Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a regular day at the lab. Lucas had brought him all the items he had asked for and now the boy was playing with his pokemon while Rowan’s pokemon, the final stages of each starter, watched over him.

The professor wanted to dig into a specific type of evolution, the one that occurs when a pokemon is holding a specific item, so now he was looking at a razor claw, a razor fang and an oval stone, along with the info he had on the pokemon they helped evolve.

He could call Cheryl, she would probably be happy to help, with her love of the chansey line. The oval stone also interested him because happiny had to go up a level during the daytime for it to make an effect. The razor claw had a similar trait, but with the night instead, the problem was that he didn’t really have anyone who he knew could help. Ok, he could just make Lucas do the work, but he had already gone through the pain of finding the items, so he prefered to let the kid rest.

He could try to contact Candice for that, since she had plenty of sneasels in the gym, maybe Bertha for the razor fang?

Just as he was beginning to write an email to Candice, he heard a knock on the door. He was about to stand up and go open it, but Lucas looked to be doing just that.

Rowan turned back to look at the items, while his assistant welcomed whoever had knocked.

“Ermh… Good morning, this is Professor Rowan’s laboratory, right?” It was a femenine voice and she sounded nervous, almost as if that phrase had been planned.

“Yeah, I’m Lucas, his assistant, if you want to talk to him he’s inside right now, but he’s kinda busy so…”

“Can I help him with anything?” That awoke Rowan’s attention and he stopped writing the email. Did that girl want to work in the lab?

He stood up from his chair and went to the door. There, he saw the girl clearly. She was a new face, but it seemed oddly familiar. She had short and messy pink hair, which kind of reminded him of Byron, but her hair was way brighter and he knew that the man used to have brownish red hair and that he was just losing the colour. Her eyes were brown, a typical enough colour. She was taller than Lucas, maybe because he was just a teenager, or maybe not. She was also thin and light skinned. If he had to guess an age, he would say young adult, a pretty regular one to Sinnohan standards, too.

She was wearing a black dress with yellow details that reminded him of some western magazines he had seen in his youth with Galarian or Unovan girls wearing clothes inspired by space and the future. She also had white boots that also reminded him of his youth.

He could see that she hadn five pokeballs on her and one looked to have seals.

“Good morning miss, I was just researching something, but I’m up to talk right now, and yes, you could help me with it. Your name?” He tried to soothe his voice, he had been told he was intimidating wat too many times by now. It seemed to have an effect, as the girl didn’t look scared, but she was still nervous.

“I’m Bismuth, no nicknames, please. I will gladly help, if I can, of course!” she forced a happier tone.

“Let’s see if you can spare this boy some work!” he joked, again to seem less intimidating, even if he wasn’t even planning to give Lucas the task in the first place. “Come over here, this table.”

All three of them walked over to where the items were. Lucas remembered that he was the one to get them and gave a proud smile, while Bismuth observed the three objects carefully. Suddenly, Rowan saw how her face lit up.

“C-can I grab this?” She pointed at the razor claw.

“Yes, do you have a sneasel?” the professor asked.

As a response, she grabbed one of her pokeballs, more specifically, a great ball with the hand that didn’t have the claw and let out a strong looking sneasel.

“Her name is Luna.” The sneasel looked curiously at the professor and his assistant.

“Luna means moon, right? Are you interested in astronomy?” Lucas asked excitedly.

“Slightly. Most of my pokemon are named after satellites. There’s Deimos, Phobos, Titan and of course, Luna.”

“You can actually be of great help!” Rowan continued with the softer tone, but he dropped it immediatly after. “You can have this razor claw for Luna, as long as you record and document her evolution. Remember, she had to hold the item and she needs to get stronger during the night. Your phone camera and the notes app will do, just send me everything by email after.” Bismuth reacted to his harsher tone, but not heavily, which relieved Rowan, who for his part was more worried that he hadn’t misgendered the sneasel. Shorter “feather” meant female, right?

“I’ll gladly do that!” Her happy tone sounded way less forced now. “And you, are you excited to evolve?”

Luna let out a cry that sounded happy enough.

While she was giving the razor claw to her pokemon, Rowan used the silence to ask what he had wanted to ask from the start.

“Why have you come here? Do you want to be my assistant?”

Bismuth responded once Luna had her razor claw.

“Well, I’m actually doing research about the Distortion World and subsequently, Giratina. I heard they’re a ghost/dragon type, so I was wondering, is there any other pokemon with that typing?”

The professor stopped to think for a moment. The fact that she was researching the distortion world was definitely interesting , even suspicious , but there was nothing inherently wrong with it. Maybe he could hook her up with Dawn or Cynthia, but she had asked a question and he had to answer. A dual ghost and dragon type… The only ones he could think of were the dragapult line.

“Yes, three pokemon, all part of the same evolutionary line, though.”

“Perfect! Do you know where I can get one?”

Rowan was almost sad to answer that. “Not in Sinnoh, I’ll tell you that, though…”

“Though what?” She had lost her hopes for a moment, but now they were up again.

“I will try to get you one, but I don’t promise anything, for now, centre on evolving this sweety.” Luna looked annoyed at being called a “sweety”, she would probably have prefered a “tougher” compliment.

“Ok! I’ll stay in a hotel in Jubilife for now. Your mail?”

Rowan wrote his address down on a piece of paper and after giving it to Bismuth, they said their goodbyes.

He had many thoughts about that girl. How did she know about the Distortion World? Why was she interested in it? Actually, thinking it better, her interest was completely justified, if what he had heard about the dimension was true. He also was low key amazed at how she just happened to have a sneasel right when he needed it, but well, just lucky coincidence, he had lived plenty of those during his six decades. He did wonder if that familiarity he felt and the whole hair thing could mean something. Could she be related to Byron? Who knew, but why should he care, anyway?

Lucas snapped him out of his thoughts.

“How exactly are you planning to give her a dreepy, much less any of its evolutions? Please don’t make Dawn do anything weird.”

Rowan found the fact that he didn’t bother to mention Barry slightly amusing, but it didn’t matter, he had a plan.

He went over to his computer, while Lucas watched what he did. He scraped the mail he was previously writing and started another, now to Professor Magnolia. He wasn’t particularly close with her, but a pokemon professor is a pokemon professor and he got along with most of them.

“To: Professor Magnolia Heartby

Subject: Dreepy, drakloak and dragapult

Greetings, Magnolia.

I am aware that this is a strange request, but you are the best option at my avial.

An acquaintance of mine is doing research about the Distortion World. In case you have not heard of this strange dimension, it is where the legendary pokemon Giratina, the missing piece of the creation trio, got deserted because of their violence by Arceus themselves. As the name might suggest, the Distortion World is a place where the laws of time and space do not exist. As for Giratina, they are a dual ghost-dragon type, this is where my request comes in hand.

My acquaintance, a young woman going by the name Bismuth, desires a member of the dragapult evolutionary line. I believe that is to get familiar with the typing, since she is researching about Giratina too, not just their world.

I am aware that you have close contact with the champion of your region and that he has a dragapult in his team, so I was wondering if you could convince him to breed his pokemon to get a dreepy egg. If he refuses, it does not matter, but I would greatly appreciate having the pokemon, as I also want to confirm something about pseudo legendaries and their late evolutions.

I’m awaiting your response,

Professor Rowan Kamado.”

“Damn, you know everyone,” was the only thing Lucas said about the mail.

“Us professors keep in contact, is that really a surprise?”

Both of them continued about their day. Lucas eventually went to the Battle Zone to train his team, while Rowan continued with the item thing. He ended up contacting Bertha for the fang and Cheryl for the egg. Bertha said she would need some days, but Cheryl showed up the same afternoon, with a happiny and an oval stone of her own. He was right to trust her with this, but he never doubted that, it was Cheryl, for Arceus sake!

The happiny was low level, so they went to route two soon enough. Cheryl first made the happiny go up a level without the item and then with the item, while Lucas recorded everything and Rowan started documenting the thing.

Cheryl handed the now Chansey to Rowan for further research before returning to Floaroma.

The next morning, Rowan saw that he had received an email from a non-familiar address. Upon checking it better, it was Bismuth who sent it and that she did so at midnight.

“ From: Bismuth

Subject: Razor Claw

Good night or good morning, professor.

I had some previous knowledge about how this evolution worked, so it was not much trouble. I spend the afternoon training with Luna (the sneasel in case you don’t remember her), item equipped at all times. It was only when it was already getting dark that she evolved into weavile. I guess I don’t need to tell you much about the species though.

Other than the method, it was a regular evolution, y’know, glowing and puff! Congratulations now it’s stronger.

Here’s the video.

Hope it helped,

Bismuth

[sneasel to weavile.mp4]"

The video showed Luna training on route 218. The sky was already getting dark. Around the middle of the video, the sneasel evolved into weavile and Bismuth was clearly excited.

There was only one to go now, so it was waiting for Bertha now.

The woman showed up some days later as she had said and they followed a similar process as with Cheryl’s happiny. Later that day, he also received a response from Magnolia. She said that a dreepy egg was getting safely transported to Sinnoh, so two days later, Rowan met up with Bismuth in Jubilife City’s airport.

He expected Sonia to come out of the plane with the egg, being Magnolia’s granddaughter, what he didn’t expect was the fucking champion to be with her.

At least they went by plane and not by charizard.

“Leon don't get away from me, do not even think of getting away from me.” Rowan heard Sonia talk to her friend in the distance, while they walked over to them. Needless to say they were speaking Galarian, not Kantonian.

“I’m not that bad, shees…”

“You are fully capable of getting lost in Postwick, POSTWICK!”

“Ehem,” Rowan interrupted them once they were actually close to them.

He had never seen Sonia, but she looked exactly like he expected, just a regular girl who just happens to have a Pokemon Professor as her grandma. Leon, on the other hand, always showed up on TV, but looking at him now, in person and up close, he was way younger than what Rowan had imagined and because of screen magic, he also looked different in general too. Well, except his clothes, because for some ungodly reason he was wearing that terrible football uniform/royal cape look.

“Oh, good morning, prof!” Sonia saluted him with energy.

“Oh, yeah, hello,” Leon followed, probably intimidated by Rowan. He wished he could avoid that.

“Glad to meet you two, truly an honour, and I’m greatly pleased to see my request was met,” Rowan responded in the same softer voice he had put on for Bismuth some days earlier.

“Oh, yeah, you can have it!” Sonia handed him over the egg and Rowan immediately passed it over to Bismuth. “I’m guessing you must be that girl researching the Distortion World. And that boy, is he your assistant?”

“Yes, he is, and a fantastic one, at that.”

The boy in question looked like he was about to melt at Leon’s sight, while Bismuth was just excited about the egg.

“With the long trip and all, the egg must be close to hatching,” Leon explained, making Lucas even more nervous.

“Thanks, thanks, thanks!” Bismuth yelled out, unbothered by who she was talking to. “You cannot imagine how much this will help my research, seriously, thank you!”

“I mean it was no problem, really,” Leon replied.

“And we can stay here for some days, too, like a little vacation!” Sonia added.

Upon hearing that, Rowan started recommending good places to go and he also used the opportunity to talk about some scientific stuff with Sonia, ignoring how Lucas looked like he was a second away from fainting due to nervousness.

Leon got closer to Bismuth and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Do you name your pokemon?”

“Yeah, of course!” She let her Weavile and Toxicroak out. “This one is Luna and the other is Titan. I won’t call out the others right now, but they’re also named after satellites.”

“Cool!” He let out his Charizard. “This bad boy is Ash.” Ash smiled at Luna and Titan. “So what are you planning on naming the dreepy?”

“If they come out female, I’ll name her Venus and if they come out male, I’ll name them Mercury.”

“Ooh, nice, hey, do you mind if we exchange numbers? I have a friend who loves dragons and would absolutely love to see the baby.”

“How could I say no?”

And with that, they added each other as contacts.

It was after that that Rowan noticed how Lucas was feeling. He had to resist the urge to say “teenagers” when he remembered that Leon and Sonia were probably teens too. Or maybe it was just his age making everyone else look like children. It didn’t matter, but he did know that Lucas had stupid teenage crushes on like half the male champions, even if he never admited it.

Just after that, Lucas remembered that he could also get Bismuth’s number, so he swallowed his nervousness and went over to her. Rowan wasn’t planning to ask if he got the champion’s number too, but he was indeed curious. At least having consistent contact with Bismuth was useful, because now they could know when the egg hatched.

Shortly after, they returned to the laboratory in Sandgem.

“You can also help me with another thing with the dreepy,” Rowan explained to Bismuth once they were there.

“Nice, what is that?”

“Well, dreepy evolves into drakloak and then into dragapult. Dragapult is what is called a “pseudo legendary”, like garchomp that we have here. Those kinds of pokemon share three characteristics, the first one being that they have equal power, just shown differently. According to the battling community, they share total base stats of 600, but that’s not what I care about. The other two factors are that they have three stages of evolution and that they reached the last one late, that is what interests me. I already know this holds true for garchomp, dragonite, salamence and metagross. I want to check them all and of course, that includes dragapult, so how about you inform me about its evolution?”

“Easy enough to do. I just tell you when it happens or do I have to record too?”

“Just tell me, I’ve already seen pokemon evolve.”

“I’m just gonna tell you,” Lucas joined in,” the earliest level out of the ones the prof mentioned is 45, then 48. I remember Dawn frantically training in route 222 so she could have a garchomp for volkner and the rest of the team up to date.”

Bismuth looked slightly worried at his comment, but also flinched at the mention of Dawn. Rowan decided to test something with that.

“Speaking of Dawn! Both her and Cynthia have been to the distortion world, I could put them in contact with you, if you want.”

“Dawn and Cynthia!? Arceus no, I would probably faint upon seeing them! Like please, the champions?”

“But you were really chill with Leon,” Lucas said calmly.

“Leon is different because he’s from another region, Dawn and Cynthia are from here!”

“Ok, if you don’t want to, we won’t do it, but I feel like first person experience could be useful to your work,” Rowan said.

“Ok, ok! Ask them yourselves, but I don’t want to meet them!”

