Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue: I am Stuck??!!

“We will be reaching Lumiose City Station in 5 minutes. Passengers, please prepare your luggage for the stoppage!” 

A crazy mechanical announcement woke me up.
Yes, I was napping since I barely got to sleep over the last two days!

There’s a short tale behind this situation or a long one which can be told over time.
My name is Arka, which was a strange name in a way for these lands but I am unofficially a Faller or someone who ended up in another dimension due to some scientific anomaly based incident back in my home dimension.

But my entry to these lands was not peaceful. It instead started with my mind, soul and memories getting ripped into a recently dead trainer. Arceus has to do something with that possibly with laws of different dimensions being strange anyways.

That idiot got stomped over by a bunch of rampaging dragon pokemon from different regions, fighting over winning the favour of a shiny Alpha Female Garchomp, all of whom strangely ended up in the deep forests beyond the boundaries of Nacrene City in Unova region (maybe due to migration patterns). 

The revival came with a funny escape situation thereafter despite no one chasing me since those dragons were busy fighting amongst themselves, showcasing that deceased trainer whose soul has departed from that danger, had been foolish enough to come between a battle royale like battle between aggressive dragon type pokemons. Note that this had happened when I was of the age of 10 years, way beyond the permissible age for being a trainer in Unova which normally was around 14-15 years of age.

Now, moving onto why I didn’t get my sleep. It came down to two words: Treasure Hunt. 

That’s right as given that currently, I have been enrolled in Uva-Naranja School (both schools are combined here) in Paldea for over 3 years and found ways to avoid that exercise or at least going outside school boundaries for the first 3 years, until Headmaster Clavell found an ingenious way to stop that. But do note that, I already went through 3 Pokemon league circuits with tournament qualifications in Unova, Hoenn and Johto (starting from the age of 13 years and in that order).

That happened as the headmaster ended up calling up freaking Diantha, the Kalos Champion, which made me wonder how that even happened (or what kind of favours he owed to the champion whose battling status was on a decline after her disastrous showing at the Masters 8 Tournament against Leon) despite knowing that Paldea and Kalos share a border literally. 

The actress+regional champion when arriving into the headmaster’s room, kind of shocked me and the headmaster, because of strangely wearing a casual incognito attire with a particular T-shirt with the logo of ‘Death to the Grookey Line’ in traditional Kalosian language.

She looked with a strange sense of familiarity at me in response and the Headmaster & the Champion in the room, talked a bit about my circumstances and thus decided that my assignment would involve travelling to Lumiose City and noting down how things have been like in the city after the Kalos Crisis that took place 5 years ago.

She explained further why this treasure hunt assignment is important.
This comes on the premise on the fact that the Kalos League is running on stability of sheer fumes and after the Master’s 8 World Tournament, every league employee was fired and was investigated through trusted internal and external agencies due to existing members possibly having links to the notorious Team Flare organisation (like all the social or wealthy elites of the country before the crisis).

Only the Elite 4 and herself as the champion stayed on but with that incident in mind and Kalos’s poor performance in the Masters 8, even they are not willing to stick around. Malva (with her ex Team Flare background) has volunteered for house arrest in Kanto before more serious charges can be handed to her, Siegbold left his role to focus on his cooking career while Diantha herself would leave after the renewed Kalos league will be established (but she is unofficially not a champion in a way).

Many who were directly responsible for the Kalos Crisis and firing of the ultimate weapon in way, were arrested with isolated life sentences or for more serious roles & also ending up with a mix of torture and execution (for the most serious cases) in often gruesome ways. With all kinds of pokemon present and the abilities they possess, that could not have been pleasant.

This process hasn’t taken place right after the Kalos crisis since the regional rebuilding and economic stabilisation was the focus with the assistance of Paldean pokemon league and others (barring Galarian groups for historical reasons). 

Also many ‘non Team Flare’ aligned companies or groups like Quasartico Inc., etc took over a lot of those processes with the company named here taking over Lumiose City Redevelopment Project. But all these breakdown of the League functions and its current disbandment meant that no one knows what’s going in Kalos at both regional & local level at least and ones who survived the Kalos crisis focused on regional recovery which was an extensive amount of work with how the Ultimate Weapon ripped the region like a metaphorical knife rather than focusing on the usual local news and info communication. Diantha suspects there is a lot of political secrecy and tomfoolery going around which is enabling suppression of info about how the region is recovering and if at all.

Thus, I need to note down and inform what officially is going on in the city that the league will use that data to develop a renewed version of the Kalos League without the corruption of a deep seated genocidal organisation like Team Flare.

This is especially necessary according to the Diantha as according to the league, the companies or groups responsible for redevelopment in Lumiose City and many other major cities there, have not given any proper official update for the last 5 years along with the fact that the Lumiose City gym has been shifted to an empty field beside a national power grid substation system due to the tower itself going through renovation.
What a terrible demotion to Clemont - who should deserve better due to being the face of modern communication! He did develop the rotom phones as well as updating the poryphones for current technological level - both of which everyone uses now. It's possible due to this reason that he has focused on his research rather than pokemon battles as per the rumours I have heard about.

Given the pressure from two very official and well-connected figures in the pokemon world, how can I even refuse that task for my treasure hunt?

Moving back to the present, I feel mentally tired already and hope that it would be a nice place to go as a tourist. Nothing bad will happen at all, right?

I have kept two long-time pokemon with me for safety reasons as well. It helped that I only had a small backpack with some clothes and pokemon essential. For the stay, maybe some cheap hostel should do since I would be here for a week or so, right?

It seems like my internal questions are sounding more and more doubtful. Let’s nap for a few more minutes rather than watch more short form videos on an app which evolved the functions of the Holo-Caster though not in a good way (showcasing the addictive features similar to the social media apps of Earth).

Someone woke me up with some spilled water. In a normal world, this would be a prankster’s doing, but here, if you have a water pokemon, the responsible party would be easier to gauge.

It turned out to be a Swampert, who I named Hyde and was also my starter pokemon (in form of a mudkip) of my journey though not the first pokemon I owned. But I ended up with him due to the fact that my dad is from Hoenn or more precisely Sootopolis City, which is how he acquired it, not liking the Unova starters at all. Hyde is what I would consider as more pragmatic & intelligent than most kids and preferred to relax and read books on geopolitics or global economics while not fighting.

My first pokemon as I mentioned above was met shortly after I got my soul pulled into the so-called deceased trainer. He was known to be a notorious Karrablast (most likely abandoned by a Team Plasma Grunt) patrolling that part of the forest. But back then, he found something unique about me (most likely the soul being that from another world) and joined with me without any issues.
By now, he's an Escavalier named Pierce and his role is making sure that I don’t do anything foolish on my mum’s order. But for now, he’s busy resting in the pokeball.

Hyde looked eager to go to this new region and thus he decided to wake me up. The train was mostly packed but that cleared out as everyone moved out.
He’s using a teary look to get me going. Clever but you are not a kid anymore and almost an adult. 

Ages of pokemon can get murky but through Professor Birch, my dad told me that the mudkip who was brought was also of the same age as mine since he refused to work with any of the local trainers in Hoenn looking to start their pokemon journey with regional starters.
This kind of makes me wonder whether both of my oldest pokemons chose me since I am a Faller and knew a lot more than the average trainer.

I am already 20 years old and will be turning 21 this month which looks to be September (the calendar here is funnily the same as our world’s calendar) so my Swampert is an adult like me, looking to explore the world. I guess he inherited that habit from me and just reading books doesn’t cut it like the real thing to learn about the world.

“Alright, I am moving out. Wait a moment!” I blankly said to him as he cheerfully moved out. Like a certain legend combating pokemon, he doesn’t like the pokeball at all though I normally refuse to bring out Pierce too at the same time.

Otherwise they end up challenging trainers for prank based reasons - which is a sign that they are way too intelligent than the average pokemon and can also inform me about something even without speaking which might be something to do with pokemon aura or something.
But there are only a few experts on that subject and they are too famous to approach or hard to search for. Thus no way to learn more about their intelligence for now.

Taking the bag out, I moved out with Hyde jaunting his steps and curiously going through the place. I need to exit the station to go to the city proper, right?

Before going there first, I tried contacting my dad or my mum to inform them that the trip went safely and I will be going to the city.
However strangely enough, none of their contacts are reachable. Panicking a bit, I also checked that even most social media content I had was Kalos based only which normally doesn’t happen in this globally connected world.

I looked and thought about the situation with some confusion. What is going on? Hyde also looked at my confusion with a similar expression. Not the time to be confused before battle!

Compared to me, rest of the people on the station must be from Kalos mostly as they didn’t react much and must have came from other Kalos station which kind of taken over the region as the more reliable travel methods as the wilds of Kalos have grown too dangerous after the weapon firing and is not suited to most civilians without an experienced trainer travelling with them though the trend from what Diantha told, has increased 2 years ago especially after the Masters 8 Tournament which kind of acted as a distraction to reduce the Kalos’s population worry about their homeland issues.

A chilling announcement stopped everyone almost on whatever they were doing.
“Kalosian League is announcing that the Lumiose International Airport has been attacked by wild pokemon and has seen extensive damage such that air travel to other regions has been shut down. Further updates about the recommencement of public airline travel will be announced in due time! Visitors of other regions except the ones from Paldea & Kalos, are cautioned to report to the nearest Pokemon Centres for necessary information and arrangements that can be made for them to live here until international air travel is operational. Communication methods are also available there as the public communication network towers have been damaged in the attack as well so be careful!”

Though it caused some murmurings, no panicked people were present. That might be due to all the people present at the station now, might be from Kalos or even Paldea in case of students like me despite having Unovan & Hoenn citizenship.

But now, what can I do? It seems like things will get worse out there and I am kind of being reminded of something which I don’t like.

Let’s move out! Everything might get worse but we have to stick together!
Hyde cheered in response while Pierce launched himself out of the pokeball. He was most likely reminded of his duty. His presence got some of the trainers nearby with grass-type pokemons a bit weary.
After all, to them, a well trained Escavalier is a big threat and I had trained Pierce to parry attacks that he's weak to and find unorthodox ways to move quickly since he inherently is not a fast moving pokemon.

We next moved towards the city with a famous tower and with some connection with my mother (something to look more on)...
Here we come, Lumiose City!

Chapter Text

Chapter 1: I got to stay in a Premium Hotel for free!

No wonder some of those Kalos students in the Una-Naranja Academy act so haughty and can style themselves so well that they look like supermodels even in a tacky school uniform. Not sure to call it a school, since students from all ages and levels study there.

Looking at most of the people in Lumiose city as we exited the station, their impeccable style doesn’t miss and it made me feel irrelevant in a way. Regardless, we first rested on a nearby bench to check if I have all necessary items with me due to how long I have to be stuck here!

I relaxed on the bench next and observed people moving around and talking. 

It kind of reminded me of how my social life is like, which barely exists actually. That hasn’t changed from my life in the other dimension. Easier social skills is not an ability of a Faller, I guess!

But I have my memories at least unlike others!

But I did manage to get two friends to talk with properly rather than just only communicating with family members and pokemons.

One of them includes a student with whom I have ended up in every cooking or biological habits classes, whose name is Arven - whose parents were the well known pair of Professor Sada and Turo though due to their research work, the actual starter and trainer initiation in Paldea is done by the school or entirely by the nearest gym trainer which is rare as leading regional professors will have to do some official work like uploading of trainer profile and all that. His age is 2 years younger than mine but he has done schooling for his entire life at that academy unlike me.

The next friend showcases how abnormal my dad is, in the way in which he’s connected to his homeland as well as the regions of Johto and Kanto. He often does research work with the professors of those regions. 

But he also is friends with Steven Stone & Wallace - the current and former champion of Hoenn since he kind taught those two future champions all about being a pokemon trainer before their trainer journey began, given that my dad is already over 50 years of age now and also the first generation of trainers to not live under any inter-regional wars or conflict unlike his preceding generations.

This is how I was introduced to Lisia - Wallace’s niece, who became my friend as well as my unofficial cousin (due to how my dad has looked after her uncle on a similar note). Unlike food related topics with Arven, I didn’t have much in common with her initially but she often asked me about the right combination of moves that would be great. Since she wants to be a master Pokemon Coordinator like her uncle, that kind of question made sense with my huge knowledge pool from this life and the one before allowed me to talk with her in detail about those matters and we were fast friends after that. I also learnt to appreciate fashion styles a lot more due to which I am shocked at how great it is here, compared to the regions I have been to.

After reminiscing about my friends, I decided to go for those famed cafes that Lumiose City is known for.

But someone calling with an insistent pressure. I knew after this that things would go wrong. Very, very wrong!!

The person in question was a short blonde haired girl looking actively at her phone and playing with a set of starters with whom I am familiar which includes Totodile, Chikorita and Tepig!!

Now I remember why this scenario feels familiar. I am taking the place of the tourist protagonist in the story of Pokemon ZA - which showcases what happens in the city after the Kalos crisis. But given all the dangerous situations, the original protagonist has to go through there and the stress one should feel in the situation, I do not want to be the one in that state.

There’s a reason why I chose the regions I went to as a pokemon trainer; to avoid Ash and his legendary conflicts. I started my journey in Unova when Ash must have just arrived in Sinnoh. Thus, I decided to go to Hoenn and Johto next, where he had been to already. Then by the time I was done with getting 8 badges as a trainer in Johto, I found out that Ash was in Kalos, so I decided to even go to school again in Paldea to avoid any chances of poking wherever he had been to.

But I guess that running any more from the plot is unlikely since I was brought here for a reason and thus have to take the mantle till I die possibly!

The one who called me, was unaware of my internal troubles and was trying to call again. My two pokemon looked a bit worried too by my state though Hyde looked delighted to impose his presence over the poor starter pokemons, all of whom now, have hidden behind the legs of the girl calling me.

“She’s friendly! No need to be a bully!” My words made Hyde droop and move behind me in shame maybe.

I looked at the one calling me. Let’s approach this as if you have not played a simulation to know about this place.

“So you were the one calling me? Sorry about Hyde scaring your pokemon! He’s a brat in that vein! My name is Arka and you are?”

The girl responded with a smile. “My name is Taunie and you must be new to this city, right?”

“Yes, I am so literally though my mother was born in Lumiose City as per what she had told me.”

The one named Taunie looked at me with some sense of rational reliability but she recovered her cheery smile soon after.

“That’s nice! I am not from Lumiose either though I will always call this place my home and have some connection to this place. So before we talk further, can you take part in acting for an advert to promote Hotel Z? Please, I will compensate you for that role!”

She kind of prayed as she said that. Not sure that this kind of desperation is healthy. 

“No problems though until my friends see it and tease about it though unlikely with international internet connectivity being limited now. Let’s...!”

A loud noise from a nearby screen interrupted our conversation while Taunie cringed at the noise. She then pointed me at the screen. “That is a Quasartico Inc. advert. Do check it out!”

We ended up watching and learning about the Urban Development Project, being carried out by them as well as the Wild Zones project which made me think of them turning the city into a safari zone and attracting more tourists in the future. 

Not sure what the fans of the traditional aesthetics of Lumiose City have to say about this. Oh wait! Most of them include social elites who have financed the terrorist activities of Team Flare in some way & are more likely to face executions and jail time!!

We continued to talk after the advert was done! She looked impressed at the two pokemons with me “Swampert and Escavalier! Two great pokemon for competitive battling. Have you gone on a pokemon journey?”

I mentioned briefly about my time out on the field as well as my time at the premier school in Paldea, making her look impressed.

“I roped in a top trainer! That’s great business for Hotel Z. Well that’s where I am staying and want to promote the place to help its owner out! This will definitely bring in some views to my adverts!”

Thankfully I talked about my journey rather than my family. She would lose it if I mentioned that I know the leading Pokemon trainers in Hoenn or that the current Kalosian champion has assigned me to report about the state of the city.

“I am not that well rated. Otherwise I would have tried to get into the world conference matches and gained some ranks!”

She dismissed my self-depreciation. “That’s not important. You could have been planning to learn more about pokemon and then go for it in the future. Let’s take the recording for the advert then.”

We walked to a quiet alleyway where no one hopefully would interrupt the recording process. I told Hyde & Pierce to pose properly as Taunie readied her camera to properly record us!

But that alleyway became a noisy zone stopping our work as a Pancham and a Bunnelby fought in a trainer battle. The trainer didn’t even heed or see us being present where they were battling their pokemon. I think this interruption had to happen in some way as per the plot.

I decided to stop them before Taunie could do anything. The trainers looked at me blankly as I stepped into their view.

“Can you stop your fight here? We are working on and need this place for a few moments.”

But my request didn’t matter as they looked angry in response. 

One of them said in full arrogance “And what will do about it? You can fight us to claim this place for whatever nonsense you are partaking in!”

Hyde and Pierce stepped in before I said anything further, glaring both at the trainers and their pokemons, daring them to do something. Taunie looked ready to throw fists due to the criticism of her work.

It made the two nervous while their pokemons fled into their respective pokeballs.

“We can see the errors of our way! We will leave!!” The other trainer said in a fearful tone and ran away with his friend and belongings.

Taunie and her pokemon gave a loud chuckle at the whole encounter. 

“That saves us some time and it’s great that you can scare them before even battling them! Let’s do the shoot!!”

The process of acting for an advert was kind of fun where you have to pretend to have an image and persona and act out in favour of whatever you are trying to promote. No wonder that Lisia likes to go for those advert shootings and earn some extra income. 

Currently she’s considered amongst the top 10  Pokemon coordinators in Hoenn though competition is fierce there especially with other regions being brought in and showcasing interest in the concept. Even Uva-Naranja Academy instituted a series of classes on the Pokemon Contests the year I joined the academy over 3 years ago.

After the shoot, which I hope went well with our posing and Taunie’s editing skills, we decided to enjoy time outdoors at a nearby cafe, talking about a lot of general topics and more insights about my journey.

Thankfully they served cold coffee too since I dislike hot beverages on principle.

“Wish that the Kalos league stabilises soon so that I can go for an actual journey here. The league has stopped taking in new trainers post Kalos Crisis! Your stories make it so fun to explore and understand the wilds and pokemon & people who inhabit there!” She said with a sigh.

“There are many challenges in it too. But it helps build up a lot of your character which one can’t get from staying here.”

“I have some responsibilities here. Maybe if they are done,  I will go for it!”  

But then she checked her phone as I saw that the streets have become more deserted as the sun has set already. I arrived around 1 pm to the station here and met with Taunie around 4 pm. 

With our talks, no wonder it’s that late!

Taunie understood that point and looked worried. 

“We are so late and today, all the routes to the hotel will be blocked due to the Battle Zone taking place in this part of the city!”

She quickly explained what it was and I groaned mentally, not in a good state to fight other trainers. I needed a good rest first. My pokemon looked at me with worry!

“I really don’t know if I can fight! I am sleepy!”

This became apparent as we got away from the cafe and while walking, my steps became sluggish and my vision getting drowsy. I haven’t slept for almost a day since leaving Paldea, barring a few short naps.

“I can handle the tough fights for you though your pokemon are capable enough to fight without help.”

“That they are!” This led them to cheer a bit as we decided to take the direct route to the hotel. 

As we entered the battle zone, we ended up facing a three member trainer team who wanted to fight us, eyeing the strength of the Swampert and Escavalier I had beside me.

They barely listened to Taunie as she mentioned that I am not a part of Z-A Royale but they wanted to fight my pokemon specifically as they are rare to see in Kalos especially.

We had no choice other than accepting their offer.

Slowly walking to my battle position, they came in for the fight with Simisage, Heracross and a Machamp. These were definitely not Z rank trainers but more like H ranked ones. It will be a pain to fight them. I need to deal with them first!

Taunie acted as the referee here as we began the fight. Time to finish this! Pierce and Hyde, who stood in front of me, are ready to fight!

“Pierce! Deploy Aerodrill! Hyde! Throw out one of those Tsunami Punches!”

While my pokemons prepared their moves & my three opponents along with Taunie looked at me with shock, I gave a grin which temporarily got rid of my fatigue.

Unless you know what those moves are like or are an experienced trainer, most will not be countering them with run-of-the mill trainer strategies.

Aerodrill is a modification of Peck, which is the only Flying type move that an Escavalier can learn on its own. But to boost its power, he pole-vaults into the skies using his lances & with the addition of Aerial Ace (something he learnt through a TM at the academy), gathering a large momentum along with using Peck at the same time; thus leading to a strong impact on the ground. It does hurt the pokemon a bit though steel types like Pierce, barely get a scratch from it.

Tsunami Punch is basically an adaptation of using punching moves with a water type energy as Hyde had mastered Ice Punch very well at this stage and also deployed a wave of water with the punch. But it’s a bit risky or difficult to use it in an enclosed space like the alley where this pokemon battle is happening.

The disgustingly dangerous combo of the two moves literally knocked out the pokemons on the field as there was nowhere to hide or dodge either attack. Even the trainers were washed away from the sight to another part of the street as the wave based move literally pushed them out while Taunie managed to leap to my side quickly before the moves can showcase its power.

By this stage, we took time to just skedaddle out of there and laughed with how the battle was dealt with in such a funny way. My pokemons, who was a bit injured, looked a bit too proud to cause such damage though thankfully no public property was damaged. Only some egos were ruined instead.  

“That’s some cool moves. How did you do it?” Taunie asked, curious to know how those moves are performed and I explained some basic principles on how I did it as we managed to move through a rather empty Battle Zone area and also managed to leave that zone as well without any more hostile confrontation.

“Given its two sharp lances, you can also carry out a combo of two different weapon based attacks like Fury Cutter and Drill Run with some training but it would take years to get that coordination right.” 

I almost fell down with the mix of exhaustion and mental fatigue I am facing though Pierce allowed me to keep my stance.

“That’s why well trained pokemon trainers are so skilled in what they do. Maybe I will try inventing my own moves with my pokemon.” She replied with some confidence. Wish you luck with that.

Finally we arrived at the Hotel Z, which mixes the traditional Kalosian architecture with some modern elements. It did look like any classic European hotel in a way which hasn’t been maximising its profits. Taunie mentioned that this would be my compensation for the advert. Who can say no to a free stay at a hotel like this!

As we entered, Taunie bowed and told a lot about the place while I along with my pokemons took time to enjoy the traditional ambience. Pierce already went into his pokeball now so it’s just me and Hyde here. Hyde looked at me as if to inform me that he wanted to read those magazines that are common in the hotels. I hope that there are some like that here. There were some on the table along with the lobby seating and Hyde decided to go through those as we waited.

Taunie noticed this behaviour and looked puzzled at me.

“Well it is what he likes to do when not battling! Don’t ask me why he sits on the chair like an actual person!”

Soon a presence of a very tall and old man interrupted my attention with a floating Floette who had a unique colouration. I know who you are! Those innocent eyes will not deter me!

Taunie introduced us to the manager of the hotel AZ with a bow, who talked a bit with us and talked about taking care of your pokemon well. He chuckled along with the Floette as he saw Hyde going through the hotel magazines. 

He mentioned it a bit less seriously. “It’s nice to see pokemons acting as humans. Actually most of them have human-like intelligence or have the capacity for it but their features and lifestyle can make their utility of intelligence way different than how we would perceive it. Some say that humans were otherworldly alien beings introduced to this world of mostly pokemon in the past. I think you should rest!”

I should do so indeed. My vision is blanking out almost. AZ passed the key to my room 202 next.

Bidding farewell to everyone there and calling Hyde to follow me, we went to the next floor on the elevator and got into my room.

After changing my clothes. I literally fell asleep as Hyde literally sat on one of the chairs for sleeping purposes.

An eventful day ends and I hope that I can finish my work before something truly bad happens...

At least the room I am staying in was free almost indefinitely.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: What has happened to Lumiose City?

I took extra time to get up the next morning since I needed at least 12 hours. Also I noted down some of the points for the assignment that led me here.

