The streets of Lumiose city were lined with a ridiculous amount of bushes, flowerbeds, and trees. It was like the city was part forest, which I guess was because the city wanted to cater to the fairy types who resided in the region. They were what Kalos was famous for after all.
There were swarms of Flabebe, Cutifly, and Ribombee fluttering around the flowerbeds, and large flocks of Fletchling roosting in the trees and bushes. A few flocks of Pidove hopped around restaurants with outdoor venues, greedily pecking at any food that people dropped.
There was a distinct lack of cars. Well, there were a few cars, emphasis on a few. Most people here seemed to prefer using their own ride Pokemon or the Gogoat taxis that clopped around. So the city streets and infrastructure seemed to be built more for pedestrians and ride Pokemon than motor vehicles.
Justine and I were taking a ride in one of the many Gogoat taxis. We were tired from the flight to Kalos and not in the mood to walk from the airport to the places we needed to go to get supplies, and then to Sycamore’s lab.
“Bzzt!”
“Gogoat, the mount Pokemon. It can sense the feelings of others by touching them with its horns. This species has assisted people with their work since 5,000 years ago. In the wild, these Pokémon live in herds in mountainous places. The leader of the herd is decided by a battle of clashing horns.”
Rotom was flying alongside our carriage and scanning any Pokemon it found interesting, while Winnie–currently disguised as a Manectric–ran alongside Gogoat and chatted with the grass type about the city.
Litwick in between Justine and I, the candle pokemon was stooping a bit so that its candle flame wouldn’t be disturbed by the wind.
Mii on the other hand had her paws on the side of the cart and was eagerly looking around at all the stuff she’d never seen before. She was also disguised, having taken the appearance of a Lillipup.
After a short while of just looking at Lumiose City, the strange ratio of fairy types to any other type finally registered to me. There were a lot of fairy types present, like, way more than I’d ever seen before in other regions. Most of the bakeries–and there were a ridiculous amount of bakeries–had multiple Alcremie, Slurpuff, Dachsbun, and Aromatise working alongside the bakers.
Any shop that sold plants had multiple members of the Florges, Whimsicott, Ribombee, or Comfey lines tending to the plants and helping customers pick plants or create bouquets.
Sylveon and Dachsbun seemed to be some of the most popular companion Pokemon in Lumiose because I lost count of how many I saw, and of course, there were a ton of Dedenne. That at least made sense, fairy type electric thieves would obviously want to live live in a fairy friendly city that also hosted an electric type gym.
There was also a noticeably large amount of Diantha and Gardevoir merch, every single shop I saw had something related to them. Kalos sure loved its champion. That or Diantha had a good marketing team. I mean, everyone on the Pokenet joked about how Sinnoh citizens were all fanatical Cynthia fans but even they didn’t have this much merch.
I returned from my train of thought as the cart slowed and came to a stop next to the Voodoo shop, Justine needed to pick up some ghost-related supplies so I waited while she went in and got her stuff.
It only took a few minutes until Justine came back out, stuffing the Mimikyu logo bags into her bag as she hopped back on. Gogoat seemed rather relieved to leave as it clopped away from the ghostly store, letting out a “baa” as it took a quicker pace than it had before we stopped by the ghost shop. I stole a glance back at the store. I didn’t think there’d be one in Lumiose, well unless it’s a chain store or something.
I blinked in surprise. The Voodoo shop wasn’t there anymore, in its place was a dark alleyway with a Trubbish eating some of the trash from the dumpster. Ah, yeah something like that happened last time. Ghosts and their ghost shenanigans.
Our next stop was the Stone Emporium on Vernal Avenue. It was a high-end store that sold equally high quality evolution stones. I didn’t really get the difference between low and high quality evolution stones, I think it had something to do with high quality ones having more uses.
Justine wanted to get a dusk stone for Litwick even though it would probably be a while before the candle Pokemon evolved into a Lampent and would be ready to use the stone. Either way, Justine wanted to be prepared and this was kind of just an excuse to go look at a famous high end store and spend some of her own money instead of her sister’s money.
It would be a short walk from the Stone Emporium to the Kalos lab after that because the Kalos Lab was at the end of the Vernal Avenue, not far from where we were.
We hopped off of Gogoat’s cart and thanked the grass goat while Rotom scanned itself on Gogoat’s little cart machine to pay for the ride. Gogoat baa-ed and nodded before clopping away to its next customer.
Hey, didn’t the Stone Emporium sell mega stones in the game? I gotta keep an eye out for those.
