I woke to the dinging sound of a healer. I don’t even know when I fell asleep, but Diamond was already in the room collecting some pokeballs from the machine. He turns and notices I’m now awake.

“Good morning.” He cheerfully says as I stand and stretch. “It seems you are still being affected by the full moon.” I look on my left shoulder and see he is right. There is still a silver tint to my rings colouration, although it doesn’t seem as strong. “The others are waiting for you. You have been asleep for a while.”

I follow the healer out into the lobby and see the twins sitting in the lounges with another person. He was probably about 13 yrs old, like the twins, and wore a blue shirt and shorts. They all turned to see us leaving the backroom and Oliver waved us over. I also noticed that both twins weren’t wearing their arm guards which they seem to wear all the time. Oliver even sleeps with it on.

“Here are your pokemon sir.” Diamond says passing the 5 spheres over to the new trainer.

“Thank you.” The trainer responds before looking at me and talking to the twins. “Your right, she does stand out quite a bit, even among variants.” Said the third trainer. I don’t know why, but I didn’t trust this guy. I just felt like there was something wrong with him, but I had no idea what. I went over and sat next to Jennifer, making sure to keep an eye on him.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/618692866566389772/795564484147544065/Alternate_Eyes-time_gap.png]

The twins spoke a while longer with the stranger who said his name was Z. After he left, I felt a lot better for some reason as even though I sat in on the conversation, nothing stood out as odd about him. So I don’t know why his absence made me feel better. We headed out into the battel field behind the centre and trained. The field was in a courtyard surrounded by buildings with alleyways being fenced off leaving only a side entrance that goes beside the pokecenter as the only option. Aron, Hoot, Fen, Froakie, and myself, all trained together. I held back obviously, but I still outmatched the others easily. So I had to use only Swift, Tackle, Sand Attack, Tail Whip, and Double Team, which basically made it so I cant hurt them. Although Tackle still sent them flying if I wasn’t careful. I even got Swift to change direction and hit something! WITH MORE THAN ONE PROJECTILE ACTIVE!

I also progressed with Sand Attack and its properties. I was able to make a slashing arch rather than just a dust cloud and send it towards a target, but I wouldn’t be able to control it after a few seconds and it would just fly forward. Further experimentation was in order, but before I could, we ended our training session.

“Okay, let’s go explore the festival now.” Jennifer said smiling. “There is going to be so much to look at!”

“Okay, we can go look.” Oliver responds with some relent in his voice.

I quickly write out a message into the floor and once I’m done, I realise I wrote it in English. Oliver was already looking at it and snickered.

“We cant read that, remember?”

Well screw you too. I say glaring at him before rewriting the message in their alphabet.

*What is the Dawn Festival?*

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Good question.” Oliver says reading the sentence. “The festival happens in the largest city in every region for the first 5 days of the 6th month every year. It’s to celebrate the breakdown of every single large criminal organisation, and the further fracturing of ones that were already falling apart. It was a massive operation that took place across the world. But as the news said yesterday and this morning, remnants of the groups are popping up again which is worrying.”

I just sat there thinking to myself for a moment about the implication of these teams reforming. It could be quite drastic. For now though, the festival itself sounds fun. I quickly write out my next sentence.

*Let’s explore the festival*

Jennifer ran to hug me so to stop her doing so, right as she was about the reach me, I used Extreme Speed to bounce backwards so her attempt failed and she flopped on the ground face first. Oliver starts laughing and I just sit smiling till she looks at me. She gave me, goddam, puppy dog eyes. I looked away so I didn’t have to feel guilty, but I just kept glancing back, seeing her giving me the eyes to make me feel bad. It didn’t help she had a small graze on her left cheek which was bleeding a bit. After a minuet of this, I sigh.

Fine. I defeatedly say as I walk over to the poor girl. This immediately made her do a 180 and she bounces to a standing position with a massive smile before picking me and hugging me.

With the other pokemon in their balls, we head off to explore the packed streets of Lumiose to see what is in store for us.

[https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/618692866566389772/795564484147544065/Alternate_Eyes-time_gap.png]

I’m bored. I complain, still hanging in Jennifer’s grip. We had explored the event for hours, constantly finding new and interesting stores. One such example was a female glass blower who would take requests and with the aid of a magcago and carkol, make various glass figures and ornaments. It was very skilful work. Another interesting one is the store we are currently in. A male jeweller who, similarly to the glass worker, made custom orders there and then. Although he was more limited to premade necklaces and cut gemstones. He had a sableye with various expensive looking items and a carbink hovering around the small shop she had set up.

And despite all the interesting stuff, I’M SO BORED! It isn’t all that exciting when you cant go wherever you want. My interest though was peaked as I was placed on the ground and I look to see Jen going through her bag before pulling out the small box that we found back on the submarine. I cant see whats inside. But I guessed the mega and keystone lay within it. She then reaches into the bag again and pulls out her arm guard.

“Would you be able to place the keystone into the plate on the back of the hand?” Jennifer asks the man.

“I’m sorry, but unfortunately, the plate is too thin. You could probably take back to the person who made it for you and ask them as this is very skilled craftminship.” The jeweller says holding the armour. “Did you get this from Santalune City?” He asks to which Jennifer nods. “Figured, I recognise the work.” He says returning the arm guard before he looked at the box. “What mega stone is that? I don’t recognise it.”

“I don’t know.” Jen sheepishly responds before putting everything back. “But I guess while I’m here, could I get a necklace please.” She says more cheerfully.

The two spent the next half hour talking before my attention was drawn elsewhere. The same red lightning bolt, appearing just as brightly as it did in the night, struck Prism Tower once again. My leg started to move towards it before I caught myself and broke my vision away from the tower. I look to see the two pokemon the jeweller has unaffected.

Odd.

I look into the streets to see if anyone else had been affected but my minimal stature stopped that idea. I stand at, ah. Hmmm. I don’t know how tall I am. I looked around to hazard a guess, but nothing stood out as a suitable ruler, other than maybe the jeweller. He would be what? About maybe 180 centimetres going by my guesstimate. So I’m about a third of his height?

I am only 60cm tall. I quietly say to myself in complete disbelief. I mean, I was always short, but not this short. A sudden grip pulls me from my contemplation, and I am lifted into the air. I just glare at Jennifer as she happily walks out of the shop with Oliver beside her. Hanging from her neck was a silver necklace with a red gem, shaped to be a tear drop, hanging from the end of it. It looked nice, but I just hoped that we would find another store soon so I could be released.