I also wished to share more about the city with my parents and Lisia & Arven but they can’t be communicated with for obvious reasons. But leaving aside casual conversations, I still need to talk with my mum about her relations with Lumiose City since she was born here after all. Any info about that can help me here and at least make sure that I fit the role of the protagonist though with what happened so far, I don’t think that I am succeeding in that role though I don’t want to do so anyways.

It was already 10 pm, when I woke up. There was always a provision to sleep more but neither Hyde or Pierce would allow me to laze around that long and knowing all what will happen today (possibly), they were right. We needed to eat something soon too or maybe not..

No sluggish waking delays here as I managed to get out of the room and to the hotel lobby in under 10 minutes with my backpack - which was light enough for most forms of travel.

But the strangest part of this experience includes looking up at AZ when reaching there, which always looks strange and awkward like who’s this giant running this hotel. His floette is the normal one, kind of.

Hyde looked at me desperately then. I kind of understand why by now.

“Would you have recommendations of where to get good books to read? I mean what normal people would read though.” AZ looked at an annoyed Hyde while I was mentioning this to him. “He can read university level stuff very often so anywhere with those kinds of books will do.”

AZ blinked a bit at my points.

“I truly find it surprising that your pokemon has a strong experience in reading. Most physic, ghost or fairy types have the intelligence to read often since they are told to be close to the intelligence of humans while other pokemon types are more related to aspects of beasts or nature instead but there are always exceptions to this observation.”

I took note of some of the locations where I can get those books. 

Thankfully money is not an immediate problem for me since I earned a lot from travelling as a trainer for the league circuits along with doing small jobs or trainer battles to get every bit of cash while living as frugally as possible.

It helped that I had a good resume as a pokemon trainer while also being a former staff member’s kid - which reduced the fees for studying there

My mum was the modern geopolitics and economics professor there for a few years after growing up in Paldea. I learnt from her that she grew up in Lumiose City for 10-12 years before leaving for that region due to her parents’ work transfer though any other details were unknown to me.

“There you are. Good morning!” Taunie said too cheerfully as she arrived in the hotel lobby just then but looked down again. “I was looking for him since 7 am and didn’t find you at all.”

As the girl looked frustrated, I blinked at the response. AZ peered in the talk with curiosity.

“What she meant here is that she came here 3 times, hoping that you would be interested to go out with her as a new visitor to this place.”

“I needed all that sleep to wake up now. Just let me know what you wanted to talk about!”

Looking embarrassed, Taunie pulled me over to continue our conversation in the seating section in the lobby.

She mentioned joining her band of friends and carrying out pokemon battles to climb in the Z-A Royale Ladder.

“But I am a student now. How can I end up in a competition without proper registration? All I want is to take in the sights here as a tourist.”

My dismissal was thrown aside though. “Actually Quasartico decides whether they will allow you to take part in the competition and with your skilled trainer credentials, that’s more likely. Anyone from old veterans to school kids take part in this Royale, so being a student doesn’t matter here.”

Both I and Hyde looked reluctant to fight in this fashion since we preferred the down time rather than fight which is why I became a school student but avoided going out on treasure hunts for that reason. But I guess that habit literally bit us badly through this coincidence.

Also my rotom phone got a notification sound. Checking that out, I found a random app installed into the phone which indicated to me that I have been invited for the Z-A Royale competition and everyone was looking forward to my appearance.

What sort of phone hacking is this? I mean that with the phones having some sentience since due to Rotom’s ghost typing and willingness to possess electronic devices, taking inputs from others is always going to happen though rarely like this without a permission.

No wonder that so many people are visiting this city along with the fact that no clear news has gotten out about this or what else might be happening here.

I am also sure that it is not helped by the fact that wild pokemon keep on destroying power grids or signal lines which limits how much they can connect with folks from other regions.

Maybe those random mega evolving pokemon or the energy leading them to be mega-evolved is doing something about this.

But to advance the plot and to meet with the movers and shakers of the place to get better insight into doing my assignment, I need to join and carry out random battles for now.

Taunie looked way too happy with the news too and mentioned what all is involved in it. She also mentioned the smaller details of what goes on in these competitions and gave me a jacket with the Team MZ logo. It was green in colour, which was my younger brother’s colour, not mine. I have to see if I can get in shades of blue hopefully!

Yes, I joined a team to stop random mega evolved pokemon from attacking others. 

Unfortunately since I had trainer credentials which kind of comes with international agreements and duties like protecting the peace of the lands and safeguarding the civilians and so on. 

This meant that even if such a purpose is unknown, the critical duties mentioned above have to be done or I will be liable to get my trainer records of participating in the league circuit of Unova, Hoenn and Johto rescinded along with paying a high fine for refusing the general duties. This makes sense as these trainer licenses were the way in the past to deploy pokemon battle capable people in the wars before my dad’s generation, when it was commonplace and though those days are gone, the sanctity of those duties remain as well as the punishments for criminal activities as a trainer which directly violates these terms though rich or well-connected have found ways around.

But not in Kalos though, with their record number of executions as per the latest news reaching over 50000 people by now at least officially from the Team Flare incident.

I could have refused only if I was a normal civilian getting roped into the battling thing due to risks involved for them to do something like this as per those international clauses but for people like me at least. This meant that all other Team MZ members as well as the original protagonist (not me) from the games could have backed out of this since they were not recognised by Pokemon trainers by an official League (which was something not implicitly mentioned in the game).

Getting railroaded into a possible world ending story-line due to international regulations will not be funny to me. But it was funny to Hyde, who gave a laugh, realising how I can’t back out of this option.

“Well why is he laughing?” Taunie asked, never seeing a Swampert who can laugh when there’s no jokes involved.

“He understood something that you won’t! Just let me know what else to do!” I said with some annoyance at both of the people involved. 

AZ also commented in the background about the necessity of this tournament to protect the lands though he should be the last person speaking about this for obvious reasons.

But I found that Taunie was so bad at taking static pictures that she got a clear shot of me for the ZA Royale ID after 10 attempts with my face looking blankly at the void beyond in that shot - which makes me wonder if she was the divine responsible for all those badly taken ID photos in my dimension.

Hyde wanted to help fix that but he’s too short for taking a proper photo. My height is similar to that of my last life which was around 5ft 3 inches, while Hyde is 4ft 5 inches - a bit taller than the standard Swampert but not helpful enough as a photographer.

Taunie kind of next showed her interest in the Pokemon wild zones and they should be able to go there after the Pokemon centre stop she wants me to undertake.

She next showcased her dodge roll which looked sleek and effortless though more fit for a secret agent rather than a hotel promoting influencer.

Our discussion followed a bit about those wild zones and their actual purpose for it. Until someone shouted out to Taunie to be not too loud and disturb people in the morning.

Well time to meet the second character of the Team MZ and the actual leader of the team, Lida!

But right now, she looked annoyed by whatever antics Taunie was up-to and almost looked like she would start an argument until AZ promptly put a stop to that by pointing my presence to the visitor.

The game doesn’t even do justice to how expressive she can be when you get to see her in real life which is dialled up to another level here comparatively as she gauges what my presence can mean here.

Hyde is also inspecting this new person though that might be due to the fact that she is wearing blue clothing - which intelligence often says that she is a water pokemon trainer or someone who has a water starter like me though it’s a common enough rule.

But there are exceptions like me too since I wear other colours with blue as background accents which sometimes have a way to throw off trainers mentally who assume that I will use a water pokemon (often thanks to Hyde walking with me) without even a proper conversation. 

“So you are the one that has Taunie up the rails or overexcited to say the least!” She mentioned with some happiness while the ‘overexcited girl’ in the background just looked depressed with her antics being pointed out.
“I am glad that we have an actual pokemon trainer in our team. Your experience does make us look like amateurs on the field.”

I only chuckled knowing why they thought so while Hyde looked a bit too prideful at the indirect praise.

“I can’t say that I am that skilled since I did manage to escape that role to study for over 3 years at an academy.”

No way can I actually say why I was there at this moment...

“Still it can help us learn something!” She looked distracted and thoughtful over what I mentioned. “Your life sounds interesting based on hints of what Taunie, AZ and you have mentioned. I would love to talk further with you but I have to focus on dance classes! Bye!!”

Then she flashed out of the hotel as if she was never there, making the folks indoors blink in surprise.

“Did her dance classes teach her the move Agility to humans? I might want to attend!” Taunie wondered after recovering from the surprise.

Hyde gawked at me with surprise. What can I even say in response to that? AZ just laughed at that response with his floette.

Moments later, I carried out any official work at the Pokemon centre for trainer registration and other necessary info though given that I was currently residing in Paldea as a student, the Nurse Joys there are not obligated to say anything more than necessary.

It was the part where she mentioned catching 5 pokemon for a reward that got my eyes blinking. Note that I don’t remember everything from what happened in the game or other events though those premises have seen a lot of changes as well.

“So who’s the professor responsible for giving out the reward? What reward is it actually?”

My questions got Nurse Joy out of her monotonous funk, not expecting someone to ask for beyond the standard info regarding matters here.

“I will tell you about those but first show me your ZA Royale ID first. It It seems like something necessary to me!”

Her order got me acting quickly as shown on the phone. Hyde looked at the nurse with some wariness - but we got these sorts of people whenever crossing regional borders anyways.

She blinked in surprise at the ID. Did I or Taunie miss something here? I can’t ask her about this since she’s chilling in the nearby cafe now.

“Actually you will get more than the standard rewards under the Returning Lumiose City Trainers Scheme under both the professor’s tasks and from the ZA Battle.”

Wait, what!? What is that scheme about? It sounds awfully similar to those European Citizenship procedures which makes it easier for foreign residents to get those country’s citizenship if they share a proven ancestor who’s from those countries.

“What is that scheme about and how am I applicable to it?”

That’s the one such legal tomfoolery that Diantha mentioned critically about these organisations responsible for rebuilding Kalos. 

It’s already a major point to write home about. But before writing anything purely of my own opinion about someplace where I have lived in only for a day, I have to ask someone about this.
One of the best people to ask about this would be my mum who was born in this city and lived here before moving to Paldea and she would be contacted whenever the international calling services are available which are still offline at this moment in the citywide region.

But for now, let’s learn what this is about.

“The main purpose of the Returning Lumiose City Trainers Scheme is to ensure that the city has a higher pool of skilled trainers available outside of the bounds of local tournaments or trainers who reside here & are not directly associated with corporations, local organisations, government bodies and the Kalos League at the moment. It is mainly to provide incentives to those international trainers who can offer something great to the Lumiose City and not born here in any certain way. But there are two requirements to be eligible for it. First is that they should have at least 50% Kalosian Heritage as per latest citizenship requirements and also have 100% Lumiose City heritage within 1 preceding generation. The Second Requirement includes that they must have advanced to at least the quarter-finals stage in a foreign league based tournament thrice in a row as a proof of possessing high level pokemon trainer skills. Well, I need to make some changes to your ZA ID though you have to rise up the rank like any prospecting trainer.”

That’s way more details in that Scheme which I & Hyde wondered over as the Nurse Joy updated my ZA ID which I would consider as this place’s Trainer ID anyways since The Kalos League is not running an actual league circuit for the last two years anyways though many trainers did go to the different gyms and collected those badges in hopes of being qualified whenever the league started again.

With the work on my ID done and details changed, I saw that my ZA Royale ID came with a golden star attached with it which should get some eyeballs from others. But given that most capable international trainers from Lumiose City, who may qualify for these scheme’s requirements are already rare and also may not like to stay in the city under these conditions, I might be the only one with this designation.

This does also tell me that Quasartico has full access to the database of Lumiose City citizen databases but given that they won the tender through official bidding, to redevelop the ruined city after the Kalos Crisis and tend to keep friendly relations with the Local Council, it’s nothing too outrageous. 

I met up with Taunie at the cafe, who looked interested in the Scheme thing when I mentioned my experience at the pokemon centre.

“That's a brilliant way to get more rewards from battling and other tasks. They recognise your skill as a trainer though. But you look a bit worried though. What is it?”

She was right with how my thoughts are going towards suspicion about these things and everything that has led me to this point.

“I am just worried if anything about benefits like this have a clause that can cost you something!”

Taunie looked less interested in the scheme now.

“I am sure that they won’t do anything like that hopefully!” She assured me with a smile. Maybe it was optimistic enough to quell my worries for now. “I should show you about those wild zones now!”

I went ahead with her and then recalled that I didn’t get the name of the current professor or the info about the lab rewards at least. This comes into light especially through a random rumour on the Uva-Nara (will call the academy by this name now) that Professor Sycamore is rarely seen in Kalos and more public sightings of him have taken place in Sinnoh (his homeland) and Alola (as the league is officially operational there) instead. I don’t need game knowledge for those info even.

The Wild Zone 1 would be an ideal spot for newbie trainers to start their journey with the kind of pokemon found there. Except the Bunnelby and Weedle, others are safe pokemon to handle and take care of. Despite being hesitant to catch them, Taunie mentioned that pokemons which are caught for research but do not end up in trainer teams, usually are located back to wild zones or research zones or pastures outside the city based on the interest of the trainers.

For an experienced trainer like me, it is impossible for me to just catch any pokemon and add it to my team since it has to match how I train them and what I expect from them in battle along with mental and social compatibility with my team.

Both Hyde & Pierce are very intelligent pokemon who were very choosy pokemon since both refused to go under most trainers due to the fact that those trainers would not be skilled enough or that their pokemons would not utilise or live well with them with their increased intelligence.

Thus it has been very difficult to find intelligent pokemon who would go along emotionally with them and thus I only had 4 more pokemon by the time I started the League Circuit in Johto. It did make things difficult in the Unova circuit when I had to fight with only 3 pokemon in hand especially in the League Tournament (don’t remember its official name) & against Drayden (there’s a special reason there for the challenge additionally) & against a pretty skilled Marlon with his notorious Seismitoad. Actually I was assigned to earn my badge from Marlon instead of  from Brycen due to the path of the latter's gym being blocked by some ice formation formed due to wild pokemon infighting.

Taunie told us to go to the lab after the research work as she had other tasks thus we were on our own after she introduced us to the wild Pokemon zone. At least she gave me some spare pokeballs to do that task.

But still I decided to ask both Pierce or Hyde; whether there are any pokemon here with the potential of being on my team.

With the blank faces they made, I can only say no new team members would be asked from anywhere in this part of the city.

Thus within 3 hours, I caught around 10 pokemons who were in that zone or around it at least. Some of them were caught after climbing ladders which felt too familiar since I never had a flying pokemon in my team to traverse vast distances on my pokemon journey.

Also I made use exp candies which are often said to be energy based byproducts of pokemons evolving or something (there are many theories about this that we learn at the academy) or other evolution based items like stones, to evolve some of those pokemon to the next stage. The process doesn’t even need them to be outside the pokeball either.

I can see this easy access of such valuable materials which one would normally get in the deep wild areas away from human civilisations, but available in such close proximity due to replication of those wild environments being a big selling point of the city in the future if this keeps up.

After all, who wouldn’t want to catch an alpha Salamence within walking distance, provided that you have the right skills and capacity for it.

Regardless I see it as a foolhardy method to bring value to the city and its visitors but those corporate folk might know something that I may not, provided that they are not acquired by some other competitor though the Kalos League agreements may stop that from happening. 

I remember some other cities in Hoenn going through a similar situation, especially after the revival of Groudon and Kyogre by idiots of Team Aqua & Magma. I have been there after that disaster after all, when many cities still were in the process of rebuilding and Steven Stone (at that time) promoted a legal bill for a standard rebuilding processes & measures due to the region’s high flooding potential - being mostly composed of islands after all.

The lab was just near that wild zone and I was greeted by a lot of attention as I went there though that might be due to Hyde, who was along with me.

The receptionist with whom I had to enquire about the rewards was unusually pushy, even more than those gawking at the rare Swampert sighting they got to witness, almost ignoring me in the process.

“I want to know how to get the rewards for the pokemon capturing challenge. Also would like to know whether the captured pokemons I had for the research task can be taken in by you for releasing back to the wilds?”

But she was more focused on Hyde, who looked fed up with a bunch of eyes on him. He didn’t have to deal with so much attention in the others I have been to.

“Well I will answer those questions, right now if you can agree to meet at a cafe and let me inspect your swampert!”

No way I am doing so with a person of that sort of intention with Hyde glaring at the lady and Pierce coming out of the pokeball, to back him up and attack if necessary.

The bug pokemon was enough to spook the lady backwards as she barely managed to point towards the elevator to meet up with the director. But I needed to get some words back to this possible Pokemon kidnapper.

“Do note that Hyde can read books of higher difficulty compared to those trashy magazines you read in your spare time!” I mentioned, pointing out to those on her desk as the person in question, had such a red face while other folks there, got an opportunity to be entertained. “Also you should plan to look for another job due to your earlier comment, which might lead to losing the prestigious job you currently have.”

As I went on the elevator, I must thank Arven mentally to point out some common scams kidnappers use to steal pokemon and the cafe & drug scam is popular one here in Lumiose City especially if you have a unique pokemon and also a male trainer where they use pretty young women to lure men in such settings and steal the pokemon through such dalliances. It is similar to the scams that take place in Paldea, where the cafe food would be replaced with sandwiches instead.

The receptionist was definitely pretty but they must know that barring Lisia, I haven’t talked much with any girl on long-term friendly terms before coming to Kalos since I went on the trainer journey on my own and often go through the wilderness rather than the routes to avoid most people on the way. Though Lisia is logically a family member due to my father’s background.

On the third floor, I finally got to meet the current lead researcher of Kalos who turned out to be Mable, well what?

Wasn't she one of the Team Flare admins, responsible for all the research that led to the firing of the ultimate weapon?!

What is she doing here?

Though traces of Sycamore’s presence can be seen in the room, a lot of new random gadgets have been added to the room while Mabel’s desk is full of stuff from her time in Team Flare but also other official machinery or documents.

But given that she’s in a shouting battle with Quasartico Executives regarding the addition of more pokemon wild zones to control the increase of wild pokemon in the Kalos region and inhabit them here, I might need to wait for a while.

I guess this increase has to do with the lack of direct human movement on the routes between the cities & towns as they have become less used after the Crisis and even more so after the League circuit has been abandoned for the last 1-2 years, right after the World Masters 8 Tournament. This has led to an increasing amount of wild pokemon with the absence of Humans on those paths on a regular basis.

Even the biology professor at Uva-Nara Academy, Professor Jacq mentions this point a lot in his classes and also this being another reason why Northern Paldean regions have seen an increase in wild pokemon from Kalos especially with the increase of Gogoats and Pyroar populations, both of which have the capability to traverse the mountainous cliffs of those border areas with ease.

After the call, she noticed my presence and kind of apologised for the delay and took a notice of my ID for the reward process though she looked shocked from it.

“So you are the trainer under that scheme which was lazily cooked up by those executives and politicians. A good piece of law which would require the restart of the Kalos League circuit to get any mileage from which I don’t see happening anytime soon. Before we talk about rewards, I want to ask whether you are a student of Uva-Naranja Academy out here on a Treasure Hunt?”

Of course a researcher like her would have good knowledge of stuff like that. I will ask my questions after dealing with the rewards based matters.

She looked thankful after I answered positively. Hyde looked at her with some suspicion though

“If I have the time, I can ask a few more questions related to that but for now, you can update me about the new pokemon you caught though it must be child’s play for you.”

She worked on her rotom phone and some sort of special laptop that I have seen in Professor Juniper’s lab too when I started my first trainer journey.

“Great to know that you have covered the newbie areas in a few hours which takes 1-5 days for most other folks though there’s a difference between a civilian & an actual trainer in that regard. Now, let’s talk about your reward. You will receive two TMs along with extra pay & extra exp candies under the special scheme though that’s based on my interpretation of that scheme for rewards. Now, let me take your questions.”

I actually had some of them which are not related to her personally but they might come up. 

When I was travelling in Johto, I was hearing news of the nonsense that was happening in Kalos, which made many in Johto fearful since many of their folks work in that region including the fairy type Gym Leader Valerie who or whose family is from Johto.
But the even more memorable part of that journey, included my mum screaming during the call, anytime I mentioned about Kalos especially after that ultimate weapon was fired by the muttonchops bearded idiot - which made even more sense knowing how connected she is with the region though going through most of her professional life in Paldea and then dealing with her family life in Nacrene City, Unova where she & my dad finally decided to settle (mainly due to that museum there from what I have heard).

Mable looked very exhausted from my complaints. “I wish that I can do something about her but she is well connected through some family member who’s on the council board of the local Lumiose City Government and also funds testing for Quasartico’s equipment. Against her, I as a former criminal bonded to this job as a community service don’t have much power against.”

Well politics strikes annoyingly here.

“Just give her name. I can contact someone from the Kalos League and debar her from any receptionist or similar roles. She falls under every criteria for an aesthetically pretty pokemon kidnapper or a honey trap!”

“I will send it later. Do whatever you can to kick her out. Most guys above the age of 18 have complained about this often. You have more things to ask?”

She looked awake as I mentioned. Of course, I kind of asked about her Team Flare past as well as her conflicts with the corporation ruling this town.

“Well I can’t be angry about that like I used to be before, with your questions. About the pokemon releasing, since most of them are less dangerous and small pokemons, they will be released back to the wild zone 1 itself. Next, I got to work in Team Flare through a university internship but not directly. The company that I worked as an science intern, won a bid to act as the lab for Team Flare’s research which was considered a big thing then and all of us while working under that environment slowly pledged our loyalty to Team Flare and other aspects of our lives to their ideals eventually. But as you can see how the region is suffering now, I think that it was one of the greatest mistakes I made for too many reasons though I didn’t harm anyone directly. Other lab girls who worked with me, have done some violent crimes and based on whatever they have done, execution or worse is more likely since some of them tortured stolen pokemon and injected different liquids into them, which they synthesised on the spot, to see how they would react.”

Thankfully Pierce was not here though Hyde imagined those details very unpleasantly and ended up puking in the nearest dustbin. I am close to hurling after hearing that last bit.

I distracted myself from those thoughts. “It’s funny to see that your role in the past ends up being a parody of certain workplace dynamics.”

The ex Team Flare member looked red with embarrassment while I got a laugh from her reaction, which at least avoided the need to vomit!

“In no way that we did anything like that! Team Flare members voluntarily chose to join the organisation, either for their ideals or benefits. That’s why they are getting way more serious criminal punishments. I am sure Team Rocket Grunts or Team Galactic Admins took part in such salacious or adult nonsense to stay relevant in their organisations or deal with their dark urges; both voluntarily and vice versa. I hope that you are joking about this matter.”

“It was a joke and I would not like to vomit on the second day of my trip to this city. But it is real based on some research I have done before!”

My flat reply had her smiling. “That’s fair. Well about the last question, I am kind of swamped over with the work. Sorry, Hyde!” The pokemon didn’t like its name being used as a reference even. 

“The corporation is just dumping more pokemon in these wild zones due to those pokemons becoming more brave from the lack of people on the main routes in Kalos. We have to work days and nights without a break to ensure that they dump those pokemon here properly such that they do not cause conflict with each other though Quasartico is in a bit of a rush to do so with care. If you were studying finance related subjects, I would have assigned you a task now to look at their share prices and other financial details and correlate to why they are doing so but you are studying something else. But I will still require your expertise later on.”

After all that official work, I decided to leave the lab while giving an annoying smirk to that receptionist along with Hyde, which frustrated her such that she broke her rotom phone by hurling it at a random kid in anger, who started crying and with his parents looked pissed.

Time to rush out of her before the confrontation starts...

It was past 6 pm, when I got out of the lab. Talking with Mable took way longer than I expected but it was a valuable experience. There was a book store near the lab where I managed to purchase two books for Hyde to read in his spare time. One was about the history of the Kalos region and the other talked about economic consequences of Galar & Kalos wars throughout history. They should take him a while to read. 

