“Miss Blair?”
Cassie stood up from her chair in the lobby of the Crescent Avenue Pokemon Center, heading towards the desk as the nurse at the front called her name. A Chansey stood nearby holding a tray with the two Poke Balls for Orion and Paulos, and the nurse carefully took them and handed them back to her as she stepped up to the counter.
“Here are your Pokemon - remember, no battling for at least three days, and I would keep them to light activity only for at least the first day. Your Pidgey’s wing should heal up just fine as long as he doesn’t try to move it too much for the first day or two,” she instructed, typing on her computer to update the records as she spoke.
Cassie nodded, breathing an internal sigh of relief. The gym battle had been rough on both of her Pokemon, though thankfully there weren’t any lasting injuries to either of them. Orion had suffered some nasty bruising and swelling from the impacts of Chespin’s Rollouts, while Paulos had come out with bruises, a cracked rib, and a wing with two minor breaks. Fortunately, even the broken bones were pretty mild in the grand scheme of things, given how hardy Pokemon were on average and the healing capabilities of the Pokemon Center, and the bird had seemed in good spirits about the whole thing when she visited him briefly before they set his wing.
Unlike in the games, the machines that the Pokemon Centers used weren’t capable of instantaneously healing every injury and were mostly used for mild trauma and minor injuries from battle. Worse injuries still required proper medical care, though the machines were used in tandem with treatment to accelerate the body’s natural healing. Broken bones and the like could still keep a Pokemon down, but it was usually for a matter of days rather than weeks in most cases thanks to the medical marvels the Centers had at their disposal.
“Thank you, miss Alicia,” she said, smiling at the dark-haired nurse. “I really appreciate it.”
“You’re very welcome,” Alicia replied. “Gym battles can be rough, but I’m glad to see there weren't any serious injuries to your team. Just don’t push them too hard for a couple days, and they’ll be back to fighting fit in no time.”
She nodded again, waving goodbye to the nurse as Kaitlyn stood up from nearby. She had already gotten her team looked over by the Center after her own gym battle, given that the injuries her Pokemon had sustained were fairly mild in comparison. Experienced Pokemon like Astrid were not only stronger, but more resilient, able to endure and recover from injury more easily. She’d spent some time reassuring Cassie that her Pokemon would be fine, seeing how much the girl had worried, and she was glad to see that there wouldn’t be any lasting injuries - not that she’d expected anything of the sort in a first badge challenge, but accidents did happen.
It was a little after five now, and after a bit of discussion they’d both agreed that setting out for Oreburgh City was going to be their first course of action. There were two ways to get to Oreburgh from Eterna - either travel west through Eterna Forest and Route 205, passing through Floaroma Town and Jubilife City to enter from the west of Oreburgh, or head south down Routes 206 and 207 to enter from the north side. Going through the forest and both cities was a much longer, but overall safer path, while the southern path was shorter but a little more dangerous due to 207 lying at the base of Mount Coronet. The terrain was a bit more rugged on 207 than any of the others, though still passable for the average trainer with a little preparation. They hadn’t come to a consensus yet on just which path they wanted to take, though both were leaning a little more towards the southern route at the moment. Kaitlyn had traveled it before and knew the trails, so she wasn’t worried about most of the dangers the terrain and wild Pokemon might present.
“When did Gardenia want you to come back by the gym?” Kaitlyn asked as they approached the town’s main Center.
“Seven,” Cassie replied, still wondering exactly what the Gym Leader could have wanted her to come back for. After their match, Gardenia had taken her to collect her prize money and a TM for winning as befitted standard League rules, but she had also mentioned right before she left to prepare for her match with Kaitlyn that she wanted Cassie to come back and talk to her after hours.
Typically, gym matches were simple affairs - have the battle and either win and get the badge or lose and try again. Gym Leaders typically didn’t need challengers to come back to the gym for any reason after a successful challenge, barring things like picking up TMs that were held up in transit and late or side activities like Gardenia’s or Candice’s classes. Cassie couldn’t even begin to guess why Gardenia wanted her to drop back by since she already had her winnings, but she wasn’t going to turn down the offer. She liked Gardenia, even with the little she’d seen of the Leader.
“I’m gonna head back to my room and grab something to eat before I head back. What about you?” she asked Kaitlyn, stepping through the sliding glass doors and waving to the Center nurses as she entered.
