Frank eventually calmed down from his uproarious laughter, and noticed that MissingNo had distanced itself from him once again. "What? Why are you acting embarrassed to be seen around me, huh? There's not even anyone else around this time!"

  MissingNo bobbled in place, rising and falling rapidly as it swayed side to side, almost in imitation of an exasperated shaking of the head.

  "Oh, let me have my moment. Besides, it's all named after me, so I'm clearly the creator. Even if I don't remember actually building it, as long as no one steps up to claim otherwise, it's all my inventions! Anyway. Come back here, lets see what your stats are like, and we can play with them, figure this out."

  A tendril extended from the static-cloud, and Frank opened the first option in editing again, seeing MissingNo's assessment pop up onto the screen. He flicked his attention toward the stat-bar sliders. "Looks like you're actually pretty all-rounded. Let's just max it all out then! You deserve a power-up!"

  Frank tapped the arrow to the right on HP, the first stat listed. It flashed an 'X' on screen at him, and a number flickered in the top left side, that he hadn't paid mind to. 'Available Points: 0' blinked at him, mercilessly.

  "You're kidding me, I can't just edit freely? Ugh. If you're going to let me cheat, why let me cheat gently? Just let me step into the shoes of the new world champion right off the bat!" Frank complained, without a hint of remorse. He couldn't just be grateful he had a potentially reasonable editing ability after the grand dreams he had started forming.

  "Well, this is still great. Any Pokemon I catch can be tweaked... I wonder if I get more points to play with as you get stronger, MissingNo. But... hm. You have four move boxes here, but they're blank. I know for a fact you have teleport, water gun, and ember... so, why aren't they here?"

  Frank tapped his chin, then propped his head up by resting his cheek on his palm, in thought. "It can't be about scanning you, I already did that. Let's just..." He muttered to himself, and selected the first blank box. A very, very tiny fraction of visibility and a scroll bar popped up, showing that there was a massive list to sort through. He glanced down at his archaic control methods, and then promptly shook his head.

  "MissingNo, you're going to have to help me when I need a specific move. I'm not going through all these moves one by one... for now, let's see what we got. Absorb seems to be the first option, and it's a weak move, so it should be safer to experiment with. Let's just hope these slots aren't once-and-done..."

  He didn't want to believe his luck was that bad, but... he grit his teeth and tapped down rapidly. If it did, spending one on absorb of all things would have him tearing his hear out in regret. "Acid... acrobatics... agility... ancient power! That seems more acceptable, just in case..." Frank touched confirm, and...!

  The big, fat goose-egg where his remaining points were blinked at him again, leaving him heartbroken all over again. "DAMN IT! ARCEUS, COME ON!" He shouted to the heavens, or at least the flickering fluorescent lights overhead. "Let me use the editor! AAAAHHH!" He fought down the rising, irrational urge to throw his one-of-a-kind piece of technology across the room. Breathe in. Hold. Let it out. Calm. Zen. We're fine. We're fine.

  A long moment passed like this, and he looked closer. Ancient Power had a number '10' listed next to it. "MissingNo, I'm going to lower your attack stat, for an experiment. You've mostly used special moves, but I just want to make sure you're okay with me trying this?"

  '?(???????)?'

  "You're the best, pal. I can put it back afterward." In an afterthought, mumbled to himself, he added, "Probably." He ticked down 10 points from MissingNo's attack, dropping the stat from bad to abysmal. Then he tried to input Ancient Power again. This time, the slot accepted it, and his points dropped from 10 back down to 0.

  "Lets go out in the hall and give this a try, MissingNo." Once they stepped out, he aimed down the hall. "Fire the ancient power down this hall, it's wide and empty, it can handle a rock shot."

  MissingNo began to glow with a gentle light, seeming as if the brightness of its static had increased, and a chunk of flooring lifted up, crammed down and crushed into a tight ball, and then launched forward in a cacophony of crashing and tumbling. The mostly-rounded ball of rock hopped and skipped down the hall, clattering along the metal tiles, before coming to a stop far down the hall.

  "Alright! Good work, and at least we know how this works. Now we can see if it's, well. Reversable." He tapped the move again, and tapped back up, above absorb, to the empty space at the top of the list. It accepted the input, and his points once again bounded back up to '10'.

  Frank sighed in relief. "So, we have ultimate flexibility, but it's not something that's exactly quick to change. We need some time to hot-swap, so we could do it between fights, but probably not in the middle of one. We're going to be the ultimate wild card. Here, let's pump these points into your special attack instead. It's not like you're going to be using tackle or anything."