I will be joining the ZA Royale Battle Zone tonight. Thus, I decided to take a nap on the bench which would act as a way to wait until that starts. Those benches are not the best for that purpose but with some stuff I had with me, the jacket and the two pokemon who would loyally guard me; napping on the bench would be kind of possible. Being short kind of counters the anti-homeless architecture style of these benches in a way for napping.

Time to rest for now!

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Battling Again & City Connections!

My napping didn’t go as well as I would have liked as someone actually waited patiently to wake me up.

Oh, it was Naveen, the unofficial chill guy of our team, who did so. I do remember that he had something here which I asked him about after getting up.

He was kind of bothered at the moment by my Swampert reading a book on Kalosian History, but what can he even do about that!

“I didn’t know that one could sleep on those benches as their design was changed to stop the homeless and wild pokemon from occupying civilian areas of the city and creating trouble!” He stopped a bit to bring attention to his actual answer. “I was looking for you as Taunie mentioned  a new member joined Team MZ. But she didn’t tell me that he was sleeping with a scholarly Swampert.”

“She didn’t tell me anything about you so I couldn’t know anything about you before.”

“But she mentioned that your mum is from Lumiose City which kind of intrigued me. I will touch on that later. Now I should get you a very essential accessory as a team member.”

I still got that big hat which looked strange on a lot of people. But as my head was pretty big (similar to how I was on Earth), it fits pretty well.

“At least it’s better than how Taunie and Lida tried it out. It’s unfortunate that all of the unique hairstyles amongst our team ruin the appeal of such hats though your plain hairstyle fits the hat very well.”

I know what I should ask him now. It’s very essential.

“I do have a request though given that you make all these clothing, right?”

Naveen stopped for a moment, gawking at me as if I had fulfilled one of his wishes though not the biggest. That must be something to do with Canari more likely.

“Please let me know your request, your dear customer!” He has now shifted to a business owner talk now. I only need to see him shift to Canari talk mode to get a laugh out of this habit.

“I want you to make a jacket with a unique design whose 3D model I would send to you through the message. I want you to mesh that design with the current MZ jacket design I am wearing and make something unique with your designer mind working into the play. Make sure that it is mostly blue but the uniqueness of the two designs as well as my Kalos & Hoenn heritage should be reflected on it as well. You will be paid well if you can do the work within 2-3 days though getting it tomorrow would be preferable. Also make the main colour of the jacket Marine Blue!”

Naveen kind of cringed at my request. “I have to see those designs to give an answer though it’s not that easy to get those out that fast.”

I sent him my contact details and we got in touch through messaging which allowed me to find and send the design file to Naveen which he took time to review.

While he was busy there, I thought about the jacket design which I sent to him. It is something that I & Lisia worked on both remotely and at Hoenn as a long term project to get me some unique clothing since she mentioned that my generic clothing habits blended me too well with the general population, which is a big no in the pokemon trainer world since unique identity builds career and long term survival for many trainers especially if you are of the orphan background, which thankfully I was not.

Thus using her design knowledge that comes from being a pokemon coordinator and knowing that my mum is from Lumiose City, which is known as the City of Fashion Models (at times), both of us came up with a unique jacket design which blended the two regional styles well along with my inputs of utility for different pokemon based gear.

But finding a designer to make custom clothing like this in normal terms would run into millions compared to the standard line of branded or commercially sold clothing even in Lumiose city. But even the commercial clothes here are leagues beyond in standards compared to what one would get as easily in other regions which ensures that Lumiose remains the fashion capital of the pokemon world, where even a poor beggar can wear something fit for kings. 

This image allows the clothing companies to land big contracts whenever any leading trainer like an elite 4 member or a new champion would request a new set of custom clothes. They thus were the only group of industries in Kalos who made increased profits after the Kalos crisis whereas every other local industry is struggling to keep afloat due to stupid mutton chops.

“So would you be able to do it or not?” I questioned with an intent as Hyde looked fascinated at what sort of fashion related knowledge I am thinking about. I guess that a book with that sort of info might satisfy his curiosity in the future.

“You need to pay me well for it. There are a lot of elements I need to learn or look up on before making anything of this standard.” He replied in a standard tone. “I have other important things to do and haven’t got orders this difficult for a while so you need to pay the worthy amount.”

I don’t know whether watching a streamer falls under necessary things to do when you are struggling to get orders. But he is right about this brand of jacket being hard to produce but through him instead of any big shot designer, I would save easily over 10000% in costs.

“I will pay you 100000 pokedollars in advance and twice that value along with some special pokemon clothing & designer material - which is equivalent to you earning 500000 pokedollars payment overall in value. All this is done without dealing with taxes as Kalos is designated as a tax-free haven for fashion designers when the country shifted government types from a monarchy to a republic.”

Naveen didn’t respond. He just looked at the payment amount in shock. But I am saving a lot by making you do this work. The actual cost of this due to all the material needed and styles involved if the product is made by a leading fashion designer would be 50 million pokedollars though most of it is due to the fact that the designer’s involvement due to the reputation & branding, would account 70-90% of the cost for making the clothing. 

This might be the main criticism against the fashion designer tax free heaven regulations of Kalos (especially by Unovan or Galarian Citizens) where 1000s of young designers survive being penniless while some few big shots earn thousands. This in addition of the fact it pulls away talented fashion designers from those two regions & end up adopting elitist Kalosian design & cultural philosophy and then culturally try to influence people of Galar through their product lines being sold there, when some of these designers become famous- which Galar absolutely hates and in many occasions, have carried out public executions with full public support to such people. Thankfully, that sort of thing doesn’t happen when regional patriotism is unlikely to lead to wars now.

I do hope that the renewed Kalos Pokemon League and the National Government makes targeting this law a priority such that it is more fair for new & upcoming designers, who wouldn’t have to risk homelessness for their passion & skills.

He then shifted to cool demeanour. I have seen your surprised face, it’s too late!

“It sounds good to me and thanks for the payment. I will start the work right now.” He looked ready to bolt. Wait for a bit! You need to take the advanced payment.

That happened through a universal payment application on all rotom & pory phones. This was first developed by Sophocles after the Alola League was developed to deal with transactional problems which developed as the island was not equipped to deal with the volumes of trainers that would be arriving there due to that.

The island challenges before usually had 100-500 challengers attempting it every year if no natural disasters took place in the process - which had been the amount seen recorded since ancient times.

But after the Kalos Crisis and with Ash being the first winner of the league tournament there, the interest in the tournament has brought over 25000 trainers; mainly from Kalos (whose league circuit is phased out almost), Johto & Kanto. 

This became troubling since the Elite 4 & the league hadn’t been established well enough officially to deal with these many trainers. Thus they had designed the league circuit for pokemon around an adapted and faster version of Island challenges with the help of Aether Foundation, which can deal with the incoming volume of trainers without harming the local ecosystem which also included addition of some imitation gyms like the one ran by Ryuji, the dragon specialist.

But this led to the payment issues for the battles since Alola was for most of its history, a barter only society with little amount of capital in general still within the hands of most of the population currently, while the majority of its capital shares or valuable GDP Assets being present in the hands of foreigners or organisations like Aether Foundation and so on.

Thus the standard league based poke centre payment system (which existed since the arrival of Aether Foundation) was not useful, convenient or fast enough to deal with a mix of huge volumes of trainers, dispersed landmasses and low amounts of capital in hands of the common people.

Thus Sophocles with the help of Clemont, developed an app for on-the-spot payment system that allows approved accounts of users to directly transfer money into their official or on-app accounts without using the cumbersome league based focused payment system. But for larger transactions, the league based payment transfer system would remain in use.

I see this as parallels from my actual world on how UPI system in India for online payments was developed to facilitate easy payment options for people who didn’t have bank accounts and similar apps have seen success in Africa where most common folk barely have the means to deal with formal financial institutions.

Moving now to the actual plot, timeline & dimension...

“That’s the payment done and also inform others that I can handle the Battle Zone without any help. This is to ensure all of you can rest or work with the advance given in your case. Just ensure that there’s some food leftover for me to eat after the ticket battles and the promotional match.”

Naveen looked grim despite receiving a huge bunch of payment. 

“That would be a challenge since Taunie & Lida gobble up everything we make for dinners though only Taunie is keen for taking part in ZA Royale though she does some other random stuff as well. I usually buy my own food instead of eating what they make, even going as far as to eat Paldean Sandwiches over the monstrous fusion food that she makes.”

I guess Taunie falls under those kinds of experimental chefs that showcase chaos over unity in their fusion cuisine skills though Galarian food at this moment, is a mashup of random cuisines into something tasty but not aesthetically pleasing - which explains her cooking focus.

“Well just make the jacket for me! Bye!”

We went our own ways as I checked where the Battle Zone is located this time. Thankfully it was near enough to Hotel Z so that I can just go to sleep quickly after the battles are completed.

Not much to say about the battles themselves unfortunately or the ticket battles since there were only newbie trainers there, who only have got some handle over basic training of their pokemon. 

This kind of makes me believe that Battle ZA Royale can be similar to Battle Subway in Unova especially after the Ingo, who became missing for years, suddenly came back in a flash, looking more older, serious and with a survivalist zeal though I am the one who knows why he was brought there at all though few groups like Legendaries, AZ and some other parties may know about his coerced time travel situation. My dad did help with the approval of what to showcase for the Hisuian Exhibition - which must be taking place in Lumiose City now which is why I had the thought about that long missing Battle Subway twin.

But it will be a unique tournament for everyone though I am sure Quasartico might add provisions for double, triple and other unique types of battles too in the process as I remember a group here working on something like that here in the past. The corporate might have bought out those ideas from them possibly.

Like Ingo also, my avoidance of pokemon routes taught me a lot about survivalist lifestyle, since barring gym battles or food or supply procurement, I didn’t stick around the cities or towns much and lived in the wilds mostly, flirting with danger often.

But it is more often that I scare the danger or dangerous wild pokemon away during those days. This often was done using the fashion sense that Lisia taught me with additional inputs from her whenever I was at Pokemon Centres for calls (rotom phones didn’t exist until I was done with my 3rd year of my trainer journey).

What I did was to get a mismatch of clothing and some paint to end up wearing something that looked similar to scary pokemon to most people and pokemon themselves. My pokemons also participated with me though Pierce was not happy one time, whenever his steel armour was painted deep purple and used to emulate the Shadow Ball move thrown by me - who was disguised as an Absol while Hyde manages to give realistic physics and sound to our pretend moves. 

Our Absol disguise was enough to scare most pokemon and people in the wild areas over in Johto & Hoenn though we stopped going for it when we ended up being chased by a bunch of 50 angry looking Absols at around Mt Silver, close to the border of Johto & Kanto, where a massive war was fought over 100 years ago between the two regions and now hosted a bunch of dangerous pokemon.

But that didn’t deter us and was for a good cause as it was scaring a bunch of Team Rocket Grunts smuggling in a bunch of stolen pokemon with the infamous duo of Butch & Cassidy guiding them in the process. The chase right after that, which may have led us to a hidden Team Rocket base, which was destroyed due to us, those pokemon, those team rocket members & their poorly maintained machines there in the process. 

We escaped next to the nearest town using a teleport with another pokemon I had at that time.

However the experience did provide me with many details on how Absols were like (no one was sure that they can band together in groups at that time) and one random student at Uva-Nara Academy was happy when I gave that data with observable results (though we scrubbed the data of our involvement in that).

Other similar experiences were repeated before and after though was unnecessary after I settled for an academic life.

Back to the battle, it allowed Pierce and Hyde to ambush hapless trainers and their pokemon on their own. I didn’t need to do anything at all as they busted out most of the moves (not the unique ones thankfully) on their own.

The only challenge here proved to be that one higher rank trainer who often ambushed poor Z ranked trainers though the situation is contrary here.

But I really didn’t have a proper counter to Pidgeotto when it was Pierce who started the fight with the bird since it can’t learn any rock or electric type moves while Pidgeotto couldn’t harm an experienced bug pokemon with its steel typing with its flying type moves. A poison type move would have been helpful here but a direct fighter like Pierce often refused to rely on those sort of indirect strategies in formal battles like these despite wanting to sneak attack most pokemon here. A hypocrite indeed!

Pierce’s experience won out over that bird as the battle kind of stretched over 15 minutes between 2 pokemons as The trainer ended up using healing items as well to keep up the fight until a Smart Strike from Pierce knocked it down against which the bird's direct agility proved to be useless.

The fight was finished very quickly in comparison after that, where my opponent can’t believe someone of my rank is fighting at this stage.

Those battles didn’t take that long so I decided to go to the pokemon centre for a quick rest. 

Unfortunately as Taunie wasn’t with me right now, I had to contact Zach the eternally Z ranked trainer & Taxi driver on my own from there instead with Nurse Joy informing me what all I have to do and so on.

It was just a walk from the Train Station though at night, the place is very deserted. The taxi stand near it was bustling, maybe on the news of a promotional battle that was going to take place. A lot of taxi drivers were relaxing and chilling around with the bunch of locals & visitors who arrived there to see what all the noise was about.

Note that Taxi drivers are very few people who are still allowed to take you anywhere in Kalos and even till the borders of northern Paldea through a very rugged road through Southern Kalos but it’s a very long but scenic route.

There’s a reason why Lisia told me to wear more unique clothing since barring the MZ logo on the jacket, everything about my clothing screamed ‘Young Adult trying to look for a fun social life’ which is the most common type of people found in Lumiose City with my jacket style and even the hat being commonly worn at the night hours when it gets colder. I blended a bit too well with the folks there and no one recognised that I was the one that Zach would be fighting anyways.

“There you are Lumiose Descended Trainer. Show us your might!”

That call alerted me and the others who were looking forward to the promotional match. They didn’t expect that it was someone who looked similar to a typical Kalosian.

I introduced myself with my challenger ticket while Zach went on his rant about his role in the ranking system though he had way more to say with what he knew about me.

“You must be the new trainer under that scheme passed on by the local Council two months ago. Your presence is a fun coincidence, right?”

I am not sure whether he is assuming whether I intentionally wanted those sorts of benefits. Let’s clear that assumption out. Hyde didn’t look happy with that question.

“I learnt about it yesterday morning. No way could I know this beforehand when the news from Lumiose City is restricted outside the Kalos region anyways.”

Zach looked at me with dismissal still. “You are those fancy student types then? You ruin the name of working class Lumiose City residents who suffer under the rule of the elites since time immemorial. Let’s fight!”

Wait! Is this about social class divisions now? What the hell? 

I was pushed out by Hyde, a thunder landed on the position I was standing on earlier. Who attacks the trainer directly like that with their pokemon?

I saw that Zach used his Pikachu to launch a Thunder attack on me. Hyde again pushed me aside as a mix of Gust and Water Gun was launched at my position next by his Pidgey and Slowpoke respectively.

The taxi driver gave an evil grin. “Well fighting pokemon and the elite means the same thing. Three of you, launch your favourite attacks!”

It was followed with a cheer by some of the other taxi drivers who kind of mimicked what he said though other members of the audience looked unhappy at the direct attack on the trainer.

“I will be fine. You will pay for this, fool!” I answered with a glare at the eternally ranked trainer. “Hyde! Show this blinded mob leader what you can do!”

Well despite feeling tired from limited sleep and passive damage from those attacks & Hyde’s pushes, I have survived worse attacks on myself. As long as it’s not dragon type attacks targeted at me...

Hyde had enough and I think Pierce is only not coming out (for my protection) is to ensure that we are not the ones breaking the rules despite the other side being happy to do so. I agreed with that thought since with a raging mob nearby, it’s not a good idea to break further laws openly when you are not in your domain.

Hyde ended up using his infamous Tsunami Punch to knock out all the trio out though it won’t do much to them. Next it attacked using Ice Beam that froze the Pidgey in place while during the opponent’s attacks while I managed to move away from those to a safe distance.

I am not doing great at all as exhaustion from staying up for extra hours hit me well! I need help!!

He then threw that frozen pidgey at the Pikachu, who couldn’t bear the brunt of his physical strength and was out. Slowpoke was the last one remaining and was barely damaged yet.

I noticed something with it as it moved its paws. “Use, Knock Off!”

The dark type move removed the Sitrus Berry that it got suddenly, which must have been given to it by Zach while I was dealing with others. I don’t know whether it’s official to give Pokemons items to hold here in between battles though it reminded me of not so good times from my performance in my last League tournament in Johto.

Hyde recalled those memories too with some level of anger where trainers randomly deployed items mid-battle. Thus he carried out a barrage of punches to knock it out.

Zach fell to the ground in disbelief despite carrying out these deceptive strategies. But he didn’t know that I battled Grunts of Team Plasma and Team Rocket to prepare myself to deal with such attacks as well as develop my own deceptive strategies of my own though I needed the help of Wallace with some of those strategies since he would have better knowledge of move coordination compared to me anyways.

It led to some loud noises as it led to taxi drivers who cheered for the attacks on me, now being pelted at by other visitors with all sort of items as it showed the audience that these taxi drivers support villain like battle strategy which made many to recall the bad memories of attacks by Team Flare, 5 years ago. 

Those Taxi drivers, in a way, became the villain that they claimed to fight against. Classic mob mentality ruining their own reputation!

The noises stopped as a bunch of Quasartico Clerks and some goons came onto the scene as they all glared at Zach - for his attack on me at least. The goons were something to note for as their clothing had a strong shade of purple. Are they Rust Syndicate Thugs or Grunts?

One of the clerks took out her rotom phone and read from some official notice. 

“Zach, the gatekeeper of Rank Z. You were supposed to keep your biases about rich people in check and not take justice in your hand to attack random business owners who were coerced by Team Flare to support them 5 years ago. After jail time, you were supposed to support our corporation’s work to help with city redevelopment projects and direct the taxi drivers to a better social outlook towards visitors. But this attack on the student from Uva-Naranja Academy can lead to loss of reputation of this city’s taxi drivers & an increased loss of the reputation of already shattered Kalos to that institute & Paldea as well as with the regions of Hoenn & Unova - where he holds his citizenship. Do you know what you have actually done?”

Everyone looked fearful on what has happened or what will happen after this especially the taxi drivers who would now have to worry about their falling opportunities to earn money to survive in this city after their act of mindless foolishness. Many people in the audience discussed how this would affect the diplomacy and trade between these regions. They kind of agreed that they can’t do anything negative in relation to Paldea at least, since that region was their direct neighbour and is involved heavily in the rebuilding of their region, in expense to their own operations.

The other audience members continued to have fun at their expense obviously by laughing, throwing or just recording their anguished reactions. Though I was too tired to participate in that, thus sitting on the nearby bench while Hyde did join in on the fun.

Zach begged for forgiveness at that moment by bowing to the ground literally. Talk about desperation to cover up your wrong doings...

But it was not enough as the Rust Syndicate Thugs were ordered to take the cheating trainer away (by grabbing him by all his limbs) by one of the other clerks, who followed them as a small group. It also meant that the crowd dispersed then with the excitement being over, while I felt more tired with whatever happened here.

It was too much. I didn’t expect a promotional match to turn into an ego slug-fest and a demonstration of class protest. What the hell!!

The remaining clerks provided first-aid to me to see whether I am healthy enough to go back home though they cringed seeing something that I know about but I want to avoid thinking about it - a thought shared by Hyde - who also wanted to sleep too. After all, he needs to sleep like a normal person since he doesn’t go into pokeballs which mimic the rest state for pokemons present there to mentally recover. 

The only exception to this rule must be ghost types - who rarely need to sleep.
I observed this with Arven when we carried out a project to showcase how Pokemon types affect their sleeping patterns. But we ended up with a bunch of exceptions (like Komala) and it was not too fun since it ended up into working over sleepless nights, database entries and analyses. 

One of the clerks who healed me, looked at me sadly. “We apologise for that trainer’s reaction to the designation we assigned to you, that caused him to react like that. But it’s not unwarranted as people like him have been losing family members for generations from endless wars especially with Galar. In his case, arrogant behaviour of the wealthy and Team Flare incident has caused him to lose himself and assaulting a few stores with other taxi drivers 5 years ago due to loss of uncle and aunt from the Team Flare incident - who were his only surviving relatives.

We recommend that you rest for 2 days at least before coming back to gather points for the next Challenger’s ticket! We hope that you will enjoy a great time at Lumiose City! A message by Quasartico Inc.!”

As they walked out, I looked baffled with what sort of stuff was going on here. But it does kind of make me feel bad for Zach as he doesn’t seem to have any other options in life to rely on beyond the folks he works with at this stage. But I won’t like him for the attempted assault in an official match like this.

The corporate nonsense here got me in some irritation as they seem to be working with a mafia group due to the lack of police officers here at all. After all, they are selected under League regulations rather than local regulation since that falls into the jurisdiction of the local gym leader, local prominent organisations or even available licensed pokemon trainers. But the league is in shambles here and the local gym leader was kicked out of his own gym and city by the corporation. 

Of course there are some police officers under the local council but they are mostly volunteer police or some of the police force who survived the Kalos Crisis. But they deal with civil issues mostly from what I have heard.

No wonder that the city is under this state!! Hyde looked at disbelief at what was going on as well! 

It does make this place no better compared to lawless places like Orre which along with some unnamed regions shared a border with Unova and often caused problems with the league officials and remnants of the Neo Team Plasma.

Those costumed freaks popped up again after Ash left the Unova region but were quickly defeated by Cynthia soloing all of them with her vicious Garchomp though Unova League, Elites and Gym Leaders have all helped in the process too, ensuring they were dealt with under a month. Also there are rumours that she got hold of two apprentices in the process though no one officially knows who they are.

Despite being able to walk back slowly to Hotel Z from there and even entering the Hotel Z somehow, which was deserted as others went to sleep by now, I almost fell down from fatigue and not managing my health well enough. Hyde and AZ’s Floette ensured that I ended up on the bed instead.

Waking up from a sleep carried out unconsciously feels way different than a normal sleep. I still feel the fatigue since I didn’t sleep with a proper posture and also that his head isn’t feeling lighter or dizzy at least.

It was time to go downstairs and I found everyone doing their own thing until Taunie found it fun to greet me. 

“I was waiting for you. There are some places you should see in the city as you have come here for the purposes of tourism, right?”

The situation feels similar to how an hyperactive pet or person would pound and take all your attention. My home had a Stoutland who filled a similar role, always responsible for waking me up while I slept there though often led to fights between Hyde & Pierce. My mum had him as her first pokemon when she lived in Lumiose City as a Lillipup and it was now as old as her surprisingly enough since she was 57 years old too & with my dad being of a similar age range. Our family does worry about it dying anytime though he's still healthy enough for this moment.

Taunie kind of filled that hyperactive role in Team MZ, looking ready to go out on with whatever thing I should know about the place without an option to back out.

I am definitely forgetting something as I prepared to go out but a grunt stopped both of us on the track. Even Naveen who was busy on his phone got alerted by that.

The one responsible for it is Lida, who possessed an expression that meant she had a lot of questions. She stood front of both of us in the corridor in front of the elevator and the hotel counter.

“So Arka, when was the last time you ate a proper meal?”

Her seriousness made me wary while Taunie managed to move out slowly away from me and sit on one of the chairs beside Naveen. 

About eating something, have I actually eaten something since I have come here? 

My memories recalled having sandwiches with Headmaster Clavell at his room after Diantha gave me the job under the guise of the Treasure Hunt, which I am supposed to do. 

The old guy was actually someone my mum trained under from what he mentioned to me before and also was recently selected for the director role after the last director got roped up into the bullying scandal accusations that took place in the school a few months ago, which led to the entire staff barring those in the research or culinary roles like Professor Jacq or Professor Saguro, to resign from their jobs and replaced by a bunch of new staff which took time for me to adapt to. 

I never have to deal with the bullying thing since Clavell and Jacq had my back due to my mother’s connection along with the fact that having official pokemon trainer credentials meant that most bullies would be avoiding you anyways. But many others were not so lucky.

