The New Normal - 14-4

The New Normal – 14-4 – Professorships and Stones

(Blaine POV)

The process of being a Professor was an arduous one, as befits such a prestigious title, and was not something that most could be able to realistically achieve. Professors were expected to be one of the foremost experts on Pokémon in any given region, and on top of that they were also expected to specialise in their own specific field.

It was often the case where you would have to be a scientist or researcher of significant renown to even be considered for the title. That frequently meant that you would have to have invented or discovered something of enough significance before you could earn the title of Professor.

And such standards were rigorously enforced by the community of scientists that oversaw it. Even Samuel, before he became a Professor, was also subjected to these very same standards. The fact that he was made the first Champion of Indigo, and brought peace to everyone, was not a factor for the scientific community. They only considered his invention of the Pokédex, and they deemed his extensive knowledge of Pokémon ecology to be significant enough to earn the Title.

Furthermore, besides proving that you had the requisite expertise and knowledge, you also had to be acknowledged and recommended by other Professors before you could be given the title. Without said acknowledgement, you couldn’t be a Professor, no matter your qualifications. Bill, the guy who made the PSS, fell into this trap.

The man was smart, no doubt about it. But he was a reckless loose cannon that failed to consider the bigger picture besides the science in front of him. Thus, especially after the backlash that he got for the poor handling of the PSS, he still hasn’t been elevated to the title of Professor yet.

There was a reason why the requirements to become a Professor were so stringent. Being a Professor was akin to being a Gym Leader, where you are held and considered to be a figure to be trusted, except even more so. As a Professor, you word is considered more valuable and important than anyone (excluding other Professors) when it comes to scientific matters within your field of expertise.

In times where it is required, the League and even Champions will defer to a Professor for the final say in relevant scientific matters. For example, when Samuel made the Pokédex, since the data he provided was not refuted by other Professors, it was deemed to be true by the wider populace. Had Champion Pryce, or literally anyone else that wasn’t a Professor of equal standing, tried to oppose his word, it wouldn’t matter.

That was the power that people had as a Professor, and why the position is as coveted as it is respected. Therefore, it was only natural that the dream and desire of any ambitious scientist was to eventually become a Professor – as it was the ultimate proof that you had truly made it in the field of academics.

It was basically akin to being an Elite Four or Champion for scientists.

And Blaine was no different. Even when he was an Elite Four member, then a Gym Leader, he always had the lingering desire in the back of his mind to become a Professor one day. But for the longest time, he knew that despite all of his knowledge, he didn’t have the inventions, discoveries, or connections necessary to become a Professor.

Yet it was very different now. And it was why he was uncharacteristically buzzing with excitement as he nervously paced around his room.

He had submitted his application to become a Professor, and he had just been told that it was now under consideration.

In order to stave off his nerves, his mind kept flipping through the many requirements of becoming a Professor, and whether he managed to meet those high standards or not. Going through them in his head, he was most confident that he had met the requirement of obtaining sufficient recommendations from other Professors. Apart from Samuel, he had reached out to the few other Professors that he occasionally corresponded with – namely Professor Elm in Johto as a Pokémon breeding specialist, Professor Birch of Hoenn as a Pokémon habitats specialist, Professor Carolina of Sinnoh as a Pokémon archaeology specialist, and Professor Rowan of Sinnoh as a Pokémon evolution and form changes specialist.

He was sure that there were more notable Professors out there, but his dislike of socializing meant that his social circle only went so far. Fortunately, the people that he did know were all of significant renown, and that was why he was confident that their recommendation would be enough to secure his elevation into a Professor.

Then, he went through his inventions and discoveries once again. Obviously, the biggest one amongst them would be the discovery of the Fairy Type, since it was a complete paradigm shift that overturned what people used to know about Pokémon Types. However, since that was a shared project between many different Professors and researchers, he wouldn’t get too much credit for that one.

Besides the Fairy discovery, he also had the creation of the Magmarizer and the Electirizer under his belt. Again, those were shared discoveries, but he had the paperwork to prove that most of the research and theory crafting was his own work. Not to discredit them, but Shelly and John’s (and Volkner, for the Electirizer) involvements were mostly about handling other, non-scientific, matters. The same went for his discovery of the alternate Rotom forms that he worked on with Volkner, as he handled most of the researching for that one.

Furthermore, his discoveries with the PIT Technique, including the discovery of the alternate form of Growlithe and Arcanine, was also another feather in his cap. He had been delayed in making the discovery due to everything that happened with the Cinnabar Eruption, but he had luckily been successful in the end. The new Fire/Rock type was already making waves as something many trainers predicted would be one of the premier offensive Fire type Pokémon in high level battling, and he was happy to include the first one onto his own team.