  He spent a moment, draining MissingNo's attack down to a complete 0, and pumped the special attack up to near maximum. "Let's leave everything else balanced for now. I don't want you to have obvious weaknesses to exploit, right, partner?"

  '(─?─)'

  Frank backed out of the menu completely, back to the front page, and clicked down to the last option, and the one that was the least predictable. "Frankencharge, huh? That sounds so cheesy, but I'm feeling really hyped for it. What's going to happen? Is this a supercharge? A transformation? A way to boost the number of points I can allocate to you, so we can get your total numbers up...?!"

  Anticipation bubbling up in him, he raised his hand high in the air, and brought it down in a dramatic drop to hit enter on the 'Frankencharge' option. His eyes flickered over to MissingNo, waiting to see a change. He stared at it, and it stared back at him, figuratively. It just bobbled in place, hovering, and he just assumed MissingNo was looking back at him.

  After a long moment, he looked back down, and a vein popped up near his temple, his face reddening with furious temper. 'Frankencharge unavailable. Please fill out more Frankendex entries.'

  "YOU'RE COLLECTION GATING ME, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!? OF ALL THE-" Frank paused, and took a deep breath. This time, though, it wasn't to calm himself down. Instead, a heavy, primal scream of frustration ripped from him and echoed down the hall.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  MissingNo reached out a tendril, and actually made contact with Frank, patting him on the shoulder. It was a tingling sensation, one that could only be compared to licking a nine-volt battery, but like... with his shoulder. He shivered at the sensation, and cut off, breathing wildly and heavily.

  "You're right, you're right, I should calm down. Ugh. I don't remember being this tempermental in the past. Sure, I got mad about things but like..." Frank paused, and tried to compare it. "It's like I'm getting cut off at the bar. I don't need more, I probably shouldn't have more, but I want more. I got a taste of tinkering with all this, and I'm getting barred from the club! I've got this... craving. But for science and tinkering instead of drinking."

  He rubbed at his eyes, lifting the goggles up onto his forehead to do so. "I feel like I have habits that aren't me, but they come to me so instinctually and naturally that I don't even think about it or question it. Besides, honestly, having some sort of instinct for this sort of thing is probably going to be helpful. There's definitely trade-offs, though."

  MissingNo bounced in the air, energetically, now that Frank seemed to be drawing his temper in and getting calm again.

  '????つ'

  "Yeah, thanks. Metaphysical hugs back to you, pal. Thanks for poking me like that. Try and keep me from going entirely off the deep end if you see me acting like that again, yeah?"

  '(^-^*)ノ'

  "Well, at least I have some supplies, while we're here. Come to think of it, I really am a criminal now, regardless of before. I just sort of... bolted on instinct and the bag was in my hand. Do you think they'll buy that?" Frank asked, tugging his acquired bag onto his lap as he dropped down onto the couch.

  '(???)'

  Frank sighed heavily, "Yeah. Probably not. You're right. Well, we already took it, we might as well use it. Actually, hang on. I have that item storage, so... if I had checked this sooner, I wouldn't have needed to buy a pack in the first place! Ugh. Well, I mean. I didn't pay for it, and it'll make for a good cover. I can pretend to use it whenever I need to take items out of storage, but keep them in there where they are safe."

  He opened the bag, and took out his ill-gotten supplies. A box of calorie-dense ration bars, meant for travel. Five potions, ten Pokeballs, and a survival canteen with a surplus of storage space that he... once again didn't need. "If there's no item limit, I should have just stored bottles of regular water in my storage if I knew. Ugh. Well, testing time."

  He accessed the storage system, and the system prompted him with 'deposit' and 'withdraw'. He clicked the latter, out of curiosity. Then he had to fight the urge to lose his temper again. Why? Why couldn't he have just taken the time to analyze the very important piece of technology he had woken up to?!

  "I DIDN'T EVEN NEED TO GO TO TOWN IN THE FIRST PLACE!"

  The list was rather impressive, and he scrolled through, expression mixed as he read through it. On the one hand, he put himself through a lot of hassle he didn't need to. On the other hand, he was glad to have the supplies.

  The storage seemed to be alphabetically sorted, and currently contained: antidote x 13, awakening x 7, berry juice x 186-

  "Wait, that is a LOT of berry juice. Well, there's my drinks sorted for a while, if needed. And some healing." Frank muttered, turning back to the list.