That reluctance to meet the champions was suspicious to say the least.

Rowan wasn’t going to ask either of them, he didn’t even need to, because he had already done it months ago, but he was not going to say anything to Bismuth.

He had thought of giving her a pokedex, but could he really trust her with that?

He had an idea.

·····

“Isn't that illegal?” Lucas asked agitatedly.

Professor Rowan had called him late at night saying he had an idea. Turns out that that idea was extremely out of character from the serious academic and as he had said, probably illegal.

“I don’t trust that girl. Not one single bit. And I know this is uncharacteristic of me, but I’m going to tell you something I think you should have known sooner.

»Cyrus has a pokedex, yes, the Cyrus you’re thinking about. And I gave it to them. They were just a teenager and I have no idea if they already had plans to destroy the universe, but I still feel guilty about that.”

“But Bismuth helped with sneasels evolution.”

“Cyrus also helped a lot to know more about rotom, because they had one. They also have, or had I don’t even know, a weavile too. Not to mention that the evolution benefited her, do you understand why I’m doing this now?”

“Putting a tracking device on a pokedex?”

“I’m sorry, Lucas. I’m really sorry and I have to admit this is highly emotionally driven, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

That was a different Rowan from the one he had known before. Maybe he took that from his family name, Kamado, as he had read about the commander and ancestor to Rowan who was recorded to do things based more on emotions than logic.

Still, he couldn’t avoid feeling like the professor was doing the right thing. The way Bismuth talked, it just seemed so… forced and planned. Who knew if Bismuth was her real name and they didn’t even know what her reasons for investigating the Distortion World were. How did she even know it existed!? What happened at Mt. Coronet was classified information and a regular person was supposed to think that the place and Giratina are just a myth. The average person shouldn’t know Giratina’s typing, for Arceus's sake. Also, why was she so reluctant to meeting the champions?

The professor was right to be suspicious, even if the whole tracking device thing didn’t convince him.

The pokedex was handed out the next morning. The egg had hatched overnight and they found Bismuth in the Jubilife pokemon centre along with Leon having a video call with his friends, showing him the dreepy. Lucas had to admit that he was slightly jealous.

“Isn’t she cute? I decided to name her Venus, the planet, but also the symbol of beauty.”

//She’s cute, but you should see baby goomys, they’re the cutest thing in the world.//

They decided to wait until the call was over to give her the pokedex.

“Bismuth, take this, do you know what it is?”

“A pokedex. That is a pokedex. Seriously? Thanks, thanks, thanks!” She quickly took the device.

“I’m guessing you already know what it does.”

“Records a pokemon’s data, right?”

Lucas tried listening to what they were saying, but honestly, Leon was a little too distracting. The champion, for his part, was just excited to see someone being given a pokedex.

What he did catch though, is that Bismuth was planning on taking on the gym challenge, which was strange, considering that the two team members they had seen of her team (not counting the baby) looked powerful and well trained, plus also having items, something rare for someone without medals. Luna having a razor claw, understandable, it was Titan’s black belt that surprised him and if she was telling the truth and she was heading for Oreburgh first, then she was going to destroy the gym.

At least they could tell whether she was telling the truth or not. Maybe the tracking device was not such a bad idea.

Chapter Text

Many trainers, especially young ones, chose his gym as the first to challenge. It made sense, since Oreburgh was the closest place with a gym to Jubilife City, well, technically it was Canavale, but you either needed the HM surf to cross the lake, so you have to defeat Crasher Wake before going, or you had to be a good enough trainer that your pokemon didn’t need to know the move to cross water, in which case it probably wouldn’t be your first badge. So Oreburgh gym it was. There were other reasons, of course, like the Coal Badge going first in the badge case or a lot of trainers having something good against rock, like plant or water types (damned be the starters).

That whole ordeal made him get a lot of matches, unlike Candice because very few people wanted to make the trip to Snowpoint or his dad because of his powerful steel types and the aforementioned lake. And then there was Volkner, who until recently couldn’t even battle trainers with less than 6 badges because the League had literally banned it since he was very likely to insult the trainer if they lost, which always happened.

Worst part of the story, he also had college to attend and a mine to supervise, but he managed to get through.

He just happened to be in the mine, with a backpack that not only carried mining materials, but also plenty of occupied pokeballs and archaeology homework, when he met her. That girl of about his age that looked extremely out of place in a place like that even if her dress could serve as a safety vest with those yellow parts.

Her clothes weren’t what catched his attention thought, rather the fact that one, she had the same haircut as his dad and two, she had a pokemon that definitely wasn’t from Sinnoh and he didn’t recognize with her. Oh, and she wasn’t wearing any safety gear, unless her dress really counted as a safety vest.

“Hello there, I’m the mine’s foreman and also the local gym leader-”

“Let me guess, you’re going to tell me to get a helmet.” While her voice was bitter, she didn’t look disgruntled by the idea of doing just that. Interrupting him was just rude, though.

“Yes, but I was more interested in this little fella over here.” Roark knelt down to where the mysterious pokemon was gently floating and bobbed what he assumed was its nose with one finger.

“Isn’t she cute?” the girl exclaimed, now with a sweet voice. “She’s a dreepy, from Galar. She just hatched from an egg, but I do want to train her a little bit. I can do that, right?”

The way she said that sounded like the acting of a teenage girl, but he agreed regardless. Why would he refuse one single trainer from using the mine?

“You didn’t even need to ask. Just wear a helmet, please. I do want to know more about this baby, if it’s not a problem.”

“I’ll gladly explain!” Roark couldn’t exactly tell why , but that enthusiasm seemed fake. “Dreepy is a dragon-ghost type and I actually got her to do research, but I also want to take on the gym challenge and part of the research involves evolving her, so y’know.”

“Uuh, nice. Does she have a nickname, by the way?”

“Of course, I name all of my pokemon. Hers is Venus.”

Roark froze for a moment, before remembering that she wasn’t talking about him, she was talking about the dreepy. Venus the dreepy, not him.

“Are you ok…?” She asked, slightly worried.

“Deadname. Don’t worry though, you had no way of knowing…”

“Oh, that’s unfortunate, I won’t call her by her nickname, if you want.”

“It’s seriously no trouble! Are you interested in astronomy, by the way?”

“You have no idea of how many times I’ve been asked that, but yes, a little,” she sounded slightly annoyed, but nothing too serious. “Venus is the only one named after a planet, the others are satellites. There’s Titan, Deimos, Luna and Phobos.”

“And what about the other?” Venus and the other accounted for five pokemon, but she clearly had six pokeballs on her.

“Oh, that one’s…” She stopped to think for a moment. “Ziggy. She’s Ziggy. A shy one, so I don’t tend to show her to other people. She also breaks the pattern, that’s why I didn’t mention her.”

“Would you mind telling me what species they are?”

“Handing information to the enemy? No way.” There was a hint of excitement in her voice.

“Hu hu hu… Planning on taking on the gym? Say no more! I’ll be waiting.”

The girl gave him a challenging smile before he ran off to the gym, instructed the trainers there to be on their positions and waited, using the time to think of a strategy based on what little he knew.

Considering the nicknames of her pokemon (one planet, four satellites and a reference to a character said to come from space), he assumed she must have pokemon like clebable, starmie, solrock, lunatone (maybe Luna was that one?), minior or any of their preevolutions. And of course, who could forget about elgyem and beheeyem, which were famous for supposedly coming from space and thus were used in a lot of movies.

Out of that list, starmie or staryu (depending on badge number) worried him the most. Fast water types were one of his worst enemies.

Of course, there was always the possibility that she didn’t have that type of team, rather regular pokemon undoubtedly from Earth. He could also theorise with that. He probably didn’t need to worry about Ziggy, since it was unlikely that she would be sent out, so he was left with the others. Problem, he didn’t know shit about astronomy, but he could try. There was Venus the dreepy, of course, so that one was cleared. Then Titan sounded like either a rock type or a fighting type. He hoped it was the former. Phobos could be ghost or dark, hopefully a drifblim or murkrow? Hopefully. Luna must have some relation to the moon or at least the night, so back to the previous list, or actually, it could be any nocturnal pokemon. Deimos, he had no idea, but he felt it fitted well a psychic type.

He just hoped for the best.

Some minutes after Roark himself reached the gym, the girl arrived, and he stared in horror as her toxicroak swept the trainers there, with some intervention from dreepy so she could also train, which was completely reasonable.

A quick trip to the pokemon centre and she was ready to fight him.

“We follow regular league rules, but I guess you’re already familiar with those, this can’t be your first badge, am I right?”

“Yup, I already have one.”

“Show me your badge case. I trust you on that, but protocol.”

She pulled said case out of her bag and opened it for Roark to see. She did have one badge and of course, it was the Mine Badge. That girl had defeated his father at some point, but long ago enough that the badge had gotten dusty already.

“Curious, that one tends to be one of the last ones trainers get. Do you happen to be from Canalave?”

“Nope, I’m from Veilstone.” Unlike with Ziggy’s name, she responded immediately and lowkey impulsively. It was certainly weird, why would her only badge be the Mine Badge and not the Cobble Badge, if she was telling the truth? And also, why was her toxicroak so powerful? How did she have a toxicroak already with one single badge? 

“I would like to ask though,” she continued, “that you used a team for the eighth badge, not the second.”

“I… can see why.” He paused for a moment. “Anyway, let’s start! Let me show you the power of rock types!”

That girl had beaten his father, so if he could beat her instead, it would be clear proof that he was stronger. The thing is, he probably was going to lose too, and in a bad way, because that toxicroak had a black belt and she had made her request for a reason.

“Let’s go, Titan!”

So Titan was the toxicroak. And also the one who almost beat him alone brick break after brick break, only being defeated by a good placed earthquake.

“Of course your pokemon knows that,” she said once Titan fell.

“All of them, from my three strongest gym teams. I got my guard high since Dawn and Barry, y’know.” He didn’t doubt that she would recognize the names, since the kids had become extremely famous for their power and feats, which for Dawn include becoming the champion. He did not expect her to shiver at the mention of the two young trainers. Could she have encountered them? He had heard that they liked to do double battles where Dawn would order her garchomp to use earthquake while Barry’s staraptor chilled not being affected by the move and dealt with those who outstood the rage of the dragon. It wasn’t that weird really, that she would fear them if she had faced them, even individually, so he didn’t mind.

“It doesn’t matter. Luna, finish him off!”

Luna, as it turned out, was a weavile, so he was right about her being a nocturnal pokemon. For a second, he thought he had a good chance, but weaviles were known for their speed and hers was no exception. Razor claw along with night slash, so critic after critic (and the occasional brick break), she did indeed finish him off.

He would usually warn challengers with less than three badges about the other gym leaders, but did she really need that warning? He guessed not, and it was not like she was the first trainer to become powerful before taking on the gym challenge.

“Ok, that was slightly embarrassing, but I have to admit you were good. You can have this.” He turned to his back for a second, grabbed a Coal Badge and handed it to her. She limited herself to put it in her badge case. “This badge allows you t-”

“Oh, please, give me none of that, I don’t need HMs.” Oh, so she was one of those trainers. Well, it didn’t matter.

“At least take this.” He turned to his back again, but for the TM for stealth rock this time. She gladly accepted the reward.

“I already know what it does. Anyway, I’ll get going.”

“Wait! I need to show you something.” After catching her attention, he reached for his phone and showed her a picture of Mars, the one that the InterPol had provided. “If you see her, notify either a gym leader or a member of the International Police, remember, not the regular police, the international one.”

“Ok, but why?” she was slightly forcing her voice. He didn’t figure out the reason.

“She was greatly involved in the Team Galactic incident, being one of their commanders. Her name is Mars”

“Wait, but weren’t there like four of them?”

Roark was surprised that she knew about the fourth one, but he shrugged it off. “Charon already got arrested, Jupiter is under our watch and Saturn is working to mend the problems Team Galactic caused and he’s also planning on transforming the team into an actual energy supplier, so Mars is the only one left.”

“I’ll do just that. Now I can get going.”

Roark might not be good at reading tones and all, but he did feel like he was talking to a different person every time that girl spoke.

·····

It was late in the evening when he finally returned home. He just wanted to have a quick dinner and go to bed immediately after, like every day. He should have to fix that sometime, but not today.

He was about to reach for the fridge when his routine got distorted by nothing else than a call from Professor Rowan himself.

He fell into one of the nearby chairs and then picked up the phone.

//Good evening, Roark. I know this is sudden, and it won’t make much sense to you, so I’m sorry in advance. Has a trainer called Bismuth fought against you today?//

“I don’t know. Maybe? Describe them, please.” He was a little bit confused, but he wasn’t about to shut down a respected Pokemon Professor.

//Young woman, short pink hair. Should have a dreepy, a weavile and four other pokemon.//

“Ah, yes, and she won. Is she working for you or something?” He couldn’t believe he forgot to ask for her name. At least, if he thought about it, her working for Professor Rowan made sense, considering she had mentioned the evolution of her dreepy as part of her research. He did wonder what was the rest of it.

//No, she’s just helping. Now another question, and please don’t think anything weird. Do you know what she did in Oreburgh?//

How was he expecting to not think anything weird? But well, Bismuth hadn’t done anything that she would want to hide, at least he thought. “As far as I’m aware, she only trained in the coal mine, went to the Pokemon Centre and challenged the gym.”

// It worked! // That wasn’t the professor's voice, and it was coming from the background, but he was curious regardless.

“What worked?”

//Oh, uh… My assistant Lucas was just trying to jailbreak his poketch using his kadabra, nothing else. Well, I’ll leave you alone, goodnight.//

Yeah sure. “‘Night.” With that, he hung up, but that conversation did leave him wanting to do something, so he phoned his father.

//Oh, if it isn’t my partner in crime! Do you need a bedtime story?//

“What? No, no! I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Wha, ha, ha, shoot.”

“Has a trainer called Bismuth fought against you in the gym? She had your badge and used a toxicroak and a weavile. Oh, and she had your haircut but bright pink and was wearing a dress, in case you needed that.”

