as the phone took a picture of the two trainers and all of their pokemon together to commemorate their little adventure together. The phone even sent a copy of the photo over to Roxas’ phone as well.