  -bicycle x 1, burn heal x 9, elevator key x 1-

  "Wonder where I can use that key. Is that a place in this base? Remember that for later..."

  -escape rope x 3-

  "Are those still magical escape tools? No way, right? That's got to just be survival rope..."

  -Masterball failed prototype x 1-

  "I'm done getting angry over shattered expectations. It's happened too many times today. Still, how the fuck did I end up with this thing? Even a failed prototype has to have incredible research value."

  -paralyze heal x 4, pokedoll x 211-

  Frank paused, then doubled back. He thought it was '21' at first, and mentally went, 'Wow, whoever stocked this was really cautious about wild battles.' Realizing that it was 211, however, filled him with an eerie sense of dread that had him certain that whoever stocked this was some kind of super weirdo.

  He really, really hoped he wasn't responsible for those being in there. "Maybe I can sell some if I need money...?" Were they all of the same Pokemon...? Maybe it was a 'gotta catch 'em all', plushie edition? No. No. Moving swiftly along.

  -potion x 3, repel x 11, tin of beans x 412-

  "Guess I'm going to get used to living the apocalypse diet. That is... more beans than I think I ever want to eat in my life, but at least I won't starve..."

  -upgrade x 1.

  "Weird, considering I don't have a Porygon, but sure." Some useful things, some random garbage, and some... concerning items he really didn't even want to think about. Those items might just stay in storage forever. "At least I can be pretty confident that there's no inventory limit. Guess I might as well add these in... shame there weren't more Pokeballs in here. There was almost everything else I could want, though."

  He shifted back to withdraw mode, and then groaned. It the same slow scroll up and down to select, scroll left and right to choose quantity. "I'm definitely reconsidering the backpack. If I need anything quickly, it needs to come out of the bag. I don't see anything I really need to take out now. Let's just test a drink."

  Frank tapped down to the berry juice, and selected one. The camera- or what he thought was just a camera, displayed a green beam of light, just about the same color as its LCD screen, and then a can of juice appeared in front of him, where the camera was pointed, before it clattered down onto the floor. "So it isn't smart technology. Be careful withdrawing anything fragile. Or large and heavy."

  Bending forward to retrieve the can of juice, he popped it open and took a sip with a soft sigh. "At least we're getting all this figured out. It's exciting to discover a secret stash like this. It's like I found someone's buried treasure they had forgotten about. Even if it's more like finding a box in my own attic I had forgotten existed."

  Frank turned toward MissingNo, and then glanced at his wrist where a watch would be, before realizing he wasn't wearing one. "Damn. I don't know what time it is. All that crazy shenanigans, and the Frankendex doesn't even have a clock in it. Probably still early enough to have a look around. I need to start catching Pokemon so I can see if I can activate that Frankencharge, with only ten Pokeballs to work with."

  An idea came to him, suddenly. "Look, we've argued over a lot today, Frankendex. But please, please just work for what I want you to do...!" He went back to the Pokemon data editor on his functionality list. "Time to find out, is this Pokemon, the creature, data editor... or... Pokemon, the franchise, data editor...! MissingNo! Touch this Pokeball!"

  MissingNo complied, running one tendril to the Frankendex again, and touching a Pokeball with another. The screen flashed up with a display: 'Pokeball. Catch rate modifier, 1.0x'

  Oh. Oh yes. Forget being angry. This was the single greatest piece of technology to ever exist! He hefted the dirty-grey plastic of the Frankendex upward and gave it a kiss! Then he backed out, and hurriedly withdrew the Masterball failed prototype.

  "Hurry, hurry, touch this, MissingNo!" He was all but bouncing in place with excitement as his Pokemon agreed and touched the prototype, 'Masterball. Catch rate modifier, 255.0x. Defect: Broken. Modified catch rate: 0.0x'

  He tried to edit away the broken modifier, but it didn't change. He could edit the catch rate base all he wanted, but any input reset down to zero by the broken modifier. "Wait. For a smart guy, I sure can be stupid, sometimes... This is too conspicuous anyway! I'll just make my own incognito Masterballs!"

  Frank took the time to go through all ten of his Pokeballs in turn, changing their basic catch rate from the standard 1.0x all the way up to 999x. There was a three-digit input limit, or he would have gone even higher. "Masterball, meet your big brother. THE FRANKENBALL!"

  MissingNo watched its trainer, borderline delirious with excitement, grabbing a marker off the end table nearby and scribbling a poorly-drawn 'F' on the red crown of each Pokeball, and slowly backed away from him again. It assumed Frank would calm down again on his own. Eventually.