Moving to when I last had food here, that would be the cold coffee I had with Taunie when we met outside the station 2 days back but that would be a meal by any definition. 

Given the trip from Paldea to Kalos took over 2 days including packing and dealing with official travel paperwork, I can say that I last had a proper meal 4 to 5 days ago which was with Headmaster Clavell.

It led everyone to be shocked at my answer. Even Hyde looked surprised with how casually I gave the answer.”

“It’s nothing new. One time in Johto, I had gone 14 days without food because I only ended up in every town consecutively on the path to Blackthorn City at night when the stores were closed. So you should not be surprised to hear this, Hyde!”

He grumpily looked at me and turned his face away while others maintained their surprise. But Lida was about to blow it out. 

“Before anything else, you will eat a proper meal or else!” She ordered, turning red with anger. 

I could have refused her but something told me that it would be a bad idea especially with my two pokemon blocking the door to the exit, looking concerned. 

“Good job, both of you! This fool needs to eat something unless he wants to fall unconscious while battling someone. Taunie, make something quickly! Don’t you think that sitting on the chair will allow you to escape your duty for the team especially as we have a member here who forgets to eat. Imagine!”

She continued to launch a barrage of words at the girl, who is kind of responsible for my situation there in a way though I am the main instigator of my own fate. Let’s go eat something unless she tells all that info to my mum. Well, I hope that none of them mention the 14 days of not eating anything within her vicinity.

Naveen and AZ’s Floette looked thankful that none of them got roped into this scenario.

I can’t even make the excuse to eat less which is something done when your body shifts to starvation mode when not eating food for long enough. But as I had Ice Coffee when I arrived here, that excuse doesn’t work.

It started with reheated Apple Curry made by Taunie last night but it was barely enough as a meal for me, at least according to the dancer girl.

“Do you think that eating like a 10 year old is acceptable for a trainer and student of your standard? Let’s see what happens to you when I tell you about this habit of yours to the relevant people.”

“I will be quiet and eat properly!” I replied, not having any defence against her points. 

But she’s not wrong. Having any bad, harmful habits as a trainer through a complaint by a recognisable trainer or a guardian can easily block you from carrying out any league circuit for a year at least. These regulations were made after the post-war eras when pokemon trainers became a representative of a region without actively needing to fight and kill each other. But those kinds of people had many bad habits developed during the war like violent battling styles, not eating food properly and so on, thus making such regulations necessary.

Taunie was able to make a bunch of sandwiches and curries with the limited ingredients and time she had to cook though it is mostly cooking up stuff that was prepped up beforehand.

“That’s why I tell you to buy ingredients and manage the stocks properly. How will you manage a hotel properly if you can’t even look after its kitchen well enough?”

Taunie no longer had any hyperactive energy left with the speed with which she cooked and listened to Lida ranting about how she enabled my negative habits further and barely checked up on him. That was not how she envisioned this morning.

“Isn’t she working on advert-?”

“You are supposed to eat and not speak. Will you be quiet?” She interrupted me with an angry look, shutting me down. Let’s focus on eating.

Note that the seats of the lobby are visible from the dining room, though the entrance is blocked but Lida stood in such a spot that moving out of that room is almost impossible.

She must be taking her responsibility as a leader well here.

Taunie managed to sit down in the chair finally after finishing with the cooking and cleaning parts of her tasks. But I had a lot to eat which I am keeping at a slow pace.

Naveen looked surprised while looking at his phone though. 

“Listen to this official news, everyone! Zach the Eternally Ranked trainer has been arrested for violating the code of ZA Royale during his challenger match against the only Returning Lumiose City Trainers Scheme approved trainer due to attempted assault on the said trainer. But it hides a lot of details.”

“Wait!” Taunie recalled something from that info, while looking at me. “Wasn’t Arka supposed to fight him for his promotional match?”

Lida will never get a moment’s rest if she looks alarmed like this every time. She looked at me with full attention along with the other two members of Team MZ (excluding the Floette, who’s more of a mascot of our team).

“You have permission to speak. So let us know what the official media source is not mentioning!”

Everyone looked at me while even AZ came out from his rest to know what actually happened. I told the tale of what happened and no one was happy. Even the AZ’s friendly Eternal Floette who is supposed to be a cheery pokemon looked ready to trade fists or petals in her case with the taxi driver in question.

Lida looked at me with some level of frustration while noting down all the info she got to know about my situation. She roared to a level of frustration that I have rarely seen in anyone for a while.

“So you meant to say that a trainer assaulted you with his pokemons in an official match with a mob of his coworkers supporting him while you didn’t report this to anyone until the authorities came up, which most likely, was called by someone in the audience. Let's note that you were doing all that with the fact that you didn’t eat proper food for almost a week. Also you haven’t posted about this online which would have got more traction about this serious matter which could prevent them from harming someone else in the future with that sort of post. You know how foolish it makes you look, right? Why should I not report you to someone like Diantha, Steven Stone or even Iris about this foolish & self-sacrificing behaviour of yours? I am sure that AZ would have their contacts now and I can inform them right now about your stupidity!”

I only looked down, not able to deal with the embarrassment with whatever she said and there’s not a wrong point in there. Maybe I should have eaten something before attempting the promotional match. 

At least I was given first aid there otherwise I am sure they all would have found a way to forward that complaint officially to any of those champions. At least, I only have a formal relationship with the two of them unlike Steven Stone - who’s more like that rich uncle who would have informed something like that to my entire family and then things can look worse for me on that side. I knew that I would pay for some of the reckless stuff that I have done as a trainer.

Note that Steven Stone is also my guardian in matters where my parents could not deal with or were not available.

“Moving aside from his lack of social awareness to do the reporting and all that. Why did grunts and corporation clerks have to step in to deal with the rule breaker? I know that the police here have been ineffective anyways. Also why were the underlying social issues just not mentioned in the news?”

Taunie looked away as soon as the Mafia thugs mentioned. Did she already take the loan from the Rust Syndicate already or planning to do so? I can’t be sure so I can’t even ask her about this. Please don’t do anything foolish like that.

“Because Police officials are appointed by the league-!”

I continued to eat as Lida’s glare was enough to stop my talks from rolling. They discussed a bit on law enforcement in the city.

“From some of the posts mentioned here, some accounts have mentioned some possible details on what actually happened and why?” Taunie said with some concern. 

“But they seem to not get much notice by  anyone outside of their standard followers? I meant to say that it will never go viral. Is it because Kalosian culture never supported or represented the common folk or their issues?”

It got everyone depressed while AZ sighed with deep depression. Given that he’s one of the reasons why this is the case though he may not have any memories about it precisely.

Naveen also sighed, keeping his phone aside. “My job kind of falls into that trap of serving high paying customers and a fashion designer’s success is based on how many successful or powerful clients or contracts he or she can get. It does betray the lowbrow culture from which I was brought up though I do aspire to have some wealth too for living a better life similar to that of my distant family living in Unova.”

That’s something I didn’t expect. Did he have some family based connections there?

Lida looked at me before I even thought of points to speak about this.

“You should focus on eating. Talking about this point further, dancing kind of falls under that lens too since highly energetic dance styles like mine can get high views but they are not viewed in a good view by most in Kalos or at least doesn’t pay well to perform here. My brother was prudent enough to go to Unova and achieve stardom with that kind of dancing style. Arka, you are not going to speak!”

My points would have been good. Their discussion was interesting.
I am now fed up with eating sandwiches and curry. But better finish them quickly so that I can go out and talk at least.

“That’s why the Pokemon Performance Contest, where they would select the Kalos Queen was always popular here with their more graceful dance styles. However, like the Furfou Showcase, it has fallen into shambles of irrelevancy due to lack of funding while equivalent competitions have popped up in other regions. But these sorts of things will rise in popularity in Kalos again, when the funding starts back again with the cultural mindset here and they are planning to do a Masters 8 like tournament  for the Pokemon Performance Contest similar to what the Pokemon Coordinator Organisations are planning in the same vein. But the last bits are mostly online speculations!” Naveen added some points to Lida’s complaints. 

“What I mean to conclude here is that the more brash kind of entertainment would be popular online while the more aesthetically pleasing and society-friendly entertainment aspects like pokemon battles or pokemon contests for example; would be planned through a tangible showcase and would be added to the catalogue of the region’s cultural events.”

Lida looked a bit down, doubtful of whether her effort for the dance classes would be worth it. I wish that I can say anything here but I have to keep the peace now!

Taunie gave a chuckle at Naveen’s theories. “So the Canari fanboy knows a lot more than just the stuff that would get them labelled as stalkers!”

Now it was Naveen's turn to look annoyed. 

“What a clever joke by a hyperactive Yamper! I look up on those stuff on the forums so that I can learn whether I can get more opportunities to earn more based which those sort of tournaments might actually take place in the future! You should know that Arka has paid me 100000 pokedollars for my work in advance already and will be paying more for a uniquely styled jacket for him, when I finish it. I would be focusing on that. You should learn to be a bit more responsible. Bye!”

Taunie never looked so downtrodden from his response. Lida tried to cheer her up while looking at me with some intention in mind.

“So you even had the money to buy high quality food easily but you didn’t even do that.” Lida criticised me which had me down. I am not winning any argument today, it seems! 

“Also Taunie, you have all the necessary tasks involving him today, right?”

Taunie tried to showcase a positive outlook despite the way Naveen roasted her. “Emma requested him especially so we would visit her and spend time seeing some sights around the city in the process.”

Lida looked determined and I am very worried about my well-being tomorrow.

“So I can just go out with him without any issues tomorrow, right? He’s anyway disallowed from taking part in ZA Royale for 2 days at least!”

The other girl could only nod though threw her apprehensive look too.

Thankfully I can leave the place and talk again though Lida kept looking blankly at me while reminding me to keep a regular meal schedule. Hyde also fed me some digestion medicine next to deal with all that food I had to take in.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I went out with Taunie. 

“That was scary, right?”

She could only nod a bit. “Yea, that’s why she is the leader officially though I help with searching for the different tasks our team can do together. I hope that you will learn our purpose soon.”

It’s kind of funny to hear stuff like this when I know what it is but things can always be different, you know.

“Taunie Lass, we have come here to fix the network tower!” A hoarse voice called out, catching our attention. “You mentioned having an internationally approved trainer so we made a rush for the work, especially with the money you paid for it.”

Before wondering where she got the money from, I saw a bunch of hardworking, muscled folk with a lot of tattoos. It reminds me a lot of those Johto and Unova Fighters who sometimes have those most often and challenge others for both pokemon battles and hand-to-hand spars. But these folks are more than just  muscle-heads and also technical geniuses from a certain perspective. 

One of the major rules in our academy is to ensure that the janitors, electricians and other similar staff are treated well so that your classwork does not get affected at all.

But the old man who called Taunie about the work looked at me with disbelief and also rubbed his eyes for some reason, while the workers along with him were shocked to see a strange change in his reaction. “Merril! Is that you?”

While others wondered who this Merril was, I mentally asked how the heck Tarragon knows my mother since that was her name. Given that she grew up here, it kind of makes sense but I needed to ask him and my mother about the connections. I'm determined that I will know more about this today.

Hyde looked ready to learn about this, showing a similar determined look, which did get the workers smiling a bit.

I carefully asked. “I am her son, if you would like to know about that.”

The old man looked as if he was shocked but quickly told his workers to move out.

Taunie stepped away a bit. “Hey! This sounds important so I will meet you soon at the Tower, right though I will cover some of my own work there.”

She stepped away quickly, giving me a proper environment to discuss the personal matters with him.

After recovering his emotional composure, he looked a bit cheerful in my presence. “Let’s climb up these ladders and let me tell you all I can say while working on the tower.”

Soon enough, after that was done, Tarragon started his work on the tower with the equipment he carried with him. Hyde paid full attention to his work though I am not sure whether his typing would allow him to be an effective electrician or a terrible one.

“So you are her son. I knew her family for a while since we were the part of lower class Lumiose City residents and known her family well, who were never treated well by the rest of the city folk or at least by most of them.”

Finally something about my mother. So her family was somewhat similar to many of the common folk here. I can ask the context about tomorrow’s incident though.

“Then why did those taxi drivers look forward to attacking me with Zach?”

The old man just facepalmed at my question or at least the context of my question.

“That man is a fool and I know that he’s a corporate tool or a scapegoat to measure the minimum efficacy of the ZA Royale System. But given the loss of their business with the financial downfall of Kalos, they have been bleeding public money and had requested for funding to both the corporation and the local council to stay afloat. I am sure that they would regret attacking you like that in this account but they have been making foolish mistakes like that since the Kalos crisis. He doesn’t know that your mother’s family comes from a similar social class as well!”

That’s the mob mentality I was mentioning about. But they may not get any more sympathy from others for obvious reasons. Even Hyde agreed as I talked with him about these points. Given his interest in geopolitics, I do agree that mindless mob mentality often has caused a loss in a lot of good progress and the collapse of many ancient human civilisations in the Pokemon world too.

“One such mistake by them, taking place a year ago, cost at least 12 million pokedollars for both the local government and Quasartico combined. What happened was that a delegation of Galarian Gym Leaders along with Champion Leon for peace related reasons, visited the city which is still a place elites like to visit despite the failing state of the region. Many of those taxi drivers were eager to get champion Leon to get onto their taxis to compare them with the Galarian taxis in a regional comparative spirit.”

It sounds like a comedy waiting to happen based on what we know.

“What happened? Some students I know, said that the Galarian champion often has some sort of ability to cause people and pokemon to lose their navigation capabilities. But how did that lead to such a loss by those groups?”

Hyde almost looked shocked by the value and pretended to be unconscious after hearing the answer.

Tarragon responded with a laugh - a pretty loud one that is. 

“Wish you were here at that time. I am sure you can find video compilations of that incident. It started with the cab drivers betting on themselves using the excuse of Raihan and Leon wanting to race each other on the cab as a friendly competition.”

I felt as if physics had left the world as I heard those words though I felt the fissure of laughter being up as Tarragon went on with his account of the event.

“But you already mentioned about the anti-navigation thing, which struck those two cabs hard and they raced each other here and there erratically, jumping off buildings, going over the city borders, striking down a Goodra or two in the wild forests nearby, surfing over the river itself and ramming through the Quasartico Headquarters during the race. Some of the hot-headed gym leaders like Kabu, Bea and so on, joined in for the fun too and it started to get crazy with citizens & wild pokemon; both fleeing at the sight of a bunch of crazy taxis running around almost everywhere. The SBC hosting hotel with that fancy name had its ground floor ruined which left that group’s leader to screech on for hours in sight of such devastation while Corbeau’s Kinggambit statue fell down in the crazy incident such that it was grovelling in front of the syndicate leader  which reaffirmed the loyalty of all the gang members following him. It was madness!”

No way none of us can hold our laughter at whatever happened and how it happened.

“That’s an impossible mess. Crazier than the Kalos Crisis!” I rationalised laughing. 

“It seems like Leon’s ability disrupts physics too and it does explain why he was undefeated for a long time until Ash defeated him with the power of friendship which didn’ rely on physics!”

“Your points made total sense. The aftermath was funny with many of those taxi drivers being charged for the damage though in semblance with the peace effort; Leon and the gym leaders paid for the damage and it is seen as a small step towards recovery of diplomatic relations between Galar & Kalos, who have been fighting for since times unknown and the actual cause of the fighting is still unknown. But it doesn’t beat the news of knowing about the ranting that Chairman Rose delivered as he got to know the news.”

Chairman Rose - that divisive character who economically rules over Galar. Not a fan of him while Hyde looked eager to know what he is economically even doing for the world.

“During the gathering of the Galarian Delegation in presence of the Lumiose City Major and Quasartico CEO, the wealthy trash ranted! I really don’t know how he got his position back after his scandals but it was funny to see that bigwig collapse mid-ranting due to a heart attack. He should cut back on those greasy Galarian food and eat those vegetable sandwiches from Paldea instead.”

I really don’t know what to say here but it will be funny to share with my friends though.

“At least you got more contracts for construction work from that incident?”

“That would be true. Moving on to the discussion about your family, let me ask you a question. How would you feel if you end up having to share your small home with some family friend and his family as a kid?”

I do feel a bit stuffy with my sibling whose personality is so different that I managed to find a loophole to go on the trainer’s circuit in Unova at the age of 13 years instead of the usual 14 or 15 years. I was determined to stay alone in that fashion and I managed to deal with the Unova League with mostly two pokemon until a random Cottontee joined us on the path and was accepted by my team too. His name is Cotton (ironically) and is living with my mum in the form of Whimsicott. She prefers him to stay at my home compared to other pokemon of mine since he’s calm and collected. But he’s not a fan of battling so he didn’t come with me when I went to Paldea.

“It would not be nice.” I also explained what I did to avoid being cooped up at home with my brother in Unova.

“That would be true for most kids. But during war time at least 75 years ago, Kalos & Galar were fighting another war over diplomatic insults or something that the rich people care about. Regardless, young folks and pokemon are the ones who die for such posh bastards in that conflict. My father’s family had the home on the outskirts of Lumiose City destroyed due to a bunch of Corviknights and Jet Planes bombing around Lumiose City to disrupt its supply lines with the city being a prime target in such wars until a Squadron of Fire Pokemon from Lumiose countered them away. Your grandfather’s father welcomed us in that circumstance to live with them and it allowed us to form a fast friendship. He also helped me to meet my wife too in the process so you are kind of like family in a sense.”

It’s kind of good to hear stories like this. But I will try to avoid being emotional. It’s not how I work.

“Regardless, both of us worked in construction roles as the utility of mining declined after the war due to machines & pokemon being more efficient in mass mineral mining. But your grandfather suffered a fall sometime after his marriage and thus had to shift to a cleaner’s job since for people of his wealth, there were no other job options in the city with limited physical capability. He also refused to work under my construction company since he didn’t believe that jobs should be given just on personal charity. The company I founded at that time, started to make some headway in Lumiose though we did work in other cities most of the time back then. Note that he and his wife or your grandmother who was a garbage collector in the city, had to deal with an increasing amount of insults & general social discrimination for being poor though we stayed in touch on good terms as their only friends. But after your mother was born and as the city grew more hostile to poor citizens like them, your grandfather with my assistance and using his remaining savings managed to flee to Paldea for better job & social opportunities for your mum, so that she didn’t have to live a life of insults  discrimination by fellow city residents. Until meeting you here, I couldn’t find any way to contact her or her family since I had no idea what happened to them after shifting since interregional communication was only for rich folks back then!”

The story kind of shows that things really sucked on the mum’s side of my family until they went to Paldea, where thankfully social classes or wealth didn’t fully dictate your reputation in the society - which has a social & relaxing culture but focused on standing out and learning about yourself, thanks to how Uva-Naranja Academy embedded into the social fabric of the region.

Tarragon took out a bunch of stuff and looked ready to give it to me.

“I will continue this conversation later since I am almost done here and have to work somewhere else. But can you entertain this old man’s request?” He told with a tone of such sincerity that I couldn’t refuse.

“No problem there!” I worked out what it can be.

“Just send me your mother’s phone number. This old man wants to contact the one who reminded him of his time with his good friend and is the only link with him.”

This is kind of an emotional moment especially with Hyde looking blankly and sucking into the story which he hoped to hear more from later on. I still countered those sad undertones of the family connection with this old man.

I did as he instructed and the man looked as if he was 30 years younger. He passed on a big bag of stuff to me.

“This contains some good luck charms - which are basically rare edition plushies made to the liking of my granddaughter Canari; available in the colours of Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Purple in all three tiers.”  He happily mentioned. 

So I get to receive all the plushies without needing to do any kind of collection quest. Nice!

“Also I hope that you get to meet Canari herself in the future. Both of you are family in a sense and without the friendship between me and your grandfather, I don’t think either of you would have existed. Take care!”

He just walked out after finishing some final touches to the communication tower located near the hotel roof, which should allow me to access international social media and international calls now.

It’s kind of interesting that everything in life is kind of filled with coincidences and chances. But I am somewhat thankful that I am here with the support of all the people who knew me well, though not sure whether I should get that chance or their social concern/help.

Let’s work on the calls next. This should take a while...

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: The Calls

I planned to call at least 4 people internationally now due to the fact that I haven’t talked with 3 of them for over 2 weeks. Also it would allow me to get any insights on the assignment work I have got from them though Arven has already given some pointers before I left for Lumiose City due to the Treasure Hunt though in a hurry.

My mum, right now is in Nacrene City, Unova at our family home since she has become an online tutor on the subject of economics & modern geopolitics for Unovan students going to different academies around the world as many trainers recognise the benefits formal education certification provides along with being a trainer. I am sure that many regions would plaster such official certified qualifications for occupying any employment in their leagues to cut down on legacy or connection based system that has been the norm after the Global Conflicts Era as many historians call it.

So in the future, no elite 4 or champion of a region will be decided just through connections of friends, the socially relevant or through family lineages - which would be nice as it will allow capable trainers in those roles who didn't have the chance for those roles in the past.

My dad has been more secretive on what he’s doing but I know that he’s doing some secret work with other historians at the famous Professor Oak’s lab in Pallet Town, Kanto, under the leadership of Champion Lance for who knows what reasons.

Arven would be called anyways as a friend and is someone who would report the progress of my treasure hunt back to Headmaster Clavell and Professor Jacq since most people outside of Lumiose City have been blocked from accessing the the general internet content of different apps in relation to what’s happening outside the city, which I am sure has been done through usage of specialised Porygon or Rotom directed regional censors, which are million times better than the regional internet blocking methods from the Earth in my dimension.

Lisia would be the final person who would be on the call with whatever time is permitted so that, other than general conversation, I would be informed that I found a capable designer who would be making the jacket that we have designed on our own.

First, I called Taunie to let her know that I would take at least an hour to deal with the calls, which she was not so happy about.

“I don’t know what makes you interested to keep in touch with your family and friends this much?”

“I really don’t know what your family life is like but I like to stay in touch with them often since they were the only people I could talk with before I met you. I would have gone insane otherwise if I only talked with my Pokemon.”

That got her quiet in a way.

“Sorry for assuming about that relation! I will have to tell Emma to wait a bit more. She is very insistent that you talk with her and I am sure that she would pull you out of the hotel if you take too long.”

I am not sure why the detective would be interested in me, other than my Faller origins, which I have no idea how she would have learnt about though given that she has worked under Looker, who was one too. Maybe she noticed something to indicate that about me, which most haven’t.

“Alright! I will try to come on time. Please don’t wander around too far. Take care!”

The standard messaging app showed some notifications, which is rare since even with the people I know, I mostly communicate with them through calls rather than text messages. I only sent pictures to them through those messaging apps.

It was Tarragon, who was saying hi like a typical grandpa while sending an interesting and old picture, taken on an analogue camera. 

It depicted him & his wife with my grandparents (at much younger age) with a small toddler in their hands, who must be my mum at a young age of 5 years old, based on physical depictions. They were all smiling in the picture. It must be some emotional family history that he has preserved here.

After thanking him, I showcased the picture to Hyde, who cried in the fashion that an intelligent Swampert would, though I managed to withhold my emotions.

It’s not that I can’t relate to these family memories and emotions one should convey while looking at these pictures. I really do!

But given how I ended up here and who I ended up replacing in reality, I don’t deserve to express these emotions and family & friend relations that I have got till now, even including the ones with Team MZ & Arven.

It should be something that Martin, which was the actual original name of the boy (whose dead body I ended up possessing accidentally), who was supposed to be in my place instead here, to experience and live a happy life with all these people.

My actual life was terrible back on Earth since I only have some online friends there and some family connections despite the wealth of knowledge I possess.

I am unworthy enough with that respect, to experience anything similar to a happy life, let alone that taking place in the Pokemon world.

That’s why I have terrible self-care habits and stopped any socialisation as viable as possible since I have thought myself to be unworthy regarding all these family connections even before I ended up here (in the original body of the dead boy). 