“Probably going to find some food myself, actually,” Kaitlyn remarked. “Do you want to meet at the park tomorrow and talk more about when we want to leave?”
“That sounds good. See you tomorrow, then!”
Kaitlyn waved as Cassie turned and headed back towards her room, ducking back through the Center doors with a polite wave to the nurses as she left. Cassie’s hand drifted over the two Poke Balls on her belt, and her steps were just a bit more hurried as she walked down the hall and into her rented room - one which might not be her room for much longer, she idly realized. Once she was safely inside, she tapped the buttons on both Poke Balls to let her team out.
Orion and Paulos materialized side by side in the small living quarters, the dog looking basically normal even with his bruising, though Paulos’ wing was bandaged up tightly to try and keep him from jostling it too much while it healed. Cassie barely let Orion’s form emerge from the ball before she threw her arms around him in a careful hug, unable to keep her joy from showing any longer.
“I’m so proud of you two!” she exclaimed, taking care not to squeeze Orion too tightly. Orion, for his part, looked completely caught off guard by the act, and his eyes darted to Paulos only to have the bird utter one of his chirping laughs. That was dashed a moment later as Cassie gently pulled Paulos into the hug as well, wrapping one arm carefully around his body and taking care not to hurt his injured wing. “I didn’t really think we could win on the first try, but you did great! You guys trained so hard for this, and it really paid off!”
She let the two embarrassed Pokemon go, still grinning ear to ear as she reached for her phone. “So, what do you guys want to eat? Pick anything you want - I can cook something, or we can get takeout from somewhere in town. You deserve it after that match,” she said, already running a search to see what food places were in town as she sat down on the bed. Orion and Paulos shared a look, and Orion hopped onto the bed beside her as she picked Paulos up and sat him on her other side so that they could take a look at their choices together.
Bellies were full and spirits were high as Cassie and her team stepped back into Gardenia’s gym a little before seven in the evening. Like before, Annie was there to greet them, though much more casually this time seeing as how challenge hours were over by now. She’d quickly directed them down the hall towards the cafeteria, telling them to head to a small meeting room that was just a few doors down from it. It had taken her a minute to find the right door since there was nothing to guide her but the plaques on each door stating what they were for, but she eventually found the right one and was greeted with the familiar face of Eterna City’s Gym Leader once again. She’d changed out of her normal gym wear into a leisurely green shirt with a printed image of a Leafeon on it and some comfy jean shorts, but the brilliantly cheerful demeanor she carried hadn’t changed one bit. There wasn’t a single sign of the focused and calculating Gym Leader from her match earlier, Cassie mused.
“I’m so glad you came back by,” Gardenia said, excitedly ushering her into the room. The interior wasn’t much, just a pretty standard long table and a bunch of chairs, but there was a fairly large package sitting on the table that drew Cassie’s attention as Gardenia shut the door behind them and sat down.
“It’s no problem at all, Leader Gardenia,” Cassie replied. “Honestly, I’m pretty curious why you asked me to come back in the first place.”
“Just call me Gardenia - I don’t need the whole ‘Leader’ thing,” the orange-haired girl said with a laugh, waving off the use of the title. “So, Steven told me you’re leaving town soon, is that right?”
That got Cassie’s attention immediately and made her even more curious as to where Gardenia was going with this visit. “That’s right. We were planning on leaving in the next couple of days, probably. Me and Kaitlyn, I mean.”
Gardenia gave a slow nod, seeming to think her next words over carefully, a bit more of the measured focus of her station creeping back into her bearing. “Allison let me know about you when you first came to town,” she said, causing Cassie’s eyes to widen. “She told me about what you said, how you’d woken up in the forest with no memories and nothing on you, and how you’d picked up a trainer’s license at the Center.”
She clasped her hands on the table in front of her, voice quiet as she continued. “I’ll admit that I was a little worried when she told me. I thought you might’ve been one of those Galactic weirdos showing up all around the local cities recently.”
Those words caused a brief spike of panic in Cassie, and she nearly jumped up from her chair in surprise. She’d been so caught up in the idea of simply living her childhood dream as a Pokemon trainer that she’d completely forgotten about everything else...including the idea of Team Galactic and all the trouble they caused in the games.