Therefore, considering all of his inventions and discoveries revolved around Pokémon evolution or their alternate forms, it was only natural that he applied under the same title as Professor Rowan to hopefully become a Professor that specialised in Pokémon evolution and form changes.

He really hoped that his current list of inventions and discoveries would be sufficient. He knew that other Professors had been inducted with less than what he had discovered, but you couldn’t rely on the induction committee being lenient all the time.

Realising that he had been pacing around in a circle for some time, he was about to stop himself from continuing to act like an idiot before his computer let out a ping. Turning towards it, he saw that it was an email from the induction committee.

Rapidly throwing himself into his chair, he hastily clicked onto the email and read through its contents. As he did, a wide grin suddenly spread across his face.

At the very same time, his phone started to ring. It was Samuel.

“Sam! What good timing!” He greeted his friend.

Samuel laughed, “Judging by your good mood, I take it that you’ve read that email?”

“Of course I have.” He couldn’t stop grinning, “I didn’t think they would make a decision that quickly! Wait… how did you find out the same time as I did?”

“Oh, they were on a call with me just now asking for my opinion, and by the time we were done they told me that they were going to make you a Professor.” Samuel explained, “While I’m not allowed to reveal who was on the induction committee this time round, I will say that they were very eager to have you elevated to a proper Professor. Their call to me was practically a courtesy – they had pretty much already decided to grant you the title of Professor from your achievements alone.”

Blaine hummed thoughtfully as he processed Samuel’s words. The fact that the induction committee were so eager to make him a Professor implied that there were probably a bit of politics behind the decision. Thinking through the possible reasons that they would be so ‘eager’, he believed that his position as a former Gym Leader and Elite Four probably had something to do with it.

As much as scientists liked to pretend that their work and positions were completely separate from politics, everyone knew that this wasn’t even remotely true. Ascending someone to become a Professor was a huge deal, and while the League couldn’t directly influence the results, they had many ways of making things difficult if an ‘inappropriate’ candidate was elevated to be a Professor.

‘Funding cuts’ were the worst nightmare of any scientist.

Nevertheless, he wouldn’t complain about this bit of politicking – he very much appreciated that the committee didn’t randomly decide to give him a hard time about making him a Professor.

“I’m sure you must have something said that really stoked their interest in me, Samuel.” He chuckled, “Thank you for that, by the way. Do you know if the others had been contacted?”

“I think so.” Samuel replied, “I think I was the last person they spoke to.”

“Ah, okay. Then I need to give them my thanks as well.” He nodded.

“You go do that – and maybe we can set up a proper celebration for your elevation to become a Professor.” Samuel said, “When’s the last time you and I got together for drinks?”

“Must have been years.” He responded, thinking back on their past friendship, “You were always too busy as Champion, and I was too engrossed into my research and as an Elite Four.”

“I guess neither of us are social Butterfree.” Samuel agreed, “But we should change that. You’re a Professor now. Such an achievement deserves to be celebrated. You can invite some of your other friends as well.”

His first thought went to both Shelly and John, who he would be more than happy to invite as close friends of his. He would send out invitations to the rest as well, on top of thanking them for their recommendations, but he believed that only Elm would reasonably be able to make it to such a celebration. The others, Volkner included, were too far away.

“I’ll make the arrangements.” He nodded again.

“Then I’ll leave it to you.” Samuel said, “But congratulations once again – Professor Blaine. That title just sounds right on you, doesn’t it?”

His grin returned in full force, “It sure does.”

===================

(Steven POV)

“…It looks cute, doesn’t it?” He said to Bruno as they both stared at the newly hatched Riolu, watching it turn its head around cutely as it inspected its new surroundings.

“It has great potential.” Bruno stated, “But yes, it is quite pleasing to look at. It’s muscles are well-defined. It will grow into a strong fighter.”

He facepalmed, “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

The two of them were back in Hoenn. Despite everything that had gone down in Sinnoh, they had chosen to stay around for a bit longer to accomplish their original goal of fighting through Sinnoh’s 8-badge challenges with all of their Gyms. At first, arranging these battles was a difficult task, given that most of the Gym Leaders were still really busy with the cleanup after the Day of Calamity, but eventually things had managed to return back to normal and they got their challenge.

