It amazes you how much of League employment involves standing in one place for hours on end. The chance to meet the professor in the next town over whose name popped up on the league registry makes for a good excuse to get out of town. Grand opening or not, you need to do something besides battles and farm work, and so take a walk down Route 1.
Route 1 in Hazera is a testament to what you can accomplish when you actually get off your ass, which is why it got the honor of being number 1 in the last redistricting. The Old Route 87 was an environmental catastrophe, runoff from aggressively industrialized farming practices carving the land into toxic gulleys.
The last straw was when somebody found an Oddish growing on Hazeran soil. A national crisis was declared, budget immediately aimed squarely at restoration (and "encouraging" the farmers at fault.) It was hectic, but since at the time your grandparents were trying to establish a farm with crops that were intensely poison-sensitive, without it you could have had a much less comfortable childhood.
Walking back through the area is a strange mix of nostalgic and new as a result. Instead of the soggy soil and damaged fences you remember, it's now lined with neat shrubs and long grasses. A clear retaining wall made of a near-invisible polymer on each side shores up the farmland, bulbs for warning lights and grated drains visible every few feet, even though none are currently sending signals.
All around you are pokemon, the weakest pokemon in the region huddled together for safety, digging into loose topsoil for makeshift burrows. Sometimes it avails them... and sometimes it does not. You watch a Hazeran Sentret fling itself via its tail into a Forecaller that thought it would be safer flying low than flying high, the weaselly creature landing heavily on the bird's stomach before getting dogpiled by half a dozen other Sentret.
You're not sure even if they know whether they want to help with the bird or just steal the prize. A smaller, younger set of Sentret are currently flinging themselves at the walls on the sides of the gulley, playing with the invisible blockade while also trying to climb out for sake of curiosity, while a Furret with its head poking out of a burrow watches over them to make sure they don't risk succeeding.
The reintroduction of species has been slow, but the mere fact that Pokemon and plants are living here now is a real change. A few healthy Hoddish that escaped from the local farms are playfully rolling around in the mud. You're still thinking of how everything can be a biome when you reach where the gulley flattens out into a long muddy field that fades into the outskirts of Gneisspring Town. Even here the occasional diglett pops up, although you can't be sure whether they're wild or owned given the looming presence of the pokemon lab before you.
The building is enormous. Your temple was the work of an entire civilisation in ancient times, and the monolith of steel and glass before you is every bit its equal. Judging by what letters you got from Luna, most Pokemon research labs are a whole lot more humble. But the full might of Hazera in the now went behind building this place, hiring experts in toxicology, environmentalism, and anything else a restoration effort might need.
It makes sense then that the official League Professor was hired from within. You've never met him before now, but it was easy enough to introduce yourself. The muddy field in the back of the lab leads to a large number of locked doors with keycard readers, and sliding your league ID into the one with the name on the league newsletter swung it open.
A lumpy figure in a full environment suit, a gas mask concealing his face as the thick lenses shine stands before you. A pair of toxic gasbag pokemon loom over his shoulders. One purple and round, one silver and topped with smokestacks.
"You shouldn't be here," a deep voice booms and you immediately startle, jumping back and tripping into the muddy field.
"Ack! Sorry!" the deep voice calls back to you, and you reluctantly turn around... only to see a heavily freckled, bed-headed man with red hair spouting the same deep voice from moments before. "You're from the league, right? I didn't mean to scare you, just I've got an experiment going on in the backroom right now. Circle around while I try to change!"
Oh.
Right.
Employee entrance at a poison lab.
You head into Gneisspring proper, it's the epitome of a sleepy suburb, but compared to the muddy backyard it's certainly pleasant. From this side the lab has a large, friendly entrance labeled 'Ceibo Labs' with a large, smiling, and extremely spherical purple pokemon on the front. When you enter this time you see a pleasant atrium, a giggling receptionist, and a gaggle of schoolchildren eagerly cooing at the displays of starter pokemon that say they're handed out each Sunday.
The receptionist waves you on, a thick mechanically locked door letting you into the main part of the labs, and the professor sits down with you.
"I'm sorry about breaking in!" you say immediately. "I've had six6 challenges already today and my brain just shut down."
He chuckles, "Don't worry about it. I'd have a lot more security than that if it was anything really dangerous, it's just not the best place to meet. Speaking of, I'm Professor Ceibo," he holds out a hand.
"Stella," you shake it.
After that things are considerably less awkward. He's more than happy to walk and talk. Or, rather, work and talk. Since you're a gym leader and one for the fairy type at that, he immediately gets your help with one of his weird poison pokemon.