“So, I thought I’d keep an eye on you for a while, just for peace of mind, you know?” she continued, a bit more joviality coming back into her voice. “I asked Allison how you were every so often, saw you around town a few times...but it wasn’t until you made that challenge appointment two weeks ago that I realized I was wrong about everything.”
“The gym challenge?” Cassie said nervously, voice quiet. She couldn’t help but feel like a fly on a wall, being examined by someone without knowing if they were going to squash her or not.
“Yeah,” Gardenia said, the smile returning to her face. “I watched a bit closer the past two weeks, and I saw the way you treated your Pokemon, how Kaitlyn helped you figure out what you were doing and the basics of how to be a trainer. None of these Galactic people come across like that - I had one come in for a gym challenge, and they made a poor showing, to say the least. They just want to cause trouble. You actually want to learn and improve.”
Cassie felt strangely like she’d passed some kind of unspoken test all of a sudden, and she could only nod wordlessly to the Gym Leader despite her mind wanting to say so much more. Her mouth felt dry, and she still felt like a kid who’d been called into the principal’s office, but she at least relaxed a little.
“But what really clinched it for me was our battle. Orion - that’s your Growlithe’s name, right?”
“Right,” Cassie replied, listening with rapt attention as Gardenia continued.
“Orion...I’ve seen him before, you know. I don’t see too many Growlithe around here, and I haven’t seen one before or since he came in a few weeks ago with his former trainer. I knew that he ended up at the shelter over on Rosewood after the match, but I didn’t know you were the one who adopted him until I saw him out with you at the park one day. I asked the guys over at the shelter, and they confirmed that it was the same one.”
The ball at Cassie’s hip shook a little, and she unconsciously put a hand over it as if to comfort the Pokemon inside it.
“What you did with that Pokemon...it’s like night and day. He was more timid before, unsure of what he was doing, not at all in sync with his trainer. That’s not even close to the same Pokemon I saw today. He clearly trusts you to direct him, even if he was nervous, and you were willing to trust him in turn.”
Gardenia nodded towards Cassie, seeming to answer an unspoken question that passed between them in the next moment. “That is exactly what Pokemon training is about. Trust, respect, loyalty, and a drive to improve, to adapt and overcome anything and everything in your path. And that’s why...”
She reached over, sliding the package towards Cassie. “...I want to give you this.”
Cassie blinked in surprise, stammering out words even before her brain had fully processed what was happening. “G-Gardenia, I...I can’t take this - you already gave me the badge and everything, this -”
“Come on, open it,” she insisted, wagging a finger at Cassie. “And it’s not from the gym, it’s from me personally. Go on!”
Slightly trembling hands found the seams of the box’s lid as Cassie obeyed the Gym Leader, slowly gripping and pulling off the top of the plain cardboard box before setting it on the table and peering inside. She gasped as she saw the contents, standing up to get a better view of the vaguely-ovular container within and the single item it contained - a similarly-shaped object speckled with bits of green and brown along the off-white colored surface.
A Pokemon egg.
Words caught in her throat as she looked at the egg, carefully inching the capsule containing the egg out of its box with the greatest of care for fear of dropping it as she set it down on the table.
“I can’t take this, Gardenia,” she breathed, still a bit shaken as she looked back at the young Leader. “This is way too big of a gift...”
“I want you to,” Gardenia replied, her voice quiet but firm. “You took a Pokemon that looked like he was ready to just give up and gave him a second lease on life. I want to see what the two of you can do with it.”
Cassie felt like she was about to cry - not from sadness, but from unexpected joy. She fought back the tears that wanted to fall as her eyes fell back to the egg capsule on the table. She stared at it for what felt like hours, eyes tracing the gentle curves of the Pokemon egg as if she could discern a secret hiding within the speckled colors.
“...Okay,” she finally said, looking back up at the smiling Gym Leader. “I’ll take good care of it, I promise.”
“I know you will,” Gardenia replied, as if she’d known the outcome all along. “I wouldn’t have offered it to you otherwise.” She reached into her pants pocket, handing over a folded piece of paper that Cassie swiftly opened and scanned over to discover a phone number. “That’s my phone number, so if you have any questions about taking care of the egg that you can’t get answered, let me know. Send me a message when it hatches, too - I want to see your reaction when it does!” she added, a cheeky grin crossing her face again as she giggled.
