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Gou was itching to get home, to get back to their search for Mew. They couldn’t do that in another Region, almost on the other side of the world. They had been in Kalos for a month, as part of a short-term exchange program with one of the schools here.
Some of Gou’s classmates were intently focused on the finals match of the Kalos Pokémon League that was currently happening. They still didn’t understand the intrigue behind it all; why would anyone want to watch that?
The teachers are telling those students to put their RotomPhones away as they are about to leave for the airport when suddenly it shifts. The camera focuses on a man in a black suit with red hair. No one can properly hear what he is saying but it’s clear that it’s nothing good.
Then the sky goes red, and chaos erupts. Inside the Kalosian cafe that their class had stopped at for lunch on their way to the airport, frantic whispering consumes them, even the teachers. Everyone, even Gou who hadn't been paying that much attention, is focused on the live stream now. Then the red-haired man disappears; One moment he was there, and the next he was gone. The news feed cuts off.
Even the teachers are worried now.
Destruction rages on in the meantime. The paved streets of Lumiose City are being splintered by thick brown vines, tearing it apart like it was wet paper. They see it first on the news channel that the television is set to, and moments later out of the window. One of the vines bursts through the ground underneath the glass doors of the cafe that they are in. It shatters the glass and warps the metal as it grows. The people that had been sitting there had leapt to their feet to avoid being impaled.
It has only been five minutes since the vines first appeared when the news feed returns to air, and the man reappears again. This time he is on top of that tower — it was called Lumiose Tower, or something like that? Whoever is holding the camera must now be in a helicopter, the footage is shaky and is being shot from an odd angle.
And then the camera zooms in on something as the cameraperson gasps. The energy inside this cafe goes tense. Suspended up in the air atop the Tower is a black-haired possibly-Kantonian boy, who looks to be not that much older than Gou themself. The image is grainy, being filmed from this distance and then zoomed in to be visible but it’s enough.
Gou would never admit it to anyone here nor back home in Vermillion City but their first thought isn’t anything worried or confused like what seems to be others' first thought in this cafe, it is he's kinda cute.
The horror follows not long after that.
The red-haired man appears to be talking to the boy but the news crew (because it had to be a news crew if they were broadcasting this and were up in a helicopter) were too far away for it to be heard nor was the image clear enough for anyone to try and make out what was being said.
The camera barely catches something small and moving, barely specks on the broadcast, they are rising up the length of the Tower, stopping level with the suited man’s head. What happens next, no one expects.
Everyone in the cafe is watching as beams of red light shoot out from the specks — mechanical devices of some kind? — to hit the boy and the frog pokemon who is also suspended in the air alongside him. It looks undeniably painful, especially when it is verified by the screams that it causes.
The teachers have given up on getting them to the airport, the flights most likely aren’t running while all this is going on. Everyone has focused acutely on the TVs or their RotomPhones.
The red-haired man is making a speech, saying things about how he is going to ‘create a new world’ and only the ‘chosen ones’ will live in it. The boy says something but the cameras can’t pick it up at all.
The torrent of water that surrounds both the boy and the Greninja creates a wave of shocked whispers and mutterings within the cafe. Through it, there’s a faint red light, which grows stronger with each moment.
Until the torrent disappears and the Greninja looks distinctly different, the similarities between it and the boy are obvious. Whispers from the baristas and local customers mention something called ‘Mega Evolution’. They all seem to agree that whatever had happened to the Greninja isn’t ‘Mega Evolution’.
Gou watches as the boy and his Greninja free themselves and the other Pokemon from the odd metallic spheres holding them captive. The Pikachu’s cheeks start sparking with a clearly dangerous level of power as it joins the boy’s side.
“Pyroar guy is fucked,” one of the baristas comments, her voice is loud as it rings out through the cafe. Everyone had previously been speaking no louder than whispers. Agreements rise up from everyone, even Gou even though they do not voice theirs.
The boy and his Pokemon, despite the initial struggle, make quick work of the man’s Pokemon. The red-haired man disappears for the second time but this time he doesn’t reappear. The news feed cuts off shortly after that, the cameraperson had obviously realised there was no point in continuing to record now. Everyone in the cafe thinks that this is it, whatever that was is now over.
But then the man in the business suit (its black colour has long since gone gray, covered in debris and dust) who had been sitting at the window before it was destroyed, gets off of a call and announces that there is some kind of living behemoth heading for something called a SunDial in Anistar City.
It’s not over yet. But the TV screens are blank and don’t show no sign of picking up a news broadcast.
Not long after they learn that it is not over yet, a pair of police officers show up, calling through the debris that was once the street-side wall and window.
They direct those who had been stuck inside the cafe (none of them had even known they were stuck) out onto the street that was a mess of cracked concrete, broken glass, and more of those vines.
Almost three years later, Gou meets a familiar black-haired boy on the back of Lugia. They are surprised to see him , specifically. Meanwhile the boy just looks surprised to see anyone else on a Legendary’s back, which is fair.
The two of them become friends and, almost simultaneously, research fellows for Professor Sakuragi.
Satoshi doesn’t know that Gou saw him during the Crisis (if watching through a TV counts as ‘saw’) and they don’t know how to tell him.
Satoshi, as they really know him now, is so energetic and happy. With a curiosity for all things pokemon-related that is almost naive. Almost. The boy that Gou saw on that newsfeed during the Kalos Crisis was nothing like him. Long story short is that their friend is leagues (ha!) different now than he was then. It’s unsettling.