Stretching is Important

Phoenix sat at the desk he’d been given to do his work, an urgency to his actions as his fingers flew across the keyboard. Meditating nearby was the legendary Pokemon Uxie, the source of the need for immediacy. His eyes flicked across the code he’d been writing, double checking his work. The keywords ‘need’ and ‘stronger’ were practically on loop in his head, as well as what he needed to do. While others worked on the main portion of the machine itself, he’d been tasked with working on the software that would make it actually function. He wasn’t the only one, but currently, he was just double checking the work of the others that had come before him. He’d already caught a few mistakes, mostly from folks having typed too fast and adding in letters, symbols, or numbers they didn’t mean to.

This needed to be perfect though. It needed to work, to help Uxie be stronger for whatever purpose it needed the strength for. It was time consuming work, but it needed to be done. Measure twice, cut once as the saying went. His large Espeon ears twitched and his tail flicked behind him in agitation as his eyes scanned the code in front of him. Blue-gray eyes stung and burned and he blinked rapidly, knocked out of the intense focus he’d had just moments before. Right. Blinking. He had to blink. 

He wiped at his eyes and glanced over at the legendary that floated nearby. The old stories of what it looked like didn’t do the Pokemon justice, or was the difference in appearance thanks to it being fused with some other kind of DNA? It almost had ghostly aspects to it, or psychic - at least, more psychic than normal at any rate. Something niggled at the back of his head, something familiar with the parts that didn’t fit Uxie’s usual look. 

A question mark seemed to float into his mind’s eye, and Phoenix realized he’d been staring, fixated for a little too long on the one working through him to get the coding done. He glanced away at the far wall, counting in his head, and at the count of twenty, he shifted his gaze to something a little closer. Another twenty second count, and he shifted his gaze to about five feet in front of him, counted again, and then repeated at the one foot mark and then at the tip of his nose as best as he was able. He then rolled his head slowly around in a circle one way, then the other way, feeling the tension ease in his neck and his shoulders. Phoenix paused, then rolled his shoulders as well, wincing as they protested. He’d not been sitting at his desk properly, apparently, and all he could imagine was a Clauncher sitting in his chair, imitating how he’d probably been sitting for the past however long it had been.

“Gotta stretch or I’ll get a headache.” He finally answered the legendary, who, despite seeming to be meditating, also seemed curious about what he was doing. He wasn’t sure how he could tell, but he could just… feel it, really. He pushed back from his chair and stood, stretching himself out as tall as he could manage, even onto his tip toes before settling back down on the ground. His tail acted like a counterbalance, mercifully, or the wave of vertigo that hit him might have sent him to the floor as blood rushed around from where it’d been pooled to the rest of his body. He really needed to request a different chair, though him bending in half like a Clauncher probably hadn’t helped matters at all. He grabbed his water bottle off the desk surface next to the computer and flicked the lid open, chugging down the water greedily. A hint of Rawst berries met his tongue and he sighed at the refreshing drink. “OK, back to work, eh?”

He grinned reassuringly at Uxie before flopping down into the chair and sliding across the floor back in front of the computer. He kept his attention on the Psychic-type Pokemon, the gears in his head turning. What exactly was Uxie trying to do? What was the point of this machine? He’d probably not get an answer anytime soon, but he felt compelled to help, beyond the influence of the Pokemon even. The code wasn’t going to write itself at any rate, and he definitely didn’t trust the other coders to get it right. Not with this many errors in the code!