Chapter 52. The Little Dragonite Joins the Team
"Can I go back now?"
Natsume finished thinking, but the giant Dragonite was still pondering.
He couldn't help asking.
"Wooo~"
The giant Dragonite shook her head at him.
"She says she's worried something could still go wrong, meow, and wants to keep you here for observation for a while."
Natsume's expression twisted.
He's the type who wants to be busy when he's idle and idle when he's busy.
So what he likes most is reading, because that feels both idle and busy at the same time.
"Tell her there will definitely be problems, but I'll come back regularly to siphon off the Dynamax energy."
Meowth translated, and the giant Dragonite's face grew even more conflicted.
"Forget it."
Natsume rubbed his wrist.
"I'll just give him a full-body checkup and put your mind at ease."
Under Meowth's stunned gaze, Natsume pointed to the ground.
A whole pile of instruments appeared on the open patch.
Anything a Pokémon Center has, Natsume's system space has.
And what a Pokémon Center doesn't have, Natsume still has.
Of course, there are some expensive lab instruments that Natsume doesn't have.
"Have her use the lowest-power electrical discharge."
Natsume raised a modified plug.
Meowth relayed it faithfully.
The giant Dragonite tilted her head, then touched the plug with her antenna.
"Whirr—"
In short order, all the complicated machines lit up.
The giant Dragonite peered curiously at the heap on the ground.
"Wooo?"
"She's asking what we're doing."
"We're giving the little Dragonite a precision exam so we can visualize his condition directly."
Natsume turned the computer screen around.
Meowth looked over and froze.
"Isn't that a CT, meow?"
"Do you still want to leave or not?"
Natsume shot Meowth a glare.
"Meow meow meow meow!"
Meowth started hyping Natsume's equipment with all his might.
"All right, have her put the little Dragonite onto this thing."
Natsume pointed at something like a bed.
The giant Dragonite had clearly been bluffed by Meowth.
Very cautiously, she used her claws to slide the little Dragonite onto the platform.
She didn't understand why, with so many machines, Natsume was only using that one.
Soon, the internal image of the little Dragonite appeared on Natsume's computer.
"Relax, your child is very heal—"
Natsume glanced casually at the monitor, then suddenly froze.
"Wooo?"
"She's asking what's wrong with you."
Meowth leaned closer.
"Natsume, hurry and say it, meow—what is that!"
Meowth went dumb the moment he saw the little Dragonite's internal image.
Even as an outsider, he could tell something was off inside the Dragonite.
"His heart and lungs… aren't those a bit too big, meow?"
Meowth pointed at the heart larger than an entire Meowth and at lungs like a horse's lobes, baffled.
Natsume's eyes lowered.
"What a hassle."
He stood, stretched lazily, and spoke.
"Rotom, prep recording."
The Rotom Phone popped out.
Originally, Natsume figured there wouldn't be any major problem inside this little Dragonite.
But now that he'd found something, he couldn't sit by and ignore it.
Very soon, Natsume was weaving through the instruments, tweaking this, drawing blood there, then pulling out a pot and switching on an induction cooker.
Seeing this, the worry in the giant Dragonite's eyes only deepened.
Before long, after a flurry of activity, Natsume finished making a sandwich.
"Well, Meowth, how is it, tasty?"
"I think we're about to get beaten up."
Meowth stuffed the sandwich into his mouth in a hurry.
He hadn't eaten all day and was starving.
Whatever—eat first, talk later.
"Woooo—"
The giant Dragonite lowered her head close, eyeing Natsume suspiciously.
Those huge vertical pupils had crushing pressure.
Even if she didn't understand, she knew Natsume definitely wasn't doing a checkup right now.
"Tell her that a lot of assays need time to process, about two hours or so."
Meowth repeated it as-is, and only then did the giant Dragonite pull her head back.
Leaning against the equipment, Natsume chewed his sandwich and started to miss Brock.
Sigh, it's all because Professor Oak clamps down on his cooking.
Every time he uses lab instruments to cook, Professor Oak lets out a sharp screech.
Natsume finished the sandwich in a few bites, twitched his nose, and caught a strange smell.
Following it toward the cave mouth, the closer he got, the stronger it became.
Outside the cave, he found the world shrouded in smoke.
In the thick haze, Natsume found Gengar.
Right now, its mouth and nose were stuffed full of spicy sludge.