//Ay Roarkie, my memory can’t do such wonders. A lot of trainers come with toxicroaks and the occasional croagunk, so that doesn’t help. I do remember well one kid with a sneasel, but they used mostly a houndoom for the battle. Of course, they clearly weren’t a girl and that was years ago, do you want to know why I remember that?//

“I don’t know what it has to do with the topic, but ok.”

//Right before their battle I had lost against a very powerful gabite, I even remember her name, Celeste. Then that kid came, and they were Celeste’s trainer’s rival. I also remember that the houndoom was Venus and the sneasel was Neptune. And can you guess who those kids were?//

“Celeste is Cynthia’s garchomp, right?”

//Yup! That’s my boy. The other I doubt you recognize the names, because that trainer was Cyrus.//

Chapter Text

Cyrus had disappeared, well, that’s what most people knew. In reality, they had entered the Distortion World and was probably still there. Mars and Jupiter had told him that, but never to Charon, at least to his knowledge. After that incident, they had a lot of problems to solve.

First of all: Their leader was gone. For that, Charon decided to take matters into his own hands and self proclaimed himself the new leader, without even consulting the other commanders, and what a nerve he had, considering he was the newest and weakest of them all. And what if he was the oldest? That didn't give him the right to insult or speak over his literal superiors.

Saturn himself didn’t care much, he could always ignore the old man and in case of emergency, order his toxicroak to attack. Mars and Jupiter were different though.

Some weeks after his self-given raise, he made a plan to go to Stark Mountain and awake Heatran, making Mars and Jupiter go with him. Saturn didn’t know what happened there, but the two strongest commanders ended up quitting Team Galactic and after that, Charon got arrested by the InterPol. The two girls went missing after that.

Jupiter was found by her sister Fantina and now was working as a tailor with the gym leaders keeping a watch on her. They still maintained contact, but never in person, as she didn’t want anything to do with Team Galactic. At the very least, he knew that she had gotten all eight badges, a full team and that she was doing fine with Fantina and her clothing shop, and Saturn had to admit he was happy for her, even if they were never particularly close. Mars, on the other hand, was still missing.

He had been informed to either notify a gym leader or an InterPol agent in case he saw her. He in no way was going to snitch her to the cops, but he knew exactly what gym leader he was going to inform; Byron. Because while Mars had never said any names, he was damn sure that Byron was her father. Of course, the thing was actually not only seeing, but recognizing her in the first place.

And what about him? Well, there comes another problem they had, that being what to do with Team Galactic now.

After Charon’s arrest and with the other two commanders not being possibilities, he was left with the role of being the “boss”. The boss of the very few members that remained, but still, Team Galactic was under his control. And what did he do? Fix things, to tell the short story.

After spending some time thinking and debating with the only two grunts he actually trusted, he decided that they didn’t need to create a new world, they just needed to fix the current one.

First, they healed the wounds they caused. Returned stolen pokemon and objects, paid for property damage, recompensed commoners that got roped into the whole issue, all of that. Then, they actually did what they pretended they were doing, basically, they provided energy to the region. With charity events, they helped fund research and the production of renewable energy and they also started providing sources of energy by themselves, with solar panels, of course, because they were Team Galactic .

All that stuff also benefited him personally, because he was no longer considered a threat and the InterPol didn’t want him. They also could protect the grunts.

Speaking of the grunts, the two he actually trusted got promoted to commanders and now went by the names of Mercury and Neptune, by their own choice. Saturn never asked for their real names, and yes, while Cyrus, Mars and Charon were all their real names, Saturn and Jupiter were not.

All of that energy thing was the most accessible piece they had to his plan to fix the world. They made sure all of the region had energy. No more shortages or big scale blackouts or things like that (small scale yes because Volkner couldn’t be contained). That alone, was a big step to make things better, and until they get a good money source, the thing they centred on.

So now some grunts were helping out at the Valley Windworks with his supervision. That day, they were mostly maintaining the windmills.

Often, when they did those kinds of public things, they got people who still recognized them as “Team Galactic the guys who tried to destroy the world”, perhaps unaware of the changes the organisation had experienced. Today it was no different, as he saw a young woman staring at them half confused and half distressed.

“Eh… What the hell are you guys doing here?” she asked once she noticed him.

Saturn had to put a customer service smile and answer that question as formally as possible, without sounding weird. “We’re just helping out with the maintenance. I know we have harmed this place in the past and so we might appear suspicious, but our purpose has changed a lot since that accident. Now we aim to both generate and supply energy to the region, as well as helping others do the same.” The woman seemed surprised, but satisfied by his answer. “My name is Nenu, but please call me Saturn.” He prefered to leave out the fact that he was obligated to give out his name. He genuinely wanted to be called Saturn, but at the end of the day, it was just a code name. He was planning on changing that, and maybe even change his legal name, if the league and InterPol allowed him to.

“Well, Saturn, and what exactly is your role in this? You’re not doing shit .” He was grateful that she used his prefered name, as many people did not. He was not so grateful about that last comment.

“I’m their boss. What, did you genuinely think I was just a regular grunt?” Now that was something he was proud of telling. The leader of Team Galactic… It still felt surreal, and sometimes he felt like an impostor, sitting in what used to be Cyrus’s office, but thinking about it filled him with a sensation of power . He was the leader, he was the boss.

As for the woman, she first looked to be in disbelief, but quickly switched her face to one of indifference.

“Well, I’ll be training around here, if you don’t mind, Mr. Boss.” She really chose to be an asshole, huh. Still, he let her train in the Valley, as it didn’t interfere with any work and of course, obstructing her would feel too much like Cyrus’s or Charon’s Team Galactic, not his.

Her training caught his attention though, even if it pained him to admit it. It wasn’t her methods or anything, but. the pokemon she was training. A small lizard which he assumed to be a dragon type but didn’t really recognize. Another thing that really caught his attention was the pokemon she sent out once the lizard got in trouble: a toxicroak. Needless to say, he had to step in when in the sight of another toxicroak trainer, but deep down, he wondered if she actually knew who he was from the beginning and did that on purpose.

“Good pokemon choice there, miss,” he approached her.

“You talking about the dreepy or the toxicroak?” Ah, so that lizard’s name was dreepy.

“The toxicroak, of course.” And with that, he called his own member of the species. “This is Croak. Don’t judge me for the lack of originality.”

“I’ve seen worse. Mine’s called Titan and the other Venus.”

“Titan, as in the planet Saturn’s biggest natural satellite? I like that.”

“I can see why.”

They both noticed how the toxicroaks quickly turned fond of each other, while also being curious about each other's trainer. The woman also used the time down to heal Venus.

“Speaking of name’s, what’s yours?” With the whole toxicroak thing, that woman seemed way nicer. Maybe it had just been the shock of seeing Team Galactic, so he gave it a shot.

“Bismuth, but I don’t have any codenames, myself.”

They spent some time chatting about strategies, their pokemon and things like that, until Bismuth suggested a fight using only Titan and Croak. Needless to say Saturn accepted.

Neither pokemon could really use their STABs well, so Titan resorted to rock slide. Croak had the problem that her other two moves were also not very effective, so she actually used her STABs. In the end, Titan ended up winning. Saturn’s team hadn’t been battling much lately, so it was to be expected.

“It’s ok, return.” His pokemon retired back to her pokeball. “I’ll go to the pokemon centre soon, but now, do you mind seeing the rest of my team?”

“Absolutely not. Go ahead!” She said that with certain enthusiasm, but Saturn wasn’t sure if it was genuine.

Still, he called out the rest of his team.

“Kadabra is wizard, bronzong is bronce and crobat is Zuzu. I don’t really have a theme with nicknames, other than unoriginality, as I’ve been told way too many times.”

“C’mon, they aren’t that bad!” He couldn’t tell if it was genuine this time either. “Well, you know Venus and Titan, but there’s also Luna, Deimos, Phobos and Ziggy, so a space theme, I’d say. Anyway, I’ve got to get going!” That last part was rushed and she sounded nervous about something. She ran off to route 205.

After that, he made a quick trip to Floaroma’s PokeCentre and then back to his regular day.

He was told to stay at the Veilstone HQ, while Mars and Jupiter accompanied Master Cyrus to Spear Pillar. He was angry that he couldn’t be first in line during the accomplishment of their plans, but he also understood that someone needed to take care of the HQ and the grunts that stayed, while also controlling the situation from there. Well, Saturn thought it was funny, as he had already failed Cyrus with the Lake Spirits, not only letting that brat… No, kid… No, Dawn, free the three pokemon, but also instructing her on how to do so. It had been on a fit of frustration and tiredness, but he still felt somewhat guilty and of course, there was the irony of letting him take care of the HQ.

Then there was that fatidical call.

//Saturn!? Saturn, are you listening?// It was Mars frantically speaking to him. Even through the call, he could read her panic. //Master Cyrus, they- they just-//

//Give me that!// It was Jupiter’s voice, also panicking but trying to hide it. //A shadow creature emerged from a void and attacked Master Cyrus! It was Giratina! They attacked them, and then Cyrus was gone, but there is a weird portal, and, and the kid and Cynthia went through it! We don’t know what to do-//

“Don’t go into that thing, don’t even get near it, it can only mean danger!” He instructed them. “Come back to the HQ. Meet me there.”

He hung up.

He didn’t know how to feel. Cyrus… was gone. They had just been attacked by a pokemon that since then he thought was only a legend and he had disappeared.

He had plenty of reasons to join Team Galactic, but the one that actually got him there was his attraction to Cyrus’s person. He didn’t know how to describe it, it was like curiosity, or admiration, maybe another thing! Either way, he felt attracted to the way they spoke about “the new world”, about their plans, about how they thought the human spirit is flawed. He felt attracted to how they controlled all those minions with their words that most of them didn’t even understand.

Saturn didn’t agree with everything Cyrus thought, in fact, he thought they were a hypocrite, because it was anger what motivated them to do all they did, intelligence that allowed them to do it and will that pushed them to actually do it. Emotion, wisdom and determination, exactly what they hated, what they desired to eliminate, was what made them do the things they did and what allowed them to control others. They were a hypocrite, but Saturn also deeply admired them, though he couldn’t explain why.

Cyrus had been a main and moving factor in his life for so many years and now they were just… gone.

He didn’t know how to feel.

Some hours later, Mars and Jupiter arrived at the HQ, sweaty and on the verge of tears. Once they had relatively calmed down, they explained what happened more clearly.

Now, Saturn wasn’t angry that he couldn’t be there, he was grateful.

Chapter Text

Gardenia had an appointment with Professor Rowan and his assistant (Lucas it was?) that afternoon. She didn’t know why and honestly, she didn’t know if she wanted to. Roark and for some reason Saturn also had to be there. Roark had decided to use the excuse to spend the day with her, while Saturn would probably arrive in the city as late as he could.

“Y’know, there’s a pokemon called cradily. It’s a grass type, that’s why I’m mentioning it.”

They were sitting right by the lake that separated the Eterna Forest from the city. It was a warmer day, so Gardenia decided to put her feet in the water, while Roark prefered not to get wet.

“And what about it?”

“Well, it has decent defences and learns plenty of status moves.” Was he seriously trying to advertise her a grass type pokemon with that? Should she tell him? “In fact, Steven, the former champion from Hoenn, has one in his team.”

“Well, it doesn't sound bad, how can I get one?”

“You have to revi-”

“No, no, I’m not falling for your fossil propaganda!” She splashed some water playfully into his face.

“Ok, that was uncalled for.”

They spend the rest of the morning like that, just chilling by the water.

Roark was the most recent gym leader, yet all of the others already knew him. That was mostly because he was the son of another gym leader, but partly because of how well he had done in the gym challenge, considering he used purely rock-types. Gardenia herself had recently become a gym leader when he was fighting the gyms and she remembered well how she thought that it was going to be an easy win, because c’mon, he was a kid with one medal and a team full of rock types. Then he pulled out a fucking aerodactyl.

Once he actually became a gym leader himself, he had some trouble connecting with the rest. It wasn’t precisely because of immaturity, since he wasn’t even the youngest. With the younger ones it wasn’t precisely better anyway, even with Maylene who was also a recent gym leader, but for some odd reason, Gardenia became his friend quickly.

She didn’t know why, but they connected. They quickly discovered the mutual fondness they had for odd interior decoration, they liked to rant about how underrated their respective types were and they also happened to be both trans, which she noticed helped Roark feel less alone and also served as a bonding point. It also helped that their respective cities were close.

With some time, Roark did end up making other friends between the younger part of the gym leaders, while also gaining respect from the veterans, but their friendship never faded.

That’s mostly why now, Roark was in Eterna several hours before he was supposed to, rambling about some palaeontology thing Gardenia didn’t understand but was willing to listen.

It was around noon when suddenly, he changed topics of conversation.

“Oh, there she comes.”

‘She’, was a woman that had to be around Roark’s age, with bright pink hair and wearing a yellow and black dress. By her side, there was a small dragon pokemon and a crobat.

“Well, I was gonna warn you about her toxicroak, but I see you’ve got a bigger problem.”

“What?” She tended to have problems with the starly line, but a crobat? That was just going overboard.

“Name’s Bismuth and she’s probably come here for the badge. Oh, and I’m guessing that’s why Rowan called us.” He said that in the most casual way possible.

“Oh, nice…”

They both stood up and after Gardenia had dried up and put her boots back on, they went to greet the trainer.

“Hi, Bismuth!” Roark waved his hand at her. “I see Venus hasn’t evolved yet?”

“Dreepy are supposed to evolve late, that’s what I meant by ‘evolving her is part of the research’.” Bismuth responded. “And her?”

“Oh, hello, my name is Gardenia! I’m the local gym leader. Feel free to use the gym as training grounds for this baby, and of course challenge me!” She honestly didn’t know what to expect from that girl, but gyms had that name for a reason and she wasn’t going to reject a challenger.

“Well, I think I’m going to explore the city for a bit and then head to the gym.”

“There’s some very interesting historical monuments, if that catches your eye. For my part, I’m going to the gym already,” Gardenia explained.