I let Justine enter first, Litwick and Mii each took a place on Justine’s shoulder, they were eager to look at the gems and were quietly chanting, “Dusk stone, dusk stone, dusk stone.”
I leaned over to Winnie, “Keep an eye out for any stones with a spiral pattern and weird energy coming from it.”
“Got it.” Winnie nodded. Banette floated out of my shadow, her eyes sparkling, “Oooo shinies!”
Winnie grinned and nudged Banette with his nose, “Are you a Sableye or something?”
Banette batted Winnie’s head away, “No dumbass, is there something wrong with liking pretty things?”
A bell chimed as we entered the store. It wasn’t very busy, and there were only a few customers proudly wearing brand name clothing and accessories perusing the shinies on display.
There was a stylishly bedazzled Claydol sitting in the middle of the store with a few pieces of expensive jewelry floating in cases around it. A Hatterene and a well-dressed woman stood behind one of the counters, they greeted us as we entered and Justine immediately went to their section to look at the evolution stones.
Winnie and I kinda just looked around at the jewels and waited for Justine and Litwick to pick out the perfect dusk stone. It felt kind of weird to be in a super fancy place like this, plus I didn’t like the look of the security Mightyena in the corner that was eyeing us down.
I wasn’t too interested in anything cause they were all out of my price range and just looked at the stuff on display with mild interest. That was before Winnie tugged on my sleeve and led me over to a display case in the front where Banette pointed to a silver necklace with a large marble-sized light steel-blue gem with a unique orange and light tan spiral in its center as its main piece.
My eyes widened. A mega stone? It’s a mega stone, right? I can’t tell if it just happens to look like one and I don’t know which Pokemon has a mega stone that color. The only mega stones I’m really familiar with are the ones for Charizard X and Garchomp…
Since it’s mostly gray is it a steel type mega stone? Hopefully it is. I’ll eventually need a strong fairy slayer on my team considering how Kaiju has a four times weakness.
Banette floated closer to me, “There’s some sort of weird life energy coming from it. It’s probably what you’re looking for.”
I looked back at the mega stone and checked the price tag. Ten thousand dollars?! Yeah, past me would have never thought that I’d even consider buying a piece of jewelry more than like fifty bucks.
Its design also really wasn’t my style but… I totally had the money for that. Aaaaand it was a mega stone that probably cost way more than ten thousand dollars. Well, there’s no need to be stingy about it if it’s a mega stone and I can afford it with ease.
I looked up as I heard someone walking over. It was one of the store employees, an older man dressed in a suit who smiled and gestured at the necklace I was looking at. “Would you like to take a closer look?”
“Actually, I’d like to buy that one.” I replied, pointing at the mega stone necklace. Gotta yoink this while people still don’t know its true value.
The employee smiled and nodded, “Sure, right this way.”
A few minutes later, Justine and I exited back onto the bustling street of Vernal Avenue. Litwick was happily brandishing a box with its dusk stone inside and talking with Mii about how much it liked its new stone.
Banette was actually able to identify one more piece of jewelry with a mega stone in it, a beautiful deep blue and black gem with the mega stone symbol that was 100% a Charizardite X, but it was also more than a million dollars, so I passed on that.
I wonder where they got these mega stones from.
I shaded my eyes from the sun as I tried to figure out which direction we had to go in. “The Kalos lab is south of here right?”
“Yep.” Justine nodded as she put Litwick back on her head and let Mii hop into her jacket hood like how Winnie used to sit in mine.
I caught Winnie giving the smaller fox a jealous look and smiled. Sorry bud but you’re too big for the pouch.
Then I turned to Rotom, “Rotom, which direction is south?”
“Bzzt!” The phone ghost pointed to our right, and to emphasize the point, its screen flashed a big red arrow in the same direction.
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“Aight, let’s go. I wanna go sit on a comfy couch.” I stretched and rubbed my aching back muscles, that was what I got for sleeping in a weird position on the cramped airplane seats.
“Yeah I feel that.” Justine said with a yawn as we began walking. “So, what did you get at the store?”
“I got one of the necklaces. It looked like a mega stone.” I replied. Banette was currently in charge of holding the item until we could identify which Pokemon it could mega evolve.
“Wait what?!” Justine’s eyes widened, then she lowered her voice to more of a whisper-shout as she continued, “You found a mega stone in the store? Let me see!”
I waved her off, “I’ll show you later when we get to the lab.”
“Oh fine.” Justine sighed and put her hands on her hips, “So what’s on your Kalos to-do list? Are you gonna challenge any gyms?”