It was huffing and puffing out smoke.
Natsume: "…"
This stuff is harmless to Poison-type Pokémon.
It can even slightly boost the damage of Poison-type moves.
For example, that Gengar of Agatha's has Poison-type techniques.
This basically counts as training it by another route.
Agatha probably won't mind… right?
Natsume said nothing, just told Gengar to stay farther from the cave, then quietly pinched his nose and went back inside.
After returning and sitting down to rest, the metrics for the little Dragonite were ready.
Natsume collated a thick stack of readouts and began studying them in earnest.
To the side, the giant Dragonite poked her head over several times, but didn't dare interrupt.
Natsume's brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
"Meowth, get ready to translate."
Natsume took a deep breath.
"Your child's condition is mainly in the heart and lungs."
"The cardiac chamber volume is enlarged by three point two times, and the overall count of alveoli is up by fourfold."
"This situation has pros and cons."
The giant Dragonite stiffened and motioned for him to go on.
"Good news first: blood-rush oxygenation."
"Your child's single-stroke cardiac output is one point eight tons per minute, supporting the use of Outrage for seventeen minutes, versus a normal limit of three."
"When the lung lobes expand, he can inhale a compressed air mass at seventy-one percent oxygen, extending Extreme Speed dash distance to twelve kilometers, versus a normal limit of one point eight."
Natsume worried she wouldn't get the technical terms, so he used the move buffs she knew to explain.
The giant Dragonite nodded.
She didn't care about the benefits.
She wanted to know the downsides.
"Bad news, and you should brace yourself."
"First, there's amyloid-like deposition on the aortic wall, with an eighty-five percent chance of vascular rupture within three years."
"Second, he can't metabolize the excess hemoglobin, so his skin will keep oozing rust-colored sweat, though that part isn't a big deal."
"Third, overclocked oxygenation causes free-radical buildup, with telomere shortening by zero point three percent after each burst, accelerating aging—but that also doesn't matter much, because before old age, a blood vessel will blow first."
"Fourth, his heat dissipation is two point five times his peers, so he needs a fairly cold environment—this isn't a huge issue either, just means he'll sweat easily."
"Slow down, meow!"
Meowth was furious.
"How am I supposed to explain all that jargon, meow!"
After a staggered, halting explanation, the giant Dragonite finally understood her child's situation.
The core problem is that the blood vessels can't withstand the heart's output, and they'll burst before long.
"Woooo!!!"
The giant Dragonite let out a mournful cry.
"She's asking if you have any other way, meow."
Meowth looked at Natsume, worried.
Right this moment, he hoped this researcher was the greatest Pokémon doctor in the world.
Meowth automatically left out the threatening half of Natsume's speech.
"There is… a way."
"If the heart-valve pressure tolerance breaks past three thousand kilopascals, it can carry a plasma thruster."
"With nanofiber-reinforced alveoli, a mechanical lung using a perfluorocarbon breathing fluid would be perfectly compatible."
"Based on the implanted plasma thruster, I can try using biomimetic materials to build a second circulatory system for your child, routed on auxiliary vessels."
"That way the pressure on the original vasculature drops sharply, and it won't get blown out."
Natsume laid out his hypothesis.
Meowth, translating to the side, was going crazy.
Dammit—how was he supposed to put that into words?
Even he barely understood it.
After a long round of Natsume's explanations, Meowth's face took on a strange look.
The more he listened, the more it sounded like Natsume was drawing a big pie in the sky for the giant Dragonite.
Whatever.
They were grasshoppers tied to the same rope now.
He nodded and began translating for the giant Dragonite.
The more she heard, the brighter her eyes shone.
"Woooo—wooo—"
The giant Dragonite called out to Natsume.
Below, Meowth looked at Natsume with an odd expression.
"She says she wants you to become her child's Trainer."
"Huh?"
Natsume's expression turned odd.
He'd planned to propose the theory and then leave the headache to Professor Oak and the others.
"Sorry, but your child's talent is a bit—"
Natsume hadn't even finished when a pair of giant vertical pupils pressed in close.
"Your child's talent is truly one-in-ten-thousand."
Natsume backpedaled from the heart.
"But I have one condition."
"You have to cooperate with Professor Oak and the others on their Dynamax research."
The giant Dragonite blinked, weighed it for a moment, and then nodded.
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