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Don't Give Me Diamonds

Diamond 22: Give me Knowledge

As Professor Oak reached for the door knob of his house's main entrance, Delia held her breath until he led his guests inside, to the perfectly clean and orderly living room. Delia felt Giovanni glance at her as if wanting credit for the cover up, but she refused to look back at him. The mess was his fault to begin with, though, that did not change the fact that the cover up was amazing.

"Guess what?" Professor Oak cheerfully asked, as one does when having full intentions of giving the news before anyone actually has the chance to guess. "I got a new couch!" He patted the piece of furniture, "but I didn't have the heart to throw out the old one, so I made sure they matched."

"It's very nice," Delia observed with true amazement.

"Didn't you need to do something with the pokemon?" Giovanni suddenly asked, he was clearly improvising and Delia got the feeling he wanted to get Professor Oak away from the living room.

"Oh yes, I need to feed them, I'm running late this morning," Oak recalled.

Delia wasn't sure what this was about, but she was quick to play along with Giovanni, "we'll help, let's go let them all out of their pokeballs outside."

xoxox xox xoxox

It was a beautiful day and though it was a little later than usual, the pokemon were happy to be fed and allowed to run and play. Delia and Giovanni had let their pokemon out as well and Meowth finally let go of Giovanni's leg in favor of food and a game of tag.

Though the task of helping with the pokemon's meal felt annoying to Giovanni, he knew better than to mess up the opportunity to make Professor Oak relax in his presence. He had many questions he wanted to ask, but knew not to ask directly right away, at least not until the general atmosphere was more comfortable.

After the chores were done, the three sat outside talking about pokemon and exchanging stories, carefully selected stories in the case of Delia and Giovanni.

"You must study a lot of rare pokemon here," Giovanni finally brought up the topic that really interested him when he thought the atmosphere was right.

"Sometimes," Oak admitted, having all but forgotten about Giovanni's connection to the mafia, right now he was a gym leader, a pokemon trainer, Delia's boyfriend and a curious mind to share information with. "I think there are things to learn about every pokemon even if they're not considered rare. Their behavior is fascinating."

Sensing Professor Oak was getting off topic, Giovanni tried to discretely guide the conversation down the path he wanted, while at the same time keeping the mood light. "You mean like Meowth being such a baby at times?" Perhaps he could get Oak comment on a specific pokemon that caught his attention, instead of referring to general studies.

Professor Oak laughed, "I commend your patience with him, letting him hang on to you for so long until he felt ready to let go."

"I don't think I've ever met a pokemon as clingy as that one," Giovanni admitted.

Sensing Giovanni's strategy to get Oak to casually mention the legendary by linking it to the conversation as another peculiar pokemon, Delia contributed, "Professor Oak gets the energetic playful ones more often than the clingy ones. Remember Nidorino?"

"Ah yes, I once took care of a Nidorino for a traveling trainer. That Nidorino would hardly sleep and hardly let me sleep, always wanting to stay out of his pokeball and run around playing. My students would help me try to tire him out playing and battling, but that Nidorino had a nearly infinite supply of energy. It was a strong one, very strong, but still one of the most playful pokemon I've ever seen." The story reminded Oak of other strong and playful pokemon, which was what Delia wanted to do. Caught up in the moment, the researcher voiced, "did you know it is said that there are legendary pokemon with a very playful nature as well despite their vast power?"

"Like Mew?" Giovanni innocently inquired, with Delia having made Oak lower his guard and bring up the topic himself, Giovanni knew it would be alright to be a little more direct now, but he would still take care not to sound too eager. "Even if Mew is extinct I've always been interested in learning about it." He made it clear he did not believe Mew could be found, thus hiding his true dream of someday acquiring it by any means necessary.

Professor Oak seemed to recall a fond memory, but he focused on the current topic of Mew, the legendary he studied later, after his interest for those rare pokemon was sparked by Celebi many years ago. "It's true that Mew is officially thought to be extinct, but I had always hoped to meet one. I never did, but I believe Mew is out there. I dedicated myself to the general study of pokemon in the end, but the research I did about past wasn't in vain. All pokemon are connected somehow, by studying one, it is possible to learn about the others."

This was it, the moment of truth, "that sounds very interesting, do you think I could read your research on Mew some time?" Giovanni made sure to sound curious, but not too insistent, carrying out his act perfectly.

"Of course," even in retrospect, Professor Oak would see it as harmless; if Mew was out there he doubted such a powerful pokemon could be caught. Either way, he was glad someone was interested in his older research, which held a special value for him, even if his theories about the little known legends were not as widely recognized as his more famous studies about pokemon that trainers often caught.

The topic made Professor Oak go on a lecture, adding in a few seemingly random stories of his youth about various events that had inspired him. Though some of the things he said were not directly related to any legends, Giovanni paid attention, making sure to remember details he thought might be important and complementary to the research he was yet to read.

After the long conversation, which casually shifted back to a non-legendary topic near the end, but was still on the subject of pokemon, Giovanni obtained a full copy of Professor Oak's research concerning Mew. "I had tried to submit it for official review," Oak recounted as he gave Giovanni a small but spacious data disk, "but they weren't interested since a lot of this is based on theories rather than concrete evidence, though I do link the theories to reality, it just seems that the link was too long or fragile for them."

