#toto would be quoting jurassic park now if he could

[catsafarithewriter]

“Someone tell me what’s going on because I have no idea what I’m looking at right now.”-Haru preferred or Toto for a change of pace

PROMPT: Someone tell me what’s going on because I have no idea what I’m looking at right now.

A/N: I went with Toto here because someone else already submitted this prompt for Haru specifically, and also I got An Idea for Toto. Based on the pokemon au I’ve played around with but never written for, Toto and Muta’s backgrounds are specified here.  

x

Toto didn’t mind the cycle from Jubilife City to Oreburgh. He actually quite enjoyed the research he conducted at the Mining Museum when he got down to it. He loved incorporating that budding knowledge into the young minds at the Trainer’s School.

He just couldn’t stand the company at the museum. 

Or one in particular, anyway. 

He parked his bike outside the building and let himself in, nodding to the man at the desk as he systematically worked his way through the exhibits. Most of the cabinets housed facts pertaining to to a more geological nature - and even that centred mostly around coal in particular - but a few sections gave a nod to Pokemon evolution. 

He lingered at these displays for as long as he could before conceding defeat and descending to the laboratory floor. 

It wasn’t technically a laboratory. At least, if any of the higher-ups asked, it was definitely a preparation floor. It just happened to contain a lot of high-tech equipment that the average Joe definitely shouldn’t be allowed to touch without a manual on hand, and even then only under supervision. 

Toto didn’t know what half the machines did and, frankly, he wasn’t sure Muta did either. 

One of the machines was in use today, a tall, canister-like unit that Toto hadn’t seen in use before, filled with liquid and glowing. An indistinguishable shape floated within. It made whirring noises and the occasional click. 

The room was otherwise empty and against all his better judgement, Toto slowly approached the machine, the shape hard to identify within the translucent liquid, but something about it it seemed… eerily familiar. The form shifted and the light fell through to illuminate the curve of a beak, the ridge of a wing…

The clicks abruptly accelerated, running into a whirr and the lights turned red. Somewhere, an alarm went off. 

Toto leapt back as the machine began to drain the liquid through vents in its base. The form was gently deposited in a fetal at the bottom. Leathery grey wings were curled about it. A beak-like jaw - not a beak, definitely a maw - poked out from beneath it. Sharp teeth lined its mouth. The canister lifted and suddenly there was not even the barrier of glass to hide the creature behind. 

With a mental jolt, the feeling a missing a step on stairs emotionally jarring him, he realised he knew that form. Had sketched it, theorised on it, lectured on it, all from the remoteness of fossils. 

He swore softly. 

Then the creature leapt up at him and he swore considerably less softly. 

Huge jaws that stretched far too far, with teeth like something belonging to a Sharpedo reared up at him, and all Toto could manage was a juddering step back, mistepping, and falling back with the long-extinct Pokemon going for his face–

A stick smacked into the Pokemon and it went slamming into the wall. 

Toto looked up and saw the Oreburgh Mining Museum expert, Renaldo Moon - or Muta, to those who even vaguely knew him - standing between him and the creature. 

“That,” Toto said slowly, “is the first time I’ve ever been glad to see you.”

Muta hauled the dazed Pokemon into a readied cage, slamming the door shut and snapping back to Toto. “What the heck do you think you’re doing?”

Toto reddened. “What the heck are you doing with that?” he retorted. 

“Researching it,” Muta answered, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. 

Slowly, Toto got back to his feet and, now sure the Pokemon wasn’t in a position to try eating him again, approached it. He knelt down. The creature snarled at him. “Muta,” Toto said, his words carefully picked, “tell me what’s going on because I have no idea what I’m looking at right now.”

“And yer call yerself a researcher. Don’t you know an Aerodactyl when you see one?”

“Of course I know an Aerodactyl when I see one!” Toto snapped. “I’ve spent my life studying fossils - but that’s all they’ve ever been - fossils. Because they’re extinct.”

“Only slightly.” 

Toto stared for a moment longer. Then he groaned. “Muta,” he said, uncharacteristically softly, “you can’t just bring extinct Pokemon back to life.”

Muta gestured to the Aerodactyl. “Obviously, I can.”

“We don’t… We don’t even know what being… being dead has done to it. Whether it can go into a pokeball, whether you can even call it a Pokemon anymore–”

Any other argument Toto had were wiped clean from his mind as Muta threw a pokeball at the Aerodactyl. Not even a Great Ball or an Ultra Ball, just an everyday, run-of-the-mill ball - and the Aerodactyl vanished into its depths. Muta leant through the bars and retrieved it. “It goes into a pokeball,” he said. “It’s a Pokemon.”

“That’s not… It’s not the only criteria…”

“C’mon. There are way weirder Pokemon out there than a living fossil.”

“Yes, but they’re not created by a mad scientist!”

“I resent that. I’m an expert. Scientists have to do all that paperwork and wear lab coats. Do ya see a lab coat on me?”

The man did look like he’d just walked off Mt Coronet, dressed in the hiking gear he used to explore caves and bring back fossils - only for an obviously different fate than the one Toto had envisioned. When Toto was sure he wasn’t about to go into full existential meltdown, he asked, “How many?”

“How many what?”

“How many times have you done this?”

“Eh, this would be the first.”

“And you just... you just walked out? You left it unattended? What if you hadn’t got back in time before it...?” Hatched? Awoke? Resurrected? Toto had no idea how to refer to such a slap in the face of nature. 

“I wasn’t expecting some nosy birdbrain to poke around while I was gone,” Muta retorted. “Were ya raised in a barn? Anyway, I did get back in time, didn’t I? Wasn’t sure how long it was gonna take, but I think once I get the system worked, I could get the reviving process down to, uh, a few hours, maybe.” 

Toto gave a chuckle that was tapdancing along the line between incredulity and hysteria. “Reviving,” he echoed. “Sure. Like reviving a fainted Pokemon, yeah, I’m sure the two things are completely comparable. One definitely isn’t a complete aberration of nature that... By Dialga, I can’t even think of an appropriate way to end that sentence to summarise just how.... Muta, how can I get it through your thick rock skull just how much of a bad idea this is?”

“My next test is gonna be an Archeops,” Muta said, as if Toto hadn’t said anything. “Ya know, the allegedly earliest feathered Pokemon on record. What was yer dissertation on again? Was it... it was the Archeops, right?”

Toto mumbled something that might have passed for a yes. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” Muta continued. “It was all on the ground-up theory compared to the trees-down hypothesis. Yers concluded that they flew by running instead of jumping from trees.”

“Glided,” Toto amended, but somewhat half-heartedly. “Their feet aren’t made for climbing, but their legs are clearly built for running, so it’s far likelier that their wings were used in gliding when running...”

“Yeah, well now you’ll get the proof.” Muta elbowed Toto conspiringly. Toto could feel the bruise already beginning to develop. “I’ll let ya watch, but only if you don’t kick up a big stink about this.”

“That’s... that’s...”

“Bribery? Yeah. Is it working?”

Toto stared at the pokeball that still held the Aerodactyl. Inside it was impossible. Inside it was blasphemy, if one leant that way. Inside it was the breakthrough of a century. 

“If this all goes horribly wrong, I’ll deny all knowledge,” Toto hissed and stalked across the room. “Show me how this works.” 

Muta grinned. “Knew you’d see it my way eventually.”