#leigh ackerman

Meet: The Ackermans

Leigh Ackerman by @noalanii, Lennox Ackerman by @calliesource & Logan Ackerman by yours truly.

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“She’s late.” Leigh was already at her patience’s end with Simmons. Vonnegut could not help but agree with her but just sighed. They were going to be meeting with Simmons, who had just happened to capture a UB, in particular, the one entitled Xurkitree. Plus considering her ‘specialty’ of interstellar pokemon, she was the best consultant.

The doors to the briefing room opened to an underwhelming sight. A middle aged woman with dark complexion, with a contained hairdo that still was messy all over. The most striking item was a pair of glasses that could not hide the dark spots under her eyes. Around her waist were four pokeballs all strapped to her not-fanny pack, one of which would be the talking point today. The woman who looked not out of place at all was Simmons Bērōnī.

“What kept you?” Leigh folded her arms and shot her a glare. “We have been waiting for fifteen minutes.”

The woman waved her hands as if to pacify her colleague’s concerns. “Take it easy. Jubjub just found a song they liked and wanted to dance to it.”

“Jubjub?” Vonnegut finally voiced his own concern and confusion.

The young woman reached into her not-fanny pack and clicked the ball open. To both his colleague’s shock the UB itself was as bizarre in person as the data they had been given showed...all quashed by one article of clothing on its neck(?). Closest to what could only be described as the bulb of the mon was a small bow tie. It was a clip on, but it seemed it was attached well enough to where it would not fall off.

“This is Jubjub. They can generate a lot of electricity and has been charging my phone the last few days.” To demonstrate Simmons took a phone charger from her pocket and stuck the plug end into the alien. The latter did not even react.Her phone emitted a small sound, to signify it was charging. Suddenly music began to play from the phone, followed by the electric alien to dance while making some small unknown noises. “I have noticed that is generates massive amounts of electricity when happy that are more stable and consistent than if it is agitated or in pain.”

“Great. Fantastic.” Vonnegut curtly replied. “We need to cut to the chase. Simmons, we need your expertise to develop a means of stopping any inter dimensional invasion.”

“Ah right. Well to be frank I don’t think these Ultra Beasts are merely an inter-dimensional threat. I think this could be the most recent encounter with pokemon from a potential far away planet and they have discovered transportation before we could.”

All four of the Think Tank member’s groaned. Simmons’ tried and true theory: anything new, even the god-like pokemon, always came down to aliens. “Do you have any basis to this?” David was often the one who had to do most of the leg work to prove she was wrong. During the few times she was right he had to confirm it, which only fueled her alien hunter tendencies more.

“Yes actually. In fact I have cross referenced a few reports from the Aether Incident, some other reported sightings, as well as my own testimony.” Reaching into her fanny pack, she pulled out a small tablet and pressed the screen to allow an image to appear projected via hologram. In there, stood a long, lanky humanoid pokemon. Its appearance looked feminine.

“This mon for instance is known as Pheromosa. These pokemon tend to operate in swarms, and are the strongest combat wise out of all the ultra beasts reported. Most tend to operate in a hive mind of a leader.” Pressing another button on her tablet it switched over to an image of the same Ultra Beast but most of its body was black. “Except these black ones are always independent agents, as they are able to operate independently of the swarm. They have also been seen giving some kind of orders to their white counterparts.”

David was at least impressed. Of course he would need his own combat data and his own tests, but this could yield fruit. “And these are the only two you have so far right?”

“I don’t have the pheromosa. Darren Ida was the one who caught most of those. Granted he had suffered some injuries related to said capture. One took a bite out of his arm, but his arm is still intact. Just in a cast now.” All four think tank members would need to interview Darren Ida, despite how difficult it could be to work with him due to his cold and hostile demeanor.

“So what is our new course?” Mercy chimed in, finally speaking up after being silent as to not have to talk to Simmons. “Do we reinstate project Quantum Leap?”

Vonnegut grumbled. It had been a long time since he mothballed that department since the last discovery of a variant of gothitelle that had crash landed in Sinnoh. The goal of operation Quantum Leap was research into pokemon with potential alien or dimensional origins. He had Simmons, but he had a lot on his plate now and out of everyone here, she was the most adept at leading it. For now.

“Yes. Simmons we will leave that department to you. You will be given a budget and a number of resources to do as you see fit on the Ultra Beasts and everything that can be verified adjacent. Do not spend any money on any frivolous side projects.” The malamar knew that giving her complete control of this department would be a bad idea, so he would need to have someone oversee her.

“I have a demand.” Mercy sounded stern and forceful, which was surprising to the other think tank members. “You are to not talk to any undead staff members on anything other than anything related to your project.”

“Oh shit.” Leigh muttered under her breath. She knew exactly why Mercy had said that.

“If it about my own research into echtoplasmic pokemon, I’m sorry if I offended you or anyone in the support group you run. I just don’t think it is healthy for any of them to cling onto false memories. Forcing memories of people who have died is amoral and not healthy. It will just lead to dissociative identity disorder for them. They need professional medical help.” Simmons did not sound mad, but she sounded just as stern.

As she said that Mercy’s eyes got wide and her fangs starting to become more pronounced, with a low snarl.

“Alright that’s enough.” Leigh felt inclined to cut this off before it got uncomfortable. “Simmons get yourself in order so David and I can establish the basis for you to work with.”

Today was a nerve racking day for the gallade. Pras was due to give a speech to a group of pokemon and people that he felt he had a duty towards.

Despite having written the draft 2 weeks in advance and had the final draft of what he was going to say done a week after, the gallade was feeling some last minute nerves.

“You look shaky.”

Jolting straight and turning around and saw Leigh standing there carrying two cups of coffee. “Here you are. Figured you would need this.”

The human handed over the coffee cup that said ‘mocha-chino’, which was Pras’ favorite coffee to drink.

“Thanks. I just want to make sure I have this right,” Giving a concerned look, Pras took a big sip from the coffee. “I want to give my best impression to those who can benefit from this.”

Leigh was empathetic to the gallade’s stage fright. “Listen, you gave your case to the other members of the board on why a grant should be created to recruit and benefit more transgender people and pokemon. Those guys were far more critical to appeal to than a crowd of people who are on your side and want this. You carried on like a professional and even managed to convince two fence sitters to your cause.”

Leigh rolled her eyes at the bitter grass type. What the legendary was saying is nothing she had heard before, and while the concern was always something she took into account, hearing it from other bitter people was always the worst.

“Well yes, humans have a track record of taking two steps back when moving one step forward. Human screw-ups have been significant and deserve scrutiny,  but to exclusively write off the damage done by specific pokemon civilizations and entities cannot be ignored either. Lest we forget the creation ‘myth’ of how Arceus made this world if you believe that.” Leigh knew the onion might take offense at that last point, but she doubted the legendary’s power.

“If you need to know, I am working on a new line of Sentinel drones. Not going to give you the details because they are confidential, but if you were to cause any trouble then you should be fearful. Because we have fought things more threatening then you and we have killed things more powerful than you.” This bold statement by Leigh, one that would be blasphemous in any other situation but the human was beyond caring about the opinion of some random mon that interrupted her work.