Cassie could only wonder what she was about to get herself into based on that statement as she tucked the paper away in her pocket, resolving to put it into her phone as soon as she got back to her room. She wanted to walk over and hug Gardenia for all her help and support, but felt that it would be improper and settled for meeting the Leader’s grin with her own.
“I will - count on it!” she said as she stood up, carefully taking the egg canister in both hands like a fragile pane of glass. Gardenia nodded as she also stood from her chair, yawning lightly as she stretched - it wasn’t all that late, but she was mentally beat from all the battling earlier.
“And Cassie?” Gardenia added as they walked out of the room, heading back towards the front lobby. “Be careful out there. I know you’ll have your friend with you, but watch yourself in the wilds. I don’t want any of my trainers getting hurt, got it?”
“I will, promise,” Cassie remarked, nodding slowly. The choice of words wasn’t lost on her - my trainers. She truly saw all of Eterna’s citizens and trainers as her charges. It was a sobering thought as Cassie considered it, the idea that as the Gym Leader, Gardenia was ultimately responsible for the wellbeing of who knows how many people in the city at any given time.
Cassie silently thanked whatever gods existed in the Pokemon world that she didn’t have to deal with such things as having the weight of an entire town on her shoulders.
Gardenia watched as Cassie left the gym, leaving her alone in the lobby with her own thoughts. Annie had left while they were talking, having only stayed as late as she did to make sure Cassie knew where to go upon arriving. Her thoughts wandered back to the strangeness surrounding the girl’s arrival in town, as they had many times before in the past weeks. She’d checked regional databases again for any sign of her to no avail - there was nothing in any regional listing from Kanto to Kalos, and she’d even checked some of the more reclusive regions like Orre with no luck. She’d chewed on the thoughts for days after her initial mention to Cynthia, but it had only been recently that her curiosity had started to take her in a different direction after an offhand remark by the Champion.
She’d meant every word of what she said with regards to the girl’s Pokemon. It was truly pleasing to see how Orion had changed in just a few short weeks with her companionship. The boy who had brought in the Growlithe had come in self-assured in his victory, confident that his lone Pokemon with a type advantage would easily overcome anything the Leader could bring to bear, only to be swiftly humbled and left without a badge after a decisive defeat.
She still remembered the look in his eyes, the way he scowled at his Pokemon as if it was solely the Fire-type’s fault he had lost. It was his first year on the circuit from what she remembered reading, and he was still young and inexperienced, but his demeanor did not bode well for his chances at fame and fortune. Pokemon trainers needed to work in harmony with their team. Those who saw their team merely as tools tended not to get far, if they ever left the ground in the first place. The trainers who rose to the top were the ones who could fit their team like a missing puzzle piece, an orchestra conductor weaving separate distinct elements into a beautiful symphony of cooperation.
Something about the girl interested her in a way she couldn’t put into words. She’d taken a Pokemon that had, as she had put it, all but given up and turned him around in a matter of weeks, if not days. Other Pokemon may have been inconsolable for much longer, she knew, not even taking into account the fact that Growlithe was a Pokemon that both strongly valued and was known for loyalty. She’d seen it herself before, all too many times. She expected to see a Pokemon much worse off than the first time they had crossed paths, and instead she’d been met with rekindled hope and purpose...unusual, though not unwelcome, yet it begged the questions of why and how.
Her phone found its way into her hand with a practiced motion, and she keyed in a series of numbers as she headed back to her office, listening to it ring as she moved down the hall. It only rang twice before a voice picked up on the other end, their demeanor all business and a verbal picture of calm.
“International Police - how may I direct your call?”
“This is Leader Gardenia of Eterna City,” she said, stepping into her office and shutting the door behind her as she moved to her desk. “I’d like to speak with Agent Kimura, if she’s available.”
The northern part of Eterna City was quiet for a Tuesday evening, filled with the soft glow of streetlamps just beginning to turn on in the twilight hours and the occasional person wandering the streets with a Pokemon at their side. The multi-story facades of office buildings lined the city streets along the northern part of town, giving the urban sprawl an atmosphere lending itself more towards the big business of a metropolitan area rather than the quaint, rustic charm of the small businesses populating the rest of the city. Most of the larger businesses in the region had minor offices in Eterna, as they did in most of the larger towns of Sinnoh, and even a few non-native businesses like Silph Co. or the Devon Corporation had small offshoot offices to handle their regional needs.
