Chapter 109: Researching Ghost Serpent's DNA with Professor Elm
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Chapter Begins:
The stunned silence broke away with Kai's renewed grave expression.
-/That's why I requested Simon to bring me to you, professor,/- he said. -/I lack the equipment to find out what is wrong with the last Pokemon of its species. This Ghost Serpent is blind. No matter how I looked at them, I couldn't find anything about the rest of the two eggs either. Priestess Shae, please take out the two eggs for the professor to see./-
Kai approached Professor Elm and blocked his sight.
Behind him, Meg took two eggs out of her Miscellaneous Rent Box (MRB), which Kai had already passed to her.
One egg was fist-sized, red-blue-brown stripes running over its dusty, rock-like shell. The other was a golden egg the size of a thumb. Meg handed both of them to Kai as Professor Elm ran his fingers over Selene's dragon-like scales. If it wasn't for Kai's strict command to let the Professor do as he wished, the Ghost Serpent would have killed him already.
"You are right," Professor Elm said. "There are many things out of place."
-/Professor Elm,/- Kai said, his eyes glowing with expectation. -/How about you let me assist you in finding the exact nature of the Pokemon and these eggs? I have some days to spare./-
If it was before, this kind of request would have seemed nothing but a jest.
Professor Elm grinned at the notion. "Of course, Dr. Desmond," he said, already taking out glass cylinders to store the eggs. "I would be glad to hear your point of view regarding Pokemon evolution and their breeding habits."
Professor Elm passed a white lab coat to Kai, ignoring the existence of Petyr and Meg entirely.
Kai rubbed the coat, as memories of a time he had buried deep tried to resurface. He threw off his hat, keeping the sunglasses on his face, and donned the coat as if it were meant for him.
It was then the notification popped up.
…
[
Congratulations Contestant Kai Stormborn…
You have achieved a Milestone
…
Milestone: Develop friendly relations with a Professor in the Pokemon World
Milestone Rewards: Correspondence +1
]
…
Kai smiled.
Whether he was smiling at the reward, or at his nostalgic thoughts, who knew?
*
*
Evening, June 24
Professor Elm's laboratory
Sleep seemed to have abandoned Kai and Elm.
With the barest amount of napping, the duo had managed to bury themselves in the research for the last four days.
Professor Elm had come out to be as every bit odd as it was known about him.
Not once he had asked about Meg and Petyr's presence in the lab. Nor did he ask about arranging quarters for them. Food came on time, but unlike Kai, he had eaten little.
Meg had told Kai that Professor Elm was so oblivious to his surroundings when carrying out his research that Team Rocket had stolen his Pokemon from right behind him once. Jessie and James had asked him if they could take away his Pokemon. In reply, Professor Elm had replied with yes, of course, take it away.
Thrice the old butler had come, knocking on the lab's door, asking for Elm's health.
Kai had persuaded the Professor to send the butler away without letting him in every time.
"My god!" Elm exclaimed, nudging the glasses over his bloodshot eyes. "Look at this, Professor Desmond."
Kai followed Elm's gaze to the screen and saw the data.
His eyes narrowed. For a long time, they had been waiting to see the results.
On the screen, there was a DNA structure, slowly rotating. Half of the base pairs (the links connecting the spirals, also called the backbones) were blue, and half were white. Overall, those colors gave the entire DNA structure a ghostly and icy appearance.
The trouble began beyond those colors.
"Are you seeing what I am seeing, Professor?" Professor Elm addressed Kai, pointing at the nano-sized black tendrils on the blue half. "It looks like some kind of foreign pathogens trying to force their way into the DNA."
Elm's voice was incredulous.
Kai shared his colleague's ecstasy, but his eyes weren't only on the black tendrils. Opposite the tendrils, towards the white side of the DNA structure, there were even tinier yellow rings. If Kai wasn't so susceptible to everything yellow, even he would have ignored them.
-/Elm,/- Kai said, looking back at the glass-encased Selene. -/Zoom on those yellow rings on the white half./-
Selene lifted her hood and hissed, flicking out her tongue.
-Master, I want to hunt,- she said, slithering into the confined space. -How much longer?-
-Not long.- Kai hissed back the same two words for the umpteenth time.
"Yellow rings?!" Professor Elm muttered, adjusting his glasses. "Oh my! I didn't notice them."
When the screen zoomed in, Kai saw what he had feared the most.
The rhythm of his breathing broke, and blood rose to his head in sheer horror. Unlike the black tendrils' obvious attempt to assimilate themselves into the DNA, the yellow rings were inconspicuous about their attempts. Not to mention the disgusting geometric patterns that made little sense and birthed such a repulsion upon seeing them that Kai's entire face crumpled.
-/A forced genome modification,/- Kai declared.
Professor Elm snapped his head. "How can that be?!" he exclaimed, refusing to believe the possibility. "I have devoted my entire life to the genome modification Pokemon goes upon evolving. There is no one more mysterious and mind-baffling phenomenon. And yet…"
-/Yet, in front of our eyes, something is trying to modify the Ghost Serpent's genome./- Kai completed the words as Professor Elm trailed off. -/The question is not what is this external agent, professor? The question is what is keeping them from going in./-
"Indeed," Elm agreed. "Seeing their number, and how these black tendrils and patterned yellow rings are being kept at the bay, there must be something that is naturally resisting them."
-/Is it possible…/- Kai wondered, -/that these half-successful attempts had blinded the Pokemon? And that bulge…/-
By now, Kai and Elm had already scanned Selene and the bulge in between her blind eyes, using all the means possible. One time would have been enough to conclude, but what they had found was so bizarre that they had to doubt the results and start the scanning anew using another method.
To Kai's dismay, the result hadn't changed, though.
The bulge was the mass of tissues, the beginning of an evolutionary stage of an eye. A third eye.
"Not only that, Professor Desmond," Elm said as if he had figured out something. "But I think the change is irrevocable. If whatever that is keeping the Pokemon's genome from being modified doesn't stop, this struggle against these pathogens can permanently damage the subject."
A true mad scientist, Kai thought. He looked at Professor Elm with wide eyes. -/You aren't suggesting what I think you are suggesting, right?/-
Elm nudged his glasses, almost behaving like he hadn't heard or seen Kai. "I think we should push the pathogens in. Studying the change in DNA structure and the evolutionary stages of an ancient species can become the mightiest leap for science in the history of this world."
Kai wasn't sure about it.
It was one thing, Selene becoming useless and Kai devouring her as a Blood Essence.
It was another thing entirely to see what would happen once both the children of his Glitch (the black tendrils) and spawns of Hastur (the yellow rings) had corrupted Selene.
What kind of creature would come into being after that? Kai shuddered at the thought.
At last, curiosity came out to be victorious, trampling all hesitation in Kai's heart.
Better a monster than a useless worm, he thought, rubbing his hands through his white hair.
Professor Elm's next words pushed Kai beyond the line of no return. "If we follow the known data on the current Pokemon species," he began, mulling over every single word, "then I think a potent stimulant should do the trick. An extremely strong stimulant."
Kai's eyes shone with realization. -/Like eating a Legendary Pokemon?/-
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