Hop didn’t know what he was expecting when he thought of Cynthia. He thought that she would be a teenage girl with pink hair and a dress with hearts on it or something overly girly. Somebody who’d say that she’s tough but then cry when she lost. He didn’t expect a woman who looked like a queen with flowing blonde hair and a black dress. Her expression reflected kindness and a sense of being regal. ‘Whatever!’ he thought, ‘She’ll be easy!’

“Heyo, Cynthia!” Barry smiled.

“Hi, Cynthia,” Dawn waved, not exactly cheerfully but not uncheerfully either, “Thank you for meeting us here in this field on such short notice!”

The field wasn’t too far outside of Jubilife City, and it looked like it had been cleared for the sole purpose of battling. Hop didn’t think it was much of an issue, but if Cynthia was the queen of Sinnoh or something, then it might be.

The woman smiled at the sight of the four children. “Hello!” she responded, “How are you doing?”

“Cynthia,” Lucas stated, “This kid wants to battle you.” He looked kind of pale, and Hop wondered if this stress was about this battle.

“Lucas, do you have a cold again?” Cynthia asked, clearly concerned for his well being.

“No, ma’am,” Lucas cried defensively.

Cynthia seriously studied the boy, making sure he wasn’t lying to her. After seeing no signs of any illnesses, she grinned. “So what’s about this boy wanting to battle me?”

Barry leaped up and grabbed Hop’s hand. He pulled him towards Cynthia. “Here he is!” Barry beamed. “We’ve never seen him in action, but he may be good!”

Hop looked up at Cynthia. “Hello, Miss Cynthia ma’am,” he sputtered. He was starting to get really nervous.

“Hello!” Cynthia responded. The niceness of the voice made Hop not feel very nervous anymore.

“Cynthia, please go easy on him,” Dawn muttered.

Cynthia whispered something in Dawn’s ear. Hop couldn’t hear what she said, but it made Dawn less stressed, so it had to have been something good. Hopefully. “Okay, so let’s get this battle start-ed!” Barry choused.

Hop and Cynthia both took their places at opposite ends of the field. “I’ll be the judge of this match,” Lucas stated, “I assume you know the basic rules of battling, Hop?”

Hop nodded. As long as there weren’t any weird rules in Sinnoh that he didn’t know, he should be fine. “Go, inteleon!”

Hop shot the water lizard out of his pokeball. ‘My inteleon will beat her entire team!’ Hop thought, grinning.

“This will be a one on one battle!” Lucas announced, “since Cynthia is very busy.”

Hop was astonished by his luck. One on one? This would be easy! His inteleon was the strongest in his team! Not even a queen-like woman could beat it! But what if Cynthia’s Pokemon had an advantage to his? Ugh, he should have waited for her to send out her Pokemon before choosing his!

Hop was very surprised when Cynthia sent out a garchomp. First of all, he had only heard about garchomps in stories. Nobody had one in Galar. Second of all, wasn’t garchomp half ground type? Hop had an advantage there! The others, however, didn’t think so.

“Cynthia!” Dawn gasped, “I thought you said you’d go easy on him!”

“Oh yeah! Garchomp versus Introeon!” Barry exulted.

Lucas corrected his friend by saying, “It’s inteleon.”

Hop didn’t realize the problem he was in until he tried to make his first move. The garchomp was faster, and it used the move earthquake. Hop was scared of the move earthquake. His first loss as a kid was against a trainer who only used earthquake. Back then, Hop was so confident that he’d win that he didn’t notice the trainer’s tough ground type partner. He was down after a mere one hit. But that was when he was younger! He could take a hit now! He wasn’t weak!

All of that was disproved when he realized that the earthquake took away a third of his inteleon’s health. But Hop had a trump card that Cynthia didn’t know about. And he was just about to use it.

“Inteleon,” Hop blustered, “GIGANTAMAX!!!”

Hop thought he looked cool yelling ‘gigantamax.’ He was extremely surprised when he looked up and saw Dawn and Barry trying not to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” questioned Hop.