Even if things in that regard seem to be changing here, I still think myself unimportant and useless in the end.

Not sure on that mindset on the line of thought, regarding why I still have worked to achieve what I have till now. Maybe it was because of some people who have put faith in my abilities and the pokemon who trust me though I am not sure whether that would be enough for my willpower to deal with the difficult future ordeals that would take place here soon.

Moving from my absolute rationalisation of the utter disregard to myself, I set my rotom phone up to allow for international calls, which is possible in the Hotel Z area mostly. Naveen & Lida would find a lot of utility to this international internet access unlike most in the city.

But I had to deal with another virtual nemesis. This time, it was a warning mentioning features being lost in the browsing process if you don’t let the local network controllers or censors access whatever you are doing online through the means of this world’s version of cookies which are named cells here.

It’s funny that in this world, they referenced the term from Zygarde and possibly Reuniclus with the name of ‘cells’ technically, which must be something Clemont has coded to be termed as based on his role in countering Lord Muttonchops’s plan to end the world for most of its residents. 

But given that cookies track your activities & other details on the site that you are browsing, thus similarly a cell holds a mini replica of how you would function in the biological system as well as your DNA and it records and adapts based on how that biological system evolves.

So it makes sense with the naming logic of this world’s version of internet cookies.

But this is why people here are even worse at protecting their online privacy with technology advancing here way faster compared to where I am originally from though with a more environmental protective consciousness despite some exceptions like Tentacruel vs the Resort Lady situation back in Kanto, which has got a bunch of hotel chains roped into multi-year long lawsuits in different regions with the regional leagues, the towns and other parties for environmental damages (which does constitute life long sentences or even executions here) with no resolution in sight.

I had to look up for tips to protect your privacy through an academy website, only accessible to Uva-Naranja Academy students through special codes which you had to look around the campus to get. It gave you a very long but easy to follow manual on how to make your phone fully secure and also break through international censors (though that needed some specific pokemon along with high level coding skills - which I detested to do). It is run by someone named Cassiopeia. I wonder who that can be...

Clemont should have thought a bit before developing the sentient portable communication technology that corporations would use to get most people addicted while their minds and social structures have not adapted yet. It’s even worse compared to that of our world but with the inclusion of powerful pokemons into the mix. Let’s not even talk about all the random nonsense and dark stuff that is present in this world’s internet where there are more than one sentient, intelligent and human-like beings living alongside humans.

I really would not want to be around when Darkrai gets angry at a video creator for actual criticism of its abilities and then causes an increase of nightmares in that area to which the traditional institutions would not be able to deal with as quickly.

But I leave those kinds of matters up to some other experts or ‘chosen ones’ to deal with. Darkrai has caused enough problems in recent years anyways outside of the usual legendaries especially with artificial creation of its abilities by criminal gangs.

It’s similar to how the recording of the first pokedex of note by Professor Laventon, led to increasing amount of wars starting, since governments of different regions now would have an easy-to-go objective database for finding out about different pokemon and how to use them to develop war industries or combat potential with high efficiencies rather than relying on mystical stories to find the right pokemon for those jobs before that. 

It did lead to casualties of both pokemon and people to unseen numbers with the best estimated number still being around at least 75 million humans & 25 million pokemon around the world. 

Also the ways to travel to many regions in the world & the relevant knowledge about them was lost in the process which are termed as ‘unknown worlds’ where international PLA has no clue or control over yet. Even Orre and its surrounding unnamed areas, which border Unova, have some recognition from that organisation.

Using the special privacy settings setup I have managed to develop with Arven (he has the same setup for high privacy phone usage), I managed to bypass those settings as well as controls by the network admins here to use the internet on a truly international scale though it can be done only around this tower at Hotel Z for now.

I decided to call my mum fast and it should be early morning at Unova now since it was almost noon here.

Note that I always carry out video calls with the people I know. It was helped by the fact here that due to my assignment for treasure hunt, Diantha was reluctantly obliged to provide me free connectivity to special internet services that would work anywhere in the world (ignoring all sorts of physical signal interference) and was unlimited - a service only available to top League Officials like Champions or highly famous or official people (like Looker, Professor Oak, Iono and so on).

Now I can do anything here as I am free of local censors and restrictions.

The phone responded with a rapid promptness as my mum looked surprised to see me on the screen.

“Arka, is that you? How could you not call me before? I was kind of worried though because the admission exam season for different academies started a few weeks back and forgot to call you before.”

The admission process to enter into most of these special academies for high level studies is very complicated as it involves an competitive exam series (based on what you want to study for) along with a series of interviews taken by both humans and pokemon.

In my case, I only went into Uva-Nara Academy for post high school level general studies with focus on home economics, outdoor survival and geopolitical understanding. Due to this, I only had to deal with a basic aptitude exam along with only 2 consecutive interviews to get admitted there to study for 5 years in subjects of my choice. But you can say that formally you study for 2.5 years instead since every year under the academic calendar has half of its duration focusing on Treasure Hunt (which you need to do on your own based on relevance with your course) and vacations - the duration can be combined to consider as a semester in a way.

These things vary a lot from academy to academy.

“That’s no problem! So what would you like to talk about?”   

But I didn’t like how my mother observed the details behind me on the video call screen - which was a holographic screen that makes the entire video call easy without needing to touch the phone during the call to manage everything about it.

“I have some questions of my own first, Arka!” She sounded curious in a similar vein to that of a Litten looking to steal some Malasadas from a tourist in Alola by the beach.
“I can see some signs that tell me that the place you are at is Lumiose City. How the hell did you end up in such an unsafe city?”

Both Hyde and I feared for our lives with the way she shouted in anger at the end. Thankfully I am not the one not being scolded since I have told anything to incur that and Hyde looked at me such that to ensure that I don’t reveal anything like that in a stupid manner.

“It’s for a school treasure hunt. Headmaster Clavell had to do a favour to someone so that I end up in the city to learn about the place and note down anything of importance.”

My mum looked like she was about to explode. “Who the hell coerced him to do that?” 

She didn’t even correct me to call him as Director with how much anger and fear she is showcasing just from the thought of me being in this city.

“I mean tell me all the details about how you ended up in the city itself. Yes, it was my home but with the way in the city has gone down the drain and with so many online restrictions being put here such that anyone on either side can’t easily communicate with each other and so on, it’s somewhere I would not recommend anyone to go to. Even Johto with a mostly rural population is a better place to travel to compared to this mess of an elitist region.”

Hyde looked at me impatiently, signalling me to tell those details. None of us are a fan of her voice while she’s angry.

So I did which turned her face into an impressive shade of red which seemed impossible on someone who’s more tanned in skin tone but with yellow & bluish hues (due to more of the veins being visible) - which is seen often in people of lower class Kalosian origin from Lumiose city.

There was a calm before the storm in the call as she took time to process all the information I mentioned.

“That Idiotic Actress, my former student, has thought to force my son into a dangerous place to do her dirty, political deeds that she doesn’t bother to do anything about!” 

She gave a mocking laugh with her anger - maybe to calm down a bit. “Even Champion Leon gets more mentions online in relation to Kalos, compared to her, who’s supposed to be its champion though I guess that she has failed in that part as well.”

Her mood fell down to another level as she ended that part of the conversation which had me & Hyde worried.

“It doesn’t sound like you are angry anymore. Are you sad because of what Diantha did?”

My mum tried to maintain her emotional composure on the screen.

“I am kind of close to breaking down but I will not, thanks to you and even your brother though he’s busy making some plans with Barry to challenge the latter’s father Brandon of the Sinnoh Battle Frontier without much progress there since they are busy looking for girls to date instead to boost Barry’s online persona. Talking about Diantha, given what all she has to face and lose in the process, it seemed like I failed to train my student well enough.” 

She gave some details on what she actually did there. But she is kind of the reason why Diantha became so famous as an actress since she trained the Kalos Champion on effective communication skills for years. Both of those aspects along with her being a sufficiently skilled trainer with good connections with the regional elites helped her to become the champion of the region. But no need to mention that fact when my mum doesn’t have a good control of her emotions since that incident. 

“You said that you trained her in skills & abilities related to getting into the acting career rather than being a pokemon trainer or a politician so you are not responsible for those parts of her action. She was incompetent enough to be losing almost all of her pokemon against Leon’s Rillaboom and didn’t do enough to stop Team Flare’s entrenchment over most of the society & businesses in Kalos, which led to the Kalos Crisis.”

She looked a bit happy over my response to console her.

“Thank you for those points. Sometimes I may get emotional over all that has happened and forget to calm down. Your father helps me with that but he has been pulled by Champion Lance regarding some G-Man Business in Kanto for who knows what!” 

I didn’t need to know that bit as I looked ready to vomit along with Hyde, which got her smiling.

“The terrible comedians, both of you are! So tell me what all you did over here!”

I am a bit apprehensive to say that but I had to go ahead with Hyde looking unsure of my actions.

Like that Black Knight of Monty Python, my mother’s anger is kind of undying and can be revived back in the right conditions like here. Thankfully I didn’t say anything about my failures or faults and she spoke angrily after I finished with my details of my stay in this city so far.

“So this Zach, the taxi driver, thought to attack you with his coworkers in an official battle under this so-called Battle Royale thing. I will let you know that I plan to ruin him worse than Yveltal can even do!” 

There’s a reason I rarely do stuff that tests her anger or mentioning that will cause so.

“It’s great that you are making friends outside of your general social circle with this Team MZ. I do hope that I can speak with Naveen & Lida, who sound pretty responsible with how you described them. I was worried that you will grow lonely & old as a hermit since you seem to never talk with people at all on your pokemon journey or even care to talk with girls though overdoing it like your brother is not advisable.”

That has me worried about what they would say about me since it would not be anything nice and they would not obscure the incriminating details of my foolishness unlike me. 

“I only talk with those who are useful to me. My family is enough of a social circle for me.”

She dismissed my claim. 

“It’s not! I also enquired with all the gym leaders you have fought against for your gym badges and most of them don’t remember even talking to you outside of the gym battle while it is normal procedure for them to speak with prospective challengers to gauge their mindset & personality. Most of them couldn’t even rate you on those factors which help many challengers get gym badges even if they lose the battle. It’s funny to see that only two gym leaders had anything to say about you more than the battle. One is Wallace - who’s family anyways and the second is Chuck, the gym leader of Cianwood City, whom you only approached so that Hyde can get a firm foundation of grappling techniques for fighting in close combat. This isn’t healthy at all, Arka!”

The matter is serious when she brings my name in.
Since I can’t tell her that I don’t care much about being healthy or living that long, I gave an optimistic answer to do something here.

“Also given that Lumiose City despite its disrepute, is known as the city with the highest probability of landing a successful romantic partner, it would be nice if you find someone to date in the process which should break that isolating shell of yours.”

“I don’t care about such emotions!” I kind of grunted in annoyed desperation while Hyde had to laugh at the comment. My mum kept a sly smile.

“Nice to see you overreact over this. It’s great you connected with Tarragon. I almost forgot about him due to how busy my life is and I won’t make that mistake or let you do something similar. Do send that family picture he got for you! Now I have to prepare to crush Diantha and her fantasy troupe over her stupidity after I calm down. Weekends are nice for a reason. Bye!”

I sent her that Tarragon family picture and lied down on the floor with Hyde. This one call was tiring enough. I hope that the next three would not be as bad. Three more to go!

So compared to my mum, my dad worked on a different social tangent. He was maybe a bit too patient and indecisive at times but the people who worked along with him, ensured that he took a proper decision while relying on his cool head when things got haywire. 

He had expertise in working with ancient pokemon history and deciphering ancient practices by ancient civilisations in the world and his input was very insightful when archives of the discoveries of Hisui or ancient Sinnoh were brought out to the public. He owned a Claydol, who helped with that sort of task.

He mentioned that there were debates on whether to mention the the details of active time travelling to the public since that’s something that has too many ethical issues surrounding it which isn’t helped by the fact that the one who was involved in that was Ingo - a beloved figure in Unova due to his & his twin Emmet’s Battle Subway Pokemon Battle Facility - which can prove a challenge to most Elite 4 members due to its battle format.

The siblings and their good friend Elesa, the electric gym leader of Nimbasa City, gave the go ahead to mention that fact in the actual release of the historical discovery along with whatever role he played in that aspect of history. But he did tell him to not mention the fact that he did have an active romantic partner there, whom he even married before he was brought back to his actual timeline - which did get laughs from his sibling and friend as well as Professor Carolina overseeing the research interview (who was also Cynthia’s grandmother), who was responsible for leading the research on Hisuian discoveries, which took over 20 years to decipher to a presentable state to the public. 

It did make me wonder if he has an actual descendant due to that or is it also possible it’s those ‘you are your own descendant type of science fiction situations’, thanks to Arceus’s nonsense.

Given the time zone nonsense, it must be late at night or close to midnight at his side in Kanto.

But his line of work often kept him awake late at night and his mum did complain about him being the reason why I don’t sleep at proper hours. 

But this habit is what helped him to work with Steven Stone’s father to search the sea caves around Sootopolis City to search for valuable stones and minerals and also trained Wallace and Steven Stone at those late night hours, when there’s less disturbance from the public.

I got to see the view of Professor Oak’s famous lab as the call was responded to. But my dad was not so savvy with new technology and took a while to coordinate the settings for the video calls, preferring voice calls normally.

He looked happy to hear me.

“Good to hear from you. I already knew that it was Treasure Hunt time around September. But how Clavell convinced you to go out of that school, that I don’t know!” But his eyes lighted from the view of my background. “How did you end up in Lumiose City? There are rumours that some grunts, who haven’t been arrested, of the different, defeated Evil Teams are ending up in that city into the Rust Syndicate.”

Well that does make it seem that the mafia or yakuza gang who is growing in power due to lack of central authority or poor local governance, can turn out to be dangerous for some people.

I told him the story of what actually happened and how I am here, to which he blinked but at least no volcanic eruptions of anger like my mum. Both Hyde, Pierce and my other pokemons preferred to interact with my dad for a reason.

“Well let Diantha take the brunt of her diplomatic desperation but given that her trusted aides are now 2 in number with only Wikstrom & Drasna being left and no decision of who should fill the other spots, I can’t fully blame her. But I can see why you were chosen for the task since Diantha herself knew your connection with the city.  Your mum got connected to Diantha through a professor at the academy - who wanted a distant relative of his to be trained for the silver screens since your mum also had communication skills training, which she uses for teaching purposes now. Their shared local origin was a bonus though Diantha is from a middle Class Kalosian family.”

I am apprehensive to ask this but it’s kind of necessary in a way.

“Do you think that I am being made to spy for her in a way since this was done as the Kalosian League remnant couldn’t get accurate info on what's actually going on here?”

My dad hummed for a bit while thinking for a moment.

“Technically you need to have nefarious intentions against the nation to qualify for spying and Diantha can’t send you to spy in her own lands where she is the representative of despite the organisations in the city getting the autonomy to do things in their own way. I do wonder what favour Clavell was to concede to let her do so though I would prefer if you could go back to Paldea, even using those slow taxi idiots through the volatile Southern Kalos route.”

Hyde blankly looked at him, knowing what context is present here.

I mentioned all what happened since I arrived here and the man could not look more disappointed. 

“There’s a reason why your mum warned you about the city. It’s not doing great with stuff like this. I can only say that you should be more careful there. But I am glad that you are at least socialising with people rather than avoiding them like in your pokemon journey. Don’t give that look! Wallace mentioned to me after you earned all the gym badges, that he got a report from Brawly who saw you sleeping on top of your Swampert who was busy floating on the sea because you wanted to avoid talking with people on the Island where his gym is located.”

I saw Hyde looking at me as if it was my fault. I mean it gives me the double benefits of not paying for a hotel stay as well as avoiding dealing with people on that island.

“That was a tactical decision but now, I will be interacting more with the folks here. But I really don’t know what other dangers this place can offer at this moment.”

That’s to ensure that unlike mum, he doesn’t worry about my stay here. Leaving out what I actually knew without proof seems like good logic with my response here.

“I hope that you can keep your promises. Steven told me that he might go to Lumiose City soon as he had heard about some new mega evolutions through boardroom rumours. I am sure that it was through some Quasartico investor connections. The Hoenn origin post-war legacy company did work on city renovations in Hoenn & in some other regions along with adopting advanced technology for mundane utility & critical applications. The company decided to slowly move out of Hoenn though they operated in many other regions, mainly when Jett, the Kalosian with deep wealthy  nobility connections with Kalos took over the leadership of the company. This is mainly due to her husband who was the original CEO of Hoenn heritage, recently having expired. I am sure that they had some insider knowledge of Lysandre doing his dirty deeds which gave them the prudence to not receive his fundings and then work into winning the political bid to carry out renovations in Lumiose City. Also does your hotel have a man by the name of AZ residing there?”

“Well yeah but he looks tired in a way with a unique Floette following him.”

“He is often considered as an indicator of connectivity between regions & people in historical documents. If you didn’t know already, there’s a unique tree in front of a cave in Sootopolis City, which is rumoured to have been planted by him in ancient times. While working with Hisui research, I checked to see that he was given a mention by the ancient Celestica people who resided there before others as well as the ancient Johtoan people especially when they interacted with the ancient Sinnohan people. You can find endless references of his presence in whatever prominent historical event that took place in the last 3000 years.”

My dad suddenly fell asleep next with a loud thud of his head on the desk. He must have been tired from being busy working on his research  that Lance & the Indigo League had assigned him.

“He must have overworked a lot, barely sleeping for the last 3 days despite my insistence.” A confident voice announced, which turned out to be that of Professor Oak mentioned, popping up on the view of the screen. 

“You must be his son though not in Lumiose City for official work. Interesting place! Since you have got the opportunity to talk with me, you can ask some questions for the limited time we have in our hands.”

Of course, who would not use an opportunity to talk to the famous in almost every dimension, Professor Oak. Let’s try to be a bit formal here.

“Thanks for giving me the time. My first question would be based on a rumour I heard at my academy. Is it true that Ash’s wedding is taking place in two regions.”

Unlike most people, I asked this in the context of general knowledge as who would not want to know something that everyone wants to know but didn’t know the actual truth about the matter.

“At least you are not a rabid fan or a stalker of his! The poor boy had to live in Orange Islands with his current fiancee for a while due to needing to escape the media attention. His wedding with Serana, would take place as a destination event in Alola at Professor Kukui’s house which will be more relevant since Kukui has made Ash, his son’s godfather. Ash needed a father figure for quite a while. There’s a long story behind this.”

He took a while to think and say his next words. Should I be getting to know this, even from Professor Oak?

“This correlation comes from that the fact that Ash’s actual dad and his friends from Kanto & Johto - all of whom even had to hide their actual names under colour or object code-names due to their own security as they were clearing out Team Rocket forces who started spreading pro-Kanto propaganda a few years after the actual war between Johto & Kanto ended, opposing the union between the two regions and almost restarted that war due to their crimes - a lot of which were used to grow their wealth and technical capabilities while buying support of Gym Leaders and Politicians from Kanto, who shared some ideals of theirs. But that didn’t mean that his dad, my son or their friends didn’t have to die in the process!”

He looked solemn for a moment, mentally nursing a wound which would be healed by none.

“I had to give my mantle of the Champion in grief which was around 22-24 years ago and installed the current Mahogany Town’s gym leader Pryce as the next champion since no one as capable was present then as pokemon trainer skills goes combined with political influence. Thus the second part of the wedding event would take place in Pallet Town and would be a private event. It is symbolic since that’s where his dad had married to Delia as well!”

That’s why this version of pokemon world was so unique in a way with all those stories and facts linking up into a strange sort of representative epic based on what I knew from my original dimension.

“It looks like the past & the present are linking together to create a better future.”

I made Professor Oak smile while Hyde in the background looked impressed by my point. 

“That’s true though it’s unfortunate that any part of the wedding can’t take place in Serana’s hometown due to the dangers in Kalos, some of which you have already faced. I hope that your project brings some notice and clarity to the region which it desperates needs. I have heard from the background of the work you were doing.”

We finished the call after some small talk. A fun and eventful call and any call with my dad as well as Professor Oak in this case, left me with more questions than answers.

But most of them will be unanswered for now.

Thankfully the next two calls would not take long as it involves my friends who would prefer to be as casual as possible with our calls.

Arven looked a bit bewildered but interested in what happened since I came to Lumiose City. Despite some concerns, he got a laugh from the discussion.

“So a girl looked at you and stopped you from talking as you didn’t eat your food properly for many days. That’s peak comedy! Lisia & your mum should know about this.”

“No way are you telling them about this. I really don’t need to be scolded by either of them due to my foolishness. I was attacked by taxi drivers as well.”

Arven didn’t look impressed by my defence based on all the facts known to him, while maintaining a smile due to his own jokes at my expense.

“You could have still had some cafe food before fighting that foolish Taxi driver. So what are your plans here?”

I had to look away from him since I don’t know what to say about this.

“I am supposed to meet up with some detective who has been trained by the current International Police Agent, Looker. But otherwise for now, I will focus on climbing the ZA ranks and see what happens next. Well tell me what you are working on for your treasure hunt.”

He looked away with depression rolling over his face. “Nothing happy though. I am trying to search in libraries through Paldea regarding food that can heal your body and soul. I mean anything other than needing those unique Herb Mystica stuff. But I let you know what I have found on the subject and what can be done.”

Next, what followed was some technical discussions on what can be done in this search.

“Thus there is involvement of Aura with whatever this sort of food does. Given that your patient is technically healthy but harmed due to damage to the Soul, you will need to find the locations of those pokemon who have been enhanced by the power of those herbs - which can allow you to continue your work. But a lot of it is my understanding based on what I have read up on!”

He looked happier to discuss this matter with me, given that his Mabossttiff is the only one left in his family with whom he can share some friendship and conversations. My inclusion to his friend circle did reduce his gloominess though emotionally. But his sadness and grief is a sturdy rusty anchor which will need direct results to see some change which only one friend can’t help at this moment (based on how his story went in the game).

“Thanks for the discussion. It’s not that easy to bottle all the dark emotions that I am dealing with for a while. But in your case, they are still kind of there but less compared to our time at school. Ah! You have made some friends technically!”

He really didn't point that out as if it’s some rare phenomenon.

“I need to work on them for now to deal with things here. I am sure that they won’t let me alone and it’s not like I can go anywhere else since the airport, which was damaged by wild pokemon, is under repair.”

He gave one of those rare smiles in response. The one he uses only when he has something to joke about regarding my life. Unfortunately years of interaction has given him enough ammunition there.

“That’s good news indeed. But as you know where there’s darkness, there’s light. Given that even the guy with the emotional density of an osmium can fall in love in Lumiose City, thus even a guy full of darkness has that option.”

He’s referring to the one who’s kind of a Pokemon Master now.

“Hey! I don’t care about that stuff and neither do I have any darkness within me!”

Both Arven & Hyde (who started reading a book as we went into our conversation) looked at me with disbelief.

“Well being introverted and being reluctant to talk with anyone for too long, isn’t a sign of darkness either, right? This is something I can prove by knowing that you rejected every girl even before they could ask you out as if it was a sixth sense of yours. I mean most guys would be lucky to even get the attention of one beyond friendship despite that being a complicated ethical matter!”

Well he was not wrong with all this info he had about me. It is something that makes our lives unique. But I had my reasons to do so and when you are a skilled trainer, you have to train your mind & eyes to read people beyond what they say or intend to do - especially with laws that can favour or go against you in those confrontations.

“I am sure that they had some other sinister intention since I am not that great of a person and I am sure that they plan to take advantage of my family connections. Even Hyde or Pierce could have found those intentions out easily.” Hyde only hummed in response.

“Always assuming that new girls are interacting with you with any positive emotions, are villains looking to exploit you - no wonder that you are full of darkness in layman terms.” His eyes glinted with opportunity such that it worried me a lot.