Unsurprisingly, they found Volkner to be the most challenging of the lot. Once the man had heard that they intended to challenge him, the Gym Leader of Sunyshore had taken things one step further and challenged them with his full team in two 3v3 battles.

Needless to say, Volkner’s Magnezone had definitely outmatched his own. However, his training with Bruno had really demonstrated itself here, and his Pokémon didn’t even falter even when faced against Volkner’s powerful paralysis. Bruno had an even easier time – strong as Volkner’s Electivire was, Bruno’s Hariyama was ridiculously strong and could muscle through even the toughest of blows.

Since Volkner was already considered to be at an Elite Four’s level of strength, being able to comfortably overpower him was a good sign for their chances.

Not to demean or discredit the others, but even Candice, who had performed very well in the Tournament to the point where she had reached the finals, couldn’t really put up much of a fight against both Bruno and his’ Fighting and Steel types respectively.

Nevertheless, they weren’t disappointed with the fights, and it helped them gain some good experience with their weaker Pokémon, which only helped to shore up the average strength of their teams.

Yet now that they were back in Hoenn, and with the Circuit almost drawing to a close, it meant that the time for the Hoenn Conference was fast approaching. Preparations for both himself and Bruno would have to be finalised, as they were both going to be entering into the Conference together.

It might seem counterproductive for them to do so, considering that there could only be one winner in the end, but if he wanted to be Champion, then he knew that he had to prove himself to be stronger than anyone – that included his friend and training partner.

That was why he had even spoken to his father to temporarily ease up on his duties as the heir to Devon Corp for the time being. The last thing he wanted was to be distracted by unnecessary company affairs and deprive him of his preparation time.

His team was now even larger and stronger than ever before – his time in Sinnoh having proven very fruitful for the both of them. In his case, his time in Sinnoh allowed him to catch both a Piplup and Bronzong, as well as obtaining several resurrected fossils. He didn’t intend to have all those resurrected fossils join his primary team, so it would depend on their potential and how he wanted to train them up.

On the other hand, Bruno had seemingly been content with his new Riolu for the time being, and didn’t intend to catch anything else while in Sinnoh. He really tried to persuade his friend to at least catch a Croagunk or a Monferno, but Bruno was still quite stubborn and insisted that neither Pokémon matched his preferred fighting style.

However, a few days before they were meant to return, they stumbled across a wild Heracross that really got Bruno’s attention. It was incredibly strong for your typical wild Pokémon, and Bruno had been impressed by its self-taught techniques and fighting style. Therefore, Bruno persuaded the Heracross to join his team on the spot, granting him a new team member that might be strong enough to already make use of.

Though knowing his friend, he would probably subject his newest capture to a gruelling training routine to drill it out of any bad habits it might have picked up.

So while Steven’s own new Pokémon additions would never be trained up in time to be a proper team member for his primary team for the upcoming Conference, he was certain that they would grow to be powerful enough to be used in the battles to come in the future.

Overall, their current primary team of Pokémon were as follows:

He would be bringing a Mawile, Skarmory, Aggron, Claydol, Goodra (that he found in the quest for the Iron Plate), Magnezone, and his starter Metagross. He might also bring out his Bronzong in certain situations as well if he could train it up in time for the utility.

Bruno would be bringing a Hitmontop, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Primeape, Hariyama, and his starter Machamp – the same team that he used against Elite John, just far more refined. Likewise, he also kept his newly caught Heracross in reserve.

However, as he idly watched Bruno spend time with his newly hatched Riolu, he suddenly received a call from his father. That was unusual, since he had just spoken to him a few days ago upon his return to Hoenn.

“Something the matter, father?” He asked as he picked up the phone.

“Son, I know you’re busy with your preparations, but are you able to head to my office right now?” His father asked, “I have something rather important to show you.”

“Certainly. I will be right there.” He quickly agreed, knowing that his father wasn’t one to waste his time.

He left Bruno to his devices before setting out for Rustboro, quickly making his way into the headquarters for Devon Corp. He made a few perfunctory greetings to their employees in the lobby before swiftly arriving his father’s office – where he saw his father idly fiddling around with a small stone in his hands.

“…Isn’t that the marble that I got for you as a gift?” He asked as he stepped into his father’s office, “I didn’t realise you’d like it that much.”

“It does have a nice colour.” His father nodded, inspecting the orange marble that had a slice of wavy red running through the middle, “But that’s not why I’m so interested in it.”

“Oh?” He tilted his head, taking a seat opposite of his father, “Does it contain some kind of rare material?”