Damn, the league season starts in like, a week right?
“Eh.” I shrugged, “Probably not. I’d rather focus on training my team for now, if I wanna have any more challenging Pokemon battles I’ll go to the Battle Chateau. Other than that, I wanna go see the Glittering Cave, visit Anistar City, and Geosenge.”
Justine nodded, “Yeah the Battle Chateau and Geosenge are on my list too, but I’ll probably end up visiting Geosenge with some other researchers. My top picks are this ghost coven on Route 6 and Laverre City.”
I raised an eyebrow, “Route 6 ghost coven? I’ve never heard of that before.” I moved to the side to avoid a Smeargle and an artist painting on a massive canvas on the side of the street.
“Yeah, it’s this massive abandoned graveyard that only appears once in a while at night.” Justine waved her arms to emphasize the word massive, “I want to catch a Pumpkaboo from there.”
I gave my friend a concerned look, “And why would you go straight into a ghost’s den? I know you’re a ghost type specialist and all but that doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
Justine shook her head with a sly Gengar smile spread on her face, “Not for all covens. The Gourgeist who’s the master of the coven is known to let people catch ghosts from her territory as long as she approves of them. Think about it, it’s a lot safer to get stronger under the care of a trainer than in the wild. Then once the ghost’s trainer dies in a few decades, they will return to their coven a lot stronger than when they left.”
“Ah, I see.” I said with a slight grimace. That feels a bit…morbid, but I guess it makes sense in a pragmatic way.
Mii gave me a knowing nod, “Yeah that’s basically my plan.”
“Me too!” Litwick added with a few arm waves. “It’s hard to get a dusk stone back home.” Litwick put on a stern face as it mimicked someone, “A few short decades of partnership for quick growth, and if you don’t like them, you can just drain their life force like juice from a juice box and move on to the next one.”
The candle Pokemon’s face returned to its normal cute expression, “That’s what my pops says.”
I just nodded and said, “Mhm.” Well that’s certainly uh, like how a ghost would think.
Then I switched the subject, “You looking to catch anything else besides a Pumpkaboo?”
“A Honedge, but they’re kind of rare. I might just trade for one.”
“Ooo!” I clapped my hands together and pointed at Justine, “Yeah the Aegislash line are all super freaking cool!”
Justine grinned and pointed back, “Yeah! It’s pretty dangerous to hold them though because they are pretty aggressive about draining life energy from people, but there are cases where you can train them to be personal weapons. There’s a whole sport based on people dueling each other with members of the Aegislash line!”
The ghost specialist took out her phone and searched it up, showing me a few pictures of the sport.
“Huh, I didn’t know that.” I said as I looked at the pictures. The people dueling each other even had cool knight armor inspired by different Pokemon. Some of the duels even included the duelers fighting alongside Pokemon who were also wielding weapons. They looked rad.
“Yeah! I’ll send you a few of my favorite fights later.” Justine said, as she put her phone away.
Our conversation paused as we both looked at the front gate of the Kalos Regional Lab. The building was a lot taller and fancier than the Unova and Sinnoh labs. The most noticeable parts were the giant glass dome buildings behind the lab with different biomes within.
I whistled, “This place looks really nice.”
“It is.” Justine said, “I heard Lysandre Tech helped pay for a lot of the new stuff they have.”
Oh. Good for Sycamore but also, ew.
I hopped up the front few steps and grabbed the handle of the door to the main lobby. “Well then let’s see what sort of fancy new stuff they got.”
Suddenly the door swung open towards me. I jumped back and nearly tripped over the steps as some really tall guy almost walked into me and took a step back in surprise.
“Gah fuck!” I windmilled my arms. Justine caught one of my arms and pulled me forward while Winnie pushed me from behind to make sure I didn’t fall down the steps.
“Sorry young lady I didn’t see you there. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I gave the guy a thumbs up and looked up at who I almost got bowled over by. Oh you gotta be kidding me.
I could recognize that ridiculous red Pyroar-like hairstyle anywhere. It was Lysandre. You’re fucking kidding me. Seriously. Seriously?! Who did this? Why today of all days? Why?! I am NOT in the mood for this.
“That human should get a new hair dresser.” Mii dryly stated.
“He should FIRE his hair dresser and get a new one!” Litwick cheerfully added, flaring up the flame on its candlewick.
Winnie snorted as tried to hide a chuckle, “he’d look better bald at this point.”