“There’s also a space science museum. I’m also going to the gym now with her, ok?” Roark added.

The museum he was talking about was actually the old building Team Galactic had in Eterna, repurposed into a space science institute for well, obvious reasons. Honestly, he wouldn’t even have needed to point it out, that ring spoke by itself.

After that, they did what they said and headed for the Eterna Gym. There, Gardenia prepared everything knowing there was a challenger coming. While she did that, Roark explained everything she needed to know.

“First of all, use your strongest team. For the gym of course, not your regular one!”

“I can imagine why…” She had the image of Bismuth’s crobat in her head. “Go on.”

“Well, you already saw the crobat, but she also has a toxicroak and a weavile, so I’d be wary of those too.”

“Can’t she have a single slow pokemon?”

“I don't know! She only used toxicroak and weavile for me!”

“She used a weavile? Against you? Didn’t she have any better options?” If she didn’t know what to expect before, now it was even worse.

“I don’t know her whole team. I’m guessing she won’t use the dreepy, for level, not because of typing, since it’s a dragon type. She also said she has a very shy pokemon that she probably won’t use too.”

“And that pokemon is…?”

“No idea honestly. Name was Ziggy, though.”

Some minutes later, Roark went to visit the Underground Man, while she finished up some small details from her gym’s puzzle. After a while, Bismuth passed by. For the gym trainers, she tried to use her dreepy and used her other pokemon in case of emergency. She was relatively quick to reach Gardenia.

“Let’s see if you’re as strong as you look!” Talking about looks, now that she was close to her, first of all, Arceus was she pretty, but she also noticed that she had really good makeup on. Well, Gardenia wouldn’t know about that topic, but she wondered what Fantina would think. “Now, Cherrim, use sunny day!”

“Wait, aren’t you going to ask me about badges or anything?”

“Nah, Roark told me everything I need to know.”

She didn’t use her toxicroak for the battle, so she assumed she must have dry skin as her ability. For her roserade specifically, she used her Crobat, which Gardenia learned was called Phobos.

“Ok, you deserve this.” Gardenia gave Bismuth the Forest Badge. “And I don’t know how useful it will be to you, but here’s the TM for grass knot.” She gave her the TM too.

“Thank you,” she made an effort to be polite and then she put the things in her bag. “I’ll do a quick trip to the PokeCentre and then I’m back to train Venus.”

“Wait, I had an idea! What if we do a gym battle I, but with just her on your side? Just tell me her level and I will use a team I feel she could beat alone.”

“Actually, good idea. She’s level 29, by the way.”

29 and she hadn’t evolved yet? Bismuth must have been right about dreepy evolving late.

The battle occurred some minutes later, with Venus winning by a pinch (and with some good ol’ healing items, of course).

“Now what? Do I get another badge?” She joked, yet she sounded like she was struggling to do so.

“I don’t know, it wouldn’t be of much use either… You know what, I’ll try to get a decorative one or a seal in the shape of it. I could call you when I get it.”

“Ok! Here’s my number!”

After they exchanged contacts, Bismuth left, saying she was headed for Hearthome, which was to be expected considering she already had the Coal Badge. She did genuinely wonder what Fantina would think of Bismuth’s look.

·····

Their meeting with Rowan was at Gardenia’s house. She didn’t have any reason to complain, so she accepted. She just hoped that the attendants wouldn’t be allergic to any of her plants, which were a lot.

Roark, of course, was already there, while Saturn arrived later than him but surprisingly slightly earlier than he was supposed to, probably explained by how a crobat was his chosen mode of transport. They took advantage of the time they had spare before Rowan and Lucas arrived to have a more casual talk.

“Bets on what Rowan wants to talk about?” Roark started.

“If it involves me, nothing good,” Saturn joked.

“Wait, didn’t you say it was about Bismuth before?” Gardenia asked.

“That was only a guess, but I still stand by it.”

“Wait, then what does Saturn have to do with her? Because she isn’t a Team Galactic member, right?” Gardenia disputed.

“She’s not, but I have met her. We actually talked for quite a bit about toxicroak as a pokemon,” Saturn explained. “The thing is; How would Rowna know that?”

“I’m pretty sure he has a tracking device for her or something,” Roark commented.

“What!?” the other two exclaimed.

“Hear me out. The day she came by Oreburgh, Rowan called me and asked what she had done there and when I responded Lucas yelled ‘It worked!’ from the background. Rowan said something about jailbreaking his poketch, but I don’t know how true that was.”

“Would he really do that? I mean, THE Professor Rowan?” Gardenia questioned.

“I honestly would use one of those on Looker, not on Bismuth, but everybody has their tastes.”

“Saturn, that’s kinda funny and honestly same, but consider your criminal record before speaking, for Arceus sake,” Gardenia responded.

“Oh right.” He paused for a moment. “Anyone has a lighter topic to talk about?”

“Now that you mention it, cool vest!” Roark complimented him, because Saturn wasn’t wearing his Galactic uniform, but simple jeans and a turtleneck with, as Roark had said, a cool vest.

“Thanks, and do you know where I got it? No other place than Jupiter’s shop. Well, I actually had to order it through Fantina, because Jupiter won’t talk to me in person.”

“Wait, what happened?” Gardenia asked.

“Oh, nothing, she just doesn’t want anything to do with Team Galactic and apparently, that includes seeing my face. We still talk by phone though.”

“Wait, she can do that?” Roark wasn’t so aware on what exactly Jupiter (or Nalia, because Jupiter is just a code name) was allowed to do, so it was no surprise that he would ask that.

“I’m fairly certain that she can. Speaking of her, I’ve actually seen her by the space museum a lot of times.”

“No fucking way!” Saturn was trying to hold laughter. “ I’m oh so sure she misses the old purpose of the building… ”

Just as he said that, a ring came from the door. Needless to say, it was Rowan and Lucas.

“Good evening, everybody,” he started. “Gardenia, where should we do this?”

“Right where Roark and Saturn are is fine.”

“Wait, you still call him Saturn? Wasn’t that a codename?”

“Yeah, but I feel way more comfortable with it, thank you very much,” the man responded.

“Ok, so, shall we begin?”

The two researchers went to sit over to the sofa where the others were, along with Gardenia.

“Before we start with all the talk, I’d like to apologise to Lucas,” Saturn said. “I heard about the pokedex incident, so I’m just saying that I'm sorry that happened.”

“You didn’t comand that, right?” Lucas responded.

“No… It might have been Charon’s thing? Since the girls wouldn’t care much about it and if they did they would have notified the rest.”

“Then you don’t have to apologise, if it wasn't your fault.”

“Ok, but what about Cyrus?” Roark asked.

“Cyrus has their own pokedex, so they wouldn’t need to steal one,” Rowan explained, being followed by a very awkward silence. “I swear I can explain it, but that’s not the topic I wanted to discuss.

»I called you all here to talk about Bismuth, because being straightforward, I don’t trust her.”

“But what do I have to do with this?” Saturn asked that question and both Roark and Gardenia knew what his objective was.

“Well, she stayed at the Valley Windworks for quite some time just the day Team Galactic was in the area, which relates to the suspicion we have of her…”

“And how do you know that?” Gardenia played along with the game Saturn started, maybe missing in being too blunt.

“Well, I was in the area, y’know, trying to catch a damn female combee …” The frustration in Lucas's voice was obvious and honestly, understandable. “When I happened to see Bismuth there. She did spend a considerable amount of time there, just not as much as me trying to catch a damn combee…”

The three of them had to admit that either Roark’s theory was wrong or that Lucas was an excellent liar.

“Yeah, sure… ” That time, it was Roark himself playing.

“What are you talking about?” Rowan asked, maintaining his serious tone. Maybe they were playing a losing game, in the end.

“If you were also around the area, Lucas, then how come I didn’t see you?” Gardenia had to admit, Saturn knew how to do those things. Wonder where he got the experience from…

“Uhm, well, I didn’t want to get too close…” He was starting to get nervous, or at least to show it.

“There’s a honey tree in the Windworks, but I should have seen you if you went there. The closest one to the place other than that one is after the bridge on route 205, which isn’t precisely a good position to see the valley.”

“I was putting honey in trees, yes, but a pokemon can need hours to appear, so of course I was also doing other things. Why do you care, anyway?”

“Because you might have suspicions of Bismuth, but we also have suspicions of you two, so one last question to clear things up? What was she doing?” He said that last phrase slowly.

“Training her dreepy. Venus, was it?”

“I meaaaan… Yes, but if we’re talking about suspicions, her talking to me multiple times should have caught your attention, specially because most of her time there was spent doing just that, plus a battle between toxicroaks which I absolutely did not loose.” Deep down, Gardenia felt bad for Lucas right now and she wondered if Saturn did too. “Roark?”

“He was asking all of this because I would put my hand on fire and say that you have a tracking device on her.” Roark delivered that line with as much confidence as he could.

“Wh- what? What are you talking about? How did you even reach that conclusion?” This time, it was Rowan talking and he did so very nervously. Lucas just gave up entirely.

“I told you it was a bad idea…”

“Oh, so we are right?” Gardenia asked, knowing damn well they had won.

“I have no other option but to admit that yes, we have a tracking device to know where she is, but trust us, we have good reasons to do so.

»You see, we actually suspect she is a former member of Team Galactic, that’s another reason why we contacted you, Saturn. First of all, we know very little of her and the information I could find was very limited. Then, there’s her interest in astronomy shown by the way she names her pokemon and the clothes she wears, which remind me way too much of space-era fashion. Of course, that could be just a coincidence, but there’s more!

»The reason she has a dreepy? She’s investigating the Distortion World and Giratina along with it. Both pokemon share types, that’s why I gave it to her. Well, I wasn’t the one to give it, I just was the one to contact the necessary person. The one who gave her a dreepy egg was Champion Leon, from Galar. You might wonder, what does this have to do with our hypothesis? Well, she wasn’t nervous or shy at all when meeting Leon, she acted like he was just a regular trainer, but when we mentioned Dawn or Cynthia to her, she flinched and said that she was too nervous to ever meet them.

»So in recap, we think that she’s a former Team Galactic member investigating the Distortion World to either bring Cyrus back or fulfil their goal.”

Professor Rowan was making some fair points, yes, but what was stopping Bismuth from being a regular trainer?

“Professor, as a former commander and current leader I can confidently say that there wasn’t any grunt named Bismuth, at least during my time in the team, and if there was I’m sure I would remember.”

Could Saturn be lying? Absolutely, but Gardenia also had another point to make.

“About her interest in the Distortion World and Giratina, it’s perfectly plausible that she knows about them even as a regular trainer. Giratina was registered in the first ever pokedex and there are plenty of records, all accessible to the public, about how they were caught and the implication they had in creating the Space-time rift that caused the crisis of that era. Bismuth could just have found that information and just digged further, because while a name is rarely given, legends of the Distortion World are known too,” she stared straight into his face before saying, “just ask Cynthia.”

“Ok, ok, but she could be using a fake name. I do have to admit that Gardenia is right.”

“If that doesn’t convince you, I’ll just get one thing straight: Very few grunts knew what actually happened to Cyrus and even fewer, if not none of them, knew what the team’s real goal was,” Saturn rebutted.

“I side with Rowan, but I do have to say that Saturn is telling the truth,” Lucas said. He had dealt with enough Team Galactic grunts to know.

“What about the commanders?” Rowan asked.

“Mars is the only option, but I would have recognized her, even with a fake identity.” Everyone could see how Roark was uncomfortable with the topic, so they decided to not develop it further. Regardless of what Mars had done, she was still his sister and he missed her. Only Saturn had something to say.

“Palkia, I wish she was Mars. Do you think I’m not worried about her or miss her in the slightest? I think Roark can agree with me here.”

The other man limited himself to nodding.

“Well, then I think it’s about time we end this meeting of sorts,” Rowan said.

“Yes, please,” Lucas added.

“Athen I’m going.” And with that, Saturn let Zuzu out, got on her back and went through the open window. Shortly after, Rowan and Lucas also left.

Just as Gardenia went to cross the door with key, they heard a window opening on the second floor. Roark went to check to see it was Saturn and then went down with him.

“Ok, so first of all, thanks for actually calling me Saturn,” he started.

“I’m pretty sure you’re cis, but we’re not and we know how it feels. People should call you what you want to be called,” Gardenia responded.

Roark went to close the window and then they all sat down on the couch.

“Do you think we should tell Bismuth about the tracking thing? I have her number,” Gardenia asked.

“Yes, but we should talk a little bit first,” Saturn responded.

“Agree. Like, should we team up for this?” Roark suggested.

“What do you mean?” Gardenia asked.

“Well, all three of us want to defend Bismuth, Saturn and I also want to find Mars, so…”

“I’m in,” Saturn said.

“Me too. Should we call her now?”

With that, Gardenia dialled her number to make a video call, so Bismuth could clearly see who she was talking to. When she responded, they saw she was resting at a pokemon centre and getting her things ready for the night.

//Oh, hello, have you already gotten the decorative badge seal thing?//

“I wish, but we actually have something more important to talk about.”

//Damn… bad news?// She paused for a moment to actually look at the screen. //Wait, Roark and Saturn too? Hey, how’s Croak going?//

“She’s doing fantastic, what about Titan?”

//Really good, shame I couldn’t use her against Gardenia, dry skin, y’know. Me, not so much, because I might have had a bad fall and damaged my knee. Nothing serious, but I will have to take things more slowly from now on.//

“Damn, I’m so sorry…” Gardenia said.

“Actually, no, deserved for going into caves and rocky areas dressed like this,” Roark half joked and half scolded her.

She slightly laughed at his comment and for once, it felt genuine.

//Ok, ok… But seriously now, what do you need to tell me? I’m alone right now, so go wild if you want.//

“That’s actually perfect, because we do have wild news. Rowan has been following you with a tracking device and suspects you’re a former Team Galactic member.”

//He what!? Wait, any idea where he put it?//

“I’m really sorry, but no…”

“Wait,” Saturn interrupted her. “Do you have a pokedex?”