”Stop being such a pain! I know you like to be all analytical and stuff, but do you really not see what I’m talking about, or are you just messing with me?”
The sound of an annoyed young woman cut through the relative silence of the evening beside the sounds of heels and dress shoes on concrete, long dark hair shaking wildly as the speaker whipped her head towards one of her companions. The woman she was addressing merely gave her a curious glance from the other side of the man walking between the two of them, pushing her glasses back up on her face beneath her brown pixie cut.
“I am not ‘messing with you,’ as you so often like to claim. I merely stated that Sunyshore City’s power grid is ideal, both in terms of size and in terms of output. Nothing in my claim is false - this is verifiable fact, easily obtained with a simple search,” she replied in a clipped tone, as if she was simply summarizing well-worn points from an argument already repeated multiple times.
“But how are you going to do anything with it?!” the dark-haired woman hissed, about to launch into another argument before the voice of the man walking between them cut it off at the knees.
“Ladies, please,” he muttered, his voice rumbling and deep. “We’re almost there. The boss will tell us what to do - table it.” The dark-haired woman huffed, turning away from the other as she picked up her pace in annoyance. The hulking man shook his head with a sigh, adjusting the tie of his dark suit as he watched his wayward companion turn and head inside one of the nearby office buildings.
“You just can’t let her think she’s right, can you,” he added with a look at his remaining associate.
“That would simply enable poor behavior and bad habits,” the woman replied dryly, rather deliberately ignoring the point of his statement. “I have no desire to reinforce either.”
“Suit yourself,” he shrugged as they followed their third inside into the bland white walls and stale overhead lighting of the corporate architecture.
“ID, please,” the man behind the desk grumbled, looking up but for a scant few seconds from the magazine he appeared to be engrossed in. Both the man and woman fished ID cards from their pants and skirt pocket respectively, handing them over to the receptionist. He looked them over for a few careful seconds, eyes tracing up to their faces before he nodded and passed them back over.
“Luna already went down,” he said, gesturing towards the elevator. “Boss is down there too.”
The duo nodded as they headed for the elevator, pressing the call button and waiting for the clattering of the rising machine to reach their floor before the doors slid open with a mechanical whirring and an overly-pleasant ding! Both stepped inside with haste as the door slid shut, and the woman briefly passed her ID badge over a card reader within, prompting an unlabeled button to light up from its formerly dull and inactive state with a bright ‘B1.’ She stabbed at the button with a finger and listened to the grinding of the machinery as it took them below ground, descending into the sub-level of the office building before jerking to a halt to let them exit with the same cheery bell as before.
“You’re always so slow,” the dark-haired woman - Luna - griped playfully, shaking her head and tossing her hands up in a wide gesture before she spun towards the hallway opposite the doors. “C’mon already - the boss is waiting for us.”
The sub-level was more brightly lit than the surface level of the building, fluorescent lighting casting vivid trails of light along the hallway with a gentle, almost imperceptible humming sound. The white walls gave it an almost clinical feeling, broken up only by bands of dark gray at the top and bottom that ridged the corners of the expanse. Heels and shoes clacked on tile flooring, echoing through the area as the small group made their way past several closed doors, turning right to come face to face with a set of double doors bearing signs labeled “Conference A” in white lettering. The stocky man pulled open one of the doors, politely letting his two companions enter first before following them inside and letting the door swing shut.
The room beyond was rather large for a conference room, more of a proper meeting hall than a simple place for round-table sessions. Several rows of folding chairs had been arranged neatly with a single aisle through the center, enough to seat forty or fifty people comfortably, and a simple wooden podium sat at the front for a presumed speaker or presenter. Around two-thirds of the chairs were already filled, a sea of teal hair spanning multiple rows amidst quiet chatter that the trio passed between on their way to the empty front row.
“I don’t see the boss,” Luna murmured, craning her neck to look around the room.
“Seven fifty-eight,” the woman beside her said, stealing a look at the time on her phone. “The meeting was scheduled for eight PM.”
“He’ll be here.” The man reached up to scratch his chin beneath his short, neatly-trimmed beard as he scanned the room, quietly counting up the other people present. Thirty-one grunts, he thought to himself as he finished, plus three lieutenants. Not nearly enough for any real operation, but certainly enough to gain a foothold and begin to scout for larger aims.
