Chapter 7 – His Choice
Deino didn't move for a long time.
He stood where he'd stopped one step inside the room, head pointed at Ryan, the trembling gone but the stillness that replaced it just as fragile. Like he was waiting for something to go wrong.
Ryan stayed on one knee and didn't push it.
The room was quiet around them. Rowan hadn't moved. The researcher in the doorway had gone very still. Somewhere in the main lab someone had paused whatever they were doing and hadn't started again.
Then Deino took another step.
And another.
Slow and deliberate, reading the floor with each placement, crossing the remaining distance in the careful way of something that had made a decision and wasn't going back on it. He stopped directly in front of Ryan, close enough that Ryan could feel the warmth coming off him.
Ryan raised one hand. Slowly. Open, held at Deino's level, not reaching just there.
Deino's nostrils worked. His head dipped toward Ryan's hand, pulled back, dipped again. Then he pressed his nose against Ryan's knuckles just briefly and Ryan moved his hand slow and careful and rested it along the side of Deino's neck.
For one second Deino went completely rigid.
Then the sound came. Low and soft, rumbling up from somewhere deep in his chest. His whole body loosened with it, the last of the tension leaving him between one breath and the next.
The room came back to life around them. Someone in the main lab started moving again. Rowan unclasped his hands from behind his back.
"What is it?" the researcher in the doorway asked, looking at Deino with open curiosity. "I've never seen anything like it."
"You wouldn't have," Rowan said, moving to stand beside Ryan. "It's called a Deino. Dragon type Dark as well when it matures. It's from Unova, a region far from here. Information about it rarely reaches Sinnoh."
More researchers had appeared in the doorway, all of them watching with wide eyes. Deino ignored all of them completely.
"How did it end up here?" someone asked.
"Wild Pokemon don't follow border agreements," Rowan said simply. "They go where they go." He left it at that.
He looked back at Deino.
"The more relevant question," Rowan said, "is what we do now." He picked up the list from the table and looked at it for a moment. Then set it back down. "This Pokemon has no registered trainer." He looked at Ryan."
Ryan said nothing.
"I can register him," Rowan continued. "As a Pokemon of unknown origin found in Sinnoh which is accurate." He paused. "But first —
do you want him?"
Deino pressed slightly closer to Ryan's leg.
"Yes," Ryan said.
Rowan nodded once. He turned to one of the researchers. "Start the registration. Dragon type, juvenile, unknown origin. Assigned to Ryan." Then he set a Pokeball on the table between them. Plain, standard, nothing special. "You'll need this."
Ryan looked at it.
Then at Deino.
He picked up the ball and held it down at Deino's level without pressing it against him. Just held it there, close enough that Deino could smell it, read it, decide what he thought about it.
Deino went still. Head angled toward the ball. A long moment passed.
Then he touched his nose to it.
The ball clicked open, the red light took him, and it wobbled once in Ryan's hand twice —and clicked shut.
Ryan stood up.
Rowan handed him his trainer ID without ceremony. Small and plain, his name printed on it in clean letters. "Come back tomorrow. We have things to discuss."
Ryan nodded and turned toward the door.
Mara was in the doorway to the main lab. She stepped aside to let him pass.
Ryan walked out of the lab into the afternoon light and stopped on the front step.
He had a trainer ID. He had a Pokemon. He had the clothes he was wearing and nothing else.
Right.
He started walking, not toward anything in particular, just moving while he thought. Sandgem was small enough that he could see most of it from the main street the Pokemon Center to his left with its familiar red roof, the trainer's lodge further down where room four was still technically his until tomorrow morning, the berry market from this morning already packing up for the day.
He needed money. That was the most immediate problem. The lodge wasn't free and he had no idea what Deino ate or how much of it he needed and everything in this world apparently cost something.
The Pokemon Center was the obvious first stop.
He pushed through the automatic doors and took in the interior clean, brightly lit, the low hum of machinery somewhere in the back. A Chansey moved between stations behind the main desk. A few trainers sat in the waiting area, one of them with a Starly perched on his knee, another with a Budew curled asleep in her lap.
At the far wall, half hidden between a vending machine and a noticeboard, was a jobs board.
Ryan walked over to it.
The board was covered in small printed notices, some of them overlapping, pinned at angles like they'd been added in a hurry. He scanned through them slowly.
Pokemon Center general assistance, flexible hours, meals included, ask at front desk.
Route 202 survey researcher looking for someone to catalogue wild Pokemon sightings along the northern stretch, two days, reasonable pay.
Delivery three packages to Jubilife City, urgency low, pay on completion, ask for Henrika at the berry market.
Lost Shinx last seen near the eastern edge of town, reward offered, description attached.
Ryan read through the board twice. The survey job was the most interesting two days on Route 202 meant two days of seeing what was out there, learning the terrain, understanding how wild Pokemon actually behaved here. It also meant pay.
But Route 202 meant leaving Sandgem. And Rowan had said come back tomorrow.
He stepped back from the board and thought about it.
The delivery to Jubilife could wait a day. The Pokemon Center job was immediate and local. The survey he could ask about timing.
He turned toward the front desk.
One step at a time.