//Yes, are you implying he put a tracking device on the thing?//

For the next few minutes, Bismuth and Saturn fiddled with her pokedex until they managed to disarm the tracker.

“Well, do you guys have anything else to say?” Gardenia looked at both of her companions. Saturn was the one to speak.

“You might have been told that if you see Mars, the Team Galactic commander, you have to report her to either a gym leader or an IntelPol officer. Don’t do that. If you ever happen to see her, tell Roark about it. Hope you get better soon.”

And with that, they ended the talk.

“I can’t believe we’re really teaming up with Team Galactic’s new leader… But I do want to ask something: How was Mars during her time as a commander?” Roark asked, more sensitively.

“Well, she was an asshole. We all were. We hated the world and thought that that was an excuse to be jerks. But she was also nice. She genuinely believed in creating a better world and honestly, she was my only real friend in the team. I also want to let you know that she’s the reason Canalave has never been attacked by the team and that that time when we attacked the coal mine was what started her problems with Jupiter. For now, let’s hope we can find her.”

Roark seemed relieved by that.

Gardenia didn’t know what she had gotten herself into, but she wasn’t complaining.

Chapter Text

The old man Rowan had called her and told her to come to his lab. Since her only completed pokedex entries were the evolutionary lines of her own team, she guessed he didn’t want her for that. If it was serious or not, she didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to turn the prof down, so now she was there, sitting with him and Lucas.

“So basically,” the professor began, “a few days ago, a strange girl going by the name ‘Bismuth’ came here, claiming she’s investigating the Distortion World and Giratina.”

“Oh, so you want me to help her?” Cynthia asked.

“No, actually, I want the opposite. Lucas, will you explain yesterday’s meeting to her?”

“Of course. So you see…”

Lucas proceeded to explain everything that happened during their meeting with Roark, Gardenia and Saturn, plus some extra information.

“Some hours after that, when we tried checking Bismuth’s location, we couldn’t.”

There are a lot of things Cynthia thought about what she had just heard. First of all, a tracking device? Seriously? That was new from Rowan, that’s for sure.

Then, of course, there were all the points they had brought up to justify their suspicion about Bismuth being a former Team Galactic member.

“Professor, don’t expect anything from me, but I think you’re onto something,” she said. “I do have to say, that thing that Gardenia said about Giratina is true, so that’s not an argument. The problem comes with the things Saturn had said.”

“He did argue that he didn’t remember any member named Bismuth, but his memory could have failed him or he could just have lied, which is very probable considering who he is,” Rowan responded.

“There must be some records we can check, right?” Lucas suggested.

“Yes, but they’re of restricted access to protect the grunts’ identities,” Cynthia explained. “Also, do you really think that she would go by her real name?”

“That’s also what I was thinking, but I’ve found information denoting the contrary,” Rowan said.

“It could be forged. From what I know about her, she seems to be smart, so y’know. Could you describe her to me? Or better yet, do you have any photos?”

Rowan nodded at that, stood up and went away. After a few seconds, he called the other two to come where he was. He had opened the computer he used to keep track of the pokedexes he handed and on the screen, they could see the information on Bismuth’s pokedex, along with a button to see her trainer card and the no-longer working tracking thing. Of course, Rowan was meaning to show her the trainer card, but another thing caught Cynthia’s attention.

Her pokedex was marked as being ‘specially modified for its user’, which at first Cynthia assumed referred to the tracker, but in reality it was for three entries specifically added for Bismuth’s sake: Dreepy, drakloak and dragapult. Well, drakloak wasn’t there, but what else could have gone between dreepy (caught) and dragapult (seen)?

“Hey, what are those entries for?” Cynthia asked before Rowan could click on the trainer info.

“I already told you she has a dreepy, no?” Rowan responded.

“I mean, why have the line be registered?”

“She wants the dreepy for research purposes, and I’m also interested to see when it evolves, so this also serves as a way to track that,” he explained. “Oh, and before you ask where she saw a dragapult, Leon probably showed his to her.”

After that, Rowan finally showed her the trainer card. She had short pink hair, worn messy and brown eyes. She was also wearing makeup that matched her hair colour. She thought that the clothes she was wearing were cute, but she didn’t really care about those as changing outfits was easy.

“I don’t remember any Team Galactic member looking like this,” Cynthia said after having inspected Bismuth’s photo well. “But of course, she could have just changed her appearance.”

“So who do you think she could be?” Lucas impatiently asked.

“Well, you did mention Mars before, right? She did see Giratina appear from the Distortion World and actually knows what happened to Cyrus, plus actually having a connection to them and knowing what they wanted.”

“As I said before, Roark stated that he would have recognized her and Saturn just said that he wished it was true, so I’m not actually so sure.”

“Ok…Actually, I know the perfect person to prove if she’s really Mars or not. I’ll call him later, but for now, why don’t we catch up on things?”

They did just that for a couple of hours.

What Cynthia didn’t tell him is that she was actually planning on getting Cyrus out of the Distortion World herself. She had actually made a plan, but it had some holes she needed to fill, which really made her worry about the topic at hand, because if Rowan’s theory was true, she was basically running against the clock. Now, she had to get Cyrus herself before Mars did, but there went the holes. 

Both Cynthia and Dawn knew about Turnback Cave and that it had a portal to the Distortion World, but only Dawn had actually went through that one, and according to her, the “islands” she navigated when entering through the Turnback portal were different from the ones they saw when going through the Spear Pillar portal. Worst of all, she said that the movement options in Turnback’s were really limited and that it resulted impossible to reach the Spear Pillar’s islands where Cyrus probably was.

Those were the holes she needed to fill, but thankfully, Mars would have even more trouble getting to her leader or even the Distortion World to begin with, that’s without even considering the possibility of Bismuth being a completely different person.

Still, she needed to make the call.

·····

“You’ve won the 12th battle, would you like to continue?”

Turns out, the salamence and garchomp combo is really effective (as long as you stay clear of ice types, of course). It would be even better if Dawn’s garchomp was competitively trained, but he understood that it was a member of her regular team. It wasn’t that she didn’t know about competitive training, in fact she knew a surprising amount of things about the topic, it was just that the training method was extremely tedious and she just prefered to use her regular team for the Frontier.

Dawn was signing that she wanted to face the next battle when Riley’s phone began ringing.

“Wait a second,” he said, while pulling out his phone to see that the caller was none other than Cynthia.

“Of course! Take all the time you need.”

After the Tower employee had said that, he went outside of the battle room and picked up the phone.

“Hey, make it quick, please,” he started.

//I’ll try, but this could be serious.//

“Go on.”

//So basically, there’s this trainer called Bismuth who is investigating Giratina. Rowan suspects that she might be Mars in disguise, so…//

Riley had to stop for a moment. He knew what Cynthia wanted him to do, but after these years, that was going to be the way he found Mars?

“Will do, just tell me the details.” Thanks Arceus that he had gone outside of the battle room, because it just looked like he was working with either the cops or a mafia and he didn’t want either image painted on him.

//Pink hair, haircut similar to Byron, brown eyes, wears makeup and clothes reminiscent of space-era fashion. Do you need anything else description wise?//

“No, just tell me where I can find her and what pokemon she’s using.”

//She’s doing the gym challenge and should be in Hearthome right now, probably heading out to Veilstone next, since that’s what most challengers do. You should find her with a dreepy by her side.//

“Ok… I’ll be heading to Veilstone soon. Bye.”

He hung up before Cynthia could answer.

So he would have to hunt down some trainer who was very likely Mars for the next couple of days, huh. Well, he should be going back with Dawn now, at least some thrilling battles could distract him.

He would be heading for Veilstone tomorrow.

Back in the Battle area, their two opponents had already entered the room.

“Ready?” the employee asked.

“Yes…” Riley asked tiredly.

Dawn noticed that and pulled him closer.

She asked him if he was ok. Riley didn’t really feel like talking, so he just signed back “Yes, don’t worry.”

Chapter Text

After a long day, Nalia dropped on the sofa and switched on the TV. It was pure casualty that the program happened to be an interview with her sister, but well, she didn’t mind tuning in for some minutes.

“Miss Fantina, how do you feel about the recent growth in popularity pokemon contests have experienced?” The reporter asked.

"C'est fantastique! I mean, why would I complain? Now people are finally seeing how great they really are, after so much talk about them being lesser than battles.” Nalia noticed that Fantina was wearing the dress she had made for her, one inspired by a drifblim. Well, she wore that one quite a lot ever since she had finished it. Nalia didn’t really know if it was because she just liked it or some emotion was tied onto it. That dress had served as her way of saying sorry, along with a necklace made to the image of a mismagius jewels, and she really hoped that Fantina accepted the apology. If she did or not, she wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t precisely likely, since while now she was Nalia the tailor, she had been Jupiter the Team Galactic commander and she didn’t know if Fantina had forgiven her for it.

Initially, she just accepted returning home and living with her because out of her other two options (getting arrested or staying in a Team Galactic without Cyrus), that one was the best. Yes, she thought low of her sister for the way she acted and the path in life she took and she still agreed with master Cyrus, but that was her best option.

As the months passed by, things started changing. Day by day, she was feeling more comfortable around Fantina. She had also opened up a shop and started working as a tailor and to her surprise, the shop became popular and it was doing well. Most importantly, she had expanded her pokemon team to the maximum six members and finally evolved her golbat Lumière into a crobat. To her knowledge, Saturn had also evolved Zuzu and she couldn’t avoid wondering if Mars had done the same as them with her own golbat, if she was alive and free, of course, though she didn’t care much of what had happened to her anyway.

The topic of crobat’s evolution resulted quite funny to her, but hurtful at the same time. Since Cyrus, the person known for their apparent lack of emotions, had not one, but apparently two crobats (Mercury and the one they used as Mercury’s replacement), the commanders and some privileged grunts liked to joke about the topic. Had they gaslighted the pokemon into thinking they loved him? Did they actually have some trace of emotion on their being? They didn’t know, but it was funny to joke about. Now that Cyrus was gone, the joke fell into bittersweetness.

That same feeling of bittersweetness also caused her, and probably Saturn too, to question how they were treating their pokemon, because at the end of the day, golbat evolve to crobat when they have a deep bond with their trainer, so the fact that they had golbats meant that they didn't have that bond, with the golbats themselves and the rest of their teams. That's what made Nalia realise that she was mistreating her pokemon, so she changed her ways and she hoped it was making a result.

Talking about her team, they needed to be fed dinner, now that she remembered, so she stood up from the sofa and gave them their favourite food. Nouvelle Lune the Skuntank ate just about everything, especially if Nalia was eating it too. The others were a little bit more picky, but nothing too bad, and then there was her bronzong Reflet that didn't really eat.

Needless to say, she was still paying some attention to the interview.

"That dress you're wearing, it's new, isn't it? But I've realised that you're wearing it often."

"Oui, it's new. I'm just wearing it a lot because it's a gift from my sister. I don't mean that she bought it, she actually made it herself! C'est incroyable, right? That's why I like it, no deeper meaning to it."

Wait… so she actually appreciated it?

Anyway, she should probably make dinner for herself too. Not for Fantina, as she was over with Byron and Crasher Wake, probably drinking. Ah, old habits never die…  

Cooking actually made her ignore the TV for a while. It was when she was eating that another question caught her attention.

"It's said that there's a trainer with a powerful team that's just now fighting the gyms, well more like sweeping them…"

"Oh, that happens, sometimes. This time Roark and Gardenia are acting quite weird about it, in a group chat we have, that is. I'm curious about who she is, but I've also heard that she's got a rare ghost type on her lines, so I'm also lowkey excited, y'know?"

Well, that was interesting. Now that she thought about it, that interview was from that same morning, so she hoped Fantina wouldn't have much of a hangover.

·····

Ever since Dawn had picked interests in contests, even if that interest came and went, the activity had become way more popular but most importantly, respected. It had already happened in Hoenn in a similar fashion, being Champion Wallace who popularised them, so it was already time for Sinnoh to experience the same, at last.

Some snobs thought that the risen popularity was damaging, that ‘ oh, now the hall would be filled with dirty, regular trainers ’, but Fantina disagreed with that. It was great that plain regular trainers not only respected coordinators, but considered becoming one themselves. She had spent way too many years being known as that gym leader that was too busy with contests to complain now. Finally, other trainers would respect her despite also being a coordinator. Finally.

She had spent last night over at Byron’s flat, along with Wake and Byron himself. They had set up a little karaoke set-up (basically searching for instrumentals of songs and looking up the lyrics, but who cares) and spent the evening just singing along. Well, she sang along, because Wake sang his own songs, be it sea shanties or his own damn theme song, and Byron straight up refused to sing arguing that he didn’t have the voice for those things. He was actually right, so deep down Fantina was grateful for his decision, even if she didn’t want him being left out of the fun.

That made her feel nostalgic. She remembered her college days, at the designer’s school with her sister and her other friends, friends that she had lost contact with over the years but that she remembered fondly. At least she had Nalia with her, even if well… that had happened. Fantina wondered if her sister still held contact with their friends, since she had actually pushed up with the whole clothing design and sewing thing, though she knew it was very unlikely.

Contrary to what Nalia liked to tease her for, she didn’t drink… much. Ok, ok, maybe she had a slight problem, but it was none of her business.

She had returned to Hearthome the next morning fresh as a roserade, so why did it matter, anyway?

“Wow, you actually look… not like a demon…” Nalia said, with a hint of irony.

“Merci, you look fantastic too!” she returned said irony.

“Well, do you plan on going to the hall or to the gym? Because the shop should open soon and if you make me wait just five minutes I will shoot you straight to the gym looking like this.”

“C’moooon, I can do it myself, you meany! Anyway, I was planning on going to the hall, so…”

Nalia just sighed and went ahead to do Fantina’s make-up. She could do her own hair, grown ass woman.

Some minutes later, she left for the shop, but Fantina stopped her for a moment before she could leave.

“Hey, do you keep contact with our friends from college?”

“ What made you even question that… No, I don’t, if it wasn’t obvious, but I might still have some of their numbers, unlike certain disaster of a person.”

“Pardon?”