“I think we should raise the stakes higher. We would bet on a simple scenario.” I know where he’s going here.
“If you end up dating someone from Lumiose City, you will have to pay me at least 2 million pokedollars. If you don’t, I will pay you that amount, given that my parents are too busy researching to care about all the funds they have accumulated from their earnings. Also note that you can’t emotionally harm that person while trying to reject them. I have the resources to find out if you did anything like that and change the details of the bet thus!”

Ah! They are dead but there is no way to prove that they are so. Thus, the conversation doesn’t go on another tangent. But he’s intelligent enough to do so, despite his bubbling dark thoughts around his partner pokemon.

We virtually shook hands to agree with the deal.

“Not sure whether this is a good idea but it was fun talking with you.”

“I can say the same. It’s better than spending time on my own in an empty campus. Also I remember based on the fact that you are meeting Looker's apprentice, right?”

After giving an affirmative answer, he showed me something on the screen. 

“These are some pictures of rumours that show that the infamous scientist of Team Flare Xerosic had carried out some brainwave manipulation technology to fool everyone into thinking that he was an ally of the Kalos League. But then, a few days after the Masters 8 Tournament was done, he was pronounced as dead and the League fully censored mentions of this anywhere and Looker has some involvement in that process. But it’s all rumours by this stage of the political kind. Also take care!”

The call finished there and I saw the pictures Arven sent regarding the rumours. But no way to prove that they are true or not? Maybe something I can ask her later.

I spend almost an hour over these calls. I hope that it’s late enough at night in Hoenn such that Lisia would not be as willing to carry out a long call.

Was she actually there? I am saying so with 80% probability since she’s trying to become amongst the top 5 Pokemon Coordinators within the combined Hoenn & Sinnoh region, which were the first places where these sort of events started.

But there’s now an increasing competition from different regions as more people get into one along with aesthetically focused pokemon trainers trying to get into that scene & the variety of pokemon being used. It is even more challenging to stand out or position yourself on her higher ranks.

What wouldn’t I give to give to see a Buzzwole punching the ice block head of an acrobatic Eiscue in mid-air while at the same time, an Arcanine charges at it with a Flare Blitz to an spectacular lighting effective from the explosion of the ice from a combined attack. Not sure who would even use that combination of pokemon since Buzzwole is an ultra beast pokemon. 

But I do have a mind for pokemon coordination though I am not keen on wearing those fancy outfits that folks in that field often wear and change up.

The call started very eventfully as she literally acted on instinct to hug (which I normally tend to dodge but as this was a video call, she went right through the holographic screen and crashed somewhere in her room most likely. 

Both of us there cringed, especially Hyde who liked interacting with the girl and is currently reading the Kalos history book now. He’s changing his reading between that and the Galar-Kalos war one - which is neat.

On Lisia’s side, I hope that there is not too much stuff kept around in her room in this circumstance.

“Are you okay?”

She looked unkempt with the failed attempt at the hug - though it has happened every time. She showed a thumbs up.

“I am totally fine though I need to prepare to go out tomorrow to Mossdeep City, where I could win two ribbons as there are two consecutive competitions taking place there. Given the rumours of creation of Masters 8-like World Tournament for Pokemon Contests along with the existing Wallace Cup Tournament, which can see thousands of participants from all around the globe including the unknown regions.”

That’s interesting indeed and it would be interesting to see how it folds out. From what Steven Stone told me a few months ago, Wallace as well as Steven’s father were working heavily towards doing something like that for many years but they have the capability to do so now with the increase of funding, increasing global interactions and explosion of internet and online influencers. Those people are here too - thanks to Clemont in a way.

The unknown regions are something I want to think over but it’s something too complicated to think over while I am on the call. But I think I recall is that at least 100 years ago, a lot more regions beyond the current ones were known about but due to war and other issues, knowledge of those regions failed out of public and political memories. 

Lenora - now the formal Normal Type Gym Leader in Unova, has mentioned that my changed name seemed to be from such a region. Maybe somewhere India is definitely inspired in this case.

The dead body or soul’s name was Martin - which is a typical Unovan name but I took over his body (since he’s dead), I decided to change my name to Arka - which is the name I used to have back in my own dimension where I lived in a certain part of India. There’s a pokemon equivalent region of India but it is barely known by anyone in the known regions though some pokemons like Copperajah line come from there 

The ancestors of Leon or Professor Laventon, also came from that region to Galar many years ago. Maybe Lenora thought about those references with respect to my new name. 

“Wish you the best of luck. But there’s nothing too happy about things on my side.”

Lisia looked sad in response though showcased some resolute gaze. I definitely forgot something that is making her mad now.

“If you promise that you would meet me at Hoenn or even wherever my pokemon coordinator journey takes me, then only I will listen to your worries! I wonder how or why we have a good friendship when the last time we met was when you finished the Indigo League conference after the Johto gym circuit and looked grim due to losing on a strange method.” 

I mentally groaned thinking about that moment or my faults of being a friend to her. “I didn’t know that Richie found a strange way to counter Hyde’s ground typing to shock him and his Pikachu is nowhere close to the strength of Ash’s Pikachu. I have no idea why he didn’t evolve it either!”

“Regardless, I can’t be the only one helping you or listening to you always on calls. You have to step up and do the same too. Your mum has already mentioned why you haven’t gone out on the treasure hunt from your academy for the last 3 years but that didn’t have to mean to stay cooped up there and not visit your awesome ‘cousin’. Families and friends are built on mutual acts of trust and communication. Travelling between continents is even easier now!”

Given how badly I rate myself and my existence, she would be another person who will not get a mention of that from me at least. Also another reason why I didn’t try to go out and physically meet her at Hoenn or even Sinnoh.

I still had no excuse for my perspective of my actions.

“Sorry about that! After I finish my treasure hunt, I will visit you surely since I know that neither your parents nor your uncle Wallace would allow you to visit Kalos in this state.”

She looked shocked that she didn’t know the location where I was after all. Right, I called her a month ago, way before Diantha assigned me my work.

“Wait! You are in Kalos? Your background looked familiar for a reason. That’s Lumiose City, right? But how did you end up there, given that you refused to leave to go beyond the borders of Mesagoza grounds? You were forced?”

I only replied with a self-depreciating laugh. I told the entire tale of what I have been up to here and what all did I do over these two days and it would be an understatement to say that Lisia was not happy But that part might why Wallace complains often to my dad that my mum was the one who taught her to get angry that easily.

“Let me wait until I get my hands on his Zach. I hope that he will be able to take a direct intentional hit of a dragon pulse from my Mega Altaria.”

I wonder whether the disgraced taxi driver in question, would prefer to stay in his cells with the number of people who would be plotting to attack him for his crazed attack. I am already sure 5 people including Lisia are in that group and more would be included as this info spreads though that guy has many haters online since someone recorded his brazen attack anyways.

“You can plan it at your own time. Moving on to another big news, I have found the designer for my jacket.”

She looked shocked by my words and squealed too in a way. My ears are not thankful but I am glad that there's barely any neighbours around the hotel Z.
“Really?! How? I know most designers would not work on such designs without being paid much and newbie designers would not have the skill to work on this.”

I grinned proudly. “It’s actually that Naveen guy - whom I met with Team MZ and has made a lot of good clothing already with this jacket I am wearing. So I told him to merge our design with the MZ Team Jacket. It should lead to a new line of clothing designs mixing two separate designs from different regions.”

“It’s not fair that you got your own personal fashion designer already despite not being a pokemon coordinator while I am struggling to get one at reasonable rates and losing out on points in the contests since my clothing styles have been stalling any further point gain for those!”

I guess this has to do with some pokemon coordinators focusing on certain themes based on their personalities and outfits but then failing to change something on that aspect over many contests, thus making their original aesthetics not as appealing to the judges which ends up with them not getting any points.

Using Altaria and matching aesthetics based on that pokemon for most of her contests, might have been caused by this dilemma.

Top coordinators have their access to services to top designers for breaking this situation but with Lisia’s reputation or personal connections, it became too hard for her to hire any designer as they overcharged for their services compared to what they would to her immediate competitors like May or even Chaz (who exists in this pokemon dimension). 

She managed to counter that by working on her own designs with my assistance but it might be reaching its limit since she also has to focus on practising for the contest events itself with her pokemon (which is crucial for high level Pokemon contests). 

It didn’t help that her uncle himself was good at designing clothes and also took the help of his friend Juan (who normally took over the Sootopolis Gym duties when he was not present) as his own personal fashion designer too. But Juan refused to work with Lisia since he has mentioned that he won't be able to make fashionable clothing with more feminine aesthetic elements since he specialised in making fashionable clothing for men instead.

“No way will you be meeting Naveen though since his family barely makes any income and he’s just surviving while living at this hotel along with Lida. I even don’t know how comfortable he will be working with wealthy people (which you are) since his focus is now on potential clients rather than ones who are at their peak with respect to skill or wealth.”

It made her look depressed but better to state the reality here.

“Alright then. Moving aside from that, our jacket design did involve a lot of components that can only be found in & Sootopolis City as relation to the Weather Trio, which seem to have major connections there. How would Naveen even get those for putting into the design?”

I had to literally talk with a few people in Sootopolis City to make sure this was not the case. This is what I explained to her in response.

“Divers, Fishermen & Scientists from that city who own these components, sell them online too and ship them with priority teleportation services. You only need to know their details and pay them, which is why I paid Naveen 100000 pokedollars in advance for that purpose. He should get those easily within a day if he has ordered them on a timely basis.”

The components were nothing much special but unique in their own way. Small meteorite fragments available at the crater on the seabed, bunch of differently aged petals from the flowers on the base of the tree in the city supposedly planted by AZ & small gemstones which may have some element of aura energy stored into them due to exposure of Hoenn by the advent of the Weather Trio Legendaries - all of these would add some unique flare to the actual design which would be made by Naveen. 

They are rumoured to give some protection from energy attacks by weather & pokemon. You have to buy them in bulk and embed them with the fabrics while making the relevant clothing item to get those effects.

But they are supposed to work on those who have the heritage of ancient Sootopolis people or are just born in that ancient city. This is why their value isn’t more and is still somewhat buy-able at a lower cost due to their historical connections to the city.

“Will that protection thing work for you? Since you mentioned wild pokemons present here, that might be useful.”

“My father is born in that city, so it should work for me too. I think it only has to be a recent connection in that aspect.”

After some small talk and meeting up with my pokemon, Lisia yawned, signalling her time to get to bed.

“I hope that you will stay safe regardless of whatever craziness that takes place there. I would like to see that jacket soon as well. I have to reach Mossdeep City in under 3 days so that I can get some practice before those contests. Don’t forget to make new friends too! Bye!”

I gave a nice sigh after that was done. All those calls were exhausting despite the fact that I got to reconnect with the people who care for me at this stage and learn a lot of things and relevant info in the process.

Now, a bit of rest would be nice though I should not keep Taunie waiting any longer.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5:  Interludes - I

Kalos Pokemon League Building  - Elite Four Meeting Room

The beautiful castle which hosted the proud league officials of the Kalos region, now lies deserted, decrepit and lacks the beauty, which used to make it a popular tourist destination to non-trainers. That’s no longer the reality the region and its people & officials live under.

There were barely any officials left with the downfall of Team Flare and corrupt financial & backhanded tie-ups that existed between the Kalos Central Government, Kalos Pokemon League members and many other relevant groups and organisations, which was exposed thereafter.

This ended up into a corrupt cleansing campaign right after the Masters 8 Tournament, which took place 3 after the crisis in an instant (a rarity in organisations like these) so as to not spook the surviving collaborators of the Kalos Crisis who were hiding in plain site, unlike the active members of Team Flare who were already arrested and had or are dealing with the consequences of their devastating actions.

The outcomes were so bad and so big that it can’t be hidden, especially with external assistance needed to carry out that gambit in coordination with the Pokemon Rangers, International Police Organisation, G-Men & more.

Almost everything about the Kalos region (barring the southern Kalos - who has less relevant cultural and social connections with the rest of the Kalos region & had more common with Northern Paldea) is connected with the corruption that festered Team Flare and their plausible world ending actions - thanks to Lysandre and his liked minded wealthy folks deploying financial support and buying up assets and organisations, which ended up with those groups supporting the Team Flare’s goals & activities indirectly often. 

Only the elites & some wealthy folks in this alliance knew of the actual goals of these intensive amounts of funding and acquisitions though many just wanted to commit some violent crimes. 

Out of them, many of them were descendants of the nobles or wealthy who lost power under the change of Kalos’s government from monarchy to the republic 300 years ago, also joined in for the vision to be worthy to survive while they support the goal for the end of the rest of the world.

After their failure and exposure, it led the league to stop everything from the league circuit and many aspects of Kalos’s culture & its practices which was financially impossible with most of the both elected & recruited government employees, being sponsors for such cultural practices like Furfou competitions, Pokemon showcases and more.

The depictions of most of their punishments can’t actually be spoken about in public since they are too brutal as far as some unofficial rumours go about. Some say that the current government & the league did so to cover up their failures that led to this terrible situation for Kalos in the first place.

The Kalos League at this moment, now has 21 employees left including the two elite 4 members and Diantha herself.

They are right now, in the meeting room to deal with another round of league & Kalos goverment work which isn’t saying much with the general situation of Kalos being in a worse state compared to places like Orre, Almia and more - with most of those regions not having an official pokemon leagues either.

Diantha was working on some official documents while browsing through some photos of her acting work - which took more of her time compared to her so-called Kalos Champion work.

Wikstrom and Drasna were summarising some reports that they received from the central government, the league and other regional leagues. Often in these cases, Diantha had to enforce that Wikstrom can’t speak in medieval languages or even the medieval accents that he knew of and that personal act should be kept for Elite 4 challenges and international tournaments.

“The Government is requesting us to give names of candidates who can be the member of the Elite 4 as well as a tentative candidate who can take your role as a Champion too!” Drasna reluctantly announced though, looking as if she wanted to be anywhere other than here for this announcement.

The other 2 people in the room: Wikstrom and Diantha stopped their work and only felt depression run over them.

“I know some capable names but I am not sure that we can bring them here. Our legal regulations to ensure that only people with Kalosian citizenship or 100% proven Kalosian heritage to even be eligible for Elite 4 or Champion jobs are biting us back when capable people are needed for the region’s resurgence, when we are not even sure that there are any in this case.” Wikstrom answered with a sigh, knowing that Kalosian culture’s focus on beauty - which can also be a focus on purity and eloquence with operational aesthetics - are the very cause of the troubles they are facing now.

Diantha still managed to look determined in spite of the general mood. 

“We still need names now. The government wants us to give an answer within 2 months - which does give us some time to decide an answer but we need to start with something!”

They took a while to get some answers to discuss over.

“What about Alain? I mean that he managed to beat Ash Ketchum in the Lumiose Conference Final though followed by Kalos Crisis!” 

Even Wikstrom lost enthusiasm over the point he supported as he spoke.

“His murky connections with Team Flare as well as his poor Masters 8 Tournament performance might make it hard to recommend him but we have no choice and he can improve himself as an Elite 4 before getting any eligibility as a champion thereafter proving that he doesn’t face further competition in the process.”

“I have another suggestion which many have forgotten. What about Gym Leaders? Are any of them capable enough or interested to join our ranks?”

It did get others thinking about Drasna’s point though there are hurdles to her points.

Wikstrom looked with worry as he stated something vital regarding what he knew about them. 

“Gym Leaders are already swamped with dealing with the increase of wild pokemons as well as managing their designated regions along with available local officials which isn’t saying much. Viola is the only one doing fine here as her bug type pokemon are plentiful enough and often works with friendly wild bug pokemon in her area, to stop the other wild pokemons. Grant & Wulfric doesn’t care for this role with the latter being too old. Ramos along with carrying out his duties, is busy training his successor for takeover of his gym, Olympia is comatose after dealing with predicting the Kalos Crisis and has to be kept under 24*7 medical support to ensure she doesn’t die, Korrina is taking over her grandfather’s role as the successor of his spiritual position as well as stating a great purpose for the future which should keep her busy. What do you know about others, Diantha?”

“Taking over his points, Valerie is too busy managing her job as well as her region though she got support from some Johto gym leaders & trainers to control the wild pokemon around Laverre City.”

She looked apprehensive as she was about to talk about the last person here with good reason with how unfair it seemed to everyone, being a sudden but unprecedented decision.

“About Clemont, the best I can say that he is pissed with almost everyone in this region especially with how the league and government forced him and his family to concede his gym to Quasartico Inc. though we have to ensure that he gets it back from the corporation unless we want one member directly opposing the League & the government in Kalos. Thankfully Paldea has an electric type gym leader so it’s not like Clemont can move his gym status to that region or Southern Kalos. He’s the developer of the rotom phone as well as the framework of everything on the modern internet that most of the world uses. He’s a prominent friend with Ash Ketchum as well as many other powerful figures globally. Thus he can make things even worse for Kalos; both technically and politically if angered!”

The two Elite 4 members cringed, recalling how badly his family reacted to that announcement. 

“You had to be taken to the hospital since his father Meyer literally threw a chair, directly at your & that league official’s face, when you visited him to announce that news after the Masters 8 Tournament was concluded!” Drasna mentioned half-heartedly

Diantha rubbed over her face where she got the injury though recovered now, thanks to her pokemon.

“What about Calem? Serana’s older cousin who is possibly in Southern Kalos now, currently helping the people there to deal with local issues while during the Kalos Crisis, he helped them to stop those Team Flare associated criminals, thus having the political support & the goodwill of the people of that region.”

Drasna’s point turned some heads & got some thoughts rolling in the meeting.

Diantha looked conflicted over that man’s mention. “If we can know where he is, then only we can try contacting him. Southern Kalos was only assimilated with the larger Kalos region just 400 years ago while the wider Kalos region changed its government into a democracy 300 years ago, so politically we have to be careful on what to do regarding a region, which views Calem as a hero who countered the Kalos Crisis and its rogue elements from there. It doesn’t help that they are politically a separate entity in some legal aspects despite falling under the Kalos Pokemon League association.”

“But it can be done as long as it doesn’t bring conflict with Paldea. It’s true that Geeta may not be the best champion as far as battle capacities goes, but she is a good champion where administrative duties of the champions is far higher in priority since Paldea was never super united culturally, only withheld from being stronger overall; as seen in  case of fielding weaker gym teams but that’s because most of the Pokemon battles there take place are between school kids or civilians who go through the Academy there.”  Drasna said cautiously said as a context to this discussion.

Paldea did have a similar situation with its northern part of its region, which had a different sort of culture of people influenced by its lower population and migration differences from the rest of the region - thus sharing many cultural similarities with Southern Kalos.

“But gaining the support of Southern Kalos can lead to our economic recovery since their industries are less affected overall and they avoided taking any investment from Lysandre or people supporting Team Flare in some or the other way.” Wikstrom said to ensure that even a statement he supported, needs to be understood with respect to their political implications with their neighbours over their actions though he was not a fan of regional politics railroading into every action that the league takes - which he blames on the government’s influence over Diantha.

In the end, the name of Alain & Calem would be forwarded as potential Elite 4 or future Kalos Champions prospects though few more names would be needed soon but they have the time in their favour to officially send an answer.

The team shifted to the next issue - which was a less serious one, which made Wikstrom hide his face while the other female members of the meeting laughed at him.

“It has been a while since we had cases of Sinnohan and Galarian Groups complaining that your armour is their cultural heritage & the ownership belonged to their museums. Due to those cases being reviewed rarely due to all the chaos, we have got 110 complaints to deal with at the moment, with some even wanting you to fight a case or a pokemon battle for it.”

Wikstrom only facepalmed in response. “Those fools don’t understand this kind of armour originates from Kalos and has been gifted and adopted by Galarians with their own stylised spin. That’s how the famous Commander Kamado also got a similar looking armour which had gone through two iterations of design changes by the time he or his clan had it.”

Diantha now resigned his comments to a smile. “It’s great that your historical knowledge is more valuable in times like this. Your personal aspect of non-corrupted justice and chivalry is needed in these tough times. Those groups only complained because of the attention brought by the Taxi incident in Lumiose City online last year, which was started as a race of our local cabs by the two fools by the name of Raihan and Leon and it spiralled from there. Those groups got reminded of those armours in the process since international social media access was partially allowed by Quasartico at that time for a few days.”

Diantha’s slow descent from happiness to grumpiness with her own mention of Leon, was too funny enough for both of the two Elite 4 members not to laugh at.

“Moving on from embarrassing Diantha! We should talk about something a bit more happier since our official work is almost done though it’s a big loss for us. We have mentioned Calem right, her cousin is getting married to Ash too. Analysts speculate that due to no portion of weddings taking place in Kalos, we are losing out on possible revenue of 500 million pokedollars while any rumoured location - which is possibly Alola based on the rumours - would be getting instead. We will be lambasted by local businesses for forcing them to miss such a potential or forcing them to do that in Alola, where foreign businesses have a hard time sustaining themselves financially there since most residents can get what they can for free from the islands themselves!”

Drasna looked depressed as she mentioned that report in correlation of the talk about Ash that popped up and others looked the same in a way.

“We will call that matter a close!” Diantha announced, looking forward to dismissing any talks here on the topic. “It will be similar to how we have actually dismissed Siebold and gave a fake official reason instead due to Kalos government orders!”

“Why you -!” Wikstrom roared at another censor statement. 

“Not the time to argue over this!” Drasna being the eldest member here, managed to stop Wikstrom from rambling about this. 

But she couldn’t accept that there’s too much politics enforcing their work from all sides. But with their state, they can't do anything new or unique. She herself is being held from taking a radical position since she always tends to be politically neutral over her Elite 4 tenure over the years. 

She hopes that she doesn’t end up like Bertha from Sinnoh, who managed to stay neutral with all the Sinnoh champions under whom, she tenured under as an elite 4 member for years but couldn’t project a radical image or opinion of her own in any sense, which would be more difficult for her now, with a highly loved and active Cynthia present at the helm of Sinnohan League.

“But I should say that Ash should be made the Kalos Champion instead as he saved this region from the Kalos Crisis and also that since from the PLA’s perspective, he’s just a league winner champion of Alola The region still is working on establishing a permanent Elite 4 & Champion system.”

Diantha blankly looked at him. “You only say that because you trained him for the Masters 8 Tournament and also have all kinds of merchandise of Ash’s Sirfetch’d and other pokemons at your home too!”

“You know me well!” Wikstrom didn’t deny her point while Drasna looked relieved. 

The situation with Siebold is so complicated in actuality and showcased how fake & fragile the polished veneer of the Kalos society and culture really was in different levels of Kalosian society and how politicians often preferred to bury the matter rather than doing something about it.

“At least, the eventual anticipated wedding is one of the few positives of the Kalos crisis, positively speaking! Still I wonder why Malva decided to run away to Kanto to escape actual arrest here since she was a sleeper agent for Team Flare!”

Before anyone argued, Diantha’s rotom phone flew off her pocket and rang loudly in a specific somber graveyard tone - which had the champion slowly getting up from her seat and walking to her official room in the League building. 

She looked  as if she spooked & scared for her life while others looked as if they were missing something here.

But the phone flew in front of her to stop her from running away and the call was automatically accepted. The actress + champion froze in fear for her life as the holographic video call projected screen gave away the appearance of one of the scariest people in her life.

 It was Merril or Arka’s mum who glared as if Groudon had popped up for a visit in Kalos while her Stoutland howled for the intimidation factor.

“Hello Diantha, calling you a worthless trash makes sense today! So tell me why did you send my son to Lumiose City and what foolish scheme are you using him for?! Do not even think of escaping from here with your Gardevoir!!”

Wikstrom & Drasna wondered what that was all about as Diantha slowly moved back to her seat, took a deep breath and managed to at least directly look at her mentor while her emotional composure was wiped clean somewhat.

She then prayed and looked teary eyed at the response with the shock of seeing her mentor and her friend though they may not be so now due to her actions. 

