The next morning, Ash woke to the steady rhythm of waves outside the lighthouse guest room window.
A real ocean-view room.
Not bad accommodations at all.
After washing up and heading to the main hall, he found Brock already busy in the lab kitchen making breakfast, while Misty was helping Professor Bill log some basic data.
"Morning." Ash greeted them, then casually tossed his Poké Balls into the air. "Everybody out and stretch a bit."
Red light flashed.
Pikachu, Pidgeotto, and the most eye-catching of all—the golden Gyarados—appeared in the open space of the hall.
"Pidge~" Pidgeotto hopped onto Ash's shoulder and rubbed its head against his cheek.
It had been training hard lately.
Especially on Swift.
As a bird, of course it wanted to be a bomber—who wanted to brawl up close?
Bill's lab was big.
Even with Gyarados's size, there was enough room for it to move around without causing a structural disaster.
The golden leviathan raised its head, inspecting the sleek, high-tech surroundings with a low, curious rumble.
Thanks to recent training, Gyarados could just barely keep itself under control now.
At least when there was no pain and no battle to trigger it, it could stay reasonably calm and self-aware.
Training did work.
The moment Bill's gaze caught that dazzling gold, it locked in like a homing device.
A golden Gyarados?
This was a first.
He practically dropped the instrument in his hand and hurried over, eyes shining with barely restrained academic fanaticism.
World-class researcher, indeed.
"This is… a Shiny Gyarados?" Bill circled it, muttering under his breath.
"I thought research so far only confirmed the red Shiny variant…"
"I didn't expect a gold one…"
"This luster… that's pure, like molten metal."
"Is it a dominant expression at the cellular level?"
"Or some kind of environmental mutation?"
He kept mumbling to himself.
In this world, Shiny Pokémon came in several flavors—like those pink varieties in the Orange Archipelago.
Suddenly, Bill looked up, eyes blazing.
"Ash, this is a bit of a rude request, but… would you allow me to take a small blood sample?"
"Just a tiny bit!"
"I want to analyze its genetic sequence and compare it to a standard Gyarados. There might be a fundamental difference!"
If he didn't at least try to study such a rare specimen, it might as well be professional misconduct.
Ash looked at Gyarados, then at the desperate gleam in Bill's eyes, and nodded. "Sure. As long as he's okay with it."
Gyarados seemed to understand. It tilted its massive head, then obediently opened that enormous, fang-filled jaw.
Everywhere else on its body was covered in heavy armor-like scales. Even inside the mouth there was keratin, but the mucosa was still the easiest place to draw blood from.
And for something this tough, losing a bit of blood was like getting bitten by a mosquito.
Bill hurried off to fetch a special extra-thick needle. With practiced precision, he drew a small tube of blood from a vessel along the inside of Gyarados's cheek.
Gyarados didn't even blink.
No reaction at all.
"Excellent!" Bill cradled the tube like a treasure and practically sprinted back to his machines.
For the rest of the day, Bill was basically fused to the lab.
The whirring and humming of high-precision instruments almost never stopped.
Maybe that level of obsession was exactly what it took to stand out in the academic world.
By evening—
Bill came back clutching several printed reports, his expression twisted into a knot of confusion.
He found Ash in the hall, feeding the Pokémon.
With the lighthouse's supplies, everyone's partners were eating very well—especially Gyarados.
A tiny tube of blood in exchange for so much food?
OVO.
Gyarados felt like it had absolutely won that trade~~
"Strange… too strange…" Bill muttered, flipping between pages.
"From gene sequence, to energy signature, to cellular activity… in everything I can test, aside from a slightly more active pigment-related gene cluster, your Gyarados is identical to a normal one."
He raked his fingers through his already messy hair, brow furrowed.
"Normally, Shiny specimens show some kind of specificity or instability somewhere in the gene chain. But his genome is remarkably stable."
"…It's like… like a normal Gyarados that's just been 'painted' gold."
"Which shouldn't be possible."
Even for a genius like him, this result was baffling—and totally at odds with his previous understanding.
Ash took one report and skimmed it.
He couldn't make heads or tails of the dense numbers and graphs, but the conclusion line was simple enough:
No abnormalities.
He tugged his cap down a bit. "Maybe… he's just a little special."
System-made products, after all, weren't going to show up on a human lab test.
"Pika pi!"
At that moment, Pikachu seemed to notice something.
It curiously nudged open a half-closed metal door along the side of the hall and poked its head in.
Ash followed.
Inside—
That elegant Gardevoir was slumped bonelessly in an ergonomic chair, all dignity gone.
Its pure white "skirt" was hitched up on one side, legs crossed. One hand gripped an ice-cold, fizzing can of beer.
The other was hammering away at a virtual keyboard at terrifying speed.
Several forum pages and chat windows were open on the floating screen.
Lines of text flew by like a machine gun.
—That's it?
—You think you can catch Mew like that?
—You dare question the Professor's data with that level of understanding?
—Did you have someone ghostwrite your thesis?
—You're the ghostwriter, buddy.
—Can't even do reverse derivation?
—Your advisor's coffin lid is about to blow open!
A few savage bursts of keyboard clacking later—
—Done.
—Enjoy your ban.
The scene hit Ash and Pikachu like a truck.
They froze in the doorway.
They knew he was a male Gardevoir, sure, but could he please maintain just a little of that ethereal Psychic aesthetic?
Gardevoir must have felt their stares.
Its fingers locked up mid-keystroke.
——Crap. I forgot there were guests here.
——Been focused on the consoles and the perimeter all day…
——Bill, why didn't you stop me?!
Slowly, Gardevoir turned his head.
His red eyes met Ash and Pikachu's.
Silence.
Then—slam!
The door flew shut under a burst of Psychic power, making the frame rattle.
A few seconds later—
The door eased open again.
Gardevoir floated serenely in the air outside, "skirt" falling perfectly in place, posture flawless.
He nodded slightly, expression composed. His telepathic voice was smooth as ever, as if the chaos from earlier had been a shared hallucination.
[Guests, dinner is ready.]
[The Professor has prepared a full course of fresh seafood.]
[Please follow me.]
He turned with impeccable poise and began to lead the way.
Whether the excuse made sense or not didn't matter.
What mattered was that he believed it.
Just as he turned, Ash could've sworn he saw the faintest flush along the edge of Gardevoir's face.
Ash: "…"
Pikachu: "(⊙ˍ⊙)?"
In that moment, the mysterious, all-powerful image of Psychic-types in Ash's heart quietly cracked right down the middle.
So even a Professor's ace assistant spent their off-hours doom-scrolling forums, arguing with trolls, and ratioing idiots online…
Not just arguing, either.
This was a full-on:
[If the world had never birthed me, the keyboard arts would fall into eternal night. With a single stroke, I judge all fools.]
Level keyboard god.
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