“Aaaanyway, goodbye.” She closed the door behind her, leaving Fantina alone. She had to admit, she missed that playful sibling rivalry.

Fantina finished the look herself. The haircut, the one she always wore, and the clothes, unfortunately the drifblim dress needed to be cleaned, so she put on her old characteristic dress. The mismagius necklace stayed, though.

She let Loony out of her pokeball to accompany her while still having battle ready pokemon on her.

If she had walked like this in another city, she would have been stopped numerous times, but the people of Hearthome knew her well and knew to not step on boundaries. That’s why when she was out of the city she wore more discreet things and never had pokemon out of pokeballs (unless she found herself in a battle, of course).

In the hall, there were a few people fascinated by her, probably beginners on the whole thing, but there was also a person that caught Fantina’s attention, or well, the pokemon with her.

“Oh la la, is that a dreepy I see?”

Upon hearing that, the dreepy’s trainer turned to face her way, and so did the pokemon.

The dreepy was just a regular one, well, as regular as a dreepy can be. It did look to be well trained. The trainer was a young woman with bright pink hair who she guessed was into 60s fashion, since that makeup plus the black turtleneck and pink pinafore combo screamed the decade. She did find it curious that the pinafore matched her hair tone but well, she was no one to judge.

“Wait!” the girls exclaimed. “You’re- you’re Fantina, the city’s gym leader, right?”

“The one and only! And this baby here is…?”

“Her name is Venus, and thanks Dialga because you’re the first person that recognized the species.” The girl was way too excited by that, probably having had to deal with too many questions.

“De rien, but I am a ghost type expert, after all, of course I’d recognize a dreepy.” Fantina went ahead to sit with the girl. “Your name?”

“Bismuth, glad to meet you.”

“Oh, don’t pamper me…” She noticed that Bismuth had a bunch of spicy poffins prepared. Were they for Venus? It could make sense, considering that its final stage dragapult had a high attack. “Are you planning on participating in a contest?”

“Maybe? I mean, I was dragged into making these by some woman from the poffin house, who said that Venus would like them. She does seem to be enjoying them, so I don’t care about the mess that was. Participating in a contest though… I don’t know, she knows the four moves she hatched with and honestly, I don’t know if she could handle a contest…”

“What moves does she have?”

“Uhmm… Astonish, quick attack, bite and dragon tail, I think?”

The dreepy knows dragon tail? Fantina would bet on that her nature is adamant.

“Parfait! She could participate in a cool contest, normal category, of course. It should be easy enough and she does have a cool move.”

“Ok, I think I will do it… Any tips?”

“Just be confident.” She knew that was a stupid tip, but for normal category the fact that she was feeding Venus dry poffins should already be enogh. “By the way, you hatched her from an egg, correct?”

“Yup. Why do you ask?”

“Just let me guess… Adamant nature?”

“Wait…” Bismuth pulled her pokedex to check the pokemon’s nature. “...How the fuck did you know?”

“C'est un secret! Well, I’ll let you go now. Remember to pass by my gym later!”

“You bet I’ll do that!”

Fantina went to her own contest herself, obviously a way higher level than hers, and not cool, because that wasn’t Loony’s thing. She might not have seen Bismuth with Venus, but she did see a few familiar faces anyway, like Johanna, who she sometimes felt was following her.

“Hey, nice interview, yesterday’s one,” Johanna told her after the contest had ended.

“Merci,” was all Fantina responded.

“I mean, that part where you said the growth in popularity of contests was great… Y’know, since the people who disagree with that are blaming Dawn and all…”

“Don’t worry, I understand. She’s like what, 13? She shouldn’t be dealing with shit like this.”

“Thank you…”

Soon after that, Fantina actually decided that she wanted to go to the gym. She passed by the main entrance for a moment to notify the gym guide, so he could inform the rest of the trainers and staff that she was there. After that, she went to the back entrance, the one she always used to avoid having to do the gym puzzle.

Before Bismuth, some regular challengers came. Some won, some lost, some won after a few tries, the usual stuff. She used the time between battles to talk with the others, because while ‘powerful trainer just now challenging the gyms’ might not be a new thing, some advice (or warnings) was great. Some advice better than ‘just be confident’, that is. Gods, she really had said that…

Fantina: Hey, so that weird trainer you guys have been talking about is probably challenging me today, so… anything I should know?

Roark: She has a weavile

Gardenia: She has a weavile

Oh, nice…

Candice: She has one???

Candice: Damn, I already like her

Cynthia: You… shouldn’t.

Candice: Wait, why not???

Crasher Wake: Oh, next you’re gonna tell me that she’s got an electric-plant pokemon

Volkner: Wait, does that even exist?

Dawn: Lawnmower rotom

Fantina: A what rotom now?

Aaron: I thought you’d be like the first to know that

Cynthia: There’s also an extinct variant of voltorb and electrode. They used to inhabit Sinnoh.

Lucian: Cynthia, don’t you start…

Roark: Start what?

Flint: dont push her!

Candice: Hey guys, you haven’t answered my question????

Maylene: Answer her i beg of you

Cynthia: You see, Professor Rowan has some suspicions about her, it’s really none of your business, but still, you shouldn’t trust her.

Gardenia: Don’t tell me you’ve sided with rowan…

Cynthia: You’ve sided with Saturn. Tell me who is worse.

Gardenia: I haven’t sided with saturn, i’ve sided with bismuth. Roark has sided with saturn

Roark: Hey!

Byron: some calm on the chat please!

Fantina: Also, is the weavile thing really the only thing you two have to say?

Roark: Well, she has an injured knee. She can walk without help, but she might need a chair

Fantina: Ok, will do that

Cynthia: Wait, when did that even happen?

Immediately after she read that last message, Fantina exited the chat and put her phone on silence. The others could argue without her, and she apparently needed a chair anyway. She hadn’t actually noticed the injured knee, but why would Roark be lying?

It was towards the middle of the afternoon that Bismuth finally came by.

“Hu, hu, hu… I’m very excited for this fight, can’t you agree?”

Bismuth recalled Venus, who Fantina guessed must have helped her with the gym trainers, to her pokeball and grabbed another one in its place. She had a strong feeling that was gonna be the weavile.

She also noticed that there indeed was a bandage on her knee.

“Of course I agree. Now, shall we begin?”

“Yes, and you don’t have to worry about anything, I’ve been told everything I needed. In fact, there’s a chair for you if you need it.”

“Oh, thank you…”

Just as Bismuth was going for the chair, her phone began to ring. She picked it up and sat down during the call.

“Hello, this is…?” Wait, so it wasn’t a known number? “Ah, of course it’s you, what the hell do you need now?” Ok, but she did know the caller. “Operation Dreepy? Who thought of that name?” Fantina had to agree it was a stupid name, but why would be a more important question. “Why am I not surprised…?” Bismuth sighed. Fantina had to admit she was curious about who it was. “Wait really?” There were some seconds of silence. “Ok, well, you just ruined my plans, but ok.” Bismuth hung up.

“Sorry, that must have been awkward,” the girl apologised.

“No worries, now can we finally begin?” That call had definitely been weird, but it was none of her business.

“Ok, Luna, get her ass!”

It was indeed, a weavile, and one that struck critical hits constantly for some goddamn reason she would have to ask later.

Needless to say, it was an easy win on Bismuth's part.

“You’re lucky this is one of my gym teams, not my regular one,” Fantina said upon losing.

“I’d hope so, anyway, where’s my badge?”

“Here, here, don’t worry.” She went to pick up the badge along with the TM for shadow claw. “I’m hoping that Venus can learn that…?”

“She cannot. That’s pseudo legendaries on their first stage for you, I guess. Maybe once she evolves, who knows…”

“Let’s hope for that.”

·····

Unlike last night, she was actually having dinner with her sister. Fantina was the one to cook it, because why not. When looking in the refrigerator, she noticed a very distinct lack of alcoholic beverages and the sudden appearance of a grape juice jug. She really thought she was funny, bitch .

Speaking of her, she was actually calling someone at that moment and she was speaking in… Kalosian?

===

“Alors, comment va la vie?” Arceus was her Kalosian dusty. Nalia hoped that her pronunciation didn’t freak out her friend.

//Super, en fait! Les choses ont beaucoup changé depuis que vous êtes partis, cependant. En fait, je suis vraiment surpris que vous ayez appelé du tout!//

“C'était en fait l'idée de Fantina, pas la mienne, mais j'ai eu les chiffres, pas elle. Je suis honnêtement plus surpris que vous ayez toujours ce numéro.”

//Chérie, il en va de même pour toi.// She didn’t have any idea, huh.

“Quoi qu'il en soit, je suis content que les choses se passent bien. Pour ma part, j'ai récemment ouvert un magasin de vêtements ici à Unionpolis, vous savez, où nous vivons maintenant.” She was surprised that she remembered the city’s kalosian name.

//Merde, maintenant je veux aller à Sinnoh juste pour t'acheter quelque chose, mais j'ai des enfants à charge, tu sais?// Children? She had children ? Gods, how long had it been? //Et je travaille comme créateur de mode, la carrière a porté ses fruits, je suppose!//

“Contrairement à Fantina. Je suppose que vous avez déjà entendu dire qu'elle est devenue Championne d'Arène.” She was also surprised that she remembered the term for gym leader.

//Bien sûr, dis-lui que je suis content pour elle de ma part, et oh, donne-lui aussi mon numéro, j'aimerais parler avec elle aussi. Renouer avec de vieux amis fait du bien.//

“Cela fait…” Not even Nalia herself knew how honest that had been. There were definitely some friends she wouldn’t like to reconnect with.
//Tu as décidé d'être moins bruyante que ta sœur, comme au bon vieux temps, ha, ha.// Oh boy she definitely had no idea.

“Je suppose. Eh bien, parlons-en une autre fois, je dois dîner. Au revoir.”

//En fait, je dois aussi déjeuner maintenant. Ha, ha, quelle coïncidence, enfin, bye!// Coincidence? More like timezones, but ok.

They hung up.

===

“I sent you her number. Anyway, how was your day?” Nalia asked while they were having dinner.

“That one strong challenger came to challenge me. She was great and her dreepy was really cute. Venus, I think was her name…” Fantina stopped for a moment before realising that it sounded like Venus was the trainer’s name. “The dreepy, I mean. The trainer was Bismuth.”

“Uhm, anything interesting ‘bout her?”

“Well, a very fast weavile.”

“Fantina, all weaviles are fast.”

“Juste, juste. Oh, and I also talked to the others about her. Apparently, Cynthia and Rowan don’t trust her, so Roark, Gardenia and I kid you not Saturn have teamed up to… I guess defend her?” Now that she thought about it, that call was very likely from one of those three. Ok, so ‘Operation Dreepy’ was formed by Roark, Gardenia and Saturn. She didn’t even need to ask anything to know Roark had chosen the name.

“Saturn!? If Saturn thinks she’s trust-worthy, then you shouldn’t trust her, just sayin’.”

“He must think you’re trust-worthy too, non?”

“Oh, you know nothing about how things were in Team Galactic,” Nalia responded with confidence, but it seemed that she hadn’t gotten used to having a sibling again yet, because the last thing a sibling would do with another is agreeing .

Chapter Text

“Maylene Maylene Maylene!!!” Hearing Candice call her name so frantically made her look up from the plate she was eating. Yes, she did that often, but no excuses were bad if they were to look at her girlfriend.

Maylene did not expect to see Candice power walking towards her, dragging a young woman with her and having her weavile Feather behind them along with another weavile which she supposed must have been the woman’s pokemon.

“Look, I’ve made a new friend!” Candice exclaimed excitedly. While that woman looked clearly tired, Maylene guessed that her girlfriend was telling the truth, as she had a very genuine smile on her face.

“H-hello…” the woman said. Looking at her well, she noticed she had a bandage covering her knee, so no wonder she was tired. She also had noticed that pink hair in the first glance and honestly, she thought that they were also going to become friends.

“Good morning! Hi, I’m Maylene, I apologise on her behalf.” She shot a half playful half malicious glance to Candice, who let go of the woman’s hand realising the stupid thing she had just done.

“It’s no problem, really… Also, I know who you are. I’m taking on the gym challenge and I'm also from here anyway…”

“Wait, you’re from here? Maylene, wouldn’t you know her already? Please say no… ” Candice asked.

“My love, my companion, my fellow gym leader, my partner in crime, Candice, Veilstone is the second biggest city in Sinnoh, how do you expect me to know everyone?” And to think that Candice was supposed to be the smart one of the duo.

“Whew… That would have been awkward. Anyway, this is Bismuth, you know, the one with the powerful team just now challenging the gyms.”

“Ah, yes, I actually came here to challenge you. It wasn’t my first badge because I used to have a team full of pokemon weak to fighting, but now I’m confident that I will win.” Bismuth was slightly nervous, but Maylene couldn’t say the exact reason.

“Sure about that?”

“I’ve never been more certain.”

“Then wait for me to finish eating and go to the gym.” After saying that, she began eating again. Bismuth was shocked by the size of the plate, while Candice was thinking of what she could steal from it. Some seconds later, she had an idea. “Waif, sit dowfn, here wifth me,” Maylene suggested with her mouth still full.

The other two agreed and went to pick up chairs from empty tables, completely ignoring how they had attracted the attention of the whole place. The two weaviles sat on the floor and began having a conversation of their own.

“Y’know, I expected you to wear something different, I mean, from what I heard from Fantina and all,” Candice commented.

“Well, you’d be right. I tend to wear 60s style dresses, but since I came to challenge the fighting type gym I wanted to use sporty clothes today.”

“Smarf,” Maylene said, again with food in her mouth.

She also remembered the drama they had over at the groupchat two days ago over Bismuth. Candice said something about her weavile and it ended up creating a discussion over whether Bismuth could be trusted or not. Most of the gym leaders either said they didn’t think there was anything wrong with her or stayed silent about the topic. Today, Maylene was going to find out which side she wanted to pick.

Some minutes later, she finished eating, so after paying, they headed to the gym.

“You sure you can walk?” Maylene asked Bismuth while they were going there.