“I am sorry about this! Please let me explain!”

The other two members got up to walk out of the room but Merril had other ideas.

“No need to leave. You need to witness the private broadcast of your champion’s attempt to do something foolish!” She glared again which renewed the sobbing from the champion. “I have given enough time to collect my thoughts. Speak now!”

Diantha desperately spoke about lot of underlying details of how she was led by the Central Government to find answers to the mess in Lumiose city, which like rest of the Kalos is kind of functioning in a decentralised sense through the local council and Quasartico there along with smaller groups taking advantage of the absence of the league presence in the process. Then she mentioned all the stuff which led to her forcing Clavell to make Arka go on the trip to which Merril only replied to the horror show that her kid went through. Along with that, rumours through some of her students were mentioned especially in relation to the uncontrollable amount of wild pokemon in the region with some being inside Lumiose City civilian areas and attacking them at times.

The elite 4 members looked alarmed at learning about all these details which were censored from most in reality and neither of them couldn’t get the info that easily especially after the Kalos crisis and the breakdown of league operations in the region. Though they would not send some inexperienced trainer for such an assignment. At least someone like Alain would have been preferable for that role to gauge what’s going on in Lumiose though he may not be politically neutral or descriptive enough with his reports. 

Even Emma, Looker’s apprentice would have been better for the job as she took over Looker’s role as the lead detective of the city - according to Wikstrom or Drasna but she would be someone Diantha didn’t like, as she and the Central Government often clashed with Looker or the International Police over how cases in their region were handled especially as they were losing centralised power of the region. The Siebold conflict over the matter sealed the division further between them and would only be fixed if a new champion and a central government head is present, which seems unlikely now. 

It’s a sad situation to witness as they knew that Emma haven’t heard about how much negativity and grudge that the regional champion and the government holds towards her internally, while the detective believed that Diantha still looked out for her wellbeing based on how she got her out of brainwashing control by one of the team Flare lead scientists. 

The other 2 elite four members are not sure where they stand on this matter but they will take any side that would allow them to broadcast the truth of what Siebold did (they need to look up on & was hidden by the government), leading to a coverup story being announced as a reason for him leaving the Kalos Elite 4.

“Oh! It’s just your useless brand of politics due to which you forced my son into that city. Also you were so desperate to get those shiny Ralts from that breeder in Paldea that you forced Director Clavell into a favour, while the man was getting those for some of his young students, who had a lot of mental difficulties due to being born with Fetal Alcoholic Syndrome. Ralts have been valuable for such people to live a normal life as they help regulate a lot of the emotional issues that they can’t handle on their own.” 

She took a pause as she collected herself. Wikstrom noted that her face, despite being calm, is laced with anger.

“You then use that terrible favour owed by him, to risk my son’s life and force an old professor to work against his region’s laws & morals regarding not harming his academy’s students. Let’s not forget making literal kids to deal with the Kalos Crisis and not training yourself well enough to take critical action against Team Flare’s members or even properly identify them at all! So, do you actually hate kids or just pretend to like them because of the beneficial showbiz & political optics they provide?”

The other people not in the focus of the conversation, thought who the hell were they dealing with & also what is happening in Lumiose City?

She also mentioned how her son’s life went in that city especially with the mention of a direct attack on him by some taxi driver. Diantha didn’t even get to answer the question.

“I am not doing anything drastic now to bring him back to Paldea since he has met Tarragon, who was my father’s loyal friend and helped him survive in Lumiose when the elites of the city practised their insults on him and more. But still there are two main dangers that he can face now.”

Despite the eagerness to know about the dangers in the city, Wikstrom remembered meeting the man many times in Lumiose and all of those were pleasant, while Drasna asked who this Tarragon person was.

“One of my students has a cousin, who was in Lumiose city for some family event. But that person in question, has lost both of his parents and now has to deal with the horrors of cross-regional custody court systems between his families in Unova & Kalos because a bunch of Pyroars escaped the wild zone boundary and burned his parents literally in front of him until some goons and trainers stopped them from causing further damage. Second is through my husband, who mentioned that many grunts, who evaded arrests when the likes of Team Rocket, Team Neo Plasma and so on were arrested, are joining those city’s gangs so that they get a safe place to indulge in the addiction of their criminal activities. What do you have to say about your stupid action now?”

The others almost felt sorry for Diantha, whose makeup is ruined from all the crying and her well groomed hair looks messed up from all the sweat she built up from her fear. This is a challenging situation from her side but it’s her own doing and they will not help her here in any regard.

“Please Merril! Show mercy upon me! I will do anything to make sure that your son will be safe!”

But the caller in question dismissed her begging as well as her desperate & grovelling tone. 

“You have to show that! Pretending will not do anything. If anything serious happens to him in that city, I will make sure that your team will be defeated in a worse way compared to Leon’s Rillaboom. I will only not do so if he gets proper friends there since I am always worried about him being a hermit which you can say whenever you learn about him!”

Diantha’s Gardevoir just popped out of her pokeball and literally teleported out of nowhere, making everyone blink for a while. It definitely has some sort of PTSD from the Leon Battle and doesn’t want anything similar which will actually be worse with the person involved.

Then Wikstrom and Drasna were invited to talk with Merril, where the conversation went pretty chill in comparison. They were mostly about how things on the ground reality was for them and what she can do to help.

Diantha in her half dazed state from all the scolding, now has to worry what she can do to salvage the situation and navigate the troubles she can face from it.

Hoenn Pokemon League Building Meeting Room

Steven Stone never held himself to be a workaholic. He worked optimally based on how things around him are like and how much investors or board members demanded to know about what Devon Corporation is actually doing. 

The former situation often comes at the cost of being swamped with both management work on the corporation’s side as well as the Hoenn region as well though other regions required his help a lot more. He remembered how much work he had to deal with just because he was called suddenly to deal with the Weather Duo crisis again due to the sudden rise by some remaining fools from Team Magma and Aqua. But those fools struck again right after Kalos' crisis on the other side of the world. 

He didn’t have an Ash Ketchum then but the so called Dragon Tribe of Hoenn, who mostly them isolated compared to the rest of the usually friendly people of Hoenn, decided to lend a hand to stop these criminals - who might be the remnants of the Team Aqua & Team Magma as most of their members were arrested way before.

The dragon tribe’s representative, Zinnia mentioned that this time, Kyogre and Groudon who were being revived, now had the primal power that made them as powerful as the fearsome legends that the ancients here feared and could be countered by only one possible pokemon, who can be called by the Sky Pillar. It led to both of them along with Wallace & other gym leaders to counter the offensive; carried out  by those two gangs who were somehow able to manage reviving the other two Weather duo members - which he kind of blamed the Kalos Crisis over - as it kept him busy enough due to his necessary assistance such that he couldn’t immediately go back and handle things back home fast enough.

Zinnia activated the Sky Pillar which can be only accessed through the Cave of Origins in Sootopolis City while they were dealing with some of those criminals on the way there, leading to another appearance of Rayquaza within a century, who mega-evolved (somewhat) into a more powerful form and stopped the red & blue powerful idiots from creating any more issues or damage to Hoenn though Zinnia disappeared from sight thereafter. But at least Hoenn suffered through no major damage this time unlike the last appearance of them and the two evil teams who enabled so. These groups already had started due to historic economic issues that the region suffered way before his birth and thus, their rise, could not have been stopped in a way.

Compared to that, dealing with board members and investors gave him a major headache as it had to be done both in private and public settings in both Hoenn and Sinnoh. The latter region’s wealthy businessmen ended up dumping their capital into his company because the company they invested into ended up funding the companies that became Team Galactic - though it is kind of sad to see the legacy of the Galaxy Exploration Team - who turned evil in the present - which his father and Arka’s father still ramble over. 

But these foreign investors or board members bring in another layer of political issues - the work on which he relegates to other Hoenn League officials or the government instead.

But one time after that second regional crisis, they also forced him to go through a list of candidates he should marry so that the company legacy would remain stable and untouched, a few months ago. It got his Metagross angry enough to mega-evolve on its own and almost attack those stuffy people with its psychic attacks.

As an apology to the severe insult, one member from the board mentioned his family connections & investments with Quasartico, who originated in Hoenn but got involved into Kalos for a more profitable business opportunity due to marriage of its Hoenn origin CEO to a wealthy Kalosian socialite - who also had considerable business influence in the business world of that region.

The current situation in Kalos should make them a powerhouse of a company as they manage to avoid the influence of Team Flare with them looking like a stable beacon of hope in a region of hopes & dreams, now facing a steep political downfall and economic losses.

That investor in question, also mentioned a major rumour that the company had discovered more new mega evolutions along with having the new Mega Stones for the process.

It led to the board being forgiven for now, while he planned when to go for that trip. For months, he didn’t find the time for it but right now, he might get a time for it since the Hoenn League Circuit for the year is almost over and the tournament to select the winner will be taking place over the next week.

He only needed a somewhat official reason to get the mental push needed to pick the date for it and then go on the voyage.

But he ended up having to do other duties right now while wondering that as he ended up meeting Drake & Wallace, who were working on something necessary and had called him for his assistance.

Fortunately he didn’t have any urgent work after the tournament which should finish by September. Thus he should finish with any additional responsibilities by then.

It was also nice that the calendar from October looked empty as this time as Gym Leaders of his region hadn’t requested to attend any of their local events or needed support with any problems they are facing till now.

Maybe that Kalos trip would be possible. It would be nice if he got more of his pokemons with their respective Mega Stones, thanks to those new discoveries.

For now, he had to attend this meeting today at the insistence of Wallace & Drake, so he joined them in their discussion though he may not be too versed on whatever they were planning. Other Elite 4 members must have taken their leave or done with their work for the day.

After a bit of banter, Wallace announced what he was working on.

“I have made the preliminary plans for what will be a Masters 8 style world tournament but for pokemon coordinators and every pokemon coordinator around the world will participate in that. It should be bigger than the Wallace cup and would have all coordinators compete for it at the same time while taking place every four years rather.”

“You have told me that plan before. So what’s the difference compared to what you mentioned? The last point makes sense that the cup is named after you!”

“Steven, wait a moment! Drake will give some inputs from the Hoenn League & Central government as well in this plan that he received based on what they officially passed on to him.”

Drake’s old serious tone, which often reminded of his father’s voice - did calm him down and made him think about what decision he should take instead.

“Right on! They have approved our plans for holding this world Pokemon Contest Festival if at least 4 regions are willing to join in the running of the venues as well as share operational budget and staff with many other conditions.”

Wallace & Steven grimly listen to way more details Drake has to say. One clause irked them a lot, especially the one reading those pointers from the government.

“What the hell do you mean that Regional League winners, Grand Festival Winners, Elite 4 members and Champions of the participating regions have to contribute 1 million pokedollars as a supporting gesture for the support of the tournament? Are they trying to fleece us while they use that additional money to carry out their corrupt hoarding? I know how these seat-warmers work in those positions!”

“Well Wallace, do request to change that to 100000 pokedollars unless they want to tell the citizens that they do not have enough money to hold a World Conference style Pokemon Contest Festival and also openly claiming that they are corrupt.”

Everyone laughed at his point, given that people are really sensitive to political corruption with the nonsense that’s going on in Kalos, Steven wasn’t wrong. The usage of social media has led to an increase in  how easily people get agitated from political or financial corruption and led governments or equivalent bodies to censor them. But here, doing so is challenging since pokemon of those rebellious people end up helping break those censors and other online restrictions.

But you can’t arrest the pokemon who help their trainers to do so, often without their input - since that would mean to use a mix of ancient and modern laws or traditions and these bodies want to make sure that every pokemon don’t end up being recognised as a person under the law due to varying levels of intelligence, sentience, wisdom etc.

They ended up discussing the more light hearted side of the tournament, especially with how you would plan to implement the actual ribbon earning process into a multi-region wide tournament but that is something Wallace has to work with top officials and coordinators to implement. There’s a provision to put in Pokemon Showcases too but with the funding down for that in Kalos with the region’s current useless status globally, that won’t be possible.

But for this worldwide tournament, they would still allow Pokemon Showcase performers to enter the tournament and work with pokemon contest rules but there's still a lot to plan over this matter since it involves dealing with another establishment as a whole.

“The towns won’t like it though. In their defence, already the number of contest participants have increased from 10 - which was always the standard after the post war eras to 30 at this time for small town contests - which their infrastructure won’t be able to handle. Cities now deal with 10-100 times of participants for their contests. That’s for the traditional regions of Hoenn & Sinnoh. Other regions are catching up to those numbers.”

Drake’s seriousness about the increasing number of participants makes sense with many Elite 4 meetings ending up needing to resolve funding issues to towns by both the central & local governments.

“I am sure that Ash is responsible for this again and I would not be wrong to bet that he’s responsible for the modern rotom phone or poryphone internet as well but I don’t want to win such an easy bet!”

That joke reduced whatever tension that built up in the meeting.

Soon enough the three of them did whatever they could to work out what to do with the future multi-regional Grand Festival for pokemon contests though many high level successful meetings are needed to see a success with the event.

The World Coronation Series Masters Eight Tournament required such level of regional coordination and cooperation to succeed after all and is planned to be carried out every four years though the qualifications for it would start from the year before due to so many participants with Paldea’s inclusion possibly as they joined the international Pokemon League Association (PLA), right after Masters 8 Tournament was concluded due to flawless administrative skills from their champion Geeta.

They were supposed to talk about some other business related with this but Lisia just barged in at that moment. Steven & Drake looked happy to see the cheery relative of Wallace while that relative in question looked critically at her.

“What did I tell you about not using your family privileges and coming here like any normal person would?”

Lisia pouted at the right-thing-to-do statement from her uncle. “But they allowed me and Altaria to go in without issues. It is almost the weekend & the league circuit has almost concluded thus they were relaxed enough for that purpose.”

Wallace is not sure what to say in response, while it drew chuckles from others.

“Your niece has outwitted you. You should accept defeat!”

Wallace only brooded in response as Lisia got to sit properly at that meeting room’s guest seating while others took a more relaxed posture since they didn’t have nothing to do officially.

Lisia quickly mentioned that the pokemon contest at Mossdeep city got cancelled for a week due to heavy rainfall, thus she flew to the Hoenn League Building with her Altaria, knowing that her favourite relatives (Steven is also considered for this) would be here too at the moment - which was almost close to evening at around 5 pm when Steven often is done with his company’s board businesses.

She also visited them as her favourite cousin contacted her which got everyone’s ears though the mention of where he was in and how, got worried looks from Steven & Wallace while Drake sighed, recalling something familiar.

“I don’t know why Diantha would assign him to do official league work when he barely has anything to do with the Kalos League. He was studying in Paldea while the last League competition he participated in was after the Johto league circuit around 4 years ago.”

Drake looked angry for a different reason though he’s directing his anger at someone else outside the room. 

“It would be possible for Diantha to face legal lawsuits to put him into official league work like this, while doing a treasure hunt. Due to regional significance, a student of that academy can run the league circuit there but still, any associated league work should be within the Paldea region only. Work in any other region should not have any association with any other leagues while he’s a student at the academy!”

Wallace groaned as Lisia looked worried with how Arka’s very presence in Lumiose outside of tourism purposes, which can end up putting so many people into very legally dangerous positions, which also included him, Steven, Steven’s father & Lisia from this part of the world.

“Lisia as you should know that we are also Arka’s guardians, who should be taking care of him when his parents can’t for whatever reason!” She nodded as he explained the complications that were brought up from the Kalos Champion’s desperate action.

“He’s an adult now so we don’t have to watch him all the time but anything serious he ends up in, might bring our notice too though we won’t be blamed if he’s harmed since this was done without any info given to us or his parents. I am sure that Clavell was forced into some clause of secrecy to not mention how the task was assigned to anyone else officially.”

“But given that the Kalos League is opposed to whatever that the international police wants to do related to their region, I don’t see that case happening, especially the region being so decentralised. Looker hates that woman a lot and told me that he hasn’t mentioned the why or the how regarding that to his apprentice Emma, who has taken over his role in the city due to not wanting to hurt the girl emotionally.”

Steven’s statement left an inconclusive atmosphere with how things are going and whether Arka would even come out there unscathed.

“At least you now have a reason to go to Lumiose City next month after the Ever Grande Conference is finished.”

Before they did anything else, Steven’s phone rang with a very loud noise but it was familiar to all of them.

“His dad is calling. Let’s see what else he knows something that Lisia doesn’t since Arka will always call his parents along with Lisia during long stretches of time.”

Steven’s special rotom phone gave up to a special holographic display. But unlike most holographic projections which were uni-coloured with normal commercial technology possible now, Steven’s holographic projection was in real time colours or the highest actual colour  detail that the human eye can see - which was possible due to Steven using his company assets to invest in Clemont’s research, which gave this as a result. But the technology uses many advanced techniques to develop along with many rare pokemon biological byproducts to develop some of the material that helps with projecting such vibrant colours. Thus it won’t see commercial production ever.

Arka’s dad gave a big grin to everyone in the room since there’s barely a difference of time zones between Hoenn and Kanto, talking was not a challenge for anyone there.

“Great to see everyone doing well! Lisia, I hope that you will reach the Wallace Cup this year since I guess you would have to deal with qualification for two international contest tournaments along with the regional ones.”

Lisia groaned as she understood that a coordinator of her standing will get to have a busy life soon and investment into a larger pokemon team would be needed to cope up with the enlarged schedule.

“Drake! Nice to see you! I guess you are working on the Masters 8 Pokemon Contest Equivalent plans with Wallace, right?”

Drake cheered seeing his old friend. While Lisia occupied the spot for being his niece (though not literally), both he & Wallace would be considered by him as his students, who were trained to learn patience and fight tactically so that they can look to the bigger picture or contexts of the pokemon battles that they were getting into to defuse their original mindset that came with being  privileged pokemon trainers, who were wealthy and often depicted impatient, prideful and demanding behaviour (Wallace was born to a wealthy family with an ancient background in relation to Sootopolis).

They talked a bit with each other about normal matters which reminded Steven that Drake was in the same age range as his father and Arka’s father. His father is 64 years old while Drake is 55 (he should look in finding his replacement for Elite 4 member soon) while Arka’s father is 57. 

He did have some difficulties in saying Arka’s father’s actual name in a way.

Also it’s interesting to take into consideration the ages of the champions here in comparison. He was almost 30 years old while his friend, the former champion, was 34.

Bringing in champions of other regions, Iris is definitely the youngest champion, with her age being close to 19 years old. Lance is 32, Cynthia is 28,  Diantha is 29 and Leon is 26 - a good mix of different age groups though Kalos might see a younger champion with the way negative actions of Diantha are building up against her.

“Yes,  Lance is making me work more than one would expect but only I have the expertise and knowledge to deal with something like this despite not being from Johto or Kanto.”

Drake recalled something then. “So it is something related to our generation. I know something happened in relation to those regions, when we were kids. Team Rocket goons attacking Johto origin citizens & businesses in Saffron City using disguises with support of the local Fighting type gym leader there. There should be more such incidents taking place in those regions which I don’t remember too well! I think that they tried carrying out those crime in Hoenn & Sinnoh under a limited capacity.”

Arka’s father grinned. “You are very close to what I am doing but you will learn soon anyways when Indigo League will permit me and I think people of your position except Wallace and Lisia can learn this fact first.”

While the two in the mention cried about the unfairness of the rule with Drake giving a hearty laugh in response.

“So Daijoh, how’s professor Oak doing? What rumours have you learnt about Ash’s weddings from him?”

The popular wedding rumour got Lisia out of her funk and ended up listening to him along with Steven who’s noting down when he would get the invite for that event though Ash should be responsible enough now to send one to him anyways. It led to others discussing what they all knew about it.

Wallace during that time, wondered again about the unique name of Arka’s dad which is a fusion name - a common trend seen when different cultural groups interact, though mainly in the cases between the ancient Hoenn people & the immigrants & refugees that come due to different conflicts around the world, who ended up in the shores of Hoenn and eventually merged with the larger society to build their lives here.

The Hoenn people along with people of Kanto, Johto and Sinnoh (along with smaller states around them), are considered as the people of the eastern continents while the other known regions are divided into western regions, forgotten regions or separate entities. Forgotten regions are ones which have not been accessed in the modern post war age since they were forgotten by most after the war though there are claims by researchers that another region might be discovered soon - within 5-20 years.

Hoenn due to its tropical and island based location, became a host to people immigrating from all around the world to escape conflicts - most notable of which are people of Galar & Kalos - who fought often and have caused major refugee crisis to different regions in the process similar to how Kanto-Johto war has caused many refugee crisis in Alola or Sinnoh (that region’s history situation is bit different as more of its recent past being so well known now).

This has led to many connections between the two regions which is seen with the Mega Evolution connections and so on. 

Another aspect of this includes naming of people which now is a mix of Eastern & Western or foreign names - where the first name is western while the surname is eastern. 

This is so with his full name: Wallace Mikuri and which also was Lisia’s surname too, since his sister’s husband took their family’s surname instead - a common theme amongst people of Sootopolis City itself unlike the rest of Hoenn.

Steven’s name is unique here since both components of his name is western as in Steven Stone - but this is due to the fact that he got his surname through his father’s interest in stones which the company under his family inheritance: Devon Corporation specialised in along with being a legacy company related to mineral research and extraction.

It was  spilt off from a war monolith company through monopoly anti-trust busting by the Hoenn Government, right after those wars were over.. But the difficult location of Hoenn stopped the past wars from affecting Hoenn too much on the long term. The company needing to be more international-minded in the future, thus decided that a Western Surname would suit the people owning that company like Stone in case of Steven’s family surname related to their family business.

Arka’s father’s name of Daijoh comes from a mix of names of Daijiri - his mom’s name while his dad’s name was John. This sort of fusion between Western & Eastern names is rare since it is usually seen in some 2nd generation immigrants, when they are born in a locality with unorthodox naming traditions. Arka’s father kind of fit this criteria indirectly.

His dad (Arka's paternal grandfather) was from the Unova border areas. He was at that time, was escaping the region due to attack by kidnappers from the wasteland regions between Unova & Orre, while his mum is from Johto, who came here to escape the economic downfalls of the war between Kanto & Johto.

His surname Roku must come from his mother, who must be from Goldenrod City - which was known to be a prosperous region throughout history. His father’s surname was Brown - thus his full name being John Brown. But due to Sootopolis City cultural traditions, Arka’s father ended up with the name of Daijoh while his surname is Roku.

Thus it’s interesting that Arka had parents with such interesting names of Daijoh Roku M. & Merill Minior R. But his name seems strange here since his brother’s name is Michael - a typical Unovan name. His teacher mentioned about his son who wanted to change his name after some serious incident - which turned out to be is known a Arka.

His name doesn’t fit any of the naming conventions that he knows of after all from the known regions. 

Maybe he should ask him about that here with no other urgent work to disrupt him now.

He had barged into a conversation between Drake and his teacher, which now was regarding one of Drake’s voyages which Lisia listened with full intent while Steven got bored enough to recite names of mega stones of different pokemons.

“I have thought about something while the rest of you were discussing something. Arka’s name wasn’t originally his name, right?”

It made others wonder too in a way. At least Steven got around from his strange habit of reciting mega stone names for now.

Daijoh gave a short chuckle. “I didn’t mention this to you before? What all happened till the name change with Lenora commenting on it and all?”

Everyone looked blankly at his words.

“You must have told it in a hurry due to heightened tensions from your side. You can tell me about it again!”

Everyone deferred to Drake’s wise words.

A long tale began which made the often calm looking man a bit emotional and made the three older adults in the room recall some bits of it though Lisia must have learnt about this in this much detail for the first time.

Due to so many tragic connections in the story, she couldn’t bear it enough and started crying.

But Steven did agree that there was too much going on and Arka’s parents have caused some issues with the upbringing of their eldest son.