Those comments helped my panicking thoughts and I almost snickered at the comments. I briefly covered my mouth, disguising my laugh as an awkward cough. Then I straightened myself and quickly scooted to the side to give Lysandre room to step outside. The leader of Team Flare slightly stooped over to avoid brushing his head on the top of the doorframe as he exited the building.
Getting a closer look at the villain, he’d look pretty normal if you took away the lion-cut. I wonder if the other villain leaders give off any sort of normal vibes. Eh, simply being around Cyrus would make me depressed, and Ghetsis probably has uber anger or control issues. Nevermind, I bet he’s just hiding his villain vibes right now.
At least the intimidation factor wasn’t super turned up with Lysandre at the moment. The guy was clearly here on casual business and was in an orange button up shirt instead of his full black uber-villain outfit.
Someone else stepped outside after Lysandre, it was a very pretty lady with short light brown-grey hair in a stylish pastel peach and white fancy coat. There was a Gardevoir with her, the glint of light off of the decorate mega stone hung around the psychic type’s neck caught my eye.
Diantha smiled at us before playfully saying to Lysandre, “By Arceus, you should really watch where you’re going.”
I heard Justine gasp in excitement and disbelief as she recognized these two.
Damn, the champion and the villain of the region both in the same place. I don’t want to talk to either of them man that’s way too much for my blood pressure, and I don’t even have heart issues! Hopefully they don’t wanna talk either. They’re definitely really busy people who have other places to be. Yep.
The last person to step out was a slightly sleep deprived looking dark haired middle aged man with a ruffled blue shirt and a clean white lab coat.
And that must be Professor Sycamore. Sycamore looked slightly surprised and then brightly smiled at us, “Oh! I almost forgot that you guys were arriving today!”
“Hello mister sleepy guy number two!” Litwick chirped and waved.
Mii leaned over to Litwick and whispered, “Who’s mister sleepyhead number one?”
“Mister sleepyhead number one is the guy who stutters all the time when he’s had too much yucky coffee and not enough beauty sleep.” Litwick answered, using its candle flame to create a brief silhouette of a slouched human.
The professor scooted over to us and hurriedly shook Justine’s hand, “You must be Angela’s little sister! You two look exactly alike! I’ve heard great things about you from Juniper and Rowan.”
One of Justine’s eyes slightly twitched as she was introduced as ‘Angela’s little sister’ but she ignored the statement and nodded, brightly smiling at three of the most important people in Kalos.
Then the professor shook my hand, “And you must be Rowan’s newest sponsored trainer! I’m Professor Sycamore, pleasure to meet you.”
Justine and I both replied with polite hellos.
The professor then gestured to Diantha and Lysandre, “These two are my close friends, Diantha and Lysandre, you’ve probably already heard of them.” Sycamore’s eyes brightened as he brought up his main topic of his research, “They were visiting to see some of the advancements we’ve made on mega evolution research! I can’t wait to show you guys!”
“Great…” I leaned back a bit and replied with a slightly strained smile.
Diantha lightly pulled Sycamore back and smiled at us, “Nice to meet you.”
Gardevoir gave us a friendly wave, “Gardevoir!”
Winnie gave them all a short hello and tried his best to look like the grumpy ol’ Manectric that Jason had.
Bright as always Litwick cheerily greeted everyone. “Hello!” Then it pointed at Diantha and Gardevoir. “You guys look very pretty!”
“I like your necklace.” Mii added, pointing at Gardevoir’s mega stone necklace.
The psychic-fairy type covered her mouth and giggled, “Gar gardevoir~”
Then Lysandre nodded, “Pleasure to meet you both. My company has been working with Sycamore on mega evolution research for a few years now, we are always in need of talented researchers to help out.” He held out a hand to Justine.
“The pleasure’s all mine sir!” Justine said with a big smile as she shook his hand, “I’m Justine Renato, an aspiring ghost type master and researcher. I’m hoping to discover a few ghost-type mega evolutions.”
Lysandre nodded as he replied. “Ghosts are a powerful but greatly misunderstood type, I do hope that you can achieve your goal while you’re working with Augustine.”
“Thank you sir!” Justine smiled, she seemed completely oblivious to the way the villain was evaluating her.
It felt like Lysandre was judging how useful Justine would be to him, did no one else feel that way? Maybe I was being paranoid, but you could never be paranoid about someone who was planning to basically commit genocide using a Pokemon version of a world ending nuke.
I inwardly cringed, as that same gaze was turned on me and I got the cue that I was supposed to introduce myself. “Uh, I’m Azalea, I’m a trainer, from uh Unova. I’m just visiting Kalos.”
