Pokemon - From the Brink

Chapter 39 - In the Pursuit of Knowledge

"Think..." Midorima wracked his brain as the roaring wind caused his green hair to fly across his glasses. Caleb had incapacitated Buzzwole, but Guzzlord was still out there. Any attempt to get in close would be futile, and long-ranged attacks would likely get swallowed whole by the Ultra Beast. All the obvious avenues of attack were closed off, and it would take a breakthrough to find the way to win here.

"We can't just sit here..." Paolo groaned, leaning round the corner to get a look at the beast. Caleb and Terrakion were standing their ground, acting as partial wind-breakers. "We have to do something!" The Italian began to rise.

"No!" Midorima's arms shot out and he grabbed Paolo's sleeves, holding him in place.

"Midorima...?"

"Please, wait..." The Korean's green eyes were desperately looking around. "I'll think of something. Don't put yourself in danger."

"...Are you sure?"

"...Please, trust me." The lanky boy adjusted his glasses. "I just need a moment to think..."

"All right..." Paolo looked over to Kiria, who nodded her approval. Nobody else had any better ideas.

"Midorima's really smart." Yu chimed, hiding behind the others. "He'll think of something...!"

"Hah..." He looked down and pushed his glasses up, the lenses fogging over and hiding his eyes.

"Such blind faith... Is it warranted? No – I have to prove that it is. If we don't stop Guzzlord here, it could consume this whole headquarters and everyone living in it. Our only choice is to end this here! There must be a way! There's always a way...!"

*

Midorima Shintaro had always been an extraordinarily bright young man. On the outside, many might have pegged him for the stereotypical 'nerd', with his thin physique and bespectacled face. In truth, the tall boy had many talents that often left his potential bullies in awe.

Though his head was often buried in a book from an early age, Midorima's strengths came from the sheer variety of the things he studied. Everything from simple sciences to common competitive sports and Michelin star-level cooking – the boy's scope for knowledge was limitless.

Before he was even 10 years old, he knew the ins and outs of public speaking so well that he often had adult audiences stunned with his extensive vocabulary and mastery over persuasion. He was so bright that he was pushed three whole years forward in his school because the curriculum simply wasn't challenging his brain like the other kids. Even amongst teenagers he still managed to pull of incredible feats, regularly beating every single one of his classmates is tests and exams, no matter the subject matter.

As a consequence, not a lot of people really wanted to be friends with the little genius, presuming that he would only talk down to them for being less intelligent. But, once again, perceptions were far off – though he was clearly talented, Midorima never took his intelligence and wielded it as a tool to put others down. He didn't study to show that he was better than others, and he didn't do it to feed his ego either. He studied because he enjoyed it – so much so that every new opportunity excited him more. A chance to learn something new was the single most appealing thing in his life no matter how old he got. He found knowledge fascinating, to the point that his only real fear as he grew up was that he would one day die without having learnt as much as he possibly could about the world he lived in.

Needless to say, Midorima's impressive capacity for information got him far in many fields. Many of these fields were hardly ever linked at all either, showing just how diverse his skill set really was.