“Well… I’m not sure, actually.” His father admitted, before pushing forwards a report for Steven to read, “At first, I thought it was just another nice stone to add to my collection, but I was doing some routine tests – like I do with any stone I collect – to see if I could uncover anything unusual or interesting about the stone in question.”

“That’s when I discovered the latent yet dormant power that seemed to reside within this stone.” His father explained, “Then I decided to run a few more tests, and I was pretty surprised at what I found.”

“…The readings do look familiar.” He said as he looked through the report.

“Indeed, I thought the same.” His father nodded, “The readings that this mysterious stone gave off was very similar to the ones given off by evolution stones.”

His father pushed forwards another report that contained said readings. Comparing the two, Steven could certainly see the similarities.

“…Right, I see it too.” He agreed, “But they’re not completely the same. There are differences. Minor ones, but they exist.”

“Yes, and the other thing was that this particular stone doesn’t actually emit or radiate the same energies that the evolution stones do.” His father described, “It doesn’t radiate Fire Type energy like a Fire Stone would, or any kind of energy that the other evolution stones usually radiate either.”

Steven tapped a finger on his chin, “Huh. That’s very curious. So does that mean it’s not an evolution stone then?”

His father shrugged, “I have no idea at this point. That’s why I wanted to ask you if you remembered where you picked this up from – to see if you could help me narrow down on just what this is.”

Steven jogged his memory, “…Yes, I think I remember. Some little girl had ran up to me when I was about to depart from Canalave since she said she recognised me and Bruno. I still remember that odd little Shroomish that she had by her side. She had me sign something, and then she gave me this little stone as a nice gift. I wanted to refuse, but she was quite insistent so I accepted it.”

He smiled fondly, “Now that I think back on it, it was quite a nice encounter. Usually my fans just demand an autograph or photo. Having someone actually gift something back was quite nice, especially since she seemed to have done her research beforehand about my love of geology.”

His father hummed, “Well then you might have stumbled onto something truly extraordinary by complete accident then. Did you at least catch the girl’s name? We could try to ask her some questions – though I highly doubt she’d remember where she picked up such a rock. Or, if something truly interesting comes from this, we could reward her for her findings.”

He shook his head, “No, I didn’t ask for a name. Though… I think she said that she came from Verdanturf and came to Sinnoh for a vacation.”

“…Verdanturf…” His father muttered, “That’s quite close by, but I don’t think that there’s anything interesting in that small town. Is there?”

“It’s just your typical sleepy town.” Steven confirmed, “Why? Are you thinking about sending a team to search through it to find out more clues? Because I’d highly recommend against that.”

“Oh? And why not?” His father leaned forwards curiously.

“Because having Devon Corp members suddenly digging through a sleepy town is going to look bad.” He replied, “Worse than that, it’ll make people ask questions about what we’re doing. Instead, I’ll go in person and do some investigating. It’ll be better that way.”

His father nodded, “Good. Keep me in touch if you do find anything. In the meanwhile, I’m going to keep looking into this weird stone and see if I can pry out its secrets.”

He stood up to leave, but he had one more question on his mind, “Are you planning on keeping this within Devon Corp? Or are you going to branch out for additional assistance?”

“…I see no reason why we need to ask for outside help for now. It’s not like we’re devoid of resources here.” His father responded after thinking it over, “Call it a gut instinct, but I feel like the less people know about it, the more we can benefit from what this is.”

Steven nodded slowly, “I… don’t disagree. My gut tells me the same thing. Whatever this is, I think it has the potential to be something truly huge. But try not to be too stubborn about it. If this project proves too nebulous for us to resolve, then there’s no harm in reaching for outside help.”

His father agreed, “A Poffin shared between many is better than having none at all.”

But neither he nor his father would realise just how momentous of a discovery that this small little stone would become. Nor how it would completely overturn the world when it was revealed.

A.N. Professor Blaine is finally here! I wanted to do a bit of worldbuilding and demonstrate the process of becoming a Professor, and just why the requirements are so stringent. But otherwise, I felt no need to drag out Blaine’s professorship for any longer. We all knew he was competent enough for the position.

As for Steven’s conversation, I’m sure you don’t need me to explain what it was that they found – it was a Pidgeotite, just like in the games. Of course, just because we know what it is doesn’t mean that people in-story do, so it’s still going to be some time before they full uncover what it is that Steven had accidentally stumbled across. I’m sure it’s going to be mega interesting when they do.

Also, this will be the end of the primarily timeskip chapters. The next non-interlude chapter will be back to John’s POV. Hope you enjoyed!