Chapter 3: Present Day

Sam sat in the lobby of Professor Rowan’s laboratory thumbing through the magazine selection on the small desk next to his seat. Newsweek, Linoone Fancy, National Geographic, World Pokemon League Illustrated, and Ponyta Dressage Today; nothing that really seemed to catch his eye. Sam thought this odd because he usually enjoyed Newsweek, at least, but his heart just didn’t seem to be in a place for reading about other peoples’ problems. He felt a shiver in the base of his neck that he was unsure if he could attribute to his nerves or the air-conditioning. Just as he had always heard, Sandgem had beautiful weather outside, but it could get to be stifling indoors where the breeze from Sandgem Bay could not penetrate. Air conditioning in this seaside beach town was much less of a convenient luxury like it would be at home in Goldenrod and much more of a life necessity. Every few minutes, he’d catch the fact that the foot crossing over his opposite leg was swaying rapidly. He’d stop it, but as soon as his mind wandered off, the appendage began gleefully oscillating again. After several tries of stopping it only to find it swaying again on its own soon after, he placed his right hand on it in an attempt to hold it in place. He nodded as if to motion that this would teach his errant foot for its impudence, and he went back to rooting through the magazines for something to catch his eye. He passed a men’s fashion periodical and again cursed himself for nixing the full suit. 

Bree was oblivious to all of this, as she had fluttered her way into a corner of the room and was pecking around an overgrown houseplant whose vines were snaking between Rowan’s window blinds. Time and again, she’d dig her head into the heart of the plant only to snap it back out in alarm when its leaves tickled her wings. “There’s no honey in there, Bree,” Sam would say to her as she stared down the plant, her wings stretched wide to make herself appear large. After several seconds, Bree would forget the advice and again dig into it. 

Vlam watched this with what appeared to be great disinterest, curled around Sam’s inactive foot. She had always seemed slightly annoyed by Bree’s impetuousness, and Sam imagined that her thoughts must have been something along the lines of ‘How has this thing not outgrown this yet?’. Vlam had entered battles very much like Tommy always did–meticulous, patient, and subtle. She would almost always concede an opponent’s opening salvo so that she could get a taste of their power and strategy. Bree, meanwhile, never outgrew her trainer’s methods of battling from his younger days–headstrong, fast, and furious. Bree and Vlam had sparred countless times over the years while Sam was growing up; to say that Vlam had a winning record would almost be an understatement, but despite her displeasure at Bree’s immaturity, she always licked Bree’s cheek after a victory and let the butterfly pokemon chase her many tails. Bree never seemed to mind her losses to her sister much, anyway. Despite the Butterfree’s innocent veneer, she and Sam had become a potent duo not unlike Tommy and Vlam. Sam’s youthful fear of being referred to as ‘Bug Catcher’ by his classmates quickly dissipated when the two of them were constantly near the top of his class rankings. In the corner of the room, Bree had again found herself assaulted by the plant and was now buzzing at it furiously. Vlam–perhaps weary of her sister’s noise or perhaps wanting to comfort her–disengaged herself from Sam’s leg and took patient steps towards the plant. Bree studied her as Vlam buried her own head in the plant, shook its leaves, and then emerged. Bree chirped a response, Vlam cooed back, and that seemed to be the end of her great interest in the plant for the moment.

The door to the left of Sam finally opened, and he whipped the magazines back onto the table where they came from as if they had been illicit, and, in equally quick fashion, Sam was on his feet. Through the door came a much older man, a red vest covering his shirt and tie. It was hard for Sam to discern exactly how old he might be thanks to the walrus beard he was sporting that could have actually made him appear much younger by hiding his wrinkles. A sucker in his mouth not only disguised his potential age but his profession as well. The sucker switched to his left cheek as he studied Sam. “Sam Stark?” he asked. Sam nodded, and the man resumed, “Good to meet you, son. I’m Professor Rowan. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but I don’t get many visits without appointments.” Sam could not tell if this was an honest statement or a rebuke on Sam’s part for not having scheduled his arrival. “I was in the middle of a rather lengthy correspondence with a peer, and I did not want to lose my train of thought.” As he said that, his lollipop’s stick was also getting lost under the bristle of his mustache. “How can I help you, my boy?”

Sam wiped his palms on the inside of his khakis pocket before extending his right arm. “Yes, it’s nice to meet you, professor. I’m Sam–wait, you already said…I’m sorry.” Sam shook his head and chided himself internally. “Let me start over, Professor Rowan: it’s very nice to meet you. My father spoke of you when I was younger.”

Rowan’s eyes narrowed, then shot open. “You’re Evander’s son! Little Sammy Stark!” Sam again nodded at this more colloquial introduction. “Heavens! You wouldn’t actually remember this, but you and I have met before. When you were just a pup.” 

“I was told, sir. He always held you in high regard.”

Sam’s father had apparently won an internship under Professor Rowan in his younger days. Before going into anesthesiology for human patients, he had considered working in the field of pokemon medicine. During that part of his life, he worked with Rowan in Kanto and studied pokemon physiology, evolution, and development. Sam recalled that while his father ended up going a different direction with his work, he never failed to praise Rowan as the greatest mind under which he ever worked. 

“High regard then from a man who deserved to be held equally high from what I understand.” Rowan removed his red sucker and smoothed his beard with his free hand. “It was a terrible loss what happened to him. I know it was ages ago, but you have my sympathies, Sammy.”

Sam waved in the air as if pushing smoke aside. “It’s just Sam, professor. I haven’t gone by Sammy in years.”

Rowan nodded right at the time Vlam had approached him from behind and rubbed her muzzle against his hanging right hand. “Yes, I suppose that’s a name a lot of young men would grow out of.” Vlam circled the professor’s legs before settling down at his feet and closing her eyes. She had, in Sam’s estimation, always been a great judge of character, and for the first time in a year Sam had hope. Perhaps this man would be able to help him after all.

“So how can I assist the family of an old friend, Sam? This is a long way to come just to visit a man you can’t ever remember meeting.”

Sam sighed and turned away from the professor. He walked over to the wall of the waiting room where hung a map of Sinnoh. Sam studied it up and down; it was not that different from Johto back home. Mount Silver separated Johto from Kanto just as Mount Coronet here separated the two ends of Sinnoh, and much of the continent was a solid land mass, as opposed to the Hoenn islands. Despite the similarities, however, Sinnoh had something of great importance that Johto did not, and that was why Sam had left his life behind on hold to come here. Bree flittered over after noticing her trainer was engrossed in the map; she flapped about his head trying to get his attention, but he barely registered her. All he saw were three points on the map. Lake Valor. Lake Verity. Lake Acuity. The reasons he had come here.

“I need them, professor. I need the legends.” He turned away from the map and stared down Rowan unflinchingly. “Azelf, Mesprit, and Uxie. I’ve come for them, and I won’t leave Sinnoh without them.”