“N-n-noth-i-i-ing!” Barry replied, giggling a little bit.

Hop looked back at his inteleon. “Hey, why isn’t he gigantamaxed?” Hop blurted out. “It’s supposed to gigantamax!”

Suddenly, Dawn and Barry couldn’t hold themselves back anymore and started laughing. Hop didn’t know what was so funny. He had a wishing star. He should be able to gigantamax here! Was his failure really that laughable? Or was gigantamaxing in Sinnoh a sign of weakness? Hop really wished he had studied more Sinnohian culture before making this trip.

“Nevermind,” muttered Hop. His mouth had turned into a scowl.

Rrrrring! Rrrrring! Rrrrring! Lucas pulled out his phone, and Barry and Dawn stopped laughing. All attention was on Lucas as he read the alert aloud.

“All citizens of Sinnoh, please go to your nearest building. There is no reason to be alarmed,” Lucas read.

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“Seems alarming,” Dawn commented.

“You’re not supposed to be alarmed!” yelled Barry, obviously alarmed.

Hop looked at everyone near the field. Dawn looked calm, but a hint of fear could be seen across her face. Lucas’s frown of concern was not foreign to Hop, but Barry’s panicked expression felt weird for some reason. Cynthia’s expression was unreadable. Maybe that was because Hop didn’t know her personally. “I better go see what this is all about,” Cynthia sighed, “I hope we’re able to resume this battle another time, Hop.”

The four kids watched as the woman walked away. Then, Barry leapt into action. “Let’s just go to that one hotel, what’s its name?” Barry smiled. His smile was betrayed by the obvious fear in his eyes.

Dawn responded, “The Jubilight Hotel…?”

Lucas nodded. “That seems like a solid place to stay. Nice work, Dawn,” he complimented.

Barry rolled his eyes. He then whispered in Hop’s ear, “He’s not a very good flirter, is he? Plus, that was my idea in the first place.”

“That was Barry’s idea, but that’s very kind of you!” Dawn gushed. Hop wondered if she heard Barry’s comment.

“Oh, yes, that’s true,” Lucas corrected himself, “Thank you for alerting me of my misdeed.”

Hop could hear Barry loudly fake-gag behind him.

The four went to the Jubilight Hotel. Everyone they passed by looked confused or panicked. Even adults who were much bigger and stronger than Hop looked anxious. Seeing adults display such fear was foreign to Hop. Usually in Galar, older citizens were more composed and proper. That’s why seeing adults in such a panicked state was so unsettling.

“Four rooms, please,” Lucas politely asked the hotel receptionist.

“Can I see your league identification?” she requested.

Suddenly, Lucas, Barry, and Dawn each pulled out a card from their pocket. Hop started to sweat. These were probably cards exclusive to Sinnohian trainers. All Hop had was his League Card from Galar. Anxiously, he handed the attendant the card.

“Lucas Tanaka, Dawn Kimura, Barry… Oh! You must be the Frontier Brain Palmer’s son!” the woman noted, smiling. “And…” Her smile turned into a scowl. “This looks like a trading card.”

This hotel wasn’t Galar League Card friendly, then. Hop was in deep trouble now. He had nothing to show to this woman as identification. His companions must have sensed his worried state as they were putting their identification cards up.

“You know,” stated Lucas, “that this boy is from the exotic Galarian region, right?”

“And,” Dawn added, “his brother used to be the Champion of that region.” Hop wondered how she knew that.

“You don’t want me to call my old man, do ya?” Barry threatened with a sly smile etched on his face.

The receptionist’s expression suddenly looked fearful. “Okay! All four of your rooms should be ready!” she blurted out.

While they were being led to their rooms, Hop patted Dawn’s shoulder. “How did you know that my brother was the former Champion of Galar?” he questioned.

Dawn smiled. “Well, we Champions meet up sometimes.” she commented.

“That seems normal,” Hop responded, and then fully took in what she said. “Wait… WE CHAMPIONS?! YOU’RE A CHAMPION?!”