The double doors opened again a minute later as the clock struck eight, and two figures entered the room, each in distinctive clothing in shades of gray, black, and white. The woman who entered first had vibrant red hair, short and neatly trimmed to fall to either side of her face and down to the back of her neck. She wore a short dress that flared at the bottom with color split almost neatly in half, the top half and sleeves slate gray with the chest and lower portion bone white. The long pants she wore underneath were the same gray as the dress, along with white boots reaching up to her knees. A stylized ‘G’ sat in the middle of her chest, adorning the dress with a single brilliant symbol in gold, and the belt around her waist held a single black and yellow Ultra Ball along with two normal Poke Balls. Dark eyes somewhere in between amber and red traced over the room as she entered, heading straight for the room with a confident bearing and taking a seat at the front on the opposite side as the three who were already seated.
The other figure that entered behind the woman seemed to command attention as he entered, most of the eyes in the room trailing to him as he stepped inside. Like his companion, his long-sleeved shirt was split evenly between gray sleeves and upper half with an all-white lower portion, though he wore a lighter gray vest over top with two bands of dark gray stretching around the middle and the same stylized emblem over the left breast. His long gray pants were joined by simple white boots, and the belt he wore contained a total of five gleaming Ultra Balls that ringed his sides. Pale blue hair spiked upwards as if reaching for the sky, and his blue eyes and stern expression seemed to pierce anyone who met his gaze.
Cyrus Akagi, the boss of Team Galactic, strode up to the podium with purpose to look over the small crowd of gathered team members, eyes focusing briefly on the red-haired girl and the others in the opposite side of the front row before he spoke.
“Mars, is Saturn here?” he asked, receiving a shake of the head in response.
“No, sir - he’s been held up over in Pastoria, it seems. I was told he would be arriving tomorrow,” the red-haired woman explained. Cyrus seemed to consider the development for a few seconds before he finally nodded in acceptance.
“We’ll adjust the plan, then,” Cyrus replied, looking around the gathered members and taking note of their numbers before returning his attention to the woman he’d addressed. “Mars - you and Europa take a dozen grunts and proceed to the Valley Windworks outside of Floaroma. Secure their wind farm and generating station and report to me when you’ve succeeded.”
“Yes, sir,” Mars replied, echoed by the brown-haired woman on the opposite side of the front row as both saluted their leader.
“Oberon, Luna - you both will remain here in Eterna along with the remainder of the grunts here and await Saturn’s arrival,” the Team Galactic leader continued, directing his attention next towards the large man sitting beside Europa. “He will assume command of our forces here in the city once he arrives, at which point you will proceed to Hearthome and commence recruitment so that we may move towards our next objective.”
“Of course, sir,” Oberon remarked, his following salute crisp and flawless. Cyrus’ hands clasped behind his back as he looked over the crowd, his voice rising as he spoke loudly to address all in the room.
“Our work has merely begun. This world is flawed, incomplete...diseased. It is our job to remake it into an ideal world, one complete and whole once more, free of conflict and hostility. The world must change, and we, Team Galactic, shall be the ones to do it. Our hearts beat as one - go forth, and we shall create the bold new world that we desire!”
Cheers and shouts came from the gathered grunts as they rose to their feet, voices intertwining as the fervor in the room grew in tandem with Cyrus’ oration.
“For a bold new world!”
Cynthia sighed deeply as she pored over a report within her office at Pokemon League Headquarters, a yawn escaping her lips as her eyes wearily mulled over what she was looking at. Budgetary reports for the coming year were a boring but essential part of the job, one which Cynthia sometimes desperately wished she could pawn off to someone who enjoyed financials more than she. Her pen moved lightly across the page, scribbling hasty notes for her to reference later before she set the report off to the side and stretched her arms upward.
Her Lucario sat nearby, the Fighting-type seated on the floor in a lotus position as he meditated. Cynthia could almost feel the calm radiating from the Pokemon, their Aura connection giving her a faint echo of his emotions and feelings if she focused hard enough. Her Garchomp may have been her starter Pokemon, raised from a Gible back when she was a child, but the Aura-adept Pokemon likely had just as strong of a bond with her due to his near-magical abilities. Aura was still a poorly-understood concept in the scientific community, partly because of the way some aspects simply defied science itself and partly because of the incredibly low number of true Aura adepts to study. The only one she knew offhand was Bruno Siba of the Kanto Elite Four, a towering hulk of a man who had developed his Aura potential through extensive training with his own cadre of Fighting-types.
