#theoriesonevolution

Archer glanced up from his work, pursing his lips as he attempted to keep from scowling at his fellow executive. If he wasn’t absolutely sure he would be needing Petrel’s help, honestly, he wouldn’t have even let the man in. As it was, Petrel was already driving him up the wall, rifling through all of Archer’s things, poking at his pokéball prototypes, just in general playing with equipment that he ought not to touch.

Archers current project had unfortunately nothing to do with his pokéball prototypes, of course, and it had been by pure coincidence that he had the idea. He could only take so long sculpting and sandpapering evolution stones to fit into pokéballs before his mind would wander, and as it tended to, its desitnation was a single specific scientist, beautiful and bespectacled. In Archer’s mind, the flowers hadn’t been nearly enough; when she had been gone, he had noticed much in the same way one would notice being stabbed fifteen times in the pancreas, and though he had withdrawn into solitude for a decent amount of time, somewhere in the middle of it all he swore to remain by her side for the foreseeable future.

That was when the idea came to him, you see, that was when he drew up a new prototype and began calculations on what the ideal cut would be. It turned out, of course, that Archer was loathe to get her something so mundane as a common diamond—what woman didn’t end up with a diamond at some point in her life, after all, even just a little one? No, if he were going to give her something special, it had to be more than just special in name, it had to be something unique, something meaningful, and he had never seen jewelery made out of evolution stones, before.

Of course, not long after his grand idea came to light than the problems began to set themselves in. The first was, of course, which evolution stone to actually use. Considering she had literally eliminated all need for evolution stones ever, Archer had never bothered to find out which was her favorite prior to his little idea, and as he wished to keep the whole project as best under wraps as he could, there was no chance he could casually just go and ask her; with his luck, she would find out before he even got the words out of his mouth. Eventually, he had settled for a combination of the first four elemental stones discovered, and that was when the next problem came about.

What if she didn’t take the ring off before her experiments and she was trying to run tests on evolved stone pokemon. One tiny touch with the ring could ruin her entire day and leave her with a victreebell, or something. It would be awful. And so Archer had embarked on the mental journey to try and figure out how to make an evolution stone stop working. In all honesty, he was sure she would be able to figure out in a matter of minutes, but again, the secrecy issue. So, without any other option to turn to, he had been reduced to begrudgingly asking Petrel for help. There was just no way Archer was going to figure it out on his own.

“So, this ring,” Petrel said eventually, “how were you planning on making the cuts?”

Archer pointed to a machine off towards the back of his workroom. “Facetor,” he said, “lasers. Combine four together for the center jewel, two small studs on either side.”

“Annnddd, you think that she’s just going to evolve everything she touches when she wears it.”

“Yes.”

“You realize she pretty much does that without your help? I mean, it’s okay, I’ve read her report, so I know you don’t understand a lick of what she did or how she did it, but that’s basically what it came down to.”

“Petrel?”

“Yeah?”

“If you don’t stop attempting to mock me, I will spray you with pheromones and lock you in a closet with a sexually frustrated zangoose.”

“Dude or chick?”

“Both.”

“Hey, threesome, I’m down.”

“You’re a sick man.” Petrel laughed his deep laugh and flopped down into the chair across from Archer with a charming grin plastered to his face.

“Guilty as charged,” he replied, plucking the thunderstone from Archer’s hand, “but look, you know as well as I do with a cut this good there’s no guarantee this thing is ever going to lose energy.” Archer sighed, the exasperation forcing itself out of his throat, despite his attempts to fight it. He flipped the light off on his desk magnifier and set his calipers off to the side.

“There has to be some way to neutralize it,” the blue executive murmured, “I just... I don’t even know how these stupid things work. For all I know each one has a tiny fairy living inside it with a box of cheezits and a magic wand that forces pokemon to evolve.”

“Why don’t you just ask her? I mean, shit, man, you have your pokéball projects, she’ll believe you if you tell her it’s for tweaks.”

“I just don’t want to run that risk. If she finds out, this entire thing is toast.”

“Oh, don’t say that. You’re going to make me hungry. But yeah, sure, fine. I’ll figure it out for you, if I can. I’m still surprised you came to me, of all people.”

“What can I say? I might want to castrate you with a rusty spoon, but even I can admit you’re one of the most intelligent people I know. Of course, that being said, I am no fool to your methods. Name your price.”

Petrel’s grin broadened.

“Who said anything about a price, eh?”

“Don’t play with me. The only time you ever did me a favor out of the goodness of your shriveled little black soul was when I was nearly on my deathbed, and you put me there, in the first place.”

“Don’t lie, Archer, it’s unbecoming of an Executive. I thought they beat that out of you in reeducation.”

For a second, Archer’s gaze shot up as his face twisted into a snarl, death glaring directly into Petrel’s eyes—but only a second. Just as abruptly, Archer returned to staring anywhere else but the depthless, rotten block pits stagnating with the indifference one would show towards an old, broken toy, unworthy of fixing. Often he wondered how no one else seemed to see it, or they did, why they were not appropriately cowed. Archer was very well aware of the danger those eyes presented.

“If you’re not going to name your price, then get the hell off my workbench.”

“I want her USB.”

There was a silence. Archer paused, brow furrowing uncertainly. Slowly, Petrel leaned forward onto the table, voice lowering conspiratorially as he stared Archer down like a snake waiting to strike.