Professor Oak also have Giovanni a folder full of notes and sketches, it was draft-like not as organized as a final product would be, but Giovanni accepted it, treating it as valuable information just as precious as the polished version tweaked to meet the standards of official scientific research. Surely the two data sources would compliment each other becoming much more informative than either of them could be by itself.

Soon after that, the visit ended, and Delia and Giovanni were on their way, with Giovanni finishing his act, much like his previous visit to Oak's research lab, which assured Oak that despite it all, maybe Team Rocket wasn't so bad after all even if he still didn't truly approve of them.

xoxox xox xoxox

After Delia and Giovanni were gone, Professor Oak sat down on his new soft couch, sinking into it and observing that, though it was certainly softer than the old one, he didn't remember it being this soft. Charizard made his appearance, looking very sleepy with smoky yawns. "have you been napping this whole time?" Albeit old, Charizard was usually an early riser and did not often take naps during the day. "I put your food out in the same place as always, I had guests this morning; I thought you already ate. Maybe you'll wake up completely after you eat."

Charizard growled uncertain, as if wanting to communicate something. The pokemon looked around the living room, nothing was out of place and it perplexed him. Furthermore, although his trainer did mention the presence of others this morning, he was perfectly calm about it. With one last smoke releasing yawn, Charizard went out to eat in the fresh air as he usually did on sunny days; maybe that would help him fully awaken and push the vivid dream out of his head.

"Wait a second," Professor Oak got up from the strangely squishy couch and examined Charizard's wing, it was scratched. He looked into the pokemon's blue eyes, Charizard didn't seem too aware of the scratches, as if the leftover sleep was too heavy. It was unnatural, almost as if he was given a sleeping pill or something, yet it didn't make any sense, who would do that?

It was true that Pallet Town had received more visitors than usual that day, but Professor Oak had no reason to suspect anyone was in his house, nothing was missing. Maybe Charizard had scratched his wing by accident somehow and perhaps the remnant sleep in his eyes was a sign of old age. "Go on, your food is waiting," Oak sent the confused pokemon on his way.

The researcher sat on the soft couch again, sinking into it once more. He had an odd feeling, but he couldn't quite place it. Delia had been acting strange at first, but he couldn't figure out why. Giovanni had apparently left to go for a walk by himself, which was odd, but it could just be city boy curiosity or an attempt to make Meowth get tired of clinging to him while he walked. Maybe Delia had told him about Mrs. Alderaan and the way she was, hinting that she might want to visit and Giovanni attempted to escape by going for a walk, in which case Oak couldn't blame him, but it was still unusual.

The mysterious white limousine was the most out of place element of the day, but Professor Oak could think of no connection between it and the inexplicable happenings. He went over the facts again, Delia was hiding something, Giovanni went for a walk alone with his pokemon, Charizard's wing was scratched and he was unusually sleepy. Then there was the person on the motorcycle who zoomed by so fast. Perhaps that unidentified visitor would be the prime suspect if anything was missing from his house, but nothing was.

Professor Oak shook his head, finally giving up on over-thinking things; he was only going in circles. He was about to get up from the squishy couch to continue his day normally, when the aforementioned couch became a group of pink blobs.

"Ditto?" Professor Oak finally found his voice after staring in surprise for a full minute. He got up from the floor and picked up one of the pink blobs, examining it curiously, "what in the world? Is this a joke?" Were they a bunch of unusually mischievous Ditto? If so, he would love to study them and try to figure out the cause for their strange behavior.

Did someone make the Ditto pretend to be his furniture? Was Delia in on this, was it Giovanni's doing? Professor Oak certainly didn't picture Giovanni as a prankster; his expression seemed to be perpetually serious even when he sounded relaxed.

Again Professor Oak told himself it was best not to over-analyze the origin of the Ditto or the fate of his missing soft couch, though at least the old Onix-hard couch was still there, he poked it to make sure it wasn't a group of Ditto. In the end, Oak decided to be thankful that he had some Ditto to research, he had been hoping to find some anyway.

xoxox xox xoxox

"Back to HQ?" Delia inquired as the black car advanced through the rural roads on its way out of Pallet Town. The scene brought memories of their visit to Professor Oak long ago and the subsequent race though Viridian City after receiving an emergency call. She realized she had asked that very same question that time, albeit this time the sound of the radio was all that was heard and there was no cell phone ringing urgently.

"Hmm," another difference between that time in the past and today was that this time Delia was driving. After giving Professor Oak their thanks and goodbyes, then heading back to the car, she had offered to drive since she knew Giovanni wanted to start going through the documents and sketches in the folder from Professor Oak right away. Giovanni had no inconveniences in handing her the silver keys with the red R ruby encrusted keychain. He now sat in the passenger seat occasionally petting Meowth who was on his lap, engrossed in reading Professor Oak's research notes and examining the sketches in the folder.

Delia sighed, feeling disappointed to be ignored, even if she had wished so strongly for Giovanni to be interested in the research, at least she got that wish. "Let's go home..."

To be Continued

Disclaimer, I don't own Pokemon.