Dawn nodded. “Though I like to keep it a secret. I don’t want the constant swarming of paparazzi, you catch my drift?” She hinted. It was like she had said ‘Shut up you idiot,’ but much friendlier.

“Here are your rooms,” the attendant said, pointing at four consecutive rooms. 410, 411, 412, and 413. The three number combinations reminded Hop of the league numbers in Galar. He wondered if Sinnoh gave each trainer a number, too.

“I’m going to go call my family and let them know I’m safe,” Lucas stated, and Dawn nodded in agreement.

Wait… Hop had totally forgotten to call Victor during his entire trip! What had it been, five days? Victor was so fragile and sensitive that he was probably bawling his eyes out right now! Hop rushed into room 413 and dialed Victor’s number on his phone.

Ring! Ring! Ring! It went to voicemail. Hop left one purely to comfort his friend. “Hey, Vic. It’s me, Hop. I made it to Sinnoh! Please call me back.” Hop recorded, his voice wavering as he spoke. His hand was trembling. What if Victor had died? Hop quickly shook that thought out of his head. Victor? Dead? How preposterous was that? Victor may be rather weak mentally, but he was decent at Pokemon training. He could take care of himself!

Hop plopped his head on the soft hotel pillow. At least it was white and not blue. Hop tried to reassure himself that he had absolutely nothing to worry about. It was night in Galar, so Victor was probably fast asleep. Maybe Leon was up. Hop dialed his brother’s number rather quickly and carelessly. He didn’t know that he had misdialed the number.

Somebody instantly picked up, but they didn’t say anything. ‘Weird,’ Hop thought, ‘Leon usually always has something to say.’

“Hey, Lee,” Hop greeted, “How are you doing?”

Hop heard a little stressful muttering on the other side of the phone. It sounded like two girls were talking. Was Leon already at work?

Somebody finally talked. “Hop? Is that you?” a voice Hop instantly recognized asked.

It was Gloria’s voice.

Hop hung up on her. In his negligence, did Hop really dial her number? How could he be so ignorant? But Gloria’s number had eight digits that were completely different from Leon’s. It was much more likely that Hop had dialed Marnie, who had a number only two digits away from his brother’s phone number. That would explain the inaudible stressful whispering on the other side. From the little information Hop had gathered about her, Marnie was never fond of social interactions. That reminded him of Victor, who was also rather shy around people he didn’t know.

Because of the startle that occured when he called Marnie on accident, Hop decided to not call his brother. “Nothing happened,” Hop reassured himself, “and Victor is just asleep!”

Hop tried to take a nap, but it was too bright outside to do so. So he left room 413 and knocked on the door dubbed 412. Maybe talking to Barry, Lucas, or Dawn would relieve the anxiety he had accumulated today. The door opened, and Dawn was at the doorway.

“Did you make those calls you needed to make?” Dawn asked.

“Yeah,” Hop lied, “and now I’m not as worried, you know?”

Dawn smiled. “That’s good!” she exclaimed. Hop noticed the giant book in her arms.

“What’s that?” Hop wondered aloud.

Dawn answered, “Oh, that’s my history book. It explains the rich history of the Sinnoh region.”

Hop winced as he looked at the book. He was never much of a reader, even though Victor had always been a bookworm. Victor had tried to share his love of reading with Hop, but Hop’s sole sources of enjoyment were Pokemon battling and hanging out with his friends. This book was so big and thick that just looking at it made Hop bored. He couldn’t believe that Dawn was reading this on her own free will.

“Just a bit of light reading,” added Dawn, her face displaying a degree of embarrassment. “Lucas and I decided to research what was causing the panic you witnessed earlier.”

“And it was…” Hop started.

Dawn shuttered as she mumbled, “Giratina…”

Hop looked at her. “Gira-what now? What’s that?” he queried.

“It’s nothing,” Dawn declared.

“No, what is it?” Hop inquired again.

“It’s a legend, a myth, fake,” insisted Dawn.

Hop knew she was hiding something, but she probably wouldn’t tell him. Neither would Lucas. But there was one person who would, without a doubt, shed light on this mystery creature.

“Do you know where Barry is?” Hop asked.