Thirty more minutes, she told herself. Thirty more minutes, and she would go and enjoy a nice meal before relaxing for the night. Lucario’s eye cracked open from nearby, the Fighting-type nodding slowly as if he had heard the thought in her mind despite his distinct lack of telepathy. She smiled as he returned to his meditation, hands wandering over to another group of reports she’d already looked at once earlier.
The stack was full of papers from each of the Gym Leaders in the region, detailing the general state of their cities or towns as of the Friday of the previous week. Each Leader did their best to keep Cynthia and the Sinnoh League as a whole apprised of the goings-on within their spheres of influence, and the formal reports were done weekly so that adjustments could be made throughout the season as issues arose. Cynthia usually knew about most of what was in the reports before they were even filled out, as she spoke with almost all of the Leaders daily through text messages, phone calls, or e-mails, but bureaucracy was an unyielding stickler for documentation.
All was mostly quiet on the eastern side of the region, with challenges proceeding apace as the first month of the circuit drew to a close. Sunyshore City had held the fewest challenges so far, even fewer than Snowpoint City, with most trainers opting to travel elsewhere for practice and team expansion before challenging Volkner for his badge. Even at low badge counts, Volkner’s battles were notably some of the hardest in the region to overcome; the man was likely skilled and experienced enough to be an Elite Four member, if he would simply apply himself a little more. He focused most of his efforts on improving his town’s standard of living, however, and had no real desire to take the tests and battle challenges needed to attempt to break into those ranks.
Snowpoint City was predictably the quietest city when it came to reports, and Cynthia hoped it would stay that way. Candace was still barely seeing any challengers in the gym, as per usual for early in the season, and it would likely be another month or two before her schedule started to match the already busy challenge schedules of most other Leaders. For right now, she busied herself with preparations for the coming challenges and helped Cynthia with any issues that arose elsewhere where she could, something which the Champion was dearly thankful for. The northern routes were beginning to truly thaw some from the winter freezes, though, and Cynthia knew that before long she would be seeing an influx of trainers braving the wintry landscapes of Routes 216 and 217 on their path towards the northernmost gym of the region.
Maylene had mentioned that there was a large amount of foot traffic in Veilstone City lately, and it seemed to all be trainer traffic as best she could tell. The Veilstone Department Store, the largest shopping center in the entire Sinnoh region, had reported weekly sales around sixty percent higher than the previous season, which tracked given what Cynthia knew of the approximate amount of competitors this year. Overall, the number of new trainer licenses issued from January to March this year had increased by roughly thirty-eight percent, with a significant amount of that increase coming not from Sinnoh natives, but travelers from other regions looking to try their luck at their first league challenge. Business was booming in the city, and Cynthia had resolved to reach out to the local police department and League forces stationed there to see if they needed additional resources to manage the influx.
Likewise, Pastoria City had seen an increase in tourist traffic, though not to Veilstone’s level. Between Crasher Wake’s popular wrestling matches and the Great Marsh’s variety of attractions and local businesses, the near-coastal city had gotten a surge of income and attention that it wasn’t entirely expecting in the new year. The Pastoria Port Authority had seen an increase in activity nearly matching that of Sunyshore’s as businesses tried to keep up with the demand for goods, and they were scrambling to try and get more inspectors on deck to handle the increased throughput. There were already some transfers happening from the Port of Canalave to deal with things in the interim while training could be performed, but things likely weren’t going to stabilize fully for a few months if the current trends continued.
And speaking of Canalave City...
Cynthia sighed again as she glanced over that particular report, brow furrowed slightly in frustration. Canalave used to be the Sinnoh region’s largest port, but as time went on and new shipping routes were established, Sunyshore gradually took over that title from the western city. Nowadays, Pastoria and Canalave were mostly equal in terms of imports, though Canalave lagged behind when it came to exports of everything but raw metal ore sourced from the nearby islands.
Thanks to the shift in traffic, there had been an increase lately in attempted smuggling of things such as illegal drugs, counterfeit electronics, and other mainstays of criminal enterprise. It seemed that the local criminal elements had started to try and take advantage of the lower number of inspectors and other port staff resulting from the decrease in shipping volume to sneak more illegal shipments in and out. Bribes to workers had been almost depressingly common in the past three months, and local police were having a hard time keeping on top of all the problems arising as a result.
