"Of course."

The teacher pulls up a chair next to him. 

"I have to say, I'm ... confused. Your answer for question 5 was excellent — one of the best persuasive paragraphs in the entire class — but you're otherwise missing some basic foundational knowledge that I'd expect nearly anyone your age to be aware of. I don't want to pry, but that's the sort of thing that can sometimes be a sign of ... an isolated childhood, so to speak ... so if there's anything you want to talk about..."

He had been expecting the teacher to be disappointed in him but somehow this is worse. He shakes his head vigorously and reminds himself that nothing the teacher does could possibly hurt Pops.

"I'm just from very far away, that's all. My pops" only criticizes me when I deserve it "has been very supportive of my education."

"...Alright. Well, we all start somewhere. There's no shame in not knowing something."

That sounds kind of fake.

"Did you have any questions about the material, or would you rather go eat lunch with your class?"

What is a 'type.' What is an 'ability,' as distinct from 'anything a Pokémon can do.' Why is it called 'stealth rock' if you can clearly see the rocks.

"I should eat lunch. Thank you for your time, sir."

His classmates have gathered in the garden and are sitting around the fountain. They continue to mostly be about eight or nine years old.

He is starting to get kind of sick of sandwiches but he doesn't have anything else for lunch. He spreads out his jacket like a picnic blanket and sits down to eat.

"-gotta be lying. The SUN isn't even that hot and it's the sun."

"How do you know how hot the sun is? It's not like you've been there."

"Maybe someone asked Solgaleo?"

"Has anyone alive ever even met Solgaleo?"

"You're missing the point. If it's not true then why would they put it in the Pokédex?"

A girl who looks about eight years old glances up from the argument and notices Sebastian. "Oh! Hi! You can sit on the fountain too if you want."

Sure.

"What were you all talking about?"

"Cam's brother has a Pokédex and he says that Magcargo can be more than 18000 degrees Fahrenheit! Except that doesn't make sense, if it were that hot everything would just burn up."

"Well, it's not that hot on the outside, duh."

"Anyways. You're super old, do you know the answer?"

"I'm not from around here, the region I'm from is pretty different."

"That's okay, Magcargo isn't either! He only got its Pokédex entry because he traded with someone alllllllll the way over in Johto. Are you from Johto?"

"I'm not from Johto either."

"Oh. Well. You could still say what you think about Magcargo?"

Oh no, he was hoping to have to avoid taking a position on the complicated scientific question he has no context for. "If it were that hot, it would be hard for anyone to get close enough to measure it." (He thinks.) "It's more likely that someone exagitated its actual temperature."

"SEE, I TOLD YOU SO"

The kids start arguing again.

He will ... eat his sandwich.

Eventually one of the kids gets bored of the argument. "So why are you still in school, anyways? You've gotta be, like, at least thirteen."

"My home region is very different. I wanted to learn more about what things are like here."

"If you're from a different region can I see your Pokémon? I've never seen a Pokémon from another region before."

If he tells them he didn't have one before he arrived, is that going to sound like an obvious lie? If he tells them his Pokémon was stolen by Team Plasma, is that going to make them think he had been mistreating it? If he says it's an Audino, is that going to give away where he got it?

"It's just an Audino, I saw him battling with it yesterday."

"Oh. ...Can I see your Audino?"

Thank you, random eight year old.

He sends out Amadelphous.