“Yeah. This is nothing, it just hurts a little, but I can walk just fine.”

“I wouldn’t mind carrying you, seriously.”

“Your back would,” Candice joked.

“Don’t underestimate me!”

The three girls laughed and after that, they just continued going to the gym. Thankfully, it wasn’t that far away. Well, Candice thought it was because she’s from Snowpoint, but Maylene was used to Veilstone’s size and Bismuth probably could agree with that.

“You don’t mind if I watch the battle, right?” Candice asked once they reached the dojo that housed the gym.

“Of course not! You should ask Bismuth,” Maylene replied.

“I… don’t mind either.”

“Then let’s go!”

Maylene, obviously, was the first one to enter. The blackbelts in the place immediately went to their positions when they saw her. Candice followed her, going through a shortcut only they and the gym trainers knew to reach her fight area.

For the gym, Bismuth didn’t use her weavile for reasons that don’t need to be said. Instead, she used a weird little dragon which Maylene assumed must also be a ghost type, because fighting type moves didn’t affect it.

Bismuth lived up to her expectations, as that crobat, Phobos was her name, and had little problem with her team. She did feel weird during the battle, like if someone who shouldn’t be there was watching them.

They went over all the prize stuff quickly, because both Maylene and especially Candice wanted to spend some more casual time with Bismuth. It was when they exited the gym that they heard a conversation which confirmed her feeling during the battle.

“Hey, what the fuck are you doing here!?” It was Roark’s voice and he sounded disappointed. The three girls leaned out into an alley right besides the gym and saw not only Roark, but Gardenia and Saturn confronting none other than Riley.

“Nothing? I was just resting for a moment, that’s all.”

“Resting? Dude, you were looking through that window very suspiciously,” Gardenia was the one talking this time.

“What do you mean suspiciously? I was just having a look, gym battles are exciting.”

The three girls looked at each other.

“Ehm… I think we should leave…” Bismuth whispered.

The other two nodded, because let’s be honest, it was better than just watching and who knows what could happen if they got involved. Either way, they could always ask Roark or Gardenia later.

They walked some metres to the road connecting the gym’s block to the rest of the city.

“Hey, what do you want to do now?” Candice asked to both Maylene and Bismuth. 

“You know… I have an idea,” Maylene responded. “Hey, is that dragon of yours a ghost type?” The way she had worded the phrase was slightly weird, but it got the point across.

“You mean Venus?” Bismuth looked at the pokemon floating around her legs for a second. “Yes, she’s a dragon/ghost type, the species name is dreepy.”

“Ok… so there’s this game corner nearby…”

·····

Thinking it better, they would get in trouble if anyone found out, but it was worth it.

Venus the dreepy used her ghostly abilities, as the three girls had decided to describe, to sneak into the game corner and casually sabotage the slot machines

Maylene never specified why she wanted to do that, but Bismuth never asked anyway and Candice probably had a good idea of it, but still, when Maylene said they should go, they listened and got away from the building.

She had ordered that when she saw her father move aside from where he was, since she assumed he wanted to get away from there and gods she didn’t want to see her father. Not now and not until he fucking apologizes and makes some life changes.

She… knew he wasn’t going to do that. She knew that he wasn’t going to stop gambling, she knew that she would have to sustain him for a long time, even if it should have been the contrary. She knew that he would continue to output his frustration onto anyone but himself and that he would continue to talk badly about her mother, who she had been told had abandoned them and now she didn’t even know if she was still alive and if she had really ‘abandoned’ them or it was just one of his dirty lies.

She needed to move out, she needed to move out fast, but she couldn’t afford a house of her own. Her only source of income was her position as a gym leader, but it all got sucked up by her father’s lifestyle, so she could never make enough to leave.

Her only option was getting stronger and stronger, prove that she was worth it and maybe… find a better life.

“Should we head to your house now? I think I need a little rest,” Candice suddenly said.

At least she did have her.

“No,” Maylene coldly responded. “Hey Bismuth, you live here, right?”

“You saying you want to go to my apartment? I mean, I’m not complaining, but it is on the other side of the city.”

“I’ll call a taxi. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it.”

“No, I’ll do that.”

And so, Bismuth called a taxi and told the driver to take them to her house. The driver was quite shocked by seeing two gym leaders, but he did as he was told and Bismuth even gave him a good tip.

“Hey, can you explain why the fuck your house is right besides the Team Galactic quarters?” Candice abruptly asked upon realising where they were.

They were indeed, extremely close to the HQ, like it was just behind the complex. What did Bismuth say to justify that?

“You have no idea of how cheap the rent here is.” She was right. The fact that a criminal organisation had set up headquarters in the area dropped the value of the houses there immediately once the truth was revealed and that hadn’t changed even with the facewash the team had received. She understood why, as being around that part of the city still felt weird.

Bismuth led them through the building and up to her apartment.

The place was small, but it was enough for a single person, especially for a trainer who wouldn’t spend much time there anyway. The house was dusty, probably because Bismuth hadn’t been there since at least meeting Professor Rowan. Other than that, the room they were in at the moment didn’t have anything else which was pointable, but Maylene assumed Bismuth’s bedroom would be a different story at least.

Candice was the first one to do anything there. She went straight to the sofa, slapped it a few times to take out dust and then dropped right on it. Bismuth herself followed and Maylene suddenly remembered that she had an injured knee. She hoped it wasn’t too serious and that all the walking didn’t hurt. Maylene followed the other two and also sat on the sofa.

“I’m sorry…” Bismuth said. “I haven’t been here in plenty of days, so it’s all dirty…”

“Y'know, we have this joke in the league, well the Elite Four, where when we see houses like this we say 'well, at least it's not as bad as Lucian's'," Candice explained. "I never really got it, but they always say that."

“Damn, throwing someone under the bus…” Bismuth said in response.

“There’s a reason why they call the Elite Four irresponsable,” Maylene added. “Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s because of Volkner, but point still stands.”

“If it makes sense, it makes sense,” Candice said.

After that, Bismuth stood up and announced, “Do you mind if I go shopping? I think I'll stay the night here and well… need food.”

“Ok! Can you get a cold drink?” Candice asked back.

“I can, the thing is it staying cold on the way back,” Bismuth joked. “Anyway, I’m going. ‘Bye!”

SHe went for the door, but before leaving, she turned around for a second.

“Maylene, do you want anything?”

“No, but… Can I stay here with you for the night?”

No, she wasn’t going to explain why yet .

“No problem. Oh, and you can let out your pokemon.”

After saying that, she finally left, leaving Maylene and Candice alone. The room suddenly became really quiet. There wasn’t a TV. They didn’t know if she just couldn’t afford it or didn’t want to, but not that they cared and Maylene didn’t even watch TV. They did find a CD player and it didn’t take long to find some albums to listen to.

Neither of the girls were surprised to find The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Ariados from Mars , but Maylene also remembered something Byron had said. He had said that when his daughter (which she didn’t know existed until that moment, but apparently she had run off when she was 16 and that’s why they didn’t talk much about her) started to become interested with astronomy and all that space stuff, he introduced her to the album and she became obsessed with it.

The album itself was relatively short, so they chose that one to listen and hoped that Bismuth wouldn’t mind it. They also let out all of their team members that could fit in the apartment. A moment of silence for Nub-nub, Candice’s mamoswine.

They danced for a few minutes, and they really enjoyed that short while. Maylene… didn’t really get to do things like that very often. She was always either at the gym or doing intense training. Yes, she did sometimes go to the battleground, but the methods she used to go there… let’s say that they would cause a nurse a heart attack. In her house it wasn’t better, in fact, she tried no to talk much with her family and always spent her time there locked in her room chatting with either Candice or other fighting type specialists. That was really different- and she liked it.

Bismuth didn’t take much time to return and when she did, she only said “great taste!” before leaving the groceries on the kitchen counter, releasing some of her pokemon herself (not all of them because the place was getting cramped), putting some food for all the pokemon there and finally joining the party.

Once the album finished, Bismuth went to put the CD back where it belonged and they all sat down on the sofa again. She also pulled out three sodas from the groceries, one for her and the other two for the girls.

“Hey, if you want to go to Snowpoint, I can lead you there,” Candice offered.

“Well, I was planning to go to Pastoria for the Fen Badge, but…” Bismuth stopped to think for a moment. “I could go first to Snowpoint, then go down to Pastoria and from there head to Sunyshore.”

“So you want me to accompany you?”

“Yup, is tomorrow good?”

“Anytime is good, honestly.”

Bismuth and Candice spent a good time planning their route, while Maylene went to take a shower. It’s not that she needed it, but she wanted some time alone.

Bismuth’s bathroom was nothing special, much like the rest of the house. Other than the makeup products and… wait, was that hair dye? Well, that pink was very bright, so it wasn’t really a surprise.

She set up the water as cold as possible. She actually liked the cold, or maybe she had just grown used to it, who knows, but she enjoyed the cold. It also helped her centre and think.

She needed to get away from her father. She needed to get away from her family. She couldn’t keep up like this, she couldn’t continue to carry her family on her shoulders and she couldn’t keep up with the expectations she had to meet to be able to do that.

Suddenly, a realisation hit her.

Often, a member of the Elite Four or a fellow gym leader (mostly Wake) would pass by Veilstone, check up on her and help her with her tasks as a gym leader. She knew that that was a thing they always did for new gym leaders, for like the first months or so, but with her, they never stopped doing that. She thought that they thought that she still needed training and that led her into doubting herself and if she really deserved her position as a gym leader. That might have led her to wearing herself out multiple times, but now that she thought about it…

After she had already dried up and put her clothes back on, she returned to the living room/kitchen and the other two were for some reason playing monopoly. Bismuth was winning.

Had they finished the planning that fast or had she just spent that much time in the shower?

“Maylene! Do you want to join in?” Candice asked when she saw her.

“Yes, but first… Candy, do you have like… other league members come and help you out sometimes?”

Bismuth had to hold her laugh at that nickname, but Candice answered, “yeah, ‘cos I’m just 16 and they don’t want me to get overworked.”

Oh, oh, ohhh … A wave of relief came in, and it felt like a fresh sea breeze on a summer morning. That single sentence made her realise way too many things. She was 16, she was a child and she didn’t deserve to have to carry her neglecting father. She repeated this to herself a few times.

I don’t deserve this.

I don’t deserve this.

I don’t deserve this.

I deserve to be a child, to be happy and I deserve my position as a gym leader.

Maylene let out a deep breath.

“Thank you, and I’ll join in on the next game.”

“Thanks for what…?”

“Never mind.”

·····

After they had dinner, Bismuth led them to her room and together, they threw all the pillows and blankets they could find to the floor.

“Sleepover time!” Bismuth exclaimed.

“Sleepover time!” the other two echoed.

The three of them fell to the pillow sea they had created.

“Hey, if you wanna change into something more comfortable, I can lend you pijamas,” Bismuth offered, voice muffled by all the pillows and blankets.

Bismuth herself had changed before dinner, when she took a shower, but Maylene and Candice were still in their regular clothes.

Upon realising, Maylene took out her gloves. “I’m fine in these clothes.”

“I had brought one myself, but I think I’ll go into the bathroom to change.

Maylene was about to ask why when she remembered that Bismuth was there too.

“Go ahead,” was what the woman said.

Candice took her bag and went to the bathroom. It was then when Maylene took the opportunity to get closer to Bismuth. She needed her help.

“Need anything?” the older girl asked.

Looking at her closer without makeup, she looked weird, but oddly familiar. That wasn’t what she needed, though.

“Look, I know I just met you today, but I need your help.”

“Y’know, you and your girlfriend are really nice. I wouldn’t consider you ‘friends’ yet because y’know, I’ve just met you guys, but I feel that we will end up becoming great friends. Go ahead, I’m here for you.” Bismuth gave her a kind smile. It was obvious she was struggling with this, but it was genuine, and Maylene felt like she was about to cry.

“So… I have a… complicated relationship with my family…”

“Ok, who do I need to punch?” That was shockingly fast, but if someone needed to be punched Maylene was the one with physical strength here.

“No, no- I can do the punching myself, but I was actually about to ask if I could stay here for some days?”

“No problem, just remember that I’ll be out for badges and all.” Maylene didn’t really mind that, it was just a temporary stay. “Also, I have really sneaky pokemon, so if you need to grab anything without your old man noticing, just tell me.”

Ok, now she was crying, and it felt great .

“Th-thank you…”

“I can’t just leave you with a shitty family.”

After that, Candice returned to the bedroom and froze for a second upon seeing the scene.

“May… Are you okay?” she worriedly asked.

“Need… cuddles…”

“I offer cuddles, come ‘ere.”

Candice and Maylene jumped into the pillow and blanket sea together, Bismuth following soon after.

Chapter Text

Another day, another badge to get, this time, the Icicle Badge.

Candice was helping Bismuth to prepare for the trip, because they would need to cross route 215, which wasn’t that bad, honestly, route 210 and its annoying fog, a short break in Celestic town followed by route 211 and then… Mt. Coronet. After that, there was route 216 and the infamous route 217. For Candice, those two routes weren’t only a park walk, they were even enjoyable, she was an ice type expert and most of all, she had lived all her life in Snowpoint, it was what was familiar to her, but to anyone else? Those routes were torturous. There was a reason why most trainers doing the gym challenge left her gym either for last or second-to-last. Going to Snowpoint was definitely a trek.

“Thick clothes, the more the better.” Candice explained while Bismuth was looking in her closet. “For starters, pick a turtleneck. You must have one, right?”

“Yup, I got plenty,” the older woman said, before throwing a fairly thick black turtleneck to her bed. She turned her head for a second. “What about you?”

“Me? I’m Snowpoint’s ice type gym leader, a little snow won’t do anything to me.”

“If you say so…” Bismuth turned to the closet again. She picked up some normal underwear, but also the warmest socks she could find, a pair of tights and an undershirt. She chose a pair of bell-bottom jeans, because she didn’t have anything better, since she mostly wore dresses anyway. When she was about to pick a coat, Candice spoke again.

“You should pick a bright colour, so you stand out in the snow. Not that it would be necessary with me- but you know, protocols.”