She fought the scowl that threatened to slip onto her face at the thought. She had no conclusive proof to speak of, but she just knew that it was related to the Team Galactic thugs that were popping up more and more frequently across the towns and cities west of the Coronet range. Roark had already reported seeing or hearing about them almost every day in Oreburgh City since the circuit began this year, and he’d started digging into prior police reports recently just to see if there were any connections that he could make between earlier cases from before March and their current problems.
Jubilife City was the bigger concern, however. Reports had shown more and more of the Galactic goons being spotted around the city, which was a major cause for alarm in Cynthia’s eyes. Jubilife City was both the largest city in the entire Sinnoh region and - more importantly - the major communications hub of the region. Jubilife TV provided television coverage for the entire region as well as assisting with functionality and maintenance of regional Pokenet providers such as Geonet and GTS Telecom, along with any number of smaller local telecommunications services. Not to mention the other major industries and services - the largest trainer’s school in the region, a major airport in Jubilife International Airport, the largest passenger rail station in the western half of Sinnoh...
Cynthia shook her head. If Galactic got a foothold there and their aims were anything beyond petty crime and mischief, it could be a catastrophe. She had already drafted and submitted a request for relocation of League law enforcement officials to Jubilife to supplement the local police, and she only hoped it would be enough to root out any of the would-be troublemakers before things escalated. Gym Leaders were strong and capable, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once. With no official gym in Jubilife City, any major issues that the mayor couldn’t handle typically fell to the nearby Gym Leader of Oreburgh to provide help with. Roark had his hands full most days between the management of his gym and oversight and assistance of the local mining complex, though. Roark’s father Byron helped out where he could, but as Gym Leader of Canalave he was usually tied up with issues surrounding the port or his own mining ventures when he wasn’t facing challengers.
Simply put, Jubilife felt like a weak link to Cynthia right now with the possible emergence of a new crime syndicate, and she hated to even consider the possibility of it being compromised.
“Lucario,” she said, looking up and towards the Pokemon who was already looking her way, likely having already sensed her emotions on the matter. “I’m going to take a visit to Jubilife tomorrow to speak with the mayor and see what I can do to help. Mind keeping an eye on things here for me?”
“Lu-car,” the jackal-esque Pokemon replied. Of course, her mind translated, the Aura link between them making the words as intelligible as any Psychic-type’s telepathy.
“Would you like me to leave one of the others to keep you company?”
Lucario shook his head, something which Cynthia had expected. The Fighting-type would likely enjoy the peace and quiet, she knew. He was good friends with the rest of her team, of course, but he was the most inclined among them to seek solitude most days when he wasn’t needed. She sat the reports back where they had been as she stood up and stretched, yawning again as she stepped around the desk and towards the door. Lucario flowed smoothly upwards from sitting to standing as she passed, falling into step beside her easily as they walked out together. Even at the headquarters, Lucario often insisted on accompanying her just in case of trouble since he was much more able to maneuver in tight confines than most of the rest of Cynthia’s team. Garchomp often grumbled about it, but she understood the reasoning.
Her phone pinged with a text message as she walked down the hallway towards the teleport room, and she fished it out of her pants pocket to check the message as she walked. Three words in, her eyes widened.
Gardenia [8:06 PM]: talked to anabel. call you later with the details.
‘Anabel? What did she talk to Anabel about?’
Of all the things she expected to get a text message saying, that was certainly not on the list of possibilities, she thought to herself as she turned the corner and stepped into the large zone designated as the League’s teleport room. Unless...
Cynthia’s face darkened and she bit back a curse as she realized that Gardenia might be seeing an incursion from Galactic in her own city. Anabel was a member of the International Police, after all, and maybe she’d reached out for help to try and lessen the strain on the League’s resources or see if they could dig up more info on what exactly Galactic truly was. Possibly both, Cynthia thought as she and Lucario stepped onto the pad. Whatever it was, she’d find out later if the message was any indication. If Gardenia needed any help handling things in Eterna, she’d see to it in the morning. The spoons of the League-assigned Kadabra glowed a pale blue that mirrored its eyes as it focused, and the same glow brightened around Cynthia and her Lucario before they were teleported away from the headquarters for the night.