Lisia was the one pointing out the facts here. “It was because of your over-protectiveness that Arka nearly died since he didn’t know how things were like outdoors or how to explore the wild safely until he went out of bounds into the deep forests beyond Nacrene City and ended up in that incident therefore!”

The older man looked ashamed but looked agreeable at her point and confessed his faults. 

“That was one of our major mistakes - maybe which led to such harm which he won't be able to get rid of possibly. But we were first time parents when he was born and had to listen to the advice given by the doctor who mentioned that he had a weak constitution and thus should be kept indoors all the time.  Then, we focused our attention on his brother Micheal, who was a normal but talented kid and treated him like any other. This built up the disparity between the siblings; with Micheal making it easier for us to socialise with the city since he showed interest in pokemon & pokemon contests while Arka - who was Martin at that time, was never given a mention by any of us as we lived our normal lives since that boy was so withdrawn and spent time mostly in his room, studying through homeschooling and books. Merril’s Stoutland hated her for a while whenever he could see that our sons were treated separately and he ended up being a better parent to Martin compared to any of us. We were busy with work or paying attention to Michael so that he can have a bright future which led us often neglecting Martin’s needs which Merril’s Stoutland fulfilled instead.”

“Thus, you forgot about Arka or whatever his name was and then that happened. Congrats on seeing the fallacies of overprotective parenting. I have seen his scars that ran through most of his torso and upper hands & legs. You should be lucky that he didn’t die with how those injuries landed!” She took a deep breath to calm down. 

“I also know all this since when we met at Hoenn, I got to take measurements for his jacket - that we designed as a collaboration. But now, he’s a confident adult who’s just doing okay despite some of the unbelievable skills he has but not known to most. But that can be blamed on both of you for being so overprotective and having no local friends as a result. I was his only friend for most of his life!”

Wallace just hugged her as the girl couldn’t bear the sad emotions she felt while ranting at the bad fortunes in Arka’s life that his parents had caused indirectly.

“I will take over the conversation here. You can listen though!” She now calmed down a bit while seated a bit further than the adults while Daijoh looked regretfully at the actions he mentioned.

Wallace looked resolute and not in a good way with how the matter actually seemed like.

“But you should have called the dragon type specialist for giving proper treatments earlier, which he had  suffered from the attacks of the dragon type pokemon infighting amongst themselves. He has got 33 cuts from that incident as they were trying to fight with each other to win over the favour of a special Garchomp, who can be a possible ancestor of Cynthia’s Garchomp. You even knew which pokemon had cut him, like 9 cuts from a Dragonite, 6 cuts from a Baxcalibur  and so on. Why the hell didn’t you call Drayden or even the dragon village folks who could have helped in that case earlier?”

Steven wondered how a wild Baxcalibur ended up in that part of Unova all of a sudden as that pokemon line is usually found in cold mountains.

“It was kind of because we didn’t believe the kid since we thought it was some fantasy story since he never has gone out of the city in this fashion before though. This wasn't helped by the fact his Karrablast, who was later named Pierce, was glaring at us during that time, who came along with him after that misadventure. The kid fell asleep soon after and was very sick - which led us to call the Pokemon Centre but they couldn’t treat him since something interfered with their Audino’s Heal Pulse. This led to Lenora and then Drayden being called as she understood something that I or Merill hadn’t at that time with his injuries!”

“I don’t think that Lenora wouldn’t have ignored your carelessness, right?”

Arka’s father looked tired at all the points being made against him but he kind of deserved it here.

“That’s true. Never expected my colleague to shout at me for that reason. Drayden later brought the village elder from the Dragon village who determined that a bunch of Dragon type energy has seeped into the cuts they inflicted on Arka, leading to something strange happening with his soul & Aura as a result and harming his body in the process to a degree which she couldn’t resolve. We can already see some of those changes with my son, who was curious though not interested in pokemons earlier, suddenly learning a lot more about them. Also he knew what to do or not with his life for the future along with that name change involvement - which was denoted to be from some forgotten region - but the level of maturity in him is close to an adult especially with responsibility he took since then, though he is even less apprehensive of people and socialising for some reason.”

There was a lot of confusion over Arka’s early life and to Steven & Wallace, it provided somewhat of a closure to that urge to know about the one they are responsible for in a way. 

Drake is more curious about what those injuries might imply in the future and also remembers meeting people with those sorts of names during his voyages but those events took place many years ago when he was a young man and he doesn’t recall much knowledge on that at his age.

Lisia had other ideas regarding this matter. “So you have decided to make him interact with me all of a sudden at that age without letting me know what had been hurting him and still hurting him. How dangerous can that be if you started talking with someone new with that kind of emotional baggage? Wait, what can you even know about that with your failing actions?”

“True! Given how he was injured, Lisia could have accidentally insulted him or something since she didn’t know what was wrong and which would have left alone without a friend - thus stunting him further socially. Teacher, sometimes you need to tell us things a bit honestly!” Wallace accused, though leaving things up for air is what older generation adults did according to him without resolving or telling what those things are actually like from the younger generation's perspective. 

His father did the same as well along with Steven’s father. Drake is different since the man lives for experiences rather than memories - fitting of his dragon type speciality as well as his loose association with the Hoenn’s dragon tribe though someone like him preferred to explore rather than staying cooped up somewhere, protecting traditions.

It’s not like that they are fully saints in their perspective on the matter but they did honestly tell their younger counterparts a lot more than their elders - who tended to be too cryptic according to him.

“I did learn my lesson though and after that, his pokemon warmed up to me after wanting forgiveness though he didn’t react as strongly to our mistakes. But his pokemon never warmed up to Merril since her personality was too fiery to do so. I am the only one who can control that overemotional situation within her in such cases!”

Knowing what he implied, let everyone look a bit green.

“Well older uncle, we don’t need to know about your bedroom experiences here!” Lisia commented politely while others nodded, none of them needed that imagination. 

“But I don’t think he forgot what you did before. That is why he found a way to be a trainer in Unova at 13 ,when you have to be around 15 years old to do so - since he was cooped up by both of you and his brother - whom I don’t like at all. Also I am sure that he’s reckless due to that dragon aura infused injuries or something though now he looks way weak mentally for some reason - which I don’t know why!”

It prompted another round of conversation with all of the ones involved there especially with the details about the details and the designer. Diantha’s actions were the focus in the conversation too, as Steven’s opinion of that champion fell down further through that discussion and whatever revelations about the Kalos Champion’s action was known to them. All of them were sure that she had more skeletons in her closet.

Wallace sounded happy when on a positive note, Lisia somewhat mentioned that Arka found someone who can design and make the jacket for him as he had a clue; that she & Arka was working over some unique clothing designs.

He hoped that he should meet with the one he’s supposed to look after again as a way to repay his teacher’s guidance despite some faults of Daijoh & Merril in raising their eldest kid. He doesn't care much for the youngest.

But like last time, he had a bad feeling that something stupid will happen in Lumiose City, where Arka was at and made that trip a priority whenever possible.

Uva-Naranja Academy Director’s Room

It’s rare to see scientific equipment in a leader’s room unless it has to do with some serious illegal research.

But in case of Clavell’s case, it’s a reminder of how quickly he was assigned as a principle of the school when most of the previous staff and administration staff members were quickly fired by the central government, who needed a scapegoat in the bullying crisis in the Academy though lot of their policies are the cause of that instead - since many existing policies are something that Uva-Naranja Academy staff are kind of legally bound to follow that favoured wealthier or extroverted students caused so.

As the Paldean government & League are more distracted with how much they can profit from the Kalos’s woes and with the ‘assistance’ they provide, the director was also working on something to change lot of those educative policies to stop bullying  and other relevant matters as well as make more capable pokemon trainers and other pokemon based role as they needed capable trainers to fight in the foreign tournaments after they have joined the international PLA somehow. 

But the Paldean League & government used historical clauses to prevent the presence of international police or pokemon rangers here though given the lack of skilled trainers in Paldea, the latter might see a presence soon though with special legislation for their possible inclusion. 

The main cause of this is Area Zero - which is very old - maybe at least a billion years old but nothing conclusive yet about that ancient place. But visitors to that place are officially not allowed to say whatever they got to see there since research about anything there is still inconclusive though the Terastallization Research (based on the crystals that has been found there) has seen great success and official usage in the last 10 years. 

A lot of foreign trainers would like to use such a battle mechanic to change how they battle with any pokemon being capable of using it unlike others which require specific conditions, pokemon or practices to utilise properly. 

The demand for it would start whenever The Paldean League wants another revenue source. But there needs to be limits and restrictions on how easily one can get hands on it.

From his side, he will make sure though that students of his academy who have studied officially here for at least 3 years and had met a certain grade threshold would be eligible for using the mechanic for free with the the tera orb holding equipment being tied to the trainer’s unique DNA so that no one else can steal the tera band and use it for themselves. The only exception to most of these rules are local Paldeans or descendants with immediate Paldean ancestry.

They even worked on research collaborations with Blueberry Academy to research on the Terastallization phenomenon further,which turned out to be one of the better long term decisions under the Unovan government & Alder.

That place is an elite institute which was in the sea across the Unovan continent and was accessible from that continent through a special and long underwater route from the southern coast of Unova. They specialise in double battles and Clavell hopes more unique battle patterns are seen in future competitions especially in Masters 8 Tournament even.

But the crater is why this academy exists at all and why Paldea leads in all forms of research and funds many unique research projects, which even includes Professor Oak’s iteration of the first digital pokedex through the means of anonymous donors or investors. 

This was because the regions were separated back then a lot more with technology to communicate long distances being rare and some sort of censor existed to know about foreign knowledge of different regions especially after the post war years when regions were apprehensive to let their knowledge of their weaknesses known - which could have led to another war by opportunists while the peace took so much effort to get.

He thanked modern technology for being able to connect with anyone he knew in an instant - respecting time zones hopefully and reducing chances of any future interregional wars.

But that reminded him of the tragedy that the professor Oak faced around 25-30 years ago (not sure about the exact time here), when his son and his friends perished - some years after he developed the digital pokedex. Clavell knew that it was due to the revival of Team Rocket - the pro Kantonian group who wanted to seperate the shared identity of combined Indigo Plateau pokemon league and  government - which was shared between Kanto & Johto.

Though their leader was not much known about at that time, his wife and his son were killed in the following raid against Team Rocket. Both of them have separate criminal records in Kanto & Johto along with the organisation having connections & involvment with other nefarious groups in other regions, all of whom would become the evil teams in some form or the other, in the following years.

But this info officially was announced to other leagues a bit too late even after international communication was a bit more possible which was around 20 years ago (through pokemon centres or pre-rotom phone internet or signalling tech) and none of the other regions liked the timing of the release since by then, as the evil teams or their supporters (though not openly) had made their moves in their regions with support of the postwar underground criminal networks funded by Team Rocket’s activities over the years.

Team Flare could have been stopped if info of this criticality could have been told beforehand.

Clavell assumes that the Indigo League didn’t mention this despite knowing all these details for so long so as to preserve their image because many gym leaders possibly supported Team Rocket at that time. He remembered working with an economics researcher who said that the union of the Johto & Kanto regions benefited the more rural Johto region while the more urban Kanto lost economically as the former had lower operating & supply costs compared to Kanto, thus leading to many Kanto based businesses being shifted to Johto.  

Another interesting fact which Clavell learnt alongside this, after the Hisui archives publications is that; both the son & mother (wife of the Team Rocket Leader) along with one of Team Galactic admin by the name of Mars, had come from a common ancestor by the name of Arezu, who was one of the wardens of Diamond Clan in Hisui. This meant her line of descendants had ended up with the death of Mars, who was killed by some other prisoners who were harmed from their time when Team Galactic ran wild across Sinnoh.

Lorelei of the Elite four from the Johto side, had a similar red shade of hair but her shared ancestry with the other red haired villains was more older than Arezu, maybe more likely coming from interactions between ancient Johtoan & Hisuian people.

Maybe that’s too much history & connections that Clavell should bother with. 

He might have finished his duties way too efficiently today to wonder about such things since it was only 3 pm in the afternoon when he was done and no other official work was there other than to receive info on progress on Treasure Hunt assignment of some students (most have given their monthly update already though it has just started).

Arven soon walked in which reminded the old man of what his parents, the university graduates were doing out in Area Zero though they have grown more callous with their work and neglect of their son for years while working with some group by the name of Explorers who were known to help with proving special assistance with working in highly dangerous places for humans. Too many things seem off here especially with the way they get their funding but he avoids mentioning that to their son - who has too much on his plate anyways.

But it’s not like he had good news either.

“Director, I have come to share my progress on researching relations between Aura and Herb Mystica along with how it would affect the growth of pokemon who feed on them based on the rumoured Titan pokemons in our region though a proper title for my work hasn’t been decided yet!”

Clavell managed a laugh despite the grim undertones of his thoughts or what the boy is trying to do.The situation with his starter pokemon is special and maybe his research can help but using aura to fix the damage of the soul of the Mabosstiff is a speculation scientifically at this stage despite the miracles performed by Ash in using it to win against Leon.

“But remember to put some prudence in your research and surround yourself with friends as you do so!”

“I wish it was easy! My other friend is not doing so well but he might improve his situation. Yes, I am talking about Arka and his treasure hunt report since he was busy to inform you directly along with other complications.”

Clavell held a grimace in reminder of how he had to send one of his institute’s prominent students to a dangerous region due to the region’s champion holding him hostage over being a sore loser as well as the desperation of the political establishment of the region. He can’t openly defy a champion on his own on political terms despite the champion’s reputation looking way worse now.

He didn’t regret helping those kids that landed him into that favour or blackmail by the Kalos Champion in literal terms, that led to the son of his old student, to end up in Lumiose City - which is not the crown jewel of the past but a problematic autonomous region at this point especially with the stuff he has heard about the wild zones, mafia presence there and more.

There were two people who were looking forward to the lad working under them  despite his interest in avoiding going out. The boy would have been forced to do his treasure hunt outside the academy anyways by his mother, who was also a personal student who worked & studied under his tutelage. 

Roark, the rock type Gym Leader of Sinnoh, from Oreburgh City, wanted Arka to work under him to help with finding more fossils of ancient pokemon with supporting theories as well as give assistance to him for reviving more Hisuian versions of pokemon in the process if possible since the lad understood historical concepts as well as his father - another contemporary whose work that the man admired.

Though he cringed at an increasing number of trainers getting their hands on Hisuian Zoroark - whose ghost & normal typing will make it a pain to fight for many in official competitions. Fighting type trainers will have another reason to whine at their respective regional leagues.

The Second person who wanted Arka included Iono, the streamer & the electric type gym leader from this region, though it would be more likely that the boy would be working as her unpaid assistant to improve her streams and boost viewer counts. But Arka understood the internet & social media trends pretty well from the mentions from other professors and Iono might have requested him after learning that fact.

But as he listened through Arven’s mention of Arka’s adventures, he was not at all happy at all from the mentions of some corporate sanctioned battling to Taxi drivers banding as a mob to almost attack him in an official match. This might be scratching the surface at this moment of the mess that the Lumiose City is. 

Maybe preparing a lawsuit against Diantha if Arka was harmed seriously there, might be in order since trainers of other regions are not supposed to be coerced into specially dirty political work of any region. 

Clavell was sure that Diantha and the other government members who worked with her to hatch this plan, would face ruthless criticism & lawsuits from the rest of the world and especially Unova & Hoenn - who don't want the trainers of their region to be roped into dealing with these sorts of foreign troubles in an unstable region overall. He might have been a spectator to a sudden war in his neighbourhood if Arka (in another universe) was from Galar possibly especially with many old fossils in Galar; eager to start a war with Kalos for their so called dubious causes though it would in vain as Kalos is more of a pokemon controlled region rather a human controlled one now. 

He understood why Arka’s parents worried about him in their own over-correcting ways despite their earlier parenting errors, thus Arka was fed up with that and preferred to stay at the academy itself. Maybe he knew the possibility of getting him into the various large disasters and he may not have the luck of Ash or other chosen ones of the past to survive them on his own.

He may have an idea of their parenting situation which might caused him to take such decisions for his life though there is something that is missing here, especially with the personality shift or the name change observations. He did recall Merril coming to him to talk about those matters but without much hope of a resolution.

But at least he has people to care about unlike Arven - who’s isolated mostly though he’s thankful that Arka became his friend and the boy in question looked a bit happier too, from the time two of them became friends.

Though that peace there ended there as Geeta along with Rika, Hassel and Larry entered the room impatiently. They must have a matter that needed his assistance.

Arven, seeing the visitors, was about to leave but Geeta stopped him. The administrator oriented regional champion of Paldea looked at him seriously, emphasised by her formal outfit with Glimmora themed aesthetics. 

Larry sighed with inclusion of a young trainer here while Rika looked a bit wary of a younger ‘not-a-trainer’ yet person being here.

Hassel saw it differently. “Given who his parents are and with his age, he can be in our meeting though you can’t speak about these discussions to anyone else.”

Others lost the apprehension to debate about it and then focus on the meeting. 

“Thank you for including me in your work!” Arven looked thankfully as everyone slowly sat around Clavell being the focus. 

It is to be noted that all of them have studied under the oldest member of the room, who was almost 70 years of age and had wisdom of someone twice that age though made efforts to relate to the younger people unlike most people of his age range.

At first, the discussion went on normally over local matters - which were nothing special until the ones not under the league brought notice to some matters which the group can talk about.

“So Champion Geeta, I notice that Poppy isn’t here with all of you. Does she attend these sort of meetings at all?” 

Arven may not know about this aspect of the Elite 4 situation here unlike the others in the meeting.

Except for Hassel, everyone else looked fed up about that point.

Rika took over the explanation as she knew the child Elite 4 member the best. “Poppy, as you have heard, is the daughter of two wealthy politicians and who is very skilled in pokemon battling despite her age. So that’s how she ended up in the Elite 4. But like all children, she has to go through a normal education course but with unique additions to justify her presence in the elite 4 in the future. This means she has no mind for political conversations like these which would be like teaching a Machamp; how to paint masterpieces.”

“Well every pokemon has the capability to appreciate art from their own perspective. Professor Gible is popular in my class for a reason. Of course, for example in heavy duty art like metal sculpting, a machamp would be useful.”

Larry looked blankly, knowing the art obsessed dragon is ranting around. “Hassel! Metal sculpturing, right?? It seems that you have gone towards the deep end of arts similar to bullet-hole patterns on a paper would be considered as Art. Please do keep the rumours between you & Brassicus amongst yourselves so that it stops from ruining my working days as well as the food I had a while ago! Totally unprofessional!”

It got some comments with Clavell managing to stop that line of discussion while the elderly dragon trainer wanted to be somewhere else & Arven literally thought of something else to avoid being reminded of those stupid rumours - which can’t be proven at all or just done to bring some sporadic fun to a boring academic life for many students.

“Moving on to more important business! Southern Kalos has contacted us to deal with wild pokemon since they don’t have enough trainers to deal with the matter properly. We might need to send some trainers for help. The region has gone for a tosser!”

Geeta’s point got some reactions though Clavell looked at it with interest. This is mainly because due to some ancient treaties and modern legislation, Southern Kalos would have assistance to deal with matters beyond their capacity through both involvement of Paldea and Kalos. But since Kalos is incapable for that role, Paldea had to pick up that slack for the last 2 years financially though more active support is needed.

“Kalos is totally incapable of helping them now so we have to so that those wild pokemon do not end up here. Some of them included an increasing observation of Alpha Pokemons by some pokemon rangers operating in the region!” Rika added to the discussion in a foreboding sense of finality.

The room exploded in panic as even Arven was roped in to list what those alpha pokemon increases can only mean for Kalos & Paldea.

But Clavell was able to calm them down somehow but it was not worth it at this stage.

“There might be a risk of a crisis in Kalos again, similar to how Hisui had faced space-time distortions but there will be people to deal with this. We only need to focus on protecting our region. Thus sending some experienced trainers can help!”

Clavell based this panic amongst most, coming from the fact that Alpha pokemons were mutations that created high levels of aura & physical changes to the normal pokemon suddenly which usually comes with unnatural exposure to some primal or ancient energy sources. They need capable trainers to even defeat since they are more intelligent and powerful than their usual counterparts. Often they also move in hordes of similar normal pokemons which make fighting them a challenge to most individual trainers.

This makes natural alpha pokemon rare, the ones who get those genes through natural selections or  through human intervention and they don’t have to be huge all the time (unlike artificially formed alpha pokemon) and can be very skilled & intelligent in battle & general socialising.

Cynthia’s Garchomp, Ash’s Pikachu or Leon’s Charizard,etc fall into the most famous Alpha Pokemons though not as apparently. Clavell bets that Arka’s Swampert or Hyde fell into that group though the pokemon would prefer to research topics rather than fight a battle (though he’s skilled enough for that).

“There is a skilled trainer amongst the Southern Kalos trainers, someone named Calem, who is the cousin of Serana! I am sure that he might be skilled enough to join the Elite 4 of Kalos.” Larry pointed out to make the discussion a bit hopeful.

This following discussion next finalised, that when Kalos League is reformed into a new version, the entire Paldean elite contingent would support Calem for the role in helping Southern Kalos and in extension Paldea to deal with the wild pokemon crisis in that part of the world especially as Geeta gave the inputs on what the man has done to counter all those pokemon attacks which often took place in waves. 

This kind of political interference may not have been a polite gesture but taking advantage of a politically fragmented region is an opportunity no one with any sliver of political power would ignore. They will have to find a way to inform other regions about this carefully so that they follow a similar line of thought regarding who will gain the leadership of the Kalos League when it recovers. A good administrator like Geeta might be suited for these sorts of tasks as a champion as he noted down.

But Clavell knew that the next point of discussion is something he wanted to direct since it’s too essential to not mention. He gestured to Arven to do so.

“I also have to mention something about how Arka was made to go to Lumiose City with Diantha coercing him to do so!”

Clavell took the reins of the matter before others reacted to it. The faces of all the elites (even Larry on a lighter note) looked like they were about to explode.

“Please listen to all that he has to say, then rant and discuss the matter.”

So Arven ended up telling all what he knew from Arka on his experience in Lumiose City and it was an understatement how badly Geeta & Elite 4 (excluding Poppy) would end up reacting, starting with the emotional Hassel.

“Clavell, How the hell did Diantha force you to send a student from here to deal with her dirty laundry? I can name so many international treaties that this action is breaking especially if he gets injured or worse; dead in the process. There’s a reason why even in the past, no region officially used foreign trainers for their wars so that another foreign region wouldn't start interfering in those wars.” Hassel announced while looking tearful over the matter. He was a bit too emotional in matters like these.

Arven looked grim and scared to death despite his best attempts to show that worry on his face.

Clavell is sure that the young man may snap if he loses the presence of another person socially relevant to him at this stage. It’s something that he will have to instruct his staff to keep an eye on.

“I will mention it later since it’s a long story. But the thing is what should be done to ensure no other students face such a situation?”

As the discussion was done over Arka, Clavell brought the attention of the Explorers who were helping many groups around the world though the elderly man found their sudden funding spree worrying.

Geeta looked seriously at that group. “I remember one of the Paldea league clerks mentioned about getting money from salesmen of some unknown organisation from Levincia city as a part of a welcome deal to invest in the stocks of that organisation and getting a chance to be rich after visiting their office in the city on a certain date. I had to ban that sort of nonsense with senior officials of our league though at least 50 such people in the league have been roped into this. When we caught hold of some of them, they mentioned a unique greenish blue haired man being slinking around the league building, but never talking with anyone.”

There was a panic next in their discussions since it very much sounds similar to Lysandre’s funding process into different organisations until he went all evil, kidnapped some kids and fired the ultimate weapon almost in Kalos causing the crisis in the region thereafter.

Clavell kind of ended up moderating their discussion and also talked about what can be done about Arka’s situation as well.

Arven wondered why he is even here, hearing all these high level discussions of the region - but he’s getting to learn a lot in the process.