“Ok…” She ended up going for a red coat.

Candice left the room so Bismuth could change in privacy. Going to the main living area, she noticed that Maylene had prepared breakfast.

Oh, right, they had almost forgotten that.

“Damn, that looks amazing, I’ll have some, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead! Why do you think I made this in the first place?”

Just as Candice had expected, Maylene’s food was amazing. Bismuth also had breakfast once she had changed (for now she wasn’t wearing the coat, though that was to be expected) and while she didn’t say anything, it was obvious that she thought the same thing about the meal.

“So,” Maylene started once they finished eating. “Are you heading now? I mean, the trip to Snowpoint is quite long.”

“I guess so,” Candice replied. “Bismuth, are you ready?”

“I sure hope I am,” Bismuth responded in a half joking tone. Ok, so they were going.

With that, she stood up to go find her things. For ease of transport, she recalled most of her pokemon with the exception of Venus, because she still had to catch up with the rest of her team. Candice really hoped that she would switch out the dreepy once they reach route 216, because that’s the 3rd worst place in Sinnoh for a dragon to be, beaten by Snowpoint and route 217. She had heard that there used to be an alpha garchomp in the area back when alphas were a thing, which honestly was crazy considering that garchomp is part ground. That’s not to mention that about ten years ago, there was a dragon-type gym in the city, its leader infamous for her underleveled garchomps (oh, and for trying to murder a challenger, but let’s not talk about that.)

They said goodbye to Maylene and Bismuth gave her the keys to her apartment, so she could move freely, and with that, they were out… or not.

“Bismuth, I have the goods!” In the building’s entrance, Gardenia was waiting for them (well, for Bismuth) with a small bag in her hand. “Oh, hello, Candice.”

“Give me the goods,” Bismuth immediately responded.

“Hi! Uhm, we were just heading out…” the other gym leader replied.

Gardenia just gave the bag over to Bismuth, who opened it, revealing a seal in the shape of the Forest Badge.

“Venus, come ‘ere, this is for you.” The small dragon quickly floated up to see what it was. After that, her trainer pulled out a ball capsule and set it up so that seal would be on Venus’s pokeball. The pokemon made a little dance to show happiness.

“Aww, she seems to like it!” Gardenia exclaimed. “Well, I should go back to the gym, bye!”

“Bye!” the other two said in unison.

Gardenia went to Eterna via Solaceon and Hearthome, while Candice and Bismuth went up to Celestic town.

On route 210, they couldn’t see shit. Neither of them had pokemon with defog and that day it just happened to be thicker. At the very least, Candice had the path more or less memorised and if any trainer caught them by surprise, Bismuth battled them with Venus’s help. While traversing the bridges near the end of the route, they did tread more carefully. You do not want to fall 15 metres into water, much less Sinnoh’s water, because you will probably get hypothermia.

Bismuth didn’t really feel pain in her knee, if her word could be trusted, so that was also nice.

They took a break in Celestic Town’s pokemon centre and that’s when things went astray.

“Excuse me?”

Bismuth was healing her team, while Candice watched from one of the couches there. A tall blonde woman wearing all black clothes had tapped Bismuth on the shoulder. That was unmistakably Cynthia, and Bismuth was very much fucked .

“Sheesh- I’ll be done in just a moment, have some patience please,” Bismuth said that while without moving her eyes of the nurse. Oh yeah, she was really fucked.

Cynthia waited patiently, just like the other woman had said. It was when her team finished healing that she turned around and froze , pun not intended.

“Uhm- oh… S-sorry…” Bismuth muttered.

“Might I talk with you privately?” The champion stood with a confidence that only she could emanate.

“With me? W-why? I- I mean, I know that y-you’re an expert on mythology and I would love to talk to you about that but-”

“Y’know, you’re not far off when it comes to my intentions, but I think this is not the best place to chat.”

That moment was when Candice stood up.

“I offered to guide her to Snowpoint City, I’m also going with her wherever you’re going.” Ok, Candice, that wasn’t so bad –

Cynthia tuned down the firmness upon seeing the gym leader. “Oh, are you two friends? Sorry, I didn’t know…”

“No, it’s okay,” Bismuth calmly assured her. “Ask whatever you’d like, but I would like to have Candice with me.” 

Well, looks like they were getting to snowpoint later than she thought.

Cynthia led them not to a closed space, but an outcropping that was hard to access. Considering how small Celestic Town is, that might actually be better than going into a house. The three of them sat on the ground.

“I have a lot of questions, I’m going to be honest here,” Cynthia started. “So just tell me one thing: Why are you even interested in the Distortion World?”

Bismuth stopped to think for a while. Candice wondered why she needed time to think. Well, she had just heard about Bismuth’s interest in that fucked up dimention (because the little info she had on it was all nightmarish). She had to admit, it did sound lowkey suspicious, if it was for Candice, she would try to stay away from that thing as much as she could, but of course, Bismuth was a different person, and was it really her place to judge?

“No reason in particular,” she finally responded.

Cynthia stared at her, clearly showing how she didn’t believe her. “Sure?”

“Look, I know what you think of me, and no, just no. I’m just a regular girl who just happens to be a nerd, like you,” Bismuth paused for a moment before continuing. “If you think I’m secretly a member of Team Galactic, maybe even that missing admin because why not, you’re just wrong, sweety. Ask Saturn and he’ll literally tell you that I was scared and straight up mean to him when I saw the remnants of the team helping out at the Windworks.”

“I don’t know why you’re expecting me to trust Saturn’s word, but ok,” Cynthia coldly responded, then a grin grew on her face. Candice didn’t like where this was going. “Look, I’m suspicious of you for a plethora of reasons, but especially because there’s a really good reason as to why that ‘missing admin’ would want to investigate and even go to the Distortion World.”

“Oh, so you think that I want to save Cyrus’s ass? Why would I even want to do that, assuming that I’m Mars, which I am not? They were apathetic and manipulative, plus isn’t the Distortion World what they wanted? A world free of spirit?”

“You… do know that most of this is classified information, right?”

YEAH SHE WAS FUCKED.

“Then classify it better.” Bismuth suddenly stood up. “I’m out of here.”

She started walking back to the town. Candice quickly followed her, while still processing that whole exchange. Cynthia just stayed in that place.

They walked without saying a word, still, it was obvious that Bismuth was pissed off by that conversation. Candice had a lot of things to ask, but she figured she should give the other girl space.

The walk to Mt. Coronet was awkward, if that even needed saying, but Bismuth broke the silence once they entered the caves and before the questions could eat Candice's mind.

“I guess I owe you an apology, and an explanation.”

“I mean, I would appreciate them, but you don’t really need too-”

“No. I want to build a friendship and I can’t do that with secrets so big hidden.”

“You really don’t need to if you don’t want to…”

“Candice, the thing is, I want to say it! My relationship with Team Galactic is way more personal than it might seem. I don’t really want to go deeper into this, but I had to say it.” Pain could be heard through her voice.

“Do… you want to vent?”

“Girl, you’re like 16, you shouldn’t hear my bullshit.”

“Ok, then do you want a hug?”

“Yes.”

Bismuth pulled way too tightly into the hug, so she definitely needed that. At least, Candice could tell she felt better after that.

While walking through Mt. Coronet, they continued talking about lighter topics.

“Out of curiosity, how did you meet Maylene?”

“I think it was during a trip to Veilstone with my family? I don’t know, I was like 5. I’m pretty sure I also met Dawn and Barry, who were about the same age as me… Wait, do you know who Barry is?”

“Powerful trainer from Twinleaf Town, son of the Tower Tycoon, helped in the fight against Team Galactic?”

“Yup, that’s him. I also met Cynthia and– actually, I don’t think telling you their name is a good idea.”

“I swear to Dialga, if you're talking about Cyrus I’m just going to give up.”

“Erm…” Candice gave her an awkward smile and a guilty look.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Yeah, Cyrus was there too, they were going with Cynthia, and I’m pretty sure they were in their late teens?” She really hoped she didn’t mess that one up. “ Well, if Cynthia is 27 now and I’m 16… ”

“Take your time.”

“Math is not my strong suit. And I was 5 so she should have been… ”

“C’mon, you can do it!”

“16! She was 16. Maybe I’m not that bad at this, after all∼”

“Yeah sure buddy.”

Without even realising it, they had reached the exit leading to route 216. Well, that was quick. Thankfully, Bismuth recalled her dreepy and changed her for her weavile. Luna and La-la, her own weavile, really got along.

For that final part of the trip, Bismuth put on her coat. The route was busy that day, a lot of skiers were hanging around, a handful of them recognising Candice.

They stopped to rest at the Snowbound Lodge.

“That wasn’t that bad,” Bismuth said, way too innocent. Candice had to hold back laughter. Oh, the poor woman…

“This place SUCKS! I would rather fistfight Regigigas than having to spend FIVE more minutes here!”

Ok, now she couldn’t hold the laughter back. “Drama queen!”

“Shut up!”

Deep down, Candice recognized that route 217’s reputation was deserved and that she was just used to it, but it was still funny seeing people who were not from the north-west of the region complain about it, as long as their lives weren’t in danger, of course.

The worst (or best) part was that the snow at the moment was just knee-high. Walking through it was slow and annoying as fuck, she had to admit that, but still, some parts of the route had snow reach your head , and it was even slower.

Needless to say that Bismuth did not enjoy that last part of the route, but at least Luna and La-la did. Well, they enjoyed the temperature, because having to slow down to match their trainers was a different story.

Speaking of the slowness, it did give her more time to think about what Bismuth had said in Mt. Coronet.

‘ My relationship with Team Galactic is way more personal than it might seem’ ... Had they hurt her in the past? Perhaps Cynthia was right, or partially right. She didn’t have enough information to make out a conclusion, nor was it her place to do so, but still… She was just so curious and worried at the same time and she didn’t even know which answer she wanted to be true. Thinking about it a little bit more, maybe Bismuth knew a member, perhaps an important one, of the team way more personally than she would admit. Considering how Cyrus was Cynthia’s rival for a while and both Mars and Jupiter had siblings amongst the gym leaders, it wouldn’t even be that weird. A lot of people she knew were surprisingly close to members of Team Galactic, so what was one more?

It was late in the evening when they reached Snowpoint. They had eaten some food they had brought during the trip, so at least they had that covered. They did stop to rest at the pokemon centre, without any champions at the ready this time. Bismuth also took some time to warm up. Candice took that time to go to the gym and prepare everything.

Anti-slippery boots, because she didn’t have a better name for those, on her feet and she went on to rebuild the snowballs no one had bothered to make during her absence, while also instructing all the trainers there. A lot of people thought that she solved the puzzle everytime she wanted to reach the battlefield, but no! She just used those boots or straight up entered through the back.

Some minutes later, Bismuth came by and she struggled , to put it lightly. To be fair, most people struggled with that puzzle, but it was fun and her objective had been for it to be hard from the very start. For it to be challenging and for the trainers to be obligatory was the whole point.

Bismuth did manage to reach her, because the thing was still solvable. For the battle, she mostly used Titan the toxicroak and Deimos the bronzong. It was actually the first time she had seen that pokemon, so maybe they ate privately yesterday? Or wait, do bronzong even eat?

In the end, Bismuth won as she had done with the rest of them.

“Congratulations, you deserve this, yada, yada, yada.” Candice pulled out the Icicle Badge and the TM for avalanche, the usual stuff she gave to winning trainers. “Take this. Avalanche is slow, but if the pokemon using it has been hit in the same turn, it doubles in potency.”

“Nice. I don't think I’ll be using it much, since my only ice type is a weavile and I kinda don’t want her to go slow, y’know?” Bismuth responded before putting the TM in her bag and the badge on the case.

“I get it. Well, two gyms left, right?”

“Yup. I think I will fly to Veilstone and then go down from there. Well, I should probably do that tomorrow…”

“Yeah… You don’t want to give your pokemon, your crobat, I assume, hypothermia.”

“I’ll stay by the pokemon centre if you need to talk. Shame I didn’t get to use Venus, but I guess she will do great in the next two.”

The next morning, Bismuth flew off with Phobos all the way back to Veilstone and Candice only wished her luck, because she wouldn’t have a strong type advantage over the last two.

Chapter Text

While Byron was more of a city guy, Pastoria was nice. The nature in and around the small city was a good break from the mechanical nature of his gym and from the deserted landscape of Iron Island and of course, there was his great friend Crasher Wake.

They were sitting in one of their favourite bars in Pastoria, a tradition of sorts for them, chatting about well, life in general and of course, drinking. Today it was Wake who was going a little bit overboard with the latter.

Oh, and in case anyone wondered, Crasher Wake was indeed wearing the clothes he always wears.

“So, ye know about that trainer the others were talkin’ ‘bout?” Wake said, a bunch of beers in already and switching the topic of conversation.

“Ya mean the one who has a godsdammed legendary from Galar?” Byron asked, just to confirm. “The one that Cynthia is chasin’ around? The one that she says is a member of Galactic and most likely me fucking daughter?”

“Yup, that one. The lizard is not a legendary though, it’s a pseudo -legendary, big difference there.”

“Same thing to me. So what, how did it go?”

“Too ‘er a couple of attempts, obvious that she didn't have a clear type advantage this time ‘round.”

“Damn, what a good typin’ can do…”

“Yeah, she struggled with my gyarados, like most trainers anyway…” Wake stopped for a moment to fill another glass with beer. “If I’m bein’ honest, having seen ‘er in person, she doesn’t look a bit like ye.”

“I’ve already heard her description, Wake.”

“I know, I know, just listen, ye should worry ‘bout this.”

“It’s still… a sensible topic…”

“Come ‘ere.”

Both men left their beer glasses and leaned into a hug. Byron didn’t really know how long it lasted, but he knew that at some point, he started crying and in a weird way, he felt more relieved.

Crying wouldn’t be enough for Mars to call, much less come back, much much less apologise for well, that , but holding it inside wouldn’t either. At least in this way, he could feel slightly better.

“Thanks,” Byron said with a hiccup.

“Y’know ye always have me.”