I gave them all an awkward double thumbs up in an attempt to avoid having to touch the villain at the same time that Lysadre offered me a handshake. There was an awkward pause as I tried to compute what to do and ended up clumsily fistbumping Lysandre’s hand, which generated a few chuckles from the others.
My face reddened a bit and I just kinda avoided eye contact. I felt a chill as the ghosts in my shadow shifted. Gardevoir’s eyes briefly narrowed as she glanced at the ghosts.
Diantha tactfully brushed that aside and asked us, “So, how are you ladies finding our region?”
“It’s so beautiful!” Justine eagerly replied, “I love how Lumiose has incorporated so much plant life for the fairy types! I can’t wait to see the rest of the region.”
I nodded along, “Yeah it’s really pretty, probably the most beautiful city I’ve been to so far.”
Diantha chuckled as we complimented her region, then she and Gardevoir began to walk to the gates, “Well, wait until you see Laverre or Anistar City, they’re just as stunning in their own way.”
A fancy black car pulled up to the front gate as if it knew just when to arrive.
“Well that’s our ride.” Diantha said giving us all a nod, “Have a good day, and good luck on your training and research everyone.”
“Gardevoir.” Gardevoir added, waving bye as they got into the car. Then we all watched as the car quietly drove away.
Urgh, nooooooo. Why can’t a fancy car come take away the big scary guy first? At least he’s not spouting off insane idealistic villain lines…yet.
Then Lysandre broke the silence, “I would highly recommend Shalour City and Geosenge Town as well. Especially if you’re interested in the history of mega evolution. The Tower of Mastery is a testament to Kalos’s long history with the phenomena.”
Cool. When can you go away? Like just go. Go away right now. Where’s your fancy car?
Having sensed my mood Winnie had begun glaring at Lysandre, who noticed and smiled. “My Pyroar has a similar tendency. He tries to intimidate strangers, but is quite friendly once you get to know him.”
Winnie snorted derisively. “friendly my ass” He growled.
“Oh…yeah. Sorry about his attitude. He’s not in a good mood right now.” And neither am I.
My watch began to heat up so I shoved one hand into my pocket to prevent Glados from zapping out and with the other hand, smoothed down the fur on Winnie’s head to get him to knock it off. Appreciate you bud but this isn’t the time or place.
There was a laugh from Justine as she commented, “You should meet her Garchomp if you want real attitude. If a Pokemon could kill with a look, it would be her.”
Bro, shut the fuck up.
This seemed to catch both Sycamore’s interest. And Lysandre’s. Unfortunately.
“A Garchomp you say?” Lysandre commented with a slightly raised eyebrow, “That’s quite impressive for such a young trainer. It reminds me of Cynthia when she first appeared in the Sinnoh League.”
“Hmm, speaking of Cynthia,” The professor said, “I would like to have a few Garchomps on standby for my research. Ever since Steven and Lance have obtained their Metagrossite and Salamencite, she’s been quite vocal about wanting to find a mega stone for her ace.”
I leaned back a bit, “Ehhhhhh, I dunno about that…We’ve still got some things to work on.” Sorry man, but I am not gonna come all the way back here to help you out until THAT guy is either six feet under, or behind bars.
“That’s fine.” Sycamore said casually waving a hand, “Just keep it in mind then for whenever you two feel ready for the challenge.”
I gave the professor a thumbs up, “Aight, thanks for letting me know.”
Thankfully Justine changed the subject and began talking with the professor and Lysandre about mega evolution data and other technical jargon related to mega Pokemon. Seems like she was trying to impress them with her knowledge, and it was working.
The only thing I could derive from their conversation was something about replicating Audinites and Keystones and the Pokemon League finally agreeing to put more funding into the Mega Evolution project to boost the effectiveness of Pokemon centers and hospitals.
Finally, fancy car number two pulled up next to the front gate. That was Mr. should-get-a-new-hairdresser's ride.
“I would like to see the video recordings and data of today’s test as well Augustine.” Lysandre said to Sycamore as he walked down the steps to the gate. Then he said to Justine and I, “Have a good day then. Hopefully I will see you again.”
No you won’t, I will make like a ghost and disappear the moment you’re in the same area. If not to avoid the villainy, then to avoid the awkward handshake. “Bye.” I politely smiled and waved until the villain got into his car and left.
“Well then, why don’t I show you guys around a bit before we get to the test area?” The professor suggested, “As Lysandre mentioned, today we’re going to be recording data from a few mega evolutions.”