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t, pleb. She had a USB stick that she keeps all of her research notes on. I want it—or, rather, what’s on it.”

Another silence.

“You take the fall.”

“Excuse me?”

“If she finds out. You take the fall.”

“Ha. No. Thanks for trying, play again, later.”

“I took the fall for you. You take the fall for me. Otherwise, no dice.”

“You didn’t take any fall. They found evidence. It was all you, no one else.”

“But you know the truth. You know they weren’t my letters. I took the fall for you, and I gave up everything. What would you lose for taking the fall, for me?”

Petrel seemed to contemplate this, and Archer could practically see the gears whirring around in his head as he weighed his options.

“Alright,” he finally said, “shake on it,” and he removed the glove from his hand and extended it firmly. Archer hesitated for a moment, but only a moment, and clasped Petrel’s hand within his. “I have to say,” the purple executive continued as he pulled his glove back on and stood to leave, “I’m even more surprised that you’d be willing to go through with this.”

As for Pokemon, he tends to gravitate towards dinosaurs and dragons, and because I had originally based his design on a Deino, it would have been a crime for him to not have a member of that line.

His Archeops is a grump, but his Hydreigon has actually been with Scout for as long as he can remember- and she ended up gaining those scars across her eye in the same incident that caused her trainer to go blind. She’s very protective of Scout, treating him like her own son, and doesn’t take well to anyone- or anything, for that matter- that could potentially mean him harm.

Speaking of sons, though…

Hydreigon DOES have an actual son. And he is adorable.

His name is Toothless- in part due to the fact that he’s still a baby and doesn’t have teeth, but also on account of Scout really loving the How to Train Your Dragon franchise- and he is a friendly little dragon-shaped ball of joy who acts more like a cat or dog than a cold blooded killer.

It’d been nearly a week. A week of staying up late to work, of skipping breakfast and sometimes dinner, a week of ignoring symptoms that grew steadily worse, from the occasional sniffle to an aching head, the inability to breathe through his nose, weakness, and chills- but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the report on his desk, but he was tired- so, so tired, too tired to keep himself focused, finding himself rereading the same couple words over and over and over but none of them making any sense. When the knock sounded on the door, it was a welcome distraction, and though Archer rasped and coughed for a second, he managed to call out a quiet ‘unlocked’, before leaning forward to face-plant on his desk.

"Sir?" came the voice he’d learned so very well, just as the door began to open, "I have some reports for you- I’ve been working on Mega Evolution, recently, a lot of resonation testing, so far, but I’ve already started finding some interesting tidbits." He heard the shuffling of papers- maybe hadn’t looked up yet- and somewhere, in the muffled haze of his mind, he hoped she wouldn’t stick around too see him like this; as cliche as it sounded, he didn’t want to seem weak in front of her. “And before I forget, the strangest thing happened, the other day, during some testing- that other Executive, Petrel, stopped by, and-? …Sir? Are… you alright?”

"I’m fine, Miss Skala," he croaked out in reply, wincing slightly at the sound of his own voice. He heard her steps approach his desk; slowly, he sat back in his chair, turning his face to the side just slightly to try and avoid breathing on her. That would be the worse thing, he thought- getting Miss Skala sick. That would be such a shame.

There was a pause in which he could feel her eyes looking him over, evaluating him, and he turned his gaze away further, ashamed of his condition. “No, you’re not,” she said at last, and Archer scratched awkwardly at his neck. She leaned forward over his desk, reaching out to place a hand on his forehead. Her skin was cool and soothing against his, and for an instant he wondered why he’d wished to avoid her in this state, in the first place, if a simple touch felt this nice. A small, content sigh escaped his lips, and he moved his tired gaze to meet Diane’s. “How long has it been since you slept?” she asked. He didn’t answer.

Today? No- no, not today, he’d stocked back up in Five-Hour Energy, the other day, it had been a while since he slept- the previous morning? Or had it been the midday prior? He couldn’t quite remember, anymore, his mind was far too hazy to work; Diane, however, seemed to understand his silence well, as she presented him with a small frown. Worried frown? Possibly worried. Possibly exasperated? He couldn’t quite tell, at the moment.

The next thing he knew, Diane had grabbed him under the arm, pushing his wheely-chair back as she pulled him to his feet and pushed him in the direction of the far wall, saying “Sir, of all the times you’d need to sleep, I think this one would be the most important, wouldn’t it?” He put up some meager form of resistance (at least, he thought it was resistance; it was entirely possible he was just so out of it he had lost partial control of his feet) but Miss Skala succeeded in the one thing Archer himself was rarely, if ever, able to- getting him to lie down in the Lugia-forsaken cot in the corner of the room. It was a comfy cot. He wondered why he didn’t do this more often.

"Sleep is for grunts," he managed to grunt out, but didn’t move an inch from where Diane had him lay. "Aren’t you a grunt, kinda? You gotta sleep, too." The scientist leveled him with a slightly amused look, and though Archer was pretty sure the puppy eyes he was attempting (and failing) to give her had absolutely nothing to do with it, it was only a moment before she removed her glasses and lay back next to him. Taking care to not breath too much on Diane, Archer snuggled up next to her.

"When you wake up," she whispered, "I’ll get you some tea and medicine."

"Thank you, Diane," he murmured in reply.

"You’re welcome, Archer."