[Roll: Training
1d100+30
Malus: Unfamiliar and Highly Technical Specifics: -20
DCs: 40/80
Result: 70+10
Full success]
Given that you didn't know the name 'Weezing' until right now, you didn't think you'd help much, but no sooner has he introduced you to his pokemon than they already seem to like you. While you sort through a list of compounds with 25 letter names in a desperate attempt to identify which one needs to be 'aerosolized for atmospheric equilibrium' Ceibo shares a bit about himself.
Apparently he studies Pokemon speciation. What makes a regional form, how they happen, why they happen, and so on. You're just a bit distracted poking a squishy spherical fairy with a mustache, but it sounds pretty interesting overall. If he's specifically the expert in how pokemon change, it makes sense that he'd pursue the liaison position, and you actually snicker a bit when he pulls out the oddish that drove the region mad.
You'd never actually known what had happened to it after it was discovered, but apparently the labs just kept it. According to Ceibo "Hey it's not this guy's fault that he's full of murder juice."
Eventually you get bored of pretending to know chemistry and just ask the Weezing what its problem is, and immediately share with Ceibo that his Weezing is slightly malnourished and has trouble breathing. Then hurriedly add 'due to the air quality being too high' to cover for the supernatural origins of your success.
Ceibo kind of half grins and half pouts at the news his previous job has gone too well. "Hmm, I guess the recycling bin won't cut it. I know Koffing prefer to sleep on piles of garbage, but all we have is medical waste. That's the darkside of adaptation, you know. When you willingly make yourself more extreme, you can end up in worse trouble if the problem actually gets fixed!"
What follows is a very interesting lecture about Galarian history, their air pollution crisis at the turn of the industrial age, and the speciation of Koffing and Weezing from a scavenger to an extremophile.
To hear him tell it, it's one of the most impressive cases of rapid pokemon development in history, the most fascinating pokemon in the world, and his scrungly baby.
Scrungly probably means 'mustachioed' or something to that effect, and you chuckle appreciatively.
It's quite a pleasant visit, and he treats you to lunch in the lab's cafeteria, which doesn't match any cafeteria stereotypes you can think of. The crispy Hoddish foot tacos have a perfect balance of soft shell and internal crunch, and are generous with the cheese, and you regale him with the first challengers you've had to deal with, the blur battles can turn into, and the difficulties of temple upkeep when a whole bunch of tourists come storming in every day.
When you go to leave, he gives you a big smile, and passes you his teleporter code, suggesting that it would be nice to meet up more often if work gets too hectic. You agree and also give your phone number, suggesting that you'll call when you can book an appointment with the teleporter.
He pauses for a moment at that, then says: "Didn't the league give you your own teleporter? Every gym and major facility is supposed to have one for business."
You notice the smile you were returning to him is suddenly gnashing its teeth a little bit.
Journals:
Week 4: I don't think I like beating up Sentret. Okay maybe as a dark type the cuteness and sad squeaks are a deliberate manipulation, but it just feels too brutal. Unfortunately, my steadiest challengers are kids hiking up from Gneisspring after school, and while some of them just go all in on their starter pokemon (and those are the ones who ALWAYS pick the hyperactive fire type that charges on sight, making extra clean up constant) most of the rest lead with cute, weak things from route 1.
Actually wait, is Route 1 even recovered enough to handle mass catching? I should ask.
Week 5: I actually did ask, and it is. I had a convenient opportunity when Professor Ceibo came over for a visit. He was very polite, and seems to like the traps and my little ghostly assistants, but I could just tell thanks to… reasons… that he found my gym design distressing. I was surprised he was fine with climbing a whole pyramid just to say hi, but he showed me on our way to lunch that he actually just floated on one of his weezing.
If it was for a pilgrimage, I'd be obligated to be mad at that, but it's better than no visitors… and I think biting into my mom's ketchup cake thinking that it's red velvet is probably punishment enough. Plus, he left me with an upgraded pokedex with some local data already programmed into it.
Week 6: Took six weeks to have nothing too interesting to report. I guess I could mention the most significant battles? After one particularly clumsy out-of-region challenger tried to stall me out without accounting for poison, Cocurious actually leveled up! It's good to know that we're both developing.
[Character Added:
Professor Ceibo: Relationship: "Work Friends" [4/10, +2 gained this turn]
[Equipment Added: Ceibo's Dex
In place of the detailed stats of pokemon you actually catch, pokemon you've seen or battled can be looked up in this database for at least some quick notes on what the heck they are. Assuming the professor actually knows about them, that is.]
[Mechanic Discovered: ??? 1/2]
